Philip and the Eunuch: Miraculous and Mundane

Good morning, port City. Our scripture reading will be in

Acts chapter 8, verses 26 to 40. If you're using the copy of

Acts 8:26–40

Scripture underneath your seat, you can find that on page 862.

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 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 them.

Now the passage of the Scripture that he was reading was this.

Like a shepherd he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb

before its Shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth.

And 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 asked, 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 them.

And 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

Azados, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all

the towns until he came to Caesarea.

This is God's word. Good morning Port City family

and friends. How are we doing?

Good. My name is Tanner.

I'm one of the pastors here and at Port City.

We are passionate about training people to live with God in the

miraculous and the mundane. Y'all, if you can't do Jesus in

the mundane, it's no good. You know, it's got to work at

the dentist's office. It's got to work when you

teaching, it's got to work when you're on the sports team.

God wants to walk with you there.

That's the good stuff of life. And he also works the miraculous

he he does this stuff is, is popping off like this all over

the world. There's there's stories that

that come out all the time of God doing miraculous things.

And in today's story, he's doing a little bit of both.

It's got some miraculous and it's got some mundane.

So that's why we're excited to dive into this story and we pray

that you would come to know Jesus in the miraculous and in

the mundane. OK, so I'm gonna pray and then

we'll dive into our story. Our Father, we thank you for

this moment. God, we thank you that you use

the miraculous. We thank you for miracles,

healings, dreams. We thank you for all the ways

that you intervened so clearly, God.

And we also thank you for the ways that the connections, the

the intervention is clearer overtime of what you were doing.

And God, we can't wait for eternity where we get to hear

the the stories for for ages and ages of all the things you've

done, God, and, and at the end of the day, you reveal truth to

us and got it it. You use people to do this and

you use a book and use your spirit.

And so God just help us to think well about these things.

And God, thank you for intervening in my life and and

for many others. And God, we pray you would do it

again. We love you.

We pray this in your name. Amen.

Y'all heard the expression don't sleep on.

Have y'all heard that? So to not sleep on something

means don't underestimate it. OK?

So don't sleep on just whatever OK, I'll give you 1 don't sleep

on. Sometimes spending money can

save you money. OK First year marriage I was

like we're saving money. Buy the vacuum that is $60.00.

So it was called like the dust Bunny or something, you know,

like it's just just a crazy clear, no name brand.

I spent like $60.00 on the vacuum.

It lasted about 6 times of using it and it was like a fire hazard

in my house. So then we had to go again and I

was tempted to do it again. Just one bad dust bun and bummy

thing. It probably said dust bummy.

I didn't look hard enough. It wasn't even a dust Bunny.

But the point was also, don't sleep on your wife who's smart,

OK? She's not just trying to spend a

bunch of money. And you don't need to go to

counseling to argue with each other about money.

You just need to listen to your wife, OK.

And I should have listened. Don't sleep on spending money to

save money. Something that the church tends

to sleep on is that God knows what he's doing.

We just sleep on it. We're like, nothing's changing.

We're begging. We're we're, we're, we're like,

what are you going to do, God? And we don't see how the

mission's going forward. People still don't care.

Their hearts are a rock hard people yawn at the gospel.

They care nothing for the Lord or we just don't see other

nations coming to trust in Christ or just it feels like

we're hitting roadblock after roadblock.

Or maybe it's just at a personal level.

Your life is filled with suffering and it's like God

don't know what he's doing. It's not going away.

I would draw it up and we sleep on them and our faith falters

and and we just this is life, right?

And then we come to a story like today, a historical moment where

the the church in Ethiopia has its roots right here, you know,

and we're like, I think God knows what he's doing, you know,

and it's just one of those reminders.

And we get to see the levels and layers of it.

And it sends us back into the mundane saying, God, I know

you're still you. Help me to see this correctly.

Help me to understand what you're doing, even when I don't

see all the dots connecting. This is who you are.

So y'all, the Spirit still sends Phillips to eunuchs to talk to

them about Jesus. He's doing that today.

The Spirit is still looking for his church to be full of the

Spirit to just ask people, do you understand what you're

reading? We're still just telling a basic

story about a dude who died on a piece of wood, and their lives

can change like that once we understand the story behind it

all. God is still doing this in a

million different ways in a million different places.

So what I want to do is just guide us through the text and

just point out some of what God is up to.

Kind of going to walk through it, and that'll be our time.

We're just going to walk through it.

