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Great Hungers Part 2: Fulfillment

Sermon by Rev. Doug Pratt — September 30, 2007
 

Introduction
A newspaper article consists of two parts: the body of the article that tells the story, written by a reporter, and the headline that tells what the story is about, written by a “headline editor.” Sometimes the headlines don’t fit the story particularly well. And, occasionally, the headline contains a whopping blunder, saying something the editor didn’t actually intend to say. Consider these intriguing actual headlines, compiled by the Saturday Evening Post:

“Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers”
“Safety Experts Say School Bus Passengers Should be Belted”
“Red Tape Holds Up New Bridge”
“Iraqi Head Seeks Arms”
“Kids Make Nutritious Snacks”
“Prostitutes Appeal to Pope”
“Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half”
“Man Struck by Lightning Faces Battery Charge”
“Teacher Strikes Idle Kids”
“Eye Drops Off Shelf”
“Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant”
“Chef Throws His Heart into Helping to Feed Needy”
“Plane Too Close to Ground, Crash Probe Told”
“Miners Refuse to Work after Death”

All of these were meant to be brief but accurate summaries of a news story, but they came out wrong — and the headline editors weren’t aware of how their words would be taken until they were already “out there” in print, to their embarrassment.

Scripture Reading
Today’s scripture text from the Book of Acts tells a story from 20 centuries ago of a man who apparently meant to say one thing, but it came out all wrong, to his embarrassment and shame. Here is his story, as found in Acts 8:5-25.

      Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. ⁶When the crowds heard Philip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. ⁷With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. ⁸So there was great joy in that city.
      ⁹Now 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, ¹⁰and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, “This man is the divine power known as the Great Power.” ¹¹They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. ¹²But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. ¹³Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.
      ¹⁴When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. ¹⁵When they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, ¹⁶because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them; they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. ¹⁷Then Peter and John placed their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.
      ¹⁸When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money ¹⁹and said, “Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.”
      ²⁰Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! ²¹You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. ²²Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. ²³For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”
      ²⁴Then Simon answered, “Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.”
      ²⁵When they had testified and proclaimed the word of the Lord, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages.

Simon’s Big Mistake
I’m continuing today a series of four messages entitled GREAT HUNGERS OF THE MODERN WORLD, using the New Testament Book of Acts as our guide. In Part 1 we looked at the hunger or longing of all people for true Community. In this message, Part 2, we’re considering the hunger for lasting Fulfillment — something that is constantly elusive, and which billions of people have tried to find in all sorts of wrong “places,” including wealth, success, fame, pleasure, prestige, status and power. And we’ll be putting under our microscope this man by the name of Simon — a wealthy and popular man in his day, a local celebrity. We’ll find that he undergoes a profound change, a painful re-ordering of his values and priorities.

But first let me point out his shame. This man had been a big hit for many years, operating a traveling magic show all around the country of Samaria. A bit of Houdini and a bit of David Copperfield and a bit of P.T. Barnum allowed him to put on quite a show, and the people loved it — flocking to it the way small-town Americans of a century ago would swarm to the circus when it came to town. Simon was riding high with his show biz skills. He was a charlatan, an illusionist, able to “fool some of the people all of the time.” And then one day the real thing came to town: a Christian evangelist named Philip began to preach the Gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection, and also to work healing miracles the way Jesus Himself had done a few years earlier. Simon was not only impressed; it appears he also had a real change of heart, a real conversion — for he cancelled his shows and began to follow Philip, soaking up all he could about this wonderful life-transforming message.

And then he made his big mistake. When the Apostle Peter came to town to establish and strengthen the new church in Samaria, a second Day of Pentecost occurred. The new believers experienced a fresh and historic infilling of the Holy Spirit. They felt a power surging through them. It was electrifying. Simon immediately knew that he wanted some of that Holy Spirit — whatever it was, and so he made the blunder of pulling out his wallet and asking Peter what the price was. In stunning words, Peter rebuked him:

“May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! ²¹You have no part or share in this ministry, because your heart is not right before God. ²²Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps he will forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. ²³For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.”

That mistake and its rebuke are what have caused Simon to go down in history. The word “simony” has been used ever since for the despicable practice of buying office and power in the church. The Medici family in the Middle Ages, for example, was notorious for their “simony” as they purchased the office of Pope for one after another family member.

Peter’s clear message, and the principle that has sustained the church through the years whenever it has been pure and protected from corruption, is that the things of God are not for sale. You can’t buy the grace and forgiveness of Christ to cover your sins — all the stock and gold and diamonds in the world can’t purchase that. And you can’t buy spiritual power and the Spirit’s gifts. God gives those according to His will alone.

Though his name is notorious for the wrong reasons, and the comment he made that came out wrong has become a by-word for corruption, there are reasons in our scripture passage to have hope for Simon the former magician, and for his ultimate spiritual and eternal destiny. The splash of cold water in his face that Peter administered may have been just what he needed. It’s possible that it brought him to true repentance, and to re-thinking and re-ordering his values and his approach to life. In fact, there are hints from ancient church tradition that Simon went on to become one of the leaders of the church in Samaria, and transformed his skills of showmanship into bold and effective proclamation of the message: P.T. Barnum becomes Billy Graham!

Where Real Fulfillment Comes From
The broader lesson we learn from Simon’s experience that can relate to all of us today is a reminder of where real fulfillment comes from. The greatest things, in this life and in the life to come, cannot be bought or earned or bargained for. They are gifts. And the greatest joys and satisfactions we ever know come to us not through money and material things. The intangibles of faith and love, peace and meaning, are not found among human beings in proportion to their bank accounts. Sometimes, in fact, wealth and the things that money buys actually become barriers to discovering and experiencing those things that bring true fulfillment.

