Acts: Powerful Love and Comforting Providence

So we are studying our way through the book of Acts.

We're in chapters three and four this morning.

So I'm going to tell the story that is in Acts 3 and 4.

And then after I tell the story, we're going to make a little bit of sense of what this ancient story about this first church could possibly mean for us.

2023 and Marietta.

So in Acts chapter 3, Peter and John are headed to the temple to pray.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

There's a man who's been lame from birth, crippled from birth, his entire life.

He's never been able to walk.

And so he's carried to this gate called the beautiful gate where people would gather who needed to ask for alms, beg for money to survive, to live.

And so this man is there, this crippled man.

And Peter and John walk by, and as they walk by, this man looks at Peter, asks him for some money.

Anything, something would be nice.

And Peter says in Acts 3, 6 through 10, Peter said to him, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.

And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong, and leaping up he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.

And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and recognized him as the one who sat at the beautiful gate of the temple asking for alms.

And they were filled with wonder and amazement of what had happened to him.

So the people were utterly astonished of what happened.

They all come together and Peter begins to preach.

This is what these miracles were doing in the New Testament in the time of Jesus and the time as the church was starting.

These miracles were validating the work and message of Jesus.

And so this miracle leads straight into a proclamation.

Peter begins to preach, he's working it, he's pulling from the Old Testament, he's tying it together, he's telling them how Jesus fulfills the law, all that we should be and should do, and we don't.

He fulfills that for us.

He actually is our forgiveness and righteousness.

And then Peter says to the religious authorities, and you guys kill them.

But he also says, so repent.

Like turn, turn to this Jesus, God's redeeming love for you.

But man, Peter's really poking at it.

Like he is disturbing a well-founded system.

Have you ever been out in your yard like in summertime and you're cutting the grass or you're out there playing with it and you come up on an ant pile?

I'm, I don't know if you're the kind of person who doesn't, I'm the kind of person who gets a stick and pokes it, or you throw a pine cone.

Or maybe you just stepped in it, sat in it, and that's a journey if you sit in it, quite a journey for you.

They will bite you.

That is the journey.

So as he knows, those ants will come after you with vengeance.

Right?

That ant pile, Peter, Peter's not poking like a little sweet little Marietta ant pile.

I actually found this picture online, Ghana, Africa ant pile.

That's what Peter's poking.

That's the whole point of the ant pile illustration, is just to say that Peter is Peter's coming up on and poking a system that has been organized hundreds, thousands of years, strict hierarchy, rules, people in charge, and the people in charge are receiving massive benefit for the system to work smoothly.

And now you've got a healing and a guy preaching a message about the fulfillment of the very system that benefits you.

Yeah, you better believe the answer is going to come out.

Vengeance.

Acts 4, 1 through 4.

And as they were speaking to the people, here it comes, the priest and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, greatly annoyed, because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead, and they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.

But many of those who had heard the word believed.

And the number of the men came to about five thousand.

Picks back up in verse eight.

And Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well.

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone.

And there is salvation and no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

Now Peter is quoting Psalm 118, verse 22.

Psalms 118:22

These religious people would know that.

They would have picked up on that.

Here's what Psalm 118, 19 through 22 says.

Open to me the gates of righteousness, that I may enter through them and give thanks to the Lord.

This is imagery of what we have in Jesus.

He is our gates of righteousness.

Verse 20.

I thank you that you have answered me and have become my salvation.

The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.

Man, Peter's a preacher.

He's pulling this together, right?

Peter views the Christ, as King David did, as the building stone by which all of God's redemption and love to us is found.

And Peter reminds them, hey, you morons, you rejected him.

Like you keep thinking you have to climb the mountain to get to God, and you're going to force everybody else to climb the mountain to get to God through your rules and your system.

And if you're good enough and you can claw your way up there, God'll have you.

But in Jesus, God comes down the mountain to us.

Which is what love does.

That's what love does.

Love humbles and love pursues.

So I live in a house with four ladies, one wife, three daughters.

That's the count there.

I'm doing okay.

Thanks for asking.

My emotional life is doing okay.

It's me.

I have a boy dog that helps.

Here's what I can tell you.

Uh we have a lot of Taylor Swift.

Can verify that.

And we can clog up some shower drains.

