Overflow: Week 7

Welcome to church and carolsing. My name is James. Today's

a good day.

I hope you enjoyed that worship was to me, Oh,

I just felt like it brought me back. I don't

know about you, but it brought me back to my

home church growing up.

And I don't know how many times have I heard

through it all.

And it's just such a wonderful song, and it was

just so good. I love our band, our worship band.

It's just so awesome. Can we give them a hand?

Give them a hand?

Today's a good day. A couple of weeks ago we

baptized seven people. Today we're going to be baptizing ten

more people throughout both services.

Can we give the Lord a hand?

And also, I just want you to know that we

finished the Overflow series, but I wanted to do one

more from acts before we started in on our Pall series.

And so the Overflow series is overflowing for one week.

And so this this is a powerful text and a

challenging text.

Can you prepare your hearts. Let's go. God.

We give you praise today. We thank you for your

goodness and your mercy and your grace. You're so good

to us now God challenge us, let us hear from

you today in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You know, one of my favorite things to do with

my daughter Caitlin is we love to go to the symphony.

And it's been a hot minute since we've been, but

it's just so much fun, because what do you do

when you go to the symphony. You get dressed up,

you know, you go to a fancy restaurant, and then

you walk into this amazing building and then you go

and find your seat and those cushiony seats and you

just kind of just melt into that seat and then

you allow them music just to wash over you.

And sometimes when.

I'm in there, I'll daydream, like, what would have been

like to have heard Beethoven do one of his pieces?

Or Bach or Mozart.

I mean, wouldn't have been a man to witness one

of those pieces done by them that they wrote.

But let me ask you a question.

For those of you who have been to these concerts

and these symphonies, have you ever just looked at the

whole band and saw all the instruments, you know, the trombone,

the violin, the trumpet, the drums, the obo, all these instruments,

and you think, how did they.

All come together? How does this happen?

And because they sound so chaotic and so different apart.

Some of them are very smoothie and calm, like the.

Violin some of them are are loud and commanding like

the drums, and you wonder how does this all come together?

But then all of a sudden, what do we see?

The conductor comes to the podium and with one move

of his baton, everybody straightens up. And you know what

it's like, because you've heard where all of a sudden

they do their last note together to kind of, you know,

see if their instruments are in tune, and it.

Sounds horrible when they do that.

The should do that somewhere else before we all come

in a room. But when the conductor stands there, he

all of a sudden looks at the violinist and says,

all right, come on, come on, all right, a little

bit louder.

And then he looks at the drums like, don't you

dare yet?

And then he looks at the trumpet and he says,

you guys, calm down, I'll be a little while, okay,

And then.

He looks at the obo like, give me something give

me something.

And then the clearinets, he's like, okay, you do this,

you do this trumpet, I swear if you you know,

And and then and then all of a sudden, you

just start to see him moving everything right, all right.

Now it's the drums, okay, all right, Violince, chill out

a little bit. Everybody's looking okay, all right. And then

the piano is He's like, come on, and then and.

Then and then all of a sudden, it just starts

to come together, and it's absolutely beautiful. He turns what

seems like all of these different sounds, all of these

different instruments that are not even related, into a beautiful sephy.

Now how does he do that?

He does this because, unlike everyone else, he has the

whole score.

He sees the whole picture.

And he knows where the pauses are. He knows where

the high notes and the low notes are. He knows

when it comes time for the crescendo, he knows when

it comes time for the palls.

Because he sees the whole playbook.

Here's what I want to tell you today, as we

step into acts chapter eight.

I want to remind you and remind all of us

today that just like the composer.

Who works behind the scenes and works in all the details.

Our God is always at work at the details in

your life, behind the scenes, to bring together his will,

his will.

For your good and for his glory.

And God is constantly orchestrating the details of our life

if we pay attention. And just like the conductor who

creates this masterpiece, God is wanting to create a masterpiece

in your life that brings him glory and honor. And

so today we're going to be looking at a passage

where we see God.

It's one of those at.

