Mission Impossible!
Acts 8:26-40
Philip is one the seven men who were filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom
and were selected to help take care of the Grecian widows
in the church of Jerusalem in Acts 6.
In the first part of Acts 8 we see Philip leaving Jerusalem
and taking the gospel to the Samaritans.
And a great many Samaritans believed and became a part of the Church of Jesus Christ!
But we find that we are not finished with Philip just yet.
There is a more to his story and the exciting way God, through the Holy Spirit,
will use Him to take the message of Jesus to others!
How, when we hear people talk about how we must allow the Spirit of God to dwell in us,
to guide and direct our life, well we become a little apprehensive!
We are not to sure about that.
We like to have control of our own life and make our own decisions.
After all, if we do give the Spirit control He may ask me to do something
that I just can not do, or more likely, that I don’t want to do!
And so, many Christians are just not that comfortable giving the Spirit control of their life!
What we have to realize though, is that this is not a mission impossible!
We can, and we must allow the Spirit to have control.
For it is only when we do, that we can really draw close to God
and can begin to accomplish the mission, that God has given to each one of us!
I. The Spirit Speaks!
Now, before we can let the Spirit have control of our life
we must first come to realize that the Spirit is quite capable,
of speaking to us, and thus directing our life!
As we look at verses 26 and 29 in our text, we see that the Spirit spoke to Philip.
In verse 26 it says that an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip.
In verse 29 it says that the Spirit spoke to Philip.
In both cases it is clear that the one who is speaking to Philip is the Holy Spirit.
He is communicating to Philip what he is to do, what God wants him to do.
How, the question in your mind is,
“Well, how did the Spirit speak to Philip?
And how did Philip know that it was the Holy Spirit speaking to him?"
Well, to be honest, we don’t know for sure just how the Spirit communicated to Philip.
All we know for sure is that he did and that Philip understood.
But we do know that God can and does place thoughts and ideas directly into our minds.
That is if we are open to Him and to His will in our life.
God does that through the Spirit as we pray, study His Word,
listen to others teach or preach His Word, Etc.
I know personally that I have received many ideas,
or have come to realize something that I need to do personally,
as I prayed, or studied, and often,
as I have listened to someone else preach or teach!
You see, those are times when we are especially open to God.
Those are times, like right now, when our thoughts are focused on God and the things of God.
Now, of course God can and does speak to us at other times as well.
While we are setting in yard in the cool of the evening relaxing,
or even while we are hard at work.
But before that will happen, we must first have spent time in prayer and Bible study
so that our mind will be ready to listen to God!
We also have to realize that there is someone else
who wants to plant thoughts and ideas into our mind as well,
and that is Satan.
And if we are not filling our minds with the things of God
then we leave an opening for him to do just that!
How can we know if a thought or idea has come from God?
How can we be sure that it’s not just our own selfish idea or one from Satan?
Well, there are a few questions that we can ask that will help us to know!
Is the thought or idea consistent with Christ?
Does it contradict Jesus message in anyway?
Will it express love and bring ultimate good to all concerned?
Notice that I said “ultimate good” in that last question.
Often we are guided to do hard things,
but will in the end bring about a greater maturity in Christ.
Will it bring me into a deeper fellowship with Christ?
Can I do it with Christ beside me?
Are my motives pure?
Is it manipulative?
Will it extend the Kingdom of God?
Will I be able to look back on it, free of guilt, self-incrimination, or regret?
And we must realize, that even after asking these questions,
and feeling that this is the Lords will,
if it turns out that we were wrong,
there is always the forgiveness of God to fall back upon.
For we will make mistakes, and we will need His forgiveness,
but at least when that happens,
we can know that we were trying to be open and sensitive, to leading of the Spirit!
The Holy Spirit does speak to us as Christians today!
II. Philip Listens and Obeys!
The Holy Spirit spoke to Philip,
and notice that Philip not only listened to the Spirit, but he obeyed as well!
Philip was attuned to the Spirit
We are told back in Chapter 6 of Acts that he was one of the seven
that were chosen because he was full of the Holy Spirit.
And he was filled with the Spirit because he was seeking to live for Christ,
seeking to serve Christ,
seeking to better understand Gods Word,
seeking to express the love of Christ to others,
seeking to bring salvation to all who would listen!
