EAGER TO TELL!
Acts 2:37-40
S: Witness
Th: Freed to Minister
Pr: WE ARE TO EAGERLY INVITE A RESPONSE TO JESUS.
?: Why?
KW: Needs
TS: We will find in our study of Acts 2:37-40 four needs that each person has that demonstrate why we need to invite people to know Jesus.
The _____ need that each person has is…
I. COMPASSION
II. COUNSELOR
III. CONTRITION
IV. COMMITMENT
RMBC 16 September 01 AM
INTRODUCTION:
ILL Notebook: Ask (thin and beautiful)
While on maternity leave, a woman from an office brought in her new bundle of joy. She also had her seven-year-old son with her. Everyone gathered around the baby, and the little boy asked, "Mommy, can I have some money to buy a soda?" "What do you say?" she asked. Respect-fully, the boy replied, "You’re thin and beautiful." The woman reached in her purse and gave her son the money.
Do you see what our lesson here is?
It is…
Don’t be afraid to ask!
For you may never get what you want or desire, if you don’t ask.
Hold on to that thought for a while…
TRANSITION:
We have come to the third week of our discipleship month.
Our theme this month is “Freed to Minister.”
And the lesson we have been trying to get across is that…
1. Since we have the Holy Spirit in us, we are free to serve others.
In the message last week, Peter served and ministered to the people around him by telling the truth.
Opening the Old Testament, Peter showed how the events surrounding the life of Jesus fulfilled that which had been predicted by Joel and by David.
Jesus had been crucified by the Jews and Romans, but in triumph, He had risen from the dead.
His body could not see decay, and His soul could not go into hell.
God had not only raised Jesus from the dead, but He exalted Him by giving Jesus the name above every other name, making Him both Lord and Christ.
And this same risen and exalted Lord was even now pouring out His Spirit on all flesh, evident in the fact that Peter himself was prophesying from the pages of Scripture about the mighty works of God in the power of the Holy Spirit.
And since Christ had been raised and exalted, He will return to earth in judgement.
The cosmic signs which had occurred when Jesus had died upon the cross seven weeks earlier—darkness at midday and a great earthquake—will again be evident when Jesus returns to earth in judgement on the last day.
But not only does Pentecost start God’s clock running toward the end of time since the last days begin with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost is also the beginning of the great age of salvation.
It is the age that is characterized by God’s promise that “whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
In what really is the key point of the Pentecost sermon, “calling upon the name of the Lord to be saved,” stands as perhaps the most important fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy.
Not only was this a fulfillment of that promised to Joel, but David, Isaiah, Ezekiel and Zephaniah had also foretold of this day.
Everything that happened was in direct fulfillment of the Old Testament promises of a great age of salvation to begin when the long awaited Messiah appeared.
So, this was the essence of Peter’s message as we have studied so far.
And there is an important application we must understand up to this point…and it is this…just like Peter…
2. We can proclaim the truth.
We have good news.
It is not something to hide.
It is a message to proclaim.
For it is a message of joy.
It is a message of hope.
It is a message of love.
But…
3. We sometimes back away from telling the truth.
For example…
ILL Notebook: Testimony (oldest go first)
Several women, each trying to one-up the other, appeared in court, each accusing the others of causing the trouble they were having in the apartment building where they lived. The judge, with Solomon-like wisdom decreed, "Okay, I’m ready to hear the evidence...I’ll hear the oldest first." The case was dismissed for lack of testimony.
Perhaps giving away your age is not your problem, but what is it that keeps you from proclaiming the good news?
Are you worried about your reputation?
Are you concerned that you will be rejected?
Are you more interested in staying politically correct?
But we must face a truth today…it is too simple perhaps…and it is this…
A question must be asked so a response can be made.
And this is so true of our faith.
4. WE ARE TO EAGERLY INVITE A RESPONSE TO JESUS.
This is what Peter does.
He invites a response.
He invites a response because there was hope.
The people of that time had blown it.
They had killed the very One they were looking for, but as bad as that was, it was not hopeless.
And it is not hopeless for any of us either.
Here is the good news…every need that we have, that makes our situation desperate…is able to be met in Jesus.
So…
5. We will find in our study of Acts 2:37-40 four needs that each person has that demonstrate why we need to invite people to know Jesus.
Hear our text today…
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” Peter replied, “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. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.”
Note the crucial question…
6. “Brothers, what shall we do,” (Hebrews 4:12).
Never doubt the power of God’s Word.
Peter believed in it.
He quoted Joel 2, Psalm 16, and Psalm 110.
Not only that, he preached the Word that became flesh!
And he proves Hebrews 4:12…
For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
The description of their reaction is so telling.
They phrase, “they were cut to the heart,” literally describes a piercing or a stabbing.
It has come on them suddenly and unexpectedly so that it stunned them.
It is called conviction.
