Is grace free? - Acts 8:9-25 sermon | Prescott Anglican Church

Grace is free, but it is costly.

Text: Acts 8:9-25

This week's lesson is incredible. As Rev. Nninda pointed out last week, we are starting to see the Great Commission truly fulfilled. As the Christians are scattered, Phillip, one of the seven deacons, makes his way to Samaria. Samaria was Israel's estranged cousin, somehow worse than the Gentiles. At one point, John even asked if Jesus wanted to see one of their cities destroyed, yet they received the gospel.

But there was a man named Simon, a great magician; he was revered. He even accepted the gospel and was baptized. But then, seeing the power of the Holy Spirit, he wanted to be given the gift of an apostle, and the temptation was too great for him.

This passage reminds us that there may come, or has come, a time when we have to give up something valuable to us because Christ loves us. This calling may seem hard, but Christ has trampled down the demons. The gospel frees us, the gospel is free, but it is often costly.

Readable sermon manuscript:

Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, you have sent your gospel and your Word into the world to transform and change lives. It is a good gift that is sometimes hard to accept because the cost seems high. We pray that, in seeing both the cost and the gift, we would know that the cost is nothing in comparison to the goodness and glory of knowing you. Help us to enjoy this every day of our lives.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer. Amen.

Please be seated.

About fifteen or twenty years ago—it sounds like a long time ago now; I think it was before I was a deacon—I was sitting on the porch with my mentor and friend. We were chatting, and he looked at me and said, “You know, you’re really bad at accepting help.”

Because I was young and foolish, I thought that was a good thing.

It has taken me about fifteen or twenty years to figure out that, no, in fact, that was not a compliment. It was not good.

We were driving home from one of Sam’s appointments a year or two ago, and I was reflecting on this. One of the hardest things for me about having Sam has been the reality that, with Sam, we have needed all kinds of help.

The government has helped Sam. You all have helped Sam. We have needed friends and family to help us simply get through because it has been so weighty.

For me, that broke something bad within me, because I needed to accept that help.

The reason I have thought about that this week is that, so often, when we think about the gospel, we think, “What can I bring to it? What can I add to it? What can I do to earn my way into this thing?”

There is a wonderful song by The Gray Havens that has been going through my head all week. It uses the image of a train station as a metaphor for Matthew’s Gospel account and for the reality of grace.

In this train station, there are conductors shouting for everyone to buy their tickets and save their souls. But one conductor says, “You come follow me. I’ll buy your tickets.” He knows what they cost, pays what is owed, and tells them that without this train they will be lost.

The song reflects upon this tension: our desire to buy grace and to make grace something we have obtained on our own, when in reality it is this incredible and amazing gift that we have been given.

Last week was a hinge in the account of Acts. If you were here—or even if you missed last week and have been reading along, which is a good thing to do—we suddenly saw something happen.

Two weeks ago, the Church was pushed out of Jerusalem. They went into Judea and Samaria. Suddenly Philip, one of the deacons, was in Samaria preaching, performing great works, and proclaiming Christ. Unclean spirits were coming out, and the city was filled with joy because of the goodness of what God was doing in that place.

That paints a broad picture. What we read this morning is a continuation of it, looking at one very specific situation.

This morning, we turn from the broad picture of what God is doing in Samaria to what God is doing specifically with a man named Simon.

I rather like the idea of calling him Simon the Amazing.

As I read, studied, and thought through this passage, I began to feel like Simon was probably something like the stereotypical high-school football player—probably the quarterback. He is super popular. Everybody likes him. He is really cool, and he can do some amazing things.

I do not really understand football, but quarterbacks are pretty amazing. They do not usually get tackled either.

Anyway, I digress.

Simon is also full of himself. Did you notice that? He is capable of these amazing things, and it is easy for us in the twenty-first century to think, “He must be doing sleight of hand, like those people on television or someone on a street corner doing clever magic tricks.”

But if we read this passage carefully, it seems that he was really doing something. Justin Martyr, the early Church father and martyr, thought that Simon was probably empowered by a demon. If we read this in the context of everything happening in this passage, that is probably the right reading.

Simon can do these amazing things because he has sold himself out to a demon.

Everybody is amazed by him, and Simon also thinks he is great. If we do not read that first verse carefully—Simon “said that he himself was somebody great”—we miss that.

He is saying, “All right, everyone, come on up. I am going to do the next really cool trick.”

The Samaritans see what he is doing, and they praise him. At best, they see him as a representative of the divine. It is even possible that they glorify him in the way they ought to be glorifying God.

As we read these first few verses, we get a picture not only of Simon the Amazing—he does amazing things, he is full of himself, and everyone thinks he is amazing—but also of the Samaritans.

We have probably encountered the Samaritans throughout our lives in Christ. They are like Israel’s cousin whom Israel does not particularly like—the cousin who drinks and cusses and does things that make everyone uncomfortable. When the family is deciding whom to invite for Christmas, everyone says, “We are not going to invite them.”

There is a reason for this. They had given themselves to intermarriage. They had adopted these superstitions. They looked at Simon and said, “I am going to worship this man because he is amazing.”

They worshipped false gods, and they also threw Yahweh into the mix, because why not? Let us worship all the gods, because perhaps one of them will get it right.

They were a mess.

We can see why the Israelites said, “These people are unclean. We are going to stay as far away from them as possible.”

But then something happens:

“They believed Philip as he preached the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ. They were baptized, both men and women.”

Philip goes beyond what Simon is doing. Simon is doing these impressive things that look amazing. Philip is doing some interesting things as well, but, more importantly, he is preaching the good news of Christ.

He is preaching that the kingdom of God has come among them.

The people believe and are baptized.

Two incredible things happen here.

First, the Samaritans are baptized. Your crazy cousins—the people you normally keep at a little distance—are baptized.

Second, both men and women are baptized into the covenant.

We see the Great Commission beginning to be fulfilled. They are going out into the world. They are only just at the edge of the world, but they are going out. They are preaching, making disciples, and baptizing them.

The Great Commission is beginning to be fulfilled. That is exciting. It is good. It is amazing.

But we have seen this language before in Acts: men and women were baptized. Samaritan men and women were baptized.

For the first time, the sign of the covenant is not given only to men. It is given to all people who believe.

That is incredible.

As we think about this, we have to bear something in mind. We are going to see it appear even more dramatically in a few moments.

The gospel is not just for you and me.

The gospel is not only for our neighbors who look like us and think like us. The gospel is for them.

You know who they are.

Who they are for me is probably not who they are for you. But the gospel is for those people you do not like. The gospel is for the people you really do not want to invite over for Christmas.

The gospel is for them.

We see that reality breaking open here. The first people to receive the gospel beyond Jerusalem are the Samaritans.

That is amazing, and it is shocking.

As we read on, even Simon believes and is baptized. Then something really interesting happens: he continues with Philip.

That is an interesting way to put it. A very literal way of understanding it is that Simon attached himself to Philip.

I do not know whether I am working through something from high school, but I keep thinking of high-school analogies. Perhaps you had a friend in high school who did not pick up on social clues and was always saying, “Hey, how are you doing? I am here! I am here!”

The person never quite realized that you were thinking, “I do not really want you here right now, but apparently you are still here.”

That is what Simon does with Philip.

He is there because what he has seen has amazed him.

Someone in Bible study put it perfectly:

The amazer becomes amazed.

The amazer has become amazed. There is now something even more amazing than what Simon sees within himself. That, in and of itself, is amazing.

We gather every Sunday. We sing these incredible hymns. We come to the Lord’s Table. We hear God’s Word read. We hear the gospel proclaimed. We might even sing “Amazing Grace.”

But if we are honest, it is easy to forget just how amazing it is—what God is doing in us.

Even as we look at the lessons this morning, we can see that something amazing has already happened. God has broken down these walls, and the Samaritans have received him.

This sorcerer, this magician, this cool man who thinks far too much of himself, at least appears to have received him.

The prodigal son has returned home.

We read about him in the Gospel lesson. He goes out and squanders everything. He should be utterly embarrassed by what he has done.

But he returns home.

When he returns home, the father runs across the field. He does not care about propriety. He is simply so glad that his son is still alive that he runs.

Friends, that is amazing.

Never cease to be amazed.

One of the things I have noticed as we work our way through Acts is just how good a storyteller Luke is.

It is easy to miss because of the way we normally read Scripture. If you would like to try something different in your Scripture reading, print it out—or simply ignore the verse numbers—and read for an hour. Read a large section of Acts or Luke and read it as a story being told.

If you did that, you would remember that Acts is the sequel to Luke.

Luke tells a story that happened perhaps less than a year, or maybe a couple of years, before the events in this passage.

