This would be the perfect time to grab your Bibles and open to Acts chapter 3. And as you do that, I just want to do a little recap of where we’ve been. This is like the “previously on” part of the episode that is right at the beginning, right? A few kind of significant things have happened in the life of the early church.
If you weren’t watching last season, the end of last season, the season finale, was Jesus’ death and resurrection. Kind of a big deal. And the cliffhanger was like, “So now what? What’s going to happen now?” And so just in the first couple of episodes of this season we have seen the ascension of Jesus into heaven and then the Holy Spirit drops like the fire bomb and the Rosetta Stone gets downloaded into the disciples’ brain like in the Matrix and they’re just like instantly speaking the gospel in other languages.
One thousand plus people listen to a guy preach a sermon who has never preached a sermon before, and his whole message is you done messed up and killed the Messiah. And instead of booing Him off the stage, they say, “We did. What do we do now?” And they repent and they believe and thousands of people are baptized. And then the kind of ending montage of last week’s episode was all these people gathering for dinners in homes and praying and worshiping and believing and just people coming in droves asking how they can receive Christ. It’s an amazing, amazing time and it’s going to continue here today.
I mean this should be a TV show. Netflix needs to get on this. They should pick it up. I’m looking at you, “The Chosen.” You should just continue into Acts. Because it’s phenomenal to even try to insert ourselves into the story because God is on the move.
And so we’re going to do that today. So in Acts chapter 3 we’re going to read this story of what happens to Peter and John. So if you would, let’s just read it together, our food for today. Acts chapter 3 starting in verse 1 says, Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. That’s about 3:00 PM. And a man lame from birth was being carried whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.
But Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up. And immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
And all the people saw him walking and praising God and recognized him as the one that sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While he clung to Peter and John, all the opele utterly astounded, ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s.
And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people. “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. And you killed the author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses in his name. By faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.
And now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers, but what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer he thus fulfilled. Repent, therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that He may send the Chrsit appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.
Moses said, “The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brother. You shall listen to him in whatever he tells you and it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. And all the prophets who have spoken from Sameul and those who came after him also proclaimed these days. You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers saying to Abrham, “And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness (Acts 3:1-26).
It’s an amazing story and I want us to see this morning that there are two parts to chapter 3 in Acts, and it’s a miracle. And then there’s a message. And while there are two events, they’re not kind of individual events. Rather the miracle is the thing that leads to the message. Let’s first focus on the miracle that we just read about. Specifically this was a miracle of healing.
Now there are lots of miracles described in the Bible. If we were just to look at Jesus’ life and ministry when He was on the earth, He did plenty of miracles. And someone did the math: 38.5% of Jesus’ miracles are healing miracles, which means that there are a lot of times in the Bible that we see something like this happen, that something is broken and God restores it.
But let’s define miracles for a second. Because you may have been praying for a miracle during the Notre Dame game yesterday, but this is a totally different thing what we’re talking about. Ok so just google the definition of miracle, here’s what it says: “a surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.”
And then you think of healing. So a definition of healing is simply “the process of making or becoming sound or healthy again.” So I thought about this really long and combined the two, a miraculous healing definition: “a surprising and welcome process of making sound or healthy again that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divine agency.” That’s a simple definition for us this morning of a miraculous healing.
So that’s what we mean, and they happen a lot in Scripture except for it is not considered to be the work of a divine agency. It is the work of our God. And right here we’re seeing it happen again. And we know that from the gospels that it wasn’t just Jesus who was doing this healing through the power of God. Several times He sent out His followers, His disciples, and they performed miracles such as healing the sick, the blind, the lame, the deaf, casting out demons. And now with Jesus ascended and the Holy Spirit present on the earth, these miracles are still happening through His disciples Peter and John.
And the details of this miracle are incredible. I do not want us to miss them this morning because it will build our faith. Look back at verse 2. It says that a man lame from birth. So this wasn’t a guy that got a leg cramp on the way to church and needed a Gatorade. This guy had never stood, walked, in his life.
And every day probably for a number of years now he had friends, relatives, whoever, carry him to the temple so that he could beg for some spare change because he had no ability to work or gain an income. And so he was utterly dependent on the people of that region to provide for him so that he could eat, and he could survive. And this was his life. This is what he did.
