Sermon for CATM - May 10, 2015 - “Empowered by the Spirit”
We are still in the afterglow of Easter, and we’ve decided to keep following the earliest disciples of Jesus, also called the Apostles - as they move forward, after they see Jesus, who they knew had been murdered...as they see Him alive again.
As they hear of His appearing to many hundreds of people, as they respond to His commission to go into all the world and make disciples.
They were told to go into Jerusalem and wait for the promised Holy Spirit. That they did, and as Pastor Lee talked about last week, the Holy Spirit showed up, and there were signs and there were wonders.
The chiefest sign was that people who spoke very different languages heard the praises of God coming out of the mouths of people who did not speak their language.
It was an obvious, in-your-face miracle, a human impossibility. But it was happening right in front of the people's’ eyes and ears. Everyone has heard the Galilean disciples speaking in their own diverse tongues.
Some witnessing this clear miracle, can’t accept that it’s taking place and so they make fun of them and say they’ve had too much wine.
And then we hear from Peter. This is the same Peter that we know from the gospels, but this is not the same Peter. The Peter we know from the gospels was a fellow who put his foot in his mouth regularly.
He was the same one who boldly asserted to Jesus that even if everyone else abandoned Jesus, he - Peter - would not. Shortly thereafter, as Jesus predicted, Peter denied Jesus. His courage failed.
When being associated with Jesus reflected badly on him, might have cost him dearly, he ran out of bluster. He denied Jesus, swore up and down that He never knew Him.
And then, realizing what he had done, he was deeply, profoundly ashamed to have denied his Lord by His actions. [Pause]
Does that ever happen to us? Can we relate to Peter? We know we love Jesus. We know we believe in Him with all our hearts...but by our actions at times, no one would know it.
By our actions we deny the One who has saved us. Strange, perhaps, but we’re in the company of Peter.
Perhaps you know the story of Jesus restoring Peter. Peter denied Him 3 times, so Jesus asked him 3 times - do you love Me?
It’s a poignant story. Again, an expression of the grace of God that most of us here at church today have likely experienced.
So, like I said, this is the Peter we know, but it’s also not the Peter we know. Here, Peter speaks as a changed man.
A man who has grasped just how much he has been forgiven by Jesus. He has learned to love much. He has lost his foolhardy tendency to blurt out his poorly considered words.
He has been humbled - by his own actions of which he was ashamed, as I’ve mentioned.
He is a man has who discovered the truth that in and of himself, he had little actual courage. But something has changed. Peter has discovered a profound courage.
And so he stands up, with the other 11 disciples, and he speaks with authority, he speaks with passion and he speaks with love.
And as he speaks he unveils some of the mysteries of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible.
It’s said that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed, and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed. This passage is a good example.
This was the first time that those who believed in Jesus' resurrection had spoken so openly about their beliefs or the way of salvation.
This passage is, in fact, the record of the first sermon, the first Christian message or teaching, ever given. Let’s look more closely at it.
14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: "Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say.
Remember, the people were still distracted and amazed by the miracle of the tongues of fire that had fallen on the disciples.
He doesn’t want them to be distracted by the miracle, but he is using this moment, which had gotten the attention of the people, in order to explain what God is doing among them.
These are people, some of them, who knew Peter from before. They are witnessing a new boldness in Peter. That’s because Peter is no longer living for himself. He’s no long about himself. He’s about the gospel. He’s about bringing glory to Jesus alone.
15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 " 'In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.'
What is this “Day of the Lord” that Peter is talking about, and why does it matter?
The Bible commentator William Barclay says this: “This passage brings us face to face with one of the basic conceptions of both the Old and the New Testaments--that of The Day of the Lord.
Much in both the Old and in the New Testaments is not fully intelligible unless we know the basic principles underlying that conception.
The Jews never lost the conviction that they were God's chosen people. They interpreted that status to mean that they were chosen for special privilege among the nations.
They were always a small nation. History had been for them one long disaster.
It was clear to them that by human means they would never reach the status they deserved as the chosen people.
So, bit by bit, they reached the conclusion that what man could not do God must do; and began to look forward to a day when God would intervene directly in history and exalt them to the honour they dreamed of The day of that intervention was The Day of the Lord.
They divided all time into two ages. There was The Present Age which was utterly evil and doomed to destruction; there was The Age to Come which would be the golden age of God.
Between the two there was to be The Day of the Lord which was to be the terrible birth pangs of the new age.
It would come suddenly like a thief in the night; it would be a day when the world would be shaken to its very foundations; it would be a day of judgment and of terror.
All over the prophetic books of the Old Testament and in much of the New Testament, are descriptions of that Day.
Here Peter is saying to the Jews--"For generations you have dreamed of the Day of God, the Day when God would break into history. Now, in Jesus, that Day has come."
Behind all the outworn imagery stands the great truth that in Jesus, God arrived in person on the scene of human history”.
So Peter wanted the people to grasp something huge. That is that all of their longings - for deliverance, for healing, for an end to exile, for a greater purpose than just endless suffering, for the Day of the Lord - they are fulfilled...in Jesus Christ. They need to open their heart and open their eyes, and if they do, they will see.
