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 We’re going to be in Acts 8 through 12 for the summer. And I think it’s a beautiful series of chapters because it’s about the church stretching, growing, and ultimately maturing. And I think there’s a lot of similarities between the church in Acts 8 through 12 with.

the season we’re in today. As I just mentioned with nursery workers, we’re stretching ourselves, we’re growing, we’re willing to do uncomfortable things for the glory of God and to bring more people into the kingdom. And so as we expand our efforts, I think we really need to lean into this whole idea of Acts 8 through 12.

Um, let me just say, I’m so proud to be your pastor. It’s been incredible to see those ping pong balls. Every single ball that’s on that display represents a meal that we have been having with saints, strangers, and sinners throughout the week to encounter the grace of God. That’s where the bread and butter is at.

That is where God moves. Also, peacemaking. I love this. It’s been so hard for us because we want to share stories of how you guys have been making peace, but it’s also like super personal, super private, so we can’t share a lot of them, but let me just say we are so encouraged that you guys are still engaging in the hard work of peacemaking.

All that to say is It’s been a joy to pastor you, and I think Acts 8 12 is just coming for us at the right time and the right season. I think it’s going to be refreshing, I think it’s going to be encouraging, and we’re not going to give you eight things to do throughout the week like we did with the peacemaking practice.

Anybody tired? Don’t raise your hand. Alright, so, what we’re going to look at today, starting today, is this series called Moments and Marathons. You may notice that in the peacemaking practice we said forgiveness is a moment, and we said And that’s really the whole Christian life. I’m so grateful for the God moments in my life, and I’m so grateful for the God moments in yours.

Think about it. Those are the moments, the highlights of our Christian life. It’s the first time you believed in the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It’s things like when you finally confessed your sin and found freedom from an addiction. It’s those moments where you decided to forgive someone, and you had the courage to go up and say, I forgive you, or I need your forgiveness.

There’s, these are really powerful moments. And, and as a pastor, and in this kind of marketing world, it’s fun and easy to, to promote these God moments. God’s showing up in powerful ways. And we praise God for those moments. But just as important that I want us to lean into this summer is the marathon. The Christian life is a marathon.

In fact, one pastor often would tell me, it’s a relay race, because friends, we’re just carrying the torch of the last generation. We run our race, and we hand it off to the next. It’s a marathon, like reading your Bible every single morning. Some of us, we’re not quite trained to do that yet, but there’s something incredible about doing that every single day.

It’s the marathon of opening your home to saints, strangers, and sinners every single week. It’s the hard work of forgiving somebody. you over and over again. It’s serving one, sitting one in church week in and week out. And I would argue true growth happens over the marathon. Eugene Peterson, um, he has this, uh, great book called A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.

I just love the idea of that title in the first place. And he says that our, I, fascination with moments is probably to our detriment. He says the following, one aspect of the world that I have been able to identify as harmful to Christians is the assumption that anything worthwhile Can be acquired at once.

What I hope, if you spend time at our church and spend time in the book of Acts, you will see so much of the stuff we’re really aiming after comes over the long haul of long obedience in the same direction. We love the moments. But we also love the marathons. Today, we’re going to look at a passage that mirrors our culture.

We’re going to look at Simon. Simon is somebody who loves the moments, but yet loathes the marathons. And it doesn’t end well for him. And if we are the same way, it doesn’t end well for us either. So let’s pray and we’ll dive right into Acts chapter 8. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thank you for your grace today.

Thank you for Acts chapter 8. God, I pray that the same way you’ve used this passage for the last 2, 000 years to draw people to yourself, Amen. To comfort the afflicted, to encourage those who are in the middle of their race. I pray that you would do the same for us. Jesus, what we’re after is you. Help us see, God, that you are the goal.

