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Acts: The Gospel in the City—January 20, 2013

Acts 4:23–37

  23 On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. 24 When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God. “Sovereign Lord,” they said, “you made the heavens and the earth and the sea, and everything in them.

  25 You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 26 The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.’ 27 Indeed Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed.

  28 They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. 29 Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness. 30 Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

  31 After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly. 32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had.

  33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

  36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

  This is the Word of the Lord

Acts is about the origins of Christianity. Whenever you go to the origins, you learn something about what a genuine Christian is. What authentic, original, real Christianity is. That is important. What’s a real Christian? I’ve talked to a lot of people in New York who actually base, to some degree, their non-belief on their understanding that they used to be Christians. Therefore, they’ve tried it. It didn’t work.

Of course many of you, your entire self-understanding is that you’re a Christian. Because you believe you’re a Christian, you live in certain ways and all that. My question is: Are you really a Christian? To people who say, “I used to be a Christian, I would ask, “Were you really a Christian?”

By the way, if you ask that question every day (“Am I a real Christian?”), it will drive you nuts. On the other hand, if you never ask that question, that’s not healthy either. Let’s ask the question on the basis of this text. You could actually do it almost any week we’re looking at any part of Acts practically. Here we see I’m going to show you at least four marks of real Christianity.

By the way, here’s another thing you ought to keep in mind. People say, “Well, I know what a real Christian is. A real Christian believes the Christian doctrine, like the Apostles’ Creed, lives a good life, loves people, obeys the Ten Commandments, goes to church, is part of the church.” Ah, but you know the philosophers talk about the difference between necessary and sufficient signs.

For example, if you lived in a country in which all doctors were required by law to wear white coats but other people could wear white coats if they wanted to, then wearing a white coat would be a necessary but not sufficient sign that you were a doctor. In other words, if you are a doctor, you must wear a white coat, but just because you’re wearing a white coat doesn’t mean you’re a doctor.

The fact is that yes, to be a Christian you have to believe the doctrine (the Apostles’ Creed, for example). But James points out in the book of James in the New Testament that demons believe a lot of good doctrine. They believe there’s a triune God. They believe Jesus is the Son of God. They believe Jesus died on the cross. They believe the doctrine. In fact, they’re more certain of it than you and me, but they’re not Christians.

Of course, Christians must live a good life, but plenty of people live a good life. Of course, if you’re a Christian, you must come to church. I remember, years ago, I heard a preacher once say … He was talking to some guy who said, “I’m a Christian. I’m joining the church.” The preacher said, “Look at these pews. They’re joined to the church. They’re nailed to the church, and they’re not going to heaven.”

These are necessary but insufficient signs. What you’re looking for if you’re talking about something, the genuine sign of something being something, you’re looking for something relatively unique. Here are four signs of real Christianity, relatively unique signs. These four things are good signs you’re a Christian.

I’m going to look at the four signs of being a real Christian and where they come from. Don’t anybody say I only ever have three points. In fact, you might want to write it down especially somewhere today. “I was there when he had five. It was a historic occasion.” All right. The first mark of real Christianity is …

1. You are serving God consistently, especially in suffering

Chapter 4 of Acts begins a change, because in chapters 1, 2, and 3, everything is going well. “Everybody loves me” (if you’re a Christian). You have the favor of all the people. Chapter 2. In the first sermon, 2,000 people believed. In the second sermon, 3,000 people believed. They’re going from strength to strength.

But see verse 23? “On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them.” In the beginning of chapter 4, Peter and John are arrested, and their lives are threatened, and they’re told, “You must not preach Christianity anymore.”

In other words, starting in chapter 4, the Christians know some of them are going to die. They know some of them are going to die! This is the first time we see the new church Christians facing suffering. Their response is noteworthy, and it should be noteworthy. The book of Job is about a guy who loses almost everything. He loses all of his money. He loses most of his family. He loses most of his health.

Throughout the whole book (40 chapters), all he does is yell and cry and question and say, “Why?” and argue with God and shake his fist. As you’re reading through (if you can bear it), you feel like, “He is not doing very well.” Then at the end, God shows up and vindicates him and says, “You’ve done a good job” and affirms him and rewards him and heals him and castigates his friends for having criticized him. You go, “What?”

The way to understand the book of Job, the key to it, is to go to the very beginning where God is speaking to Satan. In the beginning of the book of Job, God says, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth …?” Satan comes back, and Satan accuses Job, because that’s what Satan does. Satan says, “Does Job fear God for nothing?”

