Everyone knows what a car does. But what does a church do? Like cars, Christians are made to move—to follow and become more like Jesus and help others follow Him too. In Acts 8 we find that the people God calls us to go to may not be the ones we expect.
Acts 8
Speaker: Kevin Ozolins
Well good morning welcome to Bridgewater Church. We're excited to have you here with us on Open House Sunday. My name is Kevin and I get the joy of serving as one of the pastors here. And man we've been having a fun time going through this under the hood series over the last couple of weeks and I've loved that video coming up and now it's like oh we've got the real thing right outside. So if you brought a car here this morning thank you we're so glad you're here. And you guys if you've been with us you know I'm not really a car guy. So last year in December when my wife called me and said hey the battery light came on in my car on the way to work this morning. I was like ah no this is going to cost us something and I don't know what's going to be wrong. Two weeks before Christmas we don't need to be spending that kind of money right now. I don't know what's going on with this thing but by happenstance by coincidence if you want to call it that I think there's a whole lot more going on than coincidence. She was going to wear my brother-in-law who's a certified mechanic works and she was going to work there with our three kids in the car and you know she pulled in parks the car hasn't take a look at it and he calls me up and says hey Kevin it's the alternator. I'm like ah man I really didn't want to put money into this can't we just like knock on it and pretend it's going to be good. And I'm dreading what the cost of an alternator is going to be. I'm sitting in my office trying to find the closest cheapest one and I'm rearranging my schedule saying Matt can you fix it tonight if I can find the park. He's like yeah I can do that. And so I'm just about to hit checkout when I found the right alternator at the right price when Matt calls me up again and says hey Kevin you don't need an alternator anymore. I'm like awesome the car's on fire. Less awesome. And after running through the gamut of emotions of oh my goodness I didn't want to spend 200 dollars in an alternator now I got to get a new car and all of these things and my first thought as soon as he told me this was can you get the car seats out. We have three kids who are in car seats and finally I decided to settle on relief that the kids weren't in their car seats that my wife wasn't in the car that the car wasn't parked in our garage when it decided to go all full human car torch. And I realized that you know through all these things that could be considered coincidence that God was doing something so much bigger and better because coincidence is just when God chooses to remain anonymous. That there are these chains of events in our lives that have led to you being here this morning at this very time to hear the words that I'm hoping God is speaking to your heart this morning. And what devastated me about that car was not the way that it looks because even if I were able to somehow open up the door plug the kids into their super melty gross car seats put new tires on it. You see the tires had melted off completely. Every time I look at that picture I'm just astounded at the damage and carnage that came across on that. All of those things didn't matter. What mattered was that car couldn't serve its purpose anymore. We know that cars are built for movement but all that car was at that point was a monument to things that it would never ever be again. And just this this devastation for something that couldn't do what it was created to do. And while we can look at a car like that and look at how devastating that can be we recognize that a human life without purpose is far more devastating. And that my hope this morning is that each and every one of you who's here perhaps you think by coincidence this morning I know that you're not here by coincidence but that God has a great and amazing plan for your life. And he has been writing that plan since the very first pages of the Bible since the very first days of creation because when God created everything in the very beginning he said that it was good. He looked at all of creation said this is good and there was a man in there his name was Adam and he says it is not good for man to be alone. Some of us are trying to go through this life all by ourselves and saying I can do this by myself it is not good for you to be alone. You need to be in a community with people who care about you who are willing to pick you up when you're hurting and when you can pick them up when they're hurting too. So God gave Adam this woman called Eve to be his wife to be his helper and be alongside of him through all of his days and that was a good thing. Believe it or not men women are such a great gift I am so blessed to have my wife. And all through the pages of Scripture right after Adam and Eve are created we see they broke what God had created to be perfect. They chose to disobey God and go their own way and they said my way is better than yours God I'm following this way and we see the devastation that that causes in human lives for centuries and centuries. For page after page we see God's people that chosen people in the Old Testament the Jews running away from God taking what he said and saying no my way is better and for page after page for century after century we see God choosing patience grace forgiveness and second third fourth fifth and seven millionth chances because God created his people to know him and to be known by him and God knows