Peter's Message at Pentecost
Tom Shrader walks through Peter's sermon at Pentecost in Acts 2, explaining how Peter uses Old Testament scripture—particularly Psalm 16 and Psalm 110—to demonstrate that Jesus of Nazareth is the long-awaited Messiah whose death was not a political accident but God's predetermined plan for redemption. Shrader unpacks the meaning of God's foreknowledge as active foreordination, the centrality of the resurrection as the ultimate proof of Christ's identity, and the link between the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the ascension of Christ. The message closes with a direct call to repentance, contrasting the biblical gospel with five common false paths to salvation and urging listeners to publicly identify with Christ through baptism.
“When you reject this, you're not rejecting Christ because of a lack of information. You're rejecting him because you love sin more than you love God.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Acts
Recorded: 1999 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 45 min
Themes: resurrection, repentance, salvation, holy spirit, baptism, gospel, messiah, scripture, new believer, seeking salvation, doubting christ's identity, questioning the gospel, young adult, skeptic exploring faith, recently baptized, wrestling with repentance
Scripture: Acts 2:22-39, Acts 1:8, Psalm 16:8-11, Psalm 110, Psalm 18, John 3:2, John 5:30, John 5:36, John 8:28, John 14:10, Joel 2:28-32, Romans 8:29, Romans 9, Romans 11:2, Romans 3:20, 1 Peter 1:2, 1 Corinthians 1:17, 1 Corinthians 15, Hebrews 4:12, Acts 3, Acts 20
Theological Themes: soteriology, foreordination, biblical prophecy, pentecost, ascension of christ, false gospels, old testament fulfillment, expository preaching
Full Transcript
Introduction: Peter's Sermon at Pentecost
We are in Acts chapter 2, following the historical account of the beginning of the church. We have reached a point in the book of Acts where Peter — this new creature, this bold man of God — stands to deliver a monumental sermon. This sermon is a message about the Savior, and in just a few verses, Peter packs in an enormous amount of information about Christ.
He talks about Christ's earthly ministry. It is important to understand some of the things Jesus did and what they meant, and even His teaching, but we are not saved by those. He talks about the crucifixion and the burial. The crucifixion reveals to us that it was the expressed design of God. The burial is contrasted by Peter, as he speaks to these Jews, between the burial of David and the burial of Jesus — one was temporary, one was permanent.
Then Peter addresses the resurrection, quoting from the Old Testament, Psalm 16, verses 8–11. He expands upon the truth of what that resurrection meant and the fulfillment of the description of the Messiah who was to come and to deliver. And not just the resurrection, but the ascension and Christ's ministry today. As Peter speaks in this magnificent message, he links the ascension of Christ into heaven to the fact that He is still involved today.
The Context: Pentecost and the Holy Spirit
We will come back to the context over and over again. The context is the Feast of Pentecost, the time of Pentecost, the arrival of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been poured out. There has been this manifestation — these signs of fire and wind and speaking in known languages. It is in that environment that Peter stands to teach.
How Peter Uses Scripture
Notice how Peter uses Scripture. Peter obviously does not have the New Testament available to him, but he takes the Bible he has — the Old Testament — and he points his listeners back to it. Here is what the Word says. Here is what we see around us. Here is what the Word says. He focuses on the essential issue: the person of Christ, the resurrection of Christ, and what difference that makes to us.
That is what good preaching and good teaching is all about. It is not about what a person thinks. What does the Bible say? What does it mean to us? Is it true? So what? I was listening to something this week, and I have no idea how they make these claims or figure these things out, but they said 60% of churches today — churches that would call themselves Christian, evangelical churches — have simply given up teaching about hell and judgment. How do you avoid those pitfalls? You do what the Scripture says. You work your way through the Scripture, and that is what we are going to do.
The Magnitude of the Moment
Peter stands up to address this audience — what a magnificent moment. As I put this lesson together, studied it, put it back together, and studied some more, I was overwhelmed by how big God is and how much God is beyond my understanding. There are issues raised here for us — issues about God, who He is, and what He is like.
It is very important, when we encounter issues about who God is, not to form our own judgments about what we think, but to ask what the Scripture says about Him. I do not care what you think He is — what is He? Not what He is like or what you want Him to be. We live in a time when we are creating gods in our own image. You have had conversations in the office or at school when somebody says, "My God would never..." The problem is the God of the Bible did. What they are saying is, "I have created my own god, and he is nothing like this one."
