SPEAKER_03 5:37

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Lakewood Vineyard. Happy Fourth of July weekend. Did anyone else have dogs that were really stressed out on the day? We have two dogs that wanted to go to bed at eight o'clock because of the scary noises. We're so glad you're with us. I'm an invite the Lord's presence and then we'll begin with worship. If you're new here, uh the words will be on the screen. You can follow along there and there. So, God, we welcome your presence today. Thank you that we have this space both here in person and online to be able to come together to be part of something bigger than ourselves. To be reminded that we are part of a global family that people all over the world are praise in thousands of languages and dialects and style rhythms. God, all calling on your name because you love us and you made us and you've made us to be worshippers. So we invite you, we say, Welcome, welcome. Come and fill us, join our We learned this line last week just about the joy of your words. Jump in, remember it, or if it's new to you this week, this week, you'll catch on real quick, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

There's beauty in my broken case. I've got true love instead of pain. There's freedom capture me. I've got joy just to me. Let's sing that again. There's beauty in my broken next. I've got true love instead of pain. There's freedom though you've captured me. I've got joy instead of morning. You give me joy down deep in my soul, down deep in my soul, down deep in my soul, you give me joy, down deep in my soul, down eat in my soul, down eat in my soul. There's beauty my brokenness. There's beauty in my brokenness. I've got true trouble instead of me. There's Christian no capture me. I've got choice on me. Oh, there's beauty in my brokenness. I've got to sit. There's free to know who capture me. I've got choice this morning. You give me joy, down to dink in my soul, down to my soul, down to my soul. You give me joy down deep in my soul, down deep in my soul, down deep in my soul, I've never been so free, caught in your love for me. I've never been more secure, no your heart. Never been so free, caught in your love for me. Never been more secure, knowing your heart or never been so free, caught in your love for me. Never been more secure, knowing your heart. Never been so free, caught in your love for me. Never been more secure knowing that you bring me joy down deep in my soul, down deep in my soul, down deep in my soul, you bring us joy down deep in our souls, down deep in our souls, down deep in our souls. Joy Down deep in our souls.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

God, we do ask for more of that today. The things that are heavy in our lives, the things that are bringing worry, stress, pain, worry. Questions, God, that you would give us your joy. Joy that lasts in the midst of any circumstance.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Treasures as faith, whatever love. So there's nothing Better than you, there's nothing.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Better than you, there's nothing.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

Nothing is better than you know the first To show you my weakness My failures of those.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

What do you see for you still call me friend? Cause the God of my God of There's nothing you'll perceive place, won't find me again For there's nothing Better than you, there's nothing Better than you, there's nothing Nothing is better than you Oh, for there's nothing It's better than you. Oh, there's nothing Better than you, there's nothing Nothing is better than you turn morning to dancing.

SPEAKER_03 14:03

You give beauty for ashes, you turn shame to glory, you're the only one you turn morning, you turn morning to dancing, you give beauty for ashes, you turn shame to glory, you're the only one who can, you're the only, you're the only one who can Oh there's nothing Better than you there's nothing That's better than you, there's nothing Nothing is better than you Oh there's nothing That's better than you, for there's nothing That's better than you There's nothing Nothing is better than you We're gonna sing You turn graves into gardens You turn boats into armies You turn seas into highways And these words are all from Scripture Different stories in the Bible that tell us about God's power, His protection, His presence.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

So we're gonna sing that together You turn graves into gardens You turn bowl into armies You turn seas into highways You're the only one who can turn graves You turn graves into gardens You turn bowl into armies You turn seas into highways You're the only one who can You're the only one who can You're the only one who can't be able to do it who you've come to bring peace to be love to be nearer to us who you've come to bring life to be light to shine brighter in our soul amen you are God with our deliver you are Savior in your presence we find our strength over everything our redemption God with us you are God with us you are you've come to bring hope to this world for your honor name you've come to take sin to bear shame and to conquer the brave man you well you are God with us our deliver you are savior in your presence we find our strength over everything our redemption God wants our deliver you our savior in your presence we find our strength over everything our redemption God with us you are God with us encourage you to take this moment maybe open up your hands and invite the Lord to make God's presence known to you maybe it's a peace that settles over you maybe that's something that you feel in your body maybe it's the ability to turn over the worries of the day to God would you come right now by the power of your spirit and help us to become more aware of your presence here with us for us speaking to us guiding us caring for us healing us correcting us out of all things you are here you are holy we are standing in your glory you are here you are holy we are standing in your glory you are here holy we are standing in your glory you are here we are standing in your glory our deliver you are senior in your presence we find our strength over everything our redemption God with our deliver you are senior in your presence we find our strength over everything our redemption God with us you are God with us

SPEAKER_03 23:04

Show us what you're about today, Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

You are here, you're moving in our midst. I worship you. I worship you. You are here. You're working in this place. I worship you. I worship you. You are here touching every heart. You are here. Touching every heart. I worship you. I didn't spot. I didn't darkness. Even when I see it to work. Never stop. Never stop working. Never stop. Never stop working. You never stop. Never stop. You never stop. Never stop. You are here. You're pulling in this. We worship him. We worship him.

SPEAKER_04 27:36

Please join me as we continue our worship and prepare for communion into the scripture reading. Do we have the scriptures? It's on the back screen. Oh, amazing. Uh now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but is the same God who empowers them all and everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. We now turn toward communion, the Lord's Supper. We share this meal each week, participating in the meal that Jesus shared with his disciples and keeping his life and death at the center of our worship. Communion is for anyone who says that they are a follower of Jesus. You don't have to be a part of this church. You can find the communion elements by the door in the back if you didn't grab them on your way in. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus took bread and we had given thanks. He broke it and said, This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Let's eat the bread. Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me. Let's drink the cup. God, thank you for coming onto this earth. Thank you for offering up your body as a living sacrifice for us. That while we were still sinners, you died for us. And that we did not deserve it, Lord. We are forever grateful for that, Lord. So thank you. Love you a lot, Lord. Amen. The kids are dismissed to find their teachers in the back. And you can go ahead and grab a seat. If you haven't met, my name's Luke Nickel. Uh and I am so glad that you're here at Lakewood Vineyard today. Our church is a community that exists to help people reimagine their faith. And whether this is your first time, first time at church, uh, or your 100th millionth time, and you're not sure what you believe in, or you've been following Jesus for a long time, we're just really glad that you're here this morning. And if you're visiting today, you'll see a QR code on the back of a seat in front of you. And there's also uh connect cards on chairs around. And we'd love for you to either scan that QR code and fill that out or fill out a connect card near you. It's just a great way for us to connect with you and for us to be able to reach out and say hello. And even if you've been here for a while, that is a great way as well to us to know some prayer requests that we can have for you, and as well as to sign up for something like baptisms coming up. And you can place those Kinect cards in the giving box in the back. And we also donate $10 to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank for every new Kinect card. So you're already helping someone just by being here. Uh and also here at Lakewood Vineyard, we like to say, give us five. It usually takes about five Sundays for someone to know if this church is their church home. And we'd love to walk that journey with you. Uh so some of the main nonsense we have is three weeks from today, we will be having church outside at Edgewater Beach on July 26th. Yes, woo, yeah. Uh we'll be having a cookout afterwards, and what a great and easy way to invite someone to their first time to church or to come back to church, then outside at a cookout afterwards. Uh, and it can be as easy as inviting someone to be like, hey, come to this cookout with me, and before we have church, and I'd love for you to join me for it. Uh and uh this doesn't say this, but I honestly think even if you just invite someone to the cookout just to meet some of the people, because then the next time they come to church, they will already know people in the room. Just an idea. Um and if you've recently given your life to Jesus and you haven't been baptized, there will be baptisms on that Sunday. And so if you would like to take the opportunity to fill out something on uh Vineyard.news, uh you can fill it out and we can talk to you. And you can even sign up the morning of if you feel called and excited to go and do that. Um and then we also need uh help just providing food for the cookout. So if you could also, once again, go to vineyard.news and sign up to bring some food. That would be a huge help. Uh and then uh another save the date, Thursday, July 9th, 6 to 7.30 p.m. at Cove Park, we're having a family meetup. So bring a picnic dinner, bring your people, and come and hang out. And there's more info info for that at Vineyard.news as well. And also, if you're at Vineyard.news, you might as well go and check out our summer circles. And those are happening throughout the summer, and so you can go and check out the dates and what's happening for those as well. And as part of our worship, we now receive our offering. We give as a response to God's generosity towards us in a way of saying, My whole life is yours, God, even my financials. And if you're new here, there's no expect expectation for you to give. But if this is your church home, we invite you to give generously and give regularly. There's three ways to give on the screen, and then you can also always give the black ox in the back. Um, but if you haven't already, if you could consider and would consider setting up recurring giving, it helps our church just uh know what money is coming in regularly throughout all seasons. God, I thank you that we are able to give. God, I thank you that you have blessed us abundantly. God, thank you for this life and the way that we get to live it, and the fact that we have money and are capable of giving, Lord. I pray that we would be people that give generously. And that we bless those around us with it, Lord, and with the blessings that you have given us. Thank you so much for this morning, Lord. We love you a lot. Amen. I would now like to invite a good friend of mine and soon to be yours, Dave Purvis.

