The Book Of Acts | Spirit - Filled Ministry Part 3 (May 3rd, 2020) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well, good morning, church.

If you would be so good as to grab your Bible and get it turned to Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

And we're gonna be in verses 37 to 41 today.

Now, if you own a phone, which of course, you know, we all do, uh you have no doubt, at least once in your lifetime, received a scam call, right?

Or maybe it was a voicemail, you know the ones, it's the ones with the you know the digitized voice that is somehow, you know, overly anonymous, claiming to be, you know, Revenue Canada or something like that.

This is the CRA, you know, where they, you know, they just they threaten you and try and scare you and tell you that you owe them money, and you know, if you fail to call them back or or pay them back, they're gonna dispatch the authorities to come and get you.

And I always kind of laugh because usually somewhere in the message there's a line, something to the effect of, you know, your immediate response is required.

And I think we know generally what the response is in that moment, right?

It's to hang up, it's to delete the you know, the voicemail, or if you feel so inclined, uh report the scam.

Okay, because why?

Well, we know that it's a hoax, right?

We know that it's just simply not legit.

Now, I wonder if that's how we respond to the Holy Spirit, right?

Specifically when he brings us to a place of conviction over our sin.

Do we treat the Holy Spirit kind of like a scam call?

You know, where we just assume or think or act as though he is trying to, you know, threaten us and harm our well-being.

So I'm just gonna hang up, so to speak, and ignore uh his urging.

Okay, or do we realize that that conviction and and really surrendering to God's call are actually incredible gifts of God's grace meant for our good.

Okay, because as we're gonna see here to uh this morning, you know, when when the Holy Spirit moves in power through the message of the gospel, he will elicit a response from us.

Okay, that's what spirit-filled ministry looks like.

Okay, because keep in mind what's been happening here all through uh Acts chapter two so far, right?

The stage has been set for response from this crowd.

Okay, the Holy Spirit has come at Pentecost.

Okay, he's empowered the disciples to you know proclaim the mighty works of God.

He you know has filled Peter specifically to preach, right, and to show the onlookers that everything that they were witnessing was all happening according to God's word.

Okay, and in so doing, what does he do?

Well, he he begins to lay out the gospel, right?

That that Jesus is the Christ, right?

He is the Messiah and Lord of all, meaning that he is the Lord and the God of the Jewish people.

Okay, the very ones who rejected him and even had him put to death.

Okay, pretty incredible to think about.

Some of this, you know, very crowd may have been, you know, some of the very ones who just weeks earlier had shouted, you know, crucify him, crucify him.

Okay, so the Spirit of God is, you know, has been moving boldly through Peter and the words that he is saying, you know, uh to these devout men, and to let them know that yes, this is all happening according according to God's definite plan and foreknowledge, as we looked at last week, but also that they themselves stood guilty before God for the rejection and the murder of their own Messiah.

Okay, so think about that, okay?

The stage has been set, like I said, right?

The spirit has has moved, okay?

The the message has been declared, and now the crowd, this is how they respond here, starting in verse 37.

Take a look.

It says, Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said to them, Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

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

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

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

Lord, as we read these verses here, uh we're struck by your power.

Lord, how you move and you work uh to call and draw people uh to uh repentance and salvation through your son Jesus Christ.

Lord, we thank you for how your Holy Spirit moves and works.

And Lord, I pray that that we would be a church very, very sensitive to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, Lord, so eager to respond in repentance, Lord, and and and follow you in obedience, God.

I pray that you would purify us, Lord.

I pray that that you would use us to proclaim this very gospel, and Lord, that you would use it to save many others and draw them to yourself and them into our church, Lord.

So encourage us today, Lord, convict us today, Lord, move in and among your church to the glory of your Son Jesus Christ.

We pray these things in his name, amen.

Amen.

All right, so what spirit-filled ministry looks like.

We're in part three of three today, uh, bringing Peter's sermon, Peter's sermon home.

Okay, so here's the first point of two that we're gonna look at this morning.

Okay, conviction over sin and desperation to make it right.

And that's definitely what we see here, uh, starting in verse 37.

Follow along again as we work our way through these verses.

It says, now when they heard this, okay, so so when they heard again Peter's spirit-filled sermon, okay, when it struck them that Jesus was God's plan of salvation, but that they were responsible uh for killing him, okay, it says that they were cut to the heart.

I mean, what an amazing description and phrase there.

That's that's the conviction.

