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Acts 2:22-41
22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—23 this Jesus,1 delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. 24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it. 25 For David says concerning him,
“‘I saw the Lord always before me,
for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;
26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;
my flesh also will dwell in hope.
27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,
or let your Holy One see corruption.
28 You have made known to me the paths of life;
you will make me full of gladness with your presence.’
29 “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. 32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. 34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,
“‘The Lord said to my Lord,
“Sit at my right hand,
35 until I make your enemies your footstool.”’
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.”
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?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2 as we continue our series on the book of Acts. This morning, we're gonna look at how 3,000 people came to know the Lord, and that number 3,000 is not insignificant. If you remember last week, we talked about how Pentecost was not only a harvest festival, but it was a celebration of Mount Sinai. But on that original visit to Mount Sinai, the people of God could not keep the law of God even for a minute.
Joel Brooks:And as a result, 3,000 people were killed by the Lord. And now we see under the new covenant, not 3,000 people killed, but 3,000 people coming to faith and being given new life, a life in which the law of God is written on their very hearts and they can live it out. So we have beginning, I can't remember, I think verse 22 there in your worship guide, but we're actually gonna begin reading at verse 29. Acts 2 29. Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.
Joel Brooks:Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ. That he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus, God raised up, of of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucify.
Joel Brooks:Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the disciples, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins and you will receive the gift of the holy spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls.
Joel Brooks:This is the word of the Lord.
Connor Coskery:Thanks be to God.
Joel Brooks:If you would pray with me. Father God, we pray that as we are reading your word and we are hearing the words uttered by Peter so long ago, that your spirit would cut our hearts. Lord, that the sword of Your Spirit hear the Word of God that He would lay open our sins, expose our idols, that He would do His work in our midst. Lord, I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:And we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So 3,000 people came to believe after the very first Christian sermon ever preached. That's explosive growth. That's a that's a megachurch boom right after the very first sermon.
Joel Brooks:As we've already been looking at in the past few weeks, this rise of Christianity was so fast, so rapid, and so unexpected, it's it's hard for historians to explain exactly how it happened. They struggle to find reasons for its growth. Within such a short amount of time, Christianity had overtaken the entire Roman Empire. And yet this is from a small group of disciples, fishermen. How could a movement like that grow so rapidly?
Joel Brooks:It didn't grow because of all the normal reasons that movements grew. It wasn't because they were influential people. We've already looked at that. This was a ragtag group of people who had no formal education, no social status, no political power, none of those things. Christianity also did not go grow through conquest.
Joel Brooks:In the first 400 years of Christianity, Christians never picked up the sword to defend themselves. Christianity didn't spread because people wanted to get rich or to rise up a social ladder. These early Christians were pariah. Paul would say he was the scum of the earth, and that was rightly so, because that is how the world viewed these Christians. Often, they lost their homes.
Joel Brooks:Often, they were thrown in prison. Many people lost their lives, and so why exactly did Christianity grow as fast as it did? To research this message, I I went to the best source out there, Wikipedia, and just kinda first I Googled, I typed why did Christianity spread so fast, and the first article was Wikipedia. And so let me give you their answer, and if you don't like it, feel free to go this afternoon and change it. Okay?
Joel Brooks:So Christianity began spreading initially from Jerusalem and then throughout the Near East, ultimately becoming the state religion of Armenia in 301, of Ethiopia in 325, of Georgia in 337, and then the State Church of the Roman Empire in 380, becoming common to all of Europe in the middle ages. It expanded throughout the world during Europe's age of exploration. Christianity has thus become the world's largest religion. Now that's a great summary of what happened or at least it's a summary. It's not a great summary.
Joel Brooks:It's a summary of what happened, but it actually tells us nothing as to the how or the why it happened. So I kept looking, I kept digging in the internet and I would encourage you to do the same. This afternoon, just get online and just Google, why did Christianity spread so fast? Why the rise of Christianity? And I want you to only read the articles by secular historians.
