Good morning everyone, I’m glad that you’re here with us at New Garden today. Last week, we were practicing the spiritual habit of sharing a meal together at Brunch, so let me provide a little refresher as to what we’ve been talking about.

In 2025, we’ve been talking through Acts each week. Looking at the Apostles and the earliest followers of The Way as examples (or in Ananias & Sapphira’s case, bad examples) of how to be attentive to the Holy Spirit and dependent on God for movement & growth. Two weeks ago, Josh explained how the church was committed to taking care of each other and remaining unified despite their cultural differences. In chapter 6, they appointed 7 people to address a certain issue regarding equity in their practice of sharing food together.

One of those 7 guys, Stephen, is a main character in chapter 7 as he calls the religious leaders to account, explaining how their ancestors had rejected the prophets of Israel, finishing by telling them that that now they had murdered the Righteous One, Jesus. Then Stephen looked up to heaven and saw Jesus looking down while standing at the right hand of God. This was maddening to these religious leaders, so they drug Stephen out and stoned him. This began a great persecution in Jerusalem for followers of Jesus, led by a guy named Saul, who we’ll talk more about in the future. Because of this persecution, the followers of Jesus were scattered and many left Jerusalem. That’s where our story picks up today in Acts chapter 8, with another guy named Philip.

Let’s pray before we go further today.
Lord, thank you for being here with us today. Thank you for the cloud of witnesses that have gone before us and modeled the way of Jesus for us like Stephen and Philip. God give us that same steadfastness, courage, and passion that they had. If there’s anything said today that is from me and not from you, God, help it to be removed from our hearing. Thank you for Jesus, and help us to be more like Him. In Jesus Name, Amen.

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Acts 8:26-39

²⁶ Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” ²⁷ So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian^[a] eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, ²⁸ and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. ²⁹ The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

³⁰ Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

³¹ “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

³² This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
    and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
³³ In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
    Who can speak of his descendants?
    For his life was taken from the earth.”^[b]

³⁴ The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” ³⁵ Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

³⁶ As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” ^{[37] [c] 38} And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. ³⁹ When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.

I’ve heard this story preached several times in my life. It’s one of the more familiar stories in the book of Acts. And I’ve heard a lot of takeaways from it. I’ve heard it preached as how we – like Philip – should always be ready to share our faith. I’ve heard this used as a text on baptism: look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized? I’ll quickly say that both of those are fine and good! We should be walking around the world ready to talk about our faith, I think too often we relegate faith conversations to church only, when telling people about our lives should include ways in which we experience God. And baptism is a beautiful thing – committing and joining ourselves to the mission of God unfolding around us. If you are thinking about baptism, I really want to talk to you about that. And I want to invite you today to consider baptism. I have some resources that could help us walk through what that means together if you’re interested in learning more.

But in all the times I’ve heard this story told or preached before this week, the fact that this guy Philip encounters on the road is a eunuch from Ethiopia is sort of mentioned but not explained. And I don’t plan on explaining too much today about what a eunuch is, no diagrams to show or anything like that, but I think who this man is is really important to its inclusion in Luke’s account of the early church.

This is one of those times when I think the meaning can be lost on us because this was written 2000 years ago, and we don’t feel the weight of what Luke lays out before us. We have access to information that could help inform us, but we don’t automatically understand when we hear it. So briefly, here’s some context.

It’s pretty clear that this eunuch wasn’t born into Judaism. If he was, he likely wouldn’t have become a Eunuch in the first place. What we do know about him is that he was a treasurer for the Queen of Ethiopia. And so it’s likely that he became a eunuch for the sake of professional advancement, though it’s obviously a sacrifice in other ways. I read this week that oftentimes, people would have to become eunuchs in order to work with the royals to ensure that the royal bloodline didn’t get murkied. So this was a person who was dedicated to his professional advancement, and was willing to sacrifice other things about his life to that end. At some point this guy must have converted to Judaism, because Luke tells us that he was on his way back from worshipping in Jerusalem.

Unfortunately, this man may have had an unpleasant or lacking experience in Jerusalem. We learn in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy chapter 23, that a eunuch wouldn’t have been allowed in the Temple. No one who had been quote “emasculated by crushing or cutting would have been allowed inside the Temple.” And yet, here is a man committed to his faith, trying to learn the Scriptures, even if he was kept at arm’s length by his faith community.

And then we have Philip, who was one of those 7 guys that they appointed to help make sure that the church’s eating practice was inclusive of people who had different culture. In verse 26, as persecution of the church is breaking out in Jerusalem, an angel comes to Philip and tells him to head south, away from Jerusalem. Philip listens and heads south.

As Philip goes along the road, he’s attentive to the Spirit. That’s key to this story. Throughout the book of Acts, we have seen how God moves and we’ve seen how these early followers of the Way were paying attention enough to respond to God’s movement. Philip is set up for success in this story because Philip was attentive to what God might be up to in his midst.

