Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] I want to talk about evangelism this morning. So if you are. If you're a leader. If you're a community group leader, at Redemption Hill earlier this week, we had this conversation. We started this conversation about evangelism. And I preface a conversation around evangelism through this passage by saying a couple of things. Normally, when we talk about evangelism, there's a great sense of shame that just kind of washes over the church like a wave. Okay, so, like, if you're at the beach and a wave washes over you, that tends to be what we feel when the conversation around evangelism. And when we say evangelism, what we're talking about is the sharing of your faith, the sharing of the gospel message. And we'll talk about that more in just a moment. And so when we hear this, we think, at least I do, man. I don't do that enough.
[00:00:59] Like, I just don't do that enough. I'm given opportunities, and I feel the sense of, like, I need to do this more, and I just. I just don't do it enough. And there are a variety of reasons behind that. But here's the thing that I want us to really think about today, and we'll see it in the text, both from Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, is you and I share what we're passionate about.
[00:01:22] That's a normal thing that humans do.
[00:01:25] You get really excited about.
[00:01:29] I was gonna get really specific with college football teams, but I'm not gonna do that as to not offend some in the room. But you get really excited about certain teams or certain things, and you talk about those things. So Dale Carnegie from way back in the day, back in, I think, the 50s, wrote a book called how to Win Friends and Influence People. And his thesis essentially is, if you want to do that, if you want to win friends and influence people, then you need to find out what they like, and you need to talk to them about that thing, because everybody likes to talk about what they like. We all do that. And so when somebody is very inquisitive of something that you're passionate about, don't you find yourself more comfortable? And just like, you just find yourself rolling, you're just talking about the thing that you're passionate about doing, Right?
[00:02:08] We all do this. We talk about what we love, and we have no issue doing that. It's not awkward. It's not weird. We're not trying to. We're not overthinking. How do I turn the corner to get to Talking about the 2026 Texas Longhorns football season or whatever. Sorry, Drew. Or we don't have to think about those kinds of things because we love those things. And so the question then is, why don't we do that more? When it comes to sharing Jesus with people, I don't think it's because of a lack of love for Jesus.
[00:02:39] I don't think that that's the case. I know you.
[00:02:43] I love Jesus. I know those of you that I do know. You love Jesus deeply. It is one of the things that makes pastoring Redemption Hill such an honor is how deeply I know you really love the person of Jesus. It's amazing. Couldn't ask for anything more than that as a pastor. And so what is it that keeps us from sharing Jesus with people that don't know him in our lives? And I want to propose kind of three things that I think happen.
[00:03:09] Certainly there are more, but I think these three things are pretty general. Big buckets that sometimes keep us from sharing our faith.
[00:03:18] Number one is fear.
[00:03:22] Maybe it's a fear of culture. Maybe we see the darkness of the culture. There's certainly beauty in the culture as well. But we see the darkness of the culture, and it kind of makes us want to withdraw from it. Like, we're like, I'm just going to separate. We become separatist. I'm just going to separate myself, and I'm not going to engage because I don't understand it. And we tend to be fearful of things that we don't understand.
[00:03:43] Right.
[00:03:45] That's one thing. Maybe we're fearful of a loss of relationship with somebody in our life who's not a Christian. And we think that if we bring up Jesus, it's going to be very divisive and they're not going to want to hang out with us anymore. They're not going to love us anymore, whatever.
[00:03:57] So fear is one thing. I think a second, this is the most concerning for me as a pastor is rage.
[00:04:05] That.
[00:04:07] Here's the thing about rage.
[00:04:10] We see the brokenness of the world, and rather than lamenting its lostness and remembering it's only by the grace of God that we are who we are.
[00:04:19] We latch to online rage baiters, and we develop a hatred for people who do not think the way we think.
[00:04:27] All of us live in an echo chamber. If you have an iPhone or whatever other version of smartphone there is, if you have that thing, you live in an echo chamber. In the sense that everything in our culture now is decentralized. Nobody's watching TV and watching the Same things. It's all tailored to you from your algorithm.
