The African One
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 10 viewsNotes
Transcript
Most of you know that I’m not a big fan of sermons ripped from the headlines. But today, I feel that I really must address what may have been the most important news item of the week.
Did you see it: Dunkin’ Donuts is going to start selling bacon strips as a side item in little french fry bags!
Now, I don’t know about the rest of you, but this just proves to me what a great time it is to be alive. This might give me a reason to stop at Dunkin’ Donuts once in a while.
On Saturday afternoon, as I sat in the parking lot outside my school campus in Northern Virginia, I set up Google Maps to guide me home without having to set a wheel on I-95.
For the most part, I’d rather cut off a finger than have to travel that road, so I always take the back roads and Route 17 to get here, even though it adds 45 minutes to my trip.
So Google showed me that I had a four-hour drive home, and as I put the phone in its holder on my dash, I noticed that it was also showing the time it would take to walk home from the site in Manassas: Three days.
And then I said another, more serious prayer of thanksgiving for being alive today and able to drive to the places I travel.
I can tell you from my experience in Haiti that life is very different without a car. Your world gets a whole lot smaller. On the positive side, the exercise means you can have more bacon. Except that the bacon in Haiti was so terrible that even I would never eat it again. Once was enough.
But seriously, I imagine there’s nobody in this room who remembers life without a car, and even if you remember what it was like — maybe especially if you remember what it was like — I’ll bet you’d never go back.
So, when we read Bible passages about travel, it’s easy to forget that there was no point during biblical times during which travel was faster than one could go on a horse. And for most of the people we see in Scripture, when they’re going somewhere, they’re going on foot or by boat.
So, as the resurrected Jesus stood on a mountaintop in Judea, the words that He spoke to His disciples before being taken into heaven must have seemed outrageous to them.
but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
Jerusalem was simple enough. That’s where they were staying. And it was located in Judea, so witnessing about Jesus there would be simple, too. Samaria wasn’t that far to travel, though the disciples would have to overcome their disdain for the Samarians. Jesus had given them the example for that when He stopped to talk to the woman at the well.
But the remotest part of the earth?
The average fit person can walk 20 to 30 miles a day. Just how far did Jesus expect His disciples to go to share the gospel, anyway?
Well, the Apostle Paul traveled thousands of miles during his three known missionary journeys, spreading the gospel into Asia and Europe. In fact, there are some who believe that he went as far as Spain in his evangelical travels.
But at the time the Book of Acts was written, there was a place in Africa that was known colloquially as the remotest part of the earth.
It is the nation we know today as Chad. Back then, it was called Ethiopia, and today we will see how the gospel reached that nation — and that continent — because of the faithfulness of one believer who dropped a ministry that was bearing much fruit in Samaria to go where God led him so that he could witness to one man.
Turn with me, please to Acts, Chapter 8, and let’s take a look at Philip, one of the great men of the early church.
Now, in the previous chapter, we see the story of the stoning of Stephen, and we meet Saul before his conversion experience on the road to Damascus.
Saul was present when Stephen was martyred, and Luke writes that Saul had held the coats of those who participated in the stoning.
Then, he began to ravage the church, “entering house after house, and dragging off men and women,” whom he would then put in prison.
Because of the great persecution, most of the new Christians who were in Jerusalem fled that city. They were “scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.”
There’s a lesson in this for us: God will do whatever it takes to bring His will to bear.
If God calls you to do something, your failure to do it — they call that disobedience, by the way — is likely to result in some level of pain and maybe even suffering for you.
Jesus had not called the disciples to be His witnesses only in Jerusalem.
As God had told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth, He also called Noah and his family to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
And now Jesus had given His disciples the same orders. Be fruitful — bear fruit, the fruit of new souls brought to the cross of redemption. Multiply — build His church with new souls snatched from the gates of Hell and given eternal life in Jesus Christ.
The truth is that throughout history, the church has grown in persecution. In times of comfort, it has languished.
