Now as the lame man, who was healed, held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch, which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people, Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. But you denied the Holy One and the just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses, And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days. You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. To you first, God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you, and turning away every one of you from your iniquities. Amen. Father God, we come to your word. It is our desire to learn more and more what it means to fear You, to tremble at Your Word, and to live it out. And I pray that by Your Spirit's empowering, by His grace, You would enable us to not only rejoice in the hearing, but to rejoice in the doing of that Word. We ask for Your blessing. that You would anoint me in my preaching, that You would anoint each one of us as we continue to worship You during this time in our responses to what You say. And we pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Last week we looked at the remarkable healing of body and this week Well, actually, not just the remarkable healing of body, but the remarkable and instantaneous regeneration as well. This week, we're going to be seeing Peter's interpretation of that healing and tying it in with the kingdom, and we're going to continue that on next week. But I want to begin with a transition verse. Peter's explanation really begins at verse 12, and verse 11 is an important transition. He says, now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John. Now it'd be very easy to skip over that first part and go straight into the main part of the subject and miss this second response of the Lord to his, of this beggar to his regeneration. And you remember from last time what the first response was. It was a God words response. He, unlike the crowd in verse 12, who kind of were giving glory to Peter, thinking that he had power, he did not do that. He gave all the glory to the Lord. For example, in verse 8, it says, so he leaping up stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God. Verse 9, and all the people saw him walking and praising God. And this God-centeredness, this praise, this effervescence of his heart, this love is the first thing that God implants in a regenerated heart. It is instantly there. It's filled with love and praise for Him. And even though regenerate hearts can lose that first love for the Lord over time, it's not a situation where they have to learn how to love God. God instantly puts within their breasts some love for the Lord, some praise for Him. You may remember the days when you could not get enough of worship and praying to the Lord and thanking Him and just telling the Lord how much you love Him. And over time, perhaps that has waned and you have grown cold of the things of the Lord. The Scripture says there are things that can return us to that first love. One of which is stirring up the first works, right? But that's the first reaction of the human heart. The second reaction was after a time of praising God, he was hanging on to believers. He says he held on to Peter and John. Now this to me shows a change in his mind and his conscience and in his love. You'll remember that Jesus interpreted love as having an ethical dimension to it. He said that love is the keeping of the commandments. It's loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. That's the first reaction of the beggar. And loving your neighbor as yourself, that's the second reaction. That's not only love, that's the keeping of all of the commandments. And so there's a renewal in his mind, in his conscience, his desires to please the Lord. What we call the renewing of the mind is illumination. He was given new eyes, as it were, to look at life differently than he had seen it before. He had a renewed conscience because this renewed desire to please the Lord, and he had this love that Pastor Glenn was talking about earlier. And you don't have to teach a new believer to love God. You don't have to teach a new believer to love the brethren. Every regenerate heart has that love. 1 John 3.14 says, we know that we have passed from death to life because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death. So why is he hanging on to Peter and John? Well, it's because he's passed from death to life. That's the most natural thing in the world for that to happen for him. 1 John 4.20. It's even bolder. It says, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he is a liar. For he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And here's the problem. We can allow that first love that we had to God to grow cold over a period of time. And in the same way, we can allow that first love that we had to the brethren to become cold over time as well. You may remember the times when You could hardly wait to get to the Bible studies and to hang out with other Christians. You could hardly wait to go to church and to be fellowshipping with them. But perhaps over time, that love has grown cold. Perhaps you've allowed sharp words to divide between the brethren. It's so easy to happen, where once you had that strong relationship, the kind of fervent love, one for another, that Pastor Glenn talked about earlier, But now it's kind of disappeared. Hebrews 13 one says, let brotherly love continue. Interestingly, you won't find in the Bible, let brotherly love start. It assumes if you're a believer, it has started, right? But let brotherly love continue. Why? Because you can kill it with your words. You can kill it with your actions. And it's so important that we