Making a U-Turn

SERMON: 2009-05-17--ac0920--making-a-u-turn SOURCE DURATION: 00:38:32.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: The content shifts from expository preaching (candidates 0-5) to clear hymn lyrics/singing starting at candidate 6 ('Just as I am without one plea...'). Therefore, candidate 5 is the last segment of the sermon. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:34:51.060-00:35:54.280, 00:35:55.580-00:37:18.340, 00:37:24.700-00:38:31.560 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, as we look this morning at these verses that we've just read together from Acts chapter 2, there's a couple of things in those verses that I should like to dwell on with you this morning. First thing I want us to notice is that in this story the people are undone by Peter's proclamation of the story of Jesus. Listen again to verse 37 when the people heard this, "They were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the other apostles, 'Brothers, what shall we do?'" The Bible says they were cut to the heart. Now the heart, as you know, is the seat of our personality. It's the very core of who we are. And to be cut to the heart is to have our innermost thoughts and feelings laid bare for all to see. It's being caught red-handed. It's being stripped naked. It is to have every excuse taken out of our mouths. It is to be truly undone. And why are they undone? Because they have just discovered through Peter's sermon that they are guilty of the biggest mistake that they could have ever made. They are guilty of crucifying the Lord of glory. Listen again to verse 36, "Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this. What has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ?" This Jesus, whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ. Let's reflect on that a few moments. We often use the terms Lord and Christ synonymously, but even while there is an overlap, they mean two very different things. What does it mean when we call Jesus Lord? Well, it means that he is the ultimate authority in all of the universe. You will recall that prior to his ascension, when he gave a great commission to his apostles, he said, "All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth." Because Jesus was obedient to the Father even unto death, for that reason God the Father has exalted him, says Paul in the book of Philippians, given him the name that is above every name, that at the mention of the name of Jesus, every knee should bow. And so for Jesus to be called Lord means that he is the ultimate authority in the universe. He has the right to tell everybody how to live, not only, but he is also the one ordained by God to judge the living and the dead. Everybody that has ever been alive is going to stand before his judgment seat and is going to be measured by his standards. Jesus is Lord over all. And unless you are in covenant relationship with him, and he provides for you, protects you, and you are prepared to pledge him allegiance, you will be the subject of his wrath. That is the clear teaching of Scripture. So if that's what it means to be Lord, what does it mean that he is the Christ? Well, the word Christ, as you may remember, means anointed. It means Messiah. Back in the Old Testament among God's people, there were three categories of people who were anointed by the Holy Spirit so that they could lead God's people to fulfill his destiny. Those were the prophets, the priests, and the kings. The prophets were anointed to speak the word of God to the people, to tell them what it was that God wanted from them. The priests were anointed to make sacrifices on behalf of the people and also to reconcile them in this way to God. And the kings were anointed to rule with authority and with power. So when you come to the New Testament and Jesus is called the Christ, what it refers to is that all three of those roles are rolled into one person. He is prophet, priest, and king. And as a prophet, he is the authority before God to speak into the lives of God's people prophetically. As a priest, he is the high priest who by the sacrifice of his own blood makes reconciliation with God the Father possible. And as a king, he rules over his people. And the word Christ then and the Old Testament Hebrew word Messiah is an indication that of all the sons of man that have ever lived, Jesus is the only one ordained by God to be able to deal with sin and all of its consequences. He is the lion of the tribe of Judah who in the book of Revelation has been given the authority to unroll the scrolls, the scrolls of God's redemptive judgment, the power to make all things new. And so Peter says, "This Jesus whom you crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ." Can you see why these folks are undone? They're smart enough to know the writing is on the wall. This Jesus who is now Lord and Christ, individually and collectively, they put to death. And they're smart enough to know that was the biggest mistake of their lives because he's got the power to absolutely destroy them and judge them. They're undone because they cannot believe how stupid they have been. And in how dangerous a position they now find themselves. Think of it this way. Let's say that you're going for a stroll in a downtown area. And as you're merrily strolling along, you come upon a group of people, a mob really, that are beating the living tar out of some poor individual on the sidewalk. And you wander over in curiosity and you say, "Well, what's going on here?" and somebody in the crowd tells you, "Well, this person is getting his comeuppance. He's accused of some very serious crime. Let's say that he raped a small child or murdered a child, and this is vigilante justice. We finally caught up with him. And now, instead of running interference for this poor soul, wanting to make sure that justice gets done properly, your blood pressure rises, you become angry, you add your voice to the crowd that says, "Do him in," and if you get a chance, you might even take a kick at him. And pretty soon, the crowd's anger dissipates and everybody slinks off, and there lies the victim half-dead on the sidewalk. And then later on, you discover not only is this person completely innocent of the crime that he has been accused of, he, in fact, is the new police chief or the new governor of your city who is going to be crowned absolute authority figure in your community. I don't know if you can put yourself in that situation, but I can guarantee you're going to be undone, and you're going to say, "Oh my goodness, how could I ever be so stupid? How could I ever be caught up in that mob mentality, and where will I hide when this person comes back and takes vengeance on those who have wronged him?" That's what you see happening here in this particular passage. The people are undone because Jesus is both Lord and Christ. Second thing I want us to notice that in the passage is that bad as this is, it in fact opens them up for help. For scripture goes on to say again in verse 37, "When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" It's like, "Oh my goodness, we're in trouble. How do we get out of trouble?" And it opens them for the gospel message that Peter now continues, as we'll see in a few moments, to proclaim to them. Why is it that so many times the people who most need help are the most resistant to it? Why is it that many times people whose marriages are failing are the last people to sign up for a marriage seminar? Or people whose financial life is in turmoil, why are they the last ones to submit the credit council on, or people addicted to drugs or to alcohol or to other high-risk behavior, why are they often the last people to sign up for counseling or for a 12-step program? Well, many reasons obviously, but I can name you two most common ones, shame and pride. Shame that says, "I don't want anybody to uncover what lives inside me. In fact, I may not even want to face myself, the dark side of my being and how out of control my life is." And pride, pride that says, "I can do it myself. I don't need anybody's help." And so, you know, as well as I do this morning, that when the Lord God begins to work in our lives, one of the things that He will often do is He will put us into a place where the darkest recesses of our hearts are revealed, where all of a sudden we discover things about ourselves that we never, ever thought we could fall into, about of anger that was so out of control that we literally scared ourselves, fights in a relationship or in a marriage that I never thought I could give myself to or an addictive behavior that threw me into the gutter in ways that I would have never thought possible. But it's in moments like that when we finally come to the end of ourselves that we can say with these folks in this story, "Brothers, what shall we do? How do I get out of this situation?" And that is always the beginning of grace because the Bible says God opposes the proud but He gives grace to the humble. And so, even while these people are in a desperate situation and we might desperately want to comfort them and say, "Oh, it's not so bad," they need to be left in this spot until, as we'll see in a few moments, they can come to true repentance and to true faith. And I can tell you that one of the problems that we have in the church sometimes is that when God puts the pressure on us or on somebody that we love and these deep places of the heart that we so carefully hide under fig leaves begin to be laid bare, not only do we try to cover these up ourselves but we are there so quickly to cover them up for each other. And somebody will be in pain or somebody will find himself in a situation where sin has overtaken him and he or she will be really down on himself because, "How in the world could I ever do this?" And well-meaning Christians come along and they pat him on the back and they say, "Oh, it's not so bad. You're okay. Everybody experiences the same temptation or goes through the same difficulty and it's alright. God will love you anyway." And there's a time and a place for that, but I'll tell you something, when God is busy pulling out the rug from underneath you and God is trying to flush out that place of rebellion inside you or God is trying to change the core of your being so that you will no longer walk in that sin or walk in that dysfunction, then for us to prop up what God is trying to tear down is counterproductive and part of wisdom is allowing God to do what needs to be done, not quickly washing away conviction, not lightly healing the wounds of my people but saying, "Yes, this is really true of you." But because it is true of you, once you embrace it, you can come to Jesus and then Jesus can heal and Jesus can restore. I've been reading just recently a book by John Bevere called Undercover and John Bevere, who travels a lot and has written a number of books, his wife Lisa has written a number as well, tells the story of how in the early years of his life in ministry, he was a youth pastor and with the senior pastor's permission, he had undertaken to revise their youth program and he had spent about eight months training and cultivating his youth leaders for this new idea, this new way of ministering to youth. He was pumped about it, his youth workers were pumped about it and then one day his senior pastor called him into the office and he said to him, "You know, John, I've been thinking and praying about it and I don't believe that this is what the Holy Spirit wants us to do. I want you to cancel all the plans that you have made for these particular types of, it was a form of cell group." And as you can imagine, the kind of reaction that stirred up in John Bevere argued with his boss and pleaded his case all to no avail and then he goes home and here's how he tells us the story. "I pulled into my driveway, opened my front door, received a greeting from my wife. I did not greet her, but said in a very frustrated voice, 'You're not going to believe what he did.' And up here, hearing the tone of my voice, she responded with concern, 'Who and what did he do?' 'Pastor,' I said, 'he canceled the home group parties, what we've worked on for eight months. He canceled them. Can you believe it?' She looked at me and said with a most straightforward and serious voice, 'Well, it looks like God is trying to teach you something.' Then she walked out of the foyer and into our bedroom. Now I was mad at her. I stormed into the kitchen, put my foot up in a chair, looked out the front window, continued my thoughts on how wrong my pastor was, only now added to those thoughts were thoughts of how insensitive and undisserting my wife was." I'm not sitting in judgment on the pastor. I'm not sitting in judgment on the wisdom of his move or whether that could have been handled differently, what I'm trying to point out is that here's a wife who loves her husband enough not to give in to his temper tantrum, but to pull him back so that he can look at himself. And if you read the rest of the story, you see how that turned out and how God used that as a very formative experience in his life. So the people are undone? Being undone opens them for help and now, of course, Peter is in a position to provide for them the solution. We read on, verse 38, "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.'" Now notice in that verse, there are two things that Peter commands and then two promises that he makes. First of all, he says, "Repent and be baptized," and then he says, "You're going to receive the gift of forgiveness and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Now we'll only have time this morning, I think, to deal with the first two of those, so let's do that. What does it mean to repent? It's one of these words, we throw it around a lot, we think probably we know what it means, but let's think through it a little bit. The word repent comes from the Greek word metanoia and it literally means to change one's mind or to make a U-turn. It means that I was proceeding this way in my life with a certain set of beliefs, a certain set of convictions, and a certain set of practices. I come to a certain point where I recognize that this is taking me in the wrong direction. I make a 180-degree turn and I now start walking the other way with a new set of convictions, with a new set of beliefs, and with a new set of practices. And to truly understand what repentance means, we have to put it in the context of what it means to be conceived and born in sin. Let me put it this way for a moment with the circles that we are all familiar with by now. But remember the Bible says we are conceived and born in sin. What does that mean? We are conceived and born alienated in our relationship with God. We are cut off from God, we are under Satan's power, we are self-centered, we live for our own ego needs, and all the chaos and disharmony in the world, from two little children fighting over a toy to nations going to war, is all built in the presupposition that I cannot trust God, he's not gonna look after me, I gotta look after myself. And so downward it spirals. Nobody needs to teach you and me to be selfish, nobody needs to teach you and me not to love God above all. In fact, as our catechism says, we're prone to hate God and we're prone to hate our neighbor. And while sometimes we can cover that up and try to look better than other people, truth of the matter is, left to ourselves, we're under Satan's power, and we are at odds with God and at odds with God's purposes. And if you don't believe that, just look at what happens in your heart when God tells you to do something you don't want to do. Because it's in those moments when his will crosses your will that you know what sin is like. Now, God, on the other hand, of course, he wants us to live a life in relationship and obedience with him and in harmony with each other. And so repentance in biblical thought is I used to live this way, I don't have to do anything to make that happen, it comes naturally