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"Here as in Heaven."
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You're listening to GARDEN CHURCH Podcast. We're in a series called Church on Fire, a journey through the book of Acts. This is the story of ordinary people filled with the spirit carrying the presence of Jesus into every corner of the world. The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is alive and in us today. Join us as we step into the call to be people set on fire for his mission.
Darren Rouanzoin:Okay. 09:30. You got some aisles now. It's so great. You can actually walk in.
Darren Rouanzoin:Welcome to 09:30. I'm glad you guys came. Hopefully, people come at 11:30 as well. Can we just grab our bibles? Let me see.
Darren Rouanzoin:We're gonna go to Acts eight. Let's see. Yeah. I love it. I'm so glad you're here.
Darren Rouanzoin:So glad you're with us this morning. God is doing all sorts of stuff. I actually I will say 08:30 is my favorite service so far. So One for one, bro. The question I wanna just highlight today is what does kingdom success look like?
Darren Rouanzoin:What does success in the kingdom look like? I think for many of us because of our American culture, it shapes the way we interact with scripture in unhelpful ways. As a student of scripture, I'm constantly trying to get believers, followers of Jesus to understand that your presuppositions, your culture can actually disempower the proper interpretation of the text. There's there's one story for the last twenty years of my life that has really marked my journey as a church planner, as a pastor and it's been Philip's story. So, this passage in particular, think has been framework, a blueprint for me to really honoring what the Lord shows us as what success looks like.
Darren Rouanzoin:So let's read a verse. Acts eight. You ready? Acts eight. We're in verse 26.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm gonna read one verse. I'm gonna give you context and then we're gonna go through the whole rest of chapter eight. I'm gonna pray. I should pray. Yeah.
Darren Rouanzoin:I feel like I should pray. Let me pray. Jesus, I thank you for everyone here. For the grace. For the joy.
Darren Rouanzoin:For the diversity I see right now. Of you bringing together a family of God in Costa Mesa for the purpose of your mission. I pray right now in the power of the spirit that the word of God would be released into our hearts. That we would be established in the truth and no truth. Lord that your presence would fill us with peace and joy and all these wonderful things but more importantly God that we'd be unified together around your heart for the world.
Darren Rouanzoin:I pray for those that are feeling like outsiders. That they would feel not just welcomed and home but commissioned as missionaries today. I pray for those that are wanting confirmation for what's next. I pray that you you give them confirmation in Jesus name. We love you God.
Darren Rouanzoin:We bless you. Amen. Acts eight verse 26. Still the story of Philip that we saw Simon the sorcerer last week. This continues.
Darren Rouanzoin:Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, lover of ponies, go to Ghost, that's his name, lover of horses. Go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. I wanna stop right here because right here is a sermon. Context for Philip's journey. This is a sermon in itself.
Darren Rouanzoin:We're answering the question. Wow. That was good with the mic. What does success in the kingdom look like? There's one verse that gives you a glimpse of something about who Philip is.
Darren Rouanzoin:About what he's learned over time. Remember, if this was the American church story, Philip would set up shop in Samaria. He would start the podcast, run the conference circuit and invite people in to learn his purpose driven way of evangelizing the Samaritan world. That's what we expect. Because in the American culture, we do large things famously as fast as possible.
Darren Rouanzoin:But, the kingdom of God prioritizes success as doing mostly overlooked things, small things over a long period of time. That that's that's the invitation that we're not saying yes to circumstances, we're saying yes to a voice. Yes. That's right. We're saying yes to a God who speaks and success in the kingdom is very simple.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's it's faithful obedience. And an angel speaks to Philip. Now, I will say I don't want an angel speaking to me unless it's the hidden kind of angels. The ones that you don't know are angels. Because if you read the the bible, the angels of the scripture will terrify you.
Darren Rouanzoin:So, I'm assuming this is one of those disguised angels. Okay? Didn't know he was talking to the angelic. Either way, we we see that Luke in the gospel of Luke in the book of Acts, the spirit of God drives the church forward with messengers like angels and whispers like a voice and we'll talk about that later. But, he Philip is given an absurd, obscure command, leave the revival for the desert.
