Pray for me...

“Pray for me to the Lord...”

(Acts 8:18-24, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, October 30, 2011)

18 Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands,

God intended that some of the Holy Spirit blessings that He had for the Samaritans would come through the laying on of Jewish apostolic hands. This was His chosen way of convincing the hearts of both Jews and Samaritans that they were now one in Jesus Christ.

Not only that, but more generally, God would give heavenly blessings that could only come from the ascended Christ through the hands of His church.

God was reassuring Jews, Samaritans, and all of us, that the ascended Jesus is real. If the ascended Jesus is real and He gives gifts through the church, then heaven is real, and the church should believe in this glorious Christ and believe in heaven.

We should not only believe in Christ and heaven, we should proclaim Christ and heaven. We should not only speak of these things, we should expect to walk in them by God's grace.

… he offered them money, 19 saying, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”

The results of the laying on of hands in Acts 8 were undeniable. Simon, the former sorcerer, who had received the Word that Philip preached and was baptized knew that what took place in Samaria as a result of the apostolic laying on of hands was real.

Simon had believed in Christ, but not every habit of his heart was instantly changed. We might wish that all of our thoughts were instantly made perfect in holiness as a result of our first motions of faith, but this is not accurate. We have bad habits of the heart that will need to be reshaped by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit.

In the case of Simon, he had some habits that came from his worldview as a Samaritan super-sorcerer. He understood that there was power in unseen realms, and he knew it when he saw it. He offered the apostles money, not as an insult, but as a complement. That was the appropriate Samaritan sorcery thing to do. Pay the great Jesus magicians, and they will give you the power to give Holy Spirit gifts to others. This was the Samaritan sorcerer mind, and the mind of Balak as he approached Balaam, but it was not the mind of Christ.

20 But Peter said to him, “May your silver perish with you, because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money! 21 You have neither part nor lot in this matter, for your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent, therefore, of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord that, if possible, the intent of your heart may be forgiven you. 23 For I see that you are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity.”

The apostle Peter plainly corrected Simon's wrong thinking. The way to usefulness in the kingdom of Christ would not come from purchasing spiritual powers. This was one of the thousands of ways that Samaritan sorcery differed from Christianity. Simon had to learn that, and this was the way that the necessary learning took place.

Simon's heart was not right before God. His specialty was the magic of sorcery. That specialty was frankly not very useful in a kingdom where every gift comes only through heavenly authorized channels. Sorcery is the attempt to obtain power and blessing through forbidden channels. Sometimes it works, but it is always wrong, and it is always dangerous.

Simon needed to realize that this skill he had was not going to be useful in the kingdom. Is there some skill that you have learned in a former way of looking at life that you are trying to use for the kingdom of Christ? Is it something that the Word of God prohibits, like sorcery? Don't try to make it holy. That won't work. Lay it down and walk away from it. Stealing is not a spiritual gift. Neither is negativity, unbelief, greed, lust, or the insistence on talking rather than listening.

Peter gave Simon the right instruction. The sorcerer needed to find a new line of work. He needed to repent, to change the bad intent of his heart that led him to want to buy heavenly gifts that Christ alone gives from His place as our ascended King.

Call wickedness what it is. Wickedness. See it. Identify the old habit of the heart. Own it as “yours.” Then lay it down on the ground, never to pick it up again, and walk away from it.

Pray to the Lord, because you may have to fight this beast for awhile. Pray to the Lord, because He can keep on delivering you from every kind of bondage.

You need forgiveness. But you need something else. You need what Paul earnestly prays for when He calls out to God for the church in Ephesus, a Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Christ. You need the eyes of your hearts enlightened. Without that blessing, you will not understand true Christian hope in the Son of God, you will not understand your destiny in the love of the Father, and you will not be aware of the way that resurrection power from God is available for you today from the Spirit of the living God.

Without that help from Jesus Christ, you will be stuck in your old patterns of thinking, just as Simon was stuck in a sorcerer's mindset. What mindset did you grow up with? What mindset have you invited into your life along the way of pursuing your desires? Are you stuck in that old habit of the heart? Pray that you might be both forgiven and released.

24 And Simon answered, “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.”

Simon did one more thing. He asked Peter to pray for his release. This was an acceptance of Peter's assessment of Simon's bad situation, and a plea for the help of Jesus through the church.

This is the way that the body of Christ still works today. We hear the Word. We see Christ in all His heavenly glory, with all His cross-won forgiveness and deliverance for us. We repent of our old habits of the heart. We ask for forgiveness. And we ask for others to pray for our release from the hold of what is old and dead.

Christ has good gifts for you. He has paid for them in full with His blood. This age of blessing was part of the eternal plan of the Father, recorded for us in the Hebrew prophets. See Jeremiah 31:31-34.

You don't have to stay stuck in some old way of thinking and living. You have tasted and seen that the Lord is good. Now there is a good way to seek growth in the life that Christ won for you.

1. What was Simon's request in the beginning of this passage?

2. What was Peter's response?

3. What was Peter's directive to Simon?

4. What was Simon's request at the end of this passage?

OT Passage: Jeremiah 31:31-34