And he wouldn’t have been the only one there. It wasn’t like his spot and he shooed everybody else away. This was a hotspot for begging because it was a massive gate into the temple. See, there would have been a lot of beggars around because while the temple had a lot of gates, this was by far the biggest gate. Seventy-five feet high, sixty-feet wide, covered in gold and brass. One scholar notes that it was covered in Corinthian brass, which changed and aged over time so that when the sun hit it, it kind of glittered with a rainbow like effect, this is where it got its name, the Beautiful Gate.
And so anybody who’s anybody who’s going to church is walking through the Beautiful Gate. And this is a smart man. Devout Jews had three pillars of their faith: reading and memorizing the Torah, praying at the temple and giving to the poor and needy. So you have people who are about to walk into a place and pray, “Oh God, bless us. Help us in our life.” And they’re walking by poor and needy people.
“Can you just spare some change?”
These guys know what they were doing. This was the most lucrative spot for them to beg, and he was there daily just like this day. And now we can’t read something into the Bible that isn’t there, but it’s not far-fetched to believe that Jesus probably walked past this man at some point as He went into that temple. And he had maybe heard of this Jesus of Nazareth who was healing people and miracles were happening. And he maybe met friends who at one point had something and they came back and they said, “Jesus healed me.”
And so he might have this idea in his head that at some point maybe he’ll just get close enough that he can get this guy’s attention and he might be healed. And then the next news he hears is that guy was murdered on a cross. He was crucified as a traitor. And so all that hope is now gone. “I missed my opportunity, so back to the grind. I just need to get back to the temple. I’ll just get some change and today he’s not just calling out to Peter and John. Everyone who is passing by.
“Can you spare some change? Alms for the poor. Alms for the poor.”
And it just so happens that at this moment Peter and John are headed into the 3:00 PM prayer service, and out of all the beggars who were probably there with some form of disability, when they lay eyes on this man, the Holy Spirit nudges Peter and says, “Him. heal him.”
And so they pause and they ask, “Hey, look at us.”
And he probably thinks, “Ok awesome. I’m going to get something from these guys. I hope they have a decent amount.”
And the first thing Peter says is, “I don’t have any money.”
Now again, this is just how I read the Bible. I like to insert myself into the story. This guy has a very small window of time as people go into church. There’s a lot of people, there’s a lot of opportunities to get some change. So one guy says, “Hey, look at us. Don’t look at anybody else; look at us. I don’t have anything.”
“Then why’d you ask me to look at you?”
This is the equivalent of you, you’re driving and you get to the stoplight and the guy is there; that’s his corner. And you roll down the window and you’re like, “Come here.” He comes over to you and you say, “I don’t have anything to give you.” If I’m that guy, I’m pretty upset. Like ok, cool. Thanks for wasting my time?
And then Peter says, “Rise up and walk.” Again, man lame from birth, has never taken a step in his life, has never stood on his own two feet. So now you’ve got a guy who just said, “I’m not going to give you anything,” and kind of mocked his disability. Peter is kind of 0 for 2 in this story. This guy might be a little bit upset, right?
It’s interesting to note too that Peter is not doing this out of spite. He’s not saying, “Like hey, I’m not going to give you any change. I’m going to give you something better.” No. Peter literally has no money. Right? Not a very good verse for the prosperity gospel. This guy has the power to heal and he’s got not a dime to his name, ok? He’s wearing what he’s got and that’s what he’s got. The Son of man has no place to lay his head. We are continuing that example.
This isn’t about money. “I don’t have money, but what I do give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And then I love this. It says that Peter has to grab him and pull him up by his right hand. Which means there was probably a moment of hesitation from this guy of like, “What did you just ask me to do?” Peter is like, we’re just going to do it man. And he grabs him by his hand and he pulls him up.
And it says immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. In fact he leaps. He doesn’t just stand when he gets up, he jumps into the air. Now I’ve got three kids and I’ve watched all of them learn how to walk. And it’s a process. It’s not a, you know, one day it just kind of happens. There’s a little bit of a process involved.
Two of my kids were crawlers. One was a bum shuffler. And so, you know, eventually they go from that and they pull themselves up onto a piece of furniture and you know they fall down. And eventually they’re comfortable to kind of pivot around the furniture. And then a day comes when they let go and they stand there like, “What just happened?” And then they fall. And then they take their first steps, right? And then my kids, it was ten seconds later like dead sprint and your life is just different and you’re just blocking off any cavity in your house and you’re making a little area and they just live in that.
