Summary
Pastor Safrit walks through Acts 2:14-36, focusing on Peter's bold proclamation during Pentecost. He emphasizes that the power of Peter's sermon lies not in his eloquence but in the truth of God's Word and the work of the Holy Spirit. The main point is that true transformation comes from recognizing Jesus as Lord and responding to His call, which can lead to significant life changes, as illustrated by the conversion of 3,000 people that day. The practical application encourages listeners to consider how they will respond to the message of Christ in their own lives.
Welcome and Housekeeping
Thank you for listening to Pleasant Grove Baptist Church Sermon Audio. For more information, please visit our website, pgbcronda.com, or visit on all social media platforms. Good job leading us today.
If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in Acts chapter 2. If you've got a young person that wants to be dismissed at Children's Church, that's available for them at this time. And always an encouragement for me when these young people have eight up here today.
I'm just taking pictures and enjoying what the Lord's doing in their life. The courage they have to get up and sing and pray and lift their voices, read scripture.
That's a blessing to be able to be trained in a generation to be able to do that. And so I'm thankful that the Lord is doing that and working in our church in that area. But we are continuing our study in the book of Acts and plan on being here for a while.
And want to look through today, Acts chapter 2, verses 14 through 36. I've got several passages of scripture to read today.
Since it is a lengthier passage, and I know some of us can't stand for a long period of time, we'll remain seated for the reading of the word today. And we'll read it this morning, and then we'll jump right into the message. Bible says, verse 14,
And then your sons and daughters will prophesy, and young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.
I will even pour out my spirit on the servants in those days, both men and women, and they will prophesy.
Verse 19, I will display wonders in heavens and above the signs on the earth, below blood and fire and a cloud of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord comes.
Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Fellow Israelites, listen to these words. This Jesus of Nazareth,
the man who you arrested to who by God with miracles and wonders and signs that God did among you through him, just as you yourselves know,
though he was delivered up according to the God's determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and kill him.
Verse 24, God raised him up and ended the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held by death. For David said to him, I saw the Lord ever before me because he is at my right hand. I will not be shaken.
Therefore, my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices. Moreover, my flesh will rest in hope because you have not abandoned me in Hades or allowed the Holy One to see decay.
You have revealed the paths of my life to me. You will fill me with gladness in your presence. Verse 29, Brothers and sisters, I can confidently speak to you about this patriarch David. He is both dead and buried and his tomb is with us today.
Verse 30, Since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn an oath to him that the seed of one of his descendants would be on the throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah.
He was not abandoned in Hades and his flesh would not experience decay. God raised this Jesus. We are all witnesses of this.
Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God and received it from the Father of the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out what you would both see and hear.
For it was not David who ascended to the heavens, but he himself says, The Lord declares to my Lord,
sit at my right hand. Verse 35, Lord, we love you. We thank you for what you've done for us.
I pray that you would have your will and way in the service today. I thank you for the blessings of these young people to be able to lead us.
Some songs we may have not known, but it was just a blessing to know that they're leading and guiding and directing and following your spirit. And I pray that you would help us do the same this morning. And we thank you for your blessings and your name we pray. Amen.
As we recap just in our mind, the last couple of weeks, we started in Acts chapter one and we looked at the mission of the church. And if you missed that message, it's on all of our social media platforms.
And you can go and listen to that sort of lays out why we're preaching through the book of Acts.
Living in Transition
And then we talked about what it looks like to live in transition.
And last week we talked about the Pentecost and the day of Pentecost and what that looks like. And today we begin to see that these men and women, made a bold proclamation of preaching and ultimately Peter's Pentecost sermon that happens today.
And as I was thinking about this, my mind went to a story. If you're familiar with church history at all, back in July 8th of 1741,
this was in a small town of Enfield, Connecticut, and a very quiet, most likely not a dynamic preacher, was a very bookish style preacher. The historian say,
by the name of Jonathan Edwards, stepped into a pulpit. It's very similar to the one we have here. And with a loud,
dynamic, I'm sorry, not loud and not dynamic, he pulled his message out that he had wrote from the Lord.
