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Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

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Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

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He's coming. Listen to him. Do whatever he tells you to do in verse 23. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. You receive the gospel message, you're changed. Or you don't. If you reject it, the Lord will honor that decision. And it won't be pretty.

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Rules and laws sound so intense. Don't do this. Stay away from that. They place a fear in us that if we accidentally stumble down the wrong street, we will go to jail. The reality is laws outline what not to do, but don't really mention what we can do. Today, Pastor Carl teaches that sometimes the world views Christianity as a book of rules, but it actually provides incredible freedom. If you follow Jesus, you will have a joy that surpasses all understanding. But if not, things will look worse than going to jail. And now, here's Pastor Carl.

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These men are the people, you know, that did this healing. And Peter knows I'm not the one who did this healing. It's Jesus who did this healing. The name of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit did the work. I didn't do the work, I'm just a vessel. And that's what he starts out his sermon with. It's not about us, it's about him. Verse 13: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, the God of my fathers and your fathers. The early church was comprised of the Jews. Jesus came to save the Jews first and then the Gentiles. And everybody there were Jewish folks coming to seek the Lord. And Peter and John are there, and they say, listen, our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he glorified his servant Jesus. And everybody knew who Jesus was. At least they knew he was there and he did great things, but they didn't really realize who he was. But he was there. And Jesus, what did he come to do? He came to serve rather than to be served. He's the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. And just a couple months before, he was sitting down with the disciples and washing their feet. He serves us by humbling himself to become one of us. He served us by taking the sin of the world upon himself on the cross. He's the servant of the Most High God, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. Here's Peter with his hard message again. Listen, the servant came to die on the cross, but you put him there. Pilate, who is not a believer, who's of the evil government of Rome, we don't like him. He wanted to let him go because he didn't find anything wrong with him. And yet, you asked for a murderer to be granted to you. The one who came to serve, you denied. And Peter at that moment probably thought, and I denied too. I denied him three times. And I spent three years with him. But this man, this perfect man, this servant, God himself in the flesh, you didn't want anything to do with. You wanted a murderer instead. You wanted a murderer and you killed the prince of life. The one that comes to bring life, to bring wholeness, forgiveness, restoration. You killed him, who God raised from the dead, of which you are witnesses. You know, you put him on the cross, but the cross couldn't keep him down. Death couldn't keep him down. He came back three days later. You know something happened. You saw it. At least you heard about it. There was Jerusalem still in an uproar. Verse 16. And his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. I could spend a long time on that verse. There's a lot in there. Let me just say there's power in the name of Jesus. That power is accessed through faith. That faith comes as a gift of God as well. You see that line? Yes, the faith which comes through him, through Jesus, has given this man who has been crippled all his life perfect soundness in the presence of you all. The faith of God gives us soundness, not only in our physical bodies, but in our spirits, in our minds. The Lord wants to give us the mind of Christ. The Lord wants to give us sound minds. As we're born into this world and as we live out our fallness in this place, our minds are corrupted. We don't think the way the Lord thinks, but he wants to change us. And we're changed through the word by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. There's also this aspect of there's this general faith that he gives us, faith to believe and trust in him and believe the gospel and to be changed. But there are also times where he'll give us a spiritual gift of a specific faith. And I believe this is what happened to Peter and Paul and John at this point. They were given this word from this Lord, this faith, this knowledge that it's hard to explain, but the Holy Spirit showed them this man is about to be healed, and I'm going to use you to heal him. And they knew it. And that's why he can say with boldness, rise up in the name of Jesus and come. Have you in your in your spiritual, in your in your Christian zest, gone up to somebody and say in the name of Jesus, be healed, and you lift them up and they stay in their in they stay in their wheelchair? I mean, I've had prayers like that where you're not really sure and that, do I have enough faith? Is it me? Is it, you know, oh man, I failed because I didn't have enough faith. The faith that you have comes from the Lord. And there are times where he gives you specific words for specific situations where he says, Go talk to that person. Talk to that person. I don't know that person. And he says, I know, but I know him. Now go talk to them. And then you go talk to the person, and it's like, I've been praying for years that the God would send somebody to talk to me, and here you are. And you're like, wow, that's wild. God works that way. The problem is we put ourselves in God's place sometimes, and we think, you know, if I only, if I