Sermon Tone Analysis

In this third chapter of Acts we have the apostle Peter’s second sermon and his first healing.

1. Peter’s first healing

a.

The disabled man’s plight

b.

The disabled man’s perfect healing

c.

The disabled man’s praise

2. Peter’s second sermon

Jesus is reigning as King

The days of fulfillment are here

Jesus has come to bless you

Peter’s first healing

Peter and John we’re told are headed to the temple to pray as chapter three of the Book of Acts opens up.

We’re told it was the hour of prayer, or the ninth hour.

If you want to learn how to calculate your biblical time clocks, the ninth hour is based on zero hour being 6am.

This means the ninth hour is 3pm.

At 3pm, on the way to the temple to pray, Peter and John are stopped by a disabled man.

Q: What time is the 9th hour?

A: 3pm

Notice with me three things about this disabled man - his plight, his healing, and his praise.

The disabled man’s plight (vv.

1-5)

Look with me at this man’s plight - the plight of the disabled man.

At 3pm, the sun’s rays are beginning to flatten out and shadows are beginning to fall.

Sunset approaches quickly.

The waning hours of daylight fall across a man who is seated by the side of the road.

This man is disabled.

Luke tells us this man was lame from his mother’s womb - lame from birth, says the NIV.

Lame from birth.

This man had never known what it was to be independent.

He had never been able to walk or even to hobble, let alone run or jog.

Disabilities are focused on today in our world.

Facilities are handicap accessible.

It’s surprising how much of a presence disabled people have in the Bible.

And this man here, not only was he disabled - he was also asking for help.

We’re tempted to read this and think of the men and women who sit along the side of the road or at intersections begging for help.

We look down on that, rightly or wrongly.

Regardless, giving financial help to the needy was highly approved of in Judaism.

In fact, one author I read this past week said that giving financial help to the needy was an act of Jewish worship, and so it makes sense that this man would sit outside the temple.

Now, being disabled can, not always, but it can result in a person being pretty self-focused.

It’s understandable that that happens.

But what’s more important about this story is how Jesus changes the goal and the priorities of this disabled man.

Look with me at verses 3-5: Acts 3:3-5

The disabled man’s perfect healing (vv.

6-7)

And so, moving ahead to the disabled man’s healing, we read in verse 6: “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”

Now look at what Peter says, verse 6: “Silver and gold I do not have.”

It wouldn’t have been wrong for Peter and John to have given this man silver and gold, if they had it.

I heard a story recently about a college student who gave his “tithe” one Sunday at church.

Apparently he knew this verse: “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I gave to you...” As the story goes, this guy actually took this verse seriously.

He didn’t have money, or silver or gold, but he did have a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit.

So he wrapped up his biscuit and put it in the offering place with a little note carefully attached to it.

What do you think the note said?

“Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, I give unto you”.

[Merida p46]

There is nothing wrong with giving money wisely and judiciously to the poor and needy.

In fact we’re commanded to do so both as individuals and as a church.

But money can never be the only thing we give, because money is not only thing we need.

Nor is it even the most important.

And so Peter was saying to this man, essentially, “Look, I might give you silver and gold if I had it, but I don’t, and that’s okay, because what I do have is far better.”

He’s saying, “You might be poor, but you have deeper needs than the material and financial.

You might be disabled, but you have deeper needs than the physical and bodily.

If you will let him,” Peter is saying to this man, and to us, “God wants to use your material and physical needs to remind you your spiritual needs.”

This is one of the reasons why we must never settle, as a church, for merely helping people physically.

We can never be satisfied with helping people financially.

Money tends to blind us to our spiritual problems.

Having financial resources gives us a false sense of sufficiency.

Jesus said this to the church at Laodicea: Rev. 3:17

Fall Festival 2021

44 registration forms

134 people listed

12 families want follow-up

100 children and adults heard the gospel

Final count: more than 225

A person in need of our help is an opportunity to talk about Jesus Christ and how He not only meets our needs, but He also shows us that our deepest needs are the ones we never even realized we had, and in Him we find a satisfaction that is deep and meaningful and that makes our other needs pale in comparison.

That, church, is what we want the 225 people who came to our fall festival to know.

We want them to know that Jesus Himself is so satisfying that we can endure the not having those other needs met.

In Christ, we can say with Paul that though “our outer man is decaying”, though we be hungry and thirsty and sick, “though our outer man is decaying,” he says, yet in Christ “our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2Cor.

4:16 NASB).

2Cor 4:17-18

This man’s needs were many, but his deepest need was forgiveness and eternal life, because his most urgent problem was that he was a sinner in need of a Savior.

And so it is with us.

The disabled man’s praise (vv.

8-10)

There was a pastor who was forced into early retirement by a virus that destroyed his vocal chords.

The best he could do was a harsh-sounding whisper.

He stopped preaching when he retired, but he still taught Sunday School because he didn’t have to project as much.

The microphone that helped him speak was also recording him speaking when the miracle took place.

He was teaching on Psalm 103:4 which says that God redeems our life from the pit.

He opened his mouth to speak and everything changed.

He was in the middle of this sentence: “I have had and you have had in times past pit experiences.”

It was on the word “pit”.

This is what the author telling his story said happened next: “He paused, startled; began again and stopped.

He said a few more words — all in a normal clear tone — and stopped again.

The class erupted with shouts of joy, astonishment, and sounds of weeping.

God completely healed him as he was declaring the truth of this psalm”.

[Larson, p292]

When God does heal us, the appropriate response is worship.

When God heals others around us, the appropriate response is worship.

We see both in verses 7-10.

When God does heal us, and when he heals others, the appropriate response is worship.