214 - “Why are you amazed at this? (21 Sept 2024)

You pick up your Bible and wonder, is there more here than meets the eye?

Is there anything here for me? I mean, it's just words printed on paper, right? Well, it may look like just print on a page, but it's more than ink. Join us for the next half hour as we explore God's Word together, as we learn how to explore it on our own, as we ask God to meet us there in its pages. Welcome to More Than Ink. So last week we read about this man who had been lame for over 40 years, and suddenly he's leaping around praising God and a crowd gathers.

Right. They want an explanation. And so Peter stands and he says, it wasn't me. But he'll explain who it was today on More Than Ink.

Well, yes, yes, yes, this is More Than Ink. I'm Jim. And I'm Dorothy. And we are delighted you're with us. And we presume that's because you like reading God's Word with us because we do too. Or you just happen to be listening to the radio and here we are.

So I hope you'll stay with us if that's the case. Well, if you're wondering what this is all about, because you are here accidentally, although I don't believe in accidents. But yeah, we together read through huge sections of scripture. We're going through the entire book of Acts right now, which is really a blast and a half. If you've never read Acts, I think you'll be surprised.

It's full of surprises at every turn. Well, it's full of action. It's funny that the name is Acts of the Apostles. We've talked about this before that it actually is the act of Jesus after he was resurrected and sent the Holy Spirit. But it is full of action.

Yeah. So this is the early church. This is everything that transpires in that immediately after Jesus dies and was resurrected and sends the apostles out. And this is the life of the young church.

So we're in chapter three. So we're very, very young church at this point. And Peter and John are quite prominent.

And they just did something last week really big. Well, they healed a man who had been lame, unable to walk from his birth. From birth. Told at the end of his passage today that he was more than 40 years old. So given that Pentecost was just 50 days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and this is within days of that. So if he was 40 years old or more, then he had been sitting there at that very gate, the beautiful gate begging for pretty much the whole lifetime and all of the time that Jesus was coming and going in the temple.

Yeah, yeah. And this guy was a fixture there. Everyone saw him when they went in and out for prayers.

Like what happens here, Peter and John going for prayers about three in the afternoon. And so they stop when he asks them for money because as someone who can't make a living because he can't walk, you subsist on what people will give you. So there he stops them. He gets their attention. Peter says, I got no cash, but I do have this in the name of Jesus Christ.

Rise up and walk. And he does. And it causes quite a stir. And he starts leaping around and it creates a scene.

And that's where we are today. We're having a scene at the beautiful gate to the entry to the large temple area. And a crowd starts to mass around this scene with Peter and John and this man who is just wildly leaping up and down in the air and they want to find out what happens. And so if you're going to follow with us in your scriptures, we're in chapter three of Acts and we're starting at verse 11 to see what happens when the scene develops.

That's right. So he had leaped to his feet, leaping and jumping around. But here, starting verse 11, it says, well, he clung to Peter and John.

All the people utterly astounded ran together to them in the portico called Solomon's. And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people. Oh, you want to stop there? Well, I was just going to say, so what we're going to look at principally today is what he says to this assembled crowd. Yeah. Yeah. And it strikes me, this is the second big speech of Peter right after Pentecost. And so it bears some striking resemblances to the first one, but it has some differences too. So here he begins.

So he's going to explain what just happened. Second half of verse 12. Men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we've made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you denied the holy and righteous one and asked for a murderer to be granted to you.

And you killed the author of life whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And his name by faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know.

And the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all. Oh, yeah. We need to stop there. We need to stop there. So that's his explanation.

And I think it's wonderful. It's wonderful that in his explanation he starts out by saying, you know, he's going to give credit to Jesus. So he says, so let's talk about Jesus right from the very top.

From the very top. And Jesus was still a pretty hot topic I would guess in Jerusalem at the time. It had just been two months since he was crucified very publicly and then rose from the dead very publicly again.

