Acts 3
Please turn in your copy of the
scriptures to the book of Acts 2 chapter 3. Our reading is the
entire chapter of Acts 3. We’ll take a break today from
Philippians and look at a passage in the early history of the church. As you will recall, Jesus was
raised from the dead. He ministered for 40 days with
his disciples. He ascended into heaven. after
giving the Great Commission. And so we see in the book of
Acts, the Acts of the Apostles, the Acts of the Apostles and
fulfilling the Great Commission. Sometimes we think that it might
be exciting to go back and be what we might call a New Testament
church. Let’s go back and be what it was like in those days. Well, Acts chapter three is a
second set of events in Acts where there’s a miraculous event.
Here it’s the healing of a lame man. It’s a sermon by one of
the apostles. Here it’s Peter. And then there’s
an outbreak of persecution. And so sometimes it’s good to
warn ourselves and say, we may just not want to be the New Testament
church. There’s plenty of persecution
going on around the world, but let’s don’t invite it on ourselves.
But this is a wonderful account of how the resurrection of power
of Jesus is at work through faith in the church of the living God.
So let’s hear from God’s word now, Acts chapter three. beginning
at verse one, it says, now, Peter and John were going up to the
temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame
from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate
of the temple, that is called the beautiful gate, to ask alms
of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to
go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed
his gaze at him, as did John, and said, look at us. And he
fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something
from them. But Peter said, I have no silver
and gold, but what I do have, I give to you. In the name of
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him
by the right hand and raised him up. And immediately his feet
and his ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and
began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and
leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking
and praising God and recognized him as the one who sat at the
beautiful gate of the temple asking for alms. And they were
filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
While he clung to Peter and John, All the people ran together to
them and the portico called Solomon’s astounded. And when Peter saw
it, he addressed the people, men of Israel, why do you wonder
at this? Or why do you stare at us as
though by our own power or piety, we have made him walk. The God
of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God
of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered
over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided
to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous
one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. And you
killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To
this we are witnesses. In his name, by faith in his
name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know, and the
faith that is through Jesus has given this man this perfect health
in the presence of you all. And now, brothers, I know that
you acted in ignorance, as also did your rulers. But what God
foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ
would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and turn again,
that your sins may be blotted out. the times of refreshing
may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send
the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive
until the time for restoring all things about which God spoke
by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Moses said, the Lord
God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers.
You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. and it shall be
that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall
be destroyed from the people. And all the prophets who have
spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaim
these days, you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant
that God made with your father saying to Abraham and in your
offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. God,
having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless
you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. Amen. This is God’s holy and inspired
word. May he bless it to our hearts and minds. Let’s pray
now and ask for his grace. Our great God, we thank you for
this glorious day. We thank you for the resurrection
power of Jesus. We thank you now also for the
glorious power of your holy word. Every word written for our instruction. for our encouragement, to teach
us the way of salvation, but also to lift our hearts again
towards heaven, to know what is good and right and true. We
need your help in these moments to hear and to believe and to
see and to understand, and especially to go and do that the world may
know that Jesus lives and that we live in him. It’s in his name
we pray. Amen. Yesterday, I had a little painting
project to do. And so while I was painting,
I got out my unlistened to or my uncompleted iPod or podcast
list. And I listened all day long to
sermons. I listened to newscast. I listened
to commentary. I listened to all kinds of things.
And so in yesterday’s smorgasbord of listening to various speakers
about various subjects, I heard All kinds of wonderful things.
I heard all of R.C. Sproul’s sermons on Passion Week.
