On the day of Pentecost, the disciples spilled into the streets proclaiming Jesus in miraculous languages. To the confused crowds, Peter preached the first Christian sermon, quoting from the Prophet Joel:

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

1. EVERYONE - the Gospel is for every kind of person. All categories are included. Sons and daughters, old and young, male and female servants of God are all able to be saved. It’s sometimes hard to picture a particularly sinful person becoming a Christian, but no one is too lost for God's reach.

2. CALLS - conversion is essential to being saved. Christians are made, not born. When his hearers were “cut to the heart” (v. 40), Peter tells them to repent and be baptized. This is how a person converts. We must repent and believe in Jesus and join the church through baptism. Calling is more than a one time thing. We must constantly be calling on the Lord.

3. NAME - Peter uses “the Lord” in reference to Jesus. “God made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (v. 36). There is one name under heaven by which we must be saved: Jesus. God’s plan for redemption was to use the evil of crucifixion to defeat the death of sin.

4. SAVED - Christians are saved from eternal death, this crooked generation (v. 40), and the judgment of having crucified Jesus. What was meant for evil, God intended for good. Salvation is not only a point-in-time, it is a process. That’s why Christianity is called the way (see Matthew 7:13-14). 

Taking It Home: The first converts “devoted themselves” to certain habits (see Acts 2:42). Call on the Lord and become intentional about walking in his way.