The Gospel Spreads

Good morning. Last week, many celebrated what is called St. Patrick's Day. I didn't wear green, assuming I'd be doing this introduction, but I realize just now I'm wearing it. Really, St. Patrick's Day, in the way it's now celebrated, it's quite sad considering who that man was and what he did. First of all, St. Patrick is not Irish. He is British. His father was a deacon, his grandfather was a pastor. At the age of 16, Patrick was not a believer, and he was captured by pirates. And those pirates then took him to Ireland and sold him into slavery. His slave owner was a tribal leader, a pagan worshiper. And Patrick had a vision that he was supposed to escape, and so he did, and he got back to Britain, he got back to his home, and there he had become, after this, in the midst of this, he had become a Christian. And as he studied the Word of God, he saw Matthew 28, and he was commanded to go and make disciples, and then he was convicted, he needed to go back and give the hope of the Gospel to those who were once his slave masters. So Patrick set sail back to Ireland, and he began sharing the gospel with the tribal leaders, and his first convert was his former slave owner. Patrick isn't great because he created green beer. He didn't drive snakes off the Isle of Ireland. He wasn't even Irish. We're not even sure he even used a clover to explain the Trinity. These are things we normally know of. He's a guy. who was converted by the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He believed Jesus Christ and what he did for him in his death and resurrection. He believed that the power of the gospel was there to save sinners, and he was willing to sacrifice everything, trusting that power. We actually see what God is doing with Patrick is amazing. He learned the language, the customs, Ireland having been there as a slave Then he learned the gospel and he's already equipped He's been trained in slavery to go back and be the the perfect missionary to those people That's God's mysterious way That's why we follow him by faith because not everything he does always makes perfect sense until we look back and we see Oh God, that's what you were doing if we follow him and obey him This morning we're going to look at Paul and we're going to see how he follows Christ by faith, how he is led by the Spirit in faith. If you're new with us, we seek to open up the Bible. We've already read the Bible, we've already prayed the Bible, we've already sung the Bible, the truths that God has given us in his revelation. And now we're going to hear a message from Acts. We want to submit ourselves to what God has said. And again, if you do not have a pew Bible, please take that with you. You can open that up to page, I believe it was 924. and follow along as we look to this. What we see here is the second missionary journey. Remember Paul and Barnabas, they've already gone out on one missionary journey. Then there's this issue of Jew and Gentile and the debate over do you need to be circumcised to be saved? The answer, of course, is no. They come back with a declaration that there is no greater, there is no other burden on the Gentiles to be saved, but here are some things they should avoid doing for the purpose of fellowship. And then Paul looks to Barnabas and says, we need to go back. We need to go back and check on those churches that were planted. We need to go back to edify. And so Paul looks to Barnabas and look there in verse 36, let's return and visit the brothers and proclaim the word of the Lord and see how they are. The trip Paul originally talks to Barnabas about is one of edification. Go back, strengthen, and encourage. But we see here a difference takes place. And as we looked at the text, I'm not gonna give you an outline, I'm gonna give you three hooks. To call it an outline would be overstatement. We're gonna ask three questions. Who, where, and what, okay? There's a second missionary journey, and we're gonna ask who, who's going, and who isn't going? Where are they going? And then what happens when they get there? And we're not gonna be looking at the entire second missionary journey. So who, the first thing we see in the who is Paul, he talks to Barnabas. And he says, let's go back, and Barnabas, he wants to take Mark. Well, Mark was with them at the beginning of the first missionary journey. But then Mark decided, and if you look back at Acts 13, 13, Mark did not continue with them. He went back home halfway through the trip. And it's assumed because it was a difficult trip, or he got sick. There's many suggestions or hypotheses. We don't know for sure, but he didn't finish the work. That's the main point. And so as they're about to go on this missionary trip, Paul and Barnabas, you look there in verse 37, Barnabas wanted to take with him John, called Mark. But Paul thought best not to take them, take him with them because he had withdrawn on the previous trip. Notice there he had not gone with them to the work. And there arose a sharp disagreement. Now, I want to make sure we see something here. This disagreement isn't personal. This disagreement doesn't even appear to have a clear sin in it. It seems to be