Acts 3:1-10 | The Wonder Exists for the Word

Before we read I want you to think about something, what do you need today? Not what you want but what you need. Most of us would answer that question with something practical like a healthier body, or a stronger marriage, perhaps a steadier bank account. It’s likely relief from whatever is pressing hardest on you right now.

The church has always been a place where people bring those needs and our prayer list reflects that. Abigail, Jeff, Laura, Larry, Steve, Dale, Dale and the list goes on. And we should bring those needs before the church and to God because the Lord hears them. We have seen Him answer those requests in remarkable ways in this very congregation.

I think of sitting with Jon Davidson several years ago. The hospital had told him they had done everything they could and we prayed for Sandy to be delivered, which God chose to do by His good will. I think of walking into ICU with Butch and Judy as he fought that terrible infection. I think of sitting in triage with Clem not knowing if he would be with us in a few hours. Testimony after testimony of God's faithfulness which proves that He is still a God who works and answers prayer.

But here is what I want you to keep in mind as we get into our passage today. The man we are about to meet came to the temple with a need he could name and God met a need he didn't even know he had. And that is the story of every person in this room. We come with our list and God, in His mercy, goes deeper than our list.

As our speaker at camp reminded our teens this week, we can only give away what we have. And what this world needs most, what you and I need most, is not what you came in here asking for. It's Jesus.

Let’s stand together in honor of God’s Word as we read

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.

Our passage begins with Peter and John heading up to the temple for prayer around 3pm. So it’s toward the end of a relatively normal day of ministry for the apostles. Peter and John are paired together through most of the book of Acts. They were a team designed to reach the Jewish believers. But then we meet a man and I want to show you the first point from the passage which is

Your Needs Are Greater Than You Know

What do we know about this man? He was lame from birth. We don't know the cause. It could be a palsy or a deformity? It’s speculation but we know it was from birth and a disability. He couldn't walk which meant he couldn't work and so every single day someone carried him to this gate and set him down to beg. We also know this looking ahead in Acts 4,

22 For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old.

Forty years of this. Forty years of dependence, of watching people walk past him into the temple while he sat outside asking for coins. Can you imagine that? Not just the physical limitation but the humiliation of complete dependence on others for your entire life?

And yet notice where he was placed. The gate was called Beautiful. Josephus tells us it was one of the most magnificent structures in the entire temple complex, and right there beside it every single day, was a man who was broken. This is ironic and the thought of this is almost unbearable! Near beauty and worship and the very presence of God and the community of His people. But he was outside. Always outside. Close, but never really engaged with the life of the temple.

That is a picture of so many people. They are near the church. They show up and hear the songs. They sit through the sermons. But they are still on the outside because they are spiritually crippled and don't even know it! Church attendance cannot save you. Being in this room today does not make you whole. You can be within arm's reach of grace and still be outside of it.

Look with me at verse 5. He fixed his attention on Peter and John expecting to receive something. And what was he expecting? Money. A few denarii to get through another day. Patrick Schreiner puts it well, “The lame man expects to merely receive some money from them, not knowing his whole life is about to change.”

And that is exactly how most people approach God isn't it? We come with our specific request. God I need help with my finances. Lord, the doctor gave me bad news. Father, my marriage is falling apart and I need you to do something. We want God's blessing and God's intervention but we treat Him like a vending machine rather than a Savior.

But here is what I want you to hear, this man had carried his condition so long that it had become his identity. He wasn't a man who happened to be lame. He was the lame man at the Beautiful Gate.

We know some people like this, don’t we? Some of you are people like this. The diagnosis comes and slowly it becomes the source of your existence. Every conversation circles back to it. Every prayer is about it. Every morning begins with the weight of it. Alpha-Gal. MS. Cancer. ALS. The list in our own congregation is long and the suffering is real.

But hear this clearly: you are not your suffering. Not because suffering isn't real, it is very real. Brutally real. But in Christ you have been given an identity that no diagnosis can touch. Paul says

3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

That is not a platitude! That is a declaration about what is most true about you in Jesus Christ! Your name, Christian, in the Lamb’s Book of Life does not have an asterisk detailing your diagnosis. No! Your identity is beloved! Forgiven! Adopted! Heir! Free!

But, and this matters, that comfort is only available in Christ. Before Christ, your suffering may well be the truest thing about you because there is nowhere deeper for you to go. If you want something deeper then you need an identity that sickness cannot steal! Come to Christ!

The lame man came looking for coins but Jesus had something infinitely greater in mind. And that brings us to the second thing I want you to see.

