The sermon, 'The First Fruits of Europe' by Peter Allison, discusses the pivotal moment in Acts 16 when Paul, after receiving a vision, begins his missionary journey to Europe, starting in Philippi. The speaker emphasizes the strategic importance of Philippi, a prominent city with a rich Roman history, for spreading the Gospel. Lydia, a wealthy and influential businesswoman, becomes a key figure as the first European convert. Her conversion, initiated by God opening her heart to Paul's message, symbolizes the Gospel's reach into Europe and the subsequent Christian heritage. The sermon highlights the necessity of strategic evangelism and the role of divine intervention in conversion. It also underlines that true faith results in actions, exemplified by Lydia's hospitality. The speaker challenges believers to recognize the importance of effectual calling and to pursue lives characterized by zeal for God's kingdom, hospitality, and unity within the church.

Our scripture reading is Acts 16, beginning at verse 11. Paul has just received the vision of a man asking them to come over to Macedonia and help them and have concluded that God is calling him to preach the gospel there in Macedonia. So verse 11. Therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course to Samothrace, and the next day came to Neapolis, and from there to Philippi, which is the foremost city of that part of Macedonia, a colony. And we were staying in that city for some days.

And on the Sabbath day we went out of the city to the riverside where prayer was customarily made And we sat down and spoke to the woman who met there. Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God. And the Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul. And when she and her household were baptized, she begged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.

So she persuaded us." The word of God is very pure. May we, His servants, love it. Heavenly Father, please open our eyes and our ears and our hearts, that we may see and comprehend, that we may hear your word this morning. And may it be mixed with faith and lead, Lord, to obedience. Lead to greater zeal for your kingdom.

May Lord you edify and build us up in the truth this morning. And please sanctify my sinful lips that they might proclaim the riches of your grace, that, Lord, you might be glorified this morning and lifted up in our midst. In Jesus' name, Amen. This is a significant turning point in the Acts where God brings the Gospel to Europe and we see here recorded the first fruits of Europe. When answers in Genesis first began their early days Ken Ham often showed a cartoon had two islands sitting next to each other with two castles or forts, each with a number of cannons.

You've seen this cartoon that he has? It's very good. One fort represented Christendom, and the other represented humanism. And it was staffed by the enemies of Christ and the message of this cartoon was in the in the cannons and where they were pointed the cannons on the humanist castle were pointed at the foundational doctrines of the Christian faith. The truth of God's word, particularly regarding creation.

The canons of Christendom were aimed at the balloons flying on the top of the humanist castle. And they were aimed actually all over the place. You know, some people were, some canineers were sleeping, others were firing off into the, into the wild blue yonder, the wrong way, and so on. But Nobody was attacking the foundation upon which the humanist castle stood. They were attacking the fruits of it, abortion, racism, violence, pornography, and all these fruits.

But none were aimed at the foundation, which is that man is the determiner of truth, particularly the truth about the origin of the universe. See, the message of that cartoon that he showed, or meme I guess, it was before the word meme existed. The message was that the church was not being strategic in its assault on humanism. His criticism of much of the evangelical Christianity is that it was attacking the fruit and not the root. But Paul was strategic in his evangelism.

And this text is one of the places that reveals his strategic thinking regarding his life's calling. God's purpose for the topic that we looked at last week, the leading that he did. God's purpose in that leading becomes much clearer in this passage in which Paul gets to Philippi. And we see the bigger strategic purpose that God had in bringing him here. What becomes obvious is that in stopping Paul from preaching in Asia and Bithynia, the Holy Spirit was directing Paul to launch a major evangelical campaign in the strategic stronghold of Europe, which today is regarded as a different continent.

We have the European continent and the Asian continent. You see, strategy is important in God's economy, even in evangelism. And see, from a strategic perspective, it was more important to begin planting churches in Europe than to plant additional churches in Asia. Europe is where the capital of the Roman Empire was. Europe was also the center of the empire that was previous to Rome, the Greek Empire.

And if the church was going to have a worldwide impact, conquering the Roman Empire, it needed a strong presence in Europe. And also, for us here this morning, the evangelization of Europe directly led to our country having a Christian heritage 1500 years later. There's a direct connection between the vestiges of liberty that we have today and the Christian heritage of Europe that was initiated here in this text when Paul preached to a couple of women by the side of a lake river. This is a privilege that other parts of the world did not have. Think of China, think of Japan.

These are cultures that did not have the Gospel like Europe did. And so Paul is strategic there in the selection of Europe, and Paul is also strategic in picking the Macedonian city in which he would begin this European campaign. He begins his work in Philippi, which Luke calls Philippi a prominent city, foremost city in that part of Mesopotamia. It wasn't a capital city, but it was a strategically important city. Philippi has a significant history.

That's one reason it's strategically important. It has an important location, and it's a prestigious city. And so for these three reasons it's a very significant strategically important city. It has a strategic location being on the Via Ignatia. It's a road, military highway from the west coast of Macedonia all the way to the border of Asia that the Romans had built to help secure this part of their empire.

They'd built it years ago. And so as a result of being on this road, this Via Ignatia, it was the site of a very decisive battle in 42 BC in the Roman Civil War when the armies of Octavian and Antony fought against the armies of the Roman Republicans, Cassius and Brutus. And the triumvirate, they called it, the Augustan army was victorious and the Roman Republic fell. And so it's the site really where the Roman Empire defeated the Roman Republic. And in commemoration of the victory, Octavian made Philippi a Roman colony.

And so many Civil War, many veterans of this Civil War were given lands there by Augustus for their service in the Civil War. And another ten years, at another battle ten years later, Octavian granted Philippi the Juus Italicum. That's a law that Roman governors could grant to cities outside of Italy the legal status of being on Italian soil. It's kind of like saying, no you're not an Italian soil, you're not a Italian city, but we're going to treat you like you are. We're going to give you the legal status of being on Italian soil.

That meant the city would be governed by a Roman law rather than local law. That meant that they had a lot greater autonomy from the provincial ruler that the Romans put over them. And as Roman citizens, these people were able to buy and sell property. They were exempt from property and poll taxes. And they were entitled to protection as citizens under the Roman law.

So this was the highest liberty that a city could obtain. And this was Philippi. So what had begun as a Greek city, named for Philip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great, was now a thoroughly Roman city, both demographically and legally. And see, this explains a lot of Paul's response to the Philippian rulers when they tried to privately release him from jail a little later on in this chapter. We'll get there.

But remember what Philippi is legally. So Paul and Silas take the most direct route of travel from Macedonia to Macedonia and they arrive in record time says they stopped overnight at the island of Samothrace in the following day they continued about another 64 miles to Neapolis, the port city for Philippi, which is also strategically located on the Via Ignatia. And then Paul and his team would have taken the Via Ignatia another six miles from Neapolis into inland, into the city of Philippi. And when they leave Philippi here in the next chapter, chapter 17, they're going to continue on this road to Amphipolis and Apollonia and then Thessalonica. Now Luke says here that they ran a straight course to Samothrace.

In the Greek that's all one word. Luke is saying here that God gave them favorable winds so that they were able to sail a straight course instead of having to tack. In a sailboat if you are trying to sail against the wind you have to do what's called tacking. It's where you sail this way and then this way and then this way and then this way to be able to go into the wind. But Luke is saying they sailed a straight course which means that they were running before the wind and and so it was a lot faster God blessed God moved the winds to get them to Macedonia faster so in Acts 20 verse 6 it took five days to do what took only two days in this trip, because God has given them the favorable winds.

So they're able to sail without needing to go back and forth, which greatly increases the distance you have to sail. Thirdly, though, they're also strategic. Paul is strategic in where he preaches the Gospel once he gets to Philippi. They stayed a few days in Philippi, this foremost city in Macedonia. Now having received this peculiar and urgent call from this man to come over to Macedonia and help us, They came with all speed.

But once they got there, it was a rather cold welcome. There was no one there to welcome them and take them in. There were no large crowds that came to hear them, like happened in other cities. And apparently, there was no conversion from their preaching these first few days. It also seems pretty certain that there was no synagogue in Philippi.

It took ten men to form a synagogue. And So there is no synagogue here that they could go to because apparently there were no Jews in Philippi. Being a Roman colony, a Jewish italicum, all the Jews, one reason is all the Jews may have been forced to leave Philippi when they were forced to leave Rome. But whatever reason, there are no Jews in this city. At least there's not enough to start a synagogue.

