Where Do I Go From Here? 9

Stop Waiting For The Right Time

Text: Acts 16:16-34

Introduction

Have you ever had something to discuss with some but you were waiting for something to come around before you did? Anyone know what that something typically is? THE RIGHT TIME.

What we are going to learn today is that the gospel is shaped to fit within a time period and suited for a particular moment of your life. RIGHT NOW!

We are going to learn this from a small spot in the missionary journey of Paul and Silas.

1) An Unpredicted Direction

A. It doesn’t always look like you thought it would

Q — Has God’s open doors shaped your life into something different than you thought it would look like at this point?

College age: You may have plans made and career goals (which are wonderful), but your best decision is not a particular plan or goal, it is giving it over to God.

I am not saying that doing that affects God’s role as sovereign over your life, but it does prepare within you a heart of joy and great anticipation for when God re-writes your plans.

God closes many doors.

God never closes the right door!

They had to travel through different places to get to Macedonia.

Illustration: Taking the right opportunity seems like an obscure puzzle piece. It doesn’t look like it will fit to you, but it fits perfectly in your life according to God!

His “perfect fit” for your life will often not be what you would describe as a perfect fit, lol.

B. Peace about a direction was concluded

While you are uncertain, God is always certain.

This new God given direction was not God trying to hide the gospel, but rather network the sharing of the good news in such a way to impact the world in the most effective way.

The very person(s) God is leading you too is connected to a more far reaching impact than you could imagine.

Illustration — Reading history books, biographies, and journals, you learn how important it was for things to align exactly like they did.

DON’T WASTE THE PRAYERS FROM OTHERS!!!

2) An Uncomfortable Platform

A. There was a change in accommodations

While preaching in Philippi, they has the airbnb accommodations.

You might think, “If this is evangelism, then sign me up!”

No doubt much good came from them staying with Lydia and her family.

However, God wanted their message to reach a particular group and family.

They went from the caring hands of Lydia to the torturing and hurtful hands of soldiers.

There were beaten and flogged.

They were kept in the inner prison.

Harsh wooden stocks around the hands and feet.

Q — Does God ever lead you away from the best opportunities to the share the gospel?

Q — Have you ever thought, “If things were different, I could give God more?

Paul could have concluded that prison was the end of his ministry life.

Where ever and in whatever condition you find yourself in through God’s providence, YOU ARE RIGHT WHERE THE GOSPEL NEEDS TO BE!

It was being in places or conditions like this where Paul learned what you find in his letter to the church at Philippi:

Written around 60-62 AD

Contentment

Purpose of sufferings

Philippians 1:27 “27 Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;”

Philippians 3:8 “8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,”

Philippians 3:20 “20 For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:”

3) An Unexpected Disruption

A. The timing of their Christianity

Midnight

They were praying audibly; everyone could hear them.

They were singing loudly to God.

You can pick any time of day and any circumstance and it is always the right time to exercise your faith!!!

Humanity will always provide opportunities for you to react like a human. Jesus will always provide sufficient grace for you to react like a Christian.

B. The audience of the Christianity

People will only see from your life what you intentionally show them!

Paul and Silas learned they were to always be “clocked in” to God’s mission for their life.

While we might tend to think, “The devil is taking me away from my purpose,” God is actually allowing Satan to take you deeper in to your purpose.

WHO WAS LISTENING?

People they could only reach from inside the prison.

A people of the lowest morality.

LISTEN — GOD LOVES SINNERS!

You had your morally upstanding solider and the rif-raf.

C. The God of their Christianity

Before the seismic disruption of their circumstance came, there was a epic disruption of the hearts of those in the prison.

Wherever Christians are, the possibilities are endless to what God might do through them.

This jailor nor his family expected to meet Jesus that day through some disruptor!

Salvation, baptism, local church, service, worship.

This family needed daddy to get his heart right!

Conclusion

The original story was crafted by Kenneth D. Filkins in his work, The Wittenburgh Door.

A subjective person came along and said, “I feel for you down there.”

An objective person came along and said, “It’s logical that someone would fall down there.”

A Christian Scientist came along and said, “You only think you’re in the pit.”

A Pharisee said, “Only bad people fall into a pit.”

Confucius said, “If you would have listened to me you wouldn’t be in that pit.”

Buddha said, “You’re pit is only a state of mind.”

A realist said, “That’s a pit.”

A scientist calculated the pressure necessary, pounds and square inches, to get him out of the pit.

A geologist told him to appreciate and study the rock strata.

An evolutionist said, “You are a rejected mutant destined to be removed from the evolutionary cycle, in other words he is going to die in the pit so he can’t produce any more pit falling offspring.”

The country inspector said, “Did you have a permit to dig that pit?”

A professor gave him a lecture on the elementary principles of the pit.

A self-pitying person said, “You haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen my pit.”

An optimist said, “Things could get worse.”

A pessimist said, “Things are going to get worse.”

A sympathetic person might say, “That’s a pity.”

Jesus saw the man in the pit, took him by the hand and lifted him out.

Psalm 40:1–2 “1 I waited patiently for the Lord; And he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. 2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, And set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.”