The pastors here, there we go. And anyway, so it's just great to be with you on this open house Sunday and we're talking about we're wrapping up a series about the church called Under the Hood and what is the church for? And so it's important to realize that the church is a movement. It's not meant to be a monument. A lot of times this is what we think of when we think of church, we think of a building and the only place you're going to go from there is like down to the cemetery that surrounds it. We don't think of, but in the Bible and in Acts, it's a movement and almost everything that's wrong with the world, God said, "Here's my solution, almost everything wrong with the world to church. More people becoming more like Jesus Christ and following Him." And so that's our mission and it's an amazing one. In the first service, right about where John and Kelly are sitting out there, there is a woman here, Haley Ward, and she was here because it was her one-year anniversary of making Jesus her a forgiver and leader. And so she just wanted to be here in person because she lives in Buffalo. So she drove three and a half to four hours just to be here and as she came in, she watches online, and one of the ladies in her online small group, Gene Pierce, like, "Recognized her, gave her a big hug at the door," and I thought, "This is exactly what the church is supposed to be. The church is not some monument, some place, some location, some event. It is meant to be a spiritual family that helps one another, that we can help each other follow Jesus Christ. It is not a good speech and a couple nice songs, right? It's a family and that's why we have the food afterward, right? Just so you can stay and get to know each other and have conversations because you cannot follow Jesus alone. It's just impossible and we need each other. So it's a movement. We talked about what is this a movement about and so we've talked about that the last several weeks and how it's about making Jesus our forgiver and leader, his death and resurrection. But today we're going to take a little detour that happened to a man named Philip in the book of Acts. And then next week we're starting a new series called Asking for Directions. And so if you're in a place of your life where you're not sure what to do yet, met two men this morning, they just got laid off this week, right, from driving. And so maybe you're in that situation or maybe there's things in your relationships with other people that you're like, "I'm just not sure what to do or where to go." We are starting that series next week, asking for directions of how God's Word can give us great advice and commands and counsel about how we live our lives and how to make these difficult choices. But today we're going to talk about a detour. And of course we got the cars, Lightning McQueen theme, and that whole story is about a detour. Lightning McQueen gets a detour to Radiator Springs where he didn't want to go and he's stuck there. And he learned some valuable life lessons, first of all about humility because he's an arrogant jerk. And those life lessons not only help him succeed on the track and win, but even more than that it helps him succeed off of an outside of racing in his own personal life. And so here's a detour for a man named Philip. It says, "As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, 'Go south down the desert road,' that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza. It's a desert road,' which means it's a deserted road, more deserted than Radiator Springs. It's 40 miles from Jerusalem to Gaza and it's pretty desolate most of the way. And so he started out and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Condake, the queen of Ethiopia, and eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship. So what a coincidence. He goes this 40 mile stretch of very lonely road and just so happens to meet some of your translations might say under Candace because a couple hundred years ago when a lot of translations were first made into English, they thought Candace was this woman's name but with more archeological evidence, we've realized that actually it's her title like Pharaoh or queen, the Condake who ruled Ethiopia. And so meets this woman and then as we read later, you find out, meets this man, sorry, who served under Condake, then later we realized that he is reading out loud a 700 year old prophecy out of the book of Isaiah. What happens to be reading it out loud just when Philip goes by, Philip just happens to be the greatest evangelist to non-Jews alive at this time. And all of these coincidences together, it just reminds me that really coincidence is when God chooses to remain anonymous. So often there are so many coincidences, a couple of weeks ago there was a man in the church, Tom, and did some really bad things and I wanted to connect with some people who knew him, so last Sunday I saw some friends of his on their way out, I chased them down in the parking lot and said, "Hey, what's going on with Tom? How can you help his wife? She really needs our support at this time and Shelly." And so I wanted to talk to him about that. But then Mary who I was talking to, she said, "I don't know if you realize this but my brother Phil is on end stage liver cancer and I have wanted to talk, he's always been my big brother, he's been my protector, he's looked out for me, I'm really close to him, I've never talked to him about Jesus, how do I do that?" And I said, "Start with a question, just ask him a question, what do you believe? What do you think about God? Who do you think Jesus was? What do you, you know, just ask and she's like, "Okay, I'm going to do that." And so then on Wednesday I thought, "I should follow up and ask her." And so I texted her on Wednesday and she said, "I've got to tell you what happened." I went to see him and he's at home, he's in his bed, he's on hospice and she said, "And I didn't talk to him." And so I drove away in my car, driving in the other direction and thought, "I've got to go back," and turned around and this is what Ryan was talking about in the analysis this morning, if you were here early enough on time, I'm going to have heard this already, she drove back, she walks into the room and he's like, "Are you lost?" And she said, "It was God's way of helping me start the conversation." She says, "No, I'm not lost but I'm afraid you might be. Has anyone ever told you about how to get to heaven?" "No, no one's ever told me." And so then she proceeded to say, "You know how Jesus died and rose again and you got to make him your forgiver, you got to ask him for his forgiveness and to take your penalty and then you need to make him your leader." And there's lots of ways of saying that except him into your heart, make him your Lord. And before she left, he prayed to accept Christ as a Savior. And on Friday at 7 a.m., he passed away into eternity. And talking to Mary and her husband Don again this morning, so thankful that they listened to the Holy Spirit just like Philip did. And they went back and she went back. And then by pure chance, he said, "Are you lost?" And she was able to, coincidences. I've shared this with some of you a number of years ago, I was at my home church. First Baptist in Johnson City is where I grew up. And we had this idea, it was like 1995, 1996, something like that. People still had phones in their home, you know, and they answered that they were connected by a cord. Maybe you can share this with your kids later, how that worked. So I had this idea and the senior pastor said, "Sure, that sounds good." You know, you go ahead and do that. So I got a group of people together and for about two weeks, we called 30,000 homes in the Brum County area. We basically called through the phone book, the entire phone book and called everyone. Now the thing is, most of the time, people weren't home or we got an answering machine or whatever, and we only tried once because I'm not making 60,000 calls, okay? And so I'm calling one evening, you know, there's some other people out with me and I call this number and I explain who I am and he's like, "No way." Like what do you mean? Like I'm not Bob or I'm not from First Baptist. He says, "You can't be from First Baptist." I'm like, "Why not?" And he said, "Charlie, put you up to this." I said, "Who's Charlie?" He's like, "Charlie's my coworker. He's been inviting me to church recently." And I said, "No, he didn't put me up to this. We are literally calling through." And I'm on the V's, Vincom. And you are, you know, the before is this person. He's like, "A.J. put you up to this, didn't he?" I'm like, "No, who's A.J." He's like, "A.J. was the first Christian I ever met." He was my friend in high school and he was just a normal guy and he'd go out drinking with us and do normal high school things. And then he got saved and his life got changed. And he goes to First Baptist and I said, "I know A.J. He's a friend of mine." And then, you know, so he just couldn't believe it was just coincidence that I happened to call and that he happened to be the one who picked up the phone because multiple other people lived at that house and that it also happened that the guy he worked was so I got together with him. Eventually he started coming to church. I got together with him. He, you know, we had soccer in common and he played soccer and he said, "You know, now that you're, you know, think of it, my junior high soccer coach was Dave Mitchener. I think he was a pastor at your church." And I said, "He's the reason I'm a pastor today. He was at my church." And so then we started talking some more in a few weeks later. He said, "My brother called me from Florida." And this man's name was Toto, his brother's name is Coco. He said, "Coco called from Florida." and he says, "Coco accepted Jesus as his Savior." And he was talking to me about John 3, 16, "For God so loved the world." And he wanted me to, and I'm like, "What are the chances that his junior high soccer coach, that his best friend, that his coworker, that me randomly called him on the phone, and then his brother in Florida?" And so then a few weeks after that, he moved to Washington, D.C. and I never saw him again. And I was like, "God, what are you doing? I thought you were lining everything up, but now that he's not in Binghamton, and he's not going to talk to me, he's never