What am I doing here? That's not an existential
crisis as I stand at the Oak Hill Chapel pulpit.
But it may well be what Philip was thinking.
As bemused and confused, he stood on a desert
road, far from anywhere, not knowing why he's
there. Why has God brought me here? After all,
in the reading that Matt just gave us, Philip
had been enjoying unparalleled, unprecedented
ministry, evangelistic success in Samaria. He's
been in Jerusalem at the start of chapter eight.
But like so many others, had been scattered by
that Pauline persecution. And he'd ended up in
Samaria where, verse five, he'd been proclaiming
the Messiah. And when the crowds heard Philip
and saw the signs he performed, they all paid
close attention to what he said. Streaks, impure
spirits came out of many and many who were paralyzed
or lame were healed. So there was great joy in
that city. Wow. What a beautiful, bountiful,
blessed ministry. that Philip was enjoying in
Samaria. There's healing, there's deliverance,
there's miracles. And best of all, there is many
turning to faith in Christ, including the spectacular
conversion of a sorcerer, no less. So when an
angel appears in verse 26, there's many things
that we might expect God to say through that
angel to Philip. But perhaps the one thing we
might be least expecting is what the angel does
say. Go. Go on, go south, go into the desert
on the track that leads you through Gaza to Africa.
Now I dropped a Google pin. onto this road as
it looks today it's just a few miles from the
horrors going on in Gaza and even with all the
modern irrigation there's not a huge lot going
on today and there was even less back then the
angel is telling Philip to leave the ministry
momentum that he was enjoying and head out into
the wilderness no crowds no apparent platform
no apparent plan what am I doing here It's a
strange assignment, isn't it, that God gives
him. But God has an appointment for him. And
sure enough, a chariot soon trundles into view.
Now, don't get me wrong, Philip's not a man to
be disturbed by difference. After all, he's been
a missionary among the Samaritans, those others
with a wrong history and wrong temple and wrong
worship. But this man on the chariot coming into
Philip's view will require next level cross -cultural
courage. For everything about this man makes
him a profoundly unlikely candidate to receive
God's grace and truth. For a start, his ethnicity.
Ethiopian. Probably not from the modern nation
state of Ethiopia, but further up the Blue Nile
around modern day Khartoum, the kingdom of Kush,
as it was called, a five month chariot journey
from Jerusalem. A land so distant that it stood
at the very edge of the known world. To the Greek
mind, Ethiopia was the furthest horizons imaginable.
Both Herodotus and Homer speak of Ethiopians
as those literally on the edge of the earth.
You cannot get any further away from the Jewish
religious center than this. What am I doing here?
The kings in that Kushite kingdom were regarded
as divine, too holy to involve themselves in
administration. So it was the queen or the queen
mother that governed. Her title was Kandake and
the royal treasurer kept the books of the kingdom.
So our charioteer here is that treasurer. He's
a powerful figure, but he's a eunuch. Probably
that's why he's so senior. eunuchs could not
father a dynasty so they could be trusted around
a royal harem they could be trusted not to rebel
because without descendants what would be the
point of setting up a rival dynasty eunuchs throughout
entire antiquity were then trusted therefore
to raise to high office so his disfigurement
would have been a decision made for him a procedure
done to him You may rise to significant wealth
and power, but without children, you will always
be an outsider, temporary. Your name dies with
you as a eunuch. Cancellation and condemnation
arising from his castration was deeply embedded
in Jewish culture. And so in Philip's mind and
heart, after all, Deuteronomy 23 says, no one
who has been emasculated by crushing or cutting
may enter the assembly of the Lord. A eunuch
was an ultimate outcast, unclean, untouchable,
unwelcome. This is about as unlikely and unconventional
an evangelistic encounter as Philip could imagine.
What am I doing here? This Ethiopian eunuch is
on his return journey. He's heading back from
Jerusalem. He's gone there to worship. And whilst
he's there, he spends a not inconsiderable amount
of money on a precious scroll. The prophecies
of Isaiah. Now, he's almost certainly not Jewish,
this man, but he's reaching out in some way,
reaching out to Yahweh, perhaps having heard
of him through Jewish diaspora communities further
down the Nile. This man's a Gentile, but he's
a God fearing, perhaps a Sabbath keeping Gentile,
a proselyte. Yet no doubt he would have discovered
in Jerusalem that he was held at arm's length.
