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Speaker 1: Life Audio. Thank you for listening to your Daily Bible Verse,

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Speaker 1: the podcast that examines one verse each day to learn

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Speaker 1: more about God and his will for our lives. I'm

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Speaker 1: your host, Kyle Norman. After a brief message from one

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Speaker 1: of our sponsors, we will continue our Lenten series God

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Speaker 1: Meets Us in the Wilderness with a discussion of today's verse.

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Speaker 1: Today's verse can be found in Acts, Chapter two, Verse

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Speaker 1: twenty three. This man was handed over to you by

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Speaker 1: God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you, with the help

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Speaker 1: of wicked people, put him to death by nailing him

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Speaker 1: to the cross. In my tradition, the church has this

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Speaker 1: practice of reading the account of the betrayal, trial and

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Speaker 1: crucifixion of Jesus altogether the week before Easter. We have

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Speaker 1: people who take various parts, and the congregation takes up

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Speaker 1: the role of the crowd, and at one point the

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Speaker 1: congregation is invited to read out loud, crucify him, Crucify him,

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Speaker 1: Crucify him, and they are encouraged to do this as

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Speaker 1: boldly as they can. Now. Inevitably, somebody comes to me

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Speaker 1: and says that they just can't bring themselves to say

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Speaker 1: these words. They would never cry for jesus crucifixion. They say.

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Speaker 1: Today's passage it's taken from Peter's sermon on Pentecost. The

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Speaker 1: disciples they've just been filled with the Holy Spirit, and

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Speaker 1: we read that they begin declaring the wonders of God

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Speaker 1: in various languages, and people become amazed and perplexed. Now

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Speaker 1: standing up to explain what's going on, Peter begins by

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Speaker 1: talking about how the cross touches the lives of those

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Speaker 1: who before him. He says, this man, Jesus, was handed

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Speaker 1: over to you by God's deliberate plan and foreknowledge, and you,

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Speaker 1: with the help of wicked people, you put him to

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Speaker 1: death by nailing him to the cross. Peter talks about

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Speaker 1: how the cross touches their lives. Now there's a nuance

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Speaker 1: in this verse that is so easy to miss, and

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Speaker 1: Peter says that Jesus was quote handed over. He uses

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Speaker 1: a rare term meaning delivered up or surrendered to. It's

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Speaker 1: the only time in scripture that this word is used.

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Speaker 1: And the point of this word is twofold. Firstly, the

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Speaker 1: word reinforces the fact that the cross was never some

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Speaker 1: divine accident. Jesus was handed over to the cross, not

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Speaker 1: simply by the will of ponscious Pilot or the activity

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Speaker 1: of the Pharisees. The cross was God's will from the

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Speaker 1: very start, from the beginning of time, the second person

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Speaker 1: of the Trinity was always the one who would go

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Speaker 1: to the cross. We see this all the way back

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Speaker 1: in Genesis, where God declares to the serpent that the

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Speaker 1: righteous offspring of Eve would crush the serpent's head, but

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Speaker 1: only after being stricken. The cross transforms despair into hope

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Speaker 1: because rather than being this place where darkness and death

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Speaker 1: reign supreme, it's a place where God's plan is fully revealed.

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Speaker 1: God the Father hands the Son over to be crucified,

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Speaker 1: so that the Father can display the depth of love

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Speaker 1: to all, so that God can fully and finally defeat

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Speaker 1: the power of sin and death. To fully embrace this truth,

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Speaker 1: to fully allow this news to wash over us, we

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Speaker 1: need to find ourselves in this scene. We need to

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Speaker 1: see ourselves at the cross, not as the one hanging

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Speaker 1: on the cross, but as somebody who drove Jesus there.

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Speaker 1: And so the word handed over it also carries a

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Speaker 1: second connotation to it. It speaks about human action. Jesus

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Speaker 1: was handed over to sinful humanity, Peter says that Jesus

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Speaker 1: was handed over to you by God's deliberate plan and

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Speaker 1: for knowledge, and you, with the help of wicked people,

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Speaker 1: put him to death by nailing him to the cross.

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Speaker 1: There's a sense of personal culpability here. Peter says that

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Speaker 1: Jesus went to the cross because of you. Now this

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Speaker 1: sounds accusatory, doesn't it. It sounds uncomfortable. It sounds as

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Speaker 1: if Peter is condemning the people in front of him,

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Speaker 1: and so it's tempting to push this reality away from us,

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Speaker 1: to think that Peter's only talking to the Jewish people

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Speaker 1: who stood before him, that his words don't actually address us.

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Speaker 1: After all, we weren't there. We weren't alive at that point.

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Speaker 1: Had we been there, we would never have called for

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Speaker 1: Christ's crucifixion. But if we don't see ourselves at the cross,

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Speaker 1: then we can't see ourselves in the resurrection. If we

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Speaker 1: don't see ourselves at the cross, then how can we

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Speaker 1: see our sins as being crucified by God's living plan.

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Speaker 1: Two Corinthians, chapter five says that God made him who

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Speaker 1: knew no sin to be sin, so that we might

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Speaker 1: become the righteousness of God. We can only receive the

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Speaker 1: majestic grace of the resurrection and the love, hope, and

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Speaker 1: new life that it brings into our lives if we

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Speaker 1: recognize that it was our sin and our condemning voice

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Speaker 1: that led Jesus to the cross. But again, that's not

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Speaker 1: to make us feel condemned. This is so that we

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Speaker 1: can understand that God's love and God's resurrection is for us.

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Speaker 1: It's held out to you and me. Peter talks about

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Speaker 1: the resurrection and how in Jesus there is the path

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Speaker 1: of life and with him there is full joy in

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Speaker 1: his presence. Peter says that because Jesus is alive, we

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Speaker 1: can receive new life in the Holy Spirit. And the

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Speaker 1: people before him, they are so captivated that they respond,

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Speaker 1: what shall we do? So, as you move towards Easter,

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Speaker 1: don't speed ahead, don't rush ahead, Stay at the cross

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Speaker 1: for just a little bit, reflect on what the cross

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Speaker 1: says about your need for redemption, and then receive what

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Speaker 1: it says about your salvation.