Life Lessons with Dr. Steve Schell

54 - Preparing for an Earthquake

What do you do when things go wrong, when your best attempt to obey God ends up in a mess? Where do you turn when depression weakens you like a disease? When you’re attacked by the very people who should protect you, when people totally misunderstand what you say and the situation explodes into a crisis? How do you find peace when temptation rises like a fever until you submit? How do you prepare yourself for that dreaded meeting or phone call or doctor’s appointment? How do you live with the sorrow of watching a beloved family member or friend continue to rebel against all they know is right and destroy one relationship after another? How do you cope with getting older, watching your body age and your memory fail? How do you respond? Do you collapse in self-pity and try to comfort yourself with things you know are destructive? Do you get angry at God for failing to protect you? Do you blame yourself for being so stupid and fall into self-loathing? Because we all face these kinds of pressures, which is why we all need to learn how to respond when they come. Left to ourselves we tend to react badly, and our bad responses become habits and those habits enslave us and drag us down.

In today’s lesson we are allowed to observe Paul and Silas at a terribly low point in their lives. Everything seemed to have gone wrong, and they ended up trapped in a spiritual atmosphere that was about as close to hell as you can find on planet earth: chained in darkness, surrounded by filth and disease, held fast in a place of torture and despair, a place full of the demonic. Yet these two missionaries didn’t give in to despair, they didn’t rail against God or curse their captors. Instead, they deliberately, aggressively, tactically set about to transform the spiritual environment of that horrid place. They went to war, and they won…completely…what had been meant for evil turned out for the glory of God. And Luke has revealed enough of the details to allow us to discover how they did this. He said that in that inner jail the prisoners were listening to them intently, and you and I need to do the same. Paul and Silas are showing us how to find victory when we’re under attack, when we’re in bondage, and how to turn oppressors into brothers or sisters. Frankly, there’s no more important life lesson in the Bible.

53 - Lydia’s Heart

Luke says “And setting sail from Troas we had a good run (favorable winds which allowed the ship to sail straight to where they were headed) to Samothrace (about 70 miles north), and then, on the following day, into Neapolis (about the same distance). Neapolis was located on the northeast coast of Macedonia, and served as a harbor for Philippi which was about 10 miles inland. A very important highway ran through Neapolis called the Via Egnatia (Egnatian Way). It was a paved and carefully maintained military road that ran from Dyrrachium on the Adriatic Sea eastward all the way to what we call today Istanbul (Turkey). It served as Rome’s main land route across northern Greece, and Paul and his team traveled west on it from Neapolis to Philippi, and later on to Thessalonica.

In spite of the fact that it was located in eastern Macedonia, Philippi was the site of an important battle in Roman history. There, in 42 B.C., Antony, Octavian (Augustus) and Lepidus defeated Brutus and Cassius, the assassins of Julius Caesar. To honor that victory the city had been declared a “colony,” which meant it became a military outpost and its citizens had all the same privileges as the citizens of Rome.

Then Luke tells us how this missionary team began evangelizing Philippi. He says, “…we were staying some days in this city, and on Sabbath days we went outside the (city) gate by a river where we thought there would be prayer, and sitting down we spoke to the women who had come together. And a certain woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth (the favorite color for Roman togas) from the city of Thyatira (a city in Asia Minor that specialized in dying purple cloth), a Gentile who worshiped God (Ac 13:43, 50; 17:4, 17), kept listening, and the Lord opened her heart to understand and receive the things spoken by Paul. And as she and her household were baptized she (invited us to be guests in her home) saying, ‘If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay, and she urged us so strongly she prevailed.

52 - Walking By Faith

About 20 miles west of Pisidian Antioch, the road on which Paul, Silas and Timothy were traveling intersected with a smaller road which headed north. Initially it seemed right to these missionaries to continue going west into the highly populated coastal region called “Asia” and they may have passed the intersection and kept walking for awhile before stopping and turning around, because Luke says they were “…cut short from speaking the word in Asia by the Holy Spirit.” He doesn’t tell us how this was done, but there are a number of ways the Holy Spirit could have corrected them. He might have “spoken” to one of them, or imparted a “word of knowledge” (1Co 12:8) about what lay ahead, or He may have simply caused them to feel “grieved” in their spirit as they walked along (Eph 4:30). But one way or another they felt they should turn around and take the smaller road leading north. It skirted along the eastern border of a rugged hill country called “Mysia,” until it arrived at the city of Nicea on the southern border of the heavily populated area around the Black Sea, called “Bithynia.” And, this time, they thought they should go into Bithynia, but Luke says, “…the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them to do so.” In the previous verse he said the Holy Spirit was the One who prevented them from going into Asia, yet here it’s Jesus who guides them. While it is certainly true that the Holy Spirit and the Spirit of Jesus, and for that matter, the Spirit of the Father, all dwell within us (Ro 8:9, 11), Luke is probably not trying to make a theological statement about the Trinity. Rather, it is much more likely that he’s describing the manner by which God’s guidance was communicated to them. Apparently, Jesus spoke to one or more of them in a dream or vision or they simply heard His voice, whether audibly or inaudibly, telling them to stop walking toward Bithynia, and to turn around and go back to the road that led west toward the Aegaen coast. This road ran along the southern shore of the Sea of Marmara, and then followed the Aegaen coast south, passing through the port-city of Troas (near ancient Troy). 

