Acts 2:22-41

“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. 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 its hold on him. David said about him:

“‘I saw the Lord always before me.

“Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that he was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did his body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God, he has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear. For David did not ascend to heaven, and yet he said,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord:

“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 three thousand were added to their number that day.

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TRANSCRIPT

Hey, welcome to The Centre podcast. We're a church based in Dural, Sydney, who loves Jesus. And so want to make him the center of our lives, community and world. We pray that you, blessed by this word and that it reveals God's love for you in a new way.

Oh, good morning again, everybody. Morning. How are we this morning? Well called. Yes. Yes. Well So we're in the final, week of our preparing for Pentecost series. And so I was spent the last seven weeks looking at different moments of, the spirit in both the old and the New Testament.

And so just to kind of recap the last two weeks, we've been looking at Peter's Pentecost sermon and, last week, if you weren't here or don't remember, which is where we looked at how Peter used the prophet Joel and, Joel's, prophecy that in the last days that the spirit we pulled out and everyone pay thy young man will drain drains.

Oh, man will have visions. And and we also looked at how Peter's sermon was actually based upon a lot of it on Joel's prophecy. And so one of the things to really take away when reading the New Testament is that when it uses the Old Testaments like a kaleidoscope, you got lots of light coming through and it makes this just beautiful rainbow.

And so that's sort of one aspect of what Peter's doing is taking the prophet Joel. But today we're going to look at how he used the words from Psalm 16 and Psalm 110 to point to how Jesus is both Lord and Messiah. Now, the last two weeks, I sort of managed to tie things up to the book of Revelation, which I think, you know, excited some people.

And this week I was like, nope, there is definitely nothing here. Pointing to the book of revelation. Guess what? I was dead that wrong. There actually is some stuff there. So for the third week in a row, we're going to spend some time looking at the, the context of the sermon. We'll look explore some of the Old Testament themes with that.

Then we'll have a little bit of how this connects to the book of Revelation. And then we're going to end with something practical. And so last week we went through, a repentance exercise. We did an examination of conscience. Today we're going to finish off with an image, and it's actually one of the oldest images we have from the that, the catacombs of the, of the Christians.

And to reflect upon that about what needs to change in my life. Before we begin, though, I feel like I should pray and maybe I'll get. Can you just change the the slide before I do that? So you can just see the summary that Peter served. So let's pray again and get stuck into this passage. Now, Lord, we thank you for your spirit which has been poured out upon all people, men and women, young and old.

No one is excluded from that from the refreshment that you want to give people for the life and the hope, the living water. And Lord, today, as we look at Psalm 16 and Psalm 110, Psalms that give us hope, hope in the face of calamity also to point us to the hope of the Messiah, the one to conquer his enemies, one to conquer evil and suffering.

And I pray today, Lord, if any of us here are feeling like we are to k that we it feels like we're living in times to be refreshed, to be given new life and hope which only Jesus can provide. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.

Peter sermon is really given to answer a question. The question is well, well, what is happening? And so as the spirit is is poured out and people there are speaking in other tongues, and it all seems to be this chaotic mess that that is the question that people ask is what is happening? What what does this all mean?

And so Peter here is preaching his sermon sort of two fold. One is to explain the events that are happening around them, to go, hey, hey, what is happening here? People aren't actually drunk. This is what the prophet Joel spoke about. But also secondly, to explain at how the pouring out of the spirit points to Jesus being both Lord and Messiah.

And Peter does something quite brave when you think about him the like 40 days prior. It's like 50 days prior where he's denying Jesus three times and one of them is to a servant girl, the lowest of the low, in front of a fire. Here he's standing in front of the crowd saying, hey, you have crucified Jesus, who is Lord and Messiah.

And he encourages them to repent. And so if we go up to the next slide. Thanks, Keith. This is just a summary and I won't go into it now. This is a summary of what Peter's sermon is all about. It's sort of the the framework that he is preaching on, the he's speaking on and sort of the flow of that.

Now, last week I introduced you to a method of interpretation. And I'm sure you all get excited about first century rabbinical interpretations of Scripture, don't we? Oh, wait. Oh, I see some hands where that gets us excited. We wake up and say, hey, I'd love to know how the rabbis interpreted scripture. Oh, maybe it's funny. Just me.

Yeah. Thought there'd be more excitement about that. Peter uses a method called shout. Now picture, if you don't remember, is looking at prophetic texts and seeing them fulfilled in the events that are happening in front of the interpreter. And so that's what Peter's sermon is doing. He's using this special form of interpretation, i.e. hey, Joel spoke about the spirit being poured out.

Look at this. It's happening right here. This is what Joel spoke about. And so Peter now uses that to to point to how David now, David, he's equated with writing many of the Psalms. And one of the Psalms that he wrote is obviously Psalm 16 and Psalm 110. But what Peter does here, with that sort of pressure form of interpreting Scripture, is no longer is David just speaking about himself.

David is actually acting in a prophetic way. He is interpreting the Scripture to say, hey, David might be writing in like a first person sort of voice, but he's actually voicing someone else, and that is the Messiah. And Psalm 16 is this this is beautiful Psalm. It's a psalm is this play of trust, this trust in Yahweh and and this David.

He is this pressure from sort of two people. So first pressure is that there are people here who are wanting to be worshiping false idols that offering false sacrifices, and then they're basically saying, well, yeah, I can find life outside of Yahweh. I can find hope by offering of a sacrifice. And I've got another summary there on the screen of Psalm 16.

Thanks. There we go. There. So it's the idea here is that, of his, yeah. It's trying to use other idols to find their hope. And David is rejecting that. So he says, well, what? I'm not going to turn my back on God. Secondly, too, is that David is facing death. And here's what's interesting in the in the original context of the psalm, David recognized that if he dies and he goes down to show the place of the dead, he can't worship God anymore.

And so his hope is that, well, if I if I live a bit longer, I can continue to praise God. I won't see decay. But now he's saying, oh no, no, no, no, no. What is actually happening is, is that David here is actually putting in, like I said before, words into someone else. He's putting words and he's saying, well, we know David's dead.

I know David's dead. He's buried. He's tomb. He's there in Jerusalem to his day. But who is he talking about? Why is his heart glad? Why is his tongue rejoicing? Why is his body rest in hope? Because he will not abandon me to the realm of the dead. You will not let your Holy One see decay. This is what's happened to Jesus.

Peter is put. I'm sorry, David is speaking on behalf of Jesus. Jesus, the one who actually goes through this. David died. He's dead and buried. Jesus also died and is buried. But his body hasn't seen decay. He's resurrected. And there is hope in that. Now, the second thing I want to teach this week. So Peter uses that form a picture, which is like a rabbinical way of interpreting Scripture, seeing a prophetic text and seeing how it fulfilled in that time and day.

There's another one here that Peter uses, and this is a great dinner party word. When you go to lunch today and say what I learned in church today. Say this expression, you learned how to git Jazeera shalwar, Jazeera shalwar. So say it together. Jazeera shalwar. There you go. I've ossified that. You know, I don't have the good collateral tongue in there, but just that last shalwar is another way of interpreting Scripture, which is basically saying, hey, he, two words or themes from different passages and joining them together.

Now you might think, what's what's the point of learning all this? Why does this matter? Why? I think it helps us understand our New Testament scriptures better. So when you actually read sign a person or X and you see how an apostle or writer uses the Old Testament, he's it just gives you another tool for understanding the mindset and the world of the first century apostles.

And this was a really common way the rabbis would use to take a theme from one verse and another and come to a conclusion about this, this Jesuit Rockaway. And what Peter's doing is say, well, Psalm 16 talks about David having hope of not worshiping false idols, of realizing that he's but he's not going to see decay. He's not going to be left in the realm of the dead, because there are pleasures at the right hand of Yahweh.

