Acts 2 - Happy Birthday Church
Tom Shrader examines Acts 2 and the pivotal moment when Peter preaches to thousands in Jerusalem during Pentecost. He explains how Peter addresses the miracle of tongues, proclaims the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and calls the crowd to repent and be baptized. The message emphasizes that Jesus is the only solution to humanity's sin problem, resulting in 3,000 people being saved that day.
“You're a sinner, not them. I can look at them and go, how dumb are they? Well, here's my question, respectfully, how dumb are you?”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Acts
Recorded: 2017
Duration: 43 min
Themes: pentecost, repentance, baptism, salvation, preaching, evangelism, sin, resurrection, new believer, seeking salvation, evangelist, pastor, preacher, struggling with sin, church planter, young adult
Scripture: Acts 1:8, Acts 2, Acts 2:2, Acts 2:4, Acts 2:11, Acts 2:14, Acts 2:15, Acts 2:17-21, Acts 2:22, Acts 2:23, Acts 2:25-28, Acts 2:29, Acts 2:30-35, Acts 2:36, Acts 2:37, Acts 2:38, Acts 2:39, Acts 2:41, Acts 2:42-47, Joel 2:28-32, Psalm 16, Psalm 110:1, 1 Corinthians 15:2-5, Ephesians 2:3, John 3:16
Theological Themes: ecclesiology, church birth, holy spirit, pneumatology, conversion, soteriology, apostolic preaching, biblical evangelism
Full Transcript
Good morning. Great to see you this morning. Open your Bible, if you would, please, to the Book of Acts. If you've been with us, you know, and if not, you're about to find out that we're working our way through the Book of Acts. It's probably about a year's study, and I reference it, and we do frequently, as the Book of Acts. If you look at the title page of chapter 1, verse 1, it'll say "The Acts of the Apostles."
This is an important book. It's a transitional book. We have in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and then we pick up in the Book of Romans, and we get primarily from there, not exclusively, but primarily Paul's writing. This Book of Acts gives us a continuation of what the apostles were doing.
John Stott suggests a title for the book, more appropriate it would be, and it's easy when I read it to you, you'll see why this title didn't catch on: "The Continuing Works and Deeds of Jesus by His Spirit through the Apostles." Makes you appreciate the Book of Acts even more when you read it, but that's what it is.
Understanding the Book of Acts
I always enjoyed, when I taught a book, week one, kind of doing the background. Whenever I drop in, and now my role is in a lot of places where I go, teaching here, when I'm at Scottsdale Bible Church or the other campuses, is I'm coming in, in the middle or somewhere in a series, I like to make sure we remember what we're studying and why.
William Barclay writes this: there are two ways of writing history. There's a way which attempts to trace the course of events from week to week, day to day, and there's a way which, as it were, opens a series of windows and gives us vivid glimpses of great moments and personalities of the period. The second way is the Book of Acts.
So there's two ways to kind of look at historical events. In my library, on my bookshelf, there's a four-volume set on the Civil War. That would fall into that first category. There's a one-volume, if you're somebody who's kind of been intrigued by the Civil War, or should be, it's one of the most fascinating studies outside of Scripture you'll find, there's a single volume called "Battle Cry for Freedom" by James McPherson. It's, I'm doing it from memory, I think it's like 750 pages, so it's a work, but it's really good. And then I have four or five short histories of the Civil War. That would be that second category. That's the Book of Acts.
Luke is writing—remember we said this essentially could be Luke Volume 2, the Gospel being Volume 1—now he picks this up. Luke is writing, and he drops in and he records these episodes, these vignettes. It's not a detailed history. It's there to capture our imagination and to fill in, to some extent, the gaps. Again, Barclay writes: "In one sense, Acts is the most important book of the New Testament. It is the simple truth that if we did not possess Acts, the Book of Acts, we would have apart from what we could deduce from the letters of Paul, no information whatever about the early church." So this is really a key book.
Chapter 2: A Pivotal Portion
Within the 28 chapters, Chapter 2 is considered important. In fact, one author writes this simple sentence: "The second chapter of the Book of Acts is one of the pivotal portions." Now pivotal is one of those words we use all the time, and we do that in language a lot, and I love to go back and go, well, what does that word mean, because I think I know what pivotal means. The dictionary says: very important, vitally important, synonym: critical, key, crucial.
