Sermon Tone Analysis

Do you have respect for the authority of our rulers?

(President, Senators, even police)

If yes, why and if no why?

Decline of the respect of authority has infected the church.

We are continuing our study of the book of Acts.

We are now in Acts 2 on the day of Pentecost which is a day of celebration for the Israelites and there are thousands of Israelites gathered in Jerusalem at this time for the festival.

While there God has chosen this day to be the day in which He will fulfill Scripture by pouring out His Holy Spirit on all mankind.

This begins with the 120 who are gathered in a house praying and waiting on the coming of the Holy Spirit.

When the Holy Spirit is poured out on all those who are gathered in the house it is not a silent event, it doesn’t go without notice but is noticed by all who are in Jerusalem.

God is calling His people back to Him, prompting them back and demonstrating His power the this unique gift of tongues which was to draw people to God and was for the purpose of revealing His message with clarity to those who were from many different nation and spoke different languages.

Those was an amazing event and those who were drawn to the house where this took place recognized God was doing something and some wanted to dismiss it but the Holy Spirit moved Peter to explain to those there exactly what it is that God is doing.

God is fulfilling the promise He has made to bring about His Holy Spirit.

This is a fulfillment of the prophecy spoken through Joel and it was brought about through Jesus’ life death and resurrection and man can have hope in this truth.

Now Peter is going to continue to preach this incredible message and points to a present day reality for those gathered before him and a present day reality for ourselves today, God has lifted Jesus to sit on high at His right hand.

There is a King and this King is the King of the universe and He is our King.

God Seats Jesus with Ultimate Authority

Let’s take a look at God’s exaltation of Jesus in Acts 2:29-36

Peter opens this third point of his with another address to his audience.

He says ‘brethren’ which is a common designation for the Jewish community.

Christians today call themselves brothers and sisters in Christ.

If we have placed out trust in Christ as Lord and Savior then we are a part of a family.

We are a part of a family unit with our common bond being our adoption as sons and daughters of God through the blood of Jesus Christ.

When Peter calls these men brethren he doesn’t mean this at all.

He is looking at them as brothers as the covenant people of God in the line of Israel the patriarch.

He is associating himself with them and also with the promises which were made to his forefathers were also made to those who witnessed this grand event.

Now he continues, “I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.”

So now Peter is calling attention to the passage he has just quoted from Psalm 16 which was David pointing to Jesus being the Holy One who would not suffer decay.

David by the power of the Holy Spirit saw the hope of his being in the presence of God through God raising Jesus from the dead.

Peter is making his point that David could not be speaking of himself in this passage because David is dead and he is not only dead but is buried and in fact they are able to go and visit his tomb.

According to Josephus a 1st century historian has written in about David’s tomb being broken into and robbed in about 135 b.c. as well as Herod attempting to rob David’s tomb places his tomb in history as being still occupied with a body.

So as Peter puts it when David had said this in Psalm 16 he wasn’t talking about himself but was pointing to another who was the Holy One, which Peter makes clear here is Jesus of Nazareth.

God Established The Royal Line

Peter goes from here to pointing out David’s faith and David’s place as a spokesperson of God.

In verse 30 Peter calls David ‘a prophet’.

David was a King, how is it that Peter here calls him a prophet.

Especially when the prophecy Peter quotes was actually given by Nathan not David himself.

Simple, David was acting as a spokesman for God.

He trusted in God and trusted in God’s promise even though he himself would never see the promise come to fruition he still trusted.

In this way David is seen as the recipient of the prophecy and the projector of the prophecy and so seen as a prophet.

Peter calling David a prophet and also calling him a patriarch places him in line with who was to come, the Holy One who was chosen by God to be the King who would come from David’s lineage and be God’s chosen Lord over all.

So as we continue we see Peter explains David’s prophecy and David’s understanding of the prophecy.

Peter quotes the prophecy in the end of verse 30.

He says ‘and knew God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne.’

This is in reference to the fact David wanting to build God a permanent home for Him to dwell on earth.

David looked out the window of His enormous and lavish home and saw the tabernacle, God’s temporary dwelling place here on earth and David wanted to build a lavish place for God to dwell.

This wasn’t God’s plan for David.

