"Repent Therefore" (Acts 3:11-26)

Transcript:

Well, as we continue our study through the Book of Acts, coming into the sermon about the miracle that we saw last week, there is, I think, one important fact that we need to always keep at the forefront of our minds as we consider texts like this. It is a consideration that is very easy to lose sight of. However, it is obvious once we give it a moment's consideration, namely, that the early church in the story that we're reading today did not have the New Testament as we possess it today. Jesus had just lived. He had just died.

He had just been resurrected from the dead. He had just ascended to heaven. The Gospels as we have them now, had not yet been written. The history that's given to us in the Book of Acts had not all transpired. In fact, we have not even met Paul.

He has not yet been converted. The man who will write so many letters to the churches that fill up our New Testament, the early church did not have the New Testament as we possess it today. Now, again, that thought is obvious on a moment's consideration. But it's very important as we come to a text like this, when we consider what it means for the early church to preach Christ from the Scriptures. Because what that consideration helps us to remember and should catch our attention is that they did not preach Christ from the New Testament Scriptures.

Again, those were in the process of being written. They preached Christ from the Old Testament Scriptures. And so whenever we come to one of these great sermons that is so rich in Old Testament language and Old Testament promises, we have to ask, how does the Old Testament connect to the New Testament? Now, some have argued that the text of the Old Testament is in opposition somehow to the New Testament, that there was something wrong or something deformed or too wrathful, too violent, too bloody about the Old Testament. So that the New Testament had to then replace the Old Testament.

That there's a connection of opposition where the New Testament replaced the Old. But that's clearly not what is happening in this sermon here. Others have argued that there is perhaps a parallel path that what God did in the Old Testament with his people, Israel is continuing forward as though Jesus Christ had not yet come. And now Jesus Christ has come. And there are now two options, two possibilities for getting to heaven.

There's the Old Testament promises for Israel and there's the New Testament promises to the church. But both will end up the same place. And that is absolutely not what Peter is proclaiming here. The relationship, the connection between the Old and the New Testament is not one of replacement. It is not one of setting up parallel paths to heaven.

It is rather one of promise and fulfillment. That what God promised to his people, that what the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob promised by the covenants that he made to his people, has now been fulfilled in and through Jesus Christ. So that the blessings promised to Abraham are now found only and exclusively in God's only begotten son, Jesus Christ, the Messiah. And the implication that Peter draws from this is going to be our theme for this morning. It's an urgent application if this is true.

Repent by turning from your sin and toward your Savior. That's our theme for this morning. Repent by turning from your sin and toward your Savior. There are three parts to our text today as we consider this great sermon from Peter. First, glory and guilt.

The glory of Jesus and the guilt of his people who rejected him. Second, repentance and restoration. The call to repentance and the promise of restoration. And then third, and this is very important, in the last two verses, we are going to see the covenantal connection, how Jesus in the New Testament relates to, as the fulfillment of promises to the covenants made in the Old Testament, the covenantal connection. So in this first section, in verses 11 through 16, we will consider Christ's glory in the people's guilt.

Now, before we get into this again, it's always good to get our bearings by remembering what has just transpired. I jumped right into this sermon. But the context of this is that this sermon happens directly after Peter and John performed a great miracle. There was a man who had been lame all his life. And they healed this man in the name of Jesus.

By the power of Jesus, they said to him, in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk. And so he did. And there's this great miracle. Because all of the people, for many years as they've come to worship at the temple morning and evening, they pass by this man. And sometimes they offered him alms, little contributions to alleviate his poverty, some money to maybe buy some food or something with that.

And sometimes they didn't. But regardless of whether they had money to give that day or not, they always saw him there, always at the gates, never entering into the temple. But now suddenly, this man is walking and he's leaping like the deer in fulfillment of the Messianic promises from Isaiah, chapter 35. And finally, after all these years, he enters into the temple what he could not do all the years prior. And so in verse 10, we are told that they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened.

And they Know who's done this? Because we read in verse 11 that he's clinging to Peter and John. And while he's doing so, all the people, again, utterly astounded, they're amazed by what has happened. They ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's. This is an area of the temple complex.

And so we see when Peter saw it, he addressed the people. Now, one thing that's helpful in the background, two passages, two memories that sort of help us to understand what Peter is doing here is to remember that something very similar happened in the preaching on the day of Pentecost, that after the apostles were preaching in tongues, preaching so that all the people present in the congregation that day gathered for the feast of Pentecost. Whatever language they spoke, they heard the apostles speaking in tongues, namely speaking in language that they themselves understood. Not language the apostles spoke, but languages that they understood. And they were mystified by this, and there was confusion.

