56. Great Women In The Bible: Living With No Excuses
Episode 56
Acts 16 hold the story of one of the Bible's great women. Lydia had multiple excuses for why life was hard and she had too many struggles to make the massive decision to follow the call of Jesus. But that is why she is a great woman! What is holding you back from serving the Lord and responding to Him with your whole heart?
Show Notes
In the normal circumstances of life, what are the choices we are making? What are we doing? Are we living for the Lord or for ourselves? What is the impact we are having? The answers to those questions lie in our daily, small decisions. Don't underestimate the impact of each small choice of faithfulness in following Jesus.
Ann Voskamp quote for Episodes 54, 55, and 65:
… every day, with every word, we get to decide: Do we mar the world, or mark the world? Why in the world disdain the small? It’s always the smallest strokes that add up to the greatest masterpieces. Because the thing really is: Do we ever really know which mark we make — that will matter the most? The extraordinary things happen nowhere else but in the everyday. Do we ever really know which mark we make — that will matter the most?
WHAT SCRIPTURE PROMISES TO DO:
Here are our last two Scripture promises. The show note for Episodes 54 and 55 hold more.
Psalms 19:7-10:
It brings life to our soul and makes us wise.
It makes our heart joyful and
our eyes enlightened.
Because It is true and righteous,
Psalms 119:98-104, 130:
It makes us wiser than our enemies.
Gives us great understanding,
helps us hate falsehood,
and gives light for us to see.
Today we’re talking about another great woman of Bible who needed the light to see. She had all the excuses not to be great, but who in the Lord’s eyes was! She could have used her excuses to not follow and obey. But instead she followed wholeheartedly.
LYDIA: Acts 16
In the 16th chapter of the book of Acts we see Paul ministering in the city of Philippi.
Here’s some things you should know about Paul even getting to Philippi:
He and Timothy are traveling through Turkey.
They’re forbidden by Holy Spirit to go to Asia
Tried to go to Bithynia, but Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.
One night Paul gets vision of man saying “Come to Macedonia”
So, they conclude God must want them to go there!
So, sail across the Aegean Sea and land in leading city of Macedonia, Philippi. It’s a Roman colony.
Think about them. They've been steered away from where they thought they wanted to go. Get to the city. What do they do next?
They take a walk and wander down to the river where they thought there might be a place of prayer,
SYNAGOGUES
and there were women assembled. A Jewish group.
Where were the men? I don’t know, but we can choose to be faithful regardless of other’s refusal.
Lydia is praying with the group. Here’s what we know and can extrapolate about Lydia:
She’s an OUTSIDER
From the city of Thyatira- which is an ancient Greek city in Turkey.
Not Jewish. A proselyte to Judaism.
Probably some standing because she has a household. Entrepreneur and business woman.
Purple fabric highly valued
Almost certainly unmarried because it's described as her household.
Paul speaks. The Lord opens her heart TO PAY ATTENTION TO PAUL’S WORDS.
She responds and fully embraces this new teaching
she invites Paul and Timothy home (another reason we think she had some means to have a big enough home.)
She’s already made a hard step away from respectability becoming Jewish. Jews were never that highly thought of. Now she embraces Jesus. Will alienate her from the group she has!
But she doesn’t use that excuse. What excusesa re we tempted to use? What holds us back from following Jesus wholeheartedly in the small decisions of our lives?
Great Women In The Bible Series
Want to listen to the whole series? Here the other two: