Samaria: The Spirit Grants Repentance

Good morning church. Today we're going to be reading

from Acts 8, verses 4 through 25.

Acts 8:4–25

And if you don't have a Bible with you, you can just use the

one in your seat and it'll be on page 862

starting in verse 4. 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 1 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 paralysed or lame were healed.

So there was much joy in that city.

But there was a man named Simon who had previously practised

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 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 good news about the

Kingdom of God and 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 was given through the laying on of the apostles hands,

he offered them money, saying, Give me this, give me this power

also, so that anyone 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.

This is the word of the Lord. What's going on?

Port City family and friends, how are we doing?

Good. My name is Tanner.

I'm pumped to be with you and happy.

Back to school weekend. I'm a former educator.

I love it. Shout out the math.

And I just have quick three exhortations of how how to

approach a new school year. You could do this every day, but

with the school year, I want you to open your hands, open your

ears, get on your knees. Y'all say that with me.

Open your hands, open your ears, get on your knees.

OK, real quick. Here's what I mean by that.

Open your hands and say Lord, this is your year, not mine.

I want you to hit your goals. I want you to dominate.

I want you to have fun on the field.

I want you to get the grades. But y'all, we don't control how

the year goes, you know, we don't control the ACL tears

sometimes, you know it just does.

Life is hard on earth. So open your hands and give it

to the Lord and say this is your year.

Come what may doesn't mean you give up your ambition.

It just means God make this what you wanted to be and help me

become the person you have in mind for me to be in the midst

of what you intend to happen. Now let's open our ears.

What I mean by that, particularly to my students,

Here's what I want you to be thinking about.

Naturally, we walk into the room, we look for the friends,

we go to the lunch table and we just get in our rhythms of

comfort and we're afraid to be insecure or like and I get that.

I remember my first day of middle school was like

chillingly awkward, cringy. This is just brutal.

Like out of a movie. OK, like I totally get that.

And high school by the way, brutal memory of 9th grade first

day. But y'all, what we do when I say

open your ears? If the spirit dwells, you ask

the Lord, what do you want me to do in this room?

Who do you want me to sit with when you have choice?

Ask the Lord to invade that. Because naturally your flesh

gravitates to comfort and to ease, and you might miss out

some of what the Lord has for you.

Maybe He wants you to serve somebody on your team instead of

just sitting with the people you always sit with and chalk up

jokes with. So what might the Lord do

through you giving him that team or that class or whatever it is,

that rhythm, that lunch rhythm. And then lastly, get on your

knees and pray. Amen.

Parents, just pray. Just pray over this year that

the Lord will have His way in it.

And it's not y'all. God can do some amazing things,

and He's inviting us to join him in that when we pray.

So let's open our hands, let's open our ears, and let's get on

our knees and pray. So I'm gonna pray over your

school year. We'll do that a couple more

times today, I'm sure. Y'all life, this is where it

happens. If this stuff don't work on

Monday when we in math class, it don't matter.

You know what I mean? If it don't work when we're

sitting in the Zoom meeting with our coworkers, who cares?

You know, like life is worship, not just when we're gathering as

a church. Amen.

So let's pray, our Father, I pray right now, particularly

over students. God, would you teach them to

open their hands? Would you teach them to open

their ears? Would you teach them to get on

their knees? God, that you want to live life

with them, That you are more powerful than popular girls and

boys, That you are more powerful than what mommy and daddy think

of their test grades. You are more worthy than just

getting into college. God, life is so big and so good

and so fun and you are inviting them into so much.

I just pray by your spirit you'll grab their attention.

They will learn to live with open hands, open ears and on

their knees. And God bless these parents.

Help them to open their hands. God bless educators, give them

great endurance. Make them secure in Christ.

God, they don't need the approval of their peers or their

admin or their students. This year we love you.

Pray in Jesus name, Amen. Y'all We're we're marching

through in the book of Acts. And this is a massive moment in

world history today. I don't know if you knew that

the church is on the move. OK.

And so as we looked at last week, Steven gets stoned in

Jerusalem. And so there's a persecution

that breaks out. Now the movement is, is going to

Samaria. Somebody say Samaria, and if you

might remember, John 4, Jesus woman at the well, there's some

historical baggage between Jews and Samaritans that if the

gospel can't survive this test, it doesn't matter that it

survived the Stephen test. Does that make sense?

Acts 7, the church survived when Stephen was laid to rest, but

Acts 8, will it make it through the Samaria test?

We shall see. That is sort of the goal here.

Can the Spirit unite Jew and Samaritan around Jesus?

Can it do that? Can he do that?

Because the spirit is a person, as we'll see.

So I want to look at our story through three kind of lenses.

