The Sermon of Peter – part 3
Acts 2:14-42 (37-42)
March 11, 2012
When last we talked about this sermon that Peter preached in Jerusalem at Pentecost, Peter had successfully nailed the Jews to the wall.
• The Spirit of God had come grabbing the attention of everyone.
• Some were perplexed, while some mocked.
• Peter took his stand and gave a very concise answer to their curiosity.
#1 THE REALITY (14-21)
The Spirit of God is here.
This is what Joel said would happen
#2 THE REASON (22-35)
Why He has come now
1) Jesus was Crucified (22-23)
2) Jesus was Justified (24-32)
3) Jesus was Glorified (33-35)
Peter then stating (33) “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.”
The reason the Spirit has come now is because Jesus sent Him.
#3 THE RESULT (36)
“Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ – this Jesus whom you crucified.”
And so at this point Peter has effectively condemned them.
So much for a gospel void of confrontation…
So much for a gospel void of conviction…
So much for leaving people’s sin alone…
Peter took the truth of their crime and exposed them before everyone.
He has taken the opportunity afforded by the Holy Spirit
To preach the truth to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
And that is where we are thus far in the sermon.
The Reality is that God’s Spirit is here.
The Reason is that God’s Son has been Exalted and Poured Him out.
The Result is that you are guilty of killing God’s Son
#4 THE REQUIREMENT
Acts 2:37-40
I think verse 37 is an obvious response.
“Now when the people heard this they were pierced to the heart”
I’m sure you could add,
“sick to their stomach”
“weak in their knees”
“light headed”
“filled with terror”
They hadn’t realized it, but while they were putting Jesus on trial, God was putting them on trial, and when they found Jesus guilty,
They sealed their own fate as well.
They were condemned as the murderers of God’s Son.
“and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”
I think that is a fair question.
Is there anything we can do to change our fortune?
Is there anything we can do to satisfy God?
And incidentally as we have talked about preaching the gospel,
You must understand that this is why conviction and condemnation
Are necessary parts of the gospel.
These people had no reason whatsoever to change their lives…
These people had no reason whatsoever to believe in Jesus…
UNTIL PETER SHOWED THEM THE REASON
People today don’t naturally deny themselves and take up a cross and follow Jesus until they are overcome with the enormity of their guilt and the reality of their judgment.
This is why condemnation precedes mercy.
These people have been successfully condemned
And so they want to know what they can do.
And that opens the door for Peter to reveal the REQUIREMENT.
(38) “Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
The simple answer?
“Repent”
It was the first thing John the Baptist preached…
It was the first thing Jesus preached…
(incidentally the Jews killed both of them for preaching it)
But regardless of how many messengers you kill,
The requirement of God has not changed.
Man is sinful…
Man is depraved…
Man is condemned…
The requirement of God on behalf of man is that they repent of their sin.
“repent” translates METANOEO
It means “to have a change of purpose”
It speaks of a turning from sin to God.
1 Thessalonians 1:9 “For they themselves report about us what kind of a reception we had with you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God,”
• It is not just acknowledging their sin
• It is not just admitting their sin
• It is not just confessing their sin
Peter said they had to turn from it.
These people had chosen to walk in sin instead of submit to God.
They had chosen to maintain their own way of life instead of God’s way.
And Peter said the answer for these people is to “repent”.
And from there Peter continues.
“repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins;”
Here Peter reveals that it is not just repentance that is required,
But also baptism.
WHY BAPTISM?
BECAUSE BAPTISM WAS THE SIGN OF REPENTANCE.
That is why John the Baptist came baptizing.
It was an outward symbol of death to self
And determination to walk in new life.
Now you know and I know that this verse
Has had an entire theology built around it.
Some have used this one alone
To indicate that water baptism is necessary for salvation.
We really can’t spend a ton of time here, but it is worthwhile to explain it.
Peter calls for baptism because it is the public sign of repentance.
It verifies that their repentance is genuine.
Having said that, it is also important then to note that baptism is required.
• Baptism is clearly commanded in Scripture for all who believe.
• Peter commanded it for the Jews here.
• Peter commanded it for Cornelius.
• The Ethiopian Eunich did it.
• But even more than that, Jesus did it.
YOU MUST BE BAPTIZED
(Don’t let bad theology push you too far in the wrong direction)
Baptism is a command that must be obeyed, but understand this.
Baptism is an indicator of salvation, not a means of it.
The water does not wash away sin.
1 Peter 3:21-22 “Corresponding to that, baptism now saves you — not the removal of dirt from the flesh, but an appeal to God for a good conscience — through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven, after angels and authorities and powers had been subjected to Him.”
It is not the water, it is the death to self and change of heart,
Made possible through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.
