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[0:00] In our continued study of Acts, we have come to Acts 3 and our text for today will be verses 19 through 26.! Last week, we looked together at Peter's second sermon, the beginning of it at very least, and we ended at verse 19.

[0:19] And we saw that like his first sermon, which we see in chapter 2 of Acts, this sermon was preceded by a miracle. The first time by the disciples speaking in many different languages, this time the healing of a lame beggar.

[0:37] And these miracles were meant to give confirmation to the message that was about to be preached. God sets the stage. In fact, we see in this sermon that Peter and John are headed to the temple to pray.

[0:52] Verse 1 of chapter 3, his intention was not to go to the temple to preach. They encounter this man and this miracle is performed and a great crowd gathers to them.

[1:05] Now, this sermon that he preaches follows the same format of his first sermon. And, beloved, it's important for us to remember as we observe the Apostle Peter, who was such a high point in redemptive history, such a man to carry the gospel to these people that we are all called to be preachers of the gospel of Christ amongst our neighbors and our co-workers and our classmates.

[1:37] And so we need to pay attention to the content of these sermons. Same format. He first exalts Christ. He second, indicts his listeners, calls them guilty.

[1:53] And he third, calls his listeners to repent. Last week, as we looked at the beginning of Paul's, excuse me, Peter's second sermon, he exalts Christ through five names given to Jesus.

[2:09] First, his servant and then the name itself, Jesus. Verse 13. He calls him the holy and righteous one. Verse 14.

[2:21] The author of life. Verse 15. And Christ. Verse 18. 18. And all of these names are meant to draw his Jewish listeners' minds to all of the things that the Old Testament had to say about who the Messiah, the anointed one of God, was to be.

[2:40] This is what they longed for. They were waiting for this Messiah. And they wanted him to come and they wanted him to establish his kingdom as the Old Testament had promised. They wanted him to deliver them from Roman rule, which the Old Testament had not promised.

[2:56] They wanted another David to restore the glory of Israel. And the kingdom comes in a much, much different way than they expected. And they rejected Christ as the Messiah.

[3:09] They didn't meet. He didn't meet their expectations. And so Peter goes on to indict the listeners. Verse 13. Speaking of Christ, Peter says to them, Whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him.

[3:27] Pilate was going to let him go, but you denied him in the presence of Pilate. Again, verse 14. But you denied the holy and righteous one. Verse 15. And you killed the author of life.

[3:41] You didn't understand Jesus to be who he is. And you had him put to death. And then he goes on to call his listeners to repent.

[3:53] And we just touched on that last week. We ended with verse 19. Repent, therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out. And he goes on then to expand on this call of repentance as the summary of his sermon on this day.

[4:10] So this morning we're going to pick up at verse 19. And we're going to observe together the necessity and the nature of repentance in this conclusion of Peter second sermon.

[4:21] So I'll begin reading in verse 19. But before I do, we remind you, this is God's word to us.

[4:32] It was written for his glory and for our good. We would all do well to listen to it in order to believe its promises and obey its commands.

[4:43] Verse 19. Verse 19. Repent, therefore, and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you.

[5:00] Jesus, who heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, the Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

[5:16] You shall listen to him and whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. And all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaimed these days.

[5:32] You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

[5:45] God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. Now, as we look this morning at the necessity nature of repentance, I'll frame our study in the following ways.

[6:04] Number one, four prompters toward repentance. Four prompters toward repentance. How does God work to bring about repentance in his people?

[6:19] And secondly, four results of repentance. What are the blessings that accompany repentance? So four prompters, four results.

[6:31] But before we get to those particulars, it must be said that all people everywhere are called to repent.

[6:44] As we consider repentance this morning, as we talk about what it means and what marks it, how it is that it comes to pass. You need to sit and you need to consider.

[6:57] Have you ever repented? Have you ever truly been sorrowful for your sin and turned away from it and turned to Christ?

[7:07] Have you ever truly embraced him for the salvation of your soul? And secondly, if you have, if you're found in Christ, do you need now to repent?

[7:26] The Christian life is a life of repentance. Beloved, we go on repenting, turning from sin and turning to Christ, embracing him in greater and greater degrees.

[7:36] So have you ever and do you need now to repent? God's design is that all people repent. Acts 1730.

