ACTS 8:26-39 - Here is Water... (Baptism Sunday)

(READ ACTS 8:26-39)

Introduction

So you may have been seeing in the news recently that Penn State University has been going through some upheavals as of late. There are a lot of factors that are going into the massive budget shortfall that has been predicted (something like $48 (M) million dollars)—one of the biggest is the sharp drop in college-aged students in PA (as I have said before, you can’t spend twenty years closing elementary schools for lack of students and then be caught by surprise when all of a sudden you don’t have enough college students to keep campuses running!)

All of the socio-economic factors aside, thought, it has been fascinating to have a ringside seat for the spectacle of watching the collapse of the well-known arrogant complacency of higher education professionals who suddenly realize that their jobs aren’t immune from budget cuts!

And for some people who have really invested their whole identity in their Penn State career, all of this has thrown them into a real crisis—when you can no longer look to your career accomplishments or achievements to assure you that you are a good and admirable person; when you can no longer soothe your troubled conscience by pointing to how well-respected you are at work, it can shake you to your core.

It is a hard thing to be confronted by your own failings and shortcomings when you can no longer hide them behind your impressive career. When everyone around you at work is telling you what an impressive and conscientious worker you are, it is easier to ignore that nagging voice deep down that reminds you of the darkness and depravity that lurks inside your heart. Budget cuts and voluntary separation packages and employment audits push us to admit that our accomplishments and achievements will never bring us lasting satisfaction or absolution from shame.

In the account we just read, the Ethiopian eunuch seemed to get very excited when he saw the water in verse 36, didn’t he?

Acts 8:36 (LSB)

And as they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?”

There seems to be a real eagerness there, doesn’t there? As if what Philip had been telling him about “the Good News about Jesus” had uncovered in him a real desperation to make a real identification with Jesus. This is what I aim to help you see here in God’s inspired Word this morning—that

Real joy comes with real IDENTIFICATION with the DEATH and RESURRECTION of Christ

In a few moments, Christy, Ethny and Selah will come forward to make this identification with Christ through baptism. And so as we prepare to observe this ordinance, I want us to look at this account of the Ethiopian eunuch’s baptism to understand both why this was such a joyous occasion for him and what that teaches us about how we should understand these baptisms we are observing today.

So I want us to focus on the Ethiopian in this passage to see why he was so eager to be baptized; why he didn’t want to put it off. Why was he so drawn to take on this mark of identification with Christ?

In order to uncover the reason for his excitement to be baptized, we first need to understand

I. His identity as an IMPORTANT man (Acts 8:27-29)

See how Luke (the author of the book of Acts) introduces this man in verses 27-28. God brings Philip to the road between Jerusalem and Gaza,

Acts 8:27–28 (LSB)

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

The first thing that we learn about him is that

He was a man of great INFLUENCE

He is a “court official”—a member of the royal council to the queen (Candace is likely a title, not a proper name—like Pharoah in Egypt.) And we learn that all of the royal treasuries were his responsibility; he was “in charge of all her treasures”.

Imagine the power that came with a position like that! To have charge of all of the wealth of the queen, to be a member of her inner circle of advisers. Whatever this man wanted, he could have; however he wanted to exert his will, there was no one to stop him. He had reached the pinnacle of influence and authority in the kingdom where he lived. If anyone could take satisfaction in his achievements and position in society, this man could.

But consider for a moment what he used all of that power and prestige and authority to do with his time—travel almost a thousand miles from the queen’s court, all the way up to Jerusalem to worship. Now, it’s unclear when this account takes place, but it is likely that he had come to worship at one of the feasts (Passover, Pentecost or Booths) where faithful Jewish men were required to present themselves at the Temple. We learn from this that he was apparently a convert to Judaism; one of the “foreigners” that Solomon prayed for at the dedication of the Temple in 1 Kings 8--

1 Kings 8:41–43 (LSB)

“Also concerning the foreigner who is not of Your people Israel, if he comes from a far country for Your name’s sake (for they will hear of Your great name and Your strong hand, and of Your outstretched arm); so if he comes and prays toward this house, listen in heaven Your dwelling place, and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to You, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know Your name to fear You...

Clearly

He was a man of PIETY

If he was coming from the first-century Ethiopian Kingdom of Nubia, that was about a forty-day journey one way. It gives you a sense of how much favor he had with the Queen that he could make an eighty-day round trip just to appear at the Temple in Jerusalem! Add to this the fact that he was apparently reading from a Torah scroll!