[00:04:50] It knows what you like and how you think, and so it feeds you these things.
[00:04:56] And so you listen to political talking heads, and you listen to all of these things that are telling you what to think and what to believe and how you ought to hate people that don't believe those things. We are enraged.
[00:05:08] And that rage doesn't lead to evangelism because there's no love in your heart for the people that you're supposed to be evangelizing to.
[00:05:17] And so it actually leads us to another kind of withdrawal that's certainly more dangerous than the fear withdrawal.
[00:05:26] So that's the second thing, and then the third is man. Just. We have a tendency to be conformed to the world rather than engaging in it. So if it's not fear, if it's not rage, there's an element of conformity by which we fail to preach truth and teach truth into hard situations with people that disagree with what we believe, honestly, because in many ways, we're being conformed to the ways of the world.
[00:05:53] We don't want to confront the things that are sinful, things to confront in love and truth.
[00:06:01] And so we don't share. So fear, rage, conformity. So the question that I want us to answer in the passage is this.
[00:06:09] What then might lead you and I to share our faith with courage and joy to those in our life who need the hope that we have?
[00:06:18] So what is it that we see in the text that might actually lead us to share our faith, to share the gospel with? Courage, because you need courage to share.
[00:06:29] And joy, because we need joy to share. Why? Because, again, we share the things that we love, the things that bring us joy. That's what we talk about.
[00:06:40] And so what from the text might do this? And I want to do it through three questions. Okay, so three questions that we'll see answered in the text.
[00:06:49] The first one is this.
[00:06:52] What is God doing behind the scenes?
[00:06:55] So when we think about evangelism, we think about, okay, I need to. I know I need to share my faith. But for all these reasons, it's difficult for me to share my faith. I think a helpful question for us is this one. Take your eyes off of yourself and redouble your attention onto God.
[00:07:11] Take your eyes off yourself and think about God. What is God doing behind the scenes? All right, let's look at the text together. Acts, chapter 8, starting in verse 26.
[00:07:22] 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.
[00:07:32] This is a desert place.
[00:07:36] This is a desert place.
[00:07:39] So at the onset, what is God doing behind the scenes? Well, the first thing that we see from this, and it's not directly in the text, but it's implied, is, is God is renewing the world.
[00:07:53] What's God doing behind the scenes in all things? As you look out at the news, as you engage your neighbor, as you seek to share the gospel with people who don't know Jesus, like, what's God doing behind all of that? Well, the first thing to take note of is move it beyond this individual encounter into the cosmic reality that God is renewing the world.
[00:08:12] As you and I sit here today, God is at work.
[00:08:15] When you go to sleep tonight, God will still be at work doing one thing, making all things new.
[00:08:22] He's renewing the world. How do we know this? Through the passage. Well, it says that the angel of the Lord or an angel of the Lord, not the angel of the Lord. So this is not pre incarnate Christ, obviously, because Christ has already come. He's seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven in the book of Acts. And so God sends what I believe is what we see described in Hebrews chapter one, an angel of the Lord, that is a ministering spirit sent to help the elect. This is what angels are. This is what they do. Their angels are a reality in your life and in mine. Isn't that amazing? He sends his angels to help you and to help me. And so he sends an angel of the Lord to Philip. And the angel speaks to Philip and he says, hey, I want you to go down from here. Remember, Philip was the first Christian missionary to Samaria, half Jew, half Gentile. And now he says, I want you to leave Samaria, which was north of Jerusalem. I want you to leave Samaria and I want you to travel down through Gaza to a desert place.
[00:09:21] Here's why that's significant and what it has to do with God renewing the world. A desert place was a place of chaos and death.
[00:09:28] The desert is a common theme that runs all throughout the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, since the fall in Genesis chapter three, all the way through to the new heavens and new earth, which is a garden, by the way. New heavens and new earth.
