“Sow Where You are Called”

Scripture text: Acts 16:11-15

If you remember last week’s text, Paul had intended to travel to Asia to share his witness of the redemptive power of the Blood of Christ. But instead of carrying out his own plans for the mission, he was redirected to Macedonia by the Holy Spirit. He didn’t know why, but he went just the same. And today, we are going to begin wondering why, too. Paul’s ministry to Philippi begins as anything but a resounding success!

Read Acts 16:11-13

Consider his struggle on this Sabbath day to find a place to worship! There is no place within the city gates that is suitable to pray in. There is apparently no synagogue or Christian home inside the walls of this Greek city – He has to find his peaceful place on a riverbank. There are no men – Jewish or Christian - to join with in worship – only a group of Gentiles, and women at that!

Hardly an auspicious start to his ministry on the European continent! Could the Spirit have made a mistake? Could he have heard incorrectly? Should he move on to another nearby town? Or should he just patiently wait here for a new word? The truth is that there was no mistake. This is exactly where God wanted Paul. This is the place that the Spirit was leading him to. The plea “Come to Macedonia and help us.” was a voice of truth and hope and desire.
Philippi would be the place where Paul would plant the first church in Europe, even though it may not seem to have much potential at the time.

Read Acts 16:14

And the first European convert to the faith is a woman by the name of Lydia – and an unusual woman, at that. She had her own business, which was unusual in itself for a woman of that day. She sold purple cloth, which, because of the dying process, would be much more expensive that other colored cloth, and her clientele would include the wealthiest and most powerful leaders in the city. She would not only know the rich and famous of the entire area, she would know them well.
Not so unusual for a woman of the 21st century, but it was practically unheard of in the middle of the 1st century! She had great potential, and Lydia even owned her own home, which would be a great asset in ministry.

But really now - could the conversion of a Gentile woman truly be the beginning of the Philippian church?

Have you ever wondered just how much good you were doing when every turn you take seems to place you in a dead end? When we are the ones who are making all the decisions of when and where to go, they probably are dead ends! But when we follow the leading of God’s very Spirit, every turn, every start, every stop will always – always - have far reaching consequences. Will you believe that?

We don’t always see the results of our service, and we don’t always know what will come of it, but our satisfaction with a job well done isn’t the point of faithfulness! Our society has become so wrapped up with “instant gratification”, that we no longer have any patience!

Consider the prophet Isaiah. He prophesied about the fall of the Northern Kingdom, and then it took 25 years, give or take, before it came to be. Do you think that there might have been more than just a few doubters of this prophesy in Israel? He prophesied about the coming of Messiah, and it took over 700 years before God arrived on earth in a human form. And by that time, very few could make the connection between the prophesy and the actual event.
But Isaiah simply did what the Lord called him to do and say, and never seemed to wonder if he was actually on the right track. He just knew, and went. He sowed the seed of faith where ever he went, and never worried whether it was falling on the most fertile ground or not. Most of the time, it didn’t, but when you sow as much as Isaiah did, it had to take root more than once.

Have you ever delayed in doing something that you felt you were supposed to do just because you didn’t understand what it would accomplish? Just because it didn’t make much sense at the time? Just because the ground doesn’t appear all that fertile, go ahead and sow anyway! God has an endless amount of “faith seeds” at His disposal, and as you get toward the bottom of your sack, He’ll refill it for you without you ever noticing it! After all, they’re His seeds! Why worry about where you’re sowing?

Paul sat down with a group of foreign women that day, never wondering why he was there and never doubting that these were the right people to share in his faith story. He never tried to find the right place to sow God’s seed - his attitude was that wherever the spirit lead him, it must be was the right place!

Sowing seed is an interesting process. Have you ever sowed seed by hand? When we moved into our house 23 years ago, the front yard was still rough graded dirt. I had received an outrageous estimate to put a lawn in, and it would have been beautiful. The company would have regraded the yard, applied several inches of top soil, and laid sod down. We would have had an instant and beautiful yard, but $5,000 was far beyond our budget at the time. So I decided to do it myself. I dragged the soil to eliminate most of the bumps, picked stone off for at least a couple of weeks, and then put down the seed. I didn’t have a broadcast spreader, so I just threw it out by hand.
When the seed began to sprout, it came up in curves with more vacant spots than I had expected. But over the next several years, a miracle occurred! The grass which had come from the seed I had sowed, even though it was as imperfect a planting as you have ever seen, especially with the seed being thrown out directly onto hard pan which is pretty typically poor soil for this area, began to spread out and fill in the gaps all by itself! All I’ve had to do over the years is give it a little “weed and feed” each spring, and now I have a pretty good looking yard. Not to my credit, though – it is all to God’s credit. He took my imperfect contribution of sowing, and did all the rest to bring beauty to my yard.

If God can do this with grass seed that we just throw out on the ground, just think what He can do with a few “faith seeds” that we faithfully spread around on those who He places in our lives!

To sow God’s seed in this world, all we need to do is open our hands and hearts to all we meet, and let them meet the Jesus that each of us has come to know and love. And then, we step back and watch what God can do with our imperfect offering. He may send someone else to do some watering, or trimming, or fertilizing from time to time, but in the end, the result will be marvelous.
But if we decide to stand firm and keep our hands firmly clenched, holding onto our “faith seeds” tightly, never allowing a single one to drop from our hands, the lawn will remain covered with weeds and dirt, and not a single blade of “faith grass” will ever sprout. It all has to begin with a “faith sower”.

Read Acts 16:15

The “seed of faith” had been planted in Lydia and her family, and in a few short years, the beauty of Christ would be spreading all over the area, producing a beautiful garden of believers. The imperfect but faithful Paul sowed the faith when and where God called him to sow. He didn’t question whether the people who were to receive the blessing were worthy, or would be receptive, or were the right ones to receive. He just sowed wherever God took him.

Won’t you give it a try? Share your faith with everyone you meet. Don’t worry if they are the right ones. Just sow wherever God leads you.