212 - Turn, Turn, Turn! (7 Sept 2024)

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages.

Welcome to More Than Ink. So thousands of people are assembled outside and Peter has just told them that they killed God's Messiah. Well, what would you do if you were just convinced that you had become the enemy of God?

You'd be sure that the wrath of God is on you, but there is hope and we'll hear why today on More Than Ink. Well, good morning. This is Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we are so delighted again. We say that every time, but we actually are. We always are.

Yeah, and we sit here at our dining room table, literally. We're looking outside at a wonderful summer day, a waning summer day. Things are changing on the calendar. Yeah, it feels like the season is changing.

Yeah, we can feel it happening. But what we're doing right now is we're reading through the book of Acts, which we are both very excited about. We're at the very beginning of the book.

And so last time, why don't you just remind us where we came from last time. Well, we stopped actually just right toward the end of Peter's first sermon. Right. Right. The Pentecost sermon.

He had through that sermon emphasized this Jesus, this Jesus, this Jesus. Right. He's the one that God sent, but you crucified. You crucified. Right.

And so the very last sentence in that sermon before we get their response is verse 36 of this chapter, chapter 2. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. So there's no mistaken identity going on here.

No. We're talking about Jesus. He's clearly identified Messiah and clearly identified it as being their activity that crucified him. And this is relatively recent in their memory. This was seven weeks ago.

Yeah, just a few weeks. There was a big hoo-ha, if you want to say that, about the crucifixion of Jesus. And then the post-crucifixion appearances, resurrection. And according to the Apostle Paul, sometimes to as many as it gathered 500 people at a time. So for the last seven weeks or so, Jesus has been making appearances after the crucifixion. And now we're back for another celebration, which is Pentecost, which is seven weeks later. And then amazing things happen with the apostles as the Holy Spirit comes. So Peter's done this talk. There's huge crowds at Pentecost. And they have heard the glory of God being spoken in their own native tongues.

Right. And this is a very big deal. Now, we stopped at what Peter's presentation was, his proclamation in front of all those people, but we stopped short of hearing what their response was.

So today, how do they respond to this remarkable presentation? He had just said, right, you crucified him. You crucified him. God has done this, but you crucified him.

So we have both the sovereign action of God and human responsibility. Right. Now, before we look at it, there is an equal chance that in Peter's mind, he might think, well, they crucified Jesus. That's right. So if I come out here and just say boldly right to their faces that you crucified him and he was the Messiah, he is the Messiah, it's likely he could have a riot on his hands.

There's hundreds, maybe thousands of people assembled. That is a testament to the power of this Holy Spirit who had come to give Peter this kind of boldness. Exactly. To speak this way to this audience on this day.

Right. So in dramatic terms, we're at this turning point. Will they react angrily and have a riot and crucify and arrest Peter and John and all the rest of the guys? Or how are they going to receive this incredibly condemning statement about their guilt and all this? Oh, we better get on to it.

Let's find out. So we're in chapter 2, verse 37. Let's see what their response is to such a remarkable statement. When they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? Now that's a good response. Well, it is. And it's interesting to me, and I've really never picked up on it before, that their response begins with brothers, right? They recognize Peter and all these other witnesses here as fellow Jews who are proclaiming Messiah.

Brothers, what shall we do? The truth of the thing has just sunk in. Yeah.

Yeah. But they were cut to the heart. I mean, it's a great statement about just how piercing the truth has come into their heart about what he said. They don't argue with them. They just say, okay, we see our guilt, but what are we supposed to do? Right. We're guilty and we don't see a way out. Right. And you have to understand the magnitude of the guilt here because they're saying in one fell swoop here, they're saying that they recognize that Jesus is indeed God's promised Messiah and that they killed God's promised Messiah.

So not only did they miss who he was, but they killed him. So how are you supposed to get back from that? How are you supposed to do anything to come back in God's favor when you do something that egregious? And that's what they're crying out for.

What are we supposed to do? And so here's Peter's response, which really is the same response to all of us. And Peter said in verse 38 to them, 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 for the promises for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord God calls to himself. Wow.

Okay. Now imagine the shock. They're the ones that have killed God's Messiah, but then Peter says, but there's promise that is aimed toward you. There's a promise. I mean, look on the upside. This is more than an upside. This is a remarkable turnabout for them.

Not just you, but your children and your children's children. Yeah. And they're thinking, how do we avoid the condemnation and wrath of God? And instead of that, he goes far beyond that and says, there's a promise that's been laid for you.

What? Well, the promise is that God had said, I will pour out my Holy Spirit, right? He is available to you. I will pour him out freely. And right before me, I have Isaiah 44 three open, which is a real clear statement that says, for I will pour out water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants. So there's a promise right there, a promise of that pouring out his spirit.

Yes. And they always believed that was coming. But can you participate in that promise if you kill God's Messiah?

I mean, it is such an egregious problem. But interestingly enough, the centerpiece of this entire thing that he tells them what to do starts with the word repent. And we need to spend a little bit of time on that because most of us just think, well, that's what you're supposed to do when someone catches you sinning, something like that. But what's the true nature of repentance?

Why is it up front? And by the way, it was the up front central word when John the Baptist started his ministry. That's right. And when Jesus started his ministry. In fact, in Matthew 3 two, John the Baptist says, repent the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

And then just a chapter later, Matthew 4 17, from that time, Jesus began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. So what is so important about repentance? What is repentance? Let's just stop and dwell on that for a second.

Okay, what is repentance? I'll just ask you. Wait, I asked you first.

You have notes in front of you and I don't. Well, I mean, it's a fascinating word for me. I mean, it's one of my favorite words to dwell on and think about. It comes from this Greek word called metanoia. And metanoia means to change your mind. And it really, it has strongly implied that you're turning from one direction to another direction.

And the meta means alongside something has caused you to do this, the noia is mine. So suddenly you've gotten to this point where something has challenged you to say, wait, I have to think another way. I've made a mistake about where I was.

I have to turn and go in another direction. So repentance is actually turning away from something and towards something. Well, the towards something is turning toward God. But what do you turn away from? Is it idol worship?

Not necessarily. It's not turning from worshiping one God to another. It's turning from your lifestyle of sin, your independence from God, and then turning toward God.

So repentance isn't just saying what I've done wrong. It's saying it's time to do a massive change. A massive turn. A massive turn. And I was thinking about how the equivalent Hebrew word, shub, is very often translated, return. Return, yeah.

Right? Stop the direction you're going. Turn around and go back to your point of departure. So it strongly states that wherever you're at right now, you're thinking wrong. You're going the wrong direction. Your mind is wrong. You don't have it right.

You just don't have it right. And, of course, they could say that because, well, yeah, I guess we misjudged Jesus, so we've got to turn away from that. So in a sense, they're right on the edge of an actual turn because they've recognized that, uh-oh, we have been on a wrong course.

How do we fix it? Right. And I like to tell people what he's saying to them is they're wrong-headed. I mean, that's literally what metanoia means. You're wrong-headed. You're aimed the wrong way.

John the Baptist and Jesus both said you're wrong-headed. You're thinking wrong. You're not getting it.

You're just not getting it. So nothing's going to wake them up and tell them that they're wrong-headed than the fact that, believe it or not, you just killed God's Messiah. Well, I guess we were wrong-headed before then. So what do we do? So what do we do? So he says, repent. You've got to turn. You've got to change.

We're talking about a massive paradigm shift in your entire life. Because the good news is they crucified him, but he didn't stay dead. He is resurrected. Right. Right. And Master Peter's going to go on to say, all of this that you're seeing is evidence of the resurrected Christ.

We've seen him. Yeah. So you need to repent and be baptized. The baptized is the outward demonstration symbolically of your change. Right.

