Acts 3

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

I can talk real soft now. Acts three, verse one. Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour, again, three in the afternoon. And a man lain from birth was being carried whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the beautiful gate. So kind of drink this in. Peter and John headed to the temple, going in our prayer, and who do they see? Okay, we're gonna give this guy a name, okay? Ben, we're gonna call him Ben Leaper. I have a friend named David Leaper. We're gonna call this guy Ben Leaper. You okay with that? Not biblical, don't hang your hat on that. Ben Leaper, that's this guy. Man, what do we know about Ben Leaper? He's been lame how long? Birth. In chapter four it says he's over 40 years old. He's been lame a long time. What else do we know about Ben Leaper? A man lame from birth being carried whom they, how often?

Daily. So this guy's at the beautiful gate every day, all right? To ask what? What's he doing? See, a part of temple worship was, one of the things was giving, just like it is in worship today, I hope, for you. And so this was a great gig. This was a great place to be, a prime spot. And so that's where he is. 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, Ben Leaper, fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. Okay? Now, what's fixing to transpire here is significant, but being in the right place at the right time with the right attitude is why it happened. I don't think that Peter and John really had any idea what was about to transpire as they were walking to the temple. But they get to the gate, and why are they even there in the first place?

Well, it's because their lifestyle had already changed. If you back up to Acts 2:42, you see something happening there, right? What's happening? Matter of fact, what happened in the first part of Acts 2, Drew preached about last week, what happens? Acts 2:42 is when the Holy Spirit comes, right? Holy Spirit comes in this supernatural way, tongues of fire, the apostles are speaking, but people are hearing it in their own languages. 3,000 people get saved. And it says in Acts 42 and following, just the way that the church was different then, and the apostles, they devoted themselves, those new believers devoted themselves to the apostles preaching. And it also says in day by day, they attended the temple together. So Peter and John are headed to the temple. This was their regular way of doing life now. They go to the temple regularly to be with other believers.

Now, they're also breaking bread in homes, and so it's large group time, but also small group time, but they're in a pattern of life now that is different because they wanna be available for what God might wanna do in and through them. They're helping, you know, when it says they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching, how's that gonna be done? Well, the apostles have to teach. And when you're trying to teach 3,000 plus people, you gotta have a place to do that. The temple, and we'll talk about this in a minute, but the temple's big enough to do that. So they're going there to do this. It also says later on in Acts 5, many signs and wonders were done regularly among the people by the hands of the apostles, and they were together where? Where's Saul and support code, do you have any idea? Let's roll this out right now. The temple itself, the temple mound it's called itself,

is it's got 1,000 feet walls on each side. It's roughly 36 acres big. Okay, just go over here to Chisenhall and clear off about half of it, or do this five acres that the church is sitting on six times, and that's how big this paved area is. And about three football fields worth of that area is the temple proper, okay? If you took two football fields 120 foot long and 52 feet wide, put them side by side and then put a third one like this, that'd be the temple. So that's three of those 18 football field, this area. It's all paved, and around the perimeter is something called Solomon's Portico. It's this porch area, this covered area. And Jesus was there and taught. I think this is John 10, I'm not sure exactly. But anyway, Jesus had been there and taught. And now, evidently, this is where large group have it. This is where worship goes on.

And by the way, this thing, this area, the temple mound, including the temple proper, but mainly the court of the Gentiles and the women, it'll hold 100,000 people. As a matter of fact, it's estimated that when Passover, it might have as many as 250,000 people in there. 37 acres wide open, this is all standing room, of course. 250,000. Now, there's only, somebody asked me this the other day, there's only about 60 to 70,000 people that live in Jerusalem at this time, that's the estimate. But there's a lot of people that come to the temple. And even though this is past Pentecost now, it's past Passover, then past Pentecost, that had been, Pentecost 50 days before.

Now, it's some days or weeks after that, we're really not sure there. But there were still lots of people there. But the believers were using the act to get together because they wanted to be available to hear what the apostles had to say. Now, I say all that to say, there's a Bible verse that I want you to think about for a second. You know this Bible verse? Anybody got this memorized? This is a good verse to memorize.

And what it says is that Christians, and this is Jesus, and he said this in something called the Sermon on the Mount, the probably most famous sermon ever, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, Jesus said this, and it's gotta mean something, right? So when he says seek first, again, I don't know what hermeneutic, what interpretative principles you might wanna put on this, but what do you think he means seek first? What do you think that means? Does that sound like something that Jesus might want us to make a priority?

