The Scoundrel & The Servant

Acts chapter 8. We started chapter 8 last week and remembered that Saul was there at the stoning of Stephen, giving his approval to Stephen's death.

to what he said. And with shrieks evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. And so there was great joy in that city. We began talking last week about integrity and the different hearts of the people that are mentioned here. Four different hearts, four different characters are mentioned in chapter 8. And each of them reflect and reveal an attitude of the heart.

our attitude toward what's going on right now concerning integrity. We are, and should be as Christians, measuring our lives according to the standard of the word of God, measuring our lives according to the life of Christ. If there is anyone that we should be emulating, anyone that we should sit before us and seek to be as, to be like, it's the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed to us in the word of God.

We talked last time about how God warns us not to do that, not to measure ourselves against one another. Paul wrote to the church at Corinth in 2 Corinthians 10 and said, that's not wise. You measure yourselves by yourselves, and he says, that's unwise, because we realize we change. And as we're looking around at the situations in the world and we see those situations changing, individuals change with that.

But the Bible tells us that God doesn't change. God remains the same. He is constant, yesterday, today, and forever. He can be trusted because He doesn't change. There is never a time that He will do anything out of spite. There is never a time that He will tell us anything and assume that we're going to read between the lines to try and figure out if He's really telling us the truth or not.

He always speaks the truth. He always speaks in love. He is always constant with that, and He will never change. And He is the one by whom we are to measure our own lives. His standard, according to the Word of God, is Jesus Christ, and that is whom we are to measure our own lives by. I shared first service that Jeremiah is called upon to take a rod, first of all, and to measure

the new temple and the area surrounding the temple mount. But then Jeremiah sees a plumb line that God has dropped to measure His city. A plumb line, for all of us non-carpenter people, is simply a piece of string with a weight on the end of it. It's a weight that holds that string taut and straight, and because gravity naturally pulls that weight down, it makes the string hang straight from the end of your fingers when you're holding it.

And carpenters use that plumb line to measure trueness. Isn't that interesting that in carpentry a plumb is called true? You want to measure something true and make sure it's square, you use a plumb line. And God in that example shows that He's measuring His people, the trueness of His people, and they are found wanting, they're found off true, they're not true for the most part.

They've gone their own ways, they've followed the gods of this land, and so God has to bring judgment upon them. God measures our lives according to plumb, according to true. There will not be a time when you stand before the Lord and He says, well, you know, I know you gave it your best shot, you gave it a good effort, and I really know you were sincere, you really tried to do the best that you could, and you gave it everything you had, and well, doggone it, just come on in. He's not going to do that.

He's going to drop His plumb line on your life, and He's going to say, this is true, this is what is acceptable and true, and it's nothing short of my righteousness. And although you were sincere and tried to do good and tried to do the best that you could, if you fall short of that, both Old and New Testament, God says, depart from me, you're out of here.

society may be complete. He goes on to say, another indication of how far we've come, 54% of Americans, over half, say Clinton is not any worse than most men, which may be the single most telling statistic. Could it be, he says, that this mess somehow confirms rampant lust in the hearts of average men and women and makes us feel better and less guilty, end quote? In chapter eight, through these four individuals, you're going to see the hearts of four different men.

We talked about that last week and about how this is repeated in scripture. As we examine these four characters, these four individuals, and see their conditions of their hearts, it will be specifically, and I want us to see this, and I mentioned it last week, but maybe not, I didn't emphasize it enough. We're going to see their response to two things in all four. Number one, we're going to see their response to the word of God, and number two, we're

In each one of those cases, Saul and Simon and the Ethiopian eunuch seem to be set in contrast to Philip, and so that's how we're going to examine them. I've given each of them a name to kind of help us remember their attitude, and hopefully hang on the hook in your memory what chapter eight is about. I gave Saul the name Saul the Scoundrel, and we went through all of that last week as to why the scoundrel, what the scoundrel means and all, so you can pick up on the tape from last week if you missed it. Philip is the servant.

He's the perfect example of a servant's heart. Then we have Simon the Sorcerer, and I left him alone, because when we get into the area of his being a sorcerer and identified as such, it may reveal a lot as far as heart attitude is concerned. So Simon the Sorcerer, and then the Ethiopian eunuch we just called the seeker. So we have the scoundrel and the servant and the sorcerer and the seeker, and these are contrasted with one another.

