In our morning services, we're studying the book of the Acts of the Apostles. I want this morning to read from Acts chapter 3, verses 1 to 10. Acts chapter 3, verses 1 to 10. I would encourage you to read the remainder of the chapter later in the day. 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 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. Amen. May God bless to us all the reading and the preaching of His Word. Let us turn in God's Word to Acts chapter 3. We're looking at verses 1 to 10 and indeed at the whole chapter. I've taken as our theme phrase words found in verse 2. At the gate of the temple. At the gate of the temple. You all had to enter this building this morning. I presume you all came in by the front door. And especially for those of you who are visitors, I hope it was a reasonably pleasant entrance. I think there's a tree growing out there. There are one or two shrubs to give a bit of greenery and color. I expect that when you come in through the door, there was someone waiting to greet you, to give you a psalm book or a Bible if you needed it. And then you came into the main area for worship. Imagine a different scenario, that as you got out of your car and approached the building, there was a figure lying on the ground just outside the door of the church. A wretched figure, clad in rags, disabled, helpless and pathetic looking. And as you tried to go into the building, calling out to you, please help me, please give me something. And do you give him something or don't give him something? And you go on into the building and you sit down and you try to settle yourself for worship. And as you sit there, you still hear his voice crying to people, please help me, please help me. And at the end of the service, After the worship is over and you go out, he's still there and he's still calling out for help. Would that have spoiled your experience to some extent? I expect that it might. Supposing he was there every week and every time you came to this building, he was always there, lying there in his misery and his helplessness at a church door, calling out, please help me, please give me something. That's what we have here in Acts chapter 3. The lame man lying at the beautiful gate of the temple. Lucas told us in chapter 2 that the apostles did many wonders and signs. And here he has selected one of them to tell us about. He's chosen this one not only because it's remarkable and because of what it leads to, but because it illustrates a painful paradox, a contradiction, an apparent contradiction. in the world in general and in our individual lives in particular. And we see in this chapter how this paradox can be resolved in Jesus Christ and only in Him. And the question for us today is this, what do we do about the lame man at the gate of the temple. And we're going to look at it under three headings. Contrast. Secondly, and at greater length, the change. And then lastly, the challenge. First then, the contrast, and here it is. The lame man and the temple. What's the contrast? The temple. For the Jews, the holiest place on earth. The place where God had promised to put His name. The place, above all, of God's presence. Worship. Where sacrifice was offered. Where forgiveness was obtained. A place that every day resounded with the praises of God. Where prayers ascended morning and afternoon. A place of hope. A place where if anywhere on earth blessing was to be found, surely it was here, the temple. You remember the psalmists. Psalm 84, How lovely is thy dwelling place, O Lord of hosts, to me. Psalm 122, I was glad to hear them saying to the Lord's house, Let us go. Our feet are standing within your gates, O Jerusalem. Here, if you like, in microcosm was heaven on earth. in symbol. Everything that is good and hopeful, the temple. And at the gate of the temple, a man, lame from birth. And he is a symbol of all that is wrong with the world. In those days, the lame were cast among the most pitiable of human beings. Pathetic, powerless, outcasts from society, hopeless on the margins. You remember the parable of the banquet and how the master of the house sent out to the most hopeless people to invite them to come to his banquet. He sent out, we read in Luke 14.21, to the streets and lanes of the city For the poor and the crippled and the blind and the lame, the lame, those were the ones beyond hope. Here is the lame man. When we read of the needy to whom Jesus ministered in Luke 7.22, they are the blind and the lame and the lepers and the deaf and the poor. In fact, our English word lame in the 21st century doesn't really translate to Greek. For us, lame means somebody with a limp, somebody who walks but they favor their foot. There's something wrong with their foot or their leg and they just limp along. But this was a man who couldn't walk. He was paralyzed. Both his legs were useless. He had never used them. So it's far more than what we understand normally by lame. He was a pathetic, helpless being. And in fact, there's another layer of meaning here. In the understanding of the day, it was more than sad. It was shameful. It was regarded as shameful to be lame. In the Tabernacle, in the Old Testament, everything had to be perfect in the worship of God. And so God had said that no disabled priests could enter the Tabernacle. No disabled priests could serve God. Leviticus 21, 17, speak to Aaron, saying, None of your offspring who has a blemish may approach to offer the bread of his God. For no one who is a blemish shall draw near a man blind or lame or one who has a mutilated face or a limb too long." A lame man could not serve in the tabernacle. And from this typical provision, the people had drawn the conclusion, which was a wrong It was unwarranted. That's understandable. They'd drawn the conclusion that the lame were cursed in some way. That they were worthless. That they were outside the pale. And that's how lame people thought of