Acts 8:28 (LSB)

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

We miss the extravagance of this verse because we are so accustomed to having ready access to the Scriptures whenever we want. But to have a personal copy of the Book of Isaiah at this time was exceedingly rare. A man with his wealth and power would have been one of the few people who could either purchase a Torah scroll (or commission one to be copied). But this man’s piety and devotion to YHWH was such that he went out and tracked down his own copy of the Scriptures—this was a very religious man!

So consider this man that Luke introduces us to in this account—he is enormously wealthy and influential, he has an impressive devotion to God that drives him to travel hundreds of miles to attend worship. We meet him in these verses as a very important man—but as the account unfolds, what we find is that he does not take any comfort in his identity as an important man; as Philip runs up to meet his chariot he finds him struggling with

II. His identity as a HELPLESS man (Acts 8:30-34)

Look at verse 30 with me:

Acts 8:30 (LSB)

And Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

In order to see how extraordinary this behavior is, let’s bring these verses into our modern context for a moment. Imagine you are walking along the East Side of Manhattan in New York City on First Avenue, when suddenly a government motorcade comes roaring by. Inside the main limo you see Janet Yellen, the Secretary of the Treasury, on her way to a meeting at the United Nations headquarters. You notice that she is reading a Bible, so you run up and knock on the bulletproof glass of her window and ask her if she understands what she’s reading. How does that turn out for you?

Think about this—a stranger runs up out of nowhere towards the chariot of one of the most powerful men in the region and asks if he needs help understanding what he’s reading. Keep in mind that he would not be traveling alone; such an important ruler would have been accompanied by dozens of courtiers and soldiers on his pilgrimage. Any one of them might have seen Philip as a threat and forcefully ordered him away. And you would think that the Ethiopian would order him away or brush him off or be offended that Philip would insult his intelligence.

But he doesn’t respond that way, does he? What does he say in verse 31?

Acts 8:31 (LSB)

And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

What had happened to him to cause him to be so aware of his helplessness? Why was he so willing to accept the help of this Jewish stranger on the road? I think at least part of what is going on here is that the Ethiopian eunuch had been confronted by the fact that, for all his outward appearance as powerful, wealthy and influential,

He was a BARREN man (cp. Deut. 23:1)

Notice that Luke makes it a point to write that this official was a eunuch—his ability to father children had been removed from him. It cost him dearly to achieve his status as treasurer of the Court of Candace. And when he arrived in Jerusalem to worship, he discovered that he wasn’t even allowed into the Temple! Deuteronomy 23:1 says

Deuteronomy 23:1 (LSB)

“No one who is emasculated or has his male organ cut off shall enter the assembly of Yahweh.

Here he had come all this way because he wanted to worship YHWH—but his physical mutilation prevented him. His past life had disqualified him from entering God’s presence; he was “damaged goods”, we might say today. And so as this barren man turns around to make the forty-day journey back to Nubia (traveling through a barren wasteland that matches the barrenness of his own life), we realize that he is reading through the prophet Isaiah because he is trying to find some kind of consolation from God that he was not rejected.

He was returning from Jerusalem with all his hopes of worshipping there dashed, traveling through the barren desert of Gaza trying (and failing) to understand the Scriptures. In the midst of all the pomp and wealth and display of power he was traveling in,

He was a BROKEN man (vv. 32-34)

He had been confronted with his barrenness; he was damaged goods, unfit for the presence of God in worship. And so when Philip offered to help him understand what he was reading, he did something a man in his position would never do—he asked for help: In verse 31 we see that

Acts 8:31–34 (LSB)

...he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 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. “In humiliation His judgment was taken away; Who will recount His generation? For His life is removed from the earth.” And the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you earnestly, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself or of someone else?”

The phrase “I ask you earnestly” can also be translated “I beg of you...” This poor man was at the end of his rope. He had undertaken a journey of nearly a thousand miles one way because he wanted to worship YHWH in His Temple, but was told he was too messed up to go inside. He turned to the Scriptures for answers, but was unable to understand them. And so when Philip appeared there and offered to help him, he begged him to help him understand.

And here is the glorious grace and mercy of YHWH revealed to us in this passage this morning—because when you come to God’s Word with that kind of broken heart, that kind of ready confession of your helplessness and depravity, He will meet you there.

