11
Acts
Introduction:
On
the day of Pentecost the Apostle Peter had presented the gospel message
to a great crowd of Jews who had gathered
around the home where the Christians
who were in
influence which the Jewish leaders had
exercised over these people would cause
them to reject the gospel and remain
unsaved. In our most recent text Simon
Peter warned the people to save themselves
from that influence and to repent of
their sin and trust in the Lord Jesus
Christ for salvation.
In
our text today we see that some of them did believe the gospel message
and got saved. They not only got saved, but they got
baptized. In this message
I want to call your attention to the great
number who were saved, to the fact
that they were happy about believing the
gospel and to the fact that after they
were saved they got baptized.
I.
Some believed and got saved
V.
41, ?Then they that gladly received his word ...? They believed the
Apostle Peter. They believed what he said about Jesus being
the Christ of God.
They believed that he was right about
their own wickedness. They believed that
what they had done to bring about the
crucifixion of Jesus was a wicked deed.
They believed the testimony of the Apostle
Peter and the testimony of the other
Christians that Jesus had arisen from the
dead. They believed that they needed
to repent of their sin toward God the Father,
who had sent Jesus into the world.
They believed the Scripture which Peter
had quoted from the book of Joel stating
that if they would call upon the name of
the Lord, the Lord would save them.
They believed the Apostle Peter that Jesus
of
they should call to ask Him to save them
from their sin.
Now
we should understand that this means that they did repent of their
sin, that they did call upon the name of
the Lord for forgiveness and salvation
and that they did get saved. Once they called on Jesus and trusted in Him
for
salvation they were saved. They were immediately born again. They were no
longer condemned. They were saved. In John
Him is not condemned...? Since they were no longer condemned this
means that
they were already saved.
We
are not told in this first part of the verse how many there were who
received his word and got saved, but in
the latter part of the verse we are told
that there were about 3,000 who got
baptized. This leads us to believe that
there were about 3,000 who believed and
got saved.
What
a wonderful privilege the Apostle Peter had on that day. It must
have been a special joy to him to have the
privilege of preaching this sermon to
such a large crowd of people and having
about 3,000 souls saved. There was only
one other time when so many people were
saved and baptized on one occasion. The
Apostle Peter, himself, had been guilty of
some grievous sins at an earlier
period.
But Peter had repented of his sin and he had experienced the joy being
forgiven by the Lord and he now had a most
wonderful privilege of preaching the
gospel and having about 3,000 souls saved
at the preaching of just one sermon.
II.
They gladly received the word
They
were happy to learn that God the Father had fulfilled the promise of
the coming Christ and that Jesus is the
Christ. They were happy to learn that
even though they had been involved in
putting the Christ to death that God had
overruled their evil deed and had brought
Jesus back to life again. They were
to happy to learn that the Christ was not
permanently dead --- that He is alive
again.
They were most happy to learn that their sins
could be forgiven. They
were happy to learn what they needed to do
in order to be forgiven and to be
saved.
Then once they did call upon the name of the Lord and they received
cleansing from their sin and were saved,
they were happy about that.
Let
me tell you that anybody ought to be happy to hear the gospel message.
The very word, gospel, means ?good news,
glad tidings.? It is good news that
God had sent a Savior to the world to save
the souls of men. It is good news to
learn that a man who is guilty of the most
grievous sins can call upon the
Savior and that the Savior can and will
save that man. It is good news that a
guilty sinner does not have to go into the
eternally for his sin. He can call upon the Lord and the Lord can
save his
soul.
If
men could only understand the terrible consequences of their sin, they
would be glad to hear the news that God
still loves them and that God has sent
Jesus Christ to this world to save them
from their sin.
If
men could only understand how much beauty and joy they can experience
in heaven, they would be glad to receive
the gospel which tells them how to go
to heaven.
III.
After they were saved, they got baptized
(V.
41), ?...were baptized...? After these
people believed the gospel
message and got saved they got
baptized. Now let me point out to you
that they
believed before they got baptized. In the realm of possibilities it is possible
for one to go through the waters of
baptism before believing. In fact it is
possible to be baptized and never
believe. But that was not the case with
these
people and it is not the case with most
people. These people believed before
they got baptized and that is the way with
most people who get baptized. They
believe first and then get baptized.
