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How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on How to Turn Your Obstacles into Opportunities Part 2. He will be reading out of Acts 16:11-40.

Here’s how the world works. When they cannot debate you about the truth, they start attacking you. They make accusations that are not accurate. They try to discredit you. They create a narrative that characterizes you as someone who is against the people.

Hello, this is Pastor Mike Sanders, and I’m delighted to welcome you to the Hope Worth Having Radio program this week. I’m excited to share God’s word with you as a source of inspiration for your heart.

And today we’re going to be in Acts chapter 16, covering verses 11 through 40, continuing our study on how to turn obstacles into opportunities. So let’s grab our Bibles and let’s get right into the Word of God this morning.

Well, if you have your Bible this morning, I want you to join me in the book of Acts chapter 16. We’ve been studying this chapter, and I’ve been teaching you how to turn your obstacles into opportunities.

Now, you recall that in the book of Acts, over and over, back in chapter four, back in chapter five, there was much opposition to the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. There were those that did not agree with the good news of salvation, coming to those who repent and believe in Christ.

Jesus reminds us in the gospel of John chapter 15 and verse 18 that if the world hates you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. At any opposition or any pushback that we see for the things that are honorable and godly and righteous from this world that we see pushing back against those things, we know that it’s even deeper than just that they are upset with us.

or that we would stand for truth or we would stand for righteousness. That it’s deeper. There is a hatred in the world towards the things of God. There is a hatred towards Jesus Christ Himself. And you and I must recognize that.

When we come to chapter 16 we see the Apostle was teaching and preaching that this brought about physical suffering in his life. That not everybody was receptive When we started out in Acts chapter 16 we learned first of all that if we’re going to turn our obstacles into opportunities that we must be working where God is working.

That as believers we must be sensitive. Remember that Jesus said that the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which is lost. God is seeking. He is seeking sinners and He is drawing. In our own lives we think about personally where we’re at spiritually.

And perhaps you were just kind of going along in life and really not even thinking much about God, but there was a spiritual breakthrough in your life. There was something that brought you to that moment.

You may not have been looking for him, but God has always been seeking you and he has always been drawing you. We must recognize church that that is happening multiple times, not only in our families and our communities, but literally around the world.

And that’s why the apostle had to be sensitive because the Spirit of God forbade him to go one direction so that he would go another direction that he might join God where he is working. You’re familiar in what we learned last week that the apostle showed up at a Jewish prayer meeting and that there was a lady, her name was Lydia, and that she would come to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And you can read about that later in your own personal time. That is in verse 14 and 15. How she not only became a believer, but she was baptized into the faith and that she was one whose heart was opened to the things of God.

And God had worked effectively. We pick up in verse 16, and I want you to see that we are to expect obstacles if we are going to continue to see those opportunities. Look at verse 16 of chapter 16. Now, what happened is 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.

This girl followed Paul and us and cried out, saying, these men are the servants of the Most High God, who proclaimed to us the way of salvation. And this she did for many days, but Paul greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, I command you in the name of God.

of Jesus Christ to come out of her and he came out that very hour. But when her master saw that their hope of profit was gone they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to the authorities and they brought them to the magistrates and said these men being Jews exceedingly trouble our city and they teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe then the multitude rose up together against them and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods when they had laid many stripes on them they threw them into prison commanding the jeller to keep them securely having received such a charge he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

When you and I start serving God and join him where he is working guess what? When the Lord blesses, Satan starts fighting. I want you to be alert to this as believers, that Satan’s not just gonna take a day off and say, hey, I’m gonna let the church march forward, or I’m gonna let the church continue to reach out and to bring salvation to others, but yet we need to be alert, and we need to expect that there is gonna be opposition.

There are gonna be obstacles. The Apostle Peter taught us in 1 Peter 4.12, and he said, beloved, do not be surprised. At the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though something strange were happening to you.

