Author: Wick

(You may want to re-read Acts 8:14-17)

First, verse 14 tells us that the people of Samaria had accepted the Word of God. But verse 16 clarifies, “as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

So what was their baptism accomplishing? Was Philip offering them a limited experience of salvation?

Baptism was a cleansing ritual. A signifying of repentance. A turning away from the old life, and turning toward a new one. A symbolic “dying of the self, and coming alive as Christ’s.” They were baptized “in the name of the Lord Jesus”. We believe there is power in the name of Jesus, power to save. But we also believe the work of God doesn’t aim to let us remain “saved from the punishment of sin”. We believe what God truly wants to do in our lives, is free us from sin itself!

For that, we need not only the work Jesus has done on our behalf, but we need the transforming presence of His Spirit with us, working through us, empowering us by His resurrection life to life as New Creations….connected intimately with the Age and Kingdom that is to come!

Samaria was a place that hadn’t yet experienced or received the Spirit of God. Throughout the Bible we see people and places that receive God’s Spirit seemingly because God causes it to happen:

In Exodus, we see God has chosen Bezalel to fill with His Spirit. To have wisdom and understanding needed to lead in putting together the tent where the people would meet with God. In Numbers 11:17, we see God giving His Spirit to those leaders Moses chooses to help carry his burden of leadership.
In Luke 1:15, we read the Angel telling Zechariah that John the baptist would be “Filled with the Holy Spirit even before he is born.” Even in the book of Acts, we have men like Stephen and Philip who were known to be “full of the Spirit.” before any hands were laid on them.

So then we have a mystery. If God chooses where and when His Spirit will go, and who it will fill – why not simply send it to fill the new believers in Samaria?

I think it’s because God’s plan has always been inviting us to participate in his redemptive activity. Through Israel, and the children of Abraham, God’s presence was carried and declared throughout the Old Testament. Everything was pointing toward a day when God would send His Son Jesus as completely human, creating a path to the Father, and then send the Spirit of Jesus Christ – the literal presence of God Himself….to be with us forever. He declared it in Acts 1:8 – YOU will be my witnesses.

We don’t have to understand it completely to be in awe of what a gift God is giving us. An invitation to join him in making all things new. An invitation to literally bring the presence of God, carrying it with us into our daily existence.

This reveals a few things God wants us to understand about our calling:

1. The fact that the people were incomplete, or something was still needing to be done….even after they’d been baptized into the “name of the Lord Jesus.” How many of us are content to simply “know we’re in the family”? How many times have we heard people talk about getting to heaven as the main goal? How silly would it seem for someone to receive an incredibly rare and valuable seed – and spend all of their time making sure it was displayed and preserved well?

2. He didn’t just “send” his Spirit to fill the people of Samaria. Why? God wants us to know that we are a beautifully involved part of His plan to establish His Kingdom, and bring together Heaven and Earth in new ways. Certainly God doesn’t “need” us to reach places like Samaria, but at the same time….he calls us, sends us, invites us to join him in bringing new life to all of creation.

3. Philip apparently didn’t “lay on hands” in the way that was necessary for all that God wanted to accomplish in Samaria. It seems like God was bringing together his promise from Acts 1:8, and his promise long ago to Abraham (Genesis 12) at the same time. He was revealing to the world that it is through this “People of God” that his activity is happening. He’s not popping up new groups of “God’s Chosen People” in pockets all over the world. It’s one body, growing and spreading. Just in case anyone in Samaria would get the idea that God was now moving through them either “instead of” or “in a different way than” the first apostles, we have the story of Peter and John going from Jerusalem to Samaria and laying their hands on them, that they would receive the Spirit of God. By doing this, the movement of God here is connected not only to the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem, but going way back to the laying on of hands by Isaac to Jacob, and Moses to Joshua. Groups of people never before seen as “part of God’s plan” are now being intimately connected to the activity of God!

Come back tomorrow, as we examine our response to all of this…

Acts 8:14-17 “Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. The two went down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit (for as yet the Spirit had not come upon any of them; 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 Holy Spirit.”

“They received the Holy Spirit.” This hard to speak of, hard to define, intangible force that we so often symbolize as a dove, or a peaceful breeze. But the Holy Spirit of God is so much more than something meant to inspire us, give us peace, or help us to have the courage we need to “plug away” at another hard day of following in the footsteps of Jesus.

We know there’s so much more to the Spirit of God (that we believe is with us here and now) than what we often remember or recognize. In fact, because we so often assume the Spirit is “on our side” and walk forward into what we desire – we run the risk of settling for so much less than God intended when He began making His dwelling in our midst.

A humbling quote from AW Tozer says, “I remind you that there are churches so completely out of the hands of God that if the Holy Spirit withdrew from them, they wouldn’t find it out for many months.”

Likewise, recently Francis Chan has written, “..if the Spirit moves, nothing can stop Him. If He doesn’t move, we will not produce genuine fruit – no matter how much effort or money we expend. The church becomes irrelevant when it becomes a purely human creation. We are not all we were made to be when everything in our lives and churches can be explained apart from the work and presence of the Spirit of God.”

Genesis 1:2 tells us the Holy Spirit isn’t something “new” God is doing, but rather a part of the trinity since the very beginning. “…and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.”

