Tell Out My Soul

Acts 16:9-15

How do we know that God is working in our lives?
That he’s acting in the world out of love for his children?
Well the story of Lydia and Paul in the reading from Acts is a graphic example of God doing just that. God works in our lives to carry out his plan for our salvation. I read somewhere that coincidences are God’s way of remaining anonymous… but he’s definitely not anonymous here. God’s hand is everywhere in this story. I hope you like geography because there’s going to be a bit of it here. I’ll try to make it interesting for you.

Today’s story takes place in Philippi, Macedonia. Macedonia is just north of Greece and, this is really significant…this is the first place in Europe where Christianity was accepted. It was the gateway through which Paul passed to take his message of the risen Christ to the rest of the world. And the first European convert was Lydia.

Now the introduction of Christianity to Europe was world changing, but the situation that brought it about was in actual fact a very humble event involving two very special people, Paul and Lydia. We hear time and time again, that women at the time of Jesus did not have the same rights as men and their social standing was very low. But here, unlikely as it seems, we have a woman being a key player in this momentous turn of events. God had this all planned out from the beginning. For God’s message to spread to the rest of the world, God had to bring Paul and Lydia together.

Prior to the story we find Paul traveling in Asia Minor (which is modern day Turkey) but the Holy Spirit has forbidden Paul and his disciples to go any further east. We’re told that they tried to go into Bithynia but the Spirit didn’t allow it, so they passed by Mysia and ended up in Troas, just across the sea from Macedonia. This is where the story starts. So right from the beginning we see that the Spirit is already guiding them on the path they’re meant to take. The spirit is pushing them west. We’re not told exactly how the spirit was influencing Paul, whether it was a type of inspiration, intuition or feeling, it’s hard to tell. I can imagine Paul standing on the beach at Troas, looking out to sea, really tired after a long roundabout journey. And his disciples ask him “where to now Paul?” and he looks at them and says, “Look I don’t know, let me sleep on it.”

That night Paul went to sleep and had a vision of a Macedonian man asking him to come to them, so next day Paul and his guys got in a boat, sailed to Samothrace and then went into Macedonia. He knew he was on a mission from God. And when he got there he thought, well, I’ll just go to the biggest town and see how we go. So he decides to go to Philippi, a Roman colony. Paul thought that the best thing to do when he got there was to try and locate other Jews. This was difficult because the town didn’t have a synagogue (there weren’t enough Jews there to warrant building one). But Paul had a hunch. On the Sabbath, he and his disciples went through the city gates and then down to the river where they, “supposed there was a place of prayer.” Paul was making an educated guess here. The river was a place where water would have been available for the Jewish rituals so somewhere along the river, it could have been probable that Jews might gather on a Sabbath. And he was right. He found a small group of women whose practice it was to meet at the river bank to worship. Paul followed his instincts. He preached to the women, Lydia was one of them.

Lydia was a merchant and successful business woman. She’s described as a seller of purple. The purple refers to a purple fabric dye and it was very expensive to produce so only royalty and the wealthy could afford it. So dyers and sellers, like Lydia, were very prosperous. Lydia was actually a long way from home. She was in Phillipi on a sales trip to sell her purple dye. This is where it gets interesting. Lydia’s actual home was in Thyatira. Now Thyatira is in Asia minor, in the direction that Paul had just come from. The spirit had forbidden him to go there. And why? Because Lydia wasn’t at home, she was on her business trip in Macedonia. So at the start Paul had been heading in the totally wrong direction. So God turned Paul west towards Macedonia, to the place where Lydia was. We can see God working in the world and definitely in the lives of these two people. Nothing about this journey was coincidental.

We all know that Paul was called by God, quite literally, in the dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus. Formerly a zealous persecutor of Christians, Paul was deeply changed by his experience of the risen Christ. God also intervened spiritually in Lydia’s case. God had been preparing her soul well in advance for this meeting with Paul.
Lydia wasn’t born Jewish, she was a pagan who previously had her own conversion experience. She worshiped the one true God and she was one of the most devout of God’s children among the Jews. Lydia was far from home and in a foreign land, but she still faithfully observed the Sabbath. Even though there was no building to pray in, she was happy to meet with the other women down by the river. Lydia would have been familiar with the verse in Isaiah describing the “man of sorrows” despised and rejected by others. She worshiped God with the knowledge of the coming Messiah and her mind was prepared for receiving the good news from Paul. The seed was about to fall on fertile ground.

We’re told that the Lord opened her heart. She accepted the teachings and she and her household were baptised. She prevailed upon Paul and his disciples to stay at her place in Philippi. This would have been of immense benefit to Paul’s mission in the west. He had a place to stay and, in all probability, Lydia’s financial backing as well. Later on in Acts, chapter 16, when Paul was released from prison, he went to Lydia’s house because that’s where the Christian community had made their home. If it wasn’t for Lydia’s strength of faith and generous heart, who knows what could have happened to Christianity in the west. For all we know, without God’s hand in bringing Paul and Lydia together, it might have not have even been possible to spread Christianity into Europe. Imagine that… in an alternate reality, you, me, our ancestors may not have been Christian at all.

All of this could not have happened without Paul’s unquestioning trust and faith in God. Not to mention his courage. He didn’t sit there and try to interpret or analyse his vision. He didn’t let his ego or desires get in the way of anything. He took God’s word literally. The Macedonian man in Paul’s dream beckoned him, so what did Paul do? He didn’t think twice, he packed his things and headed for Macedonia, obeying the commands of the spirit all the way.

The spirit moves all around us and through us. But do we listen to the spirit’s instructions? What God wants us to do is clear, if only we let go of our own desires and notions. These only get in the way and muddy the water. To do God’s will we need to empty ourselves of our self and see with unclouded eyes. Paul saw his vision, clearly and with a purity of spirit. A purity that came from a burning will to do what God wanted him to do. And this was no small thing. With respect to spreading Christ’s message, Philippi was going to be a very tough nut to crack. It would have been a very intimidating place, a military city populated mainly by pagans, not many Jews, and under the rule of Rome.

Paul took on this challenge without blinking, so strong was his faith, so clear was his goal. His strength came from the fact that he placed his trust in God. And God’s plan fell into place when Paul met Lydia.

God doesn’t abandon us. He doesn’t leave us to our own devices. God is there every second, with us always. He has a plan for each of us, just like he had a plan for Lydia and Paul. Sometimes we look at life and get confused and we ask ourselves “where is God in all of this?” But this question is not a faith based question. This notion comes from a place of separation. It comes from our own doubt and insecurity. We need to pay attention when God is calling us to the river, we need to hear God’s voice and follow. God knows what is best for us. God opened Lydia’s heart when she listened to Paul’s words down by the river. All we have to do is to be still and let God open our hearts too. Only then can we hear his voice and understand with supreme clarity what he wants us to do, in his holy name. Amen.