The Good News Conversation

Intro

Every Gospel conversation comes about as the result of what the Bible calls beautiful feet. 

Romans 10:14–15 ESV

How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

Here’s the truth of this passage.  People are crying out.  They are crying out because the world doesn’t make sense.  Or they are experiencing injustice.  Or they are hurt or afraid. They are in darkness or bound up.  

People are crying out.  And to anything they can find that works.  And often there is a little relief for a little bit. But it does not last.  

So they cry out.  

Have you ever come to the end of yourself and realized that what got you this far was not going to get you the next step? Something happens in your life that makes you question everything.  And even the questions themselves have questions.  

Something happens and it keeps you up at night.  How did it happen this way? Why did things turn out that way? 

And the church is called to provide a response to that cry.  To be a response to that cry that points in one singular direction. It doesn’t mean that we always have the exact answer to every question, but it means we have a God who cares about us in our uncertainty and unknowing. 

We may not know why something happened and it would be lying to say otherwise. But we do have a God who comes close and walks us through it.  

This week, our fifth conversation is the good news conversation. This is that, as a church, we want to have conversations that are filled with the reason for our hope.  That they are filled with the reality of the good news of Jesus in our lives.  

Evangelistic conversations are those kinds of conversations where we explicitly have an opportunity to talk about who Jesus is and what He has done and what He means to us.  It may not be all three of those but there is a sense of focusing on the person of Jesus and His saving grace in our lives. 

I realize this can be scary. Let’s begin by talking about what this is not. 

- This is not Bible thumping. 

- This is not a demand

- This is not sandwich board street preaching

- This is not yelling and interrupting. 

This is living in such a way that the only answer to life’s questions are Jesus. 

That is one of my favorite quotes from CAMA president Phil Skellie, 

Live your life in such a way that people ask questions.  And when people ask questions the only answer you have is Jesus. 

What this is:

This is hope offering

Life witnessing

We all talk about things that matter in our lives.  If you let me for too long there are certain topics I will always bring up. 

I keep a list in my maps app of restaurants in the area I’ve been to and ones I want to go to.  SO whenever we are meeting I have a list of places I’ve been and like and places I’d like to go. 

I will gladly give recommendations on places I really like.  I care deeply about finding good food and coffee.  

If you let me run my mouth I will eventually bring up some good coffee shop I’ve been to or restaurant I’ve tried. 

I will communicate what I care about. 

I am the evangelist of local restaurants and coffee shops. 

Eventually, we have to talk about the things that we care about the most.we might talk about our kids or work or places we’ve been. Eventually, in a relationship. You get things that you care about the most. We want to build relationships with the world around us in which we can talk about what it is. We care about the most.

We want to live well in the world, to the point that we are given the opportunity to share about who Christ is.  Not for our sake, but for theirs. 

We are going to look at what it means to have a good news conversation. And the frame we will be looking at is a story found in the book of Acts.  Chapter 8. We will see an interaction.

  A Conversation between a guy named Phillip and another person simply named, the Ethiopian eunuch.  

We join the chariot.  We run alongside. 

We are going to look at an instance where an individual had questions and those questions we answered. And the interaction is put together by God Himself.  

This narrative in the book of Acts is where we see someone who is spiritually curious.  They are reading an ot scroll and have a question about it.  As we look into this interaction we will see ways in which we can approach spiritually curious questions toward Gospel response. 

Acts 8:26–29 ESV

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. 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 and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.

This is what it looks like to follow Christ.  We go to the people that He is interested in. That He is working on.  We go to the blind, poor, lost, forgotten, those crying out.  

The normative nature of following Christ means that we are following God, who is active in our lives through the Holy Spirit. That he is prompting, and moving us toward Good news conversations.

And we join what He is are doing,

We are a people motivated, as Paul states, compelled by the Gospel. And as we do that we come alongside others.  That is why we want to work in our community. That is why we are talking about the shelter.  

There is a lot in this passage but notice what happens here.  How does what is most important, the Gospel message, come across? Philip had to join the chariot.  He didn’t yell louder or get angry.  He came alongside. 

The Gospel demands of us who bear its invaluable message to come alongside others who need to hear it. 

The Holy Spirit doesn’t tell him to raise his voice carry a he tells him to join the. Get near.

Who is that for you? Who are you alongside? Likely you don’t have to find someone. There already is someone. 

Service alone is good and is Gospel action but the Gospel is word and deed.  We serve, we embrace, but we talk about why.  

That’s why we want to do things and be about things as a church that are good in the world and then get near people who are crying out, who are asking questions. We love and serve people because it displays the goodness of God in the world. And we love and serve people because it’s worthwhile communicating that God is good in the world.

