The First Short-Term Mission Trip

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Here's my question for you. Do you know and walk with the Holy Spirit that way? When's the last time you heard him speak to you? You see, sometimes in acts he's going to speak through a word of prophecy given by somebody else in the church. Sometimes it's through a divine vision. Sometimes it appears to be just a divine yearning that God puts into your heart. My question for you is very simply, are you aware of where the Holy Spirit is speaking to you? Give or wonder, does God speak to ordinary believers like you and me or just to the super spiritual? That's our subject today on Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. And I'm your host, Molly Vitovich. We're looking in the book of Acts at the life of an ordinary guy named Philip who heard and answered the Holy Spirit's call. Pastor J.D.

is continuing his series called SIT. And if you've missed any of the previous messages, you can find them online at jdgreer.com. Now let's get started. Pastor J.D. titled today's message, the first short-term mission trip. Acts chapter 8 verse 26. Acts 8 26, if you want to find it there in your Bible, we left Philip in the middle of a revival in Samaria, you recall. Peter and John, who were the church leaders, had just been called in to validate what Philip had seen. So now, verse 26, it's time for Philip to move on.

And I honestly just cannot get over that. God's cutting edge as lay people. He just brings in apostles to validate and support and clean up. You want to make your pastor happy? You just call me in to validate what you've already done.

That will make me happy, all right? Verse 26, 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. And then Luke, the narrator of Acts, adds, this was a deserted place. Gaza was this nasty little out of the way town, like one of those little redneck towns you drive through on the way from here to Myrtle Beach. You know what I'm talking about where there's like usually a Hardee's, a post office, maybe a laundromat and a gas station.

That's the entire town. But then unexplainably, for no reason at all, the speed limit changes from 65 to 25 and there's like nine police cars hiding behind the billboard and they don't even give you time to slow down and bam, they're pulling you over. And as they're writing you the ticket, you're like, what are you trying to protect here?

Like, what am I trying to slow down for? But not that this has ever happened to me personally, but you know what I'm talking about, right? Gaza is that kind of town. It's just this little out of the way town. It's a one-stop-light town.

Nobody really goes through it. Plus, it is a Philistine town. And you remember the Philistines, right?

They're not friends with the Jews. Who was the most famous Philistine of all? Huh? That's right. Starts with G, rhymes with Goliath. Goliath, that's right. So this has been longtime enemies of the Jews. Bottom line, this is way out of the comfort zone for a Jew.

All right, Philip is a Jew. It's way out of his comfort zone and it's very inconvenient, by the way, to get there. He had to walk 165 miles to get there. People sometimes complain about the inconvenience of traveling on mission trips. Like, oh, we had to travel like 14 hours in a plane, had a three-hour layover. When you get to heaven, Philip's going to be like, I walked 165 miles on my mission trip.

You shut up, okay? Verse 27, and so he rose and went. And there passing through Gaza was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace who was queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all of her treasure.

Now today, Ethiopia is not that big of a country, but in that day, Ethiopia just referred to everything south of the Nile River in Africa. All right, so we're talking a huge area. And this guy was the treasurer of the entire region. This is one powerful dude.

Eunuch means that he had been castrated because if you were going to work in the palace with the queen, they wanted to make sure that you didn't get any frisky ideas, so they took care of that. And if you have more questions about what I'm referring to, then your campus pastors have volunteered. Just stick around after the service and answer all those questions, okay?

So you can ask them. This guy had come to Jerusalem to worship. For whatever reason, he had become curious about the God of the Jews.

It's not like Ethiopia was short on religions. They had hundreds of religions in that section of Africa, but they worshiped things like the sun. They worshiped animals.

And however it happened, this guy became very interested. He started to see that, yes, these are wonderful things, the sun and the animals, but they can't be the source of everything. And he heard about this God that the Jews worshiped that was a different kind of God. He was a God that was separated from his creation, a God from whom everything came, and then a God who got involved in his creation. And he wanted to know about it, so he travels to Jerusalem to learn, all right?