Okay, that they were cut to the heart literally means uh to be uh sorely or intensely pricked.

Right?

Have you ever been like poked by a thornbush before, or maybe you're a you're a sower and you've sown and you've poked yourself with a needle or with a thumbtack, like it hurts, right?

It's like an acute pain.

And that's what that's what Holy Spirit conviction is like for a moment, right?

And and it goes straight to their hearts, right?

Right into their conscience and their understanding and their belief, where just instantly they knew it, right, and were convinced that listen, we're in the wrong here, right?

This is what's going through their head in a moment's notice, right?

We're we're culpable, we're we're at fault here, and this is a massive problem in God's eyes, which means what?

This is a massive problem for us, right?

That's that's their response, and their immediate reaction is essentially to beg.

Look what they say here.

They said to Peter and the rest of the response uh apostles, brothers, what shall we do?

Right?

It's like it's like they're wringing their hands here and and they're desperate uh to make this right.

They're like this this guilty state that we are in here.

This can't possibly remain this way.

Right?

This has got to get fixed.

This this has to change.

But but honestly, what on earth can we do about it, brothers?

What shall we do?

Now, now I realize that this is the conviction of you know, of unbelievers who haven't gotten saved yet.

Okay, but let me ask you, church, okay, when was the last time you responded like that over your sin?

Okay, conviction, you know, most of us know this probably, but conviction isn't just something for you know unbelievers who are at the precipice of surrendering to Christ for the first time as Lord, right?

It's also just an extremely necessary component of everyday life for the believer.

It's a continuing reality that we must experience as we battle our flesh and our sinful tendencies by grace through the power of the Holy Spirit.

But I wonder sometimes if we're you know truly experiencing Holy Spirit conviction and that same desperation to make it right.

You know, because I've I've heard a lot of people say over the years, and I mean I've said it a million times, you know, too, that you know, man, that was so convict.

Have you ever said that?

Maybe you heard a sermon or or it was in a book that you read, or just reading the scriptures, or or listening to a worship song, and it's like, man, I I feel so convicted right now.

And oftentimes we we we tell people that because you know it makes us seem, feel, look uh more holy uh to them.

Okay, but I wonder, okay, I wonder how many times you know we we we've expressed that to somebody or felt that or thought that only to go on from that moment and do what?

Nothing.

Right?

And not really change or or or not really grow at all.

Right?

We we feel it for a second, then we kind of go right back to what we were doing, okay, which reveals what?

Well, it reveals that that maybe we're not truly convicted, okay, in the same way that we see it being expressed here.

And what this this whole passage shows us is that true conviction leads to true repentance and results in a truly holy life.

Okay, and that's getting into some of the second point that we're gonna look at here.

And we're gonna get to that, don't worry.

Okay, but before we do, let's mine down a little bit here, if we can, on what real, you know, biblical, spirit-produced conviction is.

That Christ would come, that he would live a holy life, that he would die for sinners and rise from the grave and be exalted to the right hand of God.

Right?

So in that they're seeing that the beauty and the wonder and the awesomeness of God.

Okay, but that and the giving of the Holy Spirit, okay, Peter is showing them that all of this was part of God's redemption plan.

Okay, now, second thing that the Spirit revealed to these devout men, through Peter's sermon again, of course, was just the darkness of their sin, right?

That they played a tragic and appalling role in actually carrying out Jesus' murder.

Okay, so you see it, right?

Okay, that the spirit moved powerfully to highlight to them both God's holiness, okay, and the depravity of their sin in light of God's holiness.

Okay, and so through the Holy Spirit, in that moment, they are they're cut to the heart, right?

It's that conviction, right?

True conviction, and they were desperate for a solution.

Again, brothers, what shall we do?

Okay, so hey, does that reflect the kind of conviction that you've encountered and that you experience regularly?

Okay, or or have we you know mislabeled or or or misdiagnosed other experiences, uh, you know, or or feelings or or emotions as conviction when they really aren't.

Okay, let me give you uh an example of that.

Okay, conviction is not, okay, conviction is not merely feelings of guilt or shame or regret or or sorrow.

Okay, can we all not agree that you know many people, you know, you have to be a believer, carry those feelings around constantly.

Right?

People feeling guilty and feeling shameful and feeling the burden of that.

But it's a far cry from biblical conviction by the Holy Spirit.

Right?

Sometimes we have just an overactive sense of guilt, whereas believers, we shouldn't be carrying that anymore.