Lord, that you are our Savior. You are everything that our hearts long for. And I pray that that becomes abundantly clear as we walk through this text. In Jesus name I pray. Everybody says. Amen. Amen. All right. Let’s look at verse one together. We’re going to go all the way to 25. This, strangely enough, isn’t preached about often, because I think the second half of chapter eight is really popular and a great story, but man, there’s so much here in one through 25.

So let’s begin. Saul agreed with putting him to death. Who is the him? We learned in act seven? Stephen. Stephen got stoned for preaching the gospel, okay? And Saul will one day become? Paul. Okay, so Saul agreed with putting him to death. We’re going to learn about him in Acts 9, Saul becoming Paul. On that day, a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria.

Now, this is very important here, because if we know our story, we look to Acts 1 8, Acts 8 1, there is a correlation. Acts 1 8, what does Jesus say? Right before ascending to the right hand of the Father. He sends his disciples in power. He says, you will be my witnesses. Where? In Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

Now, chapters one through seven, how far has the church gone? Just Jerusalem. So until 8 1, 1 8 doesn’t seem to be happening yet. And that’s fine. Things take a while. The church had to really understand the gospel and really grow a strong foundation in Jerusalem. But it had to start spreading. Friends, if it didn’t spread, you and I wouldn’t even be here today learning about Jesus, right?

The gospel is about a mission sent out into the world. So what’s interesting though, what sends out the church, not because it wasn’t, Oh, yeah, Jesus told us to go to all the world. It was persecution. So God uses all things for His glory. We talked about that last Sunday with Joseph’s life. Okay, so that’s what’s happening.

8 1 helps fulfill the promise of 1 8. Verse 2. Devout men buried Stephen and mourned deeply over him. Saul, however, was ravaging the church. This is a violent word. This is, he was doing all he can to stop and to kill those preaching the gospel. And he would enter house after house, drag off. What I love about Luke, he’s a great storyteller, now we just are not going to learn about Saul for a while.

He’s going to share a couple of other stories and we’re going to get back to him. It’s kind of like a spoiler, it’s kind of like a, when a movie, this feels like, okay, I need to learn about him, now I need to wait. He’s building up the tension here, but let’s look at Luke verse four. Uh, so those were, uh, so those who were scattered went on their way preaching the word.

Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. The crowds were all paying attention to what Philip said as they listened and saw the signs he was performing. For unclean spirits, crying out with a loud voice, came out of many, who were possessed and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed and so there was great joy in that city.

A few things to notice in verse four through eight. One, Philip is the same person who was appointed as a deacon in Acts chapter six. If you remember in Acts six, they talk about Stephen and Philip and then the rest. So Philip has already kind of been learned about and with that we learn Philip is a Hellenistic Jew.

Which is really important. We’ve talked about this. It’s okay if you don’t remember if you weren’t here in Acts chapter 6. There are Hebraic, Hebrew Jews, and Hellenistic Jews. Hellenistic Jews were more Greek than anything. They have Greek influence. So it’s very important actually that Philip was a Hellenistic Jew because the Hebrew, Hebrew Jews and the Samaritans did not like each other.

In fact, if the the Hebraic Jew went to Samaria initially, they probably not, would not have been welcomed. Let me give you the backstory. In 722 BC, Assyria invaded the 10 northern tribes of Israel. Okay, that we just call Israel. And they took them captive. What happened while they were in exile, captive, captivated by the Assyrians, they intermarried with the Assyrians.

Now, let me just say quickly today, That’s okay for us today as far as different ethnicities intermarrying, totally. But what happens then, what represented was, they were intermarrying religions. And we would say, you must not be unequally yoked, right? That still is a principle today. Christians should marry other Christians.

So for them, they were intermarrying, and they were kind of taking the Assyrian gods as well. Some of them weren’t, but they were intermarrying. So, in 586 BC, the southern two tribes of, that we would call Judah, Babylon took over the southern kingdom. So, 722, the northern ten tribes took over and they kind of gave in and kind of lived the Assyrian way of life.

