Acts 3
Use this guide to help your group discussion as you meet this week.
Transcript
My name is Mike, and I am one of the pastors here. And I've been busy this week. Things are changing. So get ready. No, really. Chet.
Eyes up here. This is for you. Just kidding. Okay. They told me that sometimes I speak too plainly that I have to say just kidding after I make a joke like that. I promise that was a joke.
But my name is Mike, and I was ordained here as a pastor about a week ago, and I'm actually very thankful for that. I will tell you that I was not just sobered by that moment, but also encouraged. And I felt a spirit of unity with our church family. As over the last six years, I've been here. In fact, I don't know if many of you know this, but this is the only church I've ever been to since I've lived here. I moved here six years ago, and four days after living here, I walked in the front door, and I've never left.
And over the last two years, I've been working out the call to ministry that I've felt in my life for a long time, and exercising that in my group and with my church family and under the guidance of our elders. And I'm really excited to be able to serve as a pastor here. And I'm very excited to be able to, alongside Isaac and some others, lead a church plant that's going out to Lexington in January. And we're really excited about that. So we're organizing into groups.
And so some of you are feeling that shift in your groups right now, and we're excited. And we're preparing for January to see what the Lord will do. This morning, we're going to be in Acts chapter 3. We've been studying in the book of Acts. That's on page 1055 in the Bibles at your seats. Before we start, I would like to pray.
Father, we thank you for the great work of salvation. Thank you for calling us from darkness and into marvelous light. And I stand up here today, a man in need of your grace. And I pray that you would, through the Holy Spirit, apply the truth of the Scripture to our hearts, so that we may be made into the image of your Son. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
All right. Two weeks ago, we were in Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through 47. And we learned that the core practices of the early church were learning from and having their lives shaped by the Word, fellowshipping with one another, sharing meals together, and praying together. And these practices weren't just for the early church. They're for us. They're the things that we continue to do to this day.
Isaac gave us a 10,000-foot view of what the church was doing, but today we're going to look at an actual story of something that happened in the early church. We're going to see a miraculous healing that takes place. And we're also going to see how we might be tempted to be so focused on what's happening right in front of us that we miss what God might actually be doing in our lives. So we pick up here in Acts chapter 3 with an encounter that Peter and John have with a crippled man while walking down to the temple. Let's start in verse 1.
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. (Acts 3:1-2 ESV)
All right, we have got Peter and John. Peter was a fisherman, and he became a disciple, a follower of Jesus Christ. He was very passionate. He was sometimes impulsive.
On the night of Jesus' arrest, he actually pulls out his sword and cuts off the ear of a guard. And then later, he will actually go on to deny Jesus in front of some witnesses. But in spite of all that, he actually becomes a critical member here of the early church, and he's a critical member in the spread of the gospel at this time. John, who was with him here, was also a fisherman. He was known as the disciple who Jesus loved. And later in his life, he'll be exiled to the island of Patmos, and he'll write the book of Revelation.
Peter and John are apostles. They saw the risen Christ, and they were sent by him to go spread the gospel to the world. And here they are going to the temple in Jerusalem. We're told they're going at the hour of prayer, which is around 3 p.m. The text does not specifically tell us whether or not they're going there to pray, or they're just going there because they know that there are a lot of people there, and they want to have an opportunity to talk about Jesus. We're also introduced here to another person.
We're introduced to a man who we're told that is lame from birth. This man is crippled. He's crippled from the day that he's born. It's not an accident. It's not something he did to himself. It's something that he's born with.
When an arm or a leg is unable to be used, it begins to atrophy or to get smaller. If a person is unable to use their arms or legs from birth, they likely won't develop correctly. So this guy might potentially have had kind of small, gnarled, shriveled ankles and feet. And in order for him to kind of get around, he's probably going to have to scoot around on his hands. That's a picture of this man. Any movement he would have had to do would have likely been very, very challenging.