That’s a very incisive question. Here’s what he is saying. He is saying to God (this is the accusation), “Job obeys you because of the benefits he is getting. Job is not a servant. He is a consumer. He is doing business with you as long as he is getting enough benefits at a low cost. If you raise the cost, it will all go away.” In other words, “Job is not actually serving you for your sake. He is serving himself and using you. What he is really about is the benefits, not about loving and serving you. If suffering comes into his life, then you’ll see.”

I had a professor years ago who helped me amazingly understand the book of Job when he said, “Do you know why at the end, in spite of all of Job’s ranting and raving, God still vindicates him? Do you know why? Because all during the whole book, Job is ranting and raving to God. He is arguing with God. He is shaking his fist at God, which means the suffering did not drive him away from God; it intensified his prayer life. It drove him toward God.”

Satan is right, though he was wrong about Job. But Satan is right in that true servants serve God for nothing, which means they serve God for God. They don’t serve God for what they’re getting out of it. In times of suffering, we’ll see whether you got into that relationship with God to get God to serve you, or whether you got into that relationship in order to serve him out of love and gratitude for all he is and has done.

Therefore, in a way, you really can’t tell whether you’re a Christian if life is going okay. Now look at these people. Take a look. They know some of them are going to die. So what do they say? Verse 24: “When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer …” Aha! Like Job. In other words, the suffering doesn’t say, “Well, what good is this if God is going to let this sort of thing happen to us?”

Instead of walking away from God, they go toward God, and they pray. Look what they pray for. Now I’m not going to read the whole thing, but did you notice what they don’t pray for? It’s almost everything you and I probably would think we should. They do not pray for a change in circumstances. They do not pray for protection even. They don’t pray for vengeance on the people.

All they pray for … You can see. It’s down in verse 29. “Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.” Then verse 30, which is an extension. “Stretch out your hand to heal and perform signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

In other words, what they’re saying is, “Just give us the courage to keep on changing people. Just give us the courage and continue to change people’s lives through us. Just give us the courage to do that.” Look carefully. There is nothing wrong with sometimes praying for your needs. Jesus put it in the Lord’s Prayer. It can’t be wrong. “Give us this day our daily bread. Deliver us from evil.”

Notice, in this case, they don’t go there. Do you know why? It’s not the primary thing you’re in a relationship with God for if you’re really a true Christian. Therefore, you really can’t be sure whether you’re a Christian if your life is going okay. It has to go in and out of okay. It has to get bad and then good. If you’re serving God consistently, then and only then do you know you’re a Christian.

I’ve had people come to me and say, “You know I was a Christian, but then God let all these awful things happen, and I just gave up and said, ‘I can’t believe in a God who would let these things happen to me,’ and I walked.” Of course, that’s a sign you really weren’t serving God for him. You were serving God for you, because the benefits are gone. If you think what I’m just saying is really hard … You’re saying, “Boy, you’re being hard.” Just think of yourself for a minute.

What if you had money, what if you had health, what if you had connections, and you had a friend, and you did things together? You went places, and you had all kinds of fun. Then what if you lost all your money, what if you lost your health, what if you lost your connections, and your friend dropped you like a hot potato? What would you say? You would say, “He didn’t love me,” or, “She didn’t love me. They were after the benefits. They didn’t love me!”

You’d be indignant. You ought to be, right? How dare you then treat God in a way that you wouldn’t agree was right for you to be treated? In other words, how can you say, “Well, you know, if God lets these bad things come into my life … If it’s not paying off anymore to serve God, why should I stay in there?” If people treated you like that, you’d be indignant, and you’d be right. But don’t you dare treat God like that. The first mark of a real Christian is you serve God consistently, for richer and poorer, for better and worse, in sickness and in health.

2. You are knowing God deliberately

A mark of being a real Christian is you know God, not just know about God. John 17:3: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” To know about God is one thing. Remember the demons know about God. They know a lot more about God than you do. To know God … that’s what makes you a real Christian. That’s a sign of being a real Christian.

What is that? Well, it’s to have a personal relationship. Let’s break it down. Look at the personal and then the relationship. First of all, it means to have a personal relationship with God. Now this is easier to describe than to define. In other words, I don’t know how to define it, but I can describe it.

I’ve had two categories of people who sometimes I’ve talked to. One category is people who are raised in a church, raised in a Christian family, and they really thought they were Christians. They felt they believed, and they felt a certain amount of faith they thought. Then they went off to college, and it was all unreal. They were just totally disinterested. They wanted nothing to do with it. It all felt unreal to them.

