Tearing Down The Walls

INTRODUCTION: There is an aspect of human nature that I find particularly fascinating. We LOVE walls; over the years different empires and cultures have constructed wall for varying reasons. (On screen) Walls are all around us. If we build something, chances are that we will eventually construct a wall around it. We are told that good fences make good neighbors, and there is a certain amount of truth to that statement. However anything can be taken to an unhealthy extreme, which is sometimes what we do with walls, both physical ones as well as cultural, social, and economic ones. We don’t build front porches anymore, because they are rooms without walls that make space for our neighbors. Today we build patios on the back of our homes, complete with privacy fencing to keep our neighbors out. Is there someone that “doesn’t” love a wall, YES there is. God doesn’t care for walls, for they are in opposition to His very nature.

PROPOSITION: It’s also true that the Gospel counters our love of walls and calls us to cross barriers as Christ knocks down the walls we’ve built between ourselves and other people.

BACKGROUND: This message is particularly clear in the book of Acts. This week, same as last week we are in Acts 8 where we encounter Philip, this Hellenistic Jew, crossing cultural barriers with the message of the Gospel. We pick up our story with Philip being told to leave his booming Samaritan church and head down the desert road that leads to Gaza. Notice that this move wasn’t Philip’s idea, God told him to “Go.” Many things that we do in ministry may not initially be our idea or plan, and we can only imagine how difficult it would have been for Philip to leave a work that was experiencing exponential growth, and head out for the unknown.

Soon Philip discovers why he’s been called away from his present work, when he encounters a chariot, which the Spirit led him too, this was indeed a divine appointment, but one that would likely confuse us all. Leave an entire congregation to reach out to one man… Why? He may not have understood the reasoning, but we know that God always has a reason and that God’s ways aren’t man’s ways.

For the man that is in that chariot isn’t just a common man, oh no, he’s a man of great power, prestige, and authority, a man whose influence will help shape the spiritual climate of an entire continent. This man was our equivalent of the Secretary of the Treasury for the nation of Ethiopia (Cush/Nubia) Now today when we think of Ethiopia what do we think of? That’s right, poverty and hunger, but the current social and economical ills that face this country are a product of the last century, for in ancient times Ethiopia was the breadbasket of Africa, and was insanely wealthy. The great empires of Greece, Rome, and Asia all admired and were fascinated by this country. It was also an interesting fact that the ancient Ethiopians were monotheists, believing that there was only one God, and the Royal court believed that that one God was the God of the Jews… why? The answer goes back centuries to Solomon’s relationship with the Queen of Sheba.

TRANSITION: It was this man’s desire to worship in Jerusalem, thus he made his pilgrimage of 1,000 + miles to the Temple. This act