There are mentions of the Spirit of God all over the Old Testament, revealing to us that this aspect of God has been moving before any of this began. It is a force of life completely and wholly “other” than our own. Sometimes when we talk about the Holy Spirit, being “Spirit-filled” or “Pentecost”, we think of small things. Things like the pentecostal church movement. Or things like speaking in tongues. Or other visibly experienced stories we’ve heard of one sort or another.

But we must understand the purpose of the Holy Spirit was not simply contained in a single verse of scripture. Yes, the many-flavored Fruit of the Spirit tastes like Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self-Control. But the purpose of the Spirit of God in our midst is not completely in bringing that fruit into being.

Neither is it contained in Acts 1:8 – “But you will receive POWER when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Yes, we have the promise that we will be EMPOWERED when the Holy Spirit comes on us. But that is not the complete purpose of the presence of the Spirit of God.

But we’re not the only ones who jump to the wrong conclusions when it comes to the Holy Spirit. Even those who were there in the moment we read about this morning ended up focusing on the wrong part of what God was up to. In Acts 8:18-19 we see that sorcerer named Simon going up to Peter and John, asking to be empowered to lay hands on others in the same way – and even offering them money to give him that ability. Take a moment to let that simmer. He wasn’t even asking to buy the Holy Spirit. His desire was to have the ability to dispense the Holy Spirit in the same way they were doing. Talk about “missing the point”. Peter rebuked him quickly, saying that you cannot buy this gift of God with money.

The Truth is, we must take the entire Word of God if we want an explanation of “the purpose of the Holy Spirit”. Even then, we have only a portion of all the purposes and desires of God. But our passage from Acts chapter 8 definitely reveals some incredible things to us. Come back tomorrow to hear more…

Let’s begin this journey by exercising our imaginations, because God is so very “other” than what we’re used to thinking about. Pretend with me, there’s an ancient group of people that have existed for thousands of years. They share an intimate bond, in a way that no one else can understand. You see, they are each – at some point – given a seed. This seed grows into a plant who’s magic is incredibly powerful. Through their plants, they can communicate with each other. Through their plants, they are given abilities beyond anything they could ever do on their own. Through their plants, they bring life where there was death, and light where there was darkness.

One day, a mysterious visitor comes to your door and whispers of these things. He takes your hand, and gently places a tiny seed in the middle of it, curling your fingers over it to keep it warm and safe. He tells you that you’ve been invited to join this ancient group of bringers of light and life. You’re overwhelmed by his message.

After he leaves, you immediately know what you’re going to do. You take the seed you’ve been given, and seal it in a solid transparent layer of UV-Protectant. You then place it in the center of a large glass display case and set the case in a prominent location in your living room. You start to tell everyone about the magical group of people you’re now connected to.

That would be pretty silly, wouldn’t it? But what I want to tell you, is that followers of Christ do this on a regular basis on a much grandeur scale.

Here’s a little bit of background for the passage we’ll be focusing on:

Back in Acts chapter 2 we have the coming of the Holy Spirit like never before at Pentecost, to the apostles. The movement of those following Christ began to grow, signs and wonders were being done by the apostles, and thousands more people were being baptized into the faith. They were baptized into the name of Jesus. Those who had been baptized were devoting themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And as we read in Acts 2:47 – “Day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.”

The miraculous acts of the apostles continued to get the attention of everyone around, and so as attention was being gained, they used those moments to call people to repentance for the way they had crucified and denied Jesus Christ. They preached the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, and that we could share in such a resurrection.

Huge crowds of people loved what they were doing. Some religious leaders were not big fans and tried to quiet them. Some tried to benefit from what was happening, and ended up dead.

At one point there was so much going on, the apostles needed help keeping accounts to make sure widows were being taken care of. So seven men who were “of good standing, Full of the Spirit and wisdom” were chosen, including Stephen and Philip. Stephen ended up doing great work for the Lord, and when he was arrested he accused the religious leaders of missing out on what God was doing. He reminded them of the history of God’s people turning against him at Mount Sinai. He told them they were working against the Holy Spirit in the same way, and that they had betrayed & murdered the “Righteous One” the prophets had spoken of. They were so mad, they stoned Stephen, and Saul was pleased. Then Saul went on a crusade of finding followers of Jesus and punishing them.

The followers of Jesus, then, were forced to spread out into Judea and Samaria to escape imprisonment. (Does that sound familiar? Acts 1:8 talked about this. Apparently it didn’t depend on the apostles coming up with a strategic plan on how to reach these areas. Simply joining the activity of God, caught them up into a movement outward for all the world.) As those followers went, they were proclaiming the word. Scripture tells us that the apostles themselves were not scattered, but apparently Philip – who had been confirmed as having the Spirit, and blessed for ministry previously – had been scattered to the city of Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah to them. They listened eagerly, and saw the signs that he accomplished. Great things were happening for the Kingdom coming.

In Samaria, there was a man named Simon, a sorcerer with a huge following. He saw the people following Philip, and all that was happening, and began to believe in the Messiah as well. After he was baptized in the name of Jesus with many others, he began to follow Philip constantly. Eventually, word of what was happening in Samaria reached the apostles, and that is where our passage picks up tomorrow…