WHAT IN THE WORLD IS GOD DOING?

By

Eldridge E. Fleming, Ph.D.

New Hope Presbyterian Church

Rienzi, Mississippi

December 12, 1999

The Old Testament reading for the morning comes from Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11. This is from the section that Jesus read when he came to Nazareth, his home synagogue, and preached after his baptism. Of course, it led to a lot of trouble for him -- he almost was stoned as a result of how he read it and what he said about it.

The reading from the New Testament comes from I Thessalonians 5:. The church at Thessalonica received the first letter from the Apostle Paul and the letters of Paul were the earliest writings that we now know to be part of the New Testament. So when you read the Thessalonian letters, you know that you are reading some of the very earliest of writings that we now have in the New Testament. Even before the gospels were written, the letters of Paul were written. We need to keep that in mind and I will be dealing more with that as time passes. Looking at I Thessalonians 5:16-24:

Our gospel reading for the morning comes from Luke 1:46-55, and if you can and would, will you stand with me as we hear the gospel?We know this contemporarily as the Magnificat:

This is the word of the Lord for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

The question for the sermon today is one that is appropriate, I think, for what I want to do in the next few moments. I want to give you a brief synopsis of what Martha and I have experienced in our trip to Turkey and then to Greece. But the question that is the sermon title is, "What in the world is God doing?" And it is based on that passage from the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah talks about what God is doing. "The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good tidings to the afflicted; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor." And that is where Jesus stops reading as reported in the New Testament. He did not finish the sentence that he was in the midst of at that point. For in that sentence that goes "to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor," the next phrase was quite different. "and the day of vengeance of our God;" That part he left off. "To comfort all who mourn;" would have been appropriate for the rest of his reading. "To grant to those who mourn in Zion -- to give them a garland instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, the mantle of praise instead of a faint spirit; that they may be called oaks of righteousness," all of those things would have been appropriate. But had he continued on, he would have talked about "the day of vengeance of our God" and he would have talked about supporting those who were in Zion. Those are the things that apparently Jesus did not want to emphasize. He wanted to emphasize the first part of this section and as you listen to that, you say, "What in the world is God doing?" And what God is doing in the world is doing great and tremendous things starting -- all of them -- with very little things.

For example, as we come into the Christmas season, we come into the season when God did the greatest thing that could happen in all of the earth: That is, to make clear and plain and simple the way to salvation. And he did it by the simplest of things, the birth of a child. A small event in the life of the world, almost a nonevent, but then it is God's pattern to take those things that we would classify as ordinary -- extremely common, even mundane and routine -- and make them into something that is extremely important. What could be more common, what could be more an everyday event, than a peasant girl having a baby in a city that was crowded? It happened all the time. Mary wasn't the only one, most likely, who had a baby in Bethlehem or in Jerusalem on the night that Jesus was born, but it is God's acting through that simple thing that does something tremendous in the world. So we want to remember at this season of the year that God is in the world, first and foremost, and God is doing something tremendous in the world.

It is not always easy to see what God is doing in the world, and where we traveled it was not easy to see either. We began our journey by going to Istanbul. Of course, we had to make our way across this continent to get to our departure point in New York, and getting anywhere in New York is not always the easiest. So we elected to go in and spend the night right on the edge of the airport and then be ready for departure the next day. The reason for that and the reason we missed the first Sunday we were away from being here -- we would have enjoyed having the privilege of leaving from here after lunch on that Sunday and flying to New York and catching the plane out at six o'clock -- is that you don't do it that way. Our travel was not that in tune with our needs and sometimes we felt that the travel was really not for our needs at all -- but to meet someone else's schedule, as we'll talk about a little later.

But we left, we went to Istanbul, landed there and stayed there for a little while. We met the rest of our party -- six of us had gone from New York, five had gone from Atlanta, and then two others had joined us from Jerusalem -- and so we all met in Istanbul at the airport. And then we boarded another plane -- a different kind, one we'd never flown on before, manufactured differently, looked differently, sounded normal -- and we flew down to Izmir. That's about a two and a half hour flight or so, if I remember right, down from Istanbul to Izmir.
Istanbul is known originally to most of us who studied Roman history as Constantinople. Before that it was Byzantia. It's on that little peninsula that goes across between the Black Sea where Russia occupies the upper half or more and where Russia ships all it's goods out through the Sea of Marmara, down through the Aegean Sea, down through the Mediterranean Sea. There is a canal, a channel, that comes from the Black Sea into the Sea of Marmara, and Turkey has that land around it. So Turkey has that control over what the Russians can ship out and you can see why the relationship between the United States and Turkey is extremely important, because that is the controlling country for what Russia ships through the Black Sea area. It is their major seaport in the summer.