And he read his sermon very slowly and very deliberately as he preached something remarkable happened.
We know this as the first great awakening and he preached a message called Sinners in the Hand of an Angry God. And as he painted a vivid picture of the reality of sin and judgment and God's mercy, Edward described sinners dangling over fires of hell like a spider held by a thin thread,
completely dependent on the mercy of God. And as he spoke, deep conviction fell upon the congregation that was there listening. One reporter said that people began to weep and cry out and even clutch the pews, terrified of falling into the hell at that very moment. Some began to moan under the weight of their guilt.
Others cried out asking, what must I do to be saved?
And Edwards had a stop several times as he preached because of the sobs of the drowning of his voice and the Holy Spirit moving in a powerful way.
That single sermon became the spark that helped ignite the first great awakening and the revival that spread through all the American colonies. And the reports say that thousands upon thousands of people turned to Christ, churches were filled, and a fresh hunger for God spread across the land of America.
That sermon was a movement point in America. We had a second great awakening that was just a couple of hundred years later. But this moment, as we look through that and as we compare that to what Peter did on that day of Pentecost was a very similar effect. Peter stood before the crowd. He was empowered by the Holy Spirit.
He had no doubtably this bold declaration of truth about Jesus.
And his words pierced their heart just as Edwards did that day. And we'll see next week in verse 37 where they make the statement, what must we do to be saved?
The Power of the Sermon
What do we do today? On that day, the Bible says that 3,000 people came to know Jesus. We understand as we look through and we examine today this passage,
the power of the sermon wasn't in the skillfulness of the preacher. It wasn't how eloquent he could get up and speak and how well he could articulate or alliterate certain things.
But it was in the truth of God's word. It was in the work of the Holy Spirit.
And the same God that moved in Peter's day and the same God that moved in Edwards' day is the same God that can move today, that can move in our church, that can move in our midst, and we
can see this great revival that can happen by simply being submissive to what the Holy Spirit has in our life.
And so the question that I want to ask us as we go through this entire message is this, how will you respond?
When the message is preached, when the word of God is proclaimed, how are we going to respond? And as we begin, we'll look at the very first part which is the man of the story this man is the man named Peter. This man was a transformed preacher.
Preacher, here, this name Peter who was one standing up to preach but we cannot forget where this moment led to. We cannot forget what happened through Peter's life.
If you study through Peter's life and you know anything about Peter, Peter was the guy who put his foot in his mouth more often than not, right? When Jesus asked him to do something, he would be like, well, Jesus, are we really supposed to do that?
When Jesus is walking on water, Jesus, if you're really the man that you say you are, let me walk with you.
So Peter, this guy who's bold, who's courageous in certain ways but then we look and we begin to see that Peter in the end of Jesus' ministry was a coward.
He was a man who was ashamed of Jesus that was ultimately turned into the man that was courageous. So we see that Peter just weeks earlier in Luke chapter 22. Luke chapter 22 verses 61 and 62.
Guys, if you'll put that on the screen for me, I forgot to put it in my notes. It says, the Lord turned and looked and saw Peter and so Peter remembered the words of the Lord and how he had said to him, before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.
And in verse 62, he went outside and he wept bitterly.
You see, Peter, just weeks before this, denied Jesus. He was a coward. Lord, when the child came to him, when this little girl came to him and began to say, are you the one that followed Jesus? Are you the one that we saw doing those miracles?
Are you the one that did these great things? Peter stood back and he cursed the Lord and he said, that wasn't me.
I'm going to be a coward in this moment. I'm going to step back and I'm going to turn away from the Lord and we have to ask ourselves, what changed?
What changed in this man that was once someone who was ashamed to be even called a follower of Jesus to now we see in the opening of this passage, Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice and proclaimed to them.
This man who is now courageous, this man who now has the power of the Holy Spirit stands up and has something in him that he didn't have before. The Holy Spirit working through his life.
And we have to ask ourselves, how often is it that we line up with the coward of Peter versus the courageousness of Peter?
I want you to imagine a battle that's going on, maybe the American Revolution or the Civil War and a general leading his troops into the soldiers, leading his troops into this battle and the general gets up and sees the armies coming at him and he says, you know what, guys, this is too much for me. I'm done.
I'm giving up. And the general that's leading the army turns and runs and fleets.
And the army's standing there and they say, well, we just have to do what we can and ultimately they get beat in that battle and a couple of weeks later that general shows back up and he says, guys, I know I messed up before but will you follow me this time?
And the soldiers began to follow this general and they go into this battle and the soldier, this general who was fearful the first time has this amount of courage that's in him that leads these people into victory because
he did not back down the second time. This is what Peter's saying.
He said, guys, I know I denied Jesus just a couple of weeks ago and I know that you
remember that and I remember that and I'll live with that guilt for the rest of my life but will you trust me and will you get behind me one more time? Will you stand up with me one more time?
I'm reminded of the story of Samson where Samson lived a wicked life and God used him in mighty ways and ultimately Samson fell and at the end of his life Samson stood up and he held on those pillars and he said, Lord, use me one more time
and I'm often reminded that oftentimes we must say to the Lord, Lord, will you use me one more time? Lord, I know I failed you yesterday. I know I failed you today.
I know I failed you last week but will you use me one more time in this life that you've given me? So we see Peter was the coward that turned to the courageous but we also see Peter as the uneducated fisherman that became the proclaimer of scripture.
You see, I can imagine these people as we looked at last week someone said, hey, you did a really good job pronouncing all those different locations.
I'm sure I butchered them and I'm sure I did a horrible job at it but I made my way through it but all these people are around and you can imagine they're scratching their head saying, isn't this the guy we bought fish from a couple of years ago?
This is the guy that his dad, he smelled all the time. He's always around fish. He never went to school. He never trained under any rabbis.
He doesn't have any education. Why would we begin to trust him? But yet he stood up and confidently spoke the word of God. He confidently preached and proclaimed the word of God. The spirit this morning does not need degrees.
The spirit this morning needs people, men and women who have willing hearts that are willing to step up and say, this is what the Lord has said and I am going to tell you that because this is what the Lord has said. The spirit doesn't care about our degrees.
He doesn't care about what we can do or say. God simply looks at those who are available.
He doesn't care about the ability that you have. He looks at the availability and he begins to look and say, how available are you to work in this area? I'm reminded oftentimes that builders are, and I'm somewhat of a builder.
I like to tinker around a little bit. Builders, they look really good at looking at plans and they're able to take the plans that are laid out before them and they're able to find the dimensions and put them together. I was talking to Carrie just a couple of months ago about how she went to school with a lot of architects.
She did a lot of their homework because they weren't the smartest architects and she helped them get through college and now they're the ones that are building our bridges and roads and it changes our perspective a little bit on some things.
But when we think of a carpenter or a builder, they simply take the plan that someone else has laid out for them and they take that plan and they begin to put the pieces together and work it and when they step back, they've got this wonderful massive cathedral
that they've built. Not because of their knowledge or their ability to envision what was going to happen, but they simply took the plan that someone else gave them and they produced this wonderful building. And God looks at us and he says, I've got the plan. I've got everything laid out for you.
I just need you to step into what I've given you. And when we step into God's plan, we're able to look back and we're able to say, God, this is only because of you. This is only because you worked in my midst.
Peter couldn't stand up and Peter couldn't say this happened because of how educated I am or how smart I am or all these different things. He was just the man that God put in the position and he stood up and he spoke with authority.
As we looked at that opening illustration of Jonathan Edwards, Jonathan Edwards didn't have any special ability about him.
