Sermon Tone Analysis

Preaching Christ (3): Knowing for Certain

(Acts 2:22-36)

June 20, 2021

Read Acts 2:22-36 – So, in the first sermon on the new church age, what does Peter do? Preach 4 ways to get better grades; 10 keys to happiness; how to succeed in business?

Not at all.

What did he do?

He preached Christ.

E. V. Hill used to tell of an elderly woman in his congregation who was called 1800 – bc no one knew how old she was.

She was hard on visiting pastors – used to sit on the front row and would soon holler, “Get Him up!” -- meaning Christ.

Shortly, if it wasn’t happening, she’d call out, “Get Him up!”

If the preacher didn’t get Him up, he was in for a long, hard day! – as he should be.

Peter got Him up – quickly and persistently.

Look how he begins and ends the body of his sermon.

V. 22: “Jesus of Nazareth” – starting with His well-known earthly name.

But v. 36 ends the body: “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

He got Him up, didn’t He?

All the way up.

Peter exalted JC.

He was like no one else in His life and mission.

Savior of mankind!

But how did they know He was all of that?

Jesus of Nazareth?! Were they just to take Peter’s word for it?

How did they to know it was true?

How do we to know it’s true?

And Peter answers, “Were you listening?

I’ve given you the facts, so you may “know for certain” that Jesus is the One.”

How do we know – for certain?

Five unmistakable, undeniable signs.

The Sign of His Life

Jesus’ first 30 years were pretty normal, but the last 3 were off the charts.

Everyone knew it.

His teaching astounded; his miracles amazed.

The things He said and did were beyond human explanation.

God attested Him “with mighty works and wonders and signs” (22b).

Supernatural power, on display!

Jesus showed His power over disease, over demons, over nature and even over death.

Every miracle greater than the one before.

Every miracle fresh in the minds of Peter’s audience.

Every miracle demonstrating the “goodness of the word of the God and the powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:5).

Every miracle attesting – this man is more than man.

God is at work here.

Those mighty works were also signs – signs that Jesus’ power extended beyond the physical.

He used the feeding of the 5,000 to teach that He is the bread of eternal life.

He healed the paralytic to demonstrate that He forgives sin.

He raised Laz as a sign of His ability to give eternal life.

The signs were unmistakable.

The crowds marveled saying, “Never was anything like this seen in Israel” (Mt 9:33), and “God has visited his people!” (Lu 7:16).

They were continually amazed at Jesus’ teaching.

In Jn 7:46 temple officers said, “No one ever spoke like this man!”

They couldn’t deny it.

They knew!

So, why crucify Him? How’d they explain away His divine power?

Mt 12 tells us.

After healing a blind and mute man: 23) “all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” 24) But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” 25) Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand.

26) And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself.

How then will his kingdom stand?”

They claimed He was empowered by the devil, to which Jesus asked, “Why would Satan work against himself?”

Jesus knows the issue: John 15: 24) “If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both me and my Father.’”

They rejected not bc the works were not convincing; they were absolutely convincing.

They rejected bc they didn’t want to believe.

The rejected bc they were sinners and Jn 3:19: “this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.”

These religionists loved their selfish ways more than they loved Jesus.

They knew if Jesus was God, they’d have to answer to Him.

They want no part of that.

So, they deny the evidence right in front of their face.

So it was, and so it has always been!

But Peter gives them a startling dose of reality.

V. 23: “you crucified him.”

V. 24: “God raised him up.”

Despite the signs, they got Jesus wrong, like all who call Him a mere man.

Friedrich Nietzsche declared, “If you could prove God to me, I would believe in Him all the less.”

That is precisely what the rejecters in Jesus’ day did; exactly what the rejecters in our day do; exactly what all rejecters of Jesus do.

It’s not a lack of evidence; it’s hardness of heart that sends men to hell.

The signs were there; the signs were rejected.

II.

The Sign of His Resurrection

Peter continues.

“About this Jesus you killed; God raised Him.

That tells you all you need to know.

You know there’s an empty tomb just outside.

You know the Romans didn’t empty it or they’d produce the body.

You know you didn’t empty it.

And you know the Romans would have killed us.

So why’s it empty?

God raised Him, that’s why.

There’s your sign!”

The sentence passed on Jesus by an earthly court was overturned at the High Court.

“God raised him, loosing the pangs of death, bc it was impossible for him to be held by it.”

“Pangs” (ὠδίν) = birth pains.

The Father released Him from the birth pains of death.

It was no more possible for death to hold Him than for a pregnant woman to hold in her child at birth!

Powerful pix.

Death and God are completely incompatible – exact opposites.

As God-man, it was impossible for death to hold Jesus.

In one sense, the miracle is that He could ever die at all.

But somehow, in His human nature, death was possible under the crush of all humanity’s sin.

That tells us something of the awfulness of sin.

But with the infinite price paid, death had no possibility of holding Him.

His resurrection was an utterly convincing sign!

But human nature is so blind to spiritual truth that even the most convincing evidence is not enough without the HS.