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In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.
But God raised Him from the dead, freeing Him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on Him. David said about Him:
“‘I saw the Lord always before Me. Because He is at My right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore My heart is glad and My tongue rejoices; My body also will rest in hope, because You will not abandon Me to the realm of the dead, You will not let your holy One see decay. You have made known to Me the paths of life; You will fill Me with joy in Your presence.’”
“Fellow Israelites, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. Seeing what was to come, he spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, that He was not abandoned to the realm of the dead, nor did His body see decay. God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of it.”
Acts 2:24-32
This ends today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
The Holy Spirit had come from the heavens and baptized the disciples with fire. Jesus had told them to go to Jerusalem and wait until they received the gift of the Spirit before they got busy carrying on His work. And as we saw in yesterday’s devotion, it didn’t take long for Peter to allow the Spirit to lead and move him as he addressed those who asserted the disciples had been speaking in tongues because they were drunk.
In the first message in this series, we looked at how Peter started breaking down the Gospel promise of salvation by ensuring his listeners know that Jesus being crucified to death by sinful men was all a part of God’s intentional plan for offering salvation to His people. Before reconciliation could happen, there had to be atonement and Jesus became the perfect sacrifice, the completely sinless Lamb of God who gave up His life to pay the ransom for all mankind.
This was the first important act of God that Peter wanted his listeners to know about as he led them down the road to 3,000 - the number of people who committed to Christ after Peter finished speaking publicly in Jerusalem.
Well, a great pastor I once had the privilege to serve under used to say, “You can’t have the resurrection without the crucifixion.” His statement was grounded in how so few people would come to church on Good Friday to remember the day Jesus died but then on Easter, you worried about having enough seating for the people who would come. Everyone was more interested in the good news story of Jesus rising from the tomb without paying respect to what He did to end up there in the first place.
And so we find Peter opening up in part one of this series by talking about Jesus’ crucifixion before pivoting to His resurrection which is the center of today’s message.
For just as it was God’s intent for His Son to die as an atoning sacrifice to take away the sin of anyone who placed their belief in Him, so too was it His aim to rescue His beloved Son from the agony of death. Invoking the words of David, just as he had used words from Joel in the first message in this series, Peter shares a prophetic message from Israel’s beloved king of old, one in which David speaks words as spoke by Jesus Himself. Look again at those words here:
“‘I saw the Lord always before Me. Because He is at My right hand, I will not be shaken. Therefore My heart is glad and My tongue rejoices; My body also will rest in hope, because You will not abandon Me to the realm of the dead, You will not let your holy One see decay. You have made known to Me the paths of life; You will fill Me with joy in Your presence.’”
If these words sound familiar, it’s because they are found in the 16th Psalm, verses 8-11, as Jesus speaks well before He is conceived, proclaiming His confidence and faith that things would be okay, no matter what happened because His Father was at His right hand, always there for Him. Therefore, Jesus knew He could not be shaken. With His God with Him, He knew no one could stand against Him, no matter how hard they tried.
As Christians, this is a message we need to hear from our Savior. For the same God that walked with Him through the valley of the shadow of death and then lifted Him up from the grave in resurrection power is the same God with us today. Therefore, we know that through Christ, we can rest in hope, rejoicing and glad in the promise of eternal life we’ve been given from a God who loved us so much that He didn’t wish for us to perish (John 3:16). Through the Holy Spirit, our God makes known to us the paths of life, just as He did His Son.
Friends, this is at the very core of the Gospel message that Jesus commanded and demanded that we share with the world. God raised Jesus to life and indeed He is alive today and sitting at His Father’s right hand in all authority over everything in heaven and on earth. And one day, He is coming back to make an encore appearance, drawing near those who placed their belief and faith in Him.
As the people listened to Peter, thousands had their hearts start to turn toward receiving their own salvation and the Holy Spirit that came packaged with it. Their feet were walking the road to 3,000 and tomorrow we’ll finish this series of messages by finding what happened when they reached their destination. .
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
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