Good morning again, everyone! We're so glad that you're here with us today. Welcome, SMNA campus! We love you guys and are glad you're connected with us. To everybody that's connecting with us online, we're truly happy to have that connection with you online as well. I know we have many people traveling, and you get to connect with us while out of town, and people in other cities around the country and around the world get to connect with us online. We're so thankful to have that technology.
We are today continuing a series we've been in for the past several weeks now called "Love Notes." Leading into today, this is traditionally on the Christian calendar, Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is, as we measure it on the calendar, the day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the donkey. The people brought out the palm branches, took off their cloaks, laid them on the ground, laid down palm branches, and waved them, shouting "Hosanna to the King!" It was a great day of celebration as Jesus rode in; they were proclaiming him to be their King.
But Jesus knew what that week was going to entail. He knew that as he rode into Jerusalem that day, there was going to be a power-packed week of events that were going to take place. By the end of the week, the tide would turn completely against him, and it was going to lead to the cross.
Today, as we look at this series, we are in this "Love Note" series, and we're going to be looking at how it leads to the time when Jesus is actually proclaiming himself one more time to be the King that God sent for his people, but not a king like they were thinking. That was what was so hard for so many of the people: to accept the plan God had because it was not their plan. It was not what they thought was going to happen. But his plan is centered in the truth of who Jesus is and what Jesus came to do.
It's been said there are three truths in religion: one is Jewish people do not recognize Jesus as the Messiah today; another truth is Protestants do not recognize the Pope as the leader of the Christian faith; the third thing is Baptists don't recognize each other in the liquor store. Truth is a hard thing sometimes.
In 1 Corinthians 13, we've been centered in that passage. There, in 1 Corinthians 13, we see that we've been looking at these attributes and characteristics of God's love. In verse four, it says, "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs." We've covered all of those in the series. If you missed any, you can go back and catch them; they're archived on our YouTube channel.
But in verse six, he says this: "Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth." We're living in an age where it seems like people are trying to say there is no truth anymore or that everybody's free just to determine their own truth, as if there are not any hard and fast truths that apply to everybody. The danger with that is if it creeps into our lives and our minds and our way of thinking as Christ followers, it can lead us into things that are in opposition to what is actually true according to God and God's word, according to the Scriptures.
So we want to be careful to understand that real love hates what is evil. That means the truth is some things are evil. That's the truth, whether we want to think they're evil or not. He's not saying that all people that do bad things are evil; he's saying that the things are evil, the actions are evil.
Okay, so there is a truth that there is some evil out there, and love never embraces that which is evil and never accepts that. It never thinks that's okay. The world has flipped that around on us and tried to tell us that real love embraces anything and everything. But if it's truly evil, should we ever embrace that? If it truly hurts and kills and destroys, should we ever embrace that? The answer is no. Some things are just evil. Some actions are just evil.
Now, we may debate over which ones are and which ones aren't, but as Christ followers, we don't have to debate it because we have clear teaching in God's word to reveal truth to us about what is evil. So he says that truth is something that is embedded in loving the way God loves. It does not delight in evil but rejoices in the truth. It embraces the truth because we realize it's the truth.
As Jesus taught, I was talking to some of our members the other day about this. The truth does set us free, but not in the way so many people take that verse and use it. The way the truth sets us free is this: it reveals to us what's right and good so that we can embrace that, and it also reveals to us what's evil, what's false, what's destructive, so that we can be free from lies and deceptions. The truth does set us free from being deceived anymore by Satan, by the lies that are being told. We can be set free from that.
Now, what sets us free is knowing the truth about those things. So today, we're focusing on this attribute of love that love embraces the truth. I want to start out with a passage in John 18. If you'll turn there with me, this is a time—remember, we are Palm Sunday is when Jesus came in. We're toward the end of the week now when Jesus has been arrested, and he is being questioned. He's questioned by different people, but in this case, he's being questioned by Pilate, the governor.
When he's questioning Jesus, what he's finding is a problem for him. The Jewish leaders are saying, "This man's a criminal, and he's worthy of capital punishment by crucifixion." He's trying to figure out, "Well, what's the crime? What has he done that is so bad that we should crucify this man?" Now, Pilate's not innocent, but he's also not the one driving this idea of crucifying Jesus. He's not trying to advocate for that, but he's trying to figure out and understand why it is that these Jewish leaders are so adamant about wanting to get rid of this man, wanting to destroy this man.