Sometimes we see that opposition. It can be in the workplace, it can be in the family, it can be in the community, but we see it, and the Bible is teaching us not to be shocked and not to be startled, because this is the natural process.

Paul’s ministry in the city or the town of Philippi was now experiencing opposition, and Satan was sending obstacles, and Satan is always at hand to oppose the work of God. Now, what kind of obstacles or opposition was present?

I want you to note there in verse 16 and 18, it was unwanted publicity. Unwanted publicity, you say, Pastor, what do you mean? Well, go back to verse 16, and I want you to see that verse 16 says there was a spirit of divination that met us.

And then I want you to jump down to verse 17, that this girl who was possessed of this demonic force, that she was crying out, these men are the servants of the Most High God who proclaimed to us the way of salvation.

When you see that phrase, a spirit of divination, it’s literally in the Greek, a python spirit. And this is referring to the mythological Greek gods in which there was the Greek god of Delphi that had this python that was a symbol.

of protection and wisdom to the God of Delphi. And so literally what we are learning here is that this spirit, this demonic force, possessed this girl and she began to cry out, the Bible says, the Most High God in the Hebrew, it’s the idea of El Elyon, which means in the Hebrew that it is the absolute sovereign one.

She is crying out that Paul and his team of ministers are serving the absolute sovereign God of the world. Now, if you were out there trying to win the lost and somebody came up and told everybody that you were sent from God and that you were serving God, you might say, yes, I want people to hear that.

But Paul takes a different response and the Bible tells us he, in verse 18, was greatly annoyed. And he turned and said to the Spirit, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” Here’s what I want you to remember, church, that when you are dealing with opposition and obstacles in your life, even praise of the gospel can be deceitful and misleading.

I want you to see this, I want you to understand that the Bible says even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. It’s sometimes difficult to know who’s on what team and who is trying to help us and who’s trying to hurt us, who’s trying to advance the cause and who’s trying to hinder the cause of Jesus Christ.

One author writes that when Paul and Silas began to minister in Philippi, that Luke reported that this slave girl seemed to be favorable to the gospel and that she was proclaiming the authenticity of the gospel, but behind it all, beyond her words, was the motivation that she wanted through this demonic spirit to be able to attract people and gain trust with them and to be able to use her fortune telling skills that were given to her by this demonic spirit that she may lure people away from the true cause of the ministry of the Lord Jesus Christ,

that she would be a demonic instrument, that the devil would use to draw people away from the truth. Now, hear me, church, that this is happening all over the world and that it is your responsibility as a believer to be alert to these kind of things, to not just be a person who just believes everything that is out there.

So many times as believers, we think, boy, if Jesus’ name’s on it or if somehow it’s religious, it’s gotta be from God. But I wanna tell you friends, everything you see is not what it really is. The Bible tells us in 1 John 4, 1, beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.

Do you see that this demonic lady who is being controlled by her masters, and they are using her to take advantage of others and making a prophet off of it, that she is speaking things that are positive and beneficial to the gospel, but the apostle sees beyond it, for he knows that she just wants to lure them away.

She wants to gain trust with them so that she can lead them down the path of fortune telling, and they eventually are deceived of the truth. That’s why the Bible says to test every spirit. That’s why we’re taught in Thessalonians to test all thing.

God has not called us to be a naive people, but rather, He has called us to be a discerning people. That we’re to have our antennas up, and that we’re not to be drawn away just because we are impressed with the style.

The key is that you and I are alert to the substance. We see this all the time, whether it’s in politics, or we see it in businesses, or corporations, or even sometimes in sports and athletics. We see all the rah, rah, rah about the style.

But then when it comes down to the substance, how many times have you and I seen maybe a football game, a baseball game, and everybody’s saying, hey buddy, this is the team, and boy, when they get out there, they’re gonna, but listen, the game is not won in hype and marketing.

