Acts 8:1-25

Discussion Questions

• As we watch the early church continue to grow, we see a group of committed believers who were not perfect, but were vital, growing, and full of joy. Can this be said of us today, as Jesus continues to build and grow His church?
• What do we pay attention to? What does this say about the inclination of our hearts? Why does what we choose to give our attention to have such an enormous impact on us? Are we committed as a church to choosing to pay attention together to the timeless truths of the Gospel?
• As the wildfire-like spread of the Gospel continued, we see that it was largely propelled not by credentialed scholars, but by ordinary, faithful followers of Jesus. Do we think of ourselves as being actively on mission, fully equipped to engage, exhort, and encourage those around us? How can we cultivate this kind of missional mindset? What might this look like in the context of our daily lives?

Transcript

Well, we do preach through books of the Bible here at The Village Chapel. If you want a paper copy of the text, lift up your hand, someone will bring one to you. It’ll be good to have the text in front of you as we continue our study of The Acts of the Apostles, I also want to welcome all those who are worshiping with us online, wherever you might be. May the same Spirit that we just sang about move among you. So, at the start of this year, we did begin our study of the book of Acts, Luke’s meticulous account of the early church. I think in the pages of Acts, we see Luke giving us a description of the character of the earliest group of believers who are given power by the Holy Spirit to preach Jesus, to cast out demons, to heal the sick, which propelled remarkable growth in Jerusalem.

That’s where we find ourselves in the text here today. So, if you remember, in Jerusalem we had first 120 believers, then it grew to 3000 when Peter preached, then 5000 men and perhaps 15 to 20,000 when you include women and children. The hope of Jesus had found fertile soil in that city there in Jerusalem. Not perfect. If you were studying with us in chapter six, they were already arguing about food, not perfect, but the church was full of vitality and full of life. But if you’ve studied revivals throughout history, the Great Awakening, the Welsh revivals, the Celtic revivals, or what we see in our text, a great move of God there often is combined, paired great blessing along with great resistance. Our study last week ended at a turning point in this story, the resistance of this jealous, religious council, the Sanhedrin, the supreme Court of Israel at the time. Their anger grew to such a fever pitch that, like a frenzied mob, they executed what we call the first Christian martyr: Stephen. And the text tells us that all those in Jerusalem began to scatter, and many of them began to scatter outside of Jerusalem.

Today we’re going to study Acts, Chapter 8, so turn there in your Bible and put your finger there in Chapter 8, but, if you would, go back to Chapter 1, just for a minute. We’re going to look at Chapter 1, verse 8. If you remember at the beginning of our study, Jesus Himself establishes a mission for His disciples after the Holy Spirit is poured out on them. We’ll put it up on the screen as well. “But you [Jesus, is talking to the disciples.] …will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.” Where? In Jerusalem. That’s where we are now. “…and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” That’s to all the Gentile areas, including here in Tennessee. So, the text told us last week that many believers scattered outside of Jerusalem, after Stephen’s death, and they go precisely where Jesus said they would go. And the mission actually flourishes. And what I think one of the greatest evidences of the Christian faith is found in our text here this morning. Watch for it.

The wildfire-like spread of the Gospel of Jesus flourished even after life-threatening persecution. They literally stoned Stephen. What that meant is they threw Stephen down into a pit about twice the size of a man and threw rocks at him, and the text tells us he died. And even then, any other movement, I think, would have been quashed unless it was empowered by the Spirit of God sent out by Christ Himself through the power of the Spirit. Why did it flourish? Well, because these early group of believers, 15 to 20,000 here in Jerusalem, they knew and they believed in the risen Jesus. Many of them had seen the resurrected and ascended Lord. Many had seen the Holy Spirit fall at Pentecost, transforming hearts, bringing unity between men and women of different classes and languages, bringing back spiritually dead men and women; they had seen it with their own eyes. They’d been witnesses.

Why would they risk their lives for a lie? Why would they risk their lives for some fancy new spirituality? Why would they risk their lives for a fresh vibe, as the kids say these days? No, no, no, they risked their lives because in Jesus they had found their greatest need. They had found in Jesus their deepest longing; their greatest treasure was Him, and they were full of the Holy Spirit. The text tells us they couldn’t help but tell others about the love of God they found in Jesus. If you’d allow me, let me pray and ask the Spirit to illuminate His Word for us. Turn there to Chapter 8 if you haven’t already. Let me pray: Heavenly Father, we come to You with our Bibles open. May You open Your word to us and open us to Your Word, and may Your Holy Spirit indeed bring new life. May Your Spirit convict and comfort and point us to our only hope in life and death, Jesus Christ. And Church, we all said “Amen.”