what is absolutely best for your life and he has given us this book the Bible to show us what is good. To show us that the the words in this book aren't just laws to keep us from having fun they're not just things that he's waiting for us to break his rules so that he can rain down his judgment on us the words in this book are life the words in this book guide us to his perfect path for us and he knows that what is absolutely best for us is for us to trust in him as our leader and as our forgiver because we know that we have broken everything that we've touched. I know that without Jesus Christ my life would be purposeless and broken and hopeless and I was at a point in my life when I was younger I had grown up in church and I knew all the right answers to everything of the Sunday school answers but I felt purposeless until Jesus became real to me and the Old Testament is full of stories of God chasing after man and man chasing after God and horribly missing the point but then in the New Testament God picks up his promise that he would one day bring a redeemer to save everybody from the brokenness that we have caused and that redeemer came through the man Jesus Christ who is a hundred percent man and a hundred percent God the first four books of the New Testament tell us the story of Jesus life death and resurrection because even though Jesus came to save the world the religious leaders of the day had looked at him and said your way is too hard it's uncomfortable for me I don't want any part in it so they chose to kill Jesus in a way that would literally define excruciating pain because his teachings didn't match their comfort level it was uncomfortable for them to follow Jesus so then in the book of Acts we pick up where the gospels left off those four four books Matthew Mark Luke and John share the good news of Jesus Christ and we've been in the book of Acts for the last couple of weeks here and we're going to pick up your Bible may call this Acts of the Apostles if you've got one with you feel free to open it up we're going to be in Acts chapter eight if you've got it on your phone you can open up your Bible lap Acts chapter eight we're going to follow a man named Philip who was a follower of Jesus Christ who is one of the early Apostles is the fancy word we give them and he had been a fisherman just a dirty stinky smelly dude who hung out with a bunch of other dudes in a boat trying to catch enough fish to feed their families and we're going to see what God had done in his life so as for Philip an angel of the Lord said to him go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza so he started out and he met the treasure of Ethiopia a eunuch of great authority under the queen of Ethiopia so Philip is going out and God says go and what I love about Philip is when God says go he doesn't ask questions he just says yes I've been with Jesus and I know that his plan is best for my life so I'm going wherever he says go to and he comes across this man who for a fisherman from a porth area of Galilee to come across this man riding in a chariot he already knows this guy is filthy rich he probably doesn't know who's in there yet but he comes up and sees this chariot coming across and it ends up being a Ethiopian eunuch who is the treasurer for an entire kingdom and the eunuch had gone down Jerusalem to worship and he was now returning seated in his carriage he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah so we learn a few things about this man as we're going along first of all we learn his heritage he's a man from Ethiopia he was a foreigner and yet he was also a seeker after God he was somebody who had gone to Jerusalem knowing that there was this group of people the Jews who who believed that this was the place to worship to experience and encounter God and maybe that's some of your story you feel like a foreigner outside of your own land right now but you're you're here maybe because somebody said breakfast burritos and cool cars or maybe there was something deeper going on saying I want to know what this whole life is about and I feel like I'm broken inside because this man as an Ethiopian eunuch he was so filthy rich he was in this extreme high tier and echelon of society that Philip had no business going to he was absolutely unreachable to a Galilean fisherman he was riding in his own chariot he had his own copy of the book of Isaiah to read and we can take for granted the amount of reading material that we have these days right but the printing press wouldn't be invented for a million or a thousand and a half years after this story takes place there were no iPhones or Kindles or ebooks to read from so if you wanted a book to read somebody had to hand write that thing and that was going to take a lot of time and we know that time is money right so if this man is riding in a chariot reading his own copy of the book of Isaiah much less that he can just read itself most people then could not read this is a man who is filthy rich yet if you know what the word eunuch means you know he's horribly broken as well for those of you who don't know what that word means it is a man who would have been in a high power of prestige in a kingdom but the king queen wouldn't want to be threatened that this man would try to take power and give the power over to his descendants so they made some alterations to make sure that he would not threaten their kingdom so this man would never have children and that was probably part of the brokenness that he fell he was filthy rich and horribly broken at the same time absolutely untouchable in society or untouchable in society but also unreachable he was so far