Sunday, November 6, 2022 AM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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It's good to be back with you. Thank you for your prayers in the intervening weeks. Praise the

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Lord we can be together again. Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the day.

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We thank you for your answered prayers, for our answered prayers, your loving kindness toward us, your faithfulness, the way that you meet our needs time and time and time again.

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And we ask today that as we read your word together that we would rejoice in your truth, that our attention would be upon our

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Savior Christ, and that the agenda that you have for us would be our affections.

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We would desire what you offer to us. Lord, we thank you for your patience and your long -suffering.

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We thank you for your grace. We thank you for your blessings. We thank you that even as seasons change and the times change, even as fears, new fears manifest and old fears linger, you are

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God. You are our creator. You are our master.

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You are our Savior. We give you the praise today. In Christ's name we pray these things.

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Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 3.

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Acts chapter 3, we're going to be reading again in verses 17 through 26. We...

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I was always been surprised by this particular portion of Scripture in Peter's preaching.

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This is a sermon par excellence, one in which we know we're only given the highlights by the faithful pen of Luke inspired by the

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Holy Spirit for, as we will see later, Peter and John were hours in the temple, hours in the temple preaching and proclaiming the good news of Jesus Christ.

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Even as in Acts chapter 2, we have an excellent sermon from Peter, and we are reminded by Luke with many other words,

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Peter was persuading them and calling to them to be saved from that perverse generation.

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So although we are given the highlights, we are given the highlights of the highlights.

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This is a wonderful sermon, one in which does us great benefit that we would take our time with it, be appropriate, and we are going very slow, but here is a passage that...

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here is a passage that invites us to consider the length and the breadth, the height and the depth of our salvation in Christ.

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Here is a passage that invites us to see how it is that the

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Old and the New Testament are reconciled in Christ. Here is a passage which is the preaching of the gospel of Jesus for the

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Jew first and also for the Gentile. This is a critical moment, a critical moment not unlike the moment where Jesus parades into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, and His followers are roiling around Him, a moving parade, and laying down palm branches, and laying down their garments, parading the new king into Jerusalem.

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And when Jesus enters, He goes all the way to the temple and enters into the temple grounds, where the excitement continues.

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And it says in Luke's gospel, His first volume, the people there were praising

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God for all the things that He had done. He had been healing the blind and healing the lame, casting the demons out of the possessed, raising the dead.

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And they were rejoicing in all the mighty works of Jesus, praising

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God and calling Him a king, giving Him the praise deserving of the

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Messiah. And all this... this is a wonderful celebration. Although this wonderful celebration was going on, it consisted of an authority challenge.

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The rulers of the temple did not like what they were hearing. If this indeed was the

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Messiah, that would mean that they would be out of a job. They would no longer have their standing.

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They would no longer have their authority. They would no longer have their importance. And so they addressed Jesus very harshly and told

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Him to tell His admirers, His worshippers, His followers, to be quiet.

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To stop saying these things. And Jesus said, if they were to be quiet, the very stones of the temple would cry out with the truth of it.

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And indeed, we have yet another moment, wherein the name of Jesus Christ is being declared in the temple grounds.

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A mighty work has been done. A man born lame has been given health, so that he's walking and leaping and praising

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God in the temple. And everybody is rejoicing in this mighty work done in the name of Jesus Christ.

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And once again, there is an authority conflict happening. There is a crisis of authority that is ongoing in this moment, where Peter is preaching the good news of Jesus Christ.

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And we're going to see that the temple leaders are once again going to take offense. And they're going to arrest

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Peter and John. They're going to throw them in jail. And the next day, they're going to put them on trial.

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But to understand why the leaders are so upset, to understand why there is such excitement, we need to pay attention to the preaching of Peter.

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Remember on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit comes, and the tongues of fire come down, and the wind is rushing and blowing, and these

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Galileans, with their thick accents, are preaching in languages they had never heard, the mighty truths of Jesus Christ.

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And there's a great deal of excitement generated. And at the end of chapter 2 of Acts, we see all these people turning to Jesus Christ, thousands coming into the church.

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There's excitement and there's excitement. But what does it really mean? What is the significance of it?

