Transcript
Listen, we're going to take a break from Matthew for this morning because as a church, and as I was saying at the beginning of the service, there is just this organic growth. Like right now, my grass needs to be desperately cut in my yard. Some of you don't have a yard, you have a patio in the back. I have a yard and there's grass that's just growing up. That's called being organic. There's this organic spiritual thing that's happening in our church where we're reading through the Bible, we're coming together on Sunday, and without me giving you permission or asking anything of you, stuff's going on in your own hearts. And so the baptism is a part of that. The volunteering and the compassion center is a part of that. The giving is a part of that. There's just a lot of things going on where it's like, hey, this is is the one who's at work. God's the one who's touching your heart. So this morning we're going to do a baptism and I'm going to walk you through just the Book of Acts, the first baptism that the church did. Does that sound good? The first baptism, okay. So what I want you to do is I want you to look in your Bibles at the Book of Acts. So the way that your Bible is organized is you have the New Testament, you have the book of Matthew, mark, Luke, and John. Those are the gospels.
And then you have the Book of Acts. And so we're going to look at Acts 2 22 and I want to get into the thirties. And what we're going to do is, and this might be different for some of you that haven't been to our church before, but we're small enough where there's a little bit of discussion that can happen in here. So if we have questions that come up, that's okay, we can answer some questions because what I want to do is just we believe that the Bible is the word of God and that God speaks to us through the Bible and the way that we do life and do church is based on the Bible. So we're going to just see, well, what does the Bible say? Why do we do baptism? We're going to look at it this morning. Does that sound good?
Does everybody have So I have it behind me. Can you see it? You want me to try to make my, can you see that very well or is it small? Alright. Lemme see if I can make it any, it's as big as I can make the letters. Okay, let's pray together. And what we're going to do when we pray is I'm going to ask for God to speak to us individually. Now, I'm up here talking, but God's spirit is able to speak to us individually in our hearts, and he's able to kind of connect the dots in our brains as we're looking at this to work in our emotions. And so that's what we want to pray. We want to basically give God permission to work in our lives. God, we do yield this time to you. We pray that you would speak to us and that you would teach us.
Thank you for what you're doing in our church. This is exciting. I feel like a spectator as I watch just your spirit working in hearts. Thank you for the obedience of those that are going to get baptized today. I pray that you would just bless them this morning as they take this step of obedience. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. So Jesus dies on the cross, is raised from the dead, and then after 40 days what happens to him? The ascension. That's right. So he's on a mountain with his followers, with his disciples, and all of a sudden he goes up into the clouds and there's some angels that are there and they say, why you look it up in heaven? Go back into Jerusalem. Wait for the promise of the Father. He's going to come again, just like he told you, right? So the disciples go back to Jerusalem and they're praying together for 10 days because all they know is that Jesus told them, wait, excuse me, wait in Jerusalem until the promise of the Father comes, the Spirit is given to you.
Then 10 days later, you have the day of Pentecost. Now, it just so happens that today is a celebration of Pentecost. It's been 50 days since Easter. And on Pentecost, it's a celebration. It's a celebration of the Holy Spirit coming down on those first believers. And now, I don't know, some of you grew up in different church settings, but the Holy Spirit is God's spirit that comes upon followers of Jesus to empower them to be a witness of Jesus. It's not so you have tingly skin or what do you call that? Or magical powers. It's not so that you can turn your fillings into gold or have feathers come down. It's not about that. Jesus was really clear. I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is so that you can accomplish the mission, the purpose for why you were saved.
Anyway, this crazy thing happens and all of a sudden the people in Jerusalem hear the disciples speaking about God's glory in their own language. Now, whether they're speaking Aramaic and it's being translated, we don't know, but somehow this crazy God thing happens and everybody there in Jerusalem is hearing about God and they come running together. What is this now? This is in the morning. It's at the temple where everybody's praying. So there's a whole crowd there and there's some people in the crowd going, this is kind of crazy. It's a little, maybe these people are drunk. And so Peter stands up and he goes, listen, it's nine in the morning. That's not usually unless you got a real bad drinking problem, that's not usually when that happens, right? This is actually, God is at work. This is the spirit of God working and empowering his people.
And he quotes from the book of Joel, he says, this was already prophesied about, this was already guaranteed to happen. So Peter becomes the pastor, right? He begins teaching. He has a sermon. And what I want to do is I want to pick it up in verse 22, where he says, fellow Israelites, you Jewish people listen to these words. This Jesus of Nazareth, he was a man attested to you by God with miracles. So in other words, the miracles that Jesus did, those were a testimony. They were a witness to you by God. There was miracles, wonders, signs that God did among you through him and you know it. So God kind of put his stamp of approval on Jesus, the Son, through those miracles. Are you tracking with me? Okay, good. Verse 23, though he was delivered up according to God's determined plan and foreknowledge, you used lawless people to nail him to a cross and you killed him. So Peter, this is called Peter's going for here in this sermon because he's saying you are the ones that crucified him. You're the ones that nailed him to the cross. But that's not the end of the story, is it? Because what happens in verse 24, God raised him from the dead ending the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held by death. Here's my first question. Thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Thank you. Why was it not possible for Jesus to be held by death when they killed Jesus? Why didn't he stay dead? Because God raised him up because he was the satisfactory payment. So Jesus was perfect. We are not perfect. We've talked about this over and over again as a church. The Bible says that everyone who is born has sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Now, that doesn't mean that you're all bad. You've done good things this week. There are very good things that you've done this week, but you're not perfect. In fact, the Bible says nobody is perfect. Only Jesus was perfect. And so when he was offered on the cross for our sins, when he died on the cross, it was not possible for him to be held by death. Because what's death? What is death? Wages of sin. That's right.
The wages of sin is death, right? So people whose sin die, right? People whose sin are dying, that was Genesis chapter three. In the day you eat of it, you will surely die. Did they eat of it? Yes. Did they die? They began to die. They didn't just die physically, they died spiritually. They're separated from God hiding in the garden from God's presence. They're separated, their relationships died, right? You had all of a sudden animosity between Adam and Eve because Adam's blaming Eve saying, she fed me. It is her fault. And she's like, well, it's a serpent's fault. They're blaming each other. There was psychological death that occurred because there's shame. So death has reigned through humanity. And so God sends his son Jesus and God attests or bears witness to his son Jesus through these miracles and wonders, he has allowed him. It's according to God's determined plan.
God planned and allowed him to be crucified by lawless people. Nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead. Now, who's this sermon for? Who's it addressed to? The Israelites? So the audience is very Jewish. Are you very Jewish? Last time I checked, there's not many Jewish people that come to this church. Maybe in the future, but not today. Now. So what Peter does when he's preaching this sermon is he goes through and he quotes from the Psalms about what David says, and that Psalm is a prophecy about, listen, Jesus is not going to stay dead. The Messiah who's coming is not going to stay dead. We're going to skip over that and we're going to go to verse 29. So Peter says to these Israelites, he says, brothers and sisters, I can confidently speak to you about the patriarch David. He is both dead and buried and his tomb is with us.
To this day, since he was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn an oath to him to seat one of his descendants on his throne. So this is all Peter talking about the prophecy from Psalms that he's just quoted now, verse 31, seeing what was to come. He spoke concerning the resurrection of the Messiah, and this is the quote again from Psalms. He was not abandoned in Hades and his flesh did not experience decay. So here's what Peter's doing, okay? Listen, Peter is coming to his Jewish brothers and sisters and he's saying, the Messiah was promised to us as a people. Now we've talked about the Messiah, but the Messiah is this Jewish hope, not just a king, not just a prophet, not just a priest, all of it packaged together. It is the hope of the world packaged into one person that's the Messiah.
And the Messiah is prophesied to not stay dead, to be raised. And so Peter's saying, listen, listen, my brothers and sisters the Messiah, Jesus has been raised from the dead. Now, those of you that are getting baptized, this is really important because when I put you in the water in a few minutes, I'm not going to leave you in the water. You should say amen. Amen. Because you don't want to stay in the water. You want to come back out of the water, right? You see, baptism is a reenactment of what God did with Jesus in raising him up from the dead. That resurrection symbolized it was real, but it also symbolized the end of death's reign. And so when you come up out of the water, it is a symbol and it is a reenactment and a testimony to all of us that are watching that death no longer reigns over your body.