OK, I got 4 points. It's kind of just following

through the spirits. Going to send Philip to the

eunuch, .2 is that Philip's going to share Jesus with the

eunuch, .3 is that the eunuch's going to respond to hearing

about Jesus, and .4 is the Spirit is going to carry Philip

away. If you are ready, let me hear

you say I'm ready. All right, Well, the story

started in verse 26. 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 Kansas, 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.

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 the prophet Isaiah.

OK, there's really three players in our story here today, so

let's just look at the text from each angle, if you will.

The 1st is the Spirit. You know this.

This story teaches us God is the architect of this encounter.

We the reader are Privy to that information.

We see what's going on. We see that this was not

Philip's idea. This was not the eunuchs idea.

This was God's idea. If you're new to the book of

Acts back in chapter 1 verse 8, it's probably like two or three

pages back in your Bible. The theme verse, the thesis

verse for this whole book is chapter one, verse 8.

It says this. Jesus tells his disciples, you

will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and

you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and

Samaria and to the end of the earth.

And if we pull up a map of the modern day Middle East, it just

shows in concentric circles. It starts in Jerusalem, Judea,

Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And then we read in chapter 8, verse 4, if you weren't with us

last week, what we saw is that the gospel for the first time

spread from Jerusalem to Samaria.

So it's like check on Jesus's plan for it to go from Jerusalem

to Samaria's happen. And now we see the gospel

through this eunuch. Where is it going to go?

It's going to go to Ethiopia. The the origins of the Ethiopian

church are right in front of us right here.

So we're seeing this gospel that primarily the, the, the

Christian movement early on was growing out of the Jewish tree.

Christianity is growing out of the roots of, of Judaism and is

fulfilling it and taking it to its next level.

And so from Jerusalem we go to Samaria, and now it's going off

to Africa. So God is not only the architect

of this moment with this man, but this whole book and this

whole Christian movement worldwide.

Like there's a reason it is on the whole globe.

Like this thing is spreading like crazy because God is the

architect of this encounter. The second player in our story

is Phillip. Phillip plays the role of the

obedient vessel, the one who is willing to go.

If you're like, where did this Phillip guy come from, I'll tell

you. Here's where Phillip came from

on Acts chapter 6. What happened was the the early

Acts 6 · chapter mention

movement was being taught by the apostles to be an apostle.

You had to roll with Jesus for those few years.

OK, so the apostles were the dudes with Jesus.

They were teaching the word teaching about Jesus.

And then the first issue of kind of like some racism and like, I

don't like those people and they're coming to Jesus.

And this is a problem. They started having their first

problem. So the church was about to have

a breakdown already and they were like, whoa, we can't stop

teaching about Jesus. But this is important.

So why don't y'all, they did not choose seven people.

They said why don't y'all choose seven people with good character

that you trust and they chose 7 people.

One of those seven people was a guy named Phillip.

So Phillip didn't go to some school and say I want to preach

the word of God. He just was a servant.

He said, oh, I'll help with the racism issue and make sure

everybody gets their food and the old people get their food

and we're not doing preferential treatment.

I got you. So he was serving first.

You see that? Don't tell me you want to teach

the word if you don't want to serve people, OK.

And so Phillip is serving. He's loving on the people.

And then the Spirit says, hey, get out of Jerusalem, let's go

over to Samaria. And it happens through a a

stoning event happened like a basically they started killing

Christians for the first time. And he ends up in Samaria.

OK. And then he teaches the

Samaritans. And then they're like, go to

that chariot with this Ethiopian eunuch and Philip.

Every time he just keeps going, OK, I got you.

Yes. It said in our text that an

Angel came and said, go toward the South of the road that goes

down from Jerusalem to Gaza. If you pull up the map,

Jerusalem's in the Middle East, and then Gaza is like kind of

directly in between the path down getting into Africa.

He's like, go down there and he goes, not knowing what will be

there, right. Then he gets there, OK, now go

over to that chariot. He didn't know my man was in

there reading Isaiah. He just go to the chariot.

OK. And if you know your Bibles a

little bit, that's kind of the anti Jonah, if you will remember

the story of Jonah where God tells him exactly what to do,

where to go and what to say. And Jonah says, no, we got a guy

here who says, go there. You don't know what you're going

to say. Just go.

And he says, OK. So we see kind of the the the

church is filled with the spirit in such a way it makes us want

to do what God wants us to do. That's one of the things the

spirit does in your life is what you used to not want to do felt

like drudgery to follow the Lord.