You know, in 1990, here in America, George H. W. Bush signed the Americans with Disabilities Act. And this was a shift in how things were in our public spaces. This mandated that there be curb cuts put on sidewalks. This mandated elevators in public buildings, ramps at the entrances of places, and accessible restrooms for all. The Book of Acts, interestingly, spans a period of about 32 years from A.D. 30 to A.D. 62. There was no legislation that existed to protect this man. Nothing to advocate for this man. There were no social services like vocational rehab to help him find meaningful employment. Instead, this guy relies on the kindness, or perhaps the pity, of those around him to bring him to a place where he could beg. Beg for anything that anyone might be willing to spare.
And here this man is with some serious physical challenges, begging outside the temple, and Peter and John come by.
Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. (Acts 3:3 ESV)
So he sees them, and he asks them, just like he does, every day to every single person that walks by. And he's asking because he's got needs. He needs to eat. He needs to drink. He needs a place to stay. He probably needs money in some way just to survive.
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. (Acts 3:4-5 ESV)
So Peter and John look right at him and tell him to look back at them.
And there they stand, eyes locked with this man. And you can feel this. This is a palpable moment. He's asked for money hundreds, thousands maybe of times. But this is totally different.
He is locked in with two men who followed Jesus Christ and were given the mission, the greatest mission, to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. This man is going to encounter Jesus. Verse 6.
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 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. (Acts 3:6-10 ESV)
Wow. So Peter doesn't just toss him a coin and move on.
He heals him. It says his feet and ankles were made strong. No more gnarled, lifeless feet, but strong muscles, bones, and tendons. And it's immediate. And the man leaps up and walks and praises God. This guy is ecstatic.
And I can imagine that the whole day, he probably couldn't stop walking. A few years ago, I tore my Achilles tendon. And I can only make it about a week or so before I have to talk about it in some way. And so I'm talking about it here with you all today. But I remember the day that I got cleared to walk after three months of crutches and using a splint and having a boot.
And George Garcia asked me if I would go to Food Lion with him. And it was as if he asked me to go to Walt Disney World. I said, absolutely. I don't think I bought a single thing. I just walked around the store, up and down each aisle, with a totally new lease on life. This guy may have walked the rest of the day because this is something he never had done before.
This is dramatic. This is so important to him. And he praises God because he encountered Jesus Christ in a miraculous way. And being a creature that's created to worship, he responds in worship to the Almighty God. And he walks into the temple. And, of course, everyone recognizes him.
And he's out front every day. So they all see him. And they're all shocked. They're all totally amazed, right? Everyone who saw him knew this was miraculous. People just saw him.
They just walked by him. And he was stuck on the ground. So this is miraculous. Everyone is shocked. Everyone is amazed. And we're told that they're filled with wonder and amazement.
And this would have been absolutely mind-blowing. And now there's a crowd that's starting to build. There's a crowd gathering around Peter and John. And Peter speaks up.
While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's. 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?" (Acts 3:11-12 ESV)
Okay. So people are running to them to see what's going on.
The place that they're standing at is called Solomon's portico. That's what that is. That's not the trendy name for the temple coffee shop. That's the porch on the side of the temple courtyard with columns around it and a roof over it for covering. It was an actual place. And it was named for King Solomon of Israel.
And Peter looks at the crowd here and opens with, why do you wonder at this? And if I'm standing there, I'm thinking to myself, you must know something that I don't know. Because this is absolutely insane. I've never seen anything like this before. Like, is this a trick question? But I think that Peter raises this question because he's going to start pushing them deeper beyond what just happened in the physical sense.
And he goes on and says, why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we made him walk? And this is a really pointed question because we might do that pretty often. We see God do something and we just have to explain it. It has to make sense to us. Well, he must have been a powerful man of God and that's why he was able to do that. He must have been one of God's, you know, his toughest soldiers.
He must be confident in the gospel and well-versed in Scripture. That's why he was able to do that. That makes sense. Or maybe he was so pious. He must pray every day, all day. He must never sin.
He must never indulge in any of the world's pleasures. And that's why he was able to do that. And we sometimes as Baptists are the first people to say our salvation is of Christ. It's not of our own works. But get a blessing from God?
Oh, he must have earned that, right? He must truly be deserving. Jerry Bridges was a Christian author. In the 1970s, he wrote a book called The Pursuit of Holiness. And it was a really helpful book for decades for Christians as they try to pursue holiness and Christlikeness. Interestingly, in the 1990s, as a response, not directly to his initial book, but as a response to noticing how many people, how many Christians fall into the trap of works-based thinking, he wrote another book called The Discipline of Grace.
