Sunday, December 4, 2022 AM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for the day. I thank you for the way that you have gathered us together to rejoice in your truth, to consider the glory and the good, the promises fulfilled in your

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Son, Jesus Christ. I pray that as we look at your word today, you would give us a clear view of your

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Son so that we would rejoice in his truth and be transformed and conformed to his likeness, that we would bring you glory in our love for your

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Son and our love for one another. We thank you for the season to reflect upon the gift of your

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Son to us, and I pray that our hearts would truly be filled with thanksgiving. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

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Amen. I invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 3, and we'll be reading verses 17 through 26, and doing our best to conclude our look at this temple showdown.

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In many ways, Peter, in his preaching of Christ as superior to the temple system, in fact, the fulfillment of the temple sacrifices and the priestly work going on there,

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Peter is in many ways following after his master's example, and he's flipping tables.

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These tables that he's flipping are theological, they are doctrinal, they are biblical, they are cultural, but he's still flipping a lot of tables as he's preaching here in Solomon's Porch in the temple, which is one of the reasons why he and his friend

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John get arrested in short order. But it's interesting to note that Peter and John's attitudes and their understandings concerning the temple and the sacrificial system and their hopes for Israel, that their attitudes and their understandings have been so drastically changed in the order of just a few months.

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When we reflect upon Peter and John, we recall Peter being so impressed with the temple that he would point out the grandeur of the stones in the buildings to his master,

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Jesus, after Jesus said some negative things about the temple system.

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We recall Peter's zeal for the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, even here at the beginning of the book of Acts, and that he didn't have quite the full understanding on until before the

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Spirit came. Remember John and his brother James calling for fire from heaven to be thrown down upon a

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Samaritan village for their rudeness to the Messiah. And we recall

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James and John also in league with their mother seeking political ascendancy in the kingdom of Messiah yet to come that they envisioned in all the wrong ways.

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But now here in the temple, they preach not the beauty of the stones and the grandeur of Israel, and they do not preach a

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Messiah who is going to change things politically in terms of making some sort of kingdom of heaven sourced from rulers upon the earth, but they preach to these faithful, devout

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Jews there at the hour of prayer, and they say that they must convert.

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They must turn to Christ. Sure, they're in Solomon's porch, they're there in the temple, they're there at the hour of the evening sacrifice, but all of this is not enough.

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They must trust in Christ and Christ alone. They must repent and be converted to Christ.

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What happened? What happened to change their approach so drastically, so thoroughly?

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Well, Jesus opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he gave them a precious gift sent from heaven, the

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Holy Spirit himself, to indwell them and to guide them into all truth which is in Jesus.

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I invite you to stand with me. I'm going to read Acts 3 .17 -26.

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This is the word of the Lord. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers, but those things which

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God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer that he has thus fulfilled.

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

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

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

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

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

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Yes, and all the prophets, from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days.

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You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

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

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This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. I wonder if any of you in your home have some sort of countdown going, counting down the days left until Christmas.

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There are all sorts of seasonal things that we may set out, advent calendars and so on, that help us count down.

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I know my kids enjoy that, and they count down the days to Christmas and birthdays and so on.

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It would be a shame that if our children perhaps lost count of the special days, and they become distracted from that which lies upon the horizon, which normally gives so much hope and joy, what if they began to misunderstand what it was all about?

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What if they began to resent the day? Why are you messing with my routine?

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Why do we have to spend a day together as a family? I don't want to have to do these things.

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When we get to the New Testament, we see that some of the Jews had not failed to keep count.

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They were counting down the days. They were counting down the years. According to the calendar set forth by Daniel, they knew they were in the last days that Daniel had spoken of.

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The countdown was nearly complete to the day that Messiah would arrive. They were anticipating the wondrous gift.

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They were eagerly awaiting, people like Simeon and Anna, looking forward to the arrival of Messiah.

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Do you know all these devout Jews, all these men there on Solomon's porch, there listening to what

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Peter was preaching, why were they there at the hour of the evening sacrifice? Why had they come there, perhaps some of them donating to the lame man at the entrance of the gate, beautiful, on the way in?

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Why were they there at the temple at that time? Because they had lost count, and they had misunderstood, and indeed, they had missed

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Christmas. That's why they were there, still observing the sacrifices.