themselves. Perhaps the most famous lame man in the Old Testament is Mephibosheth. And he describes himself this way to David in 2 Samuel 9.8. Here's this lame man's self-concept. He says, What is your servant that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I? That's how this lame man describes himself. A dead dog. That's probably why this lame man was lying at the gate of the temple. Not only because it was a good pitch for begging, but perhaps also because he wasn't allowed to go in any further in the popular opinion of the day. Not in the law of God, but in the popular opinion of the day. So here we have a tragedy. Here we have the beautiful gate of the temple. Probably the Nicanor gate. That gate was 75 feet high and it had two magnificent doors made out of Corinthian brass and beautifully adorned and decorated. This beautiful gate leading into the temple and at the gate just outside it is this wretched beggar. That's the contrast at the gate of the temple. My friends, if we rise to see, we can see here a picture of the many contrasts in our world. You go into our cities and you see the great corporate headquarters, the magnificent modern skyscrapers and lying outside on the pavement are the drug addicts and the homeless and the beggars. The television and magazine advertisements show us the rich, good life. For many people, their only hope of that is their weekly lottery ticket. that they hope will rescue them from drabness and squalor. The universities celebrate the genius of the human mind and people spend their time watching reality TV as pathetic, degrading, incompetent people. We live in a world of incredible plenty where we are wealthy beyond the dreams of our forefathers and yet there is crushing endemic poverty where many millions have not enough to eat. We see beauty and we see ugliness. People talk about spirituality and all too often there is an inner emptiness. Human beings at times are noble, at times they are degraded. The contrast, the temple and the beggar at the gate, and even in our own lives there is a painful contrast. Sometimes we are so heavenly and often we are so depressingly earthly. We know what we long to be. and what we sometimes attain, but we're all too aware of what we often are and what we really dislike about ourselves. There's the contrast. And even here today, there's the contrast. We've come here to worship God, to praise the Great Almighty One in whom we live and move and have our being. Some of you may have been wondering about the dinner, or thinking about what you're going to do next week, or what happened last week. The contrast at the gate of the temple. And there shouldn't be this contrast. And there needn't be. Because we come, secondly, to change. Change. This paradox is resolved. This situation is changed. Of course, it shouldn't have arisen. He shouldn't have had to lie there begging. God's instructions to his people were clear. Deuteronomy 15.7, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be." God's people have been called to be generous, to be charitable, to give to the needy. He shouldn't have been lying here in the dirt of the street begging for a few copper coins. And in particular, he shouldn't have been at the temple The temple was meant to be the center of love and benevolence and mercy. For the love of God would issue in love for one's neighbor. For a beggar to be at the gate of the temple was an anomaly. But it's clear in Luke's writing that the temple had died. The temple had degenerated into a corrupt machine for making money. Sometime if you like to read Luke chapters 18 to 21, you'll see there a series of stinging critiques of the temple and the temple system. In chapter 18 you have the Pharisee praying in the temple. He's a horrible man. He is arrogant. He is self-righteous. He despises his fellow Israelites. He has no real sense of God's presence. Then in the next chapter, in chapter 19, Jesus clears out from the temple the merchants. He says in verse 46, this was meant to be a house of prayer. But you have turned it into a den of robbers. That's what the temple had become. Then in the next chapter, chapter 20, verse 47, he talks about the scribes who devour widows' houses and for a pretense make long prayers. And in the next chapter at the beginning, there's the widow who comes. And in that story, there's not only a commendation of her, but there's an implicit condemnation of the temple which swallows up everything she has to live on. So that the temple has decayed. and degenerated. It masquerades as a center for prayer, but it isn't. It pretends to be a channel of mercy, but it isn't. There are beggars lying at its gates. It drains people instead of enriching them. There is a needy man at the gate, but they are either unwilling or unable to help him. But, here's a significant statement in verse 1. Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer. And these, as we saw last week, are the leaders of a new community. an alternative people of God, the true temple of God, the church. And we saw last week that they really worshipped God. They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching, and the prayers, and the breaking of bread. And they loved one another. And they were willing to sell their property and help those who were in need. No beggars lying at the gate of the church. The beggars were helped. The beggars were provided for. They ate their food with gladness. They praised God. And they were being transformed. Verse 47 of chapter 2, who were being saved. So here's a different community. Here's a different center of God's presence. Here are different people from the decayed, degenerate temple. Here are the leaders of the church and they come to the blind man. They come to the blind man. And when they're asked for help, Peter says, I have no silver and gold. Not because it's sitting somewhere locked up in church treasuries, but they've given it away to their brothers and sisters. But, he says, I have something far better. Here's what the new community brings. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Word name is far more than a word, or a label, or a title. In the Bible, the name is the active, powerful presence. It's the essence of the person. The psalmist says, those who know your name put their trust in you. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses, But we trust in the name of the Lord our God, in the living, active presence of the Lord our God, in who He is and what He does for His people. So when Peter talks about the name of Jesus, he is referring to the real, living, active Jesus who is now at God's right hand. You remember, I am sure, that in earthly life He cared for people like this. The lame walk he sent to John the Baptist. And now he continues to care. And he continues his ministry. Luke's Gospel dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach. But he's continuing to do and to teach through his apostles. What a miracle this is. This man, we're told, is lame from birth. He'd never walked. Never walked. He'd never used the muscles in his legs. He'd never used his knee joints or his ankle joints. Those muscles had never been used. They'd never developed. His legs, doubtless, were just pathetically withered and weak. just little appendages to his body. Luke tells us in chapter 4 that he was more than 40 years old. He was a man in middle age and never in his life has he used these legs. But suddenly, immediately, his feet and ankles were made strong. Suddenly, there is new bone and new muscle and new cartilage. There is a creative act of the risen Jesus so that this man's limbs are actually changed and they are given strength. And without ever having to learn to walk, he is able to walk. Leaping up, he stood and began to walk. And Luke wants us to get the point because he repeats the verb twice more in verses 8 and 9. He entered the temple with them walking. The people saw him walking. He was walking. He had never walked. And now he is walking. We read in verse 10 that they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Jesus Christ can do what no one else can for the lame beggars of our world, for the needs and the hunger and the deadness and the suffering. And my friends, He can do it for you even as Christians. Even as followers of Him, you're still lame and so am I. There are parts of our personalities that are damaged. They're not working right. Maybe it's our emotions. Maybe it's some of our abilities, our characteristics. There are places in our personalities that haven't yet been healed. There are things in you and me that are still wrong, that are crippling us, that are holding us back. We're still disabled. To some extent, all of us. And He's able to heal us. He's able to change you here and now. Are you experiencing this transforming power of Jesus? Charles Simeon was a great Anglican preacher in Cambridge in the late 1700s. and early 1800s. In preaching on this passage, he urged his people to stop behaving like the lame beggar and to start behaving like the healed man in the temple. Simeon writes, We expect you no longer to continue the poor, low, grovelling creatures you have been, but to show to all around you that you are endued with power from on high. The world, says Simeon, should be made to see that there is in divine grace an energy and a power to which they are utter strangers. The world should be able to see in us that in Christ there is something to which they are strangers. Are we living like that? So that people notice us, as they did this man. He's different. He's different from what he was. He's different from us. There's an exuberance. There's a joy. There's an ability. What has happened to him? How did this happen? And he entered the temple with them. I think that is a deeply significant statement. Perhaps for the first time in his life, a place of blessing. There is something else. When he was on earth, our Lord, we are told, made the lame walk. But now Luke adds something else, doesn't he? He entered the temple, we're told, walking, verse 8, and leaping and praising God. Now why do we need to know that he was leaping? Why is that interesting for us? Is it perhaps that Luke's telling us that he's completely cured. If a man is leaping up in the air, a 40-year-old man is leaping up and down in the air, certainly his joints and his ankles are in good shape. Is he perhaps telling us of the exuberance of his joy? But he's so delighted that he's just leaping up and down in excitement. You see, an athlete, after they've just run a long race and they win a gold medal, and suddenly the tiredness is gone and they're leaping about all over the track. Leaping with excitement. Well, he may well be saying both those things. But there's something much deeper here. This leaping is a prophetic sign. When Jesus was sending his answer to John the Baptist, was he the Messiah? He quoted Isaiah 35. And in that passage the prophet speaks of the great end time, when the Messiah will come, when the full blessing of God will come to earth and the whole creation will be restored. And the sign of that will be the healing of the blind and the deaf and the lame and the mute. But what does Isaiah say specifically about the lame? Do you remember? Isaiah 35, 6. Then, when Messiah comes, when the end comes, when the kingdom comes, when the universe is restored, how will we know that? Then shall the lame man leap like a deer. That's why Luke tells us here that he went into the temple and he was leaping. He's linking it with Isaiah 35. He's saying this is a fulfillment of that prophecy. This is a sign of the final restoration of the universe. In this leaping man, We are seeing an advance installment of the healing of the sin-damaged world. And it comes out later in Peter's sermon, later in the chapter. In verses 20 and 21, he speaks of the work of Jesus, whom the heaven must receive