SPEAKER_01: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know about you, but after that song, before we open God's word, I think we need to pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord God, it's you who teaches us.
SPEAKER_00: By your spirit within us that we are softened, that our hearts are softened, that our minds are opened and made aware of who you are.
SPEAKER_00: That's not something that any human being can accomplish.
SPEAKER_00: So we ask that by the power of your spirit within us, that you would reveal to us the glory of the risen and ascended Lord Jesus Christ from your word.
SPEAKER_00: That we would be transfixed by it on the pages of Scripture this morning, and that we would be changed through the working of the Spirit by your grace and for your glory.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
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SPEAKER_00: If you struggle with that, you can see Webb down here in front after the service, or you can come and see me and we'll help you out with that.
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SPEAKER_00: Well, as you open your Bible to Acts chapter 8, I want you to know that there is far more in this chapter than we can cover in our time together this morning.
SPEAKER_00: So there's much for you to think about and wrestle with, debate, pray about, be challenged by, and try to figure out.
SPEAKER_00: I had a few guys in my office this week for pretty close to an hour trying to answer one question about this text this week, and I'm not sure we answered it.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a lot here that we can wrestle with.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the challenging and controversial issues in this passage, and not just in this passage, but within the church, is discerning whether someone is a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Think about it.
SPEAKER_00: Faith, the act of trusting, is a spiritual exercise.
SPEAKER_00: Meaning the act of trusting is invisible.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot see that.
SPEAKER_00: The decision to exercise faith cannot be observed with the human eye.
SPEAKER_00: Only the results of someone's faith can be observed.
SPEAKER_00: And you've probably experienced questioning the observable results of someone's faith.
SPEAKER_00: That creates negative reactions generally.
SPEAKER_00: Even though the Lord has said that we would know his disciples by the fruit of their lives.
SPEAKER_00: For example, imagine you have a close relative, a child, a parent, a sister, a brother, maybe even a close cousin who at one point in time made a profession of faith in Christ, but their lives haven't displayed a vibrant faith for quite some time.
SPEAKER_00: You might even say they're not walking with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: That's a phrase we often use in the church.
SPEAKER_00: You might get a little prickly and defensive if you are aware of someone's profession of faith, and that profession of faith at some point gets questioned.
SPEAKER_00: You might feel yourself getting defensive.
SPEAKER_00: No, I know they trusted in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: I know it.
SPEAKER_00: I was there in that Sunday school classroom at that vacation Bible school.
SPEAKER_00: I know they made a profession of faith, but their lives do not show it.
SPEAKER_00: These are difficult situations.
SPEAKER_00: They require the Spirit's wisdom, the Spirit's guidance, they require gentleness and patience, because they're difficult issues in following Christ.
SPEAKER_00: They're difficult issues in the functioning of the local church.
SPEAKER_00: For one of the aspects of church discipline in Matthew chapter 18 is to identify whether or not someone is a genuine believer in the Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But take courage, there is nothing new under the sun.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Solomon said.
SPEAKER_00: He was pretty wise, I think.
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing new.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's church was not in existence for very long in the book of Acts before it had to deal with similar challenges.
SPEAKER_00: We are not alone in our experiences.
SPEAKER_00: We might not always have the answers that we want.
SPEAKER_00: We might search, we might wonder, we might ponder, we might search the scriptures to figure out what God intends, what God means, or to find answers to our struggles.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't always find the exactness that we want.
SPEAKER_00: But take courage.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord leaves us with encouragement and guidance.
SPEAKER_00: Our text in the book of Acts for this morning reveals that fact.
SPEAKER_00: Luke shows us that the early church fulfilled the command of Christ to take the good news of his kingdom to the world around them.
SPEAKER_00: But with taking the gospel to the world around them comes complexities and challenges as the church expands.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the central theme of Acts chapter 8 is Christ's expansion of his kingdom work.
SPEAKER_00: He moves people out of the city of Jerusalem so that the gospel will go from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: The church faced persecution in Acts chapter 7 in the beginning of Acts chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: That stress didn't drive the apostles out of the city, but it drove many other people out of the city.
SPEAKER_00: And as we read, a driven man named Saul chased after them.
SPEAKER_00: We will see more of that as we continue on in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: He was not satisfied with Stephen's murder.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted all Christians imprisoned.
SPEAKER_00: He tried to stamp out the newfound Jesus movement.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted it obliterated.
