He Lived. He Died. He Rose.

In the first sermon recorded in the early church, Peter announces the good news — Jesus lived. Jesus died. Jess rose. This simple message has the power to change our lives if we let it. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

The sermon text reading for today is Acts chapter 2. We're gonna be looking at uh beginning at verse 14 and then skipping down to 36 through 41. You can find this in on page 1657 in the Pew Bible. Then Peter stood up with the eleven, raised his voice, and addressed the crowd. Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you. Listen carefully to what I say. These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. In the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in heavens above and signs on the earth below. Blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Fellow Israelites, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited to God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge. And you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep his hold on him. Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, Brothers, what shall we do? Peter replied, 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. The promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call. With many other words, he warned them and he pleaded with them save yourselves from this corrupt generation. Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about 3,000 were added to their number that day.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Happy Easter to you. I'm so glad to be with all of you this morning. My name, if I have not yet had the chance to meet you, my name is John, and I get to serve as the lead pastor here at Elmwood. Especially if you are newer here with us today. Uh just want to again say how grateful we are that you would uh spend Easter Sunday with us. Uh we're so glad that you are here and that we get to share this experience together. Uh I want to share something uh with you that uh we have pastor group chats. So me and my pastor friends, and when it's Easter Sunday morning, uh I get text messages that look like this. I won't tell you who sent that to me or about any of the other text messages in this group chat, but uh he is risen indeed. Uh it was not Dave, I promise. It was definitely not Dave. Yeah. Uh as Dave said earlier, uh, if you are new to Elmwood, especially if this is your first time with us, uh, we would be so grateful and so honored if you would fill out one of these uh cards that you find uh scattered around in the seats around you. Uh we would love for you to fill out some simple contact information just because we want to connect with you. We want to get to know you and uh take you off for coffee or lunch or tea or whatever. And uh so we'd uh be so grateful if you would do that and drop that in the offering box as you left here today. Uh but if you are here today and you find yourself saying, Yeah, not ready for that. Not ready to give up my contact information quite yet, that's okay. Uh that's okay. And I want to invite you to do this instead. Uh would you give us three weeks? Okay, we know that it's it's impossible to get a really good sense of what a church is like in one visit. And so uh maybe the next step for you, if you're new here today, is to give us three weeks. Give us, come back two or three more times to see uh what kind of church this is anyway. And uh to that end, let me just tell you really briefly why you should come back next week. Uh next Sunday, we are starting a new series of messages. It's just a short little three-week series, and we are uh looking at what Jesus has to say about money and possessions in the Sermon on the Mount. And the reason why I think this is helpful for us is we all know uh we all know the fear and the anxiety and uh the tension and the worry that comes because of money and because of material possessions and because of all those things. Uh the realities of living in our economy and the realities of your season of life and your income and all that stuff is uh uh it it's it can bring about lots of fear and worry and anxiety. And what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount is he says it is possible to live a life that is free from the control of money. Okay, Jesus says it's actually possible to live a financially and materially non-anxious life. I don't know about you, but that's what I want. That's an area of growth for me in my life. And uh, so we're gonna spend three weeks looking at what Jesus says about money and how to be free from the fear and anxiety and worry that comes along with money and possessions. They're not a bad thing, uh, but they can take an a place in our lives that they shouldn't and create fear and worry and anxiety. So that's what we're gonna be thinking about. So I want to invite you to join us next Sunday as we uh begin that series. Uh, but today. Today is Easter Sunday, uh, which is the day that a few billion people around the world who claim the name of Jesus gather to celebrate the good news of the resurrection. Now, we all know that we live in a world where bad news is never hard to find. Never hard to find. Every single place we turn, every single place we look, we can find bad news, and it's not just out there. The bad news is just not out there in culture or in politics or in other people's lives or, you know, geopolitics or whatever. The bad news, we experience that in our own lives as well. And the Easter story tells us that in a world that is full of bad news, there is good news too. The good news is it's an announcement about something that took place in time and in space and in history, and at the center of that announcement is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. His life and his death and his resurrection have the power to change everything in our lives if we let it. And so we're gonna spend our time this morning thinking about this announcement of good news. So our time today is gonna be organized around three questions. And the first question that I want to consider with you is this What is the good news? What is the good news in the first place? Well, let me provide uh just a very brief bit of context for you uh for what we heard read in these verses. Uh so what what you just heard read a moment ago was an excerpt from the first sermon that was given in the early church. So if we were to read the book of Acts from the very beginning, we would see that Jesus has already risen and ascended to the right hand of the Father, and that the Spirit of God, his very presence, has descended on those followers of Jesus who are gathered in the city of Jerusalem. And when the Spirit of God came upon those believers, he empowered them to speak in other languages, and the people who were around them heard them speaking in their own languages. And as a result of that, because uh this sounded, you know, like it sounded probably weird, the people who were overlooking this were like, these people are definitely drunk. These people have been like tipping a little bit, you know, like it's nine in the morning, but they're obviously drunk. And so Peter stands up to uh preach this first sermon, and in doing so, he explains what was actually happening, that the Spirit of God had come upon them. And in this first sermon that Peter gives here in the early church, uh he summarizes the good news about Jesus. And that's what we're gonna spend our time sort of focusing in on here today. So he tells us what the good news, what this announcement is, and it is a three-part announcement. Uh, it's very simple. You all should be able to memorize this, okay? Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose. Okay, very simple. That's that's the essence of the message. He lived, he died, he rose. So, verse 22, Peter says, Fellow Israelites, listen to this. Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs which God did among you through him as you yourselves know. So, what Peter says to these uh standing in the crowd is he says, Jesus was a real man who lived in a real place, and you know it because you were eyewitnesses to his life. He says, He did all these miracles and wonders, and he did them among you, meaning in your midst. So you were eyewitnesses to the life of this man, Jesus. So he lived. But not only this, we see he died. Verse 23, he says, This man was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. So Peter says, You know he lived because you were eyewitnesses to his life, and you know he died because you were complicit in his death. He was handed over to you, and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death. It's interesting that when you read the accounts of Jesus' execution, it's the Roman government is the one doing the dirty work. The Roman government is those were the ones who actually put him to death, but what Peter says here to these gathered that day is he said, The Romans were only accomplices to what you did. Now, some of the people who are standing here listening to this message were just a few days earlier shouting, Crucify him. As Jesus was on trial before Pilate, and Pilate says, I don't find anything wrong with what this guy's done, nothing certainly deserving of death. What do you want me to do? And they the the religious leaders stirred up the crowd and they all began to shout, Crucify Him. And some of the people who are standing here listening to this message were the ones directly responsible for the execution of Jesus. And not only this, certainly some of these people who are listening here were the ones who walked by the cross as Jesus hung there dying, and they were the ones who hurled insults at him. You saved yourself. You saved others. Can't you even save yourself? So they knew that Jesus lived because they witnessed it with their own eyes. They knew Jesus died because they witnessed it, and because they were complicit in his death. But the third aspect of the good news here is Jesus rose. Verse 24 But God raised him from the dead, freeing him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. When Peter says that Jesus was freed from the agony of death, he's picking up on a theme. The word freeing is a word that means to loose or to untie. And he's picking up a theme that's woven throughout the book of Psalms. There's uh numerous occasions where the psalm writer uh talks about being entangled by or wrapped up in the cords of death. And so this this image of being uh wrapped up and entangled in these heavy, unbreakable cords. This was used as a metaphor for death itself. And what Peter affirms is Jesus did die. He was entangled in those cords of death, but those cords were not strong enough to hold him down. He says it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him. And so this is the three-part, this is the three-part announcement. This is the good news. Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose. The next question we should consider is this how is that good news for us? Okay? What difference does it make? What difference does the mere historical fact that Jesus did those things, what difference does that make for us who sit here in this room today? Well, the good news that Peter and the rest of the New Testament uh announce with one voice and make very clear is that what Jesus did, he did for us. This is how it's good news. Everything Jesus did, he did for us. What the Bible tells us is that Jesus lived the life that we should have lived and haven't lived. The Bible says that Jesus, he never sinned, which certainly means that he he obeyed the rules, you know. Uh, but it definitely means more than just that. Jesus' sinless life means not only did he just like do the right things, because you can do the right things with the wrong heart. We know that. You can do the wrong things out of guilt and obligation, and that's not that that's not the totality of Jesus' sinless obedience. No, Jesus lived with an undivided heart. He lived with pure motives. Jesus, every part of his entire being, his thoughts and his words and his actions were entirely and all the time in full alignment with the will and the purposes of the Father. So Jesus lived the life of complete devotion to the Father that we should have lived and have failed to live. He lived the life of devotion to the Father that we try so hard to live, and we strive for and struggle for, but do so imperfectly. He lived the life we should have lived. Secondly, he died the death that we should have died. He died the death that we deserve to die. Now, the guilt of those who are standing here in this crowd, their guilt is pretty obvious. Okay, these were people who were complicit in the murder of the sinless son of God. Okay, the only person who's ever lived who did not deserve to die, they put him to death. They killed the sinless one, and as a result, those in that crowd, those who did that, they stood guilty before God. And