Howdy, Pastor Mark here.
I wanted to say thanks for tuning in and joining us for our sermon series.
We're currently in the Book of Acts.
We're actually going to take a chunk every year after Easter
for the next number of years.
And for those of you who pray for me or for us,
those of you who give to the church, want to say thank you very, very much.
For those of you who'd like to get connected
and be part of the extended Mars Hill family,
go to marshill.com/global, we'll sign you up for a "connect" account.
That'll get you some free resources
and allow you to know what's going on at Mars Hill.
In addition you can also find the study guide for the "Acts" series.
It was put together by a team right here at Mars Hill church.
We've made it very inexpensive.
Any of the proceeds come back to the church, not to me.
And we'd love to have you do a deep study
with us through the Book of Acts.
So we love you, we appreciate you, thank you,
and thanks for signing up for a global account.
Jesus said, "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 ends of the earth."
What does Jesus' mission look like here?
What's his mission here?
What does Jesus' mission look like here?
What is Jesus' mission here?
How do I know what Jesus' mission is?
Alrighty, grab your Bible. We're in Acts 3:11-26.
Hope you guys are enjoying Acts.
We're looking at the issue of being empowered by the Spirit
to be courageous.
As you're finding your place in your Bible,
here's the story line and where we find ourselves.
Jesus is God, come into history, lived without sin,
he died on the cross, he rose from the dead,
he ascended back into heaven, he sent the Spirit to indwell,
empower his people to continue his mission.
This includes, a little earlier in chapter 3,
the healing of a man who was lame from birth.
We read the story that Peter and John,
two of Jesus' early ministry leaders,
are going up to the temple around 3 o'clock,
the time of prayer, and they see a man who's been lame
since birth.
And he's begging, trying to make some money to make ends meet,
and they tell him, "Silver and gold we do not have,
"but in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
be healed."
This guy's instantaneously healed--jumps up, dances,
rejoices, walks into the temple to praise God.
The question then is, what next?
What happens after Jesus, who's alive and well in heaven,
ruling and reigning, shows up to do a healing here on the earth?
We're going to look at what happens in the wake
of what Jesus does.
We'll read a lot of Bible together,
and so you can read along with me.
Here we go.
Acts 3:11, "While he clung to Peter and John."
I don't know about you, this just seems kind of funny to see.
Three grown men, one hanging on to the other two,
because he just got healed,
and he's going to keep these guys close by.
He's not going to let them out of his sight.
He's probably thinking something like,
"Hey, if there's a relapse, I know who to call."
"While he clung to Peter and John, all the people,
utterly astounded"--
Wouldn't you be astounded?
Somebody lame from birth all of a sudden is on
"Dancing with the Stars."
Wow, wow, wow.
"All the people are utterly astounded.
They ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's."
Some of your translations will call it Solomon's porch.
"And when Peter saw it he addressed the people."
So, he's going to stand up and preach.
You know why?
It's always a good time for a sermon.
Always, always, always a good time for a sermon, amen?
OK, I'll amen that myself.
Amen, yes, it's always a good time for a sermon.
So, Peter here is going to preach.
"Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this,
"or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power
"or piety we have made him walk?
"The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,
"and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers,
"glorified his servant Jesus,
"whom you delivered over and denied in the presence
"of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.
"But you denied the Holy and Righteous One,
"and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,
and you killed the Author of life"--
he's getting fairly personal-- "whom God raised from the dead.
To this we are witnesses."
He continues, "And his name--by faith in his name--has made
"this man strong whom you see and know,
"and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man
this perfect health"-- writes the doctor--
"in the presence of you all.
"And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance,
"as did your rulers.
"But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets,
that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled."
What then?
"Repent therefore, and turn back,
"that your sins may be blotted out,
"that times of refreshing may come from the presence
"of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed
"for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive
"until the time for restoring all the things
"about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets
long ago."
And Peter ain't done.
"Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet
"'like me from your brothers.
"'You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.
"'And it shall be that every soul who does not listen
"'to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.'
"And all the prophets who have spoken,
"from Samuel and those who came after him,
"who proclaimed these days.
"You are the sons of the prophets
"and of the covenant that God made with your fathers,
"saying to Abraham, 'And in your offspring
"'shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'
"God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first,
"to bless you by turning every one of you
from your wickedness."
A man is healed, a crowd gathers, and Peter preaches.
That's what happens.
Four things I want to make note of up front.
Number one, that is that Jesus' people need to gather.
And some of you may have wrongly heard that Jesus' people,
in the earliest days of the Christian church,
only met in homes and small groups--
five here, six here, eight here.
They didn't have large meetings.
That's not true at all.
We saw it when Peter preached in Acts 2.
It was on the day of Pentecost,
3,000 people were saved in that day.
A very large crowd was assembled, and then they met in their homes
in smaller groups.
So, large and small groups.
Here again, they all rush into an area in the temple called
Solomon's portico.
It was a large, open area where there were lectures
and meetings and gatherings. And then Peter stands up
to preach to a very large crowd of people.
So, God's people-- Jesus' people--meet together,
sometimes in very large groups as we do on Sundays,
and also in small groups--
we call them Community Groups that meet
throughout the course of the week.
Number two, when something happens by God's grace,
the person who receives that grace, they get the gladness.
The person who served them gets the gratitude.
But ultimately, only Jesus gets the glory.
So, on this occasion, there is a man who was lame from birth.
He was healed.
The Bible says that he was leaping and celebrating
and praising God in Acts 3:1-10,
the precursor to the section we just read.
So, he gets the gladness: he's healed.
Peter and John--it would have been fine for them
to get the gratitude.
"Thank you for talking to me. Thank you for praying for me."
Some of you need to know this, that when you're grateful
for someone, that doesn't mean you're being disrespectful
toward the Lord.
God works through people, and we should be grateful that he does,
and we should be grateful for them and grateful to them.
"Thank you for loving me. Thank you for serving me.
"Thank you for being generous to me.
"Thank you for being patient with me.
Thank you for praying for me."
The gratitude can go to the servants, but ultimately,
the glory belongs to Jesus alone.
And this is what Peter demonstrates,
because the crowd rushes in and they hear,
"Wow, these guys have the gift of healing."