His best orchestrating a movement of God.

And today again we are reminded simply of.

This that God is a God who orchestrates the details.

Of our lives.

God is a God who orchestrates the details.

Of our life. And here's the thing.

God is almost never at work in your life without

the second thing.

And I want you to know this.

God works in your life so that your life will

impact someone else's life.

What's another phrase for that? That's not all about you.

Yes, he's working in your life, but he's working in

your life so that you will bring impact. And you

look at all these different scenes and scores of your life.

The ups and the downs, the trials and the suffering.

You're like, how does this all work out? But you

don't know. God is behind the.

Scenes conducting his will. And so again we turn to

chapter eight today. But before we get there, I want

to remind you of this that as we enter into

chapter eight of Acts, we see the command of Jesus

from the very beginning of the book of Acts, Acts

chapter one, verse eight, and Jesus said this command. He goes,

all right, here's your mission, here's what you're gonna do.

And we see this being fulfilled in Acts chapter eight.

Let's look at Acts one eight. It says, but you

will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you,

and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and then

in Judea, and then in Samaria and to the ends

of the earth.

So here's not going on.

The gospel start it out in Jerusale and then it moves.

Out to Judea, and then when we enter into chapter eight,

we finally see it in Samaria. What's Samaria?

Samaria is the traditional enemies of God's people. So his

entering into chapter eight, what do we see here? It

says those who have been scattered preached the Word wherever

they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria

and proclaimed the Messiah there.

So here's what's going on.

God working behind the scenes.

Philip didn't say, you know what, now it's time for

part three of God's plan, let us go to Samaria. No,

they're probably hanging out in Jerusalem and Judea because it

was good and.

So God allowed a persecution to happen, and as a

result of that, the Gospel is now going to Samaria.

And basically what we're seeing is that God will do

anything to.

Fulfill his mission.

And so today I want to call us to confront

this belief.

In our life, maybe maybe this false belief in our heart.

Do you we really believe? And I want you to

really ask this question to yourself.

Do you really believe that God is still working behind

the scenes today to do the types of things in

our area, in our neighborhood and our community.

And let me tell you something. I believe that.

As we follow Christ and all of a sudden, we

start having a lot of Christian friends and Christian family,

and we have these kids and grandkids Christians.

All sudden get a bunker mentality.

So we look at the news, we look at the world,

and we say, man, it's pretty messed up out there.

It's pretty dangerous.

I gotta protect my family from our area, from our community.

And so we build up all these walls. But let

me tell you something. When we build up all these.

Walls to protect ourselves and protect our family.

And to protect our sanity, let me tell you what

happens when we do that.

We miss out on a lot of God opportunities. We

miss out on a lot of amazing God opportunities. We

may tell you some There are God opportunities around us

every single day, to see God work, to see God move,

to see God do the seemingly impossible.

So here's what we're gonna do today. I want you

to fall along with me.

We're gonna walk all the way through the narrative of

this story first, and then we'll break it down.

So we're all gonna read the story together. Here we

go acts chapter eight.

It says, now an angel of the Lord said that

Philip go south to the road, the desert road then

that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

So he started out, and on his.

Way he meant an Ethiopian story changes here Ethiopian Eunich

and a port official in charge of all the treasury

of Kondocky, which means queen of the Ethiopians. This man

had gone to Jerusalem to worship Okay and on his

way home, he was sitting in his chariot reading the

book of Isaiah the Prophet, and the spirit told Philip

go to the chariot, stay near. Then Philip ran up

to the chariot heard the man reading Isaiah the Prophet.

And he says, do you understand what you're reading?

And the guy says, you know, how can I unless

someone explains it to me. So he invited Philip to

come up and sit with him. And this is the

passage of scripture that the eunuch was reading. He was

led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a

land before his sheer is silent, so he.

Did not open his mouth in his humiliation. He was

deprived of justice.

