Great is a Name
True Belief
Acts 8:9-25
Randy Moss had 982 career receptions, caught 156 touchdowns with over 15,000 career receiving yards. He will go down as one of the greatest wide receivers ever to play professional football. But he is not remembered for his statistics, he is remembered for how he played. Football fans all over the country watch games with friends and shout during the game, “He got mossed!” Randy Moss’s name became a verb. To get mossed is when a receiver makes a jaw-dropping, humiliating catch over a defender typically with a jump ball high in the end. New fans may use the word without ever knowing where it came from.
Throughout history, people are so known for one thing that their name becomes synonymous with that one thing. “Can I get your John Hancock? My car broke down but I “macgyvered” it and got it running. That was machiavellian. It was a total ponzi scheme. He has a Napoleon-complex.” Elvis Pressley may have made sideburns cool, but Union General Ambrose E. Burnside inspired the word. (Just google him). When a name becomes another word it is called an eponym.
And today, we get to learn about one man whose name became a noun because he wanted to be great. So now he is remembered forever but not in the way he would have hoped. I pray this morning we realize what true greatness and true faith is as we look at one who wanted his name to be remembered. And I pray we ask, how do you want your name to be remembered?
Whose Name is Great (Acts 8:9-13)
A great persecution arose in Jerusalem, causing the disciples to scatter. As they left Jerusalem, they went about preaching the word of God. Philip went to Samaria and did many great works and proclaimed Christ. Philip’s ministry led him into direct conflict with one of the leaders of the day, Simon the Magician. Acts 8:9–11,
[9] But there was a man named Simon, who had previously practiced magic in the city and amazed the people of Samaria, saying that he himself was somebody great. [10] They all paid attention to him, from the least to the greatest, saying, “This man is the power of God that is called Great.” [11] And they paid attention to him because for a long time he had amazed them with his magic.
Notice two things in these opening verses, Simon called himself somebody great and people all over Samaria thought he was someone great. But his greatness and his power were not real, but they were fabricated. His greatness was an illusion. He was not actually doing miraculous works, but he was performing magic tricks. His fame was not grounded in truth but in fiction. He thought of himself as somebody great and even convinced others, but it was all an illusion.
I wonder how many have fallen under Simon’s curse believing they were somebody great. The truth is we all have fallen under that curse. It is the curse that is woven into the fabric of our fallen world. At our core we do not want to make God’s name great, but our own. The root of every sin is defiance to the greatness of God. We do not submit to him or honor him as great, but thinking that we are somebody trying to build a name for ourselves. In the earliest pages of the Scriptures, we see this in Babel, and Babylon comes synonymous with the world set against God, Genesis 11:1–4
[1] Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. [2] And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. [3] And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. [4] Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
And I love how Moses’s comments in the next verse, “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.” It’s like a parent with his toddler, saying, “Ah, buddy, you did such a good job building that tower.” It was fiction. The curse of the human heart is the desire to make yourself somebody over and against the Lord.
Friends, so much of our culture, is defined by celebrity. People want to make a name for themselves. People want attention. I cannot see inside people’s minds and hearts. I cannot read people’s motivations, but it seems our culture, and sadly, even our Christian culture, is driven by trying to make a name for ourselves. Analyze your words. Think through your conversations. There are many times at the end of conversation I do a personal debrief and I ask myself, “Why did I say that? What was my motivation?” There are times when the Lord makes it clear my motivation was to make myself somebody great in the eyes of the person I was talking to. Friends, do the hard, heart work and ask, “Whose name are you trying to make great?” Yours or God’s?
When I was twenty years old I spent a summer in Venezuela as a missionary. At the end of the summer, one of the young men I met, Deivi Bracho, looked at me and said, “My prayer for you is Galatians 1:10.” He saw something in me which was “Simon-esque.” Galatians 1:10, “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” Who am I trying to please? Whose approval am I after? Are you living for the approval of this world or God? Friends, fame is fleeting. Fame is fiction. It is a myth, a mirage, and danger for the soul. Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought. Do not live to make your name great. Live to make God’s name great. For this is exactly what Philip was doing in Acts 8.Acts 8:12–13
[12] But when they believed Philip as he preached good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. [13] Even Simon himself believed, and after being baptized he continued with Philip. And seeing signs and great miracles performed, he was amazed.
Philip came to town doing signs, healing the parlyzed and lame. The crowds paid attention to Philip, but Philip was drawing attention to Jesus Christ. To the name that is above every name.
Philip preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. Philip preached salvation. He preached repentance of sins. He preached that everyone who turned to Jesus Christ in faith could be forgiven of their sins and receive eternal life. The good news Philip preached, is the same good news we preach today. Friend, if you are not a follower of Jesus Christ, know there is only One who is great. The Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are not good, not even one. We all deserve punishment for our sins. God will have no rivals. There is only one God and no other. And when we set ourselves up against God, there is nothing but a fearful expectation of judgment. Which is why the message of Jesus Christ is good news. It is good news because Jesus saves us from the bad news. He came to save sinners. Jesus was perfect and died as a perfect sacrifice for sinners. He died in the place of anyone who would repent of their sins and trust in him as Lord and Savior. For after he died, God raised him from the dead declaring to the world that salvation is now possible in Christ.
