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I have a picture in my office, of my ordination as an elder in the Free Methodist Church a few years ago. It means a lot to me, even if I can’t explain and wouldn’t dare boast of what God was accomplishing in that precise moment. But what I do know, is this:

Hearing a lot of what is said in this passage (Acts 8:14-17), it’s tempting to focus on the “laying on of hands”. To want that to happen, as a way of magically “unlocking” some hidden Holy Spirit potential in our lives. That maybe that thing we’ve been wanting to do, or happen, isn’t happening precisely because we’ve not had someone who officially represents God come and lay hands on us in the name of the Holy Spirit. I want to tell you, I don’t think that’s why this story is in the Bible. Yes, there are times and places that call for those moments to happen.  But the truth is, we have less in common with Samaria that we do with Jerusalem. We are the place where the activity and Spirit of God is already at work among us. We have several in our midst who have had “the laying on of hands”. People who have received the Spirit of God for purposes of ministry and living a transformed life. We are community that is characterized by being a place where the Holy Spirit dwells and moves. As a community – we have received the Spirit of God.

But perhaps some of us have lived in Jerusalem for so long, we’ve forgotten how incredibly important this gift is. It’s important for us to hear the story of the Holy Spirit in Samaria, to be reminded of God’s presence in our own lives. To receive the Spirit that we’ve been offered. The gift we’re being offered even now.

Do you hear him speaking to you in these words you’ve read?

Do you hear his voice, telling you the story you’ve become a part of?  The work He’s been accomplishing through His people for thousands of years, this family of God that’s larger and tighter knit than any family bond we’ve ever known.  We’re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses, and connected both to them and God Himself by a Spirit that wants to do so much more than just “be with us.” It’s a living, active, transforming, freeing Spirit that wants to go far beyond “get us into Heaven someday”.  The Spirit of God desires to move in your life even now in new ways.  To free you from sin.  To release you from addictions.  To fill you with a love that is more powerful than whatever difficult situation you have in your life.  To enable you to forgive someone you’re holding captive in debt to you. To free you from living captive in debt by your offense to others or God.  To empower you to carry such a Spirit with you into the world – loving, forgiving, releasing, and transforming as you go.  From Jerusalem, to all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.  Will you receive the Spirit He is giving?

Do you hear his invitation to you, specifically?  Yes, he’s powerful.  Yes, he can accomplish great things because that is his nature. But quietly, even now, do you hear his invitation – hand outstretched – to have you join in a new work of His Spirit?  To take his presence into a place or situation that needs Him in a way they’ve not experienced before?  Will you respond to his invitation even now?

Do you hear the foundational truth in this passage – that God desires more for you than simply “getting you in the family”?  That he wants to connect you to this community of believers deeply in relationship.  That he wants to bring New Life to you that only His Spirit can bring.  That accepting Christ was merely the implanting of a seed that God wants to grow through you, branching out in some great, mysterious, and beautiful new ways…..on behalf of all of creation?  Will you let His Spirit reign in your life?

God’s Spirit has been given. Is being given. Will be given.

Will we live as those who have received? As those who are receiving? As those who will receive?

May His Spirit move in our midst this week…

(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…