Bible Guys Classics: Acts 3

So in this chapter we're about to read the Apostle, Peter is sticking it to the man. Wow. So he's Chris, I'm Jeff. We're the Daily Bibble guys. Okay, hey, you always laugh on that. Yeah, it's just the the the ending of the intro. I have to wait for it. It goes and I'm just waiting. I'm like, is it going to be over any time? So it's building intensity. Yes, it's intensity. It's so intense this podcast. So here's the deal. I just decided to pull up a list just for fun. By the way, I just decided like two seconds ago to do this. It is a list of the top paying jobs. In the world. Wow. So I want you and by the way, I'm just going to give you a hint. Okay, out of the top like five, i've they're pretty much all in. The medical field, okay, okay, okay. Well as if you couldn't have guessed that, okay. Okay, So what do you think out of all the medical So it's not. Lead teaching pastor that I thought that was going to be in the list. Bro, it didn't even make those lists. No, I have no idea on these brain surgeons. So number. That's a good guest. That's a good guess. It is not. No, believe it or not, it is not according to this list. Okay, again, every every list on the internet must be real. But these actually have median incomes with actual sound. I can read this out because nobody make that up. You know, everybody has a keyboard. You can just push any number you want to push on it. Let me see. So not brains, Wikipedia, heart surgeons. No, it says, by the way, they're on here. I don't know, man, it's anesthesiologists. Anesthesiologists make the median income is three hundred and thirty one thousand dollars. What that's what it. Says, all right, I had no idea. And then oral or maxi facial surgeons. People who rebuild the faith, right. Uh, gynecologists almost three hundred thousand. Then then surgeons which includes heart, brain, uh you know, orthodonists, and then uh so anyway, then it goes down and then guess the one profession that is outside of medical. It's the first profession outside of medical that makes the most money. Oh, computer programmers. Yeah you would think so. Yeah, psychiatrists. Psychiatrists in the medical field. Little bit Well, they're just working on your on your on your emotions and your brain. Well that's I guess that's probably true. Well then gee whiz. Then you get to go all the way down to like a general title of chief executives. Okay, yeah, uh, pediatricians Okay. Outside of that, then we have Airpine airplane, airline pilots. I don't know why that was so hard for me to read. I don't know, it's tough. My brain wanted to say here, yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough one. Airline pilots, co pilots and flight engineers. You know what they make? How much? What do you think? Three million? You stink? I don't know. You're like, you're like that guy that says like you're like, hey man, I went through the airport the other day, I got a hot talk. You'll never believe what it was. And you would go like fifty dollars yeah, and shut me down. No, dude, come on, six bucks man, geez, you kind of ruined my story. Okay, so you don't want me to ruin your story. They make one hundred and ninety five thousand. That's great, one hundred ninety eight thousand, bam, did you cheat? No, okay, I just know stuff. Well, no you didn't because you said three million. Well no, I was trying to make it interesting for you. But if you want to me me precise, I'll take you there. Yeah, so that's it all right. Yeah, I've read before. So uh so you've had other jobs? Real quick, we have you have thirty seconds. I've had other jobs. What is the. Most interesting job that you've had outside of being a pastor? You have thirty second ago. Yeah, I worked at the Flagship Marriott Hotel in Chicago on Michigan Avenue and Magnificent Mile for quite a while, and I loved that job. Loved it customer service. But basically we had twelve hundred and eighty rooms or something like that. Twe hundred and forty nine rooms, and I solved all the problems people call and complain and I found ways to solve that. I had a whole crew of people who could rush to solve your problem. Magnificent problem solver her. Yeah, it was good. What was your favorite job. Well, pastor, outside of pastor? Yeah, yeah, I would have to say definitely. Back when telemarketing wasn't rejected by people, it was definitely telemarketing. Really, I did tele marketing for a lot while I hated it. Yeah, back then I don't like cold calls. That oh I loved it. Yeah, I'd imagine you're that irritating person. Now your personality is just irritating enough. I can see that. Hey, thank you for that. But listen, it is almost a hard thing to believe that you would call somebody and the number one they would even answer, and then number two they'd. Say, absolutely, I have ten minutes. But when telemarking was new, Yeah, yeah. That's every single person said that. I'm not everybody, but a lot of people. Okay, Well, anyways, there's it. So my favorite job was serving people. In your favorite job was fleecing people. No, making money from people. Yeah, that was my favorite job. Okay. So today we are continuing in the Book of Acts, and now the Holy Spirit has come and the Gospel is spreading their behaving like the church. And now you're seeing the people of the church step up in the power of the Holy Spirit, and you're seeing incredible impact. So here's just one illustration out of Acts chapter three. It says Peter and John went to the temple one afternoon to take part in the three o'clock prayer service. As they approached the temple, a man lame from birth was being carried in. Each day. He was put beside the temple gate, the one called the Beautiful Gate, so he could beg from the people going into the temple. And when