Rise & Go!
Acts 8:26-40
I heard about a barber once who was in church one Sunday, like you are here today, and the pastor preached a message about being a witness and sharing the gospel – like I’m going to do today. At the end of the service the barber felt convicted that he had not been a faithful witness and determined to do something about it.
The church was offering a 6-week evangelism class for people to learn how to share their faith. The barber signed up for the class, memorized the material, and received his certificate of completion at the conclusion of the class. The very next day he determined he would share his faith with the first person that came through the door of his barber shop. As fate would have it, it was a huge biker, dressed in leather and all tattooed up. He looked pretty angry too. Apparently he had lost a bet with his biker friends and he was going in to have his beard shaved.
The barber’s nerves about witnessing were now compounded because of the intimidating customer who sat in his chair. As he draped the protective sheet over the man he tried to remember all that he was supposed to say. He started to get very confused and couldn’t recall anything that he had memorized. As he began to prepare his razor, sweat began to pour down his face as his nerves were getting the best of him. Finally, in desperation, he shook the razor at the biker and yelled, “ARE YOU PREPARED TO DIE??!!
How do you do when it comes to sharing the good news about Jesus? There are some of us that sharing the good news about Jesus is very natural. It comes easy for us. But for others, we find it very difficult. We get tongue-tied and nervous. We even worry that we might say the wrong thing.
Yet, we know we should say something. We know that God has changed us, and because of that, we know He can help others as well. We want to be a witness to this difference Jesus has caused in us.
We have been working through the book of Acts. I’ve entitled this series “The Church on Mission.” And by God’s grace that is what we are becoming, a church on mission. But one of the ways we will be a church on mission is if as individual Christians who make up this family of faith we are each people on mission. The 8th chapter of Acts zeroes in on one such Christian. His name was Philip. He was one of the original 7 deacons we met in chapter 6 who were chosen to perform a service ministry in the church.
But even though he was called to serve in this mercy ministry of serving food to the widows, he didn’t see his ministry limited to that alone. He, as well as Stephen, were powerful preachers. Stephen’s preaching cost him his life. And it was because of Stephen’s powerful proclamation that Saul initiated a severe, wholesale persecution against the church. This severe persecution caused the dispersion and scattering of the church.
Philip was one of those who left Jerusalem because of the intense persecution. But he didn’t go silently, he went preaching and proclaiming the gospel. As such, at the beginning of chapter 8 we see God perform that God-twist. The sorrow of being displaced from their homes in Jerusalem was replaced with much joy because many in Samaria were believing the gospel and were surrendering their lives to the Lordship of Jesus Christ.
This was nothing less than a fulfillment of Jesus’ promise and commission in Acts 1:8 – “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 1:8 Now, because of the scattering, at least part of that promise was being realized. The gospel was being preached in Samaria.
Last week we zoomed into one of those Samaritans who initially said he believed the gospel and was baptized – Simon the magician. But what we discovered was that his faith was actually a false faith. It was not a saving faith. This week by contrast we will see someone who has a genuine, authentic saving faith – the Ethiopian Eunuch.
We’ve already seen the gospel break through the barrier of the Samaritans. Revival has broken out in Samaria! In this passage we will see the gospel break through the final barrier of Acts 1:8, the ends of the earth. This Ethiopian eunuch was the first Gentile convert. Samaritans were half-Jews. Ethiopians were not Jews at all. Samaritans were still Palestinian. Ethiopians were Africans. Jesus’ promise is coming to pass!
This passage is a fascinating account of how God used a faithful and obedient servant in Philip to bring about the conversion of an individual. And as we consider the different elements of this account I believe it will give us confidence and courage to be witnesses of the gospel in our own lives. Three things I want you to notice about Philip’s witness to the Ethiopian Eunuch that serve as a model for us as well. First of all notice…
I. The PREPARATION Of The SOIL
If you have a garden, you want that garden to produce a harvest. In order for that to happen you must diligently prepare the soil. So too does planting the seed of the Word. In the parable of the sower, only the good, properly prepared soil brought forth the fruits of salvation. This text indicates there were three features of the eunuch’s heart that reveal a proper preparation.
