The Sons of Sceva

Acts • Sermon • Submitted a year ago

0 ratings

· 216 views

The Sons of Sceva show us that it is better to be known through our identity in Christ than in our own self-righteousness

Notes

Transcript

Sermon Tone Analysis

Emotion

Language

Social

View more →

If you have a Bible, go ahead and grab it. We are going to be in Acts 19:11-20 and I know that I say this every week, but it is a really interesting passage that we’re going to be looking at tonight. I’ll go ahead and say that this is one of the stranger things that happens in the book of Acts but it is still an amazing account that Luke records for us. I’ve asked this question before but I’ll ask it again: Where does a Christian’s power and authority come from? Does it come from himself or are they empowered by something or someone else? A Christian is powerless without Christ and has no real authority apart from Christ. Matthew 28:18-20 makes this very clear: “And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’” What we see is that there is a clear progression of power and authority that is bestowed to Christians to do the work of Christ and that power is given solely by Christ through His sovereign authority and His sending of the Holy Spirit. Apart from Christ, we are totally powerless and we are going to see that in action tonight as we look at people who appear religious but really aren’t. The next thing I want to know is do you think that it is possible for us to learn positive lessons from negative examples? What is a time that you learned something through a negative example? We tend, or hopefully tend, to learn from our mistakes right? Have you ever learned a lesson from someone else’s mistake? Have you ever seen someone make a mistake and then go on to not make that mistake because you saw the outcome for that other person? We’re gonna attempt to do that today. We’re gonna try to bring some positives out of negative examples for our own spiritual benefit and I think in a way, that is why Luke records this event for us and why the Lord decided to include it in the book of Acts. We’re going to look at the negative example of these Jewish exorcists that are only known to us as the sons of Sceva and see how we can make better decisions in our own walk with Christ. Let’s pray and then we will dive into Acts 19:11-20

Acts 19:11–20 ESV

And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And the man in whom was the evil spirit leaped on them, mastered all of them and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded. And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver. So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.

What Is Happening?

Let’s talk about what is going on in these verses and then we’ll sort of go in order of the positive lessons that we can learn as we come to them. So, we’ll look at it through a wide lens and then we will narrow our focus. In Acts 19, Paul comes to the city of Ephesus and he decides to spend 2 years there because he is having a great amount of success there and he loves the church in Ephesus! Paul loved all of the churches that he founded or pastored at but he really cared for the church in Ephesus and we will see this even more so next week. He cares for them so much that he makes a purpose to say goodbye to them before he makes his final trip to Jerusalem in the next chapter. The church in Ephesus has an incredibly rich history and we know this from the list of pastors that they had in their early years. Paul, Timothy, and the Apostle John would all pastor there at one point. As Paul is here ministering, he is not just having a successful preaching ministry, he is having a successful healing ministry. Holy Spirit power is just radiating off of him it seems like and God is doing such an amazing work through Paul that people are basically taking tissues that touched him to people that are sick or possessed and it’s healing them. This obviously doesn’t go unnoticed and these seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva decide they are going to attempt to do the same things that Paul does. These sons are itinerant, or traveling, exorcists that I believe basically go around and try to make money off of alleged miracles that they perform or at the very best, they are just some people that travel around attempting exorcisms. When we come to verse 13, these exorcists find an evil spirit and they attempt to exorcise this demon by saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” The demon replies to them by saying, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?” And then in what is probably the most lopsided fight in history, this one guy beats up these 7 grown men so badly that they run away naked and bloody. Here’s the thing, I’ve been in 1 fight in my life and it was when I was in preschool so it totally counts but I don’t know much about fighting. What I do know is that if you get beaten up so badly that you leave that fight naked, you didn’t win that fight. All of Ephesus hears about this and many of them praise God for what He is doing and an even larger number of people in Ephesus become Christians. So, that’s what happens and now let’s quickly look at the positive lessons that come from these verses and from the negative example of these exorcists.

God does the Miracle (V. 11)

Let’s start with what may be the most important element out of this entire narrative: it is God alone that does the work and performs the miracle. We see this right away in verse 11. While Paul may have been the instrument of the miracle, God alone is the source of the miracle. Let me put this to you bluntly, when it comes to miracles in your life, you yourself bring nothing to the table. You are not the source of God’s miraculous workings or His blessings. You didn’t save yourself. When it comes to what you have contributed to your salvation, the only thing that you have contributed is the sin that makes it necessary. God does all the work of salvation, beginning, middle, and end. You have yet to be the source of a single miracle and you never will be the source of a single miracle. Now if you are Christian, a miracle has been done in you. You have been spiritually resurrected from spiritual death to spiritual life. You have been born again. You really are a walking, talking miracle that testifies to the healing and miraculous powers of a Sovereign God. Let’s address 2 realities of God’s power working in us as Christians. If God were not empowering what we as Christians did when it came to evangelism, I wouldn’t want to do it. How could we go against the forces of darkness if the all-powerful God was not empowering what we did and working through us? How could we do anything with confidence and certainty if God wasn’t working miracles through His Spirit? If God has called you to something, He will give you the strength and joy to do that something. Paul praises the God who is able to do this when he says in Ephesians 3:20-21

Ephesians 3:20–21 (ESV)

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

We do not serve a God that just hits the bare minimum of what we think He is able to do. We don’t serve an underwhelming God, we serve a God that surpasses all possible expectations. Paul says that God is able to do far more than we could possibly ask or think according to the power that is at work within us. And who’s power is it? It is the power of the Lord our God. The second thing that I will say on this is that because God is the one that does the work, He is able to use the weak and the strong, the wise and the foolish, to accomplish His will. You don’t have to be Superman to make a difference. You don’t have to be a perfect speaker to tell someone the Gospel. Look at Moses. The dude was a loser when God came to him but God did incredible things through Moses. If you are faithful now in the little things, you will see God continue to work out the big things. One of the great rewards of faithful Christians within this world is that they get to see God do amazing things. R.C. Sproul said, “The kingdom of Christ is a kingdom of power. We do not need any more power than what we have right now in the person and work of the Holy Spirit, who always works according to Scripture and never against it.” It is such an exciting thing for me when I see the Spirit of God bring someone from death to life and when I see someone get saved, I know that it doesn’t have anything to do with our own empowerment. It’s God front and center and that is exactly what we see happening here in Paul’s ministry. Let’s look at our next lesson by going back to verse 13.

Christ’s Name must be used properly (V. 13)

Acts 19:13 “Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.”” What’s our lesson here? The name of Jesus must be used appropriately. If we are going to claim the name of Christ, we must first be made right with Christ. I think that as Luke records this, he wants us to think back to a moment in his Gospel where he writes in Luke 10:17, “The seventy-two returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!” In this section of Scripture, Christ sends out 72 of His followers to heal and to preach and they return back with this great report. Here in Acts 19, we see this similar proclomation of Christ’s name but it has the opposite affect. Whereas the 72 went out and proclaimed the name of Christ with faith, these 7 sons go out using the name of Jesus because they hear Paul use it and they assume that there is something special solely in the name of Jesus and in a sense, there is! But the Kingdom of God is advanced through the proclomation of Christ’s name when it is done properly through faith. Simply attaching the name of Jesus to any thought or action doesn’t give it Holy Spirit power. The demons shudder at the power of God, they know who Christ is, but we are not to use the name of Jesus to vindicate just any action that we do and we can’t assume that Christ will empower those actions just because we use His name. There is a loss of holy reverence for the name of Christ. We use it as a swear word or we don’t even recognize exactly what we are saying but this name of Jesus is the name that is above every name as Paul says in Philippians 2. I’ll say it again, if you are going to claim to be a Christian, you better represent that name properly. You’ve heard me say before that when we go out as a group to places, I don’t care how you represent me or how you represent Olive Branch Baptist Church, but you better believe that I care how you represent Christ. When we leave in 2 days for Great Wolf Lodge, you are going there with the name of Christ attached to you and you better live with that reality. Or if you aren’t a Christian, I hope you understand why we see the name of Christ as so important because we are not saved by any other! Remember what Peter said in Acts 4:12

Acts 4:12 (ESV)

And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

We as Christians have a great deal of respect for the name of Christ for this very reason and because of His holiness. For time’s sake, let’s look at lesson number 3.

Where we Place our Identity Matters (Vs. 13-15)

Number 3: Where we place our identity matters. Look at Acts 19:13-15

Acts 19:13–15 (ESV)

Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, “I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul proclaims.” Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, “Jesus I know, and Paul I recognize, but who are you?”