We started with the scoundrel last week, Saul the scoundrel, and we said, well, if scoundrel is too harsh a word, and we gave the definition of a scoundrel, then let's use what Saul calls himself, and that's a sinner. And unfortunately, the word sinner has become softened in our day and age. Everybody's a sinner. Everybody knows that. So we're, I'm okay, you're okay.

I'm a sinner, you're a sinner. That's okay, we're all sinners. And yet we went through what Saul identified himself as, as being the chief of sinners and what that entailed, and that's more severe of a rendering than the word scoundrel. The two things that we want to measure these hearts by, the word of God and the response to the Holy Spirit, last time I mentioned Saul was one who knew the word.

He had a great knowledge of the word of God. He understood it. He was so schooled in it by the leading rabbi of the day, Gamaliel, that he debated it frequently and obviously debated it with Stephen before Stephen was stoned. But Saul did not see God's word necessarily as that that was used as the opportunity to draw him into a deeper relationship with God.

He saw it simply as something to be mastered so that he could manipulate with it, something to be mastered so he could set himself up as better than others, more knowledgeable than others. He could use it to his advantage rather than deepening a walk or even entering into a walk with God, even though Saul was on the Sanhedrin and probably one of the ranking priests of the Sanhedrin, a representative of God. It's interesting that God did not choose to reveal himself through Saul or any other member of the Sanhedrin when Jesus was coming, but he went to John, who was called the Baptist, the son of Zacharias. So Saul knew the word, but he used it to manipulate.

And today there are those who do the same thing, know enough of the word to be dangerous because rather than using and allowing it to draw us into a deeper relationship with

you know, slicing each other up, using God's word to try and manipulate others. Well, did you know that the Bible said that this is how you're supposed to live and whack, whack, whack. And we do that today. A lot of times we'll take God's word and use it like a sword to just cut people to shreds instead of using it to see how God's revealing himself through his son and what is available to us, every spiritual blessing in heavenly places, that his mercy is fresh and new every morning.

or love as Christ loved the church, it makes them defensive and hostile. But if, as a husband, you take that area of loving your wife as Christ loved the church and you read that as a husband and you purpose in your heart, Lord, I'm going to do that no matter how she responds. I'm not going to tell her that word. I'm just going to live it and let you live it through me.

It's amazing how much she's drawn to submit herself under your authority. Wives, as you do that, husbands, wives, if you seek to submit under your husband's authority, submit yourself unto him as unto the Lord because you want to do that as unto the Lord because that's what the Lord calls you to do. And Peter mentions that again in 1 Peter chapter 3 as Sarah set herself apart unto Abraham and without saying a word, she just responded obediently to him that way, calling him Lord. And her chaste manner of living is what won him, is what broke his heart and won him to her.

Wives, if you'd seek to do that, you know, it's amazing the response that comes in relating to other people rather than just slamming them in the head with the word of God. If you'd seek to love them, as that's what God says the two main parts of his command are is to love him with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength and your neighbor as yourself. If you just seek to love them with the love of God, you'll be amazed at how they will

He attributed it to a cult, to this falseness of the Christ, of this man named Jesus. He had seen, Saul had probably seen the power of God, the spirit of God, demonstrating God's power in the miracle of the healing of the lame man at the temple. Saul had probably seen that guy sitting there all these years. And now he hears the uproar in the temple area and goes with some of the priests who aren't named.

Well, we can kind of stretch and presume that Saul possibly was there. If he wasn't there at that time, at least saw him the next day or several days later running around, not sitting there lame anymore. He saw the miracles that God performed. There were obviously others that aren't named for us, but we saw Stephen did those same kinds of miracles. God worked those miracles through Stephen.

Saul was a witness to this, to the power and magnitude of God demonstrated by his Holy Spirit, but he resisted that. He rejected it. Saul had heard Peter and John. Saul had heard Stephen. He possibly, as we saw back in Acts chapter 6 and 7, he possibly debated Stephen. And as he was talking to Stephen using the expertise of the word that he had learned to manipulate, he heard Stephen sharing the word with the power of love that he had never

seen in his life. And it stirred his heart. It moved him. And yet he resisted that. He couldn't understand it, and it scared him, Saul, and he resisted that.

There are probably some here today or some listening by radio or tape that you've kind of been on the periphery of fellowship. You've come and you've been here with friends or family, and you hear God's word and you're resisting it, and you've seen God's working in the lives of others around you, maybe someone close to you, maybe family member or friend that you're with. You've seen a change. You can't explain it.

You've kind of come questioning. And you've seen the transformation.