The disciples are walking with Jesus, and Jesus sends a couple of them ahead into a Samaritan village to make preparations for him. But the Samaritan people do not receive him because his face is set toward Jerusalem.

When James and John—John, remember John—see this, they say:

“Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?”

Jesus turns and rebukes them.

This was probably less than a year—perhaps a couple of years—before what is happening here.

And now what happens?

The apostles in Jerusalem hear that Samaria has received the Word of God, and they send Peter and John.

A short time ago, John was saying, “Let us destroy those awful Samaritans.”

Now he is excited, and he is going down to Samaria. He is going to a Samaritan city—perhaps not the exact same city, but a Samaritan city.

A year or two ago, he wanted to see a Samaritan city destroyed.

Now he is going to see it saved.

He is going to see the Samaritan city saved.

It is not only the Samaritans who have been changed. John has been changed. The other apostles have been changed.

There is joy and excitement because the gospel has gone into this other place—a place that was completely apostate and has now repented.

The apostles go to see what is happening.

Then something strange occurs:

“They”—John and Peter—“came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for he had not yet fallen on any of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.”

This passage is fascinating.

Normally my preparation notes are three or four pages. This week I think they were eleven pages, because people are really curious about a couple of things that happen here.

One question is this: Why in the world do the apostles have to come down and pray for the Holy Spirit?

Is this supposed to be normative? Is this how it is always supposed to happen?

The first time we see non-Jews baptized, the apostles have to go to them and pray that they would receive the Holy Spirit.

A great deal of ink has been spilled over this question.

The really interesting thing is that two groups of Christians who are on opposite ends of the spectrum from each other—at least in comparison with one another—read this passage in roughly the same way: Pentecostals and Roman Catholics.

They both say, in one form or another, that this is the normative approach to life in Christ: You are baptized, and then prayer is offered for you to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Normally, I do not like to say, “I strongly disagree with this group,” but I strongly disagree with those groups here because what is happening in this passage is so much better.

What is happening is a picture of continuity.

The Great Commission is being fulfilled. The Church is going out into the world. They are making disciples and baptizing them.

The apostles come down to demonstrate that there is continuity between the Church in Jerusalem and the Church in Samaria.

They go down so that there can be no question whatsoever—in the reader’s mind or in the minds of those who witnessed it—that the Samaritan Church and the Jerusalem Church are one.

Then the real controversy happens.

Simon gets a bright idea—perhaps not quite so bright.

“Simon saw that the Spirit was given through the laying on of the apostles’ hands and offered them money, saying, ‘Give me this power also, so that anyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’”

Simon has seen everything that has happened.

The amazer gets a bad idea in his head.

As we see what happens next, I hope our hearts are wrenched for Simon, because he clearly does not understand. He has clearly missed the point.

First and foremost, the Holy Spirit was given freely to the believers. The Holy Spirit has just been poured out upon them.

Simon also misses something incredibly important: this is a gift given by God.

It is not the apostles who give the Holy Spirit. It is God giving the Spirit through the apostles. The apostles are a sign that the Church is unified.

Simon misses the fact that the Spirit cannot be bought and cannot be earned.

As we sit with that reality, I hope we experience conviction.

At least as I have studied this passage this week, that has been the overwhelming conviction for me. The thing I know I have to remember is that I cannot do it myself.

I cannot pull myself up by my bootstraps.

I cannot save myself.

I cannot preach the gospel without the help of the Holy Spirit.

I cannot do this unless God is working in it.

Then we come to Peter’s response.

It may seem harsh. We might think, “Should he not simply catechize Simon? Should he not sit down and say, ‘Look, Simon, you are missing something’?”

Instead, Peter speaks of the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity. He lays a curse upon Simon.

These statements are curses drawn from the Old Testament. Those who had the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity had a bad thing coming because they had given themselves over to false gods.

Why is Peter so harsh?

If I had to choose a life in academics, I think I would study folk religion because it is so interesting. Not because I believe in folk religion in any way, shape, or form, but because the patterns of folk religion span cultures, countries, and continents.

We see the same pattern emerge all around the world.

It basically goes like this: There is a god—a local god or some powerful person—and you appease that god or powerful person. Then they leave you alone, and perhaps, if you are fortunate, they give you what you want.

You find this in Africa, India, and all over the world. It is not the same god or the same person, but it is the same pattern. That is what makes it so fascinating.

That is part of why Peter is so harsh.

We have this desire within ourselves to control God.

That is exactly what Simon wants to do. He wants to give Peter some money. He wants Peter to say, “All right, you may have this power,” so that Simon can possess the power for himself.

But the call of the gospel is to submit yourself to God.

That is what Simon misses.

He misses the fact that it is not Peter who gives the Holy Spirit. It is God.

When you encounter the passive voice in Scripture—not always, but often—it is worth stopping and asking, “Why is this passive?”

Here, the giving of the Holy Spirit is described passively because God is the one giving the Holy Spirit, not Peter.

But there is one more incredibly important thing.

The grace of the gospel is costly.

Following Christ is going to cost you something.

I do not know exactly what it will cost you.

It will certainly cost you that sin.

You know the sin—the one you do not want to give up, but desperately do; the one you keep in your back pocket while saying, “I do not want this anymore—although perhaps I kind of do.”

It will certainly cost you that.

It will probably cost you more than that.

It may cost you friendships.

It may cost you a friend you care about—a friend to whom you have told the gospel, but who continually returns with temptations, distractions, or other things. At some point, that friend may grow tired of you, and you may no longer have that friendship.

It might cost you a job.

You may look at a job and think, “That seems very interesting.” You apply for the job, but they discover that you have morals because you are following Christ, and you do not get it.

Or perhaps you are offered the job, but when you look more deeply into it, your conscience says no, and you have to turn it down.

It might cost you a relationship you hold dear—a relationship you know is embedded in sin and which you have to surrender because it does not glorify God.

Looking at Nazi Germany, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was deeply disturbed. He wrote the wonderful book The Cost of Discipleship.

One of the themes running through the book is the difference between cheap grace and costly grace.

Bonhoeffer believed cheap grace was pervasive. He describes cheap grace as forgiveness without repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession, and absolution without personal confession. It is grace without discipleship, without the cross, and without Jesus Christ living and incarnate.

Of costly grace, he writes:

“Costly grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ.”

It is costly because it costs a person his life, and it is grace because it gives a person the only true life. It condemns sin while justifying the sinner.

Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son. We were bought at a price. What cost God so much cannot be treated as cheap by us.

Cheap grace is pervasive.

It continues to weave its way in and out of the Church. It presses its way in again and again.

Instead of hearing the gospel, we want entertainment.

Instead of knowing God, we simply want to feel better about ourselves.

Cheap grace sneaks in again and again and again.

Think also about our Gospel lesson this morning.

I rather dislike the title by which we commonly know that story. A seminary professor once gave it a much better title: The Tale of the Two Lost Sons.

That is so much better.

There is the first lost son, and we know he is lost. We think, “Oh, buddy, you have another thing coming.”

But then there is the older son. He approaches his father and says, “This son of yours—how dare you?”

For the older son, grace was costly.

Grace cost him a great deal.

He had to give up his pride. He had to deny himself and love his brother again—the brother whom he had watched squander his father’s gifts.

Grace is costly.

The grace and the gift that you and I have received are incredible.

This life we have in Christ is incredible.

It is free, but it is costly.

It requires repentance, and there may come a day when it requires more.

That is good.

We are now reaching the end.

Simon answers:

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

This is another question that fills pages in commentaries: Does Simon really repent?

Remember what I said about Luke. He is a fantastic storyteller.

I do not know.

One objection people often raise is that Simon asks Peter to pray for him. I do not think that is necessarily bad. Sometimes, when you realize the depth and breadth of your sin, it is good to sit with someone and let that person pray for you.

But Simon also has to be drawn out of that and into his own prayer.

The real problem is that Simon does not seem actually to repent of what he has done. Instead, he seems merely to want to avoid the punishment—to avoid the consequences.

That is the problem commentators point out.

But I think Luke is intentionally vague about what happens to Simon because he wants you to ask yourself a question as you read today:

Is God asking you to give up something precious but sinful?

And if he is, will you?

At the very end, there is something light, wonderful, and encouraging.

We end with the apostles going from town to town, preaching the gospel.

God, through Christ, has trampled down demons.

Neither the demons nor Simon’s unbelief can stop the movement of the gospel.

That is incredible, because the gospel is amazing.

It breaks down barriers.

The unredeemed are redeemed.

The unclean are cleansed.

But the gospel is not cheap.

It will cost you something.

Knowing how incredible the gospel is, is it not so much better than whatever it might cost you?

Do you know that Christ is far, far better than whatever you have left behind?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.