If you can find a Bible near you (under the seat in front of you, or one that you brought), turn to Acts 2.
Mohamad Faridi was raised to be a soldier and trained to view jihad and martyrdom as the highest calling. He was born in Iran in a devout Shi’ite family during the brutal war against the Sunnis in Iraq. He writes,
“We were children, but we were not raised as children. We were raised as soldiers. Every lesson, every prayer, every chant was designed to hate non-Muslims.”
Mohamad had many questions about Allah, but his mother warned him not to ask. She quoted the Quran and then said,
“If you ask questions, my son, it leads to doubt. Doubt leads to sin, and Allah will burn sinners in hell.”
Mohamad was tortured by fearful dreams. He would cut himself and beat himself, trying to relieve his guilt. But no matter what sacrifices he made, he had no confidence of a relationship with God or hope for the future.
When he finished high school, he joined the Revolutionary Guard and was trained to kill or be killed for Islam. But after his military service was completed, he returned home.
He was spending some time with an old friend named Rasoul, and he began to notice that Rasoul was different. Something had changed, so he kept pressing Rasoul to tell him what had changed. He had a peace that Mohamad craved. He pushed Rasoul to tell him.
Rasoul said, “I have become a Christian.”
Mohammed was stunned. “You can’t become a Christian! You’re Muslim!”
After hours of discussing and debating, Rasoul said, “Mohamad, you asked why I changed. I’m telling you; it’s Jesus.”
“What Rasoul said to me that day changed everything. He looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Jesus was beaten… He was crucified. His precious blood was shed for my sake. And he gave up his life; he sacrificed for me so that I could have eternal life.’ I had never heard anything good like it. It wasn’t just words — it was something deeper, something that cut straight through me. It felt like a sword had pierced my heart, exposing how wicked I was. In that moment, I stood naked before a holy God, empty-handed, with nothing to offer him.”
Rasoul explained the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and all that he accomplished. Mohamad fell to his knees and begged Rasoul,
“What do I need to do? Tell me, what do I need to do to have what you have?”
Rasoul told Mohamad,
“Close your eyes and pray. Repent of your sin, surrender to Jesus, and receive/believe what he has done for you.”
Mohamad repented, confessed, and believed. And when he opened his eyes, he began a new life. He said, “I saw colors for the first time in my life.”
Rasoul gave Mohamad a forbidden book: the Bible. Mohamad began reading in the very book we’ve been studying for the last year and a half, the book of Matthew, and being transformed by the words of Jesus. At times, these words were so radically different from all that he had heard, he would throw the Bible down, but he couldn’t walk away.
“So I picked it back up. I opened its pages again, and as I read, the word of God began to wash over me— cleansing me, breaking the chains of deception I had been bound to my whole life. It was gentle, yet powerful, like pure water running through the filth of my heart and mind, washing away the sewage I had lived in for so long.”
Mohamad grew in his relationship with Jesus. He endured persecution from his family and his friends. He was in constant danger. When the Islamic regime’s intelligence began looking for him, he was warned that they were after and would harm not only him, but his whole family. He knew he had to flee. He eventually was able to gain refugee status in the United States. He said recently,
“I’ve been a Christian for 18 years now, and I can honestly say there is nothing better than Jesus. The peace, the freedom, the purpose, the hope, and the love that I have found in him are beyond anything I could have imagined. Jesus has changed my life in ways I could never repay, and I am forever grateful for his grace.”
In some ways, Mohamad’s story is unique — being born in Iran, serving in the military, searching for peace… But in other ways, his story is the same as every other Christian’s story. He was convicted of sin. He repented. He believed, and Jesus gave him what he could never have earned on his own.
You’ll notice, some of these same things that Mohamad experienced in Iran, the first Christians (2,000 years ago in Jerusalem) experienced some of the same things in Acts 2. We call this Pentecost. Pentecost literally means “50th.” It’s 50 days from Passover to Pentecost, from when Jesus died and then rose, and then when the Spirit came on the day of Pentecost. Acts 2:1,
“When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:1-4).
The followers of Jesus here experienced three phenomena as the Spirit came and filled them: wind, fire, and speech. As John Stott explains,
Look at the response, verse 12.
“And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, ‘What does this mean?’ But others mocking said, ‘They are filled with new wine’” (Acts 2:12-13).
“They’re just drunk.” Now, pause here for a second. The Spirit comes on this unique day of Pentecost, and notice the Spirit is not satisfied with merely people experiencing phenomena. He wants them to understand. So he fills Peter, who begins preaching, to explain what this all means.
