Sermon Transcript
Glad to be with you all. My name is Steve, one of the pastors here. If I don’t know you, so glad that you’re here. We last week began a series in the book of Acts. We’re going to be continuing this study not just today and not just next week, but for quite a while.
So you’re going to want to open up your Bible to the book of Acts, and you’re just going to want to keep it there for several months. You’re just going to want to put several bookmarks there, and you just get those little tabs so you can turn open to the book of Acts easily. Acts is the 5th book in the New Testament, and so if you’re turning there, look up, or if on your phone, we’re looking at the book of Acts. And last week Pastor Dave led us in a couple hand motions, and I have some more hand motions for you. Before though we review the hand motions, let me just remind you all of why we do these hand motions and of why we’re going through the book of Acts.
In my opinion, the most important verse in the book of Acts is Acts 1:8, as Jesus is gathered there, just 8 verses in, he’s gathered with his followers there in Jerusalem. And before he ascends, he says to his followers and to you and to me, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and to the uttermost parts of the earth. Last week Pastor Dave walked us through the first 7 chapters. I don’t know how he did it. He was amazing.
He walked us through the first 7 chapters of Acts where the focus of information was on Jerusalem. And up until this point in the book of Acts— I’m gonna start in Acts 8— up until this point, all of the ministry that had taken place had taken place in Jerusalem. But as Jesus promised, ministry would go forth to Judea and Samaria. And there’s some significance with that that we’ll get into here in just a moment. Next week, I don’t know how he’s gonna do it, but our pastor of young adults, David Collister, is gonna talk about the gospel going out to the world, and he’s gonna cover Acts 13 through 28, and he’s gonna do it in 5 minutes.
You’re gonna be impressed. No, I don’t know how he’s gonna do it. I just have Acts 8 through 12, and we’re gonna focus a little bit on a guy named Philip, and we’re gonna talk about the gospel going forth into Judea, which, which was a province that Jerusalem happened to be in, and then Samaria. And again, there’s a lot of significance there, but I wanna review the hand motions that Pastor Dave did last week. So I’m gonna ask my helpers to come on up.
I have 3 outstanding young ladies from our middle school who are gonna help me here. We have Charlotta Clark, who’s a 7th grader at Castillero. We have JoJo, who’s a 6th grader at Wong Christian Academy, HCA. It’s not a real school, by the way, just in case you didn’t know. And then Faith Helgeson, who’s an 8th grader here At LACS.
Yes. So they’re going to help me. So last week we talked about how at the beginning of Acts that Jesus ascended up into heaven. So you remember our motion for that? Ascends.
So you’re going to point up with both fingers. My youngest son, one of his favorite wrestlers is Daniel Bryan. And if you ever watch wrestling, Daniel Bryan, whenever he comes out, goes, yes, yes. So think about Daniel Bryan if you can’t think about Jesus. So So, so ascends, ascends, big bushy beard and all that stuff, same thing, right?
The second thing, the Spirit in chapter 2 came down upon the people. So the Spirit came down, okay? So let’s do that. Ascends, Spirit, and then in chapter 3, Peter and John, who are 2 of the primary apostles, are walking along and they’re going into worship and they see a lame beggar that is there and he asks for money and they say, silver and gold have we You know, we don’t have any silver and gold to give to you, but what we do have, we give you in the name of Jesus. Walk.
So this man was cured. And so remember, you pat on your legs. This lame man ascends, spirit, cure. And then remember in chapter 5, we have the first embezzlement. So think about Johnny Manziel with this one right here.
Like, this is his move right here. Cleveland Browns quarterback. Think about Johnny Manziel. Think about also Ananias and Sapphira. 2 people, a married couple, in the book of Acts chapter 5.
As all the different people in church have been up until this point giving their belongings and sharing what they had with other believers so that everybody had things in common, Ananias and Sapphira gave part of what they had, but they lied about it, and then they withheld some of it, and they were cast dead. On the spot, and fear just went throughout all the church. But the power of God came down upon them because God, God is a holy God. And so that’s the first embezzlement. So we have sins, spirit, cure, embezzlement.