Who could speak of his descendants, for his life was

taken from the earth. The eunuch then asked Philip, he goes,

tell me, please, who is this prophet talking about himself

or someone else? And then Philip began from the very

passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. Now,

as they traveled along the road, they came to some water,

and the eunuch said, look, here's water. What is seen

in the way of mine being baptized? And so he

gave orders of south a chariot. Then both Philip and

eunuch went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.

When they came up out of the water, the spirit

of Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did

not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however,

appeared in Azatos and traveled about preaching the gospel in

all the towns until he reached Cesareha.

All right, so what do we have here?

We have this big, large narrative that basically says this,

that our God will do anything to reach someone with

the Gospel of Jesus. So we have to ask ourselves

this today, it's the very beginning of reading this today.

Does God still want this today? Does God still want

to work in your neighborhood?

Does God still want to work and do amazing miracles

at your work, at your neighborhood, in our community, at

your school.

And the answer is yes.

Here's why because God is the same today as he

was yesterday.

And I don't think Christians believe that. I believe that.

They think there's an old timey Jesus who did all

kinds of cool things.

But today we have a.

Chill Jesus who just kind of like just wants to

help us get through life, to make sure we have

a twenty five hundred square foot house, two vehicles.

And we get our kids through college. Amen.

Like it's Jesus the provider, not Jesus the miracle worker.

But Jesus didn't come to give us a big home.

Jesus came for us to go and get people home

to heaven. And that's why he came. And he's the

same today as he was yesterday. And again we see

God orchestrating all these.

Things behind the scenes. So we have to ask, how

does this happen? All right?

We see this happen in scripture, but do we see

this happening in our life? And the question is, so, does.

That mean God stop working?

I don't think so. See, there is not something wrong

of God. Can I get an amen? There's not something

wrong with God. I think it's usually us that it

is missing something. And so we see this passage said

what we're gonna look at We're gonna look at three

ingredients to say our lives up for god opportunity.

In other words, if we want to.

See God do some amazing, life changing, community changing Jesus works,

we have to have a certain posture, a readiness so

that when the opportunity comes to us, we're there, we're ready,

and we will respond. And when we're like this and

ready for that, that's when God does his amazing works.

And so we're going to look at these three ingredients.

We all need to prepare ourselves for a great work

of God. Number one, we need to have a listening posture,

a listening posture.

So Philip, first of all, he's leading with listening. Okay,

and let's talk about this. He's already having a successful ministry.

Remember it says he went to Samaria and a bunch

of people are getting said it's going good. Who on

earth wants to leave something good? When your job's going awesome?

Why would you want to leave and go to a

desert place? And when ministry is going good, who wants

to go to as their place?

Let me tell you something.

I was convinced I was going to live in Pittsburgh

the rest of my life.

A matter of fact, I said that to a lot

of people saw God at work there.

It seemed like we were just in a season of

just great ministry fruit. One weekend, we had a youth

event and we said who wants to be baptized?

And we saw one.

Hundred and fifty five students and adults be baptized for

the first time. We saw the youth group grow from

thirty kids to three hundred kids a week in the

youth group, and we we just saw it was a movement.

Of God in that whole area.

I mean, it was just amazing when God was doing

it was just one fruit after another, and I'm like, man,

this is like Heaven on earth. And then you know,

we had such great friends that we did such deep

meaningful life with.

My wife had a great job, my daughter was thriving, and.

It's like, why would we leave? The matter of fact,

I was so convinced. I told my wife that we're

gonna stay in.

The Pittsburgh area the rest of our life. So what

you want? You know, what we did.

We remodeled our house to our liking, you know, like

did everything the way we liked it. And then I

took the biggest step of faith. I love bass fishing,

but bass fishing is not good in Pittsburgh. It's trout

fishing in the streams. I went to fill and stream

and dropped one thousand dollars on some waiters, some boots,

and a four hundred dollars fly rod, and let me

tell you it was sweet.

I looked awesome. I looked I don't know if I was.

Gonna catch anything, but I looked like I could catch

this stuff.

And let me tell you, I have this four hundred

dollar rod.

