When God Challenges Our Understanding

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to the 10th chapter of Acts.
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If you'll find your place at verse 34, one of the things that most people do not like is to be challenged.
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And I don't mean like challenge someone to lift a certain amount of weights or to walk up a high hill or climb a mountain.
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Those type of challenges are often welcomed by people, especially adventurous ones.
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But we don't like to be challenged when we're wrong.
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We don't like for people to come against our understandings.
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We don't like for people to tell us that we've done or said or engaged in something that is not right.
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In fact, oftentimes the guttural response to something like that is anger.
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Who are you to tell me I've done something wrong? That's sort of the natural fleshly response to the rebuke.
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The reason why I'm addressing this topic as I work my way into the text is you have to consider Acts chapter 10 from the perspective of the Apostle Peter.
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Because everything that he's known up until this time about Gentiles, everything that he's believed, everything that he's convinced himself is correct, is being challenged.
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And it's not being challenged by a person.
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It's being challenged by God Almighty himself.
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And one of the first things we read, and we're going to read the whole text, but one of the first things we read in verse 34, he said, now I understand.
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I don't know if you've ever had a moment like that where you had a wrong view of something, where you had a wrong idea of something and someone explained it to you.
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And at first you responded with negative.
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You remember what happened when Peter was first told to take up and eat? He said, Lord, nothing unclean has ever entered my mouth.
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Why did he say that? He's like, no way.
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Remember this whole story.
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It's Peter's challenge.
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Peter's there, he's praying to God.
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God gives him a vision of all these animals coming down on their sheep.
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And he sees all these animals and God gives him that great hunter's command, rise, kill and eat.
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And Peter says, no, I can't do that.
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Nothing unclean has ever entered these teeth.
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Nothing has ever gone down.
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Nothing unclean.
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I can't do this.
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And as if to say to God, you're wrong.
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We often do that.
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We might not say it out loud, but we'll challenge God when he challenges us.
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Well, Lord, do you really know what you're doing? As if.
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So we have here, Peter having been challenged, he's uncomfortable.
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He realizes now what that meant because that picture was more than just a picture of food.
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That picture was more than just a picture of the ability to now eat pork and other types of food which were ceremonially forbidden under the old covenant.
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And it's more than that because now he's saying not only is the food clean, that's a small little, that's a little benefit, one that we enjoy, but it's just a little small benefit.
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The one thing that's really clean is these Gentiles that up until now, you haven't even been able to go into their land without, when you come back, knocking the dirt off your feet.
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You know, they didn't even want to trample Gentile dirt into Israel.
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So before going back into Israel, they'd take their sandals off and they'd knock them together.
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They didn't even want, all of it was unclean.
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And God is challenging him on his views.
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I remember years ago when I was challenged on my theology.
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You know, we all know what it means to be Reformed.
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We call ourselves a Reformed evangelical church.
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But I didn't go to a seminary that taught Reformed theology.
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I went to a Southern Baptist seminary, a modern Southern Baptist seminary, which taught a very Arminian view of the gospel.
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The men were lovely men, I love them to this day.
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But their view of the gospel was one that was an Arminian view.
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And when I was exposed to Reformed theology, you know what my response was? Can't be.
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Because it went against what I thought was right.
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It went against what I was taught.
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It went against what I understood.
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And I just can't be.
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And many of you, when I began teaching to you, what's the first response? No, that's not comfortable.
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It's not what I'm used to.
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It's not what I grew up with.
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And yet, when the scripture challenges us, it forces us out of what we're comfortable with, and into what God is comfortable with.
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And that's what's happening here.
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Peter is being forced out of what he's comfortable with, he's being forced into what God is comfortable with.
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And that's the difference.
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That makes all the difference.
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Because when we try to conform God to us, we are idolaters.
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Because we're making a God in our image.
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But when we submit to God as He is, we are then servants of Him in His image.
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So today we're going to read, as this was a couple weeks ago, I brought you right up to the sermon.
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And I said it was going to be next week, well that ended up being like almost a month ago now.
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We're going to finally see the sermon that Peter preaches to the Gentile audience.
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Remember, he was in Joppa.
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Cornelius the centurion had a vision from God.
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He said, send for Peter.
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Peter has now come to Joppa.
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He's in the house of a Gentile.
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Cornelius has invited all the people that he knows to come and hear this.
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He doesn't know what Peter's going to say.
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He doesn't know the gospel yet.
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He's waiting on the gospel.
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And all these people waiting.
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In fact, it says that.
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It says everyone here is waiting to hear what God has commanded.
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It's the most anticipatory audience in the history of the church.
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These people are just ready to hear the gospel and Peter is ready to preach it to them.
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So today we're going to read about what he said and then we're going to read about the result to what he said.
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So we're going to see the gospel call and we're going to see the spirits fall.
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Let's stand.
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Verse 34.
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So Peter opened his mouth and said, Truly I understand that God shows no partiality.
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But in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.
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As for the word that He sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, He is Lord of all.
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You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea.
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Beginning from Galilee, after the baptism that John proclaimed, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.
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He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.
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For God was with Him.
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And we are witnesses of all that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
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They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree.
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But God raised Him on the third day and made Him to appear, not to all the people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.
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And He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that He is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.
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To Him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.
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While Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on all who heard the word.
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And the believers from among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit was poured out even on the Gentiles, for they were hearing them speak in tongues and extolling God.
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Then Peter declared, Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
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Then they asked Him to remain for some days.
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Father in heaven, I thank You for Your word.
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I thank You for the opportunity to preach it.
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I pray first and foremost, O God, that You would keep me from error.
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Father, I pray for the hearts of the hearers, that You would open the hearts of anyone here who is an unbeliever, that You would bring regeneration and conversion.
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And Father, for the believers, that You would bring encouragement and strengthening and rebuke where it is needed.
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For Lord, within this passage is so much that reminds us of things about which we are often very complacent and sometimes outright rebellious.
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I pray for Your strength, O God, for Your Spirit to speak.
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In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.
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Today we will have a conclusion to a sermon which started a while back.
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It was all supposed to be one sermon.
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And then it became two sermons.
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And now it's moved on to multiple sermons as we look through Acts chapter 10.
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But I've divided these last few verses into two parts.
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We're going to look first at the gospel call.
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And that's Peter's sermon.
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And then we're going to look at the Spirit's fall.
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And we're going to talk about several things in this passage today as we break it apart as we go through it.
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Because there's a lot here.
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There's a lot of meat for us to chew on.
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And while I don't want to camp out on every single thing, I'm going to be bringing out some things that are important for us to realize.
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Because theology matters.
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And this particular instance in redemptive history is one that is often pointed to by various groups as, Aha! Here's the proof of my position.
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Whether it's the baptismal regeneration group or whether it's the Pentecostal group with the tongues or anything.
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Often this is a positional passage that people go to.
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Often not realizing that this is a transitional moment in the history of the church.
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They try to drag all these other doctrines into this particular historical narrative without realizing the actual purpose of this historical narrative is not to give a definition to baptism and baptismal regeneration, which we'll talk about in a little while, or to give definition to the issue of tongues or things like that.
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But what this does is this shows the beauty of the expanse of the gospel and the reality that those who are Jews are now having their worlds turned upside down because they are being told by God himself through this administration of the Holy Spirit that you are now at one with the Gentiles whom you would have considered up until this point absolutely unworthy to even have in your home.
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And so we begin in verse 34.
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So Peter opened his mouth.
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We see this first section.
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He said, truly I understand.
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I think some of your translations say I now understand.
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And I think that the text as it is written, I think that really is expressing it as if to say from Peter this is something that up until this point was not something I realized.
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Up until this whole situation started, up until I first got this vision, I didn't think this is how this was going to go.
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I have a new understanding.
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God has shown me something.
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Beloved, there are so many people that are not willing to have God show them anything.
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Oftentimes when I'm in counseling, I sit at a table.
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And I was actually taught not to do that.
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I was taught don't put a table between you because that's a divide and you want to be knee to knee with a person and you never want to have a table between you.
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But the reason why I have the table off and I try to sit at a corner is because I have my Bible open and I'll do this.
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Read that.
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I don't want to read it to you.
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I want you to read this and you tell me what that means.
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Confront someone with the Word.
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Let them read it.
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Let them have to look at it.
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You tell me what it means.
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It's in English.
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I didn't bring the Greek one with me.
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Read this and tell me what it means.
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That confrontation with the truth.
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He said, I grew up, I followed Christ for three years and I never realized that this was what was going to happen.
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And what amazes me is he didn't realize it.
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But then again, I'm looking sort of anachronistically.
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I'm looking back at something.
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I wasn't him and I wasn't there.
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But you've got to think all the way back to Abraham.
