Can someone explain this to me?

KiDZ Sermon

Onramp: Have you heard the “Good News?”

Tell the story of Phillip keeping PACE with the Ethiopian

What do you think he said when he told then “the good news about Jesus?”

Jesus is God. Not just a good man. Not just a teacher. God himself became a human being.

He died. On a cross. Because something was broken between us and God — and Jesus fixed it.

He rose from the dead. Three days later, back to life. Real. People saw him. Touched him. Death couldn't hold him.

He's In charge of everything.

And he invites anyone who trusts him to be with him forever.

That's the good news. That's what Philip knew. And when someone needed to hear it — he told it.

Today you get to practice telling the good news too

Let’s ask the Spirit to show you who he wants you to tell the news.

Main Sermon

SLIDE - Title

OPENING

I want to teach you the most fun part of following Jesus. Sharing the Good News.

Opening Story: Benevolence conversation

Someone needed help with water Bill. We were able to help b/c of generous donations.

I asked if they would be open to talking about how to avoid getting in the same pickle. Because we helped, they said yes

Which led to a conversation about Stewardship, and how our church helps people because it is what God tell us to do

Which led to talking about faith and trauma around church

Which led to an opportunity for me to talk about bullying and Jesus’ non-violent yet also not passive response to injustice

Which led to an opportunity to share the gospel that breaks the cycle of violence and harm that we do to each other by Jesus taking the violence on himself and rising from the dead.

Which led to an invitation to place trust in him. Received with an openness to consider it.

Sharing the gospel does not need to mean arguments, debates, saying the wrong thing, being put on the spot.

If you are prepared, then the moments you get to share the gospel will be the most energizing experiences of your life.

The reason most of us freeze isn't cowardice. It's a lack of preparation.

A prepared person is familiar with three things. (1) The facts of the Gospel itself (2) The ability to adjust to culture (3) the ability to confront culture

We don't know what to say or how to say it because we are only looking at it from one perspective that will inevitably have blind spots.

SLIDE - Big Idea

Do your best to share the gospel that they need to hear.

I believe that if you prepare yourself with all 3 tools, then you will be ready to share it with whoever the Spirit leads you to.

FOUNDATION — Philip + PACE

You just heard Acts 8:26–40. Let me show you something in it. Take our your “Keeping PACE” bookmark from the pew in front of you and follow along.

Philip kept PACE with the Ethiopian — all four movements are right there in the text

Pray— he was redirected by the Spirit before he said a word

Approach — he ran to the chariot

Cultivate — he asked a question, got invited in, started where the man already was

Extend — next week

But here's what I want you to see underneath PACE.

Philip did three things that made the gospel land.

He knew the Gospel story itself.

He crossed the bridge from his own culture to the listeners.

He confronted the listener’s culture with the gospel

Three tools, and each is critical to effectively sharing the story.

Let me teach you about each.

SLIDE - Tool #1

1 - The Gospel Itself

Before you can share the gospel you have to know what it is and what it isn’t

This sounds obvious. It isn't. Most of us are carrying a mix of gospel and non-gospel and we can't tell the difference.

Here's a sorting tool. Five questions.

SLIDE - 5 questions

Who did Jesus claim to be? — The Creator God in human flesh. John 1:1, 14

What did Jesus claim to be doing? — Defeating everything that opposes human life and restoring it. John 3:16, 10:10.

What did Jesus promise? — Bodily resurrection. Life beyond death. Everything made new. John 11:25–26.

What did he do to prove it? — Rose bodily from the dead. John 20:27–28.

What evidence exists? — Hundreds of eyewitnesses. A movement that couldn't be stopped. 1 Corinthians 15:6.

That's the gospel. Everything else is either context — the story it lands in — or implication — what it means for how you live.

Context is not the gospel. Implication is not the gospel.

SLIDE - Big Idea

Do your best to share the gospel that they need to hear.

Philip knew what happened. He knew these basics and the scriptures that pointed to them.

SLIDE - Tool #1

You need to know it too. If you don’t then the quest way to get there is to read one of the gospel accounts over and over until you do (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) or even all 4 of them. That's lens one.

If you need to stop there, take the time to do it. that may be today’s next step for you.

