Throughout his letter to the Philippians, Paul reminds the church there of the history they shared during its first days. That story can be found in Acts 16, and it’s essential background as we read Philippians. Tonight, join us as we see the founding of the church in Philippi and learn how to be led by the Spirit, stay on mission, and rejoice.
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Jon Stallsmith
Series: Philippians: The “What Ifs” of Faith
September 8, 2013
The Church in Philippi
Acts 16:6-40
We’re about to start a new series in the book of Philippians. We’re calling it The “What Ifs” of Faith. We’re going to dig into this book. It’s one of the most beloved books of the Bible for believers. It’s accessible. Part of the reason it is so beloved is because it intersects with so many aspects of our lives. It’s just written to everyday folks about their everyday situations.
Paul, of course, is in prison. We think he’s in Rome when he’s writing. He’s kind of coaching the Philippians on how to live their lives well. It raises the question…What if there is a rich, integrated, beautiful way to live our lives as we follow Jesus in the midst of a really broken world? That’s what Philippians is all about.
As we get into this book of Philippians, he mentions actually several times his original visit to Philippi. So in Philippians 1:3, he says, “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 1:3-6)
Paul is talking about the beginning of the good news of Jesus being planted in Philippi. Jesus, who began a good work. He’s talking about the first day until now. You go ahead to Philippians 2:12 when he says, “Therefore, my beloved…” He has a great relationship with these guys. “…as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling…” (Philippians 2:12) It’s a wonderful verse. We’ll get there in a few weeks.
But again, here’s Paul referencing back, “As you have always obeyed. We have a history together. We’ve seen some stuff happen together. I’ve watched you obey God firsthand.” Then even if you flip forward to Philippians 4:15, Paul says, “And you Philippians yourselves know that in the beginning of the gospel, when I left Macedonia, no church entered into partnership with me in giving and receiving, except you only.” (Philippians 4:15) This is another big theme within the book of Philippians, the partnership between Paul and the church financially, relationally.
But he talks about when he left Macedonia. Again, he’s referencing back to that first encounter. If we’re really going to get our heads around what’s going on in the book of Philippians, we need to understand what happened at the beginning, what happened on the first day. When and how did Paul see them obey? What was the church like when he left Macedonia? That’s what we’re going to spend our time with tonight, gaining a little context about this church in Philippi.
Go ahead and flip back with me to Acts 16, and that’s where we’re going to spend the rest of our time this evening. I think that as we read, there’s going to be some powerful overlap even with our own lives, and it’s going to set us off on the right foot as we dig into Philippians in the weeks to come. Is that a decent game plan? Are you guys up for that? Yeah? Okay, wonderful. If you had said no, I guess we could’ve done something else.
In Acts 16, we pick up the story. A little bit of context for the book of Acts. The gospel has just begun to go out into the Gentile world. Up to this point, it has been primarily a Jewish movement going among Jewish and Samaritan communities, but now it’s beginning to cross over into the Gentile world, into the nations, like we talked about last week. That this was Jesus’ heart that the gospel go into all the ethnos, the nations, the ethnicities of the earth.
As it’s going, there’s some crisis. They deal with this in Acts 15. “Do we need, all these people from all these other people groups, these Gentiles, do we need them to follow and keep the entire Jewish law?” Namely, do they need to get circumcised? Do they need to keep the food laws? Things like that. The decision in Acts 15 that all the leaders of the church come to is, “No, they don’t actually. Let’s just make it the gospel plus nothing following Jesus.”
Then they add a couple of other things. They say, “You should be faithful to your wife. You shouldn’t eat meat that’s been strangled and the blood is in it, because it would be offensive to the Jews.” They add a couple of requirements there so that fellowship between Jews and Gentiles in the church could happen, but essentially they say, “No, it’s just about Jesus.”
Then after they make this decision, they decide they need to go and tell all of the churches that are scattered around the early ancient world about the decision. They pick on Paul and Barnabas to go out and do this. Of course, we know right before we’re about to start reading, Paul and Barnabas have a pretty big argument about whether or not they should take John Mark. And so they split ways. There is no small disagreement, the text says. They had a big fight, so Barnabas took John Mark with him.
Paul took Silas with him, and he’s heading up north. Along the way, he gets to the towns of Derbe and Lystra. Now he already visited these two towns on his first missionary journey. This time as he’s there, he discovers sort of the fruit of some of his labors. One of the women who had come to faith has now raised her son in a godly fashion. His name is Timothy, and he’s matured to a point where he too will be a companion for Paul on his trip.