But Saul used the word of God to manipulate, and he resisted strongly the leading of the spirit. Then we come to Philip. Next, we see the life of Philip. Verse 4 actually begins with all of those who had been scattered. Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. That word scattered there in verse 4, if you're in NIV, look up in verse 1, and you'll see

it again. All except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Same word in English, same word in the Greek. The Greek usage of it, and again, this is Luke using it, so you know that Luke is a scholar anyhow and picks his words, and plus he's under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, so it's even more defined. But this word itself in the Greek means the scattering, like the scattering of the seed,

like a farmer would take and scatter his seed. Now, the reason that's important is because that implies direction. That implies some sovereign scattering. It's not just haphazard or lackadaisical. It's not just some coincidence or some, because of the persecution, they all scattered and it was just they're all running to and fro, not having any idea what's going on.

This implies that the scattering was purposeful, that there was one who intended the scattering to happen and who not only intended it, but who is purposefully directing and involved in the scattering. Now, that's hard for some of us to understand, but the heart of a servant is a heart that understands God's control at all times, that God is always directing. The heart of a servant of God understands that there are no accidents with God, that there is nothing left up to chance with God, but that God is directing every single step. There's been a conflict in the church down through the history over a topic called predestination.

As a matter of fact, there's different schools of theology that have arisen over that dispute and there are entire denominations now that lean to one particular interpretation or another concerning predestination. Hold your finger here and ask, go to Romans, which is the next book to your right and go to chapter 8. I want to show you something concerning predestination. There are those who think that predestination means that God has predestined everyone to everything and some are predestined to heaven and some are predestined to hell and you take that to its extreme and you go, what's the use of doing anything if my life's already predestined, I might as well just eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow I die, I'm already

predestined to go one place or the other. There are those then at the other extreme that say, no, predestination doesn't have anything to do with that, that I have a choice, I can choose where I go, I can choose, and God is just kind of like a spectator going, oh, look at that, well, would you look at that, you know, and he's constantly taken by surprise by the choices that we make. But really the only place that predestination is mentioned is here in Romans 8, the actual

In all things, God works for the good of those who love him. Those are believers, those are Christians who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he's still talking about the believer, he's still talking in the same sentence, in the same frame of reference to those that love him, those he foreknew, and he called according to his purpose, he predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son. Now what does that mean?

It means those that are believers, that love God, God made a plan. The word predestined means to make a plan. He made a plan for their lives to do what? To conform them into the likeness of his son, to conform them into the image of Christ. The only time predestination is used, the only time. And so it's used specifically concerning the lives of a believer.

Now you're getting into the areas, and we could talk about God's sovereignty. Now what does God's sovereignty entail? And that's a whole other discussion as far as what God knows, what God allows, what God directs concerning his sovereignty, but I want to talk about just predestination for just a second. Right here, God made a plan for your life. If you're a believer, he made a plan to bring you from point A to point B, which is when

you believed in Christ until the time that you're face to face with him, he has a plan, he's predestined, he's made a plan to bring you from there to there, to where you're going to, when you're finally in his presence, you're going to be like him. No more bondage to sin, no more flesh that's corruptible, no more death, no more sorrow, perfect in total communion with the Lord. God's made a plan for you as a believer to do that. Now go back to Acts.

In that light, there is no accident with the believer. There is no chance with the believer. God's made a plan for you to get from the point of your faith in Jesus into his presence, complete, nothing lacking. You're not going to, you're not going to, oh, you know, geez, so close, Mark, it's so close, you made it so close, but yeah, that's too bad. He's made a plan to get you from A to B, so there's no chance, there's no accidents.

So a servant understands that and realizes that the scatterings in our lives, the stirrings in our lives are purposeful and for our good, because that's what God's word says. And so these people who were scattered, it says, preached the word wherever they went. If you are a believer, then let me ask you, do you understand that? Do you believe that there's no accidents, there is no incidentals with God?

There's nothing that is just kind of by chance that's outside of the sphere of God's directing of your life.

of my master. I am simply willing to serve, I want to serve, Lord, however you want me to serve. Jesus said, I did not come, the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many. That's the example of a servant, that's our example, that's our responsibility as servants. A servant isn't demanding, he seeks to submit himself unto his master's authority.

I don't see the barrier or I just see the conflict. I don't know the purposes that you have for that, so Lord, help me to see it as you see it and help me to pray for it as you want me to pray for it and help me to live through it as you want me to live through it. A servant doesn't say, I demand, Lord, that you remove that, I demand that you get this out of here, I don't see that in Scripture. Servant and doing that don't go together.

Now, those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went.

