Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

I don't know if you guys saw David's triple string pop in the middle of that worship set, but just... Stout, a stout brother, good job. Just staying with it. Yeah, that was good. We have been going through Acts as a church. In our current series, we talk about Acts past the edges. So we're talking about how in the book of Acts, we see the gospel going out like Jesus talked about in Acts 1:8. He talked about how the gospel was gonna go outside of Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And so we've seen, so far we've seen a go past a couple of things, but it's not just location, not just geography that the gospel is going past. We've also seen the gospel go past the edges of personal comfort, right, where Stephen past his personal comfort, past his desire to be a living, breathing person, he continues to preach the gospel, right? And as he does that, it's be at great personal cost.

When he does that and he is killed for it, the gospel goes out, right? The gospel goes out. So we've also seen the gospel go past the edges of our own culture. So we talked about how when Philip takes the gospel to Samaria, that it goes past kind of this Jewish culture, it goes past this realm of familiarity for Philip. And so we see the gospel go out to Samaria, just like Jesus was talking about in Acts 1:8, okay? And so immediately following that is where we pick up in Acts 8 today. We're still on Philip. Philip has just preached the gospel to the Samaritans. The Samaritans have received the gospel, which is exciting. And things are happening, things are moving. And immediately following this event, we pick it up in Acts 8, and we're gonna start in verse 26, and we're going all the way through verse 40 today. Acts 8, 26, it says, now an 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, okay? So far we see the Holy Spirit through an angel directing Philip specifically, okay? Look at the next verse. And he, Philip, 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. So we see an Ethiopian eunuch here. He's of Jewish descent because he came to worship in Jerusalem. Next two verses. And was returning, and he was seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah, and the spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot, okay? What we see happening in these short, in this quick kind of bunch of verses 26 through 29, we see the Holy Spirit directing traffic, okay? Holy Spirit's directing traffic here. Holy Spirit is moving a lot of parts,

specifically, purposefully, particularly. So he's sending Philip south to Gaza. He's inspiring the Ethiopian eunuch to read the book of Isaiah, and he's prompting Philip to go over to the chariot. And so here, with Philip, even now, as we're reading this, I just wanna help all of us see this. This is the kind of relationship that the Holy Spirit wants with each of us. If we are in Christ, if we follow Christ, right? This is the kind of relationship that the Holy Spirit wants with us, okay? We should be speaking with the Holy Spirit every day, in prayer, multiple times a day, right? That the idea that you are in constant communication, I realize you're gonna have some times when you're just not praying, okay? You're doing something different, I get it. But the idea is that you are in constant, there's a consistent kind of open line between you and the Spirit. And this is what Scripture tells us to do.

Scripture tells us to live by the Spirit. Scripture makes it abundantly clear. Galatians 5, it says, if you live by the Spirit, then also keep in step with the Spirit, and when you do that, you will bear the fruit of the Spirit. John 16, 13. Jesus said, I'm gonna send the Spirit to you, and the Spirit is going to guide you into all truth. It's gonna help you anticipate the things that are coming. The Spirit's gonna help you do that. Ephesians 4, 3, it says that we should, as a church, we should maintain the Spirit, the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace. So when it talks about keeping in step with the Spirit, when it talks about listening to the Spirit, when it talks about praying unceasingly, this is the kind of thing that we should, we should at least see in our lives in some capacity, where we are talking and we are listening to the Holy Spirit. That is a normal Christian life thing to do, okay?

If you've never done that, okay, that maybe is like a flag, that's something that should kind of pop up in your head, like if you've never ever done that, then you should talk to somebody about it, okay? We're gonna have a time of response, but the idea is that whenever we are following Jesus, we are in a relationship with Jesus, and that is facilitated by the Holy Spirit, where we are asking for perspective, we are asking for patience, we are asking for courage, we are listening for guidance, we are listening for direction, we are asking the Holy Spirit to move. I mean, look, when you and I pray, and we are asking for the Holy Spirit to do things, we are not asking the Holy Spirit to take out the trash for us, okay? We are not asking the Holy Spirit to pay our utility bill, what are we asking the Holy Spirit to do? We are asking the Holy Spirit to do things that we can't do.

Asking the Holy Spirit to like change hearts, you can't change somebody's heart, you need the Lord to do that. You can't mend a relationship all on your own, you need the Holy Spirit to do that. You can't make things, you can't untangle, there are some relationships, there are some problems in your life that are more tangled up than your Christmas lights are right now. I know that's hard to imagine, because your Christmas lights are jacked, okay? I don't care who you are, unless maybe you're my father-in-law and you got them all in that spindle, that thing, you do, God bless you. You're the only one in America, sir.