I’d love to show you a map. Let me show you that first map up there. It’s hard to read all the words, but that’s not the main point. Just look at that red circle down there. See Paul and Silas and now Timothy are there in Lystra and Derbe right around the time when we pick up and start reading. You’ll see the arrows of where they head after this.
But look at Acts 16:6. It says, “And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them. So, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” (Acts 16:6-10)
This little vignette really sets the tone for the founding of the church in Philippi, because what we see here is a very clear picture of Paul and the team following the Spirit of God, following the leadership of God as they’re going through their lives. Now sometimes when you’re reading there, you have Asia and Bithynia and Mysia, it’s hard to keep track of this. So let’s look at our map again.
It says they’re in Lystra and Derbe, but then they had to go up through Phrygia and Galatia because they could not go into Asia, which is directly to the left, or to the west. So let’s go to the next slide. “Forbidden! You can’t go here.” That’s what the Spirit says to them. So since they have to head this direction anyway, they have an important message for the church, they say, “Well, if we can’t go straight that way, I guess we’ll go up.” So it says they go up to Phrygia and Galatia and they end up in Mysia. See there it’s at the top?
Now their goal is to make a right turn to go over to Bithynia and Pontus. But (next slide) they’re not allowed by the Spirit of Jesus. So now, if you’re these guys, what direction can you go? Well, you don’t have anywhere to go really, but you know God is leading you forward. They’re stuck there between a forbidden and a not allowed, and they’re not really sure which direction to go until Paul has this vision of a man from Macedonia. If you look on the map there, Macedonia is in the upper left hand area, and the man from Macedonia says, “Come over here and help us.”
I don’t know if you guys have ever had this in your lives, where it just feels like doors start closing in your face and you feel like your intention is right, the dream in your heart is good. These guys are committed to fulfilling the mission God has given them. These guys are excited about sharing the good news of Jesus. Everything about this is a biblical goal. It’s a good dream in their hearts. They think, “Well, we’re just going to head over into Ephesus,” and the Spirit says, “No. It’s forbidden.”
Some even speculate that Paul at this point when they tried to go toward Ephesus was prevented by an illness. He writes about this in 2 Corinthians, how he has asked God to remove the thorn from his flesh. Some people say perhaps this was the time when he became really sick and he could not actually go to Ephesus.
Then they go up to the area near Troas, and they want to go right, and the Spirit of Jesus says, “Not allowed.” It’s fascinating to me that sometimes when God is leading us and we’re trying to follow the Spirit, the way God leads us is by saying no. It’s frustrating to us. We want something to happen. We think it’s from God, so we’re just going to go knock on that door, and it never opens. Or worse. Maybe it’s just slammed into our face. So we turn another direction, knock on that door, slammed in our face. Where else can we go? Well, the only option left is that one direction.
Amy and I have been learning this with her journey to nursing school. She started just a couple of weeks ago. When Amy and I first started dating (actually this was before we were dating), I remember we were sitting in a Starbucks and we were friends and we were studying Arabic together. That’s how you know it’s like real, blossoming romance. Any excuse to hang out. “How’s your Arabic penmanship?”
“Not very good.”
“Well, let’s meet at Starbucks!”
“Perfect!”
“Okay.”
So we were going through all that stuff. We got in the car and we were sitting in the car together in the parking lot at Starbucks. At this point, I should’ve seen the writing was on the wall. When you’re sitting in the car with a girl just talking about life, you’re probably going to end up dating her.
We’re there, and I was asking about her dreams for her life, and she started telling me about how she’d always really wanted to be a nurse. She told me about when she was a little girl they had a little recording. Marshall and Elaine got a little recorder so she could talk about… Just her little recorded diary. There’s some funny stuff on there, the stories that come out of that. But one of the things she said was that she just really wanted to be a nurse. From the time she was a really little girl, she always wanted to be a nurse.
Then she was telling me about how when she had graduated high school she actually had applied to nursing school, was accepted, but decided for a number of reasons not to take it. Then a couple of more years into undergrad, she tried to apply again, but this time didn’t get accepted. Several more times tried to apply and didn’t get accepted. It was really frustrating.
She ended up graduating from Georgia State with her bachelors in psychology, but it was one of those situations where it felt like, “This is a God-given dream in my heart.” She tried to go through that door, and it was forbidden. Not allowed. Rejected. She just kind of kept going forward in life.
Then we came to this place after we’d been married a couple of years when that dream was still alive in her heart, and the Lord just wouldn’t let it really die out. So we said, “Well, let’s just try this thing one step at a time and see if God will open the door now.” We did. We started looking for programs and she found this amazing program. It’s up in Athens. It used to be Medical College of Georgia. They changed the name. It’s Georgia Regents.
