From Begging to Dancing: Miracle at the Beautiful Gate - Sermon 16th November 2025

G'day, thanks for joining the Heights Church podcast today. We hope you enjoy our message.

If you're in the Sydney area, be sure to join us at the Heights Church at Goldstone

Road, Cornfield Heights, Summary, Australia.

So our Bible reading this morning is from Acts 3.1-10.

One day, Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer,

at three in the afternoon.

Now, a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate,

and the gate's name was beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those

going into the temple courts.

When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.

Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, Look at us!

So the man gave him his full attention, expecting to get something from them.

Then Peter said, Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you.

In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.

Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up.

And instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong.

He jumped to his feet and began to walk.

Then he went with them into the court temples, walking and jumping and praising God.

When all the people saw him walking and praising God, but they recognized him

as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful.

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

Now where Tony was saying this is my favorite sermon, it's not my favorite sermon,

it's my favorite passage.

I've got a couple of favorite passages. One is Psalm 139.

I love that. It kind of anchors my life and my world and how I view my world in God, in the.

The almighty god the one who's ever present ever knowing ever powerful uh and

psalm 139 love and also love this passage i think this passage ever since i've

been a minister has changed my thinking,

on how i view my world and how i walk in my world and there's no notes,

and that's on purpose because i'd like for you to listen uh instead of reading notes,

My dog wakes up every morning at 5.14am,

both dogs.

Susan's alarm goes off at 5.15am. Somehow they know.

We leave to go to work at 6am. At Copa, the dogs know the routine that we get in the car.

We get to Maccas at 6.10.

I order two coffees, one for Susan, one for I, and two eggs for our dogs.

The same server at the takeaway window every single time says how cute our dogs are.

Every time. Then we get to the parking lot.

Toby gets his egg first, then Archie gets his egg second.

They fall asleep, wake up about Mount Kola. When we're at Hornsby Heights,

a plane flies over in from Bali at 5.50am every time over the top of the manse.

I know this because Toby barks at 5.50am at the plane every time.

Susan leaves from the front door twice, once to take the garbage out at 5.30am

and the other at 6.05am when she leaves to take the dogs for a walk. And then I get up.

6.45 in the morning, the dog next door barks when Susan returns from the walk at our dogs.

Then I leave to go to work. I go when I'm at Hornsby Heights,

Wednesday and Thursday and Friday, I get to the BP station at 7am.

I don't have to say anything because they know that I have a medium long black

with cold skin milk and they have it ready before I even get to the counter.

And then I pay for it. Now, you probably have a similar story where life can

become so routine and so predictable.

It's the same thing every single day that you do it.

You get up, you take your pills. You get up, you brush your teeth.

You get up, you go to the toilet.

It's amazing what happens, how routine we can become in our life.

But an amazing thing happened last Wednesday. It was incredible.

The BP service station coffee machine didn't work.

And I was left into a dilemma. Where do I go for my coffee? Or even better.

You bought a plane in the middle of nowhere, planning to think about the waves

that I caught and the waves that I missed.

And all of a sudden, this woman, Jessica, comes and sits down right next to

you on the plane. Or I was by myself on a random island in the middle of the Mentawis.

And the cook, who came along every now and then to cook my food,

hears me playing Elevation Worship Praise and comes in and says,

I go to church in the middle of this Muslim country.

And we have this conversation for about an hour and a half.

Or you're on a fishing boat off Key Western, Florida, and a person who lives

two doors up from my parents in Sydney is on this charter boat.

Or the shop assistant at the local coffee shop who you thought was Muslim because

every other person that is employed there is a Muslim,

says, I go to church, but I haven't been for some time. What's your church like?

Or you're driving past some person's place who attends the Heights church and

you're praying for them as you go by. I've mentioned that's how I pray.

I drive by people's places and I kind of pray for them and their family and what's happening.

And then you go to the mall and this person that you just drove by,

this house is walking straight towards you.

And they talk about how they just come from news from the doctors.

Has that ever happened to you? Where your ordinary day suddenly becomes extraordinary.

We'll talk about an extraordinary day in our passage.

An extraordinary day when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and miracles happened.

Peter preached and 3,000 people became Christians and God was at work through

the ordinary people in their ordinary day in the most incredible way.

And Acts 3 clearly shows that when the Spirit moves, no day is ordinary.

And in fact, if you listen to the Holy Spirit, your ordinary day will turn to

extraordinary or extraordinary or blow it to bits.

But there's a question that emerges from the passage that you would need to answer this morning.

Do you have eyes to see and faith to move that when God's Spirit wants to work

in and through you and as individuals, us all,

and as a church, do we have the eyes to see and faith to move when the Spirit

calls for us to work, to walk out as Christians?

