Transformissional Truth

1 Amens

Amen

TEXT

 

 

Acts 3:12-26: “And when Peter saw it he addressed the people: ‘Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk?  13 The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release him.  14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,  15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.  16 And his name--by faith in his name--has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.  17 And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.  18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.  19 Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out,  20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus,  21 whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.  22 Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.  23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.”  24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.  25 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.”  26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.’”

 

 

INTRODUCTION

 

 

We are looking at the second sermon preached by the Church after having been filled with the Spirit and led to declare God’s wonders.

 

 

Peter, as we’ve been saying, was the spokesman for the Church and through his preaching, empowered by the Spirit, the Church grew through a couple of messages from 120 to 8,000.  Plus, this does not include all of those that were being daily brought into the Church from the incredible witness of the community of God’s people in missional action. 

 

 

How many Christians do you think there were just before Constantine came on the scene, say, AD 310?  The answer is mind-boggling.

 

 

  • AD 100 as few as 25,000 Christians

     

 

  • AD 310 up to 20,000,000 Christians

     

 

How did they do this? How did they go from being a small movement to the most significant religious force in the Roman Empire in two centuries? When attempting to answer the question of how the early Church grew, one must consider several factors in the equation. What are those factors?

 

 

  • They were an illegal religion throughout this period.

     

 

  • They didn't have any church buildings as we know them.

     

 

  • They didn't even have the completed Scriptures as we know them.

     

 

  • They didn't have an institution or the professional business form of leadership normally associated with it.

     

 

  • They didn't have seeker-sensitive services, youth groups, worship bands, seminaries, commentaries, etc.

     

 

  • They actually made it hard to join the church.

     

 

 

How will the Church grow in our day without all these trappings?  What happened to them which caused such an explosive witness to the world?

 

 

They had a new relationship to truth.

 

 

Since we planted Kaleo we’ve had the great honor of watching several people come to a living faith in Christ either as new believers or as nominal believers whose faith has been ignited in ways which before was not experienced.

 

 

We’ve also had the pain of watching many who have come to investigate what’s going on here leave and not come back.

 

 

One of the things we’ve seen is that when it comes to love, they’re interested; when it comes to peace, they’re interested; when it comes to power, they’re interested; but when it comes to truth, all of the sudden a problem surfaces and they may or may not choose to stick around.

 

 

This sermon follows the miracle of the healing of the lame man who was begging at the gate called “beautiful,” which was more than likely the Nicanor gate rather than the outer gate called “beautiful.”  Peter now moves to explain the truth of Christ to those who are curious about what just happened.  He moves the focus off of the man, off of himself, and onto Christ and the truth of Christ.

 

 

What we have in this sermon is Peter explaining that what it means to be a Christian is to be someone who has a new relationship to truth.  When you come into Christianity, the understanding of truth is something which is coherent, or in other words, it is consistent and connected together.  If you’re living out of the modern western worldview, you’re living out of a story of truth which is not coherent.

 

 

Jean-Paul Sartre puts it this way:

 

 

For the man who does not believe that God exists, we are forlorn for we cannot find anything to depend on, either inside or outside ourselves.  Morals, for us, are both unavoidable and impossible. 

 

 

What Sartre is saying is that living in this world is difficult because morals are unavoidable and yet impossible. 

 

 

Madeline Murray-O’hare, the famous militant atheist once said:

 

 

I gave up on the idea of truth long ago.  Hitler saw truth as the ability to kill six million Jews.  The Roman Catholic Church viewed truth as the ability to exterminate thousand through the inquisition.  So don’t search for truth. 

 

 

She is saying that she is so disgusted with how people used truth that she gave up on the idea of pursuing truth.  But why is she disgusted?  The moment you give up on the idea of truth, you no longer have the right to be outraged and disgusted.  You can only be disgusted and outraged if you are saying that the people who abused truth should have known better.  Why should Hitler and the Roman Church have known better?  Because there is a truth which is outside of us which causes us to be hurt, angry, outraged and disgusted when people no longer abide by it.

