Stories are always reflective of the culture that makes them. We're kind of in a weird spot right now. I don't think we have a ton of culturally agreed upon clarity as to even what good and bad is, as to even what heroism is. And as a result, I really kind of feel bad for the people who are trying to write stories for us and make money back on it so they can make more stories. I mean, what do you write about? What kind of hero do you make? In the absence of new ideas, you're seeing the following pattern a lot. Somebody from a studio, they try to think of something new, they can't think of anything that'll play. So instead, they dig back into the past and they're like, all right, let's grab a hero and a story from a previous generation that was beloved and cherished. And let's pull them out of mothballs if the actor's still alive, and we'll see where they're at now. And inevitably, the way these stories work is that they resurrect these old heroes and they make them bitter and miserable and confused, because again, our stories and our heroes reflect where we're at as a culture, as a civilization.
SPEAKER_00They take these heroes and we always encounter them broke and old and unattractive and confused and they feel like they're a fish out of water, dinosaur from a bygone age, and they don't know how to get by in this new age. But doggone it, by the time the movie is over, they learn that the kids might have a point and they come around to seeing it that way, and then they die and then they go away.
SPEAKER_01It's not fun. I'm not enjoying this era of storytelling, but what it is doing is it's really conditioning me to expect that if any beloved old character who is reflective of an age of greater moral clarity and more clarity on what a hero is, if any of them are resurrected and put on screen in any kind of retelling or distant sequel, I just know they are gonna go through the ringer and we're gonna get to see them hit rock bottom and be absolutely rudderless. But not likewise in the New Testament, the really interesting characters, the followers of Jesus who are kind of our point of view characters who we encounter Jesus through in the Gospels, they're not washed up and angry and old and bitter and confused after Jesus ascends to the right hand of the Father and they're on their own. They're motivated, they're mobilized, they believe in what they just saw, and they might not know exactly how to execute on that, but they are all in. Take, for example, the most famous of the disciples. Who is that, by the way? Who comes to mind? If I say, like it's a crossword puzzle, the most famous disciple of Jesus, who'd you come up with? Maybe some of you said John, but probably even those of you who haven't been around the Bible a whole bunch are like, well, it's Saint Peter, right? Isn't he in the all the heaven jokes and the pearly gates? Yeah, Saint Peter. I think he's the most famous disciple of Jesus from that first crop. And Peter really is your point of view character in the Gospels when you're seeing all the stuff that Jesus did. He's excitable, he's brash, he's reactionary, he wants to do good things, but doesn't always get it. Sometimes he gets big and blustery, like your loud, overly loyal, overly eager friend who's just ready to fight anybody on your behalf to show you that they love you. And so when they come to arrest Jesus, Peter's like, I'll stab somebody, I'll cut somebody who tries to mess with you. And then they show up and Peter's like, I said I was gonna do it. Dang it, now I got to cut somebody. And so he cuts off a guy's ear, and Jesus puts a guy's ear back on miraculously, but Peter looks real dumb. And then Peter goes off after saying, I'll never leave you, I'll never abandon you, and be so loyal to you and faithful to you. Then just like right after that, he denies Jesus in front of a whole bunch of people three separate times. And the book of Matthew, at least, which covers the whole story of the life, death, resurrection, teaching, and works of Jesus, the book of Matthew leaves off with a lot of ambiguity about how Peter's doing. You'd actually kind of expect for whatever the sequel to the book of Matthew is to present a Peter who's all washed up and bitter and miserable, like old Indiana Jones or old Luke Skywalker or old any of them for that matter. But that's not what you get. Instead, when we turn the page from the Gospels over to the book of Acts, the sequel, the book that tells the story of how the church happened, how Christianity happened, what you get is a Peter who is laser focused, and he's still not polished and perfect. He doesn't know everything to do, his words aren't always perfect. But this guy knows what the purpose of his life is, and he is absolutely locked in. He's the dude who in Acts chapter two, at the day of Pentecost, you know, the Holy Spirit shows up, there's little balls of fire on top of the disciples' heads. Everybody's like, dang, am I hearing this