Sunday, May 21, 2023 AM

Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank

You for gathering us together here on this day, knowing what we need and providing so abundantly, nourishing our hearts, feeding us, giving us life.

We thank You for Your love for us, that it is righteous, that it is full, that it is everlasting, that it is expressed perfectly and forever in Your Son, Jesus Christ.

We thank You for giving us Your Holy Spirit, sending Him not only to give us new life, but to indwell us so that we may be in fellowship with You both now and forever.

Thus far, You have helped us, and we know that the faithfulness that You have exhibited time and again, so full and so free, in all these past generations, only clarifies and assures us of Your continued faithfulness in our tomorrow, in our next year and beyond.

Help us now, Father, as we read Your Word, given to us by Your Spirit, declaring the glories of Your Son.

It's in His name that we pray. Amen. I invite you to open your

Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 8. Acts chapter 8.

We are looking at a story that spans verses 5 through 25 of Acts chapter 8.

And we will begin reading in a moment in verse 14.

So Acts chapter 5, start tracking your eyes... Acts chapter 8, start tracking your eyes toward verse 14, if you would.

Thus far in the book of Acts, many wondrous things are going on that have everything to do with the fact that Jesus is risen from the dead, and that He ascended to the right hand of the

Father, taking His rightful position there. Who is worthy to open the scrolls?

Who is worthy to be at the right hand of God? The Lamb who was slain.

The Lion of Judah. That is who is worthy. He is worthy.

And so He is at the right hand of the Father, and He told His followers before He ascended what they were to do.

They were to be His witnesses proclaiming His good news of the kingdom in Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

Big job that they are to go, but first they were to wait. Wait until He sent the

Holy Spirit from on high to indwell them for this task. That happened on the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2.

And when it happened, many people were confused. They scoffed.

They thought this was a symptom of drunkenness. Some people didn't know what to think.

Peter explained by preaching from Joel in the Psalms that these signs of the new covenant's arrival signaled the end of the old covenant days, and that they must repent and forsake this wicked generation and be saved out of it and come to Christ.

That Christ was ruling upon His Father's throne, upon David's throne, and so the new covenant wonders began to unfold throughout the book of Acts in contrast to the jealousy and the powerlessness of those who were stewarding the old covenant, those who were traitors to God, those who were under the judgment of God.

And so we've seen a great contrast building between the old covenant temple and the new covenant temple, the old covenant

Jerusalem and the new covenant Jerusalem. And that's what we're looking at in the book of Acts.

Here in chapter 8, we see that even though Saul of Tarsus began to persecute the people of God after Stephen's death, that Jesus is the best shepherd.

He is the good shepherd. Though His flocks seem to be scattered, yet He still guides them, and they preach the word now even in Samaria.

And Samaritans, those dirty, rotten, scoundrel

Samaritans, whom the Jews could not stand, had to hold their nose if they walked through Samaria.

Most of the time they just walked around it. They couldn't stand those Samaritans. Nonetheless, the gospel goes there, and people are repenting of their sins and believing upon Christ, and the good news is taking effect.

And God delays the evident arrival of the Holy Spirit upon them so that the apostles come, lay hands upon them, and the

Holy Spirit comes, signifying to everyone the unity that they now have in Christ.

Samaria, the northern kingdom, Judah, the southern kingdom, united in Christ, their king, the son of David.

What a glorious moment. Spoiled, almost spoiled, by a man named

Simon. Not Simon Peter, not this time. Simon Magus, as he has been known to history,

Simon the magician. And we're going to see evidence from this passage that no man can serve two masters.

You either serve Christ or you serve Mammon, but you can't serve both.

Please stand with me as I read God's holy word. We're going to begin in verse 14. Verse 14, and read through verse 25.

This is the word of the Lord. Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent

Peter and John to them, who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

For as yet he had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the

Lord Jesus. Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. And when

Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying,

Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit. But Peter said to him,

Your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money.

You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent, therefore, of this your wickedness, and pray,

God, if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.

Then Simon answered and said, Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me.

So when they had testified and preached the word of the Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the

Samaritans. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. We are not so far advanced, mature, and sophisticated that we escape the mental traps of previous generations.