In that book, he says that there is an all-too-common misconception of the Christian life. The thinking that although we are saved by grace, we earn or forfeit God's blessing in our daily lives by our performance. We would never say salvation is of works, but we can easily think that anything good that happens after this is just because we were well-behaved. God blessed this crippled man. And Peter knows that humanity will naturally try to explain it, and they'll gravitate toward power and toward piety. But that's a misunderstanding of how God operates in this world.
And it is also much, much too narrow, because it puts the focus on the blessing that happened itself, and they're locked into the fact that he was blessed. And it was miraculous, but Peter wants them to go deeper than that. Verse 13.
"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. And 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 the man this perfect health in the presence of you all." (Acts 3:13-16 ESV)
Now Peter starts to shift the focus away from what happened, away from, are you amazed that he's walking? Are you amazed that we did it? Because really, neither of those is the main point. And honestly, we didn't even really do it.
If you want to know the truth. He then uses the names of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Now these are the patriarchs. These are the forefathers of the Jewish people. These are the men that God covenanted with on behalf of the Jewish people. And whenever we're reading in the New Testament text, and we see some reference to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, in relation to Jesus, they are showing the connection between Yahweh, the one true God, and Jesus Christ.
If you've been a Christian for a while, you may sort of accept that or know that reality. But this would actually have been a major sticking point for the Jewish people at this time. After Peter establishes that God is involved here in glorifying Jesus, he indicts the people for their role in Jesus' crucifixion. He says, You guys brought him to Pilate for trial. And when Pilate disagreed and found him innocent of the crime that you condemned him of, you doubled down. You refused his release.
And instead, you begged for Pilate to release a known murderer and instead to crucify Jesus. That's a big deal. Just like the act of referencing Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a big deal to these people, referencing the fact that the Jewish people denied Pilate from releasing Jesus is a big deal. Remember, this is happening in Jerusalem while it's under the control of Rome. And the Jewish people don't like this. They don't want to be under Roman control.
And Peter is saying that the local Roman leader, who is not Jewish, he's a Gentile, found Jesus innocent. And it was you all who condemned him and wanted him to be killed. I think that even a northerner would have enough sense not to say something like that so rudely. So we see that the God of the Old Testament glorified Jesus, and the Jewish people wanted Jesus executed and ensured that it happened. And it's faith in the name of Jesus that was the reason the man was healed that day. And at this point, the mood there in Solomon's portico is probably quite different.
This has now become sobering. This is now convicting. And if we know ourselves, and if we know our sin and how it corrupts, we understand that although we may not have been alive at the time that this happened, although we ourselves may have not stood in front of Pilate and called for Jesus' crucifixion, we did contribute something, that is in the words of Jonathan Edwards, the sin that made it necessary. And I think it's easy to blame people in the past and sometimes hide our own culpability. And I think that's part of who we are as people for not always wanting to take responsibility. And Peter continues here.
"And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled." (Acts 3:17-18 ESV)
And so here Peter adds, so Peter takes the responsibility of mankind in the death of Jesus and pairs it here with the sovereignty of God.
You know, he actually said something similar in his sermon at Pentecost that we looked at a few weeks ago. A commentary that I read this week that you actually all gifted me about seven days ago, and thank you very much, by the way, noted that Peter is not really trying to raise a philosophical quandary or logical discussion. He instead is making an assertion that it was both God's will for Jesus to be put to death and man's responsibility that Jesus was put to death. Now, that can be hard for us to make sense of completely, but the point here is actually not to resolve that tension. I want to read you what the commentator said on this.
The plan is not to leave people in their guilt, caught between God's sovereignty and their responsibility, but to stress a hopelessness that drives to repentance. Confrontation with both responsibility for sin and a sovereign God causes everyone to face judgment, and in doing so, they find God's intention to save. And so Peter, understanding this, calls them into repentance. He says:
"Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that 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 the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago." (Acts 3:19-21 ESV)
This is a call to repentance. Repent. Turn back. Why? So your sins might be blotted out.
