2025-03-30 St. Paul's Presbyterian Church, Welkom

ABSA BANK, WELKOM

4052 0411 25

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Welcome

Scripture Reading

“Seek the Lord while He may be found; call oh Him while He is near.  Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts.  Let him turn to the Lord, and He will have mercy on him, and to our God, for He will freely pardon  Isaiah 55:6,7.

Chorus Majesty

Chorus I will sing

Chorus Change my heart O God

General Confession said together.

 Almighty and most merciful Father, we have strayed from Your ways like lost sheep, we have left undone what we ought to have done,  and we have done what we ought not to have done. We have followed our own ways and our own desires and we have neglected and broken Your holy laws.

Have mercy on us Lord.

Restore those who repent and confess their sins  according to Your promises declare in Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant, merciful Father, for His sake, that hereafter  we may live a righteous and obedient life,  to the glory of Your Holy Name. Amen. 

 Assurance of forgiveness said by the minister standing.

 Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, does not desire the death of a sinner, but rather that he should turn from his wickedness and live.  He has given authority and commandment to His ministers to declare to His people that He pardons and forgives the sins of all who truly repent and believe His holy gospel. 

 Therefore, let us ask Him to grant us true repentance and His Holy Spirit, that we may please Him now, and that the rest of our life may be pure and holy so that at the last we may come to His eternal joy through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

 The Lord’s Prayer said together. 

Our Father, which art in heaven,

Hallowed by thy Name,

Thy kingdom come,

Thy will be done,

In earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread;

And forgive us our trespasses, 

As we forgive them that trespass against us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil.

For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, For ever and ever.  Amen. 

The Ten Commandments

Minister:

Our Lord Jesus Christ said : “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it : Love your neighbour as yourself.  All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments”. 

Congregation :

Lord have mercy on us, and write these commandments in our hearts and minds to keep them. 

Cathy will now read the Old Testament reading to us from the NIV pew bible.

She begins with “Hear the Word of God as it is written in Psalm 34”

She ends with “This is the word of God”.

Congregation: “Thanks be to God”

Jenny

will now read the New Testament reading to us from the NIV pew bible.

She begins with “Hear the Word of God as it is written in 2 Corinthians 5:17-21”

She ends with “This is the word of God”.

Congregation: “Thanks be to God”.

16 in attendance

Hymn I serve a risen Saviour

Sermon

5. (19-21) Peter calls them to repentance.

“Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.”

a. Repent therefore:

As he did in his first sermon (Act_2:38), Peter called upon the crowd to repent. He told them to turn around in their thinking and actions.

i. Peter spoke boldly to them about their sin, but he didn’t just want to make them feel bad. That wasn’t the goal. The goal was to encourage them to repent and believe.

ii. Repentance does not describe being sorry, but describes the act of turning around. And as he used it in chapter two, here also Peter made repent a word of hope. He told them that they had done wrong; but that they could turn it around and become right with God.

b. And be converted:

Peter knew the necessity of conversion, of God’s work of bringing new life to us. Being a Christian is not “turning over a new leaf,” it is being a new creation in Christ Jesus (2Co_5:17).

i. Boice says that be converted is better translated, “turn to God” – or, even better, “flee to God.” Boice connects this with the imagery of the cities of refuge in the Old Testament, and thinks Peter told them to flee to Jesus as their place of refuge.

c. That your sins may be blotted out:

This was the first benefit of repentance Peter presented to them. The one who repents and is converted is forgiven their sins, and the record itself is erased.

i. Blotted out: This has the idea of wiping ink off of a document. Ink in the ancient world had no acid content and didn’t “bite” into the paper. It could almost always be wiped off with a damp cloth. Peter said that God would wipe away our record of sin just like that.

d. So that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord:

This was the second benefit of repenting and turning to God. In speaking of “times of refreshing,” Peter referred to the time when Jesus will return and rule the earth in righteousness. Peter went so far as to say, “that He may send Jesus Christ,” thus implying that if the Jewish people as a whole repented, God the Father would send Jesus to return in glory.

i. Peter made it clear that Jesus will remain in heaven until the times of restoration of all things, and since the repentance of Israel is one of the all things, there is some sense in which the return of Jesus in glory will not happen until Israel repents.

ii. Peter essentially offered Israel the opportunity to hasten the return of Jesus by embracing Him on a national level, something that must happen before Jesus will return (as in Mat_23:37-39 and Rom_11:25-27).

iii. One may raise the hypothetical question, if the Jews of that day had received the gospel as a whole, would then Jesus had returned way back then? Hypothetically, this may have been the case, but there is no point in speculating about something that didn’t happen!

iv. In a lesser (though glorious) sense, God sends times of refreshing to His people today. We should pray for and believe God for seasons of revival and refreshing.

Notices Claire

Operation dogs of John -

Collection

Praise God from whom all blessing flow

Prayer

Hymn When the trumpet of the Lord

Benediction

The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord turn His face towards you and give you peace.  Numbers 6:24-26

Doxology Now unto Him

MARCH : Sun 30th*** Readers, tea duty & snacks Cathy & Jenny

APRIL Sun 6th Readers, Tea duty & snacks: Carol & John _Fiona to please assist Carol with serving tea

Sun 13th** Readers, tea duty and snacks: Janet and Jenny Fourie

Sun 20th** Readers, snacks & Tea duty Cathy & Lydia Jurie to please assist the ladies with making & serving tea

Sun 27th** Readers, tea duty & snacks Elizabeth & Evelyn-Rose Abraham to please assist the ladies with serving the tea if required