Let's say you're a Roman living in Jerusalem . You're walking down the street, minding your own business. When suddenly rough looking men burst out of house and, with Galilean accents, praising their God in your language, Latin. To get the picture, you have to know that to have a Galilean accent in Jerusalem was like having a Texan or Arkansas accent in Upper Manhattan or Beverly Hills. Galileans were considered hicks. People made fun of their accent. So seeing these Galileans talking loudly in their Galilean accents in perfectly grammatically correct Latin would be strange.

  

You can see why not all those in the crowd were so sure that what happened on Pentecost was a miracle and why some started mock. Look at verse 13: “Some however made fun of them and said, ‘They have had too much wine.'” They must be drunk.

 

Don't miss the avoidance tactic.

 

Finding fault in the messenger is a common tactic people use to avoid listening to the message. If you're hiding from God and you know the truth is being spoken but you're not ready or willing to accept it, you can say something like, “well the church is full of hypocrites” or you can to point to some leader in the church who's said something outrageous or done something immoral. The protestors at the Franklin Graham festival were passing around handouts of quotes from Franklin Graham that they believed damaged his credibility in order to give people a reason not to listen to him. You might point to some sin the church committed in the past. I've heard people say that the reason they won't give Christianity a chance is because they're angry about the crusades. What's the problem, logically speaking, with these excuses? Whether the church is full of hypocrites or whether the church has done terrible things in the past, or whether Peter was a drunk, is irrelevant to the question of whether Christianity is true. In fact, the bible teaches that we're all pretty messed up, pastors included. The Church is not a building where the righteous people go every Sunday. It is a hospital where we go to be treated by the Great Physician. Jesus said, I did not come for the righteous, but the unrighteous. In fact, as we're going to see, the prerequisite, the requirement for being a Christian is not righteousness, but admitting that you're unrighteous, that you've messed up and that you are not right with God. The problem is that that admission and then the repentance and surrender to Christ that must follow is precisely what people try to avoid. That's why it's so easy to say, don't listen he's drunk. Don't listen they're hypocrites. Don't listen they're as bad as everyone else. Yes, we are. That's the point. That's why we need Jesus and that's why you need him too. This is the message that Peter is about to proclaim and it's a hard one. God's truth cuts to the heart. But hearing him and surrendering to him is the only way to find life and peace for now and for eternity.

 

This sermon is the first public proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. People use the word gospel all the time in the church. The word Gospel in Greek is Eugangelion which means “good news”. Sometimes people use the word to refer to the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. The “gospels” written by the apostles tell the story of Jesus' and the story of Jesus' life is the story of God's rescue of humanity and so the books are called “good news” books. Gospels.

 

But other times people are not referring to one of the four gospels but to the essential content of the “good news” to what exactly it is that about Jesus that is so good.

 

And it is in this second sense that Peter proclaimed the gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ for the first time. And since this is the first sermon ever, it is important to ask what was that good news and how was it proclaimed. (I am using parts of the Rev. James M. Boice's outline of Peter's sermon in the following)

 

Notice first that Peter's sermon is Christocentric. Peter doesn't give a dissertation on world peace; or the UN Millennium Development goals; or global warming or even world hunger, all important things…but not the gospel. Peter preaches Jesus Christ. From beginning to end his sermon is about Christ: who he is and what he's done. At the Church of the Ascension, were I was youth minister, there was a plaque affixed to the pulpit with a quote from the gospel of Luke: “sir, we would see Jesus.” Sir, don't tell us about yourself, don't tell us what you think we'd like to hear, tell us about Jesus. I don't care how eloquent and charismatic the speaker, a sermon without Christ is powerless to save or to help or to sanctify.

