For All People: On That Day | Part 1

Welcome to the Awakening Church podcast.

We pray this message encourages you and provides the hope and light of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for tuning in.

Well, it's great to be with you.

And today we're kicking off a brand new series called For All People.

It was Tuesday night around 6:15 is before the daylight savings.

And so it was already dusk.

I'm driving to our office to get a quiet space to be able to have a Zoom meeting with our leadership council.

And as I'm pulling into the near-darkening parking lot, I see a car, one singular car right there.

And there's a guy sitting in with sunglasses on and a hat, and there's this music blaring.

I can't really tell what kind of music it is.

It's uh, you know, it could be like heavy metal music, it could be hip-hop, I don't know.

It's just got that bass, you know, rumbling, and just kind of going, what in the world's going on out there?

I don't know.

Just somebody chilling all by themselves.

And so I go to my parking spot, I get in, and I as I'm going to unlock the door to our office, all of a sudden, uh, with crystal clarity, the music bursts forth through across the parking lot, and I hear exactly the music that's going on, and it goes, so I lift my hands up, they're playing my song, the butterflies fly away.

I think that's how it goes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a party in the USA, and it totally caught me off guard.

I'm like, what in the world?

And I look over and I see a guy that's dressed in like 90s boy band attire, and he's dancing his heart out by himself in the middle of the parking lot.

I mean, this guy is just going for it and it's awesome.

And literally in my heart, I have this thought, good for him.

Like, good for him.

Like, how fun.

Good for him.

But I also had this thought.

That's actually not for me.

You know, it's good for him, but it's not for me.

Uh, and if you ask my wife, um, she says dancing is not for me at all there.

But that's, I think maybe that thought is kind of how we approach Jesus and Christianity.

We might look at it and go, like, yeah, that's good for them.

You know, good that they needed religion, good that they needed Jesus, good that they needed this, but you know, it's really not for me.

It's not my thing.

Or, or maybe flip-flop is like, yeah, it's good for me.

Like Jesus has changed my life.

It's good for me, but but it's probably not for them.

It's not good for them.

And here's what's incredible: Jesus was actually explicit that following him was good for all people, not just some people.

In fact, this is what he says: he says, therefore, go and make disciples of all nations.

Like following Jesus is good for all nations, not just some nations.

And in Acts 1.8, he says, You're gonna be my witnesses, and you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem.

That's where the church started, by the way, right after the death and resurrection of Jesus, not hundreds of years later in Europe, but in Jerusalem, and then in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth, that the gospel following Jesus is actually good for Judean people, Samerian people, and ends of the earth type people.

It's not just like, hey, this is good for me, but it's probably not for everyone.

Here's the truth: the gospel is good news for all people, not just some people.

See, the gospel is simply Jesus' life, his death, and his resurrection, which inaugurated a new way for us to be human.

That where the gospel writer John can only explain it in this way of being born again, of brand new life.

And this is fundamentally good news, not just for certain people or special people, but for all people.

And so, and so, according to Jesus, according to Jesus, we are to go share it with all people, not just some people or a few people.

Like we are to share this good news because it is literally good for all people.

Now, the birth of the church and the gospel began with just a few people, some people, specifically Jewish people.

And um, we see in Acts chapter 8, the gospel moved from some people, Jewish people, to all people.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

What it said, Judea, Samaria people to the ends of the earth people.

And we pick up the story of how this good news spread to all people in Acts chapter 8, with three just small but incredible words that say, on that day.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

On that day, something happened, something changed in the church where the news of Jesus and the movement of Jesus, the church of Jesus spread from this, these few people in Jerusalem, uh all people around the world.

And so let me catch you up to what happened or the events that led to what happened on that day.

If you're a part of our future church series, we left off uh in Acts chapter seven, where the apostles appointed Stephen and Philip and five other guys to help address inequity of distribution of um uh food and resources to widows who are being overlooked, specifically Jewish Hellenistic Christian widows.

