Beautiful Gate

Well, let's pray and we'll start the sermon. Lord, we

need Jesus on Mother's Day. Thank you for mothers who

give us Jesus and his name.

Amen. My mother.

Taught me to pray in a most unusual way. As

I've said this, my mother struggle with schizophrenia during most

of my life until later in life when the Lord

delivered her from it. Really, and so she struggled with

fears that would really be off the charts for most

of us.

And she struggled at a time when.

We were in poverty in Appalachia and there was not

really heavy evidences in my life that God was working.

And I remember going out the door, we're getting a

little bit of feedback injury, just so you can be

aware of that, getting out the door, and as we

were going down I would go to school, going down

the road. Thank you, I go down the road, and

I just remember distinctly my mother praying for me loudly

right at the door. Oh Lord, save him from his

wicked ways, help him to make it to the Kingdom.

I'm serious now.

I felt so embarrassed by that prayer that she would

pray for me in front of people. The whole neighborhood

heard it, and she could tell that I needed to

turn and do better. And she kept praying every day

I go down to That was her routine. When she

could do it well, the prayers worked, and today I

think the culture of prayer in our family was shaped

by my mother. Alexander Graham Bell once shared his take

on the wisdom of recognizing an open door of opportunity.

My mother would stand at the open door and pray

for us. Here's what he wrote. Sometimes we stare so

long at a door that is closing that we see

too late the one that is open. We don't recognize

that God is moving her life, that God is there,

that God has opened a door.

Prayer is the key that opens Heaven's storehouse. Friends.

God never asks us to move forward in life without

a door that is ready to open up with blessings.

The lame man set at the gate called beautiful, but

his life was anything but beautiful until he met Peter

and John. His life was a raw mass, bound up

in a repetitive routine that reinforced his need to live

on the kindness of other people.

He was not a giver, he was a taker.

He was being carried by others to the entrance to

the temple because he could not walk through the gate

Beautiful on his own. The layman's story enacts three to one,

begins just after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Open your bibles, let's turn there, or you can use

the screen hear. The Bible says, now Peter and John

were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer,

the ninth hour. Now, friends, when you go to pray,

when you go up, when you go to the temple,

the Bible says, you go up.

To the temple, you don't go down. When you go

to God, you go up.

That's why in the Psalms we have these songs of

a scent going up songs, because when you come to God,

you're always going up. So if you're down, go to God,

go to pray, you're going up. Now look at verse two,

and a man lame from birth was being carried, whom

they lay daily at the gate of the temple, which

is called beautiful to ask alms of those who enter

the temple.

In other word, alms in Greek means mercy gifts.

Peter and John are together here just like they were

on the resurrection morning, when they ran together to the

tomb that was open to discover that Jesus was not there.

Together the tomb, they saw the raw evidence that Jesus

was alive and that he was risen. The Gospel of John,

Christ a shroud had collapsed on the slab. Christ had

walked right through it, then folded up the napkin and

put it beside it. In the last chapter of John,

when Jesus was walking with Peter along the shore of

the Sea of Tiberius, John was walking right just behind

Peter and Jesus, trying to listen in because he wanted

to be with Jesus. Peter and John and James were

the closest of the Twelve to Jesus. James died early

when Herod cut his head off a little later in

the Book of Acts, so maybe there was a special

bond between Peter and John for the years that followed,

as borne out in this treasured account of the two

of them walking together to pray. I tell you the

friends I have in life are those that pray with me,

who pray for me, and that I can pray with them.

For of the three disciples that were closest to Jesus.

James and John were brothers, but Peter was not. No

doubt Peter filled that big brother role in John's life

after the death of James. It's no accident that Luke

in the Book of Acts makes a big deal of

the fact that the two of them were walking together.

Peter and John had often prayed with Jesus in the

Mount of Olives, and now they were praying together. The

Eastern Gate often led them out of the city from

the temple to the place where Jesus prayed at night

for them.

Shared with you in the pulpit here.