Well, in a day when a lot of people are poor
and they don't have good medical coverage,
and Peter and John are healing without any deductible or copay,
all of a sudden they're highly popular.
And as everyone is looking at Peter and John, they say,
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't think that we healed this man
"by our power or our piety.
"Jesus healed him.
"Jesus is alive and well, seated, ruling, and reigning
"from his heavenly throne,
"and he can involve himself in anyone's life on earth
"at any point that he chooses and do whatever he wishes.
Jesus healed, not us."
So, the glory goes to him.
Number three, people need Bible preaching and teaching
to make sense of their experience.
They just had an experience.
A man is healed, but the question is:
Who healed him?
Why was he healed?
What does this mean?
Those are the kind of questions that ensue.
So, it is for you and I, and some would wrongly say that we
don't need teaching, we need simply experience;
we don't need an education about God,
we need an experience of God.
Might I submit to you that we need both.
God is the living God.
We need to experience him, but even if and when we do
experience him, we do not understand him unless we have
education regarding him.
So, let's say for example right now,
let's say you are suffering.
Some tragedy has befallen you.
That doesn't reveal to you who God is or what God is doing,
and you may not have any way of interpreting those facts.
"Is God punishing me? Is Satan against me?
"Am I reaping what I've sown?
"Is this my karmic debt for my past life coming back
"to cash in my obligations?
Why am I suffering?"
Education makes sense of our experience.
Experience alone does not give us an understanding:
it only gives us some insight, but it doesn't give us
understanding regarding that insight.
So, they had this experience.
A man is healed, and Peter stands up to preach and teach the Bible
to explain what happened and make sense of their experience.
So it is for you and I:
We can't just receive experience.
We have to then go to the Scriptures
to make sense of our experience,
to interpret in light of God's revelation.
And the fourth point: the Holy Spirit
wants to empower you to be courageous for Jesus.
Peter here is acting in a way that is very courageous.
First of all, he is at the temple.
This is an institution that is magnificent.
It's a spiritual center. It's a financial center.
It's a political center.
I mean, it was an amazing, amazing place where God's people
would come to worship in the presence of God.
It was destroyed as Jesus promised.
It's only a relic of what it once was,
but I've been there and it's magnificent and glorious.
And Peter stands up in a section of the temple to preach
and proclaim the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
And he does so to people who are murderers.
And he says, "You killed Jesus. You handed him over.
"You preferred the murderer Barabbas to the God-man Jesus.
You. You." He gets real personal.
How many of you, if you were addressing a group of murderers,
would talk about something other than their murder, right?
Because you could be encouraging them to murder you.
So, he's being very courageous.
He is calling murderers to repent of their murder,
knowing that if they don't,
odds are they will murder him as well.
And the Holy Spirit wants to empower you and I
to be courageous in talking about Christ.
And so as Peter gets up, he has this amazing sermon
and he highlights eight things regarding Jesus Christ.
So, I want to examine those with you in succession,
because ultimately, it's all about Jesus.
The first thing that he, in fact, tells us about Jesus
is that Jesus is the suffering "servant,"
and he refers to Jesus as our servant and the servant
of our fathers.
Those who were Jewish in orientation would have been
familiar with the Old Testament, and they would have harkened,
most likely, back to the book of Isaiah,
written 700 years before Jesus was born.
And in Isaiah 40 through 66-- it's a very long book--
in that lengthy section, the hero,
the story line is about someone called the servant, the servant.
And it culminates--I mean, if you want to have a mind-blowing
experience, go home and read the second half of Isaiah 52
through Isaiah 53, OK?
And that's all promising the coming of Jesus--
his life, death, burial, resurrection, and salvation.
So, that's right in the middle of this section,
but 40 through 66, those chapters are about one
called the servant, that God would send a servant.
And then Jesus comes, and he says things like this:
"The Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve,
and to give his life as a ransom for many."
So, Jesus' service for us includes his death for us.
Let me submit to you that this is one of the ways I know that
the God of the Bible was not constructed by men
but was revealed by God, that the other religious concepts
of God is that God exists to be served,
that God is a projection of the way we are.
So, you and I, we live in a world where most of us,
perhaps all of us, we would rather have servants
than be servants, amen? Right?
The goal in a company is to get as high up to hand off
as many responsibilities so that other people
can take of certain things that we just don't like.
The goal is to make enough money to employ people to serve you
so that you don't have to do certain things.
And people who can't afford that,
they go to Starbucks and they are abusive
toward their barista.
It's their little moment of having a servant, and they
will give orders and demands and be very unruly.
All of us like this concept of someone serving us,
someone taking orders from us, someone obeying us,
someone looking up to us, someone being under us.
We don't look forward to being a servant, right?
You can't get a minor in college in how to be a humble servant,
because no one would take that course of study.
And Jesus comes as a humble servant.
He leaves glory, comes in humility.
He leaves luxury, comes in poverty.
He leaves a place where he is served by the angels--
pretty good staff, pretty good staff--
to serve his enemies.
That's Jesus.
He comes to serve.
And friends, there is not another concept
of God like that.
All the other concepts of God is that God exists for us
to serve him; that God is a taker, not a giver;
that God is proud, he is not humble.
And not only is he a servant, he says it this way,
that Jesus is--he's the servant, quote,
"of the God of our fathers."
And he addresses this sermon at the beginning--
to what category of people?
Did you catch it?
Careful reading of the text, Acts 3:12,
"Peter saw it he addressed the people," saying what?
"Men." "Men of Israel."
How did he begin his sermon in Acts 2 at Pentecost?
"Men of Israel."
You keep reading the book of Acts,
how are many sermons begun?
"Men." "Men!" "You men!"
It's a strong word to the men.
Paul continues this, right?
"Men of Athens! "Men!"
God's cry from Genesis 3 with the failure of our first father
forward is, "Men!" "Men!" "Men!"
"Adam, where are you?" "Men, where are you?""
That's God's cry.
God speaks to men and women-- and some of you women
will be offended by this, don't be.
God created men and women equal in dignity, value, worth,
but he lays an additional burden of responsibility on the men
to love women, to love children, to serve women,
to serve children, to protect women, to protect children.
And in the world in which we live is what the world
looks like when God is disobeyed and men are defiant.
And here's the truth: if a man worships Jesus,
statistically, so does his wife and so do his children.
If a woman worships Jesus,
statistically, it is far less likely that
her husband will worship Jesus
or her children will worship Jesus,
because in the family system,
whether you love it or hate it, the truth is this:
the husband and the father is dominant.
Some of you say, "I didn't even have a dad.
He didn't even affect my life."
He is the biggest effect on your entire life, and that empty chair
at the dinner table had a profound effect
on who you are and how you live.
That men, we can be a burden or a blessing.
We can bring life or death.
We can bring tears or rejoicing to our families.
And it all depends on this: do we open our ear to hear
the call of God, "Men!"
and then to repent of sin and to receive the Holy Spirit
and to walk with Jesus?
And he says that Jesus is the servant, quote,
"of the God of our fathers."
And then he goes on to talk about three fathers:
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob.
These are three generations of men--a grandfather, a father,
and a son, or a grandson.
Men, you and I need not just think about a good time
but a good legacy.
We are to think covenantally, not selfishly.
You need to know, men, that if you worship Jesus,
the odds are increasingly better that your sons
and your grandsons will worship Jesus.
If you worship Jesus, the odds are increasingly better
that your daughters and granddaughters will marry men
who worship Jesus. And the converse is true.
And so men, much rises and falls with you and I.
And so the beginning of the sermons in the book of Acts
are calling out, calling to, men.
And so, I want you men to hear this
as a particular word for you.
Yes, it includes the women.
Yes, it includes the children.
But it is particularly granted that it would be for us men.
And you single men, you're not just marrying a woman
for a good time but a good legacy.
You're not just thinking about the weekend
but the fifth generation.
God's men think differently:
We think biblically. We think legacy. We think covenantally.
And some of you men are the first link in that chain,
and it's incumbent upon you that your children and grandchildren
would come to know the Lord Jesus.
Some of you are part of an already faithful chain,
and maybe it was your great-grandpa,
or your great-great-grandpa, that loved Jesus,
and you're carrying on that legacy of faith.
And by God's grace, I would encourage you,
don't be the broken link in the chain, OK?
And he says that Jesus loves to serve fathers,
that Jesus loves to serve men who want to bless their wives
and children.
So he calls him the servant of our fathers,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Do you see all that?
Some of you guys are like, "Why does Jesus not bless me?
"Why is my life so hard? Why is not coming together?"
Maybe because you're a fool. And maybe because
you're looking for a good time instead of a good legacy.
Maybe you're not treating the woman you're with
with dignity, value, worth, and respect.
Maybe you're not loving the concept of one day,
by God's grace, being a father.
Maybe you're not rising up to your responsibility.
And the God of the Bible is not excited about pouring
all his water in a bucket with no bottom, OK?
So men! Men! Jesus is happy to serve you
if you're willing to obey him.
So he starts by telling us that Jesus is the suffering servant.
He goes on, then, to say that Jesus is
the "Holy and Righteous One."
That's exactly what he says.
And this is controversial and debatable like everything else
I will say, so we'll just put it in the line. But here it is:
we live in a day when there is no conflict or controversy
if Jesus is just one of many good teachers
and good examples and good leaders.
The proverbial Mt. Rushmore-- yeah, there's Jesus
and Mohammed and Gandhi and Mother Theresa,
and there he is, one of the greats.
He is the "Holy and Righteous," how many?
"One."
There's none like Jesus.
There's none equal to Jesus.
There's none alongside of Jesus.
There's none in addition to Jesus.
It's just Jesus.
It's only Jesus.
It's always Jesus in a category unto himself.
Please do not put Jesus in a category with
the rest of humanity.
He's in an entirely different category.
He's not just a good man: he's the God-man.
He's not just a good man: he's alone, only, holy and righteous.
There's no sin in Jesus.
There are two categories: Jesus and everyone else, OK?
And in the everyone else category, you can say,
"Well, they're the best among the everyone else,"
but I'll just tell you this.
That's nothing compared to Jesus.
He alone is holy.
He has no sin.
He alone is righteous.
He is acceptable in the sight of the Father.
Now, because--back to point one--he's also our Father,
I have good news for you.
You don't have to be holy, and you don't have to be righteous.
In fact, you can't be holy, and you can't be righteous.
Some of you say, "I'm gonna try really hard."
Well, it's already too late, OK?
It's already too late.
You've already been unholy and unrighteous,
so even if you never sin again from this day forward--which is
not true. To even think that would be proud,
and that's the worst sin of all, so I got you there too,
all right? You're all hemmed in.
You're all hemmed in.
And here's the truth: Jesus is our holiness.
Jesus is our righteousness.
Jesus is our report card.
We stand before the Father, "Explain your holiness."
"His name is Jesus."
"So, where's your righteousness?"
"It's right there with Jesus."
He goes to the cross to take our unholiness,
to take our unrighteousness, and to trade places with us,
to serve us, to give us his holiness,
and to give us his righteousness.
Here's the good news: we don't need to pay God back.
We don't need to be pleasing in God's sight.
We don't need to do what religions always encourage,
and that is, "Pull it together so that God will love you."
Instead, it is, "God has loved you and he's going to help you
pull it together."
It's different because we work from Jesus' righteousness,
not for our own.
We work from Jesus' holiness, not for our own.
He alone is holy and righteous.
Number three, it goes on to say that
"Jesus is the Author of life... raised from the dead,"
that the God of the Bible is the Living God, we are told;
that God is eternally existent; that God is the uncaused cause;
that God is the Creator of all that is created;
and that God brings creation into life
because he is the Living God.
And then we, foolishly, rebel against that God,
and in choosing sin, we choose death.
Now, the Living God, the Author of life,
he's so gracious with us, he's so patient toward us that he
determines that he will enter into his creation,
that the Creator will enter creation,
that he would humble himself and walk among us.
And he comes to bring life. And what do we do to him?
We kill him.
We murder the Author of life.
It's an amazing revelation at the cross of Jesus,
not just the goodness of God, but the evil of the human heart,
that God would make us to live and that we would choose death,
and that God would come to bring us life and we kill him.
