APR 18 2016 | Philip and the Ethiopian

Sea Change Church · "Philip and the Ethiopian" · Joe Brandi · April 18, 2016
Acts 8:26-40
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

The 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 Kandasi, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasures. 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 his 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 him. Now the passage in the scripture that he was reading was this. Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shearers is silent. So he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him.

Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, About whom, I ask you, does this 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. I like the King James there. The King James simply says, And he told him 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 him. 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 in Azotus. And as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. This is the word of the Lord. All right. I think I hear somebody's cell phone going off just to let you know. But that's okay. That's okay. If we can take that text down because it's been on that forever, that'd be awesome.

My name's Joe. I'm filling in for Adam this week. And it's an honor to be before you. There should be other notes in your bulletin. Awesome. So, I got to confess, I'm a little ADD. I don't know if any of you are that. So, I have a very clear outline that I'm going to follow, I think. So, let me pray again. Father, Son, and Spirit, who am I to be up here to speak to this congregation?

You have rescued us all by having people go to us. And they didn't just go to us. They also guided us to you, to the gospel of the Father, the gospel of the Son. And then that good news of the gospel came inside our hearts and transformed us, the power of the Holy Spirit. And now we've all come here to church to worship you. And I just ask that you give certain words to people, certain images, certain impressions, unlocking of their will and desire to go to people as they go.

Or maybe it's going outside the box and to be available to guide people. And also a thankfulness to people that have gone to us and guided us along the way. And that's all because of you. So, help me speak and preach with boldness and help our minds be attentive. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. So, when I was in college and leading up to college, I was a little lost.

I had been, you know, God says go straight. And I had gone to the right and then down and then up and then got in a bunch of quagmires and stuff. And when you're younger, how many people are super young here? Yeah. No, I was in my 20s. So, when you're young, you know, like your body feels perfect. And you got college. You just graduated college. And everything's like, the trajectory just seems great, you know.

And my whole life, I started playing baseball when I was five. And I played it two years in college. And my whole dream was to become a pro baseball player. And about my second year in college, I was doing okay. But I hated the coach, I must admit. And I hated the team. When you grow up playing high school ball, at least me, and junior high ball, you, like, have these close bonds.

And you're like homies. You're like friends. You're like family. And then when you get in college, at least my experience was cutthroat. And you could get drafted right out of junior college. And all these guys were into getting drafted. And you're with them five days a week. And you're working out. And anyway, I just didn't like the family. And I lost my love for the game.

And I quit. And looking back, it's one of the biggest mistakes I ever made, you know. But anyway, God is good. He can make all things turn out for good. So, I quit. Had this existential crisis. It spun me into the world. I started going deeper and deeper into the world. Don't need to name specifics, but deeper and deeper. And my soul was going emptier and emptier and emptier.

I don't know if that's ever happened to you. So, just Carol. All right. So, you can't tell. And I remember calling my mom and calling my dad and looking for wisdom. Like, because my dreams were dashed. I had no answers. I had no peace. And I didn't know that God was calling somebody saying, go. Go to Joe. Go to Joe. And there's this guy named John. 250 pounds.

Looked like he'd be a UFC wrestler. Would go up in this campus in the Central Coast, San Luis Obispo. And he'd be preaching out loud. Over and over and over. Every week. And I couldn't stand him. All right. Finally, I went up to him. And I believed in some type of God. Some nature God or whatever. And I'm like, dude, you're making God look bad. And I don't even know what he said to me.

But he was nice. And he invited me to church. I didn't want to go to church. But he was there. Second year of college, I come back. I see him again. All this stuff had happened. He invites me to church. I end up coming to church. It was a church like this. It was a multi-generational family filled with worship, filled with joy. And I heard the message.

And there was this PhD speaker, a scientist, because I always thought science and the Bible couldn't relate. And I just felt God speaking to me through him. And then God gave different people, Gerald, Kelly McGuire, to come and guide me towards understanding God and the gospel. And if John didn't listen to him when God said, go to that campus, I don't know where I would be.

And if God didn't, if the guys didn't listen like Kelly and Gerald to come alongside me and guide me and open up the scripture and go, where are you at, Joe? I don't know where I would be. And this isn't props to me. This is like application to all y'all. Like God has used somebody to go to you and use somebody to guide you also. And now you're here and the trajectories of your life and are totally different place, which is awesome.