No one disputed the fact that the grave was empty. So I mean it was a big deal. This is in people's mind. So before he gives credit to Jesus for this, he needs to just bring up the whole issue about Jesus and why it recently taken place. Well, and remember that people are talking about Jesus because in recent days thousands of people had come to faith in Christ as a result of the last time Peter spoke. At Pentecost. Actually on the day of Pentecost.

So this is very shortly after that. And he's going to, again, he revisits not only this is all about Jesus, but he goes back to this theme that he did in the first one. You rejected him. You crucified him. You denied him. That were denied. You refused to recognize him as the holy and righteous one, the author of life.

Yeah. And I like at the very outset of this, he ties it back to the traditional description of the God of Israel. He's not saying that this is an aberration or it's some departure from the scriptures that they knew from the Torah.

It's none of that at all. In fact, it very much is the fulfillment of it. So he's saying what you're seeing here isn't something different from the past. This is in line with, because he says 13, the God of Abraham, God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers. He has actually glorified his servant Jesus. So here he uses the name of Jesus in the same praise as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Well, and he connects the name of Jesus to God's servant, which it's almost as I read this just freshly, I'm thinking it's almost as if Peter had just been rereading Isaiah. Yeah. Because Isaiah contains those famous servant songs. Yeah. I wrote a couple down here.

I did too, but go ahead. Well, I've got some from Isaiah 42. Okay. Behold my servant whom I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I put my spirit upon him and he'll bring forth justice to the nations. And he goes on after that. We might go all the way to verse seven. Well, no, I'm going to leave it there because I'm going to jump to from 42 to 52. Okay. Because Isaiah 52 is kind of like the prelude to the big chapter, Isaiah 53.

Right. But the prelude just before the verses, just before the big chapter 53 and 52, 13, behold, my servant shall act wisely. He shall be high and lifted up. He shall be exalted as many were astonished at you.

His appearance was so marred beyond human semblance and his form beyond that of the children of mankind. So shall he sprinkle the nations. Kings shall shut their mouths because of him for that which has not been told them they see and that which they had not heard they understand. And then it goes into Isaiah 53 about the one who died on behalf of those who were sinful.

Yeah. So he's always characterized as the servant. So when Peter here says he's glorified his servant, he's tying it back to these, saying Jesus is doing exactly what had been predicted of him as the servant of God back in Isaiah. And we probably should talk a little bit about this when he says he's glorified his servant Jesus.

That to be glorified means to be recognized for who you really are. To be made known. To be made known and recognized, which is why in a second or breath when Peter says you refuse to recognize him but God recognized him.

Exactly, exactly. That's why I like that Isaiah 52 passage because it says they'll see what they haven't seen and they will eventually recognize him. And Jesus very clearly identified himself as the one who came, the servant. And the passage that I specifically was thinking of is in John 12 when Jesus says at one point Greeks come looking for him and he says the hour has come for the son of man to be glorified.

Right? To go to the cross and be recognized. And later on in that same passage in verse 27 of John 12 he says now my soul has become troubled and what shall I say father save me from this hour? But for this hour, this purpose I came to this hour. Father glorify your name.

Right. So this idea of God glorifying the sent one, Jesus, that Isaiah had been talking about, Jesus himself spoke about that. Yeah and I might just say the word glorify, you know that's such a religious term. It just really means to make known in a very broad and public way. What might not have been seen up to that point, I always call it the billboard word.

It's like taking a truth and sticking it on the billboard and your intention is for everyone to see it. To be undeniable. Right, so that's what glorify is all about. Now that's going to figure prominently in this passage. Oh yeah. So it's interesting when he's explaining by what means was this guy healed.

Right. He just starts off by saying well this Jesus who actually is in concert with everything that's been said in the Old Testament, the God of Ava reminding Jacob, underscores him as the servant and yet you guys, he says twice here in verses 13, you denied him, you denied him. And then he says you denied the holy and righteous one. That's a catch phrase from the Old Testament that's extremely important to recognize. Okay and the holy one runs all the way through the book of Isaiah.

All the way through. The holy one, the redeemer, the righteous one. Yes. Always referring to God the Father and his sent one.