SPEAKER_00: So Luke includes that short statement about Saul at the beginning of chapter 8 to prepare us for the greater inclusion of that individual in the Lord's work that we'll see in chapter 9.
SPEAKER_00: But first, Luke wants to show us that the ascended Christ is acting to fulfill his word.
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you remember.
SPEAKER_00: Acts chapter 1, verse 8, Jesus told the disciples, You will be my disciples when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and to the end of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: So now, leaving Jerusalem because of the persecution, Philip, one of the seven servants from Acts chapter 6, makes his way to Samaria, where there is a significant response to the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: God is acting.
SPEAKER_00: Christ is fulfilling his command.
SPEAKER_00: But that divine work introduces us to one of the guidelines for our faith and the function of the church that comes from Christ fulfilling his word.
SPEAKER_00: The first guideline that we see in this text from Luke introduces us to the reality that Jesus sometimes uses unwelcome circumstances to fulfill his kingdom purposes.
SPEAKER_00: He uses unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: So Stephen, another of the seven servants from chapter six, was martyred after his sermon.
SPEAKER_00: He was taken out of the city, probably most likely tossed over the side of a cliff where his body would be crushed by the stones and the rocks up below him.
SPEAKER_00: And if he survived that, then they would take rocks and throw them down the cliff and pelt him with them until they died.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Why was Stephen murdered in such a heinous way?
SPEAKER_00: Because he had the audacity to proclaim that Jesus was the fulfillment of God's promises, and that anyone who does not trust in the Lord Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of God's promises is left out of God's program.
SPEAKER_00: Stephen's death put a young, zealous Pharisee at the center of a great persecution among Christians.
SPEAKER_00: So Acts chapter 8, verses 1 through 4 recounts that first persecution of Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And Luke says it's great.
SPEAKER_00: Not just a little thing, not just against one or two people, but this is against the church, the whole church in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: It numbers thousands of people as at this point in time.
SPEAKER_00: And many people, he says, are scattered from their homes, driven out of the city due to Saul's hatred of Jesus and his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Luke reminds us, Christians were dragged off and put in prison.
SPEAKER_00: Generally, women were not imprisoned in this kind of a situation.
SPEAKER_00: That probably hints that because there were such a great number of both men and women, both sexes were taken off to prison.
SPEAKER_00: These are not welcome circumstances in the life of the church.
SPEAKER_00: They're not welcome circumstances in the lives of the individual Christians who are dragged off and imprisoned.
SPEAKER_00: Now we're not told how many were impacted.
SPEAKER_00: We're not told how long they were imprisoned or if there were any other painful circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: But I think we can agree that these are undesirable circumstances from the lives of those people.
SPEAKER_00: It would not be enjoyable to be dragged out of your home, away from your family, and imprisoned.
SPEAKER_00: It would not be enjoyable to face such pressure that you felt that you had to leave your home and go somewhere.
SPEAKER_00: Who knows where?
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't even touch on the emotional and physical trials those followers of Jesus experienced.
SPEAKER_00: Their fellow Jews persecuted them for believing that Jesus was the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: They were hunted because they believed in the fulfillment of God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: But did you notice that nothing negative is recounted from those people?
SPEAKER_00: What do I mean by that?
SPEAKER_00: Of course, the ravaging of the church, the chasing down of Christians, being dragged off to jail.
SPEAKER_00: Those are not positive experiences.
SPEAKER_00: But we are not told anywhere in this count that the church, that the people themselves were discouraged.
SPEAKER_00: We are not told that they were anxious.
SPEAKER_00: We are not told that they were weighed down.
SPEAKER_00: We are not told that they complained.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing like that appears.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we are told that as they went out from the city wherever they went, they proclaimed Christ's word wherever they went.
SPEAKER_00: Being driven from home and fleeing for safety to who knows where would be unwelcome and unpleasant.
SPEAKER_00: But that's not Luke's focus.
SPEAKER_00: Persecution became the means of expanding the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: It became God's method of motivating believers to go out, to speak of Jesus, to create new believers, new groups of Christians who become the church.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus used persecution for the good of his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so Luke wants us to see and believe that Jesus is acting to fulfill his purpose.
SPEAKER_00: And that purpose has not concluded.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is still acting to fulfill his purpose today.
SPEAKER_00: And he uses the unwelcome circumstances of your life to accomplish that work.
