In His Amazing Name | Dr. John Ewart

Hey everybody, this is Pastor John Ewart from Inglewood

Baptist Church in Rocky Mountain, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for tuning in to our podcast.

You're going to hear from God today as we share from his word

about important issues facing your life that can guide you

according to the Bible. Well, happy Mother's Day,

Inglewood. Wow, well y'all need more grits.

That's great. Take your Bibles this morning.

If you wouldn't turn to Acts chapter 3.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

Appreciate you being here. Seriously.

I know some of you are here to visit your mama's.

Some of you visiting your grand mama's or your Mimi's or your

Grammys or whatever you call them appreciate you being here.

So I also know today we as Pastor Jordan said we do want to

honor our mothers. The Bible tells us to do that.

We, we want to do that rightfully.

I also know today can be hard on people, some of us who have lost

our moms already, some who want to be moms and can't be and wish

they were. So I also know there's a

bittersweetness sometimes to today.

So just know that we appreciate you and we're thinking of you

and we'll be lifting you all up. I also know that I hope you'll

come back on Wednesday night. We're having a great time on

Wednesday nights. Several of you are there.

Yeah. No, seriously.

Yeah, you can clap. It's OK.

Nobody's going to bite you. This week we're going to talk

about facing fear. This is actually a big, I

haven't, I won't say this much about every week, but this is

just a big deal. It's a big deal for people.

And so a lot of folks have fears that they're dealing with in

life. So I pray that you'll be here.

We're going to see what the Bible says about fear, how to

handle that and how to deal with it.

So I hope you'll come back. Then also pray for us this week

if you would. We have some really crucial

meetings. You may not understand the

historicity of it, but there's some historic meetings happening

this week with your staff and with your deacons and with your

lay leadership. Very important meetings where

we're talking about mission and vision in the future of the

church together. And then we're going to get

feedback from those groups. Your pastors have done a

tremendous job of working on some ideas and things from

straight from the Bible. Nothing weird, nothing you know,

nothing hard to understand, we hope.

But and then we're going to get feedback from these groups, do

some tweaking and adjusting. Then I promise we'll be sharing

all of that with you very soon. So we appreciate the work of

these these leaders because we want to share what your leaders

believe to be God's vision First Church with you all might

because what we're prayerfully trying to do is to seek God's

vision to fulfill his mission. And that's the the name of the

sermon series. Just come join the King's

mission because that's what we see in the book of Acts.

We see God working in the first church.

Last week we saw power and we saw the practices of the first

church and those are going to be things we'll return to in Acts

Acts 2 · chapter mention

chapter 2 later. But the Holy Spirit came, He

established and He empowers the church.

Thousands of lives are transformed.

And the Bible says that they were devoted.

They had a single minded focus on a certain number of things.

Bible study, fellowship, prayer, ministry, stewardship, worship

and evangelism are a few of those things.

And I asked you last week to rate your own personal spiritual

walk in those areas 1:00 to 5:00, and be curious to know how

you you ranked yourself. And also be curious to know

where you think the church is. Those are the kinds of questions

we often ask in interviews with churches.

But we all need to recognize that every one of us must

continue to grow. We must continue to grow in our

discipleship. We, we want you to have a very

clear understanding. This is what a true disciple is.

This is what a biblical church is.

This is what a biblical church member is.

This is my personal next step in discipleship.

This is what my children need to do in discipleship.

We want you to understand that and how this church is going to

help equip you and help you to do those things.

That's the whole point of these meetings, everything that we're

talking about. So what we see is that pursuit

never, ever ends. None of us are perfect.

We're all on that journey together and that and that.

This early church was doing this brand new followers of Christ

with all kinds of excitement, all kinds of passion, but they

were also one. You'll see that theme.

I'll say it over and over again. You'll see it all through these

chapters. They're one.

They have a unity of purpose, a unity of heart and mind.

