How should I Respond

Intro:

so we have been making our way through the book of Acts and one of the things that we have looked at was the fact that the book of Acts was written by Luke and was a continuation of the Gospel of Luke.

it is almost like part II of his gospel and he left off in Luke with the resurrection of Jesus, in the book of Acts we picked up right where he left off looking at Jesus revealing himself for 40 days.

and as we got to chp 1 of Acts you remember that Jesus spoke to his disciples and he re -addressed the promise that he had given. Specifically in John 14 and 16, the promise of the Holy Spirit coming upon them.

and how the Holy Spirit would bring power to the disciples to live for Christ and to be witnesses for Christ both to the people in their lives but also moving out to Jerusalem, Judah, Samaria and to the ends of the earth (v.8)

And so as we looked at chp. 1, we see after 40 days of Jesus revealing himself , and after he gives the exhortation to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit, we see him ascend into heaven.

then we get to chp.2 and we are told that on the Day of Pentacost, the Holy Spirit came upon them in the upper room as they gathered in one accord.

and so by reason of adding the days we can see that after 40 days Jesus ascends to heaven, and the Day of Pentacost which happened on the 50th day after passover, you can see that the apostles waited together for 10 days in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit.

and then we looked at the Holy Spirit coming upon the people. We are told the Holy Spirit came like a flame upon the heads of the people, and the gifts of tongues were in actions . and we see that the Holy Spirit came upon Peter and empowered him to preach a powerful sermon that brought 3,000 souls were added to the church.

And we finished up the last portion of chp. 2 looking at the marks of the young church. How they continued steadfastly...

in the apostles doctrine

in fellowship

in communion

in prayer

and one of the things we did over the last few weeks was really try to establish an understanding of what it must have been like, and how these things still apply in our lives.

we had a night of worship , a time of emptying ourselves at discipleship, we had a great time of waiting on God last week in communion..... and we were really blessed as the Holy Spirit really fell upon this place last week. We had our own Pentacost which was awesome.

And even here what you saw were those who were open to the moving of the Holy Spirit and who really took advantage of that and engaged and surrender to the work of the spirit and you also had those who were just willing to sit back and mock and refuse to surrender to God’s spirit.

Transition

now today as we move forward looking at chp. 3, we continue with the movement of the church. Sometime has passed from the coming of the Holy Spirit in chp. 2 and the story we will look at today in chp. 3.

and yet, even though we do not hear of the Holy Spirit in chp.3, the working of the Holy Spirit is evident.

and so we are going to look at an encounter that Peter and John had with an individual. And within this story we are going to see one event take place, and are going to have (3) different groups of people all experiencing and seeing the same thing..... yet each one had different responses to what they were seeing.

Groups of People

The Lame Man

The Apostles

The Crowd

I. The Lame Man (v.1-8)

A. Setting the Scene (v. 1-2)

and so the first thing that we see in our story is that Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer. And to understand , remember that the church is young and is still developing their understanding of God and his church. Here in the book of Acts we see that the church was primarily converted jews and it was not until chp. 10, that gentiles were added to the church.

and so it is not strange for these converted jews, Peter and John ; to go up to the temple and still honor the time of prayer. The tradition was that the practicing Jews of the day would go to the temple at different times in the day for prayer. Here the apostles are going up at the ninth hour, or 3:00.

and as we look at the story we also get introduced to our other character in our story.

The Lame Man

Lame from Birth

we are told that he was lame from his mother’s womb, or he was born with a disability. We later see that his disability had to do with his feet, making it impossible for him to walk on his own or even work

2. Lame for 40 Years

in Acts 4:22 tells us that he was over 40 years old. So this man has been crippled and lame without the ability to function as everyone else, or even work for 40 years. If he lived to 80 years in total, he would have spent half of his life lame . This give us insight into his condition

3. Carried Daily to the Temple

we are told that he was carried daily to the gate of the temple which was called “ Beautiful”, and the Jewish historian , Josephus tells us that this gate was made up of Corinthian brass, 75 feet high with huge double doors..... so this place was litterally beautiful.

and this man was carried either by his family or his friends daily to this gate with the sole purpose of begging for money. Since he was born with this disability in his legs , he was not able to work and make money. So this was his only way of making money.

