The Promised Restoration

Introduction

Have you ever told someone about Jesus, and they hated you for it?

I’m not talking about some hostile atheist or an anti-Christian secularist. I’m talking about a friend or family member who heard your gospel message and got mad at you for being so “judgmental” or for being “too exclusive.”

Or does your gospel message always go down easily for those around you?

I wonder how many of you have heard a gospel that sounds more like a personal improvement plan than it sounds like the universal arrival of a King and a kingdom… a King who changes everything about life as we know it.

Throughout the book of Acts, there are at least 8 (and maybe 9) recorded gospel presentations. Eight times, Luke records the Apostles explaining the “word” about Christ (2:41) or the “good news” (8:12) or the “gospel” (8:25), sometimes to a huge crowd, and sometimes to just a few.

Sometimes they preached to devout Jews, with a thorough knowledge of God’s covenant and God’s laws, and sometimes they preached to pagan Gentiles, who knew almost nothing of the God of the Bible. Sometimes they announced the good news in religious gatherings, and sometimes they made their announcement to state/government leaders. And sometimes their very lives depended on how their hearer might respond to the message.

Acts is basically an entire narrative of the expansion of the gospel message from Jerusalem to the edge of the known world. We’re told again and again that the Apostles, as well as everyday Christians, “spoke the word of God” with boldness… and with a strong emphasis on the Lordship of Christ and the need for everyone to repent and believe (Acts 4:31; 6:7; 10:34-43).

Today, we’re going to look at the second gospel presentation in Luke’s historical record (Luke being the human author of the book of Acts).

Like often happens in Acts, the gospel message we’ll consider this morning follows on the heels of a miraculous event. The repeated pattern usually goes something like this: (1) an Apostle performs a miracle, (2) then he explains to everyone what that miracle means (focusing on Christ as Kingand Messiah, or Lord and Savior), and (3) somewhere in there is a call to repent and believe.

I hope to emphasize for us this morning that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not merely an invitation to live a better life or a more enjoyable life… It’s not just an offer to feel less guilty or to experience more happiness.

No, the gospel of Jesus Christ – in its fullest expression – is an announcement of cosmic significance. God has saved sinners in Christ, and God made Christ King!

Jesus is the Savior of individual sinners, butHe has come into the world to reconcile an innumerable assembly of sinners with the holy God.

Jesus is the Lord and King of individual hearts, butHe has been established by God the Father as Lord and King over all things… visible and invisible.

Just as far as God’s curse has extended across creation (because of sin), so too does Christ’s blessed rule and reign now extend (because He has brought reconciliation). And He will bring full restoration and blessing to all those who repent (or turn back from their sins) and submit to His good authority.

Before I get too far ahead of myself with the introduction, let’s turn to Acts 3.

I’ll read the whole chapter, starting with verse 1, all the way through verse 26.

Scripture reading

Acts 3:1–26 (ESV)

1 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2 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. 3 Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms.

4 And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5 And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6 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!”

7 And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8 And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.

9 And all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 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. 11 While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s.

12 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? 13 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.

14 But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15 and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.

16 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.

17 “And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.

19 Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 21 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.

22 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. 23 And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ 24 And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days.

25 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.’ 26 God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”

Main point

In Christ, God has begun to make all His blessings known to those who repent and believe the gospel, and God will soon make them known in full.

Message

1. The Miracle

As I mentioned already, Luke recorded several gospel presentations in Acts. We read the first some weeks ago – Peter announced the gospel on the day of Pentecost, just after God’s Spirit came to dwell permanently with His people.

The coming of the Holy Spirit (at Pentecost) was accompanied by signs and wonders, namely the ability to speak in other languages (which those Christians had not learned) and sights and sounds that were reminiscent of Mt. Sinai.

You can read about all of this in Acts 2.

In our passage today, we see the same pattern repeated – a miracle, a gospel explanation, and a call to repent and believe. Let’s first consider the miracle.

In v1, we’re told that “Peter and John” (two of the Apostles mentioned in Acts 1) were “going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.”

This is yet another example of early Christians of Jewish descent keeping the same religious patterns as Christians that they’d had as Old Covenant Jews. It’s likely that first-century Jews prayed at 9am, noon, and 3pm (or the 3rd, the 6th, and the 9th hours of the day). And it would be no surprise to see converted Jews pray at those same times in the name of Christ.

As the Apostles Peter and John entered the temple gate, “called…Beautiful” (v2), they walked past a “lame” beggar, a man who was “lame from birth” and who obtained what money or food he could by “asking alms of those entering the temple” (v2).

