Scripture: Acts 8:26-40
Okay, this is a little embarrassing, but here goes…
🎶 Fairy tales can come true, it can happen to you
If you’re young at heart
For it’s hard, you will find, to be narrow of mind
If you’re young at heart…
And if you should survive to a hundred and five
Look at all you’ll derive out of being alive
And here is the best part, you have a head start
If you are among the very young at heart. 🎶
You think Chad Smith at the Pointe is singing Frank Sinatra this morning? He is not! You only get that here! (I love Chad, by the way.)
Why am I singing this song? Because please notice the title of the sermon: “An Urgent Appeal to Young People (and the Young at Heart).”
Are you in one of those camps? Good! This sermon is for you.
Our scripture begins, in 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.’ This is a desert place.” The Philip in today’s scripture was not the Philip who was one of Jesus’ Twelve disciples; rather, he’s one of the first seven deacons appointed to serve the church in Jerusalem in Acts chapter 6. But after Stephen, one of Philip’s fellow deacons, gets executed in Acts chapter 7, persecution of Christians breaks out all over Jerusalem, and many disciples flee the city. Philip is one of those disciples who flees.
But even this scattering of Christians is part of God’s sovereign plan! Because… look at verse 4 of our present chapter: “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.” Philip was one of those Christians. In fact, Philip had great success bringing the gospel to the people of Samaria. And a large number of Samaritans—who had previously been hated enemies of the Jewish people… a large number of these Samaritans get converted… thanks in large part to the faithful witness of Philip.
Notice that in verse 26, Philip first encounters an angel, who tells him to leave Samaria and go south to this desert highway in the middle of nowhere! Notice the angel doesn’t tell Philip what he’s going to be doing once he gets there. But Philip is faithful. He goes… And once he gets there, he receives further instructions. Verse 29: “And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.”
“And the Spirit said…”
The complete title of this book that we call “Acts” is what? The Acts of the Apostles. But it could as likely be called “The Acts of the Holy Spirit,” because the book is all about the work of the Spirit amongst these early Christians. And the Spirit is often “speaking” in the Book of Acts. Let me give you some examples… This is not an exhaustive list:
Before the apostle Peter visited the home of the first Gentile convert, Cornelius, in Acts 10, Luke writes, “The Spirit said to him, ‘Behold, three men are looking for you. Rise and go down and accompany them without hesitation…’” 1 So the Spirit opened the door to the Gentiles.
When Paul and Barnabas were set apart by the church at Antioch to be missionaries, Luke writes, “The Holy Spirit said, ‘Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul…’” So the Spirit launched the first missionary journey.
On a later missionary journey, in Acts 16, when Paul and Silas were deciding on where to go, Luke writes that they were “forbidden by the Holy Spirit” to go into one region,” and that the “Spirit of Jesus did not allow them” to go into another region. 2 So the Spirit himself both opened and closed doors for them.
Later, when Paul is bidding a tearful farewell to the elders in the church at Ephesus, he tells them that he must go to Jerusalem—that the Spirit has “constrained” him to go there. And that in every city he travels, the Spirit “testifies” to him that suffering and imprisonment await him. So we see the Spirit is preparing Paul for future obedience, for future ministry.
My point is, again and again, we see the Holy Spirit guiding Christians in the Book of Acts… guiding them in mission, guiding them in witnessing, guiding them in evangelism, guiding them in everyday obedience… Empowering them… giving them courage… giving them strength… transforming their personalities. Think of Peter—that cowardly disciple who, when he feared for his own safety, denied even knowing Jesus three times on the night Jesus was arrested. Then think of him in Acts chapter 4, standing up to people who hold his very life in their hands: “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard.” 3
Or in the next chapter, when once again, he says to people who have arrested him, “We must obey God rather than men.” 4 The Holy Spirit changed Peter!
The Holy Spirit is always in the business of changing us Christians!
And today, in our worship services—as we recognize graduates from high school and college—I have an urgent message I need to share with these young people—and as I hint at in the title of the sermon, it’s even a message for the young of heart, too. It’s a message for all of us. But let me speak it especially to young people.
Are you ready?
You do not have less of the Holy Spirit than these Christians in the Book of Acts. You have not received less power than these early Christians to be witnesses for Christ in whatever place the Lord brings you to in the future. God has no less a plan and purpose for your life than he had for these early Christians. You are not less valued by God than these Christians in Acts. You are not less essential to the fulfillment of God’s mission in this world than these Christians in Acts.
You do not owe less of your lives to our Lord than these Christians in Acts. Our Lord is not asking for less of your lives than he was asking of these Christians in Acts. He’s not demanding less, he’s not expecting less, nor will he, in Final Judgment, hold you to a “lesser” standard: he wants every part of your life—including your future. I suspect most of you will have secular jobs in the marketplace. Or some of you will continue your education at secular universities. First Corinthians 10:31 still applies: “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.”Whatever you do, you are put on this earth for one overarching purpose: to glorify God—to make God and his Son Jesus look great.