We went there and we went to Izmir. Izmir has a different name in the New Testament. Its name in the New Testament is Smyrna, and you immediately recognize that Smyrna was one of the churches that John the Revealer wrote to in the Book of Revelation. "To the angel at the church at Smyrna write:" and then he gives a listing of things he likes and dislikes about the churches. Smyrna was doing okay and that's what we know today as Izmir. So we landed there and we spent the night there and the next day we toured the town and we saw some Byzantine ruins.

Now I may refer to Byzantine very often. It starts about three hundred and something A. D. -- that's the time when the rulers of Rome decided they would move the capital of the Roman Empire from Italy to Turkey -- it wasn't called Turkey then, it was Byzantium -- and over on that peninsula I described earlier is where they located the capital of the Roman Empire. But in order to separate what was done in Rome from that which was done in the Byzantine Empire, they called it the Byzantine Empire.

Constantine the Great, saw -- during the Battle, according to legend -- the sign of the cross in the clouds and took that as a vision from God that he should have Christianity as the state religion of the Roman Empire, and from that time in 311 A. D., Christianity was accepted as the religion of the Roman Empire. Christianity had as equal footing as any of the rest and it was Constantine's religious beliefs. He adopted them. His mother had been converted to Christianity earlier, had influence on her son who was now the ruler of the Roman Empire and when he saw the sign of the cross in the clouds after a battle, he decided that was what he must do. So Constantine had all his soldiers baptized and Christianity became the state religion. Not that they were won to the Lord by individual witness or testimony, but they were won to the Lord by edict. Constantine wanted to get a new start and so he moved his Empire headquarters over into that lovely area.

We wanted to see the churches. Izmir -- Smyrna -- was first, and then we went to Ephesus. Lots of things happened at Ephesus. Paul spent a good deal of his life, two and a half years one time, at Ephesus. Then we went around to the other places. Only two of the seven churches we did not visit. Thyatira was one and I'll talk more about that place in a minute. Thyatira is not there today; you can't see any of the ruins because the new modern city has built over all the ruins. There's nothing left. But the other places we could see things. There was one other place we didn't go and that was because there was only one little monument left and we didn't think that was worth the trip.

We traveled along the sea, had some beautiful hotel accommodations along the sea in Turkey as well as in Greece. We traveled inland to see the place where those fabulous mineral baths were. Hierapolis is the name of the place. It's where all the nobles are buried and their graves are still there. We have some interesting slides to show one day and tell you about.

We went from there and worked our way up to Troy, or Troas. Troy is important in the history of the New Testament, and as you read through the Book of Acts you can trace the actions of Paul. You will find that Luke tells about Troy. Asia was a certain area north of Troy and it's said, "that the Spirit of the Lord forbid us from preaching in Asia." Now north of Asia was Byzantia and that's where Constantinople was later located. But in Troy, Paul was struggling with what to do.

Paul was the great evangelizer, remember? Everywhere he went. He went first to find the Jews wherever they had been scattered. By 47 A. D., Roman Emperor Claudius had kicked the Jewish people out of Rome and they had come down Italy and across the Adriatic Sea over to Greece and had penetrated around Greece and had gone over, also, into Asia Minor. So the Jews left Rome and just scattered and set up colonies. Everywhere they went they set up synagogues as well.

There was a rule that if you had ten or twelve families or more in an area, you had to have a synagogue -- synagogue means "to learn"-- you had to have a place to train your young people and keep the rituals of the Jewish religion going. So Paul, being a Jew, would go first to the Jewish synagogue and he would speak and teach to them. He'd gone around Asia Minor and done this and then, he didn't know what to do next. Because when he wanted to go one way, he had some spiritual feeling telling him not to do that. He felt like the Lord didn't want that. So he went to Troy. He was praying and studying. At this point, in a vision, he said, he saw a man from Macedonia, and today they call it Mac-e-do-nia. This Mac-e-do-nian was standing there talking to him, saying, "come on over and help us." Paul took this as being the word of God coming to him and telling him that he was to go over into Macedonia across the Aegean Sea, across from Troy. If you read the Book of Acts, it is at this point that Luke says that we set straight to go over to Neapolis, a seaport just down from Philippi -- or Phi-lip-pi, as they call it today.

