Faith in the Name of Jesus

This morning we're going to do Walking in the Spirit, Acts chapter 3. And I just want to read a statement to start off about walking in the spirit. And that is, for Christians, that walking in the spirit often means simply taking the next steps in our daily life, yielded to the power and purposes of God so that we can be his witnesses of transforming love and grace. So it's not a terribly mysterious thing. And this week in particular, we're going to talk a lot about what walking in the spirit actually means. At Pentecost, last chapter, the spirit of Jesus came upon the believers and he provided with them power to be his witnesses. We see it probably in the most flamboyant way with Peter because he was given the gift to be able to teach all the people that gathered there the gospel message. But we have to remember that all the believers were baptized in the spirit and given power to be witnesses of Christ. And we saw that in terms of the love and the unity that they had for one another as they lived their lives. But everyone needed to be yielded to the spirit as they were empowered. And our first sentence now in chapter three tells us that

And we don't know how much time has passed. We don't know if this is the next week, the next month. But what we do see is Peter and John going about their normal activities. This is probably the things that they did before Pentecost as well. And so they were going about their normal activities. And as they did, God allowed them to be participants in what he wanted to do, in what the spirit was doing, continuing to do on Earth. And they were simply yielded and obedient. And they were aware of their surroundings and aware of the opportunities that might arise. So let's read what happened in verse two.

Now, along with me, how many of you have taught this lesson in Sunday school, right? Even on a flannel graph, it's kind of fun. You can kind of make the little guy run around or sing that song. It's kind of great. Familiar stories can provide a little bit of a challenge for us because we think that we have gleaned everything, but that's never true. We can get to be over 100 years old and still find something new in these passages. And every event that we see in scripture has multiple perspectives. You can look at it from this side, you can look at it from this side, and there's some different perspectives on it. So what we wanna talk about first is from the perspective of the disciples themselves, Peter and John, how exciting it must have been for them to see again in an undeniable way that the spirit of Jesus was doing things on Earth through them, through their activity. And there are three things that I thought of that are required, and these might be great words for you to even write down. They had to be filled with the spirit in order to accomplish that. They had to be yielded to the spirit so as to even notice what was important to God that day right in front of them. You know how we've talked about every week, we're naturally aware of the things that are important to us. But what are the things that are important to God? And the third thing is willing. They had to be willing to be used by the spirit to engage that crippled man and not have the fear of what might happen or fear of rejection or anything. So Peter and John were filled, they were yielded, and they were willing. And those three words really sum up our experience of walking in the spirit. Those three things are required for us to be filled, yielded, and willing. Another main point that we see that I already mentioned is that these disciples were carrying on their normal routine. They were doing what came naturally to them. And if we wake up in the morning and we ask to be filled, we choose to be yielded and willing, then we too simply carry on our routine. We go to work, we visit our elderly relative, we take care of the baby, we teach the children, we mow the lawn, we go to the grocery store, we paint the house, we do that remodel. Whatever it is that we're engaging in, we don't need to find something different. We go about our normal activities becoming aware. God, what's important to you along my path? What can I see through supernatural eyes that I might miss with natural eyes? So I think that that's a great perspective for us. We're gonna look at the cripples perspective at the end of our lesson. What I wanna do is continue to go on in verse nine.

I've decided that in life, there are some situations that cause people to just, you get their attention, right? Or they will just come up and talk to you. Complete strangers will come up and talk to you. I have decided that having a baby in your arms will cause complete strangers to come up and talk to you. It came to mind that when Alyssa was about three months old, so my older two kids were eight and ten, and we used to volunteer every Thursday at Wellspring and set up bowling pins for the ladies to do their activity. And so you bring a three month old into an assisted living facility and you have collected a crowd. And this one lady, she says to me, she goes, what a precious baby. How old is she? I said, she's three months old. My baby is 71, isn't that sweet? So having a baby. Second thing is if you're fishing. If you're fishing, complete strangers will come up and talk to you, right? You catching anything? What do you get here? All that kind of stuff. Third thing is if you're on a motorcycle. I have filled up my car with gas for 50 years and no one ever asks me where I'm headed. But all of a sudden, if you have a motorcycle, everyone wants to stop. Where'd you leave from? How far have you gone? Where are you headed, okay? Now I'm adding two more from this study. I'm adding two more things. If you're with a group of about 120 people that all of a sudden start speaking in languages they've never known before, it collects a crowd and people will be amazed and they will begin to engage with you. And also, if you say to someone who's been crippled, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk, that gets people's attention. And that is exactly what happened here. It drew a crowd, and so Peter knows the drill by now. He knows, basketball's in my hand. Time for me to do something with it because I've got, this event has created amazement and wonder and people are ready to listen now. And so Peter says in verse 12,

And please cut down to verse 16.