He simply read his message. He was very monotone from everything we can read. He didn't do a lot of voice and fluctuations. There wasn't a lot of illustrations to bring us into the point. It was just simply reading the message that God gave him and it sparked something amazing
in the world we live in. So we see Peter, the coward going to the courageous, the uneducated fisherman going to the proclaimer of scripture. But then we see Peter, the accused, coming to Peter, the accuser. Instead of being afraid of persecution,
Jesus, the man he followed, was just crucified in one of the most
horrendous ways, one of the ways that people would have looked and said, I will never do what they're going to do because of how hard the punishment for the crucifixion is.
I've said it before, when you begin to study the crucifixion and study how gruesome and painful and violent the crucifixion was, it's not just a cross we put around our neck.
It is a gruesome, horrible way for someone to have died.
And all of these men and women knew when we stand up and we preach what we're about to preach, we are signing our death warrant. Reminded of Thomas Jefferson as he wrote the Declaration of Independence, John Hancock, I'm sorry.
And when they wrote the Declaration of Independence and they began to meet there on January or July 3rd and they began to sign that declaration, John Hancock stood up and he said, I'm going to be the one that
signs my name the biggest so when King George sees it, he knows that I was the one that started the revolution and I'm signing my death warrant.
That was the boldness that he had when it came to our country and all of a sudden now we begin to look at Peter and he knew by me standing up in front of this crowd, this crowd of
thousands of people where we know 3,000 people came to know Jesus, I'm signing my death warrant by preaching this message that they killed my Savior for. You see, when God transforms a person, we don't just believe differently, we begin to act and live differently.
People should look at us and say, what happened to that person? Why are they acting different? Why is their attitude different?
Why when trials and tribulations come, they don't respond the way I respond. They don't respond to the manner that I respond. They respond with joy. They respond with happiness. They respond with something that I don't have. Why is it?
Because we have something that they don't have. We have this Savior who takes us from one day where Satan comes beside of us and accuses us of the wrongdoings that we've done to this moment where we get to look at Satan and say, no, you're the
one that is the one that's done wrong and one day you're going to stand into this moment where you get your judgment. We live differently because of the transformation that happens in our life.
So we look at the man here, this moment where Peter stands up and he preaches with boldness, but we have to look at the method. We have to look at the method of what Peter does when he gets up and preaches. The method is simply that he preached with scriptural authority.
Peter didn't rely on his personal stories. Oftentimes I do and I fail in preaching when I do that. Peter didn't say, well, one day I was a fisherman and these things happened. He didn't rely on his emotions.
He didn't have some catchy phrase that he got up and he alliterated and he rhymed and he said, these are the great things that are going to happen, but he simply got up and he preached the word of
God. If you want to write these scriptures down, you can. I'm not going to go to them, but in the moment of this message, he preaches out of Joel chapter 2. He preaches out of Psalms chapter 16 and he preaches out of Psalms chapter 110.
He takes the word of God and he begins to incorporate this in his message. He begins to use the Bible to interpret the moment.
He's speaking here of Joel in verse 16 and instead of making up some response, he points back to the word of God. I'm often reminded that the best sermons we preach don't give new opinions, but they illuminate old truths.
They illuminate something that we've heard of our entire life and I don't want to be someone who gets up here and says something that's going to be catchy or something new.
I want to bring the word of God into a fresh new light in a way that illuminates an old truth that we knew that we just need to be responded and reminded of the greatness of what God's done
for us. He ultimately had the Holy Spirit as his power. He didn't use his own strength. He didn't use his own ability, but he stood up with the Holy Spirit and he was filled with the Holy Spirit in preaching in a mighty way.
How many of you have ever had a power outage in your house? If you've got Wilkes Energy or Duke Power it's probably often and we have to call Mark and we've got to say, Mark, come help me out. I don't know what's going on.