They thought maybe they were drunk. And so Peter again at that moment, stood up to explain to them exactly what had happened. And there too, we see that he says, this is the fulfillment of promises that were made in the Old Testament. And if you remember, I want to just point you briefly to Acts, chapter 2, verse 22, where he addressed the people, men of Israel. If you'll notice, that's exactly how Peter addresses the people in this sermon, in chapter three, verse 12, Men of Israel.

But he goes on from there and says, men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us? And this is helping us to remember that there's another passage in the background to this, and that goes all the way back to the first passage we looked at in the book of acts, in Acts 1, verse 11, when Jesus had just ascended into heaven and two men appeared. And we read there something very similar. It's not men of Israel, because it's not all the men gathered from all over Israel.

It's two men addressing Jesus, disciples who were all from Galilee as they were watching Jesus, who has just been taken up into heaven. And they said, men of Galilee, like men of Israel, but only from one region. Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. Well, again, there's a background parallel here.

Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us? The apostles were staring at heaven, and these people were staring at the apostles. And in both cases, what they were looking at was looking for, expecting the wrong thing in a moment. What Peter dispels at this moment is that the people were believing that it was by their power or their piety, their holiness, that they healed this man.

And he says it's not at all the case. Now notice then in verse 12, he stops talking about this man who was healed. The man who was healed was not the main point. Now he will come back to finish his thought in verse 16. But for now, he.

He sort of takes a change in pace to come in verses 13 through 15 to tell about the main point, what you are looking for. Oh, there are men with healing power in our midst. You're missing the point if you do not understand who resides behind this power. It's Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And So in verse 13, he says, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers.

And again, he doesn't say, heal this man. He'll get to the healing. But he doesn't say that here. What first he says is that the God of the Old Testament, this is a God that invokes the covenantal promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This God of the Old Testament glorified his servant Jesus.

Now again, this is the question. How does Christ revealed in the New Testament connect to what we read in the Old Testament? It's not opposition. It's not that there is a new God in charge of this who has to replace what the evil God of the Old Testament was doing. As some have taught from very on, early on in the history of the Church.

It is not that it is permissible to continue pretending that Christ has not come. Rather, the God of the Old Testament made promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to our fathers. And these promises have been fulfilled. How? In the glorification of Jesus, the God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus.

Now this is the glory. This is Christ's glory. But now as he announces Christ's glory, he moves immediately into the guilt of the people. Because Christ was glorified not because of the people, but in spite of the people. He glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate.

He's this wicked Roman governor. And although he was prepared to release him, you demanded that he be crucified. The wicked pagan Gentiles understood the innocence of Jesus in a way that you were not willing to acknowledge. But it wasn't just his judgment. He says in verse 14.

But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be Granted to you, there's a great contrast. The people seeing the holy and righteous one of heaven, rejected him and instead demanded for a murderer to be released in his place. But the final thing that Peter traces this to in these great contrasts, these three verses of great contrasts, is he contrasts their actions toward Jesus with God's actions toward Jesus. And you killed the author of life. Think about that.

To murder the one who created life.

But God raised him from the dead. What you tried to do, you accomplished in part, and yet God reversed it. You did indeed put Jesus to death. The author of life was murdered. But God would not let that stand.

And God raised him up from the dead. And then Peter reminds them to this. We are witnesses. The role of the apostles was to serve as witnesses of the resurrected Christ. Well, now in verse 16, he comes back to answer their initial question.

Why was this lame man suddenly healed? Well, he's given us the background now. It's because God has glorified his servant, Jesus Christ. And in verse 16, he says, and his name, Christ's 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 in the presence of you all.

How was he healed? He was healed by faith. Now, we were not told this explicitly in the initial telling of the miracle in verses 1 through 10, but we did see Peter preach sort of a direct, individualized sermon to this man. In chapter three, verse six, we read, but Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And it was by this sermon then we initially hear that immediately took his right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. But what we are now informed in Peter's sermon is that this happened because this lame man responded to this sermon, this individualized, personalized sermon that Peter had preached to him with faith in the name that is the authority, the power of Jesus Christ. And it is by faith in his name that this man walked. And if you remember, we connected this to Jesus healing of the paralytic back in Luke chapter five, that the first thing that Jesus said to that man was, son, your sins are forgiven. Seeing their faith, he forgave the man's sins.

And when they grumbled about this saying, who is this? Who says he has the authority to forgive sins? He says, so that you may know that the Son of man has authority to forgive sins on earth. I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and walk. And the man got up and walked away to demonstrate both that the Son of man, Jesus has authority to heal bodies and that he has the authority to forgive sins in order to heal souls.

