Joy for a Despised City

“A Proclamation that Brings Much Joy to a City”

(Acts 8:5-8, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, October 2, 2011)

5 Philip went down to the city of Samaria and proclaimed to them the Christ.

In Acts 21, we read about a second preaching deacon beyond the martyr Stephen. Luke writes, “On the next day we departed and came to Caesarea, and we entered the house of Philip the evangelist, who was one of the seven, and stayed with him.” This is the same Philip that we read about in Acts 8 after the murder of Stephen.

What can we say about this Philip? Like Stephen, he was recognized by his peers and by the apostles as a man “of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” He was one of the ones that was scattered by the persecution that came after the death of Stephen. That group went about preaching the word wherever they went. We see from this chapter that he was a man through whom God worked miracles. He was a man who would be used by God in very surprising ways.

One other important fact: his proclamation was about the Christ, the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. It was especially clear from his interaction with an Ethiopian official later in this chapter that Philip used the Old Testament Scriptures to present the good news about Jesus.

After this chapter, the only other reference to Philip in the Bible is the text mentioned above from Acts 21. That passages goes on to say that he had four daughters who were prophetesses.

Here in Acts 8, Philip went down to the city of Samaria, and proclaimed to them the Christ. Samaria was a northern city in Israel which had for many centuries been a place of mixed-up religion. Jesus, in his wonderful interaction with a Samaritan woman in John 4, extended great mercy to this woman and to many of her neighbors, but He did not deny that salvation came from the Jews and not from the Samaritans.

The Samaritans held to the first five books of the Bible, but not to the rest of the Old Testament. To the Torah they added many religious practices coming from other lands since the Assyrians had sent people from many nations to settle in this northern area of Israel. Samaritans were not respected by Jews. Yet Christ had indicated before His ascension that the message of salvation would not be limited to Judea. Samaria would hear the good news.

6 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. 7 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.

The preaching deacon Philip was not a pastor. We need not think that only pastors are used by God to preach. Someone may not have the calling of pastor but still be used by God to preach. They can be licensed by the church to preach even today in our denomination. Philip was one such man whom the Lord used to bring His message to a despised people.

Like Jonah going to Nineveh, Philip had amazing success in Samaria. Our Lord was not from Samaria, but when His enemies wanted to insult Him, they said to him in John 8:48, “Are we not right in saying that you are a Samaritan and have a demon?” God is often pleased to lift up despised people groups with the message of His despised and rejected Son. The Samaritans heard Philip's message about Jesus, and they received it.

Philip did more than preach. The people heard what Philip had to say, but they also saw the signs that he did. Specifically, Philip demonstrated heaven's authority over demonic realms by casting demons out of people who were oppressed by these spirits, and he healed the lame and the paralyzed. These powerful signs accompanied his message.

Jesus performed signs like these as well. They were signals that a new power for life had come into a world badly tainted by death.

The ultimate sign of heaven has come to us in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Eventually a trumpet will sound, Christ shall return, and the full life of resurrection will overwhelm every vestige of decay in our existing world. Christ's individual resurrection from the dead was a firstfruits of this larger future resurrection.

Even before Christ's great sign of his own empty tomb, Jesus fulfilled the prophecies about the Messiah from the Old Testament by lesser signs of healing and deliverance from demonic bondage. At the very beginning of His ministry, He announced in His own despised hometown of Nazareth that the words of Isaiah 61 were being fulfilled. He would “proclaim good news to the poor, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

It was shocking to see the power of evil and death turned back by the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth. It was even more shocking to see the very same signs performed by a deacon and evangelist as he was led by God to a people that the Jews despised.

8 So there was much joy in that city.

Verse 8 tells us simply and plainly that Samaria was changed by Philip's ministry. In a way that could only be explained by the power of heaven working through people, it became evident to everyone that a new era had begun. “There was much joy in that city.”

The city of God was being made known among the despised cities of men. This is what we ought to expect to hear about as a result of the Tanzies and others going to Madrid. This is what we should expect as a result of our lives here in Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

I know that I was once skeptical about that kind of talk. As someone who was mugged twice in the Bronx during my high school years, I was not expecting that Redeemer Presbyterian Church was really going to transform New York City as they set out to do. That church has been in Manhattan only a little longer than we have been in Exeter. But it is actually happening... See Chuck Colson's recent column on New York entitled “Good News in Gotham.”

God can change a city through one deacon who preaches, and through despised people who hear and believe. The gospel of a despised god-man dying for the helpless still has power. The preaching and living out of Christ can still bring much joy to a city.

One day the city of God will fully descend upon the city of man. All that God's people have sung about a heavenly Zion will be right there in front of our eyes. Now we labor in works that look weak like the cross. But God raises the dead.

1. Who is Philip and what do we know about him?

2. What was the biblical history of Samaria?

3. What took place in Samaria according to these verses?

4. Can the gospel still bring much joy to a city?

OT Passage: Psalm 48