We were looking at the timetables for applying to this thing and realized she was going to have to get her anatomy and physiology courses up to date. So it was just one step at a time. She takes the next step. Does the anatomy and physiology. Get’s A’s in both of those. That’s fantastic. Okay. Now we have to apply. So Amy applies, writes her application and everything like that. We submit the application. It’s just one step after another.
She has to get a test to make sure she passes a test at a certain level. She takes that. She gets the right level. The next step we’re waiting for the word back that she would get an interview. She finally found out she got an interview. So she went out to Athens and did the interview. She felt like it went pretty well, but maybe not the best interview she has ever given. She felt like perhaps the process had been derailed at that point. Have you guys ever given a bad interview? It wasn’t a bad interview, but Amy felt bad about it.
So we hear back she’s admitted. Wonderful! This is amazing. So now she just started a couple of weeks ago, and she’s studying and everything else, but she really needs to get clinicals nearby. You have to apply to the Emory University Hospital. There are, again, only a few spots for a number of people who are applying. So you had to write another essay. Had to interview again. And again we just found out like Friday the Lord opened the door.
The amazing thing about this story for us is that earlier in her life the doors just kept closing. Forbidden. Not allowed. You can’t go. No, no, no. But now, for whatever reason, the timing is right and doors just open. They’re opening. You just feel the favor of God on Amy’s life right now. It’s absolutely wonderful.
The interesting thing is that at this point of course they’re forbidden to go into Asia, but in Acts 19, guess where Paul ends up? Asia. He’s in Ephesus, and he’s there for a long time planting the church and leading the community in Ephesus. So for God, the timing wasn’t right. It wasn’t like the vision was wrong. It wasn’t they heard God poorly; it was just that the timing wasn’t right and God had a different plan for them. They had to learn how to follow the Spirit even when it meant they had to say no or had to hear no from the Lord.
This is so deeply encouraging to me personally because there are things I want to see happen in my life and there are dreams I know God has put there that feel like he has just said no for now or he is kind of, “Stop this. Nope.” He’s just kind of leading me forward, and I actually didn’t have any plans to end up where I ended up, but the Lord did. As we follow this Spirit, he leads us into these amazingly fruitful places, and sometimes he sends a vision to help confirm it.
Amy didn’t have a vision or a dream or anything about the nursing program. In fact, if she told me one morning she had been having dreams about a Greek man, I don’t know how comfortable I’d feel with that. Macedonia is modern-day Greece. But it’s really important to just pay attention to the following of the Spirit. As we go through this story, it’s interesting this sort of roundabout route Paul and the disciples take into the city of Philippi.
If Paul and Silas and Timothy were just sitting around and talking about what it’s going to look like when they go into Philippi and they have this plan and they’re going to take this whole city and they’re going to do all this other stuff, and they could’ve written it all up, there’s no way they would’ve written what’s about to happen to them. Yet what’s about to happen to them is exactly what God wanted to have happen. As they follow the Spirit, it plants a church that survives, supports Paul, is the recipient of the letter of Philippians. It’s just beautiful.
Now one other quick thing about this vision Paul has. He sees the vision. Visions are amazing. I have not had many prophetic visions about the future or what direction we’re supposed to go in. I think I’ve shared in here about having a dream about the house we were supposed to buy. That was a significant thing, but other than that, it has not been a huge part of my life, but I know God speaks this way and he leads us this way, and it’s important to pay attention to this stuff.
One thing just to keep in mind as you go through your life and you’re seeking a vision and all this other stuff… In Jeremiah 23, God is speaking to Jeremiah, and it’s a time when there’s Jeremiah, the true prophet, and then Israel is kind of off course in other ways, and there are a lot of false prophets around.
This is what the Lord says in Jeremiah 23:28, “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord. Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jeremiah 23:28-29)
It’s an interesting passage because you have the Lord saying, “If you have a dream, tell the dream. That’s good. But compared to my Word, rely on my Word. If you had to have a choice between having my Word or having a vision experience, the Word is where the real fruit is. The Word is where the fire is. The Word is the hammer.”
I think it’s helpful to keep that in mind as we’re seeking guidance from the Lord. No matter where he’s calling us or leading us or where it feels like the doors are closing or opening up, it’s really important that we keep the Word close to our hearts, because the Lord is never going to lead us into a place that contradicts his Word. He’s never going to call us into a vision or an opportunity that contradicts his Word. So we have to hold that really close.
