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How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 1

Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 1. He will be reading out of Acts 16:11-40.

And I want you to understand the invitation to come to Jesus is not an invitation to be religious. It’s an invitation to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to have a relationship with Christ. More important than anything in your life, but it is a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders and you are listening to Hope Worth Having radio ministry. Today, we’re going to be in Acts chapter 16, verse 11 through 40. We’re going to talk about how to turn your obstacles into opportunities.

When we think of the book of Acts, one of the things we note that as we study the latter part of the book of Acts, focus is on the ministry of the apostle Paul, a person that we could really learn from and how he handled obstacles and turned them into opportunities.

So let’s get into the word of God today and begin our study. If you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in Acts chapter 16. We’re going to begin a new series that I want to share with you the next few weeks on how to turn your obstacles into opportunities, how to turn your obstacles into opportunities.

If you have been tracking with us through the book of Acts and you have been with us and learning chapter by chapter, you know that the apostle Paul and his team have arrived in the city that is called Philippi and they were expecting great things.

After all, they had been clearly sent to Philippi. You remember that back in verse 6, the Bible tells us of chapter 16, now when they had gone through Phrygia, the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.

A stunning statement there. We jump over to verse 9 of chapter 16. The Bible says, a vision appeared to Paul in the night. a man of Macedonia stood and pleaded with him saying, come over to Macedonia and help us.

God works in mysterious ways. And sometimes what seems to be what our plans are, God puts detours in our lives. And he sends us a different direction. This is exactly what we have already taught you on.

And so here we find when we come down to verse 16 that Paul is in Philippi, that he is establishing a church in this city. Philippi was the city within the province of Macedonia. You might think of in terms of like how we have states in the United States.

And there are cities within those states. Philippi was a city within the province of Macedonia. And when he came to Philippi, the apostle would face much conflict, obstacles and problems. He describes some of these, challenges in 1 Thessalonians chapter 2 and verse 2 when he says that even after we had suffered before and were spitefully treated at Philippi, as you know, we were bold in our God to speak to you the gospel of God in much conflict.

Yes, the gospel message is often met with obstacles. Yes, when you and I are serving God and we’re out there trying to make a difference, trying to impact, whether it’s in our family or it is in our community, I want you to know that there’s going to be obstacles.

There’s going to be opposition. Not everybody loves God. You know that. And I don’t want you to be under the delusion that somehow when you start serving God, the devil just takes a vacation and he decides, you know what, I’m just going to let them have free reign.

No, just the opposite, my friends. One of the ways you know that you are doing the will of God is that there will be opposition. There will be pushback because the devil is fighting hard to stop the work of Christ taking place in your home, in your family, in your church, in your community.

But I want to remind you that whenever there is an obstacle, God has the ability based on our response to that obstacle to turn it around into an opportunity for the advancement and the cause of Jesus Christ.

So that’s what we’re going to be talking about in the next few weeks. Yes, there are obstacles. But let us remember church on a big perspective. And this is really helpful as you are wrestling through the challenges of your day, as you are trying to push forward for Christ.

I want you to keep in mind that the Father has called a people, His people. He is called a people to salvation. And the Son, Jesus Christ, went to the cross and He purchased their salvation. and he gave his life for our sins to be paid for.

I want you to remember that the Holy Spirit is working and that he is drawing people to him. You say, how do we turn our obstacles into opportunities? Well, it begins with this simple statement, church.

I want you to hang off this. I want you to work. Here it is, work where God is working. I want you to work where God is working. You see, what is Paul doing? He is working where God is working. You see, he was headed to one place.

The Spirit of God forbade him. The Spirit of God said, that ain’t gonna happen. You’re gonna go over here. God gave him a vision of a man crying out for help, and so the apostle assembled his team and said, look, we gotta go a different direction.

We’re punting over here. and we’ll come back to this location and we’ll share the gospel, but now the Lord is leading us over here and I want us to move forward. And so the apostle was sensitive to work where God is working.

Why should I work where God is working? Because God is seeking sinners. Did you hear me, church? You may question why you are in this situation. You may wonder why you’re dealing with this circumstance.

