Our epistle reading is from 2 Thessalonians 1. We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore, we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God for which you are also suffering. since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well to us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord, from the glory of His might, when He comes on that day to be glorified in His saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed. To this end, we always pray for you. that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Our gospel reading from Luke chapter 17. On the way to Jerusalem, Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered a village, he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices, saying, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus answered, were not 10 cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, rise and go your way. Your faith has saved you. Being asked by the Pharisees, When the kingdom of God would come, he answered them. The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, look, here it is, or there, behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. And he said to the disciples, the days are coming when you will desire to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. And they will say to you, look, there, or look, here. Do not go out or follow them. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first, he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. Just as it was in the days of Noah, so will it be in the days of the Son of Man. They were eating and drinking and marrying and being given in marriage until the day when Noah entered the ark and the flood came and destroyed them all. Likewise, just as it was in the days of Lot, they were eating and drinking, buying and selling, planting and building. But on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained down from heaven and destroyed them all. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed. On that day, let the one who is on the housetop with his goods in the house not come down to take them away. And likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife. Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it. I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left. And they said to him, Where, Lord? He said to them, Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. The gospel of our Lord. Let us pray. Guide us, O God, by your word and spirit, so that in your light we may see light, in your truth find wisdom, and in your will discover peace. Add your blessing to the reading and the hearing and the preaching of your word, and grant us all the grace to trust and obey you, and all the church said. Amen. Now kids, our lesson for this morning is very simple. Trust Jesus. Trust people who are trustworthy, and become trustworthy yourself. I know that's about as simple as you can get, but that doesn't mean it's going to be easy. At your age, you all do a great job trusting Jesus, and as you grow up, you're going to learn to trust Jesus more and more. But when you grow up, There will be some people who will tell you that you never really trusted Jesus because you were, well, you were just too young. When they tell you that, be kind to them. Keep trusting Jesus and don't let them re-baptize you. They don't know what they're talking about. Might sound interesting to you to think that Some guy has a prophecy update or to hear you're living in the end times because we've never heard that before. It might get you excited to think that Jesus is going to be coming back at any moment to secretly disappear you into heaven while the world suffers under big bad antichrist. And you might be tempted to believe someone who claims to go through the Bible verse by verse. But remember, misquoting God verse by verse is literally the oldest trick in the book. Our story today will be one of those people's favorite stories to quote and try to convince you of that false teaching. So pay very careful attention as we go through the story so that you won't get tricked like some of us grownups got tricked when we were younger. If we aren't careful readers of this text, it is understandable why some people get confused, particularly if they have the New King James Version, who sets us up to fail by inserting a heading that's not even in the Bible, saying Jesus is talking about the second coming in Luke 17, 20 through 27. But if we pay close attention who Jesus is talking to, when he's talking, and what happened during that generation, it really does become quite simple to understand what was going on. Remember, at this point in Luke's gospel, Jesus is in the last few weeks of his earthly ministry. Having been baptized a few years ago, Jesus spent the first few months of his ministry arguing verse by verse with Satan, gathering followers, and turning water into wine at a wedding. Right away, he picked a fight with the religious leaders by going up to Jerusalem. cleansing the temple and saying he was going to destroy it because they had turned his father's house, which was supposed to be a house of healing and prayer for the nations, into a den of robbers. In his first sermon in Luke, Jesus stood up in a synagogue and declared that the spirit of the Lord had come upon him. He had come to preach good news to the poor, to set prisoners free, to grant sight to the blind and to set at liberty those who had been oppressed by harsh taskmasters. Now at first, that good news was received with great joy. That is, until Jesus told everyone he'd