[00:09:40] The idea of desert runs all the way through the Bible. When God rescued the Israelites out of Egypt in the book of Exodus, what did he lead them through the desert.
[00:09:50] When Jesus begins his ministry in Matthew chapter three, after he's baptized, Matthew chapter four, it says that the Spirit leads Jesus into the desert to be tempted by Satan.
[00:10:01] So the desert is a place of testing. It's a place of.
[00:10:05] It's a place of death, but it's also a place of testing and renewal. This is a fulfillment of what we see promised in Isaiah 32:15 that says this.
[00:10:16] Then the desert will become like an orchard, and the orchard will seem like a forest.
[00:10:24] God is renewing the desert, and he's doing it in this particular text by taking his missionary, sending an angel to the missionary, and commanding that missionary to go into the desert. Why is he sending him into the desert? Because in sending him into the desert, he's going to bring the gospel message. And the gospel message is the means by which he's going to turn that desert into a forest. Does this make sense?
[00:10:51] We're seeing prophecy fulfilled in this command from the Lord to Philip.
[00:10:59] Take the gospel that went from Jerusalem, Pentecost, this amazing event where the Spirit has now come into the human heart and given a new heart to the people of God. And now that same message of grace is moving into Samaria. The hated Samaritans, half Jew, half Gentile. And now it's going out even further into the desert to the Gentiles.
[00:11:26] This is what Jesus promised, wasn't it in Acts 1:8?
[00:11:29] You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria. And now we see this begin to be fulfilled to the ends of the earth through the desert to the Gentiles.
[00:11:43] Matthew 13:31 and 32. Jesus, in talking about the kingdom of heaven, says, the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and placed in his field.
[00:11:53] Though it is the smallest of all the seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of the garden plants and becomes a tree so that the birds come and chirp in its branches.
[00:12:05] The kingdom of God comes, is inaugurated in the person of Jesus Christ.
[00:12:11] That seed dies and goes into the ground and then rises on the third day.
[00:12:17] And that kingdom begins to be advanced throughout the people of God. It goes from 12 to 120, to multiple hundreds, to multiple thousands. And now it's gone from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and it's going into the desert to the ends of the earth. What is God doing behind the scenes, friends? And what ought to bolster your faith to share with your neighbor? It's simply this, that salvation is not on your shoulders. Even when you're asleep. God is still working to make all things new.
[00:12:45] When I was in 10th grade, I wanted to be a firefighter.
[00:12:49] Okay? Still, what I. If I weren't a pastor, I would try to be a firefighter. So kudos to firefighters.
[00:12:55] I got to go on a career day with a firefighter one time and 16 years old, go to the firehouse. I get to go on a call with the firefighter. So we're like, I'm in the truck and we're going on a call, and I get to. We get to a house of a man who had fallen, and so he had literally fallen and he could not get up. And so we get to the house and we walk in and I get to go over and help the firefighter pick this man up. And what was so amazing about that day, by the end of the day was, man, I got to be a part of something that ultimately I was not fully responsible for.
[00:13:29] I got to just be an apprentice for a day. That's what you get to be as a Christian.
[00:13:34] The salvation of the world is not on you. It's not on your shoulders. The salvation of your neighbor is not on your shoulders. You are an apprentice.
[00:13:42] You get to. As one of my pastors says, it's like a cosmic go to work with dad day.
[00:13:48] That's what evangelism is for you.
[00:13:50] You get to go to work with your dad. He's the one working. He's the one saving. He's the one calling and sanctifying and making all things new. And he's invited you to get to be a part of it.
[00:14:01] You don't. And I don't take the gospel anywhere that the Spirit is not already at work.
[00:14:09] I mean, we'll see in the text. It's amazing. Like, just so happens that an Ethiopian eunuch has to be coming down at the time that the angel of the Lord calls Philip to go into the desert place. Isn't that coincidental?
[00:14:22] So let's get into that part. So what's the first. What is God doing behind the scenes? God is renewing the world. That's what he's doing behind the scenes. Number two, how are we to respond?