The Bible evidence is strong that the Mount of Olives

is the place where ancient Eden was, that it is

the center of the earth, and that is the spot

where the new Jerusale will be to restore Eden where

it was Christ hung out in the Mount of Olives

to pray, because that is the place where Adam and

Eve were at that is the place where the new

Eden will be.

The feet of Yahweh Jesus. Yahweh will touch.

The Mount of Olives at the end of the millennium,

and there the Throne of God will be planted, with

the City of God as the center of the universe,

the most important.

Real estate in the entire world.

So that Eastern Mountain. Don't get your eyes off of it.

It's so significant. In fact, the evidence in Hebrews thirteen,

and also the strong historical evidence that we find in

the early Church before the time of Constantine, indicates that

Christ died at the summit of the Mount of Olives,

near the Altar of the Red Heifer. So the Beautiful Gate.

Scholars have debated about this thing. What is the beautiful Gate?

Is that in the Canner, gret Gate or the Eastern Gate,

And the evidence is it's the Eastern Gate. You see,

you come right over the top of the Mount of Olives.

You come right past the altar of the Red Heifer,

which is the Atam Heifer sacrifice. It's the one that

is the most sacred alter in Israel's history. It's the

altar for the world facing the veil of the Temple.

You come right through the ramp, you come into the

Eastern Gate to the Temple. Hebrews thirteen indicates where the

ashes were spread after the sacrifices which have been on

the Mount of Olives. That's where Jesus died. So the

Eastern gate is the beautiful gate. Contextually, the Book of

Ezekiel focuses on it as such. The Eastern gate often

led them out of the city from the temple to

the place where Jesus prayed at night for them. He

hung out in the place where Adam, where Adam sinned,

and where Eden will be restored. And so at the

hour of prayer they are together again, going in the

opposite direction to the temple to pray for others. It'd

be a good thing for every member of the church

to remember the importance of the prayer meeting in their

walk with Jesus Christ at the hour of prayer every week.

Now we have prayer meeting online, and we should have

put a little line up here, But that zoom connection

will allow you to just tap into prayer meeting no

matter where you are. And there are times I can't

be here, but I tried to come in through that connection.

And so at the hour of prayer they are together again,

going in the opposite direction to the Temple to pray

for others.

It'd be a good thing for us to do the same.

The Bible says it was the ninth hour, and that

was the daily hour of prayer at that time, and

Luke twenty three forty four to forty six Luke records

that Jesus cried out to God in the hour of

his despair, and guess what hour it was?

It was the ninth hour.

Look at Luke twenty three forty four with me. It

was now about the sixth hour. And there was darkness

over the whole land until the ninth hour. And while

the sun's light failed, and the and the temple was

torn into then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, Father,

into thy hands, I commit my spirit.

And having said this, he breathed his last.

Jesus died at the hour of prayer, praying to God

the Father, on the cross of Calvary. The ninth hour

was the darkest hour in Jesus' life. It was the

hour in which the final impact of dying for the

sins of the world had made him the object of

every single infraction, every disease, every moral wound.

He had lived through it in his human head.

And he said it is finished, trusting God the Father

to resurrect him on resurrection morning or not, because he

was at peace with his Father, no matter what the

will of God would be in his life. It is

the hour he suffered the most, the hour he died

at last, the hour of prayer.

So don't tell me that's hard for us to pray.

Christ prayed through the darkest hour of his life that

we would be saved. Paradoxically, it was the our of prayer.

At the ninth hour, Jesus prayed his last prayer to God.

So much is connected in this context to the ninth

hour in the story of the Lame.

Man and Acts three. Based on the setting of the sun.

The ninth hour in jesus day occurred at about three

o'clock in the afternoon, when the sacrifice was going on.

When Christ died, it was the passerver sacrifice. And never

forget that even in his death Jesus remembered the hour

of prayer when he prayed his last prayer to God.

With Jesus example, Peter and John were consistent in their

prayer life for this reason and many other good reasons.

In verse two, the text informs us that they met

a helpless lame man, a man lame from birth at

the gate beautiful. It's a paradox, a man lame from

birth at the gate, beautiful children have to learn to

walk in life. Remember teaching your little ones to walk, mothers,

or did you are they just kind of learn on

their own. Yeah, I remember them coming to day when

daddy daddy, and they're coming, they fall. Well, that's all right,

as long as they're coming. They do the same for mommy.

If this man had never learned to walk, he'd never

learned to crawl. They say, you need to learn to crawls,

or stay away from those strollers so you can.

Learn to read.

Well, it's part of the developmental part of the brain.

Kids need to learn to crawl. The Greek text indicates

that he was most likely being carried at the time

when Peter and John met him at the gate called beautiful.

When you cannot walk in life, friend, you can still

pray in life, and when you cannot come to God yourself,

you can ask others to carry or bring you to God.

Of all the places this man could have begged, to

take note of the fact that he begged at the

place which leads to the house of Prayer Ex.

Three Birs three. Seeing Peter and John.

About to go into the temple, he asked for alms,

and Peter directed his gaze at him and with John

and said look at us.

The text gives no evidence that this man.

Lame man, knew who Peter and John were. Like so

many others, he asked them for alms. Mercy Gibbs. At

this point, Peter takes the initiative to engage the man

who was the most needy at that time in that spot,

and he said to him.

Look at us looking for money? Look at us.

It's another way of saying, pay attention to us. I'm

going to engage you.

Now. Yeah, it's something very often people are poor.

You ever have a homeless person you meet and you

just put a dollar in their bucket and you move on,

but you don't engage them. I have learned to make

a point of the fact to pray for people who

are asking for money. I was at Aldi's Friday, and

I had no idea that would converge with a sermon.

There was a lady, probably Hungarian, who was out the

door who couldn't speak English.

I mean, there's a chance that she's a rip off artist.

You know, that can happen to But when someone's asking

for money, that's one thing. But when they have a

bag full of food, they're trying to feed themselves. That's

another I don't like feeding addiction, but I like feeding

a person. There was one time where someone asked for food, said,

we have children.

We have nothing our home.

That day we went through Aldi's and we bought one

hundred and fifty dollars of groceries and had to get

her friend to show up and take it home.

I don't know if that she'll sell them or something.

Who knows, but.

This lady was saying, I need food for my children.

She says, I need some meat.

She said that.

I didn't say that, so I got her some because

that's what she eats. It's not what I eat, you

hear me. I just got what would work for her,

and then I got her some other things. I got

her some bread, and I got her some groceries, got

her eggs. And when I came back out the door,

I mean, the guy next to her said, those are eggs.

They're so expensive. I got her, you know, the good

Audi eggs. I said, well, they're good for the kids,

and gave it and she looked happy as a lark.

Now I don't do that for everyone. I felt impressed

to do it for her, and then I prayed for her. See,

it's important to engage people, to treat them as people,

not just as objects. So I feel better because I

gave someone something. There are many people today who want

to be healed in life from deep emotional scars, from

failures and traumas, but they fail to pay attention to

the Gospel of John or Peter's first and second epistles

in the New Testament for the rest of the or

the rest of the Bible.

And so Peter and John are said, look look at us.

They're saying the same today we wrote books and New Testament.

Look at us, and let us help you in your life. Friend,

if you want to be healed in life, pay attention

to the voice of the apostles. God has given us

apostolic witness and authority through the Holy Spirit to be healed,

just like the man at the gate. Look at verse five,

and he fixed his attention upon them, expecting to receive

something from them. But Peter said, I have no silver

and gold, but I give you what I have in

the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Walk.

That's what the Revised standard version says. The Greek majority

text says the basis the King James version more reliable.

In this instance, says, rise up and walk. Peter's command

is more than just a command to walk. When you

have been down all your life, you need to rise

up in order to walk. This man had more muscles

in his body than just the muscles in his legs

that were laying. He could get up to a degree

by using his upper body. He could exert force from

within himself to rise up, and then God can take

care of the walking part. I believe Peter was calling

on him to use those muscles to rise and then walk.

