How Do We Obey the Spirit? - Phillip Smith (Guest Speaker)

Revival is breaking out, joy is spreading, and the momentum is finally headed the right direction, then God tells Philip to leave it and walk into the desert. 

That tension is where we live a lot of our real faith: when the Holy Spirit’s guidance doesn’t match our plans, our timelines, or what looks “strategic.” 

Phillip Smith from the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board opens Acts 8 and shows how God uses an unexpected detour to reach one person with precision.

Transcript

Philip’s Calling And Background

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Well, hey, if I haven't had the chance to meet you yet, my name is Philip, and I serve with the Tennessee Baptist Mission Board. I have one of the coolest jobs on the planet. What I get to do is I get to go around to churches and associations of churches, networks of churches, and I get to listen to what the Lord is doing in their lives. I get to listen to what the Lord is inspiring them to do, to listen to how they're being obedient to the Lord. And then I get to ask a very simple question: how can we help you accomplish that? How can we come alongside you and help serve you? And that I my my area that I kind of cover is uh roughly from border to border. So go all the way up I-75 to the border of Tennessee and Kentucky. Uh uh that's in Oneida, if you've never been up there, it's fun. All right. And then I go all the way down south uh to where uh the border hits down the bottom of Severe County, and it's a lot like Oneida, if you get far enough south. Um and then I go uh from Buckeys to Buckeys, okay? So I got border to border and I got Buckeys to Buckies, all right? So I go uh from Crossville to uh Severeville. Now, why they gave me one group of churches in the central time zone, I'm not sure. Maybe just to mess with me, um, because I'm I'm usually early getting there and late getting home, um, is how that kind of works on that little time, uh, on that little time uh difference. I grew up here in the Knoxville area. Uh my dad pastored uh uh several churches in in the East Tennessee area, uh, and and and God called me to ministry early on in life, went in obedience uh to Union University out in West Tennessee, met my wife there, and then God uh asked us to move uh overseas where we served with the IMB for 10 years in the Middle East. And then uh he he asked us to come back uh to the States, and we came back to the States and and pastored uh a local church in Lenora City. And so I have uh a unique kind of variety of experiences of serving uh the Lord, but that allows me to come alongside pastors and churches and kind of listen to what they're doing and then kind of go, hey, can we how can we help you in this? How can we come alongside the vision that God has given you and help in any way that we can? Uh I I I love uh this church, okay? I uh connected uh with uh Trent early on in y'all's uh kind of adventures heading this way. And I was here uh on the first night that we kind of met in this place um with uh people from Oakwood and from Redeemer City, uh right right here in this area. Uh and just I had the really cool job of praying the whole time. Okay. Um that's kind of what I did. I introduced everybody and then I just prayed, okay? Um, because what I tend to do in my role is I help churches that need some help, and I help some church planners that need some help too. Uh so I've been able to be involved with Trent in a cohort uh uh for the whole year, actually, for the fall and the spring. And so um just getting to know him has been a blessing, and I I love uh doing