[00:14:36] Sorry, we're not to number two yet. This is still part of first question. What's God doing behind the scenes? He's renewing the world. The second thing he's doing is he is pursuing individual people.
[00:14:48] He's renewing the world.
[00:14:50] But he's not just a cosmic, transcendent God.
[00:14:54] He's more personal than our minds can fathom. He cares about every single detail of your life and mine. He's pursuing individual people. And we see that in verses 27 and 28, verse 27, verse 27 says. And he rose and went.
[00:15:11] And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, Queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure.
[00:15:19] He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah.
[00:15:28] So I want us to notice the man for a moment because if you are familiar with church, maybe this is the first time you've heard this story. And that's awesome if this is the case. Love that.
[00:15:39] But maybe this is like the thousandth time you've heard this story and it's kind of, you kind of become callous to it a little bit. Okay, so as we all have a tendency to do, I want us to just take a moment to notice the man because we can, if we're not careful, we can read these stories in a similar way that when we pass a person on the street, when we pass a home, we'll say, we'll get specific. If we pass a homeless person, person on the street, we can drive past them, not even considering the reality of their humanity.
[00:16:15] Right?
[00:16:16] We sit at the red light and they walk by our car. And we try not to make eye contact because we don't really know what to do.
[00:16:23] And it's really easy to forget the intrinsic worth and value that that person has because they're created in the image of God.
[00:16:33] And so we do this with the people of the Bible. We miss the humanity of these people. Think about this man.
[00:16:42] Who was this man, this gentile? He was an Ethiopian eunuch.
[00:16:48] Just means he was Ethiopian. He was African gentile, non Jew. Says he was traveling to Jerusalem to worship God. We'll talk about that in just a moment. So he's a God fearer, so to speak, but he was an Ethiopian, he wasn't a Jew.
[00:17:05] And more significantly, he was a eunuch.
[00:17:10] Okay, so here's a quote from Patrick Schreiner, he's a biblical scholar about eunuchs. In the first century, he says eunuchs in the Greco Roman world were considered the ultimate non man.
[00:17:25] Okay, so in a culture of masculinity and good things, right? Masculinity is a good thing. We're not disparaging that a eunuch would be considered what he calls a non man since they lack the main feature of masculinity.
[00:17:42] Philo writes that eunuchs are neither male nor female. And Josephus, first century Jewish scholar, urges his audience to, quote, drive off those who have deprived themselves of their manhood because their soul has become effeminate.
[00:18:01] So Man, God doesn't just pursue individual people, he pursues outcasts.
[00:18:09] This is if you want to get to the heart of Jesus. Like, what really just drives the person of Jesus. He loves the outsider.
[00:18:21] And that should be really good news for you and really good news for me, because you once were that.
[00:18:28] And for some of us, we just kind of lose sight of that, especially if we've been Christians for a long time. At some point, we have amnesia, we have gospel amnesia, as some would say, of the reality that you and I, at one point, we're the outsider, we were the outcast.
[00:18:49] Jesus says things like, I leave the 99 for the 1.
[00:18:55] You know, like which one of you, he says to the religious leaders, would not leave the 99 sheep that you have for the sake of the one lost sheep. I would do that.
[00:19:05] And I wouldn't just leave the 99 for the 1. I would go back and I would. I would retrieve my one lost sheep even to the ends of the earth. God would move heaven and earth for the one sheep to throw over his shoulders and bring back into the fold. That's what he did for you.
[00:19:21] The God of the universe moved heaven and earth.
[00:19:25] He sent his only son for you.
[00:19:30] So that you could say more than just, jesus died for the sins of the world. Jesus died for yours.
[00:19:37] He took your place on the cross.
[00:19:40] He rose from the dead, thereby justifying you.
[00:19:45] He adopted you into his family.
[00:19:48] It's not just about what God does for the world, it's what he did for you.
[00:19:54] He loves you as a person.
[00:19:58] And we see this beautifully encapsulated in his pursuit of this Ethiopian eunuch.
[00:20:05] Outcasts of society, ostracized by society, non man, effeminate, etc.
[00:20:13] Wouldn't have been allowed in the temple, by the way.
[00:20:18] Now we know that the temple is not a place, it's a person.
[00:20:22] And the person of Jesus.
[00:20:25] And Jesus is not merely the God of one people group. He is the God of the nations.
[00:20:33] And so the eunuch was an outcast. He was an outsider. He was undesirable. But Jesus desires the undesirable.
[00:20:40] Praise God for that. Praise God for His grace.
[00:20:47] The book of James says that God shows no partiality.
[00:20:53] And we see that embodied here with the Ethiopian eunuch. And so I do want you to consider if there are areas of your heart where partiality has taken root that's actually leading you away from certain people.
[00:21:05] And this goes all the way back to my point of like, you gotta. This isn't in my notes.
[00:21:09] And I Dude, so guilty.
[00:21:13] You gotta be careful with what you watch and who you listen to.
[00:21:17] Because if you're only listening to one type of person, most of whom, by the way, on the Internet are not Jesus lovers. They might say they are.
[00:21:25] They might use Christian language. They are using Jesus to accomplish their own means.
[00:21:31] And that's both on the left and the right. Politically, by the way.
[00:21:36] You gotta be careful with that. You have to have discernment. You have to think critically about those things. These people have your interest. They don't have your interest at all in heart. They just want your clicks. That's all they want from you.
[00:21:48] And so has partiality crept into our heart in such a way that actually leads us to disdain certain people rather than lamenting their lostness and seeking to engage them by the grace of God?
[00:22:00] He shows no partiality. Neither should you, neither should I.
[00:22:08] And so God is redeeming the world. He's renewing the world, and he is pursuing individual people, namely the outcast. You and I once were outcasts. Now he's brought us near through the blood of Christ, and he calls us to the outcast as well. How are we to respond is the second question. Look at verses 29 to 37.
[00:22:28] All right. Verse 29 says, and the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me?
[00:22:43] And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now, the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this.
[00:22:49] Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter.
[00:22:51] And like a lamb before its shearers, is silent. So he opens not his mouth.
[00:22:56] In his humiliation, justice was denied him.
[00:23:01] Who can describe his generation for his life is taken away from the earth.
[00:23:07] And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, does this prophet say this about himself or about someone else?
[00:23:15] Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with the Scriptures, he told him the good news about Jesus.
[00:23:21] And as they were going along the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, see, here's water. What prevents me from being baptized?
[00:23:29] So if the first question is, what is God doing behind the scenes? And the answer is, he's renewing the world and he's pursuing individual people. The second question we ask is, how are we to respond?
[00:23:40] How are we to respond to what God is doing behind the scenes? And I want to give you two sub points to that question. How are we to respond? Number one, we're to follow the Spirit's leading.
[00:23:52] Follow the Spirit's leading. It says, the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join the chariot. So what did Philip do? He ran to him.
[00:24:07] We don't know how the Spirit spoke this to Philip.
[00:24:11] We don't know if it was an audible voice from heaven. That seems to be, at least in my, you know, West Texas education background. The simple reading of the text is that that he spoke and Philip heard his voice audibly, and so he went in obedience to him. But we don't know that for certain.
[00:24:27] But in some way the Spirit spoke to Philip.
[00:24:32] And the overarching principle that we can take from this is Philip listened and obeyed.
[00:24:38] He knew the voice of the Spirit, he recognized it, and he was willing to get up and run toward a person that he otherwise would not on his own have gotten up and run to.
[00:24:50] No Jew has any business getting up and running toward a gentile Ethiopian eunuch.
[00:24:57] But he heard the Spirit's voice, and he followed the Spirit's leading.
[00:25:02] And this makes sense. Jesus says this in John chapter three.
[00:25:05] He said, the sheep hear my voice.