So I go and get my screwdriver out and I take off the little top of the drain because I'm sick and tired of showering in two inches of water.

Finally, given.

And I have this long plastic, uh, I think they call it a snake, long plastic, little teeth on it, and you kind of work it down in there, you pull it out, and that beautiful auburn hair.

I'm dry even.

It is nasty scene.

And for years, my wife has been telling me about Drena.

Years.

Right.

I got this.

Like I'm the fi I'm the fix-it guy.

Like, I got it, okay?

Just let me do my thing.

I got I got it.

Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

Yeah, right, right, right.

But this week I'm over it.

And I don't want to see the deal.

I don't want to see that.

I don't want to touch it.

And so when she's not looking, I go under the kitchen cabinet and I grab that 18-year-old bottle adrenal because I ain't been using it.

I walk back to our shower.

Can you guess what happened?

Can you believe it?

15 minutes later.

Just clear as can be.

Just poured it in there, waited 15 minutes, things running smooth.

Unbelievable.

Who knew?

She knew.

And then the walk of humility begins.

Back down the hallway with the bottle of Drano.

Hey, babe, it turns out Dreno works.

Now here's the point of the story.

Where love is being given.

For 18 years, this woman has endured my rejection of an obvious solution.

She knows something is the answer, and she's still just patient with me and mentions it about every other year.

Just, hey, by the way, you could do.

So why is she so patient?

I mean, how?

And then when I tell her, like she doesn't gloat, she's just like, yeah, that's great, you know.

Just kind of.

Well, because she's granting forgiveness all along the way and imputing a righteous standing with her that I don't deserve while I'm a moron, right?

It's the only way any relationship works.

Friendship, romance, family, neighbor.

It's the only way it's gonna work.

And it's the only way a relationship with God works.

We rejected him, the cornerstone, who is our rescue, the solution to this problem of how can I have a relationship with God?

Is it by me being good enough, climbing the mountain?

No, no, no, it's by him coming to us.

In his grace, God pursues us and redeems us with a limitless love, and this is known in Christ.

While we're messy, while we're sinners, he took on the cross.

So this first church has, they have been found by a love rather than trying to earn it.

Here's how Peter answers these religious authorities, verse 19 of chapter 4.

But Peter and John answered them whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard, and what they had further threatened them, they let them go.

When they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened.

For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old.

So then all the believers gather together and they pray.

As this persecution is heating up because they've poked the system.

And just when you think they would just meet together and like form a strategy, let's be clever.

That's usually my first step.

Let's be clever, let's work our way through this with our cleverness.

They just pray for help.

They just ask God for help.

Acts 4 29, and now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness.

The words look upon is the Greek word apidon, meaning behold or regard.

So they don't pray, zap them and make my life more comfortable.

That's my prayer.

Like that's my that's my first prayer.

Zap them and make my life more comfortable.

They pray, consider this difficulty, regard this difficulty, and then help us be brave in spite of it.

Help us be brave even though it might cause more difficulty.

Last week on CBS Sunday morning, um, I do watch CBS Sunday morning.

I'm old, apparently.

I record it.

I can't wait to watch it.

It's on right now, and I'm gonna watch it later.

CBS Sunday morning, news stories.

I'm in the club, I watch it.

John Clifton, the CEO of Gallup Research and Polls, he says this on CBS Sunday morning.

I think it was last week or two weeks ago.

Over 300 million adults in the world today live in total loneliness.

We are experiencing more stress, more sadness, more anger, more physical pain, and more worry than we have in the history of gallop tracking.

Now it's not new, but what he is saying is since we've been tracking this, more now than ever.

Now that's our world.

Think about this early church.

Think about their stress, persecution.

Their leaders were just jailed, heating up.

Maybe they'll get jail time, maybe they'll be killed.

And yet, and yet, we see rich relationships generosity.

We see faith.

We see joy.

How?

Like how does that happen in the people?

Like, how can you endure such difficulty and disappointment at the same time in such community and generosity and bravery and joy?

But I think there's a couple things we can learn from them.

Number one is this.

Point number one, we have been found by powerful love.

Jesus is enough.

We could say the redeeming one-way love of God known in Jesus.

And that is powerful.

And this past year I've I've sat with some of you in the hospital.

Maybe your baby or your kid or your husband or your wife.

It comes out of nowhere a lot of times.

