Acts Chapter 3:1-5

God is using us, you and I, to reach people.

And He wants to use you on a daily basis. So be open and look for people. Look for people who might need fighting for it, might need prayer. Reach out, extend yourself, and watch what the Lord will do. Well, Pastor Dave, I'm a little uncomfortable with that. Oh, well then forget about it. Is that what Jesus said?

As long as you're comfortable with this, go and tell everybody. As long as this doesn't take you out of your comfort zone, share your faith. Where do we get that? Every one of us is supposed to be talent. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today we have with us as a special guest, D.A.

Brown. He's one of David McGee's associate pastors who's been raised up in ministry to minister here at the bridge. Welcome to the program today. Bob, this teaching about church is going to be a good one. People sometimes don't realize the opportunity church is. The opportunity for us to go and be blessed, but also the opportunity for us to go and be a blessing. You'll want to hear this teaching, Bob, about how effective the church can be in each one of our lives.

That sounds good, brother. Now here is David McGee with his teaching, God Still Heals. Turn with me to Acts chapter 3. The book of Acts is talking about the early history of the church, and I think there's a lot of lessons on what we could be doing and what we should be doing, and there's some real challenges. And when we look into this passage this morning, I think we're going to see some things that will help us to live our lives more for the Lord and less for ourselves. Acts chapter 3 verse 1 says, Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.

I want you to notice a couple of things. Number one, they're going to the temple. What temple would this have been?

It would have been the temple on the temple mount. And what happens sometimes as Christians, we forget our Jewish roots. Christianity has its roots in Judaism, has its roots in the Jewish faith.

Jesus was a Jewish man born into a Jewish family. He spent a lot of time in Jerusalem. That's where he was crucified. That's where he was resurrected. That's where he ascended, and that's where he promises to come back. And yet so often the church now takes more of its roots from Athens and Greek philosophies than Hebrew scriptures in the Old Testament.

Now we're going to see a lot of that as we go through this chapter. Does that mean we need to revert back to the law that we might need to be saved? No, that doesn't mean we revert back to the law. I'm not asking anybody to do that, but recognize that the roots of Christianity are of the Jewish faith. That's just a biblical fact. If you've been taught something different, let me apologize to, you know, to you for whoever was teaching you, but it was not good Bible.

That's why there's such a benefit in going through the Hebrew scriptures. Now, as we look at this, they were going to the temple, what for? For the hour of prayer. For the hour of prayer. Now, that hour was spent 15 minutes in silent meditation.

Don't let that freak you out. Meditation is not a New Age term. It's a biblical term that New Age people ripped off from Christians. And then 30 minutes in petition, asking the Lord for things, and then 15 minutes of adoration. And notice they went to the temple. Now, we should go to church. Now, I've sat with so many people that have tried to tell me, Pastor, I don't need church. I don't need church. I can worship God. I can actually worship God better when I don't go to church.

I've heard all this stuff before. My question usually is to that person, you're out of church, out of fellowship, how's it going? And when I ask that question, person after person kind of drops their eyes and stumbles around a little bit because it's not going well.

Why? Because we need each other to encourage one another. Now, you don't need the church to get saved to be forgiven of your sins, but you know what? The reality is most of us in here and most of people in general that have come to Jesus, that have asked him to forgive them of their sins did it in the church, most of us. And church is not perfect. Never has been, never will be. But it's a vehicle that God ordained, not man.

Man didn't come up with this. God ordained. The life lesson here, we should attend church. We should attend church. It gives us an opportunity to be encouraged, to learn from the Bible. It gives us a place to bring friends that we might bring them to Jesus.

It gives us a place where we can start to pour out our lives and get to know other people who say they're following Jesus as well. So we should be in church. We should be the church too. Now, it says Peter and John. Understand, they both had made some pretty serious mistakes in their ministries. If you remember, Jesus sent John out to minister to the people and John didn't like their reaction and tried to call down fire from heaven to fry them.

Crispy critters, you know. I mean, of course, Jesus had the wisdom not to give John that ability, you know. I'm grateful I don't have that ability. I know I'd abuse it. I mean, I bet you would too. I know I would.

I'd be like, oh, that guy's falling asleep again. You know, I mean. So God and his wisdom hadn't given me that ability. John was missing it. And then Peter, of course, with the denial. But they're together again. You know, they had reasons. They had reasons not to serve with one another. You know, Peter could have looked at John and said, I'm not serving with you. Try to call down fire from heaven. Of course, John could have looked at Peter and said, I'm not serving with you.

You denied the Lord. But they served together. Understand, you can always come up with reasons to not serve alongside somebody else. As soon as you get to know them, you can come up.

But you know what? In love, loved ones, family, those aren't really reasons. Those are excuses. Because everybody's normal until you get to know them. And then when you get to know them, you're like, oh, my goodness. I can't believe they're messed up.

I think they're as messed up as I am, maybe even more. And you say, well, I'm not going to serve with them. You can always do that. But you know what? There is one compelling reason to serve alongside one another. Our king, Jesus, has asked us to do that, to join together, to reach out to people. That reason supersedes the differences that we may have with one another or our weaknesses.

We need to understand that. Now, verse 2, it says, 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 from those who entered the temple. So the guy had been lame from birth all of his life and would hang outside the temple and ask alms, ask for money. Now, the temple is called Beautiful. Other places, Nicanor. The word Beautiful in Hebrew is Yophah.

It's because Joppa, which is a derivation of that word, this was the road into the temple from Joppa, which is near modern day Tel Aviv. Now, this man is unable to cure himself. Obviously, he's been there since birth. He can't cure himself. Identify that.

I resonate with that, especially as somebody that struggled for years and years with addictions and different things. They had that whole just say no thing. I thought they said just say mo, so I did not. No, I'm kidding. But that didn't work. Why? Because there's this huge vacuum, empty place in my life. I couldn't heal myself. That's why I kind of chuckle when I go into some Christian bookstores and other bookstores and I see all these self-help books. There's not really any help in self. There's help in God.

God will give you everything that you need to live a life of victory. But to think that you can pull something up inside of you that's not from God or unspiritual or your flesh can overcome your flesh, God doesn't make any sense any more than this man healing himself. This man couldn't heal himself.

But God had a plan. You may not be able to heal yourself, but God has a plan, certainly. We can all agree that we have no cure for sin. The greatest disease that's killed the most people in this world, we don't have a cure for it. Are good works a cure for it? No, absolutely not. Is religion a cure for it?

No, it's not. What's the cure for sin? There's only one cure, and that's Jesus. Now, you can say, well, that's kind of narrow-mounted saying there's one cure, but as I often say, you know, if I'm standing in front of the doctor and he says, you know what, you've got a terminal disease, that's the bad news. The good news is I've got a medication that will cure you. I'm not going to look at the doctor and go, well, is there only one?

I'm going to say, man, I am so glad there's a medication, that there's a cure for the disease I have. Jesus is that cure. Verse 3, this man who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for all, see, asked for money.

Now, let me ask you a question. Is that what he really needed? He really needed money?

No. He needed to be healed. So many of us think we need money. I just need money. If I could have just a little bit more, I'd be happy. I've thought of that different times in my life, but you know what I found when money came through or whatever?

It didn't make me happy. And I was glad one day when the Lord just blew apart that illusion of thinking that that's what I really needed. What I need is Jesus.

You know what? Sometimes you don't realize that Jesus is all you need until Jesus is all you got. And then you realize that a lot of things in your life you can do without, but God is not one of them. So this man asked not for what he really needs, but for something else. Now, we'll see Peter and John, and they have three things that we should note and actually attempt to imitate. One is a sensitive heart, sensitive hearts, discerning minds, and powerful words.

Sensitive hearts, discerning minds, and powerful words. They had to have wisdom in dealing with this man. I'm sure they could have gone and gotten some money together. We're going to discover in a few verses they didn't have any necessarily on them, but it just says in the last chapter that they sold everything to have a common treasury, so they had finances to their access. You know, and all given to people who are in need was an important part of the Jewish faith, and it should be an important part of Christianity. Verse 4, And fixing his eyes on him with John, Peter said, Look at us.

Now, understand the scene. This temple is a large place, a lot of people, a lot of people outside begging. Peter and John, man, he just got through with a revival, 3,000 people.

We're thinking this is a couple days later. 3,000 people got saved. Huge meeting. He's on his way into the temple. He's going to pray. And there's a divine interruption. There's a divine interruption. I'm sure this wasn't on Peter's schedule.

Probably didn't have a PDA or, you know, some cell phone schedule, but he was going through the temple and he stopped. Why? Because there was a divine interruption. Guys, that is so important for us to realize.

Why? Because God will send you divine interruptions. He'll send people to you to minister to, and if you're more concerned about your schedule, you may miss the opportunity to minister. We understand as a staff that divine interruptions are going to happen. And now, just like yourself, you've got to figure out if it's a divine interruption or just an interruption and see if somebody, the Lord has brought somebody across your path. But you know what? The Lord brings a lot of people past us to minister to, and we walk right past them. Cashiers at grocery stores, waiters and waitresses in restaurants. Have you ever been in a restaurant and just, man, just felt the burden of the person that came up to help you? You could just see in their eyes that things weren't going well.

Why do you think God showed that to you? So you could rush on by? Let me share something that we do often. Staff as we go out and different things. We get ready to pray for the food, and we ask the waiter or the waitress, hey, is there something I can pray for you about? That's a divine interruption.

And you know what? It catches so many of them off guard because there they are, they're working, they're pouring out, they're serving. The last thing in the world they expect is the person that they're trying to serve is going to look at them and say, hey, can I pray for you about something? And I've never had anybody rudely go, no. As a matter of fact, I've had people say, yeah, you know what?

My kids are struggling. I've had people begin, as they talk, for tears to well up, as they talk about how they left God. And would I pray for them that they would come back to God? End up ministering to them right in the middle of the restaurant.

Why? It's a divine interruption. And yeah, I'm sure I was hungry.

I'm hungry most of the time. But I was willing to stop and talk to them about the Lord. God's going to send people across your path. Be open for these divine interruptions. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. I want to take just a couple minutes to pray for some cities in our listening audience, specifically, Chickasha, Durant, Edmond, Oklahoma City, Wisterd, and Woodward, Oklahoma. Lord, thank you for the people in these cities.

Thank you that we get to broadcast in these areas. God, I pray that you would plug people in Bible-believing churches. Lord, I pray if people haven't put their trust in you yet, that today would be the day. Lord, we pray for the city leaders, the mayor, the police chief, the fire marshal, Father, all those in government. Lord, we ask that you give them wisdom and discernment and that they would look to your word for advice on how to lead and how to serve the people in their communities. And God, we pray that your Holy Spirit would be poured out on these cities and that many people would be changed forever. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse 5, so he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them.

Now, something happens here, and we need to just see how it plays out. See, Peter's walking in, and Peter doesn't do anything weird or do anything flaky. This man just catches his attention, and that's the way it is in our life sometimes. If you're waiting for like a thunderbolt from heaven or a voice from heaven before you share with anybody, you're never going to share.

Sometimes it's as simple as catching the look in somebody's eye and thinking, man, they're hurt. They're burdened and letting God work through you. I can't tell you the number of times that there's been divine interruptions in my life, sometimes even in ministry. I remember being outside of Chicago, and it was just during the week, a small home Bible study.

There were like six people there. I ministered and talked and got ready to close. I was going to close, and the Lord said, you need to give an invitation. I was having this nonverbal communication with God. I mean, I wasn't hearing audible voices or anything. I said, God, there's only six people here, and the pastor knows every one of them by first name.

I think they're good. God said, give an invitation. So I gave an invitation. Everybody said they were saved. I did the reverse altar call. Raise your hand if you know you're going. All of them raised their hand, and I was like, tea. Yes, I can be spiritually thick.

I hope I didn't just blow your illusion. Well, it had to happen sometimes. Then going around, there was this one woman that was just, man, burdened. I went up to her, and I said, are you all right?

Are you okay? She said, uh-uh. She said, you know what? I raised my hand, but I don't know Jesus.

This dear saint standing behind her, a much older lady, put her hand on her shoulder and said, honey, tonight's your night. Divine interruption. Maybe you're going, well, yeah, preacher man. I'm sure God does divinely interruptions with you, but I'm in the real world. Let me share a neat story.

When I was teaching guitar years ago, this guy came in and was really troubled. Are you going through this and going through that? I said, you know what? The Lord just sparked on my heart just to minister to me. He said, you know what? You're always going to be struggling until you give your heart and your life to Jesus and ask him to forgive you of your sins and that you follow him.

You're always going to be struggling until you do that. He said, you're right. I said, can I lead you in a prayer? He said, yes, and I led him in the prayer.

I was like, awesome. The manager of the store is a Christian. So I said, we'll credit him a lesson.

I want to charge him for a lesson. I'm going to sit in there and preach to him. So we did that. But then I'm sitting there and the next student comes in. I'm really jazzed. The next student comes in and he goes, wow, you seem really upbeat and happy. I said, yeah, Johnny just accepted the Lord, man.

Got saved. A little teenage boy said, if I was going to do something like that, how do you do something like that? I was like, man, God's throwing fruit at my feet simply because I was willing to be divinely interrupted. I could have looked at him and said, no, no, we only have time for that.

We got to do less of that. No, look for those divine interruptions and God will give them to you. And so Peter catches this guy's attention.

This guy catches Peter's attention. And again, don't hear the story that I just told and think, well, Pastor David, that's you. God wants to use all of us, each and every one of us. And maybe you're sitting there going, well, I don't know much of the Bible. Do you know Jesus?

Then you got a lot to share. The Lord wants to use you. And in our lives should actually come an expectation that God is going to use us. The life lesson here, expect God to use you in awesome ways to reach others. Expect God to use you in awesome ways to reach others.

It's so awesome. We hear so many God stories around here. People who just came to know the Lord that are in children's ministry and they see the children come to the Lord and get saved.

The radio, the TV, all that stuff. God is using us, you and I, to reach people. And He wants to use you on a daily basis. So be open and look for people. Look for people who might need fighting for it, might need prayer, reach out, extend yourself and watch what the Lord will do. Well, Pastor David, I'm a little uncomfortable with that. Oh, well then forget about it. Is that what Jesus said? As long as you're comfortable with this, go and tell everybody. As long as this doesn't take you out of your comfort zone, share your faith.

Where do we get that? Every one of us is supposed to be talent. As a matter of fact, Jesus said something very profound and very strong about walking past those who are in need. Matthew 25, 45. He's speaking to the disciples and He said, then He will answer them saying, surely I say to you in as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. Man, the implications are kind of staggering, aren't they? That we walk past Jesus on a daily basis and say, well, I don't really have time.

Well, that person looks like they want to argue about it. We need to be ministered. And you know, we're a young church and stuff is going on.

Man, there's more stuff than you can imagine going on here. And we're really busy inside the church. But it's not just about the four walls.

May it never be just about the four walls. May we continue to understand there's people out there that don't know and that should bother us. That should tug at our hearts to know that there's people in Kernersville that don't know Jesus. There's people at the restaurants you'll be going to.

There's people at the grocery store. They don't know. Maybe they've never even heard a solid biblical presentation of the gospel.

They've just heard this hip hip hooray. If you try to do better, God will accept you. As long as you go to church and do this and do that and do this. That bothers me. It does more than bother me.

It drives me. And I know, I know in this battle, you know what? I'm going to be wounded. That happens. It happens to soldiers. It happens to people who are in a battle. And I will be and have been wounded by those I was trying to help.

It's okay. It didn't slow Jesus down. He hung on the cross and said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. In verse five again, so he gave them his attention expecting to receive something from them. Expecting to receive something from them. Now, expectations are kind of a funny thing. Sometimes we have expectations that are unrealistic. Like if you came this morning to this church thinking, well, maybe it's the perfect church. Well, no, it's not.

Let me go ahead and dash those expectations in a hurry. It's not a perfect church. There's no such thing as a perfect church. And if there was such a thing as a perfect church, you couldn't join because you're not perfect.

And neither am I. But I think sometimes we, I don't know, we get into this thing of I'm going to church. Why are you going to church? I don't know.

And then you leave. Did you get anything? Uh-uh. I didn't get anything out of it. Well, what were you expecting to get out of it? Nothing.

That might be the problem. Because I know many people that come here expecting to worship God. Man, then they come in here and worship God. I think when we gather as a body of believers, there should be an expectation Jesus is going to be here. And man, I have seen Him show up so faithfully and minister to people. Sometimes when I'm, I don't feel up to it, He's faithful. To minister to us and to minister through us. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned, and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things.

Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven, you've been born again. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him, and He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous.

So congratulations, friend, you just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood, through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much He would have you give, either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the book of Acts.