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That's why they were there, still adoring the blocks of silver and gold.

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That's why they were there, in need of repentance, and to turn away from their sins, and to trust in Christ.

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They had missed Christmas. Christ's death and resurrection, his advent and his ascension, his humbling and his exaltation, all of these fulfill

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God's covenant promises, and compels everyone to be saved.

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What is the gift of Christmas? It is the blessing of conversion. It is the blessing of conversion to Christ for Jew and Gentile alike.

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So Peter is preaching to these men what they have missed. They have missed out on Christmas.

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They live in a time and a place that was likened to the chronicles of Narnia and the spells of Jadus, the white witch.

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It was always winter and never Christmas. They were always living and grueling under the law, every day and every week and every month and every season, sacrifice after sacrifice, ceremony after ceremony, always winter but never

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Christmas. But in this case, Christmas had come and they'd missed it. They remained in this fashion, but they didn't have to.

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And so Peter and John go to these men that the gospel would be preached to the

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Jew first and call them to what they had missed. In many ways, they were like the stone statues that the white witch had cast her spell on and were trapped, unable to do anything and to live in any fashion until the breath of Aslan was blown upon them.

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And here, the word of God is being preached to the men who had missed Christmas, that they would know the blessings.

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And in this passage, verses 25 and 26, we see that Peter has a way of describing his fellow

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Jews, which is important for us to understand. He has a way of talking about Christ as the

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Savior, I think that we need to think about carefully. And he has a way of describing the blessing, the salvation, the gift, that I think is appropriate for all of us to apply.

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And this is not too far different from gift giving, where there is the name on the tag, who is this gift to, and there is the one who gave it, and there is the nature of the gift itself.

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So first of all, who are these sons in verse 25? Peter says, you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which

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God made with our fathers. You are the sons, you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which

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God made with our fathers. What does this mean?

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What is a covenant? A biblical covenant is something that God sets forth to those made in his image, a way of him relating to those who live in his world, in his creation, made in his image, but after the fall we see

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God making covenants. He makes a covenant with Noah. He makes a covenant with Abraham.

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He makes a covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai. He makes a covenant with David. It's interesting that all these things happen at mountains.

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If we read that Noah had his covenant made in the mountains of Ararat, God made his covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, with Abraham on Mount Moriah, with David on Mount Zion.

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Why all these mountains? Why these covenants? Each one of these covenants is connected to the other.

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Each covenant moment builds upon the previous. Each covenant moment is dealing with those who are made in God's image.

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Here's how you are to relate to God. The covenant will set forth. Here's how you are to relate to one another.

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The covenant sets forth. Here's how you are to relate to what God has made and what

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God has given to you to be a steward of. Those are the three aspects of what it means to be made in God's image.

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The trifold relationships that we experience. God made us in his image.

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It says in Genesis chapter 1 that God made Adam and Eve in his own image. That they would live to his glory.

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That they would be making his mark upon this world. They were to be obedient to him and glorifying to him.

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He made them male and female. Made them in relationship with one another as husband and wife. Marriage is the fundamental primary human relationship.

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Which is why if you get marriage wrong, you get all of humanity wrong. And he said, you're in charge of the created order.

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So you're going to be my representatives. You're going to be obedient to me. You're going to be relating to one another rightly.

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And then be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth and subdue it. Love God supremely, love each other rightly, steward the creation in righteousness.

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And then after Adam and Eve sin and betray the uniform which they wear, the image of God, God begins to make covenants which hearken back to that over and over and over again.

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He speaks to Noah and says, here's how you're going to relate to me. Here are my promises to you.

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And here's how you're going to relate to one another. And, for example, the death penalty is instituted.

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Civil government is instituted. Here's how you can relate to one another. And here's how you can relate to the created order from now on.

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The same thing happens when God talks to Abraham, when God talks to Israel at Mount Sinai, and when

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God talks to David. So all of these covenants are corrective in some fashion against the darkness of sin, against the principle of death now working in the lives of those born in Adam.

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They are also accelerants. They move forward in a more clear way. And from one covenant to the next, from Noah to Abraham to Israel to David, the promises seem to get somehow bigger and deeper and more specific and more forward.

