On Our Way Rejoicing

Two passages to read this morning in connection with the message. First one comes from Second Timothy. So if you have a bible or device handy, I'm reading from the ESV. This is to do with Paul's letter to Timothy, a pastoral letter. Paul, an older man writing to a younger son in the faith.

Here are his instructions. We're reading from Second Timothy chapter three beginning at verse 10. Second Timothy 3:10. You, a reference to Timothy, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured. Yet from all of them, the Lord rescued me.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be equipped for every good work. So far from Second Timothy. Second passage comes from the book of Acts.

Those of us who are regulars here at Open House probably recognise a series from the book of Acts. And today we've come to chapter eight. Chapter eight in the book of Acts, and we've just read that awesome text about the inspiration of scripture. You may be wondering what's that got to do with the passage ahead of us? We'll find out, won't we?

The story here is of Philip and the eunuch, the Ethiopian eunuch. Again, the chapter is Acts 8 beginning at verse 26. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go to the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. And he rose and went.

And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot. He was reading the prophet Isaiah. 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 are reading?

And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of scripture that he was reading was this: Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearer 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 away from the earth?

And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does this prophet say this? About himself or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. 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 baptised? And he commanded the chariot to stop. And they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptised him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

May God add His blessing to the word this morning. Last time we looked at the story of Stephen, the first martyr in chapter seven and the time before that we went through chapter six. But this morning I thought that rather than trying to deal with a whole chapter eight which has a number of different stories, we might zero in just on this story of Philip and the Ethiopian. Please do leave your bible open friends if you would and also those of you who are following us online, it would be helpful to have your bible handy. Also because I want to turn in a moment also to the book of Deuteronomy.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, when I grew up, my father often picked up a hitchhiker and back in my youthful days, hitchhiking was a very common event but on those occasions when my dad picked up a hitchhiker, he would always try and steer the conversation around to spiritual things and on more than one occasion, he was able to tell these fellow travellers about the Lord. He left a great example for us as kids and I found out too over the years that picking up a traveller was a wonderful way of sharing the gospel. Now I'm not sure, this is just a qualifier, I'm not sure that I want to encourage people to pick up hitchhikers these days. As a matter of fact, I suspect that in most states of Australia, it's actually illegal to do that. Let them call an Uber.

But you know, I've known many brothers and sisters who have done that precisely to have an opportunity to witness and there have been many accounts where the Lord has blessed people, have blessed that greatly. Some motorist has picked up a passenger, given them a tract or given them a bible or simply explained the gospel to that person and the result was that that hitchhiker became a fellow traveller on the Christian life's journey. Today we've actually got a story congregation which is really the reversal of that. It's not a Christian picking up an unbelieving hitchhiker to be the means of their conversion but here we have the Ethiopian minister of finance picking up a Christian hitchhiker and the Christian hitchhiker becomes the instrument that God uses for this traveller's conversion. I want to begin this morning by telling you a few things about this man who is there travelling that Gaza Road and show you that in a number of ways this man is decisively cut off from God.

Not only cut off humanly speaking but without much chance humanly speaking of ever coming to God. Let me give you three reasons why humanly speaking, this man is a long way from salvation. First of all, he was a Gentile from outside of the Jewish people, outside the covenant community and up to this point in history, God's dealings with people had really only been with the descendants of Abraham, the Jews and up to a point the Samaritans because they were originally the 10 tribes. Even more to the point he was an Ethiopian. That meant he was descended from Noah's son Ham and if you know your bible history, you'll know that Ham was the son who disgraced himself before his father when his father had a bit too much to drink.

God's favour never rested on the tribes descended from Ham in the bible. Secondly, this man was a eunuch, physically emasculated, never able to become a father. And Oriental rulers like Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, often used people like that for very responsible positions. But I want to ask you to turn with me to Deuteronomy to show you some spiritual ramifications. Deuteronomy 23 and there we have a description of the position of eunuchs during the Old Testament age telling us very specifically that they were isolated from the worshipping community.

Deuteronomy 23 and from verse one, no one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord. The bible doesn't get bothered about a bit of x-rated stuff does it? But the point is that a eunuch was cut off from the worshipping community. There's a third reason why this man is at a disadvantage spiritually. I find it interesting that right throughout the bible and this is not only New Testament, it's also the Old Testament, just read the Psalms, you'll see it very clearly.

God throughout history has favoured the poor and the weak. God calls to Himself, for example in the book of Exodus, not the mighty Egyptian race, but He calls to Himself the despised slave people, the Hebrews. And so the bible unsurprisingly speaks about God not choosing the wise or the rich or the influential, but rather the poor and the lowly, the despised and the foolish. It's in order that God may receive all the glory. Hey Jesus even once spoke about how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God.

Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for the rich to get in. Right? Now here we've got this man who is powerful and influential and wise and well off financially. This is the minister of finance for Candace, Queen of Ethiopia. So what hope does this rich but emasculated Gentile have in receiving salvation?

But you know friends, the interesting thing is that this man is also a searching man. It seems that he had somehow, somewhere come to know something about the God of the Jews. And deep in his heart, there had grown a hunger for the God of Israel. He hadn't been able to find this God back in Ethiopia and the more he tried, the more frustrated he became. Finally, he just couldn't go on anymore and he decided he needed to do something, get away from it or do something about it.

Maybe Israel's God could be found in Jerusalem, the centre of Hebrew worship. Maybe there he could find peace of mind and peace for his restless soul. I read that this man had gone to Jerusalem for the purpose of worship but you don't have to read much between the lines to notice it had all been terribly disappointing. I guess those involved in Jerusalem had been formal, official, he hadn't found it there at all. They hadn't made him welcome.

Why not? Well they probably found out he was a eunuch and being a eunuch excluded from the temple, he wasn't allowed to go there. That made him aware of his problem. His only consolation is that he'd been able to buy a small part of the Hebrew bible, the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. And now he continues his search for this God in that book.

Maybe in that book he can find the answers he's searching for. And so in this way he tries to satisfy the hunger of his soul for God, for Israel's God. But the trouble is it's also puzzling this prophet Isaiah, he speaks in mysteries. You know one of the beautiful things congregation about this story is how God is at work here. If we see anything at all in this story then it's surely the fact that God is busy at work in the life of this Ethiopian eunuch.

I can imagine you saying, of course we can see God at work in the story. Look how God sends an angel to Philip to tell him to get himself down to the Gaza Road and meet this man. And that's true. God is at work in the life of Philip directing his pathway. Through Philip, God is going to bless this man and that's great.

But you know there's a more wonderful way in which God is working in this man's life. The very fact that this man coming out of paganism is searching for the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, that in itself is already evidence of God's grace at work in someone's life. I once had a phone call on a Saturday afternoon, I was just finishing off my preparations for Sunday and the phone rang. There was a lady on the phone and she said, I'm wondering whether you would be able to come and talk to my partner and tell us about God. That's the kind of phone call that calls ministers and any Christian loves to receive.

And I spent six weeks with them, one session every week taking them through Christianity Explained, but God was working in their life long before I spoke with them. And maybe you've had it happen, you've spoken to someone, a witness to them about your faith and found an openness and those things only happen because God is already at work in people like that. You and I should never think that people like that are just a little bit smarter than others. You know, they're the smart ones. They know we Christians have the truth so they come to us and others are not that clever. Not the way it is at all friends.

Any interest in the things of God at all is all God's doing. In fact, that's even true. I wanted to say this morning that it's even true for children brought up in covenant families. When boys and girls from a Christian home show that they're seeking after God, then that isn't first of all because we their parents have done such a wonderful job. Well maybe you're a better parent than I am but I know that my parenting was done with many failures.

It's evidence of God's grace in their life. And okay, God uses us as parents but it's God's doing. And God is at work already in the searching of this Ethiopian man. The story in Acts 8 then is especially a story about the Lord God at work and then of course not only in producing in this unlikely fellow, this deep-seated longing for God, but also in the way in which God brings him to a saving knowledge of Himself in Jesus. Notice how God is at work to bring this seeker to the truth.

There are some steps involved. First of all, God sends an angel and God actually dispatches a messenger from heaven. But notice carefully that God does not send the angel to tell the Ethiopian man about Jesus. When you think about it, it seems obvious that angels are not allowed to tell people about Jesus. I don't know a single case friends where that ever happens, not even in modern times.

There are many stories of visions of angels in which people are told to go and see a certain person. I read one of a Muslim who had a dream of a vision of an angel who told him to go to a bookshop in town and so when he walked past the bookshop, he suddenly remembered the vision he'd had, went inside, started speaking with Christians who led him to the Lord. You see that often happens. It still happens today but God has not entrusted the gospel message to angels to share with people. He's entrusted that task to you, to me, to His church, to us.

Here in Acts we have an example of an angel telling a Christian whom to speak to about the gospel and later in Acts in chapter 10, there's an angel who tells Cornelius to go and fetch Peter but again it's not the angel that tells Cornelius the good news. Peter has to come and do that. The nearest that I can see of angels sharing the message is the shepherds outside Bethlehem saw the angels and heard the story of the birth of Jesus and that didn't include His crucifixion and death, only His birth. God uses Christians to witness to unbelievers. He doesn't give angels that task.

God uses parents to instruct their children. It's not something that heavenly messengers are sent to do. He uses Christian teachers and leaders to instruct people in the Christian faith and He gives to every believer a responsibility to make Jesus known whenever He gives them that opportunity. And so yes, God uses an angel in this story but only to direct Philip to the Gaza Road. So I want to say it again congregation, it's we believers to whom God has entrusted this task.

And I want to point out too this morning, please notice it's not only the most capable and the most prominent who received that task. When the angel was sent, it wasn't sent to the apostles Peter or James or John to bring the message to this Ethiopian. It was Philip, a humble deacon in the church who was given the task. Incidentally notice too how the Spirit of God later speaks directly to Philip. We're reading our text that the Spirit tells Philip to go to the chariot and then the old NIV read and stay near it.

Your ESV pulpit pew bible has join it. Now I want to point out that in the original language that's really not putting it strongly enough. The original language uses a word that was used for gluing things together and so it better reads as cleave to it or you stick with it, you know, there's the chariot, you're to stick with it. And I want to apply that to us today. When God calls His servants to a task of sharing the gospel, it's to be with dedication and perseverance. I don't know about you but I have a tendency that as soon as someone asks a difficult question, I'm out of there.

Leave it for someone else to deal with. So often our sharing is sort of fairly half-hearted. We're ready to give up when it gets a bit tough. There ought to be a commitment to stick with someone like that. God is leading you to that person for a reason.

A second thing we should notice is the way in which God brings this man to Himself. Not only does He use a believer and then a rather ordinary one at that, God also uses His word. It's the scriptures as Paul said to Timothy, we saw this morning, that makes us wise unto salvation. In fact in so many ways, it's the word of God that is central in this story of the Ethiopian eunuch. In so many ways, it's the word of God that it's all about. This man, he's sitting there, what's he doing?

He's reading his bible, reading it aloud as they did in those days or maybe a servant was reading it to him. And he's reading from one of the most beautiful messianic promises in the whole of the bible, famous Isaiah 53. We often read it on Good Friday. If you were here a month ago, we had Lord's Supper. I read it during Lord's Supper celebration.

He was like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep to the slaughter, as a lamb before the shearers is silent, so he didn't open his mouth. He's reading that, the word of God and yet he's reading it without understanding. There is as yet no spiritual discernment. That bible is a puzzle to him and it's a puzzle to so many of our neighbours and friends, even family. Bible is a puzzle that's been to so many before this man and so many since. The problem is he hasn't yet seen Jesus in its pages and as long as we don't see Jesus in its pages, the bible will remain a mystery, a puzzling book.

And so Philip asks him a question. He says, Do you understand what you're reading? Actually Philip puts the question in the form of a play on words. It's something that's very hard to translate in English. The nearest that I could think of is to ask, do you have insight into what you're seeing?

A play on words. I mention this because as Christians we often want to think things through when we're dealing with non-Christians and sometimes our way of speaking to them can attract their attention. I think of the guy in the workshop once, said, Jesus Christ and I said, hey are you a Christian? And he said, what makes you ask that? I said, you just said Jesus Christ.

I said, I hear you mention His name so often, I'm wondering whether you're a Christian. We need to attract people's attention, engage them in that way. There's room for carefully choosing our words. When someone curses and uses Jesus' name in vain, say, are you praying or are you swearing? Big difference.

It seems to me that this play on words that Philip uses strikes a chord with the Ethiopian and the result is he invites him to climb on board and act as a guide and so the driver is inviting the hitchhiker to hop in and explain God's word. Isn't that beautiful? Brings us to a third step in the way in which the Lord deals with this man in this story. First of all, God uses a believer to come to this unbelieving man's life. Secondly, the Lord uses His word to challenge the man's thinking and now thirdly, the believer does some explaining to the unbeliever.

It's true of course that the Ethiopian already asked Philip a very perceptive question. Did you notice the question he asks? Have a look at it in your bible. He doesn't ask Philip what is it all about? We almost would have expected that but instead he asks very precisely in the Greek language it's who is it all about?

Is it about the prophet himself or is it about someone else? That's perceptive of this man. That's a question that Philip then latches onto when he tells him about the other one that the prophet was speaking about, the Lord Jesus Christ, the one who gave his life in death for the sins of His people. The one who was abused and who was tortured but who bore it all silently for us. I can imagine that Philip, you know, if he'd been a modern day from some denominations, he could have had quite an intellectual debate there in the chariot when the Ethiopian asked the question. He could have said, well you know, Christian scholars have a number of opinions about who this suffering servant is.

Some people teach that it's the prophet Jeremiah and others teach that it's the suffering servant nation of Israel. No, none of that. Philip presents Jesus. Nothing more, nothing less. And with that open bible, Isaiah 53 in front of them, he witnessed to the saving work of Jesus. In fact, it quite literally says in the Greek, he gospelled Jesus to him.

He evangelised this Ethiopian to Jesus. It's a very pointed lesson for us this morning friends. God uses other people to bring newcomers to a saving knowledge of Jesus. That's always the way it's worked. But let it always be as it is here from the word of God, the inspired scriptures.

Let the focus always be the good news of Jesus, His doing, His dying and His victory. Great thing is that in our text we see the outworking of all that God has been doing. We see that in the Ethiopian's request to be baptised. He says why shouldn't I be baptised? Probably picked up in Jerusalem the practice of baptism amongst God's people and I guess today we could probably you know think of some reasons why he shouldn't be baptised.

I could imagine that church councils these days would have to say, well our regulations and practices don't actually allow for it. You first of all need to attend a class maybe for a year or two and then we'll do the baptism. Philip has no problems in baptising this man but I want to say it is a bit of an unusual situation isn't it? This man's going to another land far away from any further Christian influence and there's no doubt that he's a changed man that's brought out very clearly in this passage. God has brought him into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And so what does Philip do? He baptises him and simply entrusts him further to the grace of God. And I had that lady ring me, can you please come and tell my partner about God? I spent six sessions with them over six weeks taking them through Christianity Explained and I had a wonderful response from them but then they disappeared. I never heard from them again.

A bit like Philip, I entrusted them to the Lord. That congregation, the situation may have been even more unusual than Philip realised because God was actually in this story fulfilling another Old Testament prophecy. Psalm 68 tells us of the day when also the Gentiles, not only the Jews, but also the Gentiles will be accepted by God. You can read about it in Psalm 68. Isaiah speaks in another chapter of a time when even eunuchs will have a special place with God.

You can read about that in Isaiah 56 and all of this happens to this Gentile Ethiopian eunuch as he comes to trust in Jesus. Wonderful story in that context. It's interesting that at this point then two other things happen. First of all the messenger's removed. We read that the Spirit snatched Philip away.

This morning I've reminded you that the messenger of the gospel has an important place. God uses us to guide others into the teachings of His word and especially leading those who are searching for the Lord Jesus Christ, but we realise now that the message is ultimately more important than the messenger and it's the gospel and not the evangelist who is crucial. Philip's only the instrument. That's all we are. God wants to use us but we're just instruments.

He served his purpose and the Lord now has other work for Philip to do. Of course we know certainly brothers and sisters mustn't use this text to support the idea that we can desert a new convert as though once they're Christians you know we just let them sort themselves out. We need to look at other bible passages, there are other scriptures that would contradict that. We need to teach new believers and we need to disciple them, but there are also situations where we simply need to entrust the new Christian to Jesus, that He will bring that new believer to maturity. God doesn't have any unfinished work.

The bible teaches over and over that what God begins, God finishes. God does not forsake the work of His hands. The other thing we noticed is this man goes on his way rejoicing and why wouldn't he? Hey, he didn't even miss Philip anymore because he'd found this deep, deep joy in God. His searching was finally over.

He's rejoicing in Jesus. That's the wonderful closing keynote of this passage. He was a man who just couldn't face life anymore in the court of Queen Candace. Man of power, a man of influence, had to get away from it all, went to Jerusalem and despite all his searching, couldn't find what he needed and this man meets the Christ of the scriptures and what a difference. He goes his way rejoicing.

It's a wonderful thing congregation and over the years we've so often seen others experience that, the wonderful joy that fills a person's life when they come to know Christ. This man met Jesus in the open pages of the bible. He found sins forgiven, he found acceptance with God even as a eunuch and he went home with great joy and there's nothing more wonderful than seeing a new believer full of the joy of the Lord. I pray friends that God will give us opportunities to see that happen as others find perhaps through us the joy of Christ, the joy of the gospel. I just want to close with a little PS to this story.

Today we've got this story of one man being singled out as an object of God's love, one man. But now just think about the results of that. Through this one man the gospel of Jesus is being taken for the first time into Africa. As a matter of fact there is an ancient legend in the Christian church that this man led Candace, Queen of Ethiopia to Jesus and that he, the Ethiopian eunuch, actually baptised Candace the queen. Salvation leads to joy congregation but joy is contagious isn't it?

And when that joy of the gospel comes into our lives then it's impossible, impossible to stop that gospel joy from spreading into the lives of those around us. Let me lead us in prayer. Thank you Father for this very, very simple little story this morning here in Acts chapter eight. The chapter that has a story Lord that has just so many implications for us. We thank you for the many opportunities you give us not only in our deeds Lord to show that we're different but also sometimes just by speaking a word we can trigger some thoughts further down the line that will eventually lead a person to embracing the gospel.

We pray continue to use us for Your glory and for the growth of Your kingdom. Pray for opportunities that You might give us this week. Help us to grasp them and Father as we're led to someone who's searching, we pray help us to stick to that person like glue and that You would use us so that they too have the joy of the gospel, the joy of knowing Jesus in their life. We pray that in His precious name as we say together, amen.