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We don't know, unless we pay attention to the sermon in between. And in Acts 3 and 4, there's the healing of the lame man, which creates a lot of excitement.

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And there's the courtroom drama at the end of chapter 4, where they stand for Jesus.

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But we don't understand the significance of what that means, unless we pay attention to the sermon in between.

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What is the significance of what is going on? And that's why we're taking some time here, in Acts 3, looking at what

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Peter is preaching. I invite you to stand with me.

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I'm going to read, beginning in verse 17. This is the word of the

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Lord. Christ's faithful servant Luke, by the inspiration of Christ's Spirit, recording faithfully the sermon of Peter, here in the temple.

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Verse 17. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

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But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets, that the Christ would suffer, He is thus fulfilled.

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Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the

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Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which

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God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers,

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The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things whatever

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He says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.

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Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days, you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which

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God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your seat all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

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To you first, God having raised up His servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, and turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

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This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God. You may be seated. As on the day of Pentecost, Peter is addressing those who do not understand.

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At Pentecost, people heard the apostles preaching in languages they had never learned, and they said,

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Oh, they're drunk with wine. Peter does not let that stand. He corrects them and says, No, what you are encountering is nothing less than the fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel, who said in the last days the

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Holy Spirit would come. Welcome to the last days of the old covenant. Here is the sign of the new covenant. None other than the

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Holy Spirit. With the Holy Spirit and the coming of the new covenant is an impending judgment upon this wicked and perverse generation.

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But whoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Who is this Lord? None other than Jesus of Nazareth, who is the

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Christ, the Son of the living God. And this is proven by the prophecies of David in the Psalms.

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And they said, What must we do? He says, Repent, turn away from this wicked and perverse generation and be saved.

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And God saved thousands that day on Pentecost. Now, Peter and John approach the temple on a day not too long after Pentecost, at the hour of prayer, the hour of the evening sacrifice.

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Three o 'clock in the afternoon, they come to the temple, and there is a man born lame.

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For decades he is laying here, just outside the gate called Beautiful, begging for alms, never allowed inside due to his disability, because he is impure and unclean.

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He thinks he's going to get something from Peter and John. They don't give him any money. But Peter says to him,

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In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. He knew who Jesus of Nazareth was.

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He was the one who had been risen from the dead. And in the name of the one who was raised from the dead, you get up off the ground and walk.

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The man was given faith by Christ to believe in Christ, and he was raised up from the ground.

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And he was so excited, he went with Peter and John into the temple, walking and leaping and praising

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God. And everybody in there knew who he was. He's the man born lame.

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He's been there for decades. He's been healed. And they think Peter and John are something. Peter and John says,

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No, we're not anything, but Jesus is something. The reason why this man can walk and leap and praise

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God with you right now is because of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus healed him. And then

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Peter begins to preach, and he begins to tell them that they are guilty.

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Guilty because they are part of the old covenant, part of Israel, and Israel has murdered the

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Messiah. They asked for a murderer to be released to them, Barabbas, but they chose instead to have

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Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, the Son of the living God, to have Jesus murdered by the hands of the

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Romans. And Peter says, You are guilty of this horrendous crime, even though you did it in ignorance.

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The ignorance just makes it worse. You're the one to whom God gave the Holy Scriptures, and you don't know what they say.

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You don't know what they mean. You are guilty, but let me tell you what the Scriptures say. God has everything to say in the

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Scriptures about His Son from beginning to end. He's been talking about His Son in the Word of God, and this proves that you should have known better, and you stand guilty.

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And then he says, Repent therefore, in verse 19. The therefore is very important.

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Repent on the basis of your guilt. Repent on the basis that your guilt in the destruction of the

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Messiah, your rejection of God's chosen one, God sent to you the long -promised

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Son of David, and you had him murdered by the hand of unjust

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Gentiles. And your guilt is thoroughly shown, proven, and exposed by simply reading the

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Word of God. Therefore, repent. Therefore, repent.

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Now, I would have us be clear on what is going on in this sermon.

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When you hear the expression, the gospel, or to preach the gospel, it is a word which means good news.

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And Luke has been using it in this turn of phrase, the gospel of the kingdom, the good news of the kingdom.

