OPEN: Back in the days of the California gold rush, there were 3 prospectors who found a rich vein of gold back in the hills. They realized this was a great discovery and they decided, “We’ve a good thing going here - as long as no one else finds out about it.” So they made a vow to each other keep the location … secret. Then they headed into town to file their claims, get the equipment they needed, and they kept their word. True to their vows, they didn’t say a word to anybody. So, they filed their claim, bought the equipment, and headed back to the mine. But when they left town… a crowd of people followed them. THEY WERE FOLLOWED??? WHY?
Well, it was the expression on their faces that gave them away. Their faces glowed with excitement - they were going to be wealthy men. And people SAW their expressions and they knew these me must have found something special… and so they followed them out of town.
These men had found great riches. And there was something about how they looked that gave it away!
Our text today is one of the best-known New Testament stories ever! It tells of the sermon that started the church. It tells of 1000s of people who believed in Jesus and were baptized for forgiveness of sins. There were no Christians until AFTER this sermon was preached. And this event (Pentecost) was literally the break that separated the Old Testament (God’s contract with Israel) and the New Testament (God’s contract with us/ Church)
1000s of sermons have been preached about this pivotal event in Scripture. And today’s sermon will be just like those other sermons (pause) except today’s sermon will be a little different than most of them because I’m going to tell you how to share Jesus like Peter shared Jesus.
Now, here’s my first point: Peter didn’t just share who Jesus was - he shared who his savior was. You see, Peter had struck GOLD… when he decided to follow Jesus. From the moment on, Peter’s life was never the same
It was Peter (along with James and John) who were part of Jesus’ inner circle. The other nine apostles spent a lot of time with Jesus… but not like these three did. Everywhere Jesus went, Peter, James and John went as well. And when Jesus came walking on the water out to disciples’ boat it was Peter who was the only guy that had the courage to step out of the boat. When Jesus asked the disciples who they thought He was… it was Peter who said “You are the Christ the Son of the Living God.” And Jesus said “Blessed are you Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood have not revealed this to you but my Father who is in Heaven. And later, when the crowds abandoned Jesus because His teachings offended them, Jesus asked the 12 if they were going to leave Him too… it was Peter that said: “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68)
Peter even said he was literally willing to lay down his life to protect Jesus from harm.
But THEN Jesus was arrested. And Peter followed as Jesus was led into the city and put on trial. He sat down at campfire nearby, waiting for his chance to perhaps free Jesus. While he was waiting there, someone recognized him and accused him of being a follower of Christ’s – but Peter said “NO. I don’t know anything about this Jesus.” Then someone recognized him said he looked like a Galilean and a follower of Christ and once again Peter denied it. A third time someone accused him of being a follower of Christ, and this time Peter not only denied Christ, but he cursed and said “I do not know the man!”
Three times Peter denied knowing who Jesus was. And once he’d done that, he realized he’d failed. He’d failed Jesus. And there are scholars believe that after that time Peter thought to himself “I’m just going back to fishing. I’m so much better at fishing than I am at following Jesus.” He had failed so miserably that he realized he didn’t deserve to be with Jesus anymore.
But then Jesus DIED for Peter on the cross (just like He did for us) and after the resurrection, Jesus sat down at another campfire, and three times he asked Peter “do you love me” until Peter broke down in tears. Peter knew, from that moment on, that Jesus had forgiven him.
From that time on, Jesus wasn’t just a teacher that Peter followed - Jesus became the Savior that Peter clung to. Jesus became the risen Messiah who loved Peter and Who had died for his sins. And you could see it in his face. Now it’s Pentecost, and Peter was intense in how preached to those people. Hiss message wasn’t a theological presentation and it wasn’t a Master’s Thesis for a special college degree. He was a man who was on fire for Jesus. His was a heartfelt message to a lost people.
ILLUS: It’s like he’s graduated from Sunday School. He’s no longer just learning about Jesus, he’s telling people about Jesus.
ILLUS: He’s like the farmer who spends all his time throughout the year planning to plant his corn in one section of his farm, and his wheat in another, and his oats in still another plot of land. But until he actually does it, he hasn’t really farmed. One day, the farmer reaches the point where he doesn’t just “think” about planting crops, he actually does it. He plants his field and he’s going to have a crop.
That’s Peter. He has a message for lost people.
Many of these people in this crowd had been there when Jesus was brought to Pilate. They were there when the Romans mocked Jesus and beat His defenseless body with whips. And they were there - and were amongst those who demanded: “CRUCIFY HIM! CRUCIFY HIM!” And they were there when Jesus was led to Calvary to die on the cross. They had given their approval for Jesus to die.
And now… these same folks are here at Pentecost, and they’re hearing Peter tell them “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know — this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” Acts 2:22-23
Peter was saying “God sent you your messiah - and YOU killed Him. YOU crucified Him. You’re guilty! It’s your fault! Now, what are you going to do about it?” And these folks were cut to their hearts and they cried out:
“What shall we do?”
(PAUSE) Now there’s one more thing, before I get into applying all this to you and me.
If you noticed, Peter quoted a few Scriptures while he was preaching. And there’s a lot of who thing “that’s Peter. He’s cool, but we’re not. He knows stuff, we don’t. He’s got the Bible down pat, he’s been walking with Jesus for 3 years… I’m not like that.” And we think to ourselves, we don’t know the Bible as well as Peter did.
But we need to understand that – until Jesus rose from the dead - those verses Peter quoted didn’t mean anything to him. He didn’t understand the prophecies about Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection. He (and the rest of the Apostles) were absolutely clueless.
In Matthew 17:22-23 we’re told that “Jesus said to them, ‘The Son of Man is about to be delivered into the hands of men, and they will kill him, and he will be raised on the third day.’ And they were GREATLY DISTRESSED.” Why were they distressed? They were distressed because – that’s not supposed to happen. Jesus can’t die, he’s the man who come to be the King of Israel! They can’t put Him to death. And so it doesn’t compute. It doesn’t register in their minds, and they are distressed by it.
And then in Mark 9:31-32 we’re told of similar time when Jesus told His disciples about this and “They did not understand the saying, and were afraid to ask him.”
And apparently, the first time Jesus talked about this was right after Peter had declared that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the Living God. “From that time (we’re told) Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. And Peter took (Jesus) aside and began to rebuke him, saying, ‘Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.’” Matthew 16:21-22
Peter “rebuked” Jesus? You can do that??? Well, Peter did, and notice how Jesus responded: "He turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.'" (Matthew 16:23) Jesus was telling Peter "You don’t understand what you’re talking about!"
They didn’t understand. They couldn’t imagine this happening to Jesus. And that was true of Peter and the other Apostles - none of them understood what the Old Testament prophecies said of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection… until Jesus rose from the dead.
And now it’s Pentecost. It’s 50 DAYS later and Peter knows exactly what those verses meant. But they didn’t suddenly pop into his mind as he preached. He’s probably been thinking about them for more than a month. And because those verses mean something to him he shares them with his audience.
Now, I’ve said all that to say this: you can share your Jesus just like Peter did. But you’ve got to start by realizing, you’re not all that much different that Peter… Now, the day was different. I mean, at Pentecost you’ve got tongues of fire settling down on the Apostles, and there’s a sound that’s like that of a mighty rushing wind, and the apostles are praising God in languages they’ve never learned. People from dozens of nations were understanding what was said. And we say “Hey, we can’t do that!” That’s true.
But… once Peter stood up and began to speak, he used a language everybody knew. The tongues of fire faded into the background, the sound of the mighty rushing wind disappeared, and the Apostles speaking to the crowd in languages they’d never learned were no longer heard. Now, it’s just Peter.
You see, all the rest of that stuff was just fireworks, it was God’s way of getting the attention of the crowd. The people stopped, and they wondered at what they were seeing and hearing. They were just fireworks.
But once Peter stands up and started talking about Jesus, those other things didn’t matter. All those fireworks just faded into the background, because there was something about the intensity of Peter’s faith that you could see it in his face. And that intensity shook people and made them ask “What shall we do to be saved?”
Peter focused on Jesus. Peter focused on HIS SAVIOR. And the intensity of his faith shook his audience. He’s so much in love with Jesus that you’re never going to stop… he will be heard!
You can do that! But only if there is an intensity to your faith. So, here’s my question: How intense IS your faith? When people are around you, can they tell that you’re in love with Jesus?
Now, you’ve got to be careful about this, because church tend to mess this up. They think in terms like “If they’re around me long enough, I’ll get a chance to talk to them about church. I’ll talk to them about our singing group, and the preacher and the different ministries we do here.” And that’s what they’ll know.
Now, that’s nice. But that’s not our objective. Our Spanish preacher, Wenceslao – whenever he talks about any kind of theology he’ll start out and say “First off, it’s all about Jesus.” You can have the most beautiful building, the most powerful preacher, and you can have the wonderful singing group, and the greatest atmosphere you want… but if Jesus is not the center of who we are and what we do, we’ve got nothing. We’ve failed.
And so it is with the intensity of our faith – it has to be focused on Jesus. Can they tell (like those prospectors in my opening illustration) that you’ve found great riches… so much so, that there’s something about you that gives it away! Can they see it in your face?
At the end of many of my sermons I’ll pray that there would be something about how YOU and I live for Jesus that would make people jealous. That would make them WANT what we have!
ILLUS: Dr. Short (one of our Elders) passed out some of the flyers for our upcoming Revival to his staff, and later in the day, a nurse practitioner asked another of the girls if she had to go to all 3 days of the Revival. The other girl responded: “Only if you want to go to heaven!”
Now, I’m not sure you have to go to all 3 days of the Revival to go to heaven (although it can’t hurt) but you can’t help admiring the woman’s commitment. She’s telling her friend: “You want to go to heaven? Well then, go the Revival! Take it seriously.”
My point is this: that’s all it takes. You don’t have to have a Ph.D. You don’t have to have the Bible memorized. You just have to love Jesus so much that it bleeds out of you, and you want them to have what you have!
Secondly, one of the ways you can tell if you love Jesus is when there are Bible verses that begin to talk to you. I’m not just talking about memorizing scripture – memorizing scripture is cool! But when you get intense about Jesus there’s going to Bible verses that will just leap off the page at you. And those verses will be something that you can wrap your whole life around.
One of my favorite verses is “We are His workmanship in Christ Jesus to do good works, that God prepared in advance that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:10) Now that speaks to me, because what it’s telling me is that God has a plan for my life. I have a reason to get up in the morning. I’ve got something to do with my life.
and I’ll often quote that to people because it means so much to me. God has a plan for something he wants me to accomplish – and I want to know what that is! And so, that verse speaks to me. And thus, when I talk to other people, I’ll often quote that verse to them so that they’ll know its true for them as well.
And there will be Bible verses that will do the same for you. They’ll talk to you, and you’ll say, I’ve just got to share that. Because I want them to know the Jesus that I serve.
Remember, Peter didn’t suddenly understand the verses he quoted on Pentecost. Fifty days before, those verses meant NOTHING to him. But now Peter has seen the risen Christ and those verse are what he shared. So, when you get to the point where you start to quote Bible verses because they mean something to you. That’s when you realize – your faith is intense.
You want to get to that point. God has promised “my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’ (Isaiah 55:11) The verses you know have power, and if you quote them to others, it will work on the hearts and minds of those you share them with.
Someone once said: “A Christian must keep the faith, but not to himself.” (Jim Patrick)
That’s what happened to Peter. Peter knew Jesus had become so important to him and he couldn’t keep it to himself. He just had to talk about Jesus.
ILLUS: I like what some churches do when people get baptized. They have these new Christians call someone and tell them what they did. And they end up telling those folks WHY they were baptized. And they begin telling their friends and families WHAT Jesus has done for them.
That is really what this all about. Do you believe Jesus has done something for you? Do you still have the excitement in you that you had when you first became a Christian? Can you remember what it was like to decide for Jesus? If you can, then it will show in your face and people will follow you to church just to find out how you got what you have?
CLOSE: Now, let me repeat - you can share your faith about Jesus just like Peter did. But you’ve got to decide that you WANT to do it.
ILLUS: There was a religious leader who was talking to a certain man about sharing his faith. The man replied: “I don’t wear my religion on my sleeve. My religion is personal, and I don’t want to talk about it.” His statement startled the religious leader and he asked the man “You are a Christian, aren’t you?” He said “Well, yes, but I’m not a religious fanatic.” The religious leader thought about that for a few moments and then he finally asked the man: “Did it ever occur to you that it cost Jesus Christ His life so you could call yourself a Christian? It cost the disciples their lives too, and millions of Christian throughout the centuries have suffered or died as martyrs in order to get the message of God’s love and forgiveness to you. Now do you really believe that your faith in Christ is personal and private and that shouldn’t talk about it?” And the other man was shocked to think about that… and he said, “No sir, I was wrong. Tell me what I can do about it.” (Bill Bright in Pulpit Helps Oct. 05 p. 8)
Let me repeat what I’ve said several times in this sermon: It was the look on Peter’s face gave him away. He really believed this stuff and he was willing to go to the mat to make it known.
The question for you this morning is this: Do you really believe this stuff? And are you willing to take it to the mat to make it known what Jesus has done for you?
INVITATION