And we're going to, we're going to pull some things out of each

lens and that'll be our time. OK, first, we're going to talk

about Samaria. Second, we'll talk about the

Spirit. And 3rd, we'll talk about Simon.

If you are ready, Let me hear you say I'm ready.

OK, let's talk about Samaria, OK?

And verses four and five of our texts said this.

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word

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

the Christ y'all. One of my goals for today is to

help you understand what Luke was doing when he wrote Acts.

OK? The spirit LED a man named Luke,

who wrote the book of Luke and the book of Acts, to write his

book in a particular way. So what we tend to do is we zoom

all the way in on a text. We immediately start asking

questions we have about miracles and about these different

things, which are good questions.

It's part of what Luke's doing. But you have to also zoom out to

see what Luke's doing. Does that make sense?

So I want to zoom out and help you understand what the book of

Acts is trying to communicate about who God is and what the

movement of the early church was.

So you can see the beauty of what's happening here 'cause

this is a massive shift in the book, and if you miss it, you'll

ask questions about the text that are good questions, but not

kind of the big questions. Does that make sense?

OK, Acts 1 verses 6 through 8 says this.

Acts 1:6–8

It's on page 855. If you're using one of our

Bibles, this is just a really important one because it's not

just a cool statement. Jesus says to his disciples, it

gives us a structure, a little bit of even what the book of

Acts is doing. OK, so check this out.

So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you

at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?

He said to them, it is not for you to know times or seasons

that the Father is fixed by his own authority, but you will

receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and

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

Samaria into the end of the earth.

OK, so just a recap. Jesus rises from the dead at the

end of Luke's first book. OK, Then Jesus says, hey, he

he's back risen for the dead for about 40 days with his

disciples, his students, his closest 11 followers.

And he says, y'all, I'm about to bounce.

So like, so is the Kingdom coming right now?

Like what's happening? Are you like, what are we doing?

What are we doing? And he's like, don't worry about

that. You will receive power and the

Holy Spirit comes upon. You will be my witnesses in

Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth by any

leaves. OK, Now when you think about

that, OK. And remember our text says that

they were scattered to Samaria preaching the word, right?

OK, now go back with me to Acts 8 in our text.

I want to show you what's coming next week.

If you look at verse 26 of chapter 8, probably the the

Bible's header above that says something like this.

Philip in the Ethiopian eunuch. So we're going to see the gospel

go to Samaria, then we're going to see somebody from Ethiopia

who would have been an outcast from the temple get the gospel.

OK, Now look at Chapter 9. Your header probably says the

conversion of Saul. So we're going to see somebody

who was forcefully trying to kill Christians come to faith in

Christ. Go to chapter 10.

Look at the header there. It probably the first one says

Peter and Cornelius. Cornelius is known as a Gentile.

So now we've got the gospel going from a Samaritan village

to an Ethiopian eunuch to a Christian killing man.

So now it's going to a man named Cornelius.

And then last one, I'll show you Chapter 11, verses 19 and 20,

Chapter 11, verses 19 and 20. Now those who were scattered

because of the persecution that arose over Stephen, so all the

way back from from our sermon 2 weeks ago, traveled as far as

Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no

one except Jews, verse 20. But there were some of them men

of Cyprus and Cyrene who on coming to Antioch spoke to the

Helenus also preaching the Lord Jesus.

So just to translate a little bit the the movement is

spreading geographically, it's spreading ethnically, it's

spreading to those who are considered outsiders.

It's it's spreading to those who were like opposed to the church.

It's spreading to those multi ethnically.

It's spreading to those who are have nothing to do with Old

Testament Judaism. So what we're seeing is a moment

in Acts where Luke is trying to show us something.

So what am I showing you? I'm trying to show you what

Luke's showing us. You feel me Like, why am I doing

that? Because Luke did OK.

But if we don't zoom out, we won't see it.

And we just take each story in a slice, which is not bad.

But you got to zoom in and zoom out.

Y'all with me? Somebody say zoom in, zoom out.

OK, I got two things that Luke is trying to show us here in

Samaria. First one, the Triune God is

growing the movement geographically.

It's first thing you got to see. The movement is growing

geographically. Just exactly what Jesus said was

going to happen is happening. He said Jerusalem, all Judea and

Samaria to the ends of the earth.

That is happening by the end of the book of Acts.

A lot of people wonder why is Paul?

If you go read Acts 2627, he's on a boat getting bit by snakes

and he's on islands and fish. It's actually very strategic.

He's hopping island to island, OK.

And it's more in a story way. You're just watching.

The gospel is going everywhere, going to islands, it's going all

over the place, and he ends up in Rome by the end of the book.

The book of Acts is structured to communicate exactly what

Jesus said was going to happen is happening.

Does that make sense? The gospel is spreading to the

ends of the earth and it's getting there in direct ways and

indirect ways. If you look up a map of this,

it's almost like concentric circles of where it started and

you know, like another bigger circle, bigger circle, bigger

circle, bigger circle. And so that's part of what we're

trying to see. God the Father had a plan about

his Son, his resurrected son, to get all the fame and glory, and

he empowers his church by the Spirit to go spread that news.

Does that make sense? OK, second thing, Luke's trying

to show us the triune God is painting a beautiful picture of

unity around the cross. Y'all listen, somebody say

unity. It's very intentional that today

we're talking Samaria. We're going to talk about an

Ethiopian eunuch next week. Then we're going to talk about a

dude who hates Christians the next week who comes to faith.

Then we go pause our series for now.

But next year, when we pick this up again, we're going to talk

about a Gentile named Cornelius. He's uniting different types of

people who otherwise would have had no business talking to each

other. Does that make sense?

Jews and Samaritans hated each other.

As we'll see in today's text, Paul, Saul hated Christians.

Cornelius, Jews and Gentiles had no dealings with each other.

Peter, full of the Spirit, a Jesus lover, had to get a dream,

a vision from on high to convince him to take the gospel

to a Gentile named Cornelius. OK, So what we've got to see is

that this is a picture of what God wants to do.

He wants to set people free and unite them to each other.

He's not just setting them free and giving them a clean

conscience while they live life the way they used to live it.

Some people think they've gotten the gospel, but they still don't

love nobody but themselves. I don't know what you think you

got. You might have gotten the

message that God loves you, but what God is in the business of

doing is purchasing people out of sin and uniting them to each

other who otherwise would have had no business being together.

OK, and so that's what we're going to see.

And what was God's method to set Samaria free and bring them to

himself? We see in verse 5, Philip went

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

And the crowds with 1 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 with many who had them, and many who

were paralyzed or lame were healed.

So there was much joy in that city.

As you go back and read this text tonight, I hope you'll see

kind of this some things leave Samaria while something else is

coming in. There's this image almost of

like out with the old, in with the new.

We used to be impressed with Simon and his magic show.

We used to be impressed with kind of the the power of the

week, if you will. But when Philip comes and

proclaims to them the Christ, it's like that stuff's old news

now. Here is this good new news, and

this is what we're united to see.

Y'all. This is what was crazy in

Samaria is that Jesus died for Samaritans too, Y'all, The

gospel is that Jesus died for everybody who will put their

trust in Christ can have a relationship with him.

Philip comes there and starts preaching this message and he's

looking right at Samaritans who otherwise wanted nothing to do

with Jews, and he says Jesus died for y'all.

That's what he told him. He proclaimed to them the

Christ, that Jesus is king, that he's Savior, that he's the Lord,

that he died on a wooden cross to take their sin.

That's the news. He told them and they believed

it. They're like, I'm in, let's go

out with the old, in with the new.

We used to think Simon was awesome.

No more. You are speaking the truth.

Jesus died for the annoying people and even bad guys too.

But don't miss this friend. Jesus didn't just die for them,

He died for you. Y'all listen, at the end of our

service, we're going to talk today at the end of the sermon

about repentance. We're going to see that Simon

needed to repent. And some of y'all, I still think

the Lord is drawing you to repentance.

And there comes a time where you can.

The Samaritans didn't know nothing.

Here's what's amazing, people in Jerusalem who he just left knew

way more. And many of them didn't know

Jesus. And he comes to Samaria with a

simple message. Jesus is king, he is savior, you

sinned against him. You need to know him.

And they repented and believed and trusted him.

You don't have to know a lot, but at some point you got to

make a decision. I will follow, I repent, I

choose Jesus, I see him as Savior.

I want to follow him. OK, so that's what's going down

in Samaria point #2 the Spirit, the spirit.

OK, versus, and this is a longer text.

We could do a lot of sermons on all of this stuff, but I want

y'all to kind of see the, the big picture of what, what's

going on here. So we saw that Simon kind of had

the, the, the power, so to speak, in Samaria, right?

Like he was he was doing these magic shows and it says that he

even comes to believe. And then in verse 14, this is

kind of a unique thing in Acts. OK says this.

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. Y'all.

So we see this a few times in Acts but not every time.

In Acts I mean all the time people are are getting baptized

and believing in Christ and there is no kind of like second

y'all haven't received the Holy Spirit and hands being laid on

and apostles. And so this happens sometimes,

but not every time. So a little bit, y'all, I want

to give you just a way to think about this stuff.

And, and there's mystery in it, but there's also clarity, OK?

There's mystery with clarity, y'all, The book of Acts is

describing something that happened.

It's not prescribing what will always happen, OK.

