He Directs

Amen. Well, good morning to you all. So thankful that you are joining us, whether you're here at our CrossPoint Campus or whether you're watching online. Thank you so much for being here. I'm imagining that if I started asking questions to each of us about your favorite movie that you'd be able to answer reasonably quickly that you've got one or a handful of favorite movies probably maybe that you could list, but I wonder if I asked you who your favorite movie director is, if you would answer as quickly. You may or may not. It just depends on how closely you follow. Some people love movies so much that they end up tracking with a particular director. They love the way that they have a point of view. They love the way that they talk about stories and how they tell stories. And some of you, depending on your age, you might have some favorite ones. People like, for instance, Martin Scorsese. Maybe you remember him. All of you who are older you might know some of his movies. Secondly, Francis Ford Coppola, you may have heard of as well. But there's other modern directors maybe that you have an appreciation for. People like the Russo Brothers, in terms of stuff that they've directed or maybe even Christopher Nolan, who's directed a bunch of stuff. And then you've got some women like Ava DuVernay or you've got Greta Gerwig, or you've got Chloe Zhao. You've got a bunch of these really great movie and film directors. And what's interesting is that they would all tell you the same thing. They all realize, as directors, that they have to see the end from the beginning. They have to see the whole picture, so to speak, right? And that they understand then how the small parts fit together to tell the whole story because that's what their job is, is to direct the entirety of a story. And of course, there's one of the all-time greats, Steven Spielberg, right? So when we were going: "ET! ET!" That tells me how old you are. But he's directed a bunch of stuff. Many of those movies are movies that get watched around Memorial Day, like on this particular Memorial Day weekend there'll be people that may watch a variety, like "Saving Private Ryan" or "Schindler's List" or "War Horse", all directed by Spielberg. One of the things that I found interesting about Spielberg is that he mentors a lot of young directors. And I started combing through some of the things that he says, some of the mentoring that he does with young directors and I came across a statement that he made that was really intriguing to me. He said this. He said, "I always like to think about the audience "when I am directing "because I am the audience." And I thought about how profound that statement actually is because as we're journeying through the book of Acts, what we're looking at is we're looking at the behavior or the practices of the Holy Spirit. That's what we've been doing for these last number of months and that we're going to be doing in the final message in this series today. And as we were doing that, what occurred to me is that what we're seeing in the book of Acts as we walk through this journey of the practices of the Holy Spirit, what we're seeing actually in the book of Acts, is we're seeing that the Holy Spirit is the director of this great drama that we call the mission of God. And this director is doing what he wants as he wants, and he's leading a cast that are believers in Jesus. And he is directing them in what he wants to see transpire in this mission. The interesting thing is that the Holy Spirit sees the whole story and how this is supposed to play out and is able to direct these believers that are cast members into the places that he wants them to go. And as the Holy Spirit is directing, he is also thinking about the audience because the audience is God, because what this mission is for is for ultimately the glory of God in the world. And so the Holy Spirit is directing this in such a way that it is now pleasing to himself and the audience of God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Spirit. We're going to see that play out a bit when we get to Acts 16 where we're going to be today as we conclude this series that we call "Praxis", where we're looking at the practices of the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. Now, before I read the passage here in Acts 16, let me remind you of the context of what we're seeing here. It's just after Paul and Barnabas have been a part of The Council of Jerusalem. You remember that, right? We talked about it last week. That they met with the apostles and the elders there to discuss whether the Gentiles, remember Gentile means just non-Jewish, whether the Gentiles would have to become Jewish in order to be saved. They weren't asking the question of whether or not the Gentiles would be a part of the salvation plan of God. They knew that that was the case, but they didn't know how that was going to be and whether or not they had to be circumcised and fulfill the law of Moses and all of those things in order to be saved. And the outcome of that council was: no, they don't have to do that, but there's some sensitivities on both sides that everybody needs to embrace so that we can walk in unity as we fulfill this mission. So, Paul makes his way back with Barnabas. They got back to Antioch, where they