We Pray For Unbelievers
Pastor Marq Toombs • October 18, 2020
Sermon Overview
ACTS 16:11–15
Just as Jesus prayed for unbelievers, so too should we pray for unbelievers. In Acts 16 we are reminded how the kingdom of God advancing into the lives of those around us is the engine that drives the mission and purpose of the church. We are to be a people devoted to God’s mission which means we too must pray for non-believers.
Sermon Transcript
The grace and peace be with you from the Lord Jesus Christ. It is good to be with you this Lord's Day. And before we get into our story today, I just I was thinking about how things started with us over the last year. In case you're new around here, it was about a year ago that I started coming on a regular basis to Rockwall Pres, and I want to extend an apology to you because I think I might have done something a year ago that triggered the events of the last year. If you are familiar with the butterfly effect, you know that a butterfly, this theory is a butterfly can flap its wings somewhere on the other side of the world and trigger a hurricane or some other terrible disaster.
Well, if you recall last year about this time I opened the sermon by asking you if you had taken time to listen to Kanye West new album. And I don't know if you did that, but in the ensuing months we've had a pandemic and Kanye is now running for president. You can pencil him in if you'd like, I don't wanna take credit for that, but I will take the blame in case any of you feel strange about the last year.
2020 has been a crazy time for so many of us. And the fact that you are here today is a testament to God's grace that is at work in your life. And while there are many other places you could go and gather with God's people, we are thankful that you have chosen to come here on this day and we want to make the most of your time. And one of the things we like to do is invite you to come into a story with us. And so we are walking through different stories in the Bible. And one reason we do that is not just to give you a history lesson about what God used to do and the way the world used to be. One of the things we do is invite you into the story so that you can see that the more things change, the more they remain the same.
And today we're going to enter into a story in the book of Acts chapter 16, where we're going to encounter a lot of people who are quite like us. You're gonna see yourselves in the story. You're gonna see your neighbors and friends in the story. And hopefully in the midst of all of that you will see the Lord Jesus Christ, the savior of the world in this story. The story opens in this way, the apostle Paul has been trying to go to different places to preach the gospel. And somewhere along the way he received a vision of a man from Macedonia, from a different part of the world. And so he concluded that God was calling him to take the gospel to that part of the world. And so he travels over land and sea, hundreds of miles are covered, to go to this place called Philippi, which is in Macedonia. Philippi is a city. And he gets to the city and he's weary and he needs to rest. And it's the Sabbath day. And so he's resting on that day, but he's looking for a place to pray because there's a big city here.
It's a Roman colony, there's a lot going on, military presence. And he needs to figure out who this man from Macedonia is, how is he going to find him? The Apostle Paul did what his forefathers had done, as he devoted himself to prayer. And so he found a place down by the riverside so he could pray. And keep in mind, he is looking for this man from Macedonia. And when he gets to the riverside to pray, first thing he does is he encounters a group of women. And within that group of women he encounters a woman named Lydia. Lydia is a God fearing woman. She searches for God. She has a heart for God. She doesn't know anything about Jesus, but she is pointed in the right direction. She and Paul get into a conversation. Paul tells her the story about Jesus. She puts her faith in Jesus. And then Lydia along with all the members of her household are baptized and they become the core of the church in Philippi. They are the first members of this church plant that has just happened in the city of Philippi.
Paul is still looking for this man from Macedonia. And so day after day he goes out in the city. He goes to the place of prayer, back to the city, back to the place of prayer. And along the way he encounter some trouble. It turns out there is a young girl there who is a fortune teller. She has some kind of spirit by which she can see things about people's lives. She can tell what's happening in the world around her. And she begins to try to get ahead of Paul's story for him. So in a way she's acting like a hide man, but it almost feels like fake news because she is yelling and screaming to everyone who will listen that Paul is here, that he is a servant of the most high God and he's come to tell you the way of salvation in Jesus Christ. She's telling that story in a way that does not make it attractive or appealing to anyone, because in a way that spirit is scoffing and making fun of what Paul is doing. But on the other hand, God is working through that proclamation that she makes. After several days of that, Paul is very annoyed by what she's doing and he decides to rebuke the spirit in the young girl and drives the spirit away. And now the young girl is just a normal young girl. The man who had taken hold of her and made her work for them realize that their way of making money is gone. 'Cause she was out there selling snake oil so to speak on their behalf and they were making money off of this.