to me. Repentance means I don't want to walk this way anymore, I want to walk God's way. And so repentance for our purposes this morning quickly has at least three significant components. It means, first of all, an awareness and a conviction of sin. Now, here's a very interesting thing. I have never ever met anybody, saint or sinner, who didn't agree that they do things that are wrong. I've never met anybody who thinks they are perfect or without mistake. Yet, ironically enough, most people are not particularly convicted about their sin. Most people will think that on a scale of one to ten, other people's sins are far more serious than their own and they're hoping their good deeds will outweigh their bad deeds. And so, except for the times when we just really violate our conscience and just really mess up, most people think, in fact, that they're pretty good, which is why at almost every funeral you attend, everybody gets talked into heaven because everybody's got some good virtue that's being held out. Well, sin, says scripture, is lawlessness. And as I said before, if the greatest commandment is to love God above all, then what is our greatest sin? Not the adultery, not the lust, not the drinking, not the drugs, not the anger. Those are all sins, to be sure. But the real essence of sin is that I declare myself independent from God. I don't need Him. I don't trust Him. I don't believe Him. I'm going to live my own way. And when the Holy Spirit begins to work in our lives and when He shows us Jesus high and lifted up and we begin to measure ourselves by who Jesus is, both Lord and Christ, then you and I are smitten by the Holy Spirit and you know that God is at work in somebody's life, not because He's patting them on the back and making him feel better about Himself, but because his sin is exposed and he or she is undone. The Holy Spirit, says Jesus in John's Gospel, when He comes, He will convict of sin. And so repentance begins with an awareness that I'm not the kind of husband, I'm not the kind of wife, I'm not the kind of child, I'm not the kind of Christian, I'm not the kind of person that God wants me to be and it puts me in danger because God is going to judge me by Jesus. I'm not a hell-fire and brimstone preacher, but I'll tell you something, in this day and age we would do well to be reminded of the fact that one day all the world is going to be gathered before God and we're all going to give account of every idle word we have ever spoken. I don't know if you ever think about that, but that's a very sobering thought. So it begins then with an awareness and a conviction of sin and then it goes on to a turning away from sin. Verse 40 later on in this passage with many other words, Peter warned them, "He pleaded with them, 'Save yourselves from this corrupt generation.'" You see a lot of people think repentance is just feeling bad or repentance is, "Oh my goodness I got caught, oh how could I be so stupid? I wish I hadn't found myself in this situation." And all of those may be components of repentance, but they themselves are not repentance. Repentance means making a U-turn and if I really think that I'm such a bad husband, if I really think I'm such a crummy wife, if I really think I'm such a disobedient child, if I really think I'm such a lousy Christian, if I really think that I'm not leaving up to my obligations as a citizen of the country, then repentance isn't just wallowing in my filth. Repentance is saying, "I'm undone, I'm headed for disaster, I gotta turn away before I get into trouble." Repentance is not only an awareness and a conviction of sin, it's a deliberate turning away from sin, and then of course it is a submitting to God's will and to God's authority. If I really understand that God is the boss, if I really understand that Jesus is Lord, then repentance means repenting of my pride, repenting of my shame, it means repenting of my independence, it means repenting of all that which motivates my own heart, and it means coming back to God as did the son in the story of the prodigal son, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, let me be as one of your servants." Repentance is more than feeling bad, it's more than thinking, "Oh boy, I'm cruddy, I've made a mess of things, no." It's taking ownership, it's taking personal responsibility, and it's crying out to God and saying to God, "Save me." So Peter says you need to repent, and then he goes on to say you need to be baptized. Now to be baptized comes from the Greek word, baptizo, it means to immerse or to dip repeatedly. In this context it refers to water baptism, but you know just as well as I do that it's not water baptism that saves. Water baptism, as we saw this morning, is a sign and seal of the covenant. Water baptism indicates that we are joined to Jesus, and that we put our hope and our trust in Jesus. The problem with repentance is we cannot bring ourselves to repentance. The problem with repentance is even when we see what our sin is we don't know how to change our sin. I mean isn't the problem for many of us that we have perfectly good ideas of how far we fall short and how badly we fail. I mean that's one of the big differences between people in the Christian community and people out in the world. People in the Christian community at least have heard enough about who God