What happens if we do? Refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord, and Jesus Christ will return for you and fulfill everything that the prophets said. Guys, this is what we really want more than healing. I think we read this and we read about the healing and we think, that's it. That's what I want. So faith in Jesus, faith in Jesus is what gets me that.
That's what I got to do. Oh, I'll do it. And Peter's like, no. All of that drives us deeper. That we are all spiritually sick, and we're guilty for our sin. And our sin is what made the death of Jesus Christ necessary.
We are responsible for an innocent man's death. But the beauty of the gospel is that Jesus, though innocent, went to the cross. He was mocked. He was beaten. He was spit on. And he never once sinned.
I sinned. And I'll never be punished for my sin. If by God's grace you repent of your sin and put faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will never be punished for your sin. That's refreshing. That's the refreshment that we really, really need. That's the refreshment that deep down we so deeply crave.
The man in this story was healed by faith in Jesus. And I do believe that our bodies are important. And I do believe that it really happened that the man was healed miraculously. But what a glorious picture of our spiritual reality. That we are born totally crippled by our sin. And that faith in Jesus Christ makes us whole.
And this is such good news for us. But there is another side to this.
Moses said, "The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from 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 proclaimed these days. (Acts 3:22-24 ESV)
Now Peter is referencing Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 18. And this is what Samuel was talking about as well. And actually, this is what all the prophets were talking about. And the sobering warning is that those who do not listen to the message of Jesus will face destruction. See, it's not like, Oh, well, you know, the Jesus thing works for some people. It doesn't work for me, but I'm glad that works for them.
That's fine. We'll all be all right. It's actually that we're deserving of death, that we're deserving of destruction. And the only possible way to avoid that fate is to turn from our sin and believe in Jesus. In verse 25, Peter again references Abraham, but specifically the covenant that God made with Abraham where God told him that he will multiply his offspring like the stars of the heaven and the sand of the seashore. And all that the nations of, all the nations of the earth will be blessed through Abraham's offspring.
And that prophecy is like roughly about 2,000 years or so before Peter's sermon that he preaches here. And Peter references the promise. And really in the grand scheme of things, we're actually starting to see a shift. And it's a shift that's going to, going to take off rapidly. It's going to gain rapid momentum here in the book of Acts. Whereas everything culminated here in Jerusalem with the Jewish people.
Now the whole world is involved and God is building a family of his own, a family of all the tribes and all the tongues who have one thing in common. They've repented of their sin and put faith in Jesus Christ. And the people in this family are blessed. They're blessed not by physical healing, not by wealth, not by control of local governments. They're blessed by God turning them from their wickedness. We've walked our way through the story together.
And I want to take the rest of the time to go back and just examine a few things and their implications for us today. First, I do want us to talk about the healing that took place. We see a man who is crippled from birth, healed in a truly miraculous way. He's healed in a way that the medicine at the time could never possibly do. Truthfully, he's healed in a way that medicine today still really cannot do. You know, in 1887, that's really not that long ago in human history, the United States Surgeon General went on record to recommend the use of cocaine for the treatment of depression.
He said it would be no more addicting than one cup of coffee. So there's been some gaps in medicine in the past. Stands to reason there could be some gaps in medicine in the future. Medicine's terrific, but there are so many illnesses and there are so many diseases and ailments that are just incurable. And often when we encounter things like this, we pray and we should. We ask our God to heal.
Can he really heal? Of course. Absolutely. Yes. He created this world and everything in it. He upholds this world day by day and he can do anything with his creation.
We should pray for healing from our God. And we should pray believing that he actually can heal. But if we stop there, I think we may have an incomplete picture. This healing was done with faith in the name of Jesus and it was done so that the people around would see the power of God and be called into repentance. It was not just done so the man would have a happier life. It was not just done so the man wouldn't have to beg anymore.
It wasn't done just for his convenience. I mean, think about it. If this guy gets NFL caliber legs and becomes the most elite competitor in whatever version of football they were playing at that time, even if that happens to him, is he thousands, millions of years into eternity going to look back and say, if I got the legs but not Jesus, that's what I want. No way. If that's the case, he says, you can take that and you might want to take my arms. Whatever you need.