And then in chapter 5, we also have night release. So you’re gonna release— what that is, is we have the apostles who had been arrested because they had been preaching the word, and the Sadducees and the leaders at the time were very jealous. And so They arrested these people. Well, little did they know, in the middle of the night, these people were going to be released by an angel. And then they went back out into preaching as they were doing.
So night release. Ascends, spirit, cure, embezzlement, night release. Then we have the first deacons. We have 7 men, laypeople, who are picked out to help facilitate ministry. And so we have deacons who serve.
And so you’re going to put out both hands like you’re serving. My wife likes to go, eh, like anytime we do the deacons. So you can do that too if you want. A little creepy if I see one of our deacons doing that, but you can do that. So we have deacons, ascents, spirit, cure, embezzlement, night release, deacons.
And then we have Stephen in chapter 7 who was martyred. No, we’re not going to do that symbol. Again, Shannon has her own symbols to these things. I’m going to show you the appropriate symbols for these. Is we’re going to— Stephen, when he died, saw heaven opened up and he saw Jesus Standing at the right hand of the Father.
And Stephen was the first Christian martyr. He died for his faith. And so Stephen saw the heavens opened up. Okay, so we have ascense, spirit, cure, embezzlement, night release, deacons, Stephen. And then I’m gonna give you 4 more here in chapter 8.
We’re gonna get into some of— like, did I hear a groan? Listen. Come next week, ’cause you’re gonna get a lot of symbols. I just got 4 for you. Come on, we can do this.
So we have the first one, which is persecution. So like a whip, like go Indiana Jones on people, and you’re gonna whip people because there was a great persecution and this great scattering of the people. We’re gonna talk about that today in chapter 8. After persecution, we have Philip’s preaching. So you’re gonna I feel your lips.
I know, go on ahead and groan. Oh gosh, Philip’s preaching. I know it’s corny. So we have persecution, Philip’s preaching. We’re going to talk about Philip today.
Then we have— what do we have? We have Paul’s conversion in chapter 9. Paul was at Stephen’s stoning and he approved of it, but God changed his heart as he was going to Damascus to arrest some more Christians and to imprison them, and maybe some of them would be martyred too. But he saw a bright light. So imagine that you’re protecting yourself.
It’s not like Stephen. Stephen saw heaven open. But Paul, Paul protected himself. So we have persecution. We have Philip’s preaching.
Then we have Paul’s conversion. And then in chapters 10 and 11, which we won’t get into today, but it’s a great story. Peter was on a rooftop praying and he saw this great vision of a sheet coming down out of heaven. Peter’s vision, and on the sheet were animals, clean and unclean. And Peter’s like, what are you trying to say, God?
And God was trying to say that the gospel is not just for Jews only, it’s for the whole world. And we’ll talk about that as things go along. So we have persecution, we have Philip’s preaching, we have Paul’s conversion, then we have Philip’s vision. Let’s do it all from the beginning. You know what, and don’t even put them up there on the screen.
Yeah, let’s see if we can do this. Come on, we can do this. Okay, we have ascends— oh no, ascends— listen, don’t even— I can’t do it. I’m not facing this thing. Ascends, Spirit, cure, no, embezzlement, night release, deacons, Stephen, persecution, Philip’s preaching, Paul’s conversion, and Peter’s vision.
Yeah! High five, girls. Thank you. Go have a seat. Thank you so much.
I was practicing with the girls earlier— where’s my Bible? I was practicing with the girls earlier in the Sunday school room, and they were very dramatic. So you just need to know that they have a lot of acting in them. So maybe later on they’ll do some of their actual motions. Whenever we got to Stephen, they wanted to just point to me because my name’s Steve.
I said, no, that’s not the motion either. So we’re gonna look at Acts chapter 8. Again, up until this point, everything that had happened in the book of Acts. It happened in Jerusalem. But look what happens here.
Chapter 8, verse 1 says, and Saul— he wasn’t Paul yet, and he also wasn’t a Christ follower— Saul approved of their killing him. Who’s they? The Jewish leaders who were out to put down the Christian faith. Who’s him? Stephen.
Saul was there approving of this. And on that day, a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem. And this is interesting: all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. The apostles weren’t, but everybody else who followed Christ, says, were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him, but Saul, verse 3, began to destroy the church.
He went from house to house and dragged off both men and women and put them into prison. Verse 4, and this is really the key verse, I think, of chapters 8 through 12. Those who had been scattered, and there were a lot of them, preached the word wherever they went. Let me read that again. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.
They didn’t go into hiding. They preached the word wherever they went. Verse 5, Philip— there’s Philip’s preaching— he went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. And when the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.
Verse 8: So there was great joy in that city as physical needs were being met, spiritual needs were being met, people were being delivered. And all because of this horrible thing that happened, the persecution, God took it and used it for good. The gospel would not have gone into Samaria and into Judea without this persecution. The gospel would not have gotten to you or to me 2,000 years later if this persecution had not happened. God took something tough and he used it for good.
I want to point out just a couple things here. In verse 4 again, it says that those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. They didn’t, they didn’t stand on a stage and preach like you and I think of with regards to like preaching. What they did is they evangelized. The word there is evangelize.
That’s one of those kind of church words that makes people feel uncomfortable. I’ve got a definition of evangelism for you that I’d like you to consider. It’s in your notes as well, and you can just fill in the blanks if you have a bulletin with the notes. Evangelism is what happens when ordinary people— because these were just ordinary people, these weren’t the apostles, the apostles were in Jerusalem, these were ordinary laypeople— evangelism is what happens when ordinary people become intentional, or are intentional, about spreading the joy of the gospel wherever they go by pointing others to Jesus through word and deed. Ordinary people— you may feel completely ordinary.
God has you exactly where he has you for a reason. At your job, wherever you are, God has you exactly where you are for a reason. You’re not there by accident. If you’re in school, you’re like, why am I in this school? Because God wants you there, students.
He wants to use you. Why are you in this job? Because God wants you there. Why do I live in this neighborhood? Why am I in Silicon Valley?
Because God wants you there. He wants to use you. Talked about this with my oldest son Tate yesterday as we were praying together, and he was telling me about some of his new friends. He’s a freshman at Homestead High School, and I said, son, God wants to use you in their lives. He wants you to give them a picture of who God is and what he’s like.
So we’re gonna pray that God would give you boldness boldness and courage to live a life of integrity and humility in front of them, and that maybe spiritual conversations would arise as you live before them. God has you where you are for a reason. So ordinary people who live intentionally— see, here’s the deal when it comes to evangelism. If you’re a Christ follower, evangelism is the scary thing because a couple different reasons. One is, is we think it’s only for those who are super Christians or have a seminary degree or stand up on a platform like me.
But if revival happens and if the gospel goes forth, it’s not because of somebody like me standing on a stage. You understand this, right? That wasn’t what was happening in Acts. It was ordinary people taking the initiative and then spreading the gospel wherever they went. Everybody owned the mission.
This wasn’t just the apostles. Everybody owned it. Everybody participated in it. Everybody simply initiated it. They didn’t wait to be asked.
Philip didn’t wait to be asked. He just went. He just He just went. Through word and deed, they weren’t just preaching at people with an agenda, but they also by their actions were meeting needs, whether through healing. Now, and here’s the deal, you read something like this and you say, I can’t do those things.
Well, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And when you’re filled with God’s Spirit, God can do the supernatural. But aside from that, our deeds need not only be supernatural. Think about this. In the next chapter, we’re not going to get into this story, but in chapter 9, there’s a story of a woman named Tabitha who made garments and clothes for the poor.
And she died, and people mourned her because she just— she was so generous. And she took what little she had and she shared it with people around her in a very, very practical way and gave people a bigger picture of who God is. Nothing supernatural there, but God used it and multiplied it and blessed it. The spreading the joy of the gospel to me is a really, really big thing. Spreading the joy of the gospel, because as the gospel went forth, that’s where joy comes.
Joy doesn’t come when we have an agenda for people. Joy doesn’t come when we’re trying to shove church down people’s throats. Joy doesn’t come when we’re religious and it’s, hey, we’re right and you’re wrong. Joy comes when somebody has their eyes open to how big God is and sees that for themselves and has a different picture of the kingdom of God. You see, the kingdom of God says that Christianity is not just about going to heaven one day, but that you can experience eternal life right here and right now, and your life can be changed right now.
That’s good news. And when that comes into a person’s life and they get it, there’s great joy.
And sometimes there’s supernatural things that accompany that, but other times there’s not. Over Labor Day weekend, my family and I went to a— we went to the park. We do this from time to time. Some of you have done this with either Suresh or Sujana Panthulu or with other people. We’re at St. James Park in San Jose, and Shannon suggested that we go on Labor Day itself because the All the restaurants around there were closed, so we were going to go feed the homeless, basically, there in the park.
We were going to go take clothes. We’d been collecting clothes and stuff like that. And a couple things that happened were really cool, but I always ask myself, anytime we’re going there and coming back, what— is this making any kind of a difference? Like, we’re putting a coat in somebody’s hand, we’re giving somebody shoes, we’re giving somebody food. So this is kind of like deed ministry, I guess.
And I always come to the conclusion that it’s really in many ways more for us than for them because we realize how blessed we are and, and it’s just the generosity of the gospel. But a couple cool things happened this last time that we were there. We went with a couple other families and this wasn’t like an official church event. We just invited a few friends and people we thought might be interested. There were like 3 different families that were there in addition to us.
So what happened is Shannon got into a conversation with a guy named Jesus and Jesus was just so blessed by what was coming our way, or like what we were giving out and what was coming his way. And he just started this conversation with her going, who are you people? Really, who are you people? And she just said, you know, we’re just, we’re all friends and we happen to go to a church in Los Altos. He’s like, I want to go to a church like that.
This guy had never experienced anything like that. Maybe he’d experienced people saying, move along. Maybe he’d been passed by people, you know, who just kind of go on their way. Maybe he’d gone on over towards— what is it called now? The SAP Center where the Sharks play.
It used to be HP Pavilion, whatever it’s called. There’s always, every time I’m there, there’s always somebody there with a bullhorn or standing up and just preaching at people. Maybe he’d been there. But that wasn’t what he was getting. And the joy in his life— listen, I don’t know that he was transformed in that moment, but I think he got a bit bigger picture of who God was.
Just in the simple act of talking to someone like Shannon who just said, we just want to bless you with this. God has given us much and we just want you to know that he loves you. And that really encouraged him. That’s the joy of the gospel. Earlier this summer, there’s another story that some of you participated in a Respite event that we do here.
We do Respite events from time to time for families of children with special needs. And to me, this is one of the most powerful ways to express the gospel in deed, by just showing love to families that often don’t get a break if their child has special needs. And some of these children are high-functioning, some of them are not as high-functioning, but it’s a challenge when you’re raising a child with special needs. So we come, we say, bring them here and we’ll, we’ll let you get a break. And many of our teenagers serve at these respite events.
It’s awesome. Some of you may have served. It’s very, very near and dear to my heart. We have another one coming up in November. Hint, hint.
We’d love to have you serve because we need people to serve. It’s easy. It’s awesome. You don’t need any previous experience. Come and it’ll be life-changing for you.
Anyway, Shannon invited a number of her coworkers at this one that we did in the summer, a number of her coworkers to come. And I don’t, I don’t know that any of her coworkers are Christ followers. We can’t— I mean, I think we would classify them as seekers, maybe some of them. Others of them don’t want anything to do with the church or religion, but we wanted them to come serve. Because Shannon knows that many of them have a background in working with children with special needs, and we thought it’d be good for them to come.
So they came and they served, and we went through the event. And afterwards, just about everybody left except one of Shannon’s coworkers named Christine. And, and then it was Shannon and me and Matthew Rikimaru and Andrew Spillar, and I think Kathy Spillar was there. But there was this young man who has special needs who was a part of the event. He didn’t want to go.
And some of these children, when they don’t want to go, you can’t get him to go. And so I need strong guys like Matthew and Andrew who were trying to help him, and Shannon was trying to help him, and he was thrashing and he was kicking and he was really, really hard to move. And the mom was so apologetic. She felt so bad about it. I’m so sorry.
I’m so embarrassed. I’m so sorry. I was like, listen, it’s okay. And at one point the boy kicked Shannon as she was trying to help get the boy into the car. And she fell down at one point and scraped up herself and was kind of kind of limping along, and she was just so patient and so gentle the whole time.
And we eventually got the boy into the car, and I’m grateful for those that were there to help because Shannon and I couldn’t have done it on our own. But it’s interesting because as the woman was leaving, and again she was apologizing once we got her son into the car, everybody else was gone, and she said, I’m so sorry. And I just said, you know what, you’re always welcome here. I don’t know her faith background or anything like that. I just He said, you’re always welcome here.
And I didn’t think anything of it, but later on that night we got a text message from Shannon’s friend Christine, who happened to be witness to all of this and was trying to help this young man get into the car. And come to find out that this young lady has had a bad experience with churches in the past. She’s been kicked out of churches. She’s been told not to come. There’s something when she was a teenager or whatever, who knows.
We’re trying to get to know her story some, but she texted and she said that in that moment, the way that Shannon responded, hearing the phrase, you are always welcome here, to somebody who felt like they didn’t belong, all of those things. And I didn’t even know Christine was even paying attention, and she was just listening. That’s the kingdom of God coming into a person’s life where they all of a sudden say, you know what, I’d like to know more about this. And that’s what she said. I, I just admire that.
That’s amazing. I don’t say that to pat us on the back. I say that to say that God puts you in certain places where through your words and through your deeds you can help somebody to experience some joy in your life. Let me read a quote for you that is from a guy named Brandon Hatmaker from the book Barefoot Church. He says, when we say we are to live incarnationally— this word incarnational is a word that you may see around here and there.
The word incarnational comes from John 1:14, this idea of the incarnation of Jesus, God being in the flesh. And so incarnation means to embody in the flesh. And Jesus, it says in John 1:14, came into the world and he lived in the flesh and we beheld his glory. God in the flesh. He was incarnated.
And so Brandon Hatmaker says, when we say we as Christ followers are to live incarnationally, we mean that we are to put on Jesus and represent him by focusing on being his hands and feet to our world, to live on mission. This includes but is not limited to serving the least. It might be ascending towards your neighbor or to a complete stranger in need. Either way, the focus is essentially on the church becoming missionaries to our culture. If you follow Christ, you are a missionary to wherever it is that God has placed you.
And it’s— you say, well, I didn’t sign up for As a Christ follower, none of us are excluded from the Great Commission where Jesus said we are to go into the whole world and preach the gospel, to evangelize, to point people to Jesus through our word and through deed. Ordinary Christians, you and I, through our word and through our deed, spreading the joy of the gospel. We’re to preach the gospel to every creature.
And that to me means that wherever God has placed you, God, God has used you, and I wonder when the last time maybe you reminded yourself of that. I’ve been trying more and more to just notice needs of people around me, and I just wonder if you would pray, God, will you open up my eyes to help me see a need that, that I can meet? Let me ask you this question: are people in this community full of joy because this church is here? Are we making a difference? Is there joy in your neighborhood because you’re there?
Is there joy at your work or in your school or wherever you are because you are there and you’re representing Christ? That’s where God wants to get us. It’s not up to you. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. If you’re a Christ follower, the Holy Spirit lives in you.
We’re gonna talk in October. I’m doing a 2-part series on the Holy Spirit. God wants to use you and me to be missionaries to our culture. So it’s ordinary Christians who are intentional about not just making evangelism part, part of their life. It’s integrated into every part of their life where as they go, they spread the joy of the gospel through word and through deed by pointing people to Jesus.
One of the reasons why there was such joy going out is because of the significance of racial reconciliation happening here in these first 8 verses. You see, Judea was a province and Jerusalem was in that province, but Samaria— Samaria is an interesting place. Samaria is just 35 to 40 miles north of Jerusalem. I think we have a map here for you. It’s funny, I was on Google earlier this week researching how far is Samaria from Jerusalem, and it said 6,003 miles or something.
