Sunday, February 2, 2025 AM

Acts 19 and the Church’s Distinction From the World

Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day that you have made, that you have arranged, that you have planned, that you have filled, that you govern, that you give. Thank you that we're here. Thank you that we're able to love one another by your grace.

I thank you that we're here to worship you as you have been revealed to us by your Son, Jesus Christ, through your Spirit in your Word. I thank you that we have hope. We have hope in our great Savior that you have shown to us our great need and you have given to us your great Son, Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior.

I pray that you would help us this morning as we read your Word together, that we would rejoice in its truth. You would find it clarifying. You would find it challenging and transforming. You would have your way in us.

We pray for these mercies in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, the one with whom you are well pleased. Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts 19. We're going to be reading verses 8 through 20 this morning, Acts 19 verses 8 through 20.

How often do we see the saints in the book of Acts separating for the good of the gospel? How often do we see them repeatedly and increasingly distinguished from both the religious Jew and the pagan Gentile?

They become more and more unique and distinct, identifiable, whether they are in Jerusalem or in Antioch or in the cities of Galatia, the cities of Macedonia, Achaia, or Asia. That only increases as we move through the book of Acts.

And how often do we see, in the midst of that distinction and that separation, the saints confronting and exposing false believers and false teachers? We remember the deceitful greed of Ananias and Sapphira coming to the attention of all the church and all those who dwelt in Jerusalem.

We remember the witchcraft of Simon Magus and Elymas the sorcerer being opposed, exposed, and these men humbled. How often do we see the saints in the book of Acts making sacrifices for the sake of the kingdom?

They sold their property to support their widows and their poor. They gave up their homes and their lands and their freedoms and their lives for the sake of the gospel. And so in our passage, we have all those things again.

We have the needful separation as Paul withdraws the saints from the synagogue. We see the exposure of evil, the apologetic against witchcraft also in our text. And we see sacrificial acts and turning to Christ, giving up on and giving away and letting loose of that which is no longer needed.

The Gospel’s Separation, Exposing Evil, and Sacrificial Witness

So I invite you to stand with me as we read our text again, Acts 19, beginning in verse 8 through verse 20. This is the word of the Lord. And He went into the synagogue and spoke boldly for three months, reasoning and persuading concerning the things of the kingdom of God.

But when some were hardened and did not believe but spoke evil of the way before the multitude, He departed from them and withdrew the disciples, reasoning daily in the school of Tyrannus. And this continued for two years, so that all who dwelt in Asia heard the word of the Lord Jesus, both Jews and Greeks.

Now, God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists took it upon themselves to call the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, we exorcise you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.

Also there were seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, who did so. And the evil spirit answered and said, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? Then the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, overpowered them, and prevailed against them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded.

This became known to all Jews and Greeks dwelling in Ephesus, and fear fell on them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was magnified. And many who had believed came confessing and telling their deeds.

Also many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all, and they counted up the value of them, and it totaled 50 ,000 pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord grew mightily and prevailed.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. In his definitive work entitled simply Apology, meaning a defense, Tertullian in 197 AD, so a while back, Tertullian addressed the Roman authorities, and specifically addressed the emperor of Rome and the Roman senate, and he was aiming to defend Christianity and argue against the unjust treatment of Christians by the Roman government.

And so Tertullian sought to demonstrate that these accusations against Christians were unfounded, and in fact the faith of Christians was the salt of the empire. To attack Christians was really to shoot oneself in the foot, cut yourself off at the knees.

So Tertullian has this quote that we have in the front of our bulletins. He says to these Roman authorities, we are of yesterday, and already we fill the world and all your places, the cities, the islands, the towns, the municipalities, the councils, the very army camps, the tribunals, the assemblies, the palace, the senate, the forum.

We have left you only your temples. Why did they leave them in the temples? Because they didn't need that false gospel proclaimed from those temples. They didn't need those so-called cures coming out of those temples.

They didn't need that so-called power and help being advertised by those temples. They had a Savior, and we have a Savior. Hallelujah, what a Savior we have. And they didn't need the temples, and they had no need to syncretize with the temples and adopt the temples and try to infiltrate the temples and merge their Christian faith with the temples.

No need. We have left you only your temples. Magnifying Christ in this world includes both our separation from it unto Christ, also our labor in it to bring about its surrender to Christ. Something some of us will be doing this Tuesday down at the State Capitol, Abolition Day.

We're gathering together as Christians to say, we belong to Jesus Christ, and we think everybody should obey Him because He's King. That includes stop killing babies, right? There is a separation unto Christ while at the same time engaging the world and saying, you need to surrender to Jesus Christ as well.

But it is tempting as consuming subjects of the American empire to think we live in a neutral world, to think that our interactions basically amount to conducting our faith and our conversations in a centralized public park where everybody has equal space and ability to be there.

It's a neutral venue. And the great concern of some Christians is that if our conduct seems too weird or if our insistent claims seem too stark, then we will not be welcome anymore to the elevated conversation circles of this neutral debate space.

However, neutrality is a myth. We don't live in a neutral world, and it's actually dangerous to think so. We live in God's world. God made the world. He didn't make it neutral. He didn't say on the sixth day after He created all things, say, very neutral.

He said, very good. This is very good. We live in God's world. He's the one who made it. He's the one who designed it. He's the one who sets the standards. We don't live in a neutral world. We live in God's world where Jesus Christ reigns.

We don't all submit to Him. He will reign from the right hand of the Father till all of His enemies are made a footstool for His feet, Psalm 110, 1 Corinthians 15. And yet we do not yet see all in subjection to Him, Hebrews chapter 2.

Many rebel, many resist, many rage against Him, Psalm 2. What is our business but to strive to magnify Him as we gather together in separation to Christ and as we go forth to proclaim His glory to the world around us, to magnify Him?

The claims of Christ are too vast and too high and too important to restrict to a personal belief or a private faith. So, with Christ as our wisdom, we should undertake necessary stands. We must undergo certain challenges and make certain sacrifices to magnify Christ.

I think there are three takeaways, pun intended, in this passage which honor Jesus. These are not the only ways to honor Christ, not the only ways to magnify Christ, but I think they're important. We see that there should be a separation from evil echo chambers.

When Paul saw that only evil was being spoken of by the way, by those leaders of the synagogue, and that there was no more profitability to stay with the synagogue, he withdrew the disciples and then taught them daily in the school of Tyrannus.

But also here in the main bulk of the passage in the center is this highlighting of the shame of witchcraft. We hear that a story emerges how these seven sons of Sceva tried to engage in a little bit of witchcraft and then it failed them so spectacularly that it became a story that was passed around as an opportunity to evangelize.

And then also the forsaking of wicked investments, 50 ,000 pieces of silver is not chump change. Now these are not the only ways to magnify Christ, but they do illustrate his worthiness and instruct us in his wisdom, particularly this morning.

We're going to look at verses 11 and 12. We're not going to even make it through point number two, but I sense the need to dig in here if we're going to understand the import of the rest of the passage.

There's a separation, of course, that happens in verses 8 through 10, but also we have this developing story in which the sons of Sceva are exposed, and this has great import as a story amongst the Ephesians and, indeed, in the entire area of the Roman Empire.

But this story doesn't begin with simply the sons of Sceva plying their trade and trying to bring on power names and power words like Paul and Jesus into their witchcraft repertoire. This story begins with unusual signs in verses 11 and 12, unusual miracles that highlight power and the authority of Christ in the world.

So let's think about these unusual signs in verses 11 and 12. Listen to this again, and it's okay to try to be surprised by it. Read it fresh. Think about the oddity of what is being said here in verses 11 and 12.

