WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.719 As I was preparing for this sermon, and as I was praying and trying to think through what it is 00:00:06.719 --> 00:00:11.599 that God wants us to see and hear as we come together this morning, there's one thing that 00:00:11.599 --> 00:00:19.339 just stuck out to me again and again and again, and that is that we need Jesus. I know it sounds 00:00:19.339 --> 00:00:24.780 really simple. We need Jesus. But I think it's incredibly important and incredibly powerful, 00:00:24.780 --> 00:00:35.480 because I realize that in my life, I rely on myself a lot. I rely on my power of thought and my 00:00:35.480 --> 00:00:43.579 wisdom and my strength a lot. And I've been reading the book of Acts a lot lately, and as I read through 00:00:43.579 --> 00:00:50.260 the book of Acts, there's one thing that sticks out to me again and again and again, and that is 00:00:50.259 --> 00:00:58.359 that they constantly, in the book of Acts, relied on Jesus. Again and again and again, the situation 00:00:58.359 --> 00:01:05.799 comes up, and things look dire and bleak, and rather than say, oh, let's have a strategy meeting and 00:01:05.799 --> 00:01:13.680 figure out how to deal with this, or rather than stress out, the church prays. They rely on God, 00:01:13.780 --> 00:01:19.680 and again and again and again, God comes through for them. And I was reflecting on it, and I realized, 00:01:19.680 --> 00:01:25.080 if you took the person of Jesus and the Holy Spirit out of the book of Acts, it would be an 00:01:25.080 --> 00:01:32.140 incredibly boring book, because nothing would happen. There would be some people sitting in a room, 00:01:33.080 --> 00:01:39.620 the end. Everything that happens in the book of Acts, the gospel moving forward, people's lives being 00:01:39.620 --> 00:01:48.219 changed, happens through the power of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit. And I just keep asking myself, 00:01:48.219 --> 00:01:54.260 if I took the power of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit out of my life and the ministry that I do, 00:01:54.359 --> 00:01:57.420 how different would that look on a day-to-day basis? 00:01:59.719 --> 00:02:04.400 And there's a big part of me that's scared that it probably wouldn't look as different as it should. 00:02:06.039 --> 00:02:09.340 If you take Jesus and the Holy Spirit out of the book of Acts, 00:02:09.340 --> 00:02:16.659 things look wildly different. And the more I reflect on this, the more I'm aware of the fact 00:02:16.659 --> 00:02:25.819 that I need Jesus. So as we come together today, I want us to see Jesus. We have three really simple 00:02:25.819 --> 00:02:33.259 points. One, Jesus worked powerfully in the Bible. Two, Jesus wants to work powerfully in our world today. 00:02:33.259 --> 00:02:41.639 And three, our proper response to Jesus' power is worship. So let's, as we start, take a minute to pray 00:02:41.639 --> 00:02:47.099 that God would reveal himself to us during our time together and that we would see Jesus during this time. 00:02:48.219 --> 00:02:52.780 Father, we thank you that you are good. We thank you that you love us. We thank you that you are 00:02:52.780 --> 00:02:59.099 a powerful God who has sent Jesus into the world to work powerfully and who sent your Holy Spirit today 00:02:59.099 --> 00:03:05.400 to work powerfully in us. We pray, Holy Spirit, that you would open our eyes to see Jesus and his power 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:13.799 and his beauty and to fall in love with him today. And in Jesus' name, amen. So first step, God worked 00:03:13.799 --> 00:03:21.039 powerfully in the Bible. We see that in this story. We see that in three ways. First, God worked powerfully 00:03:21.039 --> 00:03:27.439 to heal. The story starts off pretty simply, Peter and John heading into the temple, normal everyday life. 00:03:27.439 --> 00:03:32.699 There's nothing special about this day. They're going to pray, which a good Jew would do pretty 00:03:32.699 --> 00:03:38.340 much every day if they were in the area. And as they're heading into the temple in the normal, 00:03:38.759 --> 00:03:46.639 everyday, mundane tasks of life, they come upon a lame beggar who's been lame from birth. He has never 00:03:46.639 --> 00:03:52.479 been able to walk. I'm sure that all of us have seen a situation like this at some point in our lives. 