Love the word of God. 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 from 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 or gold, but what I do have, I will give it to you. In the name of Jesus, Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk. And he took him by the right hand and he raised him up and immediately his feet and his ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God and recognized him as the one who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple asking for alms. and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Let us pray. Heavenly fathers, we go to your word today. I pray that this word would nourish our spirits. I pray that it would minister to those who are within hearing of my voice. And father, I pray that you would, if there are those who hear this word, who do not have faith, that you would use these words to call them to faith as well. So Father, we praise you, and we pray that you are glorified and honored, that you are praised and proclaimed by all that is said, and that you would work this either through me or in spite of me, in this I pray in Jesus' name, amen. It's amazing the difference in the four or five years can make in somebody's life. We're updating our church directory right now with new pictures and the children in particular. It's a remarkable change to see what they looked like the last directory that we had five years ago and what they look like today. But you know, change is not measured just in outward appearances. It is measured in mindsets, it is measured in attitudes, and it is measured in maturity. And as I look at Peter and John in this text going up to the temple, I can't help but reflect the change in these two men that has taken place over the last roughly about four years or so. Four years prior to this event, they were acquaintances, they were fishermen on the Sea of Galilee. At that time, they were local tradesmen and they were arguably unknowns to anyone outside of their immediate family circles and circles of friends. There were nobody certainly in the eyes of the temple priests to be sure. In these four years time, ministry that has been spent with Jesus. Peter and John had not only traveled widely, but they had learned from the feet of the master, and they had become not only leaders of men, but fishers of men, and in the eyes of the temple priests, they were enemies of the state. Soon they would be confronted with this, and we find this taking place in these accounts that are taking place here. The friendship between these men, I would argue, has deepened, yet their circumstances is what have changed radically. And while it is true that none of us has spent the years sitting at the foot of the master as John and Peter have done so, recognize the fact that through our study of the Bible and our commitment to the scriptures, we do also enter into a time of growth, a time of change, a time of growing spiritually as we do that. So just as we'll look at the new church directories and we'll enjoy the pictures, I wanna ask you, as you do that, don't focus so much on the physical changes to your appearance or the physical changes to the appearances of others. But ask yourself, what have the changes to my character been? Have you matured in Christ? over these past five years. If you don't see maturity and growth, then I would call you to repent of your sloth and make some changes and make some goals that you can set so that when the next directory comes out, you can find yourself once again saying, no, I am not the same person that I was or have always been. Set goals to read the Bible more. Read it cover to cover. We do that, many people in our congregation do that. Pay more attention to the theology. Read good books on theology. Go on a missions trip. Make it your goal to find one person a week and tell them about Jesus Christ. who God is, the great things that he has done, not only in your life, but in the life of the history of God's people, and invite that person to church, invite them to a Bible study, challenge them in their faith, and that will challenge you in your faith. So Peter and John are entering into the temple. Literally, we're told they're going up to enter the temple. The temple was at the high point of the city, and this indicates that they were outside of the temple, kind of heading into getting ready to enter into the temple when they encountered this man. It seems like a little bit of a technical point, but hold on to that idea, because it becomes important now a little bit. We're told it is the ninth hour, that would be approximately 3 p.m. in the afternoon. The first hour of the day was marked at sunrise, which is roughly around 6 a.m. So it's mid-afternoon, about the time of the afternoon sacrifice. It was considered a time for the people to come up to the temple for prayer while those sacrifices were being made. Notice, in the early Christian church, Well, they ended up dispensing with all of these kind of rules and regulations of the Jewish feast days and the festivals and things along those lines. At the same time, we find Peter and John using this as an opportunity to engage people with the gospel. And that's what they did. And that is