We're praying for the Holy Spirit to untangle things that we cannot, to bring about things that we cannot. You can't make people feel something. You can't move somebody to do, you can't do it. That's what we pray for, okay? In fact, I wanna bring this up, May 5th, May 5th, we are going to be calling on the church to pray, to pray for 21 days. In fact, we're actually calling the church to a fast, for 21 days. If you've never fasted before, it's fine. It just means going without something, going without food, typically. For me, that's gonna mean no lunch, okay? No lunch for 21 days, that's what that's gonna mean for me, personally. There's a couple of different ways that you can do that. I'm not trying to get into particulars, but what I am trying to do is tell you, whenever we are praying for those 21 days, May 5th through the 25th, when we pray for those 21 days,

we're gonna be asking the Holy Spirit to do things we can't do, right? We're gonna be asking for clarity and direction on where our church is going. We're gonna be asking for the Holy Spirit to soften hearts, to help us make disciples in a way that's just more in line with Scripture. And those are things that we can't do on our own. We can respond to those things, we can cooperate with those things, but we can't do it on our own, okay? And so when we're talking about what's happening here with the Holy Spirit and what the Holy Spirit's doing in Philip, even in just these first couple of verses, the Holy Spirit's doing things, right? And Philip is just cooperating, right? And so our everyday Christian life is, I hope I've made this clear, our everyday Christian life should consist of following the Holy Spirit. However, it is not the only thing we do, okay? Like I said before, we don't have the electricity bill

and go, Spirit, should I pay this, right? We still, that's not what we do. If we're at a traffic light and it turns green, we're not like trying to discern the next step, okay? We're going, that's what you do at a green light, okay? Not saying the Spirit can ever stop you from your normal processes, I'm just saying. The totality of Christian life cannot be summed up with just mindlessly floating along and just doing whatever this Holy Spirit's telling you to do. I mean, that's not what, even what we see in this passage. What we find in this passage is that the Holy Spirit's leading, but we also see in this passage Philip is cooperating. So look at some, look again at some of what we read. Here we go.

Sorry, not again, we're gonna keep reading. Verse 30, Acts 8, verse 30, it says, so Philip, this is just after the Holy Spirit's told Philip to go to the chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you are reading, okay? So I want you to see this right now. Philip is initiating conversation with an open-ended question, right? Technically, that's not an open-ended question. Do you understand as a yes or no question? But he's starting a conversation. We'll just leave it at that. He's initiating conversation. He takes a moment to listen. Philip is trying to learn and he's being patient right here, okay? This is skill displayed by Philip. Look at the next verse. The Ethiopian said to Philip, how can I, how can I understand this unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him, okay?

And this is the scripture that they're reading. So Philip gets in the chariot and they start reading the scripture together and then the scriptures are in verses 32 and 33. This is out of Isaiah. It says, like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter and like a lamb before its shear 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, okay? Now, like if somebody says, hey, I don't understand what I'm reading, okay? And I'm like, oh, what verse are you reading? And I'm thinking, oh, this is gonna be great. I'm gonna be able to help him kind of see that. And they bust out that verse on me. I'm like, okay. I mean, that's not exactly John 3 16, okay? That's all I'm saying. Like, it's, I might be like, okay, well, how is Jesus a lamb? Okay, we're gonna start there. Like, so it's not exactly the easiest thing, right?

It's not a gimme, okay? Acts 8 34, and this is the eunuch's question and the eunuch said to Philip, about whom I ask you, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about somebody else? Who is Isaiah talking about here? Man, I mean, what a bunny, right? What a layup for Philip here. Like, hey, I just don't know like, ah, who is Isaiah prophesying about? Can you tell me? It's just right there, okay? So he's reading through his Bible, saying this doesn't make sense. But let me just point out again here, Philip's skill. Philip has waited long enough to hear the eunuch's question. Philip has asked questions. He has sat there. He's kind of let the situation play and been patient. And now he's asking and hearing. And so by approaching it this way, Philip is following the Holy Spirit, okay? So he's going south to Gaza. He's going to the chariot. I mean, he's doing, but he's also displaying skill.

He's following the Spirit, but he's also displaying skill. So here's the other thing. We keep reading verse 35. It says, then Philip opened his mouth and beginning with the scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. Okay, so Philip, even though that was a big hurdle, right, to go from those verses in Isaiah, even with the Gimme question, Philip led the eunuch into the gospel from these verses in Isaiah, okay? And let me just point this out. This is kind of an understood thing, but we should really point it out and see that Philip knows enough about Isaiah and about the gospel to be able to connect them for this Ethiopian eunuch, who knows very little to none about either. Even though he's Jewish, even though he's reading Isaiah on his own, he's having trouble understanding it, Philip knows enough about Isaiah and he knows enough about the gospel to connect those things.

