Our Old Testament reading this morning is from Isaiah 53, verses 1 through 12. And while you're looking at passage up, I'll take a moment of personal privilege to say that it's wonderful to be here with you this morning. We've had a special relationship with this church for a long time. I think it's been about 23 years, starting with my own internship and then getting a family and being missionaries in Ukraine. This church has always been our home church, so it's wonderful to be here this morning to see many familiar faces, many new faces. to have the privilege of bringing God's Word to you this morning. I also want to thank you for your generosity and caring for our family, which you've done every time we've been back in the States and while we're abroad as well. It's so wonderful to have use of the home here. It's been wonderful to have that and to enjoy your presence and fellowshipping with so many of you throughout the summer. And it's a pity that the summer is coming to an end because we would like to spend more time with so many of you. But life goes on and God has a calling for each one of us. And so let's focus our attention then this morning on God's word and what he has to say to us. And we'll do that first of all from the Old Testament from Isaiah 53 verses 1 through 12. Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant and like a root out of dry ground. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. As one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, have gone astray. We have turned, every one, to his own way. And the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth. Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? And they made his grave with the wicked and with the rich man in his death. Although he had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him. He has put him to grief. When his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring. He shall prolong his days. The will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied. By his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors. Yet he bore the sin of many and makes intercession for the transgressors. A New Testament lesson this morning, and also a passage we will focus our attention on during the sermon, is from the book of Acts. Acts chapter 8, verses 26 to 40, to the end of the chapter. Acts 8, verses 26 to 40. 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. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, do you understand what you are reading? And he said, how can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the scripture that he was reading was this. Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life was taken away from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask you, does a prophet say this, about himself or about someone else? And then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. And as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, see, here is water. What prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuchs saw him no more and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea." This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray together. Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for these incredible, memorable words from your scriptures. We pray, Heavenly Father, that we will hear them again this morning anew. We ask that you will speak to each one of us this morning. Speak to me, Heavenly Father. May I truly and accurately represent your truth, and may your word penetrate the hearts of each one of us. and bring forth a wonderful harvest in our lives. Speak, Lord, your servants are listening, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. So what do you think? Does God really care about this world and the people who live in it? Is it not true that all the problems in our society prove that God doesn't really care what happens with us? Why is it that so many people do not believe in Jesus Christ, do not love Him? Maybe God really just doesn't care. Why, for example, are there people in Africa and Asia, other parts of the world, who have never even heard of Jesus Christ? what will happen to them when they die? Will they not inherit eternal life? Why does God not save these people? We really want people to be saved from an empty life, from their sins and eternal punishment, don't we? We preach the gospel and send out missionaries to foreign lands. But does God care? Today we will look briefly at Acts 8 verses 26 to 40 in order to answer the question, does God care about sinful people who deserve eternal death? Does God care about sinful people who deserve eternal death? When traveling in the ancient world from Jerusalem to Africa, one had to first travel to infamous Gaza, the Gaza Strip, on the Mediterranean Sea before starting the long journey through the desert to Egypt. Luke writes that one day a man from Ethiopia was making this journey. Now, he was not from the country we call Ethiopia today. Ancient Ethiopia was located along the Nile River in the southern part of modern Egypt and the northern part of modern Sudan. This territory is also known as Nubia today or Kush in the writings of the Old Testament. We read that this Ethiopian man served the queen of Ethiopia, really the queen mother, whose title was Candace. At that time, the king of Ethiopia was considered by Ethiopians to be the son of the sun, and people