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That's how he says it over and over and over again. Meaning there's good news about a kingdom, which necessarily entails a king.

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The good news, the gospel, is simply this, the person and the work of Jesus Christ. Who is

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He? In all of His glory, in all of His meaning, who is Jesus Christ? Who is His person?

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And what is it that He has done? What is it that He has done? That is the gospel.

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26 times throughout the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, Luke's two volumes, 26 times there are specific gospel preaching moments where the person and work of Jesus Christ is declared, and then a response is called for.

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Because you cannot declare the majesty and the glory, the worthiness and the good and the power and the salvation of Jesus Christ, and then remain neutral afterwards.

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This is not some interesting trivia fact that has no impact on your life or on the world around us.

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When we hear that Jesus of Nazareth is God of very God and man of very man, the long -promised seed and servant and son of David, that He has been given a name which is above every name, having lived a perfect righteous life, born of a virgin, died upon the cross a substitutionary death, raised the third day and ascended to the right hand of the

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Father, where He reigns supreme, and will come again in absolute victory as King of kings and Lord of lords, that all of creation is

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His inheritance, that none other can even come close to His glory, that He is the head of all humanity, whether you like it or not.

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When that gospel is declared and heralded out, you cannot remain neutral. You can only bow the knee, find refuge in the

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Son, or rage against Him and plot vain things against Him. That's it. That's all we're left with.

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So every time the gospel is declared and proclaimed, the person and work of Jesus is declared, there is a response called for, and every single time, all 26 times in Luke and Acts, it sounds like this, repent and or believe.

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It's two sides of the same coin. Repent. Repent comes from a word in the original.

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It means with the mind or from within. With the mind, I'm going to turn. There's going to be a turn within me.

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I'm going to turn away from all kinds of things, including myself, and I'm going to turn towards this wonderful King and His powerful kingdom, and I'm going to bow the knee to Him, which requires faith, which requires faith, that I believe

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He is who He says He is, that He has done what He has done, and that it means what it means according to the

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Scriptures. So repentance and faith are simply two sides of the same coin. And many times over throughout the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, it says that repentance and faith, this coin is one of grace given to us by God, that we may be saved.

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In this sermon, Peter has preached the person and work of Jesus.

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In the previous verses, he has said, verse 13, "...the

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God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His servant Jesus."

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The word servant, the word used in Isaiah at first Israel, now reserved for Christ.

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"...His servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let

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Him go. But you denied the Holy One, the Messiah, and the just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the

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Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead." Do you hear this? Who He is, what

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He has done, the person of Jesus, and His life, death, and resurrection. You see, he's preaching gospel.

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And on the basis of the gospel, therefore, Peter says, now you must repent.

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You can't just let this be. You have to repent. You have to change your mind.

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There must be a reversal within. Because you're guilty of rejecting the

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Son of David. You're guilty of handing the Messiah over to the Romans to be murdered.

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You've been raging against God's anointed. You must repent. Repent, therefore, and be converted.

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Be converted. There's a word that has fallen into disrepute in our day.

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Conversion. Legislation is always trying to get passed in various places about conversion therapy.

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People hate the idea of conversion. Pastors and parents are thrown in prison in Canada for engaging in conversion therapy.

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Calling young people to repent from homosexuality is an imprisonable offense.

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Because in the paganism of our day, repentance, conversion away from heinous sin, is considered to be a crime in and of itself.

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But here Peter is saying, you need to be converted. It's a word which means to return to God.

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To return to God. I think Peter is partial to the Old Testament book of Joel because not only did he preach

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Joel on Pentecost, but in Joel chapter 2, verses 12 -13, just prior to the passage he used at Pentecost, we have this.

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Now therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart. Here's some really good imagery for repentance and conversion.

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This is what it looks like. Turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, so rend your heart.

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Did you hear that? Yes, there are externals that accompany repentance, but it's about the heart.

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Not going simply through external motions to virtue signal some kind of change, but rend your heart and not your garments, he says.

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Return to the Lord your God. Return to the Lord your God. When the

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Old Testament was translated into Greek, the word for return here is the same that Peter uses in his sermon.

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Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness.

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Return. Repent. Be converted. Now, I want us to take stock of what's happening here.