The man’s ailment is not specified, but he was “lame” or “crippled” in such a way that he had to be “carried” and “laid” by others (v2). This is no derogatory mark against the man, but sickness and deformities and bodily malfunctions of all kinds are a feature of living in a fallen world.

In God’s providence, we all live within the confines of the circumstances God has arranged for us. This is not to blame God for the bad we do, nor am I saying that God is somehow punishing you or others by giving you difficult circumstances. What I am saying is that God is the ultimate sovereign over all things (both the good and the bad), and He has divine purpose and wise intent behind all He does… and He doesn’t owe you or me any explanation.

I know that, for His own reasons, God does intend for suffering to be part of the human experience in this fallen world (I mean, have you read the Bible?).

I also know that God Himself entered into human suffering in the person of Jesus Christ, who was “a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Is. 53:3).

And I also know that the “sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed” to all those who love and trust Christ as Savior (Rom. 8:18).

It seems to me that our major problem with God’s sovereignty in suffering is often our unbiblical focus on comfort or even mere survival in this world. Don’t you know that our chief goal in life is not just to survive?!

We can do worse than die, and we can do better than merely live.

RC Sproul wrote in his helpful book (Surprised by Suffering), “God is our refuge and our strength in times of trouble. His promise is… that He will go with us into the valley… [And that He will] go with us for the entire journey in order to guide us to what lies beyond. The valley of the shadow of death is not a box canyon. It is a passageway to a better country.”[1]

This is a friendly pastoral reminder of some basic Christian worldview stuff that we often forget, now back to our passage…

The lame man was at the gate, and when Peter and John passed him by they offered him something better than “silver and gold” (v6). Peter said, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” (v6). And we read here that “immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk…” (v7-8).

What we have here is a genuine miracle, which resulted in “wonder and amazement” as well as “praise [to] God” among those who saw it (v9-10).

There was no mistaking what happened. Everyone “recognized” the man “as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms” (v10). And now they were “utterly astounded” or “full of amazement” (v11) to see that same man “walking and leaping and praising God” (v8).

This wasn’t like modern-day miracle workers, who dupe their audiences by performing fake wonders in order to provoke some emotional response. Peter and John didn’t heal back-pain or extend someone’s leg by half-an-inch, and they didn’t ask for any money, before or after.

Friends, don’t fall for junk like that. Those televangelists and street-healers are fools at best, and many of them are lying swindlers. Don’t send them money, and don’t listen to their false gospel of health, wealth, and prosperity. There’s nothing Christian about that stuff, and it’s poison to your soul.

This miracle was obvious, immediate, and permanent. It was a total blessing to the lame man, a reason for praise among all who saw it, and it was a validation of Peter and John as Apostles.

Remember that the Apostles were (at least at this point in the storyline of Acts) those 12 guys who were specially commissioned by the risen Lord Jesus Christ to be His authoritative witnesses in the world. These men spoke the words of God, they extended the kingdom of Christ, and they did all this in keeping with what Jesus Himself had already been doing.

And that’s the point! …as Peter explains here in Acts 3.

2. The Explanation

Like we saw in Acts 2, after the miracle happened, an Apostle stood up to explain why… or to tell everyone what the miracle meant. In v12, we read that Peter “addressed the people.”

And the first thing Peter wanted everyone to know was that he and John were not the ones who actually healed the lame man! No, Peter said… it was Jesus!

Look at v13-15. Peter’s explanation here made basically the same points as his explanation of the Holy Spirit’s arrival at Pentecost. In Acts 3, Peter didn’t cite the “day of the Lord” explicitly, but he did (just like in Acts 2) reach way back into the OT to show that God had (for a long time) been warning judgment and promising salvation through “his servant” (v13) or “his Christ” (v17).

Peter also laid the blame for killing Jesus squarely on the shoulders of those ethnic Israelites who “denied” Him as the “Holy and Righteous One” (v14). They had “delivered” Jesus over to Pontius Pilate (a Roman governor of Judea at that time), and they had “denied” Jesus “in [Pilate’s] presence” (v13).

When Pilate wanted to release Jesus after flogging Him, the “chief priests” of Israel and other religious leaders demanded, “Crucify him!” (Jn. 19:6). And when Pilate asked, “Shall I crucify your king?,” the Jewish people answered, “We have no king but Caesar!” (Jn. 19:15).

So, Peter was right to blame them. They had indeed “killed the Author of life” when the Romans – at the request of the Jews – hung Jesus on a cross (v15).

But Pilate and Jewish leaders, and the might of the Roman army and the will of the Jewish people… these were not the only forces at work in the crucifixion of Jesus! …No, God Himself had planned this all along!