what's being implied there is what they are coming up to the temple to do. And so if nothing else, the Holy Spirit has preserved this account for us to remind us of the importance of God in the church, public worship, corporate prayer, prayer in general, and engaging with the people of God with the word of God. You know, we sing oftentimes that old hymn, sweet hour of prayer, but I wonder sometimes Do we ever really make time for an hour of prayer? And if we do so, is this something that we can call sweet in every meaningful sense of the term? Or do we treat it more like a chore? Do we make a priority to be with God's people whenever God's people are gathered for prayer? Jesus certainly did. The apostles did, and that's what they're doing here Oftentimes, especially with our youth and things along those lines, we don't challenge them to follow this example in the life of the church. And sometimes the reason that we don't challenge them is because we don't set the example. They will learn what they see in us and they watch us do and live out in our lives. And so we're also introduced as they're going up to this temple to a beggar. We're told that he is blind from birth and he is coming up or being brought by friends up to the temple gate that is called Beautiful. Now, first of all, scholars will argue a little bit about which gate this happens to be. There are lots of gates in and out of the temple which are referred to as Beautiful Gates because of the architecture there. Josephus, for example, mentions a gate that is made out of Corinthian brass. It was ornate and it went in between the courts of the Gentiles and the courts of the women within the temple. And here's where that little nuance, that little technical point that I made earlier becomes important. Peter and John are described as encountering this man as they were going up to the temple. The courts were more or less flat. It was the walkway up to those courts that is at a slope, which implies to us that they are still physically outside of the temple and thus this gate of Corinthian brass could not be the gate that is being spoken of, which may mean that is probably the gate of Shoshan. This is a gate with 75 feet tall and 60 feet wide. Wrap your heads around that idea. We could take the sanctuary of our church, kind of pick it up off of the foundations and put it on wheels and roll it through this gate, bell tower and all. It's huge. It was massive. And it entered on, it was on the east side of the temple courts. It entered into the court of the Gentiles, again, which would be that first entrance gate. And it was on the east side of the temple near Solomon's portico, where Peter will begin preaching a little bit later. So it seems like this is as good a candidate as we're going to find, though we need to be careful not to be overly dogmatic about some of these inferences that we are making. So why is this important? It is so because I don't think that we really appreciate the size, the magnitude of the engineering and the artistry that went into the temple. The outer courts of the temple are all walled with porticoes or columned porches. The walls themselves enclosed 46 acres of land. That would be like taking the entirety of the church property and enclosing it with porticoed walls. It's massive, and it was a sight to be seen from the outside, and when you enter it, it was also remarkable to see. It was seven times larger than the Roman Colosseum. It would be three times larger than the Louvre in France, if you've ever been there. It would be one third larger than the Pentagon in Washington. It's three quarters of the size of the Kremlin if you've ever been to Russia, and it's about half the size of Vatican if you've ever been to Vatican City. I don't know, again, if we always appreciate the scale of places like this. But I think it is important for us to recognize the skill of the artisans that were applied to build this. Of course, it also is a reminder that we can't earn the favor of God. You see, the ornateness of the porticoes, and we'll talk about that in a little bit, but the ornateness of these porticoes and the architecture that is found here really said more about Herod than it did about God, as Herod was trying to beautify the temple to earn the respect of the people and the reverence and their loyalty, something that never really took place. but more relevant than the size and more relevant than the architecture is what the Holy Spirit is about to do through Peter and John. Now, if you read ahead to Acts 4.22, you'll discover that this man born blind is over 40 years old. So he has spent the last 40 plus years of his life as a blind man dominantly implying that he was a beggar during the bulk of that time, at least for his adulthood years. What does that all mean? He's been begging at the gate for a long time. It also means that as Jesus went in and out of this gate quite often, and as Jesus was even at Solomon's portico, it means that Jesus would have walked by this man at one point or another, or probably at many points, and had chosen for his purposes not to heal the man. You know, we sometimes think of Jesus as going and kind of being like that magic touch and healing everybody that