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October 13, 2002
Rededication Sunday
Acts 16:6-15
Pastor Joel Zank

Help Us! - A Cry for the Gospel

(Acts 16:6-15) 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. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us." After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days. On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. We sat down and began to speak to the women who had gathered there. One of those listening was a woman named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth from the city of Thyatira, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message. When she and the members of her household were baptized, she invited us to her home. "If you consider me a believer in the Lord," she said, "come and stay at my house." And she persuaded us.

In Christ Jesus who calls us to service and equips us for the same, dear fellow redeemed,

HELP! There's a word that'll get the old adrenaline pumping. Calls for help tend to energize us. People start running. Sirens start blaring. That's because calls for help create a sense of urgency as we realize that someone's life or safety may be at stake.

If this is true of distress calls issued in the face of some physical danger, how much more so of every spiritual call for help. Today just such a call comes our way. Can you hear it rising up from our text? "Help us!" Do you recognize that plea? Have you heard it before? "Help us!" That's a cry for the gospel; a cry that comes through God's direction; a cry that calls for our urgent response.

But perhaps we feel unprepared, unequipped, unauthorized to deal with a spiritual emergency. We don't know where to go or what to do. That's why we need God's direction. He will give it to us, just as he provided direction to the Apostle Paul and to the team of disciples with him. In fact, let's spend a little time today with that team of spiritual first responders, learning from them how to react to spiritual emergencies.

Our training mission takes us to ancient Asia Minor, present day Turkey. Paul is in this region of the globe checking up on the churches that by God's grace and power had been founded by the apostle and his coworkers just a year or so earlier. But they weren't content to merely rest on past efforts. There were more towns and cities in which to share the gospel. They thought of turning west, but St. Luke tells us they were, "...kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia" (16:6). They then thought of heading north, but Luke again reports, "...the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to" (16:7). How strange this sounds-the Holy Spirit preventing mission work? No not preventing it, but giving it direction at the proper time. Later, when the time was right, God would send Paul back to those places he hadn't been allowed to enter at this stage of his journey. What a reminder to us that mission work is never done by luck or accident. God is the one who steers the course of his Word. The timing is his. He may close what seems to us to be a window of opportunity, but only because he's ready to open a door somewhere else, as he does here in our text. "So they [Paul and company] passed by Mysia and went down 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" (16:8-9).

God thinks big! While Paul is thinking of adding to the churches in Asia, God has a whole new continent in mind - Europe. I say, God had this in mind. Paul recognized the Lord's voice in this call. Speaking on behalf of the missionaries, Luke says in verse 10, we concluded, "...that God had called us to preach the gospel to them [the people of Macedonia]." It had to be God. Unbelievers are in such a sorry state of spiritual trouble they don't even know they need help, so God in his grace puts out the spiritual 911 call on their behalf.

Christians, we've been commissioned by Jesus himself to receive and respond to such distress calls. He has said to us, "...go and make disciples of all nations..." (Matthew 28:19). We're on a mission, you and I, a search and rescue mission from God. So what should we do? Wait for a vision, like Paul's? We're not going to receive one, but we can still expect direction from God. We know he wants us to make disciples. He's going to give us opportunities to do so. We need to train our ears to hear his call for help. Sometimes that call comes through the tears of a coworker who tells you life is out of control and she doesn't know what to do about it. Sometimes the call is heard in the panicked voice of a sick friend whose doctors have done everything they can. Sometimes the call goes out in a bulletin announcement: teachers wanted for the Hmong Saturday School at St. Pauls; or New Adult Information Class beginning - bring an unchurched friend. Sometimes a spiritual distress call comes through the opportunities God presents to us as a congregation or church body. We're asked to support a new mission here in Appleton, or a mission in Indonesia, or Thailand, or Hong Kong. These are all calls for help, all of them coming to you and me through God's direction.

But what makes us qualified to handle these spiritual emergencies? How do we know how to help someone who's in spiritual distress? Isn't there someone more qualified? Who would that be? Who could be more qualified than we are since we ourselves were once rescued from the same disaster? With this very thinking in mind, the Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God."

