Sermon Tone Analysis

COVID-19 has forced most of us to become familiar with a lot of things that we could have done without.

We now more about viruses than most of us knew before.

We know more about how vaccines work than most generations that came before us.

We hear more about hospital capacities than we really ever needed to know.

We hear way more about anti-viral meds and social distancing and the CDC and the FDA than we ever wanted to know.

These are things we never had to give much thought to before, but now we almost can’t afford not to consider them.

There’s something else that we’ve heard a lot about over the last two years: crowds.

Gatherings.

There are so many questions and such heated debate: When we gather, should we gather inside or outside?

Do we wear masks or do we not?

Do we require vaccines or do we not?

Then, we ask, what kinds of gatherings are okay?

Can college students go back to their dorms?

Should families gather over the holidays?

What about sports arenas and college dorms?

Can we gather there?

There are questions about fairness too: can protestors gather by the hundreds?

If so, why can’t churches that are far smaller gather together?

There are so many distinctions being made and much debate being had about what gatherings are allowed.

But as Christians, we know that there is one type of gathering that is a cut above the rest.

There is one assembly that is set apart from all the others.

And that gathering, that assembly, is the local church.

Not because of who we are, but because of who we’re here for.

Because we believe, and the Bible teaches, that the Creator, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is here in our midst in the presence of His Son. “Where two or three have gathered together in my name”, Jesus said, “I am there in their midst” (Matt.

18:20 NASB).

It’s because of Him - who He is and what He’s doing in our midst - that’s why our gathering is set apart.

That’s why we can expect greater things when a true church gathers than in any other type of gathering.

He is in our midst as Lord and Savior.

It is Him whom we worship.

It is His word we hear preached.

It is His love we receive from Him through our fellow church members.

We encounter Him in a special way here, and when that happens, we cannot go away unchanged.

Two questions answered from Acts 2:40-47

1) what happens when I get saved?

2) what are the habits of a healthy church member?

So the sermon this morning is about two things:

1.

The change that happens in us when we are saved, when I am born again

2. And, how a healthy church member behaves.

And it might seem like those two are unrelated, but they are, and I hope you’ll see that.

So we’ll get at these two things this morning by asking two question of our text.

The first is, what happens when I get saved?

#1: What happens when I get saved?

Joel covered for me last week, but the week before we looked at the first sermon of the apostle Peter which is most of chapter two.

Peter’s first sermon, and the first recorded sermon from the early church, took place on Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit in fulfillment of prophecy descended upon the 120 disciples in Jerusalem and the effect was a dramatic change in those 120 disciples.

The crowds in Jerusalem, which are Jews mainly who live outside of Jerusalem from different nations, these crowds who are here for the celebration of Pentecost, they hear and see the change.

They ask, What is this that has happened?

Peter’s sermon answers that question: what has happened, Peter says, is that the Lord Jesus has poured out His Spirit in the last days just as God said He would through the prophet Joel hundreds of years before.

Luke tells us that three thousand ethnic Jews became Christians, believers in Christ, and were saved.

And there were three things they did on that occasion.

We see those three things in verse 41.

The word of God gathers and creates the people of God

A. Receive the gospel with gladness

What is the first thing they did?

Look with me at verse 41: they were baptized but that wasn’t even the first step.

“Those who accepted his message...”

The first thing they did was they gladly received the gospel message that He had preached.

What is the gospel?

God is holy, Peter said.

You and me, we are all sinners, Peter said.

Nevertheless the holy God is also the God of love and He has made a way for sinners to be forgiven through the sin-bearing death of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified in our place.

“Repent and be baptized,” Peter had commanded them.

“Save yourselves from this corrupt generation”, Peter had warned them.

“Receive the gospel gladly” - ?

Believe that it is true

Live like it is true

See 1 Thess.

2:13

Now Peter tells us three thousand of them received that message gladly.

What does it mean to receive the gospel message?

How can you know if you have received the gospel?

To receive the gospel is, first, to believe that it is true and, second, live like it is true.

Trust the God’s promise of forgiveness of all your sin through Christ crucified, and then live like you’re forgiven.

Bring your life into conformity with the will of God, not in order to make God love and forgive you, but because He already has.

And you receive the gospel with gladness because it is such good news.

We get a picture of what this receiving looks like from the church at Thessalonica.

Paul had preached the gospel there and they had received it and a church was planted. 1 Thess.

2:13

That’s the first thing the new believers did.

They received the gospel.

Have you received the gospel message?

The second thing they did was they followed Jesus in believer’s baptism.

B. Follow Jesus in believer’s baptism

Look with me at the second part of verse 41: “Those who accepted his message were baptized.”

Baptism is an external symbol of an internal reality.

We call it believer’s baptism because baptism is only for believers.

Look again at verse 41: who was it that was baptized?

Was it small children or infants?

Was it anyone who just wanted a religious experience?

No. Who was it?

Who was baptized?

“Those who accepted his message were baptized...”

You see, baptism does not save you.

Baptism is a picture only.

It is a symbol only.

Going down into the waters and then coming back out, which is what baptism is as we Baptists believe, that does not itself cleanse you from sin.

Look at verse 41 again: Baptism doesn’t save you any more than taking a shower cleanses your heart from sin.

Christ’s shed blood cleanses our hearts from sin.

That’s an internal reality.

Baptism is an external picture of what has happened internally - an external symbol of an internal reality.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not important, being baptized.

Being baptized by immersion is the first step in becoming a disciple of Christ.