Striking While the Iron's Hot - Acts 3:12-26

© March 23rd, 2025 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Acts

I enjoy learning about all sorts of things other people find boring. I like to understand how and why things work. As such, there is a TV show I used to enjoy watching, called Forged in Fire. Basically, it’s a blacksmithing competition, where people forge metal to make weapons, then put them through torture tests to see how well their weapons hold up. I find it interesting because these people possess skills that few today still have.

In the process of watching the show, I’ve learned a bit about blacksmithing. One of the things I’ve come to understand is the meaning of the phrase, “striking while the iron’s hot.” When the blacksmiths heat their metal in a forge, they need to wait until it reaches a temperature where they can easily move it and make it the shape they want. When you hammer a hot piece of metal, it moves easily, but when it cools down, it’s much more difficult to work with, and continuing to hammer it actually makes it weaker. Blacksmiths understand the importance of striking their metal when it’s hot, because the second it leaves the forge, it begins to cool down.

I don’t know whether Peter was a blacksmith or not (being a fisherman, I would guess probably not), but he seemed to understand the same concept. He knew that what was true of metal is also true of people. When you’ve got people’s attention, you should use it, because it probably won’t last for long. It’s important to seize the opportunities to share the gospel when they come.

That’s what we’re going to look at today—the way Peter chose to capitalize on the attention of the people in the temple courts. When we left off last week, Peter and John had healed a man who had been born crippled. As the man began to leap and celebrate his healing, a crowd gathered in the temple. Today we will look at what Peter said to the crowd and what his message means today.

Bad News

Peter seized his opportunity and immediately sought to point the crowd to Jesus.

12 Peter saw his opportunity and addressed the crowd. “People of Israel,” he said, “what is so surprising about this? And why stare at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or godliness? 13 For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of all our ancestors—who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilate’s decision to release him. 14 You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer. 15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact! 16 “Through faith in the name of Jesus, this man was healed—and you know how crippled he was before. Faith in Jesus’ name has healed him before your very eyes. (Acts 3:12-16, NLT)

We pointed out last week that Peter showed no interest in drawing attention to himself or building a following for himself. On the contrary, Peter said this man was not healed because of anything special about himself or John, but because God had done it. And God’s purpose in healing this man was to bring glory to Jesus! Peter immediately turned the conversation to Jesus, because that was what his goal ultimately was. Once he had done that, he launched into his message.

There are two primary elements of Peter’s message in these opening verses. First, Peter emphasizes who Jesus is. Notice the way he talked about Jesus. He first described Jesus as a servant of God, but then takes it much further. He describes Jesus as “the holy, righteous one.” That title would be inappropriate as a description for anyone but God. But in case there was any question about what Peter was saying, he emphasized the point further by referring to Jesus as “the author of life”!

Taken together, these two references make it clear that Peter understood Jesus to be God in the flesh! Sometimes people have argued that the belief in Jesus as God was a legendary development that didn’t happen for hundreds of years in the church. Others claim that Jesus never claimed to be God (though the religious leaders seemed to think He did!), and others claim the Bible doesn’t teach the divinity of Jesus. These people contend Jesus was just another human teacher. But Peter does not leave that option open to us; he makes it very clear that Jesus was God in the flesh!

Fittingly, Peter’s description dovetails with John’s description of Jesus in the opening lines of his gospel account.

1 In the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He existed in the beginning with God. 3 God created everything through him, and nothing was created except through him. 4 The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. (John 1:1-4, NLT)

The term “Word” in John’s gospel refers to Jesus. John, too, said Jesus was the Creator, and that He was God. He said Jesus was eternal. These truths were at the core of everything the disciples believed and did. It wasn’t a doctrine that developed later on, rather this confidence was what led them to do the things they did. They recognized Jesus was God come to mankind!

But that leads to the second point of Peter’s message in these opening verses. The people were guilty of rejecting and murdering Him! Peter wanted the people to see their own sin, the sin of rejecting Jesus, the Messiah and God come to earth. Peter emphasized the sin of these people’s rejection of Jesus by repeating the word “you” three times in rapid succession.

First, he says, You handed him over to Pilate and rejected Him, even though Pilate had decided to release Him! Peter was reminding the people that though the Romans were who put Jesus to death, it was the demands of the Jews, Jesus’ own people, who had pushed for His death. There was no way to get around their guilt in the matter.

But Peter wasn’t done. He also said, “You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer.” Note the irony of Peter’s statement. He calls Jesus the righteous, holy one. Jesus had done nothing wrong, yet the people rejected Him in favor of someone who was a murderer, who was far from righteous, who deserved the punishment he was set to receive. They rejected the innocent Jesus for the guilty Barabbas.

And if the point still wasn’t clear, Peter said, “You killed the author of life”! Again, there is an intentional irony to what Peter said. They had taken life from the One who had given life to them. There is surely no sin greater than this. To reject God in such a brazen way is an affront to His character.

You might be tempted to conclude that the Jewish people were evil people, but they weren’t. They were generally moral people, but had gone off-base. They had missed the Messiah but were confident in their own goodness. Peter was trying to help them see that they were desperately and hopelessly sinful. They needed to understand that they needed a savior.

The same is true for us today. While we may not have been directly involved in crucifying the Author of life, we have rejected Him just as the Jews of Peter’s day did. Each of us has violated God’s law and chosen to go our own way. We have rejected Him and treated Him as less than He is. Like these Jewish people, each of us desperately needs a savior.

Peter wanted the people to understand their sin, the bad news, before he moved into the good news of the message, which is that Jesus makes it possible for us to be forgiven, even though we have rejected Him in the past!

Good News

After pointing out the sin of the people in rejecting Jesus, Peter tells them what they should do in response to these truths.

17 “Friends, I realize that what you and your leaders did to Jesus was done in ignorance. 18 But God was fulfilling what all the prophets had foretold about the Messiah—that he must suffer these things. 19 Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. (Acts 3:17-19, NLT)

Peter didn’t dismiss the people’s sin, though he did acknowledge that they acted in ignorance. Peter was surely sympathetic to this, since he had done the same thing! He too, had rejected Jesus out of ignorance and fear. The good news for Peter was also good news for the people gathered that day—though they were guilty of rejecting Jesus, they could also be forgiven!

He said they should repent of their sins and turn to God so that their sins might be wiped away. We touched on this point when we studied the Day of Pentecost, but it bears repeating here. Peter does not preach that baptism is a necessary step in salvation. Rather, he says that we must repent and turn to God. One of the effects of this process should indeed be baptism, but the act itself is not part of what saves us.

So it begs the question, what does it mean to repent of our sins? The word “repent” literally means to go in a different direction. If you’ve ever learned about marching (whether in the military, band, or something else), you’ve surely heard the term, “about face.” That term indicates a complete 180-degree turn. This is the same idea of repentance; it is turning from your sinful pattern and going in a different direction.

There is a difference between feeling sorry for our sin, feeling bad about the fact that we have done wrong, or regretting the consequences of our actions, and repentance. If we merely feel sorry for sinning, we may not make any effort to stop doing it. Genuine repentance means stopping what we are doing and going in a different direction.

Think of it this way. If a person did something that hurt you deeply, and then came and apologized for doing so, you would expect that they would stop doing the thing that hurt you, right? If they simply said, “I’m sorry” but continued the same behavior, you’d question whether that was really true or not. The same thing is true in our relationship with God. Genuine repentance leads to a change in behavior.

Does anyone do this perfectly? Does anyone turn from their sin and never return to it? No. We will all still struggle with sin. But the key is making an effort to change it. Until we are willing to repent, we have not submitted our will to the Lord’s. Repentance is at the core of the gospel message.

The good news is when we repent and turn to God, we find freedom and forgiveness. Our sins are wiped away. The word used here in Greek is akin to our word for erased, but we may not fully grasp it because of a difference in our culture. When we use pencils or pens, trying to erase never works fully. There is always evidence of what had previously been there. But in Peter’s day, people wrote on papyrus with inks that didn’t soak into the page; they merely dried on top. So it was possible to simply re-wet the ink and wipe it away completely. There would be no evidence that anything had ever been there before. This is what Jesus does for us. When God looks at us, He no longer sees our past mistakes and failures. Instead, He sees us forgiven and made clean.

Why Jesus?

Peter knew his audience. They were fellow Jews like himself. He knew they knew the scriptures, so he pointed them to look to the scriptures and discover that they pointed to Jesus as the Messiah!

20 Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah. 21 For he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets. 22 Moses said, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people. Listen carefully to everything he tells you.’ 23 Then Moses said, ‘Anyone who will not listen to that Prophet will be completely cut off from God’s people.’ 24 “Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today. 25 You are the children of those prophets, and you are included in the covenant God promised to your ancestors. For God said to Abraham, ‘Through your descendants all the families on earth will be blessed.’ 26 When God raised up his servant, Jesus, he sent him first to you people of Israel, to bless you by turning each of you back from your sinful ways.” (Acts 3:20-26, NLT)

Peter argued that Jesus was the promised Messiah, and all the promises about the Messiah were fulfilled in Him. In these opening verses, he reminds them that the story also isn’t over yet. Some of the prophecies about the Messiah bringing peace will not occur until the end, at Jesus’ second coming. But there were many others that pointed to Jesus.

I suspect this was something Peter had been mulling for some time. He had been instructed in the scriptures from an early age, so he knew what they taught. But now he was seeing these prophecies through the lens of Jesus and he had come to realize that they were pointing to Him all along! He was challenging these other Jewish believers to do the same thing he had done—dig into the scriptures and discover that Jesus is written about on nearly every page!

He pointed out that these prophecies were made to the Jewish people, and Jesus was sent to them first. They were the intended recipients of the blessing God had planned. But the fact that Peter uses the term, “first” indicates that he recognized that the story wasn’t over yet. If the Jewish people refused to trust in Jesus, they would be left out of God’s promises, and God would instead reach out to the Gentiles. And we know, that’s exactly what happened.

There is an important reference in the middle of this section that we ought not miss. Peter quotes from Moses, “The Lord your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from among your own people Listen carefully to everything he tells you….Anyone who will not listen to that Prophet will be completely cut off from God’s people.”

Peter’s assertion was that the Prophet Moses was speaking about was Jesus. He was the One whom God had foretold thousands of years prior. And yet, the people had rejected Him. Moses gave a solemn warning that anyone who refused to listen to this Prophet would be completely cut off from God’s people. In other words, they would not be subject to the blessings they thought they were. They would cease to be His people and instead would be cast aside.

There is only one way of salvation, and it is through Jesus. Anyone who chooses to reject Him will not experience the blessings He offers, but will instead experience the wrath of God they rightly deserve. This points to an urgency and exclusivity of the gospel message. It’s not enough to like Jesus, to be “spiritual”, to have a family that trusts in Christ, or any of the other things we sometimes point to. Our only hope is to turn to Jesus for the forgiveness and restoration we each so desperately need.

Conclusion

So, what are the takeaways from Peter’s sermon in the temple? First, we must each decide how we will respond to Jesus. We can either reject Him or submit to Him. There is no middle ground. To choose to do nothing is a passive form of rejection, but rejection nonetheless. You must decide: will you recognize and submit to Jesus as Lord, or will you ignore Him? Those are really the only two options, and only you can decide.

Second, faith does not involve ignoring our intellect. Peter did not tell the people to abandon everything they learned. Rather, he called them to examine the evidence. He told them to look through the scriptures and read them in the light of Jesus. He was confident that if they did, they would discover that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and God in the flesh.

The same is true for you and me. The gospel message is rational. What the Bible teaches is true. Christianity does not require us to stop thinking or to take its claims on blind faith. Biblical faith is a settled conviction based on the evidence. We become convinced that the Bible is true, and that Jesus is who He said. That causes us to trust Him implicitly. Faith does not require us to shut off our brains—quite the opposite.

Third, the gospel really is good news! Until we recognize that we are not good on our own, we will never understand what a wonderful gift Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf really is. But once we grasp it, we discover how wonderfully freeing it really is. We can be confident that even though we aren’t good, God no longer looks at us and sees our failures. Instead, He sees us forgiven and as His dearly loved children.

We often think about how trusting in Jesus means we will go to Heaven when we die—and it does! But the blessings of serving Jesus are not just found in the life to come, they are also found in following Him here and now. Jesus calls us to live a life different from the world, and promises that in Him we find the fulfillment, direction, and meaning we all desperately long for. Plus, He’s alive and active in each of us today. It’s great news!

Finally, we should strike when the iron’s hot. Sometimes God opens a door for you to share the gospel with people: someone comes and asks you a question about faith, you see an opening in a conversation, you sense a person who’s open to hearing what you believe. Don’t allow those opportunities to pass by! Peter understood that there is often only a short window in which we can act. We should understand that truth as well and be prepared for when those openings come. Always be prepared to tell people about the news that can change their life and their eternity!

The gospel message is essential for everyone. It is essential for you and me, and for each person we encounter. Like Peter, we should strike while the iron’s hot. We should point people to Jesus, call them to repentance, and challenge them to follow Him. Be alert for opportunities—because you never know when they might pop up!

© March 23rd, 2025 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Acts