Look at v17-18. Peter said, “brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance [i.e., without knowledge], as did your rulers [In a real sense, they were all blinded by confusion and unbelief (1 Cor. 2:8)]. v18 But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.”

You see, suffering and even dying was always meant to be a major aspect of the work the “Messiah” or the “Christ” would do in the world!

Peter went all the way back to Genesis 12 to say that even God’s promise to Abraham was ultimately predicting not a Hebrew nation, not many “biological descendants” from Abraham, but one particular “offspring” or “seed” in and through whom “all the families” or “peoples” of the earth would “be blessed” (v25; cf. Gen. 12:1-4; Gal. 3:16).

But what kind of “blessing” (v25) did the Christ produce or bring about through “suffering” (v17)?! And what does any of this have to do with healing a lame beggar at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem?

Some of you see it, don’t you? Peter was tapping into the wellspring of the whole biblical narrative! Peter was telling his hearers that, in Christ, God had once-and-for-all dealt with the guilt of sin and made a way for blessing to flow!

When Jesus died, God poured out His own judgment against sinners like you and me… only He poured it out on Jesus instead.

When God raised Jesus from the dead, He initiated universal restoration!

NO MORE would the whole world be held under the bondage of sin! NO MORE would God’s curse dominate human existence! NO MORE would sorrow and sickness and pain and even death itself be the lot of man!

No… Joy to the world, the Lord is come! Let earth receive her King! No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He [Jesus Christ] comes to make His blessings flow far as the curse is found!

Why does Peter say that lame man was healed that day?! Because Jesus Christ had come! Jesus had died, and Jesus had been raised, and Jesus had already begun restoring all that was lost in Genesis 3.

And His Apostles were simply bearing witness to all of this, even by doing the very same miracles Jesus Himself had done during His earthly ministry, and for the same reason… to show that the restoration of all things was at hand.

3. The Promised Restoration

What exactly did Jesus begin restoring? And, if He did already restore what was lost in Genesis 3, why do we still see so much sin and suffering today?

Well, as we’ve pointed out a number of times before, the promises of the gospel are both already fulfilled and not yet fulfilled completely.

In v19, we see one major promise of the gospel that is already fulfilled, the forgiveness or “blotting” or “wiping out” of “sins.”

Sin… is what got Adam and Eve booted from the Garden in Genesis 3… Sin is what earned God’s judgment against Israel again and again throughout the OT… Sin or disobedience or breaking God’s law is what condemns us before a holy and righteous God… But the gospel of Jesus Christ promises sinners like us that our sins can be forgiven!

And because Jesus has died and risen again, we can have our sins “blotted out” right now! We can have reconciliation with God… We can have freedom from guilt… We can be united with Christ and with His people… and all of these are present realities for every Christian.

So too, then, are the promised judgments already a present reality for those who do not repent and believe. There is divine condemnation, separation from God, bondage under sin, and exclusion from Christ and from His people… and all of these are present realities for every non-Christian.

Friends, if you aren’t turning from your sin and following Christ right now, then you’re missing out… and God’s judgment is hanging over your head.

But God’s promises of judgment and blessing in the gospel are not just personal or individual, they are universal… And these are here already as well!

God now dwells with His people, the curse of sin is broken, Christ is now King, and His kingdom reigns forever!

So too, God’s judgment abides on worldly nations and peoples, sin and wickedness in the world provokes God’s wrath, and all who refuse to submit to Christ as King do now set themselves in opposition to the Ruler and Sovereign over all nations.

Psalm 2 says, “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD and against his Anointed, saying, ‘Let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.’ 4 He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision… Now therefore, O kings, be wise; be warned, O rulers of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Ps. 2:1–12).

The Bible is clear: Christ is King now, and His resurrection from the dead and ascension to God’s right hand affirm it’s true! The Apostles walking around healing people “in the name of Jesus Christ” (v6, 16) also confirms that Jesus is currently reigning over all creation!

But if Christ is King now… If His kingdom has come… If Jesus is ruling the cosmos with mercy and justice… then, why do we still see nations rage?! Why do we still see injustice? Why do we still sin? Why do we still suffer and die?

This is the tension between the already and the not-yet which we see again and again in the NT. We even see the already and the not-yet displayed right here in our passage this morning.

Look at v19-20 with me. Do you see that Peter called his hearers to “repent” so “that [their] sins may be blotted out” and that God “may send the Christ”? But then down in v26, Peter said that God already “sent” His servant (Jesus Christ) to them, “to bless” them!

