This sermon was preached to Grace Church Guildford on 3 July 2022 at a baptismal service. The full video recording of the service can be found below along with the transcript.
Sometimes what someone says changes the course of history. At times, words have won wars and speeches have reshaped the world we live in. You might think of one of Winston Churchill’s famous speeches: ‘We shall fight them on the beaches and in the streets’, which was so pivotal in preparing this country to persevere through the early years of WWII. Or more recently, Martin Luther King’s famous speech, ‘I have a dream’, so significant in the struggle for civil rights in America. However, as important as those two speeches are for the course of history, tonight we have read a speech (a sermon) that has had even greater, more significant, consequences. A sermon that would lead to the fall of empires and conversion of kings. A sermon that still shapes the world today, 2000 years later. It wasn’t given by anyone of particular prominence, just a fisherman called Peter from a backward place called Galilee, and yet this is the speech that in many ways started Christianity, caused the creation of the church and set off a chain reaction of events that brought about what are doing and we have seen here this evening.
In 2:14-40, we heard a summary of the sermon Peter preached. However, in 2:41, we are then told that three things happened. How did people react to his sermon? Respond to this message? Well, in 2:41 we are told: ‘Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.’ When Peter finished preaching, we are told three things happened: (1) some accepted his message, (2) were baptised and (3) were added to the church. Do you notice how this is exactly what we have seen this evening as well? How Lydia is a demonstration of what these people did when they heard Peter’s message? For she too (1) confessed her belief in Jesus, (2) been baptised and (3) has now been added to our church, Grace Church Guildford. Lydia has been the perfect illustration for us of what these three things look like. However, Lydia, you will be pleased to know that having served us all by showing us this, you can now relax and rest easy, for it is time for the spotlight to turn away from you and instead focus on everyone else. Klaus had three questions he had to ask Lydia, and so I have three questions for you all who have come to watch this evening. Reflecting on the threefold response we have read in 2:41 and seen in Lydia, I have three very simple questions I want to ask you this evening: (1) Will you believe? (2) Are you baptised? (3) Do you belong?
1. WILL YOU BELIEVE?
Will you believe what? What is it that Christians believe? Maybe you are visiting with us this evening and don’t quite know the answer to that question. Perhaps you have never really been in church before, or only for special occasions like weddings, funerals and baptisms. You vaguely know from RE lessons or assemblies at school that Christians believe in a god and in this person called Jesus, but what exactly they believe about all this isn’t clear to you. Well, if that is you this evening, then see here that the faith of Christians isn’t some ‘floaty fluid mystical magic’. No, when we say that Christians have faith, it means that we believe certain things are true. That we accept what God has said about this world and ourselves and trust in him to save us. We can see here that this is exactly what these first Christians believed in 2:41, where we read ‘Those who accepted his message...’. That is what it means to believe, to accept this message that Peter preached as true and respond to these truths like he tells us too.
Well, then what did this message say? What did Peter preach about? Well in a word, he tells us the ‘gospel’, that is what Christians call the ‘good news’ about what Jesus has done, the core truths at the heart of Christianity. We don’t have time to walk through this speech in detail [...]. In his speech, we see Peter tells us the gospel includes three truths. Did you notice that his speech breaks into three sections: each time Peter addresses the crowd (2:14; 22; 29), tells them certain truths and then quotes some verses from the Old Testament (the first half of the Bible) to prove these statements. Each of these three sections shares a core truth that Christians believe. The first, in 2:14-21, tells us that judgement is coming. Christians believe that we will all be judged in the future. You see, at the very beginning of the Bible, we read that God made everything good and perfect, this world was a paradise for mankind to enjoy [...]. And the Bible tells us that we all deserve to be punished for the crimes we have committed against our good Creator, that one day we will all be judged, and we will receive the punishment we deserve for our sin. Perhaps you are thinking, that doesn’t sound like good news! Why do Christians start their gospel with such bad news? Well, it is for the same reason that a doctor must explain a difficult diagnosis to a patient before they can tell them about the cure or treatment that is available. If they don’t hear the bad news, they won’t think they need the good news. And we Christians believe that in order to understand the good news, we need to first hear the bad news, see what is really wrong with this world, know that all the brokenness and suffering can be traced back to the source of sin, both in our lives or in the lives of those around us. And it only when we accept that bad news that we can begin to understand our need for the good news of what Jesus has done.
