Acts: Pain and Joy | Associate Pastor: Matt Armstrong

Uh hey, it's a great privilege to get to preach again uh here uh to you guys.

Um we are continuing in uh a sermon series in the book of Acts.

Uh if you're not familiar with this book in the New Testament, the first one that comes after the four gospels, it's incredible.

I highly recommend it.

It's the story of the birth of the church as we know it, the transition from the people of God being solely and primarily the nation of Israel under a monarch to a people and a kingdom where the king is seated in heaven and its bounds uh are not physical.

And so it's an incredible story.

Uh, as amazing as it is, it is deeply human.

And there are there are many things, and we'll see that this morning, that we can relate to even in 2023.

Uh last week you saw uh Russ preached on a huge turning point in the life of the early church, and this was the death of Stephen.

This was the first martyrdom uh in the church, after Jesus, of course.

Um, but he had just preached this incredible sermon, and uh the Jewish leaders uh riled up the Jewish people.

They were furious, and they stoned him to death.

Uh and we're told in verse 1 that Matt just read, this was the spark that lit a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.

And I just want you to try to put yourself there at that time and in that place.

What must the early Christians have felt?

Right?

They're they're at this point all Jewish believers.

And as far as they understand it, the Messiah had come, their long-awaited king who was coming to uh restore Israel to its former glory, uh, to bring peace on the earth.

This was their long-awaited Savior.

Uh and yes, he was murdered and died on the cross, but then he rose on the third day.

Certainly now he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel.

This was the question that all Jews were wondering and asking.

And yet the powers that be are now going house to house, entering into people's homes, uh, interrogating people, and anyone who confesses Jesus as the Messiah is hauled off to prison.

I mean, we've seen these things happen in our own day and age in the last hundred years.

And it's terrifying to be threatened with prison and potentially death.

Again, it's terrifying and confusing, right?

What is God doing in the world?

Messiah has come.

We've been waiting for this for hundreds of years.

This has got to be the watershed moment, and yet it doesn't seem like much has changed.

But then we're told that those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

And we're told the story of Philip.

We we kind of we're told that in general.

It's happening through a lot of individuals in a lot of places, but Luke brings us to the story of Philip fleeing the persecution, he heads north into the region of Samaria, where he begins to preach the gospel.

But I don't want you to miss that this is significant.

This is not random.

Luke wants us to hear this story because of where he goes and to the people he goes to, the Samaritans.

Now, if you're not that familiar with uh New Testament background or biblical background, this may this may be lost on you.

And if you know the parable of the good Samaritan, you may have a very positive view of Samaritans.

But it's important for you to know that the Jews hated the Samaritans.

Historically, they were like cousins who had uh apostasized, they had rebelled, they had turned against uh worshiping Yahweh in an orthodox manner.

They had uh inbred with other pagan uh peoples and had kind of muddied the waters.

And if you remember the story of Jesus uh meeting the Samaritan woman at the well, they have this interchange.

They both claim Abraham as their spiritual father, and yet they have vastly different views of who God is and how he works.

And so the fact that Philip is bringing the gospel to Samaria is huge in the history of redemption.

Uh and so we're told that Philip went uh there preaching the gospel and doing signs and wonders.

He's casting out demons and healing the sick.

And if you're familiar with the gospels, there's a there's a resonance, there's an echo here of Jesus' own ministry.

This is what Jesus often did.

He would go about proclaiming the kingdom of God, he would cast out demons, and he would heal the sick.

Why these details?

Why is Luke honing in on these things?

Well, it's because he wants us to see a resonance with Jesus' ministry, that what is happening here through Philip, note, not one of the apostles, one of the kind of early proto-deacons of the early church.

Through Philip, the work of Jesus continues.

In fact, we should hear the echo of Jesus' own words at the end of his ministries.

He says to the disciples, he says, You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

The kingdom of God is spreading.

It's spreading through persecution, it's spreading through the pain of the church.

In verse 12, we're told that they believed Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, and they were baptized, both men and women.

And verse 8 concludes with this so there was much joy in that city of Samaria.

And that brings us to our first point.

That we see here, and we're meant to see here, the gospel pattern of life coming from death.

This was the pattern of Jesus' own ministry, right?

Who uh who could have imagined uh what was actually happening when Jesus was hanging on the cross?

Right?

It was at that moment that his disciples fled and they thought that all was lost.

This one who they had put their faith in had been arrested, had been tortured, and now was being executed.

But it wasn't until three days later that they realized that this was the great point of victory.

We celebrate Jesus' resurrection as his victory over death, his announcement, his proclamation, his proof that he did what he came to do.

And yet it was looking at him on the cross.

In that moment, he was gaining the victory.

And so we see that pattern again here that through the pain of persecution of the church in Jerusalem, what comes out of that is the spread, the diaspora, the scattering of God's people, and so the scattering of the gospel throughout the regions.

John Calvin, one of the great reformers of the church, put it this way.

He said, The government of the church of Christ has been so divinely constituted from the beginning that the cross has been the way to victory and death is the way to life.

