You know if you've been here the past two Sundays that we've been leading up to this day of Pentecost. Today is Pentecost Sunday and you remember that this is the day when Christ poured out his Holy Spirit to form the church and to send them out as his witnesses to the ends of the earth. A lot of false religion is peddled in the name of the Holy Spirit. We could talk about a lot of things that pass in the Spirit's name today. We could talk about people who claim today to be apostles or prophets. We could talk about those who claim to have the spiritual gift of tongues today. We could talk about mystics who justify their own ideas and decisions by claiming that the Holy Spirit talks to them. They'll say things like, I just follow the Spirit's leading. So in other words, it's not my fault, or it's not my decision. They say, God told me thus and so, but they're not talking about something that was revealed through the scriptures. They're talking about some mystical experience with the Holy Spirit. We could even talk about those who refuse to discipline themselves for holiness because, supposedly, such discipline doesn't depend on the work of the Holy Spirit. That is, according to them, if we are trying hard in ourselves to be godly, we are denying the Holy Spirit His work. And so, such people will say that we need to let go and let God. And we need to stop trying, if we expect the Holy Spirit to make us holy, we need to stop putting forth effort. In other words, the Spirit... I'll back up. We need to stop exerting effort because if we don't, then the Holy Spirit will not work in our lives. That's what's being taught. Well, the problem here with all these ideas involving the Holy Spirit is not the Holy Spirit. Problem is that these various forms of religion do not properly understand our triune God, the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, and they have twisted God's word about the Spirit's work. They've neglected the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, as God has told us. So today being Pentecost Sunday, we ought to go back to the scriptures to see the true work of the Holy Spirit, and we'll see that he operates Not so much to draw attention to himself, though he is God and worthy of our worship, but he operates primarily in this age as the agent of the glorified Christ. The first Sunday that Pastor Dwight was gone from the pulpit here, we were in Joel 2, and we discussed Joel's message of salvation in the last days, something to which Peter referred to in his Pentecost sermon. And, of course, as part of that, Joel 2 connected the outpouring of the Spirit to the last days and the need for salvation from God's judgment at that time. And then last week we were in Psalm 110 talking about our ascended king and priest because David in Psalm 110 prophesied Jesus Christ's ascended role as king and priest. Peter also used that text in his Pentecost sermon. And so as we are in Acts 2 this morning, as we read Acts 2, we're going to see those two ideas connected. So now that Jesus Christ has ascended to God's right hand, and he's in that role of king and priest on our behalf, he has exercised his authority to reconcile humanity to himself. How has he done that? He's poured out his spirit on all flesh. So let's go to Acts chapter 2 and verse 1. And the big idea that we're going to see here, kids listen up, the big idea, the main lesson we're going to see here, is Jesus has sent his spirit to proclaim his saving reign. Jesus has sent his spirit to proclaim his saving reign. I'm not going to try to, you may disagree at the end of the sermon, but I'm telling you that I'm not going to try to go into detail on everything in Acts chapter two this morning. Once again, you may disagree. It's done, but we will attempt that. I'm going to take it in basically three chunks this morning and talk about the big themes here, all right? First of all, we're going to read Acts chapter two, verses one through 13. And we're going to see through these verses that Jesus Christ, first of all, has poured out his Holy Spirit. This has happened. Jesus Christ has poured out his Holy Spirit. Looking at verse one, it says this. When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. Now, pause. Who are they? Well, they, according to Acts 1, are Jesus' followers, whom he left on earth after he ascended to heaven, and he had promised them that if they waited in Jerusalem, he would send the Holy Spirit to them. So they were all together in one place, verse 2. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them in our own tongues, speaking of the mighty deeds of God. And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, What does this mean? But others were mocking and saying, They are full of sweet wine." Jesus Christ has poured out his Holy Spirit, and this is the account of it. Specifically, the account of the phenomena, signs that came in attachment with this outpouring of the Holy Spirit. And in order to understand what's happening here, first of all, we need to understand that Jesus has promised this outpouring. But before we come to this point, Jesus had promised this outpouring of the Spirit. In Luke 3, we see that John the Baptist, Jesus' forerunner, had come prophesying the Messiah after him and saying that the Messiah would baptize people, not just with water, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Then