worshipped him. So he didn't bother himself with the details of daily rules, so his mother graciously took care of that for him. It was common in the ancient world for the most trusted servants of kings and queens to be eunuchs. These are men who had operations done so that they could not have any children. Such men were considered to be more trustworthy. This Ethiopian eunuch, therefore, probably had himself made into a eunuch so that he could serve the queen and, in this way, further his career in the palace. And we read that he was quite successful. He was in charge of all the queen's treasure. But he was not a follower of the traditional Ethiopian religion. Luke tells us that this man had a scroll of the book of the prophet Isaiah. We also read that he was traveling from Jerusalem where he worshipped. So he feared the God of the Hebrews and had probably participated in one of the great Jewish festivals in Jerusalem. Although, as we will see in a minute, he could never become a full-fledged Jewish believer. Yet Luke writes about this Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts. He was very important to Luke. There are so many people and events Luke does not write about, but he writes about this man. One probable reason is that Jesus had told his disciples that they will be his witnesses to the far ends of the earth. And this man is from Ethiopia, which was considered at that time to be one of the far corners of the Roman Empire. So Luke shows us how Jesus' words in Acts 1 verse 8 are beginning to be fulfilled in Acts. Another likely reason why this man is important to Luke is that his story shows us very clearly how God cares for particular people. This man lived 1,500 miles from Jerusalem, from the city where Jesus was crucified and resurrected. Yet God knows about him and has a plan designed especially for this eunuch. Luke shows us that God is not cold-hearted towards the fate of people who live in Africa or in other distant countries. At this point in the history of the church, the apostles themselves are not ready to travel to other countries in order to tell people of their Messiah. They had all been holed up in Jerusalem until God dropped a bomb of persecution there. But God plans every detail in order to give this man faith in Jesus, the anointed one. God uses various circumstances and individuals to give true faith to particular people. In the Old Testament, for example, we read how God used two Israelite spies to give faith to a prostitute named Rahab. We read that he used Daniel to change the heart of the Babylonian king, the emperor Nebuchadnezzar. And we see that God spoke through Jonah to save the people of the city of Nineveh. We'll talk more about that tonight. That's because God cares about the salvation of particular people. We can only guess at the past that God had used to bring this man first to faith, this man from Ethiopia, to bring him to faith in the God of the Old Testament. And now he is using Philip, one of the Jewish leaders in the early church of Jerusalem, to give this man faith in the one and only Messiah. We read that Philip was just following the orders that God gave him very specifically. And he was merely using the opportunity God gave him to talk to this official from Ethiopia. I want you to think back for a minute on your own experience, on your own particular path to faith. Which events, circumstances, people did God use to lead you to trust in him for forgiveness from all your sins? Maybe it was your parents, friends, a co-worker, tough times in your life. I know in my life, Lord, you really used my parents, especially my mom, to give me true faith, and that's probably true for many of you as well. In our church in Ukraine, people have had various experiences, various different roads of coming to faith. One of the men in our church became a believer through his co-worker who was from our church. Others have become believers through our English camps. One young woman who went to an English camp had to break her foot before she truly came to faith in Christ, and then she could lead her mother to faith. My wife Anya, many years ago, was a student in her first year of university in Kiev when she got into a group of girls who participated in an occult seance to call up a spirit. Anya didn't usually do this, but not being a believer, this night she got into this group not knowing what she was doing. Using a Ouija board, the spirit spoke to each of the girls present, saying all sorts of unpleasant things. When it was Anya's turn to get a word from a spirit, however, he said to her, go to church. God actually used this negative experience in Anya's life to encourage her to think about her own soul and to put her on the road to faith. The fact is that God loves and gives true faith to particular people. The Apostle Paul writes about this in Ephesians 1, verses 4 to 5. and also in verse 11 Ephesians 1 verses 4 to 5 and also verse 11 the Apostle Paul says God chose us in him before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him in love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will In Him, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will. In the book of Isaiah, God says the following to His people, which includes us. Isaiah 43, verse 1, He says, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. God cared about us, about our forgiveness so much that he commissioned