How to Look Up When Things Look Down - Part 1 of 2

Greg Laurie: When Jesus really has come into your heart, everything should be open to him.
Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie points out if we close our hearts to the Lord, he's really not our Lord. When we invite him to be our Lord, we invite him into the center of our lives.
Greg Laurie: You open your heart, you open your home, you open your resources, you open your future, you open everything up to him and say, "Lord, I'm glad to have you in here. Tell me what you want me to do and where you want me to go."
Guest (Male): We like to put our best foot forward. It's a cultural thing. We keep certain things to ourselves. If we've just bounced a check, or we're in over our head at work, or there's relationship stress, we stay silent on those subjects. But today on A New Beginning, Pastor Greg Laurie points out when Jesus makes his home in our hearts, we give him permission to explore the hidden issues we're keeping to ourselves, including the one you're thinking about right now. Let's get some good encouragement.
Greg Laurie: Question: have you ever been in a situation that looked utterly hopeless? There was no way out that you could see, and it was like a worst-case scenario unfolded and you realized there was nothing you could do to change it, so you found yourself resigned to it. But you decided to give God the glory despite what you were going through. You praised him and suddenly, unexpectedly I might add, your situation turned around. That thing that seemed like the worst-case scenario ultimately resulted in bringing about some good in your life and the life of others. Here in Acts 16 is a beautiful example of two men who saw the good despite the bad. They saw the hand of God in the darkest of places and they praised him. Now what we're reading about here in the book of Acts is the second missionary journey of the apostle Paul. Up to this point in his first journey, he was with Barnabas. Remember him, the encouraging guy? Barnabas was a name given to him. He was effectively Mr. Encouragement. But Paul and Barnabas had a disagreement and they parted ways. Now there are two missionary teams. Barnabas goes off with John Mark, and Paul now has a new wingman and his name is Silas. So they're getting ready to go on this trip and they made a plan. They said, "Hey, let's go visit those churches we planted earlier in Asia Minor and let's see how they're doing." They got ready to go on their trip, but God had a different idea. Has that ever happened to you? You had a plan and God had a different plan. It didn't quite work out. You had your plan. "I know I'm going to submit my resume and I'm going to get this job," and you didn't get the job. "I know I'm going to propose to this girl and she's going to say yes," and she said no. I know this other thing is going to happen, I'm certain of it, and the Lord redirected you. This is exactly what happened to Paul and Silas. In fact, we read in Acts 16:7, coming to the borders of Mysia, they headed for the province of Bithynia, but the Holy Spirit did not let them go. Listen, sometimes a door is closed in your face and you always think that it's a bad thing. But not necessarily, because God closes one door often to open another. There are a lot of ways that God can close the door in our life, and by that I mean not let you do what you wanted to do. Sometimes it's through just a complete lack of peace in your heart. In Colossians it says, let the peace of God settle with finality all matters that arise in your mind. There have been situations where I've just not felt comfortable inside. I haven't felt that peace of God about a certain path I was pursuing and I've just thought I'm not going to go that way. That's one way that God can close the door. Other times it can be circumstantially. Something happens. It could be sickness. We always think that sickness is bad. Generally it is. Ultimately, it's a result of sin that comes to all of humanity. But having said that, God could use a sickness to stop you. Paul spoke of his thorn in the flesh and many believe that was some kind of a physical issue, maybe a result of being beaten and stoned and shipwrecked and all the other crazy stuff Paul went through. Paul even said to young Timothy who was ill, probably had an ulcer, probably from hanging around with Paul, and he said, "Take a little wine for your stomach." So he was offering some medicinal advice. If God wanted everyone healed, certainly Paul could have prayed for Timothy and he would have been healed immediately. So God could slow you down or stop you through sickness or some other way. But the bottom line is the door was closed. Now they get on their boat, now they're