This is one reason why we shared last week at Brunch how we have seen God lately. That was really cool, wasn’t it? I loved getting to hear how you all are seeing God. We heard beautiful stories of recovery, healing, growth, and connection. The more we hear how God is working in other people’s lives, I’m hopeful that we will be better able to recognize how God may be showing up in our lives.

So as Philip heads South, he is attentive to the Holy Spirit, and he gets this nudge from the Spirit: Go over to that chariot and stay close. Once again, Philip is listening and responds. He runs up to the chariot and hears this man reading Scripture aloud.  Philip recognizes the Scripture as part of the Isaiah scroll. And, you know, I think I recognize that moment that Philip is in. That moment where someone is sticking out to you. You recognize them or you feel that there could be a reason that you are noticing them specifically. Maybe this is at the store or at a work thing or whatever, and you feel this nudge… More times than I’m pleased to share, I must confess, I back away from this nudge. I avoid. I walk away. This situation wasn’t part of my plan for the day. But I must say, I’ve never regretted leaning into the moment like Philip does here.

So, Philip asks this man if he understands what he’s reading, and this eunuch responds, how could I unless someone explains it to me. In other words, you are just the person I needed to run into, come on up into the chariot! And Philip takes what this man is reading and walks him through how Jesus is the one that the prophets were talking about and how he had come to bring about a new Kingdom in which all may have access to God!

And I think that the question this eunuch asks Philip is really simple, but sort of profound: Look, here is water. What can stand in my way of being baptized? Remember, as a eunuch there were barriers between him and the full Jewish experience. He was in the faith, but he wasn’t allowed in the Temple. He was held at arms distance, but in Christ, that doesn’t matter. Before, there were things that were standing in his way, but in Christ, those things that have kept us apart, don’t any longer. And so he and Philip go down into the water where he’s baptized.

This is a really cool story, and there’s a lot of layers that I think we could pull apart and a lot of things you could read about it that you might find interesting, but here’s my main takeaway: The Spirit is already working in people’s hearts all around us. God is in the business of drawing people in, and God is at work in people’s hearts long before they have an interaction with you or me.

God is even at work in people’s hearts that we might view as outsiders. People who we don’t have a single thing in common with. This eunuch is a foreigner in Israel, he’s of a different race than the Jews and Gentiles in the area, he’s lived this very different lifestyle than Philip, and yet, God has been at work in this man’s life. He had already converted to Judaism at some point and here we see this guy has a thirst for more, he has this passion for God having traveled about 1500 miles in a chariot to worship in Jerusalem.

I think something that holds me back from being attentive to how God is moving in our world is my cynicism. Maybe that resonates with you and maybe it doesn’t. But sometimes I think to myself, there’s no way God would work through that group of people… We live in a tribalistic world with a lot of us and thems. Even among Christians, there’s so many divisions between groups. But may I be so bold to suggest that God can work in the thems too. And maybe every once in a while, we could be educated or encouraged by how God is working among other people.

God is moving. In ways that we can feel and see, yes, but even more in ways that we can’t see and couldn’t put together ourselves. Can we be more like Philip? As he had been living in Jerusalem, I’d be willing to guess that he didn’t know a lot of African eunuchs, and yet, he didn’t hesitate to trust in what he felt God was leading him to do. Philip was attentive to the Holy Spirit, and responded accordingly.

And guess what, God is not going to give you something to do that is bad for you. Maybe not every time you lean into the moment and respond to the Spirit will result in a story of immediate conversion, but over time God will use those moments to transform us and the people around us. This may look like giving someone a jumpstart in the Kroger parking lot. Texting an old friend that you want to get with them soon. Showing kindness to the referees at your kid’s soccer games. It may look like signing up with NICE to give refugees rides to their appointments.

As we take seriously our commission to make disciples as we go throughout our lives, having waited on the Spirit to guide us, God will heal our relationships, strengthen our communities, and connect individuals and groups that we wouldn’t consider inviting to the same dinner parties. God is at work both in us and in the world around us. Let’s be people who are attentive to how God moves and people who respond and join in with what God’s doing.

As we go to these Tables around the room together today, all are welcome to join us there. Regardless of where you’re from, where you’ve been, whether you’ve been here for years or you are here this morning by accident, we’re going to share a meal together with Christians this morning all over the world as we remember Jesus, eating this bread which represents his body and drinking this grape juice which represents his blood. We remember how Jesus dined with all sorts of people, religious leaders, social outcasts, rabble rousers, tax collectors, fisherman, and known sinners, sometimes at the same table.

Let’s pray and we’ll go to the Table together:
Lord, thank you for working in our world in ways that we can’t expect or wouldn’t choose ourselves. Give us the courage and boldness to lean in to the nudges of the Holy Spirit this week. As we go to the Table, help us to be transformed each week into being more and more like Jesus. In His Name we pray, Amen.

This sermon was delivered on February 16th, 2025 at the New Garden Campus of Woodmont Hills Church. You can watch it here.