Peter's Audience and His Message
It is in that context — this moment of Pentecost, with millions of pilgrims gathered in the city of Jerusalem — that Peter stands to speak. His audience is shocked and outraged, even angered, by what he says. They have waited for the Messiah to come and right the wrongs. They have waited for the Messiah to come and produce victory over their enemies. They have waited for the Messiah to come and usher in this kingdom of blessing. Peter is about to tell them that they missed Him — and not only did they miss Him, but when He came, they killed Him.
Jesus Attested by God
"Men of Israel, hear these words." This harkens back to just a few verses later when Peter says, "Heed my words." Listen up. This fisherman stands and speaks boldly. "Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you" — where *attested* means to exhibit something, to convey proof that leads to a conclusion. Jesus is the one whom God testified to, leading to the conclusion that He is the Messiah. That is where Peter is taking them. God was intervening. God provided, as Acts 1:8 tells us, convincing proofs.
Peter begins by saying, "I am going to tell you what you already know." Nicodemus came to Jesus in John 3:2 and said, "Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Peter is saying, "You already know this."
Miracles, Wonders, and Signs
This attestation came in three ways: miracles, wonders, and signs. Miracles describe supernatural power at work. When a man says to a blind man, "See," and he can see — or to the lame, "Get up and walk," and he walks — something supernatural is taking place. Wonders describe the reaction. When you see Lazarus come out of the tomb, there is marvel in that. When you witness a miracle, wonder accompanies it. And in the book of Acts, wherever we see the idea of wonder, we see attached to it the idea of sign. A sign is something that says, listen —
The Miracles Were Signs
Here is what the miracles are about: they are pointing somewhere else. When you are driving down the freeway and you see a billboard for Diet Coke, they are not trying to get you to go and worship the sign. They want you to go to the store and buy it. Jesus performed these magnificent miracles that produce a sense of marvel, and they are specifically designed to be signs. They point you in a direction — namely, to the fact that Jesus is who He said He was.
He could not do these signs without God the Father. Jesus said it Himself. John chapter five, verse 30: "I do nothing of myself." Verse 36 speaks of "the works which the Father has given me." John chapter eight, verse 28: "I do nothing of myself." John chapter fourteen: "Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father in Me? The words that I speak to you, I do not speak on My own authority, but the Father who dwells in Me and who does these works."
That is Peter's whole point as he introduces his message and the topic of the Messiahship of Christ. You have had miracles. You have seen this. These are signs. God is working — and Peter says, you know it. That is what he says at the end of verse 22: He did it in your midst, and you know it. You have seen this thing. You understand how it works. You cannot claim ignorance anymore. You cannot ignore this fact. You may not like it, but it is true.
Peter says to them: when you reject this, you are not rejecting Christ because of a lack of information. You are rejecting Him because you love sin more than you love God. And if you are here today and you are not a Christian, it is not because you do not have enough information. You have enough information. You only need one piece of information — an empty tomb. That is enough right there. You reject Christ not because you lack information, but because you love sin. You love your own selfishness. You love doing your own thing. You love being captain of your ship. You love the illusion that somehow you are in control, as though it makes a difference.
To come to Christ is to say: He is everything and I am nothing, but now I can be something because of who He is. Peter speaks to these men of Israel, but he speaks to all men, in all places, everywhere. And his point is that Jesus is the Messiah.
The Crucifixion Was Not a Defeat
That raises some questions. This group of people — at least some of them firsthand, and all of them by report — knew that Christ had been crucified. They knew of the agonizing death. They knew what appeared in their minds to be a defeat. And they were asking: why did He not do something? It was the same thing the Roman soldier said: "He saved others; He cannot save Himself." Why did He allow Himself to be crucified? Why did He not spare Himself? Was He just a victim?
Shortly after I became a Christian, a friend of mine who was involved in one of the large denominations wanted me to meet with one of their ministers. I am not sure what he wanted me to accomplish, but I sat down and talked with this man who had far more formal education in these matters than I did, and we were getting nowhere. Finally I said to him, "Why was Christ crucified?" He said to me, "Because He was a political prisoner, and that is how they disposed of political prisoners in that day and age."
Is that what Christ was — just a revolutionary? Someone with an incredible plan who got a little too aggressive, who just needed to wait for one more emperor and it all would have fallen together? Where is God in all of this? Where was God when Christ hung on the cross?
