Who is in-charge of your life?

Read Acts 8:26-40

Have you ever looked at a person in the bible and though, I am glad I didn’t have to do that! Have you ever wondered “is God ever going to use me for anything, or am I just going to come to church and read my bible for the rest of my life?” The bible is full of people who did something or changed there life completely for God, is this something you would be willing to do?

Would you be willing to be called crazy like Noah was?

What about kill you son like Abram?

or

would you be more like Jonah and run and try to run from God?

Does God even call on us to do anything anymore?

I think this passage gives us one of the most modern concepts in the bible of how we as modern christians are still called to live and work for God. Granted the way this passage begins and ends and ends is not, but we will get to that in a little bit. If we distill this passage down, what we see a believer named Philip asked by God to change something about his day for God purpose. And we see Philip agree to do this. This is not really a crazy thing is it? Isn’t this very similar to the we talk about these kinds of things all the time with each other?

The challenging part about this verses is not the concept of God using someone to do or say something to someone, the challenging part is God using one of us in this room, to do or say something to someone. It’s the “I” factor. When God call me, or you (point) or you (point) to do something strange or say something to someone, that’s when this all gets real!

Is that going to happen? Well since our mission as believers is to love one-another and see other people saved, I would say the odds are pretty good. And I would say that not having and angel tell you where to go and what to do, actually makes this maybe a little harder than what we are reading about.

All of what we are discussing and what we read about really boils down to a couple of core things and the one I want to talk about today is Who is running your life? Jesus said in Mark 8:34-38

Mark 8:34–38

34 ....“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. 35 “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his soul? 37 “For what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 “For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.”

The point here is as a follower of Jesus your life is no longer yours. This is what we see in this passage as well as everywhere in the bible!

For those of us control freaks in the room, the question why comes to mind. Why would I give up my life? or maybe the real question is why would I change my life? Change bad habits, sure, that is a positive thing! learn how to love your neighbor better? That’s great! But what if God tells you to move? What if God tells you to quit your job? Would you be onboard then?

The answer is up to you...

Jonah is great example of someone who was not on board. He decided to run and hid from God because what God was asking him to do, he could not. Jonah could not find the compassion in his heart to bring the message of God’s love the Ninevites. However, as we see in that story, it wasn’t really up to Jonah. God didn’t need Jonah’s permission to save the Ninevites, it was God’s plan for the Ninevites to hear the message of God, and it was God’s plan for Jonah to deliver it. As we all know, eventually he did.

This brings us back to our question, who is in-charge of your life?

The two options are you or God. Now I am not going to stand up here and tell you if you chose God your life is going to be easy, that is defiantly not true. As we look through our bible we can see that. However, I will stand up here and tell you it is worth it. Allowing God to do His work through you is defiantly worth it.

This is what we are seeing in our passage. Philip is called upon to go a different way than he normally would have and what does he find? A gospel opportunity, or at least that’s what we call it today. We see someone who normally would not be allowed to worship in the temple get an opportunity to get a one on one bible study with one of the first evangelist. And once again Philip has a special opportunity to witness to a group of people who had not been witnessed to, the gentiles.

This whole exchange communicated so much to the people the early church was witnessing to. Not only was Jesus relatable to the eunuch because they both suffered, but by God saving the eunuch, this clearly communicated the fact that God’s love was for all. Which was defiantly contrary to the teaching by the Jewish leaders.

This is something I think we tend to take for granted in our modern contexts. God’s message is for anyone, at anytime, no matter what they are doing, how they are living. There are no qualifiers to be witnessed to, or to believe in God. God didn’t say, once you stop doing this or that then you can be baptized into my family, He said it is for those who believe. That is it. Furthermore that is what is recorded in this passage. Once this man, one who under the Jewish leaders would not be allowed in the temple, Once he believes with all his heart, he is baptized into God’s kingdom.

Then after Philip successfully completed his mission, God carried Philip to Azotus, which the best I could figure out from a map I found was approximately 10 air miles from where he was. I think the thing that amazing me the most, and is the most inspiring about this, is that Philip apparently wasn’t phased by any of this. He had so much faith in God, that it doesn’t appear any of this was a shock. In the beginning of the account when the angel spoke to him did you notice what apparently the Angel did not say; the angel apparently didn’t say “don’t be afraid”. This is the only time I can think of that an angel doesn’t say that, it might be the only time that happens in the bible, but I couldn’t confirm that, but I don’t think that makes less important. Sometimes what isn’t written is just as important as what is. And then at the end he is carried away and dropped off some 10 miles away to where he was needed next. And yet when we read on, it appears to be the same reaction.

Now don’t ask me the meaning of being carried off. God does what he does how he want’s to do it. However, that’s not to say I didn’t try to figure it out. In fact I want to share a fun story about this last week. This part became a fun topic in our house, my daughter has been learning how to work out meanings in scripture by reading all the different translations in order to understanding the meaning or intent of a particular verse. So I asked her to figure this one out and this is what she came up with (read the paper)

I believe the take away from this scripture is this: trust God enough to let him guide your life, your who life, and pay attention to the situations you find yourself in, there is a good chance you are where you are for a reason. God has many things for us to do, and they are all different, so be proud of what He has you do, and be a willing helper. Also don’t be surprised if He Poof’s you somewhere else in life.

Pray-