Prayer of the Day: Almighty God, by Your grace You have called us out of darkness into the light of Your Son. Guide and equip us for service in Your kingdom. Grant that we may walk faithfully in Your Word, show forth the fruits of faith, and joyfully serve You until we are called at last into glory; through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

And a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. So, setting sail from Troas, we made a direct voyage to Samothrace, and the following day to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is a leading city of the district of Macedonia and a Roman colony. We remained in this city some days. And on the Sabbath day we went outside the gate to the riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. 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. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, 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.

In Christ Jesus, who has called us to faith and into service, dear fellow redeemed:

Many of the crises facing us in our world today are, while very serious, merely surface issues. Their root cause is found in a much deeper crisis of truth. That crisis of truth, in turn, has resulted for many people in a crisis of identity and a crisis of purpose. God, however, has revealed divine truth within His Word—the Bible, and this truth reveals both our identity and our purpose.

This morning let us focus our attention on the second of those issues—our purpose. Why has God created us and placed us here on this earth? All of history, being “His-story”, is simply the revelation of God’s plan for our created universe. God created our universe and one day will end our universe. All of history, including our lives, is consequently an unfolding of His good and gracious will.

When the Bible speaks of our purpose, it speaks in terms of our callings. That word “calling” is used within Scripture in both a broad and a narrow sense. In a broad sense every one of us has a variety of callings which we hold in common—for instance, the calling to exercise dominion over God’s creation (cf. Gen. 1:26). In a narrow sense, different individuals are called to a variety of specific ministries.

Let us examine these thoughts of purpose and callings today by using the examples of Paul and his companions along with the conversion of Lydia to consider this fact: WE ARE ALL CALLED by the grace of God, with the guidance of God, and into the service of God!

I.

Before considering those examples, however, we want to understand that all of us, whether we are talking about our callings in a broad or narrow sense, have been CALLED by the grace of God! This is especially true when the New Testament Epistles speak of Christians and their callings. In Romans, for instance, we hear Paul saying that all believers are “called to belong to Jesus Christ” (1:6), and that they are all “called according to his (that is, God’s) purpose” (8:28). In Galatians we are told that all believers are “called to (spiritual) freedom” (5:13), while in Ephesians all believers are encouraged “to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (4:1). The Bible speaks of many different aspects of our individual Christian callings but underlying everything is the fact that WE ARE ALL CALLED by the grace of God through the preaching of the gospel!

We see this also in Luke’s description of the 2^nd Missionary Journey when he says that Paul, together with their entire group of missionaries, had been “called to preach the gospel” to the people of Macedonia. The heart and core of the gospel is the grace of God in Christ Jesus bringing about our salvation. Paul states in his Epistle of Galatians that Christians are “called…in the grace of Christ” (1:6), while in 2^nd Timothy, he assures that young pastor that God “saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Tim. 1:9).

Grace is God’s undeserved love! It is the motivating factor in God’s relationship with each of us. We are all by nature lost and condemned creatures worthy of God’s judgment. But by grace He chose us in eternity in connection with Jesus Christ to be His children. Paul lifted the eyes of the Christians in Ephesus in praise, when he informed them that: “He (God the Father) chose us in him (that is, in Jesus) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved” (1:4-6). This has been God’s plan from eternity. It is amazing and mind-boggling—how could God love sinners like us so very much that He would give up His beloved Son to die for us? But that is exactly what He did! Furthermore, Paul assures us that God is active in all of our lives, for as he explains: “Those whom he (that is, God) predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified” (Rom. 8:30). Indeed, WE ARE ALL CALLED by the grace of God!

II.