when we get to Luke 24, by the way, Luke is the same one who wrote the book of Acts, so we're even going in the same storyline of the same author of scripture, human author. In Luke 24, Jesus, when he appeared after his resurrection, told his disciples in Luke 24, 48, you are witnesses of these things. In other words, you are witnesses of the fact that I have died and risen again according to the scriptures. And that now forgiveness is available through me. But he says, verse 49, And then in Acts chapter 1, we again see Jesus with his disciples, his apostles. saying that the baptism of the Spirit is coming. He told them to wait for what the Father had promised and he says, you've heard of this from me, this promise, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So there's this term that comes up as this event is being promised and that is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. We'll see various truths about what the baptism is and is not as we work our way through the text today. But we need to understand, before we go further, one thing about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And that is that this baptism is for all believers in this age of the church. The baptism itself is not something that only happened at Pentecost and of which we do not partake in some way. Now we'll discuss all the things that came along with that on the first, on the day of Pentecost, the birthday of the church. But in Acts chapter 10, Peter talks about how some Gentiles to whom he was preaching the gospel in Cornelius' household believed the message and they were baptized by the Holy Spirit. According to Acts chapter 11, they were baptized by the Holy Spirit just as these Jewish Christians had been at the beginning, at the day of Pentecost. And in 1 Corinthians 12, we see Paul telling us that the church is like a body, the body of Christ. He says, 1 Corinthians 12, 12, for even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ, for by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one spirit. So whatever else we conclude about the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the signs that accompanied it, we need to conclude that we have the baptism of the Holy Spirit as believers today, otherwise we're not part of the body of Christ. But we also see, back in the text in Acts chapter two, something else about this baptism. It had been promised and it was poured out, but then miraculous signs, secondly, accompanied this outpouring. Miraculous signs accompanied this outpouring. It mentions the sound of a mighty rushing wind. It mentions little tongues of fire settling over people's heads. And it mentions the unlearned languages, what we call the spirit's gift of tongues. And notice how Acts 2 describes this, this supernatural gift of language that the Spirit gave. It doesn't describe it as babble that no one understood. It doesn't describe it as some sort of heavenly, angelic language as some mystics have said today. It describes it as languages which other people understood because they were actual human languages from all over the known world of that day. But why the sound of wind? Well, the Holy Spirit is often pictured as wind throughout the Scriptures. In fact, the language in Greek and Hebrew for the words for spirit can sometimes be interchangeable for wind or breath depending on the context. But there are all these signs, these miraculous signs that God is giving to signal the arrival of the Holy Spirit. One of them is that sound of wind, though there's not actual wind. Tongues of fire. Well, remember throughout the Old Testament, God's presence is often communicated as fire. The burning bush that's not consumed. And when Moses approaches, God says, take off your sandals because you're standing on holy ground. the pillar of fire with the Israelites in the wilderness, but then settled on the tabernacle, the special place of God's presence. Throughout the scripture, this fire is symbolic of God's glory being present. But notice here, the glory is settling in individual tongues on individual believers, on each of their heads. More about that later. And then the unlearned languages. So it is the Holy Spirit here who is giving what we talked about in Joel chapter two, two weeks ago, this direct revelation, this prophecy. And in this case, it's being given so that they can speak in languages these people have never learned before. Of course, the crowd doesn't know what to make of all this. This is a big feast day in Jerusalem, the Feast of Pentecost. It is one of the feasts of ingathering. This was about 50 days after the Passover, roughly, and unleavened bread and all that. 50 days after Easter Sunday when Christ rose from the dead. And this was a feast at which all the Jewish males were supposed to be present. It was one of the three feasts they had to attend each year. So you have a huge crowd in Jerusalem, and we're not told exactly where the disciples were when they received the Holy Spirit, but either they went out of where they were, if it was a private room, and then people noticed what was happening, or maybe they were in the temple. Some speculate that way. And then people in the temple noticed these signs going on. But everyone recognizes that this is something unusual. Because these are Galileans. They're not supposed to know all our