We Must Share the Good News

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone, welcome to our worship service. And Happy Thanksgiving to you as well. It’s good to see you all here.

I have a few announcements I’d like to mention as we begin this morning.

First, the new locks and push bars have finally been installed on our doors. If you have a key to the old locks, it will no longer work. Please call the church office if you’d like a code to the door.

There’s still some time to order your poinsettia for Christmas. Just fill out the form in your bulletin and enclose your check made out to Stuarts Draft Baptist church.

The men’s group will meet tonight at 6:30. There will also be a men’s prayer breakfast next Sunday morning. All men are invited to each of those.

As it is a holiday week coming up, a couple members of our staff will be taking some time off for the week. I will be away this week as well as Twila, but of course you can reach me if you need me. Sue or Jesyka should be around through Wednesday, though, in case you need to contact someone.

And don’t forget our church Christmas dinner, which is coming up soon. If you haven’t signed up to join us yet, please do so.

Jesyka, do you have anything?

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Father as we enter into this week of Thanksgiving, each of us pause to consider the richness of Your blessings in our lives. We’re thankful for Your presence, for You unending love and forgiveness, and most of all for Your precious son whose birth we will soon celebrate with glad tidings of joy. You are so good, Father, and we pray for the spiritual sight to see your goodness in every moment of our days. For it’s in Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

Sermon

We’re going to finish up our series on the Christian worldview today by talking about what everything we’ve spent these last weeks is for. What is the truth about God for? Or the truth about the devil, or the Bible, or about Jesus?

Those truths are for you, first of all. They’re to save you. They’re to comfort and educate and grow hope in you. But that’s just where it begins — with you — not where it ends. Because all this truth that we’ve been talking about it meant for you to share.

That’s the entire point of the church. It’s the entire point of Christianity. We have what the Bible calls The Good News. Our sins have been forgiven. Christ has died in your place. Your sins — all of them, past, present, and future — have been erased, and you have been restored to God. You’re free in the truest sense. Death has no hold on you. In fact, God’s made it so that the worst thing that can happen to you in life — dying — turns out to be the best thing that will happen to you in life, which is getting to heaven.

With Jesus, you can’t lose. So why would you ever want to keep that to yourself? We look at the world and how messed up it is. Do you know why? Because the world doesn’t have what we have. People are looking for meaning in their lives. Jesus offers the ultimate meaning. They’re looking for purpose. Jesus offers true purpose. They’re looking for joy and peace and satisfaction — every single bit of all those things is in Jesus.

And the last thing Jesus says to his disciples in Matthew 28 is this: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.”

“Go,” Jesus says. Don’t separate yourself from the world. Don’t hide your lamp under a bushel. Shine for other people. Share your faith.

Some people have a lot easier of a time sharing their faith than others. I know some people who’ll walk up to a complete stranger and talk to them about Jesus, and that’s wonderful. I’m not one of those people, though. That’s not my gift. And in these days doing something like that is really taking a risk. If you share your faith at work, you could get fired. In some places, sharing your faith in public will get you arrested.

So what are we supposed to do when Jesus is very clear that the faith we have is a faith we’re supposed to share, but sharing that faith isn’t easy? We’re going to look at that today in Acts chapter 8.

This is a story about a man named Philip and an Ethiopian that he encounters on the road. The Philip we meet here isn’t the one who was a disciple of Jesus. This Philip is usually known as “Philip the evangelist” or “Philip the deacon,” and most scholars think he was one of the seventy-two men Jesus sent out back in Luke chapter 10.

Philip was one of the original seven deacons selected to serve in the Jerusalem church, but his heart was for evangelism. Philip loved sharing his faith. So when the church in Jerusalem began to be persecuted, Philip became an evangelist in Samaria, and that’s where we pick up here. Read with me Acts chapter 8, verses 26-39:

26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place.

27 And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship

28 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.

29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.”

30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

32 Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter

and like a lamb before its shearer is silent,

so he opens not his mouth.

33 In his humiliation justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation?

For his life is taken away from the earth.”

34 And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”

35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.

36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”

38 And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

And this is God’s word.

Everything you need to know about how to share your faith with others is found right here in these verses, and it’s all about one thing. Philip succeeds in everything he’s been called to do in this story because of one thing: listening.