See as this account continues that the Ethiopian eunuch leaves behind his identity as an important man, he is freed from his identity as a helpless man, and takes on

III. His identity as a REBORN man (Acts 8:35-39; cp. Rom. 6:4-11)

Look with me at verse 35:

Acts 8:35 (LSB)

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he proclaimed the good news about Jesus to him.

The passage that the Ethiopian was reading—Isaiah 53—is one of the clearest prophecies of the death of Jesus as a sacrifice for our sins against God. And so when he asked Philip, “Who is this sacrifice? Who is the Lamb led to slaughter taken away in humiliation and judgment?”, Philip had an absolutely perfect, providential opportunity to proclaim the good news about Jesus! Starting from that very chapter in Isaiah, he could show him that Jesus took all of the Ethiopian’s grief and sorrows on Himself:

Isaiah 53:4 (LSB)

Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.

He could declare to him the Good News that Jesus bore the penalty that the Ethiopian deserved:

Isaiah 53:5 (LSB)

But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; The chastening for our peace fell upon Him, And by His wounds we are healed.

He could declare to him that his sin and iniquity and wickedness and rebellion against God was paid for in full by the death of Christ:

Isaiah 53:6 (LSB)

All of us like sheep have gone astray, Each of us has turned to his own way; But Yahweh has caused the iniquity of us all To fall on Him.

And then, Philip could have taken that scroll from the eunuch’s hand and shown him just a bit further on (in Isaiah 56) that even though he was not descended from Abraham, and even though he was mutilated as a eunuch, he was not disqualified from belonging to YHWH!

Isaiah 56:3–5 (LSB)

Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to Yahweh say, “Yahweh will surely separate me from His people.” Nor let the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” For thus says Yahweh, “To the eunuchs who keep My sabbaths, And choose what pleases Me, And hold fast My covenant, To them I will give in My house and within My walls a memorial, And a name better than that of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name which will not be cut off.

When Philip “proclaimed the good news about Jesus” to the Ethiopian eunuch, he was proclaiming the good news that Jesus Christ died as the sacrificial Lamb in his place! Everything this man had been longing for—belonging to God, freedom from his identity as “damaged goods”, release from his guilt before God’s righteous Law—all of it was freely offered to him as he put his faith in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ!

His OLD life was BURIED with Christ (cp. Romans 6:4-10)

As the Apostle Paul would later write in Romans 6:6:

Romans 6:6 (LSB)

knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;

And the picture of that crucifixion and death with Christ is demonstrated in baptism:

Romans 6:4–5 (LSB)

Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,

This was why the eunuch was so happy to see water along the roadside:

Acts 8:36 (LSB)

And as they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?”

He was eager to make a public demonstration that his old life was dead and gone in Christ! All of that pride and arrogance and brokenness and shame had been laid on Christ, who descended down into the grave and left it all there! He was dead to his sin, and his sin was dead to him, and he rejoiced to be baptized as a demonstration that

His NEW life was RAISED with Christ (cp. Romans 6:11-14)

There is something poignant about his question to Philip in verse 36— “What prevents me from being baptized?” He had been turned away from God before, at the threshold of the Temple in Jerusalem. He had thought that he would be welcomed into the people of God there, but was told that he was disqualified by his mutilation. Perhaps he was anxious that once again his hopes would be dashed, and there would be some technicality that would prevent him from being baptized—some ancient manuscripts add a verse there that depict Philip answering him that he could be baptized “if you believe with all your heart, you may”—it’s unclear whether that verse was found in the earliest manuscripts—but it doesn’t change the force of the passage at all.

Whether or not Philip said anything to him, the eunuch’s question was answered in verse 38:

Acts 8:38 (LSB)

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.

Now, it should come as no surprise to anyone here that this is a Baptist church (says so right out there on the sign), and so I am not going to pass this verse up without pointing out a couple of reasons why we practice baptism the way we do. First of all, notice that there was enough water there for both Philip and the eunuch to go down into it.

--Baptism in the New Testament is always by immersion.

Second, (and more importantly), see here that

--This was the eunuch’s expression of his own faith.

Not his mother and father’s faith, his own faith. Philip did not baptize the eunuch first, and then start teaching him about the Gospel until he understood it enough to have a “confirmation.” This was the eunuch’s opportunity to demonstrate what God had done for him through Jesus Christ, and to identify with Christ’s death and resurrection!