SPEAKER_00: These truths lay some foundational guides for the Lord's churches and us as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Because the unwelcome circumstances that we endure may be the exact means of God expanding his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: You ever considered that?
SPEAKER_00: It may be the way that God causes us to come into contact with someone who needs to hear about Christ.
SPEAKER_00: It may be his means of expanding his work in places and in ways that we can't begin to imagine.
SPEAKER_00: So work through the painful, unwelcome circumstances of life and trust that Jesus promised to build his church.
SPEAKER_00: And even your unwelcome circumstances of life will not stop his work.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it may be the opposite, it may be the fuel that motivates continuing it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus may use unwelcome circumstances in your life to drive you to take the gospel somewhere that you had no idea it was going to go, or to someone who needs to hear it that you've never met before.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: This last week, before the freezing cold, we had some warmer weather that made the streets all mushy.
SPEAKER_00: And what ends up happening is your windshield just gets all splattered and covered.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're like me, you find yourself doing this at times, trying to see through it.
SPEAKER_00: That's what unwelcome circumstances can be like in the life of a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: We have to work to peer through those situations to see the hand of God at work, to see that there are kingdom opportunities before us because often all we see is what's right in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: So we have to put in effort to peer through that to see what Christ is doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Luke is doing in this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: Look more to what Jesus might be doing than to your pain and sorrow and discomfort and anxiety.
SPEAKER_00: See, our complaining about painful, unwelcome circumstances comes from self-centered earthly sight.
SPEAKER_00: We look at what's around us, we look at what we are enduring.
SPEAKER_00: But we must be kingdom-minded first and foremost.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we see these early believers being and doing.
SPEAKER_00: Only then can we righteously and beneficially endure life.
SPEAKER_00: Like Stephen and like Philip.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that the essence of Paul's later statement to the Philippians?
SPEAKER_00: He says, For me, to live is Christ, and to die is game.
SPEAKER_00: But there's a second guideline for our faith and the church's functioning here, and that is related to proclaiming the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Proclaiming the gospel reconciles people and it restores broken image bearers.
SPEAKER_00: We see here that Philip went down to the city of Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what city that is.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know exactly where it is.
SPEAKER_00: It's just in the region of Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: And he's just walking around proclaiming Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He gathers crowds as a result of it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Jerusalem and the surrounding region of Judea were Jewish territories composed mainly of Jewish nationals or what we often refer to as Hellenistic Jews who had returned to their country.
SPEAKER_00: Hellenistic refers to Jews born outside of Jerusalem, living outside of Jerusalem and Judea, whose native language was Greek rather than Aramaic or Hebrew.
SPEAKER_00: Most of them, some of them have returned to Jerusalem and Judea where they've come to know Christ now and are incorporated into the church.
SPEAKER_00: Samaria, right next to Judea, was neither Jew nor Hellenistic Jew, nor Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't anything.
SPEAKER_00: It was a region avoided by Jews, and some, by some accounts, there was an ugly kind of racism towards Samaritans among the Jews of the time.
SPEAKER_00: You know, in kind of derogatory terms, we might refer to them as half-breeds.
SPEAKER_00: They were partly Jewish and partly Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: If you look over at Luke 17, but in the middle of the chapter, you'll see that Jesus refers to them as foreigners.
SPEAKER_00: They're not part of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: But Samaritans viewed themselves sort of as the rejected sibling.
SPEAKER_00: They saw themselves as the rejected but restored remnant of the lost tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: They were driven out by the Assyrian war machine.
SPEAKER_00: Some of them were left, they intermarried with Gentile peoples, and so they're a mixed race, half Jew, half Gentile.
SPEAKER_00: And so, along with the Jews, then, they believed themselves to be heirs of God's promises.
SPEAKER_00: So if you put the Jewish perspective and the Samaritan perspective together, you get an exacerbated perversion of the Jewish faith.
SPEAKER_00: For example, the Samaritans opposed the southern tribes of the Jews returning from exile in Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: They opposed the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple.
SPEAKER_00: Because they were not accepted as Israel and as Jewish, the Samaritans rejected the Jewish temple and built their own on top of Mount Gerizim.
SPEAKER_00: The Samaritans believed in a Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: They called him the Tahib from Deuteronomy.
SPEAKER_00: They believed that he would come and restore Samaria, restore the northern tribes of Israel.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, the woman at the well in John chapter 4 that Jesus meets, the Samaritan woman, she confessed to him that she believed that the Messiah was coming.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus says to her, Yeah, it's me.
