Let's get our Bibles this morning. Those of you who have a Bible, please have that out this morning and we will be turning in it midway in the sermon back to the book of Isaiah together. And I think it's very important that you have the text in front of you so you can see this section of scripture that's being read by the Ethiopian eunuch in the passage that's before us this morning. We are in Acts chapter 8, and we'll be picking up our reading in verse 26, reading on to the end of the chapter. So, Acts chapter 8, verses 26 through 40. Let's give again this morning our careful hearing to the life-giving Word of God. 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 is taken away, from the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip, about whom, I ask, does the prophet say this? About himself or about someone else? 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 eunuch 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. Let's bow in prayer briefly. Father in heaven, thank you for your word. Thank you for giving us bread from heaven. Thank you for the living water that quenches our thirst. We pray that this morning as we hear your word and as your spirit works in us and works by this word, that You truly would quench our thirst, that You would feed us because we are hungry. Give us, O God, the bread of heaven. Give us the Lord Jesus Himself. We need Him, and so we cry out to You in His name. Amen. Things have radically changed in the West as far as religion is concerned, particularly in our day and age. It is not something with the light that I say that really today much that passes for, quote, Christianity, just a couple of generations ago wouldn't even have been recognized as Christianity in the past. In fact, much of the focus of the church today has changed from a concern to honor and worship the Lord to really a project to try to make, and it's sometimes just nebulous, it's sometimes a general concept, to try to make faith more acceptable to the modern person. And so we preach and we appeal to the intellect because we don't want people to think we're stupid. Or we try to repackage the faith in some way that seems culturally relevant because we don't want anybody out there to think we're out of it somehow, that we're not hip. And yet behind all of these innovations and behind this impulse of remarketing attempts that the modern church is involved with is really, I think, sadly, a sickness and a cancer. And that sickness and that cancer is that, bottom line, we are, and the church has become in the modern era, we are embarrassed about who God is. We are embarrassed about his rules and his commandments And we are embarrassed about, frankly, the historic Christian faith. And therefore, we're trying to refashion, and we're trying to remold things so that our faith will be more acceptable to our culture, so that we won't have to be embarrassed by it any longer. But even worse, I think, than our caving into the modern culture and trying to make the worship of The triune God, cool. Worse than that, really, is the sad reality that we have lost. We've lost the simple joy and humility and wonder at the gospel of Jesus Christ. We've forgotten that we were once not a people. But now we are people. We have forgotten that once we were outside. We would have not been accepted in the church of the living God. And yet, because of Jesus, we have been brought near. See, we've lost that wonder again, that God could accept us. That us, we could be found in the assembly of the Lord. And so that joy and that wonder is gone. And my hope is that as we hear the story this morning of this Ethiopian eunuch coming to faith in Jesus, that really what would happen to us is that we again would have our joy, our hope, our humility rekindled again and that we would recommit ourselves to letting God be God. That no longer would the issues in our mind be, I hope that people will think I'm okay, but rather we would just trust the Lord. Let Him be the Lord of His church. That I want nothing more than to be found with Jesus, in line with His apostles, in line with the church throughout the ages. That I would trust and submit to Him and His ways. I want us to first look this morning at an outsider of the assembly of God. Because to appreciate what happens here with Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, we need to remember that this man, the Ethiopian eunuch, was very much an outsider as far as inclusion and acceptance in the people of God was concerned. You have to appreciate this to see what an amazing thing goes on in this passage. You see, he was, we don't know 100%, but almost certainly this was not a Jew. He was very much, very likely he would have been a Gentile. It's clear that he did not live in Israel. He was from Ethiopia in Africa. And he was a eunuch, which meant that he could not even be part of the assembly of the Lord as far as the law of God was concerned. Deuteronomy 23, verse 1 very explicitly You'll have to get over yourself very graphically Deuteronomy 23 one says no one whose testicles are crushed Or whose male organ is cut off Shall enter the assembly of the Lord and so this man was of the wrong race He was a citizen of the wrong country, and he had the wrong anatomy for being part of God's people at this time. And therefore, it would be difficult, I think, to imagine a person further away. It would be difficult to imagine someone more outside and more ostracized from the God of Israel than this Ethiopian eunuch. And interestingly, the Lord, do you notice that there? The