He has studied both, right? He's made the connections Philip has. He's listened to the Holy Spirit through the apostles' teaching. He's listened to other people preach and teach. He's studied on his own, right? He's following the Holy Spirit and he is prepared with the gospel, right? He's prepared with the gospel. He has studied, he's paid attention. He's practiced it, right? Philip has preached the gospel, has led people to Christ with the gospel several times over by this point, even when he was doing in Samaria, right? Even before that. He's practiced. He's set aside time and energy to share the gospel before this moment. This isn't Philip's first rodeo. He's not nudged over to the chariot and going like, what do you want me to say to him? I don't know, I've never done this before. He's like, okay, okay, I've get it. I've practiced this before. I understand kind of what is supposed to happen generally.

So he's set aside the time, the energy to share. He has improved, probably, hopefully, he has improved at explaining the gospel, right? So the Holy Spirit, so let's kind of set up, Holy Spirit's moving, directing, prompting, coordinating, right, moving everything around. But Philip is also, he is prepared with the gospel and he is displaying skill, okay? And these things aren't at odds. Philip's skill and his gospel preparation don't take any credit away from the Holy Spirit at all. Not a bit, right? It doesn't impugn the Holy Spirit to say that Philip had done this before, okay? This is normal, this is okay, okay. In fact, we were at Home Group this past, this past Wednesday, shameless Home Group plug. If you're not in a Home Group, listen, it's pretty great. It's a great way to get connected to the life of our church. It's a great way to know, kind of get to know some people,

kind of see what it's about. So we're talking about the Holy Spirit in our Home Group and as a trick question to just a couple of the people there, I was like, what percentage would you put on, you know, how much was Philip preaching to the Samaritans? How much was that? Philip's effort and how much of that was the Holy Spirit's effort? It was a total trick question, okay? And even when I asked it, I was like, that's not a fair question, but it's fine, let's just go with it anyway. Let's just try to talk about this. And it's an impossible question is what it is, because what are you gonna do? Was it 5149, is it 5050, is it who's taking credit? Like, it's 100, 100, right? That's what it is. It's 100% the Holy Spirit doing, directing, everything, and it's also 100%, like Philip just taking the time to be prepared, right? And so this is what we see here in Acts,

26 through 35 so far, we see Philip and the Holy Spirit working together in unison and cooperation. So the Holy Spirit is kind of taking the reins, and that's cool, but Philip is definitely cooperating with that, right? He's not blowing the layup, okay? He's been in layup drills before. He knows what to do. That's a basketball reference, if some of you don't play basketball, layup's a really easy shot, okay. Layup's a really easy shot. So whenever we are looking at Philip and what the Holy Spirit are doing, we need to see that cooperation. There's one more kind of thing in this episode that I wanna highlight, and it's the difference in culture. So we talked about culture a little bit last week, I wanna talk about it a little bit this week. Look at 827 again, okay, this is the Ethiopian eunuch. It says there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians,

who was in charge of all her treasure. So eunuchs, if you don't know this, eunuchs were typically, in this culture, they were kind of high class professional servants, and a lot of times they were government servant official kind of people, like in this case, right. And so the eunuch is a professional. The eunuch is smart. The eunuch is well-read, well-studied. The eunuch knows about treasury. He knows about Ethiopian politics. He's savvy, smart. And Luke, who's the author of the book of Acts, Luke is pointing this out to us, specifically. He doesn't stop, he keeps going. Look at the second half of 27 into 29. It says, he, the eunuch, had come to Jerusalem to worship, and he was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah in the spirit set of Philip, go over and join the chariot, okay. So the eunuch is a Jewish man who is seeking to know more about the Lord, all right.

This eunuch is a Jewish man, he has Jewish heritage, who is seeking. He's reading Isaiah for a reason. He's asking questions of what he's reading for a reason, okay. And again, the author is telling us this to inform us of something. And what I wanna just point out here, and I don't wanna belabor it, but you saw it. You saw it with the Samaritans, you see it here. We're gonna see it later in the book of Acts, it's all over the place, but it highlights the fact that the gospel message, that the truth of the gospel, it can adapt to anything, any culture, any person, without changing its core message. The gospel can adapt without changing. That's really important, because although we don't think about it, if the gospel had a bunch of things of culture kind of tied into it, right, of ancient Near Eastern culture, or even first century Jerusalem culture, there are some things that we would need to do today

that are tougher, like modern day Americans, that first century Jews could do quite easily. And let me just point out one more thing. It is a common mistake historically, and I don't mean just in America, I mean everywhere. It's a common mistake historically to believe that the gospel, to faithfully follow Jesus Christ, involves particular kinds of culture, right? I'm sure you've heard of Amish people, okay? The Amish bring in some parts of culture. There's anti-technology sentiment, right? So they're not gonna have cell phones, they're not gonna have electricity, they're not gonna have a lot of modern convenience, they're not gonna have those things, because they believe to faithfully follow Jesus, they can't partake in those things, okay? Now look, that's their conviction, that's fine, but that's not the gospel. The gospel has nothing to do with avoiding technology proper.

