Sermon Tone Analysis
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Travelling
Tomorrow the kids and I are flying to Conference.
Lancaster, PA by way of Philadelphia.
And by tomorrow I mean 5 minutes after midnight.
Yippee.
So here’s the idea.
The kids will nestle into their seats and fall asleep just as the plane takes off.
They will wake up after their rest at 6 am in Phili, the city of brotherly love.
That’s how it’s going to happen, right?! (pray for me).
Our other option was a two day road trip, which while it could be fun… was two days of driving.
How pathetic is it that I am still annoyed that the flight is going to take so long!
Uh… 3 whole hours to travel 1000 miles.
What I really want is a portal we just walk through and we are there.
Or Star Trek style teleportation.
Beam me up… boom we are there!
Which is why I am SO excited we are finally officially here at the end of Acts 8.
This is one of my favorite stories: the time where God teleported someone.
We snuck a peek at it a few weeks ago, but now we get to dive in to Acts, chapter 8, starting in verse 26.
Philip and the Ethiopian
Look
Teleportation
We need to deal with the teleportation here first.
From the road to Gaza to Azotus, which is on the coast, formerly a Philistine city.
The Spirit “seized” or “took hold of” Philip.
It is forceful direction.
While it could refer to God simply directing Philip to the next location, the phrasing for that is odd paired with the eunuch “seeing him no more.”
Several ancient texts have the additional phrase that Philip was “caught up by an angel” giving a means to the travel.
But Philip’s experience is that, next thing he knows, he is in Azotus.
Not, by the way, the place he thought he was traveling to but 20-50 miles up the coast from there.
He was on the road down to Colorado Springs and he ended up in Vale instead!
And why not?
Can God do that?
Yes, absolutely he can.
If he wants Philip in Azotus as the next stop on his evangelism tour, he can skip right there.
It’s crazy efficient.
The question is: why doesn’t God always do that?
Doesn’t he want me to be efficient for him?
Think how much time is wasted on our commutes, God.
You could just teleport us back and forth and we would get SO much more done for Jesus!
But having touched on that, let’s examine Philip here as a model of evangelism.
Evangelism
Philip follows the call of God however it comes.
The call comes through an angel.
Angel means “messenger” so we can picture a divine-looking apparition speaking to Philip or a man just saying this to Philip and he later understood this to be a messenger from God.
But it’s clear he receives this as direction from God and...
What does Philip do?
Philip doesn’t ask “why am I going to Gaza???” I have a successful ministry here in Samaria!!!
I would.
Philip doesn’t.
Or if he did, he didn’t tell Luke that part of the story.
He goes.
And “on the road” he sees this guy.
This guy could not be more “cross cultural.
Not Jewish, it’s a black dude!
From the edge of what a Jewish man would see as “the world”.
Obviously a Gentile.
Not just “circumcised”… he is castrated!
Again, Philip hears the directing of God, this time not an angel but “the Spirit said”...
How did he say it???
A gentle whisper.
An inner nudging?
A sudden strong conviction, a certainty that he can’t explain?
A strong desire to go and talk to that man that he later recognized as the Spirit’s leading?
He recognizes the opportunity.
And he starts with a question.
But what an opportunity!!!
The man “just happens” to being reading stunningly Messianic prophecy.
A passage so good, out of Isaiah, that scholars still hold it up as a proof of Jesus’ historical fulfillment of prophecy.
Not just an opportunity: a divine appointment.
And the eunuch asks “who is this about?”
You couldn’t ask for a better opportunity.
And Philip doesn’t hesitate.
He is ready.
Philip follows the leading of the Holy Spirit, watches for the divine opportunity along the road, and is ready to open his mouth when it comes.
Philip is ready with the follow through.
Ready with the testimony.
Ready with the gospel.
Who is that about?
It’s about Jesus.
Let me tell you about him.
Why can’t I be baptized now?
No reason, let’s do it!
Philip was ready.
Prepared.
And if there was ANY doubt that this was a coincidence on the road to Gaza, God then teleports Philip to Azotus.
On to the next divine appointments.
We don’t hear much about Philip until far later in Acts when Luke and Paul stay with him and his four prophesying daughters.
Question: did Philip ever go to Gaza?
Azotus?
Not on the way between Samaria and Gaza!
Not a shortcut, a different destination.
Here’s what I think: God didn’t need Philip to go to Gaza at all, this was about meeting the eunuch from Ethiopia.
And church tradition tells us that man went back and spread the gospel in North Africa, which is a bastion of Christianity to this day.
Philip follows the leading of the Holy Spirit, watches for the divine opportunity along the road, and is ready to open his mouth when it comes.
And it was all on the road.
If Philip had been teleported straight to Gaza, he would have absolutely missed the divine appointment.
If he had been to “destination focused” he would have missed the chance along the way.
Uber Drivers
The other day Karen and I had a double date in downtown Denver.
The “punch bowl social”.
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