It is to that good news that Peter turns in his second section in 2:22-28, where having told us (1) that judgement is coming, he now tells us (2) that Jesus has come. Peter knew what he was talking about, for he had followed Jesus as his disciple for 3 years. He had watched his life and seen that it was spotless, without sin, and then he had seen Jesus death, as he tells us in 2:23. Jesus was unjustly condemned to death and crucified on a cross. However, in 2:24 Peter says that Jesus did not stay in the tomb, but instead came back from the dead, just like God promised would happen back in the Old Testament – which we see from those verses in 2:25-28. What do these historic events mean? What does the life, death and resurrection of Jesus have to do with us? Well in the third and final section, in 2:29-35, Peter tells us that (3) Jesus can save us. He calls Jesus God’s Messiah, that is God’s chosen one, the one who was sent to save his people, again just as he promised in the Old Testament. You see Christians believe that when Jesus died on the cross, he didn’t suffer death for himself, for he had never done anything wrong, but rather he died for his people, that on the cross he bore the penalty or punishment that his people deserve. Not just physical death, but the full eternal justice and wrath of God poured out on him. Why did he suffer this? Well, so that if we turn to Jesus, put our trust in him, that he will pay the price we owe to God, that we will be forgiven for all the wrong we have done and able to enjoy a relationship with our God again. In a nutshell, that’s what Christians believe: (1) Judgement is coming; (2) Jesus has come; and (3) Jesus can save us.
Maybe you are here tonight, and you know all this already. I’m thinking in particular of the young people. Perhaps your parents have told you what Jesus has done again and again. You have sat through Sunday School, and Children’s Clubs and sermon after sermon whether in this or in another church. Like Lydia you have known about what Christians believe, what Jesus has done, since you were small. Or perhaps you are an adult visitor who is regularly among us. You have heard Jamie and I explain this good news time and time again. You know it. You could tell us all about it. Well, if that is you this evening, can I speak very straightforwardly with you: Tonight, I’m not asking you if you know it. I am asking you ‘will you believe it?’ You see, getting into heaven isn’t like getting into secondary school or university. They are no entrance exams. It doesn’t matter if you know all the right answers about Jesus, it only matters whether you have trusted in Jesus. We see that here in Acts 2, in 2:37 the hearers of the crowd don’t sit back and thank Peter for enlightening them. They don’t rest easy because they now know who Jesus is and what he has done. No, in 2:37, convicted about their own sin and realising the reality of this coming judgement, they cry out ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’ And so, Peter tells them how they must respond to this gospel good news. If Jesus is to save them, they must do something. In 2:38, they must repent, that is confess before God that they are sinners deserving his just judgement and turn away from that sin, seek strength from God to live a life that pleases him. And they must seek forgiveness of sin in Jesus Christ, call out to God for mercy, ask him to forgive what they have done because of what Jesus has done. Young person, or non-Christian friends among us, have you done that? You’ve now heard a summary of what Peter said the crowd this day, will you respond like they did? Will you accept this message? Will you believe? If you don’t, then being born to Christian parents or coming along to our services here at Grace Church will count for nothing on that last day. It is believers that Jesus saves, not knowers. Will you believe?
2. ARE YOU BAPTISED?
Secondly and more briefly, if you do believe, are you baptised? Back in 2:41 we that these hearers who accepted this message, responded to it in faith and repentance like Peter told them to, ‘were baptised’. Klaus has already spent some time thinking about both what baptism does and doesn’t mean. However, tonight I just want to briefly address those of you who consider yourselves to be Christians, to believe in Jesus, and yet have not been baptised. In our evenings going through Matthew’s Gospel, we have seen that from the beginning of Jesus’ mission on earth, baptism played a key role among his people. This act of baptism can be traced from the ministry of John the Baptist in Matthew 3, through the ministry of Jesus and into the preaching of the apostles here in Acts 2. The importance of this symbol is surely clear given that in his final comments on earth, which Klaus read out at the start of our service, Jesus commanded commissioned his church to ‘go and make disciples, baptising them in the name of...’. And here in Acts 2, Peter includes it as a key part of the response we should all have to the gospel, when he says in 2:38: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you...". Now the rest of the New Testament makes clear that it is repentance that is the core of our response, with baptism simply being a sign and symbol of that. As 1 Peter 3:21 says, it is not baptism that save us, but rather it is the reality of which baptism speaks, that confession of sin before God and call to Jesus for forgiveness. It is possible to be a Christian without being baptised, for example you might think of the thief on the cross in Matthew 27. And yet, the Bible makes clear that baptism is the first step we are to take in the Christian life. We see that here in 2:41, where those who accept the gospel, those who believe, are baptised. And again, we see this through the whole rest of the New Testament, when people believe, they are baptised. [...]. As one writer has puts it, baptism is the first commandment Jesus gives Christians to obey. Are you baptised?