Then the other part we see in Acts 16 is that after they have the vision… It’s not just like Paul wakes up one day and says, “Hey, I had this vision. We’re going to Macedonia!” Actually, something interesting happens in the text. It says, “And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” (Acts 16:10) Again, there’s a very large team element to understanding the direction God is giving them.
He has this community. He has this little team of Paul, Silas, and Timothy, and the we here we imagine, we expect, we believe to be Luke, the author of Acts. We think probably Luke joined this crew somewhere around Troas. So now it’s the four of them. Paul has the vision, but we have to run it through the filter of the Scripture and then run it through the filter of the community.
When the community all comes together and says, “Yes, that’s from God,” they know, “Let’s head forward. We’re going to Macedonia. Up into Europe. This is the direction, and we’re going to head that way. Even though it wasn’t what we expected, even though we felt like we had closed doors, this is the way we’re going.” We’re just seeing in practice how the early guys followed the Spirit.
Let’s see where the Spirit leads them. Verse 11 says, “So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days.
And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.” (Acts 16:11-14)
Now it’s interesting because even though the Lord gives them the big vision about where to go, Philippi… I mean, they sailed pretty much straightaway, landed in Neapolis, which is the port city, and then headed a little bit inland about 10 miles to get to Philippi itself…even though the Lord has given them the big vision, the big direction, when they get there, what do they do?
Maybe you guys have had this experience. The Lord is leading you in a certain place, but you get there and you’re kind of going, “Well, now what do I do? I had a vision of a Macedonian guy, and so I know I’m in the right spot, but this job, how do I tackle this thing? This neighborhood, what goes on here? We’re at this school now. What do I do?”
What we see from this little passage is that Paul has a strategy. God has given him the big vision, but Paul still has a strategy, and this is a strategy he used over and over and over again as he was traveling through cities. His strategy was to find if there were any Jewish people in that place first. This is what he did in Ephesus, in Antioch Pisidia, Iconium, Thessalonica, Berea, Athens, Corinth. Wherever Paul traveled pretty much, he looked for a Jewish community, the synagogue first.
He says this in Romans 1, “I go to the Jew first and then to the Gentile.” Why? Well, because he is looking for those places where God is already at work. Remember in the ancient world, the vast majority of people worshiped a ton of different gods. They had all kind of crazy, religious ideas. But in almost every city, because of the exile and because the Jews had been scattered through the entire Roman world, there was almost always a little cluster of monotheists, people who believed in one God, people who knew some of that Old Testament story.
When Paul came to a place, he figured, “That place, where those little gatherings of the synagogues are, that’s probably the place where we could get a foothold first. I know God has called the Jews to be a light to the nations, so if we can come and we can light up the Jewish community, that would be wonderful.” So that’s what he would do.
Philippi is a little different. His strategy doesn’t work very well because there’s no synagogue. They said there needed to be 10 Jewish men in order to have a synagogue. What do we find here? There’s no synagogue. All there is is a place of prayer near a river, and there are a lot of women there. So we can deduce, I guess, that there weren’t many Jewish men in the city of Philippi. But Paul still has a strategy. “Let me find the place where’s God’s working.”
Here’s this lady, Lydia, and a few other women. He comes across them. They’re at the place of prayer down by the river. It’s interesting that the place of prayer… That’s where people would go to seek God. Paul and the team go to seek God by the river, and they discover mission.
One of the things you will find as you seek God is you will always discover mission. If you’re seeking God and you’re not being sent out with the heart of God for love into the world, you’re not really seeking him correctly. In the Scripture, when we seek God, we discover mission. That’s exactly what these guys find.
This woman, Lydia, her heart is opened by the Lord. She is a person of peace. She comes to faith very quickly as he’s telling the story. Then verse 15. So they’ve kind of followed the Spirit. If you’re following on the notes, they follow the Spirit to the riverside, outside of town. Now the next place where they follow the Spirit is to the household.
It’s interesting because when you look at the riverside, you see there’s this strategy and there’s kind of an intentional movement of the gospel. We’ll see this even in the book of Philippians as we’re reading. Paul’s talking about in Philippians 1 how even his own hardship is serving to advance the gospel. He’s always trying to figure out, “How is this going to move forward?”
Before we jump to this household piece, the question may be worth asking in our own lives as application…What’s your strategy for the place for the place where God has called you? In your neighborhood, what’s your strategy? In your town, what’s your strategy? I know people who just go to the same restaurant every time.