home-based for them, The Antioch in Syria, and they start deciding, "Okay, we're listening to the Lord "and the Lord has sent us out "and we're going to be going back out to preach "and to check on some of the churches that we planted. "and, by the way, we're going to be bringing the news "of what happened at The Council of Jerusalem "so that we can share that "with all of these other churches." And so Paul and Barnabas discussed what they were going to do and Barnabas said, "I want to bring John Mark with us," and Paul said, "I don't think John Mark needs to go with us. "He deserted us back when we were on this journey "and I'm not ready for him yet. "I don't think he needs to go with us." And so they had a dispute and they actually went their separate ways. Paul and Barnabas did. Now, the dispute was a little bit bigger than just whether or not they were taking John Mark with them, because when you read the book of Galatians you find out that the dispute had something to do with the fact that Barnabas also went back and forth a little bit on this Jewish idea. Because when Paul was in Galatia, he actually had to confront Peter to his face. And he told Peter, he said, "Hey, what you're doing is not good. "When the Jews aren't here you hang out with the Gentiles "and eat at the table and do all that stuff "but when they're here, then you're like: "no, I can't do that." And then he said, "That's kind of hypocritical. "I don't want you to do that." And so he actually told Peter that and Galatians actually says Barnabas fell prey to that as well. So there was more going on. Just then John mark, it was about a number of things but they went their separate ways. And so here's what Paul did. Paul picked up a guy named Silas and Paul and Silas began to travel together. And they went to some of the places that they'd already been and they picked up another guy that you may be familiar with, named Timothy. So now Paul and Silas and Timothy are together and they're launching out into what constitutes Paul's second, not his first, but his second missionary journey. Paul had really three primary missionary journeys and this would be the second in Paul's missionary journeys, and he's got Silas and Timothy with him. We'll pick up now in Acts 16, beginning in verse number six and it says this: "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. "And during the night, "Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing "and begging him, ""Come over to Macedonia and help us." "And after Paul had seen the vision, "we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, "concluding that God had called us "to preach gospel to them." Now, the reason that I bring this passage up is because this passage highlights the way that the Holy Spirit directs us. Now I don't want you to misunderstand because when we read that, I realized you just read a lot of geography and you're going, "Wait a minute. "We're talking about Mysia, Bithynia, Phrygia. "I don't know where I am." Let me help you. Here's a map. On this map, I've got a laser pointer. So you can see it right here. It's the red thing that's doing all this. Now, originally, the Antioch in Syria is over here in this area. So it's on the right part of the map if you're able to see that. And eventually they went by some places that they'd already been engaged in, and they were here in Antioch, in Pisidia. So two different Antiochs. This was the Antioch when Pastor Dion was teaching us about Antioch and you had all the various really diverse group of prophets and teachers that were there. It's where Paul and Barnabas got called out of that place. That was Antioch in Syria. Now we're talking about Antioch in Pisidia or Pisidian Antioch. So here's where they were, Paul and Timothy and Silas, and they decided they were going to head west. They were just going to take off this way. So, they started taking off this way and the Spirit of God said, "Nope," that's literally in the Greek language. Spirit of God said, "Nope, you're not going that way." And they were like, "Well, we were just going to preach "the gospel through this area," and he said, "Nope." So what did they do? They started going north. And they thought to themselves, "Well, you know what we're going to do? "We're going to go into Bithynia then "and we're going to preach the gospel in Bithynia." Holy Spirit said, "Nope." And so they went, "Okay, if we're not going here "and we're not going here "I guess we're going to go around Mysia "because he said don't go in Asia "so we're going to go along the border "and then we're going to go down to Troas, "which is right here." What's Troas? It's a port city. It's right on the Aegean Sea. You got to think to yourself: what in the world is going on here? They started heading west, the Spirit of God said no. They went north, Spirit of God said: "Not going up there," and then they went to Troas and now they're sitting on the beach. Are they going to plant a church with squid? They're going to lead sea urchin to Jesus? Nope. While they're there Paul gets a vision of a man from Macedonia, and just so you realize, Macedonia is across the Aegean Sea, it's over here. So now we're talking about Greece, over here. Paul gets a vision from a man over there saying, begging, "Come and help us," and they concluded that