Take It With You When You Go
Notes
Transcript
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: Take It with You When You Go
When I e-mailed my order of service with this passage on it to Kim, she had to make sure that I had this right. And I’m thankful she did, I would have wanted to make sure too. Last time we had an outdoor service, over at Corsica Lake last year, I actually preached on this same passage. I promise you the message is not the same; that time we used the Belgic Confession to look at what place or role and authority Scripture has. Tonight, we will tend more towards looking at the gospel as what we might call a “mobile truth.”
Brothers and sisters in Christ, as we heard from Gordon a few minutes ago, the legacy of these chapels goes back to 1963. It has been 54 years from the time a single chapel was built east of Plankinton, 3 years later being moved here to the north side of Interstate 90, and another was built across the way. From that time on, all the way through today these chapels have been here.
I’ve shared with some of you that operating roadside chapels like these is a surprise to me. I had never seen anything like them until I was in Pella, Iowa, back in 2014. They surprise me because when I think about traveling, I want to get where I’m going as fast as I can. I don’t want to prolong my journey with unnecessary stops if at all possible. For me, the point of having a rest area is so that you can get off an interstate to use the facilities faster than you would pulling off at an actual exit to go to a gas station and deal with the barrage of snacks and drinks and everything else that convenience stores sell.
Yet here you and I are tonight. At this chapel where 10s and probably even 100s of thousands of people have stopped and spent time over the last 54 years. Here in the middle of blustery and hot South Dakota, here in this little building—though beautifully built, is out of the way but people have come. If you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out the guestbook before you leave tonight. It confirms that people from all over have come through. For rest, for worship, for prayer, for gathering their thoughts, they have entered this building. A lot of people have said it’s cool that this is here, and yet it’s not just that this structure exists, but through the ministry of an interstate-side chapel people have found and talked with and been saved by the Lord Jesus Christ. Without anyone else even being here, they’ve been drawn into what we pray is a saving and nurturing faith.
That this ministry has bore such fruit, such success, that people from our congregations have supported it and those that have traveled through have left donations so that it might continue is a testimony to God. He is the one who has blessed this place and those who have stopped here. He is the one who deserves the glory for the lives that have been impacted. There is something special about the vision that men and women had to start this several decades ago, and a great deal of thanks goes to those who have helped maintain the chapels. But God is the one who truly gets the glory. He has blessed these chapels to be an important part of his mission.
I want to go back to something I said a couple minutes ago though. I said that when I am driving, I don’t want to prolong my journey making unnecessary stops. Maybe that efficiency and fast-paced thinking is part of my Chicagoland upbringing. I’m not from South Dakota originally, and so there’s just a different mindset from people who have grown up in rural areas. But I think most of us see that kind of thinking everywhere now. Because we can drive faster, because we can access information faster, because we can buy and have things shipped to us, even overnight—especially younger generations, we don’t like things that add on time to our already busy lives.
But why would stopping at a chapel, at a church, spending time in God’s word and prayer and reflection, ever fall into this category of an “unnecessary stop” for a Christian, and speaking for myself especially, a Christian pastor? When I stop and think about it, time with our Lord and his word should never be deemed a burden. It should never be something that I see as a bother in my life. I’m not saying that I or any of you have to stop and go inside of every single chapel or church building that we might pass by. But do thoughts like I have shared about myself, that I’m too busy or it’s unnecessary, come into your minds as well? A couple things to consider are that time with God is never wasteful. Along with that, if we can see that God is accomplishing things through a ministry, that’s not something for us to just shrug off.
Let’s tie back into our passage. We get a good example of these very principles in Acts chapter 8. Here’s a guy, from Ethiopia, so a foreigner in this location, just sitting in his chariot, reading Scripture on the side of the road. It’d be so easy to let that opportunity pass by, even after the Spirit told Philip to go to the chariot and stay near. I can think of my excuses already, “Well, I don’t want to bother him. I don’t want to interrupt his reading if he’s learning on his own. I’ve got to get to Gaza or Caesarea, to the people there. I don’t want them waiting for me.” Yet again those principles I mentioned a moment ago come back—time with God is never wasteful, and if we can see that God is accomplishing things, that’s not something for us to just shrug off or ignore.