 

Second, notice that Peter grounds his message in God's Word. Peter doesn't give Peter's opinion about the matters of the day. He doesn't say, “Here are the reasons why I think you should all become Christians.” He says, “hear what the scriptures tell us about Christ.” He begins in Joel (17-21), moves to psalm 16 (25-28), and ends in psalm 34 (34-35). Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. The scriptures are living and powerful because they originate with the living and powerful God. That's why we put we put bibles in the pews. That's why we have bible studies. That's why you need the scriptures every day to grow. That's why I want your bibles open while I'm preaching. Nothing I say matters one bit unless it's consistent with and in accordance with what God says. When the scriptures are truly proclaimed, God truly speaks. “All scripture” we are told in 2 nd Timothy 3:16-17, “is God breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Never come to church to expecting hear Matt preach or teach. Come expecting hear the Word of God proclaimed and explained and hold me to it. Peter's sermon is grounded in scripture.

 

Third his sermon is fearless. Now when the apostles came out of the room the crowd that gathered was probably somewhere in the low hundreds. By the time he finished, they were in the thousands. Look at verse 41. 3000 came to faith that day. Many in the crowd that heard Peter preach were also, only 50 days earlier, in the crowd that screamed “crucify him.” Peter pulls no punches, look at verses 22-23: “Men of Israel…Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs which God did among you through him as you yourselves know. This man was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death.” You killed the Christ. Peter risked his life preaching that message to this crowd. But he doesn't shape his message to please his listeners. He doesn't find out what people want to hear. He tells them the truth, not his truth, not their truth, but the Truth of Christ, and the truth of the scriptures, even when it hurts. Every proclamation of the gospel must do the same.

 

The cross of Christ is offensive. It's offensive because it stands as a stark bloody testimony from heaven that you and I and everyone on this planet have sinned against God and deserve, because of our own thoughts words and deeds, eternal death. But instead of that God loved you so much and the world so much that he took your place and died your death and suffered your penalty in Jesus Christ. God gathered all of the sins of the world, past, present, and future, every single one of your sinful thoughts, words, and deeds. I just think about all the sins I've committed since I woke up this morning and I'm floored. But God took all of them for all people for all time and nailed them to the cross and punished all of them to the full extent of the law. And God himself, in Jesus Christ, bore the punishment.

 

So when Peter looks out at the crowd and says, “you killed the Christ, you killed God's son” he's also looking straight into my eyes and my heart and yours. We killed the Christ, just as surely as the people in that crowd. I killed him. Every hateful word, every lustful thought or deed, every time I'm selfish or rude or uncaring, I participate in the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

 

The cross of Christ offends because we erected it; we drove the nails.

 

And to receive the eternal benefits of the salvation Jesus won on the cross, you must first come to terms with that fact. Have you come to terms with that fact? The proclamation of the gospel is also the proclamation of your guilt and my guilt. Before you can come to the Great Physician you have to admit you're sick and you have to want to get better. But it's so much easier to say: “Peter is drunk”. It's so much easier to be indifferent. “Oh, I've heard this before.” It's so much easier to rationalize your way out of it. I'm a decent person, better than so and so. The scriptures say differently. We'll not be judged in light of so and so, but by the perfect standard of God's law and James tells us that if you've broken just one law in thought word or deed, you stand guilty of breaking the whole of it. There's no hope for you or for me on our own.

 

That's why God acted. God died in Jesus Christ according, as Peter says, to his own purpose and foreknowledge. He gave himself over to death on purpose. And what was that purpose? You can see it in verse 21: So that “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” That's why he died. He loves you and he wants to take your guilt and your past onto himself and remove it as far as the east is removed from the west. But, and this is perhaps the second most offensive aspect of the gospel, verse 21 does not say that everyone will be saved. It says that everyone who calls on the name of Jesus Christ will be saved. Look as we close at verse 37. After Peter finished preaching, the people were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” And Peter says “repent and be baptized, everyone of you, in the name of Jesus Christ.” Repentance means to turn around: To stop going in one direction and go the other. But that's not all. Repent of your sins and turn to; surrender to Christ, call on his name to cry out to him. And the promise is that if you do that no matter who you are or where you're from or what you've done or what's been done to you, you'll be saved. And God will come to make his home with you, in your heart forever.