And that's God working behind the scenes. And now God has called me to start an orphan movement in Mexico and Central America, uh, using volunteers. If you want to come on a trip or donate or whatever, give some food, that'd be awesome. And those guys would never have known. God calls us to go. God is a God of go. He's a God of guiding. He's a God about the gospel.

And God tells us to go. Verse 26. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go towards the south to that road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. It's 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 to this chariot. How did we get to this moment in the text where Philip is being led to speak to the Ethiopian eunuch? Acts chapter 2. I don't know if some of y'all know the scriptures well. Some of you don't. I guess I just mentioned that. But I'm, so in Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit falls after Jesus had died and resurrected.

And he said, stay, chill, wait, pray for the promise that's going to come. The Holy Spirit comes, gets poured out. Speak. People are speaking in different types of tongues, languages. People from all over the world are there so that they can bring, hear the good news and bring it back to their own country. Many signs and wonders were happening all through the book of Acts.

And then the church was growing so much they had to choose certain disciples, certain men, to look after the distribution of the administration of the food and this and that to certain widows. And one of them was Philip, who we read about right now. Full of the spirit. Full of grace. Full of truth. But then in chapter 7, Stephen is preaching. He gets stoned to death by Saul.

And there's a great scattering of the church. It'd be like if we're all together and Adam's preaching and then he gets, I don't know, he gets stoned to death and we're all scared and they're trying to persecute us. And we run all over. You know, we go to East County. We go to Mexico. We go up to L.A. We go, we're, not L.A. No, I'm just kidding. We go to NorCal and all that kind of stuff.

We're scattered and it seems really bad. But along the way of scattering, God can still bring out good. And as they were scattered, Philip went right down to Samaria, speaks to the crowds. People get saved. Signs and wonders are happening. And then he is asleep, it says, in a sense, because the angel says, rise and go. The angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go south to the road that goes from Jerusalem to Gaza.

And it's a desert place. God tells us to go. And going leads us to out of the way places. God calls us and tells us to go. And sometimes that going involves going to kind of out of the way places. When he's speaking to Philip, it's not really close by. This desert road is 50 miles away. They didn't have SUVs back then. They didn't have motorcycles.

They didn't have those camel packs that you put the water on so you can like, you know, suck on the water all the time. I don't think, maybe they had some type of umbrella. But going in the desert is not always a good experience. I love water. I'm a water baby. I need to be near the ocean at all times. Siempre. It means always in Spanish. But Philip rises up, goes 50 miles.

And also it says, there's this Greek word that says, go around noon. And he had no idea. He just obeyed God. And then he meets this Ethiopian who had been traveling over 200 miles up this road towards Jerusalem to worship. And was coming on the way back. And he's in a chariot. Question. Are there stories in your life where God whispered to you or nudged you to go in an unordinary path?

And then he ended up using you. We all have those stories, right? A lot of us do. It's probably not as radical as this. And then sometimes he's, you know, there's debate on what does God's voice sound like? Is it a British accent? Is it Australian? I don't know. Is it Spanish? But what does it sound like when God leads you? But there is that nudging.

There is that whispering. And it can be very constant. And I know all of us have maybe had times where he's like, go talk to that person. Go do this or that. And we're like, no, is that really you, God? I do that. I don't know about y'all. Maybe God's leading you to go to out-of-the-way places. The steady drum is pounding. And it's building. And maybe where he wants you to go is out of your comfort zone.

It's out of your natural inclinations. Some of the surfer guys aren't here as much. Normally there's a lot of them. But, okay, Spencer, can you stand up? This guy's just looking at him. Mr. Surfer. Look, he has the hair. I love it. Okay, you can sit down. I love that guy. Normally surfers are so addicted to the water, they never want to go in the valley.

Can I, can I name man? No? Okay, I don't know. They don't like to go to the desert. They don't like flatlanders. They don't like, you know, I mean, these guys are all nice guys. But normally they just want to hang out with surfers. They want to be near the ocean. And I remember when God, like sometimes he wants to lead you places and you wrestle with him.

And he wanted me to go to Florida. Florida, like two hours from the beach. And for two months I was wrestling with him at night. I'm like, no, I don't want to give up surfing. Oh, you know, my surfing is going to go so bad. I won't get to surf anymore. I'm like, just ridiculous. And I ended up going and I was an assistant pastor there and met all these amazing people.

Got to speak a lot to people. And then God opened up the orphan world to me. And God used that. And now I'm back. So he gave it to me back. And God led me to Florida or God has led you to out of the way places in order to spread his gospel and reach certain people. And looking back, I can see better. But when going towards it, anticipating where he wanted me to go, I was filled with fear, anxiety, anger.

