Sermon Tone Analysis

Preaching Christ (4): Amazing Grace

(Acts 2:36-41)

June 27, 2021

Read Acts 2:36-41 – In his model sermon for the new age, Peter has brought his audience to a moment of decision.

Hundreds who called for Jesus’ death 7 weeks earlier now see the blood on their hands.

But the death they imposed has become for them the basis of eternal life – showing no sin is ever too big to be covered by the blood of JC.

What a turnaround.

What amazing grace!

Matt Chandler says in May of his year of decision, he was an aggressive agnostic.

In June he was converted and began to share the gospel.

How’d that happen?

He said, “You start a fire with small pieces of kindling.

Once that’s caught, you put on bigger sticks, then even bigger ones.”

He says, “In early conversations with my friends Jeff and Jerry, God was laying kindling around my heart, and then, three days before my 18th birthday, he lit it up.

It took me a while to catch on fire, but when I did, that’s when I was all in.”

Are you all in?

Is the fire lit?

Are you still questioning?

Wherever you are this morning, Jesus is here ready to light the fire the moment you say, “Yes.”

But how does it happen?

Here we see the threefold response of Peter’s audience – a response prompted by the HS – the same HS who is patrolling our sanctuary this morning seeking hearts ready to be lit up.

Here’s how!

I. Recognize the Problem

The heart of Peter’s sermon makes the case for Jesus of Nazareth being clearly God’s Messiah -- Jehovah in human flesh.

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

That summary sparked the intended response: 37 “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?” Their desperation is palpable: “You mean we killed God in the person of Jesus?

And the Father has raised him?

What can we do?

Is there any escape?”

They are horrified.

They see now God’s Final Answer trumped their verdict about Jesus, and they are desperate.

They realize they are in deep, deep trouble.

They were “cut to the heart” (κατανύσσομαι) = “stabbed or pierced.”

They’d called for Jesus to be pierced, but now they’re pierced – stabbed in the heart to think what they’ve done.

BUT, that’s step one in coming to faith in Christ.

Until you know your guilt, you’ll never seek absolution, right?

And until you see it’s way bigger than you can handle, you’ll never seek help.

They saw they were spiritually in way over their head.

Then, they asked the right question.

“What shall we do?” “What must we do to be saved?”

Their regret ran deep.

Their long-anticipated Messiah had come, and rather than welcome Him, despite the evidence of a sinlessly powerful life, they rejected and killed Him.

He didn’t fit their idea.

They saw the guilt for His death was theirs!

And, they realized if He was now alive, sooner or later they were among the enemies He would make His footstool as Peter had quoted from Psa 110:1.

And there was no “do-over.”

If only they could turn back the clock and live those moments over.

But you can’t unkill someone!

It’s like waking out of a trance to discover you’ve shot your best friend – the doc who had the cure to your incurable disease.

Theirs was a devastating awakening.

So the first step in receiving Christ is not to start a self-help program, to live a little better, to apply for admission to some group, to go thru some ritual.

No, no!

The first step is to admit once and for all the depth of our sin from God’s perspective – to realize we have blood on our hands, too – to realize that God would never have put His Son thru this if we could somehow make it on our own – to acknowledge our spiritual lostness.

How could we ever reach the Father on our own when it is our own sin that has helped crucify His Son?

There is no hope until we humbly acknowledge there is no hope on our own.

This is hard in a culture that denies the sinfulness of sin.

MTV did a special news report in the early 90’s: “The Seven Deadly Sins.”

It included interviews with celebrities and ordinary teens talking about the 7 deadly sins – lust, pride, anger, envy, sloth, greed and gluttony.

The comments were revealing.

Rap star Ice-T angrily insisted, “Lust isn’t a sin.

These are just dumb.”

Another young man responded, “Sloth?

Hey, sometimes it’s good to sit back and give yourself personal time.”

And a teen raised on self-image as the greatest good said: “Pride isn’t a sin – you’re supposed to feel good about yourself.”

Actor Kirstie Alley agreed: “I don’t think pride is a sin, and I think some idiot made that up.”

Well, actually the culprit is God (!) -- who didn’t just make them up, but revealed them to mankind as the essence of His character.

The program concluded, “The seven deadly sins are not evil acts, but rather universal human compulsion.”

No surprise there.

God said in Rom 3:10: “None is righteous, no, not one.”

Universal human compulsion, yes.

Sin!

But until we respond to the HS’s conviction that those universal human compulsions are why Jesus died, there is no hope.

Peter didn’t condemn these people out of hatred or anger; he wanted their deliverance, but first, they had to see the need.

We must see the depth of our depravity – not to bury us in an ocean of guilt and despair, but to prompt the question, “What shall I do?” “What must I do to be saved?”

Thankfully, Peter has an answer.

II.

Receive the Pardon

There’s compassion in Peter’ answer.

He does not further rebuke them, nor condemn them for rejecting Jesus.

He answers them simply and clearly: “Repent, and believe in Jesus” for that is what being baptized in His name means.

This would have been incredibly reassuring to them.

They had no right to expect anything other than judgment.

Instead they hear, “Repent and believe.”

It is amazing grace, isn’t it?

It is not, “Do penance.”

It is not, “Be good the rest of your life and maybe you can find forgiveness.”

Nothing like that.

Simply, “Repent and be baptized in his name – that is believe in Him, and your worst crime can be wiped out.

Your sins can be forgiven.”

Now, how could God forgive such a sin?

Could He simply overlook it as tho it never happened?

No, He could never do that.

That would have violated the holiness and justice that is His essence.

So why could Peter offer forgiveness?

He could do it bc the debt they owed for all their sins, including crucifying Christ, had been paid for by Christ.

Jesus Himself said, “For the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45).

Bc of that death, God could both “just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus” (Rom 3:26b).

There is both the objective side of salvation – debt paid for, and the subjective – accepted by faith.

Based on Jesus death, God offers the gift of eternal life – wrapped and complete, just waiting to be received.

But like any gift, it has to be accepted.