It reminds me of what the great theologian Winnie the Pooh once

said. He said to Christopher Robin in

the woods. He says if we don't stick

together, we will be lost indeed.

And there you go, Church, We've got to stick together, join

together on this journey of discovering and defining these

biblical things. Like the church.

Acts 2 also showed us that wondrous, amazing, miraculous

things were taking place. In fact, the way the Bible is

written, they were taking place continuously.

They didn't stop. These were evidences, These were

testimonies of the fact that Jesus really is who he said He

is and that the Holy Spirit really had come.

So God's hand was upon them. Inglewood As Pastor Jordan

alluded, I believe God's hand is on us too.

As far as I know, we're baptizing next week too.

And so people are coming every week, making decisions, making

them public, sharing with our pastors about what God is doing

in their life. God's hand is on us.

So in chapter 3, where we are right now, Luke is going to

provide an illustration. It's almost like, let me show

you Exhibit A, Here's an example of some of these continuously,

continuously happening miracles, these wondrous, amazing things

that are happening. Let me just show you an example

of one of them right here in Acts chapter 3.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

So all of this is happening because of Jesus and because of

the power of the Holy Spirit as evidence, as testimony, because

these things can only occur in His amazing name.

You've been singing about it. We'll do some more of that later

and we're going to see how powerful that name really is.

Acts 3, verse one. Here we go.

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of

prayer, the 9th hour. It's about 3:00 in the

afternoon. And a man lame from birth was

being carried and whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple

that is called the beautiful gate, to ask alms of those

entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to

go into the temple, he asked to receive alms.

I'm just going to share a few very simple things with you this

morning. I want you to see, first of all,

just a lifetime of need, a legitimate lifetime of need, not

just for this person who's lame, but to be honest with you, for

all of us. Before we meet Jesus, Peter and

John are going into the afternoon prayer session at the

temp at the temple. Remember, they're, they're

Jewish believers at this point. All of them are still Jewish

believers in their backgrounds. And so going to the temple is

still a normal part of their life.

Faithful Jews would go to the temple three times a day if they

could. They'd go in the morning, they'd

go in this afternoon time, and they'd go at sunset.

This afternoon time was the biggest time.

They'd be the biggest crowd. And So what better time for the

Holy Spirit to show up, What better time for the Holy Spirit

to display himself than when the biggest crowd is gathered at the

temple? And that's what we're going to

see here in a moment to provide testimony, to provide evidence

of himself. So he, in other words, kind of

gather them all up when watch me show up.

That's kind of what the Holy Spirit is doing here as he

orchestrates this. But outside the temple gate,

ironically called the beautiful gate, there he sat.

He was there every day. The Bible says real lifetime

need is all around us every day, even in our lives.

Now listen, it wasn't this man's fault.

He needed help. This is an important part of the

story. He was born lame.

He literally from the womb. The Bible says a lifetime of

real need. He knew nothing else.

He never knew what it was to walk.

He never knew what it was to run.

He never knew what it was to jump.

This was all he ever knew. This is the way it always was,

and the way I am sure he probably thought.

This is the way it would always be.

Inevitable, eternal. And those who saw him every day

would have thought the same thing.

They saw him every day there. There's that guy by that gate.

We see him every single day and they knew nothing else about

him. The idea of being lame from

birth always was, always will be, and this becomes an

important fact. This is important because of

what's going to happen in Chapter 4 next week.

The opposition would never be able to explain away what

happens to this man, and we're going to see that next week.

So come on back for Part 2. Because his need was real.

He was truly physically unable to walk for his entire life.

This is not a fake. This is not a scam.

This is not some excuse for a handout.

This guy, in fact, the word refers to paralysis in the feet

and ankle. Something was wrong with the

lower part of his legs and his feet.

And so he couldn't walk. And so he he was in this

lifetime of need. But we all are.

Maybe not physically with our feet and ankles, but we all

suffer from a lifetime of legitimate need before we

encounter His amazing name and grace.

