Look What God Can Do!

Text: Acts 8:26-40
Focus: The Holy Spirit uses anyone
Function: To help people see that God can and wants to use them for His purpose.
Form: Storytelling

Intro: A Poem for Mothers day:

He didn't like the casserole
And he didn't like my cake.
He said my biscuits were too hard...
Not like his mother used to make.

I didn't make the coffee right
He didn't like the stew,
I didn't mend his socks
The way his mother used to do.

I pondered for an answer
I was looking for a clue.
Then I smacked him upside his head --
Like his mother used to do.

I don’t know about you, but I got my share of well deserved smacks upside the head.

I thank God for mothers, bless you all, especially mine!

Before I get into today’s text I want to say this: Men, love your wives like Christ loved the Church. He gave his life for her. If you want to be king of your castle, then make her the queen. Children, respect your mothers.

My mother wrestled with my name. When my parents found out they were having twins, the natural name at the time for twin sons, born of a preacher was Peter and Paul. But my mom wanted something more special for my name. So, she choose the name of another apostle, Philip, for me. The name Philip is derived from the Greek word, Philos, the word for brotherly love. Love for the Lord, and for this man certainly characterizes Philips attitude the day the Ethiopian Eunuch gets saved.

Another thing that is obvious is Philip’s great faith and taste for the bizarre in this story. I try to picture how odd this must have seemed to this Foreign Dignitary. Picture a stranger running up beside a string of Chariots escorting a very important man back to his home country.

It may have looked like a Chariot-jacking as Philip gets involved in the life of this man. To set the stage, we need to remember that Paul, the apostle is not yet a Christian. Instead he has decided to start persecuting the Church. So he begins arresting Christians and putting them in jail. And Philip reacts well to the persecution.

(SHOW) We get to choose how we react to any situation.

The Christians could have reacted in different ways.
• They could have quit following God because times were tough.
• They could have whined about it and used that as an excuse to fall back into sin.
• Some of them did nothing different, got arrested and suffered the persecution because they remembered Jesus’ words that there was a special place of blessing for those who were persecuted for their faith.

Others, like Philip felt a leading from God to escape Jerusalem. He didn’t try to escape persecution, but he took it as a sign that God wanted him spread the good news to more places than just Jerusalem.
(SHOW) Some choose to be faithful.

So, he obeys the voice of the Holy Spirit and God starts doing some strange things with him.

Remember, he is already driven from his home, and the Lord tells him to go to a certain road and wait. When he gets there, he sees this entourage of dignitaries. And Philip is told by God to jump into this guy’s chariot and start talking to him.

Well, how do you do that? I mean, if he just jumps into the chariot the guards might kill him in order to defend the important official.

So, Philip starts running beside the chariot and then strikes up a conversation with the man.

(SHOW) Philip begins his sharing with the man by finding out about HIM. He cares enough to get to know him.

“Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asks.

And praise God, God is already preparing the heart of this man to hear the gospel.

The man happens to be reading Isaiah 53, the lesson we are going to study tomorrow night in Bible study at our house.

Isaiah 53 is a prophecy about Jesus and His role and how He will be treated.
To the ancient Jews, it was confusing. It predicts the Suffering servant.
The Jewish leaders didn’t understand that the conquering King and Suffering servant were one in the same.

They couldn’t imagine how a man could take away the sins of the world.
A man can’t take away the sins of the world, but the God/Man, who was perfect, Jesus Christ could.

The Jewish leaders imagined Him to be two different people and they argued over which one was the Messiah. Unfortunately, arguing about theology is something theologians do. Doctrine is important, as long as it points us and other to Jesus.
Their argument was in important one. Was the Messiah the one who would save us from our sins, or the one who would save our land from the enemy?

And the Eunuch is thinking about what he is reading and pondering what it could mean and how it could happen.

(SHOW) The Ethiopian Dignitary already has sincere questions in his mind.

He asks Philip, “Is Isaiah talking about himself, or someone else?”

So Philip begins to explain that the conquering King is setting up an eternal Spiritual kingdom that is much greater than any kingdom of men. And to do that, He must die for the sins of the people He came to save.

The debate that was confusing the theologians and this man happened because they were leaving out the mystery of God.

(SHOW) Philip is patient with the man’s questions.

The political powers in Jerusalem wanted a political leader that they could control, so they killed Jesus. Jesus really upset the apple cart for them.

But the foreign dignitary doesn’t care for local politics. Apparently, he is in Jerusalem because he is a truth seeker. And because he is seeking truth, God shows Jesus to him.

And (SHOW) Jesus is faithful to seek out those who are sincerely seeking after Him.

Jesus is faithful enough to miraculously send Philip onto this road.

Philip starts talking to the man and the man invites him into the Chariot.

There is a lesson here. (SHOW) Don’t worry about creating opportunities to share your faith, just listen to the prompting of the Holy Spirit and be ready.

It’s not like we are sales men and women peddling a product that we call Church and Jesus is a bonus.

No, we are followers and friends of Jesus introducing Him to others.

I had a career in sales for several years. I sold shoes, I sold pest-control. Then I sold big ticket items for a major department store chain, and then I finally moved up to selling wholesale building products, covering a region from Southern Indiana, Kentucky, Southern Ohio, Tennessee and Southern Missouri.

The commissions on that job were a lot higher than selling appliances. But the appliance sales job was easier. Almost everyone who entered the department was looking to buy. Maybe they weren’t going to buy that day, but furnaces and dishwashers aren’t something that you typically window shop for. When I was selling shoes, there were a lot of window shoppers, but not with furnaces and water heaters.

