Acts 2:14-41      Repent!!      Fintry, 24/11/2002, am
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Introduction
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- A minister, arriving as a visiting speaker to a neighbouring church, decided 
  to take a very informal approach with the children. Word had reached him of 
  the strict and pious atmosphere of the Sunday School, and he decided he 
  would introduce a refreshing change of approach. Sitting on the edge od a 
  desk, wearing an open-neck shirt, he leaned forward confidently towards the 
  children:
   - "Can anyone tell me," he asked them, "what is small, grey, eats nuts and 
     has a large bushy tail?"
   - There was a long silence, then one small boy put up his hand and said, "I 
     know the answer should be Jesus, but sounds like a squirrel to me!"
- (We'll come back to that in a little while!)

- If you were an on-looker in Jerusalem, I guess you'd be asking exactly the 
  same question the crowd did:
   - "What does this mean?" (v.12)

- What's got into these people? Why are they behaving like this?
   - the passage before us is essentially Peter's response to that question, 
     his guiding of the crowd to grapple with that question!
   - let's follow his "answer" through - it comes in four parts


God is at Work
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- First, Peter points to that fact that God is at work
   - the crowd had been drawn because "we hear them declaring the wonders of 
     God in our own tongues"
   - not just a common commotion; saw something of God at work
   - yet some saw only drunkenness, saw only disorder!

- Peter points them to Joel's prophecy of the Spirit's coming
   - says, in effect, "you say we are drunk; isn't a more plausible 
     explanation of what you see that God is at work, as he has promised in 
     his Word?
   - normal people, Galilean fishermen, will have God's Spirit living in them 
     - not just for the very special prophets, but on all my servants!


The answer is Jesus!
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- Second, he directs the people's attention to Jesus:
   - for he is the answer, even if that wasn't quite the question they were 
     asking to start with!
- No indication these people were particularly wondering about who Jesus was:
   - sure, they probably did round the time he rode into Jerusalem, cleared 
     the Temple;
   - almost certainly caught up in the gossip as he was crucified...
   - but he was dead now, had been for weeks... fading from thought?

- But Peter says:
   - what you see of God at work now is linked with Jesus;
   - he summarises Jesus' life (v.22, man, miracles), his death (v.23, handed 
     over, God's purpose, crucified), his resurrection (v.24ff, including OT 
     Scriptural backing) and his exaltation (v.33)
- It is in him and through him that God is at work, no other way!
   - if you see God at work, then you need to trust that it is through Jesus!


You crucified him!
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- Next step is the horrendous jump to realising that they were responsible for 
  Jesus' death:
   - God is at work... through this Jesus... who you crucified!

- As did we through our sin!


So repent!
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- Turn from sin, accept Jesus as Saviour
- What is repentance?

- Pleaded with them to turn, to change, to save themselves!


Conclusion
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- Do people look at us and see God at work?
- Do we explain ourselves - those whose Lord is Jesus?
- Do we confront their sin (or accomodate it)?
- Do we challenge to repentance?

- All in the Spirit's power!