Chapter 8. Actually, I’m going to go back just a few verses, if you don’t mind. Verse 58 of Chapter 7. Let’s just get a little context here. So, Chapter 7, verse 58: “Then they cast him [that’s Stephen] out of the city, and they stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. And as they were stoning Stephen, he called out, ‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.’ And falling to his knees, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them.’ [with a loud voice so they could hear it.] And when he had said this, he fell asleep.” And I think there’s such grace in the way that Luke describes death. They’re asleep and the New Testament does this. Often people who go to sleep can be awakened again. When Stephen passed away, he went to be with his lord immediately. But someday his body, along with ours, will be resurrected. When our Jesus, when our Lord Jesus, returns. Chapter 8: “And Saul approved of his [of Stephen’s] execution. And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.” And I would underline that, “except the apostles.” We’re going to come back to that.

I think there’s an important point Luke is making here. But picture in your mind, in the background here, what is going on. Stephen is executed, again 15 to 20,000 believers, perhaps more, in Jerusalem. All of a sudden there was great chaos, persecution, greater persecution, and people flee out of Jerusalem. There’s literally refugees. “Devout men [verse 2] buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church.” More description of what’s going on here in this city. “And entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.” This is a very fearful time for the people of God there in Jerusalem. “Now, those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ,” the Messiah. And I’m going to put a map up on the screen to help situate us geographically. Well, the right-hand side is kind of a broader image. The left-hand side, it’s zoomed in.

When you think of ancient Israel, you can actually divide it up roughly into three different segments. Down in the south you have Judea. That’s where Jerusalem is. And then the middle third you have Samaria, and then the top third, you have Galilee. So, Judea, Samaria, and Galilee. And you can see where we are now. So, there’s persecution in Jerusalem, and they scatter out, and now they are in Samaria. Verse 6: “And the crowds with one accord there in Samaria paid attention to what was being said by Philip, when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.” Underline that phrase, “…they paid attention.” Luke is going to emphasize this three times. Paying attention is actually very critical to the health of our souls. What were they paying attention to? They were paying attention to Philip. Why? Verse 7: “…For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city. But there was a man named Simon, [Not Peter. This is a different Simon.] who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. That should be ringing bells in our mind, not good. Verse ten. And they all paid attention to him.” There it is again. Underline that “,,,they all paid attention to him from the least to the greatest.”

That’s everybody saying, this man is the power of God. They were enamored with the spiritual celebrity. “This man is the power of God that is called Great. And they paid attention [ There it is again] to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.” Now, we don’t know a whole lot about Simon or what it means by magic. It could be that he was cooperating with the occult or demons. It’s possible, it also could be that he was a sleight of hand, you know, kind of an illusionist. Either way, I think what this does is it describes, it gives us an indication, of the disposition, the spiritual climate, if you will, of Samaria. I heard somebody say this week, when people are parched for water, they’re thirsty desperately thirsty. They’ll drink anything. And I think Samaria here is a pretty dark place, actually. I think they were hungry. They were thirsty for something, and they gave their attention to this man Simon the magician. I think it tells us a little bit about what’s going on there in Samaria.

Verse 12: “But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized both men and women.” It’s so important here. Women at that time where we’re seeing are property, essentially, and Luke and the rest of the New Testament, elevates women. He’s including them right here. “Even Simon himself [the magician] believed, and after being baptized, he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.” Simon was the one who called himself great. And Simon now is amazed by the great power that he’s seeing through the power of the Holy Spirit. “Now when the apostles at Jerusalem had heard that Samaria had received the word of God, [that they were receptive to it] they sent to them Peter and John.” So that the group of apostles in Jerusalem who were kind of giving oversight to the growing community there, send down Peter and John to check it out, to make sure what’s going on down there. Are they really receiving the word of God? Verse 15: “Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they [Peter and John] laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.”