not allow that to happen. And 1 Peter 1.22 tells us to continue to love one another fervently just as we loved when we first obeyed the truth. That's the truth of the gospel that he is talking about. And so I think hanging on to believers, that fellowship is a sign of a healthy church. It's a sign of God's working. And if you have witnessed a new believer having this zeal for the Lord, and you're one of the older believers who's maybe drifted a little ways away, sometimes you say, oh man, I wish I had that zeal for the Lord. I wish I had that love for the brethren. Well, I just exhort you, just as a side note, that you can have it. We can have that passion throughout our lives if we will do the first works. Verse 11 goes on. It says, as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch, which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed. There is nothing like a transformed life to draw a crowd. This man had no intention to go back to the spot that he had been occupying and going back into his life as a beggar. And Peter points to this transformed life as an instrument by which he says, hey, God's grace is just as powerful to do this work within you, to change you as well. Now, I do find it interesting that Peter and John don't give this guy a microphone and put him on a speaking circuit. I think this is the tendency for modern evangelism to think that most effective evangelism is going to be from a person who is either a notorious sinner or somebody who is, you know, just a great speaker. Isn't that the first thing that happens when some Satanist gets converted, like Lowry? Or you have a famous Hollywood star or a famous football speaker. They put them on a speaking tour and they end up stunting that person's growth because it's not God's methodology. God wants them to grow first. Peter was the anointed and he didn't have this man say so much as one word. Now, pride is not just a problem with new believers. He says, don't allow novices to get into that position where Satan can use that pride to cause them to stumble. Pride is something that can take out any of us. And so Peter immediately seeks to guard against pride in his own life, and he immediately gives the glory to God. Verse 12. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people, men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. But you denied the Holy One and the just and asked for a murderer to be granted to you and killed the Prince of Life. Now, one of the temptations of preachers is to soft pedal the Word of God in order to gain the praise and the favor of men. Now, Peter didn't expect praise from the lame man, and he wasn't trying to preach in order to gain praise from people. If that was his purpose, he failed miserably. This is not the kind of words that's going to elicit praise from people, not at all, because he was not only accusing Israel of murdering, but he was accusing them of What's it called, regicide, when you're killing a king? He was accusing them of killing God's anointed, their Messiah. It would have taken a lot of courage for him to have been bringing this kind of a word to them, and it's a courage that you need to pray that preachers would have today. Now, let's take these verses apart in a little bit more detail. Verse 12. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people. When he saw it, he saw their ungodly response, he responded to them with preaching. Peter's preaching was directed to the real life situations that he was confronting. He saw sinful response, he responded to it. And so if the people needed topic A, he wasn't going to be preaching topic C to them. He was preaching directly what they needed to hear. And this, too, is very uncomfortable for preachers. Now, granted, you know, it's not my intent to single out an individual and to preach at that individual and hammer on them. I don't do that. But I am saying that godly preaching will be informed by what it sees in the congregation and will generalize to all. Because if you see one or two or three people who are struggling with an issue, the likelihood is there's a whole bunch of other people in the congregation that are struggling with that as well. And J. Adams says that God has not called preachers to simply preach out of theology books or preaching books. They need to be informed by real life. Otherwise it becomes simply a theoretical sermon. It does not help out. Now this means that you may mistakenly think we're being mean and we're just picking on you. We're just ignoring the rest of the congregation and Pastor Glenn and I are just speaking to you in this congregation. I've had visitors whom I have never seen before who have, after a service, said, who told you I was coming here? I said, what do you mean? He said, you were preaching at me. I know you were preaching at me. I said, I didn't even know where you were coming from. One guy, he just insisted somebody had to have told me that he was coming to the service this morning because I was preaching directly at him. And so my response to him was a threefold. First of all, I don't know who you are and nobody told me that you were coming. But secondly, If the shoe fits, wear it. If you were convicted by this sermon, don't be worrying about how I found out about it, but be worrying about the fact that God knows that you have sinned and glory in the fact that the Spirit cares about you enough that He's bringing this into your life. I said, repent and deal with it. And I said, thirdly, you know what? If you're having this problem, the likelihood is there's a whole bunch of other people in this congregation thought I was singling them out and I was preaching right at them as well. And that's just the way preaching works, it's a sad thing. Now, I would much rather that people are assuming that I am singling them out than to have my preaching utterly irrelevant to the needs that they're going through week by week, okay? So that's just, I know that there's been talk occasionally, you know, Pastor Glenn or I have singled somebody out on that. It's always gonna happen, why? Because I'm going to preach and he's going to be preaching to the needs of the hour. And that's exactly what Peter was doing here, he said he saw what they were doing and he responded with his preaching to that. I think it's a very important part of preaching and you need to value preachers that do that. Well, verse 12 goes on. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people, men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Now, doesn't that seem like a strange thing to say? Wouldn't you marvel if you saw a layman who has not stood or walked since he was a baby instantly get up and be able to run and rock? I mean, I would be amazed. But, you know, when I was meditating on this, I was thinking, you know, it may be a testimony to the sad state of our own Christianity as much as it was to their dullness of mind. Because for Peter, this was something that should have been a normal part of the coming of the kingdom. Why? Because when the kingdom comes, he says people are going to be tasting of the powers of the age to come. The age to come has intruded itself in history and he says, This is what happens. In fact, Jesus said this in Matthew 12, 28, So he said, really, it's not something you should be amazed about. This is kingdom living. OK, he continues. He says, or why look so intently at us as though by our own power or godliness, we had made this man walk. Now, what a slashing indictment this is to the Roman Catholic theology of merit, whether you want to call it congruent merit or condign merit or the treasury of merit that the saints are supposedly building up in the church. He is saying, my merit had nothing whatsoever to do with it. It was God and God alone who brought this healing. And so it really is a rebuke to the Roman Catholic Church. What he was doing is he was preaching the slogans of the Reformation. He was preaching by faith alone, by Christ alone, by grace alone, to the glory of God alone. And listen to this, when we take even a tiny little bit of the glory that belongs to God, what we are doing is we are stealing from God. We are thieves, we are robbing God of His glory, and it is ever so tempting for us to rob gods of His glory by covening the praise of men. by being so happy with the praise of men and being so bummed out when we don't have the praise of men, that is a desire of larceny within our heart to rob from God that which belongs to Him. Our heart's desire should be, not unto me, not unto me, but unto thy great name be the glory. And that was Peter's desire here, was to give all glory to the Father. He recognizes he has no power to heal. Now, thanking people for things that they have legitimately done, you know, is an okay thing, but make sure you give God the ultimate glory. Verse 13, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers. Peter is also making it clear that his God is the God of their fathers. He's not worshiping a different God than Abraham was worshiping, although many Christians sometimes seem to imply that we are, you know, almost like it's a different God. that there's, you know, different laws and different desires that God has. And he says, no, it's not a different God. God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And it was precisely the God that Abraham worshiped that Peter says, you're in danger of being judged by right here. Anyway, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus. Now, referring to Jesus as the servant of the Lord, I think would have immediately reminded them, and most commentaries agree with those, would have immediately reminded them of the servant of the Lord passage in the Old Testament, which is Isaiah 52, 13. through 53 verse 12. That's the Servant of the Lord passage. And what is remarkable about that passage is that it portrays every detail of the events that have just transpired of Christ's crucifixion, the pain that he went through, the scourging that he had, his beard being plucked out, the mocking of the priests. And so using that phrase, I think would have made an explosion of horrendous realization to go on in their minds. And just in case they didn't get it, Peter now outlines what Isaiah 53 was describing and is saying, what he prophesied of the terrible reaction of Israel, you have just done. He goes on, his servant, Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate. Now, Peter did not preach in generalities. He begins pointing out the specifics of their sin. The very one whom God has glorified, you have humiliated. The very one whom God has raised up and honored, you have dishonored, you have killed. And if their heart was pumping earlier very hard, it was probably skipping a beat or two here and sinking with the realization of how great their sin really was. Now, is this not mankind's problem? Every sin, you know, we can't just look at them. Every sin is an offense against God, it is an attack against God, it is a heinous affront to the Lord. And what makes these Jews even more culpable is that Pilate tried to release Jesus. It says, you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. And nowadays, it's not politically correct to say, you know, it was the Jews who killed Jesus back then. It's a little bit more politically correct to say that the Romans did it. But Peter, a Jew himself, does not let them get off the hook. They are responsible for his death. Now, later on in chapter four, he says the Romans are responsible too. He doesn't let them off the hook. Sure, they're involved, but the Romans are not his audience right now. His goal is to bring deep conviction to this generation of Jews who have rejected their Savior. And so I want to ask you this question. What is your response when sin is pointed out in your life? Are you quick to say, well, I'm not the only one who did this. You know, the Romans did that, too. You know, I'm not the only one trying to deflect some of the blame. Or do you show the work of God's grace in your heart when you say yes? I did sin. You're not thinking about their sins. You're thinking about the fact that I have sinned against the Lord. His goal here is not to share the blame evenly around and be even handed. Yeah, I know the Romans are responsible. No, he says you did it. You're sinning. And our response needs to be immediately not to divert the attention and go on the attack. I think that's the way we tend to do when we are being blamed with sin to go on the attack and say, hey, Peter, you're not being fair. You know, we're not the only ones who were involved in this, you know, and try to make it an issue now with Peter rather than just with ourselves. Peter's response would in effect be, don't worry about other people's sins. I'm confronting you about your sin and your need of a savior. Verse 14, but you denied the Holy One and the just and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. What an indictment. They preferred to let a notorious murderer to go scot-free than to letting Jesus live, even though Jesus was the Holy One. He was the just one. In John 8, 46, Jesus says, which of you convicts me of sin? They could not. They tried, they looked at him with a microscope, they could not find any sin. John 8, 29, Jesus told the Jews, I always do those things that please him. In John 18, 38, Pilate told the Jews, I find no fault in him at all. In Luke 23, 41, the dying thief told the other thief, this man has done nothing wrong. He was holy and he was just and it was his sinless perfection which enabled him to be our savior. If He was not perfect, there would be no way that He could be our Savior. Now, of course, the prophets called the coming Messiah the Holy One and the Just One. So automatically, these were terms used for Him. They would have been realizing He's accusing us of killing our Messiah. That would have been immediately recognized. And so the very one who was the revealer of the Father's holiness, they kill and sin. The very one who was the revealer of the Father's justice, they in injustice trade for a murderer. This is the accusation. This was the incredibly bold preaching. Now they could have killed Peter in a heartbeat. But he preached the truth and we need preaching that exposes sin. Instead, many pulpits will not preach the whole counsel of God because they're afraid of losing tithe money, or they're afraid of losing members, or they're afraid of losing their own position. But to do that, is to fail to take on what God calls us to be, and that's representatives of Him rather than of ourselves. Martin Luther once said, if I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I'm not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. And to be steady on all the battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point. Now, one of my prayers for America is that God would bring reformation to the church in America, not just here, but abroad as well. It is in a sad, a desperate state of affairs. There are many leaders today, Sproul and Kennedy and others, who say that the church is in as much need of reformation today as it was at the time of Martin Luther. I mean, it's really scary to see the downhill slide in the church. Now, here's the problem. We need reformers with metal and with backbone, like Peter and like Martin Luther, because when you are a reformer, you're going to be attacked. You might even get crucified, you know? You might get killed like Peter was, but you're at least gonna be slandered, like our brother from South Africa who's visiting with us. You're gonna come under incredible attack. And so we need men of boldness, not men of unkindness, not men of ungraciousness, but men of boldness and uncompromising truth. And I want you to be praying for me because when I go on the mission field, there's going to be the constant temptation to preach something that they like rather than something that they need. Why? Because the human heart wants fame rather than dishonor, doesn't it? And so pray that I would be faithful to the Lord in my preaching. I believe God has called me to be part of Reformation, and that means that there will be attacks, so I really covet your prayers." Now, Peter continues in verse 15, he says, "...and killed the Prince of Life." Doesn't that seem like, almost like a contradiction? If he's the Prince of Life, how could you kill him? Well, The Bible says God had already planned this and Jesus didn't have his life taken away from him. He laid down his life. And for that matter, if he's the prince of life, he is God himself. And of course, that's the heart of the gospel. God the son came down. took upon himself humanity, became a man so that he could be our savior, our mediator. You see, he had to be a man, fully man, in order to represent man to God, and he had to be fully God to represent God to man. And so he lived a perfectly sinless life, and he took our sins and put our sins upon himself so that he could die and be punished as our substitute. The passage I referred to earlier in Isaiah 53 says, all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He took our sins, he