We're in Acts chapter 3 and we're
going to be moving forward in our contemplation we spent last
week dealing with the distinctives of God's mercy in restraining
his people whom he has chosen from making the fatal error of
blaspheming the Spirit of God or sinning in such a way as to
never be able to have their sins forgiven such as was the case
with Judas Iscariot and those who diabolically schemed to put
our master to death, denying the fact that he was very God
of very God, denying the fact that he was indwelt by the Spirit
of God and therefore both the second and the third person were
witnessing to the first person through everything that Christ
had done. They crossed a line that was exceedingly dangerous
and we thought that through extensively enough to even have our own hearts
and minds challenged as to the responsibility of the witness
of the gospel in our life. We are privileged to hear the
word of God, but we're also responsible for it. For to whom much is given,
much is also required. So I want to do more than hear
the word. I want to be granted the grace to respond to it appropriately,
knowing that God has given me an extra measure of his revelation
for me to honor Him. We are now going to take up Peter's
proposition in verses 19 and following, and we will start
at verse 19. Repent ye therefore and be converted
that your sins may be blotted out. He has thus declared to
them that Christ has risen from the dead. He has thus declared
to them that they were guilty of the sin of killing the just
one, but God had decreed it, God had purposed it, And God
had declared this suffering of Christ and his resurrection through
the mouth of all of his prophets. And it was designed to help the
Jewish people in the temple at that time realize that God was
doing something bigger, larger, more important than simply allowing
them to show the antipathy, the sin and the rebellion of their
own heart against God's light. And now he calls them to repentance. Repent ye therefore and be converted
that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord. Now we want to talk
about that verse because within that verse we have a number of
metaphors, concepts, ideas in that particular statement. Repent is something we have looked
at before and it means to turn. It means to turn first of all
in your mind. Metanoia means to change the
mind it means to stop thinking the way you were thinking Particularly
with reference to God with regards to the Jewish people It means
that they were to stop trusting in their good works and abandon
themselves to the mercy of God Revealed to them in Jesus Christ
which they had unanimously rejected when Christ came. Now that Christ
is exalted, now that He is Lord at the right hand of God the
Father, now that He has sent His Spirit in the life of the
apostles, and they are doing signs and wonders, affirming
the authenticity of the message of Christ, He says to them, you
can repent now of the way you were thinking yesterday, because
the door is open for you to experience the grace of God through the
very man that you had rejected. Repentance means a change of
mind, but it ultimately results in a change of life. Repentance means a change of
mind, but it ultimately results in a change of life. And I say
that because repentance is not simply first changing what you
do. Repentance is changing what you
think first. And I've said it often, a person
can be given over to a secular life
of debauchery and sinfulness, and then out of a desire to rest
or to just take time off from the drudgery of living like hell,
start going to church. And they can be moved emotionally
by the experience of church and thus take up religion as a way
of life and They can be moved by the singing moved by the praying
moved by the preaching moved by the music and come and accept
Jesus into their heart and go through the whole hoopla never
ever really having a saving revelation of God so that there's no change
in the mind as a consequence of the mind being radically informed
of Radically informed by the work of the Spirit of God And
and that's what they do is they simply start taking on the pattern
of church Okay, they know now that they got to come to church
So they start going to church and they know now they got to
start reading their Bible. So they start reading their Bible
But really deep down inside there was no change. I And so they
kind of also know that they still have an allegiance to their former
habits and their former practices, but they have taken up what we
call a new lease on life that works for a season. And then
over time, what they begin to experience is a real tension
between what they are doing and what they are wanting to do,
because they are still wanting to live the life of a person
who is without God. And over time, because the nature
of a man is truly who he or she is, that nature takes over and
they start back by and by living the life of darkness. And this
is what Peter meant in second Peter chapter two, when he says
the sow who has been washed from her wallowing in the mire, over
time by and by returns again to a wallowing in the mire because
that is what they are by nature. So when we talk about a true
repentance, you and I are talking about a real conversion of the
soul, a real transformation of the nature, a real renewal of
the mind, a work of the spirit of God creating a new nature
in you. We're getting ready to unpack
that or develop that because of the language that Peter uses
That the Jewish people would have known as well. So repentance
is not simply stopping Doing one thing and then starting to
do another repentance is from the inside out a revelation of
the glory of God that impacts you in a way in which it produces
life and that life produces faith and that faith manifests itself
in a new track and The word repentance is a new track. It's a new track
of thinking. Now you are thinking about God
instead of thinking about self and lust and the world and the
cares of this life. Now you're thinking about righteousness. instead of thinking about how
much money you can make and how you can live for your own aggrandizement. Now you're thinking about righteousness
and you're thinking about sin and you're thinking about the
justice of God. You're thinking about grace and you are now hungry
to know the word of God and you're hungry to know the word of God
to be saved. Not to simply add to your catalog
of intellectual knowledge more data so that you can add to who
you are. When a person becomes born again,
it's not an addition to who they are. They become a whole nother
person. And the old man now is discarded
as being their true identity. And now if a person really takes
stock in their old man, they're going to try to somehow correlate
the two. because to them there are advantages
in still operating out of their fallen nature. If you were successful
in your fallen nature, in your unsafe state, if you were a popular
person, if you were influential, if you knew people, if you were
a mover and a shaker, that's not real easy to abandon when
once you come to Christ. But of course, that's what he
calls us to do. If anyone's going to follow me, let him take up
his cross, deny himself, and then follow me if he's going
to be my disciple, right? So when a person is authentically
born again, the fundamental preoccupation early on in her life or his life
is how do I sufficiently and effectively abandon myself? How do I sufficiently and effectively
abandon my own nature? And that requires the grace of
God. I mean, you're born again, but you now have to work through
the concept of mortification, the concept of the old man having
died with Christ on the cross. And therefore you reckoning yourself
dead indeed to sin, but alive unto God. But so you have to
have that biblical data before you to feed on, to start working
through. the whole idea of a new life,
a new thought process, a new agenda, a new model of ethic,
a new way of conducting oneself. And this is why brand new believers
in Christ do spend a lot of time in the Word of God because they
know transformation cannot come apart from a knowledge of the
scriptures. That I'm going to be retarded in my growth and
I'm going to be impeded in the success of my growth And I am
seeking to be as rooted and grounded in Christ as I possibly can,
because to the degree that I am not, I'm going to be tossed to
and fro both by the world, by the devil, and then by my own
fallen nature. And I'm going to spend a long
time in a kind of miserable condition until I am rooted and grounded
and very clear in my calling. So for a true born-again Christian,
the first four, five, six, seven, ten years of their life, they
are utterly and radically committed to the Word of God. Utterly and
radically committed to sound doctrine, utterly and radically
committed to learning what it means to grow in grace and in
the knowledge of the Lord. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? So repentance is not a flipping thing where you start
going to church for a while, you learn how to sing, you learn
how to pray, you learn how to talk. And yet internally, you
are still jazzed about who you were as the old person. It's
over time, those two worlds are going to collide unless you are
in a carnal church that accepts those kinds of you know, carnal
and fleshly attitudes and demeanors and, and, uh, behavior patterns. And we have plenty of churches
that accommodate a carnal lifestyle. So you're, you're, you're cool
the way you always were. You just got a little Jesus in
your life. And we would say that that's not repentance. We would
say that that individual has not really had the first work
of the spirit wrought in their heart. And who knows what the
first work of the spirit is. to convince a person that they
are a hell-bound sinner. That's John 16, 8. And when He,
the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will convince you. No one
will have to convince you that you are a hell-bound sinner.
He will convince you through the gospel. He will convince
you through the testimony of scripture. He will convince you
by your own wretched life. He will convince you by the power
of the Holy Ghost that if no one deserves to go to hell, you
do. And he will convince you that it is wholly appropriate
that you depart from trusting in yourself and claiming to Christ
wholly until God evidentially demonstrates a work of grace
in your life. No new believer pompous or arrogant
or presumptuous about their salvation. They are very serious about it.
In fact, the way the Hebrew writer puts it in chapter 4, those who
have heard the gospel flee for refuge to Christ. That's the
nature of what happens when your eyes are opened up to your sin.
You flee for refuge to Christ. And it has a visible manifestation,
particularly in the life of people who are operating in that form
of lifestyle. They're wondering why you are
now no longer committed to that pattern of life. Because you
are seriously making your calling and election sure now. You're
not playing church. You're about Christ. That's the
idea of repentance in our text. So it's a word that runs all
the way through the scriptures. And you guys know already that
Christ commissioned the disciples to preach repentance, starting
in the book of Luke and then all the way through Acts. So
all through Acts, you will hear them when the key is put in the
door and the door is open, the way into the kingdom of God would
be by repentance and faith. There are two sides of the same
coin. If you actually believe the propositions of the gospel,
you will turn from your former life and flee to Christ for refuge. There are two sides of the same
coin. There's no such thing as having faith and not having repentance. Are you guys hearing me? So Paul
commended the church at Thessalonica in first Thessalonians chapter
one, verse 10, when he said, how that you turn from idols,
that's repentance. To serve the true and the living
God, that's faith. And that's what it means to be
saved and to acquire saving faith. But I want you to mark what he
says now. Repent ye therefore and be converted. That's what
the word means. Repentance is the inward work. Conversion is
the outward manifestation. That your sins may be what? blotted out now again, if you're
a Gentile this language does not mean a whole lot to you,
but to a Jew it should have meant a world of information because
what Peter now is alluding to is What is critically necessary? for a man to be viewed in the
eyes of God as free from the indictment of his sins and legally
and judicially. That when he uses the term, have
your sins blotted out, he's using an old Hebraic phrase that refers
to what happens when you are in a community where your transgressions
are recorded and they are all written on a ledger against you. All our sins are written on the
ledger of life. Those of us who are born into
this world, we are born into what is called the land of the
living. And in the land of the living,
like in any city, you have, uh, the recording office where the
name is written. That person is born here. That
person is born there. This is their name. This is when
they were born and this is their life's testimony. This is the
ledger that will come up on the last day for which human beings
will have to face God. Are you guys hearing me? This
is the ledger and it will be filled with all of our sins.
And if those sins have not been blotted out, then we will have
to answer for those sins. So the term blotting out here
means that it requires a radical work that is beyond human capability. For two reasons, the blotting
out of our sins is really requiring omnipotence. The first is our
sins are written in stone. What God says is when we violate
his law, is not written on a piece of napkin or a piece of paper
that can fade away or distort or mar. So, you know, over a
long enough period of times, our newer sins will be fresher
to God than our older sins. But can you imagine the analogy
that every sin that we commit is written in stone? And the
idea means that they are permanently and legibly written to be clearly
seen Forever. Written in stone. Go with me
in your Bibles to Jeremiah chapter 17 verse 1. I want you to see
it. I want you to understand the implications of our sins
being blotted out so that you and I can appreciate Peter's
proposal and then we can awe and marvel at how God does it. In Jeremiah chapter 17, here's
what God says to the people of God who are sinful people, wicked
people, and particularly the Judah tribe, who are supposed
to be the most conservative Bible-believing, Christ-exalting people, and yet
at this time they are in a great state of apostasy. And here's
what Jeremiah says. Are you there? Listen to what
he says. The sin of Judah, that's the
whole tribe, is written with a pen of what? You see that? A pen of iron. That means the
point of the pen is so hard that is designed to engrave the sin
into stone, engrave it. Listen, the sin of Judah is written
with a pen of iron and with the point of a what? Why? Because a diamond is one of the
hardest stones in the world. See what God is saying? That
sin is so offensive to him that he marks it so that it is there
permanently. And for God to let us know that
is for God to let us know how sinful and exceedingly sinful
sin is to him. It's also to let us know that
sin is not put away easily. We kind of talk like that, like
we can just put away our sin. I've told people this many, many
times. If you can put away your sins,
you are your own savior. If you can put away one sin,
you are your own savior. I am here. to assert to you that
every sin you and I commit will never, ever, ever, ever be put
away by us because it's written with an iron pin and a diamond
on the hardest of ledgers to be called back on the last day.
Should we die without Christ? Now listen to the language is
written upon is written with an iron pen and the point of
a diamond and it is graven upon the table of their heart. Do
you see it? And upon the horns of your altars,
you know what God is saying? He's saying sin has its origin
in the heart and the heart here means the inner man. You know
what that means? That means these people will never ever experience
the washing away of their sins. And that when they are brought
to judgment on the last day, the books that God is going to
open is not just a book of his law, but the book of human conscience.
Because the conscious knows what it does. This is what Romans
chapter 2 tells us. The Gentiles and the Jews, they
both know what's right and what's wrong. Only the Jews had the
law written in an external code as a mirror to let them know
what they were doing wrong. The Gentiles didn't have an external
code, but they had their conscience. So when we do what's wrong, it's
written in our conscience. This is what plagues us And what
God is saying to Judah is your sin is so deep so indelible that
it will never be removed Now he goes on to say And upon the
horns of your altars, do you know what that means? It means
that they had sinned against God in worship Not only had they
sinned against God in their heart, but they had sinned against God
in worship. The altar was the place of worship.
And the Bible is very clear that when the heart is not right,
God does not accept the sacrifice. So not only was there rebellion
internally, something of which God held them to, but their religious
activity, their religious observance now becomes sin. Because as we're
getting ready to see in a moment, The only thing that God accepts
in the area of worship is a broken and contrite heart that looks
to God as the basis and foundation of his acceptance. What these
people had thought is that they could live like hell on the deep
inside of the core of their being and still go through the form
of worship externally. And that would be adequate for
God. What God was saying was, I see both your heart and I see
your religious deeds and neither one of them is acceptable. So
what we learn from that is you can't do a bad deed and then
cover it up with a good religious deed. As far as God is concerned,
they're both bad deeds. Am I making some sense? And it's
critical for people to understand that you cannot hide from God
in church, which is what people do. They actually try to hide
from God in their religious activities now over in chapter 18 notice
what it says Chapter 18 Jeremiah chapter 18 because God is upset
with Israel, isn't he? This is bad when God's talking
to you like this Now I want you to hear what God says. Here's
what he says over in chapter 18. It's just one chapter over
right now This is the chapter in chapter 18 where God says
I'm sovereign Now I want you to know I'm sovereign. I make
vessels of honor and I make vessels of dishonor. I'm sovereign. That's
chapter 18. This is what he told Jeremiah,
Jeremiah, go down to the Potter's house. I want you to see how
the Potter makes a vessel of honor and a vessel of destruction
at his will. So I do let Israel know that
they don't have a one-ups man on me. I do whatever I want to
do. This is what God is saying. Cause
he's upset with Israel. And by the way, If you just want
the hair on the back of your head to stand up, go back to
chapter 15 and let chapter 15 blow you away. God is angry at
these people. Chapter 15 is just amazing, but
you'll have a little bit of that here in chapter 18 verse 22. In fact, let me see if I can
start at verse 24, 21. Therefore deliver up their children
to the famine. and pour out their blood by the
force of the sword, and let their wives be bereaved of their children
and be widows, and let their men be put to death. Let the
young men be slain by the sword in battle." Who's talking? The
prophet. By whom is the prophet speaking?
God. Now, just in case you don't know,
this is what we call covenant language. You ladies who are
learning biblical theology, you understand that the framework
with which God operates is what? and God never talks outside of
covenant principles. That means when you hear language
that's strange to you, ask God to help you find what covenant
that's coming out of. That's coming out of a covenant.
This language is coming out of Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy
chapter 32, okay? In Leviticus 26, this is the
language that God said he would do. He would give the children
of Israel over to the famine. He would give them over to the
sword. He would give them over to the beast of the field. He
would give them over to the heathen, to the nations when they sinned
against him. And so this is why you hear him
talking about letting their children be bereaved and them being given
over to the sword. This here is covenant language
where God is cursing them because they have rejected him. So it's
not God simply being arbitrary and God just simply being mad
and upset. God has after, in this context,
after almost 800 years, finally begins to judge the nation. They've gone 800 years in the
land of promise, rebelling against God, and God now is talking like
he promised he would talk back in the covenant language. Are
you guys hearing what I'm saying? So here, the covenant contract is
drawn up in the wilderness in the days of Moses. And the children
of Israel said, we will do whatever the Lord says do. Okay, the contract
is signed because a contract is an agreement of promises with
blessings and conditions good or bad between two parties with
the possibility of many more benefiting from it. Is that right?
That's what a contract is. So that contract was drawn up
in the wilderness, 1500 BC. Now we are at about 700 BC, which
is 800 years later. And the curse of the covenant
is coming upon the people. Are you guys hearing me? So what
all the people are hearing is what they had rejected when the
law had already said, This is what will happen. If you reject
me, I will reject you. If you turn from me, I will turn
from you. If you disregard my law and my prophets, I will cause
your heavens to turn into brass. I will cause you to run in seven
directions by one man. I will cause your ground to turn
into dust. I will destroy the fruit of your
land. I will destroy the fruit of your womb. I will bring nations
in to destroy you. You guys, Understand what I'm
getting at now. That's the covenant language that came to pass literally
through the Assyrians and the Egyptians and the Babylonians
in the middle Persians and the Grecians and finally the Romans
That's the covenant curse of the law. That's why anybody who
wants to be under the covenant curse of the law is a fool You got to be an absolute fool
if Israel couldn't make it you can't make it And so he goes
on using the language over in verse 21, 22, let a cry be heard
from their houses. When you shall bring a troop
suddenly upon them for they have dig a pit to take me and hit
snares my feet. Now who's talking? Jeremiah.
What were the people seeking to do? Destroy the prophet. Through whom was the prophet
speaking? God. See, when they rejected Jeremiah,
they were rejecting whom? That's right. This is why the
Holy Ghost is speaking through Jeremiah this way. Now listen
to verse 23. This is our point. Yet Lord,
thou knowest all their counsel against me to slay me. Now watch
this. Forgive not their what? Neither blot out their sin from
thy sight. but let them be overthrown before
thee, deal thus with them in the time of thy what? Jeremiah,
like all the prophets, spake by the Spirit of Christ. Didn't he? Jeremiah, like all
the prophets, spake by the Spirit of Christ. This is sound biblical
hermeneutics, 1 Peter 1, verse 10. All the prophets prophesied
of the sufferings and the glory of Christ. Jeremiah is a weeping
prophet because he's suffering for Christ's sake at the hands
of the people. Y'all get that? And what you
hear coming out of the mouth of Jeremiah is the spirit of
Christ. And you can carry this over into
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and you can hear Jesus saying
to the father, they are seeking to slay me. They are seeking
to destroy me, a man who has done them no wrong for my love. Have they hated me? Are you guys
hearing what I'm saying? So this is the spirit of Christ
and what's remarkable is that right now in the book of Acts
where our context is Christ is through his apostles pleading
to them to receive the forgiveness of sins on the basis of his shed
blood as we shall see so that their sins can be what blotted
out Blotted out The people in Acts chapter two in the year
AD 35, this is about AD 35, are the sons of the people in the
days of Jeremiah when they were ready to kill Jeremiah and kill
Isaiah and kill Elijah and kill the rest of the prophets. This
is why Jesus said when he was here, you are the children of
the prophets and as your fathers did to the prophets, so you shall
do to me. And what's wonderful about the
Acts account, as I told you before, is Israel is under a probationary
period right now where God is offering them the gospel. Are
you hearing me? They are hearing the overtures
of forgiveness available by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I'm
not going to tell you the end of the story, but you can already
expect it and follow it through. And you can, you can already
anticipate what they are going to do with the proposition. Notice
what he says and then we'll go on yet Lord Thou knowest all
their counsel against me to slay me forgive not their iniquity
neither blot out their sin from their sight But let them be overthrown
before thee deal thus with them in the time of dying what? Now God's anger is always a covenant
anger Just like God's love is covenant love That means God
does not act in emotionalism like you and I do. You know how
when we get angry, we get angry out of emotions. We get ticked
off. Well, God's anger is rooted in
covenant. That means God is patient and
disciplined and structured and timely, where when he does finally
vent his wrath, it's because they have violated the laws that
led up to a just response on God's part against them, according
to the covenant terms. Now he's being covenantal because
they signed that contract. They signed a contract with a
holy God. And God said, now I'm telling you now I will bless
you. You got to trust me. But if you don't trust me, there's
another side to me that you don't know. I remember years ago, I
worked with the Muslim cat. His name was Haji. Some of you
have heard the story years ago, but I'll just share as a little
break before we go back to our text. And this was when we were
dealing with our recession back in the 80s. We had a real difficult
time. I think it was under Jimmy Carter. I'm pretty sure it was. During
that time, we had a real difficulty with economics and people were
having a hard time finding work. And I was a mechanic and I couldn't
find a job in one of the major dealerships because they were
just cutting down. So I started walking around looking
for work and I found a body shop up in East Oakland off of Foothill
Boulevard. And I went in and the guy had a sign up that he
needed a mechanic and I told him I was a mechanic and We we
talked and we negotiated the price and I told him that I was
a Christian. He said, okay I'm a Muslim and
he says, you know, we can work together. I've had Christians
work and everything. We're good But he said to me I want to let
you know one thing and I said what he says I'm generally a
nice guy and He says, but I also have a dragon face, a dragon
face. And I didn't know what he meant
by that. He says, I'm generally a nice guy, but there's a dragon
that comes out. And I just want you to know that,
that if things kind of go wrong and you do something that I don't
like, you're going to see the dragon. Now, I was a young man
at that time, and I guess God wanted to teach me, you know,
what a dragon looked like. Believe you me, when our paths
crossed, The dragon came out and it was remarkable to me.
He was as nice and kind as could be, but when he was crossed or
he perceived that he was crossed, he was as vile and vain and,
and, and, and just hostile. The dragon came out, but you
know what? I had agreed to it, right? I had agreed to it. So I had
to learn to deal with the dragon. Israel is learning how to deal
with the dragon. You got it? Israel is dealing with the dragon.
See, Haji told me he had a dragon. He didn't do like people who
are in situations where they get involved with people and
don't really know the full person. Because virtually everybody got
a little bit of a dragon. You do know that, right? Everybody
got a little dragon, some little dragon, little salamander or
something, right? If not a dragon, a little salamander,
right? Alright, I'll leave that alone. There is forgiveness with God
though. And sins can be blotted out. Go to Isaiah chapter 43,
25. Isaiah 43, 25. There's forgiveness with God
and sins can be blotted out. And God himself takes delight
in blotting out sins. Listen to what God says in verse
25. Are you there? Even I am he that blotted out
thy transgressions. Do you see that? For my own sake
do I do it and I will not remember your sins in that a covenant
blessing But the language here is covenant to write its new
covenant being declared in the old covenant that God will be
this way to us Not because of us but for his own namesake Now
who blocks out sin? God does. Now you know who knows
that God blocks out sin? Every true believer. Remember
what David said in Psalm 51 verse 1? Listen to what he says in
Psalm 51 verse 1. This is David who had messed
up. He understood covenant principles. Have mercy upon me, O God. According
to your loving kindness, according to the multitude of your tender
mercies, what? Block out my transgressions. Do you see it? Then he said it
again, I think over in verse nine, the same thing. Psalm 51
verse nine, listen to what he says. Hide thy face from my sins
and blot out all mine iniquity. So you know what David is doing?