And good news: our Lord isn’t equipping you less—or giving you fewer gifts—to accomplish this purpose than he was these Christians in Acts.
All of the gifts of the Spirit that were available to these early Christians are potentially available to you, too. And for the same purpose!
Most of you are “Methodist” enough to be familiar with our Wesleyan Covenant Prayer:
I am no longer my own, but thine.
Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt.
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by thee or laid aside for thee,
exalted for thee or brought low for thee.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
to thy pleasure and disposal.
It’s easy to see the way these early Christians, like Philip, put this prayer into action. But those words are for you, too!
Our Lord Jesus isn’t less of the Lord of your lives than he was the Lord of Peter, Stephen, Paul, Silas, Barnabas, Rhoda, Tabitha, Lydia, Priscilla, and Aquila. Christ our Good Shepherd isn’t less interested today in leaving the ninety-nine sheep to go find that one lost sheep than he was—for instance—when the Spirit of Christ led Philip to this quiet, desert highway go find that one Ethiopian official who was ready to hear the gospel and be saved!
And yet… if you strain your ear to hear it… there is, even this morning, a still small voice… Except in this case, don’t misunderstand: it’s not the voice of the Lord, the Holy Spirit.
In fact, it’s the voice of what the apostle Paul calls “the god of this world,” the devil. 5 And he is whispering something in your ear like this: “It’s time to compromise. Yes, yes… By all means, you’ve grown up in church listening to Jesus say incredibly difficult and demanding words in scripture like these:
If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels. 6
This quiet voice continues to whisper: “And I’m not saying those words aren’t true. But now you live in the real world. Now it’s time to get down to business. Now it’s time to compartmentalize your faith. Living at home—being supported by your parents, your family—for many years you’ve lived what Darryl Philbin, the warehouse manager on The Office,refers to as a “Nerf ball” kind of life. It’s been soft… It’s been easy. It’s been “Nerfy.” But it’s about to get hard now. You’re going to be on your own. You’re going to have bills to pay. And pretty soon you’ll probably want to meet someone, settle down, get married. That costs a lot of money, too, you know!
“So of course Jesus is telling the truth when he speaks such uncompromising words about Christian discipleship, but you’ve got to be practical. Jesus will understand. And he’ll forgive you for falling so far short. It’s not a big deal. You can just bide your time in this world until heaven or the Second Coming.”
That’s what a devilish voice might sound like right now.
And before long… if you heed that voice… you will settle into a life of quiet sub-Christianconformity… And I say “conformity” because you’ll be surrounded by people striving for the same things in life: Yes, by all means, they’ll have a little bit of Jesus in the corner of their lives while at the same time having all these other worldly treasures. And the devil’s plan is make you and everyone else forget that even these worldly treasures are given to you by the Lord for his glory and for his purposes.
If you heed this voice, you will settle for a life of Christian mediocrity.
So my appeal to you this morning is, don’t settle! Because having all of Jesus, all of the glorious treasure that’s available in him and through him, is better than any other treasure the world offers! As the apostle Paul says, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” Philippians 3:8.
Jesus, Paul says, is not a “consolation prize” when other hopes and dreams in life don’t pan out! He is everything, Paul says. In comparison to having a relationship with Jesus Christ, everything else the world offers is like garbage.
I happen to believe, from personal experience, that that is true.
Don’t settle for a life of Christian mediocrity!
Speaking of someone who refuses to do so, let me tell you about my dear friend and brother, Turner Lee. Turner went to Toccoa Falls College. He met his wife, Alisha, here. In fact, Alisha grew up in this very church—and Turner went to church with her when he was in college. Many of you know or remember Alisha. And at least one of you also remembers Turner quite well. Gunther Junker, for one, taught Turner at Toccoa Falls. Turner was a star student. And I’ve told Gunther that Turner considers him his all-time favorite professor.
Anyway, Turner was one of the first people I met when I came on staff as an associate pastor at Alpharetta First Methodist—lo those many years ago back in 2007. Turner was one of the youth pastors on staff.
Not long after I got to Alpharetta, there was a gas shortage, of all things. There was a hurricane in the Gulf of… America. Anyway, the shortage only lasted a couple of weeks, but it was a big deal at the time. And I got fed up with waiting in long gas lines, and rationing gasoline. And I thought, “Well, I’m young and healthy. What if I started riding a bike to work. I only lived nine miles away, after all. I can do it—at least a couple of days each week. Save gas.”
So I did…
Riding a bike to work was far less safe, by the way, than riding a skateboard, which I like to do now… because, well… I try to avoid traffic when I ride my skateboard, whereas, when I rode my bike, I had to get out in the thick of traffic—on a busy road during rush hour in the morning and afternoon.