[7:48] Paul preaches the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. The core message of Jesus is preaching revolves around three commands, just three.

[8:06] They all revolve around these three. Number one, repent of your sins. We're talking about this morning. Repent of your sins. The second and third are love each other and your neighbor and go and make disciples.

[8:17] We could say we could sum that up to say, repent of your sins and lovingly help others do the same. Repent of your sins.

[8:28] Love each other and your neighbor. Go and make disciples. This is what Jesus came and preached. The very beginning of Mark's gospel, chapter one, verse 15. Jesus begins his ministry by saying the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.

[8:45] Repent, repent and believe in the gospel. But what does it mean to repent? There could be many misconceptions about this.

[8:58] Verse 19, Peter says to them, repent, therefore, and turn back. The Greek word here translated repent literally means, simply means to change one's mind or purpose.

[9:13] Repentance. The repentance is a turning away from sin, recognizing the way in which it grieves the Lord, turning away from it and turning toward Christ.

[9:27] Placing faith in his person and his work, recognizing that you need his righteousness and you need him to take the punishment of God for your sin.

[9:38] It's weightier than just a simple intellectual decision. And decisionism runs rampant in our churches these days.

[9:51] A presentation is made to you. You are pressed to a decision. And I hope that the majority of those who are pushed in this way do come to faith.

[10:02] I'm afraid that's not the case. We need to repent properly in order to be saved and to repent and to not then change the way in which you live.

[10:16] It's not repentance at all. John McArthur says this. I quoted it to you last week. Repentance is a change of mind that results in a change in behavior. And this little phrase in the beginning of verse 19, turn back, adds to that meaning.

[10:32] Repent, therefore, and turn back. Turn back to what? Back to God. Back to the creator. Right? To live in a way that pleases him.

[10:44] Some translations render that phrase be converted. And the Greek word can mean that. And I've read many cases this week suggesting that that's the proper identifier for it to be converted.

[11:02] But we know that God is the one who converts. That God is the one who changes hearts. That sends his spirit into the body of men in order to believe.

[11:13] And the verb is an active verb. I heard a preacher I respect deeply this week say that it's a passive verb. And I thought, how fascinating.

[11:24] If you don't know what that means, if it's active, the... Excuse me, my brain just blanked out on my grammatical language. Not the object.

[11:39] The person acting. Let me just say it that way. The person acting in the sentence... Don't yell it out at me because it'll get my brain all frazzled. The person acting in the sentence... If it's active, they're the one doing the action.

[11:50] If it's passive, the action is being done to them. Okay? You catching that? So again, pastor I deeply respect said that it's a passive verb, which would mean that the activity is being done to the individual.

[12:01] In that case, I think converted would be the proper way. But it's not. It's an active verb. And I wrestle with that. I won't bore you with the detail of it. But it is, in fact, active. So I think turn back is a better way to understand this.

[12:14] And what Peter's trying to say to them is that you must repent. You must show sorrow. You must be apologetic for your sin. And he's bounding on to that.

[12:25] He's adding to that extra meaning to say that we have to turn to God. Repentance is a change of mind that results in a change in behavior. And it's illustrated beautifully in a parable that Jesus taught in Matthew chapter 21.

[12:40] This is verses 28 through 31. Jesus said, A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, Son, go and work in the vineyard today.

[12:52] And he answered the son, I will not. But afterward, he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same.

[13:03] And he answered, I go, sir, but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father? They said the first.

[13:16] Jesus said to them, Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes, go into the kingdom of God before you. What he's saying to them is those who recognize their sin, who are not self-righteous, righteous, who initially say to God, I will not.

[13:35] But afterward, change their mind and their behavior are the ones who are accepted into the kingdom. The first son not only had a change of mind, but a change in action.

[13:48] Repentance is a redirecting of one's life in light of the grievous nature of their sin and the goodness of God to them in Christ.

[14:01] So the call this morning from Peter's sermon is for all people everywhere to repent. And there are four prompters, at least four prompters toward repentance.

[14:16] Four ways in which God works to bring about repentance. The first one is knowledge of the truth.

[14:29] Knowledge of the truth. The knowledge of God's revealed truth is meant to lead people to repentance. It serves to that great end.

[14:40] That truth is given to us in the Bible. God's revealed truth. Do you recall the story of the rich man and Lazarus? The rich man is suffering in hell and requests of Father Abraham that Lazarus be sent to preach to his brothers.

[14:59] Remember this story? What did Jesus say? Happens in the story. Luke chapter 16, verses 27 to 31. And he, Jesus said, excuse me, not, I'm sorry.

[15:11] The rich man said, and he said, then I beg you, Father, to send him to my father's house. For I have five brothers so that he may warn them lest they also come into this place of torment.

[15:24] But Abraham said, Jesus is telling the story, they have Moses and the prophets. He's saying if they have the scripture, let them hear them.

[15:38] And he said, the rich man, no, Father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent. He said to him, if they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

[15:59] The truth of God is all that's necessary to bring people to repentance. Repentance, right? Worked in them by the Spirit of God.

[16:11] Peter's called to them, repent, therefore, and turn back, right? Why? The therefore, right? You hear it asked. What is the therefore? Therefore, why should they repent?

[16:23] In light of the truth that Peter has just preached to them, right? He's exposed their sin. He's indicted them for killing Christ. For having an improper understanding of the Son of God.

[16:35] The knowledge of the truth is meant to expose our sinfulness in order to drive us to our knees in repentance. In our text, Peter is calling to his listeners to repent for the very first time.

[16:53] But as I said before, repentance does not cease when we are saved. Beloved, the truth still works in us to drive us to repentance.

[17:03] The Christian life is a life of repentance. We continue to repent because we continue to sin. Someone thinks they've ceased sinning.

[17:15] They're a liar. They need to repent of that. The front of your bulletin, Spurgeon quote, the true penitent repents of sin against God, and he would do so even if there were no punishment.

[17:27] When he is forgiven, he repents of sin more than ever, for he sees more clearly than ever the wickedness of offending so gracious of God.

[17:41] The idea he's presenting to us there is that those of us who have repented once, who have believed in Christ, and have seen God's gracious work in our lives, repent all the more because we pursue holiness, because we cast off sin, but we pursue holiness as a grateful response to what he's done for us.

[18:03] The Christian life is also a life of bringing about repentance in others by the proclamation of that same truth. Peter is doing so here.

[18:15] He's been using the Scripture, although he hasn't directly cited it, but all of these names of Christ, all of these names that are given to Jesus draw his listeners' minds to the text, constantly drawing them back to the Scripture that they had in that day.

[18:34] Paul says in Romans 1.16, For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

[18:47] Right? I'm not ashamed of the preached message, the truth of Christ. And we are to share that truth. Whatever may come, Jesus suffered and died to bring about repentance.

[19:05] Maybe one of the great problems with the church in America today is that we're afraid of what may come if we preach the truth.

[19:18] We don't want to suffer like Christ. I read a statistic this week that the average conversion ratio in Southern Baptist churches is 86 members to one baptism per year.

[19:36] This is the average. It's shameful. John 13.16, Jesus said, Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.

[19:56] At the end of Peter's second sermon, you guys know what happens to these two? Peter and John arrested and put in jail overnight.

[20:09] Last Monday evening, I was helping the boys get ready for bed. They were in their room and I'm down on my knees helping Judah get his pajama pants on. And Judah says, and it was so precious when he said it until I realized what he meant, Dad, I want to be like Jesus.

[20:28] My heart began to melt. And then he said, I want to be able to walk on water. Okay. Okay, so Judah's my, if you don't know, Judah's my just-turned-four-year-old.

[20:41] Kate is my almost-six-year-old going on 15. And he says, no, Judah, you don't want to be like Jesus. Jesus was nailed to a cross for our sins.

[20:53] to which Judah kind of pensively looked off into the corner of the room and he said, I kind of want to be like Jesus.

[21:07] And then he said, I want to walk on water. And the whole thing was so precious and cute and enjoyable in the moment. but then I very quickly realized how often I act that way.

[21:22] I kind of, I kind of want to be like Jesus. I kind of want the benefit and the blessing of being like Jesus apart from the suffering. Beloved, the benefit and the blessing does not come without the suffering.

[21:38] those who want to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. A second prompter for repentance is sorrow for sin.

[21:55] Sorrow for sin. God brings about and uses sorrow for sin to lead people to repentance. Listen to this. Paul writing 2 Corinthians 7 verses 9 and 10 as it is, I rejoice not because you were grieved or sorrowful, but because you were grieved into repenting.

[22:17] For you felt a godly grief, that is a God-given grief, so that you suffered no loss through us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret.

[22:33] Whereas worldly grief grief produces death. So the sea is drawing a difference here for us. There's a godly grief that leads to repentance.

[22:44] That's the kind of sorrow we want to experience for our sin. Whereas there's a worldly grief that produces death. It just keeps up for us guilt and it's never solved.

[22:57] And we have to be very careful, friends, that we don't equate sorrow with repentance. That you merely feel bad about your sin and you assume that that is repentance.

[23:13] Godly sorrow produces repentance. Godly sorrow drives you to your knees at the cross of Jesus Christ.

[23:26] Godly sorrow that produces godly repentance turns us away from our sin. Have you ever been grieved by your sin only to quickly commit the same sin again?

[23:40] In quick succession, the same thing over and over and over and over again? Then you didn't repent of it to begin with. You didn't turn away from it and turn to God.

[23:53] Now, I'm not suggesting that we have a huge list of all possible sins and we commit a sin and we repent of it and we check it off because we're never going to commit that one again. Things come up and cycle through our lives to be sure.

[24:06] But I watch so many people just so broken over their sin only to turn and do it again. Almost immediately to do it again.

[24:17] Many of you don't repent well or don't repent at all. sorrow for sin brings us to repentance.

[24:37] We have this weight that's placed upon us. If you properly understand your sin, this guilt that you bear. What does Peter say in the last part of verse 19?

[24:50] Repent, turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that they may be erased. It's the first result and we'll discuss more of that momentarily.

[25:03] The third prompter is God's goodness. God's goodness is designed to lead people to repentance. I think that's caught up in that therefore of verse 19, repent therefore.

[25:16] Why should they repent? Because God is good and he offers to all people the opportunity to repent. You remember what Peter said in verse 17? And now brothers, I know after this great indictment, he said, I know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers.

[25:35] And in saying that he's not absolving them of their responsibility. Otherwise, he'd have no reason in verse 19 to call them to repent. He's not saying you were ignorant. Oh, well, he's just saying you acted foolishly.

[25:49] You wouldn't have done the thing that you did. If you had known who Jesus is, he's offering them the possibility of forgiveness. Correct your understanding about who Jesus is.

[26:01] Ask for forgiveness. Repent of putting the author of life to death. Paul Paul rebukes Israel for missing this point in Romans 2 4 says, Or do you presume on the riches of his kindness and forbearance and patience not knowing that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?

[26:26] We need to be very aware of our sin. We need to help others become very aware of their sin. And at the same time, we need to remember the goodness of God to us in Christ. Fourthly, fourth prompter, final judgment.

[26:46] The promise of final judgment should lead people to repentance. If the other prompters have yet to work, then the promise of eternal destruction needs to speak to you.

[27:00] There's a real place called hell, and it will be horrible. Verse 22 and 23, Moses said, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

[27:13] You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you, and it shall be that every soul who does not listen to Christ shall be destroyed from the people.

[27:24] Will die forever. Jesus will return and he will judge with finality and we need to preach about it.

[27:36] It's not a popular thing to preach about these days. We must warn people of the impending danger. It's coming. It's sure that it will be here.

[27:47] There's a promise of final judgment. People need to be aware of it in order to flee from it to Christ for their salvation.

[28:00] I previously read to you Acts 17 30. Paul's preaching the times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

[28:13] Hear what Paul goes on to say in verse 31, because God has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

[28:32] God's overlooked times of ignorance. He's freely offering repentance. He's commanding it that we would repent because judgment is coming. It's coming in Christ.

[28:43] Christ will be the righteous judge and he's given his assurance of this by raising him from the dead. The day will come when repentance will no longer be an option.

[28:55] Repent. Repent. So those are at least four prompters that God uses to bring about repentance in his people. Next, four results of repentance.

[29:08] I'm going to speed up, so if you're taking notes, try to keep with me. Number one, sins erased. Still looking at verse 19, that your sins may be blotted out, blotted out, erased.

[29:24] There is no longer a record of the wrong you committed against God. It's been stricken from the record. Godly repentance accomplishes this.

[29:36] The book of Revelation speaks of the wrath of God being stored up for those who don't place believing faith in him and that all of the wrong things, all of the sins that they have committed have been recorded in books.

[29:50] But not us, beloved. If we've placed faith in Christ, it's been erased. Those things have been taken out of those books. We'll stand before him in the righteousness of Jesus, whole and perfect before him.

[30:07] it's a precious thing to consider that our sins are erased. God says in Isaiah 43-25, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake and I will not remember your sins.

[30:24] And later in Isaiah 44-22, I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist. I take that to mean that it was easy for him to do. He was able to cast it away, return to me for I have redeemed you.

[30:41] In this day, the writing was done on papyrus. Ink was incredibly fragile. I'll bear you the boring details of that, but it was very easy to wet something and wipe out.

[30:53] This idea of things being blotted out is a precious thing for them to understand. Paul writes in Colossians chapter 2, verse 13 and 14, and you who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt.

[31:19] That same language, canceling, blotting out the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

[31:32] Beloved, it's this result of repentance, true, God-given repentance, that gives us such motivation to repent again, to know that we are complete in Christ, that we don't now work for perfection.

[31:48] We have Christ's perfection. Our obedience is a response to that perfection granted to us. Some of you just need to let that sink.

[32:02] You're forgiven in Christ. Stop acting like you're not. Stop acting as if he needs to get back up on the cross and die for today's sins.

[32:16] His work was complete. If you believed in him, he already bore the wrath of God for anything you have done and will ever do.

[32:28] It doesn't become a license for us to sin. If you think that's the case, oh, I'm forgiven in Christ, then you're not a Christian. You haven't understood your sin and the great offense that it is.

[32:40] You haven't really understood and appreciated the sacrifice that he made on your behalf and all of the blessings that he's poured out on you. If you understand that, you respond in obedience.

[32:51] Our failure even to respond in obedience in the day-to-day, in the moment-by-moment is because we so readily forget the truth of how good God has been to us in Christ.

[33:03] We fail to believe that reality and it's out of that that we're responding in our flesh. And our new self has been delivered, has been given freedom from our sin.

[33:17] Paul writes in Romans 8.1, there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. What a precious result of repentance.

[33:28] Our sins are blotted out. Secondly, the coming of the kingdom of God. The coming of the kingdom of God. Peter says, repent therefore and turn again, verse 20, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you Jesus whom heaven must receive until a time for restoring all the things.

[33:54] The kingdom of God was inaugurated began by the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. Christ came to earth as a baby, took on human form.

[34:06] The kingdom of God was set into motion here. The kingdom of God will be consummated by Jesus Christ's return. There's elements, aspects of the kingdom that are now and aspects that are not yet.

[34:20] We live between those two times. And with this text, at this point, a great eschatological debate, eschatology is a study of end times, could ensue.

[34:33] But I'm just going to avoid it this morning for two reasons. Many suggest that here, Peter's specifically referring to the millennial reign of Christ.

[34:46] I'm not exactly sure what to think of the meaning of verses 20 to 21, and I also haven't quite settled in on my eschatological view. When is the millennial reign of Christ?

[34:57] I think it's now. Many in our vein of Christianity think it's not happened yet. It's a thing that will come.

[35:09] But I'm not positive. I've poured the concrete and I'm standing in it, but it just hasn't set up yet. I can always jump back out of it again. I'm not standing firm as an amillennialist.

[35:22] I'm just not exactly sure. And secondly, I don't really think it's the pressing matter of the text. I think it's the main point. I don't think it's really what Peter is trying to drive at.

[35:33] And I could be wrong, depending on your eschatological view. You just have to forgive me for that. What I am sure of, what I'm confident of, is that there are present day implications of the kingdom.

[35:45] I'm positive with that. There's a now element to the kingdom of God. And we can be sure that Peter is saying that we should repent so that refreshing will come. The burden of your sin will be lifted from your back.

[36:00] I know that many people in here like to go backpacking and probably in your first time out backpacking, you packed way too much. I know my first backpack was much, much larger than it needed to be and so I filled it.

[36:13] Why not? You could take as much as you wanted to with you. Do you remember those times when you get into camp for the evening and you've been sludging along all day and you drop that 40, 50, 60 pounds off of your back and you've been going hard all day and you feel like you can fly?

