The Gospel to the Lame

[0:00] We hope that you enjoy this teaching from Christ Church. This material is copyrighted and no unauthorized duplication, redistribution, or any other use of any part is permitted without prior consent from Christ Church.

[0:15] Please consider donating to this work in the San Francisco Bay Area online at ChristChurchEastBay.org. Good morning.

[0:30] My name is Vaughn Woodson. Today's reading is from the book of Acts, chapter 3, verses 1 to 26, as printed in the liturgy. One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer at 3 in the afternoon.

[0:45] Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.

[0:57] Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, Look at us. So the man gave him his attention, expecting to get something from them. Then Peter said, Silver or gold, I do not have.

[1:11] But what I do have, I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk. Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong.

[1:24] He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful.

[1:38] And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While the man held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon's Colonnade. When Peter saw this, he said to them, Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you?

[1:53] Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.

[2:05] You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go. You disowned the holy and righteous one and asked that a murderer be released to you.

[2:18] You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong.

[2:30] It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see. Now, fellow Israelites, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders, but this is how God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, saying that his Messiah would suffer.

[2:48] Repent, then, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out. Repent, then, and turn to God so that he may be wiped out. That times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah, who has been appointed for you, even Jesus.

[3:00] Heaven must receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. For Moses said, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people.

[3:13] You must listen to everything he tells you. Anyone who does not listen to him will be completely cut off from their people. Indeed, beginning with Samuel, all the prophets who have spoken have foretold these days, and you are heirs of the prophets and of the covenant God made with your fathers.

[3:30] He said to Abraham, through your offspring all peoples on earth will be blessed. When God raised up his servant, he sent him first to you to bless you by turning each of you from your wicked ways.

[3:42] Amen. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You can be seated. Thank you for that, Vaughn.

[3:57] Good morning, Christ Church. My name is Andrew. I'm the director of pastoral care, and it's good to be with so many of you this morning in worship, in our in-person worship. It's good to be with you online.

[4:09] Why don't we go to God in prayer as we come to hear what he has to say to us in his word. Father, we are here to come before you as the everlasting God, and to hear a word from you as we wait on you for the salvation that our hearts so long for, that we've experienced in part, but that we know is still a long way coming.

[4:37] We ask that you would grant us faith as we hear your word this morning. So be honored in the preaching of your word. Be honored in the listening to your word. And we pray these things in the strong name of Jesus.

[4:50] Amen. Again, happy Lord's Day, everyone. Happy Mother's Day. Not the same thing, but very important things. We're going to continue our series in the Book of Acts now.

[5:01] Now, we're continuing the series, and Jonathan and I, we've been praying that this series would really, really inspire our church family as we seek and figure out what it means to be Christ Church East Bay again.

[5:14] Especially after, you know, all the volatility that our church family has experienced over the past two years. Jonathan and I, our staff, our elders, our deacons, we've been praying that this same spirit that supercharged the first century church as passionate and powerful witnesses of the kingdom of God and of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth, that this same spirit would do the same amongst us.

[5:38] That we would not waste the catastrophes that God has written into the story of Christ Church, but that we'd emerge from this season of really intense pruning with an abundance of fruitfulness.

[5:51] What we're looking at in the Book of Acts, I mean, look at what happens in the early church. This early church had this spirit, right? And they saw the Lord add to their numbers in one city 5,000 people.

[6:02] 5,000 people embracing the unbelievable good news of the crucified and yet risen Christ. And my question for us today is, Christ Church, why not also here?

[6:13] Why not also in Berkeley, Oakland, the East Bay? Why not also here? What are we expecting from God in this season and in the season to come? What do we really believe that the Spirit of God is able and willing to do here?

[6:29] Day in and day out amongst us. You know, and if we really do believe the Spirit is able and desiring to do immeasurably more than we could ever imagine, and my question for us then is, don't you want to be a part of that?

[6:45] Don't we all want to be a part of that? Christ Church, what if we, filled with the same Spirit as the early church, believed and lived as though our good and loving Father was able and willing to ordinarily do the extraordinary amongst us by His Spirit and in the name of His Son?

[7:02] I mean, even if you have trouble believing this, can I just ask, don't you want this to be true? Don't you want this to be true? Don't you want this for the world?

