Power to Save the Proud

We get together this morning to worship the great God who speaks. The great God who's given us his word and that's why this morning our worship began with a call to worship from God's word. We respond to God who speaks a great word of salvation and then we seek to sing words that reflect what he's revealed in his scriptures. We read his word and we try to pray his word and now we're going to meditate and this particular passage Acts 8. We're gathered here to hear from God and what He has to say. We're a people of the book. And so this morning we're going to focus on this book. And I want to say this is a glorious book of promises. Now that's a little simplistic because it also is a book of commands and warnings and instructions. But the foundation of all those, it's a book of promise. It's a God who's giving us many promises, and then He tells us how to obey those promises. We have many great promises, and as we study Scripture, we can see He is a God who keeps His promises. They're all fulfilled. In Christ, they are yes and amen. He has many good promises for us. He will be faithful. His love is eternal. He is with us. He is for us. He loves us. He will always love us. He forgives us when we repent of sin and He transforms us. There is something He does not promise us in Scripture. He never promises us greatness in this world. There is a promise that you will be great in this world. He promises you that you actually can be a son and a daughter in the kingdom of God and you can be adopted to this great family in heaven, but He never promises us that we will be great here. He promises that He'll be with us and be for us so that we can be faithful, but He never promises greatness. And that really is our message today. The summary statement for how we're going to think about acts We miss seeing the greatness of God in His grace when we pursue our own greatness. We miss seeing the greatness of God in His grace when we pursue our own greatness. By the grace of God, He invites us to come see Him who is truly great. That is God. And we oftentimes miss seeing Him because we are too busy pursuing our own greatness. We're in Acts 8, page 916. If you're using a pew Bible, if you don't have a Bible, please take that with you. That is God's word, the words of life. And I want to summarize here very quickly how we've gotten to Acts 8 because it's been a few weeks since we've been in Acts. We have to remember that Acts is the second book written by Luke. Luke's first book was an account of Jesus Christ, how he was born a virgin. He lived a perfectly righteous life. He taught God's way and he died on the cross as a righteous man so that everyone who believed in him could be forgiven of their sins. He died to conquer death. He died to take away that curse that we just sung about, that we're free from. He rose again to give us new life. And then He walked with His disciples. And He pointed to them how all the Old Testament was pointing to Him. And then He ascended back to the right hand of the Father. And then He sent down the Spirit with great power so that when Peter proclaimed, thousands came to believe in Jesus Christ. One of the great statements in Acts is in Acts 1.8. If you turn back there quickly. We'll begin in verse seven. Jesus said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. Well, this morning, if you heard, here we are in Samaria. Persecution has taken place so that the church is scattered God's fame the name of Christ is being spread and it's come out to Samaria Here we have just finished looking at this this climactic changing event in the church history Stevens martyrdom Paul begins persecuting the church and God is spreading his words So as we look, I want us to look to chapter 8, beginning in verse 4. And the first thing I want us to see in verses 4 to 8, it's really the setting. Philip goes to Samaria. Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ. And the crowds, with one accord, paid attention to what was being said by Philip. when they heard him and saw the signs that he did, for unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who had them, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was much joy in that city. Persecution has heightened, and God's people are still proclaiming him. Now they scattered, and Philip goes, and he is proclaiming Christ in Samaria, and Philip's important here. Philip is most likely a Hellenist. That means he is not a Jew by birth, but he is converted. He's become a, or he is a Jew by birth. He's more of the Greek culture. He's not someone who's from Jerusalem. He's one of the seven that was set aside to take care of the Hellenist widows. And it's important to see that he's preaching the word. That is not just an apostolic job. That is a job of every disciple of Jesus Christ. Philip goes out and he's preaching the word and we see that he is given the same exact kind of power that Peter has. He's not an apostle, but he's given this power to proclaim as all Christians have that power to proclaim Christ. It's also significant that he's gone to