God's word comes to us from the book of Acts, so I encourage you to open your Bible to Acts chapter eight. We'll be reading verses 26 to 40. I was asked to prepare a message on personal evangelism in another context, and I am ordained at Harvest and have been asked to do the ministry of youth discipleship, so I spend a lot of time with high schoolers, and then I also oversee the evangelistic and missions work at our congregation. And I think sometimes when you look at a pastor, we are different in some ways, right? God has called pastors to a unique task of doing the work of an evangelist. Paul says that to Timothy. But sometimes we can think of pastors as so different as kind of having some unique and completely different ability than everyone else in the congregation. And God calls all of us, in some way at least, to tell the good news. We just sang about that. Infants shall sing of the good news of God's praises. All of us are called in some sense to share God's good news gospel. And I wanna give our attention to the reading of God's word. We can stand as Acts chapter eight, verses 26 to 40 is our sermon passage. God's word is holy and inspired and always true and for our good. So let's give our careful attention as it's read. 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. 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 the charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning seated in his chariot, and 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 the scripture that he was reading was this. Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shears 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? Does the 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 baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, but 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. The grass withers, the flower fades. But the word of our God will stand forever. You can be seated. Let's ask for God's blessing now on his word. Father, without your giving of the Holy Spirit We know that the Bible can be powerless in our lives if you do not give light and life and truth with authority that comes from the Spirit. Lord, this act of preaching is empty, and so we beg you this morning that you would be speaking, Lord. The Thessalonians were commended because when they heard the word of God, they knew what was happening. Lord, you were speaking to them. So I pray that I would be able to step out of the way in so many ways, Lord, and that people would just hear you and Christ address, that we would see the glory of our Savior and be set on fire with a joy to get to tell people the story of what Jesus has done. We pray all this in Jesus' name, amen. If I were to invite you, this Tuesday night to come out with me and to go into neighborhoods and knock on doors and ask people where they were at spiritually. If I were to say, hey, I'm a visiting pastor and I wanna pray for you and I want to share good news about what God has done for us as Christians. I wonder what reaction you would have. I did this when I was first new to West Michigan. I had been living in California. I was raised as a missionary kid in Mexico. And in Mexico, this is pretty common. You're either Catholic or you're Christian, is how people call them in Mexico, Cristianos and Católicos. And if you are a Protestant, which they call them Christians, you go out and you share on a somewhat regular basis the gospel in some way. You go out and knock on doors and you share the gospel. And when I first got to our church, I invited some people at harvest. I said, come along with me and I want to go and talk to people about Jesus. And you can imagine the fear and consternation that some of them had. As they said, I do not know what to say. I'll go with you, but don't make me say anything. I'll watch and you can do this. And I think many of us, I have that fear still. I don't want you to think because I've been ordained as a pastor that I have some sort of supernatural or different, completely different ability. to talk about Christ, I have the same weaknesses and the same difficulties in sharing about Jesus that all of us do. We share the same shame and fear and the sense that the words that we'll say are too weak. And I just wanna encourage you this morning, when you have opportunities to talk about Christ in your life, tell people Jesus's story. That's the title of my message this morning. Just tell people about Jesus and his, work. Tell them Jesus's story. There's many reasons that we will often shy away from sharing that story with people, but you have to remember that God has not commissioned you to do some strange or bizarre job when you're sharing the gospel and evangelizing. God has just encouraged you. He's called you to share what Jesus has done. Acts chapter 8 comes after the story of Stephen if you remember Stephen was someone who was set aside as a deacon and it says that he was full of the spirit and of wisdom along with other deacons and he starts preaching chapter 7 a long sermon about the Old Testament. He retells a huge portion of the Old Testament. If you want to know how the apostles and how Christians preached, it's very helpful to read these sermons and acts, because they tell a lot of the story of the Old Testament. But you remember the culmination of that sermon from Stephen is something the Jews in Jerusalem were not willing to hear. The God who made