You may wonder why you are in the midst of this test and why you are dealing with these particular problems. But I’m here to tell you that the reason God has you where He wants you is because God is working in the hearts of your family and He is working in the hearts of your coworkers and He is working in the hearts of the people that live in your community and He is calling you to be that instrument because He is seeking sinners.

Remember what Jesus said in Luke 19.10. He said that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. You see, don’t forget that it is our God who takes the initiative to reach out to us and He uses each and every person who loves the Lord to fulfill that initiative.

But it all started in John 3.16 when Jesus taught us that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. He was intentional. He took the initiative. He didn’t sit back and say, we’ll just see how things pan out.

He jumped into our messed up world and the Bible tells us that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting what church? Life, yes. Not just the quantity of life that the gospel is teaching us but about the quality of life.

Everlasting doesn’t have to do just with the duration of life but the depth of life. And so when you come to Christ, you not only live with God and you not only have eternal life in the sense that you will be with Him when you leave this world but you will have the greatest life.

Jesus said, I’ve come that they might have life and that they might have it more, what church? Abundantly, that’s right. Now listen, that doesn’t mean there aren’t obstacles. That doesn’t mean there aren’t problems.

That doesn’t mean there aren’t sorrows in your life. But I tell you that God, when he saves us, he changes us and he does something miraculous within us and the quality of our life supersedes the quality of any life that follows the world and the flesh and the devil.

You see, Jesus came seeking each and every one of us when we were not even seeking him. We’re reminded in the scriptures in Romans chapter three and verse 11 that the Bible says there’s none who understands.

There is none who seeks after God. I wish every mom and dad could understand that. The most powerful principle you can learn about your children in raising them is that they’re sinners in need of a savior.

I mean, parents are coddling them and they’re trying to baby them and they’re trying to make their world perfect and that this kid will never have a bump and he’ll never have a bruise. It’s not reality.

But if you focus on the fact that my child is a sinner in need of a savior, that we do not in our human flesh naturally seek God, we do not even understand God. You wonder what is wrong with my kid. I’ll tell you what’s wrong.

They’re sinners. They need Jesus. That’s what’s going to change your children. And when you start with that premise, then you will begin to be that missionary to your child. You will begin to bring the plan of salvation to that child.

And so when we come to the book of Acts chapter 16, what we see is everything that I just taught you being played out right before us in a lady whose name is Lydia. Turn with me to Acts chapter 16, pick up in verse 16.

Now it happened as we went to prayer that a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination met us who brought her master’s much profit by fortune-telling. Now this lady here, she is in contrast to what I want to show you with Lydia.

And I want you to see back in verse 14 that there’s a certain woman named Lydia who hurt us. Here, Paul is wanting us to see the contrast between Lydia who comes to Christ, believes in the Lord Jesus Christ, and a person who is a slave girl who’s possessed of a spirit of divination.

And she is a part of a fortune-telling scheme. What the Bible shows us here is God is working when people respond to him that we can see the powerful work of Christ in people’s life. And what is taking place here is that we see that Paul is at Philippi, which was a strategic city.

because it was the gateway to Europe. Some of you may say, why? Why Philippi? Why was God wanting Paul and his team to be in Philippi on the second missionary journey? Why would he want them? Because this is how God was working.

He would send Paul’s team to these major metropolitan cities and then from there, as they would plant the churches, the gospel would just spread like wildfire throughout the continent. Philippi was located 10 miles from the port city of Neopolis.

It was a Roman colony. It was a city that was named after Alexander the Great’s father, Philip the Second, and he wanted to honor the Philippians for their loyalty to Alexander the Great. And so the Bible says in verse 11 of chapter 16, therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samathras and the next day came to Neopolis and from there to Philemon, Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia,

a colony, and we were staying in that city for some days. And on the Sabbath day, we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customary made. And we sat down and spoke to the woman who met there.

Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira and who worshiped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay, though she persuaded us.

Here what we see is that a small group of women had gathered together on the riverside and they were wanting to come together as Jewish believers to worship God. Now why were they meeting in the riverside?

Because there was a rule in Judaism that you cannot have an official synagogue unless you have 10 men available to start a synagogue. So these women did not have this ability and so they just met together and the Bible says that they were coming for prayer and they were coming to worship God.