narrative, the Lord waits for this man to leave Jerusalem and be outside of the Holy Land before he sends Philip to preach Jesus Christ to him. People have wondered, you know, well, he was in Jerusalem. I mean, the text tells you he was in Jerusalem worshiping. Why wouldn't the Spirit of the Lord have arranged a meeting with one of the apostles who lived there? But he didn't. And it seems that it was to show that the gospel, it's exactly what Stephen was preaching to the Jews in the previous chapter. It's to show that the gospel is now going forth throughout the world. God's work is no longer tied to the city of Jerusalem. It's no longer tied to the temple and the priesthood as it was before. But now it's going out to all the world and now it is good news for everyone. And so this eunuch, this eunuch was an outsider in every possible way. And he is currently outside of the Holy Land. He's a non-Jew. He's not even able, because of his anatomy, he's not even able to be circumcised. He can't even take on the sign of the covenant as a person of the faith. And yet the grace of the gospel of Jesus Christ comes to him. And at this point we might wonder, but why in the first place would he have even cared about the God of Israel? Why would he have even been interested in biblical religion? I mean, here is a man who was forbidden from being part of the assembly of the Lord on multiple counts. He would have been shunned by most of the people of God at this time. And yet, here he is. He wants to be in Jerusalem to worship this God. What would compel this man to keep pushing in and keep desiring to know this one God, who He can't even be part of the assembly of. I think that what we are seeing here and what we must learn from this is that the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God is more powerful than anything that we think will keep people away. He is completely able, the Spirit of God is completely able to draw sinners to salvation, no matter what we think is going to be a hindrance for them. I mean, from the human perspective, everything was stacked against this man coming into the church. If I lived then, I would have been greatly tempted to drop certain rules. I would have been greatly tempted to say, let's not emphasize this weird, obscure law. Let's just let him come into the church. especially because he so clearly is seeking the Lord. But you see, God had a greater plan. God wanted to show His own power in the life of this man He didn't need. God did not need help making His worship more relevant. He didn't need help making the faith more acceptable. He simply called for Someone to be faithful to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to this once ostracized man and let his own power be demonstrated. Indeed, one of the powerful points of this passage is that very simple thing that we read of in Romans 10. Faith comes by hearing. It doesn't come by innovations, it doesn't come by us making the faith cooler. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. And that's exactly what happens in this account. What we are seeing here is the power of the Gospel. This is the Gospel as God's power unto salvation. Let's look at, secondly then here, a display of the power of the Gospel. You have the passage in front of you. Notice Philip is directed by the Spirit to run up to the man as he's traveling back to Ethiopia. And as he comes running up, he hears the man reading from the book of Isaiah. And Philip asks him if he understands what he is reading. And the man then, in all humility, I think we need to note, in all humility, the man says, how can I unless Someone guides me. Right away, I think we can see that this is a very different posture than many people today have when it comes to the Word of God. We live in a culture that doesn't think it needs teachers and guides. Many today have asked that question, do you understand what you are reading, would say, well, to me it means, but that is not this man's attitude at all. He is reading an amazing passage from the Old Testament and instead of giving his own view on the passage, he humbly asks, about whom does the prophet say this? About himself? Or someone else? Again, the man's whole approach to the Bible is so different than the prevailing sentiment of our age. The eunuch doesn't ask, well, how is this relevant to me? The eunuch doesn't ask, how am I going to take this passage and make my life better by it? But rather, the eunuch's question is about who. Who is being spoken of? I mean, who is this being said about? The prophet or someone else? And beginning at this part of Isaiah, we're told that Philip, from this passage, began to speak to him the good news of Jesus. Again, kind of like if we don't understand how outside of Israel this guy was, we can't appreciate how big of a deal it is for him to now be part of the people of God. We know what is there in that passage of Isaiah that he's actually reading. We're not going to really be able to appreciate the powerful message that actually changed this man's life, bringing him into the church and making him the first. This man is the first to ever bring the Gospel to Africa. What was it? What about this passage changed this man? retrace kind of the Bible study that Philip had with this Ethiopian eunuch 2,000 years ago. I want you to turn back to Isaiah chapter 52. You need to go back to Isaiah chapter 52. We know where they were in the book of Isaiah. They were specifically in Isaiah chapter 53. That's that passage there. That's what's quoted. But I'm having you turn back to