he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for some money. Peter and John looked at him intently, and Peter said, look at us. The lame man looked at them eagerly and expecting some money, But Peter said, I don't have any silver or gold for you, but I'll give you what I do have in the name of Jesus Christ. The nazarene get up and walk. Then Peter took the lame man by the right hand and helped him up, and as he did, the man's feet and ankles were instantly healed and strengthened. He jumped up, stood on his feet and began to walk, then walking, leaping and praising God. He went into the temple with them. All the people saw him walking and heard him praising God. And when they realized he was a lame beggar that they had seen so often at the Beautiful Gate, They were absolutely astounded. They all rushed out in amazement to Solomon's Colonnade, where the man was holding tightly to Peter and John. Peter saw his opportunity to address the crowd people of Israel. He said, what is so surprising about this? Why stare at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or godliness? For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of all our ancestors, who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilot's decision to release him. You rejected this holy righteous One, and instead of demanded the release of a murderer, you killed the author of life. But God raised him from the dead, and we are witnesses of this fact. Through faith in the name of Jesus, this man was healed. And you know how crippled he was before Faith in Jesus' name has healed him. Before your very eyes, friends, I realize that you and your leaders did to Jesus was done in ignorance, but God was fulfilling what all the prophets have foretold about the Messiah that he must suffer these things. Now repent of your sins and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped away. Then times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah, for he must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God promised long ago through his holy prophets. Wow, what a cool story. Well I'm in Yeah, well, I thought I thought you were in the story because it kept talking about the lame man. And then I just realized, oh, because I heard your dad jokes a couple of days ago, you know. And then I realized, Oh, he's not talking about you, just being lame. So let me get this straight. While reading God's Word, the one thing on your mind, Dominantly was I can make a joke of God's. Word when it's talking about lame same I'm trying to figure out how to shame. I'm always anytime, I'm trying to figure out how to apply it. And the only lame person I know is. Yeah, the only lame guy that's terrible. You know, this is an unbelievable story. And here's what I think. I think this is the first recorded instance of Peter committing this type of miracle. Yeah, now I have to believe that it would be the first instance. Right, It doesn't necessarily mean that it was, but I'm we're pretty sure that it was. And so if you think about the faith that Peter had, I mean, these are the same conversations, you know. It reminds me of the conversations where they went back to Jesus, remember in the Gospels, and they said. Why don't we have the power to drive out demons? You know? And why don't we have your same power, Jesus? You know? And they were sort of, you know, always trying to you know, want to be you know, Jesus's messengers and and and carry his power. But now Peter does this in a way to where he says the command first and then helps the man up, which means with absolute confidence and belief, he says, rise and walk in the name of Jesus the Nazarene, and then he helps him up, and then it happens. And there's no like, you know, there's no moment where it's recorded where Peter says, I hope this works. You know, so we we see we feel a sense of confidence, and and so think about it. Wouldn't you be confident if you just experienced the fiery tongues in Acts chapter two? Yeah? Absolutely, just the absolute miraculous things that you know, you see Jesus ascend to heaven. Yeah, and then and then then. You so I mean, then you preach in your language, but everybody hears in their language, right, right, So why. Would Peter not have absolute confidence because it isn't Jesus anymore leading the miraculous things, it's them experience miraculous things, right, And so Peter's thinking, hey, we've got this. Jesus told us one day we would have it, right, He told me I was the Rock, and and and and so this is where Peter starts, you know, becoming more rock like. Right, right. And I think it's awesome. And you'll also notice the theme the miracles that happened through the Book of Acts. Almost all of them have the purpose of being able to share the Gospel with people who otherwise wouldn't have paid attention to the gospel. Right, So this is bringing validation to what other people, many of the other Jews would have viewed that viewed Christianity as a cult, as we mentioned before, and so these miracles are bringing validation to the message of the Gospel to people who would otherwise have never listened to the gospel. I'm sure there were other lame people in and around Jerusalem, and by laying mean crip yes, cripple people not like Maine, right, right, they would be like in this situation. So that was a joke before, but this this is for real. I'm sure that there were other people who couldn't walk in Jerusalem, but it was this guy on this day that was necessary for the opportunity to share the gospel immediately afterwards. Right, So there are sick people that don't get healed even though they believe in the name of Jesus. There are because that's it's part of life. It's part of the consequence of us living in a broken world, all those kinds of things. And this isn't heaven, right, So perfect healing does come in heaven. But in this circumstance, God saw fit to heal this guy for the purpose of Peter being able to step up and share the gospel afterwards. And that's what you'll see throughout most of the miracles throughout the rest of the Book of Acts is those kinds of miracles. You know. I was just in Nepaul and a guy was sharing his testimony. He was Hindu and his whole family were Hindus, and he did not know Jesus at all, didn't even know his name. Then somebody introduced Jesus to his family and to him, and he was very interested, but his family was very aggressive against it. We don't want this imported Jesus. We don't want this colonial god. They've just pushed away. This is a foreigner's god. And Christians, you know, they call us cow eaters, and you know many of the Hindus worship cows, and so they are offended even by our behavior in general. And can you imagine, right, So he said, they wind up having this horrible circumstance, and he prays to all of his gods, and none of his gods will work. And so then he said, Jesus, if you're the real God, would you do this miracle? And then immediately this miracle happens and the whole family goes, oh wow. So then this friend who had introduced Jesus to them before came back is able to share the Gospel with them. They all become followers of Christ, and they banish all their other gods and they only now serve Jesus. This miracle happened for the purpose of these people being able to come to faith in Christ. And he said, that's the only major miracle we've had in our lives, apart from the everyday miracles, but the one where we called on Jesus for a miracle, and it was for the purpose of the Gospel being able to be made clear to them. I think that's most of the miracles we see throughout Christianity and certainly in the Bible. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah. So my brother Jim, he's a he was a former pastor in Texas and still is involved in ministry in very significant ways. And he works with. Those who are Indian, right, so they're directly from India. In fact, they come over to the United States and the state of Texas calls him personally and asks him to host them when they arrive from their nights, you know, from developing countries. Yea. So he is this big ministry and you know, he's sort of in charge of like five or six hundred people that he talks to almost on a weekly basis from India. So anyway, but he always tells me, he says, so learning about polytheism and how they believe in multiple gods Holly means multiple yeah, as opposed to God, monotheism or theism. So anyway, he says, he goes, it's a really strange thing to have to learn that. You have to sort of start with Jesus is a god among many gods, right, He's a god, and then you have to graduate to the Jesus. Is the God, I mean who. That's just an unbelievable thing to have to manage. Well, it's incomprehensible because you know, for us, we've grown up even if you're not growing up in a Christian family, you've grown up in a Judeo Christian world where the general ideas that there was this good man named Jesus who claimed to be God, Easter, Christmas, Resurrection, all that kind of stuff. Generally, know the idea, even if you don't know the specifics. Whereas when you get it dealing with the Gospel and places where they have no concept at all, then how do you penetrate into that. One of the ways would be the miracles. The other way it would be starting where they're at and bringing them to Jesus, which is both tactics you find in the Book of Acts. You know. Let me comment on this real quick. I had a really good thought, and that is Peter's. Good We're hoping we've been waiting for a good thought from you. Thanks Jeff. Verse fourteen, where Peter looks at the crowd after he says this is Jesus, he says, you rejected this holy righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murder. And then he says, you killed the author of life. So he looks at a crowd who he's trying to give the gospel to. And gospels, by the way, the word gospel means good news. It's the good news about the resurrection of Jesus. So he's trying to spread the good news, tell them that they need to believe in Jesus. And the first thing that he says to this listening crowd is you killed the author of life. That is such an unbelievably strong statement. But how it relates to us is this. I learned a long time ago that in order to get a people person to realize that they need Jesus. They need to be lost before they're found. That's right. People need to know their sins. You know, the Bible says that the first thing that we need to learn is that we need to be saved. And in order to be saved, we realize that we have to be lost. Right, you have to know that you're a sinner, saved from what, saved from what? Right. And so here's what Peter is doing, and it seems incredibly harsh, but Peter, you know, starts out with his statement, says, you want to talk about defining reality. You killed the author of life. That is what it is. And of course we don't know the people's reaction. But then he eventually says, now we know that you've done this by ignorance. We understand that you didn't understand it. It is the truth, but you didn't realize it. And then he then he sort of talks about, you know, Jesus and the story of Jesus. But it's real. There is no good news without some bad news, right, It's just all news. That's right, that's right. Right. So when I went in from my sert with with my really good my cancer doctor, you know, I didn't know I had cancer. We just knew something wasn't right. And then the doctor comes in after all the tests and he sits down and he says, listen, there's no good way to do this. He said, there's good news and bad news. I'm going to give you the bad news. First. You have cancer, and it's bad, and it's just quiet for a moment, you know, I think I want to cry. And he said, the good news is this, it's treatable, and we think we can get it all right. So I don't know that I would have been open to the idea of somebody cutting a ten inch incision in my side and taking out my kidney. Right unless I said, if I. Hadn't realized there's some bad news. The good news is we can manage this and treat it. Then, you know, so far all of my tests. Here we are almost two years later. It looks like I'm cancer free. Everything that they said, it's turned out that way. But I don't know that I would have responded with the need to please cut me open and cut something out of me if I hadn't known that there was some bad news. And it's the same thing. You don't know that you need to be saved until you know you need to be saved, and that means you have to understand what you need to be saved from. We're sinners and we're betting against God. We have a broken relationship with him, and the only answer is killed the author of life. But he said God raised him from the dead, and wear witnesses of this fact. So he gives bad news and good news back to back. So it's not just about shame on you. I think a lot of Christians they want everybody to change your behavior, and that's not the goal. The goal is to understand that everybody is apart from Christ and that Jesus is the answer that we can come to Christ. Christ will rescue us, save us from our sins if we would turn to him. So we got to get the Jesus, not just the shame on you part of it, but get the Jesus. The good news is what's important. Yeah, and we have to realize this as well, that if we dumbed down the bad news, then then we make the good news. Not that important. It's less. So think about it in terms of our salvation. So if you were to, like you know, so visually on video I'm raising my hand and I'm saying, like, you know, instead of being really high, you know, you sort of lower that bar and say, well, I'm not that bad of a person. I don't need Jesus as much as the next God, you know, and I've been pretty much good all my life. Then all of a sudden, it's like, wow, you don't even be from anything, do you, right? But the reality is no, you know, we. All sin and fall short of God's glory. You know, we are you know, destined to spend eternity away from God because of our sin. And therefore here's good news, And all of a sudden, the good news becomes very good, right, because the bad. News is very bad. I think it's important for everybody to understand, even Christians, our sin is far worse than we can imagine. Right. The guilt that we carry in our sin is far worse than anything we can imagine. But God's grace and God's love and the sacrifice that Jesus gave for us is far greater than we can even comprehend. Right, It's it's even greater than our guilt and our sin. So we need to elevate. Quite honestly, we need to if you're going to be honest, a real, honest, growing Christian, you have to elevate the consequence of your sin, and how horrible that is. Don't minimize it, elevate it. Just don't carry the guilt of it. Because Jesus carried that guilt. Jesus took that guilt. His grace is far superior to the worst thing that we could have possibly done. Yeah, and so for our listeners, just trying to you know, process all that, and it is. You know, the Bible says if a man or a woman thinks themselves to be higher than they are, right, then they fool themselves. Yeah, So not to think of yourself more righteous, you know, not to think of yourself as you know, not needing Jesus. Every one of us have a complete and utter dependence upon our God every single day. Yes, So all of that message comes, this good news message comes from the fact that Peter and John were walking into the temple to pray, right, which is really important. By the way, I was talking to a Muslim friend of mine, and he was surprised to find out that Christians pray regularly. He said, I know, Jews pray regular They prayed three times a day in the temple. Muslims will pray five times a day, but you know, Christians don't have a set time for prayer and always surprised. So I think it is important if you if you're going to be a person of faith in the public square, you need to be it needs to be noticed that you're praying not for the praise of people, but to establish that you're a person of prayer, right, and that your faith matters. I think that's important. But then so they're going into pray and then they stop and this guy's begging and they say, we don't have any money silver and gold have I none, But such as I have I give to thee right King James. And so what Peter realized was there's some things that are even more important than money. Did you know that? Did you know that? That's a shock? Right? You know? So often we see poor people, we see struggling people, we see difficult circumstances. And what we want to do is we will solve solve the physical problem. And even greater than the physical problem is the spiritual problem. So yes, we should feed hungry people, and clothe naked people, and house homeless people, all those things are important, but we shouldn't. We shouldn't do those without the Gospel. So he realized the most important thing was but such as I do have, I'll give to you, and that is faith in Christ. And he says later on it was his faith in the name of Jesus that healed him. It wasn't just faith in faith. Oh you gotta have faith, right, it's not that. It's faith in the name of Jesus Christ. And it was the mighty name of Jesus that healed them. And so more important than anything else you do at work, at school, with your friends and family, is get Jesus to those people's great well. I think that's a great place to end, and we will see you next time with the Bible guys,