And so it’s a whole process. And so I wanted to show you this was like a little over a year ago and this was our daughter Lyric like kind of after she had kind of figured out the walking thing. And so this is like her just learning how to walk. Watch this video.
All right. So you can see like she’s pretty pumped. She’s got it figured out. She’s got the little shuffle going, and you know, still some falls that are in there. And it was months later at this point and she’s seeing her older brother just jump. And so we’re like, “Lyric, can you jump?” And this is what she looks like when she tries to jump.
Ok, so just to be clear, walking, jumping, very different scenarios as you’re learning how to walk. There are muscles that have to be developed and things that your body has to get used to: spatial awareness, all of this. And it says immediately he stands and then he leaps.
So for a man who has never used his legs before, to go from laying with completely undeveloped atrophied muscles to standing and jumping means in an instant muscles were grown, develepted, strengthened and he had the wherewithal to know how to use them to a point to jump. This is insane. This is a miracle. There is no explanation.
Another thing that’s incredible to know is this healing happens without the guy asking for it. He just wanted some coins. You look at all the healing miracles in Scripture and they all look a little different. We see someone physically healed in the Bible, whether it’s sickness or can’t walk or disease or blind or they’re dead. The circumstances and situations are never exactly the same.
So what does this mean for us? Listen, there are many people here today and in our world who are begging God for healing. And you might be in one of two camps. You might be begging God to see healing or to receive healing, and you are frustrated because you’re asking and you’re faithful to Him and He has not done it yet. And you see other people get healed.
Or you might not just be frustrated. You might be depressed because you believe God obviously heals certain people and He has passed you over for that opportunity. He must not love you as much as others or you’re doing something wrong. And so God has chosen not to heal you.
But when I look at Scripture and I see how God heals, I realize this. The first thing we should realize is that physical healing has no formula. There’s no formula found in the Bible for physical healing. I don’t know. What is it? Do you have to like spit in the mud and put it on your eyes? Does the mother have to be crying over the dead body? Does the Centurion have to come and ask for his servant to be healed? Does the person have to cry out in faith? Or do they have to in this instance not even ask for it, and that’s where healing comes from?
Yes. There is no formula for physical healing. Throughout Scripture we see this over and over again and in our own life a miracle of physical healing, we just can’t put a formula on it. See, I’ve grown up in the church. I’ve heard these stories and I’ve heard stories of countless believers and followers of Jesus who have experienced supernatural, miraculous healing in their life.
And I’ve been in prayer meetings. I have put my hands on men with cancer and over a person in a coma from a car accident and over the mom of an unborn baby who the diagnosis isn’t good. And I’ve prayed, “Heal, God. Heal, God, heal,” and it’s never happened. I’ve never seen it happen in that moment.
But then I know it does. I have the faith to believe that it will. I was talking to some friends, my wife and some of her friends and Junior/Senior year of college they spent three or four months in Africa with our mutual friend now. His friend is Peter, which is awesome.
And Peter is a great man. He works for an organization that rescues children from child sacrifice by witch doctors. So think of the darkest place you can imagine and then go ten levels deeper. This is where this guy just lives. And he rescues children from this and he leads a local church over there. Just a man of faith.
And there’s a story of him driving along the road and they pass this kind of commotion on the side of the road. And there’s a man laying there and they’ve kind of like put blankets over him. And there’s just a crowd gathered around him. And they try to get around. They were headed some place. They had to be there at a certain time. And Peter is sitting in the passenger seat and he just turned around and go pray for that man. Like that’s all he could sense in that moment.
And so he says to his friend, “You’ve got to turn around.”
And the guy is like, “No, it’s crazy. We’re not an EMT. We have nothing to offer this guy. It’s not our job.”
And he’s like, “If you don’t stop the car, I’m going to jump out.”
And so the guy is like, “Ok.” And he turns around and they come back. And he walks up and this man had been in an accident and he was dead.
And so they’re like, “We’re just waiting for authorities to get here and all of this.”
And he’s like, “I’m here to pray for him,” and they laugh at him.
They’re like, “Go ahead. He’s dead.”
And so he starts praying and the guy like gasps and breathes. And so everybody scrambles and they load him in a car, they take him to the hospital. Peter follows them to the hospital and talks to this guy about the gospel. That man comes to know Christ, leads his whole family to know Christ and now they’re serving the church in Africa. Amazing. Amazing.