bore God's wrath so that in turn he could give to us his righteousness and we could be embraced and enter into fellowship with God. He has the authority then to give life. Why? Because He's the Prince of Life. He's got the power. He's got the authority. And if you have never put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, if you have never cast your sins upon Him, I urge you to do so today. Peter in Acts 4 verse 12 says, Now what an incredible contrast we have in these verses. They were the givers of death, while Jesus is the author of life. They murder him. while God raised him up. And really the theology in that phrase is repeated over and over in Acts. Here Peter says, and killed the prince of life whom God raised from the dead of which we are witnesses. Now you would think that this would strike terror into the hearts of the people who heard this. And yet, as so typically happens, it did not. You would think that they would say, man, are we in trouble. We have killed our Messiah. We have killed the Lord's anointed. And not only have we killed him, God's raised him up. We are in deep trouble. But as so typically happens, The people that you think need to hear this, who really should have heard this, weren't even in here until chapter 4, verse 1. And they get arrested by the leaders of the people. And the ones that you think maybe weren't quite so bad, they're coming with a trembling conscience. Isn't that exactly what happens today, Pastor Durham? The ones you wish would hear, They're oblivious. It doesn't bother them in the least. They're as hard-hearted as ever. And the people that you think really don't need to hear, their conscience is trembling, saying, Lord, I want to be right with you. And they're always examining themselves concerning that. It's a strange phenomenon. And so what I've concluded from this is we can't change people's hearts. We've got to just keep preaching and leave the results to the Lord. Now, there is another issue, though, that I want to address from this passage, and that is how every member of a covenantal unit, whether that unit is the family, the church, or the state, every member of that covenantal unit is responsible for the sins of that unit. responsible for the sins of the family, the sins of the church, the sins of the nation. That's why you have Daniel confessing the sins of the nation and confessing the sins of his father. That's why the sin of Achan affected the entire nation. That's why your sins can make this church powerless. That's one of the reasons why we're so interested in presenting the whole bride, a holy bride before the Lord. Now, that doesn't seem fair to us Americans because we're so immersed in the culture of individualism, but this is the way God works in history. Now, let me try to highlight the problem by asking a question. Who actually put Jesus to death? And I think the answer is very clearly the leaders, the Sanhedrin. They are the ones who authorized the death. They are the ones who made sure that he died. And there was a little crowd of people that they pulled together who cried out, crucify him. But surely not the hundreds of thousands of people who would come to the festival of Pentecost. Surely not all of them. It's clear that the leaders wanted the death, but who's he preaching to here? It's not the leaders. It's the people. In fact, the leaders were missing. It's partway through in chapter four that they come onto the scene. In fact, why don't you look at that? Chapter four, verse one, and as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. They don't come on the scene until later. And so who is Peter preaching to? He's preaching to the people, and he says, you did it. You crucified the Lord. Verse 13, you delivered up Jesus and denied him. Verse 14, you denied the holy one and the just and asked for a murderer to be granted to you and killed the prince of life. You did it. And they couldn't say, no, I didn't do it. I wasn't even there. The leaders do it. The reason that would not wash biblically is because The whole covenantal unit is guilty by their covenantal connection with their leaders. It's called federalism. That's why you are guilty of Adam's sin. That's why we should confess the sins of our nation. Our nation has been involved, I think, in ungodly imperialism, which means all of us are in some degree infected with that sin and we need to confess the sins of our nation. And if you once understand that covenantal principle, it will revolutionize your prayer life. If you once understand that covenantal principle, it'll help you to understand why I keep preaching to people who are outside the church, who are maybe going to apostate churches, that they must leave the church. It's dangerous to stay in those corrupt denominations. Listen to what the Apostle John said. to true believers who would not leave the corrupted Jewish synagogue system. And he didn't deny that they were Christians, but he said this, come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins and lest you receive of her plagues. Revelation 18, verse four. Now, the word for share is fellowship. It's koinonia. So he was saying by fellowshipping with the people in that synagogue, you were fellowshipping with their sins, and by fellowshipping with their sins, you're going to receive of their plagues. In other words, of God's judgments. The bottom line is that separation from apostasy is not an option. But this principle also means that we have the privilege of repenting on behalf of our family, on behalf of our church, on behalf of our nation. That's what Daniel did. He couldn't leave the nation, but he could confess their sins. So he said, I was