John Stott, writing about the foundation of the church in Philippi (Acts 16:6-40), says ‘it would be hard to imagine a more disparate group than the business woman, the slave girl and the gaoler. Racially, socially and psychologically they were worlds apart. Yet all three were changed by the same gospel and were welcomed into the same church.’ (Commentary on Acts, P 268)

One of the most amazing things about the gospel of Jesus Christ is that it takes disparate groups of people and draws them together into the body of Christ. There is really no reason to assume that the church is made up of one kind of person and definitely no reason to think that the church should be full of one age group, one racial group or one class of people. Diversity and variety should be the hallmark of every church, because the gospel is the power of God unto salvation for all people. Church needs to reflect the diversity of our society and so should be a multi-generational, multi-racial and multi-faceted group of people. After all, Jesus is declared ‘worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God persons from every tribe and language and people and nation.’ (Rev 5:9) If every tribe, language, people and nation will be purchased for God by the blood of the Lamb, then we have no reason to expect or promote exclusion in any form within our churches.

The gospel ultimately has the power to reach a wide diversity of people and has a unifying effect (it binds together those who may have little else in common as members of God’s family.) We who live in an era of social disintegration need to understand and exhibit the same unifying power of the gospel as experienced by those in the church founded at Philippi.

Prison is not an experience most of us equate with joy. The two things just don’t seem synonymous. Prison implies restrictions, lack of freedom, punishment and deprivation. When injustice is added into the equation – being wrongfully imprisoned – we can’t imagine viewing this as a positive experience!

But Paul and Silas offer us a different perspective on imprisonment. (Acts 16:16-40) They are wrongly arrested, flogged and imprisoned because their actions in delivering a slave woman from an impure spirit led to a loss of income for money-grabbing owners who depended on the woman’s ability to tell fortunes to rake in profit, but we don’t find them timorously cowering in a corner or woefully lamenting the limitations of the justice system. Instead, we find them praying and singing hymns to God! (Acts 16:25)

Repeatedly in the book of Acts, joy is the response to persecution and opposition, including physical harm to individuals.

• The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. (Acts 5:41)

• When facing accusation and death, Stephen’s ‘face was like the face of an angel.’ (Acts 6:15)

• When forced out of town, the response was ‘and the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.’ (Acts 13:52)

This is in direct response to Jesus’s words (Matt 5:10-12) and is a response that runs through the entire New Testament:

• Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. (James 1:2-3)

• But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. (1 Pet 4:13)

How can we learn to do this? We do this primarily by focussing on God’s sovereignty, power and purposes which cannot be thwarted. (Job 42:1) No matter what comes against us, we know that God is in control and can work for our good in all circumstances. (Rom 8:28) We learn to see beyond the present troubles to the eternal glory He is working out for us (see 2 Cor 4:16-18, Rom 8:18). Sometimes, deliverance comes quickly (Paul and Silas are released from prison by miraculous means and move on from Philippi); at other times, it may not be so quick and may even end in our death (as ultimately happened to Paul and many other apostles.) But joy is promised to us by Jesus’s constant presence with us and becomes a testimony in itself.

A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect produced when one event sets off a chain of similar events. The term is best known as a mechanical effect and is used as an analogy to a falling row ofdominoes. More metaphorically, the term is used to talk about how one thing can trigger other events, and this seems to have been the case for Paul and Silas in Philippi, when confronted with a slave girl whom they delivered from an evil spirit in the name of Jesus. (Acts 16:16-40)

Paul, troubled and annoyed by the girl’s persistent crying out testifying to their allegiance to the Most High God, recognised that she was being used by an evil spirit and commanded this spirit to leave her, which it did. This meant, however, that she was no longer able to earn money for her slave-masters by predicting the future, and therefore what could have been seen as a simple act of deliverance actually set in motion a train of events with political and financial implications and consequences which ended up with Paul and Silas being thrown into prison on grounds of sedition. Their one act of kindness – which set the girl free from demonic influence – had the effect of redounding on them, leading to being brought before magistrates and resulting in imprisonment. As Tom Wright remarks, ‘the combination of religion, money and politics is asking for trouble.’ (Tom Wright, ‘Acts for Everyone Pt 2’, P 65)