WE ARE also ALL CALLED with the guidance of God! We see this in our text both in connection with Paul and his fellow missionaries and within the life of Lydia. Luke relates earlier in Acts 16, that Paul and his fellow missionaries had been “forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in (the Roman province of) Asia” (v. 6), and that “the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” to enter the province of Bithynia. Instead, Luke relates that “a vision appeared to Paul in the night: a man of Macedonia was standing there, urging him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’” Luke goes on to say: “When Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go on into Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.” We might wonder why the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from entering the provinces of Asia and Bithynia at that time, but all things work in accordance with God’s timing. Paul would later spend several years in that province and its main city, Ephesus. But for now, God was guiding Paul’s missionary party in a different direction. They were to preach the gospel in Macedonia, while the LORD laid the groundwork for Paul’s later missionary work in those other places.

So it is for us, whether we are talking about our general or specific callings. We may wonder why God does not seem to open the doors we would like to see opened at the times of our choosing with regard to college entrance, or career choices, or marriage, or the gift of children, all of which are tied to general callings in life, and all of which often lead to our specific callings in life. But God, who holds us in His hands (cf. Jn. 10:29) and has a plan for each day of our lives (cf. Ps. 139:16; Eph. 2:10), will guide us where He wants us to go to do what He wants us to do! Solomon’s words were and remain true: “The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps!” (Prov. 16:9) It remains for us to accept and follow the encouragement of the Psalmist David: “Commit your way to the LORD, trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass” (37:5).

We not only see the guidance of the LORD through His Spirit in the missionary work of Paul and his friends, but we also see it in the life of Lydia. Lydia was from the city of Thyatira—a city in that Roman province of Asia, to which Paul was forbidden at that time to go. She was a “seller of purple goods”—the most expensive of ancient dye-colored material goods. In today’s world Lydia would have sold her goods on 5th Avenue in New York or on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills. She is described as “a worshiper of God.” Before Paul’s arrival in Philippi, Lydia was already pursuing her commercial calling by providing the citizens of Philippi a fine array of specialty dyed goods. But when Paul and his companions joined the few believers of Philippi, which included Lydia, at an outdoor prayer service, we are told that “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.”

The same Spirit of God who worked in Lydia’s heart through the preaching of the gospel, was at work and remains at work within our hearts through the preaching of that same gospel. For many of us, that work began within our hearts when our parents brought us to baptism as infants. God keeps His promises. When we were baptized, we received “the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). God’s Spirit continues to work within our hearts each day as we read our daily devotions, and each Sunday as we come to worship in our heavenly Father’s presence (cf. Rom. 10:17). Indeed, WE ARE ALL CALLED by the grace of God and with the guidance of God!

III.

WE ARE also ALL CALLED into the service of God! As we consider our textual examples, it is obvious that Paul and his associates were called into God’s service. We are directly told that “God had called us (them) to preach the gospel.” Paul’s personal calling, of course, is well known. Paul had been a persecutor of Christians until the day when he was struck blind on the way to Damascus. God had great plans for Paul. He told his faithful believer Ananias, that Paul was “a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name” (Acts 9:15-16). The ministries of Luke himself, of Titus, Timothy, and Silas, all of whom were part of Paul’s missionary team, are also well documented in the New Testament Scriptures.

But consider Lydia for a moment. As already mentioned, “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul.” What is further implied in the text, however, is that Lydia shared her new-found faith in Jesus Christ with all the members of her household. We are told that her entire household was baptized. What Paul would later write to the Christians in Rome about believers in general was certainly true about Lydia in particular: “With the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved” (10:10).

Beyond simply confessing her faith, however, Lydia was moved to action. We are told that Lydia appealed to Paul and his companions, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” Lydia was prepared to assist the ministry of the gospel in Philippi. She offered her home and her other personal resources in service to God. Probably, Lydia was among those Christians in Philippi who later and repeatedly supported the work of Paul through their financial assistance.

My dear friends, fulfilling our various callings in life—those general callings of caring for our world through our careers and caring for our spouses, families, and acquaintances, as well as the specific callings we undertake within the church as pastors, teachers, and active lay members—fill our lives with purpose! That is important, for it pleases our God and brings great blessing into our lives and the lives of others. May we always recognize the fact that WE ARE ALL CALLED by the grace of God, with the guidance of God, and into the service of God! Amen.

—Rev. Paul D. Nolting

Mankato, MN

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