The game is won on the field. Do you agree with that? And so it is in the Christian life. There’s a lot of hype out there. There’s a lot of people claiming things that are not necessarily true, but what is the substance?

Now I know that you’re saying to me, Pastor, how do we discern, how do we test? Well let me just give you two things that’ll help you. How do we discern and how do we test? And I wanna tell you that I think the two big areas that you have got to apply these principles into testing is first of all to the messengers or the teachers that are out there.

Now Pastor Mike’s not one who thinks he’s the only one that’s right. I would never think like that. There’s a lot of good Bible believing churches in our community, and yes, even the world. So don’t misunderstand me.

But I also know there’s a lot of false teaching out there. But it’s not just in those who are proclaiming the gospel in teaching the Bible, but I need you to be discerning in relation to even music. Because so many of you are sucked in by the style that you’re forgetting the substance.

So let me give you two things that’ll help you to test all things, to test the spirits. Two things, they’re simple, they’re not complicated. First is that you need to evaluate the message that is being proclaimed.

Evaluate the message. Does the message line up with the Bible? Does the message line up with Christianity? Does the message line up with what our savior taught us? That’s why you need to be a student of the Bible.

If you’re not reading, studying your Bible on a regular basis, no wonder you’re easily led astray. No wonder you’re gullible to the style. No wonder you get caught up. So let’s make sure the message is right.

Now when we look here in Acts chapter 16, the message is right, isn’t it? The message is right. Go back to the message. I want you to see this because I don’t want you to lose focus here. Verse 17, these men are the servants of the Most High God who proclaim to us the way of salvation.

But Paul said, he got annoyed at her. So it’s just beyond the message. Here it is. Here’s the second step when you are testing the spirits. It is the character of the messenger, the character of the musicians, the character.

of the person. Now, Jesus said this in referring to false teachers, you will know them by their fruits. You will know them by their fruits. Jesus said, you can’t have good fruit come out of a bad tree.

And his point is that you gotta look at their life. Here’s what I wanna say to you, church, is never expose yourself to a so-called ministry, teacher, or music in which their life does not align with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Now, we’re not talking about perfection, but we’re certainly talking about the direction of our lives. There’s nobody perfect, and if you’re perfect, would you please stand up? Just lookin’. Anybody wanna say I’m perfect?

None of us are perfect. The only perfect one is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen? But what’s the direction of your life? Listen, there are many messengers out there who are using religion to profit off the most vulnerable.

Now look, during COVID, there were charlatans out there on TV, religious, quote, leaders, saying if you would send them $1,000, they would send you oil that would protect you from COVID. And you know what?

There were millions of vulnerable, naive people who did it. You understand that? You see, there is a righteous indignation. There is a righteous anger. And when is it that Jesus turned over tables? Not because somebody’s life was messed up, or bad choices, but when religious so-called people took advantage of the weak and the vulnerable and the poor.

That’s when Jesus got upset. And there is a time to have a righteous indignation. Now, I don’t want you to turn over any tables, okay? I’m just telling you that there ought to be a time when we stand up and say, no, we’re not gonna tolerate this.

We’re gonna step in and say something. And that’s just an example, it’s the same thing. I can continue to go on. But look, the lives of these individuals that are proclaiming a message that looks good on the outside, but on the inside.

And I could give you stories after stories after stories. And some of you say, well, Pastor, how come we don’t sing this song? How come we don’t sing that song? I’ll tell you why, though it is in the Christian top 10 list, I know things about some of these groups.

I know how they’re taking advantage. I know their lifestyles. It is not anything that is private knowledge. It’s all public. You need to be discerning. You need to be careful because there can be somebody like this lady who is saying, these men are the servants of the Most High and they proclaim to us the way of salvation.

And then Paul turns around and says, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her. And so what was the obstacle? It was deception. And now Paul is addressing this. And in verse 19 through 21, we see that as a result of him standing up for what is right, and even though he has confronted this deception, look what happens in verse 19, because this reveals the true motivation.