they were supposed to get on a boat and get over there and preach the gospel there. So, the reason that I point this section out to you and show you that these are real people at real places doing real things is because this helps us to see how the Holy Spirit actually directs people. And if I were summarizing what we just read in Acts 16 in the passage, it would be simply this: "The Holy Spirit is sovereign "over the mission of the church "and he directs it as he wills." You see, this is what we're really seeing in Acts 16. That the Holy Spirit, listen to this, is sovereign. In other words, he's in control of what's happening because he sees the beginning from the end. He knows how this movie is supposed to play out. The Holy Spirit is sovereign over the mission of the church and he directs it as he wills. Now, when we see that, we have to ask questions about this passage because it's really unique. We're seeing Paul and Silas and Timothy together on this missionary journey. We're asking ourselves this question: What does that look like for me in terms of how the Holy Spirit directs my life, how the Holy Spirit directs his church? And remember his church doesn't mean a building. It means people. We are the church. This is not the church. This is the church. So, how does the Holy Spirit direct his people? That's what we want to take a look at because we're gonna pull some things right out of the text of scripture that help us to see how he directs us. Now here's the first. The spirit directs those that are patient enough to wait on his direction. Now I'm going to show this to you just by summarizing what was going on here and using what I would call sanctified imagination. So think with me for a moment. Imagine that you are Silas or that you are Timothy and you get the lucky straw. You get to go with the Apostle Paul on a missionary journey. I mean, this is the Apostle Paul. This guy studied under Gamaliel, the Pharisee, was a Pharisee of Pharisees, was persecuting the church of Jesus Christ, having people put in jail and put to death. Everybody's scared of him. Then the resurrected Jesus shows up to him on the road to Damascus. He's blind for a period of time. But Annanias comes and prays over him, the scales fall from his eyes and this guy gets up different, transformed, regenerated, changed. He's now a believer in Jesus, and now he's going and he's preaching the gospel that he was having people put in jail for or killed for. And now everybody's going, "What? This guy is unreal." God is using this guy in an unreal way. This is incredible. And then you're Silas and you're Timothy and you're like, "Let's go, I'm with him! "We're going to go do some damage for the kingdom of God! "Let's get it on!" They probably had some incredible dreams of what was going to transpire. And then think about what actually happened. They're fired up from the outset. They're in Antioch, Pisidian, and it's like, "It is go time. "We prayed, they prayed over us, "we're praying and fired up, let's go!" And they start walking. Maybe they got a mule, a donkey or something but they're . They didn't get in a car. They didn't get in their Ford Fusion. They just start walking. And it's probably hot. It's the middle east. That region that I showed you where that is, that's modern day Turkey. So that's where that was. So they're just walking. And I don't know how many days that they were walking but they were walking plenty because from Pisidian Antioch, where I showed you they started, by the time that they got to Troas on the Aegean Sea, 400 miles. I don't know how much you walk, but 400 miles, that's a long way, right? And along that timeframe they're walking and it's like, "We're heading west." And they start going west. And I don't know when it was, I don't know if it was after 10 miles, I don't know if that was after four days, I don't know if it was after 60 miles. I have no idea. They were heading west and then Paul says, "Yeah, we can't go this way." And they're like, "What?" "Yeah, we can't go this way." "Okay, well, why don't we just plant a church here?" Because in their imaginations they're probably thinking: "Wherever it is we're going, by the time that we get there "we'll be able to look back "and we will see, littered in the landscape, "a bunch of churches that we've helped to plant. "The gospel is going to go crazy. "It's going to be fruitful. "I'm with Paul. "This is awesome!" Paul goes, "No, we're not going that way." "Well, let's plant a church." "No, not right now, not here." "Well, why?" "Because the spirit said no." "Okay, where are we going?" "Not that way." "Well, where are then?" "Let's go north." "Okay." So they start going north. "Where are we going?" "I don't know, let's go to Bithynia. "We're going to preach the gospel up there, man. "Let's go plant some churches up there, lets go." I don't know how long it took, I don't know where they ended up, and then the Bible says the Spirit of Jesus said, "Nope." And they're like, "Let's plant it right here," and Paul says, "No, not here, not now." "Why not?" "Spirit said no." "Where are we going?" "Not there." "Well, then where?" "Not there. "And we're also not allowed to go there." "Where are we going, then?" "I don't really know. "Let's just walk north, west "and just stay on the border "of where we're