SPEAKER_00: A problem, though, is that the Samaritans only accepted the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: That was their Bible.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't have the other books of the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected all of the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: So all of the information that the prophets give about the future work of God that could bring clarity to their faith and their religion, they didn't believe in any of that.
SPEAKER_00: They rejected it all.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Samaritans continually opposed the Jews.
SPEAKER_00: The Jews who all the time insisted that the only proper and true worship was at their temple in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And so neither group welcomed the other.
SPEAKER_00: They lived side by side, but they hated each other.
SPEAKER_00: Enter Jesus the Messiah who has the audacity to not only speak to a Samaritan woman but to lead her to faith in him as a Jew.
SPEAKER_00: And now you have Philip, a Hellenistic Jew, a Greek-speaking Jew, going to a city of Samaria and telling them about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus begins to restore these half-Jus from their centuries of idolatry, of their rejection of God's word and their false worship by taking the good news to Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: And he unites them with Jews, not in Jerusalem, not in the temple, but in himself in spirit and in truth.
SPEAKER_00: Those who heard Philip's message and believed in Jesus were no longer half-breeds, but brothers and sisters in the faith.
SPEAKER_00: They are restored image-bearers reflecting the true king of Israel, of united Israel.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the greatest of the early church's apologists was a Samaritan.
SPEAKER_00: Justin Martyr, if you've heard his name.
SPEAKER_00: One of the main reasons God withheld the Holy Spirit from these new believers until Peter and John came down was to confirm that new unity.
SPEAKER_00: The apostle, so Philip is a Hellenistic Jew.
SPEAKER_00: He's not an apostle, he's one of the six seven servants, six servants.
SPEAKER_00: He takes the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Now the Jewish, fully Jewish apostles come down and confirm, yes, this is an act of God incorporating these rejected Samaritans into the people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Those who were not my people are now my people, kings and priests to God.
SPEAKER_00: And the proof of that is that God now gives them the Holy Spirit through Peter and John, confirming their acceptance into the church.
SPEAKER_00: And by the way, good old John.
SPEAKER_00: You remember John, John's nickname?
SPEAKER_00: With his brother, sons of thunder.
SPEAKER_00: I love John.
SPEAKER_00: John was the guy who, with Jesus, when he was rejected by the Samaritans, asked Jesus, Hey, hey, Lord, would you like us to call down fire and brimstone from heaven to destroy them?
SPEAKER_00: The guy who wanted the Samaritans destroyed is now the guy who's asking God to confirm their incorporation into his church by giving them the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You see what God's doing?
SPEAKER_00: From his heavenly throne, Jesus is proclaiming the gospel to people and restoring them to himself first and then to one another, verifying that this is his work.
SPEAKER_00: So when we combine Jesus' outreach to the woman at the well in John's gospel with the people who trusted in him as a result of her testimony, and now those who are believing in him through Philip's ministry, we begin to see an increased restoration of broken and unfaithful Israel.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, do you see how the gospel gives us hope?
SPEAKER_00: Even amid unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: The gospel is not a magic wand.
SPEAKER_00: It just instantly fixes things.
SPEAKER_00: But it is the power of Jesus to work at restoring his world by turning it back to him and then restoring broken relationships within his world.
SPEAKER_00: So notice then what impacts the world.
SPEAKER_00: Good works of all kinds are positive.
SPEAKER_00: They're generous, helping the poor, serving widows, community projects of all kinds.
SPEAKER_00: Those are all fantastic acts of kindness and generosity that display the character of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: But it is the word of Christ that changes people.
SPEAKER_00: It is the gospel's content, faith in Jesus Christ that restores and reconciles broken people.
SPEAKER_00: All Philip does is try to find a new place to live.
SPEAKER_00: He's driven out of his home, he leaves, and as he goes, he's telling people about the good news of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks of the hope that is found in Jesus the Messiah.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks of the power of his death, burial, and resurrection, and the power that brings people into a right relationship with God that overcomes the most unwelcome of circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: We don't see him whining and complaining about the persecution of this guy named Saul.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we see him proclaiming the hope that is in Jesus in the midst of unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: It's the power of God for salvation to those who believe.
SPEAKER_00: That introduces us to a third guideline for our faith and function as a church.
SPEAKER_00: And that is that proclaiming the gospel pits the power of God against the power of this dark world.