I don't have power and in those moments you go and you open up the cabinet with their flashlights that you haven't used in sometimes two or three months, sometimes two or three weeks and you pull out that flashlight and you go to click the button and more times than not, what happens?
It did. It doesn't work.
There's no power in that flashlight. It's just a piece of plastic with a light bulb with dead batteries that have never been going to be used ever again. And oftentimes when we hear preaching without the Holy Spirit that's what it is.
We go and we open the cabinet and we pull out a flashlight and we click the light and there's nothing there. It's emptiness. It's useless.
It's of none effect and I pray that as I preach and as I look at the Word of God and I examine how these pastors preached in the scriptures that I would never be someone who gets up and is an empty flashlight who never illuminates truth in our life.
The Holy Spirit comes in and He is the one that works in our life in that same way and gives the preaching the matter of what it is. And ultimately we see the other method he has is the conviction of truth.
Peter did not hesitate. He didn't stand up and stutter as often times I do when my kids make fun of me. You know that they do that.
When my mind is moving too fast and I begin to say the same word over and over again my kids know that and they sort of mark it down and they start laughing and they make fun of me a little bit. It's okay.
I make fun of them a lot too. But often times we see Peter and he gets up and he begins to preach with conviction. He begins to preach with certainty. He preached ultimately the truth in love and he never apologized for it.
He didn't get up and say I'm sorry I have to say this. I'm sorry that you're an evil and wicked generation and you're a lawless people. He didn't say I'm sorry. He just simply proclaimed the truth and allowed the spirit to work in their midst.
The Message Peter Preached
So we see the man here and the method and then we'll get to the bulk of the message today which is the message that Peter preached. The message that preached that Peter got up and he ultimately preached a message that had Christ at the center. Peter.
He got up and he said there's only one thing I can preach today and that is Jesus Christ crucified. Peter's sermon wasn't about himself. It wasn't about the things that he was able to do or see in his ministry but it was simply about Jesus and him being lifted high.
Peter's message has to be about Jesus and our message this morning must also be about Jesus.
We begin to see the first point here in verses 17 through 21 we see that prophecy has been fulfilled. He pulls this out of Psalms chapter 16 and he begins to see the prophecy and what is happening before their eyes.
There was a book that I picked up years and years ago and I'm sure you've read it before 1984 by George Orwell. If y'all ever heard that book or read that book.
Carrie's, I'm using her a lot today. She's got another book that she wants me to read that George Orwell wrote. It's Animal Farm and she said it's a great book.
I've got to read it. I've got to pick it up. It's in my Amazon cart
but I'm reminded that in 1984 when he wrote this book about 1984 it was years before that that people now can sometimes open that book and they can begin to read a line and as they're reading that line
they'll sort of look out into the world and they'll see those lines come to life as they're reading it. Has that ever happened?
Maybe you heard a story or you heard a famous historian that was saying something and as they're talking about the world and the way we live and the way things are going to happen the things begin to be
fulfilled right in front of our eyes. Could be scripture as we begin to read the book of Revelation or the book of 1 Thessalonians where it talks about the end times and as we begin to read through this we begin to see them come true right in front of our eyes.
As a parent this can happen sometimes where we'll tell a kid hey if you do that bad things are going to happen.
If you take that fork and you shove it into the light socket you're going to get electrocuted and the kid just sort of like mom doesn't know what they're talking about.
I'm smarter than mom and as you can get those words right out of your mouth the kid just shoves the fork into that's never happened to anyone in here. I think it happened to me a couple of times.
It explains a lot about who I am but that happens and as the mom is saying that all of a sudden the words that she says of harm's going to happen
comes to fruition because prophecy in that moment's fulfilled and we begin to see Peter as he preached this and he talks about how the spirit's going to be poured out and men and women are going to prophesy and
young men are going to dream dreams and old men are going to see visions and he begins to see these things he begins to see the prediction come to pass.
He looks up and he sees in real time as he's quoting Joel then he's quoting the psalmist here he begins to see the prophecy that God has laid out for him in verses 17-21 he continues on in
verses 22-23 and he says that we must be a people who are preaching Christ crucified he reminds them he says listen men listen women of Jerusalem who are standing here who you were here just a couple of
weeks ago and you saw this man Jesus you saw his miracles you saw his power and yet you rejected him you rejected the cornerstone as our young people let us in you rejected the the foundation of our faith
Evidence of Christ's Resurrection
and you rejected this Christ you crucified him you see people we have all the evidence of the world and we have all the things of this world that prove that Christ is there but yet if we do not
believe then we will never understand the truth we must understand that Christ is the one who came to die for our sins to redeem us from our sinful state so that we can live for him now so that one day we will live forever with him
this is ultimately as he is walking through this I love this one part he says though he was delivered up according to God's determined plan and foreknowledge
as I was thinking through that and meditating on that this past week I was thinking about God's perfect plan of our life
how often times if we were to take out a piece of paper and we were to write down what God's plan should be for our life it's different than what God has for us why is it different?
well because often times we're thinking of our own human fleshly experiences and our own human fleshly wants and needs and God looks and he says no I'm going to determine a plan for you that's going to be better
for you it may be harder there may be some valleys that you go through there may be some heartaches that you go through but I'm bringing this to fruition for your good
and this is ultimately what he said with Christ here he said this is God's divine plan he determined this plan he had foreknowledge of this plan and it should encourage us that God is working and God is working everything out and through our life for his sovereign plan
and he's in control over everything you know I'm thankful as I think through that that I'm not in control of everything often times we want to be in control as men we want to be in control of things but I'm thankful that I'm not in control of everything I was sharing with our Sunday school class this morning
that as I was I drive a bus every once in a while from my wife's school and I was driving the activity bus with some kids on there and I went to merge on the 4D and this little SUV was sitting here and it decided that it wasn't going to let me in
and so I'm driving I'm trying to merge onto the interstate I've got this bus and he's just riding here and I had to ride on the median for an X amount of time before I could finally get over
and the kids are like man Pastor James what's going on here I was like I don't know this guy over here wouldn't let me in and it put us behind a little bit and then on the way home
as I was behind a little bit on schedule and I'm trying to make it a birdies game I come up and I see smoke off into the distance
and as I get closer the median was on fire
you see if I'd have had it my way I would have merged over and I would have sped up because I'm in a hurry I'm trying to get back to my son's game I've got all these things going
on but God purposely slowed us down and I don't know how that fire started but it was there and I'm driving a gas bus and if I would have been there when that fire would have started it very
well could have caused the bus to catch on fire I don't know that it would have but we can begin to see that if I was in control
things would have done differently things would have been done differently and ultimately things would have been done in a harmful way and when we understand when God is in control he works these things out for us because Christ
is the one that is in the sovereign example that we have to live as Christ lived as Christ went to the garden as Christ sat there in the garden and he prayed to the Father Father if there's another way for this to be done let this cup to pass from me
you see he was trying to figure out another way and he said but not my will but thine be done
and often times church we must get to the point where we say God it's not what I want done but it's what you need to be done and what you have planned for me to be done and I'm
going to trust that that is the perfect plan for me so not only did he see the prophecy fulfilling not only did he see Christ crucified but he also preached the resurrection as he proclaimed it
he's in verse 24-32 he makes this statement that should encourage us that should give us energy through our day that should help us when times are getting tough he makes this statement death could not hold Jesus he
said you tried to kill him you tried to do these things but it was not possible for him to be held by death in verse 24 he said there is nothing that you can do in this world to
hold Jesus down and now this Christ lives inside of me and lives inside of you if you believe in him this morning and you have that same power living inside of us Psalms 110 is the prophecy that he's
