A Model Sermon (Acts 2:12-41) | 1/30/22
Acts 2:12-41 | 1/30/22 | Will DuVal
My first sermon, fresh out of Div school, was not my finest. I had just been hired as the youth minister at a boarding school in Indiana, where I would work primarily with HIGH schoolers, who I had experience with. But over the summers, the school hosted a camp for kids as young as age SEVEN. Well, when I was asked to preach at one of the all-camp chapel services, I decided to tackle the topic of the subtle dangers of sin; already a BOLD choice, to kick off summer camp. But I opened my sermon with an illustration I had been taught in my OWN high school youth group; I asked:
“Do you know how the Eskimos hunt polar bears?” Then I explained, “They dip the tip of a knife in seal’s blood, put it outside to freeze, then keep repeating that, until they’ve made a nice, thick blood popsicle. Then they travel outside their camp, bury the handle of the knife in the snow, return to camp, and wait. The polar bear is attracted by the smell of the blood, begins licking, until his tongue gets cold and NUMB, and by the time he reaches the inner layer of the knife’s BLADE, he doesn’t realize he’s no longer eating the seal’s blood, but his OWN.” It’s a powerfulillustration of the numbing, desensitizing effects of our seemingly innocent, little sins.
It’s also, I discovered, a good way to traumatize a bunch of 7-year olds! I got called in to the head chaplain’s office the next day, as parents called to complain that their poor kids weren’t able to SLEEP last night, their minds FILLED with images of bloody, lifeless polar bears.
Well, in stark contrast to my experience, stands the apostle PETER’S first sermon, recorded for us in Acts ch2, vv14-41. Peter’s inaugural sermon was actually his BEST sermon ever. This is the first sermon in the history of the CHURCH; you’ll remember that last week we witnessed the BIRTH of the church, at Pentecost, in Acts 2, vv1-13. But I would go so far as to argue that Peter’s sermon here is IN FACT the first and best sermon of ALL TIME.
Now some of you may be thinking, “Hold on; what about the ‘Sermon on the Mount’; surely JESUS holds the title of first and best sermon preached!”
Well, that depends on how you define a “SERMON”. The Bibleitself never callsJesus’ lesson on the mount a “sermon”, and I’ll explain later why I think it wasn’t. Instead, I’m going to propose that Peter’s sermon here in Acts 2 offers us an excellent templatefor understanding what a sermon IS. This is a MODEL sermon. A 5-fold model; there are 5 marks of an effective, biblicalsermon, that we observe in Peter’s example here.
But before we do: why does ANY of this matter to YOU? The vast majority of you will never preach a sermon in your life. So why do you need to know the ingredients of a good sermon? Let me offer you 3 reasons why you should still care:
1) To become a better sermon-listener. The apostle Paul exhorted his mentee Timothy to “preach the word… For the time is comingwhen people will notendure sound[a] teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.”
Friends: You need to know that as a sinner, your natural inclination is to gravitate toward “preachers” that just tell you what you want to hear: that “you’re a good person”; that “God loves you, just the way you are; you don’t need to change a THINGabout yourself”; that “God wants to bless you with health, and wealth, and happiness, and bring nothing but GOOD into your life.” And if you don’t know what a biblical sermon sounds like, you will be more susceptible to “wandering off” into such “myths”.
2) You also want to become a better sermon-encourager. When you RECEIVEgood, biblical preaching, first and foremost you praise GOD! But you ought alsoto encourage the preacher. In 1 Thessalonians 5:11, Paul exhorts us to, “Encourage one another and build one another up”. And in the very NEXTverse, Paul gives us this example of encouragement: “respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and esteem them very highly in love because of their work… especiallythose who labor in preaching and teaching.” (vv12-13, 17) Man, I cannot tell you how much it means to me to receive encouragement from you all after a sermon. Like everypreacher, I’ve had weeks where I question whether or not I’m even making a difference. Is anyone out there even listening? And it is such a blessing in those times to receive encouragement, and to be reminded that God’s word does not return void, even when it’s preached by a very imperfect sinner like me.