Makes me think, oh, hang on. There's another passage, another passage which speaks about being at the right hand of God. And that's Psalm 110 and Psalm 110 is probably the one of the most quoted passages in all the New Testament to prove Jesus divinity and some on his head. If you've kind of never really looked at it in depth, it's a remarkable psalm, and it says, sit at my right.

Oh, the Lord says to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Now can you read that? Like, oh, yeah, I kind of get that. But what's so special, what's so remarkable about that? Well, normally, who do you honor? Do you honor someone who's older, or do, Your honor, someone who's younger?

People who I can take like. Oh, yeah. Oh, you always show. I can check in. I guess non-Western cultures in particular. You show reverence to your elders. So when David says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. He's doing something very remarkable there. What you would expect to say is, the Lord said to my son, or the son said to my Lord, well, what normally should happen is David, David shouldn't be honoring a descendant.

It should be the other way around. It should be the descendant honoring the ancestor. But David has flipped that. He's recognized that there is someone going to be who is going to be born way after him, but he's going to have more honor than him. Just like the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

Now, it's actually quite handy here. Rachel has this here, so imagine that when a king has ruled and conquered, he put your feet up. It's a way of showing that you have completed something, that you have conquered enemies, that you put your foot upon, someone that you have defeated. And what is really, really cool here? I think it's cool, and hopefully you'll find it cool too.

Is that when, New Testament author takes up a quote from the Old Testament? We're not just meant to think about, oh, just that little verse that law says to my Lord, you know, sit at my right hand and that's it. We're meant to think about the whole context of the psalm and the whole context of the psalm.

If we can just have that there, and I'll go through it very briefly. Is that, the Lord, which is Jesus sitting at the right hand of Yahweh and the, we'll just go down very just quickly through each verse says, the Lord's going to set forth your scepter from Zion, i.e., you're going to rule from Jerusalem. Your your people offer themselves freely in holy garments, i.e., they're going to be people who will worship you, who offer their lives before you in their service.

This will be a banter conversation for for Monday or Tuesday whenever Mari gets around to it. And when I spoke at band, people actually know what I'm talking about. I mentioned all the time. Banter is where my and I get together. We chat about the sermon we put up on the podcast. It's a way to kind of learn this stuff a bit deeper.

So that part about being a priest forever in all of my kids, the way I sang Jay Jay, we Priest and King, the Lord is at your right hand. He'll execute judgments among the nations. He'll drink from the book. By the way, that's a really, really quick summary of what Psalm 110 is all about. And to summarize all that up in ten words, it's Jesus.

This is God's right hand because he is Lord. He's going to rule from Jerusalem. He's going to defeat all of his enemies because he is a priest and king. And when he defeats all his enemies, he'll go to a river, drink from that river, lift his head up in victory. That is what Psalm 110 is all about. Now remember how at the beginning of song I said, there's like all New Testament and altar, like kaleidoscope, you've got so many images running through it.

Well, the fact that Peter quotes from Psalm 110, we're meant to take our mind to the whole context of the Psalm, and Peter's message is all about repentance, about changing your life. And you'll notice here on the right, on the right side there, it's got the cross connection in particular around that. We see. And there's some reference in the book of acts, but and about people being God's willing servants.

But the part I want to focus on is the verse number five says, the Lord is at your right hand, says Christ, executing judgment and defeating Satan.

Now for the early church. One of the one of the things I really wrestled with was, how do we take this really violent language of the Old Testament? And let's admit it, it's quite violent. It's very graphic to put you, you know, using your enemies as a footstool. You know, you're crushing them down. How do we pilot when Jesus says, hey, we're not meant to be violent?

Turn the other cheek. It's quite interesting that in the Book of Revelation in particular, that the battle is now a spiritual battle. And so Christ is now ruling and reigning from heaven. He has placed his apostles in Jerusalem, and they're meant to go out and start preaching. I hear that they're preaching amongst the enemies as it says there, in verse three, your people offer themselves freely in holy garments, become part of what are followers of Jesus.

