Things happen growing up and, you know, where they jump off something or where they fall off something, where they hit their head on the bricks on the fireplace, or where something happens and you close your eyes and you go, okay, I hope that’s okay. And there’s also something about a father that as you grow up, they, you know, you want to pray for your kids. And I gotta say, this week I am, I am really prayed up.
So it’s good to be here on Sunday morning after a week that I’m really prayed up. Today is week number one of driving. I have a personal escort that takes me everywhere in Johnson County now.
And he likes doing it, so I just gotta say, well I gotta go, but I’d like someone to drive me. And he comes through the door and, you know, a lot’s been covered in a week, a lot has. He drove me to church today.
I don’t even know if Holly’s driven me to church, to this church. And it’s cool because half the time when we park and the car shuts off, I say, we made it! And it’s exciting that that happens. But it’s a new thing we’re going through.
A new father-son time where we try to keep the stress down as much as possible, but it’s good. But there are other things that as they continue to grow, that you start younger, that you start to see the fruit of it when they get older. And I remember when Christopher was like 12, and we started mowing around the house, and I’d come out of the house and I’d go and go back over this strip.
We gotta have straight lines. We gotta do this. And this was the beginning of the dad being the annoying one.
And so we would do that over and over and over, and then he started with a lawn or two the first year, and now he’s up to a huge amount of lawns. He watches YouTube videos of professional lawn care people, and he learns a lot. And then when I try to explain something to him now, he goes, well, this person says we need to do this, or this is the way it needs to go.
But he actually is faster than me on the trimmer now, because he’s trimmed for so many lawns. So it’s cool to see that progression. Dana read from Proverbs where Solomon is saying, my son, remember my commandments.
And we try to bring our children up, and we try to work with them and teach them. Help them to know God. Help them to navigate their way through life.
Help them so one day they can be a good spouse, or a good father, or a good worker, or even a good citizen. Citizen of the United States, a citizen of heaven. And we see that a little bit with Peter, as we continue through the book of Acts, that Jesus taught Peter.
Taught him just directly as the Heavenly Father would teach him, and Peter went through a lot of ups and downs. How many of you have ever noticed Peter went through some ups and downs? Sometimes Peter was bold. Sometimes he shouldn’t have been bold.
Sometimes Peter was not bold when he should be bold. And there were a lot of things that happened. But last week, as we started Acts 2, and we went through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and remember we ended on verse 12, where the people said, what does this mean when the Holy Spirit poured out? Now when someone asks a question, what does this mean? They need someone to teach them.
They need someone to help them to understand what is happening in this place. And some were asking, what does this mean? Some were saying, yeah, I think they’re drunk. They’re acting really weird.
And Peter, who had been through so much, will talk a lot more about what Peter had went through to get to this point. Peter, who was a student of Jesus Christ, stood up, and this is the beginning of the sermon, and we’ll work through the whole sermon in the next couple of weeks. Will you stand as you are able? Acts 2, we’ll start in verse 14 and go through 24.
But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all of you who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words, for these people are not drunk as you suppose. Since it’s only the third hour of the day, I was wondering if the Holy Spirit would pour out on the ninth hour, which would have been about six o’clock, how he would explain that, or the twelfth hour. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel.
And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and all your sons and all your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, even on my male servants and female servants. In those days I will pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and smoke, blood and fire in favor of smoke.
The sun shall return to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day, and it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with my works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.
God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. The word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God, thanks be to God. Amen.
You may be seated. So, Peter delivers his first sermon. Peter, when Jesus called Peter, what did Jesus say? Oh, let me rephrase this.
When Jesus called this dude named Simon, who was a fisherman, the son of John, what did he tell Peter? Who was he changed his name to? Yeah, Peter, but the rock. In Greek, petros means stone. So, he was going to become the stone.
In Aramaic, does anybody know what Peter is in Aramaic? Cephas. Cephas, Peter, John. He said it immediately.
He said, you are the rock, and then Peter crumbled so many times, even though Jesus called him the rock. It reminds me of in the book of Judges, in Judges 6, when Jesus called Gideon to be a prophet for the people. Gideon was in the threshold, the hole in the ground where they beat the wheat or crushed the grapes down there, but he was hiding, doing the work.
He was in a place hiding, and the angel of the Lord came up to Gideon and said, greetings mighty warrior! It sounded like an oxymoron. What do you mean mighty warrior? He was cowering from the Midianites. He was scared of what could happen.
He did not see himself as a warrior, but the angel sent from God said, greetings mighty warrior! Peter, let me say this again, Simon, who knew fishing, most likely learned it from his father, with his brother Andrew, was called by Jesus, and Jesus said, follow me. And Peter got on the ground and said, I am an unclean man, and Jesus said, follow me. Now, if you look at the ups and downs in Peter’s life, it’s like this is the lesson Jesus was trying to teach Peter.
You keep looking for answers in all the wrong places. You know, fishing was good, but I want to make you fish for men. And then there was one of my favorite times when Jesus said, who do people say that I am? And some of them said, some of them say you’re John the Baptist, some of them say you’re Elisha, come back.
Some of them say you’re one of the other prophets, but Jesus said, who do you say I am? And Simon spoke up and said, you’re the Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus gave him such high praise, saying, you didn’t get that from men, you got it from me. Meaning, where should we get our answers from versus whatever the world tells us? I mean, we got a lot going on that Peter had going on.
There’s a lot of things people say in the world about God, about Jesus, about how we’re supposed to live our lives, about who’s supposed to be number one in our lives. Who does the world say is supposed to be number one in our lives? Ourselves or whatever the hot agenda is of the day. And then, who does God say should be number one in our lives? And Peter later on in one of his defenses against the Pharisees, where they say, you need to deny this, Jesus.
And Jesus said, well, I don’t know, what do you think is better? Should we listen to you or should we listen to God? Jesus basically told Peter, you are looking for answers in all the wrong places. When Peter was looking for answers, he said, you’re the Christ, the Son of the living God, but then Jesus went on to tell, okay, you know I’m the Christ. Here’s what the Christ must do.
According to the Scriptures, I am going to be arrested and beaten and die. It’s getting close. And Peter said, no way, you can’t do that, Lord.
And in the Bible actually says he rebuked Jesus. Raise your hand if you ever rebuked Jesus. He rebuked Jesus saying, yeah, I hear your plan, but I don’t like it.
How many of you ever said, I hear your plan, but I don’t like it. I hear your plan, but I don’t like it. You don’t need to die.
You need to rule the world. This is a better plan. I won’t let that happen to you.
And Jesus said the words that I hope you never hear Jesus say to you, get behind me. As in, Peter went from God talking to him, through Satan talking to him. You see, Peter was looking for the answers in the wrong places.
He was looking for these traditions that built up that said who the Messiah was going to be. The Messiah was supposed to redeem Israel on earth. The Messiah was supposed to free Israel from Rome’s authority on earth.
And Jesus said, I came to free you from your own sins, and that is your real bond, that is your real jail that you are in, and I came to set you free from that. That is greater freedom than even being free from Rome. Peter was looking for answers in rumors and speculations and things people were saying, but Jesus basically said to Peter, the right answers are found in God’s Word.
And he showed him multiple times, what does God’s Word say about the Messiah? What does God’s Word say that I am supposed to go through? What does God’s Word say that the Messiah is going to do? You look for answers in this. God looks for answers in, God wants us to find answers in God’s Word. If we want to grow in our faith, if we want to know Jesus better, if we want to understand who the Messiah is and how God can help us in our lives, we’ve got to be in the Word.
Jesus goes on with Peter, and Peter, remember when it was crunch time, you know how you can tell the character of a person is when it gets to be difficult or challenging or hard and what comes out of them. At crunch time, Peter said, even if every other disciple leaves you, I will never leave you, Lord. And he sat there at the fire and he kept going, I don’t know.
I don’t know who you’re talking about. I’m not a follower of Jesus. You’re crazy.
He said, if I’m a follower of Jesus, then he cursed himself. And then Jesus, who had already told him he was going to deny it three times, he heard the cock crow and he started crying, and he ran out, and he went bitterly. When Jesus came to him in the book of John, he basically said, Peter, you messed up.
You messed up. You are supposed to be the rock, and you messed up. But Jesus restored him.
Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you. Then feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.
Then tend my lambs. Peter, do you love me? Then feed my sheep. Peter said, you know all things, Lord.
And Jesus restored him. So basically, after Peter messed up, God cleaned up. Jesus came back and restored him, cleaned him up, got him back on the track of being the rock.
And then the 50 days after Easter occurred, after the resurrection, and they talked to Jesus more, and he showed up, and then he was ascended, and then Pentecost came down, and it was this new thing. And Jesus stood up and faced the crowds and let the Holy Spirit work with him. And basically, his sermon went like this, you all keep looking for answers in the wrong places.
So here you come up and you see what God is doing here, and you say, these must be drunk. You’re looking for answers in what you can know instead of what God tells you. You keep looking in the wrong places.
And Ephesians 5 and 18 says, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. In other words, know the right spirit to lean on. Sometimes we look for answers in abusing alcohol and drugs.
Sometimes we look for answers, you wouldn’t believe how much people want to feel wanted so they get on social media and try to find the right answers, and try to find a welcoming place, and try to find where they’re going to get love. And then they look for love in all the wrong places, and they can hurt themselves. But we should look just where Peter says to.
He says, the answers are found in God’s Word. He said, you’re thinking this is about them being drunk, but this is what is evident through the prophet Joel. So the first time, he says, this is not what’s happening, but let’s listen to what God’s Word says about this.