David is not negotiating with God that if God gives him a little
time, he will change his life and thus start gradually erasing
the sin from the ledger. Bit by bit by bit. He's not saying
to God, if you give me time, I'll, I'll change my life. Oh
God, I'll stop doing what I'm doing. I'll clean up my act. I'll do a bunch of good works
to get right with you. Why? Because David understood
that it's impossible by human nature to remove even one sin. David understood that you can't
commit a sin and then have the power to undo that sin. That the wages of sin is what? If it is death, then in order
for me to adequately remove a sin, death must take place, which
now destroys my capacity and even my motive for removing sin. For if I'm going to remove sin
by dying, well, if I die, I'm dead, right? So I'm in trouble
because if I attempt to put away my sins, I kill myself. And if
I leave my sins alone, I'm still going to die. My only hope is
someone who is bigger than death, who can stand in my place and
deal with the consequences and cause me to live. This is why
the idea of the blotting out of sins is a divine act alone. And this is why Colossians chapter
two verse 14 tells us that when Christ died on Calvary's tree,
by his death on Calvary's tree, he blotted out. He blotted out. Listen to what it says. Blotting
out the handwriting of what that word ordinances is the law of
God, the handwriting of God's law. By the death of Christ,
he blotted out. The handwriting of ordinances
that was for us against us, which was what? Contrary to us. And he took it out of the way,
nailing it to his cross. Do you see that? So God is the
one who does it. He did it by the death of Christ
because only a God man could deal with our sin and not destroy
us. This is why Peter could bring
forth the proposition, repent, be converted, that your sins
may be blotted out. You guys understand what I'm
saying? Repent, be converted, that your sins may be blotted
out. Now go back to our text. He wants to deal with another
analogy that's quite important in relationship to this. So we
see that the blotting out of sins is a divine work because
our sins are written indelibly on our heart and on the law of
God so that on the last day, when God pulls up his law sheet
and pulls up our conscious, every mouth may be stopped and the
whole world will become guilty before God. You know how people
think they, have you ever been to court before, traffic court?
How many of y'all been to traffic court? Good. Good. 85% have you
ever, have you ever sat in traffic court and just marvel at how
folks try to go up to the judge and try to persuade the judge
that they're not guilty of the crime and the judge got all the
information right in front of them. Have you ever seen that?
Does this person have any sense? Don't they realize that the only
thing you can do when that judge got all the evidence in front
of you is bad for mercy. I don't go there much, but I've
gone there from time to time. Like everyone else, as we're
going to learn on Saturday, one of the reasons why, unless you
learn how to manage your money, the way the system is set up
and structured, the way the system is set up and structured, is
designed to take everyone's money who is lazy and slothful and
careless. Not only in terms of taxes, not
only in terms of inflation, not only in terms of you buying into
everybody else's business by being a consumer, but by the
infractions of all kinds of laws everywhere. Have you noticed?
You don't even have to leave your house to get a ticket. I love burning wood. I love burning
wood. It seems like every two or three
days, they're telling me I can't burn wood. And if you burn wood
and we see the smoke, we're going to send you a fine. They can
actually get money from me while I'm sitting in my house. Are
you guys hearing me? This is why you have to be so
diligent about how to handle your money. You can't be lazy
in a culture that's taxing people to death. You can't be lazy about
that. And so Acts chapter three, Verse
19, we move to another metaphor. After he deals with the blotting
out principle, the offer of the shed blood of Jesus Christ, which
blots out our sins, he goes on to say, when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord. Do you see that?
When the times of refreshing shall come from the presence
of the Lord. That's difficult language. That's not easy language.
Unless you already know what that means. Somebody tell me
what that means. Times. Refreshing Let me see. Let me see if you know cuz I
know I know what we do We rejoice in Bible statements, but we don't
have no idea what they mean Man that's beautiful. Lord. That's
a beautiful text. What does it mean? I don't know
Times are refreshing when they come from the Lord So someone
give me a shot at times of refreshing when they come from the Lord
because now we have compounded metaphors and the two metaphors
here now are have nothing to do with each other. One is the
legal act of blotting out indelible sin written on stone, which is
an oxymoron, and you're blotting it out with the blood of the
God-man. You see how these metaphors are on a human level irrational? That's the nature of scripture
when it comes to revelation. You have to be careful to understand
God compounds metaphors for the purpose of causing you and I
to realize that what God does, only God can do. They are not
rational or reasonable to us because they're impossible. It's
impossible to remove indelibly written statements of condemnation
concerning your sin on stone by blood, but God can do it.
Now we're moving to another one. You think you got a shot at it,
Barry? Let's see. That's Isaiah chapter 35. It's
close. I think that's pretty close.
I think it means, I think we're getting in the ballpark. So what
Brother Barry is getting at when he thinks about refreshing, what
he's thinking about is the parched ground of the dry famished soul
of the man or the woman who has been out of fellowship with God
so long that they are weary, that they are worn, that they're
tired, that they're dry and they need to be refreshed. Doesn't
that sound good? It may not be true, but I'm doing
a good job. Am I doing a good job? It may not be true, but
I'm just working with Brother Barry's analogy here, that I'm
thinking that's what he's saying. Is that what you're saying, brother?
And so the analogy of the H2O coming down upon the soil of
the heart, when the heart is parched, it can receive that
H2O and begin to experience moisture and refreshing. I agree with
him. Do you agree with him? We could
be all wrong, but it just sounds good, doesn't it? That's not
how you actually do exegetical Bible study by just jumping at
it. But I will say this, it's true
in part what he's saying. It's true in part what he's saying.
The apostle Paul used this term refreshed a few times in the
New Testament. He used it in the book of Timothy
when he talked about how Titus refreshed him How Titus refers
to second Timothy chapter 1 verse 16 listen to how he says this
and I just want you to hear it because this actually will get
into the character of the believer in their exhortation and And
and and and influence second Timothy 1 16 their exhortation
and influence in the life of the people of God Let's see if
we can make this good. We've got about 30 minutes. Listen
to this I'm gonna start back at verse 13 hold fast the form
of sound words which you have heard of me in faith and in love
which is in Christ Jesus Timothy that good thing which was committed
unto thee keep by the Holy Ghost which dwells in us that good
thing is the gospel okay Timothy had had imparted to him the gospel
because Paul was his spiritual father and Paul had taught him
Christ He had taught him Christ. There's no greater inheritance
that you can give to your children than to teach them who God is
in Christ and how God saves sinners. That's the biggest inheritance.
And so Paul being Timothy's spiritual father had bestowed upon him
the gospel. And then the elders laid hands
on Timothy and he became a preacher of the gospel. And he is now
entrusted with the gospel. And when you've been entrusted
with the gospel, your job is to keep the gospel. Keep that
what you've been entrusted with like analogously Isaac had given
Jacob and Esau blessings Esau sold his birthright because he
was hungry for carnal food It's like unto him receiving the gospel
because that's what it was but he abandoned that gospel for
carnal temporary blessings and the Inheritance was passed to
Jacob and he didn't let it go Are you hearing what I'm saying?
So people who abandon the gospel for this world's good are such
as reject rather than preserve the inheritance that was given
to them and Here's what Paul goes on to say in verse 15 this
thou knowest That all they which are in Asia be what turned away
from me. The word is apostatized this
is why he said Timothy keep the gospel and This is an aside,
but I want you to hear it. This is how much Paul understood
the danger of perilous times. He had to warn someone that he
really truly knew was a true believer, not to abandon the
gospel. See, Timothy was weak. Like all
of us by nature are weak. And if we aren't constantly encouraged
to be built up in the faith, the trends of majority can cause
you to loosen your grip on the gospel and eventually lose the
gospel. Many a pastor starts off faithfully
teaching the word of God, but by and by, because they want
to build big churches, they let the gospel go and they become
ashamed of the propositions of the gospel, which makes a clear
distinction between people who are authentically saved by grace
and lost men and women who never really know God, but just play
church. And so they never ever deal with souls earnestly because
they know that will divide. They are more concerned about
their reputation and their agendas than they are the eternity bound
souls of men and women. So they will not tell the truth
that those people might be saved. So what has happened was their
allegiance to Jesus has shifted to their allegiance to their
agenda. Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? That's a subtle
but dangerous reality and it can happen to any professing
Christian. You can start off running well
and not finish at all. You can start off as it were
with your eyes on Christ and committed to Jesus. But by the
time he gets ready to head to Calvary, Like he said smite the
shepherd and the sheep shall be scattered Judas Iscariot for
30 pieces of silver sold him out any human being has the capacity
to apostatize if God doesn't keep you and One of the ways
that God keeps us is by having faithful preachers warn us To
not abandon the gospel and this is what he's doing with Timothy.
Are you guys hearing me? See, as a spiritual father over
many, many men, he had taught the gospel. He saw lots of them
abandon the gospel for this world. He's saying, Timothy, don't you
do it? Don't you abandon this gospel? Keep that thing which
was committed to you. Now watch this. This thou knowest
that all they which are in Asia turned away from me, of whom
are Fagilius and Hermogenes. Watch this. But the Lord give
mercy unto the house of Onesiphorus. Are you ready? For that brother
often refreshed me and he was not ashamed of my change. Do
you see that? Now see, when I lift this text
up and I consider the grace of God bestowed upon Onesiphorus,
I want that grace. Here's the grace that I want.
I want the grace to be able to bless a brother or sister when
they are in my presence with a refreshing of the soul by a
conversation about God that allows us to go deep enough for their
heart to be wet with the dew of heaven because of the spirit
of God in our fellowship. And I want them to be able to
be thankful after we left for having spent time with brother
Jesse. That's what I want them to be
able to. I want them to know that we met God in the midst
of that dynamic and God has invigorated me. Now watch this. And Paul
said, I had chains on at that time. And whereas most brothers
were running from me because I was bearing visibly the sufferings
of Christ. This brother came and visited
me in prison and he encouraged me and he lifted me up and he
told me to keep pressing forward and he supported me. And this
is exactly what our master meant when he says, when you visit
them, you have visited me. And when you feed them, you have
fed me. And when you clothe them, you have clothed me because he
knew his people who would suffer for his namesake would have to
go through all that stuff. And how does Christ come to them
in many ways, but frequently through men and women who are
committed to the gospel, there's nothing like being in a lonely
place where there's physically sick or suffering for Christ
and be down in your soul. And Paul was human. And then
a brother or sister comes. with a good word from God as
cold water to a thirsty soul come from heaven. So is the good
news of the gospel that comes from a far country. Are you hearing
what I'm saying? And this is exactly what Paul
is saying. And this is the root of our same word. I say that
only to affirm brother Barry's initial idea. You guys got that,
that the idea of refreshing people is being able to speak about
the things of God in such a way as to meet a need in their soul.
That's what we want to be. We want to be wells of water,
Isaiah chapter 26. I want to be a well of salvation. I want a person to be able to
take his bucket and dip it down inside the council of God's grace
in my life and draw it out and be able to drink from my experience
with Christ and have their souls met. have their soul's needs
met. That's what you want. That's
what we want. We want to be a blessing in that way. So we affirm that
metaphor. But the idea of refreshing the
soul has a little bit of a different twist on it in a more grammatical
sense. And I want to deal with that
right now just to build us up. The idea really has more to do
with restoring us from a lapse of love for Christ. The root word for refreshing
here is the word for being cold. Going back to our text. Repent ye therefore and be converted
that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing,
refreshing come from the presence of the Lord and he sends, and
he shall send Jesus Christ, which was before preached unto you.
The idea of the word, ladies and gentlemen, really has to
do with the state of the nation of Israel. When Jesus came, when
John, the apostle John, the Baptist had came, he had come into the
world and the world was made by him, but the world did not
know him. He was in the world, but the world did not receive
him. The world didn't receive him and the world didn't receive
John the Baptist. And that was because, and this
was not the whole world, this was the Jewish world. It was
because they had languished for so long in their sin and under
the legal system of the law that when Jesus and John came, they
were almost dead. They were like a dead nation.
The people that sat in darkness saw a great light. So here's
what God does in this idea of refreshing, refreshing. He sees
the heart languishing under sin, under worldliness, under carnality,
under iniquity. Remember Matthew 24 around verse
12 or 13? When iniquity abounds, the love
of many shall wax what? Cold. The love of many will wax
cold, wax cold. And the idea is that a cold heart
is a heart that has lost love for Christ. After we go through
the book of Hebrews, I'm going to go through the seven churches
of Revelation. It's been many years, but I'm going to be going
through that again. And the first church that our
master deals with is the church at Ephesus. And he says to you,
I have this against you. You have left your first love. And then he says to the last
church, the church at Laodicea, I would that you were cold or
hot, but because you are lukewarm, I have to spill you out of my
mouth. We're dealing with metaphor again. And the idea is this,
if you and I are not careful, there are a lot of things that
can take place both internally in our conscious, in our soul
that can distract us from commitment to Christ, commitment to God,
commitment to the sensitivity of the presence of the third
person who connects us to God through Christ so that we stop
having fellowship with God and stop having fellowship with Christ
because we have ceased to have fellowship with the third person
who is the immediate presence of the second and the first.
Am I making some sense? And so what we begin to do is
actually go about our life in broken communion. You're going
to hear me talk about this on Sunday as I talk about the sufferings
of Christ. We read in Hebrews chapter 5
that it was heard and that Christ feared when he anguished in the
garden. My soul is troubled and exceedingly
sorrowful even unto death. And he's languishing, Father,
If there be any other way, but this way, would you please make
another way? I want you guys to hear it. I'll
talk a little bit more about it on Sunday. Jesus Christ was
the God man. He was not afraid of death. Are
you hearing me? Death was not his concern. He
had been saying over and over and over and over and over and
over again. When the son of man is crucified and killed and risen
again the third day. He was already declaring his
triumph before it even occurred. It wasn't death that was gripping
him. Many men have faced death valiantly,
even in their ignorance. And certainly the master who
created life and death, that is the Lord Jesus, would not
have been afraid of dying. Are you guys hearing me? Perish
the thought. His repulsion, his inward repulsion
was the thought that for a second he would have broken fellowship
with his infinite Father. You know what that means for
you and me? We're messed up. Aren't we? Because we can go
with broken fellowship with God for a long time. for a long time. You can't tell
me just because you're saved, you're no more a sinner. You're
still a vile sinner. See, when God finally makes us
like Christ, isn't that what we learned last night, ladies,
in the study? When he finally, we on the bus of faith, right?
Riding that bus of faith. We gonna finally look like him
one day, aren't we right? Isn't that right, ladies? One
day, I'm gonna look just like him. And you know what? My holy
soul, of which I can only imagine right now, I have no idea what
a holy soul is. You don't either. My holy soul
will be so thankful to be permanently connected to God in every fiber
of my being for all eternity. Never ever to contemplate the
chasm that exists between me and God now called my sin. Are you hearing me? the son of God at the thought
of even a nanosecond separated from his father. Sometimes you
and I don't even want fellowship with God. That's how bad our
sin is. Am I telling the truth? That's why people tell me I'm
not a sinner anymore. You are clueless. You are clueless. If you can breathe in and out,
if you can entertain a lust for five seconds, you are still a
hell bound sinner by nature. To see when God makes us new
and glorifies us, the most abhorrent thing to our being will be sin. Right now, we drink iniquity
like water to fool yourself. And so the idea is this, upon
repentance, which is a gift of God, upon changing your ways,
which is a grace of God, having your sins blotted out by the
cross work of Jesus Christ, because the God and father of our Lord
Jesus Christ is pouring upon us the spirit of grace through
the preaching of the gospel, you can experience the refreshing
of the power of the spirit of God restoring the heart Into
union and fellowship with God through the gospel now now mark
how this works so the whole nation By and large rejected the gospel,
but there were people who were not only Receiving the gospel,
but they were waiting for the gospel when Christ in them came
Hannah was waiting for 97 years old waiting for the consolation
of Israel Simeon lifted the Son of God up to heaven and says
now mine eyes have beheld thy salvation. I'm ready to go to
glory Are you hearing me and the shepherds saw their salvation? And the wise men came from the
east as far as they needed to come to see their salvation.