heaven and earth does not dwell in temples. What Stephen is saying, essentially, is Christ has come, and in Christ, the new temple has been built, constituted. Christ is a cornerstone, and we, as the blessed, beautiful stones, are being built into a temple. You yourselves are that temple. And you remember, when Stephen preached that message, the Jews were not willing to listen. And they said, that's enough, put him to death. And so they stoned him. and fueled by that persecution, the glory of putting that Christian to death drove other believers out of Jerusalem. Only the apostles stay back. The disciples go out, Acts chapter eight, verse four. Those who were scattered went about preaching the word. They went out telling the good news of what Jesus had done. You remember that Jesus had told his disciples You are gonna be my witnesses. You have this special opportunity to go out from Jerusalem to Judea, all the way to Samaria and to the ends of the earth. And we see this movement in the book of Acts that this is actually the flow of how this is happening. So Philip will preach throughout Samaria and then gloriously, amazingly, The ends of the earth actually are coming to hear the good news of what Jesus has done. We have this remarkable story of an Ethiopian man who's come so, so far to worship at Jerusalem. And what does he wanna hear? He needs to hear of the great acts, the glorious work of what God has done. We see this story that we read from verse 26 to verse 39, as bookended then between two kinds of public preaching. Right before this story, there is a story of Simon the magician, but even before that, there's all this preaching that's happening. 8 verse 4 we just read, they were scattered and went about preaching the word. And then look at the end of the text that I just read, verse 40, Philip found himself at Azotus. As he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. So you have these different evangelists that are making their way through different towns announcing the gospel story. and bookended between all of this public preaching is this super personal conversation one-on-one between Philip and this Ethiopian eunuch. And God wants you to lean in and listen now to this interaction between this one man, Philip, who is called an evangelist, and this Ethiopian. And I want us to see in this passage, if you're taking notes, Here's the three points for our text then. That God has written a purposeful cosmic plan. That's our first point. God has written a purposeful cosmic plan. But second, that it's personally applied. This purposeful cosmic plan, all of history, is personally applied, very particularly to this Ethiopian eunuch. And then third, we're going to see that it produces praise. So first, it's a purposeful cosmic plan that's personally applied. and that it produces praise. As you read the book of Acts, you get a very clear sense that there is a purpose to God's story. God is not writing in the book of Acts a random set of events. He's very carefully charting out what he is doing to transform the world from Jerusalem outwards as we've already read. The disciples get to do and to teach what Christ has done and taught them. And you see the direction, the very clear, intentional purpose of God in that he uses his spirit and an angel supernaturally to direct this story. Very, very carefully, intentionally directing Philip to where he wants him to be. It's very intentional, it's very particular. Notice how it says in verse 26. An angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. Or look at verse 29. The spirit said to Philip, go over there and join that chariot. And then a third supernatural indication and direction comes in verse 39. When they came out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. And you may say to me, which is actually true, well the spirit doesn't speak that way anymore, right? In my life, I don't wake up in the mornings and wait for the Holy Spirit to send me places. If that's happening to you, come and talk to me after the service. We can talk about that. But the Holy Spirit does not reveal himself in these supernatural ways anymore. Those supernatural signs and revelations that happened in the book of Acts were always tied to the revelation of new scripture. And as scripture was complete, as we have the completion of the canon, those signs and wonders have also wrapped up. And so you see in the gospels when Jesus comes and he brings a young man to life, the widow of Nain, the response from the crowds is not, wow, what a wonderful sign that has been done or a miracle. The response is a prophet is in our midst. And the apostles have come and set the foundation of the church, which is the word. And now that the foundation is complete, And now that God is building up that foundation, the signs and the wonders that were going along with them have ceased. And yet, though that's true, I think sometimes we can think, then maybe God is not involved in my life anymore. And that's not the intention of that argument for what we call cessation. The purpose of God in this passage is to show that God is directing the story very intentionally, and the same God that put Philip right into the life of this Ethiopian is guiding your life very intentionally. There's a purpose to your life. I think it's easy sometimes, right, for us to wake up in the mornings, to go to our job or go to school, to do your chores, go to sleep at night and just think, what a life. meaningless, aimless thing that I'm doing over and over and over. My life is empty and it doesn't have a direction or a purpose. And we see in this passage that God is directing stories. He's directing every single moment of life intentionally. He has a plan that has always been intended to bring him glory, to shine Jesus, into this dying, dark world, and your story is not aimless then. Though the spirit and angels will not speak to you audibly, God is directing you. He's put you into a job. He's had you select a particular home. I love the young girl that said, there's a neighbor that I can talk to about Jesus. God did that. God wrote that into the story. God has sent you to a particular school. He's put you into a specific job with a purpose so that you would get to shine the light of what he's done in your life to those who are lost, who don't know him. God has written this wonderful, masterful plan. In the book of Psalms, Psalm 68, it's the Psalm right after the one that we read as the call to worship. Psalm 68 and verse 31 shows us this cosmic glorious plan that's being accomplished through Philip. Nobles shall come from Egypt, it said. Cush shall hasten to stretch out her hands to God. The place that the Ethiopian traveled from is the Old Testament land of Cush. And in the Old Testament God had always said nobles would come from Egypt and Cush would stretch out their hands to find salvation in the Lord. So we see very intentionally that God is directing this specific and purposeful plan and so whether you have an opportunity to have hospitality with someone you invite a neighbor over to your house and you start to get to know them and you say hey I want to care for you and I want to show God's love for you and in the way that he has been good to me I want to share with you whether it's through prayer for a long time. Some of you have siblings, parents, and others that do not know God, and you've been praying, and you've been praying, and you've been praying, or whether you get a chance to share the gospel with someone. God has put you in a really purposeful set of relationships, things that I have no access to. God has put you in really unique places to get to share his gospel with other people, just like he placed the Ethiopian eunuch very intentionally, a Philip in the life of this Ethiopian. But I want to see second how this gospel is very personally applied. It's super intimate and personal in the way that the gospel is applied to this Ethiopian eunuch. Let's look at this character more carefully, beginning in verse 27. Philip rose and went. There was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasury. We notice some features right away on the outside. Externally, the Ethiopian seems to have everything together. It's very evident from the passage that he was an extremely wealthy man. We know he's wealthy because of the fact that he's traveling in a chariot, for instance. If you were traveling very, very far in the ancient world, you would ride on a donkey or you would walk. That was the way that people traveled. This man in a chariot has means and a position of authority and we hear that he is the one who is in charge of all of the treasury of Candace. Candace was not a particular name for someone in history but a title like we think of president or pharaoh in Egypt. And he has been positioned over all of the treasury of the Ethiopian kingdom. People called that kingdom Nubia as well. Notice also that he owns a scroll of the Bible. A whole towns in the ancient world where God's people would gather together in a synagogue to hear God's word read, whole towns might have one of these, one scroll to open up and read the Bible verbally. And yet this man has his own scroll of God's word, which is remarkable that he gets to read God's word in the ancient world. It's very, very rare. Usually you just had people reading it to you, but this man has his own copy of the Bible. And so externally, it can seem like the Ethiopian has everything together. He's totally put together. He has everything that he seems to need. Just imagine yourself pulling up at an intersection somewhere here in Rockford and seeing a man in a 2025 F-150, F-250, whatever diesel power stroke engine just pulsating and you think to yourself, whatever that guy's doing, he's doing it right. He's got everything together. He doesn't seem to need anything. And I think the problem oftentimes as Christians is we can look at people externally. We can look at this Ethiopian eunuch and think he's got everything together. He has everything he needs. But notice what the problem with him is. He's traveled thousands of miles, very slowly, he's traveled thousands of miles to get to Jerusalem, it says, to worship. And what happens to him when he comes to the temple? Deuteronomy 23, verse 1, no one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of God. Ultimately this man who seems to have everything together on the outside gets to the very temple of God, the only place on earth in the old covenant where people could gather as an assembly in the presence of God and he's told, you do not belong here. There's something inside of you he had chosen to castrate himself and therefore be this official in Candace's kingdom and therefore he cannot enter into God's presence. What is the intention? Why did God create these laws to divide and to say, you