Sermon in Seattle 19.06.2011

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, let us join this morning in opening prayer and thanksgiving.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for this service occasion and gathering, where around Thy Word we can join as a small part of Your flock on earth who believe according to the commands and teaching of our Lord Jesus and according to Holy Scripture.

Dear Father, strengthen our feet and our legs on this journey of faith that we could yet, moment by moment, continue the journey that leads to the heavenly destination.

Dear Father, this morning we also remember our fellow travelers in other locations, that they also would be protected and nourished on this way.

We thank you also, Father, for the many blessings that you have given us. And on this Father's Day, I think many of us especially thank you for preserving our families.

And we then also would remember our children, and the children certainly remember their parents, that they would be preserved on this narrow way.

And especially we remember those loved ones in our family, those prodigals, that you, dear Father, through your ways and your miracles would yet call them to your grace kingdom.

And especially this morning, dear Father, we also pray on behalf of the parents and grandparents of a little one, Calvin Mimela, who will undergo surgery tomorrow for a tumor.

And we believe, as the leper on the road did, we say, You can heal if Thou wilt. In Jesus' name, Amen.

For a text this morning, we will read the first part of the book of Acts, being chapter 3, and the first 12 or so verses. And we read these in Jesus' name with this prayer that He would bless our gathering.

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.

And a certain man, lame from his mother's womb, was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple.

Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked alms.

And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us.

And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them.

Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.

And he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.

And all the people saw him walking and praising God.

And they knew that it was he which sat at alms at the beautiful gate of the temple.

And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.

And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that's called Solomon's, greatly wondering.

And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?

The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus, whom He delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go.

But ye denied the Holy One and the just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses.

And His name, through faith in His name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know.

Yea, the faith which is by Him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Amen.

This morning we do especially remember the fathers. And I'm sure you children know that today is Father's Day.

And so, I think that we can, this being a holiday especially, say Happy Father's Day and congratulate the fathers.

And I think also, it's probably worth looking at Holy Scripture here, even speaking in particular unto the fathers.

And we know that although Father's Day is more of a secular holiday, it's not actually a church holiday in particular, but nonetheless, it's nice to remember.

It says here, in Ephesians, to the fathers, and I think it's certainly a good thing to remember, where it says, raise your children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.

And it was speaking especially to the fathers in that particular context.

And it's a good thing, I think, that we would remember that as fathers.

Our text today, we could say in many ways, relates to the theme for this Sunday in the calendar year, although it's not one of those texts which has been specifically set aside.

But the theme for this week is called The Hidden God.

And when we look at Holy Scripture from even the beginning of books of the Bible, all the way up through the end of the New Testament, we can read and see how God, from the beginning, has been a hidden God.

The other day, one of the children was asking about seeing God, and why we can't see God.

And certainly, it's a valid question.

And with our limited human capacity, we certainly don't have all the answers to that particular question.

But we know that God is spiritual, and His Word and His law is spiritual.

What does that mean?

Well, an example was given by Christ Himself when we consider the hidden God and the spiritual nature of God.

When Jesus said in His Sermon on the Mount, as an example of the spiritual nature of God's Word, He said, even if a man were to lust after a woman, he's already committed adultery.

He hasn't physically committed the act, but we are so sin-corrupt that by the very nature of man's condition, of our own strength, of our own intellect, of our own will, we could not find the hidden God.

But only through His Holy Word, which He gave to His own.

And faith, in that Word, and believing that Word, can man come to know God.

And that is a gift of God.

Jesus says this way, to His own, He said, You haven't chosen Me, but I have chosen you.

Yet today, in God's kingdom, we comprehend the matter the same.

This incident, we read about in the text, in some ways, also shows this hidden God.

We also know that, in the life of Jesus Himself, He performed many, many miracles.

John, at the end of his Gospel, writes that Jesus did so many wondrous acts, and so forth, He said, I suppose, not all the books in the world, could hold all those examples that Jesus did.

