The New Testament Church, Part L
Taped by John Greene, transcribed by Mary Kay Lynd
Bible quotes are from NKJV unless otherwise stated.
Acts 3
We now have in existence the New Testament church. We have 3,120 people. Going into Acts Chapter 3, we are going to see a few things about God's heart in people. God has always had a plan. God has never been caught without a plan. And we're going to see God's plan in action. We have 3,120 Jewish believers who just love Jesus with all their heart, but it doesn't stop there. Just because you say you love somebody that doesn't necessarily mean that you really love somebody. We find that talk is really cheap. Far too often people use words to persuade, to manipulate, to back people into places where they can connive and deceive them into getting what they want, but God's not that way! God is honest and straightforward. His plan has never been any different. Now accomplishing his plan has sometimes been a little different. But his plan itself is simple. He wants to fellowship, to have a relationship with his creation. That's his plan. We have 3,120 people that are going to be an example to all those that are around. And we are going to see some things happen.
We are going to be look at Acts Chapter 3 and we're going to see the reality of living a day-to-day life in God's plan, being God's will. You see it started off in verse 1 and says, "Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour." So we know it's 3 o'clock in the afternoon. They're going up for prayer. The disciples are aligning themselves with God's attitude. It's that simple. We see daily prayer. It's corporate communion with God, if they were in private prayer as in the upper room they wouldn't go to where the public is, if it were private prayer as one-on-one speaking to the Lord they would be in their prayer closet; but here we see the importance that is seen of gathering together corporately as a body, corporate prayer. Every day they went! This was their custom to go together at the hour, an hour had already been established. There was a unity of purpose to go together. There was a consistency to go at the hour, so we see these three things here just in this verse 1. We see that there's daily prayer. We see that there's a unity of purpose. Peter and John and the rest of them are together. They're unified, they're still in one accord, they still want to do God's Will; they still want to walk in obedience to God. That's all God is really looking for even in the Old Testament. You look around; God was always looking for somebody that he could use as a vessel to reach people. Adam He used, Moses He used, Noah He used, Daniel He used; God has always been looking for a Caleb or a Joshua, somebody, and then now we see the same heartbeat of God only now he's got what some people have tried to say is something a little bit different and unique and never been seen before, this entity called the church. But the church may not have been designed the same way as it is in the Old Testament, but the heartbeat of God remains the same. He wants fellowship and relationship with his creation. And here we're going to see because of the New Testament church that is going to be lived out.
When we are right with God and filled with the Spirit, we become available for His power to witness. And that's what we're going to see right here! The reality of living daily, each moment of the day, in God's Will, Peter and John and the rest of the disciples are going to be vessels chosen by the Holy Spirit. Why are they chosen by the Holy Spirit? Because they're special? No! Because they're in obedience to God, they're in daily prayer, they're in unity of purpose, they are consistent because of that, all those three things lining up, that makes them an available open vessel. So here they are. They're coming to the temple. The Holy Spirit then does His work. He makes the opportunity because He has open vessels. He makes the opportunity for these men to be what He had already told through Jesus to the church that they would be witnesses. Go way back to the first chapter of Acts and verse 8. Part of the commission was that you wait there for power to be witnesses. Where? Starting in Jerusalem. Well where's the temple? In Jerusalem! What are they suppose to be? Available vessels! All the things that Jesus said that they were suppose to be they are going to be, and because they are being obedient they are now going to be empowered by one of the gifts or a couple of the gifts of the Holy Spirit to bring to pass the ability to witness. And the witness is going to be two fold as we're going to see. First we are going to see a physical witness as in what some people get all giggle eyed about and chuckle and smile and they try and deny and that's the miraculous, but we're also going to see the supernatural witness as the Word confirms itself. We're going to see spiritual growth come as a result of the witness. So the gospel is going to be preached physically and it's going to be preached in Word and power. We're going to see that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword and we're going to see that happen as the reality of these available vessels become an open channel of God's power. And so what will happen as we know already, I'm sure all of you have already read this, you're familiar with this chapter, you know that what happens is this man gets healed. But that's God's Will!