above Philip and yet also so far beneath him because of the things that had done had been done to him and the things that he had done himself and some of you are going to resonate with that man that you feel like you're just so untouchable because of the things that have been done to you or the things that you've done and you feel like there's no way a human being could love me much less a god who is perfect in the creator of the universe but as we're going to see Philip comes along because he had been with Jesus he had been changed by Jesus when Philip is obedient things are going to happen let's continue on the Holy Spirit said to Philip go over and walk along beside that carriage so Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah and Philip asked do you understand what you are reading so I love Philip he God says go God says walk and Philip runs he had been with Jesus he knows if I'm going to obey I'm just going to run to obedience because I want to be exactly where God wants me to be amen I'm not going to waste time back here where I don't need to be anymore because God called me over here because God wants us to go to people who seem beyond reach this man who is unreachable and yet untouchable go to people who seem beyond reach because you have the power you have the keys to the kingdom of heaven if you trust in Jesus is your leader and forgiver we have to go to these people who seem so far above us or so far beneath us but the question is are you willing to talk to those people about Jesus by those people I mean those people who are untouchable or unreachable that who is that person in your life who is just so far above you that jerk that cuts you off on traffic or those people with all the money in the world that are not using it for the right things or who are those people that you feel are just so far beneath you you've got the people who are filthy rich and just the people who are straight up filthy that you wouldn't be caught dead near maybe it's that neighbor of yours whose dog keeps on doing his business in your lawn or maybe it's the other neighbor whose long sign repulses you more than that dog's business God calls you to go to people who are beyond reach who are beyond your political lines the people who look like you think like you vote like you and act like you God wants you to go to those people because they are created in the very same image of God that you are created in they are just as unworthy of the gospel of Jesus Christ as you and I are and yet if they trust in Jesus's leader and forgiver they are just as able to be saved we don't deserve the love and grace of Jesus Christ and yet he died on the cross so that we could know him and experience his best plans for us and when we say God's best plans for us it's the man the person who knew the end from the very beginning if you want to go somewhere good you got to trust in somebody who's been there before who can get you there and that's God he knows the end to your story he knows the best path for you to travel he'll be patient for you when you make all the wrong turns but he wants you to follow his path because he wants what's best for you and he wants what's best for those people in your life too stop turning them away from Jesus go to them no matter how far off they may seem but some of you may not resonate with Philip you're not ready to obey God yet you're not following him yet some of you feel like the Ethiopian eunuch you feel like because of the things that have been done to you or the things that you've done or the things that people say about you that you're starting to believe you feel like you are beyond reach but that's a lie you are not beyond reach there is no level of sin that you can encounter there's no level of rejection of God that you can have in this life that will set you too far away from him you have not done too many bad things not too many bad things have been done to you you have not run too far that God's grace cannot catch you if you turn around no matter how far you think you've run you're gonna find him the prophet Jeremiah wrote many years before Jesus came if you look for me wholeheartedly you will find me maybe some of you are here this morning and you're looking for God you're trying to figure out what is this life all about what is my purpose if a car's purpose is to move what is my purpose in life i'll tell you right now your purpose is to know God and to be known by him to trust in his word because he knows the best plans for you and he wants you to experience fullness of life we chase after stupid things that's not what God wants for you God has something so much better for you and this Ethiopian unique this man who is horribly broken and yet filthy rich who lived in two worlds of unreachable and untouchable he replies to fill up as he's telling him this how can i understand these things that i'm reading unless someone instructs me and he urged fill up to come up into the carriage and to sit with him if you have a hard time understanding God's word ask questions i love questions and there is no question too stupid there's no question too small or insignificant we want you to understand and be able to ask those questions that's why next week we're starting starting point it's a place where you can come and just ask whatever question is on your mind about life faith God the bible anything we would love to answer your questions so feel free to talk with somebody with a white and blue name tag or somebody you've seen on the stage we would love to get you plugged into that to address those questions that you're wrestling with but ask them please we've wrestled with those things before ourselves one of my favorite bible versus his first Corinthians 1013 that tells us no temptation has seized you except what is common to man the thoughts that you're wrestling with the feelings of inadequacy in adequacy depression anxiety harm and abuse all of those things that you're dealing with somebody else in this room has dealt with them before satan wants you to believe you're the only one wrestling with these things but the truth in God's word is the person sitting next to you knows what you're going through they've experienced it and they've come out the other side and i would love for you to share your experiences with somebody to talk to them and say hey i don't get why god is letting me go through x y and z but god has you here this morning on purpose and for a purpose and that purpose is to know him and to make him known so how can i understand these things unless someone instructs me he urged philip to come up into the carriage to sit with him the passage of scripture that he just so happened to be reading was isiah 53 which just so happens by coincidence of course to be a 700 year old prophecy that is one of the strongest prophecies in all of the old testament that speaks beautifully and powerfully to who jesus is 700 years before he would be born in some jewish circles this is known as the forbidden chapter because they won't read this in synagogues because it's so clearly points to jesus as the messiah this is a beautiful passage of scripture and of course it's not coincidence that this is what he reads it says he was led like a sheep to the slaughter and as a lamb is silent before the shearers he did not open his mouth he was humiliated and received no justice who can speak of his descendants for his life was taken from the earth and jesus of course had no descendants and who is that passage going to resonate with more than an ethiopian eunuch who had spent years of his life yearning for somebody to give this filthy amount of money to but he's got no descendants nobody to give that inheritance to but god's word tells him i've got something better for you just and as he continues on and the eunuch is going to ask philop tell me was the prophet talking about himself or someone else so beginning with this same scripture philop told him the good news about jesus got if you know jesus is your leader and forgive or god wants you to use his word to tell other people about him and what i love about the ethiopian eunuch reading this passage of scripture is in my bible it's one page away not only does it talk to somebody who has no descendants who's struggling with that but the bible is written about you and for you just one page away in my bible there's a blessing given to foreigners foreigners who are eunuchs it's the only place in all of the old testament that has a blessing for foreign eunuchs the bible is written about you and for you you remember those old iphone commercials back when it first came out there's an app for that right i believe that there's a verse for whatever you're going through in your life and the eunuch would have found maybe this is his favorite passage maybe this is the first time he was ever picking up the book of isiah in his life but he finds this passage in isiah chapter 56 we're going to move forward too there we go don't let foreigners who commit themselves to the lord say the lord will never let me be part of his people and don't let the eunuch say i'm a dried up tree with no children and no future the bible is written about you and for you god's got a plan for whatever you're going through he knows about it and he wants to speak to it the bible already speaks to it so we would love to help you see what you're going through and what god says about it for 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 i will be their family i will give them a memorial and a name far greater than sons and daughters could give for the name i give them is an everlasting one it will never disappear this is the promise that god had made to the ethiopian eunuch hundreds of years before he would ride in his carriage alongside of philip knowing that he had a better plan in place so as they wrote along they came to some water and the eunuch said look there's some water why can't i be baptized he ordered the carriage to stop and they went down into the water and philip baptized him when they came up out of the water the spirit of the lord snatched philip away and the eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing so the question for each one of you this morning is what are you going to do with this message of jesus with this gospel the good news that jesus came to this earth to redeem those who the world said were unredeemable you've heard the good news now this morning what's your next step maybe some of you like the eunuch are going to choose to trust in jesus and say i'm going to surrender my life to him because the way i've been running things doesn't work i'm broken i might be filthy rich by this world standards or i may just be filthy filthy am i ready to say i'm i'm not the one who should be leaving my life let me trust in the one who is known the end from the very beginning because he has a plan for me and all the nonsense and garbage that i've gone through in my life we're gonna see a video on it just a moment of a man who is running that same kind of path he was purposeless he he had gone to church his whole life and yet he came up short and realizing that i'm not enough the things that i'm seeking for fulfillment in my life aren't doing it and we're going to look at this video of hulio who goes to our vessel campus who took the next step of baptism just a few weeks ago let's let him tell his story consider myself a follower of Christ increasingly in summary of life 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 the hulio wants first that stands out to me is regulations three 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 a little warm water neither hot nor cold i will spit you out of my mouth we 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 invite you to buy gold for me go that i have purified by fire then you'll be rich also i white garments coming so you will not be shamed by your nakedness and only meant for your eyes so you'll be able to see and no longer want to live and look more in life no longer want to live in the world today i stand before you to submit my life to God to give praise to God for all things in my life and even in trickulations to trust and you will never forsake me he has a plan his plan is so much greater than i could ever imagine God promises us something better to die on the cross for our sins in this i'm going to play skill with gratefulness thank you it's great man uncertainty with promise exactly what i mean yeah yeah let's i think a bunch of us have things in our eyes it is through me and his love for me that i can do this i think it's not just be someone who knows of the Lord but a father of Jesus Christ to the best group shall lead i can be to my family mentor holy god first we give him all the praises hey man we just heard your testimony but i have questions for you have you put your faith in Jesus's or forgive her of your sins and the leader of your life yes i am based on that i'm going to baptize you and name your father and the son and the holy spirit we can clap for that absolutely i no longer want to live the lukewarm life love the way that he said that that i just want to follow after jesus because i know his plan is best for me and i love pastor erin shirt and say can't throw stones while washing feet some of us are throwing stones at people that we whose feet would should be washing because they are made in the same image of god as you and i are they need jesus just as much as you and i do and i see some of you guys have something in your eye too just like holy al but some of you haven't come to a point where you can say with holy al i'm ready to trust in jesus is my leader and forgive her some of you have made that step already and yet you're looking at these people whose feet you should be washing you're throwing stones at them instead and you're keeping them out of the kingdom of god philip could have chosen to to pull a jona and say god i'm not going to that ethiopian eunuch he is filthy and wretched i'm not going there that god calls us go to people who seem beyond reach to those people who seem untouchable to you if you trust in jesus is your leader you have to follow him you have to do what he says because his plan is best for you if you haven't trusted jesus is your leader and forgive her yet we're going to pray in just a moment and i would challenge you to ask well what what am i waiting for we know that we all make bad decisions but when we trust in jesus we just say i'm going to follow you i'm going to trust you know i'm not going to be perfect i don't know what my life is going to look like but i know that i can't keep going down the same path so as we pray in just a moment i would encourage you if you want to trust in jesus is your leader and forgive her pray quietly along with me but don't stay quiet about it because that's something that we need to celebrate tell somebody with a white and blue name tag or somebody you've seen on the stage already this morning hey i prayed with kevin this morning i trusted in jesus my leader and forgive her what's next we would love to get some resources resources into your hands maybe start coming to that starting point class yet maybe you still have some questions we would love to answer those but what's your next step is it to trust in jesus is your leader and forgive her is it to be more bold about sharing the gospel with those people where is god leading you today let's pray lord god we thank you that you're a god who loves us and a god who leads us on paths to righteousness we thank you that you have a plan for each and every one of our lives and that you have brought each and every one of us into this room this morning for a purpose and for a reason god we're not here by mistake or by sheer coincidence father for those this morning who are wrestling with decisions in their lives that have that they've made or that have been made against them that are dealing with all kinds of hurt and trauma and abuse and or just realized i can't live this way anymore father i i pray that they will trust in you as leader and forgive her right now you want to forgive their sins the things that they've done wrong that ultimately they may forgive those who have sinned against them all that that may seem far off still but i want them to trust in you as leader to say my way is not working maybe i should try it the way of the god who created the heavens and the earth god i pray that you will speak to us powerfully this morning and father i pray that you will draw people to yourself and if you're out there this morning you're tired of living life your own way just pray along with me these simple words lord god i know that i've done wrong i've hurt you and i've hurt those around me and i've hurt myself i don't want to do this by myself anymore god be my leader be my forgiver i'm sorry for the thing that i've done wrong i trust in you help me to follow you and to give everything over to you we pray these things in the awesome and holy name of jesus christ amen
