Focus: Abuse of religion
Function: to keep people focused on Jesus Christ, and Jesus only.
Form: Story Telling
Intro:
Birthdays. I guess it is on my mind a little bit since yesterday was my physical birthday. July 4, our nations birthday is also my spiritual birthday, 50 years ago. This year, this congregation will celebrate its 200th birthday. And, in two weeks, the entire global church will be celebrating its one thousand, nine hundred and seventy-eighth birthday.
For almost 2,000 years, the cross of Christ has drawn people back into God's family. It is a long history of glory, power and many, many mistakes and failures. And yet, God has still called the Church to be the primary means of communicating His good news to a world that is torn with war, pain, sickness, death, fighting and corruption. We are God's hope to bring Jesus into this mess.
And do you know what marks the beginning of the church? It wasn't the cross, it wasn't the resurrection, it wasn't Christmas, it wasn't some arbitrary formula produced by some nut-job who made millions by calculating what he thinks is a significant number based on the flood in the time of Noah.
Nope, the birthday of the church is marked by the empowering of the Church, namely, the coming of the Holy Spirit.
We have been looking at the immediate result of it as we have been studying the affect in Acts chapter two. We know that the command from the Lord was to wait for God's Spirit to come.
We will look at that in depth next week. But Jesus' point is that there is an incredible partnership, incredible authority, incredible power, supernatural ability present in the life of the Christian when the Holy Spirit is given control.
And that leads us to the story in today's text.
When the Holy Spirit came into the lives of believers, there was some sort of visible power, manifestation, glory or something that everyone noticed.
God's Spirit changes the lives of those whom He dwells in.
The believers in Samaria have just placed their trust in Jesus. And so, Peter and John come for a visit to encourage them.
This is a big thing, because Samaritans and Jews had historically been bitter racial enemies. A whole other sermon about how the coming of Jesus into the lives of people breaks down the walls that used to divide us.
And when Peter and John get there, they lay hands on the new Christians and an incredible proof of their salvation comes out of the believers.
Something happened, most often in the book of Acts, the newly baptized by the Holy Spirit start speaking ecstatic utterances in angelic tongues.
And Simon, not Simon Peter, but a man named Simon is really impressed with what happens.
He is a brand new convert. And before he was a Christian, he was a sorcerer. Apparently, he has some sort of credible magic. It appears that he became a Christian because he sees greater supernatural power in Christianity than in his sorcery.
I don't think that is a good reason to become a Christian, but apparently God knows that when the Holy Spirit is inside of him, the Holy Spirit will correct his motives and make it about Jesus instead of personal power.
You see, the Holy Spirit doesn't come into the life of a believer to glorify the believer, but to bring Glory to Jesus. John 15:26, when the helper, the Holy Spirit comes, He will bear witness of me.
The Holy Spirit brings us to Jesus. This is important. When the Holy Spirit comes into a life, it isn't about us anymore. He comes into our lives so that we too, can point people to Jesus.
I had a preacher once who was having a problem forgiving someone, he was having a problem loving someone. And he said: “I haven't been baptized with the gift of love yet, so it isn't my fault.”
Listen, the gifts of the Spirit came out in the baptism of the Spirit, but the fruit of the Spirit is given to everyone. He had God's love inside of him, he just didn't choose to obey it.
These fruits make for a really good personality. Loving, kind, patient, full of hope, gentle, forgiving and etc.
But I know people who do not claim to be Christians who have great personalities as well.
So what is the other difference. When the Holy Spirit comes, it isn't about us anymore, it is about Jesus.
When someone stands up on TV and proclaims just how much power from the Holy Spirit they have, and how we should send them money because apparently the power of the Holy Spirit takes money to operate, then that person is abusing the Spirit, and the faith and all the people who send them money because just like Simon, they saw the Holy Spirit as something that made them look good.
But when the Holy Spirit is at work, He is pointing people to Jesus. When we are being the Church, we too, will be pointing people to Jesus, not ourselves.
I remember one time, as soon as the worship set started flowing well and people were sensing this intimacy between them and God, they worship team stopped singing and took an offering.
A little while later, they started singing again, and the congregation began entering into worship and they stopped and took a second offering. During that particular worship service, they did this three times. The third time, they kept delaying and delaying in order to milk as much as they could out of the offering. The leader made everyone take out folding money and visible display it and instructed the rest to look around and if someone didn't have anything showing, then others were to give that person some. I had a few extra dollars, and I wanted to get back into the presence of God in worship, so I gave all my money, just to get back into worship.
When I got home, I realized just how well I had been manipulated for financial gain.
I remember that leader, he had a brand new Porsche sports car. He was 36 years old and about a year later, he fell over dead with an heart attack. I wondered if God felt the same way about those tactics as I did. I am not saying that is why he died. I mean, I could fall over dead tomorrow and I would hate for someone to say God was out to get me.
Here is the thing:
The Church is not a marketing strategy. It isn't an human institution that measures itself by its numbers and its offerings. If it is faithful, it will measure itself by how well it obeys Jesus Christ and points people to Him. And we aren't talking about the kind of Jesus that makes people comfortable, but the radical Jesus who is portrayed in the gospels..
We live in a materialistic society. It is easy to measure success with size and budget, but to do so places us on a physical plane, instead of a spiritual plane.
I am not begrudging large churches here. But when I think of how we measure ourselves, I ask questions like this: “do we love the poor? Do we love the outcast? Do we provide a safe place for people to grow into the likeness of Jesus? Do our people live sacrificial lives for Christ? Do I live a sacrificial life for Christ? Am I loving and forgiving? Or do I wear my feelings on my sleeves noticing every slight offense against me? Do I love and honor my wife? Do I respect people who are different than me? Do kind words come from my mouth? Do those who are hurting find comfort and nurture here?”
CONCL:
Why should I mention all this? You are all smart enough to know better. You see the crazy stuff going on. You know that this guy last week has made millions on the fear that he has generated. You see through it. So why is this important to preach about?
To answer that question, I would ask myself: “Why is this story included in New Testament?” It is more than just a warning about abusing religion for the sake of money. It has certainly happened over the ages of the Church.
But the point is much deeper than that. The apostles were reminding Simon about how the entire nature of their lives has just changed.
How much their lives have changed.
Profit, personal fortunes, selfish ambition, greed, thinking only of oneself, having power over another person, all of those things that define the status-quo of this world have none gone away for the life of a Christian. From now on, their lives belong to Christ Jesus and the rest of the church.
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