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Peter and John are where? They're in the temple. The temple grounds pretty big.

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It's several acres. But Peter and John have gone through one gate, after another gate, after another gate, and they're in the temple courts where the men of Israel are allowed to come.

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The women aren't allowed in there. Gentiles aren't allowed in there. The disabled and the unclean aren't allowed in there.

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But if you're a Jewish man, you get to go in all the way to this temple courts where you can see the altar, and you can see the brazen labor, and you can see the pillars, and you can be in this place called

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Solomon's Porch. Solomon's Porch. A row of mighty columns holding up a partial enclave, a partial roof, standing next to stones so big we don't even have the engineering today to move them.

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Covered over with gold in the best place you can possibly be as a

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Jewish man to worship God. Peter and John and their new friend, who's just been healed, and all these other

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Jews have come there, devout men of God. Why? Because it is the time of the evening sacrifice.

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It is the hour of prayer. Can't get closer to God than this in the

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Old Covenant. Unless you're a Levite, you get to go inside the temple. And then you get a little closer, a little closer to the throne room of God.

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Think about what Peter is saying to these devout Jews who have taken time out of their day to climb up the hill, go up all of the steps, go into the temple, giving offerings all the way there to behold the evening sacrifice and to pray to God.

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What does Peter say to these devout men of the Old Covenant? He says, you need to repent and be converted.

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No wonder they get arrested. He goes and preaches to the choir and says, you need to repent and be converted.

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You're not saved. You're not delivered. You're part of a wicked and perverse generation under which lives the wrath of God.

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The wrath of God abides upon you. You need to be converted. You need to return to God.

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Return to God? We're as close as we can get. What is going on here?

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Well, Peter's already told them what happened. They rejected the son of David. They rejected the son of David.

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That demonstrates that they're nowhere close to God. God sent them his son and they rejected him and raged against him, tried to depose him, tried to keep him from taking his throne.

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That's what they did. That's why they need to repent. You know who they are?

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They're Joab. Joab, who rejected the son of David, who rejected the chosen successor to David, Solomon.

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He backed the wrong horse. He conspired against Solomon. He conspired against Jedidiah, God says, my beloved.

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He conspired against Solomon, this man of peace. He conspired against God's chosen successor to King David.

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He plotted and raged against the son of David. And what did

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Joab do when his conspiracy was known? When this last act of treachery finally caught up to him after so much bloodshed.

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What did Joab do? He ran and laid hands on the horns of the altar.

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Did it help him? There he was cut down in cold blood. Babaniah.

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These people Peter's preaching to stand guilty of rejecting the son of David. They have rejected the chosen successor to David, the

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Messiah himself. A greater crime than Joab's treachery against Solomon.

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And here they are, in the temple courts, as close as they can get to holy

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God. Look at them, how devout they are. But if they lay hold of the horns of that altar, they're not going to be saved.

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They're going to be cut down with everybody else who rejects Messiah to embrace only shadows.

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There's no safety for them there. There's no safety for them there. Look how merciful

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God is to send a messenger like Peter and a messenger like John and assign this healed lame man to come to these

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Joabs who would be clinging to the horns of the altar and say, No, this is not going to save you. You need to repent.

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You need to be converted. Salvation is in Christ and in Christ alone.

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And a kind of salvation that far exceeds what they would have hoped and thought of.

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Look how merciful God is. In verse 26, Peter tells them,

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You sons of the prophets, you sons of the covenant. Verse 26. To you first, God, having raised up his servant

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Jesus, sent him to bless you. You who stand covenantally and ignorantly guilty of murdering him,

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God sent him to you to bless you. How? Specifically, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

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Oh, sons of the covenant. Sons of the prophets. Sons of the old covenant.

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You stand in need of salvation. God has sent you his son to turn you away from your iniquity.

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To repent you. To convert you. To bring you out of your wicked ways.

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Do we understand what repentance means? What repentance looks like? What would it require of Peter's audience?

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What was he calling them to do when he says repent and be converted? It'd be a lot, wouldn't it?

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It'd be a lot to have this massive change in their souls. To render their hearts and not simply their garments.