Peter’s sermon basically has two big points.
1. We’re in the day, we are not drunk!
By “in the day,” he means, “It’s 9 a.m., people. We’re not drunk.” But “in the day” has a double meaning there. If you keep reading, you’ll notice he’s talking about “the day,” “the day of the Lord,” “the last days,” “the messianic age.” Verse 17 is quoting Joel 2:28, “And in the last days…I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.”
2. Jesus is risen; he’s not dead!
The second big point Peter is making is Jesus is risen, he’s not dead. “We’re not drunk, he is not dead!” Verse 23,
“…this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up…” (Acts 2:23-24a).
That is a terrifying message. Peter is saying, “The one you killed is the one who rose from the dead.” Then Peter quotes Psalm 16 and Psalm 110 to drive home the truth. But I want us, just for a couple minutes, to focus in on the people’s reaction to the sermon. Look at verse 37.
“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart—”
Wait, does that sound familiar? Just like with Mohamad: conviction of the Spirit, cut like a sword to the heart.
“…and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’” (Acts 2:37)
Sound familiar? Just like Mohamad. Just like any of us when we are convicted, “What do I do?”
Peter could have given a lot of answers. “Well, you need to go on this pilgrimage to this place.” Or, “You need to beat yourself, do penance, show you’re sincere, earn your way, give a gift, something like—” None of that. Notice the first word in Peter’s response. He’s going to say a lot more, but I want us to focus on that. Verse 38, “Repent.” Repent.
Generally speaking, to repent is to turn from sin to God. Repentance in the book of Acts is a complete reorientation of life through Jesus. Everything gets flipped. Repentance includes mind, will, and emotions. It literally means “mind change,” to change your mind, but it’s not limited to that. It’s not just a cognitive shift. It engages our will. Because our thinking begins to change, we need to change direction, and emotion is included as well, because there is sorrow for sin. That’s going to look different for all of us, how we experience that emotion and how we express that emotion.
Repentance is the negative side of receiving and believing. Two sides of the same coin. You’ll notice in verse 41, “So those who received his word…” To receive is to welcome warmly. It’s the same as believe, to repent and believe. This is the message of Jesus as he was ministering in Galilee. “The kingdom of heaven is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel.” Real repentance believes, and real belief repents. Let me say that again. Real repentance believes, and real belief repents. The two travel together.
Now let’s drill down into this passage and see what real repentance looks like.
Five characteristics of repentance are illustrated here.
1. individual
Repentance, number one, is individual. Repent and be baptized. We’ll come back to baptism. “Every one of you,” (verse 38). Every one of you. Fairly often today, you’ll hear new teachers coming along saying, “Hey guys, you got it all wrong. Salvation is not about the individual. God is not saving people, he is saving a people.” Just like any other heresy, all heresies emphasize one truth at the expense of another truth. That’s what’s happening there. Notice, verse 38, the word “every,” hekastos, means “each one.” It comes from a word, “hekas,” which means “separate,” each individual as a distinct person.
When you’re in a crowd like this, it’s really easy to feel invisible, isn’t it? It can feel like, “Maybe God is working in somebody else’s heart, but he’s not working in mine.” Well, Peter was preaching to a crowd that would make this crowd look small. Thousands of people, and what he says here is “each one.” The Spirit has a way of cutting open the heart of an individual, no matter how big a crowd you’re in. He wants to do an individual work. We don’t just blend in.
This is one of the reasons we gather on Saturday night and pray. Because we believe “not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord.” He is the one who works. We can sing, play, preach for nothing apart from the Spirit of God. He is one who penetrates hearts, who speaks his convicting work and calls us to himself.
I’ll never forget the night I repented. I was in a crowd (not quite this big, but a crowd), had never heard the gospel growing up, and the Spirit of God convicted me in my heart and called me to himself as if I were the only one in the room. Have you had that experience? I don’t know what anybody else was hearing, but I needed to do something in response to the Spirit. I needed to say “yes” to what he is saying. Real repentance is individual.
2. personal
Secondly, real repentance is personal. Real repentance is personal. Verse 38 again, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.” In the name of Jesus Christ! We are not simply, when we become Christians, affirming a set of religious beliefs, which we are. We’re turning from lies, we’re believing truth. But it’s not just that. There is something intensely personal. We are repenting of our sin and turning to a person, Jesus Christ. A living, dying, rising person. A real person in history. Look at verse 23 of Peter’s sermon, “This Jesus…you crucified…God raised….” Repent and believe in him! Sin against Jesus is personal. Our repentance to Jesus is personal.
