“The Macedonia Call” Acts 16:9-15
1. What is The Macedonia Call
• It’s the call to help those in need it a God given vision to GO
• It’s what Jesus told us to do, “19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them inA the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
• Its Methodism It’s the ecclesia “Called out Ones” Make disciples for the transformation of the world
2. Who was given the Macedonia Call It was Paul
• 9During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, "Come over to Macedonia and help us."
• Another guy had a very similar call St. Patrick lived in Rome
• Ireland began to invade other country and take men for slaves and Patrick became captor
• Once in Ireland, Patrick was sold to a tribal chieftain, who promptly put Patrick to work herding cattle in the hills. It was lonely and dangerous work. He was given little food or clothing and was constantly exposed to the elements. Patrick began to pray to the God he had previously ignored.
3. When Paul receives the Macedonia Call how did he react?
• 10After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them.
• How did Saint Patrick Respond?
• He writes in his Confession: “After I reached Ireland I used to pasture the flock each day and I used to pray many times a day. More and more did the love of God, and my fear of him and faith increase, and my spirit was moved so that in a day [I said] from one up to a hundred prayers, and in the night a like number; besides I used to stay out in the forests and on the mountain and I would wake up before daylight to pray in the snow, in icy coldness, in rain, and I used to feel neither ill nor any slothfulness, because, as I now see, the Spirit was burning in me at that time.”
• Patrick was becoming a devout Christian and his captors began to notice a change in him. After six years in captivity, he received a vision one night in a dream where a voice said to him, “You are going home. Look! Your ship is ready.”
• Walked 200 miles got on a ship and went back to England
• Patrick had another vision. In this dream a man named Victoricus, whom Patrick may have known while in Ireland, came to him with letters from his former captors in Ireland. As he read the letters, Patrick says: “I read the beginning of the letter: ‘The Voice of the Irish,”: ‘We beg you, holy youth, that you shall come and shall walk again among us.’”
• he interpreted this dream as a “Macedonian call” much like the apostle Paul had experienced (Acts 16:9-15). Patrick believed that he was being called to go back and “walk among” the very people who had enslaved him.
• He studied for the priesthood and got permission to go back to Ireland despite the protests of his family and some church superiors.
4. How can be the Macedonia Call? “Paul went” “Patrick walk among the people” Wesley’s Heart strangely warmed”
• When Paul got the vision they left to go to Macedonia “at once”
• When Patrick got the vision He Prepared, went priesthood, and trained, and he went
• So How can we be the Macedonia call offer holy conversation to a person who needs it,
• We can be the Macedonia call by being Like Patrick and Paul they both prayed. 13On the Sabbath we went outside the city gate to the river, where we expected to find a place of prayer. Saint Patirick said in his confession he prayer a hundred time a day and at night
