Acts: God's Love to the Outsider

When I was in the seventh grade, I became friends with this smart, cute girl in the eighth grade, which was a huge, huge deal.

This was a big deal to me because I was in seventh grade, she was in eighth grade, an older woman, and it was huge because I was not cute.

I was incredibly skinny, I was awkward, but I had learned to be funny.

And so we would talk on the phone at night and I would make her laugh.

We would pass notes at school, but because we were in different grades, we would only pass twice in a given day, which gave me time, right?

It gave me time all day to get that note just right.

So clever and get the fold just right.

So you pull the tab and the note unfolded and press her.

And I thought I was doing great.

I thought these conversations were great, the notes were clever.

I was mustering together everything I had to go for it.

Right?

Because at some point you gotta go for it.

And so finally I wrote the note.

The note.

Will you go out with me?

I was pretty sure I was in love.

And I waited a painful day for the response, the handoff.

We crossed in the hallway.

She handed her note off to me, and as soon as I could get alone, I read it, and when I read it, it was full of compliments.

That was a bad sign.

It's not what I wanted.

Not a good start.

Full of compliments was not good.

And then you know how it ended.

Let's just be friends.

Horrible news.

Horrible news.

A broken heart.

I was I was so close to love, right?

But I was not allowed any closer.

And maybe you know the feeling, right?

Maybe you know the feeling because you can think about something silly in the middle school, or maybe you know the feeling because something's extremely real in your life right now, and maybe it is in romantic love, like you got close and it didn't happen, or you thought you had it, but then they did something else, or maybe it was something in success and we got so close, but then that didn't work out, or maybe even in faith.

Like, oh, maybe the message you heard or you assumed was like, oh, you can be around, you can be around the things of God, but you aren't really good enough for God to actually abide or reside in your heart and mind and life.

You are only good enough to sort of be on the outside looking in.

And so we get this story in Acts 8, beginning in 26, and Philip gets one of those god nudges, uh, sends him south towards a desert down in Gaza, and he gets down there, he meets an Ethiopian eunuch who's a court official for an Ethiopian queen, and this guy had come to Jerusalem to worship.

He has this passage from Isaiah, he's on his way back home.

And so I'll reread part of the story picking up in verse 30.

So Philip ran to him, to the Ethiopian eunuch, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, Do you understand what you're reading?

And he said, How can I, unless someone guides me?

In other words, like I'm reading it, but I don't get it.

I need some help.

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 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 you, does the prophet say this?

About himself or about someone else?

And then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.

So a few points.

Point number one is this curiosity in the pursuit of truth is a good thing.

Curiosity in the pursuit of truth, that's a good thing.

To be curious is a good thing.

This man is reading and asking questions of this scripture.

That's a good thing.

You don't have to be scared of the Bible, you don't have to be scared to ask questions of the Bible, to ponder it, to study it, to ask other people, to process through it.

That's a good thing.

We pick back up in verse 36.

I'll read 36 through 38, but there's no verse 37, because verse 37 was added in a later transcript, not in the earliest transcript, so there's something for you to be curious about for this week.

A verse just isn't there.

Verse 36.

And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, See, here is the water.

What prevents me from being baptized?

No, verse 37, verse 38.

And he commanded the chariot to stop.

And they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

Point number two, curiosity, overwhelmed by truth, creates belief.

Curiosity, curiosity includes unbelief.

That's why you're curious, you don't know.

But when it becomes overwhelmed by what is true, that creates belief.

And we know this happened with the eunuch because he was baptized.

And for them, baptism was the symbol, it still is for Christians, of coming into the family of God.

So a real conversion occurred here.

He didn't know, he didn't understand, and then he did.

And I'm fascinated by this process.

I mean, I'm fascinated anytime there's a process that somebody comes into face to face with truth, and then new belief is formed.

A conversion occurs because I feel like most of the time we just use information to buttress a position we already hold, right?

Like if you're a liberal, you just listen to news on NPR.