It says a lot about us.
And then Jesus rises from death.
You know why?
He's the Author of life, and death cannot hold him,
and he invites us to life in him--spiritual life now,
where our sins are forgiven and we're reconciled to God,
and eternal life, resurrected from the dead--physical, actual,
eternal life--patterned after his own bodily resurrection.
He's the author of life.
And let me say this very clearly: if you're here
and you don't know Jesus, you're spiritually dead.
And then you will physically die.
And then you will eternally die, suffering forever,
because there is no life-- spiritual, physical,
or eternal life--apart from the Author of life.
That's why we're all in the process of dying.
You know what happens after you unplug your phone, your iPad,
your laptop from it's power source?
It's not dead, but it's dying.
And apart from being connected to a source of life,
it will die and remain dead.
That's how we are, spiritually.
We're dying and in the process of dying.
We will die, and apart from a connection
to the Author of life, all we will ever know is death--
spiritual death--that culminates in physical death,
that results in eternal death.
But the good news is Jesus is the Author of life.
His fourth point is that Jesus is the object of our faith.
Jesus is the object of our faith, and it literally says it
this way: "By faith in his name."
Now, various religions will teach that we have
some sort of problem that needs some sort of solution,
and they will differ on the problem and the solution,
but there's one thing that is constant among them all.
I'll share it with you briefly.
In Buddhism, you save yourself by ceasing all desire.
In Confucianism, you save yourself through education,
reflection, self-cultivation, and moral living.
In Hinduism, you save yourself by detaching from your
separated ego and living in unity with the divine.
You say, "What does that mean?"
I would say, "I'm not sure the Hindus know."
I don't know.
In Islam, you save yourself by living a life of good deeds.
In Orthodox Judaism, you save yourself through repentance,
prayer, and working hard to obey God's laws
and being a good person.
In the New Age, or Integrative Spirituality,
you save yourself through seeing yourself
as part of the divine oneness
and seeking to live in harmony as part of the One.
In Daoism, you save yourself by aligning with the Dao
to have peace in you and harmony around you.
They will posit that the problem is different.
It's sin or it's a lack of consciousness
or inner-connectiveness, so there are various solutions,
but one thing remains constant--
what's the object of your faith?
Might I say it this way: who is the object of your faith?
You are.
You save yourself.
You learn something, you do something,
you experience something, but ultimately,
you are the object of your faith.
You save yourself.
So, religion comes along to say,
"Here's what you do to save yourself."
Christianity comes along and says,
"It's not about what you do; it's about what Jesus has done.
"It's not about you saving yourself;
it's about you being saved by a Savior."
Now, this will be difficult for some of you because you
have family, friends, coworkers, neighbors,
perhaps even yourself, maybe even your spouse--
they adhere to other spiritualities and religions.
And you say, "I know some people, they're very devout.
"They're very moral. They're very spiritual.
"They're very committed and they're actually
"very nice people, nicer than some Christians I know,
like you Pastor Mark, who yells at me."
OK, all of which could be true, OK?
Their faith may be sincere,
but the object of their faith cannot save.
I'll use an illustration.
Let's say you're a bad swimmer.
How many of you are bad swimmers?
Say you're a bad swimmer.
It's coming up to swim time, summer's here.
Say you're out swimming and it's not going well.
OK, so you yell at someone, "Throw me the anvil!
Throw me the anvil!"
And you have sincere faith in the anvil.
You have devout faith in the anvil.
You have a deep commitment to the belief that the anvil
will save you. And they throw you the anvil.
And in an act of faith, you grab it,
and you hold onto it with deep, devoted,
sincere, religious-type commitment.
How's it going to go?
OK, any of you watch the Roadrunner cartoons
as a kid?
How's it going to go?
You're going to sink,
because faith doesn't save you.
The object of faith saves you, and if you pick
the wrong object, you're not saved. You die.
It's like that.
So, he tells us, "By faith in his name,"
that Jesus alone is our Savior.
Have you received Jesus?
Have you responded to Jesus?
Have you put your proverbial arms around Jesus?
Is your faith in his name?
He goes on to say that Jesus is the fulfillment of prophecy.
And he talks a lot about prophets here.
He quotes from Moses.
He quotes from Samuel.
He's quoting the prophets extemporaneously.
He, in fact, says it this way.
I'll read it to you in 3:18.
"What God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets,
that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled."
Peter is saying, first of all, that the Bible is for us,
but it's not about us.
Some of you are new.
I need you to hear this.
We believe that this is the book that God--we believe, too,
this is the only book that God wrote.
There's, like, not another one at Barnes and Noble, OK?
This is the book that God wrote.
It's the only book that God wrote, and the book is for us,
but it's not about us.
It's about Jesus.
So, from beginning to end, it is primarily about him,
which means, then, we don't come to this book as we would come
to psychology or self-help or some sort of steps for
better living or transformed understanding.
We would not come to this book and say,
"What are some principles by which I might improve my life?"
Instead, we say, "No, this is not a book primarily about what
"I do but what Jesus has done.
"This is not a book primarily about who I am,
"but who Jesus is.
"And as I understand who Jesus is, then that changes who I am.
"And that changes what I do. So all of things--those kinds of
"desires happen, but I don't see those as the primary purpose
"of the Scriptures because this isn't good advice
"as much as it is good news.
"Not good advice for me, but good news about him that
then changes me so that I may become more like him."
And all of this is called prophecy.
And so some of you may know this,
but when the Bible was originally written--
it's a series of books written over a number of years--
roughly 20% of the Bible was prophetic in nature.
It was God, who knows the future,
telling in advance what would happen in great detail.
And most of that prophecy surrounds the person
and work of Jesus Christ.
And I can't get into all of it with you,
but I'll just give you some examples.
Like, in Genesis 3, the prophecy is given by God that Jesus
would come as a male son born of a woman.
Go to Isaiah 7, that his mom would be a virgin.
We're really narrowing down the list of candidates, amen?
OK?
Really narrowing that. Go to Isaiah 9 and it says that his
name would be Immanuel, which means--what's Immanuel mean?
