3 Unchanging Truths for a ‘submit-certainty’ World

here is tailored from a message I preached last yr on Peter's Pentecost sermon in Acts 2.

the primary aspect we may still notice is that a publish-Christian age is not a problem for God.

And whereas this may additionally look counterintuitive, in many approaches put up-Christianity is an capabilities to the church, since it's an opportunity to peer what handiest the gospel can do.

In a "publish-everything" world, we will now not enchantment to religious sensibilities. we are able to now not market an more advantageous version to americans of what they already sort of consider in. In a morally puzzled, philosophically advanced, theologically vacuous lifestyle, we now get to see how a good deal we've at all times obligatory the supernaturality of Christianity.

We minister in puzzling instances. complex days. moral confusion. Gender confusion. Political division.

And the style the American church has gone about trying to navigate the complexity and chaos has been combative or consumeristic. in this spiritually perplexed—regularly antagonistic when no longer ambivalent—submit-every little thing world, the neatest thing the church can also be is herself.

There are three things we will draw from Peter's sermon in Acts 2:14-forty one that the realm will never be "submit"—three unchanging truths in a changing world:

1. the area Will certainly not Be 'put up'—The Saltiness of the Church

one of the causes God has ordained the gospel of Jesus to create a new covenant americans is to deliver to a divided, confused world, a dwelling, respiration witness to the fact of his united, coherent kingdom. In different words, the church is intended to be a signpost to a lost world that the splendor and peace of heaven is right.

this is why the mission of the church starts off with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes this type of stark change between the americans of God and business as standard that it's non-ignorable through the outside world (Acts 2:13-15). the first backyard observances to the witness of the church surmised they have been drunk!

because the church is first fashioned during the good news of Jesus, the Holy Spirit descends and marks the believers with some thing like tongues of fireplace. And americans who in the past couldn't have in mind each and every different, suddenly did: "we will hear in our native language!" (Acts 2:7)

Pentecost turns into the awesome un-babeling of Babel (Gen. eleven). where there turned into division and confusion, now there is cohesion and understanding. the place there was conflict between people established on themselves, now there turned into peace between humans based on Christ.

The Holy Spirit makes a brand new humanity at Pentecost.

The repentance and baptism that Peter calls for in 2:38-forty one amounts to going an extra approach. it is counter-cultural. The church isn't meant to reflect the tradition again to itself, to offer a spiritualized version of itself returned to it. that's a church that has misplaced its saltiness in accordance with Jesus's Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:13).

what's God's plan for combating the darkness of people that reject his counter-cultural mandate? The church. The church founded on Christ and working by means of the Holy Spirit is God's hope for the area.

The church is God's Plan A, and there's no Plan B.

No rely the state of the area, it is going to not ever be beyond the sanctifying, prophetic witness of the church headquartered on the gospel. indeed, the Lord has ordained the adventure of church now not for clean sailing in favorable winds and peaceful waters, however exactly for interestingly insurmountable cultural moments like ours. "This corrupt technology" isn't greater powerful than a bunch of damaged sinners who've determined to stop going their personal approach and in lowliness and meekness turn to the saving glory of the Lord. Even hell itself is not any match for the salt and light-weight of the church.

Do you deliver that truth to your people? you'll want to.

There may still be no more sufferer mentality within the church. The Holy Spirit has poured himself out on us. Even should still they kill us, we'll best get more desirable.

2. the world Will in no way Be 'post'—The Sovereignty of God

The incontrovertible fact that Peter is connecting the ancient movements of the second to historical testomony prophecies is his method of saying, "The Lord planned this."

If we focal point on the challenges and the complexities of ministry in a put up-Christian age, the probability for discouragement arises, and even for despondency. but our God is Lord over every age! He says, "I declare the conclusion from the starting, and from lengthy ago what is not yet accomplished, announcing: my plan will take place, and that i will do all my will" (Isa. 46:10).

Even the gospel message itself includes the certainty that what commonly feels like defeat is a foreordained capability of victory. trust the cross of Christ the place our King turned into tortured to death.

This move is now the capability of our salvation. after they nailed him to that pass, they concept they'd ended him. however they had unknowingly exalted him. They crowned him with thorns, unaware of the majesty to which they were submitting. in the economic climate of the gospel, those jeers have been blessings, and that spear become a scepter. They made him little and crushed, now not understanding he was purchasing the world!

They crucified him, now not understanding that his dying become victory. the place they brought darkness, he brought mild. His disgrace bought our salvation. His blood brought our splendor. His physique resurrected introduced the bursting of the very shackles of dying.

It turned into all part of the plan!

Our God is providentially guiding historical past to its appointed and anciently ordained conclusion. this is authentic within the massive epochs of world background. And it's true in the day by day fine details of your small corner of the ministry world.

So many pastors that I talk to appear to supply the influence that their ministry is occurring TO them. but I do anything i can to support them see the sovereignty of God, that God has appointed them for these very moments. He has actually put them on this collision path with their own inadequacy and insufficiency. And he stewarded this situation to them.

management is not only in regards to the handy days. leadership is supposed for the complex days. which you can have all the self assurance and humility that includes realizing God noticed all of this coming. And he wanted you to be the one on your position when it did.

The Lord has made the church for this very season, this very age.

Sorting through the difficulties of gospel ministry in a put up-everything world, you agree with that Christ is the Messiah. Do you consider he's Lord?

You may well be overwhelmed and brief-circuited by means of the challenges of your missional context, however the Lord isn't. Acts 2:24 says not even loss of life can cling him.

Let this world wander and wrangle. It can not outrun the sovereign plan of the Lord our God.

3. the world Will not ever Be 'publish'—The Supernaturality of the Gospel

you will note that this message is about a message. It's a sermon on a sermon. And so Peter's sermon at Pentecost is advantageous each in content material and also in kind. because it's virtually an exposition of Joel chapter 2. within that exposition, of route, he comprises exposition of other prophetic passages (cf. Ps. 16:24-28 and Ps. one hundred ten:34-35).

clearly, Peter believes expository preaching is how to go. however it's not only a working commentary on the text. That's no longer Peter's brand of exposition.

In his exposition of Joel and the Psalms, Peter is giving us a hermeneutic—a means of reading and preaching the Scriptures ourselves. he is showing us that (a) the Scriptures live and active, and (b) the Scriptures' significant testimony is the potent respectable news of Jesus Christ!

Peter's sermon at Pentecost, full of the Spirit—whose function it's to shine the spotlight on Christ and make repentant sinners more and more like Christ—is designed to area the risen Christ at the center of the residing Scriptures.

Peter is aware of the simplest energy he has at his disposal is the Holy Spirit working during the silly message of the move. And, brothers and sisters, the Holy Spirit working through the message of the cross is the only vigor we now have too.

The gospel is the simplest issue the new testomony calls energy, in reality.

The submit-everything world aren't converted through inspirational proverbs, motivational speeches, or laws and commandments any longer than anyone in any other age has been. The legislations can't alternate a single coronary heart. in a similar way, your sermons with seven purposeful steps cannot change a single heart.

Christianity is supernatural. We don't seem to be dealing with a lifestyles device, a non secular code, a collection of tips or directions for extra a hit dwelling and modified habits. because most effective the gospel is power (Rom. 1:sixteen).

The first rate information of Jesus Christ is vigour backyard of ourselves, in spite of ourselves, sourced within the Holy Spirit who is obliged and committed to furthering the glory of Jesus Christ throughout the proclamation of his existence, dying, and resurrection.

What our missional strategies and cultural philosophies couldn't do, the gospel of Jesus Christ could. Brothers and sisters, the gospel is the area's simplest hope, and accordingly it is our most effective hope of changing the area.

No remember how far past Christian values or Christian considering our age appears to get, it'll in no way be past the vigour of the gospel.

this is why Paul says to the Corinthians, "I didn't come to you in knowledge or eloquence. I resolved to understand nothing amongst you however Christ and him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2).

The hope of glory isn't a large church. The hope of glory isn't a a hit church. The hope of glory is Christ. And your little corner of the dominion may additionally not be going the manner you have got predicted it to be, but Christ's gospel will no longer return void. he will have his prize.

God's plan may now not be on your glory, however it is in fact for his personal. The query is: Will that be adequate for you? Are you content to have faith the Holy Spirit working in the course of the decent news of Jesus Christ, to repent of your trusting in ministerial technique and pragmatic attraction, to, like Paul, be aware of nothing among them however Christ and him crucified? in that case, you're going to see the place the real vigour is. the place the precise glory is.

therefore my heart is pleased and my tongue rejoices. additionally, my flesh will dwell in hope (Ps. sixteen:9).

He has made standard the paths of life to us. Doesn't that make your gladness full?