We have come here today because Christy, Ethny and Selah have said (in so many words), “Look! Here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” They have come here today to make this same statement to you that the Ethiopian eunuch made there in front of all of this retinue; that any importance they may have attached to their accomplishments or achievements, any weight they may have assigned to their sin or shame, all of it has been erased by their identity as a reborn child of God through faith in Jesus Christ.

And so as you watch these sisters in Christ make this public statement of their identity with Christ in His death and resurrection, make this time spiritually profitable in your own life by revisiting your own baptism. The statement they are making this morning is the statement that you made when you were baptized—you have been crucified with Christ; you no longer live; Jesus Christ now lives in you, and the life that you live you live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave Himself up for you (Gal. 2:20). This is your identity—you are not defined by the importance or achievements or accomplishments of this life, but by the fact that you belong to Christ by faith.

You are not defined by the guilt and brokenness and baggage of your past; you are not “damaged goods” any longer, because Jesus Christ in His death on that Cross stretched out His arms to take on all of your sin and shame and perversions and rebellion and bitterness and envy and laziness and hatred, clasped it all to His chest, sunk down into Death and left it all there. You are defined by your resurrection with Christ to a new life free from the guilt and power of sin:

Romans 6:12–13 (LSB)

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God.

Christian, baptism is the means by which you make a real identification with the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That eunuch made that profession in front of all of his staff, all of the members of his court—it was an irrevocable statement. If you have made that statement of baptism before your brothers and sisters in Christ, then make that statement to the rest of the people in your life. Are you making that statement, “I belong to Christ alone” in the decisions you make before others? Are you identifying with Christ in the language you use, in your conduct at work or at school, in your relationships with friends and co-workers and family members? Have you made your identification with Christ so real in your life that there will be consequences for it?

And perhaps you are here this morning and you see yourself in this account—like the Ethiopian you have achieved a level of importance and influence, you “have it all” from the world’s perspective, you impress people with your accomplishments and your considerable reputation for spiritual discipline. Everyone who sees you sees a happy, successful, spiritually robust individual.

But what nobody can see from the outside is how much that success has cost you—you have made sacrifices in pursuit of that success; you have gone places and done things and become something in order to find that success that you can’t take back. You have come to the realization as you hear God’s Word this morning that all of those promises you believed would make you truly happy have all fallen short. You’re here this morning not because you are full of the satisfaction and contentment that came with your success, but because all of those things have left you empty instead. You are looking for some way to soothe your troubled conscience, some way to be assured that you aren’t too ruined for God to save; some way to know that you are not just “damaged goods” that can never be acceptable to God.

Here is the Good News for you this morning—just as Philip proclaimed it to the Ethiopian, so I proclaim it to you—that

John 3:16 (LSB)

God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

That

1 Timothy 1:15 (LSB)

It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners...

And that

Romans 10:9 (LSB)

that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved;

The whole way through this account, the Ethiopian eunuch appears with an air of quiet desperation; confronted with his inability to appear before God and the emptiness of his achievements and position, he is a heartbreaking figure: “How can I understand unless someone helps me...” “I beg of you, tell me who this Lamb is...” “Is there something that is going to keep me from getting baptized?”

But there is a miraculous transformation at the end of this account—when they came up out of the water, Luke writes, the eunuch “went on his way rejoicing!” (v. 39). What a transformation! From his disappointment, doubts and hopeless despair to rejoicing because he had found forgiveness and righteousness in Christ! Friend, let these Scriptures stand as an invitation to you today—turn away from all the false promises of your achievements and accomplishments and success; turn over to Christ all of your shame and brokenness and “damaged goods” of your past, and come to Him for the righteousness of faith that He promises you. Die with Christ to your sin and your past, be raised with Him by faith to a new birth in righteousness before Him by faith. And then look up here to this tank and say, “See! Here is water—what prevents me from being baptized? And you can go down into the water, leaving your old life behind and be raised back up to new life in your Savior, Jesus Christ!

BENEDICTION:

Jude 24–25 (LSB)

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling, and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy, to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, might, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION:

Write down something you learned from this morning’s message that is new to you, or an insight that you had for the first time about the text? ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down a question that you have about the passage that you want to study further or ask for help with: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ Write down something that you need to do in your life this week in response to what God has shown you from His Word today: ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________