Witnessing to the World
-One of the scandals of the church is who gets to be a part of it. Have you ever noticed the way we work to build ourselves up and tear others down? When we’re little we measure things like height or speed as those who are the best. As we get a little older it becomes intelligence or athletics. Then it’s your bank account and house. But all those pursuits end up leaving people wanting more, while Jesus comes and tears down all those markers that we use to divide. Which means the church has forever been filled by a group of people who don’t look like they should get along. Today we’re going to see the church break down numerous cultural and social divides, which is meant to continue being the call of the church today! I love pointing out that in this room there are 5 different generations of people, where else do they willingly give up their time to be together? Men and women, grandparents and babies, Millennials and Boomers, Gen X and Gen Alpha, all gathering together around the goal of taking 1 step closer to Jesus.
READ/PRAY (pg. 973)
- Dispersion of the Church (1-8)
-Last week we ended tracing the ministry of Stephen, one the 7 table ministers, and we were introduced to this new character: Saul. This week’s text picks up with him, which is a great time to remind us that verse numbers aren’t inspired! They were added hundreds of years after the fact to help with navigating it, but that’s why you’ll read in Heb. 2:6 “But someone somewhere has testified:” and then he goes on the quote from Psalm 8. They were compiled onto various scrolls! So vs. 1 should be seen as the conclusion of the killing of Stephen before going on to describe the rest of the persecution. But Saul brackets these 3 verses (1 & 3) so we’ll look at those together.
-Saul ravages: he’s learning where the Christians are meeting, takes men and women and throws them in prison. It was a unique thing for women to be included in this persecution at the time, and even more unique for Luke to specifically call out that persecution. This likely means that everyone viewed the women as vital to the spreading of this church. Instead of just attacking the leader, Saul systematically attacks them and throws them in prison. As I’ve said, I’m going to bring up membership as we see it throughout this book, it’s likely that Saul found some list of who was a part of this group (we today call it a membership list). He wasn’t just going door to door, he was careful and strategic.
-But the middle section tells us that this “severe persecution” doesn’t accomplish what Saul was hoping, instead it says the disciples “scattered” into some new places.
-Think back to Acts 1:8, where Jesus prophesied where the disciples would be His witnesses: in Jerusalem (which is where they’ve been up to this point), and where else? Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth, look back at vs. 2, where did they scatter to? Exactly where Jesus said they would. God isn’t behind evil events, but even evil events accomplish God’s ultimate plans.
-What do those who were scattered do? They keep doing exactly what they were previously doing! But now they’re doing it in new places, they can’t help but continue preaching the Word everywhere they go. And I think this is something for us to consider too. Do you talk about the word wherever you go? Jesus tells a story about this in Matt. 13 where a farmer spread seed, and the ironic thing about the it is he’s a terrible farmer! Throwing his seed on the walking path next to the field, in a patch of rocks, with the thorns, he’s indiscriminately throwing the seed everywhere he goes. That’s what we’re supposed to be doing with the Word! What’s different about us and this farmer is we don’t know what the soil of someone’s heart is, but regardless of the person we’re talking to, we give the Word.
-The focus shifts to Philip in vs. 5 who was another one of the 7, and just like Stephen has an incredible preaching ministry.
-Our translation says that he went to a city, but some manuscripts (and some translations) describe this as THE city, referring to the capitol. That seems to make sense based on the significance of this story. We’ve seen the conversion of the Jews at their capitol city of Jerusalem, now we’re going to see the conversion of the Samaritans at their capitol city, but Philip just goes doing exactly what all the disciples were doing: spreading the Word about Jesus.
-We’re starting to get in a bit of a rut here because we’ve already seen all these exact same things happen before. Luke tells us that the Word ministry is once again connected to signs. We didn’t read what signs Stephen was doing, here we see what those sings were: exorcisms, healing of the paralyzed and lame. This is a manifestation of something I said last week: the Word ministry and the practical ministry are 2 sides of the same coin; you can’t separate them out. If you believe in the Word, it will be made visible through your actions.
-And the outcome of that ministry of Word and deed leads to great joy. What about when the ministry leads to oppression and persecution?