not supposed to go." And that's what they did. And they made it all the way to Troas. And then they're probably like, "What now? "There's just fish. "What are we supposed to be doing?" Paul says, "I don't know. "I just know we weren't supposed to go "the ways that we were going, and now we're here." And then sure enough he has a vision and a man from Macedonia, Greece area says, and they all go, "Oh." Isn't it just like us not to want to wait on what the Holy Spirit wants to do? It's just like us. You know why? Because we have a plan. But what happened there was remarkable because now it's like they just got a vision to go to Greece and they were like, "Wait a second, you mean we're going to go preach "in the land of Alexander the Great? "We're going to go preach "in the home of Plato and Socrates and Aristotle and Homer? "We're going to proclaim the gospel "in the shadow of Mt. Olympus, "where they worship all of these gods "and we're going to tell them about the one true God "and his son, the Lord, Jesus Christ? "We're going to go to the place "that has given the known world art and oratory "and philosophy and sport and culture, "and that's where we're going to be, huh? "Glad we waited." "But we have a plan. "We want to be in control. "But the problem is that as we go "we have to be paying attention "because the spirit is the director." Don't miss that part. The Spirit of God is the director who sees the beginning from the end, the one who sees the whole movie. The spirit sees that. So not only does the spirit see it, the spirit is also smarter than us. The plans that we are concocting we don't know how to fully execute them but the Spirit of God knows how to put us, where he wants us, when he wants us there and for the purpose that he wants us there. Do you know what's interesting is all the places that they were prohibited to go initially, they eventually did go when you start reading later in Acts. So the spirit was just saying, "Not now but you'll get there." This is why we need to recognize that the spirit directs those that are patient enough to wait on his direction. And by patient and wait, I don't mean you're not doing anything, and I'll get to that in just a moment, but I mean that you're willing to ask for his direction the whole way through. Secondly, though, the spirit directs both negatively and positively. I'm going to explain what I mean by that and you're going to see it very clearly in the text itself, but that's how the spirit directs. He directs what I would call negative guidance and positive guidance. Notice again what it says in verse number six and seven. "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." They were hindered. "When they came to the border of Mysia, "they tried to enter Bithynia "but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to." You know what that is? Negative guidance. But now watching verse number nine, after they make it 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."" That is positive guidance. So what we see in this passage of scripture is that the Holy Spirit directs us both negatively and positively. Now, on the negative side, what's interesting is the scripture talks about how the Holy Spirit hindered them or prohibited them from going into areas. Maybe your mind works the same as mine does. I apologize if that's the case, but maybe it does, and you're asking this question: why did the Holy Spirit hinder them from going into those places, and how did the Holy Spirit hinder them or prohibit them from going in these places? Well, let me start with the first question 'cause I can answer it because I can't answer the second question. The first question, why did he do it? Is because the Holy Spirit is the director. He sees the whole movie and he knows exactly what he wants to do and the timing that he wants it done. It's not as if he was saying, "I do not want the people in this part of Asia," and again, they called it Asia back then, "I do not want them to hear the gospel." That's not what the Holy Spirit was saying. Because see what was happening then is that even when we don't see it, he's working. Did we sing that maybe just a few moments ago? You see the Holy Spirit maybe didn't tell them because they can't see the whole thing, but he's in the process of preparing them and they're not ready quite yet for what's going to be brought to them. The Holy Spirit makes those decisions, we don't, because he's the director, we're just the cast member. We're just looking to him for his direction because he sees it all. He knows the timing. He knows the preparedness. He knows all of those things. That's the why behind why the Holy Spirit was holding them up right there. He's the great strategist. He knows what he's doing, when he's doing it and how he wants to do it. But the question is how did he prohibit them? I've got a simple two-word answer for you: don't know. You know why I don't know? 