Nearly the entire journey from Nicea to Troas, which was over 250 miles, ran along the northern border of Mysia. Luke uses a word here (v8) which means they “went beside” Mysia, meaning they didn’t travel into the interior of the region, or stop to minister. During this portion of their journey it appears they were not aware of any particular destination, but felt they must keep moving forward, and when they took a wrong turn, God corrected them. At Troas, God’s method of guiding them changed. Paul received a vision specifically directing them to go to northern Greece (Macedonia). This vision may have come more than once during the course of the night and in it Paul saw a Macedonian man beckoning him to come near, and saying “Come over into Macedonia. Run to our rescue!”

51 - God-Given People

God knows all things, and even before He made the world He knew every person who would come to Him. He knew who would respond when He called us, and He knew we would sin and be damaged, but because He’s God, He knew He could rescue us, heal us and train us until we would fulfill our destiny. There was a very specific reason that God decided to create us: He wanted a huge family of sons and daughters, and He wanted them to become just like His divine Son Jesus.

When we repent and believe in Jesus Christ each of us steps into a divinely-ordained process that begins to change us immediately, and will continue to change us until the day we die. As our Heavenly Father, God guides everything that happens to us so that it will move us toward His goal…which is to make us more and more like Jesus. We still have a will, so we can slow this process down, and since He doesn’t make us His slaves, it’s even possible to leave Him. But as long as we’re His, He keeps moving us toward our destiny. He’s unrelenting. The plan never changes. The outcome was set before the worlds were made. And to help us reach this goal God has given us gifts through His Son. These gifts are people. 

50 - The Jerusalem Council

We’re watching two estranged portions of a family trying to figure out a way to come together in peace. One side came from a rough, troubled background with no knowledge of the Bible whatsoever. The other was a very disciplined and exclusive group whose parents taught them to memorize Scripture from early childhood. They dressed differently, they ate different kinds of food, they came from different ethnic backgrounds, they spoke different languages at home. In fact, they were so different it’s hard to imagine how they could be part of the same family, but about 15 years earlier a “marriage” had taken place that had pulled these two groups together. For years they barely acknowledged the other’s existence, but members from both groups had started spending time together recently and that brought to the surface feelings that had long lain hidden. A few aggressive individuals told the other side of the family what was wrong with them, and that had created a crisis. People started arguing bitterly, so a meeting was called to try to reconcile the different sides so they could love each other and act like a family.

49 - The Antioch Model

The Antioch church became the center of outreach to the Gentiles. They had successfully put behind them the issue of fellowship between Jewish believers and Gentile believers, and by this point in time (probably about 15 years after Pentecost) they were aggressively moving forward to evangelize Jews and Gentiles in other regions. They became a “home base” for missionaries who went all over the world. Paul, Barnabas, John Mark, Silas, Titus (Ga 2:1-3), and undoubtedly many more fanned out from that great metropolitan city carrying Christ to anyone who would listen.

We have much to learn from them. Their fruitfulness as a mission-church was not an accident. There was a careful process behind the way they did things, and if we look closely, they will teach us how to do the same.

This weekend is the first weekend of Advent. We, along with much of the Church of Jesus Christ around the world, are reflecting on the fact that God loved us so much that He sent His Son to us as a “missionary” (Jn 3:16). Jesus left the glories of heaven to become one of us, a human, and to die for us on a cross (Php 2:5-8). God didn’t abandon us to our sin and confusion, He sent someone to rescue us. And then, after we have become His, He asks us to become like Him which, of course, means we too will become missionaries, we too will love sinful, confused people so much we will go after them to rescue them. After all, missionaries don’t sit and wait, missionaries get up and go.

48 - Finding Timothy

Paul didn’t go looking for trouble, but he did expect it (Ac 14:22). He realized a price had to be paid in order to rescue people for God, and he had decided to pay that price, whatever it might be. But the price he paid for preaching in a small Roman military outpost called Lystra turned out to be enormous. He walked over 150 miles from Pisidian Antioch to get to that remote city of about 2,000 people. Initially a stunning miracle moved the people to try to worship him, but in the midst of that chaos the crowd suddenly turned against him, and watched as he was executed by stoning. Thankfully, God raised him up and restored him so it was possible for him to continue his ministry, but he went through the rest of his life severely scarred by that terrible attack (Ga 6:17), and apparently it left him injured in some debilitating way (Ga 4:13-15; 6:11; 2Co 12:7-10). All for a few disciples. Was it worth it? Yes, of course, every soul is of infinite worth to God. But couldn’t that same number of souls be won somewhere else, with much less suffering? And why did God bring Paul to that same, mean city…four times? God alone knows His reasons, but I think one of those reasons was a little boy named Timothy.

47 - Baptism with the Holy Spirit

The Old Testament prophets looked forward to a day when God’s Spirit would dwell within His people (Jer 31:31-34; Ezk 36:22-27), and they would become prophets (Joel 2:28-32). When the Messiah arrived, God would enter into a “new covenant” with His people (Jer 31:31). On the night in which He was betrayed, Jesus lifted the cup and said, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (Lk 22:20). By this statement He was revealing that His death on the cross would bring this great promise to His followers. After His resurrection He commanded His disciples to wait for this promise to arrive. He said they would be “baptized in the Holy Spirit…” (Ac 1:4, 5), and by that baptism He said they would receive the power they would need to be His witnesses (Ac 1:8). This promise arrived on the Day of Pentecost (Ac 2:1-4; 14-21), and continues to be given by God to every person who repents and believes in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins (Ac 2:38, 39). 

Though it is clearly stated in Scripture that God gives this promise to everyone who believes in His Son, as the Book of Acts progresses, and the history of the church proves, it is possible for this gift to go unreceived (Ac 8:12, 14-17; 19:1-7), what is given in potential is not received in practice. With the desire to receive all that God has given us, let’s seek to understand the baptism with the Holy Spirit as accurately as possible.

46 - Eternal Perspectives

We’re in a section of the Book of Acts where we’re watching Paul and Barnabas move from city to city. They only stay for a matter of weeks or months before they are forced to move on. Yet in each place they leave new believers who’ve been joined together into a spiritual family, who are very aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit among them and who, in the midst of great hostility, possess an almost inexplicable joy. You would think that after the apostles departed these new “babes in Christ” would quickly be overwhelmed by all the pressures against them, and abandon their faith. You would think that it would be impossible to establish something lasting in such a short period of time, with so little teaching, and in such a hostile environment. Yet as we continue watching these missionary journeys we see just the opposite. We see churches taking root and growing. Paul’s letters, that fill up so much of our New Testament, are written to churches that began just this way, and though they are clearly not without their struggles, collapsing and ceasing to exist is not one of them. Instead, Paul’s letters are full of the normal pastoral issues that arise in a body of believers.

So, how do we explain the fact that people who’d had so little time invested in them were able to endure, and even flourish in their faith? What did Paul and Barnabas do to them that left them with such tenacious faith? Of course, we already know the most important reason, which is that they had been presented with an accurate gospel, and as a result were fully born again, including receiving the baptism with the Holy Spirit. So there was no doubt in their minds that God had come into their lives. The gospel had come to them with power. This was not simply a new doctrine. God was with them. They felt His love, they saw the sick healed and the tormented delivered, and He answered their prayers. This was more than religion. This was reality.

But Paul and Barnabas also taught them well. They laid a foundation of understanding so these new believers would have an accurate perspective on what was happening to them. There are so many things we need to know about God, so many principles and truths that guide our lives. But if you only had a few weeks with someone, and there was no such thing as Christian literature to leave with them, only the Old Testament, and maybe only parts of that, what would you teach them? What truths would they need, above everything else, so they could face the trials ahead? The answer is surprising, and very basic. Paul and Barnabas (and Jesus) taught things many of us today might think of as negative or overly controversial. We might mention these things in passing, but not really “hammer it home” as truths vital to their survival. But they did, and maybe that’s why their disciples, young in their faith though they were, stood firm in the midst of a storm of affliction. Maybe it’s because they faced a hostile world armed with eternal perspectives.

45 - Spiritual Jealousy

Have you ever watched God work powerfully through someone else, and instead of being happy for that person, you felt frustrated? You wished it could have been you. As those feelings rushed over you, you probably tried to explain to yourself why such things could never happen to you. You may have blamed it on your appearance or intelligence or sinful past or bad decisions made when you were younger. The result was that you convinced yourself to lower your expectations. God would never work that powerfully through someone like you.

If you have thought such thoughts, you may have noticed that another emotion came along with them: anger…at the person God was blessing, but also, if you are able to admit it, at God Himself. It all seems so unfair. It appears that God must be just like everybody else, He has His favorites, and you’re not one of them. As the emotions surge, you wish you could punish somebody, but you can’t punish God. Yes, you can withdraw from Him and claim to be an atheist, but that doesn’t heal the wound of feeling like a failure. So you turn your anger on the person. In whatever way you can you try to hurt them. Now, let’s watch this spiritual jealousy in action.