Without spending a lot of time belaboring the obvious, let me say honestly and openly that we are living in a society and a time in history when materialism is the great False God or idol for mankind. With the death of the False God of Communism and its lie of happiness through an all-powerful State, we now find that even China and Russia are chasing full-speed after the elusive promise of wealth. The American news and entertainment and sports media bombard us 24/7 with messages about wealth and success and how to achieve our dreams. Commercials and ads proclaim that this product will make us happy, or that bank or brokerage firm will make us rich.

Really understanding how deeply we’ve been influenced by the values of materialism is very difficult, because our world is so saturated with it — and it’s all we’ve ever known. It would be like trying to explain water to a fish. Water is its whole reality — every fish swims in it and breathes it through its gills and couldn’t imagine a world outside of it.

Several years ago the banks of a river in Virginia began to be littered with the carcasses of dead fish. Investigators finally tracked down the cause: a chemical plant was leaking toxins into the water upstream, causing a massive fish kill. Those poor fish were swimming in water and breathing it in without realizing that it was killing them. And that, I believe, is a modern parable of what’s happening to human beings all around us, who are swimming in a river of materialism and a love of money and things, chasing after more and more, and not realizing that they are spiritually dying in the process.

We are now into the heart of football season across America. Between high school and college and the pros, the game has become our national obsession. Baseball may try to reclaim its former place as our “pastime” for a few weeks in October, during the playoffs, but football is king. And what a powerful lesson it has been recently to see some men make it to the very top of the football universe who have truly found the right values for their lives. Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith, the opposing coaches in last year’s Super Bowl, are both solidly committed to Christ. In Coach Dungy’s new autobiography, Quiet Strength (which I think every football fan should read), he not only lets us inside the locker room, he lets us inside his own head and heart. In pursuing the ultimate victory, Tony never lost sight of what really matters — the Christian values founded on God’s Word. Even the heartache of the suicide of his son didn’t distract him and his wife from their dedication to making a difference for good in this world.

We’ve also seen in the football universe some men who followed the path of our Simon from Acts 8. They tried to achieve fulfillment through success, fame, public accolades and buckets of money, but none of those brought lasting satisfaction. One such man was an All-Pro and Super Bowl champ for the Washington Redskins named Art Monk. In a Sports Illustrated interview several years ago he talked about the journey his life had taken to that point. The article begins:

It appeared that Monk had everything a man could want: he was young, handsome and rich. He had a family, and he had a future without limits in a town that revered him. He had won his first Super Bowl ring, though winning it was not what he’d expected it to be. “You’re happy you won,” he says, “but the feeling just isn’t what you’d imagine it to be. It’s not as good. I just wasn’t happy with the way my life was going. I had an empty feeling inside, like something was missing. I was always reaching for something to make me happy or feel good — cars and money and new houses. But whatever it was out there, it wasn’t doing it.”

Art had gone to church and Sunday school with his parents when he was a boy, but he had drifted far from his faith by his late teens and college years. Then, according to Sports Illustrated, “he became aware of the serenity that enveloped some teammates who held regular Bible studies together. ‘I just watched the life they were living and the joy they felt’ he says, ‘and I asked if I could join them.’” Art soon decided to give his life to Christ. This is what he says today: “Everything I was chasing after to try to find happiness had been a waste. The things I’d learned as a child now came flooding back to me, and I realized that this was what I had been looking for. My parents and pastors and teachers had been right. This was what I needed. It has made a huge difference in my life.”

Is Art Monk’s experience unique? No — just the opposite. It just may be the story of Simon in Acts 8: a guy who made it to the top of the material world but found that it wasn’t satisfying, and who then found what he had been missing. Some of you here today could tell your own story that would follow this same theme. Others of you have been spared, by God’s grace, going down that dead-end road of materialism. You learned early enough that the only way to true fulfillment was through a relationship with God and following His course for life.

Beware of Double-Mindedness
The final lesson we need to learn from Simon’s story in Acts 8 is to be on guard against “double-mindedness” and mixed values, trying to serve two masters. It is subtly easy to fall into the trap of trying to be both a committed follower of Jesus and also a relentless pursuer of material things and worldly success. And the two simply don’t work together — something will go wrong if we try to hold those mutually conflicting values at the same time.

Does this mean that we can’t be successful in our careers, or that God will not allow us to have financial success? Of course not! But the key factor is neither what happens to us nor how well we do in our jobs and tasks and achievements. The key factor is our heart. Which is our Lord?

Many athletes and doctors, CEOs and lawyers, investors and farmers, entrepreneurs and accountants have experienced great material success by doing their jobs with excellence. And that’s a good and noble quality. When we do our best out of love for our Lord and a desire to please Him by using the gifts and talents He has given us, success can come to us as a by-product and it will not corrupt us. What matters is our ultimate allegiance and devotion. If we do our best with the opportunities the Lord presents to us and leave the results to Him, we will be blessed — and we will, most importantly, have that sense of inner peace and fulfillment. But if we make success our deity and object of worship, it will inevitably pull us away from the One True God.

A New Definition
Let me close with this simple but profound definition. I believe that God’s Word gives us a totally different way of finding fulfillment and measuring true success. Here it is:

“Real success in life
is not defined by how much money you make,
but by what you’re living for.”

What are you living for? And does it satisfy your soul’s hunger for fulfillment? It's never too late to start looking in the right places!