In other words, it's not saying, if you wanna follow Jesus, that's fine, you can have your cell phone, but if you really wanna follow Jesus, well, you gotta put that cell phone in the trash. Okay, that's not the gospel, sorry, it's not. Some of you do need to throw away your cell phone, for sure, okay? That's totally true. However, it's not the core gospel message. Do you see the difference I'm drawing out here, right? There's things that get lumped in with the core gospel message that are just a part of culture. They're just good ideas that people have that think are good, but a lot of times, what happens, and this has happened several times throughout history, I could bore you, but story after story, I won't, but it's happened several times throughout history where people thought, okay, yeah, I mean, the baseline gospel is this, but then if you really wanna follow Jesus, you gotta,

you know, and it's typically things about culture, things about the way we do things, okay? Which is just culture. So this eunuch, this episode with the fact that he's an Ethiopian professional Jew who is seeking, okay, it's very different than Samaritan culture, and although we do not know what Philip said, it only says that Philip opened his mouth and started preaching the gospel. We don't know what he said, but it was likely, likely, tailored to the eunuch. It was likely the gospel as more easily understood by an Ethiopian eunuch. The only reason I say that is because you see the same exact thing happen all over the New Testament, not just in the book of Acts, you see it all over the New Testament. John 4, Jesus is talking to a Samaritan woman, and what does he say? He opens up the gospel with, hey, I can give you living water. Like, so he's flowing right with the metaphor, okay?

He's going into the metaphor. Acts 7, Stephen is speaking to Jews, and what does he say? He says, you killed the Son of God, just like your fathers did, okay? It's a different way to preach the gospel, right, than to the Samaritan woman, but then even again, in Acts 17, you have, and we're not there yet, but you'll get there, it'll be great. In Acts 17, you have Paul preaching to like the philosophical kind of elitist of his day, and what does he do? He says, oh, I see that you have all of these shrines to all these little gods here, and you have a shrine to an unknown God. You know what? I know who that unknown God is. Okay, that is a very particular way to preach the gospel. Okay, that's not a, that's a strange way forward, but it's right there in Acts 17. You could do that all over the New Testament. You have, I mean, I don't know about hundreds, but you have a ton of different ways

that people are preaching the gospel, and many times it's tailored to the situation, or it's tailored to the person receiving it, it's tailored to, it's tailored in some capacity, and it's because the gospel can be tailored without losing its content, without losing its core message. In other words, let me say it a different way, Philip here with the Ethiopian eunuch is not trying the Samaritan tactic.

He's not going to the Ethiopian eunuch and saying, look, oh, it's, look, this work with the Samaritan, so it's gonna work here, signs, wonders. This Ethiopian eunuch is gonna totally believe when I do signs and wonders. No, he didn't do, there's no talk about signs and wonders. It's entirely different. It's conversational. It deals with the text in the Old Testament. It's probably very fine questioning, fine grain questions. It's not like, what do you think the gospel is? It's like, who's this prophet talking about in these verses? It's a very specific thing. Sometimes, in your conversations with people about the gospel, they're gonna have general things like, well, you know, I mean, I'm spiritual, I'm not religious, you know, religious people are stupid, whatever, you know, they're gonna say something kind of gentle, like a throwaway statement, or whatever.

But then you're gonna have conversations, like, specifically with people, and it's like, hey, don't Christians believe in unicorns? That's a real question I've gotten, by the way, unicorns. Don't Christians believe in unicorns? Which is really funny, because in the King James, it describes a one-horned rhinoceros as a unicorn, right? So a two-horned rhinoceros would be like a bicorn, I have no idea, but doesn't matter. A unicorn is a one-horned rhinoceros, okay. So that was a perfectly acceptable thing to call a one-horned rhinoceros in 1511, when the King James was written. And today, it's used specifically as like a diversion tactic to make Christians sound stupid, right? I've heard that, I've answered that, I've showed them that. When I showed them that, it was a specific thing, a granular thing that the Lord kind of put me there for. What that helped them do was to realize,

oh, they're listening to propaganda. They should probably find other sources of information. You've been lied to, you've been had, I graciously, now I didn't like dunk on them, I didn't show them up, I didn't, right, it wasn't mean or rude or anything, I was like, let's just go to scripture, let's just, where are they saying it? Okay, let's look at this, oh, okay, okay, and well, my translation's different. And I happen to know Greek, which is really helpful, Hebrew, actually, which is really helpful in that moment, right, it's a really helpful thing to know the original language.

And I'm not trying, sorry, I'm not trying to brag, I'm just saying the Lord had me there specifically for that reason. The Lord has specific things for you happening that really only you can speak to, specific questions that you are specifically geared or primed or equipped to handle, to discuss at length. And I don't mean you have to be a theologian, I mean, sometimes you have people that are saying all those Christians are just fake hypocrites, and it just so happens that like, your story is that, you know, it has to do with overcoming being a hypocrite, or it has to, you have a specific kind of, almost like a key to unlock their specific problem, it's your life fits in that keyhole, right? It happens, it doesn't happen if you never talk to people about the gospel, but as you do, you will find these situations pop up.

Philip was in such a situation here, okay? So let's start to put it together, because I really want to apply this. You have the Holy Spirit guiding, directing, what a comfort, okay? Holy Spirit's doing all this, Philip using skill, he's preparing the gospel, like preparing for the gospel message, his gospel prep is on, right? And then you have the gospel able to be kind of adapted to culture without changing, and it displays something, something very important to us, right? So very important in following the Holy Spirit, is that when you follow the Holy Spirit, if you are following the Holy Spirit, it takes skill and preparation to cooperate well.

Let me say that again, because it's really important. In following the Holy Spirit, okay, it takes skill and preparation to cooperate well. Let me tell you one thing I'm not saying, I'm not saying that you need some seminary degree to share the gospel with somebody. That's not what I'm saying at all. I'm not arguing for some kind of intellectual approach or anything like that. What I'm saying is that if you have nothing on your brain, if you aren't prepping the gospel message, if you aren't dealing with skill, if you aren't trying to understand how you come across to people, how you make friends, how you can start conversating, if you aren't thinking about that, if you aren't thinking about being a good listener, if that's not even on your brain, the Holy Spirit's gonna usher you into situations that you're not ready for and you're gonna feel dumb and the Holy Spirit's gonna use that situation

to bring correction to you to help sharpen you. Yes, the Holy Spirit's gonna do that, but wouldn't it be so much better if you learned to sharpen yourself first? So you can walk into a situation with a coworker who's dealing with like maybe that coworker was abused or something like that and you kind of find this out. But you know what, you're not ready for that. Spiritually, you're not ready for that. You're not praying for this person. You're not listening to them. You're doing a terrible job in conversation of just like hearing their pain. And it goes terribly wrong. And you just end up in the ditch where they just feel hurt and feel like you didn't listen to them and you're like, what? Huh, because you're not sharp. You're dull. You're a dull tool in the tool shed. Dull tools can still be used. The Holy Spirit can still use you, but the Holy Spirit's probably gonna have

to sharpen you first. When you cooperate with the Holy Spirit, that's a sharpening. That's where you begin to listen to what Holy Spirit's telling you, begin to learn from those things. So again, let me be super clear. I'm not saying you need a seminary degree. You need to know an ancient language. You need, no, I'm not saying. I am saying it'd be a good idea for you to have some kind of training, for you to have that kind of on the brain to be trained to make disciples well. So that whenever you do step into that situation and you are like, okay, I'm gonna talk to the guy in the coffee line. Like me, this coffee line's super long and the brisket's taking forever to take order. So we're just here, we're just talking. And this person's just like, I don't know, this person just seems like really spiritually open and there you are. You're in the moment, the Holy Spirit's nudging you.

Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, have the conversation. Tell them your story, tell them the gospel. Yes, yes, yes. And you're there and you're feeling all this anxiety and you're like, uh, uh, uh. And you haven't practiced anything and you don't know what to say first. You have anxiety in your heart because you didn't practice, because you didn't pay attention when you should have, because you didn't have your, you hadn't had your quiet time in like a year and a half. You're not praying for people. Like, you just, you feel unready. Is that so familiar to any of you? Is that familiar to me? I've been there.

Have you been there? You can nod, it's okay, yes. Have you been there? Has that been you before? Yes, okay, good, yeah, we're all in agreement. Like, we've been stupid, okay, yes. That's a healthy thing to admit. And following the Holy Spirit, it takes skill and preparation to cooperate well. And I don't say this to discourage you, I say this to encourage you. I say this to encourage you to sharpen.

And let me, let me say one more thing. The Holy Spirit does not need our help, okay. The Holy Spirit is a fire all on its own. The Holy Spirit can do anything the Holy Spirit wants to do without anybody present. But like Philip, we are all called into cooperation with the Holy Spirit. We are all called to bring fuel for the fire to burn. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, okay. We're bringing fuel for the fire to burn. Now I wanna get very specific with how to cooperate with the Holy Spirit. What I'm gonna do, just to apply this more specifically, I'm gonna take four kind of spheres of life, okay. And there's a lot of research on this, I'm not gonna bore you with it, but essentially it's people that are relationally very distant and then three layers in, right. So we're gonna talk about like strangers, then we're gonna talk about like neighbors and coworkers,

then we're gonna talk about family and friends, and then we're gonna talk about ourselves, okay. So strangers first, obviously. Strangers first, then we're gonna go into neighbors and coworkers, family and close friends, and then ourselves, okay. And we're gonna, each one, we're gonna take just the two factors very simply. We're gonna talk about gospel prep and then we're gonna talk about skill. The Holy Spirit is a constant, not a variable, but the variable is us. What kind of skill can we start sharpening? What kind of gospel prep can we engage in, okay. All right, so let's take strangers. And this is where Philip's example shines. We bring fuel for the fire. In gospel prep, when we are simply, we are training for the gospel story, the simple gospel story. You are training to tell the simple gospel story. And if you've never tried to do this, it's harder than it sounds.

Sometimes when you try to sum something up, you say words that don't go with what you're trying to say. And so it's a really, really, really, really good idea to not try to wing it, to not try to just remember, but to get something down that helps you tell the gospel story in a holistic way, but it's very simple and straightforward, okay. There's ways out there. They're not extremely difficult to find. But you are training for the simple gospel story. It takes study, it takes training, it takes practice, it didn't even take a lot of those things, but it takes some. And what you wanna do is you wanna nail down the words you're gonna say, your language, and you wanna nail down clarity, okay. So you are prepping training for the simple gospel story. Your skill in this moment is listening first. Francis Schaeffer, who's a great dead theologian, smart guy, trust me.

Francis Schaeffer was asked, hey, if you were given an hour to show the gospel with somebody, what would you do? And he said, I would spend the first 55 minutes listening. And I don't even think that's an exaggeration, right. Like, I don't even think he's wrong. I know he's making a point, I get it. But like, spend a lot of time listening. Listen first, ask honest questions first. The way you communicate the gospel message is part of the gospel message. Does that make sense? So if you're just going in there and you could care less if they believe the gospel or not, well, that's going to come out. It just is. Ask honest questions, respond to answers. Even if the response is, you know, I've never thought about that. I have no idea what the answer is, it's fine. They're gonna appreciate the honesty, promise. And look, I'm not promising rainbows and unicorns, but I am saying there is a way to show the gospel

simply that it just doesn't create more barriers. And that takes a little bit of practice to nail down. And it takes a little bit of listening. I've heard about a missionary in a Muslim country when he's giving the New Testament to somebody, which is kind of a big deal. When he gives the New Testament to somebody, what he does is he takes the New Testament, he kisses it, he touches it to his forehead, and he hands it to them. Why does he do that? Because the only other time a Muslim sees that in their culture is when somebody does that with the Quran, their holy book, right, Islamic holy book. They kiss it to the forehead. What's he trying to do? He's not trying to tell him this is just like the Quran. What he's communicating is this is a special gift that I'm giving you, right? What I'm giving you right now means a lot to me. And I wanna communicate that to you

in a way that's culturally appropriate. And so he kisses it, he touches his forehead, and he hands it to the New Testament. What is a way that you can do that? Because in America, we don't kiss books and touch them on the forehead, it doesn't work. If you did that, you would just be the weird guy at work. So don't do that, do something different, but there's a way for you to communicate value, right? There's a way for you to do that in a really kind of a concrete way. Bring fuel for the fire with strangers, imitate, fill up, practice to share simply, and listen first. Don't just rush into something because you're nervous. Okay, that's strangers. All right, this is neighbors and coworkers. This is like social situations, okay?

And I wanna encourage you, we need to bring fuel for the fire by preparing a short testimony, right? So gospel prep looks like your testimony over time, where you are sharing, you're still sharing simply, right? You're still getting to the gospel message. I'm not saying like, hold on to the gospel until they're totally right, that's fine. You can share the gospel simply, but what I'm telling you is that you know these people see you week in, week out. These people are with you, maybe on an every weekday kind of basis, okay? And so what you also need to consider is to share your testimony in bites. You need to share your testimony in a way. I got a friend who calls him, it's potato chip testimony, it's Dan Hey. He calls him potato chip testimony, one of our deacons. And it's a potato chip because you just eat one and you're like, oh, I'd like another one. I would like the whole bag, right?

I mean, so that's kind of how potato chips work, okay? So the idea is that you're giving your testimony in just bite-sized chunks, right? So that you're not, you've shared the gospel. They understand the gospel. You've kind of made that clear, but you are what you are doing, that you are just sharing your testimony. You're talking about like things you were praying for. You're talking about things that are happening. You're talking about like just the way that the Lord's been there for you kind of in these long, you know, in the long stretches of your history. Some of your histories are a lot longer stretches than others, but it doesn't matter. You've got a way that Jesus has been faithful to you and you can tell that story, right? So you wanna prep that. And also, like, if you drive every single conversation with your neighbor and your coworker into a gospel presentation,

