Acts - Week 3 (2:22-39)

This is ERC Sundays, the messages at Emmaus Rd.

Church in DeWitt, Iowa. ERC is a Church of people

striving to grow in Jesus and make him known to others through

our faith, words and actions. Find out more about our church

at emmausrdonline.org. Here's this week's message in

the. Text for today One of the one of

the best. Well, I wouldn't call it the

best, but a key argument that comes against Christianity,

against from those who who doubt and don't believe is man.

If God is really all good and he's all powerful and he's all

loving, why does he allow such evil and terrible and and awful

things to happen in this world? Why do we suffer the way we do

if God is good? Now, I will tell you, and

honestly, at first glance, this feels like a devastating

question. Even I, as I asked the question,

maybe somebody's asked you that before.

Maybe you have friends or family members who they, they don't

believe what you believe, or maybe you're in this room and

you don't even believe what I'm saying.

So hear this. I understand that that's a,

that's a tough question. In fact, CS Lewis, fantastic

writer of a lot of different things, CS Lewis actually used

that argument against Christians when he was younger in his life.

He used that argument to try and disprove that God existed.

Yet ironically enough, it's that very same challenge that

actually brought him to God. And you say, well, how does that

work? How can how can that question

actually bring him to God? Well, here's the thing.

CS Lewis saw evil for what it was.

He looked at evil. He looked at the the terrible

things that happened in this world, and he said, wow, you

know what? I'm realizing that I can't

really call that evil if there's no God.

I can't call that evil. If there's no God, what does he

mean by that? The idea of that is man, if we

are just here by chance, by some evolutionary chance, if we're

just a bunch of cells that bump together over billions of years

and now we're here, there is no inescapable moral law.

It's literally just the strong eating the weak and the strong

eating the weak and over and over again until at some point

we fail to exist and nothing and nobody remembers us, right.

And so if that's the case, that there's no God who creates A

moral inescapable law, then man, we're actually going against our

evolutionary biology. If we are not beating down those

that we can beat down and take power from them and therefore

push ourselves up. Are we doing that?

Man, I hope not. I hope not.

That's a bad day. But but here's the thing.

Even the most staunch atheist, if you present this idea to them

that, hey, you know, with moral law doesn't make sense without

an intelligent designer, here's what's going to happen.

Even the most staunch atheist, what's going to happen is

something bad is going to happen to them, something unfortunate,

maybe intentional, maybe unintentional.

And when that happens to them, you know what they're going to

do? They're going to say that's not

fair, that shouldn't have happened to me, I need justice,

there should be retribution, there should be payback,

etcetera, etcetera. And all of a sudden their

argument is broken because man, there's a moral law that

dictates that something should be done about this and that

moral law has to be anchored in an intelligent designer.

Otherwise it's a moving scale that only exists with those who

hold the power, right. So all this to say, when we

logically, when we come to that end, when we logically come to

the end that there is a an intelligent designer who created

a moral law, he also created human beings just like us with

free will and the capability to choose whether to follow that

anchored moral law or not. But here's what's most

interesting about this God and this creator is that he has the

power and he has the will and he has the desire that even when we

break his moral law, even when we do evil, he can take that and

he can use it for his good plans.

That's a remarkable thing. That's a really remarkable

thing. And so this morning I would love

to talk about God's good plans. We're going to do this in three

different ways. We're going to look at Acts

Acts 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2, and Peter is preaching a sermon on the day of

Pentecost. And so here's what we learn.

We're going to learn about God's good plans in at least three

ways. First and foremost, we're going

to learn that God's plans do in fact already account for evil.

We need to acknowledge that otherwise we, we tend to get

lost in bitterness and sadness #2 we're going to see that God's

plans are multi generational, that he plays the long game.

And then finally #3 we are going to ask and answer how we join

God's good multi generational plans.

You ready? Yeah.

Yeah. OK, OK, OK.

Just just, yeah, it's fine. You guys are just very quiet

today. You, you seem very subdued.