Your Resources Are Greater Than You Think

There is a story about Thomas Aquinas visiting the pope. This pope was not a godly man and when Aquinas arrived he found him surrounded by stacks of coins, counting them one by one. The pope looked up and said, "You see, Thomas, the church can no longer say silver and gold have I none."

Aquinas replied, "True. But neither can she say rise and walk."

That exchange cuts right to the heart of this passage. Peter had no silver and no gold. He was not a wealthy man. But look at what he did have. Verse 6, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

Now I want to be careful here because this phrase is sometimes misunderstood. This is not a magical incantation, though it can sound like it in the Greek. Peter is not casting a spell. The name of Jesus is not powerful because of the sounds and syllables we form when we say it. What Peter is doing is acting as an apostle under the authority of the risen Christ. He is not acting in his own power, he is acting on Christ's behalf.

Think about what that means. Peter and John had likely passed this gate many times. They may have seen this man before. He had been there for forty years. Why was he healed on this particular day? Because Jesus chose it. The apostles were sent ones, that is what apostle means, and the risen Christ was acting through them to verify their message and their ministry.

This is important to understand because some teachers have built entire ministries around the idea that healing belongs to every believer as a guaranteed possession. Kenneth Hagin wrote that healing is a forever settled subject and that we have what we say. But this teaching is not only biblically unsupportable, it is pastorally devastating. When a faithful believer prays with everything they have and their loved one still dies, this teaching leaves them with nowhere to go except to question either their own faith or God's goodness. It presents a false gospel because it shifts our hope from the finished work of Christ to guaranteed physical blessing in this life.

What is the most important thing in regards to the Gospel? Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, that Christ died for our sins, that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day. That is the simple Gospel. Not deliverance from sickness in this life but deliverance from sin and death for eternity!

Now let me be equally clear about the other ditch. We absolutely believe God heals! We pray boldly and with faith that He will intervene. The Lord may choose to work miraculously today and we should ask Him to. What we are saying is that miraculous healing is not a guaranteed outcome and that the miracles of the apostles served a specific purpose which was to authenticate the message and the messengers.

3 how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.

The miracles confirmed the messenger. The messenger proclaimed the Gospel. And the Gospel is what saves.

So what does this mean for us as a church? We do not have the apostolic gift of healing. But we have something the world cannot manufacture and money cannot buy. We have Christ! The Spirit of God dwells in us. And we can only give away what we have.

The question is never whether our budget is healthy or our facility is impressive or our programs are successful. Those things are not indicators of spiritual health. The great question is this: do we have Christ? Are we full of His Holy Spirit? Because a church without Christ has nothing to offer regardless of how nice its presentation is. And a church with Christ has everything the world needs regardless of how meager its resources may be.

Fernando Ortega sings, “Give me Jesus. Give me Jesus. You can have all this world. Give me Jesus.” Thirdly,

Your Mission Is Greater Than You Can Imagine

Look at what happens next. Verse 8, he leaps up, stands, walks, and enters the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. Verse 9, everybody sees him and recognizes him as the man who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate begging. And they're filled with wonder.

Think about that for a second. Every regular at that temple knew this man's face. They'd walked past him hundreds of times. Plenty of them had dropped a coin in his hand at some point. And now he's walking through the temple courts, leaping, actually, praising God in the temple out loud, for the first time in his life.

But we can’t move past that little phrase too fast. He entered the temple with them. For forty years this man's whole world was the outside of that gate. Outside. Excluded. Dependent on whoever walked by. And now, in the space of one verse, all three of those are undone. He's not walking, he's walking in. He’s not just healed, but in the house of the Lord.

Luke didn't have to tell us that. He could have ended the sentence at "his feet and ankles were made strong" and moved on but he doesn't. He shows us a man who spends forty years on the wrong side of a door, and then walks through it, praising God the whole way. This isn't just a leg getting fixed. This is a man being brought into worship and brought into the people of God, the very things his condition had locked him out of his entire life.

That's what Jesus does. He doesn't stop at "rise up", He brings you in. You see, healing that leaves you standing outside the gate, capable but still alone, isn't the whole of what Christ came to do. He doesn't just fix what's broken in you, He brings you all the way home, into His presence, into His people, into the worship you were always meant to be part of.

Some of you have been on the outside of something for a long time. Outside the fellowship of this church because shame's kept you from walking in. Outside real worship because you've been going through motions for years. Jesus didn't save this man so he could stand by himself at the door, healed and proud and alone. He saved him so he could walk in, leaping, praising God among God's people. That's still what salvation looks like.

But I also want you to see something deeper than the miracle itself. Luke is a careful writer and he doesn't put things in accidentally. Listen to Isaiah 35:6

6 then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy. For waters break forth in the wilderness, and streams in the desert;

That is a prophecy about the new covenant of salvation by grace coming into the forefront of history. And here in Acts 3 it is happening right in front of everyone's eyes, the promises of God are not distant. They are not theoretical. The kingdom of God is arriving and this man's leaping legs are the evidence!

And the crowd cannot look away. They are filled with wonder and amazement. But here is the thing about wonder, wonder alone is not enough. Awe is not salvation. The crowd still needs to hear what is going on. They need an explanation. They need the Gospel.

And that is exactly where Peter goes next, but we will get to his sermon next week.

What I want you to see today is this: the miracle gathered the crowd. The wonder created the moment. And the moment exists for the Word of God. That is the pattern. God works in ways that stop people in their tracks and then He speaks into the amazement. And He still does this today, not through apostolic signs but through the witness of Christians like you.

Now here is where I want to be honest with you about two ways the church gets this wrong.

The first error is the social gospel. This is the idea that the church's job is simply to meet physical needs. Give food, provide beds, show compassion and let that be enough. But a social gospel that never presents Christ is not a gospel at all. It is just philanthropy with better PR. The prodigal son came to his senses in a pigpen and returned to his father. A social gospel would have brought him a sandwich and let him stay in the pigpen.

The second error is the total opposite. Some churches are so focused on proclamation that they have no interest in meeting physical needs. They treat bodies as unimportant compared to souls and are willing to walk past suffering to get to the sermon. But that is not the model of Christ who fed the hungry, touched the leper, and wept at the grave of Lazarus before He preached.

The biblical model is both. A church that cares about bodies and souls. We meet physical needs in order to create the moment and then we speak into it.

My mentor Jeff Chadwick is the director of the Missions Centers of Houston, a multi-site outreach center impacting tens of thousands of people in the Houston area. He had been trying to reach Muslims in downtown Houston but they would not come near the Arabic Baptist church meeting in one of their centers. Then Amazon called. They needed to clear warehouse space and wanted to make a donation. Housewares, shower curtains, trash cans, spatulas, microwaves, all of it. The catch was they couldn't sell any of it.

Around the same time Jeff was meeting with an African American pastor who had a donated warehouse sitting empty on the same city block. Six eighteen-wheelers and a thousand volunteer hours later they had filled that warehouse. And the deal they offered was simple, you can have access to everything your home needs, but first you have to hear a message of hope.

Hundreds of Muslims heard the Gospel for the first time. Dozens started bringing friends. And that Arabic Baptist church has baptized nearly a dozen new believers.

Praise God! A church must never choose between compassion and the Gospel. Peter offered both. He met the man's physical need and then he opened his mouth and preached Christ. And the result was a crowd hungry to hear more.

That is our mission. Not to choose between loving people and proclaiming Christ but to do both with everything we have, knowing that the wonder exists for the Word and the Word points everyone to Jesus.

So let me ask you directly before we close. What did you come in here needing today?

Maybe it was something on that prayer list. A body that isn't working right. A relationship that is breaking. A financial pressure that won't let up. Those needs are real and we will pray over them. But I want you to consider that like this man at the Beautiful Gate you may have come in today with a need you could name and left with the one you didn't know you had.

The greatest miracle in this passage is not that a lame man walked. The greatest miracle is that Jesus Christ is alive, seated at the right hand of the Father, still acting, still saving, still calling sinners to repent and believe the Gospel. Acts is not the story of what Peter did. It is the story of what Jesus is continuing to do after His ascension.

And He is still doing it. He is doing it right now. Is He calling you today? Do you see that your greatest need is not relational, financial, emotional, or physical but spiritual? Your greatest need is Jesus Christ. Not His blessings. Not His help getting through another day. Him.

Come to Him today. Repent and believe the Gospel. And like this man you will find that what He gives you is infinitely greater than what you came asking for.

Head: God wants you to know that your greatest need is Jesus Christ.

The man at the gate asked for coins and received healing he never thought to request. Every person in this room has a need they can name but underneath it is a need only Jesus Christ can meet. Knowing this helps us to know what we actually pray for and what we actually pursue.

Heart: God wants you to believe that Jesus Himself is your greatest treasure and that He is able to meet your deepest need.

We are prone to want God's hand more than God's face. But Colossians 3:3 tells us our truest identity is hidden with Christ, not in whatever issues we're facing. Believe that He is enough, even when the circumstance doesn't change.

Hand: God wants you to come to Christ with your needs, trust Him above His gifts, and point others to Him through both compassion and the Gospel.

This week, look for someone with a need you can meet and don't stop at meeting it. Like Peter, follow the act of mercy with the word of the gospel. The wonder exists to clear space for the word. Don't let the moment pass in silence.