I gotta do this stuff becomes joyful to put your yes on the

table. Somebody say yes on the table.

That just means I say yes before the terms get dictated or you

might have heard the expression of blank check.

It's where you you sign it and then you slide it across the

table and the person gets to write the dollar amount.

You don't wait for the dollar amount and then you're like, I

can't sign this. You ask it too much.

So Phillip is a good example of my yes, is there because you're

the asker, not because of the terms of the ask Amen church.

So we got we got the unit dynamic to talk about here in a

minute, But for we the Phillips in the room, the church y'all,

half the ability you need is availability.

What we see in this story is not somebody with a ton of skill.

They just got a yes on the table.

They're just willing. I've heard it said God is not a

recruiter of those who got skill.

He's a resurrector of people he makes willing to obey his will.

OK, that's what he does. He's just looking for people who

want to say yes and who by the spirit of like, I'm not even

good at what you asked me to do, but I'll do it.

If you say do it, I'll do it. Are you sure?

I mean, I'm not a good speaker, but I got you.

And there's a long lineage in the Bible of people saying those

kinds of things to the Lord. But the point is you go not

because of what you're good at, but who told you to go?

And then we have the eunuch. The eunuch is the ready

recipient. This thing is what you might

call on a tee for Phillip, if you are not familiar with that

expression. Instead of trying to hit a 90

mile an hour fastball, how would you like to try to hit a ball on

a tee that just sits there? It's a little easier to hit that

ball than the 90 mile an hour fastball.

And the Lord didn't make this extremely difficult for Philip.

And how do we know that? Because my man, the eunuch is in

an old school car reading Isaiah and he's reading a text that is

clearly about Jesus, as we'll see here in a moment.

He's just sitting there. He went to Jerusalem at the text

said to worship and he did not hear about Jesus.

And we, the the ones who've been reading Acts know the apostles.

We're back in Jerusalem. So you see how the spirit had

him go to Jerusalem, not find the Lord.

He's what you might call a, a, a God seeker or a another New

Testament term is a person of peace.

He's a, he's warm like he's, he's willing to hear, but he's

not yet a Christ follower. He's not yet a believer in

Jesus. So he goes to Jerusalem.

And then there's the fact that he's a eunuch.

Somebody say eunuch. A eunuch is somebody, if you

don't know now you know, who has been given their position in the

Royal Court because they've been emasculated.

OK. So they were trustworthy because

they were not. Yeah.

Y'all are smart, OK? They were not.

They were not in a position to do things that sometimes people

in that position would do. So they were literally put there

for that reason. Because you're not a threat in

the way that other people who are men might be.

OK. But it also makes them sort of

like a sexually confused. I mean, he's a black eunuch.

Deuteronomy 23 one those who had undergone that procedure were

not allowed in the temple. So when he went to Jerusalem,

guess what? He didn't go into the temple.

So he went to Jerusalem. He's excluded from the temple.

He doesn't get to hear the reading of the law.

He just goes hoping some kind of way I will be close to Yahweh, I

will know Jehovah. Philip doesn't know any of this

is going on. Philip just said yes, but he's

about to be connected to a black African man who is a eunuch

who's excluded from the temple. And Philip knows Jesus, which

flips the whole temple thing on its head.

And there's so much there. And y'all, here's the good news.

God is still using Philips to seek after eunuchs for his

glory. Y'all In Luke 1910 it says Jesus

came to seek and to save the lost.

This is what God does. He puts it on a tee for us.

Think sometimes we get in our head following Jesus or talking

about Jesus like hitting a 90 mile fastball.

I promise you it's not. The Lord will put it on a tee if

you ask Him to. Ask Him for opportunities to

share about Jesus. You will get them.

You will get them if you stay ready.

They say you ain't got to get ready.

OK, the idea is, I will say, if you don't have a bat, you still

can't hit it off the tee. Are you tracking with me?

There's still an element of like, Philip was full of the

Spirit. He knows the prophet Isaiah.

He can make the connections to Jesus.

So even if the Lord put you in a car with somebody who said tell

me about Jesus, he can't put it more on a tee than that.

But you still got to know the Scriptures.

You still got to know who the Lord is.

You still got to love the gospel.

You can't be like, well, just start going to church and read

your Bible. It's like, whoa, you are blowing

it. It was on the tee.

You're blowing it. Talk to him about Jesus, please.

OK, point #2 Philip shares Jesus with the eunuch.

We see in verses 30 through 35 kind of the exchange.

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 Shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth in its

humiliation. Justice was denied him.