speaking, praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people, Israel. Nehemiah said, both my father's house and I have sinned. Nehemiah 1 verse 6. Now any observer who was looking at Daniel and Nehemiah confessing their sins might have been puzzled and thinking, whoa, some of the sins they're confessing, they've never done that sin. How come they're confessing that sin? Well, they are confessing it identificationally. They have identified with that nation and they realize their connection is so covenantally real, they must confess the sins of that nation. Read the passage sometime and it really is an amazing thing. And so we have the great responsibility and the great privilege of identificational prayer. Let me give you an example. Let's say that you're a wife married to a, it could be an unbeliever, but it could be a believer who is in disobedience to God's word. What you can do is you can confess the sins of your family and pray to God, Lord, please forgive the sins of my family and cause your grace to break through into my family's life. The temptation is to defend the husband's sin. But you don't have to be a nag and you don't even in fact, you're respecting your husband by identifying with him covenantally. But at the same time, because of that respect, you realize you're part of the guilt. And so you confess the sin of that family. That is how God works in a powerful way and breaking through into families lives. So there's two sides of the equation. The one side is that we're held somewhat accountable for the sins of the covenant community. On the other hand, our identification with the community is so real that our prayers on behalf of that community carry real weight. Okay, so hopefully that's an encouraging side note. You are responsible, but there's something you can do about it, okay? Now in verses 16 through 20, which we're not gonna go all the way through, Peter goes on to give the good news. He says, there can be forgiveness if you will but trust in Jesus and repent of your sins. Let's begin at verse 16. And his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, that the Christ should suffer, he has thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before. Notice, first of all, that Peter brings the bad news in verses 13 through 15 before he brings the good news. And I think this is a mistake that many evangelists do. They're so eager to bring the good news, people don't have any idea why they need the good news. No, you need to bring the law to bear to expose their sin, to call them to repentance, to, as he mentioned earlier, bring a person to the point where he realizes there is no hope. I can't love. the unlovable, right? And when they realize that, then they see, I need a savior. And so before they can really appreciate the sweet nectar of the gospel, they need to have heard the terror of the law. Notice second, that Christ's name brought the healing. And his name through faith in his name has made this man strong. Now the phrase through faith in his name is an explanatory phrase. So if you take that out, here's how it reads. And his name has made this man strong. Now what was the means of his name making this man strong? It was faith in his name. So his name made him strong by means of the faith in his name. Now, I want to just think about that whole concept of Christ's name being so important in our theology. Everything flows through the name of Christ. If you look at verse six, What did he say to the beggar? He says, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. In the New Testament, we are commanded to pray in his name. You're not going to be able to write fast enough on all of these, but I'll just give you a whole bunch of verses. Commanded to pray in his name. John 16, 26. Gather in his name. Matthew 18, 20. Cast out demons in his name. Mark 9, 38. Work miracles in his name. Mark 9.39, preach remission of sins in His name. Luke 24.47, we're justified in His name. 1 Corinthians 6.11, plead with people in His name. 1 Corinthians 1.10, give a cup of cold water in His name. Matthew 10.42, trust in His name. Matthew 12.21, receive a little child in His name. Matthew 18.5 and on and on. In fact, Colossians 3.17 says, And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. Now, the commands to do everything in the name of Jesus are repeated so many times in the New Testament. I think we need to understand a little bit about what that means. If you look at chapter four, verse seven, he gives a little bit of a definition of this. They're arrested, they're about to be interrogated, and it says, and when they had set them in the midst, they asked, by what power or by what name have you done this? They're asking, who gave you permission to do this? By what authority are you doing this? Where's your authorization? And so to do something in someone's name means to do it by his power, by his authorization, through his authority. If somebody comes to you, you know, a police officer comes and he serves you a warrant or something in the name of the law, it's with the authorization of the law. If the person comes in the name of the king, that means that the king sent him. The king has authorized it. That officer is acting on behalf of that king. When you sign your name to a credit card, you are authorizing an expenditure, are you not? Now let me give you a little parable to help you to understand this a little bit. Let's say that you were a criminal who had daily broken the law for many, many years and you were very hardened in your criminal activities. Sometimes you broke the law deliberately. Sometimes you did it unconsciously. And I think that's a fair description of humans because the scripture calls us rebels against his law and that we daily sin against him. And so you are You are a hardened criminal. You've been caught. You've been thrown into jail. And when you get into jail, you see all kinds of other people all around you who are in jail as well. Only you're amazed. They're all making excuses. Some of them say, well, it's because God's laws are too tough. You know, I can't help it. And they're railing against God. It's his fault. Or they say, you know, it's the system's problem. Or they say that it's my parents' fault. Or they're justifying themselves in some way or a fashion. Some people, in fact, think that they are the victims. But you know that's not the case with you. You've got your head and your hands and your thinking. I am deserving of hellfire. And into the jail walks Jesus Christ, and He calls you by name, and you're kind of surprised that He even knows you, but not only does He know you, He starts describing all of the sins, all of the crimes that you have committed, crimes that you have long ago forgotten about yourself. And yet, despite the fact that he knows everything about you, he says, look, I'm willing to be your attorney and I've got a good track record. Every single person I have ever represented, I have gotten off the hook and I'm willing to be your attorney. You get a little bit of hope and you think, oh, this is a pretty cool thing. Yeah, I'd love to have you as my attorney, but you know, I can't afford it. And he says, don't worry about it. Just charge it to my account. And you get really excited and you say, yes, let's go for it. I'm all for it. But he jolts you into reality when he says, now here's one condition. I want you to admit to the court that you are guilty of every crime that we have discussed here. And you're kind of puzzled and you're thinking, Admit to the crime. They're gonna throw the books at me. They're gonna kill me. What are you? What are you saying? You got to admit to it. I can't admit to this In fact, if I admit to this my neighbors might think that I'm a really bad guy And what will my mother think of me if she finds out all of the things that I have done? He says, okay. I'm not gonna be your attorney you wait. Wait, wait, wait a minute and And he says, yeah, if I'm going to be your attorney, you're going to have to trust me. And the first step of trust is that you are willing to admit to your guilt to everything that I have described. You're just going to have to trust me. And you say, OK, I will do that. So he says, here's what I plan to do. I plan to go into the courtroom myself. And I'm going to wear your name on me. And we're going to plead that you're guilty of all of these crimes. And I'm going to take. You and all my clients, and I'm going to die on your behalf. I'm going to be crucified and it'll be written in the books that you have died. And if you get hauled in before the court, here's all you have to do. say, yes, of course, I was guilty of all of those crimes, but I've already paid the penalty for it. I've already died in 30 A.D. Look it up in the books, and they'll open up the books, and they'll say, well, sure enough, it says right here, Phil Kaiser died in 30 A.D., and he committed all kinds of crimes, but he's paid the penalty for every one of those crimes. and then they will not be able to do a thing because we have a principle in the Bible called no double jeopardy. You can't be punished twice for the same sin. That's why we believe, by the way, in limited atonement. You cannot be punished twice for the same sin. No double jeopardy. And so the law will not be able to do a thing to you, cannot touch you. Well, you're thrilled. But Jesus makes one more shocker statement. He says there's one catch. From that time on, as far as the law is concerned, This means you do not exist. You do not exist. Since you died with me in 30 AD, you no longer have a separate ID card. You've got my ID card, but no other. Dead people can't purchase things. Why? Because as far as the law is concerned, they don't exist. They don't have any rights. Dead people cannot enter into contracts. Dead people cannot marry. Dead people cannot purchase things. They cannot do anything. And so if you are going to do anything of significance in this life, you're going to have to do it in my name. In fact, I have established a bank account in heaven. I have blessed you with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. And if you want anything, you can have it. All you have to do is sign in my name and you've got it. Now, if you start trying to do things in your own name and in your own power, you're going to be frustrated because your checks will bounce and your credit card will not process. You're going to be frustrated. In fact, the law is going to come after you because it's going to think, oh, this person is alive and you're going to be rendered powerless. There is nothing you can do in your own name. Anything you do, you have to do through the name of Christ. Well, hopefully with that parable, you can see why there's an enormous significance of doing everything in the name of Christ. To come in His name is to come in His power, His authorization, His authority, and it takes promised to even provide faith and repentance. Now, isn't that a cool thing? He's promised to provide everything. Look at verse 16 again. And his name through faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know. Now get this phrase here. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. He speaks of the faith which comes through him, through Jesus. Faith is not something that I can provide. In fact, Paul says, I know that in me, that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. There's nothing we can contribute to salvation. That's why we come in his name. We cannot provide. In fact, we can't pay his attorney fees and we can't even make the phone call to get our attorney. He has to come to our cell and inform us, I'm gonna be your attorney, right? We can't even make the phone call. Everything comes through him. We love him because he first loved us. So this verse says, faith is a gift of God. It comes through Jesus. Acts 18.27 speaks of those who believe through grace. It takes grace to make a person come to the place of faith. Now let me give you some other passages very quickly, which speak of faith as a gift. John 6.44. No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. John 6, 65, Therefore I said to you that no one can come to me unless it has been granted to him by my Father. Galatians 5, 22 says that part of the fruit of the Spirit is faith. It's the Spirit who produces it. Ephesians 119 speaks of those who believe according to the working of His mighty power. It takes His mighty power to bring people to believe. Ephesians 2, 8-9 says, It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Now turn with me to Acts 5, verse 31, and I want to quickly show you, and we're going to... Not be able to spend too much time on this, but Acts 31 shows even repentance comes from him. It says, Him God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. He's saying repentance is a gift. Look at Acts 11, Acts 11, verse 18. When they heard these things, they became silent, and they glorified God, saying, Now what an encouraging note this is. When we are praying for someone's salvation or when we are evangelizing to realize They can't stir up faith in themselves. I can't stir up faith in them, but God can invincibly do so, and he has done so many times in the hardest-hearted of situations. You take Saul. Here was a faithful, wretched man who was murdering Christians, instantly given faith and repentance and turned around into a faithful person who was saving, who was winning souls to Christ. He can break through, and we can have confidence in him. Now, the point is that having taken away all hope from these people he was preaching to, he proceeds to show that Jesus alone is the source of hope for any of us. And when we put our hope in Him, He will not let us down. Not only does He give forgiveness and salvation next week, we're gonna see that He sends times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. He renews all things. And the contrast is between no hope for those who have no faith to incredible riches to those who do have faith. Don't ever think that Christianity, simply because it is a religion that calls to repentance, that calls to denying ourselves and following after Christ, that it's therefore a joyless religion. Nothing could be further from the truth. The New Testament speaks of the fullness of joy he gives. And even in the Old Testament, Psalm 1611 promises, in your presence is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. But the irony is, you will not taste any of those pleasures as long as you continue to insist on pursuing sinful pleasure. You will never experience fullness of life until you die to self. That's the irony in the scriptures. But to those who are willing to die to self and to follow after him, he says, I have come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly. John 10, verse 10. And part of the riches that he has given to us is the healing, the provision of healing. Now we saw last week that we cannot demand healing because healing is a a part of the redemption of our bodies, which the main event when that's going to happen is at the second coming, at the resurrection of our bodies. Romans 8 speaks of that as the redemption of our bodies. But God still delights in giving us foretastes and down payments. As Hebrews words it, we have tasted of the powers of the age to come. The age to come has already intruded itself in history and God is more and more making all things new. And so we can rejoice that even now he does bring healing and such healing comes by faith laying claim to the treasures in heaven. God is the giver of faith, even for believers. Galatians 3 reinforces that the whole Christian life must be lived by faith from start to finish. It doesn't just start, it continues. And in this chapter, verse 16, says that it was faith that made this man whole. through faith in his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given them this perfect soundness. Now, he's not calling you to have faith in your faith. That's a mistake that many times people make. He's calling you to have faith in Jesus, fixing your eyes on Jesus who is the author and perfecter or finisher of your faith. The more you focus on the word and focus on the living word, Jesus Christ, the more your faith will increase. But when you're looking inside, trying to stir up faith, you're gonna sink in the waves just as surely as Peter sank in the waves of Galilee when he took his eyes off of Jesus. And so my exhortation to you this morning is fix your eyes on Jesus. who is the author, finisher of your faith. He is the prince of life. He is all your life. All things must be done through him. Amen. Thank you, Father, for your word. What an encouragement your word is to us. Even when it points out our hopelessness in ourselves, it gives us great hope by fixing our eyes on Jesus and all that he has provided. And I pray that there would not be a single person here who has had the slicing of the sword of the word in their lives go away discouraged But rather, may they cast their sins and their cares upon you, knowing that you care for them. And may they, through you, find grace to live in this hour of need. And we pray it in Jesus' name, amen.