Pure Hearts (Acts 8 & 10)

Zane looks at the stories of the Ethiopian official, Simon the sorcerer, and Cornelius the centurion.

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Hey everybody, Zane here. I've just been sitting here rereading Acts chapters eight through ten a few times. And I'm just really struck by something in reading these chapters and all these accounts one after the other of those who are being saved and having these encounters with God. And I the phrase just keeps running through my mind blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. And so I just wanted to share a few thoughts with you guys about that. I really think that God is stressing that that very thing, that those who are pure in heart will see him, and that those who are not pure in heart, they might not. Sometimes God does something sovereignly, and maybe I'll share a little bit about that too. But if you're pure in heart, I really believe that God will find a way to reveal himself to you, and that he will even cover great lengths to get to you. And I don't want this to imply that I think that our salvation comes from our own purity of heart, because certainly it doesn't, but at the same time, God definitely responds to those who genuinely seek Him, those who are not selfish, those who live in love and care about others. There's just an obvious response of God to a purity of heart, just as Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 5. And so I just wanted to read you a couple quick stories here from the book of Acts just to kind of illustrate this point. So the first one I wanna wanna read to you is in Acts chapter 8. And Philip has been traveling around sharing the gospel, sharing the good news about Jesus with anyone who listened. And all these stories are really in the that context that that the apostles are going around and they're telling people the good news of Jesus. And sometimes I think that we share with people a good news that isn't quite this plain and pure, but but the the good news is that Jesus himself, the Son of God, came and died and fulfilled all the scriptures up to this point to be the Messiah who would give us access into the kingdom of God. Not the kingdom of man, not a worldly structure, but the eternal kingdom of God. And so here we have Philip, and uh starting in verse 26, chapter 8. Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, Go south to the road, the desert road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. So this angel shows up to Philip, Philip obeys him, and he comes upon, he sees this chariot, and the spirit tells Philip, Go to that chariot over there and stay near it. And so he goes and he stands next to the chariot, and he hears this man inside the chariot reading the book of Isaiah out loud. And this man is an Ethiopian eunuch, so he's and it says he was an important official to the queen of the Ethiopians. And so he hears him reading the book of Isaiah from outside of his chariot, and he says, Excuse me, do you understand what you're reading? And the eunuch says, How can I unless someone explains it to me? So he invites Philip to come up and sit with him. And so then he starts to read the scripture to him and he asks Philip, Can you explain the scripture to me? What's going on? Well, the scripture he's reading is the scripture of he was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and he did not open his mouth, uh, and his life was taken from the earth. And so it's this explanation, it's Isaiah's prophecy of Jesus and what's going to happen to him. And the eunuch said, asks Philip, can you please tell me what's going on here? What's he talking about? And so Philip just explains to him the story of Jesus. And as it happens, the the chariot's going along and they see some water. And so the this Ethiopian eunuch says, Hey, pull over the chariot here. We're getting out. And he tells Philip, hey, uh, he says in verse 36, he says, Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized? And so Philip takes him down into the water and he baptizes him. And it says, When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. So the point that I want to make to you here is that this eunuch is already seeking God. He's already in a place where he has some purity of heart. There's no one that seems to be making him study this scripture. He just wants to know about God and he wants to understand God. And in and of himself, he's not getting there. But he has a pure heart. And so God does the miraculous. God tells Philip specifically this road to go to. He tells him specifically this chariot to go stand next to. And then just to complete the miracle, as soon as as soon as this man's baptized, Philip disappears. So it's just such a sign that God will miraculously work on your behalf and use miraculous means to teach you and to lead you forward in things of the Spirit if you are seeking Him with a pure heart and not with questionable motives. And just to kind of prove this, I'm going to back up for a second and I'm going to show you the story that's that's right before this. The story that's right before this is it kind of shows us the opposite. And I think that's probably the point that the writer of Acts, Luke, is making here as he shows us some of these back-to-back conversions, is he shows us different people's hearts and how they react to the gospel. And so this story, we're starting in uh chapter 8, verse 9, says, Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, This man is rightly called the great power of God. So I think this man's doing demonic sorcery, but people think he's some sort of a god or some sort of a divine power. And so, but now Philip comes into town and he's proclaiming this news of the kingdom of God. He's saying, This man, Jesus Christ, is the Son of God. And so everybody that's hearing this, there's power in the message, and everyone starts getting baptized, they're believing. And verse 13 says, Simon himself believed and was baptized, and he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles that he saw. And so then Peter and John get sent into the same town, and they're supposed to go pray for everyone there to receive the Holy Spirit, because they've heard the gospel, they've been baptized, they've believed, but they haven't received the gift of the Holy Spirit yet. And so they come in and they start laying hands on everybody, and everyone starts receiving the Holy Spirit. And it says, When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money and said, Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. Peter answered, May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness, and pray to the Lord in hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin. So Simon does not have a pure heart. And it does seem that he's in some way genuinely moved by this presentation of the gospel. And so we don't really get to see after this if Simon goes away and kind of had some false conversion and is still demonized and doing wicked things, or whether he repents and whether he actually turns to the Lord. But what we do get to see is that God is not pleased with his impure heart. God is not pleased with his worldly, potentially self-centered heart. That's kind of what it seems like to me is that he's been dealing in magic for a long time. He's been dealing with uh maybe demonic spirits and sorcery. And so he sees these people with power and he's like, it that wish is still in his heart. He still wants to be the one with power. He still wants to be the one that can wow everybody. So this moment seems to be more about him, not a pure heart of saying, God, I just want you, I just want to learn, I just care about um care about all your people and just having a pure heart of love. But it seems like it's probably something about himself. And so he gets absolutely rebuked for not having a pure heart, and he does not get in this moment what he is seeking from the Lord because his heart is impure. I'll finish here, Acts chapter 10. We have this man named Cornelius, and he is a centurion. And starting in Acts chapter 10, verse 2, I'm gonna read, he and all his family were devout and God-fearing. He gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly. One day, at about three in the afternoon, he had a vision. He distinctly saw an angel of God who came to him and said, Cornelius, Cornelius stared at him in fear. What is it, Lord? He asked. The angel answered, Your prayers and gifts to the poor have come up as a memorial offering before God. Now send men to Joppa to pre to bring back a man named Simon who is called Peter. So here we see that this man is already God-fearing, he's already pure-hearted, he's already generous, but he doesn't know God in the true way. He doesn't know anything about Jesus yet. He just is a man who has a pure heart and wants to do the right thing. And so I love this thing that the angel says to him, Your prayers and gifts to the poor, they've come up as an offering to God. And because of that, God is gonna bless you. God is about to teach you and reveal himself to you. And so this is just one more example of God choosing to respond and reveal himself to one who is pure in heart. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. And so the story goes on that Cornelius sends his men to go find Peter. And while they're on the way, uh Peter also has this, he Peter's praying and he falls into this trance, and he has this whole vision where God tells him that he essentially what God's telling him is that he's gonna go share the gospel, not only with the Jews, but with the Gentiles, those to whom the gospel has never belonged. And God's saying, I'm about to send my gospel to all the nations, to all people. We just saw that even with the Ethiopian man. And so, verse 19, while Peter was still thinking about the vision, the spirit said to him, Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them. So I just want to point out again, very much like the story of Philip and the Ethiopian, once again, we have, I mean, God is sending angels, God is giving very specific instructions to his apostles of exactly where to go, exactly who they're supposed to talk to, exactly who he wants to reveal himself to. And in both of these situations, it's to those who are pure-hearted that God is going far beyond natural means to get their attention and to reveal himself to them. And so I just think this is really cool story. Just to finish it out, verse 24 the following day he arrived in Caesarea, Cornelius was expecting them and had called together his relatives and close friends. So this guy is really expecting something. He's called a bunch of people to come. And as Peter entered the house, Cornelius met him and fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. Stand up, he said, I am only a man myself. While talking with him, Peter went inside and found a large gathering of people. He said to them, You are well aware that it is against our law for a Jew to associate with or visit a Gentile, but God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. And so Cornelius explains to him how the angel came to him, and then Peter begins to speak. I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. So who does God accept? Who does God reveal himself to? It's not those that we would think are worthy of it, but it is anyone who fears God and does what is right. It's anyone who has a pure heart. And so Peter begins to speak to them and he tells them the same thing that Philip was sharing: the good message that Jesus came and died and fulfilled all the prophecies and is the Son of God. And it says, While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. And they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. And so Peter said, Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. So the message here is very firmly that God is no respecter of persons, of who you are or where you're from or what your status is, but he does seek after those who have a pure heart, and he will go to great lengths to find you. So we need to protect our hearts. We need to, we need to not be selfish. We need to seek after God in the scriptures, we need to seek after him truly, not for our own benefit, like we have Simon the Sorcerer, who wants something selfish. But we will see God if we just truly have pure hearts to seek after him. So God, will you please do that? Will you please help us to have pure hearts? If we have any impure motives, God, if we have any selfish ambition, even if we have desires for ministry that are for our own gain, or we're worried about what other people will think of us, or we want success in this world, God, we just repent of those things and we just ask you to help us. Give us pure hearts, and God, let us find you that we may know you truly. I just ask you right now, if you're sitting in your car or at home, wherever you're listening to this, just take a moment and ask God to give you a pure heart.