Acts - Week 7 (8:4-39)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message.

Today's reading is going to be from Acts 8.

Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word

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

the Christ and the And the crowds with one accord paid

attention to what was being said by Philip.

When they heard him and saw the signs that he did.

For unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of

many who had them, and many who were paralyzed of lame were

healed. So there was much joy in that

city. But there was one man named

Simon who had previously practiced magic in the city and

amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was

somebody great. They all paid attention to him

from the least to the greatest, saying this man is the power of

God that is called great. And they paid attention to him

because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.

But when they believed Philip as he preached 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

to receive 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 of the apostles hands, he

offered them money, saying, Give me the power also, so that

anyone on whom I lay my hands on 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 the wickedness of yours, and pray that the Lord

that it is possible that the intent of your heart may be

forgiven, forgiving you. For I see that you are the gall

of the bitterness, and in the bound of iniquity.

And Simon answered, Pray for me that 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. Now an Angel of the Lord said to

Philip, rise and go towards the South, to the road that goes

down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place.

And he rose and went, and there was an Ethiopian, Ethiopian, and

an Enoch, a court official of Candace, queen of The

Ethiopians, who was in charge of all the treasures.

He had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning see it

in the chariot. And he was reading the prophet

Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip,

go over and join the chariot. So Philip ran to him and him

reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, do you understand what

you were reading? And he said, how can I unless

someone guides me? And he invited Philip to come up

and sit with him. Now the passage of the scripture

that he was reading was this. Like a shepherd, like his sheep,

he was led to the slaughter. And like a lamb before its

Shearer is silent, so he opened not his mouth.

And the humiliation, justice was denied.

Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from

the earth. And the eunuch said to Philip,

About whom I ask you, does the prophet say this about himself

or about someone else? Then Philip opened his mouth,

and beginning with the Scripture, he told him the good

news about Jesus. And as they were going along the

road, they came to some water. And the Enoch said, see here is

water what prevents me from being baptized?

And Philip said, If you believe with all your heart, you may,

and replied, I believe that Jesus Christ is a Son of God.

And he commanded the chariot to stop.

And they both went down the water into the water, Philip and

the Enoch, and he baptized him. And when they came up of the

water, the Spirit of Lord carried Philip away, and the

Enoch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.

Some of you that are new here and maybe some of you have been

here for a long time are asking yourself, are we just going to

sit here and watch this guy eat all day?

I don't know. Did you come to church today to

watch me eat? Did you come to church today to

watch the worship team eat today?

Do you come to church on Sundays to watch Pastor Chris or I or

others even out there eat, be filled by the truth of the Word,

and watch them consume and grow and be strengthened?

Are you here to watch me eat today, or are you yourself here

to be filled by the truth of God's Word?

This passage, this long passage that we just read, gives us 2

starkly different examples to how our life responds to the

Word of God and how that life is lived out as a true follower of

Jesus. It starts off, if you remember,

last week we spent some time with Stephen.

He was ultimately martyred and killed for the faith that he

professed. And even yet, the church was

multiplied. We started in verse 4 today and

verse 3, Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after

house, dragging off men and women and committing them to

prison. The response to this adversity

and persecution is that the Christians were scattered for

fear, for just proximity reasons for safety, to get out of

Jerusalem, to get out of the city and escape this threat.

Paul literally trying to kill off the church.

Philip. This is not the apostle Philip.

This is one of the one of the seven.

Steven and others were commissioned to go and help the

apostles. So this is a different Philip,

not one of the 12. He was just a regular guy.

He was just part of the church. He was a believer.

He was amongst friends and amongst his church family and he

gets caught up in this scatter. He gets caught up in this

sending. Remember the mission at the

beginning of Acts was Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and the

ends of the earth. So even in this oppression, even

in this persecution, we see the plan of God being acted out.

It was through persecution that the church was scattered to

reach Samaria with the Word of God.

Though this may seem like a threat and and a step back for

this young church, God's still in control.

God's sovereignty in His plan is still being acted out and the

Word is spreading and the church is growing and multiplying.

It even tells us that it wasn't, it wasn't the apostles who were

scattered. They kind of stayed and faced

against this oppression. They, they had a home base, kind

of kind of a, a central communications hub to be able to

communicate with the churches and the, and the smaller groups

of Christians that were going out.

