Leftovers - Acts 8

Happy Monday. Welcome back into the ERC

Leftovers podcast. Pastor Matt, Pastor Chris here

with some follow up thoughts to the message from yesterday.

Some funny personal thoughts along the way, the past week,

the past few days, whatever it might be.

How you doing man? I, I, I feel man, I'm good.

I'm good. Like I, I had a great weekend

and I thought yesterday's service was like, you know, like

I really enjoyed it front to back.

So yeah. But I'll tell you what, man, I

think the, the thing that, OK, so yesterday I have to rewind.

I don't, I don't think I've ever seen the people on a Sunday

morning during a sermon react the way they did when you just

started eating day old chicken Nuggets in front of them and not

saying anything. There was just like these, so

many people from the audience just yelling random things at

you. I've never seen them react that

way. So.

Yeah, if you haven't, if you haven't watched the message or

if it didn't come through, well, it's not going to come.

Well, on the audio version on on Facebook feed, you can see what

was going on. But I started yesterday's

sermon. Someone else, Shannon sank and

read the passage for the day. And then I just brought the

table in my notes up there and opened up a McDonald's bag and

started eating chicken Nuggets with BBQ sauce.

Didn't say anything. I was just dunking Nuggets and

and chewing. Yeah, you were.

Hey, man. And I was.

I was actually weirdly jealous 'cause I shouldn't like them,

but I love McDonald's chicken Nuggets.

Yeah. Yeah.

So anyway. Delicious, delicious.

So, and that's how I started. And this isn't my illustration.

I, I copped this for I saw this somewhere else and I thought it,

I thought it worked for this passage and I thought it would

be attention getting. So I, I mimicked it.

But when I was fully prepared to just be up there in awkward

silence with the room, just silently wondering what was

going on, but people started calling out.

They like, what are you doing? Or did you bring enough for

everyone? Or are you are you going to

share those with me? Like there, there were so many

different. I think I even heard somebody

say what kind of sauce? Like, wow.

And I was trying not to. I was not out there to like

converse. I I wasn't really wanting to

engage with with the reaction so everyone's just confused.

Cause the whole idea was that you would not react is that you

would just like eat the Nuggets without even thinking about the

fact that you're staying in front of 100 and almost 200

people, you know? And in that way, it's genius.

But in another way, like the audience reaction was wild.

And they clearly by the reaction, the question, the

question I asked in the illustration that we were

talking about are, are are you here to just watch me eat like

me be fed spiritually? Do you come to church to watch

me work out my salvation being or, or are you working out

yourself? Are you coming to eat?

Are you coming to be filled? So that was the question.

But clearly people, people were there to be filled.

They were there to eat too. Like they were like, no, give me

some of that. So no, that was that was how I

set it up yesterday. And I think, yeah, I think it

landed. I think the point came across

and they were follow. I yeah, I had other inner

weavings of that illustration later in the message too, but.

Yeah, it was wild, though I have no other way of describing it.

Like there had to have been at least at least 10 different

people who are shouting out random things and children too.

You. Really got them.

And The thing is like, you know, if you're listening to this, you

probably go to this church and you know, that's not typically

what happens. Like, you know, somebody can be

on a good run, like Holy Spirit run and every once in a while

here and Amen. But that's usually the extent of

it. We don't have a whole lot of

like audible responses during the message usually.

Not usually, unless we unless we ask a question.

Yeah, yeah. And you guys are great about

answering questions and stuff and I and I love that.

But yesterday was just different.

It was wild. So yeah, that's, that's where we

started, ended up with what we also don't do at the end, and we

probably should do more often. We don't, I don't want to call

it like an altar call 'cause I think that's, I don't know, I

think that has weird connotations to, to call it

that. But we, we don't often invite up

for baptism at the end of the service.

We don't often like invite into again, the phrase faith

decision. Like I don't love that either.

But we don't, we don't ever really like set up a call to

Acts. I, I, I guess like a call to

professing, hey, yes, this is what I, I want this, I'm

declaring that I believe in Jesus and I want to be baptized

and I, and I want to learn how to live this Christian life.

Like we don't often facilitate moments for that because we're a

conservative Midwestern Lutheran Church and that's how our people

are. So anyway, that yeah, ended with

a call to baptism that wasn't taken up by and I did get a

couple text messages afterwards that they appreciated the moment

and the invitation. There were a couple.

I really almost came up or I, I really almost brought my kid up

and that there were a couple of those.

So it just any of you listening like I do truly believe what I

said that we sometimes have two formal of a view of baptism.

Yes, it is important. Yes, it should be entered into

thoughtfully and considerately and carefully and prayerfully.

Like it shouldn't necessarily be a split moment decision because

I do think it has lasting impact in this passage that we'll talk

about. There's Simon the sorcerer did

enter into baptism and still was like wildly unequipped or not

understanding what he was entering into.

So like, I do think we should be careful and cautious and

considerate of, of entering into baptism and what we actually

believe and what we're actually professing.

So I'm not saying we shouldn't set it up with, with any sort of

education or care or, or consideration, but I do also

believe it can be that simple. You know what, you're here, you

believe this, you've never been baptized.

You should be baptized, be baptized right now.