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Ultimately, each one of these covenants builds upon the previous, expanding the promises, dealing with sin, and picturing

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Christ. Each covenant speaks to the creation mandate about who we are created in God's image and how we're to live.

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Each of the covenants talks about the exile in some fashion. What does it mean that we are separated from God because of sin?

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And in a very important way, to speak of just one of those covenants, whether it's Noah or Abraham or Israel or David, to speak of one of those covenants shakes the rope into which they are all progressively woven.

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So we find New Testament writers sometimes talking about the covenants as a group and sometimes as the covenant as a whole because they all relate to one another.

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Ultimately, they are all fulfilled in Christ. So Peter says to his audience, you are sons of the prophets and sons of the covenant.

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What's the covenant to which he refers to? He's going to be talking about Abraham in a moment, but he's already talked about Moses earlier on.

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So he's talking about a variety of the covenants, but he calls it just one, the covenant.

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I think it's going to be important here in a moment. But notice he says, not only does he say you are the sons of the covenant, but before that he says you are the sons of the prophets.

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Sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers. In what way are they the sons of the prophets?

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Yes, they inherited the covenants. They inherited these promises of God written down in their holy scripture, but they're also sons of the prophets.

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And notice how he's been talking about the prophets a lot in this sermon. He's trying to make it clear.

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Remember he's calling them to turn away from the temple system and trust in Christ alone for salvation. That's a big ask of these

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Jews to turn away from their ceremonies and traditions, but he's telling them all along this was in the

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Bible the whole time. Trust what the scriptures say and you'll end up with Jesus.

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That's what he's been trying to convince them. So he's been talking about the prophets a great deal. In verse 21 he indicates there's a unity to all of the prophets.

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In verse 22 he sets Moses aside as an example of one of the prophets and he was such an important founder of the scriptures of the nation of Israel and so on.

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So he looks at Moses in isolation over here and then he does that only to show the supremacy of Christ in verse 23 in contrast to Moses.

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And then notice what he does, something very interesting in verse 24. He says, yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow.

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What is Peter up to? You have Moses over here and then you have Samuel and all who follow.

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What's his point? When we read the scriptures, have you found it interesting that Moses wrote the first five books of the

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Old Testament during the progression of the covenants from Noah to Abraham to Israel.

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Moses wrote before God's promises to David, before the God's covenant that he made with David.

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But Samuel and El, the rest of the prophets wrote after God's covenant promises with David.

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So the writing prophets with the exception of Moses wrote after God had finished making his covenant promises to David.

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So they were looking at all of the covenants together as a whole and what they had to do with one another.

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Now, why is that important? That's important, for example, in Jeremiah 33.

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I invite you to look at that passage for yourself. Again, this is very important for us to understand why

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Peter is preaching in the way that he's preaching. Why he's drawing attention to these prophets in the way that he is.

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It will help us understand better the message of the gospel to the Jews in the book of Acts and how the

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New Testament and the Old Testament relate. God had said some things to Noah about the created order, about his promises of sustaining things.

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God had made some promises to Abraham about blessing and promise of land and descendants and blessing through a seed.

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God had said some things to Israel about how he was to be their

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God and they were to be his people and how he was going to bless them if they would live faithfully before him.

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And God had said some things to David about an heir who would reign forever upon a throne.

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Let's read what happens in Jeremiah 33 which is in context with Jeremiah 31, 32, and 33 as Jeremiah is preaching and proclaiming the new covenant.

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Verse 14, Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which

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I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah. And if you want to know what that good thing is, you go back to chapter 31 and he says, that good thing.

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There's no mystery what it is. It's the new covenant. In those days and at that time,

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I will cause to grow up to David a branch of righteousness. All right, and Jesus grew up in Nazareth, which is a branch town.

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Okay, so he's a descendant of David, a branch of righteousness. He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth.

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In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell safely. And this is the name by which she will be called the

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Lord our righteousness. Now notice what he does with all the covenants.

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For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel. Okay, that's what

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God had promised to David through the prophet Nathan in the book of Samuel.

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Nor shall the priest, the Levites, lack a man to offer burnt offerings before me, to kindle grain offerings and to sacrifice continually.

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Well, that comes from the covenant God made with Sinai and the law that he gave them at Sinai. So covenant with David.

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Now we're talking about the covenant with Israel. Verse 19, and the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, thus says the

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Lord, if you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night so that there will not be day and night in their season, what's that from?

