When God Leads the Way - Part 1

Welcome to Right Beside You in the Pulpit with Dr. Stephen Rummage! 

This episode is Part 1 of a recent sermon titled "When God Leads the Way." 

Over a four-week series, we’ll focus on a single sermon—tracing the journey from initial preparation all the way to the closing invitation on Sunday morning. Each month, we’ll also gather around the table with pastors from across our state to hear insights from their unique preaching rhythms, contexts, and experiences. 

As you listen, our prayer is that you’ll find encouragement and practical help to strengthen your weekly preaching of God’s Word. Though we may be geographically separated, our desire is to be right beside you as you stand in the pulpit each Sunday. 

This podcast is funded by the generous Cooperative Program giving of Florida Baptist churches.  

If you have any questions about this episode, please email communications@flbaptist.org.

Transcript

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God's detours are never detours. When he does something unexpected and you let him lead the way, he will always take you to the right place at the right time.

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Welcome to Right Beside You in the Pulpit with Dr. Stephen Rummage, a series geared to help strengthen your preaching of God's Word and encourage us together along the way.

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Hi, this is Stephen Rummage, Executive Director of the Florida Baptist Convention. Thank you for listening to the first episode of Right Beside You in the Pulpit. Every month, this podcast will follow a single expositional sermon that I've recently preached. This month, the message comes from Acts chapter 8, verses 26 through 40. This week's episode and next week, you'll hear the sermon itself as I preached it. And then in the following episodes, we'll go behind the scenes into the Bible study process that shaped the message, and then also a panel discussion with other pastors and me as we talk through the text and hear their own approaches to preaching it. Through it all, we know that Sunday is always coming. And I pray this podcast encourages you in your preparation and preaching of the Word of God. And now let's get into my sermon from Acts chapter 8, verses 26 through 40, a message called When God Leads the Way. Turn with me to the book of Acts, and if you will, turn to Acts chapter 8. Today I've given my message the title, When God Leads the Way. I want to talk to you about what happens in your life when you allow God to lead the way. You'll be able to say the last part of it. Houston, we have a problem. Houston, we have a problem. You know that phrase, and you probably know that it comes from the Apollo 13 moon mission from back in April of 1970. Those astronauts found themselves in a horrific situation. One of their oxygen tanks exploded. They lost all hope of making it to the moon. They knew they weren't going to land on the moon. Now they were just hoping that somehow they'd be able to come back to Earth. Some of their systems lost power, but they signaled to mission control in Houston and they gave them a message sort of like this Houston, we have a problem. From that moment, those astronauts were absolutely dependent on what mission control told them to know what to do. They had to listen, they had to follow, they had to let mission control guide them. And some of the things that mission control told them probably didn't make sense to those astronauts. They told them to power down some of their crucial systems. They told them to direct their spacecraft away from the earth instead of toward the earth. They told them to follow calculations that they could not verify for themselves. It seemed counterintuitive some of the things they were asked to do. But they listened and step by step they followed as mission control led the way. Here's what I've learned about my relationship with Jesus Christ. Following Jesus Christ means, wait for it, following Jesus Christ. Following Jesus Christ means day by day listening to him, obeying him, and letting him lead the way in my life. And when I let him lead the way, and when you let him lead the way, his way is always the best way. And that's what we discover in the book of Acts chapter 8. In Acts chapter 8, beginning in verse 26, we meet Philip. In fact, we've met him a couple of chapters back. He's one of the leaders in the church in Jerusalem. But because of persecution, Philip and other believers from Jerusalem have been scattered out to all kinds of places. He now finds himself in Samaria, in the northern part of Israel, and he's there and he's preaching, and God is using Philip in incredible ways. And then God does something surprising. God does something that really wouldn't have made sense to you or to me, or I'm sure to Philip. God told Philip to do something different, and Philip followed as God led the way, beginning in verse 26. Listen to what the Bible says. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Rise and go toward the south to the road that leads 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're reading? And he said, Well, 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 you, 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 Azotis, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. This is the word of God. Will you join with me as we pray? Lord God, thank you for this good day that you've given us. Lord, I pray in these moments that you would move me out of the way, and God, that you would speak. Lord, I pray that you would speak to those who are here who have never been saved. Lord, show them right now how much you love them and how much they need you, that today they might call on the name of Jesus and be saved. I pray, Lord, for men and women and young people and boys and girls who need to say yes to baptism. Lord, I pray that today you would show them how important it is to say yes to following Jesus by being baptized. And then, Father, I pray for believers across this room. Lord, work in our hearts through your word to show what you will do in our lives as we let you lead the way. We'll give you glory and honor and praise for all that you do. For we pray these things in Jesus' precious name. And church, if you agree with that prayer, will you say amen? Amen. I want to talk to you about four results that will happen in your life and my life when God leads the way. We're going to walk through the passage we read together, and we're going to see four results that come into our lives when we let God lead the way. Here's the first result. The Bible shows us this. When God leads the way, he will take you to the right place at the right time. When God leads the way, he will take you to the right place at the right time. Look back in verse 26 of the text. The Bible says, Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Rise and go toward the south to this road that goes from Jerusalem down to Gaza. Now I want you to underline in your Bible, if you will, what I've underlined in my Bible there in verse 26, the phrase, the angel of the Lord, an angel of the Lord. Not just an angel, but an angel of the Lord. That's a special phrase that the word of God uses when God sends a heavenly messenger with a specific message from God to his people. We find the angel of the Lord both in the Old Testament and the New Testament, and he always comes with a directive word showing his people how he wants to lead the way in their lives. In the Old Testament, the angel of the Lord came to Abraham, and then to Moses, and then to Gideon, and then we come to the New Testament. The angel of the Lord came to Joseph in Nazareth and to the shepherds in Bethlehem, and then to Peter when he was in prison, and then to Philip when he was preaching up in Samaria. Philip was preaching and God was using him in Samaria. And I mean, I'm talking about miracles were being performed through him. He was proclaiming the gospel. There were large crowds. All kinds of people were coming to know Jesus as Savior. It was an incredible time. The Bible says at the beginning of this chapter, there was much joy in the city of Samaria because of what God was doing through Philip. And then an angel of the Lord comes to Philip and says, I want you to leave all this. I want you to get up. I want you to go down on this road that leads down from Jerusalem to Gaza, the southernmost part of Israel, down in the area where the Philistines used to live. I want you to go on that road. And just to underscore it, to make sure we get it, at the end of the verse in verse 26, Luke says, this is a desert place. So God takes Philip from a place where all kinds of things are happening to a place where there's hardly any people, where there's just desert. It must not have made any sense at all, but notice what the Bible says as we continue into verse 27. And Philip rose and went. He heard the message that God gave him. He got up and he went. And Philip rose and went. And then the verse continues, and there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians. Here's what I want you to see. When God told Philip to get up, and Philip obeyed and let God lead the way, God took Philip to exactly the right place at exactly the right time. There's a word in the original text of Scripture that you'll see in some of the older translations of the Bible into English. It's not in my Bible, but I can put it in there. Look again in verse 27. If you got the New King James or the King James, this word is in here. Verse 27, and he arose and went and behold. How many of your Bibles say behold there? And behold. And that's not just a word that the Bible puts in there to make the language seem elevated and strange. The word behold, there is actually an interjection that means surprise. Look, you weren't expecting this, but here it is. And behold, on this road that leads to nowhere, on this road that leads to a desert, behold, surprise, there was an Ethiopian eunuch who was a high court leader in the Queen Mother in Candace's court, and he was coming back from worshiping in Jerusalem. So God just surprised me. Here's why I want you to hear me say when God puts your life on a detour, the detour always leads to a surprise party. When God does something that you weren't expecting, his surprise for you will always be just what you or someone else needs. He will take you to the right place at the right time. Right after Christmas, our family, we've got a small family. It's just Michelle and I, and we've got one son, he's married. He they just gave us our first little granddaughter. I put her picture up on the screen. She's so beautiful she would distract from the rest of my message. So I'm not gonna put her up there. But her name's Blair. Right after Christmas, uh we we all got together at our home in Jacksonville, and we were gonna travel from Jacksonville, Florida, up to North Carolina, where my mom and dad live and where Michelle's sister lives, and we were gonna go see, let everybody see the baby. And so we're going up I-95 North, about two days after Christmas, traveling northward from Florida through Georgia up into South Carolina. And as we're going, we see the traffic coming southward on I-95 South. I should say we see the traffic not moving southward on I-95 southward. So they weren't moving at all. We looked over there on I-95 South and it was a parking lot. It was gridlocked. Nobody was moving. We're just driving up, we're moving along pretty well. And we drive