OPEN: In a third-grade class, the teacher asked Johnnie, “Is the world round?” “No, ma’am,” was the reply. “It isn’t?” exclaimed the teacher. “Then I suppose it’s flat?” “No, ma’am.” “Well, honey, if the world isn’t round and it’s not flat… then what is it?” Johnnie smiled and replied: “My dad says it’s crooked.”
There’s one phrase in Peter’s sermon on Pentecost that stuck out to me: “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” Acts 2:40 It was a declaration that no one in that crowd was going to get to heaven if they didn’t respond to God’s offer of forgiveness. Peter said - SAVE YOURSELVES!
Now, there’s a few problems with that statement by Peter. The first problem is that the phrase “Save Yourselves” - in the Greek - is in (what’s called) the passive voice. Greek verbs have 3 “voices”… two of which were “Passive” and “Active.” When the Greeks used the “Active” voice, they were describing something “I” am doing. For example - “I hit the ball,” or “I plowed the garden.” But when they used the “Passive” voice they were describing an action that is done TO me, or FOR me. For example, “Someone hit me,” or “someone plowed my garden.”
Now, when we read “Save yourselves” here in Acts 2:40, we might think that salvation is something we can do for ourselves – an active voice which implies that I can save myself. But it’s not an active voice. It’s passive. Salvation is something that is done FOR me or TO me. Peter isn't saying that I can “Save myself.” He's saying that someone else had to do that for me. But who could possibly save me? That's right - Jesus. We can only be saved by the blood of Jesus.
A better translation of this verse would be “BE SAVED from this crooked generation.” (as with the HCSB and NKJV versions). This verse literally meant that Jesus would save them… but they had to accept His offer. In this verse Peter was declaring: only God can save you. You can’t buy your way into heaven. You can’t earn your salvation. You can’t be good enough to be good enough to bribe God and get thru heaven’s gates. God has to save you… you can’t do it by yourself!
This concept shows up a lot in the Bible: Ephesians 2:8-9 says “by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is NOT your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
And we read the same thing in Titus 3:5 “(God) saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit”
You can’t save yourself!!! This is a Bible truth!!!! And yet - in spite of that truth - there’s a lot of people who believe they can PAY their way into heaven. In fact, it’s kind of engrained into our consciousness. We have these little sayings in our culture that declare – whatever you get you have to pay for.
If you would - complete these sayings for me: “There is no such thing as a free... (lunch).” “No pain, no... (gain).” “God helps those who... (help themselves).”
It’s just part of how we think - you get what you pay for. And so, people try to approach God and offer to pay to get into heaven. By their good deeds and self-righteousness, they hope to compensate God for His kindness. The problem is, when they get to heaven they’ll be in for a rude surprise. God DOESN’T WANT what they have to offer.
Martin Luther once noted: “Christ never died for our good works. They were not worth dying for. But he gave himself for our sins, according to the Scriptures.”
ILLUS: I read the true story of a man who took his 2 young girls out on a “date.” He told assured them he would pay for their fruit drinks, but the girls still brought the contents of piggy banks = 80 cents. As they were walking up to the counter, one of them said, “I want to pay for mine.” He assured her, “Daddy’s gonna get it.” Nonetheless, she insisted, “I’m paying for mine.” As the clerk rang it up, he said, “That’ll be $2.06,” and she put her change on the counter. “Um, that’s not enough,” the clerk responded. About that moment the father felt a little tug at his sweater from his other daughter. He said he looked down, and she said, “I think I’d like to use YOUR money.”
That’s the only way we’re getting into heaven. We’ll only get in if we allow Jesus to pay for us.
Now, there’s another problem with Peter’s challenge. He said: “Be saved from this crooked generation.” And the problem is - we don’t like to think we’re in a crooked generation.
Oh yeah, there are a lot of crooked people around us - but I’m not crooked. And neither are my friends, or the people I love, or the political party I belong to. Everybody else is crooked… but not them!!!! WE ARE ALL NICE PEOPLE!
And the Bible says “Oh contraire!!!” Romans 3:10-12 declares: “None is righteous, no, NOT ONE; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one”
And Isaiah 64:6 says: “WE HAVE ALL become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, takes us away.”
And just after Paul told the Ephesian Christians what a wonderful people they were, he reminds them that BEFORE they became Christians “… you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world… (and) were by nature CHILDREN OF WRATH, like the rest of mankind.” Ephesians 2:1-3
But we don’t think like that! We don’t think of Uncle Fred or Aunt Martha being bad people. They were always so nice to us. And we don’t think of our political party as having evil people in it because OUR party has always stood for righteous stuff. We think they are not crooked, they’re not corrupt. But the Bible says they are… and so are you and I!
ILLUS: Now, I don’t know who wrote this, but it’s dead-on. “You are not just: Lonely in need of a friend; Weak in need of a helper; Ignorant in need of a teacher; Confused in need of a counselor; Bored in need of a society; You’re a sinner in need of a Sacrifice; You’re a sinner in need of a priest; You’re sick in need of a great physician; Unclean in need of a Fount for cleansing; Drowning in need of an ark; You’re a sinner in need of a city of refuge; You’re lost. You need a Savior. “
That’s who we are. That’s you. That’s me. And that’s everyone else. We are lost in need of savior.
That brings us to the next problem with Peter’s statement. “BE SAVED” he says. Even when you have to look at this as God having to save us - even when you realize you can’t earn your salvation - you’re still left with Peter exhorting audience to allow God to do that. You’re still left with Peter telling us we have to DO something.
ILLUS: There is a bizarre theology that maintains that you don’t can’t do ANYTHING to be saved. You’re so evil and corrupt and CROOKED that there’s nothing inside you that would allow you to even reach out to God. Therefore, God has to do everything. Because YOU can’t do anything! It’s all been done for you.
ILLUS: There’s a story those folks will use to drive that home. They tell of a young man asked his preacher: “Sir, what can I do to be saved?” And the preacher responded “Son, you’re too late.” “What!” the boy cried. “I’m too late to be saved?” The preacher responded: “No son. You’re too late to DO anything. You see Jesus already DID IT ALL two thousand years ago.”
Now, occasionally, a preacher will throw in the “Sinner’s Prayer” which some preachers introduce because they think you can DO that, and it goes a little like this: “Dear Jesus, I know I’m a sinner, and I ask Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior.”
Now, that’s a nice little prayer. We ARE sinners. We do all need forgiveness. We do want Jesus to live inside us and be our Lord and Savior. It’s a great little prayer… but there’s just this one small problem. It’s NOT found anywhere in Scripture - and it’s definitely NOT in this passage,
In Acts 2:37, the crowd is so shaken by Peter’s sermon they interrupt him to ask “Brothers, what shall we DO?”
And Peter responded – “you don’t have to do anything… it’s all be done by Jesus?” Did Peter say that? No. Well, I know - Peter said “You all come on down front and repeat this “Sinner’s Prayer” with me.” Is that what Peter said? No.
Well, what DID Peter say? Peter said: “REPENT and BE BAPTIZED every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Now, the crowd had already believed that Jesus was sent by God, and that He died for their sins, and that they had been a party to His crucifixion. That’s why they asked what they should DO, but they hadn’t truly repented yet, and they hadn’t been baptized into Christ.
Now Repentance isn’t that hard to figure out. God’s been telling people to repent ever since the Garden of Eden. In fact, repentance was the message that John the Baptist constantly repeated throughout his ministry: "REPENT, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." Matthew 3:2
Repentance is simply accepting that you’ve sinned, and then making a commitment not to make any excuses for our bad behavior and bad thoughts and bad words. We commit not to try to explain away the things we’ve done. Instead, we ADMIT to God that we’ve sinned and then COMMIT not to do it again. That’s what repentance is all about. And most reasonable people will accept that.
Where they get stuck is usually on Baptism. And I understand why they have a problem. I mean, we’ve just got done saying that you can’t EARN your salvation by works. You can’t do anything that will BUY your way into heaven. And here, Peter is asking his audience to DO something physical… to be baptized. Everything else in the salvation is plan is mental. I mean we decide to believe, and we decide to repent and we decide to confess Jesus as our Lord and Savior. But baptism is a PHYSICAL act. And because it is a physical act there’s a lot of folks see baptism as being a WORK.
ILLUS: I can think all day about planting a garden (though I really don’t want to) and that’s not work. But once I go out and begin plowing and planting and weeding. That’s work. That’s why I don’t do gardens. And so these folks who object to baptism see everything else as “thinking” (belief, repentance, confession), but this baptism thing is “working” because it’s physical. I get it.
But here’s the question: Is baptism a work? Well… NO.
First of all, God never calls it a work. Nowhere in Scripture is baptism EVER called a Work. That’s MAN’S definition of what baptism is. In fact, you ask someone who objects to baptism’s involvement in salvation for a Bible verse that describes what baptism meant, they’ll often quote a verse that doesn’t include baptism… if they quote a verse at all. More often, they’ll give you their definition of what baptism is about (“an outward sign of an inward grace” for example). But rarely, if ever will they give you the Bible’s description of baptism’s purpose.
But I don’t want THEIR definitions. I want the Bible’s description of baptism, and the Bible has nothing in it about baptism being a work.
Secondly – by definition - baptism CAN NOT be a work. A work is something YOU DO. Baptism is something that is DONE TO YOU.
ILLUS: If I go out into the garden and plow and plant and weed – that’s work. But if YOU go into my garden and do all that – you do the work, but I don’t. In the same way baptism is where someone else does the work. There’s a baptizee and a baptizer. The baptizee doesn’t do a thing. They don’t work, because the action is done TO them, not BY them. In baptism you ALLOW somebody else to bury you in water. The convert does nothing except permit someone else to bury them in water.
CLOSE: What repentance and baptism are all about is humbling ourselves before God. REPENTANCE is humbling because people don’t like to do it. If I repent, I have to admit that I’m not good enough for God as I am. I have to admit that I have to change. But I don’t like doing that because it makes me feel weak, and unworthy. In short - it’s humbling.
And BAPTISM can be humbling as well. When a person is being baptized they are literally putting themselves in the hands of another person, trusting that person to not only put them under the water… but bringing them back up again. And that vulnerable situation is humbling in itself.
Additionally, someone once described baptism this way: “Baptism is the great equalizer. No matter who you are, how successful you are, or who you know all have to go under the waters alike. There are those who come forward in expensive suits, dangling gold jewelry, and $100 hairdos. But the suits are exchanged for a humble white robe, the jewelry comes off, and they may as well say goodbye to their $100 hairdo. Because in baptism, all the trappings of this world are left behind.” It’s a very humbling experience.
In baptism we die to sin. We’re buried in the waters. And we rise up from those waters a new creature. Not because of any “good deed” that we have done, not because of any righteousness we can claim for ourselves, but because we’re depending upon the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
INVITATION