into the same one every time, then they will dislike you and they will walk away from you. And you become the offense, not the gospel, right? There's gotta be a way for you to share the gospel, but then you're gonna see them tomorrow. You're gonna see them the next week. So prepare for short bites of your testimony, right? Do that. And this is your skill. Your skill is involvement. Involvement. Man, have your neighbors over for dinner. We just got new neighbors, so I'm convicted right now. I'm just saying before all of you, I'm convicted. We need to have those people over for dinner, right? We need to invite them into just a normal rhythm of our lives. We need to do that, okay? I'm not saying that all of you need to invite your neighbors over for dinner. It's not a terrible place to start, but it is something that is, it's just involvement. And so yeah, like, invite your neighbor

to a church event, right? Invite your neighbor into something, right? But also, attend important events for them, right? Do both. Involve yourself. Make yourself available to be involved in their lives. Testimony over time in skill is involvement, okay? All right. What does it look like for family and close friends? These are the people that we do life with, okay? Family and close friends, the people that are kind of, that were day in, day out, right? Cooperation with the Holy Spirit can look a little different here, and so I wanna encourage you to kind of two different ways. Because these are the people that you're studying the Bible with. These are the people that you're praying with. These are the people that are speaking into you, that they're influencing you, okay? So gospel prep looks like the gospel in normal conversation.

You need to get comfortable discussing your life in terms of gospel truth with a gospel lens, okay? And I'm not saying fake it. I'm not saying put it on. But it is a, it is a, kind of a discipline. It's a way to prepare. It's a way to think about your life that's a little bit different. And you need to get comfortable saying that. Some of you, the only comfortable place you feel like saying praise God is in a church building. That is to your detriment, and it's to the detriment of the people that you are around. Even Christians that you're around. You need to be comfortable discussing your life under a gospel lens, through gospel glasses, and to normalize that discussion.

To normalize things that you're frustrated with, that you're praying for, that you're learning about the Lord, like all of those things. And look, I don't mean that you like, you know, like that you Pollyanna everything. You know, like, oh, I'm just so blessed to be here. Like, no, look, some days you hate life and you hate everybody that you work with, and you need to tell the people that you are doing life with that you hate all of your coworkers, and you're thinking about moving to Arizona because you're just so fed up, okay? Like, that's okay to say. That's important. I help them encourage you, but be open about that thing. Say it. Here's the skill. Loyal presence. Your skill is loyal presence, okay? Faithful presence in their lives. We have home groups for this reason, okay? Home groups meet every week. They meet for eight weeks at a time, and they do that like kind of four different times

during the year. And so if you are, if you are, if you are doing the discipline, the skill of loyal presence, you are making space in your life to be known and to know other people. You're making space for that to happen. Some of you so busy, nobody ever gets to know you. Nobody's known by you. The only people that know you is friends from 10 years ago when you weren't as busy. If that's you, right, like, who are you making time for? We have home groups because, honestly, it's just a good way to kind of facilitate that for our church, but like, it's such a great thing. And just, I mean, you can tell, a lot of our people are in home groups. I'm not gonna ask for hands raised, but it's the most of the people in here. And they're in a home group, and it's because, in their home group, they can know people. They can be known by these people. They are practicing loyal presence.

They are listening to what they're doing. They're praying for people. They are learning how to be a Christian in front of somebody, as basic as that sounds. That's a skill that even some pastors don't have. I don't know if you know a lot of pastors. I do. They can be weird. And when you are having a conversation with them, anytime the conversation turns spiritual, if it starts to feel like a sermon, that weirds me out deeply, okay? If they're always sermonizing, if the only way they can talk about spiritual things is in a sermon, I'm creeped out. I'm just like, what? Okay, I'm here for this. Okay, I'm gonna go now. Like, it's creepy. Look, for some of you, man, the skill of just talking about your life and being open about what the Lord's doing in it, that's a brand new thing for you. And, man, hallelujah, that's good. Lean into that. Lean into that.

When you are sharing the gospel with your family and close friends, so let's say the people that you are sharing life with, the people that are under your roof or something are not, they don't follow the Lord, they don't know the Lord, they don't wanna know the Lord. My encouragement is obviously you need to, you can share the simple gospel, share your testimony in bits at a time, that's good. But also, and this might sound weird to you, just be a Christian around them, okay? So my dad is not a believer, right? I am scripturally obligated under the Lord to honor that man, to honor my father, okay? And I love him, I honor him, he's a good dude. My dad does not know the Lord, does not want to know the Lord, is not interested, all of that, okay? Living a life that is very much running away from the Lord. Well, I don't treat him like a hostile witness every conversation we have, okay?

