Philip

Reference

Acts 8:26-40

MESSAGE SUMMARY

The church is scattered during the pandemic. Things are not the way they used to be. The church is scattered and that can feel unsettling.

The early church also experienced a significant scattering. In Acts chapter 8, we read of a great persecution breaking out in Jerusalem and the Christians were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. This significantly affected life as a community and as individual Christians. However, God used this terrible circumstance for something good – spreading the gospel to new places. Sometimes it takes what looks like a disaster to get us moving toward where God wants us to go. Until the persecution scattered the church, the church did not go beyond Jerusalem even though Jesus had commissioned his disciples to be his witnesses in Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. We too can be focused on what is in front of us and forget about the broader world that needs Jesus. What if God wants to use the pandemic to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth?

We see the gospel beginning to spread as Philip goes to Samaria and carries on the ministry of Jesus there. Philip first appears in chapter 6 when he was one of the seven chosen to “wait on tables” so that the apostles could focus on prayer and preaching. Here’s a guy who has served faithfully in a humble task, now being used in ways he couldn’t have imagined. Phillip allows God to work through him in this new situation he finds himself in, wherever God sends him. He pays attention to guidance from the Spirit and from an angel. He is led to a desert road where he encounters a God-fearing Ethiopian eunuch reading the book of Isaiah. Philip initiates a conversation and connects the dots between Jesus and what the Ethiopian is trying to understand. He immediately comes to faith in Jesus and asks to be baptized.

In your life, you can also serve faithfully in whatever humble tasks God assigns to you, knowing it may be for a season and God may have other plans for your future. Listen attentively to God’s guidance. Be willing to seize opportunities to share good news. God is with you. The Holy Spirit dwells within you to guide and empower you to do what you don’t think you can.