All of us do. Lostness and sin are real.

Lostness and sin are paralyzing their legitimate needs.

People who are hurt, people who are confused, people who are

abused, people who are trying to understand and find the best way

forward. They might feel like it's always

been that way. They might feel like it always

will be that way. That's just life.

Nothing can be done. There's really no hope for

anything else. Or maybe, like a lot of people

I've met, they've tried to fix it themselves.

If I can just muster up enough strength, if I can just pay

enough money, if I can just do enough good, I could make these

spiritual legs work somehow. Myself or the line I hear a lot,

preacher. If I could just get my life in

order first, then maybe I could come to Jesus, or maybe I could

come to church, or maybe I could be baptized or whatever, but I

got to get my own life straightened out first.

I hear this all the time and the problem with it is it never

works that way. It doesn't work that way.

You will never get your life straightened out on your own.

You're not designed to do that. You weren't created to do that.

You are incapable of that. It it reminds me of a friend and

I've shared this story with a couple of the lead from the

leaders, but it reminded me of Lonnie Butler.

In fact, if I had an acoustic guitar right now, we could have

a country music video for what I'm about to tell you.

Lonnie Butler was the very first senior pastorate I ever served

in, was in a church that had just stopped being a church

plant. I was their first full time

anything and I'm not sure they paid me full time.

They expected full time, not sure they paid me full time.

And a little bitty town of about 2000 people.

Now, you didn't go to this town unless you meant to go to this

town. It was not on the way to

anywhere. You understand what I'm saying?

So you went to the live down in a valley back in the Ozarks and

I was the pastor of this brand new church, right?

And we had vacation Bible school and, and a young boy came

forward and wanted to know more about trusting in Christ.

So we had people follow up in the home with him and his mama's

there. And so Mama then wants to know

about trusting in Christ. So mom and son accept Christ.

They're going to be baptized. This is the wife and son of

Lonnie Butler. Now Lonnie Butler was about 6

foot five, 425 lbs easy, looked like a professional wrestler and

he was a deputy sheriff who loved to dress in paramilitary

garb, drove him paramilitary type Jeep and his job was to

bust up the marijuana growers in the Ozarks and he loved his job.

Rough around the edges does not describe Lonnie strongly enough.

Lonnie would be so tickled if he heard.

I may have to get in touch with him to say I talked about you

again, Lonnie. He would be thrilled to death.

You know, he's being mentioned from a pulpit.

Ruff cussed like a sailor, which I always felt bad for blaming

the sailors for that just rough around the But he had to come to

church because his wife and his son were getting baptized.

Well, let me tell you something. Lonnie Butler sitting there in

church, First of all, he's just hard to miss.

And second of all, the whole town knew Lonnie Butler.

And so they were amazed that Lonnie Butler was in church.

The probably the one time in the history of anything Lonnie

Butler had been in a church service.

So I got to know Lonnie. Some of you don't know my past.

The biography would be entitled. He ain't Always been a preacher.

So me and Lonnie would talk. We'd go to Peggy's Cafe.

It's the cafe, you know what I'm saying?

The cafe in town, there's nowhere else to go.

The cafe and the town will talk about it.

They couldn't believe that. The preacher and Lonnie would

sit at a table together, and Lonnie would just cuss and push

my buttons, trying to get me to react to him.

And I just share the gospel back to Lonnie.

We go back and forth. He heard the gospel.

He heard the gospel. But here's what Lonnie would

say. Well, preacher, you don't know

what all I've done. And I'd say, well, Lonnie, I can

imagine what you've done. In fact, you enjoyed doing it

too, didn't you? I got to get my life

straightened out first, then I might trust in Jesus.

Lonnie, you're never going to get that done that way.

You never will. Priest will testify that it was

a stormy night. Paul, I'm telling you, it was

like a country music. I need I need a background

music. Thunder and lightning and and

Latin. About midnight, my phone rings.

