Divine Detours: How Closed Doors Lead to Greater Opportunities
Join Pastor Josh Massaro in this enlightening sermon as he delves into the theme of God's guidance through closed doors and redirected paths. The main focus of the discussion is on Acts 16, where Paul experiences divine prohibitions as he attempts to preach in Asia, only to find himself led to Troas and ultimately to Macedonia. Through these events, Pastor Josh emphasizes the importance of recognizing that God's "no" can be just as significant as His "yes," guiding us toward His greater plans for our lives. The sermon encourages listeners to trust in God's timing and to understand that obstacles may lead to divine opportunities. Ultimately, the message is a reminder that following God's direction, even when it diverges from our own desires, can lead to powerful and unexpected outcomes for the sake of the gospel.
This engaging podcast episode offers a deep dive into the spiritual journey of the Apostle Paul, focusing on his second missionary journey as outlined in Acts 16. Pastor Josh Massaro artfully navigates through the complexities of divine direction, emphasizing the importance of recognizing and accepting closed doors as a means of divine guidance. As Paul endeavors to preach in Asia, he encounters several barriers set by the Holy Spirit, leading him to Troas, where he receives a critical vision calling him to Macedonia. This moment not only signifies a geographical shift but also represents a pivotal expansion of the Christian faith into Europe.
Pastor Josh draws parallels between Paul’s experiences and the contemporary Christian’s journey, underscoring how God’s closed doors can redirect us to greater opportunities than we originally sought. He articulates that, while individuals often seek open doors as affirmations of their plans, the reality is that God's timing and purpose may lead them down unexpected paths. The narrative encourages listeners to reflect on their own lives, particularly in times of disappointment or uncertainty, and to embrace the notion that God’s plan is ultimately for their good, even when it doesn’t align with their immediate desires.
The episode culminates in a powerful message about obedience and faith. Pastor Josh shares anecdotes of missionaries who faced similar challenges, reinforcing the idea that obedience to God’s direction can lead to remarkable outcomes, often beyond what we can foresee. With a call to action, he encourages the congregation to remain sensitive to the Holy Spirit’s leading, urging them to trust in God’s overarching plan. This episode serves as a rich resource for anyone exploring their faith journey, offering both encouragement and practical insights for navigating life’s uncertainties with confidence in God’s guidance.
Takeaways:
- God often closes doors in our lives to redirect us toward His greater plans.
- Just as God opens doors, He also closes them for a purpose and guidance.
- When faced with closed doors, we must remain open to God's new directions.
- The safest place to be is within God's will, even if it's unexpected.
- Paul's desire to preach was redirected by the Holy Spirit for a greater mission.
- Understanding that God's no can lead us to unexpected and fruitful opportunities is crucial.
Thank you for joining our podcast. Visit our website at https://middletownbaptistchurch.org/
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This podcast is produced by Ralph Estep, Jr., host of the Ask Ralph Podcast, a daily podcast on Christian Finance you can find it at https://www.askralphpodcast.com/
00:00 - None
00:00 - Introduction to the Podcast
07:21 - God's Guidance Through Closed Doors
11:49 - The Call to Macedonia
17:58 - Understanding God's Guidance
21:59 - God's Plan and Our Direction
Pastor Josh
Hello and welcome to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast, where we are proclaiming the truth to the world.
Pastor Josh
My name is Pastor Josh and I want to thank you for listening to this podcast.
Pastor Josh
I hope that this podcast can be a blessing to you and strengthen you in the word of God.
Pastor Josh
Now come along, let's look into the Bible and see what God has for us here today.
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Amen.
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All right, well, let's go ahead and get right into our Bible study here this evening.
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Acts, chapter 16.
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We're going to pick up where we left off last week.
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Last week we saw the relationship between Paul and Timothy begin.
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And Timothy, a young man born of a Jewish mother and a Gentile father.
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And we see that Paul invests into his life and there's that wonderful dynamic of discipleship.
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And the challenge was for us to find Timothy to disciple and also to be a Paul to somebody.
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And that would be a challenge for all of us, but also to be a Timothy to somebody else, learn from other people.
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And we see that at the end of verse five, they went out and they were establishing churches, establishing in the faith, increasing in number daily.
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And so this is Paul's second missionary journey.
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And we're going to see something very interesting here in this passage tonight.
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We're going to start in verse number six, Acts 16, verse six.
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And we're going to see something that we don't always talk about.
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And that is when a door is closed in our life, a lot of times we talk about doors opening and God working and making new paths for us.
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And a lot of times we forget that God does open doors.
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Yes, but just as much as he opened doors, he closes doors.
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He redirects.
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A lot of times when we pray or when we ask God to give us something in our lives, we always assume that it's going to be a yes.
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But we know that God's answer sometimes is no.
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Now, certainly sometimes it's wait.
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And it might be a yes later.
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And we have to have patience.
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But there are going to be some times in our life that a loving father will say no to us or at least direct our path a different route.
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And all of us that have been parents have realized the loving care in saying no to certain situations.
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And so when God tells us no, sometimes the challenge is to get upset, to get hard hearted, maybe even to give up.
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But we're gonna see here on Paul's second missionary journey that he had a desire to go somewhere, but yet God said no.
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And then Paul had a desire to go somewhere else and God said no.
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And There's a purpose for that.
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Now, we're not gonna get too much into the purpose of God saying no here tonight, but we are gonna get through that understanding of what it means when God closes the door.
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So look at it there with me.
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In verse number six, it says now when they had gone throughout Phrygia and the region of Galatia and were forbidden of the Holy Ghost to preach the word in Asia, now that kind of baffles our mind because we think, hey, well, if he's going to go preach the gospel, wouldn't God want that?
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Well, certainly God wants us to preach the gospel, but it might be preach the gospel to a different place.
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In that case, he said, no, not right now.
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We don't want you to go to this place that you want to go to.
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And we see that phrase there forbidden of the Holy Ghost.
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And what we can see there is that God closed that door divinely, said no, that's not going to happen.
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Now, we don't know exactly how he said no there.
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Sometimes with us in our life, no is coming through a circumstance or lack of circumstance.
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Maybe no comes through a lack of peace.
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Maybe no comes through something in our lives that hinders us from doing something.
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But we see nonetheless that the Holy Spirit forbade them to go further in the way that they wanted to go.
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And then it said, verse 7, and after they come to Mysia, they essayed to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit suffered or allowed them not.
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So we see a second way in which God doesn't allow them to go where they were intending to go.
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And so we go on further.
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In verse eight, it says, and they passing by Mysia, came down to Troas.
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And so God said no to two different places.
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They wanted to go here, God said no, they wanted to go here.
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God didn't allow that.
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And God led them to a place called Troas.
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And we're going to talk about the significance of that, because here at Troas, God leads them to go to a place called Macedonia.
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And we see it actually happening through a vision to Paul.
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Now, I don't believe that God works in that way with us today.
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I think God speaks through his word.
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But I do know that there are going to be times in our lives that God is going to close the door for a reason and he's going to open a door in another place.
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He's going to lead us to a place in our life that maybe we didn't expect to go, but ultimately it's where he would have us to Go.
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And you've heard this before.
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The safest place to be, the best place to be, is in the will of God, not in our own will.
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And so what we can see here in verse 8 is he leads them to Troas.
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And so after strengthening the churches in the region that they were in, Paul sought to go to the next understandable place, southwest of where they were, to a very important place.
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Yet we see that Paul was forbidden by the Holy Spirit to go there.
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And we know that it's very interesting that this would happen because we would assume that, hey, God doesn't care where we preach, God doesn't care where we serve.
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No, God has a specific purpose for specific people at specific times.
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And so there was certainly nothing wrong with Paul's desire to preach to those people in Asia, but it wasn't God's timing.
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So this was forbidden by the Holy Spirit.
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And so, like I said before, it's difficult to say exactly how the Holy Spirit stopped him, but it may have been through a multitude of different things that could have happened.
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But one way or another, we know that Paul listens.
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We know that he heeds God's closed door here.
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And one of the challenges that I would have for you is this.
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If you feel like God has something for you, and yet you step into that path and God closes the door, there's no shame in that.
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You're not a failure.
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We see Paul having the door shut, and he says, you know what?
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I'm gonna go a different direction.
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I'm gonna go a different path.
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He might not have known the reason for that at that very moment, but we do know that God had a plan for him.
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And so after their attempt to go to Asia, Paul sought to go north to a new place, but again was prevented by the Holy Spirit.
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And so Paul didn't originally set out to go to Troas.
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That was not his original plan.
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But God changed his plans for a purpose.
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And so it was the third choice, at least in this case, for him.
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But it was the Holy Spirit's plan to lead him there.
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And so Paul, in his responsiveness, in his openness to God's plan in his life, was willing to lay down his own will, his own plan for the plans of the Holy Spirit's direction in his life.
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So the true test for us is, are we moving forward in our Christian life with our own whims, our own desires, our own plans?
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Or are we willing to allow God to change our direction, to change our life, to change where we're serving?
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How we're serving what we're doing for him.
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And I'm gonna tell you, that's a hard pill to swallow, because a lot of us, most of us get comfortable with what we know.
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We get comfortable with what we expect in our lives.
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But sometimes God does change that.
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Sometimes God does direct us other places.
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Sometimes God closes doors.
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And so we see that Paul wanted to go to Asia, then he wanted to go to Bithynia.
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But then we see God said, no, you're going to Troas.
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And so Paul was guided, but he was guided by a closed door.
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He was guided by a hindrance.
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And a lot of times we think closed doors and hindrances are negative things.
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I don't know about you, but there's been times in my life where I see something not working and I go, wow, this is a failure.
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But what happened here?
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Paul says, no, this is just an opportunity for me to follow the Spirit over here.
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God's leading me here.
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God's changing me here.
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And what was right here in this case might be different later on.
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And so what I would tell you is this.
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It's about God's timing.
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It's about God's plans.
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And I would say it's this.
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The Holy Spirit does work by open doors.
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But just as much as the Holy Spirit opens doors, he closes doors, and he works the same way.
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And I know that many of you in this room, if you were to go back, let's say, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, you would say, I would have never guessed that I would gone down the path that I'm in right now.
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Or I would have never guessed that this was a trial that I would be facing.
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Or I would never guess that I would be serving in this type of ministry or be in this church or live in this state.
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That's my testimony.
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Would have never thought I would ever be living in Delaware, Right.
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That would just never cross my mind.
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But God works, yes, through circumstances.
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He leads through conviction.
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He leads through comfort.
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He leads through difficulties.
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He leads through hindrances.
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He leads through trials.
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And so what we're seeing here is that God has a divine plan for Paul to go to Troas for a purpose.
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I was reading up on some missionaries, right?
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And I'm like, I was always interested in, like, how a missionary decides to go to a foreign land.
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And, you know, you think about these classic missionaries.
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I don't know if, you know, guys like David Livingston and William Carey and Adoniram Judson.
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I saw a common theme with many of them.
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They had A desire early on for missions, but they had a desire for another place.
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And then through certain circumstances, God called them to go to another country on the other side of the earth, right?
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Maybe one wanted to go to China and God brought them to Africa.
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And we would think, like, why would God want me to go to somewhere totally opposite?
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Well, we know, like in David Livingston's case, God had a wonderful plan for him, for the people there in Africa, but he didn't necessarily know that that was going to be the case.
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And for you, you might not know what God has planned for you, but what we do know is that ultimately we have to submit to him in every which way.
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And so going on, verse nine, this gives us the reason why he was in troas.
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And what was the next step?
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Verse 9.
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And a vision appeared to Paul in the night.
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There stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him or asked him saying, come over into Macedonia and help us.
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So, so Paul now has an opportunity to hear a need in Macedonia.
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Now, I don't believe that this is the typical.
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I don't believe that the exception to the rule is how we should live our lives.
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We shouldn't always be going to sleep every night going, okay, God, are you going to tell me where I should go next in this dream?
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But what we see is that God works.
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And we know that the revealed word of God was not there at this time in the book of Acts.
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So God did use miraculous ways, supernatural ways, to communicate to these individuals, specifically the apostles.
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But we see here that there is a plea for help in Macedonia.
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Now, if Paul would have gone another path and focused on another route, maybe he would not help there in Macedonia.
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But what we see is that there is a great need and there is a plea for help.
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Now, what does Paul do for help?
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Well, Paul knows what to do for help.
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Bring the gospel, right?
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The gospel is always what's going to help a culture, what's going to help civilization, what's going to help the need for people in a land.
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And I'm going to tell you, the answer to our problems is the gospel.
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The answer to our broken world is the gospel.
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You know, a lot of times we think like, well, if, you know, yes, the Bible does say that we should clothe people, that we should feed them.
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But in the name of the gospel of Jesus Christ, okay, if I.
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If someone comes to me and says, hey, I'm hungry, and I give them food and I leave it at that, have I done my job completely in the gospel message of Jesus Christ?
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I don't think so.
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I think we should feed them, and I think we should feed them physically, but we also should feed them spiritually.
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Because what's going to help them temporarily?
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A burger from Burger King.
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Okay, that's going to help them for a day, maybe.
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Okay, if they're really hungry.
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The truth is, though, what's going to satisfy them for eternity?
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The Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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Now, the Bible does say in the Book of James, don't just say, I've got love for you in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And you see him hungry and go, well, all I got is the gospel.
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I can't give you any food.
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Hey, if you got money in your pocket, feed them, right?
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If they need clothing, give them clothing.
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But sometimes we see in our culture today a disconnect between helping people and the gospel.
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Folks, helping people is the gospel.
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That is the element of the gospel.
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But we can't help them completely without bringing the gospel to them.
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And so what Paul does, of course, is that he says, okay, we're going to go verse 10.
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And after he had seen the vision, this next word is so important.
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He didn't wait.
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Okay.
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He didn't say, well, let me figure out what I'm doing here.
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Let me get my ducks in a row.
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Let me make sure all my guys are on board with this.
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No, what does he do?
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It says immediately.
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And then this is so interesting here, because I believe this is where Luke comes into the picture with Paul.
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Because we see from the early stages of this passage, it's like they, they, they.
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And then all of a sudden, verse 10, we see.
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And after he had seen the vision, immediately we endeavored to go into Macedonia.
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Who was the author?
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Well, we know God's the author, but God inspired different human authors.
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And Luke is the author of Acts.
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I believe this is where Luke joins in with Paul in the missionary journey, because he says here we.
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So immediately they endeavored to go into Macedonia.
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And it says here, assuredly gathering, that the Lord had called us for to preach the gospel unto them.
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So they said, hey, there's a need.
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What are we going to do?
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We're going to bring them the gospel.
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So if we want to help Middletown, we want to help Delaware, we want to help the United States, we want to help the world.
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What do we do?
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We bring them the gospel.
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And with the gospel comes the love of Christ.
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With the gospel comes the truth.
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With the gospel comes sacrifice.
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And so Intro asks, God made Paul's direction clear.
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He says, okay.
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It didn't seem like this was working.
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It didn't seem like this is working, but this is what's going to work.
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And so Paul was invited to Macedonia.
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And this moved Paul and his missionary team from one place to another.
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And it was really the first missionary endeavor into Europe.
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And so the wisdom of God, the power of God begins to unfold in Paul's life.
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And in Paul's mind, he wanted to reach a few regions.
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Okay, he wanted to go to these couple places.
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But now God has opened up a bigger door to a whole continent for the gospel of Jesus Christ.
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And so the Macedonian man wanted help.
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What did Paul say?
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Do let's bring him the gospel, the best possible help we could ever have.
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And so the greatest help that anyone can bring anybody is the life changing gospel of Jesus Christ.
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So Paul didn't hesitate, the group didn't hesitate.
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They answered the call in obedience.
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And so this was an example of godly direction, submission, and ultimately God using them in a great way for the gospel.
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And I believe God still calls people to the mission field.
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He may call people in different ways.
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I believe God calls people for certain ministries within the church.
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I believe God calls certain people to stop doing something and moving on to something else.
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And so we don't necessarily know what God's doing.
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And we might not know all the ins and outs of the plan that God has for us in our life, but ultimately what we can do is say, lord, whatever you say, I'm going to do it.
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I remember, I'll never forget.
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And I always share this as an example because it's the only time I made a really big move in my life.
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I lived in Florida from before I was born all the way up to when I moved to Delaware.
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And we were praying about where God would have us ultimately.
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I'll tell you, I'll be so real with you guys tonight.
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My prayer was that I could serve at my home church in Riverview, Florida.
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I was like, man, I want to serve at Providence Baptist Church.
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And I'd go to the pastor and I'd say, hey, Pastor.
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He was my mentor, Pastor Goforth.
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You know, he knows the story.
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I would go to him, I'd say, hey, brother, I want to work here.
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And he's like, hey, I would love for you to have a place.
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I worked there as a Christian school teacher, but I wanted to be a pastor there.
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And he said, hey, that would be great, but we just don't have an opening right now.
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He's like, I can't just make an opening.
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We can't afford to do that right now.
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And I was like, okay, okay.
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And so you know where my next step was.
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I really wanted to branch out.
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I was like, I'm willing to look for churches in my county.
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I was like, so I could still live in the same place.
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I'll go everywhere for you, Jesus.
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I'll even go across town across the railroad tracks and serve over there in that side of town.
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And there were opportunities, but God just closed those doors.
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Nothing worked.
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Then I said, okay, if I'm gonna move anywhere, anywhere.
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What's similar to Florida?
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Well, there's a place called Texas, right?
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It's in the South.
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You get right around the parallel.
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You just go across the Gulf of Mexico.
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And I was like, I'll go to Texas, right?
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So there's a.
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And believe it or not, there was a church in Texas that was talking to me, and it was like, this all works.
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And God closed that door.
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You know, one area of the country I didn't say, like, that's where I want to go.
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It was not the Northeast.
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It was not the mid Atlantic.
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That was never in the forefront of my mind.
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But through circumstances and through God's miraculous plan and through his power, I, you know, saw the doors opening.
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And I can tell you it wasn't like, I'm Paul, going immediately.
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I'm going to jump right through this.
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This is great.
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There was a lot of prayer and a lot of struggles.
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And I'll never forget the day what.
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My parents drove up with us here to Delaware.
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And from the moment that I told my dad that we're considering Delaware, he was like, okay, I support you, and I'm going, like, what does that mean?
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He's not.
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He's not.
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He seems like he's supporting me, but maybe he's not.
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And so then I'll never forget, we were leaving and they were leaving.
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They came up here, they drove us up here.
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They were going to fly out of Philadelphia Airport.
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We were in the parking lot of the hotel there because their flight got canceled.
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They had to stay there at night in the hotel.
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I'll never forget, I'm walking away, and that's the moment that, you know, all the emotions came out.
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And my dad, you know, he embraced me, and that was the moment that was real.
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He's like, okay, because we were best friends, right?
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We hung out every single day.
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And I remember my dad saying something to me.
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It meant a lot to me.
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He said, you know what?
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I never wanted you to go, but I wanted you to be in God's will.
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He's like, that's Why I never wanted to hinder you.
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He's like, if this was God's will, we wanted you to do this.
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But he's like, this isn't easy.
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He's like, I don't want this to happen, but if it's God's will, we're going to support you.
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And that showed me a lot about sometimes in our life, it's not always what we want, but we know that if that's God's plan, we're going to.
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We're going to submit to it, and it's going to be the best plan that we could ever have.
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And folks, I'm going to tell you, there's no regrets in that choice.
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There's no regrets in what's going on.
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And so what I would tell you here in your life is that there's going to be times where God might pull you to a place that you're like, I'm not sure.
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I'm not sure about Macedonia.
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I had a plan to go this way.
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I had an expectation to do this for the rest of my life.
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God might close that door.
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He might take something away.
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He might add something to your life that you never expected.
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Maybe it's a physical ailment.
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Maybe he said, I would have never guessed that I would have to deal with this in my life.
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But yet God has given you that, or at least allowed that to happen so that you can learn more about him, so that you can be made weak, so that he can be strong.
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And so that's what happened here with Paul.
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Paul says, I'm going to go.
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And so there was this chance for them to go.
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And so now we see another reason why they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the Word in Asia.
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We see a reason why God did not permit them to go to the north.
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God wanted Paul and his team to go to Troas to pick up a guy named Luke, and then for them to receive the vision, for them to go to Macedonia.
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And so Paul probably had no idea of the greatness of God's purpose in his obedience.
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But God wanted to give him the opportunity to obey.
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And therefore, what we know is this.
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God knows what he's doing when he says no.
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He knows it.
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He knows what's best for us.
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So when God says no, it's the best plan in our life.
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Sometimes when we say no, it's not always the best plan.
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But when he says no, it's the best plan because it's within his will.
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And I would encourage you to pray about God's plan for your life, not just here's what I used to do, okay, I'll throw myself in the ring here so that you guys can use me as a punching bag in the mistakes that I've made.
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I used to say, okay, and I still do struggle with this, Lord, I'm going to do this.
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And then just bless me.
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Like, I feel like this is a good thing.
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So I'm not going to seek after you.
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I'm just going to do this thing.
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And then, Lord, because you love me, just bless me.
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And yes, does he bless us in spite of our flaws?
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Yes.
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But that's not really the way to seek after God's will.
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What should we do?
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We should prayerfully consider things.
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We should listen.
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Sometimes I've prayed about something and, and then God's very, made it very evident in my life the answer.
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And I've kind of like stiff armed that I've kind of pushed that away.
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Lord, give me a sign, give me a reason, give me a.
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And then something very clearly pops up in my life.
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Like, okay, there it is.
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And then I go, yeah, but like give me another one.
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Kind of felt like Gideon, right?
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Okay, you see this?
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Wonderful.
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The fleece.
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Now give me it another way.
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Right?
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And so many times we're looking for something more than what we really need.
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All we need is the word of God in our life to give us that truth.
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And so many times I think that we struggle with just, hey, Lord, this is what you said.
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You've closed the door.
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Instead of, you know what I do.
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I sometimes live in regret or sometimes I live in like, what if, what if I didn't do this?
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Well, the truth is that we'll never know what if.
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Truly the truth is that I'm dealing with what I'm dealing with now.
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And God has given me what I've gotten and he's taken away what he's taken away or he's either allowed this to happen in my life, therefore I'm going to use this for the best of my ability, for the cause of the gospel.
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So not necessarily always an encouraging thing.
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Hey, you're going to get closed doors in your life.
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You know, God might say no to you.
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God might reject your agenda, but you know what?
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His agenda is better.
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He's got a bigger plan for your life.
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You don't know who is going to be affected for the gospel of Jesus Christ when you feel rejection, when you have a hindrance.
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And so instead of seeing it as a roadblock, see it as a detour to God's path in your life.
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You ever had GPS out and the GPS was telling you.
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Some of you might say, I don't use a gps.
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I don't trust the thing.
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Like, I understand, okay?
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But some of us rely on that in life.
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So you get to get to a place and you know, it says, turn here, but you know enough to say like, that that's not right.
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And so you go, I'm gonna go to another way.
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And you go another way.
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And he goes, recalculating, recalculating.
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It's freaking out.
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It's like, turn around.
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You turn right.
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That's sometimes how God works in our life.
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Like, he's telling us, let's go right?
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And you go, no, but I got a better plan over here.
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And he says, you know, wake up.
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You're going the wrong way.
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Do a U turn.
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And that's God's working in our life.
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And sometimes that's what's gonna happen.
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Sometimes it's conviction.
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Sometimes he's changing our direction.
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Sometimes he's saying, hey, you know what?
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That's not right.
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Maybe sometimes God does allow a struggle in our life to get us awake for what's going on, what we need to change in our life.
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And so Paul was obedient in the first rejection, in the second rejection, and he was obedient in the third direction to go to Macedonia.
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And we see God do wonderful things to the life of Paul through the life of Luke, through the life of Silas, through the life of this whole missionary journey.
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And we know that ultimately the Macedonian Christians are a blessing to Paul.
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And we're going to actually learn about them in Second Corinthians, when we get to Second Corinthians, chapter 8.
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Paul uses the Macedonians as an example for grace givers, people that are giving out the graciousness of their heart.
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And so you see how it all ties together.
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It's a wonderful thing that God had a plan for Paul, even if he didn't understand that at that moment.
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So we're going to see a lady.
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We'll come back next week, and we're going to see a lady named Lydia who there in Macedonia is converted and is baptized.
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And we're going to see eventually, hey, everything's going well.
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No.
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Paul and Silas are beaten and jailed.
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But then we see that while they're in jail, they don't just sit there and pout.
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The prison keeper is converted.
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And then we see that ultimately there's more and more of God's hand working through them in their life.
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And so I encourage you to see this story.
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Not just as a story, not just as a fictional, you know, story that you can read and enjoy, but really an example for how we should live our lives as Christians to follow in the spirit of God.
Pastor Josh
Thank you again for listening to the Middletown Baptist Church podcast.
Pastor Josh
I hope that this sermon has been.
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A blessing for you.
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If you would like to find out.
Pastor Josh
More information about our church or this sermon, you can find us at middletownbaptistchurch.org.
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Or find us on Facebook or YouTube.
Pastor Josh
You can also email me directly at joshmissaroiddletownbaptistchurch dot com if you've enjoyed this podcast.
Pastor Josh
Please subscribe and follow along for future podcasts and updates.
Pastor Josh
Thank you so much.
Pastor Josh
God Bless.
Pastor Josh
Have a wonderful day.
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