Another category actually is people who in college or in a university get caught up in Christian fellowship. The students are smart, and they’re joyful and all that. You’re involved in that, and you feel like, “I really believe. I’m a Christian too. I believe. I feel this. I love Jesus.” Then you move off to New York City after college, and it kind of goes away. You suddenly find it’s all unreal. You have no interest.

What’s up with that? I think the answer is this. It’s possible to have a secondhand experience of God. It’s possible to live off other people’s enthusiasm. You know, they’re smart, and they believe. You want to be smart. They’re happy, and they believe. You want to be happy. You kind of live off of that, and you’re caught up in it.

When you come away, you realize you’ve never met God yourself. You’ve never met God personally. You really don’t have an individual relationship with him. That’s the problem, and it’s a pretty big problem. I’ll put it like this. I remember Dick Lucas telling me some years ago … He was a friend who was an older minister. Dick was around at a very, very historic and interesting moment.

In 1955, Billy Graham went to Cambridge University in the United Kingdom (in Britain). He did a weeklong series of preaching events, sort of an evangelistic mission, at Great St. Mary’s right in the middle of Cambridge. The place was packed out every night. Now Billy Graham is not an intellectual American, Southern drawl and all of that, and he struggled the first … He was supposed to speak every night on what the gospel is, on Christianity.

The last night, he threw away his sort of plans. He threw away his playbook, and he just preached about the blood of Jesus Christ. On a campus of I think about 10,000 undergraduates, 400 people gave their lives to Christ that night. Four hundred men and women! It had a big impact on Christianity in Britain, and a lot of those folks went into ministry and so on.

Dick told me he was one time talking to a couple of the people who got converted that night and who later on went into the ministry. He said, “Well, what happened?” Because both of them had been raised in the church. They both had been raised in the Church of England. They both had come up. They believed the creeds. They thought they were Christians.

They both said, “That night, I realized Jesus died for me. I knew Jesus died for us. I knew Jesus died for the world, but that night I realized he died for me. He had to die for me. He did die for me.” It’s hard to go past that. Suddenly there was a personal connection. Do you have a personal relationship?

Secondly, it’s a personal relationship. A relationship has to be two ways. A relationship is two ways always. It’s not a relationship if it’s not two ways. There are a lot of people in this country (in fact, something like 80 percent of Americans) who say they pray. They even pray pretty regularly. When asked what they pray about, they pray for their needs. Of course, what are you supposed to pray for?

If you pray and that’s really your whole relationship with God, it’s not really a relationship. You’re just talking. It’s like a grocery list. You’re talking about yourself, not him. You’re just asking for things. That’s not a personal … Do you have a personal relationship with FreshDirect? You know, if all you’re ever doing is saying, “Bring me this. Bring me that,” if that’s all you’re doing, he is sort of this divine FreshDirect in the sky, and it’s not really a personal relationship. You might think it is, but they don’t think they’re having a personal relationship with you.

Eugene Peterson in his fine book Answering God points out something. He says prayer is not really talking to God. True prayer is answering God. What does that mean? How did you learn to talk? If nobody had spoken to you first, you would have just grown up, “Babble, babble, babble.” The only way you knew how to talk was if somebody talked to you first. The only reason you know how to speak is somebody spoke to you first, spoke into your life, and then you responded. That’s how you learned to talk.

It’s exactly the same when it comes to knowing God. God has spoken in his Word, and he has revealed himself in his Word. Think about this for a second. Imagine somebody sat down with you face-to-face, and this man poured out his story. It was an amazing personal story. It was poignant. It was wise. It was fascinating. It was moving. He was telling, “This is who I am. This is what I’m about” and all that.

Then when you opened your mouth, for the next 5 or 10 minutes, you ignored everything he said. You acted as if you hadn’t heard a thing. You made no reference to anything the man said at all. You just talked about things you need. That’s how most everybody prays, by the way. If that’s how you responded to somebody who poured out and revealed himself and talked to you and you didn’t make any response, you just talked about what your needs were, that would be like mentally ill. But that’s how most prayer is.

The reason why Eugene Peterson said prayer is not talking to God so much as it’s answering God is that in the Bible, God has told you his story. He has revealed massive amounts of things about himself. He has poured out his heart, as it were. When you open your mouth to pray, you ought to be basing what you say on this. You ought to be responding to this. That’s exactly what you see here.