We’ll take a side road here for this. And then it’s kind of a puzzling passage if you’ve been a believer for a while. It tells us that the people in Samaria believed. It tells us that they were baptized, but the Spirit isn’t sent until later. The Spirit is delayed providentially for some reason, and I think this is actually supposed to be that way. There’s actually something unusual about what’s going on here. First of all, the clear teaching in the New Testament for all believers to the rest of the New Testament is that when you come to saving faith in Jesus Christ, you are immediately indwelt with the Holy Spirit. That is typically what happens. But there’s something unique that is going on here. And I think that for a couple of reasons. One: there’s great animosity between the Samaritans and the Jews for 700 years. Bigotry, racial and ethnic prejudice between the Samaritans and the Jews. Think back to our study of the gospel of Luke. John, the same John that we see here, and his brother James were with Jesus, and they left this Samaritan town. And do you remember that Samaritan town?

And actually, he decided to they were not going to follow the word of God. They rejected Jesus and His message. And so, John and James both go to Jesus and say, “Should we call fire down upon that city?” That’s the kind of animosity, animus, that we see here. But now that same John, along with Peter, comes down and they put their hands on these Samaritans and call and invite the Holy Spirit to fall. What’s really unique about this is, number one, I think we’re seeing Jesus’s commission that you’re going to go to Jerusalem, you’re going to go to Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the Earth. And here we are coming out of Jerusalem into Samaria. And there’s a mark here. There’s something that Stott would call the Samaritan Pentecost. And later we’re going to see the Gentile Pentecost. There’s something unique in redemption history. But I also think that the Holy Spirit wants to show Peter and John and wants to show the Samaritans that what’s going on here is important. There isn’t one church in Jerusalem and a different church in Samaria, but one church who bows the knee to Jesus, and they validate it by calling upon the Holy Spirit to fall on these people.

I think there’s something remarkable that’s going on here. Verse 18: “Now, when Simon the Magician saw that the Spirit was given by the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money, saying, ‘Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands might receive the Holy Spirit.’” Simon was a showman, and he saw something that he could use this to get people’s attention back on him. Listen to what Peter says. “Peter said to him, ‘May your silver perish with you… [This is a strong rebuke, a curse, really.] because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity.’” He was in slavery to his sin. This bitterness of envy, seeing the attention go from him to the apostles, to Philip. But listen to what Simon says, verse 24. “And Simon answered, ‘Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.’”

And that’s all we know about Simon. The text continues, verse 25: “Now when they had testified, [the apostles] and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.” The Holy Spirit continues the commission of Jesus to go out into all the world and preach the good news. So, this is the Word of God, and we give Him thanks for that. Now throughout Christian history, the book of Acts has been known by the title Acts of the Apostles. Luke didn’t give it that title. We did, and it’s fine and good, but I don’t I don’t think it’s quite sufficient to frame what Luke is trying to do all throughout what we call the book of Acts. This is documenting this move of God in this early period of the church. If we go back again to Chapter 1 of Acts, Luke actually gives us a brief outline of his purpose. Acts, Chapter 1: We’ll put it up on the screen. In the first book of Theophilus he’s talking about the gospel of Luke. “Now, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day when he was taken up.”

Now we’re in the book of Acts after He had given commands to the apostles whom He had chosen. Put another way, the book of Acts is not primarily about the apostles or the earliest Christians, but rather it’s primarily about the continued work of Jesus through His Spirit, by His Spirit, through the apostles and these early believers. The book of Acts is about God’s work of grace through His Spirit. You’re going to see it all throughout. Luke has often been called the historian of the Spirit, the theologian of the Spirit. And the Spirit, my friends, has not stopped for 2000 years, and we have so much to give thanks for. Think about the blood and the labor and the tears of thousands of believers who have gone before us, empowered by His Spirit to bring the good news of forgiveness in life in the name of Jesus. You and I would not be here. We would not have the hope of Christ without a faithful, spirit-filled people like Stephen or like Philip, like Saint Patrick, Hudson Taylor, Jim and Elizabeth Elliot, and countless others who don’t have books written about them.

I was thinking this this week. I was talking to my dad. My great grandmother on my dad’s side, her name was Thelma, she came to faith because a pastor knocked on their door, my great grandma and great grandfather’s door, and invited them to church. And he didn’t go, my great grandfather, she went first. And the faithfulness of that pastor of that little church on the outskirts of Loretto, Tennessee. Anybody been to Loretto, Tennessee? It’s like a suburb of Lima, which is a suburb of Lawrenceburg, which is a suburb of Columbia and maybe a suburb of Nashville. That pastor in Loretto, Tennessee, and I’ve been to that little church, that little white church in the sticks there changed my family tree. Eventually, my great grandfather did come to faith, and they raised children who loved Jesus and so on.

