Biblical Evangelism
Tom Shrader walks through Acts 8:26-40, the account of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, showing that evangelism is fundamentally a work of God who orchestrates circumstances, prepares hearts, and converts through His Spirit. Philip's obedient response to the angel's direction and his bold, scripture-centered engagement with the Ethiopian serve as the model for every believer's approach to sharing faith. Shrader closes with a practical three-part charge—pray for a broken heart toward the lost, prepare by knowing the Word, and act by faithfully sharing truth in love and leaving conversion to God.
“Witnessing isn't optional. Witnessing isn't mandatory. Witnessing is inevitable.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Acts
Recorded: 1999 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 56 min
Themes: evangelism, obedience, witnessing, sharing faith, prayer, scripture, lost souls, boldness, afraid to share faith, new believer, feeling unprepared to witness, young adult, struggling with boldness, mentor, someone with unsaved friends, searching for purpose in ministry
Scripture: Acts 8:26-40, John 3:5, Isaiah 53, Isaiah 6, John 5:39, Romans 10, Luke 24:44, 1 Thessalonians 4
Theological Themes: soteriology, divine sovereignty, missiology, biblical evangelism, pneumatology, spirit-led witness, prevenient grace, word-centered ministry
Full Transcript
Introduction and Announcements
If you were not here last week, you missed the anniversary Sunday. We did a little look back at the history of the church and where we are now. We also gave a bit of a vision for the future that included many ministries, but also a building — and that building has with it, as you know, a cost, not just a financial cost but a human cost for us as well.
If you missed last Sunday, it is important for all of us to at least understand the basics of that. We provided a cassette tape message of last Sunday for you. It is free to those of you who were not here, and we would ask you to pick that up in the courtyard, along with some colored renderings and a site plan that will give you a sense of the future.
Basically, we are done with any sort of building fundraising — that took place in about 30 seconds last week — and now we wait to see what God does. We pray that He moves on your hearts. We have a plan if He does, and we have a plan if He does not.
Either way, part of our plan provides you an opportunity to find more space, and that plan is available at the beginning of January when we start our fourth service: Sunday night at 6 o'clock. It will be a service exactly like this — the same worship, the same message — so you will not miss anything by coming Sunday night. It will not be church light. It will be the same one.
My original desire was to start that service today, but we simply could not be ready internally. We could not staff to accommodate for the children. So we need help in two areas. We need some of you who will come back on Sunday night and serve — you will come Sunday morning, but return Sunday night to serve. And some of you who are not in a service role right now, or who are serving in other areas, can come to church on Sunday night and open up space on Sunday morning. Start praying about that now and preparing for the first of January.
Philip the Evangelist
We are in the book of Acts, the eighth chapter, beginning at verse 26. We are looking at a fellow by the name of Philip. God has gifted Philip in a special way. He is identified in the New Testament as an evangelist — the only person identified that way. He has the gift of sharing the Lord, and God seems to bless his sharing. We see an instance of that this morning in Acts chapter 8, beginning in verse 26.
"An angel of the Lord spoke to Philip and he said, arise and go south to the road that descends from Jerusalem to Gaza." The angel adds: "This is the desert road." As you move from Jerusalem to the coast toward Gaza, you are actually descending, and as you do, you arrive at that city. Philip would arrive at the new Gaza — the old Gaza was destroyed in 93 BC, and the new Gaza was built in 57 BC.
Philip was given specific instruction. There were two main roads from Jerusalem to Gaza. One was a relatively heavily traveled road, presumably a little easier to navigate. But the angel of the Lord says, "I do not want you to take that road. I want you to go the desert road." God was directing Philip to a specific path because He was going to do something special.
God Orchestrates Evangelism
What we are going to see today is a relationship grow between Philip and the Ethiopian — an opportunity for evangelism, an opportunity to respond, and ultimately God converting this man's heart. Our story today is not about Philip and an Ethiopian. Our story today is about God. Look at the way He orchestrates this. You cannot plan this.
I chuckle, I suppose cynically, when I see ads in the newspaper or drive by a church that says "Revival here, beginning November 22nd, ending November —." How do you do this? Revival is a move of God. Nicodemus comes to Jesus in John chapter 3, at night, and Jesus says, "You must be born again." Nicodemus asks, "How can this possibly be?" And Jesus responds in John 3:5: "Truly I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot inherit the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh. That which is born of Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again."