Samaria. Samaria is a region next to Israel, next to Judea, And these are our brothers, partially. Samaritans are Jews who have intermarried with Gentiles. They have an impure bloodline, if you were to ask a Judean. Further, they set up their own worship. They worship on a different mountain. They worship according to a different law or custom. The Judeans, they would have looked at the Samaritans as enemies. They despised one another. They were against one another. And it's significant here that the gospel goes from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria. Because God is going to bring back those who are distant. God is graciously going to reunite these people with his people. If you want to see further about what that is, you can go back to John 4 where Jesus goes to the woman. And there's that discussion, where is God supposed to be worshipped? And Jesus said, well, God's gonna be worshipped in spirit and truth. Salvation comes to the Jews. The one you're looking at is the Messiah. Here we see the Messiah's good news. The Messiah's work is being proclaimed to these people who were once despised. That is how God's great work happens. Now look at verse nine. We see, this is what Luke oftentimes does, he'll give a statement about a people. They heard, they saw, there was much joy. And then he's going to set aside, he's going to really focus on one particular individual. And he does so in a way that isolates them. But there was a man named Simon, verse nine. There was a man named Simon, and he's an interesting character. To be honest, he's been kind of my bugaboo and axe. I didn't know how I was going to handle Simon. He's quite an interesting character. So here we are. Simon, who previously practiced magic. Now that's really never a good thing in Scripture. He's practiced magic in this city, and he amazed the people of Samaria. Notice what he says next. he himself was saying he was somebody great. He's amazed at people. He's told them he's great. They are followers. They paid attention to, look at verse 10, to him. From the least to the greatest, the whole city, they used to love Simon the Magician, who called himself great, and they themselves would say, this man is the power of God that is called great. He did many signs, he did many miracles. They were amazed by his magic. So Simon, Luke, takes a moment to tell us a background here, a background story as we get into the gospel work of Samaria. There's a man who used to really impress these people, and they thought he was great, and so did he. So let's go to our next section. These people who once followed Simon, they now believe Philip. They now believe the gospel that Philip preaches. Look at verse 12. But when they believe Philip as he preached, notice, it makes it clear they're believing what Philip, they're believing Philip, but it's what he says. He says the good news. That's the gospel. About the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Let's just stop there. Those who were once despised by Judeans. Those who were once distant, they've now come, they've now heard, because Philip has come, the same gospel that has been saving a lot of those in Jerusalem. The name of Jesus Christ. He's come to proclaim that God has sent down His Son. That God has brought about that great salvation that He's promised. That He died on the cross so that if you believe in Him, you will be forgiven. They have believed and that faith has saved them. Now there's been signs to draw attention. Believing in those signs, that's not saving faith. To be amazed by signs and wonders, that doesn't save you. Believing in the good news about the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, that is what saves them. If you're not a Christian here this morning, I want to just stop here and make something very clear. We are all sinners, everyone in this room. Everyone has refused to worship God the way He deserves to be worshipped. Every human being has treated another human being poorly. We could go into great depth about how we've all lied, we've all lusted, we've all coveted. But it is a simple, easy acknowledgement that, yeah, I don't always act the way I should. I don't always talk the way I should. I certainly don't worship the way God deserves. And what God is, is a just and holy God. And when He looks at us, He sees our sin and He doesn't just excuse it. He takes it seriously because sin is serious. But he also loves us and he designed us and called us to be his own. As we read, he's jealous for that spirit he created within us in James four. So to get us back, the father sent his son. To live the life we refuse to live so that he might die in our place as our substitute. So if we believe in him, all those sins, they're placed on him. God is just to punish his own son for sins he didn't commit. but for the sins that we commit. As a gracious and loving God, to do that for us who still reject Him. If you're not a Christian, that is what you must believe today. To have a heart that is declared righteous. To have a heart that is turned again back to God, to know Him, to love Him. Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, He rose again, you can now have new life. By simply saying, yeah, I have not lived the way I'm supposed to live. I see my need for forgiveness and I acknowledge Jesus Christ is the only one who can forgive me. Notice they were baptized, verse 12. And Luke wants to make it clear that both men and women, this is an inclusive gospel. It's exclusive in that it's only those who believe in Jesus Christ. Only those who are washed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, but it's inclusive. Anyone who believes, men or women. It's not like the covenant sign even of the old covenant, where only the male received the sign. No, anyone who believes, male or female, are one now in Christ, receiving the same promise and the same blessing. Now this is where the text gets interesting. Verse 13, we focus right back on this individual. He was talking about all the Samaritans. Now we're going to focus back on Simon. Even Simon himself believed. And after being baptized, he continued with Philip. And seeing signs of great miracles performed, he was amazed. Now we could see here the great headline. How marvelous! The great magician has been saved by Jesus Christ. He who once used to amaze people has now been amazed by the signs and orders, and he's believed in Jesus Christ. Let's wait for a moment and see how this story continues to play out. The apostles anoint the believers with a spirit. Verse 14. So Philip has come to Samaria. He has proclaimed the gospel. They have believed. They've been baptized. And now there's something else that happens. Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Remember, back in, well, if we didn't read Acts 8, 1 through 3, it tells us the apostles remained in Jerusalem, but others scattered. So Peter and John, as apostles, they're still in Jerusalem, and then they hear, as Jesus predicted, as Jesus promised in Acts 1 through 8, Acts 1-8, the gospel's spreading. And they hear the good news that the Samaritans, they received the word of God. And so they sent out to them apostles. And when those apostles came, they prayed that they might receive the Holy Spirit. God has designed this to show there's one church that's received one word and one spirit. But we do have to ask the question, verse 14 through 16 shows us there's been a delay. This is a little unusual. They were baptized only in the name of Jesus Christ, and then there's a delay between the baptism and the Spirit falling down upon them. We have to ask, why? Why is this time difference in the text? Why is Luke helping us see that there was some event of baptizing in the name of Christ, and the Spirit falling is a different event? Well, as we ask that question, I want to guard us against thinking that this is normative, because we can actually go through Acts and look at every time the Spirit falls down like this, and see there's no pattern that's normative in Acts. If we go back to Acts 2, we saw the Spirit came down, and He already came upon those believers, Peter, and then He proclaimed Him, and they were baptized. If we were to look ahead, chapter 10, The Gentiles receive the Spirit, and then they are baptized. There's no clear, definite pattern. So let's be on guard about saying, here's what normally happens, you're baptized in Jesus, and then there's a second baptism awaiting. We don't need to go there. I think there's something much more significant that we can see. God is making it clear, I only have one church. There's not the Church of Jerusalem and there's not the Church of Samaria. They're saved by believing the one gospel. They're saved by being united in the one baptism. They're saved by having the same spirit. What this is doing is actually teaching the Church of Jerusalem to not be prejudiced anymore against the Samaritans. You can't withhold fellowship from them because they're different from you in nationality and race, and the past differences you've had, they're all gone because you're now united in one in Jesus Christ. This is God teaching us there is one salvation, one Savior, one baptism, one Spirit. Or, as Paul tells us in chapter 4, verse 4 of Ephesians, there is one body and one Spirit. Just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, one Father of all who goes over all and through all and in all. The delay, I believe, is so those who are from Jerusalem can go and have the same Spirit poured out on those in Samaria to demonstrate this is one church, one plan. Do not let your past divisions continue to divide. So we as a church, we need to realize, as we gather, we're gathering as one people of all different kinds of backgrounds. Our gathering is not based on our race, our gender, not even our own particular ideology. Our gathering is that we're all purchased by the same precious blood of Christ. We're all coming to submit to the same word of God and to live it out together. See, this is a great protection for us right now to be reminded. We're supposed to be gathering with all kinds of different Christians. All kinds of folks from different ages and different backgrounds and different races and different wealth. Rich, poor, race, nation, nationality. These things are not what keep us together. It's Jesus Christ. It's a great reminder that we too can be prejudiced. And that is something we repent of in Christ. Now if that wasn't already a little confusing about the spirit coming after the baptism, well, buckle up. This gets interesting. Verse 18. Simon offers to pay for the power of God. Now Simon, who was stated a, someone who believed and was baptized and following Philip. Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, he offered them money, saying, give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. This is where the story really gets wrinkled. He again isolates Simon. And I want you to notice something in verse 18. Simon is not receiving the Spirit. He's observing it. Simon has not had the Spirit of fall upon him, which is the confirmation that this gospel has truly been believed. He's an observer. More than that, he goes observing this great power that the apostles have been given by God, by His grace, And he acts like a magician. Hey, can I buy this trick from you? I really miss being the influencer. I see you've got some amazing power. I see what you have here. Can we barter? Can I get this trick from you? Even worse, he's trying to buy it with money? What happens when you purchase something? It becomes your property. What do you do with your property? You have control over it. Do you see what he's doing? I want to get what God has given to you by grace, and I want to buy it so I have it under my control. It's obvious. Simon doesn't actually understand the kingdom of God. He doesn't truly get the name of Jesus Christ. He's like a magician. He wants to figure out how he can get this same power so that he can again amaze people. Now this is significant. There's actually a sin named after this text. It's called simony. I'm sure you've all heard about it. It's one of the more popular sins. Simony. And this was a significant sin in the medieval times and in the early Anglican Church because back then if you're a priest in a town or a city you had significant power and influence. And the sin of simony is saying I want to buy the office of priest. It's seeking to purchase the position of priest. In our days, to try to translate that over, that would be like a member of the church going to the search committee and saying, I will make a significant donation if you'll put forward my candidate. Or worse, if you put me forward as the pastoral candidate, I will make a significant contribution. It's seeking to buy an office. It's seeking to buy a position. It's seeking to have the power of God for one's own personal gain. And so let's just pause a moment and let's just see a big difference. Simon wants the power of God so that he can use it. Peter has been given the power so that he will be used by God. Peter has been given this great power so that God will use him for his glory. Simon, it appears, wants the power of God so that he can use it for his own greatness. Let's hear what Peter has to say in response. And Peter is pointed, just to be clear, as Peter is prone to be. Verse 20. Let me pause for a moment. There's great rejoicing. The church in Jerusalem, the apostles, the Samaritans are believing. The Holy Spirit is coming down upon them. This is a huge disruption to this great celebration of God's work. A man trying to buy the power of God. But Peter says, may your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. repent therefore of this wickedness of yours and pray to the Lord that if possible the intent of your heart may be forgiven you for I see that you were in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity and Simon answered pray for me to the Lord that nothing of what you've said may come upon me Peter gives a proper response to Simon's foolish request. It begins with a judgment. There is no way of confusing the words. You're going to be a dead man and your money die with you. You're showing you have no part in the matter. The word matter there is logos. In this word, this message, the good news. The first thing we see is a judgment. The first thing we see in verses 20 and the first part of 21, it's a judgment. You are going to perish. May your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God. You have nothing to do with this word. You're outside looking in. This is a harsh and clear and direct judgment. Notice he bases it upon what he's actually done. You thought you could buy the gift of God with money? God gave you the money and you think you're gonna buy a greater gift with what he's already given you? He doesn't understand. So Peter, he's given a judgment. I want you to see what happens next is he gives a diagnosis. He judges him, he gives a stern judgment, and then he gives a diagnosis. Look at the end of verse 21. Your heart is not right before God. Your heart is out of line with God. Now there's two key truths that we have to hold dear. First is that God declares us right before Him. We don't earn that. He just declares it when we believe in Jesus