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Introduction
[pray]
God, you are our Mighty Strength and our Great Deliverer.
We come to You worshipping and praising Your Holy Name.
Father, there are times in each of our lives that we are not completely sold out and committed to living in Your Way.
We ask that You would forgive us for these times and draw us closer to You.
We ask that you would open our eyes to opportunities that we might share Jesus with those around us.
God I ask that you would bless our study here today and our time in Your Word.
God I ask that you would give me clarity of mind and precision of speech as I speak out Your message.
May I be a blessing Your people who are gathered here today.
In the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior, Amen
We’ll be studying in Acts 8 this morning.
I.
The Persecution and the Diaspora - Acts 8:1-3
As a result of persecution the early church was scattered out from Jerusalem.
Reviewing Acts 7, we can see the persecution of the deacon named Stephen.
Last week we talked about Saul (who later became Paul), who was a persecutor of Christians for the Sanhedrin Council in Jerusalem.
Saul was a passive participant in the stoning of Stephen before he took on an active role as the persecution of Jesus’ church.
It is important to note that God did not cause the persecution against His saints.
But He allowed it and used it for His purposes.
The Diaspora, or the dispersal of early Christians, served to establish a firm foundation for the church of Jesus Christ, which lasts even until today.
This persecution-fueled dispersal set up a missionary movement and allowed for the church to spread around the civilized world.
Today we’re going to focus on one man that God used as a result of this dispersal.
II.
Philip was God’s Man for Samaria - Acts 8:4-8
Philip had been chosen as a deacon in the church in Jerusalem (Acts 6:5), but he resettled in Samaria after the persecution began in Jerusalem.
There’s that word scattered - διασπείρω diaspeirō.
It’s an image of taking a sack of seed and scattering it into the wind so that the seeds may be blown about and land wherever they are carried.
God used this process of scattering in nature to take up the seeds of plants and spread them around in order to propagate life.
A dandelion bloom is a perfect example of this.
Easily caught up by the wind, the seeds of a dandelion can travel for miles before they land on fertile soil to bring new life.
God used a similar process to spread his disciples throughout the settled world.
Persecution put the disciples to traveling and they carried with them the life giving Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Philip is one of those who was scattered about by the persecution of the saints in Jerusalem.
Philip landed in Samaria and his primary purpose was to proclaim the name of Jesus Christ.
Ministry in Samaria
The people in Samaria were of a mixed heritage.
They were part Jew and part Gentile.
Samaria had formerly been part of Israel until it was invaded and conquered by Assyria in 732 BC.
Mixed marriages and influence by external pagan cultures had estranged this group of people from Israel.
The purely Jewish people of Israel hated the Samaritan people and treated them poorly.
This caused the people of Samaria to hate the Jews of Israel.
They developed their own temple and their own priesthood and opposed mixing with the Jews of Southern Israel.
God still loved the people of Samaria even if Israel did not.
A great deal of racism and prejudice created a divide between Samaria and Israel.
But God used the dispersal of His people to bring the Gospel message of Jesus Christ into Samaria.
Philip began ministry in Samaria because that’s where he was.
Philip became a missionary of sorts.
He was doing God’s work in a land that was foreign to him.
Circumstances put him in Samaria, but it is important to understand that Philip was going to proclaim Christ no matter where he lived.
There was persecution and rejection in Samaria as well.
The persecution did not stop him from proclaiming Christ.
III.
Philip Meets the Ethiopian Eunuch - Acts 8:26-40
Here we have Philip going around Samaria teaching from the scriptures and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Suddenly an angel speaks to Philip sending him to a specific location.
Angels are simply messengers who serve God.
They cannot proclaim the Gospel message.
It is up to God’s saints to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
This angel spoke to Philip and Philip obeyed.
Q: How many of us would recognize the voice of an angel of the Lord?
Philip encountered this Ethiopian court official, a God-fearing believer who had been to Jerusalem to worship.
This man believed in the God of Israel enough to travel over 200 miles to Jerusalem and worship.
But he could never become a full Jewish proselyte because of his status as a eunuch.
In the Jewish faith, the most that he could hope to be would be a God-fearer (a proselyte of the gate).
But he was still drawn to understand God better.
But this wasn’t enough for the Ethiopian.
He was still struggling to understand spiritual things.
He was reading the scroll of Isaiah as he rode along the road in his carriage.
This scroll had likely come to him at a great personal cost.
But he didn’t understand what he was reading.
The Holy Spirit urged Philip to approach the chariot and engage the Ethiopian in a conversation.
The text says that the Spirit prompted Philip to “go up and join this chariot.”
The word join here means that the Spirit wanted Philip to establish a relationship with the Ethiopian.
He wanted Philip to engage him in conversation.
Have you ever had that happen?
Have you ever felt the Holy Spirit prompt you into a conversation with a complete stranger?
Many times we live our lives immune and dull to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
Perhaps it is the proliferation of media and external stimulation.
Perhaps it is unconfessed sin in our lives.
Sometimes it is that we are so focused on our own problems and troubles in life that we fail to take notice of what is going on around us.
But for whatever reason we stumble through our lives immune to what is going on around us.
Reading this at face value seems remarkable… He ran up to him.
Listened to him reading and asked him if he understood it.
There’s a principle here that I think we can take away from this encounter that Philip had with the Ethiopian.
Philip’s example of evangelism is not remarkable.
It is how evangelism works.
The Spirit began drawing the Ethiopian long before Philip came along.
By the time Philip entered the situation, God had already prepared the Ethiopian for an experience with truth.
The text says that the Ethiopian had come to Jerusalem to worship (v 27).
He had travelled more than 200 miles, about 4 or 5 days traveling dawn to dusk by horse and carriage.
Apparently he had taken time away from his service in the court of Queen Candace.
Coming to Jerusalem had to have been a significant investment for the Ethiopian.
In addition he had obtained a scroll of Isaiah while he was in Jerusalem.
That had to have cost him a small fortune for the time.
Scrolls were not very common outside of the temple.
But understanding God’s word had been something that was very important to the Ethiopian.
But he had a problem.
He was having a hard time understanding what he was reading.
God directed Philip to a person who was ready to hear what he had to say.
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