 

 

She is affirming the idea of truth to deny its existence.  This is why Sartre wrote that we have a real problem on our hands.  The idea of truth, of morals, of right and wrong, is unavoidable and impossible. 

 

 

A Christian knows that when we feel closest to ultimate reality, we sense a truth outside of ourselves. 

 

 

Isn’t it funny that when Sartre is thinking most clearly and is at the peak of his existential musings, he realizes truth is there.  And when O’hare is at the most horrified at the moral outrage of the killing of six million Jews, she realizes that truth is there.  Why?  The Christian knows that the reason it is unavoidable and impossible is because it is really there.  It keeps breaking through and coming upon you.  It’s like a never ending tide which keeps encroaching on your nice little picnic on the shores.  It doesn’t let up. 

 

 

Final truth imposes itself on you whether you like it or not. 

 

 

Peter shows us three aspects of this truth: 

 

 

          1-Truth is found in the Scriptures

 

          2-Truth is actually a person

 

          3-Truth is taught to us by Jesus

 

 

STUDY

 

 

I. Truth is found in the Scriptures

 

 

The reason we have to talk about these things today is that if we don’t orient ourselves to truth, when we read text like we have before us this morning, it will simply blow past us unnoticed. 

 

 

Here’s where Peter shows us that it is possible to know final truth, in spite of Sartre, O’hare, or our unbelieving friends who rail their objections against Christianity and its claims to truth.

 

 

Verses 17-18: "And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.  18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.”

 

 

Peter is talking about the prophecies of Moses, Isaiah, Hosea, and Jeremiah.  He’s saying that didn’t simply bring us words about God, but that they brought us the words of God.  He doesn’t say that they foretold but rather than God was telling us through them. 

 

 

These aren’t words about God they are words of God.  If Isaiah said it, God said it.  This is what God said. 

 

 

The New Testament Christians believed that the Holy Spirit empowered and spoke through the writers of Scripture.  They didn’t have a mystical out of body experience.  God used their knowledge, their personality, and even their writing style, but He spoke through them His words and believers knew it. 

 


What we have in the Scriptures is a completely and thoroughly true book.  This is truth from God.  You aren’t allowed to simply sit down and say, “well, I know Isaiah said this, but I think something different.” 

 

 

Why is it important to believe that the Scripture is not just about God, but from God? 

 

 

If it’s about God you could say, “Some of these things are true and valid, but many are not.”  If it’s from God you really can’t do that.  If we do, we’re then acting as chief editor of God’s words to us and essentially we are censoring Him.  In our culture, to be censored is a big deal that we fight against because we see freedom of speech as necessary for a democracy to stay a democracy.  Yet when we come to God’s word, we love to censor Him, take Him out of context, and essentially edit what He’s saying.  We want our rights of freedom but attempt to stifle God’s and keep Him from being free to say what He desires in the way He intended. 

 

 

And notice that we all pick something close to home about which to censor God.  What do you pick when you say that God was mistaken or that He certainly couldn’t mean that?  It is usually some sin or some thing we hold dear and more closely than anything.  It is our personal pet idea that when infringed upon we are willing to dismiss God’s word to maintain our position.  Everyone does this, we simply need to fess up to it and admit it.

 

 

Why is it important to understand the Bible as true truth that is God’s word?

 

 

1-There will not be any deep transformation in your life without a Bible that is completely true, which you submit to in all its parts.

 

 

In ministry, I have heard a variety of suggestions for how to raise your children.  One of the common ways in which we have blended our belief with that of the world is in this particular arena. 

 

 

I have heard well-meaning parents tell me that they don’t think it’s appropriate to impose truth upon their children.  Children should be able to enter into the story themselves, without parents’ input or form of truth to discover truth on their own.  It is assumed in this position that to teach any absolute truths, by which the children’s lives are to be governed, is damaging to the children and unfair to their discovery process. 