I’ve got another one. I’ve got another one from this guy. I could do this all day. Let’s do this the rest of the time. So this is crazy. They rescue a child who had already been sacrificed by a witchdoctor. Somehow this child is still alive, but half of his skull, like the arc of his skull, is gone from the machete cutting it off. And so he needs like emergency surgery. And so they’ve rescued him, they’re trying to get him into surgery, and then a bomb goes off at a local bar during the World Cup. And so everybody available doctor is serving those people, and so there’s this long delay.
And so Peter just starts praying and he sends out a text to all of his prayer warriors. People just start praying for this young boy. And then eventually he finally gets into surgery. And the doctor comes out and goes, “I don’t know who your God is, but the skull is there.” The guy is miraculously healed. No surgery needed, goes on, lives his life. Insane.
This is the God we serve, church. This is not just some words on a page. This is what God is doing in His world. And I’ve never seen it, so what do I do with that? I’ve never done it. I’ve never laid my hands and their skull has regrown. So am I missing something in my life? What’s the formula that I’ve missed out on? There is no formula.
And listen. We don’t have time today to unpack everything around healing, nor does this passage call for that. But what I can tell you is that God’s desire is to heal His children. It’s not at all dependent on me for another person, but rather the power of Jesus Christ, the name of Jesus.
So the application out of this? There’s no formula so ask for healing because it could happen, because that’s who Jesus is. The second thing we need to realize is that physical healing is always missional. It’s always missional. You look back in Luke and there are countless examples of Jesus healing.
And then we get to Luke chapter 19 and it’s the story of Zaccheus. Does everybody remember the story of Zaccheus? Zaccheus was a what? A wee little man, right? Super weird. Everyone who’s outside of Christian culture is like, “What did you just say?” Can we unpack that for a minute? No, we’ll do that at a later time. We’ll let Pastor Micah or Pastor Trent do that.
But all throughout Luke we see Jesus perform miraculous healings. And then Luke 19. He interacts with Zaccheus, the dirty, rotten, thieving, lying tax collector. And what happens? He goes to his house and Zaccheus repents of his sin. He turns and he gives everything that he had stolen back to people fourfold. That’s not a small amount of money that he just gave away in an stant from a guy who had been collecting his whole life.
And Jesus makes a statement. He says this in Luke 19:10. For the son of man came to seek and to save the lost. And that word save is the same word we see all throughout the New Testament as “heal.” The word is sozo. Jesus states His mission on earth is to seek and heal the lost. So it’s a central part of the gospel message that healing is coming and available to us.
And so whenever we see physical healing, we have to understand that it’s missional to point people back to the glory of God- who He is and ultimately that our God is wanting, desiring, to sozo, to heal, His creation. And the same thing is happening here in Acts. look back at verse 8. And leaping up he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.
I just think, and I want to encourage you with this, that word leap is never used again in the New Testament. It’s only used ehre. There’s only one other place where it’s used. It’s Isaiah 35:6. It’s a Messianic prophecy about Jesus and it says this. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap like a deer. Prophecy fulfilled in a moment through this blind beggar who didn’t even ask for healing. Our God is a healer.
And all the people saw him walking and praising God and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate at the temple asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. And again, I read the Bible where I’m just in the story.
Can you imagine the people who had walked ahead of Peter and John who gave this guy money? Just think about that for a second. You’re like, oh man, that’s the guy? I’ll bless this guy today. Like thank you Lord for giving me that opportunity to bless somebody. And you turn around and he’s walking into the temple. And you’re like, I missed something. So you’re running over to see what’s happening, not really out of amazement but, “ You’ve got some explaining to do, sir.”
So this man, he’s clinging. He clung to Peter and John. All the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s. And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people. Now before we get into Peter’s message, it’s important to just say that while this man could have done a thousand other things, enver walked before. He probably has some ideas of what he wants to do with this newfound ability.
Instead, he clings to Peter and John and he’s praising God, because physical healing is always missional. God healed the man so he could now go do whatever he wanted with life, but rather that God would get the glory. This man is worshiping and praising the Healer, which is not Peter, not John, but the God that everyone in that building that he’s never had the ability to walk into is praying to.
And Peter has been in this spot before, right? Something crazy happens, people are like, “What’s going on?” and they gather around him. And Peter is like, “I’m having a little bit of deja vu. I should probably preach again, I think. Ok, here’s the title of his message, the third thing we need to understand. Physical healing doesn’t compare to spiritual healing.
