Promise of the Church

But, you promised. These words can sting when we hear them. Think about the pain that is associated and connected to that declaration. But you promised. The person who's saying, but you promised, they're hurt because they believe they received a pledge that was not fulfilled. Think about the pain of the person hearing those words as they reflect upon a promise given and broken. You don't have to be a Christian to realize the importance of the promise. Promises are pledges that bind our character and our conduct. We give a word, we give a commitment, we bind ourselves by making promises. Now, sadly, it's just way too easy to be skeptical of promises. We've all had promises broken. Promises by a coworker, a boss, a friend, a church member, a pastor, a parent, a spouse. But you promise. The more important the relationship, the more painful that is. when we break a promise or when someone breaks a promise against us. We have to come to terms with something that's going to be very hard this morning because as we think about broken promises, our minds are going to initially go to a list of all the things we can think of where somebody has broken a promise against us. That's easy, right? We can all come up with an easy, strong list of how so many have broken promises. But the hard thing we've got to do this morning is realize we all break promises. We're promise breakers. And that's important this morning because we have to realize we are promise breakers. We live in a world full of hurts because we all break promises. And we don't always just break promises because of ill intent. Sometimes it's just the fact that we don't have the power to keep every promise. We are not capable of keeping every promise that we make. Sometimes our sin keeps us from keeping promises. Sometimes circumstances keep us from keeping promises. And sometimes it's just simply situations in love. This is what makes the world somewhat scary. Who do you trust? How can you trust anyone, especially given, as we reflect upon, who has broken promises against us? It's important for us to reflect upon this and see that we are promise breakers, because what we want to look at today is what Peter proclaims very clearly, and that there is one you can trust. There is a great God who is the great promise maker, and he keeps every promise. Think about this. Now, I realize this is a bit of an obvious statement, because God has existed forever. But God's made more promises than anybody who's ever existed. God has made more promises. And it's not just the amount of promises. Think about the kinds of promises God makes. They're amazing. We're coming up on the season where the church is supposed to gather to think about all the promises God has made and how he fulfilled them. He promised that a child would be born that would reverse all of the curse that we live under regularly. He promised that a child would be born of a virgin. That's a pretty amazing promise. He promised that this child would crush our enemy's sin and death. He promised that child would crush our enemy's sin and death by being crushed for our sin. That's an amazing promise. He promised that child, after dying, would rise again to new life. That's an amazing promise. He promised that that child would be the prince of peace, the righteous king. That's an amazing promise. Every promise God has made, the amazing, almost unbelievable promises, he keeps. I want us to meditate today as we think about what Peter proclaims in this early starting of the church. We can trust God. We can trust Him because He's made so many amazing promises, and He has kept every one. And He doesn't just keep promises because they're convenient. He keeps promises when they're difficult. He had to send His own Son to die for us to keep His promises. This morning we're going to be in Acts chapter 3. As you heard Breanne already read, We're on page 911, if you're using a Pew Bible. And I want to be clear as we kind of step back and see what's happening. In chapter one, we saw all the things that were needed to prepare the church to exist. Jesus ascends to heaven. He says, wait for the Holy Spirit. He fulfills the number of the apostles by replacing Judas, and then the Holy Spirit comes down, and Peter proclaims the first sermon. And the Holy Spirit works, and He calls others to believers, and they're baptized. And we meditated last week on that summary passage, 42-47 of chapter 2. The church was devoted. They saw numbers being added. They were sharing. They were this unique kind of community. And now we enter kind of a new stage in the book of Acts. 3-5 are really a whole section. especially chapters 3 and 4, because we see in chapters 3 and 4 that there's a sign given. A lame man leaps. Secondly, we see a sermon. Peter declares, it is Jesus Christ, that name above all names, that has caused this once lame man now to leap. So there's a sign and a sermon. That's the two basic parts of chapter 3. Chapter 4, the disciples are seized. They're captured. They're taken into prison and questioned for this miracle and for this proclamation. And then you see supplication. The church prayed. And then we see another summary. Chapter 4, 32-37. There's another summary statement here that describes what the believers were doing regularly. This morning we're only going to look at the sign, the healing, and the sermon. And the summary message is this. Turn to Jesus because He is the promised Savior who blesses us with life. Turn to Jesus. There's going to be a great call for repentance. Turn to Jesus because He is the promised Savior. God has fulfilled His promise and He blesses us with