Getting More Than You Expected!

Getting More than you Expected

Acts 3:1-10

Online Sermon: http://www.mckeesfamily.com/?page_id=3567

“Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I was once lost but now I’m found, was blind but now I see!” Do you remember the unspeakable joy the day when you were not only cleansed but born again (John 3) and sealed by the very Spirit of God (Ephesians 1:13)? As the living waters flowed through your soul (John 4:1-26) no longer did the cross seem foolish to you (1 Corinthians 1:18) or the Bible mere words but the very breath of God that trained you in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16-17). Having been blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:3) surely going from being a babe (1 Corinthians 3:1) to being a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1) who constantly prays (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18) and thirsts for the living God (Psalms 42:1-2) has already been realized in your life? And yet despite being Christ’s ambassadors (2 Corinthians 5:20) capable of planting and sowing seeds of righteousness (1 Corinthians 3:6-9), doing miracles in His name (Acts 3:6) and approaching His throne of grace (Hebrews 4:16) to draw nearer (James 4:8) and be ever more transformed into His likeness; many Christians are satisfied with an occasional glimpse of His glory! “Do you have the expectations of a beggar, or are you looking for God to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that you can ask or think, according to the power, of the name that is at work in you?” The goal of this sermon is to spur you on and hopefully with the Spirit’s conviction have you be ignited with passion to not just exist in His kingdom but to be lifted up, dance, leap, and praise God with every fiber of your being with the assurance that whom God has enabled (Ephesians 2:10) truly can do unimaginable and glorious things that honors the Father in heaven (Matthew 5:15-16)!

Going to the Temple

To help ignite your passion to become more like Jesus I want to share the story of the lame beggar being healed in Acts 3:1-10. The story begins by stating that Peter and John went to the temple to pray. While there is “little recorded information concerning the forty days that Jesus spent with the disciples between the resurrection and His ascension,” Luke describes this time period as being one in which “everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles” (Acts 2:43). Not many days ago Peter and John stood at the empty tomb unsure of their future but now instead of arguing about who is the greatest they are seen here walking in unity through the gate called Beautiful and along the steps “leading from the outer court to the inner court” for a “service of prayer which accompanied the evening sacrifice.” Even though Pentecost had already come and the apostles themselves became the temple of the Spirit they chose not to “separate from the traditional practices of their religion” but to enter His gates with thanksgiving in their hearts (Psalms 100:4) and fulfill Christ’s command to bear witness first to the people of Jerusalem (Acts 1:8). As they repeated the prayers of the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9), 18 Benedictions and the Ten Commandments, the apostles and the other Christians rejoiced amongst the Jewish crowd that the Lord was their “source of salvation and strength.”

Being Lame from Birth

In verse two are told that there was “a man who was lame from birth was being carried into the temple gate called, Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.” Since there was no real social network in his day the only way this man could survive was by going to the entrance of the temple and hope that since “almsgiving which was classed in Judaism as a meritorious act” might lead to some not looking away but instead giving him a copper coin to buy some food. This was not a man merely having “just a bad day but this way his way of life.” He did not walk as a toddler, a preteen, teen or even at his current age of over 40! While we may not know what it is like to be physically unable to walk, we certainly can relate to this man for we were once spiritual cripples! “We were all born in sin, separated from God. Our sin was inherited, and we were born crippled by sin.” Once we were born again and had the Spirit of God living inside of us, we became capable of walking, running, and doing miracles in Jesus’ name! I am so glad that I had a mother and father who carried me into the house of God when I was a child and got to hear the words of the preacher who pointed me to Jesus! And yet despite being freed from the bondage of sin and capable of doing more than we could every ask or imagine, many believers come to church as if they are still lame, always needing others to carry them and never standing on their own! Do we have some spiritual cripples in the house of God today?