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There are moments in all of our lives which we really can say change things forever.
So for example, the day we got married, and the day each of our kids were born, and the
day we got on a plane for Australia all had a massive, life-changing impact on Fiona and
me.
However, I would be very surprised if the 11th July 1992, 2nd June 2001, 18th December
2002, 22nd September 2006 and 3rd January 2012 hold nearly as much significance for
you as they do for our family!
But there are moments in history that are so significant, that they really do affect
all of us - whatever age we are, wherever we're living at the time, and whatever we
are doing with our lives.
There are some moments when the world changes forever.
Moments like 28th July 1914, or 21st July 1969 or 11th September 2001.
These were significant moments when the world really did change.
And that's what happened when Jesus Christ came to earth, died, beat death, returned
to his Father and poured out the Spirit.
We can't put a date on it.
Lots of people didn't realize how unbelievably important all this was.
But it changed everything.
And that's what these chapters are all about.
Luke carefully explains for us that the events he has carefully related in his gospel and
the first two chapters of Acts, have changed the world forever.
The first sign of that comes in Acts 3.
According to Luke, this 'very normal miracle' - the healing of a lame man at the Jewish
Temple in Jerusalem - "is a sign that the world has changed."
Luke tells us exactly what happened in 3:1-11.
It's a great story - the unknowing beggar looks for money, and Peter comes up with the
brilliant line in verse 6 '"Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you.
In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk".'
And he did.
The man was instantly, dramatically and permanently healed.
The sight of him jumping around like a lunatic in the temple square must have made quite
an impact!
It's not surprising that Luke says in verse 10 that '"everyone was filled with wonder
and amazement at what had happened to him."'
Now at first glance, this does just look like a pretty standard miracle - there are loads
of them in the gospels, and, on the face of it, this looks like more of the same.
If a miracle can ever be 'ordinary', then this is an ordinary miracle.
A bloke who can't walk.
One sentence is spoken, and now he can.
It actually seems quite matter of fact.
Except for one little detail.
And this detail actually unlocks the whole of Acts 3 and 4 for us.
Peter and John don't heal this man with their own power.
They don't even pray and then do it.
They say '"in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk!'"
So how is the man healed?
Not because Peter and John know the magic words, "but because Jesus is openly acknowledged
as the only source of help and salvation."
Jesus is there.
He is at work.
The healing is all down to him.
The only power here belongs to Jesus.
Peter and John point this out over and over again in these chapters.
"Jesus may be gone, but he is still healing people!"
I'm not sure how much you know about Knut, son of Forkbeard, son of Harald, son of Gorm
the Old.
If I told you that he was King of Denmark, Norway, parts of Sweden as well as England
in the 11th Century, you may still be none the wiser, but if I said that his name is
sometimes pronounced Canute, then something to do with sitting in the sea commanding it
to stop might stir somewhere in the back of your mind.
Now I always thought that Canute had got a bit carried away with himself, and thought
that he really could tell the sea to stop.
But actually the opposite is true.
King Knut was actually a pretty godly king, and got so fed up with the flattery of his
courtiers that he moved his throne onto the beach, commanded the waves not to wet his
feet and then jumped up and shouted "Let all men know how empty and worthless is the power
of kings, for there is none worthy of the name, but He whom heaven, earth, and sea obey
by eternal laws."
He then hung his gold crown on a stick and never wore it again.
That's the point of this miracle.
Real power can only be found in one person - the risen, ruling Jesus Christ, whom Peter
and John acknowledge as the only one who can help this man.
Not surprisingly, people come running from every part of the temple complex to see what
was going on (verse 11).
Then Peter starts to talk.
And as he talks, he explains that there has been a huge change in the way that people
like us can relate to God.
And that change is centered on a man called Jesus of Nazareth.
Verse 16 is the key verse here - this is what it says: "By faith in the name of Jesus, this
man whom you see and know was made strong.
It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing
to him, as you can all see."
Again, the focus falls on the name of Jesus.
At this point, it helps to know that in the first part of the Bible, the Old Testament,
over and over again, people are told to "call on the name of the Lord" .
You can see that, for example, if you turn back just one page to 2:21, where Peter quotes
the prophet Joel saying '"everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved"'.
Now, however, it seems that rescue, healing, even forgiveness is available to people "who
call on the name of Jesus."
Now that's a big shock!
Just before we left Ireland, I went to the dentist.
And I got a shock.
For almost 40 years, I had been going to the same dentist.
Phil, as he is appropriately called, was not only our dentist, but lived three doors down,
He was also an elder in my home church.