Why Luke And Acts Matter

SPEAKER_00 2:53

that. If you have your Bibles and I really hope that you do, go ahead and open them up. Acts chapter eight is where we're gonna be hanging out uh this morning. Acts uh chapter eight. Um somebody asked me one time, what's your favorite books of the Bible or favorite book of the Bible? And I'm like, well, you know, all of it, right? Kind of deal. Um but really for me it's it's it's Luke and Acts. All right. And so um, if if somebody asks me, hey, how are you gonna start your follower, new follower Jesus, where are you starting? I'm starting with Luke. And I'm gonna go, I well, Phil, Mark's better because it's shorter. You get everything. I know, I know, I know. Okay, some people have those opinions, okay? But mine, and I recognize real quick, as I saw some of you laughing just then, I talked really fast. Okay. So I need you to come up to my level. All right, I'll slow it down every once in a while. At the first church, I pastored Miss Rennell. She was awesome. She hung out in the back and she would just kind of give me this little number, and then I would slow down as I was talking. And I that would usually last about 30 seconds, and then I would speak back up. So I I recognize I'm I talk really fast, and that's because I got a lot to say. And I think this is uh this is a great passage for us to do that. So um, Acts chapter eight is where we're gonna be. The reason I like Luke and Acts is because um it's book one and book two. Okay. So uh Luke wrote both of these, and so we got book one. Uh, this is the story about Jesus, and then this is what the followers of Jesus did as a result. And everything is pretty much in there, and it's super exciting as we see the spirit move throughout. So Acts uh kind of starts out, we get uh chapter two, we get the Holy Spirit coming. As the Holy Spirit arrives, everything kind of explodes. It was awesome, right? We had thousands of believers, and usually when you have massive growth, you have some problems that come up. As we have massive growth, we don't have structures in place, and we still have that problem today in our churches. Um, you don't have to amen that part, but we can keep going. Okay, all right. Um we we have massive growth, and then we we we we tend to neglect some things, and we don't mean to. It's not on purpose, it's an accident. And so that's what happened in the book of Acts. And so uh so they got together and they prayed, and they're like, all right, we need these things, and what are these things called? It's okay, this can be interactive a little bit. If you think you know the answer, just say it. It's okay, it's probably right. It'll be a softball toss. Okay. So there were these things that came up as a result, and they were called, these guys, they were called what? Deacons, right? And they were to serve not only the Jews, but also the Gentile widows, right? And so uh as these deacons came about, there were two, there were two pretty pretty much two deacons that are really important. Um, one of them, his name was Stephen. What happened to Stephen? They stoned him, right? Okay, all right. And by the way, stoning back then was not stoning, throwing ball, throwing rocks. That was you pick up the biggest boulder that you could, you walked over in front of and dropped it on them. That gets stuff on your feet, okay? That's up close and personal. When that happened as a result of the stoning of Stephen, then the church did what? Y'all remember? The church what? They scattered, all right? And they scattered and they went in other places, which leads us to another deacon that I really like. I think he's pretty cool because he's got a cool name, and his name is what? Philip. I know, I know. That's I think it's did I say my name was Philip? Nobody laughed. Okay, all right. Well, there's more coffee in the back if y'all need that. Um, maybe you might need a little bit just to keep up to my speed.

From Samaria Revival To Detour

SPEAKER_00 5:58

All right. So, um, so so Philip, uh, something happens, all right. Philip scatters, and what Philip does is Philip goes north, and Philip goes north to a place, uh area of town, if you will, that was not uh popular. It wasn't the place where all the church planners wanted to go at that time. It was in the area of Samaria. Now, Samaria, if you don't know, is full of these people. They're called what? Samaritans. And Jews and Samaritans, did they get along? No, they hated each other, right? They had little nicknames, they were not nice, uh, little nicknames that they called for each other. And I remember when when Jesus was kind of coming back from the north, uh, as he was coming through Samaria, they were the the disciples were like, Hey, Jesus, we don't go through there, we go around. And Jesus was like, Nope, we're going in, right? He kind of he he he looked at that very differently. And so Philip goes north. Now, as Philip goes north, he starts telling people, the Samaritans, about Jesus and what happens. They start believing left and right. It was awesome. They had this little mini revival breaking out in the north. It was exactly what you want to happen. Even so, that Pete and John, I'm sorry, Peter, sorry about that. Peter and John, they went to go check it out to kind of give their stamp of approval, to kind of say, yes, this is awesome. And so they went and they did that and they prayed for them. They received the Holy Spirit. It was incredible.

