Today on Summit Life with J.D.
Greer. You've got an opinion about Jesus. God has an opinion too. And God verified his through miracles and through the resurrection. God declared him to be the Lord. God declared him to be the salvation that he gave from heaven. God declared him to be an invitation for you to come home. I know you've got an opinion about Jesus, but God said, that's my man.
That's the one I sent. Are you listening to him? Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian, J.D.
Greer. I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Now, no one can deny that there's plenty of suffering in the world today. We've all endured more this year than any year in recent memory.
But is that how it's supposed to be? Today, Pastor J.D. explains that in the world to come, God has a different plan for our lives.
If you missed any of the previous messages in this series, you can find them online. But for now, Pastor J.D. picks up again in Acts chapter three. You know, if you like to watch movies, you realize that actors have a tendency to get tight cast. You start to know what to expect when you see a certain person in a certain role. Some actors are known as action heroes. Some are always buffoons.
Some of them are the wise-cracking sidekick. Whenever Tom Cruise stars in a film, I know to expect the macho, insecure guy with daddy issues, right? Vin Diesel is never going to be the articulate, witty, romantic type. You never hear that the lead role in a certain movie has come down to two people, Channing Tatum or Kevin James.
Right? Tatum only plays Tatum roles. James only plays James roles. Hugh Grant is never going to play the role of a man, okay, in any movie.
Nicolas Cage is never going to be anything but awesome. All right? So you get tight cast. I read an article the other day that explained that the church has been tight cast in our society. For many people, the role that we play in society, not just us as a summit church, but the church in general, and the role we play is as antagonist to progress. So whenever we're brought up, we're morally regressive. We are against the progress of science.
We are against the development of good culture. Now, that's not a new characterization. In fact, if you studied church history all the way back to Acts, you'll find that the people of God have always been regarded by the people of the world as those who are enemies of the state, those who are hateful people and so forth.
But what I want to try to show you this weekend is that while that characterization is not new, it is not at all accurate. And we're going to do that by looking at the first miracle that we find in the book of Acts. So if you have your Bible, if you would turn it on, I've figured you people out. If you would turn it on and you would scroll down to Acts 3, we're going to look at the first miracle in Acts. This is the first post-Jesus miracle and it involves Peter and John healing a guy.
Now, physical healing is going to occur frequently throughout the book of Acts, 14 times total in 12 of 28 chapters in Acts. Acts 3 is the first instance and some scholars say that if you understand this miracle, you understand this one in a way, you're going to understand all of them, right? So we're going to look at this one miracle as a way of kind of understanding every miracle that takes place in the book of Acts. This miracle shows you how God feels about suffering in the world and what he is doing about it. And it shows you what he is saying to us in that suffering and it shows us as a church what our mission is in the world in light of suffering. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to walk you through this miracle and give you Peter's explanation of it and at the end, I'm going to try to answer several questions about physical healing that I often get asked. Somebody comes down after a service and these are, I've usually got five or six questions that I'm used to answering about healing and so I'm going to give you those and try to give you a short answer to them. Acts 3, let me summarize verse 11 verses. Miracle basically goes like this.
Peter and John are going to the temple as they often do. As they're going in, they see a guy there that they've seen many times but he's lame, can't walk and he's been that way from his birth. So he holds up his hand and he says, sirs, may I have some money? He's a beggar, he's been that way for as long as he has been alive. Peter and John look at this man, Peter looks him right in the eyes and he says, I don't have any money, I'm a poor evangelist.
He says, but silver and gold have I none but what I do have, I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he reaches out his hand to this guy to give him an opportunity to show faith and this guy, you can almost kind of feel it for a minute as is he being made a fool of, what's happening? He reaches out his hand in faith and grabs hold of Peter's hand and the text says immediately, he leaps up, which is a great way of thinking about this.
I mean, he doesn't like, you know, crawl up and start, you know, walking and then run like a month later. He just jumps up immediately and does something, you know, whatever in the air and he starts jumping up and down and running around the temple court and seeing how high he can, you know, touch things and leaping and praising God. Well, this is caused as you can imagine, quite a commotion because everybody knows this guy.
He's been a staple in the temple right outside of it for years. And so there's this big commotion and a huge crowd gathers to ask what's happening because they're all amazed. And so Peter stands up, verse 12, men of Israel, why do you wonder at this?
Or why do you stare at us? Though by our own power or piety, we've made this man walk. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the presence of Pilate when Pilate had decided to release him.
You killed the author of life whom God raised from the dead. To this, we are witnesses. You see, his name by faith in his name has made this man whom you see and know, he has made him strong. And the faith that is through Jesus has given this man this perfect health in the presence of all of you.
And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance just like your rulers did. Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out and that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, that he may send again the Messiah who has been appointed for you, even Jesus, the one you rejected. Heaven had to receive him until the time comes for God to restore everything, just like he promised long ago through his holy prophets. Verse 22, 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.'" One commentator that I was listening to, reading, said that Peter's explanation of this miracle shows you four different directions that this miracle points. Four different directions this miracle points.
So I wanna give those to you and show you how you learn what is happening in these miracles through these four directions. First direction is upward. It points upward to God's authentication of Jesus. Everybody, point upward.
We're gonna do a TPR, total physical response learning technique, okay? All right, you teachers impressed, I know that, all right? So everybody upward? All right, put your hands down. Upward to God's authentication of Jesus, verse 15. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead.
And then we're witnesses of that. And then by Jesus's resurrected name, that's how we gave this man strength to resurrect from his lame position and begin to walk. Miracles were God's validation of the apostles. It was like a divine signature that God put on their message, showing that it was not forged.
I showed you last week that prophecy was another signature, miracles are the other one. The writer of Hebrews says it this way. Listen, our great salvation was declared at first by Jesus, by the Lord, but then it was attested to us by those who heard, meaning the apostles. God also bearing witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit. Miracles were God's way of saying, these guys are really from me. The message they're given is accurate.
It's what I want the world to know. You see, if you've got two contradictory opinions about Jesus, you should take the one that is validated by miracles, right? Shoving God in wherever there's a gap in knowledge is bad scientific technique. Because that technique will keep us from discovering things God wants us to know about the world. God made the world to run according to laws.
And if we keep pressing on scientific and historical problems, we can almost always discover those laws. It's kind of like if you're trying to figure out a magician's tricks. You ever seen a magician, like how does he do that? It looks like magic.
If you really want to figure out what he or she is doing, take off the table that Hogwarts is real. You know, and there really is like magicians who can do it. No, it's always a trick of some kind. If you want to press through to figure it out, you got to take off the table that there's a supernatural explanation, right?
So when it comes to these things, I fully buy into that method. But having said that, there are certain times in history so extraordinary than any reasonable consideration that you give to them must conclude that they've got to be, there's got to be some kind of divine in there. I mean, the very beginning of the world is like that.
Regardless of whether you believe in, you know, special creation or evolution, you got the problem of where does it all come from? The idea that nothing times nobody equals everything is not compelling at all, right? Well, the events of Jesus's life and resurrection are also in that category. Well, you say, well, I'm an educated person and I just don't want to believe in miracles.
Look, here's a newsflash. If you believe in God, you're acknowledging the possibility of miracles. There's no miracle greater than the statement in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. So if you believe in God, you have to accept the possibility of a miracle.
A God who created the laws of the universe could certainly suspend them. I remember hearing a story of a little girl and she's 12 years old in a Sunday school class prone to ask questions as they often are. A Sunday school teacher teaching about Jonah and the big fish or the whale.
And she's like, well, okay, wait a minute. Seriously, how did the fish know exactly where to be in the ocean when Jonah got thrown overboard? And how did he stay alive in there for three days? You know, where did he get air? And how did the fish know exactly where to spit him off so he could go preach in Nineveh?
Really? And the teacher's like, well, I mean, you know, God made the fish, God did, you know. And she's like, well, yeah, if you bring God into it. You know, then that's an explanation. But that's kind of the point. There are certain places like around Jesus's life and resurrection that you can't just take God off the table because that's being closed minded. You really have two choices. You're either a committed, avowed atheist or you allow the possibility of miracles.
Those are really the only two categories. Now again, that doesn't mean that's the way the universe normally works, but God surrounded the ministry of Jesus with miracles, authenticating the message. And there's really no other good explanation for the events of Jesus's life and the birth of the church besides that. Now, having said that to you, I will tell you that the miracles are really just there.
They're kind of like fireworks or kind of like a firecracker just to direct your attention to Jesus. Because if you really want a solid foundation for your faith, don't put it in the miracles, put it in Jesus. My faith does not rest on the evidence for miracles.
My faith rests on the character and the beauty of the God-man that came, the beauty of Jesus Christ. That's when you become really convinced. Or I love how one guy says it, God did not give us a watertight argument, he gave us a watertight person.
Right, and the arguments are just there to kind of like flash for you so that you will consider the person. So if you doubt this, just get into Jesus and look at who he is. Let the miracles at least raise your awareness of who is this man who came claiming to be God, claiming to be the Holy One, to die for my sin, to rescue me. All right, so let me ask you the same question that Peter asked this group. Have you listened to Jesus?
That's the way he concludes this, right? Every soul who does not listen to that prophet will be destroyed from the people. You've got an opinion about Jesus, God has an opinion too. And God verified his through miracles and through the resurrection. God declared him to be the Lord, God declared him to be the salvation that he gave from heaven, God declared him to be an invitation for you to come home. I know you've got an opinion about Jesus, but God said, that's my man, that's the one I sent, are you listening to him?
There's too much happening back here for you just to relegate this as to something you're gonna get to when you're in your 50s. Are you listening to that prophet because he came with power and that power demands your attention because he came as the Lord to be your savior? Which leads me to number two. This miracle points, everybody point out, upwards. Number two, this miracle points forward, everybody point forward. Everybody, okay, that means you people in the back. Okay, I'm pointing at you right now. Forward, right, everybody point forward. Okay, everybody, everybody, I'm gonna stand here until I see every hand up.
Okay, we're gonna do this one way or another. All right, this miracle points forward to the future restoration. Points upward to the authentication from heaven, it points forward to Jesus' future resurrection. Peter verse 21 says that this healing is a sign of the coming restoration of all things that God has promised. You see, Jews would have recognized the healing of this lame man as a fulfillment of Isaiah 35, six. When Isaiah prophesies the future restoration that God brings to the world, he says this, then shall the lame man leap like a deer. That's what's significant about the man getting up and immediately doing a cartwheel.
He's leap, not that deers do cartwheel, but you know what I mean. He just, he's leap, he's fulfilling this verse. Isaiah explained that when God sent a Messiah, he would purchase healing for the whole world. Isaiah 53, five, by his wounds we will be healed. And through his work, all the pain of the earth would be reversed. In fact, this was in my time with God this week. That's sort of so beautiful. These passages I was reading, the lion will lay down with the lamb and the infant will play near the cobra's den.
The young child will put his hand into the viper's nest. I mean, they do that anyway, but it'll be okay when they do it. They will neither harm, there will be no harm or destruction on all my holy mountain for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer and the mute tongue will shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert.
The burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground, bubbling springs. Look around you and see, for all your children will come back to you. You that have lost children, they'll come back to you. They will carry your little sons back to you in their arms. They will bring back your daughters on the shoulders of angels. That's the future.
That's the future. Now, this is important. Does that mean that from now on, anyone who believes in Jesus is going to be healed?
Well, no, not now. You see, there were lots of lame people at the temple. This was not the only guy. Peter only healed that one. This healing, get this, this is so important, was a sign of the full restoration coming in the future. You see, not only did the apostles' message point upward to God's authentication of the message, the miracle pointed forward to the kind of restoration that Jesus was gonna bring to the whole world.
I've explained this to you before. Jesus' miracles were not simply magic shows about how powerful he was. If Jesus wanted to prove how powerful he was, he could have written his name in the sky with his finger. That's not the kind of miracles that he did. Every miracle that Jesus and the apostles did was an alleviation of suffering, every one. They pointed to Jesus' saving purpose.
I've heard it said like this. Jesus' miracles did not show off the naked fact of his power. Jesus' miracles revealed the redemptive purpose of his power.
You follow that? So he healed leprosy, he cured blindness, he stopped storms, he raised the dead. These miracles show us that God is no happier with the world and the condition that it's in than you or I are happy with it. God did not create the world with pain, with blindness, disease, or death. That all came through the corruption of sin. Pain and disease are not natural to a world that is now red in tooth and claw. Those are foreign to the world. They are introduced by the rebellion of our world against God. And these miracles point us to the world, back to the world as God created it to be and the world as God wants it to be again and the world as God will one day make it again.
You've heard me say this before. Miracles are not a suspension of the natural order. Miracles are a return to the natural order. Jesus' healings are the only natural things in a world that is unnatural, demonized, and wounded. To those of you who are in pain, see, that is your great hope and that is your sustaining joy. It's temporary.
I mean, you can listen to it. The mute tongue will one day shout for joy. The ears of the deaf are unstopped. It will bring back your little sons in their arms and it'll carry your daughters back to you on the shoulders of angels.
That's the future that God has prophesied for you. I remember reading the biography of Joni Eareckson-Tada years ago. She's probably in her 60s now, but when she was a teenager, she had a diving accident. Broke her neck, paralyzed from the neck down.
It's quadriplegic. She still had full use of her facial features and her head, but she couldn't move anything from her neck down. God used that to bring Joni Eareckson-Tada back to himself. And she talked about in her biography just about how, what life is like for her, but how joyous it is to have been reunited to God and that if this is what it took for God to get her attention, then she would one day think of that as the greatest blessing that God put in her life. But then she begins to kind of dream a little bit about heaven in a way that only she, or you and I probably are not as able to do it. And she said this, and I just think this is so beautiful.
She said, one day in heaven, at that great marriage supper of the Lamb, the first thing I think I'll do on my newly resurrected legs is fall to my glorified knees and praise the God of resurrection and healing, and then I will stand and dance before Him with all of my might. That's the future for those of you who are in pain. Do you want that future healing? Don't you know, by the way, deep down, that you're made for that kind of healing? Don't you know that you are created to be in a world without brokenness and pain?
Don't you know that? But for the people of God, He says, this is what I have coming for you, that which you are created for, that which I am doing. I will one day make every sad thing come untrue, and one day there will be no more pain, no more crying, and I will remove every bit of disease and death because I created you to walk with me, to walk in my blessing. Do you want that?
Do you want that? Then you've gotta repent toward Jesus, for only in Him is that healing found, and the only ones who will go into that blessed eternity are those who have surrendered and been reconciled to God through Him, which leads me to number three. It points, I can see you people at Chapel Hill, raise your hand. It points upward to God's authentication of Jesus. It points forward to the coming restoration. It points inward.
He faked you out, didn't he? It points inward to our soul's need of salvation. It points inward to our soul's need of salvation.
The physical ailments of some point to the heart condition of all. You see, some people are physically blind, but Ephesians says we're all spiritually blind. The physical sickness of our bodies points to the inward sickness of our souls.
Now, do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that if you have a physical ailment, it points to something uniquely wrong with you, as if the reason you have that physical problem is because of a spiritual problem. I'm speaking in a general sense. I'm saying that the physical brokenness of the world, you know, all over the place is a sign to us of the broken condition of our souls and our disconnect from God. Our world is physically sick because we're spiritually sick.
Our world experiences physical death because we are dead in our trespasses and sin. So the miracles of Jesus and the apostles are a message about the salvation that Jesus can bring to our souls. The lame guy asks for money. He thinks that's gonna be the greatest blessing he can get, right, if I could just have some money, right? And Peter says, look, I don't have any money, but what I do have, I got something better. I got something better. I got something deeper.
Rise up and walk. But then the guy goes on to become a disciple of Jesus. You'll see that in chapter four, which is the greatest of all the gifts that Peter could have given to him. You see, as bad as suffering is, there's something worse. As bad as physical suffering is, there's something worse, and that is being crippled by our sin.
Do you have that perspective, that your own slavery to sin brings more suffering than any physical harm that may come your way? You're listening to Summit Life, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Pastor, Author, and Theologian J.D. Greer. We're in a new series called Scent.
Already, this has been a challenging series, and you might want to catch up on broadcasts that you may have missed. Listen online or download the complete unedited transcripts free of charge when you visit us at jdgreer.com. So Pastor J.D., when we talk about being on mission, I think a lot of us hear that and just sort of assume that it's okay for somebody else, that it's meant for someone else to hear. We don't think of ourselves as being spiritual enough to be a missionary. That's one of the greatest misconceptions in the church is that the Spirit of God is a gift for some of the more prominent leaders. If Jesus promised anything about the Holy Spirit, it would be that His power would come upon ordinary people and empower them to do extraordinary things, whether it's you and your relationship to your children, whether it's in sharing Christ with your friends, if it's in dealing with a parent. Acts 1-8 says, but you will receive power. That promise is as true for you and for me as it was for Peter and Paul. Listen, we want to help you go deeper in this through a Bible study that we are offering that comes in two parts. Part one is available now.
Part two will be available in June. It shows you how to live a sent life. That's the most common word that Jesus uses in the Gospel of John is your sent. How do you embrace that mantle, that opportunity of living sent? Whether you're a mother or a father or a friend, son or daughter, whoever God has put you in relationship with, you need to live sent.
Maybe God is gonna call some of you to go and cross a cultural boundary. Maybe it's the other side of the city and maybe it's an unreached people group around the world, but God's going to send you, and this Bible study will help show you how to discover that power and authority, responsibility and opportunity that God's put inside you. Well, as Pastor J.D. said, we've got a great new companion resource for you called Sent, the Book of Acts, Volume One. This Acts study guide will help you gain a personal understanding of your part in the Great Commission and the role of the Holy Spirit in your life, and ultimately in the mission of the church. Don't miss out on getting your copy of Volume One today. Request this Bible study devotional when you donate to Summit Life.
The suggested donation amount of $25 or more helps to fuel this ministry so that others have the opportunity to dive deeper into the gospel. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.
Or give online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vitovich. Thank you so much for joining us today. Enjoy meeting with your local church family this weekend if you're able, and join us again next week when Pastor J.D. continues our study on the miracles and the message of Jesus. We'll see you Monday on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.
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