Yeah, yeah. God the Father and those who are so identified in his actions they're identified with God himself. So he says that of Moses and Aaron.

He says it a lot of places but it's a big deal. He's not just saying that this itinerant preacher from Nazareth, he's talking about the holy and righteous one. Right. Which when all your bells go off, when you think about the passage in the Old Testament where that's been used of God. Right. And you refused to recognize him.

Wow, wow. Well and then he says and you killed the author of life. Well so the author of life, that is not particularly an Old Testament statement regarding the Messiah but if you just take your concordance and look up life and stick to the gospels. Right, the gospel of John, you will find it again and again and again. Right out of the box John says in him was life and the life was the light of men. Yeah, right in the first chapter. All the famous verses we know where Jesus claims to be the source of life are all very present in the gospel of John.

So I would just ask at a little concordance moment. Yeah and that right there, the end of 14 and 15, kind of like a hyper irony moment because here you ask for a murderer who's someone who specializes in death but you killed the author of life and then. But he didn't stay dead. And God raised him from the dead.

It's a massive triple irony moment right there. We're talking about life itself. You've killed the author of life.

Is that possible? Yes and it was according to the plan of God but he brought him back to life. But God raised him from the dead and we're witnesses. Right. We're witnesses.

We saw it. By faith in that name. What name? In the name of the servant, this Jesus. In the name of the holy and righteous one, the author of life. The faith in that name is what has given this man healing.

Right. And his name and of course we've said before name. It's a broad statement of the true nature of someone but it carries with it since we're talking about God himself. It carries the very authority and power of God. His identity. Yeah. So he's saying if you're wondering how this happened, God's done this and through faith in his name and through Jesus, through Jesus has given this man perfect health.

Yikes. So there is really no doubt about the fact that Peter is tying together Jesus in an extraordinarily divine way. It's just some passing fad that he can heal people. This is Jesus the promised servant of God. Well and he's emphasizing the fact that hey it's not me, Peter the healer. Yes.

Right. It's this living Jesus, the author of life who has healed this one. Like he says in 12, it's neither our power or necessarily our piety or the fact that we're super righteous and God listens to us.

It has nothing to do with that. It has everything to do with the servant of God, Jesus himself. Well and at that point, now that he makes sure to them, how did this happen, now it's time to actually challenge them. I mean they may have seen a miracle and witnessed a miracle but they still need to understand that in the gospel message they need to repent.

So that's where he goes after that in 17. So and now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance as did also your rulers but what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be blotted out that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his prophets long ago. I misspoke.

Restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago. Yeah, let's get right there. Okay, we need to stop there. That's already a gigantic mouthful. It's a massive sentence.

It's a mouthful. But he does confront their sin but he doesn't let them off the hook just because they are ignorant. Sin's still there but he says I understand you acted in ignorance just as did your rulers.

And by the way, we'll get to them next week because he'll address them. But what he really brings to bear in the end of 18 and 19, most of the end of 18 is the fact that this was not an accident. This did not derail the plan of God at all. And we've talked before about the providence of God. God gets his way. And I'm sure many during that day saw the death of Jesus and said well so much for that. That was a tremendously bad accident and it derailed the wonderful thing Jesus was doing.

And what he's saying here is no, this is actually exactly according to plan. And all the prophets, all the prophets spoke about that. That's fascinating. So if you look for where you can find those, you just have to read the prophets.

It's all over the place. But a place that's specifically in the words of Jesus speaks of him opening their minds to understand the words of the prophets. Look at Luke 24, especially verses 44 to 48 where he says after the resurrection, let's talk now about all that the prophets have said. And so let me just read you a couple of verses from there.

This is Luke 24. Now he said to them, verse 44, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you that all the things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And he said to them, thus it's written that the Christ should suffer and rise from the dead the third day and that repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name. So Peter is quoting Jesus here in this speech.