3) You should listen this morning to become a better sermon-appreciator. My hope and prayer is that this sermon ABOUTsermons might help you better appreciate why you sit underneaththe preaching of God’s word every Sunday in the first place; why this corporate, spiritual discipline of hearing God’s word preached is so VITAL to your personal, spiritual health. David Mathis writes, “Few practices will energize and affect your Christian life as much as sitting attentively under faithful preaching… It is that one half hour each week when the assembly of the redeemed closes her collective mouth, opens her ears and heart, and hears the uninterrupted voice of her husband, through his appointed mouthpiece, fallible though the messenger be” (Habits of Grace, 165-166). Christian: this is the most important 40 minutes of your week, not because MY words are that important, but because GOD’S words are. When GOD speaks, His people listen.
So without further adieu, let’s HEAR His word together this morning, from Acts 2:12-41. Let me remind you of the context, as you find it in your Bibles: As Jesus promised, the Holy Spirit has just descended in power on this group of 120 apostles and early Christ-followers, and they began speaking the gospel in all kinds of foreign, human languages, represented by this diverse crowd of Jewish pilgrims, all gathered in Jerusalem for the festival of Pentecost; they each hear the gospel in their own language, and they are AMAZED.
And that’s where we pick up in v12, if you would stand with me… Acts 2:12-41
“And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.” 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.[b] 16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know— 23 this Jesus,[c] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. 25 For David says concerning him,
“‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
29 “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. 34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
35 until I make your enemies your footstool.”’
36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”
This is the word of the Lord… Let’s pray…
A good sermon does 5 things:
#1 – it CLARIFIES reality. (vv12-21)
That’s what Peter does for the crowd here in vv12-21: he clarifies, he helps them make SENSE of, reality. Specifically, in their case, the reality right in front of their eyes and ears, that they see and hear this group of 120 uneducated Galileans preaching in perfect, fluent Latin and Egyptian and Cappadocian and Phrygian.
The crowd doesn’t know how to BEGIN to make sense of that reality. They were “all amazed and perplexed”. The only possible explanation they can come up with, v13, is that the apostles are all DRUNK. The drunk folks I’VE been around can barely speak coherently in ENGLISH, much less in new, foreignlanguages. But that’s the best natural explanation the crowd can come up with; because they don’t yet realize this is a SUPER-natural event. Until Peter CLARIFIES it for them, explains it.
Now, I can’t help but point out to you Baptists that Peter’s openingargument, in v15, as to why the apostles can’t possibly be drunk, ISN’T that they’re good Christians who wouldn’t dare TOUCH alcohol, but rather that it’s only 9:00 in the morning. Peter says, “Hey, I like a nice merlot as much as the next guy, but come on, it’s 9am!” NO – I’m not suggesting that the early church was throwing RAGERS every weekend – Ephesians 5:18 says “don’t get drunk on wine, but be filled with the Spirit” – it’s just worth noting.
But Ephesians 5:18 is a great reference, because that’s exactly what’s happening here at Pentecost: they are being FILLED with the Holy SPIRIT.
V16: “this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel”, ch2, vv28-32 of his OT book from which Peter quotes here. 800 years before Pentecost, the prophet Joel, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, foretold 3 key features of the Spirit’s arrival:
#1 – The Spirit’s arrival would mean DIVERSITY for the church. “I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh”; your sons and daughters, young and old, slave and free, Jew and Gentile – EVERY type of person. This was a radical departure from the ethno-centric exclusivism of 1st c. Judaism.
#2 – The Spirit-filled Church would be characterized by ACTIVITY. They “shall prophesy… see visions… dream dreams…”. There’s this idea in Pentecostalismthat certain folks are specially “anointed” by the Lord for ministry. According to the Bible, they’re called BELIEVERS. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says, “We were ALLbaptized in one Spirit”; every true believer in Christ has been anointed, has been filled with the Holy Spirit, for the purpose of ministry; both to the church– 1 Peter 4:10, “As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another” – as well as ministry to the WORLD – Acts 1:8, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, [WHY?? So that…] you will be my witnesses” to the lost.
Thirdly, the Spirit’s arrival is accompanied by DIVERSITY, ACTIVITY, and URGENCY. Peter, quoting Joel, warns us that we’re living in the “last days”. That Jesus’ death and resurrection was the CLIMAX of redemptive history, and now we’re awaiting its culmination at His second coming, anticipated in vv19-21; the “great and magnificent day of the Lord”, accompanied by “wonders” and “signs”, “blood and fire and vapor of smoke”. We even got a GLIMPSE of it, Peter must have been reminded, when the sun was turned to darkness in the middle of the day at Jesus’ crucifixion. That was just a glimpse of what’s to come, when Christ returns and the OLD heavens and earth are “set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies melt as they burn!” 2 Peter 3:12.