They were wonderful. They were glorious. I heard a
lot of news commentary. This was not a good week in international
news for many. I listened to cultural commentary
and was a bit depressed after listening to that about where
we are in culture, where we are in the world. But there was one
piece of good news that I kept hearing over and over. In addition
to the message of Jesus and his wonderful salvation through his
labor on our behalf in Passion Week, I heard one cultural commentator
say this very simply, and it warmed my heart because it’s
simple and true. If the church would simply be
the church, it will change the world little by little, day by
day, moment by moment. You see, we’re living in an era
that wants to see instant gratification. We want to experience things
on a large and grand scale. And we read a passage like Acts
chapter three, and we think, boy, wouldn’t it be just wonderful
if the elders of the church could speak and heal people and touch
and mend bones? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if,
as it says in Acts over and over, that daily thousands were added
to the numbers of the church? We forget that it’s very often
God works slowly. He works quietly. He works in
our mundane day to day rhythm and routine of life. He works. And he works and he works often
through very ordinary means. It is not very often that we
see God working through extraordinary means. Now, why the book of Acts? Why do these extraordinary stories
take place? What are we supposed to do with
them? Well, remember that Jesus was building his church and he
was doing it ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of God
the Father. He was doing it through the apostles whom he had set
apart and sent with the gospel message. And so in today’s passage,
we see the reality of the gospel entering into the brokenness
of this sin filled world. And it’s a good reminder to us
as Christians that whether it’s on a grand scale or a small scale,
the gospel of Jesus is at work in the world. And we do not need
to lose sight of the power of the gospel of Jesus. It’s through
our faith that we minister in this world. And it’s through
the faith of those who come to Jesus that they receive salvation. But we must not lose sight of
the reality of the world. We live in a world that is broken
by sin. We live in a world that is busted
up. It is bent. It is bruised because
of Adam’s choice to sin. God made a world and everything
in it. He made it perfect. And he told
Adam and Eve that if they simply obeyed his commands, that they
would have a blessed life, that they would live forever. But
Adam and Eve and their rebellion chose sin over obedience. And that brought the world, it
brought all mankind after Adam and Eve into an estate of sin
and misery, into a position of difficulty and brokenness. And
so as we look around the world, we see broken relationships. We hear of wars and rumors of
wars. We experience sickness, our bones ache and decay, our
hearts fail, loved ones die, and on and on that list might
go. We must remember that the reality
of sin in this world and the brokenness which it has brought
upon us. But in a passage like today,
we see the glorious power of the gospel to make all things
new. We see also of the promises of
God that Jesus will come again and though he is ushering in
his blessing now and that things are better and better and more
joyful and blessed, there will be a day where everything is
perfect again. Things are fixed right like they
were in the garden before that day when Adam and Eve chose sin
over obedience. I want us to take a few moments
to look at this little gospel story and to think a few thoughts
about how it how it helps us live, how it blesses us as we
live life surrounded by the brokenness and the reality of sin in this
world. I want us to understand the resurrection
reality. And that resurrection reality
is this, Jesus has been raised up to bless us. And those blessings
are past, they’re present, and they are future. But the risen
Christ, who has given the great commission to his church, calls
us to advance the gospel and to make his blessings known as
far as the cursed is found. And it is through his church. It is through his apostolic church
here in Acts chapter three. It is through his church here
at First Associate Reform Presbyterian on Saddle Club Road in Burlington.
It is through us that the glory and the power and the possibilities
that are ours in Christ through the resurrection are made known
to the world around us. This passage begins with a story.
It’s a story about a man and he has a very opportune spot
for begging. Lived in Greensboro for five
years and over the years we began to see and recognize who was
who on the street corners. And the kids would say, didn’t
we see him at the corner of Holden and High Point? Or didn’t we
see her over here or over there? You see, there are better spots
than others for asking for help. And this man has one of the best.
He is at the beautiful gate, the gate called Beautiful, one
of the grandest gates And as people entered the temple at
three o’clock in the afternoon, he was laid there where he might
have. Oh, let’s go ahead and say it,
it’s on our minds, the best pickings, the most people with the most
money. And you understand that in Jerusalem, when you’re making
your way to temple and you’re adjusting your ties and straightening
your jackets, one of the greatest deeds that they thought might bring
them some merit would be to give alms to the poor. So this man
knew right place, the right time, the right opportunity to receive
from many. And so he’s there, he’s picked
up, he’s carried there by friends or family. Now it struck me,
if you read towards the end of chapter four, you find out this
man is 40 years old. He’s been lame since birth. He
cannot walk. And for whatever reason, his
ankles, his feet don’t work. And so he’s laid there. And you
can imagine. The people and their response
to him, they walk by him every day. Oh, there’s so and so. Yes,
we saw him at Holden and High Point Road yesterday, but here
he is now at the beautiful gate and and. He’s here to beg alms. And many people look straight
ahead. You know how we do. We look ahead. We don’t make
eye contact. We move on. We’re not giving money. We’re
not helping. We’ve all seen the expose on the evening news, how
those folks, they raise a pretty good bit of money. They sleep
in a Hampton Inn most nights. And we’ve seen it all. And so
we’ve lost compassion. The other day, we rode by someone
in our car. And I told my children, I said,
you know, we can get a little cynical.
We can get unkind in our hearts. We can lose hearts of compassion.
Maybe this person doesn’t need the kind of help they’re asking
for. Maybe they need different help. But let’s not ever lose
heart that there are real people in real need and really desperate. But we get that way, don’t we?
