Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon April 27, 2008
As I get older, I hit a plateau on my waist size. I’ve been wearing size 34 for number of years. So, I thought I was doing pretty well. Then, I learned that my pants don’t reflect how I am doing here around my waist. I was given a radical different way to measure my middle, to measure around my belly button. That is when I understood that my waist has been steadily inching towards the number that I wasn’t comfortable. Plus, I felt way too sluggish these days, getting sicker easier.
Well, some of you know that I’ve been working out regularly for last couple weeks. I would run for 15 minutes after entering my body weight, 0 incline and 6.0 for speed. And, as I sweat through running, feeling these burning sensations all over my legs, I would watch that number to the far left that tells me how much calories I would burn. And, after just a mile and half, the result shows that I burned less than couple hundred calories.
Now, I look the labels on my favorite snacks and read how much calories they have. Well, before the path of least resistance would have been follow my appetite. But, after running, sweating, burning precious calories, now I think twice about eating 250 calories of empty sugar.
And, this taking the path of least resistance with my health has cost me the ever expanding size of my belly, low energy level, low tolerance for hard and diligent work.
Which is the path of least resistance, to feel the excruciatingly uncomfortable burning pain lifting weights and running or to have that satisfying feeling of being fool with good food?
So, the life lesson I get from getting back to taking care of my body is that taking the path of least resistance is costly for my health. And, many ways, I realize that the path of least resistance I take regard to my physical health reflects my spiritual health as well.
And, the spiritual truth that I gain from my reflection is that taking the path of least resistance is incompatible with cultivating life style of evangelism.
- Cultivate lifestyle of evangelism by stop demanding to know God’s full plan, but trusting him.
This morning’s account on how Philip got to share the gospel to the Ethiopian eunuch would not have been possible if Philip didn’t learn to heed the voice of the Holy Spirit over taking the path of least resistance.
Spiritually speaking the path of least resistance will demand that we know exactly what God is up to with us, today, next week, next month, next year, and ten years and beyond down the road.
Yet, God works with us like in the The Amazing Race on CBS. No contestants are given the full itineraries to the final destination before the race. Instead, what they get are these envelops along the way that explains how to get to the next point.
This is what God did with Philip. In verse 26, an angel of the Lord showed up and told Philip, “Go south to the road- the desert road- that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” God didn’t share with Philip that he had a cool conversion waiting for him. All Philip got from God was to go to the next point.
This is often the way God works. He shows us the path from point A to point B. If Philip brushed off the angel’s detailed prompt to go south to the road- the desert road- that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza, he would have forfeited the divine appointment to lead the eunuch to God.
Certainly taking down the desert road isn’t what one might consider the path of least resistance.
And, also remember that our passage comes after the enormous success Philip was having in Samaria; he saw many coming to faith, getting baptized and receiving the Holy Spirit through his ministry. He had something very special going on in Samaria. He was on top of his game. Yet, it was this moment when Philip was doing so well, when people were coming to faith in Jesus that he was called by God to take the desert road without any disclosure to what God had in stored for him.
When he finally got to the point B, he met an Ethiopian eunuch. There, in verse 29, Philip was told by the Spirit, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
Imagine being told to run up to the motorcade of Henry M. Paulson, Jr. the Secretary of the Treasury of our nation and stay near it. Well, if I ever try something stupid like that you know what would happen to me. I will get knock down to the ground by the Secret Service before I get even close to the motorcade.
There was always an inherent danger when a commoner like Philip try to approach an important official like this Ethiopian eunuch. And, the common sense would have responded that this was not the path of least resistance.
Yet, what we see in both cases is Philip without question taking the path of resistance to his common sense and need to be in control.
Verse 27, as soon as he was told by the angel to take the desert road, he started out. Verse 30, as soon as he was told by the Spirit to go to the chariot and stay near it, we see him running up to the chariot and staying near enough to hear the Ethiopian reading the scripture.
Because Philip took these two steps of obedience even though he didn’t know what God was up to, Philip was able to have this amazing divine appointment to share the gospel with this man.
Think about how many times you and I might have forfeited the divine appointments to share the gospel because we refuse to listen to the Spirit’s prompting.
- Cultivate the lifestyle of evangelism by listening to others.