But it was around this time, when I was riding a bike to work,when the opportunity presented itself for me to go to Kenya, in East Africa, which I’ve described before. I went to teach some classes to indigenous Methodist pastors there. And I had a seminary classmate named Leslie who had gone on this trip before me and told me that she barely survived the trip. She thought she was going to die on a few different occasions.
So I became afraid. Not saying I should have been! But Leslie’s words shook me up at the time. And in staff meeting one day I was sharing Leslie’s fears. And I confessed to the staff, “I don’t want to go to Kenya and get killed!”
And Turner said, “Brent, this morning you got on a bike and fought traffic on Highway 9 to get here. That was risky. You could have easily gotten yourself killed in a number of different ways. But you took that risk without even thinking about it. So why not take the risk and go to Kenya? Sure, you could die… Just like you could die on a bike on Highway 9. Except at least in this case you would die by pouring out your life loving, serving, and glorifying our Lord Jesus in Kenya. I know which one I would rather do!”
Turner, you see, was far holier than I was at that time! And he wasn’t wrong.
Don’t settle for Christian mediocrity.
It’s easy to do… I spoke earlier about how each one of us believers in Christ… equally… possesses the Holy Spirit. That’s true. But our Lord doesn’t simply force his Spirit to work in powerful ways within us. He gives us some ability to choose… He gives us the ability to cooperate with the Spirit in our lives… And often in the Book of Acts—including in the life of Philip in today’s scripture—the Spirit does powerful things because we surrender our lives to him and say, “Yes.”
It glorifies God when we say “yes” to him!
But we can also say “no,” too. Surely this is the meaning of Paul’s words in 1 Thessalonians 5:19, “Do not quench the Spirit.” One way we do that is by refusing to let him do his good work of guiding, directing, empowering…
On May 20, 2000, pastor John Piper preached to 40,000 college students in Memphis, who had gathered there for the fourth annual “Passion” conference. He preached a sermon that has become known as the “seashells” sermon—or the “Don’t Waste Your Life” sermon. You can easily find the most famous seven minutes of the sermon on YouTube and on social media. The Gospel Coalition website calls it, “The Seven Minutes that Moved a Generation.”
Piper begins the sermon by telling these young people that he had recently done a funeral for two of his church members, Ruby Eliason and Laura Edwards, both of whom were retired and in their late-70s or early-80s. They had been serving as medical missionaries in Cameroon, in Africa. They died going over a mountain cliff when the brakes gave out on the bus they were traveling in. “Two lives,” Piper said, “driven by one great vision, spent in unheralded service to the perishing poor for the glory of Jesus Christ.” And he asked his audience of young people, “Was that a tragedy?” He asked it again. “Was that a tragedy?” He did not mean it as a rhetorical question. Until they finally some of the young people in the crowd shouted no.
“That is not a tragedy… I’ll tell you what a tragedy is…” And then he proceeded to read an excerpt of a recent article from Reader’s Digest, which described a couple named Bob and Penny, who retired young, in their 50s to Florida, and they were now devoting all their days to their boat, to playing golf and softball, and to collecting seashells. Piper said:
The American Dream: a nice house, a nice car, a nice job, a nice family, a nice retirement, collecting shells as the last chapter before you stand before the Creator of the universe to give an account of what you did: “Here it is Lord — my shell collection! And I’ve got a nice swing, and look at my boat!” 7
“Don’t waste your life,” he pleads with his audience. “Don’t waste it.”
And that’s my appeal to young people… and to the young at heart: Don’t waste your life, and don’t waste what remains of your life. It’s not too late… if you’re young at heart.
The stakes are too high. At this moment, people we know are living and dying apart from a saving relationship with God through his Son Jesus. People we know! People we love!
Speaking of which, in Romans chapter 9, verse 3, Paul says these startling words: “For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers [and sisters], my kinsmen according to the flesh.”
What is Paul saying? He’s saying that if it were possible—and of course it’s not possible, as he well knows—but if it were, he would himself wish to be damned—he would be willing to suffer hell and eternal separation from God—if it meant salvation for his fellow Jews. Paul, contrary to a stubbornly widespread modern prejudice, is hardly anti-Jewish. He would not only be willing to die for his fellow Jews, but even to go to hell for them, if by doing so he could save them! Yes, he’s the apostle to the Gentiles, but he loves his own people enough to go to hell for them!
That is love!
And this expression of love only makes sense if Paul understands how high the stakes are when it comes believing in Christ or rejecting him… Paul’s words only make sense if he understands that everyone in the world, both Jew and Gentile—must receive the gospel of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins.
Please consider: There is the equivalent of an “Ethiopian eunuch” in your life today. More than one! There may be only one today… there are others tomorrow and the next day. And the Spirit is speaking right now. And he’s saying, “Go to that person. Listen to their hopes and fears. Think about what Jesus has done for you. And speak to them… about Jesus! I’ll give you the words.”
Be like Philip: Listen to the Spirit!