Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, we must not forget that this sermon is a sermon that got Peter arrested. That outcome tells us something about how the temple elites received the news that their boundaries had been violated by the name of Jesus. We also looked last time at the offensiveness of Peter's proclamation that his audience had killed Jesus. But brothers and sisters, as Luke continues to guide us through this thorny question of Jewish-Christian relations, I want us to pay careful attention to his next point. Already we have seen the priority that Jerusalem and His own people have for our Lord Jesus Christ. It's clear from the very beginning of this book: "Stay in Jerusalem until the Spirit comes. Be my witnesses there." That was His parting command. And if we miss the appeal, the passionate desire in the heart of our Lord for His Jewish brethren (a term of address used by Peter in v. 17) to turn to Him, then we have missed more than half the New Testament message. The Old Testament is by far the larger portion of the Bible; the New Testament too is a thoroughly Jewish document, written in Greek though it may be. If you doubt me, just read a dialogue of Plato or a Life written by Plutarch. The spirit of the NT is not the spirit of Hellenism. Oh no. It is the spirit of Judaism as it was meant to be. And that is the message that Peter preaches in the second half of this sermon that got him arrested. The message is that Jesus is the Messiah for the Jews and that the gospel's number one priority is to convert our Lord's Jewish brothers and sisters. "God sent His Servant to bless you first," Peter announces.