About six weeks after purchasing that, the Lord said I'm

gonna move you. And so for seven years a four

hundred dollar rod set in its case and I finally

got to use it this summer in Minneapolis and it catches.

But anyways, I was so sure of it. Why because

God was doing great things.

But then God said, no, I'm calling you here, and

let me tell you something I wasn't expected.

You weren't expecting it, and.

I'm telling you I praised God for it every sea

and again, I'll tell you I don't say this enough,

but I want you to know I love you, and

I want you to know that you are loved and

your prey for every day, and I love you, and

I'm so glad I'm here.

But let me tell you something. I didn't expect to

be here.

And you look at Philip and he's like, God, things

are going good.

Why would you want to mess this up? What's to say?

Here?

Says now an angel?

The Lord said, the Philip goes south to the road,

the desert road. Now another translation says, just go to

this desert place.

In other words, you're in this great city. Good things

are happening.

I want you to go to this one spot in

a desert where no one's at.

This seems like a crazy instruction. By the way, all right,

and this does not sound great. Okay, if God.

Calls us to the desert, not many of us are

gonna be excited. And Feil's like, Hey, things are going good.

Why would you want me to do this? What would

we do if we were a Philip? I think we

would bargain.

But God, look at all the people here, Look what's happening,

Look at the lives changing. You want me to go

out and go to a place that has nobody. But

what does Philip do? He follows the Lord's instruction. Philip

new if God is truly God, and if he wants

to see God move and work again, he has to

keep listening. Here's a question I want to turn to

you right now. Are we truly listening to the Lord?

Are we listening to.

Him speak in our lives? And it's kind of absurd.

It didn't make sense at first to Philip.

You know, and has God ever asked you to do

something that doesn't make sense?

And I'm gonna throw this quote out to you.

Listen, Sometimes if God tells you to do something that

doesn't make sense, it's okay because God's working.

Now.

I'm not saying like God's gonna tell you jump off

a bridge. I'm talking like if God says, go over

and talk to that person who's sitting by themselves, and

like that sounds.

Kind of weird. No, no, no, God is doing something.

When God asks you mee to take this job instead

of this job, even though this job pays less than

this job.

Trust God, He's setting things up behind the scenes.

When you hear from God and it does not make

financial sense, it does not make sense for a lot

of different things are like. But if you know that

you've heard from God, trust it's okay. God is orchestrating

the events behind your life. So Philip, by the way,

he takes off from Jerusalem to the desert, and then

he sees his caravan come and he goes over and

he's here's the Bible reading.

Now, remember that.

The first thing you need to know is that in

order for Philip to meet the Eunuch, Philip had to

leave at a certain time to catch the Eunuch at

a certain.

Time for them to meet up.

And if Philip had not been listening and left at

the exact moment, they would not have caught each other

on this road.

And here's the thing. Philip decided to listen to God's voice.

But I think we wrestle with listening to voices in

our life.

I hate to share this publicly. I wrestled with it

all week, but I'll just go ahead and do it.

I don't care.

There are times where I believe God's prompted me to

do stuff that I listen to the voices in my

head and I talk to myself out of doing stuff,

And I'll just be very honest. There's times where after

I preach twice on Sunday and I'll be out in

the lobby and maybe i'll see someone in my heart's

drawn to them. And I'm very obedient by going after people,

but sometimes I'm so tired.

I'm just like, Lord, i just don't have the energy,

and so I say no.

There's been times I've been out and about and I'll

see somebody and the Lord will lay them on.

My heart just feel like a draw to them, and I'm.

Like, oh, man, if I walk up to them, they're

gonna think I'm such a weirdo, or that I'm hitting

on them, or I don't know, and I talk myself

out of it. I'll be at home at night and

I'll feel prompting to maybe call somebody, but then I'll think,

you know, nine o'clock's too late. As I think back

on those moments, I've probably missed some big God opportunities.

I've probably missed out on some big miracles in my life.

And let me tell you us, as a church, I

don't want us to miss out on all of these.