Then Jesus gives us a metaphor, a picture for this idea of conversion: "The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from. You do not know where it is going. So it is with those who are born of the Spirit of God." This is an act of God. God is moving, taking circumstances and orchestrating them, ultimately doing it for His honor and for His glory.
Philip's Obedience
The word comes to Philip: go, take the desert road to Gaza. Verse 27 — he gets up and he moves. Philip does what God wants from all of us in its simplest form, and that is obedience. Philip could well have said — and many of us might have — "God is working right here, right now. Why should I stay? Why don't You let me reap what I've planted? God, there's something going on here. Why don't You send somebody else?" And if he were being really spiritual about it, he would have said, "God, let me just pray about that."
But there was no confusion. God had spoken. God said go. And Philip arises and goes.
The Ethiopian Official
On the way, Philip meets a man from Ethiopia. To the Greek and the Roman of this time, Ethiopia represented the outermost parts of the known world — a large area in Africa, south of Egypt. This man was probably familiar with Greek, and we will see him later reading a scripture, most likely reading it in Greek.
He was a man of prominence who served in the court of Candace. Candace is not a specific person; it is a title, like czar, sultan, or pharaoh. He had a specific role there — he was in charge of all their treasury. In our language today, we would say he was the Minister of Finance.
Introduction: The Ethiopian Official
He is probably, most scholars would agree, Black. He comes into this cross-cultural experience — cross-cultural for the Ethiopian, cross-cultural for Philip. This man is prominent, successful, powerful, and filled with prestige. He travels with an entourage. And yet apparently there is something in his life that is missing. There is an emptiness.
He has gone to Jerusalem to worship. He is seeking God. He is looking for answers. But when he goes to Jerusalem, he finds not God — he finds religion.
G. Campbell Morgan writes this: "This man had been to Jerusalem and worshipped and now he's on his way back. What did he find in Jerusalem? He went to the Hebrew center of worship, to the Hebrew priesthood, to the Hebrew temple. And when he went there to this system of worship, he found a portion of sacred scripture." But in Jerusalem he found that whole system of worship materialized. He could see it. It had been materialized, but it was ritualistic, and it was dead.
Morgan also writes that this eunuch had been to Jerusalem to worship, and in those days the whole world was filled with people who were weary of the many gods and loose morals of their nations. They came to Judaism for answers. They came to religion. And apparently this man goes back home still empty, with more questions than answers.
Empty Despite Success
Make sure you understand him, because some of you may be like him today. Very successful by the world's standards, but empty inside. About to embark tomorrow on closing the biggest deal of your career, and yet it is empty.
This week I was in Houston for PAO — Pro Athletes Outreach. All of us jocks like to hang out together and pump a little iron. They do one thing right: they eat. We have done conferences in the past, but this one was Major League Baseball. So there were lots of baseball players, some guys who run chapel, and wives. There was a man who is part owner of the Yankees — a converted Jew, a fascinating man. Many of the men there knew little about their faith. It was interesting how frequently they would talk about their heritage, their spiritual pedigree. They could not talk about a relationship with Christ; they would talk about what church they had been to. But they came to this conference because inside they were still empty. They were really searching.
The same thing is true of many of you. You are here today with that same idea of searching. It is always interesting to look at the makeup of East Valley Bible Church and the backgrounds people bring. Let us do a little exercise. How many of you come from a Lutheran background? Not many. Presbyterian? Very few. Catholic background? That is a big response. Baptist? Methodist? Mormon? And how many of you come from no background at all — raised in absolutely nothing? I love those people because none of the defense mechanisms are up.
Philip and the Ethiopian: The Encounter
This man had been to Jerusalem and apparently still had questions. He is returning home in his chariot, and in verse 28, he is reading. He is reading the scripture.
Jesus said to the Jewish leaders in John 5, verse 39: "You search the scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life. And it is these that bear witness of Me. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote of Me." As this Ethiopian looks at the scripture, he is reading aloud — that would be the custom of the day. His entourage is moving, he is in his chariot, and he is reading from the book of Isaiah. He is reading a passage that deals with a suffering Messiah.
Look at the boldness on Philip's part. The Spirit of the Lord said to Philip, "Go up and join this chariot." Go up and talk to him. Philip ran up, heard him reading, and said, "Do you understand what you are reading?"
