Acts 4:1-31 | UnashamedSample

Peter has a theme. There’s a pattern to his preaching. We’ve seen it in Acts 2, Acts 3, and here again with the religious leaders all hot and bothered in Acts 4.

The theme? You killed him!

Who? Jesus, of course. Again and again, Peter brings it back to this. Whoever is listening, whether the crowds gathered for Pentecost in Acts 2, the people gathered at the temple in Acts 3, or here in Acts 4 with the actual religious leaders who stirred up the crowds at Jesus’s trial with shouts of “Crucify! Crucify!”, all of us are responsible for the death of the Author of Life. Every single one of us is guilty of sin. Which means every single one of us is a sinner for whom Christ died.

It’s a hard pill to swallow, and Peter will sometimes nuance it. In Acts 3 he tells them that he knows they and their leaders acted out of ignorance (3:17) or that it was God’s deliberate plan (2:23). But he never lets us off the hook. It still comes back to the fact that we’re guilty of rejecting and killing God’s Son who is now king. “Let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah” (2:36). Or as we see today, “Know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. Jesus is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone’” (4:10-11).

The stark facts are a call to repentance. Turn to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins. 3000 did in Acts 2. We see it swell to 5000 in Acts 4. It’s also a warning. There’s no other way to salvation (4:12), and anyone who does not listen will be cut off from God’s chosen people (3:23). Imagine hearing that as a religious leader in Jesus’s day!

The implicit question of Acts is what will we do when confronted by the same stark facts. Will we humble ourselves before Jesus as king and repent? Or will we hold onto our egos and sense of public standing like the religious leaders, clinging tenaciously to the obstinate belief that we are right despite seeing all evidence to the contrary, and defending our self-constructed worldview at all costs, despite what God is showing us?