Because for the Christian, the day when you received the Holy Spirit was no ordinary day.

That's where we're at in Acts. They just received the Holy Spirit and amazing

things were starting to happen.

And this is the chapter three part after they started to meet together and they

connected together and people were becoming Christians and the Lord added to their number daily.

And all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit starts to do an incredible work through them.

That same Holy Spirit indwells you if you're a Christian person.

And any day that God wants to work through you is no ordinary day.

God loves to use, for whatever reason, ordinary people, people like you and

like me, to do his extraordinary work.

And he loves to use the church to proclaim and live out Jesus' message together.

So let's get into it. Chapter 3. Peter and John woke up like every other day.

They went to the toilet, no doubt. They had breakfast, no doubt.

Probably without the bacon, no doubt.

And 3 p.m., they were heading to the temple for afternoon prayer,

as they would do every single day. Just routine.

Every day, 3 p.m., go to the temple for prayer. Nothing special, just routine.

But this day would change absolutely everything.

Everything would change. Now, in passages like this, we are encouraged by the

Spirit through God's Word to assume one of the characters in the story.

And in our story, we have three groups of people.

One, the lame man, the disciples, Peter and John. And then at the end,

we have the crowd, the ones that witnessed all of this.

So if we look at the lame man. It's a picture of humanity, humanity without God.

Every day he was carried to the temple gate called beautiful,

but there really was nothing beautiful about him.

That gate was adorned with jewels and gold, yet he was just a tragic man.

Part of religion. The gate of religion could not help him.

He could not walk with God into God's presence, which was inside the temple of time.

His future was bleak. He was born that way.

And as far as we know, every single day he sat there when he could,

when he got older, no doubt, and he was going to remain that way.

Because he was lame, there was no place in society for him. There was no hope beyond his mat.

And because of the religion of that day, they put that down to the sinful life

that either he or his parents lived. So he had no place in the temple.

He couldn't walk in there. His days were routine.

Every day he begged for coins.

But what he really needed was to walk with God.

Isn't that the same for our world? We're all born spiritually lame.

We cannot walk with God. We're unable to walk with him because of our sin.

We try to fill our life with everything except the one thing that truly satisfies, and that is Jesus.

Chasing satisfaction. Our world promises that satisfaction can be bought or

could be earned or could be achieved.

Financial freedom that promises security forever. We always want something new,

something bright, something beautiful.

But it's short-lived. You can line up overnight for that new iPhone,

but the minute that you get it, it's obsolete.

In fact, before you even get it, the new iPhone is being tested.

We chase pleasure, comfort, and status, but nothing really fills the void,

and even those who have it all still thirst for something more.

Angelina Jolie, who is a deeply spiritual woman with tattoos all over her body

from created by monks that had all these different rods and ink and all the things.

You read about all her tattoos, if you can go online, and all these different

religious sort of beliefs that people have come into her life.

But she at one time had a tattoo on her lower back of a window,

which she had done a long time before.

And she quotes this, she always felt like she belonged somewhere else and she

could look out from the window to a place that she never was.

She once said, I used to think I was unstable because I had a thirst for something.

I could not figure it out.

I always wanted to be somewhere else.

And she has a tattoo now that's still there that says, what nourishes me, destroys me.

Pretty deep, eh? So here's a woman that this world at one time envied.

And yet, while she says all of those things, happiness still eludes her in life.

And she obviously has a thirst for something.

Hey, while people wrote down her words because she was very famous, you have that story too.

You may not have the tattoos that look out from the window, but we try to fill our life with stuff.

To try to seek satisfaction, and often without Jesus.

Something tells us, though, doesn't it? We know that something tells us there

must be something more than what this world offers. There must be.

And just like the lame man, quite often we find ourselves asking for silver,

whatever that is, when what we really need is to walk with God through Jesus.

That's the lame man.

The second one is Peter and John.

They had seen this man, no doubt, countless times before, but this day was different.

No doubt, every single day, they walked by this lame man.

And we know they did, because when the crowd talked about it,

at the end of it, isn't this lame man the one that sits outside the gate called

Beautiful, that begs every day and has begged all his life?

How is it that he's jumping and leaping and praising God? Every single day,

Peter and John would have walked by this guy.

Yet this day was different. This day, the Holy Spirit opened up their eyes to

see him not as an inconvenience that they had to get through.

He'd probably been there. I've been there. I mentioned that before in a message

where every day I got off the train at the town hall station.

Every day we had these people begging on the way to walk to St.

Andrew's house, St. Andrew's Cathedral.

I'm thinking to myself, do I get off at the station before so I don't have to feel guilty?

