Apostles in Acts - Philip

The Apostles in Acts - 3

Philip

Series Slide

Good morning and welcome to worship.  What an amazing day the Lord has given us to spend in worship.  Last week was a great success.  First of all, I am so proud of Dustin as he continues to grow in ministry.  I love that if and when I need to be gone we have competent, compassionate, and capable people sharing the Word of God with this community of faith.  This week, Dustin is preaching in the Current and Jerod is preaching in Blooming Grove, where I went to serve Communion last week.  Please pray for our brothers and sisters there in Blooming Grove and Frost as they begin the process of prayer and discernment for a new pastor.

I also wanted to say, Great job Emily and team as we celebrated our Back To School Bash with burgers, hotdogs, and water slides.  It felt so good to pull into the parking lot at 12:15 and see the lot was still full as people were fellowshipping and eating, and kids were getting ready to go hit the water slides.  It was just a great week all together.

But, we didn’t come to talk about last week… God has something new for us this week.

Sermon Slide

 This is week 3 of our series, The Apostles in Acts.  We’ve looked at Stephen the first martyr.  We’ve looked at the Apostle to the Gentiles, Paul, who gave us the language to talk about our salvation.

And this week, we are going to talk about Philip.  Another follower of Jesus, like Stephen, who was appointed to be a Deacon, a servant, but was also an Evangelist.  So, as we get started, would you pray with me.

<Prayer>

Reagan Video

Sermon Slide

Walls… why do we build walls between us and others?  Before someone gets upset and thinks I’m being pro or anti-Trump, I’m not talking about the wall at the Southern border – there is still a path through that wall.  It isn’t a wall to separate, it is a wall to manage the flow across the border. You can like it or not, but that’s not what I’m talking about here.

The wall between East and West Berlin was more than brick and mortar, it was an ideological wall… it was a repressive wall… called the Wall of Shame… it was meant to separate the “us and the them” of East and West Germany.

But we do the same thing today… we build walls.  We put up barriers.  Some are physical while some are emotional or ideological.

You don’t look like me… here’s my wall.

You don’t think like me… here’s my wall.

You don’t believe like me… here’s my wall.

You don’t dress, act, whatever like me… here’s my wall.

We do it today… and we read about it happening before the time of Jesus.

Here’s where the history lesson comes in.  I know, some of you just perked up and some of you just said, “Oh no, here we go again…” Don’t worry, it won’t be a long history.

Isreal’s Divided Kingdom

In the time of King David, the 12 tribes were united into one Kingdom.  The Kingdom of Israel. Then, after David and Solomon passed, the kingdom was divided into the North and the South, mostly because of politics and religious pressure.  The Southern Kingdom came to be known as Judah, containing the tribes of Judah and Benjamin and included Jerusalem as the capital.  They maintained Temple worship and remained true to YHWH most of their existence, lasting until 586 BC.

The Northern Kingdom included the other 10 tribes and was known as the Kingdom of Israel, with their capital being Samaria.  They fell into all kinds of idol worship and worship practices mixed with the other cultures of the area.  Ultimately, they fell in 722 BC to the Assyrian Empire.  The people intermarried with the Assyrians.  They eventually came to be known not as Israelites, but as Samaritans. 

Map of Samaria

The region of Samaria was eventually limited to just a strip of land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea south of Nazareth and North of Ephraim.

The Kingdom of Judah held on until they were finally defeated by the Babylonians, but they maintained their religious practices and teachings even in exile.  They followed their Kosher diets and marriage restrictions.  They even petitioned to come back and rebuild the Temple.  Eventually, their region came to be known as Judea, and they were known as the Jews.

This division between Samaria and Judea became so great that the Jews detested the Samaritans.  They were considered half-breeds.  They were considered traitors.  In fact, any Jew who touched a Samaritan was considered ceremonially unclean.  A good Jew would double their journey from the South to the North to avoid travelling through the region of Samaria. 

John 4:3-4

That’s why it was such a big deal when we read in John 4 that Jesus “Had to go through Samaria.”

Verse 9 reminds us that “Jew’s refused to have anything to do with Samaritans.”

Then, not only did Jesus go through Samaria, he made his disciples follow him into this forbidden territory, knowing that the Pharisees and Sadducees and Priests and Scribes would consider them unclean for even interacting with the people in that area.

Then, Jesus does the unthinkable.  He talks to a Samaritan woman, even accepting a drink of water from her ladle.

As Jesus sat and discussed theology with this woman at the well, he began dismantling the walls that separated the two cultures.  They are both, like us, children of the one true God.

Sermon Slide

I guess that’s why Jesus sent Philip into Samaria.  After Saul started persecuting the Christians… after they had seen and heard that Stephen was stoned to death… many of them left Jerusalem and went to other places… Philip went to Samaria to “proclaim the Messiah there.”

Philip did such a great job that a message made it back to Jerusalem that Samaria had accepted the word of God, Peter and John went to investigate and pray for the people.  It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise, I mean, they saw Jesus convert an entire town after the woman at the well accepted the news of the Messiah.

Then, Philip received a message from God to head South, and on the way he had another divine appointment.  On his way he ran across an Ethiopian Eunuch who basically served as the Secretary of the Treasury for the Queen of Ethiopia.  This was an important man, but talk about walls… there were numerous walls between Philip and this official.

The man was dark skinned, Philip was light skinned.

The man was a government official, Philip was just a commoner.

The official hailed from far away Africa, Philip was from nearby.

The traveler was rich, and Philip was not… just a weary refugee banished from the capital city of Jerusalem.

And don’t forget, The Eunuch was, well, a Eunuch, and Philip was a virilant man who would father 4 children as we read later in Acts.  The Eunuch would never parent a child… he would likely be effeminate, lacking the Testosterone that Philip possessed.

Oh, yes, there were plenty of potential walls to divide them…  But like I said, Jesus had already begun breaking down those walls.

Those differences didn’t matter when Philip heard the man ask for help understanding the Scriptures.  So, from the passage in Isaiah that the Official was reading, Philip began dissecting the word of God and proclaiming the Messiah, crucified and risen.  Walls broken down, the gentleman asks:

Acts 8:35-38

 “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

Then 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.”

So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him.

I love the eloquence of Max Lucado when he wrote of this incident in They Walked with God:

“A darked-skinned, influential, effeminate official from Africa turns to the light-skinned, simple, virile Christian from Jerusalem and asks, “Is there any reason I can’t have what you have?”

What if Philip had said, “Now that you mention it, yes, Sorry, We don’t take your type”?

But Philip, charter member of the bigotry-demolition team, blasted through the wall and invited, “If you believe, you may” to which the traveler replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

And, the first Missionary to Africa is on his way and Philip is whisked away in a flash to his next assignment sharing the word of God.

So, what are we to learn from all this?  What does Philip teach us?

Sermon Slide

God doesn’t have tracks that separate North from South.  God doesn’t have walls that divide East from West.  With God, everyone is part of the mission field and with God, any can be an evangelist to anyone.

You are called to carry Christ to everyone, everywhere.

So, today, I ask you… who is on the other side of your walls?

Who lives on the other side of the tracks that divide you and them?

Who is kept out by the fences you have built… and isn’t it time to tear it down?

What are you doing to follow Jesus across that great divide to take the message of the Messiah, Crucified and risen, to the world?