The Macedonian Call (Acts 16)

I’m sure that most of you have a favourite book of the Bible; one that you turn to when you’re not sure what to read, one that you enjoy memorizing from, a book that, for whatever reason, stands out above all the rest. For me, that is the book of Philippians. I love how joyful, personal, and open Paul (the author) is in this letter, and how easily his love for the church, and his love for Christ can be seen while reading it. I also enjoy how practical Paul is throughout this letter; he’s always sharing from His own life experience how to have joy and how to properly live the Christian life. And of course, as in all of Paul’s letters, the person of Christ is central, making it a beautiful, and practical, letter that we can all learn from.

However, before we start dissecting the book of Philippians, it is important that we have a thorough understanding of the church at Philippi and Paul’s relationship to it. Then as we study the letter itself, in the context of who the Philippian church was, why Paul wrote them a letter, and what its major themes are, we will have a much better sense of Paul’s, and God’s, heart in this epistle. So we will begin, not in Philippians, but in Acts chapter 16, which is part of a narrative outlining Paul’s second missionary journey, and his first trip to the European continent.

In Acts 16 we meet Lydia, the very first recorded convert to Christianity in all of Europe, and we also see the founding of the church at Philippi, which was the very first church on the entire European continent. And ultimately, we see God’s sovereign working throughout the entire situation.

The first thing that we see as we read verses 6-10 is that the only reason Paul ever ended up in Philippi was because God directed him there, and because he was willing to obey God’s direction. It says:

"Now when they had gone through Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia. After they had come to Mysia, they tried to go to Bithynia, but the Spirit did not permit them. So passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night. A man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him, saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the gospel to them."

Now, I don’t know specifically how the Holy Spirit “forbid” them to go east into Asia, or north to Bithynia, but I do know that often we have plans, or things we want to accomplish, then God works in our heart, forbidding us to do it. And I also know that sometimes we persist with our plans, instead of God’s, and get ourselves in big trouble. C.S. Lewis once said: “There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.”” And thank goodness, or thank God, that Paul was not that way. Instead, when he was forbidden by the Lord to do one thing, he didn’t give up, he didn’t persist to do the wrong thing; he tried another way. And again God somehow “closed the door,” and again Paul sought God’s will. A lot of times we’re s quick to give up when something doesn’t work, but we must learn from Paul to do things God’s way, not our way. I am very encouraged when I see people who are tired of doing things the same old way that doesn’t work, and instead of giving up, seek to see things done God’s way. And I want to encourage you, and help you, as you strive to do that, because it is not going to be easy. It’s going to take a lot of hard work, and a lot of prayer. But as long as God is in it, and it is done God’s way, it will be accomplished.

So twice Paul thought he knew what to do, and twice God forbid him, then all of a sudden God supernaturally “shows up” and tells him what to do by a vision. Now don’t expect a dream from God to tell you the next step you should take in life, things like that are almost exclusive to the apostles: God can work however He wants, but we have the Holy Spirit in us, and the complete canon of Scripture to rely on, so we do not need that direct revelation from God in the same way that they did before the canon of Scripture was completed. Instead we need to rely on God’s guiding through His Word, His Holy Spirit, and through different people and circumstances. Each one of us is exactly where God wants us, by divine appointment, to further His work in that place. And as believers, we need to seek to do it God’s way. And when you know God’s way, when you’ve discerned His will, when you get that “vision,” you need to do it immediately! That’s exactly what Paul, Silas, and Luke, did. In verse 10, it says: “Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go to Macedonia…” Immediately! That’s the example we need to follow.

To carry on the story, verses 11, 12 say:

"Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothorace, and the next day cam to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days."

Here we see how Paul came to Macedonia, which is present-day Greece, and how he ended up in Philippi, “the foremost city.” Called that because it was a Roman colony and military outpost, which meant that the citizens of Philippi enjoyed special privileges and were treated as Roman citizens, unlike most Greeks at that time. It also meant that there were very few Jews in Philippi, which explains why instead of meeting in a synagogue to pray, they met by the riverside, as we see in verse 13-15 where it says:

"And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside, where prayer was customarily made; and we sat down and spoke to the women who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” So she persuaded us."