Philip listens, and he listens in three different ways: he listens to the voice of God, he listens to the man he’s been sent to evangelize, and he listens to scripture. If Philip doesn’t do all three kinds of listening, he’s not going to succeed here.

So let’s take this one at a time, and we’ll start with Philip listening to God. But before he could ever listen to what this angel tells him in verse 26, he had to first put himself in a position to be able to hear this angel talk.

How many times do you think God’s talked to you and you’ve never heard Him? How many times have you wondered why God never seems to say anything to you at all, when in reality God’s been talking to you this whole time, it’s just that you haven’t been in a position to hear Him?

God wants nothing more than to tell you exactly what you need to be doing. He wants nothing more than to help get you get through whatever struggle you have. But God cannot make you hear Him. You have to do that work, and He’ll help you do it. But you have to let Him.

Putting yourself in a position to hear God means making time for Him. It means reading your Bible every day. It means spending time in prayer every day. It means putting that phone down and turning that TV off and drowning out all the noise that’s constantly surrounding you so you can be quiet, because it’s in those quiet times that you’re going to hear God’s voice the loudest.

And most of all, it means looking past yourself to others.

That’s how Philip did it. We meet him first in Acts chapter 6, when he’s chosen to oversee giving to the poor. And then in Acts 8:5, Philip becomes one of the first Christians to preach the gospel outside Jerusalem when he becomes a missionary to Samaria. Philip’s only goal is to do what God wants. He’s built his whole life around hearing God. So when God speaks — in the case of verse 26, it’s through an angel — Philip is in the perfect position to hear.

Now, what does the angel say? He tells Philip to “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”

So Philip lives his life in a way that allows him to hear everything God says. Now he hears it. What we can forget in reading this, though, is that Philip has a choice here. He can do what the angel says, or not. And on the face of it, what this angel is telling Philip to do makes no sense at all.

Because Philip is in Samaria. Philip is sharing the gospel to people. He’s doing the Lord’s work, doing exactly what God wants him to do.

But now this angel is telling Philip to leave the place where all the people are and go to the road leading to Gaza? And not only that, the angel doesn’t say to go the easy way through Jerusalem. That was the ordinary road. The road the angel’s telling Philip to go is over the mountains.

It’s the road that’s hardly ever traveled by anyone, and there’s a reason why. Luke, the writer of Acts, tacks that on at the end of verse 26 — “this is a desert place.”

And to make things even harder, Philip’s not told why he’s supposed to do this.

So what does he do? Does he say, “Okay, but why do you want me to go?” Does he say, “But Mr. Angel, I’m really busy here in Samaria”?

No. Look at the first sentence of verse 27 — “And he rose and went.”

No questions. No hesitation. Philip put himself into a position to hear God’s voice. He heard it. He obeyed. He didn’t need to know why he was going or how he was going to get there or what was going to happen, because God knew.

Now in verse 27 we’re introduced to the other main character of this story. He’s an Ethiopian, and that doesn’t mean someone from the modern country of Ethiopia but most likely someone from northern Africa.

He’s a court official of Candace, the queen. Candace wasn’t her name but more of a title. Ethiopia was ruled by queens instead of kings, and every queen was called Candace, sort of like every leader of Egypt was called Pharaoh.

And he’s also in charge of all the queen’s treasure, which means this man has a powerful position in the government. He’s wealthy. He literate — we see that in verse 28, because he’s reading a scroll of Isaiah in his chariot.

And notice this too at the end of verse 27 what this man is doing. He’s making his way back to Ethiopia from Jerusalem, where he’d gone to worship. This man is a Jew, or at least a Jewish convert.

After the Babylonians conquered Israel, many of the Jews who weren’t taken to Babylon escaped to Ethiopia. As a result, some of the Ethiopian people had Jewish ancestry, and others had adopted the Jewish faith.

It was custom for Jews who lived in foreign lands to travel to Jerusalem for one of the feasts, like the Passover. That’s what this man is doing.

He’s also a eunuch. This man has been castrated. Kings and queens made that a pretty common practice in ancient times. They would castrate their male servants because it would be easier to keep those servants in line. They could be trusted around women, of course. And there wasn’t much fear that a eunuch would try to overthrow the government, because he couldn’t have children and form a dynasty.

Luke never tells us this man’s name, but he mentions the fact that he’s a eunuch five times in this story. He does that for an important reason.

First, the fact that this man is an Ethiopian is a problem, because the Jews couldn’t stand Ethiopians.

And second, the fact that he’s a eunuch means that this man is not allowed to worship in the Temple. He cannot go into the portion of the Temple that was reserved for Jewish men.

This devout and sincere man has traveled all this way to Jerusalem, his spiritual home, to visit the Temple, the house of God, but he’s not allowed inside because of who he is.

He’s on that lonely road to Gaza on his way home with all of his servants and attendants, and verse 28 says this man is reading a scroll from Isaiah. That’s another sign of his wealth, because there weren’t many people who could afford to own a scroll, much less a scroll from one of the prophets.

But this also shows us this man is a lot more than just a causal believer. He’s not somebody who just comes to church on Christmas and Easter. This man is hungry for the truth. God’s working on him. He’s coming home from worship and reading his Bible on the way.

Now, Luke says this man is reading, but it’s not like we usually read. In that culture and in that time, almost all reading was done out loud.

Maybe that’s what this man is doing — he’s reading out loud because that’s the custom. Or maybe he’s reading out loud because he’s trying to better understand this particular portion of scripture in Isaiah.

Chances are good that while he was in Jerusalem, he heard about this man named Jesus who was crucified, and how people were saying that Jesus had risen. This man might have even heard one of the disciples preaching about Jesus at the Temple. Maybe he’s trying to figure out if the one Isaiah is talking about is this Jesus. Or maybe he’s reading it out loud for all of his servants and attendants to hear.

In any case, the sound of those chariot wheels on that lonely road and all those people and that one loud voice carrying over it all reaches Philip’s ears.

In verse 29, it’s not an angel who speaks to him this time. It’s the Holy Spirit who says, “Go over and join this chariot.”

Again, Philip’s in a position to listen. He hasn’t let the fact that he’s been traveling on this road over the mountains for days without even knowing why bother him. That hasn’t affected his faith in the least. His heart isn’t clouded with doubt, so it can still clearly hear whatever God has to say to him. And his heart is still filled with faith, which is why he does exactly what the Holy Spirit says.

Philip doesn’t just walk over to that chariot. Verse 30 says he runs. This eunuch is a stranger. He’s obviously someone important. He’s reading. There are a million reasons for Philip not to intrude upon this man’s life, but the one reason Philip does is the only one that matters — God tells him to. When God says “Go,” He hardly ever means later. He almost always means “Now.”

Since one big reason why Philip is able to hear God’s voice is that he knows what the Bible says, he knows exactly what the eunuch is reading. He knows it’s from Isaiah, he knows it’s Isaiah 53 verses 7-8, and he knows exactly who Isaiah is describing.

So Philip goes right up to this man and asks him, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

That’s pretty brave, isn’t it? Because in the eyes of the world, Philip’s a nobody. He’s not important. He’s probably not very well educated. He’s probably filthy from being on the road this long. And he’s going to go right up to this important government official and start talking? He’s going to go so far as to say, “You look like you’re having some trouble with that scripture. Want to know what it means? Because I do.”

It is brave. But to Philip, it’s not a big deal at all. And do you know why? Because God led him there.

The angel said go down this road, Philip goes.

The Spirit says “Go join that chariot,” Philip runs.

God has something for Philip to do. Philip’s doing it.

That’s not brave, that’s obedience to God, and that’s what every Christian is supposed to do. Philip’s not worried about how this is going to work out. He’s not thinking about all the ways this can go wrong, he’s only thinking about how this can go right because God led him there, and God does know, and God is not going to go through all the trouble to arrange things without knowing exactly how it’s all going to turn out.

We see that right here, because the eunuch has been reading this passage from Isaiah and he doesn’t know what it means. No one with him knows what it means either. This man wants to understand scripture. He wants to know God. But no one there can help him, and he made it all the way to Jerusalem only to be turned away.

But now here’s this stranger who comes out of nowhere along this empty road, and this stranger says he can help. So the eunuch says in verse 31, “I just don’t understand what I’m reading here.” And he invites Philip — this common man, this stranger — up into his chariot to sit right beside him.