You may not know how to walk as a Christian.

But you can rise to a new life in Jesus,

and Jesus will take care of the walking part that

you have never learned to do. That you don't think

you can. Friends, the call is first to rise, then walk,

So rise up and walk. It's Peter's command to us all.

Peter invoked the name of Jesus of Nazareth as his

authority to heal the man. He say, well, by the way,

I'm God's gift of the world. I'm the greatest of

the Apostles. I'm gonna do something marvelous for you today.

He was not a bragger. He was not talking about

how insignificant he was. He was in the business of

praising the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus

of Nazareth, he said, rise up and walk. Jesus name

in Hebrew means Yahweh saves, and Nazareth comes from the

Hebrew word nat sir that means shoot. You know, like

in a garden, the shoote that comes out of the ground.

A shoot is that part of a plant that rises

up out of the ground after the seed has been

buried deep in the earth. Isaiah says that Jesus would

be the shoot from the stump of Jesse.

He would be the Messianic shoot. So the man who is.

The shoot was raised in the place called the shote Nazareth,

which means of the shoot. Peter can invoke the name

of Jesus to command that man to rise up and walk.

Why because Jesus died, and the Gospel says he was buried,

and then it says.

Just like a sea, that is a shoot.

He rows up from the grave for us all for

our justification in Romans four twenty five. There is no

evidence that this lame man immediately acted on Peter's command

to rise up.

The lame man had.

Been down all his life. He was used to being

carried by others to get around. He was a beggar

and not a self starter in life. Thus, one might ask,

how does a loser who is down and out and

have a single ounce of emotional energy to rise up

and walk. Peter here demonstrates that he personally understands that

there are times in life when you cannot be healed

unless someone else's faith takes hold of your weak hand

of faith so you can ride this point, Peter takes

him by the hand to share with him and to

show him his personal faith in Jesus of Nazareth is

the only one who's the power to heal the lame man.

Jesus had pulled Peter up from denying him and restored him.

And now Peter has the chance to do it for

a man at the gate beautiful x three seven. And

he took him by the right hand and raised him up,

and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Don't

forget the sequence here Peter raises him.

Up nn he's healed. In this miracle.

The lame man did not rise up, or come up,

or make the movement on his own. It was the

faith of Peter engaging him. Thus faith was interactive and growing,

and when he began to rise, his faith worked, he

was healed. Peter took the initiative for him. I asked

you the sillion question this morning. When was the last

time you took someone by the hand to raise the

up so they can walk in a new life in Jesus,

where you focused on them and not yourself. Are you

in the business of putting people down or pulling them

up for that man or woman.

Who needs your encouragement?

Are you quick to criticize them, or steady and firm

to help them rise up so they can stand up

and walk. No man or woman has ever been healed

by a critic. No man or woman has ever risen

from discouragement because some corrector of fault sets them straight

all the time. No man or woman ever came to

know Jesus because of virtue. Signaling of chastisement or anger

or self righteous rebukes from a self appointed saint doesn't

work that way.

Peter knew that this man could not get up on

his own initiative. His faith was not strong enough to

do that for him.

He needed a friend to reach down to him, to

take him by the hand with his right hand, and

to love him enough to lift him up. Faith would grow,

and then he would be healed. When you lift someone

up who is down with your own hands, with your prayers,

your love, your look, your words, you're telling that man

or woman that you had faith in the Lord's good

future for them. There was no evidence of healing this

man's body until Peter lifted him up. This man was

healed because of Peter's faith in Jesus. Dear heart, there

are people in life that can indeed be healed because

of your faith in Jesus, because you pray for them.

Who are you praying for at the hour of prayer?

Yourself?

Oh Lord, just help me get the car or one.

Oh Lord, give me the job I want? Oh Lord,

you know are you praying for yourself? It's okay to

pray for yourself and others, and maybe others more than

yourself that need you to show them Jesus. The text

says in verse seven that when Peter raised him up,

immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.

Dear heart, are you waiting to.