When Philip ran up to the chariot and stayed near it, he was able to hear what was going on in it. The Ethiopian eunuch was reading an Old Testament passage from Isaiah.
Here is the principle of listening and engaging from the felt needs of the people. If Philip had a preconceived idea of what he was going to say to Eunuch and ignored what Eunuch was reading, then things might not have gone as well.
Philip didn’t tell the Ethiopian man, “Let me tell you all about Jesus.” Instead, he began from where this man was struggling to understand. This man had a need to understand what he was reading from the scripture; he had a question. And, Philip answered this man’s question and that’s how he shared Jesus as an answer to the man’s question.
This requires us to open our ears and listen to our non-Christians around us. Listening helps us to understand what life questions they are asking. When we know what life questions they are asking, then we can answer them from the scripture and point them to Christ.
- Cultivate the lifestyle of evangelism expects God at work in other people’s lives.
It was not uncommon for men in old days to be physically emasculated when they were young for the purpose of being in charge of a government function that involve working with women. But, in some cases the term eunuch simply referred to the person’s governmental position. In our text, the Ethiopian was a eunuch working for the queen Candace of the Ethiopians.
If this high official to the queen of Ethiopia was indeed a eunuch who was emasculated, then he would have been prohibited from joining the worship assembly in the temple at Jerusalem. It says in Deuteronomy 23:1, “No one who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting may enter the assembly of the LORD.”
By the physical nature of this official, he would have been barred from joining the worship in the temple. Yet, there is another prophecy from Isaiah that tells a different fate of those eunuchs who pleases the Lord. Isaiah 56:4-5 says, “Let no foreigner who has bound himself to the LORD say, “The LORD will surely exclude me from his people.” And let not any eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.” 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- 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 not be cut off.”
This Ethiopian eunuch was a God-fearing gentile who wanted to know the God of the Hebrews. He even possessed a scroll of Isaiah which he paid big money. He was a truth seeker; he was seeking God.
But, without knowing this fact of what God was doing in heart, the external appearance would have given good deal of doubt as to his acceptability to God. But, again, God’s plan was that through his Son Jesus Christ, the ancient prophecy of Isaiah would be fulfilled that this man would be saved through Jesus Christ.
This is to say that you can never judge by the skin or any other external and superficial differences that we see in others.
To cultivate the lifestyle of evangelism, we must assume that God is at work in people’ lives regardless of what we think of them.
- Cultivate the lifestyle of evangelism by knowing your scripture and living the scripture
When Philip listened to the Ethiopian man, he knew that he was reading from Isaiah. The man asked, “How can I [understand]… unless someone explains to me?”
The man was reading from Isaiah 53:7-8 which was a prophecy about the suffering messiah, suffering savior. As God-fearing man, he wanted to know who this person the prophet was talking about.
Now, at this point, if Philip didn’t know his scripture, if he didn’t know what the eunuch was talking about because he wasn’t familiar with God’s word, well the story would have ended very differently.
Philip couldn’t have told the eunuch, “Wait a minute! Hold on, please. I could get someone who can answer your question. Let me get my pastor.”
1 Peter 3:15 says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.” And, Colossians 4:6 says, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.”
For Philip, he knew the suffering savior of Isaiah prophecy, who was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before the shearer is silent… who did not open his mouth. Philip not only knew the scripture, he lived the scripture by having met and known the suffering savior, who was pierced for our transgressions, who was crushed for our iniquities. Philip knew that the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.
You cannot explain what you don’t know. Philip explained what he knew of the scripture, what he lived of the scripture.
We too must. Do the same. .
à Apply
A story is told about Arabian horse training in the deserts of the Middle East. The training seeks absolute obedience from the horses. This is how they test if the trained horses are indeed trained for absolute obedience. The trainers have their horses to do without water for some time. Then they let them loose and their instinct kicks and immediate they run to the water. But, just as they get close to the edge and ready to drink, the trainer blows his whistle. Now, at this point there are two kinds of horses the trainers see. One is those that disregard the signals and simply plunge right in to drink water. Then, there are those that are truly trained. They stop upon hearing the whistle and turn around and come back to the trainer. They stand before the trainer quivering, wanting water, yet they wait in perfect obedience. When the trainer is sure of the horses’ obedience, they are signaled to go back to drink.
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