Joel Brooks:You don't even have to go to the Christian historians. Read the ones by the secular historians. If you do this, you're gonna find a number of common themes that keep percolating as you read these. And let me give you just 5 things that you will find if you go and do this. The first reason that you will find is that Christians, they created social services that no one else was doing.
Joel Brooks:There was no such thing as welfare, social security, or health care plans, but there was in Christianity. Christians did these things. No one took care of the poor like Christians did. And every secular hyster historian will tell you this. The emperor Julian, he would despise Christians.
Joel Brooks:He wrote this to one of his friends, and we have this letter. He says, we neglect and overlook the poor, but those impious Galileans, that's his reference to Christians, those impious Galileans devote themselves to benevolence. They support not only their poor, but ours as well. The Jews take care of the Jewish poor. The Greeks take care of the Greek poor.
Joel Brooks:The Romans take care of the Roman poor. But these Galileans take care of them all. They advance their atheism. Don't you love that? They advance their atheism through loving service rendered to strangers.
Joel Brooks:So that's the first reason that we have Christianity exploding across the globe. 2nd is this, no one has ever raised the stature of women like Christianity. Women within Christianity enjoyed a far higher status than any other place in the Greco Roman world at large. Women were given positions of honor within the church. And it was Christians who said, not only in marriage could wives be called unfaithful if they left their husbands, but husbands could now be called unfaithful if they left their wives.
Joel Brooks:And elevated the role of the wife within marriage. A third reason we see Christianity growing is because it formed a community that crossed every ethnic and social status and, and wealth line. You have rich. You have poor. You had black, white.
Joel Brooks:Every ethnic group coming to Jesus. There there was not any society that had ever done that. Up to this point, religion divided people by their classes, divided people by their ethnicities, they would They would even call one another brother and sister. Christianity was the most inclusive movement of all time. A fourth reason, no one died like these Christians.
Joel Brooks:As they were thrown to the lions, they literally sang. As they were being executed, they would pray for their executioner that God would forgive them. Who who in the world did that? The world had never seen such a joyful courage from a group of people. Nothing could take away their joy.
Joel Brooks:A matter of fact, the Romans began to lose their appetite for going to the arena to see Christians killed, because all they saw was people joyfully singing as they were being torn apart. How could people face death like that? And indeed, the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church. And a final reason to explain Christianity's growth was that Christians did not practice infanticide. They did not kill their babies.
Joel Brooks:In this day, 1 out of every 3 babies were just left to be exposed and to die. But Christians came along and they believed in the sanctity of all life. They believed that every human was created in the image of God, and therefore, was to be cared for. No one was to ever be discarded, and as a result, Christians had larger families, and Christians began growing. So you're gonna find those five reasons.
Joel Brooks:Any secular historian, they're gonna tell you these common five reasons as to why Christianity grew. But it still doesn't answer the question of why. It still doesn't. Why did they do these things? No one had ever come before them and shown them how.
Joel Brooks:No one had ever modeled this for them. So where did they get these ideas from? Let alone get the ideas that also have the power to do them. Where did that come from? You cannot just flip a switch and decide, you know what?
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna be cast to the lions, and I'm gonna joyfully sing as my life is taken from me. Where did they get the power to do those things? I quoted somebody from Yale last week, so to continue with that theme, a professor there, Kenneth, Latourette, He tries to answer this question. He said this. The more one examines the various factors, which seem to account for the extraordinary victory of Christianity, the more one is driven to search for a cause underlying them all.
Joel Brooks:It is clear that the very beginning of Christianity, there must have occurred a vast release of energy, virtually unequaled in history. Nothing else could explain the surge of the early Christian movement. Now what caused this release of energy? Well, that lies outside the realm in which modern historians are supposed to move. But then, he does go on to say this.
Joel Brooks:But, before I am a historian, I am a human. And how can I close my eyes to the obvious explanation that something supernatural happened? This is what we've begun to see as we've been going through this book of acts, that the release of that power, that supernatural energy that he is talking about is resurrection power. Christ is risen from the dead, resurrection power has been set loose, and the holy spirit has descended upon these disciples. And now they're going everywhere proclaiming the risen Christ.
