Witness for Everyone
Notes
Transcript
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?” 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. 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.” And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
Will Someone Be a Witness?
Will Someone Be a Witness?
Does anyone remember as a kid when your mom or dad asked you to do something and your fought with a brother of sister to do it? You were so excited to do what was asked of you, and perhaps to get a pat on the back, that it was a race to get it done. I can remember this. I observe this in my children. Hey, who wants to get dad a cup of water, a bottle of pop, or whatever else. It was fun, it was an honor, it was our greatest desire to please our parents.
If you recall last week the heart of this passage is that God wants us to be a witness. A witness is someone that tells others about something great. In the case of Acts 1 this is when someone tells others about Jesus. That Jesus is alive. That Jesus is well.
We are told to be witnesses in various places in the Bible, and most pointedly we are told to be witnesses by Jesus Himself. Multiple times this takes place. We generally calls these series of appeals, The Great Commission.
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.
Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. And when they saw him they worshiped him, but some doubted. And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
And as we read last week in:
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
The heart of Jesus and the reason that we are here is primarily to be a witness to the world around. You want to more fully understand how to fulfill the the greatest commandment to love God and the one just like, to love your neighbor as yourself? Resolve yourself to tell every you can of Jesus.
It seems to me that God is looking for men and women, boys and girls that will stand up and say something about Jesus, to tell someone about Jesus. This makes me think of the God’s exchange with Isaiah. God is looking for someone to be a witness and Isaiah says, here I am, send me. Before I move on any farther are you willing to be the one to say here I am Lord send me. God wants to use a willing and broken heart. A heart that mourns of the sins of the nation, a heart that knows the horrors of Hell and the beauty of Heaven. More than those things God wants a person that is willing to say the tough things, to point people to Jesus and ask people to give their lives to him. Are you, will you be, that person? Here I am Lord send me.
Peter was that Kind of Witness
Peter was that Kind of Witness
I just want to recap everything that has happened from verse 9 of chapter one until the verses I read this morning.
Ascension of Jesus
Promised Holy Spirit. Pentecost.
Message went first to Jews. Every Jew heard Peter and the Apostles speak in their own language. From all over the world.
Peter went on to preach a mighty sermon to those Jews who would listen.
David is not the hope of a unified Israel, or even a unified world. David was simply a messenger, a prophet.
Peter says that David is dead and buried and is still in his tomb. Don’t place your hope in him. Peter says instead to place your hope Jesus, the same person that David was hopeful of, and spoke of in Psalm 16:8-11.
I have set the Lord always before me;
because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;
my flesh also dwells secure.
For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,
or let your holy one see corruption.
You make known to me the path of life;
in your presence there is fullness of joy;
at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
The heart then of the message, the same heart that is still part of the message of the Christian church is that Jesus is alive and that He is our only hope.
I mean Peter is preaching his heart our here. Furthering expounding the resurrection that proves to the world that there is hope. That sin is one day going to be dealt with. That with Jesus our sins can be forgiven. Acts 2:34-35.
For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
“ ‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’
Praise the Lord sin is going to be dealt with. That Jesus will one day reign completely and fully. This gives us hope. This makes us more faithful witnesses. This should encourage us to witness all the more.
Peter finally concludes with pointing to the reality that Jesus is both Lord and Christ. These two names of Jesus, titles of Jesus speak volumes to who Jesus is.
Lord speaks to the fact that Jesus is in charge of everything. It speaks to his divinity. It speaks to his oneness with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit. It is because Jesus is Lord that every knee will bow and every tongue confess.
Christ speaks to what Jesus has accomplished. It speaks to the fact that Jesus is the anointed. That it is through him that all the world has the ability to be saved, if they come in simple faith.
So we are witnesses to Jesus, who he is, what he has done, what he is going to do.
A Captivating Witness
A Captivating Witness
But, the heart of every witness is not just to tell people about Jesus. That should never be enough. We want them to make a decision. It is to have them make a choice for Jesus. It is to tell the story and ask if they believe it. Part of our witness is not just to tell the old, old story of Jesus. It is to ask men and women, boys and girls if they believe the story and what will they do with the story.
Notice in the selected passage that the people that were listening that day were cut to the heart. That’s not our job. The Holy Spirit does the convicting, we do the telling. They were cut to the heart. They were cut to the heart because Peter explained the gospel to them from the Bible. It is the words of scripture that convict hearts. It is the words of God in this book that God has ordained to pierce the hearts of men and women.