So it wasn't even again, the quote UN quote best of the best,

the most equipped, the most able who were sent out to do this

thing having been changed by the truth of God's word and having

this belief and faith in God qualified them to go out and

spread that word, spread that gospel.

Philip has a pretty interesting experience going to Samaria.

He meets this man named Simon who was a magician and and

within this we see he was practicing dark arts.

Now I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this, but

if you believe, and I hope you do, in the supernatural power of

our God and the Holy Spirit, if you don't know, there are also

opposing forces, there are also evil supernatural powers that

can work out. OK Philip encounters a man who's

regularly practicing these things and similarly is is

performing signs and wonders that capture the people's

imagination. But his actions are are for his

self benefit. They're from a place of evil, a

place and power of evil. They're not from God.

Seemingly powerful people are drawn to Simon and and and their

attention is captured by his actions.

But verse 13, when Philip was preaching and teaching, even

Simon himself believed, though Simon was equipped with with

these dark powers and these and these things beyond

understanding, maybe even the word of God was greater.

The word of God captured his attention more than what he was

working out on his own, seeing the signs and great miracles

performed that Philip was doing that, that the other disciples

and believers were doing. Simon the magician was amazed.

He was even it was glitching. You're right.

Verse 15, please, from if you can.

Yeah. He was even baptized Simon the

magician. The apostles then heard of the

spreading of the word in Samaria.

They sent Peter and John. They came down and prayed for

this new body of believers that they might receive the Holy

Spirit for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they'd only

been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

This is a strange passage that I could spend the next hour

dissecting. Chris and I've been doing a

Leftovers podcast on Mondays. We're going to dive into this.

How in the world do these believers not have the Holy

Spirit? That seems weird, right?

And we've said the same exact opposite thing in previous

weeks, right? If you are a believer, you have

the Holy Spirit. So what's going on here?

Not important for what we're doing right now.

There's, I'm not going to get into it more.

I'd like to cover it on Monday because I could go on for the

next hour about it. But I do want to point out

baptized only in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Jesus did teach the disciples to baptize in the name of the

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

And as we've talked about in the previous week, there's there's

something different, an exception about the outpouring

of the Holy Spirit that had been on the apostles, not your just

everyday run-of-the-mill Christian was walking around

healing people just by touching them, right?

So not literally what we're saying that the the believer was

indwelt with the Holy Spirit, possessed the presence and the

seal of the Holy Spirit. We're going to dive deeper into

that. If you listen to the the podcast

that we put out tomorrow, we'll talk about these verses more.

They did come though. Peter and John laid hands on the

believers and they received the Holy Spirit.

They were now empowered. They were now sent out and Simon

the magician saw that the spirit was given through the laying on

of the apostles hands. He offered the money saying give

me this power also so that anyone on whom I lay my hands

may receive the spirit. Same Simon, not 4 verses ago, it

told us that he believed that he was baptized, seemingly a

believer on the outside, seemingly someone walking in

faith. But this is the limit of his

understanding. He thinks that he can buy this

power and he's, and there's even a little bit, I think starting

to creep in of the identity of his life.

He, he was a magician performing signs and wonders, getting

attention and accolades from people about amazed at what he

could do. And he's come upon this Holy

Spirit power and he's come upon this new life.

He's come upon this eternal life knowledge about Jesus.

And now he sees this option of, oh, but it could just, it could

just be the same as the, as the life that I was living.

But this is like, this is like real power.

I could keep doing the life that I was doing, but I want, I want

this real power now. So can I buy this real power

from you guys? And can I, can I act in this

because it's, it's going to enhance the life that I was

already living. Let me add to it.

Peter's response is very severe. 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.

Someone who professed belief and was baptized called out as not

having a right heart before God. That's a scary proposition, but

if we believe the truth of God's Word, somehow that's possible.

Somehow Simon was in that place of belief and being baptized and

he still didn't have it understood or figured out.

That can be scary. That can also be calming because

he was a new believer. As we get to later with the

Ethiopian eunuch and Philip, he also said how am I going to

understand all this? I need someone to teach me.

Simon in this moment thought he had everything he needed,

thought he had comprehension. I'm ready to go equip me with

this power. It's going to enhance the life I

have. It's going to be maybe better

than the life I had, but I want to buy it and I think that's

enough for me to have it. And then he takes even a deeper

turn. Peter tells him to repent of

this wickedness, that the intent of your heart may be forgiven.

And look at Simon's response. Simon answered verse 24.

