Jesus that you will help us to grow in our understanding, grow in wisdom, grow in ability, enablement to be able to go into this world and share this incredible news that we serve a God who forgives sin and call people to that. Call people to Christ in whom they can find the forgiveness of sin through faith in Him. So be doing that in all of us this morning, and then giving us opportunities this week to exercise that faith. It's in Christ's name that we pray, amen. Well, as we return to our ongoing study of Acts this morning, I want to begin by just reminding you that this is a wonderfully descriptive narrative of the early history of the church. The four Gospels give us the history of Christ's life, his death, his resurrection, and even Luke adds to the end of that his ascension. And then Luke begins the book of Acts by giving us a bit more detail of that time between Christ's resurrection and ascension as Jesus was giving his final instructions to his apostles before he ascended. So as we've seen, Acts begins with the final preparations for the church age in chapter one, and then chapter two explodes with the description of that spectacular day the church was born. You remember it began with the coming of the Spirit of God. He comes in a powerful way with supernatural manifestations that were both heard and seen. And it was the loud noise of his coming that drew this massive crowd of Jews who had come from all over the world to celebrate Pentecost. And as they were seeking out what this noise was, they heard this newborn church speaking the mighty works of God in the languages of their homelands. And so full of bewilderment, they start asking what it meant, what was going on? And Peter, reading the crowd, hearing their questions, he seizes the opportunity to proclaim the truth about Christ. So in chapter two, the first few verses, we saw the birth of the church, and we're moving from that to now the work of the church. Empowered by the Spirit of God dwelling in him, Peter boldly takes his stand with the eleven and raises his voice and begins preaching Christ. This is the work of the church, to proclaim Christ to the world. Our labor is to make him known, to let sinners know that our holy God is a God who forgives sins and can do so only because the second person, the eternal second person of the Godhead added humanity to his deity in order to suffer the penalty of death that sinners deserve as our substitute. So that by faith alone in Christ alone the sinner will be forgiven. So Christ is our salvation. He is mankind's only hope to escape the wrath of God, which all sinners deserve, and to know the love of God, which surpasses understanding. And so the work of the church, may I say the privilege of the church, is to make Christ known to the world. That's the work of the church. And so it isn't any surprise that it's the first activity that we find the church doing when the church is born. They began preaching Christ. Peter stood up with the other apostles and he preached Christ. Now last week we began looking at this first sermon of Peter's and we'll be continuing to study it this morning and next week as well. I'm taking it a little slow because not only is there, I think, a lot to see here, but there's things that we can glean from this text that will help us to continue this work which they started. Proclaiming the Christ, sharing the gospel is the unfinished task of the church to every generation. because we continue to have eternal souls born into this world that need to hear of Christ. If the gospel is going to be heard so that people can have forgiveness of sin, then each generation of the church holds a responsibility to go and make Christ known and to train the next generation to do that work for their generation. And so as we're learning of the history of the church here, we're also gleaning what we can from their labor to help us all do that work in the sphere of influence that God has given each of us to do. Now last week we looked at Peter's sermon introduction, just the introduction in verses 14 through 21. And I challenged everybody, kind of like Peter here, to seize an opportunity this week to turn a conversation towards Christ. So I thought this morning we'd just go around and ask each person, no. No, I did have a brief encounter this week with a man that I met for the first time, and I picked up on something that he said, and it seemed to be a little religious, so I asked him where he lived, and I asked him what church he went to, and if he went to church, and then what church he went to, and it ended up he was a professing believer. which I was kind of sad about. I was hoping for an unbeliever, but it was very nice. It was a nice encouragement for both of us just to have that conversation. I think during lunch, maybe in light of Hebrews 10, that calls us to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, and it might be good to maybe share some of those opportunities that you had this week as we continue to grow and exercise that which we've been given to do. We need