Let’s listen to what the prophets say. And he goes into the prophets and he says, in the last days it shall be God declares that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. They were looking for the wrong places when the right answers were right there in God’s Word, in the Torah, in the prophets.
The thing they had been taught from birth, there he’s saying, if you really knew the Scriptures, you would understand what’s going on. And Joel said the Holy Spirit was going to pour out on all people. So as Peter is saying that, he’s basically saying the right answers are found in God’s Word.
1st Samuel 10, 10 and 11 gives us a hint of the transition. It said, the Spirit of God rushed out on him. Is Saul among the prophets everyone questioned? Because when Saul came with the Holy Spirit, and he even said to Saul like he did with David, that his heart was changed.
And he could hang out with the prophets, and he was talking and sounding strange among the prophets. But he was a donkey herder. He was on his, looking for donkeys, and all of a sudden the Holy Spirit pours out on him, and it’s gonna be King.
It’s a very strange thing there. But in the Old Testament, what Joel is getting at, is in the Old Testament, the Spirit poured out on one person at a time. This prophet, this judge, this priest, this person, it would lead with the Spirit.
And then it was on kings, but that didn’t last very long, as the kingdom started falling apart. But it would pour out on this person, or this person, or this person at Pentecost. It fell out on everyone there worshiping.
And we’ll find out later how even the crowds that rushed in, there were thousands who received Jesus, and the Holy Spirit poured out on them. The New Testament pulls from Joel who told us that God’s Word says that the Holy Spirit will fall out on all flesh. Not on just someone who’s special, but everyone who calls on the Lord, and they will be saved, and the Holy Spirit will fall out, if we just call on the name of the Lord, and let that Spirit work through every one of us.
That’s the transition Peter is trying to teach them from Joel, that says, this is what he was talking about. You’re looking for your answers here, in what you think should be happening, that it doesn’t make any sense, I’m looking at the answer here by the Prophet Joel, that you should know this, the right answers are found in God’s Word. And then after he tells them that, he says, men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders, and signs that God did through you, and your events yourselves know, this Jesus delivered it up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, hinting that this didn’t slip through God’s hand.
He turns it on them and said, you crucified, you messed up, you caused this to happen. In Luke 23, we see where the crowd, it says that they were urging, demanding with loud cries that he should be crucified, and their voices prevailed. Pilate even said, I find nothing wrong with this man.
But the crowd got stirred up by the Pharisees and Sadducees, and they started yelling, they started yelling things that didn’t even make sense to someone who was far from God, on killing Jesus. And Peter didn’t be around the bush. He didn’t say, hey, no one’s perfect, don’t worry about doing the right thing, you’ve got your own moral code, you live in a context where, you know, following me is not that important.
But Peter said, you messed up. He loved them enough to say, you messed up. They cried out for Jesus’ crucifixion.
They didn’t understand who he was again. But then there’s the good news. Some of the coolest verses in the Bible start with, simply with, but God.
Have you ever seen those verses that start with but God? Romans 6 says, no temptation is overtaking you except such as is common to man, but God is faithful. I planted an Apollos water, but God gave the increase. When they had carried out all that was written about him, they took him down from the cross and laid him in a tomb, but God raised him from the dead.
You messed up, but God cleaned up. God cleaned up. That’s how cool God is.
That no matter how many times we mess up, no matter how many generations go by from Adam and Eve in the garden to us today, and the times we mess up because we’re looking for answers in the wrong places, but God can guide us through the scripture. The Holy Spirit, when we receive the Holy Spirit, can illumine our heart to what God is talking about. Hebrews 10.22 says, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscious and our bodies washed with pure water.
God cleans us up. God restores what we mess up, and Peter will go on to tell the crowds more, and then he’s going to go back to scripture again, but I think that’s the story of our lives. We’re looking for answers in the wrong places.
God nudges us back to find the right answers in God’s Word with God’s Holy Spirit, and we mess up. We lean on the wrong things. We mess up.
Raise your hand if you’ve never messed up. What kind of church is this? Nobody raised their hands. Everybody has messed up.
Oh, are you raising the hand over there? That’s through grandpa glasses. You mess up. Would I be a good pastor? Would I really love you if I never said you messed up? Would you really have a good Hope Builders group if nobody ever said you messed up? But then we have grace.
We have God who comes along when we mess up, and God cleans up the mess. God restores us just like Jesus did with Peter. God cleanses us from within, washes us.
What can wash away our sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus, and he makes us whole, and he builds us up so that we can become like Peter who is floppy like a fish because he kept going from trusting in God and not trusting in God and messing up to becoming the rock, the stone, the one who the church would be built upon. He does that with every one of us. He cleans us up.
He cleans up the messes we make and makes us into the person he has called us to be.