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It wouldn't be enough for them to hear that they murdered Messiah and then to put on sackcloth and ashes and fast outside the walls of the temple.

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That wouldn't be enough. It wouldn't be enough if they went home and they grabbed all of their oxen and all of their sheep and they paraded them to the temple and sacrificed every last one of them asking

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God to forgive them for the murder of his son. It would not have been enough. But God's own son was enough.

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And Peter was saying you must be converted to him. Turn to him.

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Forget about the horns of the altar. That lamb they just slit the throat of. It's bleeding out over there. They're putting it on the altar to offer it up to God by holy fire.

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No. Not that. Be converted from that. Be turned away from that.

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There's no hope for you there. Turn to Christ. Asking a lot.

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Asking a lot that they would no longer cling to the horns of the altar.

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That they would no longer look to the shadows of the sacrifices and the feast days.

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Asking a lot that they would let go of so many traditions that they had been taught to hold fast to the authoritative teaching of Christ himself.

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Asking a lot for them. They would have to, like Christ, take up their crosses.

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Denying themselves. Dying to their old lives. And follow Christ in a new life.

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The old things were going to have to completely pass away so that the new things would come. And that is the grace of repentance and conversion.

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That is the grace of repentance and conversion. We're made in God's image so we are made ready for worship.

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But fallen in sin, we worship in all the wrong ways. The worship switch is always hardwired on.

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No matter how much somebody wants to reject the notion that they are religious but just spiritual, all mankind is religious in one way or another.

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We all organize our lives in some fashion to worship.

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We inhale worth and exhale worship. The old English word for worship was worthship.

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We're ascribing worth. And that just goes on all the time, no matter what.

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And we're made to worship God. We're made to worship God. But fallen in sin, we worship in all the wrong ways.

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When we're called to repent, it's after we have been confronted with the good news of Jesus Christ.

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The glory of His person. The glory of His work. And in light of that glory, whatever it is that we've been glorying in all along, needs to be repented from.

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That's not worth. That's not weight. So often, mankind is in orbit around himself.

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A man is all about himself, or a woman is all about herself. I'm the most important person.

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My job is to please me. What matters most is my agenda. I've got to put me first.

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I've got to take care of myself first. I've got to love me first if I'm going to love anybody else. And we live in such a miserable, pagan world when we worship the self.

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Other people will worship creation. They will worship nature. They will worship Mother Earth. They'll worship all manner of false philosophies and fake utopian ideas.

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Many worship idols whose power are nothing but demons. But when we are confronted with the reality of who

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Jesus Christ is and what He has done, the only thing that we must do at that point is repent.

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Turn away from all the excuses we make to justify ourselves. Turn away from all of the glory we would ascribe to ourselves to make for ourselves a name.

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To turn away from all of that and identify ourselves in Christ and Christ alone. Well, this is why

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God sent us Jesus. It says in verse 26, To you first, God raised up His servant

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Jesus, sent Him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquities. To the Jew first, but also to the

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Gentile. To the nations. So God has sent Jesus to us too. To bless us.

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To bless us how? To turn us away from our iniquities. Turn us away from our false worship.

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Turn us away from glorying in the self. And along with this repentance, salvation is characterized by many, many blessings of redemption, which

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Peter begins to list out, in a treasure that is rather unique amongst other passages of Scripture.

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It's as if Peter takes up the diamond of salvation, the blessings of salvation, and puts it right into the light of Christ, and then begins to slowly turn it, that every glimmer of that diamond pierces our soul.

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And the very first thing on the list is forgiveness. You want to know the blessings of salvation?

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Number one, forgiveness. You know, so often when we talk about salvation, we talk about what it means to be saved, we start by talking about the forgiveness of sins.

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And some very holy numbskulls have decided that that's not very holy to start there.

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It so often is the starting place in the Scriptures. What a wonderful blessing it is to be forgiven.

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Where did it all go wrong? Sin? Where did it all go wrong?

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Adam and Eve sinning against God, and through sin comes death. The separation from God and from one another, the disaster in our world today, all begins with sin.

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It's no wonder we should talk about forgiveness. Right out of the gate. What does it mean to be saved?

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What are the blessings of salvation? Oh, they are a myriad. They are many and they are deep. They are wide.