According
to John 3:18, which I mentioned earlier, this means that they
got saved before they were baptism. John said, ?He that believeth on Him is not
condemned...? Therefore, since they believed before they
were baptized, they
were uncondemned before they were
baptized. They got saved before they got
baptized.
You can see that, can?t you? So
getting baptized did not help in any
way to get them saved. They got baptized because they were already
saved ---
not in order to get saved.
Nevertheless,
even though baptism is not necessary for salvation, yet it
is necessary in order to do the will of
God after one is saved. Here were
about 3,000 people who got saved and all
3,000 of them got baptized.
Let
me say to you that they knew that John the Baptist had baptized those
who came to him in repentance expressing
their faith in the coming Christ. They
also knew that Jesus baptized those who
came to Him expressing belief in Him as
the Christ. But in addition to this, the Apostle Peter
had told them that they
not only needed to call on the Lord and be
saved, but he had told them that they
ought also to be baptized.
So
their baptism was important. Repentance
and faith brings salvation,
but obedience to the Lord?s will after one
is saved brings baptism. Baptism is
important in the life of the
believer. It is important for him to
present
himself as a candidate for baptism as soon
as possible after he is saved.
IV.
They also joined the church
V.
42, ?...And the same day there were added [unto them] about three
thousand souls.? The 3,000 who got saved and who got baptized
were added to the
group of 120 Christians who were already
at Jerusalem waiting to be endued with
power from on high. The point that I am making is that there was
already an
organized group of Christians. There were already ordained officers in the
that
group.
Jesus had already given the Great Commission to that group. That group
was already a New Testament church. Jesus had already called out a group of
baptized believers and had already
organized them into a New Testament church.
This group was already a New Testament
church. Therefore, when these 3,000
people were added to the group, they were
added to the church. There are those
who tell us that the church was not
organized until Pentecost, but that is just
not so.
There
is something that we should take special notice of. It is also
important that after one gets saved that
he join a New Testament church. Just
as it was important that they get baptized
after they got saved, even so it was
important that they get into the
membership of the church.
It
is important that new converts get into the membership of a New
Testament church for at least two
reasons. First of all, it is important
for
the benefit of the new convert. He needs to be taught the truths of God and
the
best place for him to be taught the truths
of God is in a New Testament church.
Heaven knows that those Jews needed to get
out from under the teachings of the
scribes and Pharisees. They were being taught about God at the
synagogues, but
they were not being taught the truths of
God at the Jewish synagogues which they
needed to hear. They needed to be taught the things which
Jesus had taught to
His disciples. They needed to get into the church which
Jesus established and
left behind in order to get those
teachings.
They
needed the help and encouragement that they would receive by being an
active member of the church. Christians help one another and encourage one
another.
The
second reason that it was important for them to get into the church
was so that the work which Jesus had
assigned the church to do would continue to
be done.
No matter how many converts the church may have, if new converts did
not get into the church and help to carry
on the work of the church the
church
would soon die out. As soon as the apostles and other members
were dead and
gone, the church would be gone and its
work would end.
So
those people who got saved needed to get into the church. They needed
to
learn from the apostles and other teachers in the church the truths that
Jesus had taught. Then they needed help to carry on the work of
the church into
the next generation and to spread the
gospel throughout the entire world.
And
that is what happened. When those 3,000
people got into the church
and started learning and started working for
the Lord, there was a lot stronger
church doing business for the Lord.
V.
42, ?And they continued stedfastly in
the apostles' doctrine and
fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and
in prayers.? The church got busy
teaching all those new converts in the
truths of God. The new converts got busy
studying and learning the truths which
Jesus had taught them. They all
continued to break bread together in the
observance of the Lord?s Supper and in
fellowshipping together. The all continued together in prayers for the
Lord?s
leadership and for the Lord?s help and
blessings. They all continued to carry
on the work of the Lord.
V.
Some lessons for us to learn
Let
us learn that the great work of the Lord which has spread pretty much
throughout the world today spread from
that one church which the Lord organized
in Galilee and moved to Jerusalem. All of the Lord?s work in all parts of the
world today spread from Jerusalem. That church was a small church, but it had a
great work to do for the Lord. Our church today, like the church at
Jerusalem,
is small and we, too, have a great work to
do for the Lord.
That
church was small but it grew. Our church
is small, but it can grow.
The greatest opportunity for this church
to grow is in reaching lost souls with
the gospel message. That is the way that church grew and that is
our best
opportunity for growth. We can grow some by having saved people move
their
membership, but our greatest opportunity
for growth is in reaching the lost with
the gospel message.
Let
us learn that souls cannot be won to the Lord under a sermon which
they do not hear. We do not know how many unsaved people heard
the gospel
preached by Simon Peter on that day. But we do know that there were about 3,000
souls saved under this one sermon. Did you ever wonder why we do not ever have
3000 souls save in one service at Pleasant
Hill? We might could if we could
ever preach to as many people as Peter
did. We just might have 3000 to get
saved.
But we cannot have lost people saved in our services when they are not
present to hear the message. We just might have more to get saved than we
do if
we could get more lost people to attend
our services. Therefore, let us learn
that in order for us to have more people
saved, we are going to have to reach
more people and get them under the
influence of the gospel message. We will
either have to bring more unsaved people
into our services or else we will have
go carry the gospel message out to more
unsaved people. I think you can see
that we need to do both. We need to carry the gospel out to more
unsaved people
and we also need to bring more unsaved
people into our services here at church
so that more people will be saved.
I
realize also that God, Himself, was at work in a special way on that day
of Pentecost. God took advantage of this special day when
Jews from all over
the know world had gathered in Jerusalem
for this event. While they were in
Jerusalem, the Holy Spirit of God caused a
great miracle to attract the
attention of the people who were in the
city and the people came to see and to
hear the Christians. The Christians did not have to try to figure
out how to
get the crowd together. All they had to do was to preach to them once
they
came.
It was the Holy Spirit of God who gathered the people for the Apostle
Peter to preach to them.
There
was one thing, however, that the people had done to make this great
day possible. They had been faithful to carry out the
Lord?s instructions to
gather together and to tarry in prayer and
Christian fellowship until the Holy
Spirit of God moved and brought the people
in. They were faithful to gather.
They were faithful to maintain Christian
fellowship among themselves. They were
faithful to engage in prayer to God for
the power from on high which would
enable them to reach the lost.
As
your pastor, I am very much concerned about the future of Pleasant Hill
Missionary Baptist Church. I am willing to do all that I can which is
within
the will of God to reach out to the
unsaved and to win them to Christ for
salvation.
I
feel that there are several things that we can see from this Scripture
that we can do to help our situation. We may never have such an occasion as
they had on that Pentecost, but we can do
something to help our situation. I
call upon you as a church, first of all,
to be faithful to attend the services
of our church. I know that you are going to have to be away
at times, just as I
will be away at times. But unless you are away and unless you are
sick, I am
going to call upon you to attend the
services of this church. I call upon you
to attend Sunday school, morning preaching
services, Training Course, evening
preaching services and the Ladies
auxiliary, the Wednesday evening services, and
any other services this church man
have.
I
am also calling upon you to do all within your power to maintain good
Christians fellowship within our membership. I am going to ask that if you hold
are holding any grudge against any member
of this church that you throw that
grudges away. Forgive whatever it is that you are holding
against that brother
and ask God to help you to love him as
much as God does.
I
am calling upon you to do more than come to church. I am going to ask
you to seek to get somebody else to come
with you. It can be a relative, a
friend, a neighbor, a school chum, a
fellow worker on the job. It can be
somebody that you may have thought, ?It
won?t do any good to ask him. He will
never come.? Please, don?t say that. Don?t even think it. There are probably
people here in our services today that
somebody once said that very same thing
about.
But somebody asked them anyway and they came. Now they come all the
time.
Don?t
put all of the load of getting people to church on me and on the
Sunday school superintendent or on the deacons or on the Sunday school
teachers
and our youth workers. I am asking that you, as an individual, set
about the
task of bringing people to our
church.
We
won?t win everybody to Christ that we get to attend our services, but
if we invite them, if we urge them, if we
button-hole them and drag them to
services, some of them will get saved and
get in our church and get to work for
the Lord.
Conclusion:
Any
unsaved person ought to be glad to hear the gospel. Any saved person
ought to be glad to carry the gospel to
the unsaved. Any saved person ought to
be glad to get baptized and to join a New
Testament church. Any church member
ought to be glad to invite people to
Pleasant Hill church.