Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] My name is Dean Annan, and I'm the discipleship pastor here at village church. I want to welcome you. If you're new today at all, I'm going to be down here. I'd love to just say hi, get to know you also. We'll have some food out there afterwards. Love to see out there as well. Now, the apostle Paul said, has anyone said happy Father's day yet? Do you? Yeah. Happy Father's day. The apostle Paul says that it's a deal that we should honor our fathers, not just our mothers, but our fathers, too. He says in Ephesians, chapter six, children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. And then he says, honor your father and mother. But you know, like all apostles, they take from the Old Testament, don't they? I mean, that's just one of the ten Commandments. That was the fifth commandment. He took that from there. I know many of you today have this, have really good relationships with your fathers, or had and maybe still have today. And for some of you, today is a difficult time, maybe a difficult time. Father's day. We recognize that as well. We want to honor our fathers. I want to take a minute and pray for you fathers. But before I do that, there's a few reasons I think that we shall should celebrate fathers. There's the top three reasons that we should honor and celebrate our fathers according to no research or poll ever taken, but I'll just put those up there. The first we have is a fifth commandment. Okay, that makes sense, right? That's very biblical. We should honor our fathers. Cause the Lord God says to also our second one, just for their wisdom and their guidance and their protection and their provision, all that kindness of godly influence, all of that. Not perfect, of course, right? But still we honor them. The third is, without fathers, we don't have dad jokes. And I know some of you are really wanting to go out that door right now, but don't worry, it'll all be over very soon.
[00:02:01] I have six of them. No, I'm just kidding. Okay, just a couple I know over here. They're like, please. Okay, so why don't skeletons fight each other?
[00:02:12] Cause they don't have the guts. Okay, that's fine. All right. And here's one that my wife really liked. Yeah, that's the definition of dad jokes. If you go, ugh, like that, then that's a dad joke.
[00:02:21] All right. My wife and my daughter really love this one. I told my wife that she should embrace her mistakes, and so she gave me a hug. All right. A little self deprecating there. You know what I need to do, though? I really need to move on. I need to. I know you want more. I know you want more, but.
[00:02:38] Okay, we'll go on. I need to pray for the fathers. How about I pray for you, fathers? If there's a father next to you, your father, hopefully somebody, you know, maybe put your hand on their shoulder. Let's pray for them. Just want to bless you today. God, thank you for fathers. Thank you for the whole idea of fathers and family and mothers and all of that. But, God, thank you for fathers today. We love them. We thank you for their guidance. We thank you for their provision and their protection and so, so many other things. But, God, I ask that you would just simply bless them, that you would show them more of yourself, that they would even be increased in their faith. As you work in their lives, let them see how good you are and bless them today. Give them the comfort they need, the power they need to live for you and to take care of others and their family. And so we thank you, God, and we pray this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. All right. Well, you know, if we're grateful for our earthly fathers, then how much easier it would be to be thankful to our heavenly Father who provides. And we're going to see that today. All right, you can turn with me to Leviticus 23. That's where we are. We're going to continue with that later on. We'll also be in the book of acts, so we'll do a little bit of that back and forth. One thing we may not have talked about earlier was the idea of Leviticus 23 has two divisions, two sections. There are actually spring feasts and the fall feasts under the old Testament old covenant, the two divisions. So verse 22 ends with this. It says, I am the Lord. Verse 43 ends with this statement, I am the Lord. That's where God is capping off and finishing the spring feast and then the fall feast. We're still in the spring feast today. But something you may have noticed in some of the previous sermons, if you've been looking at Leviticus 23 along with us, is these words. They seem to be repeated. And whenever God repeats, by the way, God doesn't waste words. Whenever he repeats words, there's a reason for it. And so we take time, we try to figure that out. Why is God putting this here? Well, you'll see at the end of verse 14 or the end of verse 21 or the end of verse 31 or at the end of verse 41. I'll read what it says. It says this about the feasts. It says, it is a statute, not a statue. A statute forever, throughout all your generations, in all your dwellings, a statute is a decree. It's like a law. And that's what these are. These feasts are for the Israelites. As a reminder, in our earlier sermons, we talked about this. God is instituting with these different feasts a recurring reminder, a calendar, celebrations, to teach, to train his people to be godly, to follow him. These are his core values he's instituting. And so, looking back, we've had three, at least so far that we've been through, and I wanna put the core values for those up on the screen. And Passover, we talked about that already, and we learned without the shedding of blood, this is the core value of God. There is no forgiveness of sins. And then the feast of unleavened bread. We get rid of sin as followers of God. We get rid of sin quickly. We move away from it. We don't belabor it. We move away once we realize we have sinned. And first fruits, the feast of firstfruits. From last week, we learned again. God gets our first and he gets our best for his mission.