And so Peter is super careful to deflect the attention away from himself, away from John, even away from the man who was healed, and place it squarely where it belongs. And he tells the people, this is because this is in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, that this man is able to be healed. And that was very wise of Peter. And it's a good lesson for us, too, as we're walking in the spirit. This was a very demonstrative thing, but as we are walking in the spirit and God gives us a spiritual gift, it may create people to respond to that spiritual gift. And we wanna make sure everyone knows that this is from the Lord. Now, it could be kind of irksome to stop every single person and say, now just stop, this is in the name of Jesus that this is accomplished. Let's say, for example, the Lord gives you, Peter had the gift of healing, okay? That was the gift that was given him at that moment. Let's say Romans chapter 12 gives us a list of some spiritual gifts. Let's say the Lord actually gives you the gift of encouragement. And you are regularly operating in that spiritual gift of encouragement. You have the capacity to encourage people. And they come away from a conversation with you genuinely inspired and encouraged. And people may say to you, you're just such a thoughtful person. The worst thing that could happen is that you start believing them. I am a pretty thoughtful person, aren't I? Like every time I talk to somebody, they just leave happy. I guess I'm pretty thoughtful. Do you not think that Peter, the capacity was there for him in his flesh to start thinking, in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus. It's just easy for us to misplace where power comes from. And so I was thinking, well, what do we do? I remember Corrie Ten Boom saying that, of course, this happened to her a lot. Because she went around teaching and encouraging people. And people would often come up to her and say, thank her or tell her how much they gleaned from a message that she taught or whatever. It happened frequently. And so she dealt with this situation to keep herself in check. And she said, I received every comment from the people as if they were giving me a flower, and I thanked them for it. And I collected my bouquet. And at the end of the night, in the quiet of my room, I would lift it up to the Lord and present it to him. And I would say, this is really yours. You enabled me to do this, here's your bouquet. And I thought that's really sweet because it helped keep her in check to remember. And there may come a time when you actually have to speak and verbally say. But like I said, you can't just open up your Bible every time and say, now turn with me, too. So there's an idea. But then Peter, actually, the part that we cut out in verse 13, I wanna read that. Because Peter actually does call out this group of Jews collectively about their culpability in what had happened. And in the middle of verse 13, he says,

Well, the convicting work of the spirit was at work in this group. And so Peter seized the opportunity to just lay out the brutal truth. This was the truth. He spoke the truth to them. Can you imagine how they felt? It was undeniable that in some way they knew that they were standing face to face through Peter with the spirit of the one that they had denied, that they had rejected. And Peter's explaining, this is the spirit of Christ within me that is doing And by the way, you murdered him, you rejected him, you asked for a murder. Can you imagine those emotions? I tried to spend some time this week imagining how it feels to face someone face to face in a way that you have rejected. And I can't really come up with an illustration of a person that I had sentenced to death in my life. But we did have a cat once. And I hope the story is not irreverent. But when we moved into this house, we got a boy and a girl kitty from the Sheffields. And we named him Esther and Mordecai. And over the course of time, Mordecai became just mean. He was the tomcat. He was gone for long periods of time, came home with big patches of fur missing. And he was mean to Essie, we called him Essie and Morde. And he was mean to Essie and his sister. And he got to be high maintenance. And we thought, this is not working out. Well, coincidentally, at the same time, Hector and Marley moved right over there out in the middle of that field in a little rental house. And they needed a mouser. And so we thought, perfect, we'll just donate our high maintenance kitty. I'm sure he'll be better for them. And so we sent Morde to live with Hector and Marley. And about four days later, it's about five miles from our house as the drone flies. You see where that's going to happen, right? About four days later, I opened the back door. And the only thing separating me and Morde is the screen door. And he's there. And he's looking at me with those eyes like, I know what you did. And I knew that he knew what I did. And it was a super uncomfortable and eerie moment in my life. And I just kind of sat and I looked at him. And I thought, oh, this doesn't feel good at all. But anyway, these people were facing, like I said, I don't want to be irreverent, but that's what was going on. The Jews had to face the truth that this was their Messiah, that they had rejected, and that they had denied. And now his spirit was at work. And Peter kind of calms the moment a little bit in verse 15. He says,

And so we're beginning to see in this study that sometimes talking about the obvious and the uncomfortable truth is what is necessary and what is required. Just naming the elephant in the room. Peter named it. He said, oh, you're the rejecters. You're the deniers. This is what you've done. And in our culture, are we not so afraid of offending anyone on any level that it is very challenging for us as women of God to speak truth? Do you feel this along with me? And so I think it points us, so this is an element of what we see in the first days of Peter speaking truth that we definitely need to lift up and apply to our last days, that to ask the spirit to give us the capacity to speak the truth, even if it's uncomfortable, even if it makes someone uncomfortable, I am sure that they felt that. And as a human being, once we face our sin, for those men standing there, for us as well, once we face our sin, there's only one remedy. And Peter spoke it in verse 19.