And I think this is not only important for us to see in the history of the church, but in our own lives, that we often experience bad things in our lives and we immediately interpret them as bad things.

And yet, because of the gospel and because of this pattern, Jesus invites us to have faith that he may be up to something different.

There's a great story I love.

Um read in a book recently.

There's a man who had a son, and uh, you know, this is kind of in an ancient rural uh culture.

This the son had a horse, and one day the horse was stolen by horse thieves, and and so the people of the community, the people of the village came around this son and they consoled him for his very bad luck.

And yet his wise father said to his son, What makes you think this isn't a blessing?

Months later, his horse returns, bringing with it a magnificent stallion.

Ah.

Well, over the next year, having this magnificent stallion actually makes the family very rich.

Let's see.

Oh, yeah, and everyone congratulated the son over his great fortune.

But the father said to him, How do you know that this isn't a disaster?

A few months later, riding this great horse, the son falls and breaks his hip.

You know, and this there's no modern medicine, like he's in bad shape.

And again, the community comes around him and tries to console him for his very bad luck.

And his father comes to him and says, How do you know that this is not a blessing?

A little bit later, war breaks out in the region, and all the able-bodied men were conscripted into the army.

And in that region, nine out of ten men were lost.

But the father and son survived because of his injury.

Brothers and sisters, we often experience blessing and disappointment.

And we can, I can, often cry out to God and say, Why is this happening?

Why is this bad thing happening in my life?

But because of the gospel, and because of this gospel pattern, the gospel invites us to ask the question, what is God doing?

Seldom do we know exactly what God is doing in any situation.

But I do know, and we do know this that He is always bringing life out of death.

Okay, let's keep going.

Uh something happens uh in Samaria that's very interesting.

As Philip is preaching the gospel, uh, many come to faith.

They they believe, they put their faith in Jesus and they're baptized, including a local celebrity named Simon.

Now we're told that Simon is a magician.

Uh that's a that's not necessarily what we think of today as a magician.

This is someone who used the mystic and pagan arts to uh amaze and um uh the people, and and he was known in that city and in that region as uh someone very great.

Right?

He had a again, he was a local celebrity.

But when Philip came down proclaiming the gospel, doing these signs and wonders, the whole community was kind of caught up in it.

And and just a huge number, it's like a revival, a huge number of people put their faith in Jesus, including this man, Simon the magician, or you may have heard of him rendered Simon Magus in church history.

Now things got so uh so big and so out of hand that the apostles Peter and John were sent from Jerusalem up into Samaria to help.

Uh, there was an issue where the people had believed in the gospel, but they hadn't received the Holy Spirit.

We're not going to talk about that this morning, though that's a very interesting tidbit.

Um, but this is what we're told.

Let's let's pick up the story in verse 18.

Um, when Simon saw the Spirit was given through the laying of hands by the apostles, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also, so that anyone whom I lay my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit.

But Peter said to him, May your silver perish with you.

And 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, on 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 g gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.

So what's going on?

Uh, this guy, Simon, this magician, we're told that he himself believed and was baptized.

And yet here he's trying to buy the power of God, the power uh given to the apostles to bestow the giving of the Spirit.

So, why does Luke include this story and how are we to understand it?

In short, I want us to see that in the midst of amazing outpouring of God's grace and power, danger is afoot.

Signs and wonders are one thing, right?

Philip does them, and the people are convinced they believe the gospel.

Uh, but it's the message of the gospel that is central to our faith and to the Christian faith.

Simon the Medicium himself, he had been known for doing signs and wonders.

That's what had gotten him such a great name and made him so influential among the people.

Uh and so, as the local celebrity, his misunderstanding of the gospel thinking that he could purchase the power to give the Holy Spirit, which some historians believe that this is how paganism and kind of magic use worked in that time.

You found a more powerful magician and you you literally purchased spells from them.

And so as I read this, I think this is kind of an ignorant pagan, maybe a new Christian, maybe not, just doing what he his culture has told him is what he should do.

He should go and purchase this spell.

But in this, he puts his finger on the heart of the gospel.

And Peter's response is over the top.

Or it's not, it's he hits the nail on the head, right?

He sees exactly what's going on here.

He says, How dare you try to buy the gift of God with money?

You see, even in the midst of celebration and great things going on in the church, Peter and John and Philip, they knew, they understood that the message of the gospel was central.

If they let that get out of hand, if they if they allowed a false gospel to get out, then all was lost.

And I love the fact that the story is here.

And this is a pattern, again, that's throughout the scriptures, that this is a very human incident.

We would love to tell the story of the explosion of the church growing in all different regions, and oh, isn't Philip great?

And aren't the apostles great?

But Luke wants us to see that as the gospel is going out and as signs and wonders are being done, and as people are believing and being baptized, there were things were not going off without a hitch.

And Luke wants us to see that we must fight to maintain the truth of the gospel.

If we believe that we can buy or earn the favor and power of God, then we have lost the gospel, right?

We understand we preach here every week that we are far worse than we would care to admit, but but we are far more loved and forgiven than we ever dreamed.

The message of the gospel is that we have nothing to bring.

And yet God loves us, forgives us, and has given us Jesus only out of grace.

Again, Peter's words are strong.

Literally, he says, May you and your silver go to hell.

He is jealous for the gospel.

Because if we lose grace, we lose everything.

Alright, let's keep moving.

The third and final part of this chapter, uh, we get to see God's heart for all who are afar off.

We're told that an angel of the Lord comes to Philip and specifically tells him, Go south, young man.

There's a road that leads from Jerusalem down to Gaza, which is a city southwest of Jerusalem on the Mediterranean Sea.

And on his way, Peter comes into contact with a fascinating, another fascinating figure.

Uh he is an Ethiopian official.

He he works in the courts of the Queen of Ethiopia, Queen Candace.

He's head of the treasury.

And we're given this little this little detail that he is seated in a chariot.

Uh this guy was rich.

Most 90% of people walked.

If you were an officer in the army, you might ride a horse.

If you were royalty, you were you were carried.

And if you were rich, you would be seated in a chariot.

So this is a rich guy.

He's head of the treasury.

He's also a eunuch, which was not unusual for someone working as a royal servant, especially connected with female royalty.

Uh it was a way to ensure loyalty and uh sort of protect um the women of the court.

But we're also told that he's a god fearer, which was a technical term.

He was a gentile who worshipped Yahweh.

Right?

We're told that he's in the story, which I did not read, uh, that he is leaving Jerusalem after worshiping in Jerusalem.

Now, this is a big deal.

Because as an Ethiopian and as a eunuch, the fact that he was there worshiping, he was an outsider.

Right?

If you know anything about the Jewish temple, uh he was not allowed, Gentiles were only allowed in the outer courts.

They were not allowed into the inner areas closest to the Holy of Holies, where God's presence resided.

But also as a eunuch, he was not allowed in the temple at all.

Now, probably because he was rich and influential, they probably let him in.

But as a eunuch, the Old Testament said, You because of your deformity, you are not allowed into the temple of God.

Let's pick up the story here in Acts 8, verse 30.

Acts 8:30

So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, Do you understand what you are reading?

And he said, How can I unless someone guides me?

And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

Now the passage of Scripture that he was reading was this: like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb before its shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

In his humiliation justice was denied him.

He who he can who can describe his generation, who for his life is taken away from the earth.

So not only is this a rich guy, a God fearer, but he he was holding in his hand the scroll of Isaiah, a copy of the book of Isaiah, which was just astronomically valuable.

And as Philip comes up to the uh comes up to the chariot, he's reading from Isaiah chapter 53, which is one of the most provocative uh passages in the Old Testament related to the Messiah, um, where we're told that he was pierced for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities, and upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace.

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

And with his by his wounds we are healed.

My wife and I were on staff with Campus Crusade for a few years.

This is what we would call an evangelistic softball.

Right?

This guy's reading Isaiah 53, and the Holy Spirit's like, go talk to that guy.

He's like, no problem.

And after reading this passage, Philip goes on to explain the good news to him that this man, Jesus of Nazareth, was also the Son of God, who miraculously lived a life free of sin, and yet willingly gave his life as the perfect sacrifice, so that anyone, Jew or Gentile, who put their faith in him would be forgiven their sins, invited in to God's family, adopted as a son or a daughter, given a seat at the table.

This is incredible news for anyone, but imagine being this Ethiopian, one who was always on the outside.

He immediately received the good news, and he himself was baptized.

But this is the flow of the gospel, brothers and sisters.

That the gospel not only is for the Jews, the sons and daughters of Abraham and Sarah, not only for the Samaritans, these half-breeds and uh kind of enemies of the Jews, but to the ends of the earth.

And here we see the gospel being directed specifically by the Holy Spirit to a powerful and influential member of a whole other nation.

Ethiopia was considered in this day the ends of the earth.

At the end of this story, we're told that uh Philip is so somehow miraculously like taken away by the Holy Spirit.

It's just sort of left vague that way, and he he continued uh on his journey preaching the gospel.

But the message here is clear the Holy Spirit wants the gospel to go out.

He doesn't need the apostles, he doesn't need Philip.

He will take this Ethiopian eunuch and bring his gospel to a whole other nation.

Beloved, this is the heart of God.

At the beginning of the chapter, we see the great persecution break out in Jerusalem.

The people of God are terrified and confused.

They flee for their lives, but in that fleeing, the gift and the message of life spreads to the whole world.

And just like in Samaria, out of that pain in Jerusalem came joy in Samaria, joy in Ethiopia, and eventually joy in Marietta.

This is the way of God.

This is the heart of God.

This is the pattern of God in your life, in mine.

And this is the work that the Holy Spirit continues to do that through the pain and suffering in your own life, He can bring joy and blessing to those around you.

Amen.

Let's pray.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Lord, we see this pattern.

We see it in others.

We have experienced it and tasted and seen that it is good.

And yet, Lord, we confess that it is hard on a day-to-day basis to remember and to hold on to faith when things are hard.

And so, Holy Spirit, we ask that you would work this down deep into our souls, that we would always be looking for resurrection in time of death, because that is the God that you are.

And we love you for it.

Amen.