He didn't say seek this sometimes, he didn't say seek this every once in a while, he didn't say, hey, if you've got some time, seek this. He says numero uno, seek first, what? The kingdom of God is right, so what in the world is that? Heaven? Well, heaven's part of that. I like this definition of the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God is the place where the king ruled. The kingdom is the place where the king rules, and in this case, it's the place where God rules. So Jesus is saying, hey, we need to be seeking numero uno to have God rule in our lives and help extend that rule into the world around us.

That's priority one, but is that our priority? Are we available for that? I really want you to take a minute and think about that. Because I know in this room, and I know some of you, not all of you, but I know some of you well enough, man, you are running. I mean, your schedule is just insane, Kimmy. It's not just Kimmy, I just looked at her because I know her schedule is insane. You are running, and I know some of the reasons why. You're just trying to put a bean on the table. You're just trying to put gasoline in the car. There's that. It's just hard sometimes for there to be any room in our lives for anything, but yet God wants us to be available. I had a short, well, it's six years, and not very illustrious football career in junior high and high school. Aaron, come here. I asked Aaron to help me, and he said he would. I'm trying not to embarrass him too bad.

And when I was in high school playing, in junior high playing football, I had coached, didn't Aaron kind of look like a coach? Yeah. So I had coaches that sometimes were not wise enough to let me start a football game. Aaron's much wiser than that. I'm not saying that at all. Is anybody in here familiar with the term riding the pine? What does it mean, Drew? It means riding the pine is a reference to the bench on the sidelines. In both football, I think it's a fairly well-used basketball term as well, that when you're not playing, you're riding the pine. I rode the pine a few times during my illustrious, not so illustrious career in football. But here's what I learned. When the coach was coaching the game, when he was out there and our coach called plays, he was focused, he was, I learned that you can put yourself when you're riding the pine in one of, at least two positions.

You can be the fool standing on the bench, waving to your girlfriend up in the stands, okay? You can be that guy. Or you can be the guy that really wants to play, really wants to be in the game, and you can follow the coach around, not too close, but you can follow the coach around with your helmet on, strapped up, your mouthpiece stuck in your face mask, engaged in the game, calling out encouragement to your friends, because every once in a while, there's somebody out there that the coach is gonna say, get that guy outta here. Get him off the field, because he's made him, he's made a mistake, he's made a bad play. And when he does, the coach is gonna look around, and what's he gonna do? He's gonna look for somebody that's ready to go, that's available. And every once in a while, my coach would say, Beckwith, you're in! I like to hear that.

And man, I'd shoot out there, say it, Aaron. Beckwith, you're in. And I would go. Okay, I learned how to be available. Thank you, and y'all give me my hand. Now, being available is being, it's being in the right place, doing the right things, engaged like the disciples were. They were teaching, and they were available for the Holy Spirit to speak back to them, and they had the right attitude. They were open to whatever God wanted them to do. But they were also something else, and my illustration might just spill over into this. They were also receptive, or responsive. Responsive. Because when the coach said to me, Beckwith, you're in, I didn't take my helmet off and say, well, coach, just exactly what you have in mind here. Now, do you want me to go in at the usual position, or do you want me to go in for the quarterback, or maybe one of the tackles, or you want me to just go in for Hank,

or Rick, who I usually play, what do you got? Coach, let me pray about this for a minute. How would that have worked out in a football situation? I might as well be back there with that idiot screaming at his girlfriend on the bench, right? Because I'm not going in the game with that kind of attitude. Now, I need to be responsive, and what I would do, say it again, Aaron. Yes, coach, Hank or Rick, who you want me in for? That was the only question I asked, because I knew it was one of those two guys, left and right in, and I was on the field, in the huddle, head strap, helmet strap down, mouthpiece in, listening to what the quarterback called, thinking, okay, I'm going to the line, I'm either going to, if it's pass, I'm going to try to beat the linebacker to the corner, or beat the safety on the post, or if it's a running plan, I'm going to double down on the tackle,

and then try to slide off and pick up the linebacker. Whatever it is I needed to do to be successful, I was focused on that, I was responsive, I was ready, I was going in. Now, I say that because I think that's what happened with Peter. Peter and John are walking into the temple, and they see this guy, and I think the Holy Spirit goes, Peter, you're in. I don't think they left the house that morning and said, hey, let's go heal somebody. What do you think? Well, this is going to heal somebody. Think about Ben Leaper for a minute, remember that's the guy?

How long has Ben Leaper been there? He's been a cripple for 40 years, he's been a cripple his whole life. He's got this prime spot that he's probably claimed, he's probably even got some muscle that helps him get it every day. He's been there a lot. Who's that means walked right past Ben Leaper multiple times? These guys, the apostles, who else? Jesus himself, but Jesus didn't heal him.