Joel Brooks:That's why Christianity exploded in growth. And we see here the message that these disciples went out proclaiming in Peter's first sermon here. Actually, this is the very first Christian sermon that we have. Now as we're going through this, I mean, you you might ask the question, what what was so great about this sermon that 3,000 people came to believe? I mean, we just read it, or at least half of it we read it.
Joel Brooks:And, I mean, it's a pretty good sermon and not bad for a fisherman, you know, who gets up there and speaks. But 3,000 people converted because of that? How? How how did that happen? It's not like these people were just itching to believe itching to believe some absurd notion that the Son of God came to earth and died and rose again.
Joel Brooks:They weren't itching to believe that. They they had all of these empirical and theological reasons for for refusing to believe that Jesus was indeed the Son of God. I mean, they had the obvious empirical reasons that we have. They knew that dead people stay dead. They don't come back to life.
Joel Brooks:They believed that just like we believed that. But they also had, in addition to that, all of these theological roadblocks that would have kept them to going to Jesus. For starters, they believe that God was completely transcendent and holy. We looked at that last week at Mount Sinai. You had to set borders.
Joel Brooks:You can't go near. You cover your ears. You wanna run away when the holiness of God comes down. They even put hedges around the name of God so they wouldn't even say His name. And now you're telling me that God has actually come down to dwell among us?
Joel Brooks:He's become human? They would have had enormous problems in the incarnation of such a transcendent God. They also believe that anybody who was hung on a tree was cursed by God. There's no way a person who was crucified could be the Messiah. That person's cursed.
Joel Brooks:And many, quote, messiahs had been appearing over the years. And what would happen is they would go around claiming that they would be a messiah, then they would get killed or they would die. And you know what happened after that? All of their followers moved on. You see that actually happening over and over in Jewish history.
Joel Brooks:Quote, messiah is coming, dying. People get on with their lives, but not here. They didn't just move on with their lives. They claimed his resurrection, and this wasn't something that they just decided, hey. Let's just come up with this lie and spread this.
Joel Brooks:It's absurd. I mean, just just play out this scene with me. I mean, picture Jesus has just been crucified. The disciples are hiding in some room, you know, just waiting till things blow over before they could get on with their normal lives. And you have Andrew maybe talking to Peter and saying, hey, Peter, I've got a thought.
Joel Brooks:Now, I know you're gonna shoot me down on this, like, but but just just hear me out. Okay? Yes. Okay. Jesus, He died.
Joel Brooks:He was crucified. We we were wrong about Him. And thankfully, we didn't get killed with Him, and we can move on with our lives. But what if what if we just told people he was still alive? I mean, then we too could be tortured and killed just like Jesus.
Joel Brooks:We too could have our property taken away and our homes taken away, be ripped away from our families. We too can become the pry of the earth, our name disgraced. We too can have all of those things. What do you think about that? The absurdity that any disciple would make this up, leading to a life where all of them would die as martyrs.
Joel Brooks:It's absurd. These These people were convinced by something. It was the actual resurrection of Jesus. They were confronted with the living Jesus, and everything had to change. Over and over again, as we go through this sermon, as Peter is preaching, he refers to them as witnessing these things.
Joel Brooks:Even says, like, we've seen these things. There's a reason that none of the people there said, hey, Peter. That's crazy talk. Crazy hey. You know what?
Joel Brooks:Isn't Jesus' tomb just literally right there? Didn't he just die 50 days ago? We'll show you his body. Not a person who was hearing Peter preach could say those things because they all knew the tomb was empty. They knew that to be a fact.
Joel Brooks:Many of them there had witnessed this. Luke tells us at one time, Jesus appeared to over 500 people at once, which throws out any kind of, you know, I've heard the hallucination theory. But I don't care what you are taking. You can't have 500 people hallucinating the same thing at the same time. Jesus wasn't resurrected in just the corner here.
Joel Brooks:People saw Him and talked with Him. That's why they didn't tell Peter he was crazy. No one could point to the tomb and find the body of Jesus. So over and over again throughout the sermon, Peter is saying, look at the facts. You will never hear Peter say, or at any point in an access people preaching, ever hear people say, you just need to take a step of blind faith.
