The gospel reaches Samaria (Acts 8:1-25) // On mission with the risen Jesus

X8 starting from verse one. And saw her approved of their

killing him. On that day a great persecution

broke out against this church, in the church, against the

church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were

scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.

Godly man buried Stephen and mourned deeply for him, but the

soul began to destroy the church.

Going from house to house, he dragged off both men and women

and put them in prison. Those who had been scattered

preached the words wherever they went.

Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the

Messiah there. When the crowd heard Philip and

saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what

he said. For with shrieks impure spirit

came out of many, and many were paralyzed, or lain were healed.

So there was great joy in that city.

Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced the sorcery

in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria.

He boasted that he was someone great, and all the people, both

high and low gave him their attention and exclaimed, This

man is rightly called the great power of God.

They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with

his sorcery. But when they believed Philip as

he proclaimed the good news of the Kingdom of God and the name

of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Simon himself believed and was baptized, and he followed Philip

everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted

the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria.

When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers, though

that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit

had not yet come on any of them. They had simply been baptized in

the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their

hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given as the laying on of

the apostles hands, he offered them money and said, Give me

also this ability, so that everyone on whom I lay my hands

may receive the Holy Spirit. Peter answered, May your money

perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift

of God with money. You have no part or share in

this ministry because your heart is not right before God.

Repent of this wickedness and praise the Lord in the hope that

He may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart,

for I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.

Then Simon answered, Prayed the Lord for me, so that nothing you

have said may happen to me. After they had further

proclaimed the words of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter

and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many

Samaritan villages. This is word of God.

And we are in Acts chapter 8. We've been walking our way

Acts 8 · chapter mention

through this book of Acts for quite some time now actually.

And we're going to take a break for Christmas in a couple of

weeks time. But in this history of the early

church written by a man called Luke, Luke wants to show his

readers several things. He wants to show us what it

looks like to be on mission with the risen Jesus.

That's the title we've given this whole series.

He I want to show us what it looks like to receive the power

of the Holy Spirit so that we can live as witnesses for Jesus

in this world. And I want to show us what it

means to live together as Jesus, church on mission with him in

this world. And Acts chapter 8, the bit

Acts 8 · chapter mention

we're in today, it begins at a very dark moment in the history

of the church, because we have the early church under attack

here in Acts chapter 8. It begins with the followers of

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Jesus in a dark and difficult place.

And Luke imagines us asking the question on their behalf, but

also on our own behalf. What is the Lord doing in times

of pain and loss? Again, the early church, they

have just lost their first leader, Stephen.

If you're last week, he was murdered by the religious

leaders. And for the early church, As for

Christians throughout history right up to the present, we find

ourselves asking what is the Lord doing in times of pain and

loss? Where is God when it hurts?

Where is God when his people are struggling and it seems God's

enemies are winning because the early church here is under

attack? On the surface, it looks like

all the work we've been reading about in chapters one to seven

is beginning to fall apart. The early church is scattered in

the opening verses of Acts 8. Look at verse one again with me

on that day, to the day that Stephen was murdered by the

religious leaders in Jerusalem. On that day, a great persecution

broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the

apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.

Things look bleak for the early Christians.

People are being forced from their homes.

They're being dragged off to prison.

The days of toleration of the early church in Jerusalem, they

are now over. And yet Luke wants to show us in

the verses that follow that Jesus is working even through

this persecution. We want to show us that finally,

in this chapter of Acts that starts in such a dark place, the

gospel finally reaches Samaria. The Samaritan people, historical

enemies of the Jewish people, hated and despised for so long,

but now they're being gathered into the early church through

faith in the risen Jesus. And the Holy Spirit is

empowering them to live for Jesus too.

Seeing all that follows in this dark moment in the life of the

early church, Luke wants us to see something even in the

darkest of times. The risen Jesus is building his

church through the witness of his scattered people.

Jesus isn't absent. He's not abandoned his people at

this moment. No, He is actually working

through the hardship, the lost, the persecution to accomplish

his purpose. I think there's real

encouragement for every local church and every follower of

Jesus in this bit of acts. In many ways, this bit of acts,

we see Jesus keeping one of the most precious promises he made

to his disciples when he was here on earth.