It's Lonnie Butler. Preacher, get out to my house.

All right, Lonnie. I drive out the country.

Then I drive a little further because that's where Lonnie

lived. A little further.

Knock on that door. This giant opens the door,

trembling and shaking and weeping.

Michael Lonnie, what in the world's wrong with you?

Preacher? I'm lost and I'm going to go to

hell. If I die, I need to be saved.

I'll never forget that night. He, he, he meant to kneel at the

couch, but he hit the floor so hard the couch went flying

across the room. And he's on all fours, this

giant man on. I mean, the house is shaking.

Every time he shakes, he's shaking, sobbing, and he prays

and asks Jesus Christ into his heart.

Well, now came the baptism of Lonnie, but which would be the

theme? That would be the title of the

song, The Baptism of Lonnie Butler.

Well, let me tell you something. The whole town showed up for

that one. They're afraid the roof wasn't

going to last. You know, the whole thing going

to collapse because Lonnie Butler getting baptized.

Now, I was a bigger man in those days.

I'm still pretty tall, but I was a bunch bigger man in those

days. Lonnie Butler, though, it's the

only guy ever lost in the baptistry.

They turned on me. And in those days, the choir sit

right up underneath, you know what I'm saying?

So the base sections right up here in the choir road, right

underneath the baptism. And I mean, when he hit, there

was a tidal wave. Just took out the whole base

section. Don't tell me you're going to

get your life together first. It just doesn't work that way.

He's lame from birth. So are we.

So are we. We're lame from birth.

Nothing can be done. There's nothing if I could just

in reality, the only way for your healing, for my healing for

Lonnie's, for this man. The only hope is the amazing

power of the Messiah. So.

So here he was in the best place to beg.

Biggest crowd, best place, good time for begging, giving alms.

That was this is considered a work of merit and Judaism for.

So people coming out of the temple would be more generous.

They'd want to impress God and they'd want to impress one

another. So it'd be a good time to get

some coins off of them. But he had no idea what was

coming next. He's begging for pennies and he

needs something much more. Look at verse 4.

And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, look

at us. And he fixed his attention on

them, expecting to receive something from them.

But Peter said, 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. So the second thing we see is

just very simple, this immediate transformation.

We go from legitimate need, a lifetime of legitimate need to

immediate transformation. I just want you to see this

power. Most would have just flipped a

coin. That's what they did.

They'd have flipped a coin and kept on walking.

It's easier to just flip a coin. It's easier than just investing

any real time in people's lives. It'd been easier just to pay off

the beggar. But Peter and John knew he

needed more. He needed love.

He needed transformation. So they stop and they fix their

gaze on him intentionally and demand him to do the same to

them. And you got to recognize

culturally, traditionally, what a huge moment this is.

We may not, we might kind of overlook that in our culture

today, but it's not. Think about this.

Most would just duck their heads.

Most would just turn away. But these men were going to be

different. I mean, what Jewish man, what

faithful Jewish man would look at a pitiful beggar who's

considered unclean, blemished, blemished beneath them and all

of their traditions, who'd look him right in the eye and demand

him to stare back? Who, who would spend the time

and energy to give dignity and respect to someone like that?

I mean, and you have to think about Peter and John.

They legitimately had a lot going on.

They, they had thousands of new members, they, they thousands of

new believers. They're trying to sort out think

about this. This is just Acts 3.

Acts 23000 people saved, thousands of issues, thousands

of hurts, thousands of needs, and because it's the church,

thousands of opinions. But Jesus had shown them.

Jesus had shown them the one was important, that one lost person,

that one inactive member, that one person who's hurting, maybe

alone they're worth it. I've shared with some of you

before that that that I used to work, I've worked on a couple of

cattle ranches. I this life, it's not the year

of the model, it's how many miles you put on it.

I'm telling you, I've worked on a couple and one of them was a

purebred bull breeding business in Central Texas.