His mind was not just open to the leading of the Spirit, he was listening for the Spirit!
And when the Spirit spoke he heard and he obeyed!
When we are studying the Bible, in Prayer, listening to a Bible lesson or sermon,
we should be listening for the Spirit to speak directly to us.
In fact we need to ask God to help us to be open to the Spirit,
for we know that there is something that He wants to communicate to us!
Then we also need to ask that we will be given the
strength, courage, motivation, whatever, to obey the Spirit!
For that is where we often fall short!
There is no doubt that we have heard the Spirit speak to us many times,
but we did not obey Him!
Haven’t you felt the need to stop doing something that you knew was wrong,
but you didn't?
That was the Spirit!
Haven’t you felt the urge to ask someone to come to Church
but wimped out at the last minute?
That was the Spirit speaking to you!
Haven’t you felt that you needed to be in Church
instead of doing whatever you were doing, but you kept on anyway?
Haven’t you felt the need to get involved in some greater way in the ministry of the Church,
but you kept coming up with excuses not to?
There is no doubt but that at these, and many other times,
the Spirit has been talking to us and we have heard Him,
but we failed to obey!
How can we ever expect to be pleasing to God
to grow closer to God in our Christian life
if we fail to obey the Spirit when He speaks to us?
III. Mission Accomplished!
Philip did hear the Spirit speak to him and Philip obeyed!
But notice that the Spirit didn’t give him a full run down
of everything he was to do or to say, or even why he was to do it!
In verse 26 he is simply told to go south on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.
But he is not told why he is to go or what he is to do when he gets there.
In verse 29 Philip is told to catch up with a certain chariot on the road and stay with it.
But again he is not told specifically why, or what if anything, he is to say or to do.
Without knowing all the whys or wherefores,
Philip simply obeys the voice of the Spirit!
And it should be the same with us.
We are not to wait for God to explain Himself to us,
nor should we expect that He has to.
We are to simply obey the Spirit as He directs us.
And like Philip, we will often find that the Spirit
has already been in the process of preparing us,
for the particular service we are asked to do.
For Philip was without a doubt, very familiar with the passage of scripture
that the Eunuch was reading.
Being a good Jew he would have read and studied it.
Being a Christian, learning at the feet of the Apostles,
he would have understood that it spoke of Jesus as the lamb of God,
that takes away the sin of the world!
As we study and read and pray and serve, the Spirit is preparing us.
Preparing us to serve our Lord in ways that we have not even thought about.
It’s amazing the number of times that I have preached on a subject,
or taught on a subject, or just read about it,
and out of the blue someone will bring up a question about that very thing.
And all I can say is that the Spirit had been preparing me for that encounter,
and He is doing the same thing in your life as well!
One other thing that we see here,
is that Philip didn’t push this man into accepting Christ.
We just don’t see any high pressure tactics here.
What we do see is Philip sharing the truth of the Gospel with this man,
and then allowing the Spirit to work in the Eunuch,
convicting him of his sin and his need to accept Christ as his Lord.
And that is exactly what happened.
Philip taught him,
the Spirit convicted him,
and he responded!
In verse 36 the Eunuch said,
“Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I be baptized.”
And Philip then responded,
“If you believe with all you heart, you may.”
And the Eunuch said,
“I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
And he was baptized into Christ.
The Spirit will direct us to deliver the message of Salvation to others
if we are listening.
And we can have the same results as Philip, if we obey.
But we also need to realize that it’s only the Spirit
that can bring a person to the point of accepting Christ as Lord.
Conclusion:
As Christians, we are to be lead by the Spirit.
He is to be our guide.
Which means we must listen, so that we can hear when He speaks,
and we must be prepared to obey the directions that we receive from Him.
So we will know that we need to write that letter of encouragement to someone, and do it.
So we will phone that person who is on our mind.
So we will make a visit to that person who we know is lonely or down.
So we will help that person who is in need, without any thought of reward.
So we will ask that person that we have met, to come to Church!
Our obedience to His prompting will bring us closer in our relationship to God
and will be a blessing to others as well.
And we will find that the mission God gives us, is possible!