Sermon for MHBC (24 January 2021). You can listen on Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, or our website. Live at 11:00am on Sundays.
We’ve been talking about prophetic vision and seeking an encounter with the living God. And we’ve made some intentional efforts toward prayer as a congregation this past week. Those are good things that we will continue doing, but here in Acts 3, I want to emphasize the centrality and authority of Jesus. Any hope for Monument Heights or our individual lives must be fixated on Jesus. Our best efforts are utterly ineffective apart from Jesus. Any hope of the increased activity of the Spirit in our midst only comes through Jesus.
I’ve been reflecting on the uniqueness of Christianity recently. You can find many good things in the other major religions around the world. But most religions live with a theoretical knowledge of God. Christianity, however, says that God erupted into human history and acted. It’s not a theory or some disconnected spirituality. God enters time and space and acts. There is real invasion by the living God into our world. In the person of Jesus, God has exploded into history, altering the destiny of humanity.
And his subsequent action in human history is through the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So God is at work in our world through Jesus by the Spirit. The reason this is important for us as a congregation is that it’s possible to think of the church as a business. It’s possible to think of the church as something we control. But that’s not what the church is. The church is the community in which the power and authority of Jesus are proclaimed. Any vision or mission, any plan for the future, must be centered on making much of Jesus.
Let’s take a look at the first few verses in Acts 3. Beginning in v. 1:
Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 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. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 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!”
Notice that is on the authority of Jesus that Peter is able to tell this man to do the impossible. It’s only in the name of Jesus that there’s any power. There is not any power in money. This man had received money before. That’s what he hoped for because he couldn’t work. But up until this point, that was the best he could hope for. That’s as good as it got. But again, Christianity says, “God has broken into history and now nothing is the same.” The power that raised Jesus from the dead is now raising this crippled man to walk.
This lesson is critical for us as we think about the future. Our hope doesn’t lie in our budget. It doesn’t lie in our staff. It doesn’t lie in me. It doesn’t lie in our church at all. The reason this miracle happens is because Jesus is the only hope. Peter knows that there’s nowhere else to go.
It is said that the great medieval Catholic theologian, Thomas Aquinas, once visited Pope Innocent II. The Pope was counting a large sum of money. He bragged by saying, “You see, Thomas, the church can no longer say, ‘Silver and gold have I none.’” Thomas replied, “True, holy father, neither can she now say, ‘Rise and walk.’”[1]
It is critical that as a church, we are willing to relinquish everything in total reliance on Jesus. We don’t tack Jesus onto our existing plans. Unless his name is our central focus, we will never see the power of God.
Look at the next few verses, picking up in v. 7.
And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, 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.
Again, this is impossible. Luke is likely drawing on prophetic language from Isaiah to point us back to God’s promises that he would act to renew his creation. And notice the result is the praise of the one true God. One commentator writes on this verse, “The goal of healing is restoration to a people that praises God.”[2]
When I interviewed with the search committee, I explained that it is common to hear churches talk about growth and revitalization. Lots of churches talk about wanting that, but it’s always necessary to ask “Why?” Why do you want to grow? Some want to grow because they don’t want to be part of a church that closes. Others don’t want to see their church close. Some want to grow to meet budget. Others because it reminds them of some period in the past when the church was full. Some want to grow to be like the church down the street. Others because they want to stoke their own pride. And pastors are susceptible to all of those. But the end goal, the desire for growth, must always be the genuine exaltation of God. God won’t bless the church that desires to exalt itself. The Spirit only moves to bring glory to God.
This healing gives Peter a chance to preach again like he did in the previous chapter. Pick up in v. 11.
While he clung to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s. 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?
Notice how Peter deflects. Our own power didn’t do this. Our own piety didn’t do this. Piety isn’t a real common word, but it means being especially religious. Peter is saying, “God didn’t act because we are especially religious.” God won’t act because Monument Heights is especially religious or devoted. And our own power certainly won’t accomplish anything. So why does God act?
Verse 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.
Why did God act? To glorify Jesus. Now don’t get tripped up here on this language of glorifying his servant Jesus. Make no mistake, Jesus is God in the flesh. God doesn’t share his glory with another. This will be clear in v. 15 as well when Jesus is referred to as the Author of Life.
This past Friday, we set aside the day for prayer and a church-wide fast. Fasting isn’t some sort of way to twist God’s arm into giving us what we want. The whole point of fasting is to devote ourselves more to the glory of God. Do you remember the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18? They have elaborate demonstrations intended to get Baal’s attention. But Elijah simply prays, “O LORD, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel.” The whole point of this healing in Acts 3 is so that it will be known that Jesus Christ is king. There is no other who has his authority.
And so Peter points out to this audience in Jerusalem that they have been blind to what God was doing. Look at the next two verses. But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.
Remember how often we’ve seen this insistence that they are witnesses to the resurrection of Jesus. We’ve seen it in every chapter so far. The church’s primary task is to bear witness to the fact that Jesus is king.
Verse 16 is really the culminating verse in the whole chapter: 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.
Jesus has the authority to heal. Only by recognizing his authority and trusting him—what we call “faith”—do we see God act. Even then, the worst mistakes can be blotted out. This is the wonder of the gospel of grace. That’s the remaining point Peter wants to make. Let’s pick up in v. 17 and read the rest of the chapter:
And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, 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. 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. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people.’ And all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and those who came after him, also proclaimed these days. 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.’ God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.”
Now of course Peter speaks to this message to Jewish people, but the required response is the same for us. We must recognize that God has acted in Jesus. We must turn from everything else and turn to him. Only through him can we experience refreshing. Only through him is God reconciling creation to himself.
The word of repentance is necessary because the danger is for us to identify as Christians and be members of a church, and yet have very little interest in Jesus. So this passage calls us to evaluate both our individual hearts and the collective heart of our church. Are we centralizing Jesus? Are we obeying the teachings of Jesus?
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German theologian who died in a Nazi concentration camp, made a now-famous statement to his brother in a letter in 1935. I’ll paraphrase. “The renewal of the Church will come from a new type of monasticism which only has in common with the old an uncompromising allegiance to the Sermon on the Mount.”[3] He was saying that it was time for churches to return to a focus on the essential teachings of Jesus.
The church can be distracted by many things. Some of them are good things. Others are idolatrous things. But for any church to experience renewal, refreshment, and the movement of God, they must begin with a singular commitment to king Jesus. Any vision or mission, any plan for the future, must be centered on making much of Jesus. Perhaps it would be a good exercise for us to ask before every meeting, before every comment at a business meeting, before every email, does my action promote king Jesus? Am I acting in consistency with who he is and what he calls me to be?
Once we start asking those questions and responding accordingly, I believe wholeheartedly that we will see God do things we never dreamed of. But this won’t be easy. It will require us to be bold and unashamedly committed to Christ. It will require letting go of some things we’ve thought were important in order to be singularly focused on making much of Jesus. But this is also exciting because then we can expect to see the movement of God.
[1] F. F. Bruce, Acts, 77–78.
[2] L. T. Johnson, The Acts of the Apostles, 66.
[3] https://www.prayerfoundation.org/dietrich_bonhoeffer_on_monasticism.htm