to practice reading the room. We need to practice getting to know your audience, whether it be one person or whether it be many, and then seizing those opportunities that God puts in front of us. Every one and every situation is a potential opportunity. This is the Christ-like lifestyle that we're trying to cultivate. So we looked at Peter's introduction last week. That's a good starting point. But our goal should be to get the conversation to Jesus. Telling people about Him. There is no salvation if they don't hear about Jesus because He is the gospel. So we need to bring Jesus into our conversations. And that's what Peter does here. First, he seizes the opportunity with this crowd. As an introduction, he explains what they had just seen, and now he's ready to preach Jesus. He's going to tell them, or in this case, he's going to remind them about Jesus' life, He's going to remind them about Jesus' death. He's going to inform them about His resurrection, His ascension, and His soon coming return. All in this one sermon here. Explaining the life, explaining Jesus' life to them will produce an accountability for their knowledge that they have. Explaining His death will expose their guilt for being complicit. Explaining His resurrection confronts them with truth to dispel the lies that were going around that He didn't raise from the dead. Explaining His ascension gives them understanding about where He is now and what's going on. And mentioning His return causes them fear. So telling them about Jesus makes them accountable, guilty, makes them face the truth, gives understanding, and causes them to fear God. That's what must happen in a sinner's heart for there to be repentance. People have to come face to face with the majesty of God, realize they are accountable to Him, guilty before Him, will be judged by His truth, and they need to understand and fear His soon return as judge or there won't be any reason to repent. So we find the main section of Peter's sermon here divided up into these five parts which are all about Jesus. And this morning we're gonna look at just the first two. First let's look at Jesus' life. This is where Peter starts here. This is where they become accountable for the knowledge that they already have. Peter says, verse 22, Men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God did through him in your midst just as you yourselves know. This was the knowledge that they all had. Every Jew knew of Jesus of Nazareth. Everyone knew what he had done. Even those who had come in from the Despore, from around the known world, that had come into Jerusalem, they all knew. Remember, Jesus had been preaching and healing and doing miracles and wonders in Israel for three years. I mean, even if you lived outside of Israel, you'd have been in Jerusalem at least nine times for the festivals that were required of you to come to Jerusalem. They would have been there at least nine times over those three years. And the talk of Jesus was all over the town during all of them. In fact, just 50 days and one week prior to this Pentecost here, all these same Jews had gathered palm branches, they waved them, they laid them down before Jesus donkey as he made his way into Jerusalem, hailing him as their king. They all knew who he was. Of course, to the religious rulers, he was a false teacher, he was a blasphemer, he was an agent of Satan. That was the propaganda that they were spreading. For others, he was at least a prophet. Remember the Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well, thought he was a prophet. The blind man in John 9 concluded he was a prophet. Remember in Matthew 21, 46, one of the reasons that the rulers couldn't kill him when they wanted to was because they feared the crowds because they knew the crowds regarded him as a prophet. Only a few of his disciples believe he was indeed the Messiah, but many thought he was at least a prophet. And after 400 years of silence for the nation of Israel to all of a sudden have Jesus on the scene doing miracles and wonders and signs for three years, every Jew, every Jew far and wide would have known about him. They all are accountable for what they knew. And so Peter calls them to that account. He says, men of Israel, listen to these words. In other words, pay attention. Pay attention to what I'm saying because this is as serious as it gets. And then he starts talking about Jesus here and he refers to him as Jesus the Nazarene. Now you might be wondering, why is he called by that name? Well, it's simple because that's where he was from. He was from Nazareth, so he was Jesus the Nazarene. Of course, he was born in Bethlehem and remember Joseph was warned in a dream to take Jesus to Egypt because Herod wanted to kill him. They stayed there until Herod the Great died and then returned. And when they did, it was to this small village east of the Sea of Galilee called Nazareth. That's where Jesus grew up. After Joseph's death, Jesus stayed there to provide for Mary and the family until about age 30 when his public ministry began. That's why he was called Jesus the Nazarene. I mean, there are a lot of people in Israel who had similar names. In fact, just among the apostles, there were two James, two Judases, and two Simons. So how do you differentiate them? You know, people named their kids after prophets, after kings, after priests, but there were only so many prophets, kings, and priests, so they all kind of started getting the same name. So to differentiate them, you would either call them by their father's name, like Simon Bar-Jonah, which means Simon of son of Jonah, or make a reference to the city where they were from. And so Jesus was commonly called Jesus the Nazarene. But that name, was often used in very derogatory ways as well, because Nazareth, to most of the Jews, was just a podunk town. In Luke 4.34, we find demons even saying, let us alone, what do we have to do with you, Jesus the Nazarene? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God. Even the fallen angels knew He was more than just an ordinary man from Nazareth. They knew He was their creator. But they used that name here to mock Him and then expose His divine identity. And Jesus, of course, shuts them down because it wasn't time for that. Though He was the eternal Son, the Word of God tells us that in John 1. It says He was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that had come into being. But the Jews saw Him as just a man from Nazareth. Although Paul tells us in Colossians 115, Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in Him all things are created, both in heavens and in the earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together. But the Jews just saw Him as a man from Nazareth. So Peter calls him here Jesus the Nazarene. But then he takes a step further and says, he was a man attested to you by God. Now this word attested has the idea of being sent forth or brought out. It means to show forth or declare. And so Peter is saying this Jesus the Nazarene is a man who God had set forth, who brought out for you to see. God sent this Jesus the Nazarene to be put on display for you to observe. This is John 3.16, isn't it? For God so loved the world that He gave, He sent the only begotten Son, the completely unique one, the eternal Son. God sent Him to Israel. He was the one that God had promised Israel all along, remember? God promised he would defeat Satan from Genesis 3.15, from the very beginning, right after the fall. John said in 1 John 3.8 that he was manifested for this purpose to destroy the works of the devil. He was God's promised one who, as the descendant of Abraham from Genesis 18, would be the one through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed. This Jesus the Nazarene was God's promised one who as a descendant of David would be an international king. Now that's what they would have expected from 2 Samuel 7 and Isaiah 9-7. He was God's promised one from the tribe of Judah, Genesis 49, born in Bethlehem, Micah 5, born of a virgin, Isaiah 7, 713. The promised one would make atonement for sin as God's means of salvation from Isaiah 53. The promised one would be the one who would be a light to the Gentiles we know from Isaiah 42 and 49. And Jesus himself claimed to be this Messiah, the eternal Son of God, the one God sent. Let me just say, never let anyone say to you that Jesus never said he was God. I hear that all the time. Do not let anyone get away with that. He called himself the Son of God in Matthew 26, 63. That is a title. That is a claim of deity. The I Am statements of John's Gospel are claims of deity. John 1.1 that we just read makes his deity clear. John the Baptist points to him out as the Lord, the Son of God. God the Father calls Jesus my beloved Son. Paul in Philippians 2 and Colossians 2 claims that the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily in Jesus. Jesus told Philip in John 10.3 that I and the Father are one. In John 14.9, Jesus said, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father. So he claimed to be deity all over the place. But all that was verbal, wasn't it? And the religious leaders called him a liar. And the crowds refused to believe his words. And so Jesus says in John 14.10, Do you not believe that I am the Father and that the Father is in me? The words that I say to you, I do not speak for myself, but the Father abiding in me, here it is, does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, otherwise believe because of the works themselves. In other words, words are easy to dismiss. Plenty of people had come and gone that were claiming to be the Messiah. So how did God the Father show forth or put God the Son out in view for everyone to see? How did he put him on display? This Jesus, the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with what? Well, the works. the works, miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through him in your midst, just as you yourself know. Jesus came not just preaching the words the Father gave him, but doing the works. doing the works God did through him. And those works demonstrated with