4/26/20 Acts 3:12-19 “Amazing Love for You!”

24 Apr 4/26/20 Acts 3:12-19 “Amazing Love for You!”

4/26/20   Acts 3:12-19    “Amazing Love for You!”

I was hoping that this would finally be the Sunday when we don’t have to talk about the coronavirus any more but that doesn’t seem to be the case.  I’m afraid that we are going to have this for quite a while so be careful!  I would also like to stress that it is easy in hard times like this to say that God is punishing us for all of our sins.  But I don’t feel that is the case with this virus and for most things that go wrong.  God doesn’t have to punish us.  All he has to do is withdraw from our lives and everything collapses.  And the only way that He will withdraw is if we ask him to through our disobedience, neglect or any of our sins that don’t get confessed.  So, let’s see if we can quit playing the blame game and get through this.  Blame doesn’t really do any good at this point.  But if you feel you have to place the blame somewhere; you don’t want to blame our loving God.  God doesn’t want us to be put in these positions but when we are, then He will work through them to bring about His glory.  As we look at this today’s Scripture, we are going to see Peter talking about repentance.  Some people feel that this isn’t that important but Peter doesn’t agree and neither do I.  Let’s see if we can see why we need to be in constant confession and repentance.

I think that it is always interesting as to how most of us sometimes get an inflated feeling of our own self worth.  Here is an example by Jack Moore about Morris, the loudmouth mechanic.  Morris was removing the cylinder heads from a car when he spotted a famous heart surgeon waiting for someone to take a look at his Mercedes.  Morris couldn’t resist and shouted out to the surgeon, “Hey Doc!  Is dat you?  Come on ova’ here a minute.”  The surgeon went over to the car where Morris was working.  Morris straightened up, wiped his hands and asked rather argumentatively, “So, Mr. Fancy Doctor, look at dis here work.  I ALSO open hearts, take valves out, grind ‘em, put in new parts and when I finish, dis baby will purr like a kitten.  So how come you get the big bucks when you an’ me is doing basically da same work?”  The surgeon never hesitated as he leaned over and whispered to Morris, the loudmouthed mechanic, “Try doing it with the engine running.”  I sometimes wonder if all of us don’t have a little Morris in us once in awhile.  We sometimes like to build ourselves up a little more than what is necessary and not give the proper credit to the right people.

This is kind of the opposite of how Peter starts out today.  Right before this reading, Peter had just healed a crippled beggar.  Many people think that it was only Jesus who healed people like this but that is wrong.  This power also belonged to the disciples as long as they were faithful.

It was because of this healing that the people came running to them.  They were all excited.  Here was a man who was crippled from birth.  He was carried to the Temple gate everyday so he could beg.  He was known to all the people of the area.  And now suddenly, he could walk.  It was a miracle.  It was one of those once in a lifetime events to the people there.  It would be like remembering the birth of a child.  Or if you were like me, it would be like remembering what you were doing when you came to Christ.  These people were excited by what Peter had done.

Now Peter doesn’t hesitate either.  He asks the people, “Why does this surprise you?  Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?”  It is not like Peter and John were strangers.  These people knew who they were and who they represented.  They had heard these teachings but they had refused to accept them.

This is the same as what happens today.  There are millions of people in this country who refuse to believe or probably even worse yet, they only think that they believe. They have to believe it in their own way and not God’s way.  There are too many people out there who refuse to surrender their lives to Jesus.  These are the people who are shocked when a miracle happens.  And then they run to the scientific community to look for an explanation.  I would hazard a guess that of all the of people in this country who claim to be Christian, less than half even know anything about Jesus and what He did for us.  I happened across a study done by Barna a few years ago.  They figured that 90% of the people of this country claim to be Christian.  Of these people 86% didn’t know what the great commission was, 75% didn’t know John 3:16 and 31% didn’t know what the gospel was.  I’m glad to live here because I know that when we see a miracle, the first thing that I generally hear from many of the local folks is “Praise the Lord” and even that is getting to be less and less.  If you ever find that you lose this love for Jesus, then go back and ask Him for a little transfusion of faith.

After this Peter uses a little different tactic as he preaches to this audience.  He basically attacks them.  He tells them that they knew who Jesus was and yet they turned Him over to be killed.  And even after Pilate was willing to let him go, you insisted that he release a murderer.  You insisted that an innocent man, Jesus, be crucified.  You killed the author of life.  These are strong words to be saying at the Temple.  It would be like us doing something like this in the Vatican.  And John and Peter would be arrested for this scene.

Now comes the tough part of the sermon.  There are times when we have to know that what we do is wrong.  Jesus Christ during his ministry always preached the truth followed with grace.  Well here comes the truth.  There is not a person here today, including me, that did not help turn Jesus over to be killed.  We insisted that Jesus be crucified in a most horrible way.

You do this every time that you tell a little lie.  You do this every time you have an impure thought.  You do this every time that you take the Lord’s name in vain.  Don’t ever look at yourself and say that you are innocent.  You helped put Jesus on that cross just as if you had been there that day and pounded the spikes into His hands.  You all do this every time that you sin.

We like to stand back and not admit our guilt in all of this.  Here is an example.  One day when one of our daughter’s was young, she got into the fireplace.  There was no fire and the ashes were cold.  She got into it and made a huge mess.  When I tried to scold her for this she said, “But Dad, I didn’t do it.  My hand did it.”  We like to look at our sin in the same way.  We think that we didn’t do anything wrong here, our sin did it or Satan did it.  Well, you are connected to your sin.  Satan doesn’t do these things, you do.  He tempts you but you do it.  You are guilty just like these ancient people were guilty.

