SPEAKER_00: We study through books of the Bible here at the village chapel, and today is no different.
SPEAKER_00: If you would like a paper copy to follow along with, raise your hand and someone will deliver it to you.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are screen swiping and using your device, all the info you will need is up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: See what I did there?
SPEAKER_00: Screen swiping, it's up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, anyway, that didn't go anywhere.
SPEAKER_00: Hello to our friends watching online.
SPEAKER_00: We're so glad that you join us.
SPEAKER_00: And in the last week, we have been visited by folks from New York, New York, Huntsville, Alabama, from Singapore, and Glasgow, Scotland in the UK.
SPEAKER_00: So may the Lord bless you from wherever you're joining us to watch our service and thank you for being with us.
SPEAKER_00: Well, last week, Pastor Jim led us through the amazing events of the day of Pentecost, where there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all the believers who were gathered together in Jerusalem, about 120 of them.
SPEAKER_00: Flaming tongues of fire appeared on their heads, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they all began to speak in other languages.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that Pentecost was a huge holiday, a huge feast day.
SPEAKER_00: And so there were devout people from all around the known world who were gathered for this feast in Jerusalem, and they heard this commotion.
SPEAKER_00: And as all of the believers were speaking in different languages, the people from around the world were hearing in their own native tongue these believers witnessing and telling of the mighty works of God.
SPEAKER_00: So this multitude, they were all amazed, and they were asking the question, what does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: That we're hearing, that we're hearing our native tongue spoken by Galileans.
SPEAKER_00: And then there were other scoffers mocking all of the believers, saying that, oh, they're just drunk.
SPEAKER_00: And that brings us to our passage today, which is Acts chapter 2, verses 14 through 41.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm calling our message today filled with the Spirit, pointing to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This passage, it is all about Peter's response.
SPEAKER_00: He responds to both the scoffers and then to the people with honest questions, and he launches into his first sermon, which is a barn burner.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe he went to Jerusalem Seminary anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Well, there's there are two book-ended softball questions asked of Peter in this passage, questions that any of us who would like to share Jesus with a loved one, we just are dying to get asked these kinds of questions.
SPEAKER_00: And the first question is, what does all this mean?
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you.
SPEAKER_00: And then the second question in response to Peter's sermon is, What must we do?
SPEAKER_00: And you can just see it in slow motion, you know, this softball coming.
SPEAKER_00: It's just these great questions.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Peter's sermon, it is amazing.
SPEAKER_00: It's simple, it's direct, it points straight to Jesus and it explains what we need to do to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon reminds us of how vital the work of the Holy Spirit is and how much we need the Holy Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And he said this without the Spirit of God, we can do nothing.
SPEAKER_00: We are as ships without wind, or chariots without steeds, like branches without sap, we are withered, like coals without fire, we are useless.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful depiction of how much we need the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us, church, and then we'll read through this powerful sermon.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm reading a prayer from John Bailey's prayer book that is just perfect for this passage.
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Holy Spirit of God, visit now these souls of ours and tarry within them until eventide.
SPEAKER_00: Inspire all our thoughts, pervade our imaginations, suggest our decisions, lodge in our will's most inward citadel and order our doings.
SPEAKER_00: Be with us in our silence and in our speech, in our haste and in our leisure, in company and in solitude, in the freshness of the morning and in the weariness of the evening, and give us grace at all times to rejoice in your mysterious companionship.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit, we ask that you would meet all of us here today, no matter what's going on in our lives, what our circumstances are, what our level of faith is, meet us here today.
SPEAKER_00: Call us back to relationship with you, with God the Father, and with the Son.
SPEAKER_00: Bless this reading of your word.
SPEAKER_00: We lift this up in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So chapter two of Acts, starting with verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: And remember, this is in response to what has just been said by the multitudes, people asking, What does this mean?
SPEAKER_00: and other scoffers saying, Ah, they're just drunk.
SPEAKER_00: But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words.
SPEAKER_00: For these people are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel.
SPEAKER_00: And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out my spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And they shall prophecy, and I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke.
SPEAKER_00: The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day, and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think Peter planned on giving a sermon this day, but he was prepared and he responded to the Spirit's prompting as the Spirit prompted him to speak in answer to the comments and questions of the crowd.
SPEAKER_00: And I love verse 15 where Peter says, These people aren't drunk.