So what now? What are the people supposed to do with this declaration of the glory of Christ and the guilt they have incurred by denying Christ? Well, if you remember, in the Pentecost sermon, Peter concluded the main part of his sermon with an assertion that just hung the air. He said back in chapter two, 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, God treated him one way in spite of the fact that you treated him shamefully.

Well, that just hung in the air until the people could stand it no longer and they were cut to the heart. We read and they said, brothers, what shall we do? Well, at this point in this sermon, on this occasion, Peter does not take the same tactic. He does not wait for them to ask, brothers, what shall we do? He directly moves on to explain exactly what God requires of them.

And where Peter responded to the question on the day of Pentecost by saying, 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, we are going to see that in this next section. He's going to emphasize the same thing, repentance and restoration. Repentance for the sake of gaining God's restoration. So let's look at verses 17 through 24. Peter goes on and says, and now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

Now stop for a moment, as many commentators point out. Think about the rulers who demanded Jesus's crucifixion. Was that really something that was done in ignorance?

Well, Paul says something very similar in First Corinthians 2, verse 8. Paul again, who is still an unbeliever, who still rejects Christ, who still has not been converted to Christ later on, many years from now, when he is writing the letter to the Corinthians, which we still have and study as the Scriptures of the New Testament, there he would write this. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. They knew exactly what they were doing in demanding Jesus crucifixion. They knew exactly that he was innocent and there was nothing that they could find in him.

So that they had to trump up charges and pay and bring false witnesses to try to gain an unlawful conviction against him. But they did not understand the full reality and weight and horror of what they were doing as they murdered the author of life. And so Peter really offers here a gentle and peacemaking response. He says, I know you did this in ignorance. And even your rulers, if they're willing to repent, realize that what they did was wrong, they clearly acted in ignorance as well.

But then he goes to emphasize the fulfillment of Scripture that took place in the crucifixion of Jesus. He says, but what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled Again, the relationship of the Old Testament to the New Testament is one of promise and fulfillment. The religious leaders believed that the God of the Old Testament, whom they worshiped, hated Jesus, rejected Jesus, wanted to curse Jesus. For that reason they acted to crucify him. But Peter says they misunderstood.

They acted in ignorance. Rather, what the prophets foretold in the Old Testament scriptures has now been fulfilled in Jesus Christ by his sufferings. So what's the response? Verse 19. Repent, therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.

This is one of the great single summaries of the Gospel contained the Scriptures. Notice here that Peter says something very similar. Whereas earlier he mentioned and emphasized a few different things. Repent and be baptized, every one of you. He doesn't mention baptism here, but he mentions again the forgiveness of your sins.

He says, repent therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out. So what's to repent? To repent again we talked about is a Greek word that means a change of mind that then prompts a change of heart, that then flows out into a change of life. It is to understand with your mind your life in a different way, that the way you had acted was in ignorance, you now recognize has incurred great guilt before God Almighty. And that intellectual mind change also affects your heart.

So that you react to that change of mind. Heaven's sorry about that, excited about this. You react to that change of mind with your heart. You're in horror at what you have done. And from there it's not just that you feel bad about dramatically transforms the way that you live your life as you bear fruits in keeping with repentance.

So that's what they are called to. They're called to repent. And if you remember, when we talked about repentance, we talked about the idea of turning, turning from your sin and turning to the Lord. Well, the language here, turn back is the language of turning towards something. It's the idea of turning toward the Lord.

This language is regularly used throughout the Old Testament. This particular word is regularly used throughout the Old Testament to call God's people back to faithful covenant faith toward their God. And what Peter is saying is, if you want to do this, you must, and you may only turn to Jesus Christ in faith. Well, he continues with the promise, repent, therefore, and turn back, turn toward the Savior. And then he gives the promise that your sins may be blotted out.

This is the great promise of the covenant of grace, that God actually takes the slate of your sins and wipes it clean, blots it out, completely removes it from God's record books, that your sins may be blotted out. And it takes a powerful solvent to get rid of your sins. It's the blood of Jesus that makes your scarlet sins white as snow. Well, he moves on, continuing his sermon, continuing to offer promises that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Now, some would interpret this as the language of the final return of Christ, when he recreates the heavens and the earth, and indeed he will move there soon.

