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Good morning.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Amen.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
You can be seated.
Thank you for that, Vaughn.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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?
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?
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And so I want to challenge us
To really consider the question,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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?
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
Why does this
Surprise you?
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?
He was saying
This wasn't me
At all
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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?
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?
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?
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?
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
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
Of us
Verse 26
When God raised up
His servant
He sent him first
To you
To bless you
By turning each of you
From your wicked ways
And this is the gospel
Christ has come
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
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