We were raising purebred Santa Gertrudius bulls for the Kings

Ranch. We were a subcontractor and

these were like, it's like raising thoroughbred horses.

These are worth, we had one bull worth $1,000,000.

These are worth 10s of thousands of dollars, these animals.

And I lived at the rants for security and to work.

And if I woke up and I was missing one of those bull

calves, I had to go out and find it, search for it, rescue it, do

whatever I had for it because it was so valuable.

How about a church member? How about a lost soul?

How about somebody who's hurting?

We're implementing a strategy to reach every inactive church

member to love and to lead them back into the flock.

We need everybody to be in a connect group so you can be

ready to help with that. The deacons are going to be

mobilized to help with it too. But it reminds me of Jesus just

a few weeks ago. Remember in Jericho he stopped

for that one blind beggar named Bartimaeus.

He stopped for that tax collector up the tree.

In other places in his ministry. He stopped for that woman who

was hurting. He'll even stop and restore that

one disciple who denies him three times.

The one is important. And Peter and John had something

much greater than coin, silver and gold.

I have none. Perhaps Peter was saying that

and he's he was standing there in front of the temple gate

called Beautiful, which is very ornate.

It had, it had carvings of great clusters on it covered in gold

or silver or Corinthian bronze. Maybe he's looking at that and

he says I don't have any of that, but I've got something

even better. Much better, eternally better.

They knew the answer, So do we. They shared the answer, so must

we. Jesus is the answer for the

beggar, but for also for us and for you.

For all your hurt, for all your pain, for all your confusion,

for all your stress, for all your anger, for all your fear,

for all your loneliness, for the chaos of your life.

You're never going to figure that out on your own.

He's the answer. Your own efforts to live a good

life, to lift yourself up by your own bootstraps.

Which, by the way, in his original version, is a satirical

joke. It's sarcasm.

To fix things, all those things are going to fail.

You need an amazing power found only in one amazing name.

God's gazing right into your heart, right into your life, and

He wants you to stare right back at him right now.

He loves you. He's got an incredible purpose

and value for you. A pastor.

You don't know me. You don't know what I've done.

You don't know what I'm doing right now.

You don't know how far away I am.

I don't care. It's, it can be a lifetime of

distance. Just focus and stare right back

at God right now and see what he does.

I challenge you. Peter knew he couldn't heal him

by his own power. Peter never takes credit.

Peter never takes credit. He always does things in the

power of Jesus. And this is not some magic trick

that only through Christ could true immediate transformation

take place, And only as another evidence, only as a testimony of

who Jesus really is and of the reality and power of the Holy

Spirit could this happen. So in Scripture, we've got to

remember that the name carried the presence and power of the

person. And so he invokes the name in

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

And immediately after an entire lifetime of being broken,

immediately after a lifetime of being paralyzed, immediately he

was healed. Now, the same thing happened to

me. You don't know what all I've

done. You don't know who I used to be.

And the same thing happened to me.

I was very broken and in one instant, Jesus Christ

immediately saved me and healed me.

And the same thing can happen to you immediately.

This morning. I was in Phoenix a few years

ago, downtown, it's 100°, you know, because it's always 100°

in Phoenix, could be December. It's 100° in Phoenix.

And there was a restaurant and, and outside the restaurant,

there was a man passed out on the sidewalk, a homeless man.

And I reached down and I was helping him.

I was trying to revive him and help him.

His name's Larry. He's a homeless veteran.

And Larry said to me, and I'll never forget his words, he says,

I didn't think anybody would ever stop.

I didn't think anybody would care enough to help me.

Larry began to share with me about all the addictions in his

life, all the problems and addictions in his life.

So I turned around and I shared with him about mine.

I shared with him about my addiction to Jesus Christ at

that point in my life and now and how did change me and Larry

and I prayed on that sidewalk 100° you could fry an egg.