Peter understands this question, and he addresses it directly. He says: you want to talk about where God was? God put the whole thing together. Him being delivered by the determined purpose — and in some of your Bibles that word is translated "plan" — the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God. The word "delivered" means to mark out with a boundary. It comes from the Greek word *harisso*, from which we get the English word "horizon." The word "purpose" means plan or design.
Where was God when Jesus Christ was crucified? The crucifixion of Christ was a part of God's divine plan for the redemption of mankind. Jesus was not a victim. God was not caught off guard. Bette Midler made a great deal of money singing a song about a distant God, but that is not what Scripture says. Our God is an intimately involved God who allows no accidents in this world. When Christ was on the cross, He was there because it was God's divine plan.
The Plan Behind the Cross
Why did He not avoid it? Because He was in the middle of all of it. When you look to the cross, you are looking at God's plan. When man sinned, God was faced with a choice: He could save some, all, or none. Man could not save himself — the wages of sin is death, and we all sin and fall short of the honor and glory of God. There was nothing man could do. And so God decided that He would intervene. He would offer redemption to His people. At that point, there was only one way that could be accomplished: through a perfect sacrifice. It demanded the death of Christ on the cross. It was part of His plan.
Now there is a word in this passage that throws some of us off balance — the word "foreknowledge." We see that word and we think it simply means that God knew it was going to happen. But the word is far more powerful than that. In his *Systematic Theology*, Louis Berkhof addresses that word "foreknowledge" and gives it its true meaning, at least as it is used in this instance. The term does not denote simple intellectual foresight, the mere taking of knowledge —
God's Foreknowledge and Foreordination
Foreknowledge is not simply knowing something beforehand. It is a selective knowledge that regards one with favor, makes one an object of love, and thus approaches the idea of foreordination — God causing it to happen. The passages listed here, Acts 2:23, Romans 8:29, Romans 11:2, and 1 Peter 1:2, lose their meaning if the word "foreknowledge" is taken in the sense of simply taking knowledge of one in advance. God foreknows all men in that sense. What Scripture teaches about the crucifixion, and what Scripture teaches about our salvation, is that God not only knew it was going to happen — God intervened and caused it to happen.
Romans chapter 9 gives no greater illustration than this: "Jacob I loved, Esau I hated." In the womb, God would show favor to one and give the other what he deserves. God knew exactly how you were going to think when you heard that. He knew exactly what you were going to say: "That's not fair!" That is why the next verse asks what we are supposed to say in response.
Paul says, stop and think about it. Jacob gets mercy, Esau gets justice, and no one gets injustice. He is God and we are not. We have a very limited, edited view of God.
The Whole Truth About God
We hear all day that God is a God of love — and yes, He is a God of love. But there are other aspects to God, like justice and wrath. Because He is a God of love, He is also a God who hates. Because He loves holiness, He hates sin. You are never, through nature or through the exploration and expansion of your own mind, going to understand God until you get into this Word.
What we do is grab an attribute of God that fits our image and then edit God. It is not that we tell a lie — it is that we do not tell the whole truth. It is like saying, "Tom is a father." Yes, that is true, but if that is all you know about him, you do not know him at all. That is why we have to go to Scripture and set aside our own desires about what God should be like.
What we are really saying when we resist these truths is: "If I were God, I would not do it that way." When someone in the office hears that Jesus is the only way and says, "I don't believe that for a second," what he is saying is, "If I were God, that is not the way it would be." It is not a matter of what we think about God — what matters is who God actually is. And we are only going to find that in Scripture.
God's Purpose and Man's Responsibility
Here is what Peter is saying, and it is important to understand: "Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, you have crucified and you have put him to death." Right next to God's predetermined plan stands man's responsibility, and they hang in tension. Jesus Himself said the Son of Man goes as it has been determined, and yet woe to the man who betrays Him. It was by lawless hands that they crucified Him and put Him to death.
But understand this: God raised Him up again. Remember what Peter is doing — he is making the case for the Messiahship of Christ. He does not go to Christ's teaching. He does not go to His earthly ministry. He says, if you want the greatest proof, here it is: God raised Him from the dead. The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the center, the epicenter, in the history of mankind.
Peter says God raised Him up, having loosened the pains of death — pains like the labor pains that lead to a magnificent birth. Death could not hold Him. He put an end to the agony of death. Jesus Himself had told them this was going to happen. He said, "You tear down this temple and in three days I will build it up." There was no way He would remain in that tomb. It is impossible for death to conquer Him. That is what Jesus was declaring.
Peter Quotes David
Now it is important to understand the context. Peter is speaking to Jews, so he quotes David — Psalm 16. David says concerning Him, concerning Jesus: "I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced."
There is the key to trust and the key to joy in life. David continually understood and saw God before him. The Lord is at his right hand — a position that symbolizes protection. At a wedding, the groom stands at the bride's right side as a symbol of that protection. David said the Lord is there protecting him, and so his heart rejoices and his tongue is glad.
"Moreover, my flesh also rests in hope. For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption." David is not speaking about himself here. He is speaking prophetically about the Messiah. The word "Hades" is the equivalent of "Sheol" from the Old Testament — it can refer to hell, but is often used in a general sense to speak of the place of the dead. David is saying that this coming Messiah's soul will not be left among the dead and His Holy One will not begin to decay.
Verse 28 continues: "You have made known to me the ways of life; you will make me full of joy in your presence." Peter quotes David from Psalm 16, and it is a prophetic psalm.
David's Prophecy Points to the Messiah
David is looking and seeing and understanding, speaking that one day the Messiah will come. The Messiah will experience death, but it cannot hold Him. His body will not corrupt. Peter makes the point here that David is not speaking about himself. He says: let me tell you something about David — he is dead and buried, and there is the tomb. Do not for a second think that David is figuratively speaking about himself, or speaking about some end-times thing. He is speaking about the Messiah.
Here is the conclusion Peter draws for his audience. "Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that the fruit of his body, according to his flesh, his lineage, He, the Christ, would rise up and sit on the throne. He, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in the place of death, and that his flesh was not going to be corrupt."
Now Peter goes right for the throne. "This Jesus" — speaking to these men directly — "God has raised up." How do you know He was raised? Peter says: you know it is true, because we are witnesses. "Therefore, being exalted to the right hand and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out that which you now see and hear."
The Pouring Out of the Holy Spirit
Remember the context — it is Pentecost. When this whole thing started, the crowd asked what was going on. Some wondered, while others said the disciples were drunk. Peter said no, they are not drunk. This is part of the fulfillment of what Joel wrote about in Joel chapter two, verses 28 to 32. Now Peter comes full circle: what you are seeing in front of you is the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. That is the Holy Spirit at work, and it is the fulfillment of that prophecy.
Peter then quotes Psalm 110. David did not ascend into heaven, but here is what he said: "The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool." Therefore, Peter concludes, "let all the house of Israel know assuredly" — that is, beyond the shadow of a doubt — "that God had made this Jesus whom you crucified, Lord and Messiah."
The Verdict: You Killed the Messiah
Here is Peter's conclusion. He wants them to know for certain that God has made Jesus — Jesus of Nazareth, the one they crucified — the Messiah. This is the Messiah they had been waiting for, longing for, praying for, and weeping for. They had cried out, let him come. And Peter says to them: not only did he come, he was here, and you killed him.
It is as though the judge says, "Mr. Foreman, have you reached a verdict?" And the foreman replies, "We have, your honor." The verdict: guilty. That is what they hear. The nation of Israel missed it. To this day, Orthodox Jews are still waiting for the Messiah. And Peter is saying that 2,000 years ago, He was here. He was present. He came, just as the psalmist said He would, just as David said He would, just as those prophecies foretold in His birth, His life, His death, and His resurrection — all of it fulfilled. And they missed it. Not only did they miss it, they killed Him. That is why Paul said He was a stone rejected by the builder, and to the nation of Israel a stumbling block instead of a stepping stone.
Cut to the Heart
Look at what happens next. When they heard this, they were cut to the heart. They were pierced, they were stabbed. They had nowhere to hide. That is what the word of God does. Hebrews 4:12 says, "The word of God is living, powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the middle. It is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart." There is no place to hide.
They are standing there, they hear this, and the Holy Spirit has regenerated their hearts. Rather than come up with some excuse, rather than claim they did not have enough information, they understand they are in trouble. They understand the Messiah came. They understand they killed Him. They understand that God's wrath will be poured out on those who killed Him, and they are afraid.
What Must We Do?
Here is what they say: "What do we do?" What a great question. What are we supposed to do? The same thing happens to Paul in the book of Acts. Paul and Silas are in jail at midnight, singing, when a great earthquake strikes. The jailer comes, thinking almost certainly that the prisoners have escaped, which would mean his own death. To short-circuit this, he decides to kill himself, and Paul says, no, do not do that — bring a light, all the prisoners are still here. And the jailer says, "What must I do to be saved?" It is the same question.
You hear the same question in everyday life. Someone at the office says your marriage seems to really work — in a time when marriages are disposable, you have had one for twelve, thirteen, fourteen years. How does it work? Or on a campus, when people around you say, come on, lighten up, everybody does it, and you say no. Some make fun of you, but others ask: why don't you do that? What they are really asking is: what do I have to do to be saved?
The World's Answers
There are a whole range of answers out there. The world has its own set of answers — a way that seems right to man, but it leads to death. One of those answers is: keep the law. But the law never saved anyone. Romans chapter three, verse 20, Paul writes, "By the works of the law, no flesh will be justified in God's sight." Yet there are those who say, just do what God says to do — keep the Ten Commandments.
In a conversation about this very topic, someone was asked what they thought a person had to do to go to heaven. They said, keep the Ten Commandments. And the response to them was —
The Question of Salvation
There is a common view that says keep four of the Ten Commandments and you will be okay. Scripture says no. Some say, well, do more good than bad. This is basically the same idea — just a slight variation. Do good things, and do more good things than bad things. Have more assets than liabilities.
I go to a lot of funerals, and I will bet you go to a good number of them. Here is what I have observed: the more certain I am that a man is lost, the faster people seem to want to get him into heaven. "He was a good man. I remember a day when he stopped and helped someone change a flat tire." How good do you have to be?
Another view is that salvation is a kind of family privilege. The Jews would say, "Wait a minute, I'm saved — I'm a Jew." A little later, Paul writes and says that not all who are descended from Israel are truly Israel. Not all of those in the Old Testament who were part of the nation of Israel were true Jews in terms of loving God with their heart and being saved. We know that.
You hear this all the time with kids: "I'm a Christian — my mom and dad are Christians." "I was born in Kansas, I drive a Chevy, I'm a Christian." That is not Christianity; that is geography. Then there is the religious version: "I hit fifteen First Fridays in a row, I've been baptized, I come to church every week, I serve, I went to summer camp, I worked with the junior high kids — I've done the religious thing, therefore let me in."
The last view, and I think it is the most dominant view in the world right now, is that you do not even need to worry about being saved, because everybody gets in — justification by death. All you have to do is die. There is a hell, but God would never send anybody there. There is a way that seems right to man.
The Hunger Around Us
You live in a time when people are wrestling with the question of what they must do to be saved. Go to the secular bookstores — Barnes and Noble, Borders, Bookstar, any of them — and look at the expansion of the spirituality section. Books like *Conversations with God* land on the bestseller list not for a week or a month, but for years at a time. It is almost a guaranteed thing that once you see that, the book is filled with bad theology.
You have a great number of people around you asking, "What do I have to do to be saved?" I hope you respond like the apostle Peter, because Peter loved these people. When someone you really love and care for comes to you and says, "It's finally making sense to me — what do I have to do?" there is a great temptation at that moment to soften the gospel.
If you are working with junior high or high school kids and you are finally breaking through, and they ask what they must do to be saved, the temptation to change the gospel in order to get them to make a declaration of faith can be overpowering. But consider what Jesus did with the rich young ruler. The man asked what he had to do to go to heaven. Jesus said to keep all the commandments, and the man said he had done that.
Then it says Jesus looked at him and loved him and said, "Sell everything." Was He teaching salvation by philanthropy? No. What He was saying was this: "You tell me you kept all the commandments. The first commandment is that you shall have no other gods before Me. Your possessions are your god — give them away. You say you kept them all, but you did not even keep the first one." It was because Jesus loved him that He told him the truth.
Peter's Call to Repentance
Peter is at an important moment. The people he loves, the people he cares for — they know about the crucifixion and the resurrection. I am sure they also know about Peter's denial. The man standing in front of them is not perfect, and there is a great deal of pressure on Peter. Yet what does he say? Repent.
To repent means to change your purpose, to change your ways. It is a radical turn — a turning from your own ways of trying to satisfy a holy God and an acceptance of Christ. Instead of being a lover of sin, you become a hater of sin. If I turn my hand away from something, I am necessarily turning it toward something else. What Peter is saying is: turn from your sin and turn toward the provision you have in the person of Christ.
"Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." Is he teaching here that baptism is necessary for salvation? No. We will come back and break that apart. Whenever we encounter a passage like that, we look at what the rest of Scripture says.