If you were to speak to me after the service and say you were planning on going up to London on the train this evening, I would probably think nothing of it and wish you a nice trip. However, if we met again later tonight at the end of Chertsey Street as I was walking home and you told me the same thing, that you were planning on going up to London on the train this evening, I would start to think something is a little strange. Why haven’t you gone? Are you on your way to the train station? However, if you were to ring my doorbell at 1130 tonight, and I actually heard it and woke up, came downstairs in my pyjamas and opened it up, to find you standing there once again telling me that you were planning on going up to London on the train this evening, I would surely have reason to doubt whether that is really what you are planning. For if you were really planning on going to London on the train, you would be running to catch the last train leaving the station, not standing on my door talking about it.
It is a ridiculous illustration, but you get the point. Friend, if you claim to be a follower of Jesus, say that you believe the gospel, have turned from your sin and trusted in Christ, then you need to take that first step in the Christian life, you need to get baptised. It is one thing saying to yourself or quietly telling others that you are a Christian, but if you are not actually following Jesus, doing what he asked, if you haven’t been baptised just like he commanded in Matthew 28, surely there is reason to doubt if you really believe him at all? For as Jesus asks in Luke 6:46, ‘Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?’ If you believe, then you should get baptised, confess your faith before the world by going through these waters symbolising and signifying all that Jesus has done for you. If that is something that you would like to do, why don’t you speak to your parents about that, or one of our elders here at Grace Church, or chat to me after a service. Will you believe? And if you do believe, are you baptised?
3. DO YOU BELONG?
Finally, and briefest of all, do you belong? Tonight is really a wonderful culmination of so many things. Years of prayer and parenting, teaching and caring, as a family, a church and a Christian themselves celebrates all that God has done for them. And yet in another way, it is only the beginning. We seen that in that final question of Klaus’ didn’t we, as he asked Lydia whether she wanted to follow Jesus all of her days. In this way, baptism is only the beginning, the first step of obedience in a Christian life that Lord willing will stretch far into the future. And the same is true of this event in Acts 2. Accepting this message, believing, and being baptised, was only the beginning for these people on the day of Pentecost. For at the end of 2:41, ‘and about three thousand were added to their number that day.’ We see what this means from 2:42 onwards, as we read of this wonderful description of what a Christian life looks like after baptism. After someone believes, and is baptised, we see that they belong to this group of other believers called a local church, that as a group they gather together to be taught and pray, to fellowship with each other (live lives alongside each other as partners), and celebrate the Lord’s Supper with one another, this breaking of bread. If you have been with us all day as a church at Grace Church, 2:42 basically sounds like what we have done today, doesn’t it? And later in that paragraph we learn about the practical care these brothers and sisters provided for each other, giving to those who were in need, as well as the evangelistic efforts they undertook, 2:47 ends with the note that ‘the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’ As others believe and are baptised, they too are added to this company, come to belong to this congregation of believers. To walk alongside each other and to care for each other all their days.
2:42-47 is a wonderful description of the life of a local church, however, do you see that is really just a description of the life of a Christian. That the Bible conceives of the Christian life as one that is lived amongst other Christians, all travelling to heaven together. The Christian life is not a journey we are to make on our own. God calls us to belong to a company of believers, to be members of a local church where we are accountable to other Christians and they are accountable to us. If you are a visitor here tonight and a Christian, who are you walking your Christian life with? Are you partnering with a company of believers? Where do you belong?
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ALEXANDER ARRELL