Furthermore water baptism is not a prerequisite to salvation.
Acts 10:44-48 “While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were listening to the message. All the circumcised believers who came with Peter were amazed, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. Then Peter answered, “Surely no one can refuse the water for these to be baptized who have received the Holy Spirit just as we did, can he?” And he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked him to stay on for a few days.”
Obviously Cornelius was saved before he was ever baptized.
The thief on the cross was saved without ever having been baptized at all.
To push baptism to a prerequisite for salvation
Is to do with it what the Jews had done with circumcision
By diminishing the work of Christ and promoting a work of the flesh.
Just as circumcision was a SIGN so is baptism.
Just as circumcision was a SEAL, so is baptism.
It is an outward picture of what has taken place in the heart,
It is a work of obedience indicating that the heart is in a proper state.
A person gets baptized not to be saved,
But as a testimony to their new life and as their first step of obedience
Thus proving their repentance and faith to be genuine.
Christ forgives sin…
Our garments are washed in His blood…
Water is external.
Peter told them to be baptized, not to earn their forgiveness,
But rather to indicate the genuineness of their repentance.
But make no mistake repentance was required.
And if they would repent…
• If they would quit forsaking Christ and start submitting to Him…
• If they would quit clinging to sin and start renouncing it…
• If they would quit playing religion and get obedient from the heart…
“you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
It is right back to what Joel had said.
Acts 2:21 “AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”
• God wanted the broken and contrite heart…
• God wanted the genuine humility of repentance…
• God wanted hatred of sin…
• God wanted a hunger for righteousness…
And if Israel would give that,
God would forgive them and grant His Spirit to them as well.
(39) “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
What a statement of relief!
You killed God’s Son and you are guilty, but God is merciful!
If you will repent of your sin not only will He forgive you,
But He will also give you His Spirit.
WHY?
Because you are who His Spirit is for.
You are the reason God ever promised His Spirit.
You are the intended recipients.
Remember back in the book of Jeremiah?
Remember the New Covenant?
Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Behold, days are coming,” declares the LORD, “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, although I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD. “But this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the LORD, “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the LORD, “for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”
This whole thing was for Israel.
They are the reason God intended to send His Spirit in the first place.
And Peter now says if you will only repent and submit to God’s will
Then God will give you the Holy Spirit too.
He is angry, but trust me He doesn’t want to kill you.
He doesn’t want to destroy you.
He wants to save you.
He wants to make you holy.
Ezekiel 33:11 “Say to them, ‘As I live!’ declares the Lord GOD, ‘I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back, turn back from your evil ways! Why then will you die, O house of Israel?’”
God wants you to repent and be saved.
And not just you, but God has others He will save as well.
“all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.”
It isn’t just Jews God has determined to save,
But He also has a flock of Gentiles that He plans to call as well.
We don’t know who they are, but God does and He wants them saved too.
It is not God’s desire to judge men, but that they repent and be saved.
(40) “And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!”
Peter even went into begging mode.
He told them over and over this world is going down.
God’s judgment is coming.
The ways of this world are wrong.
By following this world you killed the Son of God.
Repent and “Be saved from this perverse generation!”
Stop following world, turn around, go upstream. Be saved
NOW THAT IS THE GLORIOUS GOSPEL!
You are a sinner, you offended God, and judgment will come
But good news, God will save you if you will repent.
And by the way Peter never did change his message.
Acts 3:17-20 “And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. “But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you,”
Even until the day of Peter’s impending death
And the writing of his second epistle.
2 Peter 3:9 “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.”
Peter was passionate about
The importance of repentance and the salvation of God.
And it rings true through today.
• Man needs to repent.
• Man is sinful.
• Man has denied God.
• Man has chosen his own path.
• And man needs to turn and go the other direction.
• Man needs to trust God.
• Man needs to obey God.
• Man needs to humble himself before God.
This world is a sinking ship and man must be saved from it.
And the means is now and has always been repentance.
You can’t stay in your sin and be saved at the same time.
Talk about faith…
Talk about grace…
Talk about abundant life…
Talk about eternal life…
Talk about blessing…
But they are all null and void if you don’t first talk about repentance.
Man must leave his sin.
It was the message of John
It was the message of Jesus
It was the message of Peter
It is still the message today
So the Reality is God has poured out His Spirit
The Reason is because Christ has been exalted
The Result is that you have killed God’s Messiah
The Requirement is that you repent
#5 THE RESPONSE
Acts 2:41-42
We need to take a look at what happened.
And this is really beautiful.
“So then, those who had received his word were baptized;”
There were some who listened to Peter.
And they obviously repented from sin, proving their repentance
Through their submission to be baptized.
