Episode 228: Divine Appointments | Tim Henderson+

Introduction

Hanky quig. Alright. So I pulled my hamstring, and those of you that suspect it was motorcycle related, yes, it was motorcycle related, but, you know, back up off of that. Alright? So we're gonna have a good time this morning. I'm delighted to be with you. If you notice that the back of my leg is wet and gross, I have a bag of formerly frozen peas strapped to my thigh, and it's nothing grosser condensation oozing down my leg right now. Okay? So everything's fine, it's fine, it's gonna be great. However, I am supposed to go to Alaska to salmon fish with a bunch of my friends in two weeks, and it's not certain if I get to do that or not. So two weeks to heal a hamstring, what do you think? Can we do it? Yeah. I hope so.

Have You Ever Experienced a Divine Appointment?

Alright. So I'm curious, have you guys ever experienced a divine appointment? You know what I mean by it when I say that? Like you get up in the morning and you're fully intending to mind your own business, but it turns out that God has placed an appointment on your calendar without consulting you. We're gonna be in Acts chapter eight in just a minute, and when we do, the whole thing, I'm telling you it's a divine appointment, and it's super exciting. I want you to see it, but before we go there, flip to Ephesians chapter two. I think Ephesians 2:10 is the tidiest snapshot of this concept that we're gonna be looking at today. I want you to see it.

For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. — Ephesians 2:10

Because I think that is a really straightforward description of how God works in our lives. He has created these appointments, these opportunities, these good works that we should do. They might be conversations that we are to have, acts of mercy or acts of courage—moments we are supposed to meet with perhaps with persuasive words, a sharp challenge, or gentle compassion. Maybe there's good deeds, but there are specific assignments. It might be that you cross paths with someone you know or that you don't know. Maybe you're just in the right place at the right time with someone who needs either to come to understand something, or they need you to come to understand something.

Maybe your mission is first to listen and understand what they've experienced as a bridge to help them experience it themselves, and understand it themselves, right? Maybe there's a conversation to be had, an action to perform, but in any case, somebody needs to be engaged, and God hands you the ball. He sends you to the mound. Right? And this is your assignment. Has that ever happened? You feel like the Lord put you on the mound for something?

Philip and Divine Appointments

In Acts chapter eight, we're gonna watch it happen with this guy named Philip. Now there are three great Ps in the book of Acts. The whole first half is about Peter, and the second half of Acts is about Paul. And sandwiched in between them, and this is one little chapter, is this guy, Philip. And Philip gets—he only gets one chapter, but it's a good chapter, right? And in any case, I would be more content to have one chapter in the Bible describing me when I'm at my best, right? Wouldn't you love that? In fact, I wonder if you've ever thought, if the book of Acts were still being written, would you be in it? Wouldn't it be exciting to be so engaged in the purposes of God that you're right there? And Joey Altorse, I just saw that you are here and it is good to see your face, brother. I hope you're doing alright. Good to see you.

In any case, Philip—Philip's one of the seven. Do you know what that means? Do you remember this from a couple weeks ago? What does it mean that he is one of the seven? One of the seven deacons. Exactly. A couple weeks ago, we looked at this. There's this new order of leaders that have been brought up. Philip is one of those guys, meaning he was a companion of the guy we looked at last week. And who was that? Stephen, right? So you get the P, the P, another P and then S kinda jammed in there, right? So Peter, Paul, Stephen, and Philip—those are maybe the main guys that we see.

So Stephen was the gracious one, he was the truthful one, he was the courageous one. And Philip is one of his buddies. He is, just for the sake interest of clearing up confusion, he's not, however, one of the apostles. Jesus had a disciple that he also called whose name was Philip. This is a different guy. Alright, so our Philip today is one of the seven, not one of the twelve, he's one of the deacons, not one of the apostles. And like most of the people in the book of Acts, his life is kind of strange. Acts is designed to show us that this Christianity— but normal Christianity, if we're just being honest about it, is weird. Stephen was a strange guy, Peter was a strange guy, they're all strange guys, and Philip has this odd event here. This one snapshot we have of him, God tells Philip, hey get up and go down this road. But he doesn't tell him what he's supposed to do when he gets there. So Philip gets up and goes down the road. And then God says, now go stand over there by that chariot. But he doesn't tell him what to look for, doesn't tell him what will happen when he gets there. Philip's like, alright. So he goes and he stands there, without knowing why.

