The Book Of Acts | Courageous Evangelism (October 25th, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

So if you would grab your Bibles and turn them to Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

All right, Acts chapter 8, starting in verse 4 today.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Now, as you're finding your way into that, can you think of a time in your life where you were courageous?

Where you exhibited courage.

Perhaps it was when you were a kid, and it was the very first time that you worked up the guts to ride your bike off that huge jump.

It was the one that you had to go over like that gulch and there's major consequence if you uh come up short, so it required courage that you do that.

Maybe for you, your mind is being drawn back to that time that you asked that girl out and you had no idea what her response would be.

And so that for sure uh takes courage.

Now, maybe you know, in a very serious note, uh it could be the courage required to face uh the person who abused you.

You know, maybe as you run into them unexpectedly at the grocery store, and it's that moment of fear and realizing this is gonna take an immense amount of courage to even just get through this situation.

Well, listen, regardless, uh we know that life places you and I in all kinds of situations that necessitate courage.

Okay?

Or we're we're we're we're thrust into these moments that require that we not be deterred by danger or pain, okay?

That we act even though we're frightened.

These are definitions of uh what it means to be courageous.

Now, one of the six distinctives or attributes of our church, of redemption church, is courageous evangelism.

All right, courageous evangelism, it's it's taking the good news of Jesus Christ out into the world despite the risks.

Okay, whether those risk risks could be something like putting that relationship with a loved one on the line because you know that you have to proclaim Jesus to them.

It could be the risk of taking an unpopular stand, a theological stand, or something that goes against the culture and it could render you a social outcast from the groups that you interact with.

For you, it could be it could be financial risks involved when you share Christ, or even as we looked at last week in the life of Stephen, uh, it could be physical harm.

You know, courageous, I mean, that's definitely, definitely, that's the word to describe the early church and their approach to evangelism.

We're gonna see it here in Acts chapter 8, and of course, we're gonna get ourselves like geared up and inspired here uh to respond likewise, just like they did as believers, as a church that has been called to fulfill and carry out the great commission.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

So I want to read this passage uh with us now.

So join me along in your copy of the scriptures, chapter eight, starting in verse four, reading down to verse twenty-five.

It says, Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.

And the crowds, with one accord, paid attention to what was being said by Philip when they heard him and 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, much joy in this city.

But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great.

They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the power of God that is called great.

And they paid attention to him, because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

But when they believed Philip, as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women.

Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized, he continued with Philip, and seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.

Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent to them 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 laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Now when Simon saw that the Spirit had been given through the laying on of the Apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also, so that any one on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.

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

And Simon answered, Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.

Now, when they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.

Father, as we look at your word here, we see a church that's faithful, we see a church that is courageous, and Lord, I pray that as we are called into the exact same ministry to proclaim Christ and to walk out into the world and be courageous, God, I pray that you would give us that courage, Lord, that we would be bold, Lord, that we would believe truly, deeply in the Great Commission, in you, Lord, that we would see our identities clearly, that we would see our purpose in this life clearly, and that we would be driven and motivated by your love, Lord, by your truth, by your goodness.

So, Father, help us as this is one of the hallmarks of our church, Lord, and we want to live in line with that.

God, we want to honor you.

We want to see you do a mighty work in Newmarket.

We want to see you do a great work in this area, God.

And so, God, use us, transform us, change us, bring glory to the Son, your son, through us.

And Father, as we even just a moment ago shared uh some of what you have done to provide for us, even in the finances alone this past year, Lord.

What a year it's been.

We all know this.

But God, you have been so kind to us, you have been uh generous, you have protected us.

Lord, you have been good.

And so we rejoice, we praise you, we thank you, Lord, for this, that we can be sitting here today in a good position.

And so, God, we again we praise you.

Lord, again, as we uh work our way through these verses here, open up your word, Lord, open up our hearts.

Lord, we pray that you would pour down your power, Lord, your spirit, show us your glory.

We pray all of this in Christ's name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, here we go, jumping uh right into the first thing, three things today.

Courageous evangelism, what is that?

Well, it's first of all responding to uh persecution by continuing to proclaim Christ.

Okay, so we know again from last week that uh the martyrdom of Stephen, chapter 8, verse 1, tells us it triggered a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem.

And it says that they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria.

