Sent with the Gospel
Acts 8:26 – 40
Today we are continuing our lessons in the book of Acts as we explore the influence of the power of the Holy Spirit in the creation of the early Christian church. In the last couple of weeks, we have seen Peter and John empowered by the arrival of the Holy Spirit and two weeks ago, we saw them cure a man who had been lame since birth, a beggar that spent every day at the gate to the temple looking for money.
Last week we saw them arrested by the Temple guards and hauled before Annas and Caiaphas because they had been preaching to the excited and growing crowd, that the curing of the lame man was done through and by the name of the resurrected Jesus Christ. The man that Annas and Caiaphas had sent to die on the Cross at Golgotha.
Our reading today is about a man named Philip but we need some clarification, it is not Philip the Disciple, but rather someone else used by God. So, who is this guy and where did he come from? To understand that we need to go back to the first part of Chapter 6.
After the miracle that Peter performed at the Temple the excitement and the crowds grew. In fact, in our lesson last week, we read that the number of believers had grown to more than 5000. Consequently, the number of people that had gathered and were living amongst the Disciples had grown tremendously. And as would be expected there was some disagreements. One of the groups complained that some people were getting overlooked in the daily food distribution.
So the 12 Disciples got together and said “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers and sisters, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”
The people chose those that they could trust with the equal care of everyone, and they chose Stephen along with our new friend Philip and five others. The Choosing of The Seven. They presented these men to the Apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them consecrating them for their work.
In this way, we see that Stephen, the man whose death by stoning arguably changes the trajectory of Christianity more than any other man other than Jesus himself, as well as Philip were considered workers that were faithful enough to, as the scripture says, “wait on tables”, while the Disciples, the Apostles gave their full attention to “prayer and ministry to the word”.
These folks, Philip and the others, they were not like the Disciples that were handpicked by Jesus to be part of his inner circle. They were just guys, part of the church, part of the laity, picked by the laity to serve others. They had no particular training, certainly not the close proximity to Jesus through His ministry as the Disciples, but they had heard and learned what was said by the Disciples and they were willing to serve at the impulse of the Spirit. Through the purpose and providence of God these two men went on to do much more than waiting on tables!
The story of Steven is found at the end of Chapter 6 and through Chapter 7. The religious elite were jealous and afraid of the wisdom of the Spirit with which he spoke. They accused him of blasphemy and put him trail. What he said and did that day agitated members of the Sanhedrin so much that they dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. Meanwhile, the witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul of Tarsus, the man that we will eventually come to know as the Apostle Paul after his encounter with the risen Jesus in the desert.
Chapter 8 begins with the words “And Saul approved of their killing him and on that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except, the apostles, were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Saul began to destroy the church. Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.
While this may seem like evil trying to destroy the young church before it began, but though the power of the Holy Spirit and the providence of God this was the beginning of the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The disciples of Jesus were forced to “go into the world, into other places and make disciples of all nations” baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them”.
Our new friend Philip, the one without any particular training but with a heart to serve, was Sent with the Gospel to a city in Samaria. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed through the Spirit, they all paid close attention to what he said. Impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed, or lame were healed. There was great joy in that city because Philip had been Sent with the Gospel. But God had bigger plans for Philip!
Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, ‘Go south to the road— the desert road— that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.’ So he went and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of the prophet Isaiah. The Spirit told Philip, ‘Go to that chariot and stay near it.’
Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading. ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ Philip asked. ‘How can I,’ he said, ‘unless someone explains it to me?’ He invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Now, 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 shearers is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him, who can describe his generation, for his life is taken from the earth.
The eunuch asked Philip of whom does the Prophet speak, about himself or about someone else? Then Phillip opened his mouth, and beginning with this Scripture, He told him the good news about Jesus, explaining the life and works, his suffering, death and resurrection, his ascension, and the Kingdom he established.
The Holy Spirit put it on the eunuch’s heart to believe what Christ has come to do for him, that he died for his sins, that he rose to give him new life and that his life no longer is grounded in this perishing world, but that his life is now a living hope in God’s kingdom.
And as they traveled along the road, they came upon some water and the eunuch said, ‘Look, here is water. Can I be baptized?’ Philip said, “‘If you believe with all your heart, you may.’ The eunuch answered, ‘I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.’” So he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.
The scriptures are silent about the eunuch after that, but Irenaeus the noted Greek theologian from the middle ages wrote that this man went back to serve not only his queen, but His God and his nation by leading them to Jesus Christ. Through Philip, the Lord orchestrated the evangelization of Ethiopia and the rest of Africa. All because Philip, the person originally chosen for food distribution, was willing to be used by the Holy Spirit, to be in the right place at the right time, to tell what he knew and let the Spirit do the rest!
Hear the Good News my Friends……..
The Spirit of God demonstrates the power to lead us into a new understanding of the future that God opens for us. To respond to the Spirit is to trust that the God who gave order to the chaos at creation has the capacity to give meaning to the uncertainty of the future. Since we do not know what will happen, we will have to continually learn to trust God and respond to the leading of the Spirit.
Do you actually believe in chance? Do you believe that God orders your steps?. Not just that God rules the universe, not just that He sustains it by the word of his might, but he actually directs our stars, he plans our way, and He positions us when are were He needs us to fulfill His great purposes in the world. Do you accept that possibility, that reality? So in other words, Philip does not find himself in this situation by chance, but he finds himself there by Divine appointment.
Philip simply believed the word of the Lord about the readiness of the harvest among the people and trusted that it was not his skill nor his ability nor his charm nor his charisma that would move their hearts to believe, but rather the Holy Spirit working in them, through him in that time and in that place that God had ordained. So he simply spoke what he believed to be the truth. Sent with the Gospel, he gave testimony and witness to what had changed his life and he left the rest to the influence and working of the Spirit.
Dear ones, this man that was chosen to “wait on tables” was used by God to come alongside a man that needed someone, anyone to help him understand. It was an expected, brief encounter but it changed the life of this man, his wife and family and it changed hundreds, thousands, maybe ultimately millions of lives.
Our tasks, our position in this church might seem insignificant but what we learn on Sunday mornings, in Sunday school, in Bible Study, in our reading of the Bible or in our prayer time sustains and grows us in faith. Like Philip our willingness to allow the Spirit to Send us with the Gospel to someone seeking to understand, could change their world and maybe, just maybe the rest of the world for the better. Friends, I pray we all recognize and are all willing to come alongside someone that needs to understand the great unknown when the Holy Spirit leads us to them! Amen.