And so as we move forward, I want to help you see kind of

our, our position, if you will, on, on this particular instance

of should you expect that? Should you feel like I need a

second experience with the Spirit to know that I have him,

we will answer that as best we can from the clarity in the New

Testament. So I feel the need to show you

that unity is a big deal and this moment in history is really

big. OK y'all, the the animosity

between Jew and Samaritan goes thousands of years back.

OK, It goes back all the way to 1st Kings 12 when the Kingdom

splits. It goes back to when the

Assyrian invasion happens in the 8th century BC and and basically

the Samaritans were viewed by Jews as kind of like a 1/2 breed

if you will. OK they weren't Jewish enough to

be Jewish. They weren't a full blown

outsider, but they the Samaritans overtime kind of

created their own like Judaism adjacent.

They had their own temple. They had their own stuff going

on. And you pick up on some of this

animosity even in John four with Jesus and that woman's

interaction where she's like, we know where the temple is.

And you Jews say this and Jesus is just really good at Jesus

juking. You ever heard that one?

But he's really good at being like, girl, that ain't what this

conversation is about. But actually the Jews are right.

He does slip that in there. I don't know if y'all remember

that. He says, Girl, we worship at

Jerusalem, but I love you. But kind of that highlights some

of the the tension that existed ethnically between these two

groups. OK, so the reason I tell you

that is I'm trying to get you to understand why might God have by

the power of the Holy Spirit, the apostles go and put their

hands on them. There's this is a moment of

demonstrating the Spirit is saying these people are in and

it's doing it in a massively public way so that there's no

doubt for the sake of the unity of the church.

Y'all again, I just want to show you one more instance of some of

the animosity in Luke 9. Let me read this over you, Luke

951 to 56. You can write that down.

OK. This is a little interaction

during Jesus's ministry. When the days drew near for him

to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem, and he sent

messengers ahead of him who went and entered a village of the

Samaritans to make preparations for him.

But the people did not receive him because his face was set

toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and

John, somebody say John saw it, they said, Lord, do you want us

to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?

But he turned and rebuked, rebuked them and they went on to

another village. So just to be clear, John was

basically like, should we just wipe the Samaritans out Jesus,

because they ain't putting respect on your name and Jesus

like we good, let's keep moving. But who do the apostles say?

Let's sin to go lay their hands on the Samaritans so that they

might receive the Holy Spirit? Did you catch who it was?

Look at verse 14. Now, when the apostles at

Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they

sent to them Peter and John kind of a cool little moment of like

Peter is obviously a really, he's a big endorser of unity.

If he is there. That's, I mean, he's very

popular at this moment from a sermon back in Acts 2.

And then by sending John, it's, it's the Spirit's way of kind of

being like, hey, Jews get with the program that the gospel is

for all people, even you, John, pay attention to what I am

doing. So God is going the extra mile

here to show us that unity in the Gospel is miraculous.

It really is more than any miracle done in Samaria.

The greatest miracle is the the unity that happened at Samaria.

Does that make? Does that make sense?

So. Can we ask questions like, do

miracles happen today? Absolutely.

And they do. And we're going to talk about

that, OK? There's all kinds of things with

the Spirit that go on in our life and the Spirit's still the

same person. But this is not a text teaching

that once and forever you need a second baptism, the Holy Spirit.

That's not what the text is intended to do, OK, So any

conversations we need to have about the Holy Spirit are kind

of we just need to look at the whole Testament to have that

whole New Testament to have that conversation.

We don't just pull all of our theology from this one.

Does that make sense? So while on that topic, let me

give you 3 things we've feel about the Holy Spirit.

We believe about the Holy Spirit here based on the whole New

Testament at Port City. Here's three of them.

OK #1 The Holy Spirit is a person, dot, dot, dot.

So know him, get to know the Holy Spirit.

He is a person. Somebody say person, Yo, the

Spirit is a who, not an it. He's a person, not just a power.

He's a powerful person. But the Spirit is God, the Son

is God, the Father is God. God has always been Father, Son

and Holy Spirit. There's a term in a theological

term of continuationist. What that means is we believe

that the Spirit is the same then as he always was and will be.

The way that just makes total sense to me is that God is

unchanging. OK, God is simple.

God is undivided. It's not like he's 33% Spirit,

33% Son, 33% God. No, God is one in three persons,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So the Spirit will always be who

he is. Now at the same time, the time

has changed in history. Does that make sense?

So what you have to keep in tension is that the time has

changed, but the Spirit has not. He, the person, has not changed

at all, and the time has changed.

The time of what the Spirit is doing and even what he was doing

in acts, in some ways is different than what he's doing

today. So do miracles still happen

today? Yes.

Does like. Supernatural, unbelievable

things happen all over the world, including in America, but

especially in some other contexts.

