Impacting the Community One Person at a Time

Introduction, Impacting the Community One Person at a Time WRNMMC 02MAY 2021.

Acts 8:26-40 is a passage about God using an individual to help bring about change in a soul that is seeking the Holy God of Israel. The passage at the beginning of this chapter is about God using an individual to change the Samaria community. The passage we will look at holds important details about how to present the gospel message. Just a bit of background information for our understanding will help us see the movement of God and the importance of being ready to be used by God as a change agent. Both the Eunuch and Samaria were people of Jewish descent by either conversion or connection with Jewish traditions. Thus, God uses Philip as a messenger. Supernatural leading and guiding was key to bringing about change.

In Samaria Philip healed many by calling out the unclean spirits. These acts and the signs revealed God’s ability to bring about hope and healing for the people of Samaria. The encounter and leading of God concerning the Eunuch required Philip to be quiet and to listen for God’s voice to lead him to present the gospel message. Both accounts help us see different ways that God uses an individual to bring about hope and restoration.

I wonder if we are struggling as believers to share the gospel message today. Are we able to hear and see the supernatural work of God using a messenger like Philip to bring hope? Are we seeing and hearing about the healing of souls coming to faith in the message of hope? Today we need to have the attitude of Philip if we are going to impact one person at a time with the message of hope.

Answering the Call

Philip answers the call of the Lord after the death of Stephen recorded at the end of chapter 7. Philip shows spiritual courage by stepping out alone to answer this call. Philip’s faith is revealed as being strong even after the stoning of Stephen. His testimony is an eyewitness account of Jesus’s death upon the cross. Philip is able to connect the prophecy of the messiah to come with Jesus’s life, ministry, and atonement as the ultimate sacrifice depicted through the prophets of old. The key to answering this call is to listen to the Spirit’s leading. Are you listening for the spirit’s leading to share the message of hope? This is crucial if we are to impact our community one person at a time. Acts 8: 26-28

Sharing the Message

Sharing the message is always being ready, looking, and listening for the cues given by the Holy Spirit to engage those concerning the gospel message of hope. Philip was told to join this man on his chariot and when he came close enough, he could hear what the man was reading. Philip knew he needed to engage this individual with a question concerning the significance of what he was reading. So, asking this question: Do you understand what you are reading; Is seeing this as an ordained opportunity only given by God to share what he knew. The questions we must answer are, are you ready, looking and listening for opportunities to share? Philip gives us a glimpse of what it means to be a witness and to testify to the redemption given through Christ. The Eunuch in answering Philip’s question states he can only understand this passage if he has a guide. This is the opening that Philip needed to share the message of hope. He was listening. He was going to be used as a guide for this man to learn the true meaning of that passage. Acts 8: 29-31.

Illustration

Washington -- Graffiti from the 1800s discovered by workers renovating the Washington Monument has quite a different tone from that usually found today on the sides of buildings and subway cars.

"Whoever is the human instrument under God in the conversion of one soul, erects a monument to his own memory more lofty and enduing (sic) than this," reads the inscription which can now be viewed by visitors to the monument.

It is signed BFB. No one knows who that is, or who left the small drawings and 19th century dates on other walls.

The markings in the lobby of the monument were covered over when it was decorated at the turn of the century. They were found when workers removed marble wainscoting as part of a year-long $500,000 renovation which was just completed.

Spokesman-Review, June, 1994.

Making the Connection

The eunuch was reading Isaiah 53:7-8. This passage depicts the prophecy of a sacrificial animal, a sheep, being led to a sacrificial alter. In verse 8 of this passage Isaiah speaks about the humiliation and injustice of this very act and asks, who can describe his generation? Meaning the period and time of this event. Philip was being used by God to be that eyewitness messenger and explain this sacrifice to the eunuch. The last line of verse 8 says his life is taken away from the earth. Many scholars debate the meaning of this verse. I am not one. It is clear just like it was clear to Philip that the life that was taken from this earth was the atoning sacrifice of Jesus as the ultimate sacrificial sheep for all the sins of humanity past, present, and future. The eunuch asked was this Isaiah prophecy about the prophet who wrote it or someone else. Philip guides him to Jesus as the sheep that was provided as the sacrifice for the atonement of sins and restoration of the soul. Thus Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah 53:7-8.

Application for Responding

Imagine if tomorrow you were given an opportunity to share a message like Philip shared with Samaria or the Eunuch. And you got to experience the supernatural movement of God’s healing upon a lost soul. I wonder how that would impact your faith? Imagine you are given the opportunity to share the message of redemption with small group and all who listened came to faith in God. What would that do for your faith and those people? Impacting a community must start with three things:

Illustration

George Sweeting, in his book The No-Guilt Guide for Witnessing, tells of a man by the name of John Currier who in 1949 was found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison. Later he was transferred and paroled to work on a farm near Nashville, Tennessee.

In 1968, Currier's sentence was terminated, and a letter bearing the good news was sent to him. But John never saw the letter, nor was he told anything about it. Life on that farm was hard and without promise for the future. Yet John kept doing what he was told even after the farmer for whom he worked had died.

Ten years went by. Then a state parole officer learned about Currier's plight, found him, and told him that his sentence had been terminated. He was a free man.

Sweeting concluded that story by asking, "Would it matter to you if someone sent you an important message -- the most important in your life -- and year after year the urgent message was never delivered?"

We who have heard the good news and experienced freedom through Christ are responsible to proclaim it to others still enslaved by sin. Are we doing all we can to make sure that people get the message?

Our Daily Bread, November 6, 1994.

You must be willing to listen for God’s leading

You must be willing to respond to God’s leading

You must be willing to be God’s messenger

To impact a community or an individual, we must all have a heart of willingness to listen, respond and share the message of hope.

Tomorrow when you awake you must begin by asking the Lord to help you listen to his leading just like Philip.