Restricted to the outer courts of the temple,
shut out by his anatomy and ethnicity as a castrated
Gentile from the ends of the earth. And now he's
on the long road home, scroll in hand, but he's
desperately in need of a guide. What am I doing
here? Thinks Philip. Go to that chariot, says
the spirit. Him. He's the reason I brought you
here to this desert road. Philip would have had
every reason to do a Jonah and turn around. Him.
Surely not, Lord, he might have objected, just
as Peter does over the page when facing a similar
encounter. But no, Philip listens to the Holy
Spirit's whispers and he obeys. He runs down
that dusty track until he draws level with the
moving chariot and jogging alongside, catching
his breath, he listens. And this man is reading
the scriptures aloud. Do you understand what
you're reading? Philip asks. Brilliant question.
And the reply from the Ethiopian eunuch is humble
and honest. How can I, unless someone explains
it to me? That is the question of a heart wide
open, ready to receive. Do you get a sense of
the kind of divine choreography going on in this
passage? Can you see how the Holy Spirit has
just brought it all together so beautifully?
God is weaving this tapestry of redemption with
threads that stretch far across space and time.
So one of these threads runs from the royal court
in distant Ethiopia, where a powerful official
is granted a hunger for truth. Another thread
runs from the streets of Samaria as Philip learns
to hear and obey the Spirit's voice and move
to the desert road. Another thread is from centuries
earlier as Isaiah's pen scratches prophecy onto
parchment, words that would one day find a home
in this chariot. And even up front, way in the
distance, the distant glint of water in the desert.
Do you see that the spirit has been weaving it
all together? Grace that's just threaded through
geography and history and all converging on this
random desert road outside Gaza. It's stunning.
And so Philip is invited up onto the chariot.
And this is where he and we learn what the man
is reading precisely. It's Isaiah 53. I mean,
seriously, you couldn't script it better, could
you? We know that the whole Old Testament is
calling us to Christ, but this passage is one
of the more clear, obvious, beautiful, profound
passages that does that. Now, Luke gives us two
or three verses that the man was reading, but
there's no reason for us to think that that was
all that he was reading. It's got to be, I presume
it's got to be the whole servant song, at least
the end of chapter 52, all of chapter 53. So
who is this Ethiopian Gentile eunuch reading
about in the scroll? He's reading about a servant
who was marred, disfigured. He's reading about
a servant despised and rejected, a man of suffering,
familiar with pain. One who bore our suffering,
pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our
iniquities. One by whose wounds we are healed.
As sheep who have gone astray, the Lord lays
on him the iniquity of us all. But he will stay
silent amidst all that oppression and affliction.
He will be cut off from the land of the living,
assigned a grave alongside the wicked, pouring
out his life, bearing sins, interceding for transgressors,
a righteous servant who will justify many. That's
the servant of Isaiah 52 and 53. Who is he talking
about? The Ethiopian's question is spot on. Who
is this suffering, smitten, sin -bearing, saving
servant? Who is he? Well, Philip makes it loud
and clear in verse 35. Then Philip, beginning
with that very passage of scripture, told him
the good news about Jesus. Philip begins with
that passage, that servant song, but I doubt
he finishes there. I think we're absolutely right
to assume that Philip unrolls the scroll. A bit
further during that Bible study. And comes to
the next prophecy in our Bibles. It's three chapters
later on. I've got it on the screen for us here.
It's Isaiah 56. And look what it says. For my
salvation is close at hand and my righteousness
will soon be revealed. Let no foreigner who is
bound to the Lord say the Lord will surely exclude
me from his people. And let no eunuch complain.
I am only a dry tree. But this is what the Lord
says to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who
choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant.
To them, I will give within my temple and its
walls a memorial and a name better than sons
and daughters. I will give them an everlasting
name that will endure forever. And foreigners
who bind themselves to the Lord, to minister
to him, to love the name of the Lord and to be
his servants, all who keep the Sabbath without
desecrating it and who hold fast to my covenant.
These I will bring to my holy mountain and give
them joy in my house of prayer. Brings me so
much joy to think of the face of the Ethiopian
eunuch. As Philip reads that section and explains
it to him, that in Jesus, those beautiful words
have come to their final fulfilment. Jesus, who
was pierced for our transgressions and crushed
for iniquities, has carried the shame of the
excluded so that the excluded may enter in. Jesus,
who was cut off from the land of the living,
has made it possible for those who were previously
cut off to live forever. Jesus, who became disfigured
so that this disfigured African official on a
dusty desert road might find himself welcomed
into the heart of God's temple and God's people,
not in the outer courts, but in the very presence
of the Lord himself. This eunuch looks down and
the parchment in his hands, it's like a mirror.
in which he sees his own story written there
in Christ, by Christ, through Christ, that salvation
that for Isaiah was merely close at hand has
now come in all fullness. God's righteousness
has been revealed. The foreigner is no longer
excluded. The eunuch is no longer cut off. His
name will be written in the book of life and
will endure forever. And just as we think that
this story can't get any more joyful, the Ethiopian
spots a pool of water in the desert. Look at
that. Look, he says, here is water. What can
stand in the way of my being baptised? And the
answer, of course, is it because of Christ. There
is nothing that can stand in the way of him being
baptised. Not anymore. Christ has removed the
barriers and the blockages. His death brings
life and his exclusion brings inclusion and his
wounds bring healing. And so down into the water
they go. And at that moment, at that moment,
surely Philip is no longer asking, what am I
doing here? For now, he sees clearly this divine
tapestry of redemption, a soul saved. New life
in the desert. That's what he's doing here. And
as they come out the water, the Lord takes Philip
away, apparently supernaturally, and the Ethiopian
is left alone yet rejoicing. The five -month
trip to follow will feel very different from
that day on. It's a beautiful story, isn't it?
There's three things I want us to enjoy in light
of it. I want us to rest in Christ's work, respond
to the Spirit's prompting and reach out to God's
nations. Firstly, let's rest in Christ's work.
Many of us here today will feel the sting of
exclusion in one form or another. A past failure
that feels too ugly to name aloud. A set of habits
that have calcified into a deep sense of unworthiness
in us. A culture or a language or a heritage
that feels somehow second class in certain spaces.
If you, like me, read Acts 8 and immediately
identify with Philip, then maybe that speaks
to certain privileges that we enjoy. There are
many in the world around us and in this college
amongst us who relate to the outsider status
of this Ethiopian eunuch. We all know, don't
we, that the gospel welcomes the foreigner and
the eunuch, the distant and the different. We've
studied that truth, we've written essays about
it, we maybe even preached about it, but some
of us still feel that it applies more naturally
to other people more than ourselves. The ones
who seem to belong better than us, the ones who
find the rhythms of academic life easier, the
ones with the right backgrounds or the confidence
or voice or heritage or accent. In different
ways, actually, all of us. We'll feel that at
some time or another, perhaps in ways that we've
never even admitted out loud to ourselves. So
please, all of us, hear God's voice through Isaiah.
Let no one who is bound to the Lord say, the
Lord will surely exclude me from his people.
No. In Christ, all barriers have fallen. By faith,
by his work on the cross, all are welcomed. All
are wanted. The servant was cut off so that we
all might come in. No more outer courts, no more
arm's length, just grace upon grace in Christ,
the suffering servant. Who can stand in the way?
What can stand in the way? Nothing. Not anymore.
So we rest in Christ's work. Secondly, we respond
to the Spirit's prompting. In Acts 8, the Spirit
is the true missionary. Philip listens and moves,
but it's the Spirit who sends himself, nudges
him towards the chariot. It's the Spirit who
whisks him away when the work is done. It's striking
how little Philip actually kind of initiates
in this whole encounter. There's no plans, no
committees, no strategy. It's just obedience
to the Spirit. There's something in that, isn't
there? To be responsive to the Spirit is to be
interruptible, available, teachable, pliable,
willing to have our schedules rearranged somehow
for the sake of God's purposes. That takes humility,
takes trust. It's horrible to give up control
of our own lives and ministries, isn't it? It
hurts, but it's essential. When a team of students
go out into Southgate to witness to Christ, I've
no doubt they can easily wonder, what am I doing
here? Perhaps similarly, if you find yourself
helping an asylum seeker with some practical
life logistics when you'd rather be writing a
sermon, what am I doing here? When the jobs you
really wanted after college fall through and
you're left with a ministry setting that feels
small or remote, what am I doing here? But the
spirit is at work. To those who listen, our part
is to stay alert and willing and open and interruptible.
God rarely hands us the full blueprint of our
lives for the next 12 years or even the next
12 days or sometimes even the next 12 hours.
But his spirit does give us the next steps. Our
work is to listen. A couple of years ago, the
US Christian band Casting Crowns released a song
which contains these lyrics. God, if there's
a bigger picture, it's getting hard to see today.
I don't know where this is going, but I know
who holds my hand. It's not the path I would
have chosen, but I'll follow you to the end.
Lord, as long as I am breathing, I will make
your glory known, even if it means I'm walking.
On this desert road. That's right, I think. Spirit's
leading doesn't always feel strategic or glamorous.
It often feels inconvenient, uncertain, perhaps
even lonely. It's not always the path I would
have chosen. Perhaps that's for the best, for
our hearts are corruptible and sometimes our
decision making sucks. But the same spirit who
sent Philip to that desert road knows exactly
why he brought you here to Oak Hill. And here
into these difficult language classes and here
into these difficult essays and here into this
chapel service. And he jolly well knows why he's
bringing you into whichever desert roads you
may find yourselves in in the future. We respond
to the Spirit's prompting. And thirdly and finally,
we reach out to God's nations. Let's finish by
just pulling the camera back a little bit and
noticing this passage as part of the bigger narrative
of scripture. See, before Paul ever preaches
in Philippi or Athens, before the gospel ever
reaches Europe, it's already heading south along
the Nile into the heart of Africa. The church
in Africa does not begin with 19th century pith
-helmeted missionaries. It is in the Upper Nile
region centuries before it reaches the Upper
Thames region. Now, we don't know for sure what
life and faith and mission looked like for this
Ethiopian eunuch after this chapter. Interestingly,
second century church father Irenaeus reports
that this man started to spread the gospel around
that region and began the growth of the church
there. I don't know if he's right. I don't know
how he would know that. It's perfectly plausible,
I guess, isn't it? Perhaps even likely. We do
know that by the fourth century, Christianity
is established in Aksum, what we'd now call today.
Ethiopia. And today, the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo
Church still venerates this man, this Ethiopian
eunuch. And Ethiopian church history is just
longer than any European church history. And
it continues today, stronger than ever. On Monday
night, James Robson and I were at a book launch
for Girma Bishor. Dear friends of the colleges,
he's Ethiopian. He arrived in the UK in 1990
without a word of English in his heart or without
any money in his pocket. And at his book launch,
James and I were surrounded by Ethiopian sisters
and brothers right here in London. We drank Ethiopian
coffee. We ate Ethiopian foods. It's good, wasn't
it? And I couldn't help but think of this very
story. The joy that begins on this desert road
has blossomed into millions of true Ethiopian
worshippers across space and time. It's marvellous,
isn't it? And it doesn't stop there. By the end
of this century, over half the world's Christians
will be African. Ponder that for a moment. As
we worship the risen Christ today, we do so shoulder
to shoulder with sisters and brothers in Addis
Ababa, in Kampala, Kinshasa and Kigali. The spirit
pushes Philip out across barriers of race and
context and geography for God wants those barriers
dismantled in his multicultural kingdom. Again
and again and again in the book of Acts, we see
the spirit forcing the early church out into
these cross -cultural encounters that stretch
them and humble them. And he's still doing that
today. The gospel does not belong to one culture
more than another. It is radically inclusive.
It cannot be captured by one single language
or culture or ethnicity. And we need that reminder
because we are experts at shrinking the gospel
to fit our own preferences. We're so good at
it. We talk about a global God, yet quietly we
live as though he is most present where we are
most comfortable. But the God of glory will not
be domesticated into our culture. This Ethiopian
from the very edges of the world is part of God
fulfilling his promise to see Christ known in
Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to Ethiopia,
the ends of the earth. This man's baptism is,
of course, first and foremost, personal to him.
But it's also representative of something so
much bigger. The gospel begins its long, unstoppable
journey to the ends of the earth, from Jerusalem
to Judea, from God. Gaza to Addis, from Oak Hill
to the ends of the earth. God's purposes are
unchanged, that every tribe and tongue and nation
and language might find life in the servant who
was cut off to bring us in. What a privilege
to be invited into that, each of us, wherever
we may end up, to be invited into God's glorious
global gospel purposes. For the story that begins
on this desert road is still being written. And
by grace, by his kindness, we get to be a part
of that. Let's pray. Our loving Lord and Father,
we thank you that your son was cut off from the
land of the living, crushed for our iniquities,
bearing our sins. dying for our transgressions,
that in him we might find life, that in him the
excluded will be included, that in him our names
may be written in the book of life and live forevermore.
We thank you for the Lord Jesus Christ and we
ask that we might find our rest in him, that
where we feel outside as we might remember, that
we might deeply cherish that we are insiders
in his kingdom. We pray, Lord, that we would
be responsive to what you are calling us to in
our lives, both near and far. In whatever desert
roads you bring us to, might we be inclined to
hear the prompting of your spirit and might we
participate with all joy and gladness in your
global purposes that you might use us in whatever
way you see fit to keep on writing your story
of the gospel going to the ends of the earth.
Please bless us, Lord, and be with us.