The times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. What a delightful promise, times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord. But it's a promise with a condition. The condition was told us ahead of time, repent, turn back. That's the only way you'll get to this promise. And so repentance was their answer that day at the temple. It is our answer today. Do you not feel along with me that the Lord is doing a new work in our day? I feel like this word repentance, we are going to hear more in the next 12 months than we've heard our whole lifetime. I feel like this is just something the spirit is doing, is showing us there's no other way for peace with God, for times of refreshing, except repentance. First of all, to come to Jesus and repent of denying that he is the only way to have peace with God and accepting his gift of salvation. But then additionally, for us as Christian girls who are already born again, to repent of things that create that barrier, that have stopped us from having complete refreshment from the Lord. So this audience here is a Hebrew audience that Peter's talking to, and they know the scriptures, and so Peter uses the scriptures with them. And in verse 22, he starts telling them, and working through the scriptures together,

God having raised up his servants, sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness. And now it's almost as if Peter's words are cut short because we hear the footsteps of the church leaders coming in the next chapter. And they came and carried them away into jail. And so that's why it ends somewhat abruptly. He doesn't even really get to finish his argument there. But what we do know, that's our next lesson, that's for next week. What we do know is that Peter made very good use of the ball in his hands again, and he scored. Now it says 5,000 people, 5,000 men came. The number grew to 5,000, we read in the next chapter. So what I want to end with is the perspective from the crippled man himself, and what actually happened to this man. Do you ever wonder when you read things in scripture, like what did he do then? How was his life changed? What was it like? And I don't want to steal your discussion from day two in your study guide, but I want to just dialogue very briefly about the similarities, the comparisons that we see between this one man that Luke recorded for us who was healed, and every single human being. And so here's some of the comparisons. First of all, he was crippled from birth, and someone crippled from birth had no possible way to affect his own physical healing. There was absolutely nothing he could do about that. And we too are crippled from birth with the sin that we're born into, and there is no possible way we can affect a spiritual healing on our own from the sin that we're born into. Oh, do we try. People try all the time, and it's still a popular thing to think if I just do enough good things to outweigh that. People still try to do the balancing act, but the truth is we are all crippled with no way to foster that healing. The second thing is that the cripple was excluded from worship in the temple. Did you not see him sitting at the gate outside the temple? He couldn't go in. The law didn't allow him to go in, and we too suffer that same because of our infirmity of sin. We are outside of the kingdom of God as a cripple, as a sinful cripple. Before we come to Jesus, we're outside of the kingdom of God with no way to enter in. Paul explained it to the Ephesians this way. He was talking to the believers, so he had to ask them to remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, foreigners to the covenants of the promise without hope and without God in the world. So him sitting at the gate outside of the temple also represents our condition before Christ. Then the cripple received, he had faith to receive the healing in the name of Jesus. He was physically healed as he extended himself to the invitation that Peter gave, and his healing came physically in the name of Jesus. And in the same way, once we hear the gospel message and apply faith that that is our way for spiritual healing, it is only in the name of Jesus, I love that that was emphasized by Luke in this chapter, so that we know for sure that that is the only possible way to affect that change, affect that healing. And then we read in verse 8 that once he was healed, it says he entered the temple with them, with Peter and John. He got up and he went with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And we hardly have to explain what the comparison is here, that we now have an opportunity to enter in, enter into that fellowship, enter into, first of all, enter into the family of God, enter the kingdom of God, but enter into the temple and the worship and praise and the fellowship with everyone else that is inside. Now that's part, that part right there, it is a very sad thing when someone is healed from their spiritual condition, and they either don't care enough to enter in with the rest of the believers, or it becomes a yawner to enter in. I know that it was the first day for this guy, of his healing, so walking and leaping and praising God. But here's one thing that I gleaned from that, like should not every day for us be walking and leaping and praising God? Like look, I'm no longer an outcast, I'm no longer outside. And that's a choice that we make, that is a choice to get up and to enter in. How sad for the cripple to get healed and just sit outside, stay outside, linger out there. But yet Christians do that sometimes, they stay outside. And so he entered in. And I just want to conclude our lesson with three basic life questions that we should all ask. Have you received the spiritual healing to become born again, take your place in the family, and no longer be an outsider in the kingdom of God? And if you have, do you enter into full fellowship with his family? And if you enter into fellowship, if you enter into the temple, do you do it walking and leaping and praising God, and having that heart of thanksgiving? So let's pray, and I'm going to let you guys discuss what the Lord showed you. Father in heaven, thank you for this picture, this story, Lord, help us to learn and grow in what it means to walk in your spirit, to be filled with you, to be yielded ourselves, and to be willing to be used by you. So Lord, we thank you for your word, and I just pray that our discussion would be fruitful in Jesus' name, amen.