And we do so because there are people crying out. There are people asking good questions.  There are people who are spiritually curious/ 

Look for Spiritually Curious people

Acts 8:30–34 ESV

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 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. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”

God is the answer to people’s spiritual curiosity. God works and ordains the interactions between you and another person. The hope that we have in the Gospel is how we are called to express that. 

By the end of this narrative in the book of the early church, we will hear the Gospel preached, we will see the Ethiopian baptized.  But look how it happens. 

Notice what Philip did. 

He asked a question. 

He didn’t mock him, or jeer him or yell at him. 

He asked a question: do you know what you’re reading? 

And the eunich answered, how can I unless someone explains it to me.  This is an important interaction.  This is an interaction of beautiful feet. 

The Ethiopian wants to know what he is reading.  Why does it matter? Who is it about? What does it mean?  And God directly sends Phillip to answer. 

There are points in your life that you have had questions and God has sent a Phillip to you. He has marked someone to join your chariot to listen and dialogue and share the good news of Jesus.  

We are called to do so to others who are spiritually curious. 

There is a lot of talk about how few people attend church today.  That is true.  There is a line decreasing every generation of people who attend church, especially here in New England.  And so we want to often cap off a generation of people who aren’t listening, who aren’t attending church, who seem closed off.  We get angry because most of the world doesn’t want to listen.

But here is the thing.  There are fewer people attending church today. But more and more people are spiritually curious.  People have questions. People are crying out.  I have had more spiritual conversations with people in the last couple years than I have in the past 10. People are asking the questions that life brings up. Why am I here? What is my purpose.  Who is God? 

A bunch of years ago at a church I was servingin in in Oregon, I gave a tour to a kindergarten class in our town. A teacher had contacted me because we were working in the community in a number of different areas and they were interested in seeing what a church does in the community. This was a charter school, not at all Christian.  So they came over and I gave them a tour and talked about what we do.  At the end the little kindergartners were able to ask questions.  And there were a couple of questions that kindgergartners ask but then one little girl raised her hand and said, 

“What is God?”

She was spritually curious but had never heard of God in her life.  And I wish I had given a better answer than I did. But I acknowledged what a big question it was and deferred to the teacher.  Had I been given another chance I would have, in a sentence, told her that God was someone who loved her very much and very much wants to get to know her.  

Our culture has a cry, “what is God?” And we have to do better than I did.

And we have a choice.  We can ignore the fact that people are asking incredible questions or we can come alongside them and bring a response. 

But we have to deal with the fact that the issue is not just that the world is not listening. I think the issue we have to wrestle with as a church, is are we listening. 

Who does the action in this passage? God.  Who moves and directs. Philip.  Who answers the question. Philip.  The Church has to be the one to bear the responsibility to listen. 

SO we come alongside to the spiritually curious. We don’t just say we care, we first show that we do.  

But then as we do we bring a response. 

Be Full of Grace

Acts 8:35–38 ESV

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. 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?” And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

After Philip comes alongside and after Philip is directed by God and after Philip asks a question, then Philip responds. 

He answers the question, and like every good church answer, it ends in Jesus.

And we joke about that. If you don’t know the answer, it’s probably Jesus.

But here’s the reality of things. If you don’t know the answer. It realistically is probably Jesus.

When Philip opens his mouth and tells him the good news about Jesus, it unlocks the reason for all of this. IT gives weight to what philip is doing. JEsus is the punchline to this entire passage.

It makes sense. Philip makes sense. The ethiopians curiosity makes sense because of JEsus’ entrance into the world. Because of His death and resurrection.

Bound up in all our work and frustration, is the incarnation and work of Christ.

It is because He came up next to our chariot that we can even think about whoever we are alongside.

And because Christ is the One who has come alongside us. We have life and forgiveness and something to offer.

And because of Christ who has come alongside us, this passage becomes true:

1 Peter 3:15 ESV

but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect.

Christ is the source and the end of our speech. HE is the beginning and the end of our faith. People need to see we are with them. And because we are with them we offer our source of life.

Who are you alongside?

Who can you offer hope?

Open giving prompts for conversations each week and this one surrounds the idea of hope. Of being prepared to answer the reason for Hope.

Take some time to answer the question “my hope comes from.” Look at what brings you hope. If your comes from Christ, what is your reason? How is Christ brought you? Being able to answer that to yourself helps you to answer to other people. When you serve when you care for others when you run alongside their chariots, you can give your reason for, who is Christ

But maybe you’re asking where your hope comes from and whatever your source for Hope is it may not be enough this morning. if it’s not enough, we want to pray for you to find the hope of Christ.