586, Babylon took over, but they did not intermarry. Okay, they, they kept their values and their traditions. In fact, they would say, and this wasn’t great, in Babylon they would stay on the very edge. Jeremiah tells them to go in the middle of city and to bless them and to bring the gospel there. What we would call the gospel, the Old Testament when you use that word, yet.

But, but instead they stay away from them, okay. Now, why is this all important? the Jews, the two southern tribes, hated the Samaritans. Because in their minds, the Samaritans, they, they gave in to the culture, they are not worshiping the one and true God, they’re kind of Assyrian now. And so there is a huge tension between those two different groups of people.

And so because Philip wasn’t Hebrew, he was Hellenistic, There was a little bit of an opening to the gospel. Okay, you kind of are also Greek influenced like we are, and so they were willing to listen. But also notice, the third thing to notice in just those few verses, Philip came in the power of the Spirit.

Notice how powerful, just as he promised in Acts 1 8. He came in the power of the Spirit. So Samaria, more context here, was run by sorcerers, magicians, and the demonic. Uh, magicians, they would rule people with like fear and awe tactics. When we were, we took a mission trip to Thailand a few years ago. And I’ll never forget meeting one man who’s Scratch and had all sorts of scars and they were saying, yes, a demon attacked him, and so he has to please his demon.

So when you actually go to Thailand in many places, there are these altars in front of the homes, and they would give like candy on the altar and food and all sorts of things. And in their mind, they They were feeding these demons to appease the demons so the demons wouldn’t hurt them and their family.

This is 2020, this was like 2019, folks. Like this is, this is still happening today. We operate in the spiritual realm. In the same way, a lot of Samaritans were overtaken by these magicians, by these people who had all this power. But what’s great about Acts 8 is although these magicians had power, they couldn’t hold a candle to the power of Jesus Christ.

Right? So Jesus came through the, you know, Philip brought the word of Christ and stripped the magicians of their power. And that’s what Jesus does. I think it’s wise to say there is evil today and it does have power. It can’t, again, hold a candle to the empty grave. Amen? But we don’t mess with evil. We don’t mess with those powers.

One illustration I think about all the time. When I went hunting. I remember me and my dad go hunting a lot and we saw a rattlesnake, but the rattlesnake was clearly dead, right? And so I was like, let me pick it up and my dad’s like just so you know before you do anything else Don’t touch the fangs no matter what they will always have poison in them This is why there’s like certain rules how you dispose of a rattlesnake I think there’s a certain like amount that you have to dig in order to You know bury them because if you were to step on it or touch it even years after it has died That poison will still get you I think that’s a wonderful illustration of the devil today.

I think, I believe, the Christ, uh, we see in Colossians, conquered sin, Satan, and death. He stripped the, uh, the devil of his ultimate power over the earth, right? Because Jesus conquered him. And so with that, though, the devil doesn’t have the kind of power he He once had, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have power.

In my mind, he’s like a dead rattlesnake that if you mess with it, if you engage with it, it can still hurt you. But Jesus reigns supreme over the powers, and Philip’s power clearly transcends the demonic. And this amazes the Samaritans. Verse 9. A man named Samaritan, Simon previously practiced sorcery in that city and amazed the Samaritan people while claiming to be somebody great.

Notice the ego here. They all paid attention to him from the least of them to the greatest, and they said, this man is called the great power of God. This was because he would call himself that. He claimed to be a deity. Verse 11, they were attentive to him because he had amazed them with his sorceries for a long time.

But. When they believed Philip, as he proclaimed the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ. Notice, what does Simon preach himself? How great he is. What does Philip preach? Jesus Christ and him crucified, right? The goodness of the kingdom of God. Both men and women were blessed.

baptized. I really encourage you guys to come next week. The rest of chapter eight, once we’re done here, uh, we’re going to actually exposit what is baptism and why is it important. So, um, just, just notice that they were getting baptized. So they were converting. They were coming to Christ. Verse 13, even Simon himself believed.