You were born a sinner. You have violated God's will and you're guilty before God. But when you prayed and you had that conversation with God and you said, God, I'm ready to repent and turn to you, he forgave your sins. And when you get baptized in a few minutes and you come up out of that water, you're telling everybody else, look at me. Look at what God's done in my life. Death no longer reigns over me. Do you understand that there's pieces of death that has its hold on you. There's pieces of shame that's still there. There's still conflict, but those are just shadows that are fleeing away as God has more and more and more control over your life. Amen? Amen. Should we keep going? Yes, I think we should. Okay. So here it says in verse 32, God has raised Jesus. He has raised not just any because Jesus was kind of a popular name.
So he says he's raised this Jesus, and we're all witnesses to this, okay? We've seen it. Therefore, since he has been exalted to the right hand of God, remember he was raised, Jesus was raised, he's ascended, and now at the right hand of God and has received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit. Okay? So here's the trinity. Okay? So Jesus ascends to heaven. He's seated at the right hand of the Father, right? The Father gives to the Son the Holy Spirit, right here He is received from the Father, the promise of the Holy Spirit. And this is Jesus has poured out what you both see and hear, what you both see and hear. What do they see in here? Remember, he's preaching this sermon. He's preaching this sermon on the day of Pentecost. He's preaching this on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit has been poured out, he has been poured out.
So what is being said here is that this is the Lord who's poured out the promise of the Holy Spirit and you've seen it. So he's helping these Jewish people to understand this is a work of God. This is the Lord for it was not David who ascended into the heavens, but he himself who says the Lord, it's declared to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Here's the second thing you need to understand. This morning David died and his tomb at Peter's time, he's like, you can go and still see his tomb. But Jesus, look what Jesus has done. The Lord declared, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.
This is the beautiful thing for all of us, but especially those of you that are going to be baptized today, the enemies to your flourishing, the enemies to the life that God has designed for you to live, he has placed those enemies under the feet of Jesus. Like the footstool. The footstool. That's what the enemies are to Jesus. So there is this beautiful, as you come up out of the water, you're raised to victory. Basically, you're raised to a position of continual victory, one after another after another. Okay? But here's where we get to, okay? So verse 36, therefore, let all the House of Israel know with certainty that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah. So this is the deal. Now, remember we said broad road, narrow road, right? Tree of Life, tree of Death, curse tree, tree of fruit, all that stuff, right?
We talked about that as a church, and we said He gives freedom, but this is the truth that Jesus is Lord and Messiah. Alright? So here's the fun part. He just told all these people, you killed the Messiah. The Messiah was everything that the Jewish people were waiting for, and he's just told his audience, you killed him. Now, you can imagine that that is kind of a bold thing to say. Here's the response. When they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what should we do? That's the question. What do we do? Okay, so you hear the truth, you hear the truth. And then the question is, how do I respond to the truth? God's been working in some of your lives recently, and you've been discovering that Jesus is Lord and Messiah, that God sent his son Jesus for you, and that he loves you and you're open to it and you've prayed and you've said, I'm ready.
I'm ready to receive. Jesus, what do you do? And so here's the response. Peter replied, repent and be baptized. That's simple. Oh, well, what about the other stuff that all the Christians don't I have to vote this way or that way and I have to stop smoking? Or don't I have to dress up nice to go to church? Peter, what about all that stuff? No. Here's what you need to do with Jesus. You need to repent and be baptized. What's repent mean? Repent means you're going in this direction. And now I'm ready to turn around to Jesus. I'm ready to surrender my life to him. It's the orientation of your life changes. We've talked about this, but then what's the second thing that we do? We get baptized, each of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you'll receive what the gift of the spirit for the promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are a far off. Are we in Jerusalem right now? No, we're not. We're not in Jerusalem. How far away are we from Jerusalem? We are far off.