And many women believed on the Lord Jesus Christ throughout
the whole of his ministry. And tons of people came to John
the Baptist's baptism because they were seeking to flee from
the wrath to come. They were waiting for the Lord,
having made straight their paths. What was God doing? Invigorating
that heart, warming that heart to Jesus, their husband. So when
he would show up, they would run to him. There were 120 in
the upper room after our Lord suffered his crucifixion. They
had held on because they loved him. They were the nucleus by
which the Holy Ghost now is reverberating through Jerusalem and Judea.
Peter's one of them. He made it, didn't he? Messed
up, but he made it. That's me. Messed up, but I made
it. You understand? I'm in. Don't
look at how I got there. Remember the bus ride of faith?
This is a bus ride. Don't know if you're gonna judge
me on how I got there. I just want to ask you a question.
Are you in? See cuz if you're not in you
see if you're not on the bus you got problems You might be
looking all civilized and cool and everything and you but see
it's about being on the bus No shocks no windows crooks and
everything but I'm staying on the bus till I get to my destination
you understand what I'm saying, I'm staying on the bus and and
the Apostle Peter could say I stayed on the bus until we were blessed
with the Holy Ghost, which is the promise that we'll be unpacking
more fully next week. But Peter is a sign and a wonder
here, too. Because boy, he was struggling. Wasn't he struggling? But God
kept him, didn't he? And what a candidate to share
the gospel with his Jewish constituents when he had demonstrated so much
weakness and lax himself. The Lord had to come and restore
him. Remember Peter was the one that said, man, let's go back
to our old business. Remember that? And they all joined it.
They were back fishing and our Lord met them in their apostasy
on the shore, fried chicken and cornbread, hot water, cornbread. So when they get to the shores,
they're ready to eat. And John said, that's the master. Cause
he loves to eat with us. Remember, I said, he knew her
master's pattern after his resurrection. And as soon as he had fellowship
with them around food to let them know everything was all
right, he pulls Peter to the side. Peter, I just got to ask
you a couple of questions. Do you love me? Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Do you love me? That's the work of the spirit
of God to fill the heart with the love of Christ. and keep
it inflamed by his providence and his mercy and the preaching
of the word and the worship of God and the fellowship of the
saints as we make our way through this world to keep our hearts
aflame towards God. That is what God delights in. He delights in fellowshipping
with us. Are you hearing me? And so if
we wanted to, we could say that what Peter is offering to the
Jewish people is already happening. 3,000 souls had already been
saved. By the time we get to the end
of chapter four, guess how many more? Another 5,000 will be saved.
That's 10,000 people almost, plus men and women and children,
about 13, 15,000 people already under conversion and already
preaching the gospel in the temple from house to house, breaking
bread, having fellowship, authentic saints. Is there a refreshing
taking place? Absolutely. A marvelous refreshing
taking place. And he shall send Jesus Christ,
which was before preached unto you. Verse 20. This will be our
last point and we'll shut it down. What does it mean that
he will send Jesus Christ to you who was preached? It does
not mean that Jesus is going to be coming physically. He will
come on the last day physically. But what Peter is saying is the
work of the gospel calling men and women to repentance and faith.
is a consequence of the Word of God revealing to us who Jesus
is. And in the preaching of the Word
assisted by the Spirit of God, Christ actually comes through
that Word to you and to me. Christ speaks to us through His
Word. Go with me in your Bible to Ephesians
chapter 2. I want you to see this. This is why those of us
who are so committed to the finality and the totality and sufficiency
The scriptures have great qualms with such as would assert or
say That God is going to be speaking to them in some divine way apart
from the scriptures And I know you hear all kind of stuff about
a person meeting Jesus Jesus showed up in a dream Jesus showed
up in a revelation Jesus literally met me in my room one day. I'm
in Ephesians chapter 2 14 And I told you this before and I
have to say it again. If a person makes a proposition,
our proposal, our assertion that something has happened in their
life and experience that they had, you and I have no authority
to accept what they say just because they say it. You don't
have the right to say, I believe that because I just feel like
it was true. Well, that's just an opinion
you're holding. Just like what they experienced was merely an
anecdotal thing that they went through of which we got to filter
that through a number of possibilities, don't we? One is they could be
a little bit kooky. Right? The other is they could
be on medication. Right? And I can talk to you
about hallucinogens and altered states of mind. in the deceptive
nature of psychosis and psychology where you really do think that
reality is the way you see it or perceive it when in fact of
matter reality is only reality according to God. There are lots
of things that we swear happened and they were mere figments of
the imagination. Am I making some sense? Not to
say the least, all of these outrageous stories that you hear all over
the world about how God is acting when you never have seen God
act that way, even in the scriptures. So when he came to you, how,
what do you look like? Well, you know what he looked
like, pastor. No, I don't know what he looked like. I wasn't
there 2000 years ago. What do you look like? He looked like
the guy in the picture. That's not Jesus. The guy in
the picture, you know, the 16th century Michelangelo description
of an Anglo-Saxon cat with long white blonde hair. It's not Jesus.
It's not Jesus. Are you guys following me? No one knows. what Christ looked
like. And why would Christ accommodate
a pure speculation? Why would he do that? Are you
hearing what I'm saying? And so the appearances of our
Lord prior to the fulfillment of the canon of scripture, such
as in the book of Acts, which happened twice in Acts chapter
9, and then again in Acts chapter 28, where our Lord appeared to
Paul twice. He appeared to him as the blistering,
glorious light that he is. Are you hearing me? A blistering
revelation. I can't wait till we get to that
chapter because it is a quintessential type of what happens when a person
is born again. The light shines out of darkness.
But Paul did not describe his cadence. He didn't describe his
His voice tone, whether he was a tenor, tenor baritone, second
tenor, whatever. He didn't describe his height.
He didn't describe his weight. He didn't describe his ethnicity.
He gave no attempt to describe what he saw. Nor did he in Acts
28, when he was in the storm, on the ship, Heraclodon, ready
to destroy the ship. And he said, this night, the
angel of the Lord, whose I am and whom I serve which is Jesus
Christ came to me. No description was given. The only time you and I get a
description of the physicality of Jesus is in Revelation chapter
1 and there is no physical description of his facial Appearance are
even his ethnicity then that's a collage of Old Testament language
Calling him for who he is the great high priest and mediator
the post-resurrected glorified ancient of days Jesus Christ
all that language describes to us is his glorified divine human
nature it does not get into other graphics and Those are licenses
that people take that get in the folks' head. After all, you
can go to the Baptist church, black Baptist church, you got
a black Jesus up there. Isn't that right? Black Jesus.
You know, you can make Jesus anything you want to, but whatever
you make him, he is not the true Jesus. Making what you want to
you have committed the same violation that God told Israel not to commit
in Exodus chapter 20 You shall not make any graven image of
me in heaven or in earth or under the earth For the Lord God did
not come to you in a similitude only in a voice only by the word
Only by the declaration of the truth. Did you hear the voice
of the Lord? Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? Well, we're pagans. Are we pagans? You got Jesus
on your dashboard bobbling Keeping you, keeping you from your car
accidents. You hit the brakes cause you, you, you lapsed in
judgment and you, you almost ran the light, the car passed.
You put your hand on little G. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus. Grabbed him
and put him up to your heart. Or you start rubbing your little,
uh, your little cross. Oh, thank you. Oh, thank you,
Jesus. Oh, thank you, Jesus. Do you
understand? You understand that's idolatry.