- The Samaritan Pentecost (9-25)
-The outcome of Philip’s preaching is the faith of the Samaritans, but that means that there’s also going to be some kind of response from Satan to distract or deter the Word from doing its work, which leads to:
-meeting a new man named Simon, and the first thing Luke tells us is that he had practiced sorcery (magic) that had amazed the people. Today we would say he was dabbling in the occult or involved in dark spiritual practices. This battle between Jesus and the demons will come up again later because Jesus and other spiritual beings don’t get along, but Jesus is greater and stronger than any other being.
-Luke also tells us that Simon claimed to be “somebody great,” last week we saw the impulse of the human heart is always drawn back to Egypt, this week it’s the same idea with a different focus. Another way this sin is made visible in our lives is through trying to make your own name great, but that’s the opposite of how God has called us to live. And this is another thing that we can trace back to the beginning, in Gen. 11 we read the story of some people trying to build up their own names. Their goal is to build a giant tower that reaches the realm of the gods where they can build their own power & prestige, and then look at what the verse says their goal is: to build a name for themselves. Church, the human heart hasn’t changed in thousands of years!
-Today we call it platforming, building a brand, or influencing, and that has no place in following after Jesus. In fact, if what we’re doing leads to us getting the attention, what we’re doing might just be the wrong thing. Our job is to proclaim the Word, point people to the one the Word talks about (Jesus), and then get out of the way. And the unfortunate reality is the church is often just as guilty of this as the world! We chase after the latest fads, we appeal to Christian celebrities, missing how much of an oxymoron that is. In fact, one commentator I read said this story of Simon is the first “celebrity” conversion in the church! But that misses the reality that the point of being a Christian is Jesus, not us.
-And when Philip shows up in Samaria, he changes the dynamics and the focus of all the people! Suddenly Simon doesn’t have the corner on the market and this new gospel news about the kingdom of God is the latest fad in the area leading to some kind of mass conversion.
-Look at what Philip talks about here: the kingdom of God and Jesus Christ. What did Simon talk about? Himself! Since we’re in church, I think I’m allowed to confess this, but I love watching comedians, especially ones that do observational humor like Nate Bargatze and Brian Regan. Brian Regan has a bit about the “me monsters” at a get together (Google it later this afternoon if you haven’t seen it, Vikings are off this week and the Packers aren’t worth watching this year). We’ve all experienced that! Someone who can’t stop talking about themselves (and if you don’t know anyone like that, you’re probably that person). But what Jesus offers us is the ability to get over ourselves and begin to legitimately care for other people around us. In contrast to the “me monster,” CS Lewis said if you ever met a truly humble person, you wouldn’t walk away thinking about how humble they were, but about how kind they were in taking an interest in you. I need these kinds of reminders on a regular basis! It’s so easy for me to become overly fixated on my own comfort or desires instead of worrying about those around me, but that’s not the way of Jesus. Jesus frees me from fixating on myself and allows me to legitimately care about others.
-Apparently, even Simon the Sorcerer believed and was baptized, but that decision either only went skin deep or was a false conversion as we’ll see soon, but that’s getting a little bit ahead of the story.
-Word travels back to the apostles in Jerusalem about the effectiveness of the Word, so Peter and John are dispatched (remember, they’re still the leaders of this movement), but why do you think they’re both sent? Philip’s already there, why does there need to be 2 of the apostles. 2 primary reasons:
-First, according to the OT law, for something to be true, it requires 2 witnesses. Peter & John make 2!
-But the second reason is so they could pray for these new believers to receive the HS. This is one of those cases in this book where what’s described isn’t the normal course of events in the lives of Christians, because today there isn’t any gap between the faith and receiving the Holy Spirit, which means we need to ask the question, why is there this gap of time here? I found Australian commentator Dr. David Peterson helpful here:
-That’s why I titled this section “The Samaritan Pentecost” it’s a repeat of what happened in Jerusalem in Acts 2. And I also think the apostles were there to see that God wasn’t just working in the Jewish people anymore. The Samaritans and Jews were enemies for most of history, in fact, in Luke 9:54, John asks Jesus if he should call down fire on a city of Samaritans for not giving them a place to sleep! Suddenly that apostle is now praying for those same people that he wanted to kill! And in response, the Samaritans receive the HS.