SPEAKER_00: It's only nine in the morning.
SPEAKER_00: What a great answer.
SPEAKER_00: Um mimosas there.
SPEAKER_00: Well, and then uh verse 17 through 21, Peter gets into this rhythm in this sermon of quoting scripture, reading through scripture, and then commenting on it, and he uses scripture from the prophet Joel to explain to the crowd what has just happened, what they've just witnessed.
SPEAKER_00: And first off, these people are living in the last days as are we, because they're living in between the resurrection and the return of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So, friends, no matter what the calendar looks like, we are in the season of the last days because we're between the resurrection and the return of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And in the same way, this is what Joel's talking about, and this fulfillment of the prophecy of Joel is found in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But in the same way that the gift of salvation is on offer to everyone who will receive it, the Holy Spirit is on offer and is a gift that will be poured out on everyone who is in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: There is no distinction, no distinction between young and old, between gender, male and female, between free men and enslaved persons.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is freely given on all who are in Christ, including those we dislike or disagree with, those who, as Pastor Jim says, are our repugnant others who don't vote or believe the way do, the way we do.
SPEAKER_00: The free gift of the Spirit is poured out on all who believe.
SPEAKER_00: And verse 21 is one of those anchor verses of this passage, and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 22.
SPEAKER_00: Men of Israel, hear these words.
SPEAKER_00: 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 yourself know.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
SPEAKER_00: God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.
SPEAKER_00: Amen to that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, verse 22, Peter's saying, This Jesus of Nazareth is a specific historical known person confirmed and attested by God by all of these signs and wonders that God did through him.
SPEAKER_00: God has done this.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is reminding these people that they know this is to be true because no matter what they think of Christ, of Jesus, they were witness to all of the miracles and the signs that he did while he was alive.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 23, this will not be the only time we see this in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: It holds up both the sovereignty of God and the agency, the culpability of man.
SPEAKER_00: Because Jesus was delivered up to be crucified, but it was according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, not an accident, not a mistake, not part of some vague, blurry, indistinct general plan, but the specific plan of God.
SPEAKER_00: This was the plan known by God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit since before the foundation of the world.
SPEAKER_00: This isn't God trying to redeem an awful circumstance that Jesus was captured and crucified.
SPEAKER_00: This was the plan all along.
SPEAKER_00: And the people who betray Jesus, who mocked and beat him, who crucified him, do they have agency in this matter?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, they do.
SPEAKER_00: But this was the definite plan of God all along, from the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pick up in verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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 ones see corruption.
SPEAKER_00: You have made known to me the paths of life, and you will make me full of gladness with your presence.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is quoting David in Psalm 16 here, and somehow they knew that our memory verse was 16-8.
SPEAKER_00: Just amazing how that all works.
SPEAKER_00: Picking up verse 29, brothers, 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, being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus, God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: Love how Peter connects the dots between David and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I can say he says with confidence, David lived, he died, he's buried, and his tomb right over here is with us till this day.
SPEAKER_00: But hundreds of years ago, David as a prophet foresaw and spoke about Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 32 is another bold and simple declaration of what God has done in raising Jesus, that it was an actual historical event witnessed by all the believers in the room.
SPEAKER_00: Eyewitness testimony was crucial in this culture.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter is telling the multitudes gathered there, this really happened, and we, all of us gathered in this room, we all saw it.
SPEAKER_00: Moving on, verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: 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 your footstool, and let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord in Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
SPEAKER_00: Love how Peter's describing the work of the Trinity here in verse 33, Jesus crucified, resurrected, and now exalted, ascended to sit at the right hand of God the Father, having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, the Son has now taken that gift and he's poured it out, just like Mary of Bethany poured out her precious ointment oil on Jesus' feet.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has now taken that gift of the Holy Spirit and poured it out and given it to all believers in this very visible way, tongues of fire and the speaking in other languages that all of these people are seeing and hearing.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And then Peter quotes Psalm 110, and then he gets to the end of this point of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: What a great ending, what a declaration of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: Peter is proclaiming to Israel that the Father has made this Jesus whom they crucified both Lord and Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And because there were people gathered there from all around the world, Peter uses both of those words, Lord and Christ, because the word for Lord would have particularly been heard by Jewish ears, and the word for Christ would have been particularly heard by Gentile ears.
