The other indication that Todd
is not here is that there's not a six inch top to the pulpit
here when I'm standing here. So that's a good way to know.
I invite you this morning to turn to Acts chapter 3 with me. I would like you to reflect a
little bit on your own experience here this morning. Everyone in
here, at some point, has wanted something. You wanted something
to fulfill a need that you perceived that if you got that thing that
you wanted, it would take care of the problem that you had.
And you also experienced the other side of that when you found
that you did get that thing, whatever it was you wanted, It
didn't help your need at all. And in fact, your need was something
else. And so that's what we're going to look at a little bit
here this morning. And as I was considering that thought, Evan
mentioned it this morning, that the woman with the issue of blood,
now, she was sick. And everybody in here understands
at some point in your life what it means to be sick. And there's
nothing more, when you're sick, that you want than to be healthy.
and you will seek out whatever means necessary to get yourself
healthy." And that's what she did. And so she looked and said
that for 12 years she suffered with this. So at this point she
was very willing to consider many things. And it says in the
scripture that she suffered many things many physicians. Anybody that had a remote possibility
of taking care of her problem, she was willing to entertain
that as a solution. And so she suffered for it so
much that she spent all that she had. This is how bad this
need was that this woman had. And she was none the better,
and in fact she grew worse. So in her experience, what she
wanted was not able to assess what her need really was. And
so that's what we're going to look at here this morning. It
is a man who is seeking something else that could never satisfy
his condition until he crossed paths with a gospel preacher.
who gave him something that he never even asked for. So we're
going to go through these first 11 verses here, and then we'll see
what we find. So chapter 3, verse 1, it says,
Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of
prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain man, lame from
his mother's womb, was carried. whom they laid daily at the gate
of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them
that entered into the temple." So what do we know about this
man? It paints a picture of who he is. First thing we know about
him is that he's lame. And it says he's been lame from
his mother's womb. So he's never even known the
ability to walk. First thing. The second thing
it tells us. Every single day he has to be
carried to this gate. There's no way that he can make
it there on his own. He has no ability to come. So
he has to be carried. And the third thing that we find
out about this man is that he was a beggar. He couldn't have
a job because he was lame. He was of no use to anybody.
So he could only sit there begging because he had nothing. And the
only way he would have anything is if somebody else gave it to
him. This paints, as you might be able to see, a very accurate
picture of who we are before God. In the same way that this man
was lame from his mother's womb, that's all he could ever know
or be, You and I, we are born in sin. It's all we know, it's
all we are, it's all that we can be. This man was imprisoned
in his body, this lame body, just as we are imprisoned in
this body of sin. It's all that it can ever be
and it won't get better. In the same way that this man
had to be carried because he was unable to come, You and I
have no ability to come unto Christ, to come unto God, and
the reason is because we have no desire to do so. Our human
nature is at enmity with God. We have no desire to know him.
In fact, Isaiah 53 says, You and I, we are beggars for
righteousness. We have nothing. And we can get
nothing apart from it being given to us. So let's read on in our
text so we understand who this man is now. And this man who's
seeing Peter and John, begging at the gate to go into the temple,
he asked for an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes
upon him with John, said, look upon us. And the man gave heed
unto them, expecting to receive something of them. So this man
was sitting at the gate. He was looking for a handout.
He wanted to get some money so that he could probably eat for
that day, because that was his only means for being able to
have something. So seeking to fulfill a need that would never
really satisfy his condition. And I want you to keep that in
mind throughout this whole message. So his need, perceived in his
mind, is, I need some money. I need to get some bread. But
that wasn't his problem, was it? He thought that short-term
solution would take care of what his needs were. Keeping this
same thing in mind with this man who believed in getting a
little bit of money for bread for the day was a solution to
his problems in the same way Why do we as men and women go
about trying to keep the law? What is that going to do for
us? And what if you could? What if you could keep the law?
You start right now, keeping the law. What good would that
do you? Would it make you feel better about yourself? Maybe
from not sinning, but again, what good would that do you before
God? Paul said, tell me you that desire
to be under the law. Do you not hear what the law
says? You see, it's never going to satisfy your condition being
able to keep the law because you cannot do it. You've got
a heart problem. The problem is not your ability
to keep the law. It's a heart problem. The law
will not help you. The law can only condemn you.
