Sent By God to Help

Acts 8:26–40 ESV

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?” And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

Scripture: Acts 8:26-40

Sermon Title: Sent By God to Help

 Our passage this morning is going to give us several locations, and it’s good to be aware of where we are. The area we typically think of with Israel is on the map on the screen. To orient us, we have the Mediterranean Sea to the west, inland is the Sea of Galilee up here to the north and the Dead Sea to the South. Last week, we heard Philip was in the city of Samaria, that’s the red star. We’ll hear Philip being told to go to the road from Jerusalem to Gaza, so that’s from the orange star heading back to the west, to the Mediterranean shoreline, Gaza is the yellow star. Chapter 8 ends with Philip showing up in Azotus, the green star, he preached from there up to Caesarea, the blue star. To give us a sense of distance, from Gaza to Caesarea is about 80 miles by land, so similar to driving on I-35 from Burnsville, south of the Cities, down to Albert Lea. 

Philip came into contact with an Ethiopian man. So, this a modern-day map of the African continent. The red star way up north is Israel. This navy outline is around the current country of Ethiopia, but back then, Ethiopia was more in southern Egypt and Sudan where the arrow points. This man had traveled to Jerusalem and was heading home.  It’s a big range, I know, but depending where he was headed, he was traveling somewhere in the realm of 800-1500-plus miles. Anywhere from Minneapolis to Oklahoma City or Duluth to Laredo, Texas, the entire north to south stretch of I-35. He was in a chariot, so he could go at a decent pace, but that was still a long trip. He may not have been coming from South Africa, all the way down here, but when we think of Jesus saying the gospel would be witnessed to the ends of the earth, this encounter helped to fulfill that.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I’m guessing not too many of us can claim an angel has visited us, an angel who told us to go somewhere with no reason given and that made no sense at all. Maybe you have an experience where it feels like God told you to do something different or go somewhere else, but usually we can understand why, that call makes some sense. We were able to see God leading and preparing and putting us in a good place for ourselves and our families. I personally believe that God has called me to be here—I didn’t get to experience an angel or an audible voice, but through prayer and discernment, it seemed like the right move. 

That’s a bit different from where we find Philip. This deacon who we encountered last week who seemed to have been settled in his ministry in Samaria. That city and potentially that region needed the gospel, and successful evangelism was happening. Yet one day an angel told him to go to a road in the desert without telling him any of the who, what, or why details. 

Maybe we think this is a little crazy, but it has happened over the course of the history recorded in the Bible. In Genesis 12, the Lord called Abraham to leave his people and “‘Go to the land I will show you.’” The benefit for Abraham is that he was promised a blessing if he did this. Farther along in history, we have the reluctant prophet, Jonah. The word of the Lord had to come to him twice, telling him where he was to go, “‘to the great city of Nineveh,’” where he was to preach God’s message to them because God had seen their wickedness. Why didn’t that make sense to Jonah?  We’re told in chapter 4, because he knew the Lord to be “‘a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.’” Knowing God could show his incredible mercy to those who repent, even of horrible sins, didn’t make sense to him. Jonah didn’t want to go, and even when he did, he wasn’t happy.

In each of these situations, God’s call compelled these individuals to go, and they trusted him. This is our first point this morning, compelled by God, trusting God. Philip’s calling is the least detailed of the three I’ve mentioned. Yet he appears to have been the most obedient. Verses 26 and 27, “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…” We’re not told that he asked any questions of the angel or of God, he simply went to this road, which was a major road but in the middle of nowhere. When he got to where God wanted him then, “The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’” Notice his response, “Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked.”

God’s calling—what he has gifted you to do, purposed you to do, if there are specific tasks he has for you to do—his calling may involve some form of change in our lives. That change, whether great or small, will require us to trust him. God’s calling may involve you and a certain place: whether that’s staying where you’ve always called home or go somewhere else. His calling may involve a particular type of work and relationships—whether shortterm or longterm, a career that you come into contact with the same people day-in and day-out, or he may have you in the same place around the same people for life. In ministry some pastors serve only one congregation.

We’re already starting to hear: God’s calling may involve a variety of lengths of time. His particular call for you to do something may be as short as a day, or a weekend retreat, or an internship, or it could something he’s developing throughout our entire lives. In Philip’s case, he wasn’t called to move his permanent residence down to this road. He was previously in Samaria, but what we learn in Acts chapter 21 is that he resided in Caesarea with his family. We don’t know how long he spent in Samaria, in Caesarea, and anywhere else potentially, but God put him specifically on this road for this moment. 

Trusting and following God’s call isn’t all about determining the best benefits package being offered to you, getting the nicest house that you can move into, the top schools, the best entertainment, whatever your most preferred climate is—and going there. God may permit you those things; those aren’t inherently bad. But there are seasons of our lives, situations and circumstances where things may not make total sense, and yet God may be calling us to follow him, to trust his leading, his purpose. Perhaps like Philip, we find out what God’s reasoning is rather quickly, but sometimes it takes time to see what God is doing. 

Our second point now, an important part of each of our callings is to be aware and even look for opportunities in which God can use us. God can use people who love him and who know his Word to help explain his Word to other people. I believe we can affirm that God can speak at any moment to any person. He personally could have spoken to this Ethiopian eunuch.  God had sent an angel to Philip to speak to him, he spoke to Abraham and Jonah, next week we’re going to hear how Jesus spoke to that guy named Saul. But instead, here, he sent one of his believers, a man, who, like Stephen, was full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom. He sent Philip to an Ethiopian.