Do I take a different elevator, a different way so I don't have to walk by these people every day?

Were they an inconvenience? What do I do with that?

And I don't know whether they got past that point where they just went in,

hi, how you going? Gept on walking.

Because every day they couldn't possibly give silver every single day because they'd have no money.

But this day, the Holy Spirit opened up their eyes so they would see him not

as an inconvenience, but they would see him just as Jesus would see him.

Someone who was in need of true healing.

Could have given him what he asked for, a few coins, but instead they gave him what he needed most.

They said, silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give to you in the

name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.

But walking wasn't what he needed.

What he needed was to walk and leap and praise God. And he did.

Not just physical healing, but spiritual healing. There was no ordinary day.

And when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes, when the Spirit leads us.

Ordinary becomes extraordinary.

And Peter and John were, what, special?

I don't think so. I think they were simply available for how God was going to be used.

They responded to the Spirit's leading, they offered what they had,

Jesus, and God did the rest in this person's life.

And if you're a Christian, that same spirit dwells in you and I,

and God still asks us, do you have eyes that will see and faith that will move when I call you?

Do you notice the spiritually lame people around you, not just the beggars on

the street, but the neighbor,

the one at work, the family, the friends who have never walked with God and

they're trying to fill their life with stuff for what they need is Jesus.

God's greatest desire is to use his people to bring his healing to the spiritual lane.

Evangelism isn't an optional extra. It's the heartbeat of the Christian,

and it is the central core mission of the church.

Now, maybe you've never seen a miracle like that of Acts 3. I haven't.

Maybe you have. I don't know.

But if you've seen somebody turn from light to darkness,

that is the greatest miracle that you could ever witness in your life,

I had that moment with Jessica on the plane that's a drop the mic kind of moment

I don't have a mic, I can't drop it and then the tech team would kill me anyway for dropping a mic,

but there are times when God works in the spectacular,

and also in the quiet When you feel prompted to call somebody that you haven't

spoken to for months and months and you call them up and you say to them,

look, I've wanted to reach out to you. And they said, look, I'm struggling.

I'm so glad you called.

All the time when you ask somebody, are you okay? Or do you need help?

Or would you like to talk?

And they go, absolutely.

Lame man walking, no 3,000 people becoming Christians,

but still the Spirit is at work and the ordinary moments of your day become

an extraordinary moment with God because you've listened to Him.

Every time the Spirit moves, big or small, is a reason to praise.

And our role as Christians is to

be available and obedient to the Spirit's leading and let God do the rest.

So we get back to it. Who do you identify with?

The lame man? The one who sat at the gate of religion or sat in the place of

religion all your life but really don't walk with God? Is that you?

Maybe you need to walk with God for the first time even.

Maybe you're part of the crowd, like you're in the temple or you're at the temple

and you see what's happening around you to people,

and you're filled with wonder and amazement of what's happened. Maybe that's you.

Maybe you're like Peter and John and you've been filled with the Spirit as Christian

people, and you're learning to see through the eyes of Jesus,

and you're ready to step out in faith and offer all that you can give,

the greatest that you can give is Jesus, because that's what God has given to

you and has called you to step out in faith.

When you walk with Jesus, there is no ordinary day, ever. Let's pray.

I pray, Lord, that this day would be a day when you open up our eyes anew,

that every person we walk by, everyone we walk by, we would see through your

eyes, and we have no idea the greatest needs that people might have.

Lame man we might replace by the lonely person, the lame man we might replace

by the one who's in need and hungry,

or the one that is in desperate need of healing, or the one who just needs a friend to talk to,

or the one that needs confidence to get up each morning and get on with their

work and their day, or the one that's just struggling in life.

They might be their needs and Lord, you have led us and you have called us and

you have placed that passion in our life to deal with the needs of people,

the practical needs of people.

But Lord, we also know that the greatest need of people is to walk with you,

to have your perspective on life, on their eternity, on the hope that they have in you.

So whatever impact that this world has placed before them,

they can look beyond that and they

can look to you so help us lord to lead people

to you as well as deal with people's practical

needs lord i pray so whether we're

peter and john open up our eyes whether we're the lame person that we think

that we know about christianity and we can do things and we can be on rosters

and we can be all the things that happen but do we really walk with you help

us through your spirit, Lord, to convict us of that.

If we need to come before you and get real with you, I pray,

Lord, that we would do that.

And maybe, Lord, we're just here and we're in amazement of how you have been

at work in people and through people and through this church.

And we long to be part of that. Give us that passion that Phil prayed for,

that passion we're passionately committed because you were so passionately committed for us.

And I pray this in your holy name. Amen.