A few are preserved for us, in Holy Scripture, of the miracles that He did.

And in fact, earlier this week, during our Bible class, I'm sure many here remember, we had a lesson on the miracles, and we talked about a number of those.

It's also important to note, that Jesus, not only performed miracles Himself, but during His life, He gave that authority and that power to others, while He was still in His ministry, which was, what, about three years long.

And in those three years, He did many, many, many miracles, but so also did some of His disciples, those to whom He gave that power.

They were able to heal the sick and the lame, they restored sight to the blind, they restored hearing, they even, as Jesus did Himself, raised from the dead.

We also know that before Jesus was ascended to heaven, and this was after His death on the cross and His victorious resurrection, and before His actual ascension, where He went to heaven to sit on the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, He also conferred, or we could say gave, the power to His own to heal.

And in particular, to heal sin-fallen man from His condition of what would be perdition.

In other words, He gave the power to forgive sins, not in their own name, not in man's own name, or with man's own power, but through the power of the Holy Ghost, in the name of Jesus, and in the blood that He shed on the cross.

This incident happened here in Jerusalem in the very early days; it really wasn't even any sort of a formal church yet when we speak about Christianity.

Those who believed, which were at this point not very many yet, but there was a growing number who believed that Jesus was the Savior, the Messiah.

And they had not formed a church; as a matter of fact, when they met, they either met in the Jewish synagogue for a number of years, or in particular, there was another place in Jerusalem that they gathered at the temple, which is mentioned in this book; it was called Solomon's Porch.

And it was a portico, a colonnade, of a fairly large size, that no longer exists; we know the temple, of course, was destroyed.

But the early Christians would gather in that location.

There are a number of references in the New Testament that the Christian people would gather there.

And in this case, they also did.

But it mentions what Peter and John are doing.

It says here, they went up together, and Peter and John, you remember, they were not actually relatives or brothers in that sense; they were brothers in faith.

Peter's brother happened to have been Andrew, and John's brother happened to have been James.

But Peter and John, as disciples, apostles of Christ, had become fast friends, as you could imagine, with your own believing friends.

There are no better friends on this earth than Christian friends.

It's a miraculous relationship.

Well, certainly, that kind of relationship existed between Peter and John.

And they went up to the temple together; they spent much time together.

It mentions that it was the ninth hour, which would have been three o'clock in the afternoon.

Very common occurrence.

In fact, normally, in the older covenant, the older tradition, they would have the prayer three times a day.

It wasn't as if they were that was their righteousness, but they honored that particular tradition, and it was a good tradition.

King David wrote about it in the Psalms.

It was normally at nine in the morning, at noon, and then at three in the afternoon.

And also, in the Old Testament, we have another example where this was remembered.

Some of you have heard of Daniel.

Daniel in the lion's den.

Well, when the unbelieving government officials had tricked the king during those days to try and put Daniel in prison by worshiping other gods than the king, which, of course, Daniel did not; he worshiped the living God.

And he says he went to prayer three times a day.

So, it wasn't unusual.

And that's how they actually caught Daniel.

They watched at nine o'clock, and they watched at twelve, and they watched at three, and then they caught Daniel praying to the living God.

So, it's not surprising here that John and Peter, this tradition carried, they went at the three o'clock hour to the temple.

And as they entered this temple area, they noticed a man; they probably had seen him before because he was there virtually every day.

What was this man doing, sitting at, they had a certain gate called the Beautiful Gate.

It probably was very ornate.

Nobody knows for sure which gate it was, but it was certainly part of that temple.

And his friends, this man who was crippled from birth, he was born that way, it mentions it right here.

It says here, a certain man, lame from his mother's womb, was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered the temple.

Now, what was alms?

Little children probably are not that familiar; we don't use the word much.

Nowadays, we have what's called welfare.

And in those days, they didn't have any system to help other than the Bible does specifically say that we want to remember the poor and the weak and the sick.