Pray for me to the Lord that nothing of what you have said

may come upon me seemingly reasonable requests.

We, we bring each other's requests in prayer on on on

account of each other to the Lord all the time.

But there's part of me that thinks that Simon was passing

the buck here a little bit. He was confused and wrapped up

in a moment of watching the apostles eat.

He wasn't eating himself. He was not being filled by the

truth of the words that they were saying.

And there's part of me that thinks his request here, either

out of confusion or not understanding maybe the words to

say part of his request, I think is actually bad.

Peter tells him to repent and Simon's response is in the vein

of actually you, you do it for me.

I need you to repent for me. I need you to work out this

salvation for me. And that's not how it works.

We actually don't hear any more about this.

There's assumingly more interaction between them, but

that's the end of the account. And Luke we hear no more of

Simon or the apostles interaction with him.

I started with this illustration this morning, hoping, praying

that those of you who join us on Sundays, those, those of you

that are part of our church community here are not living

out your faith through me, are not living out your faith

through Chris and the words that we teach, the songs that are,

that our worship team sings. Yes, they're meant to be an

encouragement and a helper and a guide and a fellowship with you

all. But if your relationship with

God is defined by my understanding of the Bible and

how I preach your teacher and encourage you in it, what

happens to your faith when I'm gone?

What happens to your faith if I'm no longer a part of your

life? We cannot root our faith as

Simon was in this response. You know what, Peter, John, you

guys seemingly have this figured out.

You got signs and wonders, you got powers.

You do it. You save me.

You go to God and tell him what a great guy I really AM and that

I'm really sorry and that I still want him to save me.

Simon in this moment was wanting the apostles.

He was intended to sit back and watch them eat, watch them

commune with their God. He didn't get it.

He wasn't being filled and nourished.

He wasn't understanding. Then we move on.

Philip has a very different interaction.

Verse 26 Now an Angel of the Lord said to Philip, rise and go

toward the South to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to

Gaza. OK.

Verse 29, we see the same thing. And the Spirit said to Philip,

go over and join this chariot. So Philips being guided, he's

being directed, he's being LED, the Spirit is giving him

instruction and he's faithfully following.

The Holy Spirit did not drag Philip down the road to Gaza.

The Holy Spirit did not push Philip into the chariot and say,

meet your new best friend. There was a guiding, there was

instruction. Philip still had to do.

Philip still had to go. Philip still had to talk and

speak and teach. The Holy Spirit is a guide.

Jesus said He was leaving His Helper with us.

He did not say the He was leaving his doer with us.

Yes, it's by the power of the Holy Spirit that that the Word

works and and works out salvation and changes hearts.

It's not by any physical action or words that we can say that we

can bring about salvation in other people's lives, but

through other ways. We do have to take action.

We must do ideally at the leading of the Holy Spirit.

The eunuch has a much more humble response to the word of

God. And I know this seems like a

wildly idealistic scenario. I don't.

I have never had a scenario actually in my life where I've

gone up to a stranger who has the Bible open and they're like,

hey, I need some help over here. Never experienced that.

But that's what we see here, so it's possible the eunuch had a

remarkably humble spirit about this.

And I think we rightly assume most people don't want to ask

for help. I think each of us understand

the awkwardness of asking for help at times, too, especially

with things that we don't know. This eunuch has a remarkably

open mind to to Philip's question.

Do you understand what you're reading?

He's like, I don't, I know, how am I supposed to understand this

unless someone helps me with it? The door was open.

Philip still had to act. Philip still had to explain and

teach and encourage and share the good news.

Philip opened his mouth. Verse 35 and beginning with the

Scripture which reading in Isaiah, he told him about the

good news of Jesus. The eunuchs response in verse

36, they were going along the road, they came to some water

and the eunuch said see here is water.

What prevents me from being baptized.

That means a big part of the good news that Philip was

talking about in verse 35 also landed on what happens in

baptism. We don't know the specifics of

the words that Philip taught him.

We know some of the words in or we know the passage in Isaiah

that he was in talking about Jesus death and and the

salvation then therein the need for Jesus's sacrifice.

That led Philip into a discussion about how a believer

is changed, how we are washed clean, how baptism is that

worked out in an action, a declaration of physical action

of us being washed in the Holy Spirit, being washed with the

blood of Jesus. The eunuch had understanding.

Here is water, what prevents me from being baptized.

He didn't just sit back and watch Philip eat.