We've been forgiven, and and the Lord has wiped all of that clean.

Okay, 2 Corinthians 7, verse 10 is an amazing verse for you to just jot down.

2 Corinthians 7:10

2 Corinthians 7 verse 10.

2 Corinthians 7:10

It's an amazing verse that just contrasts the godly grief or sorrow, depending on your translation there, uh, with worldly grief.

Okay, or again, sorrow.

Okay, see, I think a lot of the time what we think and kind of assume is godly grief, okay, is is really not.

Okay, it's just worldly grief.

Okay, uh, meaning that that we might feel you know, kind of you know, bad about our sin and about our failures.

We don't feel really good about uh all of those things, but at the heart of it, we're we're we're maybe more concerned with you know about the consequences that we might face as a result of our sin.

Okay, so for example, we might be feeling really bad uh that we got caught, right?

Like we were trying to hide it and it all came out, and and now people know about that, and so we feel, you know, we feel kind of bad that we got caught, or or or we we just feel bad about the consequences that you know we might receive in terms of our you know, the damage and the hit done to our reputation.

You know, no, now pe now people at at church are gonna know what kind of person I am, or or my spouse is, or, or, or people at work are.

Or we might be you know mostly concerned about the effects that our sin is gonna have on on other people, on our family, on loved ones, again, on on people at work, which again is is better than just being super self-centered about it, but it's still not a concern about the main issue, which is what?

Well, it's offending God.

Right?

And I think a lot of people have shed a lot of tears in the name of godly grief or godly sorrow when really it's just worldly.

Okay, so is that us?

Or is that what you experience when you think, man, I'm being so convicted right now?

Is it godly conviction?

Is it godly grief, or is it really just worldly?

When we, you know, feel and sense that sting of conviction, is it genuinely produced by the Spirit in that we are, you know, primarily grieved with the core issue, which is that we have offended a holy God.

Okay, I want to give you two examples from Scripture where we see true conviction.

All right, the first one, and many of us know it, it's Isaiah chapter six, verses one to five.

Follow along with me here.

It says this in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw, this is Isaiah talking, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne.

Okay, and so he has this vision that God gives him of the Lord, right?

I saw him sitting upon the throne, upon the throne, high and lifted up.

Look at the scene here, and the train of his robe filled the temple.

Above him stood the seraphim, which are like angelic beings.

Each had six wings.

With two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.

And one called to another and said, Listen, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

The whole earth is full of his glory.

You see that?

And the foundations of the thresh of threshold shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.

So this amazing vision that Isaiah is given here.

Look at his response as he sees the holiness of God.

He says, Woe is me, for I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of hosts.

He sees so clearly the holiness, the purity of God, the grandeur of God, his glory, and he's immediately struck with, oh man, like I don't deserve to be in the same room here.

I can't stand before God.

He's immediately overcome and so aware of his filthiness and his sin.

I'm a man of unclean lips, and everyone that I'm with is unclean as well.

Right?

That is true conviction.

That is Holy Spirit-driven biblical conviction that Isaiah experiences.

And the next one here comes from Psalm 51, and this is David speaking, and look what it says.

He says, Against you, you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight, so that you may be justified or correct in your words and blameless in your judgment.

Now I know we've looked at that verse before, but if you remember the con uh the context of it, hey, David had committed adultery with a married woman, and he'd gotten her pregnant, and and he actually had her husband killed, and he tries to cover the entire thing up, and and and God uses the prophet Nathan to bring conviction into David's life.

And and Psalm 51 is him penning his repentance, right, and explaining the conviction.

But you look at this and you say, well, how you know how can he say, Against you, you only God, have I sinned?

Because if you think about it, there's there's a trail, a trail of just carnage and destruction horizontally, where you know, Bathsheba has been affected, and Uriah, her husband, has been killed, and they have a son who ends up dying.

I mean, you could even say that he sinned against all of Israel in the sense that he was their king and needs to be leading a much better example than that.

So, how can he say, against you, you only have I sinned?

Okay, well, well, he's not you know belittling the consequences that that are go that are reverberating from his sin into the lives of other people.

Okay, godly sorrow recognizes all of that and grieves those things as well, but primarily he's saying, against you, mostly God, have I sinned.

See how he cares about the destruction that he has caused in his relationship with the Lord.

He has grieved the Lord.

Right?

So these men, Isaiah and David, along with the devout men in Acts chapter two here, they're under the weight of true conviction.

