Connected With God

If you can remember the days of dial-up Internet, then you probably recall how you had to first get your modem connected with a server before having access to the unlimited knowledge base known as the World Wide Web. You were out of luck if the server was busy. You might have sat there staring at your computer screen while listening to the phone ringing and ringing, eager to achieve a connection. If only we had that kind of zeal about getting connected with God!

This morning we are going to look at a passage of Scripture that tells us four things that we need to do in order to become connected with God and to receive the vast knowledge of the Master Server. If we do the four things that we are about to discover, then we will know where God is leading, and He will reveal many of His plans to us, guiding us in the right direction.

Obedience to God’s Voice (vv. 26-28)

26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet.

The first point in being connected with God is being obedient to the voice of God. In this passage something amazing happened. An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip. J. B. Taylor, in the New Bible Dictionary, tells us, “The angel of the Lord . . . is represented in Scripture as a heavenly being sent by God to deal with men as His personal agent and spokesman. In many passages He is virtually identified with God and speaks not merely in the name of God but as God in the first person singular.”(1) So, based on this information, God Himself spoke to Philip in the form of an angel.

When the Lord spoke to Philip, He told him something that didn’t seem to make much sense. He asked him to leave a fruitful ministry in Jerusalem to go to Gaza, a city that lay about fifty miles southwest of Jerusalem at the very end of the Palestinian world at that time. Gaza was right at the edge of the Sinai desert, which trailed off into Egypt, and was sparsely populated.(2) This probably seemed like a fruitless area for ministry, and many people would have questioned God about going to such a place.

Sometimes God will ask us to do something that just doesn’t make much sense, but like Philip we need to be obedient and go. Philip didn’t question the Lord, or say to Him, “Well, I really need some time to pray about this.” If God has spoken a word, and then we say to Him that we’ll pray about it, what that often means is that we want to debate the matter with our own reasoning for a while, or question God and wrestle with Him. If God tells us to go, He means it; and we should do just as He says, or we might end up as Jonah and be swallowed by a big fish for our disobedience.

Now, you might be saying, “I have never heard God speak to me in an audible voice. He just doesn’t speak to people anymore like He did back in the Bible days. How do I hear God speaking to me, and in what ways does He speak?” Henry Blackaby, the author of Experiencing God, tells us that the Lord speaks to us by the Holy Spirit through the Bible. He also speaks through prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.(3) God still speaks today, and if we stand around debating whether or not He is speaking then we will miss an opportunity for a great blessing.

Philip was obedient to God and he went on his way to Gaza, and while he journeyed there he met a Eunuch from Ethiopia. Philip thought the Lord was going to use him in ministry somewhere in Gaza; but on the contrary, God didn’t mean that the ministry was “in” Gaza, but “on the way to” Gaza. This scenario provides us with an important spiritual truth in life and ministry. The point is, “Sometimes we become so focused on our destination [or our perception of God’s plan or destination] that we may miss opportunities to share the love of Christ along the way.”(4) Remember, the Christian life is not about the destination, but the journey

We need to always be open to God’s leading; and one of the ways the Lord speaks is through circumstances. An Ethiopian Eunuch coming down the road dressed very nicely and driving an expensive looking chariot was definitely a circumstance that couldn’t be ignored by Philip.