Those are the two keys. John, in John 8, verse 31, says, Jesus said, if you abide in my word, you're my disciples indeed. If you're obedient to my word, you're my disciples. Again in John 14, verse 15, Jesus said, if you love me, keep my word, keep my commandments. Now, if it's hard to realize and remember what all of his commandments are, what all of the word tells you to do at any particular given time, just remember the greatest.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your mind and your soul and your strength and your neighbor as yourself. On those two, Jesus said, hang all of the law and the prophets. So if you can't remember, let's see, what would I do in this situation? What am I supposed to do? Well, I guess I'm supposed to love you, Lord, with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength

and love this person as myself. We listened to a tape yesterday and I can't remember exactly what this pastor said, but he said something similar and I shared this first service too. The extent of your love for God is no greater than your extent of your love for the least in your life. The depth of your love for God is no greater than the depth of your love for the least or the lowest in your life.

So in your sphere of daily existence, those who are around you in school and work and at home, you have people I know that you kind of don't like a lot, you know, and just don't want to be around. And those are the least in your life. Those are the lowest in your life. And as he mentioned, the depth of your love for God is equal to the depth of your love for that person.

If you love me, you'll keep my word, you'll keep my commands. Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. Who's your neighbor? The one you're around right now. The one you're around at any given point in your day is your neighbor and you're supposed to love them as you love yourself. And the depth of your love for God will be reflected in that.

And Jesus said, if you love me, keep my word. The word of God is paramount.

They'd grown comfortable. They'd put down roots. They'd made a home there. Now they're forced out of this comfort zone. They're threatened by Saul in much the same way that Saul was threatened by them. Saul was threatened. His very existence was threatened by their faith, by their love. And now their very existence is threatened by Saul. And yet we see that in the midst of that persecution, in the midst of that threat, their response

They knew He had their best intent in mind, and they knew that others needed to hear the word. And that's what they did. That was the focus of their lives. Verse five tells us that Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed Christ there. Now that's the first time we see Philip actually named. We presume he's a part of verse four, and all of these things are attributable to him

as well. But now we see him named in verse five, and he went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed Christ there. He became an evangelist.

He didn't go through evangelism training. He didn't do EE. He didn't do Colossians 2-7. He simply was faithful in the small things. He was faithful in that area of service, and God raised him up. God put him in charge of the many, as he says, as Jesus said that he would do. If we're faithful in the small things, faithful where you are right now, faithful in your

family, faithful on your job, to do it as unto the Lord. Just be faithful in that to God, and God will raise you up both positionally in the area of your job or in the area of ministering. He does that. It's just awesome to watch him do that, and Philip understood that. He was just faithful where he was, and God was raising him up. Now it's interesting, as it says here in verse 5, and again remember Luke is writing this,

that Philip went down to a city in Samaria. Now if you have a study Bible, you may have a map right there on your page, and you have the map of Israel, and you see Jerusalem there. And then if you look north, if you go straight up a little ways, you see Samaria and Mount Gerizim to the north, and you think, well, wait a minute, that's up, not down. Luke, you got your directions all mixed up.

You must not have been thinking much when you wrote down to Samaria because that's up. Well, two things let me point out. From Jerusalem, Jerusalem sits on a mountain. Jerusalem sits on the edge of what's called Mount Moriah. Mount Moriah is where Abraham took Isaac to offer him unto the Lord. It's where Golgotha is. It's where the cross stood. It's where Jesus was crucified, and it sits up.

You come to Jerusalem, and you come and you see it from the valley. You see where Jerusalem sits, and then you come up into the mountain next to it and come down into it, and it's just awesome. But you have to come up to get into Jerusalem from any direction. So to go any direction out of Jerusalem is to go down. It doesn't make any difference what direction you're going.

So geographically and topographically, Luke is correct. He went down to Samaria. But even spiritually, he brings out a neat point that Philip went down to Samaria. See, Israel went through a period of civil war, civil disengagement, much as we did as a nation back in the 1860s. There was a time right after Solomon's death that 10 of the 12 tribes in Israel didn't

want to follow Solomon's son. He was a hard-nosed. He was a thumbs-on kind of guy, and they said, we're not going to follow him. We've got this other guy we've elected king over us, and so we're just going to separate ourselves from you. So you have that map right here on this page, and you see Samaria to the north. You just go a little bit north of Jerusalem, and you could just kind of draw a line across

there, kind of a Mason-Dixon line, if you will, kind of like we did in our country back during the civil war. As a matter of fact, you may have a map in the back of your Bible that has the nation of Israel divided up by tribes, as they did when Joshua took the people in, and they gave so much land to each tribe, and the tribes went in and cleared the land, and this is where the tribes dwelt. Well, 10 of the tribes actually dwelt north of Jerusalem. Judah extends clear over towards the Mediterranean Sea, and Benjamin south of it.