Right?

They see God's holiness, his his splendor, his beauty, right?

And and are appropriately just devastated by the darkness and and the gravity and the seriousness of their sin.

Okay, so again, church, you know, are we experiencing that kind of conviction uh in our lives?

Are we doing that?

Can we agree that that if not, that's a problem?

It really is.

Okay, well, and so if that's the case for you, and you're sensing, man, I'm I'm not sensing you know a true Holy Spirit conviction here, will you you know cry out to him for for for true and real genuine conviction by the Holy Spirit?

God, would God would you you know just give me a true picture of your holiness?

Maybe for you, it's just get into the word of God, man.

Like you don't see God for as holy as he really is.

Maybe it's because you don't spend the proper time gazing into it in the scriptures.

And so for you, it's like get get into the scriptures and read that and develop a study time where the Lord will show you his majesty and he will show you his holiness.

God, would you give me that?

Give me an accurate picture and understanding of that and affect my heart with that.

Help me by your Holy Spirit to see you as you truly are, and then to be appalled, rightly so, by my sin in light of your glory and your splendor and your perfection.

Oh God, would you cause your church to be genuinely convicted of sin?

Right, and that we would.

Desperately, okay, desperately run to the Lord to make it right.

Right?

Finding finding forgiveness that he offers us, right?

That that mercy and grace that is available to us from Jesus Christ, that the Lord is longing to lavish on you if we would if we would ask.

And that really leads us here into the final thing, what spirit-filled ministry looks like: surrendering to God's call to repent and be baptized.

Okay, take a look at verse 38 now as we continue along.

Here's Peter's response back to them when they ask him, you know, what you what should we do?

Right?

Here's the solution to their problems.

He says, uh, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins.

Okay, so so Peter he he responds here by telling them exactly what they're to do.

So all of this can be made right.

He urges them to repent.

Okay, now what exactly is uh repentance?

Probably a pretty important word that we understand.

Okay, well, literally it means a change of mind, which results in a change of lifestyle.

Now that's fairly simple.

Here's a more robust definition by theologian Frank Stegg.

I love this.

He says, repentance is a summons to a personal, absolute, and ultimate unconditional surrender to God as sovereign.

Though it includes sorrow and remorse, it is more than that.

It is a call to conversion from self-love, self-trust, and self-assertion to obedient trust and self-commitment to now live for God and his purposes.

Okay, that is repentance.

This is what God through Peter is calling the devout men to do as they are gripped by Holy Spirit conviction.

It is full surrender, wholesale surrender, which they do, right?

If you just kind of skip ahead for a second to verse 41, it says that they received his word.

So that they accept it.

It's just, it's them waving the white flag, right?

We're we're we're sinful men.

We're filled with godly remorse about the evil that we have committed against the Lord.

We abandon our sinful desires, our sinful thinking, our sinful actions, and and we ask that you would forgive us and and and save us through Jesus Christ.

And we commit now to to living for you in total obedience by grace and through the power of the Holy Spirit.

That right there is repentance.

Listen, church, have you done that?

Have you done that?

Have you surrendered to God's call to repent of your sins and receive the forgiveness that he offers you through Jesus Christ?

Okay, if you have not done that, will you do it now?

Right?

I urge you all the time, receive Christ as Lord.

Confess your sin, admit it to him, realize that you've rebelled against him, but his love is so great, and he has decided to fix all of your problems through Jesus Christ, everything that he accomplished on the cross and through his resurrection, paid the price that you deserve.

He lived the holy life that you couldn't possibly.

Would you confess your sin?

Would you would you repent in the way that we've just outlined it here and receive Jesus Christ as Lord?

You can do it now.

You don't have to, you know, wait another moment.

You can do it as I'm talking.

Please do.

If you have done that and you are a believer, okay, do you continue to live a life of surrender through repentance?

Okay, it's not about repenting to you know to get back into a relationship with God as though your sins have somehow booted you out of that and you need to like get back in.

That's that's not how it works.

Okay, but we do repent continually to ensure that there's nothing getting in the way of our relationship with God.

Okay, sin grieves the Holy Spirit and minimizes his power in our lives.

And you and I, we we we flat out can't afford to let that happen.

Right?

Everything that we have been called to do as Christ followers, we can't do on our own.

We need him, we need his spirit.

So any sin that's in our lives, we we gotta we gotta repent of it.