Who could 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?

Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with the

Scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus.

Again, three players. Let's start with the Spirit.

Did you notice that after verse 29, it says the Spirit says go

join him in the chariot. He gets to the chariot and then

the Spirit is not mentioned again until he carries Philip

away in the last verse. So it wasn't like he was like,

OK, now let me break down for you what to say next.

And then say this and then about Isaiah say this and then say

this. He kind of orchestrated the

situation and then he directly removes his involvement.

But does that mean the Spirit wasn't involved?

No. He just put you in a car with

the man reading the Bible and you are full of the Spirit.

Now tell him what about what he's reading.

Do you see how this is both miraculous and mundane?

Like if I'm Philip, I know I'm supposed to be in the chariot

because the the Spirit prompted me to be here and now I'm here.

Do you think he was insecure as he shared about Christ from this

passage? Do you think he just used his

natural ability? He just asked a question.

It's mundane. Do you understand what you're

reading? No.

Will you come sit and tell me? Oh, yes, I will.

And then he tells them. So it's a good mixture of

something miraculous is happening here, but the

ingredients are pretty mundane and simple, but they're what

might have been referred to as the means of grace.

You've got Bible, you've got a reader, you've got a teacher to

respond to the gospel. You have to hear it, you have to

understand it, and then you can respond.

So what God does is he puts those ingredients in a blender.

Notice what he did not have him go to that chariot and do is

like, hey, this is a eunuch who's been unfairly treated his

whole life. I'm going to restore his body.

Just watch what I'm about to do. The way that he loved the eunuch

was by revealing truth to him about Jesus.

Do you see that? I think sometimes we're like the

the does God love me rhetoric. Yes, God loves you.

How? How does God love humanity?

By telling them the truth. People want to verify God's

love. They want some sort of proof.

Listen closely, my friend. God loves you by telling you the

truth. So he put him in that car to

tell him about Jesus. That's how he sought out the

eunuch is by revealing the truth to him.

God does not love you primarily by being your cheerleader as you

do you. OK?

He loves you by lifting your eyes onto his Son.

And then everything kind of changes.

Does that make sense? We.

Definitely need miracles of healing.

The unit could have used one. But more than we need miracles

of healing, we need miracles of revealing.

Like help us see things as they are God.

And that's what's happening in our text.

And then the eunuch is so humble here, right?

Our second player in the in the story, his response is when

asked, do you understand what you're reading?

Just think about how you would respond or people in our culture

would respond. Are we really humble when we're

asked? Like in a moment like that,

we're like, of course I know what I'm reading.

I have Google and ChatGPT, get away from me.

Why are you in my car? Get up out of here, man.

He's so humble. He's like, how can I let

somebody guides me, guide me? And then the text says he's not

so humble as to say, how can I unless someone guides me?

It says he invites him to come sit with him.

So it wasn't like an awkward dot, dot, dot, like, how can I

unless someone guides me? He was like, how can I, unless

somebody guides me, get up here and guide me.

So I just love the humility in that.

Y'all, to understand the gospel you need a guide.

Y'all the gospel, the truth about Jesus.

It's facts that make a lot of sense.

He was born in a certain area at a certain time to the Virgin

Mary under Pontius Pilate. He suffered an unjust death like

there. There's facts to it, but the

guide is part of how the Spirit reveals it to you so that it

stops being stupid to you, stops being fairy tale to you, or stop

speaking something you get but don't want.

The guide is from the Spirit to help illuminate what was already

there and you didn't see in church, I'll say this, OK, what

starts with guidance continues with guidance.

How many of us we we get in with Christ, we start following the

Lord. Now we don't want no guide.

I got it. I listen to my pastor, I listen

to Elevation Worship on 38 volume and I'm good.

I got it. Y'all, we need guidance.

Y'all we should be the people saying guide me.

The the church should be the people saying guide me.

But oftentimes the church are the people saying I don't need

no guide. I got my Bible.

Do you see the irony in that? Like God died to make the church

a people of interdependence who are humbly seeking guidance from

one another. Far be it from us that the non

church art is better sometimes at asking for guidance than we

are. If you want to be counter

cultural in today's ChatGPT age, ask for guidance.

Before you seek out independence.

Think about interdependence. Does that make sense?

OK, then we got Philip is intentional and clear about

Jesus. You know what guides do?

Guides guide. Guides don't create.

They guide. Guides be guiding.

That's what they do. I just want to reiterate, Philip

created nothing church. We don't create the gospel.