supernatural power the truth of Jesus' identity. So these works had purpose to him. They validated his claim as God. And these supernatural works were put on display, not in some ostentatious way for the sake of entertainment, but in acts of compassion. in acts of compassion towards sinners to alleviate the effects of the fall that they were living with. The works reflected the heart of God toward fallen man to redeem him, to show mercy, to give grace." Now, I want you to turn over to Luke's gospel because I want you to see these works. I saw this week that the children's ministry, they were having sword drills. So I thought we would do that this morning. So this is going to be a fast sword drill though. So everybody get your Bibles out. Turn over to Luke chapter 4. I want to begin there. Luke chapter 4. I want you to see these miracles, these signs, these wonders. We're going to skip through here. In Luke chapter 4, Jesus comes to Capernaum in verse 31. He cast out a demon. He then leaves the synagogue to go to Peter's house, where he heals Peter's mother-in-law, who had a high, high fever, and he spends all day there. Verse 40 says, and while the sun was setting, all those, anyone in the Galilee area, who had any who were sick with various diseases, brought them to him, and laying his hands on each of them, he was healing them. Demons also were coming out of many. So hundreds of people are coming in. He's showing compassion to them. He's healing. them. He's delivering them. Turn over to chapter 5, verse 12. Jesus healed a man with leprosy there. In verse 17, He healed a paralyzed man. Luke chapter 6, verse 6, He heals a man with a shriveled hand. He returns to Capernaum after preaching on the Sermon on the Mountain in chapter 7. Verses 1 through 10, we find He healed a centurion's servant. In chapter 8, verse 26, he casts out more demons. And verses 43 through 48, he heals the woman of an issue of blood. In chapter 9, after the transfiguration, he and Peter and James and John come down the mountain. And verse 37, he delivers a boy from a demonic possession. Over in chapter 11 now, verse 14, Jesus heals another man who's mute. And he heals him from a demonic possession. And remember, the religious rulers at that time, they accused him of being Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. Over in Luke chapter 13, verses 10 through 17, Jesus heals a crippled woman. In chapter 14, he heals a man with dropsy. Keep turning the pages. In Luke 17, verses 11 through 19, he heals 10 lepers. Remember, one of those is the one that comes back to worship him. And he says, what, just one comes back, and it was a Samaritan. On their way through Jericho, going up to Jerusalem for the last time in Luke 18, verses 35 through 43, Jesus heals blind Bartimaeus. And in Luke 22, verse 49 in Gethsemane, he heals the high priest's servants who ear Peter just cut off. Now that's just Luke. Matthew, Mark, and John record a lot of those same miracles, but they also record miracles that Luke didn't. Let me give you a few of those. In Matthew 9, 27 through 31, he heals two blind men. A blind and mute possessed man, he heals in Matthew 12, 22. He healed a Canaanite woman's daughter in Matthew 15. He healed a deaf mute in Mark 7. A blind man in Bethsaida in Mark 8. A Roman official's son in John 4. In John 5, he heals a sick man at the pool of Bethsaida. In John 9, he heals the man who was born blind. And if they hadn't heard of any of those, which is absolutely assertive, if they hadn't heard of any of those, surely they heard that he raised people from the dead. Remember, he raised Jairus' daughter from the dead in Luke 8. In Luke 7, there was a widow woman in Nain whose son had died, and Jesus raised him right in the middle of the funeral possession. He raises him from the dead. He raised Lazarus from the dead in John 11. Add to all of that his power over nature. Remember, his first miracle was turning water into the wine at the wedding in John 2. He walked on water. He stilled a violent storm on Galilee in Luke 8. and even had Peter pull a coin out of the fish's mouth to pay taxes for in Matthew 17. He enabled a miraculous catch of fish at the beginning of his ministry and another one at the end of his ministry. He fed over 5,000 men in Galilee, on the hills of Galilee, plus women and children, which was probably more like 20,000 people. And he fed another 4,000 in the Decapolis region. miracles and signs, wonders. And John adds at the end of his gospel, he says, there are also many other things which Jesus did, which if they were written one after the other, I suppose, even the world itself couldn't contain the books that would be written. You get the picture? I wanted to belabor that point just to help you understand the massive, the massive accountability that these Jews had before God. Can you imagine the weight that they were feeling as they heard Peter? They knew they were witnesses of this kind of miraculous and compassionate displays from God coming through Jesus for nearly three years. It was all they had