Now Peter gets specific. He speaks of recent history, common to all. He speaks to people who were witnesses to Jesus - but who had not put it all together - all that Jesus was and all that He did on their behalf.
22 "Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know”.
Peter may be speaking to people who are skeptical, but not because they had a hard time trusting the testimony of others about Jesus, as we find today.
He’s speaking to people who saw Jesus at work, saw his miracles, saw proof that Jesus displayed in signs and wonders - and who still disbelieved.
I know, as someone who at one time did not believe, that skepticism and doubt are matters of the heart as much as of the mind. I was the guy who walked into this room on a Sunday thinking that you are all mad for believing in God. But that’s another story. Peter continues, speaking of Jesus:
23 This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead,freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 25 David said about him: " 'I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will live in hope, 27 because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay. 28 You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.'
Peter helps interpret recent events. To those who may have felt that what happened to Jesus was just a chaotic mess with no rhyme or reason, Peter explains what was really going on.
For anyone who wondered why the innocent would suffer, why a man who went about only doing good could have been unjustly tried and executed, Peter explains.
This all happened by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge. Nothing that happened to Jesus was outside of God’s control.
In fact, God’s perfect will was accomplished by God even as evil men, thinking they were acting on their own, or thinking that they were somehow serving God, killed the sinless Son of God.
This is a portrait of the sovereignty of God, of how He controls the big events of history in order to see His purposes fulfilled.
We need to understand how big God is, how powerful He is, how He is able to work through the complicated layers of life to achieve His good purposes. It’s about how He does this by entering into suffering in the person of Jesus.
And this passage, as Barclay says, “insists that the Cross was no accident. It belonged to the eternal plan of God. Over and over again Acts states this same thing. (Understanding this)...safeguards us from two serious errors in our thinking about the death of Jesus.
(a) The Cross is not a kind of emergency measure flung out by God when everything else had failed. it is part of God's very life.
(b) We must never think that anything Jesus did changed the attitude of God to men. It was by God Jesus was sent. We may put it this way--the Cross was a window in time allowing us to see the suffering love which is eternally in the heart of God”.
The cross is not the first time that God has suffered. We need to know that, and to know that we need to be familiar with the story of God from the Old Testament.
“God’s Suffering Love’ is one way to explain what the entire Old Testament is about. God creates humanity to dwell with Him in perfect harmony. God’s love is rejected as Adam and Eve sin against God. And so God suffers.
Fast forward...Humankind becomes so evil that God regrets making them, and He brings the flood. God calls to Himself a people, in the nation that came from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
And they reject Him, pursuing other gods with reckless abandon. And so God’s suffering love takes another blow.
Over and over again the prophets - Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea and many more - express the heart of God, that the people would return to the One who made them. But they wouldn’t. And so God suffers.
And Jesus, speaking in the tone of the prophets, stands over the holy city and says: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Luke 13:34
You were not willing. It’s a very poignant moment. Jesus sadness, so evident in His words, reflect the heart of God toward the people, toward humanity.
Speaking of the sovereignty of God, it’s important to realize that God is sovereign everywhere, including in YOUR life.
You know, in your life, no matter what has happened, if you are a follower of Jesus, God works to bring together all the tattered threads of life – our experiences, our hurts, our failures, the things we have suffered at the hands of others.
God works to bring it all together into a tapestry of grace.
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”. Romans 8:27-28
God isn’t the cause of the bad things that happen. The bad things that have happened to us by others are the fault of those who have done them. The bad things that we have done are our fault.
And in Peter we see this as well. Peter had, after walking with Jesus for 3 years and knowing Him, Peter had rejected Jesus by his actions.
He recognized that. And he repented of if, it tears. He turned from it, and because he turned, because he repented, he was restored. He found his purpose.
What was Peter’s purpose? To live for Christ. To live so that others might come to know Christ. To be a living testimony to the goodness and grace of God.
So finally, Peter appeals to his Jewish audience by referring to the best king the chosen people of God had ever known. The king to whom God had made a promise.
That promise was that there would always be a descendant of King David on the throne.
29"Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne”.
As great as David was, despite his sins that we can locate easily in the Scripture, he was just a man. But he was also a gifted prophet who looked ahead to the coming of Jesus, and to his death.
31 Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. 34 For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, " 'The Lord said to my Lord: "Sit at my right hand 35 until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet." '
Again, Peter is speaking here to people who were alive when Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the grave.
And he is standing, not alone, but in the company of the other disciples, the other Apostles, all of whom were witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. He spoke of what their eyes saw and their hearts experienced.
33 Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.
We need to remember the context of this message, that it happened on Pentecost, the day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
Peter is doing his best to explain to the people who are listening to him what is happening, how the Holy Spirit is being poured out on each one, and when the miracle of all languages being heard from the mouths of Galileans was happening.
36 "Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." 37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”
Now Peter cuts to the heart. In this first public, open sharing of the story of the gospel, in this first sermon ever recorded, Peter highlights why what is happening on that day, and why what he is talking about, is so very important.
Jesus, the one crucified by the Romans at the prompting of the religious leaders, was much more that what they thought He was.