And you probably also know that the Old Testament said, for example, gardens, when farmers had gardens, they had to leave a portion of their crop so that the poor could actually come.

There was a certain part they could not harvest or take; they had to leave it for those that were hungry.

That was part of the law of Moses.

They also had to ask alms; in other words, they had to beg.

There was a man begging; they dropped him off.

This crippled man, and he sat there by the temple.

And as Peter and John walked in at that three o'clock hour to pray, this man noticed them coming.

And of course, what was his reaction?

Well, he said, alms for the poor, or something along this.

Alms for the poor.

And it mentions here what the reaction of Peter and John together was.

It says, Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John.

So they both must have looked right at this man.

And he said, look, Peter said to them, look on us.

Certainly the man who was down, he couldn't stand up; he was on the ground; he certainly looked up.

And it says he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something.

He probably thought, well, they're going to dig into their pockets and give me some money.

That's what he was there for.

Well, what was of the heart and the condition of Peter and John were not what you'd call wealthy men.

But he says here, then Peter said, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, I give thee.

And then he says, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

Was it Peter's own strength?

We know, of course, with Peter's own words later on in this text, that it was not his own strength.

It had nothing to do with Peter.

What kind of a man was Peter?

He was a sinner.

This was a man that, when he was around Jesus, felt so poor and to be such a great sinner.

What did he say to Jesus during those years of ministry?

He said, depart from me; I'm an evil man.

That's Peter.

Peter didn't have any strength of his own.

But nonetheless, Jesus called Peter to be a worker in the vineyard.

And certainly, Peter believed.

Although he had later denied Christ in his life, had received the grace of repentance, and now, of course, was believing again.

What he does here, he says, after he told the man to rise up and walk, it says he took him by the right hand and lifted him up.

And then a miracle happened.

It says immediately his feet and his ankle bones received strength.

This was a miracle.

Of course it was.

We accept that some kind of a miracle happened where this man's feeble legs, which had been that way since he was born, now received strength where he actually could leap.

It says he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered with him into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.

And he wasn't the only one that noticed something was different.

It says all the people saw him walking and praising God.

Now this is the man that was there for many, many years.

There's really no question about it.

They all knew this man.

And they knew that he was a cripple.

And it says right here, they knew that it was he which sat at alms at the beautiful gate of the temple.

And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened to him.

And as the lame man which was healed held Peter and John, he probably hung on them.

You can imagine it mentions here his reaction to them.

All the people ran together under them in the porch that's called Solomon's.

That's where they were gathering.

Probably a huge crowd all of a sudden rushing towards this place, Solomon's porch where the Christians often met.

And it is, we would say, a remarkable miracle that this man physically was healed.

There's an example in Scripture earlier, and this would have been during the ministry of Jesus, where Jesus visited a house that was also very crowded.

In fact, it was so crowded he couldn't get in around the door.

And at that place, Jesus then healed another man who was on a stretcher, crippled.

And in this example that Jesus gave during his life of this crippled man on the stretcher that he healed, and he certainly did heal the man.

There's no question the man was physically healed.

But also, Jesus said a remarkable thing that was offensive to some of those that were gathered in that crowded house during this example with Jesus some years earlier.

And what Jesus had said when he healed that particular lame man was offensive and in fact is still offensive to those self-righteous claiming to know living Christianity but yet not living according to the commandments of Christ.

What was it that Jesus had said when he healed the lame man?

He said something that's comforting to the child of God.

Many times it brought great comfort.

He said, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.

What an offensive thing this was to the self-righteous.

What was their reaction?

Their reaction was, Who can forgive sins but God alone?

This is man's mind.

It's a logical thought.

It makes sense to the human intellect.

Who can forgive sins but God alone?

Jesus said, Know ye not that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins?

Christ.

And now we have a question.

When Jesus then suffered and died on the cross, victoriously rose, and then ascended to heaven, did that power to forgive sins die?

