Tough Questions – Real Answers
Why Would God Love Me?
April 22, 2007
Acts 8:26-40
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before the shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized?” 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
Invisible People
“Everyone has an invisible sign hanging from his neck saying, ‘Make Me Feel Important.’ Never forget this message when working with people.”
- Unknown author
Have a Nice Day!
This world does a good job of making us all feel like we’re invisible.
I went into a fast food restaurant recently and bought a combo meal. I paid for my order and the said, “Have a nice day!” but it sounded more like “Here’s your food, now get lost, because you are just one of billions and billions served, and we have to move on to the next invisible person.”
Let me just ask, “Do you ever feel Worthless? Of no account? A failure? A screwup; or worse, do you feel like you are invisible?”
It happens all the time – to all kinds of people – and it has likely happened or maybe it’s happening to you.
There might be a lot of people in your school or in your field of work and so you wonder, how important are you really? You wonder if anyone lose any sleep if you went to a different school next year? Would they miss you if you were suddenly gone? Would they even notice?
There are times, even in church, that we don’t feel all that important. You might think that nobody even notices if you are there or not.
Well, the truth is that no one is so important that they cannot be replaced. My mom told me one time that the hole you leave when you pull your finger out of a bucket of water is the hole you leave, when you leave…
Pretty depressing isn’t it. Well let me tell you another truth. This one isn’t from my mother. This one is from the inventor of gravitational forces, the designer of every strand of DNA, and the architect of sunset on the horizon.
This same God is the one who wants you to know today that you are precious to him.
He doesn’t pester or flatter you because he wants to get something out of you. God has an interest in you, not because he wants to take your goods but because wants to give you eternal treasures.
How can I say this with so much certainty?
Let me tell you a story about a lonely foreigner. A man who felt like he was invisible and yet God showed him how precious he really was.
God’s Kingdom Reaches Out Like Ripples on a Lake…
“Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out,…”
Acts 8:26-27a
When you take a stone and throw it into a lake, what happens to the water? There’s kind of a gulp as the stone plops in, but then the waves begin to go out in a perfect circle Then those circles get bigger and bigger, spreading farther and farther away from the center. That’s what was going on in Philip’s day. At Pentecost, all of Jesus’ believers were in Jerusalem. In not too long a time, persecution happened, and the believers were scattered. But that wasn’t a bad thing, because they went out like ever expanding circles.
The first mission field after the Jews were the Samaritans. Acts Chapter 8 records Philip’s hard work among these people. The Holy Spirit blessed Philip’s work, the church in Samaria was just going bananas. There were so many new Christians there that the Apostles Peter and John came from Jerusalem to help Philip with this huge successful Samaritan church. And it was in this big church, where things were happening, where Philip was doing such great work, that the Lord knew that it was time for that expanding circle to get even bigger. The Jews had the Word, the Samaritans had the Word, and now it was going to be given to other races as well. And so we see the first verse of our text, Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Go south to the road the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.
I don’t know what Philip was thinking when he received this command, but I would have thought something like this: “Things are going great here. I’ve got tons of people to work with and share the Gospel and help them grow in faith. And now God wants me to go hang out in the desert?
But you see, God doesn’t view people as just an insignificant number. Each soul is precious to him. And there was one struggling soul that needed Philip’s attention. He was the Ethiopian eunuch.
Do you trust God with your life? I was in Beavercreek, Ohio for 12 years. We had a staff of 9-10 ministers and we were growing. Then God called me to a ministry here in the Lansing area… and frankly I was a little miffed at God.
But maybe God was calling me here to meet… and minister… to you.
On His Way…
“So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet.”
Acts 8:27-28a
Do you know what a eunuch is? I didn’t until I was 16 years old. I asked in an Adult Sunday School class and believe me it was embarrassing – to me!
Just in case you don’t know let me explain this way… so I don’t get embarrassed and you don’t either!
Ishmael Stacy is our dog. He has been part of our family for about 4 years now. When we got him we decided early on that we didn’t want to have any problems with him running off and hooking up with a lady dog. So we had him fixed. (Now he thinks he’s a cat! – not really!)