And so they appoint these seven people, Stephen and Philip, being the most notable.

Now, Stephen wasn't just a great business organizational guy, he's full of the Spirit of God.

He was performing all these miracles and he was going to the Hellenistic synagogues in the city, preaching the good news.

And so the religious leaders then are opposing him, and he's so like brilliant, they can't stand up to his arguments and they're getting frustrated.

So, what they do is they they can't defeat him by argument.

They then try to take him out by a smear campaign and they incite a few different people, say he was saying some of these same and get people riled up.

Well, well, they do such a good job that Stephen eventually gets brought before the Sanhedrin or what's the Jewish Supreme Court.

And he's standing before these men, having to give account for why he's there.

And with such great boldness as he's looking at them, he begins recounting Israel's history of consistent disobedience and stiff-necked resistance to God, and basically before this group saying, You're those people.

And you can only imagine that didn't go over very well at all.

In fact, they were furious, and so they pull Stephen out, drag him out, and they begin to stone him.

They grab these large stones and throw it on him to execute him as they're doing this, as they're doing this.

Imagine this.

Stephen looks up and prays that God would forgive the very ones that are killing him.

And then he dies.

And a text says that presiding over this execution was a man named Saul who gave his stamp and seal of approval.

And next week, Easter week, we're gonna talk a lot about this man named Saul.

And it was on that day, on the day that Stephen was martyred, the first martyr of the church, this something that was for not just some people, but for all people, began.

And we pick it up in Acts chapter 8, verse 1.

Acts 8:1

It says, On that day, a great persecution broke out.

That may not have been what you were expecting on all of that.

A great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.

And then it goes on, it says, Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.

But Saul began to destroy the church, going from house to house.

He dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.

Now, those had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

Think about this.

These guys were having a bad day, and they had really bad news.

But the good news about Jesus was so good, even in the midst of a bad day with bad news, they couldn't stop sharing this good news.

And so wherever they went, they're sharing, and then we zoom in on Philip, Stephen, and Philip, one of those seven, went down to the city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there.

When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said.

For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed.

So there was great joy in the city.

See the good news, the gospel is good news for Samaritan people.

Let me ask, let's ask this question.

Why in the world did Philip go down to Samaria in the first place?

And it wasn't, and the reason is a devout Jew would never enter into the region of Samaria.

And so this was actually a safe place as they were escaping persecution to go.

And for us to recognize how powerful and profound and scandalous this is, the good news is the uh is for Samaritan people.

We have to understand the history of animosity and vitriol between Jewish people and Samaritan people.

And so let me give you just a brief overview, actually, about a thousand-year overview of this uh hostile relationship between Jewish people and Samaritan people.

In fact, if you know about Israel's history, Israel began as a united kingdom under King Saul, King David, King Solomon.

And after King Solomon, uh King Solomon's son taxed the people uh ruthlessly.

And in 930 BC, we had this divided kingdom.

And so the northern tribe uh was then, or the northern nation then was uh remained Israel, and their capital was Samaria.

The southern nation was called Judea or Judah, actually, and their capital was Jerusalem, where the temple of God was.

So you had this split in the nation in 930 BC, and then in 722 BC, Assyria conquers the northern kingdom, Israel, uh, and they take them off into captivity.

And the way the Assyrians did this is they would take the best and the brightest into their capital and begin to train them, and then they would bring their own people to mix and intermingle with and to insert their culture and their ways into that to bring about uh to seduce the nations.

And so uh for the Jews, then they began to look at the Samaritans no longer as Jewish or racially pure, but as half-breeds.

They would talk about them as these half-breeds or relation racial half-breeds, and so there began this animosity.

Well, in 586 BC, uh Judah then was conquered by Babylon, and Babylon actually destroys the temple of God.

And we see the same thing that happened to the northern kingdom, happened to the southern kingdom.

And about 60 years later, after 586 BC, Zerubbabel, a leader in Babylon, a Jewish leader, was allowed to come back to Israel and rebuild the temple.