Christ. You are declared righteous by the gracious Word of God. And then he begins to change your heart so that it's aligned with God. And what Peter is saying here, your heart is not right before God. You are out of line. There is no evidence that God has declared you right and that your heart is being transformed. The diagnosis will get thicker in a moment. But notice, right after the diagnosis, he gives a prescription. We have a judgment. You're going to die. You have nothing to do with this gospel. A diagnosis. Your heart is not right before God because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. And now a prescription. Repent. Repent. That's the prescription. So it's not the first time we've actually seen repent in Acts. Remember the first sermon ever preached to the church by the power of the Holy Spirit? Peter. Afterwards, the people said, convicted, cut to the heart, what do we do? And what's the first word Peter says? Repent. This is what non-Christians do when they come to Christ, is they turn their direction. Repent. Repent does not mean that you make slight adjustments. It means you've been going in the wrong direction. It doesn't mean you simply try to do a little better. It means you stop doing what you were previously doing. It's a complete change. You stop the kinds of works you were doing, and you humbly submit before God and say, I believe in You. There's two different works you have to repent of. There's evil, wicked works that are rejecting God and His sovereignty. And then there's the self-righteous works, those who are trying to show God how good I am. Both of those must be repented of and we must believe that Jesus and Jesus Christ alone were declared righteous. The particular repentance that is required of Simon is that of wickedness. The intent of your heart needs forgiven. Repent therefore of this wickedness of yours. Pray to the Lord that if possible the intent of your heart be forgiven of you. He needs to repent and to seek God's grace for his wickedness. Now let's look at verse 23, but we'll come back to 22. There's a deeper diagnosis of his depravity. For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity. So his heart's not right, and now he's penetrating with a scalpel, a surgeon-like scalpel. He's diagnosing a more particular problem. On the outside, he's tried to buy the gift of God with money. This is evidence that your heart is not right with God, and now we're getting to another level of the sin. You are in the gall of bitterness. You're in the bond of iniquity. The God of bitterness, that's his pointing that he has a poison in his heart that's dangerous. He's envious of power and position. His bitterness spews out as a desire to be great. The bond of iniquity, we just remember here, sin is enslaving. This man is overpowered by sin. There's a great irony here. He's trying to buy the power of God when he is being overpowered by sin. Now, one of the questions that I really wrestled with, and it was interesting to think about here, was that how is the gall of bitterness related to trying to buy the gift of God? How does His request demonstrate a bitterness? Because we typically think of, and this is how it should be considered, that bitterness is really a deeper form of anger. And I want to separate these two categories for us. There's anger. And there's bitterness. And so if you're a Christian, something that usually happens is when we get angry, what happens when we get angry is because we think somebody's wronged us. Right? We think that we deserve better. And so therefore we become angry. And what we should do when we're angry is we tell God. God, this person has wronged me or I haven't gotten what I deserve. And there's two things that happen when one takes their anger to God. God can say, you're right. Wait on me, my child. Vengeance is mine. I'm with you. I'm for you. Wait upon me. I will show you my glory. And that gives the anger peace. It turns the anger to trust, and then one just simply says, I will trust God. I will be patient. I will persevere. I will depend upon His grace. The other thing that may happen when we go to God in anger is we say, God, I've been wronged and I deserve better. And He may say, no, you don't. There's two options when God says, no, you don't deserve better. First option is we can repent. God, I'm thinking wrongly. God, I have underestimated my own sin, or I've overestimated somebody else's sin, or I repent. Whatever you're saying no to, I'm going to acknowledge that you're right and I'm wrong because you are God. The other thing that happens if we don't repent is that we go get a second opinion. We want to go find somebody who's going to agree with our anger. God has not agreed with it, so we go and find someone else who will agree with it. And the sad difficulty here is that anger is talking to God about your problems. Bitterness is when we actually start talking to ourselves about our problems. We begin convincing ourselves of how wronged we are. We've stopped listening to the counsel of God, and we become our own counselor to convince ourselves