his only beloved son to go to earth so that he would become a man, Jesus the Messiah, and live among us and die for us in order to free us from punishment and to give us eternal life. If God truly couldn't care less about the fate of sinful people who have rebelled against him, then he never would have given his precious son over to a shameful, terrible death. It's at the cruel cross of Christ we see best of all how much God truly loves us. And he cares about every fleeting moment of your life. He planned every detail of the salvation of this eunuch from Ethiopia. And that's why you can be sure that God cares about the salvation of people. In the first place, you can be sure that God cares about the salvation of people. In fact, He actually cares about it much more than we do. In the second place, therefore, act boldly in light of God's mercy. Act boldly in light of God's mercy. It is clear in the book of Acts that God plans not only the reality, the fact of the salvation of specific people, but also the means of their conversion to true faith. In verse 26, we read the following words. 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. Earlier in chapter 8, we read how Philip himself begins to preach to the Samaritans after fleeing from persecution in Jerusalem. Many Samaritans will read, believe in Christ through Philip's words and through the miracles that he does by God's power. Philip becomes a famous man in Samaria. When he returns to Jerusalem, which we can infer from verses 25 and 26, Philip may have received a hero's welcome in the young church. He was the first missionary who preached to non-Jews, and he did so very successfully. But now God calls this Philip, the successful evangelist, to go into the desert. From this we can make at least two inferences. First, God's plan makes us necessary. God acts through people. We may never use God's sovereign choice of individuals and his plan for their salvation as an excuse not to speak to people about Christ. God wants Philip to talk to that eunuch. God's plan does not make us superfluous, extraneous, unnecessary. On the contrary, his plan makes us essential, indispensable. And that's because God plans both the fact and the means of our salvation. The second conclusion we can draw from God sending Philip to the desert is this. Our Heavenly Father wants us to act in different situations and places. God calls Philippians to the wilderness. It's interesting to note that the word translated as south in verse 26 can also be translated as noon. Because if you think of it, in the northern hemisphere at noon, the sun is usually in the south. So it's possible that God calls Philip not just to go from Jerusalem to the desert, but to do so at noon, in the middle of the day. Why should Philip do that? What could possibly be in the desert at noon? God's plan is often incomprehensible to us. Sometimes he calls us into the desert, to a place where we are uncomfortable, like a fish out of water. That's the way I felt when I first moved to Ukraine in 1997, not really knowing the language, not knowing anybody in the city, trying to pastor a small church. The desert might be a place where we are alone, where things are hard on us, where we do not see meaning in God's plan. I'm sure that most of you, if not all of you, have already gone through such dry desert times when you just cannot understand what God is doing. why your circumstances are the exact opposite of what seems good to you, of what you want. The fact is that God is also in the desert of our lives. Sometimes the desert is a much more fruitful place for our faith than a lush garden. And God wants us to be faithful to him in the desert as well. God does not tell Philip why he needs to go down to the desert road. Philip doesn't know God's plan, but Philip obeys. Having arrived in the wilderness, Philip is surprised, I imagine quite surprised, to see a whole caravan of people in the desert in the middle of the day. We only read about the eunuch here, but an important government figure like him from Ethiopia would not travel alone. His servants and soldiers would accompany him on the long dangerous road. We see that in verse 38 where he commands the chariot to stop, so obviously he's not by himself. Philip must have been very surprised to see a whole caravan of dark-skinned people in the desert near Jerusalem. But he believes that God has a plan, that there's no coincidence with God, and so Philip was ready to act. Well, how about us? There are no coincidences in our lives either. Every week, every day, God gives us opportunities to do good, to show love to other people, to speak about our faith. Do you pray for such opportunities in your life? And do you use them? At home with your children, with your neighbors, at work with employees? at school, at college, with other people you happen to meet. Remember, God acts through us. People do not see God, but they see and hear us. He gives us different opportunities to talk about him and to show his love. He also gives us the right words and the power to act. So act boldly in the light of God's mercy. He really cares about the salvation of other people much more than we do. But he wants to include us in the process of bringing people to true faith. In the third place, then, acknowledge Jesus Christ as the key that reveals the secrets of God's Word. Acknowledge Jesus Christ as the key that reveals