And so again, the question is, is he leading you? Not necessarily like go move to a different country. But is he leading you to an out of the way area that you've been resisting him? Certain person, certain place. Just thought I'd mention that. God's a God of go. Go. And he also tells us that involves obedience. In verse 27. I don't know if it says that up there.

It says he rose and went. God says go and he rose and went. And there's this huge redemptive historical theme. Redemptive historical means how God progressively revealed his story of salvation from Genesis all the way up leading up to Jesus. And then from Jesus to Revelation. Okay. There's this theme of God saying go. And the people maybe wrestle a little bit, but they go.

And then God uses them to spread the message. We think of Abraham. Right? God calls him and he says go. Go to a place, you know, you don't know exactly where, but I'm going to bless you. You know, some stuff that happens, but he goes. He goes to Moses. Go. Out of this land into Egypt. He does it. He says certain prophets go, go. There's not always great stories with the prophets.

John the Baptist, go. Jesus, his eternal son of God in glory. Go down, my son, to the earth to save my people. And the son is so obedient. I will go, father. And he goes. And then he gathers his disciples and he says in Matthew 28, go into all the nations, baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit comes in Acts 2, poured out like water, just water, water that comes down and then spills out horizontally, getting bigger and bigger and bigger to extend its reach.

And they go. And they obey. Not perfectly, I'm sure, but they do obey. And that is how God expands his kingdom from heaven to earth. It involves obedience. And all of us struggle in certain areas of obedience. Some of us are just natural. It's easy for us to go, you know, and talk to people. Some of us not. Maybe it's some other area. But I think every preacher is like this.

They end up preaching to themselves. So when I say this and I preach, it's also to myself. I've become really mellow and complacent. Helping out with orphans or helping behind the scenes here at the church. And I get tired. I get lazy. And there will be certain people that I'm like, you know what? I should go pray for them or I should invite them to church.

And I don't do it. And there's nobody condemning me about it. And God's not mad at me about it. But I've just gotten this bad habit of kind of getting mellow and comfortable and apathetic. But that's not, that's something I've imposed onto the text. I've imposed onto my experience of Christianity. Because if we look in Acts at the birth of the church and the expansion of the church, it's not like that.

It's about going and obedience and boldness with the power of the spirit. Francis Schaeffer said personal peace and affluence, he thought, were one of the number one enemies to the spreading of the gospel. And I know one reason I never share with surfers where I surf and the spot will not be named is because I don't want them to, like, I want my waves, you know.

And if, like, I'm already not eloke there. And if I share with them or invite them to church, there'll be that awkward stuff. They may, like, try to do cutbacks right near my head and do things like that. And not give me waves. So I want my waves. So that's, I'm just admitting. What are some things that you don't want to give up because, or you don't want to lose and cause you to not want to obey and to go?

God tells us to go. And go and causes us also to meet new people. The Ethiopians back in the day, I'm going to read this. They were fascinating to first century Romans or Greeks. For in their view, Ethiopians lived literally at the southern edge of the earth. And that's a quote from Homer in the Odyssey. So it was roughly 200 miles from Jerusalem down south.

It's probably more than that. And when we are going, we end up meeting people that we normally wouldn't meet. Like, again, we're talking about, like, we like to be around people we're comfortable with, that understand us, that we can laugh with, that maybe dress like us. Some people just like different people, right? I don't know. I think so. So to go to those people that are different, you know, to talk to somebody that looks different than you or speaks a different language is sometimes awkward.

But God is not just about, he started in Jerusalem with his people, his chosen people. But he says he wants all nations, all types of people, all people. He loves the world. We're evidence of this. We're all, we have different ethnicities and nationalities here, different ethnic groups, different personalities. It's awesome because God is working with us.

And he will cause you to meet new people. Are you open to meeting new people for the gospel? God tells us to go, and going can change a nation and history. In Acts 1.8, it says that, we're reading this passage of fulfillment of Acts 1.8 that says, the kingdom, the spirit, be my witnesses. It will happen from Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and then the utmost ends of the earth.

And so, Philip, we're seeing a fulfillment of this, that the utmost ends of the earth had come right to him on this Gaza road. And in Revelation, some day, right now, really, you know, in the heavenly realms, and also in the future heavenlies, every nation is worshiping God. It's so cool. I sometimes forget, I forget about that often. God is about all people worshiping him.