Be healed in your life? You're saying well, I'm going

to wait for the Lord to work his miracle. You

can wait all your life, but if you don't rise

up by faith before you are healed, you will never

be healed. Rising up is what heals us. When we

respond to rise. God takes care of the howl. God

heals people who choose to get up by faith and

move forward in life with the help of others. Peter

had no evidence other than his knowledge of Jesus that

this man would be healed. The miracle followed Peter's faith

in Peter's action to reach out to the man, and

not the other way around. The man who could not

raise himself acts upon the command and the initiative of Peter,

who his Holy Spirit apostolic authority to heal that man

acts three eight and.

Leaping up he stood. Now he like that? And leaping up,

He stood and.

Walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping

and praising. Now, how does that song go? I wish

we had where we could sing it. Peter and Paul

went to pray.

Hey, they met a.

Lay me man on the way. Does anybody know that song?

Come up and help me sing it real quick. Let's

sing it come on, I just need help. I want

to sing that song before I get any more in

a sermon. Come on, Samuel, lead us out in that song.

Grab a mic, come here to Yeah, grab a mike

and make sure it works. Let's stand. You stand for

this song. It's a song we teach our children. Yeah,

bring kids, come up here, whoever wants to stand and pray.

If if.

It isn't in there, no Donald, but that's all right,

thank you. Okay, you're ready, come closer, get up here. Yeah, okay,

get us going on it. Make sure that you got

sound on that.

Okay, go Peter and John waits you pray they man

go away, Yeah, zild light in the name energies and

tries rise walk. He went walking and leaping and praising God.

Let's start over and leap. That's what the kids do.

He went walking and leaping and praising God, walking and

leaping and praising God in the name enogiesus cries of Naza.

Walk. Now that worked. They helped it. That was right on.

Now this slay man was yanked to his feet like

a rocket by the faith of Peter, walking and leaping

and praising God.

Now, friends, we learned to walk by crawling in life.

Thank you for helping me with that. This man never

learned to crawl or walk. He learned to leap and

walk by Peter's faith in hand. Peter didn't tell him

to leap, Peter told him to rise up. The man

who couldn't rise up on his own chose to leap up,

holding the hand of Peter. Peter's name means rock in Greek.

He held the man the hand of the man who

became a rock in his life, and drawing strength from Peter,

who drew his strength from Jesus of Nazareth, this man

leaped to his feet. Dear heart, if you have been

controlled all your life by a weakness, a sin, an addiction,

the criticism of others, I can speak my own life.

I grew up being highly criticized as a young person.

Now you don't have to raise your hand, but maybe

you can interact with this. I had overdoses of that,

and my self esteem was very low, and I had

a very diminished sense of self when I went to

academy at the age of fifteen. And I can't tell

you how harsh criticism can hurt a young person. Now

that doesn't mean we can't lovingly correct young people, but

not in the criticism game. It leaves a lifetime impact

on their mind. Or maybe you were struggling with a

personal failing you messed up early in life or late

in life and you remember that awful sin. Or maybe

you're struggling with a life illness or something, but you

just feel God is far from you and you just can't.

Get up in life.

You feel paralyzed by that deep trauma of childhood. Friend,

then take the hand of the person who is reaching

out to you in Jesus' name. Don't push that hand

back in your life, draw your strength from their faith,

and leap to your feet. God has spoken to you

through the love of that person. When you leap to

your feet, you're not begging anymore. If you have no

strength in your life, hold the hand of a godly

man or woman who loves you and draws strength from

their hand because they are drawing strength from Jesus's hand

to help you. It doesn't matter how you get healed

in life. What matters is if you get healed. God

uses people who love him to help you, people who

are filled with the Holy Spirit to love and help.

You be healed.

So you can become a healer in someone else's life.

So don't be picky in particular about how you are healed.

Just let God do his work through others, through their

love for you, as He wills it in your life.

Jesus had restored Peter when he fell, and now Peter's

raising up a.

Man who never learned to walk.

Peter learned by his own experience that you can fall,

and that Jesus can restore and heal you and raise

you up. Now Peter knew for real what Jesus could

do for him and others who are paralyzed with failure.

This man's reaction is cathartic. That's a psychological term that

Freud created. A catharisays when you let it all out,

cleansing and it's sudden. There are four faith actions in

his healing. Let's put them on the screen.

Faith action number one leaping up he stood, Faith action

number two walking after he stood, Faith action number three

leaping again as he walked, And faith action number four

praising God a lot.

Those are the four. You want to get your phone

out and take a picture of.

Them, Well, go ahead, you can use your phones here.

Just take a picture of that slide. These are four

important steps of faith. Faith action number one, let's take

them apart one a time.

Leaping up he stood.

When you feel the energy of God and others to

help you, don't go negative on them and reject that

Holy Spirit energy for encouragement that comes through them for you.

Act on their faith decisively and leap up and forward

with that help that God gives you through them. When

people give of themselves to help lift you up, it

takes energy from them to do this for you. There's

a cost they pay. Give some of that Holy Spirit

energy back. By leaping up in faith to stand for God.

The text says, leaping up he stood. This is the

decisive action of faith that stabilizes the life. He stood,

his life becomes stable. Faith action number two. The text

indicates that he was walking after he stood.

Friend.

God doesn't raise you up so you can just stand

still in life. He doesn't heal you so you can

make no advances in life. He doesn't bring his power

into your life to keep you powerless and immobile, a

victim and useless in life. When the Lord heals you

through others in the church, he empowers you to move

forward in life. As a gift of healing to others.

You're not to be this mournful witness to pain. You're

to be a joyful witness to God's healing in your life.

Peter and John were going to the temple to pray.

Now it wasn't just Peter and John. It was Peter

and John and the former lame mad. He's no longer

the lame man. He's formerly the lame man who was

no longer a layman. He's a healed man. It's his

new title. He was walking. He was a walking, healed man,

moving forward in life to pray to God and Jesus

and to have fellowship with Peter and John Jesus Preachers

Faith Action number three. The text and acts clearly states

that he the healed man, was leaping again as he walked,

not leaping once again.

The man didn't just leap once. He kept on leaping

after he was healed.

Friend, God does not call on you to stay at

home in your pity and to stay down in your life.

He does not call you to stay at some certain

level in your life where you can't rise to new

heights and leap higher than you did before. God calls

when you leap to new heights, to leap higher and

hire because you have been healed and you are being

grown up.

You're being that's beat English, You're growing up in the Lord.

You're going to.

New heights when you leap higher and hire because of

God's grace. You get stronger and stronger because you're growing

in faith and using your faith to gain new achievements

for God. So walking and leaping and praising God. I

have a permanent ankle pain in my right ankle, but

I'm going to leap anyway.

I see faith action number four.

He was praising God a lot because he'd been raised

up to walk, he'd been raised up to leap, He'd

been raised up to praise God.

For the rest of his life. This is an experience

that is not meant to be just an event. It's

meant to be a life trend.

Friend, God has not called you to an ordinary outcome

as a Christian. God has called you to joyful living

in Jesus Christ. Because He has healed you and he

continues to heal you in life. God intends that every

fiber of your weak life be filled with the healing

power and strength of the Cross of Christ and the

Holy Spirit, so you can live a joyful life as.

A Christian because you are not a victim. You are

healed child of God by grace.

At this point, the story shifts to the people who

saw the miracle and the grateful response of the man.

Who was healed.

We learned the story that faith and praised is contagious.

Do you hear me.

Positive attitudes based on God's kindness affect others all around you.

When you have been healed and you make advances in

your life and you praise God for what he has

done for you, you transform the lives of others.

All around you for the good.

Oh that God would take away from all of us

the idea that we have a hard journey with Jesus

because we are Christians. That's not a holy spirit filled journey. Now,

there are chapters in your life that are hard. Yeah,

I get it, But look, go up to the temple,

rise up, look the truth of Christ's victory in your life.