So, this is a shocker. This is like a crazy story. This famous person who did all this sorcery now seems to be following God. And so, after he was baptized, he followed Philip everywhere and was amazed as he observed the signs and great miracles that were being performed. Okay, so what is the story so far?

Simon, great guy. Well, he’s not a great guy, but he says he’s a great guy. Everybody kind of fears him, is in awe of him because of his power, and yet Philip comes does the power. Simon says, look at me. Philip says, look at Christ. Totally different types of stories. And then we kind of see Simon saying, well, if you can’t beat them, join them.

And so he says, okay, I’ll get baptized. I’ll believe. So he follows him, but I want us to notice something that’s really fearful, it’s kind of a scary thing, uh, trap for all of us. Simon, as we’ll see, he was more in love with the gift than the giver. So he noticed the power Philip had and said, okay, I’ll get baptized so I can get some of that power.

So that’s interesting. Okay. So let’s keep reading how Simon’s story unfolds. Verse 14. When the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. After they went down there, they prayed for them so that the Samaritans might receive the Holy Spirit because he had not yet come down on any of them.

Let me give you a quick commentator, uh, thing on this. What does this mean? It doesn’t mean today you can get baptized and now like some holy person has to lay on your hands for you to receive the Holy Spirit. This is a very particular incidence happening in the past. With the birth of the church, there were obviously people who were trying to do false teaching, false, uh, gospels, which we still are fighting today.

But us, we can anchor our truth based off the word of God. Amen? This is how we can tell what’s right and wrong. But at that time, kind of the seal of apostleship was the way of saying this, Okay, Peter and John, they’ve been with Christ. So if they approve of this, this also is the right truth. Gospel. And also Peter and John, you know, they, they were just representatives of Christ.

They lived life with Christ. And so when they came and allowed the Holy Spirit to come on the Samaritans, a beautiful thing was happening. He was declaring to the Samaritans, the gospel is also for you. This was hard for Hebraic Jews to believe. They thought the Samaritans were the worst of the worst. And isn’t that good news for us?

Nobody’s too far for the kingdom of God. Nobody. We, we, we can’t classify people and say, you’re good, so you should come in. You’re bad, you should stay out. The gospel is available to all who are willing to surrender and repent and believe. Okay, verse 16, They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the The Holy Spirit. Again, I believe that’s a very early church thing that had to happen in order to approve the authenticity of the gospel, but now that doesn’t happen. Verse 18 though. When Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles hands, he offered them money, saying, Give me this power also, so that anyone I lay hands on may receive the Holy Spirit.

What is Simon doing here? He wants a moment. But he doesn’t want the marathon, right? What is Simon trying to skip? He’s trying to skip what we learned all last month, God’s slow work of transformation. What did we say was the three steps of God’s slow work of transformation? Number one is the Holy Spirit, number two is habitual practice, and number three is humiliating pain.

Remember, we said, we, for us to have any power, John 15, we abide in Christ, Christ abides in us, that’s the personal work of the Holy Spirit. But habitually, we practice the Word of God, we, we practice reading the scriptures, we practice this way of life, and as we do that, we begin to have more power from God, and number three is humiliating pain.

Simon hasn’t gone through any humiliation, he just wants to, he sees the work of God as a transaction. Alright, he wants the power of the Spirit. without knowing the person of the Spirit. He wants the outcomes of practicing the way without the obedience of practicing the way. He wants the reward of going through a lot of pain without having to endure any pain.

And what this is, is this, uh, old phrase. I wonder if anybody’s familiar with this. This is called the sin of simony. Raise your hand. Anybody ever heard of the sin of simony before? Of course, Robert. I knew you would. All right. Sin of simony is actually, um, it’s, it’s a little more, if I’m honest, a little more Catholic than anything as far as historically.

Like, I think that they mentioned this phrase a little more, uh, than most. But the sin of simony is, It’s believing that holiness can be bought. It’s this idea that you can become a priest, not by doing the hard work and learning and studying. No, just by saying, Hey, I have money here. Give me that title. Uh, and, and so this is totally against the way of Jesus.