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:59.000 I find that I often see them as I'm on the walkway heading into IFC, beggars out there just asking for 00:03:59.000 --> 00:04:06.579 money. And this man looks up at Peter and John and he says, money, please. And they get his attention 00:04:06.579 --> 00:04:14.699 and they tell him, look at us. He looks up at them and they say, we have no silver and gold, but what we do 00:04:14.699 --> 00:04:23.539 have, we give to you. In the name of Jesus, stand up and walk. And the man climbs up to his feet and 00:04:23.539 --> 00:04:31.519 the passage says that he starts walking and leaping and praising God. God works powerfully to heal this 00:04:31.519 --> 00:04:38.360 man. As the man starts walking and leaping and praising God, crowds start to gather because they 00:04:38.360 --> 00:04:47.439 recognize this man. He's the man who sat out front his entire life, never able to walk. And the crowds 00:04:47.439 --> 00:04:54.680 gather together to see what's happening. And as they do, Peter steps up and starts to preach to them. 00:04:54.939 --> 00:05:03.620 And as Peter starts to preach to the crowds, we see God's power to transform. See, if you were here at 00:05:03.620 --> 00:05:08.300 Easter, you would have heard another story about Peter. You would have heard a story about Peter 00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:15.480 failing and failing miserably. It was the night when Jesus was betrayed and arrested. And Peter, 00:05:15.600 --> 00:05:21.459 who had been his follower and friend for three plus years, is sitting there watching everything 00:05:21.459 --> 00:05:25.579 happen. And he has person after person walk up to him and say, you're friends with him, right? 00:05:26.100 --> 00:05:32.980 You know this Jesus guy. And again and again, three times, Peter says, no, no, I swear, 00:05:32.980 --> 00:05:41.100 I have never seen this man in my life. And when he realizes what he has done, that he has failed, 00:05:41.860 --> 00:05:53.319 that he has denied Jesus, he runs away in shame, in guilt. And this same Peter who failed miserably 00:05:53.319 --> 00:06:00.700 to stand up for Jesus in the hour of Jesus' greatest need is the same Peter who's standing here 00:06:00.699 --> 00:06:08.759 preaching to this crowd. Something happened in his life that's transformed him. Because even though 00:06:08.759 --> 00:06:15.399 it's the same person, he's not the same person. There's something radically different about him. 00:06:17.039 --> 00:06:21.120 And it's not just that he stands up and starts preaching. I mean, if you look at what he says 00:06:21.120 --> 00:06:28.659 in this sermon, this is one of the harshest sermons I've ever heard in my life. Peter stands up in front 00:06:28.660 --> 00:06:36.540 of the crowd and tells them, you killed God. There's no book on how to get people to come to your church 00:06:36.540 --> 00:06:44.640 that recommends talking to them that way. Peter gets up and he literally says to them, you asked to have 00:06:44.640 --> 00:06:53.620 a murderer released from prison so that you could kill the author of life. In the middle of a crowd that 00:06:53.620 --> 00:06:58.139 could easily become a mob, this can be a very dangerous thing to say. If you don't believe that, 00:06:58.199 --> 00:07:02.660 just flip a couple chapters over to Acts 7 and see what happens to Stephen when he says it. 00:07:04.199 --> 00:07:11.220 Peter boldly speaks to the crowd about who Jesus is and about what Jesus has done and about how the 00:07:11.220 --> 00:07:18.000 crowd responded to Jesus. He confronts them, but he offers them hope as well. He says, you know, 00:07:18.000 --> 00:07:25.459 God foretold about this in the Old Testament. And God said that this was going to happen. And God 00:07:25.459 --> 00:07:29.879 wasn't caught off guard by it. In fact, it was part of his plan. And he raised up Jesus from the dead. 00:07:30.079 --> 00:07:39.379 And through Jesus, he now offers you forgiveness. And he calls the crowd to repent, to turn to Jesus, 00:07:39.379 --> 00:07:50.680 and to trust in him. Peter, as he does this, is a totally transformed man. And what is it that 00:07:50.680 --> 00:07:58.620 happened that changed Peter from this coward to this bold, fierce preacher? He