A Modern Parallel
While I was preparing this, it just makes me chuckle. I am right here in my study working through this material. I do a lot of prep on Monday, and I was probably fifty percent done with the lesson before taking it to Houston. Right in the middle of working on this passage, the phone rings. It is a young man — a pitcher — and he says, "Mr. Schrader, may I come up and meet with you?" I said sure, and asked when. He said, "How about right now?"
I hung up, and it was not long before he was at the door. I opened it, he came in, and we sat down. He said, "I am so shy, and this is so foreign to me — I am almost embarrassed by this — but I just have all these questions. I don't know anything." So he asked a question, and I said, "Well, read this." And he read it.
Philip and the Ethiopian: A Divine Appointment
He said to him, "Do you understand what you're reading?" I thought, wow, that works. I'll use that more. And the young man said he didn't have a clue. What a great moment this had to be for these two to come together.
Paul writes in Romans 10, "There is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call upon Him, for whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved." Whether you're a Jew or a Greek, whether you're a Philip in his background or an Ethiopian, whether you're a ball player, a plumber, a mom, or a student — you call upon the name of the Lord, you will be saved.
The man said, "How can I, unless somebody tells me what it means?" Isn't that refreshing? He invited Philip in and said, sit down here. I can almost hear the joy in the heart of the evangelist given an opportunity to sit and to share. And that's exactly what this young man said to me: go ahead, tell me what it means, share, let me ask questions.
It was really — and I'll use a word I don't use a lot — it was really cute at the end, because we were on the way to the door and he said, "Mr. Schrader, could I ask one more favor?" I said sure. He said, "Please don't use me as an illustration." I told him I wouldn't in Houston, but he would be one when we got home. It's like God said, you're running low on illustrations, here's one for you.
Isaiah 53 and the Suffering Messiah
In verse 32, the passage the Ethiopian was reading is Isaiah 53, and it speaks of the Messiah. The Jews were confused on this passage. Some thought the sheep led to the slaughter referred to the nation itself, others thought Isaiah was speaking autobiographically, and some thought it spoke of a Messiah.
We don't know what he had read leading up to this. He may have read in Isaiah 6 of Isaiah seeing the Lord, understanding who God is, and then saying, "Woe to me, for I am undone, I am ruined." God forgives him of his sin and says He has a job to do — who should He send? And Isaiah says, "Here I am, send me." We don't know how much of the book he had read.
What we do know is that at this point he was reading of the suffering Messiah, the lamb being led away to be slaughtered. And whenever we see the gospel, we need to come back to this truth: our Messiah died and rose again from the dead.
Jesus Opens the Scriptures
In Luke chapter 24, Jesus appears to the two men on the road to Emmaus. He talks with them, opens the Scripture, and teaches them. They then go and tell the disciples they have seen Jesus, and as they are saying this, Jesus appears to them. He says don't be afraid — in fact, I'm hungry, give Me something to eat.
Then in verse 44 of Luke 24, Jesus said, "These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms might be fulfilled." He then opened their minds to understand the Scripture, and said, "Thus it is written that Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead on the third day, that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem, and you are witnesses of these things."
Whenever we talk about the gospel, whenever we talk about what it means to know Christ, we have to talk about His suffering. We have to talk about His pain. We have to go to the Scripture — and that is exactly what Philip does.
Philip Teaches from the Scriptures
The eunuch himself asks the question: "Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this?" Is he talking about somebody else? What does this mean? We have no idea what his background is, what he heard when he went to Jerusalem about Jesus, what exposure he may have had to the church, or whether in that moment he was putting together that the Messiah might have been Jesus, who came and suffered and died. We simply don't know.
But look at what Philip does. Philip does what Jesus did, and Philip does what you and I must do in evangelism. He opened his mouth and he began from the Scriptures, teaching about Jesus. Faith comes from hearing, and from hearing the word of Christ.
God is clearly in charge here. God orchestrated all of these events. God sent Philip to the right road. He brought along the Ethiopian at the proper time. He had him reading Isaiah 53. But faith comes by hearing this. Romans 10 lays out the irrefutable logic: how can they call upon Him whom they don't believe? How can they believe if they haven't heard? And how can they hear without a preacher? And how can he preach unless he is sent? There is Philip.