And we can do it right now. So yeah, if there's ever any of

those moments moving forward too.

I I had a couple of responses that I was like, and any given

Sunday, I'll I'll come to your house and baptize your kid right

now if you want like it. It is that accessible.

It's not something reserved for a special manufactured moment at

church. That's that's not the picture of

baptism we see in the Bible. No.

And actually I had a guy, I was thinking about this yesterday.

I had a guy during seminary, I think he was the class in front

of me and he brought up this moment.

He was, he was at a, a bar or a pub, something like that.

And you know, he'd struck up this conversation with this guy

and he had been witnessing to him for better than an hour.

And the guy probably similar to the eunuch, his mind was opened

up like he had, he already had some kind of background about

Jesus. So like Jesus wasn't a new

concept to him. But like in that moment at the

bar, the guy absolutely authentically as you can receive

Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

And that that guy who was at seminary, he said, I baptized

him there. And I was like, that's awesome.

But it sparked this debate in the seminary as to like, hey,

should you have done that? And then, you know, you look at

this text and here's water. What's to stop us, right.

And so I, I, I was, I was on the favorable side of that debate of

saying no man, that man accepted, loved and understood

his need for Jesus Christ and he wanted to be baptized.

He wanted his sins to be washed away.

Understood that baptism is the sacrament, the expression of how

that happens. And so I mean, yeah, why?

Why stop that from happening? So what I think, I think part of

maybe the negative side of the reaction to that is we, at least

when I was in seminary, there's a hard, profound emphasis put on

the Great Commission of, of that baptizing them and teaching them

everything I've commanded you like.

Those are one and the same. And I do believe the like that

makes sense baptizing and teaching where I think it maybe

goes a little too far. We we get caught up in our heads

of of the ongoing element of that teaching, especially as it

relates to like the pastorate. I think that absolutely makes

sense for parents of a child. Like no, you're entering into

this baptism as well as long as they are in the your household

and in the honor thy father and mother state, which that never

really goes away. But but when you're particularly

when they are a minor and in your care and not in their own

adult life, yeah, that that teaching part of being raised in

a Christian faith and you as parents encouraging and growing

and nourishing your child in that.

I do think it's significant where I think there's a little

less of, of an impact and we see it even acted out in the in the

apostles here in Acts. They're not responsible for each

and every individual that they baptized.

Their ongoing teaching and learning.

Yes, they taught them good and true things, which then the Holy

Spirit worked and and convicted and brought them to faith in

that. And, and to some degree they,

the disciples did teach them the things that Jesus commanded them

and it brought them to faith and it brought them to baptism.

But from that point on, they're kind of it.

It's where I ended yesterday. You're you're working at your

own salvation with fear and trembling.

The disciples were not living out their faith for them.

What what Simon asked of them. They could not work out his

repentance for him. So to that degree, I think, I

think it is OK from that moment at least, at least as a pastor's

responsibility goes. You, you taught him everything

to that point to to bring him the good news, the gospel, to

the point that he wanted to declare his faith in that.

You're not on the hook for holding his hand for the next 50

years of his life, though. I don't, I don't think.

No, I don't think so either. And, you know, especially

speaking specifically of yesterday, I think it, it is

appropriate and it is good to offer those seemingly spur of

the moment kind of things. Because here's the thing, if

you're at ERC or any other church and that is offered to

you in the moment. And man, God and the Holy Spirit

are saying, OK, I'm talking to you right now.

Well, gosh, you know what? After that, we can probably

pretty safely assume they're going to continue in our care

under, under, Yeah, under our general care.

And so like then, although it is technically in some way always

spontaneous, it's not, it's not a situation where there won't be

follow up, you know, and, and yeah, I mean, we can't, we, we

don't save anybody, you know, we don't save anybody.

So you're, you're 100% correct in how you use that sense of

like, you have to work out your salvation and fear and

trembling. Like that's on you.

Like there is the individual component of like, what is my

relationship look like with our Lord and Savior?

And, you know, so outside of Sunday or any other like

specific things where we're teaching, preaching, whatever,

but yeah, like it is down to the individual to say I value my

relationship with the Lord enough to seek this out, to

repent regularly and, you know, all those kinds of things.

And if you're listening either yesterday or listening to this

now or just generally in your Christian walk, as it were you,

you wonder, well, what what should it look like?

Or, or maybe there's an individual at church or, or

someone, you know, who's like I, I'd like what their faith looks

like because we, because we can think like that.

We, we can see people and be like, wow, I wish I was the

Christian that they are. I think it's OK to think that,

but go like, if you see that or there's that, whatever I, I want

that or, or just like twinge of jealousy in you within that, Go

talk to them. Go, go, go get coffee with them

or, or, or go out to for apps or something with them.

And, and talk to them about their faith, like how they, how

they've been brought to that point in their life for their

faith to be something that's that's desirable, that's

appealing to you. If you don't know what that

looks like, but you can see someone who has what it looks

like, I think, I think it's OK to lean on that and to be

encouraged and, and learn from their experience in that.

But you got to talk to them. Don't don't just be like, oh

man, that person's awesome. And they make me want to be a

better Christian. Like, again, if you're kind of

putting their faith up there on a pedestal as as as an idol as

what, what happens when they're no longer in your view or, or

what happens when they inevitably fail, that that's

honestly, I'm not and I'm not whatever.