he bumps into, but that is not the case. There are times where Jesus did heal people in large numbers, but more often than not, he would come to a certain place at a certain time and choose, that's the word elect, and he elected to heal one person or a small group of persons, and elect not to heal others. This should sound something like what we talk about when we talk about election, because all of this is based on the solemn or the sovereign will of his father, because Jesus does what the father does. We could ask the disciples, just like that man born blind, This guy was lame. The other man born blind, John 9, 2, who sinned. We could be like that. Was this man born lame? We don't know why he was born lame other than the answer that Jesus gave. So the work of God might be displayed in him. As we look to the world around us, we must remember that the works of God in someone do not always bring earthly healing. You hear that? We see all these healings and we like to see all these healings and sometimes God chooses to bring healing to the life of a person, but he does so in his way, in his timing and not always. For the Christian though, sometimes The work of God in us is a work of suffering for a season or even suffering that leads to our ultimate death. To teach us grace, to teach us patience, we see this in Job's life. We see this with the thorn that Paul faced in his side. Sometimes it is dying in this world that we must endure before we will experience complete healing that we could never know while you're still in this world. Yet how oftentimes we cling to the things of this world instead of trusting God to lead us even through our sicknesses into the next. And sometimes, and this is typically the hardest one for us to wrap our heads around, God's will is for us to suffer to the point of debilitation so that it gives others the opportunity to serve. Wrap your head around that for a little bit. It's easier to be the servant. But sometimes it teaches us a lot about patience, about grace and caregiving, and it can wear us, especially if the one we're serving is a loved one, like our parents or a spouse. But boy, it's hard to be the one who is being served, who is being cared for. We don't like necessarily being in that situation. But understand, if nobody was in that situation, the lessons of servanthood and serving would not be learned because they would have no one to be practiced upon. For the non-Christian, suffering is meant either as a taste of judgment to come, which will cause repentance, or It will be a taste of judgment to come that will be confirmed in their eternal condemnation. Don't be confounded by your suffering. Look for ways to use your suffering to glorify God and to tell others of God's mighty works. Peter turns to this man and says, look at us. Just like with kids, getting your attention. Look at us, eyeballs on me. Did that with kids a lot. When I was a teacher, I would oftentimes say that. Because sometimes it's easier to hear when our eyeballs are fixed on the one that's speaking to us. So it's not just a matter of respect that they're demanding, but it's a matter of the fact they don't want anything to be missed. They don't want this man distracted from what God is going to do in his life. And Peter makes one of the most profound and relevant statements that has ever been made in the history of mankind. Peter says, silver and gold, I do not have, but what I do have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk. Beloved, how oftentimes we pursue the silver and the gold and we ignore that which is greater. Silver and gold, it is true, can buy us stuff. They can run businesses, they can pay for organizations and ministries and church expenses even. But wealth is always, at least biblically speaking, a means to an end. It is not an end unto itself. And that end is building the kingdom of Jesus Christ. If you have wealth on this day, praise God, but God has providentially provided you with that wealth. for a purpose. And that purpose is to build his kingdom, not to sit on it, not to build your own kingdom, not to be comfortable. One of the ways in which all of that can be done is by looking around you locally and the church here and even throughout the world, but providing for the needs. of Christian work, providing for the needs maybe of a individual Christian who is struggling through difficult times financially. We'll see more of this model in the church very shortly as we go through this book of Acts. But look around you. You really don't have to look very far for opportunities to use your wealth to minister even within this body. and then to minister beyond the body in the community, in the world around us. And so you're not gonna be able to say to somebody, get up and walk. God doesn't do that that way anymore. But you do have the ability to point people to use that silver and gold, to use that wealth to bring about greater things than that wealth happens to be. And so Peter and John tell this man to get up and walk, and he did. His ankles and legs are healed. The man who had been formerly been lame from birth leapt. And going along with the apostles into the temple, he went and we're told in verse eight, walking and leaping and praising God. In this case, fulfilling what the prophet Isaiah writes when he prophesies that the ransom of the Lord will be coming into Zion. We find this in Isaiah 35 verse six. Hear these words. Then a lame man shall leap like a deer. In fact, An old hymn, oh for a thousand tongues to sing, picks up on this idea and speaks about all of these things that Isaiah is addressing. The deaf hearing, the mute praising, the blind seeing, the lame leaping. It's all Isaiah 35. And so they enter the temple and the people recognize the man that is with Peter and John. They're amazed. And it gives Peter an opportunity to preach. And we'll look at his sermon next week. A sermon to the Jews, if you will. I wanna close this week with some observations. First, our tendency is often to turn a blind eye to those suffering around us. Don't. Peter and John could have ignored this beggar. Jesus did in a sense. They saw in the beggar though, an opportunity to tell of the mighty deeds of God in Christ, which is arguably why Jesus bypassed this man to give Peter and John this opportunity now. You might not be able to lift a lame man to his feet. In fact, you can't. But you might be able to point him, point a man that is broken spiritually to the salvation that is found in Jesus Christ. Secondly, recognize that it was not Peter and John doing the healing. God did it. He did it through them, but God did it. We might be able to carry a lame man where he needs to go, but we can't heal his lameness. We might be able to point a person who is spiritually lame to where they need to go, but we can't fix their spiritual lameness. We can't save somebody. We can't regenerate them. The Holy Spirit can. And oftentimes the Holy Spirit uses us as tools in the master's hands. I think there's few things that are more frustrating as a workman, as a tradesman of going for a tool and an either not being in the right place where it's supposed to be or it not being sharp and ready to be used. We need to be where we're supposed to be. And we can get into God's sovereignty and all of those kinds of things. But the right answer to that, the right way to think about that is by saying, God, what is it that you would have me do? And let me walk and speak faithfully according to your word. Let me be sensitive to the needs of those people that are around me. When I hear them saying something, I'm gonna listen and not just move past them. And I'm gonna look for and pray for those opportunities to point people towards Christ. That's kind of that being in the right spot in the toolbox and then being sharp, which means not only being prayerfully prepared, but biblically prepared so that when we talk to folks, we speak to them in a way that's consistent with the word of God and don't say something silly to them. Have you accepted Jesus into your heart? Have you found Jesus? We say stupid things like that. The only seeker is God himself. And he draws us to the son. Again, we're tools in the master's hands, but we're tools that must be sharp and ready to be used. Third, Christ is more valuable than silver and gold. And I can't say this often enough, loud enough, strongly enough, but boy, we need to hear it over and over and over again, because this world teaches us something else. This world teaches us that your goal in life, that what makes you successful in life is to go get a good job, pay all your bills and have enough money to enjoy vacations, good cars and fun toys. And when you die to leave something behind to the next generation. And none of that, none of that is biblical. It's a lie, it comes from the pits of hell and should smell like smoke to each one of us, but it doesn't. We pursue the things of this world too oftentimes. Pursue Christ, pursue God's word, pursue God himself, ask the Holy Spirit to assist you in that end. pursue opportunities to gather silver and gold for a purpose and let that purpose be to build Christ's kingdom here on earth. And finally, this account is primarily one of healing and arguably discipleship as we see them engaging with this man. But it is also, if you will, something that should focus us upon the importance of the worship that takes place within God's body. We're told in verse 16 of this chapter that this man who was healed in faith was a believer. Why? Because he was healed by faith. So if our focus is on discipleship here and not conversion, that means personal growth and Christian maturity day by day is something that was and should have been always this man's goal, but your goal and my goal. So is it? And if it's not, then ask yourself this day, what must I change in my life to make it be. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your mercy and your grace to us because you are way more patient than we deserve. And so Father, we come before you and ask that you would indeed work in us and that having worked in us, we would show evidence of the change that comes from that relationship we have with you. That our lives like Peter and John's might be changed and might look different in five years, but even next week, because of our study and commitment to you over the things of this world. We praise you, Father. And we pray all this in Jesus' name, amen.