Well, we already know because the Bible teaches us.

And we can comprehend through the teaching of the Holy Spirit that when Jesus had done His redemption work on the cross, and before He ascended to heaven during those forty days, Jesus conferred that power to forgive sins to His own through the power of the Holy Spirit.

He breathed on them in that room where they were behind closed doors, locked for fear of the Jews.

And there was a number of disciples.

It was not just the apostles.

Let's make that matter clear.

The Bible says the disciples.

And we also can tell from the context the women also were there with Him.

Mary Magdalene, Jesus' mother, that was the group of disciples around Jesus.

And as they gathered in that room for the fear of the Jews, fear of their lives, because they had seen their Savior, who they thought was the King, die on the cross.

And now they wondered, is it our turn to die next?

At the hands of the Roman soldiers and the self-righteous Jews.

Miraculously, in that room with the closed doors, the Lord Jesus appeared.

He showed them His hands, and He showed them His side, where He had been injured.

And then He breathed on them.

You might see a visible sign that He was imparting the Holy Spirit, which would be the power by which they could believe and by which they could preach.

And He said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.

Whosoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them.

And whosoever sins ye retain, they are retained.

In other words, whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven.

Whosoever sins you don't forgive, they remain unforgiven.

God's Word we comprehend through the Holy Spirit makes it crystal clear that power to forgive sins did not pass away when Christ went to heaven.

He said, No, I will not leave you alone, but I will leave you the Comforter, the Holy Spirit.

And through that power, yet today, God's people preach the forgiveness of sins.

Not in their own name.

And in our time of visitation, we have remembered in the name of Jesus, and through the drops of blood that He shed.

God's children, we see it not only in foreign mission work, but we see it even in our own families, in our local mission work, in domestic mission work, that we, through the power of that Holy Spirit, want to preach that gospel to others.

Parents in the home want to remember to preach that same gospel of the forgiveness of sins to their children.

And the parents also long to hear those comforting words from their children, that their own failings as parents are forgiven in the name and blood of Jesus.

That's the nature of the gospel.

It's such that not of our own strength or our own understanding do we want to preach this gospel, but by and through the power of the Holy Spirit and through the love of the undying soul of those others.

Yes, those on the outside of God's kingdom also.

Many prayers, silent prayers, but fervent prayers have gone out on the behalf not only of our unbelieving relatives and children, but of those who we don't even know or don't know well, maybe it's some acquaintance that God would open His Word to them.

It's the same thing that happened with Peter and John.

It gives a marvelous example of the work of the gospel.

Peter said here, when this man's hands, no doubt, were out of, he might have had a hat or a bucket or whatever they had to collect the coins.

He figured he was going to get some kind of a donation.

Then Peter said, silver and gold have I none.

But here's the remarkable thing.

Peter said, but such as I have, I give thee.

And then he says, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

Peter wanted to impart that same message.

It wasn't his own strength.

We sing about this part that Peter demonstrates here in helping, not so much the temporal, but we know in these examples of Scripture, the most important thing wasn't that the man was able to walk again.

Yes, it was important in his life.

It was a very major thing.

But the main thing is the man was able to believe.

We sing about it.

You're probably familiar in one of the hymns.

It happens to be 477.

But it's the heart of a child of God that we've experienced.

The same heart that Peter had.

I give thanks to you, Lord, for mercy, which here through your gospel I own.

Through your Spirit your children possess it.

Once they as a gift have received it, they will share what they have found.

Isn't that the heart of a child of God?

First being able to believe.

Endeavoring to keep faith and a good conscience.

Hearing and believing the gospel.

Moment by moment in our lives.

And then also preaching and praying for strength to preach to those on the outside.

How often we find ourselves slow to preach.

Never seems to be quite the right time if we leave it to our own mind.

But yet we have to say that God is the one that opens even those moments.

And when He does, we pray for strength that we could believe and relate of this wondrous matter concerning God's kingdom.