But why does Peter quote the SECOND half of Joel’s prophecy, and go all APOCALYPTIC on them? I think it’s to convey a sense of URGENCY! That we don’t have forever to question and research and skepticize and deconstruct and decide whether or not Jesus was the real deal and we’re going to follow Him; we are alreadyliving in the last days, and when Christ returns, He will do so to rescue His Church, but to execute JUDGMENT on His opponents. So what is Peter’s advice? “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’”
Peter helps his listeners make sense of both their immediatecontext – a bunch of Spirit-filled Galileans speaking languages they don’t even know – as well as their ETERNAL reality – “call on the name of Jesus… OR ELSE!” This is what a good sermon does; it helps clarify ALL of reality, specifically, through the lens of God’s word. Peter takes them back to the Scriptures, in order to explain things. A sermon must be biblical. And moreover…
#2 – A biblical sermon must also CONVICT[S] its listeners of their SIN. (vv22-23) A good sermon ought to convict you of your sinfulness.
Vv22-23: Peter declares, ““Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works… that God did through him inyour midst, as you yourselves know” – in John 3, a religious leader named Nicodemus sneaks out under cover of night, for fear of being excommunicated by his fellow Pharisees, to meet up with Jesus, and he confessed to Jesus that “we know that you… come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” (v2) The Pharisees knew exactly what they were doing when they killed Jesus. And the same ones who DID are right here in the crowd at Pentecost!
But does Peter pull punches? Does a good sermon pull punches? You all write my PAYCHECK! I have a vested, personal interest in making sure y’all walk out of here happy every Sunday; it’s no WONDER the wealthiest pastors in the world preach so littleabout SIN. Sin doesn’t sell. MOST people would rather hear about how much GOOD they deserve from God, instead of the truthabout how much wrath and judgment and HELL they deserve!
But Peter gives it to them straight: “this Jesus,[c] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, youcrucified and killed.” Man, I wish we had more time for a theological aside here, to unpack Peter’s juxtapositionthere of God’s sovereignty and man’s agency; that Jesus’ crucifixion was simultaneously the most wicked, godless crime ever perpetrated in human history AND ALSO the very centerpiece of God’s OWN redemptive plan, devised before the foundation of the world.
But Peter’s MAIN point to them in v23 is this: YOU KILLED JESUS! Our Messiah! The Son of God! You killed him.
But friends: if I could just take a page out of Peter’s book this morning, this model sermon, I need to tell you that YOU KILLED JESUS! The Jewish leaders might have convicted him, the Roman soldiers might have crucified him, but it was YOUR SIN, it was MYsin that held him there, until it was accomplished. Do you knowthat? Do you consider that, before you badmouth your boss around the water cooler? Before you click on that risque ad? Before you snap at your kids, demand your way with your spouse? I wonder if we could somehow train ourselves to envision every ONE of our sins as a NAIL being pounded into Jesus’ hands, His feet, if we would be so flippant and casualabout our disobedience.
In John 16:8, Jesus said that when He sends the Holy Spirit, “he will convictthe world concerning sin”. And if we skip ahead in Acts 2, to the END of Peter’s sermon, the crowd’s RESPONSE, we read in v37 that “when they heard [his sermon] they were cut to the heart”. The Spirit not only empowers Peter to preach the truth to them with unashamed boldness; the SAME Spirit must ALSOenable his sinful listeners to RECEIVE the truth with naked conviction. With the vulnerable admission that “This guy is right; we killed Jesus, our Messiah.”
If you want to know why the VAST majority of people who hear the gospel REFUSE to receive Christ, THIS is why. It’s not that they are such modern, enlightened people who have no NEED for God, what with their science and their secular ethics. It’s not that they have a difficult time reconciling a good God with all the evil they find in the world. It’s not even that they’ve learned to distractthemselves with work and friends and phones and TV so they can AVOID the topic altogether; the busiest, most distractedpeople among us stillcan’t HELP but be plagued by the question of the afterlife, and their eternal destination; the Bible says “God has put eternity in the heart of man” (Ecc 3:11).
No, the reason people reject Jesus is that He convicts them of their SIN. He said, “The light has come into the world, but people loved the darkness ratherthan the light because their works were evil.” (Jn 3:19)
Buddha says, “Be good.”