So Judah and Benjamin were the only two tribes that stayed with Solomon's son, and the other 10 seceded from the Israeli Union and made their own land they called Ephraim, because Ephraim was the biggest of the tribes in the northern 10. Now the people figured, the leaders figured that if they let the people go down to Jerusalem or go up to Jerusalem to worship every year for the different feasts, that the people had longed for Jerusalem, they'd longed for the Union to be back together, and that was a threat to them, so they set up two altars. They set up one altar in Dan, which is way up north in the northern section of Israel, up by the headwaters of the Jordan.

There's three headwaters of the Jordan River, and this is clear up by the northern border in the land of Dan. They set up an altar there, and you can go to Israel today and see Jezebel's altar. You can see the altar that they've uncovered there, where probably the golden calf sat. And then they set up another altar here in Samaria, and they told the people, rather than going all the way to Jerusalem, you can go to one of these two places in the northern kingdom and worship God, and this Baal worship came in real strong.

People turned away from God, and God warned them by the prophets not to do that, but they rejected God's warning, and so God in 732 BC sent the Assyrians, Syria, which is north of Israel. You can come up to the top today. It sits north of the nation of Israel. It's only a fragment of the kingdom of Assyria. It would extend clear over into parts of what are Iran today, which then became a part of

the Babylonian kingdom, but it was a pretty good-sized nation. And they came down into this northern half of Israel and conquered it. They tried to come down into the southern half, but God said, no, you can't do that. He gave the southern half another hundred years to repent. They didn't, so he brought the Babylonians down and conquered them. But when Assyria came down into the northern half, they conquered the northern tribes,

the ten tribes, and what the Assyrians did as part of their strategy was whenever they'd move into a nation and conquer it, I mean, they couldn't leave their entire army there the whole time to keep them in line. They didn't have that many men. They had other campaigns to do. They had to go conquer other countries. So they would take captive two-thirds to three-fourths of the people.

They would leave just enough people in the land to run the land, to work the land, to get the agriculture out of it and the profits from the land, but then they would take up to three-fourths of the people and they would move them to another country. So they took these people from the northern kingdom and scattered them probably in the areas of what today is Azerbaijan and Turkey and back over in Iran where they were in a foreign country. And the reason they did that was so that when the people were planted there, they'd have to learn another language, they'd have to learn the cultures and the climate. You know, if you were used to an Israeli climate and now you're in the southern sections of

Russia and you're freezing to death in the winter, you have to learn how to survive. And most of your time is going to be taking up just learning how to survive rather than trying to plan a revolt. So they were wise in that way and they'd have years and years to not worry about people causing a revolt because they'd scattered them into these different sections. Well, they did the same thing by bringing captured people down into the northern part of Israel.

And consequently, those people that they brought in intermarried with what few Israelites were left in the northern kingdom and they produced a race of individuals that were half Jewish, half Israeli and half whatever. They were half breeds. And if you remember, stay with me, giving you a little bit of history here. If you remember that in the Garden of Eden, God told Satan that it was going to be through the seed of the woman that he was going to crush Satan's head.

And so Satan understood that that had to do with the offspring and a pure race before the Lord. And so Satan sought to pervert the race of humanity by intermarrying the sons of God, the demons, the fallen angels with the daughters of men, producing a perverted half breed race that eventually would overcome the entire human race and thus God would have no means of fulfilling his prophecy. So that's why the flood happened. Now after the flood, you have Noah and a pure race again beginning.

But out of that is that multiplied God called Abram and changed his name to Abraham and said it's through you, through your heritage that I'm going to bring a nation unto myself through which the deliverer will come. Well, ever since that time, Satan's been seeking to attack that particular race, the Jewish race, the race of Israel and destroy them. And that's what happened here in Assyria or in Israel when Assyria attacked. They interbred with the Israelites and sought to mix the race.

Well, the Jews of the bottom two tribes didn't want anything to do with what was left of the Northern Kingdom still. And so to get to Galilee, these people settled in Samaria. And so the areas around Samaria were like off limits. That was the twilight zone for the Jews. You don't go there. It's like ghetto, you know, ghetto Israel. We don't go to Samaria. Now north of Samaria here, it's not on your map, is Galilee, the regions of Galilee.