been talking about. Jesus the Nazarene was a man attested to them by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God did through him in their midst, and they all knew it. They all knew it. In John 12, the Pharisees were saying one to another, the world has gone after him. That's why they wanted to kill him. Do you understand that? Because if he got his kingdom, their kingdom would be gone. I don't know, maybe it'd be good to carry all these verses of all this around with you and just pull them out sometime or eating lunch with someone and just start reading through them and go, what do you think about him? Make them go one way or the other, wouldn't it? These Jews all knew what had been taking place. Jesus had basically eradicated sickness and disease from Israel. It was a taste of the kingdom. If someone hadn't been personally impacted by His healing touch, they almost certainly knew someone who had. They knew His works. He wasn't hiding anything in secret. It was out in the open for all to see, for all to hear, for all to experience. Over in Mark chapter 3, at the very beginning of his Galilee ministry, it says, a great multitude, a great multitude from Galilee followed. They were following Jesus. And from Judea, and from Jerusalem, and from Edomia, and beyond the Jordan in the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that he was doing and came to him. from in Israel and all the countries surrounding hundreds of thousands of people came to see him. And it made them accountable. Made every one of them accountable. That's the point Peter is making here. You remember the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida where most of these miracles and signs and wonders took place. Jesus pronounced woes on them, a more severe judgment than those who didn't have as much light. You know, Jennifer and I pray regularly for those who have come through this church over the past 20 years and who seem to have left the faith. We know what was deposited in them. We know the Word of God doesn't return void and it's going to accomplish its end either to judgment or to salvation, one of the two. And so we pray for their salvation still. They're all accountable before God with the light that has been given to them. And the more light, the more accountability. If you're in here regularly and you haven't given your life to Christ, you need to understand the weight of accountability that is upon you for hearing the truth, for tasting of the goodness of God. Remember Hebrews chapters 2, 3, 6, 10, and 12 warn about this exact thing. So Peter preached Jesus' life. We need to do that as well. People need to hear of the miraculous acts of compassion that pointed to Christ as God's Messiah. We also need to preach Jesus' death. He preaches life, we preach his death. That's where Peter goes next year. He drives home their guilt with this. Peter says, you know, Jesus the Nazarene and all that God did through him, this man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, here it is, you nailed to a cross. You nailed him to a cross. I mean, that's the piercing reality of their guilt. This man, this man who you know God sent to you and did all these miracles through him so you could know that he was your Messiah, this man, you nailed to a cross. And I'm sure there were those in the crowd thinking, you know, it can't be. It can't be because if our God is all-powerful and all-knowing, if he was the promised one who was to come, our king to reign on David's throne as God promised, if he was the Messiah who he claimed to be, if he was God come in the flesh as he claimed to be, how come he wasn't powerful enough to save himself? You say, Larry, how do you know that's what they were thinking? Well, because that's what they were saying at the cross just 50 days earlier. Listen to Matthew 27, 39. Jesus is there hanging on the cross. He's hanging on the cross. And it says, and those passing by were blaspheming him, shaking their heads and saying, you who are going to destroy the sanctuary and rebuild it in three days, save yourself. If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross. In the same way, it says, the chief priest also, along with the scribes and the elders, were mocking Him, saying He saved others, He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel, let Him come down from the cross, and we'll believe in Him. trust in God let God rescue him now if he delights in him for he said I am the Son of God and the robbers who had been crucified with him were also ill insulting him with the same words the crowds the priests the scribes the elders even the robbers hanging on either side of him everyone saying if you're God let's see it come on down If all the other miracles he had done the last three years wasn't enough. So that's what's running through the minds of some of these Jews, listening to Peter say, this man you nailed to a cross. But another group is probably thinking, you know, we didn't touch him. We didn't touch anybody. We didn't drive any nails. Under Roman law, we can't put anyone to death, so we're not the guilty one. And so Peter answers both of those questions here in verse 23. He begins by saying that Jesus was delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. So what does that mean? Well, it means this was God's plan all along. Jesus couldn't and wouldn't come down from the cross because he was freely choosing to hang there and die. That was the plan of God. Peter says, this man was delivered over. That word was used in the Greek world for the delivery of an enemy when a prisoner was handed over for their execution. That was God's plan. That God the Son would be handed over as a prisoner to be executed by his enemies. That was the plan of God. It was the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. The meaning of this word, horizo in the Greek, which we translate predetermined, it means to establish a boundary or to make determination. This is where we get our word horizon from, horizo, horizon. The determined boundary of where earth and sky meet, it was predetermined that that would be a horizon. So God predetermined that the eternal Son of God would add humanity to his deity to be delivered over and executed by his enemies. This was God's plan. This was his design. This was his will. His predetermined plan to deliver Jesus over was set as a boundary for his incarnation marked out. It was ordained to take place. Now that had to be a little unsettling for the Jews. For them to hear that the death of their Messiah was part of God's plan all along would have been a bit shocking, because to them he was supposed to be the king, right? He was supposed to be the king, the one who would deliver them from Roman oppressors, the one who would establish them again in the world as the nation above all other nations like in Solomon's day, but even more grand, worldwide, forever. Those were the promises of God in the Old Testament. And so to hear Peter say, God's predetermined plan was to turn the Messiah over and be executed by his enemies, that would have been a shock to them. They didn't see it coming, even though it's all through Scripture. This was the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. That word foreknowledge is often misunderstood in our day. In the English, we tend to think of foreknowledge as something, knowing something before it happens, and that's true, but people come to the conclusion that God doesn't know everything. So he had to look down the corridors of time and see what man was going to do and then included it in his eternal decree. But that would mean God was dependent upon man, right? It would mean that God had to learn something, that He isn't omniscient. Well, one of the keys to understanding the meaning of this word as it's used here is that it's in what we call the instrumental case, and that simply is a Greek grammatical term that means that this foreknowledge is something that God uses like an instrument. It's knowledge He already has. He knows everything. He doesn't learn anything because He knows everything. So foreknowledge reflects God's perfectly purposed relational knowledge of everyone and everything before they exist in time and space. And by means of this, His foreknowledge, knowledge He eternally had, out of His omniscience, He determined His eternal decree. This was God's plan from eternity past. His eternal decree before anyone or anything existed, it came out of His own being, uninfluenced by anything outside of Himself. That's the point. That's the point. And Peter is telling them that plan included them nailing Him to the cross. So that answers the first question of if this Jesus was indeed the Son of God, why couldn't He just come down? Because it was God's plan. It was always God's plan for Him to hang there and die for sinners. The predetermined end was that Christ would die so God delivers Him over to His enemies to that end. So Jesus' death wasn't an accident. He wasn't overpowered by the Jews. He wasn't overpowered by the Romans. He didn't fail his mission. In fact, Jesus says in John 10, 17, for this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life so that I might take it up again. No one takes it away from me, but from myself I lay it down. I have the authority to lay it down. I have the authority to take it back up again. This commandment I received from my Father. And then Philippians 2 tells us he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. Jesus freely gave his life. He freely gave his life in obedience to the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. And the Jews should have known this. They should have known that this was part of the role of the Messiah, because this is what was prophesied in the Old Testament. Genesis 3.15, the first prophecy regarding the Messiah, the Savior, was that his heel would be bruised. It's a reality of being crucified as you push up with your heels in order to gasp for air while you're drowning in your own bodily fluids. The heel is terribly bruised. The sacrificial lambs of Exodus 12, 46 that were slain at Passover to make temporary atonement for sins in the Old Testament were types of the permanent atonement God's Messiah would provide for the sinners on the cross. Deuteronomy 21, 23, anyone who is hung on a tree is under God's curse. Galatians 3, 13 tells us, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Jesus became the curse for us. Micah 5 talks about the Messiah being struck with a rod. Psalm 22.16 and Zechariah 12 tell us that the Messiah's hands and his feet would be pierced. Zechariah 11 says he would be sold for 30 pieces of silver. Psalm 22.18 tells us they would cast lots for his garments and divide them. Psalm 41.9, he would be betrayed by a friend. Psalm 69.20, the reproach of others would fall upon him that he would be given gall and vinegar for his thirst. Isaiah 53 reveals the Messiah's suffering and death in incredible detail and purpose. It reveals that he says he would be mistreated and despised and rejected, beaten so that he could hardly be recognized, spat upon. He then led as a lamb to the slaughter. as an offering for sin he would be crucified with transgressors made into an offering for sin buried with the rich he had died he would be cut off from among men as Daniel 9 24 says then there are many many more prophecies that were given hundreds and thousands of years prior to that being accomplished so this was all God's predetermined plan God is sovereign But man is responsible. So for those who were thinking we aren't guilty because we didn't do it, Peter adds here, this man you nailed to a cross. That's personal. How, Peter? By the hands of lawless men and put him to death. God's finger was pointing at the Jews there in Jerusalem and saying, you're guilty of crucifying the one I sent to you and put on display among you with signs and wonders and miracles so that you could clearly see he was God come in the flesh, your Messiah. You nailed him to the cross. Religious rulers were certainly after Jesus to do that from the very beginning, weren't they? In Mark 3, after Jesus healed the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath in front of the Pharisees, in verse 6, it says, and the Pharisees went out and immediately began taking counsel together with the Herodians against him as to how they might destroy him. That's at the beginning of his Galilean ministry. Two years later, At the last Passover, as it was drawing near, Luke 22, 2 says, the chief priests and the scribes were seeking how they might put him to death, for they were afraid of the people. And Satan entered into Judas, who is called Iscariot, who belonged to the number of the twelve, and he went away and discussed with the chief priest and the officers how he might betray him to them, and they were glad. They were glad and agreed to give him money. So he consented and began seeking a good opportunity to betray him to them apart from the crowd. So Judas was guilty. The religious rulers were guilty. After the Passover meal, Jesus and the disciples go to Gethsemane, you remember, that common meeting place. And of course, Judas shows up and he brings Jewish rulers, the elders, the temple guards, to get him. And it's there that Luke 22, 52 says, Jesus said to the chief priests and to the officers of the temple and to the elders who had come out against him, have you come out with swords and clubs as against a robber? While I was with you daily in the temple, you did not stretch out your hands against me, but this hour and the hour of darkness are yours. Now having arrested him, they led him away and brought him to the house of the high priest. And after a one-sided mock trial that goes on at night, which was completely against the law, Luke 22, 66 says, and as the day came, the council Sanhedrin of elders of the people assembled, both the chief priests and the scribes, and they led them away to their Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin is the 70-person Supreme Court basically of Israel made up of Pharisees and Sadducees. And they asked Jesus, if you are the Christ, tell us. But he said to them, if I tell you, you will not believe. And if I ask a question, you will not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God. And they all said, are you the Son of God then? And he said to them, you yourselves say that I am. Then he said, what further need do we have of testimony? For we have heard it ourselves from his mouth. So they were ready to kill him. for claiming to be God. But because they were under Roman authority, they couldn't exercise the death penalty themselves, and so they take some trumped-up charges against him to pilot. They're going to have to make Jesus an enemy of the empire in order to get their work done. Luke 23 tells us they take him before Pilate. He questions him. He doesn't find any guilt in him. Pilate finds out that he's from Galilee and so he sends Jesus to Herod because that's Herod's jurisdiction. The chief priest and the scribes go with him. Luke says vehemently accusing him. So the Jews were being forceful, hammering him over and over with all these false