When our lives were out of control, when our sin had made us enemies of God and had earned us his punishment in hell, when we hadn't a clue as to what awful fate awaited us and when we couldn't have cared less, God came to our rescue. He called and directed people to help us with the gospel. Through the words of Scripture those people spoke and the waters of Baptism they applied, God comforted us then and still does today with his own promise that all our sins have been more than paid for by Jesus for whose sake alone our wrongs are forgiven, our troubles are made blessings and the glories of heaven await us. That's comfort, my friends-comfort from God, comfort for us to enjoy right now; and comfort for us to share-when? Some day, when we're a bit better prepared? No! This comfort from God is ours to share today.

When the call goes out to help find a missing child, people drop everything. They go at once. There's a real sense of urgency. People know they're working against the clock. There are only so many hours before night comes and the search will be called off on account of darkness.

When it came to mission work, the Apostle Paul and his coworkers in Christ had that same sense of urgency. Listen to St. Luke: "After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day on to Neapolis. From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia" (16:10-12). We have recorded here more than a travelogue. These words capture not only the apostles' enthusiasm, but also how serious and important they regarded their mission. They knew there were only so many hours of daylight left to them. They understood that an eternal night of judgment was coming. People were dying and going to hell with every passing moment. The souls of those still living couldn't afford to wait on Christians who were hoping to become more at ease with the mission assigned them.

All these years later nothing has changed. There is still an eternal night of judgment coming. For some it came yesterday. Their obituaries are in today's paper. If they didn't know Christ, it's too late. But for all those souls still living, there's still time. How much time? We don't know. They may die this evening. Christ may return tomorrow. Do you sense the urgency? Maybe you don't want to. Maybe the responsibility that comes with God's calling is overwhelming. Maybe the importance of the work leaves us burdened with the guilt of past failures. Have there been cries for help that we've ignored? I ashamed to say that I've ignored some. How about you? What should we do with this guilt? Live in it? Die with it? Never! Jesus has paid for these sins too! His holiness covers all our failures, even our failures to share his gospel. God does not count these sins against us. He doesn't point an accusing finger at us today and say, "You better never let that happen again! Now get out there and do it right!" Instead he proclaims us forgiven and regards us as perfect, even perfect missionaries-all thanks to Jesus, our sin-bearer and substitute.

So today we rededicate ourselves to the work at hand, not out of fear for God's threats, but out of thanks for his love. We go about our mission with a sense of urgency that comes from knowing that God who directs every call for spiritual help is waiting to do great things through us today. Look at the lives God touched though Paul and his companions. Paul shared the gospel of God's forgiveness in Christ with a woman named Lydia. God blessed the work. Luke tells us, "The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul's message" (16:14). Lydia became a believer and instantly a missionary sharing the good news about Jesus with her family, having them baptized in the Savior's name; and then, opening her home to serve as Paul's base of operations so that more people could hear the gospel and be saved.

Jesus works through us in the same way. He has put people in our lives, like Lydia, people whose lives will be forever changed through the words God gives us to speak to them, through the faith God's ready to work in them. Isn't it exciting? Isn't it exciting to be a part of a congregation and a synod that loves God's Word and loves to share it. God is constantly directing calls for help our way. He's opening doors for us all around our community, throughout our country, all over our world. Just think, God is pleased to use us, our message and our offerings to accomplish such great things. I think of the way God has used our little synod to evangelize Africa. We began our work there in 1949 with a handful of souls. Today, by God's grace, 40,000 people belong to the Lutheran Church of Central Africa, to say nothing of the countless thousands that are already in heaven through the gospel we preached there. Or think of the door God is opening for us to the Hmong Community right here in Appleton. In just two year's time, God has used our message to reach many families and through that message has worked in one man the desire to train for full-time ministry. The call for help is all around us my friends. Listen for it; respond to it with sense urgency, confident that the same God who has rescued us will use our gospel to rescue many more for Jesus' sake. Amen.