And here we have the very first convert in all of Europe, and the birth of the first church, which we know, from verse 40, continued to meet in Lydia’s house. Now just imagine how much this church meant to Paul. I know that often churches are proud of their heritage, and that often their heritage plays a large part in keeping them going; so imagine Paul’s love for the church at Philippi, and his desire to keep her doctrine pure, being the first one on the entire continent! And we’ll see that love and desire as we work our way through the book of Philippians.

As we carry on the story in verses 16-34 we see God work a bad situation for His glory. What happens in 16-24, (yes the number disagreement is intentional) is that Paul and Silas are ministering in the city, but they have a demon possessed girl following them everywhere they go, proclaiming “These men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us the way of salvation.” Which was very true, they were servants of the Most High God, and they did proclaim the way of salvation, but having someone possessed by a demon saying that about them would discredit the truth in the eyes of a lot of people.

Could you imagine if I’m here, trying to write about the truth, and I tell you that next to me is a pot-head co-authoring this with me, and right now he’s smoking some dope? I mean, you know what kind of lifestyle this guy lives, but here he is, confirming the truth, and saying that it will change you life. That would make my message look crazy, because there would be this guy whose life obviously hadn’t changed, but he’s saying that what I teach is true. It would discredit the message, and that is what was happening here to Paul.

Similarly, there are a lot of people who say that they’re Christians, which means they’re claiming that Christ has changed their life, but they don’t live like it. And to the world, in a lot of ways, that makes Christ and His message look stupid. Brennan Manning once said: “The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians, who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.” Which is why we must live properly before this world in the power of Christ!

Ok, back to the story! This demon possessed lady was discrediting their message because she was saying that it was true, while living a life opposed to it, so Paul, rightly so, was annoyed and cast the demon out of her, which made her masters very upset because they were making a lot of money from her by having her prophecy. So they took Paul and Silas before the city council, lied about them, and had them beaten and thrown into prison, which was against the law, because Paul and Silas were Roman citizens and you could not punish a citizen of Rome without a fair trial. And we see this come into play later, but first, verses 25-34 tell the familiar story of their time in prison. They say:

"But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains were loosed. And the keeper of the prison, awakening from sleep and seeing the prison doors open, supposing the prisoners had fled, drew his sword and was about to kill himself. But Paul called with a loud voice, saying, “Do yourself no harm, for we are all here.” The he called for a light, ran in, and fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. And he brought them out and said, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” So they said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved, you and your household.” Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes. And immediately he and all his family were baptized. Now when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them; and he rejoiced, having believed in God with all his household."

In the midst of a very bad situation Paul and Silas chose to worship God in prayer and singing, and that is when God delivered them.

We need to remember that we go through hard times so that we will call on God (Zech. 13:9). Don’t expect deliverance from your trials if you’re not willing to worship God in the midst of those trials.

And we see that not only did God deliver them, but He also saw the jailer and his entire family saved. Which I’m sure, to Paul and Silas, made it worth the whole ordeal, because they were more than ready to sacrifice for the glory of God. We too, if we want to see the Church grow, and the lost brought to a knowledge of Christ, will have to sacrifice. It will take a sacrifice of time, of money, and of comfort to see the lost reached and the Church grow. That’s what we see here, a complete sacrifice on Paul and Silas’s part, but the Church grew that day as the jailer and his family were saved.

To wrap up the story of Paul’s time in Philippi, we see in verses 35-40 that the magistrates, the governors of the city, send to the jailer to release Paul and ask him to leave the city, but Paul tells them that he is a Roman citizen, and needs to be released publicly, with an apology, so the magistrates came, brought them out of prison, and begged them to depart: Which they did only after visiting Lydia’s house, where the church met, and encouraging the believers there. And from that inauspicious beginning the great Philippian church was born!