Now, God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them, and the evil spirits went out of them. I want us to first think about the particulars of these unusual signs and then consider the purpose of these signs.

The first particular observation is this, God does the work. God does the work. It wasn't Paul. It was God. It wasn't those carrying around the handkerchiefs and the aprons. It was God. It wasn't those who touched the handkerchiefs and the aprons that did the work.

It was God who did the work. God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul. This word unusual has the idea of exceptional, has the idea of masterful, has the idea of elevated and eye-catching. These were masterful bullseye miracles.

God is doing barn burner miracles through Paul. Can't turn away, can't turn a blind eye. Everyone just stares at what's happening in shock and awe. They were so unusual. Now, notice also this was by the hands of Paul.

There was no mistake that somehow Paul was connected, even though he was not the source of these miracles. He was an agent. He was a means. He was connected to these unusual miracles so that when the sick were healed and the demon possessed delivered by the power of God, by the means of touching the handkerchiefs and aprons of Paul, they would be told who it was that these articles of laundry belonged to.

Oh, Paul, the one down at the school of Tyrannus who is preaching daily about the gospel of Jesus Christ. That Paul. That Paul. So there's a focus being brought to Paul and attention of those who dwelt in Ephesus who were in great need and many who had been under great deception.

Their attention is being drawn away from the usual solutions to their sicknesses, the usual solutions to their demon possession, and their attention is being brought towards this guy Paul preaching the gospel.

How did I just get healed? How did I just get delivered from this demon? It was because the power of the God whom this Paul preaches. And that's important because Paul is an apostle. Paul is God's chosen servant to preach the gospel, an apostle that Paul says who is enslaved to Christ.

Paul says, I am the slave of Christ to do what? He's working and laboring, laying the foundation of the church. Jesus Christ, the cornerstone, the apostles and the prophets keyed into Christ the foundation of the church.

And now, these handkerchiefs and aprons. Another way to understand these handkerchiefs is some of you have handkerchiefs that fit in the pocket and that's all they ever do. They're just there. They're not for use.

They're for looks, not those handkerchiefs. Some of you have handkerchiefs that come out the back pocket when it's time to blow the nose, an old-fashioned honk will follow undoubtedly. And there goes back in the pocket to be laundered later.

Some of you who have been out in the heat of the day, plying your trade with dirt and sweat, a mix upon your head and face, have a handkerchief that wipes off the sweat and the mud from your face. That's this kind of handkerchief, right?

Now, what about these aprons? This is not the pink frilly apron with the lace that never gets used, just hangs in the kitchen to remind everyone that cooking is done here. This is not even the apron that is actually worn during a heavy cooking day when the bacon is frying.

This is the work apron, the carpenter's apron, the tent maker's apron. Remember that Aquila and Priscilla are still here in Ephesus. Paul has come back to Ephesus and rolls up the sleeves, gets back to work to help to support his preaching habit.

He is laboring tent making here with Aquila and Priscilla. He is not in the school of Tyrannus from eight in the morning to eight at night. He is teaching there daily, but for the rest of the time he is not making himself a burden to those around him, and he is laboring, and he is working, and he is sweating, and he's getting filthy, and he's getting dirty, and his handkerchiefs are running out of usefulness because they're so dirty, and his apron is getting smudges and messed up all over, and it's time to do laundry.

I don't know who's doing his laundry. I don't know if it's Priscilla or one of her friends or somebody in the church, but somebody takes Paul's laundry down to the river to give it a good clean, and somehow, someway, in God's providence, somebody who was sick touches the sweat rags of Paul and the work apron of Paul, and they are healed.

They try it again. Somebody else is healed. They try it again. Some demon-possessed person gets delivered, and it just keeps on happening, and happening, and happening, and I think it's hilarious that Paul is trying to make these tents, and he's like, where's my handkerchiefs?