experienced the power 00:07:58.620 --> 00:08:07.240 of God to transform his life. He saw the resurrected Jesus, and he knew when he saw the resurrected Jesus 00:08:07.240 --> 00:08:16.819 that there was nothing that any person could do to him that God's power to restore and redeem could 00:08:16.819 --> 00:08:24.100 not overcome. He experienced failure, but he experienced forgiveness. And he knew that he was 00:08:24.100 --> 00:08:30.699 loved unconditionally despite his failure. And then, as we've talked about the past few weeks, he had the 00:08:30.699 --> 00:08:37.220 Holy Spirit come and live inside of him so that God himself was guiding him in his day-to-day 00:08:37.220 --> 00:08:47.379 life. God worked powerfully to transform Peter from this coward to a bold, fierce preacher who was not 00:08:47.379 --> 00:08:54.800 afraid to stand up and declare God's truth in a very direct way to the crowd. And as Peter preaches, 00:08:55.480 --> 00:09:02.759 we see God's power in a third way in this story. We see God's power to save. It wasn't in today's 00:09:02.759 --> 00:09:07.080 scripture reading, but if you flip ahead four verses, it says in Acts 4.4, 00:09:07.220 --> 00:09:13.419 but many of those who had heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to about 5,000. 00:09:14.080 --> 00:09:19.360 Now, there's some debate about whether 5,000 people believed in it this day, or whether after this day 00:09:19.360 --> 00:09:25.539 there were 5,000 total Christians. Either way, you're looking at 2,000 to 5,000 people who trusted in 00:09:25.539 --> 00:09:35.339 Jesus this one day from this one sermon. God works powerfully to save people right in this story. And if 00:09:35.339 --> 00:09:41.599 you're sitting here and you're thinking, yeah, that's cool, but they've obviously never met my friends or 00:09:41.599 --> 00:09:46.980 family or co-workers because that's not going to happen with them. Remember, this is the crowd of people 00:09:46.980 --> 00:09:54.560 that killed Jesus. God works powerfully to transform their lives. Peter's not preaching to an easy crowd 00:09:54.560 --> 00:10:03.180 here. Peter is preaching to a crowd that not long before was an angry mob calling for the death of God. 00:10:04.240 --> 00:10:12.039 And God works to save this crowd. God works to transform their lives. And if you're here today and 00:10:12.039 --> 00:10:17.500 you haven't trusted in Jesus, I don't know, maybe there are some of you who feel like I've just done 00:10:17.500 --> 00:10:24.079 too many things wrong for God to forgive me. This passage shows that that's not true. God reaches into 00:10:24.079 --> 00:10:31.279 the lives of several thousand of the people who killed Jesus, and he saves them and rescues them, 00:10:31.319 --> 00:10:38.559 and he offers you that same forgiveness here today. See, Peter tells them that it's actually 00:10:38.559 --> 00:10:45.379 through their greatest failure, through killing Jesus, that God has made a way for them to be 00:10:45.379 --> 00:10:52.239 forgiven because Jesus pays the price for all of their rebellion against God. And so in Acts 3, 00:10:52.339 --> 00:10:58.019 we see the incredible power of God at work in the Bible. We see his power to heal. We see his power 00:10:58.019 --> 00:11:07.819 to transform. We see his power to save. And like I said, so often I just don't feel like I'm seeing that 00:11:07.820 --> 00:11:12.820 stuff happening in my life. Does anyone else feel that way? You don't need to put up your hands, but 00:11:12.820 --> 00:11:18.700 just think to yourself. My guess is there are a lot of us who feel that way. 00:11:21.540 --> 00:11:28.180 And that brings us to point number two, that God wants to work powerfully in our lives today. 00:11:28.179 --> 00:11:36.299 He's not just the God of back then, and now we're on our own. The God from back then in this story is 00:11:36.299 --> 00:11:44.699 the same God today, and he wants to work powerfully in our lives today. So why is it that I, or maybe we, 00:11:45.179 --> 00:11:52.939 don't experience a lot of this stuff on a more regular basis? I believe it's largely because I, 00:11:52.940 --> 00:12:01.000 slash we, have faith that is way too small, and that's focused on the wrong things. 00:12:02.480 --> 00:12:07.400 You know, if you go throughout the New Testament, in the book of Acts, and the rest of the New Testament, 00:12:07.920 --> 00:12:14.180 the resurrection of Jesus is absolutely central to everything that the Christians believe and do. 00:12:14.179 --> 00:12:22.279 If you look at, at verse 16, they say that his name, by faith in his name, has made this man strong, 00:12:22.359 --> 00:12:26.599 whom you see and know. The faith that is through Jesus has given this man perfect health in the 00:12:26.599 --> 00:12:33.419 presence of you all. It's all about Jesus, and specifically about him being raised from the dead. 00:12:34.120 --> 00:12:38.599 And you see this over and over and over. If you go to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, 00:12:38.600 --> 00:12:43.060 Paul says it so clearly that he says, if Jesus hasn't been raised from the dead, 00:12:44.560 --> 00:12:49.600 then no one should believe in Christianity because it's a lie. And anyone who does believe in 00:12:49.600 --> 00:12:55.639 Christianity should be pitied because they're wasting their lives believing a lie. But he closes 00:12:55.639 --> 00:13:00.980 out the chapter by saying, but Christ has been raised from the dead, and therefore, 00:13:01.820 --> 00:13:08.320 we should be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord, 00:13:08.320 --> 00:13:14.300 our labor is not in vain. Paul says the resurrection changes everything. The resurrection 00:13:14.300 --> 00:13:20.020 is the heart of what it means to be a Christian and where our power comes from as Christians. And 00:13:20.020 --> 00:13:24.780 even if you fast forward to the book of Revelation, that they're gathered around the throne of Jesus 00:13:24.780 --> 00:13:32.980 in heaven, and there's a crowd singing, worthy are you, for you were slain, and then implicitly, 00:13:32.980 --> 00:13:39.519 like, you rose again. And by your blood, you have ransomed for God a people from every language and 00:13:39.519 --> 00:13:45.720 nation and tribe and people. The death and resurrection of Jesus is not something in the New 00:13:45.720 --> 00:13:49.659 Testament that they sort of celebrate at the beginning and then move on from, because they've made it to 00:13:49.659 --> 00:13:55.340 the point where they can rely on themselves. The death and resurrection of Jesus is absolutely central 00:13:55.340 --> 00:14:07.060 to everything in the entire Bible. It's huge. It's important. And you see it here in Acts 3 as well, 00:14:07.120 --> 00:14:12.680 that it's central for Peter and John and what they're doing. If you look at verse 18, it says, 00:14:12.820 --> 00:14:18.600 what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that as Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Here we 00:14:18.600 --> 00:14:26.080 see the cross, the importance of the cross, and how it shows that Jesus was actually part of God's plan 00:14:26.080 --> 00:14:32.320 all along from the Old Testament. In verse 19 and 20, it says, repent therefore and turn again, that your 00:14:32.320 --> 00:14:37.379 sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may 00:14:37.379 --> 00:14:44.040 send the Christ appointed for you Jesus. They say through Jesus that God offers you refreshing. 00:14:44.620 --> 00:14:50.379 God offers you forgiveness. God has overcome the greatest enemy, sin and death, through Jesus. 00:14:51.459 --> 00:14:57.759 And then in verse 21, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all things about which God 00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:05.039 spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. They say the resurrection is the proof that God's going 00:15:05.039 --> 00:15:11.839 to one day restore all things. What they believe about God and what they believe about who God is, is 00:15:11.840 --> 00:15:20.980 completely built around the resurrection of Jesus. And the major message of the New Testament is that 00:15:20.980 --> 00:15:26.560 the Jesus who is crucified and who rose again is now reigning over the universe and empowering the 00:15:26.560 --> 00:15:36.300 church to live for him through the Holy Spirit. Do you get what that means? It means the God who right 00:15:36.299 --> 00:15:43.740 here in Acts chapter 3 healed the lame man and transformed Peter's life and saved thousands of people in the 00:15:43.740 --> 00:15:55.439 crowd is the same exact God who's reigning over everything today. The same God. And he wants to work 00:15:55.440 --> 00:16:04.080 powerfully in our lives, in our lives, in your life, and in my life. He doesn't want us to be content with 00:16:04.080 --> 00:16:10.720 the mediocre. He wants to do powerful and amazing things in us and through us. And if I'm being honest, 00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:15.720 most days I don't wake up expecting God to do incredible things. 00:16:15.720 --> 00:16:23.240 Most nights I go to bed and I put my head down on my pillow and I'm not really disappointed if I didn't 00:16:23.240 --> 00:16:31.320 see God do something amazing that day. On a typical night, I'm actually pretty content if nothing went 00:16:31.320 --> 00:16:38.300 catastrophically wrong that day. You know, on a normal Sunday, if I can come to church and we make it 00:16:38.300 --> 00:16:43.759 through the day with no one in the kids ministry breaking anything, no youth eating the snacks in the 00:16:43.759 --> 00:16:48.980 kitchen before church is dismissed, no parents complaining to me about anything, and no one 00:16:48.980 --> 00:16:52.620 messaging me in the afternoon saying I forgot to do something that I was really supposed to do, 00:16:53.000 --> 00:17:01.159 I count that as a win. That's a terribly low standard if the God of the Bible is the God who is reigning 00:17:01.159 --> 00:17:09.599 in the world today. If God is really God, we should not just be content that we avoided catastrophe, 00:17:09.599 --> 00:17:18.919 we should be expecting Him to do amazing things in our lives today. But what's my problem? My problem 00:17:18.919 --> 00:17:27.939 is that far too often, I rely on my own power. And if I'm living life by my own power, it is a major 00:17:27.939 --> 00:17:33.439 accomplishment to make it through the day with no catastrophe happening. Because on my own, I'm pretty 00:17:33.440 --> 00:17:43.100 powerless to stop most of those things from happening. But if the God of the Bible is the God 00:17:43.100 --> 00:17:50.160 who is ruling over the universe today, if the God who raised Jesus from the dead is the God who is 00:17:50.160 --> 00:17:55.559 reigning in my life today, if the God who healed the lame man and transformed Peter and saved the crowds 00:17:55.559 --> 00:18:05.259 is the God who is reigning today, then how can I be content with such a small goal in life? How can I 00:18:05.259 --> 00:18:17.179 expect so little? Why don't I expect amazing? You know, the more I read through Acts, the more convinced I 00:18:17.179 --> 00:18:23.839 am that God wants to do incredible and amazing things in us and through us today. But that won't happen 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:31.459 as long as we're relying on ourselves rather than Him. You know, Kevin talked last week about how the 00:18:31.459 --> 00:18:39.220 church in Acts devoted itself to prayer. He talked about prayer as a labor, like giving birth, that it's 00:18:39.220 --> 00:18:46.000 hard, it's difficult, but it brings forth life. And for the church in Acts, prayer was a way that they 00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:53.259 expressed their dependence on God over and over and over again as a part of their regular life. They 00:18:53.259 --> 00:18:58.940 expressed their reliance on the resurrected Christ through prayer. They expressed their reliance on 00:18:58.940 --> 00:19:07.160 the Holy Spirit through prayer. They spent huge amounts of time asking God to work in their world. 00:19:07.559 --> 00:19:13.379 And then look what happens. God heals a lame man. God brings a crowd together and thousands of people 00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:25.700 trust in Him. And if I'm honest, I find it difficult to sit down and stay focused on prayer for 10 minutes 00:19:25.700 --> 00:19:32.700 in a row. My mind gets distracted and starts to wander. Maybe I'll make it through 10 minutes, but I'll get up 00:19:32.700 --> 00:19:38.039 and just feel like I don't know whether I was really focused that whole time. 00:19:40.140 --> 00:19:47.220 And it's a symptom of the fact that I rely on myself way too much. And I'm not relying on God. Because if I 00:19:47.220 --> 00:19:54.059 am living my life relying on God, then I'm going to be desperately pursuing Him in prayer all the time. 00:19:54.059 --> 00:20:01.899 I'm going to be living my life with