Absolutely. But do you need a second baptism

of the Holy Spirit to know that you're saved?

No, when you are, when you repent and believe and trust in

Jesus as Lord, you were baptized in the name of the Father and

the Son and the Holy Spirit you're in like there.

There is no secondary teaching in the New Testament that your

conscience needs to be found to bound to experience to know that

you're in with the Lord. You are in the Spirit has sealed

you. Second thing about the Holy

Spirit, the Holy Spirit feel fills those he has sealed.

Sometimes when I say fill it sounds like I'm saying feel.

Do you feel what I'm trying to feel?

Y'all feel that? OK.

The Holy Spirit fills those he has sealed, so seek him through

his word. Y'all.

What I just alluded to is that you are sealed by the Spirit at

conversion. When you trust in Christ, the

Holy Spirit indwells you. The illustration I've I've heard

of this that I thought was really good.

I don't know if iPhone still do this is like a 10 year old

illustration, but it was really helpful for me when you know

when you go to download an app and you go to the App Store and

then it's like downloading back in the day, it would do the

little like time clock is filling up.

You know what I'm talking about a little swivel and when it got

all full, that means you had it. OK, So what was explained to me

is that when you are, when you are saved in the name of the

Father, Son of the Holy Spirit, every app that's ever going to

be on your phone in the Lord is on the phone is there like

you're you're, you're there is no earning more apps, if you

will, sanctification. Our life in the Spirit being

filled by the Spirit is just accessing that which you already

have access to. It's like the New Testament

teaches that those who are sealed by the Spirit, you need

to be filled like be filled by the one who has filled you.

Does that make sense? So it's not that we need a, an

experience, if you will. You just need ongoing filling of

the Holy Spirit. A good one for this is in

Ephesians 5 verses 15 through 21.

Ephesians 5:15–21

I'm not going to read it right now, but it does this dope

little thing where it says don't be drunk on wine, but be full of

the Spirit. And then you might ask, how do I

be full of the Spirit? Says singing songs and hymns and

spiritual songs to one another. The idea is as a community of

faith is full of the word of God, sealed by the Spirit of God

and communicating God's will to one another.

The Spirit indwells us, gives us the gifts we need, the power we

need, the authority we need to walk into sanctification and

becoming like Christ together. That's what the Spirit does.

That's who He is. Third thing about the Spirit.

The. Spirit fills the church to build

the church up and to live on mission.

It's all about church unity and missional living.

So love people y'all. If I could just tell you a pet

peeve and kind of the spirit filled conversation.

Sometimes it's like we just have to zoom out, guys.

God's goal for us is for us to love God and love people.

This Spirit fills us so that the church can be built up so that

we can be empowered to live on mission.

We can almost make it like, what experiences can we expect?

And I'm like, yeah, but if we're not focused on others, what

makes us think any of those things will happen?

Does the Spirit do that? Absolutely.

Why does he do that? For the building up of the

church and the empowerment of the mission.

So yes, please pray for all gifts, pray for all experiences

in so far as your heart is full of love towards neighbor and

giving your life away towards the church, towards friends who

don't know Jesus. Y'all, I'm gonna hit you with

the teacher thing I used to do. OK, Some of y'all might know

this meme. It's it's called Good day, Sir.

OK, Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory from

back in the day, the original. OK, you remember he he's a

little crazy looking with the puffy hair, right.

Well, at the end of the movie, he's at his desk and he's riding

and, and, you know, the old man and Charlie come up like Mr.

Wonka, did we win? He's like, no, you didn't.

Well, why? He was such a good kid.

All the stuff. He's like, no, wrong, Sir.

Wrong, Sir. You stole whatever that potion

is gone. And then he pulls out the old

thing and he reads off etcetera, etcetera.

And then the last thing he says is wrong, you lose.

Good day, Sir. What's the time with teaching?

When I was a teacher with three weeks to go, I would give the

longest speech you ever heard about.

Do not come for me after this date, May 10th.

I beg you to ask me for some extra credit or retake a quiz.

Please do it because I'll look at you and I will point at this

and I will read off everything on the syllabus and then say

good day, Sir. So I had a good day, Sir, right

behind my desk. Like please come to me after it.

May 10th. I will.

Good day, Sir. You so hard.

OK. Here is my good day Spur.

Good day Sir, full of the spirit.

I'm just being honest with you in spirit filled conversations.

If you are not loving the bride of Christ, the Church

sacrificially giving, picking up your cross, sharing the gospel,

asking the Lord to give to you for the purposes of building up

the church and adding to the church, I'm a good day Sir, you

you. Does that make sense?

Like that is who the Spirit is and what he's trying to do for

the church. It was never intended to be a

conversation just to argue about.