So get this now. Here's a critical book, and here's a pivotal chapter in the critical book. So what Tim taught last week, this week, and then next week, I think, I don't know where they're going next week, but I would assume we finish Chapter 2, this is really critical. So you're here at an important time as we study.
The Key Verse: Acts 1:8
In the book, the key verse is found in Chapter 1, verse 8. Jesus is speaking, and He says, "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, to the remotest parts of the earth."
If we were at summer camp right now, I would say, look up here. I want you to get this. That verse is important, and I don't want this to be academic. I want you to photoshop yourself into verse 8. This is written clearly, Jesus is speaking to the—I got it, I got the context—but it's all believers of all time. Those of you that just took communion, you have a power.
Again, Tim talked about it last week, dunamis, dynamite. The only problem with dynamite, and that's where we get the English word dynamite, the only problem with that image is we think of dynamite oftentimes as blowing things apart. You have a power not to blow things apart, but to bring things together. There's supernatural power, and God gave every believer the Holy Spirit for this big reason: you are a witness. Your life is to be a testimony.
Being a Witness in Everyday Life
Everywhere you go, you're Jerusalem in the house, you're Judea in the neighborhood, Samaria in the city. Sometimes when I hear that, I'm to be a witness, my fear is we get a picture of I need to get shots and pills and a visa and a passport and go. That's not the image. The image is as you're going.
There's so many illustrations of this that I've seen over the years, some in my own life, some in others. This is like the best. I'm doing a memorial service one day over in the other building, I don't even know what they're called anymore, whatever the other building is, and it was for a guy I didn't really know him. We'll call him Bob. Here's why we're going to call him Bob. That's his name.
So we're doing this, go around the room and share, and those can be risky times, but they can be sweet times. This lady got up and said, "Bob was such a terrific man, Bob was such a sweet man, Bob was so instrumental in my life, God used Bob to bring me to faith in Christ." And then I was kind of curious what happened, but she didn't say, she sat down and then she popped right up, which was great.
I said yes, and she said, "I'm a checker at, I think it was Fry's. I'm checking out at Fry's, and I would think that would be a hard job dealing with a lot of people in stressful situations, and coupons aren't right, and things don't work. I mean, there's all sorts of things that can go wrong. The weight's not right, I don't want those bananas." I don't know, I guess I'm revealing I wouldn't want to be a checker at Fry's.
And she said, "Bob was just always so nice. There was something different about him, and so one day he's coming through, and it was a day I was having a really serious problem, and he saw that, and he said, 'Are you okay?' And I said, 'Not really,' and he says, 'Is there anything I can do to help?' And I said, 'I'm on break in a few minutes. Maybe we could talk.'"
She had never talked to him other than, "Thank you," or "Are those the plums you want?" - whatever the question is. She sat down, and she shared her life, and Bob shared Christ with her, and it was a moment of salvation. That's witnessing. It's just as you go, and you have that power.
The Promise of Power
Now Jesus has told the apostles, this is going to happen: you're going to receive this power. We saw it in chapter 2, verse 2, last week, and Tim taught it. "Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a violent wind, and there appeared tongues of fire," and they were, verse 4, "filled with the Holy Spirit."
Now I'm going to explain the setting more in a minute, but for now, suffice to say, the city is filled with Jews who were there on a pilgrimage. They're from different regions, they speak different languages, and they heard the apostles speak in their tongue. Not an utterance that needed interpretation - their native tongue. So it would be like if you were here today from Germany, and I'm speaking, and all of a sudden I begin to speak German. Not trained, I don't know it, but you hear it.
The message - we pick it up in verse 11 - they heard in their tongues, and they were speaking not gibberish, but of the mighty deeds of God. Here's who God is. And the result was they were amazed; they were greatly perplexed. Eugene Peterson, in a paraphrase, The Message, says their heads were spinning. They couldn't make heads or tails of any of it. They're flopping around, wondering what's going on.
Two Reactions to the Miraculous
Here's what happens. You get two reactions, and it's oftentimes the two reactions you get in a spiritual setting like that, even today. You got a group of people saying, "What's going on? What does it mean?" And another group that quickly want to turn away from it, and said, "They're drunk."
Now I love to sit and speculate - the problem with it is, it's speculation - but I love to speculate: what did they see? What did they see that made a plausible explanation, "They're drunk"? I don't know.