That doesn't absolutely have to be.

But if we're putting our faith in anyone other than Jesus, that

there will be moments of failure and disappointment in that.

So absolutely. Yeah.

So anyway, I'm glad that landed, yeah.

Yeah, actually what what you're talking about right now I think

is a great segue to something I caught online recently.

And you know, it did make me, it did make me feel small in a way

of like, oh, that person's that person's faith.

Wow. I don't, I don't even know how

I'd hold a conversation with them.

But yeah, I think you have a clip, right?

We're going to new segment. We're going to skip Would you

rather this week and we're going to do a Pastors React.

There we. Go If you don't know this guy,

this is comedian John Crist, and he's a Christian guy.

Often. He's a clean comic, often pokes

fun at silly things that Christians do and it's just

weird forks or things we've made-up or or adhered to in the

Christian faith. So this is him riffing on what

it would be like to meet some of some of, I guess, like the Mount

Rushmore of of Christian people throughout the Bible and and how

he feels inadequate to that. So take a listen to this and

then and then we'll react. This is John Crist.

Did any Did any of your parents ever tell you that when you go

to heaven you're going to meet some of the Bible characters?

That's terrifying. What are we going to say to

them? I know not.

What am I going to say to Noah? He's like, dude, I built an ark

with my bare hands. It took me 100 years.

I was like, I get ticklish during a pedicure.

Did I fiery furnace? That's crazy, fellas, because I

was in an Uber one time with no AC, and I get it.

What am I going to say to Samson?

He's like, dude, I killed a lion with my bare hands.

I ripped the lion's arms off with my bare hands.

I was like, I'm allergic to bread.

Oh, come on, man, Come on. Man it's so good though, like.

OK, I, I mean, OK, so here's here's the thing.

I, I caught this like a couple days ago and man, that's he's,

he's so spot on. And I was laughing about it, but

then like 30 seconds after I watch, I was like, oh wait, oh

man, I, I, I'm feeling a little weird now.

Like I, you know, 'cause in the, in the infinite scope of

eternity and being able to interact with these real life

people who live these real life things like, you know, you, you

hang out with a friend and you swap stories and you feel like

on some level you're on equal footing, even if you haven't

done exact dude, there's no equal footing here.

There's no equal footing. Here it doesn't feel close.

No, I just can't. OK, So yeah, he used the word

terrifying. And I always thought before

seeing that clip, I was like, oh, it'd be so cool to go talk

to Peter or whoever. And like actually now I'm I'm

second guessing all of those thoughts and that's.

And that's more often when like people talk about, and I've had

these conversations too, of, oh, I'm gonna, I'm gonna ask Noah

this thing or I'm gonna see what see what John was actually

thinking in this moment or, or how they react.

And I don't even know that we will have, I don't know that I

fully believe we'll even have the opportunity to ask those

questions. But maybe anyway, yeah, what am

I going to say to Peter? Like that could actually be a

thought provoking conversation because I don't I don't think

he's going to be up there just ready to answer all in

everyone's questions about his life.

And I don't think that's going to be his purpose there either.

And what would I say that would be thought provoking and and

meaningful for what he went through?

Or or Samson or Noah or Moses? Like yeah, must have been crazy

when the Red Sea split. Wow.

I saw a rainbow once like. I saw a double rainbow all the

way across the sky once, like. I was, I was talking to Kristen

this morning about that, that little bit that John Chris did

and started laughing because it's like, hey, Moses, did you

see that study guide I wrote about you?

Pretty good, huh, Don't you think?

There's some excellent study work on the life that you

actually lived. Like, come on, man, I, I don't

have anything for any of these people.

And I think like, you know, you think about Peter in particular

because we apparently we love to pick on him because he just says

things like, you know, he lets all of his intrusive thoughts

win. Yeah.

Like am I going to walk up to Peter and be like, dude, you oh

so many times you just stuck your foot.

Like I'm I could never, I could never, I could never say

anything like that to him. Like there's no way I, I have, I

have no legs to stand on. Not a chance.

Or Samson eventually just man, how did you not see that coming?

She was working the whole time. Man, you.

Can't. You can't say that there's no

way you can do that. And I just, you know, I get

ticklish during a pedicure. Like really, really.

Come on. Man, these are my these are the

adversity that that I've overcome in my Christian.

No, it's not even. The adversity is so, you know,

I, I caught another bit he did where his sister got this brand

new shiny house. And like, they're showing him

around and somewhere in the kitchen it says, I can't

remember what says something about, yeah, you know, the

adversity and like the, the troubles we've been through.

And he's like looking at this golden chandelier and being

like, oh, yeah, I can really tell.

Yeah. This is really tough for you,

isn't it? Like.

The it's it's the lyrics from Treating My sorrows.

I think is oh, we will. We will be brushed down but not

but not destroyed. Yeah, like you're going to

overcome this like multi $1,000,000 house you're living

in. Oh, wow.

And. He points out, Oh man, the the

your pool chairs got delivered two days too late.

Like that's, I don't think Moses was talking about, Paul was

talking about like midwife suburbia here for what you had.