But the way he phrases this doesn't sound to me like that's what he has in view here. This sounds like the experience of the believer. As we experience through all of our hardships and toils, trials of our lives, we also encounter seasons of refreshment, even joy in the midst of sorrow. It's the promise of life lived with joy in the midst of tears, under the veil of sorrows, that as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we have the ongoing presence of God's comfort with us at every step. The times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.

And. And here's the next part. 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. Now is where he looks to the future. He says there is a time when Jesus Christ will be sent again from heaven.

For now the heavens must receive him. They must receive him again, as Peter talked about in the day of Pentecost in his great sermon there. These are the last days. This time between Jesus, ascension and his final return are called the last days throughout the Scriptures. Because this is the time when everything that Christ had to do in his first coming has been accomplished.

His conception, his birth of a virgin, his life of perfect obedience, his sufferings and humiliation and death on the cross, his being abandoned to the grave for three days. However, his body, suffering no corruption, so that on the third day, he was raised from the dead and then 40 days later, ascended to heaven. And that is where he will remain. Heavens must receive him until the day when he ascends from heaven again. Right now, between those two times, his ascension and his return, he is reigning in this world, not bodily, in this world.

He is reigning in this world, from heaven by the Holy Spirit, whom he sends to this world and in these last days. This is the age when the Gospel of Jesus as the fulfillment of the promises of the Messiah to God's Old Testament people can be proclaimed to here and to the ends of the earth, beginning in Jerusalem. This is exactly what is happening here as he tells them that this must happen until Jesus Christ returns again to restore all things. So clearly we are seeing that Peter does not see an opposition, a replacement of the New Testament with the Old. He sees it as a promise and fulfillment.

But what about parallel paths? Is it possible? Is it possible for these Jews to remain Jews as they are, apart from Jesus and to be saved? Well, look at what he preaches from the Old Testament. He says, absolutely not.

Verse 22, Moses said. And here he quotes Moses prophecy in the book of Deuteronomy. The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him and whatever he tells you. Okay, so does this mean you have an option?

Moses or Jesus? No. No. Look at what he says next. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.

There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Jesus is the Messiah. He is the fulfillment. He is the great prophet who is to come. And if even Moses told us back in Deuteronomy, anyone who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.

And of course, this wasn't a private, strange, idiosyncratic message that Moses alone proclaimed. This was followed up, verse 24, by all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him, who also proclaimed. These days, there's an interesting connection between Moses and Samuel. These are widely regarded as the first two major prophets. First Moses and then Samuel.

Moses prophesied that a prophet would come like him. But what was Samuel's role? Samuel's role was to anoint the king. First Saul, and then when God rejected Saul, to anoint David, whom God made covenant promises that he would never lack a man from his own body, his own offspring, to sit on his throne. So there is a great prophet, and whoever does not listen to him will be destroyed among his people.

And there is a king on the throne of David in fulfillment to the promises and prophecies that came from Samuel and all after him, and all the various aspects of his life and his sufferings and all that he would do as prophet, priest and king. All of this was proclaimed in the Old Testament and fulfilled by Christ in the New. And because of this, what Peter does in the third section is very important. He draws these things together. He says, I know you would not think that God has somehow abandoned his old plan, but I want to make sure very clearly that you understand the covenantal obligations that remain on you.

You cannot pretend as though the Messiah has not come and persist in your wicked ways in rejection of the Messiah. And So in this third section, verses 25 through 26, he draws the connection clear, the connection between the Old and the New Testaments, between the promises of the prophets and the fulfillment in Christ. And so in our third section, covenantal connection, look at what he says. He says, you are the son of the prophets and the sons, in other words, of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham. And then he quotes the great covenantal promise to Abraham.

And in your offspring your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

What he is declaring to them is he's saying, understand the obligations. The great obligation upon you to keep this covenant that God made with your fathers is to believe in the one that God had prophesied, the one that God had foretold to Abraham, that he will raise up offspring. And in him shall all the families of the earth be blessed. And in case it isn't clear what they're called to do, to repent and to turn to Jesus. He says this in verse 26.

God, having raised up his servant earlier, he called Jesus his servant. God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. Now, what's the wickedness that's talked about here? Well, these are Jews who are there worshiping at the evening sacrifice. I mean, not just the morning sacrifice.

They came for the evening sacrifice. Remember, this was the time of the Evening sacrifice at 3pm they're going above and beyond. So what's the problem then? If these are good Jews who are coming to temple worship, what kind of wickedness might they be guilty of? It's just what he's been proclaiming.

It's in rejecting Jesus, the covenant fulfillment of God's promises to send forth the Messiah. It is wickedness to turn away from Jesus. Now look also the word of turning. Here, God, having raised up his servant, verse 26, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from from your wickedness. Now, earlier we talked about turning as turning away from your sin and turning toward Christ in faith.