[36:34] You drop that weight off? Just the relief that that is? My mind goes to the story of Pilgrim Christian and Pilgrim's Progress.

[36:44] You've not read that. You need to read it. He's got this burden that's been lashed on his back and that's the weight of his sin. He comes to the cross and it falls away, falls off his back and he's so joyous.

[36:56] There's a refreshing that comes by having the burden of our sins lifted from us in repentance. Repent so that you have the presence of the Lord with you.

[37:08] Repent that one day you will have Christ in full measure at his return. These are real things and present things and future things that drive us to repentance.

[37:19] It's a result of our repentance. Third, result of repentance, deliverance from destruction.

[37:32] Deliverance from destruction. We have the promise of final judgment drives us to repentance. prophets. We're delivered from that final judgment and the destruction that follows. Peter begins to use the Old Testament prophets to speak to the minds of his Jewish audience.

[37:47] We had got to do a little studying at this point, but they had it. It was readily running around inside their minds. The last part of verse 21, about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.

[38:00] And he starts by using their very earliest and most revered prophet to do so. Verses 22 and 23. Moses said, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers.

[38:15] You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. Peter quotes Moses from Deuteronomy 1815 and 1819 here.

[38:30] And it's phrased, A prophet like me, God will raise up for you a prophet like me, was understood in this time by the Jews, rightly so, to be the Messiah.

[38:41] They knew exactly who Peter was talking about when he quotes Moses from Deuteronomy chapter 18. This one that you killed is the one that Moses was speaking about.

[38:51] If you don't listen to him, if you don't repent, then destruction is certainly yours. But if you do, if you do call or respond to the call of repentance, you'll be delivered from that destruction.

[39:06] And then lastly, blessing will be realized. Verses 24 to 26. And all the prophets, the rest of them, all the rest of the prophets from Samuel, the prophet who followed Moses and those who came after him, all of them also proclaimed these days.

[39:23] you are the sons of the prophet and of the covenant that God made with your fathers saying to Abraham, and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.

[39:36] God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. I believe what he's saying is that the gospel has come first to the Jews in order that the Jews and their believing and their going to the ends of the earth will carry the gospel forth.

[39:57] The fulfillment of this promise to Abraham and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. We know that that's fulfilled in Christ. We have in Luke chapter 24 verses 45 to 47 a record of Jesus amongst the disciples after his resurrection.

[40:14] He says, it's recorded this way, then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations beginning from Jerusalem.

[40:35] And that's what we see happening here. This blessing being realized in the formation of the early church. The blessing is realized in Jerusalem first.

[40:48] In chapter 4 verse 4 we see that 5,000 men believe, respond to the gospel call of Peter. It's presumed when it's recorded that it's 5,000 men, that there are also women and children present who also believe.

[41:01] So a massive number of people respond in faith to Peter's second sermon. And very soon the expansive work of the gospel will begin.

[41:12] Persecution comes and they are scattered. Right? Within a generation we see the gospel on three continents. We're a result of that.

[41:24] Everything that's happening here and the gospel beginning to go forth and the fulfillment of these promises begin with the repentance of these people. Coming to faith and launching out the purposes of God in the world.

[41:37] We live in this day and we're still meant to be about bringing this about. The repentance of forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all nations.

[41:47] It's where we find ourselves today. So in Peter's second sermon we see Him as we should exalt Christ. Indite His listeners and call His listeners to repent.

[42:04] And so what do we do with that? It's just for the joy of sitting here for 45 minutes to an hour and listening to me ramble on about a text. Is that what the point of today was? I hope not.

[42:14] For you, what do you leave here and do with the preaching of God's Word? Number one, repent. If you never have, do so today. Listen to those prompters leading you to the goodness of God to you in Christ.

[42:29] Turn from your sin and turn to Him. If you are found in Christ, if you have initially repented, consider how else you need to repent.

[42:41] Truly, godly repentance, turning away from sin, pursuing righteousness. And secondly, and maybe primarily be repentant about this, be about the work of seeing others repent.

[42:58] We've been commissioned to carry the goodness of Jesus Christ to those who are suffering and dying around us. We should go to the ends of the earth, but we don't have to to preach the gospel.

[43:13]  Countless people around us that need the good news of Jesus Christ, that need to repent. Let's pray together. Let's pray together. Let's pray together. Let's pray