Acts Chapter 8:26-34

Do you realize this whole book points to Jesus? Jesus is in the book.

He's in the whole book. I could take you through here and in the beginning you look at Adam and Eve and they fell and God took animals and he slew them. He sacrificed them and made them coats of skin shedding the blood covering their sins.

Picture of Jesus. You go to the next chapter Abel and Cain. Abel was a keeper of sheep and he made an offering to the Lord that the Lord received.

He offered him a lamb, a picture of the Lamb of God which was Jesus. You go into Genesis chapter 22 Abraham and Isaac. You see Isaac placing the wood for a sacrifice on those back going up a hill. Just the way Jesus did many years later placed the wood on his back for a sacrifice and he went up the hill. As a matter of fact I can show you a scriptures the same hill.

He's in the book. The life lesson here the Bible points us and everyone else to Jesus. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is a senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. When we look at the Bible whether it's the Old Testament or the New it points us to one person and that person is Jesus. Today Pastor David explains how this works as he continues in the book of Acts chapter 8.

Here's David McGee with his teaching Arise and Go. Turn with me to Acts chapter 8. We're talking about the early church and part of that is really you know what is it that we're supposed to be doing.

So that's what we're doing. We don't see it as the perfect church but we see it as a model as a representative of what we're supposed to be doing. A lot of times sadly we look at the early church and go what must have been nice to be in the early church. You can be active and watching God work in your life through your life just the way the people in the book of Acts did. The Bible tells us that God doesn't change.

He's saying yesterday today and forever. So this same God that's working in this book of Acts is active in this fellowship as well. Now we're gonna really start to teach him with verse 30 but for context's sake let's pick it up with verse 26. Acts chapter 8 verse 26 says, Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip saying arise and go towards the south along the road which is down which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.

This is desert. Verse 27, So he arose and went and behold a man of Ethiopia a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians who had charge of all her treasury and had come to Jerusalem to worship. He was returning and sitting in his chariot he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the spirit said to Philip go near and overtake this chariot. Verse 30, So Philip ran to him and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah and said do you understand what you are reading? So again context's sake, Philip is in Samaria there's this awesome awesome meetings taking place people getting saved awesome time going on and God says to Philip won't you go out to the desert. This is important to understand this context because when Philip's in the desert and God says go speak to this person I want you to notice let's look back at verse 30.

So Philip moped on over there complaining the whole way that he was in the rotten stinking desert. Is that what it says to? No that's not what it says. It says he ran to him. Hmm I like that.

Why? Because he was filled with enthusiasm. Filled with enthusiasm. He was an encourager filled with courage. That en is from the Greek it is like our word in and in courage is being filled with courage and enthusiastic is from being filled with God in Theo. In Theo. Now do you think of most believers as being enthusiastic? Well if you go to church here you do because you know we want to be enthusiastic about serving God.

We want to be enthusiastic about walking with the Lord. Let me share with you who one of my heroes is. Tigger. I love Tigger.

If you're a visitor you're going oh no what have I gotten myself into? We're all going to sing the Tigger now and we're gonna sing the Tigger song and it's gonna be up on the screen and no I'm kidding I'm joking. But why is Tigger a hero to me? Because he's so enthusiastic. And see the thing is I think far too many Christians are more like Eeyore.

It's kind of convicting isn't it? And if you're like Eeyore you know what don't expect to be contagious. When you invite people to church are you like Tigger being very enthusiastic are you like Eeyore? Well music's too loud and he talks too long you want to go?

I didn't think so. I mean if you're saying that don't expect it to be contagious but if you're filled with enthusiasm that is contagious. And see this is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice in it and be glad. It's so cool so many of you share the stories of you know what you you know I was talking with a couple yesterday and they've been here for a few weeks and I said well you know where where did you go before here? And they said we didn't go anywhere. We saw all the people and we got curious we came in and we it's just very different.

Now we're here. And so many of you have shared stories about how you're excited once again to becoming a church. Man that's such a blessing and that's the way that it's supposed to be. As we gather together we worship together and there's nothing in the world like that. And as we look into God's Word and and God speaks to us it's just an awesome awesome thing.

So we should be filled with Theo filled with God filled with enthusiasm and encouragement. So Philip says to the eunuch do you understand what you're reading in verse 31 and the eunuch said and he said how can I unless someone guides me and he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. Isn't it neat how God works? God told Philip to leave the desert I mean told him to leave Samaria to go to the desert. He had already arranged the whole thing.

He'd already set the whole thing up. And he goes in the desert and imagine Philip's joy when he looks over and he sees this guy reading out loud the book of Isaiah. He's like oh praise God this is why I'm here. Do you understand that's the way God works? That God will go before you? The life lesson here God goes before you when you were following him.

God goes before you when you are following him. If you've ever thought that you're supposed to kick the door down for God I'm sorry you're wrong. You're supposed to look for open doors and too many times we act like you know God's mercenaries or something we're gonna kick the door down and we're gonna whether these people want to hear about Jesus or not we're gonna tell them. I don't think that's the Lord. I think God opens doors and and you know what if you ask God to open doors for you he will open doors and when he does open doors walk through them and it's just that easy.

Here's the thing too and I love this how can I unless someone guides me? The thing that we do here teaching verse by verse you don't find that a lot. That's sad you used to but that's what we do meaning we teach verse by verse wherever I stop today we pick it up next week and this is I think by far the best way to learn the Bible. Now some of you may have been in churches where that you know you come in and and they did all sorts of hoopla they you know took four offerings and did this and da da da da da da da da da da da da da and it got to the teaching and and it was like 10 minutes long and there was one verse and you wonder why you don't have a deeper knowledge of your Bible. You weren't taught the Bible. A sad fact is many of you weren't even encouraged to read it and to study it. Well here we do encourage you to read it we do encourage you to study it and you know and if at no other time during the week you're that you're in the Bible I'm gonna read it to you on Sunday morning. I'm gonna read it to you on Thursday night. Now I encourage you to be in it outside of that but know that my heart is to be your guide if you will to scriptures. You're listening to pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge. He'll be right back with more in just a moment but I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on cross the bridge com there's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved you have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior you need people to pray for them you need someone to present God's Word to them every day we're presenting God's Word to them here on cross the bridge with Pastor David McGee we can pray for them as well just by simply going to cross the bridge calm and click on the pray for the lost button all you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior click on submit and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones and what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus here's a word from associate pastor DA Brown we want to take just a minute to pray for some cities in our listening audience specifically Merlin Pendleton Portland Powell Butte Prairie City and Redmond Oregon Lord we thank you for the people living in these cities Lord we pray that you would draw them into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ father we pray for their homes that there would be unity and love that they would follow you with all their heart soul and strength as a family Lord we pray for the pastors and churches in these areas God that you would anoint them to teach your word verse by verse even Lord that you give the pastor's wisdom and discernment how to serve and love the people that God brings Lord we love you we thank you for these cities and we pray that you do a mighty work in the name of Jesus amen amen thank you brother and now let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse verse 32 the place in the scripture which he read was this he was led as a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb before it sure is silent so he opened not his mouth and his humiliation as justice was taken away and who will declare his generation for his life is taken from the earth so the eunuch answered Philip and said I ask you of whom does the Prophet say this of himself or some other man so again this passage is in Isaiah it's what's referred to as the suffering servant passage and and understand it is he's quoting from the Septuagint which was the Greek translation of the Old Testament our Bible is based upon the original Hebrew most of our Bibles are based on the text this receptor says the complicated name but he's sharing this passage and this passage is pointing to Jesus do you realize this whole book points to Jesus you know we talk on Thursday night we're going through the Hebrew Scriptures what people refer to as the Old Testament we go through there and many Thursday nights people get saved they're born again they asked Jesus to forgive them of their sins now that probably that probably freaks some of you out because you're like Old Testament how can somebody get saved off the Old Testament Jesus is in the book he's in the whole book I could take you through here and and in the beginning you look at Adam and Eve and they fell and God took animals and he slew him he sacrificed them and made them coats of skin shedding the blood covering their sins picture of Jesus you go to the next chapter Abel and Cain Abel was a keeper of sheep and he made an offering to the Lord that the Lord received he offered him a lamb a picture of the Lamb of God which was Jesus you go into Genesis chapter 22 Abraham and Isaac you see Isaac placing the wood for a sacrifice on those back going up a hill just the way Jesus did many years later place the wood on his back for a sacrifice and he went up the hill as a matter of fact I can show you a scripture is the same hill he's in the book the life lesson here the Bible points us and everyone else to Jesus the Bible points us and everyone else to Jesus and and I can you can just go on I mean from Genesis to Revelation you look at the feast you look at the Feast of Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement I just speaks of Jesus you look at the Passover speaks of Jesus he's throughout this book and this book is all about God created us God loves us we turned our back on him and fell away and God won't rest until he wins us back that's the whole thing summed up the whole book points to Jesus so the suffering servant passage you realize that's what Jesus did I mean we think of him as a teacher we think of him as a healer we think of him as Savior we think of him as Lord we think of him as resurrected one we think of him as creator he's all those things and and that's good we think of him those ways but he was also a servant a servant who got down on his knees to wash the feet of the disciples pastor why are you mentioning that well because the book of Acts refers to him several times as a servant I'll give you this for other places acts 313 says the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go acts 326 says to you first God having raised up his servant Jesus sent him to bless you and turning away every one of you from your iniquities acts 427 for truly against your holy servant Jesus whom you anointed both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together acts 430 Acts chapter 4 verse 3 by stretching out your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus what's my point well have you been here for very long it's one you've heard before I want to be like Jesus I don't necessarily mean I want to look like him I I want to be like him from the inside out I want to follow him as I look in this book and I see things about him I want my life to begin to imitate him see if I sat up here this morning I said you know what I am just like Michael Jordan you'd sit there no you use members a will pastor how tall are you I'm 510 okay well you know I'm thinking Michael Jordan will taller than that you play professional basketball no never play professional basketball never played college ball but I'm just like Michael Jordan usually ain't no no no you're not right and if you sit here this morning you tell me that you're a follower of Jesus but you're not serving who or what are you following if Jesus was a servant himself and look if anybody ever walked this earth who deserved to be worshipped and praised and shouldn't have had to serve it was him but you know what he did he gave us a model even in the fact that he was baptized by somebody who their very salvation was dependent upon him that's how much humility yet and yet we look at that don't go yeah you know I don't know I don't want Christianity's kind of spectator sport no it's not we're supposed to be serving that's what we're supposed to be doing life lesson here every person who is following Jesus should be serving others and a caring and committed way and is my job to encourage you in the service strongly let me run through just a few verses Hebrews chapter 10 verse 24 says think of ways to encourage one another to outburst of love and good deeds that's part of what I do when I teach I want to encourage it outburst of love and good deeds Titus 2 7 says in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works and doctrine showing integrity reverence and incorruptibility a pattern of good works Titus 2 14 who gave himself for us that he might redeem us from every lawless deed and purified for himself his own special people zealous for good works looking for something to do not oh wait me I gotta do something no zealous looking for a way to express your gratitude and your thankfulness to Jesus to others the Bible says that God gave us the fivefold ministry in the book of Ephesians why that the equipping of the Saints to do the work of ministry now there's a couple of really cool things in there Ephesians 4 12 4 13 4 13 a couple of cool things number one you guys are called Saints yeah how cool is that I mean you ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins he does it and even though you may stumble and even though you may still fall occasionally God looks down and says you're a saint I've been called a lot of things in my life I had not many people called me a saint but he did and it says for the work of the ministry oh now this is this is I'm gonna go from preaching the meddling now for equipping of the Saints for the work of the ministry you may have been brought up thinking well what happens is I go to a church and there's a staff that works there that serves me and that's it that's unscriptural what the Bible says is I'm supposed to teach you guys to equip you to do the work of the ministry so next time remember that even if you get upset that I you know maybe a friend of yours or maybe a family member you know somebody they were sick and nobody prayed for him did you pray for him see I'm supposed to be equipping you guys to do the work of the ministry and and when this happens it's a beautiful thing Titus 3 8 this is a true saying I want you to give special emphasis to these matters so that those who believe in God may be concerned with giving their time to doing good deeds which are good and useful for everyone the scriptures talk about this guy's I say this is what we're supposed to be doing this isn't me just getting on a tirade it's this is you know this is the suffering servant of Jesus this is the servant that he's listed in the book of Acts and if we're following him we're to be serving well I serve at work well that's great you serve at work but I think peremptory the concept is that we serve in the local body and we serve one another so that we can reach as many people as we can yeah Titus 3 14 says and let our people also learn to maintain good works to meet urgent needs that they may not be unfruitful see when you do good things when you do good works you are being fruitful now and I've talked about works and good deeds but let me be clear is that the way you gain entrance into heaven absolutely not you can't do it you can't be good enough you can't do enough to earn your entrance in the heaven you're given entrance by grace when you ask Jesus to forgive you ever since he doesn't look at you and go well I don't know you worthy to be forgiven no he doesn't do that he looks at you and said you know what anybody that comes in to me I will know why it's cast out if you're asking me I'll forgive you and God begins to change us from the inside out and then because we're grateful that should lead us to good works but we're saved by grace but it's interesting in the passage that and some of you are probably familiar with Ephesians 2 8 9 the passage that speaks about us being saved by grace leads us right into the fact that we're supposed to be doing things for the Lord Ephesians 2 8 through 10 says for by grace you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves it is the gift of God not of works lest anyone should boast grace salvation verse 10 for we are his workmanship workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them once we're saved we're supposed to be doing good works we're supposed to be serving one another active in the local body and here's the thing to understand this your entrance in the heaven is by grace are we clear it's by grace alone okay when you get up there they're not gonna say well did you serve and sparkle or something you get in but what happens then when you get in what will you hear well done good and faithful spectator that's not what it says well done now good and faithful servant do you know who that's gonna be said to people who are serving and if you get up there and you go well yeah you know I was getting ready to start serving and you know and now that I'm dead I'm ready to live for you Lord and I don't want you going up to heaven and going hey I'm here well were you serving me huh what do you mean serving you what were you serving me were you serving the children ministry doing something like that huh I never heard I was supposed to do something like that he's gonna say where'd you go to church who's your pastor he didn't tell you about this and if I didn't tell you he'd be looking for me and I'm in trouble I'm not gonna be in trouble if you won't be in trouble you be in trouble but I'm gonna tell you the way it is I'm gonna tell you what this book says about serving him the thing about rewards like don't sit there and go I don't know I've never heard that before and some of you may be thinking that Matthew 16 is the words of Jesus he says for the Son of Man will come in the glory of his father was with his angels then he will reward each according to his works James has even stronger language 226 says just as the body is dead without a spirit so also faith is dead without good deeds James 2 17 so you see it isn't enough just to have faith faith that doesn't show itself by good deeds is no faith at all it is dead and useless so my question is do you have a dead faith or do you have a living faith if you have a living faith you can think back on this week and think you know I came in the church and cleaned and that was cool and I had painted and I did this and I was doing children's ministry and I shared my faith and called somebody encouraged them and emailed somebody you can point to think that's a living vibrant faith that's what the world's looking for far too long the world has looked at the church and seen a dead inactive faith and said I don't get it what do you want to show them I want to show them a real faith a faith that a faith that works not that though they may have asked Jesus to forgive them of their sins they're still not giving their lives away occasionally I'll hear somebody say well I would serve but I just don't have the time no sorry it's not a priority for you because we're all given seven days a week 24 hours a day so what you're saying is that the people your time is more important than the people that do serve here and if you're still trying to figure out how God can fit into your schedule he's given you your life he woke you up this morning he gave you the breath that you took when you opened your eyes this morning he's the very God that's controlling your heartbeat right now and you're telling me you can't find time to serve him friend do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven you can know right now I want to lead you in a short simple prayer simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him please pray this prayer with me out loud right now dear Jesus I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven and I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life and I've done wrong things I have sinned and I'm sorry please forgive me of all those things please give me the power to live for you all of my days in Jesus name amen friend if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible you've been forgiven you've been born again so congratulations friend you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make God bless you if you prayed that prayer with David for the first time we'd love to hear from you visit cross the bridge calm and click on God's plan for new life to receive our first steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ God wants to bless you and encourage your relationships today whether you are married considering marriage or engaged to be married we have a resource for you pastor David wants to send you his four-part video series allies stay allow God to minister to your marriage through his word today this was an unforgettable weekend that encouraged many marriages and you and your spouse can be encouraged to allies stay friends is our thanks for your generous gift today to help more people hear God's truth on this station and beyond so they can cross the bridge from death to life please visit cross the bridge calm today to give a gift of any amount and get your copy of allies stay friends well da before we go what are some ways that we can bless our listeners each day you can wake up with encouragement from pastor David to the Word of God with his email devotional life lessons to consider a daily reading plan and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee those are terrific and it's easy and it's free so folks sign up today at cross the bridge calm thanks again for listening and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse through the book of Acts