But in the middle of this, Peter, led by and filled with the Holy Spirit, verse 14, "Peter took his stand with the eleven, and he raised his voice, and he declared" - the word means to boldly proclaim, with a sense of urgency. He's declaring something as fact.
Living in a Post-Truth World
We live in a, for me, and I'm expressing my own frustration, a very troubling time, for a variety of reasons, but I'll give you the umbrella reason for me. The Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year for 2016 - you know what it was? Post-truth. Post-truth. And what it means is that people are now moved more by emotion than by fact.
I have routines - they might be called ruts - but Sunday, I've got a definite routine. I get up Sunday morning, I have watched for thirty years CBS Sunday Morning, comes on at seven, and then I tape Meet the Press. In eleven and a half minutes, I'll be taping Sunday Morning with Chris Wallace and Meet the Press, and I will have already taped George Stephanopoulos. And then sometime today or tomorrow, I'll get through those and figure out what's going on.
Well, last week, one of the president's representatives was on all of those, and I don't want to make - don't let this be political. If you want to argue politics, feel free to email me. My email address is Tim Monn. I don't want to dialogue, I don't want to talk to you. If you want to talk about Iowa football and signing day tomorrow, I can talk about that. But I don't want, I'm not trying to be political. I want to make the point.
They were arguing about something - crowd size at the inauguration, I believe - that's relatively measurable. And so there was this number. And the president's representative came on and said - now think about this - "We have alternative facts." I don't even know what that means. Two plus two is four, but I guess you could say five. That's the world you live in. It's a very difficult world. You're standing up, and He's saying, "I'm not giving you alternative facts, I'm giving you the facts."
The Facts About What Happened
Now I want to dismiss something right away, verse 15: "These men aren't drunk. It's the third hour." It's nine o'clock in the morning. Even Alan Jackson and Jimmy Buffett know you got to wait till five o'clock. It's nine o'clock in the morning. They're not drunk. But I will tell you what happened.
Now this is really important, I think. So important that I made a slide out of it. Here's the context of the setting: Josephus, the Jewish historian who lived at this time, tells us that oftentimes the city of Jerusalem, which normally had a population of 150,000, would be swollen in numbers to well over a million. The city was packed. The suburbs are filled. Out on the hillsides, there are many camps of pilgrims. It is this multitude that this miracle is directed.
Now this becomes very important in how I approach this subject, and frankly, how you hear it. These were not Gentiles. They were Jews.
Understanding the Magnitude
So let me give you a context. In 2016, the population of Tempe was 161,719. The capacity of the revamped Sun Devil Stadium is 56,232. Imagine Sun Devil Stadium filled, which will take some imagination, by the way. Maybe a couple of wins, but for sure that. But imagine - okay, get this now. Imagine Sun Devil Stadium filled, empty, and filled again fifteen times.
about 850,000 people, and dumped them into Tempe. Take the geographic size, and take away all the hotels and the restaurants, and that's the setting you have. You've had it for weeks. The point I want you to grab here is that it's primarily a Jewish audience.
So Peter stands up, and he has a three-point sermon. Here are his three points. Number one, he's going to explain to you what just happened. They weren't drunk. Here's what you saw. Number two, he's going to proclaim Jesus, declare Jesus. And number three, he's going to ask them to respond.
When I'm teaching, my request of you is to evaluate me this way. What did he say? Is it true? So what? We could add, if we wanted to, now what? We could add the now what to the so what. So I'm supposed to do it, now what? That's Peter's intention here.
Peter's First Point: Explaining What Just Happened
Look at his explanation. He quotes from the book of Joel, Joel chapter 2, verse 28 to 32. "Now it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth My spirit on all mankind. Your sons, your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even My bondservants, both men and women, in those days will pour forth My spirit. They will prophesy, and I will grant wonders in the sky."
He said, there's this day coming. They know about it. If you have the text in front of you, if you look at verses 17 through 21 and verses 25 through 28, you'll notice the font is different. The font is different because he's quoting Old Testament passages from the book of Joel, from the book of Psalms. I don't have the ability, frankly, to fill all of that in, but if I took the time and studied, I'm not sure you have the ability to fully understand, certainly not like they would, the impact of this moment. This is a gigantic moment.
The Context of Joel's Prophecy
He's trying to explain what happened and he's going to explain frankly the wrath of God. He quotes from Joel 2. Here's what happened. A plague of locusts has hit the land. The locusts had come and they had eaten everything green. In an agricultural based economy they'd wiped out the economy. They destroyed this nation.
Joel comes in the middle of this. He doesn't come along and say make Israel great again and I'll bring back jobs. I'm saying he's got an opportunity. He's got an opportunity to say everything's going to be okay. He doesn't say that. He says I got news for you. It's going to get worse because there's a judgment that's coming.
There'll be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit but then there's going to be this enormous judgment. You see it referred to in verse 19, 20, 21. It'll be this time and blood in the sky and these end times and they would get it. God is patient. You may be here today and you're going I've been around this a while or this is new and that's pretty interesting and someday I'll get to it. Here's my point. You don't know if you got someday. That's what Joel is saying to these people. The wrath of God is coming.
God's Patience Has Limits
I had been a Christian maybe a year or two and I'm in this small group and it's the first time I've ever been in this setting. There's maybe ten of us and we're going to go around the room and pray and the guy leading it is sitting to my left. He said we're going to start over here. We'll go around the room and Tom you close.
Well I learned something very important that night. In a prayer circle you don't want to go last because all the good prayers are gone. We prayed for everything. We prayed for the president and the Congress and we prayed for the cancer and we prayed for everything. So I'm nervous. I mean all I got left is to say God I only echo what you've heard here.
The guy to my right prays this. Father thank you for your infinite patience. And I thought wow. He's a patient God. He's a long-suffering God but it's not infinite patience. There's a day of judgment. There was for them and there is for you. Peter is driving home that judgment through that quote.
Peter's Second Point: Proclaiming Jesus
So now he begins the gist of his message. Verse 22. Men of Israel listen to these words. There's basically three things he's going to talk about. The life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus. That's what this message is all about. That's all our message.
If you go back and read through the book of Acts and you pull out the sermons that are preached whether by Peter or Paul or Stephen. Essentially everyone is about for sure the crucifixion and the resurrection. But about Jesus. That's our message. That's all we got from this pulpit and our pulpits around campus, around wherever we are every day.
Our message is Jesus. Whether we're talking about dating or marriage or family or business or raising kids or whatever it is. It all treks back to Jesus. So here he goes. Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst just as you yourself know.
"Just As You Yourself Know"
That's a killer. That's a killer. Verse 22. Here's what he's saying. You know this stuff. I like routines. In my normal prep it kicks in when I know I'm teaching on a Sunday. I just go into my normal flow.
The timing changed a little this week because I wanted to get some of these things on the screen so that you could see them. I think that reinforces it. But I pull my stuff together. I get a general understanding of the text by Wednesday or Thursday. Friday's my day when I get everything in a couple of piles and Saturday morning I get everything what I would say is 90% ready.
Saturday night I get my yellow pen and my red pen. Red pen is really important because it's going to help me. I get my yellow pen, my yellow highlighter, my red pen. I put it together then Sunday morning I get up 4:30, 4:45 and that's it. Whether that takes an hour or whatever then.
I get it. I mean, I do it every time. So we're talking last night. Sandy said, "How's it coming?" and I said, "Well, I'm explaining it," and we're talking about this very idea here. Sandy said, "Think about this. He did these miracles. These are supernatural things and wonders—wonder is their reaction, their amazement to this—and these were signs."
Sandy said, "Think about this. These people saw Jesus, many of them. They might have been there with palm branches—Hosanna, Hosanna. They may have witnessed the Via Della Rosa and they may have witnessed the crucifixion and they may have been part of a group that Jesus appeared to." You talk about no excuse, and Peter goes right for it and he says, "You know this. You know this is true."
The Plan of God in the Crucifixion
He is the man, verse 23, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. That idea of "delivered" is the only time the word appears in the New Testament. It means to surrender to an enemy or to be betrayed. Predetermined—the boundaries are marked out. It's a plan of God.
You could humanly, I think, sit back and look at the life of Christ, maybe be one of these people, kind of dismiss the miracles and look at this and see the crucifixion and say, "Well, the devil won. The plan got usurped." And Peter's saying, "No, that was all part of the plan. That whole crucifixion, that whole betrayal, that was part of the plan." He was nailed to the cross by the hands of godless men and He was put to death, and God raised Him again and put an end to the agony of death.