That’s what a eunuch is. A eunuch is a guy who has been fixed. He’s a fellow that won’t be having any kids.
Now you might wonder what on earth is going on here. Just why is this so important? Why does the Bible make it a point to say 6 times in this text that this man is a eunuch?
In the ancient world which was ruled by royal families, it was often the case that the high officials, advisors, and those who helped the king and queen govern were required to be eunuchs.
That seems really weird to us, but it gave the royal family peace of mind, because the king knew that he wouldn’t have to worry about one of these fixed officials murdering him and taking over the throne and setting up his own royal family – because he couldn’t have kids!
So there was a little logic to this strange practice. It was kind of a mixed blessing in the ancient world to be a high official. Yes, there would have been a lot of power and money and honor, he had the good job and the big house, but it would have been a very lonely life, with no family to come home to each evening.
There would be no Mothers Days celebrated at his house, no Fathers Days, and any birthdays he would have celebrated by himself.
This particular eunuch had become so empty and weary that he had traveled to Jerusalem to worship God. Here was a man who was looking for an answer to the question, “Why would God love me?”
And this eunuch would have felt even more invisible during his trip to Jerusalem.
Here was a wealthy man of prestige and power – his chariot and his position makes this clear – but his black skin would have made him stand out.
I wonder how many people stared at him, or how many mean comments and jokes he overheard as he walked by. And you’d think, well, at least when he got to church, that sort of thing would go away, but eunuchs were forbidden by the Law or Moses to become full Jews. They could come near the Temple, but they couldn’t go through the gates.
Could you imagine how well that would go over here at MCC, if we would say that some people with certain medical conditions or certain skin colors, or certain backgrounds were welcome here – but they couldn’t come into the building?
That would be a pretty tough kind of rejection to deal with.
So this man, a black eunuch, had traveled for many miles to learn about God, but the closest he could get to church was the door.
I imagine that it was a frustrating trip to Jerusalem.
Whoever showed any concern had probably noticed his nice rich clothes and was just after this money.
Maybe that’s why he bought a scroll! On his way out of town he saw a merchant with a pile of scrolls of papyrus on a table and he offered a few silver coins for a copy of Isaiah that the merchant assured him was a very valuable writing by a great prophet of God.
This eunuch might have felt like he was just another number; maybe the person who sold him the scroll muttered a have a nice day, but he knew that nobody really cared about him.
So he bought it and on the trip home was reading his way through the scroll but it wasn’t doing him much good because he didn’t understand it.
But the Lord loved this lonely man so he arranged an appointment… A God Appointment
A God Appointment
Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.
“How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Acts 8:30-31
So Philip was taken out of a very successful church in order that this one valuable soul would understand God’s plan of salvation. God worked things out so that this eunuch was reading Isaiah 53.
The Book of Isaiah is sometimes called the 5th Gospel, because no Old Testament book talks about Jesus as much as Isaiah. And no chapter speaks about the work of Jesus for lost sinners better than Chapter 53.
32 The eunuch was reading this passage of Scripture: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.”
34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”
35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
And from this, Philip taught the Ethiopian about his sin and his Savior.
He taught him about Christ’s resurrection, and our repentance, and the blessings of Baptism.
That very day as they were traveling along they came to some water and this lonely man said how about me? Here is some water, what would hinder me from being baptized. Philip asked if he believed and when he said that he did Philip took him down into the pond or river and then he lowered him under the surface as if it was a grave and he baptized him in the name of Jesus.
After wards Philip went on his way to a new God Appointment and the Ethiopian went on his way – rejoicing.
Why was he rejoicing – because he knew that God loved him enough to send him a man to tell him about Jesus!
And through God the Holy Spirit working through Philip’s witness, one lonely soul learned that he was a part of a family, God’s family.
God Still Arranges Appointments
About 10 years ago I sat in a home of a pastor in India.
He told me a story of how he had traveled to a small village of Yanadi people near his city because he had a message from them to come and talk with them about God. When he got to this little community and spoke to the head of the village they told him that they had sent for him because someone from their village had been to his church and they had heard him called a shepherd.