referring to here and he connects this prophecy to David he says that this is not a prophecy about David but this is a prophecy about Jesus the Messiah he's saying that this prophecy could never have been about David
because I live here and I can see the tomb of where David's at if you go to Israel and you go to this land of Jerusalem you will see that it is still called the land of David the
city of David because they love David they care about David they worship David and he's saying listen this is no longer about David this is about Jesus and his resurrection he rose from the grave he lives forever with
us he is there forever making intercession for you and for me because he has been resurrected imagine with me for a moment a courtroom proceeding
there's a new documentary out on OJ I've been watching it and watching how they collect the evidence and how they collect all the different things that are going on and the forensics come in and they piece everything together
and I want you to imagine a courtroom who's laid out all the evidence who's laid out everything that's happened here as Peter gets up and he preaches all of what has happened here with Jesus and then he pulls
out what we refer to in the legal world the smoking gun he pulls out the evidence that defines everything right this is the moment where everything is working up to this moment where now this evidence cannot be refuted it cannot change it is the thing that is going to be
the undeniable proof that this is the fact of what's going to happen
and this is what Peter did he's laid his case out and he gets this moment he says this is the promise the resurrection of Jesus death could not hold him hell could not hold him his flesh would not
decay but yet he is resurrected this is the moment where he captivates their attention and he says this is what has happened
and we began to see as we began to process this that the resurrection is our ultimate salvation it is because of the resurrection that we can stand here today and we can proclaim Christ we can proclaim him as
the one that's been crucified because he rose from the dead we didn't rise from the dead Peter didn't rise from the dead David didn't rise from the dead but only Jesus did and it's his resurrection that provides this moment for us to come to know him as our Lord
and then he begins to end this moment here in verses 33 through 36 where he talks about the exalted king
he talks about how they once had a king they loved they once had a king his name was David and he was their greatest king and they worship David and they love David and they care about David as I said they named the city after him it's called the city of David
and he said still there's one greater than David he said some of you are still stuck on David some of you are still consumed with David some of you are still consumed with the things that he did and yet he wasn't perfect he said this is
Decision to Follow Jesus
Jesus who is risen and now is ruling he declares to them in this statement God has made Jesus the one you crucified both Lord and Messiah
he brings this point home and he says there is this decision that we must make today he gives this decision to the people that are there who are you worshipping this morning who is the one that is the
ruler of your life the one that is the one that is going to define everything about you you see it's not just enough to know that Jesus rose from the dead but we must determine is he the Lord
of my life is he the one that's dictating everything in my life is he the one that's directing my path is he the one that's guiding me and making my decisions for me am I going to him and
saying God do you want me to go here God do you want me to do this God is this the plan that you have for me
reminded of a couple years ago a young lady who was at a youth camp and the pastor was getting up and he was speaking about how she had this whole hopes and dreams to go to UNC Chapel Hill
that was her goal to go there and she was going to become a doctor and she wanted to get this education and she came to him and she said she said pastor I'm
ready to go I've got this acceptance letter this is my dreams are coming true and he said in my spirit I felt that I just need to ask her one question so I looked at her and I said is this where God wants you to go
she just got quiet and she began to look at him and he said are you a believer she said yeah I love Jesus I became a Christian when I was at this age he said how many times have you prayed about this decision
she bowed her head and she began to look at him and she said you know this has always been my dream to go here but as you asked me that I can't think of one moment where I ever prayed Lord is this where you want me to go and I'm often reminded
how often is it that we have our own dreams our own plans
and those things come true but we never say God is this what you want me to do God is this the plan that you have for me is this the the design that you've laid out for my life
is this what you want me to do and the real question we have to ask ourself is he really Lord of our life or are we the only Lord of our life and we're not trusting in what he has for us
Closing Illustration and Response
as Terry comes I want us to to process one closing illustration!