And so, one of my parents, that’s not everybody’s experience, but God is moving by His Spirit in a million ways that we’re not even aware. We might be aware of 2 or 3 building His church. Sometimes it’s with an explosion of activity like we see in our text here. Sometimes it’s very quietly. I think most of the time it’s very quietly. Eugene Peterson says, “So why church? The short answer is because the Holy Spirit formed it to be a colony of heaven in the country of death. Church is the core element in the strategy of the Holy Spirit for providing human witness and physical presence to the Jesus-inaugurated Kingdom of God in this world.” This morning, I’d love for us to walk through this turning point in the book of Acts, and that’s what it is by considering for different people or groups, we have Saul, Philip, the Samaritans, and a magician named Simon. We’re going to start with Saul and the movement of the Holy Spirit.

The life of Saul, who later became Paul, I think, demonstrates the movement, the Spirit of God, at least two different directions. First, Saul’s violent oppression of Christ and His followers failed to stop the growth of the church. He thought they were going to kill him and his religious police. Going from house to house, ravaging the church there in Jerusalem. But it could not stop the mission of the Holy Spirit to bring the Gospel from Jerusalem to the ends of the Earth. It reminds me of the story of Joseph in the Old Testament, who showed grace to his brothers who had previously enslaved him, sent him to Egypt. “As for you,” Joseph says, “you imagined evil against me, but God meant it for good.” And I don’t know that Saul knew it yet. But the church increased exponentially even as Saul began to ravage the church. The purposes of the Spirit will not be thwarted. So that’s the first way.

The second way is Saul’s own life, of course, is a demonstration of the movement of the Spirit. I think that it’s likely we don’t know the speculation. I think it’s likely, though, that Saul heard Stephen preach that sermon. He was holding the garments as everyone else was holding stones. And perhaps that sermon was a first seeds of the Gospel that the Spirit used to draw Saul, who would later become Paul. We know Saul in just a few chapters, will fall to his knees in repentance and faith, as he kind of runs smack dab in the face of Jesus, encounters the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus. Think about it this way, his vigor, his passion, his intellect, we know Saul was very, very smart. His education. He was trained under Gamaliel. All of that was to be built up for his career as a Pharisee of the Pharisees. It’s what Paul himself would call it later on. But the Spirit intended all of that to be used to move the message of the Gospel forward to Jerusalem and Samaria, to the ends of the Earth.

Paul says later in 1Corinthians, and later in his life, “For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that’s with me.” And later on in his life, towards the end of his life, he says to Titus, “When the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior…” Look with me again at verse 1, if you would. “And Saul approved of Stephen’s execution.” The word there can literally be translated a hearty affirmation that this is the will of God. That’s what Saul thought in verse 3: “And Saul was ravaging the church, entering house after house, as he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.” Saul had a trajectory in mind for his life.

He had a trajectory in mind. And all this talk about a resurrected Messiah named Jesus was not a part of it until he came face to face with the grace of Jesus, and the Spirit of God literally knocked him off his high horse. And the Spirit who turned Saul’s violence there in Jerusalem into mission, it’s going to turn Paul into a great missionary. The Holy Spirit will do the work of renewal on the stony heart. I don’t know where you might be, but perhaps you’re far from the Lord. You have a trajectory going this way, and the Lord is the other way. I think we see here in this example not every conversion has to be this dramatic smack down, like in Damascus. Sometimes it’s a whisper, sometimes it’s a tugging, a drawing of the Spirit. That’s one of the primary roles of the Spirit to reveal to us our need for a Savior, and to shine a big spotlight on Jesus, who offers forgiveness and life in His name. J.I. Packer would call it “the floodlight ministry of the Spirit,” pointing to Jesus. That’s what he does. William Still would say, “God is constantly calling men, tugging, drawing, challenging, chivving them by the Spirit-winged thrusts of His Word on their consciences, to search themselves in His Presence. It is going on now.”

So, the Spirit had burst open the door to Samaria just as Jesus had commanded. It was Philip who actually led this missionary charge. We’re going to look at Philip in the mission of the Holy Spirit. But look with me at verse 4, if you would, in your text there. “Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. And Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.” Now that seems like a pretty simple set of sentences there. But the gravity of the scene, I think, is hard to overstate. First, note this or maybe take a note in your Bible. Who went about preaching the word? It wasn’t the apostles. The apostles stayed in Jerusalem. We saw that in verse 1, continuing the work there in Jerusalem and eventually giving oversight to the growing church. The ones who were preaching the word in Samaria were refugees, most of them unnamed, except for Philip. Ordinary believers. And they spread the Gospel largely through uncredentialed, unknown, faithful followers of Jesus, empowered by the same Spirit of God.

This is so important. Ephesians actually, Paul outlines a job description for anybody who’s called into the vocational ministry of any kind, Bible teachers or people who are in leadership. And the description that Paul gives is this: Your job is to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the Body of Christ. In other words, there isn’t a two-class system, professional Christians over here who do the work of mission and everyone else just watches from the pew. No, no, no, no, that’s not the testimony of the Scriptures. The calling of the Bible teacher or pastor or any kind of leader, including our home group leaders, is to serve and equip every believer, including us, for daily missionary work and to be sent out wherever the Lord has planted us in our little square inch of God’s creation. Leslie Newbiggin was a missionary in India, and he said, “Only half of the pastor’s work is to gather the people together for worship. The other half is to send them back to their daily tasks, equipped to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. If we forget this second part, the other can be positively dangerous.”

And I think what he means there is that what we do on Sunday morning could simply be spiritual theater, good vibes. Now again, the gravity of verses four through five is hard to overstate. It wasn’t the apostles, but Philip and many of the other Christian refugees who began to preach the good news in Samaria. But where did Philip and all those go but to Samaria? The animosity between Jews and the Samaritans had been stewing for 700 years. Think about that length of time, 700 years, this ethnic and religious bigotry on both sides for a Jewish man at that time to intentionally go to Samaria to preach would have been jarring to Jews as well as to Samaritans. Be like us fans rooting for Alabama, Braves fans for Phillies. It’s just unthinkable. There’s deep seated ethnic and religious bigotry entrenched 700 years. This isn’t Hatfields and McCoys to a couple hundred years, 700 years. I’m going to put the map up again on the screen. It shows Israel divided in those three regions. If you remember from the gospel accounts, it was standard practice when traveling between the South Judea in the north to Galilee, they would go around Samaria.

Samaria is about the size of the state of Rhode Island. That’s the kind of animosity we’re talking about here. They would walk around something that large just to avoid it. And of course, Jesus upended this prejudice and walked right into Samaria and to a town called Sychar. And he met a woman at a well, and he talked to her about her sin and living water that was available to her. And many people in that town, it said, believed Jesus himself had actually brought the seed of the Gospel to Samaria. And by the time Philip it arrived, hearts were ready to hear about the forgiveness of Jesus. See, Philip was a man full of the Holy Spirit. The text tells us that in Chapter 6, just like Stephen, men full of the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit had melted away any prejudice that Philip might have had toward Samaritans, and he set about serving them with the hope of Christ. And you see two things spiritual healing, casting out demons and evil spirits, and physical healing. Healing those who were paralyzed or lame. He was continuing the ministry of the Lord Jesus.

At the foot of the cross, there’s no room for ethnic or racial or political or economic or any other kind of prejudice or divide at the foot of the cross. All of us come with one mutual problem: our sin has broken relationship with a holy God, and the Gospel of Jesus is that His life, His death, and His resurrection brings peace with God. It brings the peace of God and unity and peace between one another. Why? Because we all need to. One King Jesus the Holy Spirit. There was forming a colony of heaven in a country of prejudice and bigotry, spiritual darkness and joy. If you look at verse 8, joy was the fruit. Think about how dark the city is, but joy, a wellspring, bubbles up there. And isn’t that what the Spirit brings? Galatians gives us a list. The fruits of the spirit are love and joy and peace. And I think we see number three, the Samaritans and the joy of the Holy Spirit.