That’s important, God gave Philip the opportunity to share the Word of God with a foreigner, with someone who did not look like him, did not come from where he came from, and likely was different culturally. I want to tread lightly with what I’m about to say, because I don’t want this to come off as a divisive statement on immigration policy or partisan politics, that’s not where this needs to go. Once a month or so, we hear stories in the national news of people rushing to judgments about other people who either aren’t white or who don’t look like them, and make assumptions that they must not be citizens of the United States. The person making the judgment degrades the other person and from time to time tells them to go back where they came from. Philip, a Christian, didn’t look at his skin color and then look at this other man’s skin color, and because he clearly wasn’t from “here,” tell him to get his chariot moving down the road. The only thing he, as a person, considered was that this man, this human being, needed to know the truth of the gospel. Philip knew that’s what God had put him here for at this moment with this man to do.

It’d be so easy to let that opportunity pass by. I can think of my excuses, “Well, I don’t want to bother him. I don’t want to interrupt his reading if he’s learning on his own.” “I don’t know if we’ll understand each other. It’s probably not worth trying.” Yet our call is to be obedient. Our call is trust God, that’s what Philip did—he ran to the chariot, he initiated the conversation, he got in and even traveled down the road with this man.

There we see the other part of what I’m calling the opportunity. Not only was it an opportunity to share with someone who could have and potentially bring the gospel farther away, but here was an opportunity to spend time together as one willing to teach and one willing to learn. Philip was a hitchhiker who helped the person giving him a ride. I highly doubt at the beginning of this day that either of these men saw themselves doing this. But this is how God calls us to live.

I’m not saying all of us need to go to the nearest rest stop, wait for someone to pull up and then run and get in their car or truck to tell them about Jesus. That’s probably not a great approach. But are we willing to teach and for some of us, are we willing to learn, and even ask for help to learn? We look to the two men walking to Emmaus on Easter Sunday in Luke 24, “They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them…He asked them, ‘What are you discussing together as you walk along?’” After they had shared, “He said to them, ‘How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?’ And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”

Just like this man reading from Isaiah 53, a passage about the suffering servant of God, Jesus the Savior did not come to only be exalted, he did not come only to be bowed down to, he didn’t come only be worshiped. He came to serve, he came to teach humility and love, and to be obedient even to death. This truth doesn’t come naturally; it needs to be taught and learned. It’s why, if we go back to Deuteronomy 6 verse 7, Moses taught the Israelites, “Impress [the commandments of the Lord] on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road...” Back when people walked to get from point A to point B—that commute was time to talk about faith, to talk about God, to talk about his desires for our lives. Talking about God with family or friends that we live with or happen to be traveling with is what we’re called to do, the willingness to teach and to learn is part of our lives as Christians.

That brings us to our final point: the gospel of Jesus Christ changes lives. This is a theme that runs through all of Acts, all the early church, and hopefully something we still look for today. We know a limited amount about this eunuch. He had been worshiping in Jerusalem, so likely he was drawn to the Jewish religion. He didn’t understand the application of Isaiah 53, that the one who would willingly be led to his death, who would be humiliated and treated unjustly applied to Jesus. Maybe he didn’t know Jesus. That was Philip’s task, “Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” He told him about this real person, a man who died for him, despite his not knowing him at all. At some point, assumedly in their conversation, he learned about baptism, which meant a great deal to him. Like the Samaritans, when they came to faith having joy, this man “went on his way rejoicing.”

The Belgic Confession talks a lot about the role and the place of Scripture in our faith. I’ve referred to several articles before about how it is God’s word, his revelation, and it has authority. This is the beginning of Article 24, speaking to our sanctification.  “We believe that this true faith, produced in us by the hearing of God’s Word and by the work of the Holy Spirit, regenerates us and makes us new creatures, causing us to live a new life and freeing us from the slavery of sin. Therefore, far from making people cold toward living in a pious and holy way, this justifying faith, quite to the contrary, so works within them that apart from it they will never do a thing out of love for God but only out of love for themselves and fear of being condemned…” Especially that first part, locates how we need God’s word has an essential role in bringing people to faith.

As I said last week, reading the Word of God on its own didn’t save this man or anyone else. Neither did the act of being baptized save him. The grace of God given to him through the gift of faith is how salvation from Jesus Christ was received. 

How do we know if a conversion is real, whether or not Philip’s Spirit-led teaching faded once he, literally it seems, disappeared? It’s real if we see the fruit of regeneration, if the believer is being made new. That doesn’t mean we’re instantly perfect and never sin again. It doesn’t mean that we give people one chance, and if they screw up or let us down, we determine they must not be saved. No, it means with continued discipleship a person is encouraged, enabled, and equipped to better live pursuing the things of God, wanting to obey him and worship him.

Believers know not only the blessings we have in store for us, but we also must know the cost, the expense, the debt which God required to be satisfied for us. Jesus did suffer, and suffered greatly. Isaiah 53 verses 10 and 11, “Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer, and though the Lord makes his life a guilt offering, he will see his offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.”

True faith knows that and is sorrowed by Jesus having to experience that on our behalf when he didn’t deserve it; we did. Yet true faith also gets to celebrate because of how great our God is—that he can and does live again and he promises that we will one day be made new and live with him! He is the heart of the gospel that we preach. That is the truth that God puts into our mouths from his Word and his Spirit to share wherever we are called. Let this be the book for us and let us stand alone on the Word that’s been given to us. Amen.