Where's my apron? I can't get anything done around here. Where's my stuff? It's being spread all over Ephesus as the sick are being healed and the demon-possessed are being delivered. Now, that is not the way, that is not the Ephesian way to get healed of your sickness.

That is not the Ephesian way to get delivered from demon possession. Now, Crete was known for Cretans, and Corinth was known to Corinthianize, but Ephesus was known for witchcraft. Ephesus was the capital of magic in the ancient Near East.

That's what Ephesus was known for. If you needed a magic totem, if you needed some special ritual done for you, if you needed an incantation full of secret power words declared over you that you might be healed of an ailment or delivered from demon possession, Ephesus was the place to go.

Ephesus was to witchcraft what Bentonville, Arkansas is to Walmart. Ephesus was for witchcraft what Hot Topic is for goths. Ephesus is for magic and witchcraft what the public university is for the radical fundamentalist left.

In other words, Ephesus defined what magic was. If you don't want to know what magic was, you went to Ephesus to find out. That was the headquarters. If you wanted to purchase something that was magical and it had been infused with power by witchcraft, you wanted to buy something that would help you, you would go to Ephesus to buy it, or it would be exported from Ephesus and sold.

Oh, this is quality Ephesian totems. If you wanted to be a part of the development of new magic, the frontiers of witchcraft and all the new things that were being developed, you went to Ephesus because that's where you would learn about it.

That is Ephesus. And in Ephesian witchcraft, the way that you would get healed from a sickness or delivered from demon possession is that you would probably have to pay through the nose, pay a whole lot of money to gain access to Ephesian totems of power, rituals of healing, incantations of deliverance, all about power words.

In the ancient Near East, there were the famous six Ephesian letters, actually were Ephesian words, were words from Ephesus that were nonsense words, but they were worn and spoken as charms and superstitious helps.

There was a famous story that circulated to give credence to the Ephesian power about these six Ephesian letters. There was a story of a wrestler who went to the Macedonian games, and he was beating a much better opponent, had no business winning this match, and it was discovered by his opponent that this Ephesian wrestler was wearing an anklet with the six Ephesian letters on them.

And then when the officials found out, that was an unfair advantage, and they took away his anklet, and that Ephesian wrestler proceeded to lose three matches in a row. Famous story that spread all over the place to try to show the authenticity of Ephesian power, Ephesian magic.

Well, the risen Lord Jesus Christ is going to provide a story for His saints to spread around about how all of that is a bunch of bunk. But it begins not with the sons of Sceva, it begins with the sweat rags of Paul.

The sweat rags of Paul are important. Now, how do we understand that? First of all, the purpose here is to deny the power of witchcraft. In what way? These rags, these work aprons, are not specialized totems that cost a lot of money made of ivory and other precious metals.

These are not scripts being read with power words in their proper order to get it just right. These are not even rituals that you have to go through in order to get your deliverance. They're just sweat rags.

They're just dirty laundry that people are touching, and they're being healed, and they're being delivered. This is undercutting everything that makes Ephesian magic magical. God, I think, here is laughing.

I think He's laughing at the absurdities that go on in Ephesus. His purpose here is that God is showing that the wisdom of the world is foolishness. And, in fact, He is delivering, and He is being merciful.

He is being compassionate. There are people who are genuinely sick and genuinely demon-possessed, and they're being healed, and they're being delivered. And the people who are living in this dark, satanic city with the demon-infested populace are caught up in the sorcery and the witchcraft, the pharmakia and the peri-aragon of witchcraft.

And why are they so into this? Why are they putting things together that have no business being together? Why are they inventing new words that shouldn't exist? And why are they casting about for this power and that power?

They were sick. Or, my daughter is sick, or my father is on his deathbed, or my friend is demon-possessed, and they are looking for solutions. And the cure turns out to be far worse than the disease.

They're inviting demonic power to help them. A good definition for witchcraft is demonic appropriation of alternative or alternate authority, demonic appropriation of alternate authority. That's witchcraft in a nutshell.