Darren Rouanzoin:Please hear me church because this really does speak to the kind of church we wanna build. Not just a type of institution. We're not talking about the kind of people we are discipling at Garden Church are the kinds of people that don't see the crowd as success, but as the obedience to the voice of God. That will always determine whether or not we're faithful. That's right.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's right. Let's keep reading. I wanna keep going through the story. So, it says, to go to the desert road. It says, so go to the south, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.
Darren Rouanzoin:So, he started out and on his way, he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of the treasury of the Kandek, which means the queen of the Ethiopians. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship. And, on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the book of Isaiah the prophet. The spirit told Philip, go to that chariot and stay near it. Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet.
Darren Rouanzoin:Do you understand what you are reading? Philip asked. How can I? He said, unless someone explains it to me. So, invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is the passage of scripture that the eunuch was reading. From Isaiah 53, he was led like a sheep to the slaughter. As a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he did not open his mouth. In his humiliation, he was deprived of justice. Who can speak of his descendants for his life was taken from the earth.
Darren Rouanzoin:There's a lot there. We're gonna get through the rest too but I wanna start with Philip. We'll get back to that. I wanna I wanna highlight Philip because I love Philip's story. Philip reveals to me what faithful leadership in the kingdom might look like for us today.
Darren Rouanzoin:So, I wanna give you four observations about Philip. Can I do that real quick? You good? 09:30, we awake? Is is that thirty?
Darren Rouanzoin:Thirty minutes, is it that big of a deal? So so the first thing that I noticed with with Philip is that he is, he was trustworthy in the small things. Now, hear me on this because Philip is someone who organized his life around Jesus and he has organized his life around hearing Jesus whisper to him, invite him into things and he obeyed but he was clearly trustworthy in the small thing. The first time we see Philip in the story was weeks ago we talked about this, that the church was growing and the needs for the the administrative task of passing out food to widows was growing and so the apostles said, hey, they did a church announcement. The first whisper Philip heard was a leader at the church announcing a need.
Darren Rouanzoin:We need some volunteers. Have you ever heard that? Yeah. We need some volunteers to help with kids, to help with worship, to help with hospitality, to pass out food to the widows. And, we're looking for volunteers who are filled with the holy spirit, who are filled with wisdom.
Darren Rouanzoin:And, Philip's one of the seven and he doesn't start by preaching. He starts by making a pot of stew. Yes. Let's go. And, he is gonna hear.
Darren Rouanzoin:He's gonna be trusted with an angel. He's gonna be trusted with the Ethiopian eunuch who's an important official, the CFO of the African kingdom. But, it doesn't start with being trusted with revival. It starts with being trusted with widows. Let me tell you something for those of you that are in the church.
Darren Rouanzoin:The resume for kingdom promotion is always written in the small obscure backrooms that no one wants to be in. Are you faithful? Are you, sorry, trustworthy in the small things? A man who can be trusted with widows will be trusted by the spirit with the Ethiopian eunuch. The second thing I observed in his journey is he was faithful in the hard things.
Darren Rouanzoin:Trustworthy in the small things but faithful in the hard things. May I remind you that just a few verses earlier, he was scattered into Samaria, not by a chosen desire to plant a church in Samaria. He wasn't doing a discernment process. He wasn't looking at his enneagram profile, looking at his skills that he's developed over the years, looking at his entrepreneurial calling wanting to preach the word. He got kicked out of Jerusalem because of persecution.
Darren Rouanzoin:Not just persecution. His buddy, his friend was killed to death by stones. But, he was faithful to the mission of Jesus when circumstances weren't going his desired way. You need to hear me on this church. The seasons you did not choose are often the seasons God uses for his purposes.
Darren Rouanzoin:You didn't choose the layoff. You didn't choose that move. You didn't choose that diagnosis. But, let me tell you something. God will use it if you welcome him into it.
