Acts 8:29–31

“Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go over and join this chariot.’ So Philip ran up to it and heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked him, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ The man replied, ‘How in the world can I, unless someone guides me?’ So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.”

We see here a one‑on‑one interaction. Someone spending time with someone else. Not saying, “I’m not going to talk to you, I’m not going to spend my energy on you, since you are not my church member.”

That is funny, but that is how some think: “Since you’re not my church member, I’m not going to do anything for you,” because it is about earthly reward. You give time to someone because you expect the person will join your church. If they do not, you feel it was a waste of time.

That is human thinking, not God’s thinking. You are neglecting the value of one soul. The Bible says, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his own life?” (Mark 8:36). That means one life, one soul, is, in God’s mind, worth more than the whole world.

That is how God thinks. That is His frame of evaluation. That is what we are called into: to be spiritual people.

So we see Philip, a spiritual person, going where the Spirit leads. We do not know how long he spent with this man, but he had an open door with him.

Some of us are praying for “open doors to the nations.” What about the open door to your neighbor? What about that? The open door to spend time with one person.

That does not mean Philip is now going to “graduate” and become an apostle. Later on he is simply called Philip the evangelist (Acts 21:8). It is not about climbing a ladder. You are not doing this so you can climb a ladder. You are not doing it so people will say, “Who brought the most people into this place? Sister so‑and‑so.” You are doing it because God sees.

You cannot see God, but God sees all, and you live your life based on that.

When Jesus sent messages to the churches in Revelation, He called them to repent and told each what reward He had for them. He kept saying, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches” (Revelation 2–3). Not what the flesh is saying, not what human ambition is saying, not what will gain you prestige with people. “Hear what the Spirit is saying.”

Philip heard what the Spirit was saying. Philip got the point that even though he was coming from a place where thousands had listened to him in Samaria, it did not matter whether it was one person or a thousand. That is the thinking. That is God’s thinking: the value of a soul, the value of a “small” thing.

If we were to measure it: thousands saved in Samaria versus one Ethiopian eunuch—one man you may never see again, who cannot become your “church member,” who will not be there next Sunday to give an offering. From this side of eternity, you might never even know the point of going to speak to him, because immediately after, “the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away” and took him somewhere else (Acts 8:39–40).

There was no time to calculate, no time to put it in a ledger and say, “This is an achievement I need to pat myself on the back for.”

No. God sees all things.

Again, God is not unjust to forget your labor of love, the effort you have put in for His name (Hebrews 6:10).

I am saying we need to value the small. And I am not saying the small is how you are going to “graduate” to big things. I am not saying that. Philip did not graduate in that sense; we hardly hear of him after this. So in a way, you can even say he did not “graduate.” I am saying that the thinking—“I will do this to gain something else”—is carnal thinking.

But God sees it. God values it.

Let us become people who think the way God thinks, who value things the way God values them, not with fleshly thinking.

What do we see with Philip? He had a heart of obedience even for the small thing. He did not see a difference between speaking with one person or speaking with a lot of people. I believe he derived the same benefit from one or from a thousand. Why? Because it is about Christ. It is about how God values things. It is about what God is arranging in the ultimate sense, not how you can arrange things and calculate them and say, “I don’t have time for you because you are not my church member.”

God bless you. See you later.