of how we deserve better, and this is where the poison Bitterness sets its roots when we refuse God. And let me be very clear, when we refuse God, what we're saying is that our desires are more important than God. We're going to choose that our desires be more fulfilled than God's glory be made. This happens. We grow cold towards others. We grow cold towards God. We do not rejoice in trials and hardships. We do not see the face of God. We do not rejoice. We begin to grumble. We complain. Our anger becomes more and more evident. We stop looking to see how can I rejoice in suffering, and we start complaining. So I ask you, Christian this morning, do you dwell on what you do not have? Do you praise God, or does the poison of grumbling mark your lips? There's only two ways we respond. to feeling we are being treated in a way we don't deserve. Are we grumbling? Are we giving God glory? Now it's very important as we have diagnosed these sin, Simon, in his particular way, he believes he deserves a position. He wants influence, he wants power, he wants greatness, and then the bitterness is there because he doesn't have it the way he wants it. Verse 22 is really a sweet verse. Repent. Those are good words, Christian. Repent. If possible, you may be forgiven. Peter denied Jesus. He believes in the power of the gospel to save sinners. Peter has forsaken his Savior. He believes in the power of God's grace that is greater than all of our sin. As we heard from James 4, but His grace is more. Peter gives him an opportunity to turn from his sin and to pray that it might be forgiven. Our God is gracious. If we're trapped in sin, He desires to get us out. If we're entangled in bondage of bitterness, He desires to untie that knot. Because that knot keeps us from seeing Him, and loving Him, and enjoying Him. God is able. But we cannot continue in our pride. We must come to Him with humility. Laying before Him, God, whatever You desire is good. I will worship You. Look at verse 24. Simon answered, Peter, you pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you said may come upon me. It would be very clear if Simon, the magician, said, I want to get on my knees right now and I want to pray. It would be very different if he actually took responsibility for his sin and said, I am going to get on my knees and I'm going to pray He seems to shirk the responsibility of taking responsibility for his own sin. So the story, it somewhat leaves us as, did he really ask for forgiveness? Did he really pursue repentance and forgiveness as Peter has so graciously prescribed? The story ends with what we see as, maybe not the clearest answer, but we can actually go to the history of the church here. Simon the magician from Samaria is known throughout the history of the church as the first heretic. He has a long history from many of the early church fathers citing him as the first heretic who led many astray. His legacy is not one of repentance and faith. His legacy is one of leading many to a false gospel. Let's look at verse 25. Now when they had testified and spoken the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans. The church keeps going. That's the good news. God is powerful. God's people keep moving. They keep trusting. They keep praying. They keep proclaiming. And the glory of God keeps spreading. Verse 25 is such good news for us. Because we hit problems all the time. God keeps His people on mission. The church isn't stopped by sin. The church isn't stopped by a confusing character who brings about a confusing request to buy the power of God with money. Glory be to God that He is sovereign over His church. As I think about application, I want to just go back and I want to think about a few key words that we use in church often to help us think about what we mean by these words. And the first word is faith. Faith is looking to God and depending upon Him. It's not merely intellectual assent. Yes, this is true. It is not merely feeling of enthusiasm. I just heard something new and I'm excited. It's not merely either one of those. So what we have to be on guard against is there's a faith that is talked about in scripture that is not a saving faith. And I believe we have an example of that here with Simon the magician. You can go to John chapter two, verse 23 and 25. Many said they believed Jesus, but Jesus himself did not entrust himself to them because he knew what was in their hearts. Or John chapter six, verse 60. Many of Jesus' disciples who had believed in him They walked away because what Jesus was saying was too hard. You have Matthew 13 in the parable of the seeds. One falls on rocky ground and it's first received with joy, but then it has no roots and it does not endure hardships. But there's a seed that's on the weeds and it's choked out. See, true saving faith is set on the right object for the right purpose. As Sam preached very clearly last week, our object is what matters. The object of our faith is what matters first. It's not how much faith I have in anything. It's that my faith is in the right one, Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for