SPEAKER_00: Beginning in verse 9, we see Simon the magician occupying a dominant portion of the chapter because he's a dominant person.
SPEAKER_00: As a magician, Simon is involved in the occult.
SPEAKER_00: He's not going around performing sleight of hand tricks and all kinds of illusions that can be explained in some manner.
SPEAKER_00: Simon works in the spirit world as a kind of shaman.
SPEAKER_00: So for a fee, that's how he made his living.
SPEAKER_00: For a fee, he would perform spells to protect people, call down curses, bring good luck and other related things.
SPEAKER_00: He's a practitioner of the dark arts.
SPEAKER_00: And he's so effective that he's called great and the power of God.
SPEAKER_00: There is historical evidence suggesting that those terms make people think that he is God.
SPEAKER_00: That he is the power of God in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: So great that everyone pays attention to him.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_00: His power amazed people.
SPEAKER_00: Now Luke doesn't tell us if the people were amazed out of fear or awe.
SPEAKER_00: It may have been both.
SPEAKER_00: The Samaritans were likely afraid of being on the wrong side of Simon's power.
SPEAKER_00: But perhaps in awe of it if they benefited from his power.
SPEAKER_00: But it's clear to everyone that Simon's power is not human.
SPEAKER_00: It's a spiritual power that exceeds human ability.
SPEAKER_00: It's the power in the region.
SPEAKER_00: That means it was a spiritually dark region ruled by the powers of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: So Philip fled from the fire into the frying pan.
SPEAKER_00: He left Jerusalem because of the persecution of Saul, and he walks right into Satan's den.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't life feel like that sometimes?
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't it feel like there are times in life when one unwelcome circumstance is followed by another and another and another?
SPEAKER_00: That's our human reality.
SPEAKER_00: But Luke, Luke wants us to lift our eyes beyond the human level to see the realm in which Jesus is working.
SPEAKER_00: You see, in God's purposes, unwelcome and painful circumstances are opportunities to refocus from what's right in front of us, from the human to the spiritual plane of God's work.
SPEAKER_00: Luke shows us that by having Philip walk right into the lion's den.
SPEAKER_00: Philip took the power of God into Satan's lair.
SPEAKER_00: Who will come out victorious?
SPEAKER_00: The power of God or Simon's power.
SPEAKER_00: Simon, of all people, is the one who points us to the real power at work.
SPEAKER_00: He's motivated when he sees the true power of God on display.
SPEAKER_00: He immediately wants this true power.
SPEAKER_00: So we're told at the beginning of this section that he believes.
SPEAKER_00: Along with all the other people, he's intently focused on Philip's message and he believes and he's baptized and he follows Philip in discipleship for some time.
SPEAKER_00: That seems genuine.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing there would cause us to question the genuineness of Simon the magician's faith.
SPEAKER_00: Before, everyone was amazed at his power.
SPEAKER_00: Now he is amazed at the signs and great miracles accompanying Philip.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, God's power is always greater than the enemy's power.
SPEAKER_00: Always, without doubt, without question, God's power is always greater than the enemy's power.
SPEAKER_00: Always believe that.
SPEAKER_00: Always trust in that.
SPEAKER_00: God's power, no matter how great Satan's power is, God's power is always greater.
SPEAKER_00: Simon understands very clearly when he comes face to face with the power of God displayed through Philip that this is something that he does not possess.
SPEAKER_00: It's a power greater than the powers of darkness that he has served.
SPEAKER_00: It is a power that gives life, not death.
SPEAKER_00: It's a power of hope and eternity, not uncertainty and for the moment.
SPEAKER_00: This is an episode of God overcoming the powers of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, Simon's desire for power introduces us to a final guideline for our faith and function as a church.
SPEAKER_00: And that is that the Word of Christ creates unwelcome circumstances to motivate us.
SPEAKER_00: First, to motivate us to make sure about the sincerity of our faith and then to motivate us to good works.
SPEAKER_00: This unwelcome circumstance here with Simon differs from the persecution and the fleeing from Jerusalem at the beginning of this chapter in verses one through five.
SPEAKER_00: It's different.
SPEAKER_00: It results here from the word of Christ impacting people.
SPEAKER_00: So speaking about Jesus, Philip speaking with the Samaritan people, brings people into contact with God's power in salvation.
SPEAKER_00: God accompanies that for confirmation with other kinds of miraculous signs to demonstrate that he is the power that these people need.
SPEAKER_00: Not Simon's power, God's power.
SPEAKER_00: But that transforming power introduces other unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: That's important for us to recognize because we think sometimes wrongly that bringing the gospel into an area or bringing somebody to faith in Christ is going to fix everything.
SPEAKER_00: It may fix some things, but it's also going to introduce other unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: You see, even though the power of Jesus enters a region to begin wrestling it from the hands of Satan, he has not yet returned to this earth to remove sin from his world.
SPEAKER_00: Sin still exists, it is still present, it is still exerting influence, and sin brings unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: We see here that the sinful desire for power still dominates Simon's heart.
SPEAKER_00: So when Peter and John come, and he sees that with them laying their hands on people and asking the Lord to give them the Holy Spirit, they receive the Holy Spirit in verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: So Simon wants immediately the power to confer the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He wants the power to be able to give the Holy Spirit to anybody he wants.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be an authoritative, powerful person like an apostle.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he wants to possess spiritual power for the wrong reasons by the wrong method.
SPEAKER_00: You know that sin can be ironic sometimes?
SPEAKER_00: In the upper room at the Last Supper, Jesus took off his outer garment and wrapped a towel around himself and started washing the disciples' feet.
SPEAKER_00: No way you're gonna wash my feet, Lord! That's a slave's job.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus said to Peter, Peter, you don't let me wash your feet.
SPEAKER_00: You have no part in me.
SPEAKER_00: Peter gets the message because he instantly responds with, Well, then give me a bath all over.
SPEAKER_00: I want to have full part of you.
SPEAKER_00: That's Old Testament language of Israel's possession of their inheritance in the promised land and their inheritance and right to be part of God's people.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus applies that to Peter, and he says, Listen, Peter, if you don't receive forgiveness of sins from me, you have no part in what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter instantly responds with apparent genuineness, saying, No, Lord, oh, oh, okay, then please wash me.
SPEAKER_00: Simon Peter uses the exact phrase for this Simon.
SPEAKER_00: Saying, verse 21, You have neither part nor lot in this matter.
SPEAKER_00: For your heart is not right before God.
SPEAKER_00: Simon Peter understood the need to be cleansed of his sin by the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: But did Simon the magician one Simon calls the other Simon to repent and ask the Lord to forgive him?
SPEAKER_00: But we don't see Simon the magician doing that.
SPEAKER_00: He instead asks Peter to do that for him.
SPEAKER_00: So what is this unwelcome circumstance?
SPEAKER_00: In a word, it's sin.
SPEAKER_00: Sin can cloud our clarity about the sincerity of another's confession.
SPEAKER_00: Sin can obscure our understanding of somebody else's faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now it might be your sin, it might be my sin, where something is going on in our lives where we are not walking in the Spirit and so not able to perceive things correctly.
SPEAKER_00: In this case, it's sin in Simon's life.
SPEAKER_00: At the beginning of this section, we have three statements that very clearly state he believed, he was baptized, and he followed in discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: What's more clear than that?
SPEAKER_00: And now at the end, we have Simon Peter saying, I understand what it means to have a part in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I've been there, done that.
SPEAKER_00: But I can see in your heart that you don't have part in this at all.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_00: Now, on the one hand, here's an apostle saying this about somebody else.
SPEAKER_00: None of us are apostles, so don't be hesitant to say that.
SPEAKER_00: But what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_00: Looking at the end of this passage makes us seriously question the genuineness of Simon the magician's faith.
SPEAKER_00: Because sinful desires still dominate his heart.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter employed language of belonging, suggesting that Simon does not belong.
SPEAKER_00: But if he didn't belong, why didn't Peter tell him to genuinely trust in Jesus instead of seeking forgiveness for this sin?
SPEAKER_00: Did Simon repent?
SPEAKER_00: We're not told.
SPEAKER_00: Luke doesn't tell us.
SPEAKER_00: That's frustrating.
SPEAKER_00: So what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_00: Do we go with the beginning?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, there was a profession of faith, and he even showed a demonstration of following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Or do we go with the apostolic command at the end that you have neither part nor lot in this matter because your heart is not right?
SPEAKER_00: What do we do?
SPEAKER_00: Where does the balance tip?
SPEAKER_00: We could argue both ways.
SPEAKER_00: I take the position that Luke wants us to remain uncertain.