And I think a lot of us would have a hard time with that. I don't like being told what to do, in particular, if you don't tell me why I'm supposed to do it. But Philip is submissive, he's obedient, and God's what is sufficiently meaningful to him that he doesn't need a why. And I find that a little convicting. Maybe you would as well. But when Philip gets where he's told to go, he finally hears something with his own ears, right? And at that point, the voice of God kind of falls silent in this narrative. It's really interesting. Once he's there, been God very particular, go here, do this, stand here, listen for that. And when he gets there, God backs off and stops giving directions, and Philip's on his own. And when he's on his own, he's just paying attention to the circumstances around him, and he figures out exactly what to do, and he finishes the assignment. It's actually kind of beautiful. Without further explicit instruction, it all comes together. And do you know what it is that happens? Do you know what he hears? What's gonna happen when he gets there? It's in verse 30. There's a bunch of stuff, we'll unpack it. Go to verse 30.

So Philip ran to the Ethiopian eunuch and he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet. — Acts 8:30

Okay? We'll get to Isaiah in a second, but first to the man. This eunuch is a court official in Ethiopia. What that means is, he's not a Jew, first of all. He's Ethiopian; he's non-Jewish, but he's in Jerusalem, the text tells us specifically to worship Yahweh. So he's this funny little creature here, he's not a Jew, but he worships the God of the Jews. He's an Ethiopian who somehow has heard about the fact that there's a God in Israel, and he's come to worship him. Right? This is a perfect assignment for Philip.

Based on Philip's name, what would you guess is his nationality? Or what would you guess it's not? He ain't Hebrew. Right? Philip is Greek. And what we see, whenever we see Philip doing stuff, he's always engaging with people who also, like him, aren't Jewish. Earlier up in the chapter, Luke pointed out that he was sharing the gospel among the Samaritans. Samaritans are this kind of half Jewish, half Gentile, not well loved by the Jews, and Philip takes the gospel to them. And then later on, after the story, Philip's gonna head to the land of the Philistines, and you can scarcely be less Jewish than to be Philistine. I mean, are like their mortal enemies for all of time. And so it seems that Philip, there's a breadth to his love. He loves moving towards people that do not know the God of Israel, that are themselves not of Israel like he is not of Israel to tell them about the Jewish Messiah. So he gets there, and here's this Gentile guy, and the dude is reading Isaiah.

Okay? We're gonna go back and analyze. Isaiah's coming. But what he does first, is he does something brilliant. Did you catch what his first step was when he gets there? Look at it again in verse 30. What does he do? Say it again loud. Yes, he asks a question. Right? He asks a question. You guys, we love statements. And of course we do. We're brilliant and we know everything. And so if you would just sit back and be quiet, I could tell you all these things that you need to know, right? We love statements, declarative facts. Jesus loved questions. And he was pretty brilliant too, right? But Jesus engaged people. If you read through the gospels, just make note of how often Jesus uses questions. He says things like, what are you looking for? He asks the question, who do you say that I am? Who do people say that I am? He asks, which of these three was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? He asks, do you want to get well? Jesus asked questions. Right? Questions invite engagement, and so Philip asked a question. And the question is, do you understand what you're reading? We just watch yourself. Watch how often do you prefer to grab a statement instead of a question. When do you like to be didactic? Jesus used questions. He also used stories. And I think, I just wonder if we might be more effective in the divine appointments that we are given if we developed our skills to use questions, and to use stories like Jesus did.

I have a friend, indulge me for a second, Chris Cunningham is his name. And I love Chris. Chris was my first boss when I was on staff with Crusade. He worked at Westchester University and directed the ministry there. And Chris is a good man and a godly man. And his life working on staff with Crusade, our full-time job is to share the gospel, do evangelism and discipleship all day long. But it wasn't a job for Chris; he just loves people, and he had a barber named Phil, and he would tell us—he would all the time, tell us stories about Phil the barber. And in particular, approach with Phil is he would sit down, get his haircut, and you know, just a picture of he's in the chair and he's wearing that apron thing, and Phil is, you know, buzzing the back of his neck, doing his thing, and Chris would just tell him stories, and he would tell stories about the questions that he was asking college students, and the questions that college students were asking him. And every time he'd his haircut, he would just have a story about some dialogue that he was having with believing or unbelieving students about Jesus. He would naturally and enthusiastically just relay to Phil these questions. And one day, while Chris was cutting his hair, this is months into this, Phil said to Chris, you know those conversations that you have with college students? Do you think you could have one of those conversations with me? Isn't that beautiful?

Chris had created this place of safety, he became a trusted friend, and Phil had his own questions. And he had the courage to ask them, because Chris had just kind of laid it out in such a warm and welcoming way.

The Power of Divine Appointments

Alright? That reminds me, back to the text, take a look at this. The Ethiopian also responds to Philip's question. And he says this, he says this:

How can I understand unless someone explains it to me? — Acts 8:31

So he invited Philip to come up and to sit with him. He goes, that is the dream response. Right? That's what you're looking for—that this guy invites him. Proper use, proper use of questions and stories will often create an environment in which people just might ask you a question. And wouldn't that be fun? How delightful you could have the supreme pleasure of helping someone to discover what God is doing in their life.

Because, and I know this might be surprising to you, he is doing things in people's lives all the time. God is intervening in the lives of unbelievers, he is pursuing, and you just might be in a position to help them make sense of what's already happening. God is constantly interacting with people, he's intervening, he's building a story, he's doing stuff, but his long-standing pattern is to do things, this is weird, but this is how it works—he does things that are confusing, he does things that are unclear, he does things that they do not understand, and then he sends a Christian into their life to help them come to understand.

One classic and crystal-clear example of this is Nebuchadnezzar. Do you remember in the book Daniel, there's this guy, King Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, right? And the dream is this tree, and everything's terrifying. The tree gets cut down, he doesn't know what it means, but you get the impression he kinda has a sneaky suspicion that it might not be good news, and he's afraid, right? Where'd the dream come from, you guys? Who sent the dream? The Lord sent that dream. It wasn't just him dreaming dreaming. It was the Lord giving him a message. But it was a message he could not understand. So first God sends the dream, and then he sends Daniel to explain the dream. Okay? You guys, that's how it works. That's what he's doing. He's intervening in people's lives. He's sending them a message they can't make sense of. And what they need is the friend of God to jump into their life and help them unpack it. God is doing that in the lives of people around you. He could use you to untangle the threads. He just might give you a divine appointment to ask good questions, tell good stories, and help people make sense of what God is already doing.

I mentioned this last week, but I'll hit it again, Acts 17, Paul says that God, listen to the pursuit that God plays here. He says that God determines the times set for us, and the exact places that we should live. It goes on to say, he does this so that men will reach out to him and find him, though he's not far from each one of us. He is doing something, and you can be involved in this great adventure. And I, I don't know, I cannot think of anything more fun than being part of that conversation. To help people make sense of what God is already doing in their lives, and in particular, in a way that helps them come to know the Savior.

If the book of Acts were still being written, would you be in it? You could be. And what could be more fun?

The Passage in Isaiah and the Gospel

Alright. So Philip goes on to explain what he's reading. What's the passage that this guy is reading from? Isaiah. Do you know the chapter? It's Isaiah 53. And you guys, Isaiah 53 is one of the most important passages in the entire Old Testament. This is a lay-up, okay? This is such a setup. Okay? Isaiah 53, if you flip back, you don't need to now, can read it today, but you probably should read it today.

Isaiah 53 describes vividly and poetically the death of the Messiah. It is the central passage, probably in the entire scriptures, for the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement, which I know is kind of a mouthful, but it is the central claim that our badness has been imputed to Christ, and Christ's goodness has been imputed to us. That is seen more vividly in Isaiah 53, maybe than any other place. It anticipates the death of God, not only his death, but even his resurrection. If you ever notice that the New Testament sometimes will say, as the scriptures have said, the Messiah would be raised. But where does the scripture say that? Answer, it's Isaiah 53.

Isaiah 53 explicitly says, the servant will be cut off from the land of the living. He would be assigned a grave. It says that he would be made a guilt offering, those things are killed. But then it also says that after his suffering, he would see the light of life. I mean, you guys, there's so, it's all in there. Isaiah 53 is an incredibly significant text. Just coincidentally, that happens to be the passage that this guy is reading, and that Philip overhears him reading. You go back, and I hope you might, if you go back and you read it, I say it's 53, but it really starts in 52. This passage, it's called the Servant Song, it's the fourth of four servant songs. It goes from Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12. 52:13 to 53:12. If you go back and you read that, what you'll see is it's a very defined unit. It's this poem, and it's five stanzas long, each stanza has three verses. And it's arranged so that the first and the last stanzas, one and five, correspond to each other. There's a kind of parallelism that exists there. And then the second and fourth are also lined up in parallel. They match each other. So you get the first ones out here, and then it comes into this. And then that central stanza, the middle of the thing, all eyes, all the attention is drawn to the center of it. And the very central verse is verse five, and it says this:

But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. — Isaiah 53:5

And the eunuch's—what was the eunuch's question? What is he not certain of? What does he not understand there? Do you remember the question? Who was pierced for our transgressions? Who was crushed for our iniquities? Upon whom was the chastisement that brought us peace? By whose wounds are we healed? And Philip just tells him. I mean, I'm telling you, this thing is a layup. It was a divine appointment that God had orchestrated and Philip obeyed. It wasn't even a layup, it was an alley of the balls right there, just tip it in. I mean, it's just right, boom, and he's done. And this guy believes the gospel. And you guys, this is where I fear that you won't believe me, but God does that way, way, way more than we tend to think. Are you on the lookout? Do you get up in the morning thinking, you know what, perhaps the Lord has a good work that he prepared in advance for me to do? Maybe there's a layup.

The founder of Campus Crusade is a guy named Bill Bright. And Doctor Bright, I'll tell you, whatever else he got right in his life, this is how he lived. Everywhere he went, everything he did, he just assumed, hey, there's probably somebody that God wants me to talk to about Jesus today. And endlessly, all the time he did.

One of my favorite stories, we would often have retreats, or not retreats—what do you call it, like a conference, I guess you call it. We go down to Daytona Beach, we go to Florida, we go to Fort Lauderdale, we go to wherever all the pagan kids are, right? And we would have a conference here amidst absolute debauchery. You could genuinely question the wisdom of that to a certain extent, because we were dropping all these college students into this sea of insanity. We went there because Jesus went where the lost people are. Jesus didn't just cloister off in some little Christian convent, but he was engaged where the people are. And so we were down all the time, just where the people are, and starting conversations and engaging people about Jesus.

And one day, Doctor Bright was in his hotel room and there were some students, not with the conference, just partiers outside, a couple floors down, he was like about on the 2nd or 3rd Floor, and somebody was just throwing his keys in the air, just tooling around, right? And the keys accidentally landed on Doctor Bright's balcony. Now, what would a normal person do in that circumstance? You just drop them back down. Here's your keys, kid. But Doctor Bright didn't. You know what he did? He waited. And he just figured, you know, this kid's gonna come looking for his keys sooner or later. And sure enough, five minutes later, there's a knock at the door.

Excuse me, sir, I'm very sorry to bother you, but I think I accidentally threw my keys onto your balcony. — (implied dialogue)

To which Doctor Bright says, well let's go check. And they go in and they check, and lo and behold, there are the keys. And as the kid is leaving the room, and just says, hey, I'm really sorry to bug you, thanks for letting me grab those. Doctor Bright just says, yeah, no problem at all. In fact, I'm really delighted for the chance to meet you. Are you enjoying your time at the beach? And he stirs up a conversation, and the kid goes on to tell him, yeah, I'm having a great time, my mom didn't want me to go, she's a Christian, and she thinks this is a ridiculous scene, and da da da. And so, Doctor Bright just says, no, so what was the draw that would be powerful enough to get you to disobey your mom and to come on down? And they just had a conversation. And Doctor Bright very graciously moved this conversation about picking up your keys to our sin nature and our need for a savior. And he ends up, I promise you this is true, he ends up leading this kid to faith in Christ.