Clearing Distractions To Hear God

SPEAKER_00 7:13

And then something happened. We're gonna see what it is. But there are times in your journey, and I know there have been times in my journey where things have been going awesome, where things have been going exactly as they should be going, and then something happens and it doesn't make any sense. Something happens in our journey that just like, where did that come from? Why is that why why now that? And it gives us an opportunity to listen and to obey the spirit. Now, before we before we jump in, I want to kind of grab your attention if I can, uh, because there are there are some things when we talk about listening that that are important for us to do. Uh I I don't know if you have these people in your life. Um, I know school is getting ready to start. We're getting close, we're like at the halfway point. And so some of you are like, no. And then some of you are like, yeah, you know, it depends on where your your love for school is, okay? I'm in the middle. I'll just say I'm in the middle, okay? Um, but but there are times when teachers and parents give somebody an instruction. And when you give those instructions to someone, the the response for them is to do what? Listen, right? Well, I I don't know if you've seen this around, but sometimes people today, whether you're at Home Depot or Walmart or whether you're at home, um, but some people have these things in their ears. Have you seen them? Right? Okay, they got these things in their ears, right? Now, they say they can hear you. At least that's what my children tell me. Um, I have four daughters, by the way, um, 19, 17, 13, and 7. Um, so they say they can hear me. Now, I bet they can, but I can guarantee they can hear me better if they do what? Pull those things out of their ears. And matter of fact, when they when I'm talking to them, sometimes I just kind of give them this look and they go, you know, kind of deal. So that I make sure that we're communicating, all right? That they can, I know better chance uh that they're listening if we take those things out of our ears. Now, sometimes we don't listen to the Father because we got junk clogging our ears. I know as Christians, we are to listen and to obey the Spirit. And so I think the question that we need to answer this morning is how do we do that? How is it that we are to obey the Spirit for us today? And so let's pray, and we're gonna see three ways that we can do that from our good friend Philip this morning. Pray with me. God, you're the creator of the world and we worship you. God, we're sorry uh for moments when we do not listen, when we ignore what you're asking of us. And God, we turn away from that as we turn to you. God, we're so thankful for the cross. We're thankful that you sent your one and only God. We're thankful that you sent the helper, the Holy Spirit, uh, who is with us now. And God, we ask you to help us to follow you with everything that we have. And we ask all this in your name. Amen.

Go When The Spirit Says Go

SPEAKER_00 10:12

All right, so three things that we're gonna see this morning. Uh so how do we obey the first first way we obey is we must go when the spirit says go. We must go when he says go. If you want to read with me starting in verse 26, this is what it says. 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. All right, so remember where we left things off, right? Um that Philip was in the north and things were awesome. Philip was in the north and revival was breaking out, and immediately he is told to go which direction? South. When things are going on in the there's revival going on in the north, he gets an instruction from the Lord to go south. Now, this is one of those times where me and Blackaby kind of look at each other a little fun because uh Blackaby always said, find where the Lord is working and then go there, which is true. But there are times that sometimes do not make sense where the Lord says, Hey, I know that the Lord is working right here in this area in the north, but what I want you to do is I want you to go south. I want you to go south. That happened to us. We were on the field, we served in the Middle East, and everything was going fine. We had great house