And in Psalms, it says, this nation of Cush, which is referring to the Ethiopians, this is all back in the Psalms, shall hasten and worship God. O kingdoms of the earth, sing to God. This Ethiopian man was powerful. He was a chief treasurer. He was wealthy because there were tons of iron and gold mining there. He represented Candace, queen of the Ethiopians.

And by Philip reaching this Ethiopian, this Ethiopian went back down in church history to Ethiopia. And that nation became, in a sense, a Christian nation, it says, up until 1974. So that's just, I'm not a historical expert, but I read up on this a bunch of different times. And that's pretty amazing. And then before that, the queen of Sheba, who was from, like, Sudan or Ethiopia, had came to King Solomon a thousand years before that.

Because she'd heard about Solomon's wisdom. And then there's rumor that Solomon and Queen Sheba had a child. And that helped prep Ethiopia for the acceptance of Christianity. I don't know. Just thought I'd tell you. I was kind of interested. God was preparing them. So all this. God is a God of go. He says to go. It involves out-of-the-way people, out-of-the-way places, obedience.

But why does he tell us to go? Why does he tell us to go? I sometimes forget this. In that I'm okay at going. I can go and do things. I can go to people. I've done campus ministry and shared the faith. And I haven't done it for a while, but I used to do that. But I can forget that God tells us to go because God is love. God, in his essence, is love.

His love never runs out. He doesn't ever get tired of loving. Some of you all are married or remarried or whatever, and you get tired of loving. You're other significant other because they keep sinning against you or doing things that annoy you. It's easier to love your kids, right, because they came from you. I've seen this pattern. But God, and sometimes we smuggle that into God, as if God is like that.

But God is infinite, eternal love. Infinite. You can't measure his love. Eternal. It never began and it never ends. And then he creates this in his image. And then he breaks forth into the earth through his son. And then sending the spirit to send that spirit, a spirit of love, to get a people that want to love him and glorify him and enjoy him forever.

Why does he say go? Is to spread his love all over the world. And you get to be part of that. God is not only a God of go, but he's a God of guiding. In verse 30, it says, Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, Do you understand what you're reading? And he said, How can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Guiding involves coming alongside others. Coming close to that person. Incarnating. Building relationship. It wasn't a top down. It wasn't like Philip got on top of the chariot and went, Believe in Jesus. He didn't do that. In that voice. But he came alongside him. He sat in his chariot. I was in a counseling class. That's one of the many things I've started and not finished.

But I started my master's in counseling. Fascinated by the psychological world. And this certain statistical empirical quote resonated with me over and over and over. I don't know the exact percentage, but something like 40% of change counselors have found is by attentive listening and empathy. And this is from different sources that up to 40% of real change in counseling sessions happens by being an active listener and giving unconditional love and empathy.

When I was younger and I was in seminary, I always thought it was, I'm just going to teach more Bible and tell them things because they don't know it. And that can kind of work a little bit. But Philip comes alongside this Ethiopian eunuch and listens to him and comes alongside him. He calls us to guide. My friends that I mentioned earlier, John, this big John preacher, was the evangelist and kind of woke me up.

And I need somebody like that to bring me into the church. Then my buddies Gerald and Kelly, and there's been countless others, came alongside me and guided me. They said, Joe, where are you at? I used to have long curly hair, a beard. I had this Indian choker. I don't know if you those are. Like bones around your neck. I wore it for a year. This girl, I don't know who she is.

She's like, what? Yeah, it was smelly. It was smelly. Okay. If that's what you were wondering. I grew up in nature. Anyway. So I was very into California Indian nature worship type stuff. And so God was saving me out of these pagan ways into his kingdom. And these buddies came alongside. And instead of telling me what to do, they asked, where are you at?

And I had all these questions. And they were able to point to the scriptures. And they loved me. And they guided me. And then all along the way, in the past 20 years, God has provided people to guide me in the gospel of his son. To guide me. And isn't that how change happens once you get in? That people come alongside you and guide you and listen to you.

You know, I'm thinking this way. Like God's mad at me. I grew up with very angry, performance-oriented, 100% Italian world. I grew up in the Great Depression. I don't know if you guys knew that. That was me. I grew up in the Great Depression. And some of you guys will get that. And so the money was always going to run out. And you always had to work.

And I lived up on a ranch. And you always had to do chores and horses and cows and whatever. So my orientation to the world was work and money. You know, and you got to play once in a while. And I've smuggled that into God the Father. Which is not true because God is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger. But I forget that. And I need all of you to come alongside and say, No, Joe.