But we prayed and asked Jesus. He prayed and was saved that

day. I would love to share about

Jesus more with you, but we got to move on.

So what happens next? A lifetime of need, immediate

transformation, and then it results #3 very appropriately in

a responsive praise. You got to see this verse 8 and

leaping up. He didn't just stand up, he

leaps up. He stood and began to walk and

entered the temple with them. Don't miss that phrase.

Hugely important. Walking and leaping and praising

God. And all the people saw him

walking and praising God and recognized him as the one who

said at the beautiful gate of the temple asking for alms.

And they were filled with wonder and amazement of what had

happened to him. And while he clung to Peter and

John, all the people, utterly astounded, ran together to them

in the portico called Solomon's. He jumped up and began to walk.

He leaped up. After a lifetime.

It's amazing never knowing, never knowing what it felt like

to put pressure on those feet, to look down from way up here.

The ground is way down there. Never in his life that he had

that perspective. And to think about the no

groaning, no wobbling, no teetering, just leaping.

But don't miss what happens next.

This is huge. And you might miss it because of

the context. You might miss it because you

don't understand the culture in the context.

He entered the temple with them. Now you got to understand what a

big deal this is. Day by day.

He sat there. He'd sat there by the gate, he

said, at the very threshold of the place of worship, unable to

go in. You see, he was lame.

He was unclean. He was not allowed to go in by

the law. He, he was, he was denied access

because he was blemished. He couldn't go into the temple.

Now not only was he healed physically, but he was now also

to be free and accepted relationally and spiritually,

rejected by the old, deemed worthy by Christ.

What a moment. For the first time he praised

God in that designated place, at that designated time with the

other people, with his community.

I mean, Can you imagine his praise that day?

We need to worship God that way. He's done the same thing for us.

And the people saw it all. They were amazed.

They witnessed the transformation.

So they come running because real transformation is going to

do that. When lives are truly

transformed, others are going to come running to see what's going

on. You remember Asbury just a few

years ago. Now, years and years ago, you

can watch black and white films of what happened in Asbury.

Years ago, they had a huge revival at Asbury College in

Kentucky. But just a couple few years ago,

it happened again and people from all over 10s of thousands

of people went over there to see what's going on.

Now listen, why not now? Why not here at Inglewood?

Why can't the revival of Rocky Mount start right here?

So leaping and praising, they were in order.

And the way it's written is he kept on, he kept on leaping, he

kept on praying. They couldn't stop him.

That guy's just hopping over there and we can't slow him

down. He wouldn't quit.

I'm not, I'm lame now. I can leap.

I'm lost now. I'm going to testify.

I was rejected. Now I can praise.

So they all meet together at Solomon's colonnade.

It's on the east side of the temple.

Because they're not done yet. Holy Spirit's not done.

Incredible power, incredible transformation, incredible

things happening. Why?

Because then there was evidence. This is clear evidence.

Jesus really is who He said He is.

And the Holy Spirit really has come.

Here's the message. But the Holy Spirit's not done

yet. It was time for explanation.

It was time for the testimony. So Peter steps up verse 12.

And when Peter saw it, he addressed the people, men of

Israel. Why do you wonder at this?

And why do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety

we have made Him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of

Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified

his servant Jesus, whom you delivered over and denied in the

presence of Pilate, when He had decided to release Him.

But you denied the holy unrighteous, 1 and asked for a

murderer to be granted to you, and you killed the Author of

life, whom God raised from the dead.

To this we are witnesses, and His name by faith in His name,

has made this man strong whom you see and know, And the faith

that is through Jesus has given the man His this perfect health

in the presence of you all. And now, brothers, I know that

you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that

is, Christ, would suffer, He thus fulfilled.

Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted

out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of

the Lord, that he may send the Christ appointed for you Jesus,

whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring.

Of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy

prophets. Long ago Moses said, The Lord

God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your

brothers. You shall listen to him and

whatever he tells you, and it shall be that every soul who

does not listen to that prophet shall be destroyed from the

people. And all the prophets who have

spoken from Samuel and those who came after him also proclaimed

these days you're the sons of the prophets and of the covenant

that God made with your father's saying to Abraham.

And in your offspring shall all the families of the earth be

blessed. God, having raised up his

servant, sent him to you first to bless you by turning everyone

of you from your wickedness. So the last thing we just have

to point out is a glorifying testimony.

That's what happens. You have a lifetime of need when

Christ brings immediate transformation.

You respond with the praise he deserves, and then you testify

about him. That's exactly what you've seen

this morning. So Peter preached the gospel

again. He preached the sermon.

It's almost exactly like the sermon in Acts 2.

He's he's it's a Jewish audience.

So he's referring to Old Testament leadership and Old

Testament examples and Old Testament prophecies to bridge

the gap with that audience that, but pointing out that they all

lead to Jesus Christ is the film fulfilment of the covenant.

He is the ultimate fulfilment and deserves all the glory.

So they hadn't healed this man by their power.

In fact, he says, men of Israel, why do you wonder if this, why

do you stare at us as though by our own power or piety we've

made him walk? Of course they wondered and

stared, What else would they do? Nothing like this has ever

happened before. They've never seen this before.

But it was the power of Christ, the faith in Christ, in his name

that needed to be their focus. In fact, Peter says in his name,

by faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and

know. And the faith that is through

Jesus has given this man this perfect health, not just sort

of, but perfect health in the presence of you all, all done in

his amazing name. And then listen one last time to

Peter's appeal, verses 19 and 20.

He says repent therefore and turn back that your sins may be

blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the

presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed

for you, Jesus. You must repent.

You must turn back or turn to God.

They'd rejected him. Now they had to return to him

that their sins might be blotted out.

It literally means to be wiped out, to be to be rubbed off, to

be erased, to be removed completely from the document.

They don't exist anymore. And then a phrase only time used

in the New Testament at times of refreshing may come from the

presence of the Lord. The image here is of a cool

breeze on a very hot day. The refreshing, the restoration

that that cool breeze, that cool wind would bring on a very hot

desert day. Only from God, only by

believing, only by receiving the Christ, responding in repentance

and turning to him with this personal forgiveness, with this

refreshing, with this restoration take place.

And Jesus now waits. Peter says he waits in heaven

and he'll return one day to bring complete restoration to

everything. Verse 21, whom heaven must

receive until the time for restoring all the things about

which God spoke by the mouth of the holy prophets long ago.

So don't miss him on Mother's Day.

Allow him to restore you today. This miracle was a testimony of

the reality of God the Son and God the Spirit working with God

the Father on mission. You see this incredible

Trinitarian formula taking place, but what part of your

life is broken? What part of your life is

paralyzed? What part of your life needs

immediate transformation to join them?

It was a Sunday night. I know that's foreign to a lot

of churches now. Didn't used to be.

It was a Sunday night service. I was actually the interim youth

pastor. I was just getting ready to go

overseas with our Foreign Mission Board before it became

known as the International Mission Board.

So I was just there for a few more days really.

And it was a smaller crowd on a Sunday night.

I was an interim in a church in my hometown just helping him out

for a few months before I went overseas.

And I watched this young, college aged young man in a Army

fatigue jacket come all the way from the back and just kneel at

the front right, right there in that church sobbing.

I was sitting over there. So I did, I came and I put my

arm around him and just begin to pray with him and ask him who he

was and what's going on. He he said, well, everybody

calls me Little Juan. His name was Juan, but everybody

said my, my nickname is Little Juan.

And little Juan had grown up in Oklahoma City and he'd been

involved in St. gangs his whole life.

And he used to steal cars. That's what he did.

And he finally got caught after stealing a bunch of them.

And the judge gave him two options.

