Acts 2:1-39 • Church Power
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
After His resurrection, Jesus says to His disciples, "You will receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth."
What a great promise.
If only it were true.
The book of Acts is designed to say, "It is true." And unfolding before you is the evidence of the great working of the Spirit, not just then, but now.
Let's remind ourselves Acts chapter 2 as the story of the Spirit begins to unfold with power for people then and people now. Let's stand as we honor God's Word. We'll look at a lot of Acts chapter 2, but begin with verses 1 through 6.
Acts 2, 1, "When the day of Pentecost arrived, they [that is Jesus' disciples] were all together
in one place.
And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Now they were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.
And at this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language."
Let's pray together.
Heavenly Father, this work of Your Spirit, whereby tongues are loosed so that hearts would hear the truth of our Savior, is not just a message for the past, but for Your people now.
So Spirit blow, opening our hearts and minds to the wonder that is ours to claim and the power by which You would use us yet for the glory of Your Son, in whose name we now pray in Jesus' name, Amen. Please be seated.
So how were the Iowa caucuses supposed to work?
It's not a normal voting procedure.
You recognize that what is supposed to happen is that voters from around the state gathering firehouses and schools and libraries and community centers listen to speeches for their candidate, the one that they believe in. And when it's time to indicate support for one that you believe in, you don't just fill out a paper ballot.
Nor do you go to a voting booth to vote in secret.
No, the pattern is, having heard the speech in favor of the one that you believe in, a portion of the room is designated and you have to get up out of your seat and go stand
with the one that you support. It's really a wonderful metaphor for the Christian life, that we understand that we stand for the Savior. And it's not enough just to signal in private what we believe for, that in life we're supposed to take our stand for the one that we believe in.
But in Acts 2, the metaphor is strangely reversed, in that what happens is that those disciples who are hidden away in private are instead met by the Holy Spirit as the Spirit comes to take His stand with His people. The analogy would not be of people taking their stand for their candidate, but the candidate coming to the firehouse or the school or the community and taking His stand with the people.
And when you recognize, that's what's being said here, that the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, comes to take His stand with His people. You recognize why there was a certain power that was communicated to the disciples as they began to teach to the churches. It began to reach the peoples of the earth and to recognize that that message is not just one for that past day, but one that God intends for us to claim as well. Because there's no question, if you take your stand for the Savior in our culture today, among your school friends, among business associates, among your own family at times, that there is risk, perhaps ridicule, perhaps ruin.
But what difference would it make to know as you're taking your stand, the Holy Spirit stands with you?
It would mean everything in terms of courage and willingness to stand for the Lord. That's why the passage is making it so clear that what is happening is that the Holy Spirit stands with His people, first in private, hard to miss that, verse 1, "When the day of Pentecost arrived, they," that is, the disciples, "were all together in one place. Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
And divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each of them."
The situation being described is strangely reminding us of history long ago when God descended at the time of Pentecost that is now being celebrated in Jerusalem to Mount Sinai for the giving of the law to Moses.
And when the law was given to Moses, it was endorsed by wind and fire and the Word of God coming to Moses. Now the greater Moses, Jesus, declares to a people that He is freeing, "The Spirit will come upon you." And they are in a little private house. And suddenly to that private place, the second Sinai from the greater Moses as fire and wind and word come to the people of God in a private place.
But it's not meant to stay private.
Immediately begins to roll outward and publicly. The Spirit enables the disciples to speak in other tongues, verse 4, "They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance."
Verse 5, "They were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews devout men from every nation under heaven, and at this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered. Each one was hearing them speak in his own language."
As the disciples are speaking of what they believe, the power that has been in the rushing wind and the flames of fire begins now to fill them in such a way that they begin to proclaim a message and they are heard by Jews who are coming on pilgrims from the different nations of the world. They don't all speak Hebrew. They've been dispersed, many of them for centuries. But they're coming on pilgrimage to honor God's giving the law to Moses at the Jewish Pentecost, the Feast of Weeks.
And as they come, not knowing Hebrew, suddenly every person from different lands and languages hears in their own language.
Now there's a lot of confusion, even controversy about the nature of tongues in the church in all ages. It is important to recognize people understood as a consequence of tongues. As Paul, as he would later describe tongues in 1 Corinthians 14 says, "I would rather speak five words to be understood than 10,000 words in the church that would not be understood." The primary purpose of tongues among God's people is that spirit blessing whereby people are unable to understand the message of the gospel. And the miracle of this moment is that people hearing from those who cannot possibly know their language are hearing a truth that they understand in their own language.
We would know it's a miracle if we could compare from our own experience. Some years ago, I was with a team and co-leading as we were in Puerto Rico. And our team one night was going down a street, stepped off a sidewalk, one of our team members, into a pothole that was hidden in the shadows. As he stepped off that curb into the pothole, he broke his leg in a horrible way. And now team leaders are supposed to get him to the hospital. Problem.
That night, there was a new governor in Puerto Rico and the streets were filled with celebrants. So as we tried to call an ambulance to come and help our friend who was so hurt, the ambulance could not get through the crowds. We waited and waited and finally just got a taxi, a wonderful taxi driver who would take any alley, go down any sidewalk or street that he could get by to get us to the hospital. When we finally got to the hospital, after all the anxiety and the stress of trying to communicate in Spanish, though we didn't speak Spanish, trying to get to the hospital, then at the hospital finding a place far more primitive than we expected, one of the things they did not have was the kind of table that could do x-rays of a leg that would put a man in a position that he could be x-rayed. So the other co-leader and I actually had to hold up the man with the broken leg to the x-ray machine and hold it while he was x-rayed. It was one of those old conical x-rays. I am sure that I still glow at night from that experience.
And then not only did we help with the x-rays, but once the x-rays were there, because he didn't understand, was somewhat panicked by the experience, I went into the operating room, was with him while the doctors were trying to help him understand what was going on. I would speak Spanish then, I'm trying to interpret, trying to go through. My friend, the co-leaders, there was just so much stress. I'm trying to get to the hospital, explain to people, talk in Spanish that we didn't understand. Finally, after it was all done, we'd go out to the waiting room just to relax for a little bit and my co-leader friend said, "Brian," he said, "it's amazing." He said, "You know, after having to deal with Spanish-speaking people all this night under such stress," he said, "it's actually working." He said, "I can actually understand what's being said on the TV."
I said, "Paul, that's wonderful, but they're speaking English on the TV."
Had he actually understood Spanish in his own language, we would have known the Holy Spirit is here.
But what the Holy Spirit is making clear by His presence is His desire, His power, His potential of using His people to make His Word known. The gospel is going forward. It's going forward in ways that are inexplicable by human means. And that's what we need to understand, that we never are dependent on our own means or strength better than a Google translator if somebody would actually hear in the language as you speak in their own language. But nonetheless, the reason we send missionaries out, the reason the church is working so hard to make sure the gospel is known is we ultimately know God will bless His Word. He will make His people call from throughout the whole world, know what He intends for them to hear about His Son. And it's working in different ways and different times. After all, the Spirit is not just reaching to people in private and public. He is reaching across the nations to make Himself known. He's reaching across time. We're here in Acts chapter 2, but if you had been in Acts chapter 1, Peter actually begins speaking in such a way that the Spirit is using him. And Peter in speaking to 120 gathered disciples in chapter 1 says this, "Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus."
Jesus has been arrested.
He's been crucified. That can't be right.
He's now ascended. He's not with us anymore. That can't be right.
And yet Peter is saying, "Now listen to me.
Even David, a thousand years ago, was doing the work of the Holy Spirit. He comes now in power, but it's not his first day on the stage of scriptural history. He's been working all along, and he told David about Judas who got Jesus arrested." Now, if you can just kind of step back from the account and think of what is being said, it's Peter saying not only has the Holy Spirit been working across centuries, across people, across time, he has been working across shameful history. David told us this by the power of the Holy Spirit.
David who loved God and then slept with Bathsheba and murdered Uriah and raised bad children and turned from glorifying God at the end of his life, David who betrayed God was used by the Holy Spirit beyond his ability, beyond his capacity. God was using him. And David told us about Judas who would betray Jesus according to the determined plan of God. And who is saying all of this? But Peter who denied Jesus three times before his crucifixion. Here you have shameful past history as the Holy Spirit is communicating to his people. You may think that God could not use you because of your past, your shameful history, but God is working beyond your time and beyond your shame. He's working beyond distance.
As chapter 2 continues, it says in verses 8, "The people begin to express bewilderness. We hear each of us in his own native language.
Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome.
They're coming from all over. If we were simply waiting for the disciples to get to all of those regions, it would have taken generation upon generation. But the Spirit is not just working beyond their shame. He's working beyond their capacity to spread the gospel across distance.
