Joshua's God of War s1

How to be Guided by God The Bible passage we read tells us how Paul made four important decisions - before we look at that, how many sensible and Christian ways can we think of READ Acts 15.36 – 16.15 finding guidance? My two daughters have some tough decisions to make in the near future - they have to decide which college to go to and which subjects to study INTERACTION: ask people to call out - later they’ll have to decide where to live, and what to do with their lives - warn them: no specific examples. We’ll try to have time at the end for that. - they might even have to decide who to spend the rest of their life with - though I’ve warned them that whoever it is, I’ll think they aren’t good enough What were the decisions Paul had to make? First, the decision to go, but he appears to simply decide that: All the decisions we make, we want to make them in accordance with God’s Acts 15:35-36 But Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch, teaching and will proclaiming (along with many others) the word of the Lord. 36 After some - but how do we find out what God’s will is, and what kind of things matter? days Paul said to Barnabas, "Let's return and visit the brothers in every - I didn’t ask God’s guidance this morning when I decided my breakfast choice town where we proclaimed the word of the Lord to see how they are - perhaps that was a mistake? God is certainly interested in such things doing." - but he gives us common sense and freedom, and wants us to grow up - parents decide for a baby what he will eat and how much and when I guess he felt that God had already told him to evangelise the Gentiles - and you need some guidance about how much and what to eat as a young child - and this wasn’t a one-missionary journey job. He had to keep on with it. - but it would be a tragedy if you still needed guidance when you’ve grown up, - do you remember how he decided to go on that first journey? He didn’t! - though we need some guidance again when you start spreading into middle age - at a prayer meeting in Antioch, everyone felt led to send Paul and Barnabus Acts 13:2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit But what about the big decisions in life? How do we find God’s will about that? said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called Poor young Freddie, had to choose between Sheila and Maria, who both loved them." him - there is the first way Paul was guided – by friends who prayed with him - Sheila was the clever one, from a wealthy family, but Maria was the stunner - and having been given a job, Paul didn’t just drop it after doing a bit - he loved them both, but which one did he want to have and to hold till death? - he considered that he had to get on with this job till God said: You can stop - he decided to ask God to guide him. He prayed and prayed but no voice came now - he looked through the Bible, but couldn’t find any Sheila’s or Maria’s anywhere So he asked Barnabus to come with him to revisit all the churches they’d - then he went to a friend’s wedding in a huge impressive Catholic church founded - he prayed: Lord please guide me. Then he saw the answer in his order of - and Barnabus said: Great, I’ll tell Mark, to come with us again like last time service - he had come on the first journey as far as Perga and had then gone home - the opening music (with a little misprint): The arrival of the Queen of Sheila (13.13) - he was overjoyed, though he was a little disappointed deep down - we don’t know why he suddenly went home – perhaps he was home sick - if he was honest it was Maria he wanted to have and hold and fondle and... - Paul thought he had deserted them, and he didn’t want to take him again - he was getting distracted so he quickly looked back at his service sheet - but Barnabus was his cousin (Col.4.10) so he was biased, and they had a row - and then he saw it – a direct revelation from God in the title of the next music - in the end they travelled separately, Barnabus with Mark and Paul with Silas - it was not just the mention of a name, but a divine instruction: ‘Ave Maria - Barnabus went to Cyprus where they had family, so Mark wouldn’t be home sick OK – it was a silly story, but no sillier than real life sometimes - Paul and Silas went North towards the churches they had founded in Turkey - no sillier than flicking through a Bible and putting your finger on a passage - or looking at clouds or tealeaves, or drawing straws, or tarot cards How did they come to this decision? Did they ask God about it? - or asking a weather forecaster if you should go on a picnic tomorrow - we aren’t told, except that they had a bitter row and decided to part company - what would you call that kind of guidance? Push and shove guidance?