Baptism: The Response of a Believing Heart
Philip teaches him — we have no record of exactly what transpires — but as they move along, they come to some water. And it is the eunuch, not Philip, who says, "Look, there is water. What stops me from being baptized?" Verse 37 is bracketed in some Bibles because it does not appear in the oldest manuscripts, but apparently Philip said, "If you believe with all your heart, you may be baptized." And the eunuch answered, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
The eunuch orders the chariot to stop. They go down, Philip goes with him, and he is baptized. Our eight o'clock service this morning began with baptism. We believe this is what the New Testament teaches — that baptism is for believers, for someone who has come to faith in Christ. The word literally means to immerse. Baptism carries with it the idea of cleansing, and of a breaking with the old.
What We Learn from Philip and the Ethiopian
As we stand here, we really do represent the old Steve, the way he was. We baptize him in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, and as he comes up there is this symbolic cleansing, this idea of a break with the old man. But even beyond that, there is the picture of union with Christ. He emerges from the baptism waters, and when he comes up, the Spirit of the Lord has snatched Philip — it is the same word used in 1 Thessalonians 4, speaking of the snatching of God's people, the rapturing away. Philip is moved out of the scene, the Ethiopian sees him no more, but he goes on his way rejoicing, and I am going to assume testifying, giving honor and glory to God, moving back towards home to say, "Let me tell you about Jesus." Philip finds himself continuing the work he loves, preaching the gospel through all the cities on his way to Caesarea. That is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian.
I want to understand the story, but my point as we end is: what do we learn in our own life? Biblical evangelism, at least in this story, has with it six components that I see — probably more. Number one, it is all a work of God. Clearly God orchestrates this. Clearly God is in charge. Biblical evangelism also carries with it the idea of obedient response: arise and go, and Philip gets up and moves.
When the opportunity comes — divinely appointed, to be sure — Philip responds boldly and courageously. "Do you know what you are reading? Do you understand this?" The Ethiopian says someone has to tell him about it, and Philip says, "Let me tell you," and takes him through the scriptures. God works through human instruments. Understand that. God could have saved this Ethiopian through an angel, or He could have simply caused him to understand, but He works through us.
God Works Through You
This is where I get very bold with you. I believe God wants to use you in a powerful way and use your life in a significant way — that is why you are here today, here on this earth. If all He wanted to do was get you to heaven, then at the moment of your conversion He would have simply taken you there. You were saved, your eternal destiny was secured, but He had work for you to do here.
I believe that a good part of that work is evangelism. It is sharing your faith, living a life, witnessing. Witnessing is not optional. Witnessing is not mandatory. Witnessing is inevitable. People are watching your every move, every step — especially if they know you are involved in a church, and especially if you say you believe in Christ. They are watching, and God will use you.
He uses human instruments. He had a prepared servant in Philip, and He had a prepared listener in the Ethiopian, and the grace of God is evident all through this. When we look at this story, it is not a story about Philip or the Ethiopian. It is a story about God. But here is what I want us to move to: a biblical approach for your own evangelism.
Three Things: Pray, Be Ready, Act
I want to suggest three things. Number one, you need to pray. Number two, you need to be ready. Number three, you need to act.
The first thing you need to do is pray. What do you pray? I think for many of us we have to start with, "Father, give me a concern for lost people." At the baby dedication in the first hour, Lisa Kuyper was reading a letter to Justin — Justin is five and a half months old. It is the kind of letter many of you would hope to write, and she reached a point where she was praying, "God, save my son." You could see her begin to choke up, you could see tears in her eyes, because there is a love for her son and a desire to see him rescued from his sin. I believe most of us do not have that love for lost people. In fact, we see them more as an inconvenience than as an opportunity for God's glory, and in some cases they are lost and on their way to hell and they are happy about it — and that is what is really sad.
I think it begins with this: "Father, break my heart for people who do not know You." And as I pray that, I also pray, "Father, open doors. Give me chances. Give me an opportunity to testify. Let me be faithful and courageous — faithful to the Word of God." This is now the fourth, fifth, or sixth time I have said it: conversion, repentance, and faith — evangelism — are all the work of God, so I can be faithful to the Word and tell the truth. When someone says, "Are you telling me there is no way to heaven except through Jesus?" you can say, "That is what the Bible teaches."