If you're a conservative, you just listen to news on Fox News, right?

And that's what you do, and we all just buttress the opinions we already have.

Rarely, rarely are we like this eunuch.

And just are some like just raw curiosity.

And just seeking truth without a position already formed to look to uphold that position, but you just want to know what's true.

This happened to me last week.

I heard a quote and it changed me.

I went from one belief to another.

So my oldest daughter is beginning into the years where she tells me how the world works.

She's about to turn ten.

So, up to this point, my parenting philosophy has been this.

This is what I have, I have signed onto this philosophy probably the past five years.

I will go through the preteen and teenage years of parenting, and I will be the most amazing, patient, gracious father you could ever believe.

I will listen to all this nonsense from my child, and I will wait.

10, 15, 20 years, I don't know.

I will wait, I will be amazing, I will be patient, I'll be gracious, I'll listen to all of this, and I will sit there and I'll nod, and I will wait for the day where she comes back and she'll say, Dad, you were the wise one.

The entire time, you were so wise.

That was amazing how patient you were with me, Dad.

So that was my position.

That's truly how I was gonna approach the next 15 years of my life.

And then I heard this quote and it changed.

The young teach the old how the world is changing.

The old teach the young how the world stays the same.

As soon as I heard it, my belief changed.

I went from one position to another immediately.

A conversion in my parenting philosophy for the next 15 years changed with one quote.

I never really believed that she or any of my other children would really have something to teach me.

I never maybe I would have said it to them, but I never really believed it.

And I heard that quote and I realized, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

There's gonna be a whole lot that I need them to teach me about how the world is changing.

And at the same time, they're gonna need me to teach them how the world stays the same.

And a conversion occurred, right?

And she will teach me filled with lots of rolled eyes, right?

I'll still have to be patient and gracious.

But a conversion, a truth, a truth created new belief.

So we have this man reading Isaiah.

He's told a new thought about the passage.

Philip lays out the gospel, uses that passage, lays out the gospel.

Jesus fulfilled this passage, and in a moment, this man has moved from no belief in Jesus as his absolution acceptance before God, to a belief in Jesus as his absolution and acceptance before God.

And this man had been around temple, he just came from the Temple Mount.

He'd seen all these sacrifices made over and over and over again.

So then when Philip lays out before this man, hey, by the way, God's the sacrifice.

Hey, by the way, God's the final sacrifice, hey, by the way, all those sacrifices is to help you to understand you can never sacrifice enough.

You need a final sacrifice.

And God is loving and gracious and incarnated Himself.

And our sin is put upon Jesus, the final sacrifice, so you don't have to sacrifice another sacrifice or yourself anymore.

And his righteousness is given to you, and you are his child as you believe in Jesus.

Conversion.

Last point, point number three.

The love of God is limitless.

It's the same point.

Point number three is always the same, right?

You've picked up on that.

The gospel is the opposite of the note I received from the eighth-grade girl.

Let's just be friends.

Right?

Like you can come around.

We can talk on the phone.

Not too close.

Not too much.

You can come to Jerusalem.

You can even come up on the Temple Mount.

Not the temple.

You can stay way back there in the outer courts with the people who don't fit in.

That's where you belong.

And then in the book of Acts, this radical gospel is released, which goes to people of other religions, other races, and now we get a eunuch.

And I am guessing, I'm making a big guess here, that you have not been doing devotional studies on eunuchs.

Just a guess.

You only laugh if you know what a eunuch is.

Everybody else is like, why would I laugh at that?

So a few details.

By definition, a eunuch is a castrated male.

In the ancient world, this could have been done before puberty to force that male into servanthood to guard king's wives or concubines, and then the individual wouldn't be tempted to have sex with any of them.

Or this could have been done out of their own volition by some religious conviction before some God.

Or this could have been because they were born this way.

Now the term itself does not mean they had a particular sexual practice, but it was common for eunuchs to have a wide range of sexual behaviors.

They never went through puberty, their voices were high, they usually didn't have families, they had no kids, they were loners and they were outsiders, they just didn't fit in.