It's supposed to be a practical conversation that is important

for the purposes of the unity of the church and adding to the

church missionally. So if you want to be full of the

Spirit, grow in love for the word of God, give your life

away, live on mission, give money away, give and go and ask

the Lord to give you the authority, the power, the

graces, the gifts that you need to do that.

But if none of that's going on and you just want to like quiz

somebody, good day, Sir. Does that make sense?

Like good day Sir, I love you, Goodbye God's will for you my

friend, is not some sort of spiritual superstition, but to

be full of the spirit for the unity of the church and the

forwarding of his mission. And y'all, we have room to grow

on that here as a Church of just fostering an environment of what

do we need to fulfill the unity of the church and adding to the

church. God gives his church for those

purposes. We still need to grow on that.

We will keep growing in that. Welcome to being a New Testament

church #3. Simon.

Let's talk about Simon. Let's talk about Simon.

Let's talk about Simon Simon. OK verse 18 Now when Simon saw

that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the

apostles hands, he offered them money, saying, Give me this

power also, so that anyone on whom I laid my hands may receive

the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him, May your

silver perish with you, because you thought you could attain 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're 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 said may come upon me. I was reminded this week of the

term simony. I had not used that in a long

time or heard it. It literally comes from this

text with this idea of buying religious offices or power

through money like it comes from this.

This man thought he could get the power to give the Holy

Spirit through paying for it with money.

That is, that is a he gets his own word.

You simony, you. Let's use his name and put AY on

it. Why they choose why, I don't

know, but it's simony. OK?

What he did is simony. And what's confusing?

And again, this could become a theological debate.

Was Simon saved? Right.

Did he know Jesus prior to saying this foolishness?

And what's confusing is in verse 13, it says even Simon himself

believed, and after being baptized, he continued with

Philip and seeing signs of great miracles performed, he was

amazed. Now, I think it's a great

debate. I think it's a great question.

I have my thoughts. I have a hot take for you that

I'm not going to give you. I don't think it's the main

point of the text. I think the main point of a

story is to put you in it and feel the weight of it, which is

you need to repent. Does that make sense?

It's like, I think we're sitting there and we're feeling it sort

of feels Ananias and Sapphira ish, right?

But again, the Spirit's the same person different time.

This time when he does this, he don't drop dead or something

like they did back in Acts 5. Peter says you need to repent.

Your heart is not right. And we're kind of left on a

cliffhanger. OK, Now history tells us some

stuff about him and scholars kind of debate his impact in the

city, and we could talk about that quick theology.

I will tell you that repentant people keep repenting.

So. If there comes a moment where

you stop repenting or refuse to repent, you have to ask the

question if you ever did repent, that makes sense.

Repentant people keep repenting. So if he does not repent, he

never repented. That makes sense.

And I just want to say y'all, you could become a member of a

church. You a lot can happen in your

life. A real question we're going to

be asking during this time is like, are you repenting?

Don't just tell me you repented. Are you repenting?

OK, so Peter's warning should be our focus.

Here's three things about repentance.

And I'm done #1 Repentance is about your heart.

Somebody say heart? Verse. 21 You have neither part

nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God.

Verse 22 Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours and

pray to the Lord that if possible, the intent of your

heart may be forgiven you. Yo, the Bible teaches that

everything you do flows from your heart.

Simon, don't get to say my bad, my bad, this ain't a my bad kind

of situation. You know, like y'all, the Bible

teaches that what we do isn't just 'cause we're in a mood.

It isn't just because you didn't have your coffee.

It isn't just because nobody's perfect.

It's because our hearts are wicked.

Peter also known as Simon, which is a little confusing.

Peter says to Simon, I can see the bitterness coming out of you

man. He basically says, I could see

you wrapped up in it. Isn't it so interesting?

Sometimes other people could see what we're wrapped up in more

than we can. You can see when somebody's

wrapped up in money, wrapped up in people needing to like them,

wrapped up in anxiety, wrapped up in their sin.

We see it almost oozing out of people.

You know, there's self love, their love for themselves, how

much they talk about themself. And y'all want to be clear about

repentance? Jesus saves us, not our

repentance. Repentance doesn't earn God's

love. So it's not like I I know I'm

safe because I repent it. What What saves you is the blood

of Jesus. What saves you is what Christ

has done. But the Bible calls us to

repent, so that makes sense. So it's important part of the

process. But our trust isn't in our

repentance, though it is necessary.

It's the part of the process we own for what our heart loves.

117th century writer said there were six ingredients of

repentance. So I'm gonna give them all to

you, OK? It's the site of sin, sorrow for

sin, confession of sin. Shame.

For sin, hatred of sin, and turning from sin.

You know, one of the things the Bible presents is that if God is

drawing you to himself, your taste buds change What you once

loved, you started to hate once you tolerated God.