We guide people through the gospel.

We just guide them. Like I, I love going to the zoo

and I sat at this one little exhibit the other day and

listened to little like teenagers who are volunteers say

the like 2 facts they know to every crowd that passed by.

And I was like, I need to keep moving.

He has said that fact like 5 times.

But here's the point, he's just guiding people.

He's just saying what he knows and it's 2 facts more than me.

But I'm like I could guide him. Now you go on man, you go on,

you go on. That was literally all he knew.

I'm like, can you, can you rotate him something?

So guides guide. They don't create.

It takes the, the pressure off. I've heard it said like when the

way we try to teach the word here is we're not trying to

create a masterpiece. We're just trying to guide you

through the master's piece. We're just trying to guide you

through what's already there. We're not, we're not making

anything. We're we're guiding through

what's already there. So if you don't get the Jesus

stuff here, it is as basic as we can make it from these verses.

OK, I'll, I'll connect the dots. It's all about what's coming to

us from the prophet Isaiah that he then interprets for him.

OK, so it says in verse 32, like a sheep, he was led to the

slaughter. So there's some person who

allowed themselves to be led to be slaughtered.

OK, And like a lamb before it's Shearer is silent, so he opens

out his mouth. There's some person who before

the the vehicle, the vessel of them being slaughtered, chose

not to respond, chose to allow the process to unfold how it was

going to unfold. In his humiliation, justice was

denied him who could describe his generation for his life is

taken away from the earth. Some person was removed from the

earth unjustly. What is the what Jesus like I I

get somehow that connects to Jesus.

What is going on y'all? This is the story of the Bible

that God made us in his image to be in relationship with him,

ourselves, the earth, others. OK, focused on others y'all and

when our first parents when they sin, what happened is is all

that was supposed to be about others building creation,

stewardship, loving others focus on others turned in on

ourselves. OK, the easy way to remember

what is sin I is in the middle. It just makes it all about us.

The earth was fractured, we were fractured, one another was

fractured. We hid, we covered, and we

didn't want God. Now we wanted to be God.

OK, That's what sin is. I don't want no God.

I want to be God. I'll even be spiritual.

I'll create a world where I'm spiritual, but I'm still God.

I'm in charge. And so in our sin, we actually

here's the problem, we don't want God.

That's part of the problem with sin.

We don't just need help, we need like to be changed.

Does that make sense? Like the core of who we are is

fractured in sin. That's the problem with it.

So God sees us in and turn from Him.

We're destroying ourselves, we're destroying one another.

And so He created a plan to bring us back.

He created a plan not just to wipe away what the cross is.

We'll talk around it a lot. It's not just a wiping away the

bad things. It's actually also the means by

which God makes us new. He's making us who we were

designed to be but failed to be. Yo, what is happening in the

person of Jesus is He is living the life humanity was intended

to live. He is quite literally the new

Adam. He's the new humanity.

It's what we were supposed to be but failed to be.

We were supposed to love God and others.

We're supposed to live unto others and live with others at

the center and God at the center and not ourselves.

That's what Jesus did. He lived a perfect life,

sinless, but then at the end of his life he died in unjust death

that he did not fight back against, he allowed to happen.

He silently submitted to an unjust process at the hands of

the Romans and the hands of the Jewish leadership because what

he was doing was not just dying an arbitrary heroic death.

Here's the problem y'all, a lot of us think Jesus dying is like

a hero, like a good dad or something dying for kids they

love or like a heroic moment. Y'all.

That's not it. What was happening is actually

his death was buying something. It was there was an efficacy to

what he was doing. It means it was doing something.

It's not just an arbitrary like picture on the wall to to

inspire. It was a transformative moment

in history, not just a heroic moment to inspire people.

It's a moment that is actually purchasing something.

What was happening on the cross is all that our sin deserves,

all our turning back on God, all of our our lust, our gossip, our

just yawning at others. Sometimes sin isn't just wicked

awful things, just we're not what we should be.

It's the bad things you do and it's the good things you don't

do. Even on my best day, I don't

care about you as much as I should.

That's also sin. It's not just when we kill

people or whatever it is. It's that we're not who we ought

be. And what's happening on the

cross is God the Father sent the Son full of the Holy Spirit to

absorb the wrath that our sin justly deserves.

Yo, what's happening on the cross is actually, if that

doesn't happen, justice is not possible because the Son of God

suffered an injustice. We could trust one day justice

will happen. Nobody will get away with

anything because the Son of God absorbed the pain.

