There was man named Simon who was a sorcerer or magician in Samaria. People thought he was great and he thought he was great. But then Phillip comes along, a nobody really, and he preaches the good news and also did many signs and miracles. And in Acts chapter 8 it says after seeing all this, even Simon believed and was baptized, and continued to travel around with Phillip after he saw what was happening. Was Simon the sorcerer a believer here? It says he believed, he was baptized, and he followed Phillip around.
The Apostles heard about all this stuff that was happening in Samaria so they sent Peter and John (the Big Guns) to check it out and pray that these new believers would receive the Holy Spirit. That seems kind of odd doesn’t it? But it appears at this early stage God wanted to assure the Samaritans and later, other Gentiles that they were truly part of the covenant and full members of the church by having the Apostles who they would have known, come and do this. It would be like the Pope baptising you instead of your little church pastor.
Now Simon sees that when they lay their hands on these people, the Holy Spirit falls on them, and it doesn’t say he received the Holy Spirit, but he does say, please give me this power so I can make the Spirit fall on people too. I’ll even pay you to give it to me. Peter immediately rebukes him saying “may your silver perish with you, you have neither part nor followship in this matter, because your heart is not right before God, you are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity”. “Hey I was just asking”. Simon is devastated by these words and he pleads that they will pray for him that these nasty things Peter said would not happen to him.
Now let me have your attention. Let’s say a young woman brings a boy to church because her parents will not allow her to date a Non-Christian. There’s an altar call and she nudges this guy saying “here it is go up”. So he does and he looks back at her thinking great I’ll finally get to date this girl, so he gets on his knees and prays the prayer with the pastor. He gets back to her and says, “Ok can we go out now”? Well, no you need to get baptized next week at the Baptism service.
He goes Ok then can we go out? He goes and gets dunked in the water the next week, and now her parents say, OK you can date him. Would that work for you moms and dads? Is this guy a Christian just because he said he believes and got baptized? Is he really saved knowing what his motives were?
Back to Simon. He sees all this cool stuff Phillip and the Apostles are doing and sees that you have to believe this message and be baptized so he does, because he wants to be part of the cool stuff going on. Someone detects that he’s in it for the wrong reasons and does he repent? No, he asks Peter to pray that the bad stuff that is coming because of his greedy heart won’t happen to him. Is Simon a saved disciple of Christ?
“Well, we really can’t know what’s in a person’s heart, only God knows”. Really? If I am a baptized believer and I continue to cheat on my wife, go get drunk every weekend, work at a job where I am consistently dishonest to make more money. Would you say you don’t know the state of my heart? Folks regardless of what we say and do to become “Christians”, if the heart isn’t right can we have assurance of our salvation. The truth may be only myself and God know my heart completely, but if we intentionally continue in disobedience and sin, Scripture makes it pretty clear we have no part in the Kingdom.
Well, was Simon saved? I don’t think so and let me give you a little bonus, no extra charge. In the Apocryphal book the Acts of Peter, which is not scripture but seems to have a lot of accurate substantiated historical information, this story is completed, because we hear nothing more of Simon in the Bible.
Simon, after what we just heard is trying to prove himself to be a god, he levitates way up into the air. The apostle Peter prays to God to stop his flying, and he immediately falls breaking his legs "in three parts". The previously non-hostile crowd then stones him. Now gravely injured, he had some people carry him on a bed to a doctor and it says he died "while being sorely cut by two physicians (surgery)".
He said the prayer, he was baptized. The only assurance you have of your salvation is the knowledge that your heart is right with God, that as you stand before him and his Word, you have nothing to worry about. You continue to confess your sins to him and have a desire to change, repent and trust him, and you see that he is faithful to forgive. If you do get worried when you come before him, or if you avoid coming before Him, why not make your relationship right with him.
Ever since I quit playing hockey I’ve been asked so many times to be a coach. It happened just a couple weeks ago when I was out skating with Emily. I have never coached any of the sports that I played seriously, and one of the reasons is the commitment it requires. The other reason is frankly, I am not a big fan of hockey, and I don’t want to coach a sport, I want to play. Maybe that’s a selfish attitude.
There is one place I do want to coach though, and that is in the church. Now a coach doesn’t play for you, but shows you how and keeps you motivated to improve and play in accordance with the rules and best practices of the sport. The ultimate goal being to be the best you can be. In many ways Jesus and the apostles were coaches, kind of like playing coaches in that they did play with, not for their teammates, but for the most part they were coaches, and I think that is really what the role of an equipping, disciple-making church is. The truth is, they even cut many players that were not playing according to the head coach’s system.