I remember the very first time I met with Larry Wright. We were talking and I was asking him some very difficult questions, and he was giving me answers that he knew I, as a non-believer, was not prepared or ready or even wanting to hear. I walked away not remembering the answers, but remembering the attitude he had as he shared them. He never wavered from the truth, but he was filled with love and grace and compassion. And so I pray, "Father, give me wisdom — what to say, when to say it, where to say it, how to communicate." This ought to be a constant prayer in your life: God, use me in evangelism. God, break my heart. God, make me faithful to Your Word. Open the doors. Let me speak with grace and truth. God, give me wisdom.
Being Ready: Studying the Word
As you pray, you also begin to get ready. You begin preparing yourself. Conversion is a work of God, but I study — I study His Word. That is what Jesus did with the disciples. That is what Philip does. That is what we do. What does the Word of God say? I do not go with my own wisdom. When I sat down with that young man the other day, I did not say, "Well, here is what I think." I continually went back and said, "Here is what the Scripture says."
Being Prepared for Divine Appointments
It doesn't seem fair. And I would say, it doesn't seem fair to me either. But when I say something like that, I'm saying, if I was God, this is what I would do. But what does the real God, the one true God, say? All of a sudden, Philip is given this opportunity. The man is reading the scripture, the opportunity is there, and Philip was prepared because he knew God's Word.
Do you know God's Word well enough to do this? As I was walking out of the last service, someone introduced me to a young lady who was here from a background where she doesn't know anything about the faith. She just wanted to talk, and she wanted to know if I had somebody she could meet with. I walked out that door determined to find someone, looked to my right, and there was Frank Dudley. I said, "Frank, meet Monica. My office is empty. Go and talk."
If you had been Frank, would you have been ready for that? Could you have taken the scriptures and done that? Are you prepared? Do you understand your testimony? Do you understand what God has done in your life? Can you talk to other people about it?
Opportunities Are All Around You
Are you looking for opportunities? They are all around you. Here is what it is like: go rent a white Taurus from Budget or Hertz, and when you pull out of the parking lot and drive down the road, all you are going to see are white Tauruses. They are everywhere. If I said to you right now that every other car on the road is a white Taurus, you would say no way — but once you are in one yourself, you come back saying there are white Tauruses everywhere.
It is the same way with lost people around you. Once you start looking for them, you will see them everywhere. They are all around you. By divine appointment, God has placed them there, and you are to be a faithful steward in this process.
I do not want us to become so obsessed with reaching people far away that we miss the people God has brought directly into our lives. There are people who want to go and save a billion people in China, but they do not even know who their neighbor is and have never shared Christ with a co-worker. A man came to me one day and said he had a praise. He told me he was working with a Christian — that there was another Christian in the office. I said, "Really? I thought you had a hiring freeze." He said the man had actually been there for twelve years.
I said, "Let me make sure I understand this. You have worked next to this man for twelve years and neither one of you knew the other was a Christian?" Let me be honest — that is pathetic. That is very bad. Now, your employer is not paying you to go around and buttonhole people and share Christ, but you can simply begin to live it. As you live it, you create a thirst, and people want to know. Inevitably it comes up. They are going to talk to you. "What did you do this weekend?" "I went to church." "I went to a men's conference." "I went to a women's conference." Be a faithful steward of the opportunities that are right in front of you.
Conversion Is God's Work — But He Uses Us
Here is the last thing. You have prepared, you have prayed, and now it is time to act. Conversion is God's job — we have that figured out. You are at a church that teaches conversion from beginning to end is an act of God. But that should not dampen our love for the lost or our desire to see God's converting work carried on around us.
As we study the doctrines of grace — election, depravity, atonement, saving faith — one of the men we return to again and again because he is so solid on these things is Charles Spurgeon. One Sunday, preaching to his church, Spurgeon said: "The fact is, brothers, we must have conversion work here. We cannot go on as some churches do without converts. We cannot, we will not, we must not, we dare not. Souls must be converted here, and if there be not many born to Christ, may the Lord grant me that I sleep in the tomb and be no more heard. Better for us to die than to live if souls are not saved."
Spurgeon had it all figured out. It is a work of God — He does it. But God uses people. There is a converting work that goes on, and He uses His people to reach out to those around them. Is there always a conversion? No. But as I share the truth, the very act of sharing the truth itself brings glory to God. I do not preach, teach, or meet with someone in a hotel room or a coffee shop with the idea that I can convert them. But I do know this: God uses instruments like you and me for that.
