God Is At Work

Resurrection

The first sermon of the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, proclaimed the good news of the resurrected Jesus. The same Spirit that empowered the church, is the same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. It’s the same Spirit that lives in each of us that have decided to follow Christ.

Romans 8:9–11 NLT

9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

The biggest point of Peter’s sermon is this; through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, God is at work!

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, Volume 2 Theological Perspective

The resurrection of Jesus is the foundation of Christian faith. Paul says that without the resurrection, both his preaching and our faith are in vain (1 Cor. 15:14).

Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, Volume 2 Theological Perspective

A distinction must be made here between resuscitation and resurrection. Lazarus was resuscitated; his body was reanimated for a period of time, only to die again. However, Jesus was resurrected and still lives! Jesus was raised from the dead; and his resurrection becomes for Christians the opportunity for a new and transformed life in God, and life in the age to come.

The message of Peter isn’t just for first time hearers, but also for those followers of Christ who may have still been skeptical. It was for the ones who still may have been mourning the loss of a friend in awful seen on Good Friday. The message is for us today when it can be hard to see God at work in the darkness we face. In the resurrection of Christ, God is at work! God is still at work in and through his people.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

Resurrection is a work of God!

Rumors of grave robbers, his followers stole his body. Big question of Peter’s day was how did the tomb become empty?-

There are some who still doubted. -

It was a work of God. Not grave robbers. The Jesus sightings were physical sightings not appearances.

Salvation History

-People of Jerusalem

-Joel-Good Friday signs,

-David

God is at work from Joel to the resurrection to now.

Christ Resurrection

The resurrection of Christ was and still is the central teaching of the church. Peter’s first two sermons in Acts focus on the resurrection of Christ.

Acts 3:12–15 NLT

12 Peter saw his opportunity and addressed the crowd. “People of Israel,” he said, “what is so surprising about this? And why stare at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or godliness? 13 For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of all our ancestors—who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilate’s decision to release him. 14 You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact!

Acts: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition From the Text

In other words, Peter’s speech demands a radical change in perspective. Not only had God accomplished what God had promised, but the agent who accomplished this among the Jewish people was none other than Jesus, the same one whom they were responsible for murdering. The crucial role of Jesus in this divine fulfillment is the distinctive aspect of Peter’s message and the gospel proclaimed by the believers to the Jewish people.

It is the role of God in the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Peter’s speech makes it clear that the Jewish response to Jesus was the rejection of God’s purposes. But Peter also underscores several times that God responded by undoing their murder of Jesus by honoring Jesus. God exalted Jesus by placing him in the position of divine honor and authority. In other words, God had the final say, not human rejection.

Richard P. Thompson, Acts: A Commentary in the Wesleyan Tradition, ed. Alex Varughese, Roger Hahn, and George Lyons, New Beacon Bible Commentary (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 2015), 92.

Peter’s sermon serves as a wake up call to everyone. Peter’s pronouncement in Acts is not only a “listen up” call to the people in that crowd, but a “wake up” call to those of us hearing the good news for the first, tenth, one-thousandth time. Every time we hear and receive the good news of Jesus Christ, it is Pentecost, all over again. We are set on fire with the thrill of it, just as the disciples were lit up by the flame of the Holy Spirit on that very first Pentecost celebration.

Kathleen Long Bostrom, “Pastoral Perspective on Acts 2:14a, 22–32,” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary: Year A, ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, vol. 2 (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 380.

What must We Do?

Peter’s Sermon pierced people. Many people heard with the spirit for the first time. Brothers what must we do?

Repent, and be baptized everyone of you, for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

Rising to new life is a work of God

From the first day of creation God has been at work, through great saving acts for his people. God has been at work redeeming all of creation.

There were stories being spread since the resurrection of Christ that it was the work of grave robbers. Peter and the 11 attest to the crowd that the resurrection of Christ is a work of God.

Through the resurrection God saves his people from sin and death. The biggest thing we can learn from God today, whether hearing it and believing it for the first time, or just an encouraging reminder that despite what we see around us, is that God is at work. God is at work raising new life, in and through us by the same spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead.

1 Corinthians 15:3–5 NLT

3 I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. 4 He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. 5 He was seen by Peter and then by the Twelve.