life. There are three main points if you're wanting to follow an outline for your notes. Three simple words, a sign, a savior, salvation. A sign, a savior, a salvation. To flesh that out a little bit more, a sign that brings wonder and awe, that's verses one to 10. A sign that brings wonder and awe, that's verses one to 10. A savior that brings life, it's 11 to 16. And a salvation that brings repentance, 17 through 26. Let us begin with the sign. Verses 1 to 10. It begins very simple. Peter and John, they're going to the temple. They're still very much acting like Jews. They have not yet broken off many of the Jewish customs from Christians because, quite frankly, I think they just see this as a continuation. Jesus came and fulfilled everything that God had said in the Old Testament. They see there's a significant difference now that the Messiah has come. But they continue the custom of praying daily at the temple. And then chapter 3, verse 2, it introduces this character who's going to bring about quite a commotion. Peter and John, they're just doing what all the other believers are doing. They're praying daily. And then a man lame from birth, he's being carried. And they do this daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, the gate to ask for alms. Now this is very strategic. It was understood by the Jews of the day that when you go to pray for temple, giving alms was something you did on the way there. And so this is a very strategic location for somebody who depends upon the charity of others to be positioned to receive the alms needed to live daily. Now I want to see something again in the way Luke uses a light word. He draws our attention by using words that are related to sight. So the seeing, the looking, the gaze. I want you to listen for these words as I begin in verse three. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, look at us. And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, I have no silver or gold, but what I do have I give to you in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and raised him up. Immediately, his feet and ankles were made strong. We see there that he sees Peter and John. They fix their gaze upon him. Peter says, look at us. And then he fixes his attention on them. He's drawing our attention to this sign. Now, Peter declares something very important in verse 6. I have no silver or gold. I cannot give you what you're asking for, but I will give you what I have. In the name of Jesus, rise up and walk. He extends his right hand, and he raises him up, and immediately, this man's feet and ankles, they become strong. Now, this is physically amazing. Peter's making a declaration, rise up and walk, and immediately, this man is able to stand, walk, and leap. And I wanted to take a moment here so we're asked to reflect how amazing this miracle is Because God has designed us. He's formed us. We're complicated. So the first thing we have to see is that the muscles that were present when we're born, they have to be exercised and moved in order to grow. This man does not have the muscles that we all have that walk regularly because he hasn't been walking. There's such atrophy that these muscles are so minuscule that something amazing had to happen with a miracle to give him the muscles all needed to walk. In addition to that, the arteries and veins that are necessary to be part of the muscles, they must develop with the muscle. The bones, they grow with usage. Pressure causes bone to develop, and that needs muscle and activity to bring pressure to grow. Then we have motor nerves that go to the muscles, sensory nerves that give us touch and pain. They both have to be present to allow us to walk properly. On top of all this is ligaments that also have to grow. The point here is that this man is 40 years old. We know this from chapter four. For 40 years, he hasn't walked. For 40 years, the muscles have not existed, the bones haven't existed, the blood vessels haven't existed, but now, all of a sudden, in an instant, Peter says, get up in the name of Jesus Christ, and all of these things grow instantaneously. This is a great miracle. As we heard read, and as we're going to look at in a moment, in the name of Jesus Christ, who we just heard declared the author of life, He created everything needed in an instant, so that He's not just standing clumsily, like a newborn fawn coming out, you know, shaking, not being able to really stand. No, He's standing, He's walking, and He leaps. He enters the temple, and He leaps. Now, if you think about this man, he causes quite a scene. He goes to the temple, a place midday. This is meant for contemplation and prayer, and he's in there leaping and praising God. In verse 9, they saw him and recognized him and noticed the response of the crowd. They were filled with awe and wonder and amazement at what happened to him. God has used this son. Peter very clearly uses this sign to not point people to himself. He points them to Jesus Christ. It's not my power, it's not my piety. It is Jesus Christ who has made this man well. Now Peter could have started the first church of Peter right here. Think about it. He could have started the first church of Peter because everyone's looking at him. Wow, look how amazing this man must be. He just calls this man to walk. Peter says, no. I am here as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. This sign has been given to you so that you will see the author of life whom you crucified is whom you must now believe to receive life. Before we move on and see how this sign is used to bring a declaration of the Savior, I think we need to ask the question, should we expect signs like this today? I want us to see in context, in chapter 2, verse 43, So, chapter 2, verse 43, that's a summary statement. Chapter 3 is really an explanation of what one of those happenings were. This is a sign and a wonder. And should we expect these today? Well, I can simply say this, we should expect healing today. As Andrew just prayed, we're expecting healing. We believe that there is a God and He is able to see us, He designed us, He's able to make us well. We should be able to expect healing. We can see that because we can simply go to James 5. It is prescribed that we pray for healing. Now this doesn't mean that every time somebody's sick that they're automatically gonna have healing if they have enough faith. That is not what the Bible teaches. But it does say God is still active. He's still the author of life. He still loves his people and sometimes there's a sickness that's caused by sin and if we repent, we will be healed. I also want us to see this. The signs and wonders are uniquely prevalent at this time in the beginning of Acts and throughout Acts because a work of the gospel of the church of Jesus Christ has just begun. If you read the Old Testament, there are times and seasons where there's a lot of great miracles and signs and wonders. That this would be like Moses. who at the time of delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt, there's a lot of signs, there's a lot of wonders, there's a lot of miraculous, because God is doing something amazing, and He's trying to draw God's people together to see He is your great Redeemer and Deliverer. This is exactly why the apostles are able to do signs and wonders. They want people to see Jesus Christ is your final and ultimate Redeemer and Deliverer. So in some way we say this is unique in how prevalent they are. But we also should say today we should be praying expectantly for healing. We really should be very expectant and in awe regularly. We should be wanting to regularly see what God is doing because God is active. He's not some passive watchmaker. He didn't just wind us up and let us go. He is active. We can be part of what He's doing and rejoicing in what He's doing. if we're looking, desiring to rejoice with God. So that's the sign, that's verses one to 10. Now let's look at the Savior that brings life, verses 11 to 16. While he clung to Peter and John, all the people utterly astounded, they ran together to him in the portico called Solomon's. This would have been a large area that some people estimate could have held more than 1,000 people at one time. So all these people have come to Solomon's portico, And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people. And notice how he addresses it in the same way he addressed in Acts 2, men of Israel. Why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us? As though by our own power or our own piety, we made them walk. He first dismisses any kind of idea that this is something of Peter or of John. He points to God. He points to the one true God who has been the God of Israel up to this point. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers. What makes God the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob is that God made specific promises to those men and to other men. But He's pointing out that the God who we have believed because He is the promise-making God to our forefathers This God, look at verse 13, this is the heart and soul here, let's focus here, 13, the one God who has made all these promises, he has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate. And when he decided to release him, but you denied the holy and righteous one, and asked for a murder to be granted to you. And you killed the author of life, whom God raised up from the dead. I want you to notice the structure of Peter's pointed declaration. He declares what God does as bookends. God glorified His Son, Jesus Christ. God raised Him, Jesus Christ, from the dead. You killed Him. God glorified Him. God raised Him from the dead. He's the author of life whom you chose to crucify. This is a very powerful point that Peter is driving at. He has just gone from a people who have awe and wonder, how can this man heal people, to making it very clear, it is in the name of the man you crucified, whom God glorified, whom God raised, that this man now walks. He mentions specifically the denial in delivering over to Pontius Pilate. We need to remember that at this trial, the Jews, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, they wanted Jesus dead because they were messing with their prosperity. He was messing with their prosperity. And so they riled up other Jews to argue and to hand Jesus over to Pontius Pilate. And Pontius Pilate, he's not a Jewish man. He's a Roman ruler. He's a Gentile. And as he looked at Jesus, he said, there's no fault in this man. There's nothing wrong. I don't know what you guys are so riled up about. There's nothing wrong with this man. And so he knows there's a way out. He keeps trying to find a way out. So he goes out to the Jews and he says, there's a custom. I can let a man go free. I want to let Jesus go free. And the crowd cries out, no, you crucified Jesus. You can let Barabbas, a well-known revolutionary murderer, go free. Pontius Pilate, the Gentile, Roman ruler, wants to let Jesus go free, but the Jews, the Pharisees, the scribes, the priests, they deny Jesus. They ask for a murderer so that they can murder the author of life. Now let's look at this very pointed accusation. about what He says, about the actions of these Jews present, and quite frankly, we need to put ourselves here. The first thing we see is the wickedness of our own sin. As we think about the denial, the delivering over, the murder, the killing of God, we see the wickedness of our own sin. God the Father sent His Son to serve us. He came to serve His people, and His people knew Him not. They rejected Him. The God who created us and is for us, we seek to put Him to death because we are against Him. This is the problem. Jesus came to heal us of our sin, and we decided we loved our sin more than we would love Him. That's why we killed Jesus. because it was a threat to our love for sin. And what God is doing is saying, I hate your sin. I love you, I hate your sin, and I've got to send my son down to destroy the power of your sin so that you can once again love me. And what we said is, no, I love my sin more than you, God. We love our sin. That's why we put the Son of God to death. Because He came to take it away. He came to destroy His power over us. He came to take away the curse because of sin. It shows how wicked we are in our sin. We have to ask ourselves, why did God keep His word to us? Why? Why would God go through with this? Why would He let His Son come down to be murdered by the ones that He came to die for? Simple. He made a promise. He made a promise that had nothing to do with how good we were going to be. It had everything to do with how sinful we are. God went through with this plan because He made a promise that He would once again have a people that He loves and loves Him and gets to worship Him. See the one thing today. God keeps every promise, no matter how painful they are to keep. We can look back to Acts 2.23, where Peter says, you crucified Jesus, but it was according to God's plan. He has always had this plan, and our obedience to that plan has never been part of the dependency upon that plan. God has never expected us to be dependent as part of fulfilling his plan. He keeps His promise because He's committed to keeping His word. So we first see the wickedness of our sin, that we have killed God, we reject God, we deny Him because we love our sin too much. That's what Jesus came to do away with. The second thing we need to see is that God gave us a substitute for our sin. We've already discussed this, but we can see that God has already designed from the very beginning that in order to take away our guilt, our punishment, our curse, the wrath that we deserve, He sent His only Son, the Holy and Righteous One, the One who had no guilt, the One who was perfectly obedient. He came to die in our place so that the wrath of God would be put upon Him and we would no longer suffer. He came to deliver us, but we denied Him. What a powerful statement. You killed the author of life. The one who came to give you everything, you killed. And it was all part of God's plan because he had to die to take away our guilt and to destroy the power of sin. These are serious words. This is a powerful declaration of how our depravity is deep and the love of God is deeper. His grace is truly greater than our sin. As we look at Jesus Christ, He is declared the servant whom God has glorified. We need to realize that we're all broken. Sin has corrupted us. This is why we don't trust. This is why evil is in the world, that we are all broken, and God has come to redeem it. God has come to make us whole again. If you're not a Christian this morning, we need to stop here, and I want you to see one thing. God's people regularly fail. God's Word never fails. God's Word never fails. You can trust Him. I challenge you. It's Christmas. I challenge you. I'll help you find it. But do a Bible study, a simple Bible study of all the different promises that God made in the Old Testament that are filled on that one Christmas morning. when a baby was born who was named Jesus, Yahweh saves. They called Him Immanuel, God with us. All the promises that are fulfilled on that day, it's amazing to see how all the prophets were speaking to this. It's actually evidence that God puts before us that for thousands of years, He was making promises, and they all came to fruition in Jesus. whom we must believe, because if we don't believe him, the wrath of God is upon us and we shall surely die. But if we believe in him, every blessing is ours from God. Most importantly, life. Let's go to our third point, salvation that brings repentance. Salvation that brings repentance. We've seen a sign, they've drawn a crowd, and Peter, He's clearly not trying to follow a movement for people to follow him because he makes it very pointed. You denied the one whom saved this man's legs and he can save you from your sin. And now we see a salvation that brings repentance, verses 17 to 26. And notice the mood softens quite a bit here in the second half of the sermon. He doesn't address them as men of Israel, he addresses them as brothers. He's connecting himself to them because he too denied Jesus Christ. Peter is not above accusation here. He also denied Jesus Christ and he's saying, brothers, he's connecting with them, I know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers. He's not letting him off the hook, but he's making it clear. I realize you did not realize Jesus was the author of life. In ignorance, you murdered him who was coming to save you from your sin, and you didn't realize he was the author of life. It was done in ignorance as to what you were actually doing. One of the most amazing things that we have to contemplate is we rarely see how sinful we are. We rarely see the depth of our depravity, but any time that God shines His light to show us more sin, He always shows us more grace. That is the beauty and the power of our God who loves us and is faithful