accusations. Herod couldn't get Jesus to talk, so he sends him back to Pilate. And Luke 23, 13 says, and Pilate summoned the chief priests and the rulers and the people, so the crowds, the Jewish people, now they all become guilty here. And it says, He said, you brought this man to me as one who incites the people to rebellion. And behold, having examined him before you, I have found in this man no guilt of what you are accusing him. No, nor has Herod, for he sent him back to us. And behold, nothing deserving of death has been done by him. Therefore, I will punish him and release him. Pilate remembered that he was obligated. Remember on the Passover, on the feast to set a prisoner free. But the Jewish rulers and the people kept crying out for Jesus. Three times Pilate offers to release him. Verse 23 says, but they were insistent with loud voices. They were insistent with loud voices asking that he, Jesus, be crucified. And their voices were prevailing. And so Pilate pronounced sentence that their demand be granted." So Pilate and Herod were coerced but still guilty, knowing his innocence. They could have shut it down, but out of fear of reprisal from either the Jews or Rome, they had him crucified. Add to them the Roman soldiers, Mark 15. So the soldiers took him away to the palace that is the praetorium, and they called together this whole Roman cohort, and they dressed him up in purple, and after twisting a crown of thorns, they put it on him, and they began to greet him, hail, king of the Jews, and they kept beating his head with a reed and spitting on him and kneeling. They were bowing before him, and after they had mocked him, they took off the purple robe, put on his garments, and led him out to crucify him. The rulers of Israel are guilty, the Jewish crowd is guilty, Pilate and Herod are guilty, the Roman soldiers are guilty, and all those gathered at the cross mocking Him. They're all guilty. Mark 15, 29 again, and those passing by were blaspheming Him, shaking their heads, mocking Him, the chief priest along with the scribes and all the people. He saved others. He cannot save Himself. So the Jews killed Jesus. That generation killed Jesus. How? Peter says, by the hands of lawless men, they put him to death. The lawless men were the Romans. The Jews manipulated and used the Romans as their tool, as their instrument. The Jews and the Romans murdered him. They put him to death. Peter will tell them again over in Acts chapter 3 verse 14, but you denied the Holy Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the author of life. It was absolutely imperative that the Jews understood God had sent their Messiah. They had murdered him. They didn't acknowledge Him. They didn't acknowledge Him for who He was. They didn't search the Scriptures. They didn't question the rulers. They just went with the flow and became complicit in the guilt. So they were responsible. They were accountable to God because they saw His life. They were guilty before Him because they put Him to death. God is sovereign. Man is responsible and in that God carried out his perfect work for our salvation. So Peter here not only recognizes the opportunity God had given him to speak to this crowd and seizes it. But he knows it was vital for them to see themselves as sinners before a holy God, accountable to him, guilty before him. And so he preaches Jesus' life to make them accountable and exposes their guilt over his death. You might be asking, well, how do I do that? Because I'm not preaching to Jews who crucified Jesus. I'm not preaching to that generation. How do we do that? Well, I think the same accountability and guilt are accomplished as you show someone that God is their creator and they're accountable to him as creatures. We'll see Paul do that when he starts going out to the Gentiles. And then to take them to the law, the Ten Commandments, God's standard where their guilt before them can be exposed. We don't want to leave him there, and Peter doesn't, but we'll get to that next week. Father, thank you so much. It's just encouraging and strengthening to see our Christ in all that he did, the accountability that we all have, but especially that generation of Jews. Thank you that you've given us your word, your perfect standard in the Ten Commandments to be able to see our own guilt before our holy God and to understand you as our creator, that accountability, that guilt. I ask if there's anyone here that doesn't know you, Lord, that that might be pressing upon them even now. Father, I also ask that for us who are longing, desiring, praying to be equipped for opportunities to be able to speak of you, to do that in the world which you have chosen for your church to do. To proclaim Christ to the world, help us. Give us opportunity this week. Help us to exercise what we've learned, to seize the opportunities, to help people understand that they're accountable. and guilty before a holy God. And as we'll see next week, that our God is one who forgives sin through faith in Christ. Thank you for this morning. I ask in Christ's name.