Buckle Your Seat Belt
Acts 8:26-40
Dr. Larry D. Thorson
This morning I’m kicking off a new sermon series “Ordinary People With Extraordinary Experiences.” I like ordinary people because I’m an ordinary person. People like me don’t get private invitations to the White House. Normally you won’t read about me in the newspaper… except for last week when the Valley Chronicle ran a story about me. I have to tell you, I never have any problem with the paparazzi harassing me at restaurants. We just go along minding our own business. I like being ordinary.
What I like about the ordinary people that we’re going to look at in this series is that they all have extraordinary experiences. I define an extraordinary experience as something surprisingly unusually good that you didn’t expect. The beauty of these stories and the people I will tell you about is that you don’t have to be a spiritual superstar to have an extraordinary spiritual experience. We just need to have a heart desire to love God and then let God surprise us.
Our first ordinary person is a gentleman named Philip. Philip wasn’t one of the original twelve disciples. He wasn’t even one of the big leaders of the early church. His distinction was that he got selected to be one of the first deacons ever in the church. But being a deacon meant that you waited on tables for the elderly. You did the dirty grunt work for the elders. There was no prestige there.
Let’s look at Acts 8 starting at
verse 26. Now
an angel r of the Lord said
to Philip, s “Go south to the
road—the desert road—that goes down from
What I want you to notice here is what the angel commanded Philip to do. He told him to go south to a certain road. But he didn’t tell him why or what he was to do when he got to the road. Just go to that road.
If Philip was like me he might have gotten out on the trip and started saying “What am I doing out here in a desert?” “He didn’t even tell me what I’m supposed to do here. Man it’s hot!”
Instead it says in v.28
“So he started out, and on his way he
met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge
of all the treasury of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to
The second thing that I want you to notice is that Philip met this important man on his way to the road not after he got to the destination. That’s important to remember. The people we meet on the journey are as important in God’s eyes as the people we meet at our desired destination.
Andrea Bailey is the prayer captain of a powerful prayer team that I had the privilege of being a part of. Last year her husband became gravely ill and was put in the hospital. Not long after he got home Andrea came down with a virus and she too ended in the hospital where I went to see her. It was a bad time for her to be in the hospital with her husband’s illness. But Andrea saw her hospital visit as a divine appointment time for her with someone who really needed to talk to her. Because she looked at it that way instead of complaining about the timing of her illness she was able to share the love of Christ with a nurse who struggled and who in turn was able to help someone else that Andrea never met. Remember that the angel only told Philip to go south to the desert road but didn’t give him a destination. Then it says “on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch.” Remember that the journey is as important as the destination.
Look what happened next in verse
29. Instead of an angel this time, “The Spirit told w Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”
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Wait. Stop. Time out. We just had another extraordinary experience for an ordinary guy. It said “the Spirit told Philip.” That means he heard something. Ordinary people like us don’t usually hear spirits. If we do they say there’s something wrong with us. Yet somehow God speaks to us and guides us and directs us. This was an extraordinary experience.
Now
let’s read at verse 32…The eunuch was reading this passage of
Scripture: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before the
shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth.
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8:34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me,
please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?”
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8:36 As they traveled along the road, they
came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. Why shouldn’t I
be baptized?”
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8:39 When they came up out of the water,
the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did
not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing.
Ac 8:40
Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in
all the towns until he reached
It’s not clear what it means by “the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away” but it is clear that the eunuch never saw him again. It could mean that the Spirit again told Philip to leave immediately and head to Azotus.
Today is a
very emotional day for me. It’s not just
because I’m starting a new call at a new church. Today is August 21. When I was with you in June I told you about
a son of one of my colleagues at the church who was driving his girlfriend to
The day was
In the next
year we were to celebrate our twenty fifth year since the founding our church
with a celebration and in the tradition of the churches in our
It was one
of the most blessed new church development projects I have ever seen. Grace Presbytery was providing eleven of the
most prime acres in the second fastest growing city of its size in the country
at the intersection of
This was my
baby, my doctoral project. This is what
I waited my entire career for. It was
the chance of a lifetime to lead the project of my dreams into the promised
land. So you can imagine when I returned
to
All I can say is that God for some reason unknown to me wanted me to become your pastor and I am so glad that he did. I wake up every morning and I say “thank you God for letting me live here and thank you for letting me lead this church…but what in the world am I doing here?! An ordinary guy had an extraordinary experience.
Now I don’t know why God ripped me up out of that Legacy project to come here but I do know that I didn’t come here to fix a broken lamp. You are a light in the darkness already and I am not an electrician. I am a Pastor/Evangelist called to lead people to the throne of God through introducing them to the Savior Jesus Christ. You are a wonderful family that God has called together in this place and I am honored to be one of your pastors. For some reason God wants a Pastor/Evangelist to lead you during this time. So while we’re not certain what God is going to do with us here I suspect that there’s going to be some extraordinary experiences in the years to come.
But first we have to seek the Lord together. Our desire has to be that of Philip, to preach the gospel in the places where God places us. If that means being in a hospital like Andrea Bailey was then it’s for a divine appointment. If it’s on a cruise then there’s someone there that you are to meet.
What about the Legacy project? My Plan B was put into place two days after you voted to call me as your pastor. They have delayed the launch of Sunday services but are moving ahead at a pace I couldn’t have ever imagined them moving. I plan to be there as their guest on their opening Sunday next year.
I have one
last comment about Philip. Most people
don’t realize this but the best part of his journey, in my mind is found in
chapter 21:8-9. When we left Philip in Acts 8 he had gone
onto
So I want to make sure you buckle your seatbelt because I think God is about to do some extraordinary things in our midst. Not because I’m here but because God has begun something extraordinary. I don’t want to miss a minute of it!
If this God is not very personal to you or you’re not certain what will happen to you after this life is over, by faith in prayer “say “God, I am a sinner in need of a savior, I accept Jesus Christ into my heart as my Savior. Thank you for saving me. If you pray that prayer Christ will come into your life and you will know salvation for eternity. If you would like someone to talk to about it Pastor Scott or myself will be around here to talk with you.