And the church was underway.
“and that day there were added about three thousand souls.”
So in one morning the church grew from 120 to over 3,000.
Jesus was building His church.
But let me show you something of vital importance.
The response is not the significant part,
The change is what is significant.
You will remember Jesus’ words to those who received His words:
John 8:31-32 “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”
Jesus knew responses were important, but they were useless
If not accompanied by a genuine life change.
In short you can walk the aisle if you want, you can even get baptized,
But if it does not affect your life and change the way you life then it is all for not.
We are looking for people to make decisions,
We are looking for people to become genuine disciples.
And so while all the baptisms of verse 41 are great,
It is verse 42 that really causes us to rejoice.
(42) “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
THIS WAS CHURCH AS IT WAS MEANT TO BE.
Is it simple? Yes
But at the same time it is so powerful.
• They didn’t have any programs…
• They didn’t have any orchestras…
• They didn’t have screens or projectors…
• They didn’t have drama teams…
• They didn’t have cool slogans…
• They didn’t have T-shirts…
• They didn’t even have a building…
But they had church and it was effective.
In fact look down at the conclusion of this chapter
And see how effective.
Acts 2:43-47 “Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe; and many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles. And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common; and they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all, as anyone might have need. Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
They were awestruck, they were self-sacrificing,
They were genuine in their love for one another,
They were unified, they genuinely liked each other…
“And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.”
The point is that this church had no manual,
Had no church growth book, attended no seminar
And yet they did church in a mega-affective way!
They only possessed two things.
The Holy Spirit & The Gospel
And look at what their church was like.
If you want to know how to do church, all you have to do is read verse 42.
“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
Four things that constituted church.
1) DEVOTION TO THE TRUTH
“They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching”
These people could not get enough of the spoken word of God.
Certainly there is a slight difference between the apostles teaching
And the preaching today.
They did not have the New Testament yet,
So they were more dependent upon what the apostles said.
But the point is that these people had had such a change of heart
That now they could not get enough of the word of God.
How can a person claim to have been saved when they have no desire to either read God’s word or hear it preached?
The early church couldn’t get enough of it.
“continually devoting”
2) DESIRE FOR FELLOWSHIP
They were also continually devoting themselves “to fellowship”
All you have to do is read 1 John to understand the necessity of love.
These people had it.
• They loved to be around God’s people.
• They loved the unity of purpose.
• They loved the testimony of the Spirit.
They loved to spend time with one another.
Even to the point where later we find them selling property
To be able to keep people around.
3) DEVOTION TO COMMUNION
“to the breaking of bread”
This doesn’t mean pot-luck,
They were gathering around the table of the Lord.
It was the single most unifying factor.
They were a body because Jesus Christ had given His life for them.
Nothing unifies the body more than remembering
That the same price was paid for all of us.
Galatians 3:26-29 “For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise.”
They never left the cross very far behind.
4) DEVOTION TO PRAYER
“and to prayer”
Nothing indicates a dependence upon God more than prayer.
Nothing indicates self-sufficiency more than the lack of it.
This church was dependent upon God.
They met to pray and seek God’s guidance.
They met to pray and ask for God’s help.
And those are the four basics of the early church.
The word of God, Fellowship, Communion, and Prayer
Nothing fancy, yet God used that to shape the world.
Furthermore that was the proof that their repentance was not a sham.
Show me someone who claims to have repented, but who
• Doesn’t love God’s word
• Doesn’t desire to fellowship with God’s people
• Doesn’t desire to commune around the table of the Lord
• Doesn’t feel the need for prayer
AND WE HAVE A PROBLEM.
Their conversion was sincere and real and it was proven in their fruit.
But there you have Peter’s sermon.
• There were no clever illustrations
• There were no clever jokes
• I can’t even tell that Peter had points let alone started them with the same letter
• But Peter was filled with God’s Spirit
• And Peter confronted sinners with their sin
• And Peter offered forgiveness in Jesus name
AND 3,000 SOULS WERE ADDED
The point is that God is growing His church.
We have a man who 50 days earlier was flat out denying the Lord
And now, thanks to the Holy Spirit
Is boldly proclaiming Him to those who killed Him.
For us, we learn again the importance of being filled with the Spirit.
(We could not do what Peter did without Him)
We also learn the power of the gospel.
(These were saved at Peter’s preaching)
And we learn what the church really is.
It is not smoke and lights and hymnals
And screens and committees and budgets.
The church are redeemed people who love God’s word,
Love God’s people, love God’s sacrifice, and who love to pray.
Those are the characteristics of the true church,
And it is exploding onto the scene.
May we be encouraged to learn from what we have seen and heard.
Acts 2:42 “They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”