So most of the new Christians in Jerusalem fled that city in the face of persecution from Saul and others there.
And Philip, who had been made one of the first deacons of that church, went to Samaria “and began proclaiming Christ to them.”
And we see in verse 6 that he was having great success.
The crowds with one accord were giving attention to what was said by Philip, as they heard and saw the signs which he was performing.
They gave their attention to Philip, and they gave their hearts to Jesus Christ, He who had died on the cross for their sins and who was raised from the dead on the third day as evidence that God had accepted His sacrifice as payment of their sin debt.
But when they believed Philip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike.
When they heard about the great things that were happening in Samaria, Peter and John went there to investigate, and they joined Philip there for a time.
So that’s the background for today’s passage, and we’re going to pick up the text in verse 25.
READ
Now, it’s hard to know exactly who “they” are back in verse 25. It’s at least Peter and John. Perhaps Philip started back with them. Perhaps he stayed in the city in Samaria.
Either way, what’s important to note here is that those who were headed back to Jerusalem did not let their travel plans get in the way of sharing the gospel. They preached all the way back to Jerusalem.
There’s two things I want to point out about this:
First, this is the same Peter who would later write:
but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;
From the Day of Pentecost, when the apostles received the Holy Spirit and Peter preached his first sermon in Jerusalem, Peter was always ready to share the good news of His savior.
Of course, he had spent three years learning from Jesus, so we would expect him to be ready.
But many of us have spent decades learning about Jesus, and yet we still freeze when God puts someone in our paths who needs to know about the savior who opened our blind eyes, the sinless redeemer who gave His life so we could be saved.
If you haven’t shared the gospel with someone this month or this week or this year — or ever — this should be a point of conviction for you. You were made to bear fruit.
If you haven’t shared the gospel with someone this month or this week or this year — or ever — this should be a point of conviction for you. You were made to bear fruit.
The second thing I want you to notice from verse 25 is that this is the same John who had asked Jesus whether he should call down fire on a town in Samaria where they had not been welcomed.
God was working on John’s heart, and God was expanding John’s vision. And it’s encouraging to see that John was so responsive.
The gospel knows no boundaries. The gospel makes no distinctions between people. God so loved the WORLD that He sent His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then you are called to love like He loves, to love WHOM He loves, black or white, rich or poor, native-born or immigrant. And if you love those whom Jesus loves, then you should want to give them the good news of the savior who will one day make all things new.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to walk up to random strangers and recite . That’s probably not a very effective means of evangelism, anyway.
What it does mean is that you should be ever receptive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
And that’s just what we see in Philip.
26
But an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying, “Get up and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.)
Remember that Philip was already engaged in the Lord’s work. I think there’s another principle we can learn from this fact: Those who are already doing the true work of Christ will find themselves given more opportunities to do so.
You see, if you have followed Jesus Christ in faith and if you really recognize the great value of the gift you have been given by the grace of God through Christ, then you will want to share that gift, because you also will value what Jesus values — the lost sheep, the lost coins and the prodigal sons.
In that parable, Jesus tells of a master who had given one servant 10 minas, another servant five minas and another servant one mina. The ones who had received 10 and five minas doubled their
Philip clearly valued what Jesus values, and so when the angel of the Lord told him to go, he went.
So he got up and went; and there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship,
and he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah.
Ethiopia, the African nation we know as Chad, was more than 1,500 miles from Jerusalem. It would have taken Philip a year to walk there. But God had a plan to spread the good news even into Africa.
As
All it took was for Philip to be obedient to his calling.
What’s interesting about this Ethiopian is that he had been to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh, the God of the Jews.
We don’t know how he had learned about God, and we don’t know where he got his copy of the Isaiah scroll.
What we can know with some confidence, however, is that he would have left Jerusalem disappointed.
As an Ethiopian, even a wealthy one, he would not have been allowed any further into the temple than the Court of the Gentiles on the outside.
