37 through 41. Beloved, this is God's Word. Now when they heard this, these are those who are listening to Peter who is preaching on the day of Pentecost. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words he bore witness, and continued to exhort them, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received the word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls." Would you pray with me once again? Fr. Collins, we continue to reflect upon this glorious day that we know as Pentecost or the Christian Pentecost. I pray that you would speak to us as we look and reflect upon the response of these listeners to the sermon that Peter preaches. I pray that you would be glorified in that. And I pray that these words of Peter, these words that are brought together, may not just simply fall on idle ears, but that you would use these words to build up the faith of your own, and even call those to faith if there are those who do not have faith. And Father, I pray that you would be glorified in us, and that we would seek indeed, in every way, to be about building your church, and glorifying You. I pray, too, for a day that we might see a revival, or we might see and say in such a time that we saw 3,000 people, 3,000 souls coming to faith in Jesus Christ as a result of one sermon. What a powerful time it was, and a glorious day that was. Give us the privilege of seeing another day like that, that You bring revival. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Pentecost is about a lot of different things. We've begun talking about Pentecost the last several weeks. But one of the most essential things that Pentecost is about, is about fulfillment. Fulfillment of promise that is found in Scripture. We've already spoken about how Peter states in this chapter, verse 16, that this is a fulfillment, that what they see, what the people see in terms of the tongue speaking is a fulfillment of Joel. Chapter 2, verses 28 through 32. The power of the Holy Spirit coming upon the people, the early church that day, not only in the beginning of this chapter, but that Peter speaks about now, that if you repent and be baptized, the Spirit will come upon you as a fulfillment of John 14, 12. It's also, in a very real sense, a fulfillment of Ezekiel's valley of dry bones and making Israel rise again. Israel, not national Israel. That's not what Ezekiel is speaking about. He's speaking about the church. He's speaking about the spiritual Israel, true Israel of God. One of the errors that the Jews of Jesus' day fell into is that they believed that the Messiah was there to restore a national people, that the Messiah's role was about real estate in the land. And as a result, they missed Christ. They missed Him totally in terms of who He was and what He was doing. Sadly, even in the Christian Church, there are segments of the Christian Church that miss that entirely, even still today, and they fall into errors as a result of that. These promises, again, are not about real estate. It's about re-establishing the people of God, those who descend from Abraham, if you will, as Paul writes, who are the true seed, descending through Christ. Not necessarily descending through biology. That's Galatians 3.29, by the way. Again, the descendants of Abraham are not those who biologically descended, but it's those who are in Christ by faith. And this is what you see taking place there at Pentecost. What we also here have is a fulfillment of a covenant promise that God made to the people in Deuteronomy chapter 30 verse 4. God promises them, in the context of Him restoring them, if your outcasts are in the uttermost parts of heaven, From there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will take you. Remember what's going on here. The very beginning of the chapter, we have all these people together, and verse 5 reads that they are gathered from every nation under heaven. This is what Moses is speaking about in Deuteronomy chapter 30. That people are gathered from every nation under heaven. Verse 11 speaks about both Jews and proselytites. And proselytites is a big fancy word, but proselytites are not Jews. They're not ethnic Jews. There are those people who are Gentiles, who are not Jews, who come to faith, and out of that faith enter into the body. They didn't become circumcised to become complete Jews, but they were God-fearers. worshiping God in the temple, following Jesus. This is what is taking place. Your Gentiles, just like you and me, are being brought together. Not a Diaspora kind of thing, not a Ten Lost Tribes kind of thing, that if you follow the internet kind of thing, some of the conspiracy there. They've got all kinds of fun things about that. Not a black Israelites kind of thing. This is a Gentile thing where God is taking his people from all of the nations under heaven and gathering them together at this day for Pentecost to establish his church, a multinational church, the first multinational church, arguably, that was established there, except for maybe a couple exceptions to the Jewish church across the ages. But again, it's a fulfillment of those promises that God had made to gather the people from under the heavens. This is a unique event in the life of the church, a unique event in the life of God's people that will never be repeated in the same way exactly, but this is what God is doing. This is kind of what Paul speaks about in 2 Corinthians 1 verse 20, where he speaks about all of the covenantal promises, find their yes in Christ. Why do they find their yes in Christ? Because though they were given to a Jewish people, they weren't for the Jewish nation, they were for the believers within that nation. And so the Gentiles being added to the role, if you will, of believers, they enter into those promises that can be found only in Christ alone. And thus, our lives, if you will, even seal up that testimony that this is true. That would be the next two verses down in 2 Corinthians 1 verse 22. So again, who's listening to Peter's sermon? Yes, the mockers, they're listening to Peter's sermon. That's how he begins. But people from every tongue and nation and tribe, and that's fulfilling. Deuteronomy 30 verse 4. And those who heard now, who listened to the sermon of Peter are convicted Literally Luke will write in verse 37 that they were pierced to the heart. Or some of your Bibles may say cut to the heart, depending on the phraseology there. This is really important language. Why is this phrase significant there? Because again, this is the Deuteronomy 30 connection. Because a couple verses down from verse 4, verse 6, still part of that whole promise that God is giving the people in their repentance, that He's going to restore them. We find these words, and the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring so that you will love the Lord with your whole hearts and with all your soul for the sake of your life. He's circumcising hearts. Paul writes in Romans 2.29, but the Jew is one inwardly, not an outward thing, not a physiological thing. And circumcision doesn't make you a Jew, he goes on to say. And circumcision is a matter of the heart. True circumcision. by the spirits and not by the letter. It's talking about the letter of the law, that phraseology there, or the document. His praise is not from men, but from God. Do you see what he's saying there? He's saying that if you are a Jew, to be a Jew, Again, it's not about a physical circumcision. It's about a spiritual circumcision that comes by faith. Comes through the Spirit. Comes by faith in Jesus Christ. These people are being cut to the hearts. God's beginning that process of circumcising them. Or circumcising their hearts. And as a result of that heart circumcision that they are receiving. that piercing, if you will, that they are receiving, they are responding to the Word of God. God is circumcising their hearts, and those whose hearts had been circumcised responded. Not everybody, but those whose hearts God had circumcised responded. Do you want to know the difference between somebody who is genuinely born again in the light of the church and somebody who is just kind of part of the church? You know, because the right thing to do is because it's what we've always done, because a lot of reasons. And the answer in the most basic form has to do with the circumcision of the heart in response to the Word. How do you respond to the Word of God? How do people respond to the Word of God? Do you just hear the Word and move on with your life? Or do the words of Scripture convict you of your sin and move you to change? There's your difference between what we sometimes call the invisible church and within the visible church. Those are your difference between your born-again believer in the church and those people who are in the church for a variety of reasons, not necessarily bad reasons, but who aren't necessarily born-again Christians. Apply this to yourself. Apply the question to yourself. How do you respond to the Word of God? If the Scriptures have left no discernible impact on the way that you live your life, you may have become a Jew by the letter, to use Paul's language, or a Christian by the letter, and are not one by the Spirit's. Examine your heart. Pray that the Holy Spirit would give you that circumcision so that you can genuinely repent and believe in the Lord Jesus. Next week when we come together, we will be coming together around the Lord's table. And part of that is a recognition that we have spent time examining the state of our hearts. And thus we fence the table. We say, if you are not a born-again believer, don't partake. If you are a born-again believer but are still holding on to sin that is unrepentant, don't partake. It's good for your soul not to partake. But if you have asked for forgiveness, if you have sought to reconcile, all of those areas that we talk about over and over again, then come to the table because it is good to nourish your souls. But you need to examine your hearts. You need to examine to see whether that heart is circumcised or whether you've allowed the calluses, if you will, to build up. Our Bibles will sometimes translate Psalm 119 as calluses, but actually the word that's there is fat. It's kind of this thick blubber kind of thing that basically is hard to cut through and surrounds our heart so that it doesn't beat right, doesn't work the way it should. Those whose hearts are circumcised hear the Word of God, and their response is to be broken at that point in time in Pentecost, and to cry out, what shall we do? Beloved, if that's not your cry, and when you look at your sin, if that's not your heart's cry when you hear the Word and it convicts you of something that you're not doing or that you are doing, depending on the context of the Word, then again, ask God to work in your life and bring you to that repentance. The answer that Peter gives them is to repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. I want to take that phrase apart and spend most of our time this morning really digging into that phrase because it's really, really important for us to wrap our heads and our lives around these words. Repents. In Greek the word is metanoeo and the word meta we hear refers to a change as a prefix. Noeo refers to our minds. So it's a change of mind. It's a change of ideas. It's a change of your worldview. And typically in Greek, when mennoeo is used, that word that we translate as repent, over and over and over again, that word there comes with it the connotations that you are not only changing your mind, but you feel remorse over the ideas that you had once held to be true. prior to being converted. Let's illustrate that just for a minute here. Have you ever had an idea? Doesn't matter how strongly you held to that idea, but have you ever had an idea that you held to be true and then one day somebody confronted you and showed you that that idea was wrong? What did you do? Did you stick to your guns and say, I don't care whether that idea is wrong, I'm going to stick to it anyway because I like it. That's kind of an irrational thing to do. You know, that's the purpose of teachers going in and saying, you know, I know, little Johnny, you think 3 times 4 is 13, but it really isn't. 3 times 4 is 12. You know, you haven't learned your math tables well enough, or however the newest common core math teaches that. I learned by memorizing tables. But it's irrational for little Johnny to hold that it's 13 when it really is 12. I mean, there's so many things like that that we can talk about. As a kid, when I was little, I remember being taught in school that Christopher Columbus was the guy that discovered the world was round. Then later on in school, somebody said, well, you know this guy by the name of Pythagoras, who lived a long time before Christopher Columbus, and he's the guy that mathematically demonstrated the world was round. All Christopher Columbus was doing was trying to find a trade route going the other way. Huh. It kind of shakes your worldview when things like that come. But the question is, what do you do with that? That happens in spiritual areas too in our lives. When I grew up, I was taught evolution. I was taught atheistic evolution in school. You know, it all happened by random chance over long periods of time and stuff along those lines. That's what I was taught and instructed in. And in church I was taught evolution. It was kind of a theistic evolution, where basically evolution, everything those guys say is true with the exception that we're not atheists. God kind of pushed it along and worked through. And Genesis 1 and 2 doesn't really have to match anything in your science, because Genesis 1 and 2 is just kind of this big cosmology that describes And kind of this, this kind of, if you know what a porcua tale is from folklore, what that refers to are those stories that tell you how something came about. You know, how did the sun, why does the sun rise? Well, because a spider jumped across. They treated it just like that. That's how I was taught in church as well as school. Never even gave it a second thought. And sadly, I confess that I taught that when I became, because I had never, I had never, it was even until I was almost to seminary that somebody began challenging me with a real, actually a solid set of challenging reasons to rethink what I had been taught. And it wasn't until I was in seminary that I became convicted that I had been in error on those things. And I grieved that error. I grieved the fact that I had taught and misled people at different times, and where I still had contacts with some of those people, I tried to correct that. That's what it means by repenting. And by the way, for what it's worth, and it's not worth that much, but for what it's worth, you will find in our community that this guy that grew up as a theistic evolutionist has become probably one of the most vocal advocates of God's creation in six days, resting on the seventh, that you will find in terms of the pastoral community anywhere around. Repentance means to change your mind change your attitude towards what you once thought was okay. And Christian repentance means that I recognize that those things that I once thought were okay are also displeasing to God. I was misrepresenting God's Word. That's displeasing to God. And so I repented of that and never taught the error ever again. Folks, what it means to repent is important for us to grasp. Because repentance is not just asking for forgiveness. It's reflecting that I'm asking for forgiveness and my lifestyle is changing in light of that forgiveness for which I have asked. So repentance is not saying, I'm sorry and then continuing to live the life that you once lived in the way that you lived it. And repentance is also not doing something that you know darn well you ought not do. Because I'm going to ask for forgiveness later. That's not what repentance is all about. Christian repentance is a recognition that what you have said or done or thought does not please God and that you have a sincere and heartfelt conviction that you will never, ever, ever think in the former ways that you thought or ever think that those former ways are acceptable. Christian repentance is a change in your thinking that brings about a change in your living. Let me say that again. Christian repentance is a change in your thinking that brings about a change in your living. You need to get that. and live that. It's a rejection of the old ways, but it's also a replacing of those old ways with a new way of life that pleases God. To borrow the analogy that Paul, the Apostle, uses in Romans 6, verses 3 and 4, he talks about our baptism. We're baptized into Christ's death and are buried with Christ and raised to newness of life. And how is it that we can continue on sinning when we've gone through that? What he's saying is basically this. Think about Lazarus. He died and was placed in the grave and Jesus rose and brought him out from the grave again. Think about him being cleansed from those dirty, filthy rags, the shroud that he had been wrapped in and things along those lines. Think of him washed from the remains of death that were, he was clothed in. Why would he even for a moment say to his sisters, yeah, I know I was raised from there, but I find that cave to be kind of comfortably cool in the summertime, so I'm gonna go and I'm gonna sleep back there with the dead bones. Wrap myself back up in these limbs. Paul is saying, look guys, if you've been redeemed by Christ, to go back to your own sinful ways is as crazy and irrational as it would be for Lazarus to do that. Your ways, your life should be different. Reflecting the repentance that you make. Reflecting the change that God has worked in your life. But Peter doesn't stop with repentance. He goes on to say, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ. Now the language there may surprise you a little bit because we separate, typically, baptism a little bit from one's conversion. Let me explain what's going on here and explain because you often times hear me say that when you evangelize, you should say, repent and believe. Which by the way is biblical. This is the language that Jesus uses when He begins His own preaching ministry in Mark 1 verse 15. It is also based on the language that Paul writes in Romans 10 verses 9 through 13, where he speaks about confessing with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised Him from the dead. Confession, in terms of Jesus' Lordship, presumes repentance. Why? Because if we confess Jesus as Lord, we cease to believe that we're the Lords of our own life, or the world is the Lord of our own life. And thus, as a result, we submit to His will, to His law, to His commands, instead of the things that we might want to do. Jesus says in John 14, 15, If you love Me, You will obey me. He also says in Matthew 6, 24, No man can serve two masters. He will either hate the one and love the other. So the key is take your pick. By the way, that's question five in the Heidelberg Catechism. Take your pick. Who are you going to serve? Jesus or yourself? Jesus or your flesh? Jesus or the world? that it be Jesus if you are a born-again believer. But if it is Jesus that you are serving, that means the commands that Jesus gives to both you and me are not optional. It's not like going to a smorgasbord and saying, you know, I'd like a little bit of that righteousness and maybe top it off with a little bit of that goodness and kindness over there, but, you know, Those? No. Leave the patience on the table. I don't want any of that patience. And that self-control. Maybe just a little seasoning of that, but I really don't want very much of that. It's not a smorgasbord. We don't get to pick and choose in terms of the fruit of the Spirit, in terms of things that God commands for us. And that means when we are taught in the scriptures that we are called to love our brethren, our brothers and sisters in Christ, sacrificially, it's not an option, it's an obligation. That when we are to attend to the preaching of the Word and gather for worship, it's not an option, it's an obligation. That when we are to forgive others, even when we don't really want to, It's an obligation, it's not an option. And we're to focus upon giving to others rather than receiving from others. Again, that's not an option, it's an obligation. We're called to make disciples of the nations by baptizing and teaching them everything that Jesus taught. Recognizing that that begins in our homes and it begins in our neighborhoods and continues out from there, that is not an option, it is an obligation if we are going to serve Jesus Christ. If these things are there, they should be a part of our lives. And if they're not a part of our lives, or we're not trying and working to make them a part of our lives, we need to confess. And we need to repent of our sins and follow the Lord Jesus Christ. Because if you profess one thing with your mouth and live in a way that is different from that in your life, then we call that hypocritical. And Jesus said some pretty hard things to those people who were described as hypocrites. So repent and believe does have sound biblical footing. It's part of our evangelistic message. But Peter says something a little bit different. He says, repent and be baptized. Recognizing that if you're going to do that, you're already starting that process of believing. Remember, they've been cut to the heart. It's the work of the Holy Spirit regenerating them. The answer to what this baptism thing goes back to this idea that we find in the Great Commission. To baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. And teach them everything that Jesus had taught them to obey. See, baptism is a covenantal sign. That you are under Jesus' headship. That He is the Lord. He is your mediator between God and man. Remember 1 Corinthians 10 verses 1-4, where Paul the Apostle is writing, and he's of course bringing us into the sacraments, but he says that the people of Israel were baptized into Moses as they crossed the Red Sea. Here, as they crossed the Red Sea, the people of God were making a public declaration that they were no longer Pharaoh's slaves. Pharaoh was not their master, and Moses would be their master and leader. And by the way, they carried their babies through. They were part of the covenant. They didn't say, we're going to leave our babies behind until they're old enough to make that decision on their own. But they carried their babies through, and made that profession on behalf of their children, in the hopes that their children would live out that faith, when they indeed became old enough to do so. And thus, as Christians, we have a greater Moses, who is Jesus. And so we're no longer baptized into Moses, we're baptized into Jesus. And so, too, we continue to baptize our children into Jesus. Just as those children were baptized into Moses back then, as Paul is speaking in 1 Corinthians 10. So, we're baptized in Jesus' name. Name of the Trinity. So, Peter, in his preaching, he says, repent. Change your mind, change your worldview and be baptized. Enter into the covenant made for you and confirmed for you by Christ and not by Moses. And thus circumcision of the flesh is not of any value. Baptism supersedes and replaces that circumcision. Again, we do that with adult converts who've never been baptized, but we do it for children of believers, as Peter would say in 1 Peter 3.21, as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Our prayer, whenever we baptize a little one, is that the baptism and everything that it symbolizes will one day become real when the Lord regenerates that child's heart and that child, he or she, becomes born again. And it leads us to verse 39. For this promise, Peter continues, is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone who the Lord calls to himself. Two points to make. First, again, remember our fulfillment of Deuteronomy 30 verse four. This is what we have here. This is covenantal language here. This is what we're seeing, is God working this out. That this is not going to end here with this random sampling there in Jerusalem. But it's going to continue as the church grows beyond that. And true Israel in the church will spread across the nations. Second thing, again, this is covenantal language. This is language that you hear throughout the Old Testament. given to God's church here at Pentecost, essentially being reinstated as part of the covenants. God did not work through just Israel in the Old Testament and now through the church in the New Testament, kind of one replacing the other. But God was always drawing his elect remnant to himself, first through national Israel, and now the inclusion of the Gentiles, his church going from Eden to the new creation, a continuing church from beginning to end. If I can compare Pentecost's event a little bit as an analogy to the Reformation that took place, there are a lot of differences that the Reformers had, but the Reformers were of one mind. that Rome had departed from the teachings of the Bible and of the early church fathers. And thus the reformers said that they weren't really departing from Rome, but Rome had already departed from them. These guys were the true remnants. In denying Jesus, The Jews had also denied Moses. Jesus says as much himself. He says, if you believed Moses, you would believe me. Because Moses spoke of me, Jesus says. So in denying Jesus, the Jews also denied Moses, and they ceased to be God's covenant people. So God is once again renewing the covenant to a people He is making and has made His own. It's for the church. It's for the children of those who believe. And it's for all of those from far off that will come and enter into the covenant. Deuteronomy 30 verse 4, all over again. And for whom is it? It is for those the Lord calls to Himself, Peter says. This is the doctrine of election. It's predicated not on our choice or our choosing. It's predicated on God's call. God initiates our salvation. He brings about our salvation. He works in salvation. It's all about what God does and not what we do. Otherwise, Paul writes in Romans 11.6, the grace would no longer be grace. And so verse 40, we're told that Peter continued to exhort them with many other words. Like I said at the beginning, we get parts of sermons. We sometimes get whole sermons. But we're not always given the whole sermon that is given. So Peter continues preaching to them and exhorting them. And the summary of everything else he says is, save yourself from this crooked generation. It's not about you saving your soul from this generation. It's separate yourself. That's what Paul would write in 2 Corinthians 6, 17. Be separate. Don't make the world your life. but separate yourself from the world so that your life looks different from the world. Don't ally yourself with them. And so as a result, verse 41, 3,000 members were added to the church. The church grew that day by a factor of 25. Not so bad if you like to count numbers. That's a very special thing that had taken place. It was a revival that was taking place. But notice the language. and the priority given to the language. Those who received His Word were baptized and thus entered into. The Word of God is first. Preaching of the Word is the way that God is pleased to work. And so I kind of pose this as we wrap up this morning. About receiving the Word. Because I think it's safe to say that all of us would desire to see revival again, whether it's in our church, our community, in our nation, or heck, in the world. I mean, I don't know any born-again believer that says, no, I'd hate to see that take place. But we don't do it, we don't make it take place by putting it on a calendar. And a lot of churches will say, we're going to schedule revival for such and such a weekend. And I get what they're trying to do, but the way it gets communicated is a little bit goofy. Because, again, the Holy Spirit doesn't respond to our desires. We follow the Holy Spirit's leading. But even though we might not put it on our calendars, we can pray. We can pray that God would bring revival to our land once again. We've seen it before in our nation. We can pray that we can see it once again, maybe in our lifetimes. But as we do so, we need to recognize that that revival, biblically and also historically, true revival revolves around a renewed commitment to the Word of God and responding to it. And that begins individually and as a local church. If you want revival, pray for it, but also renew your commitment to the Word of God, studying it and applying it to every aspect of your life so that you might live it and repent and believe. And if there are those of you who have not been baptized, If you're a believer, be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, in the name of our triune God. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise You.