languages from all these different parts of the world. But some people, in their pride, because they don't understand what's really going on, and they probably despise these Galilean men, they just chalk it up to drunkenness. Say, oh, you know, they're saying something I don't understand. They seem really excited, worked up. They must be drunk. We'll see that Peter contradicts that in a moment. But just note here that the signs were given. These miraculous signs were given that the Spirit was here, but people did not understand the signs until there was preaching. Until Peter told them directly from God how to interpret these miraculous signs. Miracles, when God gives them, are very good, but they aren't everything. The thing we need the most is God's direct revelation, which we find in his word, to interpret what God has done in history. But moving on, I also want to note that people today often assume that if you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, you will speak in tongues. Well, that's just not according to Scripture. The gift of tongues is not a necessary aspect of spirit baptism. For instance, in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 30, we already read in 1 Corinthians 12 where Paul told the Corinthian church, you have all received the baptism of the Spirit into one body as the church. But then, to the same group of people, he says in verse 30, all do not have the gifts of healings, do they? All do not speak with tongues, do they? All do not interpret, do they? In this day, even in this day when these miraculous sign gifts were still prevalent in the church, Paul says, you don't all speak in tongues. That right there tells me they'd all been baptized by the Spirit, they had not all spoken in tongues. But what What do we know about the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Well, we're going to see more as Peter explains here in the next verses. We see that Jesus poured out the gift of the Spirit and then we see in verses 14 through 36 that the Holy Spirit's power enables the church to proclaim Christ's reign. This is the point of all this and of these miraculous signs too. Verses 14 through 36, let's read that chunk right now. But Peter, taking a stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them, Men of Judea, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give heed to my words. For these men are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day, 9 a.m. in other words. But this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel. And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth of my spirit on all mankind. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs in the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. If you want to know more about what Peter meant in applying that passage of scripture, go two weeks back on Sermon Audio and listen to that sermon again. But that's the passage we addressed two weeks ago. Then down in verse 22, Peter goes on. He says, 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 performed through him in your midst. Just as you yourselves know, this man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. But God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death. since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says of him, I saw the Lord always in my presence, for he is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue exalted. Moreover, my flesh also will live in hope, because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow your Holy One to undergo decay. You have made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet, and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh suffer decay. This Jesus, God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. From Psalm 110, which we addressed last week. Verse 36, therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Before we get into what Peter was saying, what his message was, let me just note here that this is a transformed Peter from the Peter who just a while earlier, had denied his Lord three times and was afraid to identify with Jesus Christ. Christ had restored him, yes. But we see here the Holy Spirit's special ministry first being seen through Christ's apostles. Christ had promised a special empowering of his apostles by his Spirit. Which by the way, we don't have today in the same fashion. It was special for the Apostles. In John 14, Jesus had said, I will ask the Father, John 14, 16, and he will give you, he's talking to the Apostles, another helper that he may be with you forever. That is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. Verse 25, these things I have spoken to you while abiding with you, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. Now, this is a good example of a verse that people often take out of context, saying the Holy Spirit will teach you everything and anything you want to know. Well, actually, here, Jesus is speaking to the 12, to his apostles, his special representatives, and he says, the Holy Spirit will be your helper to teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. In other words, while you were with me during my earthly ministry, I said a lot that you're going to forget on your own, but the Spirit will bring it back to your memory. Down in chapter 15 of John, he also says in verse 26, when the helper comes whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me and you will testify also because you have been with me from the beginning. We haven't been with Jesus from the beginning of his earthly ministry, but they had. He's speaking to the apostles. And John 16, he says, Jesus says that he has even more truth to hand on to the apostles, but they're not ready for it. He says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, the whole body of truth you need. For he will not speak on his own initiative, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of mine, and will disclose it to you." There we have Jesus promising the apostles a special ministry of the Spirit so that they would give us all the truth of Christ that we need for this church age. And we have the record in the New Testament. That's how the apostles could pen Scripture. And that's how we know it's accurate. Jesus promised it. But now we see Peter here emboldened by the Spirit and preaching to thousands of people openly and accusing them of crucifying their Messiah. Now that's not such a safe thing to do. But Peter is empowered and emboldened and he preaches. And I want to note before we go on You know, we mentioned earlier that we shouldn't jump to conclusions about what gifts of the Spirit are still with us. Just like the Spirit's special ministry through the early apostles and prophets has been thoroughly accomplished in the days of the first century, in the same way, the miraculous gifts of the Spirit that accompanied those apostolic times have fulfilled their purpose. That's why we don't see them active throughout the church today. There are groups, schismatic groups who say otherwise. But throughout the church at large, the gifts, the miraculous gifts are not there. Because they fulfilled their purpose. They were for the apostolic age. because those miracles were key to establishing the New Testament Church on new revelation and to authenticating that truth that the apostles were giving. The apostles were preaching in Jesus' name and then Jesus sent miracles to work in their midst as the apostles were establishing the church and establishing the truth for the church, the truth of Jesus Christ. Just two passages about that. Ephesians 2 verse 20 says that we as the church are like a building. We are God's household and we've been built on a foundation that's been laid. The foundation of the apostles and prophets. The apostles and other New Testament prophets who gave us this new revelation for our age. And Christ Jesus himself is the cornerstone. And then in Hebrews 2, we see the writer to the Hebrews speaking like this. Verse 3, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard. God also testifying with them both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to his own will. But here, the writer to the Hebrews is speaking largely in a past tense sort of way. We won't escape if we neglect this great salvation and remember how that salvation was first spoken through the Lord and then it was confirmed to us by those who heard the Lord directly, the apostles and prophets and such people. And God sent those miracles, remember, to testify to the truth of what they were saying. So we're gonna move on now, but that truth is important to note these days when there's so much false teaching about the work of the Spirit in our age. It's not that we are denying the almighty power of God or of His Spirit that He can do what He wants. It's just that sometimes God tells us what He is doing and is not doing at different times, and we need to be subject to that. But now, what was the Apostle Peter proclaiming on Pentecost? Well, a big reason why I spent the last two weeks in passages Peter addressed is so that we wouldn't have a long, involved sermon about his message. Again, go back on sermonaudio.com and listen to the past sermons if you weren't here for that, but we will summarize it today. First of all, verses 14-21, Peter quotes Joel 2 about salvation in the last days, about the outpouring of the Spirit in the last days, and the fact that that signals it is the last days and it is time to call on the Lord for salvation. But we see in verses 14-21 that the Spirit's work signals the arrival of the last days. If you look closely at the Old Testament text, it doesn't say in Joel that God says in the last days these things will happen. It says after this in the book of Joel, but Peter paraphrases here. Peter identifies these things as going to happen in the last days. We talked about what that means two weeks ago. But the really important thing, the really important connection in the minds of Peter's Jewish hearers here is that the last days were the days of the Messiah. So where's the Messiah? Well, he goes on in verses 22-36. to preach Christ, to preach that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ. He says in verses 22 through 36 that the Spirit's, excuse me, he doesn't say this, but we see that the Spirit's messengers here declare the arrival of the promised Christ. The Spirit's messengers declare the arrival of the promised Christ. He says to these people in Jerusalem, you all know Jesus of Nazareth. You know who he was. He worked divine miracles. You all know he worked these miracles that God gave him to do. And you all know that he was crucified, not too long ago in fact. He says that God delivered Jesus to an unjust death. Now