He said that he was a shepherd of God’s people, a pastor.
They told him that for some time now many different people in their village had been having dreams about sheep. In every dream by every person there was no shepherd and they didn’t know what it meant. So they had been looking for a shepherd to tell them what the dreams were about.
That’s when the pastor said, I think I can help you understand these dreams. He told them that they were the sheep and they were lost but that God loved them so much he had sent them these dreams so they would look for a shepherd. He told them about Jesus and that day a church was born in a little village of Yandi People.
God had created an appointment for this pastor to keep – a God Appointment.
Listen, you are not invisible to God. The fact that you are sitting here in God’s house today proves that. How many things did God do for you to make sure that you would be here today? How many appointments did God arrange to get you to this place here today to hear this message that God put in my heart to say to you?
What Philips did God send into your life to explain Christ’s work for you, his death for you, his resurrection for you? Whom did God put into your life to make sure that you were baptized? Who took time to teach you the Scriptures so that you would be ready to take Communion?
The world out there is mostly just interested in taking your stuff. They want to sell you something. I saw a billboard about a luxury car the other day that simply said “Now that you have arrived, it’s time to let others know it”, and then it named the automobile. The world wants to sell you something.
But God, here in his house, wants you to know that he is interested, not in taking stuff away from you, but in giving life to you.
God wants you to know that in Christ, he has given you a seat at his heavenly table. No matter what your sins, they have been taken care of, and so you will be with the Lord forever.
Maybe we need to do a better job at remembering why we are here.
Look for the God Appointments He has made with you for others!
Philip could have viewed the Ethiopian eunuch as a freakish foreigner who was wasting his time, time that he could have been spending in his successful church in Samaria.
But Philip didn’t look at people like that. And the Lord who loves all people wants to teach us this morning to view people not as bothers and obstacles, but as treasures and opportunities to share your faith.
God will bring about results when we talk about the peace Jesus has brought to our lives.
Honestly, over the years I’ve kept a few of those opportunities and I’ve missed a few – mostly because I was focused on me and not them.
Open your eyes for ways to share your faith. It might not be as obvious as the person sitting next to you on the airplane having their Bible open to Isaiah 53 and asking you what that passage means, though who knows, God works in mysterious ways.
But there will be opportunities this week if you open your eyes and look for them. The opportunity might come in the form of someone asking what you, a Christian, thinks about a certain movie or book, and you would be able to tell them about the Book of Books, which contains absolute eternal truth.
It might be someone wondering why there are so many bad things and evil people in this world, which would give you the chance to talk about the place you are going to one day, where there will be only good things and glorious people and a great God.
It might be someone, like the eunuch, not feeling very special, feeling like more like a number than an individual, giving you the chance to tell them how valuable and dearly loved they are by God.
You can tell them what Christ did to make them a treasured person. How will God use you this week?
The Fifth Sparrow
A little Spanish boy in Vigo who became a devout Christian was asked by an Englishman what had been the influence under which he acted. “It was all because of the odd sparrow,” the boy replied. “I do not understand,” said the Englishman in surprise. “What odd sparrow?”
“Well, Senor, it is this way,” the boy said, “A gentleman gave me a Testament, and I read in one Gospel that two sparrows were sold for a farthing. And again in Luke, I saw, “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings … ?” And I said to myself that Nuestro Senor (“our Lord”) Jesus Christ knew well our custom of selling birds. As you know, Sir, we trap birds, and get one chico for two but for two chicos we throw in an extra sparrow. That extra sparrow is only a make-weight, and of no account at all.
“Now, I think to myself that I am so insignificant, so poor and so small that no one would think of counting me. I’m like the fifth sparrow. And yet, oh marvelous, Nuestro Senor says, “Not one of them is forgotten before God.” I have never heard anything like it, Sir. No one but He could ever have thought of not forgetting me.”
—King’s Business
Tan, P. L. (1996, c1979). Encyclopedia of 7700 illustrations : A treasury of illustrations, anecdotes, facts and quotations for pastors, teachers and Christian workers. Garland TX: Bible Communications.
1 John 3:1a
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