And you begin to see in the city of Philippi that the gospel is shaking things up. It's changing the economy, it's affecting people's lives. The men who lost their livelihood because of what Paul had done, decide to turn against Paul, and they get the whole city riled up and the civic leaders get involved. And now Paul is in real trouble and so much trouble that he is arrested, beaten, and then cast into prison. Along the way, keep in mind the Apostle Paul is looking for this man from Macedonia. Remember, that's why he came. In the vision the man had said, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." I wonder personally at what point the Apostle Paul thought, "Maybe that was just a nightmare. Maybe it was just a dream. Maybe it was just I ate some bad enchiladas or something. Where is the man from Macedonia? Does he even exist?"
When you think about the story and here, Paul, is looking for this man, but so far he's only encountered women, Lydia and her household and a young slave girl who was a fortune teller. The men that he's met in this story so far are antagonistic and hostile to his preaching, to his ministry. They don't want anything to do with Jesus or with him. And he finds himself in a jail cell. Now what does this have to do with our series on prayer?
Over the last several weeks we have been encouraging the members of this congregation to pray God down. It's a figure of speech, God is with us. God dwells among us, but we're asking God to come down and draw near in different ways as we want him to help us as we engage our community with the story of Jesus, as we go out looking for ways to help people all around us. We're praying God down. We're doing what we see our forefathers do. Paul began his gospel mission in Philippi by praying. And he went back to that place of prayer many times. Why did he pray? Well he prayed because gospel mission begins and ends with prayer. It's our way of saying to the Lord and to each other, "We don't have the resources. We don't have the strength. We don't have the skill or the stamina to do what you've called us to do. So we're asking you to come and help us in this gospel mission. To point us to the people around us who need you the most and whose hearts you have opened to receive the story of Jesus."
So we're asking God to show us the way and we're asking him to show us the way so that we can help show others the way to Jesus. So Paul is praying the way his forefathers did. Way back in the Old Testament Abraham, our forefather in the faith prayed for the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah that God would show mercy on them and not bring his judgment upon those cities. We also see that Solomon prayed in his day that God would hear the prayer of the foreigner, that God would hear the prayer of the outsider who found his way to the house of the Lord. And then God would hear from heaven the prayer that those outsiders were praying that the God would receive them into his community and into his family. Last week we heard Jesus pray that God would grant faith to those who would hear the testimony of the apostles.
And so Jesus prayed for unbelievers and not yet believers like us. And we're here today because of the prayers of Jesus and because of the prayers of parents and friends and others who have come into our life and had showed some kind of concern for us. Think about what's happening in this story. The Apostle Paul has been praying and seeking, searching for the man from Macedonia, but he finds himself in the middle of the night in a jail cell. And we didn't read this in the passage of scripture before the sermon, but it's in the same chapter. You could go read the details later on but the gist of it is this. Paul is in a dark place. It's the middle of the night. He's singing Psalms. He's praying with his coworker Silas.