SPEAKER_05 34:36

There was an associate pastor at a church I used to go to. You know what? I think I'll just leave it down there. Yeah, there was an associate pastor at a church I used to go to where he said, you shouldn't be you shouldn't be cheering, you haven't heard me yet. Um Hey, how about Noel, what are those lines in that that last song? Even when I don't feel like I even when I don't feel it you're working, when I don't see it that you're working. I don't know if you felt the presence of God during worship. I certainly did. But may the Lord open our eyes to have that perspective that God is so immediate and and around us that even we don't see it, he's working, he's constantly actually involved in our lives. Um before I start to mess, hey, do those lights have to be right in my eyes? Does it make me look good? It's really obnoxious though. Um if you pray with me. Lord, our desire is to be in touch with your your presence all around us, your voice in our ears, your light in our minds, and your light in our hearts. And Lord, we bring this passage to you, this this time of looking at your word. And Lord Jesus, as you did it for those disciples on the road to Emmaus, Lord, we ask that that you would open this passage to us in such a way that our hearts burn for you. We praise you and thank you and invite you into this time, Lord. Amen. Well, we're continuing our series in Acts. And um today we are in chapter eight, which chapter eight is a wonderful story. So we're just gonna spend the vast majority of our time actually just uh talking through the story today. But to fully appreciate what we what we find in Acts eight, we have to recap what leads up to this. So, first of all, Acts the full name is of the book is the Acts of the Apostles. If you don't know, it comes it comes immediately after the gos after the gospels, right? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all tell the story of Jesus. And at the end of those gospels, hey, that's my drink. Honey pie, could you go give me another drink? Yeah, call her honey pie. Um so in the gospels, they end with Jesus sacrificing himself on the cross to pay for our sins so that we could be forgiven and restored to our Creator. And then he rises from the dead so that we too can have our lives changed and and live a newness of life, to be born again into a relationship with God as our Father. Right? So that's how the gospels end. Jesus only shows up in the first, I don't know, 10, 12 verses of Acts chapter 1. And what he does is he prepares the um thank you very much. I don't know where I put this, but um He's preparing the apostles to take this message out because it's one thing that Jesus uh by his death and resurrection, he made, he provided this opportunity for anyone who wanted to be restored into a right relationship with God, their creator, to be restored. He made it possible. But then people need to hear it, right? And so he's left it to the apostles, he's left it to the apostles to to take the message out and to spread it. And so in in Acts chapter one, he tells them, hey, don't don't leave Jerusalem yet, because first you need to receive what God has promised. He's gonna give you his spirit. And then he gives more detail in verse eight. If we have verse eight. Jesus tells them the reason he doesn't want them to leave Jerusalem yet is he says, But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria until the end of the earth. They're supposed to be the witnesses, but they can't do it until they've been empowered by the Holy Spirit. And then as we've gone through our series, we've seen um when God pours out the Spirit at Pentecost, and then Peter, who not that long ago, a couple months ago, had denied Jesus three times. Peter stands up and preaches, three thousand people respond positively to the message and get baptized. And then as we go on the story, we see Peter and John, they're they're called before the very authorities. And Luke was talking about this. Remember when he he explained how those they're called before the very authorities that had Jesus crucified. And they say to him, Hey, we can't follow you. We have to follow what God said. We're gonna continue, we're gonna continue to preach this gospel. And then last week, Tom preached um the message about Stephen. Now, Stephen was not one of the apostles. If you remember earlier in Acts, there's a situation where the widows of the Hellenistic Jews, the Greek-speaking Jews, were being neglected in the distribution of food. To resolve the issue, the apostles appointed seven guys to administer the distribution of food. And Stephen was one of those guys. He wasn't an apostle. And so that's where we pick up our story. It was actually the last phrase in uh chapter seven. We have that slide. There we go. And Saul, oh, did I say this part? Stephen gets stoned to death at the end of chapter seven. He gets stoned to death. Right? And because of the message about Jesus, he gets rocks thrown at him until he dies. And Saul approved of his execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen, made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. So they had stoned Stephen to death because of the message. Now there's this big persecution happening happening in Jerusalem where Saul is trying to stamp out the message, and he's it must have been horrible. Can you imagine? Like people in the church are getting authorities are coming into their houses and dragging them off and putting them in prison. So there's this horrible, this