And so it's a really big deal. In fact, at the time, the Jews, when they would have converts from the Gentile community come in, those Gentiles would go through a kind of baptism to become Jews. But Jews themselves never really baptized.

They had ceremonial washings. But nothing like this, a ceremony that signified a turning away from an old life toward a new life. Until John the Baptist.

Until John the Baptist. Yeah. So this is unusual for them as Orthodox Jews to hear Jesus, or to hear Peter saying, you need to go through a baptism to signify a remarkable and massive change in direction in your life. It's an outward statement of a turn that you are making internally.

Yes. So when I talk to people, I've been challenged by people saying, well, you've got kind of an easy religion. All you have to do is say, yes, I believe Jesus. And then, boom, you say the prayer and everything's fine. That's really not it at all. Because what he's talking about here is a massive change in life. It's more akin, and this is a weak version of it, of someone, for instance, who goes on a diet. And they realize that in order to lose the weight that they want to lose, they can't just pick and choose when they eat and when they don't eat. They have to go through a massive foundational change in their entire eating habits.

Life must change, or that diet's not going to work. So that's a weak version of this. But this is it. This is like, we've got to start over. We're wrong-headed about how we got here.

We've got to start over. So really, the gospel message is one of agreeing with God about our current status, about being wrong-headed, about the sin that results from our wrong-headedness, and abandoning that and then throwing out our hands to God and saying, God, you need to change me because I've dug a rut here that I can't get out of myself. And sure enough, that's what God does through Jesus for us.

So it's a massive change in life, massive change in direction that you appeal to God for. Because he says, look, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ. And we've said that name before. The name means the reputation and character and everything about who Jesus is.

Who is he? His power and authority. So still, even though you're the one who's going to be repenting and being baptized, it's not your power, it's his power that's going to be lost. So if you are baptized means to be plunged into, plunged into the name of Jesus Christ, plunged into the identity of the one who God sent to save, the anointed one, for forgiveness of sin. For forgiveness of sin. Not for your paying for your own sins, but for God's free gift of forgiveness that comes because of the sacrifice of Jesus. Right, right. The forgiveness comes not because you are sincere, but because Jesus has paid the price. Yeah.

Yeah. So in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins. And then as a bonus, which they never, ever would have expected, okay, my problem right now is forgiving me because, gosh, I've killed God's Messiah. But then there's a promise after that that you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. I mean that, again, that is something that happened a few times in the Old Testament, but not in a way of pouring out upon many people. But he's saying right here, he has forgiven you, and I'll tell you, you killed God's Messiah and he's forgiven you and he's going to give you a spirit.

What? The free gift. It's a remarkable plus that they just never expected. It's not anything you earned, not anything you deserve, but it's what God gives freely because he's promised it out of his own goodness. Because he's promised it. Yeah, and you already mentioned some of the passages, and we touched on Joel 2 last time, too. So it is a promise, and it's a promise that this is what grace is all about.

Not only are you forgiven from the negatives of your past about the sin that you've done, but there's this gigantic positive of now you find union with God with his Spirit in you. Who would have guessed that? I mean, surely they didn't, but that's what's going on right here. But they should have.

They should have. Because all through the Old Testament, God had said, I want to dwell with you. I want to dwell with you.

I want to do life with you in your midst. Well, and for an Orthodox Jew, that made sense because after all, we were God's people and we're very righteous. But now Peter, through the Holy Spirit, has convinced us that we've just acted as the enemies of God himself.

How is this possible when we are his enemies? I mean, we're condemned to that and we see that. Well, that's the amazing thing about God's forgiveness of sin. It's not just a letting go of that sin. It's actually saying, and now we can talk about the good things I want to give to you because of the utter magnitude of my grace. That's my presence with you in the Holy Spirit.

Okay, there's something else amazing here. You're going to say the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. So there's just this little kernel and idea here. This is not just for the Jews. And not just for the people assembled right there listening. And Peter's own understanding of this is not really going to come to full flowering for several chapters in Acts, right?

But here's the beginning of it. This is for everyone whom God calls to himself. Oh, so it's God who's doing the calling. God's doing the calling. God's doing the forgiving through what Christ has done for us. God's the one who's the active agent in all of this.

It's not about us. So see, if Peter was dealing with false religion, he probably would have gone to say, okay, I'll tell you what you've got to do. You've got to go home and you've got to do this, you've got to do this. You've got to go do these sacrifices.

You've got to tie this. And he would have given them a religious list. Right, give them a list. And he does not give them a religious list at all. He says you need to completely turn your life in an opposite direction toward God. God will then, through the power of what Christ has done, forgive you. He'll take care of the problem of you being my enemy.

He'll take care of that. And on top of that, he'll promise to you what he's promised to the Old Testament, that his Spirit would be with you and in you, even though you have demonstrated in the last two months that you are the enemies of God. That's astonishing. That just sets me thinking when he talks about baptism, about being plunged into the name of Jesus and identified with him. You know, just those seven weeks before, on the night before he was crucified, Jesus had said to them in that upper room, in that day when the Spirit comes, you're going to know that I'm in you and you're in me. So they're still figuring out the reality of that.

How does that work? That's astonishing. We maybe need to spend some more time on that on another occasion. Jesus, this is a promise that is for everyone whom God is calling to himself. So you came in this square today and I told you you're God's enemy and now I'm telling you he's forgiven you through the very one that you killed.

If you turn from the direction you're going, the invitation is open. If you turn, it has nothing to do with your worthiness because we've already proven you're God's enemy. So the worth issue is gone right here. But God's the one who does the saving through what Christ has done. And then we wish we could have known more about what he said because in verse 40 it says, and with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation.

So there was more he said that we don't have recorded right here. But we've got the essentials. We have what's important up to verse 39.

Yeah, but it's interesting. We know we can't save ourselves. So when he says save yourselves from this crooked generation, that's what he's calling them to turn from.

That's to turn from. That idea of this generation. We sometimes get mixed up about how that word is used in the Scriptures. It's a much more fluid idea than when we say just generations. We're talking about a group of people who share a common characteristic, who come from a common source. And that idea of a crooked, twisted generation, actually the first place I found it is way back in Deuteronomy 32 where Moses is talking about the rock, his work is perfect for all his ways are just a God of faithfulness and without injustice, righteous and upright is he, but they have acted corruptly toward him.

They're not his children because of their defect. They are a perverse and crooked generation. Instead of moving toward God, they twist and go another direction.

Right, right. So part of their turning away is turning away from the influence of this crooked generation who, by the way, that turns from God. Right, who clearly have changed God's intention for his people. I mean the Pharisees and the Sadducees and those guys, they eventually said we earn God's pleasure by what we do for him.

And yet how many times in the Old Testament does he say, well, sacrifice is not what I'm looking for. I'm looking for a broken and contrite heart. Or what about circumcision? Okay, so you're circumcised. How about your heart?

Is your heart circumcised? So there's heart issues that we come back to over and over again that these guys at the time of Jesus have completely missed. So Peter's saying you need to separate from those people who influence you toward that news, that religion, because that's not where things are at. So save yourselves from this crooked generation and their influence. So then in 41, so those who received the word were baptized.

How many? Well, there was added that day about 3,000 souls. It's interesting. It doesn't say everybody who heard the word. No, no, but there was 3,000. Those who received the word who were pierced to heart and what Peter had said found a home in them.

Yeah, exactly. So according to verse 39, God called them and they heard and they accepted. And then they demonstrated that change in life through their baptism. So the church went from 120 people to 3,120 people in a heartbeat. In one sermon.

Yeah, so it's really kind of cool. But if anyone ever asks you what do I need to be saved? I come back to what Peter says right here in chapter 2.