And so they're saying, we've got to find a power here that will heal us and deliver us. And so they go to the illegitimate satanic powers that are being sold and brokered in Ephesus, that God is delivering people.

He's saving them, curing them, helping them, and doing so in such a way that the name of Paul is being cast about wherever these articles of his laundry are showing up, and so that people know where to go to hear some gospel preaching.

They know where to go. They can go to the school of Tyrannus and hear the gospel preached every single day. Remember, Moses was commissioned with unusual signs to confront Pharaoh. Let my people go. Deliver people from slavery.

And so Paul and the other apostles are commissioned with unusual signs to declare the word of the Lord for the setting free of the saints from the clutches of sin and Satan. Now, the same point that is made about Paul is made about the other apostles and Peter.

Remember Peter in Acts 5, Peter in Acts 5, passing through the midst of the sick and his shadow, when it passes over them, the people are healed. Acts 5 verses 12 through 16. And so the people were beginning to bring from the surrounding cities, were bringing the sick and the demon possessed from the surrounding towns and villages into Jerusalem, but they weren't going to the Jewish healers.

They weren't going to the temple. They weren't there to do expensive sacrifices and pay all the temple taxes so that they could be healed and delivered. They were going to the apostles. They were going to the church.

And in the name of Jesus Christ, they were being healed and being delivered. And Luke is ever so clear here. God is the one who did the work by the hands of Paul, by the agency of Paul. But Paul's hand in the matter was that he got his rags sweaty and his aprons dirty, and that his name was out there and he was preaching daily in the school of Tyrannus.

And through this, God was healing and delivering and saving by the preaching of the gospel. Ultimately, this is to delegitimize the witchcraft going on in the city of Ephesus. The healing of sickness, that's why the Ephesians are searching out demons.

They want the healing of sickness, the solving of their problems. And they were going there, and then they get demon-possessed. And what's a good cure for getting rid of your demon possession? Ah, the Ephesian marketers have something else for you.

Call on these demons to be delivered from these demons. Right? And so, when God brings deliverance, when God brings healing by sweat rags and work aprons, He is doing so by a manner that makes a mockery of the intricately developed, highly costly, and spiritually devastating praxis that was the fame of Ephesus in the ancient world.

And you just have to imagine how many times did Paul's sweat rags and dirty aprons show up in the hands of a brother or a sister in Christ to somebody's needy front door? The man says to his neighbor, here, here, touch this.

It's Paul's sweat rags. The lady says to her sister's daughter, her niece, have a touch of this. This will get rid of the demon. Why? The man that these things belong to, he's the one who preaches Jesus of Nazareth as the risen Christ, the son of the living God, and he's the real Savior.

And all the confusion that follows for these people who know the ways of Ephesus, who have lived in Ephesus, the stuttering of the heart, the clumsiness of the words, what do I have to pay? Right? What do I have to pay?

What ritual do I have to perform? What secret words do I have to learn and recite in order? But what totem do I have to now wear to gain the deliverance? None of it. You remember when Jesus looked upon the paralyzed man who was let down through the roof of the house?

He looked upon that man's faith and the faith of his friends, and he says to the paralyzed man, your sins are forgiven you. Your sins are forgiven you. And then he healed the man so that he got up and walked.

Both acts were offensive to the Jewish religious leaders who maintained a chokehold on both the notion of forgiveness and the economics of deliverance. Not only did they think Jesus was bad for doctrine, they thought he was bad for business.

But Jesus is an everyday, every way Savior. And the truth of the matter is, any deliverance from diseases or demons pales in comparison to Brother Ken was reminding us of deliverance from death, salvation from sin.

And of course, the healing and deliverance points to this reality that Jesus Christ is Savior. He's the real Savior. Hallelujah. What a Savior. And what totem must you wear? Do you have to wear a crucifix?

