{"id":1561,"date":"2023-11-12T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2023-11-12T09:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/?p=1561"},"modified":"2023-11-24T16:51:02","modified_gmt":"2023-11-24T16:51:02","slug":"sermon20231112","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/sermon20231112\/","title":{"rendered":"His Commission, My Commitment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"sermonNotes2023\">\n<p>2023 Church Theme: Advancing God\u2019s Kingdom in the New Normalcy<br \/>\nScripture: Acts 8:1-6, 26-35<\/p>\n<p>Speaker: Rev. John Chan<\/p>\n<div class=\"audio-container\"><audio controls=\"controls\"><source src=\"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/mp3\/English\/2023_1112_E.mp3\" type=\"audio\/mpeg\" \/><\/audio><\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<p><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Acts\u00a0 8:1-6, 26-35<\/span><br \/>\n<span class=\"text Matt-16-13\"><sup class=\"versenum\">1 <\/sup><\/span><span class=\"text Acts-8-1\">On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered\u00a0throughout Judea and Samaria.<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-27179\" class=\"text Acts-8-2\"><sup class=\"versenum\">2\u00a0<\/sup>Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-27180\" class=\"text Acts-8-3\"><sup class=\"versenum\">3\u00a0<\/sup>But Saul\u00a0began to destroy the church.\u00a0Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women and put them in prison.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text Acts-8-4\"><sup class=\"versenum\">4\u00a0<\/sup>Those who had been scattered\u00a0preached the word wherever they went.<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-27182\" class=\"text Acts-8-5\"><sup class=\"versenum\">5\u00a0<\/sup>Philip\u00a0went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there.<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-27183\" class=\"text Acts-8-6\"><sup class=\"versenum\">6\u00a0<\/sup>When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"text Acts-8-26\"><sup class=\"versenum\">26\u00a0<\/sup>Now an angel\u00a0of the Lord said to Philip,\u00a0\u201cGo south to the road\u2014the desert road\u2014that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-27204\" class=\"text Acts-8-27\"><sup class=\"versenum\">27\u00a0<\/sup>So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian<sup class=\"footnote\" style=\"font-size: 0.625em; line-height: normal; position: relative; vertical-align: text-top; top: auto; display: inline;\" data-fn=\"#fen-NIV-27204a\" data-link=\"[&lt;a href=&quot;#fen-NIV-27204a&quot; title=&quot;See footnote a&quot;&gt;a&lt;\/a&gt;]\">[<a title=\"See footnote a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Acts%208&amp;version=NIV#fen-NIV-27204a\">a<\/a>]<\/sup>\u00a0eunuch,\u00a0an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means \u201cqueen of the Ethiopians\u201d). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship,<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-27205\" class=\"text Acts-8-28\"><sup class=\"versenum\">28\u00a0<\/sup>and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet.<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-27206\" class=\"text Acts-8-29\"><sup class=\"versenum\">29\u00a0<\/sup>The Spirit told\u00a0Philip, \u201cGo to that chariot and stay near it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"en-NIV-27207\" class=\"text Acts-8-30\"><sup class=\"versenum\">30\u00a0<\/sup>Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. \u201cDo you understand what you are reading?\u201d Philip asked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"en-NIV-27208\" class=\"text Acts-8-31\"><sup class=\"versenum\">31\u00a0<\/sup>\u201cHow can I,\u201d he said, \u201cunless someone explains it to me?\u201d So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span id=\"en-NIV-27209\" class=\"text Acts-8-32\"><sup class=\"versenum\">32\u00a0<\/sup>This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"poetry top-05\">\n<p class=\"line\"><span class=\"text Acts-8-32\">\u201cHe was led like a sheep to the slaughter,<\/span><span class=\"indent-1\"> <span class=\"text Acts-8-32\">and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, <\/span><\/span><span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"text Acts-8-32\">so he did not open his mouth.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><span id=\"en-NIV-27210\" class=\"text Acts-8-33\"><sup class=\"versenum\">33\u00a0<\/sup>In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.\u00a0 <\/span><span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"text Acts-8-33\">Who can speak of his descendants?<\/span><\/span><span class=\"indent-1\"><span class=\"indent-1-breaks\">\u00a0 <\/span><span class=\"text Acts-8-33\">For his life was taken from the earth.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"top-05\"><span id=\"en-NIV-27211\" class=\"text Acts-8-34\"><sup class=\"versenum\">34\u00a0<\/sup>The eunuch asked Philip, \u201cTell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<span id=\"en-NIV-27212\" class=\"text Acts-8-35\"><sup class=\"versenum\">35\u00a0<\/sup>Then Philip began\u00a0with that very passage of Scripture\u00a0and told him the good news\u00a0about Jesus.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>2023 Church Theme: Advancing God\u2019s Kingdom in the New Normalcy Scripture: Acts 8:1-6, 26-35 Speaker: Rev. John Chan Acts\u00a0 8:1-6, 26-35 1 On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered\u00a0throughout Judea and Samaria.\u00a02\u00a0Godly men buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him.\u00a03\u00a0But Saul\u00a0began to &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/sermon20231112\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;His Commission, My Commitment&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-sermon","category-outside-speaker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1562,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1561\/revisions\/1562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mgc.ca\/YM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}