Now in any sport, or even in music, or art you need to have certain fundamentals. If you play guitar, you need to know how to hold it, in hockey you need to know how to skate, and the same is true of being a Christian disciple. You need to do some basic things in order to be a saved disciple, and today I’m going to share some of those things with you, and I’m going to share them in the order of importance I think Scripture gives them.
Now the first thing a disciple obviously has to do is get saved right? Now in some ways this is the simplest thing in that you only really have to do it once, and it’s a free gift. You don’t have to practice being saved so that you can get better at it. But in another way it is one of the most difficult things as evidenced by the majority of human beings on earth not being saved. And many who think they are saved are not.
So what does Scripture say is necessary for a person to be saved? What are the non-negotiables, the things that don’t require any interpretation? Well, as always let’s go to the source of all matters of Christian faith and practice, the Bible. And let’s not fiddle with the tricky passages, let’s just go with the plainest explanations.
Now before we do this, let me be very clear. Like with Simon, what you do does not save you, just like in itself what you know doesn’t save you. Jesus Christ saves you through his grace and atoning death on the Cross. However, we have to make a response in faith otherwise everyone would be saved automatically just by what Jesus did, the church never would have been created, and we know that’s not what the Bible teaches. So how do we have to respond to this saving grace?
Well, I want to go to Jesus first, what does he say? In John 3 he says a couple times that anyone who believes in me will have eternal life. Believing in me meaning that he is the Son of God who came as the saviour of the world, and trusting in him. In John 5 he says whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned. He also talks often about faith and how it heals (or saves), and these are the same terms: believe, have faith, trust me.
It gets real clear when we hear from Paul who’s words are every bit as inspired as the words of Jesus. How about Romans 10:9, “Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved”. Let me point out the key here, believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead. See again it’s not just about believing Jesus existed, it is believing the fact in God’s word that he died and was raised from the dead, and confessing that to someone else. Not just saying you believe it through a recited prayer so you can escape hell or date that girl, but believe it in your heart – your whole being.
In 1 Cor. 15 Paul says “By this gospel you are saved if you hold firmly to these words…. That Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried (confirming his death), that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and that he appeared to his disciples (confirming his resurrection).
Look at that, twice he says according to the Scriptures. Do you know what that means? Their Scriptures were the Old Testament, so he is saying, as the Old Testament spoke of this Messiah, you are to believe with all of your being that this Jesus who came and died and was resurrected, is the one that is spoken about in the Old Testament. And believe that with your whole heart. Now for us we have the New Testament as well.
OK, what does a person need to do to be saved? One more passage in Acts when Peter, the head of the Jerusalem church, in the first Christian sermon after the resurrection of Jesus, freshly empowered by the Holy Spirit, after he talks about what happened to Jesus, people are convicted and ask him what must we do, and he replies: “Repent and be baptised every one of you for the forgiveness of your sins, and those who accepted his message were baptized, about 3000 of them”.
Believe with your heart that what God’s word says is true about your sin and Jesus, confess openly with your mouth that you believe this, repent, and be baptised. These are the core things that the Bible absolutely says are necessary to be saved and have eternal life. What was missing for Simon the magician and the guy who wanted to date this girl? Repentance, and Jesus says in Luke 13:3 there is no salvation without repentance.
Wait a minute Pastor Sean, you threw baptism in there, you don’t have to be baptised to be saved. Well, if Peter is truly at the pearly gates, you can take that up with Him when you get there, because that’s what he tells them to do. But really why do you object? Why do you want to just get away with doing the absolute minimum? Why do you not want to follow all he has commanded? Why do we look for loopholes instead of just taking the word of God at face value when it’s very clear about something? Maybe you don’t need to be baptised to be saved, but are you saved if you outright choose not to be baptized?
Alright let’s move on. Assuming now that you are saved, you have eternal life, your suite in the heavenly mansions has your name on it, is there anything else a saved disciple of Christ must do? Or can you just now float through life until Jesus comes back or you die and go to heaven?
There are many spiritual disciplines, and commands, especially in the Sermon on the Mount, but I am focused on the absolute necessities today, and the first of these has to be prayer. What is prayer, simply talking to God? In fact prayer is actually necessary for salvation because when you confess with your mouth you are basically saying yes God I agree with you, and I’m sorry, and I want to change and accept your Lordship over my life. That’s prayer.
We don’t need to get complicated here. Jesus said three times when he introduced the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6, “when you pray”, not if you pray, he doesn’t even consider the possibility that you won’t pray. Then he says this is how you should pray, and goes on to pray the Lord’s prayer which shows some components of how to pray.
The next thing we have to do is intake and study Scripture. Jesus says only those who do the will of my Father have eternal life, and his beloved disciple John says that only those who know God are children of God. How do you get to know God and his will, by reading the Bible. Beware of people who in the name of Christ say that they have special revelations about God and his will that are not in the Bible, that is how the cults get started. Everything we need to know about God is in the Scriptures, of course through prayer you will become more intimate with Him and you may hear specific things from Him for your life, but all you have to know is in the Bible.
How do we know this? There are many verses that confirm this, but the only one we really need to know is second Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work”. Well, pastor I’m not sure that proves that Scripture tells us everything.
Ah, but look at two words in there. The word “competent” really is better translated as complete or perfect. And the word equipped comes from that word and means fully furnished, or finished off. To me that sounds like everything we need to know to be a finished off disciple is in the Bible. And I’m not the only one, John says at the very end of the Bible in Revelation that if anyone adds to or takes away from this book, they will have plagues and their share in the tree of life will be taken away.
We have to pray, and we have to read and study and obey the Bible. Obey, hey you’re trying to catch us pastor you didn’t mention that before. Yes I did, only those who do the will of my father have eternal life, where do we find this will, in the Bible? And I think we can safely say that a disciple of Christ should also love Christ, and in John 14 Jesus says three times that you love me by keeping my commands.
But that’s only if I love him. Well here’s the next thing, what is the greatest commandment? Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul, and mind and strength, and love others as yourself. No options, a disciple of Christ has to love God and other people with everything they got.
And just in case we didn’t get it in the hundreds of other verses that make this clear, Jesus gives what he calls a new commandment in John 13:34, “Love one another just as I have loved you”. So we can’t even get away with just loving God really hard, we have to love people as well darn it. Even the smelly ones, and the ones that drive us crazy.
So really those are the big ones, the absolute have to’s of being a saved disciple of Christ, in other words a Christian. You have to respond to the invitation of eternal life, you have to pray, you have to read and study and obey the Bible, and you have to love God and other people at least as much as yourself. Peace of cake. Thank goodness there are no other commands, I think I can do at least a couple of those things some of the time.
Not so fast fellow Christian. In the Great commission which is a command for all of us, it says teach these disciples you are supposed to be out there making, to obey everything I have commanded. Oh come on, give me a break!
John Piper has a book here called “What Jesus demands from the World” and in it he discusses 50 commands that Jesus gave in the New Testament, so let’s begin. I got ya.
I told you we were only going to talk about the absolute necessities. What, do you mean we only have to obey certain commands, he let’s us off the hook with all the others? Well, no we are actually supposed to obey all that he has commanded, but Jesus has given us a break by shortening it up, so I am going to as well.
Matthew 22:37-40, Jesus says, “These are the first two and greatest commandments, Love God with every fibre of your being and love other people as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments”. He is saying if you accomplish these, that will take care of all the others. You’re saying what a relief! Really?
I don’t know about you but I would much rather have a long list of specific chores I could do kind of mechanically, than have to try and keep this one command. Can I just vacuum the church, or give a poor person a gift certificate for Chicken Delight, man I’ll even give my wife a foot massage everyday, but Love God with everything I’ve got - with my money, my time, my desires. Put him above everything else in my life, here’s a cheque, I promise I’ll tithe when I can, just don’t make me do that.
Hard to get around that one isn’t it, but at least God is perfect and he did something pretty great for me, so I’ll give that a go. All right good, now you show your love for me by obeying me and loving others, especially the least of these. Now that’s not fair, I said I would love you God, but I can’t love that jerk at the tire shop who ripped me off. My dad beat the daylights out of my mom and me all the time, I love you God, but I’m not going to love him.
Can you see God just calmly smiling while we pound our fists on the floor having a tantrum? When were all finished with our protest he says, “yep love them all too”. “I said everyone who hates his brother is a murderer and that person has no eternal life in them.
And you know what, I don’t want you to love them like you humans usually love, I want you to love them like I do, I want you to lay down your life for them”.