horrible persecution that's going on as Saul is trying to stamp out the word about Jesus being the Messiah who who died for our sins. And then in verse 4 we read, now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Stephen got stoned to death because of the word. People being dragged out of their houses and put into prison because of the word. The rest of them, except for the apostles, flee Jerusalem because of the persecution that's happening because of the word. And what do they do? They went about preaching the word. We forget how big of a deal this word is. This word is actually the answer that every single human being needs in their life. It's the answer for every problem. Ultimately, it's the answer for every problem in the world. There's nothing bigger than this word. And these people appreciated it, and they risked, they risked their lives to preach it. And then it says Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. Now, there was an apostle named Philip. This isn't him. This isn't the apostle Philip. How do we know that? Well, one way we know that is that where were the apostles? They stayed in Jerusalem. We just read that. Um there's another connection, and there's a reason I'm going to this detail. And the the last verse of the chapter, in chapter 8, verse 40, at the end of the story, it says But Philip found himself in Azetus, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel. That's what they all. Did they just keep preaching? He preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. Now, whether that had been his home or whether he made it his home, we find out in Acts 21, verse 8, Luke is writing about the travels of Paul, and he says, On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip, the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him. So it's that Philip, not an apostle, one of the one of those seven that we read about as we come back to our passage, Acts 4, verse 8. And read what Philip did. It's just says Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did. For listen to this. This is crazy. For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. Hard to even picture that. I've never seen anything like that. So there was much joy in that city. So why did I make such a big deal about this? Philip was not Philip the Apostle, that he was he was one of the seven, you know, one of the seven that was appointed to administer the distribution of food. It's because did you see the similarity of what Philip did? Do you see the similarity of that and what Jesus commissioned the apostles for in chapter 1, verse 8? It was this Philip that is not an apostle that took the gospel to Samaria. This Philip, who was not an apostle, who operated in the power of the Spirit, casting out unclean spirits, healing lame people. It says many, right? Many lame people, many paralyzed people. It was this Philip that was not an apostle. And when you think about it, it never could have been that it was going to be those 11, right? Because Judas is already gone. It was never going to be those 11 that took it to the end of the earth, right? They couldn't have done that. And then also think about this. Those 11 who walked and ministered with Jesus side by side for three years. Jesus said, Don't try to do this ministry until you were empowered by the Spirit. If those guys needed the Spirit, we need the Spirit. Philip the evangelist needed the Spirit. And so what I think is so wonderful is that Acts 1.8, that belongs to us. Acts 1.8 belongs to every single follower of Jesus. He's entrusted the message to us, and he's provided the power of the Spirit to us. Praise God. That's who we are, right? We sing about who Jesus is. That's who we are. We're the people that have been entrusted with the message that is the most important message that anybody could ever hear. And we're also promised to be empowered by the Spirit to preach that message. Now we read in if we have now I kind of did bad things with Ashley. So I don't know if she can do this. Are you able to put up? Yeah, all right. She's a rookie too, and but she came through. So this is a verse we read before communion. And you look at verse seven, it says, let's read the whole thing. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same spirit, and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord, and there are varieties of activities, but it's the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each, talking about to each and every Christian, is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. If you are a Christian, the Spirit of God has gifted you to act in the power and the leading of the Spirit for the common good, for the good of the church. Now it may not be like Philip the evangelist, right? Some of the gifts, some of the gifts, you know, aren't that flashy, right? They're the gift of administration, that doesn't sound too flashy, but I tell you what, Pastor, our pastor would love to have somebody gifted in administration come alongside him. I'm not making that up. I know it for a fact. Um But you know, in the church, there's all these gifts that are required, and all of us, every single one of us, has at least one of one if we belong to Jesus Christ. So let's read on. Starting in verse 9 of chapter 8. There was a man named Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. That's that's pretty cool, isn't it? Hey, I'm somebody great. They all paid attention to him from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the power of God that is called great. And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic. So not only did he say he was great, everybody else said he was great. And then we go to the next next verse. Verse 14. Now, when the apostles Oh, did I finish that? Did I finish that? Alright, I don't know when this ended, but that's fine. We'll just go ahead. Um in verse uh let's jump to I'm so confused. Okay, we skipped a portion. That's okay. The other portion was talking about just how amazing, um amazing it had been when you know Philip is doing these miracles, and even Simon believed, right? Um yeah, so verse 13. Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized, he continued with Philip, and seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed. So even this guy that was the big deal, he was the man, even he started following Philip. He was blown away by the power that he saw. And this is where the story turns sad in verse 14. Now, when the apostles of Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John. So kind of Jesus' inner circle was Peter, James, and John. And so these these two guys, these two apostles that were part of the inner circle, hear about what's happening in Samaria, and and and they go. They came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. So they had been baptized in water, but the the reality that that symbols, the spirit coming upon them, um, hadn't happened yet. Then they laid their hands on them, John and Peter, laying their hands on these people that have come to Jesus, and they received the Holy Spirit. Now, when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. Can you relate to that? Simon was a big deal. Everybody looked to him. And when he sees this, right, he's been kind of upstaged by Philip, and he's following Philip, but when he sees this, he sees an opportunity, he thinks he sees that that he can regain his status. If he can be put be the guy that puts his hands on people and they receive the spirit, he can regain his status. But Peter's But Peter said to him, May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. And Simon answered, Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon you. So here Simon is, you know, trying to buy the gift of God, and and and Peter, Peter is appalled. But one thing that Peter points out twice is he points out that it's about it's about Simon's heart, right? The gifts of God are not about are not about us to glorify us, right? The gifts of God are to serve the purposes of the Lord. Jesus has made this great opportunity for people to be restored to their creator, and the gifts of God are about furthering that ministry. Now it's interesting when you think about why was why did why did God include this story in Acts chapter 8? There were a lot of great stories that happened in Samaria, right? Because these people were being delivered from unclean spirits, lame people were being healed, paralyzed people were being healed. It would have been more fun actually to hear those stories. Why do you think God, why do you think God included this story? I think it's because there is a danger. I don't know the letters anymore, the AIJ, blah, blah, blah. Right? And like if a group of people have taken it, they're all excited about who they are and what their personality is and stuff. When people start looking at the gifts of the spirit, there's a tendency to be that way. And hey, I have it's like my superpower. What's your superpower? What my superpower is, you know, who knows? Still looking. But there's a danger. But look at look at the opposite thing that we saw. Last week about Stephen and and then this week about Philip. They weren't apostles, they were part of the seven. And what was their what was their job? They were distributing food. And then they get raised up to where they have chapters of the Bible all about their stories. To me, that's like it's like a perfect example of when Jesus says, to him who is faithful and little will be given much, right? It's the person who is faithfully following the Lord, but that's where the heart is. That they're they're able to be entrusted with much. And that's that's a great example for us. I have no idea where I am in the notes at this point. Um Peter. Oh, right. Okay, and then verse 25, very quickly. Now, when they, Peter and John, had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. And I only really read that verse because there they go again. This word is so important that they're preaching it all the way home. Okay, so on to the next passage. We've seen Philip move in the power of God. In this next awesome story, we see Philip move in the guidance of God and the guidance of the Spirit, right? Empowered by the Spirit, now being guided by the Spirit. Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch. I didn't know we had a slide for that. Um but can we get to verse 26? Thank you. Now, an angel of the Lord, you know, Philip, I don't know how long this all took, but he had like an incredible week. All that stuff in Samaria, and he's not done yet. 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. That sounds a lot like God speaking to Abraham, right? Go to someplace, I'll show you. And he rose and went. He obeyed. And there was an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all of her treasure. He had come from Jerusalem to worship, or I'm sorry, 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 again, I you know, I wondered, like, does somebody like that, that's a big deal, does he actually go all by himself or does he have guards and stuff? I don't know. But in any case, spirit speaks to Philip, go over and join this chariot. Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, Do you understand what you are reading? And he said, How can I unless someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Probably Philip's first time ever in a chariot. 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 sheer 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. This passage is from Isaiah 53. Now the New Testament doesn't exist yet. So this passage is the very best passage out of in my Bible, Old Testament's 1100 pages. Of all of them, this passage is the best passage for explaining to somebody about the Messiah dying on, dying for our sins, so that we could be united with God. And Philip walks up to him and he hears that passage, gets invited up into the chariot, and then it says, So the eunuch asked, 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, again, the perfect 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? A little uh little break, a little advertisement from Matt Shatler. If you go to our service on Jan on July the 26th, down at Edgewater, you will see water. And if you haven't been baptized yet, which baptism is a symbol of the changed life that Jesus offers you. And it's it's a statement of faith. You could get baptized. So anyway, back to the eunuch. The eunuch saw that there was water, and um, he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the river, 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 Azetus, and he passed through, and as he passed through, he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea. This is what people have come to call a divine appointment. The Spirit tells him exactly where to go. He arrives there at just the right, you know, if he if he if he delays for 10 minutes, he probably misses the Ethiopian unit completely, right? But he arrives there at just the moment where the guy is reading the very best passage to preach Jesus from. And he gets up and he has the incredible honor of seeing this guy's life changed by the power of God. And then he just kind of, the spirit takes him away. What you think? Did he disappear or did he see him flying away? And if that happens on July 26th, after Matt baptizes somebody, there's probably gonna be a lot of crying and screams and stuff. But the eunuch wasn't like that. He was, he was, he went on his way rejoicing. Did you see that? The eunuch goes on his way rejoicing. Back when he went to Samaria, the whole city was rejoicing. There was much joy in the city, right? Because of the ministry of the gospel. So the challenge to us is are we are we open to being led by the spirit? If if he told if he told me to go to such and such a road, would I go? It's the power of the spirit, but it's also the leading of the spirit, right? Okay, story time. I'm preparing for this message. I'm in a lobby because I took somebody to an appointment. So I'm in this lobby and I'm studying, right? Because I don't need to be there, I don't have an appointment. I'm I'm I'm studying, trying to prepare for today, and I'm thinking, yeah, so I'm going to encourage people to follow the guidance of the spirit. And I better probably be good if I started walking on this kind of stuff. And there's this guy sitting opposite me, and um, he's been talking on the phone, he's talking in Spanish, and you know, he looks probably Mexican, I don't know. And I felt like the Lord said, tell him, tell him that I said he's a pastor, and I that's kind of awkward, right? I don't know this guy. I don't even know if he speaks English, right? Because I've only heard him speak Spanish at this point. And and I think, well, I I need to I need to learn to be submitted to the Spirit. And so I say to him, Hey, excuse me, I I felt like God said you're a pastor. And you know what he said? He said, No. He said, No. And you know what happened? We had a pleasant conversation for five to ten minutes about his um, about his his career. He's been doing landscaping for 20 years and so forth, and who he is getting a job with. Now, I was talking to a friend about this, and he said, Well, you know, just because he said the no doesn't mean that you were necessarily wrong, because there are stories where, like, you know, maybe God says he's a pastor and he just doesn't know it yet. He could have woken up the next day and his wife said, Hey, I had a dream last night. You were a pastor. You may have gone to church after that, and somebody told him he was a pastor. I will tell you that in my experience, it seemed like I was just wrong. I tell you that story because what was the consequence? There was really no consequence. I had a pleasant conversation with him. Um, he didn't scream weirdo at the top of his lungs or anything like that. Story number two. I was up in Cambridge, Ontario, um, temporarily um working with a Portuguese speaking community up there while the guy that was going to be the pastor was in Brazil learning Portuguese. And there was this guy there named Pedro, and he was the cool guy in the community. He was a musician. He wrote um he wrote music. He had his own recording studio. He had a a business called the Video Hut. He had a pizza place. He could not call it Pizza Hut. But you know, he was a cool guy in the community. And I'm talking to him one day and his knee was hurt. And I asked if I could pray for him. And he said yes. And I prayed for God to heal his knee. And his knee didn't get healed. But he takes my hand in both of his hands and he looks me, looks me in the face and says, Thank you so much. I thought he was mocking me. I was like, here's the cool guy in the community. I prayed for him. His knee does not get healed. And he's doing this dramatic thing. A couple months later, I'm getting ready to leave. I'm having lunch with Pedro. And he recounts that incident. And he goes, You know that time when you prayed for me? I felt this thing that I've never felt before in my life. And actually, and as I'm telling you the story, it's coming back. Right? I thought the guy was mocking me because what I thought was supposed to happen didn't happen. But God touched him. Story number three. This is my personal favorite story of anything I've personally been involved with. This is at the Parma Heights Vineyard before there was a vineyard here. It's during worship, and I'm standing at the back, and God used to show me people to pray for, so I'm looking around and my eyes land on Nicole. And I felt like the Lord said, Go tell her that I have a husband for her. Well, you're not supposed to do that. You are not supposed to do that kind of thing because people can get hurt. And all the ways that God speaks to me, he's just insistent. And um eventually I feel like, okay, I gotta do this. And I go up to her and I said, Now I've known Nicole since she was six or seven years old. Now she's I think 19, maybe 20. And I I fudged. I fudged it. Instead of just telling her what God said, I said, Hey Nicole, can I pray for you while you worship? And she says, Fine, because she knew me. I'm praying for her. And as soon as I say something about God giving her a a husband, she starts weeping. And of course, my thought is that's what I was afraid of. And then she says, I was just asking God if I was ever gonna get married. She was a a pretty girl, but I her dad was my friend. I I'm still kind of shaking. I go back to the back room, Tony's there, and I told him the story, and he goes, Yeah, she's never had a date, and this is like she's worried about this. And and then like a year and a half later, Marianne and I go to her wedding. Like within it's about a year and a half, and she's married. Think about that story, and the reason it's my favorite is you see how beautiful that is. Here's a young woman that is struggling with this issue, and she asks God, Will I ever get married? And he sends somebody to tell her, he answers her prayer in an unmistakable way and blesses her. Now that that story's not about me, but I got to do it. I got to be part of it. And I feel so honored that I got to be part of that story. Last story. I used to do outreach at uh um skate park in Lakewood, and so I knew a lot of teenagers, and there was this one um girl named Jenna that uh you know that we got to know, she came to church with us and so forth. One morning I'm getting I'm getting ready for work back in the days when I still had to go to work, and I felt like the Lord said, ask Jenna if she needs a ride to school. And you know, I thought, well that's dumb, that doesn't make any sense because her dad always takes her to school, and I blew it off, I didn't do it, and it turned out that her dad couldn't take her that day. There was a downpour of rain that day, so she went to school, got there soaking wet because she had to walk. And to me, the bigger part of the story is that as far as I know, she never came to really walk with Jesus. She heard the gospel so much, never really came to walk with Jesus. Now, if I had obeyed the Spirit, it may not have changed her life. But she would have had what an opportunity that would have been like Philip, right, to talk to her about how see God saw you need. God sees you, He cares He cares about you. Right? That would have been such an opportunity and I missed it because I didn't know that. Our obedience to the Lord makes a difference. Again I ask, Lord, that you would open up your word. Our hearts would that our eyes would be opened, that our hearts would burn inside us for you. Lord, that we would repent for what we've been neglectful. And Lord, that we would walk in the things that you have for us, each individually, Lord, the gifting that you've given to us, that we might bring glory to your name. Amen. And so the worship team can come up and uh if we can all stand up and please. So, and if we have our prayer team come forward, one specific thing I thought for that I felt was from the Lord um this morning is that there's some of us that we we've moved in the gifts of the Spirit. We have a history of God using us this way or that way, and we really haven't been walking in that gifting for a while. Paul writes this to Timothy. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. Um he write, he wrote in 1 Timothy also another verse, he said, Don't neglect the gift. It's possible to neglect. If you realize that you haven't been walking in the gifting that God has given you, that you've seen in the past, I invite you. I'd like people to come over to Tom and Anya if if that's you. Um if you have some other need. Hey, you know the I just told my stories. Better stories happen during our prayer time. I was gonna say every week. I don't know about every week, but lots of better stories happen during the prayer time. I don't promise you anything. I don't know what God's gonna do, but it's an opportunity for you to come and encounter God as somebody lays hands on you and prays the presence of God.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:48