We read that promise in Matthew 16, verse 18, where Jesus says

Matthew 16:18

very simply, I will build my church and the gates of hell

will not overcome it. For the early Christians, it

might have felt like the gates of hell had opened.

They were being scattered from their homes, but Jesus is still

with them. Jesus is still building his

church through ordinary suffering, fallen people like

them. And today Jesus builds his

church through ordinary suffering, fallen people like

us. And nothing and no one can stop

what Jesus is doing. Let's look at this passage

together. Now he acts it again.

These opening verses. The early church is scattered

versus 1, so 3. Stephen has just been killed by

the religious leaders. He's died a brutal and bloody

and violent death. They've thrown rocks at him

until he died. And on that day, Luke says, a

great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem.

And all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and

Samaria. So before this moment, there

was, if you like, an uneasy truce in Jerusalem between the

religious leaders and the early church.

Back in Acts Chapter 5, you're with us.

Acts 5 · chapter mention

One of the members of the Sanhedrin, A respected teacher

called Gamelio, said, let's leave these Christians alone.

Let's see if what they are saying is really from God and to

religious leaders. They still flog the apostles at

that point, but they're kind of stepping back and waiting to see

what will happen. But then in Acts chapter 8,

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Stephen's trial and execution changes everything.

The days of tolerating the early church are now over.

The early Christians are driven from their homes, some drag to

prison. Only the apostles still enjoy

one the some measure of protection.

They're allowed to stay in Jerusalem.

The rest of the Christians are driven out into Judea and

Samaria. Verse 2 Stephen is buried,

probably by sympathetic Jewish believers.

If the Christians are being scattered and he is mourned for

deeply, Luke says Stephen's a huge loss to the church.

This hurts the early Christians. And then verse 3, we made a new

figure who will loom large for the next while.

The figure of Saul and Luke says in no uncertain terms in verse

3. And Saul began to destroy the

church. It was Saul's mission in life.

He is going house to house, reminding us that in the early

church, people didn't meet in church buildings.

They met in people's homes. And Saul is systematically

seeking to wipe out the church one house at a time.

He's dragging off both men and women to prison.

It is a terrifying picture of the church under attack by

savage enemies of God's people. And Fast forward, Fast forward

to the present day. The grim reality is there are

still plenty of souls at work in our world today.

A few weeks ago, if you were here, we observed persecution

Sunday. Together we prayed for believers

around the world who are persecuted for their faith in

places like North Korea, Iran, China, Somalia.

We learnt that one in seven Christians living today across

the world, one in seven faces severe persecution for their

faith in Jesus. A couple weeks after that, I

went to Blackpool to the FIC Leaders Conference.

The focus was on world mission. We spent the middle evening

praying for the persecuted church worldwide or the

particular focus on Nigeria and Sudan.

And I'm sitting there and you may know one of our mission

partners that the Wallace family, Matt and Lisa Wallace,

and their children are in Nigeria.

And we know that the more Christians are killed for their

faith in Nigeria than in all the other countries of the world

combined, that the world of persecution didn't end in Acts

Acts 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8. They're so countless Christians

today, persecuted for their faith, scattered from their

homes, dragged off to prison, killed for what they believe.

The world of Acts 8 is still the world we live in today.

And many of our brothers and sisters in Christ around the

world are on the front line today.

And so of course, for them, just As for the early Christians,

they might ask at times, what is the Lord doing right now for the

early church? They're thinking, well, well,

things were going so well, we were growing so great.

Why? Why is it we're suddenly facing

fierce opposition? And this early church that has

just been growing and growing is now scattered.

So the early church feels finished in Jerusalem.

But then verse 4 and following and I'd say the picture and the

mood changes dramatically. It's as if looks or wants to

pull back the curtain a little and show what is really

happening behind the scenes at this moment.

And what is happening is the risen Jesus is building his

church. The church may be scattered by

persecution, but it's through that very scattering that Jesus

is at work building and extending his Kingdom in this

world. The gospel finally reaches

Samaria. That's verses four and five.

Those being scattered preach the Word wherever they went.

And Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the

Messiah there. And we might think, well, what's

the significance of that? Well, to understand that we need

to kind of flick back to the very beginning of Acts, Acts

Acts 1 · chapter mention

chapter 1 and the opening Commission that Jesus gives his

disciples there Acts chapter one, verse 8, Jesus says this,

you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and

you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and

Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Some of that verse is seen as like the contents page for the

book of Acts. It shows how Luke structures his

book, and up to the end of Chapter 7, we've seen the

disciples as witnesses for Jesus in Jerusalem.

But now from chapter 8, Jesus is leading his people outside the

city of Jerusalem and into all Judea and even into Samaria.

It is a key moment in the book of Acts.

And it's clear that even behind the attacks of his enemies,

Jesus is at work. He's leading his people on

mission to proclaim the gospel to people who haven't yet heard

it. So what?

We learn from this unique moment in church history and there's a

lot for us to see in this chapter.

First of all, I think we learn this.

We learn that every believer is a witness for Jesus.

Every believer is a witness for Jesus.

It's a real, real moment in the book of Acts because up to this

point, up to the end of Chapter 7, the apostles have taken the

lead on Jesus mission. They've been the ones preaching

and teaching. They've been the ones leading

the way. But now Luke tells us the

apostles are still in Jerusalem. The apostles are staying behind

is the other ordinary believers who've been scattered across

Judea and Samaria. And Luke tells us those who had

been scattered preach the word wherever they went.

And then what does that mean? Preach the words?

I don't think it means that every ordinary believer was sort

of standing up, like maybe I am now and gathering a grip and

then then monologuing for 20 minutes.

I'm not sure that is what it means actually.

The word here, the Greek word that Luke uses is the same word

often translated as evangelize, to share good news, to bring

good news. The picture Luke is painting

here is of ordinary followers of Jesus sharing the good news of

Jesus in informal, ordinary conversations and the impact

it's having on the people they meet.

Again, some some church leaders call this maybe gossiping the

gospel and it's actually something Chrissy that every

single believer can do. It's not restricted to apostles

or prophets or church leaders. That is the picture that Luke

paints of every ordinary believer can do this.

We can evangelize. We can share the gospel

informally, person to person and that is what these early

believers were doing. Now it's clear that the apostles

still have a vital part to play. We're going to meet Peter and

John in a little moment. We've got Philip, one of the

seven, still leading the way. But it's as if Luke is

challenging his readers here. What about you?

Will you play your part in Jesus mission wherever he has

scattered you in your life? And Jesus knew what he was doing

when he put these believers in the places he put them in.

Actually, one commentator suggests that the very fact that

they're in Judea and Samaria is itself a witness to Jesus.

People would say, well, well, hang on, you're from Jerusalem.

What are you doing out here? What are you doing in Judea?

What are you doing in Samaria? And they would say, well,

actually, I'm, I'm a follower of Jesus.

And we were driven from our homes.

We had to come here. I said, who's Jesus?

What does it mean to follow him? And then they can talk, and they

can share who Jesus is. They can talk about all they

have seen of him, who he is, and what he has done for us.

We can share Jesus in whatever place God has put us as ordinary

believers. It's not just the apostles and

prophets. It's all of us.

That's worth saying. We we aren't all evangelists

like Philip or the apostles, but we can all evangelize like the

early believers did through word and deed, through loving the

people around us, through praying for the people around

us, through provoking questions and then making the most of

opportunities when those questions get asked.

The apostle Peter puts it like this, writing to a group of

believers scattered across Asia. He says in one Peter 315 to 16

In your hearts Revere Christ as Lord, to live with Jesus as

Lord. And always be prepared to give

an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the

hope you have. Do this with gentleness and

respect, keeping a clear conscience, so those who speak

maliciously against your good behaviour in Christ may be

ashamed of their slander. This is what ordinary Christians

are called to do. We're not called to be like

Philip necessarily, and to break new grind and to proclaim to a

city in Samaria the good news. But we can in our lives Revere

Christ as Lord, pray for questions to be asked of us, and

then answer those questions in the power of the Spirit that is

ordinary Christian witness. Luke says it's sort of almost

begins in verse 4 with this scattering out of Jerusalem.

We each have a part to play on mission with Jesus.

But again, gloriously, Luke also says there are certain people in

the church with particular rules.

And he introduces us to this man called Philip.

And Philip, he's, he's one of the seven.

I was appointed by the early church back in Acts 6 to

distribute food to the widows there.

He's described as a man full of the spirit and wisdom.

And later in Acts, Luke refers to him as Philip the evangelist.

That's Acts 21, verse 8. Philip's actually the only named

Acts 21:8

evangelist in the New Testament. And here in Acts chapter 8, we

Acts 8 · chapter mention

sort of see Philip in action. Philip breaks new ground for

Jesus. That's what an evangelist does.

They break new ground for the gospel.

They're particularly gifted by God for like first contact

evangelism. And then they help other

believers make the most of opportunities to speak of Jesus.

Evangelists like Philip are a gift from Jesus to the wider

church. And to begin to understand just

how significant it is that what Philip is doing in Samaria, we

need to remember, maybe learn for the first time, just how

deeply Jewish people and Samaritan people hated each

other in the 1st century. There were centuries of division

and hatred, and suddenly those centuries are being overturned

by Jesus. The history is that the

Samaritans and Jews, they were once simply Israelites, part of

the nation of Israel. 92 BC the Kingdom is divided.

Israel to the north, that's 10 tribes, it's capital is Samaria,

that's where the word Samaritan comes from.

Judah to the South, 2 tribes, it's capital is Jerusalem.

So they're divided. 722 BC, better history for you.

The northern kingdoms conquered, carried off into exile by the

Assyrians. And when those exiles from the

north continue return, sorry, they intermarry with the nations

around them. And that means the Jewish people

in the South go, well those guys, they're not really

Israelites anymore. They've intermarry, they don't

trust in God anymore and they began to despise them by the

time of Jesus. Jews and Samarans are deeply

divided. Samarans worship God on Mount

Gerizim. Jews worship God the temple in

Jerusalem. With wonderful understatement,

the writer of John's gospel, John says Jews do not associate

with Samarans. That's really putting it mildly.

But yet in the Gospels, Jesus himself reaches out to a

Samaritan woman at a well and her whole time in John four with

many coming to faith and Acts one verse 8 we saw a moment ago,

Jesus calls his disciples to be his witnesses in Samaria.

And the great thing here is that Jesus is leading his people on

mission even to places they don't want to go.

The risen Jesus wants Samaritan people in his church and he

sends Philip to them to proclaim the gospel to them.

So Philip arrives verse 5 in either a city in Samaria, that's

how the NIV translates it, or some transition to V city in

Samaria, maybe a reference to that capital city Samaria from

the Old Testament. And what is Philip's message of

I? Simply?

Philip's message is Jesus. He just talks about Jesus a lot

in the power of the Spirit. Again, the Samaritans were were

close enough links to the Jewish people that they too were

waiting for God to send a rescuer to put things right.

Now the Jewish people wanted that rescuer to be a king, a

descendant of David. The Samaritans are waiting for

someone they referred to as Taheb, literally the restorer, a

prophet like Moses Phillips message to the Samaritans is the

same message he would have given to Jewish people.

Jesus is the one we've been waiting for, the one you've been

longing for God to send. His name is Jesus.

He is God's prophet, God's restorer, God's rescuer.

And little later in verse 12, Lew records another aspect of of

Philip's message. He proclaimed the good news of

the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus.

Basically, God's king has come to put things right and his name

is Jesus. Philip's message is all about

Jesus. He doesn't start with the

religious divisions and debates between Jews and Samaritans.

He doesn't just give them good spiritual advice to live a good

life. No, he talks about Jesus, who he

is and all that he has done. It is good news about Jesus

because it's not like something we do.

It's about what Jesus has done for us.

And again, amazingly, Luke tells us that Philip was empowered by

God verses 6:00 and 7:00 to perform great signs and

miracles. And those signs pointed clearly

to the person and power of Jesus.

We're told that the Philip was able to drive impure spirits out

of many. That shows Jesus authority over

evil. Philip is able to heal those who

are paralyzed or lame. That shows Jesus power to

restore what is broken. Those signs, like they are all

the way through the New Testament, are signs of God's

Kingdom breaking into the present.

God's Kingdom that will come finally when Jesus returns to

bring a glorious new creation with him.

And there are moments in history, like Acts 8, where that

Kingdom breaks in and points powerfully to Jesus.

They are signs, says Luke. A sign isn't meant to take all

our attention onto it. The sign points us to something

or to someone. And these signs pointed the

Samaritans to Jesus. And this was a unique moment in

salvation history. Fast forward to today, and

sometimes, gloriously, signs and miracles still happen.

They happen in God's church around the world.

They happen in God's church even here in this country.

We can and should pray for healing when we know people

struggling. We should thank God when He does

heal, as He has done in recent times in our church family.

And above all, we should pray that those signs and miracles

will achieve their purpose, not for us to be obsessed with them,

but for them to point us to Jesus, who he is and all he has

done for everyone who trusts in Him and that great new creation

he's going to bring one day, where sin and death and

suffering will be no more. Philip is breaking new grind for

Jesus here. It's a unique moment in

salvation history. And then there's this weird

moment in verses 14 to 17 where there's a delay in the Holy

Spirit coming on the Samaritans. I want to say that what what

Luke's trying to show us here is it's the same Jesus at work in

the lives of Samaritans as he was at working Jewish people.

It's the same gospel at work in Samaria as was at work in

Jerusalem. And the Samaritans are welcome

into the same church that those Jewish believers were in, the

church loved by Jesus and bought by him.

If you like verses 14 to 17 or the description, you could call

it the Samaritan Pentecost. Verse 14, we learned of the

apostles in Jerusalem hear about what's happening in Samaria, and

they send two of their leaders, Peter and John, to come and see

what the Word of God has been doing just on the screen there.

When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that

they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit

had not yet come on any of them. They had simply been baptized in

the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their

hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

And what's going on here? Why was there this delay in the

Samaritan believers receiving the Holy Spirit?

And this past has been interpreted many ways by

different church traditions in different ways.

So according to some Roman Catholic teaching, actually, it

teaches that that believers need church leaders to come and place

their hands on new believers after baptism to confirm they

truly are believers, and only then do they receive the Holy

Spirit. That's one line of Catholic

understanding of this passage. According to some Pentecostal

and charismatic teaching, actually, it teaches that

conversion is always a two stage process.

The first step, you believe and are baptized.

The second step, you receive the Holy Spirit.

That's what some Pentecostal and charismatic traditions

understand. It's not what this passage is

teaching here. Again, I find it really helpful

always to see where different church traditions get some of

their theology and practice from.

But I don't believe Luke is presenting Axiate as the normal

shape of the Christian life and of Christian conversion.

Again, we need to remember this is a unique moments in the

history of the church, and every time the gospel breaks new grind

in Acts, there is a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit to

prove that God himself draws near to everyone who puts their

faith in Jesus, even people we might imagine would never be

welcomed by God. That happens on the day of

Pentecost when this ramshackle group of Jews are in Jerusalem

and the Holy Spirit comes on Pentecost.

It happens in Acts 10. We're going to see in a few

months time when the Roman centurion Cornelius and his

household put their faith in Jesus.

And it happens here when despised Samaritans are welcomed

into the church through their faith in Jesus.

So there's not a delay because some of the Samaritans are

second class Christians or because they need to wait for a

second blessing of the Samaritan.

Christians needed to be welcomed into the people of God by the

apostles with the full blessing of the apostles.

So be clear to everyone at that point that Jew and Samaritan are

equal members of the Church of Jesus because of their simple

faith in Jesus. The Samaritan Pentecost is about

the unity of the Church. The Holy Spirit now lives in

every Samaritan who puts their faith in Jesus.

People who once were enemies are now united in the church simply

through their faith in Jesus. And the Spirit is the sign of

that unity. And the Spirit lives in every

man, woman and child today who puts their faith in Jesus.

There's no need for a delay now. The Spirit comes when we claim

Jesus as Lord, we repent of our sins, we ask him into our lives.

We say, I will follow you, Jesus.

And the Spirit comes and lives in US, empowering us to be

witnesses for Jesus. OK, it's a big moment, actually,

that Jesus is building his church in the face of

persecution, in the face of believers being scattered, in

the face of huge cultural barriers that have existed for

centuries. But again, look, it's so

realistic because we might think again, well, Jesus building his

church, it's going to be just a non-stop victory train, a

victory lap of joy. But actually it's always messier

than that. Luke tells us it's never

straightforward. Whenever and wherever Jesus is

at work saving people and building his church, there are

not only genuine responses to the gospel, there also are often

false responses to the gospel. And we see this in our last

little section with this man called Simon the sorcerer.

Feel like he is a cautionary tale here.

And there's so much we can say about Sam.

We don't have much time. He's a sorcerer looks as without

particular surprise. This is the first encounter,

actually, between Christianity and magic in the book of Acts.

It won't be the last. There are several moments where

the church grows in a context where people are fascinated by

magic and the dark arts. What does Luke tell us about

Simon? He practised sorcery in the city

and he had a large following of Samaritan people as a result.

Simon, he was a pretty big deal. In Samaria verse 10, all the

people both high and low gave Simon their attention and

exclaimed, This man is rightly called the great power of God.

Now Noah, does Luke suggest Simon's a fraudster or he's he's

faking it? Simon genuinely practice magic.

He trusted in spiritual forces other than the living God and he

was hugely popular as a result. It's fascinating for us today in

a more rational age. The Bible doesn't dismiss magic

as just something superstitious, doesn't just say we should be

more rational than that. The message actually of axiate

with this inter encounter with Simon is that after the coming

of Jesus, his life, death and resurrection, we no longer have

to fear spiritual forces opposed to God in the name of Jesus.

Christians have authority over evil because we share in Jesus

victory over sin, death and the devil.

Luke wants to see Simon as this powerful guy but actually in the

face of the gospel message about Jesus, Simon couldn't compete

and it just turns Simon's world upside down.

Verse 10. Before Philip came, people gave

Simon their attention. Verse 10, after Philip came

proclaiming Jesus and word, indeed, verse 6, they all paid

close attention to what Philip said.

Simon's time of fame and popularity is at an end.

And so we might say, well, how is Simon going to respond to

this, to the coming of the Gospel in Samaria?

Well, that gives us an amazing answer.

In verse 13, he says Simon himself believed and was

baptized. It's an amazing moment.

Simon himself is gripped by this message of who Jesus is.

He doesn't try and beat Philip and the other believers.

Instead he joins them. Simon the sorcerer puts his

faith in Jesus and is baptized. It's a real surprising moment.

And yet I've called Simon a cautionary tale here because

very quickly it seems there's something not quite right with

Simon's profession of faith in Jesus.

And it comes to a head when Peter and John come to visit.

So Peter and John arrive in Samaria.

They pray for the Samaritan believers.

They place their hands on them. The Samaritan believers receive

the Holy Spirit. And Simon's response is an ugly

one. Verse 18 Simon offered Peter and

John money and said, give me also this ability, so that

everyone whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.

Simon tries to buy the Holy Spirit.

He wants to buy God and God's power.

It seems that old habits die hard for Simon.

He's still thinking like a sorcerer.

He still thinks he can control what God is doing and make

himself great in the process. And Peter denounces Simon in the

strongest possible terms. Verse 20, May your money perish

with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with

money. And Peter calls Simon to

repentance. Repent of this wickedness and

pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for

having such a thought in your heart.

And that's where Luke leaves Simon.

Was Simon a genuine believer? It's hard to say.

Luke describes Simon as he does the other Samaritans.

Verse 13, He believed and was baptized.

And yet there are worrying signs here.

Right from the beginning, Luke down at verse 13.

Again we learned that Simon followed Philip everywhere.

He was more interested in Philip and following him than maybe he

was in following Jesus. Simon was astonished by the

great signs and miracles he saw. Again, he seemed more interested

in the signs Philip performed than he was in the message

Philip proclaimed. Basically reading this this

week, I think Luke just doesn't tell us whether Simon did repent

in the end, whether he confessed his sin was forgiven by God,

continue to follow Jesus. We just don't know.

Early church tradition records Simon becoming a false teacher,

drawing people away from the gospel for money, twisting the

message of Jesus. But in the end, we just don't

know how Simon's story ended. But it acts like a cautionary

tale, a warning sign to us. Not everyone who professes faith

in Jesus turns out to be a genuine believer.

And the only way to know if someone's faith is genuine, What

do they keep following Jesus? Do they confess their sin and

ask Jesus to forgive them? Do they follow Jesus as Lord of

their lives? Do they love God above all else

and follow him in the community of His church?

Only time will tell. For any of us, mission can be

messy. Lucas telling us that Jesus is

at work. That's the message of acting.

Jesus is building his church in this world and nothing and

nobody can stop him. He's building his church even

three times of loss and hardship.

Stephen was a huge loss to the church, and they're scattered,

they're persecuted, they're driven away from their homes.

But Jesus is at work through that.

And it's the same today across the world.

Christians are persecuted for their faith in places like

Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia, China, Iran.

And yet the churches in those countries are often seeing

remarkable growth in people coming to faith in Jesus.

Whereas maybe more settled, peaceful countries like in the

West see less of that. Jesus builds his church even

three times of persecution and difficulty, and Jesus builds

this church through the witness of ordinary believers like us.

I think verse 4 is just remarkable.

In this passage, again, the apostles are back in Jerusalem,

but those who've been scattered preach the word wherever they

went. Ordinary believers built Jesus

church through their witness to him.

Again, if you think of maybe individuals, if you're a

Christian here today who shared the gospel with you, maybe they

were really ordinary fallen people.

Maybe they weren't great at everything.

Maybe they're a bit unimpressive.

But Jesus builds his church through weak, unimpressive

people like us, like the early believers.

And verse 4, we might not all be Philips, we might all be gifted

evangelists, but we each can play our part on mission with

Jesus. We can love our neighbors, we

can pray for them, we can pray for each other, pray for

opportunities to speak of Jesus and be ready to give an answer

when those questions come. We each have a part to play in

Jesus mission. And finally, the risen Jesus

building his church by calling unlikely people to trust in him.

Again. We don't get it when we read

this, but you couldn't get more unlikely than the Samaritans.

Despised, hated by the Jewish people and yet they are now

welcomed into the church through simple faith in Jesus the

rescuer. They were waiting for the King

come to put things right then it wasn't without its challenges

and it's bumps and it's Mass. The the story of Simon is a

cautionary tale, but actually we want to call people to follow

Jesus. We want to call unlikely people

to trust in him because we are all pretty unlikely Christians.

If you've lost sight of that, if you think, well, of course I

follow Jesus. I'm a good guy.

I'm I'm a spiritual person. Well, you've lost sight of just

how unlikely it is that you get to call the Son of God, Lord and

the God he made the universe Father.

And you get to have God, the Holy Spirit live in you,

empowering you in this world to live as a witness for Jesus.

Jesus delights to call unlikely people to trust in him.

Samaritans, Irish people, British people, insert the name.

The reason Jesus is building his church through the witness of

his scattered people. So I want to say I'd say it for

all it's drama and it's challenge, this is a passage to

help us just take heart. We give out batches of Flyers a

few minutes ago. It's our Carol service season.

It is Christmas coming as we give out invitations to our

Carol services, whether that's in person to someone.

There's a big sash on the table. Well, that's through a

letterbox. Someone you may never meet, you

hear their dog barking and that's it.

Actually, we can pray that actually God will use our

witness. The risen Jesus will work

through the witness of his people to build his church in

this city at this point in history.

And he will do that through the witness of ordinary, flawed,

weak people like us. Jesus says I will build my

church and the gates of hell will not overcome it.

Well, we play our part in what Jesus wants to do in this world.