Grab Your Chance

Acts 8:26–40 CSB

An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip: “Get up and go south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is the desert road.) So he got up and went. There was an Ethiopian man, a eunuch and high official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to worship in Jerusalem and was sitting in his chariot on his way home, reading the prophet Isaiah aloud. The Spirit told Philip, “Go and join that chariot.” When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?” “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the Scripture passage he was reading was this: He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who will describe his generation? For his life is taken from the earth. The eunuch said to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or someone else?” Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning with that Scripture. As they were traveling down the road, they came to some water. The eunuch said, “Look, there’s water. What would keep me from being baptized?” So he ordered the chariot to stop, and both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him any longer but went on his way rejoicing. Philip appeared in Azotus, and he was traveling and preaching the gospel in all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

The Message - vs.35 The eunuch said, “Tell me, who is the prophet talking about: himself or some other?” Philip grabbed his chance. Using this passage as his text, he preached Jesus to him.

Intro-

Facts about Ethopia… Its a christian country. The largest Christian country in africa. Which is why its false and funny when some declare that christinaity is a western thing or a white man religon.

This encounter is divine and God orchestrared. God arranged every encounter of every believer. From the crowd to the individual.

Context:

Leave Samaritans-

Who are the Samaritans?

A group of people who believed they were the true descendants of Israel and keepers of the Torah. During the time of the New Testament, their chief religious site was Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans believed that the Jerusalem temple and priesthood were illegitimate.

The archaeological data is also limited, and it is unknown whether the Samaritans ever built a temple that rivaled the one in Jerusalem. Though their name is similar to the city of Samaria, the Samaritans took their name from the phrase “keeper of the law” (שמרים, shmrym).

Down to Gaza and take the desert road - Leave Jerusalem and go DOWN to Gaza the Desert?

Ethipoian EUNUCH?

https://app.logos.com/books/LLS%3ANAC15B/offsets/1827287

Inquire - v30 When Philip ran up to it, he heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you’re reading?”

The emotional state of the Eunch. Travled 1,000 of miles to come and worship. A months journey to worship. Then to get there and be rejected.

He was a Eunch - HE was castrated/snipped. Rather it was done by birth, done by his own choice, or done to be fit for kingdom service.

Enuch were banned from entering the Temple. (according to Duetronemy)

When you inquire you gain Insight.

The man looks good on the outside but with this question we can really see whats going on, on the inside.

Inform - v.31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone guides me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

3 No foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord should say, “The Lord will exclude me from his people,” and the eunuch should not say, “Look, I am a dried-up tree.” 4 For the Lord says this: “For the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, and choose what pleases me, and hold firmly to my covenant, 5 I will give them, in my house and within my walls, a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give each of them an everlasting name that will never be cut off.

We preach a Gospel of Inclusion not Exlcusion

“ If there is confict with the bible and your thinking, the problem aint with your bible, the problem is with your thinking.” Jeffery Johnson

We do that because of Bad Interpretation.

Church folk like nobody

THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS. The principles explained in these verses inform the reader that every person in every nation has a choice to make about their relationship to God. God does not deal with people on the basis of their ethnicity or exclude people because they are a little different (the foreigner and the eunuch in 56:3–7); he deals with people according to (a) their willingness to hold fast to their covenant relationship with God,

(b) their willingness to practice justice in all social relationships with other people,

(c) their love and service to God, and (d) their joyful worship of God (57:6).

God invites all people to pray, sing with joy, and worship him in his holy mountain (56:6–7) without regard to their race, country of origin, language, or former lifestyles. The key issues are (a) Whom do these people trust? (b) Who is the author of their salvation? (c) What is their commitment? (d) How do they maintain these commitments to God? and (e), Who do they pray to?

Smith, G. (2009). Isaiah 40-66 (Vol. 15B, p. 537). Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Introduce - v.34-35 The eunuch said to Philip, “I ask you, who is the prophet saying this about—himself or someone else?”Philip proceeded to tell him the good news about Jesus, beginning with that Scripture.

53 Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this? 2–6 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him. 7–9 He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. Justice miscarried, and he was led off— and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he’d never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn’t true. 10 Still, it’s what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him. 11–12 Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many “righteous ones,” as he himself carries the burden of their sins. Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors— Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

Peterson, E. H. (2005). The Message: the Bible in contemporary language (Is 53:1–12). NavPress.