And, he was an excellent dentist.
However, Phil the dentist rather inconsiderately retired last September.
Some young whippersnapper who looks about 12 had taken his place.
Now for the first time in years, I felt slightly apprehensive at the dentist.
Even though the surgery hadn't moved, even though I was sitting in the same chair in
the same room, it felt very, very odd to see a new face behind the mask!
It must have been so strange to hear Peter say that from now on, rather than calling
on the name of the Lord, we are to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
God has introduced Jesus to us as the one who has now taken on the role of bringing
people like us to know God.
God has made it so clear that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised King, the one who makes
it possible for us to live with God - so know on, if we want to know God, we call on him.
God has set up a new way of relating to him - a new covenant, to use the Bible's word
- this is broadband access to God.
And at the centre of this huge change in the way religion works is Jesus himself.
This 'run of the mill' miracle actually signals that the world has changed.
There has been a seismic shift in the way people like us can relate to God.
Jesus himself performed this miracle through his followers.
He is the one we are to call on.
Because of his coming to earth, and death and resurrection, and ascension, and gift
of the Spirit.
"The world has changed".
In the rest of our passage, Luke spells out what difference this actually makes - first,
in the life of one changed man, and then in the way we all think about our world.
As we read through Acts 3 and 4, it becomes clear that Peter, the leader of Jesus' followers,
is a changed man.
The speech on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2 wasn't just a flash in the pan, he really
has changed.
For a start, he has a really clear grip on the fact that Jesus' coming fulfils the whole
of the Bible so far.
Peter's argument is detailed but it isn't complicated.
Basically what he does is point out how God has made it clear that Jesus of Nazareth is
the one who is anticipated in all the key parts of the Old Testament:
He is the Servant of the Lord promised by the prophet Isaiah - you can see that in
verse 13 - "The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified
his Servant Jesus."
Peter's language suggests he's not just talking about any old servant, but the servant, the
Servant with a capital S who comes to suffer and die in our place.
But that's not all.
He is the King who reigns forever anticipated by King David.
In Even though the people of Jerusalem "disowned the Holy and Righteous One..."
and "killed the Author of Life, God raised him from the dead."
God has made it abundantly clear that Jesus is the descendant of David who, it was said,
would set up a kingdom that lasts forever.
If you 're going to do that, beating death is actually a prerequisite, and that's what
Jesus did.
He is also the Prophet who Moses said would come.
That's spelled out in verses 22-23.
References don't come any better than that, so God's people really should have listened
to him.
He is the Descendant of Abraham promised in Genesis.
Right at the start of the Bible, God had said that he would bless the whole world through
one of Abraham's family.
In verse 25, Peter says 'Yes, that's Jesus too!'
So Peter said to that stampeding crowd in the Temple - "Jesus Christ did this - not
only is he alive and at work, he is the one Abraham talked about right at the start of
our nation;
he's the one Moses talked about as we made it into the promised land;
he's the one King David talked about at his own coronation, when he said a much greater
king was coming;
he's the one Isaiah talked about when he said that even though we wander off like sheep,
someone is coming to pay for all our stupidity.
In fact (verse 24), the whole Bible has been talking about him.
And how he has come."
The world has changed, because Jesus the Messiah has come.
And that explains the dramatic change in the apostle Peter.
Up to this point, Peter didn't have a great track record when it came to answering theological
questions.
Every time Jesus asked him one, he mucked it up.
Just a few pages earlier, in the gospels, Peter had basically told Jesus not to be so
stupid when he said he was going to die on a cross.
On the night before Jesus died, he was put on the spot outside the makeshift courtyard,
someone said 'You were with Jesus, weren't you?'
And Peter gave a brilliant explanation of all that he had heard and seen...
Well actually, no he didn't.
He said 'No I wasn't, and I'll thump you if you say that again.'
So what's the difference?
He is a changed man.
This is the religious equivalent of Michelle Smith.
You may not have heard of Michelle Smith.
But she is Ireland's most famous Olympic medal-winning swimmer - actually, she's Ireland's only Olympic
medal winning swimmer.
Mysteriously, in the run-up to the Atlanta games in 1996 she went from utter obscurity
to winning three gold medals and a bronze in a matter of months.
Even now no-one knows how or whether she cheated.
She was banned for tampering with a urine sample but that was two years after the games,
so she still has her medals, and is Ireland's greatest ever Olympian by some distance.
What no-one can dispute is that almost overnight, she went from mediocrity to being one of the
fastest swimmers in the world.