And if it had become known that he was a eunuch, he would not have been allowed even there under the Mosaic Law.
He would have been seen as sexually ambiguous and a social outcast in Jerusalem. But God had a plan to reach the remotest part of the earth, and this man would play a part in that plan. God has a plan to reach all the outcasts, all the sexually confused people of this world. He loves each one just as much as He loves you.
One commentator writes this about the eunuch: “Physically, there was something broken about this Ethiopian that was symbolic of his spiritual condition. He was unfit for the presence of God. But Philip brought news that God had raised up a new temple in which he could receive full membership.” [Derek W. H. Thomas, Acts, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), 242].
Physically, there was something broken about this Ethiopian that was symbolic of his spiritual condition. He was unfit for the presence of God. But Philip brought news that God had raised up a new temple in which he could receive full membership. [Derek W. H. Thomas, Acts, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), 242].
Derek W. H. Thomas, Acts, ed. Richard D. Phillips, Philip Graham Ryken, and Daniel M. Doriani, Reformed Expository Commentary (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2011), 242.
In both cases, three servants are given something by their master. Ten tale
Philip sees this man from Africa on his ox-cart, and the Holy Spirit tells him to go up and join him. So Philip does what he has been called to do, and that’s the next point I want to make from this passage:
If you are a follower of Christ, you should always be sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
This doesn’t just happen. To be sensitive to the Spirit, you must be strong in the spiritual disciplines of prayer and Bible study.
You cannot expect God to communicate with you if you do not communicate with Him, and you communicate with God by reading and studying His Word and by regular times of prayer in which you ask Him not just for good health and welfare, but for Him to align your values with His.
We know from Acts, chapter 6, where Philip was chosen as one of the church’s first deacons, that he was just such a man. Luke describes him and the others as “full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” This was not the wisdom of the world, rather it was the wisdom of God, which only comes from close communion with Him through the Spirit.
Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
So when the Spirit tells Philip to join the eunuch on his cart, Philip hears and obeys, and he asks whether the man understands the passage he is reading in Isaiah.
And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
We should not miss the hand of God in all that has happened here, from Philip’s call out of Jerusalem and into Samaria to his call to go out on the road toward Gaza to even the Scripture the eunuch was reading when Philip found him.
Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this: “He was led as a sheep to slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He does not open His mouth.
“In humiliation His judgment was taken away; Who will relate His generation? For His life is removed from the earth.”
We know that verse 32 speaks of Jesus, but the eunuch did not. And verse 33 has been a hard one for Bible scholars throughout history.
I think the best rendition of this verse for our ears would be something like this: Because of His humiliation, the judgment against Jesus has been removed; who could number the multitude of those who are born in Him?
It’s especially significant that this man who had to submit himself to the humiliation of being castrated in order to have his position in the queen’s court was reading about Christ’s humiliation on the cross.
Because Jesus allowed Himself to be humiliated and crucified, this Ethiopian eunuch could overcome his own humiliation and become a child of God, a joint heir with God’s only son, Jesus Christ.
And I like to think that’s part of what Philip told him as he “opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture … preached Jesus to him.”
Here’s another principle I want you to get from this passage: You really should understand how the Bible fits together, how the Old Testament points to Jesus. Every book of the Old Testament — nearly every chapter, in fact — serves as a pointer to the One who will redeem God’s broken creation.
When we understand that the whole Bible tells the story of Jesus, we see that God has been working His plan to reconcile mankind to Himself ever since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden.
And as Philip described God’s plan of reconciliation, we see that this Ethiopian eunuch, whose heart had been prepared by the Holy Spirit for just this encounter with a man who was faithful to his calling as a follower of Christ, was saved and eager to take his first step of obedience in baptism.
He had believed “that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,” and he wanted to demonstrate his belief in the public act of baptism.
And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch, and he baptized him.
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch no longer saw him, but went on his way rejoicing.
Philip was taken away, probably to Jerusalem where we see him 20 years later as he hosts the Apostle Paul in his home for a few days. And the Ethiopian eunuch went on his way rejoicing because of his new life in Christ.
We don’t know for certain what happened to this man. A church tradition from Africa holds that he became the first missionary to that continent; there’s no way to be sure. But I suspect he shared his new faith with the others in his caravan, and that he shared it with others when he got home.
Only when we get to heaven will we finally know the full effect of the personal evangelism we do in obedience to our calling as followers of Christ. But we must never tell ourselves that it isn’t our job to do this.
Let me close with a short story about a man named Edward Kimball.
Edward Kimball was a Sunday school teacher who had a teenager named Dwight Moody in his class. The boy tended to fall asleep in class, but Kimball desperately wanted to win him to Christ, so he visited him one day at the shoe shop where Moody worked.
“‘I put my hand on his shoulder, and as I leaned over I placed my foot upon a shoebox. I asked him to come to Christ,’ [he said later]. But Kimball left thinking he had botched the job. His presentation of the Gospel seemed halting, and he was downcast. Moody, however, left the store that day a new person and eventually became the most prominent evangelist in America.”
But the story doesn’t end there.
“I put my hand on his shoulder, and as I leaned over I placed my foot upon a shoebox. I asked him to come to Christ.” But Kimball left thinking he had botched the job. His presentation of the Gospel seemed halting, and he was downcast. Moody, however, left the store that day a new person and eventually became the most prominent evangelist in America.
D.L. Moody went to Liverpool, England in June of 1873, to preach a series of crusades, and he met a man there named F.B. Meyer, who was a pastor at a small Baptist church. Meyer was soon transformed by Moody’s message, and Moody invited him to America, where Meyer toured the country on speaking engagements.
"At Northfield Bible Conference, [Meyer] challenged the crowds saying, ‘If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?’ That remark changed the life of a struggling young minister named J. Wilber Chapman.
Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 785.
At Northfield Bible Conference, he challenged the crowds saying, “If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?” That remark changed the life of a struggling young minister named J. Wilber Chapman.
“Chapman proceeded to become a powerful traveling evangelist in the early 1900s, and he recruited a converted baseball player named Billy Sunday. Under Chapman’s eye, Sunday became one of the most spectacular evangelists in American history.
Chapman proceeded to become a powerful traveling evangelist in the early 1900s, and he recruited a converted baseball player named Billy Sunday. Under Chapman’s eye, Sunday became one of the most spectacular evangelists in American history. His campaign in Charlotte, North Carolina, produced a group of converts who continued praying for another such visitation of the Spirit. In 1934, they invited evangelist Mordecai Ham to conduct a citywide crusade. It was during that crusade that Billy Graham was converted
“His campaign in Charlotte, North Carolina, produced a group of converts who continued praying for another such visitation of the Spirit. In 1934, they invited evangelist Mordecai Ham to conduct a citywide crusade. It was during that crusade that Billy Graham was saved.” [Robert J. Morgan, Nelson’s Complete Book of Stories, Illustrations, and Quotes, electronic ed. (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2000), 785-786].
Edward Kimball thought he had botched the job. And he never knew here on earth the great evangelists who could trace their faith back to him. But my guess is that they’ve all had a great reunion in heaven by now.
Here’s the thing: You might botch the job, too — I surely have done so on occasion — but the Holy Spirit can use even the weakest gospel presentation to change hearts. What he cannot use is your silence.
If you have received this wonderful gift of salvation through Jesus Christ, it is sinful to keep it to yourself.
Go and tell someone. Be sensitive to the Spirit’s leading. Be ready to go where He sends you. Be ready at all times to share the reason for the hope that is in you. Be bold in your proclamation. To do these things, you must first be willing to do them.
Do not be silent.
So, I ask you: If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made willing?”