But think about Peter and John. Peter and John, as they were
walking in the temple at the third hour to worship God, to
pray, and to do their religious duties, they were Christians,
yet they were still some reason attached to the temple and to
the customs, they walked in to pray. And as they walked past
this man, they stared him in the eyes. You know, that’s the
first rule, isn’t it? Don’t don’t make eye contact
with a panhandler. But they made eye contact. They
stared him in the eyes and they said, look at us. And as the
man looked at them, Peter commanded him to rise up and to walk. I don’t have silver. I don’t
have gold. I don’t have pennies. I don’t
have food vouchers. I don’t have anything to give
you. But what I do have, I give you freely in the name of Jesus
of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And you see, that’s a good reminder
for us as the Church of Jesus Christ in a world where We like
to be do gooders and doing good as a wonderful thing in a world
where even the church has lost sight of its mission. We need
to remember. Peter and John here. The most
important thing anyone can need, oh, yes, food and shelter and
clothing and daily necessities are wonderful, but the greatest
thing we can give to someone is the gift of salvation by offering
them the gospel. And it’s understood by many,
and I believe it to be true, that when this man looked at
Peter and John, they understood in some way, by the power of
the Holy Spirit, that this man had faith, that this man was
sick and tired of being sick and tired, that this man wanted
to be made whole, and not just that he could walk again, that
his ankles would work properly, that his feet would do as God
had designed them in creation to do. He wanted to be made whole. He wanted faith in Christ. He
wanted the righteousness of Jesus. He wanted salvation. And he wanted
it so badly, he stared them in the eyes. And Peter and John,
seeing that, offered him not only health, but spiritual health
and spiritual life. And we see an instant healing
here. Peter reached out his hand and
pulled the man up by his right arm. And this man stood to his
feet, instantly healed. Who knows what his exact medical
condition was? Some of you who’ve studied anatomy
in the human body, you may understand what this is. Some of you who
are in the medical profession, you may could tell us what this
would have been. Nevertheless, he was healed instantly
by the power of Jesus, by the words of Peter, but ultimately
by his faith. And we see a wonderful example
of the power of the gospel, the glory of the church at work in
the world. Now you and I, we could make a killing if we had
a ministry like this. People would flock into our doors
if they knew we had the power of healing. So we must understand
God does not ordinarily work in this way. These were apostolic
times and apostolic signs accompanied apostolic ministry. And just
like the, The ministry of Jesus and its miracles, the signs were
to undergird, to strengthen, to cast a spotlight on the ministry
of Christ. Oh yes, here is the ministry
of Peter and John, but it’s really the ministry of Christ. It’s
the ministry of Christ at work through his apostles. And today
it’s the ministry of Christ at work through each of you. God
uses us. We are his means. He uses ordinary
men and women and boys and girls. He uses ministers, elders, deacons,
church members to accomplish his holy ends on the face of
the earth. That more and more men and women
and boys and girls may come to faith in Jesus and bow their
knee to him. This is a good reminder, though,
It is Jesus who saves. It is Jesus who heals. It is Jesus who can do the mighty
work in the brokenness of the sin-filled world, and he can
make all things new. Now, you understand why people
were filled with awe, why they were full of wonder, why they
couldn’t stop talking. I mean, it wasn’t just enough
that this man was up on his feet. But it says, and maybe some of
you sung the little song in Sunday school growing up, You know,
where Peter and John say silver and gold, have I none, I’m not
going to sing it. But in the name of Jesus, rise up and walk.
And there’s that little chorus. He went walking and leaping and
praising God. Some of you probably remember
that. But can you imagine in the dignified temple of God Almighty,
this man who had been begging for 35, 30 years, who knows? They all knew him. And he’s running
through the temple. Look at me. I can walk. I can
run. I can leap. And he’s praising God. You can
imagine the commotion. Now, commotions in the temple
were not a good thing in the last 40, 50, 60 days. They had just witnessed the suffering
and the death and the excitement surrounding Holy Week. And so
commotions in the temple were not a good thing. You can imagine
people were a little bit on edge. But here is this man walking.
and leaping and praising God. And so Peter, seeing opportunity,
he preaches. And he preaches a sermon that
the modern day church would not dare preach. You know, we like
to be kind. We don’t like to step on toes.
But what does Peter say? Why are you amazed? Why are you
looking at the signs and wonders? You think we’ve done this. No,
this was done in the name of Jesus. Oh, and by the way, this
is the Jesus that you denied. This is the Jesus who, to put
it in our modern language, you threw under the bus. You let
Pilate, who was willing to give him up, you let Pilate put him
to death. You killed the Holy One of Israel. You took the Lord and the author
of life and you put him on a cross and you killed him. And he’s
the guy that Moses and all the prophets have spoken of. Understand
now, he’s speaking to the Jewish people. He’s speaking to those
who grew up in Sunday school. They knew their Jewish Bibles.
