Sermon Tone Analysis

Sent to Be on Mission

Acts 8 NIV

Several years ago Billy Graham was told of a man who had criticized his evangelistic efforts in crusade methods.

In fact, the man had indicated that Dr. Graham, in his opinion, had set back the church in America a hundred years.

With a twinkle in his eye and his normal gracious demeanor, Dr. Graham responded, “Only one hundred years?

I’ve been trying to set it back two thousand years!”

What was it about the first-century church that made it so contagious?

As it exploded on the scene of a pluralistic society with a tremendous bent toward secularism (much like our own), it grew by leaps and bounds.

It was a church on the cutting edge!

It is that contagious kind of Christianity that North America needs so desperately in our day.

It seems frighteningly clear that we are following in the tracks of modern England.

For it was in that great bastion of civilization that the church of the 1800s was contagious—the home of the Wesley brothers and George Whitfield.

England has seen its society impacted with the Christian message like few nations in the world.

Tutored and taught later by the prince of the pulpit, Charles Hadden Spurgeon, they reached a climax of Christian impact.

Historians tell us that the Victorian age in England may well have been one of the most significantly “churched” populations of history.

That is to say, that the greatest percentage of the population somewhat regularly attended some type of church service.

By 1987 there had been a marked change in the religious demographics of England:

* One-third of the Baptist churches had significant difficulty finding a pastor.

* The average Sunday school attendance was thirty-four.

* The average baptismal rate was one-half person per year.

* Every nine days a church closed its doors for good.

* Every fourteen days a Muslim mosque or learning center opened its doors to the future.

In seeing this frightening trend, I asked our research department at the North American Mission Board and study when the highest percent of the population in the United States somewhat regularly attended church.

The answer came back—1958 and 1959.

In eighty years England fell from a society greatly impacted by the church to an incredibly secular society.

The United States now stands approximately halfway through that journey of eighty years since our high point of percentage of population being involved in church.

So let’s take a look at what impacted the church in the first century to change its world and turn it right side up.

As the church exploded in the city of Jerusalem, the whole city became aware of this new life-changing movement.

On the day of Pentecost, three thousand people placed their faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior and Lord.

Not many days hence, great numbers were being added daily as they put their faith in the risen Christ (Acts 2:47).

Within weeks we are told that many who had heard the message believed and that the number of men placing their faith in Christ as Savior grew to about five thousand (Acts 4:4).

With such great success it is no surprise that the Jewish leaders and the Roman government looked with alarm on this life-impacting set of beliefs.

As the church exploded, there had to be incredible excitement.

However, success can also breed comfort zones.

And God never called us to comfort zones but rather to conviction and commitment and to be /on mission/ as a way of life.

But there was one sure cure for the comfort of success—persecution.

Acts 8 tells us that as persecution came against the church at Jerusalem, the apostles stayed there, and Jerusalem served as the nerve center of the new church.

However, godly men who had come to know Christ and had been discipled for Him spread out into the far reaches of the known world.

The church had already penetrated Jerusalem and Judea; now it would bridge into Samaria—where it would have to cross economic, social, cultural, and linguistic barriers.

And of all people to be thrust into Samaria, we find a Jewish layman by the name of Philip being the chosen agent of change.

This is significantly important because Samaria is the last place a Jewish man would have wanted to be sent on mission.

Great racial and cultural tensions strained life between Jews and Samaritans.

The Samaritans were the result of the Assyrian invasion of Israel in Old Testament times.

When many of the people were carried off into bondage, Assyrians moved in and intermarried with those who were left.

The results of those marriages were children who would become Samaritans—half-breeds.

And the true Jews resented and despised Samaritans.

Yet it was here that God and His unpredictable strategy sent Philip to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

The Scripture tells us in Acts 8 that the equivalent of a Billy Graham Crusade broke out.

What a marvel it must have been to Philip to see God move in the midst of a people whom Philip’s own kin despised.

How could this be happening, and how could the gospel bridge such deep chasms?

Yet there it was, before his very eyes, in reality.

But once again God would do the unpredictable.

In the middle of this major awakening in the city of Samaria, God’s Spirit came with a new assignment for Philip.

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.”

So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.

This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet.

The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

Then Phillip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet.

“Do you understand what you are reading?”

Philip asked.

“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?”

So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:

“He was led like a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.

Who can speak of his descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth.”

The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water.

Why shouldn’t I be baptized?”

And he gave orders to stop the chariot.

Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.

When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.

Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea (Acts 8:26–40).

There are four powerful aspects about this story.

/I.

There Was a Perplexed Seeker/

I want to tell you a few things about this perplexed seeker that are very relevant to our day and time.

This perplexed seeker was born ethnic.

He was not of the same race or cultural background as Philip.

Philip was having to extend even further across cultural, linguistic, and social barriers.

This man most likely came from an area of what is today called the Sudan.

The racial and cultural differences between Philip and this leader from the continent of Africa could not have been greater.

In similar ways our culture in America today is dramatically changing ethnically.

I recently spoke in Houston, and a leader of the city told me that by the year 2020, the population will grow in a number equivalent to the entire population of San Antonio and that one out of every two people moving to Houston will be Hispanic.

If you look at the 1990s in the demographics of our nation, you will find that the Anglo population experienced zero growth.

This means there were as many deaths as there were births.

At the same time, Asian, Hispanic, and African-American populations grew in double-digit percentages.

It is estimated that by the year 2050 just under one-half of the United States will be white Anglo-Saxon.

With that ethnicity comes a vastly different religious background.

Likewise today, our American society has seen a radical religious shift.

The Muslim population seems to be superseding Judaism as the second largest religious body in our land, growing by 25 percent between 1989 and 1998.

With more than one million Hindus, this religion is the second fastest-growing religion in North America.

And Buddhism is growing nearly three times faster than Christianity.

This leader from Africa whom Philip baptized had also been to the big city.

Going into the 1900s, some 30 percent of the population of the United States lived in cities.

Today, a full 85 percent live in the top 276 metropolitan areas of our land.

Taking just the top fifty cities, 57 percent of the U.S. population would be located in them.

And one out of three people lives in the top-ten cities of our nation.

And in these cities 81 percent of the African-Americans will be found.