“Second Choices”

a sermon by

Dr. William P. Wood

First Presbyterian Church Charlotte, North Carolina

January 19, 2003

Text: “When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them, so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas” (Acts 16:7-8).

One of problems that face all of us is the problem of what happens to a person when he or she has to deal with life in terms of second choices. It is a struggle that touches both young and old. Sometimes this experience comes in the realm of personal relationships, when we find ourselves rejected by someone we care deeply for, who has chosen someone else in our place. Sometimes it comes in the realm of the workplace when we covet one job, but are given another job instead. Sometimes it comes when a young person wants to attend a certain college or prep school and finds out that he or she is not accepted.

In truth, there is a fact here that few escape. Most of us rarely get our first choice in life. In fact, if we were honest, most of us would have to acknowledge that in many instances we have had to live on the basis of second and third choices. To those who read biographies of famous people, this comes as such a matter of course that we simply take it for granted.

Whistler, the artist, for example, started out to be a soldier and failed at West Point because he could not pass chemistry. “If silicon had been a gas,” he once said, “I would have been a Major-General.” Instead, having failed as a soldier, he half-heartedly tried to be an engineer, and when that failed, he tried painting --with such great success that he became one of the most famous painters in the Nineteenth Century.

I.

There is an incident in the life of the early church that sheds light on this inescapable struggle of dealing with second choices. In the sixteenth chapter of the book of Acts, we read these words: “When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision; there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ And when he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them” (Acts 16: 7-10).

So simple and succinct is this narrative that one would little suspect that we are dealing here with one of the most significant events in the history of Western Civilization. Here Christianity passed over from Asia into Europe.

It was a momentous day when Christopher Columbus set sail for from the shores of Spain or Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to the Indies, but it would be hard to discover a more significant event than when Paul saw a vision in Macedonia and set sail west to Europe instead of east to Asia.

But Paul had not planned to go to Europe. He wanted to go to Asia. And why not? Bithynia was one of the wealthiest provinces in Asia and to have carried the Christian faith there would have been a great achievement.

Wanting Bithynia and getting Troas. That is a familiar experience. But to take Troas--to take second best and make of it something spectacular--that is a rare and uncommon thing. But that is what Paul did. He wanted to take the gospel to Asia. But the Spirit of Christ prevented him from doing so. So he took second best and made of it something great. He took the gospel to Europe where it finally captured the heart and mind of the Roman Empire itself.

So I ask this question: “Is there anyone here today who has not had the experience of wanting Bithynia only to get Troas?” Those of us who are older watch youth people come along as we did. They have so many dreams, so many ambitions, so many things they long for. But what will happen to them when, as it inevitably will, there will some disappointment to them in their family life, their work, a crisis of health, their relationships to peers and friends. And what was it about the Apostle Paul that allowed him to turn what appeared to be a terrible defeat into a magnificent victory?

1st Presbyterian Church Page 2 January 19, 2003 II.

For one thing, there was his faith. Whatever else was shaken in his life when he got to Troas, there was still the conviction that God had a purpose for his life. One of the things that has impressed me over the past several years in studying the letters of Paul is that Paul was a person who not only expressed his faith, he lived it. In Paul’s letter to the church at Rome he expressed one of the most eloquent ideas in the New Testament when he wrote, “God works in all things for good for those who love him.” You see, it is one thing to say that God works for good for those who love him in all things when things are going well in life, but when we find ourselves in some Troas, it is not quite so easy. In fact a biography of the Apostle Paul could be written as an exposition of that verse. He had been imprisoned, shipwrecked, beaten, stoned, betrayed by the churches he had founded, yet through it all, God worked for good in his life that the gospel might be preached through the world.

Some years ago, when I was a minister in Kingsport, Tennessee, I served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Lees-McRae College. If you ever visit the little town of Banner Elk, North Carolina, you will witness a remarkable testimony to a young Presbyterian minister by the name of Edgar Tufts. When Edgar Tufts arrived in Banner Elk from Union Theological Seminary in 1895, there were no ski resorts or golf courses. Avery County was the poorest county in the state of North Carolina. There was widespread poverty, lack of education, and lack of any real medical facilities. Today there are four major institutions that are a testimony to the dream of this young minister: The Banner Elk Presbyterian Church, Lees McRae College, Grandfather Home for Children, and Cannon Memorial Hospital. As a young man, Edgar Tufts had not imagined himself in a place so destitute and forlorn as the most remote area of the Western North Carolina mountains. No doubt there must have been some Bithynia that beckoned him. But finding himself in Troas, he made a contribution that a hundred years later is breathtaking in its scope and purpose.

One of the most thrilling stories in the Old Testament is the story of Joseph, one of the early patriarchs of Israel. As a boy, Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, and taken to Egypt, where through a remarkable series of events he ended up as the Pharaoh’s most trusted advisors. Because there was famine in the land of Israel, the brothers of Joseph came to Egypt in search of food. Their search for food led them finally to the chambers of their brother Joseph, whom they did not recognize because they believed him to be dead. The result of that encounter brought about the deliverance of the people of Israel and the reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers. When faced with their contrition and repentance of the evil they had done to him, Joseph replied, “You meant it to me as evil, but God meant it to me as good.”

III.

Then, too, it wasn’t just a matter of Paul’s faith in God that led Paul to make something out of a “second choice.” It was also a sense of purpose, a vision of greatness that turned Paul to Troas and eventually into Europe.

1st Presbyterian Church Page 3 January 19, 2003 The Book of Acts tells us that Paul had a vision one night when he was in Troas. He saw a man in Macedonia beckoning to him. It must have been a compelling experience because Paul decided the next day to set sail for Macedonia.

Today, we find ourselves living in a dangerous world dividing “haves” from “have nots,” Christians and Moslems, developed and developing countries. This past week Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times a disturbing piece about the escalating violence between the Israelis and Palestinians. In the mathematics of Ariel Sharon the answer to the violence is to kill more suicide bombers, while in the mathematics of Yassar Arafat the answer is found in his belief that the death of suicide bombers produces more suicide bombers.

Yet, where are the leaders? Where are statesmen who understand unless we find a solution to this terrible division in the Mideast, we are going to face the ultimate destabilization of the entire world? The same is true in our own city. We have developed in Charlotte today a permanent underclass of people (mostly black) who do not see any real hope for the future: not in the neighborhoods in which they live, not in the public schools they attend, not in job market. The result of this is an increasing amount of hopelessness that in turn produces a growing amount of crime that continues to expand and that is going to be difficult to resolve. One woman put it well at a recent homeowners meeting in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in our city when she raised the question, “What good does it do to live in a million dollar home when you cannot protect it from burglary?”

In recent years there has been a great deal of discussion about the lack of leadership in America today. We have become a nation of sheep, blindly grazing from grass to grass without ever looking up to see what is so obvious today; namely, that there is a tremendous call coming to us from abroad and home as well.

IV.

I wonder how many of us, if we were honest, would have to admit that we find ourselves stuck in some Troas, wanting Bithynia. Maybe it is a bad marriage, a difficult situation at work or at school, some terrible illness, or maybe we have just begun to realize that some longed-for dream in our life will never be a reality.

One thing I do know is that when Paul found himself in Troas, he did not quit. Maybe it was his faith, or maybe it was the fact that there was this vision of a man in Macedonia calling for help and he could not get the vision out of his mind. Or maybe it was something else: the memory of the master he served who one day found himself facing some Troas, but turned that Troas of the cross into the greatest triumph the world has ever seen.

But whatever his motivation might have been, Paul took a very hard thing and made of it a triumph.

Amen!

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