Here Is Water, What Hinders You

In one paragraph

Pastor Mark opened the new year by walking through Acts 8 and the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, using it as the frame for a baptism Sunday. Noah Radek was baptized in the first service, and the Lord's Supper was shared at the close of the second. The through-line was a simple question drawn from the text: "Here is water, what hinders you?" Before getting to the text, Pastor Mark took...

Read together

1. Acts 6 Greek widows overlooked in food distribution, apostles appointing deacons
2. Acts 7 Stephen stoned for living out his call
3. Acts 8 Philip in Samaria, scattering of believers after Stephen's stoning
4. Isaiah 56:3-5 God's promise to foreigners and eunuchs who keep His covenant
5. Isaiah 53:7-8 the passage the Ethiopian eunuch was reading when Philip ran alongside
6. Acts 8:36 the eunuch asks what hinders him from being baptized
7. Acts 8:37 Philip's condition for baptism and the eunuch's confession that Jesus Christ is the Son of God
8. Acts 8:38 the chariot stops, both go into the water, Philip baptizes the eunuch
9. Colossians 3 benediction, the putting off and putting on passage, let the message of Christ dwell richly

Talk about it

1. The pastor showed pictures of baptism practiced many different ways across church history. How did you grow up thinking about baptism, and how has your understanding of it changed over time?
2. When the angel told Philip to leave a thriving revival in Samaria and head down a desert road, he simply got up and went. Can you think of a time when God directed you away from something that seemed to be going well toward something that made no obvious sense?
3. Philip ran alongside the eunuch's chariot and asked, 'Do you understand what you are reading?' The eunuch answered, 'How could I unless someone guides me?' Who has been that kind of guide for you in understanding Scripture, and who are you doing that for right now?
4. The eunuch had traveled a great distance to worship in Jerusalem even though the law largely excluded him from that worship. What does it mean to you personally that Isaiah 56 promises him a place and a name within God's house better than that of sons and daughters?
5. The pastor told the story of his uncle Kenneth, who sat uncomfortable in church for years before surrendering and eventually serving as a missionary. What does that story stir up in you about patience, timing, and the way God prepares people?