Preach the Word

 

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered at Pilgrim Reformed Church on Sunday morning, the 28th of April, 2024.  A recording of our service should be available on our YouTube streaming channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/@pilgrimreformedchurch1992/streams.]

A couple weeks ago I noted that the Apostle Luke wrote two books, both addressed to Theophilus.  The first book was his Gospel account, the book now bearing his name, detailing the life, acts, and teachings of Jesus during His earthly walk, ending with Jesus’ return to heaven.  The second book is called the Acts of the Apostles – or, more simply, Acts – and it deals with the rise and growth of the early church.

As I did before my vacation, I’d like to look at that second book this morning, at a time when the church was just beginning, yet already being persecuted.  Our reading follows the day that Stephen was martyred, stoned to death by a Jewish mob led by the religious leaders who laid their cloaks at the feet of a young Pharisee named Saul.  Please listen and follow along as I read from chapter 8 of Luke’s Book of the Acts of the Apostles, verses 1 through 8 and then 26 through 40, and I’ll be reading from the New King James Version of our Holy Bible this morning…

1 Now Saul was consenting to his death.

At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him.

3 As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison.

4 Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. 5 Then Philip went down to a city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. 6 And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. 7 For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed. 8 And there was great joy in that city.

26 Now an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise and go toward the south along the road which goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a deserted place. 27 So he arose and went. And behold, a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, 28 was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. 29 Then the Spirit said to Philip, “Go near and overtake this chariot.”

30 So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he asked Philip to come up and sit with him. 32 The place in the Scripture which he read was this:

“He was led as a sheep to the slaughter;

And as a lamb before its shearer is silent,

So He opened not His mouth.

33 In His humiliation His justice was taken away,

And who will declare His generation?

For His life is taken from the earth.”

34 So the eunuch answered Philip and said, “I ask you, of whom does the prophet say this, of himself or of some other man?” 35 Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning at this Scripture, preached Jesus to him. 36 Now as they went down the road, they came to some water. And the eunuch said, “See, here is water. What hinders me from being baptized?”

37 Then Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.”

And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”

38 So he commanded the chariot to stand still. And both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water, and he baptized him. 39 Now when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, so that the eunuch saw him no more; and he went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip was found at Azotus. And passing through, he preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.

--Acts 8:1-8, 26-40 (NKJV)

Let us pray…  Heavenly Father, we thank You for ensuring that Your Son’s church could withstand severe persecution and endure throughout the ages.  The church has seen hard times over its nearly 2000 year existence, and will continue to experience difficulty and persecution until Jesus returns and calls it home.  But through You, Father, it has the courage and the strength to continue until that day.  Sadly though, Father, the church seems in decline numerically.  Satan is working overtime to pull people away from You, away from Jesus.  Our godless culture impacts the church in a negative way.  Please help us reach out to the non-believers of the world, sharing the Good News and showing Your love.  Help us spread the message of salvation through Jesus to all we encounter.  And please forgive us when we hesitate to serve You and our Lord, even though we know we should.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand Your message today.  Thank You for the faith, the strength, and the courage You give us.  Help us share the Gospel and preach Your word in our daily walk.  This we pray in the precious name of Your Son, Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

One pastor never prepared during the week, and on Sunday morning he'd sit on the platform while the church was singing the hymns desperately praying, "Lord, give me your message, Lord give me your message."  One Sunday, while desperately praying for God's message, he heard the Lord say, "Ralph, here's My message: You're lazy!"

James Packer, in his book Your Father Loves You, notes that the Apostle Paul saw himself as Christ's herald.  When he describes himself as an appointed preacher of the gospel, the noun he uses means a herald, a person who makes public announcements on another's behalf.  When he declares "we preach Christ crucified," the verb he uses denotes the herald's appointed activity of blazoning abroad what he has been told to make known.  When Paul speaks of "my preaching" and "our preaching", the noun he uses doesn't mean the activity of announcing, but the thing announced, the proclamation itself, the message declared.

Paul, in his own estimation, was not a philosopher, not a moralist, not one of the world's wise men, but simply Christ's herald.  His royal Master had given him a message to proclaim; his whole business was to deliver that message with exact and studious faithfulness, adding nothing, altering nothing, and omitting nothing.  And he was to deliver it not as another of people's bright ideas, needing to be beautified with the cosmetics and high heels of fashionable learning in order to make people look at it, but as a word from God spoken in Christ's name, carrying Christ's authority and authenticated in the hearers by the convincing power of Christ's Spirit.

We don't have to be preachers to preach.  And we don't have to be all fancy and learned.  We just need to share the message that Christ Jesus has given us, to be His herald, telling the world what He told us.  And what He told us isn’t all that earth-shaking.  It’s just about loving each other, loving our neighbors, even loving our enemies.

And love is in such short supply these days.  When we watch or read the news, all we see is people fussing and fighting with each other, trying to solve their differences through violence rather than through discourse and understanding, through give and take.

Among other things, Jesus said blessed are the meek, blessed are the merciful, blessed are the peacemakers.  These are the words of our Lord Jesus.  We need to get out and preach the word, for the world desperately needs to hear it.

