Sermon Tone Analysis

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.