I think I may have entered this in wrong, so I did it again. How far? And it said the exact same thing. It was calculating from Jerusalem to Samaria, Michigan. I did, oh, okay.
So indeed, that would be a great journey for some people. Just 35 to 40 miles. But it’s far, far further than that. Just in terms of if you understand the history of Samaria. You see, in 722 BC, the kingdom of Assyria had come and had invaded the northern kingdom, the 10 northern tribes of Israel, and had carted off these people.
722 BC, a number of people were left to stay, a number of Jews remained, but Assyria, this pagan nation, left some of their heathen people and resettled them in Samaria. So that what we have is we have half Jew, half Gentile, and this mixed ancestry that the Jews looked down upon. You see, you didn’t hang out with Samaritans if you were a Jew. They were muggles, if you understand the whole idea of Harry Potter. They were, they were of mixed ancestry.
They were mixed breeds, half Jew, half Gentile. You didn’t share cups with them. You didn’t eat with them. You didn’t associate with them. If you were going from Jerusalem up north, you went around Samaria.
If you were coming down, you went around Samaria. You did not go through Samaria. The gospel had to get to Samaria. That’s what Jesus had said. So God— Jesus used this, or God used this persecution for the gospel to go forth.
And as you see that, you see these racial barriers coming down. And I just want to talk about that in a little story that’s later on here in the book of Acts chapter 8. We’re going to look at verse 26 here. I loved hearing this story of Philip and the Ethiopian when I was growing up in Sunday school. We had the felt board.
You remember the felt board, like with all the characters and stuff? And I remember I had a Bible that had all these pictures. And if you ever Google Philip and the Ethiopian, you’re going to see some political historically incorrect pictures there that are quite humorous to look at. But nevertheless, we don’t know how all of this went down. But starting in verse 26, we’re going to see this idea of evangelism, the definition that I gave you, being embodied, a good— kind of lived out.
Verse 26, now an angel of the Lord, verse 26, an angel of the Lord said to Philip, go south to the road, the desert road. That goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Gaza was one of these places that— you ever gone on a road trip and you drive through a town, you’re like, who would live here? I used to work in a place like that. It’s the city called Hemphill.
It’s one of those places that’s just out of the way, and you— who would live here? Gaza was one of those places. And yet an angel puts Philip on this road So he started out going— by the way, which was 160 to 170 miles journey walk.
So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake. I looked that up. I’m sorry if you know Ethiopian. I’m trying to pronounce that as best I can. Kandake, it’s basically a title which means Queen of the Ethiopians.
You know how the Egyptian leaders were called Pharaoh and Roman emperors were called Caesar. The Egyptian— or excuse me, the Ethiopian queens were called the Kandake. So this eunuch was an important official in charge of all the treasury in Ethiopia, and this man had gone to Jerusalem to worship and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. So the Spirit, Holy Spirit, told Philip up, go up to that chariot and stay near it. Couple things.
We know that this guy is from Ethiopia, and back then Ethiopia was significantly larger than it is now. It basically meant the Upper Nile region. It meant like southern Egypt, northern Sudan. It included present-day Ethiopia. It was big, and this guy was significant because he was the treasurer of all of it.
He was an important guy. On top of that, it says says that he was an Ethiopian eunuch. What an interesting detail to include here. Well, if you were to work in the royal court, if you were to work for the king or the queen, this was a process. They castrated you if you were a male, if you were going to work there and had any political aspirations, because they didn’t want you getting any ideas, if you know what I mean.
And students, if you don’t know what I mean, come next week. David Collister will sort all that out there for you, or ask your parents or something like that. But anyway, it’s an interesting thing there. He’s a eunuch.
You couldn’t find 2 more different people. Why in the world would God pick Philip and this Ethiopian? And why— how did God arrange all this? We have a middle-class Jew, we have a black Ethiopian who was from the outermost known territory. He would have been considered barbarian.
He was sexually altered. Back then, if you were a devout Jewish male, you, you got up and you prayed this prayer every morning. You said, dear God, thank you that you did not make me a woman, a slave, or a Gentile.
They would pray that prayer, Jewish men. Don’t pray that prayer now, men. I don’t advise that, but That’s how much they looked down upon Gentiles.
And so you’re not going to find 2 more different people. And also notice how directly involved the Spirit was here. An angel of the Lord put Philip on the road. The Spirit said, go up to this chariot. Later on, the Spirit’s going to take Philip away.
He’s just going to disappear magically. That’s amazing. I wonder if you and I are as sensitive to God speaking to us as Philip was.
I believe that God speaks to you and I all the time, and I just don’t know that we’re really listening. And the point is, is that we need to have our ears always open. And if we have our eyes open— this is why we need to be intentional as we share our faith— is because you can open up your eyes and notice there are people around you right now that need you to come and to just speak to them or to help meet a need. But we just need to be open to that. And you see that all throughout the book of Acts.
The Spirit speaking. The Spirit speaking. The Spirit speaking. Let’s go on. It says, then Philip ran up to the chariot.
Why did he run up to the chariot? Because it was moving. Think about that. This chariot was moving. I’d never thought about that detail.
It was moving. And I don’t know, I think we think of the chariots like in Ben-Hur.
It sounds like this may have been where he was being carried. He was an important official. He was one of those kind of chariots. And so Philip’s running along and, you know, jumping up and he’s trying to catch up with this guy.
Philip heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. So Philip said, do you understand what you are reading? Verse 31, the man said, how can I unless someone explains it to me? So he invited Philip to come up and to sit with him. And this is the very passage of Scripture that the eunuch, the Ethiopian man, was reading.
It said, he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth. So the eunuch read this and said, tell me, who Please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?
What’s amazing about this is that Philip shows up at just this very moment because here’s a man who had gone anywhere from 500 to 1,000 miles one way to go to Jerusalem to worship, and yet when he got there, he would not have been let in.
You see, the Mosaic Law had said that certain people are not allowed into the temple. If you had touched a dead body, you’re excluded. If you were lame or diseased, even if you had mold in your house, for goodness’ sake, you were excluded from the temple. If you were a eunuch, you were permanently excluded. You were not allowed into the temple.
So this man had gone all this way just to be turned away. You can imagine his disappointment. Why is he so interested in the God of the Bible? It’s not like there wasn’t already religion in Ethiopia. They worshiped the sun and animals and all these other things, but maybe it just didn’t meet his needs.
His power and his position didn’t, didn’t satisfy him. His, his, his religion, whatever that was, didn’t satisfy him. And so he thought, maybe there’s something for me in Jerusalem. So he gets there only to be turned away. And here he is, he’s reading from a scroll in Isaiah, which having a scroll back then would have been extremely expensive, and he happens to wind up with the very scroll where he’s reading about this mysterious servant who was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
And I just read the passage to you. And he’s reading from a passage in Isaiah that is part of a larger passage in Isaiah called the Servant Songs. It’s in the latter part of Isaiah that includes Isaiah 42 up to like Isaiah 53, Isaiah 54, where it talks about prophesying ahead of time this mysterious servant who would be excluded from his people. And so this man is reading about this— who’s the servant? And what’s interesting is, is as he was reading from Isaiah 53 there, and he didn’t know what he was reading, he would have also come across this passage a little bit later in Isaiah 56: Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, the Lord will surely exclude me from his people.
And let no eunuch complain, I am only a dry tree. For this is what the Lord says: to the eunuchs who hold fast to my covenant, I will give a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will never be cut off.
You see the significance here? This man is reading passages like this, he’s going, who is this servant? And all of a sudden Philip shows up going, can I help?
Amazing how God did that. And then it says, verse 35, then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
And it transformed this man’s life. We believe, according to church history, Irenaeus and Eusebius and these people who wrote in the 2nd and 3rd century said that this Ethiopian went back and shared the gospel. In Africa. He took the gospel to Africa. Verse 36, as they traveled along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, look, here’s some water.
What can stand in the way of my being baptized? So he gave orders to stop the chariot. So there must have been others there. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again.