a good honest disagreement and and let me just try to peel back to see what I think could be happening here Paul is a man committed to the work He's a man if you go back to chapter 13 verse 2 the Spirit had set aside him aside for work He's committed to a mission He wants to make sure that work gets done and he is concerned that mark coming is going to hinder that work because he's already quit on him once and Paul is committed to the work. Barnabas, he's committed to the man. He doesn't want to give up on John Mark. Remember Barnabas, he's the guy who goes out to Paul when nobody else would talk to him because they were scared of him. Barnabas is the guy who's always willing to consider the best in others. He's always willing to go out and encourage. That's his very name. So I believe here we actually see two different kinds of gospel commitments that causes this disagreement. Paul's committed to the work and he wants to make sure that those who are gonna go on that work are gonna stay with that work. Barnabas is committed to the man and he wants to restore Mark. And so this disagreement, it happens. It's not personal, it's not ugly, it doesn't involve sin. We see the church commend both as they go. And let me just say that it's very likely that the mark that Paul refers to later in his letters is this same mark. In Colossians 4.10, Paul references a mark and he says, send him my greetings. That mark is Barnabas's cousin. In 2 Timothy 4, 11, Paul says, bring Mark to me, he is very helpful and useful to me. In Philemon verse 24, Mark is referenced to be useful to Paul. We can't know for sure that this is the same Mark, but if it is, and it's actually very likely, we can rejoice. Barnabas was right. Barnabas was committed to restoring Mark, to using Mark, to making sure Mark stayed with a mission, and later on Paul must have worked with him and realized he's useful. Barnabas was committed to the man, and we see that man restored, and even Paul saying later he was useful. Now let's look and see what Luke is doing with this particular split. We have it because Luke wants us to see this is why Barnabas is not with Paul anymore. But I also see the mission of Christ goes on. Here we see a difficult split, a difficult division, a difficult disagreement, but the work of Christ goes on. The church commends them, they go out, they go to the different ways. Now there's two missions that are going out. But the point being that Christ's mission continues to go forward. So the who that we're gonna be looking at in our mission trip as we're looking through chapter 15, 36 and on is Paul and Silas, and then there's a third person introduced. Look at chapter 16, verse one. They go there and there's a man named Timothy. He's a son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek. He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium. Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him and he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in those places. For they all knew that his father was a Greek." Now this needs some explanation because the entirety of last week's passage and message was about how circumcision was not necessary. And in no way has Paul forgotten that message because his whole point is to go back into those places and remind everybody circumcision is not necessary for salvation. So why is Timothy circumcised? Well, Luke goes into great detail about that and it has nothing to do with salvation. He is half Jewish. His mother's a Jew, his father's a Greek. And he's not circumcised yet. And he wants to take Timothy, who's going to be like a son figure to him. He wrote two letters to Timothy. We know quite a bit about him. Because they're very personal letters on how to pastor a church. But we see here, Paul, he has him circumcised. And again, it's not about salvation. We see Paul actually practicing a principle. He's a Jew to the Jews and a Gentile to the Gentiles. The Jews would know Timothy has a Jewish mother, and that he's not circumcised, and that would have hindered his gospel proclamation to those Jewish hearers. And so Paul has him circumcised for the purpose of making sure nothing would hinder the gospel proclamation. Now there's another situation in Galatians chapter 2 verse 3. Titus is a Gentile. Gentile mom, Gentile dad. He is not circumcised. Paul does not believe Gentiles should become Jews for the purpose of the gospel. He is not opposed to Jews being circumcised as Jews for the purpose of the gospel. We see here Paul has a very principled theology that practically plays out in who is circumcised and who is not. Now let's ask the question, where? So who? We've got Paul, Silas, and Timothy, probably others. We actually see that there's a we included, so Luke is involving himself there without mentioning it, apart from saying we went. But where will they go? The original mission was to go and check on the churches, but we see here the spirit hinders, the spirit stops them, the spirit keeps them and forbids them from going in certain places. You see this in chapter 16, verse six and seven. And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. Why would the Holy Spirit forbid the word of God to be spoken in Asia? They're no more sinful than the other people, it's just God is sending them to a particular people for a particular purpose. Then again in verse seven, and when they had come up by Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them. The Spirit's saying, don't go here. The Spirit's saying, don't go there. And then verses nine and 10. 