Acts Chapter 3:11-17

Now look, Peter goes into personal accountability here. And he says, you guys are in part responsible for the death of Jesus. This is another important part in talking to people about their faith.

In saying, hey, you know, um, you are personally accountable to God. And of course, many of you have had the experience where, you know, you start talking about your faith to somebody and they want to talk about everything else. They want to talk about the Pope. They want to talk about prophecy. They want to talk about politics. They want to talk about the pygmies in Africa.

You know, what about the pygmies in Africa? They've never heard. And it's not what somebody else who hasn't heard is going to do.

The question is, what are you going to do with what you're hearing now? Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. Today, we have on the program with us D.A. Brown, one of David McGee's associate pastors here at the bridge.

Welcome, brother. Can you give us a little insight into the teaching today? I can, Bob. As a follower of Jesus, it's important to share our faith. Today, Pastor David explains how we can begin sharing our faith by finding common ground as he continues in the book of Acts chapter three. This is a great time to ask ourselves, are we showing others mercy and grace? So let's listen as David McGee teaches sharing your faith.

We'll pick it up in verse 11. It says, Now as the lame man who was healed held onto Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch, which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people, Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this or why look so intently at us as though by our own power or godliness, we had made this man walk and again, painting the picture, what happened, man outside the temple, Peter and John going to pray and God used them to heal this lame man.

Now notice immediately what happens. The people around Peter tried to give Peter kind of the credit. I want you to know as closely what Peter does.

Peter immediately starts Simon, Peter healing ministries, international incorporated and starts torn. No, that's not what he did. He says, wait a minute. It's not me.

It's not me. It's God. It's so important when God uses us and God desires to use every one of us. It's so important when God uses us that we give God the glory, give the glory to God. Praise the Lord. So you'll hear a lot of people around here when you say, Hey, appreciate you doing that or I'm glad you did that or that was helpful or good job or whether I say, well, praise the Lord.

Now that doesn't mean that you're in sin. If you say you're welcome. I need to clarify because a couple of people, I said, thanks. And they said, Oh, you're welcome. Oh, I mean, praise the Lord.

I'm so sorry. It's okay to say you're welcome, but it's a point of saying, you know what? Give the glory to God because as we do that, the door opens more for God to use us. And verse 13, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go.

Now I want you to notice something. First thing that Peter does here is he ties in Judaism or the Jewish faith with a belief in Jesus as the Messiah. Now we need to understand at this point, there are no Gentiles in the church. The church is just Jewish people believing in Jesus. The first missionaries were Jewish people. Jesus was a Jewish man born into a Jewish family.

He was the Jewish Messiah and we need to understand that. So what Peter does is Peter finds the common ground and he talks about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's so important when you're trying to share with somebody, when you're trying to build a bridge with somebody, that's the first life lesson. Find the common ground when sharing your faith, find the common ground when sharing your faith. You understand that we usually do the opposite.

We usually try to figure out what we can argue about with somebody. Perhaps you're talking to somebody that, you know, has been really disillusioned with the church and they say, well, you know, I just, I don't want to go to church. There's just, you know, a bunch of hypocrites filled there, you know, there.

And, um, you know, in times I've said, well, there's always room for one more, but, um, that's not always a good thing to say. So, you know, but, but say, you know what I've had, I've had some really bad experience with Christians too. And it just goes to show you that we all need a savior people in church, people out of church instead of defending. I used to do the same thing with church history. You know, people start talking about church history and I'd start trying to defend this or define that. And boy, the more I've studied and the more I've dug, the more I understand there is no defense for some of what the church has done. So I'll agree with and go, man, that's amazing. That's terrible.

That's horrible. Boy, it looks like a bunch of people that need somebody to lead them out of their sins, doesn't it? Then you build that bridge.

And that's so important when you're talking to somebody to do that. And Peter does that so beautifully in this teaching, but then look where he goes verse 14, but you denied the Holy One and the just and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. You may remember they asked for Barabbas to be released and cried out for Jesus to be crucified.

Verse 15 says and killed the Prince of life whom God raised from the dead of which we are witnesses. Now God is getting ready to use Peter in an amazing way that he just used Peter to heal this lame man. And now he's going to use him to proclaim the gospel. Now, what are the things that we see about Peter that make him usable if you will?

Well, two things popped to mind right off. Number one, a person willing to give God the glory person willing to give God the glory. This is so important that when God uses you, you give God the glory and you don't take a bow for yourself.

So important. Second thing is a person who knows the word of God person who knows the word of God. Get to know this book, get to know this book. Now Peter goes into personal accountability here and he says, you guys are in part responsible for the death of Jesus. This is another important part in talking to people about their faith in saying, Hey, you know, um, you are personally accountable to God. And of course, many of you have had the experience where, you know, you start talking about your faith to somebody and they want to talk about everything else. They want to talk about the Pope. They want to talk about prophecy. They want to talk about politics. They want to talk about the pygmies in Africa. You know, what about the pygmies in Africa? They've never, and it's not what somebody else who hasn't heard is going to do.

The question is, what are you going to do with what you're hearing now? And you bring in this personal accountability and you build this bridge and then you start talking about Jesus. I still love doing street ministry. We went down the North Elm street, kind of party central in Greensboro on a Friday night, walking up and down the street, just talking to people and throwing bibles at them. And, um, no, I'm kidding.

I didn't throw bibles. I was just talking to people. I was just talking to people. And you know, a few years back I went to high point road in Greensboro. It's kind of, it's kind of a, another party strip, you know, just going, talking to people. We went to one group and these guys were in this parking lot and, um, you know, they had all these muscle cars and stuff.

And so I started talking about muscle cars and engines and torque and you know, all this stuff. And, um, and then after I talked to him for a little bit, start talking to him about Jesus and the door was open. And so they admitted, they said, you know, I think every one of us knows Jesus as our savior or he's not living right. I said, dude, you understand that the Lord misses you because you're out of fellowship way. Some of them teared up and at the end I said, can I pray with you guys?

And so we prayed and I encouraged them in their faith. And as we got ready to walk off, God goes, he held up a different track, you know, with like flames on the front of it. And he goes, Hey, are you with these guys? And I said, what guys? And he goes, well, these guys came by and kind of threw these out of the car at us and then took off without saying anything. I said, no, we're not really with them.

Build the bridge, talk to people, bring in this personal accountability. Now Peter says, whom God has raised from the dead. This is interesting. You know why? Because this was like 53, 54, maybe even 60 days after the crucifixion of Jesus within a couple of months, he was talking to people that were there. Why is that important?

Guys? The fact that Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead is not a fable or a fairytale or folklore. It's an historic event. As a matter of fact, Roman and Jewish historians record that Jesus was resurrected from the dead.

Josephus being one of them. It's a reality. And had it not been around, some people around here are going, Oh, wait a minute. No, we still have his grave. We still have the body that it does, but that's not what happened.

Is it? I think too often we shy away from the resurrection. Can you imagine what's going through their heart and their head as they realize they crucified their Messiah. Sadly enough, it's going to be the same thing that goes through hearts and heads of people who've rejected Jesus, made fun of Jesus when they stand in front of Jesus.

Because here's the thing. Every one of us in this room, everybody's going to meet Jesus. Everybody is going to meet Jesus. Question is when will they meet him? Will you meet him here in this life on this planet?

May I suggest that you do that? Because if you're meeting him for the first time after you pass away or at the rapture of the church, that's not going to be a pleasant meeting. But if you meet him here and then you see him, then it's going to be great rejoicing. And so you either rejoice with him now and turn to him now, or there will be a day when you stand before him, lost, stumbling with your words. You're listening to pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be right back with more in just a moment, but I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on crossthebridge.com. There's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved. You have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior. You need people to pray for him.