W. A. Criswell has a great quote on this about, uh, uh, Simon’s arrogance thinking money can buy everything. He says the following, he says, money can buy pleasure and entertainment, but it cannot buy happiness. Money can buy a suit, but it cannot buy a physique. Money can buy medicine, but it cannot buy health.

Money can buy a house, but it cannot buy a home. Simon thinks money can buy everything. A lot of us are tempted to believe that as well. But let me put this another way, and I think it will really hit home for us. Simon arrogantly assumed spiritual authority is bought in a moment, not wrought over a lifetime.

Now, if you went to Queen Creek education like me, what rot means is to be shaped into something over time, being beaten into the shape of what you were always intended to be. So, salvation happens in a moment. Spiritual authority happens over the marathon. And Simon doesn’t want anything to do with that.

And I think that’s by God’s design, and that’s a very good thing, because I think we could all see. Too much power, too soon. is one of the greatest dangers of life. That’s why Paul warns Timothy in 1 Timothy 3, 6, talking about pastors. He must not be a new convert or he might become conceited and incur the same condemnation as the devil.

That’s terrifying. Proverbs 20, 21 warns us, an inheritance gained prematurely will not be blessed ultimately. What is one of the worst things to do apparently? Is to win the lottery. It tears apart your life. It’s too much power, too soon. And this took me a long time to realize in the journey of planting this church.

I know for me, I wanted success right away. And that did not happen right away. We started with 25 people. And, uh, it was our launch team. And I remember, because we have some supporting churches around the area, we had 140 on opening Sunday. Next Sunday, 35. And I was like, here we go. Now we’re planning a church.

And it was humiliating. I was exhausted, just, uh, it was bad. But what I didn’t see, what I’m grateful for now, I think I’m still in the middle of it, but I’m grateful for now though, is wow, was I arrogant. Wow. Did God have to just beat a whole lot out of me as we launched this church. And as I look back, Man, I’m grateful for the story of the slow work of transformation.

It’s amazing to see the health and maturity of our congregation. And I believe it’s because we took the, the, the growth plan. I didn’t choose it, but God did. The growth plan of the kingdom, that it starts with the seed and it slowly germinates and builds into something glorious. See, what kept me going in the hardest days of ministry as we started.

As I remembered this truth, my dad would tell me this all the time, and I want you to write this down. God always does something powerful in you before he does something powerful through you. Simon wanted to skip this. He just wanted to be a, just use me, God. And the first step is, love me, God, and I love you.

And you develop that maturity, and then it enables you to really do some incredible ministry. So quickly, what does God do in you? What does that path look like for something powerful to happen in you? The ancients would call this the four stages of Christian maturity. I’m going to try to make this as fast as I can.

We’ve talked about this before. Go to our stages sermon series on our website. But let me. say it briefly. The first stage is called awakening. Scriptures refer to this as we were dead without Christ, right? We were asleep, but then we were awakened to the beauty of God. So some of us grew up what some people would call as religious.

I don’t think that’s a bad word if it’s defined properly, but the bad version of religion is thinking you can earn your salvation. So some of us, we lived our whole lives thinking we, if I’m good enough, God will love me. The scriptures would call you dead. dead in your trespasses and sins. There’s nothing you can do.

You’re very self righteous. And so that’s not the way of the kingdom. But some of us grew up irreligious, completely away from God, wanting to do anything we want, thinking that we are gods. And at some point in your life, you hit a wall, you hit desperation, your sin overwhelms you, and you realize, I can’t do this on my own.

I need a Savior. And that’s when we receive the awakening, or Jesus calls it in John 3, to be born again. Where we give Jesus our sin, Jesus gives us his righteousness. And we believe at that moment, 2 Corinthians 5, 17, you’re a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. What a beautiful, beautiful moment.