Darren Rouanzoin:How many of you know God doesn't waste anything? Some of you are praying for the relief of the situation and and I have seen God use the miraculous. He's healed people of diagnosis that doesn't make sense and he's answered those those ridiculous prayers and I've also seen people struggle for years. I've prayed the same prayer for my wife for twenty something years and it's still a no. But, God uses it even if I don't like it and Bill, pastor Bill's here.
Darren Rouanzoin:He's helped me along the way because I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him because I would wanna eject out of this journey because he's taught me that you can suffer but also you can learn to suffer well. And, just because you're suffering doesn't mean you're actually using the suffering for his purposes. That's right. You have to let him be in the suffering and let him direct the purposes of your prayer. He repurposes the circumstances.
Darren Rouanzoin:He repurposes the diagnosis. He doesn't cause it. It might have been caused by Satan. It might have been caused by by sin. It might have been caused by a thousand different things but he'll use anything.
Darren Rouanzoin:Right. Welcome him into the season that you're in. Philip, learn to be faithful in the hard things. The third thing which I really wanna get you to understand, it's what I love about his leadership is that he's quick to obey. Absurdity.
Darren Rouanzoin:Obscurity. He's quick to obey. He's quick to go, yep. I'm in. Doesn't make sense on paper to leave, you know, Philip Evangelist Ministries of Samaria with our website and building campaign to go to the Desert Road with no other instructions.
Darren Rouanzoin:I I think that's that's insane to me. Because if if you were reading, no. If you were being discipled by the American church, the American church says stay. Steward the platform. Steward the influence.
Darren Rouanzoin:Strike while the iron is hot. Use the favor. What? What is that? It's American culture baptizing the American dream and calling it Christianity.
Darren Rouanzoin:I've had those moments. This is why I love Philip and Bill knows all of these moments. I love that you're here. Thanks for being here pastor Bill. It's like my professor sitting in the room.
Darren Rouanzoin:I've had lots of these moments. I I had to leave Rock Harbor and plant a church in Long Beach. It didn't make sense. I've had all these moments but the most obscure one, I wanna tell you this one and I was praying through whether or not to share it but Philip has been the reason for many of the crazy wild discernment. There was a season in 2018 where I just I was invited to travel and preach which you would think that's a really good thing.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's not always the Lord doing that by the way. Just because you got an invite doesn't mean it's from Jesus. I was I said yes to a lot of great opportunities and by the end of it, like I was getting a lot more invites for 2019 and the last thing I did in 2018 was like an eight day revival meeting. It was holy spirit training in at Reality San Francisco. I did a Sunday sermon, I did lectures all week, I did evening sessions and then, did another Sunday sermon and it was amazing in the center of San Francisco.
Darren Rouanzoin:God was moving. There was so much. By the end of it, after traveling like 30 different places over the course of twenty eighteen, I got into that that apartment. It was late at night and I'd finished. It was my last thing outside of the garden and I sat down to eat food.
Darren Rouanzoin:It was 11:00 at night. I'll never forget it. The Lord said, cancel all your 2019 trips. Stay at the garden. Get off social media and go into the desert.
Darren Rouanzoin:And, I remember processing this with Bill and my wife and I'm like, this doesn't make sense to have all these I'm gonna have to disappoint everyone. People pleaser, that's the hardest thing. And, I I did it. 2019, I obeyed the Lord. Praise God.
Darren Rouanzoin:We get to the 2019, December 2019, I hear as clear as day, the Lord say, get back online, engage social media, get on YouTube, livestream your services on YouTube. You're gonna minister to the world from your home. Cool. I'm gonna be an influencer. That's what the Lord said.
Darren Rouanzoin:You gonna do it? Started getting the info. I I emailed her. I got our board. Hey, I heard from the Lord.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let's get, we gotta start live streaming streaming our services. Takes takes a couple months like we didn't know anything about it. Got our Seth got on it in February. February 2020, we are ready to livestream our services. Little did I know that the intimacy of following God in absurdity into the desert was preparing our church for something we couldn't see which March shut down everything and we needed a livestream for a year.