to us. Whenever we see more sin, He shows us more grace so we can repent of it, so we can trust Jesus more. It's important to say, God, show me more sin so that I can see more grace, because that's the only way you ever see more grace. And by God's grace, these Israelites, they're hearing about their sin. Peter helps them see what God was doing back then. And let's look at verse 18. I know you acted in ignorance, verse 17, but what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that His Christ would suffer, He thus fulfilled. Remember the one thing. God's gonna keep his word. All the prophets have foretold this, he has fulfilled. That's worthy of just our rejoicing today, our meditation. Memorize that one verse and think about it all week. But what God foretold, by the mouth of all the prophets, that this Christ would be fulfilled, he's a God we can trust. He's a God who's good, and in case we missed it, verse 18, verse 24, and all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came from him also proclaim these days what God has said he will do. Now, we have to remember something from the Gospel of Luke and Acts as we think about the time Christ was crucified. He rose from the dead, and then 40 days later, he ascended. And do you remember what he was doing for those 40 days? Between the resurrection from the dead and the ascension into heaven, what was Jesus doing? We have a little glimmer, or a glimpse of what he was doing from Luke. Remember the Emmaus Road? He's walking along with the disciples, and he's telling them all the ways in which he has to fill what the prophets said. For 40 days, Jesus was leading the best Bible study ever. Think about it. Jesus, the author of God's word. He's opening it up, and they're seeing things they've never seen before. Let me show you this promise. I fulfilled that. This is how I did it. Let's look at this promise. Look at how God has been so faithful to show you how he keeps his word, and here I am. I died for your sins, I rose again, I'm going to ascend, and the Holy Spirit's gonna come, and you're gonna hear even more. God keeps His Word, even the costly ones, where He has to punish His own Son for our sin. Now, He's making these great declarations. God has kept His Word. This is what had to happen. You did it in ignorance, but God planned it. And notice He doesn't let them off the hook, even though they did it in ignorance. Verse 19, repent. Repent. You don't even get an excuse. You don't get to say, oh God, I did it in ignorance. I'm not really sorry it was in ignorance. He makes it very clear, repent. In case we didn't hear repent, turn back. Repent and turn back. As a glorious repetition, that means the same thing. Repent means you recognize you're going the wrong way and you turn. There's a repentance. There's a turning back from the way of loving sin so much that you would murder the author of life. Here's what comes next. That your sins may be blotted out. He's calling them into a faith that really makes a difference. This isn't easy believism, I'll just pray a prayer and all my sins be washed away. No, it's saying, I realize what I've done. how I've rejected God, I've denied God, I've refused Him, I've delivered Him over, and I don't love God. And I realize what that means for me, and that I'll be under the wrath of God. I realize Christ came to die for me, to take away my sin and the wrath of God, so I'm now going to learn to live in His righteousness. Repent. Turn back. turn so that you will once again see God and love him. Verse 20, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus 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. There again we see God has said it, it must happen. And all that is simply saying that Christ is in the heavens now. He's no longer walking with us, the Holy Spirit is in us. And He's gonna come back, and it will be a time of refreshing for everyone who believes in Him. Turn and repent. Now verse 22, Peter takes a slight turn in what he's saying, but really he's just getting more specific. He's referring to the passage that John read earlier from Deuteronomy 18. He's making it very clear, here's a specific promise that God made to a specific person at a specific time that he has fulfilled in Jesus Christ. He's the prophet. Now Moses was the greatest Old Testament prophet, but here we see Jesus, he's the great prophet. Moses led Israel through the wilderness. He removed the slavery from Egypt, but remember one thing he didn't do? He didn't take them to the promised land. Jesus Christ delivers us from a greater enemy, sin and death. Jesus Christ walks with us through this difficult life, and Jesus Christ will complete the mission. He will take us into the very presence of God, because he promised he would. Christ is better. Listen to Him. Our final verses before we get into some application in 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. God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. Now notice here verse 25. You're the sons of the prophets. Sonship has less to do here in many of the ways the scripture talks about being sons and children than having a bloodline. It has more to do with hearing a promise and believing a promise. There's a sonship related to promise. You are sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers if you believe in that promise, in that covenant. We can see this in the Gospel of John, where many are claiming, well, we're sons of Abraham by birth. Jesus says, no, you're really sons of the devil, because you lie. If you want to be a son of God and a son of Abraham, you believe in the promises, and I am the one he promised. Sonship in