is and what God stands for that we know how often we fail. But try as we might, left to our own resources, we don't know how to change. It takes the grace of God in Jesus. Jesus died on the cross, as we'll see later on, that our sins might be forgiven. Jesus died on the cross so that the power of rebellion inside me can be broken. Jesus was raised from the dead so that by the power of his Holy Spirit we can come to newness of life. And so here you have Peter proclaiming to this crowd, "Listen, yes you're in trouble. Yes, you really blew it. Yes, you deserve words of judgment and words of condemnation, but to give you words of judgment and words of condemnation would be to miss the whole point. The whole point is that God has exalted this Jesus whom you crucified as Lord and Christ so that you could be saved from this wicked generation. You could turn away from the judgment that is coming upon the world, and in order to do that there's only two things you need to do. You need to repent and you need to turn to Jesus in faith. And as we'll see next time, Lord willing, when we can go back to that, if you will but do that there's two things God's going to do. He's going to give you forgiveness of sins, amazing concept biblically. And not only that, he's going to give you the gift of the Holy Spirit. So let me ask you this morning as we close, has there ever been a time in your life when you have truly repented? And by repentance I mean not just, "Oh Lord God I'm a sinner, please forgive me all my many sins." Is there a place, is there a time in your life where you discovered I was walking away from God in disobedience, rebellion, and independence? I was proud of my own accomplishments, I was proud of who I am, and then I came to see that I was offensive to God because I did not love him, I did not obey him, I had no intention of serving him. Maybe you're a religious person, maybe you sit in church every week, but in your heart of hearts you know that it's all about you and it's not about Jesus and even when you pretend that it's about Jesus, it's not really about Jesus, it's still about you. Repentance means saying, "Lord God I messed up, I deserve judgment, save me from my sin." Beyond that, have you ever turned to Jesus? Ever come to that place in your heart where you realize that more resolutions, harder work, more vows, more discipline, it's not going to change you from the inside out, there is stuff that lives inside you that you have no power over, that you cannot control, you cannot change yourself, you cannot love God, and you cannot love your neighbor, certainly you cannot love your enemy. Have you ever come to that place where you said, "Jesus, come into my heart and change me and transform me." I read an incredible story just the other day, Jim Simbala, pastors, a church in the heart of New York, at the end of a service was sitting on the stage with his feet hanging over the stage, utterly exhausted, when a wino came in to him, smelling so bad that he had to take a breath over here just to face the guy, and he reached into his wallet to give him a couple of bucks just to be rid of him, and the man said, "You don't understand, I didn't come for money, I want to know this Jesus that you've been preaching about." Jim was convicted by the callousness and the coldness of his own heart, he led him to Christ, ended up taking him into his own home, watched him flourish in Jesus, had his teeth fixed, got him a job, the man began to grow, proved to have an incredible ability to know God and to proclaim God, went to Bible school, eventually was ordained as an associate pastor, and is a testimony to all the world about the saving power of Jesus. When Jesus takes people who crucify him and he transforms them for his glory, then you know that Jesus is alive and Jesus is at work. And my invitation for you this morning is if you've never been there, have never taken that seriously and God's speaking to you now, now is the acceptable time, today is the day of salvation. Don't be like the person who cleans house before the Molly Maid comes over so that you can make a good impression come just as you are, without one plea, but that his blood has been shed for you. And you will discover, as many of us have in this place, that while the road is never easy and the journey is never light, he's faithful and he's able to save to the uttermost those that call upon his name. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:34:51.060; remove through 00:38:32.000] Just as I am without one plea, but that my God was shed for me. And that the wish me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am and waiting not to rid my soul of one dark lot, to thee whose blood can cleanse this world forever, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am, full tossed about, with many a call, with many a doubt, my dreams and fears within, without no Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am, full wretched blind, slight, righteous, healing of the mind, in all I need in thee, to find no Lamb of God, I come, I come. Just as I am, thou wilt reach me, wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, because thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come, I come [CUT]. [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:38:32.000; resume after this marked segment]