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That's from Genesis 8 .22. When God made a covenant with Noah, talking about creation and the sustaining of the seasons and the day and night.

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Then my covenant may also be broken with David, my servant, so that he will not have a son to reign on his throne and with the

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Levites, the priests, my ministers, as the host of heaven cannot be numbered or the sand of the sea measured.

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What's that from? God's covenant with Abraham about the multiplicity of his descendants.

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So I will multiply the descendants of David, my servant and the

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Levites who minister to me. So what's going on here? Promises that God made in his covenant with Noah, God's promises that he made in his covenant with Abraham, God's promises that he made with his covenant with Israel.

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All these instructions and themes are now centered on just one man,

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David. Is David more properly the promised son of David? How can this be?

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Because the king stands in for the whole people. The king stands in for the whole people.

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What God says to the whole people, God also says to the king. So all of God's covenant promises are centered in the new covenant on who?

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On the son of David. Right now, Peter's audience, they are sons of the covenant, but they don't know the son.

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They have received the promises. They're living in light of God's covenants with all these patriarchs, but they don't know the outcome of the story.

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They don't understand how it is that Jesus of Nazareth is the fulfillment, how

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God is keeping all of his covenant promises in Christ in this new covenant. So Peter says, you are the sons of the covenant, the prophets and of the covenant.

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And all the prophets clarified what the covenants were about. They're ultimately about Messiah.

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I think Paul is most likely the one who preached the sermon of Hebrews, which is it's a sermon with chapter 13 added on as a closing letter writing conclusion.

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But when we read the book of Hebrews, we see that Christ is established as the perfection of the image of God, and he is truly the imago dei, the image of God, perfect.

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And although Hebrews spends a long time talking about the covenant that God made with Israel at Sinai, it also puts it into connection with the

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Abrahamic covenant in Hebrews 7, showing how Christ fulfills the promises

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God made to Abraham. Hebrews chapter 10 verses 11 through 16 talk about the Davidic covenant and how

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Christ fulfills that. And in chapter 11 of Hebrews, it runs the whole story from beginning to Christ.

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And so Peter says, you are sons of the prophets and the covenant.

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Meaning you have received the fullness of the Old Testament. You've got it all. Everything is there.

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In fact, Paul said to Timothy that because you have had the scriptures from your youth, you have had a sufficient witness to give you the wisdom unto salvation, which is in Christ Jesus.

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Timothy, you received the covenants and what the prophets preached about the covenants.

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In other words, you have received a full and adequate witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Wise, sufficient to make you wise unto salvation.

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And Peter is saying much the same with these sons of the old covenant. They stand in need of a savior.

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Why? Hebrews 8 verse 8 says that God found fault with them. God found fault with them.

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They were unfaithful. Verse 13, when

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God says a new covenant, he has made the first obsolete. Now it is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.

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And Peter now stands in the midst of an old covenant ready to vanish away. An obsolete covenant.

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And he's preaching to those who need to turn to Christ. These men standing there in the temple in Solomon's porch had inherited a great wealth of old covenant revelation.

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But they did so as the last generation. It was time to fulfill the purpose of that stewardship by turning to Christ.

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The one who fulfilled it all. Now notice how Peter preaches their savior. He says,

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The covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

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To you first, God having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you.

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So, in this particular case, when Peter wants to preach about their savior and how they're turned to him, he speaks of the promise, the covenant that God made with their fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your seed all these families of the earth shall be blessed.

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Well, in Genesis chapter 22, in Genesis chapter 22, Abraham has led his son

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Isaac up the side of Mount Moriah. And they have come to a place where under the instructions of the

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Lord he is readying to sacrifice his son. And the angel of the

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Lord stops him and provides, and God provides a substitute.

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In verse 13 of Genesis 22, Then Abraham lifted his eyes and looked, and there behind him was a ram caught in a thicket by its horns.

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So Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up for a burnt offering instead of his son.

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And Abraham called the name of the place, the Lord will provide. Jehovah will provide.

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As it is said to this day, in the mouth of the Lord, in the mount of the Lord, it shall be provided.

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Then the angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time out of heaven and said, By myself I have sworn, says the

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Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your son, your only son, blessing

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I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies.

