Believe On The Name Of Jesus

Pentecost June 28th, 2020

Believe on the Name of Jesus

Hello, I am Pastor Greg of Calvary Reformed Church, and this week we are going to continue studying from Acts chapter 2, about Pentecost Sunday. We have spent the last few weeks looking at the outpouring of the Spirit and the workings of God.

This week we are going to look at one verse of what Peter has to say to us in his amazing sermon. But before we look at the verse let us just have a prayer, “Lord we

ask for your grace to fill our lives, we ask for your Holy Spirit to fill us and to change us to grant us power to step

forth and to do that which you have called us to do with our lives, in Your name we pray. Amen.

I find it interesting that the Pentecost took place 50 days after the Passover-- so fifty days prior Jesus did his last Passover meal with the disciples. That night he was arrested and the next day he hung on the cross, he was buried, and we know --- not just because of biblical

evidence but also there is secular evidence that he rose three days later.

It's interesting that within those 50 days Peter the Apostle, Peter and the rest of the disciples went from being very fearful to being very bold. The night Christ was arrested Peter denied Jesus three times and now at Pentecost Peter stands up in front of thousands of people in the temple proclaiming who Jesus Christ is.

Friends we have a society right now that is asking, “what is the answer in life where do we turn what do we do we have a society right now, some are saying we need to burn it all down, we have a society that says we need all changes within the economic status of who we are and yet the reality is friends, change is only going to happen when we understand what Peter says to us, here in Acts chapter 2.

I love the fact one when the disciples were at the temple ---and I believe the temple is where they were when the Holy Spirit came down. And the people in temple started saying, what does all of this mean?

Here you have the disciples and others who were speaking in different tongues what does this all mean?

Peter then raises his voice we are told in Acts chapter 2 he raises his voice--- he speaks out loudly and he says something of importance not just for 2,000 years ago---but importance today. Peter quotes the Prophet Joel, I'm not going to read it all, but I encourage you to open up Acts chapter 2 and read all the way from verse 14 through 21 through 38. Really, read all of Acts chapter 2 and you will get the full picture

What Peter here has to say--- he says listen carefully to me. Friends we tend not to want to listen

carefully to each other, especially we do not think we need to listen carefully to scripture and yet scripture is a call to how we are called to live our lives. How we can love one another. Peter quotes from the book of Joel chapter 2, written about eight to nine hundred years prior to Jesus Christ. “your young men and

your young women will prophesy, and your old men will

dreams. In the Reformed / Calvinistic tradition we believe in the priesthood of all believers, but here we also have the prophethood (not a word😊) of all people who have the Holy Spirit within them. But the only way to have the Holy Spirit---- Acts chapter 22 verse 21 Peter says---- and it will come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!!!

It does not matter your race, it does not matter how you have been brought up, it does not matter where you live, it's the simple aspect of calling on the name of the Lord. And then our life trajectory--our eternal trajectory where we are going changes.

Friends you see everyone, whether we want to admit it or not everyone is born with a virus--- today we are concerned with eh corona virus and yet the reality is that every one of us is born with the virus of sin. And this virus of sin we are told in Romans chapter 5, “therefore just as through one-man Adam and Eve sent into the world and sin and death through that one man all have sinned.” Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.”

Friends the reality is we have a sin virus within our lives, in our hearts, within our bodies and the only way that that sin virus is eradicated is when we believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus himself says to us and in John chapter 3, when he's talking to Nicodemus, “whoever believes in the Son whoever believes in Me will have eternal life, but whoever rejects me--- whoever rejects the son God's wrath remains on him.