I mean it's just very, very clear. It's an issue of saying I'm throwing my hands up to God and I'm going with the program from Joel to all those who call upon the name of the Lord who will be saved. And so are you willing to turn from everything in your old life away from that and to God, okay, then trust God that he'll take care of the issue of how it goes forward from this point. And the way God takes care of the issue is through this Jesus. Through this Jesus.

The Christ, the anointed one who died for you. Yeah. Well, let's move on. 42. We barely have time to read it. We suddenly get a snapshot of the early church.

I'll go ahead and read it for us. So we're in 42 of chapter 2. Oh, who's adding to the number? The people were. The Lord is. The Lord was.

Exactly, the Lord was. So here you have this beautiful picture of this instant community that didn't exist before this moment. Well, and it's a very authentically revived community, authentically made new. Yeah.

Right? And they were promoting themselves too. They were giving diligent attention and their time to the teaching of the apostles, right? Very important.

So that we understand correctly the word that we've always sort of known, but the apostles were amplifying it according to the instruction of Jesus. That's part of the turning from and turning to. Right.

I was wrong-headed. So how were they changing that? And then to fellowship. They were being together. They were participating with one another. And to breaking the bread. Now that could be just they were eating their meals together, but that's also the expression that was used of sharing the Lord's Supper. Right. Reenacting that moment when Jesus said, Now this is my body broken for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. So, you know, this is both evidence of a new birth, because they're doing all these things, and these things are a means of growth in your new birth. Yes, yes. And, you know, it's a kept and obvious observation here, but the creation of this community is solely due to the fact of what God has done in their lives. That's right. And the Holy Spirit. It's not doing anything else. And the presence of the Holy Spirit working with it.

Right. And, you know, I always use this comparing the present day church, and I ask people, so how involved are you with the people in your church? Do you share life together, or do you just like attend on a Sunday morning and come, do your few things go? I mean, is there really a shared life here?

Are there, how involved are you with the other people there? And, you know, one of our arguments when we came around to COVID was the fact that, you know, people stayed away, and they said, well, I can get what I need, you know, through an internet connection. Right. I can watch the preacher and stuff like that. But you can't do this. Right.

You can't do this. You can't participate in someone else's life. Yeah, so sharing life together is part and parcel, and the heart, the very heart of the natural community that comes when the Holy Spirit indwells all these people. And look at how prominent their giving was, right, that says that they had all things in common, and they were selling their possessions and distributing as any had need. Now, that's not a prescription that that's the way the church must live. Right. It is a description, a description of what happened to them, right? So this is not being imposed by any church government.

No, no. They were simply devoting themselves to the teachings of God, and the Spirit was acting in them, and they were participating with one another, and the fruit was generosity. Yeah, it's totally voluntary, and you could speculate it's probably somewhat temporary in terms of the magnitude of how much is going on.

Perhaps. But they saw in their community, they saw people who had need, and those who had resources to meet that need said, well, I can do that, and so they met that need. So it's a wonderful picture of community breaking bread together, fellowshipping, I mean, just in short, sharing life together as the Holy Spirit brings us together, which is why when I talk about church from a New Testament perspective, the church isn't an organization.

It acts more like an organism. Yeah, when you see this, because it's just so natural what people do when they are all inhabited by the Holy Spirit. Yeah, remarkable stuff. Well, we're going to continue this look.

We need to. At the reaction to this. It is fascinating, because in this one brief section, you would think that they would go from conviction of being called the enemies of God, and now we're seeing this, this wonderful, this wonderful instant community that had such an impact in the area that it had favor on all the people. Just a fascinating thing, and that's the light that's on the hill that God wants to shine who He is through us in the community that is the collection of believers of Christ. So I'm Jim.

And I'm Dorothy. And we're glad you're with us. We're going to come back and look even more closely at this new community that spawned from this Pentecost presentation. You'll hear it next time here on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself, and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. Bingo! Oh, there we go.