Witness Pt. 14

A study into the book of Acts with Pastor Jesse Carr

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

My name is Jesse. I'm blessed to be the lead pastor here at Mud Creek Baptist Church. And I'm going to ask you if you have your Bible with you today to turn with me to the New Testament book of Acts, chapter number eight. Acts chapter number eight. We are going to begin reading in verse number one this morning. So join me there if you're able. Acts chapter eight and verse number one. We are working our way through the book of Acts, verse by verse and passage by passage on Sunday morning. And our text today is from Acts chapter eight and verse number one. While you're turning there, let me say to you, if you're a visitor here, if this is your first Sunday with us, or maybe your second Sunday, or even your first Sunday back with us in a long time, I'm thankful that you're here on behalf of our church. We are delighted that you're worshiping with us today. And if I haven't had a chance to introduce myself to you, I would really, really love to do that. And so I will be at this entrance immediately behind you after our service is over. Please come see me if you would. Acts chapter number eight and verse number one. We live in a world where we are constantly in a spin zone. Some of you can remember when Bill O'Reilly made a lot of money on Fox News saying that his show was a no-spin zone. Spin is what happens when people take a story, a narrative, an event, a viewpoint, and they twist it to accentuate what they view as a positive and to eliminate what they view as a negative. Spin is what happens when your favorite college football coach, leading another losing season, goes to the press conference after yet another loss. And he says to the media and to the fan base, even though we were beat today, we saw a lot of improvement, and this was a moral victory. That is spin, because moral victories do not win championships. Spin is what happens when a politician has a little bit too much to drink and drives his Mercedes through the front of a rest home. And his PR people come out and say, our candidate has made an impact in the local senior community. That is spin. Guys, spin is what happens when you're in an argument with your wife and you try to say, Well, I'm sorry you got your feelings hurt. It may work for the voting public and it may work for a college fan base, but it's not gonna work on your wife, guys, okay? You can't spin your wife. My favorite story of spin that I've ever heard comes from the Korean War, a forgotten period of American history that I think it's important to remember as we celebrate Memorial Day tomorrow. During the Korean War at a place called the Chosen Reservoir, the 10th Marine Division was surrounded, attacked, and assaulted by the communist forces that they were in battle with, almost to the point of absolute destruction. But their general, their commanding officer, General Oliver P. Smith, ordered a strategic withdrawal that saved those Marines and allowed them to, well, live to fight another day. And when he was asked about that withdrawal, the person asking him called it a retreat. And General Smith said this, and you may have heard this quote. He said, retreat, heck. No, he didn't say heck, he was a Marine after all, but we're at church. He said, retreat, heck, we're not retreating, we're attacking in a different direction. Now that embodies the kind of fighting spirit that we do celebrate this Memorial Day. We're not retreating, we're attacking in a different direction. When we read Acts chapter 8, we see a church that should be in retreat. We see a church that is attacked. We see a church that is threatened, that is vulnerable. But we see how God takes what should be a retreat and turns it into an attack in a different direction. Let's read it together today from Acts chapter 8, verse number 1. The word of God says this. Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church, which was at Jerusalem. And they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. And devout men carried Stephen to his burial and made great lamentation over him. As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes, with one accord, heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed, and there was great joy in that city. But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time. But when they believed Philip, as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus, both men and women were baptized, then Simon himself also believed. And when he was baptized, he continued with Philip and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs which were done. Now, when the apostles, who were at Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for as yet he had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money. You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent, therefore, of this your wickedness, and pray God, if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity. And Simon answered and said, Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me. So when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of the Lord abideth forever. It's not a retreat, it's an attack in a different direction. Today, what I want to give you are three lessons that I draw out of this passage for us as believers and for our church today. First, this advance in a totally new direction is unexpected. This is an unexpected advance. Because as we see the church growing, as we see the gospel advancing, as we see new frontiers being crossed and old barriers crashing down, this happens through a body of believers that are suffering. The text opens by taking us back to the death of Stephen, the very