Joel Brooks:Just just forget. Turn off your mind and just believe in Jesus. Never. Over and over again, Christians are saying, think. Think about who Christ is.
Joel Brooks:Think about why Christianity is exploding in growth. Think about who He claimed to be. Consider the evidence. So although the information they were receiving was incredible, they all realized it was perfectly reasonable, and they listened to Peter. I just ask, have have you ever done this?
Joel Brooks:Have you ever examined the evidence? Have you ever listened to the facts? When Peter preached and the people heard him, verse 37 says that they were cut to the heart as they heard these words. Hear me. To become a Christian means that you have, at some point in your life, you have been cut to the heart.
Joel Brooks:The cutting of the heart is when the holy spirit convicts you of who Jesus is and convicts you of your sin. In John 16:8, when Jesus said he was going away, he said he was gonna send the spirit and that the spirit would convict the world concerning sin. That word convict, it was it was a legal term. It was it was used to mean that he's gonna press the facts into you. Press the evidence of who he is so into you that you will have to change your mind.
Joel Brooks:That's what the Holy Spirit does. It presses the evidence in. It causes you to examine who Jesus is to the point where you change your mind about him. So this is what Peter preaches, and the holy spirit forces the people to examine the evidence. They're cut to the heart, and they realize, we've been wrong.
Joel Brooks:We've been wrong about Jesus. We've been wrong about who Jesus is. Jesus indeed is the risen Lord. But then they're cut to the heart not only because they're finally realizing that Jesus was indeed the risen Lord, they're cut to the heart because they realize now they killed him. They didn't just kill an innocent man.
Joel Brooks:They killed the innocent son of God who has come. And when that realization hits them, it pierces their soul. They are cut. Look at verse 36 and 37. Peter says, let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.
Joel Brooks:I mean, Peter's come a long way from being scared of a small little servant girl to now looking everybody in the eye, saying, you crucified him. You crucified him. Now these people who he's saying, you crucified, they did not literally pick up a hammer and nails and nail Jesus to the cross. Nor were they likely the people who were there shouting, crucify him, when Jesus was going through His mock trial. That's not what Peter means when he says, you crucified Him, Because these people probably weren't even there.
Joel Brooks:That was 50 days earlier. These are people from different nationalities coming in to celebrate this harvest festival. But we all know what he means because every Christian has heard those words and has felt them, that we have crucified Jesus. Every Christian has come to a point where they realize it was our rebellion, it was our sin that caused them to be crucified. It was our lying, our cheating, our hatred.
Joel Brooks:It was our bigotry. It was our greed, our slander, our indifference to the suffering of the poor. It was our idolatry. Jesus died because of those things, the sins that I have committed. He's making payment for our sins, for for my sins.
Joel Brooks:Every Christian at some point has felt that. And when it hits home, it cuts. We are cut to the heart by the one that we have pierced. This cutting would lead us to an absolute hopelessness if it wasn't for the fact that that cutting also shows us how much Jesus loved us. He didn't have to go to the cross.
Joel Brooks:He didn't have to be held there, but He was because He immensely loved us. Tim Keller, in his sermon on this text, he said that before we realize this, before we realize this, before we were cut to the heart, we primarily thought of sin as merely breaking God's rules. Now we think of sin as breaking God's heart. It breaks God's heart. He loves us immensely, and we have broken His heart when He sinned, but He also loved us so much that He caused a way to happen for us to be forgiven of that sin, to where we could still be with Him.
Joel Brooks:And when these people here realize that, that they have broken the heart of God, but that Jesus loved them so much that he gave his life for them, They're cut. And the only appropriate response to when you have been cut by the spirit of God is total surrender. And that's what we see here. Look at verse 37 again. Now when they had heard this, they were cut to the heart.
Joel Brooks:And they said to Peter and the rest of the disciples, brothers, what shall we do? If you've truly been cut to the heart, that is the only appropriate response. What do I have to do? What do I have to do? C s Lewis said, when we come to God as we when we we when we come to God, we don't come to him as bad people trying to become good.