'Cause we're not told. I've learned over the course of my experience to remain pretty silent on the things the Bible is silent about. I don't know how the Holy Spirit prohibited them from going into these territories. Was it a word of prophecy that came through Paul or Silas or Timothy? Maybe. Was an impression on their heart that came to them? Maybe. Was it an audible voice potentially? Maybe, particularly when you read in verse number seven that says they went to the border of Mysia and they tried to enter Bithynia but the spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. Most of the time when you're reading about the Holy Spirit you see the Holy Spirit or you see the spirit, but here he's called the Spirit of Jesus. Somewhat scholars would argue that maybe Jesus showed up in that context and gave them direction as to what not to do, that's possible. Could it have been circumstances that prohibited them or hindered them? That's also possible. The real answer is: I don't know. We're not told. But here's what we do know. It was the Holy Spirit that did it. And that's different than another type of hindrance that the Apostle Paul writes about when he writes to the church at Thessalonica. Now, I don't know if you know this, but when you keep reading in the book of Acts, Paul ends up having a really, really difficult time in Thessalonica. They want to kill him basically. Some of the people that are there, they run him out and they have to sneak him out and all this stuff. They want him dead. And then they put up like a... There was a bounty for him and some of his friends actually were jailed and had to be taken out of jail and all this stuff. It was a bad scenario. Listen to what Paul says about that in 1 Thessalonians 2 when he writes to the church at Thessalonica. He said: "For we wanted to come to you, "certainly I, Paul, did, "again and again, "but Satan blocked our way. "Satan hindered us." He's referring to the animus that Satan has put in the hearts of people that wanted to kill an ambassador of the gospel. And he's saying that's actually the work of Satan. But here, this is the spirit. You're saying, "Well, Jerry, how do I know "when it's the work of the spirit and the work of Satan "that's hindering me?" Well, if it's evil it's the evil one. You're welcome. If it's evil, it's the evil one. And sometimes in others circumstances, there are ways in which Satan is trying to prohibit us in certain things but what we have to do is we have to walk closely with Jesus and have the wisdom of God so that we can tell the difference. Now, there was a time where I've been hindered by the spirit. I was serving on staff at a church in Florida. This was before I ever got here. And this would have been now probably 20, 21 years ago. So back in 2000, 2001, something like that, 2001-ish. 'Cause I got here in 2002. And while I was there, I loved where I was, we loved where we were, we loved where we were serving. Loved the pastor I was serving under. I loved the church that I was in, loved the people, loved what I did. All of it good. We loved where we lived. We just loved. It was great. And then Jesus started messing with me. That happens sometimes. You do know that. Everything seems to be great and then Jesus messes with you. And so inside of my heart, I realized that the call that God had placed on my life a number of years prior to that, which was a call to preach the gospel, a call to lead in those respects, he started making it clear to me as I was reading his word, and this was over months and months and months, and I'm reading and I'm writing down what God is showing me and sharing with me and all of that. And I'm sharing that with Edie, and she's like, "Yeah, it seems that God is preparing us "for his activity, for his move in our lives," and I'm like, "I think so too but I want to make sure." And so I let my pastor in on this and I said, "Hey, I want you to see "what God's been showing me in his word. "I want to talk to you about this. "I'd love your wisdom on this." And he told me, he said, "Look, man, now that I'm seeing this," he said, "God's getting ready to do something with you." He said, "That's obvious." I said, "I love where I am. "I'm not looking to go anywhere." He said, "I know." He said, "I was hoping I'd have you four years. "I've had you eight," he said, "so it's gravy as far as I'm concerned, "but it's time and God's doing this in your life." And I said, "Okay." Within a couple of weeks of the right people having godly wisdom in my life, having spiritual authority in my life speak into these decisions, all of these people are now in the loop and I haven't sent out a resume, I'm not looking to go anywhere. I love where I'm at. Jesus already knows my address. He already knows. He's already working in my life so he knows where I am. I don't have to alert him, "I'm here," he knows. Within just a couple of weeks I had somewhere in there, I can't remember exactly, it was like five or six different job prospect opportunities on my desk that found me. I didn't find them, they found me. I didn't send anything out. I didn't make a call to anybody. "Hey, this is what God's doing in my life. "I'm just looking. "I'm putting out some feelers." I didn't do any of that stuff, didn't get a head hunter to look for me for anything, nothing. And then all of a sudden I've got from planting a church, maybe that's what I'm supposed to do. Just plant the church with my family and get started, doing something like that, to churches of all sizes all the way up to church of a thousand that was in Georgia, kind of north Georgia. There was another one in Florida and then there was one in Ohio. And I was like, "what is going on?" And then