Do you remember Jesus talking to His disciples about the rich ruler who rejected

Christ? He said, How hard it is for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Easier for the largest moving thing you've ever seen to go through the smallest opening your eyes ever seen than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.

You remember the response of the disciples, Well, then who can be saved? You see, they thought that the rich were closest to God.

They thought if somebody had a lot of money, a lot of estate, a lot of wealth, that clearly indicated

God's approval on them. That they had been doing things in such a way to catch

God's eye, catch God's favor, or maybe they were born into the family that God loved the most, or whatever it was.

That they were closest to God. And when Jesus said that the rich had a better chance of entering into the kingdom of heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle, this disheartened the disciples who thought,

Well, then who can be saved? If those we think are the closest to God can't enter in, then there's no hope for the rest of us.

And Jesus said, With man it's impossible, but with God all things are possible. As the old hymn says,

It took a miracle to save my soul. We do not escape that trap even in our day.

We often fixate so much upon mammon, upon wealth, upon money.

We often fixate so much upon it that we equate it with whether or not

God is happy with us or happy with others. Whether or not God is approving of us or disapproving of us, approving of others or disapproving of them.

There was a grand fixation upon mammon, upon money in our day.

For example, many people have come to the conclusion that Bud Light is unrighteous because their stock value went down.

You follow me? Others fixate upon wealth as a signal of something being wrong.

Too much mammon means wickedness. Too much mammon, too much money, too much wealth means obviously something is wrong with them.

They're the enemy of all that is good and right. You know, when

Jesus said to His listeners in the Sermon on the

Mount, Matthew 6, when He said to them, No man can serve two masters.

Either he will hate the one and love the other or else he will despise the one and cling to the other. You cannot serve

God and mammon. When He said that to His listeners, it comes into the context of Him talking to those who were hand -to -mouth subsistence farmers.

Those who were hoping to catch a fish that day so that they could live to the next day without hunger.

Those who had one change of clothes and it was wearing out and what am I going to do to stay warm?

And what if my hovel falls in on me? How will I find shelter? He was not talking to those who were full of wealth in their life, full of mammon.

But boy, were they fixated on it. He wasn't talking to those who had mammon.

He was talking to those who were had by it. Those who were full of anxiety about it, focusing on it.

The solution to the dangers of materialism, the dangers of being focused upon mammon, upon wealth, is not to play the fool in Martin Luther's illustration, the drunk on the donkey who falls off one side and gets on and compensates and falls off the other side and can't stay on the horse.

It's not one of, I've got to have all the money I can. It's not, I've got to get rid of all the money

I have. God made money from the beginning.

Filled the land with gold and precious stones and said to Adam, you be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, subdue it.

That included the money. That included the gold. That included the precious stones, which was good for nothing but trading as they multiplied and filled the earth.

So what do you do with it? You master it. You use it for what? You're made in the image of God. You use it for the glory of God.

You should not master you so that you do everything you can to obtain it and keep it, like Silas Mariner, the miser.

You should not do anything you can do to get rid of it so that you can pretend to be holy because you have less than others.

That's still being had by mammon, focused upon mammon. It's important for us to think about what the

Bible says about mammon in general and our responsibility to have righteous control over it because when we come to this text, this is not the first time that a money issue has arisen in the life of the church.

The church, the new covenant temple, those who are filled with the

Holy Spirit, is not to have no relationship to mammon, but the right relationship to mammon.

The new covenant temple is not to be defined by mammon, but it is to understand mammon as defined by the

Lord, by the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus said, come follow me.

He didn't say, go fund me. And in this text, we see the danger, the problem, the fact that we cannot and must not subsidize, merchandise, monetize, or economize the

Holy Spirit. Simon thought he could.

Now, there is an emphasis, as we've already looked at a couple of weeks ago, on the

Holy Spirit coming upon these believers who are born again by the ministry of the

Holy Spirit, who have been forgiven of their sins and assured of their sonship in Christ, this spirit crying out,

Abba, Father, and so forth. And yet, the Holy Spirit has not fallen upon them, has not indwelled them in a very obvious way, but that is necessarily delayed until the apostles get down there so that they can see it's

Christ's business to build the new covenant temple. He's the cornerstone. He builds the church upon the foundation of the apostles and the prophets.

