We’re back in the book of Acts tonight, Acts chapter 3. It’s on page 911 in the pew Bibles. From time to time, someone will make a list or write a book that condenses a broad sweep of history into the story of a few basic objects, events or ideas. So there was a book written several years ago and it was called, A History of the World in Six Glasses, and it tells the story of six eras of world history that span the course of civilization – from the adoption of agriculture to the birth of cities to the advent of globalization. And it does so all by tracing the history of six drinks – from wine to coffee and tea and all the way to Coca-Cola. Six glasses; thousands of years. Well there was another one more recently called, Nuts and Bolts: Seven Small Inventions that Changed the World in a Big Way. Little things like the nail, the wheel, the spring, the magnet have had major impacts on human development. In fact, those things continue to impact our lives today. They are seven objects but they tell a much bigger story.
So in Acts chapter 3, we come to this story – the story of Peter and John healing a man who was unable to walk and of Peter then preaching to the astonished crowds. And in this chapter, we find several names, places, events that not only capture the history of Israel but they tell something of the story of God’s plan of salvation through time and eternity. We find in this chapter the temple, covenant, blessing. There are people here like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Samuel and Solomon. And the focus of all of it is on Jesus who is the Christ, the Servant. He is the Prophet. He is the holy and righteous One. The Author of life. Jesus is the focus of it all. He is the only way to God’s blessing. He is the one who brings about restoration, healing, forgiveness and joy. And for this beggar in Acts chapter 3, Jesus is better than silver and gold. In fact, Jesus is better even than the healing of his paralysis.
What about for you? What about for these beggars who are gathered here tonight in this place. If you seek God’s blessing and you seek times of refreshment and the restoration of all things, we find it in Jesus. It comes through faith in the name of Jesus Christ. So let’s focus our attention tonight on Acts chapter 3. We’ll see two things from this passage. We’ll see the miracle and the message. Before we read, let’s pray and ask God’s help and blessing.
Father, we need Your help and we need Your blessing. We need You to open our eyes, to open our ears. We ask that You would help us to see, that You would open our eyes that we may see wondrous things from Your Law, that You would speak, for Your servants listen. Would Your Spirit illumine Your Word to us that we would know You and love You and serve You with all of our heart, soul, mind and strength. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Acts chapter 3, beginning in verse 1:
“Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, ‘Look at us.’ And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!’ And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s. 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 prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that 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. Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall listen to him in 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 proclaimed 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.’”
The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of our God endures forever.
First, the miracle. The miracle gets all the hype. And that was true at the time that it happened. The people, they were filled with wonder and amazement. Verse 11 says that, “All the people were utterly astounded.” And then when we get to chapter 4, we’ll see next week that the rulers and the elders and the scribes question Peter and John because of the miracle and they said amongst themselves, “What shall we do with these men for a notable sign has been performed through them is evident to all the inhabitants of Jerusalem and we cannot deny it.” You see, the miracle caught everyone’s attention. And that’s true to some extent today with this story. There are artists’ interpretations of this scene in Solomon’s Portico that can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Royal Academy of Arts and the Victoria and Albert Museum, and there are others I’m sure. And then there’s the children’s song that many of us are familiar with – “Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” It’s a great story of healing and reversal and restoration. This man who had been born lame, unable to walk from the time of his birth, here he was at least forty years old and he was being carried to the temple to beg.
And as much as there is a physical component to this miracle, there is a major social piece to this story as well. And for many of us, we cannot imagine what this would have been like. We cannot imagine the physical challenges that were facing this man, that simple tasks could be made difficult. There was extra time, extra hands required to perform the simplest activities. And who knows what sort of pain, who knows what sort of unknown side effects accompanied his disability. But we’ve seen physical limitations. Physical limitations you can see. Not so much with the social stigma. Notice where this man is laid day by day when he goes to beg for alms. He’s laid at the gate of the temple. And it seems, looking into the circumstances surrounding this time period, that the blind and the lame were prohibited from entering the temple courts. In fact, there was a Separatist community at Qumran and in their writings that were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the blind and the lame were to be excluded from the city altogether. You see, this community that was focused on cleanliness and purity, the blind and the lame were considered unclean, impure and they were kept out. So here we have this story and there’s disability, poverty, exclusion, shame with this man.
And then he has this encounter with Peter and with John. And Peter says, “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 Peter took him by the right hand and he raised him up and this man, he went from weakness to strength; he went from paralysis to leaping and walking. He went from begging to praising God. That’s not all. Because did you notice what else he does? He goes from sitting outside of the temple gates to entering into the temple with Peter and John. It’s almost a complete restoration – physically, socially, emotionally, occupationally. It’s no wonder that it made such an impression on the crowds. It’s no wonder that there is so much focus placed on the miracle.
But actually, the main focus of the chapter, and really the main concern of the authorities and what is to come, is with the message. So there’s the miracle, but there’s also the message. In fact, you could say that the main focus of the whole book of Acts is on the message. The book of Acts is a book of sermons. In fact, one person has said that “For a book that is called Acts, there sure is much of it that is teaching.” And that’s true. It’s been said that in some ways the book of Acts is a series of sermons that are connected by signs and wonders. They are connected by the journeys and the travel stories. The sermons, you see, are pivotal to the whole book of Acts. The sermons tell us the significance of the things that were happening. The sermons tell us the significance of Jesus’ resurrection and ascension within God’s plan of salvation.
And in this sermon, Peter is, in a sense, panning out. And he’s panning out to provide this bigger picture, this story in a bigger perspective, the overall perspective. And we see something of this even when we are watching football on Saturdays. You know in a football game on TV, you get a bunch of different camera angles to let you see what’s going on. There’s that 8k camera that makes the players look like the video game players. You know that one? There’s the skycam that gets you right down there into the action. And then there’s another camera called the All-22. And the All-22 is from a distance way off, way up in the stadium, looking down on all 22 players on the field at one time. You can see everything from the pre-snap formations to the routes as they develop to the receivers coming open, all the way to the end of the play. You can see it all. Coaches love it. Coaches love it for film study and for game planning because you can see the whole picture.
Peter’s sermon does something like that for us because he takes us from the middle of the action, he takes us from the excitement of the healing of the lame man, and he shows us what’s going on at the macro-level. And there are at least four things that we can see in Peter’s sermon where he shifts our focus. And the first is a shift from the blessing to the one who blesses. A shift from the blessing itself to the one who does the blessing.
There was a Christian life conference at Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis several years ago. It was in 2009; it was shortly before we moved from Memphis to Jackson. Alistair Begg and Sinclair Ferguson were the speakers at this conference and they actually compiled the addresses from that conference into a book that was later published called, Name Above All Names. And in that book, what they are showing is that so much of what we can know about Jesus can be found by looking at His names He is given throughout the Scriptures. Names like “the seed of the woman” or “the true prophet” or “the suffering servant.” We have something like that here in Acts chapter 3, because when Peter and John healed the man, he clung to them and all the people were amazed. But Peter says in verse 12, “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?” No, it was not their own power; it was not their own piety. It was because of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that this man was able to stand up and walk. Peter says that God glorified His servant, Jesus. That Jesus is the holy and righteous one. He is the author of life. He is the Christ, the Messiah. He is that Prophet who was promised long ago, the offspring of Abraham through whom all the families of the earth shall be blessed. And one name after another, Peter connects Jesus’ life and His ministry, His life and death and resurrection and ascension, he connects those to the promises of God and to the power of God to save as it’s revealed throughout Scripture. And he says in verse 16, “And His name, by faith in His name, has made this man strong. The faith that is through Jesus has given this man perfect health in the presence of you all.”
You see, the power for the miracle came from Jesus, and the point of Peter’s sermon is to place the focus on Jesus. In fact, one commentator writes that, “This episode is just one episode of many in the book of Acts that highlights the inadequacy of the temple on one hand and the all sufficiency of Jesus on the other.” All that we need, all that one needs from God is now found in Jesus – forgiveness of sins, the times of refreshing, restoration, God’s final authoritative restoration, the blessing of God, repentance. All of God’s blessings are found through faith in Jesus alone. You see, for all of the wonder and for all of the awe that was directed towards the miraculous healing, what they needed to see, what we need to see is Jesus. And in seeing Jesus, to trust Him. And not to be enamored with the blessing, but to be enamored with the One from whom all blessings flow. That’s the first thing.
And then, in the course of Peter’s sermon, he also shifts the attention from the body to the soul. And one of the things that we’ve talked about in the book of Acts, we’ve talked about how the book of Acts is telling the story of how Jesus continues His ministry after His ascension, through the apostles, and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Well one of the ways that we see the continuation of His ministry that began in the gospels is through parallel stories that you find in the gospel of Luke and in the book of Acts. And one of those parallel stories is this one with Luke chapter 5. You remember what happens in Luke chapter 5, don’t you? It’s the story of the paralytic. And there was the man whose friends were bringing him to Jesus. And they couldn’t get through the crowds, so what did they do? They made a way through the roof; they made a hole through the roof and came down to Jesus. And what does Jesus say as the paralyzed man comes before Him? Jesus says, “Your sins are forgiven you.” He doesn’t say, “Be healed,” right away. He says, “Your sins are forgiven you.” He’s dealing with the deeper problem; a problem that is deeper than paralysis. But then He says that, “So you may know the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. I say to you, ‘Rise, pick up your bed and go home.’” But the deeper problem is the sin.
In Acts chapter 3, Peter seizes the opportunity of the healing to address a deeper, more stubborn, more critical need. And that is the forgiveness of sin. The “therefore” of his sermon, the “so what” of his message is repentance. He said, “God glorified His servants when the people put Him on the cross. They denied Him and killed Jesus, but God raised Him from the dead and this man was made well by faith in that Jesus. Therefore” – verse 19 – “Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.” You see what he saying is that the appropriate response to what God had done, what had happened there, was not just to marvel at the man’s physical change, but to marvel at the spiritual change, to marvel at Jesus who was able to bring about that spiritual change. And that is, forgiveness. Jesus is the way to forgiveness. Peter is confronting these people, these people who had rejected Jesus; these are the people who had put Jesus on the cross. They were in much bigger trouble, they were in much greater danger than any physical disability. What they needed was to have their sins atoned for. They needed their guilt to be dealt with. They needed their inner disease to be washed away. They needed to place their faith in the name of Jesus and to have their sins blotted out. And so Peter is directing their attention away from the physical to the spiritual, away from the body to the soul.
And then the third thing he does is to shift their horizons away from the one man to all things. Verse 19 again, “Repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus whom heaven must receive, until the restoring of all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets long ago.” The restoring of all things. Joni Eareckson Tada said in a devotional once that her quadriplegia can feel so confining, so limiting, but that the Scriptures that really blow the lid off those confinements are places like Malachi chapter 4 – “Behold, the day is coming, the son of righteousness shall rise with healing in his wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall.” Or Isaiah 35 – “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then the lame man shall leap like the deer and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.” Leaping like calves; leaping like the deer. Joni said that as someone who has been paralyzed for fifty-six years, she can’t wait to jump out of her wheelchair and do just that – to leap for joy. And no doubt, we’re meant to pay attention to the fact that this man went from being confined like Joni to being set free. Verse 8 says, “Leaping up, he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” Two times, two times in that one sentence we are told that he was leaping. Why? Because the son of righteousness had risen with healing in his wings.
And what Peter wants everyone to know is that this Jesus who had made this man well, this Jesus would return again in order to restore all the things that the prophets had promised long ago. Things like the healing of all diseases and the day of feasting and joy and perfect peace. The day when God will swallow up death forever and He will wipe away every tear from the eyes. When the wolf will dwell with the lamb and the leopard lie down with the young goat and the calf and the young lion and the fattling together. It’s when God will judge His enemies and He will pour out the fullness of His blessing on His people. Justice will roll down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream. What Paul writes in Romans chapter 8, that “the whole creation will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” All because of Jesus. All because of Jesus. And don’t we wait for that day? Yes, we wait for it. We eagerly wait for that day.
Well this healing in Acts 3 is a part of the firstfruits; it’s a part of the downpayment of that coming day. It’s the guarantee that that day will come. So Peter directs our attention from the blessing to the one who blesses, from the body to the soul, and from one man to all things. And then finally, he directs our attention from Israel to the nations. And that was the original promise to Abraham back in Genesis chapter 12. God said, “I will bless you, and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” And to understand a little bit about what’s going on here in this chapter, it helps to know something about the architecture of the temple. In the temple you had layers of access. There were the outer gates, then there was Solomon’s portico, and then the court of the Gentiles and the court of women and the court of the Israelites, then there was the temple itself, into which only the priests could enter. So in other words, the blind and the lame, the Gentiles and women, could only go so far. They were kept out, kept at a distance. And here is Peter. And where is he? He is in Solomon’s portico. It’s the place where the general public could gather, where the crowds could come together in the outer place – Solomon’s portico. And what does he say? He says that the blessing of Jesus, the blessing that the prophets had promised, the blessing of the promise of Abraham is for all the nations. The walls come down.
And no one who places their faith in Jesus like this lame man does, no one will be denied access. Everyone who trusts in Jesus will be saved – no matter where they come from, no matter what they look like, no matter how much it seems like they don’t fit. Salvation, restoration, forgiveness, is for everyone who places their faith in the name of Jesus. And Peter, at the risk of his life – we’ll see that next week in Acts chapter 4 – at the risk of his life, Peter preaches. He preaches to unveil the real significance of this miracle. And the real significance lies not just in the blessing but in the One who blesses, and not just in the body but in the soul, not only in the one man but in the restoration of all things, not only for Israel but for all nations. The real significance lies in Jesus. He is the center and focus of it all. Jesus of Nazareth.
Now there are several ways that we can make application from this passage. Whether it’s to those who are suffering themselves, there’s the mercy and promise of God. Or to the need of extending grace to the Jews, it’s where they start first, with the Jews in Jerusalem. Or to the place in God’s kingdom where the marginalized and the unreached, the Gospel goes to those as well. But what I want to do, what I want us to see, is that at the most basic level, we need sermons. And it’s just as simple as that. We need sermons. The message here interpreted the miracle and it revealed the bigger picture, and we need sermons to do the same thing in our own lives. That’s always true. Whatever is going on in our lives, whatever is going on in the world, we need sermons. But just as an example, illustration, we especially need sermons when it’s campaign season. Because when it’s campaign season, there is a lot of talk that we will hear, there is a lot of propaganda about prosperity and the economy and about what’s wrong with our world and the problems around us and who is going to fix them and it’s “us” versus “them.” We’ll hear those messages and we’re prone to repeat them, to talk about them. And we may even be shaped by them if we’re not careful. We’re always in danger of being shaped by the messages and the busyness of the world around us. We need sermons.
We need sermons that are Christ-centered and that preach to the heart and that nurture hope and proclaim the message of the Gospel for the whole world. We all get so caught up in the here and now, we get so caught up with what’s right in front of us, with what’s going on all around us. We get so caught up even in the faulty thinking in our own heads and the faulty emotions of our own hearts, but we need to step back. We need to zoom out and see what God is doing and how He is fulfilling His promises and how He is working His plan of salvation to its fullest in Christ Jesus. We need to see Jesus. And Peter does that for us in Acts chapter 3.
I’ve said before, I’ve mentioned before about the Great Ejection of 1662. It was the time in England when 2,000 Puritan ministers were removed from their pulpits for not conforming to the mandates of the English government. Their silence, their silence was the gold of the Acts of Uniformity that were drawn up by the authorities. In fact, in one case, at the trial of Reverend Powell, he had already spent seven years in prison and someone made an appeal for him to be let go on bail, and as they were considering letting him go, the crowned counselor objected and said, “No, my lord! If he is released, then he will go and preach.” And that was all he had to do. And Reverend Powell died in prison. Anything but to go and preach. Ian Murray writes that, “Whatever we think about the Puritans, there is no denying that it was their activity which led to a period in which theology was valued, sound doctrine and Gospel preaching were esteemed, Bible reading, spiritual hunger were characteristic of large portions of the common people, and that it was equally true that after the silencing of those 2,000, England entered into an age of rationalism and coldness in the pulpit, indifference in the pew. England entered into an age in which skepticism and worldliness went far to reducing the national religion to a mere parody of New Testament Christianity.” We need sermons.
We need sermons like Peter’s in Acts chapter 3 or else we slide into rationalism, secularism, worldliness and apathy. We need sermons or else we are at risk of falling into a parody of New Testament Christianity. We need to look to Christ and we need to look to the heart. We need to look to eternity and we need to look to the Gospel message that Jesus has given to us for the world. So let’s pray that we would always have sermons like that and let’s pray that God would always give us hearts to hear them. Let’s pray.
Our Father, we give You thanks for this model of preaching before us in Acts 3. We give You thanks for the Holy Spirit that brought it forth and gave ears to hear the message and people to respond in amazing ways as we’ll see next time. We pray that You would do that, even on a small scale tonight, that You would help us to see Christ, see our sin, see our need for forgiveness, to see the only way to Your blessing and the restoration of all the things that trouble us and trouble our world and cause us to lose hope. Help us to find our hope in Christ, to persevere, to run the race with endurance, to be faithful, to bring glory to Your name. I pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Revised 9.11.2023 – Previously Titled: A Beggar’s Choice