Mohammed says, “Be good.”
Secular Humanism says, “Be good.”
BUT Jesus says, “You’re NOT good.” And unfortunately, the vast MAJORITY of people stop LISTENING right there, they tune out, so they fail to HEAR the second half of the gospel, that even though “No, you’re NOT good, but I, Jesus,am VERY good. And on the cross, I traded MY righteousness for YOURunrighteousness, and I laid down my LIFE as the perfect sacrifice on your behalf, to RECONCILE you to God.”
“While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:8)
It requires the admission that you’re a sinner. Jesus said “only the sick call for the doctor”. I saw a sweatshirt the other day that read, “You Are Enough”. Friends: Nothing could be more ANTI-gospel. I wanted to put on a sweatshirt that said, “You’re NOTenough, but thank God, JESUS is.” Trust in Him.
A sermon MUST convict you of your sin, right BEFORE…
#3 – it clearly CONVEYS the gospel (vv24, 32-36). The GOODnews, about Jesus. The BAD news is you’re a sinner; the GOODnews is God’s provided a Savior.
Peter’s sermon doesn’t END in v23: “You killed Jesus. Amen. Now go home and THINK about what you did!”
NO! Peter continues in v24: But “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it!” The gospel good news is that Jesus triumphed even over DEATH!
If I had given you all a 1-question, true-or-false QUIZ this morning, and opened the sermon by asking, “True or False: the GOSPEL is that Jesus died on the cross to pay for your sins”? I bet 90% of you would have raised your hands and said that was true.
And it IS true, gloriously true, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins. But friends, that’s NOT the gospel; at least, not the WHOLEgospel. The gospel is that Jesus not only died to pay the penaltyour sins, but He was RAISED from the dead to defeat the very POWER of sin and Hell and death! According to the apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, if Jesus had stayed dead – if the Resurrection is just a hoax – then you and I are still DEAD in our sins, and our faith is futile; Christianity is pointless.
Peter’s sermon is the first of NINE different gospel presentations throughout the Book of Acts, each one a little different, but spoiler alert: do you know the ONE thing that they ALL share in common? It’s Jesus’ RESURRECTION! His death AND resurrection.
You can deliver the most moving, inspiring, even BIBLICALmessage – I’ve heard some powerful PEP talks, shared on Sundays that even sprinkle in some Scripture – but brothers and sisters: if they ain’t preaching the GOSPEL, then it ain’t a SERMON!
If you haven’t preached Jesus Christ – his life, death and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins – then it might be a great motivational speech, it might be an important call to social action, it might even be a helpful Bible lesson, but without the GOSPEL, it’s not a SERMON.
Peter preaches a SERMON here; he preaches the life – v22: “Jesus of Nazareth, a man” who you all witnessed… – the death – v23: “you crucified and killed him” – and the resurrection – v24: but “God raised him up, loosingthe pangs of death,” – of JESUS.
That’s the GOSPEL, friends:
Jesus LIVED the life we couldn’t live,
He DIED the death we deserved in our place,
And He ROSE to give us power over death and new life in Him.
And all who trust in Jesus, WILL BE SAVED.
V36: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.””
#4 – A good sermon CENTERS on Christ in the Scriptures. (vv25-31)
Jesus claimed in John 5:39 that the Scriptures, the Old Testament in his day, all bore witness to Him. On the road to Emmaus, the risen Jesus opened his disciples’ minds to understand “in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” So according to JESUS, all of Scripture… points to Jesus. We’ve already emphasized that a sermon’s got to be BIBLICAL – over ⅓ of Peter’s sermon here is direct quotation from the OT (Joel 2, Psalm 16, Psalm 110…) – but it’s not enough for a sermon to simply be biblical; it’s got to point to JESUSin all of Scripture. A good sermon will be Christo-centric.
Peter references King DAVID here in vv25-35. And I’m running out of time, but the summary of his argument is that David rejoiced in Psalm 16 that God wouldn’t let His “HOLY ONE” rot in the grave, and yet, these 1st c. Jews all knew where David’s tomb was located, in Bethlehem. So clearly, David was prophesying about some other, messianic, immortal King. v31: “Being a prophet… [David] foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ… This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.” Peter will write later in his epistle: “we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Pet 1:16).
That’s what makes Christianity so unique and compelling, in comparison to every other world religion.
No one WITNESSED Mohammed go up on the mountain and receive the Qur’an from Allah.
No one WITNESSED Joseph Smith go into the woods and receive the golden plates from the angel Moroni.
No one WITNESSED the spontaneous, un-directed Big Bang by which atheist scientists would have us believe universe just popped into existence out of nothing.
THOSE religions – Islam, Mormonism, Atheism – THEY require REAL faith. Belief without sight… without evidence.
But the disciples ACTUALLY WITNESSED the resurrected Jesus, for 40 days. They walked to Emmaus with him. Fished with him. Watched him walk through walls. Stuck their fingers all the way through his hands. And then, v33, Peter says, “we witnessed him (back in Acts ch1), be “exalted to the right hand of God” the Father. Peter argues: “DAVID didn’t ascend into the heavens”, v34. That was JESUS. HE was the “Lord”, David was prophesyingabout in Psalm 110, who would sit at God’s right hand.
And because ALL of Scripture bears witness to Jesus, Peter could have gone on expositing all morning long, but Peter alsoknew a SIXTH bonus attribute of a good sermon: it should be CONCISE! Peter’s sermon is around 500 words, in the Greek. Mysermon, expositing Peter’s sermon, is about 10x that length. I guess we can’t all be as short and sweet as Peter. I would point out v40: “with many other words he bore witness and continuedto exhort them”. So apparently Luke has just recorded for us the Cliff’s Notes version of Peter’s entire, unabridged sermon, which I’m sure got him in trouble with his children’s minister as well.
But WHY could Peter have gone on all day? Because not only did he know that all the Scriptures testify about Jesus, but Peter KNEW all the SCRIPTURES! Peter hadn’t PREPARED for this sermon at Pentecost; he had just so immersedhimself in and internalized these Scriptures that they just naturally bubbled up out of him.
When the famous pastor Charles Spurgeon was asked, “How can you tell if a person’s a Christian?”, he replied, “If you cut him, he BLEEDS Bible.” (paraphrased, “Mr. Spurgeon as a Literary Man,” in The Autobiography of Charles H. Spurgeon, Compiled from His Letters, Diaries, and Records by His Wife and Private Secretary, vol. 4, 1878-1892 (Curtis & Jennings, 1900), p. 268)
Is that you? Do you “bleed Bible”? Can you see CHRIST IN all the Scriptures? We need to pray for a heart of faith, to treasure God’s word above all else, and pray for the eyes of faith to see JESUS there, on every page.
Finally, #5 – A good sermon CALLS the listener to respond in faith. (vv37-41)
V37: “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we DO?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
Now, a quick word about “baptismal regeneration”, the idea that baptism SAVES you. After all, Peter says, “Repent and be baptized FOR the forgiveness of your sins.” The Greek word is “eis”. Much like our ENGLISH word, “for”, it can mean “in order to accomplish” (like, “Get baptized, so that God will forgive your sins”). But it can ALSO mean, “because of” (like, “Get baptized, because God has forgiven your sins.”).
If I told you, “I had to spank my son yesterday FOR disobedience,” clearly I don’t mean that I’m spanking him in order to ACCOMPLISH his disobedience! No, I spanked him because of his disobedience.
Baptism is an outward sign of your internal cleansing that occurred when you repented – turned from your sin – and you were washed of all your sins.
Ephesians 2:8-9 declares that “it is by GRACE we have been saved through FAITH, NOT by works, lest anyone should boast.” If your baptism… or if MYbaptizing you saved you, then I’d get to boast, as a pastor; I’ve saved a whole lot of people. But friends, I can’t save you. Only Jesus can.
So I’ll conclude MY sermon the same way PETER does: by callingyou to faith in Jesus.
Maybe you’re here this morning and you’ve confessed your sin to the Lord, but not yet truly REPENTED, turned AWAY from your sin, to follow Christ instead.
Maybe you’ve surrendered your life to Christ, maybe you’ve walked with him for YEARS, but you’ve not yet been BAPTIZED, in obedience to Christ, as a powerful, public SYMBOL of all that He has done for you.
Maybe you need to join the church and go from consumer to contributor. Stick around for the membership class. 🙂
What does the next step in YOUR walk with the Lord look like this morning? How is He calling YOU to respond in FAITH this morning? Let’s pray.
Clarify reality. Convict of sin. Convey the gospel. Center on Jesus. Call to faith.