for miles and miles and miles and miles. And all the way coming down south, nobody's moving. Nobody's moving, I mean, for two, three, four, five miles, nothing is moving. Eventually, as we keep going northward, we see that the traffic going southward now is moving. But we know something they don't. We know that they're making good time headed toward a traffic jam. And if I could have, I would have stopped and I would have yelled out from my car window, hey, you need to take the next exit. You need to detour. You need to get off of this road. But the truth is, I couldn't do that. And they probably wouldn't have listened to me if I had tried. Because anytime somebody tells you to detour, a detour always feels like a detour. It's an interruption. It's taken me off the path that I needed to be on. It's changed my plan, and it can't be good. Here's the truth from God's word: God's detours are never detours. His interruptions are never interruptions. When he does something unexpected to interrupt the path of your life, and you let him lead the way, he will always take you to the right place at the right time. There are people in this room who need to hear me say that to you today because you're going through some circumstance in your life that just seems like a detour. Maybe it's with your family. It's like we thought we were headed this way and now we're headed this way. Or maybe it's in your job. You've just been interrupted, and what you thought was going to happen next is not happening. Maybe it's in your ministry. Maybe it's in your spiritual life. Maybe you can't even put your finger on exactly what's happening. You just know that right now God has led you to a place you never thought you would be. When God interrupts, when God alters our plans, when God puts us on a detour, he is always taking us to the right place at the right time. So let him lead. Today you can just come before the Lord and say, Lord, I recognize your sovereign right to change my plans, to alter my steps, and to interrupt my schedule. And because you are God and I am not, and because your ways are best, Lord, I'm not going to resist, I'm not going to get angry, I'm not going to get bitter, I'm not going to push back, I'm going to rejoice in what you're doing, knowing that as I allow you to lead the way, you will always take me to the right place at the right time. When God leads the way, he'll take you to the right place at the right time. There's a second result the Bible shows us when God leads the way. Number two, when God leads the way, he will bring you to people who are searching. He will bring you to people who are searching. Now look again in verse 27. The Bible says, Philip rose and went, and there, behold, surprise, there was an Ethiopian eunuch. 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 he was returning, going back to Ethiopia, seated in his chariot, and he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit of God said to Philip, Go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet. And so Philip gets on this desert road. He sees this man who is searching. Now he doesn't look like he's searching. He looks like he's got it all together. He's a wealthy man. He's a powerful man. He's a eunuch from Ethiopia. A eunuch was a man who had been castrated. Sometimes we wonder why would anybody voluntarily be castrated? But in those days, if you were working in the court of a king and you wanted to have a high position of trust, sometimes men would become eunuchs. That's the case of this man. Because if you were a eunuch, the king could trust you with the queen and could trust you with his daughters and others. And that was the case of this man. He was a eunuch in the court of Candace, the queen mother of Ethiopia. Historians tell us that the queen mothers of Ethiopia in those days had power that even the king did not have. And this guy is like her CFO. He takes care of everything. He's in charge of all her treasury. He's very wealthy. He's educated. And you can see his wealth even in how he's traveling. He's traveling on a chariot. You can see his wealth in what he's reading. He's got his own copy of the scriptures in those days. People couldn't get their own copies of the scripture. He's got the scripture. He's reading the scripture. He's reading it out loud because in those days, even when you were reading to yourself, you would read out loud. And he's reading from Isaiah. Now we're going to see in just a moment. He was reading from Isaiah chapters 52 and 53. But I sort of wonder, and I'm just using my imagination here, but I don't think it's too far stretched. I sort of wonder if he was reading toward Isaiah 56. In those days, they wouldn't have had chapter divisions in those scrolls. He was just reading, but maybe somebody had told him this eunuch. If you'll read in Isaiah, there's a portion as you move through, and he was getting very close to it. In Isaiah 56, the Bible talks about how God will welcome eunuchs who had been shut out from getting close to God, how he would welcome them fully and love them and show his grace toward them. So maybe he was reading toward that. I don't know. I just know he had been to Jerusalem to worship. He was someone who wanted to know God, but when he got there, he found himself not able to go into the innermost part of the temple, not able to do all the things he wanted to do to know God, and he's reading from the Word of God. I repeat what I said earlier. He looked like he had it all together, but he was really searching. There are people all around us who are searching and they look like they've got it all together. In fact, most of the time when I'm searching for something, I want to look like I'm not searching. I want to reach in my pocket and pull out something that I've spent a lot of time in my life searching for. Can y'all see that? I know where they are right now, but man, so many times I've spent, I don't know how many hours in my life, at the end of my life, if I were to add up all the hours I've spent searching for my keys, I don't know how many hours that would be. And most of the time, when I start out searching for my keys, I don't want to look like I'm searching for my keys. I especially don't want Michelle to know that I'm searching for my keys, because that means I put them somewhere they don't belong. And so at first when I'm looking, I'm sort of, you know, just walking around the house, going from room to room, acting sort of nonchalant. I'm I'm looking, but I don't want anybody to see. And then eventually the time comes when I've got to leave and I can't leave the house without my keys. And so I start to look like I'm looking. And I say, has anybody seen my keys? Michelle, do you know where my keys? I can't find I start looking under stuff in the house I've never even touched before in my life, thinking maybe my keys are there somewhere. Sometimes when you're searching for something, you look like you're searching, but a lot of the times you don't. You're around people all the time who are in their heart searching for a relationship with God. They may not look like they're searching, but they may be one conversation away from having a relationship with Jesus Christ. And God has led you to that person because when He leads the way, He will lead you to people who are searching. There are people in this room today. And you came here today because in some way you're searching for a relationship with God. Maybe you're searching for a way to get rid of the guilt in your past. Or maybe you're searching for a way to have hope for your future. But you know you're searching. Everybody may think you have it all together, but you know you're searching. The Bible says the spirit told Philip, verse 29, the Philip, the Spirit told Philip, go over and join this chariot. So Philip ran to him. He heard him reading, Isaiah the prophet, because he was reading out loud, and he asked him a question. Notice when he came to a searching person, he started by asking. Christians, listen, when we're talking to people who need Jesus, the The best way to start is by asking. Ask, how can I pray for you? What's God doing in your life? What are you struggling with right now? How can I be a friend to you? He came to him and said, Do you understand what you're reading? And verse 31, the eunuch said, How can I unless someone guides me? Look at that word. Unless someone guides me. The eunuch was saying, I'm searching. I'm trying to see what this book is saying to me. I'm reading it and I know what the words say, but I can't understand it unless someone guides me. And then look at the end of verse 31. And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. I love that. In just a few moments, a man who had been a total stranger, someone so different from Philip, a man from Ethiopia. And he had probably never met anybody like that before in his life. Different skin color, different background, everything different about him. And now they're sitting next to one another, and Philip is talking to this man who has been searching. Searching people need us as believers to come next to them. I love the fact that he's talking to him eye to eye there in that chariot. My wife is an early childhood educator. She taught me something early on in our marriage that has helped me so much as a pastor. She said, Stephen, when you talk to a little boy or a little girl, don't talk to them like this. She said, talk to them like this. Get down on their level, look into their eyes and talk to them. We like that when we're children. Friends, we like that all our lives. We like somebody who's willing to come on our level and talk to us. Christian, I would ask you, who's someone that God is leading you to come to? Come right beside that searching person. They may look like they're searching or they may look like they got it all together, but God has put you in that person's path. It may be somebody you work with, it may be somebody you go to school with, it may be somebody in your neighborhood, it could be somebody who's in your family who lives in the same house that you live in. And God has placed you in that person's life. He has led the way for you to come next to that person and just ask, hey, how can I pray for you? Or do you understand what it means to have a relationship with Jesus Christ? So when God leads the way, he'll take you to the right place at the right time. And when he leads, he'll also bring you to the very people who are searching. I love this passage because it reminds us of those two truths that we can't afford to forget. God's timing is always intentional and his appointments are never accidental. Pastor, I hope that you're encouraged today by those same reminders. If this message has sparked a question or stirred something in your heart, we'd love to hear from you. Don't hesitate to reach out to us at info at flbaptist.org. That's info at flbaptist.org. Also, please subscribe to this podcast so that you'll automatically get the new weekly episodes. Be sure to join us next week as we dive into the second half of this message and continue the story of Philip and the Ethiopian unit. Thanks for listening today, and remember, we're right beside you.

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Thank you for listening to today's episode of Right Beside You in the Pulpit with Dr. Stephen Rummage. This podcast is made possible through your faithful cooperative program giving. For more resources, ministries, and upcoming events in Florida Baptist life, visit flbaptist.org.