Joy and Obedience

 I love the way that Luke organizes his material. In Luke 15 he helps us to see what is lost and what is found, in Luke 18:25-19:10 he shows us that those who we think can't physically see end up seeing who Jesus is. In Acts 8 he shows us what real saving faith looks like by contrasting Simon and the Ethiopian eunuch. We looked at Simon the magician before, and now Luke shows us two things that demonstrate saving faith.

What do we see from the Ethiopian in verses 36-39? Obedience and joy. He obeys the command to be baptised once he's been saved. Luke doesn't record this part of the conversation, but we have to assume that Phillip had told him. He'd been saved, he saw water, he wanted to be baptised. His faith issued in obedience. What happened next? After he was baptised, Phillip was taken away from him, 'and the eunuch went on his way rejoicing.' He obeyed and rejoiced, because he was saved.

James says the man who hears God's word and doesn't do it is like the man who looks in a mirror and forgets what he looks like when he looks away. What sort of word would we use to describe that a man? A fool? The sort of fool who says in his heart that there is no God. He knows God when he sees him with eyes, but forgets him when he can't. Of course, our obedience will never be perfect until we get to Heaven, but a general course of obedience, growth in love and holiness and growth in service is excellent evidence we're saved. This is what Simon the Magician lacked, and this is what the Ethiopian had.

And he had joy. Jonathan Edwards said 'God is not only glorified by being understood, but by being enjoyed.' Intellectual knowledge of God isn't always saving knowledge. It has to issue in joy. Enjoyment of God in Christ, enjoyment of His word, or His church, of being with Him, and of obeying Him. That's what the Ethiopian experienced when he went on his way from his baptism.

In short, Acts 8 teaches us that non saving faith is inward looking. Simon wanted the show, the power, the glory. Saving faith is outward looking. The Ethiopian looked outward in joy and outward in obedience. He had the faith that saved...