come to save the Gentiles, at which point the Jews tried to throw him off a cliff. Yeah, that's right, oh. Escaping their grasp, this Self-professed king of Jubilee began to do the very things he said he had come to do. He healed people from their diseases, he granted sight to the blind, he granted the crippled the ability to leap for joy, and he even set people free from the most brutal enemies of Satan, sin, and even death. He preached and taught God's word in amazing ways, offered to receive any and everyone into his kingdom, even tax collectors, sinful women, and politically useless infants. He told his followers the father's love had always been for them. And he had come to seek and find and even give up his own life to save them. And yet while the masses are being converted and increasingly embracing this messiah, this savior and king, those same wicked leaders that Jesus rebuked early on in his ministry continued to grow hostile towards him. As the priests and Pharisees joined forces to conspire against him, Jesus continued to establish his new kingdom. He set his face toward Jerusalem and added, 70 prophet elders to help the 12 continue to spread the gospel of the kingdom At this point in Jesus's ministry or at least Jesus's message things start to get heavy If you've been paying attention over the last several weeks our messages have tried to reflect that There had always been conflict, but as Jesus approaches Jerusalem for the last time, he really focuses his crosshairs on the target. Apostate, wicked Jerusalem, and her apostate, wicked rulers. Having gathered a massive following, the scenes are constantly filled with an audience. Sometimes Jesus speaks to the crowds. Other times, on the way, he lowers his voice and speaks to his disciples. And yet, other times, he looks dead at the Pharisees who are following along and says, yeah, when I'm talking about all this judgment of the wicked stuff, I'm talking to you. This generation is a bunch of crooks. You guys are like Nineveh. I'm Jonah. What are you gonna do about it? You think you're big, you think you're bad and chosen by God, you're busy feasting at your fancy banquets and drinking your fancy wine while my people are suffering. You're supposed to use your authority to take care of these people, but you're using your power to justify robbing them blind. You impose extra biblical fines on sin. You refuse to heal people on God's day. And you all look around at each other and pat each other on the back because you think you're the chosen ones. You guys are just like your wicked forefathers who killed the prophets of old. And I'm here to tell you that I'm gonna require payment for their blood from this generation. He says he's come to bring fire down on the land and divide and families, and so they better listen up and repent, lest they perish along with them. Now give us all that background again, because it's on the heels of all of this conflict that helps us make a simple passage that could be difficult if you only dealt with it one verse at a time. At this point, Jesus is on his final journey to Jerusalem, where he has said he's going to suffer many things and be rejected by this generation. He heals 10 leprous men, who I think may be spies, of which only one, a Samaritan, sees what Jesus has done, praises God, and worships the king. Then in a scene Dripping with irony, the Pharisees have the gall to ask Jesus, when is the kingdom coming? Really? After three years, and after what's just happened, these guys want to ask that question. After all the exorcisms, all the healings, and even all the resurrections, these guys want to know, when's the king coming? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine that you can do all these things. It's great that you can raise widows' sons and heal leopards, but Jesus, not leopards. He could heal leopards, but we just don't know if he did or not. If you say you're the long-awaited king, well, when are you gonna usher in the kingdom? They refused to believe that Jesus was greater than Solomon and even better for the people than the wicked Herod. And so Jesus explains yet again that the kingdom of God was coming in ways that could not be observed, at least not by guys like them. This word being used here for their observations, It's only used a few other times in the New Testament, and it's used about these guys. In Luke 6, the scribes and Pharisees were observing or watching Jesus closely to see if he was going to heal on the Sabbath so that they could accuse him of lawbreaking. Back then, Jesus asked, well, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or harm? And in an in-your-face moment, he heals a man with a withered hand, and we are told that the Pharisees who were watching were filled with fury. In Luke 14, on another Sabbath day, Jesus went to eat at a Pharisee's house, and we are told that, again, they were observing or watching Jesus carefully when he asked them again, is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath or not? But they remained silent. So again, Jesus takes a man with dropsy, heals him, and rebukes the Pharisees. And we are told they had no answer for these things. In a few weeks after Jesus tells a parable of the wicked tenant who killed the master's son but would be soon crushed by the cornerstone, these same men are said to be watching Jesus. And they send spies who pretend to be righteous so they might catch him in some statement so that they could deliver him over to the governor. So you see, they're watching. They're observing. They're looking