To overcome, like Paul, Paul's in chains in a prison for years

on end. And you're like, yeah, but Paul,

you know what I mean? There was that one time those

guys didn't talk to me at work for a week because I brought up

Jesus. Can you imagine how awkward that

was for me, Paul? Like.

Come on man, you don't. I'm sorry, I talked to these

these guys about Jesus and they tried to kill me.

Yeah, yeah, it's, it's madness. So no, if you if you're not

familiar with John Crist, he's a funny guy, clean comedy,

Christian worldview in perspective.

His podcast net Positive is also a a funny listen week to week.

I, I, I listen to his podcast each week.

I know that maybe not totally connected with that, but

Wednesday's net positive with John Crist that drops and that's

always a funny hour. Long I just, you know, The thing

is like the best comedy is is always it always has truth in

it, and that's and that's what just totally makes.

You laugh at yourself, the silliness.

Of yourself, yeah, but I, I came I came out of that little clip,

you know, when I first heard it just going Oh my gosh, I, I

don't know if I've ever felt smaller than I do right now

like, yeah, I, I don't. So I in in in a very kind of

serious way. It did make me think OK, like I

need to put on my big boy pants from time to time and not worry

about what people think, you know, because quite honestly,

like the, the, the creator of the universe is asking me to

participate in his mission and quite frankly, regardless of

what that cost me, that's OK that it's going to be fine.

It's OK. Absolutely.

We're going to jump into some highlights, some follow up

questions from Acts Chapter 8. We read most of the chapter

Acts 8 · chapter mention

yesterday. I didn't highlight all of the

things necessarily. We've kind of talked about my

main points and you can go back and listen to that whole message

back on the ERC Sunday's podcast feed that is posted from

yesterday too. But a couple things that I

wanted to dive back into, especially in the middle of the

chapter here. Simon the sorcerer.

I'll reread parts of this story here starting at verse 9 in Acts

Acts 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8. Now for some time a man named

Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the

people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone

great and all the people with high and low gave him their

attention and exclaimed, this man is rightly called the great

power of God. They followed him because he had

amazed them for a long time with his sorcery.

So this guy is clearly not acting in the power of God.

Talked about a little bit yesterday.

There's also a bad side there. There's super, there's evil

supernatural power at work in the world as well.

So he's acting in that Philip comes to Samaria, proclaims the

Gospel, verse 12. But when they believed Philip as

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

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

And Simon himself, this magician guy Simon himself believed and

was baptized, and he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by

the great signs and miracles he saw.

So this guy, Word of God, good news of the gospel Trump's

whatever dark magic, evil, evil beliefs that he was having,

seemingly turns his life around, comes to Christ, proclaims,

declares faith in Jesus. And then there's this weird sort

of verses 14 through 17. It's just kind of a strange

dynamic when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had

accepted the word of God again, this this is Philip, not one of

the apostles. He went and and ministered and

proclaimed the gospel. The church had been scattered.

The apostles are staying in Jerusalem near most of the

persecution and or the highest concentration of persecution and

adversity. The rest of the believers that

they scatter throughout the region.

Verse 14 when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had

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

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

they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit

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

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

hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

OK, we did not dive into this yesterday.

What do you mean the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of the

believers? I thought I was taught that by

faith, by grace alone and and you are sealed with the promised

Holy Spirit, right. So what it but this verse is

saying the the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them.

So couple different possibilities here.

Are there different measures? Are there different outpourings

of the Holy Spirit? I think to this point in the

series, we've, we've talked about that pretty clearly that

yes, this, this kind of coming on of Pentecost, we, we don't

regularly walk. Maybe one of you are out there

that does just go around all week laying hands on people and

healing them from various things.

We'd love to talk to you about that if that's your life right

now. But there's a pretty specific

outpouring of miracle power given to the apostles.

And even then we see it's kind of exclusive before the

apostles. It's not all the believers who

are acting in this way. It's it's the 12 and then Steven

and and Phillip in this passage is is also in that group of

seven that Steven was who they were kind of specifically

commissioned to to go out. But there isn't this exceptional

over the top, filled up outpouring of the Holy Spirit,

every believer. Right.

So, I mean, at this point, again, we've talked about it in

previous weeks, before the scattering, there was somewhere

in the neighborhood of about 5000 people at least who had

become Christians who'd put their faith and their hope and

all those things into Jesus Christ.

Now, were they any less saved than Peter?

Absolutely not. But we were not seeing the same,

the same signs out of every single believer necessarily.

But then again, like again, I've never, OK, great example.

I've never spoken in tongues that does not that does not

indicate that like I don't know and love and have Jesus Christ

in my heart as like the saving figure of my entire existence.

But it does mean that God has not given me that specific gift

of the Spirit up to this point in my life.

Could still happen. That'd be awesome.

I would love that, but like, that's not something that God

has given to me up to this point.

And even as it relates to salvation, the I mean the

Ephesians 1 is where we see that verses 13 and 14 in Ephesians 1,

you were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth,

the gospel of your salvation, when you believe you were marked

in him with a seal. The promised Holy Spirit was a

deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption

of those who are God's possession to the praise of his

glory. So, and, and plenty of other

places in Paul's writing, we see that it's, it's the Holy Spirit

that does the working, that does the, the convicting and bringing

to salvation by the spoken word, by the truth of the word.

