Spreading the Word

SERMON: 2011-11-27--ac1176--spreading-the-word-part-2 SOURCE DURATION: 01:07:28.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.95 APPROVED: false REASON: The opening segment [0] begins the sermon introduction. The closing segments [598]-[629] are sustained acoustic music and do not belong to the main sermon narrative or exposition. Therefore, the last relevant segment is [31], which concludes the theological exposition before a break in content. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 01:03:00.440-01:07:26.840 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Continuing this morning with our series of studies in the Book of Acts, in your bulletin once again, an insert that has today's scripture on it. Maybe you'll be so kind as to take it out. Last week we looked at the first 13 verses of that chapter and saw together that after Stephen's martyrdom in the previous chapter, great persecution broke out in Jerusalem. All the believers except the Apostles were scattered, and they were scattered through Judea and Samaria, and there they preached the gospel. And when Philip, who formerly had been appointed as a deacon and now served as an evangelist, preached the gospel, great things happened. Many Samaritans turned to the Lord, including Simon the Magician. And that's where we pick up the story this morning. You can follow along either on your insert or on the screen. We're going to read from verse 14 to verse 25. When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. 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 so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit." Peter answered, "May your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart, for I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin." Then Simon answered, "Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me." And then the story ends with this verse where they had testified and proclaimed the word of the Lord. Peter and John returned to Jerusalem preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages. As we said last week, Jesus said to the disciples, "You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and to the uttermost ends of the earth." And the book of Acts can only be understood in the context of that command as the gospel increasingly spreads until one day it would reach you and me. And I think that's just an amazing thing. Let's pray. Father, we're so grateful for your Word and we're so grateful for those who have gone before us, who empowered by the Holy Spirit, risked their lives to proclaim the name of Jesus. And thank you, Lord, for the promised Holy Spirit, who even now will empower us to be witnesses to Jesus. And we pray especially that as we move into the Christmas season and as Christmas jingles and songs and carols come at us from all sides and people get into the Christmas mode and watch all the old Christmas movies, that somehow, Lord, through it all we might see and find opportunity to talk about Jesus for who he really is. The anointed Son of God, who died for our sins, was raised for our justification, who sits at the right hand of God in glory, and who one day will come back in power and will judge the living and the dead. Lord, hasten the day when Christ will come again and the kingdoms of this world will again be the kingdom of our God and of his Christ. So bless us in these moments together. Give me the liberty, the freedom, the words that I need. And Lord, all of his hearts to embrace your truth, to think soberly about this passage that we're looking at, always walking and living in the fear of God. We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, as we continue to look this morning then at these verses that we've read together in Acts chapter 8, allow me to walk you through the unfolding of this story. First thing I want us to note is that Peter and John are sent to Samaria from Jerusalem. Listen again to verse 14 of Acts chapter 8, when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. Significant, I think, for two reasons. Number one, it illustrates that even while the Apostles were driven underground because of persecution, they nevertheless were free to some degree to move around, undoubtedly at risk of their lives, but they still had some freedom. Second reason this is significant is because as the Apostles, they are in charge of the Great Commission. And so when they hear that the gospel has come not only to Judea but now to Samaria, you can imagine what an exciting thing that was for them. And in response to that, they delegated Peter and John undoubtedly to keep an eye on things and to make sure that Samaria also was walking in the ways of God. So that's the first thing I want us to note. The second thing I want us to note is that as they come to Samaria, they discover a rather unusual situation. Unusual spelled out in the verses 15 and 16, when they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them. They had simply been baptized into the name of Jesus. So here you have a group of people. They've come to faith in Christ, they've been baptized into the name of Jesus, but they have not yet received the Holy Spirit. Now just in case the significance of that goes over your heads, that presents a profound theological question. And the theological question is this. Can you come to faith in Christ and not have received the Holy Spirit? Let me do a little poll here this morning. How many of you think you could be a Christian and not have received the Holy Spirit? Okay, a number of you. How many of you think you cannot be a Christian and not have received the Holy Spirit? And then all the rest of you are of no opinion whatsoever. You don't want to be wrong. Well, I'm not sure there is a right or a wrong, but it represents a very complex theological question and I'll tell you why. Because on the one hand, the Apostle Paul makes it very clear in the book of Romans that you cannot be a Christian and not have received the Holy Spirit. Listen to what he says in Romans 8 verse 9. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. Pretty straightforward and pretty categorical. Yet here you have in Acts chapter 8 a group of people who have become Christian believers. They've been baptized into Christ. They have not yet received the Holy Spirit. And lest you think this is the exception in Scripture, let me remind you the same kind of thing happens in Acts chapter 19 where the Apostle Paul visits Ephesus, finds 12 believers, 12 disciples in Ephesus, and then he asks them this question. He says, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?" And notice how they answered, "No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit." And as the story goes on, he lays hands on them and then they receive the Holy Spirit. So what is it? Can you be a Christian and not have the Holy Spirit? If you can't, then how come you've got these people who are Christians and they don't have the Holy Spirit? Well to confuse it even more, there are two schools of thought on this as there are on most theological issues as you can imagine. Don't worry, afterwards I'm going to give you the right one in all humility. First school of thought is that these stories in the book of Acts are not normative for the Christian community. That is to say it's part of a historical development of faith, sort of an in- between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. People are coming to faith in Christ, they have not yet received the Holy Spirit, and they do receive the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands. Today the argument would go anybody who comes to faith in Christ receives the Holy Spirit by virtue of belief. If I'm not mistaken that would sort of represent the point of view of many evangelical denominations probably including our own. But there's a second school of thought that says no you can't just write off the historical development of how the Holy Spirit came to these groups of people. There is a clear distinction according to this school of thought between believing in Christ and becoming a disciple and receiving the Holy Spirit and they view the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a secondary experience to receiving Christ into your life. Most Pentecostal churches would fall into that category when they talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The Roman Catholic Church in the sacrament of confirmation actually holds essentially to that belief. Let me read you what the catechism of the Catholic Church says concerning confirmation as people have come to Christ and they have professed him and they are baptized if they haven't been baptized and then they receive the laying on of hands. It is evident from its celebration of the effect of the sacrament of confirmation is this special outpouring of the Holy Spirit as once granted to the apostles on the day of Pentecost. From this fact confirmation brings an increase and a deepening of baptismal grace and then it goes on to give a number of examples of that. It roots us more deeply in the divine filiation that is the divine spirit of sonship which makes us cry Abba father. It unites us more firmly to Christ. It increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us. It renders our bond with the church more perfect and then it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and to defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ to confess the name of Christ boldly and never to be ashamed of the cross. That's Roman Catholic teaching. The Lutheran Church, the Church of England, a number of other more ancient I would think the Orthodox Greek Orthodox churches all believe that by the laying on of hands there is imparted to the believer a special unction, a special anointing of the Holy Spirit that equips you to live the Christian life that shares you more deeply experientially with the blessings of Christ and that empowers you to bear witness to Jesus. So two very different schools of thought. Everybody agrees you need the Holy Spirit. The question is how do you receive him and how do you know that you have received him? Now as perhaps you can appreciate in my position I've given an awful lot of thought to that over the years because without the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit it's like trying to push a car uphill without the engine running. If you're strong enough and work at it hard enough maybe you can get it up there but if you don't watch it it rolls back over you and it may certainly account for the reason that so many of God's people are more often defeated than they are living victoriously in Christ. You need the power of God's Holy Spirit. Everybody would agree that you do. The question is how do you experience that power in your life? And here's what I've come up with over the years both in my study of Scripture and simply by carefully looking at how God seems to work in people's lives. And it boils down to this. When we by faith are united to Jesus all the blessings of Jesus are ours because in Christ dwells the very fullness of the Godhead bodily and in him and through him we are privileged to share in the authority and the power and the anointing of the Holy Spirit. How much of that however we experience in our daily lives is I believe