Ultimately it's the power of response and what it means and looks like when we respond to the preaching of the word of God God in 1973 a man named Roe Burton was attending a revival service in a small
church up in Kentucky he had grown up in church but he had never surrendered to Christ that night the preacher gave a clear explanation of the gospel and just like Peter did just as I did here today and
Burton felt the weight of this conviction but he hesitated his hands gripped the pew in front of him he was wrestling with the decision and finally he let go and he walked down the aisle he gave his life
to Jesus and that one decision didn't just change his eternity but it changed his entire family later as he gives us a recount he said my children and my grandchildren all came to faith because of that one night
that I surrendered to Jesus he said my entire family was on their way to hell he said we were nowhere near church and Jesus was nowhere near the center of our life but that one sermon that one night
that one decision transformed a generation of people not only his kids but his grandkids and he said I can't wait for the day that I get to see those great grandchildren who get to be brought to church who
get to be brought into the hearing of the gospel because of one sermon and one decision that I made and now generations are transformed you may be sitting here today and you're thinking you know that was a grandparent
in my life that made that decision a father in my life that made that decision and that's why I'm here today because he brought me or my grandparents brought me or my great grandparents brought me and we see
that these decisions that we make change our lives for eternity would not that be
an eternal decision that we make not just physical decisions that change our life for eternity but a spiritual decision that is going to change the course of our life on that day Peter preached at Pentecost and 3,000
people responded oh man this is this is something as I've got a buddy of mine right now John who's down in New Orleans and he's handing out tracts and he's preaching in open air preaching style and he texted
me this morning he said we've had some great conversations James he said as crazy as it is down here man the Lord is working and doing some things and people are coming and they're talking and they're asking us questions he said it's great
but as a pastor man 3,000 people coming to know Christ at one time they didn't delay they didn't look at each other and say you know I think we should have a committee meeting about this is this
really is Peter right no they just agreed and they didn't argue and they simply asked Peter what I'm saved they repented and they were baptized and they obeyed
as I began to process some challenges for us today I want us to ask us three things what will you do with the message that you've heard
the people in Acts 2 had a great choice they could either ignore the truth and reject it or they could respond to it
will you respond to the Lord today or will you walk away unchanged will you allow us to continue to do the things we've always done are we going to say God I'm ready for a change in my life
ultimately is Jesus Lord of your life has there been a moment where you've accepted him into your life and you've declared him as Lord and as King
and ultimately Peter got up and he preached Peter preached a message here that has changed the course of humanity we sit here today because of what Peter did 2000 years ago!
Call to Share the Gospel
whose life has been changed in here that needs to tell someone else about this message so that their life can too be changed the early church just didn't receive the gospel and say you know what we're going to
hold on to it and put it in this building over here and write it down and no one's ever going to hear about it or see it no they went out and they told everyone they could come in
contact with about what Christ had done for them because their heart and their life was changed who in here today needs to go out and tell someone ultimately Peter preached the people responded and lives were changed forever
but this is just in history this too can happen for us and this opportunity is here before us today what are we going to do with this Jesus that has been proclaimed to us this morning father we love you lord we thank you for
what you've done lord you are so good to us
i'm reflecting in my mind even right now as from sunday school to even this morning's message of the goodness that you've given us the mercy that you've shown us the compassion that you've laid out in our lives
lord help us not to just hold on to that ourselves but to share that and to tell other people what you've done for us maybe there's one here that's never accepted you and today would be the day they
come to trust you lord i know we've got some sickness and i pray that you would work in those midst but i pray lord that you would just have your will and way in what's done and said in
your name we pray thank you again for taking your time to listen to the sermon audio please subscribe to get our latest sermons each week
Auto-generated transcript · 7,941 words. May contain errors. Select a timestamp to play from that moment.
More from The Book of Acts
View all
The Book of Acts - Sermon 41
The Book of Acts - Sermon 40
The Book of Acts - Sermon 39
The Book of Acts - Sermon 38
The Book of Acts - Sermon 37
The Book of Acts - Sermon 36
Listen to this sermon