Cooperating with God

6 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. 7 When they came to the border of Mysia, they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. 8 So they passed by Mysia and went down to Troas. 9 During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” 10After 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. 11 From Troas we put out to sea and sailed straight for Samothrace, and the next day we went on to Neapolis. 12 From there we traveled to Philippi, a Roman colony and the leading city of that district of Macedonia. And we stayed there several days.  13 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. 14 One of those listening was a woman from the city of Thyatira named Lydia, a dealer in purple cloth. She was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message.

–Acts 16.6-14 (NIV)

In today’s passage we get a clear example of what it means to do God’s will. Too often I think we pray for God’s will to be done in our lives (at least those of us who are interested in having a real relationship with God) and then we sit back and wait for God to do all the work. But as Luke makes clear to us in this passage, that’s not how it works (no pun intended). God expects us to do our part and to be actively involved with him as his creatures who are faithful in our obedience to his good and perfect will.

In the example above, pay attention to the role of humans and God in bringing the Gospel to people. From the very beginning of creation God has chosen to use human beings as agents of redemption. He created humans to be his stewards and image-bearers to his good creation but we blew it when we decided to make ourselves God’s equals and have been paying the price ever since. In today’s lesson we see God using human agency to bring his Gospel to those who had not heard it. Note carefully that it is God who opened Lydia’s heart to hear the Good News but it was Paul who delivered the message.

This is a perfect example of how we are to cooperate with God. By all accounts, Paul was not a particularly effective or gifted preacher (see, e.g., Acts 20.7-12). But that misses the point. Paul was obedient to Christ’s call to him to bring the Good News to the Gentiles and God brought those whom he called to a faith in Christ. This, of course, required Paul to be obedient to his Lord and that likely would not have happened had Paul not put his whole hope and trust in Jesus. Otherwise, how can we explain the horrific sufferings Paul endured for the sake of the Name–unless we are simply willing to dismiss him as a lunatic?

What we immediately notice is that when we decide to put our whole hope and trust in God’s will, it takes a huge burden off our backs. We are no longer responsible for producing results. That is God’s job, not ours and we gladly turn that task over to him. We simply have to be willing to bring Jesus’ love to bear on folks in our lives who desperately need it and we must realize that will be costly. Of course to do this, we must spend some regular time discerning God’s will for us and we do that primarily through the classic Christian disciplines of prayer and regular Bible reading and study, all with the help of the Spirit who has been given us and who lives in us.

And none of this is restricted to “churchy” stuff like preaching. No matter what we are called to do in this life, God asks us to trust him and obey him, no matter how hard or fantastic his call may seem to us. I cannot imagine that before he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, Paul ever thought he would be hoofing it all over the Roman empire on behalf of Jesus! Neither can I believe that Paul’s hopes and dreams ever consisted of suffering the way he did for Jesus, at least before Paul met the Lord. Likewise with us.

If your life lacks meaning and purpose, do yourself a favor and have a serious conversation with the Lord so that you can get yourself on track. The first thing you must do is to trust him, to understand that God knows infinitely better than you do about what you need to be doing with your life. But you cannot trust someone you do not know and so you will need to do what is necessary to develop your relationship with Christ. A great place to start is to hook up with other Christians and let them point you in the right direction. What you will discover is this. When you submit to Jesus’ authority in our lives, you allow him to show you how to live with meaning, purpose, and power. It is the power of self-denial, humble service, and cross-bearing, just the way our Lord did and commanded us to do.

If you shrink for his call to you, you have already declared you do not trust him and that will never be to your good. But when you say yes to Jesus’ command to you to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow him, you will discover what it means to live abundantly, even when the world looks at you and sneers at you for going against the grain. You are never promised a life of comfort here on this earth. You are simply promised life as God intends for you to live and that cannot be a bad thing–ever.