Someone Great
Here is my question today: what keeps you from being the person you want to be? What keeps you from being the person God wants you to be? Physically, mentally, or spiritually: what prevents you from reaching your godly ambition to be and do all that the Spirit inspires you to be and do?
We sang a few minutes ago, “that we might be your people today.” What keeps us from being God’s people today? In the next verse, we sang “Make us like Jesus in word and deed.” What prevents that from happening? Why isn’t that prayer answered?
This is the question asked in The Acts of the Apostles. I spoke a few weeks ago about Philips encounter with the Ethiopian traveler. Philip shares the good news of Jesus, and the man asks, “What hinders me … from being baptized?”
A little later in a latter narrative, Simon Peter speaks about Jesus to a crowd of
Gentiles and they believe, they are filled with the spirit, and Simon Peters asks, “Can anyone hinder us from baptizing these people?”
That same word, hinder—kaluo, in the Greek—appears at the end of The Acts of the Apostles, actually, the very last words: “Paul lived in Rome …teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with boldness and without hindrance.”
Unhinderedly! It is an advert, the last word in this document. There are 18,451 words in this biblical book, and the last one is the key to the book. The work of the gospel, the work of the Spirit, the work of Jesus in us, was and is unhindered!
That is our prayer today: in my life, in your life, in our church, and in our country. May the good news of Jesus be unhindered. May the good work of the Spirit be unhindered. May the good work of God be unhindered.
I.
The Acts of the Apostles is sometimes called the Acts of the Holy Spirit. What is it that can hinder the work of the spirit of God?
Not the opposition of the religious authorities. Not the differences in language. Not the deception of two members of the believing community. What can hinder the work of God: maybe a strong, charismatic man with mixed motives!
That is who we meet in chapter eight. “A certain man named Simon,” verse 9 begins. He practiced magic. He wowed the people. He claimed to be somebody great. Everybody said, “This man is the power of God, the great power of god.”
Let me confess: there are some things in this story that are strange to us: persecution, healing miracles, and magic.
But there is something very familiar also: a charismatic person with platform gifts. Saying things that wow the crowd. Professing a conversion to faith. But who is in it for the money. Who is rebuked by the apostles. Who is a warning to us.
Does this have a familiar ring? Can you name a contemporary person who fits this description?
Simon the Great One is a magician. Magic is pretense. It is pretending to be one thing but in reality being another. It is pretending to make something appear or disappear but actually doing neither. Magic is slight of hand, entertainment, trickery.
Simon the Great One already has a public platform of trickery. He also has a reputation as a great and successful man; but in this biblical story, Simon the Great One discovers how religion can help him get what he wants. He wants power and money. He professes faith; he submits to baptism; he hangs out with the believers.
When apostles lay hands on them, prays over them, and consecrates them to the Way of Christ, and they are filled with the Spirit, Simons sees something he wants. He wants that power; he wants that popularity; he wants something other than true religion, true spirituality. He sees it all as a trick, a slight of hand, a piece of magic.
Simon the Great offers to buy that power. “Here is money, lots of it. Take it and give me this religious power, this spiritual magic.”
From the beginning of time, people have tried to buy the gifts of true religion. More than one wealthy person has built a cathedral or a sanctuary in order to demonstrate their spirituality or secure a place in heaven. The entire Protestant Reformation in the 16th century was a revolt against indulgences: this was the medieval Christian practice of putting money in the church coffers in exchange for the forgiveness of sins. There was a popular slang song, “When the coin in the coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs.”
Let’s be honest. There are often mixed or mangled motives for being religious, for submitting to baptism, for working in the church. Some want to be seen as good people; others want to build networks of potential paying customers; and more than one teenage boy has entered the waters of baptism, not out of true repentance and faith, but in order to catch the attention of some teenage girl.
We all have mixed motives, don’t we? Examine yourself before judging another.
Simon the Great One had mixed motives for his questionable conversion. But the apostles smelled an imposter and stood up to him. When he asked to buy the power of the Holy Spirit, they said to him, “May your silver perish with you!” which is cleaned up version of “Go to hell, Simon, you and your money!”
Here the apostles distinguish between true religion and false religion, between true greatness and pseudo greatness, between authentic spirituality and mere performance. The apostles knew, and so do we.
II.
We have our own Great One, don’t we.
Here is our main character, with a long history of public and private trickery, who says that he is someone great, who makes a “conversion” to a form of religion in order to further his personal ambitions.
But instead of calling out his pretense, would be apostles surround him, anoint him as the messiah of America, rationalize his bizarre behavior, and excuse his long history of trickery and immorality.
Would be apostles have crowded around him in his impressive office to pray for him. They have laid hands on him in full view of the watching world. They have given him precisely the kind of adulation and attention that Simon the Great One desired two thousand years ago. It is the same story: different time, different name, different place; same story. A Great One with a history of trickery and a platform presence that wows seeks to buy his way into the kingdom of God.
Again and again as I read this biblical story this week, I shook my head and muttered to myself, Who wrote this story? What did the writer know? How did the writer know about us and our politics and our religion today in the United States?
But the real question, then or now, is, can these Great Ones hinder the work of God? Can they hinder the ministry of the Risen Lord in your life, in our church, in our country? Can these tricksters who manage to gain the attention of the masses and the platform of the people undermine the plan and purposes of God?
Can they hinder the gospel? Can they hinder the kingdom? Can they hinder the work of the Holy Spirit in us and among us, here today, this week, and in 2025?
III.
Remember those 18,450 words? Remember the one word? The last word. Unhindered!
It is, in reality, the first word of the gospel. God is unhindered. Jesus the Risen Lord is unhindered. The Spirit of God is unhindered, in you and through you, in us and through us, around us and over us.
This is the meaning of this story. Not even the trickery and deceit and twisted motives of an important man can undermine the work of God, can derail the purposes of God, can hinder the power of God.
The story begins with the departure of Jesus, his ascension into heaven, but that cannot hinder God from fulfilling his purpose.
Acts of the Apostles describes the language confusion on the Day of Pentecost. But, as it turns out, not even the diversity of languages can hinder God from pouring out the Spirit.
Chapter five recounts the deceit of Ananias and Sapphira, who lied to the church about the sale of their property. Not even the wickedness of prominent members of the community could hinder God from moving forward with the kingdom.
Simon the Great One and all who are like him are the center of attention for a while. They take center stage for a time. They seize power but only for time.
God is at work and no man can hinder God. Isn’t there a song with these lyrics, “No man can a-hinder me…. Ride on, King Jesus.” Its an old negro spiritual. But Little Richard brought it to popular attention. “No man can hinder me,” because the Risen Lord is alive and at work. From beginning to end, the true Great One is the Risen Lord, Jesus of Nazareth, savior of the world and friend of sinners.