Darren Rouanzoin:It wasn't about influencer. It was about obedience. I put attachment to the outcome. God just said obey. Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:Wow. My whispers. And, this is what I've learned. Can I give you one secret? Consistent intimacy will produce revelation.
Darren Rouanzoin:You'll gain access to the secrets of Jesus. Not to market and build the ministry of the secret messages of Jesus. Holy moly. You get access to the heart. And, just side note.
Darren Rouanzoin:Suffering. The deepest secrets of Jesus are shared suffering. Which nobody wants that. That's right. But that's where you grow the most.
Darren Rouanzoin:But revelation is not for platform building. When you get revelation and interpret it properly it's always provision and preparation for the body. God will whisper things to a leader who listens and it will prepare the body for the next thing. This all over Acts. There's a famine coming in Jerusalem.
Darren Rouanzoin:Agabus declares, so the local church takes an offering and gives it back to Jerusalem. They, the revelation produced an interpretation that brought about provision and preparation for the church. Okay. Point number four on Philip. You good?
Darren Rouanzoin:I don't got time to keep going but now I should have just done these four points. Number four, and I already alluded to this that he fears the Lord more than man. He hears go to the chariot and he runs. First century men don't run. That's that's ridiculous.
Darren Rouanzoin:That's undignified. That's humiliation. That's ridiculous. You gotta you gotta play it safe. You gotta be relevant church.
Darren Rouanzoin:Don't overshare that it's Jesus that's changed your life. Don't tell him you're a pastor, say you work for a non profit. You don't wanna offend people. Forget that. Are you fearing man or are you fearing the Lord?
Darren Rouanzoin:And he runs and church, we need to start running again. We gotta start running on the whispers of the Lord. We start We gotta be willing to risk looking like a fool. When did Christianity become cool? I was writing, it's in my notes.
Darren Rouanzoin:When is follow When did following Jesus become cool? I'll tell you what we did. We made relevance and cool the strategy for reaching the West and all it did is create a lukewarm Christianity. So, where are we? Acts chapter eight.
Darren Rouanzoin:Let's keep going. So, the rest of the story, verse 20 Actually, go to verse 27. Verse 27 it says, so he started out and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury. Luke, he wants to introduce you to this character and if you're reading this in the first century, like, you're gonna This would have been met with emojis, caps lock, like, all of these exclamation exclamation points. Like, this would have been, wait, pay attention.
Darren Rouanzoin:He uses the word eunuch five times in 15 verses. We'll get to that. But, he drops four facts I want you see about the Ethiopian eunuch. Number one, he was Ethiopian and he's part of an ancient kingdom that would be in modern day Northern Sudan and it was a kingdom of black African kingdom with warrior queens who at one point in history just completely humiliated the Romans because they were so great at war and they had monumental temples, they were significant but in the Roman Empire, Ethiopia was known as the ends of the earth. It was their nickname.
Darren Rouanzoin:Second, he was spiritually curious. It says that this man had gone to Jerusalem to worship. So, he's spiritually curious, maybe a God fearing convert. He's a gentile who converted to Judaism but he traveled 1,500 miles to worship in Jerusalem. That that, Craig Keener, the commentator estimates it would have taken at least three months of travel one way to go to the temple to worship.
Darren Rouanzoin:Nobody sacrifices like that today. Right. Your sacrifice is showing up without a friend. You're like, okay. I guess I have to do it today.
Darren Rouanzoin:People are inconvenienced by 30 time change. Come on. But, he had political duties. He had to see This was somebody who was spiritually curious and sacrificed for it. It also, he was also powerful.
Darren Rouanzoin:The word that's used by Luke for what he did is like a CFO of the African Kingdom. He was in charge in his hometown. He was a significant leader, a powerful man in his country but in Jerusalem, he was defective. Where he went to worship, he couldn't even get in. He was only allowed access to the overflow parking lot.
Darren Rouanzoin:As a gentile eunuch. And, he was a eunuch which is mentioned five times, already said that but I want I wanna make this emphasis. Luke is using repetition not as redundancy but as a theological firework show. Pay attention to the eunuch and if you were a Jewish person who've read the Old Testament, you would know the themes, that are found in the Old Testament about the eunuchs. You'd understand the significance of what's happening in Acts and this unfolding drama from Genesis to Revelation.
Darren Rouanzoin:Something specific is happening. Yes, he was a eunuch which meant he was castrated in order to serve in the royal courts of Ethiopia at the time, but when he walked into the Jerusalem Temple, his body kept him from entering the presence of God. Deuteronomy twenty three one meant he could not be in the assembly of the Lord. Not only was he a Gentile, he was left in the court of the Gentiles, the overflow parking lot, but he was disqualified from going into the presence of God. He came to Jerusalem to worship and he went away.
Darren Rouanzoin:He went home after three months only to travel three more months and on his way home, he's reading the prophet Isaiah. And, I did research. The minimum cost of the having a personal scroll of Isaiah was ten months worth of wages. It's a mortgage to have a scroll that he's leading. What does that say to me about this man?
Darren Rouanzoin:He did not leave Jerusalem excommunicated, not allowed to participate angry. He left hungry. Religion had given him just enough to show him how much was still out of reach. But, he didn't allow the disappointment of that pain as an excuse. He used it as fuel.
Darren Rouanzoin:And then, in Exodus Sorry. In Acts chapter eight, it's after reading Isaiah 53 passage. It says in verse 34, the eunuch asked Philip, tell me please, who is the prophet talking about? Himself or someone else? Then Philip began with that very passage.
Darren Rouanzoin:So, the potluck associate, evangelist, healer, proclaimer of the gospel, wandering into the desert as a monastic person now becomes a teacher of scripture. Because what was my point so many weeks ago? It doesn't matter what gifts you think you have, the spiritual gifts are given for the missional need of the moment. What the Ethiopian eunuch need is needed was a teacher. What Samaria need was a deliverer.
Darren Rouanzoin:What the church needed was someone to pass out food to some widows. Can you, do you hear me? Don't let your yes be determined by your preference. It's not in the notes. So, I'll just leave that one there.
Darren Rouanzoin:Pull back. He began with that very passage of scripture and told them the good news of Jesus. As they traveled along the road, I love this. They came to some water and the eunuch said, look. Water.
Darren Rouanzoin:What can stand in the way of me being baptized? Everything else said you can only go so far. But, you're telling me something else and I'll tell you about this in a second. What's gonna stop me? And, that's exactly what Luke wants you to see.
Darren Rouanzoin:It's the word hinder. What can hinder me? Nothing can hinder the gospel from moving forward. When they came up, so they both they went down and they got the and sorry. Then, both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him.
Darren Rouanzoin:When they came up out of the water, the spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away with the spiritual gift that every young college student with a passport desires. Teleport me, baby. And, the eunuch did not see him again. Why? Because it's not the Philip show.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yes. This is about the mission of Jesus. Amen. And he is a footnote in chapter six and eight to the unraveling drama that is the Jesus story. This is just great.
Darren Rouanzoin:And, the eunuch did not see him again but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared in Azotos, had traveled about preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea. Oh, I love it so much. The story of Isaiah 53 is so significant. Lean in.
Darren Rouanzoin:This is such a powerful New Testament confirmation of Old Testament prophecy being fulfilled in the new testament and a promise of resurrection life that we experience now. Right now. And, you read over it. He was led like a a sheep to the slaughter in his humiliation. He was deprived of justice.
Darren Rouanzoin:Who can speak of his descendants? For his life was taken from this earth. Who is that about? Jesus. Bill, you gotta come.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm out. Is g This is the suffering servant. Isaiah prophesied about this person, the suffering servant who will be led to the cross, who won't argue back. He will be silent. He will be robbed of justice and he will have no descendants.
Darren Rouanzoin:His life is taken. He's humiliated. He's deprived of justice. He has no descendants. Now, these three lines are the biography of the Ethiopian eunuch.
Darren Rouanzoin:Yep. You ever read a passage of scripture that was specific to what you were walking through in that moment? Have you ever done the bible roulette and God used the bible roulette? Yeah. The spirit arranged.
Darren Rouanzoin:The Ethiopian eunuch, the suffering castrated African man with a scroll on the desert road to be met by the suffering lamb of God. This is what wrecked me all week. I can only imagine to spend that much money and that much time to go so far and be told no. And, so many of you are here resonate with that. You think what you did last year disqualifies you from the presence of Jesus or you've been part of a community of people that have been disqualified by the body of Christ because of your lifestyle choices and habits Or some of you've done something in the past that you just haven't let go of and for whatever reason it keeps you in the back on the sides because you don't think the center is for you.
Darren Rouanzoin:This passage is for you. Philip takes off running next to this the the chariot and the passage of scripture is Isaiah 53 and there was no subtitles and chapter numbers and breaks in a scroll, you know that he would just keep reading that passage. This is about Jesus. You go to chapter 54, you go to chapter 55, you go to chapter 56 and in chapter 56, it says this, let no eunuch complain. I am only a dry tree to the eunuchs who keep my Sabbath.
Darren Rouanzoin:To them, I will give within my temple a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters. I will give them an everlasting name that will endure forever. The servant, the servants denied justice, credit the eunuch's righteousness. The descendants of the servant through the resurrection became a multitude, no one can count and the eunuch was invited to be one of them. The servant's humiliation secured the eunuch's welcome.
Darren Rouanzoin:Do you understand that when you get to Isaiah 53, Jesus had no descendants, Jesus was robbed of just of justice, Jesus was humiliated. All that enabled his future offspring because of the resurrection to welcome in the same people and the prophecy of Isaiah was that the people that were excluded at the time Isaiah wrote this will be included in resurrection life. Counted with a name better than son and daughter. One of the descendants of the suffering servant. That's being fulfilled in the hearing of this text.
Darren Rouanzoin:Can't make up this rich theology which is why when you get to this section where Deuteronomy 23 has kept him out, Isaiah 56 opens the door and Jesus walks him in. And, he looks at water and he says, what can stand in the way? Which by the way is the end of Acts. It ends with the word unhindered. The word here is what can hinder me from getting baptized.
Darren Rouanzoin:And the last word of the book of Acts is the image of Paul being under house arrest, proclaiming the kingdom of God, teaching the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance. Period. Full stop. Let's live Acts 29. I love this story.
Darren Rouanzoin:Don't you? It's baptized and then it says, Philip disappears because it wasn't about Philip. And, the Ethiopian goes home on a journey in a perfect present tense of rejoicing. The the description is not a moment of joy. It's an ongoing experience of rejoicing as he goes home.
Darren Rouanzoin:Here's where the story turns from beautiful to staggering. Philip disappears, the word is snatches Philip by the spirit and the Ethiopian goes home with no follow-up visit. No, you know, sub stack forty day plan. No app for reading the verse every day or practicing the way practices that you can model and mimic. No letter of recommendation from Jerusalem.
Darren Rouanzoin:He just goes home commissioned as a missionary. And, how do we know? Well, Irenaeus in church history in January says in that the Ethiopian returned home and became the first preacher of Christ among his own people. That single conversion on the desert road with an audience of one seated what became the modern ether I'm sorry. Ethiopian Orthodox Church.
Darren Rouanzoin:One of the oldest continuously worshiping Christian traditions on the planet. And, by the fourth century, Ethiopia was the first among the the nations to declare itself a Christianity, its official faith and religion. Before Britain, before France, before Europe was even formed, Jesus and Christianity was the announcement of the Ethiopian nation because of this man. There are over 50,000,000 believers today that hold to that tradition that trace their story of faith back to this eunuch. This is our story.