church, our children were in Arabic school, they were okay. Like they, I mean, they had to have a tutor, right? Okay, but they were doing okay. We had good house church, we had good teaming, we had all of these wonderful things, everything was going fine. And the Lord said, Hey, I want you to move back to the States. Hold up, that doesn't make any sense. That doesn't make any sense. That's uh I wait, that's what you want us to do in this time and in this season. And so what he did to Philip is he said, I want you to go south. I want you to go on the desert highway. That's roughly um if you've never uh seen uh uh uh you know, I like maps. I'm a visual learner, uh, I like maps, and so I've got a map for you. All right, so uh first off, he was up in Samaria in the north. That's where he went, first of all. He went up north, and and uh they have uh just like here, we have Nox County and we have Nox City. Uh that's kind of they have the city of Samaria and they have the region of Samaria. And so uh they they uh particularly mentioned that they're going to uh this one city in Samaria, that's where all this is going on. There's a really cool uh verse eight talks about it. It says that as a result of this revival breaking out, there was much joy in the city. Um if you've heard them share a little bit of their vision of reading your city, there's there's an attachment of that for the joy of the city. That's awesome. I didn't know that was in there. Like we after the fact, like Trent was like, Hey, do you know? And I'm like, No, I didn't know that. That's a wicked awesome. All right, I love it. Okay, so there was much joy in this city, and so as there's much joy in the city, then he's given these instructions go which way? South along the desert highway. Next little map for me. Okay, cool. So he goes from Samaria down to Jerusalem and then over to Gaza. Now, from Jerusalem to Gaza is 60 miles. The desert highway is called the desert highway because it's in the middle of the desert. That's right. Okay, good. All right, good. That wasn't rocket science, right? Okay, so it's in the middle of the desert. And um, I don't know if you know this, but um in the desert it's really cool or hot, hot, right? Okay, um, it's still called the desert highway today, and you can go on it if you want to. Guess what's out there? Nothing, because it's in the middle of the desert. That's right, it is okay. And so he tells him, go south, and I want you to go along the desert highway. That's a 60-mile journey, and he didn't say where to stop, did he? That's like going from here to Crossfall. That's like going from here north on I-75 and going into Kentucky a little bit. That's a long way. Not get not to be given a specific instruction of where exactly I want you to go. But what's really cool is that we have very quickly, what did Philip do? He went. Guys, when he says go, we gotta go. All right. When he says go, we gotta go. Now, once he's there, he's uh he is on the desert highway, and then the spirit says to him again, hey, do you see that chariot? I want you to go up and join that chariot. We've known a little, we get a little info about who is in the chariot. There's an Ethiopian, he's a eunuch. That's important for us to know. He's like the CFO of the Queen's Treasury, if you will. We also know that he's a God fearer. That means he was worshiping. He did worship, but because he's eunuch, he can't get like full access into the temple. So it was like he got to go, but he couldn't, you know, kind of get if you have questions about that, you can hit me up afterwards. I just, yeah, we'll we'll just keep going. But we did find out something else, right? We found out something else really fun, and that's that he's reading, and he's reading from uh he's reading out loud, that's also important, uh, from the prophet Isaiah. And he tells Philip, hey, go over and join that chariot. Listen, we're obedient to the Holy Spirit when we go, when he says to go. And I truly do believe that every week he is telling people and calling people to go. Sometimes it's across the street, sometimes it's 60 miles down the road, sometimes it's to another state, and sometimes it's around the globe. But we must be obedient to go when he says to

