Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

In 2009 an Ohio judge named, Paul Herbert created a program called CATCH Court.

The word CATCH is an acronym for Changing Attitudes to Change Habits.

CATCH Court is a two year restorative justice program for women who are caught up in prostitution.

Through this court women are sent to residential rehabilitation programs to detox and receive intensive therapy.

Here’s how Judge Herbert came to the point of creating this program.

He was using Pastor Rick Warren’s book, The Purpose Driven Life, on Sunday evenings to disciple and train his daughters in Christianity.

And one night they asked him, “Daddy, what is your purpose?”

He said, “that really got me.”

He gave them a vague answer about being, “a light on the bench,” but that night, he candidly prayed this prayer to God:

“God, I realize that being a judge is a unique position.

Not many people get this opportunity.

Can you show me some way that I could be significant for you in my work?”

What God did in response to that prayer is shake up his categories (coming to God in prayer doesn’t change God…).

He would regularly have victims of domestic violence come before him in court.

One day he saw a woman come in with bruises and thought she was a domestic violence victim.

He looked down at the file and saw she was a defendant — the charge: "prostitution".

It hit him that with similar bruises and hollow eyes, it was hard to tell the difference between a victim of domestic violence and a defendant charged with prostitution.

He began to research human trafficking, prostitution, and sexual exploitation.

What he discovered astounded him.

Human trafficking was thriving in Columbus, Ohio, and there were limited means of escaping the cycle of exploitation and abuse.

He admitted that prior to this change he would’ve said that women engaged in prostitution were in involved in the “world’s oldest profession.”

Now he considers it, “the world’s oldest oppression.”

He said, and I quote,

“The Holy Spirit continues to reveal how much I’ve been forgiven, and how similar I am to the individuals that come before me.”

He is keenly aware of the fact that he’s been rescued by God.

God’s rescue mission found him.

So, he launches this program that becomes a rescue mission, helping to save lives of people who have begun to realize their need for rescue.

This morning we are listening in on the apostle Peter; jumping in on his Day of Pentecost sermon here in .

Jesus has risen from the dead.

He has ascended into heaven.

And just as he promised, he has poured out the Holy Spirit to empower his people to be his witnesses, his representatives on earth.

And that’s what’s happening.

The story of God’s people didn’t begin on Pentecost.

His saving work began in the OT, but something special and spectacular happened on Pentecost.

There was both a completion and a new beginning.

The church begins at the end.

The end is the fulfillment of God’s promise to pour out his Spirit on all people, without discrimination of ethnicity or gender or class, that promise was complete.

And so at the end there was also a new beginning.

The beginning of what Peter calls the “last days.”

Pentecost is the birth and the beginning explosion of God’s rescue mission.

From that day until this one, and on until the day Jesus Christ returns, his church moves forward, empowered by his Spirit, as the vehicle of his rescue mission.

No one rescues like God.

The question is, “where are you?”

Do you realize your need for a rescuer?

Judge Herbert sits on the bench, deciding the fate of people who have broken the law.

Yet he’s not blind to his own need for rescue.

This rescue mission is what Peter is putting before us this morning.

The disciples are miraculously declaring the mighty works of God in foreign languages, and the people are astonished and amazed.

So, Peter is preaching a message to explain what’s going on.

And we’re breaking in on the middle of his message because we need to see this Easter Sunday that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is at the heart of God’s rescue mission.

No one rescues like God.

The question is, “where are you?”

Do you realize your need for a rescuer?

Judge Herbert sits on the bench, deciding the fate of people who have broken the law.

Yet he’s not blind to his own need for rescue.

This rescue mission is what Peter is putting before us this morning.

This first Pentecost is marked by a sermon, a sermon that does what all sermons should do, result in a clearer and deeper understanding of Jesus.

Peter is explaining to the multitude of people from every nation under heaven, who have gathered around the disciples, the significance of what they are seeing.

Peter has a three part sermon (therefore, so will we).

He uses three OT passages to show that what has now begun is a result of what has been completed.

Lavish Pouring (vv.

14-21);Loosened Pangs (vv.

22-32); Lifted Pedestal (vv.

33-36).

To make sure we’re clear on what we’ll be talking about in these three points, the lavish pouring is God’s generous outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all who call on the name of the Lord.

The loosened pangs is God’s conquest over death and sin in raising Jesus from the dead.

And the lifted pedestal is the permanent presence and power of Jesus exalted at the right hand of the Father.

Lavish Pouring

Peter is front and center again.

He stood up in the middle of the 120 disciples when it was time to appoint someone to replace Judas Iscariot in the apostolic ministry back in 1:15.

Now, after the Holy Spirit has been poured out on the disciples, and they pour out into the street miraculously speaking in other languages as they declare the mighty works of God, Peter stands up again, lifts his voice and addressed the multitude of people to explain what’s going on.

We’ve just been told how all of these people are responding to this worship scene.

They’re hearing the disciples declare the mighty works of God in all of these different languages, and they respond with perplexity and cynicism.

Luke said in vv.

12-13…

Peter gets up and says, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and pay close attention to my words.

For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only 9 o’clock in the morning!”

Some people thought that they had it figured out and attributed the Spirit’s work to something sinful, drunkenness.

Now it’s certainly possible for a group of people to be drunk at 9 AM, but Peter is setting the record straight.

This is not drunkenness.

This is the work of the Spirit of God.

Luke does something intentional here.

Back in v. 4 Luke says that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

What happened next is that they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, or to translate the verb another way, “as the Spirit gave them to declare.”

Then, in v.14, Luke says that Peter, as he stood with the eleven, lifted up his voice and declared to them.

The ESV says “utterance” in v. 4 and “addressed” in v. 14, but it’s translating the same verb.

The point is that it’s not just the miracle of tongues that was given to the disciples by the Spirit.

But what Peter is about to preach, in the common language of the people is also given by the Spirit.

Both the exuberant worship of God in these worldwide languages and this clear proclamation of what it all means is driven by the Spirit of God.

Both praise and preaching are the Spirit’s work.

The message that these people from every nation needed to understand was that the end had come.

The end that marked a new beginning had arrived.

The new beginning was the lavish pouring out of the Spirit of God.

Peter says, what you see might be new, but it’s not unexpected.

This is what was spoken through the prophet Joel.

Then he quotes from … (rd.

Vv. 17-21).

In the prophet is announcing the coming of the great and magnificent Day of the Lord, when the Lord will act in righteousness and mercy.

Peter says, “this that you see is that which was said.”

Joel uses the word afterword, and Peter rightly interprets him to mean, “the last days.”

He says, we’re living in the last days.