Either you go to the penitentiary or you get into

this Job Corps work program at the State University in the town

where I was. And of course, he chose that.

But that night he was escaping. That night he was running away.

He was on his way to Tulsa, OK to find a man to kill him.

He purposely made sure he got positioned as close as he could,

and then he was going to run away.

This man had killed his little brother in a street gang fight.

He'd whipped him to death with a chain off a chainsaw.

He says, I'm going to go. I was going to kill that man

then I'm going to kill myself. And he said I was walking, I was

running away. And I walked by the building and

I heard the music and I just like a force just pushed me into

there. I couldn't, couldn't not come in

there. And so I, I shared with him

about Jesus and both of us sobbing there at the front on

those steps, not as many there. He prays and asks Jesus to come

into his heart to save him. I tried to introduce him to

Christian brothers and sisters on the college campus I knew and

some of the ministries there and got him involved and it's

discipling him some. But I'm getting ready to leave

and I don't see him for a few days.

And then he shows up my office and he goes, I want you to know,

I went to Tulsa and I'm like, oh, oh, oh, man.

So what happened goes, well, I found him and I pounded on his

door and he opened the door and he immediately knew who I was

and why I was there. And I looked at him and I said,

I just wanted you to know I've come all this way and I was

going to kill you for what you did to my brother.

But instead I've come here to forgive you because I've trusted

in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior and only he could change

my heart to be able to give this to you.

Transformation Acts 319 says repent therefore and turn back,

that your sins may be blotted out.

Come on, gang, let him take them off the document.

Let him save you if you're not saved.

Father, thank you for grace. Father, thank you for life.

What a testimony these families, these children are to us.

Thank you for salvation. What a testimony of these

baptisms have been for us. And Father, we, we're so

thankful for all that you give us.

There may be some here this morning though, and that maybe

they're here visiting mom or grandma.

Maybe they really didn't even want to be in church, but it's

part of the day. Or maybe they're here every week

and they have to admit I can't share the testimony that Boyd

shared. Or maybe they're they're

similar. Maybe they've thought they were

Christians their whole life but recognize they're really not.

They've really never surrendered to you.

They've never really trusted you as their Lord and Savior.

Or, or maybe they sit there and they know for sure they never

have. They, they've blatantly never

trusted in Christ, perhaps even rejected him before.

Well, Father, right now I just pray your Holy Spirit moves so

powerfully in here. The Father, you're staring right

into their hearts and their minds right now, and they have

no choice but to look right back at you that they can't deny it

anymore. They can't fight it anymore.

But they know you're real, that you love them, that you're the

only one who can save them. They can't do it themselves.

They're not going to work their way towards you.

They're not going to straighten themselves out and I'm going to

get clean first. They've got to come to you and

they need your grace and help. So Father, in just a moment as

we sing, I pray that they would come physically come down here,

take a pastor by the hand and say I need to know what it means

to trust in Jesus. Maybe there's somebody here and

they've been attending and attending, visiting perhaps.

And Lord, I pray that today they'll recognize I, I need to

join this church. I need to be a part of what

God's doing here. I need to join the team

officially. Or maybe they need to be

baptized. They've been saved, but they've

never publicly shared what these men have shared today.

Or maybe they just want to come and fill this altar with prayer.

They just need to come and pray for themselves, for friends, for

neighbors, for hurt, for brokenness, for paralysis,

whatever they need to do. I just pray that as we sing, as

the worship team leads us, the Father will respond in Christ's

name, Amen. So I want you to stand with me.

I'm going to be here. Other pastors are here.

We'd love to pray with you. We have counselors who'd love to

share with you. I just need you to come, need

you to surrender, need you to give up, give in.

You come pray. Come talk to one of the one of

us. We'll pray with you.

Whatever you need to do, You come as we sing.

Thank you so much for listening today, and I also hope that

you'll go to [email protected]

as well as our app and find many other resources that will bless

you and your families. Thank you once again.