But when her master saw that, their hope of profit was gone. They seized Paul and Silas and they dragged him into the marketplace to the authority. So what we see here, what takes place is unjust accusations.

You see, here’s how the world works. When they cannot debate you about the truth, they start attacking you. They make accusations that are not accurate. They try to discredit you. They try to create a narrative that characterizes you as someone who is against the people.

And so whenever the gospel starts threatening economic interests of charlatans, I promise you there will be opposition. While Christianity is not an officially recognized religion by the Romans here in the Roman Empire, the owners of this slave who they were using because she was possessed of a demon was losing money.

And so look what they said in verse 20. The Bible says that they brought them to the magistrates and said these men, being Jews, exceedingly trouble our city. Did you see they attacked their nationality?

They attacked their race. They attacked who they were. Being Jews, they exceedingly trouble our city. The work of the devil is to try to create division within a nation, within a family, and within a people over race.

You must be alert to that because the gospel teaches us that God loves every person on this planet. Do you believe that church? Yes, we do. But look what they’re doing. They’re trying to create division and they’re upset because they’re losing money and so they accuse them of their race.

They accuse them of their ethnicity. They accuse them of their nationality and they say they are troubling our city. I am for the laws of the land being obeyed. I am for there being proper processes and everything being done decently and in order as the scriptures teach us.

But church, be careful that you don’t get caught up in the vitriolic language of demeaning people who are loved by God, that Christ went to the cross and gave his life, that they might have eternal life.

Do not get caught up in the racist language and creating division and dividing families and individuals based upon their ethnicity. What is that, the heart and the problem that goes on with lawlessness?

Sin is. that we’re all born with a sinful nature. It has nothing to do with the color of our skin, but it has everything to do with our heart. The heart can only be changed through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You can pass all the laws you want, but what needs to take place is the redemption of the heart, and I want you to be careful that you are not like these dividers who are trying to hurt and cause division and that you would use this type of terminology to attack, because this is how the devil works.

He not only tells us in verse 20 that they’re troubling our city, but look at verse 21. Now, they’re going back to their nationalism. Look at verse 21. They teach customs which are not lawful for us being Romans to receive or observe.

How did these charlatans create anger in the hearts of the people and the leaders? They attacked Paul and his team’s nationality, their ethnicity, but they also attacked their unwillingness to do it the Roman way.

And what is the response when the people hear this? The multitude rose up together against them. The magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. You see how they’ve stirred the people up, and now they are upset as they are attacking.

But I wanna preface what I’m gonna say with this. I love America. I appreciate every one of you that have served our country so I can stand up here and teach the gospel. But what’s more important than the American way is God’s way.

It’s God’s obedience, and there have been many things that were the American way, but that didn’t make it the right way. And praise God, we live in a country where things can be corrected, right? Where things can be changed.

We look back in our history, and it’s not that our history has always been perfect. Thank God for our forefathers who wanted a country of freedom, but we also know that because we are flesh and blood, that mistakes have been made.

and things have been mishandled, but praise the Lord that we have a system that can correct those. Don’t be so blinded by the American way that you can’t see the sins of America, that you can’t see the flaws of America, and you can’t see the things that need to be changed to make America a better country that honors God and takes care of the poor and reaches out to the hurting and blesses every citizen that lives in this country.

I want you to have discernment. I want you to not get caught up in the emotionalism of the style, and I want you to process discernment with the substance. The final part that we see is unlawful punishment.

Verse 22 through 24, the Bible says the multitude rose up, they tore off their clothes, and they beat them with rods. Why? Because all that they did was they did a spiritual work, they cast out a demon in this young slave, now her.

profiteers, her charlatans couldn’t make money off her anymore. And because they couldn’t make money, they brought them in and they made false accusations about them and tried to make it look like they were against the nation and that they were people who were not to be accepted or received.

