GOSPEL MEDITATION # 6
Peter’s Sermon at Pentecost-part 1
Acts 2:14-28
- Find a quiet place, alone and apart from distractions.
- Be comfortably alert, still and at peace.
- Say the Lord’s Prayer. Sing or cant the Jesus Prayer
- Pray for family, friends, neighbors, and yourself.
- Slowly and carefully read the passage of Scripture.
- Reread it. From memory, determine the central points.
- Peter is the first to preach a real Christian sermon. He stands with the “eleven” though there were now twelve; Peter does not stand alone.
- After a proper greeting he makes the first Christian “apology” or defense, which in this case was that the men speaking in tongues were not drunk—too early in the morning for that.
- He quotes Joel 2:28-32, where the prophet Joel tells of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit—even poured out on slaves so it is not surprising that even Galilean fishermen should experience it.
- The second part of Joel’s prophecy has to do with the Day of Yahweh (see Isaiah 13:9-11)—judgment day, thus what Peter is about to declare is of upmost importance.
- Next Peter proceeds with an outline of the person and work of Jesus the Messiah, a pattern preachers have followed ever since. Jesus, attested by God with powerful signs and wonders, and which the hearers knew about.
- Then the core of the sermon—the killing of Jesus, His actual and real death, brought about by the hands of sinners (the religious leaders as well as the Romans)—and yet has been raised by God. Implied then is that Jesus is alive.
- Peter shows from Psalm 16:1-11 that this resurrection was foretold by David. It cannot then be denied.
- What an impact, due to the convicting power of the Holy Spirit, must have come
upon the hearers. The Messiah of God had been killed but is yet alive.