How to Know God Has Broken Through

English

HOW TO KNOW WHEN GOD HAS BROKEN THROUGH

ACTS 4:32-37

    Last week, I had the privilege of spending a few days with my 90-year-old Dad.  One day, we had lunch with the pastor who preaches every Sunday at my father’s senior residential center in Bristol, TN.  Both my Dad and his pastor are Air Force vets and both became Christians after returning home from a war.  For most of our lunchtime discussion, they talked about how God mercifully saved them and how their lives have never been the same since.  It was so encouraging.  Both of these wonderful men are still thrilled about the good news of Jesus.  One of the things I’ve always enjoyed most about my father is that he has never lost the joy knowing that he is eternally loved by our eternal God.  Whenever the good news about Jesus is preached, my Dad beams.  He never seems to tire of remembering that the forgiveness that comes through Jesus is complete and real.  My father knows that nothing canseparate him from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39).

    As I was listening to these two men speak about their faith, I thought about the fact that many people do not seem to share the confidence in the their relationships to God that my father has.  Even people who go regularly to church and believe all the things the Bible teaches about God sometimes question whether their faith is real.  I remember a long talk once had with a college student about this.  He said he had made a decision to repent of his sin and believe on Jesus when he was a boy.  Sometimes, he told me, he knew that God is real and that God had adopted him into His family.  At other times, he confessed, he questioned everything -- about himself, the church and even about God.

    This young man was a pre-med student and he said something like this:  “When we ask whether a patient is alive or dead, we check for vital signs.  We don’t look back at whether he has a birth certificate to determine whether he’s alive now.  We don’t say, ‘Well, he was born once upon a time so he must be alive today.’  We know that there are sure evidences showing us whether a person is still physically among the living.”Pastor Greg,” that college student said,“I have a spiritual birth certificate.  I know when I was born again years ago.  But, there must be ongoing spiritual vital signs too. What are they?”

    His question is a big question.  But, I think the book of Acts is a good place to begin finding an answer to it.  The reason is that the book of Acts is our main source book for information about the very first church members.  After Jesus had died on the cross and risen from the dead, he called people to believe in him and follow him.  When those first church people became Christians, their lives changed.  Throughout the book of Acts we can observe spiritual vital signs in these believers that, in my estimation, should be true of all Christians. That’s what we’ll take time to consider today as we turn to Acts 4.  What I did this week is that I took note of the kinds of spiritual vital signs recorded in Acts 4 that give us evidence that these early Christians truly were alive to God.  

    Here is the issue for today’s sermon:  How can I know I really am a Christian?

    Notice that the issue is not how to become a Christian.  The Apostle Peter had already made that crystal clear in his first two sermons.  Here’s what he said you must do to become a Christian:

# 1: Repent of your sins – You must acknowledge that there are sins in your life that need to be forgiven.  “Repent” means that you own that you are a sinner, confess your sin to God, ask for forgiveness, and turn away from living the kind of life you’ve lived before.  The word “repent” is a word that calls for us to turn our lives around.  You must turn from a self-directed life and its sin.

# 2:  Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ – Remember that the word “believe” in the Bible is not merely to acknowledge that something is true.  We do need to believe the right things but the demons believe all the right things.  And demons are not Christians.  In the Bible, true believe always includes acting in ways consistent with that belief.  When you believe on the Lord Jesus, you follow him and make a commitment to live in ways that honor him.  Those who believe in Jesus have always obeyed him by being baptized.  Why?  Because baptism means that we identify Jesus as our savior and Lord.  We say at baptism, “From head to toe, my life belongs to Jesus.”  Listen to how Peter put it in Acts 2:38: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.  

    So, today, I call you to make sure you are saved, that you have received Jesus into your life.  And when you do, God will make you alive to him.  He will give his Spirit to you to work in you.  And your life will begin to change. That brings me back to my Dad and his pastor.  Even though they still face the struggles of aging, illness, and pain in this world, they nonetheless have an inner spiritual life that is vibrant and growing.  As Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:16: We do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.  I see that happening in my Dad and I believe we can see it happening in all our lives.

    So then again:  What then are the spiritual vital signs that you should expect to see when you have been born again? What are the evidences of God’s presence and transformational work in your life that will make you confident in your faith as my father is?  The surest evidence of spiritual life taught in the Bible is that you desire to live in a way that pleases God.  You want to resist sin and you begin to find some victory over sin.  But, there are several other pieces of evidence recorded in Acts 4.

Evidence #1:  Faithful service even in tough times – (the way youhandle difficulty)

    In Acts 2-3, after Peter and John had experienced warm fellowship and worship in church, they had experienced God using them to heal a man.  They might have thought, “Woohoo!  This is great!  We’ll never have any problems for the rest of our lives!”  

    But you know what happened.  The healing had led directly to them being imprisoned and threatened. And that was only the beginning.  From Acts 4 on, we will see the people of God living by faith in a still imperfect and sin-filled world.  In other words, it will become harder and harder for them to be faithful to Jesus.  What I want you to see today is that, when the difficulties came and they were sitting in prison, they did not say, “Well, this Jesus-religion doesn’t work for us, does it.”  They don’t grow discouraged and give up on the church.  To the contrary they faithfully continue to be witnesses to Jesus, to worship in church, and to serve as God gives opportunity.  

    One of the surest evidences that people have not truly received Jesus into their lives is that they quit when trials come.  When trouble comes, you learn whether you are still living for yourself or whether you have given your life to God.

    Hard times do not drive genuine believers from God but to God.  When tough times come, you have one of two choices to make: Will you run to God or from him?  See what Peter and John prayed in the midst of the adversity in Acts 4:24 & 29:  They lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them… Now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness…  Do you see it?  They turned to God and simply desired that he would help them remain faithful to him no matter what the circumstances.

    Often, this quality of faithfulness or unfaithfulness comes out when a person gets out of a Christian context -- like leaving home to go to college or taking off to go to Southern CA to try to make it in the entertainment industry.  The reason for this is that when those around you are Christians then you can begin to think that you are too even though you may have no personal relationship to God. When you’rewith Christians at home and school and church, then it’s easy to think you must be a Christian too.  But when you head out to other places, then sometimes you find that youhave no genuine relationship with God.

    A clear verse about this is one in which John talked about people who had left their faith.  1 John 2:19:  They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them ever belonged to us.  One of the surest spiritual vital signs of genuine spiritual life is that you continue to be faithful to serve and give witness to Jesus in those times you are going though difficulties.

Evidence #2:  God-centered prayer  (the way you speak to your Father)

    When the Christians experienced their first difficulties as new believers, they turned to God in prayer.  Notice how they prayed in 4:24-30.  They didn’t pray the way most of us pray in difficult times.  They didn’t pray for a change in their circumstances.  They didn’t pray that God would bring vengeance on their unjust oppressors.  They didn’t even pray for protection! How did they pray?  I want you to try to put yourself into their shoes that day.  They’ve just experienced their first persecution.  They probably have some measure of anxiety about what the future might hold for them and their families.  How do they pray?

    Listen carefully here:  There is nothing wrong in sometimes praying for your needs.  In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to pray for things like our daily bread.  But, when we truly know God, we don’t spend all our time simply praying, “Bring me this, God. Give me that, God.”  Can you imagine a friendship in which all you did when you talked was asked for the friend to give you things or to do things for you?  Psychologists say that a person who relates to people that way is antisocial and narcissistic. Genuine healthy relationships are characterized by the kind of communication we see Peter and John engaging in when they pray.

     A friendship doesn’t develop when you are only after the benefits you get out of being with the other person.  No, in a genuine friendship, youget to know one another and learn to open your hearts to one another.  You walk together in trust.  The same is true of your relationship with God.  One spiritual vital sign is revealed when you pray.  When you speak to God as the person he is, i.e., the sovereign Maker of the universe and your trustworthy heavenly Father, you will know that you know him.  You will pray the way Jesus did just before going to the cross:  “Father, this is what I ask for.  Still, not my will but yours be done.”