But here’s the joy, he went on his way rejoicing. There’s the joy again. What is the significance of a story like this where you have somebody who’s as unlikely a candidate for conversion as you can possibly imagine, and the gospel came to him because of somebody’s just taking the initiative to obey God? There’s a couple things that I would say. One is, is I preached a message last September called Wherever, Whenever, Whatever, and it’s about how sometimes we come up with different things that we say to God like, God, I’ll go wherever you send me.
And yet whenever God says, how about there? Many of us say, I’ll go wherever except for there. God, I’ll serve you wherever. How about in your school? No.
Not in my school. How about with your family? No. No. Anywhere but there.
Wherever means wherever. But usually we mean, I’ll go wherever you want, God. As long as it’s convenient and I like the destination.
So it’s a reminder that God is using you in significant ways, and everybody that you’re around is a person through whom God wants to use you to help reach and to share his love. A couple other things that I just want to point out, just that I think we can summarize from this whole thing. There’s no varsity Christianity or graduate Christianity or Christianity 2.0. Evangelism and sharing faith is not just for super Christians. It’s for people who are intentional, ordinary people, about sharing their faith.
And if you are a Christ follower, that’s for you and for me. Another thing that I think is interesting here is, is that the gospel does not belong to one culture more than another. The Jews thought it was only for them, but clearly we start to see the walls coming down. And it was only because of this persecution that we saw the walls of reconciliation start coming down. These racial barriers and these things that you’re excluded and you’re not.
The gospel is available to every tribe, every tongue, every language, every person. The gospel is for everyone.
And another bit of good news that I just think is really encouraging to me that I see here as we think about the persecution is that as you look throughout 2,000 years of Christian history, that the more that there are people around the world throughout the centuries and even now who tried to kill the Christian faith, that the more— you see that the more that they push and the more that they press, the more our faith grows, the more Christianity expands. You see that everywhere. The more you see fruit being born because of people’s testimonies. The gospel cannot be stopped. So I have a couple questions for you.
One, do you know the gospel? The gospel is simply the good news of Jesus that says Jesus came into the world and became our sin bearer. To bear your sin, to bear my sin. He died on the cross. He rose again and offers you the opportunity to be made right with God because your religion will not make you right with God.
Your coming to church, your giving of money, your doing good deeds will not make you right with God. The gospel is what transforms us. And you simply have to receive. Just like sitting down in a chair. It is as simple as that.
Simply saying, God, come into my life. You don’t have to do anything else about it. Just open your life to him and say, I receive you into my life. Do you know the gospel? The other question I have is, are you participating in God’s mission around the world?
I’ve talked to numerous people here today who’ve come up to me. I just, I’m not good at sharing by faith. The Holy Spirit, when he comes upon you, will give you power. Jesus promised that when you’re standing before others, he will put words in your mouth and he will give you the words to say. And sometimes it’s not even with our words.
Sometimes it’s with our life, like the stories I shared with you. Sometimes it’s just opening up your home or opening up your life to a neighbor, showing kindness, where the kingdom of God is made real to a person for the first time. That’s as much evangelism as using your words to enter into a spiritual conversation with somebody. If you’re a Christ follower, this is for all of us. Let me pray for us.
Lord, thank you for this message today, for the example of Philip, for the example of the Ethiopian, the example of those who were scattered and who took the message wherever they went on purpose, intentionally spreading joy. I pray that we would do the same. I pray that we would boldly, as Pastor Dave shared last week, speak courageously about our faith, and that we would not just do so with our words, but with our lives, with our deeds. That we would think about needs that are around us. God, would you show us needs that we can help meet?
Maybe it’s a financial need, or maybe it’s a practical need that somebody has. Would you help us to not be so busy that we miss it? Help us to notice. And I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would speak to us so that we hear your voice as you’re leading us to help meet needs and to share your love with those around us. Thank you that the gospel has gone forth.
Thank you that we’re the recipients and beneficiaries of that. And I pray, God, that you would help us now to take that and to share it with others. It’s not church that changes a person, God. It’s not a program that changes your person— a person, Lord. It’s your Spirit as you come into our lives.
So change us that we might live like Jesus and be incarnational, Lord, embodying in the flesh, in our lives, your goodness to all around us. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