That’s a moment. Quickly, you go to stage two, which is a marathon. It’s called purgation. Okay? Now, this isn’t purgatory. Okay, but it’s the idea of us being purged, where we become more like Christ, where honestly, like, our sin is burned off of us, and it’s a long process. If you want to know more about that, go to Colossians just to name a few.

Robert Mulholland talks about the four levels of sin that must be purged. The first one is gross sins. So this is sin even society know is wrong, and let me just be honest, that list is getting smaller and smaller. Can I be frank, right? But there are still some sins. Some of us all agree this is still sin.

It’s things like certain parts of sexual morality, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, envy, drunkenness. And so these are the great testimonies. I used to do this bad thing. I came to Christ and now I have freedom. And we celebrate that. But those are the top level sins. The second level, Maholing calls conscious sins.

What this is, is socially accepted sin in the culture. But as you read your Bible, you realize it is pretty bad. Things like, and you be careful here, but movies that we watch, you used to think these are fine, but now as you follow the way of Jesus and realize how it takes you down these paths, maybe there’s certain movies I shouldn’t be watching anymore.

Or it’s the gossip we entertain. Every workplace says, gossip is fun, let’s keep doing it. But as a Christian, you start to get purged and become more like Christ and go, maybe I shouldn’t entertain this anymore. Right? It’s the slow pro and let me just tell you, it is slow. This week, we were actually in California, and don’t judge me, but we were at Disneyland.

And, and so we were hanging out in Thunder Mountain. It’s the first ride of the day, and guys, early bird gets the worm. We’re at Thunder. We already have a fast pass for space. Talk to me after, I’m a pro. And so, we got there, and we were getting in line, and so we have the stroller. And the worst part of Thunder Mountain is you have to go way over to the stroller parking and then run back to the line.

Well, my wife and my whole family just went to the line, and I had the The, the duty to run, put the stroller away, lock it, cover everything, make sure the Stanley isn’t seen, and then run back and go to the line. And I am so distraught because my wife didn’t wait for me. She just starts walking in the line, which I kind of like, but I don’t like cutting people because then everybody hates me.

That’s not how I want to start my day. And so I see her across the way and she’s like, hurry up. And I’m like, I can’t believe you went without me. What are you? You know, just, I’m a sinner. It’s when I’m trying to come on it, you know? So I’m like. Why did you leave me? Like we were, you know, mouthing it. I wasn’t saying it out loud, but you could read lips, you know, pretty easily in this scenario.

And in the middle of this interaction, there is this guy who tapped Jordan’s shoulder. So I’m like, what’s going on? Step up, bro. Like she’s taken, you know, all this stuff. And she goes like, oh yeah. And she points at me. So I go from. Hey, you know, just like immediately smiling. Apparently this guy has been following me on YouTube for years, loves my preaching, huge fan.

So I have to quickly pivot from being this angry, terrible father and husband to like, yeah, I am the guy that you see online and I’m just as good in person, you know, in real life as I’m. So what a, so the whole day I was just like, no, it’s a great day. Who else is watching? You never know. But in the process of being purged, you’ll notice.

The last part to be purged is like your closest relationships, right? It’s the people you’re closest to is who your real self is. I’m pretty patient if you’re a new guest here. Not as patient if my wife ditches me and goes on the ride without me, right? But hopefully as God does his pruning work, I go, how cute of you to run ahead.

It’s fine. I’ll see you at the end of the ride, darling. Oh, a YouTube follower? I was nice the whole time, right? There is a process, okay? And so this purgation must happen, but it doesn’t happen overnight. And I think we think we’re stripping the power of the gospel when we declare, but I don’t think we do.

We kind of declare, once you meet Jesus, everything’s great. Brother, you’re forgiven, you’re clean, you’re redeemed. But the beauty is we get to slowly become more like Christ. I’m gonna skip the next two, cause that Disneyland story took longer than it should have. Okay, so third stage is illumination. This is when the light bulb turns on.

