What happens when the church gets scattered?
After Stephen’s death, persecution drove the believers out of Jerusalem. It looked like the end, but it became a beginning: everywhere they went, they shared the good news about Jesus.
Philip carried the message to Samaria and then to a lonely desert road, where an Ethiopian official reading Isaiah heard about Jesus and was baptized on the spot. Meanwhile Saul, the church’s fiercest enemy, was stopped on the road to Damascus and welcomed into the family by Ananias, an ordinary disciple willing to risk everything in obedience to the Spirit.
Seeds scattered in hard places still grow. Who might the Spirit be leading you toward this week?
Introduction: How Good a Witness Are You?
The message opened with a quick memory test: a picture of a desk, then questions about the color of the clock, the time it showed, the number of books, the placemat. A few simple techniques help us remember well: scan systematically, group items together, and say it out loud.
The same is true of how we came to Christ. We scanned the scriptures and held our lives up against what God wants. We grouped things — not just listing sins, but seeing the patterns beneath them, like selfishness that shows up in many different ways. And then we said it out loud: Jesus is Lord. From that moment we became witnesses.
Imperfect Witnesses
We are meant to be witnesses at work, at school, at home. Our testimony includes our change and transformation — and even our struggles. We don’t have to be perfect, polished, or have it all together. Perhaps it is in our imperfection that our witness is the most honest testimony of what God is doing.
Scattered by Persecution (Acts 1 & 8)
Jesus promised: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Then Acts 8 opens: “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria.”
Imagine the excitement of the early church — needs being met, a beautiful community — suddenly torn apart. Stephen is stoned. Believers are dragged to prison. The Greek word for witness, martys, is where we get the word martyr. So the question is real: when life scatters us, does the seed die? Or does God use even our darkest hours to spread His good news?
Two Kinds of Seeds
Some seeds grow into beautiful plants and trees. Others become thorns and thistles that take over. Acts 8 shows us two men who heard the same gospel: Simon the sorcerer and an Ethiopian official.
Simon the Sorcerer: A Seed That Didn’t Take Root (Acts 8:4–24)
Philip took the gospel to Samaria — a people whom many Jews considered to have no right to a relationship with God after centuries of intermarriage, a rival temple, and political friction. There Simon had amazed the city with magic, claiming to be someone great. When Philip preached the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus, many were baptized, and “Simon himself believed and was baptized.”
When Peter and John came from Jerusalem and laid hands on the Samaritans, they received the Holy Spirit — God’s way of saying the Samaritans had the same access to Him as everyone else. But Simon offered money for that power. Peter answered: “May your money perish with you, because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money… your heart is not right before God.”
Simon is like the soil Jesus described that receives the word at first but quickly falls away — a heart focused on self. Later Christian writers remember him as Simon Magus, one of the first to twist the faith into something built on self-power and individualism. His influence spread for centuries, but not in the way God intended.
The Spirit Is Not a Trophy
Simon wanted power without relationship. But the Spirit’s purpose is to show us the Father and the Son and connect us to Them. The Spirit is not an outward display or something we use to prove ourselves. He is an inward transformation of the heart. We don’t focus outward and then inward; we are transformed inwardly, and that change then shows outwardly.
We all want to see change in our lives. Books and self-help can be helpful, but make sure God is the one bringing the transformation. Growth is usually a consistent, persistent — sometimes grinding — process of becoming more like Jesus. Like building physical strength, we aren’t transformed from zero to a hundred overnight. We lift ten pounds today, and, God willing, more tomorrow.
The Ethiopian Official: A Seed That Grew (Acts 8:26–40)
An angel sent Philip to the desert road from Jerusalem to Gaza, where he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an official in charge of the treasury of Queen Candace. He had travelled some 2,400 kilometres to worship — knowing that, as a foreigner and a eunuch, he would be kept at a distance. In the temple, a barrier called the soreg warned that any foreigner who passed it would bring about his own death. He could not even offer his own sacrifice.
Yet scripture held out hope. Isaiah 56 says: “Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, ‘The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.’ And let no eunuch complain, ‘I am only a dry tree’… I will give them within my temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters.”
The man was reading Isaiah 53. When Philip asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” he answered, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” — and invited Philip to sit with him. Simon simply watched; the Ethiopian asked to be guided. There is a humility in that heart.
Beginning with that very scripture, Philip told him the good news about Jesus — the sacrificial Lamb whose sacrifice was not merely for him but opened the way to God. When they came to water, the man asked, “What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” Baptized that day, he received direct, unhindered access to God, bypassing every physical barrier, and “went on his way rejoicing.” We never read of him again in scripture, yet Ethiopia has one of the longest Christian histories in the world. One seed, scattered faithfully, can transform a nation.
What Will Your Legacy Be?
We often think of legacy as something we look back on at the end of life. But by then it is too late to change it. Legacy starts now. To the young: begin a legacy that brings glory to God. To those who are older: keep living it. Scatter seeds. Be transformed. Be different.
In Acts the church is called the Way — not a box, but a path and a journey. Sometimes that path runs through hard places. Even there, we can show others the way to God.
- What will your family see in you?
- What will your coworkers and neighbours see?
- Where might God be scattering you this week — and who will you impact?
Communion: The Dividing Wall Is Torn Down (Ephesians 2:11–22)
Paul wrote about that same temple barrier: “But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility.” Through the cross we “both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household… And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” — Ephesians 2:19, 22
This is what the Ethiopian came to understand: we now have access to God directly. God does not want us building walls, but tearing them down so the gospel can reach everyone. As we take communion, we remember that we are part of a dwelling where God lives by His Spirit.