determined largely by three factors and let me walk you through those quickly. The first factor is the degree of our knowledge. That is to say the knowledge of who we are in Christ and what God has made available to us. Remember Paul's conversation with the Ephesians he said did you receive the Holy Spirit? What was their response? We didn't even know there was a Holy Spirit. I can have a million bucks in the bank and if I don't know that it's there it doesn't do me one iota of good. And so the baptism the power of the Holy Spirit begins with a realization that when Jesus ascended on high said down at the right hand of the Father the Father granted him the Holy Spirit to give to the church. That's a knowledge we need to have and we need to own. Secondly it depends on the degree of our faith because we are saved by grace through faith. I can have a million bucks in the bank. I can know that it's in the bank but unless I know that my name is on it and that I have the right to go there and withdraw from that account still does me no good. And so it's interesting that the Apostle Paul writing to the Galatians who got really confused about a lot of this sort of stuff he says to them I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Now get that. Did you receive the Spirit by observing the law or believing what you heard? See there's the temptation to think if I've got it all together if I live right under the law then God will like me and he will give me the Holy Spirit. That's a fallacy. Now as we'll see later there are conditions but you don't receive the Holy Spirit because you're good. In fact good people have a hard time receiving anything from God if their goodness they think is their own. But we receive the Holy Spirit by faith as a free gift. God is the giver and if I am in Christ that is a whole package that is sitting there that is ready to come my way by the grace and by the mercy of God and I need to know that. I don't need to feel guilty for asking for the Holy Spirit. I don't need to feel that other people are going to be more honored than I am or that I'm not good enough. Now are you in Christ? Have you repented? Do you believe the gift of the Holy Spirit is yours as a gift from God were saved by faith through, say it with me, grace. Grace, grace, God's grace. But then there's a third condition and that's where the rubber often hits the road for many of us I think and that is the fact that it depends on the degree of our surrender. It depends on the degree of our surrender. Listen carefully to these old songs that that have come into the church through the holiness movement where there was a lot of talk about experiencing the power of God. You'll recognize this. "All to Jesus I surrender. Now I feel the sacred flame all the joy of full salvation. Glory, glory to his name." Written by a Judson Vendeventer in 1896 struggling with the Lord about following a career in the arts or responding to the call of being an evangelist. And God's grace finally brought him to a point where he yielded to the Lord only to discover then subsequently that his passion for the arts surfaced in his ability to write poetry and to write songs. And how much poorer would the church have been today if we had not received that song from his pen and from his life. "All to Jesus I surrender. All to him I freely give." Another song and we'll sing that at the end of the service today the Lord willing. "Trust and obey." Now listen carefully to how these words go. "But we never can prove the delights of his love until all in the altar we lay. For the favor he shows and the joy he bestows are for them who will trust and obey." Why does God give us the Holy Spirit? Just so that we can have liver shivers, feel good, feel loved, feel wanted. Well it's a lot more than that isn't it? The purpose of the Holy Spirit is to empower us and to equip us to love God above all, to love our neighbor as ourselves, and to live out that life of sacrificial service that we are called to live before the face of God. Only Jesus could live that way. Jesus was faithful unto death. He sits at the right hand of God the Father. He gives us the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit within us seeks to reproduce in us the character of Jesus and the power of Jesus. And having prayed with untold numbers of people over the years, I can tell you categorically on the basis of Scripture and on the basis of that experience that where things often get stuck is that the Holy Spirit will put His finger on an area in your life and in my life that we cannot or will not yield to Him. Sometimes it's a besetting sin, sometimes it's a particular habit that we are enamored with, sometimes it's a broken relationship, sometimes it's a career choice, a place where we pit our will against the will of God and we discover that it's it's not God who withdraws but we withdraw from Him. And what needs to happen in those moments then is we need to bend the knee. And as we bend the knee, acknowledge our sin and lay before Him what He is inviting us to lay before Him. That's when these hymns begin to make sense. That's when we feel the flame, if you will, or experience the power of God's Holy Spirit. That's a picture that goes back to when all is laid on the altar in the Old Testament and fire comes down from heaven and it consumes who we are and dedicates us to God in a whole new way. A lot of you have heard Dave Botting's story of how in 1991 we were at a conference together, a number of us in Chicago, and God began to deal with his heart and laid bare in a particular area especially that that had not been yielded to the Lord where where he