Divine Directions
We must first have GPS (The Holy Spirit)
We must hear and understand the voice of our “GPS”
We must Follow the Directions of our “GPS”
Slide
Intro
Have you ever had problems with a GPS? Have you ever felt like your GPS was treating you like the GPS in the Allstate Commercial?
Check this out.
Video – Allstate Mayhem GPS Commercial
Slide after video
Maybe it hasn’t been quite that bad, but I had a GPS once take me through an intersection and have me travel around the block and go back through the same intersection when I could have just turned left.
I know GPS systems have gotten better over the last couple of years, but you continue to hear about problems because of poor updating, road construction or just computer programming errors.
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a GPS system that you could fully rely on and trust in?
Well, you can. But it isn’t a Global Positioning System,
Instead it is God’s Positioning Spirit.
His Holy Spirit directs and guides us right to where He wants us if we would only listen and follow.
Transition
Slide
Today we are continuing on in our series in Acts called The Church Unleashed and we will be reading Acts 8:26-40 and learn about Philip and how God’s Positioning Spirit worked in Philip’s life to get him right where he needed to be so God could use him in a mighty way.
So let’s see what we can learn as we read Acts 8:26-40
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.
Pray
Ok, here we learn several aspects of knowing and following the Holy Spirit, God’s Positioning Spirit, if you will, from this story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.
The First thing we learn is that
We must first have GPS (God’s Positioning Spirit - The Holy Spirit)
Slide
Philip hears and angel of the Lord and knows that it is an angel of the Lord.
How does he know that?
Because he has the Holy Spirit indwelling Him.
Listen to what Paul says in
Slide
1 Corinthians 2:14
The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
If you do not have the Spirit of the Lord, you will never be able to understand and respond to the Spirit of the Lord or follow His directions
Philip hears the Angel and recognizes through God’s Spirit this is the angel of the Lord giving him directions because he has the God’s Spirit.
Apply
Do you have God’s GPS, His Holy Spirit that can lead and position you?
How do you get the Spirit and how do you know you have the Spirit?
Scripture tells us that you
Ephesians 1:13-14
Slide
… were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, 14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession — to the praise of his glory.
When we hear the word of truth, the gospel, and believe the good news, truly believe, not just ascent to the truth of it, but truly believe it, we are saved and receive the Holy Spirit.
The Gospel is believing that Jesus is the Lord, the promised Messiah, who is God in the Flesh, that He died for your sins and Resurrected from the dead.
1 Corinthians 15:2-4
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2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance:
that Christ
died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried,
that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
Have you believed and confessed Jesus as Lord, the Messiah who died for your sins and was resurrected?
If not, be thinking about this because you will have an opportunity to confess that belief at the end of the service.
Transition
So, To receive God’s Divine Directions, we need God’s GPS, the Holy Spirit so that we can be guided by Him.
Secondly,
We must Hear & understand the voice of our “GPS”
Slide
In an actual GPS, you could change the voice to various types of language or Accents either for variety or so you could better understand.
Well, for the Christian, we need to be able to hear and understand the Voice of the Holy Spirit when He speaks to us so we know what to do.
We see in this passage that Philip heard and understood exactly what God wanted him to do.
The Ethiopian eunuch did not understand because he did not have the Spirit yet.
But I think there are times in all of our lives, even as Christians, that we have trouble hearing and understanding God.
Why is that?
Slide
Why do we not Hear and understand?
Well it could be for a number of reasons.
Not in God’s word
It could be because we are not spending time in God’s word, which is a primary method for hearing from God.
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Too much distraction to Hear from God
Slide
Maybe it is because we have so many things going on in our lives, that we can’t hear from God. Martha is a good example of that.
Luke 10:38-42
38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, "Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
41 "Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."
In the parable of the sower, Jesus talks about the distractions of life.
Satan wants you busy and distracted. Remove some of the distraction so you can hear God’s still small voice
Not connected to God’s People
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Maybe we are failing to hear God’s voice because we are unconnected from God’s people and His church.
Hebrews 13:7
Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.
The author also tells us in
Hebrews 10:25
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another — and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Transition back to text
In this situation in Acts, the Ethiopian Eunuch is in the word of God, and responds to whom God puts in His life, Philip, who is able to explain and share the good news of the Gospel with him.