what the Bible says is that uh even though our sin takes a different form than theirs does, we weren't there, we didn't participate in that ourselves. What the Bible says is that even though it looks very different in our lives, the sin and the idolatry and the self-centeredness that exists inside of each one of our hearts leaves us just as guilty before God as they were. The good news is that Jesus went to the cross in our place. He died the death that we should have died, he experienced the banishment, and he experienced the forsakenness that we deserve because of our sin. So he lived the life we should have lived, he died the death we should have died, and he rose in triumph over death. And he did that for us. He did that in our place. See, because Jesus is the Lord of life, and because he is the author of life, death does not have final authority over him. Because he is the Lord of life, death itself is subject to him. Death must obey Jesus' command, and the resurrection proves that death itself does not have the final word. It does not have authority over him, and through the resurrection, Jesus proved that for those who are united to him, death no longer has hold over our lives either. It no longer has power over us. So the good news that Peter and the rest of the New Testament announces is Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose, and everything he did, he did for us. He did on our behalf. And the last question that we'll uh explore together today is okay, how do we access what Jesus has done? How do we actually participate in and take hold of what Jesus has secured for us? When the people hear this message that Peter announced, which uh we can find a summary of this in verse 36, where Peter says, Therefore let all Israel be assured of this. God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. God has made Jesus, he's proven him, he's demonstrated him to be both Lord, that is God Himself, and the Messiah. That is God's anointed king, his anointed representative, his rescuer, his savior. When the people hear this message, they're cut to the heart, it says. And that's a kind of inner spiritual turmoil and heartache that these original listeners felt as they heard the message. And as they came to grips with the reality of their sin and what they had done and their guilt before God. Peter replied, 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. The promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call. So the way that Peter says you should respond to this message that Jesus lived, Jesus died, Jesus rose, he did this for you, you stand guilty before God. The way we respond to that is number one, he says, repent. Now, uh for you the word repent uh may feel like a dirty word. Uh if nothing else, that's a churchy word. Um and and you may have uh have sort of a negative reaction to that word because you've uh seen or heard it used in like really unhelpful ways. Um but the word simply means to turn around. Okay, that's all the word repent means. It means to turn around, it means to do a 180-degree turn and go the opposite direction. Okay, so uh the word repent does not simplistically mean stop doing bad things. It does not mean try harder, do better, try to become a more spiritual person, get more serious about religion. It's not what the word repent means. It means to turn around, to turn from your former way of life and embrace the way of Jesus. And this is how we access what Jesus has done for us. Is we turn from that old way of life and we embrace the way of Jesus, we turn to Jesus. See, the word repent, uh, it's not just turning from something, it's turning towards something. And so built into the idea of this word repent is not just, hey, don't do bad things, not just you have to turn from this towards something else. And so you turn from that former way of life and instead, in faith, embrace Jesus, surrender to Jesus, and embrace the life-giving way of Jesus in your life. And this is this is what the entire New Testament points to is the fact that repentance and the accompanying faith that comes on the other side of that repentance, that is how we gain access to what Jesus has done for us. Through faith, our lives can be joined to his. Which means that his life and his death and his resurrection, those things now belong to us. His defeat of death now belongs to us. We can summarize it like this. Through faith, everything Jesus accomplished is available to us. Through faith alone. Not lots of trying, not lots of effort, not lots of spiritual achievements, through nothing but faith alone, everything that Jesus accomplished is available to us. Now, I don't know what you carried in here with you today, but some of you may be here today carrying the heavy burden of religion. Maybe you find yourself striving to be a good person. You find yourself striving to live a moral and upright life, however you've defined that, and it's left you exhausted. Because when is it ever enough? When do you ever feel like it's enough? That's you're carrying maybe with you today a great heavy burden of religion, and the invitation of Jesus is to lay down your striving. Lay down your striving to be acceptable before God and instead trust the one who can make you acceptable before Him. Maybe you came in here today carrying the burden of shame and regret and guilt over things that you have done in the past. Maybe you're here and you think, you know, if you only knew what I've done, if you only knew the people I've hurt and the way I've hurt those people, if you only knew the struggles I have or the things I wrestle with or the things about me that nobody knows, if you only knew how badly I have messed up and how messed up my life is. What this passage shows us is that no one is beyond the reach of God saving and restoring grace. Okay, some of the people who got saved, who turned to Jesus and experienced new life in Him and were made alive in Christ, some of those people were the very ones who killed Jesus. And if the mercy and the grace of God can extend to people who have done even things like that, it can extend to whatever it is you've done. And so the invitation for you today is to take your eyes off of what you've done. Stop thinking about yourself. Stop thinking about what you have done, and quite simply get wrecked by what God has done for you and Jesus. Okay? Let your heart be melted by his love for you, in spite of the things you've done. Because remember, he lived