Do you have to smear something on your head? What totem must you wear for this deliverance and this salvation? None at all. None at all. Be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone. And what special prayer must you repeat?

Do you have to? How many Hail Marys do you have to repeat? How many Pater Nosters do you have to say the sinner's prayer? How many special prayers must you repeat? None at all. Do you know yourself to be a great sinner and do you know Jesus Christ as a great Savior?

Call upon him and be saved. And what ritual must you perform? What ritual must you perform? Must you go eat the wafer and drink the wine that the priest has said the hocus pocus over and said that this is the body of Christ and the blood of Christ?

Must you be baptized in order to be saved? Must you walk an aisle before you can be saved? What ritual must you perform? None at all. No ritual at all because the night has passed, the shadows are no more.

Behold the light of Christ and rejoice in the face of God. And what cost must you pay? Do you have to give tithes? Do you have to give offerings? Must you do penance according to the prescription of a priest?

Or do penance because our current priests and priestesses tell us that we're white? Do we have to pay a personal cost in order to be saved? What cost must you pay? None at all because Jesus Christ has paid the price in his own blood.

He has suffered the full penalty of transgression and sin. He has satisfied the holy wrath of God Almighty in your place and for your sake. Salvation is of grace. It's of grace and that's why it is always by definition surprising.

Salvation time and again a surprising theme in the scriptures. A child to a barren couple in old age that brings laughter. A prisoner made a prince having solved the king's perplexity, plundering the powerfully plagued, skipping through the sundered sea, manna from heaven, water from a rock, Canaan's conquest by a bunch of hobos, Israel's dominion by the shepherd boy, the outlaw David, the preservation of the Jews by the beauty queen Esther.

So are we really surprised? I think we still are. When the virgin conceived babe in swaddling cloths grows up and dies as the Lamb of God on the cross and is raised the third day to reign ascended from heaven and heals Ephesian demoniacs by Paul's sweat rags.

It is surprising, isn't it? Because salvation is of grace and they called upon the name of the Lord and they were saved. Hallelujah, what a Savior. Why here in Ephesus? Why here in Ephesus? Because the same thing on the Isle of Cyprus.

Remember that Paul with Barnabas and at that point still John Mark on the Isle of Cyprus came to the Roman procouncil and Paul began to preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ to this Roman procouncil who had relatives up in Galatia where they ended up going next.

And as Paul is preaching to this Roman procouncil, there is an advisor on his staff who's right there and tries to interfere, shut it down, doesn't want the gospel being spoken in this public place. His name was Elymas the sorcerer.

And an unusual sign took place in which Elymas the sorcerer was shut down, blinded, and had to be led away in humility. Remember what happened when Philip the evangelist went down to Samaria and he was preaching the gospel and there were unusual signs that attended his preaching of the gospel.

What else was going on in Samaria before he showed up? There was another magician, Magus, Simon Magus, who was there and the people thought he was a really big deal and they saw him do all kinds of powerful wonders by probably demonic means and they thought he had the truth and he had the power.

But when Philip showed up, and Philip's not even an apostle, he's just a deacon and an evangelist, and he's down there preaching the gospel in Samaria and many unusual signs were being done before these Samaritans, and they turned away from Simon Magus and they turned to the preaching of the gospel and said, you're saying that the risen Lord Jesus Christ is behind all these wondrous works of power, the healing of the sick, and the deliverance of the demon-possessed?

Philip says, yes, this is what kind of a savior he is, and even Simon Magus is saying, how are you doing that? So there's a really important reason why unusual signs are being done here in Ephesus, the capital of witchcraft, the capital of magic in the Roman Empire.

Unusual miracles are lighting up the gospel of Jesus Christ, directing attention away from the false teachers, where we see in Ephesus, in this passage, two streams of false spiritualism converging, that of Jewish exorcists and the pagan witchcraft merging here in Ephesus.

So, of course, it makes sense that unusual signs are being done here, so that attention will be taken away from them and put upon the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So how are we to think about these unusual signs in this context?