And we looked at that, and how though the immediate experience of that for these Christians uh would have been terrible, right?

It would have been painful.

They're forced to uproot from their homes and go off into an unknown uh land there, and how though it was terrible and all of it, in the end it really just became the you know this amazing fulfillment of Jesus' plan and his declaration to his apostles in chapter one, verse eight, that um that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, okay, and in all Judea and Samaria, which is where the story takes place today, and of course to the end of the earth.

All right, so so with that ringing in your ears here, uh take a look at me now with uh at verse 4, chapter 8, as we go through it.

It says there, now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

Okay, so notice how how while they they scatter to escape that initial blitz, that initial wave of persecution, it's it's not so that they can just you know retreat into this kind of comfortable life now.

This life of ease, where they're like, well, you know what, we we learned our lesson, we we made some decisions, we were bold at one point, we got burned for it, and so now let's just kind of you know kick our feet up and protect ourselves and let somebody else carry out the mission, let's let somebody else be faithful.

That's not at all what they say.

They realize that they're just getting started here.

The mission is just uh getting started.

It says that they went about preaching the word, right, to their new neighbors.

Okay, they were they were faithful.

That that would have taken, I mean, think about it, significant courage to be able to do that.

Right?

They again, they had just been uprooted from their homes, and they would probably have been wondering somewhere in the backs of their minds, probably in the front of their minds, what's gonna happen to us here now uh as we uh as we do this.

Okay, but love that.

Now, verse five, okay, here's where we're introduced to uh Philip.

Now, who's Philip?

Philip was one of the seven Hellenists, okay, that's those those seven men, along with Stephen, who had been chosen to take care of some of those practical needs uh in their church, in the church, and in the believers in that area back in chapter six.

Okay, so Philip, verse five.

He went down to the city of Samaria.

It doesn't tell us which city specifically.

Uh many people believe that it was likely the ancient city of uh Sebaste, but again, we're not uh totally sure of that.

But it says they went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.

Okay, now I love the response, right, of these of these displaced, of these uh shamefully treated believers, the response that they show here.

They're resolved, they're they're driven even to continue on with God's mission, despite what's happened to them.

The mission to evangelize, to proclaim Christ to the world.

Now, the Samaritans, who were they?

Well, well, they were, I kind of understand, they were like a mixed race of Jewish and Gentile ancestry.

Okay, so while they believed in the Israel's God and they were expecting a Messiah, they weren't, because of their mix, they weren't considered truly Jewish by the Jews, okay, nor were they considered truly Gentile by the Gentiles, which mean just means that they were like these social outcasts that literally nobody liked.

Okay, that was the that was the Samaritans, which I think really tells us something about the heart of Philip and these believers who'd been scattered.

Um, they had they had God's love motivating them here.

They're like socially and and and historically, we've never really gotten along with the Samaritans, but we understand now what God, through Christ Jesus, has called us to, and so we are now kind of in their territory.

We're kind of in their land.

We're gonna go and we're gonna tell them about Jesus Christ.

They loved people as God loved people, and so they were very compelled to courageously preach and proclaim, those are the two words there, that salvation was for anybody.

You didn't have to be Jewish.

The Gentiles weren't to be excluded from any of that.

No, God's presence, it wasn't limited to the temple or a temple gathering or anything like that.

No, this was this is a brand new era that was unfolding here that they realized we get to be a part of this.

Okay, God came to dwell with man.

Okay, within man, within us, through his Holy Spirit, as we repent of our rebellion against God and embrace Jesus Christ as Savior.

Right?

That is the message that we proclaim as a church.

We share that like every week.

We we talk about that in our ministries, that that you can be right with God, that you can have your sins forgiven, right?

That you can be restored with your creator, that your sins don't have to be held against you.

We talk about how Jesus Christ suffered God's wrath on the cross for you.

That was in your place.

He died your death.

And if you and I would admit our brokenness, admit that our sin ultimately sent Jesus to the cross, we and if we were to trust him by faith, we would receive the gift of salvation.

Right?

That is the gospel.

That is what what we get to proclaim.

You and I, as a church, we get to boldly evangelize that message to the world.

These scattered Christ followers here in the text, they realize that they got to do that as well.

And that's what they were doing.

They got to play a role in God's plan as they are filled with the courage needed to engage with these people.

So as you're thinking about the fact that we need courage as well.

Anybody need like courage on a day-to-day basis to be bold enough to go and proclaim the gospel?

Yeah, my hand is up uh for sure.

As you're thinking about that, you're thinking about like how do how do I like tap into that, how do I get that courage?

Um, I want you to kind of focus on two things here uh this morning as you're thinking about courage.

First of all, that courage will come as you and I believe what is true.

Remember, we've been talking about that concept a lot.

Remember, we've been looking at um Philippians chapter 4, verse 8 and 9.

Philippians 4:8

Whatever is true, okay, he says, think about those things.

Okay, you and I have to actually like consciously force ourselves to think about and then believe what is true.

What's I think the biggest reason why you and I aren't like chomping at the bit to go and evangelize our neighbors?

Because I think many of us we have a kind of a surfacey understanding that we're to be courageous in evangelism.

We know that that's true.

We know that's what we're called to, okay.

But deep down, on like a in our hearts on a subconscious level, we don't actually believe that's important.

We don't actually believe that that is true.

Sometimes what we believe is that what's most important is my comfort.

And what's gonna get in the way of my comfort?

Well, telling my neighbors about Jesus.

Because now they might not like me, now they might want to get into a debate with me, now it's gonna have consequences to me.

And so while upstairs we know all the right biblical answers, down here we're not functioning according to them because they are that truth is not guiding our hearts and guiding our motives and our desires and our actions.

And so, if you want courage, you need to believe that the Great Commission is like the most important thing in your life.

Right?

Everything else in your life, making money, everything falls in behind that.

It's it's it's it there they're important things, but they're not as important as that.

So do we think about what is true?

Do we do we remind ourselves that that listen, it's important that I talk to that guy when he comes home and he drives his car into his driveway and he gets out and he has a conversation about the world and about masks and about whatever it might be, that it's important that I work towards the conversation, getting towards spiritual things, towards Christ and the gospel.

We need to think about what's true as we press that into ourselves, we'll start to live that way.

The courage will start to come, we will be bold.

Second thing to think about and focus on here is that courage comes when we ask him for it.

We ask the Lord for it.

I think many times we we want to ask the Lord for courage, but we don't want to we don't want to do the first part and believe what's true.

Lord, would you just would you just like kind of magically give me the courage that transcends all of my, all of the lies that I believe every moment of every day?

Like I don't really deep down believe that that evangelism is important, but maybe you'll just like give me this magic dose of courage that I will I will share, I will share Christ.

No, we gotta believe what's true, but then it's still good to ask for courage.

We see that in Acts chapter 4.

Acts 4 · chapter mention

Okay, Peter and John, remember they had healed that that lame man at the temple gate and the council and and and the Jewish leaders, they didn't like it.

They go and harass them, they keep them in custody overnight, they threaten them, say, say, do not speak of Christ anymore, and they're like, sorry, not sorry.

We're doing it.

Okay, and they gather back together with their other, with the other believers in the upper room, and they pray in uh chapter 4, verse 29.

They say this, and now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

That word boldness is the same word as courage.

Okay, Lord, Lord, give us courage in the moment.

We're believing what is true.

We want that to govern us, we want that to drive us, but we're gonna need courage in the moment as well.

So, Lord, would you provide that?

So, again, as we believe those things and as we ask for boldness, the courage comes.

Right?

Why?

So that so that we, you and I, we can respond to the persecution that we face or or the possibility of persecution by continuing on with the exact same mission to evangelize the lost that we see really unfolding before us right here in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

All right, second thing.

Let's keep going here.

Courageous evangelism.

What is that?

Well, it is knowing that the Lord will move powerfully in the darkness, knowing it.

Okay, verse 6 now, uh this is where we're introduced to uh a rather interesting situation, I think, uh, that develops here in Samaria uh with uh with Philip and some others.

It says, and the crowds uh with one accord paid attention to what was being said uh by Philip when they heard him and saw the signs that he did.

All right, so obviously uh the the Lord, he's moving powerfully through Philip.

There's evidence, it says, that God was working.

There are signs, here they are, verse 7.

It says, 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.

So cool.

Okay, but here, verse nine but there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great.

They all had paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the power of God that is called great.