We've gotta confess it to him, and so that his power can be magnified in us and enable us to live a holy life.

And so are you bearing fruit in keeping with repentance, as Matthew chapter three talks about?

Now, maybe you're trying to do that, right?

You're trying to repent genuinely, right?

And you know that you have a responsibility before God uh to do that.

Okay, but perhaps you've you've also noticed, you know, especially when you think about that definition that we just looked at, perhaps you've noticed that you're you're flat out unable to really do that and just will your heart into true repentance.

Have you noticed that you can't you can't force yourself into it?

You know, part of you you want you want to get this right and you want to truly confess your sins to the Lord and and and repent honestly, but but you can't just make your heart do something that it naturally rebels against doing.

Right?

Have you noticed that?

Have you felt kind of the the helplessness of that as a Christ follower?

Right?

I know that I'm I'm supposed to repent, but but even as you're confessing your sin, you're like, I know that I don't really mean this.

Right?

I know that I'm just I'm just gonna go back to it.

Right?

I know that there's a pattern that's being developed here and my confession, it just feels like empty words.

Have you sensed that?

Of course.

We all we've all sensed that.

And so what do we do if that's the case?

Okay, well, well, a massive part of this is really understanding doctrine, okay, understanding how all of this works.

Understand that that God also plays a very significant role in your repentance.

Okay, Romans 2, verse 4 says that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance.

Romans 2:4

Okay, lead you to repentance means that you require, and I do too, God, to guide you and I to a place of genuine surrender and repentance.

Like he needs to lead us to that place.

Okay, 2 Timothy 2 verse 25 echoes that thought when it says that that God may grant them repentance, grant them repentance, meaning that God agrees to give us or allows us to repent.

2 Timothy 2:25

Okay, so you start to realize here, as you understand the scriptures, that that repentance itself is a gift that God graciously gives us.

Okay, so if you're struggling along here, you know, in your walk with the Lord and you want to truly repent, but you're kind of stalled out or you feel like you're a truck stuck in the mud, you're just kind of spinning your wheels with all of that, listen, cry out to the Lord.

Right?

That helplessness that you feel is perfect, right?

Because that is that is you in the right place to receive the grace of God.

You're not trying to force something and make it happen in your own strength.

That's that's futile, right?

That helplessness is where we can now cry out to the Lord, Lord, I need more grace, I need more help from you.

Lord, pour out power.

You know, moving along here as we continue in verse 38, what else does it say?

Well, it says to repent, okay, we got that, and be baptized, okay, be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins.

Okay, which at first glance, okay, it definitely appears as though baptism is required for salvation, right?

Like I need to also get baptized in order to truly be saved.

Okay, but is that the case?

Well, we know that the the the scriptures say that we're not saved by works, right?

We're not saved by us doing some good things, okay, which baptism could be considered, certainly.

Okay, so it's not saying that.

It's not saying that you're, you know, you're not forgiven and you're not saved until you get baptized.

Okay, we see elsewhere in the New Testament, even in the book of Acts, that we'll get to as we go through this series that baptism always follows repentance.

It always follows forgiveness and salvation.

Okay, so what's going on here in this verse?

Well, well, Peter links them so closely here to show us that that true repentance and forgiveness will lead believers to obey through baptism.

Okay, right?

Baptism is an outward expression or symbol of your genuine repentance, of your forgiveness that you've received through Christ.

Or another way of understanding the grammar here is that we're we're baptized on the basis of our forgiveness.

Okay, remember that that the salvation and the forgiveness of these Jews through repentance is the core focus of the context here.

Okay, don't miss that.

Now keep going.

Okay, what happens when they surrender to Christ and are forgiven?

Verse 38 continues.

It says, And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

How awesome is that, right?

He will reside in them, these devout Jews, and empower them, just as he is uh the all these other apostles, right?

Peter included.

He says, For the promise of this is for you and your children.

Okay, now for your children refers more broadly, okay, that than specific, more broadly to, you know, just simply the offspring of human parents, okay?

As opposed to, you know, little child, which is my maybe how you kind of read that.

Okay, for your children, okay, that phrase there indicates that forgiveness through Christ is is is promised and available to their descendants, right, to future generations of Jews.

Okay, and and who else?

Well, verse 39 continues, and for all who are far off, okay, that's that's Gentiles as well, right?

Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.

Okay, how how awesome is that verse that God calls us?

But maybe it reminds you of kind of back in verse you know 21 that we saw last week, that it's it kind of frames it a different way.

It says that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.

Okay, so so clearly we see that we have the responsibility, right, to repent, right, to cry out to the Lord, to call upon the name of the Lord, and yet it's also true that it's that it's the Lord who who calls or or draws people to salvation by grace.

So we call it to him, but he really calls us to him.

And so I I would just encourage you, embrace the tension between those two things.

We call out, okay, but he calls, he draws us.

And now, verse 40, okay, verse 40 says, and with many other words Peter bore witness.

It means that he testified to them as one who actually witnessed the life, death, and resurrection and ascension of Christ.

We taught them many different things.

And it says then he continued to exhort them, means that he was a he was appealing to them, right?

He was pleading with them, he was asking earnestly, okay, okay, to uh save yourselves.

You see that?

He said he's saying, save yourselves.

So literally, that that means allow or allow yourselves to be saved, okay?

Okay, from what?

Well, from this crooked generation.

What does that mean?

Well, the the the this current generation of uh of Jews has been corrupted, you know, generally speaking, even, you know, because of their guilt in crucifying the Savior.

It's the same type of language that we see used in the Old Testament back in Deuteronomy chapter 32, verse 5.

Deuteronomy 32:5

And this is where the Israelites were uh wandering around in the desert after being freed from Egypt.

There they're called a crooked and twisted generation.

And you remember that because they rejected God's rescue from Egypt through Moses.

Remember, they complained and oh, that we were back in Egypt, you know, where we could get some food.

Remember that because of their rebellion against God, right, an entire generation perished, right?

Before the next generation, their children were allowed to enter the promised land.

Okay, so so Peter here is warning these Jews to not make the same mistake as their forefathers, okay, by rejecting that God has rescued them from sin through Jesus Christ.

Okay, now final verse, take a look at this.

It says, So those who received his word, this is verse 41, those who received his word or or accepted Peter's message that they must repent, right, and surrender to God's call, were then it says, baptized.

Okay, so there you see the order and the sequence.

Again, understand the context there, okay?

Saved first, repent, forgiven, then baptized.

And it says there, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.

It is clearly uh an amazing and mighty work of God.

Right?

He pours out his spirit in this in this intense way.

He he again he empowers Peter to to proclaim the gospel, and and and what happens?

Well, you know, 3,000 people, it says, are convicted of their sin.

Right?

They repent, they're that they're forgiven, and and and then they get baptized.

Right?

And and and just like that, the church is born.

Awesome.

What a picture of what spirit-filled ministry looks like.

Now, church, I just want to kind of leave you with this before we close our time off together, just to encourage you.

I had uh the opportunity uh earlier this week to connect over the phone with uh with someone brand new to our church.

Okay, someone who's you know kind of been a part of this for you know maybe two or three weeks, and you know, she had reached out to us on you know Facebook and just said, hey, you know, you know, is it too late to you know be a part of a church?

I I you know I feel like like something's missing in my life.

And so I, you know, I had an opportunity to to call her and and we just had this amazing you know conversation where I was just sharing kind of what our church is about and how we you know preach the preach the Bible and and what we kind of believe about the Bible.

And then the core of the Bible is the gospel message.

And and you know, I I kind of pointed to her to the to the Ten Commandments, you know, and talked about how we were created by God to be in a relationship with Him, but but our sin has has corrupted that, has corrupted us and has separated us from God.

And so, you know, took her to the Ten Commandments to show that we have broken them, and it was amazing because because even before I got through the very first one, she's like, well, wait a minute, hold on a second.

She's like, I've broken all of these.

And I was like, wow, that's that's amazing.

You're right.

And I said, so have I.

Right?

I I've I've sinned against God uh greatly.

And I just kind of explained the bad news of that and how that puts us at odds with him, and it means that we're deserving of his wrath and we're deserving of punishment, and we actually deserve an eternity in hell.

And as I was explaining this, you know, she was like, Wow, this is this is this this is awful.

And it was amazing because it was it was almost like word for word what we see at these developments.

And she was like, Man, like what do I do?

How do I fix this?

Like, brothers, what what shall we do?

Like that though, those were her words.

And she's like, how can I how how can I fix this problem?

I said, Well, well, you can't, right?

And that's the bad news.

But the good news is that Jesus Christ has done that for you.

And if you would confess your sin, if you would repent and and turn from your sin and embrace the salvation that Jesus Christ offers you and bow to him as Lord, you would be forgiven and you would be saved.