The law only exposes that we can do nothing but sin. So in
the same way that this man wanted money for bread and thought that
would fix his problem, why do we as men and women go about
trying to keep the law that we can't keep? And now we find his
path is crossed with a gospel preacher, Peter and John, coming
in. Now, he didn't know what they
had. and he wasn't seeking it. In
fact, he wanted something else. He wasn't even looking for what
they had. Now, you that have had your paths crossed by a gospel
preacher, what did you find? Well, when you first came, you
may have been seeking something else. You're seeking religion. Maybe you were seeking forgiveness
for your sins. You knew that you were bad and
you didn't want to be punished for it. Some people may have
been seeking something to do, or maybe even to know more about
the Bible and about God. But what did you find when the
gospel crossed your path? You found Him in whom is salvation
itself. You found Him who's the only
one who can quiet your soul and say, be still. You found something
that you didn't come looking for. And that's what this man
found right here. And so if we read on in verse
6, pay attention to the language here. Peter said, silver and
gold have I none. I don't have anything to give
you as far as money to go get something to eat. But such as
I have, give I unto thee. In the name of Jesus Christ of
Nazareth, rise up and walk. Now, Peter was very specific
in what he said to him. Could Peter have just said, rise
up and walk? But he didn't, did he? Because
that would have been by the power of his name. So he says, in the
name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, there's power in this name. And
so Peter lets us know that the only reason that anything is
being done for him is because the power behind this name So,
I want to know what is the power of His name, the name of Jesus
Christ of Nazareth. We'll look at a few scriptures
to look at this. So, first, let's turn over to 1 Samuel chapter
12. We'll start reading verse 20.
And Samuel said unto the people, Fear not, you've done all this
wickedness, yet turn not aside from following the Lord, but
serve the Lord with all your heart, and turn not aside, for
then you should go after vain things, which cannot profit or
deliver for they're vain, solutions to a problem that aren't going
to help. But the Lord will not forsake his people. Why? for
His great namesake, because it hath pleased the Lord to make
you His people." He says, He will not forsake His people for
His great namesake, but because it pleased the Lord to make you
His people. Why was this done? Because in
eternal election, God gave Christ a people to redeem them. Because
He's saying He won't forsake them for His name's sake. You
see, there's something associated with a name. I'll throw this
out to you, and you see where you go with it. O.J. Simpson.
What's the first thing you think? Probably not his football career.
So there's something associated with a name. What if Christ had
done all the work on the cross and said it's finished, but you
wound up in hell anyway? There's something associated
with the work behind that name. And so he's saying he's not going
to forsake them for his great namesake. He completed the work. He was given them by His Father,
and He's not going to lose them. So He's saying, I'm not going
to have My name run down and forsake you, because My name
is more important than that. So that's the power behind His
name. Turn over to Psalm 79. In verse 9, Help us, O God of our salvation,
for the glory of thy name. Deliver us, purge away our sins
for thy name's sake. The only reason you need help
is because you are helpless, and that's the only time you'll
ask for help is when you can't do it yourself. So as people
are saying, help us for the glory of thy name, deliver and purge
away our sins. You know the only person who's
not afraid to give Him all the glory in their salvation is the
one who's had all their sins purged away, is the one who's
been delivered by Him. They're not afraid to give Him
all the glory in that because they know they did none of it.
And the only reason it's done unto them is for the glory of
His name. He will not allow His name to
suffer loss of glory for losing an ungodly sinner such as you
or I. So if I'm found in Him, He will get glory for it, and
that's the only reason He will. So for the glory of His name,
deliver us and purge away our sins. And the last one we'll
look at, turn over a few pages to Psalm 106. In verse 6, he says, "...we have
sinned with our fathers, we have committed iniquity, we have done
wickedly. Our fathers understood not thy
wonders in Egypt. They remembered not the multitude
of thy mercies, but provoked Him at the sea, even at the Red
Sea. Nevertheless, in spite of all
these things, He saved them for His namesake." that he might
make his mighty power to be known." You know, there's only one name
that the father will hear. That's that of his son. And that
there's only one name that the devils hear and tremble. The
name of Jesus of Nazareth. And because of this name, Peter
says, neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none
under name given among men whereby we must be saved. The power of
His name demands that all those who were united to Christ in
election before time began, they must be saved. That's why He
didn't lose one that His Father gave unto Him. He said, none
can deliver them from My hand. So there's power behind His name. Now, if you go back to our text
in Acts 3, What are the results of the work
of the gospel upon a man? So we see he's encountered Peter
and John, and he said, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth,
rise up and walk. What are the results of the gospel
upon a man? So let's read here. And he took
him by the right hand, and he lifted him up. And immediately
his strength and ankle bones received strength. Does it take
time for the gospel to sink in? Does it take time for the gospel
to get in and loosen up all the old parts when it first comes
unto us? To slowly take a hold upon you when you hear it? No.