"God with us."
OK, we've really whittle the list down now.
All right, you continue forward, the Bible says,
in the latter prophets, that he would be born in Bethlehem,
that he would be born and taken to the temple
which was destroyed in 70 A.D.
So, whenever this person was to come,
it had to be before 70 A.D.
So, I always tell my Jewish friends--they're like,
"We're waiting for a Messiah."
You missed him. He came before 70 A.D.
And it's like, I'm also not waiting for
the Van Halen I tour.
Like, it's over, you know?
That band is done.
That's already been taken care of, you know?
I'm not, ooh, excited about the coming of 1979.
That's in the rearview mirror.
That's over.
Jesus was promised to come before 70 A.D.,
because he was supposed to go to the temple.
There is no temple.
It was destroyed in 70 A.D.
So, all of these prophecies, they all point to the coming
of Jesus in painstaking detail because this is the book
that God wrote, and he knows the future
and he brings it to pass.
What he's saying is this, that they are in a period of
history that is very privileged, that for hundreds and thousands
of years, God's people were leaning into the future
and listening to the prophets.
"When is Jesus coming?"
And Peter says, "In your day, he came,
and all the prophecies were fulfilled. And you killed him!"
Sort of controversial.
And he rose from the dead, fulfilling another prophecy
in a place like Isaiah 52 and 53, that he would be high
and exalted, crucified; that he would be pierced for our
transgressions; that he would be buried with the rich
in his death; and that he would see the light of life
and his soul would be satisfied;
that he would raise from death.
All of it predicted in the Old Testament.
He says, "You're in the privileged position."
Mars Hill, I would submit this to you:
we're in an exceedingly privileged position.
For hundreds and thousands of years,
they were leaning and straining into the future.
"When is Jesus coming, and what will it be like?"
And then he came, he lived, he died, he rose, he ascended.
We're in a privileged place where we see
the fulfillment of prophecy.
We see the birth of the church.
We see the closing of the canon of Scripture.
And the truth is that the majority of the prophecies
about Jesus were already fulfilled at his first coming,
but we're still anticipating some to be fulfilled
his second coming.
We've not yet had the second coming of Jesus.
We've not yet had the resurrection of the dead.
We've not yet had the judgment of the living and the dead.
We've not yet had the sentencing to eternal heaven and hell.
So, the majority of the prophecies were fulfilled
at Jesus' first coming,
but we're in the time between the times,
waiting, learning, yearning for the second coming of Jesus,
and he is the fulfillment of prophesy.
He also says that Jesus is the "Christ."
And this may be strange language for some of us,
but his name is Jesus Christ.
Jesus means "God saves."
Back to my original point: We don't save ourselves. God saves.
Christ is actually a title.
It means, "The Anointed One."
Your Jewish friends will call this "Messiah,"
that he is the special one, the unique one, the chosen one.
He is the Christ. He is the Messiah.
And inferred in this is this concept of Savior,
one who is chosen to come and to make a difference
and to save a people
and to cause a kingdom to come into existence.
And here's why this is so important:
you and I have a deep longing for Messiah.
We do--someone who's like us but better,
come to save us and make it all better.
OK, you don't believe me, I'll give you some examples.
So, every election year, it's messiah time, all right?
And here's the narrative--just change the candidates names.
Things are really bad. It kind of feels like hell.
You want to live in heaven? Vote for the messiah.
He'll come and save us.
He's like us but better.
He'll put down our enemies, whoever they are,
and he'll cause us to have a kingdom of peace,
and he's going to take care of us.
Vote for the messiah.
We vote for him, does it work?
No, that's why we keep having elections.
And it's going to be like that until Jesus comes back
and he puts an end to all elections.
We'll just have a King. We don't vote.
This happens in business.
Your company's tanking, you know what it is?
"We need a messiah. We need a new CEO.
"He's going to save us.
"He's going to fix all our problems.
"He's going to usher in peace and prosperity.
He's going to turn it all around."
It happens in sports teams all the time,
especially the Seattle Mariners.
Happens all the time, right?
Oh, we're dying.
Oh my golly, right?
Like, oh, the corpse is stench-filled
and going into the ground.
That's OK, messiah's coming and he'll resurrect the dead.
And it's a veteran!
No, it's a rookie!
It's a first-round draft pick!
He's going to be the messiah.
He's going to do superhuman feats like hit,
and then we're going to resurrect from the dead,
and we're all going to gather around and eat hot dogs
and sing his praises and be the church
we were meant to be with $8 beers.
That's--so we've all got our messiah, the one who's like us,
but better and going to make it all better.
Have you seen the Superman movie?
What is it, "Man of Steel"?
Wow, OK, I went there on date night with Grace.
Date night is always with Grace, by the way.
And so I'm on date night with Grace, and I'm like,
"Really, this is the story?"
So, in a heavenly kingdom far away,
a royal father has a one-of-a-kind son that is
the only begotten son, born of basically a miracle,
that he loves with all his heart and sends to the earth
as a messiah to reconcile the heavenly kingdom
and the earthly people by vanquishing evil.
But before that, he needs to be raised by a rural,
peasant couple in poverty, and then he's single,
and he has superhuman powers,
but he doesn't really go public with them
until he's around 30 with a beard.
And then, around 33,
he sacrifices himself to vanquish evil,
to deliver the people, and to reconcile
the heavenly kingdom with the earthly kingdom
so that there might be peace and prosperity.
I was like, "Where have I heard this?
"I know I've heard this somewhere.
"I have heard--this sounds so familiar, this story.
I swear I've heard--"
And then I read that the Superman narrative,
this myth, was created by some Jewish guys
who didn't know Jesus or believe the New Testament,
and their point was, "Well, we read the Old Testament,
"we started thinking about, 'Hypothetically, someday,
"'a messiah comes, what might he be like?'
and we wrote the Superman narrative."
I'm like, "Hey kids, keep reading that same book.
"Keep reading that same book.
"I have--woo, this is going to blow your mind.
"No cape or unitard--thank you Jesus--but similar story,
very similar story, amen?"
Amen.
There's a deep groove in the human soul
that wants a messiah,
so deep that we keep making superhero movies and stories,
where they're like us but better than us
and come to save us and give us a kingdom.
