Do you Understand what you are reading/hearing?

Acts 8:30 And Phillip said to him, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

Phillip was on his way to Gaza from Jerusalem, when he came across a man who was a leader in the court of the Queen of Ethiopia. He had been in Jerusalem to worship and was heading back, reading a passage from the book of Isaiah. The Holy Spirit instructed him to go speak with him and this is where we find ourselves in the passage. Phillip had a question for him that day, and we too have the same question today.

You see just a short 2 chapters later in the book of Acts we see the first time the Gentiles, “those of us the Jewish people considered outsiders” were preached the gospel and brought into the church, the family of God.

We read of the encounter in Acts 10, an angel appears to Cornelius, a Roman Guard. He tells him to send for a man named Peter. He sends men to go get him. Peter is of course a Jew, and is reluctant to go to the gentiles, because he thinks that God is only for Israel. Through some pursuasion by the Holy Spirit, Peter goes and preaches to them. In Acts 10:34-43 we hear the gospel as it was preached to them first.

Acts 10:34–43 ESV

So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As for the word that he sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. And we are witnesses of all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. And he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead. To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

My question, and God’s question for you today, is the same as to the Ethiopian Leader. Do you understand what you are hearing?

You see the gospel is nothing more than the Good News. Good news that, through sin you and I are separated from God, But God, so loved you and I, that he gave his only Son, that Everyone who believes in Him, will have eternal life. The 17th verse of John 3 goes on to say that God sent his Son not for judgement but to save Us through Him.

Do you understand what you are hearing? It’s hard to believe that God could care enough about us, about you and me to send His son to die a death on the cross, a death that I deserve, he did not. But God knew there was no other way to cross that wide gap between the holiness and righteousness of God and where I am in my sin. So by His Grace and Mercy, and Christs obedience, we can be united with God. Do you understand what you are hearing?

Our sin, your sin, my sin is what separates us from God. Romans 1:23 tells us that “All have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God.” Jesus paid the price for your sin and my sin. If you are like me today, you may be wandering what exactly is sin. I hear that term that you preachers throw around all the time, but I dont understand what it means.

There are a number of places in the bible we can turn to get our definition. It is throughout God’s word. Starting in Genesis 3, when Adam and Eve fell. We see a willful transgression of God’s law or His word. We also know it as missing the mark. Not meeting God’s standard. But ultimately, sin is “Self Separation”. A thinking that I am going to do things my way, my own pride drives my actions, the way I want to do it. In Gen 3:5, Satan tempts by stating that “God knows that in the day you eat it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing both Good and Evil”. In 1 John 3:4, John deems sin as lawlessness, but also as it is stated, it helps us understand that there is an ACT of Sin, and a State of Sin. The Act is a result of the State, but the State is also a result of the Act. You and I are sinful , we are sick. and without God, without the Holy Spirits help, we cannot free ourselves from this sickness. In John 19 beginning in verse 11, Jesus tells of a Nobleman that went to a far country to be crowned king and expand his authority. He left his servants in charge, and while he was going, the servants hated him and sent people after him to tell the others “We do not want him to be our King”. This is the foundation of Sin, it explains the state of sin in our life. Fundamentally we do not want Jesus to be Lord of our lives. We want to be our own God, our own ruler. We know better than anyone how to lead our lives. Do you understand what you are hearing.

As Timothy Keller says it this way. “The Gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, Yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope”. Do you understand what you are hearing??