They realize now that they had been directly or indirectly parties to the Messiah’s death.
Instead of welcoming Him when he walked among them, they had instead rejected Him and turned Him over to the Roman authorities to be executed.
They had done it.
So…now that they were accomplices in the crime, they now had to fear the Messiah’s wrath.
Filled with anguish, despair, and remorse, they ask the questions, “What do we do?”
“What must I do?”
Peter’s answer goes like this…
“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…”
Peter tells us what must come to us and what must come from us.
These are our unmistakable needs.
OUR STUDY:
I. The first need that each person has is COMPASSION.
We need God’s compassion, desperately, because we are all violators of His will.
And…
1. When we offend God, our only hope is that God will let go and forgive.
Like it or not, the Bible tells us that we are all sinners.
We are all utterly at odds with God.
And no matter how good we are, or how much better we think we are than someone else, we are lost and without hope if there is no forgiveness.
For the only satisfactory payment for sin is death.
So we either die or have someone die for us.
And that is exactly what happened with Jesus.
He died for us and forgave our offense that caused His death.
Yet, we still try to make it on our own.
We try to remake God in our image.
We make Him something more comfortable and we give up on His holy character.
But…
2. When we deny the absoluteness of God, forgiveness becomes obsolete.
Frankly, this is the kind of world that we live in.
Our world functions as if God has no clear and unchanging character.
There is no divine measure.
Instead, the world maximizes the absoluteness of self by saying, “Be yourself!”
You are the measure of what is good and acceptable and God is nothing more than a divine endorsement for what you want to be.
If this is true, forgiveness is unneeded.
For forgiveness is the letting go of real offenses, real transgressions, real violations and real faults.
This is why Peter exclaims, “Save us from this crooked generation!”
Every generation that creates ways of salvation apart from God is without law, and therefore without forgiveness and without hope.
This brings us to…
II. The second need that each person has is the COUNSELOR.
Jesus had told His followers to wait for the Holy Spirit.
And they did…and when Jesus sent the Spirit, they were empowered to do the very things that He called them to do.
But the Holy Spirit was not just for those early disciples.
The Holy Spirit is for all of us.
We all need the Counselor.
For…
1. We need the presence of God in our lives (Romans 8:9).
It is a necessity, for just as Paul writes to the Romans…
You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
Simply, we do not belong to Jesus if we do not have the Spirit.
For the Spirit is the seal of His Presence as noted in Ephesians.
And when we have the Spirit, we are given, just as these followers of Jesus, an extraordinary empowerment to do what He calls us to do.
And when we have the Spirit…
2. We are enabled to have a personal relationship with God.
When we have this personal relationship with God, it is filled with spiritual benefits.
We are given fruit of the Spirit so that we might be characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, and self-control.
We are blessed with wisdom and guidance.
We are graced with gifts of the Spirit so that we may do things that are beyond our natural talents and personalities.
And we possess the confidence that we can go to Him at anytime.
ILL Notebook: God (weaving)
An ancient legend tells of a monarch who hired some people to make tapestries and garments for him. Among them was a young child who was especially skilled at weaving. The king gave the silk and the pat-terns to the workers with instructions to seek his aid immediately if any difficulties arose.
The boy made quiet and steady progress while the others were distressed by their many failures. One day they gathered around the youngster and asked, "Why are you so happy and successful while we are always having trouble? Either our silk becomes tangled or our weaving varies from the pattern." The lad answered, "Don’t you remember the words of the king when he told us to send for him whenever it was necessary?" "We finally did ask for his assistance," replied the oth-ers, "but by then things were so snarled that it took days to unravel our mistakes." "Didn’t you notice how often I called for him?" he inquired. "Yes, but he’s very busy, and we thought you were wrong in disturbing him so frequently." "Well," replied the boy, "I just took him at his word, and he was always happy to help me!"
Our God is the very same way.
He is there to help.
And this is why we need His Presence.
Now let us move to what we must do…
III. The third need that each person has is CONTRITION.
We need to repent.
1. We need to change our direction.
Repentance is much more than simply being sorry for the past.
It is a change of heart and mind.
It is a change of purpose.
It is a willingness to be uncomfortable in order to make things right.
But note this…
ILL Notebook: Repentance (genuflex)
A company called Genuflex in Venice, Italy has recently manufactured a state-of-the-art confessional booth for Roman Catholic Churches. It sells for $6,250 U.S. dollars. It has a sign to show whether it is occupied or vacant. It is finished in walnut with leather seating. It is soundproofed, and can be equipped with a hygienic filter between the priest and penitent. It even has its own heating and air-conditioning system. It may have been manufactured in Italy, but it is so American. We want to repent in comfort. We don’t want there to be any inconvenience or embarrassment. We want repentance to be polite, quick and easy. But repentance is never easy, because it demands facing our sin so that there is a complete turn around in our lives.
I like how the commentator Albert Barnes describes repentance:
False repentance dreads the consequences of sin, while true repentance dreads sin itself.
This is what we must come to…
We must come to understand that we have offended God and that we are at odds with Him.
When we repent, it means that we are willing to now be in line with His will.
But…
2. We must follow through with our conviction.
We can not just say that we are changed.
We must change.
We are to act on what we say to be true, for there is no such thing as secret agent believers in Jesus.
Our convictions change us to be more like Jesus.
IV. The fourth need that each person has is COMMITMENT.
The need of commitment is demonstrated by the act of baptism.
For…
1. We are called on to demonstrate our new direction (Matthew 28:19).
Jesus gave this command…
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…
Jesus asked us to lead people to a further and growing understanding of Him by baptizing believers.
And note this…He did not make it an optional act in discipleship.
ILL Notebook: Baptism (puppies have to be baptized)
A client brought a litter of golden retriever puppies to a veterinarian’s clinic for inoculations and worming. As the look-alike pups squirmed over and under one another in their box, he realized it would be difficult to tell the treated ones from the rest. So, he turned on the water faucet, wet his fingers, and moistened each dog’s head when he had finished. After the fourth puppy, he noticed his talkative client had grown silent. As he wetted down the last pup’s head, the woman leaned forward and whispered, "I didn’t know they had to be baptized, too."
It is important to note that the New Testament has no category of an unbaptized Christian.
It is the proof text of what God has done.
It is the visible way of telling.
For baptism testifies of saving grace and your confession of faith.
Baptism is the first step of obedience to Christ.
For when are truly repentant, we will be baptized because we want to be baptized.
More than that, it is a privilege.
2. We are privileged to identify with Jesus in His death, burial and resurrection (Romans 6:3-4).
Note how Paul expresses it…
Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Baptism is the symbolic representation of Christ’s death, burial and resurrection.
It also represents our death to self, the burial of the old man, and the resurrection to walk in the newness of life.
It represents what God has done in our lives.
APPLICATION:
At the end of today’s text, the author makes a point that Peter went all out to win others to Jesus.
He spent time and energy reasoning and pleading for the truth.
He wanted people to know that His hope was real.
How about you?
1. Are you actively reasoning with people about the hope that is within you?
We are called to use our heads and appeal to the rationality of our faith.
This faith does make sense.
God has given enough reason in this world to make faith a most reasonable thing.
But he has left out enough to make it impossible to live by reason alone.
For example…
ILL Notebook: Witness (Pascal)
Blaise Pascal is considered one of history’s greatest scientists. But Pascal’s conversion was not through his scientific queries.
When his carriage was once suspended on a bridge, hanging between life and death, the only thing Pascal could think of was the Christian conviction of his sister and the witness of Christ she had in his life.
He was the inventor of the barometer. He was tremendously brilliant as a philosophical scientist. But the one thing that kept piercing his heart was not the scientific laws, it was the Christian witness of his sister.
This is why we must keep testifying to the truth.
For…
2. The greatest tragedy is that people pass away into eternity.
You see, the greatest tragedy is not the United States was attacked this week.
The greatest tragedy was not that the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed.
The greatest tragedy was not that freedom was maligned.
The greatest tragedy is that people passed into eternity without a relationship with Jesus—hijackers, hijacked, military, rescuers, onlookers and workers.
Thousands tragically died without knowing Jesus.
ILL Personal: lighthouse
You may remember that on this lighthouse we have put the names of people you are praying for that do not know Jesus.
Imagine for a moment that all these people named on this lighthouse worked on the upper floors of the World Trade Center on Monday.
What would have happened to them?
You know…we have good news.
We have an invitation to make.
I know that we want people to know Jesus, but just like that little boy in the opening who requested a soda, we may never get what we want or desire if we don’t ask.
For…
3. We have good news that requires a response, but no one responds without being asked.
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Repent…if you are living your own way today, I encourage you to turn from your ways that are an offense to God; realize that you must change your direction; align your will to the will of God and find the joy God has for you.
Be baptized…if you have neglected this as a believer, it is time to demonstrate your faith and commitment to the Lord; it is time to take a stand for grace.
Tell others the good news…and encourage a response so that people might know the forgiveness of God and the peace of the Holy Spirit.
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
BIBLE STUDY:
1. A lot of people look at this verse and say that to be saved, one must repent and be baptized (v. 37). How would you answer that?
2. We believe in “believer’s baptism.” What does it mean and why is it important? Why do other traditions baptize infants (v. 39)? When should someone be baptized?
3. Does anyone have a significant baptism experience that you would like to share with us?
4. We believe in baptism by immersion. Why is immersion so significant? Why do other traditions use other modes? Why do we immerse when others don’t?
5. Why is baptism a part of the discipleship process?