OK, that's fine. The word of the Lord, we're

going to be reading Acts chapter 222 through 39.

This is not Peter's entire sermon.

We kind of chopped off the front bit a little bit, and you can go

back and read that and yeah, please do that.

But for our sake today, it's just 22 through 39, it says

this. Men of Israel hear these words.

Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with

mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him

in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up

according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

God raised him up, losing the pangs of death, because it was

not possible for him to be held by it.

For David says concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me,

for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.

Therefore my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced.

My flesh also will dwell in hope.

For you will not abandon my soul to Hades, or let your Holy One

see corruption. You have made known to me the

paths of life. You will make me full of

gladness with your presence. Brothers, I say to you with

confidence about the patriarch David, that he both died and was

buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God has sworn an

oath to him, that he would set one of his descendants on his

throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of

Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, for nor did

his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God raised up, and of

that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the

right hand of God, and having received from the Father the

promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured out this that you

yourselves are seeing and hearing.

For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself

says, The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I

make your enemies a footstool. Let all of the House of Israel

therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and

Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and they

said to Peter in the arrest of the in the rest of the apostles,

brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent

and be baptized, everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ for

the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of

the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and

for your children and for all who are far off.

Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself says the word

of the Lord. OK, God's good plans do account

for evil. OK, I want us to see something

because here's the thing. Peter is putting two thoughts

together that don't actually seem to work.

They seem to butt right up against each other because he

says it is the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.

Right? OK, so it sounds like God is

planning Jesus's crucifixion, but then he also says in the

same breath, you crucified and killed him by the hands of

lawless men. These two things, at least on

the surface, seem opposed. Let me explain as best as I can.

I'll explain it this way. Modern day people, it seems like

sometimes we have a difficult time with the concept of evil.

And here's what I mean by that. We don't like to just call it

out as what it is, and we don't like to call out people as the

ones who do this. Here.

Let me give you. Here's what it might sound like.

OK, well, gosh, he only did that.

He's only that way because you know what?

Gosh, he had, he had a really rough upbringing.

It's not his fault. He's not evil.

He did. It's not his fault.

It's not his fault. It's his parents fault.

OK? Or it might sound like, you know

what she only had, she only made that choice because she had to,

because the system let her down. The system did not support her

well enough. So therefore it's not her fault.

You see what we're getting at and our modern day people, we

tend to, what we do is, is we take all of these, all these

societal things and we say, man, if we could just get these

societal things right, then we could actually maybe become the

people who we ought to be. So therefore, every evil, every

sin, not that, not that secular people call them sins, but every

evil that is, that is done in our world is because our system

has failed. There's something wrong.

But you know, with enough time in in the right family and the

right education and the right politics and the right this and

this and this, we're going to be the people that we're supposed

to be and we're going to eliminate evil.

Baloney. You won't.

You won't. I hear rumors, and I don't know,

this is very much off the cuff. I hear rumors that, you know,

supposedly we're going to start a new, we're going to start life

on a new planet at some point in the next 40 or 50 years.

That's going to be the utopia, right?

We're finally going to get it right when we exit this planet

and we're going to go, we're not going to get it right.

Even if we do that, that is not going to be a utopia.

Here's the thing friends, the Bible has 0 issue calling a

spade a spade 0 And so the Bible and Peter, who's preaching this

message, he, he doesn't have any hang ups.

He, he, he calls evil what it is and God calls evil what it is.

And they, they look at it right in the face.

And more So what they do is they look at who's projecting the

evil, what the source of the evil is and they name it.

The Bible names it, Peter names it.

Guess what? That's you and me.

Sorry. That's you and me.

It's our it's our fault. It's what we do.

Now, why? Why are we like this?

Well, there is a doctrine called original sin.

It's an important doctrine because what it tells us and

what the Bible tells us is that from the moment of our

conception, and David says that from the moment of our

conception because of sin and it's, and it's work and it's

curse man, God help us. We fail all the time, morally

and otherwise. We make selfish decisions.

We, we lie to get ahead. I, you can, you can name it all

day. I don't really want to do all of

that. But what happens is when we sin

against God, we are literally fracturing our own design.

God designed us for a purpose and a plan and those purposes

and plans were good. But every single time we break

his moral law, we are breaking down ourselves.

We don't see that always. We think that as we're getting

ahead through whatever means necessary because the world

says, hey, get ahead. We think we're building

ourselves up, but we're not. We're working against our own

design and that that's evil. So what are God's options?

Let's think about this from his perspective.

I've laid out a case for you that says, well, humans, it is

inevitable that we're going to do evil and terrible things.

OK, So what are God's options? Think about it from his

perspective. Well, first and foremost, I

mean, quite frankly, you know what he could do?

He could say, this is ridiculous.

This thing is not working and quite it's just not worth it.

It's not worth the effort. Let's just wipe out everything.

I'm even going to start over. Let's just wipe it all out and

call it a day. God could do that, but that

would be against his nature. That would be against His nature

as a creator, as the sustainer, as the lover of our souls, as a

nurturer. It would be against his God.

He can't do it. He can't do it because of His

great and intense and perfect love for us.

He. He can't do it.

So then what does he have to do? God works with the material that

He's got. God works with the material that

he's got, and sometimes that material is downright evil.

But God and his infinite sovereignty and wisdom, he can

work through those evil things to get to his good plans, to get

to salvation, to get to the point where we have freedom.

He can do that. Let me give you a quick example.

Gosh, we were, we were in this story of Joseph a little ways

back, Joseph's brothers. I'm going to give you the very

quick version. I don't have the emojis up here

today for those who remember that, but I'll give you the

really quick version. Joseph's brothers hated him.

They despised him. And So what did they do?

They kind of. They ransacked him and they sell

him into slavery. That's an evil thing to do.

Well, he goes on through various means, and at some point he

finds his way as the second in command in all of Egypt during a

famine. His brothers come back because

they're starving to death. They don't recognize him.

He could have just waylaid them. He he could have given them what

they deserved. But because of grace and mercy,

he forgave them. And So what?

Ultimately what he tells his brothers is what you meant for

evil, God meant for good. God can turn evil into good.

He's fully capable of doing that.

Just because evil exists does not disprove God.

He just uses it for His good purposes.

Let me give you one more that should be on the forefront of

all of our minds, and that is the cross of Jesus Christ.

Evil people, As Peter calls out in this text during his sermon,

evil people just like you and me put Jesus on the cross.

God used that to save us. Friends, I know we're in a

church, and so that seems very obvious, that statement I made.

God used the cross to save us. My goodness, let's never get

over that. Please.

Let's never get over the fact that God turned the most evil

act in all of human history into our salvation.

Let's never get over that fact. It's wildly important, my

goodness. So we've laid that out right.

God uses even the evil things for his good plans.

Let's keep going and see how God's plans are multi

generational because that's really important.

It is. I love the fact that we have we

have writers here. Gosh, you write songs.

I love that. I think it's so cool.

I really mean that. Sometimes I consider myself a

bit of a writer. I wrote a proverb.

Would you like to hear it? You know what, friends?

It's fine. No, I'm kidding.

No, I wrote a proverb, and whether you want to hear it or

not, I'm going to give it to you.

My goodness. OK.

It's perfect, by the way, in the sense that 8 syllables on one

side to prove a .8 syllables on the other side to prove a point.

Perfectly balanced, as all things should be.

Right? Here it goes.

That which is good takes forever.

That which is bad happens quickly.

There's your proverb for the day.

Open your fortune cookie. OK, say that which is good takes

forever. That which is bad happens

quickly. At the risk of embarrassing

myself, which I'm usually willing to do at the risk of

embarrassing myself, let me give you an illustration to prove

that point. As I get older, the the hair

that I want to grow, it doesn't grow that fast and there seems

to be less of it and, and, but the hair that I don't want at

all, it weirdly comes overnight. Gosh, this is so weird.

