At Calvary, we believe with all of our hearts that everyone in the world needs to hear God’s story because Jesus is the only way of salvation and is Lord of all. God wants us to continually become an externally-focused church and join His work to reach people from all over the world and from every walk of life. How important is God’s mission to the world? In a sense, you could say that it’s more important than the Bible. It’s been said that “missions doesn’t exist because of the Bible; the Bible exists because of missions.” It’s God’s mission to redeem people for Himself that led Him to reveal Himself and His Story through the Bible. That’s why, this year, as part of our vision to become a church for the community…
We are asking God to grow us in missional and invitational neighboring.
- Neighboring = opening up to relationship with whoever God brings
- Missional = being intentional with the unbelieving and unchurched for the sake of Christ
- Invitational = connecting the unbelieving to Jesus and the unchurched to Calvary
This may seem really challenging to you, like “I could never do this…where do I begin?” If you’re discouraged about this, God has a gift for you today. We’re about to look at a real-life example of missional and invitational neighboring, one of the finest examples found in all of Scripture.
But it was not a given that the good news of Jesus would spread throughout the world. Jesus’ Jewish followers initially had an extremely hard time sharing the gospel with Gentiles (non-Jewish people). It’s odd this was a struggle because God’s for all nations is such a huge theme in Scripture. Plus, Jesus told them to go and make disciples of all nations. But cultural differences and personal biases are hard to overcome!
The Holy Spirit had to stretch and challenge the church in order to make it happen. Acts 8-12 marks this turning point for the church so that the Gospel begins to spread beyond the boundaries of Judaism. In one story, God makes this truth finally dawn on the Apostle Peter…
34 Then Peter began to speak: “I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism 35 but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. 36 You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.” (Acts 10:34-36 NIV)
While we don’t experience the exact tension Peter did between Jews and Gentiles, there are certainly people and types of people we may have a hard time reaching out to, let alone sharing the good news with. As we study this section of Acts, we are asking God to grow us in missional and invitational neighboring by listening closely for God’s missional heart for all people.
Now, if the idea of making disciples across cultures intimidates you, start with making disciples across the dinner table with your family, across the street with your neighbors, across the lunchroom with your classmates, across the office or manufacturing floor with your co-workers.
In this story, we’ll see an example of one of Jesus followers–Philip–neighboring, being missional, and being invitational.
The Story
#1 Following the Spirit, Philip opens himself to a cultural outsider. (8:26-29)
Philip opens himself up to a relationship…neighboring…
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
“The desert road” is the boundary between the “Promised Land” and the rest of the world, the lands of the Gentiles. It’s as far as you can get from Jerusalem, the holy city, without fully leaving the land. To us, it might be a bit like God saying, “Go to El Paso, Texas, that border town between the USA and Mexico.” While traveling to the edge of his world, Philip meets an Ethiopian eunuch.
Now an Ethiopian eunuch would have given most people like Philip a major pause for two reasons. He’s Ethiopian, and he’s a eunuch. An Ethiopian was from the southern Nile region–not an Egyptian from the northern Nile region, which shared much in common culturally with the Greco-Roman world, Philip’s world. Even today, North Africa has more in common with the Middle East than with sub-Saharan Africa. In fact, the Romans considered places like Ethiopia the “ends of the earth;” it’s where their maps would end. So, when Jesus says in Acts 1:8 to His disciples, “You will be my witnesses…to the ends of the earth,” He has Ethiopia in mind! So not only was this man a Gentile (non-Jew), but he was about as Gentile as you could be.
A eunuch is a sexual “less-than.” Eunuchs were male slaves who had been involuntarily castrated so that they would not be a sexual threat toward the upper-class or royal women they served. This whole idea is both shocking and horrifying to us, but it was quite common among the rich and powerful in the ancient world. Even more shocking, God forbids Israel from allowing any eunuchs to enter the tabernacle and later temple (Deut 23:1). This seems unloving and discriminatory, but the reasoning is probably that God wants to acknowledge that being castrated is unnatural and not how he intended things to be. Moreover, the effect of that rule would have meant that Israelites should not perform the practice because everyone should be able to worship in the temple. But the sad reality is that eunuchs existed in the ancient world, and they would have largely been discouraged from worshiping in the temple.
Here’s the awesome thing about this account, brothers and sisters: It’s that God Himself sends Philip to this sexually-off cultural outsider. He’s about as strange to Philip as strange can be, and yet God wants Him in His kingdom, in His family, so bad. The Spirit has found a lost sheep, and He’s going to get him. This is not Philip’s idea. He listens, and He obeys, but it is God who is leading him.
#2 Philip is intentional in this encounter. (8:30-35)
Philip is not just neighboring, he’s being missional, intentional for Christ.
30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. 31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Philip doesn’t just ask, “So how were things in Jerusalem?” or “What’s life like in Africa?” He looks for an opportunity to share the best news in the universe but he wants to do so in a way that this man understands. So Philip engages the eunuch right where he is at, asking if he understands the Scripture…
32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from the earth.” 34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
This passage is a part of a longer passage in Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53 is about the Suffering Servant that God will send to suffer and die for Israel’s sins in their place so that He might lead to fulfill God’s original mission to Israel: to bring His love and truth to the nations.
The verses the eunuch is fixed on are the ones about the Servant’s innocence in the face of unjust execution and his death without descendants. Having no children was one of the biggest fears of the ancient world. Children were considered a blessing of God, a practical help throughout life, and most importantly a way for your name to “live on” after you die.
But eunuchs couldn’t have kids because they had been involuntarily castrated. And Jesus, the Suffering Servant of the Isaiah passage, voluntarily had no children because He dedicated His life to making disciples, ministering to the masses, and dying for the sins of His people. I wonder if the eunuch felt a connection at these points: injustice and childlessness.
The broader context of Isaiah fits this moment too. In Isaiah 56, the prophet Isaiah details one result of the good news about Jesus…
Isaiah 56
3 Let no foreigner who is bound to the LORD say,
“The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.”
And let no eunuch complain,
“I am only a dry tree.”
What are foreigners afraid of? Exclusion. What are eunuchs afraid of? Fruitlessness, childlessness. But God’s converted and faithful eunuchs will be blessed with something better than descendants!
4 For this is what the LORD says:
“To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths,
who choose what pleases me
and hold fast to my covenant—
5 to them I will give within my temple and its walls
a memorial and a name
better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
that will endure forever.”
And faithful foreigners will be fully included in the Temple, the center of His people….
6 “And foreigners who bind themselves to the LORD
to minister to him,
to love the name of the LORD,
and to be his servants,
all who keep the Sabbath without desecrating it
and who hold fast to my covenant—
7 these I will bring to my holy mountain
and give them joy in my house of prayer.
Their burnt offerings and sacrifices
will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called
a house of prayer for all nations.”
Because of the work of the suffering servant Jesus, eunuchs and foreigners who repent will be blessed, forgiven, and included in God’s kingdom forever. Imagine how good this news sounded to the Ethiopian eunuch as Philip shared it with him! There’s hope for any who repent if there’s hope for eunuchs and foreigners! Jesus, especially in His suffering, enables ALL who repent to come to God! That’s the good news of Jesus!
#3 Philip connects the eunuch to Jesus and the church. (8:36-40)
Philip not only neighbors well, is missional, but he is invitational.
36 As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?”
What is water doing on the desert road?!?! This region does not have standing bodies of water like this. Only temporary streams and pools from rain. Though Luke does not state that this is a miracle, it is clear that God has arranged all of this. The crucified and risen King Jesus has removed every barrier, including sin itself, between the eunuch and God, and now it’s time to bring this lost son home!
38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.
Normally baptism is done with a church, but this is obviously not a normal situation. There is no church yet on the desert road or in Ethiopia, so Philip acts as a missionary, a representative of Jesus’ church, to start a new church with the first member being this eunuch. We don’t know what happened to the eunuch but presumably he went back to his homeland and spread the gospel there. Philip too moves on to share the good news along the coastlands of Palestine, which would have been full of Gentiles.
The Lessons
#1 Follow the Spirit all the way into mission.
Do you want to hear from the Holy Spirit? Sometimes people are almost waiting for God to write something in the clouds before they make a move: “You should marry so-and-so” or “Apply for such-and-such job.” Hearing the Holy Spirit is not so much about waiting around and watching for signs on what to do next. It’s more about learning God’s heart and then just obeying in whatever situation your way. It’s less about waiting for a specific word as you go about life and more about obeying His revealed Word as you go about life.