think about that. God delivered Jesus over to a death that Jesus did not deserve. He says in Acts 2 verse 23, this man delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. Now this was going to be a struggle for his Jewish hearers to accept that God would let his Messiah be killed in this way, but that's what Peter is saying, that God planned this to happen this way. The fact that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified was not just because your rulers and in due crowds decided that he needed to be executed. The reason Jesus was crucified, even in such an unjust way, was because God planned it that way. This is part of God's plan which you did not foresee. It's like he said, it's like Peter and the other apostles said in Acts 4 when they were praying to the Lord, and they say, for truly in this city, Acts 4.27, in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, God, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur. So this is gonna be a shock to the Jewish listeners that the Messiah would be crucified and that would be God's plan? Well, Peter doesn't slow down here. It seems like he immediately goes to the next point, saying that was not the end of the story. Yes, the Messiah, Jesus, was crucified, but God raised Jesus to life. And to prove that, what does Peter do? He goes to the Old Testament. He goes to the Psalms of David, Jesus' distant ancestor. And if you're a Jew, you know that God has promised that the Messiah will be a descendant of David, a greater one than David, a king who would come from David. But Peter quotes Psalm 16 and says that David was not talking about himself. He was talking about his son that would be born in the distant future, the Messiah, God's anointed one, the promised deliverer. And Peter says, Psalm 16 predicted that Jesus would rise from the dead, that he would not be left to corruption in the grave, but he would rise to life. He says, look, David is still dead and buried. His tomb is with us to this day. David was not talking about himself. He was talking about the Messiah, and we all missed this. And he says, verse 30, and so, because David was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ that he was neither abandoned to Hades nor did his flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again to which we are all witnesses, that's our message, that's why we're here, even speaking in tongues, is to declare to you that Jesus is the Messiah and he is risen. And he says, Peter says the reason all these strange things are happening that you can't figure out today is because Jesus has not only risen but God has exalted Jesus to his right hand in heaven the place of authority and Jesus now has the authority so that he has poured out his spirit Right here for all of you to see and experience Now that he's received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, in verse 33, he has poured forth this which you both see and hear. And then he quotes Psalm 110, that David addressed the Messiah as even his Lord, his superior, and that he would be at God's right hand, exalted. So he closes out. that God exalted Jesus to reign. So, therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. He's made him Lord over all. We talked last week about how this was unprecedented that a man would be seated at God's right hand in the heavens reigning over all, but now the God-man, Christ Jesus, is in that position. He is Lord over all and He is the Anointed One, the Messiah, God's appointed Savior. And this is the one you just crucified. That's a stun. That's a slap of cold water in the face. Now, let's just stop for just a moment. Some of you, even today, might still not understand because Peter doesn't spend much time on this in the sermon. He spends most of his time saying that Jesus, in fact, is risen and that the Scriptures prophesied this. But you may still not understand why would God allow wicked men to crucify the Messiah? This, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1 and 2, this trips up many religious and many smart people. He says the cross, the message of the cross, is to the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks its foolishness. It's only to us who are saved that it is the wisdom and power of God. But it makes no sense, just in normal human thinking, that God would let a great prophet, let alone his own son, the Messiah, be crucified and die such a shameful death, such a torturous death. But we know that we have two basic answers to why God let his Messiah be crucified, and I would be wrong not to mention those this morning for your benefit. First of all, the Scriptures had to be fulfilled. Just like Peter says on the day of Pentecost that the Scriptures had to be fulfilled that Jesus would rise, the Scriptures also had to be fulfilled that Jesus would die, and that he would die this kind of a bloody death. So the Scriptures had to be fulfilled, and in order for him to rise, as predicted, he had to die. But he had to die a certain kind of death. And so that brings us to the second reason this had to be, and that is that sin demands death. Sin demands death. And our last and third point this morning from the passage will tell us more about that. how that works. Why? Because sin demands death. Why does that mean that Jesus died on the cross, had to die on the cross? Well, in verses 37 through 47 in Acts 2, we see that the Holy Spirit's message calls sinners to Christ as their Savior. The Holy Spirit's message calls sinners to Christ as their Savior. Notice the reaction of the Jewish crowds here to Peter's message. Verse 37. Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, Be saved from this perverse generation. So then those who had received his word were baptized, and that day there were added about 3,000 souls. They were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone kept feeling a sense of awe. In many wonders and signs were taking place through the apostles, and all those who had believed were together and had all things in common. And they began selling their property and possessions and were sharing them with all as anyone might have need. Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And, here's the important part, the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved. So remember I said the overall emphasis of this third and last section is that the Holy Spirit's message calls sinners to Christ as their Savior. Because sinners must turn to Jesus Christ for his forgiveness and for his Spirit. Sinners must turn to Jesus Christ for his forgiveness and his Spirit. When Peter's audience asks what they must do since they have just crucified their Messiah, and they have up till now been in rejection towards God's anointed one. Peter says in verse 38, Notice he promises if they will repent, turn from their previous thoughts and their previous way of life, turn to identify with Jesus Christ. And he mentions baptism here because that would be the big outward step that would show that they are identifying with Jesus Christ publicly. But the big emphasis is on repentance. If they will turn to Jesus Christ, then he will give them two things, forgiveness and his spirit. You see, Christ died to pay sin's penalty. We said a moment ago that Jesus had to die because sin requires death. But Jesus, in his own ministry, said the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many. Remember, even earlier in the sermon, we said that God handed over Jesus, delivered him over to a death that Jesus did not deserve at the hands of wicked people. Jesus was not a helpless martyr or victim in this situation. He was doing it willingly because He didn't deserve that death, but we did. In the death of the cross, God poured out His hot anger on sin. He poured that out against His own Son so that those who would be united to His Son by faith would be spared that penalty and would be forgiven of their sins. Galatians 3 verse 10 says, for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse. That is, anyone who is trying to keep God's law is cursed. For it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them. And then down in verse 13, Paul says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. And then there's the famous section in 2 Corinthians 5 where Paul says we are ambassadors for Christ begging people to be reconciled to God because God made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. A transaction had to be made if God would have anyone in his kingdom, if anyone would be saved from God's judgment. And so God placed the penalty of sin and the guilt of sin on his own son and then carried out the sentence against sin, but he carried it out on his own son. And those who turn to Jesus Christ in repentant faith, Peter mentions here, those who place their trust for their deliverance, for their salvation on Jesus Christ alone and on his work and their behalf alone, they have forgiveness, as Peter said. He said, repent, and be baptized, but being baptized is part of the idea of repentance, repent for the forgiveness of your sins. And so we are promised forgiveness of sins. Now what's this about the gift of the Holy Spirit? He said you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit if you repent and are baptized, if you identify with Jesus Christ as your Lord. Well, the Spirit applies Christ's sacrifice to our hearts and transforms us to do God's will from the heart. We could go to a lot of scripture about this, but let me just mention John 3, where Jesus told Nicodemus, a very religious man who had come to him at nighttime to learn more. Jesus told Nicodemus, unless a man is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He cannot experience God's blessing of eternal life. And then Jesus rephrased this by saying, unless a man is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Water and the Spirit. Jesus is borrowing language from Ezekiel 36, where God promised that he would, in the last days, do a special work for certain people. And that work would be that he would sprinkle clean water on them, They would be clean from all their filthiness and all their idols. And another way God describes that cleansing work is the fact that he would put his spirit within them and cause them to walk in his statutes and be careful to observe his ordinances. God says, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. So we have forgiveness in Christ, yes. But if we have Christ's salvation, we have a lot more than just bare forgiveness. We have God's spirit sent to reside in us, and what does that mean? God is everywhere present. What does that mean he's now inside me? Well, it means he's working inside of you to create and sustain spiritual life and vigor and holiness and likeness to Jesus Christ in the end. There's a lot more we could say about that, but moving on to verses 41 through 47, Verses 41 through 47, whole sermons can be preached from this section. But the big idea here is that Christ's salvation incorporates sinners into his church. The idea of being saved, of being a sinner saved by God's grace, doesn't just mean that you individually are now forgiven and on your way to heaven. It also means God has made you part of a body of people. the church, as they started functioning on this day of Pentecost, it talks about how then these people did not say, yes, my sins are forgiven, I've been baptized, now I'm just going to go on my merry way. No, they're now part of a new body of believers, and they are continually together, living in harmony together, devoting themselves to several things, to the apostles' teaching, which we now have in the New Testament, to fellowship, to what they have in common in Jesus Christ, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. And then it mentions that at this time the apostles were continuing to work signs and miracles among them. And these believers shared what they had with each other. This still applies to us, folks. We should be very willing to share what we have with each other because we are one body in Christ. And if a part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers. But this is a picture of living together in harmony as Christ's church. And that's what Pentecost ultimately is all about. That's what Pentecost produced. Not just sinners saved by God's grace, though that is true. It produced a church that is a functioning church. And this is all connected to the work of the Spirit because the Spirit-baptized church is the temple of God. Remember we talked about how God's glory was pictured as coming down on this day of Pentecost. And the glory of the Lord, the glory of Jesus Christ, fills us, his people, and the person and the power of the Holy Spirit. And so God's Spirit is empowering us for things like building the temple up. adding people to this temple, adding believers in Jesus Christ, building them up in the faith till they are like Jesus Christ. And it empowers us for temple worship. That's why we're here this morning. This has been promised throughout the scripture and for sake of time I won't go there. But Ephesians 2 sums it up nicely when it says that, so then, Ephesians 2 19, we Gentiles are no longer strangers and aliens, but we are fellow citizens with the saints and are of God's household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the spirit. Now we've said a lot this morning, but let me bring you back to the main point. The main point, once again, is that Jesus has sent his spirit to proclaim his saving reign. And in a great and wonderful sense, we in the church already have the foretaste of Jesus' saving reign. He has already saved us from our sins. And he already rules over us. In fact, he rules over all creation, we are told, for our benefit already. And one day that rule will be made very visible on earth. But Jesus has sent his Spirit to proclaim his saving reign, and how does the Spirit proclaim that saving reign? Through us. That's our job. That's why we're here. So a few questions. Have you received Jesus as your Savior and King? And if so, are you about the Spirit's business of proclaiming Christ's saving reign? Does your life revolve around that? And that's really what this means. Your life needs to revolve around this, and this is not some little compartment off in the side areas of your life. Because that is the point of Pentecost, proclaiming the lordship and salvation of Jesus Christ. The point of Pentecost is not some warm, wonderful experience or feeling that I individually, personally experience, which makes me feel close to God. There are true and good experiences about the Christian life, but the point of Pentecost is proclamation. Proclaiming Jesus Christ to the world and gathering in the nations as Christ's own people. We have the Pentecostal power of Christ's Spirit. Did you know we're a Pentecostal church? Not the way that term has been abused. but we have that Pentecostal power right now. We do not have the apostolic signs because we have all we need in the record of that right here. But we do have the apostles' teaching to which we can devote ourselves and we do have the power of Christ's Spirit to change lives. It's time we use that power. Let's close in prayer. Lord, we thank you for the great provision you've made for us. Help us to act as the holy priesthood you intend us to be, that you have in fact made us, as the holy temple, your temple in this world, throughout this world in this age. We are so unworthy of your holy presence and glory at work in our lives, us unclean sinners. But we ask you to be at work within our lives to make us pure and fit vessels for your use. And we ask you to realign our entire lives so that our lives, every aspect of our lives, all revolve around this work of the Spirit in this age. We also ask that if anyone is here who has not been born of the Spirit, who has not been transformed from the inside out by the message of Jesus Christ, that they will be transformed today, that they will place their repentant faith, their trust for salvation in Jesus Christ. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen.