AI OVERVIEW: Uh, if we haven't met yet, my name is Tyler Gorsline and I get to serve as a lead pastor here. And you guys, I'm I'm gonna tell you about it in a little bit, but I got to take a break for a minute from preaching. So, Lord have mercy on y'all. Uh because that means I'm coming in hot. I'm coming in excited. I'm filled up. God has been so good and generous to speak to me and encourage and and work in my own heart as I've been away for a few weeks. And uh with that I'm going to just tell you we are in a church a series as a church a teaching series called church on fire. And this is about the book of acts which is um written by the uh written by Luke. And Luke is this author who basically wanted to give a detailed account of the historical happenings of a spirit empowered Jesus people. What that means for those of you who may not yet be following Jesus is the world was turned upside down. Not by some unique strategy or some religious program or some political power. No, it was turned upside down by this group of people who were filled with God in their life and lived to follow Jesus no matter the cost. And so we're believing that our church can be just like that in this time and in this place and in this city. And so yes, buckle up. I will say before I get started, I need to thank uh Pastor Prrentice for his word last week and Richard and Claire and my friend Brady who all came and and it's kind of difficult to have such a good teaching team. I'm going be honest with you because you're like they don't miss you. You come back and you're like, no, they were great. And I'm like, I know that's the best part. And so what I'm going to do because it's the 11:00 a.m. and y'all tend to be more quiet is I'm going to I'm going to have you give me that same energy, that same enthusiasm that you gave them as I try to fill their big shoes. Not yours, Claire, you got tiny feet, but they're big shoes. Truth is, speaking of shoes, I just came back from a five-day hike on what's called the Camino de Santiago. It was a prayer walk whereby only the grace of God I walked 86 miles over those days. It's fine. But but why I tell you that uh is because while I was on that journey, it was to ask God, "Hey, what do you want me to know? What do you want me to reflect on in my life uh with you, Jesus? my marriage, my parenting, my um this church, this incredible church of people. God, looking back and then looking forward, what do you have as vision for where you were leading us in all of those areas? And are there anybody in the room that's done the Camino before? I know. I see you, Jany. Anybody else besides Janie? Okay, great. What you do on the Camino is you join in with over 500,000 pilgrims. that is people who are trying to walk towards the church where it is traditionally believed that James of the book of James in the Bible is buried and you go on this journey as a chance to kind of really seek and understand what's going on in your own heart and along the way you say this phrase bien Camino and it's this way to cut through all the various languages across the world with a shared greeting you make eye contact some people you see weariness in their guys, the journey's been hard. Some people don't even know why they're there. Others are on a mission, but it's the phrase essentially means um good path. And it's this acknowledgement that you are on a shared journey and that you are on a good path. You're going towards a destination that in Lord willing, the journey will be transformative. and walking this good journey. One of the things I discovered is the easiest thing to do on the commamino is to take a wrong turn. And you might be like, "That's ridiculous. There's signs everywhere." But the trick is there's this temptation embedded deeply in the palm of your hand and mine, which is if you know where you're trying to end up, you use this thing called Google Maps because you'’re afraid that if I go the wrong way, it's going to be a longer route. So as you're pull up maps and it's this instantaneous perfect easy route that it gives you from a satellite floating outside of the earth. There's this dangerous pitfall. It will get you there faster. It will get you there easier. It will be more efficient. It'll be more comfortable. And especially when you're on mile 14 and you're spellbound by the temptation to get relief. You're literally like any way possible. And then you started to go, "Yeah, I'm going to follow Google Maps." And you just walk along a freeway instead of the path that Jesus actually wants you to take, which is one that is well troddy difficulty prepared by followers of Jesus for the last 20 centuries. a route that is enchanting that while you might feel like you have the power of God at your fingertips, while it might feel like magic, if you take that off-ramp, it will lead you beside a dead barren road that isn't even the point of the journey in and of itself. I want to say the dumbest thing I've probably ever said from this stage. Truly, destinations are reached by paths. I know, I know, compelling. But the reason that this is important for me to say to you is that we have to examine what path we are on because you will get to the same destination. As a follower of Jesus, God is faithful. He is the author and perfector. He will get you to glory. But the question is, what path are you taking to get there? And is it the one that is the life to the fullest that he is offering you? Or is it the wrong path that creates the wrong journey that will that will literally work against your transformation that will literally leave you under a spell? Because many of us, we want transformation, but we don't want the vulnerability that it takes. We want intimacy, but we don't want closeness. We want healing without repentance. We want authority without servantthood. We want transformation without surrender. We want resurrection, believe it or not. Listen to this, without death. We want to be a people who get the benefits. We want to be friends with benefits with Jesus. We want to be a people who get all the joys of the relationship without any of the cost of the commitment and the covenant. And the wrong path is one that Proverbs says this. It says that there is a way that appears to be right to each person, but in the end, that path leads to death. And in our passage today, which I'm going to get to, but I'm going to build a little bit of a case for you because I'm on one, and I have some things I need to name because it's important for us to confess the reality of where we're at. If we ever want to repent from the path that we're on, to go towards the path that Jesus has for us, we have to speak truth about reality. And in our passage in Acts 8, there's this man known as Simon the Sorcerer, which is like a cool rap name. And there's this place called Samaria. And in both of those places, and in a third place, which is our own hearts, if we're willing to admit and be honest, is that we are more prone to be those, like Jeremiah 17 says, who are led astray by a heart that is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. One that we can't even understand. The scriptures say, who can even understand it? The depths of our own heart, it's brokenness. And James later echoes this that each person is tempted and when they are dragged away by their own evil desire, they are enticed. And but by the grace of God, we have Jesus who was tempted in the very same way, who can empathize with our weakness, has the same heart that we do, has the same mortal flesh that we do, and was tempted in every way, yet somehow was without sin. And you see this message isn't about the sin that is downstream. To talk about Simon the sorcerer in Samaria and in this story we have to talk about how Simon like us wants the destination of the kingdom but he just doesn't want to take the path of the kingdom. We feel the same way. We want the good path. And today's story is one about someone who took the wrong path to the wrong destination and needed loving correction, repentance, and a new path. Because he was taking the myth of magic. He was taking the myth of magic, which is that we can gain God's power without God's presence, who sought the gifts without the Giver. The passage challenges us to examine what paths we're taking in our spiritual journey. Are we following the well-trod path of surrender and intimacy with Jesus, or are we being seduced by the easier route that promises transformation without vulnerability, healing without repentance, and resurrection without death? The central revelation here is that every city and every person lives under a spell of some kind. For us in modern times, these spells might be individualism, scarcity mindset, workaholism, or the technological ease that promises instant answers without the hard work of formation. We're invited to recognize that we cannot gain God's power without His person and without His passion. True transformation requires us to die to ourselves, to surrender control, and to trust that the difficult path of discipleship is actually the good path. This isn't just about avoiding obvious sins; it's about recognizing how we've become consumers rather than disciples, how we want friendship with benefits from Jesus rather than covenant relationship. The call is clear: repent from the magic that manipulates spiritual forces for personal gain, and instead embrace worship that says 'I surrender' rather than 'I leverage.' We're reminded that we can be baptized and still not fully surrender, that we can join the movement and still seek the power of our old life. The invitation is to become transitional characters who break the curse in our families and our city, saying 'it ends with us' and stepping into the freedom that only comes through the Holy Spirit.
YOUTUBE DESCRIPTION: We live in a world that constantly promises us shortcuts to power, transformation, and fulfillment. This message from Acts 8 confronts us with the story of Simon the Sorcerer, a man who wanted God's power without God's presence, who sought the gifts without the Giver. The passage...