Lydia, she was a business woman. She was a professional woman and she was a woman who was selling purple, which meant that simply there was a dye that they would use in the fabrics and they would sell this.

So she was kind of traveling, if you will, the world and different parts of the world and selling this product. She knew, apparently because she had maybe been there before, but that she knew these women gathered and she knew that they prayed and so her wanting to be a person who was faithful to what she believed in, which was Judaism, she showed up and she began to…

to meet with these ladies. She was a wealthy woman. She was not only a business woman, but she was a religious woman. And so it was that she was reaching out to these women to connect with them, but the Bible says something interesting.

I want you to look at verse 14. The Lord opened her heart. The clue to Lydia’s conversion was that God opened her heart. Yes, she was religious. Yes, she had a tender heart towards the thought of God.

And yes, she had good thoughts and intentions of coming together to meet with these women, to pray and to worship God. But here’s the problem. She did not have a relationship with God. And I want you to understand the invitation to come to Jesus is not an invitation to be religious.

It’s an invitation to worship the Lord Jesus Christ. It is to have a relationship with God. Christ, more important than anything in your life, and more important than anything in the life of your children, is not your religion, it’s not your rules, it’s not your rituals, but it is a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

I wish parents cared more about the heart of their children than they do the hair of their children. This lady, her heart was opened, and the Bible says that not only was her heart open, but her home became open, and then her mouth became open as she confessed God through baptism.

And then finally, here’s what it is, the entire continent of Europe would become open to the gospel because of one lady named Lydia. That’s the power of the gospel. That’s the power of God’s work. And so the key that I want you to see here is that God opened her heart.

But how did God open her heart? Let’s go back to the text, a certain woman named Lydia, she heard us. What did she hear? Well, look at the end of the verse, the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.

What was Paul speaking? Do you think Paul went in there and said, hey, let’s talk about politics? You think Paul went into that group of ladies and said, hey, let me tell you how to be a better person?

You think he went in there and he had a strategy of how to do this or how to do that? No, the apostle Paul went in there. Let me tell you what he did. He gave them the word of God. He gave her the power of the gospel.

That’s why the Bible says in Romans 10, 17, so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. You see, I want you to understand this morning that God has not only ordained the message, but he has ordained the means.

This is where we get off track in our parenting. This is where we get off track in our families. This is where we get off track in our churches, is that we think… We’re gonna try every other means outside of God’s word to reach our family, and to reach our children, and to reach our grandchildren when the truth is, faith comes by hearing the what, the word.

Now either God lies, or he tells the truth. You understand that? So people say to me, they say, Pastor, well, we wanna do this, and we wanna do that, and that’s fine, you all do that fancy stuff, but let me tell you something.

The only way people are gonna get saved is through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She could see that God’s plan of salvation was clearly articulated by the apostle. She could see that Jesus Christ was our substitute on the cross, that he had gone to that cross, and rather than us being punished for our sins, Jesus was punished for our sins, and Jesus gave his life for us.

She could clearly see that Jesus went to the cross for sinners, that she was a sinner in need of a savior, and surely the apostle Paul taught her that if she would believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, she would have everlasting life.

How did God open her heart? How is God gonna open the heart of your children? How is God gonna open the heart of your neighbor? How is God gonna open the hearts of masses of people around the world? It will not be, hear me, it will not be by the razzle dazzle.

It will not be by entertainment. It’ll be by the power of the proclamation of God’s word. And I know some of you struggle with that, but that’s okay. You do you, but I’m gonna stay on track with God.

The Bible says in John 20, verse 31, but these are written, what was written? The Gospel of John, that you might what? Believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you might have life through his name.

You want to ignite faith in the hearts of people around you. You want to ignite the hearts of those who are unbelievers. Feed them the word of God. You know, a young man was talking to me just the other day, and he said, what should I do?