Active Listening For Open Doors

SPEAKER_00 15:35

go. Number two, how do we obey uh the spirit? Is we must actively listen. We must actively listen. Let's look at verse 30 and see what it says. Verse 30 says this. Uh so uh Philip ran to him and heard him reading the uh reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, Do you understand what you are reading? All right, so this is like a key verse in the section. If you don't get any other verses, get this one because kind of all of all of uh the points kind of encompass in this one um verse here. Uh one of the differences between this Philip and this Philip is right here. It tells us in verse 30. It says that the this Philip, he what, ran. That is not what this Philip does, okay? Um, I do not do cardio at all. I mean, unless something chasten me, all right. Um that that's okay. Uh I was telling somebody that this week and they were like, oh, Phil, if the spirit told you to run, you would run. And I said, Yeah, but I'm plus 40, so that means I probably wouldn't make it. Like I'd probably trip and I'd break something along the way. Um uh and I I don't like running. Um, but I would jog, maybe. Yeah. Okay, let's move on. All right, we're good. Yeah. All right. So uh he ran over to the chariot. Um, he shows us, Philip shows us something really important that he not only listened originally to the spirit's direction, but he is also constantly listening to what's going on around him. He's actively listening. He's listening to the Holy Spirit and he's listening to what's going on around him. So he heard the Holy Spirit with instructions and he heard the Ethiopian reading. It is so important for us to have this skill in our lives as followers of Jesus. Now, I I was given some additional training serving with IMB in the Middle East. I have uh enhanced awareness of situational awareness, okay? I I kind of know what's going on in the room. I'm paying attention, I'm aware, I've learned some skills to help me do that. We have to have the ability to have spiritual awareness by listening to what others are saying, to listening to when the opportunity is coming our way, which we'll talk about here in a second. And so he's listening in to what uh what uh was being read. It also shows us that he is a disciple because he understood what was being read. He it sounded familiar to him. He was a disciple and a deacon, and that's important for us. So often we miss gospel opportunities because we're not listening. And two fronts. We're not listening either to the Holy Spirit or we're not listening to those around us. And most of the time, it's because we got junk in our ears. We're distracted, we're not listening. And so uh the church that we're a part of, we kind of say it like this we train everyone in our faith family to make disciples that make disciples in the places where we live, work, and play. We train everyone to do that. Some of our training included this wonderful skill called listening. We must be good listeners. When we were overseas, uh, we we were doing evangelism training with uh nationals, and we had to train them to do another skill that's really important. It's called smiling. We made them practice in the mirror because some of them were talking about Jesus, but they were not smiling. They had the joy in their heart, but they didn't actually show people that. And so we have to train sometimes in how we need to respond. Sometimes we need to be we we need to be better um listeners. If you think you're a good listener, you just um look over and ask your neighbor if they think you're a good listener and see how that goes. Um, if they say that you're awesome, maybe you can train somebody else. That'd be great. Um, I'm still working on it because he's still working on me. There's a song there. Anyway, all right. So um God has you somewhere, he's told you to go. And we not only have to go there, but we have to be actively listening. Uh, Jeff Orge mentioned once upon a time that he uh had some prompts, that he listens as he's listening, going through his daily life, if the Lord is asking him to say something or not. If the Lord is asking him to lean in to a situation or not, and here are the prompts. Um, there's there's four of them. Number one, people die. If he's in a conversation with somebody and mention death, he's gonna lean in and see if that's an opportunity to to share the gospel, to talk about Jesus. Number two is relationship struggles. Have you have you been in one of those conversations this week? Probably. Um, I know I have, my kids are out of school for the summer. Uh, relationship struggles. Uh, number three, um, health fails. Those diagnoses are coming left and right. And then, of course, last, things break. There's an opportunity there for us. Those are the markers that he listens into. So he's actively listening not only to the spirit, but also what's going on around him. As we follow Jesus, may we obey his direction, first by going, and second