So he has this private meeting with Jesus, and he's asking him questions. One of the questions he asks him in John 18 is, "Are you a king? Are you the king of the Jews?" Jesus answers him in a way that Jesus often answered questions: "Well, you say I am, right? Yeah, you're saying the truth about that," is what he's implying. Jesus said, "Though, my kingdom is not of this world."
Oh, wait a minute, that's different! Pilate's going to have a hard time understanding this. So did the Jews. So did his own disciples have a hard time understanding this aspect: "My kingdom's not of this world. If it were, my servants would have defended me. I wouldn't have allowed this to go on. I wouldn't be arrested right now. I wouldn't be on trial right now if I was trying to establish an earthly kingdom."
"My kingdom is not of this world." Though Pilate's confused, and he's still trying to figure it out, he says, "But you are a king then, right? That's what you're saying." Jesus says, "You say that I'm a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
Jesus made a bold claim that if you want to know the truth and hear the truth and live by the truth, who do you listen to? Jesus, because he's going to tell you the truth. Now, he's not the only one to make that claim, and we're going to talk about how we see the evidence to back up his claim. He's already been giving a lot of evidence to support this claim with the miracles and wonders and signs that he's already done. But now he's making a bold claim: if anyone is on the side of truth, they're going to listen to me.
So don't talk about really wanting to know the truth unless you can handle the truth, right? You can't handle the truth! If you really want to know the truth, you have to be prepared to accept the truth, and Jesus says that comes from me. I'm going to tell you the truth. I am the source you need to go to to know what is true about things.
Pilate asks, in response, a question that the world seems to really be struggling with today: "What is truth?" retorted Pilate. He went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him." Even after all the questioning, even after all the demands by the Jewish leaders that this man be crucified, Pilate is trying his best to say, "I have no legal reason to crucify Jesus."
He even tried to offer them a substitute, a known criminal who was guilty of capital crimes, and they still said, "Crucify Jesus! He's the one that we want crucified."
I want to spend some time talking about how the crucifixion and the impending resurrection that we celebrate next Sunday—we celebrate every day as Christ followers—but how that death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus speaks to the truth for us. If we love Jesus and we love God, if we learn to love the way God loves, then we need to embrace the truth. The cross of Jesus tells us the truth about some things we need to know the truth about that we need to embrace fully and completely.
But before we get to that, I want to go back to Matthew's account of the crucifixion in Matthew 27, beginning with verse 32. This is after Jesus has been flogged. The soldiers have mocked him, you know, putting the crown of thorns on his head and beating him and spitting on him and all of that. After he was flogged, ridiculing him, calling him King, then they put his robe back on him.
In verse 32, as they were going out, they met a man from Cyrene named Simon. They forced him to carry the cross. They came to a place called Golgotha, which means the place of the skull, where they offered Jesus wine to drink mixed with gall, but after tasting it, he refused to drink it.
When they had crucified him, they divided up his clothes by casting lots. Now think about that for a moment. Look at all the gospel accounts; there's not much more description of the crucifixion than that. It was the most painful, the most humiliating, the most public disgrace that a person could face in their culture at that time would be to be hung up on a cross publicly for everybody to see.
The way that they crucified people then, the Roman government had adopted crucifixion because they felt like if people witnessed people being crucified that way, it would be so ugly, so awful, so terrible that it would deter other people from committing crimes that would lead them to be crucified. You see, Jesus wasn't the first to be crucified in that culture; he wasn't the last. Crucifixion was already around, and it was the punishment for the worst of crimes to act as a deterrent to others from committing those crimes.
Here, Pilate has said, "I can't find any charge to put against this man," and yet they witness him being crucified. He goes on here in this passage to talk about how things happen after they crucified him. They decided to divide up his clothes, it says, by casting lots. He's just wearing this outer garment that they had put back on him after they mocked him as a king, and now that robe they take and cast lots for it. It evidently was something they felt like they could use or either get some money for, so they cast lots for it.
It says in verse 36, "Sitting down, they kept watch over him there. Above his head, they placed a written charge against him: 'This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.'" That's all they could come up with because if he really was claiming to be a king, in their minds, even though he said, "My kingdom is not of this world," in their minds, that was a threat to Caesar, and they could use that as a charge against Jesus to have him crucified.
The two rebels were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross if you are the Son of God!"
Do you think Jesus could have come down from the cross? Absolutely! There's no doubt in my mind this is God in the flesh hanging on a cross. He could have come down off the cross.
Verse 41: "In the same way, the chief priests, the teachers of the law, and the elders mocked him. 'He saved others,' they said, 'but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down from the cross, and we will believe in him! He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'"
In the same way, the rebels who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him. You can go on and read the rest. From noon until three in the afternoon, darkness came over the land. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
The Father had to turn away from the Son as he took our sins on him. He became sin for us, the Scripture says, so that we might become the righteousness of God through him. It was the ugliest visual anyone could have ever seen in their lifetime to see Jesus stripped down, having been flogged and beaten. His back and his sides had been lashed open by the flogging that he had taken already. The blood is pouring out, the flesh is exposed, and he bleeds and dies there on the cross.
Why would God do that? See, that's the problem a lot of other religions have with Christianity: that God would die on a cross. In their minds, God would never allow that. You look at other religions, like the Muslims, who believe Jesus might have been a good teacher or a prophet, right? But they don't believe it's possible what the Scripture says about if he's really who the Bible is saying he is, that he could possibly have been that because God would not have done this. He would not have allowed this to happen.
So if it's true, and Jesus said, "I'm telling you the truth. If you want to know the truth, you need to listen to me," if this is true, then why would God let this happen? What would cause the God of the universe, who has all power and all authority, to let his creation do this to him? Why would God do that?
Well, the cross demonstrates the truth about three things I want to close with today—three things, real quick.
One, it demonstrates the truth about the consequences of sin. See, God is a holy God. There's no sin in him at all. If we believe the truth of Scripture, there's no sin in him at all. He is absolutely pure and righteous; therefore, sin cannot be in his presence. The Bible then says all of us have done what? Sinned and come short of the glory of the holiness of God. So it's impossible for us to dwell in the presence of a holy God with our sin.
So the consequence of our sin is the wages of sin is death. It's separation from God, who is the source of life. We cannot be in his presence with our sin. We cannot. But God wants that relationship with us. God created us in his image; he desires that fellowship with us, that intimacy with us, and sin would keep that from happening.
In Isaiah 53:5, in that Messianic passage, it says, "But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds, we are healed." You see, there was a plan that God had since before the creation of the world. With his foreknowledge, he knew that we would sin and be separated from him, but he planned before the foundation of the world to have a lamb that would be slain for us to take our sin off of us and put it on him so that through that cleansing, we could be made righteous and be in the presence of this holy God forever.
Look at Isaiah 53:5 again: "He was pierced for our transgressions; he didn't have any. He was crushed for our iniquities; he didn't have any. The punishment that brings us peace was on him." It's by his wounds, his sacrifice of himself, that we are healed from our sin. Nothing we could do. We were left to pay for our own sins except for the cross. The cross is the only answer for sin. That's why it was necessary. That's why God was willing to do that.
In Hebrews 9:22, he reminds us of this: "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness." Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. You see, the cross tells us the truth about how ugly and cruel and destructive sin really is.
The danger with what's happening in our culture today is that even Christians are buying into this idea that sin's not all that bad. It may not even be sin. We can pick and choose our own truth. We can decide for ourselves if that's a bad way to live or a bad thing to do or a bad thing to say. But if Jesus had to take our sin on him, if he's pierced for our transgressions, if he's crushed for our iniquities, then that sin does matter. It is serious. It costs God the life of his Son.
Bleeding and dying on that cross for us, for us to take sin lightly is an insult to the cross of Jesus. The Hebrew writer went on to say it's like taking the blood of the covenant and pouring it on the ground and trampling it under our feet when we willfully choose just to go on sinning. That's how serious sin is to God. The consequences of sin are real, and they're ugly, and they're destructive. That's why the cross tells us the truth about our sin.
We don't always want to know the truth, do we? We'd like to believe sometimes what the world says, that it's not really sin, that it's just an old-fashioned concept, and we've moved on from that. Now we're so enlightened; now we know better. Well, if that's true, why did Jesus die on the cross? Why was that necessary? If our sin is not really sin and it doesn't really have any bad consequences, then why was it necessary for Jesus to die on a cross?
You see, the cross reveals the truth about the consequences of sin. It demonstrates the fact that our sins are serious, and they are costly, and they are destructive. Jesus is saying if you want to know the truth about what's sin and what's not sin, he's saying, "I'm the source."
So instead of letting the world define sin for the church and let the world define sin for us, if we claim to follow Jesus, why don't we let the cross define sin? What Jesus had to pay for there defines sin for us because the sin Jesus died on the cross for is revealed in Scripture. God makes it clear that certain things are evil, and real love does not welcome evil and act like evil's okay. Real love rejoices in the truth.
So if we're going to love like God, we can't love evil. We have to reject evil. We have to embrace the truth and rejoice in the truth that's revealed to us in Christ. Through the crucifixion, it reveals the truth about how ugly our sin is and how terrible the consequences of sin are.
The second truth that's revealed by the cross is this: it reveals the truth about the amazing love of God. Not only does it reveal the truth about the consequences of sin and demonstrate that by what Jesus had to do for our sins, but it reveals the truth about God's amazing love for us. You know the passage; I'm sure you've probably heard it: John 3:16. "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life."
God so loved the world. God so loved you. He so, so loved me. When it says "the world," it means all the human beings that ever lived on the earth. God so loved you and me and your children and your grandchildren and your parents and your grandparents. He so loved every person that he gave his one and only Son. That's the love of God.
That's the agape love that we've been studying in 1 Corinthians 13. It's the love that seeks what's best for the other person, even at great cost and sacrifice to yourself. That's the real love, and God loves like that. He loves you like that. He loves me like that. It reveals the truth about the fact that you are a much-loved person, whether you want to be or not. He loves you anyway, so much that he sent his Son, Jesus, here to die for you, to pay that price for you when you cannot save yourself, and I cannot save myself.
1 John 4:9-10 says this: "This is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins." This is love, that he sent his Son.
You see, it would only make sense that we love God. That's the easy side of the equation. God's the Creator; he's the provider. He has given us everything. Every good and perfect gift comes from him. It would be a natural response to love God and doing that for us. But real love, this agape love, this godly love, is really this: that God would love us in our rebellion and our sin and our attitude toward taking sin lightly and our unwillingness to make sacrifices for him and our disobedience. God still loved us so much that he sent his Son here to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
That's love, and that's why I hate it when human beings are so deceived by the world and the culture that they accept a cheaper version of love as if it's the real thing because you miss out on so much of what it's really all about, of what it could really do for you and your relationship with each other and with God to understand real love and learn to love with that kind of love and learn that God loves you with that kind of love.
So the cross of Jesus Christ reveals the truth. It demonstrates the truth about the consequences of sin. It reveals to us the truth about the amazing love of God. I could go on and on about that, but we want to get to this third one too. It also provides the truth about the only way to salvation.
Matthew 26:39: Jesus has been in the upper room with the disciples, and he took them with him out into the garden. He told them to wait there, and then he took three—Peter, James, and John—a little further in, and then he left them at that spot and went even a little further where he's on his own there, and he's down on his hands and knees in the garden, and he's praying there in the garden knowing that he's about to have soldiers come out and arrest him, knowing that he's about to go through the mockery of a trial, knowing that he's going to be crucified right after that. He understands all of that is about to happen, and he's there praying in the garden.
It says in verse 39, "Going a little further, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.'" What's this cup he's praying about? It's the cross. That's the cup he's about to drink from—crucifixion.
Jesus is praying, "If it's possible, Father, if anything else could be done, if there's any other way for the human race to be saved from their sins, delivered from the consequences of sin, if there's any other option, Father, please let it be that we take the other course. Yet not as I will, but you will." What an amazing obedience to the Father, the plan that the Father had for the redemption of the world.
But think about this, please. Before we start saying it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere, it doesn't matter what faith you follow, it doesn't matter who you put your trust in—before you start buying into anything like that, ask this question: Why did Jesus end up still having to go to the cross if there was any other way? If we could be saved any other way, wouldn't the Father, in his love for the Son, have said, "Okay, we don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. You don't have to suffer like this. You don't have to go through the brutality of this."
Don't you think a loving God would have said that to his Son if there had been any other way to save us besides what Jesus was going to do on that cross? The cross, the empty tomb, the resurrection—they all speak to this. If there were any other way, none of that would have happened. It wouldn't have needed to happen. That whole process happened because it was absolutely necessary to save us.
To act like there's some other way cheapens what God did for us. To act like you could be saved just by being a good person or you could be saved by following some other faith or some other religion or some other body of teaching, you could be saved by doing enough good works—if any of that were true, why would Jesus have suffered like that? It would not have been necessary. Not one bit of suffering would have been necessary if there were some other way for us to be saved.
But God's truth says that it's by this sacrifice that we are healed, that we are cleansed, that we are made right with him again in our relationship with him. If that's true, there's no other way. If Jesus is true, then everything else is not. If they're proclaiming some other way to be saved, so we have to decide: do we believe Jesus is telling us the truth? Do we believe the Bible is true? Do we believe this account, this teaching is true? Because if it is, then this is the only way.
In Acts chapter 2, the apostles are empowered by the Holy Spirit. It's after the resurrection of Jesus, after he ascends back to the Father. They've seen him for a period of 40 days; he's appeared to them several times and convicted them, convinced them of the truth of his resurrection. Now they're waiting in Jerusalem, like he said, and they're empowered by the Holy Spirit. Peter stands up and preaches the first gospel sermon. You can go back and read that in Acts 2.
As he brings that sermon to a conclusion, Peter does, he says in verse 36, "Therefore," he's talked about the death, burial, and resurrection and how God gave through Jesus all these evidences that he was the Messiah, the Savior. He says, "Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah."
He's saying that the cross and the grave and then the resurrection that they were witnesses to all testified to the fact that Jesus really was the prophesied Messiah that they were looking for who came to save and deliver his people. So if that's true, he says, "You crucified the one that God was making both Lord and Messiah." Those two terms are important because "Lord" means ruler, authority over us; "Messiah" means the ruler who saves us and delivers us from our sin.
So he's identifying Jesus in this sermon as Lord, ruler, and Messiah, Savior. But he's also saying, "And you crucified him." Now think about that for a moment. If we're truly convinced and convicted that Jesus is Lord and Messiah, and then we also understand that it's our sin that crucified him, that put him on that cross, then we need an answer for what we've done. We need a cure for the sin we've committed. We need somebody to be saved from what we have done to Jesus.
It says in verse 37, "When the people heard this," in the audience that day, "they were cut to the heart." They said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" That's important, right? It says they were cut to the heart. That means not only did they believe what Peter was saying, they were convicted by their sin. That's what it means to be cut to the heart. Some of you have felt that, haven't you? You felt that conviction. You understand that your sin put Jesus on the cross.
I have felt that conviction in my life. There are still times when I feel it more strongly again than at other times, where I realize again, all anew again, and every Easter I'm reminded again in a very vivid way when Jesus is hanging on that cross, it is my sin that put him there. There's a conviction that comes with that. There's supposed to be a conviction that comes with that.
This world is trying to get people not to feel bad about their sins. It doesn't understand that that is a motivation for us to find the cure, to call for a response, to make things right with God again. We shouldn't be made to feel good about our sin; we should be made to feel convicted about our sin, that it put Jesus on that cross, that he had to pay that price so that we can learn this.
They were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" They're asking the most important question in the history of the world. Don't pass over that verse. Don't just act like it's not a big deal. This is huge! They're asking the question: Is there an answer for our sin? Is there a way for us to be healed, for us to be cured, for us to be saved after what we've done? That's what they're asking.
So the answer is critical: Is there an answer? Here's what he says in verse 38: "Peter replied, 'Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for what? For the forgiveness of your sins.'" He doesn't stop there. He says, "Then you'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." The promise is for you.
So he's talking to the people that were there in the audience that day. He says, "It's for your children, the generation coming behind them." And then he says, "And for all whom our Lord our God will call." Who's the promise still here for? Everybody here today! Everybody hearing the message today, this promise is still here for you and for me.
He said, "What you need to do is repent and be baptized." Now, he didn't have to tell them to believe. He didn't have to start there. You have to start where people are, right? If you're going to lead them to this decision, he didn't have to tell them to believe because the fact that they were cut to their heart and asked this question means they already did.
What? They already believed the message! They wouldn't have been convicted if they didn't believe the message. They wouldn't have been asking, "What do we need to do?" if they didn't believe the message. They already believed. Now, if somebody doesn't believe, we have to help them come to know Jesus by faith, right? We have to start there.
But if they believe Jesus is who the Bible says he is, then here's what we need to do: Repent. So if you're hearing the message today and you believe Jesus is who the Bible says he is, you believe he's telling you the truth here in what we've looked at today, this is true, then you need to know here's what you need to do: Repent.
That word "repent" means to turn and go a different direction. What are you turning from? Sin! He's saying turn from sin, from sinful lifestyles, from sinful activities. Don't willfully choose to keep going that direction when you believe this is true about your sin putting Jesus on the cross. Why would you willfully go on doing that if you want to be forgiven?