Once you hated God, you didn't care for him.

He was the one you hated and tolerated and you put up with if

you had to or you were just ignorant of, didn't care.

And you loved your sin, you loved yourself, you loved your

image, you loved these things. And what begins to happen is you

realize sin and the Savior aren't for sharing.

I was made for Him, not for this.

And what God does is he changes your taste buds.

OK, he he gives you a love for him, but y'all a love for God is

also a hatred for sin. You can't love sin and and the

savior. Does that make sense?

So Christians, let's be clear. We know we're not better than

anybody else, right? And it's somebody we still sin.

But the difference should be we hate it.

That makes sense not we know we're not supposed to do it Even

that is not repentance. Repentance is not just mental,

it's a volitional turning of your will based on your taste

bud interaction with that which that is now detestable to you.

Does that make sense? So sin goes from sweet to sour.

You don't like it anymore. And did you notice Peter said

repent of this wickedness of yours that God may forgive you.

I think some of us are like maybe I thought God was

forgiving. I thought he, I thought he died

on the cross for my sins. And even a little bit that can

mess with your mind. But I think it speaks to the

when Peter says repent, he's saying I don't know what's going

to happen. You go repent.

I think he's not trying to just give him a formula to say this

right now and it all goes away. Peter ain't Jesus, Peter ain't

God. He's saying, hey, you need to go

before the Lord. Your heart is not right now.

Go the the old school way of thinking about repentance that

we need to bring back is that it was a process you needed to sit

before the Lord in I can't make your conscience feel OK, but

just do this and you're repented and you you can know God loves

you. Does that make sense like it was

a matter of you sit before the Lord in these truths and what

Christ has done. I I'm not Peter's not the one

who dictates if you repented, God is.

Now. Second thing about repentance,

past amazement is no replacement for present repentance.

Past. Amazement is no replacement for

present repentance, The text said Simon was amazed by Philip.

I love the word amazed in our text as you read it, The night

happens three times. Samaria used to be amazed by

Simon. Samaria became amazed by Philip.

Simon was amazed by Philip. So again, if we are going to

debate some of the evidence that he might not be saved, is amazed

don't make you saved, You know what I mean?

But he was amazed. I imagine he could tell a story

one day, some stuff about Philip.

And I know a lot of believers who sat in a lot of churches.

They tell me, the pastor they used to listen to, they tell me

the camps they've been to, they tell us their experiences in a

Christian culture. Y'all, that is not repentance.

We can't brag about or cling our consciences to our Bible

studies, to our to our music, to our to our all of the good

things, the churches we went to, the places we've been, the

ministry we used to be a part of.

Don't tell me of your past amazement.

Tell us of your current repentance, the sin that you

keep doing that you hate, and the ways that you want to see

the Savior take it away. And you're asking the Spirit to

change your heart. I think too many Christians have

past tales of enjoying some part of the Christian culture and no

signs of current tears over their hatred of sin and love for

Jesus. We just have.

Tales. No tears.

We got tales for days and our tear buckets are empty.

You know, Augustine famously, they said by his night nightside

table was just this thing that walked him through nightly kind

of repentance. Another early church historian

just talked about like, man, what makes us believers in a lot

of ways is our tears over our sin.

It's it's we're not less sinful, but what it does to us is

different. Does that make sense?

And one of our pastors, we were talking this morning.

Some people in church history have gotten wrong.

It can make you so on the hunt for your sin and so

introspective and analyzing it. That's like that's also not the

you can get so far into the weeds of yourself that you don't

see others. Remember, the goal of life is to

love God, love people, be full of the Spirit for the purposes

of building up the church and adding to the number of the

church. But our hatred of sin is a huge

part of that. Does that make sense?

And I sense in the the, in the, in our, in our American kind of

church context, we've so assume the love of Jesus sometimes that

we don't sit with our sin. Does that make sense?

Like the goal as we sit in it is we're seeing what he's rescued

us from. Man, I hate this thing 'cause it

put my Savior on the tree. That makes sense.

I remember the first time I went and saw something I shouldn't

have saw with another friend after coming to Christ.

And he said this lie to me, 'cause I still had in my head

Christians can't do bad things. And what he said was like, man,

my heart hurt for Jesus while we watch that and I was like he was

on a different wavelength than me.

Does that make sense? He was like Jesus died for the

things that was celebrating. So his heart wasn't think about

am IA bad person because I just watched that and do I need to go

do this act over here to feel good about my conscience?

He was walking with God in something and he was like, God,

this ain't you. You died for this.

Why am I partaking in that which you hate?

It hurts me that this is celebrated.