Darren Rouanzoin:Acts one eight is you will receive power when my holy spirit comes on you to be my witnesses. Not for your preferences, but for my purpose, Jesus says, to Jerusalem, to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth and in Acts shows you by chapter eight, the movement goes from beyond Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria and then this Ethiopian eunuch is going home to the nickname by the Roman Empire, the ends of the earth. You can't make it up. And, this is what God is after. The kinds of people who will live like Philip.
Darren Rouanzoin:The kinds of people who will live like the Ethiopian eunuch. The kinds of people who don't care about what the numbers say. Who don't care about traditional ways of leadership. Who listen to the whisper of God. Who recognize that you're saved by grace.
Darren Rouanzoin:Therefore, everywhere you go is a gift. Yes. And you bring that gift wherever you go and it's not your gift, it's Jesus. He is the gift. Yes.
Darren Rouanzoin:And we don't hold the market on anything. It's his. We're following along in this great processional of Phillips and Ethiopian eunuchs. We don't build Philip ministries, we build Jesus' ministry. And, we need to become the kind of church that be builds movements on whispers and gives it away.
Darren Rouanzoin:Who leaves the things that are successful behind to stay obedient because everything that matters in the kingdom is fueled by faithfulness to Jesus. Because if it's not fueled by him and his holy spirit. I don't wanna be a part of it. All of the work we see in our personal life with Jesus and the corporate life as the body will be tested. Some of the great stuff that you see won't be anything in the age to come and some of the stuff that you never knew.
Darren Rouanzoin:Like the mom who took the job as a janitor during her husband's divorce when her husband divorced her to work over at night in a church so she could be with her boys as they were in high school and she said, it doesn't matter that I don't get sleep, I get to pray for your future, Darren. I am the son of my mother's prayers. Yes. That's on her account because of grace. Some of you are in that place right now where the Lord's whispering something to you and it doesn't make sense.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm not saying to blindly leave your job and not pay for your mortgage, don't hear me say that. But, there's probably a thousand whispers at the 09:30 service that God is waiting on for you to say yes to and they're small. Just the other day, my wife is, really good at Facebook marketplace. And, I am the one that has to go pick up the item. In back alleys, in desert roads.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm pretty sure there's bodies underneath this desert road. And, we're moving again which is crazy. I don't like moving so much but we're moving again and it's a good thing. It's all great and, we're getting this bed from this this woman and she gave us and like my wife negotiated and we got it less and all, you know, so I show up with cash which I never have cash because I give all the cash away. I just give it away because I can't have It's like fake to me.
Darren Rouanzoin:I'm like, Venmo is more expensive than cash. Here you go. She knows it. She's like, you can't do it anymore. She gave me cash.
Darren Rouanzoin:The total amount but it was less. So, I show up and I start talking to this, she's a single mom that just got divorced and her three year old son's about to have a birthday and now I'm like, it doesn't matter. Here's the full amount. That's just how I work. I, you know, I just wanna bless you.
Darren Rouanzoin:I leave and I'm driving in my van with the bed and the Lord says, it's clear as day, go get cash out, buy that kid a birthday present. And, here's what I've learned about the Lord. Is the longer it takes for you to obey, the easier it is to say no. And, what I would like to suggest is you're waiting on the word of the Lord but he gave it to a year ago and you haven't obeyed. I turned around immediately, got him a little birthday present.
Darren Rouanzoin:She was met with tears. And then I told her about Jesus in our church and that's it works. I want you to become the kind of person like Philip. So be that. Yes?
Darren Rouanzoin:Yes. Lastly, some of you are here and you're like the Ethiopian eunuch. You feel so far away. And let me tell you what religion is gonna make you do. Try to earn your way to the center.
Darren Rouanzoin:You can't earn your way to the center. Jesus has made a way for you. You're not disqualified because of your sin. You're not disqualified because of your lifestyle. You're not disqualified because of the sin you did this morning on your way to church.
Darren Rouanzoin:None of that keeps you from the presence of God. He not only welcomes you as you are, He commissions you. So, it's time to get in to be released and sent. Amen? Let's all stand together.
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