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In your seat all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.

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Where is Peter preaching? He is preaching on Mount Moriah, the very place where Abraham put

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Isaac upon the altar, upon the threshing floor of Arunah, when

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David purchased that threshing floor from him to offer up a sacrifice to turn away the wrath of God from the people at the end of Samuel.

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He is standing upon the very place where God had made that covenant promise to Abraham and Peter is telling them

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Christ is the seed. Jesus of Nazareth is the seed. He is the one in whom all the blessings of God remain.

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If you want to be blessed, you must turn to him. Only when they turn to the promised seed, the true descendant of Abraham, will they then be blessed of God.

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In Paul's great burden for his fellow Jews, he speaks of them in Romans 9 verse 4.

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They are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants.

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So he talks about them as a group there. The giving of the law, the service of God and the promises of whom are the fathers and from whom according to the flesh

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Christ came, who is overall the eternally blessed God. Amen. Look how blessed they are.

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They are sons of the covenant. They are sons of the prophets. But, verse 6, it is not that the word of God has taken no effect, for they are not all

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Israel who are of Israel. Not everybody who was born of Jacob is

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Israel. Nor are they all children because they are the seed of Abraham.

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Just because they're born of Abraham doesn't make them partakers of the blessings, partakers of the promises.

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That is not what qualifies one in light of the new covenant, in light of how the prophets preached all the covenants together.

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In light of all of that, it is not the case that simply being born an ethnic Jew makes you privy to the blessings of God.

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That's what Paul is saying here in Romans 9. But, now he quotes the scriptures, in Isaac your seed shall be called.

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That is, those who are the children of the flesh, these are not the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as the seed.

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He says the same thing in Galatians 3 .16, Now to Abraham and his seed where the promise was made, but he does not say, and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is

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Christ. So, Peter goes to the temple.

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He goes to this location where the evidences of the old covenant are in abundance, and he's preaching to these who are ethnically descendant from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he is saying to them, you are sons of the prophets, you are sons of the covenant, but that's not good enough.

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You are blessed because of it, you've been given the word of God through it, but that is not what connects you to the blessing of God.

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This is not what makes you participants of the salvation of God. This is not what saves you.

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And he preaches to them because he has a burden for them. And he says now, the covenant seed, he identifies the seed as the seed of Abraham, and his seed, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

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And he explains to you first, God having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you.

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The servant, as we are preparing to read further and further into the book of Isaiah, we're gonna hear a lot about God's servant.

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God's servant, Messiah, is indeed the seed of Abraham. Isaiah 49 .6,

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it says, it is too small a thing for God's servant to save just the children of Jacob, but also to be a savior to the nations of the earth, even the people who live far away on islands and coastlands.

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So it's all the families of the earth. Do you remember that Abraham led

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Isaac up the side of Mount Moriah to bind him and lay him upon the altar? And what does

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Isaiah say of the servant? That he was led like a lamb to the slaughter. Indeed, our

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Savior Christ was. In Isaiah 60, verses 19 through 21, we read about an innumerable people like the stars of the heaven, but their brightness is all caught up in the

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Messiah. And throughout the book, but especially in chapter 42, remember that God said to Abraham, those who bless you will be blessed and those who curse you will be cursed.

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This is realized in the seed of Abraham. Those who bless Messiah will be blessed and those who curse the

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Messiah will be cursed. And by speaking of all of these covenants as one and preached by the prophets as fulfilled in the seed, in the servant,

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Peter is making the gospel clear to his Jewish audience. The servant is sent to bless those in Jacob who will turn.

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In Isaiah 59, verse 19, speaking of the new covenant era, so they shall fear the name of the

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Lord from the west and his glory from the rising of the sun when the enemy comes in like a flood.

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The spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him. The redeemer will come to Zion and to those who turn from transgression in Jacob.

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What is it that Peter says? To you first, God, having raised up his servant,

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Jesus sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquities. He's preaching Isaiah 59.

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Verse 21 in Isaiah 59, as for me, says the Lord, this is my covenant with them.

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My spirit who is upon you and my words, which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth nor from the mouth of your descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants' descendants, says the

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Lord from this time and forevermore, the promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit in the new covenant.

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So what is this salvation? It's to the Jew first, but then also to all the families of the earth, to all of the peoples of the earth, to all the

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Gentiles. Zechariah had long promised a day in the days of the new covenant, the peoples of the earth, despite the multiplicity of their languages, that they would grab the sleeve of a

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Jewish man and that he would lead them to God up Mount Zion.

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Christ is that Jewish man. He's the one mediator between God and man, the man

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Christ Jesus. He reigns from that beautiful city to which we are called, of which we are a part, in which we abide as we live in Christ.

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That is the glorious pictures we have from Isaiah 2 and Isaiah 60 and Galatians 4 and Hebrews 12.

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Notice the nature of this salvation is that they would be turned away, every one of you, from your iniquities.

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This is the same language we saw in verse 19, that they would repent, therefore, and be converted, that their sins may be blotted out.

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The promises and the signs and the liturgies and the laws of the first covenant did not turn them away from their iniquities.

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They were still in them. They were most devout. They had not apostatized from the covenants and the promises and the prophets.

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They were there in the temple at the hour of the evening sacrifice, but the promises and signs and liturgies and laws did not turn them away from their iniquities.

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Now these spoke of, depicted, promised, typified the one to come, the mediator of the new covenant,

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God's son, the true Israel, the servant, God's Messiah. Now there are many in the old covenant who, by God's grace, laid hold of the mediator's shadow, declared by the prophets, and they were truly and savingly united with his substance, but they did not know the fuller blessings of the new covenant.

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Now that the new covenant has come, the last days of the old covenant are upon them, and they must embrace

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God's revealed Savior and his necessary salvation. They must turn away from where they have been and turn to Christ.

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Only the good shepherd who lays his life down for the sheep and is raised the third day for their justification and deliverance from death, only he can turn them away from their iniquities.

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The temple lambs can't do it, the religious leaders can't do it, the law can't do it, only Christ can do it.

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This is the assurance, not just to the Jews, but also to everyone.

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Romans 3, 28 -29, Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith apart from the deeds of the law.

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The old covenant didn't save, it only pointed to the Savior. For is he the

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God of the Jews only? Is he not also the God of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also.

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Romans 10, 11 -13, For the scripture says, Whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

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For the same Lord is over all, is rich to all who call upon him. Whoever calls upon the name of the

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Lord shall be saved. You are sons of the

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Puritans and the pilgrims. You are the sons and daughters of a

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Christian nation. You are the sons and daughters of traditions and of the fruit of many sacrifices in the name of Christ.

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You are the sons and daughters of generations of faithful church members and missionaries and pastors, faithful fathers and mothers and husbands and wives.

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You are the sons and daughters of rich tradition and rich history. We stand at the end of a long line of servants who have labored upon our behalf that we would have a future bright with the glories of Christ.

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But it's not enough. It's not enough.

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Our Christian traditions and history, the fact that we live in an age when we have more

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Christian resources that we can turn to than any other age, it doesn't save.

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It's not enough to turn us away from our iniquities. Our church membership and our church experiences are not enough to save us, to turn us away from our iniquities.

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Christ alone is the Savior. And look at this salvation. What is this salvation?

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In turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

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Do you know that salvation? To be turned away from your iniquities.

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To be turned away from their path, their ever -progressing path into more and more sin.

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Are you turned away from their prison? Where you are bound by their chains?

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Knowing no victory over your iniquities. Are you turned away from their passion?

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The desire to continue in sin. The desire to continue to rebel and to satisfy the self and to pursue the boastful pride of life.

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Are you turned away from the poison of your iniquities? That destroys your relationships with others and mars your stewardship of the created order and exiles you from the smile of God.

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Are you turned away from the punishment of your iniquities? Or does God's wrath still abide upon you?

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This is salvation. That the promised seed, God's servant Jesus, was sent by God to bless us.

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This is the blessing and the gift of Christmas to turn away every one of you from your iniquities.

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And she will bring forth a son. And you shall call his name Jesus. For he will save his people from their sins.

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Let's pray. Father, I thank you for the day that you've given to us here. I thank you for the preaching that we see here in Acts 3 as Peter addresses his fellow

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Jews and reminds them of all that you had revealed to them over those many, many generations.

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The covenants and the prophets that all glorify your son Jesus Christ. We thank you that you have sent him to save us from our sins, to turn us away from our iniquities.