And they paid attention to him, because for a long time he had amazed him with his magic.

Okay, so all of this is kind of giving us a little bit of background information.

All of this had been going on with Simon before Philip shows up on the scene.

Now, verse 12.

Okay, 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.

Now, it's awesome to see what's happening here in these verses.

What's described here is uh is a city, is a is a culture, okay, that's steeped in the darkness, the bondage of the occult.

I mean, that that that's heavy, right?

That's dark.

Okay, people are filled with these unclean spirits.

That that's that's demons, right?

And and these these demons are coming out of them with loud voices.

Just try and picture for a second what that scene uh might have looked like.

Okay, then there's there's Simon, right?

This guy who who practiced magic and it and had wowed the people with his demonic abilities.

Okay, keep in mind, that's what this was.

This wasn't like the the the the magician that you invite to your your you know six-year-old's birthday party who's like pulling a quarter out from behind an ear and saying, wow, like illusion.

That's not what's happening here, okay?

This is the this is darkness, this is this is heaviness here, it's occult, it's it's demons.

Okay?

People gripped by this demonic bondage.

And yet what happens?

Philip evangelizes.

He preaches the gospel.

It says right there the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ.

That's what he proclaims.

And as he does this, lives are dramatically transformed.

People get saved, people are people are getting baptized, men and women, demons flee, paralyzed people, lame people are.

Are healed, right?

This is exactly what happened through the ministry of Jesus and then the 12 disciples, and now it's starting to spread out across the rest of the world.

It's the power of God, right?

It's light of Christ shining in the darkness.

Yes, these believers have been scattered, and that would have been awful, but what's happening to Satan and his forces is much, much worse.

Now, one of the one of the key things that'll bring you and I immense courage when we evangelize is knowing, like believing, trusting deep down that God will absolutely move in power as you and I are faithful to share Christ.

Now, that doesn't mean that you and I are always gonna see evidence of that every single time.

Right?

I can guarantee that Philip didn't always see God's power either.

I'm sure he had discouraging conversations with people.

I'm sure people hated and reviled uh him as well.

Just doesn't tell us about that uh in this uh very moment here.

Okay, so so that's gonna be the same for us.

We're not always gonna see it, we're not always gonna sense the Lord moving, but we can know, we can believe that he is.

And I want to share with you a verse right now that I think about like all the time.

Okay, as a person who preaches the word every single week.

Trust me, I'm a guy, I don't always see it.

I don't.

Sometimes I wonder, Lord, were you working at all?

You find out later sometimes, sometimes you don't.

But the the job, the the role, what we're called to is to just be faithful.

Now, here's a verse that encourages me.

I think we're gonna get this up on the screen for us.

It comes from Isaiah 55, verse 11.

Isaiah 55:11

Take a look at this.

It says, This is the Lord, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth, it shall not return to me empty.

I don't know about you, but I always have the King James Version for some reason ringing in my ears.

My word will not return void.

You heard that before?

Same ide here, will not return to me empty, but look, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

The Lord is like, I am doing stuff.

I am working, my power is going here.

And so listen, we can know that.

We can believe that, we can we can trust that no matter what our eyes are telling us, no matter what our brain might be telling us, or our fears might be telling us, no matter what we sense, you know, in the moment as we're sharing Christ and the person's reaction, or or no matter what we're kind of thinking, as we assess later the person's reaction and how the conversation uh really went and their response, listen, we can know that God is doing something.

God is working, his power, his word, as Isaiah says here, is is in some way, in some manner, accomplishing that which the Lord has decided it will accomplish.

Light is being shone in the darkness.

So, church, listen, you take courage in that.

Know that.

It's happening.

Get fired up that God is using you and will use you, even when we stumble and trip and fall all over ourselves in our efforts to do this, even when we feel like we don't have all the answers.

Even we we wish that we had we've done 20 years of seminary or whatever, and we haven't done it.

No, no, the Lord is going to use us.

There are times where we don't see it.

There are gonna be times where we do see it.

Our job here is to trust the Lord and get going.

All right, last thing.

Last thing.

Courageous evangelism is challenging the misguided to respond with genuine faith.

Okay?

The story continues on here and it centers more on Simon now.

Again, it says here verse 13, it says, even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized, he continued with Philip.

Now, there is some debate among scholars and pastor types and theologians and all of that as to whether or not Simon's profession of faith here was genuine saving faith or not.

Okay, there's debate.

It definitely says there that he believed.

We see that he was certainly baptized.

Okay, but sometimes that word belief there, where it's used believed, uh, it's it's used to describe intellectual belief or like a mental ascent to the truth.

Kind of like how someone might believe that like Jesus was a historical person.

He he was alive, he walked the earth, but but that's a different kind of belief than saving faith, right?

Belief where I'm trusting him for my uh salvation.

Okay?

Now keep going, we're gonna come back to all of that, but it kind of takes a different shift here.

It says, and seeing, this is still verse 13, and seeing signs and great miracles, he was amazed.

That's Simon.

Now, when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they're getting saved, they sent to them Peter and John, okay, leaders in the Jerusalem church.

Verse 15, 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 laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

Now you might be thinking, hold on a second, like what's happening here?

Like, like, doesn't the Holy Spirit take up residence within us?

Don't we receive the Holy Spirit like the moment that we get saved, the moment we put our faith in him?

Like, what what's what's going on with this?

What's what's the what's the delay about?

Well, first of all, I would say, yes, you can you can be confident that that the moment that you got saved, you have the Holy Spirit within you.

Okay, but in this rather unique circumstance here, it appears that that as though the the confirmation or verification of their salvation, okay, which became very obvious when the Holy Spirit fell on them through the laying on of hands, it would appear that that that verification of their genuine salvation was delayed until Peter and John, okay, two of the key leaders of the Jerusalem church, till they could be there to see it themselves and affirm that the Lord was in fact saving the Samaritans.

They also would have confirmed that Philip is indeed preaching the one true gospel.

He hasn't warped it, he's not leaving out important parts of it, okay, not at all.

Okay, so it looks like the Lord postponed the giving, the Samaritans of the Holy Spirit until the church leadership could arrive so as to create unity and cohesion among the church as a whole as it expanded and moved across the globe.

Okay, so if it hadn't happened this way, the Samaritan believers, under a lack of leadership and under a lack of direction, they could have potentially created some like offshoot splinter of Christianity that would have weakened the church's impact, their effectiveness as they proclaimed Christ, as they expanded.

Okay, possibly diluting the one true message.

Because you got one guy, one group saying this, another group is is saying that.

Instead, now the truth could uh the church could be unified under the one true message of the gospel.

I don't know about you, but that's that's incredible.

That's amazing how the Lord just directed the whole thing and protected and guided the church as it was getting started, as it was getting off the ground and running.

Okay, now verse 18, okay, back to Simon.

It says, now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of uh of the apostles' hands, okay, so obviously there must have been some kind of outward manifestation that accompanied that as they laid their hands on them.

It would have been something like, you know, holy tongues as of fire, or prophecy, just like we saw happen in Acts chapter 2, when the Holy Spirit first came at Pentecost on the apostles.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Something like that's happened, obviously.

He's he saw that take place, okay?

But it says there, verse 18, that he offered them money.

Okay, he offered them money, he says in verse 18, saying, Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands on may receive the Holy Spirit.

Okay, so it's not that the that the that Simon here he wanted this the Spirit for himself as a believer.

He he wanted what he thought of uh as thought was a new magic power that he could add to his arsenal.

Okay, that that's kind of how he was treating this here, so he could continue to wow people.

Remember, he thought himself this great man, he called himself that.

He, when people told him that he was great, he received that.

So there's obviously some pride issues in the guy.

Maybe he even wanted to turn a profit from it, who knows?

Okay, but verse 20 continues.

Peter says to him, very pointedly, might I add, may your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.

And then he says this, you have neither part nor lot in this matter.

And that right there, that's that's a phrase used a number of times in the Old Testament to mean that someone had no share of something.

Like you're you're not a part of this.

Okay, namely here, the blessings of the gospel.

Okay, so so again, was Simon saved?

Okay, what was he like not a believer, or or or was it more that he was a danger of losing out on the blessings that believers get to enjoy through the Holy Spirit?

It's not really telling us, but let's keep going.

Peter continues.

It says, For your heart is not right before God.

In some way, shape, or form, his heart's not right.

Verse 22, he he he urges them, he says, Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you.