A. God’s SOVEREIGN purpose
Salvation – both in its eternal planning and in its temporal outworking – is totally God’s work. Salvation originates in the sovereign will of God, and it is implemented by the sovereign grace of God.
The Bible describes the human condition in painful terms. Ephesians 2:1 is a short, yet potent verse of Scripture: And you were dead in the trespasses and sins. Ephesians 2:1 If something is physically dead, it lacks the ability to respond to physical stimulus. In the same way, if someone is spiritually dead that person lacks the ability to respond to spiritual stimulus. That's why Paul said in 1 Corinthians: The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:14
Every man, woman, boy and girl - at the very core of their being - are sinful and completely unable to understand and accept the things of the Spirit. It doesn't matter what they look like on the outside - how noble, how smart, how attractive - on the inside, at the core of every human is a dirty heart.
Ill. You've probably heard the phrase, "As pure as snow." Well, that's not totally true. Did you know that every single snowflake has its origin around a particle of dust in the atmosphere? As wind carries dust into the atmosphere from the surface of the earth, water vapor condenses around the dust particles and then crystallizes eventually forming into a snowflake. But every snowflake, no matter how pristine it looks, at it's core, is dirty.
The same is true of every human. No matter how you dress it up, every human, at their core, is dirty. This sinful nature, this spiritually dead condition is an insurmountable barrier to responding to Jesus with saving faith. But God, in his sovereign grace, begins to work both internally and externally to draw people to himself.
This is what happens in the Ethiopian Eunuch's life. God begins to arrange things and intervenes supernaturally in his life with Philip. Look at verse 26: Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place.
The circumstances that led to this man's salvation were not coincidental. They were sovereignly arranged by the Spirit of God. So too with every salvation, including your salvation. God arranges it all. This was no mere chance encounter and certainly not the result of clever, human ingenuity. Apart from the Spirit's orchestration of events it would have never taken place at all.
Next Sunday a team of 6 people that I'm leading is going to Buenos Aires, AR on a mission trip. It's going to cost about $2,000 each for us to go down there - so around $12,000 for us to go on this trip. Some might think, "Boy, that's a lot of money to go down there on a mission trip." But we go believing God has already been working in the hearts of people to hear and respond to the gospel. We go believing that there are no chance encounters - but everyone is a divine appointment by a sovereign God. Which really leads to the next thing...
B. Philip’s SUBMISSIVE will
27And he rose and went. I want you to consider for a moment the irrationality of what God was asking Philip to do. Here he is in Samaria and there is this massive revival that has been going on. Thousands are coming to faith in Jesus, the ministry there is exploding. All kinds of people - great and small, powerful and weak, influential and unknowns are hearing the gospel. As far as an evangelist goes, he's the Billy Graham of his day. And did you notice the commentary Luke added about the place where God was calling Philip to go? A desert road. Leave the bustling metropolis with a thriving ministry and go to a desert road where few people travel.
This is the opposite of what we see most people in ministry do today. We don't see people leave a thriving, big-city mega-church to go pastor a tiny church in Podunkville, USA. We don't often see people go from big church to small church. It's almost exclusively the other way around. They go from small church to big church. And I get it, I understand the attraction.
But God calls Philip to do the atypical. He calls him to leave the thriving ministry and go to the desert road. And the text says, "He rose and went." I don't know how long of an interval there was between the initial call God gave him and his submissive, obedient response.
I don't know how long he wrestled with the decision. But at the end of the day, he submitted to God's call. He was obedient to the Spirit's prompting. But that's how God works. He accomplishes his sovereign work through available, submissive, simple human instruments.
Ill. One of the most fascinating forms of artwork to me are wood carvings. It's fascinating how an artisan can take a block of wood like this, and through the skilled hands of the artist create something that looks like this. Now when someone sees a beautiful wood carving like this, no one gives praise to these - wood carving tools. No one says, "Wow, the tools, the instruments that were used to create this are amazing!"
All of us are instruments for use in the Great Sculptors hands. And as he's carving his masterpiece, from time to time he'll choose you or he'll choose me to be used in his work. Philip had a submissive will - he arose and went. Here's the third thing to notice...