We know from Acts chapter 20 that Paul visits the church again on his third missionary journey for a period of three months, but that’s all the time that he had with them prior to writing this epistle, yet they are one of the best churches in New Testament times. I say that because when no one else cared for Paul, or would provide for him financially, they did. Philippians 4:15, 16 tells us about this when it says:

"Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only. For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessity."

Now this provides a very nice segue into why Paul actually wrote the book of Philippians. What happened was this: Ten years after his first visit to Philippi Paul found himself in prison again, this time in Rome. He was there as a political prisoner for preaching the gospel, which, as we all know, was strictly forbidden during the time of Nero, and his court date was quickly approaching. While he was in prison the Philippian church heard of his situation and sent money to provide him with some necessary things; probably food, and clothing to keep warm. Stuff like that. So a man named Epaphroditus delivered this gift to Paul and decided to stay in Rome and help him, but while he was there, he became very ill and nearly died. But God restored him to health, so Paul sent him back to his home church in Philippi carrying a thank-you letter, which we now know today as the book of Philippians!

So this is a very unique book. Unlike most other New Testament books, written to teach something specific, or to correct a problem, Philippians was written basically as a missionary would write a thank-you letter to his supporters. It contains updates on his condition and ministry, as well as practical teaching. In Philippians we see Paul’s heart for the ministry and his love for Christ. The book of Philippians also has several easily identifiable themes, and it will be good to know these as we study the book, because then we can fit everything that we learn into that basic framework.

Christ!
The most prevalent theme in Philippians is Christ! There are four key verses in this book, one for each chapter, that show how Christ was absolutely central to Paul’s life and ministry.

The other two themes that I want to draw to your attention are unity, and joy. And both of them are built on the person of Christ, showing yet again how important, and how central, He is to this entire book.

Unity!
True Christian unity, we learn in Philippians, is only possible through Christ. With Him as our leader we can enjoy a oneness of purpose, attitude, goal, and labour. Basically we enjoy a unity in anything that we seek to do for the glory of God.

Joy!
And joy, the theme Philippians is most well known for, can only truly be had in Christ. If you think about it, Paul was in no situation to be joyful by this world’s standards; being in prison and condemned to die. Yet he had true joy in Christ, and He passes the ‘secret’ to this on in his letter to the Philippians. He teaches them how to have true joy despite their circumstances! He does this by presenting 4 different “joy stealers” and also by presenting the appropriate response to each one of those. And if you think about it, I’m sure you could guess what they are… But we will discuss them as we come across them in the text.

To say the least, I am very excited to work our way through the book of Philippians, and I would have liked to start now, but I thought that it was very important for us to understand Paul’s relationship with the church in Philippi, as well as his reasons for writing this letter. And hopefully everything that we talked about will play into what we study in the future!

So in conclusion, I would encourage you to read the book of Philippians this week. It’s only 104 verses long, so it can’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes, and it will help you have the big picture as we go through it much more slowly.

I would also encourage you to remember and think about what we looked at in Acts. Not only because it will help you remember where Paul is coming from in the book of Philippians, but because much of it applies to us.

Just to remind you what we already talked about: We need to discern what God’s will is for us, both in our personal lives, and in our home church. Then when we know, we must do it immediately! There is no excuse for delay! We also need to remember the sacrifices that it took on Paul’s part to see God’s will done, and we must expect the same. If we want to see God’s will done in our lives and in our church, every single one of us will need to sacrifice; from our time, from our money, and from our comfort zones. Often when we here that in Christ we can live a life of fulfillment, we automatically think of a life filled with comfort and pleasure. But the truth is, the life of fulfillment that we are called to in Christ means being satisfied in Him, even when everything around us is falling apart. If you want fulfillment, then you will need to sacrifice everything for the cause of Christ. That’s what it takes. And that’s what your community needs, a group of believers that will sacrifice to see them reached with gospel.

Will you pray that you will be a man or woman who seeks to see God glorified in your community through your life, despite what it may cost you?