[00:25:09] My sheep hear my voice.
[00:25:13] They know my voice.
[00:25:15] And Jesus, he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.
[00:25:22] Jesus is our good shepherd. He is the good shepherd of Psalm 23, and he leads us in all of life.
[00:25:30] And it's incumbent upon the Christian for us to learn to hear his voice.
[00:25:38] Well, what's the primary way we hear the voice of God and know the voice of God, know the voice of the Spirit. Colossians tells us to let the Word of Christ, that is the Scriptures, dwell richly in us.
[00:25:54] When the Word of Christ dwells richly in our heart.
[00:25:58] When we are, as it says In Romans chapter 12, being transformed by the renewing of our mind which comes by the Spirit through the Scriptures, we're more able and ready to hear the voice of God when the Lord speaks to us in certain situations.
[00:26:14] It never fails that when the Spirit is leading me personally to do something, so Scripture comes to mind, and it's uniquely applicable to whatever situation I'm in, whether the Spirit is graciously, gently convicting me of sin and I need to confess my sin, particular Scriptures come to mind. Or if I'm at the grocery store and I'm in line and Matthew 28 comes to mind, go and make disciples of all nations. And I'm like, man, I need to share with this person.
[00:26:47] Whatever the case is, this is primarily how the Spirit of God speaks to us, friends.
[00:26:55] It's through the word of God. So here's just a practical encouragement for you, and it's very specific. But the next time you're at the grocery store and you're in line at the grocery store, put your phone away.
[00:27:08] Like, put your phone in your pocket, put it away and just ask how you might engage the cashier.
[00:27:16] Right? It could be as simple as, hey, I'm a Christian and I'm going to pray on my way home and I'd love to know how I can pray for you.
[00:27:24] You'd be amazed as to how people respond to that question.
[00:27:28] Sometimes they turn you down and whatever that happens. Sometimes for sure. But more often than not, that's not the way it goes.
[00:27:37] Probably more often than not. Nobody else throughout their day has asked them anything remotely close to that.
[00:27:42] Most people don't even look them in the eye.
[00:27:45] They keep their head down on their device and they go through and they pay with their card and then they go. It's dehumanizing.
[00:27:54] You are, if you're a Christian, part of the new humanity of God to be a different person than the world.
[00:28:04] And so put your phone away, smile, look him in the eye with all the confidence in the world because the spirit of God lives in you and your sins have been forgiven.
[00:28:13] And say, hey, how can I pray for you today?
[00:28:16] Follow the spirit's leading.
[00:28:18] Philip heard the voice of the Spirit and he went. He ran to the man.
[00:28:25] So that's the first thing.
[00:28:28] Follow the spirit's leading the second. And how are we to respond to what God's doing behind the scenes? Is to always be ready and prepared to share Jesus.
[00:28:39] Always be ready and prepared to share Jesus.
[00:28:45] Verse 34.
[00:28:47] The Ethiopian says, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself or someone else? That's kind of a softball.
[00:28:55] Like Philip. He kind of has it easy, honestly, a little bit. But like, the spirit leads him to the eunuch, and the eunuch is reading the prophet. Isaiah 53, chapter 53, the one that we just read in our script, you know, and it's all about Jesus. It's the suffering servant. You're like, wow. But you've messed up softball questions from non Christians and so have I. Like, sometimes they're so easy. You're like, you know, somebody's like, what do I have to do to inherit salvation? You're like, work really hard for it or something.
[00:29:23] So we all have a tendency to mess up those moments. Okay, Philip is ready and prepared for the moment by the grace of God. So the eunuch says, who's this talking about.
[00:29:38] And Philip is doing what Peter tells us to do in his letter. Always be prepared to give a defense for the hope that is in you.
[00:29:46] So when you read the Bible on a day by day basis and you memorize scripture and you do the spiritual disciplines, and it's not just for you, it is for you. Like Jesus wants to meet with you personally. He loves you, he loves communion with you. But it's not just for you. You are training, you're training yourself to be prepared for these moments, right, that when the Spirit leads you to engage somebody and you're given an opportunity, you'll have tools in the tool belt to have a conversation with these folks.