So this takes forever to grow and I like it and I want it and

I think it's good. But I will wake up 1 morning and

like I know it wasn't there the day before but I've got like an

inch long hair coming off of my ear and I'm like what?

That is disturbing how fast that bad thing happened.

It happened so quickly. I mean that I like, oh man, I

am. I'm showing my age a little bit.

But it's true. The good things seem to take

forever. The bad things happen so fast.

Oh my gosh, it just getting old is hard.

And if you don't understand what I'm saying, you will.

You'll get there. But here's the thing, let let me

get to the point. God thinks multi generationally.

He thinks really, really big picture.

He plays the long game, right. We are told in our society and

and we we have some sense of this that it is my job to live

my best life. Now that has become kind of a

catch phrase over the last decade or so.

I need to live my best life now. You know, now there is, there is

an extent to where we can do that, right?

We can do that and we can honour God, right?

Because maybe living my best life looks like being in

community like ERC and spending time with like minded people

and, and even speaking the gospel to people who maybe don't

want to hear it. Maybe that's what living my best

life looks like. But The thing is like we are

still thinking maybe too small. We're still thinking maybe too

small. And let me explain that by going

back to the the text that I was looking at.

Oh, no, too far. My bad.

Yeah. So here's a weird thing that

David says, not. Let's explore it for a second.

I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David, that

he both died and was buried. And his tomb is with us to this

day. In other words, what he's saying

is, hey, our great King David, who we all kind of look up to

and and we read the Psalms and we read all these things about

him. He's dead.

You can go visit his grave right over there.

What is the point we're getting to the point that we're getting

to is the fact that man David, he saw something David saw

something. He saw something beyond himself.

Now David understands that his his direct impact for the world

was significant, but he also understands, and we get this

from the Psalms that he. Knew that God was going to do

something way bigger than him, that the indirect impact that he

would have because God is working through generations and

generations and generations of people.

That impact would ultimately be the gospel and it would save

people like you and me. He knew that God works big

plans. He knew that.

And so I just want to ask you a question.

Let's just cut to the chase. I don't need to over explain

this as I sometimes do, but let's cut to the chase.

Have you ever considered the fact that God's plans are bigger

than your lifetime? God's plans for you are bigger

than your lifetime. Have you thought about that?

Lord willing, we plan for retirement.

We plan for all these things that hopefully will happen in

our lifetimes. But man, do you think God wants

to leave your impact there? Do you think he wants your

impact to just stay right here? Oh man, I hope not.

I hope you're not thinking that small.

I hope you're thinking the way God thinks in a multi

generational way. Because here's the thing, let's

do some simple math. If I in my entire lifetime talk

to 10 people and convince 10 people that Jesus Christ is

their Lord and Savior, and they agree with me and they and they

give their hearts to God, just 10 people in my whole life.

Well, what happens when those 10 people each tell 10 people it's

100. And then the next generation,

what happens when those 100 people each tell 10 people

that's 1000? Let me tell you something, it

will be just fine by me. And I mean this, if in a

generation or two people don't remember my name, I'm OK with

that. I really AM.

I'm good with that. As long as I became a

multiplier, as long as my life's work, the the things that I'm

passionate about live beyond me. And I'm not talking about

investments. I'm not talking about

generational wealth. I am talking about something

that matters so deeply. That is the most important thing

and that is the gospel. That is the eternity changing

gospel of Jesus Christ. Forget about my name.

I don't need somebody to put flowers 60 years down the road

and say, oh, well, my great, great grandpa father was Chris

and I think he was a decent dude.

I don't know, like, no, I don't need that.

What I do need is for my great, great, great grandchildren to

know Jesus. That's what I need them to know.

They don't need to know my name. So I'm asking you, have you been

thinking about, you've been thinking about your life beyond

your life? Have you been thinking about

your legacy in that way? Gosh, if you're not talking

about multiplying, if you're not talking about pushing yourself

to have the conversations that will change generations, I don't

know what you're planning for, quite frankly, I'm not sure what

your point is. I don't mean that in a mean way,

I don't. But I do mean it in a

challenging way. Our hope, our goal should be the

same as God's multi generational multiplication and impact for

the gospel. OK, let's move on to kind of the

last thing here that that we learned from Peter and what we

need to do now that I've given you that.