He is open to hearing and God helps him to understand.
Side Sermon
I want to pause here a moment and consider something else in this text.
One of the questions people ask about Christianity is
“What about people who never hear about Jesus?”
Slide
What about those people who live in the middle of Africa or the jungle and don’t have the opportunity to hear about Jesus?” Does God just send them to hell?
This text is a great example of Romans 1 and how a loving God works.
Listen to what we learn in
Romans 1:18-21
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18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
This text tells us through creation and our conscience, God has revealed himself generally. That is not enough for a person to get to heaven. We also need special revelation so we can know Jesus Christ.
Later on in Romans, Paul tells us
Romans 10:13-14
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"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
So while God has given everyone the ability to know that there is a God through creation and our Conscience, we also need to come to trust in Christ which requires special revelation.
But if we can know there is a God and that he created the world and us and has given us a knowledge of Him, if we are faithful with what He has revealed to us, I believe He will reveal more! Our God is a good God and the Scripture tells us that
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He doesn’t want “anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9)
So if we have someone in the middle of Africa or any place on this planet, who is being faithful to the general revelation that God has revealed to him and everyone, do you not think God will send someone to share the good news about Jesus? Do you think God is fretting over someone in the jungle or some remote place, that is being faithful to His general revelation and God is unable to send someone to him?
Not at all.
Acts 8 is a perfect example of God’s mighty power to reach those who are being faithful with what he has revealed.
Here an Ethiopian, from Africa no less, is being faithful with what God has revealed to him about God and this man is seeking out the truth of who God is. So God sends Philip, through supernatural means to go to this man so that he can hear about Jesus and call on His Name and be saved.
God desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of Him. There will be nobody who stands before God at judgment with the excuse I didn’t know. God has revealed Himself generally and when we are faithful, I believe it fully in His character to send someone to reveal Himself specially!
Transition back to main message
Ok, now you get 2 sermons in one today!
So getting back to the message for us and God’s Divine Directions for us, we have seen that we need God’s GPS or His Holy Spirit and that He comes and indwells us when we believe in and receive Jesus as our Savior and then we must hear and understand the voice of the Holy Spirit by being in His word, being connected to other believers that God speaks to us through, and taking time to be still before the Lord.
But after we have Him and hear Him,
We must Follow the Directions of our “GPS”
Slide
Acts 8:36-40
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.
The Ethiopian Eunuch heard what God was saying about salvation to him and God had placed Philip in His path to help him understand it.
Now he had a choice.
Was he going to follow the directions that God revealed to him?
Was he going to be faithful with this new, special revelation he received about Jesus?
That is the question we need to be asking ourselves when God is giving us direction. Are we going to follow?
What is it that the Lord wants me to do?
Salvation
First, for the Ethiopian Eunuch, the Lord revealed Himself to him and the Ethiopian received Him as his Savior.
Maybe that is you today. You will have an opportunity in a moment to confess and receive Christ and be saved.
Baptism
The second thing we see for the Ethiopian Eunuch was he recognized that the Lord wanted him to take a visible stand for Him in baptism, declaring his trust in following Him.
Maybe that is you too. Maybe you need to be baptized. Baptism is for believers, just like the Ethiopian Eunuch. There is a verse (Acts 8:37) that is not in your text, but was found in some of the later texts, that probably wasn’t in the originals, but is in accord with the overall teaching of Scripture.
It says in Acts 8:37 when the Ethiopian Eunuch says here is water, why shouldn’t I be baptized and Philip replies
Acts 8:37
Slide
"If you believe with all your heart, you may." The eunuch answered, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
Baptism is for believers, that is why we don’t baptize infants.
If you have never been immerse baptized as a believer, then maybe the Lord is calling you to take that step.
Or maybe He is giving you some other Directions. Whether that is in serving or sacrificing, or in a job change or relationship issue or a parenting issue.
God calls parents to raise your kids in the way they should go so they when they are older they will not depart from it.
What kind of Divine Directions is the Lord giving you?
If you need to receive Christ so you have God’s direction, then turn and repent and confess so you can hear and understand God’s voice.
Get connected
through his word,
through His people,
through reducing the noise in your life with everything that distracts you from the Lord. Believe me, this is what I need to be taking to heart.
And then follow His Divine Directions and be used to change eternities!
Let’s pray