-And just as we saw after Pentecost in Jerusalem, a couple wanted to appearance of holiness, the recognition and acclaim that came from being involved in this new community, an alternative option pops up here, and Simon the sorcerer re-enters the story. He wants whatever it is that the apostles have, and he thinks he can buy it. What’s interesting is he can tell that SOMETHING has happened. There are whole denominations that use this as evidence that we need to experience some kind of miraculous indwelling sometime after our conversion, but this isn’t something that’s true of the normal Christian experience, instead this is a unique event that shows the spread of the early church and connects this event to the Jerusalem church (leaders)
-Additionally, think about Simon’s request with a previous time Peter & John were asked for money back in Acts 3:6 “silver and gold I have NONE,” does it seem like money is something that could influence Peter & John? Nope! In fact, one of the requirements for elders later in the NT is “not a lover of money,” which means if you wouldn’t trust someone to help you with your finances, don’t trust them to be a leader in the church (but the inverse is also true: if you trust someone to be a leader in the church, you should also trust them to talk to you about finances without it affecting your relationship)
-And Peter won’t be affected by any money and condemns Simon. The words Peter uses here follow a number of OT curses God said He would give out to those who were disobedient: “part” or “share” alludes to Deut. 12:12, “poisoned by wickedness” from Deut. 29:16-21. Peter is saying this man isn’t truly a part of this new covenant community.
-It’s important for us to see that Simon doesn’t repent, he asks Peter to pray for him. If he’s truly saved, he would be able to pray on his own!
-And we’re left wondering: what happens to Simon after this! Does he repent? Does he continue looking for power from other places? Old stories would do this, leave them unresolved for us (parable of the prodigal: what happens to the older brother?). We’re forced to provide some kind of conclusion in our own mind, how would we respond if we were in this position? A modern-day example of this would be: how do you respond when someone confronts you about a sin issue in your life? Do you dismiss them? Make excuses? Blame someone or something else? On the one hand, at least Simon asked for prayer instead of trying to justify himself! But what we should do is cry out to Jesus! He has already paid the penalty for that sin, and He’s given us the Holy Spirit to combat those sins.
-But Simon isn’t the main character, this section ends with Peter and John going back to their primary focus: preaching the Word as they travel. Are you starting to catch the theme of this book? We’re tracing the expansion of God’s Word into the furthest corners of the world, beginning with Judea and Samaria. This also fulfills what Jesus said to the Samaritan woman in John 4 where He said a day was coming when Jews & Samaritans would all worship in spirit & truth, this story is that becoming a reality!
- All Are Welcome (26-40)
-But Philip goes a different direction than the apostles, and this time the Word is going to expand even further out from the Samaritans. We looked at this map earlier, previously he driven out from persecution up to Samaria, now an angel tells him to go south towards Gaza, and Philip obeys! And who does he run into? Another person who wouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the temple.
-4 descriptions of this person: Ethiopian, man, eunuch, high official. This is the kind of person Roman culture despised, referring to eunuch’s as the ultimate “non-man” but also not a woman, so the prevalent culture wouldn’t have a place for him, but notice what else Luke tells us: in Ethiopia, he was a high official, which tells us he was well connected highly thought of in that culture, even if the Jewish world didn’t have a place for him.
-Luke also tells us that he had come to worship in Jerusalem, making him a “God fearer,” someone who even though he wasn’t a Jew, was working to obey the 1 true God, and what’s incredible is this man likely wouldn’t have even been able to go into the court of the Gentiles because he was a eunuch! But even though he couldn’t “meet” God at the temple, God was coming to meet him on this desert road
-And he’s reading the scroll of Isaiah out loud! Contrast this with what we’ve seen of those opposed to the spread of the church so far in this book who won’t even consult the OT, much less work to obey it. So we’re seeing that God has been at work in other cultures too and has been subtly drawing the nations to himself. What this may be fulfilling is a prophecy from Isa. 56, which would have been just a few inches lower on the scroll this man was reading. Look at what God says about this man:
-Instead of being excluded from the temple worship, the eunuchs and the foreigners will be servants of the Most High God, they’ll be bringing their offerings to worship God together because God is the God of the world, not just 1 nation. But it all depends on their response to Jesus, which is who this eunuch “just happens” to be reading about!
-And Philip is commanded by the Spirit (how?) to run up to it, so he does. And he asks a simple question of the man: do you understand?
