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Acts 8:26-40
The Psalmist prays, “Lord, teach me to number my days that I may gain a heart of wisdom.” Jesus had the key to numbering our days when he said just keep seeking the kingdom of God. Throughout this series, we’ve learned that missionaries are spirit filled people. In other words, they are possessed by Jesus. When you are possessed by the presence of Jesus in your life, Jesus is in control of your life. Most Christians believe in Jesus but are not possessed by Jesus and therein lies the reason for the lack of people being Christian missionaries in the world. Missionaries are possessed by the presence of Jesus make themselves available for God’s purposes.
Today, we meet a missionary named Philip. God’s plan is not to get the world into the church but to get the church into the world and that’s every day ordinary, non-professional Christians scattered throughout the world. 97% of the people around you believe in God, pray to God and ask for God’s favor. That means most of the people who are not in church believe in God. Now the Ethiopian was a person who believed in God but couldn’t find his way to God. Have you ever noticed that religious institutions make it hard sometimes to find their way to God. They often become places of judgment against people rather than places to experience the love of God. Now a eunach was not accepted in the community of faith because he had been sexually altered. In Deteronomy, it says that people who are sexually incomplete were not accepted in the house of God. Now we know today that there are churches which exclude because of the sexual situation of people’s lives, like homosexuality. God’s purpose isn’t to bring people into these misguided bodies of faith but to take Christians and scatter them in the world so they can get involved in the day to day lives of people searching for God.
Mark is a young businessman who does business in China. Each time he has gone to China, he has asked God to reveal to him whom he might speak to on behalf of Jesus. What might happen if every one of you went to work praying for God to reveal to him whom he might speak to on behalf of Jesus. You’re a missionary and that’s what missionaries do. Mark was there in China for 3 weeks and kept praying this prayer. And finally on the last day, there was a Chinese engineer and Mark was able to share how Jesus had changed his life. And as a result they developed a relationship. On his next trip, Mark went to church in China even though he didn’t understand anything because it was in Mandarin. When it came time to make his offering, he went forward with everyone else, put his offering in and then they handed him two tickets. The tickets were for a seat on Christmas Eve and they do this because so many Chinese flood to the churches that you can’t get a seat. Mark gave his tickets to the Chinese engineer which covered two families. He took his family and his mother in law’s family. He then emailed Mark to tell them that night they all made a commitment of their life to Jesus Christ. This Chinese engineer has now been hired by the company that Mark works for as their full time rep in China and so now Mark and he have this day to day relationship. Now here’s the thing: I as a minister can’t get into China but business people can.
God plan is not to use professional ministers to try to win the world but to take non-professional Christians and spread them throughout the world. Look at the opportunities you have, everyday, ordinary people who go to work. What might happen if every one of you prayed about how you can be available to God’s purpose at work. God’s plan to reach the world is through non-professional, ordinary people just like you! The reason the church is losing its influence in America is because so many people are protective of their time. We think it’s our time: here’s my work time, here’s my God time, here’s my play time and the three shall never meet. I give my Sunday mornings to God. What more does he want? And so the question is raised: whose time is it anyway? Who gave you this day? Who allowed you to have another day to live? It’s God and he wants 24/7/365 availability.
This is why we no longer use the word ‘volunteer’. A volunteer’ says I’ll help God out and give him some of my time. The Bible doesn’t use the word volunteer’, it uses the word servant. A servant serves at the directive of the one who is in charge. Verse 26 says, “an angel of the Lord said to Philip, "Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza." Notice that God doesn’t ask if Philip wanted to go or if he think it’s a good idea to go, he just says, “Go!” Philip is a servant and so he gets up and goes. That’s why we refer to Jesus as Lord. Too many people look at Jesus as teacher but with a teacher we take the best things that will affect our life and leave the rest on our side. Jesus on the last night of his life was washing the disciple’s feet teaching them that they weren’t to be students but servants. “You call me teacher and Lord for you are right, so I am.” But then he reversed the two words when he said, “But, I, your Lord and teacher, do this for you and you must do this for one another” What he was telling them is that he is their Lord, which means absolute owner. So the servant realizes that we serve at the discretion of Lord Jesus who has absolute authority over our lives.
The volunteer serves at the convenience of their schedule so they have limited availability. God is never going to bless anybody or use anybody who has limited availability for God’s purpose. A servant is always listening and tuned in to the call of God. So many people ask, How can I know God’s call in my life?
There are two means that God talks about in this passage for balance and accountability. The first is external and is found in verse 26. It’s there that an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip. Now angel of the Lord is always a physical presence. Literally, an angel of the Lord means messenger from heaven. It’s an external calling. Because we are sometimes hardheaded in hearing God’s voice, God will take a physical person. Often it may be someone you know. It might be somebody you don’t know. Because God has trouble getting through to you, a physical person will come up and in that moment will be a messenger from heaven for God in your life. Have you ever had someone say something to you and it hit you in a way to know that this wasn’t just your voice you were hearing but God’s? That’s the physical call of God.
In verse 29 we see the second manner in which God calls us, an internal calling. “The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." When I received my calling into ministry, I was reading Scripture every night, and as I was reading one night the Spirit spoke to my Spirit and I just knew that God wanted me to become a Minister. Now part of the process of going toward ordination is to have your local church make a recommendation of you for ministry to confirm your calling. There is an external means where God calls us and an internal means. Now you need the balance of both. If I’m only using the intuitive voice then it may be my ego speaking. So you need the external and internal.
God uses servants, not volunteers, because they have unlimited availability. God uses servants because they are tuned into what he is saying and they act on what God is saying on a daily basis. When the angel of the Lord told Philip to get up and down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” It says, “So he started out” I know too many people in church who are saying, OK God, show me the whole picture right now. Show me the full plans, where we’re going, how long it’s going to take, what’s going to happen, what I need and what it’s going to cost.” God is not going to open the door for your future place of promise until you’re willing to step out in faith in what he directs you in today. If you haven’t heard God speak for a long time, it may be because you didn’t act on what he told you in the past and he’s not going to give you something new until you act on what he’s already told you. God can do so much with so little when we give all of ourselves to him but when we hold back, we end up doing so little with so much. And that’s where most of the people in church are, they’re doing so little with so much and as a result they’re missing out on the blessing of God.
The priority of a missionary is to live and give the Good News of Jesus. Philip developed a relationship with this eunuch and then “the eunuch asked Philip, "Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?" Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.” You can always tell people who are possessed with the presence of Jesus because they give people Jesus and not religion. There’s a big difference between giving somebody Jesus and giving them religion. Religion is toxic, judgmental, and it’s rigid. The thing we know from Jesus is that God is flexible (meeting people where they are), personal, loving and forgiving. God wants to have a relationship with you. And you can know God and have a relationship with God.
But before you can give Jesus, you’ve got to be living with Jesus. What Philip demonstrated is that he had a firsthand experience with Jesus Christ. You can’t live in the fire of the Holy Spirit of Jesus’ presence and people not smell that fire. Philip had the spirit of Jesus all over him and so the Bible says, when he showed up, the demons ran away screaming. You can’t give someone something you don’t have. People who are missionaries and filled with the Spirit don’t try to do God’s will in the strength of their own resources. They live out of the power of the Holy Spirit. Acts 1:8 says, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.” Notice if doesn’t say knowledge and wisdom. It says power. There’s power in everything that happens in the Bible. The power is in the presence of the resurrected Christ.
One of the things Giovanna bought as a part of our hurricane supplies was a rechargeable lantern. I tried to use this not too long ago and it didn’t work. I realized that we didn’t have that plugged in and so it had no charge and thus no power. That’s the way it is with too many Christians is they’ve got the battery of faith but they have no power in their lives. The light of Christ and the power of God can burn indefinitely as long as Jesus is the power in your life. Now, I’m talking about a deeper experience of Jesus than most Christians ever go to. It’s not believing in Jesus but being possessed by Jesus. It’s when you give every bit of yourself to Him. It’s when you surrender everything of you: your talents, your treasure and your time. Everything you have and everything you are is Jesus’.
When you get married, you make the decision that you are no longer your own. And the same is true when you give your life to Jesus. You are no longer your own. Your life, and your time belong to someone else. It literally changes your identity.
Nearly 200 years ago there were two Scottish brothers named John and David Livingstone. John had set his mind on making money and becoming wealthy, and he did. But under his name in an old edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica John Livingstone is listed simply as “the brother of David Livingstone.” And who was David Livingstone? He became a missionary. While John had dedicated himself to making money, David had knelt and prayed. Surrendering himself to Christ, he resolved, “I will place no value on anything I have or possess unless it is in relationship to the Kingdom of God.” The inscription over the burial place in Westminster Abbey of this famous missionary and explorer of the “dark continent” reads, “For thirty years his life was spent in an unwearied effort to evangelize.” On his 59th birthday, David Livingstone wrote, ”My Jesus, my King, my Life, my All; I again dedicate my whole self to Thee.”
VIDEO: “Go Into All the World
There is no better time than today at the end of this series to say, it’s not just about loving you, knowing the rules and knowing about commitment, it’s literally walking down the isle and giving your life to Jesus by recognizing that you ase not your own. When you come forward, you’re saying, “Here I am. Everything I am and everything I have possess, my time, my money, my temptation, my victories, my losses is yours o God. I am yours. Possess me. Use me for your will. Amen.