They’re not just talking to God; they’re answering God. They have a personal relationship, because look carefully what they do. They’re scared. They are afraid. They wouldn’t be praying for fearlessness and boldness if they weren’t scared. They’re pouring out their heart, but look what they do. They go to the Bible. First of all, they say, “Sovereign Lord …” Why do they call him sovereign Lord?

Because they come down, and they go into Psalm 2. “You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David: ‘Why do the nations rage and the prophets plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed one.’ ”

The whole psalm is about the fact that even though the nations rage and people rebel, everything is under God’s control. He is sovereign. Everything is happening according to plan. Nothing happens except (down here in verse 28) “… what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” What are they doing? They’re scared, right? But they don’t just say, “Oh, we’re scared. Zap us with courage.” They don’t say, “I’m anxious. Zap us with inner peace.”

No! What do they do? They strategically take one of the things God has told us about himself in his Word. They take one of his attributes, his wisdom, his goodness, his control, that everything is working according to a plan. Don’t you see? This attribute is exactly antithetical to fear. They have a problem with fear. They have a problem with anxiety. They’re taking what God has said in his Word about himself, a particular thing they need … They need to see that.

Then they respond to him on the basis of that. They talk to him about what he said he is, and as a result, they’re healing their own hearts almost. They’re letting God heal their hearts with who he is. See, that’s knowing God. That’s not just abstractly looking at him as a big vending machine in the sky. “I need this, and I need this, and I need this.” They’re responding to what he said. It’s a two-way communication, and it’s transforming.

Do you know how to do that? Do you realize it means you have to know the Bible? You have to see God speaking in his Word. You have to pray in answering his Word. That prays those truths into your heart, and it changes you. In fact, look at another way in which they do this. They get ahold of this idea that God is sovereign. “We’re going to think about who he is until it calms us down. We’re going to talk to him as he is until it makes us fearless.”

See, this is brilliant spirituality, and this is just biblical spirituality. Look at verses 27 and 28. It talks about Jesus’ crucifixion. “Your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, was put to death.” But then in verse 28, it says, “They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen.” Listen to what they’re saying.

They’re saying, “Oh Lord, what a horrible thing it was that Jesus was killed, but we realize now that if he hadn’t been killed, we would not know you. We would not have our sins cleansed. There was massive good, brilliant goodness, that came out of a terrible thing.

Now we know if that’s how you operate, even though when he was dying we never could have imagined the good things you’re bringing out of it; therefore, since you are a sovereign God, wisely working everything out according to your plan, if it looks like we’re going to start to die and bad things are going to happen to us, let us remember who you are. We are going to remember who you are; therefore, we’re not going to be afraid of the future.”

Do you know what’s ironic about this prayer? They are praying about God. It’s so God-centered. It’s not me-centered. It’s God, God, God. “You’re this. You’re this. You’re this.” Do you know what’s ironic? If you are looking at yourself instead of God and say, “I need this. I need this,” you’re not going to get your needs met. But if you look at God instead of your needs, you’re going to get your needs met. Aim at heaven; get earth thrown in. Aim at earth; you get neither.

The marks of a real Christian: First, you serve God consistently. Secondly, you know God personally, deliberately. Third and fourth are fast, but they’re important.

3. You experience God periodically

By the way, this is a very comforting and yet, at the same time, challenging truth. “And they were all filled with the Spirit …” Because they serve him consistently and because they’re knowing God deliberately, “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit …” What is that?

Do you know just a little earlier in chapter 4 when Peter is called on the carpet and charged and accused before the council, it says he was filled with the Spirit? Now one of the things about the book of Acts which is intriguing is … When the book of Acts says they were filled with the Spirit, if you look carefully, it doesn’t mean that just before they were walking in the flesh or they were walking in sin.

See, one of the problems with a metaphor is to be filled with the Spirit seems to imply they were empty a second before, but there’s no indication that the apostles just before they were filled with the Spirit were walking in sin or walking in flesh or something like that. There’s no indication. What does it mean to be filled with the Spirit?

We talked about this when we looked at the day of Pentecost a couple of months ago, so let me be brief, but it’s important you keep this in mind. When Jesus talked about the Comforter, the Spirit, coming in John 16, he says, “The Spirit will take of mine and manifest it to you. He will take the things I have said and the things I have done and will make it real to you. He will take the things you know with your head and make it real to the rest of your being.”

J.I. Packer, in his book Keep in Step with the Spirit, talks about this. He says the ministry of the Spirit is what he called the spotlight ministry. If you’re walking along on a dark street in the city, you turn a corner, and suddenly you see a building in front of you that’s floodlit, spot lit. It’s a beautiful building, and you see all the features. It’s thrown into relief. The first thing you think of is, “What a lovely building.” The first thing you do not think of is, “What wonderful floodlights.” In fact, you might not even notice the floodlights. Maybe you don’t even see where they are.

The work of the Holy Spirit is not to make you say, “I have the Spirit!” The work of the Holy Spirit is to make Jesus Christ beautiful to you, more beautiful than he was a minute before. It’s almost like this. If you’re married, you’re married. If you’re legally married, you’re married. When you’re locked in each other’s arms and you’re in a passionate embrace, it doesn’t mean you’re more married than you were 30 minutes ago, but you’re experiencing your marriage. You’re experiencing the love of the relationship.

That’s really what happens when you’re filled with the Spirit. God can send his Spirit and take things you kind of know and make them so real (his power and sovereignty) you’re not afraid. His love is so real you can’t feel ashamed or guilty anymore. That’s what this fullness of the Spirit is. It’s a heightening.

Now do you know what this means? The fact that being filled with the Spirit isn’t something that people necessarily … It kind of comes and has to come again and has to come again. What I love about this is, on the one hand, it means you don’t expect to always be walking around on an emotional high if you’re a Christian. You’d better not. I mean, if you think about this, what makes you a Christian is Jesus’ work, not what goes on inside you.

The level of your emotions or the purity of your feelings and your convictions … that’s not what gives you a relationship with God. That would be justification or salvation by works. We believe in salvation by grace, not on the basis of what we do but what Jesus Christ has done. There’s an objective basis, and you don’t have to always go around on an emotional high all the time. The emotions are not really what save you.

For some of us, we really need to hear that, because a lot of us don’t cry easily. A lot of us, our emotions just are unruly. They just don’t operate like other people. We see other people weeping with joy. “I’m a Christian. I just feel God’s love all the time.” We go, “Hmmm.” I mean, in other words, you’re not always filled with the Spirit like this. Especially to a person like me, I’m glad about that. It’s a way of remembering I’m saved because of what Jesus has done, not because of my inner state or condition.

It also shows you what’s available and what’s possible. See, it’s comforting, but it’s challenging. Do you see what’s possible? Do you see the level of spiritual reality that’s available through the Holy Spirit? Jonathan Edwards, in one of his journals (spiritual diaries), wrote this: “Once, as I rode out into the woods for my health, in 1737 … for divine contemplation and prayer, I had a view that for me was extraordinary, of the glory of the Son of God, as Mediator between God and man, and his wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love …

This grace that appeared so calm and sweet … The person of Christ appeared … with an excellency great enough to swallow up all thought and conception—which continued, as near as I can judge, about an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears, and weeping aloud. […] I have, several other times, had views very much of the same nature, and which have had the same effects.”

Jonathan Edwards wasn’t saying, “I always live like this.” He says, “I’ve had several of these.” On the one hand, you don’t live on your emotions. On the other hand, do you see what’s available? Are you hungry for it? See, that balance is hard to find in the Christian church. People either are always psyching you. We have to always have this emotional high, or else it’s a kind of cognitive and cold Christianity. Neither. Neither!

To be a real Christian is to be serving God consistently. It’s to be knowing God deliberately. It’s to be experiencing God periodically. There’s one more thing really fast, because it really gets into next week.

4. You should be exhibiting God generously

Do you notice how in verse 31 it says the Christians were filled with boldness, courage, right? The very next verse (verse 32), it says they started giving their money away like crazy. You don’t think there’s not a connection there? Do you know why?

One of the reasons we’re not more generous probably is materialism and greed. Yeah. One of the reasons why we don’t give more of our money away is we’re scared. It’s not stinginess. It’s fearfulness. When God is real to your heart, you don’t look to your savings and your investments and all that stuff to really give you a sense of security in the world. They can’t give you a sense of security in the world. Only God can make you secure.

You see, when God is unreal, your money is more real. When God is not spiritually real to your heart, you hold on to your money because you’re scared. When God is spiritually real to your heart, you’re able to give more of it away because you’re not. One of the marks you’re a real Christian is you become radically generous, increasingly as the years go by, and you experience God periodically over and over.

5. Where they come from

Lastly, there are your marks, but where do they come from? They come from this. Let me just give you a brief meditation on the word shaken. Look. Verse 31. This is the climax of the whole thing. “After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.”

