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Timothy R Partridge

Life Journey Baptist Church

The History of the Church • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago • Presented 3 years ago • 39:58

Acts 8:26–40

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Availability

How available are you to be used by God;

Do you claim availability and then deny it when called to action;

Is the church available to God or is it constrained by systems;

What is your availability;

Here we find Phillip being called to go - not to a place, not to a person, just to go in a general direction;

God wanted Phillip in a certain place and time and Phillip was available;

Notice Phillip got up and went, he was available and willing to serve God’s desires.

Encounter

The church was and still is intended to meet those that the Jewish traditions felt were unworthy;

The priests had the final say, so they thought, as to whom was worthy of worshipping God;

Recall the short film the Shepherd

How often is the church not too different;

I have been told by many people that we should drop the line “a church for those hurt by a church”;

“Who wants to go to church with a bunch of hurt people?”

Here we have Phillip going in a direction “south”, in to the “desert”, with nothing more than God’s instruction to GO!;

He then encounters an undesirable, an unworthy, an outcast -even with authority;

Because Phillip was “available” he was able to have an “encounter” with someone seeking God.

Usable

Phillip was willing to be used, not just inside the synagogue, but in the real world full of danger and needs;

Phillip, and the first church, were more concerned about introducing people to Christ that it became the core of their existence;

Phillip asked a question then shared the gospel, he let God choose who should hear and the other way around;

Notice who God chose - an Ethiopian eunuch - whom, again even with the great authority he had, would still be considered unworthy by the religious elite;