A few weeks ago I shared a message with my squad for our Sunday morning church, and I really want to share it with all of you too! It’s about Acts 8:26-40 and listening to the Holy Spirit. Please take time to read that passage.
I want you to imagine the best gift you can ever think of, maybe a car or a diamond ring. Then imagine never using that gift. Keeping it hid away. That’s what so many of us, including me, do with the Holy Spirit. God seriously gave a part of Himself to live inside of us, and so often we just don’t use that gift. When we don’t use that gift, we are not living our lives as Christians to its full potential. That is one of the biggest things God has been showing me on the race so far, and I want to talk about what can happen if we listen to and obey the voice of the Holy Spirit.
When the Holy Spirit speaks to us we should run to go do His will and not even hesitate. Everything we need to preach the gospel to people is right in the bible, we don’t have to think so much and question ourselves about what we are going to say. Let the Spirit lead you when sharing the gospel. Verse 36 and 37 is crazy to me. The Eunuch didn’t even know who Jesus was, and now he knows Jesus is the son of God and wants to be baptized! God wants to use all of us as tools to spread the gospel just like He used Philip.
The most important part to me is in verse 38. The chariot was moving the whole time! When the Spirit told Philip to overtake it in verse 29 it was moving! Philip still obeyed. If he would have hesitated, every second the chariot would have moved farther and farther away. How many of us would write that off? If the Holy Spirit told me to go share the gospel with someone in a moving car, even if it was only going 5 mph, my response would probably be, “Huh?”
After reading this passage, I realized that Philip gave us a great example of living out the great commission. Matthew 28:19-20 says, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, until the very end of the age.” Philip seriously did all of that, and it’s so incredibly cool to me.
In that verse the last part is just as important, if not more important, than the first. Again, it says, “And surely I am with you always until the very end of the age.” That’s the Holy Spirit right there. We couldn’t do any of the first part of the verse well, even at all, if the Holy Spirit didn’t live inside of us. You can’t share the gospel well apart from the Spirit.
The end of verse 39 is kind of off topic, but it really sticks out to me. It says, “He went on his way rejoicing.” We as Christians have the biggest reason of all to be joyful. The God of the universe wrote our names in the book of life and we are going to live eternally with Him. There is no other reason to be more joyful. Live out that joy everyday.
In verse 40 replace your name with Philip’s name and his cities with yours, and strive to live that out. What if we preached the gospel in all the cities we passed through? What if we used the gift God has given us and shared the gospel everywhere we went for the rest of our lives? What if we let the Holy Spirit be in complete control everyday?