And in the middle of the night and in the depths of that darkness, there is an earth shaking experience. An earthquake happens, the jailer who undoubtedly played some role in the beating of Paul, whether he actually beat Paul or not, whether he actually had a hand in that or not. We don't know. But what we do know is the jailer was responsible for bringing Paul and his companion deep into the cell of the prison and locking their feet in stocks. So he played a role in putting them in prison. He was doing his duty as an officer of the law and fulfilling his responsibilities as someone on the police force in that day. In the middle of the night the earth shakes, the singing stops, the prayers end, torches are brought in. And this man comes looking for the prisoners, the jailer is looking for the prisoners. Imagining, assuming that they're all gone he decides, "This is the moment when my life is over." And he brings himself to the point of a sword to end his own life. And it was in that moment in the darkest hour of the night that out of the darkness, Paul like a light shining in darkness, yells to the man, "Don't harm yourself, we're here." And they get into a conversation.
And for the first time since Paul arrived in Philippi, he has a chance to talk to the jailer. For the first time he has been in jail he has a chance to have a conversation with the jailer. For the first time in the story, he finally meets the man for Macedonia. If there was anyone in the story that needed help, it was this man. And what the man had said and the vision was, "Come over here and help us, not just help me, but come help us." He had his own concern at heart, but he also had the concerns of his community. It was a place where the name of Jesus had not been preached. It was a place where people were in desperate need of salvation, where mercy needed to be brought to bear on life. And here is a man who was at his wit's end, he's at the end of the fear and frustration of his life, and he's ready to end it all, thinking that all was lost. He asked a question to Paul, prompted only by his experience with perhaps what he had heard. I mean, news travels fast in a city like that.
Why was this man beaten? Why was this man in prison? Why were so many people against him? Undoubtedly the jailer had heard the reports that this man Paul was in fact proclaiming the Lord Jesus Christ and showing the way of salvation. He heard them singing Psalms. He heard their prayers. And there was something about this experience of the Word of God and the singing and praying of God's people that began to work on the jailer's life. And so the Apostle Paul could say to him when the man asked, "What must I do to be saved?" The apostle Paul could say to him, "Trust in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household."
And there's a turn in the story as the man begins to demonstrate a change of attitude, a softening towards Paul, an openness to the gospel. And after much more teaching and conversation, the man invites Paul to his house and he washes his wounds and takes care of him. And that night this man along with his household were baptized and received into the church. What do we see happening here? We see that in God's providence, in God's purpose and plan for Paul's life, Paul was placed in the right place at the right time. Now we might not like the way he got there. We might not like the way that the Lord led him across land and sea, over hundreds of miles, the way the Lord led him through a community of women and then led him to the household of Lydia and had him encounter the slave girl in the street and have the big conflict and blow up in the marketplace. But God used all of that experience to bring Paul to that moment where he could finally meet the man from Macedonia. Here's a man who needs help, he's representative of the whole community around him who desperately needs help. So think of what happens here. Paul begins his mission in Philippi at a place of prayer. He ends up finding the man he is looking for in the darkness of a prison cell. He prayed and then he took up his cross and followed Jesus into the hardest parts of that community.
You remember playing the game when you were a kid? You know, colder and hotter, or colder, warmer, hotter. Do you remember playing that game? Somebody would hide something from you and send you to find it. And then you would go looking for it. You'd move this way and they'd say, "Colder, colder," and you move this way, "warmer, warmer." And then as you're getting closer, you get hotter and hotter. I imagine you're reading the story that that's exactly what was going on in Paul's life. Colder, colder. He meets a few women. He meets Lydia, getting him warmer, meets the slave girl, goes to the marketplace, getting hotter, and things did heat up. And he ends up in a prison cell. Sometimes we think the circumstances of our lives are indicative of whether God is blessing us or cursing us, whether God is actually in control or out of control. Did he blink, did he shrug? Did he forget about us for a moment?
We might judge the ebb and flow of our life and say that when things are going very well according to our perspective and understanding, well, then God must be with us. But when things are getting very hard and difficult, then we might say, "Well, God must have abandoned us." And notice that in Paul's life it's the exact opposite. God is with him every step of the way and he never gives up hope in the Lord. Even in that dark and difficult time of his ministry he continues to press into that share in the suffering of Jesus. Why? Because God has sent him on mission to find someone. God has sent him on mission to find someone.