 

 

Many parents want to teach their children values, but resist the idea that the best way to teach them is to determine what values are important and then urge their adoption of these values.  It is perceived that truth is a personal view and therefore must be discovered on your own without parental influence.  It is assumed that we gain these values and truths by experiencing them rather than by learning them.  Therefore, we shouldn’t try to teach our children what things are wrong or right, but allow each of them to discover it on their own terms.

 

 

This is no different than what Sartre and O’hare are saying. 

 

 

Let’s work this through.  What if a mother gave to her son a great story without teaching the point of it to her four year old, only to find that when he went to school that day he belted another child over the head with a toy because he didn’t want to share?  The mother would reply, “Why did you hit this child?”  The child, if he was smart enough, would say, “Mom, I entered into the story and found that what’s right and wrong is up to me, and it was wrong that this boy took my toy and right that I gave him a lump on the head.”  The mother would be outraged and call her son to stop hitting the child or else there would be consequences at school and at home.  To this, the child could reply, “but mom, you shouldn’t impose your values on me.”   

 

 

The mother would know that the child is being self-serving and a little brat as he uses the excuse of personal choice and values to get away with whatever he wants.  The moment the mom says anything about his view, she is contradicting her own worldview and imposes her truth upon him. 

 

 

What if a father, wanting to help his daughter grow in maturity, allows her to experiment with flirting with boys, having time alone with boys, obsessing over boys, and takes a hands-off approach to discussing her actions with her? 

 

 

Then, one day the little girl comes home at 15 to tell her dad that the boy she’s been seeing got her pregnant.  If the dad is going to be consistent, he has to say, “Ah, that’s nice honey, it will be a good experience for you to learn from.”  No!  A father who loves his child would never let her be objectified in that way and would do his best to instruct her, love her, teach her, and yes, impose truth upon her that is outside of her. 

 

 

If the father is upset, hurt, or outraged in the least, he is betraying his own worldview and demonstrating that truth has to be taught and imposed, not just left up to our own imagination to think of it whatever we want.

 

 

If you say that you only get your values through personal experience instead of imposed truth, you’ll always use this as an excuse to do whatever you want in whatever way you wish. 

 

 

What makes Jesus so great? 

 

 

Jesus Christ came to earth to live a perfect and righteous life in the face of great hatred, persecution, anger and bitterness, gossip and slander, opposition outside His group of friends, betrayal in His group and ultimately He was murdered for the truth He taught. 

 

 

How did He remain unmoved in the face of all the chaos and pain He endured?

 

 

When He was tempted and troubled He would say again and again, “It is written!”  When He faced his greatest enemies he would say, “It is written.” 

 

 

When the Pharisees would try to trap him in a catch 22, Jesus said in Matthew 22:29: “But Jesus answered them, ‘You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.’”

 

 

In the moment of betrayal, Jesus was about to be handed over to a false trial to be beaten and scourged and ultimately killed, Peter pulls out his sword and cuts a guy’s ear off to defend Jesus.  Jesus says this:

 

 

Matthew 26:52-54: "Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.  53 Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?  54 But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must be so?"

 

 

Over and over again Jesus quotes the Scripture.  You see, what comes out of you in your darkest hour, your deepest despair is what you’re filled with.  What came out of Jesus’ lips in these moments?  Scripture. 

 

 

Jesus Christ’s entire life was based upon Scripture.  He dealt with betrayal with Scripture. He dealt with pain with Scripture.  He dealt with temptation with Scripture.  He dealt with controversy with Scripture. 

 

 

When His heart was pierced by the pain of death and of abandonment, He bled Scripture.  How did He stay true to us?  He quoted Scripture. 

 

 

When Jesus was in the Garden praying before He was handed over to be crucified, He said to his own Father, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me.  Nevertheless, let not my will, but your will be done.”  How did He know God’s will?  Scripture. 

 

 

Jesus felt God’s closeness leaving Him.  He knew that God would turn His face from Him as He would be abandoned upon the cross.  He was utterly cut off.  What kept Jesus even through the ripping away of His Father?  Scripture.  He knew nothing else other than what the Scripture told Him at that moment. 

 

 

This is significant because it is the only way we learn of the Gospel and the only way we can truly follow Christ.  How can we claim to follow Jesus if we deny the very basis upon which He devoted His entire life?  It is a mockery of Jesus and everything He stood for when we dismiss the Scripture with our opinions and speculation. 

 

 

Put it this way, if Jesus had a view of Scripture that you had, we’d be lost. 

 

 

2-If you pick and choose portions of Scripture to dismiss you don’t have a God who can contradict you.  Then you don’t have the true God.     

 

 

Imagine a personal relationship like this.  Can you imagine telling someone that you want to be close to them and know them but that they are to never contradict you and disagree with you?  What kind of relationship would this be?  It wouldn’t be a true relationship.  That person would never feel close to you because you would never know what they’re truly about.  Most people would never enter into this kind of relationship, though many do. 

 

 

If you have a Bible that you can cut up as you edit it at will, then you have a God that can’t contradict you, and you really don’t have a relationship with God.  You don’t have a living God, you are the god.  An idol is something you make in your own workshop, something you shape to fit you.  The living God is the One who puts you in His workshop and shapes you to fit Him.  There is no in-between. 

 

 

Let me just ask you this:  Do you have God that can argue with you about your views?  This is how the Bible works in us by way of the Gospel.  It argues against our views. 

 

 

Hebrews 12:5: “And have you forgotten the exhortation (argues) that addresses you as sons? ‘My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him.’”

 

 

If you don’t have a God who can argue against you and show you that you’re wrong or inconsistent in your view of truth or of life, then you don’t have the God of Scripture, you only have yourself.

 

 

More importantly, if God can not tell you bad news, He can not tell you good news.  If you don’t have a God that speaks hard truth in His word about your money or sexuality, about your job or your attitude, you can’t have a God that can come and contradict you when you’re feeling depressed or hurt.  How can He come and tell you that He loves you when you feel unloved?  How can He tell you how valuable you are to Him when you feel worthless?  How can He give you hope when your hopeless?  He has to argue with you about what you’re feeling and contradict you with His beautiful truth. 

 

 

1 John 3:20: “for whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything.”

 

 

How will He get us out of our funk of condemnation if we don’t have a Bible that can argue with us? 

 

 

If you don’t have a Bible of ultimate truth, you don’t have a God who can tell you when you’re wrong so that He can lift you when you’re in despair.  He loves you, you’re not worthless, there is hope, and this all comes against our hearts which condemn us. 

 

 

II. Truth is a person

 

 

Peter doesn’t just say that we have a Bible filled with ultimate truth alone.  He says that the truth is actually a person. 

 

 

Back out a little bit and look at what Peter is saying in this sermon.  He’s saying that everything in the Bible is ultimately about Jesus.

 

 

Verses 22-25: “Moses said, 'The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you.  23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.'  24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.  25 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.'” 

 

 

Why should you read the Old Testament?  Because it tells you that whenever you see the law, if you read it without Christ, you’ll end up proud as you think you live up, or in despair as you recognize how far you fall short.  But the law is about Jesus!

 

 

If you haven’t read the law and it has made you proud or in despair, you haven’t really read it.  It makes you proud or in despair because it has to take you to Christ.  If the law is about Jesus then it shows you that you can’t possibly be good but that Jesus has fulfilled it, you can be saved by grace and what He’s done can free you from being crushed by it as you trust in Christ. 

 

 

The law is about Jesus.  If you don’t see all of Scripture in this way it will either harden you or crush you. 