And apparently there are no Jewish men here. Because When they go to the river to pray, they don't find any men there. They went to the river to pray because that was where Jews were allowed to go to pray on the Sabbath. There were several Roman cities that had authorized Jews to gather at the river to pray when there was no synagogue in that city. So this was something that Josephus writes about.

This was something that would have been known to them. And so thinking strategically, where do we go to find people whose hearts might be ready to hear the gospel? They checked out the river, which is about a mile or a little bit more than a mile away from the city. So they walked outside the city on the Sabbath to see if maybe there were some Jews out there that would be, or anybody, that might be praying out there. And they found some women that were gathered to pray.

And so they sit down. These four missionaries sit down and they start talking to the women there. In other words, they adapted their evangelism to the circumstances in which they found themselves. And they were content to sit down and have a conversation with these few women that were there. This was a very small beginning, but they did not despise this small beginning.

They didn't overlook it, looking for a bigger audience to speak to. And the church that grew out of their preaching that day became one of the stronger New Testament churches. And God also may have used this to get a church in Thyatira. One of the women in this group was saved, Lydia. Luke says that she was a seller of purple from Thyatira.

Thyatira was an important city in the textile trade. In the ancient Mediterranean world, purple dye was made from the mucus that was collected from a bronchial gland of a small or a medium sized snail that lived in the shallow littoral waters. You know, littoral means that we're at the beach area where the waters are very shallow. It's the end of the body of water. And so there was a dye that they got out of a gland of this snail.

And it would take about 10, 000 to 12, 000 of these shells to get one gram of dye Well, you can just start running the numbers you can imagine that This dye was prohibitively expensive and highly prized This purple dye wearing royal purple was something then that only the very wealthiest could afford. And to be able to wear purple signified that somebody was a member of the elite aristocracy. One pound of this Tyrian purple dyed silk, one pound of purple silk, died with this dye. Cost 150, 000 denarii. Remember, a denarii, one denarii is a day's wage.

This was three times more expensive than gold in that day. This purple dye. So only the very wealthy could use it. To have it was a sign of wealth. So Lydia, this is what Lydia dealt with.

She was a merchant that sold these purple fabrics, and not just that, but probably many other textiles as well. There were cheaper ways to dye things. Lydia was from Thyatira, which was a prominent city, as I said, in this textile trade. So it makes sense that being from Thyatira, she would be a seller of purple. Thyatira was also a source of particularly high quality dye.

And so this fact about Lydia and the fact that she could comfortably house Paul's entire team, as we'll see, indicates that she was probably a very capable and very successful and wealthy businesswoman. She may have been a widow, continuing her husband's business. She may have been a daughter, continuing her father's business. But she was probably wealthy. And being in business, in this particular kind of business, which dealt primarily with wealthy people, she would have had many influential contacts.

She would have also been a means of financial support to Paul. Just like the Shunammite woman was to Elisha. She would have been a contact to be able to begin evangelizing in her home city of Thyatira. There was a church there actually that was planted soon after this because it's one of the churches that's addressed by letter in the book of Revelation. And so that's the setting for the planting of the first fruits in Europe.

But the key phrase in in this passage is that in the course of this discussion God opened the heart of Lydia to hear the things spoken by Paul. God opened the heart of Lydia to hear the things spoken by Paul. God opened the heart of Lydia to heed the things that were spoken by Paul. That means Lydia had a closed heart before. Even though she was a God-fearer, even though she worshiped God, Luke says she worshiped God, even though She travels a mile or two out of town to the river to pray with other worshipers.

Even though she was doing all these things, she was not a believer. Her heart was closed until God opened it. See, those who are not in Christ hate God, they love their sin, and so they're hostile to God and they can't submit to His law. They are enslaved to their sin and in bondage to Satan and totally unable to come to Christ or to enter His Kingdom, or even to hear Christ's Word, or to believe in Christ, or certainly to bear any good fruit. John 3, verse 3, Jesus said to Nicodemus most assuredly, that's truly, truly, amen, amen.

Unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God. And he said most assuredly, Truly, amen, amen, unless one is bored of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God. And Paul said to the Romans in Romans 8, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. It's not able to be subject. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

This was where Lydia was. Despite all the good things that she was doing, her heart was closed. She was in the flesh. She was unable to please God. Jesus said in John 6, no one can come to me unless it has been granted by the Father.

And so if God does not open our hearts, the natural man is dead in our trespasses and sins. But we think, but she was worshiping God. Doesn't that count? Doesn't that mean that she was a believer? Well, many people can worship God outwardly or appear to be worshiping God.

Better not regenerate. See, no matter how informed and educated the mind is, no matter how burdened by sin or aware of someone's sin they are. No matter how pious or how diligent in their worship, sinners hate God and love their sin. Think of Saul, the king of Israel. He sacrificed to God.

He even prophesied on occasion. But he was not regenerate. Think of Demas, who was a member of Paul's ministry team, a fellow laborer with Paul, who later forsook Paul and the faith having loved this world John 1st John 2 says if anyone loves the world The love of the Father is not in him So here's a here's a man who was traveling with Paul, was suffering the hardships of ministry with Paul, who was preaching with Paul, who loved the world. And if he loved the world, the love of the Father wasn't in him. He wasn't regenerate.

Think of Judas. He went out two by two preaching the gospel. He traveled with Jesus for the three years he was on earth. He did all the things the disciples did. None of the disciples looked at Judas and said, oh, he's not regenerate.

He looked outwardly to be regenerate. But he was not a believer either. There are many atheists walking around today, who at one time were considered evangelical ministers and preachers of the Gospel. What's true of them now as atheists was just as true of them when they were outwardly practicing Christians. They were haters of God.

They are haters of God and lovers of their sin. But people don't have to openly deny the faith to be among the unsaved. Some of the most outwardly religious people are among the unsaved. Dietrich Bonhoeffer actually wrote many good things. He was a German pastor in the days of World War II.

But he denied the divinity of Jesus Christ. He even died for what he thought was a righteous cause, the execution of Hitler. But in a letter in the last year of his life, he wrote to a friend saying, quote, the person of Jesus himself is stripped not only of his divine, but of his human splendor and disappears without any distinguishing marks into the list of rabbis, sages, and religious enthusiasts." What he says there is a complete denial of the incarnation, that Christ is God in the flesh. He wasn't regenerate. He gave His life for what he saw was a noble cause, but He doesn't profess Christ.

Jesus Himself said in Matthew 7, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of my Father in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, haven't we prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, and done many wonders in your name, performed miracles even in the name of God. And Jesus said, God will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness." See, this is where Lydia was. She was a God-fearer.

She worshipped God. But her heart was not open to the Lord. And to heed the things that Paul spoke until God, in His grace and in His power, sovereign power, opened her heart so she could hear. What does it mean that God opened her heart? Well, the heart is opened.

And you notice that's passive. We don't open our heart. God does. The heart is opened when a sinner is effectually called and regenerated. That is when the triune God sovereignly summons an individual, graciously producing saving faith and repentance in them, and making them new creatures in spiritual union with Christ.

The heart is opened when a sinner is effectually called and regenerated. When the triune God, That's when the triune God sovereignly summons an individual, graciously producing, saving faith and repentance in them, making them new creatures in spiritual union with Christ. New creatures who live in holiness while God is infallibly bringing them to glory. See, it's the call of the triune God. God the Father is the originator, the author of the call.

The incarnate Son is the living Word that He speaks, and the Spirit is the life-giving breath. God calls His people by sending His Word with effectual power to save them. See, just like Jesus called the Lazarus to come forth when he was dead, stinking and decayed, as his sister said, in the grave, God calls sinners that are dead in their trespasses and sin. And God's call carries in its bosom the operative efficacy by which it is made effective. God calls the dead to life.

This call is monergistic. It's the work of God alone. Lydia didn't open her heart to heed Paul's words. Paul didn't open her heart any more than Lazarus opened his ears and enabled himself to come out of the grave. Like Lazarus and every other sinner, she was completely helpless to open her heart.

It is the work of God alone. Deuteronomy 29 says, Yet the Lord has not given you a heart to perceive and eyes to see and ears to hear to this very day. Speaking to Israel. Speaking to the people in the church. Speaking to people who had the covenant, who were circumcised.

In Deuteronomy 30, He says, "...and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul that you may live." The Lord would do this. Circumcision of the heart is speaking of that work of regeneration, that work of opening the heart. And this work is gracious. It's monergistic and it's gracious because It's not based on any moral goodness in us, or responsiveness or openness in us. It's based solely on His eternal decree of election.

And this is what He does to Lydia. God called Lydia by Sending Paul, who proclaimed God's word to her. And in that call, he effectually called her. I think this is all very helpfully illustrated by asking four different professing Christians a series of questions. So first, we could ask, why are you saved?

And they would all answer, they are saved by trusting in Christ, who died for their sins and rose again." Why are you saved? Saved by trusting in Christ who died for our sins and rose again. Well, secondly, we ask, well, why did you trust in Christ? The Pelagian thinks he came to Christ of his own free will. The other three say they came to Christ because God graciously drew them.

Jesus said in John 6, 44, No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. So we then ask to the three who said that Christ drew them, we may ask, well, why did you come to Christ, but so many others don't come to Christ. The Arminian would say, because I cooperated with the grace of God that He gives to everyone. I cooperated. The Lutheran Christian says, I did not resist the grace that God's Word brings to all who hear it.

I didn't resist something. The Reformed Christian says, because God overcame my resistance, and sweetly and irresistibly inclined my heart to believe God's Word, so that I willingly and gladly came to Christ. God overcame my resistance, and sweetly but irresistibly inclined my heart, persuaded, the confession says persuaded, and enabled us to embrace Jesus Christ. See, the Arminian says that when you believe, you are born again. But only a heart that's been born from above can willingly and gladly believe and come to Christ.

Only a new creature who has been made alive can willingly and gladly come to Christ. And this is what God does with Lydia. He overcomes her resistance. And sweetly but irresistibly drew her to Him. And inclined her will so that she gladly and willingly came to Christ.

And confessed Him and her sin. Lydia heeded the words that were spoken by Paul. She believed on the Lord Jesus Christ and turned away from the sin that she once loved. This is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now the immediate result of her being baptized by the Holy Spirit and becoming a new creature in Christ is twofold.

She makes a public profession of faith, which is exemplified by her and her household receiving baptism. And you notice that's a passive thing. We are baptized. We are completely passive in that. Because the work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration, which is what that points to, is something wherein we are completely passive.

Baptism is the sign and the seal of the covenant of grace. Referring to baptism, Gordon Keddie says, it is the visible dividing line between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light. We don't belong to the Lord because we are baptized. We are baptized because we belong to the Lord already. Baptism is not what we do to join the church, first and foremost, it is what the church does to seal what God has done.

And so her baptism was not a sign of what she did in professing Christ. It is a sign of what the Holy Spirit did in baptizing her. Now it is her whole house that is baptized. And that would include any children or slaves that she owned. Employed servants, though, would not be a part of her household.

Now our Baptist brothers accuse us of finding infants in this text when they say clearly there aren't any infants here. But it's not that we find infants here, it's that we don't find infants excluded here. Yes, we don't find any infants here, but what we find is they're not excluded. A household may or may not include little children. Some households do, and some households doesn't.

Our household doesn't at this time. At one time it did. Your household might today, or might not. But if her household did include children, then they would have been included in the baptism. See, infant baptism is commanded and practiced in the Old Testament.

And what we find here is that there is no change to the Old Testament practice of applying the sign and seal of the covenant of grace to the household of believers. This federal aspect is inescapable in life. Federal aspect means representative. You see, Lydia was the federal head of that home. And what she did affected all of the people in that home.

And that's a fact of life. We cannot escape the implications of living under a federal headship. In April 7, 1964, the New York Times had this little short article where they said that the Reverend Billy Graham had said that the General of the Army, Douglas MacArthur, had once told him that he turned down an offer by Emperor Hirohito to make Japan a Christian nation. The offer was rejected, Mr. Graham said, and I'm just quoting the article, because the general believed that it wouldn't be right to do that.

General MacArthur said after the surrender of Japan, the emperor had privately declared his willingness to make Christianity the state religion. Because they'd been conquered by what he thought was a Christian nation. So in his understanding, his federal understanding of government, which was a right understanding, he said they had to become a Christian nation. Because that's what it meant to be conquered by a Christian nation. That you then had to, you were under the rule of that Christian nation.

So the general asked time to think about it, Mr. Graham said. And after considering the proposal, replied to the emperor, never. No nation must be made to conform to any religion. It must be done on a voluntary basis.

It's wrong to impose any religion on a people." Well, what General Douglas MacArthur didn't understand was that you can't help but impose a religion on people. If you are the king of a nation, If you are the government of a nation, you do impose a religion on people. If you are the head of a home, you impose your religion on your family. You can't do otherwise. It's just the question of which you are going to impose on your family.

Your children will bear the fruit of your federal headship, for better or for worse. Are you going to be a federal head who confesses Christ and who brings all your family to confess Christ? Or are you going to be a federal head who denies Christ? It's one or the other. You can't be any other kind of federal head.

And so Luke simply records here that she is baptized with her whole household. As the federal head of her house, she said, we are serving the Lord. And secondly, Lydia demonstrates the fruits of regeneration. She has this great enthusiasm for Christ's Kingdom and for Christ's ministers. And it flows out through her warm hospitality inviting Paul's team to stay in her home.

She has no idea who Paul is. She's never met him before. And he's got three other strangers with him. But after she is converted, after God opens her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul, she immediately opens her house to him. Her house becomes the Lord's house and the base of Paul's operations in Philippi.

Notice in verse 40, though later in the chapter, when Paul and Silas are released from prison, they go back to her house and encourage the brethren there. She's humble. She says, if you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house. And Luke says, she persuaded us. So she persuaded us.

It leads one to believe that Paul didn't immediately take her up on this offer. That he put up a little bit of resistance. He wanted to see how sincere her offer was. And so she humbly says, if you have judged me to be faithful. She put it in terms where if Paul denied her request, then he was saying, I don't consider you faithful.

And so with that means, Luke said, with our device, she persuades Paul. And Paul makes it his ministry base for the time that he's in Philippi, a short time. So what do we learn here? We learn first of all that the church and ministers of the gospel have to preach the gospel of salvation. It's God's ordinary method of saving sinners.

And He does not bypass the mind. We need to bring the propositional truth of the gospel. We also see that a person must be effectually called to be saved. No amount of good deeds can suffice. But thirdly, a person's election makes itself known in their calling, in their effectual calling.

We can't peer back into God's decree. We shouldn't even try to do that. We can't. That belongs to God. The secret things belong to God.

And it's not right to pry into them. But His secret things, as they are revealed, are ours. And a person's election is made known in their effectual calling. And so make your calling and election sure in your conscience. By grace, by faith through grace, take hold of God's promises and believe them and rest in them.

But also we see the need to pursue holiness. God's calling, God's effectual calling does not terminate in conversion. But a realization of God's call and of His salvation should fire our heart with a godly zeal. It should fill our heart with deep gratitude. It should compel us out of love for so great a salvation to serve our Savior and to serve those in His church.

You see, in her case, it resulted in an open and warm hospitality. That's something that should characterize us as God's people, that we are hospitable. Not just to one another, but even to strangers. That our homes are open. You know, hospitality is not the same as entertaining.

Entertaining is where you put on a show, and it's okay to do that. But hospitality is something very different. It's where you open your home for others to share in your life. If you're having leftovers, then you share the leftovers. If your house is dirty, then you share that.

After all, if it's good enough for you to live in, it's good enough to share with your brother or sister, or a stranger. Hospitality is simply opening our homes. But it comes when our hearts have been opened. If our hearts have been opened by the Lord, then our homes will be opened for ministry. It also cultivates a unity in the church.

You notice how her salvation brought her into fellowship with Paul and she now comes into unity with him. Her home now becomes the base of his operation. She becomes joined to the church. But also lastly, it should result in a joyful looking forward to the promises of God's kingdom of glory. A joyful looking forward to the promises of God's kingdom of glory.

A joyful looking forward that enables us to transcend where we are right now because our eyes are fixed on Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, and not on the circumstances that are around us. And they are fixed on what He has promised He will do, that He will reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. When God opens our heart, then those promises become real and vivid, and we have a sure and certain hope that they will come to fulfill it. A hope that nothing on earth can shake. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the great and precious promises of Your Word.

We thank You that Your Word is truth, that we can stake our lives upon it. We thank You, Lord, that you have known us from all eternity and made that love known to us in calling us to you. We are filled with gratitude for a debt that we can never repay. And that you do not ask us to repay, for we can't. But you do call us, Lord, to offer our bodies as a living sacrifice to You, which is but our reasonable service.

And we know that even in this, we cannot do it, except you by your grace enable us and equip us and strengthen us and so we ask Lord that Day by day we might look to you for this strength For this renewing of our mind that our days might not be merely eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in what you have done and what you are doing. We ask this through Jesus Christ. Amen.