my sins and rose again. It's not a blind faith. It has a real object who really walked along us, who really died, who really rose, who really sent His Spirit, so that we're not a blind faith. It's a real faith with a real Foundation. But our purpose of faith matters too. Because there's a way to believe in Jesus that says, Jesus, I'm gonna believe in you if you give me what I want. And I'm afraid this is what Simon's done. I'll believe in Jesus if I get to be great. That's not true faith. See, faith says, God, I recognize you as God, I trust you as God, I see that I've sinned against you as God, and I'm going to take whatever you have for me as God. It doesn't make a bargain with God. God, I believe in you, if. God, I will give you my life, when. See, you're still playing God at that moment. Now, faith says, God, I'm going to believe in you, the one true God, and I'm going to take what you have. Faith says, I will submit and I will defer whatever you say is right, whatever you do is good. I will trust you. Faith always needs a friend named repentance. Because when we place our faith in God, we're turning from something. Faith is always accompanied with repentance. If you've not ever repented, you're not redeemed. You actually have to turn from sin to Christ. And let me add, if the only time you can remember repenting is when you first believed and you've not ever repented since, you're probably not redeemed. We continue to repent. Repentance is not just getting a little help. It's saying, I've been doing this all wrong. I've been doing my will, my way, I'm now gonna submit to Christ. His will is good. And let me remind you Christians, the sign of a genuine believer and a growing believer is not someone who looks like they've got it all together, it's the sign of a genuine and faithful believer is somebody who's willing to repent. Repentance is the remark of the redeemed. Let's think about prayer. You need to believe, you need to repent, We need to pray. Pray is putting ourselves in the mercy of God. It's saying, God, I want to come and I want to be more like you. I want to be more aligned with your will. I want to have my heart desire your desire. I want to think your thoughts after you. I want to have my life changed. So yes, we're making a request now, but the number one request is even help me know what to ask for, God. The fourth word we'll think about, because it is significant in this passage, is power. Power is a dirty word sometimes. We don't like power unless we actually get it. We don't like somebody else's power. We're afraid of power because we've seen that if somebody has absolute power, they're typically absolutely corrupt. Power corrupts. But what we see here in Scripture, what we see here with the Holy Spirit, the power from on high, it's not something that's gained or earned, it's given. Power is good. It's a gracious gift from God. It is His Son who's given us a certain amount of power, and then He gave us a spirit to ensure that power. And I want to encourage you today, Christian, that you have great power. The power Simon was trying to buy, you actually have. Not getting the spirit, but you've got a power because if you're a Christian, you're a priest. If you're a Christian, you're a priest. You have the power to go before Almighty God in the name of Jesus Christ and talk to him. That's amazing power that is only yours because of what Jesus Christ did for you. You've got access to Almighty God, to know Him, to see Him, to love Him, to be changed by Him. You also have a power to proclaim Him. You have a power to go out and do the same thing Philip and Peter are doing. You have a power to say to others who do not live in light, who are living in darkness, to tell them the truth that can save them from hell. That is great power. You have the power because you have the Holy Spirit and gifts to build up the body of Jesus Christ for His glory. This is power that you have not gained. This is power that you have not earned. It's power that is yours because you believe in Jesus Christ and He purchased you His blood. It's yours. You're not going to say no to it. It's yours. But you do have a great responsibility now to wield that power, to use that power to pray, to use that power to proclaim, to use that power to build up the church. You've received a great power that is not responsibility. This is good news because now we get to work for the great God. We get to see Him. We get to work with Him. We get to know Him. We get to know His love. We get to love Him because of what He's given us. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank You for Your goodness. We thank You for Your love. We thank You that You did not leave us powerless with sin and our bondage. You did not leave us with that poison that corrupts our desires and our mind and our words and our actions. But You sent Jesus Christ to free us. You sent Your Spirit to empower us. Help us to forsake our desire for our greatness so that we might see You in all of Your glory in your greatness. In Jesus' great, powerful name we pray. Amen.