He didn't just sit in awe of Philip's understanding.

He said I want that too right now.

Feed me. He wanted in.

The next part of this gives me great pause about how we even

really engage. And we were pretty.

I don't want to say laid back engagement with baptism here,

but at times I feel like we make too much of it to be honest with

you, and it is a big deal. I don't want to say that baptism

isn't a big deal, but we see in this passage that it doesn't

need all the formality that we sometimes throw into it.

This wasn't a public place there.

There weren't audiences to hear my great declaration of faith

and my decision for Jesus. Then I need to do this in front

of people so that they know what I did.

It's not here. We didn't see Phillip say, yeah,

we can get you baptized. Like, let's meet every Sunday

for the next six weeks, and we'll just make sure you know

your stuff and what you actually believe and what you're getting

into. And then, yeah, we'll get you on

the calendar. He had belief in the truth.

There was water and someone to baptize him in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

That's all that baptism needs to be.

It is not at all about what we're doing in baptism.

It's something for us to experience.

Yes and no. OK, I am washed clean.

I have been made new and it's something that God wants us to

experience in that way. Yes, absolutely.

But it has nothing to do with us deciding to do it with what we

get out of out of baptism or the declaration of look at me, look

at the choice that I made. It's simply good.

And it's simply following the Commission that Jesus gave the

disciples. If you're going to make

disciples, you're going to baptize them in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that they will experience

being washed, that they will be compelled to go and continue.

So church, the opening illustration, sequence,

whatever, whatever you want to call it, I wasn't sure.

I wasn't sure how it would land because honestly, I'm maybe

pridefully confident of the maturity of believers in this

room right now. I don't think you're here to

just consume. By and large, I think there's a

group of very mature believers here.

But I did want to state it as a warning, as a guard, that that's

not what our gathering is for Philippians 212 is, is to work

out your own salvation with fear and trembling, not to watch

others eat and work out their salvation with fear and

trembling so that we can feel really good about that.

It's the airplane analogy, right?

Like you got to put your oxygen mask on 1st right before you can

save others. If you're encouraged by someone

else in their faith, that's that's great, but where's yours?

So for you today, you who have been baptized, and I honestly

don't care what church or location or where it has been.

We believe that if you have been baptized with water in the name

of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, doesn't matter if it's

been a Catholic Church, a Methodist Church, it doesn't

matter if it was on the side of the road by a chariot with a

puddle. You have been baptized and you

have been washed clean. I was baptized Catholic at two

years old. I no memory of it.

It the actual moment and action of baptism I didn't experience.

I don't, I don't know. But I know I'm washed clean.

I know I've got the Holy Spirit inside of me.

So those of you who have been baptized, this passage gives us

two options. Are we living a life like Simon,

limiting our understanding and watching others work, watching

others eat? Or we living a life like the the

Ethiopian all in right now. Sign me up.

Are we living a life like Philip led by the voice of God?

How do you how do you hear the voice of God?

It's right here. This is what we got.

How do we know that it's the voice of God?

Well, does this prompting, does this leading?

Does it sound like something God would say?

Does it sound like something God would say?

Hopefully Simon heard the words, saw the powers and said, yeah,

that's really darn cool. I could, I could use them for my

life. I could perform real signs and

wonders with this thing and just go back to living my life the

way it was. But like enhanced superpower,

does that sound like the word of God?

He was doing it for him. He wasn't doing it for God.

So those of you who are baptized live like you're saved.

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

When the Spirit prompts you, He's not going to beat you over

the head and drag you to do it. You got to move and you can

because you're washed clean and you're empowered to go.

I know that seems like a law statement that you that you got

to do it, but what you know what?

You've got the joy of the Lord wrapped inside you.

You've been washed clean, and your mission now is to go to the

ends of the earth. I'm sorry if you didn't read the

fine print. That's what you signed up for.

For those of you who have not been baptized as the Ethiopian

again and maturity beyond his years that we would yes, for his

faith as he responded. See here is water what prevents

me from being baptized. Yeah, they might have.

We don't know what the water was.

It might have been a river. They might have dunked full of

it could have been a muddy puddle.

We're not sure. I've been a part of both kinds

of baptism, full on junkie and immersion.

We usually just sprinkle here. I think both are equally

effective. So for those of you in the room

who haven't been baptized, see here is water and your view of

belief that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.

What prevents you from being baptized today?

Thanks for listening to ERC Sundays.

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