-Philip is starting with where this guy is at, taking advantage of the opportunity presented to him, being faithfully present where God has called him to be. We need to be on the lookout for similar situations around us! I remember a time I was working on a sermon in a Starbucks (again, I apologize to all you Minnesotans, Caribou’s aren’t as plentiful in CO), someone asked me what I was in school for because I had a few commentaries scattered around me. If you’ve never seen a commentary, they tend to be pretty large! But one of the baristas asked me where I was going to school, and I got to tell him I was working on a sermon which led to me talking about the church just down the road. Not every conversation goes like that, sometimes when people find out I’m a pastor they stop talking to me! But all of us should be taking advantage of opportunities like that to point people back to Jesus.
-This eunuch is reading from Isa. 53:7-8, which is a Messianic prophecy pointing forward to Jesus, and where the conversation began with Philip asking a question, now the eunuch asks Philip a question: who is Isaiah talking about? And that’s all Philip needs! He starts with that passage in Isa 53 and goes from there to talk about how Jesus is the ultimate fulfilment of what Isaiah was talking about. I think we see Paul telling us part of the significance of this story in Rom. 10: We need both the Word and teachers of the Word to help us understand what God’s saying. The Bible is both simple and complex: simple enough that children can read and benefit from it, but so complex that you can get advanced degrees in studying it because there’s SO MUCH to it! But don’t stop reading, studying, and digging in to it, when God’s Word gets into you, you won’t be able to stop talking about it and taking advantage of every opportunity to share about it with other people, you’ll always end up talking about the things you love, so if you love Jesus, He’s guaranteed to come up in every conversation, which is exactly what Philip has done, which apparently included the need to demonstrate your changed heart by being baptized, so chariot comes across some water and the eunuch asks another question:
-And I guess there’s nothing that would stop him from being baptized, because that’s exactly what Philip does. Once again, it’s important for us to take a minute and talk about this because there are some Christian groups that argue that you need to be baptized in order to be saved so they push for instantaneous baptisms when someone is saved. That’s not what this text is saying! We are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, but since this man has demonstrated that he wants to be obedient to God, he wants to move forward with the sign & seal of that salvation through baptism.
-As soon as the baptism is finished, Philip is apparently carried away by the Spirit to a new place, which means this has to be the weirdest baptism in history! One of my kids has shared that they want to be baptized, but is scared I’ll leave them under the water too long (which probably says more about me than her fear), imagine getting baptized, coming out of the water, and the person baptizing you is just gone! But instead of freaking out (like I would do) the response of the eunuch is the same as the Samaritans: rejoicing, praising God, giving thanks for this salvation, and that’s the last we’ll read about this Eunuch, intentionally contrasted to Simon the Sorcerer, here we have a wonderful conclusion! Salvation leading to rejoicing, which is where we’re now supposed to ask: which one are you like? Jesus says something about what’s going on here in Luke 10:20 right after he sends his disciples out to begin preaching. They come back on cloud 9 because even the evil spirits listened to them!
-In this story, Simon was trying to hold on to power and influence, trying to build up his name and even called himself great, but he ends up with nothing. The eunuch, whose name we don’t even know is given a gift of infinite value, and he walks away rejoicing just like Jesus told His followers to do!
-Philip “appears” somehow in Azotus, then works his way up to Caesarea continually preaching the gospel. Once again, here’s the map showing Philip’s travels (with a skip from Gaza to Azotus), but everywhere he goes he’s continually preaching the gospel, taking advantage of any and every opportunity.
-Which is the primary focus of our witnessing, too. Church, we are the church whether we’re gathered here on Sunday or scattered across the south metro into the places we work, live, and play. And God has placed us there for a reason: to be His witnesses here, to preach the gospel here, to live the gospel here, and to share that gospel with everyone we can. But to do that, we need to be willing to die to ourselves, to be like John the Baptist who said, “He must increase, I must decrease.” Now if you don’t know how to do that, let me recommend a book to you, and then after you read it, anyone on staff would love to talk to you about it!
-And those of you who do feel comfortable talking about Jesus wherever you go: what does another step of faithfulness look like for you? Maybe it’s inviting someone to church, maybe it’s finding a book to read together, but everyone has room to grow in living as Jesus wants us to, so let’s take a step this week to grow in our desire to share the gospel with other, and pray for opportunities to come up where you can talk about what Jesus has done for you!