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Abraham was given a promise from God in Genesis chapter 12.
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Through you the Jews will be blessed.
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That's the only way to say it, is it? Through you all the nations of the world will be blessed.
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You see, the Abrahamic covenant was the promise of the gospel which would later be fulfilled in the person of Jesus Christ.
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In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us that the seed of Abraham is not meant to reference all of Israel corporately.
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But the seed of Abraham is Christ because it's through that seed that the world, the nations will be blessed.
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Through your seed the nations will be blessed.
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Jesus Christ is the seed.
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He says it's not seeds plural, it's seeds singular and the seed is Christ.
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He is the one through whom that promise will be fulfilled.
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But Peter didn't understand that.
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And we read already this morning in our opening text from John chapter 10.
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Open your Bible.
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Go back with me very quickly to John chapter 10.
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I just want you to hear what Jesus is saying.
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Start back at verse 14.
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We won't go all the way up to verse 7.
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He's talking about himself as the good shepherd.
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He says in verse 14, I am the good shepherd.
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I know my own.
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My own know me.
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Now, this is an interesting verse we talk about in Reformed theology sometimes.
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Christ knows those who are his.
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He calls them by name.
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He knows them from eternity.
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He knows them from the foundation of the world.
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If you are a saved individual, you have been chosen by God.
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And this is something he knew.
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He knew you before you knew you.
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He knew you before you knew anything.
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Remember what Jesus told the Pharisees? He said you don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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He didn't say you're not my sheep because you don't believe.
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He said you don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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My sheep hear my voice.
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My sheep know who I am.
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But you don't believe because you're not my sheep.
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But anyway, it goes on.
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He says I am the good shepherd.
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I know my own and they know me just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.
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The word know here references love.
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It's not just knowledge of someone, but it's love.
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I know them and they know me just as I know the Father and he knows me.
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It's a reference of relationship.
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He says I know them.
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They know me just as I know the Father.
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And I lay down my life for the sheep.
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There's a big particular redemption verse there.
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Who does Jesus die for? He dies for the sheep.
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Verse 16.
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And I have other sheep that are not of this fold.
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Now I've heard that passage used for all kinds of stuff.
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I've heard it used to defend multiple religious views.
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Like what Jesus is saying here is there's some people who are Christians and there's some people who are Buddhists and there's some people who are Muslims and there's some people who are Hindus or whatever.
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And all those folds will end up as sort of like a big mixing pot and it'll all come out in the wash and eventually everybody is going to be saved because Jesus has got people everywhere.
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That's not the context.
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That's not the point of what Jesus is saying.
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What he's talking about here is his immediate audience.
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He is talking to his followers who are Jews.
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He had 12 apostles.
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Not one of them was a Gentile.
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Most of the people that hang around him were not Gentiles.
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They were Jewish people.
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In fact, the early church was considered to be a Jewish cult.
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It was considered to be a cult branch of the Jewish religion because it was made up of just Jews.
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The 3,000 who were saved at Pentecost were all Jews.
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So this situation Jesus is talking about here, he said, I have sheep that are not of this fold.
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What he's saying is I have sheep that are not Jews.
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And I love the next passage.
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He says there will be one flock with one shepherd.
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You see what he's foreshadowing here, what he's promising here is there's coming a day when those Gentiles who you think are dirty and who are outside and who are not part of us, they're going to be brought in and there's going to only be one.
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There's not a division.
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There's not going to be your super Christians who are also Jews and then you got those Gentiles who made it in by, oh, you just sort of.
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No, there's going to be one unified faith under one Lord who is Christ.
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And we see that happening in Acts chapter 10.
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We see the fulfillment and that's what Peter now understands going back to Acts 10.
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He says now I understand that God doesn't show partiality.
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Now that can be difficult for people who believe in Reformed theology because we believe in election and we do believe God makes choices.
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So how do we understand that God doesn't show partiality? What it means in a very simple way is that God does not choose in accordance with things that we would choose with.
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Such as race.
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Such as ethnicity.
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Such as background.
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Such as social strata.
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Any of that stuff that normally people, that's how they group themselves.
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Most people group themselves in according to certain things.
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They group themselves by race.
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They group themselves by social strata.
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They group themselves by earned income.
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All these things.
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That's how they group.
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And that's the way we show partiality.
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And we still do it.
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The church is the most segregated place in the world.
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There's only two places that remain truly segregated.
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The church and the funeral home.