first Christian martyr, who at Acts chapter number seven has been proclaiming the message of the gospel and offends a powerful group of people and finds himself the victim of little more than a religiously approved lynch mob. And Stephen is stoned, and Stephen dies. And the passage that we read in Acts chapter number eight opens with the church in verse 2 lamenting his death. This chapter begins with a funeral. It begins with suffering. It begins with pain because a beloved and energetic servant, a competent leader in the church, has had his life snuffed out simply for his faithfulness. Some of you that have been mud creakers for a long, long time, maybe even longer than I have been alive, you remember the Sunday morning in 1980 when you came to church to find out that your beloved pastor, Frank Carter, had been killed in a car accident on Interstate 40 in McDowell County the Saturday night before. And you remember what it was like to come and feel the feelings of shock that your pastor was gone, the feelings of vulnerability, the uncertainty. Now take that same psychological experience and now recognize that in Acts chapter number 8, it's not a freak accident on the side of the interstate, but it is rather a meditated assault as this church is being persecuted. In fact, the word persecute that appears several times in the first few verses of this text is a word that means to hunt. The church is being hunted. They're hunted, but this is not the kind of hunting that y'all do. Guys, this is not sitting in a tree stand waiting for a big eye deer to walk by so that you can blow a 30-caliber hole in its lung. That's not what this is. This is a word that refers to the way that wild predatory animals hunt. Somehow that is both instinctual and yet chaotic. It is violent and it is vicious. And the Bible says that the ringleader of this movement is none other than Saul of Tarsus. Saul and the other religious leaders around him, with Stephen's death, they have gotten a taste for blood and they are hungry for more, so that the Bible says the church in Acts chapter 8 is on the run. In fact, the Bible says two times that they are scattered. Verse number one and verse number four, they are scattered. It looks to be a church in retreat. A church for the first time that is realizing this is going to cost us dearly to follow Jesus. Some may pay with our lives. We're even told that both men and women were being put into prison. Nobody at the church is safe. The RAs aren't safe, the GAs aren't safe, the brotherhood's not safe, the WMU's not safe. We know that the deacons are not safe. Nobody is safe. And they scatter. But when the Bible says that they scatter, recognize that the word for scatter is a word that means to throw seed. Now, some of you guys maybe have a broadcast spreader that you pull behind your John Deere lawn tractor. And it's a contraption that will scatter seed through your garden or through your fields or whatever. But in the days of the Bible, obviously they didn't have John Deere lawn tractors. And so they did this by hand. But that's the idea. This is broadcast spreading of seed. As they walk through their fields and they scatter seed. The church is scattered, but they're scattered with the life-changing message of the gospel that is going to change a city called Samaria. And we'll talk about how that looks when they actually get to Samaria in a moment. But keeping in mind what did happen the great miracles, the great deliverances, the conversions and baptisms, the coming of the Holy Spirit to these new believers, I do want you to realize that all of these great things happened through a broken-hearted, weak, and vulnerable church. Now I want you to hear me today because we have a very American way of looking at the church, because we are, I assume, all very American. And I'm glad that I'm an American. But sometimes we tend to think, well, bigger is better. There has to be a certain amount in the offering plate before we can really accomplish anything for the kingdom of God. We have to have a certain footprint geographically. We have to have a certain amount of likes on our YouTube streaming platform. There has to be a certain amount of a minimum and attraction, and then God can do something with us. Understand me today that God's power is revealed greatest when we are at our weakest. When we are humble and brokenhearted, and we come to God and say, Lord, we do not know what to do. Help! We need your power and not our own strength. And Mud Creek, what is true for churches is also true for us as individual Christians. None of us ever want to embrace our own weaknesses, do we? Some of you are fighting that right now. You're fighting to maintain strength through various difficulties in your life and your family at your job. You're just trying to prove that you've got the answers, and you're trying to prove that you are capable, and you're trying to prove that you are smart enough and strong enough to hold up under that pressure. Stop. And recognize that you are the most useful in the hand of God when you bring the least to the table. When all you can offer God is your own weakness and your own inability, that's when God can use you the greatest. In fact, spoiler alert, as we go forward in Acts, you will find out that the gospel not only goes to Samaria because of persecution, but in Acts chapter 11, you will find that the gospel went to a city called Antioch because of this persecution in Acts chapter 8. And you will find out in Acts chapter 13 that it's the church planted in Antioch because of persecution in Acts 8 that sends the very first Christian missionaries, including the Apostle Paul, who at this point is violently threatening the church. God