Sermon Tone Analysis

Treasuring Christ Together as a Church on Multiple Campuses

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By John Piper November 4, 2007

 

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*Acts 2:36-47*

Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

37 Now 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?” 38 And Peter said 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.

39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”

41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.

43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common.

45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.

46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people.

And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

There are two million people within driving distance of our church.

Most of them do not treasure Jesus Christ.

Most of them are under the wrath of God and will be condemned eternally if they do not receive Jesus as the supremely valuable Savior and Lord of their lives.

“Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him” (John 3:36).

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God” (John 3:18).

All the hundreds of thousands of unbelievers in the Metro area, from Lakeville to Elk River and from Wayzata to Lake Elmo, need to be born again by the living and abiding word of God (1 Peter 1:23) and be nurtured in a church where their passion for the supremacy of God in all things can grow.

There are many good, Christ-exalting, gospel-preaching churches in the Twin Cities.

We are not alone in this task.

But we are not responsible for their faithfulness.

We are responsible for ours.

I and the other elders of Bethlehem will give an account for how we shepherded this flock, and how we equipped you for the work of the ministry, and how we strategized to spread a passion for Christ among the unbelievers of these cities.

Not to Strategize Is a Heartless Strategy

Not thinking through a strategy as a church for winning and adding and shepherding more and more people is not an option.

Because no strategy is a strategy.

A heartless one.

So the strategy we call Treasuring Christ Together is not a small thing for us.

It is not icing on the cake.

It is the calling of God on our lives among these hundreds of thousands of perishing people.

I want you to feel the wonderful weight of this calling.

And, if God would be so gracious, I want you to share it.

Treasuring Christ Together

We are focusing for three weeks—this is the second—on our church strategy called Treasuring Christ Together.

TCT is a commitment to multiply campuses, plant new churches, and care for the poorest of the poor through the Global Diaconate, all founded on a common biblical life and doctrine.

Presently we meet as a single church on three campuses—downtown Minneapolis near the Metrodome, Mounds View (north), and Burnsville (south).

We own the Downtown Campus debt free.

We owe about $8 million on the North Campus.

And we rent the South Site.

When Treasuring Christ Together was launched in the fall of 2003, the average first quarter attendance at Bethlehem was 2,742 people.

This past first quarter, four years later, across the three campuses the average was 3,935.

Last April we had over 5,000 people on a single weekend for the first time in the 136-year history of the church.

One of the most basic questions that the church faced four years ago was: Should our strategy for handling present growth and pursing new growth be the building of a very large sanctuary downtown—say for three or four thousand people, and then have two services—and then what?

Or do we become one church on several campuses?

The biblical thinking, and cultural reflection, and long discussions, and serious prayer that went into that decision were extraordinary.

My hope in these messages is to inspire your sense of significance in being part of Treasuring Christ Together, and to win your joyful, visionary, financial giving to this strategy, and to summon you into deeper Christ-treasuring, Christ-exalting investment of your life in the advancement of this vision.

One Place We Went for Help: Acts 2

As we wrestled with these things, we asked, How are we to think about growth?

We are talking about human beings who will spend eternity in heaven or in hell.

Hundreds of thousands of them.

Where could we go for help?

In this message, I want to give you one example of where we went: Acts 2:36-47.

It does not answer all our questions, and it does not mandate or forbid doing church on multiple campuses.

But it is inspiring and illuminating in regard to what faces us.

Peter comes to the end of his sermon at Pentecost, fifty days after the resurrection of Jesus and ten days after his ascension into heaven.

He ends on a great Christ-exalting note in verse 36, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

In other words, God has raised Jesus from the dead and installed him into his exalted offices of Lord of the church that he bought with his blood and king over his covenant people.

This one, Peter says, you crucified.

“What Must I Do to be Saved?”

Then by God’s amazing grace, instead of grinding their teeth at him and dragging him out to be beheaded or stoned, which is what will happen to James and Stephen before long, they are convicted for their sin.

Verse 37: “Now 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?’”

When Peter later reports to the church in Jerusalem that Cornelius and the Gentiles had believed in Christ and received the Holy Spirit, these very people who are here being converted say in Acts 11:18, “Then to the Gentiles /also/ God has granted repentance that leads to life.”

The reason they say “to the Gentiles /also/” is because they knew that is what happened to them on this day of Pentecost.

They /were granted/ repentance.

It was a gift of God.

When an unbelieving person hears the word of God—a person who has been guilty of crucifying the Lord of glory (by their hands or by their shouts or by their sins)—only a miracle of sovereign grace explains why some cry out, “Away with such men,” and others say, “What must I do to be saved?”

So God brings them to conviction, and in verses 38-39, Peter answers 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 promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

It would be a terrible misuse of these verses to build a whole theology of baptismal regeneration on it—that is, to say as some denominations do that the act of baptism is the instrument that connects you to Christ for the forgiveness of sins, and until you are baptized you are not forgiven, and not justified.

I have dealt with many people over the years because those denominations capture many vulnerable students at the university.

“Get Your Hat and Run”

The mere statement that we should repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins does not tell us how baptism works in relation to the forgiveness of sins.

If I say, “Get your hat and run, or you’ll miss the train,” I am not saying that “getting your hat is part of what gets you to the train on time.

I’m just saying that there are good reasons to get your hat as you run.

But it’s the running that makes the difference whether you get to the train on time.

And when Peter says, “Repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins, he does not tell us whether the baptism or the repentance or both are the instrument that connects us with forgiveness.

In fact, in Acts 3:19, Peter says, “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out.”

No mention of baptism.

But the promise of forgiveness is still given.

And in Acts 16:31, Paul says, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.”

No mention of baptism, but the assurance of salvation given.

If you take the whole witness of the New Testament into account, it becomes clear that we are justified by faith alone (Romans 3:28; 5:1) and that baptism is a proper and Christ-mandated expression of that faith.

So I would paraphrase verse 38 like this: “Repent, that is, turn from your unbelief and put your faith in Christ, and give expression to that faith in baptism.

This faith will connect you to Jesus Christ, and on the basis of what he has done for you, you will be forgiven all your sins, even the sin of crucifying the Lord of glory.

And in that forgiven state, you will receive the enjoyment of Holy Spirit and all his fruit in your life.”

Everyone Who Jesus Calls to Himself

Indeed, don’t think that this blessing is just for you, verse 39 says.

It is for the generations that come after you and for the Gentiles, that is, those who are far off.

But it is not automatic, or genetic.

Just because a Christian has children does not guarantee that those children will be saved.

That’s why Peter says, “For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, [and then adds the defining point] everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

Peter is not saying there are three groups who get the Holy Spirit: your children, those far off, and those whom God calls.

He is saying that among your children and among those far off it is those whom God calls who will receive the Holy Spirit.

That is why we pray for our children and the nations of the world: O Sovereign Lord, deliver your great soul-saving call!

Peter goes on in verse 40.

Luke says “with many other words” he encouraged them to “be saved”!

The verb is passive, not active—not save yourselves, but be saved.

Which means, /receive/ the saving grace of God.