3. communal
Real repentance is individual, it’s personal, and it’s also communal. Communal. Look at verse 39.
“‘For the promises for you—”
That’s plural, that’s a plural “you,” in contrast to the “each one” earlier. Now he’s talking to a group.
“‘…the promise is for you [plural] and for your children [plural] and for all [plural] who are far off, everyone [plural] whom the Lord our God calls to himself.’ And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation’” (Acts 2:39-40).
Repentance is the call to leave a crooked generation and enter a new family, a new community we call the church. Notice in verse 40, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” This implies we are living within societies that are characterized by specific perversions. If we simply do what is natural and live our lives, we will become like the culture we inhabit.
Peter describes his generation as “crooked.” It’s the word “skolios.” What English word do you think we get from that? “Scoliosis,” which is a curvature of the spine, which is a physical curving. What Peter is talking about is a spiritual or moral bending, twisting, deviating.
Each generation is characterized by specific deviations, perversions. Think of a few that our culture is characterized by. Here are a couple of lies: “The more stuff I get, the happier I’ll be.” That is a perversion. “I decide my identity, not God.” “Jesus is just one way among many.” “If I follow my heart, I’ll find the right way.” Lie, lie, lie.
Repentance is communal in that we are turning from our twisted generation to a new community. We are called out in order to come in. Notice verse 40, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” Verse 41, they were what? Added. Verse 47, “And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” John Stott summarizes this well:
“He did not add them to the church without saving them (no nominal Christianity…), nor did he save them without adding them to the church (no solitary Christianity either). Salvation and church membership belonged together; they still do.”
This is massively counter-cultural for us, because we have this belief, “I can become a Christian and then just kind of float around as if I’m just a solitary Christian.” Notice they left the crooked generation and were added to this new community: Jesus’s church. So real repentance is individual, personal, and communal.
4. beneficial
Number four, beneficial. There are many gifts that come when we repent and believe (repentance itself is a gift), but there are two mentioned in verse 38.
Verse 38, first one, “for the forgiveness of sins.” The debt we could never repay, the shame we could never remove, has been paid for and is washed away by Jesus. We are clean, we are free, we’re forgiven. Like Mohamad described, layer after layer of guilt and shame are washed away by Jesus when we repent and believe.
Look at the second gift, verse 38, “you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” The Holy Spirit manifests the active presence of God in and through us. The Holy Spirit manifests the active presence of God in and through us.
Notice both these gifts are given to all who repent and believe. This isn’t an exclusive club. When you repent and believe, your sins are washed away, and the Spirit comes to fill you. Jesus promised in John 14:16,
“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:16-17).
Repentance is individual, personal, communal, and beneficial.
5. visible
One more, visible. Visible. Go back up to verse 38, “Repent and be baptized.” One way to think about baptism is that it is a metonymy for repentance and faith. A metonymy— it’s more than this, but it is this: A metonymy is a figure of speech referring to something using one of its qualities or features.
For example, when they announced “the White House announced today,” you’re not imagining a house talking. You’re thinking President or his administration. When they say “Wall Street recovered from its losses,” you’re not thinking of a street, you’re thinking of the financial market. Or when you say, “What dish did you serve to your family?” You’re not just thinking of giving your family a plate. That dish represents a meal.
In a sense, baptism is like that in the Bible. Whenever someone repents and believes, they’re baptized. Look at verse 41.
“So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls” (Acts 2:41).
Baptism itself doesn’t save. You can get wet and not go to heaven. You’ll see in the next chapter, Peter preaching in the temple (3:19). He calls people to, “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19). Notice he doesn’t mention baptism. But as they repent and believe and experience the forgiveness of their sins and the filling of the Spirit, they will be baptized.
Lord willing, in two weeks, about 39 of us from our church will be going to the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem and the Pool of Siloam in Jerusalem. These were two big pools that would have most likely been packed with Christians on the Day of Pentecost, about 3,000. “Where can we find water? So that we can go public with what Jesus has done in our hearts.” The water doesn’t save, but it displays, it makes visible, it declares to everyone this miraculous change in our lives.
Each time we have a baptism, we teach: baptism pictures three realities.
1. You’re no longer guilty. You’ve been washed clean.
The water communicates the washing through the blood of Jesus.
2. You are no longer dead in sin. You’ve been made alive in Jesus.
As people go down in death and up in resurrection, they’re picturing, making visible, this death to life.
3. You are no longer identified with the world’s system (this crooked generation, this deviation). You are now a member of God’s family.
This morning, we have the privilege of rejoicing with 33 brothers and sisters who are making their faith visible.
