Acts 3:17 "And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. 19 Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. 22 Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. 23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.' 24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. 25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, 'And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.' 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness." ESV
Review
In last week’s talk we discussed sin and repentance.
SIN we said, is stretching our will and our actions past the limits of God’s laws. The result is not unlike pulling a vacuum cleaner beyond the length of its cord, you still have the machine (your body) but now it is disconnected from the power that makes it behave according the creator’s purpose. You and I were created to bear the image of God’s gracious authority over creation.
The Genesis narrative (chapter 3) tells us how God gave Adam and Eve His wisdom as well as His authority, and then how they pursued a counterfeit authority and an alien wisdom—actually satanic wisdom. The moment they introduced that dark wisdom into their lives a radical corruption took hold of their nature. Think of it like a computer worm virus (malware – malicious software) that is cleverly introduced into one company computer, and that computer communicates it to another, until before you know it every computer in the company is corrupted and headed toward collapsing the whole operating system.
The radical change that took place in Adam and Eve was sort of like that and it has been replicated and passed down the human genome operating system from that day to this. We are all born corrupted by sin and spiritually disconnected from the author of life. We have lost the image of His authority, and death comes to all men. Paul put it like this, 1 Corinthians 15:22 …in Adam all die.
REPENTANCE we said is when you finally give up trying to fix and save yourself (and others) and lay yourself down before God like a dead man and ask for His help. Peter used the word in his short Acts 3 sermon. Acts 3:19 Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.
God is irresistibly attracted to your acknowledged helplessness and releases conversion power which brings you back to connectedness. He graciously blots out (forgives) the record of your sin at Christ’s expense, and then refreshes and reconstitutes you in the purpose He has for you life. This is the salvation that, the Christ appointed for you, Jesus brings.
Your only part is repentance. The rest is all God working upon and within us, growing the life of His Son in us so that His righteousness becomes our righteousness.
This new life, C.S. Lewis writes; “… is why the Christian is in a different position from other people who are trying to be good. They hope, by being good, to please God if there is one; or- if they think there is not- at least they hope to deserve approval from good men. But the Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him. He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it."
End of Review
You need the salvation that God has appointed for you. Why? Because the spiritual disconnect is real. We are not almost disconnected from God and eternal life, or sort of disconnect, but absolutely disconnected.
To convince us of this spiritual reality God gives us His laws. Paul writes: Romans 7:7 … if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin.
And again, God has given us law; Romans 7:13 … in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
The law doesn’t do anything to heal the great disconnect it just shows you beyond any shadow of a doubt that the disconnect is real.
For those who think they will fix the disconnect by keeping the laws of God That particular brand of self-salvation is called legalism. Jesus boiled all the laws of God down to two simple statements. Matthew 22:37 … "'Love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and intelligence.' 38 This is the most important, the first on any list. 39 But there is a second to set alongside it: 'Love others as well as you love yourself.' 40 These two commands are pegs; everything in God's Law and the Prophets hangs from them." (MsgB)
Listen carefully as Jesus lays out what is involved in loving God and loving your neighbor. Matthew 5:43 "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' 44 But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. 46 For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? 47 And if you greet your brethren only, what do you do more than others? Do not even the tax collectors do so? 48 Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. NKJV
Do you see it, that the love that loves so it can be loved back is nothing but “tax collector love”? It says “I expect a return on my time and investment.”
God’s love, on the other hand, works in such a way that when we were yet sinners and of absolutely no use to Him He loved us. Romans 5:8 But God put his love on the line for us by offering his Son in sacrificial death while we were of no use whatever to him. (MsgB)
This love hung in open and full displayed in Jesus stretched out on His cross proclaiming “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Don’t you see what He was doing? He was saving us from the death grip of the law by dying in our place free of charge because there is nothing we can or ever could do to pay for it. Paying would require our death—eternal death.
The grace of God’s love pays our death for us, converts, forgives and refreshes us, and was offered to us when we were dead in trespassed and sins.
Legalism (more law and religion) only heightens our awareness of the gravitational pull of sin.
Under the weight of law you will either despair or become a hypocrite, ….OR (and this is what God wants) you will humble yourself before the law, repent and simply lay yourself out before God to receive God’s sin conquering grace.
Saint Augustine contrasted law and grace in these very few words; “The law detects sin, but grace alone conquers it.”
In the book called The Great Divorce, C.S. Lewis laid out a parable about a bus-load from hell who are Ghosts. They come to the outskirts of heaven and the Bright Men from heaven come out to try to convince the Ghosts from hell to come in. In this conversation a Ghost recognizes a Bright Man who he knew in life – and he knew him to be a murderer.
GHOST: Look at me now (says the ghost, slapping its chest – but the slap made no sound). I’ve gone straight all my life. I don’t say I have no faults, far from it. But I done my best all my life see. I done my best by everyone – that’s the sort of chap I was. I never asked for anything that wasn’t mine by rights. If I wanted a drink, I paid for it, see. And if I took my wages, I done my job see. That’s the sort of man I was.
BRIGHT MAN – It would be much better (said the Bright man) if you wouldn’t talk like that. You’re never going to get there like that.
GHOST: What are you talking about. (says the Ghost) I’m not going on, I’m not arguing. I’m just asking for nothing but my rights. I just want to have my rights. Same as you see.
BRIGHT MAN: Oh no, (said the Bright man) It’s not as bad as that. I never got my rights and you won’t get your rights either. You’ll get something so much better.
GHOST: That’s just what I mean (says the Ghost). I haven’t got my rights. I’ve always done my best and I’ve never done anything wrong. And here’s the thing. Well, if you don’t mind my saying so – here’s the thing I wonder about. Why should I be put down there below a bloody murderer like you. What’s a murderer doing up there? And what is a sort like me doing down there?
BRIGHT MAN: Well (the Bright man says) I don’t know where you’ll be put, just be happy and come.
GHOST: What do you keep on arguing for (says the Ghost) I only want my rights. I’m not asking for anyone’s bleeding charity.
BRIGHT MAN – Oh then do (said the Bright man) – at once. Ask for the bleeding charity. Everything is here for the asking and absolutely nothing can be bought
GHOST: That may be alright for you (said the Ghost) if they choose to let a bloody murderer in just because he makes a poor mouth [asks for mercy at the last minute], that’s their look-out. I don’t want charity though. I’m a decent man, and if I had my rights I’d have been there long ago and you can tell them I said so.
(The Ghost was almost happy now that it could in a sense threaten)
GHOST: That’s what I’ll do – I’ll go home. I didn’t come here to be treated like a dog. I’ll go home. Damn and blast the whole pack of you.
And still grumbling but whimpering a little bit as it picked its way over the sharp grasses – it left.
I need the bleeding charity of Jesus’ grace and so do you. Only grace conquers sin. Listen to God’s pleading through the Apostle Paul. 2 Corinthians 5:20 We are speaking as Christ’s ambassador, God is making his appeal to you through us at this moment. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. 21 For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. ESV.
Until we come to the end our attempts at our own salvation we are quite willing to try almost anything stupid thing, go to strange places, yield to a thousand silly ideas, try in a thousand ways to earn it, rather than look to Jesus and “take the bleeding charity” because there is no other way to be saved.
Acts 4:11 Jesus is 'the stone you masons threw out, which is now the cornerstone.' 12 Salvation comes no other way; no other name has been or will be given to us by which we can be saved, only this one." (MsgB)
We come to this table to understand the broken body of Christ, and to understand that the shed blood of Jesus—the cost of our freedom from the deadly power of sin.
Romans 3:24 God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we're in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ. 25 God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public — to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. (MsgB)
When we eat the bread and drink the cup we are confessing that Christ is our savior. His life will never be broken and pour out again, but it is available to you right now. And I urge you to seriously consider laying your life before the cross and ask for the help that is in Jesus, nearer to you that this bread and this cup. Acts 2:21 … everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.'
You will never truly call upon Him until you give up all hope in any other means of being saved from the corruption and sure death of sin.
Coming to this communion table time and time again is meant to be for you to say time and time again, I give up, Lord. Everything is by your grace.