is able to do more through you in your weakness than he ever could in your strength. And so, Mud Creek, God has done great things for us, whereof we are glad. But let us always be clear. And I pray the last few years have taught us that God did those things in a broken-hearted church. In a church that said, Lord, we don't know what to do other than to pray. But we don't have the answers. We don't have a clear direction. Lord, we don't have the resources we wish we had. And so, Lord, we come to you saying, God, we are weak, God, we are vulnerable. Help. In Mud Creek, let us always say from now to glory that at that moment God answered. God answered. And I want to tell you today, He did answer. You think back over the past few years of this church and what God has done here. And some of you maybe weren't here for all of that. I wasn't here for all of that. But I do want to say to you, if you think back over the men that have surrendered to ministry over the past few years, God did that in a broken-hearted church. Think about the people that have been baptized. God did that in a brokenhearted church. You think about the people that have always maybe kind of just sat back and been on the periphery. You know, there are some people that only come to church on Sunday mornings. But over the past few years, God has taken some of those people on the outskirts and plugged them in as essential volunteers and leaders in our church. God did that in a broken-hearted church. Can I tell you how much God has been doing in our church? I don't know if I can. I don't know if you can handle it. When I interviewed with your search team about becoming the next lead pastor at Mud Creek, they did what search teams always do. They painted the most positive spin on their church possible because they love this place. And why wouldn't they? It's an awesome church. And they said, Oh, there is one thing you should know. I was like, okay, here. Now I wasn't telling them everything about me either. They still don't know. There is one thing. Our church does carry some debt. It's like, okay. Thought I know about debt too. Maybe they forgot something in common. And I asked, I said, what's the total of the debt? And then they told me. And I don't remember exactly what my response was. But I think I swallowed my tongue. And I believe the number at that time was $1.4 million in that ballpark. Because when it's a number's that big, all you can do is get in a ballpark. I mean, like, who knows? And I thought, alright, I'm a hillbilly that grew up in a single wide trailer without a floor in McDowell County. Where I'm from, $1.4 million is a lot of money. And that terrified me and scared me to death. But since God called me here and we came, and many of you know all of the great things that God is doing. You've seen the changes in this thermometer, right? Over the past few years. Mud Creek, I'm going to tell you something incredible today that God has done in a broken-hearted church. Okay? I believe as of our last financial report, our debt had gone from about $1.4 to $208,000. And we give God the glory for every single dime of that. And our church agreed in your last business meeting that you would designate, when we got that number to $100,000, you would designate liquid assets to give to that. And since that time, people have been faithfully giving to the debt, including one person who very generously and graciously gave a very sizable donation. And so Mud Creek Baptist Church, I'm glad to tell you that currently, currently, you have about $200,000 to put towards $208,000 worth of debt. And so that means two things. First, right now in our church is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to give that final chunk to knock it out. But you will be out of debt by the end of June. Understand that. But here's what I want you to hear. God has done that through a broken-hearted church. God did that through people that said, Lord, we need you. And now that we're out of debt, alright? And now that God is doing so many incredible things, let's please don't move beyond that attitude of desperation. Let's never get to the point where we say, Well, Lord, we've got it. We can manage, we know what we're doing. But let's continue to stay in the place where we were a few years ago where we say, Lord, it has to be you. It has to be your power, it has to be for your glory. This was an unexpected advance. But I do want to say, secondly, today, this was an undeniable advance. You read the report of what happened when the gospel goes to Samaria, beginning in verse number four, working through verse number eight and some other verses that come a little bit later. You cannot deny that God was at work in the city of Samaria. Now we look at that and we think, man, that's wonderful, and it is wonderful. But we don't read the Bible through the same lens that the first people who read the Bible read the Bible with. In other words, we don't understand the significance of the message of Jesus going to Samaria. To understand it, you have to go back in time before the events of Acts 8, about a thousand years. So let's take a 3,000-year journey through ancient Near Eastern history, and then I promise you we will come back on the other side. Most of us will come back on the other side to hear the end of the sermon. Thousand years before Jesus, before the church, King David, the great standard golden age leader of Israel, lives and dies. His son Solomon inherits the throne. He's king for 40 years. Like most of us, Solomon is a mixed bag of good and not great. And after Solomon dies, his son by the name of Rehoboam becomes king. David's grandson, Solomon's son, and while Rehoboam is king, the kingdom of