You've got to turn from it. I think the church in America, and it started in the European church, has done people such a disservice by minimizing the consequences of sin. In connection to that, they've stopped calling for repentance and turning from sin.
Now, they did something good: they started emphasizing the grace of God and the forgiveness of God. People needed to hear that. We all need to know that grace, that forgiveness is there. But that grace and that forgiveness is totally dependent on the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for our sins, which means we need to turn from our sin to enter into that grace.
We can't willfully choose to keep on sinning. He says, "Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." So you repent, you turn from sin, you're baptized, the Bible says, into Christ. That's the way it's worded. It even says into his death, burial, and resurrection.
What is it that saves us? His death, burial, and resurrection. In Romans 6, he says we're buried with Christ into the likeness of his death when we're baptized, and we're raised with Christ up from the grave. When we are risen up from the waters of baptism, it is a picture of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus when we're baptized into Christ.
Now, I've talked about this before. If just getting dunked in the water would save you, I'd get some big people to tackle you today, and we would throw you in the water over here, right? Baptism is only valid if you believe this about Jesus, the truth, and you come repenting of your sin and faith in Christ. Only then does baptism have this power, this effect, this promise connected to it for the forgiveness of sins.
He also connects with it the gift of the Holy Spirit. It's not talking about a gift of the Spirit in the sense of, you know, some spiritual gift. He's talking about the Holy Spirit himself is a gift that God gives us. The Holy Spirit himself is God in spirit form. When we come in faith, repenting of our sins, and we're baptized into Christ, God gives us his presence, his power, his provision through his Spirit living in us as followers of Jesus.
And this promise is for you today. If you're hearing this message, it's for your children, for all who are far off. If the Lord's calling you today, this promise is for you. You can have the forgiveness that comes through the cross of Jesus, the sacrifice that he made.
A little later on in Acts, Peter is having to defend their preaching of the gospel and calling on people to put their faith in Jesus and believe in him as the resurrected reigning Lord. He says in response to being questioned about it in Acts 4:12, he said this: "Salvation is found in no one else," speaking of Jesus, "for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind whereby we must be saved."
That kind of eliminates every other option, doesn't it? It doesn't just kind of eliminate it; it eliminates every other option. There's no other name but the name of Jesus by which any of us or anybody hearing the message could be saved. It's only through Jesus.
"Oh, that seems awfully exclusive. You seem like you're awfully intolerant of all the other stuff." I'm not the one that can save you. It doesn't matter what I think about this. God's the only one who can save you, and God's word says there's no other name but the name of Jesus whereby anybody could be saved.
I'm going to take God at his word. I believe he's telling the truth. I believe the love of God is true and that it hates evil and it rejoices with the truth, and therefore he's telling us the truth about how he wants to save us because he loves us so much.
He so much wants to do that that he sent Jesus here to die on the cross for us so that we could be saved through him. If you believe that's true today, then our greatest joy as a church, my greatest joy as a teacher of the word of God, is to say to you on God's behalf that today you could come believing, repenting of your sins. If you haven't done so already, you can be baptized into Christ, be washed clean. You can rise up with a new life today with the presence of the Holy Spirit in you from now on. He'll never leave you or forsake you.
That's something I can promise to you, not because of who I am or anything I've done, but because I believe the truth of God's word. You can have that today as God's gift to you that cost him everything.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you. We thank you that in Christ we know that he has accomplished the plan that you had to redeem us and save us even before the foundation of the world by going to that cross for us, paying the debt that we owed on our behalf, canceling the debt of sin that would hold us in bondage forever had we not accepted that sacrifice.
Father, I pray for those who are hearing the message today. There may be those who are still being held captive by sin. They don't know your grace and your mercy and your forgiveness yet. I pray that today, today, they would come in faith, repenting, turning from sin, accepting your offer, your gift of salvation through the sacrifice of your Son.
May they come professing the name of Jesus in whom there is no other name on earth by which they could be saved but his name. I pray that they would confess him as Lord and Savior, that they would come in obedience and be buried in baptism to rise to new life. That's accomplished only by what Jesus did on the cross.
Father, we thank you for the cross. In Jesus' name, amen.
We're going to offer a time of invitation. As we do each service, we invite you to come up front if you have a step of obedience you need to take. Just come up front while we stand and sing together.
on Mar 25, 2024
