It's All About Jesus Series

Good morning, everyone. Glad to be able to meet online and worship the Lord together. Let’s prepare our hearts for the Word of God.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the opportunity to meet again online, to worship you, to remember You, and to hear from you.

Thank you for Your written Word, inspired by your Spirit and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and for our training in righteousness, so that we can be made complete and equipped for every good work.

We pray, O Lord that we will not just be hearers of the Word, but that we might truly be doers of it also, for Jesus Christ's sake. Bless our time together, in His Name we pray, AMEN.

We are reading Acts 3:11-26 today. Last week we heard of a lame man being healed.

• The one whom everyone recognises because he sits by the temple gate every day, begging; the one crippled from birth, who has never ever walked.

• 4:22 tells us he was over 40 years old. Being in such a condition for so long and getting him to walk, this is an impossibility.

• And yet by the power of Jesus Christ, this man walked, for the first time in his life.

• And not just walked, but jumping and praising God before the crowd in the temple courts, giving glory to God.

• The Lord healed him, not just physically but spiritually. Nothing is impossible with God. He can restore any broken and crippled life.

We are going to see what happens next today. Let us read Acts 3:11-26.

Right from the start, Peter deflects attention from the miracle and from himself, and onto JESUS. It’s all about Jesus.

• With such an extraordinary healing that has just taken place, it would be inevitable that the attention is on Peter.

• He could easily have taken some credit for himself. Just by being silent, he would have taken the glory from God.

• Peter deflects all glory to Jesus. Why are you so surprised? “Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?” (3:12)

• Many Christians would have fallen right here, taking credit for the success of their ministry.

Peter went on to enlighten them and highlighted 3 things that they, as the people of Israel, need to understand.

• They need to know what God has done, what God expects from them, and trust what God has promised them. The same lessons for us today.

KNOW WHAT GOD HAS DONE for them through Christ

3:16 “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 given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.”

This healing wasn’t just a miracle, it was a SIGN. A miracle points to the healing; a sign points to the One who caused it, to the One who did it, to the NAME that was invoked.

• Peter said to the man: “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” (3:6)

• It was in the name and authority of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that this man walked. His feet and ankles became strong, instantly (3:7 Luke tells us).

• The power that Jesus had during His public ministry (that we read about in the Gospels) was still present here in Acts.

• The miracle points to the presence and the power of the living Christ among them.

And who is this Jesus? He is not some fly-by-night prophet but the Messiah spoken about in the Scriptures. Peter uses terms that the Jewish audience understands.

• He is the “glorified SERVANT Jesus” (3:13), the term links Him back to the prophecies of the OT, to words of Isaiah and Zechariah.

• He is the “SERVANT of the Lord”, the SERVANT of “the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers.” (3:13). He is the promised Messiah!

• And sadly the Messiah “you killed”; the One whom they had rejected and crucified!

Jesus’ death was not political, circumstantial or accidental. His coming and death was in God’s plan. He was sent by God to do the will of God.

• In his earlier message at Pentecost, Peter said: “It happened by God’s set purpose and foreknowledge” (cf. 2:23).

• Jesus came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. ‘You disowned the HOLY AND RIGHTEOUS ONE (v.14) and killed the AUTHOR OF LIFE (v.15),’ Peter said.

What an irony! Noticed how Peter expresses the paradox.

• (1) Pilate (the one with authority to decide) wanted to let Him go but they wanted Jesus crucified;