Now, if he was a believer, his forgiveness there would not only be possible, it would be guaranteed.

Right?

You and I know we go to the Lord and we can confess our sin and we know that we will be uh forgiven.

Okay, so this is suggesting maybe, maybe Simon is not a believer.

Okay, we're and then it could it goes on here, verse 23, it says, For I see that you were in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.

Which means either that Simon was in a position where his sin and his and his godlessness here would lead to bitter fruit as a Christian.

Remember, we're we're supposed to bear good fruit.

It would either lead to bitter fruit if he was a believer, or to towards judgment if you were an unbeliever.

Okay?

Verse 24.

Simon responds to this.

He says, Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you've said will come upon me.

So again, is Simon a a Christian?

Is he truly saved?

Is his belief genuine?

Is his faith real?

Or is he asking for their support and their and their prayer as an unbeliever who's who's been rattled by the thought of uh of judgment, but and he hopes he doesn't get that, but he's not really quite ready yet, it seems.

He hasn't put the pieces together yet where he's willing to repent and receive Christ as Lord.

Well, at the end of the day, these verses don't really tell us one way or the other, right?

They don't clarify for us whether or not Simon was a true Christ follower.

Maybe he was, and maybe he wasn't.

Now, as a side note, there are some extra-biblical accounts, extra biblical, just meaning outside sources, guys like Justin Martyr, who was one of the church fathers, a disciple of John.

Um, there is some writing, actually, a number of different guys talk about how Simon uh goes on to be an opponent of the church and creates all kinds of problems for Christians after this moment and all of that.

So, again, that suggests maybe he wasn't a believer, but again, at the end, only God really knows the man's heart.

Okay, the bottom line here is at the very least, he was certainly misguided.

I think we can all agree on that.

He was misguided about the Holy Spirit, he was misguided possibly about salvation, and so Peter, very directly here, he challenges this man to repent as Simon's misguidedness is made really obvious to everybody.

Now, that's a component of courageous evangelism that we need to consider here.

Being so bold as to get into the muck and be willing to wade into the issues that people have, and for us, a willingness, okay, to challenge that thinking and challenge uh their actions and behavior.

Urging them to get right with the Lord.

Whether that's like, man, repent and receive Christ as Lord or get right with the Lord, start living as a believer ought to in line with the truth of the scriptures, right?

You're urging them to genuine faith.

Whether that's that's saving faith or living in line with the faith that you claim to have.

So, hey, will you and I, will we be courageous in this way?

You know, as we interact with an extremely misguided world.

Right?

It doesn't take us much to sense that that's happening, right?

Right?

Will we be willing to engage with and challenge our friends and co-workers and acquaintances and and and neighbors on the theological and social issues that are stumbling blocks to them as they contemplate Christianity?

Or will we be silent?

Obviously, Philip and Peter and John and many, many others here in Samaria were very willing to engage.

They were willing to walk into that.

And verse 25 says there, we'll just finish it off.

It says that when they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord.

Notice how that just that that kind of phrase is repeated over and over and over again.

They're evangelizing, they're proclaiming Jesus.

Okay, they stood firmly on the gospel here.

It says that after they'd done that, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.

So on their way home, they're stopping in in different locations and continuing to be faithful, continuing to be bold.

Listen, the opportunity lies in front of us as well.

That opportunity is clear.

Will we courageously grab hold of it?

Will we trust the Lord with the risk?

Will we believe what's true?

Will we live in line with that?

God, will you give us the wisdom and the guidance that we'll need in the heat of the moment?

Will we trust that he will continue to use us to do exactly what he's using these believers to do here in Acts chapter 8?

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Listen, I want to pray for us that the Lord would very much do those things this week.

So join me in your hearts as we pray, as we see not just our church built up, but this whole area reached for the gospel.

Lord, we thank you for this text, we thank you for the clarity of the gospel, we thank you for the kindness that we see in you in the gospel, your love for us, Lord, that while we were yet sinners, you died for us.

So, God, as we contemplate these things today, Lord, I pray that you would transform us.

I pray that you would give us courage, Lord.

I pray that you would give us opportunities this week, today maybe, to share Jesus, to not back down.

So Lord, that you would be glorified.

We pray all of this in Jesus' name.

Amen.