[00:30:18] And so Philip answers and he, it says he opened his mouth. And beginning with the Scripture, that's the Isaiah 53 passage that was quoted, beginning with the scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.
[00:30:34] He told him the good news about Jesus. There's a story of Billy Graham that I heard last week that he was doing an evangelistic crusade in Cambridge. And in preparation for the crusade, he knew that he was gonna be preaching to a lot of academics. And so he studied really hard, like all the areas of philosophy and who said what and all these different worldviews so that he could go into his sermon and he could engage these people where they were. And he saw no fruit from it for like two or three nights.
[00:31:01] He's got all these academic arguments. He's doing all these things, very little to no fruit. And on the third final night, he says, I'm gonna preach the blood.
[00:31:11] I'm going to preach the cross. Just what Billy Graham was gifted to do. I'm going to preach the cross of Jesus Christ. I'm going to choose to know nothing but Christ and him crucified. And there was mass revival.
[00:31:23] You read about it in his biography. It's amazing.
[00:31:27] Preach the blood.
[00:31:29] You don't have to know everything. You don't have to be Wes Huff. You don't have to be whatever apologist you like and listen to. You don't have to. You're not. These guys, like, those guys are gifted in the ways that God's gifted them to fulfill their ministry. Your call is to fulfill your ministry.
[00:31:47] And so you don't have to know everything.
[00:31:50] You don't have to be an expert in all the different areas of life. Know the blood.
[00:31:56] The blood has covered you.
[00:31:59] The blood has redeemed you. The blood has reconciled you. Your forgiveness of sins through and because of the blood of Jesus Christ is what you are to proclaim and so Philip begins by saying, hey, Isaiah 53 is about God, who, for the sake of sinners, humiliated himself.
[00:32:21] He endured the cross, despised the shame, and now he's seated at the right hand of the throne of God. He's defeated sin, he's defeated death, and now salvation. Heaven is open to every single person who by the grace of God, will turn from sin and believe upon him.
[00:32:41] He began to proclaim the good news.
[00:32:47] The good news about Jesus. If you'll notice in the text, really interesting, there's not a verse 37. Did you notice that?
[00:32:55] Anybody else?
[00:32:57] Okay, verse 36 to verse 38 is what you have in your Bible crazy right?
[00:33:03] Now to verse 37. So here's what 36 and 38 say. It says, and 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? Verse 38. And he commanded the chariot to stop. And they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
[00:33:21] What happened in verse 37? I don't know. But here's. Here's what some over the years have added in between those two verses. Though many believe that this was not in the original manuscript, but it can be implied nonetheless. Verse 37. And Philip said, if you believe with all your heart, you may.
[00:33:41] And he replied, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
[00:33:48] Listen, whether that verse was in the original manuscripts or not, it certainly implied that what happened was behind the scenes. God is renewing all things.
[00:33:58] He's pursuing individual people.
[00:34:01] Philip, by the grace of God, responded by following the Spirit's lead. He was prepared to give an account for the hope that was in him. And in so doing, God works magic in the heart of the Ethiopian eunuch and leads him to salvation.
[00:34:19] He struck to the heart. He's given a new heart. And so the eunuch responds very simply with, there's water over there. What's preventing me from being baptized right now?
[00:34:30] Philip didn't catechize him. Doesn't mean that's bad. Catechism's good. We do that.
[00:34:34] It's a good thing to do. But this event was so miraculous. It was so obvious that by the grace of God, the Ethiopian eunuch had been brought from death to spiritual life through faith in Jesus. That Philip was like, yes, stop the chariot right now.
[00:34:49] Stop the chariot right now. We're going to go down into the water, and I'm going to.
[00:34:54] I'm going to baptize this brother.
[00:34:57] And so that leads us into the Final question is, what is the guaranteed result of Christian evangelism?