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They are high. But let's begin with forgiveness. Look how

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Peter describes it. Repent, therefore, and be converted, so that your sins may be blotted out.

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They had many sins. Chief among them, they killed the prince of life. They had many sins, but if they would simply repent, if they would simply be converted, if they would turn away from all that which they had hope in before and turn to Christ, their sins would be blotted out.

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That lamb over there wasn't going to do the job. But if they turned to Christ, they would find that their sins are blotted out.

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What is forgiveness but this? In describing it this way,

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Peter is envisioning a very particular type of picture. He could have used a variety of pictures, but this is the one in which there is something written on a piece of papyrus.

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A parchment that is woven together of flat, dead grass, woven together, lightly dried and cured.

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There's a smooth side and there's a rough side. On the smooth side, scribes would write with ink what needed to be written down.

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But if you were ever in need of that paper again, and what was written down was not all that important, you could scrape it off by drawing an instrument across it, and you could scrape it and scrape it and scrape it until all of that ink was off that papyrus and you could reuse it again.

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It's like the same thing that they would use in even more ancient times, a stone tablet covered over with wax, upon which they would scribe what they needed to say, but when it was time to reuse the stone, well, that's where you would get a clean slate.

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In Colossians chapter 2, Paul, describing salvation, goes immediately to talk about forgiveness, and listen to how he describes it.

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Colossians 2 verse 13, And you, being dead in your trespasses, and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him, meaning

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Christ. So you were dead in your trespasses.

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You had no spiritual life at all. Indeed, you were doing whatever you wanted, but all you wanted was death.

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You had no capacity to want what was good or what was lively, what was truly alive in God, and not only that, you were dead in the uncircumcision of your flesh, no holiness at all, cut off from God, not part of his promises, and you being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, he has made alive together with him.

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You know, the one he raised from the dead. By the grace of faith, you are united to the risen one, so that you too are made alive.

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The old passed away, behold, new things have come. This is your first resurrection. Now, how did he make you alive together with him?

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Notice, having forgiven you all trespasses. Having forgiven, past tense accomplished all, without exception, trespasses.

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How is the forgiveness of our trespasses connected with being made alive? Even as the committing of the trespasses is what made us dead.

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Sin came into the world and thus death came through sin because all men sinned. The sin is death, the wages of sin is death.

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And so the forgiveness of our sins, the forgiveness of our trespasses, is being brought into life, made alive together with Christ.

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Now, in describing the forgiveness of all of our transgressions, of our trespasses, verse 14,

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Paul says, having wiped out, same word as we have in Peter's sermon in Acts 3, blotted out, wiped out, the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

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God made him who knew no sin to become sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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God laid upon him the iniquity of us all. And Christ suffers upon the cross, bearing the handwriting of requirements that was against us, all that which was contrary to us, the full record of all of our trespasses against God and man, the entirety of our guilt and our sin, he has taken it out of the way, he has blotted it out, he has wiped it out, having nailed it to the cross.

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That's forgiveness. That's what Peter is preaching here.

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Lamb after lamb after lamb, losing its life, its blood being shed, there in that temple court, could not take away their sins.

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But the Lamb of God takes away their sins. Forgiveness, you see, is not simply somebody in high authority telling you, don't feel bad about yourself.

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Accept yourself. Come to grips with who you are and accept yourself.

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Forgive yourself. That's not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness, by its very definition, by the meaning of its very term, means an absolute release and removal of offense and guilt.

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It is what happened on the Day of Atonement in picture, on Yom Kippur, in Liticus 16, where once a year the high priest was allowed into the

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Holy of Holies, only once a year, and two goats were brought before him.

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And the first, they would have a ceremony and he would place his hands on the head of the goat.

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And it was said that this would signify the sins of the people being transferred to this sacrificial animal.

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That animal was then promptly killed. Its throat was slit. The blood was captured in a bowl.

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And the high priest would take that bowl of blood, the substitutionary sacrificial blood of that atoning animal in picture, and he would walk through the holy place and he would pass in through the veil into the

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Holy of Holies, which by this time would be filled with the smoke of incense and everything would be pitch black and filled with smoke that he would not be slaughtered for looking upon the

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Ark of the Covenant. Inside the Ark of the Covenant was the Ten Commandments and the bowl of manna and Aaron's rod that bloomed.

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And the Ark carried, the Covenant carried the reality of God's holy law and demands upon His people.

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But on top of the Ark, covering it over was the throne of God called the Mercy Seat. And upon the

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Seat of Mercy this blood was sprinkled by the high priest mediating for the people, have mercy, have mercy, have mercy.

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That's called propitiation. The sacrifice of a substitute for the cost of our sins.

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Jesus Christ is our propitiation, Romans 3 says. He's the Lamb of God who suffers in our place and for our sake.

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The full penalty of the justice of God, the wrath of God for our offending the holiness of God.

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Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God who suffers in our place and for our sake. Our propitiation,

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Romans 3 says. But not just propitiation.

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For then the high priest comes back out of the Holy of Holies and another goat like the first one is brought to him.

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And again the ceremony is had and he places his hands upon the head of the animal. And once again it is understood that the sins of the people is symbolically transferred to this animal.

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And this animal is taken outside of the tabernacle and outside of the camp.

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And it is led far away into the wilderness. And it is let go where it will wander and stagger and die and never be seen again.

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That is expiation. That is the removal of our transgressions as far as the east is from the west.

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That is the burying of all of our guilt and sin in the tomb of Christ and never be rendered or worked about again.

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And that's Romans 4. How blessed is the man to whom the Lord does not impute sin.

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Our forgiveness, you see, is not simply a matter of somebody in high authority saying, well, don't feel bad about it.

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It is not God sweeping wickedness under the cosmic rug and winking and saying, we just won't think about it.

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It is God exercising perfect justice and perfect mercy all at the same time in offering us

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His Son Jesus Christ as a substitutionary atonement for our sins, propitiating the wrath of God and expiating our guilt so that truly, truly as we stand before God, we are not guilty and fully righteous.

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That is what is caught up in this forgiveness, the blotting out of our sins.

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It is something that had long been anticipated by these men that Peter was preaching to.

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Long it had been anticipated that this would be the case. Year after year,

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Day of Atonement. Year after year, Passover. Year after year, the feast days.

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Day after day, the sacrifices. Long had it been anticipated, but only anticipated.

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Only in picture. Only by promise. But now the day had come.

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The Lamb of God had been sent into the world and He had died upon the cross and He was raised from the dead, proving all the

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Scriptures correct. And Peter is saying, repent, turn to God, turn to Christ that your sins may be blotted out for real, for always, completely.

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Peter stands at the pinnacle of the Old Covenant, the nexus of the

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Old Covenant. He's on the temple mount, inside the courts of the temple itself.

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He couldn't be in a more special place except for the holy place and the holy of holies. He's there at Old Covenant Central and he's preaching

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New Covenant promise, New Covenant realities. And he's saying to them, you must convert.

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You've got to convert. You've got to turn. Forgiveness of sin, forgiveness of sin is one of the two preeminent promises of the

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New Covenant that was established by the prophets. We're going to hear later on in this very sermon. Peter says, all the prophets preached this and indeed they did.

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In Jeremiah chapter 31, verses 31 through 34, we hear the background of something that Jesus said at the

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Last Supper. Do you remember Jesus when he gave the bread and the wine to his disciples?

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When he gave that wine to his disciples, he said, this is the blood of the New Covenant in my blood.

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Drink it. He's saying, by your participation in my sacrifice, by your faith in what

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I do, by you being with me, you are going to be in the

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New Covenant because I bring it about in my death and resurrection. Jesus is declaring he's bringing about the

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New Covenant. What is he talking about? So, Jeremiah 31, verses 31 through 34.

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Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.

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That's really good news because they're about to get exiled to Babylon and lose their city and lose their temple and lose everything.

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And they're going to be pretty much hopeless unless they still have promises of God. You all are a bunch of failures in the

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Old Covenant, but I'm going to make a new covenant. So don't give up. Verse 32, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.

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This will not be Mount Sinai all over again. That's what he's saying.

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My covenant, which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the Lord, but this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the

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Lord. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. Ezekiel says this is the

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Holy Spirit in us, giving us a heart of flesh where we know the words of God and love the words of God and want to follow them.

