Jacob Eichers, Series C – Easter 6

On this Memorial Day weekend, many of us are traveling. My wife and I leave for a vacation tomorrow. Some of you may be guests from out of town who took time during your travels to join us for worship. Others of you may be traveling and watching the livestream of the service, thank you for taking time during your travels to listen to God’s Word.

One key feature of modern travel is the GPS. Sometimes, we use the GPS to navigate places we already know how to get to, but we like the confidence of knowing we’re on the best route. A classic example is traveling through Chicago. A GPS might encourage us to go through Chicago on 94 or around it on 294 depending on the traffic.

One nice feature of the GPS is that it recalculates when you take a wrong turn. The GPS never says to get out of the car and lay on a lawn and cry—even when you might feel like doing so—there’s always hope to turn around and get to the right destination.

Paul was on his second of three missionary journeys. We read just a few verses earlier, “And when they had come up to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them.” We should add that the Spirit of Jesus is synonymous for the Holy Spirit. Eventually, a Macedonian speaks to him in a dream and urges him to come to Macedonia. In a time before GPSs, talk about a course correction! Today we learn, THE HOLY SPIRIT CORRECTS OUR COURSE BY CALLING, ENLIGHTENING, AND SANCTIFYING US THROUGH PRAYER, WORD, AND SACRAMENT.

First, I. The Holy Spirit uses prayer to keep our eyes on the road. Sometimes when I drive, I turn off sound on the GPS so I can listen to my audiobook or my music without the interruption of every little turn. Often that works out just fine, but occasionally I’ll miss a turn, and my trip will take longer as the GPS works to correct course.

In our lives we have a destination in mind. Whether or not it’s written down, many of us have a five-year plan. In five years, we see ourselves graduated and at our first job. We see ourselves having to change less diapers. Maybe we see ourselves changing more diapers, especially if we plan on spending more time with young grandchildren! On the life GPS, Many of us have charted a course for promotions and retirement.

It’s hard to know what Paul and Silas expected from the second missionary journey, but I’d venture a guess they weren’t expecting a visit in a dream from a Macedonian man. Their trip took them from Turkey to northern Greece, and they visited the city of Philippi. Their mode of operation was first to go to a synagogue to tell Jews their savior had come. Synagogues were formed when ten Jewish men gathered together because the tithes from those men could support a rabbi. Philippi didn’t have a big enough Jewish population to support a rabbi!

Instead, they went down by the river to find a place of prayer. Paul went down to the river, and he looked for a place of prayer because those who pray are trying to listen to God’s calling in their lives.

We see Paul and Silas’ faithfulness and ability to run with God’s plan, not theirs. Prayer was a key part of their ministry. The word “pray,” “prayer” or “praying” is mentioned 46 times in Paul’s letters, and he encourages his hearers to pray. One such example is from Colossians 4:2, “Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.” In another place he encourages the Thessalonians to “pray without ceasing.”

Prayer is God’s way to help keep our eyes on the road. We can get so stuck in our ruts of how we think things should be. These can be both perfectly fine things such as the road trip of having aspirations for the future, but it can also be the daily commute of habitual sins that we can’t imagine life without. Prayer opens our minds to something outside of ourselves—I should say—someone outside of ourselves.

One of the most famous prayers is the prayer that the Lord taught us and in this prayer we pray, “Thy will be done.” It is in prayer that the Holy Spirit bends our will to His. And it is in prayer that we can see that the detours, missed turns, and road construction of life can be the Lord giving us an opportunity to grow even in adversity.

Prayer is talking to God, but what about the Lord talking to us? The Lord doesn’t primarily speak to us through dreams or other signs. II. The Holy Spirit calls and enlightens by the Word and Sacrament. We see that even as Paul went down by the river, the Lord had an opportunity for him and his missionary team. They speak to the women down by the river. We then read, “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.”

The Bible teaches that it is the Lord, not ourselves, who are responsible for our salvation. Luke tells us that “The Lord opened [Lydia’s] heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.” Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you…” Salvation is a one-way street, and it is the Lord who drives to us, not the other way around. The technical term for this is monergism. Literally, the work of one. It means that God alone works our salvation. He does this through the Word and Sacrament.

The way that He reaches us is through His Word preached to us and His sacraments delivered to us. Many of us were baptized as infants, and in that miracle, the Word of God mixed with water brings us forgiveness, life, and salvation.

We might take a moment to note that Lydia’s whole household was baptized when the Lord opened her heart to believe. It doesn’t say, the whole household minus the kids. We have every reason to believe that the missionaries baptized the children and infants in Lydia’s household.

Perhaps others of us were brought to faith as older children or as adults. In which case, we could name the friend, the relative, or the person who first invited us to church, or sat down with us and talked to us about Jesus.

What a great gift it is that our salvation is not anything we accomplished, it was by the grace of God that we have our sins forgiven. Jesus took the wheel, so to speak, not just to give us helpful tips like a GPS, but to turn our car one hundred and eighty degrees out of destructive sin habits and even giving our lives course corrections toward a better path in life, even if it wasn’t anything we could have dreamed of.

We can be so timid about sharing our faith. We pray for our loved ones and friends that they would come to faith, and certainly the Lord is powerful and gracious to send others in their lives just as He was merciful to Moses to send Aaron to speak for Him. However, could it be that the person He is calling to share with an unbeliever the hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus is you?

Saved by grace alone, the Lord then calls us to serve others. III. The Holy Spirit sanctifies us to serve others. We see this with Lydia. After she was baptized Luke records, “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.” Likewise, Jesus said, “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” Jesus choosing you leads to us bearing fruit. The famous Ephesians verse “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,” goes on to conclude, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

This summer, we’re going places, and God wants us to make the most of the journey, not just the destination. Wherever you are, you can serve others. Whatever happens, you can share the love of Jesus with those around you.

I was encouraged of a story of a Christian man to whom I ministered who was able to make the most of a bad situation, even hospice. His wife mentioned to me that he was able to make friends even with the hospice nurses who cared for him as he was dying.

I was inspired by Elizabeth’s birthday party. We had a birthday party at a park last month. The Junkins were bold to invite strangers playing at the playground to share in the cupcakes, lemonade, and refreshments they served. I don’t think the Lord brought anyone to faith that day, but this part of the bigger picture of serving others and being inviting to the people that life brings to you.

There’s no shortage of ways in which the GPS could bring detours in our lives, but as we use each setback as an opportunity to speak to God in prayer and to listen to His voice in the Bible, the Lord will work to bring much fruit in our lives and we’ll find that even if our destination wasn’t what we thought when we set out, it was much better than anything we could have imagined.

Paul’s missionary journey to Phillipi was not without fruit. A congregation was established there after they interacted with Lydia, a jailer, and many others. In fact, Paul would later write a book of the Bible, the Epistle to the Philippians, which has encouraged Christians for centuries. As we go on our journeys this summer, we can go with courage, knowing that we have Christ going with us and guiding us.