Peter put you in there this morning. Did you know that he had this sermon for you too? This promise is for you, your children, and for those people over there in Fells Point. Yay. Yeah. Amen. Yeah. As many as the Lord our God will call with many other words. Peter testified strongly urging them saying, be saved. Or in other words, be rescued. What are you rescued from? Death, destruction, sin, all that stuff be saved. Be saved from yourself and from this corrupt generation. So what happened? So that's the message, that's the sermon. What happened? It says, so those who accepted his message were baptized, and that day, about 3000 people were added to them. Do you see that? Isn't that crazy that there were 3000 people that were added to the church in one day? Do you see that? Do you see though that word right here added they were added to the church?
So as you're baptized today, you're being added to the church, not just our haven city church, but to God's big family. And God's family is really big, right? It's awesome. There's some people that are worshiping, they're all dressed up. There's some people that are casual. There's churches in prisons this morning with guys that have come to Christ in prison and they're worshiping in their church. In prison. There are people in Argentina and in Russia and in China and in Mexico and in India, all over the world, people are worshiping. And that's the church that you're added to. That's the family you're being added to. And so it goes on, and this talks about just what they did as a church. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching to fellowship, to the breaking of bread. Now, how much time passed? Here's my question for you, and I think we need to, whoever's by that door, if we could just bungee that door and close it, because those guys out there don't know that the sound travels in so much.
But how much time passed between this question here in verse 37 and verse 41, when they heard this there pierced to the heart and they said, what must we do? Peter gives a reply. And then verse 41, they're baptized. How much time passes between that? Not a lot. Not a lot. This is the point, okay? This is the point. You don't have to have your act together to come to Jesus. You don't have to have your act together to get baptized. It's a first step. It's a first step. You're not going to come out of that water all shiny and new and be perfect. You're still going to have all the same temptations that you've had, but you have taken a step of obedience before us and you've said, God, I'm yours. I'm yours. I want to obey you. Okay? What we're going to do is I'm going to have those of you that are going to get baptized and need to get changed.
Now is your chance to get changed. If you want to go and use one of those two bathrooms, it's going to take a minute. So I know, Cheryl, you asked for that opportunity. Go ahead and get your stuff and get changed. You're ready to go, Felicia, you're ready to go. I think we got not Barry out there. You guys are going to get baptized too, okay? Go ahead and get changed and get into whatever you want to get into. Just don't get into something skimpy, get into your ahead and get changed so that you're ready to get baptized. And for the rest of us, I'm going to walk you through the rest of this text, alright? When we go into verse 41, and I'm going to give you guys about five or six minutes, five or six minutes to go ahead and get to get changed. When we go into verse 42, when we go into verse 42, what it says is that this group of 3000 Christians, they did four things, four things in this one verse. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching. What's that? What's the apostles teaching?
Just whatever Jesus taught them, right? They're taking the Bible, they're taking the Bible and they're explaining it to this crowd. So there's Bible teaching. What do we do every Sunday? We spend a little bit of time in the Bible, right? That's why we do it. That's why there's a sermon is because we're looking at the Bible. What's the next thing that they did? Fellowship. Fellowship. What's fellowship is being together, spending time together, being a community, being a family, giving each other. So that's why this has been one of the hardest things for us to do as a church because we're all over the place and we don't have this building. We have this building now. So we have an opportunity after church today for some fellowship around food, alright? Breaking of bread, which is the other part of it. It's eating meals together, right? They're breaking bread.
And then the last thing, what's the last thing that they did? They're praying together, spending time praying together. That's the basics, right? Churches can do that in a bunch of different ways, but those are the basic things. Now, there's some amazing things that I've been seeing after that. So everyone was filled with awe and many signs and wonders were being performed through the apostles. So Jesus is away, but the church is still experiencing these miracles. We've been experiencing some miracles amongst us. One of 'em is that we give away all this food and then the next day it's all back there. That's a miracle. It shows back up the next day. Now, some of you are heavily involved in that miracle where you're actually loading the food or driving the truck or whatever, but it's miraculous the fact that in the middle of inflation and crazy costs of everything, excuse me, that we would have that food. So anyway, there's signs and wonders being done through the apostles. Now, the believers were together. They had everything in common. Can you imagine the unity?
They're having everything in common. There's this family spirit, a good family spirit. They're sharing stuff together even to the fact that they sold their possessions and their property and they distributed their proceedings to all as many as had need. And every day they devoted themselves to meeting together in the temple. It was just was this crazy amazing experience of God just working by his spirit and just leading these people to this crazy generosity into this crazy place of generosity. So what I want to encourage those of you that some of you are watching and you're not ready to get baptized yet, you're just still on a spiritual journey and you're like, I don't know. I'm not sure, that's fine.
But for the rest of us that have been baptized, that are following Jesus, this is the template. This is what we want to be. We want to be these kind of people where we're generous, where we're together, we're praying, we're studying our Bibles together. Super simple, right? Do you know with that template that this was repeated, not just in Jerusalem, but it happened in Ephesus, it happened in Corinth, it happened in Rome, it happened all over in small little towns to the point where so many people in these towns were becoming followers of Jesus, that it upset everybody else. It put the idol makers out of business. It was just this crazy, crazy moment of God working.
So what I want to do is we're going to pray and then going to have those of you that are getting baptized, I'm going to have you come up talk. We're going to kind of interview you guys a little bit, let you share. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to, but if you want to share and talk and share about why you're getting baptized, I'm going to give you an opportunity to do that. And then we're going to make our way out. Alright? Let me pray. Let me pray. Lord, thank you so much for letting us gather together and for being the God who cared about the reign of death over our life and that you were willing to send your son to rescue us from that condemnation and from that place of death.
Lord, we want to be a people that walk in the life that you have for us, the abundant life that you promised. It's promised by your spirit. And so Lord, teach us how to hear your spirit, how to be in tune with the work of your spirit in our life. We ask that your spirit would just work in our midst and we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen. Alright. All right. So for those of you that are getting baptized, and there's some people that are still getting changed, so you got time, keep working on getting changed, but I want the rest of you that are available and that are getting baptized to come on up and just stand up here so everybody can kind of see who you are. Kathy, come on up and stand with me. Right over here. Right here. Everybody else. Who else have we got? Mary, you're going to get baptized.
What I got.
That's fine. We will let you get baptized in what you got on? Come on up. There you go. Come on up, Cheryl. Come on up here. Awesome. Good, good. Okay. Kathy, do you want to share anything?
I do. The reason why I
Decided to give my life to crisis, because I'm would say, God, he provides for you. He gives you the things that you want and he puts you on a high ped store. So at one point in time in my life, I felt as though that I had everything, had a decent amount of money, had a nice home, a lot of things, great jobs, so forth and so on like that. But I was not 100% living for Christ. I had some doubt, some things that I felt as though that should not be happening in the world. And I had my own personal opinion about it. And God said he ripped me from all of that, just instantly. So living from a nice community, nice job, dealing with some other emotional things physically, my body just was going through some stuff. And when he took all that from me, it just made me just like 100% depend on him, just 100% depend on him.
And he led me to the meeting. Some people that led me to the Compassion Center and Smiley, he invited me to come to this church. And then I didn't know that the Compassion Center was there to help me for the time that I needed for to help me. And the church just all was one combined together. So I started coming to church and listening to Josh and the way that he preached and this understanding why things happened the way that they happened. And I knew at that time, the only way for things for me to have peace in my life, peace in my home, peace is just around me, is to follow God 100%. So a lot of things, it was not easy, just had to think about it, make the decision and say, Hey, this is the way that I want to go. When I look at myself in the mirror, I'm not the same person that I used to be last year this time, and I just want to continue on taking this walk with Christ and I know it's not going to be easy and just keep moving from that way.
Amen. Amen. Mary, do you want to share?
I guess a little bit.
Yeah, you can. You have to hold it up to your mouth though.