Listening Well and Telling the Truth in Love
Get your ears open and listen. As you share with people, make sure you are answering the questions they are really asking. Where is the pain? There is an old proverb that says God gave us two ears and one tongue, and hid the tongue behind a wall of teeth. The idea is: be quiet and listen.
You do not have to tell them everything you know. You do not have to be sharing Christ with someone and then say, "By the way, do you understand the doctrine of election, propitiation, and limited atonement? We are not going to want you in the kingdom of God until that happens." You did not see any of that take place in Philip's encounter with the Ethiopian. Are those things important? Absolutely — that is a hill we will die on. But we also know God saved us to use us in the process of evangelism.
Tell the truth in humility and love. It is very hard for a non-believer to hear that Jesus is the only way. A lady came up to me last night and said, "Let me ask you a question. My grandmother is the greatest woman in the world. She died three weeks ago. She did not know nor care about Jesus. Where is she?" And what I did was —
The Weight of Honest Evangelism
There was a man in one of our studies whose mother died — a woman much like your grandmother. Her son came to this man and asked, "Dad, is grandma in heaven?" The son had been raised in a good church and understood, even at age five, that a person must know Jesus as Lord and Savior to enter heaven. The father, trying to spare the child, said, "Well, she did a lot of good things." But the five-year-old replied, "Dad, they taught me that if you don't know Christ, you don't go to heaven. Grandma didn't know Jesus." And then the five-year-old said to his father, "Grandma's in hell." That was my answer to her question.
This is serious business. As you evangelize, you will be telling people the truth — things they don't want to hear, and even when they are willing to hear, things that are gut-wrenching. You have to communicate in love and humility, and you have to give people an opportunity to respond.
Giving People an Opportunity to Respond
About three or four weeks ago, at the end of a service that was evangelistic in nature, I said, "Let's pray, and let's give some of you an opportunity to pray." The response was very interesting. Three or four people prayed to receive Christ that day and are now being followed up. But I also had a number of Christians come to me saying, "I hope we're not moving toward this outreach evangelism stuff. I hope you're not just trying to appeal to some sort of emotionalism." It was the first time I had ever been accused of having feelings — I had never had that happen to me before.
The call is simply this: believe. Would you like to believe? Would you like to be saved? Would you like to respond? That is what I said to the young man in the hotel room. I asked him, "You've heard all of this — do you have any more questions? Would you like to pray? Would you like to receive Christ? Would you like to believe?" He said to me, "No. I would like to think about this and respond on my own." I said, "No problem. God is working. Can I pray for you?" He said sure.
Now, I'll be honest — my prayer was that God would make him miserable until He saves him. We don't know the outcome. But we trust it is a work of God.
Moving from Evangelism to Discipleship
Once a person responds and we believe they are converted based on their profession of faith, we move from evangelism to discipleship. Now they have to grow. Don't be one of those people running around sharing tracts, talking to people on a bus, saying "Praise God, now you're a Christian — see you later." Before I left yesterday morning, I sat down with one of the men and gave him five names — people in various cities I had spoken with, along with their wives, who I believe are Christians and need to be followed up on. There is no point going through all of these efforts, flying to Houston, going through all of this, if we are not going to follow up on what God gives us in that setting.
A Call to Faithful, Obedient Evangelism
That is what you need in your life. Pray that God gives you a heart for this. Ask Him to show you lost people, to give you wisdom. Prepare, study the Word, be ready, listen, and be faithful to the opportunities He gives you — then begin to act. It is all the work of God. Your job is to tell the truth, to share the truth in love. God may or may not convert that person, and that is not your concern — conversion is God's job, not yours. Your job is to obediently share.
I do believe that in Philip's life and in yours, God will begin to use you in exactly this way. And when He does, your spiritual life will ignite. You will start to see God work, and you will find time you never thought possible for the study of His Word and the ministry to His people. You need to be doing that.
Looking Ahead
Next week we come to what could be argued as one of the most important conversions in all of history — the conversion of the man who has arguably done more for the movement of Christ than any person other than Jesus Himself: the Apostle Paul. It will be an important lesson.
Father, please apply this to our hearts. Give us a heart for people who are lost. Help us care. Help us love one another. Help us grow. Help us be ready. God, help us be obedient to You. We pray it to You in Jesus' name. Amen.