Connnecting
Acts 8: 26-40
The first time a Philip is mentioned in the Bible is in John Chapter 1. Jesus has just been baptized in the River Jordan and John the Baptist proclaimed him the Lamb of God. Jesus then leaves to begin his ministry in Galilee. Finding Philip along the way, he says to him, “Follow me.” Philip then goes and finds Nathanael telling him, “We have found the one Moses wrote about in the Law." He takes Nathanael to meet Jesus and Nathanael comes to believe in him. From the very beginning of Jesus’ evangelistic ministry, we see that faith means connecting to Jesus. And faith in Jesus means a connecting lifestyle. We connect to Jesus and then we connect others to Jesus. When you become a follower of Jesus, you cannot help but find and connect others to Jesus so that they might experience what you have in Jesus.
Now the Philip that is mentioned in our Scripture passage today is not the same Philip mentioned in John 1. That is the Apostle Philip. This Philip was a layman, one of the first 7 deacons of the early church, but carries on the same tradition of connecting others to Jesus as his namesake. He is only mentioned 3 times in the Bible. First was when he was nominated by the church to be a deacon to help oversee the distribution of food to widows in the congregation. Acts 6 tells us that he and the other 6 men who helped in this ministry were “…known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom….” (Acts 6:3) Not long after Philip was given this responsibility, King Herod began to persecute the church in Jerusalem - executing the Apostle James and imprisoning Peter. Many Christians - including Philip - fled for their lives to other cities and regions. Philip went north about 35 miles to the region of Samaria and promptly began to share his faith with the people in a city there. We’re not told how big this city was, but as soon as he arrived he began preaching about Jesus and was wildly successful as he converted nearly the entire city to Christ. Just as things were taking off for Philip’s new ministry, an angel came to tell him to leave and go south to continue his practice of connecting others to Jesus. Like the Apostle Philip and the elder Philip, we are called to connect others to Jesus as well. But what does that look like and how can we accomplish it?
In our Scripture today, we find five keys to a being a connecting disciple. First is to be available to God. When Philip got to Samaria, he made himself available to God to do his work. How many of you when you evacuated for Katrina or even Gustav said in your location, “God want would you have me do here in this new place?” That exactly what Philip did. He made himself available to God and thus began to preach the Gospel of Jesus. A lot of people believe in God and even worship God but fewer still make themselves available to God. The problem is our busyness. People today are too busy. We’re so over-programmed and overcommitted that can’t fit anything else in our lives. We are so busy that we barely have time for God. We run from one commitment to another and have our minds, energy and focus on our family, our jobs, our kids or sometimes even the work of the church that we aren’t available to God.
You cannot connect others to Jesus unless you first make yourself available to God. Now remember Philip had started a very successful new ministry Samaria. Even then, his sole desire was to do God’s bidding. Suddenly an angel tells him to go to a lonely desert place some 60 miles away. The thing about being available to God means you have to be willing to be interrupted. It may involve a sacrifice or stopping something altogether. God may be calling you to give something up, even a good thing so you may go and be a part of his next great thing. Our value as witnesses does not depend on our ability, our value depends on our availability. (repeat)
Second, be sensitive to the Spirit. Being a connecting disciple means you have to be sensitive to the move of the Spirit. Some people try to connect everyone to Jesus, no matter where they are or where the person is in their life and spiritual journey. This produces more negative results than good harvests, as they turn people off because they weren’t ready. So how do you know when someone is ready? Let God guide you to whom he wants you to connect and when God wants you to make that connection. (vv. 29-31) That means we need to be sensitive to when the Spirit moves or speaks. How do you do that? Henry Blackaby said that God speaks to us by the Holy Spirit through the Bible. For Philip, when he saw the Ethiopian Eunuch reading from the Old Testament book of Isaiah, the Holy Spirit urged Philip to go and explain what he knew and understood about the text. But we can also be guided by the Spirit as we read God’s Word and he speaks to us. If we wish to hear God speak to us through the Holy Spirit, then we need to be plugged into the power source, which is God’s Word.
But we also need to be continually connected to God. That’s hard to do when we have so many people and circumstances pulling us in every direction. What so often happens is that the more time we spend away from God, the less in contact we are with him. It’s even more difficult when you’re multi-taking. Hint: you can’t multi-task God. So how do we stay connected to God? John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, realized that if he went longer than 3 hours without praying to God and reading his word, then he began to think and act like the world rather than think and act like Jesus. So every three hours, he stopped what he was doing to be with God. This helped him stay connected to God throughout the day and in between those appointments with God every 3 hours. Another way to stay connected to God throughout your day is continually praying, “God, what would you have me do here? What would you have me do while I’m shopping…here at work….while I’m school?” And then listen for the promptings of the Spirit. Those promptings may be an audible voice, they may be an idea which comes into your head “from seemingly nowhere” or it may be just a feeling or hunch. God can also speaks to us through circumstances, and even other people to reveal his purposes for our lives. God still speaks to us today. We just have to be attentive and listening. You have to be open to the promptings of the Spirit so you can do what He wants you to do in His time and in that place.
Third, be obedient. When the Lord spoke to him he asked something that just didn’t seem to make much sense. He asked Philip to leave a very fruitful ministry in Jerusalem to go to Gaza, a city that lay about 50 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. It was desert territory. This seemed like such a fruitless area for ministry, and many people would have questioned God about going to such a place. But Philip didn’t. Even though he had a ministry which was going gangbusters, Philip up and left Samaria, obeying God immediately. He started his journey to Gaza, and while he traveled, he met a Eunuch from Ethiopia.
When Philip heard the Lord tell him to go to Gaza, and he probably thought that God 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 it was on the way to Gaza. Our Scripture today provides us with a very important spiritual truth in ministry: “Sometimes we become so focused on our destination that we may miss opportunities to share the love of Christ along the way.” We need to view every encounter with individuals throughout the day as circumstances that God has arranged and opportunities to share with people about Jesus.
I want us to notice three things here. First, God doesn’t tell Philip why He wants him to go south to Gaza into the desert. God just tells him to do it. Second, Philip doesn’t question God. The phrase “towards the south” can also be translated “at noon”. So God told Philip to go travel during the noontime hour. This makes God’s command even more unusual for Philip. This was a road going through the desert from Jerusalem, through Hebron and onto Gaza. The area is still a desert even today. Now no one in their right mind would be on the desert road at noon. That was the hottest part of the day, and thus the deadliest time to journey. But Philip doesn’t question God, His timing, or the direction God sent him in. He simply obeyed. There’s a lot to be said for that. Third, God only gives a step or two at a time. Most of the time, you won’t get all the steps, just one. That’s hard for us. You remember the AAA Trip Tiks? You flip page by page and it show every mile, every hotel you were going to stay at and every sight you would see. I remember sitting in the back of my parent’s car just watching mile after mile go by. And even though I knew what was coming up, I wuld always ask where we were and how long to our next stop. We want to know every step of the journey, but that’s not living by faith. We need to just step out and do it, and trusting that the next step will come. That’s what Philip was doing. He was walking south, on a desert road, in the heat of the day, just waiting for God’s next step. God was about to show Philip what he was there for when he came upon a chariot.
Now a person of Philip’s social standing not approach a chariot of a high ranking official. The Ethiopian Eunuch was the Minister of Financial for Ethiopia which encompassed most of central Africa at that times and was very wealthy and powerful. That could get you killed! Philip didn’t let that dissuade him. Philip was bold, and filled with the Spirit, and this is what wanted him to do. Philip didn’t hesitate. He runs to overtake the chariot.
Fourth, make a connection. “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.” Making a connection means showing interest in others. Ask some questions: What is that you reading? How are you? Can I help you? Take time for others. The passage that the eunuch was reading provided a perfect opportunity for Philip to connect with him as he came along side the eunuch and explained the Scripture to him.
Likewise, we need make connections with the people God places in our path. It may not be them reading Scripture. It may be a similarity of personality or sense of humor. It might be a job, a hobby, a common interest, a cause or any number of things. The point is to find a touchpoint of commonality and connection with that person and begin to develop a relationship with them. God will place people in our lives on the roads of our journey, so that we can get to know them and share life with them. We have to win most people’s attention with our kindness and love before we can present Christ to them. People don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care! Dale Carnegie wrote, “You can close more business deals in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get people interested in you.” The same is true in evangelism. So make a connection for Jesus by becoming interested in the people God has placed in your path.
Fifth, bring them to Jesus. verses 35-38 This can take a number of forms. For Philip, that meant making a connection between Isaiah 53 and how it was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. For the Apostle Philip in John 1, it meant finding a friend and literally bring them to Jesus. That can be through an invitation to attend worship, or an outreach event, a Bible study, the Women’s Bazarre, the Men’s golf tournament or even serving in the food distribution. If all we do is make a connection with people and never connect them to Jesus and His church, then we’ve failed in our mission as disciples.
Dr. Tony Campolo tells of a time he was walking down Chestnut Street in Philadelphia. There was a filthy bum, covered with soot from head to toe. “He had a huge beard. I’ll never forget the beard. It was a gigantic beard with rotted food stuck in it. He held a cup of McDonald’s coffee and mumbled as he walked along the street. He spotted me and said, “Hey, Mister. You want some of my coffee?” I knew I should take some to be nice, and I did. I gave it back to him and said, “You’re being pretty generous giving away your coffee this morning. What’s gotten into you that you’re giving away your coffee all of a sudden?” He said, “Well, the coffee was especially delicious this morning, and I figured if God gives you something good you ought to share it with people.”
As we close today, I’d like each of us to think about the people around us that we can influence for Christ. So that in a few years, they can look back at you and remember you were that person who influenced them for Christ.