Yeah, yeah. All the prophets. Makes me think of, we watch this YouTube channel called So Be It and it's a street interview outreach of Jews for Jesus. But they often go to Isaiah 53 which we just got up close to before. And without telling him, he says read this. And so they read it. It's clearly, I mean it's just clearly about the crucifixion and the death of Jesus. And then he says where do you think this came from? Then he shocks them and he tells them it comes out of the Old Testament several centuries before Jesus was killed.

And they're shocked by that. Well there's that as well as so much else in the Old Testament that testifies the fact that God's chosen servant will suffer and die. And it's purposeful. It's in order to pay for our sins.

So it's all there. He says, you know, what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets. So you can actually realize that in the Old Testament the messages coming from the prophets, although many of those messages were meant for a short term application, many of them had a double application to point to the coming of God's Messiah, his servant Jesus. But that's the call of the Old Testament prophets. Always repent, change your heart and your mind, and turn back toward God so that your sins can be washed away. That was Peter's first message at Pentecost. Repent. You've got to turn around. And this isn't just being sorry for your sins.

We talked about this last time. It means a radical shift, a turn. A change of heart. Which is why I like how it says that in 19. Repent therefore and turn back.

It's all about turning away from a lifestyle and turning toward God in order that your sins might be blotted out. And how refreshing is that? Yeah. Jesus said if you believe in me, out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water. How refreshing is that?

Yeah. And even Paul, when he wrote the Corinthian church, said, you know, if anyone's in Christ, he's a new creation in the oldest past. Behold, the new has come. And that's what he's promising here. A new life, a refreshing that comes from the presence of the Lord, even though just in the last breath, he condemned them for having killed God's servant.

But there's there's a turnaround that's possible. You know, it's interesting that this message is preached to Jews, right? Because they didn't think of themselves as people who needed to repent. They already had God's truth. They already had God's law. They were already living. They're already in. That's right.

They were already in. But I just want to read a verse from Jeremiah here, because it just indicates that the prophets had already been talking about this for a long time. Back in Jeremiah 2, verse 13, Jeremiah says, and he's saying this from the Lord, For my people have committed two evils. They've forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken sisters that can hold no water. So back in Jeremiah's time, he's lamenting that they had rejected the life giving nearness of God and said, Oh, we can do it our own way and built, you know, essentially dug spiritual wells for themselves, which were cracked and could hold no water. Yeah, signs of independence from God. So this, this promise of the refreshing of the presence of the Lord speaks to me of that turn back from digging your own well, and drink the living water that God is calling you to.

Yeah, yeah. And you know, in 21, the Holy Spirit is hinting to the fact that there is a second coming. Yeah, you know that at the present moment, you know, heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke of. So so that he's hinting at the second coming, but he's also saying that Jesus physically is not here, but he will physically come back. However, Jesus is here in the Holy Spirit. So you know that that's a fascinating thing the Spirit's talking about not just the moment here, but he's talking about the moment when Christ returns as well physically.

So really, for those who were really versed in the prophets, this would make their gears start turning. Yeah, right there. Peter's connecting dots for them that they've maybe never connected before.

Well, and in 22, we're coming up with another big dot. I'll read this for you. Okay. He's gonna he's gonna quote out of Deuteronomy 18. So Moses said, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers, you shall listen to him in whatever he tells you. And it shall be that every soul who does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the people. Whoa, I'll just read a little bit more and all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaimed these days. You, you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant that God made with your fathers saying to Abraham, and in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed. So God having raised up his servant sent him to you first to bless you by turning every one of you from your wickedness.

Wow. That actually he's turned this this message of condemnation rightly so into a message of hope, something that God has sent prophets to warn you about. And this is what's happening right now. And but be careful, be warned, if you don't listen, you'll be destroyed. That's the judgment. But we hear both the condemnation of you crucified him, you rejected him, but you can repent and turn back and then here right at the end of the passage, he says, but God sent him to you to bless you by turning every one of you. So who's doing the turning? God's graciously enabling the turning.

So accept the invitation. And what a contrast. They were hoping that God would send the Messiah to bless them by turning the Romans.