One guy (I love this story), one of our buddies who is out in Monroe went with us to Israel this summer on EPIC, and he got a real heart to engage with the Muslim community. But he thought, “Well, out in Walton County, where will we find international people?” He was like, “Ah, convenience stores and gas stations!”
So he told me his strategy. He goes, “I never fill my gas tank more than a quarter full.” I was like, “Why? That’s crazy. You’re out in Walton County. I feel like there aren’t even gas stations out there. You need to fill up your tank.” He was like, “No, man. I have to fill up my tank over and over and over again, and I have three places I go. I’ve met all the owners.”
He’s actually meeting and studying the Bible with one of them. The Lord has called him to Walton, but what’s his strategy? “I’m not going to fill up my gas tank all the way, and I’m going to meet the people who own these convenience stores.” What’s your strategy? What’s your strategy for your workplace? What’s your strategy for your neighborhood? What’s your strategy? There’s something here. Paul has a strategy.
So then the next thing. After Lydia comes to faith, she is a person of peace. That’s one of the phrases we use around here, because Jesus used it. In Luke 10, he said, “When you go out, look for the people, the sons and daughters of peace, who open up their lives, who share with you, who are coming to faith and then connecting you to the larger community.”
So what happens? In verse 15, it says, “And after she was baptized…” She’s the first person in Europe baptized. “…and her household as well, she urged us, saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.’ And she prevailed upon us.” (Acts 16:15) Here we begin to see the picture of the partnership, the connection, the provision even for this little beginning church in Philippi.
That’s going to be another big theme in the book of Philippians, the connection relationally. Partnership. They send Epaphroditus out to help Paul in Rome when he’s in prison. They help. They send gifts along with Paul. We read about that. So this is a big theme that happens, and it really begins right here when Lydia opens up her home as a meeting place for the first believers.
We have a pretty good idea that Lydia was wealthy because she was a seller of purple. In the ancient world, if you sold purple, you were selling and you were dealing in a luxury item. These days a purple shirt is not a big deal, right? Back then, they had to harvest these snails. Literally, thousands of snails had to be collected, broken open, milked… How do you get the juice out of a snail? I don’t think you milk them. I don’t think there are many snail farmers getting up before dawn. It’s a nice squish, yes. I don’t think the snails survived the process.
But out of each snail you get a little drop. You get all these drops together, and finally after thousands of snails and lots of work, you have enough to take one strip of cloth and turn it purple. So when you have full purple garments in the ancient world, that’s like the ancient equivalent of a really nice mink coat or something. I don’t know. Something really wealthy.
So the fact that Lydia is a dealer in purple goods means she has some scratch. She’s pretty wealthy. She has a whole household here and she has space in her household for these people to come together and meet and gather. We see right off the bat actually that Lydia is pretty wealthy, she gives them a home base for their operations, and also she’s a woman.
We have to pay attention to this. We’ll see it in the book of Philippians also. But women play a very prominent role in the early church, they play a prominent role in the book of Philippians, and they really play a prominent role in the work of God on the planet. I love this. The men and the women coming together to help lead the church. We see a great picture of it here.
So now the church is just beginning there in Philippi. It’s meeting basically in a living room or in a courtyard of this home. There are just a handful of them. What’s next? Okay, our strategy has yielded us a little bit of a foothold. What’s next? Well, opposition is what’s next.
Verse 16: “As we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, ‘These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.’ And this she kept doing for many days.
Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, ‘I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.’ And it came out that very hour. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers.” (Acts 16:16-19)
This is an unexpected turn. This wasn’t part of the plan. This wasn’t part of the strategy. As they’re walking around, this demon-possessed girl keeps shouting. A couple of interesting questions here. First of all, why does Paul wait several days? I really think it’s because Paul is again following the Spirit.
You may have encountered demonic stuff, people who’ve been influenced by demons. The word for demonic possession in the New Testament is really demonized, influenced by the demonic. Maybe you’ve come across that stuff in your life. I have a handful of times, and it’s creepy stuff. Just because it’s there doesn’t necessarily mean we’re supposed to go in and deal with it immediately.
For Paul, it wasn’t like the first day he just was like, “Oh, that lady is demon possessed. I’m going to go over there and cast out the demon.” He didn’t do it. He waited several days. But there was a point at which the timing became correct, and he cast out the demon.
The word annoyed there is interesting, that translation, because really properly that word really means he’s grieved at the sad condition of the woman and also thoroughly annoyed and indignant at the continued demonstrations of the evil spirit which possessed her. So he’s annoyed by the evil spirit and sad in her condition. These two things are coming together, and he confronts it.
What happens is real opposition. The guys who are basically using this woman for their own financial gain, when they find out she has lost their gain, even though she’s free spiritually, when they figure out she has lost her powers or whatever, they get really mad and they grab Paul and Silas and they drag them and they’re going to get them trumped up, and we’ll see the next section in a second.
But what happens? Paul and Silas follow the Spirit out to the marketplace. This is just circumstance. This is a moment of opposition. God intervenes, and it’s actually a big breakthrough even though it’s about to get worse for our guys, for Paul and Silas. Though it’s about to get worse for them, it’s a big moment in this growth of the church in Philippi.
Buddy was preaching on this section of Scripture in 2006 or 2007, and it was right around the time that we heard that Atlanta was one of the top cities, if not the number one city, in the United States for child sex trafficking. So as Buddy was going through the book of Acts, we came across this passage, and it was just a very clear picture or parallel.
Look. Here’s the problem. These men are exploiting this young girl who’s demon possessed for their own financial gain. The connection to prostitution and to trafficking in Atlanta was very real. So Buddy preached on this, and it really fired up a lot of us. Maybe you guys were here at that time. Maybe you weren’t.
Maybe you remember that, but it just was a real movement of God’s Spirit in so many of our hearts, thinking, “We need to do something about this. This is annoying us. It’s grieving us, and it’s making us angry at the evil at work in our town. This can’t pass.”
Buddy tells this story. He went down to Midtown and preached it there, and those college kids got really fired up. They were just on their knees weeping to hear about the brokenness of this city. Some of them came up to Buddy afterwards and said, “What are we going to do about this?” In typical Buddy fashion, Buddy was like, “You have to figure it out.”
So they put together a meeting with the mayor and with the police chief of Atlanta. They call up Buddy and they say, “Buddy, come down here. We have to go to this meeting. We have to figure out how to end this thing.” So Buddy heads down there, and in that meeting, they start talking. The mayor and the city officials, the police chief, are basically explaining all the complexities of the problem. “This is why it’s this, and this is why it’s this, and this is why it’s this.”
One of the college kids just stopped and said, “Stop telling me why this is a problem. You have to do something or we’re going to burn down a building!” Now I don’t know if that’s the best strategy. They were like, “What?” She said, “Okay, if you’re not going to do anything, we’re going to take to the streets ourselves and try to help this.”
They’re like, “That’s the last thing we need. The last thing we need is some college kid getting killed on the streets.” The girl looked at him and said, “You don’t get it, do you? What makes our lives any more valuable than theirs? They’re dying on the streets. We’re going to go out onto the streets and love them.”
So that’s what we did. We didn’t have any idea what we were doing, but we started loading up groups of college students, and we went out on the streets just to minister to that community. It was really intense. One of the nights we went down there, and we were out at maybe 12:00 at night or 1:00 in the morning. It was raining, and we were in a really rough part of Atlanta.
I was there with probably three or four other college students from Grace. I was like the leader of my little group because I was a few years older, but I was just as scared as everybody else. I didn’t know what to do. I was like, “Boy, this is crazy. We’re just walking on the street, praying people, wanting to bless people. What are we supposed to do?”
So we’re walking along. There’s a motel. I’m thinking, “Well, maybe we need to turn left and just see if there’s anybody around the motel…shady motel.” So I walk in, and as our group was walking in, a guy in a minivan that’s marked as a taxi was pulling out. It was an old, beaten-up minivan. It had just begun to rain.
He rolls down the window, and I can look into the car, and I see that he, first of all, is drinking a tall boy of beer, just sitting in his lap. And then in the passenger seat is a young lady who is pretty clearly involved in the industry we’re intending to help and serve and everything else. You could just see that situation going on.
This window rolls down. The guy pulls up and he goes, “Hey, you guys. What are you doing here?” I see all of this. I was just shocked. All my senses are like fried. I don’t know. This is what I said. You can just imagine how absurd this sounded. I said, “We’re just out walking.” At 1:00 a.m. in this neighborhood! A bunch of white kids from the suburbs in the rain, just walking? Really? “We’re just walking.”
He’s like, “Well, do you guys need a ride anywhere? Do you need a lift?” I said, “Well, no. I don’t really feel comfortable riding with you because you’re drinking.” That was my next response. This is how good I am at doing this.” He looks down and he goes, “Oh, yeah, yeah. I understand that. I understand.” So this is how good I am at doing these things.
Drew is standing next to me. Some of you guys know Drew McClure. He’s down at Midtown most of the time. He’s on staff now and led our summer discipleship project with all the college students over the summer. So Drew is standing right next to me, and he kind of pipes up and he says, “Actually, we’re from a church. We’re here to serve the community.”
Then he did something really beautiful. He just started talking to the girl in the passenger seat. He said, “Do you need anything? Is there anything we can do to help you?” She said, “Yeah. Actually, I have a child at home, and I have a lot of needs.” He said, “Well, where are you going?” She says, “Well, he’s just going to drop me off on the street somewhere.”
Drew said, “Well, we have some stuff. We can help you. Why don’t you get out of the car right now?” She just got right out of the car. Drew went over, and we just walked her down. There was a place where she could get some food and get connected to some rehabilitation stuff. So Drew is much better at this than I am.
But that night, again another amazing thing happened. A few days earlier, we’d been praying about this problem. Some of the college students had been worshiping together. During that time, one of the college students, Brad, had a bit of a vision just of a woman in purple. That’s all he said. So we finished worshiping, and he goes, “Guys, I just feel like there’s a woman in purple. This is something significant.”
That night when we got down there and everybody started walking the streets, Brad and the guys he was with saw a woman on the street soliciting dressed in purple. He walked right up to her. He didn’t really know what to say. So he just said, “We’ve been praying. I feel like God wants me to talk to you. Do you know anything about the Bible?” That was his question.
She looked at him and her eyes got big and she said, “Do you know what? Somebody just gave me a Bible and I just started reading it. I started it but I haven’t finished it.” Brad said, “Would you like to know how it ends?” She goes, “I would love that. It’s a long book.” So Brad just tells her the whole story, all the way through Jesus dying on the cross, resurrection, forgiveness, grace, mercy, restoration, resurrection life. It pierced this woman’s heart, and she came to faith right there. They got to walk with her to be rehabilitated.
In those early days, we didn’t know what we were doing. God just kind of led us there out of this passage actually. But what has happened since is that there has been this flourishing of a community, particularly in the city. Some of you guys might know Courtney and NightLight. This has kind of grown up. There’s a whole missional community down there who’ve tackled some of these projects.
The girls at Christmastime go into the strip clubs and they minister to the girls there in the strip clubs. A lot of us have collected. You guys might’ve done that too. Over Christmas, we’ve collected really wonderful items, cosmetic items and other things, to give them gift baskets. Then they work with the kids and all of this stuff. What happened is just out of this one moment of the Spirit’s outrage stirred up within us, this whole thing has been birthed that really blesses a lot of people and tackles one of these huge problems.
It’s the same sort of thing that’s happening here in Philippi. The moment comes. Paul casts out the demon. But there’s opposition. There’s a lot of opposition as it’s going on. Here. Listen to how this thing… I could tell you more about this human trafficking stuff in Atlanta, but laws have been changed, real things have been impacted.
Even if you’re leading a group or you’re just leading your little family and you feel like God has put something on your heart, something that outrages you, annoys you, something that stirs you up inside, you might be thinking, “What can I do?” Sometimes it just feels like your effort… Or you’re just bumbling along in the rain at 1:00 a.m. in a bad neighborhood. Here’s what God can do. He can take those little efforts and turn them into something beautiful, but it may not be easy.
Verse 20. These guys who are upset about the loss of their gain. “And when they had brought them to the magistrates [the rulers of the town], they said, ‘These men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice.’ The crowd joined in attacking them…” The crowd is pretty quick to turn on them. It’s amazing.
“…and the magistrates tore the garments off them and gave orders to beat them with rods. And when they had inflicted many blows upon them, they threw them into prison, ordering the jailer to keep them safely. Having received this order, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.” Rough situation.
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them, and 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 bonds were unfastened.
When the jailer woke and saw that the prison doors were open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, ‘Do not harm yourself, for we are all here.’ And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ And they said, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.’
And 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 wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.” (Acts 16:20-34)
It’s amazing here. In the hardship, Paul and Silas chained up, beaten, broken down just for doing something good. You can’t be surprised by evil in the world. Sometimes I hear people talking about how awful this is or you see the news about Syria and the things that are happening there and you go, “How can humans do that?” Well, actually, of all people, we should be the ones who understand this the most. We know the story. Humans reject God and they reject goodness, and apart from God they’re really rotten.
What happens here? Man, there’s exploitation, there’s injustice, there’s beating, and now Paul and Silas are beaten up and locked into this jail cell. If that was you in that circumstance, would you be singing? But that’s what these guys are doing. It’s one of my favorite passages actually in the New Testament, to see them in there singing. It says the other prisoners are listening. They’re going, “What are these guys like? What are they doing in here?”
There’s a lot we could unpack, but Paul in Philippians will talk about knowing how to rejoice. That’s that core message of the book of Philippians. Joy springing up, coming forth. Paul is going to talk about how to rejoice even when your circumstances around you are rotten, even when it feels like you’re in prison. The Philippians know he’s telling the truth because they know this story. They know that when Paul was bound up, locked up, beaten up, he still sang. Now as he writes them in the book of Philippians, he’s saying, “Rejoice. Don’t forget to sing.”
I tell you what. That’s one of the best strategies. As you’re following the Spirit, sometimes you end up in a place where it feels like it was like a wrong turn. “We’re following the Spirit. We’re down by the riverside. Now we’re in the household. Now we’re out in the marketplace. Things are going pretty well. What? We’re in jail?”
Or you just suddenly feel like something has gone terribly wrong and you’re bound up with illness or relational brokenness or tragedy that strikes. Just the last couple of weeks we’ve seen tragedies strike some young families. It’s heart wrenching. It has the capacity to just bind you up in your circumstances. Just lock you up like this. What do you do? Sing. Sing. I mean, literally just sing.
I do this sometimes. When we got word of AJ and Tammy’s little girl Imogen getting diagnosed with cancer, I didn’t know what to do. We love this little girl. She hangs out in our house. We love her parents. What do you do? I just got the guitar out, and Amy and I just started playing songs. Not because we knew exactly how to explain what had happened to her, not even because we had the strength to pray. It was just even in this moment, maybe especially in this moment, we need to sing.
Over again as you’re in your life and you get to that spot where you feel bound up, sing. Just sing. Rejoice. That’s what Paul is going to say in Philippians. Rejoice. Learn to rejoice. “Well, I can’t. How do I do that?” It’s what the book of Philippians is about. It’s going to teach us about God and it’s going to teach up about how we rejoice all the time, living in full joy that doesn’t depend on the circumstances around us, that doesn’t depend on where we are or what we’re doing but depends on the goodness of God. That’s what we’re going to see in Philippians. It’s going to be so beautiful.
Now I would like to finish talking about Paul and the government, but we’re out of time, so let me just wrap it up like this. What have we seen so far? Who is in the church at Philippi? As we’re reading the book of Philippians, it was written to real people in a real city. Who are those people?
Well, we know one of them at least is a wealthy businesswoman. We know that another one is most likely a slave girl. We have these prisoners who are listening to Paul and Silas. Surely some of them had come to faith. We have this sort of blue-collar guy, the jail keeper, who comes to faith also.
So the whole spectrum of humanity from the top of society to the bottom, men and women, slaves and free, just men and criminals, all of them are there in the church of Philippi. As Paul is writing to them, he’s writing to all of them. As we’re reading Philippians, maybe you think, “Ah, this doesn’t really apply to me. Ah, it’s too spiritual. Ah, it’s this or that.” Trust me, you fit within that group at Philippi. It was a wild group, but God brought them all together around Jesus to show them how to live the life of his kingdom.
In Acts 16, we see that the core of that Philippian church, that core of Paul and Silas, is to follow the Spirit wherever he leads, to stay on mission. Even if the circumstances get crazy and you’re in a jail cell, stay on mission and always rejoice. Some of us just need to hear that. Some of us are feeling like we’re lost and we’re not quite sure where things are going or it feels like doors are closing. Follow the Spirit, stay on mission, rejoice, sing to God.
That’s what we’re going to do right now. We’re going to receive the offering. We have Communion here to reconnect with the reality that Jesus died for us and rose again, giving us new life. Just to taste that reminder of the Lord’s sacrifice for us. I encourage you to take Communion.
I encourage you to just remember the words they spoke to the jailer when he felt like he was about to kill himself. They said, “Believe on the name of the Lord Jesus.” Jesus can lead us. The Spirit of Jesus can lead us. He can show us our meaning, our mission in life, and he can surely inspire us to sing and to rejoice. I’m going to close us in prayer.
God, thanks for this Word, this text. Thank you for the church in Philippi. Thank you for these stories. Lord, as we move forward and read the book of Philippians together, we pray it would transform our lives and that these themes of your movement in the world, joy, Lord, these themes of peace and partnership and fellowship and true community and humility, Lord, and joy in its deepest rejoicing sense, Lord, we pray that all these would rise up within us as a congregation, that we’d be transformed and that as we seek you we would be sent out on mission. In Jesus’ name, amen.