[00:35:06] What is the guaranteed result of Christian evangelism? And the answer is joy.
[00:35:14] Verse 38 to 40.
[00:35:17] He commanded the chariot to stop and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.
[00:35:22] And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. And the eunuch saw him no more, and he went on his way, rejoicing.
[00:35:34] But Philip found himself in Azotus. And as he passed through, he preached the Gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. Philip could not shut up about the good news of Jesus.
[00:35:47] Everywhere that brother went, he told people about Jesus.
[00:35:53] I don't know what happened to Philip. He got magically transported by the Spirit into another place. Is what it seemed to be like a miracle that God is doing in that particular moment. But the word I want to leave you with this morning is the word rejoice.
[00:36:05] Like, how did the eunuch respond to this new life that had been given to him? Think about this. He was Ethiopian. He was a eunuch. He was a God fearer. He was traveling from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship God, but he was doing it through the law.
[00:36:22] And in so doing, through the law. On his way back to his hometown, he has an encounter with grace.
[00:36:30] He goes to worship God through the law, and he ends up getting saved and transformed by God through grace.
[00:36:38] He's a new person.
[00:36:41] And it says that his response, his reaction to this new life that had been given to him was joy.
[00:36:50] Romans 4 says, Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven, whose lawless deeds are covered.
[00:37:00] So if you're in Christ this morning, if you're a follower of Jesus, that statement is true for you.
[00:37:07] Happy is the man or woman whose sins are forgiven, whose lawless deeds are covered.
[00:37:15] You've been covered by the righteousness of Christ, forgiven of all your sins and transgressions. God has taken your sin. He's put it behind our back. And the end result of that is joy. Joy led Philip to the eunuch.
[00:37:30] And then church history would tell us, so we don't have this recorded in the Bible. That joy would lead the eunuch to what many church fathers believe to be the first missionary to Africa.
[00:37:41] So Irenaeus in AD180 says, this actually believes that the Ethiopian eunuch, after hearing the gospel and receiving Jesus by faith, travels back to Ethiopia and is the first Christian missionary to Africa.
[00:37:57] And the gospel begins to spread, continues to spread throughout the ends of the earth.
[00:38:03] It wasn't fear that led them to do it. It wasn't rage at the culture that led them to do it. It was otherworldly joy. My sins have been forgiven.
[00:38:12] My sins have been forgiven. Heaven is my home. God is my Father. Jesus is my brother. The Spirit of God is my helper. I'm adopted as a child, as a son, daughter of God. Like any Sinclair Ferguson says this and I love it. Isn't it wonderful to be a Christian?
[00:38:28] It's just the most amazing, wonderful thing in the world. You're a Christian.
[00:38:35] There's nothing higher to be said about you than that. Not your job, not your relationships, not whether or not you're married or have kids or have a lot of money or whatever. You're a Christian.
[00:38:52] So here's I just want to pray Psalm 51, 12:13 over us. And this is the one thing that I want to ask the Lord to do for us, for those who are Christians in the room, is to restore to you the joy of your salvation.
[00:39:04] And for that joy to lead you out into one person's life, just one, one person who doesn't know the Lord Jesus.
[00:39:15] It shouldn't be fear that leads you to do it, shouldn't be guilt and shame and condemnation and all of those things. But if God were to restore in us the joy of our salvation, we would go. I know we would go.
[00:39:28] I would go. And we wouldn't do it perfectly. We're going to fall on our face and we're going to come back in here on Sunday and we're going to celebrate our failures together.
[00:39:35] Because we don't celebrate ourselves. We celebrate Jesus.
[00:39:39] And so God, I pray Psalm 51 verses 12 and 13 through over all of us.
[00:39:47] Would you, Father, restore to us the joy of our salvation?
[00:39:53] Would you uphold us with a willing spirit?
[00:39:57] Then we will teach transgressors your ways and sinners will return to you.
[00:40:05] Amen.