The awesome thing about this man clinging to Peter and John and not running off to do whatever he wanted is that Peter how has the perfect sermon illustration. He gets to point to this man and explain where that power came from. The portico where they’re gathering would have been a shaded area in the temple, one of the few shaded areas from the blazing Middle Eastern sun. And that’s where they would gather and they would sit and Rabbis would teach.
And to think that Peter and John, not Rabbis but fishermen, common men, would come into the temple and teach a multitude of people it’s ridiculous in that culture. But God sends a miraculous healing so that everyone gathers to hear what Peter has to tell them. And Peter is just going to use the same sermon outline he used last week. He tweeks it a little bit, but it’s the same idea.
Verse 12. And when Peter saw it he addressed the people, “Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this or why do you stare at us as if by our own power or piety we have made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him.
Peter’s intro is basically just reminding people of where they are. These people came multiple times a day to pray to the God of their fathers, the God of the Old Testament, the God who split the Red Sea, who sent manna, who knocked down the walls of Jericho, the God who made a way. He stopped the sun for a day. There are so many examples of how powerful their God was and then they’re just astounded at the idea that someone was healed right outside the temple.
And Peter is like, “Do you know who you’re praying to? Do you understand who we serve? This is God’s power on display. Church, there’s a challenge here for us today that we should come into this building expectant and believing that our God can do miracles. And yes, we should pray for physical healing. Yes, we should pray for people to come to a full restoration of things that ail them. But at the end of the day, we should pray and believe that God wants to sozo, wants to fully heal those spiritually that need it.
The greatest miracle you can experience in your life is not physical healing. It is salvation through faith in Jesus. The gospel message is not designed so that you can live your best life now but so that you can have eternal life with God. and so we should not be like, “Oh man, a bunch of people got baptized. That’s crazy. It’s been like six years.” That should never happen in this church.
We should come every week believing that someone needs to be spiritually healed, and we should be the biggest ambassadors for the gospel message. We should be the lame man walking and leaping and praising God, because we are the children of God healed by our Father. That’s what we should do. The challenge here for us that Peter reminds us of is like why do you wonder at this or look like it has anything to do with anyone up here? No, it’s God.
Peter quickly takes the focus off the recipient of the healing and the healing itself and places the glory where it belongs, on the one who heals. And he’s letting them know, yeah, physical healing, awesome. God is so powerful. He can do that. But you all need spiritual healing and it’s way better.
And there’s two points of Peter’s sermon on spiritual healing. First is that spiritual healing starts with bad news. For there to be healing, that means something is broken. Healthy people don’t need healing; sick people do. And the first part of healing is hearing the bad news that you’re sick. So if I could just for a moment put on my lab coat and sit across the desk from you, I have to give us all the same diagnosis. We’re dying and we can’t heal ourselves.
Now there are people in this room and there are people all over who are facing this in a very real way. There are people this week who have sat in that chair and heard the news, “It’s not good.” And there are some of those friends, good friends, who have come and the elders have laid hands on them and anointed them with iol and have prayed for healing because James 5:14 tells us we should do that and so we do. And we believe in faith.
And even if we did that and God healed, even if it was a miraculous clean bill of health- the cancer is gone; everything is fine. It’s a miracle. Praise God! Even if that happens, a few more years, maybe a couple decades and that would be amazing. Praise God. We pray that that would happen and many people would come to faith because of the testimony of that person. But the diagnosis is still the same. We’re dying and we can’t heal ourselves.
But there’s a treatment plan. There’s a prescription. Peter outlines it starting in verse 17. He says, And now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that this Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled.
Now to be clear, we have to acknowledge that ignorance is not him letting them off the hook. Ignorance is not the same as innocence. They were ignorant to who God really was as Jesus. But so were the disciples to some degree. They were ignorant, but they were not innocent of the blood they had shed. And this is true for all of us that we may be ignorant of who God really is, but we are not innocent of the sin that we have committed in our life.
Sin has still caused us all to fall short of the glory of God. Ignorant or not, you are not innocent. You can be ignorant of a disease and still need to be healed. Sinners are the exact same way. So he gives the treatment plan in verse 19. Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out.
And listen. That’s not as easy as, “Take two of these and call me in the morning.” But the first step in the healing process is to take a step away from what has been making you sick and to fix your eyes on the healer and start walking towards a Savior.
And then we see what happens. We see what happens in verse 20 that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that He may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.
Here’s the second point in Peter’s sermon. It starts with bad news, but spiritual healing results in complete restoration. It results in complete restoration of us as God’s people and the world as God’s creation. See, it is the grace of Jesus to sozo, to heal, to save us and make us spiritually healthy so we can abide forever in the presence of our Lord.
And our God is healer not only of us spiritually but of His creation as a whole. There is a day coming when there will be nothing left to sozo, to heal. Everything will be made right and as it should. See the truth is church is that we live in a time where the kingdom of God is now and not yet.
Just as the apostles are experiencing that through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection and the coming of the Holy Spirit, we see glimpses of the kingdom now. These stories we know of miraculous healings, these people whose lives have been completely changed, the marriages that have been restored, a complete 180. I was going this way and the addictions are broken and now I’m walking this way. This is breaththrough of the kingdom in our world.
But the faithful saint who battles cancer and is never healed, the young man who dies in a car accident, the mom who loses her baby, they’re all stark reminders that the kingdom is not yet. But that day is coming. And while we pray for glimpses- God, give us a glimpse in this moment; heal- we put all of our hope in the spiritual healing that only God can provide to anyone who calls on the name of the Lord.
The rest of Peter’s message is reminding the Jews that this is a grace to you. God has decided to give you this message first. But as we’re going to see as we continue through the book of Acts, the plan is for all to experience sozo from our God for everyone, us Gentiles, in this room are experiencing the healing power of Jesus right now through the gift of the gospel.
And there will be a day where lame men walk, blind men see, the deaf hear and the lost are found and everything is as it should. It does us so good to just pause as many times as we can and read this from Revelation 21. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them and they will be his people. And God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain nor sickness nor illness nor any lame men nor any blind men nor any abortoin nor any early death. No cancer. None of it. For the former things have passed away (Revelation 21:3-4). Sozo. Healed. Complete.
So here’s a question for us this morning. Are you begging for healing? Are you begging for healing in your life? Maybe you’re here today and you remember the season of the day of your life when you realized how broken you were, when you called on the name of the healer Jesus Christ and He came and he sozo, he saved. He restored you spiritually.
But maybe you’re looking for that healing to continue and your faith has wavered because you look at the world or your circumstances and you say, “Is God actually a healer? Does He actually care?
Church, let us remind ourselves of the miracle of salvation. You are a walking, talking, leaping, praising miracle. Don’t lose the wonder of that. Do not lose the wonder and the worship that comes from your healing.
But you might be here and you’re thinking, “I identify a lot with the guy outside of the temple. I’m broken. I’m messed up. I’ve made some wrong choices. I don’t really know if I deserve to be healed.” Can I tell you some good news this morning? None of us have deserved to be healed. Not one of us have put ourselves in a position where God is like, “Oh finally, you’ve arrived. Here’s your healing.”
Rather, we brought our mess and our brokenness to God and said, “God, I can’t, but you can.” And the beauty, the power of the gospel in salvation is that it is available to those who seek it. All it takes, as Peter outlines here, is to repent, to admit your brokenness and turn from it and say, “God, heal.”
And so as we close this morning, I just want to give that opportunity. I want to pray and if you’re in a spot where you’re saying, “I’m so broken, and I’m ready to be healed,” I would just encourage you to pray. Pray with me and believe it. And then we’ll have pastors and friends here at the front and outside in the lobby at the foot of a cross where we see complete healing happen at the cross.
And so go there. And you can be counseled. You can be talked to about, “Man, what do I do now?” And this could be the first day for you walking on new legs, healed in the name of Jesus. Would you pray with me?
Father, in the name of Jesus Christ whom we serve and we believe in and we trust, I pray for healing. God, I pray that I would be aware of the broken things inside of me. And God, I repent and I turn them over to you right away. I turn away from the former things that have put me in a state of needing healing and I claim victory over the disease of sin in my life through the blood of Jesus Christ on the cross shed for me in my place. It’s my punishment, God, and I believe it.
And so God with open hands and open heart, would you restore everything inside of me that is broken? And God, would you help me turn and walk in newness of life? And God, I don’t have it all figured out, but I believe that you will walk with me and continue to heal the broken things in me as I repent and confess the name of Jesus. God, come, sozo, and restore in the power of Jesus name, amen.