Ask Then Speak About Jesus

SPEAKER_00 20:13

by listening. And then last, third, um, how how do we obey the spirit? And that is uh, we must speak when he opens the door. We must speak when he opens the door. Let's uh read verse 30 again and we'll take it down all the way to 34. This is kind of how it goes. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, Do you understand what you're 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 scripture that he was reading was this like a sheep, he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before it sure 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 the prophet say this? About himself or someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth and began with this scripture. He told him the good news about Jesus. And so, right here we must speak when he opens the door for us to speak. And so he asks a question. I think we also need to be good listeners, and we have to be good uh good people that ask questions well. And so we we we look at uh at the question that he asks. Um, and this is why we need to ask good questions, because sometimes we answer questions that people are never asking. And so we need to be sure and ask good, open ended questions. And so the question that he asks is very simple do you understand what you're reading? Now, his response is quite interesting. How can I? All right, uh, unless uh how can I uh unless someone guides me now. Now, real quick, a lot. Of people think that the eunuch in this passage was highly educated and could fully read and understand. I'm going to disagree. I'm going to say that because I've learned a leather language. If anybody else has learned another language here, um, I can teach you real quick to sound out an Arabic word. And we could all like I we could all say the word together. We can sound out the how it's how it's read. But we have no idea what that word means. I think the Ethiopian was reading from the prophet Isaiah on a little bit of a mission trip high kind of thing on the way back home. And he was because because the Hebrew is is is rhythmic, it rhymes in the way that it said, so is Arabic, by the way. Um, but I think he was reading it, he was sounding out the letters, but I don't think he understood at all what he was reading. And so it was an open door for him to walk in and tell him about Jesus. Now, what was he reading? That's important for us too. What was he reading? He was reading from the book of what? Isaiah, which aren't you glad it wasn't Leviticus, okay? Um, because man, now don't get me wrong, we can get there. We can get from Leviticus to Jesus. It just takes us a few more hops, skips, and jumps, okay? But from Isaiah, man, it's almost like a straight shot. So that's a win for uh for Philip, and it's a win um uh for us. And so he asked the question. Philip asked one question, the Ethiopian asked three questions in response, and he started right there sharing the gospel with them. He opened his mouth, he spoke. We have to be people who speak when we're given the opportunity. Now, we don't know exactly, it doesn't tell us here, we don't know exactly about how he, what what did he say? What how what how did he get from Isaiah to Jesus? All right, it's not in here, but I bet we can put together some pieces. Can we can we kind of collectively put together a few pieces? It probably went something like this. All right, hey, uh the the Philip said to the Ethiopian, Hey, that scroll that you're reading, it contains prophet prophecies about the Messiah. And guess what? All of them are true. And at the right time, in the right place, in the city of David, as it was foretold, he was born of a virgin, just as prophecies said he would be. And he lived a perfect life without any sin whatsoever, and he performed miracles, and he taught in a way that no one had ever taught before, and he was falsely accused, and they hung him on a tree where he died for your sins and for mine. But on the third day, God what? God raised him from the dead. It could not hold him. Uh there, I told you I'm a visual learner, and uh, there's a graphic here, and and that is really tiny font, even for my eyes, that are pretty good. Um, this is a hundred references, prophecies, and fulfillments of scripture. And I tell you what, I can give this, I can just airdrop it to you if you want this. Uh this is a hundred different references. The red ones are all from Christ's birth, then Christ's ministry, and then his um death and resurrection. And so it's Old Testament connecting to New Testament, uh, a hundred different references that are there. And so um, if you were asked, like, well, what did he say from Isaiah to that? Okay, um, this is kind of where he connected the dots that but he didn't stop there. He said also after he was after uh after he was raised from the dead, um, he was seen by many people. Um uh uh Corinthians tells us it was a bunch over 500 um at one time. And then he told his followers that hey, as you're going to live your life, everywhere that you're going, as you're going to live your life, tell others about me. And just real quick, we're here today because they did that. Because those followers shared that message with someone who shared that message with someone who told that message to someone else. And let's fast forward, and here we are, even today. And what's really cool, I think at the end, as he's wrapping it up with the Ethiopian, he's like and as he ascended back into heaven, he promised that he would send us something a helper, the Holy Spirit to help guide us on our journey of faith. And what's really interesting is that's actually why I'm here right now in front of you on that caravan, right? The Holy Spirit guided him here for this specific purpose right now, in obedience to what he had for him. Let me tell you a little story about this college student who said yes to going wherever he said yes to go. She was from Texas, uh, she had blonde hair and blue eyes, and she came to the Middle East for two weeks, did prayer walking and engagement with locals. Her whole point was to pray for people apiece. And that whole two-week journey, she never met one. And so it was her last night, on her last night in town. Uh, she was in a taxi cab, she was getting out of the taxi cab at the ride was over, and the taxi cab driver, which weren't the nicest of people, like context, all right, um, kind of looked at her and he was like, Hey, there's something really different about you. You look and act different than what, you know, there's just something different about you. And she goes, Well, do you want to know what it is? And he said, Yes. And she said, Well, I follow Jesus, the Messiah who died for my sins. And he goes, Hey, I would really like to know about that. Can I have your phone number? Which we all kind of went, hmm, which we trained them, okay, to give not her phone number, right? Okay, um, to give uh phone number of another missionary. And so then she got on a plane and went back to Texas. And a week later, we called the guy. And he said, Hey, I'm looking for so-and-so. He was looking for the girl. And we said, Well, hey, she's back in in the States. And he goes, Well, I really don't really care to hear about her. I really want to talk about Jesus, the Messiah, because man, I believe, and I just don't know what to do, which led to his household being baptized, which led to his neighbor's household following Jesus and being baptized, which led to his nephew's household believing and being baptized. And we saw a movement that we've never seen before. Because of why? Because of a girl who knew no Arabic, who said yes to following Jesus, who listened intently to questions that were being were being asked of her, and then she opened her mouth when he presented the opportunity to do so. Man, that's a marker for us, isn't it? And being obedient followers of him.

One Yes Can Spark A Movement

SPEAKER_00 28:48

So if you don't know the rest of the story, you can go read it. Um, but but they come up on some water, which is cool. And the Ethiopian was like, Hey, is there anything preventing me from being baptized? And the answer is no. And so uh they got in the water and baptized him. And then um as the Ethiopian came up out of the water, Philip wasn't seen again. Um, if you want to have a cup of coffee on that, or maybe a pot of coffee out of that, we can um we can sidebar that. That's another conversation. Um, but what's really cool is later on in Acts, in almost at the very end, um, there's this dude named Paul. You might have heard of him. He went on some journeys, okay, missionary journeys, right? And on his way back in for the third journey, he's coming in through Caesarea. And as he's coming in, he stops at someone's house. Guess whose house he stops at? He stops at Philip's house. And guess who was with him? Luke. And that's where I think Philip pulled Luke aside and he was like, hey, let me tell you about what happened right after the stoning of Stephen, where the spirit moved, and how it didn't make a whole lot of sense. But man, did the gospel advance as a result. What an incredible story. What an incredible encounter, and what an incredible lesson for us to obey in going, listening, and speaking.

Respond With Clear Ears Today

SPEAKER_00 30:01

So I'm getting ready to land the plane. And as I do, I usually ask a very simple question. So now what? All right, we we've looked at the word, it's been read and it's been you know taught to us. And so now what? I always think there's something that we need to know. Anytime you read scripture on your own or even um in a group setting, I think there's always something we need to know. Um, and there's something that we need to do. Sometimes there's something we need to stop doing, but that's not the case today. All right, so that's a win. Um, but there's something we need to know, and there's something we need to do. What do we need to know? Here's what you need to know. Um, the spirit and the word are our guide. If you, if you're ever questioning, you know, I wonder what God's will for my life is, all you gotta do is what? Read it. I think about 85% of God's will for you is right here. All you have to do is read. Well, Phil, I don't read good. That's cool. They got apps for that. All right. You want it read to you in 1.5 speed, they can hook you up. You want it in a cool accent, they can do that. Um, however, just real quick, I think that needs to be a supplement for you actually getting your eyes on it and reading it slowly. Okay? All right. We got stuff that'll help us. It is our guide. And so then what do we need to do as a result? We need to listen and to what? Obey. Really simple. Listen and obey what it has for us. And so um, we're we're gonna get ready to sing around a song of response. And so there's there's a time for you to respond. Um, so so what how do you need to respond this morning? Maybe you're not listening. If you're not listening to what the spirit has for you, guess what? It's time to do start. That's right. Okay, maybe we need to respond to the Father and say, Hey, I need to start listening to you. Maybe you've told him um that you're not going somewhere. Uh I'm not going there. So quick tip, I wouldn't do that because he's God and you're not. But um, if you you're at that season of your life, okay. All right. I know that there was a a season in our life where the only place that we didn't want to go serve was America. Uh, because that was scary for us. So I get it. If that's if you're saying you don't want to go somewhere, okay, that's cool. Let's repent of that. Okay, let's let's confess that to him. Right. Um, let's also maybe you need to respond because you've been tossed a couple softballs and and and you just didn't swing. You just you knew the Lord opened the opportunity, you knew the Lord was setting it up. It wasn't a funky spin on the softball, it was just straight down. You were ready to swing for the fence and you just watched it. Maybe you need to respond to that. Well, if you don't know what to say, I bet there's people here that would love to share with you and to teach you what it is, how you can respond, how you can share with others. And so, how are we gonna remember this? Uh how are we gonna remember that there are times in our life where we need to listen and obey what the Lord has for us? And we talked about sometimes there's things in our ears that distract us uh from from listening to the to the Lord. And so on your way out today, I have a little gift for you. I love gifts, okay? I'm a gift person. I don't know if you are, I am, I'm a gift person. And and so um I think it's really important for us to remember that remember in different ways. And so um I have something for you, and it's a set of earplugs. Okay. Um, do I do I have that picture? I have a picture. Do you have a picture? I have a picture. Thank you. Okay, awesome. I have a set of earplugs for you. Um, and and you don't, they're not intended to be put in your ears, although they'll work for that. If you um uh for for the team, if you all have are listening, or you know, if you got somebody in your room that's snoring, they'll work for that, okay? They'll hook you up, okay? But they're a visual reminder to ask the question Am I listening? Is there something that is distracting me from listening to what the Father has for me? And so it's just a reminder for you to ask that simple question as you're following him are you listening fully so that we may be followers of Jesus that are obedient to his direction in our lives.