The Holy Spirit is doing that. So there's no reason to believe

that the Holy Spirit isn't working in the lives of these

believers or that they don't possess this promised seal of

the Holy Spirit too. I think what is maybe missing,

there's a couple different things.

It's either this exceptional outpouring of the Holy Spirit

that does seem to be reserved only for specific works or

specific people, specific apostles, disciples and leaders

in the church. Or there's this other little

nuance here, verse 16 because the Holy Spirit had not yet come

on any of them. They had simply been baptized in

the name of the Lord Jesus. Now name of Jesus, very

important, powerful, very good, very powerful.

But in in the Great Commission when Jesus did instruct them to

go and make disciples, teaching them everything I've commanded

you and baptizing them. He says the Trinitarian names,

right? Like it's all that's Matthew 28,

baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of

the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I've

commanded you. Now interesting note here that I

picked up on not so long ago was if you look up when Jesus says

in the name, and this is just a fun little fact.

If you look that up in the original language that's not

plural. Did you ever notice that it's

not even plural. He doesn't say in the names of

and then less three different entities or three different

people. He says singular in the name.

Therefore we have this excellent source.

It's all it almost feels too small, but this excellent bit of

theology that says, Oh no, God is 1 Father, Son, Holy Spirit,

all one because he uses the singular.

You could have very well used names, and I think it's very

intentional that Luke didn't. He quoted Jesus or Matthew,

didn't he? He quoted Jesus correctly when

Jesus used the singular name. Right, and that's that's what

makes so we've been singing a song Elohim lately, and that's

which is really just the Hebrew word for for God.

But when in reference to the creator God, this triune God of

Christianity that then that encompasses all the things,

right? That's that's God is Elohim is

father, son and Holy Spirit. And that's kind of the rest of

that song talking about the father, Son, Holy Ghost, Holy

Ghost instead of Holy Spirit. But like that's that's the

epitome of God in that name. Elohim is all three of these

things. So this it's kind of the same

thing you're saying like the name, the name that they that

they share the name that encompasses all three of them

together. One, and that's the Yahweh.

I am. I am all things.

I am existence itself. Therefore nothing can exist or

has ever existed without me. Me being Father, Son, Holy

Spirit. Yeah.

So that's that's important to note.

It's also important to note as as much as I said we can just

enter into baptism. There's there's a part of this

passage that maybe suggests it was done incorrectly.

If if they were only baptized in the name of Jesus.

Our words matter what what we say, how we do it matters.

We see later with Simon his he thinks he can just buy the power

of the Holy Spirit and that belief is entirely wrong.

He gets, he gets called out. That's a bad deal.

For that, but so this I think there's there's one of a couple

things happening here either either there's an exceptional

outpouring of the Holy Spirit that can only be given by the

apostles. So Peter and John come to do

that or they're coming to do baptism properly.

I, I guess in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

And, and kind of that we do believe that that baptism is, is

an outpouring of God's grace is we see the voice from heaven

and, and the descending of the dove, right when, when Jesus is

baptized, like there's, there's something imparted in baptism.

It's not just symbolic, it it is meaningful.

And maybe that was missed by by the initial baptisms in Samaria

here, right? Yeah.

And I think that's, I think that's a fair thing because

here's the thing, we, we've been talking about the giants of our

faith basically right this morning a little bit.

Even the giants of our faith outside of Jesus himself are

still human. They are prone to make some

mistakes. And that's not again, that's not

saying that any of these people like are not worthy of our study

in our effort and even are kind of us looking up towards them as

as fathers and mothers of faith. Of course they are, but they're

still human. And you know, the Luke, the

author of Acts, like he makes it pretty clear in chapter 2.

And we've I've talked, I think we've talked about this a couple

different times. We've referenced this that Yep,

that it's not a question in baptism, God gives you, seals

you with the Holy Spirit. And so for him to come along and

you know, several chapters later as he's recounting this history

of the early church, for him to specifically say baptized in the

name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that means something that he did

not name the Trinity in that that Luke maybe saw something

that he's pointing out to us too.

Yep, absolutely. What else we have to talk about

this morning is a question that was brought up.

So in relation to Simon and kind of the rest of this, apart from

the baptisms and whether or not they were done correctly or in

the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Simon, though he

has been baptized, though he has professed faith and seemingly

Philip believes that he is a believer.

Verse 18 when Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying

on of the apostles hands, he offered the money and said, give

me also this ability that everyone whom I lay hands on may

receive the Holy Spirit. A weird gesture in wanting to

pay money, but I think there's part of it that is, hey, I want

to help. I want, I want to do this too.

I want to be part of it. Now he has the checkered past a

little bit where he is performing supernatural signs

and wonders and maybe he just sees this juiced up real power

because he was a magician. There could have been there

could have been supernatural power at work.

It could have just been sleight of hand and and mischief magic

that he was doing. The apostles were working in

real power and obviously knew that they were never seen that

trick before. That's that's that's the real

thing is is part of his perspective, I think.

But Peter rebukes him strongly. You have no part of sharing this

ministry because your heart is not right before God.

Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope

that He may forgive you or for having such a thought in your

heart. The question posed here, this is

verse 22 in chapter 8. In the hope that He may forgive

you. Ouch.

We don't often talk of repentance as a as a Gray area,

right? Like if.

First, John 19 If you confess your sins, God is faithful and

just and will forgive you of your sins and purify, purify you

from all unrighteousness, right? Like there, there's cause and

effect here. So what do we do with this?

Peter seems to leave some doubt that Simon could be forgiven for

this action. Oh my gosh, yeah.

And that's so scary. That would be scary.

That's so scary. Well, because we also get, you

know, you can kind of pair this up a little bit with when Jesus

is talking about they're going to be those who come to me and

say, Lord, Lord, didn't we do this and this and this in your

name? And and then it ultimately he

goes on to say, and he's going to say, I didn't know you.

I didn't know you well. And, and we can relate this

directly to Simon because like there is a certain level of

pride or greed or, or a sense of like, Hey, everybody look at me.

So in the same way that Jesus talks about that, like, why am I

doing what I'm doing? Is it for God?

Is it for me? So everybody looks at me and

says, Oh my gosh, look at what he can do and like, look at how

he teaches. And that's so cool.

And you know, you know, it's again, similar thing.

It's, you know, the same way that Jesus talked about the

Pharisees and other religious leaders praying out loud in the

streets and making a big deal out of it.

And he says, Yep, you've already gotten your reward and your

reward was from man. It's not from God because your

heart was not positioned in the right way.

And that's what God judges, right?

God is going to judge your heart.

So Tim Keller often times puts it best, and I think he said

this several times over, which is man, there needs to be a

repentance even for our good deeds.

Because when my good deeds, which Simon clearly wants, even

my good deeds done for the wrong reason inside my heart, those

need to be repented of. They absolutely do.

Yeah. And there's there's this

dynamic, there's this appeal from Simon just for power.

And again, it's it's unclear, but I don't think it's

unreasonable to to decide that from, from this passage.

He still has selfish motive. He still has that, yeah, God's

awesome, but he's also, he's making me awesome.

And look how awesome I am because of this power that I

have. When really we're much more

supposed to have that Christ be magnified posture, right?

Like May, May Christ, your love, your power be seen in my life,

not my my best isn't worth seeing is, is, is not.

But may your best shine through me.

May the work that you've done in my life.

And Simon doesn't apparently have that posture here.

So there's this insincerity of heart that I think is more at

the core of the concern here. Did he did he even enter into

this, this faith sincerely, correctly, fully, fully

understanding, or was it was it just a gimmick?

Was it a thing? There's a new there's a new gig

in town. These guys are getting all the

attention now. If I want to continue my, my way

of life, my, I got to jump on that bandwagon and even even

it's fake. I got to act like I'm in on that

because that's what has everyone's attention now.

It makes me think of, I don't know if you've seen this,

there's, there's this former Only Fans model that I know.

This just took a turn. That's a weird turn, man.

Nala Ray. But I actually, it just came

into my mind in this moment in thinking about Simon.

Her name is Nala Ray and she has kind of come full circle and and

declared that she's a Christian now and denounced like is is is

not doing the only fans thing anymore, but is now selling.

And and I think her like whatever heard her faith

decision and I think she did use the phrase faith decision or or

yeah, coming to Christ, I think. She hasn't read, She hasn't read

Ephesians yet, where it says your faith is not even your own.

It's a gift. She'll get there, hopefully.

It's in the past six months or so and now instead of only fans

subscriptions, she's she's now selling like Christian faith

courses online. Yeah, So I don't know, I'm just,

I'm just seeing like similar shades here too of is and I

don't know, I don't know everything about her.

I haven't researched the whole story.

I've just I've listened to her talked about in in news

briefings around other podcasts, just kind of her situation too

like, but I'm seeing similar shades of oh, there's this

untapped market of Christians of, of people that would be like

minded. And if I declare that I'm one of

them now is is there now this untapped market of of potential

that that could enhance my. Life like I can replace my

income like that's my that's my real heart motivation that would

be that's dangerous I. Don't know anything and I would

hope and pray that this that her conversion is is sincere, but

the but the couple of news briefings that I've heard or

read it just I don't know Spidey sense is tingling a little bit

for this. This is not this is not a real

thing or even to it could be a real thing and I hope it's a

real thing. I hope so too.

Should she be selling like Christian living courses online?

Probably not. After having been a Christian

for six months. Coming from that, that

lifestyle, yes, radical transformation.

And no, we're about to get into Paul Saul, who he did not have a

long crash course of, Hey, get your stuff together and build up

your reputation and then go build the church.

But I don't know, so I don't know.

OK, so maybe, I don't know. Maybe.

Yeah, I don't know that's. God working with Absolutely.

He could. He?

Absolutely. Could I hope he is but.

I also just kind of, I don't know, I just thought of that in.

Well, and actually, actually, we get, we get a good warning in

the Bible about elders in particular.

You are not supposed to deem somebody a leader in the church

too quickly because guess what can happen to them?

The devil in their in the youth of their faith can get a hold of

their pride and skew them and just mess with them.

And then all of a sudden they go from like somebody with this

budding amazing new faith that God has given them.

And it gets twisted just enough that that, and of course, of

course that can happen. I mean, Satan is busy, he's

active. He knows that God's real.

So he's going to act as if God's real, but like he always does,

he can take something. Well, it's like comedy.

We talked about that. The best comedy always has truth

in it, right? Well.

The best lies. The best lies have truth in them

too. Yeah, so I did.

I did pick up on a couple commentaries on 8/22 to jump

back to the specifics of this for a second and.

Why? Yeah, and so like, like the

Matthew Henry commentary, you know, about the doubt of like,

can he even be forgiven? He he says this.

Here's just one quote. The doubt here is of sincerity

of Simon's repentance, not the part in itself if his repentance

was sincere. And Benson also goes on to say

something similar, and without all doubt, if Simon had

repented, he would have been forgiven, and goes on to say for

that would for that would have been contrary to the whole tenor

of the gospel. But the doubt was whether he

would sincerely repent. Right, OK, so and and it's a

little bit of a weird translation in English as.

Well. The the root word there in verse

22 is oh, I lost my spot and according to your repent

therefore of the of this wickedness of yours and pray to

the Lord that if possible, the USB is translated as if

possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven to you.

The Greek word there is ara and that's most literally then or

therefore. So actually a very clear cause

and effect, which which then I think like, I think that then

applies to these kind of commentary theories of if your

repentance is sincere, then then you would be forgiven.

So there there is that cause and effect.

Some of our English translations, NIV says in the

hope that you may receive forgiveness.

ESB if possible, those leave a little bit of a Gray area that

maybe kind of overshadows the, the necessity of sincerity in

that part. How do we know if, if we are

sincere in that? Maybe a follow up question to

how can I be sure that my repentance is sincere?

It's it's a check your heart thing is, are are your motives

for yourself? Are are your motives like

Simon's for yourself? There's a little bit of, I don't

know, unsureness is that that's not a word That's fair.

There's there's a little bit of confusion in this passage.

I think the one thing that we could say for sure is we don't

act out our faith truly, if we're acting like Simon, that

that that's that's the one thing I would say.

I'm not, I'm not sure exactly the operation of this verse or

or why he's maybe lacking the Holy Spirit, why he's lacking

the opportunity for forgiveness here.

What I would say is don't then live your faith like Simon is

right like that. Like that's the one thing I

could say for sure. He, he's, he's acting in selfish

gain. He's he's saying, oh man, if I

was a Christian, I could enhance my life in, in this way, my

life, my life would get better. That's a terrible way to enter

into Christianity, honestly, because it's with a humble heart

and it's with a heart that's going to be persecuted.

It's with a heart that's going to experience trouble.

That again, John 1633 that that Jesus has overcome the world.

So we take heart in that. But Jesus at no point promised

sunshine and roses for being a Christian.

Like, Oh no, that's not part of the package.

No, not at all. And I think a couple things here

real quick to continue to clarify, I hope is that well,

OK. So go back to there's a lot of

conditional clauses in the gospel and we don't like that

word conditional when it comes to the gospel.

We, we, we butt up against that because, well, Jesus Christ,

forgiveness is not conditional, right?

But then again, we get Jesus specifically saying, if you

forgive others their sins, your Father and heaven will forgive

you. And then he goes on to say the,

the, the other side of the coin. And if you don't, then your

father will not forgive you. OK, so like we have several ifs

coming directly from Jesus. And the other part of this too

is like again, and I've heard this in from the the best

preachers I've ever heard. They they clarify this in in a

really good way, which is to say like we are to love God for God.

I should not love God in the hope of his benefits.

I need to love God because I love God and that that can be

from especially a human perspective that gets difficult

sometimes because so many of our relationships are in some level.

What have you done for me lately?

Maybe maybe the closest we can get to a pure I love you no

matter what is maybe your kids or maybe your spouse.

Like you know, so like from the spouse example for for for an

example, I love my wife regardless of whether regardless

of amount of intimacy or regardless of what I think she

can do for me or whatever. Like, I love her regardless of

all those things. And so God calls us to love him

the same way, regardless of whether your life goes great or

if it goes terribly like the prophets.

And literally your whole life is a grind in an uphill battle.

Do you love me anyway? And it's that kind of love that

we need to exercise with God so that our hearts are in the right

position. Do I love God no matter what

happens to me? And here we see Simon saying,

well, I want to believe in this God because I want his power.

And Peter clearly points out your heart's in the wrong

position. So if then you repent with your

whole heart, then you will be forgiven.

So the question isn't whether God Forgives because we know he

does. The question is, is your heart

in the right position to really repent?

And you know the Alcott's commentary, he, he's talking

about Peter. He says Peter neither forgives

nor condemns, but he bids the offender to turn to the searcher

of hearts. And that's the thing, right?

Like, how do I know if I'm really repenting?

Well, Lord, I'm going to make that ask.

Lord, I need you to search my heart.

And God will respond. I promise, man, I've, I've had

those moments of like, Lord, I, I don't know if I'm doing this

for me or for you. So like, I, I need some clarity

here. And man like, like the rushing

of wind, sometimes it has come upon me like no, man, you're

good or oh, you know what actually that was for you.