Israel fractures into two kingdoms. A large northern kingdom that kept the name of Israel, comprised of ten tribes, and a small southern kingdom that took the name of Judah that was comprised of two tribes. And immediately both kingdoms, north and south, that used to be the unified nation of Israel, they began to rush towards the cliff of disobedience and almost go off the edge of destruction. The southern kingdom of Judah, which is where David's descendants were reigning, in that southern kingdom, though they were headed for destruction and disobedience, at times they would at least pump the brakes. There were even times when they turned the car around and forestalled what was coming. The northern kingdom of Israel just dropped the clutch and went straight off the cliff. But during that intervening process, they took for their capital the city of Samaria. If you remember the prophet Elijah, the wicked king who was king during his life was Ahab. His father Omri is the king that made Samaria the capital of the northern kingdom of Israel. They careen off the cliff of destruction, idolatry, sinful wickedness. It's bad. It's worse than I can describe. Until finally they are conquered in the 8th century BC by the Assyrian Empire. That levels the city of Samaria, levels what was the nation of Israel. If you've heard the story of the ten lost tribes of Israel, these are those ten tribes that were conquered by the Assyrians and basically lost to history. And the destruction of Samaria was so awful that before it happened, the Old Testament prophet Hosea predicted it would look like this. This is Hosea chapter 13 and verse number one. He predicts in Hosea 13, 1, that it will be starvation, parents losing their children, pregnant women being slaughtered. He puts it in the most horrible descriptions of ancient warfare, and that happened. And when the Assyrians conquered Samaria, what they did when they conquered a territory is they took the inhabitants, the Jewish inhabitants of Samaria, and they resettled them through other parts of their empire. Then they took people from other parts of the empire and resettled them in Samaria. And so what you have in Samaria is a mixed bag of people with Jewish ancestry and pagan ancestry, and obviously, if they're hanging out together, their kids are going to start dating, and then they're going to the roller skating rink together, they're going bowling together, they marry and have kids. They've lost their Jewish identity. They lose their religious convictions. They even build their own temple on a place called Mount Gerizer. And they worship the God of the Bible that they reinvent in their own way while incorporating other false gods. Religiously, they're a mess. The Jews in racial prejudice looked at the Samaritans as half-breeds, as mudbloods, as people that were unclean. And over the centuries between the Old Testament and the New Testament, there were various attempts, politically and even militarily, to force them to unite, and it never could happen. So that by the time of Jesus in John chapter 4, the Bible says, in John chapter 4, I believe verse number 19, that the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. You didn't drink from the same water fountain, you didn't ride the same bus. You didn't talk to them if you saw them. If you're walking on the side of the street, you see a Samaritan coming, you cross the other side of the street. They hated them. They wanted nothing to do with them. And yet Jesus had said to the church in Acts chapter 1 and verse number 8 before he ascended that they would take the message of salvation through him to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria. And now as they are scattered through this persecution, God is using this persecution to advance the gospel further than anybody would have ever taken it on their own. Philip, one of the original seven deacons, just says, you know what? I'm going to go to Samaria and I'm going to start telling those unclean, unwanted, unloved people about Jesus. So let me give you two points of application today. Number one, some of you would feel like you are a Samaritan. You feel like you've always been on the outside. Maybe it has to do with class, maybe it has to do with race, maybe it has to do with original language, maybe it has to do with your family of origin. Whatever it is, some of you feel like you've always been unwanted, you've always been unloved, you've always been unwelcome, you've always been made to sit in the back of the bus, you've always been second class. Friends, I want to tell you today there is no second class in the kingdom of God. Jesus came to save sinners. And the one thing that we all have in common is that we're all sinners and that there is a way of salvation through Jesus available for all people. But I'm also preaching to people today that are mostly church folks. And one thing about church folks is that we fall into this trap, often very innocently, very accidentally, of assuming that everybody in the church should look like us and talk like us and think like us. And so sometimes, through just some blind prejudice, we think, you know, we're a white church. I mean, it looks some of y'all are pretty white, I'm just telling you. And I told you a minute ago, McDowell County, hole in the floor, single white trailer, it's pretty white. But it's easy to forget, friends, that Jesus did not establish a white church. He's pursuing all people from all nations, all different skin colors, and we ought to pray that our church looks like our community. Now, Hendersonville is pretty white, but it's not exclusively white. And we should be praying, God, help us to reach those people that are not like us. Sometimes