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Because you will still, it is still not uncommon to hear this.
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I went to a black church on Sunday.
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You hear people say that, won't you? Why? Because what they're saying is a majority black congregation.
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Or I work, you know I do funerals for families that don't have ministers.
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Black funeral home.
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It's very common.
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Why do we do this? Why do we divide? Because we, by nature, by sinful nature, show partiality.
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We do.
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And what Peter is seeing here, that he himself who grew up as one who showed partiality to the Jews, he showed partiality to his own people because he was one.
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You ever notice, you never see anyone who doesn't show partiality to their own? We show partiality to whatever we're a part of.
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Right? Peter showed partiality to the Jews because that's who he was.
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And now God has opened the door.
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Are we going to make it to the end? I'm still in the first verse.
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He opens the door and now Peter understands.
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Everything has changed and now with this huge paradigm shift, everything is different.
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God doesn't look like we look.
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We look at the outside, God looks at the inside.
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We can't see the outside.
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We base everything on the outside.
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God looks at the heart.
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God knows the individual.
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And God chooses from the foundation of the world to save the individual.
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And He doesn't save corporate.
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It's not as all the white people are going to be saved.
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It's not as if all the Jews are going to be saved.
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It's not as if all the Americans are going to be saved.
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Oh, we said it.
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Yes! We have to look at the world as made up of 7 billion individuals.
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Now for surveys and other things, we put people into categories but there is one category in which we all fit.
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The Imago Dei.
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The image of God.
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Every single individual, every one of those 7 billion people are made in the image of God.
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And when God chooses to save, He does not do so because someone came from a social strata, because they came from a social or a certain race, or from a certain country, or from a certain economic background.
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God saves according to His sovereign, free grace.
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And Peter is realizing right now in this moment, God doesn't show partiality.
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And he goes on to say in verse 35, he says, but in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.
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Now there are some people who use that as an argument for works righteousness.
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But you have to understand what it means to do right.
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Everyone, as it says, in every nation, anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.
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What is the work of God? That's a good Bible question.
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This is the work of God that you believe in Him who He has sent.
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John chapter 6.
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This is just the promise that we know from Scripture that whosoever believeth in Him will not perish.
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That's what that promise is saying.
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It's not saying that a person can work for their own salvation, but what it's saying is that every person, regardless of Jew or Gentile, regardless of man or woman, regardless of white, black, or anything else, can be saved through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Because that is what pleases God.
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Now we could go further and say no one does that outside of the miraculous gift of the Spirit.
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And we'll see that later in the story, but the reality is that's what Peter's realizing.
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Anyone, regardless of their background, regardless of their many sins, some people think they're too sinful to be saved.
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You couldn't possibly be.
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You can't possibly have so many sins that Christ's blood can't atone.
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It's just not enough.
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I used it all up.
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His blood is so precious and so powerful that it can wash away every sin.
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There's no one too sinful.
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Anyone who will fear God and come to Him through His Son Jesus Christ can be saved.
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And he goes on in verse 36.
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As for the word that He sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, He is Lord of all.
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I've broken down the sermon into five parts.
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He recognizes five things about Christ in this sermon.
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His lordship, His miracles, His atonement, His resurrection, and His commission.
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That's the five parts of this sermon.
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Verse 36, He recognizes His lordship.
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The ESV has it in parentheses because it is a parenthetical statement.
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He's talking about Jesus.
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He says, As for the word that He sent to Israel, preaching good news of peace through Jesus Christ, He is Lord of all.
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Jesus Christ is Lord of all.
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The lordship of Christ is something we cannot negotiate.
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The lordship of Christ is absolutely essential to our faith.
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I shouldn't have to elaborate that, but I'm going to.
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I shouldn't have to.
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But you realize that now, in 2015, we have a new, well, it's not really new.
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It's been, I guess, in the last 50 years.
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In the last 50 years, there are these movements that's called anti-lordship.
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That you don't have to receive Christ as Lord.
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Just receive Him as your Savior.
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You just believe that He's your Savior, and then at some point down the road, you know, when you become super-spiritual and you quit doing all that bad stuff, you'll finally have Him as your Lord.
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I remember one time I saw a thing against Reformed theology.
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It was something someone had wrote, and one of the things says, And they teach lordship salvation.
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That was on the attack against Reformed theology.
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I was like, Guilty! You can't have Christ as your Savior if He's not your Lord.
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We're guilty.
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Yes, that's what we preach.