These are living stones indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and he's building the new covenant temple from a quarry that includes the nations, not just Jews.

He is the propitiation, not for our sins only, but also for those of the whole world. All without distinction, the nations come to Christ.

That's an important reminder. I was reflecting on Isaiah chapter 2 this morning as I was going over my notes.

Verse 2 of Isaiah 2 says, Now it shall come to pass in the latter days, if you're following Daniel's calendar, it's the latter days of the old covenant, that the mountain of the

Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow to it.

All the nations coming up Mount Zion, the same vision as in Hebrews 12. Many people shall come and say,

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we will walk in his paths.

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father except through him. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the

Lord from Jerusalem. Christ is king. We follow what he says. He shall judge between the nations.

All the nations were given to him as an inheritance. Psalm 2. And rebuke many people. Now listen to this. They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks.

Nations shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Now again, remember, nation is not a political entity.

In the Bible, the word nation refers to a regional cultural mega family. What's happening here is that Serbs and Bosnians and Croats, those of you who lived through the 90s, heard the gospel, came trucking up Mount Zion, and are even today meeting around the

Lord's table, loving one another. Their swords and their spears are now harvest utensils.

Lift up your eyes to the harvest. It is white. It is ready.

Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. And who are they?

Those who have every historical right to be slitting each other's throats.

And yet, instead of fighting one another, hating one another, loathing one another, they're loving one another.

This only happens on Mount Zion. This passage, I know, has been used many times to speak about political peace.

But you know, there can't be any political peace without spiritual peace. There can't be any reconciliation of men and women upon this planet unless they are reconciled in Christ.

Now this vision, this promise, has come to pass in Christ. He himself is our peace,

Paul writes in Ephesians. He himself is our peace who has made both one. He's broken down the middle wall of separation.

In the old covenant temple, there was a middle wall of separation. Gentiles thus far and no further. But in the new covenant temple,

Jesus doesn't use that. He's broken that down. He's abolished in his flesh, in his own incarnation, in his own representation as our high priest, as our lamb.

He has abolished in his flesh the enmity that is the law of commandments contained in ordinances.

The old covenant has been put away so as to create in himself one new man from the two, making peace, and that he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, therefore putting to death the enmity.

And he came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near, the Gentile and the

Jew. For through him we both have access by one spirit to the

Father. Therefore you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and the members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets,

Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, new covenant temple, new Jerusalem, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the

Lord. This is the new covenant temple, built upon Christ, without a dividing wall, people from all over the place, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the

Spirit. This is why there is a delay of the

Holy Spirit coming upon the Samaritans to make this point clear, to make this point clear to everybody, that the new covenant temple is one that is built in Christ and there is no division.

We are not to continue with that division. I had an elderly woman who loved the

Lord, she loved preachers, she loved religious books, and she couldn't stop talking about the Lord.

Wonderful sister in Christ. I remember she told me one time that out of all the blessings that God had ever given her, she only had one regret, that she wasn't born a

Jew. And that's okay.

She is just as blessed in Christ. Right? That's the promise, the good news of the new covenant, just as blessed in Christ.

Now we come to the merchandising of the Holy Spirit, the magnifying of the Holy Spirit in the building of the new covenant temple.

But now we have Simon trying to merchandise the Holy Spirit. Verse 18 says,

And when Simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money, saying,

Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit. Here are the apostles in the authority of Christ laying hands on living stones and placing them into the new covenant temple.

They're doing the work that Christ called them to do. Simon sees this and he thinks,

I've got an opportunity here. Who is Simon anyway to the people of the city of Samaria?

We go back a little bit in chapter 8. We are reminded of this. Verse 9 says,

There was a certain man called Simon who previously practiced sorcery in the city and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great, to whom they all gave heed from the least of the greatest, saying,

This man is the great power of God. And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time.

But then into this darkness the light came. And Philip preaches the gospel and suddenly

Simon is out of a job. He's out of a position. He's no longer the focus of the city of Samaria.

He is no longer considered the great power of God. And who's going to pay attention to him?

And who is going to purchase his services? They don't need that now.

They don't need the witch doctor now. They've got Jesus. So what is he going to do?

Well, he's impressed with what happens with Philip. He's impressed with what happens with Peter and John.

He's enthralled with the obvious power evident in the reception of the Holy Spirit, the giving of the Holy Spirit.

He thinks he can acquire this power to bestow the Holy Spirit himself.

And all he has to do is offer the apostles money. Why? That's how he learned his other tricks, right?

He's a sorcerer. He practices witchcraft. It's alchemy.

It's how you turn deception into gold. So he has his whole bag of power and tricks.

This is just one other one that he needs to buy. He thinks he can acquire this.

But what is he saying? He thinks by using money, he can learn and employ this

Holy Spirit technique. Why? Well, it's impressive.

Look what happens. The giving of the Holy Spirit in this passage is about building the church.

The giving of the Holy Spirit in this passage is about the construction of the new covenant temple. Simon is essentially saying,

I'll give you money. You give me the technique so that I can build the church through this technique.

All I have to do is spend a little money and it'll work. And you can learn this powerful church growth secret from Simon too.

It's just $19 .95 a month. The idea that we can turn money into Holy Spirit work is a hellish idea.

We're going to see more on that in a moment. But this is a hellish racket that Simon is entertaining.

We're told that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, 1 Timothy chapter 9.

Paul says, those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare. They're fixated on mammon, fixated on money.

And into many foolish and harmful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition.

Paul's word for hell. Simon's going to use that in a moment. Simon Peter's going to use that word in a moment.

Same word. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Now, Jesus, when He said no servant can serve two masters, He said it to the people on the mountainside there.

He's given a sermon, people who were anxious, afraid. How am I going to survive from day to day, from week to week?

But He also said the same thing to those who had a lot of wealth, namely the Pharisees. Those who were also taken by money, but in a different way because they had an abundance of it.

In Luke 16, verses 13 through 15, Jesus says, No servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and mammon. Verse 14, And the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, right?

Lovers of money also heard these things, and they derided

Him. And He said to them, You are those... Now, notice how

Jesus talks to the Pharisees, right? These are stewards of the old covenant. They're all about the money.

They're all about the silver and the gold on the temple. The more silver and gold upon the temple, the better everything is. The more silver and gold in their pockets, the better everything is.

This is the blessing of God as they see it. He said to them, You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your heart.

Now, brothers and sisters, listen. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

What is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God. And He just got done talking about you can't serve

God and mammon. We live in a day and an age that has been affected by more than a generation of ideas, of theories, of bad doctrine, highly esteemed among men about how to build the church with money.

I had to slog through a lot of textbooks and seminary about that stuff. That's just another form of simony.

There are many highly esteemed ways of building the church which God hates. Let that sink in. There are many highly esteemed ways of building the church that God hates.

And one of those ways is putting a bunch of money into the church, watching the activity it stirs up, and then saying,

Oh, look how the Spirit blessed. For you economically minded, it's the

Keynesian form of building the church. Not true value, not true worth, though.

This had already been addressed by Jesus, by the way, when He went to the temple.

He visited the temple, and on the way there, oh, there's a fig tree.

Oh, look, it's full of leaves. Ah, I'm hungry. He walks over to the fig tree.

Not a fig on it. Not a fig there. No fruit at all.

A fruitless fig tree that looked like it was going to have a lot of fruit. Just leaves, though, just leaves and branches, but no fruit.

Hmm. He curses the fig tree. Be shriveled up.

Die. Be destroyed. Off to the temple. Oh, look, the temple, full of activity, hustle and bustle.

Look at all those sales going on about all those animals, the money changing, the sacrifices, all the activity on the acres of the temple grounds.

What does Jesus do? He curses the temple. Just like a fig tree full of leaves but no fruit.

They had a lot of money at that temple, which generated a lot of activity. But was the spirit there?

No. When he came back from the temple, the fig tree all shriveled up and dead.

The disciples say, what? How did that happen? And Jesus said, oh, if you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain.

What mountain were they on? Here on the temple mountain. Say to this mountain, be lifted up and cast into the sea, and it will be done.

And within a generation, that whole temple was gone. Jesus said, no, this is under judgment.

I do not approve of this. You have turned my father's house into a den of thieves. And in a like manner,

Peter curses Simon. Look at this holy rejection that happens in verse 20.

But Peter said to him, your money perish with you, because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money.

You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent, therefore, of your wickedness, and pray

God, if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you. For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.

Peter's saying, I can tell that you're jealous. I can tell that you're all shriveled up inside.

You don't have any part with Christ. You don't have any part with the Holy Spirit. You were impressed with what you saw, and so you said what everyone else said, but you don't really understand it.

You don't really believe it. You're just trying to find a way to stay relevant and powerful in your community.

Your money perish with you. The word perish that Peter uses here is the same word

Paul uses for perdition, for hell. So, Peter...

Now, the wrath of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. But there is a way to be angry and be righteously so.

Now, what Peter said to Simon was not exactly, go to hell. It was, you and your money go to hell.

I'm not making that up. It's straight out of the Greek. You and your money to perdition.

Now, he wasn't being profane. He was being holy. He didn't have the wrath of man.

He had the righteous indignation of the Lord. And he did not lie, like so many people do in their anger when they cuss and they profane.

He told the truth. He said, this whole concept, this whole idea, you trying to buy the

Holy Spirit is going to send you straight to hell. He spoke strongly rejecting this whole idea that you can use the

Holy Spirit to build... You can use the money to buy the

Holy Spirit, that you can substitute money for the Holy Spirit. You know, we have to give some thought to that.

There are many temptations where we begin to allow what we say and what we do to be directed by mammon, by money.

How costly is this going to be? Our brothers in Canada are still getting arrested, still being thrown into prison for preaching the gospel, for taking stands for Jesus Christ.

You know how much money you lose when you get arrested and thrown into jail?

It's not that you're just cut off from people. The modern incarceration system is about getting as much money as they can out of you.

What happens if the same situations come here, as every bit of the momentum indicates that it is?

We cannot be making decisions about what we say and what we do based on, well, what about the money it's going to cost us?

We still need to be thinking about the glory of Jesus Christ. We still need to be motivated by His name, by His worthiness, and building the church in the way that He called us to, even if those who are threatening us with the loss of mammon tell us not to.

Peter says, you and your money go to perdition. You and your money be destroyed.

Because you thought that the gift of God could be purchased with money. The gift of God is a description of the

Holy Spirit, the way Jesus described Him in Acts 2 .38, the way

He's described in chapter 10 and chapter 11 of Acts. This is clearly an attempt to buy the

Holy Spirit, and clearly, Simon has no portion with this at all.

Now, there's been a lot of money talk already in the book of Acts.

In Acts chapter 2, what did they do? They spent time together. They hosted one another in their homes.

If anybody had a need, they shared what they had with them. Same thing happened in chapter 4.

They did not consider the mammon in their possession their own to be isolated at all costs from everyone else, but they were very generous with one another in the name of Christ.

There was a concern about deceitfulness about money in chapter 5 with Ananias and Sapphira, which was rooted out of the church very swiftly.

There was a concern about the widows being properly cared for with the use of mammon, with the use of wealth in Acts chapter 6.

And now there is a danger of money being used as a substitute for or as the manipulation for the

Holy Spirit. So it's not a matter of no money being involved whatsoever, but it's about understanding what it is, how

God sees it, and how it's to be used in the church. God is not used by money.

He uses money. And we have to understand what that looks like.

We don't serve money, love money, bow down before it, allow it to captivate our attention, to control our anxieties.

We have a Heavenly Father who knows our needs before we even ask, and we can trust

Him. And we can seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto us.

And we can give generously, even out of our poverty, we can give generously. God loves a cheerful giver, and He will always supply our needs.

And we are always to do well in being generous and compassionate to one another, especially to those who are the household of the faith.

Those who belong to Christ have inherited a hundredfold of family and lands and homes and wealth, as we are always ready to give to one another all that we need.

