Proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus
Notes
Transcript
Acts 8:26-40
Acts 8:26-40
Opening Illustration:
Imagine for a moment that you are going to Mars.
You’re part of Elon Musk’s mission.
What is the one reason you are going to mars?
What do you hope to find there? What do you hope to accomplish?
I can’t imagine space travel.
But I do find myself wondering now days.. Is the reward of space travel worth the cost?
Is it worth the billions of dollars invested to find rocks or possibly a little water somewhere?
I often wonder if sometimes people get consumed with space travel because they know they weren’t created for this world and their answer to that is out in space and not where it should be… pursuing God.
C.S. Lewis said, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
But you know what guys…
Your going to pursue a lot of things in life.
money, success, happiness…
There are a lot of people who have gone before all of us though who have pursued these things.
But they were left empty.
We were made for another world.
What connects us to God is that God gave us himself through the gospel.
Our job is to proclaim the gospel to others to help others not pursue the wrong things in life.
Or to say that differently.
As we tell others about the gospel, we pursue what matters most in this life and we help others do the same!
The Holy Spirit leads us to proclaim the gospel so others might be saved.
Read Acts 8:26-40
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.
For the next 4 weeks we are going to be talking about new life in Christ.
What our Salvation means.
Today we are beginning by talking about as a believer, we are to proclaim the gospel to those around us.
That’s what we just read about this morning!
What did Phlip do?
He witnessed to a man an told him about Jesus! He was proclaiming the gospel!
But who was Philip?
Philip
Member of the early church who was not a Jew.
Not one of the twelve disciples.
Was one of 7 leaders the early chose, could have been deacons.
Philip had seen Saul persecuting Christians, specifically Stephen in Acts 7.
He went down to Samaria and proclaimed Christ there.
God did a great work and much of the city came to know Christ.
However, what happened in the first verses we read this morning? Acts 8:26?
He’s called away from his success and to go to a desert place…
C’mon God! Why do you want me to go there!
But vs. 27 says, “He rose and went.”
When the Spirit calls us to move, we need to move.
In Genesis 12, God called Abraham to “Go from your country… to the land that I will show you.”
God called him away from what was familiar and to what was unfamiliar.
That’s a hard thing to obey…
What does that look like in our life?
You may be thinking, well… God may call me to a different college than I want to go to…
If I may challenge you for a moment… erase that from your mind.
Think about this instead.
In our lives, what does it look like for God to call us away from what is familiar and towards what is unfamiliar?
allow yourself to be uncomfortable.
We are comfortable behind our phones, in our homes, in our routines, enjoying what we like and always rejecting what we don’t
We are uncomfortable reading our Bibles, praying, and sharing Jesus with others.
But what is the one command God has called us to? We’ve been talking about this every week on Wednesdays for this whole year?
MULTIPLY AND FILL THE EARTH WITH THE NAME OF CHRIST!
Y’all… we gotta get to doing the mission we’ve been called to do.
I don’t care if it makes us uncomfortable or not.
2. What the Spirit can do through us when we move…
As Philip is going to this desert place, he meats the Ethiopian Eunuch.
Now, just to clear the air here ok… Eunuch could have mean’t a couple things.
It could just be a title (vs. 27 says he was in charge of the queens treasure).
It could mean he had been emasculated.
It also mean’t that as someone who believed in God, but wasn’t a Jew he couldn’t go into parts of the temple.
It could be a combination of all 3 of these things.
But as Philip gets near him, He notices the Eunuch is reading Scripture.
What was he reading?
ISAIAH!
Here’s why that is cool.
As a non-jew, the Eunuch would have only been allowed into certain parts of the temple in Jerusualem.
The temple had these different sections and only Jewish men could go into the inner part. This symbolized that because of their heritage they were somehow closer to God than non-Jew believers who had to stay in the outer courts.
So Philip, being moved by the Spirit asks Him if he understands what he is reading and what does the Eunuch say?
vs. 31, “How can I unless someone guides me?”
So they read about Isaiah’s prophecy of Jesus and Philip has the opportunity to share with the Eunuch that it’s not about inner or outer courts.
Jesus! has come!
Romans 5:8–9 (ESV)but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.
After they talk, what happens? The Eunuch gives His life to Christ and Philip baptizes him right there!
Boom! I love this!
The Familiar is left behind as Philip steps into the unfamiliar.
Philip listened to the Holy Spirit leading him into the unfamiliar and because of that, a man came to know Christ!
He crossed from death into life!
2 Corinthians 5:17 says, “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. Old things have passed away behold all things are being made new.”
How can God use you to change someone’s life?
3. You can’t partake in the unfamiliar if God isn’t familiar to you!
This… this right here guys is everything. This is where my heart breaks and my prayers cry out to God for you.
This is where as a teen I identified with You and where I want you to run from.
Don’t be ok with God being unfamiliar to you.
Don’t be ok not knowing things about God.
Don’t be ok not knowing how to navigate your Bible.
Don’t be ok not being able to articulate the gospel.
But also, Don’t be ok thinking God isn’t ok with you…
If the most foreign concept to you is that God loves you with an unconditional love, then you need to get more familiar with that!
You see I think sometimes we view God, and sharing Him with others, like trying to take a trip to mars.
It’s not that we don’t want to do it, it’s that we don’t know where to start.
Today that’s what I’m helping you see.
Don’t be ok with life just being Bleh…
Our relationship with Christ is not a call to live a mediocre life.
You know what makes sports so fun…
Yeah Baseball is the same game every time.
Football is the same.
Soccer is the same.
I like playing disc golf now days… It’s the same.
The objective is to win, you win by completing tasks.
Throw the ball and catch it.
His the ball and score more runs than the other team.
Score more touchdowns
Kick more balls in the net than the other team.
Throw the disc into the basket in as few throws as possible…
But what makes all of those sports fun and draws us back is NOT WHATS FAMILIAR!
It’s actually what is unfamiliar!
We need to know the framework to play the game, but after that… You don’t know what’s going to happen on any given play!
It could be chaos! And that’s what makes the sport fun.
The problem is, How can we even get in the game and enjoy the Holy Spirit working in our lives if we don’t even understand the framework of the game?
We’ve got be first be familiar with Jesus.
Then enjoy the unfamiliar!
Sharing Him, learning about Him in his word, leading our families to love Jesus.
Who knows, maybe God will call you to the ends of the earth to share Christ!
Why not go enjoy that adventure!
Because we can’t enjoy the unfamiliar if we aren’t first familiar with who God is.
And guys…
like Philip, we may be walking past a bunch of adventures every day that we choose not to enjoy because God is foreign to us.
I’m not ok with that. Are you?
You were made for more than that!
How are you going to allow Christ to use you today!