This is such great news.

There's rejoicing, there's excitement about this.

And yet the Samaritans stand in opposition to the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem around 519 BC.

And they're they're hostile, they're doing whatever they can to keep them from rebuilding uh the temple.

And in fact, there's such animosity there that eventually they build their own temple on Mount Gerizim to say, you know what, we don't need that temple.

We're gonna build our own temple.

And the Samaritan people only accepted the first five books of the Bible, uh, what's known as the Torah or the Pentateuch, and it's just the writings of Moses.

And so then now it's moved from racial half-breeds to religious half-breeds, and the animosity is growing and growing.

Years and years later, then uh the Samaritans joined the Seleucid Empire in fighting against the Jewish independence movement, known as the Maccabean Revolt, in 167.

And so the Jewish people are once trying to get their independence, and they actually were victorious.

But the Samaritans are coming out against them and fighting to try to repress and put them down.

Well, the Maccabean Revolt was successful, and then uh about 40, 50 years later, Jewish high priest and national leader John Hiracanus destroys the temple at Mount Gerizim and the capital city of Samaria.

And scholars tell us this was the straw that broke the camel's back, that forever these two would just be deep, deep enemies.

And so think about this moment.

Seven hundred years of anger, of fighting, of being taught, you are my enemy.

The good news is for the Samaritan people.

Philip brought the good news to the people of Samaria and they responded.

And you can just only imagine the tension and and the questioning for the those first believers on both sides, as they've all been brought up to taught to hate one another.

And now, because of this good news, they're no longer enemies, they're family members.

And God in his infinite wisdom does something that is so powerful and so profound.

Peter and John come to see this revival.

Think about this, a persecution led to a revival.

That's amazing.

This revival that broke out in um in Samaria, and as they go there, they're going there to confirm them.

But the people hadn't received the Spirit of God yet.

That's not normative.

See, the moment you believe in Jesus, you receive the Holy Spirit of God.

But God wanted something really special to say this broken relationship is mended and there's a unity.

And so when the apostles came, they laid hands and the spirit of God entered them, and all of a sudden it was this confirmation for both the Jewish and the Samaritan.

We're all one together.

The gospel is good news for Samaritan people.

See, the gospel is good news for people you hate, people you disagree with, people that you don't really want to be around, people that think differently than you, people that you look down on, people that you have a tough time with, people that maybe you think the world would be a better place if they weren't there.

The gospel is good news for those people.

You know, when I was a young pastor at our former church, um, we'd bring in from time to time these people to come speak, and theologian Leonard Sweet came and I I volunteered to be his chauffeur.

Uh, and I was just gonna drive him around.

Anytime I could get around anybody, you know, I wanted to get around and learn.

And I remember him talking about an enemy in the ancient day.

And he said, an enemy in the ancient day is one with whom you would not invite into your home.

You see, in the ancient Middle East, as it is today in many parts of the world, hospitality is uh incredibly important.

And you would welcome in all sorts of people and welcome in strangers, even.

And uh, an enemy is one you would not welcome in, you would be inhospitable to.

And I just wonder for us today.

I wonder who is hard to welcome into our home.

And you're like, well, I no, I'd I'd welcome people in.

Okay, so I just wonder who haven't I welcomed in into my home?

Who do I think is a lost cause?

A waste of time.

And Jesus would say, His word would say that the gospel is good news for those people, for Samaritan people.

Well, the text goes on to say that the gospel isn't just good news for Samaritan people, the gospel is actually good news for Ethiopian eunuch people.

You probably never thought you'd see that sentence ever before, right?

The gospel is good news for Ethiopian eunuch people.

Well, revival breaks out in this town of Samaria, and Philip doesn't stay there.

In fact, he's on a journey.

The Spirit moves him to go on.

We pick it up and says, uh, now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Go south to the road, the desert road, the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

And so he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official, in charge of all the treasury of Kandake, uh, which means queen of the Ethiopians.

This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship.

He was a God-fearing man, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah, the prophet, the spirit told Philip, Go to the chariot and stay near it.

Now, I don't know what picture comes to your mind when you hear Ethiopian eunuch, but let me describe and tell you the man that Philip encountered, what this Ethiopian eunuch and who he was.

See, the Ethiopian eunuch, he was a politically powerful person.

In fact, the word eunuch actually is synonymous with high-ranking official.

It doesn't mean that they're technically, you know, physically a eunuch all the time, uh, but they certainly could be for uh purposes of serving in the high court.

Uh, but they were, he was a politically high-ranking, powerful official.

He was positionally influenced.

His influence, he was head of the treasury department.

He he was the financier, he's writing the checks.

Uh, he has the ear to the queen.

He he was independently wealthy.

You see, he's he's traveling in his own BMW chariot.

He's he's actually holding a scroll of Isaiah, which um were incredibly expensive.

He financed his trip to Jerusalem and back and was had a scroll that you know he's like going, okay, that he probably bought while he was in Jerusalem.

He's incredibly wealthy.

And then he's also highly educated, speaking multiple languages, reading, uh, being able to not only just speak, but also read multiple languages.

This is the Ethiopian eunuch, politically powerful, positionally influential, independently wealthy, and highly educated in his chariot, traveling back home.

And God says, Philip, I want you to go talk to him.

And Philip's like, uh man, I don't even, I don't even have a donkey.

I I'm walking up.

In fact, I'm gonna run up to him.

And can you just imagine how intimidated Philip might have been at that moment?

It's like, okay, this is this is like an important person, you know, important.

And like, okay, how do how do I approach him?

And the text goes on to say, then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet.

And Philip asked, Do you understand what you're reading?

What a great way, by the way, when we're talking to people who don't know Jesus to begin with a question, not an answer.

He says, How can I?

He said, unless someone explains it to me.

So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

This is the passage, the scripture the eunuch was reading.

In fact, it's Isaiah 53.

It's the passage that recounts the prophetic uh word of the suffering servant, which is going to happen in five days from today, will celebrate Good Friday, the passion of Jesus.

Jesus.

He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth.

In humiliation he was deprived of justice.

Who can speak of the descendants?

For his life was taken from the earth.

The eunuch asked Philip, Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?

Then Philip began with that very passage of scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

And the Ethiopian eunuch responds, Okay, what's keeping me from being baptized?

Can I join the family of God?

And then as they're traveling around, they see a spot of water, they hop out, and he's baptized, and he enters the family of God.

And this is amazing.

Think about this.

Long before the gospel ever went to Rome, long before the gospel ever went to Europe, it went to Africa by way of this Ethiopian high-ranking official.

And what we know from church history is through his life and his testimony, and uh we believe Philip eventually ended up there as well.

We see the church explode in northern Africa.

See the gospel, the gospel is good news for Ethiopian eunuch people.

See, the gospel is good news for Silicon Valley exec people, Stanford PhD people, political officials people, Santa Clara MBA people, engineer people, the highly educated people and wealthy people, the those people that live behind gates people.

The gospel is good news for every people.

And I think sometimes we can go, yeah, the gospel is good news for me, but I don't know if it's really for them.

You know, they're highly educated and they're just not interested.

They're so successful.

Their career, you know, is their um their lives.

And uh they they they have all everything you can imagine.

It can't be for them and no, the gospel.

The gospel is good news for all people, not just some people or certain people, all people.

And so Jesus.

Jesus tells us we are to go share it with all people.

This good news is for Samaritan people, Ethiopian people, good people, bad people, rich people, poor people, black and white people, and every ethnicity people and culture people, Republican people and Democrat people, every single people.

The gospel is good news, and following Jesus is good for every person on the planet.

And so, as we close, I just want to leave you with two quick questions to consider.

Two questions in the light of we're seeing this reality of this good news that's good for all people, that you and I would wrestle with, especially this week, but every day.

The first question what if the disruption in your life is a divine redirection for your life?

What if the disruption in your life, God has something in that?

Think about this: an evil act of persecution, of killing Stephen, God used to advance the gospel.

I mean, this is incredible.

Persecution broke out and then revival broke out.

A place where they would never go, they went to because they had no other option.

And Jesus used that to bring the gospel there.

What is it for us?

We've had a really disrupting year.

And all we're focused on is the disruption and not the redirection.

Where we go, guess what?

You are called by Jesus.

I am called by Jesus to bring this good news and go share it with all people.

And this disruption has brought a redirection in how we do it with who we communicate.

In fact, I was just talking to uh the gentleman who started the work uh and faith um ministry, and I just butchered the um the name of that.

So uh read, you can help us later on the exact name of it.

But I was with him yesterday.

And he said, This is amazing because of COVID and everyone's online, we're seeing these work and faith hubs pop up all over.

It's like in the Philippines.

We we have we have a group now there, there's Googlers there that are living there, and then they started connecting to other people.

Why?

Because the disruption, it was a divine redirection.

And in your life, in my life, it's easy to get comfortable and loving the community so much.

And sometimes the disruption pushes us out of our comfort zone.

And we can then kind of look back, well, I just want to get back there, or we can go, no, we're called to lovingly care and share the gospel, engage with those who God has called us to reach.

Would you wrestle with that?

What if the disruption in your life is a divine redirection?

The second question I want you to wrestle with is this Who is someone you see consistently?

God is asking you to love intentionally?

Who's someone you see consistently that God is asking you to love intentionally?

Like to go and to share and to love and to be in community that you see.

Or maybe said another way, when's the last time you felt a prompting from the Spirit of God to go and share the love of Jesus with someone?

See, I just love how Philip he was prompted by the Spirit of God.

He ran alongside this eunuch and he's just looking for opportunities.

And he hears the eunuch talking.

And I think that's the first thing that we have to do when we're loving intentionally is listen carefully.

You know, they say that when someone's listened well, they can't differentiate really between listening and the feeling of being loved, because to be listened well uh communicates being loved well.

So just listening to what he's saying, and then instead of going, like, hey man, I know all the answers.

He asked a question.

See, loving intentionally means listening well and then asking questions, being curious, getting to know them, their heart, their past.

I was just talking uh with another man the other day.

I was actually golfing, and and you know, they put you with random people, and I just asked them, you know, are you originally from the area?

And and guess what?

It's like, no, actually, I was born in Cuba.

And during uh the revolt there, my family fled to the US, and all of a sudden it opened this whole door of hearing his history and his story.

Like we just got to ask questions.

People are ready to share their life, where we just ask questions, and then you notice in that curiosity, then the Ethiopian eunuch says, Well, do you have an answer?

And then we get to share the good news.

Listen well, ask questions, and then be ready to share the good news of how Jesus changed your life and my life.

Who is someone you see consistently?

Maybe it's a neighbor, maybe it's a friend, maybe you're seeing more people consistently now that you're out and about just a little bit more.

And God is prompting on your heart to love intentionally on that day, on that day, a great persecution came against the church, and the gospel spread to all the people, and on this day, I think on this day, God is calling us to once more be those kind of people, a church that's for all people that bring the gospel to all people.

Would this week be a part?

Would this week would you be a part of someone's journey and story to experience Jesus?

I mean, just think about that.

Would this week leading to Easter, and we've given you those eggs to share where you'd you we're asking you to pray, and you get to be a part of the story of someone experiencing the good news for all people?

Would you be a part of that with us?

God, we're so grateful that this good news isn't just for some people or a few people, the right people or special people, but it's for all people, people like me, and people like my friends who are listening.

And God, would you make us and move our hearts to love intentionally those you bring along our path to move beyond our comfort zone and really care and share your grace and love in Jesus' name.

Amen.

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