It seems to me that v21 is the most helpful verse in this passage to help us begin to understand the already and the not-yet promises of the gospel.

In v21, we see that Jesus is the one “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.”

In this single verse, we see that “heaven” has already “received” Jesus Christ as King of kings and Lord of lords. There’s a reason why Psalm 110 is the most quoted and cited OT passage in the NT.

It begins by saying, “The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.’ The LORD sends forth from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your enemies!” (Ps. 110:1–2)

But, in Acts 3:21, we also see that the “time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets” was in some sense still yet to come. And thus, Peter was telling his hearers on that day that they were then living in a time when Christ’s kingdom had already been inaugurated but had not yet been consummated.

Brothers and sisters, we still live in that time… We live in the time when God’s promises in the gospel are already ours, and yet, we still await the fullness of these promises. We live in a time when Christ now reigns as King, and yet, we still await the coming day when Christ shall judge every sinner and bring full salvation to every saint (i.e., full restoration of all that was lost).

Now, depending on where you land with your eschatological perspective (i.e., your view of the end times), you may be a bit more optimistic or pessimistic about what to expect between now and that final day… But every Christian, regardless of our end-times-views can/should eagerly await that coming day.

Christians may enjoy times of peace, or we may suffer great persecution… As Christians, we may pass our days in good health and social stability, or we may be afflicted with all manner of physical pains and emotional grief… But the word of the Lord is always true, and His promises and His presence are ours right now… and we shall see them in full very soon.

4. The Call to Respond

You know, we might spend our remaining time well by considering how Christians ought to live in the age between Christ’s first coming and His second. There are certainly passages in the Bible that could give us wonderful principles and instructions on such a matter.

But I want to stick tightly to my text this morning, and we have and will again think and talk about Christian living in our world as it is.

So, I will call us to respond today in the same manner that Peter called his hearers to respond nearly 2,000 years ago. Look with me at v19.

Peter’s call was the same here as it was on the day of Pentecost… “repent.”

We talked a good bit about repentance last Sunday… It’s a changing of the mind about God, about Jesus, about ourselves, and about sin… and repentance plays out in all sorts of changes in the way we think and act and speak.

I’d be so glad to discuss this more with anyone who has further questions after the service today, but let’s dial in today on the centrality of this call (to repent) in response to the gospel message.

Repentance is indeed a constant refrain in the New Testament.

When He first began His earthly ministry, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel” (Mk. 1:15).

When the Apostle Peter preached the first gospel after Jesus’s resurrection and ascension, he said, “Repent… for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38).

And here again, that same Apostle is preaching the gospel, and his call to respond is the same… “Repent… and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out” (v19).

Walter Chantry (in his little book called Today’s Gospel) commented on this verse, and he said, “[Repentance] was no optional note on the apostolic trumpet. It was the melody, the theme of their instructions to sinners.”

Chantry went on to write, “Scripture always joins repentance and remission of sins… Repentance is necessary to forgiveness. Confession of sin is not enough. There must also be a full purpose of heart to turn from the former life of sin to a new walk in righteousness.”[2]

Friends, if Jesus is merely a self-help guru who can make you feel better… if Jesus is just your personal savior who helps you cope with your sense of guilt… if Jesus is a nice religious figure who only loves and never judges, then he will never offend you. And if you preach this Jesus to others, they will never be angry with you.

But, if Jesus is the King of the universe, the only Savior for sinners anywhere and the final and ultimate judge of all humanity… then He will offend us.

He will tell us what we can and cannot do… He will decide how we should live and when and how we will die… He will demand repentance when we disobey, and He gets to tell us what obedience looks like.

May God help us to respond with repentance today.

May God help us to preach a gospel that’s bigger than us.

May God help us to call others to repentance.

And may God help us to cling to Christ our King, through whatever circumstances we may have to endure, until we finally see Him face-to-face… and He brings full restoration, lavishing on us every blessing God has promised.

Endnotes

[1] Surprised by Suffering by RC Sproul, p. 56. [2] Chantry, 39-40.

Bibliography

Calvin, John, and Henry Beveridge. Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles. Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010. Print.

Chantry, Walter. Today’s Gospel: Authentic of Synthetic? The Banner of Truth Trust, 1970. Reprint 2018.

Peterson, David G. The Acts of the Apostles. Grand Rapids, MI; Nottingham, England: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2009. Print. The Pillar New Testament Commentary.

Polhill, John B. Acts. Vol. 26. Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992. Print. The New American Commentary.

Sproul, R. C., ed. The Reformation Study Bible: English Standard Version (2015 Edition). Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015. Print.