We talk, we pray together, maybe we cry.

And then I go home.

But you don't.

Right?

Because you're fighting for better care for this person.

You're earning your medical degree in three days on WebMD.

You're learning everything about every beep in the room.

What is that beep and what does that do?

I mean, you're learning all of it.

You sleep in that ridiculous chair.

Right?

They tell you it's a bed.

It's not a bed.

You don't really sleep because the nurse comes in every 23 minutes.

I think we think they're just doing it to mess with us.

We're not quite sure.

Just checking.

It's 3 a.m., you know.

You rearrange your entire life for this person.

Because you love this person.

And now what do you think it does in the heart of the sick person, the sick child, the sick husband, the sick wife, the sick friend when you do that?

What do you think it would do inside the heart of that person?

Well, some of you know.

I would imagine that her heart is endeared to you.

Grateful.

Radically in love.

See, that's the power of a powerful love.

Peter says in Acts 3, 12, do you think this happened by the power of our piety?

So he says to them.

Do you think that's how that happened?

Like he's saying, do you think any change can happen by the power of our religious effort?

Like, do you think that's how change happens?

That word power shows back up in the chapter 4, when the religious religious leaders ask, by what power or by what name did you heal?

And that's where he says in Acts 4, 10, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Now what would happen?

If in Christ you trusted that God knew all of you and loved all of you?

What would happen if there was nothing left for you to prove to God?

What would happen if faith was about receiving when you have nothing?

Before it was about doing for God.

Like what healing might happen?

What endearment might be created back toward God?

Not because you need to pay Him back, but your heart has actually been freed and healed.

And then if we think about these people, these Acts 3, first church, like what bravery, what generosity, and what joy might be created in us.

Second point from this early church.

Last point.

Two-point sermon.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Point number two.

We live in the power of providence.

God's story is at work.

God's story is not finished in you.

It's at work right now.

This early church prays beginning with sovereign Lord.

That's how they begin their prayer.

Maybe your translation isn't like, Lord, you are God.

Which means I am not God.

Which stings a little, right?

I mean, I kind of want to wanna control a bit.

But isn't it relieving to say, I am not God?

Can we say that together?

I am not God.

And just relieving, just kind of like, I'm gonna let go a little bit here.

Providence teaches that there's two histories happening in the world.

One is the current events going on right now.

All the events we see, the events happening to us, the current events.

And then there's a deeper history.

It's the real history, the real story.

It's called providence.

It's how that story is being formed over time by those current events.

And we can't always see it.

Sometimes we see it looking back.

This week I learned that when Civil War soldiers they would write home letter after letter after letter.

Being on the battlefield, cannonballs falling, that guy dies, you live.

And they would write, today, Providence protected me.

Tomorrow, it may be that Providence will take me home.

For them, providence meant everything.

They couldn't control everything.

There's a bit of humility.

And I think it gave them a bit of peace.

They were wise, but they were limited.

The Heidelberg Catechism says this about providence, this theological document.

It says this about providence.

The providence of God is this.

The Almighty, everywhere, present, power of God, whereby, as it were, by his hand, he still upholds, he still upholds heaven and earth with all creatures, and so governs them that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years.

Meat and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yea, all things come not by chance, but by his fatherly hand.

Now that doesn't mean you will have a pain-free life.

It actually affirms the opposite.

That we will have pain.

And it doesn't affirm that you will have answers for your pain.

What it does is it gives us a relational God who, even while we don't understand the mysteries of this world or the mysteries of suffering, the mysteries of a persecution, Acts 3 and 4, we can still say, sovereign Lord.

Sovereign Lord.

It means we have a sovereign God who knows all of you and all of your life and loves all of you.

And your story is still being written.

And your crazy kid.

That our story is begun in you by you, your pursuit of us, that we do not have to strap on the boots this morning to climb up to you.

But you have come to us while we are sinners, and on the cross all of our sin is taken.

And all of your righteousness is given to us.

And we are fully yours, forever and secure.

And that you love us in your grace through the blood of Jesus just relentlessly, and you love us right where we're at, not where we need to be or should be.

May this be so healing to us.

May we know of a providence that is beyond our current events, beyond our disappointments.

Would you create in us just a bit of trust that we might have more peace?

We thank you that you love us, you know us, and you love us.

In Jesus' name, amen.