How do you hear from God? Read and listen to the Bible. Pray to God as you hear from Him. Surround yourself with church members to help each other follow Jesus. Following God’s will for your life is not stumbling into some grand and elaborate plan for the rest of your life but the moment-by-moment decision to live the kind of life you’re learning from Jesus. What prevents you from following the Spirit’s lead in your daily life? Is His voice crowded out by TV or news or social media or friends who don’t encourage you to follow Jesus?
We need to take it one step further though. Following the Spirit is not just about you and doing the right thing (though it certainly begins with that)! Because the “right thing” is always LOVE, the Spirit will constantly be leading you to love others. This might be sacrificing your wants for your family, spending time with a fellow church member, or reaching out to an unbeliever. I think many Christian get stuck before they get to this. I know I do. We falsely believe that all God wants is for us to be saved from hell and be a good person. But we miss the fact that following Jesus means helping others follow Him too.
Do you remember the story of Jonah? Maybe you remember the part where he was swallowed by a fish? Well, the whole story is that God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and tell them they needed to repent of their sin. Jonah refused and famously became fish bait. Philip is almost like an “anti-Jonah.” God tells him to go to a strange person, and he obeys right away, and God changes a life through it.
At yesterday’s work day at the building, I saw Todd Brown, one of your fellow members, look up from laying mulch out by the road and strike up a conversation with a neighbor walking their dog. Todd was aware of and engaged with the person God put near him. Maybe the whole reason the Spirit led us all to the work day yesterday was to create an opportunity for that encounter? Who knows what God will do with that? We just need to keep obeying.
We don’t need to wait to hear the words “Go to that chariot.” If God is in control of everything, then every person you meet, live with, work with, and are online with is sent to you from God. And sometimes He’ll even nudge you toward people, sometimes even on the other side of the world, if you’re listening.
#2 Be ready to share the Gospel using Scripture.
Philip does nothing but obey the Spirit and explain the Gospel from the Bible. There’s obviously no better way to share Jesus than with Scripture. That’s Jesus, in His words. We often won’t be able to use much Scripture at first when sharing Christ, if that person doesn’t respect Scripture. What we say in that situation must be biblical, but it may not help to just quote and explain Scripture, unless they are willing to listen.
But Philip explaining Jesus from Scripture the Ethiopian eunuch is a GREAT model, for example, for parents who are bringing their children to church and reading them the Bible at home, and want to connect their kids to Jesus. This is how Emily and I evangelize our children. We teach them Scripture from a young age and connect the dots through the years. It’s like laying kindling around a campfire and igniting it with a spark. Put Scripture around their hearts by teaching and modeling and repenting, and pray for the Holy Spirit spark by sharing Jesus.
Someone give me your favorite Bible passage and I’ll try to make a connection to the good news of Jesus…
Everyone in the world needs to hear God’s Story. That’s not just on our missionaries, our pastors. That’s on all of us. How well are you getting to know God’s Story? Well enough to explain it?
#3 Be baptized into His kingdom.
Jesus commanded all of His followers to baptize new followers to publicly identify with Him, and then, throughout Acts, in obedience to Jesus, new followers are baptized to publicly identify with Him. Jesus wants us to have this public starting point to our walk. Something tangible that links us to His tangible death and resurrection. Like a wedding ceremony and a ring on the finger, your baptism is a personal and public statement: “Jesus, I’m Yours because, at the cross, You said, ‘You’re mine!’” If you’re a follower of Jesus but haven’t been baptized, what’s holding you back?
In this week’s church-wide New Testament reading plan, we read Luke 15, where Jesus tells three consecutive parables about how happy we get when we find something we love that had been lost. First, a shepherd loses one of his 100 sheep, and, when he finds it, he’s so happy. Second, a woman loses one of her 10 coins, her life savings, and, when she finds it, she’s so happy. Third, a father loses one of his 2 sons to rebellion, but, when his lost son comes home, he is so happy! Jesus’ point? When God finds a lost son or daughter…He is so happy! All of heaven rejoices! And we should rejoice with it. Come to Jesus, friend, and, brothers and sisters–help others come to Him.
Questions for Reflection and/or Discussion
- What prevents you from following the Spirit’s lead moment-by-moment? What unbelieving/unchurched people is the Spirit nudging you toward?
- How could you use your favorite verse/passage to explain the good news of Jesus to an unbeliever? Practice with another believer. What unbeliever could you share it with?
- If you truly believe in Jesus but haven’t been baptized, what’s holding you back? What can you do about it?
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