You remember the cartoon to Rachel Hane, If you remember

Tom and Jerry, it's the most psychotic show you'll ever

see on the serves. It would never be allowed on

kids television today. It's basically an axe murdering cat chasing

this innocent c little mouse. And but if you remember,

there was times where you know, the cat doesn't know

what to do.

So what happens. These two angels pop up on the shoulder,

ones like.

The devil and the other ones like an angel from God.

And the angel from God's always like, do good, do good,

don't chop its neck off, you know, And then and

then the other one's like do it, do it?

It taste good, you know. And so all this stuff's

going on. And here's the thing what I want to

tell you is, I don't feel like the voices.

Were challenged with in life works like that.

Actually, I think what's going on in our life is

very multi layered and multifaceted. So what are the voices

we listen to most? I made a list for you.

First of all, I think we listen to ourself most

those of you with a happy marriage also listen to

your spouse, okay, And we listen to our family, the

voices of our family, and the voices of media and

social media, and our friends. There's also a satanic, demonic

voice we listen to sometimes culture. We're always listening to

culture or God, or books or podcasts or music. We're

letting all these things, all these voices into our life.

And there's so many voices that we got to submit

to every day.

And here's a challenge. How do we get God to

be the number one voice we listen to? That's a challenge.

How do you get God to be the number one voice?

And here's the thing about Satan. Satan does not show

up again a.

Hello, this is Satan, the devil. Here's what I would

like for you to do today. Never, never, never never.

Satan will not try to talk you out of doing

good things. Satan will try to talk you into doing

less good, not doing He's not gonna talk you out

of things because because all a sudden you're like, whohoa, whahahah,

that's Satan's voice. But Satan will try to talk you

to doing less good, like you don't need a volunteer.

There's enough other people doing this. Your life's crazy enough.

If you don't need to do this, someone else will

come by and do this. You see, Satan will try

to talk you into doing something less good and here's

the other thing. The enemy will also cloak himself.

In other voices.

The enemy speaks through other voices, your a voice, the

people's voice, media, and so on. So it might not

be the devil saying do bad.

He's saying do less good.

And if you listen to these voices, you will miss

the opportunity to see God at work. So Philip said, okay,

he has a track recorder saying yes and do what

God told him. And because you know what, he wants

to see what God's gonna do. And again, I hope

our church does not miss out. So one we have

to begin with, you know, a posture of listening. Number two,

we have to have a prepared heart. We have to

have a prepared heart.

Now here's the thing.

Luke tells us a little bit about this new character,

the Ethiopian unit.

So let's start out here go all right, here we go.

So he started out, and on his way he met

an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all

the treasury of Kentakey, which means queen of the Ethiopians.

All right, now, let's stop here.

I want to correct some things, some misconceptions.

One the Ethiopian is not from Ethiopia. Okay, more than

likely they are from Nubia, which today is Sedan or Sudan.

And also in Nubia, there was a city called Moreau.

It was a very powerful city in ancient world, one

of the most powerful kingdoms of the ancient world, right

right there south of Egypt on the Nile. They had

huge treasuries, they had huge armies. They were a very

very powerful kingdom. And this is where the Ethiopian came from.

Now again, he's not really Ethiopian. Here's what you need

to understand. The Greek word for black people was simply Ethiopian.

Okay, does that make sense.

So they're called Ethiopians, but they're not really from Ethiopia.

But the text calls him that and says Ethiopian Unich

an important official in charge of all the treasury of Kentucky,

which means.

A queen of Ethio. Now what does this mean? What

is a eunuch? I think we all know what that means.

If you don't know what that means, google it at home.

Not here right now. I don't want to hear anybody giggling.

Okay, Now here's what I want you to understand about

why he was a eunuch. If you worked in a

royal household and there was women working there, you had

to take.

On this role. But part of this role, well, you

had to become a eunuch.