How do we join this multi generational plan of God?

How do we do that? Is there a formula?

Is there a way to do that? OK, there is.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and they

said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, brothers, what

shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent

and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ

for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the

gift of the Holy Spirit. Do you see it?

It's not terribly complex. It's not that.

It's not that difficult to understand.

Repent and be baptized. This is how we start to join

God's multi generational plan. Now I understand I am talking in

a church and so a lot of you have at least checked one of

these boxes right? You have you have but let's

let's take a moment, just a brief moment to look at each

one. Repent.

What does that mean means turning away means running the

opposite direction. Here's the thing.

If I'm living for me and all I'm worried about is my legacy is

maybe generational wealth in this and this man, you know what

I need to do. You know what God is calling me

to do when I think long term, He's calling me to turn away.

He's calling me to run away from that selfishness.

He's calling me to run away from the selfishness of, hey, it's

all about me, right? When God calls us to repent,

He's calling us to run towards him, not run towards the things

that we suppose are important, the things that give us a name.

That's not the point. And then Peter tells us be

baptized briefly. We had a student chair about

this last week. God, God bless her.

So good. But briefly, man baptism,

washing away of your sins. God inviting you into his

family. What a gift.

I, I, I'm honest, man. Like if you were sitting in this

room, you were listening to me and you believe in Jesus Christ,

why aren't you baptized? He commanded it.

He's called you to it. He wants to wash you clean.

He wants to give you the Holy Spirit.

And that's the thing. Peter makes it very clear

through baptism, God gives us the Holy Spirit.

I, I want you to notice it. He says you will receive the

gift of the Holy Spirit. Hard stop.

There's no question there. There's there's no, hey, am I

going to receive the Holy Spirit?

What does that look like? No, God says you will.

Now I understand we're talking about Pentecost.

And so like we think maybe we have to talk some mumbo jumbo in

order to have received the Spirit.

That's baloney. That is the specific gift that

he gives specific people and especially in this moment for a

specific purpose. No, God giving you the Holy

Spirit is God making his home in you.

He's dwelling in you. He He moves in your heart.

Why do you think I'm insane? Why do you think I stand up here

and rant and rave like a lunatic about Jesus?

Because guess what? In my right mind, I would not do

that. But Lord, help me.

The Holy Spirit moves in and through me as I've accepted

Jesus Christ. And here I am talking to all of

you about the Gospel man. God wants to work in your life

too. And it doesn't necessarily look

like this, but it does look like you having conversations with

people. It does look like telling people

about the gospel. It does look like good news in

your life. And it looks like freedom.

And so let me close with this. If the band would like to come

up, that would be awesome. But let me let me close with a

thought. Even though, even though the

most evil act in human history was carried out against Jesus

Christ, the Son of God, it didn't work.

It just didn't work. It didn't work the way people

thought it would. And that's really good news for

us. This text, it tells us that the

pangs of death. Let me tell you something about

death. Death fought and labored to keep

Jesus down. But ultimately, as it fought and

it labored, it only delivered him into life.

That's a gift. That's God's good plans for you

and me. And he wants us to to accept and

join in those plans. He wants us to see that even

death itself cannot hold us down because Jesus Christ is the

Messiah. He's living, He's reigning, He's

alive, and he wants us to join him in these good plans.

He wants us to join him in life. Friends, don't miss that.

Again, I know we're in a church and maybe we assume too much

that we all already are there. Don't miss that.

And even if you are sitting here and you know Jesus Christ, you

bet you know somebody who doesn't.

It might be in your head right now.

Don't be afraid. God gives you His Holy Spirit to

speak His truth in love. Don't be afraid.

Multiply, multiply, multiply for the gospel.

Amen. Amen.

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