At YC week over the summer, we spent a full week talking about our identity and the places we look to find our identity. The demon actually asks a valuable question for us. Who are you? The demons know Jesus obviously and Paul did such a great deal of damage and continues to this day do a great deal of damage to the kingdom of darkness but these 7 sons had no power in Christ, no strength from his name, and ultimately they are unknowable and I think that’s why Luke doesn’t record there names. Now in this world, you are going to look for purpose and identity in a lot of different places. Maybe in success, in love, in money, in another person, a boyfriend or girlfriend, and those are good things but they aren’t the main thing. If your identity is found solely within yourself or within another person or something physical on this earth, that is going to fade away and a time will come where you will realize that something wasn’t everything. One of Paul’s favorite phrases to describe Christians is that Christians are those that are in Christ. To be in Christ means that our identity and lives are fixated and found within Christ Himself. It means that when God looks at us, He sees that we belong to Christ and we will talk about this in a bit more detail this weekend. God no longer sees our imperfections but sees this replaced by Christ’s perfection. We can either identify with imperfection or we can find our identiy in Christ’s perfection.

The Dangers of Self-righteousness (V 14)

The next lesson that I’ll just touch on briefly is the dangers of self-righteousness. In a way, we have already been talking about this the whole time but we see in these seven sons the mindset of really the entire world that they will be able to accomplish these feats on their own. Deep down, I think most people believe that they are good enough to do whatever they want or good enough to earn their way to Heaven but that isn’t true. Paul says in Romans 3 that there is none righteous, no not one. Our own self-righteousness is really just our way of justifying the things that we say and do. Jonathan Edwards defined self-righteousness as, “Self-righteousness is a certain kind of sin of the heart that is especially contrary to Christ and the gospel, displeasing to God and fatal to the soul.” Self-righteousness is deadly, it’s a poison that destroys the soul. Satan was the most self-righteous person to ever exist because his great pride led him to rebellion. All self-righteousness is is an exaltation of ourselves which is contrary to how we are called to live our lives. Your own righteousness can’t save you, we must be saved by an alien righteousness. Our righteousness must only come through Christ. Edwards also said, “If there be ground for you to trust in your own righteousness, then, all that Christ did to purchase salvation, and all that God did to prepare the way for it is in vain.” Let’s look at the next lesson and this could be the most important one that we look at today: Old practices must be put down in order to faithfully follow Christ.

Old Practices must be put down to follow Christ (Vs 17-19)

Let’s read again Acts 19:17-19

Acts 19:17–19 (ESV)

And this became known to all the residents of Ephesus, both Jews and Greeks. And fear fell upon them all, and the name of the Lord Jesus was extolled. Also many of those who were now believers came, confessing and divulging their practices. And a number of those who had practiced magic arts brought their books together and burned them in the sight of all. And they counted the value of them and found it came to fifty thousand pieces of silver.

If you want to follow Jesus, the old life that you lived before you came to Christ has to die. You can’t serve God and something else. You can’t hold onto sin and Christ at the same time. One has to be master and God does not share that position with any other. Colossians 3:1-3 says

Colossians 3:1–3 (ESV)

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

And you know what Paul also says in 2 Corinthians 5:17

2 Corinthians 5:17 (ESV)

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

Those that have been truly made new by Christ, while they may struggle with the old ways, are not enslaved to the old ways. The way of sin is no longer our master and therefore, we gladly lay down the old to make way for the new which is far better. What are you still holding onto from your past? What sin are you still clinging to? Lay it down, burn it if you have to, and come to He that is far better. Going back to Colossians 3:5-7 “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them.” These were the ways you once walked! Not the way that you still walk! If you are in Christ, you are a new creation, not just the same old person with a fresh coat of paint. Finally let’s talk about one last thing. Look again at verse 20.

The Word of God will overcome (V. 20)

Acts 19:20 “So the word of the Lord continued to increase and prevail mightily.” John MacArthur wrote, “Luke’s brief summary statement pulls the passage together and emphasizes the dominant position the Word of God achieved in Ephesus. All the satanic forces of the occult and magic arrayed against the Word could not overpower it. The bold preaching of the gospel, the confirming miracles, the defeat of the exorcists, the resultant awe and respect for the name of Jesus, and the public repudiation of the magical arts demonstrated the invincible might of God’s Word.” Nothing will stop the Church. Even the gates of hell cannot overcome it. While the world may look like it will squash the Church or stamp out the Word of God, it will never be able to. If the Church couldn’t be stopped on Good Friday, it won’t be stopped post Resurrection Sunday. You may look at the world around you and see a world that hates God but that hatred won’t stop the Word of the Lord from continuing to increase and prevail mightily. The work of God works best in dark places and we as the Church get to witness that. Are you discouraged by what you see going on around you? Don’t be because God knows the means and He knows the end and we know how all of this is going to end. Not with the world celebrating the death of God within the world and culture but with a world made totally new by the Lord with Jesus Christ at the very center. Praise God that we can learn positive lessons from negative examples. May we not go out and make the same mistakes that these men made. Let’s pray.

Related Media

Related Sermons