And then we know from the law of God in the Old Testament, within the rules of who could enter the temple, we read in Deuteronomy 23:1 no one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord.

Deuteronomy 23:1

I know, not your memory verse.

I know that.

It's the verse one middle school boy shows another middle school boy and they giggle.

That's the verse.

But this is what this is talking about.

That's what this man is.

Is this?

This is what this man is.

And this Deuteronomy 23 list, this is a list that just keeps rolling out people to the outside.

Like, yeah, and you got no shot, and you got no shot, and you got no shot, and you're back there, and get out of here.

Don't even come close to the presence of God.

You can't get close and you can't get close and you can't get close, which is the ultimate point.

By law, by works, and by merit, you will never be right with God or yourself.

Jesus drives the home, the point home even more.

He just, oh, oh, you think the laws don't commit murder?

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Never be angry.

Oh, oh, you think the laws is don't have an affair?

No, no, no, no, no.

Never lust over another person.

And then he destroys religious and cultural norms as he befriends and loves the very people who have been deemed and held on the outside.

So the law destroys us.

And then the grace of Jesus completely rescues us.

Can you imagine what it must have been like for this eunuch?

To be at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and there are people everywhere.

Go up these huge steps, these huge doors and these walls, up on the temple mount, there's all these different courts.

Everybody's divided up.

Who can go where?

Who can get so close to the temple, which is the presence of God?

And where does this guy go?

Well, he's not allowed in there.

He's not allowed in the temple.

He's not allowed in the presence of God.

He's not good enough for that.

He's on the outside looking in.

And he has felt this way his entire life.

He has been rejected his entire life.

But he's reading Isaiah.

And the Spirit of God loves him.

And sends Philip all the way south, and then sends Philip right to him.

And this shows us God's regard to this man that so many religious people would have walked right by.

And in this way, this passage calls us and it comforts us.

It calls us because it shows us the gospel goes to all people.

And anybody who has open ears here.

But our call is to engage and to love.

Love your neighbor, go into all nations.

All that missional language is here with Philip.

And it stings a bit.

Because what it means is your possible judgment of another person is not always the same as God's loving regard toward that person.

Maybe you judge that person because they aren't like you.

They don't look like you.

They weren't raised like you.

They don't dress like you.

They don't have the same ideals as you.

Maybe they don't have the same morals as you.

So that stings a bit, that's the calling which stings a bit to our self-righteousness.

It's incredibly challenging.

And yet it's comforting.

Because if it's true for him, it's true for me.

Right?

If it's true for him, it's true for you.

So your volatile judgment toward yourself is not God's loving regard toward you.

There's the comfort.

Because you felt like the outsider looking in.

You felt rejected.

The one who doesn't deserve God's presence.

You don't live up to the law of God or the standard He set before you.

But you know what?

That's not the whole truth about you.

You are crushed by the law, but you are relieved by the grace of God in Jesus.

A few chapters later in Isaiah, in Isaiah 56, we read this.

And 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 and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters.

I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.

You see, in Jesus, the outsider holds an everlasting name.

And maybe you feel like the outsider because you don't have it all together.

Because you're broken, you're imperfect, you're in need.

But listen, in Jesus, God gives you a monument better, better than even sons and daughters.

My brothers and sisters, maybe you feel like that outsider looking in, but no, in Jesus you have an everlasting name.

Let's pray together.

Thank you, God, that you, that your love is limitless to who you love and how you love and how much you love, that the work of Jesus was truly enough for all people, for any person, that him or her who has ears hear this?

Would you call us to be people not of self-righteousness, not of judgment, but people of grace and love?

And would you comfort us because all of us need the comfort of the grace of God because all of us have felt rejected.

We have all felt like the outsider.

We all know we don't live up to what we should, even when we try to pretend like or look like we do.

God, we thank you that Jesus is that sufficient.

That in the work of Jesus, this gospel goes out seeking the lost and the broken.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.