Reflections on "Change Your Ways" Acts 2: 36-41

Ended up being a fun sermon to preach. The 3000 people image worked for me and helped me find an entry into the text.  I struggle on days like Mother's Day when I want to acknowledge that event, but am not sure how far to push an illustration to connect Mother's Day to the sermon.  It worked okay, but felt a little forced.

I was particularly struck by the sense of desperate people.  I think that point has real traction in our world, but I wonder how desperate many in our congregation feel, so it may put some outside of the sermon without a way to find themselves in it.  I didn't say it, but the thought crossed my mind that it is harder for us to hear the saving grace of Christ in our comfortable lifestyles and world than it is for people whose lives really are desperate.

“Change Your Ways” May 8, 2011; Acts 2: 36-41; FPC, Troy

Introduction: 3000 people;

Chapel: look around the chapel and in your mind double the number of people here; no, triple the number; no quadruple; no 100 times the number of people here now.

100 times our number here

Sanctuary: Look around the sanctuary and then double how many people are here; doubling it makes it a pretty good Easter crowd or Christmas Eve crowd; the sanctuary is full;

then triple it – now you are talking about filling the aisles with chairs; the entry ways with chairs; the narthex with chairs; and then pumping the service outside to the sidewalks where people would be standing if we tripled our crowd; they say that when Peter Marshall, he Presbyterian minister who served for many years as Chaplain to the Senate, when he served a church in GA and then later in Washington, DC, they would have to open the windows so that the overflow crowds lining the sidewalks could hear him preach,

quadruple what you see here...okay, think about 15 times

3000 people heard about Jesus; 3000 people heard that he had been crucified and then raised from the dead; 3000 people wanted Jesus to be a part of their lives.

Wow. I hear that number and I do not know what do do with it. If I knew why 3000 people repented and baptized that day, we would have that problem here today.

What can we learn from this incredible story?

Move 1: Begins with the heart

a. What a powerful description we have of the people listening being “cut to heart.”

1. No surprise that Acts uses this description.
2. Earlier we read Luke's account of the Risen Christ walking down the road to Emmaus with the disciples who do not recognize him.
3. When they later realize they had been walking with Jesus, they note that they should have known because their “hearts were burning.”

b. Think about that for a moment.

1. Begin with the heart.
2. Not a specific issue.
3. This week I was sitting around talking a to friend who is a carpenter. He asked if I'd been doing some work around the new house. “yes, “ I replied. He said he figured I had since I had carpenter fingers. “Carpenter fingers?” The skin just beyond the nail (sort ofthe cuticle area) looked pretty beat up. To which I had to confess, no that's not carpenter fingers, that's Richard's bad habit of biting my nails, or fingers, or whatever presents itself.
4. Peter is not calling on the Peter to give up a bad habit. To stop biting their fingernails, or eating fast food, or watching less television.

c. Peter is inviting people to change their approach to life.

1. Start at the heart, and change.
2. Repent, and be baptized.
3. Begin a whole new life where you give yourself over to the one who can and has raised the dead.

3000 people wanted to change their hearts that day.

Move 2: Power of the Holy Spirit.

a. How is it possible to make these changes? Only by the power of the Holy Spirit.

b. Mother's Day.

1. remember the influence our mother's have had on us.
2. I suspect that many a mother has wished their children would change their ways.
3. Sometimes mother's are successful.

4. Minister in KY told the story of a 7 yr. Old boy causing quite a distraction in the pew. Moving around, making noise, and all the while his mother is trying to make him stop. During the sermon, the young boy's actions really became a distraction. Then, in the middle of the sermon, the young man straightened up, literally, quit a making noise, quit moving; seemed to listen for the rest of the sermon. The minister asked the mother on the way out what she had done to get him to suddenly start behaving. The mother seemed a bit embarrassed and hesitant to tell the minister, but he insisted she reveal her secret. So she told him that she leaned over to her son and said, “If you don't change your ways and behave, Pastor is going to lose his place in the sermon and have to start it all over!”
5. I still do not cross my legs when I sit wit my robe on because my mother told me that it didn't look very dignified for a minister to sit like that in front of the congregation. As if that change makes me dignified.
6. My point is that mothers at their best can perhaps make us change certain behaviors, but Peter is not talking about minor changes.

100. Peter wants those who gather there, Peter wants us, to give our lives over to God.

1. that requires the power of the Holy Spirit.

2. It demands that we return to the heart of who we are and open ourselves up to God.

3000 people wanted to be led by the HS that day.

Move 3: 3000 people.

a. Desperate people.

1. I had a conversation recently with a person who was telling me their life story that included 40 years of being an alcoholic.
2. Started at age 15.
3. is now wondering if he or she can change.
4. How do you change 40 years.
5. I heard a sense of desperation in the person's voice and in their story.

6. when I reflected on the 3000 who repented and were baptized, it occurred to me that it was 3000 desperate people.

b. who else but desperate people will give their lives over to following the resurrected one.

1. they had not seen Christ.
2. They had not had the experiences with Jesus like Peter had had.
3. They were just listening to Peter describe this incredible God who resurrected Christ.
4. And they had this need.
5. this need for more in their lives.

c. 3000 people.

1. Some were probably feeling desperate because of their job situations.
2. Some were probably feeling desperate because of their problems with their spouses.
3. Some were probably feeling desperate because they were at a point in life when they were looking back and realizing that they were not where they wanted to be in life.
4. Some were probably feeling desperate because of personal demons that seemed to be controlling their lives.

5. In other words, the 3000 people were a lot like us.

Conclusion: 3000 people – but, really it was just 1 person + 1 person + 1 person + 1 person...

It was not a group decision to follow the resurrected Christ;

it was not a group decision to change their ways.

It was not a group decision to invite the Holy Spirit into their lives.

It was not a group decision to Repent.

3000 people; but what really matters is what you choose to do.