They thought He was a charlatan. They thought He was a fake. They couldn’t explain His miracles, but they determined in their own hearts that the best thing for all was that He be killed.
There’s an interesting scene in the book of John, chapter 11, when the Sanhedrin, the council of the Chief Priest and Pharisees gather, trying to figure out what to do with Jesus, after so many were turning to Him, especially after Jesus raised His friend Lazarus from the dead. They’re arguing back and forth.
“Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, spoke up, “You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation, and not only for that nation but also for the scattered children of God, to bring them together and make them one. So from that day on they plotted to take his life”. John 11:49-53
So Peter reminds the people gathered that day what had happened. As an important side note, I should mention that it’s very important that we read the Scriptures carefully and not superficially.
It is very, very unfortunately true, that a lot of church people over the years have done the shallowest possible reading of these passages, and then ended up blaming the Jewish people, the chosen people of God, for the death of Jesus.
Although Peter indicted those present for Jesus' death, it is vital that we as Christians avoid a blanket indictment of the Jewish people. The religious leaders of Israel are representative of human nature.
That’s what matters here. They show us our own hearts, our own tendency as humans, even religious humans, to completely miss the point of what God is doing.
It is human to err, to make mistakes -- even under the guise of religious devotion and fidelity.
If we’re not sensitive to this reality, then we become like Germany before the holocaust.
I just wanted to mention that, because so many have failed to understand this in the past. This is about humanity’s dealings with God, and not just a segment of humanity.
Back to Peter, reminding the folks gathered there in stark terms what God had done.
Although humans, arguably the best of humanity, had crucified Jesus like a common criminal, God had something very, very different in mind.
Even through their catastrophic failure to grasp who Jesus was, God, who planned this from the beginning, accomplished something wonderful.
Jesus, the crucified One, is Lord of all. Jesus, the murdered one, is the Anointed Messiah, the Christ of God, who died, even as the Chief Priest accurately but unknowingly stated, for all people, to save every one, to bring them together and make them one.
Now Peter was a particular fellow, and his audience was made up of particular individuals. Each one hearing, evaluating, considering Peter’s words for the first time.
None of them had ever heard anything about the gospel before. They hadn’t been to church. Why?
Well, Pentecost is the day when the church was born. The church hadn’t yet existed before this day for anyone to go to.
The fruit of Peter’s sermon, again the first time the disciples had spoken openly about the gospel...the fruit that day was that about 3000 people became followers of Jesus.
That was what you call a critical mass - enough people who had freshly come into the Kingdom who would carry the message forth in the midst of huge opposition and persecution.
But they were a particular people. Unique individuals, everyone known by name by God. In this room today, at this church, we are a sampling, in a sense, of this community, this neighbourhood that we are planted in.
Many of us have already said ‘yes’, in effect, to Peter’s message - to the gospel message of Jesus who lived and died and rose again.
But there must be, there should be, they are certainly welcome here if they are, people in this place right now, and most definitely there is outside of this doors, people who have not yet responded to the gospel of God’s grace.
People who do not yet know the peace of God that passes all understanding. Those who live with the flame of guilt, the fear of death, the illusion, in some cases, that they can perhaps have a chance at heaven if they do more good than bad. As if God’s grace or favour could ever be earned.
There are those yet to enter into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
The gospel of God’s grace is that we are saved by grace, and that not of ourselves.
We are saved by the shed blood of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary.
The particular audience that heard these words the first time from the mouth of Peter, well, they were cut to the heart, the Scripture says. When they realized that all that had happened had been God’s purpose.
That in their sin and disobedience, expressed in their wrong-headed murdering of the Son of God; that in all that God had done something FOR THEM.
He had sent Jesus to reconcile all people unto God. All people. But where it really hits home is when we realize that that phrase - “all people” breaks down. It breaks down to include us. You and me.
The life of the Son of God, willingly given, in the express purpose and intent of God, through the action of sinful men.
To heal you. To heal me. To see each of us forgiven. Each of us given hope. Each of us here today given purpose and meaning, as we embrace the gospel call to believe that when Jesus died on that cross, He died for you and for me.
May we embrace the gospel, each of us here today.
If we have walked with God for some time, may we embrace the gospel afresh, giving thanks to God that He is still working in us and will be faithful to complete the work He started...”He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus”.
And again, for those of us who have been born again for some time, may we keep going deeper in Jesus, and may we embrace the mission of Jesus, His call on His disciples to go into the world and make disciples.
Joy awaits us in our love and service to God. Not ease, not material prosperity, not ‘happiness’ in the sense of a carefree life, but profound joy in loving God and being a willing member of His church on mission.
And for anyone here today who has yet to enter into the gospel story, who has yet to embrace the hope that comes from trusting in God and placing our whole hope in Jesus Christ, I encourage you to say “Yes!” to Jesus.
To receive Jesus in the way that Peter described, as both Lord and Christ. May He be Lord of your life as you trust in His sacrifice on your behalf that He endured on the cross.
And May you know Him as the Christ, the Anointed One, sent from God to reveal the heart and mind and power of God to all who believe, to whosoever would come.
In Jesus name. Amen? Amen.