Again, this doesn’t mean you’re done with sin. It’s a constant process. But you enter into this new stage of maturity where you embody the fruit of the spirit and you exercise gifts from the spirit. It’s incredible. You actually become more and more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control.

And then you learn your gift and serve the church like teaching, giving, counsel, exhortation, faith, hospitality. The list goes on. This is an incredible stage of the Christian life, but it doesn’t end there. Happen right away. It’s over the course Your schedule at this point is literally reoriented to be formed by Jesus together for others.

You joyfully sacrifice your time, talent, and treasure for the King and you serve the congregation and community without complaining. You know, what a dude, what a delight. This isn’t a duty. What a joy. The last stage is union. Most of us don’t reach this stage because it requires a lot of humility, a lot of surrender, and a lot of trust, and a lot of pain.

But this is like John 15 come to life. John 15 talks about abiding in Christ, where you were just with God every moment of every day. This is like that great grandmother who hasn’t sinned since 1999. Anybody have one of those? Right? Just beautiful. They’ve entered the stage of union, where they just love God, and they know God loves them, and they’re floating when they walk, right?

But then you have the other great grandmother. No, I’m kidding. Um, nobody, okay. So at this stage, sin becomes the exception and not the rule. We are never perfect this side of heaven, don’t get me wrong, but your interest in gossip is diminished. Your interest in hoarding wealth is gone. You want to use it for the kingdom.

It’s an incredible stage of growth. Hear me. As you go through each stage, you gain more spiritual authority, because God can trust you with it. Because you won’t be selfish with it, you’ll bless others with it. I say all that to say, Simon is not interested in the stages of maturity. And if we’re honest, most of us aren’t either.

But there’s beauty in the process. Let’s see how Peter responds to Simon wanting to buy, uh, the power of God. But Peter told him, verse 20, May your silver be destroyed with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this matter because your heart is not right before God.

Therefore, repent of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible your heart’s intent may be forgiven. Talk about, like, fire and damnation. This is a terrifying thing from Peter, the pillar of the church, right? Uh, well, the confession of Christ being the pillar of the church, but he’s a huge part of it.

Verse 23, For I see you are poisoned by bitterness, and bound by wickedness. He’s saying your heart isn’t right. The fact that you even thought of this you need to repent and you need to do it now brother This is a terrifying place to be and look at that last line poisoned by bitterness And bound by wickedness.

He’s actually alluding to deuteronomy 29 18 moses Asserts, those who turn from God, who fall away from God, which some would call apostasy. We believe in the Baptist tradition, once you’re saved, you’re always saved, but you need to make sure you’re bearing fruit. So for Simon, yes, he believed, yes, he got baptized, but he didn’t show any fruit.

And that’s what Peter’s saying. Be weary, brother, because it doesn’t look like Christ has transformed your life. It doesn’t look like you came to Christ for Christ. You came to Christ to get something else. As Deuteronomy 29 says, the person who hasn’t actually followed Jesus, his life is defined by a root of evil.

Bitterness, and this is what Peter is saying to Simon, you are still bound to the wickedness. You still have a root of bitterness. Christ hasn’t done the work in your life because you haven’t actually invited him. To verse 24, how does Simon respond? Pray to the Lord for me. Simon replied so that nothing you have said may happen to me.

What’s wrong with his response? First of all, he’s more sorry about the consequence than the offense. Second of all, he still doesn’t have a personal relationship with Jesus. He’s asking Peter. To pray to God on his behalf friends. Jesus is our mediator. We can go straight to him This shows Simon was never genuinely saved.

History and a part legend portray Simon as the arch villain of the early church. This is the last you’ll see about Simon here in the book of Acts. So that’s what we’ll hold to. But history says He’s the first con false convert of the early church. In fact, I, Iran. Iran Aus. There it is. Aaron Aus speaks of him as the father of gnosticism, which is a heresy that ravaged the church back then and still ravages the church today.

So all of this is a warning to not be like Simon, but what is the invitation for you? And for me, I think it’s really simple. Jesus is not a means to the, to an end. Jesus is the end. Right? For Simon, he wanted Jesus in order to get something else. And by doing that, he didn’t even get Jesus. I think a lot of people, the way we preach the gospel today, it’s almost like we are communicating the good news as a connecting flight to what you’re actually looking for.

Right? So like, hey, do you want a healed marriage? Come to Christ and you’ll get a healed marriage. Do you want better community? Come to Christ, you’ll get better community. Do you want a better sense of self worth and purpose? Then come to Christ and you’ll get those things. And it’s, in other words, it’s saying Jesus is a connecting flight to the ultimate destination, but that’s not how the gospel presents itself.

See, that presentation of using Jesus just as a connecting flight to get to the thing you actually wanted doesn’t free you from the poison of bitterness or the grip of wickedness. You realize we are in sin because we have said there is something greater than the Creator, so we worship creation over Creator, and that is what’s led to all the chaos.

St. Augustine is the one who said, Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. All else fails. So Jesus isn’t the connecting flight. Jesus is the destination. And here’s what’s true, and I love the grace of Jesus in the beginning of our Christian journey. We turn to God for self, selfish things, right?

Like the psalmist does say, forget not his benefits, and there is a million benefits. Let me just name a few. Jesus is our substitute who pays the penalty of sin in our place. What a joy. Jesus is our conqueror who defeated the enemies of sin, Satan, and death. Jesus is the ultimate sacrifice, who offered himself to purify us and remove our filth.

Jesus is our mediator, who made peace and removed alienation from God. Jesus is our redeemer, who frees us from the pit of sin and removes us from all bondage. But, we must get to the point of maturity, that Simon was never interested in. Where we can honestly say, I remember John Piper saying this one day, and I, I was like, that, that doesn’t make sense.

It totally makes sense. This idea that the true Christian will say, if heaven doesn’t have Christ in it, then I don’t want it. You ever thought about that? A lot of us, we try to preach this gospel, heaven, it’s all great, which it is. But do you know why it’s great? Because Christ is there. He is the son. He is our shield.

He is our refuge. It’s like the story of Moses. When Moses was challenged to, to go, God says, go without me. And what does Moses say? God, if you’re not coming with us, we’re, we’re not going. Ultimately, life is about him. It reminds me quickly of the story in Luke 10. I just can’t help but think that, uh, you know, Luke is thinking about the story because he wrote Luke and he wrote Acts.

And so Luke 10 shares the story, I’ll share it briefly, Jesus sends out the 72, they have incredible ministry power, the kind of power Simon was looking for. But look at verse 17, look at the warning Jesus gives. He says, The 72 returned with joy. They were sent out on mission, saying, Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.

Talk about power. And he said to them, I watched Satan fall from heaven like lightning. Look, I have given you the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy. Nothing at all will harm you, however, don’t rejoice that the Spirit submits to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.

What is our ultimate joy, brothers and sisters? It’s not the great stuff that He can do through us. It’s that we get to be with Him. He loves me and I love Him. I am His beloved and He is mine. And I think it’s so important for us to even spend these next few moments and say, Jesus, you are better than anything this world has to offer.

Jesus, I’m not coming. I’m grateful for the things that come with you, but ultimately I’m coming for you. Jesus, I need your presence. And in your presence, there is fullness of joy. At some point in our maturity, we must turn to God for God. I’m going to read a few psalms as we close. Psalm 23, four, notice the heart posture.

Even though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. Why? For you, I’m going to walk are with me. Psalm 16 11. In your presence there is abundant joy. Psalm 63 3. Because your love is better than life, my lips will glorify you. Psalm 84 10. Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

Holy Spirit come. Change our hearts and our minds to see that Jesus You are all that we are after. Jesus, you are the only one who will satisfy. Jesus, we were made for you.