I lost my husband 2019, my son, 2021, I was in a hole. I went paralyzed on my left side, my left leg. I could not walk. I prayed and prayed. And what my daughter does not understand is I'm not afraid because when you go to get operated on, it's not the surgeon. It's God who is guiding his hand to take care of you. I'm not fully able to walk. I I have two hips that knee down and two knees, but I'm going to there and I'm not letting no one say that I can't do it because it's up to him. And I was told about 30 years ago that I was going to die in a year. I'm still here.
It's the Lord who does it. And I was born Catholic, but talking to Josh and he got on my butt the other day last week. Yes, he did. And he's right because my mind and body sometimes does not work together. My mind says, no, you're not going out that door. But my mind today said, Josh said, get your butt down there and there is a reason for me to come today. And that was to give myself back to God the way I was before. And I pray to him every single day. I talk to him every single day. People think I'm crazy, but I talk out loud to him and not just in my mind, in my heart and out loud to him. He's the one that gives us space.
Amen. Amen. Thank you May Cheryl.
I just, oh Lord, I just want to thank his church for everything. I know there's something missing in my life. I know it's Jesus. I'm happy to have my family join me and my girlfriend. It's been everything to me, and I just want to continue to come here and learn about Christ and live a godly life. And I wanted to thank Josh for having this church and these people that are so understanding and friendly and it's just the kind of church that I feel like I want to continue to come to. Me too.
Me too.
Thanks Trina. And Paul, did you guys want to share why you want to get baptized or a testimony or anything like that? Otherwise, I'm going to have you wait right here because we're going to go out here. Wait right there. Okay. Felicia wants to go last. So is there anybody else that is going to get baptized that wants to share? Okay. Felicia, come on over here. Don't make me cry.
I am here to do a testimony and you're all going to hear me because I'm loud. I'm loud and I'm proud and I'm glad I'm here today because I never wanted to be in church because my dad was a born again Christian and my family was a born again Christian. And I didn't believe that I was righteous enough for my lifestyle to be a Christian. I didn't think God loved me and that reason, I went down the narrow path the wrong way. I ran away from Jesus with one leg. I didn't care. I ran. I hobbled away because I wasn't righteous enough. I was a sinner and I was proud to be a sinner and I'm not proud anymore, but I'm not perfect and I'm here to have a baptism to start over again because believe me, that road was long. It was narrow and it wasn't greener on the other side.
But I learned from that mistake and I'm here to correct it. I'm talking about resurrecting me because I was down on my knees 10 years ago, stricken with cancer at death's door at the gate, and the gatekeeper was Jesus, and I thought everybody else was going to judge me. Jesus is the gatekeeper. I'm at the gate. I'm at my final stages of my life. I'm testifying. Dad's here. Dad's here proud. I'm at the gate, open the gate. I don't care how narrow the gate open is. I'm ready. I'm proud to be at that gate. I'm humble. Jesus kept me here for a reason. I'm not ready to go yet. I'm praying to Jesus. He gives me another 10 or 15 years here. I want to do the righteous thing this time. It's never too late, and I'm here to testify to that. I've had guns put to my head. I've had homelessness, hunger and everything. I'm here. I'm not hungry. I'm not homeless. He listens to people that ask for help and salvation. I'm here. Jesus is here, and he lives. He's the answer. And he is the question.
Amen. Amen. Amen. I love Felicia. Oh man, I just love you. I'm very grateful for you. She came up to me. We were doing what we were doing narrow. We were doing the sermon on the narrow road and the broad path, and she's like, but who's the gate? Who's the gate? I was like, well, look at John 10. Look at John 10. We look at John 10 and what it say, it says, Jesus is like, I am the gate. And she's like, he's the gate. He's the gate. Yeah. Let me in. I love it. I love it. Thank you. I love the fire. One more. Okay. Come on up. It's Bryce. This is Bryce. Bryce. There's some spiritual stuff going on in your life too. Why don't you share with us why you want to be baptized?
I've actually been baptized before when I was 13. It wasn't really my choice. I didn't really know enough about the path back then. And now I'm making an active, knowledgeable choice to do that and step forward and just trying to better myself and stay on the way.
Awesome. Amen. Amen.