Don't you want, like if God forbid something awful should

happen to your family, would you want a judge who just says no

big deal, we're letting them off go for it?

It would, it would, it would make you just want to scream.

Will somebody pay attention to my case?

My brother? This happened.

Look at what happened to them. The point is, y'all, if Jesus

didn't die, y'all. The thing that makes most sense

to me is vengeance. When people don't know Jesus,

vengeance makes sense. Blood for blood.

Let's throw down right now because if they're not going to,

if it's not going to be made right, I have to make it right.

The reason Christians should be on the front lines of justice

and all these different things in our society, not vengeance,

is because the cross is real. And if not, we're a bunch of

idiots and we should just join. We should grab the guns.

We should be front lines. We should be so angry and

hostile. But because Christ offers to

absorb the wrath of God, to absorb all of the pain our sin

deserves, it's a real efficacy. Y'all with me?

It's doing something. It's not just heroism.

Does that make sense? I think the average person in a

church in our country thinks it's just a heroic thing to make

you be a good person. That's not what the Bible

teaches, y'all. It is a transformative moment of

substitution where God Himself takes the place of those who

want nothing to do with Him so that he might woo and win them

back to Himself and pay for the right for them to be in his

presence once again, pay for the right for them to be made holy.

When God looks at you believer, he does not see your sin, He

sees his Son. When we trust Christ, when we

repent and believe, as we'll talk about in a moment, what's

happening is Jesus has taken our place and we get his.

That's the good news of the Bible.

That's the good news of Isaiah 53.

We need to substitute the story of the Bible is not motivating

you to become a moral winner In the Scriptures we see God

offering to trade places with the center.

That's what the Bible teaches. OK, third thing, the eunuch

responds to this message. The eunuch hears this in

response verse 36. 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 in the eunuch, and he baptized him.

Y'all, he gets it. This this eunuch.

And again, remember, he was excluded his whole life from the

temple, not allowed to be in God's presence.

The temple represented God's manifest presence on earth as he

wanted to be everywhere. So he was in the temple.

That was the logic of it. OK, so the eunuch was excluded.

So to use that word prevents he's asking the man who used to

be prevented is now asking what prevents me from being made

right with God. And the answer is nothing.

Y'all what Jesus did, the eunuch gets it.

It's not just some cool information, some cool story.

That story, that truth about Jesus can be mine by faith.

He, he offers to take my place and I receive that.

I repent, I grab that his work is sufficient for me to be in

God's presence. Nothing prevents me from coming

all the way in. Nothing can stop me from knowing

God now. I love in the text, He doesn't

go back to Jerusalem. He doesn't go back to get

somebody to say you're good with God now.

He keeps going because he's been made right.

All is well. Nothing can stop us from being

made right with God through Christ when we trust him by

faith. So just to be clear, the eunuch

did not get baptized because he learned something cool about

Jesus. The eunuch did not get baptized

because he liked the story about Jesus.

What baptism is, is an outward response of the inward agreement

with God about reality. God is saying you're a Sinner.

God is saying you have not lived life as you should prior to

trusting in Christ. The harsh news of the gospel is

you're not right with God eunuch, and you're not not right

with God because you're a eunuch.

You're not right with God because you're a Sinner and you

are separated from God. That's why Jesus had to come.

The good news of the gospel is on the other side of the bad

news. The bad news is if Jesus did not

die in our place, we're still in our sin and we can't be before a

holy God. Jesus make it offers to make us

well and he is agreeing with that that I need to be made well

y'all many times. And if you go read the the

gospels about Jesus, the people who cling to him are the

prostitutes. It's the bombs, it's the tax

collectors because when you tell them you're a Sinner, they go.

I know. You know what?

You tell a bunch of people who think they're pretty good

people, You're a Sinner. Shut up.

Yeah, that's what I thought in my head, no, I'm not better than

that guy. Better than that guy, better

than that guy. And again, that you can be rich

and have that posture in your heart or poor.

So it's not that all people on the bottom are just humble.

That's not what I'm saying. But when you've got nothing and

you know you're a Sinner, you're more likely to agree with that.

The ingredients are a little easier to wrap your mind around.

It's really hard for a bunch of people who think they're pretty

good to be told you need a savior.

Like 100% you're so busted that God himself had to die a

violent, unjust death on a cross for you to be made.

Well. They're like I'll take the

picture version. I just want to be inspired by

them. I like them, let them inspire

me. I'll do better, yo.

That's not the Bible. That's not what the gospel is.

That's not what maybe that that's what our flesh wants to

hear. But what the the Scriptures

offer is substitution. What it offers is salvation, not

coaching, not motivation. You don't need a coach.

You need to be resurrected. You need to like somebody dead

needs resuscitation. That's what you need.

That's what the Bible says. Your situation is before God.

So the the eunuch is getting baptized not because he wants a

new hero to be inspired by, but because by faith, by grace, by

trust in what Jesus had done, not what he did.

I agree with you, God. I need that much help and you

offer to give it to me. I receive it by faith.

I repent and to be clear, the baptism does not save him

because then guess what that would mean?

You save yourself by getting baptized.

You see how that works? What saves you is the blood of

Jesus. What saves you is faith and what

Christ has done saved people get baptized.

Baptism doesn't save you. Are you with me and I love in

the text says that he went down into the water and the word

baptism baptizo. It implies immersion like going

under. It's a picture that you are it's

as if Jesus's death applies to you.

You are now dead and then made alive like when I was first

coming to faith in Jesus, all the hip hop songs were like RIP

I was alive. I've born again in 2018.

I got 2 birth dates. I died.

I'm like what are they talking about?

The point they were trying to make is the old me is gone, new

me is come. It's like I I came alive in

2011. That's the way I I use that

language because prior to that I did not know God.

I was dead in my sin. I've been made alive.

His death counts for me. I get his life.

That's the picture of baptism. There's much more I could say

about baptism. Some of you have believed the

gospel and have never been baptized.

You need to get baptized. People who have trusted Christ

and believe that message, like the unit, go under the water and

get baptized to agree and align themselves with Christ and his

finished work on their behalf. Some of you need to get

baptized. We'll talk about that a little

bit more later, but some of you are still in the guidance phase.

If you still don't get the gospel, but there's any part of

you that wants to get the gospel, here's your homework.

Grab somebody and say, can we go to Bojangles today?

We're not leaving Bojangles till we eat all this chicken or I get

the gospel. Let's start talking about the

gospel. If you're like, I still like,

help me understand the gospel, this substitution versus like

information hero stuff. Like what does that mean?

Tell me the gospel. Do not go to sleep until you get

it. The Bible is not about you, it's

about Jesus. It's about what he's done to

make you well, not what you do to impress yourself before God.

OK. And then respond to it once you

believe it. Point #4 the Spirit carries

Philip away, the same spirit who brought him there took him away.

So Phillip leaves. What's interesting, you could

go, you could write down Acts 21, eight.

That's the next time we see Phillip Phillips gone from Acts

pretty much OK. And Acts 21/8, scholars tell us,

is 20 years later, OK, it's after like Paul is deep in his

ministry at this point. So what I love about that and it

tells us in Acts 21/8 that he has four daughters who are like

full of the spirit and beasts in the church and all this stuff is

incredible. What I love about that is Philip

goes from like the miraculous life of like, go over there, do

this, do this. And then for 20 years.

Because if you look at verse 40, it tells us Philip found himself

at Azitus. And as he passed through, he

preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

Guess where he is in Acts 21, verse 8, Caesarea.

Acts 21:8

So as best we could tell, once he got there, he stayed.

Does that make sense? And he raised his family, four

daughters. What I love about Philip is he

will do it when it's, hey, serve some tables, help some widows,

got it. Hey, preach the gospel

miraculously to the Samaritans and go over to that chariot over

there and help that guy. You're taking the gospel to

Africa and you don't even know it.

Got it. And then go over there and stay

there for 20 years and raise some kids.

Got it. You know, I love this picture of

miraculous and mundane raising his family full of the spirit

and he's not like, Oh no, God doesn't love me now because he's

not asking me to do miraculous stuff y'all.

God loves you and the miraculous and the mundane.

Be full of the spirit. Know your word.

Ask people if they understand the Bible.

Ask people if they want to hear about Jesus.

Talk to people, love God and the miraculous and the mundane and

let's all pray. We got 4 kids as awesome as

Phillips kids. They miss somebody.

Seemed like the Lord was all over it.

So, church, are you all in the miraculous and in the mundane?

Are you all in when nobody's around?

Are you fooled? The Spirit?

Are you reading your word? Are you asking for

opportunities? We don't leverage our mundane

lives to say God hasn't done anything miraculous for me.

Don't do that. He saved you.

He bought you, He filled you with the Spirit.

He gave you His word. He gave you the church.

Let's get after it and then ask Him for opportunities.

He will bring them to your doorstep.

He will put it on the tee. You with me?

OK, The eunuch goes on rejoicing.

I love this image takes Philip away and the eunuch's not like,

Oh no, I don't have a what am I going to do now?

He's just, he trusts the spirit who just brought this guy to him

to share this message with him about Jesus.

And he goes on rejoicing. He goes all the way to Ethiopia

and history tells us he goes on to, I mean, the church starts

through. He's just sharing the good news.

It's pretty incredible. I love that his impulse was not

to go back to Jerusalem. Don't you love that He didn't

need to go back there, Y'all? You don't need a new life.

If you're following Jesus. You go back into your old life,

full of the Spirit. It is difficult.

One of the hardest places to go back is your hometown.

OK, Amen. Somebody you come to Christ.

You're like, can I just move, please?

These people, all my friends, they know me, yo.

The Philip, the eunuch goes back and he's confident.

He ain't looking for nobody to tell him what he needs to be

made right with God. He's been made right with God.

He's been united to God by faith.

The Spirit indwells him and now he is bearing fruit.

Y'all. The great irony with a eunuch is

they can't bear fruit in the physical sense.

But the Old Testament is full of promises to guys like this

eunuch. Isaiah 56.

Go read that. The idea is that you were once

barren, but now in the Lord you will bear more fruit than if you

were never barren physically. Does that make sense?

So he didn't need a new body as a sign that the Lord loved him.

And he'll get that one day he's going to bear all kinds of

fruit. Going back to Ethiopia, you can

make the argument we wouldn't be here today without this man.

So pretty incredible how the Lord used him to bear fruit in

his church for God's glory. And lastly, y'all, the Spirit,

the Spirit is still carrying. He's still putting Phillips in

places and moving the eunuchs. The same Spirit who brought him,

sent him out. Y'all, God's got this.

He does. He can do it.

He's orchestrating at a big level, in a little level, all

kinds of ways. He's he's, he knows what he's

doing. In 2011, I y'all, I was y'all

would not have loved the version of Tanner I was in January of

2011. I was playing basketball in a

three on three tournament, camping out for some tickets.

I exit the gym making a miraculous, extravagant show of

my anger, throwing the ball around the gym, looking silly

because we lost. I walk out and a guy's coming

out of a tent frustrated because he's been sharing the gospel for

18 months with a young man and this man wanted nothing to do

with him. He's frustrated like, Lord, what

am I doing? He comes out, one of my

teammates says, hey, John, you want to go to Jimmy John's with

us? It was like 11:00 at night.

We go to Jimmy John's. John is just disappointed in his

mind about this relationship he's been in for 18 months, but

he's also following God in the mundane.

Now we know it's a little miraculous, but he has a

connection with this short punk who says he likes basketball,

and he invites him to start reading the Bible.

That punk is me. OK.

And John just starts sharing the the gospel with me, read the

Bible with me for like 3-4 months.

Now I know that every single night he was going back to his

friend's dorm and praying for up to an hour each time afterwards

that I would understand the gospel.

That's such a good story. There's so many stories in

church history like that, just thousands of them, y'all.

There are stories right now of people having dreams in

countries that are closed where it's illegal to be Christian.

They're having dreams of somebody with the book and they

go and talk to the one person that they know knows that book,

or maybe they get connected to the person who knows that book

later the next week and God shares has that person share the

gospel with them. God uses the miraculous.

He uses the mundane, but you have to hear the news of what

Christ has done for you, agree with God, and then live with

God. It's all so that not just so

something bad don't happen to you one day and you get to go to

some good place. He wants to live with people.

He wanted to live with the eunuch.

Through the eunuch, you see that He wants to live with Philip in

Caesarea. God wants to live life with you.

He made you to live with you, friend.

I pray that we would see that the Lord is after us.

He's after us. He loves us.

Let's pray our Father, thank you for the good news about Jesus.

God. I pray, Lord, that you would

spread this news in our great city, that more people would

hear the good news. God, we pray the miraculous.

We pray for dreams. We pray people would just wake

up with the sobriety about themselves that they are made.

They're not just a random accident.

God, they would go searching for truth.

God, they would arrive at your scriptures and then God, I pray

for your church. God, give us boldness.

Just give us more willingness to ask, willingness to put

ourselves in positions. Help us to be full to spirit.

And God, we trust you get the gospel to all peoples everywhere

because it's the good news that you want to live with us, God

and apart from you. We're just not whole, we're not

well. God, we need you, we love you.

We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.