headed in a new direction. Acts 16:11 says, we ran a straight course to Samothrace and the wind was at our back. I love this. They had a tailwind, if you will. They got there a little faster. Have you ever felt like the wind was at your back? You're just cruising along in the will of God. Everything is really good. You know you're on the road, the lights are green, the birds are singing, everything's fantastic. Well, that's what was happening at the beginning of their journey. They started off beautifully, but then they took a bad turn, then they took a good turn. Now they're headed to a place called Philippi. Philippi is a Roman colony that was established by the emperor. He would organize colonies by ordering Roman citizens, especially retired military people, to go to selected places. These would be pro-Roman cities in strategic areas. So Philippi was sort of like a Rome away from Rome, if you will. Very Roman in culture, very Roman in every way. So here come Paul and Silas headed to Philippi. Now I left out one thing. Paul had received a call from a man in a vision from Macedonia saying, "Come and help us." So Philippi is in the area of Macedonia. So he arrives with Silas and it's not a man that comes to faith first, but it's a woman. So he got the Macedonian call if you will from a man, but when he arrives, there's this lady there and her name is Lydia. Lydia was a very affluent woman. It says that she sold purple garments. Back in this day, treating expensive cloth with expensive purple dyes would be what we would call a designer gown, a designer shirt. So this is a woman who was very affluent, very well off, and this is the first convert of this second missionary journey. You might say that the conversion of Lydia created a chain of events that ultimately brought down mighty Rome. It started with one convert, this woman named Lydia. Now she was a worshiper of God as best she knew, but she was seeking God. She reminds us of Cornelius that we talked about earlier, who also worshiped to the best of his ability, but the Lord directed Cornelius to Simon Peter to hear the gospel and Cornelius believed. Here's another woman who's a true seeker of God and the Lord directs her to the apostle Paul, or should I say directed the apostle Paul to her. Here's something to think about. You know there are people that say, "I'm seeking truth. I'm trying to find the meaning of life and I've looked everywhere. I've looked into Eastern mysticism and I've looked into New Age philosophy and I've looked into this and I've looked into that." Then you say, "Have you looked into Jesus?" and you pull out your Bible and they say, "Put that thing away." Wait, you're a seeker of truth, right? "Oh yes, I want truth." Have you ever read the Bible? "No, I don't believe in that." How can you not believe in something that you've not even looked into? If you're a true seeker of truth, why don't you at least take a look at what Jesus said? The reality is they're not a seeker of truth if they won't look into what the Bible says, because God says those that seek me will find me. Well, this is a true seeker of truth, this lady named Lydia, and now she hears the gospel. Look at verse 14 of Acts 16. She listened to us and the Lord opened her heart and she accepted what Paul was saying. She and her husband were baptized and she asked us to be her guests. "If you agree that I'm a true believer in the Lord." They said, "Yes, we believe that." So they stayed at her home. I love this. So they came to her home and there's this picture in the Bible of God making his home with us. Jesus said if we believe in him and follow him, the Father and Jesus would make their home with us. Paul writes that Christ would settle down with finality and make his home in your heart.
Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie will have the second half of his message in just a moment. Have you downloaded the Harvest Plus app yet? This is something you need to get on your phone or your tablet or even on your television set. It's full of messages that Pastor Greg has given and others. It has all the movies that we have done over the years, like Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon, Steve McQueen: The Salvation of an American Icon, A Rush of Hope, and many more, as well as Pastor Greg's sermons, as well as our brand new podcast and our radio show. The list just goes on and on. The best thing is, it's free. Download it now for your device and start enjoying this library of spiritual resources right there at your fingertips to watch or listen to on demand. It's called Harvest Plus. So download it now. You'll love it. Now Pastor Greg continues his message from Acts 16 called "How to Look Up When Things Look Down."
Greg Laurie: The other day I was with Jonathan Roumie who plays Jesus in The Chosen. It was getting later in the day and I said, "Jonathan, you want to come over to our house for dinner?" He said, "Yes." So I said to Kathy, "Jonathan's going to come over for dinner." She's making dinner and she's not met him yet. So he is driving to our house and she says, "I'm at the stove working with the green beans and I look through the window. Suddenly this car drives by and it looks like Jesus is in the car." We had a great time, a great meal. By the way, Kathy cooked fish, which seems appropriate, doesn't it? I don't even know if she consciously thought about that. But a great time together fellowshipping, talking about the things of the Lord. We know he's not Jesus. We know he's Jonathan Roumie who plays a role. But to me it kind of presents the idea: what if Jesus actually came to your house? You're cooking up the green beans and here's Jesus driving in. He comes up and he knocks at the door of your house and you hear a voice say, "Behold, I'm at the door, so open it," because it would be more modern, right? And you open it and there comes Jesus Christ into your home. You probably would serve him fish. Strike the devil's food cake, really inappropriate for dessert. But this is what has happened now to this woman. Jesus has come into her home. Jesus has come into her life, this woman named Lydia. I love how it says she opened her heart. So she opened her heart, and then she opened her home, and apparently she opened up her resources too, because she said, "Stay with us, we'll take care of you guys." When Jesus really has come into your heart, everything should be open to him. The story is told of General Sam Houston, hero of Texas history. He came to Christ in the later years of his life and he decided he wanted to be baptized. So the preacher took him down to the little river there and he's getting ready to baptize General Houston. He noticed that Houston still had his eyeglasses in his pocket. He said, "You better take those out, those will get wet." So he took his eyeglasses out and then the preacher noticed he had his wallet in his pants too. He said, "General, you probably should take your wallet out, that'll get wet in the water." The general said, "If any part of me needs to be baptized, it's my wallet." So they baptized General Sam Houston, wallet and all. I wonder if we've all had our wallet baptized. Jesus said, where your wallet is, there will your heart be also. Well, he didn't actually say that, but he did in another way. He says, where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. When you invite Christ into your life, you open your heart, you open your home, you open your resources, you open your future, you open everything up to him and say, "Lord, I'm glad to have you in here. Tell me what you want me to do and where you want me to go." Well, the devil is not happy when he loses a convert. So here's the devil now with his counterattack. Acts 16:16 says, as we went to prayer, a certain slave girl possessed with a spirit of divination, who brought her masters much profit, started following us. So this demon-possessed woman now starts following the apostles. She was shouting, "These men are servants of the most high and have come to tell you how to be saved." Actually, this word she said could be translated she shrieked. So here's Paul and Silas walking along through Philippi. She's behind them screaming out, "They're servants of the most high God!" and they go, "Oh this woman's really getting on my nerves." It's interesting because in the original language it says she had the spirit of python. What that means is there was a myth that the python snake guarded the temple of Apollo. So there was this weird demonic thing. Speaking of pythons, I used to have a python when I was a kid. I collected all kinds of snakes, but I had this python. He always bit me. I don't know what the deal was. Anybody else would put their hand in the snake cage and he wouldn't bite them, but when I put my hand in the cage, boom he would strike every time he struck. I was bitten by that python so many times. One day I was feeding him a mouse. Hate to break this to you, snakes eat live creatures, okay? Little baby mice, really cute too. You put him in there. It's not easy. Anyway, when you put a mouse in a cage with a snake, the mouse goes in the corner shaking and the snake sees him and he goes in. I know you didn't come to hear this at church, but this is happening in life people, I got to let you know, right? So I put this one mouse in. He kind of like, "Hey, what's up?" He sees the snake. "How you doing? Oh, how you doing?" like a New York mouse. "Whoa, boy, you looking at me?" you know? He walks right up to the snake. Snake's like, "Whoa, what's going on? I'm a python, don't you know who I am?" The mouse walks around, gets on top of the snake. Now the snake is in fear over in the corner. The mouse owns the cage. I said, "That mouse is not going to be lunch for my snake." I took the mouse out and made him my personal pet because this was a super cool mouse. This has nothing to do with our story, nothing at all. That's my token python story. She had the spirit of python, this demon power, and so Paul cast the demon out. We're done with this. Why would he want that to happen? Because she was going to confuse people. People might even think she's part of the missionary team, and she wasn't at all. She was possessed by the demon. Well, now the people who were controlling this woman, effectively trafficking her, pimping her out if you will and making a lot of money off of her, were outraged because this witchy woman was their source of income. So when they exercise the demon, they also exercise the income for her masters. So now they're angry. Acts 16:20, they go and try to whip up the people. "The whole city is in an uproar because of these Jews," they shouted. "They're teaching the people to do things against Roman customs." A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. We'll stop there. So now these accusers put Paul and Silas up on trumped-up charges. Sounds like they're anti-Semitic. "These Jews, these Jews have come into our city. They're not Romans like us. We're obviously superior," they're saying. "And these Jews have whipped the people up and have done these horrible things." So now Paul and Silas are beaten and now they're sent to prison. So we pick up in Acts 16:23 what happened after that. They were severely beaten. Then they were thrown into prison and the jailer was ordered to make sure they didn't escape. So he took no chances and put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks. Around midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening. Underline that: singing hymns to God and the other prisoners were listening. Verse 26: suddenly there was a great earthquake and the prison was shaken at its foundations and the doors flew open and the chains of every prisoner fell off. The jailer woke up to see the prison doors open. He assumed the prisoners had escaped and he drew his sword to kill himself. Paul shouted to him, "Don't do it! We're all here." Trembling with fear, the jailer called for lights and ran to the dungeon and fell down before Paul and Silas. He brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" They replied, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, along with your entire household." Then they shared the word of the Lord with him and all who lived in his house. The same hour the jailer washed their wounds. He and everyone in his household were immediately baptized and he brought them into his house and set a meal before them. He and his entire household rejoiced because they all believed in God. Wow. Isn't that one of the greatest stories in the Bible? So Paul starts out as a prisoner and ends up leading the jailer to Christ. Another heart is opened and now another house is opened. Now the Roman jailer's home would be much different than Lydia's home. She would have probably had a luxurious home with servants and plenty of food. This guy the jailer had a much different home. Lydia would have been upper class, he would have been middle class, and the demon-possessed woman lower class. In fact, she had no possessions to speak of. But it just shows that the gospel is relevant for every man, every woman, every class of person. Everybody needs Jesus, right?
Guest (Male): Pastor Greg Laurie with great insight today from our studies of the events of the first century in the book of Acts. And there's more to come as this message continues here on A New Beginning. You know, the key question in that story is the one the jailer asked: "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" The answer holds the key to being able to spend eternal life in heaven in the presence of God. Pastor Greg, it's easy to come to the Lord and make that a reality, isn't it?
Greg Laurie: That's right. The Bible says whoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. So think of it this way: maybe you're out in a rip tide in the ocean and you can't get your footing and you're in trouble and you see a lifeguard. Call out for help and the lifeguard will rescue you. The same is true spiritually. You're drowning in your sin. You need help. Jesus will save you. He will rescue you, but you must call out to him. And you know how you do that? You do it in prayer. So let me just lead you in a simple prayer, and you can pray this prayer after me. You could pray it out loud if you'd like, and this is where you are calling out to Jesus to save you. Just pray this: Lord Jesus, I know I'm a sinner, and I know you are the Savior who died on the cross for my sin and rose again from the dead. Now Lord, I turn from my sin and I put my faith in you. Be my Savior, my Lord, my God, and my friend. I choose to follow you from this moment forward. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen. If you just prayed that prayer, I want you to know that Christ himself has come to live inside of you. And I have a resource I want to send you. It's called the New Believer's Bible. So the New Believer's Bible is the New Testament in the New Living Translation with hundreds of notes that I wrote that will encourage you in this commitment you are making to follow Christ. There's some other materials included as well in what we call the New Believer's Growth Pack, but let me get this New Believer's Bible into your hands as quickly as possible. Here's Dave to tell you more.
Dave: Yeah, we'll be glad to send it all your way free of any charge if you prayed along with Pastor Greg today. Just ask for the New Believer's Bible when you call 1-800-821-3300. You can reach us anytime 24/7. Again at 1-800-821-3300. Or write us at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or go online to harvest.org and click "Know God." And then let us say a word of thanks to those who support us financially, those who make it possible for us to bring you these studies each day. We are definitely a listener-supported ministry. It's the generosity of listeners that help us be here with these programs. So if you've partnered with us, thank you. And if you have yet to partner with us, I hope you'll get in touch today and let us know that you're standing with us. Even a small investment would help. It's actually an investment in changing lives. Thank you for partnering with us. You can donate securely online at harvest.org or write A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, California 92514. Or call us at 1-800-821-3300. Again, that's 1-800-821-3300. Well, next time we'll see there's so much more inspiration to draw from Acts 16. We'll see the miraculous conversion of a Philippian jailer. Join us here on A New Beginning with Pastor and Bible teacher Greg Laurie.