That just gets tired and it's just not. But what I do say, I still discipline, I go to him for advice. I usually don't want my dad's advice, just being honest. I love you, dad, if you're listening to this, I love you. I just don't want your advice all the time. But as a discipline, I do, I ask him and I listen intently. And I see if the Holy Spirit's actually gonna speak through my dad's advice to me, right? But I do that as a discipline. I don't ask many of you for advice, okay? I don't, I don't, I don't, usually ask a lot of people for advice, but I do ask my dad, because it's the way that I honor him. For you, you're in specific situations. Maybe it's your kid, maybe it's your dad, maybe it's your mom, maybe it's a cousin, maybe it's a sibling. Or maybe it's just a really, really best friend that's been your best friend for 35 years, great. You've gotta figure out a way to talk about

being a Christian in front of them that is normal. Lastly, on your own, man, I'm overtime today, but here we go, last point, all right, on your own. I've said this a couple of different times, but if a church service is the only time where you're a Christian, that's just a, that's not even a beige flag, that's a red, that's a deep red flag, okay? Talk to somebody about that, all right? On your own, gospel preparation for your own person, like on your own, you need to experience the gospel yourself.

You need to interact with the Holy Spirit on your own, all right? Young people in here, if you're in junior high, high school, okay, look, I get it, your parents are helping you figure things out, they're helping you learn, they're setting up kind of parameters for you to not die, okay, that's a really good, that's a big blessing from the Lord, okay? You can have very imperfect parents, but if you're still alive, they've done something right, okay, they have.

But at some point, right, this can't be something that your parents drag you to. This has gotta be something that you experience on your own, right? A lot of times you need help doing that, don't try to do it on your own, that's a terrible idea. A church is here for a reason, okay? We're gonna have Senior Sunday in a couple weeks. When we do, we're gonna be praying over our high school seniors, we're gonna be launching those kids out into the wide world, okay? Trevor, I see you, Ronald, I see you, buddy. We're gonna be just kind of launching these people out, paying us a U2. And when we do, I was like, should I call on Peyton? When we do, part of that process is just helping, man, it's on them now. It was your faith a while back, but now it's kind of a little bit more real. Like, you're making decisions now. You get to decide how things go. That's kind of scary and wild and good,

but you will understand in a new way your need to depend on the Holy Spirit. That will come upon you quickly. And your church, let me just say from the bottom of my heart, your church is here for that. Your church family wants to be here for that. We don't want you to ask those questions on your own. We want to help, okay? On your own, you need to experience the gospel for yourself. Talk to the Holy Spirit, listen, pray, pour your heart out. Your skill, your skill, this is why we have life groups. Homework builds confidence. Say it again, homework builds confidence. If you are following the Holy Spirit, and following the Holy Spirit, you cannot fake it. You can't fake it. You can't come to church and act all prayed up without being prayed up. It's not gonna last. It's not gonna work. It's not gonna happen. You cannot fake it. Confidence comes from just reps. Man, just doing it again and again and again and again

and again and again and again and again and again until you're sick of saying again and then you keep going again and again and again and again and again and again and again. That's how much. That's how much you gotta do it. So look, praying in front of people, somebody's scared to death. You gotta start somewhere. Start with two or three trusted people. That's a great place to start praying in front of people. You wanna become a faithful steward? You don't know what that is? Like you don't know how to steward the money that you have and the resources that you have and you wanna do that? Okay, you need to learn the ropes from somebody. Do it in a life group. You wanna share the gospel with a coworker but you don't know how, you don't know where to start. Look, you need practice, you need reps, you need training. We're not out here as Christians telling everybody,

hey, Jesus loves you, go figure it out on your own. That's not loving, that's not the gospel. That's not what Jesus did with disciples and that's not what we're gonna do with each other. This is why we need a 21-day fast. This is why we need a fast. We need a renewed focus on what the Lord's calling us to do in being disciples and in making disciples. It's a lifestyle, it's different. It's something that we do on our own. What I want you to do, I'm gonna close quickly. What I want you to do,

I just want you to think about an area where it's strangers or with neighbors and coworkers with family and close friends or on your own, like where do you need to start? What's that first step for you? What's that look like? If you need help, and you do, my encouragement is, man, jump into a home group, jump into a life group. If you're not even sure where to start, man, come talk to me. This is why we have our time of response back there because I'm just kind of there and open and ready to answer questions. I don't care if you're five years old or if you're 95 years old, man, we all got questions.

I just want you to be brave enough to ask them, brave enough to take that step forward. So I'm gonna pray for us as we sing and then even as we're singing, as the service is closed down, I'm still gonna be back there and I wanna just encourage you kind of toward that end to just come and hang out and talk, ask questions, receive prayer, do whatever you need to do. I'm not gonna make a spectacle of you, you don't have to come to the front after that or anything weird, it's just back there, it's fine. So let me pray for us. Jesus, thank you so much for this morning. I pray that you would help us. I pray that as we are continuing to just be disciples

who make disciples, that you would help us to kind of see it, that you'd help us to be encouraged by it, that you'd help us to push forward in it. Help us to just take whatever that next step is, even if it's just knowing you, even if it's just admitting that we can't do this on our own and that we need to follow you with our lives. Help us just admit that. In this name we pray, amen.