going to accept you as a Savior, because apparently I thought I was the only way." So then we talked on the phone a couple times after that, and one time he called me and he said, "I prayed with my brother, he called me from Florida, and I prayed with him to make Jesus my forgiver and leader, and I was like, "That's awesome, Toto." You know, what are the, this kind of thing happens. A lot of you have stories like that, stories like Mary, where I just, I went back, I knew I needed to go back, and then he says this, and it just led to a conversation, and it was wonderful, and nobody else was there, and if he had other family members there, he might have not been really open to talk to me like we did, and all of this, and coincidences, and this is what's going on, and we need to recognize, and we need to go to people who seem beyond God's reach. This man, Toto, I was talking to, he was Buddhist. In fact, he had a question for me later on, and he said, "So once a year, I have to go in to the idle temple we have in our house, and I have to burn incense to our family gods with my mom and dad. What should I do?" Because obviously they're not there, they're not real, I'm not burning incense to anything that's real, but if I don't do it, my parents will take it as a sign of incredible disrespect, and I don't disrespect them, and I love them. What do I do? And I said, "You know what? This is actually in 1 Corinthians, Paul actually dealt with this with believers in the early church, and he said, "You can't go into the temple, and you can't worship because that's wrong," and so that's what he did, and I said, "You've got to talk to your parents ahead of time, let them know this is not anything out of disrespect to them, and that you love them, but beyond reach, todo, cocoa, vincom, not beyond God's reach." And so this Ethiopian, he had gone to the temple in Jerusalem, and now he was returning home, and he was seated in his carriage, and he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah, and the Holy Spirit said to Philip, "Go over and walk beside the carriage, all these coincidences." And here's the question, are you willing to go to those people about Jesus? He's a foreigner. Ethiopian wasn't from around here. In fact, when he went to the temple, there were these rings of acceptance at the temple. There's the holy of holy place, which only the high priest could go once a year. Then there's the holy place, which only those from the tribe of Levi and the priest, they were the only ones allowed there, and then there was this courtyard where all the Jewish men could go to worship. Ethiopian eunuch would not be allowed there because he was a eunuch, and eunuchs weren't allowed there. And then there is this courtyard of the women outside of that. He wasn't allowed to go into that one because he was Ethiopian, and he wasn't Jewish. And then outside of that, I mean, you're like literally hundreds of feet from the temple. You can see the walls, but you're not even allowed to get close enough to touch the temple. And that's what he's coming from, and Philip is a Jew, and he could go right to that courtyard of the men. He could go past that outer courtyard where the Ethiopian was, past and inside the courtyard where the women were allowed, and then into the courtyard where the men were allowed. He had full access, and this Ethiopian did not. And I'm just saying, are there people, and I'm talking to those of you here, some of you are not followers of Jesus, we're so glad you're here. I'm talking to those who follow Jesus. Are there people that you think are beyond God's reach, and you don't want to go to them? Because maybe like this guy, you know, he looks scary. God loves scary-looking people, because God loves everyone, John 3, 16, for God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son. God loves Asians because Jesus was Asian. Did you know that? Israel is in Asia. Jews are technically Asian. Did you know 120,000 Jews today have Ethiopian lineage? They're black. You know, God loves the world. Are you willing to talk to those people? Here's the other question. Are you willing to talk to those people? Because the Ethiopian was filthy rich. He had everything, right? I mean, he had probably slaves driving his carriage. It's like, you know, he's going down this lonely road in his limo. He's got the window down because it's hot and air conditioning hasn't been invented. And there's this homeless looking man walking beside and he's reading out loud and the homeless, you know, and he's like, "Hey, do you understand what you're reading?" And you invite the wandering, homeless guy into your limo. It's kind of what's going on here. In some ways, Philip was so beneath this man and this is where this is the only place he probably could have met him. Because if he had gone back to Ethiopia, I mean, he wouldn't have been, Philip wouldn't have been allowed even to get to his, you know, business office, right? Because Philip is a nobody in Ethiopia and a nobody amongst positions of power and politics and wealth. And so some of us, you know, we have no problem going to the down and out, but we just have this chip on our shoulder about those who are wealthy in our community. We're like, "Oh, they look down on me." "Oh, they're just snobby." You know what? God loves everyone. No one is beyond his reach. And we need to be humble enough to realize that we're all the same. A billionaire, an addict in the gutter. God loves us all. And Philip ran over, it's interesting, the Holy Spirit said, "Walk over." And Philip's like, "He runs." I think he's had this happen before, coincidences. You know, for those of you, I'm being facetious, obviously, with God, there's no coincidences. Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah, and Philip asked him, "Do you understand what you're reading?" The man replied, "How can I, unless someone instructs me?" And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him. And the passage of Scripture he'd been reading was this. He was led like a sheep to slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before the shears, he did not open his mouth. This is one of the most powerful passages about Jesus Christ in the Old Testament. It describes crucifixion before crucifixion was even invented. His hands being, him being pierced. And then it describes his flogging by his stripes, you know, and then it describes him, his resurrection. It describes where he's buried. It says he was assigned a tomb with the wicked, a grave with the wicked. And he was assigned a grave with the wicked because he was crucified. They take the men who are crucified, and they dump them on the garbage dump. They don't really bury them. And the dogs and the vault, they get eaten, and it was disgusting. And he was assigned a grave with the wicked and a tomb and with the rich also in his tomb. And so the Isaiah 53 predicts that he'd be buried in a rich man's tomb, which is what happened because Joseph of Arimathea, who was rich, came and asked Pilate, "I don't want him dumped outside the city gate. Can we bury him in my tomb?" And he gave permission. So there's all these prophecies of Jesus, it's amazing. You should read Isaiah 53, "Once I'm not even mentioning," and that's where he's reading. And this is where I think we need to understand. First half of this message was for those of you who are followers of Jesus. This part is for those of you who haven't yet made Jesus your forgiver and leader. Maybe you don't believe in God. You need to recognize that you are not beyond God's reach. God wants to forgive you. He wants you to follow him. He loves you. And this is true of the eunuch. Here's the thing. Why was he reading Isaiah 53? My wife Becky pointed this out to me, and I don't know if I've ever had anyone else point this out, but I think it's really fascinating. There is one place in the Old Testament, one place where God gives a special blessing if you're a foreigner and a eunuch. That's a pretty rare set of circumstances, okay? But there is one passage, and it's Isaiah 56, I have it right here. And here's what it says, "Don't let the foreigners who commit themselves to the Lord say, 'The Lord will never let me be part of his people.'" Here, all those rings, you're not allowed here, you're not allowed here, literally you're not allowed here. That's the men's court. You're not allowed here. That's the women's court. You can come here, right? Not exactly a warm, fuzzy boy, I feel accepted kind of thing. He says, "Don't think that the Lord won't let you be part of his people." And then, not only foreigners, but don't let the eunuch say, "I'm a dried up tree with no children and no future." So today, our culture more and more is talking about children as being a nuisance and so much work, and oh, it's so hard, and it is hard to be a parent. But back then, and I appreciate this in our church, we have a baby culture in our church, man. I don't know if you've seen people walking around, like they're in the auditorium, we got the nurseries, probably got a dozen, and it's awesome, lots of kids, because the culture back then, and what God's word says, "Kids are a blessing." And man, if you had only four kids, it'd be like, "Well, sometimes God doesn't give you a full quiver," right? They love kids back then, and here's the thing, if you didn't have kids, you were seen as lesser, and you often even saw yourself as, "What's going to happen? I'm a dried up tree with no children and no future. Nobody's going to remember my name after I'm gone. Nobody's going to take care of me when I'm old." When I die, I'm like a dead man walking because I have no kids, and so he probably felt this. I got all this wealth and all this power, probably an incredibly intelligent man. You don't get promoted like that unless you've got a, you know, the treasurer of the kendake, and he said, "But what does it matter?" Because when I die, that's it. And this is God saying, "Don't say that because this is what the Lord says. I will bless those eunuchs who keep my Sabbath days holy and who choose to do what pleases me and commit their lives to me. I will give them within the walls of my house those walls that you're not even allowed to touch now and there's hundreds of yards away I will give within the walls of my house a memorial and a name far greater than sons and daughters could give for the name I give them as an everlasting one and it will never disappear." And so I bet, and I don't know this, I bet that was his favorite passage of Scripture. And look at this, that's Isaiah 56, guess where he's reading? Everything page over, Isaiah 53. I bet he was going over that promise and in his favorite book and his favorite, obviously they didn't have books and they had a scroll, but his favorite part of the scroll, and he just unrolled it a little bit backward and he got to this part, Isaiah 53, and this is Acts 8, 33, where he's reading this aloud, quoting it. He was humiliated and received no justice. Who can speak of his descendants? This is talking about Jesus, for his life was taken from the earth. And he's thinking, "Who is Isaiah talking about?" Because earlier in the book of Isaiah, it talks about how Isaiah had a son, don't name your son this. He named his son, "Mahar Shalahashbaz." Yeah, it's different culture, but it meant, I forget what it meant, but it basically meant because it's a whole lot of words. Basically meant by the time this child is weaned and is just totally on solid food, the two nations that are bothering Israel the most, which is northern Israel was bothering Judah and then Damascus or Syria was attacking Judah. He said by the time this child is like three, those nations will no longer exist, Syria will have wiped them out. And so he might know that, and he's like, "What is this talking about?" He has no descendants. It says he already had -- who's Isaiah talking? He's not talking about himself. And so what is this about? And I think even in this verse that he says, "Who can speak of his descendants?" He's like, "Whoever this is talking about, who is going to save the world and live forever and take away my sins, he has no kids, just like me." He understands what it's like to be me, and that is just such an important thing to recognize that the Bible is written about you and it's written for you. You know, back when I was a kid, I went to Sunday school every week and I'd hear the stories and I remember after hearing out who knows how many times the story about how Jesus died and rose again, the light went on in my head. This is about me. I thought this was about something that happened historically 2,000 years ago about a man and all the stuff in God and all of that, but no, it's about me and there's something I have to do about this. Jesus died for me. I need to ask him to forgive me. I need to make him my Lord and my leader. And this is what I think -- I think the Ethiopian, he's relating to this and this is why he's reading in and he's so -- he's just, "What is this about?" The unique ass Philip, tell me was the prophet talking about himself or someone else. I don't think it was about himself. And so beginning with the same scripture, Philip told him the good news about Jesus Christ. And what is the good news? We talked about a couple of weeks ago, it's like the engine of Christianity, the good news is that Jesus died so you could be forgiven and so that he could be your leader. And this is how Peter describes it earlier in Acts, Acts chapter 2 and 4, very similar. He summarizes the good news in this way. Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. We say you need to make Jesus your leader, that you mean means you repent of your way of doing things and what you think is right and turn to God. He's your leader and then you also need to make him your forgiver. You know, here there's three things you could follow. You can either follow God, and I would say the God of the Bible, every other God is a false God, or you can follow what society says, social morals, right? And unfortunately society changes, in fact now it's changing all the time. And there's so many new rules about what's right and wrong, like you can't dress up as a Native American on Halloween because it's cultural misappropriation. I'm like, well, now that's a sin, I didn't know that was a sin, all right? And then centuries ago slavery was okay, right? Lots of people believed it was okay, so does that mean slavery was okay? Because society says slavery was okay, no, nobody believes that. So if society isn't the moral choice, then how about the individual? Is that where you anchor your morals? Because you have some people that are wonderful and then other people kill people. Like Hitler, did he have, you know, well, Hitler had his truth. Really? I don't think that was true at all, you know? And so he's saying, you know what? You can either follow your own way, you can follow society's way, or you can repent and follow God's way. And that's the good news, that we can actually do that. And as they wrote along, it says they came upon some water and the eunuch said, look, there's some water, why can't I be baptized? And so we ordered the carriage to stop and they went down into the water and Philip baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, and you can see even with the wording here that this is immersion, this is getting dunked. They went down into the water, they came up out of the water. If it was sprinkling, he could have said, look, I got a water bottle, right? Or pouring. Look, I got a water bottle. I didn't know. But baptism literally means to immerse and that's why we do it that way. We do it the old fashioned way, you know? And so they come up out of the water and the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. So then he traveled off somewhere else that God was wanting him to go and walked away. And then the eunuch never saw him again, but when on his way rejoicing because now he is right with God and he's forgiven and he's following God and he knows how to live. And this is what God wants for everyone. This is the solution, almost everything that's wrong with the world. Actually following God, not just saying you're going to follow God, not just mouthing the words to some magical prayer formula, but really asking for his forgiveness and surrendering your life to him. I'm going to close us in a prayer in a little bit and I want to encourage you, if you have never done that, to pray along with me and make Jesus your leader and ask him to forgive you as well. Before I do that, I have a short video here, we've baptized over 50 people so far this year at Bridgewater Church, 14 here in this building and then at our other locations as well. And this is one Julio that was invested just a number of weeks ago and wanted you to see his story because, again, this is just like the Ethiopian, right? Just like every single one of us, we need to come to God and make him our forgiving leader and this is how God worked in Julio's life. I was raised going in church every Sunday, growing up, I considered myself a follower of Christ. Recently, I've come to realize that I was not a follower, but instead just knew of Christ. I've been leading a life guided by my flesh and bones, guided by what does Julio want? A verse that stands out to me is Revelations 3, verse 15 through 18. I know all the things you do that you are neither hot nor cold, I wish that you were one or the other, but since you are lukewarm to water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. You say I am rich, I have everything I want, I don't need a thing, and you don't realize that you are wretched, miserable, poor, and blind and naked, so I advise you to buy gold for me, gold that has been purified by fire, then you will be rich, also buy white garments for me, so you will not be shamed by your nakedness, and no one meant for your eyes, so you will be able to see, I no longer want to live a lukewarm life, I no longer want to live over the world, today I stand before you to submit my life to God, to give praises to God for all things of my life, and even in tribulations to trust, that you will never forsake me, he has a plan, his plans are so much greater than I could ever imagine. God promises us something better, he died on a cross for our sins. In this I can replace guilt with gratefulness, pain with strength, and uncertainty with calmness. I just have something in my eye. Yeah, yeah, I think a bunch of us have things in our eyes here, yes. It is through him and his love for me that I can do this, I declare it to not just be someone who knows of the Lord, but a follower of Jesus Christ, see the best spiritual leader I can be to my family, enter on to God first, and give him all the praises. Amen, we just heard your testimony, but I have a question for you, have you put your faith in Jesus' or forgiver of your sins and the leader of your life? Yes, I have. Based on that, I am going to baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Yeah, we can clap that. This is what we got, and so many people don't understand, they think, "God, Jesus didn't die on the cross and rise from the dead just so you'd believe God exists." Satan believes that, right? He wants all of you. We say you're not saved by your works and that's really true, but it's more than worse. I wish all God wanted from me was 10% of my income and going to church once a week and maybe reading the Bible every morning for 15 minutes. I wish that was all God wanted. God doesn't want us, certain works, He wants your whole life. In fact, I tell people, don't make this decision without counting the cost, but it's worth it because you give Him your life and He gives you an even better one in return. I'm going to pray a prayer, and after I pray, if you've prayed with me or if you need prayer for any other reason, I want you to come up, we'll have people up front with signs like this, we will pray for you, but especially if for the first time today you make Jesus your forgiver and you make Him your leader, tell someone about that. It's so important to have others around us helping us follow Jesus. Heavenly Father, I just thank you for sending Jesus Christ to earth to do incredible miracles, to just do amazing things, but most importantly, He came to die on the cross, to pay for our sin, to pay for my sin. And God, I ask that you would punish Jesus for all the sins I've done wrong, punish Him 2,000 years ago on the cross, that He would pay for my sins, and God, out of gratitude for your forgiveness, I declare and I decide and I commit today to give you my life. Help me to follow you from this day forward. You have everything, God. You have me. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.