These Jewish pilgrims are coming for the Feast of Weeks from all these different nations. And as they are hearing and thousands believing, the gospel is going to spread far beyond, again, human capacity and the disciples' ability. But you have a problem if you're a close reader of Scripture. You recognize that every nation and region that has just been identified is being identified because of the Jews who have been scattered into those regions by previous persecutions. And now, the gospel is going forward, and it's wonderful, but it's just to Jews. What was Jesus' promise?
You receive power after the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem.
And Judea, they're the Jews. And Samaria, the half-Jews. And to the end of the earth, regions far beyond. And that's happening here as well. Verse 10, the little phrase that we just read right over, not only where they're the Jews from all of these regions, but the last phrase of verse 10, "And visitors from Rome."
Verse 11, "Both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, they are all hearing the gospel in their own languages, those who are not Jews by birth, but proselytes, Greeks, and Romans. They are also hearing and believing, and the gospel going not just to the Jews, but to the Gentiles, and not just to Judea and Samaria, but to the ends of the earth." If you had been one of those early, early disciples, you would say, "There are terrible problems facing us." Jesus was crucified. He was betrayed. Our current leader, Peter, was one of the betrayers. The disciples are hiding. We can't do what Jesus said. The problems are too big and not recognize that our problems are platforms for the Spirit.
He will come upon you with power beyond what you could ever express or do in yourself. And so what begins to happen is, as the people say, "We can't go out far. The nations come to them. We can't speak beyond the Jews. The nations and proselytes come to them." And you begin to understand that God is saying, "I will not be bound by your shame. I will not be bound by distance. I will not be bound by ethnicity. You will be my witnesses by the power of the Holy Spirit, not based on your capacity, but based upon the work of my Spirit." We sing Reformation Day after Reformation Day. Did we in our own strength confide? Our striving would be losing.
We're not the right man on our side, the man of God's own choosing. This same Jesus, who has been exalted and ascended, has sent His Holy Spirit to indwell His people so that though our striving would be losing, our shame would consume us, our inability would limit us.
We're not dependent upon our striving. We are dependent instead on the work of the Holy Spirit as our problems that make us want to back up, nonetheless become the platform for His Spirit to move forward saying, "I'm here and I am working."
As the problems mount, the people of God are dispersed across the ancient world. When you get to that point in the latter portions of Acts where the mission journeys start to occur, there's so many problems. We're persecuted. We're spread. We can't even be in Jerusalem anymore.
But a church sends out Paul and Silas as the new missionaries. And they go to Philippi, a Greek city. The Jews won't listen to them. Problem.
The Greeks get upset at the message that is going to lead to lack of faith in their own gods.
And so Paul and Silas are beaten and imprisoned.
There's a problem that becomes a platform for the Spirit.
For at midnight, as Paul and Silas are singing hymns of praise to God that they believe is with them in the privacy of a cell, begin to experience an earthquake.
And then there is the cell illumined with light and their chains fell off and the doors of the prison are opened. And a Roman guard believing that his life is at stake because the prisoners are going to escape gets ready to kill himself.
Paul says, "Don't do that."
The man recognizing he has been saved by prisoners who stay in their cells says, "What must I do to be saved? Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ," says Paul, "and you will be saved, you and your household."
And the gospel spreads from the private moment in a Greek city to a Roman soldier and his family and the next morning the town is in uproar, the Greek town, because of what has happened through Paul and Silas. And the gospel spreads as the problems become platforms for the working of the Spirit. We have to believe it again that what we identify as our barriers and our problems are platforms for the Spirit yet to work. How many times are we told in this current generation that Western Europe is just burned over post-Christianity? That the northeast coast and the northwest coast have long since become post-Christian. And therefore it's practically senseless to be a Christian as the influence of the coast moves into the Midwest and we wonder what uses it to be a Christian. It is so dangerous. It is so seemingly ineffective to say anything. Did we on our own strength confide our striving would be losing.
But if our problems are a platform for the Spirit of God, what might that mean? It would mean that we would see we are not simply a post-Christian culture. We are a post-science culture. We are a post-modern culture, post-industrial, post-colonial, post-capitalist, post-hopeful,
because over and over what happens the generation that is now being raised in this culture says all the answers of education and affluence that we were told would make us happy and satisfied are failures.
Don't trust science. Don't trust my company. Don't trust my boss. Don't trust my family. There is nothing to trust. What if? What if? What was actually happening where the great revivals of the Spirit are being prepared by hearts that would say, "Isn't there anything I can hope in? Isn't there anything that can be maintaining hope and strength for the days to come?" That what would be happening is we would believe that God in His way and His time is working past our shame, past distance, past ethnicity for the great movings of the Spirit that we ourselves can be a part of.
Think of what is actually happening. Where are the revivals happening in our country right now? They're actually happening on the seaboard, on the coast, among immigrant populations who come with a profound heart faith, sometimes not mature, sometimes not even Christian, but believing that Western affluence is not the answer, believing that Western faithlessness is not where true life is. And suddenly we are seeing on our coast the emergence of the great immigrant churches which are larger than virtually any other churches we know and people on fire for the Lord by the working of the Spirit. Where else are the revivals happening? But on the college campuses where young people are perceiving, what I'm hearing in the classroom is dark hopelessness mixed with cynicism and ridicule of anything that disagrees with them that's polarizing our country. Yet what if I'm hearing compassion and respect for others that's shown in families that adopt in marriages where people love each other beyond crisis in which they perceive their relationships in marriage as covenantal, not contractual, as sexuality is something that is beautifully shared by a couple, not the way I test you to see if you can make me happy. And they begin to perceive the way the early church did when the Roman world was overrun with Christianity, that what we have is the alternative of beauty and goodness and hope such as the rest of the world does not offer. It's the young people who are hearing and responding in profound ways. Is it happening? Is it even happening here?
Look at campus outreach and we know the life and the vitality in this church because of the young people who are committed to Christ and bringing their heartfelt love for Him into our midst. And we say, "Are the nations able to be reached by us?" And we get 40 nations represented in the ESL program that is offered in this church, Midwest,
mostly Anglo people, and say, "And yet God is bringing the nations as He did on Pentecost, the nations coming to them and them being ready to speak the gospel believing that as we are training people to understand English, they begin to hear the gospel in their own hearts." But I wonder if the Spirit is working here at all.
Of course He is. Part of what we need to believe is that the Spirit is not just saying, "Go, Spirit, I will be with you. I come to stand with you." And when we believe that, then we are made able. Think of so many of the moms of our community whose husbands are working particularly there from international settings, moms who are in isolation, don't know how to take their children to the doctor, don't know how to go to the grocery store, and then this church begins to help them. And by compassion and mercy, the gospel is heard. It's experienced and then it's heard. And we recognize the Spirit at work. We recognize in the schools of this community so torn by racism and disadvantage of ethnicities that there are the good news clubs, Child Evangelism Fellowship that's taking the gospel across all kinds of lines.
There's a Spirit here. The Spirit is here. And when we believe that, we say, "Were we in our own strength to confide, our striving would be losing, but the Holy Spirit stands with us." And when we have that confidence, we begin to stand in ways that may surprise even us.
How do we believe the Holy Spirit is here and active? That surely had to be the question of the first Christians as well. There are people who hear things in their own language and they say, "These guys must be drunk. They're saying all these things in strange ways."
And ultimately, Peter has to respond to that. You may remember. Verse 15, "These people are not drunk." As you suppose, it's only the third hour of the day. They had to drink pretty fast to be drunk by now.
But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. That's 900 years previous.
"And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons, your daughters will prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams."
This is that that God said would happen by His Spirit nine centuries ago. God was at work. And when you see God at work over time by His Holy Spirit, and that Spirit is saying, "I'll stand with you." And you say, "You've been doing this for all that time, bringing us to this culminating moment. If you will stand with me now, having worked so well for so long, then I'll stand for you." Stand for my Lord too.
This past week in our staff meeting, her wonderful account by one of our faithful staff members describing a son who's in graduate school. He went by fast, so I may not have all the facts just right.
But the son in graduate school was feeling the pressure of preparing for comprehensive exams, of having a topic approved, and also the pressure of self-doubt. Here I'm a Christian in a secular setting, and I'm wanting to write my topic about a man who has stood for his Savior. And he's obscure, and he's not known, and people may not have any idea what I'm talking about or why this is important. I wonder if God is with me in this.
And just as all the pressure was coming of the comprehensives and the topic being approved,
he had to make an appointment across the state with his tax preparer who only had a little open window that he could go and get his papers ready. So despite all the pressures, he went for the appointment with the tax preparer. And in meeting with the tax preparer, he just, he'd known for years, asked the question of chit-chat, "Well, how are your studies going?" "Fine."
"What are you working on?"
And the young man said, "I'm working on this obscure believer who has stood for Christ
and gave the name."
And the tax preparer said again, "What? What's his name?"
And when he said it again, the tax preparer said, "I know his family, and it will mean everything to them that you are speaking of what he was doing for Christ."
Now, I must tell you, that was a wonderful moment because it said to the young man, "How long did the Holy Spirit have to work to arrange this moment?"
I've known the tax preparer for years. The tax preparer has known that family for years.
The man who served in obscurity, that I would just mention his name in this moment, that the tax preparer would just think to ask me about it, and that it would be this wonderful confirmation that people do care, that it makes a difference to make the faith of Christ known for this generation.
Holy Spirit was at work. And because he knew the Holy Spirit was with him, he knew he could stand for that work despite the difficulties that he was facing. The problem became a platform for the working of the Spirit, and when he saw that working, he became even more bold for what he had to do. It's what happens for believers in this passage as well. Once they perceive what the Holy Spirit is doing, they become more bold, not just because the Spirit has worked in history, because they believe the Spirit will work in their testimony of Christ even now.
I have to take you quickly through the passage, but Peter says, Acts 2, verse 21, "All this was done that you think is drunkenness, for the salvation of all who call upon the Lord." God is at work in this. Verse 22, "Jesus of Nazareth, attested by God through mighty works and wonders, is the one being spoken of. God was working before. In all those miracles and workings, the very one who was crucified was being attested to be the Son of God who came with power.
And now that he has that attestation, what happened? Verse 23, "He was delivered up, crucified." Well, that must be wrong. No, according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
Not a mistake. The Holy Spirit at work orchestrating events, orchestrating history, not only having the attestation of the power of Jesus, but even in His crucifixion when any of us would have lost hope, writing in the Scriptures a thousand years ahead of time.
He will die.
But that is not the end of the story. Even as His crucifixion is described in detail, we hear, "But He will not see corruption."
Though He go to Hades, He will live. Verse 31, "He that is David foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption." Verse 32, "This Jesus, God raised up." Verse 33, "Therefore He was exalted to the right hand of God." And verse 33, the end, "And having received from the Father the promise of the Spirit, He has poured out this blessing that you yourselves would see and hear." It was all according to plan. It was all the Spirit at work. So now as we go into a world where people push back and don't want to listen, we say, "If the Holy Spirit was working that way for the testimony of Christ, and now He stands with me, how bold I can be."
Because the Apostle Peter himself became. Verse 36, "Now Peter, having recited all that the Holy Spirit has been doing to this moment, says in verse 36, "Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified."
Which is not the way to win friends and influence people.
You crucified Him. But this was according to the plan and the foreknowledge of God, as God was working His plan by His Spirit. And now that same God by His Holy Spirit is with you, acknowledging that you who crucified Him, may ask His forgiveness.
How do we know, verse 37, "When they heard that Jesus was Lord and Christ whom they crucified," verse 37, "they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"
Verse 38, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is to you and to your children and to them that are afar off, even as many as the Lord shall call."
God is at work. He knows your shame. He knows your sin. But He comes to stand with you and knowing that the Lord has already stood with Peter despite His sin by the Holy Spirit. Peter says, "I'll tell you what you don't want to hear, this Lord Christ you crucified
and He will forgive you." Repent, be baptized, acknowledge before the world the one who washes away your sin in the means that He has prescribed. God is showing a world what you need to know. And it's not your strength, it's not my strength that enables me to speak, it's the Spirit working beyond us.
You have to understand, Peter is saying that Spirit worked 900 years ago in Joel. He worked a thousand years ago in David. He worked 50 days ago in Judas.
And He's working now.
I believe He's standing with me.
So I'll say the things that need to be said and believe the Spirit can take over.
I couldn't help but think of it this past week when one of the senior statesmen of this church came from a medical mission trip in the Dominican Republic.
And he was telling Kathy and me about the experience. They were doing medical things, but he said, "You know, just at my age I can't work in the heat of the day all day." And so after people received treatment, they offered, "Could we tell you the good news of Jesus Christ?"
They didn't say, "Would you listen to the gospel and then we'll treat you?" They said, "No, now that you have been treated, can we tell you about the good news of Jesus Christ?" And one particular man said he would listen.
And so our senior statesman asked him to open his Bible and gave him actually a free Bible, said, "Open it." And a little problem, it was a Bible with small print and the man could not read the print. And so our senior statesman took off his readers and gave them to the other man.
But then as the other man began to read his Bible in Spanish, our senior statesman who did not speak Spanish recognized he would have to find the place in his English Bible and then tell the person where to read in his Spanish Bible. Here's the problem. He's given away his readers.
And so the nurse had her readers and she gave her readers to the senior statesman. So now he's trying to read his Bible, but it's the wrong prescription.
So he cannot, I mean, he says, "I couldn't remember much of anything." So I just said, "The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."
And the man believed and received Jesus Christ. And he said, "I couldn't do a thing. The Holy Spirit did what?
Open hearts, open minds, took over where we in our own strength to confide our striving would be losing.
But the Holy Spirit took over and did again and again as he began to share not just with one but another and another and ultimately a half dozen men receiving Christ as their Savior for a man who spoke no Spanish had to share what few verses he knew out of memory and saw the working of the Spirit.
It is that spirit that is at work in this place. Do you recognize we sometimes just aligned to the Bible in the past? You know those, "Be strong and courageous like Joshua. Don't be frightened. Do not be dismayed. The Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Isn't that great for Joshua?
No, it is the New Testament promise.
Do not be discouraged. Do not be frightened. The Lord will be with you wherever you go by His Holy Spirit working beyond your capacity for the great ministry of the gospel that He has put before you and for you. The Holy Spirit is taking His stand because He is building Christ's church not in our strength but in His power. Verse 39, Peter says, "The promise is to you, to your children, to them that are far off, even as many as the Lord shall call." The Lord is building His church and the people to whom Peter is speaking in this moment are people who crucified Jesus, rejected Him, brushed Him aside, and murdered Him.
And Peter says, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be forgiven and saved." It's an amazing thought of what God is willing to do.
You know one of the public figures that I very much admire is John McCain.
His politics were not always my politics, but a true war hero and a man who would stand for what he believed is right even when his party was doing something he believed was wrong.
I only met John McCain once in the airport in Denver. He's going through the main lobby kind of working my way toward the security lines and some of you know how that works. You just kind of funnel down, get narrow and narrow and narrower.
And I was getting toward the security line, looked up and suddenly there's John McCain going for the same security line I'm going for.
But as we got almost to where the TSA officers were, another man rushed past us, brushed against the senator, almost knocked him down, didn't say a word of apology in order to get three seconds further down the line than it would have been if he just waited.
So he was ahead of us just a little bit when the TSA security officers recognized John McCain was in the line. John McCain who had just run for president was in the, they said, "Senator, what are you doing in this line? Where's your security detachment?" He said, "I lost, remember?
They rejected me.
But by this time the man who has brushed aside the senator, almost knocking him down, here's the conversation." And he turns around embarrassed and flustered and he said, "Senator, I'm so sorry. I didn't know it was you."
And the senator said, "It's all right. We're fine."
So the man took out his cell phone and he said, "Can I have a picture with you?"
And the senator stood with the senator and let his picture be taken.
You may have turned your back on Jesus, brushed aside, rejected.
But perhaps even this day there is that Holy Spirit witnessing your heart and you are hearing that spirit say, "Though you are ashamed of a past, though you think you are too distant from Him, though you think you don't fit in the church, it was always the role of the Holy Spirit to bring you in." He could have been working for centuries and generations to bring you to this place, at this moment to here.
This Jesus, whom by your betrayals and your neglect was crucified, this same Jesus gave Himself for you.
Repent of your past, your sin, your selfishness and know the forgiveness of your sin that is in Jesus Christ and you will be saved. This is the promise of God, is the witness of His Spirit speaking to you right now. Repent.
Acknowledge your need of Him. The Spirit calls you. That's His voice in your head and heart right now. That you acknowledging your need of the Savior would be saved from your sin and for your Savior forever. Pray with me, Father, I pray for those whom you love who are in this place, some who just need renewed courage to believe that where they work or play or in their families, that you are with them by your Spirit.
And for others who may in this very moment need the assurance that that Spirit is who is speaking in their heart to say, "Though I have rejected, spurned, brushed aside Jesus,
that same Spirit brings that awareness to my heart so that I might trust Him now." He died on the cross for my sin. I believe that. He rose again to give me new hope and He gives me His Spirit now to draw my heart and life to Himself. Father, may the prayer of each person in this room now be, "Father, you who sent Jesus, teach me by His Spirit of a love that forgives the past, of a life that I might now live for you in power and hope without fear, with joy. That is my strength. So take us forward from this place as we turn from self and to the Savior by the working of the Holy Spirit, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.