In Acts 3 Luke records the record of Peter and John going up to the Temple for the hour of prayer. Along the way they encounter a lame beggar and God works a miracle through them for this man. What does this passage teach us about God, about miracles, about Jesus and the Gospel of grace? Join Pastor Jim as he unpacks the hope-filled truths of this passage.
Sermon Notes
Two commands for the man
1. Look at us!
2. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene walk!
Two questions for the crowd that day:
1. Why do you marvel at this?
2. Why are you looking at us?
“The miracles in fact are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see.”
C. S. Lewis
God in the Dock
“God wants and intends the restoration of a lost world to Himself and to its true nature and destiny by breaking down whatever barriers are placed between it and Him, and in Jesus Christ he actually makes this possible.”
Alister McGrath
Studies in Doctrine
Two commands for everyone:
1. Repent!
2. Return to the Lord!
“Repentance, the first word in Christian immigration, sets us on the way to traveling in the light. It is a rejection that is also an acceptance, a leaving that develops into an arriving, a no to the world that is a yes to God.”
Eugene Peterson
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction
“The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the Incomprehensible, to touch and taste the Unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man. Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its Source.”
A. W. Tozer
Three promises for everyone who believes:
1. Your sins will be wiped away/blotted out.
2. Times of refreshing will come from being in the presence of the Lord.
3. Restoration of all things upon the return of Christ.
“Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread. That can’t be right. I need a change, or something.”
Bilbo Baggins to Gandalf
from The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien
“One of the great truths of Scripture is that when God looks at us, He does not see us for what we are, but for what we can become, as He works in our lives. He is in the business of taking weak, insignificant people, and transforming them by His presence in their lives.”
Gary Inrig