If you believe that you already know that story and could tell someone about it, then let’s move to Tool #2

SLIDE - Tool #2

2 - Crossing the Bridge

Here's something uncomfortable. You have never heard the gospel in a cultural vacuum. Neither have I. Neither did Philip.

Every one of us received the gospel through someone — a person, a church, a tradition — that was shaped by a specific culture. And some of what we received was gospel. And some of it was packaging.

We often deceive ourselves into thinking that our own point of view is “normal” and everyone else’s is “eccentric.”

It’s like navigating your life thinking that you don't have an accent.

The Son of God himself was humble enough to enter human culture to offer us the gospel. John 1:14 — the Word became flesh and pitched his tent among us. He got as local as it gets. He adapted to our culture. yet how often are we unwilling to set down our own point of view in order to examine it?

In order to faithfully share the gospel, we must be humble enough to examine what we're carrying.

Name the specific assumptions — briefly, without shame:

In small-town rural American Christianity, some of us grew up with a gospel that sounded like this: if you find Jesus, your life gets fixed. You become a good person. You vote a certain way. You fit a certain mold.

For some people in this room, "Christian" is a social category before it's a theological one. It means you're one of the good people. The respectable ones.

For others watching from the outside, "needing Jesus" is code for being broken or judged.

None of that is the gospel. All of it is cultural packaging that got mistaken for it.

And here's the hard question: what are you carrying into your gospel conversations that isn't actually gospel?

Mine. For starters, I see the gospel as an english speaker who was raised in a catholic setting, but later spent time in a variety of denominations. I see it as a male, as a while person living in America. I see it as someone who has navigated addiction. Someone who is a part of a nuclear family that has not dealt with divorce, homelessness, or imprisonment. The gospel reached me as a story that has always been true to me. I have doubted my decision about whether I would obey it, but I have never doubted it’s historical validity. I have always seen Christianity in a positive light.

The gospel is not only and English story

It’s not only an American Story

It’s not a story that requires a pre-existing belief in the goodness of having a nuclear family with both parents.

The word for expecting others to become more like me in order to understand or hear the gospel is LEGALISM

In my conversation: If when they mentioned trauma around church I had gotten defensive — "Well, not all churches are like that" — instead of listening, I've prioritized protecting my cultural institution over hearing the person in front of me. I made them cross to my side of the bridge before I crossed to theirs.

Remember, our goal is to...

SLIDE - Big Idea

Do your best to share the gospel that they need to hear.

The incarnation as the model:

Jesus entered culture fully without being absorbed by it. He ate with sinners without becoming one. He used their language without endorsing their idols. He was in the culture and not of it.

Landing:

Philip was a Jewish follower of Jesus talking to an African court official. Different world. He didn't make the Ethiopian become Jewish before he could present the gospel.

He separated the gospel from his own packaging. That's lens two.

The work of recognizing our own culture and adapting to the listener is essential

But if we only do that, then we are at risk of what Missionaries call “SYNCRETISM”. Changing the gospel in order to appeal to the tastes of the culture.

In my conversation, If I had heard them express trauma around church and responded: "Yeah, organized religion has done a lot of damage — but Jesus is just about love, right? He just wants you to be happy and taken care of. so I totally affirm your staying away from church." That's over-adaptation. I removed the confrontation, the lordship, the resurrection — because I wanted them to feel comfortable. The gospel became therapy.

For some of you this is your next step. You need to genuinely reflect, and ask “ Am I erroring toward legalism, or Syncretism”

Am I asking someone to become like me in order to understand the gospel?

Am I abandoning the gospel itself in order to appeal to the pre-existing values of others?

Think back on a recent spiritual conversation you had, and notice if you leaned too far one way.

If you can look back, see that you know the gospel well enough to tell it to someone, You have a decent familiarity with your culture and that of others, you are ready for tool #3.

SLIDE - Tool #3

3 - Confronting the Culture

Crossing the bridge is not the destination. It's the method of getting there.

The gospel is not just good news that fits people where they are. It is news that moves people from where they are.

Philip:

Philip didn't just validate the Ethiopian's search. He redirected it.

The Ethiopian was reading about a suffering servant with no idea who it was.

Philip didn't say — "that's beautiful, what does it mean to you?"

He said — this is about Jesus. Let me show you.

Gentle. Culturally aware. But a confrontation.

The theological foundation:

The Spirit is already working in your listener before you arrive.

Your job is to find where Jesus already is — and name him, point him out.

To show them where God has already been invading their story. Where Christ has been calling to them and asking to be invited in.

Back to the benevolence conversation:

When they shared trauma around church and bullying — I could have just listened and validated. That's crossing the bridge. But it leaves you on their side with nothing to offer.

Instead I named what Jesus actually did with injustice. He absorbed it. Took the worst of what humans do to each other onto himself. Rose from the dead.

That confronted their assumption that Jesus looked like the people who hurt them.

The pushback created the opening.

The two risks together — one line each:

Syncretism: I'll cross the bridge and become whatever you need. The gospel disappears.

Legalism: I won't cross at all. You come to me. The gospel stops moving.

Incarnation: I'll cross fully — and bring the whole gospel with me.

Landing:

Listen for what the Spirit is already doing. Find what the gospel affirms in their experience — and what it challenges.

SLIDE - Big Idea

Do your best to share the gospel that they need to hear.

Not the one that makes them comfortable. Not the one that makes you comfortable. The one they need to hear.

THE GOSPEL PRESENTED

Here is the gospel. For all of you.

Jesus — who claimed to be God himself, who entered human history in a specific body in a specific place at a specific time — lived the life every human was designed to live. He died. Was buried. And three days later walked out of the tomb — bodily, physically, witnessed by hundreds of people whose testimony you can still examine today.

He claimed he would do this. He did it. And in doing it he proved every claim he made — that he is Lord over death, Lord over everything that steals and kills and destroys, and Lord over every human life that turns toward him.

He promises that anyone who turns from going their own way and places their trust in him will receive the Spirit of God himself — and will one day be raised, bodily, completely, just like he was raised. Not your soul floating somewhere. You. Raised. Everything made new.

That is the gospel. That is the actual good news.

It is good news for the person who has never heard it.

It is good news for the person who has been carrying a smaller version of it for years.

It is good news for the person sitting next to you on whatever road you're both traveling.

INVITATION

Some of you have never responded to that news. Today is the day.

Some of you have been responding — but to a different gospel.

The one that just wanted you to be a good person.

The one that thought belonging to the church community was the same as surrendering your life to Jesus’ Lordship.

The one that allowed you to believe in Jesus but hang on to your political loyalty.

The one that gave you the title Christian while allowing you to hold on to your right to hate your neighbor who wronged you.

If that's you — I want to pray with you right now. Not because a prayer saves you. But because turning toward Jesus out loud is itself an act of trust.

Bow your head with me:

Jesus — I believe you are who you claimed to be. I believe you died and rose. I believe you are Lord. I turn from going my own way and place my trust in you. Whatever gospel I've been carrying that isn't yours — I'm setting it down. I want the real one. I want you. Amen.

If you prayed that — for the first time or as a surrender of an old gospel — fill out the connect card in your pew and mark the box that applies to your situation. If you invite us to, then we will follow up this week.

CLOSING — NEXT STEPS

Three tools. That's what Philip had. That's what you now have.

Let me tell you what to do with them this week.

If you're not sure you know the gospel well enough to tell it —

Pick one gospel. Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

Read it. All of it. More than once if you need to.

That's your next step. Don't skip it.

If you know the gospel but you've never examined what you're carrying —

Ask yourself honestly: am I leaning toward legalism or syncretism?

Think back on a recent spiritual conversation. Did you make someone cross to your side before you crossed to theirs? Or did you adapt so much that you left the gospel behind?

That's your next step.

If you know the gospel and you've done the work of examining your culture —

Pick up a Keeping Pace Bookmark, and ask the Spirit to show you your Ethiopian.

Someone in your life is already reading something they can't understand. Already asking a question no one has answered. The Spirit is already there.

Pay attention. Ask before you speak. And when the door opens — bring the whole gospel with you. the one that meets them there AND invites them to more.

That's your next step.

For all of us:

Next week we're coming back to this same road. The Ethiopian sees some water and asks Philip a question — "What prevents me?"

That question is the whole invitation. When someone says yes to the invitation, what do you do? And it's the subject of next week's sermon.

But between now and then — do your best to share the gospel that they need to hear.

Pray.