at Jesus so closely, looking for reasons not to believe, but to continue in disbelief. And so Jesus says they can't see the kingdom because they don't want to see the king. Again, the New King James confuses us by translating Jesus' statement to the Pharisees in verse 21, the kingdom of God is within you. Ripping this verse out of context has led people to teach and believe that Jesus' kingdom is invisible and merely in the hearts of believers. But that's not what's going on when we read the text. Jesus isn't talking to individual believers about accepting the king into their hearts, he's talking to the Pharisees about their inability to see what's right in front of them. The ESV gets it a bit better by saying, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you, but that's still not quite as helpful as it could be. It's better to read or hear Jesus saying, the kingdom is in y'all's midst right now. Present, active, indicative for you Greek lovers. The kingdom is in y'all's midst because I, the king, am here right now. I've been walking among all of you. I'm ushering in the kingdom. I've been ushering in the kingdom and you refuse to see it. Blinded by their pride, Jesus is saying the Pharisees couldn't see what was right in front of their eyes. The King of Jubilee was already there and the kingdom had already begun breaking through. After he finishes this rebuke, Jesus then turns to his disciples in verse 22, and he begins to tell them, probably loud enough for others to hear, what they should be looking for when they're beginning to have their own doubts about the king and his kingdom. He tells them that there will be days ahead when his disciples will desire to see the Son of Man, but they won't see it. Not because they're like the Pharisees and don't believe, but because things are about to get worse before they get better, and it's going to cause them to doubt. They have eyes to see. They trust Jesus is the King, and they believe he has come to usher in the Jubilee Kingdom. But a day was coming when they would long for one of the days of the Son of Man. Now it's a bit of a veiled reference probably for most of us, but here Jesus is alluding to the prophecy from our Old Testament lesson in Daniel 7 where the one like a son of man would defeat the enemies of God's people and ascend to the ancient of days and be given dominion and glory and a kingdom so that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him, an everlasting dominion which would never be taken away. And everyone in Jesus' day knew that the time Daniel had prophesied about had come. And Jesus had taken upon himself over and over again that title, the Son of Man. And so while the Pharisees rejected Jesus as King or Son of Man, because they wanted their kingdom in their way, Even the people who trusted that Jesus was the Son of Man expected him to defeat their enemies and to ascend to his throne and reign over the nations. And so it's in knowing their expectations that Jesus comforts his disciples. Look, things are about to get hard. And you're going to wonder where I am and whether or not I'm going to ascend to my throne like the king you know me to be, but don't worry. There are just some things that must take place first. There are enemies I must conquer and a city I must destroy, and it's probably not the one you expect. You see, he's not talking about the end of the world as we know it, so just feel fine. Like a good, trustworthy king, Jesus is preparing his subjects for the days ahead, for the days when these men are going to have to walk by faith and not by sight, for Jesus will not be with them. After he goes away, there were going to be false Christs and false messiahs, and there were no profile pictures or photo IDs or social security numbers to run background checks and confirm identities back then. And so Jesus is telling these faithful men back then not to be fooled by anyone saying that Jesus would secretly return. He was going to return, and when he did, it wouldn't be a secret. Picking up in verse 24, he tells his disciples that his coming will be as bright and clear and obvious as lightning that flashes and lights up the sky from one side to another. A glorious display of power which you poor lightning-deprived Oregonians can only imagine. Jesus says that day is coming and they will see it. But first, the son of man had to suffer and be rejected by that generation. And then, like he often did, Jesus compared that generation to the generation of Noah and Lot. Not compliments, by the way. Just like the thoughts of godless men were all evil all the time back then, so too were the thoughts of these men who were rejecting the Son of God evil in theirs. Just like the men back then rejected God's messengers, so too would this generation reject Jesus. They would subject him to a mock trial, and they'd think they'd finally gotten rid of him once and for all when he was crucified, dead, and buried, no longer walking among them. They'd then go on about their merry lives, eating and drinking, being given in marriage. They'd continue buying and selling and planting and building, and then, like in the generation of Noah and Lot, that generation would be destroyed. The flood of judgment would be poured out from heaven and fire and sulfur would rain down upon their city and destroy them all. On that great day of judgment, the Son of Man would be revealed for any and everyone who had the eyes to see. he would destroy his enemies and then he would ascend victoriously with a host of captives riding his train. So with that in mind, it's much easier to see that verses 31 through 33 are not about what Christians should do just before some secret rapture. They are literal instructions. We are the literalists. their instructions about what first century believers should do when they see the things taking place that Jesus said would take place. We have to remember that back then when armies came marching on a town, the villagers who lived outside the city would hightail it back through the city gates and take refuge behind the walls. And Jesus is saying that on that day of judgment, which is coming upon this generation, when people see armies marching on their city, people would be tempted to save their lives by running and taking refuge behind the city walls. But Jesus tells them, don't do that. Not this time. The one who ignores Jesus's prophecy and seeks to save their life by retreating into Jerusalem would lose their life. But the one who trusts Jesus and runs outside the city where it normally isn't safe, well, those people would save their lives. This isn't just some metaphor about being willing to die for Jesus if you really want to live. As true as that might be, Jesus is literally giving these people a survival guide for when things go down. So again, with this context in mind, we can see that the descriptions Jesus gives next are not about some secret event where a couple will be in bed and one spouse will disappear and two ladies will be at Fred Meyer and one of their carts will be unmanned. Jesus is giving a grim prophecy for that generation. And he says that on that day of the Lord, there would be a man and woman in bed, and one of them would be taken. Again, not disappeared into heaven, but slaughtered in judgment. There would be two women working in the fields, and one of them would be killed on that day, which was coming upon that generation. The death tolls would be so high, Everyone would know someone who was taken down. If you listen to the false prophets of our day, Jesus was talking about some futuristic event, but notice what Jesus doesn't say about that day. When his disciples ask, where? Jesus doesn't say, well, to heaven, sillies. In 2,000 years, I'm gonna make them all disappear so they don't have to go through the Great Tribulation. When the disciples ask, not when these things will happen, because they know this is the 10th time Jesus has told them that things would happen to their generation, they don't ask when, they ask where, Lord? Where will the son of man bring this judgment and bloodshed? Which city is he going to destroy now, like in the days of Lot? Jesus says, these things will happen where the corpse is. There is where the vultures will gather. Now the word for vultures and eagles is the same word, and the new King James redeems itself by translating it that. So Jesus could be telling his disciples that these things will happen where there are so many corpses that vultures will swarm. Or he might be telling them to be on the lookout for the flags of the Roman armies whose standard bore the image of an eagle when they surrounded Jerusalem. But the same point remains either way. Those guys that Jesus was talking to in that generation would see those things. And in the destruction of Jerusalem, 40 years, a generation after Jesus spoke these exact words, They did. Beloved, Jesus is trustworthy. When he told his disciples that the day of divine judgment was coming upon that generation, the day when the Son of Man would destroy their enemies and ascend to heaven, he wasn't misleading them. And he sure wasn't speaking to some general disciple or vague generation of Americans living in the 20th century. The day of the Lord Jesus was telling his disciples about was not an irrelevant day in 1948, 1988, 2012, or 2024. Matthew recorded Jesus's prophecy about the day of the Lord and the destruction of Jerusalem in the 30s. Mark, again, records them in the 40s. And now Luke, again, in the 50s. Because Jesus's followers needed to be ready for the judgment that Jesus spoke about, because it was going to fall upon their generation for crucifying the Lord's Messiah and ravaging his bride. Now, if you've been around our church for any amount of time at all, you might wonder why on earth we keep talking about these events as being fulfilled in history. I don't know, why did Jesus talk about the exodus and Noah's day and Lot's day? We refer to Jesus keeping his word in that generation because the honor and trustworthy of our Lord is on the line. He is trustworthy. If we keep putting false prophecies in His mouth, we not only risk losing our credibility, but best case scenario, we're making Jesus and His disciples out to either be confusing or wrong. People who don't think eschatology or the discussion of end times is important haven't taken seriously the apostasy and subsequent eternal damnation of those apostates who reject Christ because they've been told their whole life Jesus is coming soon and finally realize he isn't. Bad, well-intentioned ideas still have consequences. And so as long as there are Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and Adventists and brethren and dispensational churches working people into a frenzy by misquoting Jesus, discrediting our Lord and his word, telling people, look, there he is, or look, pay attention, he's gonna be here soon, we must continue to help people see these guys are not trustworthy, but Jesus is. And all God's preterists said, amen. But I'm not letting us off the hook that easy. Lest we pretend that those crazies out there are the only untrustworthy apocalypticists unsettling God's people. We should pay careful attention to the version of crazy that we're tempted to listen to. I'm really thankful to have spent some time with Lauren and Ruth at Presbyteria a couple weeks ago before I made a fool of myself on the internet. All this time, I've been coming across crazy social media posts from CREC-adjacent guys. You know, the red Shire pill kind, because apparently that's a thing. And I've been totally misunderstanding the language. Someone would share some racist, head-covering, all-natural trad dad post from some internet guru with one word, based. I would read the word based. Not quite sure what it meant. Guess I'm getting old. And then I'd read the post, and I'd think to myself, yeah, that is pretty dumb. I guess that is based. I just carry along on my merry way. Over time, I guess I saw so many based posts that I thought were ridiculous that I began to put based, stupid, foolish, and untrustworthy together in my synonym bucket. And so imagine my surprise when Lauren and Ruth told me that when people were sharing these posts with the word based, it was supposed to be a compliment. Now look, I'm not saying men shouldn't eat red meat. I'm not saying they should not lead their families. If we've eaten any meals together, you know how I feel about meat. I like working out. If I had time, I would shoot animals, skin them, cut the heart out, and make Keller take a bite with me. I just don't know why we have to put all that on the internet like it's some Christian flex or something. And I don't know why people who are coming into our circles who have already been burned by the youthful, independent foolishness of evangelicalism are so prone to latching onto the socials of guys who aren't even pastors and have been whatever they think confessional means for like two weeks. Beloved, watch out for those guys. Their verbiage may be different from the dispensational apocalypticists, but their pathos, their emotional rhetoric and the frenzy it causes has not changed one bit. Sure, they use better words and in theory have a better eschatology, but if they're working you into a frenzy so that they can sell Christian coffee grounds and holier-than-thou beef jerky, Don't take them seriously. You're not living in the end times, and you don't have to get all worked up by people who tell you you aren't, but are acting like you are. Donald Trump will not save America, who has rejected God's law, and Kamala Harris will not be able to save the world from Christian nationalists. America, or whatever it will be called then, will be saved, and so will the whole world. But we have a long way to go. Jesus was killed in that generation. He rose again in that generation. He has been reigning since that generation. He is reigning in this generation. And he will come again in a generation likely far, far away from now. Isn't that like a Star Wars thing that I almost just did? I don't think I've even, is that Star Wars? What is it? Galaxy far, see? Gosh. Between now and then we're gonna have many ups and downs, but you don't have to worry. You don't have to be on the lookout for Jesus coming in the clouds and you don't have to let the internet guys get you worked up. Jesus is trustworthy. He kept his promises to that generation and he keeps his promises to a thousand generations of those who fear him and keep his commandments. So the takeaway is simple. Trust and keep trusting Jesus and what his word actually said and says. Trust people who are trustworthy. Learn to become trustworthy yourself by imitating them. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Give us your spirit so that we might understand these words and the fullness of your truth as you have revealed it to us in the person and work of Jesus, who with you and the Holy Spirit be all honor and glory now and forever. Amen. All of you notice the communion text in your worship guide is from 1 Peter chapter three, and that's actually supposed to be 2 Peter chapter three because Peter is undoubtedly drawing on Jesus's prophecy about the coming judgment in both chapters. But after over a year of using only Lucan and Pauline writings, I couldn't bring myself to switch to the Petrine Corpus. And so you'll have to read those at home and see how cool the consistency is between what Jesus says in the Gospels in 30 AD and what Peter writes in his letters to that same generation around 63 or 64. But this morning, in keeping, and like, I can relax now, because we're going to keep with the Luke and Paul theme in reading our communion homily from Acts chapter two, verses 36 through 42, so hear God's word. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent. and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus in the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are afar off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words, Peter bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added to that day about 3,000 souls, and they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. The words which we heard from Jesus in Luke 17 were likely spoken a few weeks at most before his crucifixion. After his death, burial, and resurrection, and in Acts chapter one, Luke tells us that Jesus appeared to his apostles on the same mountain that he declared many of the same kinds of things in the prophecy we heard today, the Mount of Olives. And there he told them, do not depart from Jerusalem. Wait, because you are going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. They then asked him, Lord, at this time will you restore the kingdom to Israel? To which Jesus responded, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons the Father has fixed. You will receive the Holy Spirit. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the promised land. And after he said those things, as they were looking on, Jesus was lifted up and taken out of their sight. 50 days later, because Jesus is trustworthy, well, that's what happened. The apostles were gathered together in an upper room and Suddenly there came from heaven a mighty rushing wind that filled the entire house and divided tongues of fire rested over each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak about Jesus in foreign languages previously unknown to them. Apparently, the wind was loud enough that, like in the days of Jesus, a multitude gathered and they were astonished because they were all hearing the apostles speak in their own language. Some were amazed and others mocked. And so Peter stands up and preaches the first sermon after Jesus' ascension, telling the crowds that the sign they were witnessing was evidence the last days were upon them. And in those days, the days of blessing and judgment, the day of the Lord was coming. He declared that Jesus had defeated death and was going to come back and make his enemies his footstool. And then he closed with the words, let the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus who you crucified. Now I'm sure most of us have been told we crucified Jesus because of our sins. But that's nonsense. Jesus did die for your sins, but you didn't crucify Jesus. You weren't alive yet, I don't think. They crucified Jesus. And so when they responded with, brothers, what shall we do? Well, they're not responding to an altar call where the apostles will tell them to accept Jesus in their heart so they can go to heaven. They know what Peter's saying. It was them, it was the Jews that had crucified Jesus, the Christ, the Lord of glory. And Peter is saying that he's going to come back and make his enemies his footstool. And so they're asking, well, what can we do to be saved from that? So Peter tells them, you know what you can do to be saved from the coming wrath of Jesus? Repent. Be baptized. every one of you into his name, into his kingdom, into his lordship, into the forgiveness of your sins, and then you will receive the confirmation of his blessing, his spirit. And to a people steeped in believing that they and their children must be covered by the blood of the lamb should they escape the destroyer, Peter goes on. This promise is for you and for your children, and for all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. And I don't know if you caught it, but Luke then tells us that with many other words, Peter bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourself from this crooked generation. So those who believed and received his word were baptized and were added that day about 3,000 souls, and then they went around like maniacs telling everyone the rapture was just around the corner. In some version of the Bible, but not ours. No. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, the fellowship of the saints, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. And ever since that generation, faithful Christians have not been freaking out about the impending return of Jesus. Read the epistles. Feel the tone of the apostles as you read them. Even the apostles who in almost every book talk about the impending judgment that will fall on their generation are calm, cool, and collected. Now, they do tell their churches that Jesus is coming soon, but even in that generation, their exhortation is not to obsess over that. Instead, they are supposed to calmly and faithfully devote themselves to the apostles' teaching, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. They're supposed to live normal, faithful lives, doing everything Jesus told them to do in whatever station Jesus had them. In short, they're simply supposed to be holy and godly. Beloved, that's our calling. This is the will of God for you, which is in Christ Jesus, your sanctification. Not frenetic apocalypticism, but simple, ordinary holiness according to the law of God. Eating bread, drinking wine, yes, wine. Worshiping God, singing psalms and fellowshipping with one another like we're doing today and are going to do every day. And so as we bring the true bread from heaven and as you take a piece of bread and you pass it to one another with the words, the peace of Christ be with you and respond with and also with you, let the peace of Christ be with you. Trust him for he is trustworthy. Don't be shaken by what you hear out there. Instead, be at peace with God and one another and invite others into this peace which we now stand for the glory of God and the life of the world. Amen? Amen. Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the same night that he was betrayed, took bread. Let us pray. We do not presume to come to your table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in your many and great mercies. We are not worthy so much as to be slaves who gather up crumbs under your table. but you are the same Lord whose character is to have mercy. Thank you, gracious Lord, that our sinful bodies are made clean by his body and our souls washed through his most precious blood so that we as his family may dwell in him and he in us. Amen. When he had given thanks, he broke it and said, take, eat, this is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. These are the gifts of God for the people of God.