You need someone to present God's word to him. Every day we're presenting God's word to him here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on Submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. 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, Wistord, 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 cities.

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 16, and his name through faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. He's talking about the man that was being healed.

And once again, he points to God and say, this man is strong because of Jesus. Now it mentions his name. Let's be clear about something because there's some confusion in the church today about the name.

Jesus, name above all names, no question. But we need to understand that Greek word for name is onema. The Hebrew word there is shem. It's the word for name.

It doesn't just mean the letters, the name of somebody. You see in the Hebrew scriptures, in the Old Testament and the Jewishness of things, you were named, it went with your character, went with your personality. That's why sometimes people had their names changed. That's why sometimes they wouldn't even name a child until later on. They got to know him and see what him or her was like, and then they'd give them the name.

Why is that important? Because we have kind of separated something in our mind between the nature of Jesus and the name of Jesus. People pray weird prayer sometimes, you know, Lord, I want you to give me that man's house and give me that man's car and give me that man's bank account.

Just give me that man's family. The name of Jesus. Amen. That's not a good prayer, but see, if you think you can just say anything and then tag it with the name of Jesus and think it's going to happen, you're mistaken.

You're mistaken. Now let's change that word name to nature and see how that goes. Lord, give me that man's house. Give me his bank account.

Give me his family. Give me his car in the nature of Jesus. It's that prayer falls apart and that's what we need to ask as we pray. Is this prayer according to the nature of Jesus you know, God mercy for him, mercy for me, God judgment for him in the name of Jesus.

Well that prayer fell apart, didn't it? If you say in the nature of Jesus. So that's what we have to do and figuring out the nature of Jesus and then following Jesus according to his nature.

That's what we should all be doing. May we all begin to follow Jesus and not just use his name and fling it around like some, almost like some incantation, but be following the one that we say is our Lord and King. And as we do, we take on his nature and guess what? Your prayers will change.

Your prayers will change. And again, you know, Peter's given the Lord the glory for what goes on here. And it's interesting because here's this disciple and he's, you know, from the northern part of Israel from Galilee and right now he's ministering, if you will, to the deep theologians of Jerusalem. These guys have been schooled in the Torah and all these things and schooled in the yeshivas. But there's something wrong. They have this academic knowledge of God.

They don't know him. And we've almost gotten to the point today where, you know, we think, well, there's an academic theological knowledge of God. And then there's the, you know, the normal people's faith. There's only one kind of faith. That's the everyday living, vibrant faith. Now we should begin to understand the word of God. We should begin to read the word, but you know, to say, well, there's this academic thing and then there's daily living.

You know what? I'm sorry. And I'm questing after knowledge. I study all the time and I dig into the word and I love it. But an academic knowledge of God never got anybody saved. As a matter of fact, it's driven a lot of people away from a living, vibrant faith. And the more you know about Jesus and the more you know about God, as you live out your vibrant faith, you see that it's not this and this. It's one thing. It's one thing. Verse 17, Peter, so kind to these guys. Listen to this. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance as did also your rulers.

It's very merciful. Number one, he calls them brothers. Now again, let's stop and ask ourselves the questions that we should, as we look through the word, you know, who's he talking to? When is he talking to? Where is he talking to? He's talking to him in Jerusalem shortly after the crucifixion of Jesus. He's talking to the people that played a part in the murder and the execution of his spiritual teacher, of his Rabboni, his rabbi. They killed him.

They killed his friend. And read verse 17 again. Yet now, brother, I know that you did it in ignorance as did also your rulers. The mercy and the grace of God. It's just pouring out of Peter right now.

May it pour out of us. Now Peter had an awesome model in doing this, didn't he? Because you remember, you've probably heard the words of Jesus from the cross, Luke 23, and Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. Now we look at that verse and we thought of that verse and some people think, well, that's because Jesus knew that these people were going to repent. Maybe there was a tear falling from their eye or he just knew that there was this spark of innate human goodness in them. Right?