an awareness. I was hearing a pastor preach this week, and he was 00:20:01.899 --> 00:20:08.679 saying, you know, when we go to read our Bibles, we need to go with a desperation for God. He said, 00:20:09.099 --> 00:20:16.799 when you sit down to read your Bible, start out by praying, God, I need you. I'm going to die if you 00:20:16.799 --> 00:20:25.539 don't speak to me right now. How many of us actually believe that that's true? That we have this level 00:20:25.539 --> 00:20:35.399 of need for God in our lives? You know, I know that we have some people here who are amazing at praying 00:20:35.399 --> 00:20:40.919 and are prayer warriors. And if you tell them, hey, this is going on in my life, they will pray for you, 00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:48.860 and they will follow up and see how that's doing. But as a church, are we a church that is devoted to 00:20:48.860 --> 00:20:56.580 prayer? You know, if we have something that comes up, do we spend more time trying to solve the 00:20:56.580 --> 00:21:05.019 problems on our own or asking God to work? Do we spend more time stressing about how things are 00:21:05.019 --> 00:21:12.960 going to work out? Or do we get down on our knees and beg God to do something? When we gather on a 00:21:12.960 --> 00:21:18.779 Sunday or in our community groups or for various things throughout the week, do we expect the power 00:21:18.779 --> 00:21:29.240 of Jesus to be at work transforming lives? How dependent are we on prayer? How dependent are we on God? 00:21:29.240 --> 00:21:35.920 God. Because God is big. God wants to do amazing things. But as long as we're relying on ourselves 00:21:35.920 --> 00:21:44.019 rather than him, it doesn't typically happen. God obviously can work through that. 00:21:45.480 --> 00:21:50.740 But if you look at the Bible, he much more often works when his people come to him and beg him, 00:21:51.079 --> 00:21:57.680 God, come work. You're big. Do big things in us and through us. 00:21:59.240 --> 00:22:05.079 Prayer is how we express that reliance on God in the practical day-to-day of our lives. 00:22:06.359 --> 00:22:13.359 So we see God works powerfully in the Bible. God wants to work powerfully in our world today. 00:22:13.799 --> 00:22:21.440 And third, the proper response of us to God's power is worship. I'm not talking about like standing 00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:26.460 up and singing songs, although that may be part of it. What I'm talking about is lives lived in proper 00:22:26.460 --> 00:22:31.819 response to what he's done. One of the things that really struck me as I read through this story this 00:22:31.819 --> 00:22:39.380 week is that in every part of this story, God's extravagant love leads to a response of extravagant 00:22:39.380 --> 00:22:46.460 worship. You look at the lame man. He's sitting there. He can't walk. God heals him. And how does he respond? 00:22:46.460 --> 00:22:53.600 It says he was walking and leaping and praising God. God shows extravagant love by healing him. 00:22:53.819 --> 00:23:00.660 And the man responds with extravagant worship, praising God. With Peter, like we said, he was a 00:23:00.660 --> 00:23:08.039 failure. And yet God shows him extravagant love, forgiving him, restoring him. And how does Peter 00:23:08.039 --> 00:23:16.039 respond? Extravagant worship, boldly declaring to the crowds who Jesus is and their need for him. 00:23:16.460 --> 00:23:24.920 You look at the crowd. They killed Jesus. And yet God shows them extravagant love, offering them 00:23:24.920 --> 00:23:32.059 forgiveness and acceptance and restoration and refreshing. And how do they respond? Extravagant 00:23:32.059 --> 00:23:41.460 worship. They believe in him. And today, it should be the same pattern. We have a God who shows 00:23:41.460 --> 00:23:49.200 extravagant love and works powerfully to show extravagant love. If you're here today and you're 00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:55.200 not a Christian, God is offering you this extravagant love in your life today. Will you respond with 00:23:55.200 --> 00:24:02.519 believing? If you're here today and you are a Christian, God has already shown you his extravagant 00:24:02.519 --> 00:24:07.519 love? How are you expressing extravagant worship in your life today? 00:24:07.519 --> 00:24:07.599 Amen.