Now many, many places in the Bible when God’s presence comes down, there is an earthquake. It’s one of the marks in the Bible of the presence of God. When he came down on Mount Sinai, we’re told the place shook. The mountain almost melted; it started coming apart. It was almost shaking apart.

In Isaiah 6, when the presence of God comes down to the temple, Isaiah goes into the temple, and he sees the Holy One high and lifted up. We’re told the threshold shook. Deborah in Judges 5, sings her famous song. She goes out, and she says, “O Lord, when you marched out, the earth shook.” Why? Why is that an image? Fire is another image.

These images of the presence of God get something across. The image of the earthquake is something of greater substance and reality coming into contact with something with less, something that can’t bear it. For example, if you would walk out onto 1-inch thick ice over a pond, you would create an ice quake. Crack! Bang! You’d probably go under too. Why? Because your substance and reality, even those of you who are nice and skinny, would be too great for the ice.

The point of the earthquake is that whenever God comes down, wherever God comes down, he is of such glory and of such greatness that nothing here on earth can bear it. That’s the reason why the mountain practically came apart, why Moses said, “Nobody can touch the mountain or you’re going to die.” When Moses asked God, “Can I see your glory?” he says, “No, it would kill you. It would shake you apart, shake you to pieces.” Isaiah said, “I’m coming apart. I’m undone in the presence of God because I’m unclean.”

It’s because of our sin, and he is holy. Therefore, his holiness is too great for us, so we would be shaken apart. His glory is too great for us, so we’d be shaken apart. Here’s the question. The presence of God comes down on these Christians, and they see with the eyes of their hearts through the power of the Holy Spirit the sovereignty of God in such a way that it makes them incredibly fearless and bold.

The point is the place was shaken, but they were not. The place was shaken, but they actually became more unshakeable. In fact, John Chrysostom, the great fourth-century Greek preacher preaching on this text said the more the place was shaken, the less the Christians were shaken. But that’s weird. How could that possibly be? How could the presence of God come down into these Christians in a way Moses was told, “You can’t bear it”? Why would the presence of God come down, and it didn’t shake them to death, shake them to pieces?

Here’s the answer. In Matthew 27 and 28, do you know there are two earthquakes? In Matthew 27, when Jesus dies, there’s an earthquake. Matthew 27:45. From the sixth hour to the ninth hour, darkness came over all the land. Jesus said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” When Jesus cried out, he gave up his Spirit. At that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. The earth shook, and the rocks split. The tombs broke open, and the bodies of many who had died were raised to life.

Something was coming down, or there wouldn’t have been an earthquake. What was it? It was God coming down in judgment on Jesus. It was the divine justice coming down on Jesus. All the punishment we deserve came down on Jesus, and he was shaken to pieces. Then on Easter Sunday, there was another earthquake, and the stone rolled away.

What was going on? Death was cracking. That’s what C.S. Lewis calls the “deep magic.” The disintegrator, death, was being disintegrated. In other words, what you have … When Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead, you have the death of death in the death of Christ. You have the disintegration of disintegration in the disintegration of Christ.

You have the shaking of shaking in the shaking of Christ, meaning Jesus Christ says to you in the gospel, “I was shaken to pieces so you could become unshakeable. I was shaken to pieces. I got what you deserve so you now can know his love. You can be accepted in him. That means you are unshakeable. Guilt and shame? I took that. That shouldn’t bother you. Fear of the future? I’m guaranteeing it.”

You know, even though I don’t know and you don’t know why the suffering that happens to us happens, the reason we can face the future with confidence is he did this for us. He got involved in our suffering. We can trust him. Job, in spite of all of his ranting and raving, stayed true to God, because he said, “For I know that my redeemer liveth …”

Do you know what? We know better than Job. We know our Redeemer died. We know our Redeemer died, and because he died and went through that, we can trust him now. That will make us unshakeable. Jesus Christ was shaken to pieces so that when God comes down into your life, it will just make you more unshakeable. Let’s pray.

Our Father, we thank you for giving us this survey of what a real Christian is. We pray you would help us understand where we stand. Some of us are coming perhaps to the conclusion we don’t know you. Some of us are coming to the conclusion we have been relying on our works and not on what Jesus has done.

Some of us are coming to realize we’re not being very consistent. We’re not being very generous. We’re not being very deliberate in our knowledge of you. Help us, O Lord, experience more and more real Christianity in our church and in our lives so we, like these apostles, these disciples, and like Jesus himself, can live unshakeable lives. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.

Timothy J. Keller, The Timothy Keller Sermon Archive, 2012-2013 (New York: Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 2013).