[7:14] Resurrection power that makes the lame to leap, that turns beggars into brothers, a world in which the extraordinary is ordinary in the name of Jesus Christ.

[7:26] Now, last week we left off with a snapshot, right? A snapshot of a basic day in the life of the early church. They had these predictable up, in and out patterns in the early church, every day devoted to the Word of God and to prayer and to fellowship with one another and to serving each other and their community with signs and wonders and generosity.

[7:45] And people were just like flocking to this vibrant and joyful community that was simply living out of the resurrection life of Jesus Christ's Spirit. Every day, all they were doing was just being the Spirit-filled church.

[7:59] And so I love how our text starts today in verse 1. It says, one day, like the extraordinary was so ordinary to them, like, oh yeah, that man who was lame and sat outside the temple for over 40 years, that guy, oh yeah, he was able to walk one day.

[8:13] He was able to leap for joy one day. And all of a sudden, after 40 years of being outside the temple, he was inside the temple praising God and hanging out with Peter and John and everyone else. Oh yeah, really just another day in the life of the Spirit-filled church.

[8:28] Now yes, there was a special quality to the apostolic age when God laid down some very unique foundations for the church, but we must not assume, Christ's church, that the apostles were any less dependent upon the Spirit's power and guidance than the rest of us.

[8:46] Sure, the apostles knew Jesus' command to be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, but they didn't know the exact plan for that. They were living day in and day out, up in and out, with their God, with each other, doing simple things.

[9:04] They were simply doing what they knew. They were being the church, again, up in and out, drawing people to God by their simple lives of faithfulness. Just seeing God draw more and more people to himself through their simple living.

[9:19] And I wonder if this is a word for many of us in the season that we are in, many of us who are constantly feeling paralyzed, without a plan, without clear direction, particularly in our cultural moment of intense activism.

[9:34] For those of us who want so much for this world, right? And we feel so responsible, and yet also like we don't know where to start. And then in our paralysis, we just end up neglecting to maintain the basics.

[9:48] Walking with God, walking with his people, bearing witness to Christ, to our neighbors in simple but not insignificant ways. In a sense, the apostles, they were keeping it real simple.

[9:59] Again, up, in and out, predictable patterns in their church family, and they just let God do the rest. He would open doors, and then he would close doors, and they would be prayerful and sensitive to the Spirit's leading, and then they would just walk through the doors that he opened, and not try to force open the ones that he closed.

[10:16] And the doors that he did open, though, they were incredible. And I think that's what's happening here in Acts chapter 3. And I want us to picture this scene, okay? Picture this scene in Acts chapter 3. Peter and John were up to their same spiritual rhythms.

[10:30] They're on their way to the temple, 3 in the afternoon, to pray, right? With hundreds of faithful Jewish people, Jewish worshipers, all also walking to the temple gate. And there at this temple gate, it was called the Beautiful Gate, right?

[10:44] The Beautiful Gate of the Temple of God sat a lame beggar. Now, just picture this contradiction, right? Maybe even this indictment of God and God's people.

[10:56] At the beautiful gate of the Almighty's dwelling place is a lame beggar who had been sitting there for over 40 years, living off meager alms, the meager alms of an oppressed Jewish community in Jerusalem.

[11:12] Imagine this ironic picture, this indictment of the power and presence of God, a contradiction that the people probably all just got used to, right? After 40 plus years of a lame beggar sitting at the gate of the Temple of Yahweh, this gate that was supposed to be called Beautiful.

[11:29] For most of the visiting worshipers, for even this lame beggar, it's just another day living in this irony. Just another day living in this irony. But for Peter and John, who are filled with God's Spirit, what to everybody else is just another day, while everybody else had become calloused to the contradiction of a lame beggar at the beautiful gate of the Almighty Yahweh, for Spirit-filled followers of Jesus Christ, this became an occasion.

[11:57] An occasion to bear witness to the truly beautiful and strong name of Jesus. So verse 3 says that the lame beggar, he saw Peter and John. He saw him among the hundreds of others walking in, and this lame beggar, he just does his due diligence.