Every day life where we are, in response to the gospel in obedience to God, God wants to meet every day life with his Will and his Way. Every day life becomes God's witness to the lost world. This lame man who has been begging for years and years and years; the only thing he knows how to do is beg, that's the only way he can meet any kind of need that he knows of. Certainly the Sadducees and the Pharisees could have given him a little bit of money, helped him out, got him a good job, done some things, teaching him how to fish instead of him begging for a little bit of fish; but that's kind of like today. You've got some people in pulpits and on television and all they want to do is get rich. They want to connive and serve their own belly god, but the reality is the grass roots effort where there are poor, broken-hearted preachers who really love the lost around them and living for Jesus Christ and it's those people that God is using.
We have the lame man who had no other means except begging alms and we see that in verse 2. He's at the gate and he's been put there daily for one purpose, to ask alms. He expects that somebody is going to give him something. We see in verse 4 that they're fixing his eyes on him. Peter and John look, and Peter says, "Look at us." And so there's genuine contact made. There's Peter and John listening to the Spirit of God. They were bold enough to hear the impression of the Holy Spirit saying, "I'm going to use you right now." We see that come to verse 5 because he expects to receive something, but what he's going to receive is not exactly what he expects to receive. He expects to receive a fish, but what's going to happen is God is going to miraculously heal him and teach him how to fish. You can only eat a fish for one day and then you're going to have to go and get another fish to eat, but if you know how to fish you can live for quite a while. You just keep on fishing. We also see that the gifts of the Spirit are for a witness of God's love. Because certainly this is the mercy and love of God upon this man who is lame but it's also the mercy and love of God seen in Peter and John because they're responding in an obedient fashion. This is something that is left out of many, many churches around this world, especially those who call themselves Pentecostals. This is one of the biggest beefs that some of those Calvinistic people have against Pentecostals, because the one thing that they want to go back to is 1 Corinthians 13 and rightfully so. Because if we do things or we say things and there's no love of God in it then what are we? Just a little tinkling brass a little sounding symbol and that's about it. We're nothing. But that's not God. God is love. And so the things that are going to be done now is going to also witness in Peter and John their love. This person isn't in the church. This person is a Jew who doesn't even know the Lord; but because of the opportunity that's going to be made manifest here of healing this man, this man is all of a sudden going to be turned on to Jesus Christ and it's going to create as a catalyst, a greater witness for God. But that's the way God works. God doesn't have an unaware plan or a one-dimensional plan. God's plan is deep and God's plan is far reaching, and so we see that God's love is going to be made manifest.
Now let's look back at John Chapter 14 for a minute. John Chapter 14. Because we are going to see a couple of things about the heart of the Holy Spirit and I think that's important to see here. Because if we understand the Holy Spirit from Scripture, then we're going to be able to understand the Holy Spirit when we see the Holy Spirit moving, and we're going to be able to see what's not of the Holy Spirit. In John Chapter 14 if we just look down at verse 26 it says, "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you." So we see is the Holy Spirit bringing to the remembrance of Peter and John the love of God. We see the Holy Spirit bringing to remembrance the heartbeat of God, the power of God. We see the Holy Spirit guiding Peter and John as they're open vessels, the Holy Spirit leading them to a position. Turn over to John Chapter 16 and we'll see a little bit more. It says in verse 7, "Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away." Now remember this is Jesus telling his disciples it is to their advantage that He goes away. "for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you." So we see here, Jesus is going to send the Holy Spirit, and we find in another passage of Scripture it says the Father will send the Holy Spirit. So we see all the active members of the Godhead involved in empowering and guiding into all the truth and to accomplish God's plan. Verse 8 says, "And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. 12 I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you." See this is the heartbeat of God! This is what we see happening over here in Acts Chapter 3. We see these things based on knowing who the Holy Spirit is and knowing His character and how He responds to situations. That's why we can see this situation being directed totally by the Holy Spirit, because God's character is being worked through this thing. The love of God, the guidance into all truth, wanting to witness to not just the lame man, but all those who would know about it and hear about it. So the gifts of the Holy Spirit are then going to be able to operate in Peter and John because the Holy Spirit has already chosen them as vessels.
Now it is not clear what exact gifts are being used here. It could be any number of a couple, perhaps any number of three. One of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is the gift of faith. We do see that here. Whether that's the exact gift we don't know, but we see Peter and John coming together in unity being used of the Holy Spirit in this situation. And Peter boldly says, "Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." So we see Peter using the power of the name of God. We've already been told in other passages of Scripture that the name of the Lord is a mighty weapon. "If you ask anything in my name," he told them. So he's asking in the name of the Lord. He's telling this man in the name of the Lord to rise up and walk. He's by faith believing what Jesus has already told him. Both John and Peter are here and what's going to happen is this man is going to be healed. So the gift of healings could be also considered here as well. And the working of miracles might be another gift that's told to be here. The action is all combined together not just in word but notice we can see that there is genuineness to the faith and there's genuineness to the healings because of Peter's speaking and then in verse 7 it says, "7And he took him by the right hand." Peter didn't just stop with words. He believed what was impressed upon his heart that God was going to do. So he reached out to the lame man and grabbed him and lifted him up. Peter expected something to happen. That's faith! Peter expected God's Word to come to a true reality. That's faith. Peter expected the Holy Spirit to move. That's faith. J ohn was there in agreement that that was going to happen and if any two agree in touching anything, Jesus said that. If you two people come together in agreement of the reality and asking by faith for God's Will to be done then God has an opportunity to move by faith through that faith.
The result is in God's hand and we see the result. The man's in verse 8, "leaping up stood and walked and entered the temple with them--walking, leaping, and praising God." We have all the reality of the New Testament church being here. We have the people being witnesses of God. We have the power of God moving upon these men, the power of God moving upon this lame man who is now healed, we have the witness of this lame man glorifying and praising the Lord. He knew what happened. I hear a number of times from different locations on this world that God doesn't heal anymore or God wouldn't do this and God wouldn't do that and one of the evidences is they say, "Well the devil could have done that. That could be a lying sign or a lying wonder!" Listen, that is such hogwash it is ridiculous, because all of these things that are happening here line up with God's Word, and to say that it's not God's Word is an utter slap in the face to God, and to tell God who does something wonderful to somebody that that was of the devil is to blaspheme God! It just really irks me when I hear people trying to credit the devil. That's the same thing that the Pharisees did when they came to Jesus and said, "You did that through the power of Beelzebub." And if you look at that passage of Scripture that follows He cautions them very sternly about blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Don't credit ungodliness to God and don't credit Godliness to Satan. We've got to be very careful here. The New Testament church can be discerned to be real or fake. The church, the person that you run into can be discerned by Scripture to be real or fake. Stop trying to make God something that He's not. Stop calling good evil and stop calling evil good. You either believe the Scriptures or you don't. If you don't believe the Scriptures ,why don't you just flat out say you don't believe the Scriptures!! Don't tell me I have to be forced to accept you the way you are because I don't have to. I believe the Scriptures, period. And you ought to as well. God's miracles are for a greater witness and testimony of his heart for men. T hat's what this event is now going to jump into, because we have the man running around in the temple praising God. And those people that would come by that he begged alms from, they knew that he had been lame from his mother's womb. They knew that he had been out there begging, and begging, and begging. They knew that there was no way, no way at all except God. And so what happens? They're in there.
Peter and John become the focus, but not for long because Peter and John do what is right. They say hey!! Look at verse 11. It says, "Now as the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he responded to the people: "Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why look so intently at us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?" Listen. Peter asked a very relevant question. Why do you look at a man? Some of these tele-evangelists who have been lifted up and put in the position that they ought not to have been. Give them the credit that they obeyed God and God did something but that's it, no further than that. Stop lifting man up. We're not man pleasers and we don't idolize men. Recognize that it's God using a vessel and allowing God to get the glory not men. Peter says, "The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified His Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One and the Just, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you." Look at this opportunity. He's now being used by God to witness to hundreds of other people. He refocuses it on Jesus. Peter preaches the gospel. The message deals with how to have a right relationship with God. This whole focus is bring back what actually happened. Now you ask a Pharisee what happened and they'll tell you, "Oh we had a blasphemer crucified." You ask a Sadducee and they'll tell you the same thing. But that's not what happened! The Son of God was murdered. Yes, ignorantly by some people but the reality was instead of asking for a just person to be released they asked for a murderer to be released, and these people, even though they were ignorant of it, they did it. They were manipulated by the Pharisees and the Sadducees, but they still did it; and this message says, "Hey there's hope for you", the reality of the truth of God. It's all there in this message.
He goes down through and says, ""Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers." But look what he says. Verse 18 says it was to be fulfilled because Christ had to suffer. But look what the answer to God through His creation is, "Repent therefore and be converted." Repentance brings about the initialization of the Holy Spirit in a human. And remember the Nicodemus talk! Remember that it's the Holy Spirit that regenerates, and it's the Holy Spirit that makes the person a new creation; that comes when somebody repents, not when somebody says, "Oh yeah, I know Jesus." But I'm talking about repentance, where there's a complete change of mind and heart over what has been done. You call sin, sin. And if you come to the Lord as a homosexual you leave no longer a homosexual, and if you come to the Lord an adulterer, you leave no longer an adulterer. You come to the Lord a wine bibber or an alcoholic, you leave no longer that because he changes you when you repent. But if you come to the Lord because somebody told you to come to the Lord, that He's a nice Guy and He'll love you and you say this pretty prayer, but you never repent of your alcoholism or you never repent of your homosexuality and you leave there and you demand people to accept you as a new creation you're wrong. Because you're not! You never repented. You just want to use Jesus by His name to cover up your sins and for your lifestyle to be justified. No!! But when repentance happens your sins will be blotted out, repentance brings conversion by the Holy Spirit. Your sins are blotted out and then it says so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. When you're converted, when you are regenerated by the Holy Spirit, now Jesus comes to live in your heart by the power of the Holy Spirit. You are a new creation. You can't fake it, but because Jesus is real, because repentance brings a reality of who God is which is the message of God from the very beginning, to have fellowship and relationship with His creation. That allows, because He is a Holy God and He paid for that sin, because of His payment, we can have that fellowship and relationship. That's the message of the church! That's the message of God from the beginning with Adam! That's why God came down and walked with Adam in the cool of the day. We preach Jesus. Jesus, not man! Not some fancy words but Jesus.
The message deals directly with the relationship. It goes on to quote a few scripture verses that they should know. It talks about, "For Moses truly said to the fathers, "The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever He says to you. And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that Prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.'" Wow. Go down a little bit to verse 26. It says, "25You are sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, "And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.' To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."" That's why Jesus came. He died for sin. He wanted to turn people away from their sin. He wanted to bring them to a right relationship with Him. Most of the Jews rejected the thought that this Jesus the Christ could be that Prophet that Moses foretold about. But the fact of the matter is, He is, but if you ask a Jew today they'll say, "No, no, no! It was the disciples who came and stole his body. He was a good guy but that's it. He was nothing to do with God." But the reality is when God's Word is believed, the reality is when God's Word is honored, when God's Word is done, the Spirit opens blind eyes, that's His will. God's Word is His Will, and His Will is His Word. He's given that responsibility to the church. He's given that responsibility to spread the good news that He wants a relationship with His creation.
The idea is that the New Testament church can be a church with power to be witnesses. That idea has never changed, and it's not going to stop as we've seen already from Acts Chapter 2. We've already looked at that. That the idea that the Holy Spirit being poured out is from the day of Pentecost to the day of His coming, the whole time frame! The church needs to be a witness of Christ, that God wants to fellowship and relate with His creation. That's God's Will. That's God's heartbeat, and if we claim to be Christians the truth is we'll see whether we really are or not because if we are that's our heartbeat, and if we're not then we're going to be self-centered, egotistical little bums running around trying to deceive and connive people.
Just because we know a little bit about Scripture, and just because we have a little bit of inkling about some facts, does that mean we're Christian? Not everything that quacks is a duck, so let's look at the reality. IF we want God's Will to be done, if we have God's heartbeat, then what's going to happen is we're going to want to have opportunity to be witnesses. We're going to align ourselves with God's Word. We're going to be like Peter and John, in obedience to God walking every day according to the Will of God. And as that day transpires, we're going to see opportunity to be used of God. We're going to see opportunity for the truth of what Jesus says, and who Jesus says He is, realized so that it's a witness to all those around us. The power of God will be back in the church. Sadly most people are playing in the pigpen, and claiming that they are of God. It doesn't work that way. That's why there's no power in the church, that's why the power of the church suddenly disappeared for some 14-1500 years; because the church or the Catholic gathering, the common gathering, the church was in sin! The people were in sin. Everywhere was sin. And it was acceptable! But God's always had a remnant, those that were holy, those who would follow Him. Amen? Now that's the way life is, that's the New Testament church!!