until the time for the restoring of all the things of which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets long ago. The restoring of all things. The Lord will come again to restore the cosmos, to heal the universe. And in this healing, in this leaping, worshipping man, we see a foretaste, a sign, a prophecy of the great healing that is still fully to be revealed. In every change wrought by the Spirit of God, we see a prophecy. In every act of healing, we see a prophecy. Every time God works in you by His Spirit and touches some part of your life, that is a foretaste of the complete healing, of the greatest change of all, the new heaven and the new earth. And it's all there in the work of Christ. But there's something more. Contrast. Change. And lastly and briefly, challenge. For these things don't happen automatically. Peter says to the lame man, look at us. And we're told he fixed his attention on them. And as he looks, the verb means, as he gazed at them very intently and expectantly, Peter says, in the name, and he gives them his full title, in the name of Jesus, Christ, Messiah of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Rise up by His power. Rise up trusting in Him. Rise up believing in Him, knowing that it is He who heals you. It's not by our power. It's not by our ability. It's by Jesus Christ and Him alone. So we believe. And he's directed to do the impossible. He can't walk. That's who he is. That's his identity. That's what marks him out. He's the one who can't walk. Have you seen that man at the gate of the temple? He's there every day. Why is he there? He can't walk. That sums him up. He's the can't walk man. Peter says, rise up and walk. By the power of Jesus, he is a new person. He does what he couldn't do and could never do. Jesus makes him whole and makes him new. He praises God. Peter then spells this out in his sermon in the temple. Verse 13, The God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus. Verse 16, the faith that is through Jesus has given this man perfect health. It is Jesus of Nazareth who has healed him. He has made the difference. He has brought about the change. And he is speaking to people who aren't neutral. They have rejected this Savior. Verse 13, Whom you delivered over and denied. You denied Him. You said, we don't want Him. We're not interested in Him. Crucify Him. We prefer Barabbas. Verse 15, you killed the author of life. But to these guilty Christ rejecters, God offers forgiveness and salvation. So Peter says in verse 19, repent and turn again that your sins may be blotted out. Through faith in Christ, the great prophet like Moses, they can be forgiven. They can be forgiven for rejecting Him and denying Him and killing Him. They can be rescued from crippling, killing sins. They can be changed forever. They can go into the true temple walking and leaping and praising God. My friend, that's God's Word to you this morning. If you're still not a believer in Christ, if you're still at the gate of the temple, as it were, still outside the place of God's blessing, God's mercy. If you're still lame from birth, if you're still carrying that inability with which you were born, that deadness, that fallenness of your nature, you're called to repent of your rejection of Jesus. Of the times when you've heard the Gospel and said, When you've been called to believe and you've refused to believe, God says, I'll forgive you. I'll forgive you. Turn from that. Turn to My Son. Turn from your wickedness, as Peter puts it in verse 26. Jesus will do for you what He did for this man. And it's the same word for those of us who are already Christians but are still lame, still in part disabled. For isn't it true that although we have put our trust in Christ and although we love Him, would you not agree with me that it is true that at times we deny Him? And at times we reject him in various things. And at times we act as if he didn't matter. And what we want is more important. It's not an absolute denial. But it is a denial. And it is a rejection. And every time we do that, we're opting for disability and lameness. God's Word is for us to repent of those rejections and of those denials, to turn back to Him in repentance and faith so that, as happened with Him, those around us were told they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to Him. Wouldn't it be great if you and I were people like that more and more? the people we work with, the people we live beside, the people in our family circles. What has happened to you? What has happened to you? And we could tell them, it's Jesus. He changed me. And we should learn, as this passage urges us, to see in every healing In every conversion, in every good change in our lives, we should learn to see an installment of the healing to come and the restoring of all things. And it should cause us, my friends, to praise God for the time when there will be no more lame beggars at the gate of the temple. That time is coming. And the whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea. Amen. Let us bow in prayer. Father, thank you for your Holy Word. Grant us the help of your Spirit as we meditate on these things, as we reflect, perhaps later today, on this passage from your Word. Bring home to our hearts those aspects of truth which we need to hear. Thank you for the Risen One, the Living Lord, who can heal the lame, who can give sight to the blind, ears to the deaf, mouths to those who cannot speak, who can restore us from our disabilities and our weaknesses. Help us, we pray, to seek Him, not to reject Him or deny Him. Grant that we may be so changed by Him that others may be caused to wonder and to question, and by Your grace to come to Him. Use Your church, O God, as we look out at the world and see the need of those around us, and help us to live in faith of that day when the fullness of His kingdom will be revealed to all. We ask it for His sake and glory. Amen.