Cut To The Heart - [Acts 2:37-41]

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Well, please take your Bibles and open them to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2.
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This really was an interesting week for me. A few things happened that don't normally happen.
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First of all, I got a magazine that I don't subscribe to in the mail. It's called
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Worcester Living. And I was just kind of skimming it on the way to the recycling bin, and I came across this article.
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Came across this article, and this woman named
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Virginia Swain, she's the founder of the Institute for Global Leadership. How many of you have heard of that?
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Hmm. OK. Well, it's here in Worcester, in case anybody was wondering. Here's what she said.
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She said, there can be peace in the world when we find peace, guess where?
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You're going to say with God. No, no. She said, within ourselves.
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She said, I'll never stop believing in peace, and I'll never stop working to make it possible.
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That's a lot of work there. I also got a message this week, early in the morning, one morning, from someone whom
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I rarely hear from at all. And I mean, I really have little reason to hear from them, because they're not really involved in my life, but live in another state.
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This person started talking to me. They got a flat tire, and they were killing time. So, you know, why not contact
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Steve Cooley via Facebook Messenger? I don't want to give you guys any ideas,
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OK? Hey, I'm just killing time here at the dentist's office, thought I'd text you, Steve. So we were just, you know, talking about almost nothing, and then we got around to spiritual issues.
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I don't know how that happened. It could have been me, might have been him, doesn't really matter. I think, actually, he might have started down that road, and I was more than willing to go down that road with him.
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And he said, well, what people believe isn't really that important, essentially, as long as they're really sincere about it, right?
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And he wanted to believe because he knows about the Gospel, he knows about Christianity, he's been around it his whole life.
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But here was his point, he's like, you know what? Muslims believe in Jesus, right?
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And I said, yes, they do, and then I told him how they define Jesus. And he said, you know, a lot of other religions believe in Jesus, too, and aren't they
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OK as long as they're serious about their religion? So, you know,
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I said no. And so I walked through the whole Gospel. At first I, you know, John 14, 6, and what
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Jesus said, that he is the way, the truth, and the life. These are important things, right? There's only one way to know the truth, and that's through Jesus Christ.
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And ultimately, there's only one way to know peace, and that's through Jesus Christ, and that's what
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I was pointing him toward. You can't, you know, just be a spiritual person, you can't, and essentially, knowing this individual somewhat, you can't just live like you want to, and then say, you know what?
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I believed in God, I was a good person, therefore, I'm OK. That's not our place, we're the creator, or the creature, not the creator.
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People want peace, but they want peace on their own terms, they want to see it within themselves.
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And this morning, what we're going to see in our text is people who thought, guess what? They were at peace with God.
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They were religious people. They followed what their religious leader said.
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And because they followed what their religious leader said, they put Jesus Christ to death.
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Let's read our text in Acts chapter 2, as we talk about, ultimately, peace with God.
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Acts 2, verses 37 to 41. Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
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And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the
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Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, and for your children, and for all who are far off.
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Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words, he bore witness, and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation.
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So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day, about 3 ,000 souls.
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Last week, we looked at verses 24 to 36, and I had four why questions, in an effort to better understand the centrality of the resurrection in Peter's sermon.
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And if I've said this once, I've said it a hundred times, and some of you have even heard this illustration. No resurrection means what?
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No gospel, no good news. Because if Jesus is still in the grave, there is no good news.
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And I remember, you know, the first time I ever preached was at a rest home, and it was about, you know, a 10 -minute sermon.
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And I've told this, but Pastor Mike's in the back. He's got the recorder he borrowed from me, the cassette recorder he borrowed from me, because he didn't have one.
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And I can see the red LED light, you know, like a laser beam pointing at my forehead.
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And I thought, okay, well, if I wondered why he was borrowing that, now I know. He's recording me. So when we get done,
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I said, you know, I don't even know if I said anything. You know, he said, well, you know, you did well. And I said, thank you.
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And he says, there's only one thing that you left out. Oh, what's that? The resurrection.
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Okay, well, bad show. So we try not to do that these days. So I've already got the resurrection, and I'm good to go.