Now Peter is not about to leave these good people in a state of guilt.  He tells the ancients that God raised Jesus from the dead and that they were witnesses to this.  And it is through this faith in Jesus that this crippled man was made well.  He was telling them that it is by absolutely nothing that Peter or John did that cured this man.  It was by his faith in Jesus that this man got well.

This is also the same thing that we have today.  People who have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ do better in life.  You will have trouble finding statistics on this because the media, government and science don’t want this word to get out.  You have happier lives than non-Christians.  You do better in business and all other aspects of your lives than non-Christians.  You live longer, more fulfilled lives than non-Christians.  Think what would happen to our society if word of this ever got out.  What would happen if the press reported the truth and not their agenda or their fake news?  Or can you imagine our government being run with honesty and integrity?  If this ever got out in our world, it would be turned upside down.  And it would be upside down in a wonderful way.  This crippled man’s world had just been turned upside down.  He would never be the same.

People of our day don’t understand Jesus and this is just like the ancients.  Pastor Russ Blowers tells this story of when he was asked to speak at a local Rotary Club.  He wanted to say more than, “I’m a preacher.”  So he started out by saying, “Hi, I’m Russ Blowers.  I’m with a global enterprise. We have branches in every country in the world. We have representatives in nearly every parliament and boardroom on earth. We’re into motivation and behavior alteration. We run hospitals, feeding stations, crisis pregnancy centers, universities, publishing houses and nursing homes. We care for clients from birth to death. We are into life insurance and fire insurance. We perform spiritual heart transplants. Our Original Organizer owns all the real estate on earth plus an assortment of galaxies and constellations. He knows everything and lives everywhere. Our product is free for the asking. There isn’t enough money to buy it. Our CEO was born in a hick town, worked as a carpenter, didn’t own a home, was misunderstood by his family, hated by his enemies, walked on water, was condemned to death without a trial and arose from the dead.  And I talk with Him every day.”

This, my sisters and brothers in Christ, is what Jesus is all about.  So now Peter tells them that they can have all of this even though they don’t deserve it, we don’t deserve it.  He tells them that they acted in ignorance.  He tells them that all the prophecies have come true in the person of Jesus Christ.  Then he tells them that all they have to do is repent and ask Jesus to live in them.

We live in a world that struggles with this.  We have talked before about all other religions being based on works.  This is because when man makes up a religion, it only makes sense that we have to do some work to earn it.  After all, and young people listen to this, there is very, very little that you can get in this world that doesn’t involve work.  If you want money, you have to work.  If you want fame and worldly possessions, you have to work.  If you want a house, you have to work.  This makes it easy in a worldly sense to think that we would have to work for our salvation.  But this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Peter is saying to repent.  This means that you have to turn your lives around.  It doesn’t mean to just quit your sinning.  That is part of it.  It means to actually turn from your old life of sinful ways, to a life in Jesus.  When you leave your dirty old habits, your ways of putting others down, your ways of putting yourself down, your ways of looking at the world as the world wants you to look, when you leave these, then you will have a chance to move forward to all the things that I mentioned earlier.  Life in Jesus not only has rewards that are eternal, it has rewards in this life also.  Repent today and ask Jesus to live in your life.

And when you do this or if you are already a Christian, don’t be afraid to step out in the name of Jesus.  When you start talking about Jesus, people will listen.  They may not agree but they hear and then a seed is planted.  We cannot be afraid to do these things.  Martin Dale tells this wonderful story of a young man taking his final exam to be a police officer.  One question was this: “You are on patrol when a huge explosion occurs in a gas main on a nearby street.  You get to the scene and you find that there is an overturned van nearby.  As you look in the van you can smell alcohol.  Both the occupants are injured.  You also recognize the woman occupant as the wife of the chief of police who happens to be out of the country.

A passing motorist stops to offer assistance and you realize that this man is wanted for armed robbery.  Suddenly, a man runs out of a nearby house shouting that his wife is having a baby and the shock of the explosion has made the birth imminent.  Another man is crying out for help as the explosion blew him into a nearby creek and he can’t swim.   Describe in few words what actions you would take.”  The young man thought for a few minutes before he wrote down this answer.  “I would take off my uniform and mingle with the crowd.”

Peter and John were not mingling.  They were out front leading the charge on behalf of Jesus.  They would be jailed, beaten and jailed again for their dedication to the Lord.  But if you have a personal relationship with Jesus, then you understand why they kept going.  They kept going because of their love for God, for Jesus.

I am fully aware of how rough life can be.  I know that relationships in this world can and do go sour.  I know what it is like to not be able to buy groceries.  I know what it is like to have so called friends turn their backs on you.  These things and others happen as a result of the evil side.  Whatever you do in these situations, don’t give up on Jesus.  He is there and He is always there to help you out if you would just reach out to Him.  There are no accidents in our Christian lives.  There are only incidents of perfect leadership.

I hope that you have been able to see how much Jesus loves you even though you are responsible for putting Him on the cross.  I hope that you have been able to see that even though we are these terrible sinners, we can still have all that Jesus has to offer if we just repent.  The life you have or will have in Jesus has many obstacles but He is always there to help.  Please, don’t ever give up on Jesus because He is not done perfecting you.  And when He finally finishes, then you can have eternity with Him in that perfect place called heaven.  That is a promise that you can count on.  Thank you, Jesus, for your love and your constant forgiveness.  And thank you for first loving us.  Let’s pray.