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. When Paul had seen the vision immediately, he sought to go on into Macedonia and concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. You hear the us, that's Luke saying us. So the spirit, we don't know how the spirit said, don't go. We don't know how that happened. We do know a clear vision took place and Paul knew this is where I'm not going and this is where I'm going. And one of the questions we have to ask is, does the spirit normally lead his people like this? For instance, as you're going to depart from this building, and you're probably going to go to lunch, is the Spirit going to tell you not to go to that restaurant, but then give you a clear vision so that you know exactly which restaurant you're supposed to go to today for lunch? Maybe. That doesn't seem likely. That's never happened to me before. How normative should we think this kind of clarity, and vision, and direction, and guidance should be? Well, let's back up for a moment and let's just say God is sovereign over every hour, minute, and second of every day of our life. He is sovereign over every aspect of our life, and He sees every second He gives us as a precious moment of life. that we get to enjoy under His sovereignty, that we as Christians get to enjoy knowing we're His children, that we as Christians can use to glorify God and know Him. So yes, every single second and every little decision, it matters because God has given us those to enjoy Him. But I don't know if God really cares where you get a lunch. I don't think he cares so much that he's going to give you some vision to make sure you go exactly where you need to go. I think he is concerned about what you're going to do when you get there. Are you going to give thanks? Are you going to be encouraging? Are you going to build up? Are you going to complain? God is concerned about what we're going to do and how we're going to do it. Every moment matters. Quite frankly, if you're looking for the kind of clarity of vision and direction that Paul gets here, you need to be prepared to suffer when you get it. Remember Paul's conversion. At his conversion, he's already promised you will suffer greatly. Paul is given this kind of clarity, this is where you're supposed to be because God provides those who are going to serve in suffering great clarity, this is where you're going to be so that you stay there. So here we see this Macedonian call is to a specific place, and it's so that he will be prepared to suffer. Now if you're thinking about a call into a ministry, let me give you one piece of advice. You should be looking for some kind of external call. A call into a ministry like this, and this is what it is. It's not merely internal. Yes, there should be a desire to serve others and to proclaim them, but there has to be an external call. And that is, other brothers and sisters should affirm that yes, there is a clear blessing and anointing on you to do this kind of ministry. Further, there should be fruit. The other thing I want us to see here is plans should be held fairly loosely. That's what it means by walking by faith. Plans need to be held loosely because we need to make plans. Paul made plans, the Spirit said no, and then Paul said, well, or God said, I'm gonna send you here. Paul didn't plan that. So yeah, we can make plans, but most of us know that we're not where we thought we'd be. Right now, 10 years ago. But here we see plans can be held loosely as we walk by faith. The majority of our time is gonna be on what happened. So who went? Where'd they go? They end up in Philippi, specifically. And in Philippi, we see three specific responses to the gospel. We have three story units. There's Lydia. There's really the men who own the slave girl who can tell the future. And then there's the jailer and his household. There's three specific stories, and so we're gonna walk through what happens in each one of these. And the first thing I want us to see in verses 11 through 15, Lydia believes and is baptized. Lydia believes and is baptized. Philippi, they were there for some days. It's one of the leading cities in the region. And as Paul's custom is, he wants to first go to the synagogue. He wants to first proclaim the gospel to the Jew, then the Gentile. And it appears that there's not a synagogue, or at least he did not find a synagogue. He finds a prayer meeting. In order to have a synagogue, you've got to have 10 Jewish men to have a synagogue. Whenever that wasn't available, they would have a prayer meeting. And so it looks like there's a number of women who were seeking to worship Yahweh who were there at a prayer meeting. And Lydia is not a Jewish woman worshiping Yahweh. She's a Gentile. She's been converted to Yahweh worship. Verse 14, as Paul comes to speak to them, one who heard us was a woman named Lydia. She's from the city of Thaatera. Gentile city, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. This next verse is very important. This next sentence. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. The Lord opened her heart. We sung this earlier. There's a stirring in my heart that did not start with me. It had to be open first. More importantly, there's a poison in my heart. There's treason. It poisons all my love. When we actually look and we think about who we are, there's something wrong. The Bible says the beginning point for us to become Christians, the Bible says that the beginning point is to first realize there's something wrong. Every human being is what we as Christians call a sinner. There's something off-key in the heart. There's something wrong. And let me just say, if you're not a Christian this morning, you have to be able to look out in the world and see the truth that every man and woman is a sinner. It's one of the most empirically provable truths of Christianity. Think about it. There's war. There's crime. We can all look out at the world and evil is obvious. There's rape, murder, adultery, terrorism. Just this past week, there was a terrorist attack. There are serious problems in this world and we can look at them and we can say there's something wrong. The problem is we so rarely look and realize we have problems ourselves. You see that murder, rape, adultery, and terrorism, all that are just actions that flow from the anger, lust, deceit, coveting, and jealousy that resides in every one of our hearts. This is what's wrong with the heart. Yes, there's good in everyone because God created us good, but we have rejected Him, and now there's this thing we call sin. The heart is twisted. It's knotted. There's anger, lust, deceit. We were created to have a pure heart that loves God most supremely, but what we've done is focus on ourselves. It's a self-love. And one of the most dangerous parts of the heart that needs to be opened is that it is self-deceiving. Jeremiah 17, 9, the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick. Who can understand it? That's why God, with His powerful grace, must open it up so that we can actually see the truth in the midst of all the dark lies our heart produces. Now you may think you're a very open-minded person, you may like intellectual ideas, but here's the hard truth. You're always going to do what you desire. You're not very open-hearted. None of us are. We're not by nature open-hearted. We might be open-minded, we might like our ideas, but we're not open-hearted. Our hearts are bound. Our hearts are closed and focused on sin until God in His grace opens them. So they're turned back towards Him. What we see here in Lydia is just amazing. We see God in His grace at work. There was this woman named Lydia. We don't know if she's married. We don't know her past. We just know she's there praying as a Yahweh worshiper. And what we conclude based upon what happens is God, in eternity past, had already decided, I am going to save Lydia. God sent His Son to die in the place of Lydia on the cross. Jesus suffered for every one of Lydia's sins. He was counted guilty for everything she had ever done. Then he was buried. He rose again knowing that his new life would be applied to Lydia. Then God sent his Holy Spirit to his people, specifically to Paul after Paul had a conversion. He then specifically sent Paul to this city so that he would talk specifically to Lydia so that whenever he proclaimed the gospel that Jesus Christ died on the cross, rose again, her heart would be opened and she would be saved. It's a God who loves his people. He does everything we need for us to be saved. That's how precise His salvation plan is for every single person. If you're not a Christian this morning, I pray God has brought you here just right now. And that He might open your heart. That you might hear your sins stand against you. And that sin isn't just a problem because of the way we treat each other. The sin's a problem because when we face a holy and awesome and righteous God, our sin is going to be judged forever. Unless we believe in Jesus Christ, who dies to take away that guilt, who dies to take away the sin by putting it on himself and rising again so that we can have new life. I pray you'll believe that. I pray that God, if He's opening your heart, you'll believe those truths and cling to them. Because Lydia, she's baptized. It never says she believes, but this is what she had to have done. Her heart's opened to the message of God. She believes. Now she's forgiven. She's free. She's adopted. She has that new identity. And then we see her wanting to help the cause of the church. She opens her home to Paul and his companions. As we continue to look at this passage, we see that the second story is not like the first. We know of Lydia, she's an entrepreneur, she's free, and she's saved. The next person we actually introduce to is a slave girl who has a spirit of divination, which means she can tell the future. These are two different stories, and let me just make it very clear, the woman who has a demon who can help her tell the future, she's not the main focus of the story, she's the catalyst. The story resolves around her, but the main focus is actually on her owners and the whole city, and their response to the gospel. A demon has possessed this woman, She now has a certain power and is bringing her owners much money. Now, what happens next? Again, this is why God's ways are mysterious. She starts following Paul as he's going to proclaim the gospel day after day. She's following him saying, hey, these guys are from the God Most High. They're telling you the way of salvation. Why is a woman possessed by a demon doing that? And why is Paul annoyed by it? That sounds like good advertising to me. I'm just saying, I don't understand what's actually happening right now. It may be that she's mocking, and maybe there's a mockery to it, because Paul does get annoyed, and he says, enough. He casts the demon out of the woman. I commend, look at verse 18. It's important to see this. The man who Christ has sent to do this work, Christ has empowered to do the work. I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And it came out that very hour. Now again, she's the catalyst to what really is the main focus. Notice what happens next. Her owners, they, verse 19, her owners, they saw that their hope of gain was gone. So they seized Paul and Silas and they dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. When they brought them to the magistrates, they said, these men are Jews. They're disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. Now, these are interesting accusations because they're not really entirely true in terms of motivation. They're not coming to the city and saying, hey, these guys helped a slave girl who had a demon and now we're out of money. They did not want to say what was actually really happening because that makes them look pretty selfish. No, they universalize it. They make a general truth. These men have come and they're introducing things that are against what we normally do here in our city. And Luke, he does not always give us all the information. He didn't tell us the message Lydia got. But here it appears that as soon as these men spoke, the magistrates said yes, the crowds came in and they start beating them with rods. They throw them into jail. The crowds join in. We see that for the most part there's a large rejection of the gospel. Paul had been proclaiming the way of salvation for many days. This woman had been walking around saying, he's here to proclaim the way of salvation, and here we see an entire city rejecting these men in the gospel. What we see in this story is a closed heart. What we see in this story are people who have not had an opened heart. They're closed off to God, and this is scary. They're so preoccupied with their own sinful pursuits that they're not here, they're not listening. There's a way of salvation. No, they're upset that they didn't get their money. They didn't get their way. We see here a self-interest that controls us. It's very scary. I found a Christian this morning. I wanna make a fairly bold statement. Your lack of faith is not because God has not given you enough evidence. The Bible, God's Word, where He tells us what is true, says He's given you enough to hold you accountable. You should be able to recognize that there is one God and that you should honor Him and give thanks to Him. He's given you now. You're in a church. You can take that Bible home with you. And you can read the Gospel of Mark. And you can hear about Jesus, God's Son, coming to die and rise again. There is enough information for you to believe. Your lack of faith is not a matter of how clever you are in terms of your intellectual questions. No, it's your heart. Because whenever we turn to God, we do lose something. We lose that mission of self-interest. We lose that overwhelming sense of love of self as the lone rule of our life, and we learn that, no, loving God and loving our neighbor is a new rule. Don't let your love of self keep you from receiving the greatest thing you'll ever receive, and that is the love of God. Christian, I want to warn us that this kind of self-interest doesn't go away altogether at salvation. Remember there are two great commandments, love God and love your neighbor. And remember the qualifications are love God with all your heart, your strength, love him supremely is a qualification. God says love your neighbor as yourself. Notice in Scripture you're never commanded to love yourself. Kind of already assumed. Again, that's what's happening here. There's already a self-interest. There's already an inborn self-interest. The problem is we usually just stay focused on that love of self. And love of self demonstrates itself in self-righteousness and self-pity. There's a broad spectrum of self-love. And as Christians, what we're supposed to do is realize that this self-love is dangerous. And we've been called to something much higher. A love for God. A love for our brothers. That self-love, it needs to be put in its proper order. That loving God is supreme love. Self-love is dangerous unless it is underneath our love for God. So we see Lydia. She believes, or she has an open heart. She's baptized. We see these men in the city. They have a closed heart. They punish Paul and Silas. Now we have a third instance, we have a third event. About midnight, it's late at night, Paul and Silas, they're not complaining, they're not grumbling. They're praying and singing. They've received an unjust beating. They've been falsely accused, they're in prison, they're praying and singing hymns to God. And all the prisoners are listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake. This is very similar to the event with Peter. Luke is trying to show us that Peter and Paul, they're proclaiming the same gospel and these stories are very similar intentionally. The foundation of the prison were shaken. The doors were all open and everyone's bonds were unfastened. And the jailer who had been asleep, he woke up. And then he seeks to commit suicide, because he knows that the penalty for him losing his prisoners is death. And Paul says, do not harm yourself, we're all here. And he brought it to light, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Verse 30, we see somebody asking the right question. Now, how this jailer knows to ask this question? Maybe he's been around the town as this woman's walking around saying, these guys are here to proclaim the way of salvation. He knows who he has there in his watch. He knows what's happened to them at some level. He knows the right question to ask, most importantly. What must I do to be saved? Paul's answer, believe in the Lord your God. Jesus. If you're a child, that's your phrase to write down for today. If you're an adult, that's your phrase to write down for today. That's it, write it down. Believe in the Lord Jesus. You will be saved. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved. This is the good news. As I tried to articulate earlier, God has done everything we need to be saved. All we have to do is look up and say, I believe you. I believe I'm as sinful as you say I am. I believe that your Son did what He came to do. I believe you are who you say you are. I believe. It is just that simple because of how much suffering Christ accomplished for us by taking our sin on Himself. It isn't simple for God because of the great work He did, but He made it that simple for us. Now here's this statement that could be confusing. Verse 31. Believe in the Lord Jesus, you will be saved. That's very clear. Jailer, what do you need to do to be saved? Believe. What does Paul mean by you and your household? I want to correct this because some have said here it may be that Paul is saying that if you're born to Christian parents, you also can be saved even though you don't believe. That has been taught. And that is horribly, dangerously wrong. No one is ever saved apart from them believing in Jesus Christ themselves. It is very important, children, for you to hear this clear message. You do not get a free pass on your parents' faith. You are called to believe in Jesus Christ. Being born into their bloodline does not save you. Being born again from above because you believe the blood of Christ washes you, that's how you're saved. It's very important that you do not presume upon the grace of God because you're in a home that you'll be saved. Now praise God your parents are proclaiming the gospel to you. Praise God that you have that benefit. But remember the Jews, that was their benefit. In the Old Testament, the Jews, their blessing was they had the Word of God, but guess what? They rejected it. They refused it. They didn't believe it. You have the blessing of hearing the Word of God. Do not refuse it. Believe. Parents, I want us to be called to pray and proclaim and trust God in our raising of children. It really is too easy for different parents to view their children in different ways. Some look and see their sin too easily and quickly and say there's no way they're a Christian. Or some hear the confession of faith and too quickly want to say, yes, let's confirm their salvation. It can be very confusing and difficult for a parent because we love our children. We see their sin and we also want to just hope for their salvation. And I want to tell you the good news is that this is why God gave you a church. Trying to make a disciple out of a child is very difficult. Trying to discern when a child is a disciple is very difficult. This is why God gave you a church. To have witness to your children, to pray for your children, to help instruct your child, to be able to confirm the conversion of your child. We can debate over that idea that it takes a village to raise a child, whatever that may mean. Something that's very clear in scripture, it takes a church to make a disciple. It takes a church to make a disciple. And so I praise God for all of you and how you are seeking to help me make disciples of my children. His whole house. comes to the jail, the jailer's, somehow the family finds out about what's happened, they come to the jail, notice that everybody in his household, this would include his children and his servants, they're all taught the word of God, and in response, they were baptized. Later on, after the same night, this is a very busy night, they go back to the jailer's house, they eat, and notice that the entire household rejoices. that shows the importance of our families and the power of the gospel to save. Now, all right, I want to just say for a moment, you might have wonders, okay, household baptisms. For fun, because I had extra time this week, I wrote a three-page paper on household baptisms. If you want it, you can request it and we'll talk about it. That's how we have fun. We're not getting into it this morning. Verse 35, again, I kind of want to say Paul's ways are mysterious right here. When it was day, again, that was a long night, a lot happened, to the glory of God, the Magistrate sent the police saying, let those men go. We're not sure what caused this change, but here they're saying, let them go. The jailer reported these words to Paul, and Paul says, the magistrates have sent to let you go, and saying to Paul, the magistrates have sent to let you go, therefore come out now and go in peace. But Paul said, this is interesting, they have beaten us publicly, uncondemned men who are Roman citizens and have thrown us into prison. And do they now throw us out secretly? No. Let them come themselves and take us out. I really can't wait to find out what's going on right here. So Paul, he actually has a complaint in the midst of being set free from prison. You're not going to set me free secretly. Magistrates, you had us publicly You had us condemned publicly in a completely phony trial where only those who had a complaint against us were heard. This was inappropriate, and then he drops the bomb on them. Oh, and by the way, we're Roman citizens. What you did was completely illegal, and the Roman government and their great Roman power, they're behind us because what you did is completely inappropriate for a Roman citizen. You could not beat a Roman citizen like that. Now let's go back in time. Paul could have said that at the meeting. Paul could have told them, you can't do this, I'm a Roman citizen, and everything would have stopped. But Paul didn't claim his right at that moment. I don't know why, I don't know why Paul did it, but we know this, a Roman jailer is now worshiping Christ forever because Paul did not defend himself and claim his rights in the midst of that. To the glory of God. I don't know if Paul knew what he was supposed to be doing there, but we know Paul did not claim his right. Now there's a jailer who's in heaven forever, but here he's saying, you're not going to get away with this. You're going to come and give us a public exit. They're asked not to come back to the city. They go to Lydia's and then they depart. As we conclude, let's step back. God has led his witnesses by the Spirit of God to go where he wants them to go, to go and proclaim the good news to those he has already called to himself so that he can open their heart when they hear the gospel. There's three responses. The Gentile woman, she believes and is baptized. It's a very simple account. The slave owners, they lose money and they stir up trouble for those proclaiming the gospel because they have a closed heart. And then the guard at the jail, he believes and he is baptized. All three are sinners who can only be saved by the grace of God. All three are sinners whose God's grace is sufficient, but only two of their households were saved. I just want to step back further and say we can be encouraged this morning. This story started out with a church conflict, Paul and Barnabas. We can look back and say, in the midst of a church conflict that separated Paul and Barnabas, Christ is still risen, he's still on his throne, he's still in control, and he's still about his same mission, saving sinners. We can be encouraged that in the midst of a government that persecuted Paul, Christ is still risen, he's still on his throne, and he's about his purposes, saving sinners. His purposes are good. They're good for us. He's with us. He's for us. We can trust Him. We can obey Him. We don't have to know everything that's going on to simply look up and say, we know, Father, that You have loved us, and nothing happens outside of Your will, and all things work for the good of Your people. It's called faith without sight, because we don't always understand everything that's happening. We can't know one thing. God's love is certain. We can look to that by seeing Christ and his death for us. We can look to him and we know that we can trust him, that he is orchestrating all things for his glory and for our good. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this example of faith that we see in Paul and in his missionary partners. We thank you for the demonstration of your great grace that was powerful to save, that was powerful to protect Paul and Silas. We thank you, Lord, that you call us into ministry, you help us endure through suffering, you bring about a grace that makes your name great. And then you simply call us to faith, to trust you. to trust you by not always knowing every answer, but by trusting you because we know that you are always up to good. Thank you that we get to have that kind of faith, and I pray that you would help us in our weak faith. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.