I wanna remind you friends and brothers and sisters. I wanna remind you that gospel mission never comes cheap and easy for any of us. It never comes without risk. It never comes without cost. There's always a cost or risk involved. So I wanna pose a few questions to you just by way of kick-starting some reflection and meditation in your own life. What are some risks that you are willing to take for the people in your community that need your help? What are hardships that you are willing to endure for people in your community or in your circle that need help finding the way of salvation in Jesus Christ? What kind of humiliation and shame might you suffer for people in your circles that need your help? What sacrifices are we willing to make as a church for people in our community that need help finding the Lord Jesus? What services are we willing to render to offer to people in our community that need our help? Whatever it is, whatever the answer to that is, we need to know that it begins with a place of prayer.
Now I said to you that we were going to meet some people in the story that are much like us. And I wanna walk you back through bits of that story to show you what I mean. To show you that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Those people are not so different than we are. Do you know any single mothers out there who are working hard to make ends meet? Do you know any single mothers like Lydia who might be business women who are responsible for the welfare of their own family? Of course you do. And some of you are like those women. You need to know that the gospel of Jesus Christ is for you. The gospel of Jesus Christ is for you. God has you on his heart and mind. And he wants you to come into his family along with your family.
Do you know any young people that might be enslaved or addicted to something, that might be trapped in some kind of sin? They might be in an abusive situation. Like the young girl we meet in the story. Do you know anyone like that? Do you young people have any friends who are struggling with dark and terrible things that are wreaking havoc on their life and making things hard for them. Do you have friends that are scoffing Christ and the Christian faith? Do you know people that are being abused or held captive by people who are taking advantage of them in terrible and horrible ways? Your friends and the people you know need to know that Christ is for them. The gospel of grace is for them. And you could play a role in helping them in some way.
Or maybe you are that person and we want you to know that Jesus is for you, that he is the way of salvation. He is the savior. He is the one who can release you from bondage and captivity. He's the one that can set you free from evil and darkness. Do you know anyone like the jailer who was desperate and ready to end it all? Or perhaps you know someone who has already done that, as I know people who have done that. And we're left with the grief and the burden of the sorrow and grief that comes with guilt, that comes with death. Before it's too late, if you know someone in that desperate situation, would do them so much good if you were to say, "Hey, don't hurt yourself, we're here. We're here at 2 AM. We're here when the earth is shaking and things are falling apart. We're here for you. For what it's worth, we're here for you. But more importantly than that, the Lord Jesus Christ is seeking for you. Seeking to rescue you and save you."
Maybe you know some businessmen whose lives have been turned upside down by the economic struggle in our world. And maybe there's anger and frustration with them. There's tension in the marketplace, or people have politicized everything under heaven in these days. And into the midst of that, we have a chance as a community of God's people to shine like lights in the universe, to shine like stars in the cosmos, to show the light of the glory of God and the face of Jesus Christ to people around us. To say, "There is a better way. There's a way out of the darkness. There's a way out of the sorrow and dread. There's a way out of death into life. Why don't you come and hear the story of Jesus?" I want you to think about these things. I wonder who you're gonna meet in the weeks and months ahead. I wonder who you've already met, perhaps a group of women in the teacher's lounge or on mother's day outs. Perhaps a single mother struggling to make ends meet. Young men, young women, desperate people all around us. I wonder who you're gonna meet.
And I wonder how the Lord will use you to shine the light of the grace of God into their lives. We're hoping and praying that he uses you. We're hoping and praying that you don't turn back when things get hard and difficult. When you feel a little bit of embarrassment or shame. We hope you plow forward, press on, bearing the cross of Christ. What's a little bit of shame and embarrassment to suffer when someone's life is at stake? Let's press into the hard places and go to the places of prayer. And from that place of prayer move out in mission into our corner of the world. Let's do this for the life of the world.
Let us pray together.