Why? No idea. Why didn't Jesus heal you? No idea. In that moment, when the Holy Spirit said, Peter, you're in. Peter responded and responded, hey, I don't have any silver or gold, but what I have, I give you. He reached down, he grabs the guy by my hand, and the language makes sound like he gripped him firmly. And he pulls him to his feet, and it says that his feet and ankles were strengthened at that point. Now, I don't know, if you try to start breaking this down, whose faith was it that was at work here? Boy, there's all kinds of hard questions. But the point is Peter stepped into the moment and responded well. He was responsive. He was tuned in.

Peter said, I have no silver or gold, but what I do have, I give to you in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, lies and walk, and he took him by the right hand, raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong, and leaping up, Ben Leaper, see what I did there? 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. What is going on here? First of all, catch this. Ben Leaper would have never been in the temple before, not the temple proper, because he was lame, he was messed up, and he wasn't allowed to go in the temple, but now he was accepted, now he was accepted by God. Jesus did this a lot, as did the disciples, helped people be accepted by God, Gentiles, eunuchs, people with all kinds of issues, he helped them be accepted. He's helped you be accepted, if you've trusted him.

So he gets up, he goes into the temple, and then it begins. All these people recognize him as the one who sat by the beautiful gate, they all recognize Ben, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him, and it's all because Peter was responsive. He responded to the moment, he responded to the nudge, he responded to the, Peter, you're in! And he went for it. So all these people are utterly astonished, they run together, and then this thing kind of jumps, and Luke, the one that wrote this, kind of just moves us right out of the temple, all the way out across this 36 acre lot, to Solomon's Portico. And now, look what it says, he clung to Peter and John, he was like he's hanging on the two-inch uncles that were long lost, not wanting them to get away, but he's still leaping, and all of these people come together at Solomon's Portico,

and then Peter saw it. We think that it is, I think it's opportunity, don't you? He saw this large group of people that their imagination had been captured, he was responsive. I have never owned a Corvette, but I've driven one. Now, like I stole it, I was easy on it. I've also, my first car was a 1957 Chevrolet station wagon. It was kind of army green, I'm pretty sure it had been painted with a mop. It was about a $700 car that I got in Everman, Kenneth. Can any good thing come from Everman? Kenneth comes from Everman, he's a good thing. And here's the thing, when you drove the pickle, when you drove the pickle, this 57 station wagon, where do you put, I wish Emma was here. Emma just got her license. Where do you put your hands when you're driving? 10 and two. When you drove the pickle, you could actually take the steering wheel and go from 10 to two, and the car would not change directions.

I don't know what all was worn out, lots of stuff. Now, if you hit a bump, it would change directions, but not if you did this, okay? I had the chance to drive a 63 split window, I think it was, Corvette. Guess what happened when you did this in that Corvette? You better know where you're going when you do that. You better know what's out in front of you, because when you do that, it's going. There's two pedals on the floor, right? Those of you who are student drivers, which, the one on the right, what's that? The go pedal, one on the left, whoa, go and whoa, right?

And when a driver is behind the wheel, they use not only this, but they use go and whoa, right? And when they match the go pedal, what do they expect? If something's bearing down on you, you hope you're not in my 57 Chevy, because you hope you're in something more Corvettish. If you match the whoa pedal, what do you hope's happening? Yeah, you hope. I had a Volkswagen bug one day, I'm driving on the loop in Longview, Texas, I hit the whoa pedal, and I swear it speeded up a little bit, and the cars in front of me were stopping and I did, do y'all know who the Dukes of Hazzard are? I did the Dukes of Hazzard off into a bardage, Benthe, Benthe, front, what's it, steering knuckle, the, anyway, yeah, that's, here's the thing.

Are you more like my 57 Chevy, or my friends Corvett? Because what's God looking for? Looking for in your life. Let me show you one of my favorite Bible verses. Somebody got this one memorized? It's a great one, it's a great one to have memorized. You are God's workmanship, and that word sometimes is translated masterpiece, it's poimae in it, and what does that mean, God formed and shaped you, created in Christ Jesus for what? There's some stuff he got for you to do. As a matter of fact, that stuff that he's created for you to do, he prepared those things in advance, beforehand, in other words, God already knows some stuff he wants you to do.

He's built you for it, he's got the task in front of his mind, and when he puts it in front of you, what does he want you to do? He wants you to pair a potato, he wants you to walk around, he wants that to be your lifestyle, that when he says, Steve, you're in, what happens? You strap it up, you go, we respond. Is that me though, is that you, are we responsive? Well, let me, before I run completely out, let me mention one more thing. Not only are we responsive, but in our response, is there courageousness, is there boldness? And I tell you, this really stepped on my toes, and I kinda hope it steps on yours too, but when Peter saw it, he addressed the people. When he saw what? Opportunity, all these folks have gathered up, what's going on with Ben Leifer? He's leaping, he's jumping around, what's going on? They all gathered up, men of Israel, Peter says. Why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us

and say, well, it's not as though by our own power or piety we've made this, it's not wasn't about us, gang. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God you know, you know him well, 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, uh oh.

This God of our fathers glorified Jesus, and you handed him over to the bad guys. You denied the holy and righteous one, you denied Messiah Peter's saying, and asked for a murderer, who was the murderer? Barabbas, a known killer, you traded this killer for the author of life. That's pretty confrontational, isn't it? How many of y'all love to hear it when somebody tells you that you've done something wrong? That just makes your day, right? Yeah, I'm the same, I do not wanna hear that if I can avoid it, but man, sometimes I need to hear it, right, and there's a world out there that needs to hear that there's something missing in their life, but is there anybody bold enough to tell them? They go on to say, this man by faith in his name, talking about Jesus, or talking about Ben Leifer, has made, or Jesus has made this man, Ben Leifer, strong, whom you see and know,

and the faith, and again, whose faith? Maybe both of theirs, Peter and Ben Leifer's, that is through Jesus has given this man the perfect health in the presence of, this perfect health in the presence of y'all, and now brothers, I know you act, he softens it here. He softens his confrontation here. I know you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers, but there's a boldness there, gang. There's a willingness on Peter's part, on Peter and John's part, to just speak the truth and love. Is that you? Yeah, I love these verses in Joshua one. Joshua has a pretty significant challenge in front of him, doesn't he? You remember what Joshua's job is? Remember his job description? Who's just died on Mount Pisgah? Who's just died? Moses, holy Moses. And who's got to fill these giant shoes of Moses? This guy, Joshua. But he's got an easy job in front of him, right? What's he got to do?

Just lead a million plus grippy, contentious people in and take control of a land that has strongholds and fortified cities. You're to lead the people in Joshua to take the promised land. Can you see why Joshua might have been a little concerned? Only be strong and very courageous, being careful to do according to all that the law of Moses my servant commanded you. This is God speaking to Joshua, pumping him up. Be strong and very courageous. Do not turn from it to the right or to the left that you may have good success wherever you go. Then a couple of verses later, have I not commanded you, be strong and courageous. Be strong and courageous, do not be frightened and do not be dismayed for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go, be strong and courageous. Joshua needed to hear that and maybe we do too. Maybe there's something that the Holy Spirit's been tapping

on your shoulder and you need to do that takes some courage, some boldness. Let me tell you about my friend, Ken, this is Ken Dornhecker. Anybody know Ken Dornhecker? Cool. So, and you know his sister, right? Yeah, they live right down the street from us, their home places. Ken, I first met Ken when he was a high school student. He came over to our house when one of Jeremy's birthdays and Ken dressed up as a clown and he could juggle pretty good and he entertained the kids. Yeah, I'll always love Ken for that. But Ken was kind of, he's not a big guy, he's kind of a smallish guy and kind of not real necessarily outspoken. Here's what happened to Ken. Ken got the nudge from the Holy Spirit. Ken, you're in. And Ken's in was to do open air preaching.

You know what that is? It's just what it sounds like. You just go out to a place where there are people and you preach. Now, Ken didn't have a security team that went with him and when you do this kind of thing, you get pushback. It can be mild or it can be ugly. And not only did Ken do this open air preaching, but he went to college and university campuses to the free speech area and did this. Does, oh, you have a free speech area that you? And not only did Ken do this on college campuses in the United States, Ken has some German heritage and he went to Europe and did this. Does that sound a little challenging to anybody besides me? Would that be hard for you if I said, hey, would you mind doing some open air preaching? Run down here to Warren Park, City Hall. Just get out front and let her rip. That's what, that's the kind of person Ken became and he's still just mild-mannered and kind.

This guy's a poster child for boldness to me. How do we obtain that kind of boldness? You know, I know some of us are kind of enter the room mouth first people. You know, we're just kind of out there. And others of us are more shy and more reserved. Let me tell you a story and I'll wrap this up with this. So I'm, I think I was a freshman in high school. Might've been between my eighth grade and freshman in high school, long, long time ago. And we're down at Warren Park. Y'all know where Warren Park is in Burleson, Texas? Some of you have played pickleball down there and tennis and basketball. Anyway, we're down there and it's somewhere around July 4th, because we're firing off fireworks. And then we realized, you know, you can put a bottle rocket in a bottle and shoot it at somebody. Have you ever been hit by a bottle rocket? Doesn't hurt. You don't want it to blow up on impact.

That's a different story. And you can do the same thing with Roman candles. Kids do not ever do this. Don't do any of the things I'm about to talk about, okay? You can shoot Roman candles at each other. Have you ever done that? Don't, but it's really pretty fun. Just say it. So we're out there doing this nonsense. And there's just two, three, or four of us. I don't remember exactly who was there, except for one kid who was there, Tommy. And Tommy Cheney and I were buds. We had worked together. We'd hauled hay together. We'd done some other stuff together. We'd played football together. Anyway, finally somebody got, somebody took offense at some of this. I don't know why, maybe everybody was shooting at me, but I got mad.

But the bad news was I got mad at the wrong person. I got mad at Tommy. Tommy was a tough guy. And so we squared off, and I got a pretty good shot or two in. As a matter of fact, he told me after the fact, that I almost knocked him out once. But it didn't end well. It ended with him on top of me pounding me pretty good and my friends pulling him off, okay? That's who Tommy was. Now we were okay after that. As a matter of fact, he's in my sister's wedding. And you know, guys can just do that. I don't know how that works exactly. But anyway, so fast forward six or eight years later, and here's what I knew that had happened to Tommy since that time. I knew one story where he had got in a fight with another friend of mine, swung at him, the guy moved, he hit a brick, Tommy hit a brick wall and broke his hand and still whipped the guy before he went to the hospital and had his hand put in a cast.

That's Tommy. He'd also got in a fight with his dad on multiple occasions. And his dad had actually shot him in the head. He survived that. He was messed up, he was disabled because of that. So it's six or eight years later. I had seen Tommy. I'm at Southwestern Seminary. I'm trying to learn how to share my faith. I'm, we're helping plant a church and I'm working full-time right over here actually at what used to be the Brolson Rec Center before the brick was built. And God does a, Holy Spirit nudge, Steve you're in. I want you to go talk to Tommy Chaney. I hung up, this had to be a wrong number, right? Oh God, you're not, not, not. Tommy is a mess and he'd just soon hit you as look at you. Steve, you're in. Now listen, sometimes God asks you to do hard things. I was not excited about that opportunity. Jesus did not tell us to take up our lazy boy and follow him.

He said, take up your cross. And sometimes God calls us to be bold and it is uncomfortable, but it is a step of faith and it's what he wants us to do. I would like to tell you that I went over there and talked to Tommy and man, he got his heart right with Jesus and everything changed. I found out where Tommy lived. I went and knocked on his door. He was kind enough to let me in. He listened to what I had to say and then he invited me to leave.

Listen, there was a win that day. The win was in the go. See Daniel, it's easy to get choked up sometimes. Daniel was talking to us about a mission trip thing that we're gonna do together and he got choked up yesterday. Man, my heart went out to him. What kind of player are you? You know, there's some things that we can do. We can pray. These guys, Peter and John and the apostles, they prayed Lord, look upon their threats. This healing, this guy got them in all kinds of trouble. Somebody will talk about that next week probably. Grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all the boldness. God, help us be bold. And if you can't answer this question well, maybe that's just where you need to start. God, help me be bold. I don't know what that looks like for me. And gang, I'm not talking about trying to pick a fight with people.

We need to speak the truth in love. We need to try to put the gospel and the truth about Jesus and serve other people in ways that they can receive it. We need to do it. We need to be soft and light. We need to be making contact with our world. And the kind of contact that talks about Jesus. So what kind of player are you? Are you available? Are you responsive?

Only you can answer those questions. But I'm pretty sure God wants you to be a champion, not Mr. Irrelevant. And the truth is he can change you. Will you let him? Will you invite him to? Will you beg him to? Just pray. Father, we love you and Lord, we come before your throne of grace grateful today that you can work in ways that Lord, we don't know or understand. And that you can bring about transformation in our lives and these qualities, these characteristics that we see in the apostles that they model for us. Lord, that they can be traits that we have some measure of success with.

Because you're in the people changing business. You've called us to be disciples, to be followers, to be like Jesus. So Lord, I don't know what this means for any individual in this room today, but Lord, I think it means something to every single one of us. Lord, would you help us in this time of decision to be honest with ourself, honest with you? Would you help us to be receptive if you're saying to us, hey, you're in, even if there's discomfort involved. Lord, your ways are best. Your changes in us can make us the champions for the kingdom.