Jesus says repent. In Acts chapter three, Peter delivers another message — what does he say? "Repent and be converted." Stephen preaches — what does he say? Repent. Paul preaches that God commands all
Repentance and Baptism
Paul testifies to the Jews and the Greeks in Acts chapter 20: "Repent and turn to God." We see passages in Scripture where people are acknowledged as being saved who have not been baptized. First Corinthians chapter 15, which some have called the gospel in a nutshell, is where Paul says that according to the Scriptures, Jesus came, He died, He rose from the dead, and we were saved from our sin. All who call upon His name will be saved. Baptism is not part of that.
In First Corinthians chapter one, Paul says he baptized only a couple of men he could remember and one other. Here is what he says explicitly: "Christ didn't send me to baptize but to preach the gospel." So what Peter is doing is linking repentance to baptism because baptism does not save — it is the outward sign of that salvation.
Consider the phrase "baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sin." The word translated "for" carries two possible meanings. The first is "for the purpose of." The second — and I believe the primary meaning here — is "because of." Repent and be baptized because you have received the remission of your sins.
The Cost of Public Identification with Christ
What Peter is saying to these men is that there is no room for compromise. He is calling them to repent and to be baptized — to be identified, to be immersed in the name of Jesus Christ. There are no secret-service disciples here. He wants them to publicly declare that they are followers of Christ, which meant they would lose their family, their friends, their business, their economic livelihood, and in many cases be physically harmed. Peter is not softening the call. He is saying: repent, be baptized, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
At the point of conversion, at the point of repentance, you will be indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And look at verse 39, because it is so important. His promise is not just to those men and to their children, but to the people of Gilbert in 1999 — "for as many as the Lord our God will call."
The Question for Every Listener
Here is the question: Have you found forgiveness for your sin? When you hear this message, do you understand that you are lost? Is there any chance you are trusting in one of the five types of false salvation — trusting in rules, trying to do good, pointing to some pedigree or religious heritage, or observing religious practices? Or perhaps you are simply saying there is nothing to worry about because surely you are good enough to make it in the end.
Repent. I want to speak especially to those of you who have been around the church a long time and feel in your heart that you have this settled. Maybe there was a moment — a fifth-grade class, a junior high camp, a Young Life retreat at Woodleaf, a Billy Graham crusade, walking an aisle as an adult — somewhere along the road you point to and say, "That's when I came to Christ." Yet you have been operating under the illusion that you are a Christian when you really are not.
It is worth noting what God brought together in this service today: a message on repentance paired with music that placed such a strong emphasis on the heart. That is not something Gary and I coordinated — we do not coordinate worship and music with the message. We leave that to God, and it is fascinating what He put together.
Taking an Honest Inventory
Look at the model these men in Acts provide. Peter had every opportunity to soften the call, and he did not. And these men did not push back or say no. Instead, they stopped, took an honest inventory, and said: we have been religious men, we have been in church, we thought we were saved — but we were not. Maybe you are here this morning in exactly that position.
Look at the empirical data around you. Does your life look like a Christian life? Do you find people drawn to you, looking at you and saying, "Help me figure out this life" — not because you are so smart, but because it looks like you have something figured out? Think about what kind of people you attract. Jesus and the disciples always seemed to draw the broken and the struggling around them. Is the person who is down and out comfortable coming to you and asking what they need to do?
Have you repented? If so, you have experienced the forgiveness of sin. Have you been baptized? Does your life simply announce that you are a follower of Christ? Do people see His fingerprints all over you, and think: surely, this person must be one of His?
Looking Ahead to the Church's Formation
What we see before us in Acts chapter two, through verse 39, is a pivotal moment in the history of the church. This is the beginning of the church. Next week we will pick up the story right there and see the response of these people. I will tip my hand — you can read ahead — thousands come to faith. That response provides us with the formation of the church and gives us its essential components. What should East Valley Bible Church, or any church, truly be about? We will look at that next week.
Father, we pray that You would open our hearts and our minds, that You would teach us this truth. God, help us turn from our own selfishness, our own wickedness. Father, help us get rid of the singular—
Closing Prayer
Father, help us to set aside the personal pronouns of "I" and "me," except to say, "I'm sorry. My fault. I blew it. I'm not worthy." God, help us understand that You saved us from our sin, and that we are part of Your plan, and that this is no accident. God, I pray that this group of people here would be transformed by Your Spirit, and that wherever they go, people would be saying to them, "What do I need to do? What do I have to do to be saved? How can I know the Savior?" God, we pray that You would do that work in our lives. We pray it to You in Jesus' name. Amen.