Study in theActs of theApostles

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Apostolic Preaching

Chapter 2:14-41Presentation 04

Apostolic PreachingChap 2:14-41

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IntroductionWhat kind of message should the church proclaim? Some, who have chosen to amputate what they term an ‘old fashioned gospel’ and in their eagerness to attract a disinterested world, have left themselves with nothing of substance to proclaim. John Stott writes:“We have no liberty to amputate this apostolic gospel, by proclaiming the cross without the resurrection, or referring to the New Testament but not the Old, or offering forgiveness without the Spirit, or demanding faith without repentance. There is a wholeness about the Biblical gospel”.

What then can we learn from Peter’s first evangelistic message?

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It Was Christ-CentredFirst, his message is Christ-centred with a particular focus upon Jesus’ death and resurrection. As a child, I was puzzled by a sign placed in the building site of a new church it read, ‘We preach Christ Crucified.’ I later discovered it was a quotation from 1Cor.1v23, but, at the time, I thought it strange that the church should want to identify itself in this way. But they were saying, “The cross of Christ forms the heart of the gospel, which we preach, and without it we have no real hope to offer to men and women”.

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It Was Christ-CentredWe rightly marvel at Jesus’ teaching and are enthralled by his miracles but these things, without the cross, provide no message of hope. This is why, in v23, Peter indicates that the death of Jesus was not a terrible disaster, or a glorious martyrdom, nor was it evil outmanoeuvring God.

The cross was God’s rescue plan for man’s salvation - the means of securing our forgiveness and satisfying his justice and opening up a route for man into heaven. A holy God could not wink at sin and remain holy. Therefore the transaction that took place upon the cross forms the very core of the gospel.

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It Was Christ-CentredIn Peter’s day an elixir of life could not be purchased in the market place, though many wished that it were available. Death was a dark overlord from whom escape was impossible. Imagine then how news of a resurrection would have gripped his hearer’s attention!

But more than that, Jesus moral perfection equipped him, as his people’s champion, to destroy death from the inside. He broke the grip of death and opened up the way to God cfv24. And the resurrection demonstrated beyond all doubt that Jesus had done all that was required for man’s salvation and that God’s justice had been completely satisfied.

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Two Gospel WitnessesNow hearing this for the first time, people might be tempted to think, “This is a nice story. If only it were true then it would be good news indeed”. And so the second element is Peter’s sermon is that of verification. The apostles never proclaimed the gospel in a vacuum. It was presented in the twofold context of Scriptural fulfilment and historical fact. Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection are a part of the biblical package of promise and fulfilment! This explains why Peter first appeals to Ps 16, Ps 110, Joel 2.

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Two Gospel WitnessesSecondly, we have eyewitness testimony. Note Peter’s use of the expression, ‘We are witnesses to these things’ 2v32, 3v15, 5v32, 10v39ff. The apostle John is equally conscious of the importance of eyewitness testimony. His first epistle begins;“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched -- this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ”. 1Jn 1v1-3

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Two Gospel WitnessesAn old divine wrote, ‘The Spirit of God rides most triumphantly in his own chariot.’ By that he meant that the Holy Spirit, who inspired scripture, is most active when its message is preached. Can you imagine a Formula 1 racing driver rejecting his highly tuned custom built machine for an old banger which a scrap dealer had cobbled together? Yet this is precisely what we do when we seek to dispense with biblical preaching

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Two Gospel WitnessesIn a recent radio broadcast, a speaker argued that the period known as “the dark ages” had been misnamed for during it there had been considerable progress and invention. But he missed something of considerable importance. The dark ages were ‘dark’ because the light of God’s word no longer shaped society. With the advent of the Reformation, came a resurgence of Biblical preaching. When Luther was asked to explain the remarkable transformation taking place all over Europe he replied: ‘I simply taught preached and wrote God’s Word. I did nothing... The Word did it all.’

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The Promises Of The GospelYou may be asking, “How does all this benefit me?” Peter’s sermon also answers this question. Not only does he proclaim the good news of what Jesus did but highlights the personal benefits that this gospel brings v38b.

The burden of guilt is, for many people, unbearable, nothing they do seems to lift it. Many people try to live a good life, a religious life in the hope of removing this burden but the Harder they try the more the load of guilt seems to crush them in the dust.

Others try to get rid of their burden by great works of community service but the guilt remains super-glued to their shoulders.

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The Promises Of The GospelThe message of the cross offers to lift that burden to completely remove it. But the gospel offers more than that it offers to remove any future guilt as we confess our sin. But the gospel offers even more than that, it offers the gift of God’s indwelling Spirit to impart new life, and make us new people.

The Christian is able to look back upon his life and say, ‘I am a new creation, I am not the man I once was’.

Some may be thinking;‘I can understand why other people get excited about this message but I can’t get excited because it doesn’t seem to work for me.’

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The Gospel Requires A ResponseThis need not be the case! One further dimension of apostolic preaching requires to be highlighted - the gospel demands a personal response. Jesus does not impose his gifts of forgiveness and the indwelling of his Spirit upon us automatically and unconditionally. Peter challenges those who hear the gospel message to a twofold response; ‘faith and repentance.’

Real saving faith and repentance cannot be separated from each other. Those who responded positively to Peter’s message are called ‘believers’ in v44 and the genuineness of their faith is evidenced in the fact that they reached out to Christ alone to deliver them.

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The Gospel Requires A ResponseOne of the great tragedies in the church is that many who say they believe are describing no more than an ‘intellectual assent’ or an ‘emotional response’ to the gospel. They believe, who Jesus was and why he came. They can even be deeply emotionally moved at a communion service but it all stops there.

That kind of belief is not difficult. It’s possible to hold it with the minimal of disruption to ones life.

It’s an easy believism, which involves no heart-commitment. This faith is a stranger to repentance and therefore can’t be considered as saving faith.

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The Gospel Requires A ResponseWhat then is the repentance to which ‘saving faith’ is indissolubly linked? The word ‘repent’, has nothing to do with feeling or even with remorse but it does describe the changing of one’s mind; the way in which we think about things, the direction we travel. It describes our abdication from the throne of our heart and the coronation of Christ as king and our submission to his rule. It reveals a willingness to turn our back upon all that God indicates is wrong in our lives.

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The Gospel Requires A ResponseNow such saving faith which is linked to repentance is light years from easy believism!

It is clear that if my belief in Christ has not radically changed my life, my value system, my goals and aspirations, my appetite for God, my love of his Word, my enjoyment of fellowship with his people, my attitude to sin, my relationship with others, then my belief is not saving faith.

For all of these are an evidence of the activity of God in our lives making us a new creation!

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The Gospel Requires A ResponsePeter calls upon these first generation believers not only to , ‘repent’ but to be ‘baptised.’ Baptism becomes an outward symbol and demonstration of the inward faith and repentance that has operated in these people’s hearts.

In the community of faith circumcision is replaced with baptism. The Old Covenant symbol is replaced by a New Covenant symbol not least because the New Covenant does infinitely more than the Old Covenant was able to do for believing men and women.

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ConclusionAre you convinced of the significance of Jesus sacrificial death upon the cross but know nothing of the heart rest and refreshment promised here? Perhaps you are held back thinking, ‘I could never live like that, I am not capable of being the kind of person God wants me to be’. God knows that! He does not ask you, if you are capable of changing yourself. What God does ask, and it is vitally important to grasp this is; ‘Are you willing to let me change you?’ When we give an unqualified ‘yes’ to that question then we have begun to move out of darkness and into light!

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