Father in heaven, we come to you this evening. We come singing your praises and worshiping in our hearts. Would you now unite us together as we look at your word, reveal to us your grace. May we have eyes to see hearts that receive lives that are changed by father, send your spirit that we may see your truth this evening as we look at your word together as your people and as your family. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Please be seated. We continue in our studies this evening of the Book of Acts. We find ourselves in the third chapter. We're looking at all twenty-six verses together. That can be found on page nine hundred and eleven of your pew Bible, if you would like to turn there. Acts chapter three, beginning in the first verse. Now, Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the night. 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 all. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what happened to him. While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's Astounded. And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people. Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant, Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. And you killed the author of life whom God raised from the dead. To this, we are witnesses. And his name, by faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the profits that is Christ would suffer. He thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore. and turn again, your sins may be blotted out. The times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him and whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. And all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaim these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham. And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. You ever notice how things aren't what they used to be. Now, for me, I'm thirty two years old and this is never more evident than when I'm playing sports. Whether it's basketball or flag football or indoor soccer, not even to mention golf. You know, 10 years ago, what my body will do, it won't do now. And then when I was 18, it didn't do what it did when I was 18. Things fall apart. I have the moves in my mind. And three seconds later, my body does. And whether it's playing sports or walking upstairs, it takes me three days to recover from anything. Now, this shouldn't be any surprise to any of us if we are Christians. This harkens back to the Garden of Eden, doesn't it? When God said the fruit of the tree of life is surely as you eat it, you will surely die. And that death wasn't just a spiritual death, it's a physical death. Things aren't what they're supposed to be. They're falling apart, whether it's clothes, whether it's loved ones who have died, whether it's our own bodies. falling apart. Things aren't the way they're supposed to be. Now, we can do many things to try to delay this fact. We can plant new hair. We can give new joints. Some cases we can give new hearts. New organs. But all it is doing is delaying the inevitable. That things are falling apart. But in this passage, you have something swimming against this cosmic rule. The cosmic temple of things falling apart. You have someone who was lame from birth getting better. You know, it's that old saying, if you see a turtle on a fence post, you have to ask the question. How did it get there? It didn't jump up there by itself. What you have here in Acts chapter three is a swimming against the tide of the way that we think we know things to be. But here is this man, not the way he's supposed to be. Yet you have two of Jesus's apostles working. Something is working here and it moves against this time and against the tempo of what is falling apart. And the question is, how? By whose power? What's happening, what's up with that moving in the opposite direction of the way in which we know things to be. So as we see here. In this chapter, Acts chapter three, we have to recognize something. First, we have to recognize what's going on in all of Acts. It's the burgeoning of the church, it's the growth of the church out of the soil of the work of Jesus Christ himself, the apostles falling in line to that work. What you have going on is Jesus saying in chapter one and verse eight, God telling the apostles, you will be my witnesses here. throughout Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth. God's calling his witnesses. God's calling his church and God is building in the midst. Peter's already spent time in chapter two preaching. Preaching so powerfully that 3000 souls are converted. We don't see preaching like that often in our time, do we? I wish I could preach like that. Preaching to know three thousand people and souls added to the church. What's going on? God is putting up a billboard of his power, of his accomplishments. He's also working in and through the midst of his church that is growing from the very beginning. Even you saw it here, Peter says, it's not by our power or our piety. It's by the moving of God through his people. And so we ask the question, what's up with this man? I think so often as Christians, we we read the text too quickly, too fast, because we're too aware of what God has done without feeling the impact of what was happening in those times and how God was working. We read too quickly as Christians and we think, oh, yes, well, we know God's powerful. Oh, well, yes, we know Jesus heals people. Oh, yes, we know that miracles are going on. But if we slow down and ask ourselves the question, why, how did the turtle get on the fence post? What are miracles all about? What were Jesus's miracles that he performed and what is this miracle taking place in Acts chapter three? What is it all about? I've used this illustration a couple of times, even this week, my dog, Bigby. Bigby is not the smartest dog in the world. For the first week I had him, he came home and I have a storm door on the front of my house and my regular door was open and the storm door was closed. And he comes running around the corner, smacks right into the storm door, backs up and looks at his reflection in the storm door and starts barking because he thinks it's another dog. But what I'm about to tell you isn't unique to my dog Bigby. But if you ever tried to point for a dog to go somewhere, go to the kitchen. If you go to your bed, what does the dog do? It follows your finger. It really has no idea what you're saying in reality where you're going. It loses the actual point of pointing because all it does is follow your finger. And if we look at miracles and go, well, how did he do that? How did he turn water into wine? How did he make a lame man walk? What's the physical nature of what all is going on? How did he do that? I won't believe until I figure out how he did that. We're missing the point. The point of all of Jesus's miracles that he performs while he's on earth and as he performs through his burgeoning church is that we would see Christ for who he is and believe in him. That's what John tells us about all the miracles that he reveals to us about what Jesus has done. He tells us the point of miracles is not the miracle that you're pointing to something else. And what they're pointing to is the power of Jesus Christ, the ability to change hearts, to move lives, to work in his creation as he chooses and has he wishes. We cannot lose sight of the point in Acts chapter three. We've seen the power of Jesus as he works through his witnesses, as he draws others in. It was Peter's words in chapter two as he preaches, but it's the power of God to add to the numbers. It's Peter's hand here, but it's Jesus's work by his power through his witness, Peter. And so, as we're told at the beginning of Acts, we are to be God's witnesses here on Earth. Then from this passage, we have to know why, how we are to be witnesses. What does it mean, in other words, to be a church? Because we are called to be God's witnesses in the world, we should recognize two things. Two things I want you to see from this passage tonight, there's 26 verses. There's a lot of verses here is an entire chapter. We're flying through us. And so we have to take a bird's eye view and look at Chapter three to see what's going on, focusing in just on a couple of things. But I want you to see two major things tonight. First, we have to recognize the ministry of the church. We also have to recognize the message of the church, the ministry of the church and the message of the church. And how Luke tells us about the ministry of the church here in Acts chapter three, he gives us three characters. He puts before us three characters that we might be able to see what the ministry of the church is to be about. And that first character that we run into is the lame man. You see him. It's this lame man, he's the center of the first eleven verses, so we think. And you see who this lame man is. Did you notice something about the lame man? He should have noticed a couple of things. First, that the lame man recognized his need. And we might pass over it very quickly, but this lame man knows his state in this life. It tells us that he was lame from birth. In his mind, there was no confusion about his ability and inabilities. This was a man who recognized his need. He was lame from birth, it tells us in verse two. In verse three, it says he asked to receive alms or donations. He's sitting there at the temple, recognizing that he needs the mercy of others to live. He's waiting and depending on the mercy of others. So he recognizes his condition. He also, in verse five, fixed his attention on Peter and John. He's expecting to receive. Now, there's no mistake why this man, this lame beggar, is at the temple, because at the temple, especially at the hour of prayer and the ninth hour, people would have been coming to the temple to pray. There would have been a vast number of Jews just coming into the temple. And so what better time for him than to be standing or sitting, in his case, outside the temple waiting for mercy? He's sitting there. It was also true that the rabbis thought that giving donations or alms to the poor was pleasing to God. So you had the man sitting out there and Jews throwing in coins. To this man's basket. This was a man who recognized his need, he couldn't provide for himself. But he also, as we've already seen, he noticed where to go to receive mercy. He knew that by going to the temple, whatever their motives were, that he might receive mercy by these people. Sure, there would be some of those jeering who would connect his disability with with God's judgment in some way. But even the rabbis teaching and even some that would give donations to the poor found himself knowing where to go to receive mercy. And what does that mean for us? For us, it means that you and I have to recognize our need of God's mercy. There's a reason that this man is here in this passage, there's a reason that he's lame and he's begging, and there's a reason that God shows his power. Because it's a picture of God making things right, swimming against the tide. It's a recognition of God actually hearkening back to the Garden of Eden, of restoring things the way they used to be. But it's also pointing to heaven itself where things will be made right, where there'll be no more lame, there'll be no more gnashing of teeth, there'll be no more crying and wailing. That God will, in the end, restore all things to the way in which he intended them to be. and salvation for us. You have to recognize you have to recognize as a Christian that you have received God's unmerited favor and grace and mercy. And as we gather together as God's church, as we gather together to come together in this place, you and I are restored lame beggars. You see, We have been restored by the grace of God through his son, Jesus Christ. He has shown us mercy. It's the first thing I think we have to see from this lame beggar, he recognizes his need and he recognizes the place to go to receive mercy. But then it makes me ask the question. And you might not like this question at all, but it makes me ask the question. To the people of Colombia. Nowhere to find mercy to the people of Columbia. Nowhere to find mercy. Is it in this place as we are gathered together as once lame beggars, recognizing that God has showered his mercy upon us? The people of downtown nowhere to find mercy to the rich of the city, nowhere to find mercy. Do the poor of this city know where to find mercy? We must be people that have come together as restored tokens of God's grace and mercy. Willing to say, come into this place, you beggar, you lame, be restored, be healed by God's mercy and grace. Now, I don't know how we do that. And some of us buckle and say it's just too much. There are too many people to help. There's too many people to show mercy to. Look what Peter and John are doing here. They come to the temple and they find this man begging, they tell him to look at them. And they say they have no silver or gold. I don't think that's. You know, evidence for us to say, well, we shouldn't give people money, I think it's simply a statement of what was in John and Peter's pockets, nothing. They have no gold or silver. What they do have, they give to this man. This lame beggar who recognizes his need. He recognizes where to find mercy. So that's the first thing we see is Luke tells us about this lame man walking as we recognize the ministry of the church, but he's not the only character that Luke wants to put before us. There are other characters as well. There's the servants who are serving. We have a lame man walking. We have servants who are serving. That's Peter and John, you know, just they don't walk up to the temple and say, no, no, get away from. No, no, I'm heading to worship. No, no, I'm on my way to praise God. They actually see what they're doing is part of praising God. They actually see what they're doing is an important part of the ministry and the mercy of Jesus Christ. And they say, look at us. Listen, we we don't have silver or gold. But what we do have, we give to you. By the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Now, it's all sorts of things mixed up in this. This lame man ends up walking, he was simply asking for a cup of coffee. And yet, to his surprise, he finds something he could never provide for himself, the greatest gift that there ever could be, that he was lame from birth and now he walks. That his expectations of God were so low, all he was asking for. All he was asking for from Peter and John was a cup of coffee. And what he gets are legs. He asked for coffee and he's able to walk. This reveals something to us. It reveals how good our God is to us. Do you ever find yourself acting like the lame man? Saying, well, I could never ask for that. We could never ask for that as a church. Oh, brothers and sisters, if we could only see that the Lord delights to shower upon his people good things, He loves to delight his people with giving to them. And yet we so timidly fall back and say, well, OK, if it's in your we become Calvinists to the utter extreme Calvinistic determinism, as I call it, to say, well, it's in your will and we and that is right to say, God, you will give us according to your will. But he also says, ask and you shall receive. This man, all we can see from Peter and John is simply to ask for a cup of coffee. And the heavens are open wide and God's power is unleashed on the man. Tells me that we ought to expect great things of our God. Who loves to be about the business of restoration in this world. Now, this wasn't just about this man becoming healed physically, it tells us later in verse 16. And his name, by faith in his name, has made this man strong whom you see and know. And the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. In the economy of acts, you see this man being healed. But that's not the ultimate purpose. That he would be healed physically and elsewhere when Jesus is healing people physically. He says, listen, your greatest need is not that you're lame physically. It's that you're a sinner and you need to be restored, brought to wholeness spiritually, and that can only be done by and through the work of Christ. So you have these serving servants, these servants who are serving on God's behalf, Peter and John, who are showing this man God's power and ability. The heavens are open wide and they're unleashed on this man that he wants. That's the third character. The Lord working his purposes out by and through his witnesses and his church. That we might be people quick, quick to tell people, look at us. I might not be able to solve your physical problems, your financial difficulties. But let me tell you something. By the power of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Recognize your stance before God. Listen, he seeks to restore you. Listen, he has sent his son that you might have a relationship with him. As the as the message, isn't it that we care? And you see, is this man tastes just a little bit as it tells us in 16, his faith now in Christ and Jesus who heals him physically is the one who heals him spiritually. And you notice what this man does. What do you do? It's this unreserved praise, isn't it? Look what happens to this man, look as he feels the effect of walking and is in verse seven, and he, Peter, 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. This is exuberant praise. Now, you might remember how the temple set up the inside of the temple was reserved for the court of the Israelites, the Jews, and then there was the court of the women. And then there was the court of the Gentiles. There were all the non-Jews. And here's this man who can't even make it into the temple because he's lame. Who now, as he's healed by the power of Christ, is leaping and jumping and running through the temple. He doesn't care what people think about him. He's throwing his arms up in the air, he's dancing because he's taste the mercy and the grace of his Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And it came through Christ's witnesses, his people, his church. Don't you see it as you come into this place? Are you leaping for joy? Are you praising God because you have been shown the mercy that you see here in this passage? And does it move us to ministry? It's the ministry of the church that we now carry with us, like Peter and John, as they invoke the name of Jesus, not in some magical kind of way, But as God works through them, as he shows his power in the midst of the times of acts, it is no less how he shows his power now through our times, through you and through me, through his church, that we carry with us the power of the gospel itself, that we can go out and say, come into this place, come among us, be leaping, be joyful, be praising God. Listen, it's by the mercy and the grace of God that has saved you. Now, leap for joy. You notice what's going on here to look in verse eleven. Peter and John say, now, great, you're leaping, you're running, you're moving around, you're praising God, not great. Be on your way. Get away from us. You can taste the grace of God, but we don't really want you in here. Look what's happening in verse eleven. while he clung, while the lame beggar clung to Peter. Peter's not throwing him off. Peter's holding him up. You see, the ministry of the church, what it ought to be as people are gaining their legs of faith, that we come alongside them and we walk with them and we hold them up, that we proclaim not ourselves, but Jesus Christ. He recognized what happens as Peter begins to change from healing this man, God working through him, the ministry of the church, what he and John are about, helping others see the grace and mercy of God through Christ. He then begins. He then begins to preach. He helps meet the needs of this man, then he I don't know where I heard this story first, but it's a beautiful picture of what the church ought to be about. Church service was going on, probably not unlike what goes on here. And this young man with tattoos and earrings and a T-shirt and jeans comes into the church. He comes straight down the aisle and he sits right beneath the preacher. Now, what would be the reaction here? Don't tell me. It's what it would be at many churches. What's going on? What's happening? What's what's going on? We'd sit up a little straighter. We'd pay attention. We'd say, what's happening? That's what they did at this church. And this old man, three quarters down from the pulpit away, got up out of his seat. and took his cane and walked down the aisle as fast as he could, which was not very fast at all. And he comes down beside the young man and everybody's thinking, what is going to happen now? He puts his cane down and he sits beside the young man and he opens up his Bible and they together read the scriptures as the preacher preaches. is a man who understands the mercy and the grace of God, the ministry of the church. So that is what we ought to be about as well. That no matter somebody's financial condition, no matter their physical ailments, no matter what they've done or who they are, what color their skin is or what their background is, that we would say, listen, come into this place. Come into this place that you might be healed and restored by the power of God. You see how that works as this man claims to Peter in verse 11. Well, as I said, as we look at the book of Acts, we're really just taking a bird's eye view. And I wish we had five or six more times to look at this passage, to unravel all that's going on here, to examine all that's taking place. But I just want you to see simply from the remainder of the chapter what Peter is doing. He's he's helped this man physically. But he doesn't point to himself, he doesn't say, hey, come into this place and look like us. He doesn't say now you can you can be cookie cutter image of what we are. Now you have legs, you can walk like us. What he does is he preaches, and how does he preach? First, it's Christ centered. Look at verse 12. And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people, men of Israel, why do you wonder at this or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety, we have made him walk. Peter saying, hey, stop, stop looking at the end of the finger, stop looking at us. It's not about us. It's not our power and it's not our piety, but it's the work of God himself through Christ. You see there in your order of service at the top of 2nd Corinthians, chapter four, has this to say, for what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servant, for Jesus's sake. For God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Peter's sermon is first and foremost Christ-centered. He's not preaching himself, but Christ alone. But you notice Peter doesn't shy away from the tough bits about the gospel either. He doesn't simply say, good, now you're healed. Here's Jesus. God loves you. But what he says is, listen, as everybody comes to watch, as this man now becomes a token of a witness, as he himself is enfolded into the church, others are seeing this and wondering and amazing what's going on. The people of Columbia look at this place, will they look at this place? Can they look at this place and say, I wonder what's going on? Things are happening there. People are being added. People are becoming Christians. Peter here is preaching first Christ centered. But he also bases his sermon on the word of God, the truth of the gospel, the full counsel. He doesn't just say, listen, you all are sinners. Good luck with that. He says, listen, we all have put to death Christ himself. If you have time later on this evening, just read the remainder of this chapter. He's talking about here. He's he's being direct with them. He calls them to repentance, recognizing in your sin what we all have done. We have all taken part in nailing Jesus to the cross. Be understand. Who Christ is, what he has done. But then he doesn't leave them simply with their sin. Look what you've done. Repent, therefore. But he calls them to hope as well. Be filled with hope. It's a call to repentance in verses 19 and 20. But then look at verse 21. Whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. He's talking about Jesus. He's talking about Jesus. Who's in heaven waiting to do what? waiting to restore all things to himself. He's waiting to ultimately swim against the tide and the tempo of things being broken and fallen of the curse being played out. He's working against it. You see it in second Corinthians, chapter four, even at the top, it says in the second half there for God, who said, let light shine out of darkness has shown in our hearts. He's hearkening back to the garden, excuse me, to creation. Where God says, let there be light. Saying Jesus has the power to recreate hearts. The God shines his light of the gospel into the hearts of men. And as a church, as Peter and John are taking the baton that Jesus has given to them, as they are carrying forth the ministry of the church, not only by their hands, but by their mouths, the message of the church as well. What they are doing is ushering in, is building again the garden that once was in Eden. That's what we're doing here. When we come to sing and we come to praise and we come to leap for joy, as we come that others might see Christ, what we're doing is is being gardeners. That we're pushing back the thorns and the thistles of this world and that we're using the soil of God's word and his truth and the gospel that Christians might grow from it. What we're doing is is no less than gardening. And as people grow. And as that fruit is seen, people are drawn to that garden. I hate yard work. I hate it. I cannot stand it. I love it right after I finish it because it's beautiful. But then what happens? The weeds grow up, the leaves fall down. And you have to do it continually. May we not be people who hate gardening the gospel. May we love and be quick to show mercy. Not just with our mouths as being a teaching center. In a preaching place. We would be a place that has our doors open, our lives open, our pocketbooks open, our hands open with the spine of the truth of the gospel found in God's word, but with the grace and the mercy that we might show others. That we might have the opportunity to say, listen, I can give you bread today. I can give you a meal right now. There's someone who can feed your soul for eternity. Come with me to the garden. Use the tools of the gospel to tend to the garden. We be a place that recognizes the ministry of the church and the message of the church, not for our own piety or power. not to preach ourselves, but Christ alone, that others might come in, that they may taste heaven itself in this place. Father in heaven, you have indeed showed us your mercy. You have restored our hearts to wholeness. Father, may we not lose sight of the grace and the mercy that has been shown to us. But may we tend to the garden with the gospel, with the tools found there. We till the soil of Columbia. We seek to meet the needs physically as well as in word. May we be people of word and deed where mercy is the soil. Father, be with us as we go from this place. May we be gardeners. pointing backwards forward. By your spirit, we pray in Christ's name. Amen.