And now they’re being beaten up. They were commanded to be beaten. Then we see they were suffering. The Bible says in verse 24 that having received such a charge, meaning the jailer, he put them into the inner prison and he fastened their feet in the stocks.

What did they do wrong? We know that even in the Roman system and the Roman legal process that it was illegal to beat a Roman citizen without due process, without a trial. They were immediately thrown in to prison.

They were not given this opportunity to defend themselves and to make their case. We’ll see how the apostle takes advantage of that later. But here we see this unfolding that they are put into jail and then they are put into the inner prison, not just the outward prison where they kept different criminals, but into the inner prison so that they would not escape.

Yes. Here’s what I want you to understand church, that as we live for God, as we stand up for righteousness, I can’t promise you that everything’s going to be fair. I can’t promise you that there’ll be no obstacles in the future, that there’ll be no challenges in trying to do right.

I can’t promise you that every person will abide by the law or that they will follow the proper legal way of dealing with things. But I can promise you this, that the trials that we go through in life, no matter how they evolve in our life, that they are not designed by God to punish us, but they are designed by God to make us sharper and better believers for Jesus Christ.

The trials and the struggles are only purified. our lives. That what God is doing in the life of the Apostle and his team is that he is refining them and God is refining us when we struggle. He is refining us when we face trials and we find that things are not fair.

He is refining us that we may come forth as pure gold. The Bible says in the book of Job that he knoweth the way that I take and when he has tried me I shall come forth as gold. God understands what you’re facing and God knows and he’s very much aware of every detail of your life and just as he saw that the Apostle Paul’s team was unjustly imprisoned, they were punished for things that they had never done or for the situation that they were dealing with.

They just happened to be there they’re trying to do some good work and now all of a sudden Satan is opposing them and he is using people to have him thrown into jail. You might wonder and you could consider.

I wonder if Paul thought, God, you told me this is where I was supposed to go. You told me that this was your will. You forbade me to go the other way. And you told me that by the Spirit, I’m to go to Macedonia.

And there may have been decisions and choices that you have made that you believe with all your heart. That was the right thing to do. This is what God wanted you to do. But now all of a sudden you’re dealing with one trial after another.

And it seems so unfair. It seems so unjust. And you’re saying to yourself, God, do you see what I’m going through? Why? Why are you allowing this God? I want to assure you this morning that God does care and that God is alert.

And that just because you face opposition and just because you have problems in your life doesn’t mean that you are not smack dab in the center of the will of God Almighty. That even through our trials and even through our struggles that God has a perfect plan, that He has a perfect will, and that He is working in our life.

God uses our trials to shape us. He uses our trials to shape our life. Every one of you. It is experience that has shaped your life. It is what you’ve been through that makes you the way you are. Sometimes for the good and sometimes for the bad.

The problem is not your challenges. The problem is not your trials. The problem is not your circumstances, hear me. It’s how you respond to your problems. Your problem is not your problem. Your problem is how you respond.

This morning my challenge to you is that here, we’re gonna see later on next week as we come together again, we’re gonna see how did Paul and Silas respond when they’re thrown in prison. You can read ahead and you’ll find out that they were singing.

They were shouting joy. They were giving praise to God. When you have a problem, do you cry out and say, God, why? Or do you say, Lord, what are you teaching me? When you have a problem, do you get…

mad at God and do you get mad at everybody around you and do you become a bitter and angry person or when you have a problem do you strive to be better and stronger. Every trial in your life has these two possible outcomes.

It can either be a stumbling block in your life that sets you back for many years or it can be a stepping stone that helps you to step up and be all that God planned and intended for your life. I want to remind you that Hope Worth Having has a Facebook page and I would love for you to check that out and to make sure that you take the opportunity to learn more about our radio program by going to our Facebook page and like us and then learn more about it and check out all the posts that we’ve made and keep up with us and I know the Lord will work in your heart.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ, there is hope worth having.

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