Be a Craig
Be a Craig.
I heard this song, Craig, for the first time the other day.
But… more about that in a moment.
First, let me ask you this question: How can you make a real difference in the life of another person?
One night this past week me & my daughter were talking and she had a really important question. She asked, “How do I bring up talking about Jesus with my friends?”
Her question points to the fact that she is growing up in a world that, in a lot of ways, is different from the world many of us grew up in. For those of us who are older, many of us grew up in a more Christian culutre. For us, life in our community, neighborhood, & school still revolved around church. But it’s just not that way anymore.
Some of us get upset about this. We long for the “good old days.” But the truth is we’re witnessing a shift in American culture that’s already taken place in much of the world from a Christian culture to a post-Christian culture.
The question isn’t, How do we make things like they used to be?
The question is, How do we move forward as believers in Jesus into this new world? How do we lead people to Jesus in a post-Christian world?
This is important because as followers of Jesus, we’ve been given a mission. It’s the mission hat my daughter was asking about. Our mission is to continue His mission. To seek & save the lost. To point others to the only God who saves.
But how?
Good News
The good news is that the mission of Jesus has been going on for the past 2000 years & it has survived & thrived through every change & culture shift.
In fact, if you go all the way back to the beginning of the story, it’s comforting & exciting to realize that the very first Christians probably had these exact same questions.
The way forward for them was completely unknown. They would be the first ones commissioned & sent to carry out the mission of Jesus to seek & save the lost.
In Acts, Luke records the movement of the early church & the movement of the Holy Spirit through the church to carry out this mission. I think this story is of supreme importance then & now as we consider how we fulfill the mission given to us by Jesus.
As for Philip, an angel of the Lord said to him, “Go south down the desert road that runs from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and he met the treasurer of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under the Kandake, the queen of Ethiopia.
Jesus had said that His Holy Spirit would help as these first followers of Jesus became witnesses for Jesus from Jerusalem, to Judea, to Samaria, & to the ends of the earth.
And who is Philip talking to now… a man from Ethiopia!
But not just any man. This man was important, the treasurer for the Queen of Ethiopia. He was a wealthy & important person in the world.
He was also a eunuch. And sometimes we move past that quickly. But I think it’s important to note because, according to the Law of Moses, he would have been unable to have full rights in the community of God because of something that was done to him as a child. As a eunuch, he was considered an outsider when it came to the family of God.
But now, God is doing a new thing. Now, through Jesus, there is good news for the eunuch.
Be Willing to Go
The eunuch had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and he was now returning. Seated in his carriage, he was reading aloud from the book of the prophet Isaiah.
The Holy Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and walk along beside the carriage.”
This is the second time in four verses that God has prompted Philip to make a move. Both times, Philip moves when prompted by God. In fact this time he doesn’t just move, he RUNS!
Philip ran over…
There’s no hesitation. There’s no, “Do I have to?” There’s no debate. No, let me pray about this some more. Or seek counsel from friends. Nope. Not for Philip. He just hears the Holy Spirit tell him to GO & he GOES!
Philip ran over and heard the man reading from the prophet Isaiah. Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
The man replied, “How can I, unless someone instructs me?” And he urged Philip to come up into the carriage and sit with him.
The passage of Scripture he had been reading was this:
“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter.
And as a lamb is silent before the shearers,
he did not open his mouth.
He was humiliated and received no justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”
You may recognize that text. That comes from Isaiah 53. We often use that as our communion text. It’s an ancient word from the prophet Isaiah.
Because we know the story of Jesus, we can’t read it without thinking about Jesus. But this man didn’t yet know the story of Jesus. He had found the one true God & had traveled a long way to worship Him in Jerusalem. But what he didn’t know was the rest of the story!
The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, was the prophet talking about himself or someone else?” So beginning with this same Scripture, Philip told him the Good News about Jesus.
Philip, led by the Holy Spirit, meets the man where he is & points him to Jesus!
I know, especially if you’re anything like me, you wonder sometimes how you can lead people to Jesus.
I think Philip shows us the way.
It’s not about how many scriptures you can quote. It’s not about having all the answers to all the incredibly difficult questions there are about why bad things happen to good people, the reliability of scripture or how old is the earth.
Philip shows us the way to lead people to God. We go to them, we start with where they are & show them how to get from where they are to Jesus.
This is what happened next…
As they rode along, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “Look! There’s some water! Why can’t I be baptized?”
He ordered the carriage to stop, and they went down into the water, and Philip baptized him.
When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away. The eunuch never saw him again but went on his way rejoicing.
What if?
Here’s what I want you to think about today. What if Philip had said, “NO” when God called him to go south that day?
What if he had decided NOT to go over to the chariot that day?
What if he did, but then he realized that it was an Ethiopian Eunuch in the chariot. And when he realized where the man was from & what kind of man he was, what if Philip had decided to keep his mouth shut & just keep on walking?
I bring this up because I think you & I have to think about this. You & I have to remember that what we do matters. It matters more than we could ever realize.
Several months ago, a friend sent me this song that was new & apparently pretty popular on country radio.
Some of you know this song. It’s by a guy named Walker Hayes.
Walker wrote it for someone who had been a friend to him during a difficult time. The lyrics reveal a true story.
And as I read the lyrics & listened to the song this week, tears filled my eyes. Take a listen.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da0g7a7tPN8[/embedyt]
What about you?
God really, really wants to use your life to point another life to Christ. You don’t have to walk on water. You don’t have to be able to turn water into wine. You don’t have to be the light of the world. But stay close to the One who is.
[Tweet “God really, really wants to use your life to point another life to Christ.”]And at just the right time, Jesus is going to whisper in your ear… Hey, go over there. Hey, talk to that person.
I know. They’re different. They look different. They dress different. They talk different. They… fill in the blank.
But their eternity might just hang in the balance of your decision to love them & point them to Jesus.
Like Philip, like Craig, our calling is to meet people where they are, love them as they are, and point them to Jesus.
[Tweet “Meet people where they are, love them as they are, and point them to Jesus.”]And here’s the secret… If you’re life points to Jesus it will point others to Jesus.
So, where is the Spirit of God positioning you to point other people to Jesus?
Be a Craig.
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