1 When Paul reached Lystra, he had another decision to make about Timothy When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but - he was a keen young believer in whom Paul saw leadership potential the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. (16.7) - he became Paul’s right-hand man in Ephesis where he left him to run the - so he had no choice but to keep moving West, till he hit the sea at Troas church - and there, sensibly, he stopped to try and find God’s will about what to do next - but before he took him on this missionary journey there was a big decision - he was a half Jew – his father was a Greek, so he hadn’t circumcised his son Does that mean he wasn’t following God’s will up to then? - Paul’s work was among the Gentiles, but he often started in Synagogues - we don’t know how “the Holy Spirit would not allow them”. - and an uncircumcised Jew was as welcome as a plate full of ham sandwiches - perhaps he had a feeling of unrest, - ie he didn’t have the peace of God about it - so he asked Timothy to get circumcised, just to fit in, no big deal - or perhaps there was a border guard who didn’t like him, or bandits on the road - or so he thought. He didn’t realise the trouble which would come by doing this - or perhaps some opposition from towns where he’d preached before were there - he’d been stopped by that kind of thing before, and some had tried to kill him Later, when Paul had trouble from the Judaisers, this circumcision was a big deal We have no idea, but it looks like it was either circumstances or a feeling of - Judaisers said you had to become a Jew first and then become a Christian unease - Paul emphasised that a Gentile Christian didn’t need to get circumcised - but what now. He could either turn back, or get a boat. So he asked God about - but they said: How can you say that, when you made Timothy get it circumcised? - and I’m sure Paul had to explain again and again why he did it - actually, I’ll have to admit that we don’t have a record of this, but we see him Now, if it was me, I’d probably never have got that far in the first place forestalling it in Gal.2.2, talking about roughly the same time - because I’m a stay-at-home guy who needs a lot of pushing - he says that Titus, who was a Gentile, wasn’t forced to get circumcised - should he have stopped before? Perhaps the Holy Spirit was telling him to - and you can almost hear him say “but please don’t ask me again about stop! Timothy” - perhaps he should have settled down somewhere and worked long-term in a - perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but I can’t help thinking he regretted it church - or perhaps it was a good idea and it opened lots of doors for evangelism. - perhaps he should have asked God specifically every time he set out again

I’m not sure what happened, but the point is, how did Paul seek guidance about Paul is acting correctly like a soldier with General Routine Orders (GRO’s) it? - a solder gets Daily Routine Orders (DRO’s), eg go on a training day, or sentry - we don’t know – it looks like he just made the decision on pragmatic grounds duty - it looked like the sensible thing to do, and he didn’t know it would cause - and he doesn’t need to be reminded from hour to hour what he should be doing problems - or, if he is on a mission somewhere without a commanding officer he gets GRO’s Now comes a whole series of decisions about where to go - ie General Routine Orders, eg ‘do reconnaissance, ‘build up resistance’, ‘create mayhem’ - you might think you have a hard decision about where to go, for work or study - he had General Orders to evangelise the Gentiles, and so he got on with it - but when the whole world needs evangelising, where does an evangelist go? - God had been with him when he worked in Turkey, so he tried to continue - Paul decided he’d done quite well in Turkey, so he decided to do some more there there - he continued till God told him to stop, like now. He’d come to a stop - he travelled from East to West visiting churches he’d founded - and then wondered where to go next – which new territories to evangelise What did he do? How would you get guidance? Look at the list we made earlier - he turned south to the province of Asia – but something stopped him - I expect he read Scripture, prayed, talked to fellow believers, and waited - it simply says he was “kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia.” (Act 16.6) One of the people he talked this over with was a new believer he met in Troas - so he went a little further and then tried turning North. Again he was stopped - Luke, who wrote Acts, joined him there. We can tell from the ‘we’ passages - sometimes in Acts it say “they went there” and sometime “we went there”