And it was it was incredible because she was like, Man, I'm doing that, I'm doing that today.

And and and we ended up talking about this and ended up you know having the opportunity to pray with her, and she received Christ as Lord, and then it was incredible because she was like, Oh, yeah, and baptism, I was kind of reading about that on the website, and that's amazing, I want to do that too.

And I was like, This is this is incredible.

You know, you're trying to get her a you know a Bible and you know, all of this because someone in our church who knows her had had pointed her to our church.

And so, again, all of it to say that the Holy Spirit is alive, right?

The Holy Spirit is at work in his church, right?

What an encouragement to see that he is doing that, even in a day where church is like straight up weird, man.

Like I'm preaching into a camera right now, and you are watching a recorded, you know, service of me in my living room and John in his and Jeremy in his living room or bedroom.

We don't even really know, right?

And so this is an interesting time, and yet the Lord is is working and it's and it's incredible, and he's saving people, he's he's calling people to conviction and repentance and even like an eagerness to get baptized.

And so I would just just ask you do you sense him working in your life?

Do you see that?

How is he calling you to surrender to him today?

Right?

Is it conviction over your rebellion against him and and that you need to repent and get saved?

I mean, we just talked about that a moment ago, but I would I'll say it again, right?

I will I will plead with you, get saved.

Repent and believe.

Or perhaps again, you've already done that and and you're already saved.

And his call to you today is to continue in in a lifestyle of of genuine repentance.

Will you seek the Lord in that?

Will you cry out for more help?

Will you be will you be honest about your lack of desire for that and and just beg for more mercy?

Will you reach out to somebody if you're if you're struggling in sin and you sense that, oh, it's getting away, it's getting away from me here, and I can't really control this, and this is becoming an even bigger problem.

Don't worry about what other people are gonna think.

Don't don't worry about your reputation.

Leave all of that in God's hands and get your heart right.

And if we can help you as a church, reach out to somebody here, and we would love to walk you through that and encourage you in your relationship with him.

Or maybe for you, it's it's that you need to get baptized, right?

Do you still need to do that?

Don't miss it.

That's that's the drive here in this text as well.

Right?

So many of you are potentially, you know, you haven't done that yet.

You know, and and for you, it's like, well, you know, I just I don't know if I'm ready.

Listen, if you're saved, you're ready.

Notice how these devout men, they get saved and baptized on the very same day.

Or if if your excuse is like, well, I'm I'm nervous and I'm I'm kind of scared, guess what?

That doesn't cut it either.

God's not gonna be like, well, okay, well, you're scared, well then I guess you shouldn't do it.

No, just reach out to us, talk to us.

Go to our website right now.

Under under next steps, you'll find out, you'll find baptism.

Read that, study what baptism is.

There's an application there.

You can fill that out.

Start working on your testimony.

I can help you with that.

All of that gets to me.

We'll walk you through what it means to be baptized, we'll add you to the list.

And next time we're all together, one of the next times we're all together, we're gonna have a baptism service, and I would love to see that take up like our entire time together.

How amazing would that be?

Is baptism what you need to do?

Well, think about that.

Allow the conviction of the Holy Spirit to urge you to holy living.

Listen, I want to pray for you right now.

I want to pray that the Lord would just continue again to pour out his spirit in power, that our lives would reflect the Holy Spirit's ministry in us, that our church would reflect more and more Holy Spirit power.

Lord, continue to build your church, God.

That's what we pray, Lord.

That is our eager longing, that is our desire, Lord.

Would you overcome our stubbornness, God?

Lord, would you overcome our pride and our arrogance, uh, Lord, our fear, our trepidation, Lord, that that letting you in is just, it's gonna be it's gonna be bad, Lord.

I pray that we would reject that lie and recognize that surrendering to you while it might might be painful for a season, but it is ultimately for our good.

It is for your glory, Lord.

We will produce more joy in us, more, more, more eager desire to follow you and glorify you.

And so, Lord, would you move and work in your church?

Would you move to save?

Lord, would you move to convict?

Lord, will you will you move to to move others to obedience through something like baptism?

God, would you do that?

What an opportunity baptisms are for people to proclaim the gospel.

This is what you have done, Lord.

You have saved me.

It's an it's an opportunity to exalt Christ and to glory in the gospel together.

God, move in your church.

We pray.

Encourage us in these things.

Lord, we worship you, we praise you, we trust you.

We pray all of these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.