C. The eunuch’s SEARCHING heart
God had arranged the details of getting Philip to the Eunuch, and Philip responded with a submissive will. But God had already been at work in this man and as such he has a searching heart. Notice how verse 27 continues:
And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship 28and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.
In that day Ethiopia was a large African kingdom located south of Egypt. To those in the Mediterranean region it represented the outer limits of the known world. The real power and authority in that kingdom lay with the queen. Candace was not her proper name, but her title (like Pharaoh for the Egyptian king, or Caesar for the Roman king). And here you have the man who was in charge of all her treasure. He is the chief financial officer for the Ethiopian Kingdom, the head of the department of the treasury.
The text also says he was a eunuch. What is a eunuch? Simply put, a eunuch is a castrated male. In that culture this would be a common practice, particularly in a royal kingdom. These eunuchs would be put in charge of harem's of concubines or prostitutes who were available at the kings pleasure. They put eunuch's in charge so there would be no hanky-panky going on. This particular eunuch had risen in the ranks of the royal administration to the place of CFO.
Here's what's so amazing about this: not only was he a Gentile, which would have been a huge barrier for most Jews. But he was also a eunuch. Deut 23:1 is quite graphic in it's description, but it forbids a eunuch from having access to the temple in Jerusalem. As such, under the Old Covenant, he would never be able to worship God fully. But this is the New Covenant. And the Spirit is breaking down all kinds of barriers here. The barrier of his ethnicity; of his ancestry, the barrier of his maimed condition as a eunuch.
The text says he had come to Jerusalem to worship. That's about a 1200 mile journey one way. While in Jerusalem he could have gone to synagogues, but not the temple because he was a Eunuch. We don't have details on how he came to learn about the God of Israel. We do know there were some displaced Jewish colonies in northern Africa and he may have been exposed to their monotheistic faith at some point and traveled the long journey to Jerusalem to learn more. It's obvious he was searching, and his search had taken him on this 2400 mile round trip journey by chariot.
God met this man at his point of seeking, and he met him in dramatic fashion - sending Philip the evangelist to him. This is all part of the Divine Gardener's soil preparation. And God has done this type of soil preparation billions of times before. Every person who comes to faith in Jesus, every one who is saved has been prepared by God for their divine encounter with the truth. That leads to the second thing to notice about Philip's witness...
II. The EXPLANATION Of The SCRIPTURE
28and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. 29And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet...
This man had a desire to know God and he was aware that in order for God to be fully known, he had to be known through the Scripture. He was an eager seeker. To possess a personal copy of the Scriptures would have been a tremendous financial expense. But the Ethiopian CFO obviously had some deep pockets and he was willing, because of his desire to know God, to purchase his own copy of the Scriptures.
We would know nothing about God except that he has chosen to reveal himself to us. God has chosen to reveal himself generally in nature. The existence of God and some of his attributes can be seen and understood in a general way by looking at creation. But God has specifically revealed himself in Scripture. The only way to know God fully is to know Him through His Word, the Scripture.
Now something to note here – Philip was sensitive to the Spirit’s prompting. Verse 29 says the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. We don’t know how Philip knew it was the voice of the Spirit, if it was a gentle nudge, or an impression. It could have been the fact that this is a deserted road, there’s one chariot and there’s one evangelist so this is obviously the divine encounter that God had been setting up. But regardless, Philip ran up to him.
I thought about this in modern terms. Imagine you’re walking on the sidewalk downtown. You come upon a red light, and you look next to you on the street and there’s a car, waiting at the red light. You walk over, knock on the window and say, “Do you mind if I get in?” A little weird.
But God is orchestrating all of this to get Philip and the Ethiopian in the same place at the same time. Now what we will discover is that Philip's witness to him was rooted in the Scripture, because that's where the truth comes from. And the same must be true of us. In fact, there are two aspects of Philip’s scriptural explanation that serve as benchmarks for our evangelism as well.
A. Our witness must be BIBLE-BASED
30So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. 32Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this: “Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. 33In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” 34And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?”