It says right here, it says immediately. His feet and ankle bones received
strength. There weren't braces on his legs
and eventually he got stronger and was able to take them off
and then he could walk. It said no, immediately he was
given strength. In the same way, when we're given
the new man, Christ in us, this is not something that gradually
comes about. Now, there is a process of growth
and grace and revelation of the gospel, but this new man is birthed
in you, and he has everything that he'll ever need to stand
before God, because it's the Spirit that is given from God.
He has a new motive, he has new affections, because he has a
new master. He doesn't follow the same things
he did before. He had life, so this man's lights
had been turned on at this time. He didn't have this before, but
he was given this now. So, what are the results of the
gospel upon a man? Well, first, the effects are
immediate. We see that. Now what else? We
find that there's signs of life. where something's alive, there's
going to be evidence of that life. What's verse 8 say? And
after he'd received this strength said he leaping up stood and
walked and entered in with them with the temple walking leaping
and praising God. He was praising God. not his
newly acquired ability, not being in the right place or the right
time, how he decided, how he chose Christ, any of these things,
none of these things. He was praising God. Why? This was worship. This was joy
for the great goodness of God in being merciful to an unworthy
beggar. Turn with me, if you would, over
to Ezekiel 37. Remember what we're looking at
now is signs of life. This passage is given to show
where there is no life and then when life is given. Ezekiel is
standing in the valley of dry bones. And the Lord said unto
him in verse three, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered,
O Lord God, thou knowest. And again he said unto me, prophesy,
preach upon these bones, and say unto them, O ye dry bones,
hear the word of the Lord. And thus saith the Lord God unto
these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter into you, and
you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you,
and I will bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin, and
put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that
I am the Lord. This is the preaching of the
word, and now look at the effect. So I preached as I was commanded.
And I preached, and there was a noise, and behold, a shaking."
And the bones came together, bone to bone, where it says,
there's a noise, and behold, a shaking. This is the evidence
of life. There's going to be some evidence
of life where the Spirit touches. Life is given here. And so, the
results of the gospel of a man with life given, what are these
signs of life? Well, first, there's going to
be a fear of God. Whenever the Lord reveals Himself
to someone and reveals His face to him and who He is, first thing
they're going to see is who God is. And then when we're given
an understanding of who God is, we're going to have an understanding
of who we are before Him. And when we have that understanding
of who we are before Him and what we've done, that's gonna
inspire a fear of God, because I know I'm in His hands. I'm
guilty. I have nothing to protect me
before Him. Here are the words from the wisest
man to ever live, what he said concerning this, I believe. Be
not rash with thy mouth. Let not thine heart be hasty
to utter anything before God. For God is in heaven, and thou
upon earth. Therefore let thy words be few.
He had some understanding revealed unto him of who God was. First
thing a gospel does to a man when it's revealed to him is
it shuts his mouth. Shuts his mouth, we're shut up to the word
of God. Not what we think, not how we feel, not our experience.
We're shut up to the Word of God and we're given a fear of
Him. Second thing, the results of the Gospel from the man give,
is it gives a love for the Word. You understand, this is the only
revelation we have of who God is. And He was willing to reveal
Himself unto men. It gives us a love for the Word.
And it also gives us a love for His people. There is no salvation
apart from having a love for the Lord's people. This is the
church. This is His body. We're given
a love for the Lord's people. Yes, we're all different, but
we're the same in Christ. All these differences we have,
you and I are different people, like different things, that's
just all flesh. And it'll all be gone one day. And all that's
gonna be left is the body of Christ that we're, we say the
same thing, we love the same things. These things are here
now, it's hard to see them sometimes though. We got a lot of flesh
here, that's all we see. What is another sign of life?
Belief of the truth. When you hear the truth, you
know that it's the truth and you're going to believe it because
you're given that spirit that gives you eyes to see and ears
to hear. It'll also cause a rejection
and an intoleration for anything that's not the truth. I don't
want to hear it. I don't want to hear my Lord
misrepresented. This is whom is part of my own
body. He put me there. And I don't
want to hear Him disparaged and brought down in a way that doesn't
reflect who He is. These are evidences of life.