And you might think, no he didn't. But he did. And he did it all the time. Because everywhere he went, he just assumed that maybe the Lord has an appointment. And if you're like, that's not how it works, well just look at the text, man, because that's how it works, that's exactly what's happening. There was a divine appointment, an opportunity set up, and Philip answers the guy's question, who is it? He just tells him, it's Jesus. And as a result, this man, this Ethiopian eunuch, he also believed in Jesus. He was ready. Philip was available and the Lord gave him an assignment. Guys, there are people that are ready to respond in faith to the Gospel. And the Lord just may give you an assignment. Right? Will you have eyes to see it? Are you looking for the opportunities that are around you?

The Response and The Baptism

The Ethiopian believes, and immediately he's like, hey, can I get baptized? And Philip's like, yeah, sure, no problem. He's like, well how about now? Well, I mean, right now? Yeah, right now. I mean, we need water. Said, well there's some water right there. I don't know, it's a retention pond. What is it? Who knows? The puddle? But whatever it is, this guy wants to be baptized.

Because he has some intuitive sense. I mean, I don't know how deep his theology was. He was reading Isaiah, so maybe he's doing better than a lot of us. But he knew, I want to be united to Christ. I believe in him. I want all of it. So why wait? Let's do it right now. And you guys, it just happened today. Today, I think you just saw six or seven of them. But today, eight people just got baptized. And when they did, here's what happened in every instance. This is what baptism is. For this, for the Ethiopian guy and for our friends that just got baptized, it is a picture of our union with Christ. Just as Jesus went into a grave and then came up out of that grave, We put these kids, they go, they go under the water and they come up out of the water. And as they go down, what what they're saying is that, his death is my death. I'm united to him in his death. But he came up out of the grave and we bring these kids up out of the water, you can be grateful for that. And his life is our life. That if you're united to Christ, his death is your death, his life is your life. And that is an intensely joyful thing. It's a fantastic thing. It was a joyful thing for the Ethiopian, and then Philip is on his way to go talk to some Philistines about how they too can know the God who loves them and made them for himself.

You guys, I pray that a couple of things would happen. One, that the joy of baptism would be yours. That you would reflect back to your own life, that I'm united to him, and the implications of that never go away. That these people have just become united to him, and that is a delightful thing. But that you will also leave here thinking, man, is there an assignment? That you'll open your calendar and say, Lord, today what do you want me to do? That you'll go through it with eyes to say, you know, is there an opportunity? If somebody throws keys on your balcony, don't throw them back. Is there a dialogue that you can have? Is there a conversation? Is there something happening? In fact, there's not a question. Something is happening. Something is going on in the lives of the people that you work with. Something is going on in the lives of your neighbors. Something is going on where you go. And I just pray that we as a community would have eyes to see, hearts to believe that God would give us the overwhelming joy of helping the people that you meet when you're walking down the street, the people that you meet each day, find union with Christ, with a God who loves them, that you would have the privilege of seeing that happen. And if that's particularly savory to you, come down and kneel with us here and ask him, Lord, today, give me eyes to see. This week, would you give me an assignment? And don't let me miss it. If there's a role that I have to play to help somebody come to a deeper sight of what God's already doing in their lives so that they can know him too.

Closing Prayer

Dig it. Lord Jesus, this time is for you because everything is for you. Tomorrow at 02:00 in the afternoon and Wednesday at 7PM, my calendar is open for you. I pray that if you have something you want me to do, I wouldn't miss it. Forgive me for my selfishness, my agenda drivenness. Would you show us? Is there something you want us to do? Is there a conversation to have? Someone to whom we should listen more than we speak? Some that we can help come to a deeper side of things. Lord, give us the privilege. Hand us the ball. We want to play. We love you. Amen.