18 Jan

5/13/18   Acts 16:9-15  “A Mother’s Day Message”

Did you know that the idea for Mother’s Day came from a small Methodist Church in Grafton, West Virginia?  A woman named Mrs. Anna Reeves Jarvis thought that there should be a Memorial Day for mothers who had lost their sons in the Civil War.  The year was 1876.  She made up a prayer for this and one of her eleven children was so impressed that she took up the cause.  Young Anna, named after her mother, took this up because her mother had been so dedicated in trying to hold the church and community together during the war.  Finally, in 1907, there was a local observance of Mother’s Day and it soon spread to Philadelphia.  By 1910, 45 states celebrated Mother’s Day and in 1914 President Wilson designated the second Sunday in May as Mother’s Day.  And we have been honoring mothers ever since.  So to all the mothers we have here today, happy Mother’s Day and may God bless you.  In this morning’s Scripture we will be talking about a mother named Lydia. I can’t really go along with the concept of women not being in leadership roles in the church.  There are so many examples of women leaders in the early days but some choose to ignore this.  Lydia was a church leader and planter.  She is another inspiration to all women today as well as men.  Let’s see if we can all learn from her.

First we have to pick up with where Paul and Luke are.  We know that Luke, the author of Acts, is with Paul as he uses the pronoun us.  They had been traveling in Asia Minor.  Paul wanted to go to Asia but the Holy Spirit had blocked them.  Then they were prevented from going north.  In the end the only place they had to go was to the west and Troas.  Then Paul had a vision that told him to go to Macedonia.  Immediately, they set off on a ship and ended up in Philippi, the leading city of Macedonia which is in Europe.

We see that Paul is out evangelizing.  He had started the journey with Barnabas but they got into some sort of disagreement and parted ways.  Now he is with Silas and Luke.  I think that the important point to pick up here is just how human Paul is.  He had a major fight with one of the other disciples, Barnabas.  And then he goes his way and is still obedient to the Holy Spirit.

This just makes me think of our own brokenness.  I would guess that we all get into disagreements with other people.  It might be as simple as not agreeing with someone to not ever talking to a person again.  Nations can become divided by disagreements, churches can be lost and marriages can be dissolved.  And I think that these serious types of fractures are the work of the devil.  He will do anything to keep us from being successful in Jesus.  He hates Jesus and wants to see all His people fail.  Our problems today come from an outpouring of the devil.

Our world, our society is so messed up by the devil that we have a hard time distinguishing between right and wrong.  Often times we settle for something that is less wrong.  We are blinded to the fact that it is still wrong.  One of the first things that come to mind here is the keeping of the Sabbath.  We have settled for keeping it once in a while.  We all know that this is not right and we are probably all guilty.  It is hard for us to remember that you are either for Him or against Him and there is no middle ground.  It is either a sin or not.  There is no such thing as kind of a sin or being sort of right.  The place where the devil has us today is that we are only right and are never wrong.  We can never lose but only win.  By thinking like this we are setting ourselves and our children up for failure.

As we move along we are introduced to a woman named Lydia.  Paul has arrived here and there is no synagogue.  This was the place where Paul would always go first to preach the Word.  He would usually preach there until he was thrown out.  Then he would go to a home of a believer and before long a new church would be founded.  It was the custom for Jews of Philippi to gather outside the city for prayer on the Sabbath as there was no synagogue.  And there couldn’t have been many Jews in the city of Philippi because it only takes 10 Jewish men to start a synagogue.  So Paul finds the women gathered by the river to pray and he begins to speak to them.  Before we move ahead I would like to say that there are some religions out there that still treat women as second class citizens.  There are some denominations that feel that only men can run a church.  Well here is a story that contradicts all of that and more.

I would like to thank a couple of commentaries and a few articles for the following information.  Lydia was a dealer of purple cloth from Thyatira.  Anything purple was very expensive and was usually reserved for royalty.  The dye came from sea shells.  It took thousands of shells to have enough dye for one yard of cloth.  Solid purple robes were reserved for the king or emperor only.  So one would expect that Lydia was very wealthy herself.  She also had at least two homes as she had a house here in Philippi where her family stayed.  It was large enough so that she could house at least six others who were in the party of Paul.  Her other house was in Thyatira.  She probably sold the expensive cloth in other places also.

So what we have emerging here is a woman who runs her own business and does it well.  She is a working woman in a man’s world.  This was uncommon at that time as usually only men were allowed to own things.  She was also a Gentile but at the same time was a worshiper of God.  She was not a Jew but she worshiped God.  This is also a little strange.  Lydia was obviously quite a woman.  As a matter of fact we can learn a lot from her.

The first thing we can learn is that she was devoted to her family.  She brought them along with her on her travels.  She brought her children and her servants.  We do not know if there is a man in the picture.  I would guess that her husband was dead or he would have owned these things but that is only my guess.  When we go back to the original language for the term household, it means everyone.  And she must have had a good relationship with her children because it says her whole household was baptized.  There was no dissention or rebellion.  They did it because they honored and respected their mother and they knew God.  And a relationship like that is built over the years.

So how do we do in our families?  I know that I have trouble getting everyone on the same page with a lot of things.  But you know, I have found a formula that works to a big extent.  If you put God first in your life, good things will happen.  It’s quite amazing that we have a formula for a good life that always works and no one, no one knows about it except us Christians and we are afraid to share it.  Your priorities should be something like this, God, family and then work.