[00:06:02] Today we're gonna look at a fourth feast. The fourth, 4th feast today.
[00:06:08] These are the Lord's words to Moses to give to the people. Feast of weeks. Verse 15 says this.
[00:06:17] You shall count seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath. That then would be Sunday from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering. You shall count 50 days to the Lord. After the 7th Sabbath. I'm going to keep reading.
[00:06:33] Then you shall present a grain offering of new grain to the Lord. You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, and they shall be baked with leaven as firstfruits to the Lord. Now, most of your bibles, they might say at the header there, that section, they might say feast of weeks, or might say festival of weeks. Why weeks? Because it says in verse 15, it says, you shall count seven full. There it is, seven full weeks from the day after the Sabbath, the feast of weeks. That the names comes from Moses to count off again the weeks from the time they began to harvest the grain back in March or April. It's the fourth feast. It's seven full weeks after the offering. I don't expect you to remember all this, but after the barley sheaf at the feast of unleavened bread, it's actually after the beginning of Passover. So they knew. They knew when this was. They knew to count it off, and they did. And it was on a Sunday when this would occur. So this is late spring, early June. But the Bible also gives us other names for the feast of weeks. And you're thinking, oh, no, he's trying to confuse me. No, no, God doesn't try to confuse us. I'm not trying to. This is actually really makes a lot of sense, these other names for the Israelites. So let's put ourselves in those shoes for a minute, because there are other names. In Exodus chapter 23, it talks about the feast of weeks, but it calls it the feast of harvest. And it just calls us the feast of harvest. Just calls it that because it's time to celebrate the wheat harvest. Now previously there was a grain harvest. Previously the feast of first fruits. That was the barley harvest. But now we're talking about the grain harvests have completed, and this is the wheat harvest. And in verse 17, this is great if you like bread, now it's time for leavened bread. We're bringing leaven bread to the Lord because leavened bread is different than unleavened bread, in case you didn't know if you've ever eaten unleavened bread, it's called in scripture the bread of affliction. But leavened bread is the bread of provision. Leavened bread is the bread of thankfulness. Leavened bread is the bread of gratitude. And so they're celebrating now and they're worshiping the harvest that has come in. That's only two names, feast of weeks, feast of harvest. There's another name, feast of Pentecost. It says in verse 16, I'll read it for you. You shall count 50 days to the day after the 7th Sabbath because in the New Testament times, by the time we got in, the Greeks started to be used. Pentecost is just a word for 50. And so we see on the screen here that we have the feast of weeks or feast of harvest. Feast of Pentecost. That was the time of thanksgiving for God's provision.
[00:09:25] All right? What God grows, we get to harvest. That's an important thing to remember. He gives seeds. Yeah, God gives seeds. He gives sun, he gives rain, he gives all of that.
[00:09:36] But we sow. We are the ones as a church. We scatter the seeds. It doesn't matter if it's church or Old Testament or New Testament. This has always been true. We sow the seeds but God gives the harvest. He is the one who gives the harvest. And we're going to see that a lot more, and it's going to make more sense at the end. All right, we have a lot more in the passage. We go all the way to verse 22 today, 15 through 22. But before we do, I want to pause because there's something here I want to set up and take some time, because God has something in his heart that he wants to give to the Israelites. Because, remember, the Israelites represent him in ancient times to the entire world. God's people, God's values, he's given to the entire world. We're learning today. Verse 17. I like this. Verse 17 mentions a wave offering. Wave offering isn't like, hey, God, how you doing? That's not a wave offering. Wave offering. I believe Pastor Michael talked about that a little bit last week. We see it today in verse 17, in our verse 20. Wave offering is just a symbolic act, but an important act because God commands it to his people in Israel. He says that they're to wave a portion of the grain. I'm going to read verse 17. You shall bring from your dwelling places, actually two loaves of bread to be waved. Or they would also bring animal portions, the best portions. They would wave it again before the God, usually back and forth like this, because what they were offering, they knew was from God. It's as if they were saying this. This offering, Lord, this best portion is for you because it's from you. And they got that. Could you imagine today if we did the same kind of thing and we're not going to do animal sacrifices? We're under the new covenant, covered by the blood of Jesus, not the old covenant. We don't do the mosaic law, animal sacrifices. But what if we wanted to remind our souls just a little better? What if we needed to get it sunk into our souls more so when we were giving or when we were serving or helping or whatever it was, or maybe we're sending, even sending support to hope for kids in Haiti. Or if you're giving Christmas presents to somebody in need, or before you ate your dinner meal and you had a plate and you raised this or those things before the Lord and waved them, would that get in your heart? I'm not asking that we do that, but would that get in your heart? The idea, the goodness of God, that this is from him, all that you have to give away is actually from him. I said before the feast of weeks was a time of thanksgiving for God's provision.
[00:12:15] You know, there's so many more things. And thoughts and words were coming to my mind when I was preparing for this sermon today. And I wanna put that on the screen. It's this idea in the feast of weeks, this idea of gratitude and generosity, joy and worship, and with gratitude and generosity that just cannot be separated, not in the mind of God, at least. Joy and worship, all of these things together in deuteronomy, chapter 16, it also talks there about the feast of weeks.
[00:12:46] And here's what is said to the Israelites. It says, you're to give a free will offering from your hand, which you shall give to the Lord as the Lord your God blesses you, and you shall rejoice before the Lord your God, you and your son and your daughter, and basically the whole household. And what are they doing here? Well, you can see it because we put it on the screen here. Deuteronomy 16. We'll see that this is about worship. See the word rejoice? This is about rejoicing before the Lord because this is about giving in response. That's what this is giving a response proportionally, that God has given to me and to us and has blessed us. And the response to God's generosity is that we are generous as well. So we want to remember that he is. This helps a lot, that God is the God of harvest. He is the one with harvest. But also what we see in the rest of this deuteronomy passage that I won't go into right now. But God wants his people to remember his generosity to them, that he delivered them from the bonds of Pharaoh, from Egypt, from slavery. They were slaves, and they were delivered. Why? Because God is a God who delivers. God is a God who is faithful and just. And he delivered his people from bondage to freedom. And so gratitude and generosity, that's the response.
[00:14:10] All right, I want to move forward because we have more in our passage to go. But there's two things I want to put on the screen question wise that even this I want to come back to much later, but just to think about now. And that is these questions for what am I grateful?
[00:14:26] And with what am I generous?
[00:14:29] All right, the feasts. So there were seven feasts, and we are talking about the feast of weeks today, which was one of three of the feasts that all the adult males in a year's time would have to come together, and they could bring their families, if they could, and they would come to the tabernacle, or they would come to the temple at Jerusalem, and they would come to God in the presence of God. And they would bring grain or sacrifices or animal sacrifices, and they would worship together and they would be in community because community matters to God. And they would do this three times a year. Can you imagine? From wherever they were, they'd get together and they would do this and come into the presence of God three times a year.
[00:15:09] A lot of coordination, right? A lot of communication, a lot of sacrifice, all of that. They didn't have mobile phones. They didn't have anybody ever used Tripadvisor. Tripadvisor booking.com. and they certainly didn't have the Holiday Inn express with the make it yourself waffles, which are awesome. I had to get that in here somehow. I had to talk about food a little bit. The Israelites, they didn't have these things, but they had each other. They understood who their God was. They worshiped him together.
[00:15:39] All right. Verse 18 continues with more of the feast of weeks and its worship. And here's what it looked like. Verse 18. And you shall present with a bread. Remember the leaven bread. Seven lambs a year old without blemish and one bull from the herd and two rams. And they shall be a burnt offering to the Lord with their grain offering and their drink offerings. A food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord. Verse 19.
[00:16:10] So that was a burnt offering. Verse 19. Moving forward. And you shall offer one male goat for a sin offering and two male lambs a year old as a sacrifice of peace offerings. And their priests shall wave them with the bread of the first fruits as a wave offering before the Lord with the two lambs. They shall be holy to the Lord for the priest. So you have three different offerings here. You have the burnt offering. You have the sin offering. You have this peace offering. All of these things, it cost them. Obviously, this was like their currency. We've talked about that. When we talked about sacrifices, this cost them. The burnt offering just meant they are all in before the Lord. And the sin offering was offered for unintentional sin. And the peace offering, this is really neat. The peace offering was all about this. Thank you, God.
[00:17:02] Thank you for your love to me. Thank you for your love to my people. Thank you for what you've done and how you have provided. But this peace offering also was this idea of fellowship in that they understood that though they were sinners before a holy God, they understood that they were redeemed. Redeemed people. That's what the peace offering was. They were redeemed people before their God. So they celebrated peace with God. This was a very serious time, but it was also fun. It was beautiful. As they worshiped together in community.
[00:17:38] And here's these words again. Come back to mine for the feast of weeks. Gratitude and generosity, joy and worship all together. We can't separate those. They did this together. They did this with their faith community. It must have been an amazing sight to see that, you know, today, if you're new here or maybe you just haven't had the time to get to know some people and you kind of have to scoot out quickly. I just want to invite you today to go out beyond those doors or even right here. Just get to know somebody. Maybe ask a couple people who they are or introduce yourself. We have some snacks out there afterwards. It's more than snacks. It's actually food if you've been around, you know what I'm talking about. Now, by the way, that doesn't just happen. We don't have magic fairies that put that together. We have a team of people who intentionally love you and care and just love the idea of us being together as a family. And so we just want to invite you out there, say hi, get to know somebody today afterwards. Serving people together. Loving people together. You know, we have four church picnics in the summer. We'd love you to come to. We'd love to see you there. We love to serve the community together. We had some of our youth just came back from Crandon, Wisconsin, serving people there. Some of our youth this week were also in the Bartlett community, serving the needs of some people in our community. We have some of our youth with leaders in Mexico right now down there being the hands and feet of Jesus Christ. We love to serve together. We love to love people in that way. We love to do it together.
[00:19:07] You know, there's people that come to this church and they will say things to people on staff, and I've heard this more than once. The words aren't always the same, but basically they say that village church, you're odd.
[00:19:20] They will say that, I'll own that. Because what they're saying is, you guys, you like to hang out together, you like to be after church, you're not running away. You're there. You know, I don't mind being odd to you. I think it's okay. We can be odd together. All right? Our gratitude towards God comes out of a heart filled with worship because it is a response to his generosity always. And isn't it wonderful to be together doing that? Amen.
[00:19:47] All right. Verse 21.
[00:19:50] We have a few more verses in our passage today, it says this, and you shall make a proclamation on the same day. This is still about the feast of weeks. You shall hold a holy convocation, which is a holy get together in God, in front of God, for God. That's what a holy convocation is. And then it says, you shall not do any ordinary work. It is a here that is again a statute forever in all your dwelling places throughout your generations.
[00:20:16] I mentioned that statute again four times. This is so important for all the generations to remember, to celebrate the goodness of God in this way.
[00:20:26] As part of the feast of weeks. God is using the feast of weeks like he has been the other feast, and will the rest of the feasts we'll talk about to build a community and to build up his core values in his people, his eternal values.