Philip recognized that and obeyed the Holy Spirit. So, he goes, running we’re told, and asks, “Do you understand?” The Ethiopian didn’t, so now he asked Philip, “Who this about?” Suddenly Philip has a ministry opportunity. He tells him about Jesus. He does so, not just for a minute and then, “Sorry, I’ve got to run,” but he traveled with him. Notice that, they aren’t on the side of the road the whole time, but they’ve continued on. As they’re riding in the chariot, Philip lays out the good news. This probably wasn’t what he planned on doing that day, but it sure was worth it, wasn’t it? Ministry and evangelism happened when he was willing to let God use him.
I said at the very beginning that the gospel is a mobile truth. What I meant by that is not that the gospel changes, that it moves in terms of substance or value. Not at all. But the gospel, the good news about Jesus Christ dying and rising to life for sinners that we might have eternal life, that was meant to have legs and tires. It is meant to spread out across the face of the earth. In the early church, during Jesus’ life and following, people walked and rode in chariots and sailed on ships to take the gospel to new places. People have done that for centuries. But now with the production of cars and trucks and motorcycles over the last hundred years or so, we are in a new era in which the ministry of the gospel can adapt. From ships to trains to plains to automobiles, having these newer means of travel in our world that we utilize for short and long-term travel, how does ministry function with those things?
A place like this on the edge of a corn field and a rest area is one way that the gospel ministry can continue. This chapel is a viable option here and likely for other places for us to share the good news of Jesus Christ. We’re doing a very similar thing to what Philip did, but it looks a lot different. This is something worth supporting, God has made this a fruit-bearing ministry.
These chapels are also an eternity-minded ministry. We can talk about all sorts of things that we can’t take with us at the end of our lives. Our vehicles, our wealth, our homes, our tractors, our shoe collections—none of these come with whether we go to heaven or hell. But what can be taken with you? I think that might be the question that sometimes misses getting clearly answered. Let’s answer that then. You can take faith with you. You can take salvation with you. You can take the promises of God that you have put your hope in with you.
Last week Sunday morning, my messaged included Deuteronomy 6 verse 7, “Impress the commandments of the Lord on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road.” All the way back to the days when the primary mode of travel was walking from where you were to where you wanted to go—that commute was a time to talk about faith. It was a space to talk about God, to talk about his desires for our lives. That’s why a chapel like this can and ought to be built, that’s why it continues to be valuable, because we are following the ancient but continuing command of God. This is not an unnecessary stop. Talking to God or about God with family or friends that we happen to be traveling with is not just some fairy tell idea—this is what believers are supposed to do.
What if every time we saw a chapel or a church as we traveled in our cars or trucks, we turned to God in prayer? Or every time we saw one, we mentioned a different characteristic of God or called to mind a verse or a passage? We’d have to train ourselves to do that, but wouldn’t we grow in our faith and our dependence and our hope around seeing all the many ways that God is continuing to work? I want to encourage you whether you usually drive by yourself or you drive with others, consider doing that, and maybe stop by one of these places on your travels if you don’t usually go to them.
I want to conclude tonight following the example of Philip, who had to answer the question, “Who is this about?” What really is the purpose of this chapel, of the churches that support it, of Christian ministry? It’s to direct people to Jesus, that single goal. A footnote in most Bibles shows that where the man Philip met was reading from was Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 tells about Jesus in terms a little bit different from just a factual biography. The prophet tells us that Jesus was someone oppressed and afflicted, our iniquity was laid on him by Lord, he did not respond to those who led him to his death, he suffered. Jesus did really live on this earth. Jesus really did die, and he suffered in his death, the beating and the crucifixion. He suffered because God did put on him the eternal punishment of hell that we all deserve. He did this, so that all who turn to him, to all who believe and repent and trust in him, that they might have life. To see that he has taken our punishment so that he provides us with mercy.
Isaiah 53 verses and 11 and 12 say, “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. Therefore, I will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with his transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” Death was not the end of the story, but Jesus rose from the dead. That’s what we celebrate, that’s how great our God is—that he can and does live again!
By rising to life, we as sinners, by faith, can also see the light of life that is in Jesus. We also can look forward to the day when he returns and gathers us to himself. He is worth living and dying for, because he has given us the greatest gift. You can take this gift with you when you go. As we take hold of this truth for ourselves, may this be the truth that continues as a foundation and as the sending message that goes out from this chapel. Amen.