Well, good morning church. Special welcome to those who are
joining us for the message at Kitchener this morning.
Glad to have our Kitchener congregation joining us.
If you're joining us online, welcome to you as well.
Can I ask you to turn in your Bibles to Acts Chapter 2?
If you don't have a Bible with you, we've got some Bibles under
some of the chairs here in the auditorium.
We would love that to be your gift.
If you don't have a Bible, take that with you.
If you're opening up there, you'll find Acts 2 on page 967.
So you can flip over there. Students and teachers headed
back to school this week. The NFL has kicked off.
The Cowboys have already lost their first game of the season,
Rich Huseman stop Pumpkin spice is in the air and Costco has
their Christmas decorations up and ready to go.
So it must be fall and that means we've got a new ministry
year kicking off here. So you're going to be receiving
a brochure that has all of the different activities and classes
and events that we have going on.
And is, if you've been here for a while, you'll know this.
If you're new here, we're so glad that you're here.
But if you've been here for a while, you know, we'll say all
of these are to help you grow as a disciple of Jesus who loves
God, loves others, and serves the world.
And we want you to participate in these activities, but a lot
of you maybe skip to the inside and forget that there is a front
page. And these things actually are
the most critical things. Those things that we put on the
front, those are like the core, They're the priorities.
They're the things that we think everybody should participate in.
The rhythms of life and the disciplines of life that really
do open up space for the grace of God to enter in and help.
Shape us as disciples and so. We have a September series.
This September, we're calling it devoted, and in it we want to
look at those different things, those things that we do that
help open up space for us to grow in our love for God, grow
in our love for others, and grow in the way that we serve the
world. And I can't wait to enter into
that. But there's a problem if I do
that right away. And here's the problem for a
bunch of us. If I jumped into those things
immediately, you're going to be tempted to think the following.
You're going to start thinking, here's a list of things that I
can do that will make God love me more.
Here's a list of things that I can do that will make God happy.
Here's a list of things that I can do that will secure my
salvation. Here's a list of things that I
can do that will make up for my mess ups.
And there is something hardwired into us as human beings that
just wants to reach up inside of us and say that our relationship
with God is dependent on what we do.
Angus Reed in 2024 did a Canadian survey and they found
the majority of people in Canada strongly believe in an
afterlife. Over 70% of Canadians would say
they believe there's something beyond this life, whether that's
heaven or paradise if you're a Muslim or Nirvana if you're
Buddhist or Hindu or mukti if you're sick.
And if you ask the question to those people, what determines
whether you're going to get there, it always ends up the
same thing. Because if you're a Muslim and
you believe that you're going to go to paradise, the answer you
would give is, yeah, I'm going to go to paradise because of my
righteous deeds, because of my justice, because of the fact
that I give to charity, because I fasted, because I've made the
pilgrimage to Mecca, because I say prayers at the proper times,
therefore God will honor me. And for six, in the Hindus, they
would say, well, if I get to the point where I finally live the
right life after so many lives of being reincarnated that I
come to the point where I have perfectly followed in the steps
in the teachings of the guru, then I will achieve Nirvana.
I will be connected and made one with the God and the oneness of
God in the universe. And if you just go up to the
average person on the street, many of them who would claim to
be Christians, and you ask them this question, why would God
allow you to? Go into heaven.
I can guarantee you that the vast majority of them will
answer. This well, I'm a.
Pretty good person and time after time in all.
Of those situations. Here's what we see.
We think that salvation depends on us.
We think it's rooted in what we do.
But the core message of Christianity is this salvation
depends on what? Jesus has done.
And when we believe that it will begin to change what we do.
I just this this truth is so incredibly important.
Like if you're here and this is the the first, maybe the only
time you think you'll ever be in church, I couldn't think of a
better thing for you to hear. This is what is at the core of
the Christian faith, that salvation depends not on what we
do, but what on what Jesus has done.
But when we understand what Jesus has done, it begins to
change everything that we do. And it's so essential if you're
a follower of Jesus that you don't get this order mixed up
because it messes up everything. Acts 2.
We're going to be in this passage this morning.
What is Acts 2? Acts 2, Many people would say
this is the birthday of the church.
This is the day of Pentecost, the day where the the church
really forms and takes off. So the Gospels if you're.
Kind of new. To faith, you don't really know
how this all fits together. The Gospels, Matthew, Mark,
Luke, John, the first four books in the New Testament, they
record the story of Jesus, his birth, his life, his teachings,
his death and his resurrection. And then in Acts, Acts is kind
of the sequel. It's it's Part 2 to Luke.
Luke wrote both Luke and the book of Acts.
And so Luke picks up the story in Acts.
And in Acts 1, we see that after 40 days of hanging out with his
followers after the resurrection, Jesus tells him,
I'm heading back to the Father. I'm going back to heaven.
I'm going to be reunited with the Father.
In Acts 1/8, he says this, He says, here's what I want you to
do, all my Father's. I want you to wait here in
Jerusalem and I'm going to send the Holy Spirit down.
And when the Holy Spirit comes and meets you in Jerusalem,
everything's going to begin to change.
Acts 21 is 10 days after that. It's it's now 50 days post Jesus
resurrection. It's the day of Pentecost.
It's a Jewish feast. And we see that's exactly what
happened. So if you start reading in verse
2, it's a suddenly a sound like a violent rushing wind.
Came from heaven. It filled the whole house where
they were staying. They saw tongues like flames of
fire that separated and rested on each one of them, and then
they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
They began speaking in different tongues as the Spirit enabled
them. What does that word tongues
means? It means languages.
So he's saying what happened was the Holy Spirit shows up, these
disciples who were waiting, like Jesus had said, for the Holy
Spirit to show up. Holy Spirit comes on them and
they start speaking in all of these different languages
because there were Jews from all over the world gathered in
Jerusalem for this feast day, this day of Pentecost as part of
their Jewish belief and religion.
And they're speaking and these people from all different parts
of the world hear the message that they're speaking in their
language. Now, this week it's also fall
because we're going to have an Apple event.
And at the Apple event, I think what they're going to announce
is some new Airpod pros. And and they.
Say what these new Airpod pros are going to have, they're going
to have live translation built into them.
So AI live translation. So if someone speaks in a
different language, it's translating into your language
in your ear, which is just staggering to think of.
But that's basically think of that.
That's what's going on is like you've got a direct receiver, so
somebody speaking a language you don't know or understand, but
you hear them in your own language.
And so people are like, what's going on?
This is crazy. And and a few people began to
say, Hey, I think these guys are drunk now.
I've been around some drunk people.
Before. And I've had trouble
understanding them, but it's never made things clearer for me
when somebody is drunk. And so.
And so that's what Peter steps up to stay in verse 14, Peter
steps up and he begins to deliver the first sermon of the
church. And he starts by saying, hey,
no, no, no, these guys, they're not drunk like you think they
are. What's going on here is that the
prophet Joel had said hundreds of years ago that God was going
to do something great. God was going to do something
special. God was going to do something
incredible and he was going to show up and his Holy Spirit was
going to come in power. And in verse 21, the most
important part of this prophecy, verse 21 says this.
And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, when this
moment happens, we'll be saved. And then he says this, Hey,
maybe you guys remember Jesus. Remember Jesus, Remember,
Remember 50 days ago, a guy who claimed to be the Messiah was
nailed up to a cross. You allowed him to be put there.
In fact, you're kind of responsible for this whole deal.
He died, but guess what? He didn't stay dead.
Verse 24 Peter says God raised him up ending the pains of death
because it wasn't possible. For him to be held by death.
See, when God raised Jesus up, Peter says he broke the chains
of death itself. Death no longer gets the final
say. And he says that only happened
because God was working out a plan.
He had a plan this whole time. Because here's the thing.
Jesus just wasn't some man as you suppose.
No, in verse 36 he says this, Let all the House of Israel, let
every Jew and ultimately let every Gentile, let every person
in the world know with certainty that God has made this Jesus who
you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.
That word Lord is absolutely critical because that word Lord
is reserved only for God. So the implication of what Peter
is saying here is that Jesus through his death and then his
resurrection proved that he was not just some human, not just
some good man who who died. No, he was God.
He was Lord and he was the Messiah.
He was the Christ. He was the rescuer that God had
sent, the one who was meant to save and redeem his people.
And then listen to the response of all of those people who were
gathered there, listening to Peter as he stood up, being
amazed at the power of everything that's going on.
It says this. When they heard this, they were
pierced to the heart. When they heard this, they were
pierced to the heart. When they heard Peter saying
what he was saying, here's what they knew.
That's true. This guy's saying it's true.
It lines up with everything that we're experiencing.
Joel said that this was going to happen hundreds of years before,
and look what's happening. In fact, we've heard stories.
We've heard rumors of all of these people who've seen Jesus
arise from that, and now they're saying it's true.
The story that they were telling lined up with the facts.
And I just just want to say to you, if you're here today and
you're not sure whether this is true, I want to give you an
invite to a program that we run called Alpha.
And Alpha is just a place where you can begin to explore and
see, is this really true? Are these true things?
Are they true statements? And, and I would say to you, you
need to go to Alpha if you think there might even be a
possibility that this is true. Because if there is a
possibility that what I'm telling you is true, it changes
absolutely everything. In fact, there's nothing more
important that you could invest time into figuring out if it
would. We invest time into figuring out
whether all sorts of stupid things are true, right?
We asked ChatGPT all sorts of stuff.
We Google all sorts of stuff. Listen, nothing is more
important than figuring out whether what Jesus claimed about
himself and what his followers. Claimed about him was.
True, so I'd invite you to encourage you to.
Sign up for Alpha. They believed that Jesus had
done this. They believed that what Peter
was telling them was true. And that poses a problem because
how do you fix being the person who nailed God to a cross?
How do we get right with God? And so they said to Peter and to
the rest. Of the Apostles brothers.
What should we do? We got to do something.
Yeah. We got to get right with God.
What do we do? That's the question, isn't it?
How do we? How do you, how do I, how is it
possible to get right with God? But Peter had already told them
it was right there in that prophecy from Joel in verse 21.
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, who was Jesus, Lord
and Messiah, everyone who calls on the name of the Lord, who
calls on the name of Jesus will be saved because salvation comes
not through what they're going to do, but through what Jesus
had done. The only thing that could be
done to save them had to be done by Jesus.
See, at the core of our problem is this thing called sin and
sin. If you just want to get really
basic, it's our failure to obey God.
It's our actions and our attitudes that put us in the
place of God, where we act in rebellion to the one who is in
the creator and sustainer and designer of the entire universe,
where we say God, I'm going to do my thing, not your thing.
And that has put us in this place of rebellion where we're
separated and cut off from God. And all of us are in that place.
By nature. We're all sinners.
In first John 1/8, it says, hey, if we claim to be without sin,
we deceive ourselves and the truth isn't in US.
And I don't even think that I need to take the time to to
convince you that you're not perfect.
I'll let your spouse or your child or your friend do that for
you. I think most of us realize that,
right? Most of us know, hey, hey, we
dropped the ball on something. I mean, we don't even meet our
own standards, let alone whatever God's standard of
holiness is. I don't even live up to my own
expectations of myself. But we think if I just do enough
of the good things, maybe that will kind of scrub out and
outweigh the bad things that I've done.
Maybe it's just a giant scale and I can kind of weigh this out
in the end, but that's not how SIN works.
See, I think that we think I was just on a cruise recently.
So let me give you something from my own life experience.
I think that we think that SIN is like eating on a cruise ship.
Here's what happened when I was on a cruise ship.
I gained 12 lbs in a week. But I knew to my, I said this to
myself, Derek, it's OK. It's OK because you'll get home
and you'll start eating healthy stuff again.
You'll get back in the gym. So take the elevator all you
want. And we think that's what sin is
like. You know, like we did some stuff
over here and it's bad stuff, but but it's OK because I'm
going to do some good stuff and the good stuff will ultimately
outweigh the bad stuff and I'll get myself spiritually fit in
the end. But that's not what sin is like.
Sins like drinking poison. And when you drink poison, you
can pour as much water into yourself as you want.
It doesn't deal with the fact that the poison is in you and
it's going to kill you. You need somebody to give you an
antidote to that poison in order for your life to be saved.
That's what sin is like. You're not going to fix it up on
you. You're not going to dilute it
with the good things that you do.
Sin is there and it's killing you, and until somebody deals
with the sin, you're dead. That's why in Romans 623, Paul
says, but the wages of the wages of sin is death, but the gift of
God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, that what
we earn through our actions and our sin is death.
But that's not the end of the story because Jesus enters into
the story and does something. He gives us a gift.
He dies so we don't have to see. Jesus was God in the flesh.
He was Lord. He was 100% God.
He was 100% man. He had to be 100% man so that he
could take the place of me and of you, so he could be
appropriate sacrifice, a stand in for us.
But he had to be God so that he could do everything that we
can't do, so that he could live the perfect, sinless life that
you and I are incapable of living.
Jesus died for our sins. He did it so we don't have to
die for our. Sins.
The question is that they were asking how do you get right with
God and the answer was believe in what Jesus has done.
Stop trying to do it yourself. Believe in what Jesus has done,
trust in that, call out to Him, and He will save you.
Brothers, what should we do? Peter replies.
Repent and be baptized, each one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
You'll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the promise is
not just for you, but for your children and for all who are who
are far off, as many as the Lord will.
There is no end to who the promise is available to as many
as are far off, as many as who would call out to Jesus will be
saved. But you say, wait a second.
Peter started back with something that sure sounded like
do. Did he say?
Repent and be baptized. This is what we should do.
Well, listen, when we truly believe that salvation comes
through what Jesus has done, it will change what we do.
So repent here means to change your mind in such a way that it
changes your heart, your devotion, your allegiances.
Think about it like this. Think about it like driving on
the highway, because I think we think of repentance as feeling
bad, feeling sorry. But think, think, think about
driving on the highway. You're going full speed, but
you're going full speed in the wrong direction from where you
need to be going, and you've been doing this the whole time.
How do you get yourself back? What do you do?
Well, you don't just feel bad about it, you know.
Oh man. Feel terrible about the fact
that I'm heading in the wrong direction and you just keep on
driving along. It's not what you do.
You don't, you don't just admit that you're wrong and then keep
on firing that car down the highway.
No, you take that steering wheel, you get it turned around.
That's repentance. It's a turn around of your life.
So when Peter is calling the crowd to repent, he's saying you
were headed away from God. You were.
You were headed towards death and destruction in your sin.
You rejected Jesus as a Messiah. You rejected him and you put Him
on the cross. Now turn around and recognize
who Jesus is as the Lord and Savior.
And this is not about cleaning yourself up.
It's about handing Jesus the wheel and allowing Him to begin
to turn the thing around and now begin to guide the car as it
goes in the right direction. That's what repentance looks
like. And baptism is the first step of
obedience that marks that I've entered into a life of
repentance. That's really what you saw this
morning. Nothing magical happened in
those tanks except for the fact that there were people here
claiming that Jesus has done everything in their life to save
them, and they're part of his team now.
They belong to him. Baptism doesn't save you.
The thief on the cross was told by Jesus without being able to
do anything for himself, no baptism.
He was going to die within moments.
And Jesus turned him and said, today you will be with.
Me in paradise. Because you know who I am and
you believe it. But the first thing that we
should do, if this is true, if we've actually received that and
accepted it, what should be, what we should be compelled to
do is obey Him. And the first thing, the first
step of obedience, is to get baptized.
So if you have not been baptized, but you're a follower
of Jesus, you need to get on that, not because it saves you,
but because Jesus has saved you and now you live in repentance
and obedience to Him, not out of duty, but out of devotion.
Verse. 41, says those who accepted his message.
We're baptized that moment, that day, hey, we're in.
We're on Team Jesus. Here we are.
And in October we're going to have another baptism service.
If that's where you're at, you've.
Accepted Jesus. You haven't been baptized.
It's time for you to say I'm in. I'm obedient.
I'm doing it and we'd love to get you hooked up with that.
But baptism? Was just the starting point.
See, when we believe in what Jesus has done, it begins to
change everything we do. All of it.
Look at verse 42. They devoted themselves to the
apostles teaching. Were they doing that before?
Nope to the fellowship? Were they doing that before?
Nope to the breaking of bread into prayer.
Everyone was filled with awe. Many signs and wonders were
being performed through the Apostles.
They had all together things in common.
They they sold their possessions.
It changed the way they view their stuff.
It changed the way they view their money.
They sold their property. It changed the way they acted
towards others. They distributed the proceeds to
all as any had need. Every day they devoted
themselves to meeting together in the temple.
They broke bread from house to house.
They ate their food with joy, joyful and sincere hearts,
praising God, enjoying the favor of all people, and every day the
Lord added to their number. Those who are being saved.
Every single moment of their day became a new type of living
because of what Jesus had done. They didn't do it to make God
love them. They changed the entire
orientation of their life flowing out of God's love for
them. Do it so that God would forgive
them. Didn't do it so that God would
think better. They didn't do it so they get an
extra crown out. No, they did it because Jesus
had done everything for them. For the Christian, it's not
about white knuckling and trying harder so that maybe God will
love me more. He loves you as much as he could
possibly love you. And if you doubt that at all,
just look to the cross. There was nothing greater that
He could have done for you to show His love for you.
But if you believe that, if that's true to you, how could it
not change what we do If we believe we're saved, but what
Jesus has done, it'll begin to change everything that we do,
begin to change what we devote ourselves to.
For those of you in Kitchener. We're going to say goodbye to
you right now. Pastor Steve's going to begin to
talk through in Kitchener what this could look like.
For you. And so just give a listen to
Pastor Steve. He's got some great.
Things to point you towards so you can grow as a follower of.
Jesus here in Cambridge want to share a story with you that
illustrates how we begin to understand what Jesus has done.
It begins to change all sorts of different things, and not all at
once, not immediately, but the work of.
God in US. Begins to change what we do.
And so I'm going to have you watch this video.
Our story begins when we met in 2015.
We dated for two years before officially blending our families
together in 2017. We lived the typical life, work,
kids, school for most of our relationship.
We decided to grow our family and we welcomed 2 more children
in 2020 and 2021. It was somewhere in here we
began to lose ourselves and each other.
I can only speak for myself when I say that resentment was
building up. I no longer cared about anything
except getting through the day. This led to the breakdown of our
relationship. September 11th we officially
called it quits. We still lived in the same house
and had to parent our children together.
After months of living in this less than ideal situation, I
decided to lean on my support group and started to take their
advice. I opened my heart and my mind to
the idea of God. It amazes me to look back and
see how quickly God was working in my life, the people He
brought before me to help bring me closer to my faith in Jesus.
At my new job, I was shown so much grace, not just on a
professional level, but as I navigated my personal life.
I started to see that there were good people in the world and I
wanted to be one of them too. So when I was invited to attend
Forward Church, I decided to go, and I am so grateful that I did
because this is where my belief turned into faith.
Jessica is right saying resentment built and drove us
apart. We were living separate lives
and our world was falling apart around us.
I started going to the church I grew up in because it was the
only place I felt whole but myself.
Righteousness and my anger at God had me believing that I
could do a better job myself and I stopped attending altogether.
It was until Mother's Day. Jess and I had divided out time
with the children in an attempt to normalize us living apart.
This was my weekend and Jess asked if she could have the
kids. I agreed and she got them ready
for Sunday service at Forward. I felt pulled to attend as well.
We sat in the balcony. The service ended with a message
of hope for families and couples.
I left there thinking maybe it's not too late.
It was that afternoon that Joel approached me.
The look on his face told me he had something important to say,
but nothing could have prepared me for what he said.
Next. He asked me if I wanted to
reconcile. It was during this conversation
that we both realized that yes, this is what we wanted, but on
the same condition that God was now an important part of our
lives and we were going to have to make some changes on how we
were doing things moving forward.
Our first step was taking the equipped class habits of a godly
home. This allowed us to have honest
conversations which turned into actions Each day.
We were seeing God work not only in ourselves, but in each other.
When the opportunity came up for baptism, Joel and I locked eyes.
He looked at me and said I think I'm getting baptized today.
And I replied I think I am too. Now we are both building a
relationship with Jesus individually as well.
It's together. Every day we try to show the
grace and love we received when we were doing everything wrong.
We find ourselves turning to God for both the easy and the hard
times. Spending time reading scripture,
praying, and building our community within the church
reminds us to take pause, show gratitude, especially
forgiveness. Well, I have, yeah.
I have Joel and Jessica right here and.
Part of how God is. Changing them.
Is not just in some of the things they do, but in saying
some I do. 'S this morning.
And they wanted their church family to be present with family
and friends as they take this step of.
Committing themselves in marriage to one another.
And so with that. I start with you, Joel.
Joel, will you have? Jessica, to be your wedded wife,
to live together in the covenant of faith, hope and love,
according to the intention of God for your lives together in
Christ Jesus. Will you listen to her inmost
thoughts, be considerate and tender in your care of her, and
stand by her faithfully in sickness and in health?
And preferring her. Above all others except full
responsibility for her every. Necessity for as long as you
both shall live. I do.
Jessica. Will you have Joel to be your
husband? To live together in the covenant
of faith, hope, and love. According to.
God's intention for your lives. Together in Christ Jesus.
Will you listen to His inmost thoughts, be considerate and
tender in your care of Him, and stand by Him faithfully in
sickness and in health, preferring Him above all others
except full responsibility? For his every necessity, for as
long as you both shall live. Then I'm going to invite you to
say your vows to one another. I, Joel, take you, Jessica, to
be my wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for
better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and
in health, to love and to cherish until we are parted by
death. This is my solemn vow.
I, Jessica, take you, Joel, to be my husband, to have and to
hold from this day forward. For better, for worse, for
richer. For poorer in sickness and in
health, to love and to cherish until.
We parted by a death. This is my solemn vow.
In light of the vows. That they have made to one
another, they have also chosen. To exchange a rings as part of a
remembrance. Of these vows.
And so I'll start. With you, Joel.
You can grab Jessica. 'S hand and you can repeat this
after me, Jessica. I give you this ring as a symbol
of my love and faithfulness to you, Jessica I.
Give you this. Ring as a symbol.
Of my love. And faithfulness to you.
Jessica, I'll invite. You to take Joel.
'S ring. Place it on his hand and say,
Joel, I give you this ring, Joel.
I give you. This ring as a symbol of my love
and faithfulness to you as a. Symbol of my love and
faithfulness to. You, I'll take that mic from you
for a second here because in light of the vows that you have
made to 1. Another in front of God.
Your friends, your family, your church family.
And by the power vested. In me by.
The Marriage Act of Ontario, I now pronounce.
You husband and wife. Joel, kiss your bride.