God's not mad at you when you didn't preach perfect or something. You know? Realigning. Guiding. That's what we need. We need to come alongside and guide people in the gospel. Who are the people you feel called to guide? Adam actually asked me if you can take out a piece of paper or write on your forearm or if you write on your hand or whatever. Is to think of 500 people that you're supposed to guide.

No, I'm just kidding. Is to, what are like two to three people that you have felt called to come alongside, to guide, to be in community with, to disciple? Two to three people maybe God's put in your heart. Maybe you've seen. Some of you are like, I have nobody. Well, do some work with the Lord. Pray to him. Ask him. Because part of the expansion of the kingdom, part of the authentic, true Acts Christianity is definitely going to people.

But it's also the people that are already here is guiding them. Guiding them in ways of Jesus. Guiding them in the scriptures. Guiding them in what you've learned. And some of you think, oh, I don't, what do I know? I have so much sin or I made so many mistakes. You may be just further along than the other person. And you have so much to offer. So much to offer.

I always, I get a little insecure sometimes. And I did campus ministry forever and other types of ministry. And I always thought like, I don't know if anything's happening. And then five years later, they'll call me up like, dude, do you remember that one time or what you said? I'm like, really? Because at the time, I was just bored, really. I was thinking about surfing or a movie I wanted to go to.

I wasn't even present. But God used it because I was physically present. God calls us to guide people. Who's guided you and who do you feel led to guide? When you guide it, it means coming alongside them. It means listening them to where they're at. And Philip asks, or the Ethiopian asks, in verse 34, he's reading this Isaiah scroll, which is very interesting that he had that and that he could read it.

And he was reading it out loud in probably Greek. And he says, I ask you, does this prophet say this about himself or somebody else? So he's reading this thing and it's talking about a scripture, I think, about Jesus. And he doesn't fully know. And then Philip sits down with him and he's able to talk to him through all the scriptures about the good news of Jesus.

And so this is awesome, too. Part of the going, I was realizing this. It's not going, from this passage, it's not necessarily going out and do stand-up preaching, right? It's not going out and creating an awkward situation. It's actually God is orchestrating this Ethiopian to come to Philip, Philip going to meet him. And then it's just a cordial, awesome engagement.

And they're talking. And they're relating. And I think that's a great, normal, beautiful way that the gospel can spread. It's through those relationships of love and being open to his natural providence, but also opening your mouth to talk about Jesus. And then being able to, when somebody asks a question about scripture, do we know scripture good enough?

Not that it's a contest, but well enough to where we can go, this is what this scripture means. Because he was talking from Isaiah and he didn't know what it meant. And then Philip was able to guide him. So, God calls us to go. God is a God of go. God is a God of guiding. And God is a God of his gospel. God calls us to focus on the gospel of his son.

And it says that, what does it say? It says many awesome things. I don't have the scripture in front of me, but basically he's reading a chapter of Isaiah. It's talking about the son was pierced for the transgressions. He was bruised. He was crushed. And, you know, when we guide people outside the church and people inside the church in the gospel, really, it's about that God loves sinners.

That God is holy. God is just. And he created us and he gave a law, ten commandments. And all of us have personally broke them. And we all broke them in Adam. Okay? But then he sent the son to die in our place, to rise in our place. And then he wants us to be about Jesus crucified, which can be a stumbling block to those who are perishing outside the church.

But it's the power of God to those who are being saved. And I, in my creativity and imagination, I must admit another thing. I totally love Jesus. I admit it. I admit it. Love Jesus. All right? I think I heard a snort. But with this age, I want to be so creative with how I talk about him. Or so philosophical. And I had like a minor in philosophy. But at the time, I didn't know how to use it.

And really the central thing is God loves you, but you're a sinner. And Jesus died for you and rose again. And if you believe and repent, you can be saved and get into his family, and your life will be changed. I mean, there's other ways to say it. And with all the fast-moving world and all the different messages in this world, I think you feel stupid sometimes.

It says the message of the cross is like foolishness. Do you ever feel like a fool? I do. But Jesus says, at the end of the Beatitudes, blessed are you, blessed are you, blessed are you. Blessed are you when you insulted and all kinds of false things are said about you because they did that to me. It's okay, church. It's okay to feel like a kook.

It's okay to feel like a fool if you're focusing rightly on Jesus, but not being a jerk, right? Fool for Jesus. And also, Jesus, it's Christ crucified for sins. In the book of Galatians, Paul talks to the Galatian church and says, Oh, you foolish Galatians, you began with grace, but then you're acting like out of the law. Meaning that we start, the deeper we get in to our think or walk with God, I do this, is that we start measuring ourselves by our obedience, how perfect we've been according to God's law.

What we know, what we should have done, what we haven't. God wants us to obey, but we're not saved by our obedience. We're saved by Christ's obedience in our place. He's the perfect Adam. He's the perfect you. He's the substitute. And when you put your faith in him and he comes into you by his spirit and you go into him, you're unionized. You're one with him.

He's the tree. You're the branches. He's a stone. We're the building. He's the head. We're the body. And the father sees the son and sees him in you. Let us not forget along the way where we're trying to do and go and guide that it is about Jesus. Anyway, landing the plane, as Adam would say. And I time myself. All right, two minutes left. This eunuch is super excited.

He realizes that Jesus had died specifically for him and that he could be saved. He had learned from scripture. Philip had gone to him. Philip had guided him. And then he sees some water and says, can I be baptized? He gets baptized and then he leaves rejoicing. I wanted us all to sing that song. Happy. But I didn't think it would work, so I just sang it.

But you know that song, Happy? It's really contagious. You guys ever heard it before? On the count of three, let's say happy. One, two, three. Wow, that was... Okay, because this guy was all sad when he said we're doing it again. One, two, three. All right, happy. Happy. Do, do, do, do, do, do. At the end of the text, which... Oh, look, it is up there.

I didn't even know that. Why didn't somebody tell me that? That's awesome. Can we go down to the end when it says he left rejoicing? If it's dead, it should be near the end. I don't know. It's somewhere up there. But anyway, Philip gets baptized and he's rejoicing. You see him kind of like dancing or whatever. I mean, that's what I'm thinking. I mean, what does it look like to rejoice?

What does it look like to rejoice? When people come along, go to you, when they guide you, when you get the gospel and you realize, oh my gosh, the God of the world that made me and made the waves or made the mountains or made the whale, whatever you like. I don't know. Made coffee. I don't know. Made me and loves me. And didn't just wind up the clock like a clock back there and said, peace out.

That's the way I thought he was. He was this deistic God. I'm going to wind up the clock. Do whatever you do. Maybe you'll meet me in heaven if there's a heaven. That's what I thought. But God is not like that. And Ethiopia was changed because this Ethiopian heard that gospel, that good news, that God will come in and change your life, that God loves you.

And then he was so excited, he started spreading the news. Start spreading the news. And that's what we can do too. That's Frank Sinatra. So is it God wants us to be incorporated into his church and to spread that news. Okay? If you haven't been baptized, that's a great plug for baptism. I know it took me like two years. I was afraid. I was this and that.

God wants you to be baptized if you're part of his church. It's way easier than getting circumcised. Okay? In the Old Testament, you had to be circumcised if you're a male to be part of the covenant community. I'm just reading the scripture. But in the new covenant, the mark is baptism. It's a lot easier and it's awesome. So, worship team, if you want to come up, I think this is the end of it all.

So, let me pray. Okay? Thanks for being a very gracious audience. And hopefully, God spoke through his word. And you know, this may resonate with you also, as I'm stalling for them to get ready. No, I'm just kidding. Is I don't like to preach that often, even though I feel called to it, if that makes sense. And because I have so much, I have fear.

And then I think it depends on me. And you need to be prepared. Okay? You need to be prayed up. But I think that's what really prohibits us from wanting to go and to guide and to share others. Is we're looking at our own performs too much. When God is sovereign. God says the gospel is the power of God for salvation. You let it out. It's like a lion.

You let it out of the cage. In a good way. Right? Jesus is the lion, tribe of Judah. So I can use lion. Imagery. And it'll get its effect. It's objective. It's outside of you. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. Step through that. Father, Son, and Spirit, thank you for sending people to go to us at one time. And to guide us. And to continue to guide us. And thank you that the Holy Spirit guides us.

And your word guides us. And when we go to the right or to the left, in areas we shouldn't go, continue to guide us graciously like you do. And guide us right now through musical worship. Thank you for this worship team. Thank you for this congregation. Thank you for all the congregations all over San Diego, all over the world. God, you're working.

Thank you for changing the nation of Ethiopia at one point. Change all the nations into white hot worshipers of you. We praise you and we love you. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Amen.