And we talked about the word for turn. Earlier is the word for turning towards something. Namely, it's used in the Old Testament to talk about turning toward the Lord. Well, this is the word that is often used to call God's covenant people to turn from their idolatries and their wickednesses. And so you see both sides of repentance.

Here you see turning from sin, and you see turning toward the Lord. But who is the Lord? It is the one whom God has made both Lord and Christ. This Jesus whom you have crucified.

I once was in many years ago, an airport in Burbank, California. And as I was waiting for the flight to arrive, I looked over and I saw a man who was assembling different books. He had clearly acquired several different books. And he was looking at them and flipping through them, trying to see a little bit of them. And I saw that they weren't books that made any sense together.

They were all about religions, but they were about all kinds of religions. And so I asked him, what's your interest in all of these religions? And he told me that he was a Jewish rabbi. And I said, well, that's really interesting. I'm a Christian.

I'm curious. What do you think about Jesus? And he said, well, we don't believe that he's the Messiah. And I said, well, tell me more about that. Why don't you think that he's the Messiah?

And he said, well, it's really very simple. The kingdom has not come into the world. He's not the son of David. And I said, well, let me just open the scriptures of the New Testament. And I turn to the very first verse of Matthew and Matthew 1, verse 1 says that this is the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

Christ is the Greek word for Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. And so I showed him that actually the New Testament declares that he is the son of David. And this man says, no one's ever told me that yet. I continued to pray for that man. I sent him a book.

Jesus was a Jew, urging him to repent from the wickedness of turning away from Jesus, to embrace Christ by faith in order that he might be saved. But look at where this text points us to, this is not a private message to the Jews. Look at the promise that Peter quotes in verse 25. It lifts its eyes to the rest of the world, even though the witness must first begin in Jerusalem and then move to Judea and Samaria and then to the ends of the earth. But what he says is, and in your offspring to Abraham, in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

This gospel, which is for Jews, the fulfillment of everything that God promised in the Old Testament, is the only gospel that is for every single one of us here, Jew and Gentile alike. The application we have this morning is this. Repent, turn from your sin and turn toward your Savior. Now, as we consider this application, we got to start with the facts. Where does Peter start?

That Almighty God, in fulfillment of his eternal plan, in fulfillment of the prophecies by which he was gossiping, this plan throughout time, by all of his servants that he appointed to spill a little bit of the news here and there throughout history, this Jesus Christ has now been glorified by the God who announced his coming throughout all of the past human history. And now Jesus Christ is glorified, seated on his throne in heaven. Now, I want to ask you, maybe you this morning are living your life right now in ignorance, without any awareness of the Lord's reign and rule in the world. Now, if you've ever been a child in a class when the teacher leaves for a time, you know that people will do all manner of things when they think that no one is looking. I'm sure that's other people and not you.

But imagine it was you. But what if the Lord is indeed watching you in your life right now? What if he has seen your life? The busyness by which you have ignored him, in the greed and the lust with which you have chased after things that he has forbidden, and in the selfishness and stubbornness that refuses to obey the commands that he has given to you. And if he has seen those things, and right now is a time when in his kindness, he is calling you to repent?

What will happen when Almighty God once again sends from heaven the Christ who was appointed as judge over all the earth? What will you say on that day when he asks you, when you've heard a sermon like this, why you did not repent or turn from your sins? What excuse on that great and awesome day of the Lord, will you be able to offer to explain why you rejected seasons of refreshing from his own presence? And how will you justify failing to listen to the message that God's prophets have declared for thousands of years. For the moment in these last days, heaven must receive the Lord Jesus Christ as he establishes his kingdom in this world.

But the day coming, the day is coming when he will finally come again, sent once again for a second time from heaven to put his enemies under his feet forever in order to restore all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. On that day, where will you stand?

But this could Gospel news, the way that you have lived so far may have been in ignorance, either not knowing what you were doing or not recognizing the severity of it. But to you this morning, the Lord Jesus Christ extends an offer of these terms for your pardon. Repent, therefore, and turn back that your sins may be wiped away in God's slate and record book forever. You who have been far from Christ, will you turn this morning from your sins to meet your Savior, even this morning? Or you who have grown up in the church, you covenant children particularly, will you rebel against the message that is given to you as the children of the covenant?

Or will you turn from your wickedness and embrace Christ by faith in his name, the Holy and Righteous One, the Author of life was killed and rose from the dead that you might live. Will you turn from your sin and turn toward your Savior? Let's pray.