Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

Acts 16:23-34

“Songs in the Night”

Rev. Meagan Boozer

This past Monday, John and I put on some special boots- and onto those boots, John attached a snowboard while I attached skis. We got on a chair lift to much higher places, and then we tried to gracefully get back down the mountain to where we started. The sun was shining, it was nearly 60 degrees, and nothing was going to stop us from enjoying this amazing opportunity to be outside in the midst of the Colorado Rockies. Now I can’t say we did all that well. I can’t say one of us didn’t fall down numerous times (even taking me down with him once.) I really can’t say that we weren’t hurting in about every place on our bodies when it was over. But I can say that once we put our skis & snowboard heading down the hill, we had no choice but to go along for the ride. Law of gravity: If you put a slippery thing on a slippery slope, it’s going to go down.

The Apostle Paul, Timothy, Silas and Luke (the writer of the book of Acts) were called in the midst of a dream to go to Europe- specifically to the region of Macedonia. “During the night, Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” (16:9) The Scripture tells us that they put out to sea and sailed straight to Samothrace. The term “sailing straight” is a nautical expression that means the wind was at their backs. They sailed the 156 miles in just two days, whereas returning the other way at a later time (20:6), it took five days.

Contrary to being on the top of a mountain and pointing your skis or snowboard downhill which definitely means you’re going down the hill one way or another, just being out in the water in a sail boat doesn’t mean you’re going to catch a wind. There may not be a wind, or there may be a wind going the wrong way! But, for Paul and company, God’s forces of nature propelled them forward to fulfill a call to go to Macedonia and bring help.

So, here’s the first lesson for us this morning: I believe that when God is calling you and me to do something, and we respond to that call, you will sense the wind of God at your back in a way that confirms for you that you’re on the right path.

I remember planning the first mission to New Orleans last October. All of a sudden, it was a done deal with 16 people on the roster, ready and raring to go. It was so obvious that God was calling us before, during, and after that trip. Can you remember a time when you knew you had the wind of God at your back?

Paul and the other ended up in the port city of Philippi. It was in Philippi that Mark Antony and Octavian defeated Brutus and Cassius in the decisive battle of the 2^nd Roman civil war in 42 B.C. Because of this Philippi was awarded the status of a Roman colony that answered directly to the Roman emperor. The Roman flag flew high and proud in Philippi. Rome didn’t know it, but when Paul and the other evangelists came to shore, the flag of Christianity was about to be unfurled.

According to Jewish law, if there were people of faith in a city, but no synagogue, the faithful were supposed to meet under the open sky near a river or sea. So, when Paul and the others went outside on the Sabbath, they headed to the river to see if the faithful had gathered. There they met a group of women, reciting the Jewish prayers, and reading the Scriptures. There, they discovered that the “man” in Paul’s dream wasn’t a man at all. The one calling for help was a woman named Lydia. Now remember, Paul persecuted Christians before Christ got a hold of him, and as a Pharisee would have prayed the following prayer, “God, I thank you that I am not a Gentile, or a slave, or a woman.” (Some strains of orthodox rabbis still pray this prayer.) Surely Paul carried some of that prejudice against woman around with him even after his conversion. Therefore, I think God caused Paul to see a man in his vision, even though it was a woman, so that Paul would not hesitate to go and help.

Second lesson for this morning: God does this. When he has called you to do a work, he will make sure you see and hear what you need to see and hear in order to keep propelling you forward in that call.

Lydia and her whole family became believers that Sabbath morning as they hear the Good News from Paul and the others. She persuaded them to stay at her house, at great risk to her and to her family.

As the team of evangelists walked around the city, they were followed by a young girl who was demonized. She drew attention to the men by calling out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” No problem, right? I mean, what she said was true. But, this declaration was straight from the pit of hell. The devil loves to twist it. But, even thought they were getting some pretty big crowds to listen to them because of her advertisement, they remembered that every time a demon confirmed that Christ was the Son of God, Jesus rebuked it. Every single time! So they did the same, “I order you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” The demon came out, and she was free. This caused a big ruckus in Philippi. It turns out this girl earned big money for some businessmen in the city because of her metaphysical powers. When they cast out the demon, the girl no longer had these powers, and the men no longer had their source of income. Uh oh.

But do you see how God was working? His wind blew them to Philippi, took them to Lydia whose whole household was baptized and saved, took them out to the street to directly confront the evil intentions of the devil, causing a young woman to be freed and saved, and then blew them right up against the “political powers that be” in the city. God was not messing around here.