[12:10] You know, he got to make that ass to everyone who passes him, trying to make a penny. He asked them for some money, probably with little to no expectation, just like those unsheltered people we drive past all the time, who see, you know, 99 out of 100 cars drive past them every day without anyone even recognizing their dignity as human beings.

[12:29] This lame beggar probably expects more of the same from these two disciples of Jesus. A penny, if anything, probably nothing at all, and certainly not health, and certainly not salvation.

[12:42] And yet, verse 4 says, Peter looked straight at him. He looked straight at him, and I love that, because that's what Spirit-filled people do. He looks straight at him. Peter sees his humanity, and he invites him to look back, and they share this personal eye contact, so much more than the mechanical drop of a penny in the can that this lame beggar is used to, right?

[13:03] This guy has probably never seen someone look at him at this gate like Peter looked at him this day after 40-plus years of begging. He's never seen anything like this.

[13:14] Someone who really saw him and his humanity and his worth and his dignity and even his dreams and his hopes. Someone who really saw in him a bright future. And as their eyes locked in this special way, the lame beggar who was finally seen by another human being was filled with a tiny bit of hope.

[13:33] And he thinks, verse 5, that maybe he'll get two pennies instead of one. A gold coin instead of a silver. But Peter has neither. And yet, he has everything.

[13:44] He has everything that this man needs. No silver, no gold, and yet everything. And Peter says in verse 6, Silver or gold, I do not have. But what I do have, I give you.

[13:55] And it turns out that what Peter has is way better than what this lame beggar ever could have imagined. Something even more powerful than the gauntlet of Thanos. Something more valuable than gold or silver.

[14:07] What I do have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk. And verse 7 says, Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up. And instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong.

[14:22] And he jumped to his feet and he began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. What Peter had, he gave to this formerly lame beggar.

[14:35] And what did he have? Christ church, he had the gospel. He had the power of God unto salvation for all who believe. Peter's good news to this lame beggar was, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.

[14:47] In other words, he was saying, You shall walk by faith. Faith in the strong and powerful name of Jesus. And this man, he did so. He walked by faith in the name of Jesus. As Peter explains in verse 16, this was by faith.

[14:59] It wasn't a magic trick, guys. Verse 16, Peter says, By faith in the name of Jesus, This man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him That has completely healed him.

[15:13] It's so important to notice this. Peter doesn't just give him a law. He doesn't just give him a command. Walk. No, he gives him the gospel. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

[15:27] Walk, he said. Because in his name, in Jesus' name, And only in Jesus' name shall anyone ever be healed. And this is what Peter had to give. Again, not a magic trick.

[15:38] The gospel. The gospel of salvation. For there is no other name under heaven By which we are saved. And when I say salvation, I want to be very, very clear.

[15:49] Because this word salvation Can easily become a kind of, you know, Christianese, right? And sounds so esoteric and irrelevant. Like, it's just about, you know, avoiding hell.

[16:00] But no, this man experienced what I like to call A holistic salvation. A salvation of his whole self, His whole being. Walking and leaping.

[16:11] He experienced a physical salvation. Able-bodied and probably now able to work, He experienced economic salvation. Look, he was walking into the temple With Peter and John And all these faithful Jewish worshippers Who had previously just walked by him, He had received social salvation.

[16:32] And yet, most importantly, After 40 years of sitting outside that temple, Hoping only in the scraps and crumbs Of countless worshippers of God, This man became a worshipper of God.

[16:43] He became what he was always meant to be. This is what salvation was about. He was walking and leaping And praising God, it says. A fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy.

[16:54] The prophecy of new creation In Isaiah chapter 35, Where it says that the lame would leap Like a deer And enter Zion with singing, With everlasting joy, Crowning their heads, Gladness and joy overtaking them, And sorrow and sighing, Fleeing away.

[17:09] You see, this is what Peter had to give. This is what Peter had to give. And so much more than a miraculous healing, It was the gospel. Through his gospel declaration, In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Walk, He was inviting this man To get a foretaste And to become a sign Of new creation itself By faith in Jesus.

[17:31] See, this is what the Holy Spirit does, Christ's church. This is what the Holy Spirit does. The Holy Spirit, It reaches, He reaches into the future. He reaches into new creation. And He pours it into this present age.