Look with me at the verse 6, if you would, “…and the crowds with one accord paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him, and they saw the signs that he did for unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city.” The region of Samaria was avoided by the Jews, in part, yeah, that 700 years of animosity. But there was an admixture of pagan and quasi-Jewish worship, and it was rooted all the way back, if you remember your Old Testament history, to people like King Ahab, who built altars to Baal and many other idols, and they eventually constructed their own temple, worshiped at their own mountain, the rival temple to Israel. Samaria was a dark place with a dark history. And we know that in part because of Simon the Magician, you can see where they were enamored with the Samaritans, were spiritually thirsty, spiritually hungry. The great theologian Bruce Springsteen said, “Everybody’s got a hungry heart.” He’s right. The woman at the well told Jesus they were expecting a messiah. They had the same longings that every human heart has.

They had their theology all messed up. There’s a mixture of pagan and Jewish worship, but they knew something was wrong and they needed outside help. And it’s worth noting again, Luke is very careful to use the phrase, “…and they paid attention” three times. He wants to get our attention, and attention is something we need to be so careful to steward, isn’t it? Today, a large sector of our economy is actually geared towards buying and selling our attention. We have no right to judge the Samaritans on this matter. Our attention span has shrunk significantly. It’s an external battle to pay attention to the right thing, external and internal, and this has significant spiritual impact. What we give our attention to has significant spiritual impact on our souls for the life of the believer, for every human heart, the world of Samaria was a dark place. I don’t know what world you’re coming from this week, but they were hungry and they were thirsty for anything to satisfy their spiritual hunger. And they go after this poor substitute. And it says for a long time they were paying attention to Simon the Magician, the spiritual celebrity.

But when they paid attention to the Word of God, the darkness was pierced. Unclean spirits fled, magicians came to faith, the people found forgiveness in the name of Jesus. And there was great joy. And joy is different than happiness. Happiness is a good thing, but it goes up and down depending on the circumstances. Joy is a fruit of the Spirit. It’s not something we can conjure up. Joy endures despite the circumstances. It’s an anchor dug deep into the truths that we are paying attention to. That’s why it’s so important. Stewarding what we’re giving our mind to. We can put it in the verb form. They rejoice in the treasure they found in Jesus, and even the Simon the Magician believed and was baptized. This number for Simon historically has been called Simon Magus, which just means magician. We see the power of the Holy Spirit here, and it shouldn’t be missed. The one who called himself great should actually set off alarm bells. When we read that in the text, and the one who calls himself great meets the actual great power of God in Christ.

In verse 13 it tells us that Simon believed and he was baptized. Now, some commentators throughout history suggest that Simon maybe never came to actual saving faith. They would say that even demons believe and I think there are a few faithful ways to read this text, but I tend to take it at face value that Simon the Magician became Simon the Believer. I want to be generous there he was a baby Christian and there was an immaturity. He was stuck in old patterns of sin trying to purchase the gift of God. That’s what he knew. And Peter rebukes him and calls him into repentance. And we shouldn’t lose the edge of Peter’s exhortation there. “May your silver perish with you.” What he’s saying in the original language is strong. The posture of your heart, Simon, is from the pit of hell. That’s what Peter’s saying. But he calls him. He gives him hope. He calls him to repentance, to ask for forgiveness. And we don’t know the rest of the story of Simon Magus, but I think many of us can relate in some way to his longings. He longed for the power of God, wrong motivations.

He longed for the power of God. He was caught. What Peter says in the web of bitterness, probably because of envy. The spotlight was on them, not on him anymore, and these apostles had stolen it. He needed a strong correction from Peter, just as Saul would on the road to Damascus when Jesus meets him there. Simon did have genuine faith, and I think he did. His immaturity in the faith was laid bare, and Peter called him out to it. But like a good physician of the soul, Peter diagnoses Simon, and he brings light to that root of bitter envy, and he calls it a form of slavery. All sin is a form of slavery, and it’s a brutal taskmaster. The rebellion that we’re going to learn about on Wednesday lunchtime talks and bitterness is this: It’s my verdict that God got it wrong. That’s what bitterness is. My verdict that God got it wrong. It holds the wisdom of God in contempt. And contempt is a strange mixture of anger and disgust, and bitterness actually grows. The longer bitterness sits, the deeper the poison goes. Hebrews tells us this: “See to it that no bitter root grows up.” The author of Hebrews tells us, and Peter, I think, offers hope to Simon, calling him to repentance, and we don’t know the rest of his story.