Heb 4:12
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Peter walked them through the bible. Joel, Isaiah, Psalms. We too must root our understanding of Jesus and salvation in the Bible. When we do this, I believe we develop a sense of urgency to our witness. Why? Because we see the horrors of Hell, the hopelessness of sin and at the same time the liberation of Jesus and the hope of eternal communion with Jesus.
I fear we have conflated our witness with a watered down story of Jesus. Point people to Jesus as an add on to an already comfortable life. Talk about all the good points of the faith, the parts that massage our egos and don’t hurt us to much.
I fear that our witness is more like hospice care, than hospital care. What do I mean? Hospice is to make a person feel like their not dying even though they are. I am not speaking against hospice care, it is a compassionate service. But hospice care has no place in the Christian witness.
The Christian witness should be like hospital care. It hurts but we know that it will make us better. I am not saying be a jerk. Or unloving. But understand that the message of the cross is sometimes uncomfortable even when it is right. When I preach it should make you uncomfortable. Why? Because a sharp knife shouldn’t feel good. It hurts. But it is a good pain. It is a cortisone shot, the lead up is intense, the payoff is glorious. Let us not back down from the message of calling sinners to Jesus. You say people don’t like it. I know. There not supposed to. But they know Jesus is better.
What Then Must Happen?
What Then Must Happen?
Salvation then isn’t easy. I mean it is, but not so much. It cuts to our hearts and makes us evaluate everything. But when we come out on the other side of it we must respond. Peter says here to these people that they must REPENT.
This is a loaded word. It means they must make a decision. Will you continue to live in sin and death or will you choose righteousness and life? That is the Christian witness. Not just telling people about Jesus, but asking them what they will do with Jesus. Not just asking them what they will do with Jesus, but will they live their lives for Jesus. This is you job as a Christian witness. To call people to repentance. To call people to put their faith in Jesus and trust him to take away their sin and to make them white as snow.
Peter says repent, you say repent.
It is also important to develop a heart that understands that this message is for everyone.
Acts 2:21
And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Acts 2:39
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.”
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Romans 5:8
but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
What motivates us in our witness? That everyone has a chance to say yes to Jesus. All you have to do is tell them. Beg them, plead with them, pray over them that they would say no to sin, hell, death and the world and say yes to Jesus. This is the work of the church, your work, to tell people about Jesus and to call them from their sin.
That every person can repent and have their sins forgiven. Glory to God. That every person can choose to say yes to Jesus and no to the all of the other stuff.
But You Don’t Know Me?
But You Don’t Know Me?
Let me step outside of the text for a moment. I want to address a shortcoming of our witness. A thing that causes us to fall short and to give up and potentially not to say anything. You believe everything that I just said. You don’t deny for a minute any of it. But even right now the devil is playing his greatest hits in your head.
He says: you can’t talk to people about Jesus you still sin yourself. You can’t talk to people about Jesus, don’t you remember who you used to be. You can’t tell people about Jesus, fill in the blank with what ever excuse is going through your mind right now.
What would God say to you? He would say take those thoughts captive and tell them that their is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Don’t let your witness be encumbered because you have sin in your life, if we waited to tell people about Jesus until we didn’t have any sin none of us would able to call Jesus Lord. Take that thought, tell the devil, greater is he who is in me than he that is in the world and I am going to tell every person I can about him.
What Do you Say?
What Do you Say?
Will you say yes to the request of Jesus and will you witness for him. Will you ask the Holy Spirit to help you and to give your boldness to tell anyone, whether they listen or not about the glorious good news of Jesus, who is alive, and who wants to forgive us of our sins, if only we would believe that he is God and that he can give us freedom from the curse of sin.
Maybe you have been listening to this sermon and your heart as been pricked. The Holy Spirit has taken you to the Hospital so to speak and has been working on you. What must you do to be saved? Holler out to Jesus, out loud, in your heart. Your choice. Admit that you are a sinner and you can’t save yourself, Believe that Jesus is God and that he can save you from those sins, and then get to work telling others about Jesus who is now responsible for saving you from the consequences of sin. Namely eternal separation from God in Hell.
Let’s get busy. There are many who are perishing, lets make sure that the devil doesn’t take them without a fight. Amen!