And Galilee is beautiful. And the mountains of Carmel, the range of Carmel is up north there where Elijah took on the prophets of Baal. And that's beautiful, beautiful territory. To get there, the straightest, best, easiest way is right through Samaria.

Now a true servant says, anywhere, Lord, anytime, anyway, however you want to do it. That's what a servant says. A non-servant says, any place but Samaria, you know, I want to go to Disney World, let's go to Disney World, why Samaria, Lord? But Philip's a servant, and he goes where the Lord sends him, and he goes down to a city in Samaria, and he proclaims the Christ there.

He went down to the city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. Now I want you to follow me through the last part of verse five and six. He went down to Samaria, to a city in Samaria, and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs that he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. And with shrieks, the evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples

were healed so that there was great joy in that city. Again, an emphasis on the miraculous. But the miraculous here is secondary to the Word. When they saw the miraculous signs, he went down there to do what? To preach the Word, to tell them about Jesus, to tell them about the blessings of the love of God through his son, Jesus Christ. He went down there to preach the Word.

When they saw then, well, first of all, when they heard, here it is again, the emphasis on when they heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs, they did what? They paid close attention to what he said. The miracles were secondary to what he was saying about God's Word, and that's always the case. The focus is always on what God said. The miracles always come as a result, naturally.

Now you say, well, we don't see that a lot now, and there's a big emphasis now in our country for the miraculous signs and wonders. It kind of goes in waves here. Why don't we see more of the miraculous here? Well, basically for the last 200 plus years, the proclamation of the gospel has been free reign here. We can proclaim it. We can take over an elementary school like this and remodel it as a church and hold worship

You want more bread. You want me to feed you again. Let's do another miracle. While he was over there feeding the multitudes, he told a lot of them what he told them about in chapter six of John, that he himself was the bread of life and that no man could come to the father except they partook, except they eat of his flesh and drink of his blood, they would have no part of him.

And it said from that, the end of John chapter six, it says from that time on, many people left him because his sayings were too hard. And he turned and he looked at his disciples, the 12, and he said, will you guys also leave? And Peter said, where would we go?

to go, because he knows that God's spirit is in control. The heart of the servant sees God in the midst of the circumstances. He focuses on the Lord. He doesn't freak out in the midst of the circumstances because he sees God in the midst of the circumstances. God has purposes for these circumstances. You ladies that are in the women's study are really, what a treat, what a blessing this

study is. Anne and I are doing it together. We're doing that. And you guys do it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. We do a study in First Samuel on Wednesdays at our home fellowship.

God had to bring him back to that point where his focus was on the Lord. A servant keeps his focus on the Lord in the midst of the circumstances, knowing that God has purposes in those circumstances. Thirdly, or that is third, sees God in the circumstances, focuses on God in the circumstances. And then fourthly, he directs others to the Lord. The true servant seeks to direct others to the Lord.

Whatever circumstance you're in, wherever you are, your heart's desire is to tell other people about Jesus and see them come to Christ, see them come to the understanding of who Jesus is. That's a servant's heart. Now, do you see the difference between the scoundrel and the servant? Do you see the difference in Saul's response to the word of God? He used it to manipulate.

He didn't want to come into a deeper walk with the Lord. He used it simply to manipulate to get what he wanted. He resisted the spirit of God and it just set him in a rage. But Philip saw that the word of God was paramount. It was what was necessary to tell people to let them see and believe. And so in the midst of his circumstances, that was his focus, to tell people about Jesus.

And he was yielded to the spirit's control. The spirit was in control. The spirit was going to direct, God's scattering me wherever. Lord, you're in control. And Philip, from verses one through three, you just get this rage. And from verses four through eight, there's just a peace. It's like, wow, the power of God's moving and Philip's just at peace. Whether he's in jail, whether he's in another city, whether he's out of his comfort zone

or not, he's just flowing with the peace of God because he knows the spirit's in control. Father help us because that's much of where we're at today. In the circumstances of life and the things that are going on in this world, there is such a pressure and it's real easy to lose focus. It's real easy, Lord, for us to just look at the circumstances of this life and freak out and try to handle things on our own.

And we end up hurting other people. We end up just destroying others' lives as we lash out at those closest to us. We forget that you're in control. We forget that you're leading in the midst of these circumstances and we think we have to go out and do whatever to get us where we need to go instead of just yielding to your flow. God, help us to understand Philip's heart as a servant.

Help us to understand that you're in control, that you are directing.