And I said, look, you should read the Gospel of John. Well, why the Gospel of John? Because these things were written that you might believe. And I want you to understand that the power of God’s word, getting him to go through the Gospels and to see the power of Christ and to see the Gospel clearly portrayed before him through the life of Christ and through the work of Christ.

on the cross would have a greater impact than be handing him any book or be handing him any particular podcast or whatever it is. I want you to understand that it is God’s word. And sometimes I am afraid that in this contemporary world that we live in, that we have forgotten about the power of the word of God, and we have forgotten about the sufficiency of the word of God.

And so we’re grasping for straws, we’re grasping for everything else out there. And having been tried, what do we find? We live in a more messed up world today than our forefathers who stood strong on the inerrant, infallible word of God.

Are you with me? Oh yes, I understand. But I want you to understand that faith is ignited in the heart by the word of God. That God is working out their church. Jesus said, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up on the last day, so I want you to know that God is drawing people to him.

It’s not that people are not responsive to God. And you say, well, they don’t, listen, Mike, it’s boring. Nobody wants to listen to the Bible. Nobody wants to hear what God has to say. Hey, listen to me.

When Lydia came, she thought she was gonna do a religious ritual. She thought she was gonna go through the motions. A man showed up to this little prayer group. He taught him about Jesus Christ. He proclaimed the gospel to him.

The Bible says that the Lord opened her heart. And she believed. God was drawing Lydia. God was working. The Apostle Paul joined where God is working. The other day, I was picking up my car. This lady, she was frustrated at what the mechanic said it was gonna cost to fix her car.

And she screamed out, and God, forgive me. She said, Jesus, like in a derogatory way. I looked at her. I said, he loves you. Whenever people use God’s name in vain, Pastor Mike’s right there. I don’t care where I’m at.

I finish it out because I think perhaps they misunderstood. But this is the name above all names, amen? This is our Lord and Savior. And I’m certainly, I know, you say, well, Mike, that’s not gonna help win people to Christ.

But I’m just telling you, it irritates me. It bothers me when people shame the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, when people drag it through the mud, and when people degrade it, there’s something that makes me want to stand up and defend the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I know I got issues, and I know I need to be in counseling, and I know I need a lot of therapy in my life, but I’m just telling you, it just busts out on me. And I said, he loves you. She started to cry.

And I held her hand, and I talked to her, and I listened to her. And the poor guy that wanted to get me checked out and get me on so he can get the next customer, he was a mess because he didn’t know what to do, and he was just witnessing God working.

She hadn’t been back in church. since COVID. And I said, you need to get back in church. God is at work. You just don’t know where he’s working and who he’s working and I can stand up here church and tell you stories after stories after stories, okay?

That just happened in my life day to day, week to week, and they’re happening in your life. You’re just not seizing it. You’re just not jumping on the opportunity. You see every obstacle as it’s time to defeat, quit and give up and fold our chair up and call it a day.

But I’m saying to you church, God is at work. He is working every day in your home. He is working every day at your job. He is working every day in your community. And what you need to do is you need to realize that he is drawing people to him.

And he was drawing Lydia. And as a result of this one woman’s conversion, think about how many people have come to Christ in Europe. And then when it left Europe, it jumped into America. And you think about all the great awakenings that America has happened.

And people think that in the next few weeks that we’ll fix America. You’re not gonna fix America in a couple weeks. What you’re gonna do is you’re gonna just try to pacify one side or the other. But let me tell you the true answer to America.

It is Jesus Christ. It is for us to get back to God. And I wanna encourage you, church, to be sensitive to that every day in your life. Remember what we learned in 1 Corinthians 3, verse 6. The apostle Paul told the church, he planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth.

He gave the increase. You see, that’s how it works, church. You just go around spreading seeds. You just go around planting the gospel. You just go around planting good seeds into people’s lives everywhere you go.

You get up every day and you recognize, I’m either planting a seed today or I’m watering a seed. I’m getting up every day and God’ll give the increase. And you say, well, I don’t see thousands falling down and giving their lives to God.

It doesn’t matter, church. God’ll give the increase. And how does God work? Sometimes God works in the most insignificant ways. While we’re all looking for the big and the profound, God is working in some of the most smallest ways you have ever seen.

It was this massive city of Philippi, a gateway to Europe. And it wasn’t the big political buildings that were built. It wasn’t even the pagan buildings that were built of religious worship. It was a small group of women on a riverside meeting together to pray and to worship God from what they understood.

