Finding Our Way

Have you ever stood at a crossroads in life and wished it was clear which direction you were meant to go? Ever had one of those moments where you think a bit bigger, where you’d love to know what it is you are meant to do with your whole life?

Sometimes I think I’d love to know exactly what God wants me to do, exactly where he wants me to go, exactly what he wants me to say. That I’d love guidance so clear I couldn’t doubt it or miss it or question it for a moment. That I’d thrive with continuous direction from above, writing in the sky at each turning, a blow-by-blow plan for my whole life.

But then, depending on the directions I got, maybe not so much. Maybe actually I’d start to feel trapped, like I was just an actor following a script, a robot following orders. Maybe I’d start to feel scared - scared of where that path was going to lead me, of what it would force me to go through.

How are we meant to make the big directional decisions that life presents us with? What difference does being a follower of Jesus make to that? How does God direct his people, or his church? The section of the bible we’re going to look at today invites us to explore these questions.

If you wouldn’t call yourself a follower of Jesus today, I’m so glad you’re here. You might be tempted to tune out right away thinking this is all going to be irrelevant - but can I encourage you to try and listen in, still. Why? To see if there’s any sense to how this shakes out, to see, if there were a God with a plan for the world, how our human lives and decisions might fit into that.

Before we read today’s bible passage, I’m going to take just a little bit longer than usual to give us some context because we’re diving back into the book called Acts which we got about half way through some months back. It tells the story of the very first churches, picking up from where the gospels telling the story of Jesus’ life leave off. It’s been a while - we took an excursion into Galatians, because we reached the point in the story of the very first churches where it’s most likely that letter was written - and then we did something entirely different, working through the famous bible story of Jonah.

But we’re back - back in Acts - back in the story of the very first churches. If you’ve not been with us through this series, or if you’ve just forgotten what’s going on and where we’re up to, let me bring you up to date.

The gospels end with Jesus’ death and resurrection. Acts picks up the story, taking us through the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the beginning of the very first church in Jerusalem, and Jewish persecution coming to the boil in response, scattering the disciples and their message. It shows us this message crossing boundaries which seemed unbreakable - first between Jew and Samaritan, and then between Jew and Gentile, and then it zooms in on the story of a guy called Paul - once a key persecutor of the message of Jesus, now a key preacher of it. We’ve followed him on a first mission trip stretching across hundreds of miles and leading through tens of cities and we pick up the story as it’s tracking him getting started on a second even more epic mission trip. He’s in an area called Galatia as we pick up the story, modern day Turkey.

Why not read along? We’re in Acts chapter 16 and we’re starting at verse 6. If you have one of these blue church bibles, that’s on page 1111 - how’s that for a number? page 1111. Chapter 16 - big 16 - verse 6 - teeny weeny six. Page 1111. And Ruth is reading for us this morning. Just a short section but lots to think about.

Acts 16:6–10 NIV

Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.

Thanks Ruth.

So what do we see here about guidance and direction? Well, a lot, right? I guess probably the first thing I should say is this is a very unusual passage, packing in so much supernatural guidance in one short section - in fact, this is the most concentrated set of guidance you’d find in the whole book. So we have to start out recognising that what we’re reading here is unusual even by the standard of this book of Acts. This is not every Thursday even for this key guy Paul, even in the earliest days of the church.

And that’s where I want to start as we think together about guidance and direction. I want to argue the very first thing we learn from this passage is a general principle about God’s direction for our lives:

1. Go until God says stop

Go until He says stop. As you might know, I worked for Amazon.com for a long time and as it turned into a huge global company things which had just been instincts and unspoken norms in the early days gradually got formalised. One place this happened in particular was the style of leadership in the company. The HR team put together a list of what they called Leadership Principles and one of those is “bias for action.” Here’s how they explain what that means:

Bias for Action: Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk taking

Bias for action - the default is to try and move forwards, try and press ahead. To accept that there’s a measure of risk in that, but to decide it’s worth it because even with some mistakes along the way, on average you’ll be further forward.

The team we’re watching here, Paul and his companions, have a sort of bias for action, too. They have this “go until God says stop” attitude.

Think about what’s going on in the passage we read: the team had planned to head into the province of Asia - modern-day Turkey’s west coast before God stopped them. Then they’d planned to head into Bithynia - towards modern-day Istanbul - before God stopped them again.

Both these routes they tried to take are sensible ones, humanly speaking; they both follow major roads to key cities - when the team’s mission is to tell new people about Jesus, these would both seem like reasonable places to start. This is their bias for action in play - defaulting towards trying things, pushing at doors, rather than just sitting and waiting for direction. Their standard operating procedure seems to be “go until God says stop”

Now it’s easy to imagine situations where we shouldn’t do anything until we’re absolutely certain it’s the right move. There are times in life when wisdom says our default should be stop rather than go, when the risk of taking a wrong step is extreme.

Think about diffusing a bomb, for example: cut the red wire or the blue one? That’s a major decision with serious consequences if you’ve made the wrong call. Don’t do it until you’re absolutely sure - or time’s about to run out, and the risk of a wrong move is less than the risk of doing nothing. This is not a universal principle you can adopt as your everyday default for everything in life.

But in the Christian life I think there are some pretty big areas where it’s exactly the right default - just like it is for this team. See, we have some very clear directions from Jesus. High level, perhaps, but clear nonetheless. We are to love people. We are to make disciples - that is, to do what we can to share the hope that we have in Jesus, wanting others to join us in knowing and following him. These are places where our default should be to “go until God says stop”

But For me at least, it is all too easy to get stuck on pause - when I’m worrying about the risks, thinking of everything that could go wrong, or when I’m just not clear on precisely what I should do and wanting more specific guidance - stuck on pause when really I could at least be trying something. Often what I’m dressing up as “searching for guidance”, or as prudent caution, if I’m honest, is really just an excuse for not doing what I’ve been told.

What holds us back? Sometimes I think it’s laziness. Like the child who can’t even lift a pen or make the tiniest start on their schoolwork because they don’t understand exactly, precisely everything they are to do. “Miss?” “Miss?” they cry, hand up, pencil still on the desk. They pretend they’re raring to get going, just need a bit more instruction, but really they’ll go to great lengths to avoiding even starting the work that’s been set for them.

And other times I think it’s fear. Like when I won’t have the hard conversation I know I need to because it’s going to be painful - I’m just not looking forward to it. So I tell myself I’m not sure yet what the right thing to do is - when really I know already. I tell myself it’s not clear yet that there really is a problem - when it’s already clear enough.

This passage is emphatically not an invitation to sit on your hands and wait for divine direction even though the passages is filled with it. Instead it’s a challenge to share that team’s bias for action, to hear Jesus’ clear commands, and then to go until God says stop. Use your human wisdom and initiative to figure out practical things you can try which might take you towards fulfilling God’s commands. And then to get going.

So lets pick up that challenge together right now. Let’s take a moment to think:

- where am I sitting on my hands?

- how could I take the initiative this week?

- what would it look like for me to go until God says stop?

just thirty seconds to get us started.

[pause]

One of the biggest reasons to go until God says stop - one which we see so clearly in today’s passage - is that God is perfectly able to stop you anytime He wants when you’re not going the right way.

2. God can stop you easy.

Look at how this passage describes God’s guidance working out when the team are stopped from going in the directions they’d planned, from taking the actions they’d planned.

Verse 6, they were kept from heading into the province of Asia - modern day west Turkey. “kept” - that’s a strong word - they were prevented, forbidden. This is the same language used of the disciples stopping the little children getting to Jesus, if you remember that scene. It’s used to describe the Jewish efforts to stop the message of Jesus spreading - staunch opposition.

This is not something you might miss or overlook. This isn’t just a subtle hint or a odd hunch that it might not be the right thing to do. This is like the “nope” card if you’ve played the game exploding kittens: the nope card simply cancels somebody else’s move. Here’s it’s like, “nope”, says God. And that’s that.

And when the team try to head into Bithynia, towards Istanbul to the north, verse 7, God “would not allow them”. He made it impossible for them. Again, this is not subtle stuff, a spidey sense style tingling which you can’t quite put your finger on. This is a plain, simple “nope”.

In trying to obey God’s commands, you can safely go until God says stop because God can stop you easy - the moment he wants to.

Now when God stops the team here, there’s no detail in what we read of exactly how He does it. We get these plain statements showing they are stopped in their tracks and turned around. But it doesn’t spell out how. This isn’t a how-to manual on supernatural guidance or a detailed analysis of the experience - it’s the certainty that God is quite able to guide in this negative way by closing doors: “nope”.

Have you ever had God do that in your life? Where in trying to follow His commands you thought you were heading somewhere, where it seemed like a fine plan to you, but God just said “nope”? We had thought God’s path for us might have had us continuing in Oxford after my degree with a church plant down there - we were just renting and our initiative led us to try and get ourselves a home so we could stay on for the long term. I still remember the house we were looking at. But God said “nope” - the door closed. There was just no way for us to get the funds we needed when we needed them.