Which Jesus, when we look at His sermons, what is it that He so often spoke about with large multitudes of people?

He talked about the nature of His kingdom.

He wanted people to know.

The first thing that they would seek in this life was find God's kingdom.

Seek ye first the kingdom, then these things will be added unto you.

That's the nature of the gospel.

That's the nature of God's kingdom on earth.

Then, during the life of Christ, and now, during our time of visitation.

And it is no wonder that when we preach, we preach in the name of Jesus and through His blood.

Listen to what Peter said when this large crowd was, you might say, quite surprised of this miracle that happened.

It says here they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him.

And they all scrambled over for this area in the temple that was Solomon's porch.

And it says here, and when Peter saw it, all these people gathering around, they wanted, boy, maybe we can see another miracle, or who knows what they were thinking, but they were certainly amazed.

But Peter comprehended it's very important to explain what had happened here, and he openly did so.

It says here, and when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this?

Or why look ye so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk?

Man's natural thought or comprehension on an incident like this is, boy, this Peter, he is remarkable.

Look what him and John have done.

They are great men.

There was a time in Paul's life, when a little later on, a number of years later, when he was called to the Gentiles, when the actual church began to open to those that were non-Jewish, ten or maybe fifteen years later, where Paul and Silas had gone to a, I'm pretty sure it was Silas, but Paul and one of his co-workers had gone to a certain city, and they had also done great miracles.

And they happened to be pagan people, and immediately what they wanted to do, when they saw these miracles that Paul did, is they wanted to pay homage to Paul.

They wanted to do some kind of a sacrifice to Paul and his co-worker.

And Paul was aghast at such a thing that they would think that Paul, of his own strength, did these miracles.

And he had to explain to them, this is not Paul that has done these.

It's the power of God through the Holy Spirit.

Man's mind wants to comprehend that it's some human gift or ability that's within the man himself.

And it's not.

It's only through the power of God, through the Holy Spirit.

He says here, who it is.

Who was it?

It was the same as it was in the Old Testament when Moses did the miracles or when the other patriarchs had wondrous events happened in their lives.

Was it their own strength?

We know from Holy Scripture it wasn't.

He says, the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus, whom He delivered up and denied Him in the presence of Pilate.

And when Pilate himself was determined to let Him go, these self-righteous men of Israel, he says, but you denied the Holy One and the just and desired a murderer.

Remember, they wanted Barabbas to go free and put Jesus on the cross.

They said, no, crucify Him, crucify Him.

And Pilate said, well, you've got a murderer here.

Why don't you let this Jesus of Nazareth go and we'll put the murderer to death?

They said, no, crucify Him.

They had no comprehension that Jesus was the Savior.

And they killed the Prince of Life, whom God has raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses.

It's that simple.

In God's kingdom, yet today is preached that same word, but not through our own strength, but through the power of the Holy Spirit, yes, through the power of the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, through that God and through His Son, who shed His blood on the cross on our behalf, on behalf of all sin-fallen men, that those who believe that word are saved, and that word is this, dear son or daughter, all your sins are forgiven, in Jesus' name and blood.

And this morning, even the poorest and weakest, the one who finds himself to be the slowest to believe, you can believe all sins forgiven in Jesus' name and blood.

And I need to live of the same gospel and to hear the same gospel.

Can you preach the gospel to me?

I promise to believe with you.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

We also have another brief prayer this morning.

The following will be joined in marriage, Keith Kumpala and Monica Lieber, in August of 2011.

So then, therefore, let us pause as a congregation and remember this young believing couple who plan to join in holy matrimony.

Dear Father, Thou who has established marriage, we ask that You bless this covenant with these young believers.

Grant this couple one-mindedness and love and make their home a Christian home.

In Jesus' name, Amen.

And let us join in closing benediction.

The Lord bless us and keep us.

The Lord make His face shine upon us and be gracious unto us.

The Lord lift up His countenance upon us and give us peace.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen.