Is Your Christianity Just Witchcraft?
Simon the sorcerer had spent years amazing people. Everyone called him “the Great One.” Then Philip came to Samaria, and Simon believed and was baptized.
But when Simon saw the Holy Spirit given through the laying on of hands, he reached for what had always worked. He offered money.
Simon wanted the outcome without the surrender. That’s what witchcraft is: the right ingredients in the right amounts to get the result you want.
Most of us do the same thing with God. Add enough good. Avoid enough bad. Pray more, read more, try harder, feel guiltier. Then maybe God will come close.
The sermon’s central idea is that the things we think keep us from God aren’t actually what keep us from God. If they were, getting close to Him would be up to us. Our recipes for nearness are often quiet forms of resistance to grace.
We resist love because we are more comfortable with a God we are required to approach correctly than with One who approaches us.
God doesn’t wait for us to get the recipe right. He comes to the woman at the well in the middle of her deflection. He kneels at Peter’s feet over Peter’s protest. He loves His people to the very end.
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Acts by Beverly Gaventa
Acts by Willie James Jennings
Sermon Video
Acts 8:9-24
9 Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great, 10 and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.” 11 They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. 12 But when they believed Philip as he proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. 13 Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
14 When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. 15 When they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, 16 because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. 17 Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
18 When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money 19 and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
20 Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! 21 You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. 22 Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that he may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. 23 For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
24 Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”
Matthew 16:22-23
22 But Peter took him aside and began to reprimand him for saying such things. “Heaven forbid, Lord,” he said. “This will never happen to you!” 23 Jesus turned to Peter and said, “Get away from me, Satan! You are a dangerous trap to me. You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.”
John 13:7-8
7 Jesus replied, “You don’t understand now what I am doing, but someday you will.” 8 “No,” Peter protested, “you will never ever wash my feet!” Jesus replied, “Unless I wash you, you won’t belong to me.”
John 13:1
13 Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end.
Ephesians 1:18
…His holy people who are His rich and glorious inheritance.
Sermon Quotes
Simon healing is the closest thing to “being with God without God’s help” - Willia James
Simon has learned to “live in the substitutes for life with God” - Willie James Jennings
We resist love because we are more comfortable with a God we are required to approach correctly than with One who approaches us.
We are more familiar with a God who demands from us than a God who serves us
We think the foundation of our relationship with God is us serving Him. But it's actually flipped. He serves us.
Discussion Questions
Look at this list: I can’t find time for God. I keep falling into the same sin. My prayer life is terrible. I don’t know enough of the Bible. I have doubts I can’t answer. I don’t come to church enough. Which one do you most believe is the thing standing between you and God? How long have you believed that? What would it feel like to hear that God has never been waiting on you to fix it?
Simon offered God money because money was what had always worked for him. What do you bring to God when you want Him close: being good, being useful, being loyal, feeling bad enough, knowing the right answers? What are you afraid would happen if you came to Him with empty hands?
Right when Jesus gets close to the most painful part of her story, the woman at the well changes the subject to the correct way to worship. Peter changes the subject too, insisting Jesus won’t suffer and refusing to let Him wash his feet. When God gets close to the part of your story that most needs healing, what do you change the subject to? Busyness? Theology? Serving? Humor? Trying harder?
Picture Jesus kneeling in front of you with a towel. What part of your life would you least want Him to touch? Why do you think it’s easier for many of us to serve God than to let God serve us?
Finish this sentence honestly: “When God thinks about me, He mostly feels…” Now sit with Ephesians 1:18. Paul says God’s people are His rich and glorious inheritance. You don’t drain God. You make Him rich. What happens inside you when you hear that? What part of you wants to argue with it?