In trying to obey God’s commands, you can safely go until God says stop because God can stop you easy. So when we think about the clear call we have to make disciples, to share good news, we should go unless we have a similarly clear call to stop. The same is true of our call to love our neighbour - it’s utterly clear. We should go unless there’s an equally clear call to stop.

And notice here when God says “nope” the first time, when they get a clear call to stop going that way, they don’t understand it as a clear call to park up and stop altogether. It’s just time to try another path. Has God stopped you, closed a door before you? Don’t misread that to tell you every door is closed. When West is off the menu, the next thing we see is this team trying North instead! Push another door. Go until God says stop.

While I was preparing, I was wondering about the “why” behind these two “nopes” - but our passage doesn’t give anything away; we can only speculate. What we do know is it was a question of time rather than place: churches would be planted both north and west, just not now. So another thing to bear in mind with “nopes” is that a closed door isn’t necessarily closed forever. In fact, Paul will find himself speaking about Jesus in Asia, the very same place they were kept from, later in this same trip.

1. Go until God says stop. 2. God can stop you easy. Finally, 3. when God says Go, go!

3. When God says go, go!

Now I don’t want to mis-set your expectations as we get into this last point: remember this is a unique set of supernatural guidance in the recorded history of the church - even in the extraordinary life of Paul - three directions in one trip. It wasn’t nearly everyday for Paul, and it certainly wasn’t everyday for the wider church. Don’t expect this to be everyday - because this isn’t everyday stuff - this is extraordinary stuff. Not to say that it won’t happen to you, or couldn’t happen to you. Just not everyday.

And when they arrived at Troas, even after these first two “nopes” from God, there’s no indication that they were particularly “waiting on God” as we might say, that is, seeking more supernatural direction. There’s no description of them worshipping and fasting, for example - that’s the setting in which the Spirit calls Paul to his first missionary trip back through the leaders of the Antioch church back in chapter 13. No evidence here for waiting on God to hear which pair of socks to wear each morning or the like.

But one night Paul has this vision - one of only twelve visions recorded in the new testament, all but one of those in this book, Acts. A person from Macedonia, west across the sea, calling urgently for help. And when God says go, go! “we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia”, our author writes. No time to waste.

But we should also notice something it’d be easy to overlook: see what he tells us next “concluding that God had called us”? Two things bound up in that phrase: first, the word “concluding” means bringing together with logic, or reasoning from evidence, and second, it’s plural. The team is reasoning together about what Paul saw in his vision before deciding to act.

Why do I make a big thing of this? If you think you’ve heard special direction from God, what we’re reading here suggests you might want to share it, to bring others in, to reason about it, to consider it together. What we don’t get is Paul rushing into the team meeting in the morning: “Everybody, I saw a vision. Let’s go.” Instead he rushes in saying “I saw a vision. What do you think?” Even though he’s the Apostle Paul. Even though Jesus himself has spoken to Paul, and through Paul. Even though it seems pretty obvious to us what the vision means. God’s guidance here is communal and I think that can be a helpful safeguard for us whether we’re thinking about direction God may have given us as individuals or direction for us as a group, as a church.

Now the team don’t understand why it’s Macedonia not Asia or Bithynia and there’s nothing in this passage to make us any the wiser - that was just God’s plan and they needed to go with it. We don’t always have to understand in order to obey God. Sometimes we just need to humbly do what we’re told and trust that God knows what He is doing. I’m the sort of person that always asks the question why, that always wants to understand. But today’s passage shows us we won’t always understand.

But let me close with this: the man in the vision begs Paul to come and help, or aid, the people of Macedonia. Did you notice what the team conclude they should do to help in verse 10, what form they conclude that help should take? Not food. Not money. They conclude God has called them to preach the gospel - or literally, to evangelise. That’s the one thing which will truly help the people of Macedonia, the one thing they truly need.

Do you need help today? Can you believe the one thing which would truly, ultimately help you is Jesus? This the gospel: the good news that Jesus, God’s own son, died in our place for our wrongs, so we could be reconciled to God and live with him forever. This is the help that every follower of Jesus has been entrusted with, help we can freely share time after time with those around us in need. Help which doesn’t get exhausted like a bank account or a food pantry. Help that multiplies as we share it rather than subtracts.

The gospel would reach modern day Europe as a result of the determination of this team to go when God says go, and to go until God says stop - and over time it would transform Europe; millions, billions would come to believe it. Followers of Jesus, we share the same root call from God to go with this good news. The challenge for us today is whether we will join them in going until God says stop.