Isaiah chapter 52 because Isaiah, when originally written and as it would have been then, didn't have the chapter and verse breaks like we do. And he's reading in the midst of what is called a servant song. And the servant song that he's reading That includes all of Isaiah chapter 53, actually begins in Isaiah 52. And so if you'll turn back to Isaiah 52 verse 13, you need to hear the beginning of the servant's song that this Ethiopian eunuch is currently reading as Philip runs up. And it was traditional then, or actually it was just common. Most people didn't read silently. People read out loud, people prayed out loud. We're kind of an anomaly, culturally, or at least modernly. People though, back then, would have read out loud, normally. And so he hears him reading out loud. But the passage he's reading begins in chapter two, verse, yeah, chapter 52, sorry, chapter 52, verse 13. I'm gonna read all the way through Isaiah chapter 53. You've got to hear this passage. I mean, maybe you've been around or you've heard it before, but if you haven't heard Isaiah 53, you've got to hear it. It is the gospel spoken clearly out of an Old Testament prophet. And so listen to what this man was reading when he came to faith. Behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. As many were astonished at you, his appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind, so shall he sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand. 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, and as one from whom men hid 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, everyone, 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 shears is silenced, 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 a 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." That is one of the most remarkable prophecies of the saving work of Jesus Christ that can be found in the entire Bible. Line by line, action by action, we have a prophetic picture of the exact kind of death that Jesus would die in the place of his people. He would look like he was being smitten by God. He would look like he was the one who was deserving of God's punishment, and yet, It was God laying our iniquity upon Him. Him bearing our sin. And it began, did you guys notice in chapter 52, it began with a reference to the suffering servant who was going to sprinkle, baptize many nations. But then, note where it goes from here. Our text explicitly says that Philip began here, which means he moved forward, he began here preaching Jesus, the good news of Jesus. Look at verse 1 and 2 of chapter 54. Chapter 54 begins, Sing, O barren one who did not bear. Break forth into singing and cry aloud, you who have not been in labor. For the children of the desolate one will be more than the children of her who is married, says the Lord. Enlarge your tent. Let the curtains of your habitation be stretched out. Don't hold back. Lengthen your cords and your stakes because you're going to spread abroad. The people of God is going to increase. The tent needs to get bigger because I'm going to bring in a great harvest of souls. Look at chapter 55. Go to the beginning of chapter 55. Come everyone who thirsts Come to the waters, and he who has no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to Me and eat what is good and delight yourself in rich food. Incline your ear and come to Me. Hear that your soul may live, and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, My steadfast Sure mercies to David. But then turn to chapter 56. This is the last one. Turn to chapter 56. This is the great announcement of salvation for foreigners. This is the great prophecy that it is not just Jews any longer that God will have as part of his people, but that salvation is going throughout the whole world. And in Isaiah chapter 56 particularly, there would have been the most particularly powerful words to the eunuch. Look at verses 3-8. 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 am a dry tree. For thus says the Lord to the eunuch, 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 the foreigner who joins themselves to the Lord, to minister to Him, to love the name of the Lord and to be His servants, everyone who keeps the Sabbath and does not profane it and holds fast my covenant, these I will bring to my holy mountain and make them joyful in my house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and their sacrifices will be accepted on my altar, for my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples. The Lord God who gathers the outcasts of Israel declares, I will gather yet others to Him besides those already gathered. And that is why this man could not resist the call of the Gospel. Through the suffering of the Savior who didn't defend himself, or try to get out of the unjust punishment that was being brought upon Him, but who suffered unjustly and in silence for us all. Salvation has now come to every creature under heaven. And as he was hearing then that now, because of Jesus, it doesn't matter, and it doesn't matter today. It does not matter if you are a Jew. or a gentile. It doesn't matter if you are a male or a female. It doesn't matter if you are a terrible sinner or if you are a self-righteous faker. It doesn't matter if you are whole in body, if you are strong, or even if you are a eunuch. You are now able to come through Jesus Christ and be accepted as part of the people of God. And so this eunuch who has heard and has accepted this good news, he asks, is there anything that hinders me from being baptized? In other words, I