SPEAKER_00: I take the position that someday some of us might be surprised to spend eternity with Simon in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, some of us might be surprised that Simon is not in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Luke could have made it crystal clear if he wanted to.
SPEAKER_00: But he chose not to.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: I suggest that it continues the pattern of unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Because as human beings, especially as Christians living together within the church, we want to have things cut and dried.
SPEAKER_00: We want to have things very clear.
SPEAKER_00: Anytime it's muddy or uncertain, we start to get a little uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: And as the Lord's church grows, as local churches grow and change, new people are going to be impacted by the power of God in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes sin will impede genuine faith.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes someone will make a verbal profession, say, Yes, I believe in Jesus, when their heart is not anywhere close to genuine faith.
SPEAKER_00: So it may look like it on the outside, but it's not that way on the inside.
SPEAKER_00: And the reverse may be true, where on the outside it doesn't really sound like they're really understanding the gospel, like they're really believing in Jesus, but on the inside, a transformation is taking place that we cannot see in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes sin will lead us to question the genuineness of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Simon's sin clouds the glory of the gospel that's impacting Samaria.
SPEAKER_00: And that unwelcome circumstance may occur in your life or in our church.
SPEAKER_00: Our sin, another's sin, may cloud our clarity of their faith at one moment in time or for a period of time, or maybe the whole length of their lives.
SPEAKER_00: So, what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_00: On the one hand, we do what Luke did.
SPEAKER_00: We leave it with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Luke doesn't make it clear, so on the one hand, we should be careful about making a definitive statement about somebody being a believer or not a believer if their life has questions.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, we do what Peter did.
SPEAKER_00: We call out the sin, we seek repentance, and turn them to Jesus again.
SPEAKER_00: Rinse, lather, repeat.
SPEAKER_00: As long as there are questions in the life of a person who has made a profession of faith and their life does not demonstrate it, like Simon's, we call out the sin, we lead them to repentance, and we point them to Jesus again and again and again.
SPEAKER_00: That's the gospel, friends.
SPEAKER_00: We are always in need of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: You are never beyond the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: And so then we are motivated to check our faith and to pursue good works, not through selfish motivations, but through a desire to speak of Jesus so that his powerful word might bring life to unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: We may not always have the answers about other people's faith.
SPEAKER_00: But we can keep calling them to repentance about sin in the moment, about not following Jesus faithfully, whatever the case may be, we can always keep on pointing them to Jesus, reminding them of who he is, and making sure in the moment that our hearts are right before the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know that?
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus did it with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: He said to Peter, listen, dude.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't receive me in this way, then you don't have any part in this.
SPEAKER_00: That was a calling for Peter to repent.
SPEAKER_00: Repent of what?
SPEAKER_00: His inadequate understanding of the person of Jesus Christ, who came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
SPEAKER_00: Peter has learned his lesson.
SPEAKER_00: John has learned his lesson after desiring to destroy these evil people who would dare challenge his master.
SPEAKER_00: And now he understands God is working.
SPEAKER_00: God is working to reunite and restore people into image bearers for him.
SPEAKER_00: Luke wants us to see that Jesus will fulfill his word.
SPEAKER_00: He's working right now in every in any situation, even in your unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Look for it.
SPEAKER_00: Look for it even amidst the cloudy windshields of life.
SPEAKER_00: Trust in Christ's work patiently, even through unwelcome circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: Keep following Him obediently, keeping your heart from all evil, for it belongs to your King.
SPEAKER_00: And you will find Christ working amid unwelcome circumstances and even disingenuous faith to fulfill his purpose and to build his church.
SPEAKER_00: And one day he will return and reveal all who have genuinely trusted in him.
SPEAKER_00: Keep pursuing him, keep pointing people to Jesus until the end.
SPEAKER_00: We get so impatient with life sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we we get so caught up with what's going around us that we get burdened about our lives and still instead of seeing what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Oh remove, remove those hindrances from us and allow us to see what you are doing, to speak of you more boldly, more confidently, unendingly, until you return.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, when things get hard and we have questions that we have that aren't answered, cause our hearts to trust you.
SPEAKER_00: That you know what you're doing and that you will do what is right, even to the very end.
SPEAKER_00: For you said that you will build your church beginning in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And you have graciously called us to be a part of that.
SPEAKER_00: Enable us to be a greater part of your power restoring your world to yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_01: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.