I want Jesus. That's it. And so I think we can get focused on just that part of it and miss this bigger picture. And I think we should continue to pray for healing. I really, really do. But I think we also should pray that maybe our healing might lead to a call to repentance because that leads to true healing of the soul.
So in addition to healing, Jesus, heal us. And if you do, in a way, do it in a way that lets us call the sinners, that those who don't know you into repentance, that lets us strengthen our own faith in you, that lets us see you. I think that's how we should approach and pray for you. And I think this text also helps us see the bigger question that we struggle with, which is, how do I just, or do I just want God for his blessing, for the miraculous things he can do, for the sickness he can heal, for the bill he can provide for, for the stress he can take away. If that's where we find ourselves, then we are focusing more on his blessing than we are on him.
And when we do that, we might be tempted to try to be more pious, maybe to show him that we really do deserve it. Or maybe we could be tempted in the opposite direction, to feel like a failure, like, well, I guess we weren't pious enough. I guess we didn't have enough faith because we prayed and he didn't bless. He didn't do anything. I think we hear that one a lot, maybe indirectly, right? We see on social media, people talking about how they had great faith and God did a great thing.
And I'm not up here to say have less faith, but if I'm being honest, I don't really know how you necessarily quantify faith. You can't use a tape measure. You listen to someone's heart with a stethoscope and you don't hear 15% faith. It's not possible. Maybe we need to focus more on who our faith is actually in, our faith in Jesus Christ. We were all born sick with our own sin, and we need the healing that comes through faith.
And when we have faith in Christ and not anything or anyone else, incredible things can happen. Incredible things like Jesus Christ, God incarnate coming to earth, mastering the law and being punished for sin. So we might be saved from wickedness. That is an incredible thing. Second, I want us to see what the importance of repentance is. Guys, encounters with the miraculous God are often jarring.
They upend our understanding of this world and they cause eternity to come to the forefront of our mind. They remind you that what is just happening in front of you is just a small shadow of what reality truly is. And the response throughout history, when people encounter these things is generally a woeful and immediate understanding of their own personal inadequacy. And this is a fertile ground for repentance. This is the ideal setup for turning from sin. And so I think Peter's sermon here is timely.
And the Spirit is moving. And guys, when we meet on Sunday and we read the Scripture and the Spirit is moving, we respond with repentance. And when you meet during the week with your group and you read the Scripture and the Spirit is moving, we respond with repentance. That's what we do in our groups. We do it regularly. We set aside specific weeks where we focus on it.
Actually, we're going to do it this week. Surprise. Because it's good. Because we need it. Because it's part of us being transformed from our old self to our new self, to the image of Christ. And lastly, I want us to see what the culmination of the repentance is.
Not only is it good for us as we become like Christ, but the end result is the blotting out of our transgression. It's refreshment from God and it's God turning us from wickedness. Your debt is paid in full. You owe nothing. It's handled by Jesus. Today, we're going to take communion and there's elements set up around the room.
There's gluten-free in the back there. The Lord Jesus did this and we are commanded to do it. We take the elements in obedience to him. And as a reminder, a reminder of what happened inside of us, a reminder of what we talked about today, of us encountering the miraculous Christ. And that grabs our attention and focuses us, focuses us and forces us to reconcile the fact that there is a division between us and God. And that division is our sin.
And I want us to feel that for a moment. I want us to feel the weight of our sin and what it does to us and others, to feel the pressure of trying to have to be good, not good, perfect. And to realize how impossible and absolutely hopeless that is. And the band's going to start coming back up. And as we feel what is the crushing weight of our own sin, I want us to stop and to look up to Christ Jesus on the cross, bearing the punishment of our sin. And he never sinned.
And with faith in him, we repent of our sin and say, Lord Jesus, forgive me. And he does. Completely, entirely, wholly. Everything that we've ever done and everything that we ever will do, it's forgiven. And the crushing weight falls off of your back. And we're reconciled to God.
Hallelujah. What a savior. Let's remember what Jesus did and celebrate this by taking communion today. And then let's proclaim it until he returns. You can come when you're ready. Okay.