Peter's transformation into this brave and brilliant speaker is just as impressive.
So what changed?
First of all, Luke 24:44-48: The risen Jesus shows up for dinner.
But he isn't just there for the food.
He teaches them - "He said to them, "This is what I told you while I was still with
you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the
Prophets and the Psalms."
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
He told them, "This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead
on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all
nations, beginning at Jerusalem."
The first step in Peter's transformation is that Jesus teaches him Old Testament 101.
And then, of course, God poured out his Spirit on Peter and his friends.
The difference in Peter is that he now understood the message of the Bible, and he had the Spirit.
The two always go hand in hand.
This is how God changes people like you and me.
And isn't this exactly what we have going for us?
If we belong to Jesus, then we have the Spirit, and we have the Bible, and people to explain
it to us.
This is what changes lives.
This is what equips us, not to be the apostle Peter, but to be witnesses, as we were looking
at a couple of weeks ago.
I know you probably feel weak and inadequate.
Most of us feel like that most of the time.
Especially, I suspect, when it comes to talking about Jesus.
But we have God's own words, and we have God's Spirit.
Think about that!
I don't know if you usually think of yourself like this - but if you have handed control
of the Lord Jesus, then you should.
You are someone in whom the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ lives.
We are not alone.
We are not powerless.
We are not trapped.
We are not destined to be failures.
We are people who have already been changed and are being changed by the Spirit.
And how does the Spirit change us?
The Spirit takes the message of Jesus, helps us to grasp it, and works it deep into our
thinking, and our longing, and our deciding, so that we become increasingly like Jesus,
the one whose Spirit lives in us.
This is who we are.
So a lame man is healed through the name of Jesus, and Peter, a changed man explains the
significance of what has just happened.
But remember these chapters are about more than Peter being changed - the world has changed
because Jesus the Messiah has showed up.
This has huge implications, which become clear when we need to look on to chapter 4.
Chapter 4 is a picture of life in a changed world.
When they hear Peter speak, another couple of thousand became followers of Jesus and
joined the church family in Jerusalem (4:4).
This, however, was seen as a problem by the religious hierarchy.
So all the great and the good put their heads together, and tried to work out how to put
a stop to this nonsense.
They dragged Peter and John in, and tried to put the frighteners on them.
But needless to say it didn't work.
Why not?
"Because they were changed men living in a changed world."
In the speech that Peter makes to the leaders of his nation he says two things which sum
up why all this stuff about Jesus being the Messiah really matters, and why Jesus' coming
has changed the world forever.
Here are two key facts which hold the key to living in this changed world - our world,
the world after Jesus has come.
The first is found in 4:12 but Peter builds up to it from verse 8, when he is asked 'By
what power or in what name' they had done this.
Peter doesn't miss his cue, and says '"Know this - you and all the people of Israel: It
is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from
the dead, that this man stands healed."
Remember that Peter is standing in front of the equivalent of Julia Gillard and the Cabinet
as he says this.
He spells it out for them in way that they really couldn't misunderstand.
Verse 12 says "Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven
given to men by which we must be saved."
It seems there was a long silence when Peter said that.
The ruling council could see the implications of his claim.
We need to make sure that we're clear on this too - for this is the way it is in our world.
Acts 4:12 says that the only way to know God, be rescued by God and to enjoy God forever
is through Jesus Christ.
At least 5 things follow...
All religions are not the same - or to put it another way, Christianity and all other
world faiths are contradictory and incompatible.
Either this is true, or it isn't.
That's why you can't be a Christian Buddhist.
That's like saying you are a Vegan who likes nothing better than as bacon sandwich.
All religions do not lead to God.
If Acts 4:12 is true, then by definition, all other religions ultimately do not deliver.
That's not to say that they don't say some helpful things, or that everyone who follows
them is a horrible person, but if Jesus is the only name under heaven by which we can
be rescued, then people who are calling on other names are barking up the wrong tree.
That's tragic, and dangerous.
We need to be rescued.
If Acts 4:12 is true, then everyone who is not a Christian is still in grave danger,
and needs to be rescued.
Sincerity (or belief or spirituality or being religious) is not enough.
The strength of our feelings, or depth of our piety, or frequency of our practice cannot
rescue us.
Only Jesus can.
Trusting in Jesus' name - that is, in who he is and what he has done for us - is the
only way to be safe and to be free.
As followers of Jesus, we will always be out of step with society.
One of the interesting things about the world in which Jesus lived was that it was extremely
'pluralistic' - that is, there were more religions on offer than you could shake a stick at.
Isn't it exactly the same for us?
