Acts 16 Lydia
The next two sermons are about 2 ladies, one of these ladies is liberated, the other is enslaved, one is transfigured, the other is disfigured. One of these ladies is lifted up by God, the other is cast aside by men.
How to be a liberated woman
12 and from there to Philippi, which is a city of Macedonia, the foremost of the district, a Roman colony. We were staying some days in this city.
13 On the Sabbath day we went outside of the city by a riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together. 14 A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God, heard us. The Lord opened her heart to listen to the things which were spoken by Paul. 15 When she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come into my house and stay.” So she persuaded us.
16 As we were going to prayer, a certain girl having a spirit of divination met us, who brought her masters much gain by fortune telling. 17 Following Paul and us, she cried out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to us a way of salvation!” 18 She was doing this for many days.
But Paul, becoming greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her!” It came out that very hour.
How to be a liberated woman
And when I say, “liberated woman” of course you understand that this message doesn’t just apply to women. Men also need to be liberated.
Now today we are only going to get to the first lady, Lydia, who came to faith at a riverside Bible study. She was liberated by getting saved.
And all people need salvation.
But our world has a very specific idea about liberation. It thinks that to be liberated is to have the freedom to do whatever we want. We think being liberated is to be calling our own shots. To be in control of our lives. We would say, “Nobody runs my life but me.”
Can I tell you something? Whether you are a Christian or not, you are a slave. If you are a Christian, you have chosen to be a slave of Jesus Christ.
knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin
Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one’s slaves whom you obey, whether of sin leading to death, or of obedience leading to righteousness?
Romans 6:18 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
If you are not a Christian, you are not your own boss, you are a slave to your base desires.
A man's worst difficulties begin when he is able to do as he likes.
Thoman Huxley, "Address on University Education," Collected Essays, 1902, III, 236.
No man in this world attains to freedom from any slavery except by entrance into some higher servitude. There is no such thing as an entirely free man conceivable.
Phillips Brooks (1835- 1893), Perennials.
Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin.
Romans 6:20 For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
Romans 6:22 But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life.
So the real question is not, How do I break free from servitude, but who will I serve?
Christianity is the servitude that liberates from slavery to sin, to serve an all-loving master, who frees us to become who we were designed to be.
So we are going to discover how to be liberated.
1. Liberation is found in following the Holy Spirit. 2. Liberation is found in the fear of God. 3. Liberation is found in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ
Well, in order to get us to our story today, we need to go back a few verses to pick up the context. We were talking last week about the leading of the Spirit. Remember from last week that Paul and Silas had come to the cities of Derbe, Lystra, and Iconium, (modern day Turkey) on their missionary journey, and had run into a young man named Timothy. Timothy was a solid Christian young man, and so ended up joining their missionary team. So, from there they headed west to take the gospel to new territory. And we made note of the fact that they weren’t meeting success along the way. The Holy Spirit kept forbidding them from ministering in these different areas.
6 When they had gone through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. 7 When they had come opposite Mysia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit didn’t allow them. 8 Passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.
They are listening to the Holy Spirit’s leading.
Troas would have been on the far northwestern coast of modern-day Turkey. This trip from the area of Galatia, where they picked up Timothy, to the coast was over 1000 miles. Imagine that, if you will. A healthy person can walk 20 to 30 miles a day. So that would be at it’s shortest 40 days of walking to get to the coast. They had stops on the way, and I’m sure the terrain was inhospitable in other places. But all that way without a single notable gospel spreading event. It must have been frustrating. Everywhere they turned, the Holy Spirit forbad them from stopping and preaching the gospel. At some point they may have been tempted to say to God, “God, are you sure you know what you’re doing?” “I know there are some communities here with solid Jewish people, who I’m sure some will receive the gospel.” Have you ever said that to God? I’ve said, God, I’ll take the wheel here. I know what I’m doing. And every time I’ve done so, it ended up miserably.
You see, we think liberty is being in control of our own destination. Let me tell you what is really liberating; letting someone else be in charge of the map.
They get to Troas and they have the Aegean Sea to the west, and backtracking to the east. So which way do they go? Well that night Paul is given a vision.
9 A vision appeared to Paul in the night. There was a man of Macedonia standing, begging him, and saying, “Come over into Macedonia and help us.”
Macedonia is Greece. Greece is well known in world history by this time. We had a former time when Greece ruled the world starting with Alexander the Great. And Alexander had a notion to spread Greek language and culture over the known world, which he did. The second language of the world was Greek. The Hebrew Old Testament had been translated into Greek. (Septuagint-72 scholars) There were Jewish communities in Greece at least back to 85 BC, if not earlier.
So Paul sees this man Macedonia in a vision saying “Come help us.” He may have known he was from Macedonia because of his dress, his language, or it may be that in the vision the man told him where he was from. But regardless, based on this vision…
10 When he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go out to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach the Good News to them. 11 Setting sail therefore from Troas, we made a straight course to Samothrace, and the day following to Neapolis;
The first thing I want you to take note of, is the word “we” in verses 10 and 11. This is the first place in the book of Acts that the story changes from a 3rd person account, he or they did this or that, to a 1st person account, we did this or that. What does that mean? It means that the author of the account joined them on their journeys. Who is the author of the book of Acts? Luke. Luke the physician joins them as they cross over into Greece.
Notice, they immediately sail across the Aegean Sea. I’ve been reading a book recently about the story of Captain John Smith and Pocahontas, based on real diaries and chronicles of the time. Of course, you know that John Smith was part of a group who came from England to establish a colony starting with Jamestown, Virginia. But what amazed me as I read this account of their voyages back and forth, is how often sailing weather played a role in their success. In fact, if I remember correctly, the first time they embarked on the journey to come to the “new world,” they were stymied in their effort by weather. They had no wind, so they sat off the coast of Great Britain for weeks, waiting for a breeze.
But notice something in this story, as soon as God gives them word that they are to go to Greece, they catch a boat out into the Aegean Sea, it says they took a straight course to Samothrace, and the very next day they went on to Neopolis. Neopolis was on the eastern coast of Greece.
There’s a popular song, Jesus take the wheel. When Jesus takes the wheel things really start happening. The real freedom and exhilaration of my life happens when I quit trying to direct God, I listen to His directions.
40 days or more they have done nothing but walk, now when the Spirit gives direction, in less than 48 hours they are in Greece, and shortly in Philippi to meet a lady who converts to Christianity. Talk about the Spirit’s leading. Here’s something for you to know, understand, believe. If the Spirit of God is leading you somewhere, He’s going to provide you a boat. There’s a certain liberty there. God’s got the map.
You know people want liberty to decide what’s right and wrong, for them, they think there’s liberation in making up their own moral code. They don’t care about God’s law. The experience of their elders. They don’t care about history. I want to do what I want to do. But they don’t realize that the end of the road is enslavement.
There is liberty in following God’s guideposts.
So they arrive in Greece, and I can’t help but mention this. This is the gospel getting into Europe. Up to now, it has gone through parts of the Middle East. Now God is taking it to Europe. Europe encompasses, Germany, Spain, Great Britain, France. Many of us here today owe our thanks to Paul answering the Macedonian call.
Following the leading of the Holy Spirit.
12 and from there to Philippi, which is a city of Macedonia, the foremost of the district, a Roman colony. We were staying some days in this city.
Now they come to Philippi. What do we know about this city? It is called, the foremost of the district, a Roman colony. What does it mean that it was a Roman colony? Well, when the Romans became a world empire, they would come to a new territory, invade, take over, and then, based on how cooperative the area or town was, they would govern. Some cities, like Jerusalem, were so contentious, always revolting against Roman rule, that they ruled them with an iron rod. They put procurators over the regions, and stationed military garrisons there. And more importantly for today, the people of the area had no rights. No freedom of speech, religion, assembly. They could be taxed extensively, they were essentially the slaves of the Romans. But other cities, if they proved cooperative, were made colonies. Colonies had 3 privileges; libertas-self-rule, immunitas-no tribute to Ceasar, ius Italicum-Roman citizenship. Citizenship had certain privileges, remember Paul was a Roman citizen. He had a right to trial, not to be beaten before going to trial.
So this was Philippi, it is the only Roman colony mentioned in Scripture. So it is somewhat of a privileged, though not necessarily rich, community.
God takes them where they need to go.
Our first point was that there is liberation in the leading of the Holy Spirit. The second point is that liberation is found in the fear of God.
And it says that Paul and his band stayed some days in this city. So they get there, and hang out for a few days. What are they waiting for? Why don’t they start preaching in the streets? Well it tells us in the next verse.
13 On the Sabbath day
They were waiting for the Sabbath day. Why? Because that’s the day that Jewish people gather to worship and pray at a synagogue. And Paul’s modus operandi was to take the gospel to the Jews first, and then the Gentiles. Now Philippi’s population was probably around 10 to 15 thousand in the first century. Not a huge place. Paul, Silas, Timothy and Luke could have explored it fairly thoroughly in one day. And they would have discovered something. The city had no synagogue. Which means that there is not likely to be very many Jews living there. The Mishnah, a Jewish law book, said that if there were at least 10 Jewish men in a city, they were obligated to build a synagogue. (Mishnah Megilah 3b, 5a) So apparently there weren’t many Jews there. There is also evidence for the worship of many gods there, including the worship of Caesar as a god. So Jews may have avoided places like Philippi because they would be endanger of hostility and persecution for not participating in the local worship rites.
So Paul and his bunch don’t find a synagogue, but on Sabbath day…
we went outside of the city by a riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer,
Why did they go down to the river? Well, a large part of Jewish worship was ceremonial washing. So when there is no synagogue, traditionally, Jews would gather by a waterway on the Sabbath day. So the river would have been directly accessible. And it says that there was a “place of prayer.” Maybe the women they encountered had put together a little place, a brush arbor, or a little wall. We don’t know, but, however they found the place, on the Sabbath day, they went there and found…
and we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.
No men, which gives credence to the idea that there weren’t many, if any Jewish men in Philippi. And take note, of all the women who were there, which one is listed as having come to faith?
14 A certain woman named Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God, heard us.
Lydia, a seller of purple, of the city of Thyatira, one who worshiped God.
“One who worshiped God.” The one who became liberated worshipped God. That indicates that she wasn’t Jewish. She would have been a Gentile “God-fearer.” One who came to believe in the one true God of the Jews, and attached themselves on the periphery to the worship of the Jews. Now, why was she even there? It says she is from Thyatira. That is back in Asia, 240 miles away, one of the areas that the Holy Spirit forbad. Maybe she had come there for her trade, she was a seller of purple, and ended up staying.
A “seller of purple” was one who traded in products dyed purple. She sold clothing, blankets, textiles dyed purple. Thyatira was famous for this industry. There was two different varieties of purple dyes, one for the rich, that was extracted drop by drop from a type of mollusk, and the poor man’s variety that came from madder root. From the story it appears that she was a woman of some wealth, probably traded in textiles dyed with the more expensive dye, who was independent of any man; there’s no father, brother, or husband mentioned. Later she offers her house as a place for this missionary team to stay, and it becomes the location for church services. So she had to have some space. Some would say that before she ever met Paul and his bunch that she was liberated. But she’s not. She came to this place of prayer because she was seeking something. What was she seeking? She seems to have it all.
It says that she was one who worshipped God. She was one who attached herself to the one God of Judaism. She was a Gentile from Thyatira. From her home she would have been raised to worship many gods. And from a business standpoint, it would not have been wise to become associated with the Jews. They were a hated minority group. It would have been better to be friendly with all the religions, to be a polytheist. But she knew that she was missing something. She wasn’t liberated. She was wealthy, but she was empty, so she sought the one true God. She found Christ, then she became truly liberated to serve the Lord and become what God designed.
Let’s talk a moment about her being a liberated woman. The very fact that we know her name is significant. Tell me this, in a few short verses, we’re going to read the story of a jailer who is saved. Remember? Paul and Silas are in jail, there’s an earthquake, the doors are opened, the jailer comes down and thinks the prisoners have escaped, so he takes his sword to kill himself. Paul calls out, “Don’t hurt yourself, we’re all here.” He comes in and falls down in front of Paul and Silas, and says, “What must I do to be saved?” Paul says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!” And he does. Great story, preached a lot. So tell me, what’s that jailor’s name? (Philippian jailor) Why do we know Lydia’s name, but not his? Probably because she became a key individual in the beginning and continuance of the church at Philippi.
Well the third point is liberation is found in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ; follow the Holy Spirit, fear God, follow Jesus—liberty is in God.
There’s been a lot of rancor in the years of this nation’s history over feminism. And it has made it’s way into the church. And during some years, pastors have been almost apologetic about what the Bible says about the role of women. Frankly, most of us don’t want to preach from passages about submission, or women being keepers at home. But, my friends, we really have nothing to be apologetic about. Number one, and I fall back on this one often, myself. If someone asks me, “Why do you say women can’t be pastors in Southern Baptist churches,” I say, “I don’t say anything, the Bible does.” Secondly, Christianity, and the church were the most woman liberating institutions in history. Paul wrote, Paul gets called a sexist, but he wrote
Galatians 3:27-28 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
And look here, the first people to whom Paul took the gospel in Greece, were women, and the first convert was a woman. That is huge. Do you realize that in their society, the husband had complete authority over his wife? She couldn’t change religions without his permission. If she burned his breakfast he could divorce, throw her out on the street penniless.
But women were influential in the early church, and throughout the history of the church. Think about it a minute. We have four missions funds that our church gives to from our World missions offering, what are they? Lottie Moon, Annie Armstrong, Viola Webb and Danny Dirks. 3 of the four are named after women. Why? Because those women were key leaders in missions and missions support in the Southern Baptist Convention.
Christian women are liberated! They are liberated to become all that God wants them to be.
And for years, women thought, about working, or the clubs men were in, that that was liberation. “We want to be liberated like men are liberated.” Well whoever said men are liberated? There are only two kinds of people in this world, liberated and enslaved, and it has nothing to do with a glass ceiling, it has to do with a person’s relationship with Jesus Christ. And may I say again,
Galatians 3:27-28 27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.