In 2014 Cheryl & I were living in Norman, Oklahoma while I was recuperating from illness that had caused me to resign my pastorate in Louisiana. One winter afternoon about 4:00 I suddenly had a strong urge to go out and check the mail — in the 26 degree weather, and the mailbox was 60 or 70 yards across the parking lot from our condo. When I got to our mailbox, there was nothing in it! I started back to the condo, puzzled, and wondering, “I had such a strong impression to go. Why would God lead me to walk all the way out there in this cold, only to find an empty mailbox?” I had not taken two more steps when I heard a voice: “Excuse me!” I looked and there was a young lady, with no jacket on, who said that she had just locked herself out of her apartment, and could I help her make a call. I told her my wife was at home, and we could call from there. Cheryl & I ended up taking her to her work, which was not far, where she had a key. On the way we were also able to talk to her about the Lord, and mentioned that the church we attended was just a couple of blocks from her job. We gave her my card with my blog address, and Cheryl put her cell number on it, in case she ever needed us again. But all of the sudden, that “empty mailbox” sure made a lot more sense! It was a “Divine Appointment.”
Have you ever had a Divine Appointment: a time when God put you at just the right place, at just the right time, to witness or minister to someone, and you looked back at it later, and thought, “God arranged that!” It was a Divine Appointment.
Our story from Acts 8 today is the story of a “Divine Appointment” God gave the deacon Philip with the Ethiopian Treasurer. There are several things in this passage we need to apply to our lives today:
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shawnethomas 
“Reckoned As Righteous” (Genesis 15:6 sermon)
In the winter of 1738 Charles Wesley was serving as a missionary in America, but he wrote in his journal, he was seeking to convert the Indians, but who would convert HIM? He was earnestly seeking to be right with God, and get an assurance of salvation, but it was eluding him. He just did not feel at peace with God. In late February, Wesley got sick, and Peter Bohler, a Moravian missionary, visited him. He said, ‘Do you hope to be saved?”‘ Wesley said he did. Bohler asked him: “For what reason do you hope to be saved?” Charles Wesley answered, “Because I have used my best endeavours to serve God.” But Bohler simply “shook his head and said no more. I thought him very uncharitable,” Wesley continued, “saying in my heart ‘What! Are not my endeavours a sufficient ground of hope? Would you rob me of my endeavours? I have nothing else to trust to.”’ (John R. Tyson. Assist Me to Proclaim, Kindle 653-662)
Charles Wesley at that time was like many people are today — thinking that he might be saved by his “endeavours” — his good works; the things he could do for God. Maybe you are like him today. Maybe you’ve started off this year trying to be the best person you can be, so that you will find favor with God. If that’s what you’ve been thinking, then our verse for today is good news for you indeed!
One of the great blessings of reading through the Bible together this year is that in the course of the year we will come across all of the greatest verses in the Bible at one point or another — and it will give me the opportunity to preach on many of these great verses this year. Our verse for today has to be considered one of those: Genesis 15:6, “Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
Genesis 15:6 is one of the Old Testament verses that is most often quoted by the authors of the New Testament (Romans 4:3, 4:20-22, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23). And rightly so, because this verse teaches us some of the most important truths about salvation. If you want to be “saved”: if you want to know that your sins to be forgiven, that you are right with God, and have a home in heaven, you need to understand what this verse is teaching us about being “Reckoned As Righteous.”
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