The Cornerstone of Our Faith
It's the resurrection. I was trying to figure it out last night, and I don't have a number, but I think twenty-one Easters in a row I preached on Sunday morning at East Valley Bible Church or Redemption Church, I think. And I realized after about ten years that the message on Easter is pretty much the same. So if you were around and you could remember the last fifteen Easters I preached, I basically said the same thing every Easter.
I would say Jesus rose from the dead, and then I would say, "Here are the facts." Now all you got to do is Google it. If you Google—and I prefer you don't do it now but sometime today—if you Google "facts of the resurrection," and I didn't do it but I'm sure it'll pop up ten, fifteen. The evidence, to use Josh McDowell's classic term, the evidence demands a verdict. It's overwhelming. You almost have to suspend logic when you look at the facts of the resurrection.
It's the cornerstone of our belief. If you're here today and antagonistic or hostile toward us, you can blow this thing up, and maybe it's foolish to tell you this because it's giving away our vulnerability. I mean, Bill Belichick is not going to give away the playbook to the Falcons for next week, but we're going to give you the playbook. You can blow us apart if you can disprove the resurrection. It's the linchpin.
God raised Him up again and put an end to the agony of death. It's impossible for the tomb to hold Him. It's the old song: "Serve a Risen Savior. He's in the world today. We know that He lives." He's alive. He died for your sin. He rose from the dead. He appears. That's 1 Corinthians 15 verses—I don't know—two through five. Larry used to call it "the gospel in a nutshell." He's alive. He's there.
The Implications of the Resurrection
And it proves—so my point on Easter would be He rose from the dead. This is a big deal. This is not just a fact of history that's academic and removed. If He rose from the dead, then you better listen to everything else that He said.
And everything else that He said is really simple. You're a sinner. Ephesians 2:3—by nature, we're children of wrath right now. You've got some of these kids—I watched them walk on campus. They're so cute. They've got their little dress, especially the girls. The girls are undeniable. They're so cute. Their little hair is just right and everything's right. And they're over there right now whacking on each other and biting each other and knocking each other around. And we're trying to referee and give them a Bible verse all at the same time and then pretend if they were good so they get a star at the end of it.
The Reality of Human Nature
You raised these little creatures, okay? And you never taught them to lie or steal or cheat. They knew how to do that. And that's your story too. You're a little more sophisticated. You can hide it.
I watch the morning news. Never used to watch local news, but I do in the morning. And if you watch—pick an hour, it doesn't matter—six. If you watch, the first ten minutes would absolutely, it could destroy your day. It's the same every day. It's a shooting. It's a fire. It's a rape. It's another shooting. It's a beating. And my flinch is to go, "All those people are terrible." No, no, that's me. It's just God's restrained me and I'm a little more sophisticated.
It's like you. You'd never rob or steal from your business, but you got paper clips and pens at home. You're Bernie Madoff without any guts is what you are. That's who we are. That's the backdrop. I'm lost. I'm so far into this. Somewhere in there and everything will be all right. I don't know.
Life in the Present
And He reads to put an end to the agony of death. Then He quotes in verse 25 through 28. He quotes from Psalm 16—Psalm 20, Psalm 16—but in our case, Acts 2:25: "I saw the Lord always in my presence." One of the writers makes an observation. That's the key to seeing God is to see Him in the present. To see Him in this moment.
"Therefore, I'm glad my tongue's exalted. I won't be abandoned." Verse 28: "You have made known to me the ways of life." You've taught me how to live. It's not just about escaping the agony of death and escaping hell. It's about life here.
"For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life." And when I hear that, I tend to think of the eternal being way out here. But eternal begins now. How I live now. How I respond to Sandy now. How I respond to the world around me now.
Now, Peter tries to tie this together and he says, "Brethren..."
David's Death Proves Jesus' Resurrection
Peter makes his argument crystal clear in verse 29: "May I confidently say to you, regarding the patriarch David, that he died and he was buried and his tomb is with us today." He continues in verses 30-33, explaining that David was speaking prophetically about a future Messiah who would rise again. It wasn't David himself because he's dead and buried.