Yeah, it says that he is our--Jesus is our Messiah.
He's our Christ, amen?
And so we don't have myths; we have a Messiah, all right?
We don't have false kingdoms; we have a real kingdom.
It also says that he is the prophet like Moses.
Now, Moses was the first and greatest prophet.
He gave us the first five books of the Old Testament.
If you are a Hebrew boy growing up, collecting trading cards,
a Moses rookie was a big deal, OK?
Moses is a big deal for the Hebrew kids. Moses.
I mean, God gave him the Ten Commandments
twice, right?
We're going to get into that in the fall.
It's pretty crazy.
Moses. And Moses says,
"There is coming a prophet who is greater than me."
Can you imagine that?
Everybody's gathered around, "All right, Moses.
"You're the mouthpiece of God on the earth.
What's he say?"
"Well, he says I'm not a big deal.
Somebody's coming who is."
"What?"
You can imagine the speculation, right?
All the Twitter polls, like,
everybody's trying to figure this out.
"Who's that? Who's bigger than Moses?"
Jesus comes.
After Moses, there's a succession of prophets
all leading up to Jesus who is--
He's the prophet.
He's God become a man, but he's also a preacher from God to men.
And he's preaching and preaching and preaching--
and you need to see this:
In our culture, it's popular to see Jesus as humble,
marginalized Galilean peasant in a dress with long hair,
hanging out with children, feeding people,
and petting lambs, OK?
That's kind of--everybody's like, "Oh, I love that Jesus."
How about the preacher Jesus, OK?
Because the preacher Jesus, he said some controversial things
like, "I'm God. You're a sinner. Repent,
or I'll send you to hell."
That's why they killed him. Then he got up and said,
"Back to my first point," right?
Jesus rarely got in trouble for what he did.
He often got in trouble for what he said, OK?
And so Jesus would preach, and some would believe,
and some would disbelieve, and some would repent,
and some would rebel, and some would submit,
and others refused.
And there was a conflict between Jesus and those
who were unwilling to listen. And so it is in our day.
But friends, I need you not to just look at the example
of Jesus, I need you to listen to the words of Jesus
and let him be a prophet who tells you the truth,
because that's what a prophet does.
A prophet tells you the truth.
But hear me in this: a prophet tells you the truth because they
love you and they know that living a life guided by lies
is no life at all.
So, just because they're yelling doesn't mean they're angry.
Just like a father yells at a child, "Move!" right,
when the car is barreling down the street in their path,
it's not that the father is angry,
it's that the father is worried.
And the cadence and the pitch and the tone of his voice
is not one where he's trying to scare the child,
it's one where he's trying to move the child
out of harm's way.
And that's what the prophets do, and that's what
Jesus the Prophet did.
He goes on, eighth point, to say that Jesus is the offspring
of Abraham-- the offspring of Abraham.
And here, Peter goes all the way back to Genesis,
first book of the Bible.
You don't get too far in, and then you hit this guy
named Abram, so he's going back to that story.
Here's a summary of the story:
There's an old man named Abram. His wife's named Sarai.
Their names are going to be changed to Abraham and Sarah.
As far as we can tell, and I think,
based upon a little further in Acts,
I think Abraham was from a nation called Babylon.
You heard of that one?
Thumbs up, thumbs down--godly, ungodly?
Ungodly, right?
Babylon.
Anytime the Rolling Stones name an album after a place,
thumbs-down ungodly, OK?
Babylon.
So, he's from Babylon, and they created something called
the Tower of Babylon in rebellion against God,
and God judged them.
And then the Bible says that God picked one of these rebellious,
undeserving, pagan people like me,
and showed up to him and said,
"Abram, here's what we're going to do:
"I'm going to give you a son.
"Through that son will come a nation.
"Through that nation will come offspring, or seed,
who is a blessing to the nations of the earth."
Abraham didn't seek God; God sought Abraham.
Abraham didn't call out to God; first God called out to Abraham.
Abraham didn't deserve what he was going to receive;
it was a gift of God's grace.
This a great portrait of sovereign election.
God then allows them to have a child, all right?
He's already mentioned this earlier--Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob, talking about generations.
Through that son comes the nation of Israel.
Through that nation of Israel comes a very important Son,
the Son of God, Jesus Christ, and he is the blessing
to the nations of the earth.
So the promise given to Abram was,
"You're from a pagan nation.
"I'm going to make you into a nation of my people,
"and from the nation of my people
"will come one person to bless all the nations,
"all the races, all the tribes, all the tongues,
all the languages."
And this is super important for you and I to realize,
because in that day, they tended to have national gods.
So, there's these people and these people.
And these people have their god, and these people have their god.
And they pray to their god for power to crush these people
while these people pray to their god for power
to crush these people.
And the real God shows up and says, "You all need to repent.
"I'm the Lord and King over all the nations.
"I'm the King of kings, I'm the Lord of lords,
"and you don't get to war with me.
"You don't get to war with one another.
"We're going to make this new group called the church.
"You're going to love one another like family
"and it's going to be people from every language,
"and tribe and tongue and nation and class
"and race and gender and socioeconomic background
"and style of people because a promise was made that
one person would be the blessing for all the people."
Good news, right?
That's what he's saying and that's our Jesus,
that he's the offspring of Abraham and he's the blessing
to the nations.
That being said, I want to have a few words for you who are
Christian and a few words for those of you who are not.
Christians, number one, here's what we see
in the example of Peter.
Number one, our faith is to be public,
not just private.
Peter's faith at this moment, is it public or private?
Very public.
He stands up to a large group of people and says,
"You killed Jesus.
What are you going to do with that?"
That's very public.
We live in a day when everyone is OK with your
Christian faith providing it is private, not public, OK?
How many of you--social media, you're not really putting
Jesus out there?
Maybe you are a Christian or you're just attending a church,
Community Group, whatever the case may be--
you've not really told your family because you know
the backlash.
You're at work and, yet again, Christianity is the piñata
getting the proverbial whack yet again on some moral
or social issue.
"I would say something, but no thanks."
You're a student.
You're in class at the university,
and all of a sudden
they're talking about Christianity again.