You have many reasons to be grateful, and so do I.

And I must remind myself as I am reminding you,

that we need to grow in these things.

Jesus is pure joy to know. I go through the

day and if I'm feeling down, if I think about.

Jesus, I'm not down anymore. Jesus is gold worthy of

praise in your life. Why not share him with those

that you're talking about. Why be ashamed of the name

of Jesus with your work, associates and others. Pray for

people in Jesus's name, and don't worry if it looks crazy.

Like my mother, who was my mother's prayer converted me,

so maybe your prayer will do the same.

It's okay to bear looking funny.

In our culture for the good of others. Friends, Jesus

is wealth worth sharing with others, and Jesus is the

abundant life, worthy of walking and leaping and praising God.

I'm glad that we got up to greet each other today.

That's a good thing. We can be reverent do that.

But it's not a sin to fellowship as they are

doing going up to the temple, Act three ten and Jonathan,

thank you for the enthusiasm and that song. Yeah, thank

you x three ten. And they recognized him as the

one who set for alms at the beautiful gate of

the gate of the temple, and they were filled with

wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. The

people all around took note of the fact that this

former layman was now a changed man. That's how the

kingdom grows. Changed people through joy happiness make a difference

in the lives of other people who need changing, who.

Yearn for joy and happiness.

Very often, when people are healed, they stay away from

the church and the very people that God used to

heal them.

Well, I don't know why.

It's just the strangest thing. It's also a fatal mistake.

The walking and leaping and praising God. Man did not

make this misas the healed man knew that good men

used by God like Peter and John are worth holding

onto and learning from. In Life Acts three eleven, while

he clung to Peter and John, He's not gonna let

these guys go. All the people ran to get it

to them. In portfolio sorry the portico calling Solomon's astounded.

That's the way my translation is to read. In other words,

they were amazed in Solomon's portico. Jesus was walking in

the same portico when he talked about the shepherd and

the sheep, And now here is Peter and John as

shepherd's under the great shepherd, caring for the sheep. Peter

uses this wonderful miracle at the gate beautiful to draw

attention to Jesus, not to Peter, to Jesus, the beautiful

good news of Jesus friend. Jesus is the one who

died at the ninth hour. Jesus is the one who

went through the eastern gate up the slope to die

near the altar of the red heifer.

Jesus is the reason that gate is beautiful. Jesus. This,

this is the door that's opening heaven.

Jesus says, I am the door, the door, the gate

of the sheep. The shepherd would sleep because he was

the door that guarded the wolves.

He let the sheep in.

And now Peter draws attention to the one who has

the divine credentials to truly heal anyone in life who

has a closed door, he can open it. Here's Peter's

little sermon for the people who saw the miracle. Now

you've got to let Peter finish his sermon, Acts three twelve.

Think your bible's out three twelve. And when Peter saw it,

he addressed the people men of Israel, and why do

you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us?

As though by our own power or piety we made

him walk Peter's saying that Jesus is.

The hero in the miracle, and not Peter Verse thirteen.

The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob,

the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus, whom

you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate

when he had decided to release him. You see that

gate was the gate where he come from condemnation, right

up there to be crucified. But you denied the Holy

and Righteous One, and asked for a murder to be

granted to you, and killed the author of life, whom

God raised.

From the dead.

To this weird witnesses, the hands that hold the stars

in space was nailed to the cross of Calvary, the

hands that hold your DNA, and every quirk but John

was going through in the young adult sabiscoople today, the

power of the universe is in Jesus Christ.

They crucified him.

God raised up Jesus from the dead, just like Jesus

raised this layman up to walk and leap and praise God.

That's what Peter's saying.

Jesus can work miracles in your life, because Jesus is

the miracle that came to life on resurrection morning.

The Gospel leads to change lives verse sixteen.