Verse 28, and as he was returning, seated in his chariot. Now, real quick, I grew up in a church where we did philanthropy. Anybody remember this? Philanograph? And so etched in my mind is the picture of the Ethiopian eunuch. He's basically standing in this half turtle shell, semicircle.

He's standing there with the range, and there's a guy beside him playing the ukulele. That's the image that I get. In fact, we went back and I think this is basically what I remember from Sunday school. Sadly, I tell you, that is not the chariot. This guy is royalty. It is 1200 miles from Jerusalem to Ethiopia.

This dude is not standing in the back of a half turtle shell with somebody playing the ukulele. These things, a chariot was a couch that about eight guys carried on their shoulders, and this guy would ride there for 1200 miles. That's how he's going, okay?

So get that image in your mind and get rid of the philanthropy. And he was reading the prophet Isaiah, and then the spirit said to Philip, now stop real quick. Here's what I want to ask you. How did the spirit say that to Philip? We don't know.

We don't know. It does not tell us, but one of the things that you're going to find in Acts is that the Holy Spirit speaks to the church and not just the apostles. He speaks to guys like Philip, and that's going to be really key in getting the church into where the church needs to be. In fact, the Holy Spirit is mentioned 59 times in the book of Acts.

In about 40 of those, he is speaking. The spirit said to Philip, Acts 10 19, the spirit said to Peter, go down and talk to these men. Acts 13 2, the Holy Spirit said to the church, separate me, Barnabas, and Saul for ministry.

Here's my question for you. Do you know and walk with the Holy Spirit that way? When's the last time you heard him speak to you? You see, sometimes in Acts, he's going to speak through a word of prophecy given by somebody else in the church. Sometimes it's through a divine vision.

Sometimes it appears to be just a divine yearning that God puts into your heart. My question for you is very simply, are you aware of where the Holy Spirit is speaking to you? When is the last time, when is the last time you had a sense that he is sending you to a certain place or calling you to something or putting something into your heart to say to others? I realize there are some differences in how the apostles rolled in Acts and how we roll today. I get that, but you cannot tell me that the only book in the Bible that describes how the church is to follow the Holy Spirit gives a fundamentally different pattern than how we're supposed to follow him today. See, I'm just going to say that I think many of you have never even started to listen, and so you are not moving in these ways because you're not even aware that there's a God that's dynamically involved. God's like an absentee teacher that gave you an assignment 2,000 years ago, and you've got to get it done before he comes back. God doesn't want you to do the Great Commission for him.

He wants you to do it with him, and he's going to do it through you in the Holy Spirit. So he said, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you're reading? And he said, well, how can I unless someone guides me? So he invited Philip to come up. See the chariot with the couch?

Come up in there and sit with him. And you know who was really ticked off about that? They guys that were carrying this thing for 1,200 miles. Are you kidding me? We're going 1,200 miles on foot, and this guy's inviting in hitchhikers? All right, here's what you should see. In the midst of all that is going on in Samaria, great big crowds, lots of people coming to Christ, God calls Philip, who was really involved in this revival, to walk 165 miles down to a nasty little town called Gaza, because there he has been preparing one guy.

One guy. And you know that had to be confusing for Philip, right? Because God was using him. He'd never been more alive.

He'd never felt like he was more useful. And then the Spirit of God says, I need you to go over there. But God was about to do something really awesome. And see, there are some of you in similar situations, because you can't figure out exactly why things are going the way they are.

And I'm telling you, it might be about something that's a lot bigger than you. In fact, I told you the other week that I just finished up rereading the biography of the guy who planted our church. His name was Sam James.

Sam James was called to go to Vietnam as a missionary in 1960. He started to make plans to go, he and his wife. They needed to give birth to their baby, and then they were going to, you know, as a family go.

