Now or Never

Mission Statement

Make Disciples

Purpose Statement

Know God

Grow in Community

Go and Make Disciples

Series Overview

Go + Tell is all about our faith coming alive to the world around us!

Last week we learned from where we learned that it is our responsibility to take the gospel to those who have never heard it.

This week we will look at where we will look at the proper response to salvation and the power that we have as Christ Followers.

Read

Acts 8:26–40 HCSB

An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip: “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is the desert road.) So he got up and went. There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.” When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the Scripture passage he was reading was this: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before its shearer, so He does not open His mouth. In His humiliation justice was denied Him. Who will describe His generation? For His life is taken from the earth. The eunuch replied to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or another person?” So Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning from that Scripture. As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water! What would keep me from being baptized?” [And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart you may.” And he replied, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”] Then he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any longer. But he went on his way rejoicing. Philip appeared in Azotus, and he was traveling and evangelizing all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

Teach:

Intro:

How excited are you about salvation. Youtube video of the little boy baptizing himself.

Points

1. Where am I Going?

Before we can share our faith, we must first understand where God calls us to share our faith with.

In this particular case God uses and angel to command Philip to go to a place where he will do something.

I want to point out the fact that God sends and angel to send someone. Why couldn’t the angel just go to the Ethiopian man and share the Gospel.

“The angel could have tolld theis Ethiopian official how to be saved, but God has not given the commandment to angels: He has given it to his people. Angels have never personally experienced God’s grace, therefore, they can never bear witness of what it means to be saved”. - Warren Wiersbe

Sometimes God wants to measure the depth of our faith by more than just what we profess with our tongues, He challenges us to get up and go somewhere.

There are a lot of people could be defined as fake. Acting one way around church and another at school or when they are around their friends. Your fake might not even be public, it might be something that nobody else knows.

Daniel 2:22 HCSB

He reveals the deep and hidden things; He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him.

But nonetheless, God calls us to go, and we might not know to the full extent of WHERE we are going, but we know WHO is sending us. The question remains, is that enough?

Because we we look at Philip while he was in Jerusalem, everything was great. People were getting saved every single day. Praise, worship, giving, everything was fantastic. But God called him to the desert where there was nothing. But God often calls us to a place where there is nothing, so that He can do something.

Genesis 12:1 HCSB

The Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you.

2. Who Am I Telling ?

In our passage we see where Philip takes off because God sent him. He doesn’t know where he is going specifically, but he has a direction:

The big question is “Who am i Going to see?”

This past Sunday at our High School Hangout, which is an awesome time where our high school students get together, hangout, and study I asked a question. Out of family, friends, and complete strangers, who is it harder to share your faith with. Every single one of them said friends.

Maybe God is calling you to share with your friends because you can’t do it by yourself. Maybe it is because he is trying to show you that you care more about your friends current approval of you rather than where they will spend eternity?

Philip is called to a complete stranger in order to bring him face to face with the Gospel, but do you think that this particular man was chosen randomly? God always has a plan right?

In the Ethiopian official was converted and he was a descendent of Ham.

In , Saul of Tarsus, who was a Jew, was converted, meaning he was from the line of Shem.

In , the gentiles find Christ who were the descendants of Japheth.

Genesis 10:1 HCSB

These are the family records of Noah’s sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth. They also had sons after the flood.

tell us that these three men populated the entire world after the flood. Meaning that within these 3 chapters of Acts, the entire world not only heard the Gospel, but recieved it.

So what does this have to do with me?

The people that you wrote on these sticks when Irvin preached 2 weeks ago, the people that you God brought to your heart because you are keenly aware of the fact that they don’t know Jesus.

These names are the answer to your who? Now what are you going to do about it?

The Gospel is not for anyone. It’s for EVERYONE.

Romans 10:13 HCSB

For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

3. Why Am I Going?

I think this is the question that a lot of us struggle with the “why” of evangelism. And it may not be a obvious struggle. But there is a reason why you don’t have a burning desire to see your friends come to faith in Jesus.