And his name and name, his name by faith in

his name has made this man strong, whom you see

and know. And the the faith which is through Jesus

has given the man this perfect health. In the presence

of you, all, friend, the faith that is in Jesus

can heal you in your life from moral failure, anything

can restore you and make you blameless for the day

of God. And now, brethren, I know that you acted

in ignorance, as did also your father's. But when God

foretold by the mouth of all the prophets that his

Christ is Messiah, should suffer, he thus fulfilled, repent therefore

and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out,

that the times of refreshing may come from the presence

of the Lord that means the Holy Spirit revivals, and

that he may send the Christ to point it for you.

Jesus who Heaven must receive until the time for how

does it read in your Bible there until the time

for what establishing all that God spoke by the mouth

of his holy prophets From Evolk, he's directly referring to

the prophecy of Daniel eight fourteen to twenty three hundred days,

which in the Hebrew means restore, and that's what the

Greek word means here for establishing when God's kingdom will

be restored. Christ would come to the ancient days to

receive his kingdom, one name at a time, as he

confesses us before his Father and the Holy Angel, starting

with Adam to the end, and he says Heaven has

him until that event, then he's coming back. That preadvent

investigative judgment began in the year eighteen forty four.

Based on the prophecies of Daniel.

We are living in the toenails of human history in

the image of Daniel two. We are living just before

the judgment moves from the dead.

To the living.

In the mark of the Beast issue, Peter says, we

got to wait until that happens for Jesus to come back,

whom Heaven must receive. In the Greek the times the

Kraynon for restoring all that God spoke by the mouth

of his holy prophets, from of old Moses said, the

Lord God will raise up for you a prophet from

your brethren, as he raised me up, Jesus the New Moses,

the new lawgiver, who puts the law not on stone,

but on the heart. He says, you shall listen to

him and whatever he tells you, and it shall be

that every soul that does not listen to that prophet

shall be destroyed from the people. Friends, if you're trying

to fix your life without Jesus Christ, you're on the

path to destruction. But if you are clean to Jesus,

you're holding on to him, you're letting others help you,

and you're rising up to.

Jesus, you will live forever.

And all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and

those who came afterwards also.

Proclaimed these days others.

They were looking forward to the time of the outpoint

of the Holy Spirit that leads to the great investigative

judgment that will bring the coming to Christ.

Verse twenty five.

You are the sons of the prophets and of the

Covenant which God gave to your father, saying to Abraham,

and in your posterity shall all the families of the

earth be blessed. Here's his punchline, verse twenty six. God,

having raised up his servant, send him to you first.

Send him to you first, why to bless you in

turning every one of you from your wickedness, and he

ends as servant. Now I'm telling you he's going right

for the heart. Jesus came to bless us by getting

sin out of our life. Jesus came to bless us

with the gospel that raises us up. Jesus came to

bless us because of our ignorance. He gave us truth

and knowledge, prophetic clarity, and the gospel clarity. Peter's pretty

clear here on how to be saved and healed in

your life. You need Jesus, who is the good News.

He proclaims that.

God raised Jesus up so Jesus can raise you up

and all those like you who are guilty and overcome

with wickedness and sin in their lives. God wants to

bless us with Jesus. The power that raised Jesus can

and will raise you up and bless you so you

can turn learn from your wicked ways. I can turn

for my wicked ways. We all can and become walking

and leaping and praising God, kind of Christians who have

met Jesus at the gate. Beautiful dear heaven a Father,

thank you for my wonderful mother, My wonderful mother who

would go to the furniture factories and come back with

bleeding hands every day so we'd have some food on

the table, who wasn't afraid of her illness in this

one way, so that she could pray boldly for me,

and who taught me forgiveness at a level that few

people here might understand, who forgave a man who was

anything but a good father, and showed us the love

of God.

And Father, I look.

Forward to seeing my mother again. For all those dear

mothers here, Lord who need to know that God is

with them them buoyant faith it gets up. May they

never give up loving instead of the other kind of stuff.

And may they be the kind, caring hands and heart

that lifts our children to new heights. And Father, may

you work with fathers and others in their myths to

do the same thing. And may we be known as

the kindest people in Laurel. I pray for the good

of others, for Jesus glory and sake in Jesus name

Amen