Scripture here has less to do with a bloodline. It has more to do with the blood of Christ. Do you believe he's the promised one that the prophet spoke of that has now come? And I really wonder if Peter gets something that he seems to forget in chapter 10. Look at this great promise in verse 25 that God made to Abraham. All the families of the earth will be blessed. We can go back to Genesis 12 at this time and see that God had a plan for all peoples to hear the glorious news of His good grace and believe, not just the Jews, but all families, all peoples. Peter seems to have forgotten this in Acts 10. He seems to forget, he seems not to be clearly aware of what God is doing, but here he seems to know that Jesus came to the Jews first, verse 26. He's focusing here. He's come to you first. Turn from your wickedness that you might be saved. Now, there's many ways we could apply this. We could talk about our need to keep promises. We could talk about numerous things. But I want us to focus on one thing, and it is the one thing I think Peter focuses on more, and it's Jesus. Our application today is simply going to be meditating upon Jesus Christ because that is the focus of Peter's sermon. So we're going to walk through some of these descriptions of Jesus and we're going to kind of go a little deeper with each one. And I want to do this because the most important thing you could think about right now is Jesus Christ. I pray you'll be encouraged as we hear and we think about the background and the meaning of these great declarations such as Jesus in his name, Jesus the servant, Jesus the holy and righteous one, Jesus the author of life, Jesus the refresher, Jesus the prophet, and Jesus the blessing. So first, one of the things that we see that is one of the clear, powerful declarations in this passage is that it is in the name of Jesus that this man is healed. There's something about that name that's unique. And as we think about the Old Testament, the culture, the name attaches to a person's being and nature and character, and Jesus means Yahweh saved. This is the name above all names. Jesus' name has been exalted above all names. We look to Philippians 2. What a great meditation for Christmas. It declares that this Jesus, he's equal with God, but he lowered himself. He took on humanity. He, the glorious Son of God, he added to himself a humility by adding to himself humanity. And even more than that, he took on a role as a servant. He didn't come as a king, human, that appeared to be a king. He came looking like less than the average Joe. There was nothing to look at if you looked at his physical appearance. He humbled himself. But this is the beauty. This is what a son of God does. He perfectly obeys. He obeyed the Father by coming down to be like us in every way, yet without sin. He came to be obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. This is why He has the name that is above all names, because He was the most obedient, He was the most glorious Son of God, who Jesus Christ, the one who's glorified, the Father has magnified. He is the source of our grace. He is the source of our love. He is the name above all names that we must believe. Something you have to understand that the Bible makes clear. Every knee will bow to this name. Every knee will bow to this name. We'll either bow in submission because of faith and worship, or we're gonna bow in judgment and recognize while we thought we were doing it in ignorance, we're gonna see the reality. We've rejected the one true God, the author of life, who could have given us new life. This is the name above all name upon which you must believe. Secondly, we can look at Jesus the servant. This is connected to that Philippians 2 passage where Christ, he didn't come to be served. He's the king and we're his creations, but we should be serving him. But but God, the creator, God, the king, he came not to be served, but but to serve. And he came to serve in a very specific way. He came to fix what was broken. Now, I want you to think about something in light of our state as a country. Jesus did not come to fix a broken political structure in Rome. He didn't come to make a great political state great. He did not come to end hunger, disease, hatred, or evil. Not yet. 2,000 years ago, he came to serve us, to take what is most evil, our sin and death, and to give us the greatest thing that we need, and that is peace with God. Jesus Christ came to give us peace with God, to take away the wrath of God. As Isaiah 53 declares, the suffering servant was crushed for iniquity. He was counted as a sinner even though he was without sin, so that all our sin could be centered against him. God's wrath was satisfied because his servant, Jesus Christ, humbled himself to die at our hands for our sin. He's a servant. He came to serve us. Third, he's the holy and righteous one. Jesus, the holy and righteous one, whom we deny. So let's first think about this. Jesus is righteous. He's upright. He's true. He's trustworthy. There is no sin. He's perfect. He is the righteous ruler. Secondly, He's holy. At some level, this means this other. He's separate. He's different. But here, connected to Him being the God, the author of life, God is holy. He is greater. And I want you to see one other word here. He's the one. There's one who is holy and righteous, and it ain't me. That's a good slogan for us to remember it. I'm not. We're not holy or righteous. There is only one who is holy and righteous, and it is the name above every name, the one who came down to serve us, Jesus Christ. As a holy and righteous one, he shines light in our darkness. He declares the