We offer ourselves freely. This is what repentance does. It's like no longer do we want to live our own lust for the old way. We want to serve the king and serving the king. That means that we're prepared to give up everything to serve him, to love him, because we recognize that there is a greater treasure, there is a greater hope.

And that's what Pentecost is pointing to. The spirit poured out upon God's people like a deposit. Can I tell you, hey, this is just a little foretaste of what God's going to do when he recreate the heavens and the earth. And this is what I, the Book of Revelation, is just so wonderful. That kind of pointing to this is it shows us God's people who are willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of the kingdom.

Book of revelation talks about the modest who are willing to give up. Okay. It's okay. We've got the modest. They're waiting, their prayers going up to heaven. I how long, oh, Lord, how long, our Lord? Because recognizing that this is now a spiritual battle, not just a physical battle, and eventually is the Psalm 110 promises that says there in verse.

Six he will execute judgment amongst the nations. This is what Jesus is going to do. And revelation depicts it as defeating the chief enemy, the dragon, the evil one, Satan, as he's thrown away and tossed away into the lake of fire forever evil is defeated. And we looked at two weeks ago and we kind of explored the idea of Noah's flood.

Pointing to baptism is that the hope in revelation is there's no more sea, i.e. there's no more able see equals evil. But but in the middle of that New Jerusalem that comes out of heaven, there is a river that flows, a river of life. Now Psalm 110, and that way with the with the Messiah before river, drinking from it, lifting up his head because his enemies, defeated.

And so when Peter talks about this, where he declares that Jesus is both Lord and Messiah, he says all the images that he is tapping into the this idea of this victorious ruling Messiah, the one who will defeat his enemies, the one who will drink from the river, the one who is so worth serving that that people are willing to give up their lives because they realize that there is something greater to be following him for.

So as Peter continues to preach about this, about what the people have done, how Jesus is both Lord and Messiah, they are just left with one burning question. Brothers, what shall we do? The crowd recognize like, oh my goodness, it's this event that's happening right now. The spirit being poured out is fulfilling, Joel, and everyone's getting the spirit upon them.

That means that the last days are happening. I mean, there's going to be crazy signs in the heavens. There's going to be judgment which God's going to pour out. It means that if Jesus is the fulfillment of Psalm 610, his body's not seeing decay. That shows that he is victorious. He is vindicated that death cannot hold him if he is the Messiah that King David spoke about, he will sit at Yahweh's right hand.

I knew what Psalm 110 pointed to it pointed to the Messiah defeating God's enemies. So it's a warning and a hope. It's a warning that, well, if you don't change your tune, if you don't repent, that stuff's going to happen, which is not what God wants. He. He wants you to repent, to have life, to have wholeness, to have hope.

That's why that question is so important. Brothers, what shall we do? Peter's answer is simple repent and be baptized. He says, 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 afar off for all whom, for whom, who the Lord our God will call.

That's the hope is to repent. And repent doesn't just mean, oh, I feel a little bit sorry. Like when I asked my. Ash, are you sorry for heating? Marcus? I'm sorry. Clearly you're not mate like this. You know, repentance. It means to, like, turn direction, change your life. That there is like, Wow. Like, look, it's like a change of allegiance.

We're all still going to sin. We'll still fall and broken people. But our allegiance should be to Jesus and Jesus alone. The the first the commandments tells us, you know, thou shalt not have any other gods before me. In a sense, that's what repentance does. Recognizing. Well, I've put other gods in my life, and now I want to put Jesus as the one true God over my life.

That's what repentance means. And when Peter calls everyone to be baptized, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of sins, and you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Tithing, repentance, and baptism. Baptism is this symbolic moment of what God's Spirit will do for you the cleansing, the washing that God's Spirit will do based on this promise, promises for you and your children and for all who are far off.

Hey! And that's you and me. We're pretty far off from that day of Pentecost, and that's the same God we worship. That's the same God who offers the hand of friendship and salvation today aspires to the question to consider for you. What shall you do with this? What should you do with this? We've spent seven weeks looking at different moments of God's Spirit moving, and as much as I love teaching you the kind of intricate, nerdy stuff that really gets me excited, at the end of the day, Christianity is not just a head thing.

There needs to be action. There needs to be hot transformation. I don't care if you walk away with this and you don't remember anything. If you forget about passion or kiswa shower and Psalm 16 and how that doesn't worry me. What worries me now is walking away and gone. Yeah, I'm just going to continue in the same way that I've always lived.

Friends, what shall you do with this? Is Jesus truly Lord in your life?

The church, Father Cyril of Jerusalem. In talking about baptism and salvation, he says this wonderfully in his lectures to his students. He says, dead in your sins. When you go down, you come up revived in righteousness. For if you are planted with the Savior in the likeness of his death, you will also be held worthy of his resurrection.

But just as Jesus took on himself the sins of the world and died to put sin to death and rise in righteousness, so too when you've gone down into the water and have, so to speak, being buried in the waters as he was buried in the rock, you will be raised again to walk in newness of life. That's that's the core.

That's the challenge that Peter gives us. And that's the challenge that we are continuing to face today. Brothers, what shall you do?

And as we finish up today, I want to finish off with a video. We started off this preparing for Pentecost series. We have an image for you to reflect upon how God is speaking. I'm going to finish this series with an image, and the image for today comes from its depiction of Jesus outside a Lazarus tomb. And this is one of the earliest artworks we have from Jesus from the third century in Rome.

And what I love about this image, even though it's talking about the event of Lazarus with Jesus resurrecting Lazarus, what love about and what just spoke to me was in the tomb and what it looks like. Lazarus is just full of bones. Just something quite graphic about that. And it's this reminder from Psalm 1610 for you not abandon me to the realm of the dead, nor will you let your faithful one see decay.

God doesn't want people to be dead in their sin. God doesn't want people to not have life in him. He wants them to be made whole and restored and renewed. So I might invite the band back up. And while they're walking up, I just invite you to look at this image to reflect upon it. I shared what really stood out to me.

Perhaps this part of that image that is speaking to you. Perhaps it's something to do with it's colors, the shapes, it's lighting. Perhaps you notice a detail about it. And I invite you just to meditate on the part that has God has drawn you to. And how does that speak into what the message that Peter spoke about to you today.

There's something within you is sensing an invitation. Are you hearing Kol? There's something that God is challenging you to do. And if you feel that this morning, I invite you to come up to the prayer team and to receive prayer. Perhaps it's like, well, maybe I do need to repent and be baptized and find life and hope in Jesus.

Perhaps you are feeling like someone that's living in decayed minds. You just need life, the spirit, to breathe upon you. Or perhaps you have missed ordered things in your life. Gee is really isn't Lord. He's not. Yes, he is sitting at the right hand of Yahweh. Something else is sitting there. Something else is Lord above you. I invite you to do that.

How about I pray for us? And then I'll hand over to drew in the band. And Lord, let's pray today, Lord, that you speak into us, speaking to those of us that Lord may be feeling dead and dry and decayed. Speak into us, Lord, that have seen, that have put idols above you. Oh, and speaking to us, those that recognize that they need to repent and turn their life around to change their allegiance ultimately, thank you that your spirit has been poured out.

Your spirit brings us life. Your spirit brings us wholeness and newness. And so I thank you, Lord, that for those of us in Jesus we will not see decay. Thank you. For those of us who are in Jesus, we will drink from that river with you in victory. So I just pray now, Lord, your blessing upon us. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Thanks so much for joining us. Don't forget to write and subscribe to help others discover this channel. Check out the description if you want to find out more or get in touch with us at The Centre. But in the meantime, praying for God's hand over you as you continue to step into everything Jesus has in store for your life.

Be blessed.