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That's what Jesus taught.
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That's what the Bible teaches.
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It's not hard.
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And this is what Peter's teaching.
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He says, He is Lord of all, not Lord of some.
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Jesus is Lord of all.
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And He goes on in verse 37, You yourselves know what happened throughout all Judea.
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And this is where He goes into His miracles.
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He says, Beginning from Galilee after the baptism of John that John proclaimed, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.
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He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with Him.
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And then He says about the atonement in verse 39, And we are witnesses of all that He did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.
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They put Him to death by hanging Him on a tree.
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That's a veiled quote to the Old Testament.
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Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.
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Jesus took the curse for us.
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And this Peter's talking about.
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He's saying, Now Jesus died on the cross and He did so taking on Himself the curse.
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What curse? The wrath of God.
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Jesus took upon Himself the wrath of God.
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Often times people will say, I'm saved.
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And I'll respond, Saved from what? You tell me you're saved.
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What are you saved from? What's the answer? God.
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Well, think of it that way.
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When you're saved, you're saved from the wrath of God.
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By God.
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The one from whom you are saved is the one who saved you through the work of His Son and by the power of His Spirit.
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Yes.
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God is just and thus must punish sin.
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But in His love and mercy, chose to provide redemption through His Son.
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And He did so when He hung on that tree.
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Verse 40, But God raised Him on the third day.
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This is where He talks about the resurrection.
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And made Him to appear not to all people, but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead.
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It's so interesting that He says He didn't appear to everybody.
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I've heard atheists say that.
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I've heard atheists say, You know what? The one thing it would take for me to believe in God, I would just have to see a miracle.
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Do you realize how many people saw miracles in the days of Jesus? How many people saw Jesus working miracles and yet still did not believe? In the Gordon Stein debate, Gordon Stein and Greg Bonson in the 80s had one of the best debates on the subject of theism and atheism in the history.
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It was a presuppositional debate.
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I won't get into what that means.
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But in the debate, Gordon Stein, who represented the atheist position, was asked by Bonson, who was representing the Christian position, What would it take for you to believe in the supernatural? What would it take for you to believe in God? And Gordon Stein thought for a moment.
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I've heard the recording and I've read the transcript.
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He thought for a moment and he said, Well, if that lectern, you know, they both were coming up to a little table.
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He said, If that lectern were to rise up three feet and stay suspended in midair and I knew it wasn't a magic trick or something like that.
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If I saw that, I guess I could be convinced in God.
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No, he wouldn't.
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Here is what the atheist does.
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He takes everything that is by nature.
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You see miracles every day.
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You realize you're on a giant boulder flying through the universe at millions of miles per hour and you're not flying off.
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You see miracles every day.
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I see the baby in Jennifer's tummy push his little hand and you see it.
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Isn't that a miracle just to know her body is making a baby.
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Her body will produce that baby and her body will feed that baby.
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You tell me there's no God.
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That's just dumb.
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Well, the Bible says it's foolish, but that's the situation here.
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He says in the scripture as we are going through this text, he's saying look, the resurrection when Christ raised, he didn't raise to all people.
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He raised to us to be his witnesses.
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Had Christ raised to everyone, they still wouldn't have believed because the atheist will not believe until his heart's changed.
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It doesn't matter how much evidence is placed before him.
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It doesn't matter how many miracles he sees.
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He will not believe until God changes his heart.
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So Christ appeared to whom? He appeared to those to whom he would commission and that's the fifth thing we see in verse 42.
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We see the commission and he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.
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To him all the prophets bear witness that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
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That is the commission that we have all been given.
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Go and preach.
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Go and proclaim.
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Not everyone is called to do this.
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Not everyone is called to teach Sunday school.
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Not everyone is called to stand behind a pulpit.
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But everyone is called to proclaim the message of forgiveness of sins.
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Through Jesus Christ, we are all by the fact that we have been saved, we have all been made ambassadors of Christ and evangelists.
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So we all have that job because we have all had our hearts changed.
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Those of you who are believers, and I know always in a crowd like this there are some who are not.
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But those of you who are believers, your heart has been changed.
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God has shown himself to you and you know that he's real.
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You know the gospel is real.
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You know that Christ has been raised from the dead and now you are part of that group.
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You didn't see him physically but God opened your spiritual eyes and you know that he's there and you know it's the truth and thus you have this commission as well.
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So Peter gave them the lordship of Christ, his miracles, his sacrifice, his resurrection and his commission and then he didn't even get to finish.
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Verse 44 We see the spirits fall.
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This is where we're sort of taking a turn.
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In verse 44 while Peter was still saying these things, he didn't even get to finish his sermon.
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Wouldn't that be great? In the middle of the sermon somebody gets saved.
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But it's not even somebody.
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It's everybody.
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Because he says while the spirit while Peter was still saying these things, the Holy Spirit fell on some.
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That's not what it says.
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On all who heard the word.
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You know what Peter didn't have to do? He didn't have to lower the lights.
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Peter didn't have to have the guitarist start strumming softly.
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He didn't have to have the pianist start touching the keys lightly.
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And he didn't have to play 140 verses of Just As I Am.
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He didn't even get to make his invitation.
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He was in the middle of the preaching of the gospel and the Holy Spirit fell and people were saved right then.
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Lives and hearts were changed in an instant.
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How have we fallen as a church? Because we become so convinced that God's sovereignty is not enough that we have to manipulate people's conversions.
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We don't.
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All we have to do is preach the truth and leave the converting to God.
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We don't have to have special times in the service where everything gets emotional just so we can pull somebody up at the front and somebody can say I believe in Jesus so we can go to lunch.
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You know, some churches won't go over to lunch until somebody comes forward.
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They have a rededication every Sunday because the pastor is going to wait.
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No.
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We have to trust the sovereignty of God.
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Somebody asked me and I love him to death, I'm not speaking ill.
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He just asked me, he says, well don't you feel like not having, because we don't really have an invitation here.
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We, at the end of the service, I invite anyone who wants to pray to come, but it's not as if we stand up here and I you know, try to talk you down.
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Sort of like, you know.
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We don't really have that here and some churches I know they do and I was asked, well what happens, this is this person, well what happens if they leave and you didn't give them a chance to do business with God? That's a phrase.
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I'm not going to stomp on the phrase.
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What happens if you leave and you didn't give them a chance to do business with God? I said they had 45 minutes to do business with God.
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I was preaching for 45 minutes.
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Do you need me to come down there and hold your hand? Do you need me to do that? He said, well some people might.
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No you don't.
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Here's what you need.
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You need to repent.
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You need to trust in Jesus Christ.
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You can do it right where you are.
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And then you come talk to me and I'll lead you to baptism and discipleship because that's the reason for the new birth is that you would follow after Christ in obedience.
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But you don't need some emotional thing to happen.
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You need a change of heart which is followed by a change of mind.
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That's metanoia.
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Repentance.
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That's what you need.
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That cannot be emotionally produced.
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It must be spiritually produced and I ain't got power over that.
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I'm glad because I wouldn't want it.
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I don't want to be sovereign.
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I'll leave being sovereign to God.
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So we see the spirit fall.
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People were converted and there's a lot more that I want to say about that but let me kind of hasten on here because he gives them this command of baptism.
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He says in verse 45, he says the believers were among the circumcised who had come with Peter were amazed.
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Why were they amazed? Because they didn't expect this.
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They did not expect that the Gentiles would receive the Holy Spirit just like they did.
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People ask me why did they speak in tongues? They spoke in tongues to demonstrate that the same Holy Spirit that was given in Acts 2, the same Holy Spirit that fell on the Jews at Pentecost was now falling on the Gentiles.
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They didn't get a second rate Holy Spirit.
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They didn't get a part or parcel of the Holy Spirit.
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They received the same Holy Spirit that the Jews had received and these Jews are there as witnesses.
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Remember we talked about that a few weeks ago.
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These six men are there as Peter's witnesses to demonstrate that what he is seeing is actually happening.
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They are there to confirm.
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And they're amazed because the gift had been poured out on the Gentiles.
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And then verse 46, for they were hearing them speaking in tongues and extolling God.
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And then Peter declared, and here's a beautiful passage.
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Peter declared can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people who have received the Holy Spirit just as we have? Who's he talking to? He's talking to the six Jews.
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So what's insinuated in the question? Which one of you six would not let them be baptized? Because they received the Holy Spirit just as we, we being the six and me, seven.
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Which one of you would dare withhold baptism? Which one of you could consider holding back baptism? Because you've got to think.
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Peter has had time to digest this.
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All of these people are getting it like a punch in the face.
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Peter had the vision.
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They didn't have the vision.
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I'm sure Peter probably told them about it.
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I'm sure they kind of had an idea of what was going on.
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But this, oh look at here.
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They're getting what we got.
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And Peter looks at them and says, who among you would hold back the water for these to be baptized? Of course the answer is none.
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And then I like verse 48 because it seems as if from the text, Peter makes them do it.
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And he commanded them to be baptized.
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Peter's commanding that baptism happen.
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It doesn't say he's doing it.
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Now again, you might argue that's not fully fleshed out in the text.
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But he commands that it be done.
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Who would be the ones to do it? The men with him.
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Why have them baptized? Again, demonstrating this unity in the church.
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There has been nothing but division.
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And now that wall of division is falling.
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And we see it right in verse 48.
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He commanded them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.
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Now some people have run off and said that that particular passage means that we give up the Trinitarian formula that somebody should only be baptized in the name of Jesus, not in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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This does not negate Matthew 28.
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Matthew 28 commands the Trinitarian formula to be baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
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That is the Trinitarian formula.
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Throughout Acts, we see the name of Jesus used.
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Why? Because many people had already been baptized by John.
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This is to reference solidarity with Christ.
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In fact, we see later there will be some who were baptized by John and they had to be re-baptized because they didn't know about Christ.
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So it's demonstrating solidarity with Christ.
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So when he says baptized in the name of Christ, he's not saying baptized in the name of Christ at the exclusion of the Father and of the Spirit.
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He's saying this is showing unity with the person and work of Jesus Christ.
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And what happened? Then they asked him to stay.
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And the miracle is he stayed.
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He shouldn't have stayed.
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The Jews can't stay in a Gentile home.
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Not anymore.
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Everything's changed.
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Everything's changed.
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Now, it's difficult to exaggerate.
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I'm going to bring to a close.
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It's difficult to exaggerate how important this event is in the life of the church.
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So it's so important that Peter ends up giving the same testimony again.
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If you read chapter 11, I encourage you to do that when you go home today or this week.
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Use it as part of your devotional.
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Read chapter 11.
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You will see he tells the story to the Jews.
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Why? To confirm that this is a real thing.
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It's so important.
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It gets two chapters.
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This is a huge moment.
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John Stott says this.
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He says, the essence of the story is that negatively, God shows no favoritism and makes no distinction between races.
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And positively, he gave and gives the same spirit to all alike, not irrespective of faith, but irrespective of circumcision.
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You do not have to be a Jew to be in Christ.
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Amen.
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So what can we glean from this passage? I've given you three things on your worship folder.
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This isn't the outline.
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It's just three applications and allow me to finish with this.
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Number one, God saves by grace and not by race.
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That should force us outside of our partial groups and into groups that we are not comfortable with.
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Second, God is not bound by our traditions.
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You might could also put there, God's not bound by our understanding either.
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Peter had an understanding that wasn't fully, that wasn't full.
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And God gave him a right understanding.
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God's not bound by your understanding.
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People, I talk to people about what the Bible says.
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They say, I just don't understand why God would do that.
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You don't have to understand.
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God's not bound by you.
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God's not bound by your understanding and he doesn't have to live up to your sense of right and wrong.
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Well, I just don't think God would do it that way.
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Well, the Bible says he did.
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Why does he have, why does what we think matter about how and why God does something? We try to form God like us rather than seeking to be conformed to him.
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And finally, God is free in the administration of his grace.
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That should give you confidence in preaching the gospel.
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Confidence in two ways.
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One, God can save anyone.
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And two, you can save no one.
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God is free in his administration of grace.
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Your job is not to save.
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Your job is to proclaim the gospel and let God do the saving.
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So, we see those three things here.
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May God impress them upon our hearts as we move about our week.
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Let's pray.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for the opportunity to study your word.
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I pray that this time of study has been fruitful for your people.
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I pray that it has been a reminder that we are not to be partial.
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That we are not to hold back grace from those who are not like us.
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But that we are to be even more encouraged to go into all the world, into all races, into all situations and preach the gospel knowing that the elect of God come from every tribe, tongue, nation, and language.
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Father may it be that we are ever more convinced of our duty to take the gospel to all nations.
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And Lord, also being reminded that we can save no one.
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That we are constantly and totally dependent upon the Holy Spirit of God.
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And we trust that he is working in this place today.
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We thank you Lord for all that you have done and are going to do.
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In the name of Jesus Christ we pray.
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Amen.
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Beloved let's stand together and sing and if you have a need for prayer we encourage you to come.