the secrets of God's Word. God's Spirit tells Philip that he needs to go over to the chariot. Well, the word chariot is probably not the best word here because when we hear chariot we think of Ben-Hur, somebody standing up and driving a team of horses. That's not really what's going on here. This is more like some kind of a cart. Philip rushes over to the eunuch and he hears that he is reading something. Kids, when we hear somebody reading out loud, it usually means that person is learning to read. Our son, Kristen, several years ago was learning to read in Ukrainian, so he would say everything out loud and read books out loud to himself. So do you think maybe this African eunuch could not read very well? That's why he's reading out loud to himself. Well, actually, as it turns out, people in the ancient world always read out loud, as far as we know. That's because it was very difficult to read their scrolls that were written by hand, all in uppercase letters with no spaces between the words. So you really had to sound it all out to figure out what's written there. And again, we see the details of God's plan here. Philip comes to the road just as this caravan is passing by. He rushes to the cart exactly when the eunuch is reading the Old Testament. And at that very moment, the man from Ethiopia is reading these words from the book of Isaiah, which speak of Jesus Christ perhaps better than all passages from the Old Testament. Like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silenced, so he opens not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth." And hearing these words, Philip asks the eunuch, Do you understand what you're reading? And the Ethiopian answers, How can I, unless someone guides me? We hear the voice of God speaking to Philip through this eunuch. God is telling Philip that it's his turn to speak now. And then the eunuch invites Philip to sit next to him on the carriage, and he asks, Who is the prophet talking about? Himself or someone else? That's because before the birth of Christ, nobody made a connection between the various prophecies of the Old Testament. People did not think that the divine Son of Man that we read about in Daniel chapter 7, the royal king from David's family, and the suffering servant are all the same person as the Messiah. No one could understand that the Messiah would be both God and man, king and servant, conqueror and sacrifice. Even the prophet Isaiah probably did not understand all the mysteries he was writing about. And therefore the eunuch asks Philip, who is the prophet talking about? The story of Philip and the eunuch, which Luke tells, is very similar to another famous story. In his gospel, in chapter 24, the same author, Luke, tells us how after his resurrection, Jesus meets two of his followers on the road to a place called Emmaus. After dinner, he reveals to them the secrets of the Old Testament. Christ shows them how all of the scriptures prophesy about him. He explains to the two disciples that he is the true fulfillment of the symbols, the prototypes, and the prophecies of God's word. And then suddenly, just like that, he disappears. And here in Acts chapter 8, something similar happens. After meeting on the road, Philip explains to the eunuch that the entire Old Testament actually talks about Jesus Christ, who had been crucified shortly before then in Jerusalem. Because Jesus is the golden or the blood red thread that knits together everything described in the Old Testament. From the first promise of the destruction of the serpent, to the ceremonies of sacrifice in the temple, and the countless prophecies and symbols of the Messiah, Jesus Christ is the key to revealing the secrets of God's word. Many scholars and people study God's Word, study the Bible. It's the most famous book, historic book. Yet not all of them believe in Jesus as the Messiah, the God and Savior of people. My brothers and sisters, without Jesus Christ, the Bible is pointless. Similarly, our conversations with people about God should be focused on Jesus Christ, because it's impossible to share the good news with people about forgiveness of our sins without talking about the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. Every person must know about him and trust in him to receive new eternal life. We enjoy having our English camps during the summer months in the Carpathian Mountains, and some of you have actually participated in those camps. It's a wonderful week to teach English to the college students from our city, Lviv, to teach them some American sports and different crafts and hobby classes and have lots of conversations with them. But most of all during the week, we want them to read the Bible and to see who Jesus Christ is and what he did. Because if they don't get to know Jesus Christ, they've not gotten to know God. Acknowledge Jesus Christ as the key that reveals the secrets of God's word. And in the fourth place, trust in Jesus every day as the one who removes all your shortcomings. Yes, we have a fourth point as well. Trust in Jesus every day as the one who removes all your shortcomings. After Philip goes to this important Ethiopian official's carriage, he explains to him the true meaning of the words from Isaiah 53 that he was reading. He tells him about the life, the death, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. He must have talked to him about the new church that was formed in Jerusalem, about the special signs of the Lord's Supper and baptism. Because the Ethiopian eunuch puts his faith in Jesus Christ and then asks to be baptized. in a rare pool of water that just happens to be there right in the desert at that moment. Philip didn't have the book of church order yet, so he is convinced of the man's faith and baptizes him right then and there. After this, Philip miraculously vanishes and the Holy Spirit takes him to another place where he continues to tell people about Jesus of Nazareth. God has done using Philip in the life of this particular man, as far as we know. But the Ethiopian's life of following Jesus Christ is just beginning. Although on some level it must have been strange for this eunuch that Philip was willing to baptize him. Because according to the Jewish faith, he could never be completely accepted. The Old Testament law says very clearly in Deuteronomy chapter 23 verse 1 that eunuchs are not allowed to enter the temple. His physical condition made him unworthy to enter God's holy place. He was always on the outside looking in. But through Jesus Christ, All the things that make us completely unworthy to be in God's presence are forever done away with. Because of Jesus, any person can receive forgiveness and become a member of God's family. It's noteworthy that Isaiah, the prophet whose book the eunuch was reading, writes about this. The same Isaiah writes in chapter 11 that people from Cush or Ethiopia will also become God's children. In chapter 56, he even writes God's words that foreigners and eunuchs will be better than sons or daughters in the heavenly kingdom. Listen to these words from Isaiah chapter 56, verses 3 to 5. Let not the foreigner who has joined himself to the Lord say, the Lord will surely separate me from his people. And let not the eunuch say, behold, I'm a dry tree. For thus says the Lord, to the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give in my house and within my walls a monument and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off. And so the story of the Ethiopian eunuch ends with his rejoicing greatly. He thought that he was searching for God. But as it turns out, God had been pursuing him the whole time. And now it could become clear to him how God had been planning all the events of his life in order to give him a place forever in God's kingdom. We don't read anything else about this Ethiopian eunuch in the Bible. But over time, the Christian church in Africa becomes very large and strong and yields several early Christian fathers, such as Cyprian, Tertullian, and the famous Augustine. And the Coptic church, which still exists today, might even have its origin in this eunuch. According to the Old Testament law, he could not become a true Jew. But in the age of fulfillment that came with Jesus Christ, he was completely accepted as God's child. The Messiah made him worthy. You and I do not come to God as eunuchs, thankfully, but each of us comes to God with our own particular sins, shortfalls, failures, and foolishness. Sometimes we think that we have to get rid of particular sins or disobedience in our lives before God will accept us. We want to make ourselves clean enough, good enough for God. But the good news of the Bible is that we don't need to be good enough. We can never make ourselves acceptable to God. Through faith in Christ, His perfect life is considered to be ours. We get His passport, His job review, His resume, His grade report. God the Father sees Jesus' perfection, His worthiness in us. And His death on the cross removes all the guilt and shame from our rebellion and disobedience. We call that justification. By God's act, He makes us righteous because of Jesus Christ, what He has done. So don't try to make yourself good enough for God to love you. He does not require this and you will never succeed. Admit your unworthiness, your dirt to God. And he will accept you into his family based on what Jesus has done for you. We call that adoption. And he will also give you his spirit who works in us so that our daily lives become more and more the way he wants them to be. We call that sanctification. So you can be sure that God cares about the salvation of people, of particular people. The greatest missionary, the most active missionary in the world is God himself. And therefore we can act boldly in light of God's mercy. Do not miss the daily opportunities that God gives you to do good, to love, to speak about your Savior, whether it's here in Wheaton, Naperville, anywhere, in Chicago, or in Ukraine. God gives us opportunities every day. Acknowledge Jesus Christ as the key that reveals the secrets of God's Word. He is the center of our faith. He is our hope. There is no other Savior besides Jesus Christ. and trust in Jesus every day as the one who removes all of your shortcomings. Brothers and sisters, God loves you by name. In God's kingdom, in his family, there are no eunuchs, no blind, deaf people with physical or spiritual disabilities. There are no murderers, adulterers, liars, or idolaters. There are only forgiven, renewed sons and daughters who through Christ have become sinless in God's eyes. And through faith, that is who you and I will be forever. As God says in Isaiah 43, fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. Amen. Let's respond by singing hymn number 351, How Deep the Father's Love for Us.