a life that you should have died, he died the death that you should have died, and he rose again to defeat death itself on your behalf. So it's not about what you do, it's not about what you've done. It's about turning from that former way of life and embracing and following the life-giving way of Jesus. Friends, through faith, everything Jesus accomplished is now available to you. Not just vaguely to us. Every single thing that Jesus has done is available to you this morning. And so the question is, have you received it? Have you embraced Jesus? Have you received his grace and his mercy and his kindness in your life? The question is not, are you a religious person? Are you more religious than other people? Is your life on the exterior to look better than some other people's lives? The question isn't even, do you go to church? The question is, do you know Jesus? Have you embraced and received everything that he has accomplished for you through his life, death, and resurrection? And if you're here today and you have not done that, why not make today the day that you receive everything that's available to you in Christ? You can right now, in this moment, receive that for yourself. You can make that decision right now and begin to, even in this moment, experience the new life that is available because of what Christ has done for you. The response we see in this passage to this announcement of good news is not just repent, it's also repent and be baptized. Since the very beginning of the church, baptism and faith in Jesus have been very closely linked together. In fact, they're so closely linked together that it can appear at times as though they happen simultaneously. The Bible says we are, very clearly says this, by the way, we are saved by grace. We are saved through faith, not by baptism. Okay? Getting wet doesn't save you. Jesus is the one who saves you. Baptism was, in this passage and has been ever since that time, a sign that has accompanied faith inwardly. So no one is saved by getting baptized. Baptism is the outward sign of an inward reality that has already taken place through the life-giving and heart-regenerating work of God the Spirit. When you go under the water, it's a representation of, no, you have died with him. And when you come up out of the water, it is a declaration that I have been made alive in him. And that's the pattern that we see beginning here in the book of Acts, and the pattern that we get to uh participate in and get to witness here this morning. Today we get to witness Gabe declaring his faith in Jesus through baptism. And for those of you who may be unfamiliar with baptism by immersion, uh here's let me just give you a brief overview of what we're going to do. Uh in just a moment, we're gonna watch a short video of Gabe sharing his story of his faith in Jesus. And then I'm gonna have Gabe come up. I'm gonna pray for him, we're gonna get him into the tank here, and we're going to baptize him. Uh, once he's in the water, I'm going to ask him these two questions. Are you now trusting in Jesus Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins and for the fulfillment of all God's promises to you, including eternal life? And then I will ask, and do you intend by faith to follow Jesus as Lord and obey his teachings? And after Gabe answers those two questions, uh saying yes, he will go under the water and come up again. And uh, as Dave said earlier, he will be greeted by loud cheers and applause and all of the celebration that is uh required and uh is only fitting for someone who gets to declare uh that they have been made alive in Christ. Let me at this time direct your attention to the screen so we can hear Gabe's story.

SPEAKER_01 29:47

My name is Gabe, and this is my story in faith in Jesus. Last year was the first time I really understood that I needed a savior. I learned this because my hockey team was divided, and I started to feel like I was missing peace in my life. Then I was invited to Bible study, and since then I've been trying and striving to be a good follower and believer in Christ. Three words that describe how I felt before coming to Christ were dependent, angry, and doubtful. I felt dependent on how others saw me, and I would change who I was depending on who I was around. I also felt myself getting angry a lot, being mad at every little inconvenience. I felt like I had no control over it. I felt doubtful of what I was doing, and I didn't have confidence in myself or anything I would do. Since becoming a follower of Jesus, my attitude has started to change. I'm becoming slow to speak and slow to become angry, and my language is ch changing too. The first time I remember asking Jesus for forgiveness was after my first few times at church. I remember sitting in my room late at night after a bad day at school. So I got off my bed and prayed and talked to God about it and asked for forgiveness for the way I've been acting. Since I've came to Christ, I'm learning to lean on Jesus in all things I do because I know He loves me and will forgive me. Since I came to Christ, my thinking has started to change and I've become a more confident, calm person. I'm learning to deal with my anger, and now I strive to be the best person I can be through Christ. I'm learning to love all people, not just those who like me, and today I'm getting baptized to show that I belong to Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

So I'm gonna pray for Gabe before we get him in the tank. Our Father, today we present Gabe, who has trusted in Christ alone for his salvation. By grace, he has received the free gift of eternal life, and you have seated him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. He is here to bear witness to your salvation through baptism. Lord, we ask that you would nourish and sustain him by your word, that you would be uniquely present with him by your spirit, that you would protect him from the evil one and from anything that would draw his heart away from you, that you would use him to spread the good news about Jesus, that you would equip him to build up your body, the church, and that one day when he stands before you, he will hear you say, Well done, good and faithful servant. Our loving Father, in these holy moments, help us to grasp more and more of the wonder of having been buried with Christ in his death and raised with him in his resurrection. We pray this in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, Amen.