Now, back in Acts 3, In his experience, this man's experience, he was
not seeking, he wasn't asking for what he got, he had no interest
in the Gospel. In fact, he wanted something
else. But did that prevent the Lord from doing His work? In
verses 9 and 10, "...then he said unto me, Prophesy..." Oh,
shoot, I'm in the Ezekiel still. 9 and 10, "...and all the people
saw him walking and praising God, And they knew that it was
He which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple.
And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which happened
unto Him. Now you consider this. Was there any delay when the
Lord purposed for this work to happen unto this man, even though
He wasn't looking for it, He wasn't seeking it, and He wanted
something else? It didn't at all. It didn't fret the Lord
at all to perform His work unto this man. What this caused me
to consider was, and will hopefully cause you to consider, is consider
our friends, our loved ones who don't know the gospel. They aren't
looking for it. They aren't seeking it. But it
doesn't stop the Lord from doing his work. And what I hope it
does is renew a zeal in us to talk to them, to bring them to
hear the preaching of the gospel. Yes, this is the Lord's work,
but the Lord uses means, and that means is the preaching of
the gospel. And so it inspires me to desire to bring my loved
ones to come hear the truth. This is the only way that they
can be saved. So this great miracle had been
performed by God unto this man. God sought him out. He said he
was a certain man. It wasn't everybody, just this certain
man. His servant found him. And he healed him freely, despite
his lack of want. Yet what do we find in verse
11? And as the lame man, which was
healed, held Peter and John. This is what drew me to this
passage, to speak from it, this verse right here. He held Peter
and John, and all the people ran together unto them in the
porch that is called Solomon's, greatly wondering. Why did he
hold two of them? Well, on one hand, Peter, by
the means of the power of the Lord's name, had given him the
ability to walk. So first of all, he did not want
them to depart. They worked a miracle on him
that he could not understand. All he knew is these are the
men by which this miracle was performed to me. So he didn't
want them to leave. But on the other hand, I feel
it's a more true picture of what our experience is. Follow me
here. You who have been saved, who've been regenerated, you've
given the new man eyes to see, ears to hear. You know God did
it for you by His power, by His will, and by His authority. Nothing
in you gave you the ability to see Him and to believe. Then
why does our faith waver? Thoughts creep up like, but what
if I'm really not saved? What if none of this is true
and I'm just deceived? I'm believing a lie. Can I be
the way that I am and still be saved? These are all questions
that we've all asked at one point, even though we know and believe
the gospel. The old man is the same, isn't
he? Every morning I wake up, he's still with me, and it gives
me a constant reminder of that every day. In fact, I see him
much more clearly each day that goes by. He's still with me,
with the eyes of the new man. This man held on to Peter and
John because he was afraid of falling. He'd been given the
ability to stand, to walk, to jump, but he was afraid of falling. Perhaps he thought, this is all
just an experience. At any moment, my legs are going
to give out. This is all going to be over.
I'm going to go back to being a cripple that has to be carried. I'm going to be a beggar, and
I'm going to go back to being an outcast, exactly where I was.
Fears. He looked down at that same old
legs. Those legs didn't look any different.
It was the same crippled legs that he sat there with year after
year. And he thought, this is all going
to be over. I'm going to fall to the ground because the work
was done on the inside. He was looking at the outside.
So our thoughts and our experiences are not much different, are they?
We look at the outside. We look at this old man. We think,
how could I know anything of Christ? I must be deceived. We look at the works of the old
man. We're not looking at the work that's done on the inside.