It was that small group of women that the apostle showed up. He shares the gospel. Lydia gives her life to Christ. It becomes a profound impact upon Europe that leads to America, that leads to you and I eventually coming to the Lord Jesus Christ.

But I wanna tell you, when God gives the growth, when God gives the increase, it is very profound. Now after she followed her step of faith in Christ, the Bible says that she was baptized. I want you to see how she was baptized.

The Bible tells us in verse 15 that when she and her household were baptized, she begged us saying, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay. And so she persuaded us.

You see, what was her next step? After she came to Christ, she was baptized. You see the Apostle Paul, when he led people to Christ, he didn’t just leave them out there. He didn’t just say, well, that’s another notch in my belt.

But he followed up on people and he made sure that they followed the Lord in obedience to be baptized. And this lady was baptized. And you know, I think it’s so important because I meet so many Christians who have never followed the Lord in baptism.

Baptism is the outward sign of an inward change in a person who has placed their trust in Jesus Christ. If you have never been baptized and you are a believer, then you are living in disobedience to God.

And you know, when our children were young, we taught them not only about salvation, but after they came to Christ, we taught them about the importance of being baptized. We took that time, and we made sure that they understood what it is, why it is, and how it’s an outward sign of our faith, and we would explain it to them like this.

When our children were little, they loved to play soccer for the CVS, and they wanted to wear their uniforms the night before. They wanted to sleep in them. We’d say, no, we’re gonna do that in the morning.

No, no, we gotta sleep in them tonight. We want to be on the Blazer team. That’s what they love. They love to identify with their school soccer team. Hear me, when I get baptized, we just witnessed it this morning, amen?

And what we’re seeing is not only someone saying, I’m a believer and I’m not ashamed to follow Christ, but we’re witnessing someone who is identifying with Jesus Christ. You understand that, church? That’s why if you have not been baptized, you need to make that commitment today.

And moms and dads, what are you doing? You’re talking about everything else, about the sports and football and basketball and soccer and yada yada? But you’ve never sat down and taught your children about baptism?

Hello? Come on. Be the priest of your home, dads. Step up. You wonder what’s wrong? It’s because you’re not spiritually leading your children. You’re leading them in sports. You’re leading them in activity.

You’re leading them in academics. You’re leading them in every area, but then the one area that determines between heaven and hell, the one area that determines their eternal destination, and that is their spiritual life.

And that’s why more than anything, God wants you to be a spiritual leader in your home. That’s what we need. We need spiritual leaders in our homes. And so she was baptized. She was illustrating the gospel.

And I want you to know at the Open Door Church, we practice believers baptism. We don’t baptize little babies because they cannot express faith. We baptize people who put their faith in trouble. trust in Jesus Christ for salvation.

That’s why we call it believers baptism. You say, well, Pastor Mike, I was baptized as a little baby. Well, that’s an expression of what your parents believe, but it’s not an expression of what you believe.

And if you have come to the Lord Jesus Christ, you need not be ashamed and you need to be willing to follow the Lord in obedience and be baptized. Why is that essential to you? Not only because God commanded it, but because it is the gateway to your spiritual growth.

Wherever the Apostle went, It was either a riot or a revival. And that’s really true. We see this illustrated in the Word of God. And that’s because some people, when they respond to the gospel, their hearts are melted and they are receptive.

Others, their hearts are hardened and they are rebellious and resistant to the Word of God. And so I’m so grateful that God has led us to be able to understand the gospel, to receive the gospel, that our hearts have been responsive.

And I hope today that is your heart and that you will continue to grow in your faith. And when we begin this journey, there’s gonna be problems, but we always remember God is working. And I would encourage you to stay faithful.

Don’t forget to check out hopeworthhaving.com. There’s many wonderful opportunities for you to expand and grow your learning. And also you might check out the devotion book that I wrote and you can get that book for a donation of any amount.

We’ll be glad to send it to you and that’ll help you to stay faithful and walk obedient for the Lord. This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having. Thanks for watching.

I’m Mike Sanders, and I’ll see you next week.

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