What Is To Prevent Me?

“What Is to Prevent Me?”

Have you ever noticed how often life takes a turn you didn’t see coming?

You had a plan—a direction—and suddenly you found yourself on a different road, in a different place, with a different set of questions than you ever expected to ask. It could be something joyful—a career breakthrough, an unexpected opportunity. It could also be a desert road—grief, a disruption, a moment when everything you thought you knew gets unsettled.

That’s where we meet Philip today: in the middle of a divine interruption

And on that wilderness road, we encounter one of the most powerful and unexpected stories in the Book of Acts. A chance meeting that wasn’t chance at all. A question that unlocks the Gospel. And a baptism that says: There’s nothing keeping you out of God’s family—not your past, not your body, not your culture, not your status. Nothing.

This story has been treasured by the Church in Ethiopia for nearly 2,000 years. In fact, Ethiopia has one of the oldest Christian traditions in the world, tracing its roots back to this very moment. A road in the desert became the birthplace of a movement.

But this is not just a story about then. This is a story for now.

Because many of us carry that same question in our hearts:

“What’s in the way?”

“What’s keeping me from joy… from purpose… from belonging?”

“What is to prevent me from being baptized, from being used by God, from being changed?”

And the Gospel answers with power:

Nothing—except our reluctance to trust the Spirit’s leading.

So this morning, I want to walk with you through this road—this moment of encounter between Philip and a man on the margins. And I want us to ask with honest hearts:

What is to prevent me—from becoming who God says I already am?

Let’s open the Scriptures together—Acts chapter 8, beginning in verse 26.

Acts 8:26-39

26 As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south[a] down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia. The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.29 The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”30 Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”31 The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.32 The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.

And as a lamb is silent before the shearers,

he did not open his mouth.33 He was humiliated and received no justice.

Who can speak of his descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth.”[b]34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” 35 So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.36 As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look! There’s some water! Why can’t I be baptized?”[c] 38 He ordered the carriage to stop, and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing.

I. The Holy Spirit Disrupts Our Comfort for the Sake of the World

Philip is on a roll.

He’s preaching in Samaria. People are coming to Christ. Demons are cast out. The sick are healed. It’s revival—lively, visible, powerful. The kind of moment every preacher dreams about.

And then—God interrupts him.

“An angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Get up and go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So he got up and went.” — Acts 8:26–27a

No details. No destination. No map. Just: Go.

Now, if it were us, we might have asked for clarification.

“Go where, Lord? For how long? Will I be back by dinner?”

But not Philip. He simply gets up and goes.

That’s how the Spirit works in Acts. He doesn’t always send us deeper into success. Sometimes He sends us into silence. Not always into the crowd—sometimes into the desert.

And this isn’t metaphorical. Luke says it plainly: “the desert road.”

A literal dry, dusty, hot road. The kind you don’t choose unless you’re following someone greater than you.

But in Scripture, deserts can be sacred spaces.

Moses met God at a burning bush in the desert.