Right. Romans away. But in the end, God has sent the Messiah to bless you by turning you away from your own wickedness back to him. I just love that God's God's blessing to you is freeing you from the enslavement to sin. And that that's why Jesus came. That's why he came to turn every one of you from your wickedness.

And that is a blessing. And you know, any of us who are caught up in sin and we're all caught up in sin to some degree realize after the fact usually, not before the fact, that sin is a dead end road to death. It's not a road to life.

It's a road to death. And who will free us from that? Paul himself said that.

Who will free us? And here he's saying look, God raised his servant and that was necessary. And he sent him to you first. He's speaking to the Jews. He sent him to you Jews first. Again here implying who's next?

Well the Gentiles are next and we'll see that coming up. But he sent him to you first because he wants to turn you from your sins. Wow. And if you turn, times of refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord. Your sins will be blotted out, washed away, erased, gone forever. Right. So here he's explaining that God has provided a solution in Jesus to a problem they didn't know they had. Which I think is fascinating. And the problem is their own sin.

And how do you get into this program? Repent. Turn away from it. Say I don't want to have a life of sin anymore. But then it's God who actually does the refreshing. It's God who puts it away and removes that sin. It's God from that point who takes over and makes everything happen and He includes you in His kingdom and in His family. And His point, God's point, is to remove you from this, what do they call this, domain of darkness process. Right.

Transfer. Right. We're up to our eyeballs in a place of sin and there is no life in that. And Colossians says that in Christ He has transferred us from the domain of darkness into the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption. Yeah. Such great news.

Oh, it's such good news. They just never even knew they had that problem. They're Jews so they don't have to worry about sin. You know, it's interesting that Jesus when He first appears on the scene, the Gospel of Matthew tells us this, the first words out of His mouth when He took up His public ministry were, Repent.

Repent. Because the kingdom of heaven is right here, right now. Yeah. In other words, the King is here. So turn from the direction you're going and turn toward the King. Yeah, and this turning is where you set your face. And it's all, you know, where you set your face is always what we call it today is a worldview, but it's a mindset that you have. And He says, you know, you've got, your mindset's wrong.

Your mind, you've got to turn away from that to something else. You need your mind renewed by the truth. The truth is you're sinners and no one measures up.

Yeah. But the truth is the King came to die for your sin and invites you into a place of cleansing and refreshing. So come. And I like it too, even though He's gone through this condemnation process of saying you killed God's Messiah. Well, they got to face the truth.

You don't soft sell that. But when in 25, He comes back and says, look, you're sons of the prophets. I mean, you guys listen to the prophets and of the covenant that God made with you. You're participants in that plan.

Right. I'm your God and you're my people. And you're my people. But He says, you know, He says to Abram and in your offspring shall all the families of earth be blessed. And that's a, that's a fascinating uncloaked inference to the Gentiles participating. But what's nice about this is He's saying in your offspring, He's actually by implication saying to the Jews in your offspring as well. I mean, there's a way in which you will bless the world if you respond to this message. It's just a, it's such a wonderful kind of a nutshell of the gospel.

The nutshell of the gospel on the front end, it has the bad news. We're all sinners. The good news is God still wants to include you in His kingdom and in His family. And He's made that possible through what Christ has done. And that's exactly what Peter said here today after healing this man.

So the invitation is open. Turn back toward God. Yep. Turn. Repent.

Yeah. So next time this message has been overheard by the temple authorities, cause they're on temple grounds and they decide it's time to come and shut this thing down and they'll shut it down and it will, it'll be interesting because they'll get arrested and many things will happen. So we'll look at that interaction with the leaders next time here on More Than Ink. There are many more episodes of this broadcast to be found at our website, morethanink.org. And while you are there, take a moment to drop us a note. Remember, the Bible is God's love letter to you. Pick it up and read it for yourself and you will discover that the words printed there are indeed more than ink. What was I supposed to say? What was the cue I was supposed to give you? This has been a production of Main Street Church of Brigham City.