Let the Lion Out

  • Mark Lauterbach
  • May 13, 2008
  • Series: Home page

The Gospel of free grace is upheld in Acts 15.  The Gospel of free grace is advanced in Acts 16. 

Paul, now accompanied by Silas, first encourages the churches planted in journey #1.  Passionate for the advance of the Gospel -- to proclaim Christ where he has not been named -- he presses on from there toward the metropolis of Ephesus, on the southwest coast of modern Turkey.  The Holy Spirit stops him -- so he presses to the north, only to be stopped again.  Pressed on two sides, he moves to the West, to the city of Troas.  By a dream, Christ directs him to come to Macedonia, to Philippi to start.

There they proclaim the Good News to a Jewish merchant, a wealthy woman of the region.  They encounter a demonized slave girl and she is set free. And their jailor is convicted of sin, his attention focused by an earthquake, and he and his household hear and believe.

God wants us to see the heart of Christ to advance the Gospel as he opens doors and closes doors.  Paul is making a plan, but the Lord is directing his steps. Jesus has a purpose for this church planting team in Macedonia.  He guides their steps. he is at work all around us to do the same today.

God wants us to see the power of the Gospel.  It does not need defending.  It is a like a lion -- just let it out of the cage and it will take care of itself.  The lion is unleashed in Philippi and fruit springs up.  And such diverse fruit it is!  An upper class single Jewish woman, a teen street-slave owned by men and possessed by a demon, and a hardened and tough soldier.

The Gospel is powerful -- when it is proclaimed and explained, there is fruit.  No one is more or less likely to convert. All are dead in sin. God must work to save. He does. The story makes clear that it was Christ who did the work and bore the fruit. He opened Lydia's heart.  He drove out the demons. he sent the earthquake. 

The Gospel is fierce. It brings hostility and hatred and the city erupts in a riot! But the Savior turns all this opposition on its head -- converting the jailer and vindicating the apostolic team before the Roman magistrates.

At Grace Church in San Diego, we want to grow in letting the Gospel out of the cage -- and watching it bear fruit.