And God does that work. He wants our hearts.

He wants our hearts and he wants them to be in the right

position. So, man, if there's ever any

doubt about like, your intentions on something, ask the

searcher of your heart, you know, ask him to search you out

and he'll do it. He'll do it.

Yeah. And that sincerity, if our

sincerity towards God is conditional on how blessed we

feel by God, well, then our the sincerity of our faith is then

conditional. We're not loving God for for who

he is or what he's done. It's more of how we feel about

what he's done lately. And and that's that's we can't

get into the place where we're I keep referencing the lyrics from

Christ be magnified, but it's so good.

I won't be formed by feelings if a lot of the time people get

angry at God and it's OK to get angry at God.

But does that define like you need to work that out with fear

and trembling because God is not against you.

He he hasn't brought hardship into your life just because he's

looking for something interesting to do that day.

He didn't just decide that that's that's just life.

That's just the brokenness of of sin.

It's not God striking you with bolts of lightning down here

just because he's looking for something random to do that this

final thought from Ellicott. I like that he's kind of talking

about the ambiguity that that Peter is in.

Peter, had he seen repentance, he might have said thy sins are

forgiven. Had he seen a conscience utterly

dead, Simon's conscience being utterly dead, he might have

closed the door of hope. As it is, he stands midway

between hope and fear and keeping silence leaves judgement

to the judge because he tells Simon to repent and Simon's

response is still. He goes back to the apostle and

says, pray for me that that none of what you said will will

happen when Peter has just said to him, dude, you got to work

this out for yourself. This is between you and God,

yes. Could they pray, pray that Simon

would be compelled, that his heart would be softened to

repentance and and to bring about a sincerity faith?

Yes, they could pray those things for him.

But there's a part of Simon's response that makes me think you

do it. You're, you're closer with God.

You're more powerful with God. Your words mean more to God than

mine do. And that's a really dangerous

place to be. That's not working out your own

salvation. And I think that's what Peter

has said, man, I can't be a sincere heart for you.

This is on you to to believe, to repent, to be truly contrite and

humble in this. And I can't make you do it.

And and we see them part ways and we we don't know, we don't

know what happened to Simon out of this.

The the main thing I take from this passage is you want you

want to know how to live your life out as a Christian, not

like Simon like that might I'm just I'm just like that might be

a shorter answer. And there's there's obviously

examples and illustrations that we could give Book of Ephesians

is great for for the road map of how to do it.

How not to do it is Simon. Yeah, and I mean, I, you know,

you brought you brought that up and I think that's so good even

for modern day believers to think through this a little bit.

So like if I think, for example, and I've known people like this

well-intentioned people who, you know, when they say pray for me,

they're they're not saying it because I just need, I just, I

know the power of prayer and I know God listens to his Saints.

They're more so getting to the point of like, I think you have

a better connection to God. So why don't you do that?

And I've, I've, I've heard Christians do that and, and I

know that's what they mean. And that's, that's scary a

little bit because to think that you're a pastor or your elder or

whoever that you're kind of looking up to in your faith,

which is fine, but whoever that is, to assume that they have a

better, brighter connection to God, then you have access to

your. Words matter more to God.

No, that's not a thing. That's not a thing because God

loves all of his people because we are all made in his image and

he has sent his son for all of us.

Period. So like, yeah, I don't, you

know, you're pastors. We don't have a better, we don't

have a clear line to God than you do.

And don't hear that. And we don't want to hear your

request or care for you in prayer.

We do, of course, hopefully it's from a point of, oh, I want you

to know about this in my life and I want you to care about

this. And would you also pray for me

in this, pray with me for this in my life.

And I, I want you to care about and know about this thing that's

going on in my life. And I think that's generally how

we're approached with things. The vast majority of the time.

So. But I mean, like, you know,

it's, it's I want you to pray for me because I want you

walking with me, right? Not for me.

Yeah. Not for me.

Perfect. All right.

And I think that's where we're going to leave it.

Yeah, that was that was big. This is close to an hour.

It's got it. Oh, it might be more than an

hour. I don't have a time to.

Take her. Here we go.

But. Just those couple of things,

Holy Spirit, and working out forgiveness sincerely, that's.

Oh yeah, yeah, that's a lot for one day.

It is a lot for one day, so thanks for hanging with us.

A little bit of fun stuff along the way, but some real stuff in

the truth of God's Word as well. Hit like and subscribe on the

podcast platform that you're listening to.

And yeah, share with those. There's a lot of you listening

follow up to the sermon, but if you know someone in your life

that could benefit from this further conversation to share it

with them and give them a listen.

Do that because I don't say do that so that we can be more

powerful and have more listens. Ha, ha.

Then I'd be like Simon, No, we say that because like the

message of the gospel as it's being worked out and you know,

in conversations just like this or in your garage, in your

living room, at your workplace, they're important conversations.

And so like, man, the more you can share that out, the more you

can give people a line into like, what does it mean to be a

Christian? How does, what does this look

like? Please do that, because we're

talking making eternity stuff here, not just like day-to-day

stuff. Yeah.

So thanks for hanging with us, taking on this conversation.

We hope it encourages you in your faith as you work out your

salvation as well. We'll catch you next week.