2 - look at v 8 “they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas” - but the food was Gentile food (shellfish perhaps?) and he heard Jesus say: Eat - then in v10: “we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia” – ie Luke was in it, Troas - the point is, he didn’t disregard the dream just because it was unsurprising - and we can follow these and see when Luke turns up and leaves again images - it doesn’t look arbitrary – they build up into a consistent picture. - he was open to hearing God speak through it - it looks like Luke comes from Macedonia because he tends to join them when - and Paul too, had a dream with unsurprising images, but he was open to God they get to Macedonia, or near there, as on this occasion. - later, when they are leaving Macedonia, he parts company and stays there So Paul was guided in a bundle of ways, and sometimes he acted without - and when they come back to Macedonia in Act.20, Luke is there again guidance - but when Paul travels across the water to Troas, Luke remains in Macedonia - he was guided by fellow believers who were praying with him for the Pentecost holiday, presumably staying with family or friends. - he was guided by circumstances when he couldn’t go where he had decided - anyway Paul would have talked over his problem with Luke, in Troas. - he was guided by a dream when he was absolutely stuck and unsure - one might say he was guided by a stand-up row with Barnabus Eventually Paul fell asleep, and he dreamed. Nothing strange about that - they appear to have made up later, and Paul acknowledged Mark’s valuable - but this was a God-dream, and I hear from those who have had one that it stands work out - perhaps Mark was able to work better away from Paul’s volatile company? - it isn’t like an ordinary dream where you wake up and think: that’s interesting - it is insistent, unforgettable, and perhaps uncomfortable till you start to follow But most interesting to me is the fact that Paul didn’t wait till he got guidance it - he got on with the General orders he’d had, until God said stop, or change - like all Christians he had the commission to “go tell all people and nations” - and he specifically had the job of spreading that to the Gentiles as well as Jews - so he didn’t wait around for specific orders, but got on with it - and if a door closed to him, he wasn’t bothered by it. He just tried another - and if he was stopped, he set himself to find out where God wanted him instead

I don’t want you to get the impression that it utterly spooky and beyond you I just wish that I was a bit more like him, with more get-up-and-go - anyone can dream, after all, some of you may be dreaming right now - we are all different, and we all do God’s will in different ways - and hearing God in a dream is a matter of being open to hearing God in it - the important thing to remember is to get on with it till God points another way - this dream was, after all, very ordinary from a human point of view - think of yourself sitting in a car with the engine off, and then try turning the - think about it: what did he see? A man from Macedonia saying: Come to us wheel - and who had he been talking with? Luke, a man from Macedonia - you can’t steer a car till you’ve started it, and preferably started moving - and I expect that Luke was saying: Don’t stay in the provinces – come to - it is the same with God’s guidance. It is easier to get guidance when you are Europe moving - Macedonia is the best place in the world, and the centre of the Earth - when you are already attempting to do God’s will, like Paul trying South & - Alexander the Great started there and went out to conquer the whole earth North - it is the best place on the planet, and it has superb Greek restaurants - if you sit around waiting for God, he’ll wait for you like a perfect gentleman - and it needs the Gospel. - but Paul’s example suggests that if we look around and see what we can perhaps have a go and start it, then God will step in and show us which way This is like when Peter fell asleep before dinner and dreamt about food to go. - he was sleeping on a roof overlooking a sea port and what was the food carried in? And the other thing Paul teaches us is that God uses the ordinary and unusual - it was laid out on a sail cloth, like the sails he saw before he fell asleep - he can guide by dramatic dreams, but he can also guide by circumstances - the important thing is to be open to God’s guidance

3 But just two notes of caution. 1) More extra-ordinary things need more confirmation - is God is guiding you to set up a evangelistic volleyball school for the Eskimos? - if so, I’m sure that God will make it VERY plain, and not just give a few hints 2) If the venture is dangerous or seemingly impossible, don’t just say: I’ll trust God - that’s what the Devil tempted Jesus to do in jumping off the Temple roof - he said: The Psalms say that God won’t even let you stub your toe on a rock - Jesus replied: Don’t put the Lord your God to the test. - if God wants you to do something seemingly impossible, he’ll provide the means - and he will make it VERY clear that you are to do that thing

But most things need only a nudge from God in the right direction and we need to make sure we are open to his will, and willing to give up our own