Every week we open this time to pray, and there might be something really specific from this message. Um, Philip showed a lot of courage, sharing the gospel. Maybe that's something that's easy for you, for a lot of us. That feels really scary to do, uh, but he's filled with the Holy Spirit to have the words to say, so maybe that's something that you would want to be prayed for, to be filled with that same kind of courage and gift, to be someone who shares the good news of Jesus, who brings joy, um, like Philip did. Maybe there's something else. Um I was uh just struck by the story of Simon, where we come with what we have and what we know. Maybe we're really good at something, or successful in school, or good at our jobs, and that's maybe how we also come to faith of well, this is what I know, this is what I'm good at, this is what I have to offer, that's our security, and uh maybe Jesus wants to give you something different today, that that's part of who you are, but that's not all that He values, He values your heart. And if there's something else that's none of the above, but you came in needing prayer, um, our prayer uh team would love to pray with you for whatever that is.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:15

Blessed are the poor spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, bless it are those, for they will become furnished, as it are the beauty, today will hear the ear those who hungers for this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom, as the kingdom, this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom of symbol, hey, let me show us children of God, settlers persecution because the kingdom, there's the kingdom, there's the kingdom of head, you will be fed, you will be head this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom, asking, as this is the kid, this is the kid, this is the kid first the key, see first the key, all will be a see first the key to all will be, see first the key, all be head, all the first the king, all be head, see first the king, all be head, see first the king, all the beyond, all the you will be this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom of heaven, ask and heal, ask and heal this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom, this is the kingdom of heaven.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:07

As we close our time together, I'd love to pray a blessing over you. If you're open to it, I just encourage you to open your hands as if you're receiving a gift. It's a posture we can take with our bodies that shows that we're ready to receive something good from God. So I bless you as daughters and sons of the God of the universe who calls you by name, who sees your story and your circumstance, and who calls you to come even closer still. I bless you to know that the God of all creation is moving towards you, and he invites you to do the same. I bless you as daughters and sons to be filled with courage, to be reminded of the joy of your own salvation, that you are not left alone, that you are called into relationship and purpose and community, and to share that good news with others. I bless you to remember that joy and to give it away. I bless you to be like Simon, who, when corrected immediately, asked for repentance, asked for forgiveness. I bless you to be people quick to ask God to forgive. I bless you in the name of the Good Father and the perfect Son, and the powerful and present Holy Spirit who comes close to you today to fill you with joy, to fill you with faith, and to fill you with power for the week you have ahead. Go in grace. Amen and amen.