heard that prophecy, he would sprinkle the nations. Is there anything that hinders me from being baptized as one of a foreign nation? Some manuscripts have Philip asking a question before the baptism. Whether that's from Luke or not, we don't know. But he asks if you believe with your whole heart. And the eunuch says, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, a confession of his faith. And the eunuch commands the chariot to be stopped, and Philip baptizes the first African Christian, who then heads back to Ethiopia rejoicing. And tradition says that it was this man who then brought the gospel to Africa. But this is good news congregation for every one of us. There is a Savior for sinners. There, Jesus the Christ The Son of God is given as a Savior for sinners. He has taken our sin upon himself, opening the door of salvation to all who will believe. And this account of the Ethiopian conversion and baptism is as important today as it was then. And I want to just give three very brief, as we close this morning, three very brief ways that this is still absolutely vital to us as believers today. I think this account of his conversion is absolutely important for us. First, because it teaches us, as we were talking about a little while ago, that no matter what, the Spirit of the Lord is fully capable of drawing God's elect to himself. This is teaching us that we do not need to try and water things down or think that a certain thing will be a hindrance to unbelievers unless we change it or modify it. This is calling us to trust the Lord that He will glorify Himself in the salvation of sinners. Nothing could have brought this eunuch to Christ but the Spirit of God. And that's who brought him. And not one of us comes to Christ apart from the work of the Spirit of God. Sometimes we think, oh, this person's closer to the kingdom, or that one's farther from it, or whatever. None of that is relevant when the Spirit of God is in action saving. And we have to trust in the power of God, trust in His Word. Oftentimes, the very thing that we think is going to be a hindrance from a sinner coming to salvation The very thing that we would think is a hindrance that we need to get rid of becomes the catalyst. It's what God uses to bring them to himself so that only he can be glorified in it. Secondly, what a message. What a message of hope we have as Christians for the sinful and damaged world that we live in today. Indeed, the gospel to eunuchs. The gospel to eunuchs just may well become more relevant in our day and age than we could imagine because of the proliferation of an acceptance of certain lifestyles and the promotion. There are people getting surgeries today that are making themselves eunuchs that will come to conviction that the Spirit of God will convict and bring them to repentance. And they need to know, and they need to know from us, that there is good news for them, that they can still be accepted in the assembly of the Lord because of the work of Jesus Christ. Who knows what God will do out of the ashes, even of the transgender movement, people plunging themselves into amazing kinds of irreparable damage from sin, and yet there is hope for everyone. Nobody can say, I am outside the assembly of the Lord. No, Jesus has made salvation for all. And thirdly, do not leave here today without you yourself laying hold of Christ. There might be some here that you've regularly been in worship And yet it could still be the case this morning that you have not yet accepted the grace of God in Jesus Christ. And if you haven't embraced that salvation, that's the only thing that will keep you out of the assembly of the Lord. Your sin is not too great. You are not too outside. You are not too different. Jesus is the one gate through which we come into the assembly of the Lord. And may today be the day of your salvation. May it be the day that you finally look to Him, God's gift of salvation, the one who kept silent so He could bear sin, and that He would become your Savior today. What a love, what a grace, what a mercy to us, who have so damaged and destroyed ourselves in so many ways, and yet God sends a perfect, suffering, silent Savior for sinners, and through Him bring salvation to the whole. What a beautiful news that is. What a glorious gospel we have. Let's thank the Lord and pray. O Lord, our God, abounding in mercy and grace, where sin has abounded, grace much more abounds. And You, from all eternity, planned to take on our flesh, to bear our sin, to bring salvation to us so that we could live together in peace and harmony and unity and fellowship and love forever. We come again to Jesus and we embrace him and we thank you profoundly, our God, for doing all that was necessary to bring us back and to reconcile us with you. Lord, please help us love you more Help us to trust you more. Help us to love the dying world around us and view it with compassion and with pity, wanting to bring to them the good news of Jesus. And so lead us, Lord, by your Spirit, as you led Philip, that we might tell the good news to those around us. And may we become truly a place of mercy for those who feel themselves and think themselves too damaged to come into the assembly of the Lord. But may we proclaim Christ the gate, the door by which all may come. And so, O Lord, we plead with you that you might do such a work of grace in us that we would be a people overflowing with love and mercy to sinners. Because you have loved us, sinners. And so we cry out to you and we praise you for your great salvation, praying in Jesus' name.