First of all, we should magnify Christ by exposing the pride, indeed the shame, of superstition and witchcraft. We should not marry it with Christian themes and words and doctrines. We think ourselves so sophisticated that we can't be fooled or led along by superstition or paganism or witchcraft.

But, in fact, we are often tempted to put the power of God into a system, to restrict the idea of salvation to an incantation, to put the idea of worship into a form that can be repeated, and if we can just get the formula right, it happens that way every single time.

That's all superstition. That's not truth. We have a Savior, but He is not a fool whom we can manipulate using the same manipulation every single time. He's not a force that we can mechanize. Be careful, be cautious of those who always insist, who insist that the unusual miracles of the last days of the Old Covenant must be the usual miracles of our day.

The unusual miracles of the last days of the Old Covenant happened in concert with the laying of the foundation of the Church, the apostles and the prophets, with Christ as the cornerstone. Do you know what happens when someone insists that the unusual miracles of the last days of the Old Covenant be done all the time today?

Those folks lay new foundations, and they are not the gospel of Jesus Christ. They are something odd and strange and plain foolish. We don't need another foundation. We've got a great foundation. We don't need those unusual miracles of the last day of the Old Covenant in our day.

Also, I would say be careful, be cautious of those who always connect sickness with demon possession or some particular sin. How often do we find Jesus Christ correcting His disciples on this case? How often did Jesus heal someone, never casting out a demon?

How often did He cast out a demon, but not healing someone from being lame or leprous or so on? How often did His disciples think that, you know, there's something wrong with this person, they're sick because they deserve it?

You know, Job's friends. And Jesus says, no, not because of their parents' sin, not because of their sin, but for the glory of God and God's sovereignty. This weakness will showcase the strength of God.

So be careful about that. And let us rejoice in bringing forth the power of the gospel in the person of Jesus Christ, not in the self. We're not here to talk about ourselves and our experiences and all the wonderful things that happened to me.

Therefore, you should be wonderful like me or halfway there because I'm so wonderful and I've had these experiences with Jesus. You should do the same thing as I do if you're going to know Jesus well.

Paul was not about Paul, but about Christ. We do not magnify Christ by syncretizing His name into superstitions and syncretizing His gospel into witchcraft. We magnify Christ by exposing the shame of all of that.

The Usual Miracles of Christ and the Folly of Superstition

Now, the fact that there are unusual miracles reminds us that there is the usual kind. I think these are probably far more quiet. They don't accompany the loud clamoring of foundation work, but are present with the building up of the new covenant temple where not a chisel nor hammer is heard.

So perfectly does Christ build His temple with the new covenant living stones. We don't need new foundation. We don't need unusual miracles, clearing new land, felling trees, busting rocks. We do need a Savior.

We do have a Savior. He's an everyday, every way Savior, and He answers prayer. And so we have the usual miracles. How often are our sick healed by Christ, the great physician? How often are our beloved kept from dying?

Because He is the Lord of life and holds the keys of death and Hades in His hand. How often are our travels kept safe because of Christ? How often are our pantries filled by the Good Shepherd? How often are our hearts comforted and our souls granted wisdom and our spirits filled with joy?

How often are our crops and herds given rain and our enemies turned back and the wicked displaced and tyranny pushed down and missionaries kept free and kept true and kept alive? How often are sinners saved from hell?

The usual miracles, the usual ones, and in these we give thanks. And I think that by giving thanks for the usual miracles will not be so focused on the unusual ones that had their place in time and impact.

Let us magnify Christ by thanking Him for the usual miracles. Let's close in prayer. Father, I thank You for the time we've had in Your Word. I pray that it has been a pleasing thing to You. Thank You for showing the folly of the world that we would not be tempted, that we can laugh along with You at the folly that has no business in our affections.

And thank You for giving us salvation so gracious, so free, so surprising, so full. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.