was living in his own strength and how God convicted him and bent the knee in a place where he had never bent the knee before. Dave that's fair description and he'll tell you today that his life has never been the same. Now was Dave a believer before that? Yeah he was. Did he live mostly in his head and not in his heart? He'd be the first to say that was the case. Did something shift with that surrender? You bet your bottom dollar something majorly shifted and I believe when people talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, when people talk about experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit, it's always in connection with a yielding to God and so if you're here this morning and you say I don't get this stuff, I don't get what other Christians seem to have, I don't have an experiential knowledge of God, then ask yourself the question number one have you come to Christ? Has there been a time when you've crossed the line, repented of your sin, have you by faith claimed the blessings of Christ? John Wesley, founder of Methodism, raised in the Anglican Church, raised with a very godly parent, had traveled to the New World to preach the gospel to the natives, came back utterly and totally defeated, met up with a bunch of Moravians who had a stability and faith in the middle of a storm on the sea that he knew he did not have and learned from them that the gift of the Holy Spirit is given by faith and as history tells us a little later he found his way to a little chapel, Alders Gate Street, and there God touched him in a way that he could say I knew that I believed I had faith and from that he went out, became one of the most powerful preachers of the 1700s and was used instrumentally of God in bringing tens of thousands of lives into the kingdom and became of course the founder of what today is the Methodist family of churches. His life was forever changed by an act of faith. Ask yourself do I have faith? Secondly, ask yourself is there a place in my life where I know God is asking something of me that I have not yet been able to give him? A sin that he wants you to give up? At least call sin instead of making excuses for it? A relationship that he wants you to step into? A place where he wants you to launch out in obedience or a place where he wants something of your heart of hearts that you know you have not yet given him? And I'm not suggesting you go digging around. I'm not suggesting you become introspective and say oh my, no no, if it's there you'll know because God's will has a way of crossing our will and when he calls us forth in those places we know. Those places where we don't want to believe him. Are there passages in the Bible that when you read them your hair stands on end and you say I don't like that, I don't like you, and I'm not gonna live that way. Remember God is incredibly gracious to each one of us in the places where we cannot but as you've often heard me say he has no patience whatsoever for those places where we say I will not. As I've often said with you before when you discover those places where you will not, then cast yourself upon the mercies of God and say God help me to be made willing or help me to be made willing to be made willing to be made willing to be made willing. You can go back as far as you need to go back and say God give me the grace that I need to bend my knee before your face. Last Wednesday night Council met with the 12 candidates who were coming forward to profess faith and one of the persons shared this story of having to bend iron clad knees before God and discovering God's amazing grace in that process. Do I believe? Do I know? Are there places that the Lord is inviting me to surrender? If so give those to him then claim by faith the gift of the Holy Spirit. You don't have to be super special, you don't have to be super Christian, and you don't even have to feel anything just claim by faith. The Bible says be filled with the Holy Spirit and so say Lord I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit and I want to live my life before your face. Now notice in that context then the significance of the laying on of hands because we read in verse 17 of this chapter then Peter and John place their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit and again that is why last Wednesday when we met with the candidates of the profession of faith Marty here who is chairman called all the the new confessors to stand together in in the center of the room and those of us that were there Council and Dave and I as staff we laid hands on them and Valerie and and we invoked for God to empower them and to bless them with his Holy Spirit. That's a biblical pattern and for many ages and centuries and many churches to this day with the confirmation of a believer with the laying on of hands impart the Holy Spirit because you see the Holy Spirit had been given to the Church of Jerusalem and so the Church of Jerusalem was filled with all this life and all this vitality and now that the gospel was going to Samaria the anointing was transferred from Jerusalem to these believers and these believers come alive in a way they had not come alive before. So if you've prayed and you say to yourself there's got to be more and if you've never invited anybody to lay hands on you in the name of Jesus then take that next step and that doesn't mean that anything miraculous or supernatural or strange will happen to you but I can tell you this when God's Holy Spirit comes into your heart and into your life something will happen if nothing else your spiritual eyes will be opened and you will understand things that you do not understand today. We'll talk more about that in a few moments. So Peter and John go from Jerusalem to Samaria they find this unusual situation that they are forced to address and now what happens is that Simon remember Simon the magician he wants in on the action Simon wants in on the action verse 18 and 19 of this chapter when Simon saw the spirit was given at the laying on of the Apostles hands he offered the money and said give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. Two things are there that I really want us to notice something really happened when the Apostles laid their hands on these Samaritan believers. It says when Simon saw that the spirit was given at the laying on of the Apostles hands now remember Simon was no slouch he had come to faith because of the signs and wonders that were done by Philip. That's why he had become a believer he subscribed to the philosophy that if you can't beat them join them. Now he saw what happened when the Holy Spirit was given and he says I want that too. Leave aside for a moment the fact that he offered money we'll talk about that in a moment but my point now is this whatever happened with the laying on of hands was significant enough for Simon to be impressed. How many churches do you know? How many believers do you know who wouldn't even recognize the Holy Spirit if he appeared right in front of their eyes? How many believers and how many churches aren't there in the world where it's business as usual and God and I say this reverently God could be totally absent and life would go on just as it always had because they didn't need the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. Whatever else happens there ought to be something happening in our lives as time goes on that is an indication of the presence of the Holy Spirit. Remember that piece that I read earlier from the Roman Catholic doctrine of confirmation gives you a great summary a great summary of what we could expect when the Holy Spirit comes upon the believer. Roots says more deeply in this spirit of sonship God becomes more real and I know that he's my father. He unites us more firmly to Christ I become more keenly aware of who Christ is and who I am in Christ increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit in us. Some people would say imparts the gifts of the Holy Spirit to us. Catholic Church of course teaches baptismal regeneration and they teach that in baptism the Holy Spirit already comes upon you or within you but increases the gifts of the Holy Spirit renders our bond with the church more perfect that's a very interesting phrase because in Christ we are baptized into community and when the Holy Spirit fills our hearts something changes about the way we relate to other people. There is a new agape love language that develops and many of us know that we're closer to other believers who are in Christ than sometimes our own family members because we know that we speak the same language and we resonate with the same spirit isn't that true? Thank you for your enthusiastic response here it is true and you know that it's true and it gives us a special strength of the Holy Spirit to spread and to defend the faith by word and action as true witnesses of Christ to confess the name of Christ boldly and never to be ashamed of the cross. Signs and manifestations are always a difficult subject sometimes when the Holy Spirit comes upon people there are powerful instances I had a good friend of mine I was present when he was prayed for with the laying on of hands for the Holy Spirit and it looked like he was plugged into an electric socket I kid you not. His body shook from one end to the other when Charles Finney great evangelist in New York State in the 1800s received an unexpected baptism of the Holy Spirit he describes it as waves of liquid love falling and coming upon him empowering him for mission. I've never had any of those and neither have most of you and I've learned over the years that while we can be open to what the Holy Spirit wants to do in that regard we cannot limit him but we can expect him to take the dimness of our souls away. When I was prayed over to receive the Holy Spirit it was just like when I came to Christ I didn't feel a thing I didn't see a thing and I didn't experience a thing but as time went on I knew that something had happened because I understood the things of God in ways that I had never understood previously and I've often said the grass was greener the sky was bluer I understood ancient hymns and appreciated their theology songs that I had just sung without any thought previously suddenly came to life because I understood the experience of which they spoke that's one of the reasons I love Charles Wesley's hymns because out of the Methodist tradition you have an emphasis there on experientially knowing God and the challenge for Christianity is for our heads and our hearts to come together so that we can love God with all of our heart soul strength and mind and those are the kind of Christians that God wants to raise up so Simon saw that something happen and again if you want more than what you know is the reality it's available for the asking Jesus says asking you will receive seeking you will find knock and it will be open and as they often say that's a progression you begin by asking you become more desperate you begin by seeking and then you're really get desperate and you begin to pound the door and next week when you hear some of the stories of how people came to faith and how God met them some of them in the context of this community it's in the context of asking and seeking and pounding nobody who comes to me says Jesus I will turn away so something happened but more than that Simon being who he was of course wanted to buy the gift of the Holy Spirit when Simon saw that the spirit was given at the laying on of the Apostles hands he offered them money and said give me also this ability that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit question for you this morning who here knows what word has come into the English language from this story Ken very good Ken is a great scholar how many of you have ever heard the word simony well a few three four maybe five I have to get Ken to preach at you and teach you that the word simony means listen to this the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges pardons or benefices I had to look up benefices I thought maybe it meant benefits or something but it doesn't I mean it's related but it means ecclesiastical living the buying or selling of ecclesiastical privileges pardons or positions so simony can take many different forms clearly the form that it takes here is Simon saying I'll give you money if you will impart to me the ability to give the Holy Spirit and there are many variants of that the moment that I begin to think that I can earn a position in the church by virtue of of giving you money or by in some way purchasing my place in the body of Christ I am guilty of the sin of simony as we'll see in a few moments very serious sin because it misrepresents the character of God and it perverts the gospel so Simon wants in on the action to move along quickly here now notice Peter's response notice that Peter severely rebukes Simon with these words may your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money you have no part or share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart for I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin he says may your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money pretty strong language and Peter uses strong language for two reasons first of all Simon perverts the gospel as I mentioned earlier remember the gospel says that God's gifts are graciously free by putting a price on them he not only misrepresents who God is but worse than that he perverts the gospel because once that seed were to take root in a church then then the gift of the Holy Spirit becomes the privilege of the rich and that would pervert the gospel because if anything the opposite is true in scripture it's hard sometimes for the rich to get into the kingdom through the eye of a needle says Jesus and James puts it this way of course in James 2 verse 5 has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised to those who love him Simon perverts the gospel and throughout the New Testament the Apostles come down very hard on perversions of the gospel because of the moment you deviate from truth even if it's only one degree by the time you take that teaching down the road one generation two generations or three generations you'll be far removed from the reality of the cross apart from which the kingdom of God cannot come second reason though and that is that Simon's heart is not right before God verse 21 you have no part or share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God why did Simon want this ability to impart the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands was it because he was passionately in love with God was it because he wanted to see God's will done on earth as it is in heaven now it was under those as I said earlier he wanted it to embolster his own position he had been recognized in this city as the great power that was from God and when Philip came along with greater power he was smart enough to see the writing on the wall and he said if you can't beat them join them now this desire to impart the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands was just another way to grease his own palm and that's a perversion that's a perversion of the gospel and then the language that Peter uses here by the way is very interesting language Peter says you are full of bitterness and captive to sin and the phrase full of bitterness in the original language is you are in the gall of bitterness and that is a Hebraic phrase indicating severe bitterness and some Bible translations say that he was guilty of bitter envy which places the bitterness in context and of course captive to sin the image there is that of of a prisoner chain to a Roman soldier manacled together and Peter says to Simon that's really who you are your heart is full of bitterness and you are in bondage to sin and it's a passage that I find very sobering because obviously you can be looking for the gifts of the Holy Spirit and yet be looking for them for the wrong reasons the Holy Spirit is never just given so that we can be more important so that we can be more powerful so that we can advance our careers so that we can be somebody no no it's given to make us better servants of Christ so that we can do the will of our Father who was in heaven well want to wind this up as quickly as we can but I want us to note then finally Simon's response verse 24 then Simon answered pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me he says pray for me to the Lord so that nothing you have said may happen to me now first glance that sounds not too bad right what's wrong with it two things number one Simon refuses to take personal responsibility he refuses to take personal responsibility for his condition because what was it that Peter had said to him earlier verse 22 listen to it again repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart you pray you repent what does Simon do Simon says pray to the Lord for me and