Sometimes God gives you a Word that is so profound and personal that it is engraved on your mind for the rest of your life.
Many years ago He gave me a Word like that. I don’t remember what I was struggling with at the time, but that doesn’t matter because it is a Word He knew I would always need to have in my arsenal for battle.
I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, spontaneous type of person. I need a plan. I have to have everything written down in both my planner and my calendar on my phone. I make lists so I can check things off. If something changes last minute I don’t deal with that well.
Last year we took a trip back to the great Midwest to visit my family. Everyone had packed according to their neatly typed, personalized list, and we were on our merry way. The first night at my dad’s house my Honey went to get ready for bed. He came back out to inform me that he had no pj’s. My loving response was, “well, why didn’t you pack pj’s?” He politely reminded me that he had packed everything that I had put on his list. Oops. (On a sidenote, my husband is perfectly capable of packing on his own accord. I just always offer my services of typing him a list while I am preparing mine and the kids’.)
So, when God gave me this Word He told me to “Be Philip.”
Can anyone relate? Before we step out we want to be absolutely sure it’s where God wants us to go or exactly what He wants us to say. So, we keep praying about it (in between all the things we are doing). We question God, we doubt, and we feel we need every detail of the plan in place first. And then the moment passes. We either regret that we missed a divine appointment, or we are relieved that we avoided actually stepping into that uncomfortable situation.
Let’s read the story of Philip in Acts 8:26-40.
In his sermon last Sunday, our pastor brought up Abram and how God only gave Abram instructions one step at a time. It was then up to Abram to step out in that direction and trust God to lead him where He wanted him to go. Because of Abram’s trusting obedience God blessed him and the rest of the world through him.
That reminds me of Philip. He received similar instructions from God, who also gave him instructions one step at a time.
We find the 1st step in verse 26: get up and go south on the road going toward Gaza. Philip got up and started walking in that direction, through the dessert. It doesn’t say he got up and started packing for a hot hike through dessert terrain, worrying about what he would eat or drink, who he would run into, or if he had enough money for the trip because he didn’t know when he’d be back. The truth was he didn’t know IF he would come back there because he was spending his life traveling around preaching the Gospel. How many of us would be making our lists, packing snacks and drinks, and thinking ahead about bathroom stops along the way?
Not Philip. He just got up and started walking.
We see the 2nd step in verse 29: go and catch up to that chariot.
I don’t know about you but that sounds like something I would be completely intimidated by and would totally overthink and “pray about.” “God, I don’t know them. They could be a crazy, serial killer. And God, what are they going to think if I run up to them with no agenda, not knowing what I’m going to say? Am I hearing You right? Is this You? Are You sure that’s what You want me to do?”
What Philip didn’t know was that God was already working inside that chariot. However, he trusted that if He told him to go somewhere He had a plan already in place and was already working it. Philip didn’t need to know all the details ahead of time because he knew he could trust God with the details. It’s His plan and His Spirit doing the work anyway.
So, obedient, trusting Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Scriptures about the Messiah. How much more perfectly could God have set that up?
Here are some things we know about the Ethiopian eunuch:
-He was a man of great authority, possibly with great influence. The queen of Ethiopia had entrusted him with all her treasury. That’s pretty high up on the ladder. A king or queen doesn’t trust just anyone with all their wealth.
-He was seeking God (that’s an important part of the story because God promises that all who seek Him will find Him, even in the middle of the dessert with no believers around; so He sends one). The man had already traveled all the way to Jerusalem to worship God and was returning. He was reading the Hebrew Scriptures with a desire to know and understand their God more. He was most definitely seeking.
After Philip obeyed and ran up to the chariot he heard the man reading. That was when he discovered that God was already working. So, he joined God in what He was doing.
God invites us to join Him where He is working. He told Abram “I will bless…., I will do this…., go this way with Me and see what I will do….(my paraphrase).”
To be able to see where God is working requires us to abide in Him. The reason Philip connected with this man and discovered God working was because he was abiding in Jesus. When we abide in Jesus we are sensitive to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Quotes from our pastor:
-“(Our) heart’s desire should be just to be in the center of God’s will. That is where He will bless (us & our efforts)”.
-“When we join God where He is working there is victory.”
If Philip had wasted time he would have missed the man. The man would have kept traveling on back to his homeland. God sent the message to Philip to move at the time appointed by Him. He didn’t give Philip a week’s or even a day’s notice so that he could make his lists and prepare himself. Philip was ready. His yes was already on the table. He was spending time seeking the Lord and open to whatever God wanted to do through him. His desire was just to serve God and share Jesus.
What Philip heard the man reading about was how the Messiah would be killed, His own justice taken away so that He could purchase justice for us, and how someone must declare it since He would be taken from the earth. Then Philip joined God where He was working simply by asking the man if he understood what he was reading. How much easier could God make it for him (after all the trecking through the dessert and running to catch up with moving chariots)?
One simple question led into a conversation, an opportunity to share the Gospel. The man responded in a way that showed his desire to know more, to understand. “”How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?””. Can’t you just feel Philip’s excitement as he was able to say, “Oh! I can tell you who that’s talking about! Let me tell you about my Jesus!! Here’s what happened…..This is Who He is….!” Verse 35 says that Philip “opened his mouth” and “preached Jesus to him.”
Philip was ready and eager to share about Jesus.
The Ethiopian man was eager and ready to accept the relationship with the Messiah whom he was seeking.
It just so happened that just at the right time they came to some water (in the middle of the dessert). This again shows how important it was for Philip to obey in God’s timing instead of his own. In the Ethiopian man’s eagerness, he saw it and wanted to jump in. Philip didn’t waste time saying, “well, wait a minute, let’s talk about it some more.” He told him simply that if he believed whole-heartedly he may.
The man’s response was his confession and profession of faith! “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”
Jesus makes it simple. Romans 10:9-10 says “9…if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
Being baptized isn’t what saved the man. He was saved the moment that confession left his lips. However, being baptized was his public profession of faith. How much more bold would this effort of putting action to his faith make him when he got back to his homeland full of non-believers? In the palace, at that?
So again, there was an immediate move of obedience. They got in the water. They did the baptism. While the Ethiopian man came out of the water with joy Philip was literally moved by God to the place He wanted him to next serve.
Can’t you just imagine how awestruck they both were at how God had worked out all those details??
Philip didn’t waste any time wondering about how God wanted to use him next. He got up where he found himself and went right back to what God had originally called him to do. He preached the Gospel as he went.
Have you ever stepped out into the unknown simply because God said “go this direction”, even though it didn’t make much sense to you, then later marveled at how amazingly He worked out the details, and thought about how you didn’t see that coming!
God is in the details. He’s got the plan, and He’s doing the work. All He asks of us is to be like Philip and go when He says go.