Peter then quotes Psalm 110:1 in verses 34-35. This is fascinating because that's the most frequently quoted Old Testament passage in the New Testament: "The Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool." Peter is pointing to the position of authority. Therefore, he declares, "Let the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him—Jesus—both Lord and Christ."
Then comes the devastating conclusion at the end of verse 36: "This Jesus whom you crucified." That's what he's bringing home.
The Shocking Nature of Peter's Message
John MacArthur writes about this passage: "Ever since God's covenant with Abraham in which He promised to bless all the nations through Abraham's seed, the Jewish people have longed for messianic times. They believed when the Messiah came, the wrongs would be righted and He would lead them to victory over their enemies. Viewed in the context of Jewish expectation, Peter's announcement that the last days—a name for messianic times—had already come was shocking."
That's exactly right. There are rabbit trails we could explore here, but we need to see their response.
Pierced to the Heart
Look at verse 37: "When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart." This word translated "pierced" appears only once in the New Testament. It's sudden, quick, and thorough.
In the fall months, the phrase that was everywhere on Facebook was "jaw-dropping"—jaw-dropping picture, jaw-dropping this or that. Usually it was just a picture of a cat or dog or somebody's kids swimming. But here's what was truly jaw-dropping to these people.
Now I want to bring this to you. This could be jaw-dropping for you. You're a sinner—not them, you. I can look at them and think, "How could they be so foolish?" But here's my question, respectfully: How foolish are you? What do you need to see? They heard this message, and you should ask what they asked: "What do we do?"
The Call to Repent
Verse 38 gives the answer: "Repent and be baptized." Repent means turn away. In their case, turn away from trusting in their faith or lifestyle to please God. Repent, by definition—if I use my hand as an illustration—means if my hand repents, it turns from the west wall back to the east wall. I repent by turning from my effort, from my religion, from my self-righteousness, and I turn to Christ.
Four Possible Reactions
When you hear a message like this, you have four possible reactions. First, you can deny it. "Kind of interesting, kind of cute, but it's science fiction. I don't buy it. That's not me." Most people, when you tell them they're sinners, will push back. But if you really look at it, they'll admit, "Well, maybe."
Second, you can be overwhelmed by this. I remember hitting that point in my life. I thought I was saved by doing good. I thought when I died, God had a supercomputer, and if I had more bad than good, I went to hell. More good than bad, I went to heaven. Fourth semester of my freshman year, I reached a point where I was done. My bad stack was so high that I said, "Why even bother?" I kind of gave up. That's the Judas approach.
The Religion Trap
Here's what most people do: moral realignment through religion. "I hear there's a problem, I know there's a problem, I'm going to do something about it." That's why the last week of December is every weight-loss program's favorite week of the year. They know people will say, "I'm going to do something about this." That's why gym memberships explode and attendance spikes for a week or two.
I teach Bible studies during the week—Wednesday morning at 7 o'clock in the commons. I'd love to have you join us. The first two weeks of the year, you can't get a seat. People get their coffee and go. I tell them, "Come back in three weeks." That's moral realignment—that's religion. You say, "I have a problem. It's sin. I'll fix it." But the Bible says you can't.
The Only Solution
The one solution is Jesus. Repent from your sin. Your problem is sin. It's not that you need a better job or new spouse or better body. Those things might be fine to work on—your weight, your intelligence—but your fundamental problem is sin, and the only solution is Jesus. That's why Christ died.
If you're here right now thinking, "I'm confused. I don't know what to do," there will be men and women at the front after we're done. The office is open tomorrow morning, and there's staff who would love to meet with you and talk about this. But that's the human condition.
The Amazing Result
Look what happens in verse 41: 3,000 people were saved that day. What do you do then? Next week, I'm guessing Tim will cover verses 42-47, and here's what I know...
I was here. The first week, the first message ever preached in this church was Acts chapter 2, verse 42 through 47. This is what a church is to do. This is what a church is to be. We'll look at it next week.
Let me pray and get you on your way. Father, thank You. I look at that clock, and it just keeps moving, and we're three minutes and 30 seconds late. God, I can't wait for when we have eternity, and a year will fly by. God, thank You. Thank You, and let us feel that sense of urgency if we've never responded, and that sense of gratitude if we have. God, thank You for Jesus, for His life, His death, and His resurrection. We pray to You in Jesus' name, amen.