Bulletins - Church On The Rock-Abilene (TX)

God Is Good (All The Time)
Abide
REVELATION SONG
Elohim
Gratitude
Acts 8:26–40 NKJV
26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is desert. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this: “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; And as a lamb before its shearer is silent, So He opened not His mouth. 33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away, And who will declare His generation? For His life is taken from the earth.” 34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?” 37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.” 38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
Introduction:
There are moments in our lives when God interrupts what we are doing.
We may have a plan. We may have responsibilities. We may even be doing something good and productive. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, the Lord places a person, a conversation, or an opportunity directly in our path.
The question is whether we are paying attention.
Acts chapter 8 gives us a remarkable picture of this.
Philip had been experiencing tremendous success in ministry. People were hearing the Gospel. Lives were being changed. Yet God called him away from the crowd and sent him down a desert road.
Philip did not know why.
He did not know whom he would meet.
He simply obeyed.
And on that road was one man searching for answers, reading the Word of God, and ready for someone to help him understand what he was reading.
By the end of the encounter, that man had heard the Gospel, believed in Jesus Christ, been baptized, and gone on his way rejoicing.
This passage reminds us that God is concerned about the one.
It also reminds us that when saving faith takes hold of a person's life, it does more than change what they believe.
Saving faith changes how we respond.
Philip responded when God told him to go.
The Ethiopian responded when he heard the Gospel.
And before this passage is finished, both men show us what it looks like when faith moves from something we believe into something we do.
Philip Left a Successful Ministry to the Crowd to Minister to One Man.
Philip was in the middle of what we might call a revival in Samaria.
People were responding to the preaching of the Gospel. Miracles were taking place. Lives were being changed. There was great joy in the city.
Yet, in the middle of all that success, an angel of the Lord told Philip to leave and go toward Gaza.
And Philip went.
That tells us something important about Philip: he was sensitive to the leading of the Lord.
He was willing to leave what God was doing among the crowd because God wanted to do something in the life of one man.
This week, during my rounds, I was talking with a new friend. He told us about an encounter he had with a man earlier in the week. As he talked about it, he admitted that he felt he had missed an opportunity to pray for that man.
That confession rang all too clearly with me.
I have been there. Maybe you have too.
I do not know about you, but I know something about me: my life can become bogged down with the cares of this world—specifically, the cares of my own world.
I can become distracted by the things I feel I have to get done:
Family issues.
My to-do list.
The pressures of work.
The ordinary preoccupations of life.
These are things all of us deal with, and I am not standing here wagging my finger as though I am somehow above them.
In fact, that is the point.
We can become so wrapped up in the rhythm of our own lives that we stop noticing what God is doing in the lives of the people around us.
Philip could have been so focused on what God was doing in Samaria that he missed what God wanted to do on a desert road.
But he was listening.
And because Philip was listening, one man's life was about to be changed forever.
I especially like that last movement, because it gives you a natural transition into the encounter with the Ethiopian eunuch rather than leaving the point simply about being “busy.” The deeper issue becomes spiritual attentiveness—being available enough to hear when God interrupts our plans.
We Never Know Why the Lord Would Have Us Leave the Many for the One.
There are several details in this passage that help us understand who this man was.
The Ethiopian was a eunuch and a high-ranking government official. He served under Candace, a royal title used by the queens of Ethiopia.
Luke tells us that he had charge of all her treasury.
In modern terms, we might think of him as something like a minister of finance or secretary of the treasury.
So Philip was not simply sent into the desert to meet a random traveler. He was sent to minister to a man of tremendous responsibility and influence.
It would be easy for us to look at the story and say, “Now I understand why God sent Philip. This man had influence. He had access to the royal court. Perhaps reaching him could eventually affect a ruler—or even a nation.”
And perhaps it did.
But we must be careful not to conclude that the man was valuable because of what he could do for the Kingdom.
We sometimes make that mistake.
We can begin to measure people by their position, their influence, their resources, their connections, or what they might someday be able to do for us.
But that is not how God measures people.
The Ethiopian eunuch mattered before Philip ever knew who he was.
He mattered because he was a human being created in the image of God.
He mattered because he had a soul.
He mattered because Christ came for people just like him.
And the same is true of every person God puts in our path.
We may never know who we are ministering to.
We may never know where their life will lead.
We may never know how God will use them.
But we do not minister to people because of what they may become—we minister to them because they already have value in the sight of God.
All people are made in the image of God.
Christ died for the world.
And sometimes God will lead us away from the many because, at that moment, the one matters to Him.
We Must Learn to Meet People Where They Are.
He first discovered what the Ethiopian was reading and what he did not understand. Philip listened before he preached.
He did not force a prepared speech onto him; he started with the concern that was already on the man's heart. Philip began with the man's question.
Philip began with Isaiah, but he deliberately led the conversation to Jesus Christ. Meeting people where they are does not mean leaving them there.
Different people have different questions, wounds, fears, and experiences, but every road must ultimately lead them to Christ. We adapt our approach without changing the Gospel.
We must be willing to slow down, listen, enter another person's world, and recognize the opportunities God places in front of us. Personal ministry will often require us to be inconvenienced.
I especially like that fourth line as a sermon statement:
We adapt our approach without changing the Gospel.
We See the Eunuch’s Actions as a Result of Faith.
The eunuch did not merely receive the message intellectually; his faith immediately moved him toward obedience. Genuine faith produces a desire to obey.
His question was not, “Do I have to be baptized?” but, Faith does not look for reasons to delay obedience.“Here is water. What hinders me?”
The eunuch did not wait for a more convenient time, place, or circumstance—he acted on what he now believed. When faith sees an opportunity to obey God, it responds.
His actions demonstrated that the Gospel Philip preached had taken root in his heart. Baptism became the outward expression of what had happened inwardly.
I especially like the sentence: “Faith does not look for reasons to delay obedience; faith looks for an opportunity to obey.”
Conclusion:
Philip could not have known what was waiting for him on that desert road.
He simply knew that the Lord told him to go.
He was willing to leave the crowd for the one. He was willing to allow God to interrupt what was already working. And when he met the Ethiopian, he recognized that this one man mattered to God.
That is where this passage challenges us.
Who is God putting in our path that we may be too busy to notice?
It may be someone at work. Someone in our family. Someone sitting beside us. Someone we meet in the ordinary course of our day. We may never know their position, their influence, or what God intends to do through their life.
But we do know this: they matter to God.
Philip listened to the Spirit, approached the man, opened the Scriptures, and preached Jesus to him. Then, when the Ethiopian believed, his faith moved him to action:
“See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”
He did not look for a reason to wait. He looked for an opportunity to obey.
And that is what saving faith does.
Saving faith listens when God speaks. Saving faith values the person God places before us. Saving faith responds when God gives us an opportunity to obey.
Philip went on preaching the Gospel, and the Ethiopian went on his way rejoicing.
We do not always know what God is doing when He interrupts our plans.
We do not always know why He sends us to one particular person.
But perhaps our responsibility is not to know everything God intends to do.
Perhaps our responsibility is simply to listen, to go, to share Jesus, and when God speaks to us—to obey.
- - Acts 8:26–40NKJV
WAY MAKER

Philip Left a Successful Ministry to the Crowd to Minister to One Man.

We Never Know Why the Lord Would Have Us Leave the Many for the One.

We Must Learn to Meet People Where They Are.

We See the Eunuch’s Actions as a Result of Faith.

Acts 8:26–40NKJV