Paul and Silas were thrown into prison because they were, “disturbing our city.” The officials who punished them were called lictors in Latin. This is where the expression “getting your licks,” or “getting a licking” came from. Paul and Silas’ backs were reduced to a sticky, swollen mass of lacerated skin and dried blood. Then, they were put in stocks. When was the wind now? And I think we all ask that in times of trouble and sorrow- in those times of wilderness living, as Crystal preached about last week. Well, when we read on, we find that clearly God’s wind (the Holy Spirit) was inside them- and they used the strength of the Lord to praise him even in the midst of their suffering. (The third lesson.)

In the dead of night, with their bodies completely torn up, they sang songs of praise! They prayed! They ministered to the other prisoners who had neither seen nor heard anything like this before! These faithful witnesses didn’t know what was going to happen to them, but they praised God anyway. It reminds me of the three young Jews who stood up to the King Nebuchadnezzar who ordered them to bow down to him and not bow to their God. When they would not do so, he ordered them to be thrown into a fiery furnace. (Daniel 3:16-19):

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”

Paul and Silas sang because they knew God had called them and sent them across the expanse of Asia Minor. They sang because they believed rightly that they were prisoners of Christ and not of Rome. They made the most of this opportunity with a literal “captive” audience to share the gospel. They sang because they knew that if they survived they would be better men afterwards. Phil. 1:29, “For it had been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.”

God’s hear was so blessed by his servants’ praise that he chose to respond with power. God shook the earth enough to open those prison doors and break off the chains.

God’s wind blew into the lives of Lydia and her household, into the life of a demonized young girl, and into the lives of the prisoners and the jailer that night, changing his life and the lives of those in his whole household. All this, because Paul, Silas, Timothy, and Luke, four regular people who put their faith in Jesus Christ, were willing to go where God called them to go, willing to stand for what they believed, and willing to proclaim the truth within them wherever God gave them opportunity.

God always blesses people like this with signs of his strength, his mercy, and with signs of his deep and fulfilling peace.

Twenty-six people have heard the call: “Come down to New Orleans and help us.” I don’t know why we haven’t been called to the other spots hit by the hurricanes yet. I just know the wind is at our backs blowing us, once again, to New Orleans.

When we were there before, our songs in the midst of the stink and destruction touched a man named Richard who is haunted my all he experienced o the New Orleans police force for many years. In his roundabout way, he told us we had planted seeds in his life, by asking us to bring seeds form Pennsylvania to plant in their church prayer garden when we returned. We ministered to people imprisoned by their circumstances who just needed to hear songs and prayers of hope in their midst. We had the wind at our back when we found an engagement ring in the middle of rubble, and when we were given the strength to do hard physical and emotional labor for days on end without losing heart.

Whether you are called to New Orleans, to Camden, N.J. this summer, whether you are called to serve on a board or committee here at the church, to teach Sunday school, be part of the prayer ministry team, the children’s fellowship ministry, greet others when they come for worship, sing in the choir, fix things around the property, mail bulletins, fold bulletins, make food for people in need, visit the sick and lonely, help with the youth group, hold babies, etc., etc., etc., God’s wind, the Holy Spirit, is with you if you are seeking to fulfill his call on your life- and that’s just the ministry of the Church.

God also calls you to do his work at home, at work, at school, on the sports team, in your neighborhood. (Fourth lesson): When you choose to answer to the call to live out what God wants to do through you, allowing him to work out his plan through you, wherever that may be, amazing things can and will happen.

In this period of Lent, it is a time for us to take a good, hard look at IF, and HOW we are responding to God’s call on our lives. Do not think that God is not calling YOU. God IS calling you, because God know that just being saved for eternal life doesn’t really change our lives all that much. It is what we do for the Lord in response to his gift of salvation for us that really, really makes a difference for the church right here, and for the Church out there (in the world.) Jesus gave up everything so that you and I would be able to respond to God’s faithfulness to us. Ben M. Herbster wrote, “When the true meaning of the crucifixion dawns upon us, then the whole sordid, bloody, painful death shall make us tremble before its glory.”

With trembling hearts, may we put our sails up, so that we can sail straight to those places and those people who are calling out for the help that only God through God’s people can give. Amen.

312-2006

Upper Path Valley Presbyterian Church

3-12-2006