was a real Christian, then I would be doing this and this and this, and you try to do this, and it's it's not really faith, it's just me trying to do something in the name of Jesus when God didn't tell me to do it and it doesn't work. But here we see God empowering Peter and John by the power of the Holy Spirit, they give them this word of faith to go and do this thing, and it happens. That's what we want to be seeking after. Where is God working? What is God doing? What is God telling us to do? And if he tells us to do it, he'll empower us to do it. Do you catch that? May the Lord give us this faith that we need and understand and be able to discern between this is God talking, this is Carl talking. I don't want to hear Carl talking. I want to hear God talking and working and changing my life and the lives around me. Now, verse 17, yet no, brethren, um I know that you did it in ignorance, as also your rulers. You put him on the cross, you denied him, you cursed him, but you really didn't understand what you were doing. If you understood what you were doing, you wouldn't have done that. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled. Again, you put Jesus on the cross, your sin put him on the cross. Your relationship, which wasn't there, put him on the cross. Because he willingly did that. This was God's will for you. That God would send Jesus and he would be placed on the cross and he would take on the wrath of God for your sin and mine. You put him on the cross. Yet that was part of God's plan. If he didn't have sin, he wouldn't need to go on the cross. And yet, this is exactly what all the prophets said would happen. Christ would come and he would suffer, he would die, he would rise again, and this has been fulfilled. This is good news, this isn't bad news, this isn't the guilt trip, but this is reality. How do we respond to this reality? He says in verse 19, Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. He's not saying you put Jesus on the cross, it's your fault, and you're gonna burn forever because of it. No, he says, You put Jesus on the cross, but that was part of God's plan, so that he could take you off the cross, that he could give you life. Now receive that life. You receive it by turning from your wicked ways, turning from the ways that you how do we know how to live? We're fallen. We're fallen since we were born, and we're full of sin, and we're wretched. So we just turn to Jesus and recognize, Lord, I am wretched compared to you. You're holy, you're just, you're perfect. I'm far from that. But I'm turning to you because you are my hope. I want to be converted, changed. I want to be made new, born again. So my sins may be blotted out, and that times of refreshing may come. The Lord is really not this killjoy. This the Lord is not the one that wants to press us down and say, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. He's come to bring us life. Times of refreshing based on his righteousness, based on his finished work on the cross, not what we've done. Everything we've done deserves punishment. But he wants to give us refreshment. He wants to give us life. What a deal. So that refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Where do we find that peace, that hope, that joy, that refreshing? In Christ, in his presence. May he come and make his presence known to us. And that his presence has nothing to do with our works, our actions. Actually, it has to do with the answer to our works and our actions. He's made a way where there was no way, and he does it because he loves us. He does it because he desires to have fellowship with us. He wants you to be blessed and refreshed and full of life abundantly because of who he is, not because of what I've done. Verse 20, and that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, when God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. Jesus came, he died for the sin of the world. You saw that happening. And he rose again, and you saw that happening. And many of you saw him ascend into heaven. That same Jesus is coming back. Just like the prophets foretold. And, you know, for the Jews that were listening there on Palm Sunday and all during this time, they really missed this first coming of Jesus in the prophecies. They're there, but it's kind of veiled. And it's kind of connected with the second coming. And they grasped a hold of that. The Messiah is coming. He's going to liberate us from the Romans. And we're going to have a powerful, you know, political victory. And that's what they were looking at. And now Peter's saying, He's coming. That's going to happen. But it's going to be way bigger than you ever imagined. It will be at the time of the restoration of all things. He's coming to restore all things. He's already taken care of the sin debt. But there are those that have rejected that. And there are times, time where he's coming back. And he's going to unleash the wrath of God on an unbelieving world because the unbelieving world doesn't want to have anything to do with the Messiah. It's the choice that we make when we reject the Lord. It's not his choice. He just follows through with what we've done. And he has prophesied this from the beginning of the world, all through the Bible. It talks about the Messiah that comes. Sometimes a little veiled, sometimes pretty bold. But throughout the Old Testament, it's a story of grace and mercy. It's a story of judgment. It's a story of restoration. And all this is still about to happen, Peter is saying. Verse 22, for Moses truly said to the fathers, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever he says to do. Moses, I believe this is in the book of Deuteronomy, actually gives this prophecy. You know, I recognize that I've been called by God to lead you out of Egypt and through the wilderness to the promised land. But there's someone that's coming that'll be from your midst, from this new nation that is being birthed. When he comes, listen to him. And Peter is bringing it together that Jesus is not only the Messiah, but he's a prophet. A prophet in a way that declares to people that uh this is what your future holds if you make this decision. This is what your future holds if you don't. If you want life and forgiveness and restoration, you believe in Jesus. You turn to Jesus, you surrender your life to Jesus. He's coming. Listen to him. Do whatever he tells you to do. In verse 23, and it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. You receive the gospel message, you're changed, or you don't. If you reject it, the Lord will honor that decision. And it won't be pretty. And Peter's, you know, appealing to the people, please don't reject the prophet with the capital P. Don't reject the Messiah. Don't reject this Jesus that you've already rejected before, because he wants to give you life, he wants to forgive you, he wants to change you. Again, this is Peter, who spent three years with Jesus, who denied him three times. And what did Jesus do? He restored him. He restored him, not only restored him, but he gave him the gift of the Holy Spirit, and now Peter is powerfully proclaiming the grace and the mercy of God. Yes, verse 24, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. You know this. This is from the scriptures. It applies to this one Jesus, whom you crucified, but God rose again from the dead. He's coming back. You want to be on his side, not on the other side. Verse 25. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. To you first, God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquities. You are the sons of the prophets. They were all part of the Jewish line. And we're meeting together here to seek God. But do you know who God is? Jesus is from this line of the promised seed of Abraham. God was faithful to begin the Jewish nation, the Israelite nation, through the seed of Abraham. And when you look into the book of Hebrews, of course, you go into the idea that not only does this apply to the seed, the physical seed of Abraham, but the spiritual seed as well, because Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him as righteousness. And so too for you, if you believe God, you are a son of Abraham, which a number more than the stars in the sky and the sand at the seashore. But Peter here is making the point, speaking to the Jewish people. He's come to us first, but he's also come to save the world. He's come for the Jewish nation, but he's also come for the Gentiles. He's come for the physical seed of Abraham as well as the spiritual seed of Abraham. All in order to bless us with forgiveness of our sin. It's a blessing to be forgiven of our sin. What Jesus did for us on the cross is a gift to us. Not only is it an escape from the wrath of God because he took it on himself, but it's the gift of life so that we can live forever with him and enjoy him. That's his desire for us. So in chapter 4, we'll just read a few verses into chapter 4 to wrap up this sermon. Now, as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. They still didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They thought they got rid of this troublemaker, but now we have his followers starting to say things about Jesus. And so they put him in jail for that for that sermon. And if you saw somebody who was preaching something and they were thrown in jail, how would you respond to that preaching? And the flesh would be, well, I don't want anything to do with that because I don't want to get in trouble. But what happened here? Well, let me finish it. They were greatly disturbed in what they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection of the dead, and they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, verse 4. Many of those who heard the word believed. And the number of men came to be about 5,000. After Peter's first sermon, there were 3,000. Now the number's 5,000. Another 2,000 were added that day. 2,000 people came to the Lord as a result of that sermon that put Peter and John in jail. That ought to make us say, huh? Either those 2,000 people are really crazy. Like, what, do you want to go to jail too? You want to be persecuted? Or it's this bigger vision. It's like, this is the truth. This changes everything. This changes eternity. I don't care what they're going to do to me now. I'm a believer. I've been changed. I've been forgiven. I've been given this new life. And I'm going to declare it to anyone who listened. If they throw me in jail, I'm going to preach it to the jailer. Because they need forgiveness too, right?

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You've been listening to Come On Up, featuring the teaching of Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross. We're currently in the book of Acts, which chronicles the miracles and ministries of believers after Jesus had died and was resurrected. It documents the growth of the early church and how the apostles shared the gospel far and wide. There was significant persecution, and 10 of the 12 disciples, other than John and Judas, were martyred. Would you be willing to die for your faith? That's a tough question. But many believers through the centuries have laid down their lives for Christ. What does Jesus mean to you? Has he changed your life? That's our prayer for you, and we hope our simple teaching through the Word of God encourages you to grow strong in the Lord and His grace. If this radio ministry has blessed you, would you consider helping us reach others? Your gift of any size helps keep this radio ministry on the air. Simply visit themountaincross.com slash donate and give what you can. That's themountaincross.com slash donate and thanks in advance. Come on up comes to you from The Mountain Cross, a group of believers in Jesus who seek to grow in faith by simply teaching the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter. We meet Sundays at the Smoky Mountain Cinema in Waynesville beginning at 10. If you're in the area, we'd love to have you worship with us. Hope to see you soon. Thanks for listening and join us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.