They went there, they landed, they spoke at Neapolis and then they went up to Philippi which was a Roman colony. But when they got there, apparently there weren't enough Jews to have a synagogue. At least one is not mentioned. Now it was the pattern in the instructions of the Jews that when they were in the city, when there weren't enough of them to have a synagogue, they would have a place of prayer. The place of prayer for them to meet and talk with one another and have prayers was outside the city, and usually, that place outside the city was outside the city near fresh, running water.

When we went to Philippi we saw all the ruins that are still there -- the theater, the Acropolis, the Agora, the place where Paul and the others were brought before the ruler, the spot where they say that Paul was beaten, the jail cell that they say was like the one that Paul was thrown in. And you remember it was at Philippi at midnight when Paul and Silas and others had been beaten in front of a crowd, out in this public meeting place like one of our huge malls -- it was like that -- and were thrown in jail, which was a dungeon, a cave, and put in stocks. In the middle of the night there was an earthquake and all the prisoners -- not just Paul and Silas -- but all the prisoners were set free. The chains broke loose. You remember the guard, the guard who was responsible with his life to keep the prisoners, assumed that in the darkness, some had slipped away. He pulled his sword to kill himself, was going to fall on it, as Brutus had done after killing Caesar and after losing the battle to Anthony and others. So, he was about to kill himself but Paul said, "Wait, wait, don't do yourself any harm, we're all here." And you remember the jailer then came falling at Paul's feet and said, "What must I do to be saved?"

That question can be taken two ways. One was, "How am I going to get by the Roman council when they find out that I didn't have all of you secured?" The other is the way we always interpret it in the church and that is he was asking, "What must I do to have the kind of Spirit in me that you have in you?" That was his question, and Paul told him, then, how to be saved. And he and his household that night -- after cleaning up Paul and Silas -- were baptized.

But before all this happened, Paul was preaching outside the city, he was talking, at least, in this place of prayer outside the city wall where the Jews met. The first day Paul was there he went to the place of prayer on the first Sabbath. And as he told the story of how the scriptures had been fulfilled and he preached from the scriptures of the Old Testament as we know it, saying that this was what God had done and this is what He did in Jesus of Nazareth, and that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah that was promised because he had been resurrected from the dead.

In that small group of Jewish people and the God-fearers -- Greeks who believed in God -- there was a woman from Thyatira. Her name was Lydia. How many of you ladies or girls have Lydia as your name? Any of you? None? Unusual. Lydia is a beautiful name. Lydia was a business woman. She sold fine purple cloth, linen. Purple was special. It was high priced material, it's color was that of royalty, and only the nobles and the ruling people could afford it. It was very high priced material. Lydia was there and she listened as Paul preached, and as he finished, she confessed that she believed what he was saying and she was baptized.

And just outside Philippi is the river. Oh, it's not a big river. It's as far as from here to the wall across, but it runs. In times past, there have been earthquakes and wars, and it is said that when Octavian and Anthony fought against Brutus and his cadre that killed Julius Caesar to get the rule of the Roman Empire, that the blood of the soldiers ran down the river. It's been polluted in the past, but at this time -- now -- when Paul was there, years after that battle had been fought, and that prayer group met by the river, Lydia heard him preach and she was baptized.

And we went there. Now there is a place for communion, for an altar. There are seats made on the side of the river bank, and the river divides or branches and one of the little streams runs through an area in which they have put steps so you can walk down in the river. It is a place for baptism. And as I touched the water that was in that river, some of the members of our group wanted to be reconfirmed or rebaptized -- if you want to say rebaptized -- in this spot. I participated in that. We had the experience of confirmation of baptism there. We had our baptism affirmed anew. We had the Lord's Supper there. And for me, that was one of the most moving points in the whole experience -- to walk in Philippi on those huge stones, on the Via Egnatia, which is the Way of Ignatius, that Roman soldiers walked and probably Paul walked. To walk where he walked and see the place where he had been beaten, to see the cell where he had been thrown in, or one like it, to stand by the river where Lydia had believed and been baptized, those were moving moments.

What is God doing? What in the world is God doing? He is taking a small boy who was trained to be a good Jew, He's taking him and filling him with His Spirit and moving him to go all over the known world. He's taking people of high station and low; Mary said, "Of the low, low estate." He's taking those and He's moving them so that they may do great things in the world. God is doing something in the world today and He's doing it in very simple ways.

What in the world is God doing? He is having the Pauls to preach, the Lydias to believe. Paul and Silas and Timothy and all that list of people, we saw where they worked. It was a great experience and I will share it with you as soon as we get the slides developed and the script written enough to share. But today I wanted us to know that the birth of Jesus was one of those small beginnings that has not stopped and will not stop. So be it, in the name of God. Amen.