It's done to the heart. Faith is wavering. We're afraid
of falling. I don't want to fall away. I
don't want to be found not knowing Christ. Faith wavering. Remember when Peter got called
out on the water? A miracle that no one has ever been able to
do. The Lord was out there. He called him out. The Lord bid
me come out to thee. Peter's walking on the water, doing some
things outside his power or ability to do, but he starts looking
away from the Lord when he sees the waves, sees the wind, and
he thinks, I shouldn't be out here. I'm going to die. Just
as this man looked at his old, previously crippled legs and
said, you're going to give it out at any time. He was looking
to his self to uphold himself. What was self capable of? It
was only capable of being crippled, being carried. being a beggar,
and being an outcast. And it's only when we see this
that we're crippled by our sin. This is all that we can do, and
we're never going to do anything more than this. And that we're
beggars because we have no righteousness, I have nothing, and I won't have
it unless it's given to me, and I'm an outcast before God. I
cannot come into His presence. It's only then that we can look
to Christ. If you will, turn with me over
to Jude chapter 1. Only when we see that we're beggars
and that we're crippled and that we're outcasts before God, only
then we will look to Christ. Christ can strengthen you. Christ
can raise you up. Just like this man who was afraid
of falling. But do you know what else he
can do? Look at verse 24. Now unto him that is able to
keep you from falling. and present you faultless before
the presence of His glory with exceeding joy." Are you afraid
of falling anymore? He says He's able and has the
power and ability to keep you from falling. I feel like I'm
going to fall every day in terms of my experience, but it says
He's got the power to do it, keep me from it. Are you afraid
of how you might appear before God? It says right here, faultless. That means He can look at you
the way you are and He can find no fault in you if you're one
of His people. The only way that that could be true is if everything
I've been guilty of and have done has been taken away from
me. Christ did that on the cross and makes me accept it in His
person from the work that He did. Are you afraid of how He
might react when He sees you? You come into the presence of
God. First thing that creeps into my mind is, He's going to
know what I did. I might be forgiven, but reluctantly
He lets me in here because of what Christ did. But we really
both know what you did. No, it says, you come into His
presence of His glory with exceeding joy. This is not something fake
here. This is the Lord genuinely joying
to see His people clean, redeemed, because He sees us in His Son.
And that's the only way that He can see us. How sure are you
that any of this is true? Turn over to Philippians chapter
1. How sure are you that we are
made faultless? He can keep us from falling and
sees us, when He sees us, with exceeding joy. Look at verse
6. Being confident, confident, sure
of this very thing, that he which hath begun good work in you."
What is that good work? It's giving you God the Holy
Spirit, that new man, Christ Jesus, in you. He that's begun
that good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. So if he's performed that good
work in you, given you eyes to see, given you ears to hear,
there's no way it will be taken from you. You will have it forever,
and we're confident of this, until the day of Jesus Christ,
until the last day on this earth, when the Lord comes back, or
when I die, He's going to perform that work for me. Now, if you've
not come to Jesus Christ for cleansing, for forgiveness, for
acceptance before God, to turn you from what you are, you have
every reason to fear. There is no end to God's hatred
and punishment of sin, and your sins are on you, and God sees
you, and there's not one thing that anyone can do for you. Now,
like this man, you've got a need that cannot be satisfied, not
with the law, not with anything you do, not with a choice or
a decision you make. It cannot be satisfied unless
the Lord makes you needy. He makes you needy, though, for
the rest of your life. To satisfy your need, you must
become needy. You must be made needy of mercy. because you won't have any if
he doesn't give it to you. You must become needy of his
forgiveness because that's the only way you will be forgiven.
Because of your sin, because you're unclean, you're ungodly
and unfit for his presence. Those are the people whom Christ
came to save. I want to be one of those people. So ask him to
show you your need of Christ. He is everything. This is not
a flower-lined pathway, seeing our need of Christ. Job found
that out. Job said, I've heard of you by
the hearing of the ear. I thought I knew who you were.
But it took a lot, a lot of work, a lot of dragging Job down, taking
away everything, beating him down, before he understood he
was not righteous. and that the only way he'd have
righteousness is if it was given unto him. He said, I've heard
of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees. And
what did he find when he saw God? He said, I hate myself. He saw who he was in his presence. He is everything. He's our light.
He's our life. He's our covering for sin. He
is our righteousness, all that we'll ever have. So may the Lord
break our hearts that we might see our great need of Him, because
we're called upon to seek the Lord while He may be found, to
call upon Him while He's near. And this is what I'll leave you
with, for He is able to save them to the uttermost. There
is nobody bad enough that He cannot reach down and save you
too, that come unto God by Him. You come any other way, you're
not coming to God. The only way we come unto God
is by Him, seeing that He ever liveth to make intercession for
them. What a Savior we have. Let's stand and sing hymn number
221. Thank you, Lord. Hymn number
221. Some thank the Lord for friends
and home, for mercy sure and sweet. But I would praise him
for his grace I would repeat. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, Oh, thank you, Lord, for giving
to me Thy great salvation so rich and free. Some thank Him for the flowers
that grow, Some for the stars that shine. My heart is filled
with joy and praise because I know He's mine. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me Thy great salvation so rich and free I trust in Him from
day to day I prove His saving grace I'll sing this song of
praise to Him until I see His face. Thank you, Lord, for saving my
soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me
whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to
me a great salvation so rich and free.