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Our four why questions last week. Why was it impossible for death to hold Jesus? Why was it impossible for death to hold
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Jesus? Because Jesus was not merely a man, but he was God in the flesh. Also, because God promised
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David that he would raise the Messiah from the grave. We read Psalm 16 .10,
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or we referred to it last week. David said, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol or let your
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Holy One see corruption. Peter says, well, that couldn't have applied to David.
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David foresaw the Messiah, his descendant who would be the Messiah. Why question number two, why should the listeners, the thousands of people who are listening to Peter, believe that Jesus is raised from the dead?
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Because David prophesied it. In verse 31, he said, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the
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Christ. And also because there were 120 eyewitnesses present, right?
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If Jewish law said you have to have two or three eyewitnesses to verify any fact, well, how about 120 witnesses?
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Verse 32 says, this Jesus God raised up and of that we are all eyewitnesses. Question number three, why is the
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Holy Spirit's presence evidence of the resurrection? Well, firstly, the crowd had seen this, right?
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They'd all seen these Galileans, these uneducated rubes, these hicks, these hillbillies, speaking about Jesus.
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We have to infer that. There's no reason to think they'd be talking about anything else, but we know that they were speaking in known languages to these people and they were mystified by it.
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They tried to explain it away, saying these people were drunk. Peter set them straight, said this is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy and the very words of Jesus Christ.
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He said that he would, Jesus said that he would send the spirit when he ascended. And our fourth why question, why does
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Peter leave those listening to ponder their guilt? First of all, because he's filled with the
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Holy Spirit. He knows what to do, right? Secondly, because he trusted the
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Holy Spirit. If you trust the Holy Spirit, you don't have to manipulate people.
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You don't have to maneuver them. You don't have to sell them a program. You trust the Spirit. You preach the word and you trust the
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Spirit. He did not lead them in a sinner's prayer. He didn't even, as we have recorded for us, audibly pray for them.
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So now this morning, we will look at three factors of forgiveness in the response of the audience, listening to Peter and in his answer to them.
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Three factors of forgiveness. First, we'll see forgiveness sought, forgiveness sought.
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Verse 37. Now, when they heard this, when they heard this message, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?
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I mean, this is perfect. You know, this is what every person who evangelizes in their minds, you know, even as they're praying, they're like,
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Lord, please let this person, when I'm done say, what must I do to be saved? What do
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I have to do now? Right, not, I don't believe that, or that's good for you, but, you know,
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I wanna know what I need to do now. And that's exactly what happened on that day.
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Everything that Peter had just told them about the excellency of Jesus Christ and about the resurrection and about their own sinfulness, cut them.
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Peter just told them that Jesus has demonstrated to be the Messiah by the miracles that God performed through him in their midst, right?
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Verse 22, and in spite of this, they put him to death. And if you recall, we talked about how that was the eternal plan of God.
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They were guilty and yet God was sovereign. They did it, but it was by God's design.
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Both are true. They willingly, the Jews willingly set in motion the process by which
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Jesus was crucified. They handed him over to the Romans so that Jesus Christ would be crucified.
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And by the power of the Holy Spirit, through the expository preaching of Peter, I mean, if you notice, he's going through the
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Psalms. He's preaching the word to them. This group of religious Jews learned the depth of their guilt and they respond accordingly, right?
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If you feel guilty about something, if you're cut to the heart, you respond.
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And there are definitely two elements here. First, they did understand their guilt. Verse 37, they were cut to the heart. That verb there can mean pierced or stabbed.
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I mean, it's pretty clear. It's kind of a graphic picture of Nathan when he said to King David, you are the man, right?
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If you recall, David had committed murder and adultery, but he carried on his everyday routine.
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Why? Because nobody knew what he'd done. In his mind, he'd gotten away with it.
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He was the king and it was good to be king, but God knew and he sent the prophet
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Nathan to confront him. Nathan told a story about a rich man who took advantage of a poor man and the story enraged
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David. And what did David, or Nathan then turns to him and says, when David says he just wants to find this man and deal with him and basically put him to death,
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Nathan says, you are the man. David subsequently wrote in Psalm 51,
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I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. If he was able to put it out of his mind because he didn't want to deal with it,
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God brought it right in front of him. These Jews who had listened to their religious leaders and put
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Jesus to death, they had clear consciences just as David did. How could they have a clear conscience?
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Because they were obeying. We're just following orders. We did what we were told. If you recall, the
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Pharisees were moving through the crowd, trying to convince them, don't let Barabbas go, let Jesus go and so they did that.
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I don't think they're, I mean, we don't have a record of this, but I doubt there were many of them laying awake at night thinking,
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I wish I hadn't joined with the crowd and saying, crucify him, crucify him. But Peter showed them the reality of their sin and the reality of their sin stabbed them in the heart.
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Now, when we talk about sin, not every sin has that same effect on us, right?
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Now, every sin, I have to say this for clarity, every sin is a violation of God's standard.
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It's a violation of God's holiness. But some sins are more heinous and adultery and murder are certainly high on those lists.
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The Jews had also rejected the Son of God for whom he claimed to be the
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Son of God and they rejected that. And to make it even worse, of course, they killed him, the
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Christ, God's anointed King. They understood their guilt and they also recognized their inadequacy.
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It's one thing to feel guilty, to have a weight that feels unbearable, but what do you do about it?
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If you can't, there's nothing you can do about it, you can't unring the bell, you can't go to Jesus and say, we're sorry for what we've done.
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And they couldn't. They turned to those whom God had used to convict them of their sin.
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Look at verse 37 again. Brothers, what shall we do? True spiritual brokenness, true contrition, true godly sorrow, not sorrow of the world, but genuine sorrow over sin, conviction of sin is accompanied by a desire to do the right thing.
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So they say, what can we do? What shall we do? Before that moment, they'd been confident of their standing with God.
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They were religious Jews. They did their best. They were like that man who contacted me this week via Facebook.
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They were doing what they thought was right. If you recall back in verse 29,
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Peter referred to them as brothers and now they asked Peter and these other apostles, brothers, they refer to them as brothers.
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They didn't know what to do, but they believe Peter and the apostles did know what to do.
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And they wanted relief from their guilts. They wanted, ultimately, forgiveness. They wanted peace with God.
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So our first forgiveness factor is forgiveness sought. Our second forgiveness factor, forgiveness extended.
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Forgiveness extended. And it was extended to all who believe that day.
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Peter gives two commands and two promises which indicate divine forgiveness. First, he says to them in verse 38, and Peter said to them, repent.
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Please take note of what Peter does not do. He doesn't doubt their sincerity.
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He doesn't say to them, come on, you're not serious, are you? He doesn't demand that they do works of penance.
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Well, you can be forgiven if you crawl across broken glass or any of those things that we see during the medieval times.
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He doesn't give them a lecture. You ever gone to somebody and asked for forgiveness and they proceeded to give you this whole great big thing about how offended they were and everything else and it's like, okay,
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I feel guilty, so give me some more guilt, I guess, you know. He doesn't do any of that.
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They've come to ask for help, so he helps them. He says, repent. What does it mean to repent?
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It means to flee from the sin you've just been convicted of. Flee from it, run from it, move as far away from it as you can.
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They had disbelieved God. They put the son of God to death and now they needed to believe in God, to trust him and him alone for salvation.
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That's what repentance is. Excuse me, run from your sin and run to Christ, both.
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Leave all else, don't look back, trust in Jesus. Take his righteousness in exchange for your sin.
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A call to repent is a call to change your mind about something. But that change of mind has to result in a change of action.
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So let me ask and then answer a question because if I just ask, then everybody will give me answers and that won't work.
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What's the difference between repentance and faith? What's the difference between repentance?
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In other words, if somebody gives you a command to repent, how's that different from the command to believe?
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Or I could put it another way, which comes first, faith or repentance? And of course the answer is yes.
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They're two sides of the same coin, right? You can't have faith without repentance and you can't have repentance without faith.
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Why not? Well, firstly, because both are gifts from God.
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Let's listen to 2 Timothy 2, verses 24 and 25. And the
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Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
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God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth.
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It's God who grants repentance. He's the one who pierces to the heart. In Ephesians 2, we know this verse by heart.
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For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing.
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It is the gift of God. Both are gifts of God, both are works of God.
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Sinclair Ferguson said this, he said in grammatical terms then, the words repent and believe both function as a synod.
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I can't even say it, so I won't. It's a figure of speech in which a part is used for the whole.
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Thus, repentance implies faith and faith implies repentance. One, listen, one cannot exist without the other.
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You can't have faith without repentance and you can't have repentance without faith. John Murray put it this way, he said, the faith that is unto salvation is a penitent faith.
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And the repentance that is unto life is a believing repentance. Saving faith is permeated with repentance.
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And repentance is permeated with saving faith. So he commands them to repent.
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They need to repent, have a change of mind and they need to what? Believe. Then the second command, be baptized.
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Verse 38 again, and be baptized. Every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.
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Now, this is why we don't baptize people apart from a credible profession of faith.
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Does that be a perfect profession of faith? Do I have to examine them? Do I have to look at their lives and maybe move in for a while and just go, let's see how genuine your belief is.
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Credible just means that they have to be able to articulate the truth and there has to be absolutely no obvious reason not to believe them.
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We have a higher standard for church membership, but for baptism, it just has to be credible.
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There has to be this sense that they have repented, that they have believed, that they're trusting in Christ.
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Note that it says, if repentance must precede baptism, then we have an argument against infant baptism, but that's either here or there, other than to say this, what happens in baptism?
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For, we'll just make it simple, for an adult, for a believer of substantial age, because we don't baptize young children here.
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In baptism, a person is identifying with Jesus in his death, in his burial, in his resurrection.
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In effect, it is a public declaration of that person's faith in Jesus. Baptism is the outward what?
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Sign of what's taken place within them. Notice also that he says, be baptized every one of you.
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This is something that every single believer should do. Right, why? Because it's a command over and over again.
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Be baptized, you believe, be baptized. It's really the first step of obedience. Something that we do volitionally of our own will, because we understand the importance of identifying with Christ.
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Now, what does it mean to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ? Does that mean they should only be baptized, it should only go,
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I baptize you in the name of Jesus Christ, up? If that was the case, what would that mean?
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Don't answer. There would be a conflict with the Great Commission, because Jesus there said, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the
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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. So that, it can't mean that, because there can't be conflict in scripture.
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So what does it mean? This very same Jesus that you put to death, I want you to be baptized in his name.
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So when you get baptized, it's going to be in the name of the Father and of the Son and the Holy Spirit.
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That's part of your repentance, to show that you understand there's a trinity, there's a triune
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God, and that Jesus Christ is in fact the second person of the trinity. This baptism is not like anything that's preceded it.
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It's not like John the Baptist's baptism, which was one of repentance. This is a baptism that makes the profession of faith real, that says,
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I believe in Jesus Christ, I believe that he is who he said he is.
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Every one of the 3 ,000 baptized in that day were baptized in the name of the triune
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God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Okay, so that's the two commands, repent, be baptized.
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Now the two promises. First, your sins forgiven, your sins are forgiven.
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Second, your sins are forgiven, your sins are forgiven. Man, when you recognize that in your own life, whenever that moment is, it's like, we don't need to talk about weight, but whatever your weight is, it's like you just lost 90 % of your body weight, you're like floating, because you just realize what a burden has been lifted from you.
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You're no longer guilty in God's eyes. Look at verse 38, for the forgiveness of your sins.
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Now you read that, you go baptism for the forgiveness of your sins. You read that, and what do you think?
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That would be a big line of that baptismal font, because everybody should wanna be getting baptized and get their sins washed away.
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The question then is, does baptism cause the forgiveness of sins? Is there, to quote a popular song, is there something in the water from a couple years ago?
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Yes, there is, but it's not your sins. So a simple reading of scripture, of the
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English scripture, might lead us to get that there. Now, how many of you know how many
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English prepositions there are? I'm about to dazzle you with some English grammar. How many prepositions, come on.
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Some of you guys had to learn this in school, right? Did you have to memorize a list of prepositions? I remember when
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I did, I think it was in the seventh grade. I mean, talk about an exercise, right? What are prepositions?
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They're words like to, from, Christmas. To, from, under, over, above, below, et cetera.
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The Greek preposition, and I have to have a joke here because we're gonna talk grammar.
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The Greek preposition here is ice. Which is often translated for, okay?
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So that's why they translate it here. For the forgiveness of your sins. How many of you have the NAS? Anybody have the
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NAS? I'm gonna skip ahead, mine is good for you. Because the NAS does a much better job here.
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I think I have it somewhere here. If I don't, then we'll get to it eventually. But it does a much better job of translating it.
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But this word, ice, doesn't only mean for.
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It can mean because of, or in view of. And as an example,
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I'm going to read Matthew 12, 41. There are other examples, but this one is just about as good as it could get.
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Matthew 12, 41. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it.
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Talk about a wicked and perverse generation, right? For they repented,
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Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah. And behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
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The word at is that same preposition, ice. Now, let's just woodenly put for in there.
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They repented for the preaching of Jonah. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense.
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But if we say, because of the preaching of Jonah, well, that makes sense.
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Or in light of the preaching of Jonah, or as a result of the preaching of Jonah, then we'd get it.
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And even what it says here, at the preaching of Jonah, right, they heard it and they repented.
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Same preposition. So back to Acts chapter two.
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If we take it at face value, we have essentially, if not baptismal regeneration, in other words, salvation by being baptized, we certainly have forgiveness of sin by virtue of being baptized.
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Baptism causes forgiveness of sins. What about that? Well, it'd just be contrary to the rest of the
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Bible. But translating ice as because of would mean because of the forgiveness of your sins, or in light of the forgiveness of your sins.
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In other words, because of what Jesus Christ has done, you should be baptized. You should identify him with him.
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You should identify with his death, burial and resurrection. In other words, the triune
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God has caused you to repent. He's given you repentance. He's given you faith. He's caused you to be born again.
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And because you now believe in Jesus, all your sins have been forgiven.
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Therefore, be baptized. Second promise, the gift of the
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Holy Spirit. You will receive the Holy Spirit. And the text says, and you will receive the gift of the
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Holy Spirit. Again, this is not dependent on baptism. If we studied through Acts, and we're not going to, but if we were doing a one verse sermon, we would page through all the incidents of this in the gift of the
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Holy Spirit in the book of Acts. And we'd find out that sometimes the Holy Spirit shows up before baptism, sometimes after baptism.
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But it's also important to note that this is not, or that it is, Peter's talking about not a gift of the
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Holy Spirit, but the gift of the Holy Spirit. Because people read this and they want to do what? They want to turn it into something about speaking in tongues.
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Get baptized, you come out speaking, babbling. Some people do that anyway, especially when the water used to be cold, they come up, look, it's the gift of tongues.
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When commentator waters, he says this, he says, the Holy Spirit brings to these new believers the saving benefits that Jesus Christ purchased for them in his life and death.
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And that's the idea, is that the Holy Spirit, accompanies salvation and he takes resonance in us.
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So that's the idea, the gift of the Holy Spirit. So we've had two commands, two promises.
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And now notice the scope of this. It's to all their children firstly, or to all of them and their children, verse 39.
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For the promise is for you, obviously, those who are listening and for your children. What promise?
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The promise of forgiveness of sin, the promise of redemption. It belongs to everyone who listened and believed, everyone who's been convicted by the
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Holy Spirit, everyone who's believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Salvation belonged to these
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Jews and other Jews who then heard and believed and their children.
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So wait, do all children of believers believe?
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I'm sure that there are some of you here today who can testify, the answer is no.
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Well, then what does this mean? What does this promise? Hold on for a moment, we'll get to that.
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But first, let me finish this little bit in 39. It also goes to the Gentiles and that's what's meant here in verse 39.
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And for all who are far off. These promises weren't just for the
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Jews, but for those beyond the border of Israel. Remember the Lord's charge to the disciples in Acts 1, verse 8, he said this, but you will receive power when the
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Holy Spirit has come upon you, which he did, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all
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Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. So in other words, the gospel was going to be spread by these men.
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And that's the idea here. It's going to start with the Jews and then it is going to go beyond the boundaries of Israel, beyond the boundaries of Judea to all the earth.
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But there's a qualifier and this is where we get back to children. Verse 39, who receives these promises?
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Everyone whom the Lord, our God calls to himself. Everyone whom the
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Lord, our God calls to himself. This answers a number of questions.
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I really should answer every question regarding who will be saved. Is it a good person, a person who lives up to the light they've been given?
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Is it a person who sincerely believes in a wrong religion? No, everyone whom
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God calls to himself. If God calls the irresistible call of God, when the creator of the universe summons forth someone and says, believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ, does that person say, no, I won't do that? We want to say yes.
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Why do we want to say yes? We want to say yes because for a couple of reasons.
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One is it seems like there should be a point at which we have the option of refusing because we see people refuse.
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Well, the effectual call isn't the same as a general call. Let me just put this, put it this way. What are we to do with the gospel?
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To preach it only to the people we know who will receive it? We preach it indiscriminately.
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We sow the seed broadly, indiscriminately, widely. You know, you would never want a garden like this, throw the seed in somebody else's yard or whatever, you know, but when it comes to the gospel, we want everybody to hear about Jesus Christ.
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Well, so what about free will? What about Romans 10, 13?
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Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. What about that? Can't they just call upon the name of the
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Lord? Well, who's gonna call on the name of the Lord? Will the dead, the spiritually dead call upon the name of the
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Lord? No, we know that.
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In Ephesians chapter two, Peter, or Peter, Paul tells us how we were all dead in our sins and trespasses.
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I mean, maybe I should just read it because it isn't a matter of volition, people just saying, well,
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I wanna believe and then somehow throwing themselves on the grace of God.
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Ephesians two says, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature, children of wrath, just like, or like the rest of mankind.
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This is the spiritual condition that we're born to this and born into. This is our default is not to love
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God, but to be sons of disobedience, to be followers of Satan, to go along with the course of the world.
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Verse four says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us.
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And the issue is, who is the us? And it's so clear because this whole letter is written to whom?
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Believers. God loves those whom he calls.
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He says, because the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
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By grace, you have been saved. This is the issue. Our default is dead in our sins and trespasses.
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And unless God causes us to become alive, we will never believe. So the idea that there's some sort of inner will that goes beyond the power of God is false.
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We have no free will to choose Christ apart from God causing us to be born again.
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So what Jesus said in John chapter three, you must be born again. Twice in John chapter six,
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Jesus says that no one can come to me. In other words, no one can believe in me unless the father who sent me draws him.
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So forgiveness sought, forgiveness extended. And our final forgiveness factor is forgiveness offered again.
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Forgiveness offered again. Verse 40. And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation.
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Again, Luke is the author here. Peter is the one preaching. Kistemacher says,
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Luke appears to say that the Jews asked questions about many subjects related to Peter's message.
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Thus, and with many other words, in other words, there are a lot of things not recorded for us here.
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There's an exchange probably going on between the crowd and Peter. And Peter is bearing witness, continually exhorting them.
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He wants them to believe, he wants them to be saved. The context suggests that Peter warned them many times to save themselves.
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And when we see that, we go, wait a second. Now here again, we're talking about the volition, the will of man, right?
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They can save themselves. Well, again, the
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ESV is not the best here. Save is a passive verb, meaning it's something done to you, not something that you do.
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In fact, the NAS has it very well when it says be saved, not save yourselves, but be saved.
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It's ever and always God who saves, not us saving ourselves.
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And it's not just the ESV, it's not just the NAS, it's not just the ESV. Scholars suggest that Peter is intentionally echoing Moses in Deuteronomy 32, verses four and five.
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And I thought this was very appropriate to read here. Deuteronomy 32, verses four and five.
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When we think about Jesus Christ and his work, listen to this, the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are justice.
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A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. Verse five, they have dealt corruptly with him.
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They are no longer his children because they are blemished. They are a crooked and twisted generation.
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I mean, if you just think about it this way, how horrible does a people have to be, a generation have to be to have
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Jesus Christ come in the flesh, walk among them, never sin, that they never saw him sin.
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He testified and others testified, he never sinned, that he was innocent. Do all these wonders, all these miracles, even raising
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Lazarus from the dead, which they knew of. If they weren't there, they knew of it.
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And yet when push comes to shove, they did what?
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They put him to death. They knew that Jesus was innocent. Pilate declared him innocent and they put him to death anyway.
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As I studied this week, as I contemplated this passage, I thought, is it wrong for us to beg people, to urge people, to implore people to be saved from this crooked generation?
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This generation that is curved, has scoliosis of the spirit as it were.
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No, I think that's perfectly right. This current world is quite capable of the same injustice and inhumanity that that generation was.
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It is wicked and perverse. The church today has before it temptation to compromise with the world, to get along, to swim with the tide, to not fight against it.
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Even reading an article yesterday about homosexuality and how some Christians have come to gradually accept it.
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Why do they accept it? Because they have friends and relatives who are homosexuals and they want to accommodate them.
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They don't want to say, well, you're condemned and bound for hell unless you repent. Verse 41, so those who received his word were baptized and they were added that day about 3000 souls.
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I mean, it's just incredible to think about. Here we have 120 people and in one sermon, 3000 souls are added to the church.
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3000, I mean, I kind of estimated things and I just thought, okay, if we just look at the number of adults we have here on a
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Sunday morning and we were to like calculate, just sort of extend it.
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How many new believers we could have on one Sunday? 5000, that's a lot. How could such a thing happen?
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How can they go from 120 to 3 ,120? Obvious answer is they weren't limited by space.
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They didn't have parking problems. But if we just consider the order of events, what happened?
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The church was meeting together every day and what did they do? They read, they talked about the scriptures and they prayed.
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You think they were praying that the words of Jesus might come true? I think they were. Jesus said, the spirit's gonna come upon you.
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You're gonna see some amazing things. I don't know if they were quite ready for 3000 people, but that's what they got.
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So first, supplication. Second, preaching of scripture focused on Christ, even though they didn't have the
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New Testament. Peter preached from the Psalms and what did he do? He preached Christ from the Old Testament.
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Third, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was there powerfully through the preaching in the people's hearts, working in them, transforming them.
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And then, 3000 people in one day. So we've seen forgiveness sought, forgiveness extended, forgiveness offered again.
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You know, at the beginning, I talked about Virginia Swain. I'm sure she's nice.
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Let's see that here and there. She said that peace lies within us.
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She suggested that peace is something that we can find on our own. My friend who contacted me via Facebook Messenger suggested that there are many ways to forgiveness with God.
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And isn't that indicative of most of the people that you know? Either the answers are within us, or even if the answers are outside of us, we can all find our, what, our own answer, right?
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We can have peace with God and we can do it on our terms. Because God's not really angry with us.
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We just have to find a way to kind of join hands with him. Our neighbors, our friends, and even our family members who are unbelievers think that they're at peace with God.
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Well, are they? And the answer, if we understand today's passage rightly, is only if they believe in this risen
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Jesus of Nazareth, truly man and truly God, who alone can provide peace with God.
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He's the one mediator. Only he obeyed every command of God. Only his sacrifice could atone for sins.
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His death pays for the sins of all believers. His perfection grants us entry into heaven.
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And again, he alone can grant peace, eternal peace with God. Let's pray.
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Our Father, Lord, it is a grand thing to look at how by your word, through your spirit, by the finished work of your son, your church has been built, continues to be built.
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Jesus said he would build his church and he is. And even on that day of Pentecost, as 3 ,000 souls were added to the church, we know that was just the beginning.
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Lord, we have friends, family members, neighbors, acquaintances, people that we don't even know who are convinced in their own mind that they have nothing to fear from God, that you are all forgiveness, all love, that there's not a shred of your holiness that you won't compromise.
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But as is evident in this passage, we all, apart from Christ, are hopeless.
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We all stand at one point or another convicted saying we've been cut to the heart by the gospel.
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Father, it is by the gospel alone that all these people, friends, neighbors, relatives, acquaintances, strangers, anyone can be saved.
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Help us not to feel moved by the spirit to share the gospel, but help us to be indiscriminate about sharing the gospel, trusting your spirit to work as he will through your word.