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And I will be their God and they shall be my people. No more shall every man teach his neighbor and every man his brother saying,

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Know the Lord. You know, like it was in old covenant Israel where only a remnant were really circumcised of heart, only a remnant were really born again, and most of them were like trying to keep up with the program.

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Right? Through positive peer pressure, let's not bring the judgment of God on us, okay? No, not like that anymore.

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No longer will there be an external pressure. Everybody should know the Lord and fear God.

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No longer in the new covenant, they shall all know me. From the least of them to the greatest of them.

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It doesn't matter if you're in the new covenant, you have the Holy Spirit.

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If you're in the new covenant, you know God. If you're in the new covenant, you're born again. For I will forgive their iniquity and their sin

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I'll remember no more. If you're in the new covenant, your sins are forgiven. Why? Because you're in Christ.

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He died for you. He shed His blood for you. His body was broken for you. He died on the cross for you.

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He's your propitiation. He's your expiation. He rose from the dead. He's at the right hand of the Father, interceding on your behalf.

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Every single thing that happens in your life, He is interceding for you before the Father. You have an advocate at the right hand of God.

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So if you are in Christ, if you're in the new covenant, then you have the Holy Spirit and you have forgiveness of all your sins.

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And this is what Hebrews chapter 8 picks up on about the superiority of Christ.

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And this is so important. Peter is there at the Old Covenant central station,

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Old Covenant, and he's saying to them, repent, be converted, you need Christ. Don't hold on to the horns of the altar like a

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Joab. Turn to Christ. He's superior. Hebrews 8 verses 6 through 8, but now he's obtained a more excellent ministry inasmuch as he is also a mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.

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For if that first covenant had been faultless, then no place would have been sought for a second. Because finding fault with them, that was the fault of the

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Old Covenant, not God's covenant, but those who were a part of it. Because finding fault with them, he says, behold, the days are coming, says the

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Lord, when I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel, with the house of Judah. And the quotes will be just read in Jeremiah 31.

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And again, verse 12, Hebrews 8, for I will be merciful to their unrighteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds.

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I will remember no more. As far as the East is from the West, the expiation. In that, he says, a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete.

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Now what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away, right? Last days of the Old Covenant. Well, it's ready to go away.

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Time to turn to Christ of the new covenant so your sins may be forgiven. You say, well, preacher, that sounds good, but I'm not an

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Israelite. It says he made the covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.

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And I'm no Jew. I'm just a lowly Gentile. Well, you stop looking at yourself.

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This is about Christ. I didn't get circumcised.

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This is not about you. All the circumcision you need is in Christ, Galatians say.

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And all the Jewishness you ever need is in Christ. Because everything

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God said about Israel in the Old Testament, He says of Jesus in the New Testament. Do you need

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Jewishness? It's in Christ. Do you need righteousness? It's in Christ. Do you need circumcision?

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It's in Christ. Do you need forgiveness? It's in Christ. Do you need hope? It's in Christ.

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That's where your salvation is. And Jesus promises, Jesus promises this new covenant in His blood, in His sacrifice that He brought about, and He said to His apostles, you are my witnesses of this, and you're going to spread this around, not just to Jerusalem, not just to Judea, but also to Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth.

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And in this way we see the nations grabbing hold of the hymn of a

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Jew, namely Jesus, and being brought into Mount Zion. Let's pray.

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Father, we thank You for this day. We thank You for this sermon here in Acts 3. Lord, it's rich, and it's full of Your promises.

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We thank You. Lord, help us to trust these grand promises.

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They are so big. They are so big. They're hard to embrace.

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Lord, we know we don't deserve this kind of forgiveness and this kind of love. It's not about what we deserve, but about Your glory and Your grandeur and Your freedom to do these wonderful things for Your Son, and to bring fame to Your name.

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And we thank You that we have such a full and bountiful salvation in Your Son, Jesus Christ. And we thank

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You that we have such forgiveness of our sins, that we're freed from the death of our trespasses.

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And we pray that You would fill our hearts with thanksgiving and joy this coming week, and that we would encourage one another with Your good news.