Preach Jesus
Notes
Transcript
Review ALL IN season. Purpose for the series: how where we are as The Shed is where they were then…
Review Last Week: The Mold of Empty Religion (Simon the sorcerer/heart issue)
Contextualize before reading verses: (Ethiopian stands in contrast to Simon)
25 So, when they had solemnly testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they started back to Jerusalem, and were preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.
26 But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.)
27 So he got up and went; and 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 up and join this chariot.”
30 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:
“He was led as a sheep 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 relate His generation?
For His life is removed from the earth.”
34 The eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, 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 preached Jesus to him.
36 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 preaching the gospel to all the cities until he came to Caesarea.
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.
Title: Preach Jesus
Pray
There are several things that we could look at in this passage:
God’s Guidance (v. 26, 29, 30)
From Angel speaking to Spirit speaking to Phillip speaking (learning the will of God)
2. God’s Timing (v. 27-28, 30)
God so arranged the timing to know at what speed Phillip would walk, what route the Eunuch would take, how quickly the chariot would be moving, so that at just the right time the Word would show up…
Explain chariot moving vs how I always saw it.
At the right time…
The timing of God is perfect…
But the thing I got stuck on in this passage was the fact that the Eunuch was described as Ethiopian.
Explain journey of study:
Was he the first gentile?
He went to Jerusalem, but sought guidance when reading the prophets…
One scholar says yes, another says no, I read through half a dozen commentaries and secondary sources, I checked the early church traditions, I read the church fathers, but no one could seem to agree…
Cornelius is usually credited with being the first set of gentiles accepted by the church by Peter, but what does that mean for this man?
Did Phillip even consider what they might say?
Did Phillip wrestle with this question in himself? Did he even consider it?
There are a whole range of reasons Phillip could have argued with God about this, but there seems to be no hesitation, no retreat, and no wavering.
All Phillip concerned himself with was preaching Jesus.
I wonder if sometimes we want to play the role of gatekeeper rather than just preaching Jesus…
It’s my opinion that we spend entirely too much time trying to figure out whose in and whose out, what the rules are, and what formula we can follow.
We want to determine what sins are acceptable or not, what lines are crossable and which are not, how close can someone get and still make it…
Or how messy someone can be before we call them backslid…
There has been more scholarly bickering over what’s right and whats wrong in scripture than there is about anything else…
Because we as humans still want to be responsible for the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil…
We want to be arbiters of justice and dispensers of grace…
We as a human race have a tendency to want to sit in the seat of God, becoming our own idols, worshipping our own power of decision and coveting our own free will…
We want to know who is right and who is wrong, we want our standards imposed, or at least our version of God’s standards…
But Phillip didn’t concern himself with any of that, He just opened his mouth and preached Jesus!
35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.
I think sometimes we want to keep our mouth shut about our faith because what if someone asks a question I don’t have the answer to?
I don’t want to share my testimony or share Jesus because I don’t know the whole bible by memory!
I don’t know as much as ….
But Remember the early church is led by a group of apostles of which it was said, they were UNTRAINED AND UNEDUCATED… but they had BEEN WITH JESUS…
13 Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated and untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus.
I can imagine Phillip saying something like this:
I may not know all the answers… I may not have all the theology down like some scholars… I may not be the smartest guy in the room…
In fact, in their day, terms like eschatological or ecumenical didn’t even exist yet…
They couldn’t tell you the difference between systematic or biblical theology…
If you asked Phillip what kind of sermon he preached, I can assure you there would be no mention of whether it was narrative or illustrative, expositoral or topical…
I can imagine the look you would get if you asked Phillip which songs he sang before he preached or what style of preaching he used,
whether the seats in the chariot were padded, or if the Eunuch was dressed for church…
I can imagine Phillip saying,
I may not know it all, but I know this: He walks with me and He talks with me and He tells me that I am His own…
He’s the blind eye opener, the lame raiser, the leaper cleanser…
Water walking, storm commanding, bondage breaking…
Freedom delivering, body healing, soul saving…
Spirit filling, Son of the Most High, God in the flesh…
I may not know it all, but I’ve seen Him cast out demons…
I watched as he confounded the scribes and pharisees…
But more than that… I know what it’s like, because one day while I prayed, something happened and now He lives on the inside of me!
“I don’t know about any of that… But here’s what I do know! I KNOW A MAN! AND HIS NAME IS SET ABOVE EVERY NAME…
10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
I may not know it all, but I know JESUS!
Don’t allow yourself to be intimidated by how much someone else knows…
If you know Him, you know enough to start sharing Him…
What am I saying? There’s no time to waste! Don’t think you need a Bachelor of Theology or a Master of Divinity to start sharing the gospel, just share Jesus!
The bible doesn’t say we overcome by our degrees, it says…
11 “And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb and because of the word of their testimony, and they did not love their life even when faced with death.
I know people who got their degrees at Christian colleges, majored in bible or ministry, then went out and left the faith, because you don’t overcome by an abundance of knowledge…
That knowledge can be important, you know I’m still in school going after my doctorate, but knowledge without relationship is meaningless!
Your testimony is the story of your relationship with Jesus…
If I were to ask many of you how you met your spouse, we would be here for an hour, but for some reason you’re afraid to share your testimony?
Look at it this way, you’re just telling someone about your relationship with Jesus…
Here’s what we need to be careful of… Your testimony is not a trip down memory lane focusing on how bad you were…
Your testimony is about how GOOD HE IS.
Phillip preached Jesus to the Ethiopian Eunuch.
Who is He to you? (You may know of Him with facts and scriptures, but do you know Him personally?)
Call Worship Team
Share testimony
If you were in the shoes of Phillip and someone were to ask you, “Who is this talking about?” What would your answer be?
Who is Jesus? What do the scriptures say about Jesus? And who is Jesus to you?
Altar Call - I want you to look at the person next to you and say, “Who is Jesus to you?”