[17:44] This present age. As a sign. And He gives us a taste Of this new creation reality That was inaugurated By the risen Christ Who is ascended and seated At the right hand of God And is still yet coming At the very same time.

[17:59] It's a reality Only seen and experienced by faith. Remember what Apostle Paul says In 2 Corinthians 5, verse 17. He says, If anyone is in Christ, This is new creation.

[18:11] New creation is here. That's what the Spirit does. It pours new creation Into our experience Of this present age. As Christians, We have to understand This tremendous reality That we possess In Christ By His Spirit.

[18:28] And so I want to challenge us To really consider the question, What do we have to give? What do we have to give? And yes, Some of us do have That silver and gold And I hope that we do give it.

[18:39] But if we are in Christ, We must be convinced That at the very least, We have the very most. In Christ, At the very least, We have the very most. For at the very least, What we do have to give Is the good news Of the resurrected Christ.

[18:53] The good news Of the Spirit Of resurrection power. The good news Of new creation For a broken And battered world. And I guess That what I'm trying to say Is that We have to believe.

[19:04] We have to live out This truth, Christ's church. That the gospel Is enough. That Jesus is Lord. That there is power In the name of Jesus. To break every chain And to heal every disease.

[19:16] To right every wrong. And to even raise us From the dead. And therefore, What this also means Is that his beloved church, His bride, His body, Which he is tasked With bearing witness To the world Of this super, Super good, Good message.

[19:31] That it's worth Investing in this church. With our time. And with our talent. And with our treasure. And not by managing Our scarcity By imagining What God wants to do With his own abundance.

[19:44] This week, I was able to sit in On a Project Peace Speaker series. It's a three-part series. I encourage you to go Watch the next two. I'm looking forward to those. And the title of this Speaker series is called Abundance Versus Scarcity.

[19:58] And again, I want to invite you To tune in this coming Wednesday Because it's so important For us as Christians To internalize this. That we Christians, We worship a God Of creative abundance.

[20:09] The pandemic Is nothing to him. Even as he grieves with us, It is nothing To a God of abundance. And as theology professor At St. Mary's, Dr. Michael Barham Was saying in this Speaker series, He said that abundance, It's not about optimism.

[20:24] It's not about optimism. It's about resurrection hope. It's not mere Wishful thinking, But it's rooted In what God has done. And what he is doing. And what he's going to do In this world.

[20:36] And so I want to ask us again, Don't you want to be A part of this? Imagine this, Christ Church. Imagine with me, What if we, As a church, Here in the East Bay, What if we actually Believe Jesus' words When he said, Very truly I tell you, Whoever believes in me Will do the works I have been doing, And they will do Even greater things Than these.

[20:58] Because I am going To the Father. Because I am sending you The helper, My spirit. Might it be that God Wants to do a work In us So spectacular, So provocative, That people run To witness it Amongst us As they did At this temple.

[21:17] Right? Verses 9 to 11 Said, They recognized this man, This man who for so long They just accepted Would be a living Contradiction to the Beautiful gate Of the temple Of the Almighty. But all of a sudden In the name of Jesus Whom they had crucified Something beautiful Had actually happened At the beautiful gate.

[21:35] Are we becoming Too comfortable With the irony? Too comfortable With the contradiction? Or do we want To believe And see the spirit Make beautiful things Beautiful In the name Of Jesus?

[21:49] Might it be That God wants To do That God wants In the words Of our deacon Beth Todd That God wants To do a thing That God wants To do a thing Here and now To rest us And our neighbors From our complacency And our growing Comfortable With our broken Status quo.

[22:07] Could it be That God desires To use us Just like he used Peter and John And the early church To call people To faith In the name of Jesus For their good That they might be Healed Body and soul Inside and out.

[22:20] Remember this wasn't Just Peter's Apostolic gift To give Every follower Of Jesus Also has The gospel To give We all have The spirit Dwelling within us Desiring to use us To bear witness To a new creation In Christ Male and female Young and old Strong and weak It doesn't matter Because it's not about us And this is the gospel Right?

[22:42] This is the gospel That salvation And the realization Of new creation Does not rely on us Or our power Or our godliness But only on the Strong name of Christ Peter says here In verse 12 Fellow Israelites People who confessed And worshipped A God who Delivered their people From Egypt You know Saved Noah From the flood And brought them Back to Jerusalem Out of exile He says He says Why does this Surprise you?