And when they gave birth to their baby, their son had a really significant, very serious heart defect that slowed them down for about two and a half years. And they were very confused by this, because they're like, God, we clearly know that you called us to go to Vietnam. We know that we want to get there. We know that time is urgent. You know, and then we have a son who has this heart defect, and we got to take a couple years to get this under control.

Why? In those two years, he planted this church. You and I are sitting here because of a heart defect given to a son that he probably didn't understand at the time. That's what God does, is God rearranges your life because it's usually about something that's going on that's bigger than you. All right, so here's this guy. You got this guy, the Ethiopian eunuch, whom God has also been preparing, and so God brings the two of them together.

And if I could just say this really quickly to some of you that are listening to me right now at all of our campuses, this has been happening to you. You're like the Ethiopian eunuch, and there have been things that have been happening in your life, questions that have been coming up in your heart, and you're not even sure exactly why they're there. Questions about life, questions about God.

Maybe you have kids, and you're looking at them saying, I got to figure out how to lead my kids in the right way. And you think a lot of this stuff is random, but it is not random. It is the Spirit of God. And then what happened then is God introduced you to a Philip who came into your life, and maybe they're sitting right beside you right now.

All right, maybe it's got a little awkward, right, because you're like, this is the Philip, you know. And they started to talk to you about God, and you think it's all random, and you're wondering what's happening, and I'm telling you it's not random at all. The Spirit of God was working in you, the Spirit of God was working in them, and then he brought the two together because that's just how God works. I want you to understand that you're not here accidentally this weekend. You're here because the Spirit of God put a question in your heart and brought you to this place.

He's got a Philip sitting beside you and now a Philip standing in front of you, just a guy with God's word saying, oh yeah, I can tell you what you've been reading. I sat next to a lady one time on an airplane as I was going on a mission trip with the Summit Church. We were headed to somewhere in East Asia, and our first stop was Taiwan.

It's an 11-hour flight, I think, from here to there. I sat next to a lady. She's about 55, and I strike up a conversation with her, and I said, where are you going? She said, I'm going to Shanghai.

I said, what are you going to do in Shanghai? She said, well, she says, I know this is a little strange for a 55-year-old woman to say, but she says, I'm at a place in my life where I just really feel like I'm trying to find myself. She goes, I have a lot of questions about life. She says, I have a lot of questions about God, and so I'm going to Shanghai to try to find God. My first thought was, somebody put you up to this. You know somebody from our church and say this to him.

I wasn't sure of that, so I was like, well, I'll play along. I said, oh, is he going to Shanghai to find God? She said, yeah.

I said, are you sure he lives there? And she laughed. She said, well, not really. She said, but I'm hoping maybe I can find some answers. I said, well, how's it going?

How's the search? She said, well, it's not real good. She said, actually, this is my second time there. I got there.

I started the process, but then some things happened in my family, and I needed to come back and deal with some health issues for my father. And she said, I'm just really confused. She said, but while I was home in the United States, I turned on the radio and I heard this guy named, I think his name was David Jeremiah.

Now, if you know who David Jeremiah is, he's kind of a famous pastor, has a radio ministry. And she said, he sounded like he knew God. So I went out and bought a book that he wrote, and she says, and she pulled it out of her bag. She says, David Jeremiah book about the mountain knowing God. And she said, I said, well, how's the book?

Are you enjoying reading it? She said, she said, well, kind of, she says, but I'm just so confused. She said, I just do not understand how all this works. And she says, I prayed to God, if he's there, God, if you're there, could you show me the truth about you? And could you show me how to know you? And I'm looking at her thinking, and I said, ma'am, I don't know how to tell you this, but your prayers have been answered. We got 11 hours, so where do you want to start, right? And we talked for about three hours.

I'm on the plane there, and she trusted Christ. Now, I know what you're thinking when you hear me say that. You're thinking, why does this stuff never happen to me? Because you never put yourself out there.

That's why it never happens to you. I'm not anything special. I'm just a guy with a Bible like you, like Philip. And one of the things I pray to the Spirit of God almost every day is, Spirit of God, would you put me in places where you've been preparing Ethiopian eunuchs, and then just tell me when it's time to talk, and I'll just open my mouth, and I'll jump out there, and sometimes it's awkward, but then I see that you have been doing things, and this all is sovereignly ordered. See, the point, though, that I want to make, I want to make sure that those of you who are not believers, I want to make sure that you hear this, is you understand that none of this is random, that God has been seeking you the way he's been seeking the Ethiopian eunuch.

And I know some of you are like, oh, this is what I hate about you Christians. You're always trying to convert us. Yes, we are, okay?

The cat is out of the bag, all right? We are trying to convert you because we believe, like Philip did, that Jesus rose from the dead, and he died for your sin, and that he can save you. And so, yes, of course we want to tell you that, right?

So I'm glad that you're here, and we're not going to force you to believe, but we believe that the Spirit of God has orchestrated this whole thing, and that's why you're here, all right? Now, the passage of the scripture that the eunuch was reading was this, like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shear is a silence, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied to him. That's a quotation from Isaiah 53, which was written about 800 years before Jesus was born. And it is a prophecy that the Messiah, the Messiah would stand before his executioners. He would be accused of the most heinous crimes, yet he would remain silent.

Here's what is significant about that. Jesus, when he stood before Pilate, and when he stood before the religious leaders, and he was accused of the most heinous crimes, just like Isaiah said he would be, remained silent. What does that mean in a court of law when somebody is accusing you of something and you remain silent?

It means you are pleading guilty. But Jesus was not pleading guilt for his own sin because he had no sin to be guilty of. He was standing there silent because behind Pilate and behind the Jewish leaders who were pointing at him, Jesus saw God the Father pointing at him, accusing him of the sins that I had done. So Isaiah 53 explains that he would be wounded for my transgressions, he would be bruised for my iniquities, the punishment that brought me peace would be upon him, and by his stripes I would be healed. And so Isaiah 53 is about the fact that the eunuch and all of us who had sinned, Jesus stood in our place, okay?

All right? Bearing shame and scoffing rude, in my place condemned he stood, sealed my pardon with his blood. Hallelujah, what a Savior.

Right? And so Isaiah, the eunuch says to the Phil, about whom I ask you, does the prophet say this? Is this about himself or is it about somebody else? Can I tell you one of the reasons I think he was so interested? You see, when the eunuch got to Jerusalem, there was a sign out front of the temple, and this is 100% accurate archaeology, Jewish history tells us, a sign up front of the temple that said, no lame, no diseased, no blind, and no eunuchs may enter into this temple. The man had gotten to the temple and could not even walk into the court of the Gentiles because they believe that was a sign of defilement and the judgment of God, and he had been turned away and not even been able to go in. And so now he is curious because here's why he's curious. I know that somebody had to explain to him, this is probably why he's reading Isaiah 53, is you look down from Isaiah 53, do this later, you look down a couple chapters, you get to Isaiah 56, and what you'll see is that in Isaiah 56, Isaiah says, God says through Isaiah, let the eunuch no longer say, behold, I am a dry tree, for thus says the Lord to the eunuchs who will embrace and receive my covenant, I'll give you a house in my name better than sons and daughters and an everlasting name that shall never be cut off. And this guy probably heard about that and thought there is hope in there for me, right? Because eunuchs, I don't know how he became a eunuch.

Some people volunteered for it because they wanted to work in the Queen's palace and it was the way to get there. I'm sure he gets in there and then he maybe has regrets about it. I know I'm talking to a group of people that some of you are in situations that will be analogous to where the eunuch is, and you look at your life, when you look at the scars that are all over it, and you think I am barred from the presence of God. Oh, but he was wounded for your transgressions and bruised for your iniquities. So let out the eunuch say, I am cut off from God forever. Let not the adulterer say, I'm cut off from God forever.

Let not those who have made a mess out of their life say, I am cut off from God forever. Because he was wounded in your place, guilty, vile and helpless, we spotless lamb of God, was he full of atonement, can it be? Hallelujah, what a savior. So Philip opened his mouth and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, see, here's 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. See, salvation is very simple. Doesn't require ceremony, doesn't require church, doesn't require confirmation class, doesn't require a priest. Salvation is very simple. It's just an offer that God gives. Jesus died in your place, and if you will trust him as your salvation, then his finished work will become yours. Salvation is basically two declarations. Number one, Jesus has paid for all your sin in your place. Number two, Jesus is Lord.

It's a very simple decision. You believe that Jesus did it all in your place and you trust what he did is your salvation. You believe that he is Lord and so you surrender to him in repentance. I've compared it before to sitting down in a chair. The chair that you're sitting on right now at whatever campus you're at, you made a decision to sit down in the chair, which means you decided you were no longer going to trust your legs to keep you up. You were going to sit down into the chair. You can only be in one of two relationships to the chair.

You can be standing in your own strength or you can be reclining resting on the chair. You can only be in one of two relationships to Jesus Christ. You're either sitting down trusting that he did everything necessary to save you or you are standing hoping you can be righteous and good enough to earn your acceptance before God. You're either sitting down in submission to the Lord Jesus Christ or you're standing in control of your own life. This guy said, I want to be seated in the Lord Jesus Christ.

There's water because that's a very simple follow-up step. You get baptized. Baptism we describe like the wedding ring. It's about wearing this wedding ring does not make me married to Veronica. It just shows you that I am married. All right, when you get baptized, you are saying to the world, I have decided to sit down and to sit down and to repent and believe in the finished work of Christ. Verse 39, and when they came up out of the water, by the way, did you see that came up out of the water? Ain't no sprinkling going on here. I'm just going to throw that out there.

All right. The spear of the Lord carried Philip away and the eunuch saw him no more. And the eunuch went on his way rejoicing, but Philip found himself at Azotus. First of all, what just happened to Philip?

I mean, can you believe this? This is pre-Star Trek teleportation, which is great for Philip because he didn't have to walk the 165 miles back to Jerusalem. But also consider this, this had to be a great platform from which the Ethiopian eunuch got to explain the gospel to the guys in the chariot, right? Because they hadn't heard the conversation because they'd been up there, but all of a sudden there's two guys in the water and then one guy flies away and the Ethiopian eunuch says, you want to know what just happened?

I can tell you what just happened. And so for 1100 miles, that's how long they had to go, this eunuch shares the gospel with his servants. Here's why I say that. The ancient historian, Eusebius, says that this eunuch and his band of servants went on to plant the very first church in Africa.

Isn't that great? Listen, this is one white guy talking to some other white people. Before there are even the first white Western European converts in Acts, we got a thriving church meeting in the capital of Africa. And here's why I tell you that. Because every once in a while you hear some undereducated PhD at a secular university say that Christianity is a Western thing.

But you can see that's not true. Here's the major point I'm trying to make in all this. God used an ordinary guy for his first international mission trip. God used an ordinary guy, not an apostle or a skilled teacher, for his first international mission trip.

He prepared Philip and then used him to expand his church. What a statement about how the Holy Spirit spreads the gospel and uses us to do it. You're listening to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D.

Greer. We're so excited that you joined us. And for those who are new to the program, let me tell you a little bit about our Heart for Ministry. We're here on your radio station daily and online 24-7 to help you dive deeper into the gospel. Because as we say a lot here on the program, the gospel isn't just the diving board into Christianity.

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I'm Molly Bedovitch. Thank you so much for spending your week with us. Join us next week when Pastor JD continues our look at the very first short-term mission trip. Maybe you've wanted to take a mission trip but just didn't know where to begin. Pastor JD tells us what it takes to be sent.

And don't worry, you've already got what it takes. We'll see you Monday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.