We all know the story of Saul, the fervent Pharisee who severely persecuted the infant church until he was struck blind by Jesus on the road to Damascus.  It really is a beautiful story of redemption, of how God can take anyone, even a man who hates the church and is dead set on destroying it, and can change that person and remake him into arguably the greatest evangelist the church has ever known.  But our reading actually centers around another Apostle, a disciple who had walked with Jesus during His ministry on earth.

Saul was wreaking havoc on the local church, going into any place they were meeting and hauling the believers off to be tried and imprisoned.  So a lot of Christ’s followers were leaving Jerusalem in fear of their lives.  As these disciples scattered, they spread the Gospel message along the way.  This included Philip, who fled to a city in Samaria, where he preached Christ Jesus to the people there.  They listened intently and witnessed the miracles Philip was able to perform, and they came to believe in the Lord through his words and deeds.  And Luke tells us there was great joy in that city.

But then an angel of the Lord came to Philip and told him to head south and follow the road that ran from Jerusalem to Gaza.  Even though this was mostly a deserted area at the time, Philip did as he was told.  And soon he came upon an Ethiopian eunuch.

Now this was no ordinary man, but one of great authority under the Queen of that nation and who was in charge of her treasury.  He was returning home from Jerusalem, where he had gone to worship the one true God.  He was sitting in his chariot reading from the prophet Isaiah when the Spirit told Philip to go to him.  Philip asked the man if he understood what he was reading, and he replied that he could use a guide.  So Philip began with the scripture the eunuch had been reading and proceeded to preach Jesus to the man.

The man came to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, and was baptized by Philip.  When the man came out of the water, Philip was gone, having been whisked away by the Spirit.  And the eunuch went on his way, rejoicing in the Lord.

Philip preached Jesus.  One of my mentors, early in my own ministry, urged me to just preach Jesus.  It didn’t matter what was going on in the world around us, or what other preachers might be doing, or what people might think or say.  Just preach Jesus and everything will be OK.

In the 4th chapter of his 2nd letter to his young protégé Timothy, verses 1 through 5, Paul urges his friend by saying…

1 I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: 2 Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; 4 and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables. 5 But you be watchful in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

--2 Timothy 4:1-5 (NKJV)

Preach the word.  Be ready at all times, in any place, for any reason.  We don’t know when we might be called on, or when we might be given the opportunity, to help show someone the path to salvation, so we need to always be ready.

And Paul adds that our chances to do so may be running short, for there will come a time when people will only hear what they want to hear.  They’ll no longer listen to the truth, wanting only to be told that anything they do is OK.  But we must be watchful and careful that we not fall into that trap.  We must continue our work for Jesus and steadfastly endure as we fulfill our personal ministry.

And Family, we ALL have a ministry of our own.  We can all preach the word.  And we have been told to do so by none other than Jesus Himself.  Listen to what He commanded us, as recorded by the Apostle Matthew in the 28th chapter of his Gospel account, from the second part of verse 18 through the first part of verse 20…

18 “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

--Matthew 28:18b-20a (NKJV)

This is our mission, our great commission, to go into the world making disciples.  Like Philip did with the Ethiopian eunuch, we are to teach people all about Jesus, about what He did and what He commanded us.  We are to share the Good News of salvation through Jesus, and through Him alone.  And we can take strength and courage from knowing that He is with us and will always be with us, even to the end of the age.

So Family, let’s get out there and preach Jesus!  Let’s preach the word.  In the blessed name of Christ Jesus our Lord, the one true Son of God, who came in the flesh to redeem us, who was raised from the dead into flesh and returned to heaven, and who is coming again to judge us all.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Almighty God, thank You for saving for us the Old Testament writings that tell of our Lord Jesus, Your Christ, who will come to us to save us.  And thank You for our New Testament that bears witness to all the things He did and said during His ministry on earth, preparing us for our own mission.  Sometimes though, Father, we hesitate in carrying out our assigned duties.  Sometimes we are too timid, or too scared, to approach someone, especially a stranger, and try to tell them about Jesus.  Please forgive us these times, Father.  Help us share the Gospel message.  Help us preach the word.  And as we do so, please help us be more forgiving, more merciful in our dealings with others.  And Father, guide us around any pitfalls in this life and strengthen our spirits to do Your will.  And please help us do a better job of sharing Jesus with others so that they too may be saved by Your mercy and His sacrifice.  

Father, please shield us from Satan as he attacks our faith, trying to make us his own.  Help us be better servants, glorifying You in all we do so that the world can see You in us, through our deeds, in how we live.  And help us remain strong, faithful, and true to You in all things, no matter what the world throws at us or holds out before us.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, there is so much You did and said during Your short time among us as one of us.  We have Your great example to live by and work by as we carry out our mission today.  Thank You, Jesus, for leaving us a treasure trove of material to study and work with.  As we walk through this life, please help us be more understanding, more merciful, more giving and forgiving of others, knowing that this is our Father’s will for us.  Help us reach out to the non-believing world with the Gospel message, showing Your love through our love.  Give us the words to say, show us what to do to help bring the lost to You.

Lord Jesus, please shield our minds and our hearts from Satan’s lies and the world’s empty promises.  Guide us around all the devil’s traps and snares.  Help us see though his temptations and all the false teachings.  Help us fend off his attacks.  Please help us be faithful and true to You, putting all our trust in You, all our hope in You.  Heal the hurts that separate and divide us one from another.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this life might offer.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.