SPEAKER_00: And then look at verse 37 and look at look at the response to this proclamation of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: 37.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the disappost, brothers, what shall we do?
SPEAKER_00: What a great softball question.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter said to them, love this response.
SPEAKER_00: 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 gifts of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Repent and receive.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, the depth of the love and the grace extended towards all of us.
SPEAKER_00: This wide open invitation for anyone who will.
SPEAKER_00: The promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far off.
SPEAKER_00: Everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself, every tribe, tongue, and nation whom the Lord has called.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 40, and and with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation.
SPEAKER_00: So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Peter continues to preach, but Luke doesn't transcribe every word.
SPEAKER_00: But the result is those who heard and received the word were baptized, and about 3,000 people were saved that day.
SPEAKER_00: That, my friends, is an altar call, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: What an amazing sermon.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the arc of Peter's life, it should be great encouragement to us.
SPEAKER_00: I know it is for me.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, here's Peter, the big, tough, brash fisherman, larger than life, and who lives most of his life with a foot in his mouth.
SPEAKER_00: You know, um, thinking about the account in the Gospels when the disciples, they're out in a fishing boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee, in the middle of the night, and Jesus comes to them walking on the water, and Peter says, Oh Lord, bid me to come to you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, Jesus does so.
SPEAKER_00: Peter takes a couple of steps out of the boat.
SPEAKER_00: For just a step or two, he's walking on water, and then he realizes what's going on.
SPEAKER_00: He looks down and immediately sinks and starts to drown and calls out, Master, save me.
SPEAKER_00: Well, and then a little later on, Peter is the one first to proclaim that Jesus is the Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
SPEAKER_00: But then right after that, he actually rebukes Jesus because Jesus starts to talk about his death and resurrection, and Jesus has to scold him and say, Oh, get thee behind me, Satan.
SPEAKER_00: And then Peter, who just 50 days before Pentecost, loudly proclaimed that he would follow Jesus anywhere, would die for him, and then proceeded to deny that he knew he did not even know who Jesus was.
SPEAKER_00: Surely that was the lowest point of his life.
SPEAKER_00: But then a resurrected Jesus meets him for breakfast on the beach, and three times he reinstates Peter.
SPEAKER_00: Fast forward 50 days later to Pentecost, here Peter is filled with the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00: And when the multitudes of people want to know what it is that they've witnessed, Peter steps right up, delivers his sermon without notes or an iPad.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00: And 3,000 people get saved.
SPEAKER_00: Bam.
SPEAKER_00: What in The world?
SPEAKER_00: What has changed in those seven weeks?
SPEAKER_00: What changed Peter from frightened fisherman to fearless apostle, from overconfident to coward to courageous?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because now Peter is in a space where he has to tell the world about the resurrected Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: As John Stott says in his commentary, because we know him, we must make him known.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus told the disciples back in chapter 1 of Acts, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: And boy, Peter is demonstrating that right here, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: And I would say two things have changed the arc of Peter's life: the resurrected Jesus and the filling of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And friends, it is the same resurrected Jesus that we know, and it is the same Holy Spirit who dwells in every believer.
SPEAKER_00: And right now, I just I invite you to pause for just a second, and I invite you to invite the Holy Spirit into your life in a new and a fresh way.
SPEAKER_00: Ask him to fill you up with the knowledge and the love of the resurrected Jesus in a way that fills you to overflowing and spills out to everyone around you.
SPEAKER_00: Well, this passage gives us a great glimpse through Peter of some of the distinctives or hallmarks of what a spirit-filled life looks like, right?
SPEAKER_00: And while it's easy to want to speak in other languages and to have the gift of healing, to be able to heal people or work mighty miracles, the truth is there is a quiet consistency of what a spirit-filled life looks like.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want to talk about for just a couple of minutes.
SPEAKER_00: And I think the first distinctive is a life lived in the Word.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter gives us a great example of why there's value in reading the Word.
SPEAKER_00: Peter obviously knew his scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: He knew how scripture pointed to and found its fulfillment in Jesus, and he was ready to respond when the moment called for it.
SPEAKER_00: That's one of the reasons that I am loving our treasuring God's Word, our Bible reading plan that we're all working through.
SPEAKER_00: As we study God's Word, we're better equipped to share the gospel when the opportunity arises.
SPEAKER_00: And as we spend time in God's Word and in relationship with Him, we begin to hear God's word coming through, His voice coming through the text.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like when you share a text or email with a buddy, friend, or a loved one.