I wish we did. But as we continue to study Acts, I want us to watch. Keep your eyes open for the way that the Spirit continues His onward march, setting people free. Free from the bondage of slavery, of sin, resetting trajectories, bringing spiritually dead men and women to life, and His power is still at work today. I hope you know that. I don’t know if you’re in bondage to something. If you came in here today in bondage to something, His power is still at work today. Paul Trip would say, “When the Word of God, faithfully taught by the people of God and empowered by the Spirit of God, falls down, people become different. Lusting people become pure, fearful people become courageous, thieves become givers, demanding people become servants, angry people become peacemakers, complainers become thankful, and idolaters come to joyfully worship the one true God. The ultimate purpose of the Word of God is not theological information, but heart and life transformation.” Can I get an Amen? The mission of the Spirit continues despite persecution or bigotry or bad theology or bitterness.

Spirit continues. The mission continues. If you’re like Saul this morning and your trajectory is that way, but God is this way, he invites you to turn around. You don’t have to be enslaved. You don’t have to let the root of bitterness continue to go down deep. Like Philip, the most unlikely person to bring the news of the Gospel to this confused and dark place, like the Samaritan spiritually hungry, everybody has a hungry heart, and the Samaritans help us see that. And they were eager and they were ready for joy. Like Simon, confused, maybe in the chains of sin, perhaps you’re in the poison, or you have the poison of bitterness today. And perhaps for the rest of this week, I encourage you to listen for the Spirit of God as you read His Word and as you live in His world. Work, play, school, whatever it might be, He may be tugging, pulling, drawing you, shining a big floodlight on Jesus, as He often does, saying, here’s where forgiveness, here’s where life comes from, and it’s on offer for you and those far from God, those caught in the web of bitterness and slavery.

Someone once said that a congregation is a group of people who decide together to pay attention. I think it’s inviting us to pay attention to the work of the Spirit through His Word and His Spirit. Would You come and do Your work in me, in this place, in this city church? We said, “Amen.” Let’s pray together: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we thank you for the gift of Your Word. For those who have gone before us, who gave their lives for the sake of Your Gospel, we give You thanks. Spirit, we do pray You would continue to move among us this morning. Bring conviction where we have paid attention to the wrong things, given ourselves to poor substitutes, caught in webs that enslave us, reshape and rekindle our hearts where they’ve grown cold. And Father, like Philip and Stephen, we long to be full of Your Spirit, walking in step with Your Spirit, paying attention to Your Spirit and Your Word. Would You come today and to the rest of this week? Continue to draw us to Yourself and to Jesus the Son in whose name we all pray. Amen.

Songs, Readings & Prayer

Songs:

“And Can It Be“ by Charles Wesley
“Anchor Of Hope“ by Brown Bannister and Ellie Holcomb
“Holy Spirit, Living Breath of God“ by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend
“My Worth Is Not In What I Own“ by Graham Kendrick, Keith Getty, and Kristyn Getty
“Doxology” by Thomas Ken and Louis Bourgeois
All songs are used with permission. CCLI License no. 2003690

Looking for our Hymns of the Week or resources to worship anytime? We’ve curated a playlist of hymns TVC Worship has led on our YouTube Channel!

Call To Worship: Great is Your Faithfulness

Leader: God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
People: Your steadfast love, O Lord, extends to the heavens, Your faithfulness to the clouds.

Leader: The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.
People: The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on Him in truth. He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

Leader: The Lord is good; His steadfast love endures forever, and His faithfulness to all generations.
All: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; Great is your faithfulness.

Classic Prayer: Zacharias Ursinus

Almighty God, heavenly Father, we ask You to work in us by Your Holy Spirit, so that we may rightly know You, and sanctify, glorify, and praise You in all Your works, in which shine forth Your omnipotence, wisdom, goodness, righteousness, mercy, and truth. Grant us also that we may so direct our whole life-thoughts, words, and deeds that Your name is not blasphemed because of us, but honored and praised.

Confession of Faith:

New City Catechism
Part 1, God, Creation & Fall, Law Q 8

Leader: What is the law of God stated in the Ten Commandments?
People: You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or earth beneath or in the waters below– you shall not bow down to them or worship them. You shall not misuse the name of the LORD your God. Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Honor your father and your mother. You shall not murder. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. You shall not covet.

TVC Prayer Ministry

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Vocation: Small Business Owners & Independent Contractors
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Praying for the Persecuted Church: Philippines

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