The Church Begins

The next two Sundays we are going to look at two messages that Peter preached. One message takes place right after the upper room experience. We will look at that one in a second. The second message took place a few days later after Peter and John ministered to the beggar at gate beautiful. Both messages were delivered to large crowds and both messages were delivered to Israelites.

Peter used language that was both compassionate and convicting. He told the audiences on both occasions that the results that had taken place, the Pentecost outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the miraculous healing of the crippled man at Gate Beautiful, were both results of the ministry of Jesus, the one they had crucified.

In the first message Peter delivers, the crowd is so moved they ask, “what shall we do?” And Peter answers them by saying, “Repent and be baptized.” In the second message, Peter did not have a moment to tell them what the next step was because they were arrested. In both instances the crowds were paying close attention. It doesn’t tell us that, but the results speak volumes.

In each message that Peter delivers in Acts two and Acts three, the people are so moved by his words, they are under such great conviction they respond by becoming believers that day. And if you will notice the numbers became larger with each message preached, 3000 on the first message and 5000 on the second message.

There was a boldness that followed Peter like no other. This was not the same person that denied he even knew Jesus before. Look at the first message in Acts 2.

Acts 2:14–41 NIV

14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 “ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’ 22 “Fellow Israelites, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know. 23 This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. 25 David said about him: “ ‘I saw the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken. 26 Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest in hope, 27 because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, you will not let your holy one see decay. 28 You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.’ 29 “Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. 30 But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. 31 Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. 32 God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. 33 Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. 34 For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand 35 until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.” ’ 36 “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.” 37 When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 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. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.” 40 With many other words he warned them; and he pleaded with them, “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.” 41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.

Notice, through the power of the Holy Spirit, Peter did not talk about the Holy Spirit, he did not talk about the experience that just took place, but Peter’s message was about Jesus, the one who sent the Holy Spirit. We have the Holy Spirit available to us today to give us the boldness that we need to point people to Jesus.

The Holy Spirit’s job is to give you the power you need to be the witness that God has called you to become. Peter preached Jesus with conviction. He was now telling the people that they were the ones that killed Jesus who was the Messiah the person they had been looking for all these years.

Peter was telling them they had the person that David talked about years ago. Peter uses the words of David because the Jewish people respected David. They thought David hung the moon. They believed that David was the greatest king they had ever had and rightly so. So, Peter uses David’s words to show them that Jesus was the one that David spoke about. Everything that Peter preached that day was done through the power of the Holy Spirit. You can have a power like no other if you will allow the Holy Spirit to work through you.

After Peter finishes his sermon, the people are so moved that they asked him, “Brothers, what shall we do?”

There was such a convicting power of the Holy Spirit that day that there was an immediate response from those that were present. There was no invitation nor did Peter have to beg for people to come. They simply cried out, “what must we do?”

There was a deep sense of guilt. They now realized that the Jesus whom they had slain was God’s beloved Son.

So, on this day, just days after they all cried out Crucify Him, they are now repented of their sins. They are now asking God to forgive them. And you know what, in God’s infinite mercy, He looked down upon those people and forgave them of their sins.

Peter gives them a three step process towards repentance.

1. Repent

First they had to repent. They had to acknowledge they were guilty.

2. Be Baptized

Peter is talking about water baptism here. Some people think this verse is teaching about salvation by baptism and some insist that this is precisely what it does mean. However, there are many other places in the New Testament where people are assured of their salvation without baptism. Salvation is said to be by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

John 6:47 NIV

47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life.

Acts 16:31 NIV

31 They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”

Romans 10:9 NIV

9 If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Also, if you remember the thief on the cross. Jesus told him that today you will be with me in paradise. The thief didn’t have time to be baptized because he was on the cross and died there.

Baptism is an outward sign to everyone that we have confessed our sins to Jesus and we have made Him our Lord and Savior.

So, yes you should be baptized to declare to everyone that you have been saved, but you do not have to be baptized for salvation.

What an amazing day this was? Any evangelist or preacher would be excited to see that many conversions that day. There were 3,000 that repented and were baptized that day. And so the church of Jesus Christ will begin. It was through the power of the Holy Spirit that Peter preached a conviction of sins and 3000 new converts were added.