You talk about commitment, you talk about commitment to your job,

and it's pretty costly because you're saying, I'm not living

for myself, I'm living for them. My whole life is

for this family. And by the way he worked with

the queen, he oversees the money. So he's a highly

intelligent person. He's a good guy, the trustworthy guy. He's

full of integrity. He's a powerful man. He's very wealthy,

he has huge influence. Yet what on earth is he

doing going from the Nubia up to Jerusalem.

And we don't know how did he hear of Yahweh?

But somewhere along the line he hears about this god.

In Judah and then he goes a great cost to himself.

Takes his huge care ofving up here, and while he's

up there, he buys a scroll of Isaiah. Here's what

you need to understand. They didn't have Bibles back then.

People didn't own scripture. Do you know who owns scrolls

the extremely wealthy people. This guy goes up there and

he drops some serious cash on this book of Isaiah.

He dropped a tremendous amount of money. So if you

want your own scripture, you had to have some money.

But he wanted to know who God was, and so

he does this. And what has God doing? Now? Why

did he pick Isaiah? Now this is fascinating. Why Isaiah? Well,

here's what you need to know.

In the book of Isaiah, seven hundred years before this moment,

there's a prophecy that talks about eunuchs. There's a prophecy

involving a foreign eunuch, and so we read it here

in Isaiah fifty six. Let's look at this prophecy. This

is the reason he bought this scroll. He wanted to

know what does God have to say about me? Let's

look at this. Here it says, let no foreigner who

has bound to the Lord say, the Lord will surely

exclude me from his people, and let no eunuch complain.

I am only a dry tree. For this is what

the Lord says to the eunuchs, who keep my sabbaths,

who choose what pleases me, and hold fast to my

covenant to them, I will give within my temple and

its walls a memorial and a name better than sons

and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever.

Another translation says, a name that shall not be cut off.

And who knew?

I didn't know that there was a promise to foreign

unis in the book of Isaiah.

Did you know that? I didn't know that.

But the guy heard about it. So he purchases a scroll.

He wants to know what does God say about me?

And I believe that what's going on is he's struggling

with his sense of purpose. He's wondering, like, who am I?

I got a tile, I got a wealth, I got home,

I have influence, I have this great position.

But who am I? Why am I here?

One famous preacher said this, that every single one of

us in this room will go back and forth between

these four existential questions in life.

All of us have these.

Four existential questions. We once answered one our origin. How

did we get here? How did all this happen? How

did this earth, this universe all this happen. Secondly, morality,

what is good and evil?

Oh?

That's the big question of today. Is this evil or

is this good? Is what is good? What is sin?

What is not sin? That's a big thing we're dealing

with today. Another existential question is that I think all

of us struggle.

With is what is my purpose? Why am I here?

And for those who are aging or maybe who are

struggling with the illness destiny?

Where am I going after I die?

And I believe that he's struggling at this moment his

career of like why am I here?

Now here's the thing you gotta understand. This is so cool.

It takes about four hours.

From that ride in Jerusalem to the desert road in

Gaza to get to this prophecy.

In Isaiah.

For four hours he's reading on the slow wagon ride,

and during the same time, because Philip said yes when

the Lord told him to get moving, they meet up

in the same spot in the middle of the desert

in Gaza, right when he's.

Kitting some certain verses. And by the way, that he

just couldn't look it up.

He didn't have, you know, chapters and verses, so you

had to read through the whole thing to get.

To what you want.

And he gets to Isaiah fifty three, and it's a

prophecy about Jesus, and do you see that God's orchestrating

these events. God brings this man up from Nubia, he

purchases the scroll from Isaiah Vin. He's going back down

through Gaza. He says Philip, I know things are going good,

but go ahead leave. I want you to go to

this desert road. And at this right moment, when he

gets to chapter fifty three and he's reading in about

this prophet that he's really unsure about, he's reading about

Jesus Christ.

Right at that moment, they come together. Tell me God

does not orchestrate things. And so he gets there, and

let me tell you something.

The same thing's happening today. There are people all around

us that God has been orchestrating their life. They're wrestling

of questions, waiting for an encounter.