Do you see how his heart was engaged in it, not just his mind

and his conscience. Do you see that He knew his

heart was not right before God and he brought that to the Lord

and I that had a huge mark on me #3 repentance about turning from

wickedness to God. Y'all again, our culture is not

going to tell us we're wicked. It's just not.

It's not. We all need some education.

You need some help. You need another shot.

It's not going to tell us that our hearts are wicked and we

need to repent. I mean, this is not going to do

that. But Peter says repent therefore

of this wickedness of yours. Y'all.

That's what we need to do. We need we, we repent of sin

because we love God. There's two sides of the same

coin, repentance and faith. We are grabbing God and letting

go of our sin, y'all. So to the believers in the room,

I want to talk to you for a second, y'all.

We are the ongoing repentant people and our heart gets caught

up and stuff. We're so weak, we're so fragile,

we're so fickle. We're just constantly clinging

to other things and y'all the Lord has given us superpowers,

which is confession and just tell it like to the Lord first,

OK and repentance and then confession to other believers so

you can hear spoken over you. You're good, like you're loved.

Thank you for telling me and the Lord loves you.

Now we don't replace telling the Lord with telling others.

But once you've repented unto the Lord, you need to hear

you're forgiven. That's part of what the

communion table is every week that we practice here.

It's just to remind our consciences Christ died for your

sins. But y'all, he didn't die so we

could cover them up and act like we don't do it.

OK, the point is, let's walk it in openness that we got nothing

to hide and we've been forgiven. Now let's break the chain some

of this sin has in our lives by confessing it to one another.

Hey, I'm anxious about. I need you to pray for me about.

Hey, I gossiped about hey, I did this again.

Hey, I need your help on and I've gone to the Lord about

this, but I need you. I need you involved in this

unbelievers, some of y'all need to repent.

You've heard plenty of Christian teaching.

You've heard plenty about who Christ is you.

You've heard y'all the Bible says taste and see that the Lord

is good. There's something about

repentance that can be tasting. Words are not tasting.

So I, I could give you a set of words to say, but I can't repent

for you. And you could take those words

and still not be repentant. I want you to look at the cross

until you see Christ on it for you, for your sin and repent.

That's what I want for you. I want you to turn from your sin

into your Savior. And if this is happening in your

life, if you've been hearing the gospel for a while, if you've

been hearing that Christ died in your place, if you want to have

much joy in your life the way the Samaritans did, we would

love to talk to you about that. If you're like, I want that and

I don't know what to do and just genuinely want to have a

conversation, we would love to talk with you about that, about

repenting. Your heart is.

Tied to sin and that must be unwedded.

Repentance leaves sin behind and God is where you're headed.

Y'all listen. Again.

Repentance doesn't save you, the blood of Jesus does.

Y'all love the the the prodigal son story?

Send Luke 15. Go read that tonight if you want

to. But one of the things the text

says about a son who runs away parties.

Classic stuff. I've done it, did it.

And when you get far away, the Bible says that he came to his

senses. It's this idea that I recognize

how what I was doing was stupid, I've wasted my life.

But that in and of itself is not repentance, is it?

If you want to use the saved language, when in the story is

he saved? It's not even his going back

that does it. It's the idea that the Father

runs out to him and restores him to his sonship status.

Does that make sense? So repentance isn't primarily

about you, it's about how God wants to rescue you.

So as we turn and go back, our confidence isn't in us and our

ability to turn. It's just saying, God, I've come

to my senses, you were right, I was wrong, I'm sorry, forgive

me. And then you run to Him, but

before you ever even finish your little speech in your head, He's

running to you. That's the gospel.

It's not that you earned your way out of your sin through your

hatred of your sin. It's that God has gifted you

hatred of your sin. He has gifted you coming to your

senses. He has gifted you something

before you even realize you have it.

And when you turn, He is waiting right there for some of you.

It's time to turn. OK, I'm going to pray.

If you want to have a conversation with myself, any

other pastors or people you've seen up here today, we will love

to speak with you. OK, let's pray.

Our Father, we love you. Thank you, God that you were the

same yesterday and today and forever.

God, we pray, by the power of the Holy Spirit, people would

repent in our city. God, we pray.

People would see the glory of the gospel that Christ died in

our place. God, we put our trust not in our

repentance, but in your blood Jesus.

And I pray for my friends who need to come to saving faith in

Jesus Christ, who need to turn for the first time.

God, please have mercy on them. Please perform a miracle in

their heart right now. Holy Spirit and God, for those

of us who are in Christ, may we be repenting all the time.

God, we have nothing to prove and nothing to hide.

I just think the church, God, we're just trying to impress

each other so much. Let us become more broken and

more needy just of grace. God, we run to you for grace.

And then let us be honest with one another and allow ourselves

to minister to one another. We love you.

We pray these things in Jesus name, Amen.