[00:20:43] Each feast is reinforcing them and getting them ready with his values because of what's going to come and because of who is going to come. And it's the messiah that is going to come. And God is teaching them that through these feasts, going back a few weeks, I want to reuse this idea that in the feasts of the Lord, Leviticus 23, God is creating a culture through repeated feasts to get his people ready for Christ's arrival.
[00:21:15] Now, in a few minutes, I want to add the core value of the feast of weeks. I didn't put that on with the other three yet. Right. We'll do that in a minute. But before we go there, there's something that's so important to the heart of God, and I want us to see this before we go forward. And it's this. God's people can never and should never turn a blind eye to the poor or those in need. Never. It's his expectations from the Old Testament, New Testament, in the church, it doesn't matter. You look at what God says is he says that those who help the poor in needy, those are the people that know the Lord. Now, if you're keeping notes, Jeremiah, chapter 22. There's a king. His name is King Josiah. And God talks about King Josiah. And here's what, I'll just read it for you. God says this about this king. He says he defended the cause of the poor and the needy, and so all went well. Is that not what it means to know me? Declares the Lord. And under the old covenant, Moses is given these words to tell to the people how to treat the people who have need and are poor. Moses says this, give generously to them those who are in need and do so without grudging and without a grudging heart, then because of this, the Lord your God will bless you and all your work and everything you put your hand to. And then in proverbs, I love how perfectly God puts us. Of course, in proverbs 1431, he says this, whoever oppresses a poor man insults his maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him. This is how we honor God. That's how we honor God in the New Testament. It doesn't change Jesus, doesn't change this. Jesus actually, again, taking notes, Matthew chapter 25. Jesus says this in effect, that if you are ministering to the sick or those who have need or the poor or those in prison, you are ministering to him personally. And then he says, and your reward will be in heaven.
[00:23:15] Being generous, helping those who have needed have always been a signature of God's people, whether it's in the Old Testament or whether it's in the church today, because grateful people are generous people. Grateful people are generous people in the early church.
[00:23:34] Acts chapter two. I'm going to put a couple things on the screen for you in acts chapter two. This is the new church. This is what's happening here. Verse 44 says this, and all who believed were together. There they are together again. And all had things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all as any had need. Brothers and sisters taking care of each other, a few more verses, verse 46 and 47 says this. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number. Day by day, those who were being saved together, rejoicing not with a grudging heart, as Moses warned, but filled with gladness and generosity.
[00:24:28] All right, as we get to verse 22, there seems to be a huge community wide reminder then that God is giving them here and incorporating into his value system of helping the poor in the feast of weeks. It's as if God maybe had a local outreach director back in the Old Testament times, and he's given the local outreach director a bunch of opportunities to share with the congregation, to share with them ways, easy ways, practical ways to help those in need. Or it's the same heart as. Yes, these are advertisements. It's the same heart as a Bartlett Bartlett community care collective. Our BC three where we have intentional ways for you to volunteer to help those in need in our community. This matters to God. Watch how practical we want to be practical, but watch how practical God is in verse 22, feast of weeks. Verse 22, it says this. And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your fields right up to the edges. Up to the edge. Nor shall you gather the gleanings or the leftovers after your harvest. What are we supposed to do then? It says this, you shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner. I am the Lord your God. And so if you had a field, you left some wheat, in this case, wheat, I guess, around the edges. You also, if you had some leftovers, you know, things that just didn't quite get pulled, pulled in, you leave those as well, the leftovers, because that's what God's people do. This is a proclamation of God's people and how his people are a generous people and help people in need. And in the Old Testament, you know, the book of Ruth, Ruth and Naomi, they benefited from this. And so we do the same today because generous people are grateful. Grateful people are generous people. All right, our feast of weeks, there's plenty of things here for us to digest and to think about. This is enough, you know, end of the sermon, right? But no, because God has a different plan for the feast of weeks. It doesn't end here, although there is enough in teaching of God's word there, because there's way more here for the church. There's way more here for the church. Concerning the feast of weeks, this is where the volume gets turned up a little bit. I hope that if before, whatever I said was a little boring, I hope we can just wake up now, because now I'm talking here to the church.
[00:27:08] All these levitical feasts and the sacrifices, frankly, they all foreshadowed, they all. We talked about this, right? Or they linked to the Old Testament, promised Messiah, Jesus Christ, one to one, they all played a preparatory role. These sacrifices, these feasts, they all played a preparatory role. They anticipated Jesus Christ and what he would do and what he would accomplish and also his mission. Remember, the feast of weeks was also known as the feast of Pentecost. Pentecost again, meaning 50 50 in the Greek. So you can turn to the book of acts. We'll be there a bit. Again, I want a link for us, the feast of weeks or feast of Pentecost now to the New Testament, to Jesus New Testament mission and his ministry, the church.
[00:27:59] All right, I'll read this for you. But before his crucifixion, while Jesus is still with his disciples, in John, chapter 14, Jesus said this, if you love me, you'll obey my commands. And then he says to his disciples, and I will ask the father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever. He is promising the Holy Spirit here. And then after Jesus death and after Jesus resurrection, he said this to his apostles.
[00:28:31] Acts, chapter one, verse eight, says this. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes, comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. In other words, the Holy Spirit will come. You will have the power to preach the gospel everywhere. Now we get to acts chapter two, and the story moves on Jesus after the resurrection. But he's already ascended into heaven, so Jesus is not there. He is not with them. But the apostles are together and they're waiting. And it's the feast of Pentecost. Actually, it's the day of Pentecost. It's Sunday, which is 50 days. Do you remember this from before in Leviticus? 50 days to the day after the 7th Sabbath. But this year on Pentecost. This year on Pentecost. This year it's 50 days after Jesus resurrection, where the Holy Spirit is given and the church began. Acts, chapter two, verse one says this. When the day of Pentecost had arrived, this is a Sunday, they were all together in one place. Feast of weeks, right? Day of Pentecost. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Verse three. And divided tongues as a fire appeared on them or to them and rested on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues or languages as the spirit gave them utterance, just for a moment on the Holy Spirit. You know, the Holy Spirit coming did so many things. I want to just name a few. This signifies the fulfillment of the work of Jesus Christ. Everything he has done has been fulfilled and was perfect. And the second thing, it signifies the Holy Spirit coming. The end of the Old Testament. The old covenant. Covenant, mosaic law, that sacrificial system. Now we're under the new covenant, covered by the blood of Jesus Christ, but also the Holy Spirit provides us for daily living. What do I mean by that? Conviction of sin, guidance, power to do what is right. The spirit does all of that for believers. And for this begins the church age. It begins that day. The church's mission, the big deal, certainly under the new covenant here, certainly the Holy Spirit, God himself, big deal. But what else is really big that I think I want to point more to in this context? Today is the big deal is the spiritual harvest of souls, not of wheat. And we can be grateful for that. Amen. Wheat, bread, all of that. But this is about the spiritual harvest this time, not of wheat, but of souls. It's about the gospel being sowed, bringing the harvest of souls for God's kingdom. Now, word to be about the work of sowing seeds of the gospel, because that's what we do. But it's God's harvest. God's harvest here, the feast of harvest. This is one of the big ideas that I want to put the core value now for the feast of weeks up there. You'll see it at the end here, the feast of weeks. The core value of God is that we sow gospel seeds, by the way, the feast of weeks, that's what this was pointing to. Not just which is enough, the graciousness of God, the goodness of God, the provision of God, but this, the fact that we are people who need to sow gospel seeds and watch God provide the harvest, because he is a guide who provides harvest.
[00:32:03] Jesus said in Matthew, chapter nine, he said this, and I'll read it. The harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few. Therefore, pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest village church.
[00:32:19] You are the laborers.
[00:32:21] You are the ones. If you know Christ as savior, you've been given the gospel seed. You know the gospel. And people need to know the gospel. They need to know the love of Jesus Christ. And they need to know that they can have complete forgiveness of sins by knowing and trusting in Jesus as savior. And so back to that slide that says, for what am I grateful?
[00:32:47] With what am I generous?
[00:32:51] I want to start our first so what?
[00:32:54] Be grateful and generous with the gospel. If you have received Jesus as savior, if you experience the grace and the mercy, the love of Jesus, salvation, assurance of salvation, then out of a grateful heart, out of that place, a grateful heart. Be generous. That's what God calls us to, to be generous. That's what he was teaching his people, to be generous because of the goodness of God. And tell people, I know it's hard sometimes to know. It happens to me. I don't know what to say sometimes to people. Introduce them, have a spiritual conversation. Introduce them to Jesus. Maybe sometimes it's as simple as, did you know? Did you know? Has anybody ever told you that your sins can be completely forgiven and you can be completely right with God and have assurance of salvation for all time, all eternity? Could be as simple as that conversation. To be generous with the gospel that, you know, because grateful people are generous people.
[00:33:50] Second, so what is just ask God for ways to maybe reach out or bless somebody that's in need. You know, when we have the Holy Spirit as believers, it's not just about sowing the seeds of the gospel and telling people about Jesus. It's also about, what can I do to help people and serve people in the name of love? What can I do in God's name? Well, the Holy Spirit living in you can give you guidance and direction and discernment and wisdom, who to look for, what to do. And God will answer that prayer where we can help others. And as the scriptures say, with glad and generous hearts praising God. That'd be great. There's two. I want to set up the third. So what? This way. So it's the day of Pentecost going back to Peter again. And them and the Holy Spirit indwelt the apostles. The church began. And Peter's preaching this amazing sermon.
[00:34:37] It's a sermon called at Pentecost. Now, he's really clear and he's pointed, but he's talking to the crowd. He's talking to the people at Jerusalem. And he says that the messiah has come and you have crucified him.
[00:34:50] They've crucified him, but he was crucified for them. I'm going to read what Peter said. Peter said this in acts chapter two. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him. He's talking about Jesus, both lord and Christ, the messiah, the anointed one, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now he's talking to a crowd. Look at this map. He's talking to a crowd. This is where the Bible says those people were from. When Peter starts to tell them that you've crucified the savior from all over the place. They're Parthians, Medes, Elamites, they're from Mesopotamia, they're Jews, they're Arabians. All over the place, these people came from. But then the Bible says in acts 237, when they, meaning the crowd, heard this, the fact that they had crucified the messiah, God was the son, they were cut to the heart. And then they said, the crowd did. The crowd said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? Here's what Peter said to them. Verse 38. 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. And if you know the rest of the story, 3000 people gave their heart to Jesus that day. They repented, which is changing their minds about who Jesus is. And this other side of that coin is faith. They put their faith, their trust in Jesus. And that was God's not wheat harvest. That was God's spiritual harvest that day at Pentecost. And the same harvest continues today. It doesn't change at all. So third, maybe you're in a place the third, so what? You're in a place where you're not sure completely about Jesus today. You know what? He's sure about you because he loves you. He made you in his image and he's calling you to be part of his family. And so I'll read the third so what? God has provided for you for forgiveness of sins and salvation, receive it, repent, ask Jesus to forgive your sins and he will do that. It's a guarantee.
[00:37:01] Believe in him. His death, his resurrection has completed all that work needed for you to be right with him, receive that salvation. Because the gospel, remember that map. The gospel's for everybody. The gospel's for you.
[00:37:16] And for what? With whatever you have ever done. God will forgive you. It doesn't matter where you've been and what you've done. Salvation is for you. Trust in Jesus even in this moment and he'll give you salvation today. That's a guarantee of his word.
[00:37:32] Let's pray.
[00:37:34] God, thank you for this morning. Thank you that you are so, so good. Thank you that you are a, a God who is generous. And so in response, God, we want to be generous not just with what we do, with our time and our treasure, but also in all ways, God, that we could serve and love others as well, those in need. But God help us to see that because we are gospel people, that that means we are to give or to tell others about you as well. That's what it means, God, to be generous, to care about the harvest that you have out there that is completely ready. We thank you God, for your love. We thank you for Jesus Christ. Pray all these things in his name. Amen.