Do you need food? I have some. Do you need transportation? I will help you.

What is it that you need? My brother, my sister in Christ. This is the love and the generosity that Christians have for one another.

That is the right use of mammon that demonstrates the love that we are to have for one another in Christ.

He who let us love in word and in deed, right? In deed and in truth, not just by what we say, but in deed and in truth.

How can he who has this world's good, who sees his brother in need, not help him? So Peter rejects this use of money, but that's not a rejection of the use of all money.

The infusion of a lot of money can create the appearance of the Holy Spirit activity, but is there any real glory there?

It's just like a barren fig tree. We cannot hire the

Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit moves as the wind.

Nobody can say where from or where to. Nobody controls the wind. Nobody controls the Holy Spirit. He's sovereign.

You can't hire the Holy Spirit. All the wealth of the world cannot make one saint.

Money does not bring about the new birth. There was an evangelistic fundraising letter that got sent out by a notorious

Oklahoma evangelist about a generation ago, and he guaranteed a new conversion for every,

I don't know, $7 .68. It's probably more now with inflation, but you cannot turn money into conversions.

The dove of heaven does not fly on the winds of hell. Simon thought he could do that, and Peter said no.

Notice what happens. Peter speaks directly. He speaks in a holy way.

I imagine that he might have raised his voice, but I don't think that he was sinful in his anger.

He addresses Simon of Samaria because he needs to know how wrong he is.

This man is in danger of hell, and he is in danger of saying awful things and teaching very bad things as a person of influence there in the city of Samaria.

And so Simon Peter rebukes him very strongly and says, you need to pray to God that He will forgive you of your sins.

He tells him to repent, to change the way he is thinking, to abandon his bitterness and his iniquity.

And then Simon of Samaria, Simon the magician, verse 24, answered and said, pray to the

Lord for me that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me, which leaves me somewhat dissatisfied.

Simon the magician looks upon Simon Peter, and he sees him as a holy man, a man of authority who has got rebuked by this holy man, a man of powerful preaching.

Repent, therefore, of your wickedness. You pray to God. You pray to God.

You may be here today, and you have somebody who is very spiritual in your life, somebody who knows the

Bible, somebody who loves Jesus, and you are just sticking close to them.

There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus. You pray to God.

You hold fast to Christ. You trust in Him. You look upon His life, death, and resurrection as your only hope of salvation, as your welcoming smile to the very face of God.

Don't let anybody else stand between you. There is only one mediator, and that's Jesus. And praise be to God, verse 25, when they had testified and preached the word of the

Lord, they returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many villages of the Samaritans, from the capital city to all the villages.

They preached the good news of Jesus Christ. We do not know how many came to faith in Christ, but it's okay to skip ahead and read.

I know some of you are sticklers for that. You never read ahead in whatever book you're reading, but in this case, it's okay,

Acts 9, verse 31. I just want you to hear this summary statement from Luke about how things are going.

This is so full of the grace of God.

Verse 31, then the churches... Wow, it was the church in Jerusalem.

Now look at this. Then the churches throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, three places that were always fighting with each other.

If you want to insult someone, call them a Galilean. If you really want to insult someone, call them a Samaritan. But look, the churches throughout all

Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace. Their swords and spears were now plowshares and pruning hooks.

They had peace, and they were edified, and walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the

Holy Spirit, they were multiplied. Money didn't do that.

The Holy Spirit did that. Christ did that by the power of His Spirit. When the promise in the

Old Testament came about the building of the temple, it was not by might, it was not by power, not by money, right?

But by My Spirit, says the Lord. Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank You for the time that You've given us in Your Word.

I thank You for its warnings and its encouragements. I thank

You for the exhortation. Thank You for the clarity. And I pray that You would help us to trust

You. Help us to have that right understanding of how

You would have us use the mammon that You have entrusted to us for the glory of Christ, for Your namesake.

Help us to be fixated upon our Savior, not our savings. Help us here at Sunnyside be faithful stewards of what has been entrusted as our common property.

Help us do well in sending that forth for Your namesake so that the nations will hear and turn to Christ.