Do you understand that's idolatry? It's idolatry. There is no precedent
anywhere in scripture for God to tell you to use that kind
of medium to contemplate Christ. The just shall live by faith,
and faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence
of things not seen. Blessed is he that did not see
me. and yet believe. Isn't that right? Because that's the person that
the Holy Ghost is engraving upon the heart, the image of the Lord
Jesus Christ and his true character and nature as the God man. And that becomes satisfying to
us. Every since I've been born again,
I have never, ever longed to know what Jesus physically looked
like. Do you know why? I'll help you
with this and I'll show you a verse. I have been so enamored with
and overwhelmed by the sufficiency of the scriptures to bring me
into the depths of the knowledge of God. that I know that I don't
have a sufficient capacity to even contemplate or imagine all
that the scriptures have afforded me of a knowledge of God, let
alone some extra special revelation. I'm still reeling to and fro
by the glory of God in Christ in the word. Am I making some
sense? So I'll go to a text and show
you what I'm saying. Second Corinthians. And we'll stop right here. Second
Corinthians chapter five. I love the Lord. I love the Apostle
Paul because, you know, he had both sides of the equation. He had the Old Testament side
and he had the New Testament side. He was radically committed
to the Tana. The Tana is the Old Testament
writings, combination of three, the Torah, the Nevi'im, and the
cotton to knock. It's a contracted form of three
words the law the prophets and the writings that's Genesis to
Malachi. You'll learn that in biblical
theology. So they contract the word call it the to knock. He
was fully aware of the to knock both the Old Testament Hebrew
scriptures and also the Septuagint version that came down through
Alexander the Great. Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees,
of the highest order, taught under Gamaliel, richly and deeply
entrenched in the Word of God, knowing jots and tittles in all
the forms of the Old Testament language and structure, committed
to the Bible in such a way he was ready to kill even Christians
for even daring to say Jesus is curious. But he did it ignorantly
in unbelief, as we learned last week, right? And once he came,
into a knowledge of the true by the revelation of Christ himself,
his heart was so broke to what God has to do to you when he
actually brings you to a saving knowledge of himself. And you
think about all of the facade and all of the false religion
and all of the hypocrisy and all of the sinfulness you perpetrated,
pretending to know Christ. When you finally come to know
him, it breaks the heart that one lived in that kind of hypocrisy
because the glory so excels the false facade of religion that
your heart aches that you ever told anyone something that didn't
correspond with the truth. It aches. This is why Paul says,
I'm a debtor to every man because I was zealous telling people
about a God I did not know. Why I say if you are still under
Jewish legalism, you're not God's child. You're not God's people.
You can't be God's people until you know God. Why Jesus said
your father is the devil. You don't know God. Because if
you knew God, you would know me. You'd know I came from God
and you'd know that you can't know God without me. No man has
seen God at any time. Only he who is in the bosom of
the father, he hath revealed him. You guys got that? So the Jewish people were ignorant
of God, even though they thought they knew God. And that's what
we are when we're religious. We're ignorant of God, even though
we think we know God. I tell you what, if you ever
get a revelation of his glory and the power of the gospel,
you will know that you didn't know because you know now. That's why Paul was such an amazing
preacher of the gospel, because when God turned him around and
let him go, He burned it up. Didn't he burn it up? I told
you the transition from chapter 9 and 11. Peter disappears off
the scene by the time we get to the 11th chapter. Paul takes
it, Peter, I got it from here. And here's what he says in 2
Corinthians chapter 5. This is very important to understand
because he's dealing with people's idolatrous notions of Christ. And here's what he says in chapter
5. I'm gonna start at verse 14 and
go through verse 17 and the text I want you to meditate on is
verse 16 For the love of Christ constrains us got it the constant
unending abiding Motive for while we serve God is the love of Christ
That's notice whenever you and I do something apart from the
love of Christ. There's conflict Okay, whenever
we do anything Apart from the love of Christ, there's conflict.
Because the spirit of God is not going to endorse anything
that's not based upon love. Do I need to explain that? Do
I need to explain that? Faith, which pleases God, only
works by what? That's Galatians chapter 5, verse
5 and 6. You better get it. So the premise of true faith
is love. The premise of faith cannot be
simply my own agenda. or how I feel, or even my giftedness. The premise of true faith is
love. Faith is the fruit, love is the seed. Like Christ is the
love of God embodied. If Christ did not come, we could
not know that God loved us. For He came and manifested His
love to us in His faithful obedience to His Father so that you and
I might experience that love and then manifest that same love
by faith. The motive has to be what? Love. That's what the Holy Ghost endorses.
He does not endorse anything else. Soon as I am operating
merely out of my own carnal propensities, there's conflict. The Holy Ghost
has to stand back because see listen if I am doing it out of
my own carnal propensity I am seeking a reward for myself This is why Jesus said that which
is of the flesh is of the flesh And that which is of the spirit
is of the spirit and there's no commingling the two Those
things that are done by the spirit bear the fruit of the spirit.
Those things that are done by the flesh always bear the fruit
of the flesh and the spirit never bears record to fleshly motives.
He always bears record against them. He always lets you know. He always lets you know your
motive is suspect, sir. You don't get a pass on this
because your motive is suspect. Is that good? Though sometimes
we are endeavoring to do something and we're conflicted and we don't
have a real clear reason why it's because our motive is not
rooted in love. God will put up with a lot of
things that we do in terms of our method. As long as our motive
is right. Did you guys get that? Because
he can adjust methodology. But he's not going to endorse
a selfish agenda. That was Judas Iscariot. Am I
boring you? Almost done. 2 Corinthians chapter
5 verse 15, 14. For the love of Christ constrains
us because we thus judge that if one died for all, then all
were what? Not sick, not uninformed. Verse 15. And that he died for
all that they which live, Should not live henceforth unto them
what? That's my point Now watch it. So paul is operating out
of logical syllogism The only people that live Are the people
for whom christ died? Did you get that? You can't live
apart from the fact that christ died for you Because what he's
doing is trading his life for your death You got that the only
reason you're alive is because he died And when he rose again,
he says, I live because you because I live, you live also. So no
one lives who is not attached to Christ, death, burial and
resurrection. And you only live because Christ
died to put away your sin, which would have killed you, which
while you were in your sins, you were dead spiritually and
you're alive now because he's alive. Am I making some sense?
When he rose, I rose, even though he rose 2000 years ago, I rose
in him. The Holy Ghost caught up with
me 2,000 years later and said, get up. Am I making some sense? I want you to get up today. That's
what happens when a person gets saved. Get up. Why? Because Christ
got up 2,000 years ago for you. So now it's time for you to get
up. And I'm only living by him because he died for me. And when
he died for me, I died with him. Y'all get that? See, the key
is union. Have nothing no, nothing can
do nothing apart from him This is this is the truth of the gospel.
So stay with me now watch this He says That they live They should
not live henceforth unto themselves But unto him which died for them
and rose again see the qualitative nature of The trajectory of the
life of the true believer is because of and towards him The
qualitative nature and the trajectory of the life of the true believer
who is biblically informed is because of him I live because
of him and I live for him and I'm living towards him because
I'm headed towards him this is what Paul can say for me to live
is Christ and To die is gain. I love him. I Paul knew he was
gonna be writing to the 21st century church that went to government
school. See we only get sound bites. That's a sound bite. For me to live is Christ. That
ain't hard. We can do a lot with that, right?
We can put that on a placard. That could be a teletron on the
TV. For me to live is Christ. Ooh, that's easy. For me to live
is Christ. And yet it's full of rich theological
truth, right? Paul knew what he was talking
about. His motto in Galatians chapter 2 verse 20 is, I have
been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not
I, but Christ liveth in me. Right? He gave himself for me
that I might live through him. Now listen to it. Now I want
you to hear verse 16. Are you ready? Because of this,
henceforth, we know no man after the what? What do we mean by
flesh? Ethnicity. Ethnicity. Ethnicity. We're not talking
about physical body. Remember what he said in Acts
chapter 2? I will pour my spirit upon all what? He wasn't talking
about mere physical body. He was talking about all ethnic
groups. Are you hearing me? He says henceforth know we no
man that's in Christ after their ethnicity. Are y'all following
me? Oh, this is beautiful. Watch
this. But see, we are so simple and
so carnal in our present religious generation that we put a lot
of stock in our ethnicity and we try to bring that stuff into
the church too. We keep trying to force into
the church old paradigms and old piccadillos and old things
that we love as if they matter. Here's what Paul said for which
he got killed and was hated by his own Jewish brother. He said
the reality of the exalted God man and men and women having
their identity in him from every nation kindred tribe and tongue
so that those who are Christ are not the same as they were
without Christ. We don't regard people after
their ethnicity anymore. because they're Christ. Are you
guys getting it? Are y'all starting to get it?
Because they're Christ. See, this is why I keep arguing
with this generation. Do you understand what you're
doing? You are lowering the glory of the exalted God-man when you
are forcing him to be a specific ethnic group, whether it's Jewish
or Gentile or black or white. He is neither Jew nor Gentile. He is the glorious last Adam,
the God-man for whom all who are in him are made new creatures. Isn't that where we're going
in verse 17? But before we get there, here's
what Paul says. Since we understand the superlative nature of the
God-man Jesus Christ, having transcended the old system of
ethnic groups that came out of one man, that is Noah, through
his three sons, which really means we're all still the same,
though our color pigmentation is a slightly different. It's
all one blood. You can argue over this stuff
if you want to, but in doing so you are superficial and you
are carnal and you have missed the gospel point. Right? You have utterly missed the gospel
point. If you are trying to protect how dark or light or how straight
or how nappy your hair is, you have utterly missed the point.
Christ did not save you so that you could hold on to your ethnicity
because he didn't hold on to his. That's why they killed him
because he did not honor what the Jewish people wanted to do
in exalting their nation against all the other nations of the
world. You're going to see this as we
go through the Book of Acts. The apostles when they preach salvation
to all the Jews are going to say away with that. Are you hearing
me. Watch the language there with
me a few more minutes. Thank you for your patience.
Listen to it and that he died for all that
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto
him which died for them and rose again Wherefore, henceforth,
know we no man after the flesh. Yea, though we have known, past
tense, Christ after the flesh, yet now, present tense, henceforth,
future tense, know we him no more. Got it? Did y'all miss that? Did anybody miss that? Did you
miss that? You missed that too? Paul, you
got to stop dealing with all of these pronouns, brother. Just
make it plain. Look at, look at the text. Wherefore,
henceforth, no, we know men after their ethnicity. That's not our
knowledge as Christians of brothers and sisters. We don't affirm
them because they are this ethnic group or that ethnic group. Saving
knowledge of Christianity transcends our ethnicity. We are brothers
and sisters in Christ. We are one in Christ We are neither
male nor female bond or free Jew or Greek right now what the
Bible teaches, but we don't act that way, do we? but what Paul
is saying is get beyond the constraints of your superficiality of Ethnicity
because this is grander than that Those become barriers to
the fellowship of the Saints too. I'm telling you They become
barriers. Can you imagine taking pride
in your doo-doo? Can you imagine that? Taking
pride in your doo-doo. I'm going to talk about it tomorrow. The old man is disfiguring right
in front of our face, isn't he? Is the old man disfiguring? Are
y'all listening to the messages on Sunday? The old covenant is
waxing old, disfiguring, and it's on its way to vanish. people
who walk by faith and not by can see that I Had that challenge Years ago
when I was teaching my children I'll finish this text in a second.
I just want to drive it home by an anecdote Because when you
go deep into the Word of God what you do learn is God is exposing
us of all the idols in our hearts I had inherited Thousands of
idols from my daddy. I didn't even know that was in
the closet. I have been operating out of a couple hundred on my
own. And as the Lord was dealing with me with my hundred or two
idols, another closet opens up and all kind of idols come out.
One of those idols was the idol of me being black. I didn't know it was there and I had to deal with it. because
I began to see what the scriptures were teaching about the transcendent
nature of the kingdom of God and the reality of a new people
in Him. And when God allowed me to fall
in love with Christ more and more to where I wanted to be
like Him, what He had me to have to do was be consistent with
my biblical theology in every area of my life. So when my daughters
became young adults and they were aspiring to marriage, we
had to have the conversation. I said, are you a believer in
Christ? Do you trust Christ as your savior? Do you want a Christian man? What kind of Christian man do
you want? Well, I want a tall black brother,
about six foot tall, 150 pounds, three pounds body fat, can leap
over tall buildings in his... No, no, no. That's all jacked
up. Piercing, isn't it? Piercing,
isn't it? Piercing. I said, daughters,
you want a man who loves God, and loves you like he loves God. That's the only biblical requisite. Am I making some sense? I understand
all the challenges. I understand the challenges.
But nothing works but love. Do you understand what I'm getting
at? Watch this. You're not overcoming
much simply because you are compatible ethnically. You're not overcoming
much. Well, you know, if I marry a
black man since I'm black, then we got black families where black
families just as jacked up as Asian families. And you'll come
to understand ain't nothing going on just because you got the same
skin color They hate you and they're malign you and they'll
talk bad about you They'll be just as much as your enemy as
a white person or an asian person. It don't matter no more Am I
making some sense? It doesn't matter anymore. Once
you are in christ, you're hated for christ's sake Then listen,
you're not gonna get a pass just because you're black Unless you
make your blackness more important than your christness then you're
cool with your black folks. Am I making some sense? And you're
cool with your white folks. But as soon as you start taking
Christ serious and you marry somebody outside of your line,
like Moses did and Joseph did, I'm talking about Joseph Jacob's
son. Cause he had to marry a black
woman in order to have a allegiance with Pharaoh. And it didn't matter. Are you hearing me? And we go
all through the line of our Lord Jesus Christ and realize that
he wasn't a pure Jewish man either. There's all kinds of stuff running
up through those lines. By the way, just in case you
don't know, I don't care how dark you are. You got stuff running
through your line. The very folks you don't like probably running
through that might be your great great granddaddy. Your great
great grandmama might be purely white, might be pure Irish, pure
German. I hate those Germans. Go through
your family tree. Find out you got 15 cousins, German. Am I
making some sense? One of my babies, stay with me.
I know I'm killing you, but I'm hoping to raise you again from
the dead here in a moment. One of my babies, my fourth oldest,
she's an accountant. You know, she got a master's
and start working, making a bunch of money. She ain't paid me back
yet, but we'll work that out. And she went through the family
tree. You know what she told my wife? She said, mama, I found
out. I'm 40% Irish. I knew already we didn't say
nothing, but you wouldn't tell by the way she looks because
she looks black. These are superficial things. Are you hearing me? Superficial
things and they will keep you down. They will keep you down
and your gospel will be domesticated and it will be limited. and it
will be factional, not facts, factional, divisive. By the way, you guys should come
out to the money management meeting tomorrow from five to eight.
Our first class was just absolutely phenomenal. This next class is
going to be phenomenal because we're going to expand on what
we were talking about tomorrow. He goes on to say, Wherefore
henceforth we know no man after their ethnicity. Yea, even though
we have known Christ after his ethnicity you got it Yet now and from this point on
we do not acknowledge his Jewishness We do not call him the Jewish
Messiah You guys got that You do not read that in the new testament
You don't have this little hyphenated Contracted phrase the jewish
jesus He's jesus He was jewish But he's now the glorified god
man in heaven representing every ethnic group in the world For
whom he died Am I making some sense? He's the last adam the
second man from glory, which means he began a whole new humanity
of which you and I are aspiring to. Y'all want to ask a vain
question as we close? I mean a real vain question.
What color am I going to be when I get to glory? Isn't that vain? Isn't that vain? What color am I going to be when
I get to heaven? Father, we thank you for your
mercy. We thank you for your glory,
for your goodness. We thank you for your promise
that this first order of things after the flesh is like a seed
sown into the ground of which by its appearance, it has no
resemblance to the glory that shall manifest itself afterwards.
There will be no one-to-one relationship between what I look like now
and what I'll look like then in a glorified state. And we
thank you for the promise of a transcendent eternity with
our Savior and our Lord, wherein all superficial distinctions
will be utterly eradicated for all eternity so that we can love
one another out of a pure heart, fervently, even as the Holy Spirit
is seeking to work in our life now. So that while we accept
what we are in our ethnic distinctions now, they are mere temporary
factors and they matter not if we don't use them for your glory.
Forgive us for all of those kinds of limitations. Forgive us for
making them idols in our life. Forgive us for making them points
of contention and divisiveness. Forgive the church of the living
God for living so low, so low. Instead of living according to
the high and holy and heavenly calling to which we were called
as we go our way Give us traveling mercies. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. Bless you guys. Bless you.
Bless you. Bless you. Bless you