one of my mentors calls me and says, "Hey, we want to maybe do a mega plant with you. "In other words, I'm talking to these other pastors "of some really large churches. "We're going to put some budget money together "and we'll give you a full time, "you'll be able to be a church planter full-time "and I'll give you three full-time staff members "to start with you and a budget." And I was like, "Yes, yes, we will do that." I was pumped. And he said, "In fact, I know that you want to work "in some additional academic stuff. "You want to work on a doctorate, "and there's this particular city "that we've been praying about and we have in mind. "And it's Boston. "And we think that we need some more churches there "that preach the gospel "and you can work on your doctorate simultaneously "and we'll give you this budget and we'll give you a staff." And I was just going, I was like, "We're on now." I did not do that by the way and I shouldn't have done it just then, but I was fired up. I was thinking that's what... I was coming home and telling Edie, I'm like, "This is unbelievable. "This is an incredible opportunity." And I'm praying and I'm praying. And God starts saying to me no after no. Some of them just along the line I realized the Spirit of God was just going, "Nope, that's not what I want for you." "Okay." "That's not what I want for you." "Okay." But then we got to that one and I was like, "Yeah, yes, he does." And the spirit says, "No, I do not." And I was kind of going, "What? What? "This is me, this is me." "No." Okay, so you've done all this is to my heart. You've confirmed it around the people that I'm around, that are godly, and I went from having like five or six of these options and I knew one of these is going to be your leadership because you did all of this, I didn't do any of it. And now they're none, none of them. You've said no to everything. What's going on? And within a couple of weeks, the pastor's secretary comes to my office and says, "There's a gentleman that wants to have lunch with you," and I said, "What's his name?" She said, "Earl Cockrell," I said, "I don't know him. "So, why does he want to have lunch with me?" "Well, he's a pastor up in Buffalo, New York." "So I don't know him, how old is he?" She said, "He's in his 60s." "It's okay, so he's not coming through Florida "and wants to have lunch with me "because he wants to pick my brain and get my wisdom." I was 32 at the time, he's in his 60s. I said, "Okay, is he the pastor of a church there?" And she said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, if he wants to come "and try and hire me to be like a staff member or whatever, "I'm not interested in that. "I know what God's calling me to do." And she said, "No, it's not that." I said, "Do you know something?" And she was like, "Maybe, but I can't say." And I was like, "All right, I'll have lunch with him." Well, I had lunch with him and six, eight months later, whenever it was, nine months later, I'm in Buffalo as the pastor of The Chapel. And the interesting thing is that the Holy Spirit used negative guidance and positive guy to direct me. That's what he did in Paul and Silas and Timothy's life as well, negative and positive. Let me bust through a couple of things real quick here. He also directs scene by scene. Now let me explain what I mean by that. Paul was not showing the whole movie. What he had to do is he had to trust scene by scene. My guess is, listen to this, my educated is that when they took off from Pisidian Antioch and they were headed west, that they were going to be on a direct line to Ephesus. That's where I think he wanted to go. I'm not alone in that, by the way, there's a number of scholars that feel the same way. That he was probably going to Ephesus because Paul also thought strategically, and Ephesus, this was the mega city in that part of the world. If you can put a beach head an Ephesus, man the whole place can be impacted because Ephesus was so large and so great and so well-known. And so I think Paul was headed to Ephesus. For Paul's movie that he was creating in his mind, that's what he thought he was going to do and the Spirit of God said, "Nope, we're going this way." You know, Paul eventually did get to Ephesus by the way, but not then, because it wasn't his time, because he was being directed scene by scene. You see, we have to remember something, my friends: the Holy Spirit is the director. You are not the director, the Holy Spirit is. It's his movie. And every scene is his scene. Whatever scene that you're in right now, it's his scene. And your role is a cast member. The Holy Spirit is the director. I want you to say something out loud. "I'm not the director."
I heard you here and online. I'm not the director. If that starts to drain into our heads and into our hearts, we begin to look at the way we process decision-making very, very differently. But that's something we've got to convince ourselves of. Our movies stink, his movie is glorious. It may not be easy, it may be challenging, it may be difficult, it may be confusing at times for us but he sees the whole thing. And we've got to trust that he is a good director who is writing the story of the mission of God. And he just asks us to be a cast member that lives scene by scene and trust him. "This is what I want you to do in this scene." "Yes, sir." "This is what I want you to do in this scene." "Yes, Lord." That's what I want you to do. This goes scene by scene. That's how he directs us. He also, when he directs, he directs and expects us to discern and obey. He directs us but he expects us to discern his leadership and to obey him. I'm going to show it to you in verse number 10. I want you to look at this. "After Paul had seen the vision, "we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia." Here's the word, "Concluding, "that God had called us to preach the gospel to them." I want you to know what they just did. They discerned the leadership of the Spirit of God. That word concluding in the Greek language indicates that they were giving real thought and real attention and real prayer. And do you know what they did? They factored in the negative guidance of the spirit and the positive guidance of the spirit and they concluded: God had called us to preach the gospel to them. Now what's interesting about this is that when you see this written, this is not anymore, because they're now in Troas, this is not just Paul and Timothy and Silas anymore. You know, who's with them now? The author of the book of Acts, Luke. "We got ready at once to leave. "We knew that he had called us." See, Luke's writing from a different perspective now because he joined them in Troas. And now he's a part of this discerning of what God was wanting to do. But do you know when they discerned what God wanted, you know what they did? Obeyed and quick. After Paul had seen the vision we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia. They just obeyed. My friends, that's exactly what God is calling us to do. He's calling us to be a people that discern what he's telling us and then do what he says. Now, what I don't want you to do is I don't want you to have some romantic vision of what obedience to God looks like. When the Holy Spirit calls us to do something and it gives us a directive to do something, sometimes we think, "I am special, I'm awesome, "and this is going to be like Disney world." Everything's going to be unicorns and rainbows and Skittles. That's like, he's going to say yes and I'm going to do this. It wasn't that way. When they got called to Macedonia, do you know what happened to Paul and Silas? They got beaten and jailed in Philippi. For what purpose? For the purpose of the furtherance of the gospel. You're going, "Wait a minute, "so the director can do with me whatever he wants "for the purposes of the gospel?" Yes, that's what I'm saying to you. Don't romanticize this idea of obedience. Sometimes obedience is hard, but it's for the purposes that are greater than ours. It's for the purposes of the glory of God and the good of people. And although Paul and Silas were beaten and they were jailed, the gospel began to run freely because of what God did in and through them. There's a cost that's associated with serving Jesus and walking with Jesus and we have to pay attention to that, and so he expects us to discern and to ultimately obey. But also, he directs those already on the road of obedience. This is kind of the fifth thing that I want you to see. He directs those that are already on the road of obedience. Now listen carefully to this. Implicit in this story that we read, this passage that we read, implicit in it is the idea that they were already in motion and obedient when the spirit directed them. They were already in motion. They were already being obedient. What did they do when they left the city in Antioch? "We're going to preach man." And they headed out. What were they doing? Being obedient to the call of the great commission to share the gospel, to plant churches. And they got directed as they were in motion of obedience. I don't care how many... Listen, I don't care how many ways that you try and take the steering wheel in your car and turn it, if it's not running it means nothing. You steer a car when it's in motion. And you and I need to be people that are in the motion of obedience, that we know what God has said, the kind of people we're supposed to be, the things that we are supposed to be doing, that we're actually in motion doing those things, and then the Holy Spirit begins to direct us in more specific and more strategic ways. So let me ask you a couple of questions. Here's the first. Are you on the road of obedience? You see some of us get frustrated because we're like, "I don't know if the Holy Spirit's directing me "or not or whatever," and maybe it's because you're just going nowhere, doing nothing. We need to be on the road of obedience. Are we obediently following the guidance of the spirit? Are we allowing the word of God to speak to us, the Spirit of God to speak to us through his word day in and day out? And are we saying yes? And are we saying, "We'll be obedient." Are you available to be obedient? Didn't we just say we were in a song just a few moments ago? "I'm available," did you lie or did you tell the truth? There's a lot of lying that goes on in worship songs. Lots of it sometimes. ♪ Wherever you call me I will go ♪ And you're just singing it, but it's not real. It's like, "No, I don't mean there. "I don't mean there, it's an asterisk. "I've got a whole bibliography "of things that I will not do." No, we've gotta be able to think about saying, "Yes, I've already written it on a piece of paper "and I've put it on the altar of God "before he asks the question." The answer is: I've already wrestled down. You know better, you are smarter. You're the director, I'm a cast member. So the answer is yes and I'll wait the question, right Angel? I will await the question. You tell me. That's the kind of people that we need in the body of Christ because that's the way we begin fulfilling the mission of God. When we say, "Whatever it means, whatever you ask, "I'm willing to do." How many of us have done that? Are we on the road of obedience? Have we settled the yes on the table question for whatever God says? Now, does that mean you're saying, "I'm scared to do that "'cause God may call me to another country." You should be saying, "I'm scared to death that if God calls me to another country "and I disobey him that then I'm just going to be walking "in a frustrated way." That's what you ought to be scared of. Moms and dads, don't ever put it in the minds of your kids. "Well, listen, God's never going to call you "to any of those places "'cause he's going to keep you close to my home "and all that kind of stuff," stop it. The Holy Spirit is the director. The Holy Spirit is the director. And if he says this is what I'm calling them to do you bless the Lord and you bless them even if it makes you quake, because God knows what he's doing. "Well, it might not be safe." You're exactly right. Was it safe for Paul and Silas to answer the Macedonian call? No, they got beaten and jailed. Was it safe for Jesus to do the will of the father? He went to a cross. I'm making no promises on unicorns and rainbows, what I am saying is that whatever present sufferings that we endure will not be worth comparing to the glory that will be revealed in us. That's what I am saying. We need to be on the road of obedience, are you? But let me ask you second, maybe more penetrating question. You like more? Here it is. Would anything changed for you if the Holy Spirit was taken away from the world for a week or for a month or for a year? Would you even notice? Would you even notice? Do you know why I asked that penetrating question, is because of what it gets to in our hearts? Is whether or not we have been the ones directing our own lives, controlling our own narrative, writing our own movie, or if we've let the spirit do it. Would you even notice if the Holy Spirit checked out of the midst of the world for a week, for a month, for a year. Some of you right now in your hearts are going, and that's okay. What I would say that the response to sometimes things like this are, there's a really beautiful biblical response when you realize you are directing and controlling everything about your own life and it's a really, really small movie and that you want to be a part of the greater mission of God. Here's a really biblical response, repentance. Repentance means you change your mind about what you were doing and you do an about face and you say, "I want to do what you want. "I don't want to just do what I want, "I want to do what you want, God." That's what that looks like. Because you know why these things are so important, friends, brothers and sisters in Christ? You know why this is so important? Because we need every single person available and listening and obedient to the Spirit of God if we want to accomplish the mission of God. This is what the Holy Spirit is doing. He's sovereign over the mission of God and he directs it as he wills. But he's doing that through people. And we want to be a people who are listening to his voice through his word, who are saying yes to him and who are willing to do whatever it is he asks of us because this is a part of how we accomplish the mission of God in the world. Don't you want your scene in the movie? Or is it going to be a scene that's just left on the cutting room floor? Don't you want the scene of Western New York in this time, in this generation that we live in? Don't you want it to be a part of the beautiful tapestry and story that God is writing? Even if it's just our scene, we want our scene to make the director smile 'cause it's his. It's all his. And so I want to do what Jesus actually told us to do, and it's this. He said to his disciples: "The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. "Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, "to send out workers into the harvest field." Would you join me as I do that? Father, I pray to the Lord of the harvest, the sovereign spirit. I pray that in the name of Jesus that you would raise up workers in the field, cast members in the movie to fulfill your purposes in the world. You know when and how and why and we don't always, but we want to be submissive to your leadership in our lives and fulfill your purpose for our living, obeying you and all the things we know to do and letting you direct us in spaces and places and to people as you will. I pray that you would raise up an army in our church, our congregation here and in your church in Western New York, workers that will be engaged in the harvest field so that we might fulfill your desire for this scene in the great drama of the mission of God in the world. We pray that you would do that for your glory in Jesus name, Amen.