Friend, it is really, really, really good news. And the more you learn about Jesus Christ, the news keeps getting better. All your sins paid for. All your mistakes forgiven. All your shame, swallowed up. And you are transferred into God’s kingdom. You are adopted as a son or daughter of God. You are born-again by his Spirit. You are part of his body. He uses you to make his name great. It is really really good news. I pray you would examine just how good it really is.
Philip preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name (the life, death, resurrection and ascension) of Jesus Christ. There is power in the name. And many believed and were baptized in the name of Jesus. Even Simon believed, but in whose name?. The one who was amazing people with magic was amazed at the works of God. But how was he amazed? Was he amazed at what Philip did in the name or was he amazed at what Philip said of the name? Did he want the one who came with the Name or only the blessings from his hand?
Whose Faith is Real (Acts 8:14-25)
Jesus told the disciples in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” The gospel was first preached in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost and after Peter’s sermon, Luke writes, “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” Luke uses that phrase “received his word,” at key points throughout Acts to highlight how the kingdom of God is advancing in the world. The persecution of Stephen was the catalytic force that propelled the mission beyond the walls of Jerusalem to Samaria and notice Luke’s use of this phrase in Acts 8:14–17,
[14] Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, [15] who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, [16] for he had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. [17] Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. (ESV)
This is a very important passage in the book of Acts. A misreading of this text has caused a lot of damage to the church.
The church was devoted to the apostles' teaching. God waited to send the Holy Spirit until the apostles came down from Jerusalem. God wanted there to be no mistake that the Samaritans were full citizens of the kingdom of heaven. The Samaritans received the word of God in the same way as the Jews and experienced a similar Pentecost with the visible manifestation of the Holy Spirit. Luke uses the phrase, “received the Word,” here as the gospel spread to Samaria and again in Acts 11 when the gospel spreads to the Gentiles i.e. the ends of the earth. It was important that Peter was there as a representative of the apostles. It is hard to fully grasp the ethnic tension between Jews and Samaritans. The woman at the well was shocked that Jesus even spoke to him. God was making a new people where the wall of hostility has been destroyed. Paul makes this point very clear in Ephesians in reference to Jews and Gentiles being one body which applies to Samaritans as well. Ephesians 2:11–22,
[11] Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands—[12] remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. [13] But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. [14] For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility [15] by abolishing the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, [16] and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility. [17] And he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near. [18] For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. [19] So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, [20] built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, [21] in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. [22] In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.
One of the major developments in the New Testament is God making Jew and Gentile one people. Many of the conflicts in the early church were them trying to live together as Jew and Gentile as one new man in Christ.
So at the beginning of real faith in Christ, God wanted there to be no possible room for any conflict. The apostles were there when the Samaritans and the Gentiles received the word. This was not normative, but exceptional. We always interpret Scripture with Scripture. As we read the rest of the New Testament, there is not a two-stage reception of the Holy Spirit. Throughout the epistles, when people believe they are born-again by the Holy Spirit. They do not believe and then have a second experience of a visible manifestation of the Spirit in speaking in tongues. I believe misreading of this passage has caused tremendous damage to the church. As we read Acts, we have to be careful to interpret some things as prescriptive (this is what we must do) and descriptive (this is what happened). I believe this passage must be read descriptively as explaining what happened to the Samaritans and not as prescriptive on how the church should typically experience salvation.
When you put your faith in Christ, you are born-again by the Holy Spirit. John Stott helpfully writes,
Is it not reasonable to suggest (in view of this historical background) that, in order to avoid just such a disaster, God deliberately withheld the Spirit from these Samaritan converts? The delay was only temporary, however, until the apostles had come down to investigate, had endorsed Philip’s bold policy of Samaritan evangelism, had prayed for the converts, had laid hands on them as ‘a token of fellowship and solidarity’, and had thus given a public sign to the whole church, as well as to the Samaritan converts themselves, that they were bona fide Christians, to be incorporated into the redeemed community on precisely the same terms as Jewish converts. To quote Geoffrey Lampe again, ‘at this turning-point in the mission something else was required in addition to the ordinary baptism of the converts. It had to be demonstrated to the Samaritans beyond any shadow of doubt that they had really become members of the church, in fellowship with the original “pillars”.… An unprecedented situation demanded quite exceptional methods’...To sum up, the Samaritan happening provides no biblical warrant either for the doctrine of a two-stage Christian initiation as the norm, or for the practice of an imposition of hands to inaugurate the supposed second stage. The official visit and action of Peter and John were historically exceptional. These things have no precise parallels in our day, because there are no longer any Samaritans or any apostles of Christ. Today, because we are not Samaritans, we receive forgiveness and the Spirit together the moment we believe. As for the laying-on hands, although it can be an appropriate and helpful gesture in various contexts, its use as the means by which the Spirit is given and received lacks authority, whether in episcopal confirmation or in charismatic ministry, because neither bishops nor pentecostal leaders are apostles comparable to Peter and John, any more than Philip was, although directly appointed by them.
The Samaritans had real faith. They were not second-class citizens but full ‘bona fide’ citizens of the kingdom of heaven.
The apostles showed that the Samaritans had real faith, but they also showed that Simon didn’t. Simon was amazed at what he saw, but he never was truly captivated by what he heard. He did not truly change his allegiance. His aim was his own glory and fame and not that of Jesus Christ. Acts 8:18–19
[18] Now when Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, 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.”
Listen to his words carefully, “Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.” Simon was all about himself. He was a narcissist. For years people followed him and his magic, but now people have left him and followed after true power. He was jealous and bitter that he was no longer on top. He wanted to use his wealth to earn the gift of God. Peter gave him a sharp rebuke, Acts 8:20–23
[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 kingdom of God cannot be bought. Simon severely misread the situation. He did not understand what was happening. All he saw was an opportunity for his fame to return. He wanted to be great. He was a slave to self-glory.
We may read this with our modern ears and believe Peter was being unduly harsh and critical with Simon, but they were full of mercy for one writes notes, “The love of self-glory is an extremely dangerous cancer of the soul and is spiritually fatal if not addressed. This cancer requires straightforward, serious diagnosis.” Jesus once told Peter, “But he turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.” (Matthew 16:23) And Jesus had to help John realize the importance of having faith like a child as he wanted to sit on Jesus’ right hand. Peter and John knew the cancer of vain glory. Peter warned Simon and gave him an opportunity to repent.
Every opportunity for mercy is a gift from God. It is undeserved. Simon, full of his own vain ambition, was given mercy. His heart is not right with God but if he repents and prays to the Lord, the intent of his heart may be forgiven. Friends, we may not be so bold as Simon to try and buy our salvation with silver, but maybe your “silver” is good works, or church attendance, or evangelism or tithing. We cannot obtain the gift of God with anything we do. By definition, a gift must be given.We cannot obtain God by any of our labors. And the beauty of the gospel is that we don’t have to. God has given us himself. Salvation is a free gift.
Ephesians 2:8–9, “[8] For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, [9] not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 3:23–24 [23] for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, [24] and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (ESV)
Romans 5:15–17 [15] But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. [16] And the free gift is not like the result of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. [17] For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.
This is why Luke points out how the Samaritans received the word. We do not obtain gifts, we receive them. If you are trying to earn God’s gift, repent of that wickedness and pray to the Lord the intent of your heart may be forgiven.
Simon shows us how not to repent. “Pray for me to the Lord, that nothing of what you have said may come upon me.” Simon did not pray to the Lord, but asked Peter to pray for him. He did not desire repentance, he did not desire a relationship with God, he merely desired escaping punishment. How many like Simon in the church? They don’t really want a relationship with God but escape from hell? Hell is real and we should want to escape it. But we don’t primarily come to God to avoid judgment, but to gain Christ. Salvation is not running from hell, but it is running to Christ. Simon did not really want God. R.C. Sproul writes, “There is a distinction in repentance between contrition and attrition. Contrition is true repentance that comes from a heart broken for having offended God. Attrition occurs when one repents because there is a sword at one’s neck.” Simon didn’t repent. Will you? Will you run to Christ because of what he has done for you? Don’t just run from hell, run to Christ!!
I love how this section ends. Peter and John understood what God was doing in Samaria. Acts 8:25, “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.” Peter and John realized that salvation was not just for the Jews but it was for all people, even the Samaritans. They needed to see the boldness of Philip to take the gospel beyond the boundaries of Jerusalem to Samaria to begin to fully understand Jesus' words regarding their witness. Peter and John watched the body of Christ and learned from them. They realized that the Samaritans needed the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ so they went throughout the villages preaching the good news of the kingdom of God.
Simon the Magician in Acts 8 has become synonymous with ‘simony’, a word you may not hear often, but which is the buying or selling of a church office. One action defined his life. He wanted to make a name for himself so God used his name as a heresy. One action defined his life, but one action of another could have defined his life. If he would have given his life to Christ, the action of the cross would have defined him. What will define your life?
There is much we can learn from Simon. Is your faith real? Have you received the word of God? Have you accepted it as what it really is, the word of God and not the word of men? Receive the Word of God. Whose name are you trying to make great?
Psalm 115:1–4
[1] Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your name give glory,
for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!
[2] Why should the nations say,
“Where is their God?”
[3] Our God is in the heavens;
he does all that he pleases.
[4] Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
Not to us, not to us, but to the name of Jesus Christ our Savior we give glory. The idols of this world are silver and gold, the work of human hands. Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. Let this be our prayer: Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness!