Acts 8:14-24 “Give Me This Power”
A child is not doing well in his school subjects and his parents were really worried about him and his studies. He was getting D’s in most subjects and was actually flunking math. They finally decided to take him out of public school and send him to a nearby private Christian school that had a great reputation for turning kids around.
The first day the boy came home from school and rushed immediately into his room and started in on his homework. His mother had never seen such diligence in her boy before. She asked what he was studying. Math. He was doing every problem of his homework assignment and going back over them again to be sure. After dinner he ran back to his room and hit the books again.
After a couple of months of this the quarterly grades were issued. His mother and father were amazed, but not really surprised because of the boy’s diligence, to see that he had gotten straight A’s. Even his grade in math that had always been before an F, there on the paper a big letter “A” was to be noted.
The parents were rightfully curious about what had changed the boy’s grade in arithmetic around so drastically. They asked him if the change had come because of the Christian teachers at the school. Nope. Was it because of the Christian students there who were his new friends? Nope. The boy explained to his parents, “On the first day I went to the school and saw what they did to that other guy, nailing him to the giant plus sign, I knew they were serious about math.”
This morning we are going to be talking about the inherent power of Christianity. We will talk about how that power comes to us and goes out through us. The scripture that was read tells of a man named Simon who lives in the city of Samaria. He is said to be a worker of magic. He is regarded in that city as someone who has magic power. It is not like that power that he himself can see working through Philip, one of deacons who had come up from Jerusalem during the first persecutions there. The Bible tells us that Philip is able to heal the lame. This is obviously a power that Simon does not have. He sees this power, and he wants it. He sees that Philip is making paralyzed people walk again. He sees Philip casting out demons. He sees the city responding with great joy that these miracles are being done. Maybe he is feeling a bit left out of the excitement of these miracles and hence wants that power, too.
You will recall that last week I mentioned a part of scripture out Luke 9:51-56. In that passage we read the story of when Jesus was still alive and was passing through Samaria on his way to Jerusalem how the people there in Samaria did not show him any hospitality and gave him no quarter among them. This is amazing to see that one of the greatest examples of God’s power now is that as the new disciples of Christ, and you may recall that Philip had just been made a deacon at the same time as Stephen, are coming out of Jerusalem because of the persecutions against them, they are now finding that they are being accepted. It is as if Jesus knew during his ministry that one day those people in Samaria would have a change in heart. That is why he did not allow James and John to call down the flames of heaven to destroy those towns. Jesus knew that one day they would be open to the Gospel.
Back in Jerusalem, the apostles Peter and John hear of the miracles and the conversions taking place in Samaria, so they go out to help bless that mission work there. We hear that the people there had been baptized already—indeed this was an area where John the Baptist’s ministry was well known already—but Peter states that he wants to not just baptize the people with water, but with the Holy Spirit. Peter and John then proceed to lay hands on the people there. This is indeed the same laying on of hands that Philip enjoyed when he became a deacon. In this way, the people were made aware of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
Simon sees that the laying on of hands is how the Spirit is being spread. He wants some of the Spirit. Not only does he want to receive it, but he wants to be able to spread it about as Peter and John are able to do. He approaches them and asks how much it would cost to get some of the Spirit that he might distribute it too. He wants to buy franchise rights to God’s power!
Today we chuckle at this because we know that one cannot buy the Holy Spirit. It is not a commodity. It is not something that quantified in such a way. In fact, the Holy Spirit is one of the “persons of God.” When we read John 16:7, we see that Jesus names the Holy Spirit as a person. In this text some Bibles will use the word “Counselor” others might use the word “Advocate.” The translation by Eugene Peterson uses the word “Friend.” Jesus is going to send his Friend to help after he is gone: “Nevertheless I tell you the truth; it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the “Advocate,” “Counselor,” “Friend” will not come to you.” We know from other scripture that the Holy Spirit speaks, hears, intercedes with sighs, and the like. The Holy Spirit is a person.
Obviously, we should not do as Simon tried to do. We should not try to purchase a person! In fact, we say to do that is “enslaving” that person. We cannot enslave the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is free. It does as it does. To enslave it is to dis-empower it. If you could buy the Holy Spirit, you would discover that it would then be absolutely useless to you! It would be a person who would refuse to be enslaved from the start!
It is interesting to note that in Peter’s response to Simon, he tells him that one cannot buy God’s gift. That is in verse 20 of Chapter 8. I want you to consider that you CAN give yourself to someone else. When two people are married, we use the language in the vows “I give myself to you to be your husband or wife.” Likewise, God can give God’s self to us in the person of Jesus Christ and the person of the Holy Spirit. And, that in fact, is a very empowering thing; but we cannot buy the Holy Spirit, that is dis-empowering to God and us.
This power of the Holy Spirit then is not our power! It is the power of God that goes through us. We must let it work through us as it will freely. We cannot control it, rather it controls us. We say that we are empowered, that does not mean that the power is in us, but rather that we are in the power.
Many times in my life I have felt in the power of the person of the Holy Spirit. Honestly, I will tell you that on that Saturday when I got the call to go out to be with Ruth and Katie Cassel—Jim had just passed onto God—I drove up the Waimea Valley and just where the pavement ended and the dirt road began I felt myself being surrounded by the Holy Spirit’s presence. There was a sense of stillness and warmth. Things started looking as if it was all going in slow motion even though time was passing normally. The trees were rustling and it was as if I could see and feel the movement of every leaf individually. There was suddenly this heightened sense that I was breathing, taking in air and exhaling again. I felt I was over the church van at the same time as driving in it.
I went into the room where Jim was and the first thing after “hello” that I said was that the Holy Spirit was really present there. The Holy Spirit as our comforter, counselor and friend was there. Because of that, we knew right away that Jim’s spirit had ascended unto God. What a great affirmation of faith indeed!
This was like the Pentecost experience when the Spirit was just surrounding everyone. However, in the Scripture for today we see that same Spirit passing through Philip, Peter, and John, and entering others. This is done through the laying on of hands. This does not have to be through the actual physical laying on of hands.
Joanne Watanabe sent me and the Tuesday bible study a letter from a young lady who had come the mission “The Well” in Bangkok, Thailand. She had been sold into prostitution at a very young age and was trying desperately to get out of it. The mission gave her a place to live and helped her to find new work. Yet, she wrote about how the Holy Spirit and the love of Christ had come to her while two of the missionaries were singing hymns of praise to God. This is a different kind of laying on of hands—we could call it the laying on of voices!
Yes, the laying on of hands is used to pass the Spirit to others. Yet, the Spirit will not go to Simon because, as Peter puts it, his heart is not right with God. Peter says that he is in the “gall of bitterness and the chains of wickedness.” Now, I am going to say to you that this was not Peter speaking. We all know that already, right? This was not Peter but rather the Holy Spirit speaking through Peter! Look, if Peter had opened his mouth and spoken with his own voice, Simon probably would have gotten angry and walked away.
Simon instead becomes contrite and asks for prayers that he might indeed repent of heart and be forgiven for his sins. He asks Peter and John to pray that his soul will not be sent to “Helena, Montana” or “Helsinki, Finland.” (There are children in the room, and I should be careful.)
In other words, we have to let the person of the Holy Spirit into our hearts, and let the Spirit flow in freely, in order to have the power of the Spirit in us! We cannot buy the power of the Spirit, but we can repent and ask for forgiveness. In so doing, we allow the Spirit to flow through us and to others around us. Let us therefore ask for forgiveness and open our hearts to that power! Amen.