A God opportunity with you.

There's someone in my life that this conversation has been

ongoing for a while.

They've had a lot of questions.

They don't believe that Jesus's the son of God. They

believe that Jesus died on the cross resurrected, but they

don't believe that Jesus is on par with God.

They don't believe in the Trinity.

Okay, so we had a ton of conversations and they

haven't came to Christ. We're still asking questions, we're still

answering them. We're digging in because this person wants to know.

They're curious, but they just can't comprehend some things.

And here we have.

This guy who came up from Nubia who's having these big,

big questions. And here's the thing again, God is preparing

people all around you to hear the message of Jesus.

And here's the question today. Do you believe it? Do

you actually believe this? And whether or not you believe

this to be honest, is the difference between whether God

is gonna do something amazing in your life or not.

Do you believe He exists? And do you believe he's

at work.

If you do, then God is gonna use you. God

is gonna set up some God moments for you.

And here's the thing.

It's probably gonna be people that you don't expect.

Do you hear me?

It won't be people you expect. There will probably be

people you don't expect. Let me just take you back

for a little bit. Let's just span out for a moment.

We're looking at chapters eight through ten the last couple

of weeks. Let's talk about who came to Christ in

chapters eight through ten. In chapter eight we have the Samaritans.

They hated the Israelites, they were the enemies.

The end of chapter eight we see the eunuch from Nubia.

Chapter nine, Saul comes to Christ. Saul hated the Christians.

Chapter ten we have a Roman official Cornelius, what on

earth is happening here? We have the Samaritans who have

a hate relationship. We have the unit from Africa, we

have saw the persecutor of Christians. And then in chapter

ten we have a Roman official. What on earth is

going on here?

Let me tell you what God is doing.

God is bringing people to him and changing their lives.

And these are the exact people that the early Church

was convinced.

These people would not be interested in Jesus. They don't

have our same background, They're not like us. Why share

the gospel with them? They'll just reject it.

And God is.

Saying, that's who I'm gonna bring the gospel to. That's

who I'm gonna bring the God who God is probably

gonna use in your life is probably not someone that

you expect.

See, we believe that.

Some people will not be interested in Jesus, and that

is a lie from Satan. God is preparing heart some

minds all around us. Last point today, if you want

to be a part of a God moment, God opportunity,

you got to have an open mouth. Which, by the way,

I've been around here for close to seven years. That's

not gonna be a problem around here. I just want

to direct it towards the gospel.

That would be great. All right, here we go.

We have to understand that we have to open our

mouth sometimes to declare the gospel of Jesus Christ or people.

Will not hear.

We can listen, we can have an open heart, but

if we eventually don't open our mouth, people won't come

to Christ.

Now I want to again. I want to go back

to the.

Passage that the eunuch was reading about Jesus.

Let's look at this together.

It says he was like a sheep, you know, to

the slaughter, and as a lamb before it shears silent.

So I'm gonna read this. So he did not open

his mouth. We know who we're talking about, right, Jesus.

So he did not open his mouth. He did not

open his mouth. He did not put his mouth. In

his humiliation, he was deprived of justice.

Who could speak of his descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth, you know,

asked Philip, Now tell me, please, who's this prophet talking

about himself or someone else? Then Philip began with that

very passage of scripture and told him the good news

about Jesus. Now here's what he says. It said if

the word told in another translation. In most translations, it.

Says Philip opened his mouth. Philip opened his mouth.

Seven hundred years before Jesus came, this prophecy happened. Now

we look at this verse thirty five, It says Philip

opened his mouth. We don't talk that way. We don't

say James opened his mouth. We say stuff like James

said this, James spoke this, But we don't say James.

Opened his mouth. That sounds weird in our language. But

what he was doing, he was.

Juxtaposing the difference between Jesus, who did not open his

mouth versus Philip, who now opened his mouth. It's a

justa position, okay. Jesus did not open his mouth. Philip

opened his mouth. So what is Luke, the author of acts,

trying to say to us?

Today?

We are Jesus's mouthpiece. The ministry has been handed over

to us. He was silent and crucified, but.

Now we speak. We are the mouthpieces. It falls on

us to proclaim that he is the Lord. And you

notice he doesn't point to a moral.

Code, He doesn't talk have a philosophical argument. He just says,

let me tell you about Jesus.

He doesn't talk about religion, church, or policies. He points

to Jesus.

Because Jesus's name, that's the name that has power to

save salvation is found under no other name. We open

our mouth and proclaim Jesus. Now, I know a lot

of you remember the riots and Charlotte that happened a

few years ago.

It was a very disturbing.

Thing, and it was a response to Keith Scott being

shot by a Charlotte police officer. And so the riot

was getting out of control, on this side the rioters

and on this side the police.

And there's this one police.

Officer who tells this story about how Jesus moved in

the midst of these riots.

There was an African American preacher who every time.

The rioters got up to the point of the police

officers and they were not ready to engage in a fight,

this African American preacher would walk.

In between the two and hold.

The Bible up and he would only say this one phrase,

Jesus saves, Jesus says, Jesus says, Jesus says, and then

the crowd would disperse, the nervy peace. And then a

little bit later the crowd would come in, they would

riot it up, and all of a sudden they're buried

to clash, and he would stand between them again, goes

Jesus says, Jesus says, Jesus says. For hours upon hours

he kept walking.

In between him, Jesus says.

Jesus says, Jesus says, And the police officer said. Every

time this happened, the crowd dispersed and there was peace.

You know why, because that man believed that they're power

in the name of Jesus Christ. He believed that Jesus

was the King of kings and the Lord of Lord,

the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

That there is no name under which we can ask salvation,

that there is power.

In Jesus's name. Do you still believe that there's power.

In Jesus's name, because if you do, you will open

your mouth.

So now let's look at the end of.

The story that says as they traveled along the road,

they came to some water, and the eunuch said, look,

here is water.

What is stand in the way?

Might being baptized, and he gave orders to stop the chariot.

Then both Philip and the unich went.

Down and to 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. Philip, however,

appeared at az Atos and traveled about preaching the gospel

in all the towns until he reached Cesare. Yeah, here's

the cool thing about Philip.

He followed the Lord.

But as a result of him following the Lord, someone

else follows the Lord. Here's what I want you to

know today, there's always a domino effect to your obedience

to follow in Jesus. Now, I want to do one

last thing before we end today, one last thing, And

when you go back to this prophecy about the eunuch

because there's something very important that we have not addressed.

Here we go, all right, let's look at this again.

Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say

the Lord will surely exclude me.

From his people, and let no unit complain.

I am only a dry tree. For this is what

the Lord says. To the eunuchs who keep my status,

who choose what pleases me, and hold fasten my covenant

to them, I will give within my temple and its

wall as a memorial. Check this out, and a name

better than sons and daughters. Remember, eunuchs cannot have sons

and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that

will endure forever. And let me tell you something. You

have to remember that units cannot have under daughters.

Once they died, their name was cut off. It was over.

And trust me, I understand this. I have a daughter.

We tried for years to have another child. We couldn't.

I understand, all right, unless other people from my family,

the robber's name doesn't go on, but it as for me.

The robbers name it's cut off. And this is something

you think about.

But then he says this eunuchs to follow me. You

think that you your name is gonna be cut off.

So here's what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna give you another name. I'm gonna give you

an everlasting name. I'm gonna gonna give you a name

that's gonna last forever, and that's gonna reach throughout etorney.

And you know what name he gave the eunuchs. He

gave them the name of Jesus. He gave them the

name Jesus. And he says, you will have something better

than sons their daughters.

You will have an eternal relationship with Jesus.

Amen. All right, we got some questions for the road today.

Here we go.

What voices do you need to step listening to for

God's voice to be primary your life? Secondly, will you

believe that God has prepared someone for you to encounter

this week? And who do you know that needs pointed

to Jesus. Here's what we're going to do.