 

 

What about all the clean laws?  What are they all about?  Wear certain clothes, don’t eat certain things, wash in a ritual way, don’t touch a dead animal, bring a sacrifice to come and worship God, bring the showbread, light the candles, etc.  What does this all mean?  The answer is that you can’t just go to God in whatever way you want.  No matter how hard you try to be a good person, you’re not fit for His presence; you’re not clean and never will be clean without Christ. 

 

 

Do you remember the vision that Peter had on the rooftop?  He was sitting there and something like a giant sheet was let down and on it were all kinds of animals and birds of the air and God said to Peter, “Rise, Peter, Kill and eat,” in Acts 10. 

 

 

Peter’s response was, “No Lord, I have never eaten anything defiled or unclean.”  Then God spoke again and said, “What God has made clean, do not call common (unclean).”  This happened three times and then two men knocked on the gate where Peter was staying and asked Peter to come with them.  Peter went to the house of the centurion who ate all the wrong things, wore all the wrong clothing, and was unclean.  Peter realized that God was making clean what was once unclean because of Christ. 

 

 

Verse 25: “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.'”

 

 

In the Old Testament, over and over again the covenant is established and God says “if you do this, then I’ll bless you and you’ll get all these incredible promises.”  But we find that no one could keep the law, no one could do what God was asking—no one except the true Israel of God, Jesus Christ Himself.  He kept the entire law and because of Jesus’ perfect life, all the blessings promised to God’s people are poured out to us because Jesus did not fail.  Jesus is the one who comes and fulfills the covenant. 

 

 

Don’t you notice that every time one of us preach the message isn’t very good until we get to Jesus?  This is purposeful.  You might say, “Then get to Jesus sooner,” and this is true, but it isn’t until we see how disjointed we are first by the way of the Scripture arguing with us that we really appreciate Christ and what He’s done.

 

 

When I preach, it’s partially interesting; but when Christ is put on display, it’s irresistible.  This is how I can say that you need to have a new view of truth, and new way of relating to the Scriptures, a new hope, and follow the Bible and what it says.  Some of you are thinking “Yeah, I know, that’s a good point, I should do that.”  But the truth is you can’t without Christ. 

 

 

It’s only a lecture until we begin to talk about what Jesus did, how Jesus viewed the Scripture, how Jesus stood up under difficulty, how Jesus won our salvation.  Then, suddenly, the lecture becomes a power. 

 

 

When you see that it’s not about just bare truth but Jesus, it’s not about Abraham, but Jesus, it’s not about Moses but Jesus, it’s not about the sacrificial laws it’s about Jesus, it becomes powerful and pierces us and brings us a freshness of truth in the Gospel.  What is only mildly interesting, suddenly becomes a power to you and in you. 

 

 

If you read the Bible without reading through Jesus Christ, there is a veil over your mind. 

 

 

III.  Truth is taught to us by Jesus

 

 

Look at the final verse:

 

 

Verse 26: “God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness."

 

 

How could Peter say this? 

 

 

Most of these people had never met Jesus Christ personally.  They might have heard of Him, but they didn’t meet Him one on one. 

 

 

What Peter is saying is this: whenever the Gospel is preached, Jesus is present in the Gospel and comes to you and He blesses you and makes these truths real to you as He cuts you to the heart. 

 

 

Has this happened to you?  Do you let Jesus deal with you personally in this way? 

 

 

If you are in the habit of dismissing and editing God, you’re not going to see true transformation deep in your heart.  Do you just believe in it generally or does it come in and cut you?  Does He deal with you in the Word?  Does He come at you and disagree with you?  If you’re not being dealt with in this way, you might be listening to David preach, but you haven’t heard Jesus. 

 

 

You might think you’re beyond all repair.  But Jesus is the ultimate prophet and can cut through all the junk and deal with you.  I’ve never preached a morgue, but Jesus came to Lazarus and called him forth from death to life.  That’s power, and it can come to you in the same way.  He is the ultimate prophet and he can break through the deadness of your life and show the beauty of His truth.

 

Footnote:

-Much of the introduction comes from Alan Hirsch and his book The Forgotten Ways

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