Evidence #3:  God “experiences” (remembering the times God has made himself known)

    We are to live by faith and not by sight in this world until Jesus comes and we see him face to face.  Still, the Bible indicates that there are times in our lives when God breaks into our lives and makes himself known in unmistakable ways.  Those “break-intos” may not happen as often as we would like!  Still, we are to remember those special times in other times in which we wonder where God is.

    I want you to notice how Peter, John and the early church people, who had just been witnessing faithfully and preaching powerfully,receive a fresh experience with God in Acts 4:31:  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.    

    So, what I see here is that the Bible tells us that God gave a specialand new filling to these people who were already Spirit-led believers. The entire church shook with the presence of God when this happened.  This sort of thing did not happen every day in the early Christians’ lives.  But it did happen that day and they were not to forget it.  And, I believe, this sort of special visitation from God still does happen in our lives.  There are times when God’s reality and presence are so clear to me.  He answers a prayer in a specific way.  Or, he moves in my heart and emotions deeply.  

    In the Bible, this happened not only in Acts 4 but also at other times in the early church.  It happened on the day when a young pastor namedTimothy was ordained.  God did something that Timothy and the church people would never be able to denyshowing that Timothy was God’s appointed leader for his church.  Read about this in 1 Timothy 4:14 the way it encourages Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:6.  When Timothy was ordained as the church pastor, God gave some sort of special confirmation.  Then, later when times were tough in the church, the church people and Timothy were to remember that God had affirmed this calling.

    This is so important for our lives with God.  We must learn to remember those times when God makes himself known to us.  I say this because there are times of dryness in our walks with God.  There are times when we go through hard times that we cannot understand. Let me put it this way: We live in a world in which we usually experience what I call the “restricted presence of God”.  We know God is here – but his presence is often veiled to our senses. When those times of dryness come, true believers take the time to remember what God has done in the past.  

    19th C pastor George MacDonald wrote about this in an article entitledThe Use of Dryness:   

God does not, by the instant gift of His Spirit, make us always feel right, desire good, love purity, or aspire after Him and His Will… The truth is this: God wants to remake us in His own image, choosing the good,refusing the evil. How should He effect this if He were always moving us from within, as He does at divine intervals, toward the beauty of holiness?  The use of times of dryness is their capacity to draw us toturn from self and run to God and there to find him to be the Living Water that He is.

    So, I urge you to keep a journal of those times in which God is profoundly real to you and at work within you.  Makes notes of such times in a memo and in your mind.  Do not forget those times.  True believers take time to remember the times of God’s filling in our lives.

Evidence #4:  Compassionate Generosity(The way you handle time, talents and treasure)

    We will return to the end of Acts 4 in my next message.  Today,I want you to look at what the Bible says happened immediately after God’s visitation in v. 31.  We read in 4:32-34:  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… God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all34 that there were no needy persons among them.

    Do you see it?  When people experienced God truly, they became generous.  What happened in Act 4 was not an early form of communism or socialism.  The giving recorded there was all voluntary.  What we read about in Acts 4:32-37 is what always happens when people come alive to the eternal God. When we truly know God, then we can stop being so fixated on our own time and treasures.  When we’re alive to God, we don’t have to be afraid to use material things to bless others -- or even to lose them.  The reason?  Our values change from the temporary to the eternal.

    I know that some people are just stingy.  But, one of the main reasonswe don’t give more of our own possessions away is that is that we’re afraid.  The worldview of an unbelieving world is that material things are the most important things.  So, it’s common for us to think the same way the world thinks, i.e., to live so much for material things that we’re afraid we will lose them.  But, when God is real to you, you can give more away.  You still will be a wise steward of your time, talents and treasures.  But I’ll tell you this:  One mark of real faith is that you become more and more thrilled to give.  You want to use what you know doesn’t last in order to bring about what lasts forever.  Let me say this:  One of the surest marks of a Spirit-filled church is that it never has to beg people to give or to serve.  Giving and serving the Lord’s church and the Lord’s work is one of our greatest joys.  When you become generous toward God’s work and toward people in need, you can be pretty sure you are alive to the eternal God.

 

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor