Rev.
Debbie Cato
Acts
3:1-26
Fairfield
Community Church
June
9, 2024
Let us
pray: Loving
God. Open up our minds and our hearts to
hear your word. Help us to understand
what you want us to know and then live our lives in that way. In Jesus name, Amen.
A Lame Man
Acts is probably the book in the Bible
that reads most like a story. You need
to have the information from prior chapters before you read further into
Acts. The chapters build on each
other. To start his story, Luke recounts
the promise of the Holy Spirit, the ascension of Christ and the replacement of
Judas – so that there continues to be 12 disciples. They choose Matthias by the way.
On Pentecost Sunday, we began chapter 2 and were reminded of how the Holy Spirit came down that first Pentecost. We were reminded how she arrived – with a vicious wind and tongues of fire. We were reminded that she empowered the disciples – these men from Galilee – to speak in different languages so that everyone present could hear and understand the Good News.
Last week we finished chapter 2 , reading how that first group of believers who were converted and baptized grew by 3,000 people after Peter preaches the first sermon. We read how that first church spent time together, they shared what they had, they broke bread, and they continued to praise God and listen to the apostle’s teachings. We talked about how filled with the awe of God everyone was, and how we should feel the same today.
As John Stott says in his commentary on Acts, “Luke has painted an idyllic picture of the early Christian community in Jerusalem. Its members, having received forgiveness and the Holy Spirit, were conscientious in their learning from the apostles, their worship of God, their care of one another and their witness to those as yet, outside their fellowship. Everything was sweetness and light. Love, joy, and peace reigned. Commissioned by Christ and empowered by his Spirit, they stood on the threshold of the great missionary adventure which Luke is going to describe. The good ship Christ-church was ready to catch the wind of the Spirit and to set sail on her voyage of spiritual conquest. But almost immediately a perilous storm blew up, a storm of such ferocity that the church’s very existence was threatened.”[1]
We see that shift beginning already in chapter 3 – Peter heals a crippled beggar. The shift happens because Peter performed this miracle. This man, this lame beggar, had a congenital disability – he was born unable to walk. In chapter 4, we learn he was over 40 years old, and he was so severely disabled that he had to be carried and put every day by the temple gate to beg from those going into the temple courts. He begged for money to care for himself.
Peter and John were about to enter the temple when the man stopped them and asked them for money. The apostles stopped and looked straight at him. (I imagine most people pretended they didn’t see him.) Looking straight at him, Peter gave him two commands. First, “Look at us!” So naturally, the man, whose eyes were normally downward, looked up at them, expecting that they were going to give him some money. But then Peter gave him the second command. “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” (Remember, this man was forty years old and had never been able to walk.)
Peter does not stand back and watch the man struggle to his feet; he leans forward and “taking him by the right hand, he helped him up.” Peter helped him up with the power of the Holy Spirit. Instantly – it didn’t take any time. Instantly, the man’s feet and ankles became strong – so strong and agile that he jumped to his feet and began to walk. Can you imagine what that would have been like? This was the first time in his life he had walked! The man follows the apostles into the temple courts, all the time walking and jumping, and praising God.” A crowd gathers because everyone recognizes him as the same man who for decades, sat outside the temple and begged. Verse 10 tells us that ‘they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.”
Peter is bold. He is outspoken describing the dishonor which the inhabitants of Jerusalem had shown Jesus.
1.
You handed
him over to be killed, he says.
2.
You
disowned him before Pilate.
3.
You
disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released
rather than Jesus – who was innocent, Peter proclaims.
4.
You killed
the author of life.
But God reversed their four-fold rejection of Jesus by raising him from the dead. He and John were witnesses,[2] he told them.
So – Peter says, it is by faith in the name of Jesus that this man whom you see and know was made strong. It wasn’t me or John who healed this man. It was Jesus the Christ.
Notice how Christ-centered Peter’s sermon is. He directed the crowd’s attention away from both the healed man and the apostles, to Christ, whom people disowned by killing him. But God was vindicated by raising him, and whose name, having been taken hold of by faith, was strong enough to completely heal the man. Throughout his speech, Peter gives Jesus four different significant titles – “Jesus Christ of Nazareth,” “the Holy and Righteous One,” the prophet foretold by Moses,” and Servant and Christ, Holy One and source of life”
Peter truly exalted the name of Jesus and he ends his sermon by challenging his audience – “fellow Israelites” - with the need for and the blessings of repentance. “I know you acted out of ignorance, as did your leaders,” Peter tells them. You didn’t know any better – Peter says. But now you do. “Repent and turn to God.” There are huge benefits if you do this. There are the Christ-centered promises of total forgiveness, spiritual refreshment, and universal restoration as foretold in the Old Testament when you repent and believe.
Again, we are reminded of the power of the Holy Spirit. We think those miracles are past. We think miracles of healing were just during Bible times. They are just for stories like the one we read today. But I often wonder – what if we believed in the power of the Holy Spirit as strongly as those people at the first Pentecost? What if we truly believed – deep within our hearts the promises Christ made? What if we really believed that the Holy Spirit changed us, that it gave us power and strength and hope?
See I think we aren’t as changed by the Spirit, by the knowledge that the Holy Spirit lives in us. I think we don’t believe the power extends to us today because we don’t have to. We don’t have to believe. We can rely on ourselves for what we need. We have our jobs and our checking accounts, our cupboards are full of food to eat, we have all the toys we accumulate, we have all our stuff. We have more than we need. We are all affluent even though we may not feel we are. We have been raised to be self-sufficient, to be independent. To take care of ourselves. We have control. Maybe I’m just speaking for myself, but I don’t think we believe we need God in our lives as much as the people during Peter’s time believed.
We can continue to rely on ourselves, on the stuff we have and the things we know. But the world is crumbling around us. Our government is imploding. Housing is in a crisis and more and more hardworking families and individuals are finding themselves homeless because they can’t even afford to rent. More and more hardworking families are experiencing food instability for the first time – they can’t afford to feed their families without help from foodbanks. Our medical system, I believe thanks to insurance companies, is broken and good doctors and good nurses are retiring early. A medical emergency is a financial burden for the best of us. It doesn’t matter what your politics are – you have to admit things are not as good as we like to think. This is where self-sufficiency and independence have brought us.
I propose that we need the Holy Spirit. We need to believe like we’ve never believed before that we need the Holy Spirit and the Spirit makes a difference. We need the promises of total forgiveness, spiritual refreshment, and universal restoration just as much today as the crowd listening to Peter that day. I propose we all need healing just like that 40-year-old lame beggar so many years ago.
Like the song goes, “Come Holy Spirit, fall on me now. We need your anointing, come in your power.” [3] Amen.
[1] The Message
of Acts. John W. Stott. InterVarsity Press. Downers Grove, IL. 2020.
P. 70.
[2] The Message of Acts. John W. Stott. InterVarsity Press. Downers Grove, IL. 2020.
P. 74..
[3] Song lyric “Come Holy Spirit.” Released in 2015. Kids Praise 2003 by Spring Harvest.
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