Sermon Tone Analysis
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Acts - 23
Acts 8:26-40
Introduction
Disappointment is what you experience when you want something to happen, or think something should happen, but then it doesn’t happen.
In your head, you had an appointment with something, and then there was a dis-appointment…it didn’t happen.
Disappointment comes from unmet, or unrealistic expectations.
You expected something should happen or would happen in a certain way, and then it didn’t.
John Cheever in Leadership Magazine wrote, “The main emotion of the adult American who has had all the advantages of wealth, education, and culture is disappointment.”
What if it didn’t have to be that way?
What if your life could be free of disappointment?
Maybe the answer is to have more realistic expectations.
Maybe the answer is to be less selfish, that if something doesn’t go your way then you’re miserable.
Or maybe there is a way to live your life, to view your life, what does happen and what doesn’t happen, that wouldn’t cause you to be overwhelmed by disappointment, but by gratitude and a sense of adventure.
Philip shows us how to do just that.
Let me remind you of the context.
Philip is an evangelist who has taken the gospel of Jesus Christ to Samaria and is watching God do some amazing things.
In the city of Samaria, the capital of the region of Samaria, seemingly the entire city has repented of their sin and responded to his preaching with faith in Christ and are being baptized left and right.
The apostles Peter and John are dispatched from Jerusalem to come verify that God is indeed saving Samaritans, something that was unimaginable to them.
But it’s happening.
The Holy Spirit falls onto the Samaritans just like He did at Pentecost in Acts 2. Revival is breaking out in the most unlikely of places.
Peter and John apparently stay awhile and help disciple these new believers.
Verse 25 - So, when they [Peter and John] had solemnly bore witness and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, and were proclaiming the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.
Things are going incredibly well.
Apostolic verification.
Gospel reception.
Constant baptisms.
The movement is multiplying…this is not just happening in the city of Samaria, but now throughout the entire region as the apostles take the gospel to all the villages in Samaria.
But what of Philip?
God has a new assignment for him.
Acts 8:26-40 - But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Rise up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.)
27 So he rose up and went; and behold, there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship,
28 and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah.
29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.”
30 And Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?”
And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this:
“As a sheep is led to slaughter;
And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
So He does not open His mouth.
33 In humiliation His judgment was taken away;
Who will recount His generation?
For His life is removed from the earth.”
34 And the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you earnestly, of whom does the prophet say this?
Of himself or of someone else?”
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him.
36 And as they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look!
Water!
What prevents me from being baptized?”
37 [And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”
And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”]
38 And he ordered the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him.
39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.
40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he kept proclaiming the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea.
While this account certainly ends well, it doesn’t necessarily begin that way.
Philip is in the capital city of a major region of Israel.
It’s a large, metropolitan, population center.
People are everywhere.
And on top of that, he is experiencing huge success.
And what does God do with that?
He sends him to the middle of nowhere.
V. 26 - But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Rise up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road).
Up to this point, Philip has been heading north out of Jerusalem and into Samaria.
He’s been building on the ministry of Jesus and has explosive success.
But God sends him the opposite direction, away from the crowds and the thriving church in Samaria, to the desert!
Do you know what is in Gaza, the southernmost city of Israel?
Nothing.
On the other side of it is the desert that leads to Egypt, the wilderness the OT Israelites were in for 40 years.
This is not where Philip planned to be.
He’s with the crowds and having a grand old time.
But now he is here, isolated and alone.
Do you think maybe Philip could have easily responded with disappointment?
Absolutely.
God just stripped away his successful ministry.
God just isolated him.
According to Philip’s calendar, there was an appointment with success.
But that didn’t happen.
It was a dis-appointment.
But we don’t have any hint at all of Philip’s disappointment, or bitterness, or resentment.
In fact, we have the opposite.
We have faithfulness.
We have obedience.
V. 27 - So he rose up and went…He does what God tells him to do, no questions asked.
We will come back to that.
And what does Philip find in the barren wasteland of Gaza on the desert road?
He finds one man.
He’s got an entourage for sure, but it is still one guy.
Not the crowds of Samaria.
One man.
But oh does God have something great in store for them both!
V. 27b - …and behold, there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship…
If it was controversial for God to save a Samaritan, imagine how overwhelmed Peter and John would be that God is about to save an African!
He is from Ethiopia.
In that day, Ethiopia was not a country like it is today, but more of a region.
It is much of sub-Saharan Africa.
Today we would call it the Sudan.
A huge region far away from Israel.
And he is a eunuch.
A eunuch is a man who has been (mostly) voluntarily castrated.
It was common to have government officials in ancient kingdoms to be castrated.
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