Are You Ready To Be Loved Into A Fellowship With The Holy Spirit That Spreads The Faith?

Good Morning Friends,
 

Maybe it was an angel and maybe it was a willingness to trust, for the Ethiopian eunuch knew something about the importance of trust. And maybe it took someone caring enough to guide another in understanding the Word of God. But I am not sure how to advise you here, for I am a creature who overvalues his own rational. And God knows you much better than I do. Still, it is a question worth asking about our view of God and the reality that we were loved first so we might learn how to love others. So, Are You Ready To Be Loved Into A Fellowship With The Holy Spirit That Spreads The Faith?
 

Scripture: Then an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Get up and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a wilderness road.) So he got up and went. Now there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of the Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of her entire treasury. He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning home; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over to this chariot and join it.” So Philip ran up to it and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” He replied, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to get in and sit beside 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 silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “About whom, may I ask you, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, 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 saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he was passing through the region, he proclaimed the good news to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

Acts 8:26-40 (NRSV)
 

No one can come to me unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day. It is written in the prophets, ‘And they shall all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God; he has seen the Father. Very truly, I tell you, whoever believes has eternal life. I am the bread of life. Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
 

John 6:44-51 (NRSV)

For thus says the Lord: To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths, who choose the things that please me and hold fast my covenant, I will give, in my house and within my walls, a monument and a name better than sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name that shall not be cut off.
 

Isaiah 56:4-5 (NRSV)

 
Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard, who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip. For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs; you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place. I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows, those that my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble. I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me. I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled with my tongue. If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the words of my prayer. Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.

Psalm 66: 8-20 (NRSV)

Message: Stories about the work of the Holy Spirit fill the lectionary this season between the Passover and Passion of Christ and Pentecost. There are stories of people being called into service and into the work of the Kingdom. Perhaps God is calling you now into a fellowship even now. I hope so, for being drawn into the Spirit is for our own salvation. Jesus explains that no person can come to salvation unless the Father pulls us into this relationship. And yes, sometimes it is an effort as in the tension of a heavy net full of fish being dragged to shore or as in the drawing of a sword out of a sheaf. Picture people literally being pulled against their will. And what is clear is that this can be a one-sided arrangement. God does the fishing and we who are caught up in the Spirit can either fight it or submit to it. You see unless God loves us into salvation we would never willingly go. Some come with submission and some Christians are more unwilling to change. There is no doubt that we respond to the Spirit differently, but there is one common theme…the initiation of the experience is all on God’s part.  We can no more conjure up the Spirit than we can walk to Mars. We have cases throughout the Bible, and many in the book of Acts, that teach of people being saved. Most of them include a hearing of the word of God, believing that Jesus is the Son of God, repenting of sins, confessing Christ before others, and being baptized in the Spirit. We saw it yesterday in the work of Philip to the people of Samaria. We see this in the story of Peter’s preaching at Pentecost. We see it in the conversion of Paul and of the Philippian jailer. But the example we have from today’s text is that of Philip and a eunuch. So, let us dive a little deeper into its understanding. The backstory on the Ethiopian eunuch is helpful. You see, what was valuable about eunuchs to the kings of the Middle East is that they were more likely to be trusted even with the kings’ wives and children. That is why they were valued. There would be no question of bad blood being introduced into the kings’ descendants if their ministers were sterile. But this convenience for the kings was a terrible injustice for the men involved. They had no progeny and would be forgotten in a culture where having no children was a great curse. Isaiah, however, in chapter 56, sees one of the fruits of the Messianic kingdom to be a heritage for eunuchs. This is important information in understanding today’s first reading. For this nameless Ethiopian official was a sympathizer with the Jews. He was educated and realized that the Jewish God is the one true deity, but the passages we call the Song of the Suffering Servant in Isaiah were a mystery to him. So, when deacon Philip encountered him, there was an openness to hearing the Gospel and a degree of trust. Here the story shows forth the connection between belief and trust, scripture and the power of the Spirit. And so, this eunuch was baptized and filled with the Spirit. And as a result, he now would have a heritage, with spiritual descendants, because he would return to Ethiopia and his testimony would be the seed that grew the Church in that part of the world. And what is interesting here is that both Philip and the eunuch were drawn into the Spirit in a way to draw others. And how this exactly happens in our lives is a bit of a mystery, but I am glad that it does.

And So, since there is one Spirit dwelling in us, we are to be in unity with each other. We are to trust and obey in a way that demonstrates our cooperation with the love of God. And the beauty is that this power of the fellowship of Holy Spirit prompts us to emulate the love of Christ and in this find great satisfaction and peace and comradeship that bring joy.  By sharing fellowship with God through the work of the Holy Spirit we are to begin to live in a new way that is less self-centered and functions to make the whole greater than the sum of its part. Like ants we are to demonstrate an intelligence that is seen in our collective actions. But unlike the ants that swarm without a leader we in the Body of Believers in the power of the Holy Spirit have an intelligent ally in the person of Jesus that holds it all together for good. Friends we were created to be in the image of God, who by nature is a community of love in the Trinity since the beginning. The wonder of how we have been made is reflected in creation but also the recreation and it is this new nature that informs us in the Holy Spirit toward collective acts of love in a challenging world where the Kingdom has not fully come to earth. So, be encouraged for even in the process of suffering we are to find joy. Sometimes it takes pain to find out what really pleases God. The gamechanger is this…Christ loves us in the power of the Holy Spirit so we might love each other and be more and do more together than we could possibly do alone. Here our spiritual DNA passes on to others a legacy of love in the power of not just change but transformation.

Pray we serve as Christ’s ambassadors inspired by life in the Holy Spirit. Pray for our own sanctification but also the salvation of people everywhere. Pray we are moved by the Spirit in the reality that God’s love never leaves us. Pray we hear the word of God. Pray we share the Word. Pray we believe that Jesus is the Son of God. Pray we repent of our sins. Pray we confess our belief in Christ. Pray we are baptized in the power of the Holy Spirit and with fire so that our conversion moves others to believe and for us to move ever closer to the Way of Christ. Pray we are loved into a fellowship that glorifies God by extending the fellowship.

Blessings,

John Lawson