Can you image the organization nightmare that started that day? This congregation went from 120 to 3120 in a many of a few hours. This congregation had to get organized quick. In Acts 2:42 we can see the development of the early church and how they acted. Look at verse 42.

Acts 2:42–47 NIV

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

It is in this passage that we see the Holy Spirit begin to explain the process of how to move from a temple model to a church model. The people had only gone to the temple to worship. Now, they were starting to do something new. Since the veil had been torn in two, the presence of God was unleashed and available to all who believe. It was on Pentecost where those who believed in Jesus became the place where heaven and earth met.

It is through this passage that we begin to see the five functions of the church come alive and the church begins a process of seeing trillions of people become followers of Christ. Those five functions of the church are evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, ministry, and worship. These are the functions of the Spirit-empowered church.

The church is to use these functions and put into place a biblical, comprehensive, and strategic plan that requires the empowerment of the Spirit to produce spiritual fruit in the lives of people.

The words used for the five functions are nouns, but because this is a process more than a destination, I want to convert these words to verbs for you. What this does is it places the functions into action steps. So, converting evangelism, discipleship, fellowship, ministry and worship into verbs is like this.

Connect: fellowship and evangelism Grow: discipleship Serve: ministry gifts, outreach, building up the body, caring for the community Go: discipleship, evangelism, missions Worship: corporate praise, prayer, teaching and singing

For the next few moments, I want to break down each of these so you get a better understanding of them.

1. Connect

This focuses on the vertical and horizontal relationships in life. It begins with the process of salvation and continues through building spiritually strong relationships. Vertical relationship focuses on the process that connects people to God in all aspects of life. Horizontal relationship creates an atmosphere for relationship building person-to-person. Horizontal relationships consist of connections in every facet of life: family, church, local community, and global community.

I believe it is so important for us to make connections, that I believe this is the direction that God wants us to go in in renaming our church. We will vote next week in renaming our church Connect church. We want to be about connecting people to God. We want this to be ingrained in everything that we do. We want to connect people to God through every aspect of our church.

2. Grow

The next process is grow. Grow is about discipleship. It’s how the church promotes spiritual formation in the lives of individuals, ministry teams, and the congregation. This is how we answer the question, “how do we grow to be more like Jesus? Grow centers on belief and behavior whereas connect is about the relationship.

We want to connect people to God through their beliefs and a behavior that is pleasing to God. We have a greater connection with God when we grow in our beliefs of God.

3. Serve

The Bible teaches that when we become children of God, He also makes us His priests to represent Him to everyone around us. When we serve it is with a heart for connecting with God. Serving is not about me or what I get out of it. Serving is about connecting with the one that saved me by His grace. As the church, we must move people from being spectators in the pews to becoming involved in the ministry.

Serve is about giving you outlets for you to use the gifts and abilities that God has given you. It is about giving you an opportunity to find your place in ministry.

4. Go

Go is evangelism, reaching out to those who are next door and those on the other side of the globe. This prepares and equips us to share our faith and accept the God-given mission for us and the local church. This is where we become more outwardly focused instead of staying inwardly focused, which is incredibly important.

We need to find ways to connect with those that are outside the church. Going is the process of how we will do that.

5. Worship

Worship is the intimacy and reality of the presence of Christ when leadership teams and the congregation see the character of Christ and the power of Christ connecting to individuals in their daily lives and corporately through the church family.

Worship is far more than music. It includes prayer and powerful preaching.

All five of these functions provide the framework necessary to help us discover God’s plan for how we handle fellowship, discipleship, ministry, evangelism, and worship.

Each of these functions were the heart of God’s original plan for the church. He had a plan, a process, but the plan was always and only to be carried out with His Holy Spirit’s power.

Next week, when we vote on a name change, we are voting on a new beginning for Cliff Terrace. The Cliff Terrace chapter will come to a close and we will start a new book with a new beginning and it will be called Connect Church where we want to connect people to God. We can only execute these changes with the power of the Holy Spirit.