truth in the midst of our lives that are so confusing. What we have to ask today is, are we denying the holy and righteous one? Now, if you're not a believer, I am asking you, are you gonna continue to deny the holy and righteous one who came to die for you in your sins? But I'm asking you, church, where in your life are you denying him? Notice I didn't ask you. We all have sin that we like to protect and say, this is my area, the holy and righteous one, he doesn't have permission to go here. And what we're saying is, we don't trust that he'll always have a righteous rule. Remember, he makes promises and he keeps promises. He's always good. He wants to take that sin away and wash you so that you receive the goodness of his right rule. He's holy. We can trust Him. Fourth, He's the author of life. Jesus is the creator. That's very clear from John chapter 1 in Colossians. He is the creator. He designed us for Himself. He knows us better than we know ourselves. He's powerful. He creates something out of nothing. We can't do that. He creates something out of nothing. We saw it with the lame man. We saw him give this man all the muscle, bone, ligament, nerve, and blood that he needed to walk that was not there as he needed it. He's the author of life. The first life. The one who gives life. Here we see he's the God of life. And he wants us to have abundant life. That doesn't mean we get to have an abundance of our sinful desires. No, it means that we get to live according to his good righteousness. He's the God of life that we have to stop denying and murdering and submit to. I lost track, fifth, fifthly. He's the refresher. Verse 20 really just kept standing out. Turn back, repent that times of refreshing may come. Times of refreshing may come. This one's really quite amazing. When Jesus comes back, we're going to get to be in the presence of God and it's going to be refreshing. The holy, awesome, righteous God is going to invite us into his presence and it's going to be refreshing because he's a God who's the author of life the healer, the great God of love and grace, and He's going to take what is broken and He's going to heal it. He's going to fix it. This should be terrifying, to stand before a holy and righteous God with all of our sin, but because Jesus Christ has taken it away, we will get to experience refreshing. He's going to be our peace and our security. He's going to welcome us in to His righteous rule. Now this promise of refreshing needs to be clear for us. Because it should be obvious this world is not the way it's supposed to be. This world isn't so refreshing. This world is confusing because of sin. This world is dangerous because of sin. But here we see that there is a day that Christ is going to come and it's going to be refreshing. We long for that day. that we will no longer resist Christ's righteous rule because all our sin will be taken away. Six, Jesus, the prophet. He's the perfect revelation of God. If you want to know who God is, it's simple. You read the book that tells you who Jesus is because Jesus is God and he's given us his word. Now, something we see about Jesus as we look to him, he didn't always say just what we think as sweet, nice things. Jesus corrected. He rebuked. Jesus desired for us to know the one true God, and if somebody was misrepresenting God and their self-righteousness, He rebuked them. Jesus desired, first and foremost, that we would know God, and that those who were leading others astray would be shut up. He's revealed God so we can know God. This is the beauty of Jesus being the true prophet. God, His own Son, has now revealed Him. Finally, God, look at verse 26. Having raised up his servant, there we see that again, he sent him to you first to bless you. Jesus was raised to bless us. He is God's blessing to us. The great gift to the world is God's son. The blessing we turned against to put to death has come to give us everything we need. If you look at just the simple blessings in Ephesians 1, we're chosen, we're predestined, we're redeemed, we're forgiven, we're given an assurance, we're given wisdom to see the plan of God. All of these things are ours from the Father in Jesus Christ. It is a blessing. You know what you do when you receive a blessing? You become thankful. Blessing leads to thanksgiving. So, we too quickly take all the blessings of God for granted. We too quickly look around and think of all the things we wish we had. We too quickly forsake God and realize how great His promises are and how wonderful His plan is. We too quickly turn to wickedness. And God is here saying, you are blessed in Christ in ways that you'll never understand until He comes back and you get to be refreshed in His presence. So I challenge you today, brothers and sisters, Thank God regularly for all His blessings. Look to His Word to see all the promises that He has fulfilled and all the blessings we have from this good and perfect Father who gives us good and perfect gifts from above. Will you pray with me? Father, we thank You for this Word that You do not leave us in our ignorance. You do not leave us to be ignorant of our sin and our hatred of You and our love for sin, but You sent down Your Son to die for that sin. You sent Your Holy Spirit to illuminate our hearts. You give us these words to confront us, and I pray today that as we contemplate our sin in this world, that we will look to You, the one God who speaks truth, that is always reliable and faithful. Give us the grace we need to trust You. We thank You that You've given us so many words that help us to see how trustworthy You are. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.