Have you ever felt like God was telling you to do something?  Perhaps even something that might be out of character for you?  Sometimes it’s just a sense that you should call someone or go up and speak to someone.  There have been a few times where God has put it on my heart to reach out to a person who I haven’t spoken to in years.  I have found that when we are sensitive to God leading like this it tends to happen more often and God inevitably uses those moments in powerful ways.  There is one such moment recorded in Acts 8.  Let’s look art it together today.

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 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.”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]  38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.

Phillip had a sense from God that he was supposed to run up to a random chariot that had an important official in it.  I’m sure somewhere in his mind he must have thought that this didn’t make much sense and perhaps could even be dangerous.  He obeys the Spirit and goes and God uses that encounter to not only bring the gospel to the Eunuch but also ultimately to bring the gospel to Ethiopia.  You never know just how significant it might be when we listen to the things that God calls us to do.  Those moments can literally be life changing.  I pray that God might give us all a sensitivity to hear those calls that Jesus gives to us through His Spirit and that like Phillip we might all answer the call.  You never know when God might use you to change someone’s life. 

In His Grip,
Pastor Dave