the barriers that exist are like social and economic. Like, some of you have a credit score of six. And you could not get alone to finance a toaster. And maybe you've tried. That's probably why you have a credit score of six. And I'm not making fun of you because, like I said, single-white trader in McDowell County, hole in the kitchen floor, kerosene heater to heat the house with. Y'all are my people. That's me. I mean, you can hear the way I talk, and you know this is him. But it's easy for people like us to think, you know, those doctors, those lawyers, those wealth managers uptown, they're never going to come to our church. They don't want to hear anything about Jesus. They're so successful, they don't need God in their lives, they think. And then some of you, man, you are successful. You are the doctor, the lawyer. You are the wealth manager. And you actually have like commas in your bank accounts. And we're so happy for you in that. And it's easy to think, well, you know, those poor miscreants, maybe we can help them as a church. This paternalism seems in, we'll help them, but they're not really going to come and be with us at Mud Creek Baptist Church. This story should remind us that Jesus sees the people that we do not see. That he cares for the people that may not be on our radar, and that the gospel reaches those that we would never think to reach. We don't naturally think that our lives, whether we're rich, poor somewhere in between, whether we're American, whether we have an origin in another home country. You know, the fact of the matter is that we just don't think about malnourished kids in Haiti very much, do we? It's because we're doing other things. But you know, we have folks in our church right now that are on their way to Haiti to serve malnourished kids. We have missionaries that we partner with, that are reaching Londoners who are busy chasing the Americans with the British, whatever. We have missionaries that are reaching people in the mountains west of Mexico City. Why? Because we believe that the gospel is for all people. And that Mud Creek Baptist Church should be for everybody the gospel is for. And when we take that attitude, what happens? Well, the Bible shows us in Acts chapter 8 and verse number 8 that when the gospel goes to Samaria, there's joy in the city. And you can see why that happens. It happens because demon-possessed people are being delivered. I imagine they're happy about that. I've seen the exorcist, it seems like. Once that's over, that's a good thing. There's sick people that are being healed. It's bringing joy and happiness to the city. And I think this passage of scripture lays that, should lay that before us as a congregation, as a challenge to us. That people in Henderson County should be happier because Mud Creek Baptist Church is here. Legitimately, Henderson County, North Carolina should be a better place to live because there are gospel preaching, gospel-believing churches here. In fact, a number of weeks ago, I was in a setting where I was challenged to think about our church and the vision of our church and all these kinds of things that pastors worry about. And he said, What is a Bible story? What is a Bible verse that captures the essence of your church? And I thought, you know, I've always been partial to the story of the prodigal son. I lived that story, many of you have too. And I pray that our church is a church that welcomes prodigals. I thought we talk at Mud Creek a lot about Acts chapter 1 and verse number 8. You will receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you. You'll be witness to me, Jerusalem, Judas, Samaria, other most parts of the earth. We talk a lot about the Great Commission that we were to go make disciples of all men in every nation, preaching the things that Jesus commanded us to believe in, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We hope those verses animate us. But can I just make a nomination? That maybe God would put Acts chapter 8, verse number 8 on our hearts and say that what we want God to do around us in our vicinity because we are here is we want God to establish true, eternal joy in Jesus, in the hearts of people that do not know him because we're talking about him, and because we love him and because we serve him, that there would be joy in our schools, there would be joy in our businesses, there would be joy in people's lives and in families and in homes in Henderson County because of what he's doing here. And I'll tell you a little way that happened recently in the life of our church. If you have kids in school or grandkids in school in Henderson County, you know they just finished up their school year. Sorry about that, mom and dad, but they're yours for the next couple months. And you know they just had their end of grade testing, they had their EOGs, right? And one of the things that our church has been doing, really for the last school year, at their time when they do EOGs, the time when they do their midterms or whatever they call those, is we've been doing something we call high fives for high scores. The idea is that these kids drag out of bed. A lot of them don't have access to good nutrition. They may not have had breakfast, or they may have just been trifling and didn't eat breakfast. And so we go and we set up camp in one of our local middle schools, and we're there with Pop-Tarts, apples, bananas, granola bars, some of it healthy, some of it not healthy. And get this pastor, Pastor Ray, Miss Jessica, a lot of the folks in our family ministries have been a part of this. And they told me this week, as they did that last week, that one of our local principals told them that since we've been coming, their EOG test scores have increased by 8%. That is Acts chapter 8 and verse number 8 in action. It brings joy to the city. Why? Because there are some eighth-grade teachers that do not want to see those kids again next year. And as those test scores climb, those kids are out the door to high school, and those teachers are so joyful as they begin their summer break. That's basically, with some contextualization, the idea in Acts chapter 8, verse number 8. This is an unexpected advance. It is an undeniable advance. Finally, this morning, this is somewhat uncertain. It's an uncertain advance. And this is where the story takes us, beginning in verse number 9, with that powerful conjunction that interrupts all the positive things that are happening. But there was a man named Simon, who, in all the excitement and all the joy in Samaria, gets swept along in that. We're introduced here to one of the most confusing and complicated men in all the Bible, whose story is deeply unclear. For one thing, it's unclear exactly who Simon is and what he does. The Bible calls him a sorcerer. Maybe your Bible calls him a magician. What does that mean exactly? Well, he's not pulling rabbits out of hats at little kids' birthday parties. He's not like tricking people, saying, I don't know if you've seen this. It's not that kind of thing. There may be an element of illusion and deception in this, but it seems to me pretty clear that there's an element of dark spiritual power at work. Simon may not have been able to understand it or explain it all, but clearly he's doing something that is beyond mere human power, that is giving him power in the city of Samaria. The Bible says people basically worship him. People believe that he has this supernatural influence, and he is an important man in Samaritan culture. I don't know if it's exactly right, but I would compare him maybe to a shaman, a witch doctor, a voodoo priest, something along those lines, okay? This is not just like Dumbledore type stuff. That's a second Harry Potter reference today for those keeping score at home, but there's something evil happening. Yet, when Simon hears the gospel, the Bible says, verse 13, that he believes and is baptized. And that seems like a triumph for Jesus. Seems like, man, this is wonderful. These are like the most unlikely people to get saved, and here he is, he's trusted in Jesus. This is incredible. Let's let him come speak at our next revival, right? Until verse 14. And in verse number 14, the Bible says that the apostles come to town. This is Peter and John. And the reason that these leaders from the church of Jerusalem come is to verify the work of revival that's happening in Samaria. It was spreading like fire. But it was not wildfire. This happened under the supervision of Christ's ordained apostles. And they come and they lay hands on the Samaritans. The Samaritans receive the Holy Spirit as a symbol to both the Jewish leaders and the Samaritan believers that these Samaritans, as different as they have been culturally and historically, they are part of the same church. They have the same Holy Spirit, they have the same faith. They believe the same gospel and worship the same God. They are one church. Despite all of their cultural differences. Well, Simon sees them, lay hands on the Samaritans, they receive the Holy Spirit, and he says, I need to be able to do that. And so he goes to Peter and John and he says, Listen, let me write you a check. And y'all give me the power to do what you just did. This is a worthwhile business investment if I can give people the Holy Spirit. Simon Peter promptly goes off on him in Jesus' name. And he says to him in language that has been very much cleaned up in your English Bible. This is that Marine Corps language we were talking about earlier. Verse number 20, your money perish with you. That's Dr. Horton what he literally says. He'll be happy to tell you. Your money perish with you because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased. Then he says, You do not have heart, you're not part or portion in this matter. He says, You are trapped in the gall of bitterness in a prison of iniquity. He diagnoses Simon's heart by saying, You have spiritual sepsis, you are blind in your sin, and you have not been changed by the power of God. And he said, You need to repent and you need to pray that God will forgive you. I've had preachers step on my toes over the years. Peter just knocks him into the floor with his diagnosis. But what should we take from this story? I think several very, very important points. The Bible says in verse number 13, listen carefully, that Simon believed. The Bible says he believed. And yet clearly, this is a man whose heart has not been changed by Jesus. What do you do with that? I think the only conclusion that you can honestly reach is that not all faith is saving faith. Jesus encountered people like Simon throughout his life who were only attracted to miracles and were only attracted to excitement. He talks about them in the parable of the sowers in Matthew chapter number 13. And he gives us this solemn warning in Matthew chapter 7, verses 21 through 23, where he says, Not all who say to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. But he who does the will of my Father, and then in Matthew 7, 22, he says that many will say to him at the final judgment, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and in your name done many wonderful works? But Jesus will declare to those people who seem outwardly righteous, depart from me, I never knew you. Friends, we need to be clear today that it's possible, like Simon, to get caught up in a rush of emotion, to get swept away in some momentary excitement, to sign a