People may be excited to buy a new pair of shoes, or maybe a television, but if they are looking for a furnace or water heater, they are probably upset at having an expense they hadn’t counted on.

The point was, I was invited into their space to help them solve their need.

The traveling job required me to create the need for my product and then convince them that my product would be the best one to meet their need.

I did a lot of cold-calling and I was always looking for different ways to get my foot in the door. There was a lot of wasted effort compared to the time spent on the sales floor.

Philip is invited to share with this man. He is invited first by God, but then by the man himself.

Here is Philip. He doesn’t have to create a need in order to “sell” Jesus.

He was more like the guy on the sales floor. The Dignitary was looking for him. God had already created the need in this man’s heart. The field was already ripe for the harvest, and God sent him along to gather one of God’s precious own into God’s family.

Philip wasn’t “selling Jesus.” Philip became a friend to this man at an opportune time in this man’s life in order to make a difference.

(SHOW –don’t say) God does the same thing today.

I want to conclude with a story of how God is still doing the same thing today. And He is doing it through people like you and me.

When I was a student in Bible College, my wife and I went to visit the people we had helped plant a church with in Atlantic City. I was suffering from some stomach problems and had developed an ulcer and was being treated with a certain medicine.

While on vacation, I caught a cold and I went to the doctor and the medicine he proscribed reacted with my ulcer medication.

It reacted violently. I couldn’t keep anything down. The ulcer ruptured. I couldn’t stop vomiting and I was losing blood and getting dehydrated.
So, they hospitalized me under heavy sedation with nothing to eat or drink for three days.

When I got strong enough to undergo anesthesia, they did an endoscopy. The doctor was warning Kathy and me that if I had been treated with this medicine for 3 months and was still bleeding, they needed to check for cancer.

So, here I was, the young father of 3 children, lying in a hospital bed with the threat of death over my head.

My wife and I were very upset. It seemed to me that every time I started to get caught up with events, and felt a little breathing space, something came along again to knock me down.

Just like the believers in Jerusalem who were being persecuted and forced to flee their homes. I was tempted to question God’s plan.

The people who are merely “selling Jesus” will tell you that God’s plan includes an easy life.

But for the early Christians, it almost immediately began with persecution.
However, the persecution caused the believers to spread out and many, many more people heard the gospel.

(SHOW) God wants us to rest in His plan, not question it.

Now, back to the story: The night before the endoscopy, some believing friends came to visit me in the hospital. They prayed and anointed me with oil in the name of the Lord. I didn’t feel anything, but I knew something happened. After the test, the doctor told me, he found 3 scars in my stomach that were completely healed, but there was nothing to cause the bleeding anymore. He couldn’t explain how, but he told me that now I was better and as soon as I could hold down food I’d be released. I have to tell you, I was so relieved! I was so full of faith at that moment, I could have walked on water! I was ready to do anything the Lord called me to do!

(SHOW) When God touches us, we draw closer to Him.

All of that set the stage for the next events. That day, I got a new roommate in my hospital room. This guy was sick! I mean he was moaning and grunting and you could tell he was really suffering. After the nurses settled him in and he relaxed, he asked the nurse to pull back the curtain. Here I was, a 25 year old kid compared to this man who was in his late 50’s. He could easily have been my father. I wasn’t a preacher yet, I didn’t start wearing a cross until a few years ago. I am sure I had my own study bible there inside the room, but there was a lot of other stuff in that room. There was nothing to mark me as a “preacher in training” or really, even a follower of Christ. The man wasn’t necessarily looking for a “Christian” or a “preacher” to talk to. He just needed someone human.

All of a sudden, he fixes his eyes on me. Not knowing me from Adam, and he says, “Last year (1981) I made several hundred thousand dollars.” Then a long pause: I wondered “was he bragging?” But he was just working up the courage for his next statement. He said: They just took a tumor the size of a grapefruit out of my abdomen. What good does all that money do me now?” You gotta ask yourself: “Why did he ask such a young man compared to him such a profound question?” I believe it was because God had prepared him for salvation. Now I, in contrast, had just experienced a pretty amazing miracle. I was so happy that my kids weren’t going to grow up without a father that I wanted to shout Jesus from the top of a mountain.

Besides the fact that I was named after Philip the apostle, and we share first names, there is a lot of similarity between these stories. Philip, the apostle, would have rather have been safe and secure at home. But because of persecution and unfortunate circumstances, he wasn’t able to be home either. I too, was not home because of a hardship. Philip was faced with the choice to be upset, or to be faithful in the circumstances. I was faced with the same choice. Philip is thrown into an intimate encounter with a total stranger because God knew that this man was seeking and was calling out to God for direction. I was thrown into an intimate encounter with a total stranger with whom God has brought to a point where he recognizes that he needs answers.

Now, I didn’t just look at my roommate and tell him “You better get saved buddy, that is your problem and God is after you. If you pray this simple prayer everything in your life would go back to normal.” I didn’t do that because I don’t know what is happening in the life of this man. I don’t know if the same healing I just received from God was going to be given to this man. I am not God. But I did know this, all of this tragedy that has just happened to me over the last week was ordained by God in order for God to have someone present with this man in his hour of need.

(SHOW) God cares for people, especially in their hour of need. Are YOU in an hour of need?

So, I shared with him that I had no answers to his dilemma. But I believed that I knew the one who did. I talked to him about counting the cost of discipleship because of what Jesus did to save him. And after several hours with this man, he finally asked me, he asked me, “How do I become a Christian?” Before I left the room the next morning, I rejoiced with a new brother in Christ. I have no idea what his name is, but I know I will see him again someday.

CONCL:

(SHOW) Are you ready to become a follower of Jesus Christ?