They knew their Old Testaments. They knew their prophets, their
messages. They knew of the coming Messiah. And he’s saying, guess
what, buddies? You killed him. You put Jesus,
the great Messiah, the great prophet, you put him on the cross. But it was God’s plan. You acted
in ignorance and much like Joseph says to his brothers, you know,
after he reveals himself to them in Egypt, what you meant for
evil, God has meant for good. That’s what Peter says to them. You acted in ignorance. You didn’t
know what you were doing. You did a wicked thing, a horrible
thing, but in God’s economy, it was the salvation of sinners. And he gives them a message of
hope. We love to say God is the God of second chances, and indeed
he is. Look at verse 19. Peter’s message
is this repent, therefore, and turn again that your sins may
be blotted out and the times of refreshing may come from the
presence of the Lord and that he may send Christ appointed
for you. Jesus, whom heaven must receive
until the time for restoring all things about which God spoke
by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Can’t be overstated or understated.
We live in a world that is broken by sin. We see it all over the
place. We can name instance after instance
where we see it. And this is the message that
the church needs to continually proclaim to this dark and dying,
to this hurt and broken world. And it’s a message of repentance.
Repentance is simply turning. It’s recognizing that the direction
in which you are going is a wrong direction. Many of you men in
the church don’t want to admit that you’re headed in the wrong
direction. Your wife is over in the navigation seat telling
you, honey, I don’t think we’re going the right way. And repentance
is coming to that realization that you are going the wrong
way. Your destination is not the destination that you desire.
And so repentance is admitting that and turning something in
human nature we don’t like to do. But it’s what God requires
of us turning and God and his grace and mercy and the movement
of his Holy Spirit. He works in us the gift of repentance. where we see our error, we see
our sin, we see the futility of the way in which we are living,
and we turn from it, and we turn from that wickedness toward righteousness. That is the message that Peter
is giving here. Repent, therefore, and turn again that your sins
may be blotted out. I don’t know about you, but I
sort of bump through life without thinking sometimes. And I mean,
not thinking about how good God has been to me, Let’s stop and
think for just a moment. If you have faith in Jesus and
you have repented, God has blotted out your sins. He has wiped away
that ink. He has wiped away that list of
the record which stood against you because it has been paid
for in Christ Jesus. And this passage gives us a warning.
It’s a warning, much like the warning that’s given in the book
of Hebrews, which says today, if you hear the voice of God,
do not harden your hearts as the Israelites did in the wilderness
and God wipe them all away. He says. He says here that when
Jesus speaks, we should listen to him and that we should obey
him and we should hear his message of salvation. May the God of
peace. who brought again from the dead,
the Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep through the blood
of the eternal covenant. May he give you grace to repent
and to repent daily and often, and to proclaim that repentance
to this dark and dying world. Oh, you can give this world all
kinds of hope through tax reform. You can give them hope through
legislated morality. You can give them hope through
a bestselling book about diet or exercise or heart healthy
living, whatever it may be. But you understand, unless unless
we preach repentance and God is gracious, we won’t see any
kind of blessing like this world needs. And God gives a wonderful
promise here when we repent and when we turn to him. God gives
us days of refreshing. Verse 20 says, times of refreshing. God has given us a down payment
on salvation. Oh, and your life is so rich
now. It’s so rich in him, but it will
be so much richer when heaven comes down and we live with God
forever and ever. And friends, that is through
faith in him, through the resurrected Jesus, through the redeeming
Jesus, through the saving Jesus. Let us pray together. Our great
God and Heavenly Father, we do bless you this day for being
the God who saves. We bless you that your message
of salvation is all throughout the Bible. We bless you that
your message of salvation is all over the pages of scripture
that we can’t help but read and your Holy Spirit show us Jesus
every which way. Lord, remind us over and over
of our need of him. our daily need of him and of
his daily grace to provide all that we need to live life of
godliness and faithfulness and worship. And we do pray, Father,
that you would help us to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus around
the world from our pulpit and from our lips as we go into all
the places where you send us week after week. We thank you
for Jesus. We thank you for the cross. We
thank you for salvation and that our sins have been blotted out.
Lord, may we never take it for granted, but as saved people,
may we sing of the glory of Jesus. And it’s in his name we pray.
Amen. Let’s stand together and proclaim our desire to lift high
the cross of Christ.