right? How on earth do they know my language? I'm from like the eastern parts of the former Persian Empire, and that hillbilly from Galilee, the northern regions of Jewish territory, is speaking my language perfectly. How is that possible? And Peter can see that something amazing is happening. He's like, okay, all right, Jesus would know what to do in this situation. What would be his play? Oh, yeah. He'd grab some stuff from the Old Testament and point out how what God is doing now is a fulfillment of that. So he does it. We see that Peter is anything but the washed up, bitter, old, confused, let down, grumpy dinosaur from a bygone age disappointment hero. He's not that at all. This guy's young, he's energetic, he's focused, and he's willing to take chances, and it's paying off. You turn the page to Acts chapter three, and the very next thing that happens after the day of Pentecost, the birthday of Christianity, is that Peter and John again just do whatever it was that Jesus was doing. So they go to the temple. That's Jesus' father's house, and they're talking with people there, and there's a miracle that happens. It's kind of wild. Dang, the Holy Spirit showed up. Remember that bonus roster spot where if that player is on the roster, everything's going to work out. And if that player isn't, it's not going to work out. Well, it just keeps paying dividends here in Acts chapter three. So a miracle happens, and then Peter's like, okay, what did Jesus do after miracles again? Oh yeah. He talked about how everything that's happening now is the fulfillment and completion of everything that happened before and why everybody should get on board. So he just gets up and he does that. And the beggar who Peter and John healed, the guy's still like latched on to them here in the middle of Acts chapter 3. And Peter and John with this guy wrapped around their ankles, probably crying and thanking them for the miraculous healing of his busted up legs that have been broken since birth. Peter and John are like, Well, I got this guy right here, and you're probably all wondering what the deal is with that. Well, I'll tell you what the deal is with that. When Peter saw this, he said to them, This is Acts 3, 12, Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? And he's pointing at the guy who was crippled, and everybody knew he was crippled, but now he's not crippled anymore. Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus. And at this point, people are probably like, oh, that's a good speech. So you're telling us that this miracle is from the same God who we already believe in, even though we kind of know you're associated with Jesus and we're not sure what to make of you. So it feels like Peter's kind of winning people over, but now he's just going to butcher all of that goodwill by reminding all of the people who are starting to listen to them that they are in fact the ones who killed Jesus. Now I imagine Peter doing the big long arc of pointing at everybody. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he decided to let him go. You disowned the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be released to you. That's a reference to the crowds being given the option by the Roman governor to either get Jesus released, like you want Jesus to go free, he didn't hurt anybody, or do you want Barabbas, an insurrectionist, to go free? And they were like, give us Barabbas. We want the insurrectionists freed. Kill the Jesus guy. Peter goes on, you killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this by faith in the name of Jesus. This man whom you see and know was made strong. He's pointing to the crippled guy who's now healthy. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see. Now, Peter's eyebrows go up in the middle. He's clearly doing the turd sandwich thing. He said all the nice stuff at the beginning. Then he said the stuff like, hey, like you kind of owned the whole Jesus going to the cross saying, guys, like that was your call. You were all into it. Remember, you were all cheering. It was just a couple weeks ago. You guys probably remember you were all there. I saw you were there, Chad. I saw you, Dave, you were there. But remember, it's a turd sandwich. So he said the nice stuff. Then he said the hard stuff. Now he's going to say the nice stuff again. I imagine his eyebrows go up in the middle here. In Acts 3 17, imagine the voice gets calmer and he says this. Now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders, which is an unbelievable benefit of the doubt statement, by the way. But this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Christ would suffer. Repent then and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ who has been appointed for you, even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people. You must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from among his people. Remember that term, cut off. We're going to find that that plays heavily in our study of Galatians. Peter rounds out the nice part of the turd sandwich like this Indeed, all the prophets from Samuel on, as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. And you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers. He said to Abraham, Through your offspring, all peoples on earth will be blessed. When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways. And that's the end of the speech. Okay, why did I read you that whole speech? I mean, we're not going to cover all of Acts and I'm skipping some stuff, but why that? Because it fits into the Galatians thing. The whole Galatians tension is over this question of who is this for? Note that there's really no debate in the book of Galatians. You'll see it when we get there as to whether Jesus is a good idea or not. No, no, no. Everybody on all sides of the argument in Galatians is like, oh, they're very pro-Jesus. Jesus is great. Jesus is the Messiah. This is very exciting. I mean, maybe some of them were faking, but at least ostensibly, everybody in the Galatians conversation is pro-Jesus. No, the real tension of Galatians is who is it for? And how do you access it? How do you be in this new family of faith? This family of faith where there's the values that everybody wants, regardless of political persuasion or where you're from, or what language you speak, or what social class you're from, all the stuff that Jesus said were the values of his kingdom, which is greater than the normal, boring, dumb, pedestrian world kingdoms, that is all the stuff that everybody wants. It's all the stuff that you want. It's all the stuff that I want. Okay, so if you become persuaded of that and you become persuaded that Jesus can actually deliver on those values, well, how do you get into it? How do you sign up? The Jewish followers of Jesus are gonna say, well, you just be Jewish and keep going with the thing that we were doing, but you look at Jesus and you'd be like, He's the Messiah. That's the one. You know, that's a pretty good start. But they hadn't really thought through an ethic of what to do with people who weren't ethnically Jewish who were outsiders to this whole thing. Okay, it's clearly for them too, but how do you know that they're in? What makes them in? How do they declare for Jesus? Peter's a smart guy. He knows his audience, he knows his fellow countrymen, he knows what they're gonna be concerned about. And so he's covering just a couple of big points here. Point number one, that's the first part of the turd sandwich. This is all from God and it has been from the beginning. Jesus is a fulfillment of all of that. Point two of the turd sandwich, this is the icky part, the turd part. You guys killed him, you missed it, you were wrong. Part three of the turd sandwich, now we're back to the good part, is okay, mistakes happen. This is one of those mistakes where it was actually the will of God. Jesus had to go to the cross. That was the idea of how the redemptive plan was going to play out all along. God wasn't surprised by this. Here's how we move forward. Point four, each of us here needs to repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. We need to follow Jesus. And further, we need to get excited about the reality that this is for everyone, not just those of us who are Jewish, my brothers. This is for people who aren't like us. And the founding instruction, the founding promise of our entire race, our entire religion, the one that was made to Abraham way back in Genesis. This says all the stuff promised to Abraham. It also says that one little thing about how we're going to be blessed, that is the descendants of Abraham, but all the nations will be blessed through us. This is the payoff, guys, Peter is saying. And so he's taking a huge swing here in Acts chapter three to nip this whole controversy in the bud and to provide language and a clear pathway for how we just move forward with a whole bunch of people who are followers of Christ, some of whom are circumcised Jews, but some of whom are not. And it's equally for everybody. From a modern perspective, this might seem to us like not that big of a controversy. But as we continue to hustle through the book of Acts, getting toward Galatians, I think we're going to see, no, it really was pretty tricky. And Peter's demonstrating a lot of foresight here in trying to resolve this right now. At any rate, in a lot of these shows that you watch these days, they're resurrecting old heroes and showing them miserable and beaten down and rudderless and out of energy, but that is not the case with Peter. Peter is focused, Peter is motivated, Peter is insightful, and he's doing a really good job of going right at the things that need to be gone right at here in the early going to try to get everybody on board with the Jesus thing. Hi five, Peter. Nice job. Last time we saw you, it wasn't going so well, but this is looking great. More on all of this next time around.