And Lydia shows us that here.  She loves her family but she also has a deep love for God, even though she probably doesn’t know a lot about Him.  One of the greatest things about Jesus is that you don’t have to know a lot about Him, you only need to believe.  And she knows enough to realize that He is true.  He is God and He exists.  And we should learn this also.  Because the next thing we learn about Lydia is that she has a balanced life.  The way that we know that it is balanced is in just how successful she is.  She loves God so much that He is going to use her, she loves her family and she is successful at work.

How many of us can say the same things?  I might guess that our biggest obstacle here might be God.  It is so easy to leave him out of our lives.  It is so easy to say that you will get to Him later, and later never comes.  I have been out to many events where someone will use the name of the Lord in a wrongful way and they turn to me to ask that I pardon them.  Well, don’t ask me.  Ask God to pardon you.  He has all the authority, not me.  Anyway, I hope that you get the drift.  I don’t stand up here and tell you that you should have a daily prayer life just because it is my job.  I want what is best for each person here and that begins by talking with Jesus on a regular basis.  There are many Bible studies and other things to help you be a better you through our Lord Jesus Christ.  When that starts to happen you can start to see balance like Lydia.  There is something about following Jesus that makes you a better person.

And you are not to just have God in your lives but you are to have God in your family as well.  You need to have devotions together.  You need to worship together even after confirmation and graduation.  You need to be talking about what God would want us to do in a particular family situation.  Would He want you to divorce or reconcile?  Would he want you to bring your concerns to the body or just hold them inside?  When you are in trouble, Jesus wants to help.  He always wants to help so remember to go to Him.

And the same thing goes for your jobs.  Do you bring Jesus into your workplace?  Or do you let it slide because you are told we have to be diverse?  By the way instead of trying to promote diversity, why don’t we push commonality?  We will get along much better if we emphasize what we have in common rather than how different we are.  That is just flat out common sense.  Anyway, I’m trying to tell you that we have a war on our hands.  Satan has gotten the inside track on our society.  He runs our government and most of our industries.  He raises his ugly head everywhere and it is only through the diligence of your faith that he will be beat back.  He has already lost the war but he keeps on winning battles.  And you can keep him back by having a good Biblical balance like that which Lydia shows us.

But Lydia was not perfect by any means.  She had come to the river to pray to God, a God she didn’t know that much about.  She did not come to accept Him into her life.  We read that God opened her heart to the message of Paul.  We have to remember that God does all of the work.  I cannot lead someone to Christ.  Only God through the Holy Spirit can do that.  And we see that in Lydia.  She had been doing all the right things which is good.  But she did not have or know of a relationship with Jesus.  And that is what she got at the river.  The only work she had to do was accept it.

And we are the same way.  There may be some of us who have been doing all the right things but we don’t know Jesus yet.  Maybe the Holy Spirit is working on you today.  Maybe He is telling you that now is the time to get a little balance in your life.  Maybe now is the time to finally get a little direction in your life.  Maybe you can’t quit drinking or maybe you can’t quit gambling or you can’t quit swearing.  Maybe you are compulsive and can’t quit cleaning your house or shop or garage.  There are just too many problems in the world for me to cover all the scenarios.  But Jesus is there waiting for you to help you solve your problem and it doesn’t matter what that problem is.  And great things will happen if you accept him as your Savior and ask him to live in your heart.  Some of you have done this but sometimes you need a little refresher as you might seem a little distant to God.  Confess your sins and go back to Him.  He is always there.  You’re the one who has moved away.

Now I want to take a look at what Lydia did.  Immediately after she accepted Jesus she opened her house to these strangers.  Something happened in her heart so that she was able to do this.  God happened to her and many more things came from this.  Now listen to what God did.

This was Paul’s first trip to Europe.  Philippi is where we would find Greece today.  This would make Lydia the first converted Christian in Europe.  And look what happened after this.  The church in Philippi was the strongest church that Paul formed.  It was the church he would use for his own moral support.

We also know that Lydia’s main home was in Thyatira, which was to the east in Asia Minor.  If we take a look at the second chapter of Revelations, we find that the church in Thyatira is one of the seven churches that is mentioned there.  And the way that this famous church got started was through Lydia.  She went back home and the Word spread even more with her help.  It’s amazing what God can do in our lives if we just open the door a little.  And even though women were not considered very important by men in those days, look what God did through Lydia.  She did what she was told.

And if you do as you are told and, for instance, tithed your time to the church as well as your resources and talents, your church could be twice its size in a short time.  A very, very conservative estimate of time would be 5 hours a week.  That is not much.  But it is what you are told to do.  And when you do what you are suppose to do in God’s eyes you will see great things happen, both in your world, your life and especially in other lives.

Lydia was in the right place and the right time.  If she had gone a week earlier or later she would have missed Paul.  Then everything would have been different.  But we had God working in her heart so that she would be there.  I would guess that you have all had a feeling at various times that you ought to do something or be somewhere.  You don’t know the reason but you obey.  I pray this morning that someone listening will be at the right place and right time.  I pray that they will accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.  And as you have seen this morning, the church is not just for men.  It’s for anybody.  It’s for everybody.  All the barriers have been broken down and we can praise the Lord for that.  Thank you Jesus for first loving us.  And happy Mother’s Day.  Let’s pray.