card, to be baptized, like Simon was baptized, to be pressured by parents who want to see us join the church, and yet never be truly converted in our hearts. Now I know today that we don't like hearing that kind of preaching. I don't like doing that kind of preaching. And yet to be honest with you before God is to tell you that it's possible to be comfortable in this, to be excited about this, to enjoy these people that are here and not truly be born again. And we need to consider that today, because for a long time churches in our area have preached a very, very cheap version of the gospel that does not include what Simon Peter includes in his confrontation with Simon the Sorcerer when he says, you need to repent. We've preached a cheap and easy version of the gospel where we've told people that if they'll say a couple of magic words and repeat a one, two, three, and an ABC, that they can have a home in heaven when they die. And it does not matter how they live between the moment of profession and the moment of death, they will absolutely go to heaven, do not pass ago, do not collect $200. Friends, the Bible says to all of us, we must be born again. There must be a supernatural work of the Holy Spirit of God that transforms our heart. And that's what Simon was lacking. How do I know? Because Peter tells him that. Peter says, Your heart is not right. He says, Yes, you have believed in something in some way. And yes, you've been baptized, but Simon, you have not been changed. Why? Because Simon is still thinking of how he can use spiritual power to gain cultural approval and control the Samaritans. Nothing about him has changed. He's just added Jesus to his life and moved on. In other words, Simon is the kind of person who says that he wants Jesus, wants the Holy Spirit, but he wants to control Jesus. And he wants to control the Holy Spirit. He views Jesus as a means to an end. How can I use Jesus to get what my heart really wants? Instead of coming humbly and openly to Jesus, saying, Lord, I'm yours, transform me and make me who you want to be. And I'm deathly afraid, friends, as somebody who's pastored all over the Southeast for the better part of the last 20 years, I'm deathly afraid that in our churches we have created a lot of people just like Simon. And we've rushed to baptize them. We celebrate their profession, and yet there's never been any genuine transformation by the Spirit of God. And some of you are in that place now. You can look back at a time when your parents pressured you into being baptized. You can look back at a time in a revival meeting where all of your friends came forward, and so you thought you had to come forward. And perhaps over the past few weeks or months, you've even been awakened somewhat to the fact that you don't possess your own relationship with the Lord. Well, I would plead with you today the way Simon pled with Simon the sorcerer, repent and pray to God to forgive you. Now, here, Simon Peter is not very hopeful in the case of Simon. He says, pray and maybe God will forgive you. I don't know. I'm gonna go further than Simon Peter did. I know he was an apostle, and I ain't. But I'm gonna go further. And I'm gonna say to you today that no matter what kind of emotional experiences you've had in your past, no matter what happened to you when you were eight years old at Bible school, no matter what happened to you at summer camp, no matter how many ups and downs and ins and outs there have been, if you are here this morning and you are not clear that Jesus is your Savior, if you will come to Him openly and honestly and say, Lord, I do not even understand my own sinful heart, but I'm pleading with you to change me, forgive me and confess me. My Bible still says that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. This book still says that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. And so I would say to you today that you can flee to Christ, run to him, and say, Lord, make me what you want me to be, and he will absolutely hear that. And so I would plead with you, don't leave here today the way Simon the sorcerer seems to leave this story. He just says, Okay, Peter, I don't want that to happen. Please pray for me. Like if you'll tell me that's your situation, I will pray for you, but you need to come to Christ yourself. I can't do that for you. And his arms are open for you to say, Lord, make me of what you want me to be. And really, as you understand the whole story of Acts chapter 8, the gospel going into Samaria, that's what's happening to everybody in this story. The Samaritans are experiencing the life-changing power of Jesus as Jesus makes them who he wants them to be. Simon did not experience it, but he needed it. And the church, too. In the most unexpected ways, is being transformed into what Jesus wanted it to be. And so the invitation today is this some of you are maybe much like those scattered saints in the early part of Acts 8, and you need Jesus to remake you. He can. And he wants to. Maybe you're fighting right now because he is remaking you and it's not comfortable, it's not easy. Perhaps. And I think this will be good for some of you that are members here at Mud Creek, would come and say, Lord, thank you for what you've done here. Thank you for the hardships that have created new opportunities. Thank you for hearing and using a broken-hearted church. Some of you need to come and say, Lord, help us to continue to be humble and brokenhearted before you so that we would be moldable and climbed. Some of you are here like Simon the Sorcerer. And you need to come. Tell one of our pastors I need to repent and pray to God because I'm not sure where I stand within. And we can help you do that.