He tells David he is a man of war and God’s house will not be built by a man of war.

Still so David we be assured of a future inheritance for his people God told him David’s son will build a house for Him and from David’s line there will be an everlasting throne for all eternity.

That is the point of this quote which is repeated through out the Hebrew Scriptures.

This prophecy is first established in 2 Samuel 7:12-16

2 Samuel 7:12-16

So God will establish His kingdom and it will be an eternal kingdom.

David understood this and even writes about it in Psalm 2.

Psalm 2:3-12

David was looking to the promise God had made and he trusted in His promise for a future everlasting Kingdom with a righteous and perfect judge and king.

The Israelites would have known this and would have been looking forward to this chosen king God would be sending through David’s line.

They also would have been looking for the sign of His coming and the kind of Kingdom would would have as Isaiah prophesied.

Isaiah points to a Davidic King

Isaiah 9:6-7

Also Jeremiah points to Jesus and calls Him a righteous Branch;

Jeremiah 33:14-18

David had faith in God and this faith was in God's promise, the promise of an everlasting King on an everlasting throne for all eternity.

David knew he himself was not this king but God said One would come from him who would be the King.

This King is God's chosen One who God rose from the dead and has seated on His throne.

Jesus died but God didn't abandon Him to the grave and He didn't allow His flesh to suffer decay He was raised from the dead, never to decay, glorified and exalted for all eternity.

David understood resurrection and knew he would one day stand in God's presence with a resurrected body but by the power of the Holy Spirit who works in and through him David's understanding of it pointed to the One who first had to undergo the true resurrection so David could receive the true resurrection as well.

Peter also makes it clear Jesus' death, burial and resurrection has been witnessed by all those who are standing there with him.

The all in this passage doesn't mean everyone Peter is talking to but everyone who is with him who the crowd has just witnessed speaking in other tongues.

The twelve have witnessed the risen Lord and so have the other 120.

In fact in the letter to the Corinthian church Paul mentions over 500 disciples witnessed Jesus in His resurrected form.

There are many witnesses to the fact of Jesus' resurrection.

Peter by saying this is pointing out they have witnessed this truth and not only this by saying David is buried and they can visit his tomb he compares David to Jesus, David is buried Jesus is not, David has a tomb you can visit, you can't visit Jesus' tomb.

It is a well known fact by this time Jesus is not buried anywhere.

Still David is.

God Bestows the Throne on Jesus

We find this in verse 33, Peter says, ‘Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having recieved from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.”

This is Peter's point, David is pointing to Jesus as the exalted King over all the earth, and in His exaltation He is now at the right hand of God the Father and the Father was able to send the promise which was made to Israel through Joel.

The Holy Spirit is doing one incredible work through Peter in this one sentence.

The trinity is on display.

God exalted Jesus and recieved Jesus.

The phrase ‘to the right hand of God’ is deeper then you think.

This phrase means Jesus has been placed or seated at God’s right hand.

It is a place of prominence and He is on the same level as God.

This is a big deal to a monotheistic religion that teaches One God.

Jesus is God and Jesus sits on the throne of Grace alongside God the Father and all the power God has Jesus has and all the authority God wields Jesus’ wields.

John Calvin says it beautifully in his “Institutes of the Christian Religion”

This is as if it were said that Christ was invested with lordship over heaven and earth, and solemnly entered into possession of the government committed to him—and that he not only entered into possession once for all, but continues in it, until he shall come down on Judgment Day.

John Calvin

,

Institutes of the Christian Religion & 2, ed.

John T. McNeill, trans.

Ford Lewis Battles, vol. 1, The Library of Christian Classics (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 524.

Philippians 2:5-13

Jesus has taken possession of all that is His, the heavens the earth and all that has been made.

Jesus has taken His seat which means His work that He came to the earth to accomplish is not completed.

He sits in victory taking His rightful please as King, Judge and Mediator.

This is a powerful statement.

Jesus has been exalted by God to God’s right hand and as the verse continues, “and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit.”

This just goes to show Jesus is exalted seated at the right hand of the Father and now that He is seated and He has received the same authority and power as God the Father He now is the One who distributes the Holy Spirit.

All three working together in our Salvation.

This is a glorious statement.