The domino effect in the natural world ends when all the dominoes have toppled over and could therefore seem to have an entirely negative effect. In this instance, however, we see how God is able to bring good from every situation, even that which involved severe flogging and imprisonment. (Rom 8:28) The apparently negative consequences did not cause Paul and Silas to fear or be troubled; instead, they spent their time praying and singing and praising God! (Acts 16:25) Ultimately, God sent an earthquake to shake the prison doors open and not only were they delivered and vindicated by the authorities, they had the opportunity to share their faith with the Philippian jailer and see salvation brought to his household. In God, they knew that every setback and disadvantage can be turned to good – and the same remains true for His people today.

Each chapter in the book of Acts brings us further proof (if it were needed) that we serve a God of miracles. Stephen spoke on this subject last Sunday, so it seems God definitely wants to underline this fact to us, stoking our faith to believe Him for the ‘immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine’ (Eph 3:20). When we see God moving in miraculous ways, our appetite for God grows and our faith muscle develops to ask and imagine even more!

As we journey through Acts (and through the world, starting in Jerusalem, moving on to Judea and Samaria and now reaching Philippi in Greece), we have seen people healed, delivered from impure spirits, raised from the dead and led by the Holy Spirit (being transported without transport to the desert in the case of Philip, being led to bring the gospel to Gentiles in the case of Peter through miraculous visions). We have seen the fiercest opponent of Christianity (Saul of Tarsus) become its greatest missionary (Paul), and now continue to see God moving in ways that cannot be explained naturally. Just as Peter was delivered from prison in Acts 12, now we see Paul and Silas given the opportunity to preach the gospel as an earthquake causes prison doors to open and chains to fall off. (Acts 16:16-40) The truth we find as we continue through this book isn’t that hardship and suffering don’t occur (in fact, as Jesus warned us, they are the constant companions of God’s people), but that God is in sovereign control and ‘hope is marching on.’ (Matt Redman) Time after time we see God’s miraculous interventions in people’s lives and we continue to believe He will do the same for us, demonstrating His power not simply to show us His reality but to draw other people into a living relationship with Him, as happened with the Philippian jailer and his family as a result of this latest miracle.

Your mindset determines, to a large extent, the course of your life. ‘Mindset’ is defined as ‘the established set of attitudes held by someone’ and can be simply expressed as the things you set your mind on. What we think about, focus on and ponder will determine how we live, where we go and what we do.

In Romans 8, the ‘Mount Everest’ of Scripture, we find Paul describing two different mindsets with vastly different outcomes. He says, ‘those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.’ (Rom 8:5-6)

Notice that ‘set’ and ‘governed’ imply a determined focus. Martin Luther differentiated between temptation and sin by likening it to birds flying and making a nest. You can’t stop a thought coming to you (temptation), but you can refuse to let it nest in your mind (sin). Similarly, ‘mindset’ is not something occasional or accidental. It’s a deliberate choice made by constant reflection. It’s what John means when he writes, ‘no one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him.’ (1 John 3:9, see also 1 John 5:18) It’s not that a Christian can’t or doesn’t sin, but we no longer live with our minds set on doing things that are hostile to God. (Rom 8:7-9)

Our mindset can be positive or negative, but for each of us the secret to ‘life and peace’ is to live with our minds set on God: ‘the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.’ (Rom 8:6)

The more we live with an awareness of God’s presence with us and in us, the more we will move towards that family relationship, living out our identity as children of God. (Rom 8:15-17) God has lavished great love on us ‘that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!’ (1 John 3:1) Let’s live as children of God, eyes, heart and mind fixed on Him.

A friend of mine has been posting amazing photos of a sunflower in his garden. These inspired the following poem in the form of a Japanese haiku. Photos are used with permission (copyright David Trelawny-Ross).

Coiled up and curled up,

Hiding from sight till it’s time.

Promise unfulfilled.

A measured prelude

Tentatively reaching out

Towards a new dawn.

Stretching out shyly,

Inviting us to wonder,

Explosive colour.

Petals unfurling,

Sunshine drawing out brightness,

Mirrored yellow joy.