B. The Lame Man Asks for Help (v. 3- 7)

1. Asking for Temporal Help (v. 3)

and so as this man is sitting at the gate, as it is time for prayer, there would have been a large crowd entering these gates to go pray.

This man is asking for alms like he always has and he spots Peter and John .

and he asks for help expecting at best to get a few coins and at worst to be avoided and ignored. The money he was asking for was only a temporal solution to his pain. The pain of not being able to work, the pain of not being able to join the rest of the men in prayer, the pain of being ignored, of being an outcast. The pain of the humiliation......

The money he was asking for was not going to fix any of those issues, it was a temporal way of masking the real pain

2. The Help Peter Offers (v.4-7)

we see the story pick up here. As Peter and John saw the man sitting there they could have past right by him, but something grabbed their attention.

because we see that Peter locked eyes with this man..... he looked at him intently..... and he was moved to see the real issue with this man. While everyone saw this man’s greatest need was to be able to walk, Peter was lead by the Holy Spirit to see behind the outward and to see this man’s real need. The need for salvation. And through the empowering of the Holy Spirit , God was able to use the physical healing of this man to lead him to spiritual healing.

Peter tells this man, look i don’t have money, but what i do have , i give to you (v.6) .... What Peter had was a personal relationship with the Savior of the world, with Jesus. What Peter had was the Holy Spirit living inside of him.... This is what Peter was able to give.

and this is a great principal to know and understand , that you and I cannot give out , what we do not have inside of us..... We have had much talk in our discipleship groups and our senior boys groups about why we don’t share the gospel with people. And there are different reasons, like fear, or we don’t know enough, we are shy…etc....

but i think one of the biggest reasons we in the church don’t share the gospel.... is because we ourselves either have not experienced the gospel or because we have not fully understood how the gospel has worked in my life. Yet Peter was able to share that which was inside of him.

(v.7) Peter then takes this man by the hand , and by the power of the Name of Jesus, he tells the man to get up and to walk.

and as Peter lifted him up , his feet and his ankle bones recieved strength. In the original language , feet and ankle bones are medical terms used only here by Luke. Remember that Luke was a doctor and so he uses medical terms to describe what happened supernaturally by the power of God.

now this is the main event of our story. And what we have is the Lame man who has just experienced this healing, he is seeing this with his own eyes, we have Peter and John who are in the middle of the event by healing the man, and you have the crowd of people that would have been walking into the temple all seeing what just happened.

Lets see how they respond.

C. The Response of the Lame Man (v.8)

so we are told that this man leaped up, and this speaks of bones being placed back into socket.. and he .... walked with them into the temple.

He Identified with the Apostles

Here this man is more than happy to be identified with Peter and John who are followers of Christ. The very person who these Jews crucified some 2 months earlier .

he enters the temple with Peter and John unashamed , but with boldness.... Why ..... Because this man’s life has just been changed.

At this age that you find yourselves ,it can be difficult for you guys to stand up for Christ, and even to be identified with Christ. You will be laughed at, you will loose friends, you won’t be popular....

But see an individual who understands that his or her life has been radically changed by the name of Jesus is going to have no problem indentifying with Christ.

If you and I have a hard time or if we are ashamed to be indentified with Chirst, is it possible that it is because we have not experienced the transforming power of the name of Jesus in our lives.

Romans 1:16 NKJV

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek.

2. He Walked and Leaped

we are told twice that this man began to walk and to leap for joy

this man is doing now two things that he had not been able to do. To walk and to find joy.

This man’s response is to walk after God in full victory over his disability.

Think that through with me, because what if Peter told this man to get up, and his feet would have been immediately healed, and yet what if this man refused to believe it and would continue to sit on the floor unable to move begging for help.

see many of us can be this way. We receive Jesus as our Lord and Savoir and we have now conquered sin by the power of Jesus. Roms. 6 tells us that we are no longer under the power of sin, but we free from the power of sin, and yet with that news ..... how many of us are still sitting on the floor entangled and crippled by our sin, by our habbits, refusing to believe that i am free and refusing to live as though i am free?

This man believed he was free and he got up and began to walk in the freedom that Christ had provided for him. This is the response that God would want all of us to have.

3. He Praised God

One of the best responses that we can have to what God has done in our lives is to praise Him. To remember his goodness, his grace and love for me, and to praise him.. This is why we sing worship songs, why we have a time of worship before service. It is not a time for you guys to just sit here and be entertained, but a time of you focusing on God and on what he has done for you, and to respond to that by praising him, we even talked about that on Wednesday.

II. The People ( v. 9-11)

And so here we have this crowd who passes by here everyday, they have seen him for over 40 years begging at this gate, and all of a sudden they witness the transformation of this man.

and they respond with ...

Wonder and Amazement

See we are told that they identified this man with two things...

A. His inability to walk

B. His frequent asking for money

They had him pegged as a certain man. They put him in a class with those who had disabilities , those who had sin in their lives. In those days a person with a disability could be looked at the person or their parents had sins.

So this man was known for a certain thing. And in God’s great wisdom , he heals this man in public where everyone can see the transformation of this man, and the only response for people to have who have seen this is to be in amazement and wonder of God.

Transition

I love this because i can relate to this. I’ve shared with you guys before that i grew up in a non christian home. The first time i read the bible was when i was 16 years old.

And i was a troublemaker from the time i could walk. I was always getting in trouble. I can remember having meetings with teachers and my parents when i was in 3rd grade, that the teachers didn’t want me in their classes, I remember being picked up for school daily by the principal for school when i was in 5th grade.

I remember having my classes cut short my 8th grade year because i always started fights at lunch, so to avoid that they would have special buss come and pick me up before lunch to go home.

i remember being kicked out of 3 high schools my freshman year… you get it..... i had a reputation. i was pegged by my parents, by my friends, by my teachers as the guy who will end up in jail or end up dead.

and so then God gets a hold of my life when i am 17 years old. And i do a complete 180. no more drugs, no more partying, no more problems at school.. on the contrary, i am leading a bible study for a bunch of high school kids on friday nights.

my family was in shock. They really didn’t believe me. They watched me for 2 years , they wouldn’t go to church with me, they wouldn’t want to hear about Jesus.

Until one day i was getting ready on a sunday morning, and my mom asks me,,, “Hey are you going to church today” and i was like ya , and to my surprised , she asked if her and my dad could go with me....

later they would give their lives to the lord, my sister would, my grandma and grandpa, my nieces , my aunt.... it was crazy.... but what made the biggest impact on them was that they knew me as a certain person, and when they saw a complete transformation, the only thing that they could do was to glorify God.

Transition

your life is going to have the biggest impact on people. How you choose to live you life will speaks volumes to people, and you don’t have to have a crazy testamony. A testamony of following God in obedience from a young age is a far better testamony that will speak a million words to people and more importantly it will cause people to glorify God and be in awe of him

now lets look at how Peter and John responded

III. The Apostles ( v. 12- 26)

A. They were Sensitive to the Holy Spirit (v.4-6)

see back in (v.4-6) we see Peter and John walking into the gate. And everyone else there did not see anything else except the same crippled man who is always there asking for money.

But Peter was moved by the Spirit to see something more .

Its neat because it chp. 2 we see the gifts of the spirit at work as the people spoke in tongues and as Peter preached the gospel

Here in chp. 3, we see (3) different gifts of the spirit at work in Peter

Gifts of the Spirit ( 1 Corth. 12: 1-11)

Word of Knowledge ( v.8)

The Holy Spirit here gave Peter a word of knowledge. it was an ability to know something supernaturally that he normally would not know.

God placed an understanding that something else was going on with this man other than his physical disability.

its not that he had an ability to read peoples minds but God gave him an understanding , a knowledge of something at a specific time. He had insight that this man was ready to give his life to Jesus.

2. Gift of faith (v.9)

The spiritual gift of Faith is the ability to have supernatural faith in a specific situation .

for instances think about what happened. Peter had a feeling that this man was ready to be healed spiritually. But now he feels the pulling of the Holy Spirit to tell this man to get up and walk.

That took tons of faith, because what if he did not get up, what if he looked like a fool. It took extreme faith in this moment to tell this man to get up and to know that God was going to heal him.

Transition

a few years ago we were on a vacation with friends in Hawaii. And one night after a long day of being in the beach , i remember we didn;t know where to go or what to do. So we decided to go over to the hotel next to us. And when we got there , there was a live band playing so we decided to stay and listen,

There was a young girl working as a waitress for our table. And i don’t know why but she caught my attention immediately when she came to our table. She just looked young and something seemed off to me. And so as the night continued we began to have conversations with this girl and i was trying to find out more information.

she told us that she was from San Diego and she had moved with her boyfriend to Hawaii to get away from things. And now she was working as a waitress.

if you know me, you know if am super introverted, other than when i teach or lead worship. Specially in group settings, ill be the one watching and listening.

So as i was talking to this girl my heart started to beat so hard like it was going to burst out of my chest. And i found myself praying within me, because what i was getting is that this girl has ran away from home to this island to get away from something, but God wanted her to know that he loved her. And so i waited for some 20 min. while my heart was about to explode.

Finally when she came back i explained who i was and i let her know , “ Look i’ve come from California all the way here and i feel like God wanted me to tell you that he loves you and that he is not finished with you yet”.

the girl was shocked and quiet and just said thank you and walked away. And to this day i don’t know why she needed to hear that, but i know that God put a word of knowledge at that moment that this girl is trying to run away from God , but God is not finished with her yet. And God gave me faith to do something i normally would not have the boldness to do

And so that’s an example of the gift of word of knowledge and the gift of faith working hand in hand.

3. Gift of Healing

and obviously God gave Peter the supernatural ability to heal this man at this moment.

B. They Pointed the Attention to God (v.12)

Here Peter saw the reaction of the people, he saw that they were moved with amazement and that they ran towards them, and he understood the danger of what could happen next.

the people could have easily praised them for healing this man, taking the glory of what had just happened . And understanding this, Peter quickly turned the attention to God rather than himself.

“ Why do you look at us , as though we had made this man walk? - Peter understood that at this moment he was just a vessel that God had chosen to use , but he in and of himself , did not have any power or any strength to do anything for God.

and so having this understanding , he made sure to have the people give glory to God.

This is a great lesson to learn. Because one of the things that can happen as God decides to uses you, is that people will praise you, they mean well and they say nice things.... but the danger can be to take the glory that belongs to God and to take it for yourself. By thinking that you are good, that you did have something to do with what happen.

that God used you because you are a good person. When the reality is that God uses us, not because we are any good, but because we are so bad, and so messed up , and so jacked up

1 Corinthians 1:27 NKJV

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;

it is the complete opposite of what we think. God uses broken and jacked up vessels like us so that people will have no choice but to say … “ yup that was God who did that, God is good”.

and Peter understood this as he points the attention and the glory to God.

C. They Preached the Gospel (v. 13-26)

now Peter takes advantage of what is happening here and he begins to evangelize and to preach the gospel.

Call to conviction (v.13-16)

Peter starts by bringing them to see their faults, they crucified Jesus . Conviction is key to conversion. A person has to see that they are sinners.

2. Call to Repentance (v. 17- 21)

3. Call to Blessing (v. 22-26)

Conclusions

See in our day we are all witnesses to what God is doing in our lives and what he is doing around us. And we like the 3 groups in our story will respond to what God is doing in a certain manner. As we expounded on the response of these people, we should have been able to put ourselves in one of these places. And the hope is that we would be encouraged to respond to God , to respond to what he is doing through his Holy Spirit today among us properly.