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Announcements
Are there any announcements?
Wednesday April 27 at 6:30pm our own Mike Swenson will be graduating for the Rebuilder’s Life Transformation program at the Christian Aid Center.
It will be in the new women’s and children’s facility.
Please join us in celebrating what the Lord has done, is doing, and will do!
Opportunity to serve: we could use a few volunteers to help clean the church, please see Pastor John if interested.
Worship Team meeting coming soon...
Evening of worship is canceled for this Friday and will be rescheduled for May.
Introduction
Good morning and welcome to First Community Church, where we worship the Lord in Spirit and in Truth, one verse at a time, one book at a time.
We are currently in Matthew 4 and will continue our study next week because I wanted to teach a section of Scripture that would touch on Baptism.
So let us open our Bibles to:
Read Acts 8:26-40
Prayer
Lord, as we open your Word today, we have come with expectation.
That expectation is that we would hear from You and that it would not be a theoretical exercise, but one of practicality.
We humbly ask that you would remove any and all distractions, and that you would open our ears and hearts so that we can receive with meekness your implanted Word which is able to keep on saving our souls.
God we are weary, weak, and broken, would you create in us a clean hear O’God and renew a steadfast Spirit within us today?
Please speak to us Father and grow us in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.
For that struggling sister and brother, for the ones that are sick, for the ones that are addicted or caught in a trap, we ask for freedom, healing, and hope because you Jesus came to set the captives free!
Open our eyes and ears to hears what the Spirit is saying to the church!
In Jesus Name we love You! Amen and Amen
Acts 8:26-40
Before I dive into our study in Acts, I wanted to share just a little background as to what lead up to the text we are in.
In the last part of Acts 7, we meet the Apostle Paul’s mentor who is Stephen.
Stephen was martyred and as he was being stoned to death replied:
Then in the opening of Acts 8, Paul who had not been converted yet and who had Stephen stoned was reaping havoc in the church and having professing Christians put in prison.
Then in Acts 8:4-25 we see Philipp who in Acts 6 was called to serve.
He became not only the first missionary for Jesus listed in Scripture, but also the first evangelist.
Here is Acts 8:4-8 we see the Lord using Philip in a mighty way.
In fact, a revival broke out in Samaria, yes in Samaria and right in the middle of this great move of the Holy Spirit, an angel shows up and speaks to Philip.
And this is where we pick up:
Right in the middle of a revival, the Lord sends an angel to Philip and says Arise and go to the desert?
Really?
Now we know that angels are mentioned throughout the Bible and we know that the word angel means a messenger created and sent by God.
So Phil, is in the midst of the greatest move of God he had ever seen, and he is the center of it all and God says, Arise and Go!
He tells him to Go! To go to the desert!
Church, it is important for us to realize that God is God, and he will show up in our lives and tells us to do something contrary to what we are already doing for Him.
Philip leaps out in faith and is obedient to God’s call for him to go to the desert
It is important for us to realize here that not only did the Heavenly Father send Jesus into the desert , but he sends Philip to one as well.
What can we learn from this?
Many of the deserts that we will go through in life have been orchestrated by the Lord.
Know that God’s callings, are God’s enablings.
If he calls us, like Philip to the desert, he has a great plan and purpose for our time there.
And who knows, it might be so that we can lead someone to the Lord!
Philip, whose ministry had brought about the wonderful work of the Lord in Samaria, was now being called to Gaza.
Why are You asking me to go to the desert?
There’s nothing down there.”
Please note that the Lord didn’t say why He was sending Philip to the desert.
He simply said, “Arise and go.”
And Philip arose and went.
We all struggle with finding God’s will, but know this:
God’s will is for you to obey what He tells you to do one step at a time.
He doesn’t give us the full story.
He just says, “I want you to go down to the desert.
And once you do that, I’ll show you the next step.”
That’s why the Christian life is so incredibly exciting.
We never know what’s ahead.
An experiment was performed in which caterpillars were placed on the rim of a large pot containing dirt and several of their favorite plants.
The caterpillars began to move along the rim of the pot—each one following the one in front, every caterpillar thinking the one ahead of him knew where he was going.
Around and around and around they went until they all died of starvation.
Do you feel like you’re drying up and getting dizzy?
Could it be because the Lord spoke to you at some point but, because you were so intent on following the caterpillar in front of you, you missed the adventure?
The key to the exciting, impacting Christian life is to be like Philip and obey when you hear the Lord’s voice or feel His pull—even though you don’t know the end of the story at the beginning.
The road to Gaza, was not a well paved road, in fact it was challenging terrain.
Scholars believe this was about a 70-90 mile journey.
Gaza was an old Philistine city that was located about fifty miles southwest of Jerusalem named Gaza.
It sat on the verge of a desert.
What is even more intriguing is there was two roads that lead to Gaza, but the Lord had him travel the one less traveled.
Does this sound familiar?
Sometimes the Lord will have us travel the road less traveled church!
Not the road, or the way if you may that everyone else is traveling.
God’s ways, are not our ways!
This trip was not about Gaza, but rather for Philip to lead one man to the Lord that would change an entire continent.
Philip clearly heard God’s voice through the angel and he arose and went>>>>
There are a few valuable lessons that we can learn here:
Note, that he confidently heard the angel and he immediately reacted to it.
He did not seek the advice of his friends, because he knew that he knew that obedience is better than sacrifice and that had he went to someone else and told them, he might not have followed God’s will for his life.
Note: we all have people in our lives that could distract us form God’s will.
Therefore, we must set boundaries on them...
Was the angels voice in Philip’s head or did he physically manifest himself unto him?
We call this inspiration and revelation...
A eunuch as someone who is castrated or emasculated to serve the King or Queen.
And they would do this to them so they could not attempt to take the throne or have sexual activity with their royal harem.
This Ethiopian Eunuch traveled over 1500 miles to worship in Jerusalem which is a good indication that he was a Jewish convert.
The sad thing is that as he went to the temple to worship, he would not be allowed into the inner court, but only the outer court were the Gentiles were.
Would you travel 1500 miles to worship??
Candace is not a name, but a title like Pharoah.
This man, was in charge of the treasury and was under the authority of thew Queen.
This makes him the second wealthiest in Ethiopia and second in command.
He has everything that a person could want, but he was empty.
He journeyed to the religious center seeking answers, only to walk away empty handed, but with a sincere heart.
It was not just one chariot, but several that he as traveling with and it would be considered the limousines of the day.
I’m sure it had tinted windows and it was stretched.
Then guess what?
Overtake this chariot?
That does not sound good in this day and age.
Overtake-kollaō - v. — to establish a relationship with someone, to join, to cleave or to accompany.
Notice the Word GO church!
Christianity is not a spectator sport!
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