We now live in a world where to say anything critical about another person's lifestyle
or moral convictions is almost unforgivable - unless they are either a politician or an
orthodox Christian.
That means if we believe Acts 4:12 to be true, then we won't win any popularity contests.
If Jesus is who he claims to be, and who the Bible says he is, it does and will matter,
because it means that life and freedom and joy - salvation - is to be found in no-one
else.
This is the way it is in our changed world.
The other reason it matters is that if this is true, if God really has intervened in our
world through Jesus Christ, if he made us, and loves us, and has our destiny in his hands,
"then we really do need to obey HIM and not other people".
Which is why Peter and John say what they do in verses 19-20.
When offered their freedom conditional on shutting up about Jesus, "But Peter and John
replied, "Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather
than God. "
"For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard."
" Peter and John realized that because God is God, and has acted for our good and his
glory in Jesus, then it would be utterly stupid to listen to these twisted, self-serving human
leaders rather than God himself.
It's important to notice that for Peter and John this wasn't a particularly admirable
quality.
It isn't that they have such courage, or such devotion, or such strength that they can choose
to follow God.
For them, it was the only option that made any sense at all.
Sometimes, from my perspective, our girls make poor decisions.
Sometimes, they listen to their friends, rather than listening to their parents.
Then we get the age-old excuse 'But _________ told me to do it.'
Now when I was 7 or 9, this seemed to me like a very reasonable excuse.
My friend told me to do it.
I want to please my friend, and not to look stupid in front of him or her, so I did what
she said.
But from where I am standing now, this looks like pretty weak reasoning.
I mean, who are you going to listen to?
Someone from your class who is also 9, who is going home in 20 minutes and who may not
still be your friend tomorrow, or your Dad?
It's a no brainer.
And yet kids constantly make the wrong choice.
Peter makes it really clear for us that once we realize who Jesus is and what he has done,
once we realize that the world has changed, then choosing to please other people rather
than God is just plain stupid.
Now that's a hard one for us - because most of us are, at some level, people pleasers.
We want to keep the people we care about happy.
So we'll tell them what they want to hear.
We'll do what they want us to do.
At times, we'll even be the people they want us to be.
Why?
Because like children, we have slipped into living to please our friends, rather than
pleasing God.
So what are we to do?
We need to ask God to work the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord and that salvation is found
in him alone a little deeper into our heads and hearts.
We have the Spirit, and we have the message of Jesus, who has changed the world.
In one sense, we don't need anything new.
We certainly don't need anything more.
We simply need God to change our minds, to bring us into line with the truth, to help
us to see the world through his eyes, through the lens of the gospel.
We need to ask God to help us to believe what we already know.
We need to exercise faith - we need to trust Jesus, and live to please him, rather than
ourselves our other people.
So here's the message of this long section - everything has changed - now that Jesus
has died and risen, we need to call on "his" name, and nobody else's, because nobody else
can deliver.
Only he is our King, so the only sensible thing to do is entrust ourselves to him.
Which is exactly what Peter says in 3:19-20, and with this I'll stop: "Repent, then, and
turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from
the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you - even Jesus."
To repent is to face the fact we've mucked up, turn back to God and to start to do what
he tells us So whether we've been living to please other people, or wimping out of talking
about Jesus, or acting like we're too weak to live for Jesus, or just been struggling
along without any sense of the fact that God lives in us by his Spirit, this is what we
need to do.
Face it, turn back to God, and remember that Jesus is Lord and his Spirit lives in us.
And why should we do it?
Peter says we should do it so that our sins may be wiped out - so that we can feel clean
on the inside, and we don't have to carry around all our past guilt.
So that we don't have to lug around the guilt of all our past mistakes.
So that we're not dragged down by our past failures.
Peter says we should come back to God so that we might enjoy times of refreshing from God.
Of course, life isn't perfect, but it is so much better when we are actually living it
with and for God.
And Peter says we should repent so that we get to enjoy God's forever happiness in the
new creation.
I can't think where else we are going to find freedom from the past, freedom to enjoy the
messy present, and the prospect of a perfect future, can you?
And this all flows from the fact that one random lame man was healed with one sentence.
That simple - and yet incredibly powerful act made it very clear that the world had
changed.
Everything had changed.
For Jesus has come.
Jesus is Lord.
Jesus is at work in our world.
Salvation belongs to him.
Obeying him is the only thing that makes sense.
This is reality.
This is the truth.
Let's ask God to give us to grace to recognize it, and live in a way which shows that we
know that Jesus has changed the world.