None of that. Let me remind you of how the verse ends because we often quote part of this verse at 23, 34, the rest of it. Then Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do. And they divided his garments and cast lots. This is what they were doing at the foot of the cross. Why Jesus was dying.

And Jesus looked at him and said, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. So often people are messed up and they're living lives that you can, if you look very closely, they're living them because they don't have a knowledge of God. They don't know who he is. They don't know his love and his grace and his mercy. And if they did, they wouldn't live like that. But how often we put on our religious condescending glasses and look down our nose at them. When just probably a short time ago for a lot of us, we were living just like they are.

May we be able to look at people and say, Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. They don't know what they're doing. Granted, some people have gotten hearted to God and calloused. But you know, there's so many more people that don't know that haven't really heard the good news of Jesus.

And it's important. I mentioned personal accountability. When you bring in personal accountability, understand you didn't need to talk about sin. You do need to talk about sin.

But you know what I've discovered in talking to people? I've never been talking to somebody about Jesus, you know, like in a bar, outside a bar or on the street when they've been partying or anything like that. And then go, well, I'm not a sinner. I don't have any problem with sin. I don't sin. I've never had one person in those situations ever try to tell me they weren't a sinner.

Do you know where I have had people tell me that? Good church going folk. I don't have a problem with sin. What do you mean I don't have a problem with sin? I'm a good person. What do you mean you're a good person? I go to church.

I'm on fire every Eastern Christmas. I'm at church, man. So you don't struggle with sin?

No, sir. Used to before I started going to church. That's whacked. And then having to walk through and say, well, you know, really, if you're saying you don't have a problem and with sin and that you aren't struggling and you don't still sin, you're saying the Bible's not true.

What do you mean? The Bible's not true. It says, there's no one righteous, not one. And all have fallen short of the glory of God says that.

Oh yeah. It says that I have a harder time trying to witness the church people that may sound weird to some of you. It's not weird. There's people in churches all across triad this morning. They don't know Jesus. Sad thing is they're not going to hear about him this morning either. I think they're fine.

Why? Well, cause they're doing the best they can hoping their good outweighs their bad. I would not want to be explaining that one to Jesus at the end of my life. So as we share this now, you know, I've been tempted at times to be in people and long faced religious people that Jesus seemed to have a problem with as well.

Um, I get stirred up sometimes to be honest and I want to get her, you know, but is that what I should do now? I need to be motivated by love, by love for them. I came across a verse in my personal reading.

They just jumped out at me and I just read it several times. First Corinthians 16, 14 let all that you do be done with love. Let all that you do be done with love.

Pretty challenging it. Let all that you do. Now the thing is, now some of you can read that and go, that's impossible. Well, yeah, but God's always telling us do impossible things. He's always telling other people do impossible things. He told a blind man to see, told a layman to walk and that's not enough.

He told a dead man to come out of his grave and he tells us to love, to love one another, do all things in love. The life lesson here, be motivated by love, be motivated by love. See, when you go to share with someone and you can often kind of sense the motivation of somebody, you know, cause sometimes I've seen people share and it's almost like they run up and share the gospel so they can get like another spiritual notch on their belt or something. You understand? People sense that.

They sense, well, you're just telling me that's cause your buddy, you're trying to impress your buddy that's with you and as soon as you say your peace, you're going to leave and never think about me again. Be motivated by love for that person. Well, pastor, you don't understand what all's going on in my life. I've been hurt and I've been wounded and I have a hard time loving people than me.

Be motivated by the love of God to share with other people. I have to pray often. God fill me with more love for you.

That's a good prayer to pray. God fill me with more love for you and here's what's going to happen. As God fills me with more love for him, I'm going to overflow. I'm going to overflow over to other people and show forth the love that he's given me to them. But remember that and be motivated by love when you're sharing because the reality is, you know what, if they reject you, they're not rejecting you. They're rejecting him. 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. 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, DA, 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.