Oh, oh, oh, and it's not positive.
Who saw that coming, right?
This is where you raise your hand and you say,
"Hey, since we're talking about Jesus, as a Christian,
"I'd like to talk about Jesus since you brought it up.
"Since we all believe in tolerance and diversity,
"I thought I'd give you an opportunity to exercise
"that great kindness.
You're welcome. You're welcome."
And see, some of us, we don't go public with our faith
because we don't want to be persecuted for our faith.
What did they do to Peter?
Crucified him upside down.
Who did he worship?
A crucified Jesus.
How's it going to go for you?
Probably really bad.
This is not a sales pitch, right?
There is no door-to-door salesman that does it this way.
"Take this product and you will explode," right?
But here's the big idea:
somebody went public for you, right?
You didn't know Jesus, and somebody who did know Jesus
took the risk of telling you that they knew Jesus
and talked to you about Jesus.
And so somebody went public for you,
you go public for someone else.
Because the goal is not to escape this life without
persecution, the goal is to escape this life with converts,
to take as many people with us
who love Jesus as we possibly can.
So you can't just have a private faith.
It has to be a public faith.
And you don't need to be rude about it,
but you need to be honest about it.
Number two, be prepared.
You never know when you're going to have an opportunity
to talk to people about Jesus, OK?
How many of you, if your teacher/professor in school,
if they didn't have tests, you wouldn't have studied?
If your teacher got up first day, "We don't do tests,"
you'd be like, "Then I don't do study. Deal."
The reason teachers give us tests is they know
we won't study unless we have a test.
How many of you hated pop quizzes?
See, a pop quiz is a test you didn't get to know was coming.
Christian life is a series of pop quizzes.
You don't know when you're going to have an opportunity
to pray for somebody, to answer somebody's question,
to talk to somebody about Jesus.
You don't know, right?
Do you think Peter was prepared for this day?
You think it was, you know, on his calendar,
"Today, the man lame from birth will be healed,
"a large crowd will gather, and I will preach.
"Check, time to pull out my commentaries
and get my sermon ready."
Do you think he was prepped?
No. The Bible says he was just going to prayer,
a guy lame from birth, "I don't have silver or gold--shazam!--
"how about a healing?
OK, great."
This is what happens.
Now, what I can tell you is, as far as I can tell,
this is probably an extemporaneous sermon
from Peter, and it may only be a summarized transcript,
not the full sermon, but he packs quite a bit in, amen?
I mean, for just like, "Well, hey,
"let me just talk about some stuff I'm thinking about
as I've been studying the Bible."
He really is studied up.
Here's the big idea: Study, study, study. Pray, pray, pray.
You never know when the opportunity will arise,
but you want to be ready to serve.
And see, there are opportunities all the time.
Maybe you're at work and somebody says,
"I got diagnosed with cancer."
"Can I pray for you?
"Where are you at with God?
"How can I serve you?
Do you know that we worship a God who suffered?"
Like, walk through that door of open opportunity.
But oftentimes, the door opens and we don't walk through it
because we haven't been studying, so we're not ready.
We're like, "Well, if they ask a question,
"I don't think I can answer it.
"I've not really prepared myself.
I'm not sure what to say or do."
Friends, I would just encourage you,
ministry opportunity is always there, prepared people aren't.
That's when Jesus says that "The harvest is plenty,
but the laborers are few."
There's lots of people who need help,
and there's few Christians who are ready.
Peter's ready, and he's a good example for us.
Thirdly, the Holy Spirit will empower you to speak
courageously about Jesus.
Hey, would you agree with me?
Peter, at this point, he's acting in a way
that is very courageous, right?
He's preaching publicly about Jesus at the temple to people
who don't agree with him, and some of them were there
shouting, "Crucify him, crucify him,"
complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus.
Yes or no, courageous?
Yes.
Was Peter always courageous?
Was he a guy, if you look at his life, you're like,
"Oh, of course Peter's courageous.
"Look at him. His cape flies in the wind.
"He's always ready for battle. He's Peter the Courageous.
He's Peter the Lionhearted."
No.
For those of you that know the story of the Bible,
he did not start courageous.
He started as a coward, all right?
They arrested Jesus, and they're trying him,
and they're going to crucify him.
Peter's following him, right, and the Bible says from
a long ways away, right?
Here's Peter. Jesus is way down there.
Why is Peter this far away from Jesus
when he's going to be crucified?
Peter's not signing up for suffering.
The Bible says he's warming himself by a fire
at a distance, trying to remain anonymous,
keep his faith private, not go public.
They start chatting. There's probably a teenage servant girl
there, "Oh, that's a weird accent.
"Where are you from? From the South?
What's up with the y'alls?"
You know, she sees his Galilean accent.
He's rural, right?
"Oh, isn't that where Jesus is from--Galilee?
"You know what? In fact, I saw you with him.
You're one of Jesus' guys."
What's Peter say?
Three times denies, "I don't know Jesus.
Never met him," starts cursing,
"Don't know who you're talking about,"
because he's a coward.
Here, Peter's courageous.
What happened?
Well, the Holy Spirit filled him, gave him courage.
Mars Hill, I believe even in the increasingly hostile culture
in which we live, it's more like the days of Peter,
the Holy Spirit's going to need to empower us
to talk about Jesus.
And some of you say, "That's right,
and as soon as I feel that courage, I will speak."
Here's the truth: speak and then the courage comes.
The courage comes as you speak, not before, right?
It's by faith.
"OK, I'm going to talk about Jesus now.
"I'm not sure I'm going to get it all right.
"I'm not sure I'm going to have the courage to finish it.
"I don't know what's going to happen,
"but I'm going to open my mouth like the prophets used to
"and the children of God still do,
"and I'm going to talk about Jesus,
"and I'm going to trust that the Holy Spirit
"will empower me to say the right words
"and to have the courage to endure whatever happens
as a result of talking about Jesus," amen?
That's exactly what he demonstrates for us.
And that's what I want for you.
Now, for those of you who are non-Christians,
here's his word to you:
Acts 3:19, "Repent therefore, and turn back,
"that your sins may be blotted out,
"that the times of refreshing may come
from the presence of the Lord."
And when he's talking about sins here,
what can happen is some of us have a whole list of,
oh yeah, here's all the bad things you do.
He's talking to religious people.
It's important to note, OK?
These are people who believe in God.
These are people who are moral.
These are people who are well-behaved.
These are people who are generous.
Like, these are people that if, you know,
if they're in the Scouts, they got a lot of patches
down their sleeves.
Like, they obey the rules.
These are people who play by the rules.
But what he says to them is, "You delivered Jesus,
you denied Jesus, you killed Jesus."
So when we think of sin,
we can't just think of those bad people.
Sometimes the bad people are the most religious people, OK?
But what he's saying is this, that if we repent,
God forgives our sin.
And the picture here-- the word picture's important.
In our day, we have, you know, paper.
We use the paper, we throw it away.
In their day, they would have parchment
or sometimes animal skins, and it's very valuable.
And so they would write with an acid-free ink, and later on,
if you wanted to clean it,
you could reuse the proverbial paper.
You could reuse it.
And what he's saying is, "This is how God works with us
through Jesus' cross, dealing with our sin."
Think of your sin as like a whole list, "You did this,
"you failed to that.
"Here's all your failures, faults, and flaws.
Here's all your shortcomings and sins."
Long list. And Jesus' death, burial,
and resurrection is like God putting it under water,
scrubbing it clean, pulling it out, and saying,
"See, it's all gone. It's clean."
Every time you do the laundry, just remind yourself
Jesus does that too, all right?
He makes us clean.
We're forgiven, but we need to repent.
Let me camp on this in my closing few moments.
Christians and non-Christians, particularly in our current
sort of moral, spiritual, cultural climate,
there's a list of issues that we disagree on,
and there's a bit of a war over the things that we disagree on.
It's actually deeper than that.
Because a non-Christian begins with this assumption,
"I'm basically a good person.
"I don't need to change who I am.
"Maybe I need to improve a little of who I am,
"but I'm basically a good person.
"And what I desire,
"those are good things.
"So, my morality, those are good things.
"My sexuality, those are good things.
"My spirituality, that's a good thing because I'm a good person,
"and out of me will come good desires and good actions
"and good thoughts.
"And I need to be loved, and I need to be accepted,
"and I need to be approved so that I can be the good person
"that I truly, deeply am.
"And if you would tell me that I'm wrong, that's very hateful.
"If you would tell me that I need to change,
"that's very intolerant.
"And if you would say that some of what I feel
"or some of what I like or some of what I believe
"or some of how I behave is unacceptable,
that's very unloving."
Christians believe that the highest authority
is God and not us, and it's the timeless Scriptures,
not the timely preferences.
We believe that who we are needs to change at the deepest level
because what is natural is actually sinful,
because we believe that sin has infected and affected everyone
and everything, which means our nature is wrong
and needs to change.
It means that our mind is wrong, and it needs to change.
It means that our desires are wrong and they need to change.
It means that our actions are wrong and they need to change.
It means that our mind is wrong and it needs to change.
That not only what we think and what we feel and how we are
and what we do, but who we are needs to change.
And the Bible summarizes that in the word "repentance."
Repentance.
And it's very loving.
In fact, it's the most loving thing.
The God who made us--we rebelled against him and chose death.
God then came for us and we killed him.
God rose from death and said, "I will forgive you
and embrace you and change you."
Well, that's incredibly loving because otherwise,
we're living in the path of the wrath of God.
We're living separated from God
and destined for judgment from God.
And someone who feels very at home living on the train tracks
with no sense of impending destruction might find it
very loving that someone yells at them or shoves them,
but as the train barrels by, they must realize,
"That was a very loving thing to do because you got me
"out of the path of death
"and destruction and devastatio, and danger,
and that was an act of love."
And that's what the call to repentance is:
it's an invitation to get out of the path of the wrath of God
and to be embraced by the love of Jesus.
And here's the truth about the love of Jesus:
Jesus' love takes you as you are
but refuses to allow you to remain that way.
So, you come to Jesus as you are,
but coming to Jesus means you are acknowledging
that you need to change, and that's repentance.
That's what repentance is.
That's what repentance does.
And then he gives us this great promise for those who repent.
Have you repented and trusted in Jesus?
For those who repent, God sends what?
Refreshing.
God wants you to be refreshed, OK?
For those of you who are dark Christians--and dark Christians
are those who, they love their sin, they love their rebellion,
they love their folly, they love their pain,
they love their suffering, they always talk about it,
they always think about it, they always are soberly reminiscent
of it, they can't get over it.
It's as if, "If I just suffer more, then I'm more godly."
No, Jesus already suffered, and he's not looking for any help.
We repent and God brings refreshing.
If you had a hot day where you found some cool shade
and a nice breeze, the Holy Spirit's like that.
You've been parched and thirsty and dry in your mouth,
and somebody gives you a cold drink--
the Holy Spirit is like that.
You had an exhausting day where you could barely stand on
your feet and your pillow felt majestic--
the Holy Spirit's like that.
God wants you to be refreshed, but to do that, you must repent.
And we set up the service to give you an opportunity
to do that.
So we'll collect our tithes and offerings.
This is where we repent of worshiping money rather than
worshiping God with our money.
In a moment, we'll partake of Communion.
This is where we remember Jesus' broken body and shed blood,
how our sin is forgiven, why repentance is possible,
and how refreshing comes.
Then we're going to sing and celebrate because
that's what refreshed people do.
And as we prepare for that and as the stewards
collect our offering,
I want to share with you our mission and some of what
the Holy Spirit's doing up in Everett.
Is that OK? All right.
And men, plant your feet.
Everett belongs to Jesus.
Snohomish County belongs to Jesus.
We belong to Jesus, and by the grace of God we will plant
our feet here, and we will stand here,
and we will tell the truth from here,
and we will love and serve from here.
Hey Mars Hill, Pastor Ryan here, and welcome to the armory.
This is the home of Mars Hill Everett.
This place used to be used for so many years to hold guns
and weapons of war, and now it's an outpost for the gospel.
It's a place where Mars Hill Everett
is going to equip the saints
for the work of the ministry.
We've got an amazing