Let Bygones Be Bygones
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Introduction
A. Growing Movement
- The events of Acts 3 occurred about 2 months after the crucifixion of Jesus.
- The group of disciples was growing. v. 47.
- The reputation of the church as growing as well. v. 43.
B. Unconverted
- There were still many who had not accepted Jesus' Lordship. Luke commented on their perplexity with the healing of the lame man.
- v. 10. They were amazed.
- v. 12. They stared and wondered.
- They did not, as yet, have a way to think about what they were observing and how they should respond to it.
I. Peter's Address
A. Using An Opportunity
- Luke says the people ran to see what was happening. v. 11. They were full of curiosity. But at the moment it was only curiosity and astonishment..
- It was also curiosity that was focused on Peter and John rather than on the true Cause of these events. v. 12.
B. Telling the truth
- Peter was speaking to Jews who had been steeped in Scripture. They knew what it said, yet they had either rejected or ignored it.
- So when Jesus walked into their lives they did not recognize him. Like when Bev and I bumped into Toni from our dentist's office. Twice! I knew I had seen her before, but I didn't know where. I didn't know her.
- Their inability/unwillingness to see the truth made them vulnerable to an awful sin--rejecting the Son of God. v. 13. And delivering him to be crucified.
- Peter attributed their rejection of Jesus to ignorance but he did not remove their culpability for it.
C. Reinterpretation of events
- Peter is speaking to the unconverted Jews in Jerusalem.
- At this moment they can only assume that the event of the crucifixion was a one dimensional moment. That it occurred and concluded.
- In his speech Peter connects the dots for them. The guy you thought was dead is responsible for this healing today.
- If that is true, it casts their lives in new and brighter light. "We are at cross purposes with a God who can raise the dead and heal."
II. Implications
A. Bystanders
- These people might have been casually walking through the Temple environs. Perhaps on their way to offer a sacrifice or give a gift or perhaps just as a short cut through the Temple.
- But what they experienced there challenged their world view. A man they knew as lame from birth was now "walking, leaping, and praising God." v. 8.
- So now they had to reevaluate what they formerly believed. Maybe the man we crucified really was who he claimed to be.
B. Whose side are you on?
- The biggest reassessment that the Jewish listeners had to make was in where they would place their future loyalties and commitments.
- What became apparent to them in this moment was that God had been working in one direction in history, and they had been working in another. Contrary loyalties.
- God fulfilled what he had fortold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. v. 18.
III. Repent.
A. What do you do?
- The first listeners, on Pentecost, asked the obvious question, "What shall we do?" v. 37.
- How do you undo such terrible and grievious wrong as the crucifixion of the Messiah?
- Paul reflected this question in Romans 7:24 when he asked, Who will rescue me from the body of death?
B. Bound to a dead body.
- The Romans had a particularly awful way to condemn some people. They bound them face to face with a dead body.
- As the body decayed, the live person absorbed the stench and effluvia, until he finally died.
- That is the effect of unrestrained sin and failure in our lives.
C. Turn to God
- Interestingly, Peter does not give them a long complicated list of things to do. There is no Karma to satisfy, no law to measure up to.
- He tells them to change their minds (repent) and turn to God. Simple. Logical.
- The refreshing and saving comes from God, not from us.
D. What does it mean to repent?
- There is an aspect of sorrow, regret, or dissatisfaction with it. The one possessing this repentant spirit is, in effect, saying I no longer want to live this way.
- It does not mean they live this new way perfectly. However, there is a new mind. A new way of looking at life and choices.
- Patrick Morley writes, We sometimes have an integrity problem in believing the misconception that “that we can add Christ to our lives, but not subtract sin. It is a change in belief without a change in behavior.”