[23:07] Why does this Healing of this Lame beggar Surprise you? Why do you stare At us As if by our own Power or godliness We had made This man walk?

[23:19] He was saying This wasn't me At all It was all God It was all God Don't you see He says in verse 13 The God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob The God of our fathers Has glorified his servant Jesus This is all God's doing In order to bring Glory to the risen Son Jesus Because that's What it's all about And that's what God's all about To quote Beth Todd Again God is doing a thing He wants to do a thing He's glorifying his son And he's using The most unexpected Unlikely Undeserving People Like you and me To do it As he fills And empowers us With his spirit Now I know I've spent a lot Of my time today Talking about Talking to the church Talking to Christians I mean this is A Christian sermon From the Bible But I'm also aware And we're super thankful That some of us here Listening in Viewing Attending here today Might be skeptical About all of this Skeptical about The power of God Skeptical of God Himself really And thus

[24:19] Skeptical of the resurrection And of miraculous healings Maybe you're here today And you're mad at God Maybe you're mad at God Precisely because You did believe You did ask To see his power And things didn't turn out The way that you wanted Your mom's cancer Didn't go away Your grandma She didn't get better Your children are still not Where you want them to be You're still lonely Your mental health issues Are still there And even if you believe In Jesus with all your heart It's hard for you to hear This challenge right To believe In the power of God And if I can be honest With you To be honest I don't know That I have a personally Satisfying answer for you An answer to explain Why God does what he does When he does it But something that's been Helpful for me to realize Is that when Peter said To this lame beggar In the name of Jesus Christ Walk This man very well Might not have walked

[25:20] And yet Peter Was speaking the truth He might not have walked And yet everything That Peter said to him Was true In the name of Jesus Christ Of Nazareth Walk Again this wasn't A superhero magic trick Of Peter the apostle Right Like some comic book There were three possible scenarios As I understand this Okay Peter could have preached This gospel to him In the name of Jesus Christ Of Nazareth Walk And the lame beggar He could have rejected The gospel He could have not believed And he could have met This gospel with doubt And skepticism And therefore not walked Or there's scenario two Which is what happened Scenario two Is what we see happen He believed And he did walk Praise God Glory to God This is new creation Breaking in But there is a scenario three And I think it's a scenario That we're all Very very well acquainted with Right One I imagine That we are very very familiar with And we've heard this version Of the gospel before

[26:20] People have said to us They've prayed over us In the name of Jesus Christ Of Nazareth You know Be rid of your panic attacks In the name of Jesus Christ Of Nazareth Be rid of your addictions And your cancer And your loneliness And your depression And your heartbreak But here so many of us are Right Truly believing in Jesus Truly believing in his power And his ability To get rid of All these afflictions In our lives What's going on Christ Church What's going on Is God a liar Is his power a sham No No it's not And I know that Without the eyes of faith You'll probably receive What I'm about to say As a cop out But the confession Of the Christian faith Is that salvation And healing In the name of Jesus Even as some truly do Experience it immediately By the Spirit's Inbreaking of new creation Into history For many and maybe even Most of us It's more of a Not yet reality Than an already one New creation Was experienced Already in a real way

[27:21] By this beggar Praise God And for many people Throughout the world Who see miraculous things Like this Praise God God is very clearly At work But the not yetness Of new creation Christ Church Doesn't make it Any less real It doesn't make New creation Any less real One might argue It makes it Even sweeter The gospel message In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth Walk Is the truth Whether we walk now Or whether we will Walk later And even if it is later It is still The power of God And so So relevant For us today Christ Church This is our hope This is the hope Of the world And I know that So many of us Might still Be skeptical Of course he's telling me It's not here yet Of course he's telling me That What good Does that do For me Well I want to Challenge us I want to challenge us As Peter challenged The crowds To investigate This claim To really dig Into the word of God Peter says

[28:22] Look at what has happened Is this not what Moses had written about Is this not what The prophets Had written about What God had foretold For many years Have you ever seen God not fulfill His promises Even if you have to wait Didn't we just sing today He's the everlasting God His time horizon Is wider Longer than ours We will wait on him We're just saying that To him I will wait on you I will wait on you As Peter says In verse 22 For Moses said The Lord your God Will raise up for you A prophet like me Among your own people You must listen To everything he tells you And this prophet Was Jesus Christ You think it was hard To believe in the prophets Of the Old Testament Well it shouldn't be hard To believe in Jesus Christ The one who loved us The one who gave himself For us This is where it all Stands or falls Will we listen To the one God has sent The prophet Jesus Christ And I know this begs The question for some of us Well why should we

[29:23] Why should I trust This prophet Jesus Christ This supposed son of God And this is where I'd like To end with two reasons From Acts chapter 3 Why I'd hope you'd consider Listening to and trusting In Jesus Christ This one who we confess That God has sent Even if you are fed up With the not yetness Of his new creation promise And the first reason is this Jesus Christ God himself The author of life Peter calls him The author of life here right He is not unacquainted The author of life himself Is not unacquainted With the not yetness Of new creation He is not unfamiliar With the brokenness Of the world He is not unfamiliar With the long and hard And painful waiting That God calls us into For those of us Who await Our not yet new creation Reality As Peter reminded This crowd In verses 13 to 18 Jesus the holy And righteous one The author of life himself He was disowned And rejected And killed And traded in For a murder A murderer

[30:23] But none of this Was in vain And none of it Was without a purpose And none of it Was outside Of the plan of God Peter says of Christ's Sufferings in verse 18 But this is how God Fulfilled what he had foretold Through all the prophets Saying that his Messiah Would suffer Do you understand this?

[30:41] Might it be That just as God Allowed his only begotten son To suffer And to wait For the coming Of new creation At his resurrection Which implied his death Might it be That he might also have A similarly glorious Plan for us Suffering was not Beneath Jesus Why is suffering Beneath us?

[31:07] And if Jesus Could wait And hope And trust In resurrection Why shouldn't we? Why shouldn't we Wait and hope And trust In new creation? Why can't we trust God's plans For our good And his glory That are yet to be fulfilled And unfolded?

[31:22] And the last thing I want to say The last reason I'd commend to us For why we can And should trust In Jesus This Jesus That Peter proclaimed Even when salvation Seems so So distant New creation So so far And irrelevant Is this I just want to say Christchurch Look at his heart Look at the heart Of God Look at the heart Of Jesus Christ Look at the heart Of God In Acts chapter 3 Even as Peter Is going for the jugular Man He doesn't hold back His punches Right?

[31:47] He calls these people Murderers Rejecters Of the author Of life He says You need to repent Because you are so wicked You are so sinful That he had to die for you To wipe out your sins The beauty is that He's calling them To repentance Verse 19 Repent then And turn to God So that your sins May be wiped out That times of refreshing May come from the Lord This is what God Wants for us This is his heart For us For our sins To be wiped out He wants us To be refreshed To these murderers Of the Lord Jesus These murderers Of the Son of God The heart of God For them Is for their sins To be wiped out For their sins To be wiped out And we know he's done it Through his suffering At the cross At the cross By his blood This is his word to us This is the gospel Verse 26 When God raised up His servant The author of life Whom we all crucified And rejected And who were all Prone to doubt Even today Even the most faithful

[32:47] Of us Verse 26 When God raised up His servant He sent him first To you To bless you To bless you By turning each of you From your wicked ways And this is the gospel Christ has come To bless us To bless us And that's the message Of the cross That's the message Of the scriptures That's the heart of God The heart of God Is desiring To bless the wicked In the name of Jesus Christ Church New creation Is coming And it's breaking in Even now And even when we don't see it As we might want to We have a savior Who understands that experience And not only that But his heart Is still to bless us His heart to bless us Will never fail It will never fail For his people This is God's word to us This morning Let's pray Lord God We pray that your church Would live What we sang this morning That we will wait on you It will dawn on us

[33:50] That we are living before The everlasting God And your time horizon Is so much greater than ours We thank you That you sympathize with us In our sorrows And we just ask That you continue To bolster our faith Lord God Bolster our faith That we might trust you We might believe This new creation promise That you've given to us The hope of the world This is what we have This is what you've given us And would you make us bold To give it to others as well We pray these things In the name of Jesus Amen Amen