If anyone says I love God, but hates his brother he is a liar, my commandment is, whoever loves God must also love his brother. “Oh my brother, well he can be hard to get along with but I can love Him, even better I don’t have a brother, and I live out on a farm and don’t even have a neighbour, so I don’t have to love anybody but God”.
“No Christian, those words mean every other human being you come across. I loved them all and I want you to love them like I did. Still want to be a Christian disciple? You thought the 10 commandments were tough”.
“But here’s the deal, you don’t have to do these things with your human nature and under your own power. If you really gave your life to me, if you are really in constant prayer, you can simply let me do it through you. If you would just get yourself out of the way, I have everything you need and I will do it all through you.
But you gotta surrender to me, you’ve got to let me have your mind and your body as well as your heart. You gotta fill that mind of yours with my word consistently, you gotta be in constant prayer, always allowing me to think and do in every situation you’re in. I told you my yoke was easy and my burden was light, but it actually gets very heavy if you put it over top of yours.
You have to take yours off first. Your old self will never be able to do these things even with my help, I need you to crucify that old self, I’m not going to do that for you, but when you do you will experience freedom, you will see me loving through you and it will be as easy for you as it is for me.” The old nature is the one Satan put in us, and like in my dream that I told you about a couple weeks ago, he needs to be completely wiped out of our lives and churches.
Most Christians do not experience the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives, at least not very often. There are many reasons for this, but often it is simply lack of knowledge and lack of belief. It’s like the Texas rancher going broke farming sheep while he sits on a property that has billions of dollars worth of oil under it. He owns it but he doesn’t possess it.
Sometimes we are afraid that if we really surrender to the Holy Spirit he will ask us to do things that will make our lives very uncomfortable. But do we believe that God loves us? Do we believe that our God is Greater, our God is stronger, our God is healer, our God is higher than any other, like we sang earlier? If your child came up to you and said I love you and I am willing to do anything you say, would you respond like: “Great I have been waiting for this for years, I am going to make you regret this decision for the rest of your life. I am going to take away everything you like and make you do everything you don’t want to do. Now I can finally devote myself to making your life miserable.
Of course not. You would be very touched by that gift from your child, and you might not ask the child to do anything more than you already ask him, and if you love that child you will probably ask him to do things that are going to benefit him and make his life better. God may or may not ask you to make certain sacrifices, but he will also bless you if you do and knows that those sacrifices will make your life better in the long run. If we know how to give our children good gifts, how much more will our Father in Heaven.
We have to do the first three things I mentioned today. The first requires a choice and a response to receive salvation, the bible reading and prayer require discipline, which will be easier after we believe and experience God’s love. But the last one to love like Him has to be done by the Spirit of God that lives in us. We have to be willing yes, we have to get our emotions and judgments, and laziness, and fear, to step aside so Jesus can love through us, and then we will love like him.
In a nutshell if there is just one thing a disciple of Christ absolutely has to do, it is surrender your self, submit to your creator and saviour. Believe that because he loves you that surrendering will make your life better, not worse. If you really do this, you will be doing all the other things he asks.
Now here’s what I ask you to do in your Action Plan: Choose at least 1 discipline like prayer or bible study, or a mission objective goal and put together a written plan to do it this year. Show it to someone who can help keep you stay accountable to it (perhaps even give a copy to an elder or me). And do a quarterly review. – I want to be more involved in helping you grow if you are willing. I will personally help you with this plan if you want me to.
Let me just quickly say something about Christian accountability. It is not judgment and punishment. Maybe a better word is advocacy. Let someone be your cheerleader, your advocate so that you can accomplish what you say you want to accomplish. And if you are an advocate for someone else, don’t judge, but with extreme grace tell the truth. “Dude you said you wanted to accomplish this, what’s going on, what’s standing in your way? How can I help you stay committed to this goal?
But one more thing I want to say. If you have not done the things I have asked you over the past couple weeks, and especially if you choose not to do this one. Why is that? Have I asked you to do something totally unreasonable? I guarantee you, Jesus would be a lot tougher coach than I am. Believe me, I’ve had some tough coaches. Don’t make me make you run up and down all the stairs at Bombers stadium if you don’t do your homework.
When you choose not to do what God says, or even something I offer you to help you grow and be more in line with God’s will, what are you saying by that refusal? I’m going to leave you with that today, and I hope some of you will share your plan with me.