You can see God’s divine sovereignty in all of this. Not only was this eunuch a God seeker, and not only had he purchased a copy of Scripture at great personal expense; and not only was he reading out loud from it when Philip ran up to his chariot; but he was reading from arguably the clearest Old Testament passage that describes the substitutionary work of Christ. He’s reading from Isaiah 53.
God has divinely orchestrated this encounter. 35Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus. Philip started here, from the Scripture, and began to tell the Eunuch about Jesus Christ.
Here’s the application we need to understand from this: An effective presentation of the gospel MUST be based on Scripture; our witness must be Bible-based. No doubt, the use of your personal testimony can be helpful, a wordless book, a salvation bracelet, a gospel tract – those can all be helpful. But it is the Word of God that is inspired by the Spirit of God. And God does a saving and sanctifying work through his word. There is power in the Word. So our witness must be Bible-based. But secondly,
B. Our witness must be CHRIST-CENTERED
35Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him the good news about Jesus.
If you never get around to talking about Jesus and his life, death and resurrection, then you’ve never witnessed. A gospel witness is no witness if it doesn’t talk of Christ. I know we can drop little God-hints in our conversations with people. Saying "God bless you" when a lost person sneezes around you does not count as a gospel witness. Or saying, “I’ll pray for you" when someone is going through a difficulty. But that is not a gospel witness. They may set up a gospel witness, but it’s not a gospel witness. It’s not a witness until you testify about Jesus Christ and his work.
And might I add a sermon is not a Christian, gospel-centered sermon if it never mentions Jesus and his work on the cross for our salvation. You can go through the entire book of Acts and look at every sermon preached – they all, without exception, center on Jesus Christ.
I visited the website of a very large, very influential church. Here are titles and descriptions of recent sermon series that were posted on their website:
Now What? What is that thing you wish was different about you? You try to change your response, circumstances, or behavior, but it doesn't work. You just can't make progress. You just can’t break through.
Anything But Average: You don't want to be an average husband or wife. You don't want to be an average parent. You don't want to be an average friend, employee or boss.
Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: We all want life and liberty. Everyone wants to pursue happiness. But few experience those things to the fullest. Sometimes we feel trapped in life. We're unhappy. Why is that? One reason is that we need to uncover, discover, and recover our stories.
Do you notice a consistent theme in these sermon series? Who is the central character, who is the person that the sermon all about? It’s all about YOU! How can you make a change, how can you break through, how can you be anything but average, how can you recover your story? It’s all about YOU!
And guess what – churches that spend all their time focusing on YOU are exploding with growth because we all want it to be about us? As Toby Keith put it, I wanna talk about me, wanna talk about I, wanna talk about number one, Oh my me my - what I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see... We want to be the center of the universe, we want to be the center of attention. And who do we want to be the main subject of the sermon - ME! This is man-centered preaching. What we see in the NT and specifically in the book of Acts is gospel-centered preaching.
Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture he told him about Jesus. No doubt he turned to other passages, but he did so with the intent of telling him about Jesus. Paul put it this way to the church in Corinth. He reminded them about his preaching style: And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:1-2
Paul was not just a baptized Anthony Robins, he was not just some motivational speaker – he was a gospel preacher. Our witness must be Christ-centered. At some point in our evangelism we’ve got to get to the main point – Jesus died for sinners to provide salvation for all who will trust in him. The offer of salvation is still available. And it's available to you.
Now I can imagine as this Ethiopian eunuch heard Philip say, “It’s available to you” – he may have had questions. He may have said, “Don’t you see the color of my skin, don’t you see I’m not from around here, I’m from Ethiopia. I’m not of Jewish descent, I’m not even a half-Jew from Samaritan descent. When I was in Jerusalem, I was prevented from going into the temple. Perhaps Philip took his scroll and turned to Isaiah chapter 11. And read this: 10In that day the root of Jesse, who shall stand as a signal for the peoples—of him shall the nations inquire, and his resting place shall be glorious. 11In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea. Isaiah 11:10-11
Perhaps Philip said, “Jesus the Christ is the root of Jesse, the son of David! And he has extended his hand of salvation to your homeland, the land of Cush. No more are you considered an outsider but salvation has come!
Perhaps then the Ethiopian would have embarrassingly said, “But not only am I an Ethiopian – I am a eunuch. And I understand eunuchs are prevented from entering the presence of God in the temple. Perhaps then Philip would have taken that scroll and turned to Isaiah 56:
3Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”; and let not the eunuch say, “Behold, I am a dry tree.” 4For thus says the LORD: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, 5I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. Isaiah 56:3-4
And Philip could have said with Scriptural authority, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done in your past; it doesn’t matter how you are maimed by the sinfulness of this world. Join yourself to the Lord today and you will have a name better than sons or daughters, you will have an everlasting inheritance and you will never be cut off.
We can’t know all that happened in the conversation between Philip and this high ranking Ethiopian official. But we do know that he understood the truth of the gospel; we do know he understood the sacrificial death of Jesus and his triumphant resurrection. Why? Because there was Divine preparation of the soil; there was clear explanation from the Scripture. And that leads to this final point…
III. The CONFIRMATION Of The SOUL
This Ethiopian eunuch was gloriously born again in that chariot on the desert road somewhere between Jerusalem and Cush. And we can gather three things about his personal conversion from the text. First, he had…
A. A BELIEVING heart
36And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
From this statement we can infer that along the way Philip had communicated to him the importance of Baptism. That baptism is the first step of Christian obedience. That once someone has repented of their sins and placed their faith in Jesus for salvation they follow that with baptism. So the eunuch asks the question, “What prevents me from being baptized.” In other words, I repent of my sins and I trust in Jesus alone for my salvation; I’m ready to be baptized. Again, consider the divine orchestration of this. They are on a desert road. What do we know about the desert? There’s a considerable lack of water. As they’re riding along in the desert they just so happen to come upon a pool of water. Coincidence? I think not! So the eunuch had a believing heart. Secondly, he had…
B. A CONFESSING mouth
38And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. 39And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away,
The eunuch gave the order – “Stop the chariot!” They both went down into the water. Now listen, no doubt they had jugs of water in the chariot for this long journey through the desert to Ethiopia. The eunuch did not say, “I’ve got some jugs of water here, what prevents me from being sprinkled?” Philip could have done that at any time in the journey – if that was a legitimate form of baptism. No, they wait until there’s a pool of water, they both go down into the water and they both came up out of the water.
Joke: I heard about one Baptist church that bought their pastor a pair of rubber waders so he would stay dry when he went down into the water to baptize new converts. Not to be outdone, the Presbyterian church down the street bought their pastor a pair of rubber gloves.
And in this baptism, in that pool of water beside the desert road leading to Ethiopia – this high official in Candace’s administration publically confesses his faith in Jesus.
What happens next is fascinating, “The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away.” Now we don’t know if this was like, "beam me up Scotty" or what. But all of a sudden, Philip’s gone. But here’s the third reason we know this eunuch had a genuine conversion. Not only because of his believing heart or his confessing mouth, but finally…
C. A REJOICING life
39bthe eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.
Joy is the mark of a true believer; joy is the fruit of the Spirit. No doubt, this Ethiopian eunuch who was so far away from the Salvation of God in more ways than one, is brought near to God because of God’s divine preparation of the soil, the explanation from the Scripture which resulted in the confirmation of his soul. A believing heart, a confessing mouth, and a rejoicing life. Well that leads us to our most important question today. Let’s ask it together:
So What?
How does this apply to my life individually and our lives together collectively as a church? Here’s what I want you to consider; throughout the book of Acts Luke keeps coming back to this same theme:
The word of God keeps going out and God keeps bringing people in. Luke is writing this record of the early church history to a man named Theopholus. It’s as if Luke wants to continually remind him that this is God’s pattern. God’s people keep speaking the word and God keeps bringing people in.
Paul put it this way in 1 Cor 3: I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 1 Corinthians 3:6
We can't control whether or not people respond to our witness with genuine conversion. All we can do is plant, water, fertilize, dig weeds and trust God to provide the growth in the hearts of people.
Last Thought: We must be faithful to do OUR PART, and trust God to do HIS PART.