there's absolutely nothing wrong in asking somebody to pray for you it's a good thing to do but when it's a substitute for be stirring your own soul and taking responsibility for your own life it is wrong and it means you're trying to avoid responsibility I've been thinking about that a little bit this past week because you know there is a place in all our hearts sooner or later where if we are rooted in bitterness and if we are captive to sin there is something delightful about being a victim there is something delightful about saying well you know I'm so deeply down here and I am so passive and I'm sunk so deep that I cannot get out of here or even be stirred myself when we develop a victim mentality that says well it's somebody else's responsibility to get me out of where I am and until they do I'm gonna sit here and I'm gonna complain about everybody else because they're not doing their good Christian duty to get me out of my trouble how many of you know that what I'm saying is true that true well I got news for you you can sit in that spot forever and you will never get out of there until you be stir yourself and activate whatever tiny grain of life has been left in your soul that you start fanning it into flame and calling out to God as I said earlier God is incredibly patient with those of us who can't but he has no patience at all for those of us who will not and I'll tell you something else if you're elect and God has his mark on your life then I don't care how far down you've been in life or what trauma you have experienced or what misery you find yourself in or how deep a hole you have dug to hide yourself underneath somewhere in there is a spark of life that has never died it's a place where God has kept you alive because otherwise you would have been destroyed and you know what God wants to do he wants to find that spot in you and he wants to say to you get your behind in gear and be stir yourself to seek God from deep within you cry it out to God until God hears you because God will meet you there amen amen we live in a world that has normalized victimhood and I'll tell you something there are probably few people in this place who have more sympathy for victims than I do because I've had the privilege of walking with people through more garbage than you'd ever want to know but I can tell you this that those who make it versus those who don't make it be stir themselves and as they step out God meets them and God surrounds them with other people pulls them out of that hole and they become stronger and stronger until eventually those shackles fall away and people start coming to life that's the joy of God's kingdom and that's what is a community we're really about in this church all right winding up quickly what was the second problem in Simon's response he was only worried about the consequences prayed to the Lord so that nothing you have said may happen to me what did Peter say was going to happen to him he says you and your money can go to hell that's the vernacular translation but that's pronouncing a curse on Simon in case you haven't caught it and Simon was sufficiently versed in spiritual reality to know that Peter was putting a curse on him and he had enough respect for the authority of the Apostles in the early church and the presence and the power of God is that he knew he was in trouble if that curse ever came true undoubtedly he had heard the story of Ananias and Sapphira and unlike a lot of us was smart enough at least to tremble in his boots and so he says pray that what you have said will not happen to me not a bad move but it wasn't repentance because what is repentance repentance is not just wanting to avoid the consequences of my sin there's a lot of people that feel very badly when their sins have been found out and they don't ever wanted to happen again and they wish it hadn't happened but that's not repentance repentance is a deep grieving a knowledge that I have just offended Almighty God I have stood up and and and I've shaken my fist in his face and my heart is so rooted in the wisdom of the world that that everything that I am and everything that I do is just wrong I cannot change myself Oh God have mercy on me that's the kind of repentance that God is looking for in Simon's life well Simon disappears from the Bible story from this point on we never hear about him again and it's left I suppose to speculation as to what came of his life whether he did turn to Lord and whether he repented all he knows this the early church fathers are unanimous but Simon never made it into the kingdom that he in fact turned back to his old life with a vengeance that he became a strong opponent of the apostolic message and that he formed a religious sect that did considerable damage to the coming of God's kingdom now as in all these old New Testament stories a lot of legends developed there's a story where it is said Simon had so much spiritual power that he could levitate and he and Peter had a little go-around where Peter proved that the power of Jesus was greater than the power of Satan and so the story goes that as Simon was levitating in front of the Emperor and a whole bunch of other important people Simon Peter made him fall flat in his face and that's called the fall of Simon and you'll find ancient art pictures that represent that undoubtedly a legend but here's the point having come to this point of dealing with God and turning away from all appearances historically Simon never got a second chance and Simon's heart became increasingly hardened now I don't want to draw this out but I want us to bring it home to you and to me I'm gonna ask Aaron if you can just dim really dim the lights in the auditorium so that we have some privacy but here's what I want us to do as we bring this service to a close this morning how many of us here would say I want to receive a greater awareness a greater importation of the Holy Spirit we just put up your hand if that represents you can I ask you to go to the next step and would you stand just stand where you are just stand where you are and if you can just reach out to each other and lay a hand on each other we're gonna pray that the Holy Spirit will do in your life with increasing power what he said he would do and if so far you haven't stood yet that's fine you can stand with us as we pray and bring this service to a close Lord God what a story in the book of Acts what incredible grace and power when you came to the Samaritans and you filled them with yourself and Lord who of us here would say that we are where we need to be spiritually and who of us can honestly say that we are as full of the spirit as we need to be Lord we leak and we leak a lot and you've commanded us to be filled with the spirit and so we come to you now we come first of all with the knowledge that in Christ the Holy Spirit and all that he represents is ours by faith and so Lord if we've never come to Jesus we come to him now and we repent of our sins and we invite him to be our Savior and our Lord because who has the words of life but Jesus alone who was raised from the dead to the glory of God the Father so Lord by faith we receive the gift of salvation we also acknowledge that by faith Jesus has given the Holy Spirit to the church and so when he comes into our hearts he comes in the fullness and the power of the Holy Spirit so Lord if we've never ever received or prayed to receive the Holy Spirit we do that now we just call out on you in obedience to your word and use we say come Lord Jesus through your spirit and fill us from top to bottom till every nook and cranny of our lives is dedicated to your glory and Lord if there are areas in our lives or we have not yet been to knee and where we have a controversy with you where we don't want to believe you we don't want to trust you we don't obey you then we pray that by your word and through your spirit you give us the grace to yield that area right now and just take a moment here if the Lord's speaking to you in that area don't fool around with him this is the moment where you can say to him Lord I acknowledge my sin here I acknowledge the pain in my heart I acknowledge the rebellion in my heart oh God help me help me to lay it all on the altar and then by faith give it to him just take a moment and do that and now Lord Jesus we pray that you confirm the gift of your spirit in our lives we're not first and foremost asking for obvious or clear manifestations that were open for you to give those in the places where we need them but Lord we do pray that you'll take the dimness of our souls away that you will ignite our passion again for you that you will empower our faith and our hope and our love for you and that Lord you'll make us more sensitive to the movements of your spirit in our lives and in the world that your word will come alive afresh and that we will mount on wings like eagles and we will run and not be weary and we will walk and we will not faint so come Lord Jesus then teach us that as we step out to learn increasingly simply to trust and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey we bless you Lord and we give you glory in Jesus name amen let's give the Lord a hand people while the praise team is coming out let me just say this as I said earlier something may or may not noticeably happen but you can at least expect this to happen an increasing awareness of spiritual reality a greater insight into the things of God and if this is your first time in stepping out in this way I can also promise you that you will become more aware of spiritual darkness so don't be surprised if spiritual warfare takes on a new dimension that doesn't mean you've gone backwards that doesn't mean you have lost out you may also become more aware of sin and then the temptation is to say well I'm getting worse instead of better no no your eyes are getting opened to the reality before God because that's the job of the Holy Spirit then we can give that to Jesus day by day and we can walk in his grace and in his power trust and [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 01:03:00.440; remove through 01:07:28.000] obey there is no [CUT] other way in the light of his word what a glory he shapes on our way now we do his good will he abides with us still and with all who will trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey not a shadow can rise not a cloud in the sky but as long with me drives it away not a doubt nor a fear not a sorrow or a tear and one while we trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey not a burden we bear not a sorrow we share not a soul in all the rich near and even not a grief nor a loss not a frown nor a pause but as blasted frames trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey but we never can prove the delights of his love who know of the altar we lay for the favor he shows and the joy he bestows our producer will trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey then in fellowship sweet we will sit at his feet and we'll walk by his side in the rain what he says we will do where he sends we will go never fear only trust and obey trust and obey for there's no other way to be happy in Jesus but to trust and obey [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 01:07:28.000; resume after this marked segment]