SPEAKER_00: Their voice is coming through that text because you know them.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens when we spend time in the Word.
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller talks about this in his book about prayer.
SPEAKER_00: He says to understand the scripture is not simply to get information about God.
SPEAKER_00: If attended to with trust and faith, the Bible is the way to actually hear God speaking and also to meet God himself.
SPEAKER_00: So when we live in the Word, we learn, just like we talked about in the baby dedication, we learn how God wants our lives to go.
SPEAKER_00: And being filled with the Spirit means we're filled with the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And in his sermon, Peter quoted David from Psalm 16, and here's 16, 11, you have made known to me the paths of life.
SPEAKER_00: You will make me full of gladness in your presence.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, that is what happens when we have a habit, a lifestyle of living in the Word.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the next distinctive of a spirit-filled life is a life lived in a rhythm of repenting and returning.
SPEAKER_00: We know that Jesus died for our sins on the cross when we ask Jesus into our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: We repent of our sins, and it's easy, I think, to fall into thinking of that's kind of a one-and-done transactional deal.
SPEAKER_00: But as most of us know here, that's not the end of the story, is it?
SPEAKER_00: So we have escaped the penalty of sin when we turn to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But our Christian walk undulates.
SPEAKER_00: If you're like me, your life ebbs and flows.
SPEAKER_00: Our walk, it rises and it falls.
SPEAKER_00: But if we're open to the Holy Spirit, if we're filled with the Holy Spirit, he will convict us of sin.
SPEAKER_00: He will call us to repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And if we continue this rhythm of repenting and returning, the Holy Spirit does his work and continues to shape us more and more in the likeness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And therefore, then we start to slowly escape the power of sin in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And then one day, in the presence of Christ in the new heavens and the new earth, we will escape even the presence of sin.
SPEAKER_00: In the first of his 95 theses, Martin Luther proclaimed the whole life of believers should be repentance.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Christian life is.
SPEAKER_00: It is a lifelong pattern of repentance.
SPEAKER_00: And hear me, I'm not suggesting we live a life of self-abasement, berating ourselves for our worthlessness.
SPEAKER_00: No, far from it.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Holy Spirit doesn't condemn, He convicts us and invites us and leads us into repentance and a return to a right relationship with God.
SPEAKER_00: JC Ryle in his book Repentance explains this in such a beautiful way.
SPEAKER_00: He says, the door of mercy is set wide open.
SPEAKER_00: The door is not yet locked.
SPEAKER_00: The door can be opened.
SPEAKER_00: God's heart is full of love.
SPEAKER_00: God's heart is full of compassion.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever and whatever a person might have been at midnight or at any time, whenever he returns to God, he will find God willing to receive him, ready to pardon him, and glad to have him at home.
SPEAKER_00: All things are ready.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever desires to enter can come in.
SPEAKER_00: What a beautiful picture that paints.
SPEAKER_00: That when we repent and return to God throughout our lives, we find God eager to receive us, to pardon us, be glad that we are home.
SPEAKER_00: And that same thought is echoed in those two key verses of this passage, verse 21 and verse 39.
SPEAKER_00: It shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And then for the promise, it is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.
SPEAKER_00: And I am so grateful for that phrase, all who are far off.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have friends or family who have drifted and who are far off?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has not forgotten them.
SPEAKER_00: But you might say, hey, my faith's pretty lukewarm lately.
SPEAKER_00: I don't sense the Holy Spirit working in my life and filling me.
SPEAKER_00: There's no fire in my heart.
SPEAKER_00: If this is you, I've got a little story for you.
SPEAKER_00: Last weekend, as many of us have been doing, we were cutting up and burning uh fallen trees from the ice storm, and we had a great fire going all day Friday.
SPEAKER_00: We kept feeding it, and we are we were able to burn a lot of brush.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the next morning I went out to the fire pit, and all of that wood had been consumed, and there's just a big old mound of white ash left, and it looks like fire's dead.
SPEAKER_00: We're done.
SPEAKER_00: But I got down on my hands and knees and felt, and the coals were a little bit warm, so I scooted some of the ash out of the way and I started blowing on the coals a little bit, and sure enough, I saw a little smoke, a little red ember.
SPEAKER_00: So I got some tinder and some cedar branches, put them down over those that spot where the coals were and started blowing for a few more minutes.
SPEAKER_00: And pretty soon what looked like a dead fire was it was blazing.
SPEAKER_00: And you may feel lukewarm.
SPEAKER_00: You may spiritually feel like the fire has gone out of your life, that there's just ashes left.
SPEAKER_00: But friends, when we repent and return, the Holy Spirit will be faithful to breathe new life into you, restore that fire in your soul, bring new wind into your sails, like we heard from Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit wants to fan the flame of your heart back into a roaring fire.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 30 gives us a little picture of that.
SPEAKER_00: For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest, you shall be saved in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the last distinctive of a spirit-filled life is a life that points to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And when we yield our lives to the Holy Spirit, he can use us at any time, in any place, in any manner to point others to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: We all have beautiful gifts given to us by God, and Pastor Jim walked us through the gifts of the Spirit last Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: But I've got to say the best ability is availability, right?
SPEAKER_00: Friends, are we living a life that is yielded to the leading of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: Are we available for Him to lead us, to prompt us?
SPEAKER_00: When our lives point to Jesus, no matter what our circumstances are, no matter where we are, we end up as little outposts of Jesus, little outposts of the kingdom come.
SPEAKER_00: And in our wake, we leave behind us the perfume, the aroma of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And there are so many stories right now from our congregation.
SPEAKER_00: We just heard from Pastor Tommy about a couple of them, Paul and Marty Hindelong.
SPEAKER_00: So many stories of how you are faithfully following the Holy Spirit and being hands and feet of Jesus, especially some of us who have been in really trying circumstances, who are actually ministering to those around them who are caring for them.
SPEAKER_00: They're leaving the aroma of Christ all around them in hospital rooms and doctors' offices.
SPEAKER_00: John Piper shared this in a sermon on this very text.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I want us to be part of that bright, bold, prophetic, Christ-exalting, risk-taking, end-time band of disciples, taking the clear and glorious message of verse 21 everywhere, no matter what.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I want to be part of that group of folks.
SPEAKER_00: What's our response of faith here?
SPEAKER_00: Well, pray and look for opportunities.
SPEAKER_00: Ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into opportunities to share the hope of the gospel in word or in service.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it might be a sermon, it might be opening a door for someone.
SPEAKER_00: Be eager and available to be a part of God's mission.
SPEAKER_00: There are so many desperate and hurting people wanting to know the hope that is found in the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: So I ask you to prayerfully consider how the Holy Spirit might be leading you in the days ahead to love and serve those around you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll close with this quote from Ian Dugood in his commentary on Luke.
SPEAKER_00: This is the heart of the good news about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we believe, and this is what we have been called to declare repeatedly to ourselves, to our children, and to those who are still far off from Christ.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus whom you crucified, God has made Lord of Lords and King of kings, and he reigns in heaven forever.
SPEAKER_00: So look back and see the proof of God's love for you on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Look upward to the right hand of the Father and remind yourself that Jesus Christ still reigns in the face of the evidence of your unruly heart, of your most chaotic and inexplicable life circumstances, and of the seeming triumph of evil forces on all sides.
SPEAKER_00: And then look onward to that day for which Jesus Christ is still waiting, the day when all his enemies will finally, fully and finally be subdued under his feet.
SPEAKER_00: And on that day, he will complete the good work he's begun in you and in this world, and he will reign forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So as our worship team comes forward, I just want to invite you, if you're here this morning and if you've never considered giving your life to Christ, and yet you find something stirring your heart, man, we have a prayer team that meets in the back corner after the service, and they would love to pray with you.
SPEAKER_00: Or come talk to myself or one of the other pastors afterward.
SPEAKER_00: We would just love to talk with you about Jesus and invite you into a relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: So I'll close us with this prayer from Malcolm Geipes.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray, church.
SPEAKER_00: Let Christ clean your soul once more, erasing every stain, washing you thoroughly, for he has seen what you confess and what you hide.
SPEAKER_00: Again, he mends your broken bones and makes for you a clean heart, comes to comfort you again, comes with his Holy Spirit to renew the spirit in you, calling you to sing of all your loving God has done for you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we come and we ask that you would pour out your Holy Spirit on us, fill us to overflowing, to where this outpouring just spills out and reaches everyone that uh we are around in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for your love.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We lift this up in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.