Because he says he needs a guide. “How can I,” he says, “unless someone guides me.”

That’s a really neat word in the Greek, guide. It connects itself with the idea of a guide for the blind, and that’s what you are when you’re around people who don’t share the same faith as you. They’re spiritually blind. They have a hole in their heart, and they’re trying to fill that hole with everything the world says will make them happy and give their lives meaning, but they don’t understand that the only thing that can fill that empty space is God.

That’s why you’re there — because they’re spiritually blind, but you can spiritually see. That’s why God sent Philip all that way to help this eunuch.

And when you’re a guide for the blind, what do you do? You don’t just grab them by the wrist and drag them where you think they need to go. You don’t talk about how they’re somehow less because they can’t see, and how you’re so much better because you can.

Instead you take them by the hand, and you walk right beside them. You take your time with them. You’re gentle with them. You try to understand where they are, and where they’re confused, and how you can help. In other words, you do what Jesus says you always have to do with everyone — you love them.

That’s what Philip does. He’s gotten to this point because of one thing — he’s listened to God. But now he’s doing the next step — he’s listening to this person he’s supposed to help.

And Philip’s not doing any of this on his own. God’s helping him. It’s amazing that of all the scrolls this eunuch could leave Jerusalem with, he chooses Isaiah. And of all the passages in Isaiah he should be puzzling over when he meets Philip, it’s Isaiah 53, verses 7 and 8, which is the one scripture that contains the fundamental truth the eunuch needs to understand.

He asks Philip in verse 34, “Is Isaiah talking about himself here, or is he talking about someone else?”

Because he doesn’t understand this part about someone being like a sheep led to the slaughter, and a lamb not struggling while being sheared. Who was this man who died so unjustly, and why in such a violent way?

So many questions, one right after the other, and Philip listens to them all. He’s not thinking about how he’s going to answer. He’s not waiting for the eunuch to pause so Philip himself can talk. He’s listening.

And that’s such a rare thing now, isn’t it? We don’t listen anymore. Somehow we’ve gotten to a point as a society that it doesn’t matter what anyone else says, it only matters what we say. Somehow we’ve gotten to a point where our words are more important than anyone else’s, and that’s why it seems like we’re all talking past each other. There’s no true conversation, there’s just noise.

But Philip is listening, really listening, and he doesn’t want to just preach to this eunuch, he wants to build a relationship with him. That’s why verse 35 starts with, “Then Philip opened his mouth …”

Whenever you see that phrase in the New Testament, it means more than just talking. It means sharing your heart. It means having the answers the person you’re talking to needs to feel better and live better.

Verse 35 says that Philip “told him the good news about Jesus.” That phrase “told him” in the Greek is evangelion. Philip the Evangelist is evangelizing.

The sheep isn’t Isaiah, the sheep is a man named Jesus who was more than a man. He was the Messiah, he was God and man both, and he came to save you from your sins. He sacrificed himself so you wouldn’t face the eternal consequences of your sins, and he went willingly to the cross, he suffered and died because he loves you and wants you to be with him forever.

The reason Philip can tell the eunuch all of this? Again, listening. He’s listened to God — that’s how he’s arrived here. He’s listened to the eunuch — that’s how he has this opportunity to help him. But the only way that Philip can do either of those things is if he’s always listening to scripture. Philip can only share the truth of scripture if he knows what scripture says.

And in that moment, this eunuch got his spiritual sight. The light of God rushed into him and changed him forever. They come to some water in verse 36 — maybe it’s a pond or a stream — and the eunuch says, “Here’s some water right here! What’s keeping me from being baptized?”

This is so important right here. Don’t miss this, because this is the whole Gospel acted out in one small scene. Chances are good that when this Eunuch got to the Temple, he was reminded of Deuteronomy 23:1, which says that no eunuch shall enter the assembly of the Lord.

But I wonder if while the eunuch was reading Isaiah 53 on that long ride back to Ethiopia, he turned just a few chapters over to Isaiah 56, verses 4 and 5. If he had, this is what he would have read:

For thus says the Lord:

“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,

who choose the things that please me

and hold fast my covenant,

I will give in my house and within my walls

a monument and a name

better than sons and daughters;

I will give them an everlasting name

that shall not be cut off.

How can that be, though, if Deuteronomy says that everyone belonging to God’s people or devoted to God’s service should be as perfect as possible?

But now the eunuch knows how that can be, because Philip has just told him that Jesus died for his sins. He’s not rejected, he’s accepted. He doesn’t need to be perfect, he just needs to believe.

Now, depending on your translation, your Bible might have a verse 37 in the text, or verse 37 might be written in a margin or at the bottom.

Verse 37 says, “And Philip said, ‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ And he [meaning the eunuch] replied, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’”

The reason verse 37 is kept out of a lot of translations is that verse isn’t found in a lot of the earliest manuscripts we have. That leads Bible scholars to think that someone else added that verse in at some point. There’s a chance Luke didn’t really write that verse, and so it’s often left out.

But even if verse 37 should be left out because there’s some question of whether those words are Luke’s or a monk a few hundred years later, what it says is true — If you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, your sins are forgiven and you are saved.

So Philip baptizes him in verse 38, and in verse 39 Philip is led away by the Spirit of God again, while the eunuch continues his journey home “rejoicing.”

There are so many examples of God’s providence here, and it’s all about listening — Listening to God, listening to others, and listening to what the Bible says. Did God need Philip to reach this eunuch? No. God could have reached that eunuch any way he wanted. But God wanted to involve Philip, because that’s what God does. He invites us to take part in the saving of the world.

The Holy Spirit was preparing the eunuch’s heart to receive the gospel even as he was preparing Philip to meet the eunuch on that road. It was God’s plan from the very beginning, and Philip was obedient to that plan.

We don’t know why this Ethiopian was so important, but I will tell you this. Christianity became a state religion in Ethiopia about 300 years later. In fact, Africa’s history with Christianity is a lot longer than America’s or Europe’s. And according to the Ethiopian tradition, the first person to bring the gospel to that country was this eunuch who met Philip along the road.

You never know how God is going to use you, and in those times when you think He’s not using you at all, or you think He’s using you in only small ways, remember this story about one person sharing the gospel with another person who then shared the gospel with an entire nation.

We’re getting ready to celebrate a holiday that’s all about giving thanks for the blessings we have. And no matter what struggles we might be going through or how hard things may seem, our lives are filled with God’s blessings — the biggest being that we’re no longer spiritually blind. What better way to show your thanks for that than to be a guide for the people who still are?

That’s what Saint Francis said. He said, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel. Use words if necessary.” Meaning that the way you live your life, the way you treat others, and the way you listen tells people more about Jesus than anything you might say.

We’ve spent about a month talking about what it means to have a Christian worldview. That worldview is for us to live by, but it’s also for us to share.

I talk to a lot of pastors both inside and outside our association, and they all say the same thing. Every one of their churches is trying to figure out how to grow. Every congregation has their own ideas — we’ll bring in people if we have this program, or if we hire this position, or we need to build a new church.

But it’s funny, none of the pastors themselves believe any of that. Me included. None of those things ever grow a church, those are just things that are examples of a church already growing.

Do you know what grows a church? It’s every person in the congregation finding someone to do what Philip did to this eunuch. Talk to them. Hear them. Help them, and tell them, “I know just the place for you to get the answers you need and the friendship and fellowship you want.”

That’s what I’m going to challenge you to do, starting today. I want you to start praying for God to lead you to someone. It could be a family member, it could be a neighbor, it could be a co-worker or a friend.

I want you to start listening, because God’s going to give you a name. In fact, you might be sitting there with someone already in mind.

It might take a while — relationships are like that — but if you listen to what God’s telling you and do what He says, you’re going to see some incredible things happening. If everyone here did that, this church would double. If every believer in the world did that, heaven would double.

So let’s get busy. The fields are ripe for harvest. And if you want to meet Jesus on your own lonely road today, I invite you up here as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray:

Father with all the blessings You give us, which are too many to count, give us the desire and the will not to hoard them, but to share them with the world. Let each of us be a light in the darkness, taking the blind by the hand and leading them to the cross and the throne. For it’s in Jesus’s name we pray, Amen.