may enter here, but you can't go there? Why did God make these laws about his temple? It's because of the fall. You remember when Adam and Eve took the fruit, they were cast out of the garden and an angel was placed there and they were told, you may not enter here. You do not belong in this garden anymore. And yet God had always made a promise that he would overcome that, that he would send the seed of the serpent, the seed of the woman, to overcome the seed of the serpent, to crush that serpent's head and one day overcome and one day welcome people into his presence. And we're not that different than this Ethiopian this morning. You may come having dressed up, we dress up on Sundays, I wore a tie and a suit today. You may come in some sense externally having everything together. But there's more to us, right, than what you see on the outside. If you get to know people even just a little bit and listen to their stories, you know there's a lot of brokenness under the surface. People are deeply wounded in different ways and have sinned in very aggressive ways, things that cause us great shame, things that we think, I have no reason to think that I would be welcome in the presence of God, that I would be able to come into God's presence. And externally on the outside, we may seem to have everything together, but internally, We can sense, I'm just an outcast. I don't belong in God's presence. I'm not honored to be able to come into the very presence of God. The Ethiopian eunuch on the outside had everything, but internally, he was nothing. In the ancient world, if you could not have children, this was a thing you would bear as an incredible shame. If you could not pass your name on to your son, and then your son could have children and grandchildren, and take your name on into the future, you couldn't even sort of present yourself publicly. And yet this Ethiopian comes out of Jerusalem bearing this kind of shame because he has been excluded internally. He's very, very broken. But the Spirit says to Philip, jump into that chariot particularly. I have a message for that Ethiopian. Can you imagine what that would have been like? He's in the desert. He's walking next to this chariot. It was likely moving pretty slowly such that he could actually run up to the chariot and the spirit says to Philip, get into this chariot particularly. So he goes over and the eunuch invites him in and he gets in. And I just want us to close seeing how personal evangelism always produces praise. We've seen that there's a cosmic purposeful plan that God's writing. in our lives. We've seen that that's particularly applied. Though externally we may have things together, internally God's applying the story of his redemption very personally to our needs, to our brokenness, to our sin. And third, we're going to see that it always produces praise. As I said earlier, different Christians have been spread outside of Jerusalem They've been cast out of that city to go and scatter and preach the word. And Philip has been preaching publicly to lots of people. He's been going through different towns. Now he's gonna go after, it says, to a Zotus and continue preaching as an itinerant evangelist. But here, he gets an opportunity to speak to this Ethiopian, and what does he do when he meets the Ethiopian? You may think, again, there's some kind of secret formula to evangelism. I have to say these specific words, and if I say the words just right, somehow God will change a person's life. It's not that complicated. The Ethiopian is reading, and so Philip asks him a question. He says, do you understand what you're reading? Verse 31, the eunuch responds, how can I unless someone guides me? And that's when he invited Philip up into the cart. And notice the passage that the eunuch has been reading. Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, like a lamb before its shears 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. And the eunuch just has one question. Is the prophet speaking about himself, Isaiah, or someone else? And what a remarkable opportunity to tell the good news about Jesus. We will probably not, many of us, be set up to get to tell the gospel that wonderfully unique way, but there will be many, many opportunities that God gives us just to ask a question about someone. Hey, it looks like you're reading this or it looks like you're interested in this. Let me get to know you more. Philip was curious and he was interested in this eunuch. And the eunuch is reading from Isaiah 53. Isaiah is a book that's complex. There are many, many things in the book of Isaiah. And why do you think the eunuch may have been drawn to this book specifically? If you have your Bibles with you, I'd invite you to turn to the end of the book of Isaiah. And you can listen to it read or you can read along with me just a few chapters after this wonderful prophecy about the suffering servant. There's a passage in Isaiah 56 and verse three. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord, say, the Lord will surely separate me from his people. Let not the eunuch say, behold, I am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose the things that please me, hold fast my covenant. I will give in my house, within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name. shall not be cut off." God had always prophesied in this wonderful massive plan that one day eunuchs would be welcomed in to the very presence of God. Dennis Johnson says about this particular eunuch that he was doubly excluded, right? He was a Gentile, he was Ethiopian, and he had marred his body and therefore he was cut off from the very presence of entering into the assembly of God. But there was a day coming in the future when God would make a way so that people could enter in. And the question I have for you as we close is how could this eunuch be welcomed into the presence of God? How could it be that this man who was far outside of God's people and internally was disbarred, he was sent out, he was prohibited from entering into God's people. How could it be that he would be welcomed into the very people of God? And the answer is, because Jesus was cut off. Christ, who was the perfect Lamb of God, who enjoyed the very presence and glory of heaven, the fellowship with his Father, was cut off from the land of the living. The book of Isaiah says, of his generation, who do we hear proclaimed about the generation of this future suffering servant? Christ, who did all things well, who had authority to raise the dead even, comes and he lays down his life for this eunuch. He lays down his life for all those who say, I am not willing, I'm not able in myself, I am not sufficient in myself to come to God. I have no business entering into the family of God. Jesus is led away as a lamb to the slaughter. The sins of his people are set on him and Christ cries out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me so that you could be welcomed? so that those who sense I have no right to enter into the family of God would be told you are my very son, you are my daughter. I receive you, you have every right to be here with me. So when the eunuch was told, as an old pastor of mine said, you are childless, he could say I have a family now. I'm one of God's people, just as much as any Jewish person. If someone said to the eunuch, you are deformed, he could say, no, Christ has made me whole. Christ is my righteousness. Christ is the one who's opened the way to the father. If someone said to the eunuch, you are unworthy, He would say, no, God has made me worthy in the one who is gloriously praised right now at the right hand of the Father. Jesus represents me and everything that is his is now mine because of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has taken what is Christ's and made it mine. And though I had no right as a eunuch, as a foreign official from Cush to enter into God's people, God has done in Christ what I could not do and he's led me into the very glory of heaven itself. And so in this story, God is fulfilling Psalm 68. that those nobles from Egypt would come one day, that those who were from Cush would raise up their hands and say, I need to be saved. I need to be rescued. I have no hope in me. And Christ answered that call and he rescued those. And I just would encourage you then this morning, as you think about your own life, if you think I'm living an aimless, purposeless existence, that's not true. If God has written this story, so this Ethiopian eunuch that day all the way traveling home to that land in Africa could be saved. If the gospel could be planted that way through this eunuch one day, wonderfully people like Augustine, people like Tertullian in the history of the church who were fathers of the church in Africa could hear the gospel. potentially through this eunuch. If God is writing a remarkable story like that, don't you think He's using your life in amazing ways? He knows exactly who you are. He knows exactly why you came today. And He had a word for you. He wanted you to hear the gospel again. And every time you get to share that, it will produce joy. It'll produce praise. Notice, as the Ethiopian goes home, the effect that this welcoming has had in his life. And this is how we'll conclude. When they came out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch never saw him again. He saw him no more, but he went on his way, rejoicing, though he had been barred from the presence of God in the past. Baptism included him in God's people and now he was worthy in Jesus because of what had been done for him to say, I am just as much a son of the king as any Israelite now. And you get the opportunity to tell Jesus' story over and over again to different people so that very personally and specifically they could hear the good news of what God has done for them. Let's close in prayer. Lord God, we struggle to believe that you truly are as good as the Bible lays you out to be, Lord. We often forget the need for a substitute, Lord, and the fact that Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world has been pierced for our transgressions, that he's been cut off from the land of the living so that we could be included in your family. And Lord, I pray that this morning people would go home transformed not by some word that I made up, Lord, but by your gospel. I pray that the goodness of Christ would be not only something we learn about, Lord, but something that changes us, that goes deep, deep into our hearts and answers, Lord, the deepest, most broken aspects of our existence as your people. And Lord, I pray that we would be changed to want to share that good news with others. Thank you for the encounter that Philip had with the eunuch that day. And we thank you for the joy that flowed out of his life. Would you please produce that in our lives as well?