Joel Brooks:We come as rebels laying down our arms. Total surrender. They didn't come to Peter and hear his words and were cut to the heart and say, Peter, give us the 2 or 3 things that we need to do in order to make this right. Can you tell us maybe, like, how we're supposed to now spend our money, or tell us how many times we need to go to church? Just just tell us the 2 or 3 things we need to do and we'll make it right.
Joel Brooks:That's not the appropriate response when you realize you have crucified the risen Lord, but he willingly gave himself out of love for you. The appropriate response is anything, Lord. In light of such love, anything. Call me to do whatever, whenever, however. My life is completely yours.
Joel Brooks:That's the only appropriate response when you have been cut by the spirit. In other words, your life is a blank check. It's a blank check, and you're asking God to fill it out however he wants you to fill it out. Peter, he responds to their question when they say, what would you have us do? He responds by saying you need to repent and be baptized.
Joel Brooks:Repent means you need to completely change the way you live, completely change the way you think. You need to be baptized, meaning, you need to identify with the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus, and you need to now identify with his people. You're not just baptized into a void. You're baptized into the covenant people of God. You're baptized into the Jesus is my God and these are my Jesus is my God and these are my people.
Joel Brooks:You're identifying with them. He says you do this, and you'll be forgiven, and the Holy Spirit will come upon you. And what he's saying is new life now is offered you. And when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, He will lead you and He will guide you in a new life of joy, faith, and obedience. You need to hear me that this offer is always on the table for us.
Joel Brooks:It is available right now, that offer, for you to repent, to believe the gospel, to be filled with the holy spirit and be given a life that you cannot imagine. That is an offer that exists right now at this place at this time. And before we come to this table, I wanna just simply ask, is there a moment in your life where you have made that decision, Where you have crossed over from death to life? Is there a moment where you just you haven't just made Jesus savior, but you've made Him Lord? Because hear me, Jesus cannot be your savior unless you acknowledge Him as Lord.
Joel Brooks:He is both Lord and savior. Is there a moment where you have surrendered your life to him? Is there a moment you've been cut to the heart? If not, I'd ask you would just open up your heart to that in this place at this time. As we take communion, if you do feel the Holy Spirit just pressing these things on you, feel free to come up here and pray.
Joel Brooks:This this stage up here is open for anybody who wants to come here and pray. If you want me to pray with you, if today you want us to be the day that you trust Jesus as your Lord and your savior, and you want to have the Holy Spirit in your life to change you completely, don't hesitate. We'll pray that out. If you want to, when we're taking communion, you wanna come forward and just say, you know what? I just need to totally surrender my life.
Joel Brooks:There's things in my life where I've just said, god, in response to what you've done, I've offered you 1 or 2 things, but I haven't said my life is a blank check. I haven't said however, whenever, whatever, Lord, my life is yours. Come forward, and let's let's pray. Or if you just wanna come and pray for others during this time, if the Lord's leading you in a burden for somebody who's lost, come and pray. We go to this table, because of the hope we have in Christ, that he, indeed, has given us this new life.
Joel Brooks:He has made it possible for us. We remember that on the night that Jesus was betrayed, he took bread, and he broke it. And He said, this is my body. It is given for you. He took the cup and He said this is my blood poured out for the forgiveness of many.
Joel Brooks:When we eat this body and we drink this blood, we remember the Christ who gave His life in order that we might be His. If you would pray with me. Our Father, we ask that in this moment, You would send Your Spirit and You would make much of Jesus, that you would press him into us, and that we would be changed. As we partake in communion, we would indeed commune with you. For those who have not given their life to you, who haven't surrendered and laid down their arms, Jesus, I ask that through your spirit, you would not let them leave this leave this place.
Joel Brooks:But, Lord, you would offer them this new life, and they would feel it, and they would change, and they would run to you. For those who are holding back, may they completely surrender. We love you, Jesus, and we pray this in your name. Amen.