1. Intro
One of my favorite figures in more recent church history is John Wimber. He looked like Santa Claus and was about as jolly and playful as you’d imagine Santa Claus to be. He was a professional musician, became a believer later on as an adult, and led hundreds and even thousands to faith. The church he was a part of eventually called him to be a pastor- after all, he was the reason three quarters of them were there! Later, after teaching at a seminary in California, Wimber was burning out and growing disillusioned with ministry. Long story short, the Holy Spirit performed a work in his life and called Wimber and his wife Carol to plant a new church. This church began to lean more into the gifts and ministry of the Holy Spirit. Wimber says that as he preached through the book of Luke, he was forced to teach about healing, since there are so many stories about healing in Luke.
Because he was teaching on it, Wimber also believed he should be doing it. Week after week, for ten months, Wimber prayed for sick people in his church to be healed. Nobody was. A bunch of people even left the church. He wanted to quit teaching and praying about healing because it was so discouraging! But he heard God tell him clearly, “don’t preach your experience. Preach my word.” So he kept going. Ten months in, a man called Wimber and asked him to come visit. His wife was in bed, very ill. What Wimber thought was, “oh God, what am I going to do now? He believed what I said on Sunday!” What he said was “of course I’ll pray for your wife!” Wimber later told his wife Carol that this woman looked so bad that she would have to get better in order to die! While he prayed for her healing, Wimber turned to the husband and began a well rehearsed explanation about why God probably wouldn’t answer. But the husband wasn’t listening. He was looking past Wimber with a huge smile on his face because his wife was up, completely and suddenly well. (You can find this story and many more in Wimber’s book Power Evangelism as well as in Carol Wimber’s touching biography of her late husband, John Wimber: The Way It Was).
Wimber wrote that this one healing, the first in ten months of preaching and praying for it, became a trickle that became a stream. That church eventually became known as the Vineyard Church, which launched a massive, global movement from the 1980s on that has led to countless people being touched by the Holy Spirit. It wasn’t that everyone who ever asked for healing afterwards was. Wimber himself died at a relatively young age. One of his adult sons, who was very involved in the Vineyard movement, passed away shortly after. But some were healed, and what Wimber helped Christians understand is that the stuff we read about in the Bible is not just ancient history. They are examples of the things God continues to do today. That was Wimber’s famous phrase: doin’ the stuff. We don’t just talk about what Jesus did, we do the stuff!
As we read about a dramatic and miraculous healing this morning in Acts, that’s my conviction as well. That we are not meant to simply marvel at what God did 2000 years ago. We are meant to learn from it and pray for it today. We are meant to allow stories like this to shape our view of the world and our faith in Jesus.
1. Timing of the healing
One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer—at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man who was lame from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to begfrom those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money.4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, “Look at us!” 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. 6 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.” 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 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.
Acts 3:1-10
Let’s set the scene. Peter and John are going up to the temple in Jerusalem at a standard time of prayer. These times of prayer and sacrifice were set in Judaism, and Peter and John are following those customs. Which is an interesting point in and of itself. It’s not that after the ascension and outpouring of the Spirit, the disciples say, “hey guys, let’s start a new religion! Let’s call it Christianity!a” No, they still view themselves very much as Jews. That’s because in their view, and in the view of the New Testament as a whole, Jesus is the fulfillment of all that God had promised Israel. He’s the fulfillment of their story and their faith. By trusting in Jesus, they were being faithful Jews. And the New Testament view is that those who trust in Jesus and aren’t ethnically Jews are grafted into Israel because of their faith in the Messiah Jesus. The relationship between Christianity and Judaism is much more organic than how most people today think.
Peter and John are going to the temple, and there’s a beggar sitting at one of the gates looking for financial help. This was a high traffic area, which of course is a common scene today too. If you’re ever downtown leaving a sports game of some kind, you’re going to see panhandlers. The difference is that in the ancient world, these beggars were genuinely dependent on the benevolence of others, including alms, to be able to live. The Roman government wasn’t issuing welfare checks. Still, it’s a common scenario we’re well aware of in the city.
In what follows in the story, there are five points I especially want to take note of. Here’s the first, and it has to do with timing. There’s this innocuous detail in 3:2 that the lame beggar was placed at the temple gate every day. This was his spot, just like if you spend a bunch of time in the Downtown Eastside, you know that some people have their set location. Every day he hung out there asking for alms. This wasn’t a one-off thing. Why is that important?
It’s important because of what we read in Acts 2:46 about the disciples: “every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts.” Luke says the same thing at the very end of his Gospel, after the ascension of Jesus: “they stayed continually at the temple, praising God” (24:53). The disciples didn’t just go to the temple this one time. Peter and John, along with others, were there continually, day after day after day.
And do you know what that means? It means this wasn’t the first time they had seen this lame man. Every day they passed by him, maybe multiple times. But not once had they worked healing for him. They may not have even taken note of him. Until this day. I would suggest that for reasons only God knows, God placed a burden on their hearts for the beggar. He gave them a conviction that He wanted to do something. He wanted them to be His instruments in healing the man. Now. On this particular occasion.
This is something Wimber mentioned as well. He said that during those 10 months of going scoreless on healing, God was teaching him lessons. He was learning about different kinds of faith. Every true Christian has saving faith, faith in Jesus that justifies. But when Paul talks about faith as a particular spiritual gift in 1 Corinthians 12:9, it’s about a conviction that God is going to do something miraculous. It’s a faith that moves mountains. This is the kind of faith that is given to Peter and John in Acts 3. And Wimber said that key to the exercise of this faith “was learning how to know when God’s unction or anointing had come for a task like healing in a particular situation” (Wimber, Power Evangelism, 65). In other words, becoming aware of God’s leading.
God is sovereign. He’s got things He wants to do. You may pass someone 100 times, and on the 101st time, God makes sure you can’t ignore them, and He places on your heart something He wants to do. Our job is to stay close to Him and stay sensitive to His voice. You want to see miracles? You want to see the Kingdom of God in this way? Make sure your heart is sensitive to Him. Repent of sin, be devoted to the things we talked about last week: the Word, prayer, fellowship with others. Because you don’t know when He’ll call on you or give you an anointing like He did with Peter and John that day. It’s about His timing and our sensitivity to His leading.
2. Common humanity in the healing
The second point has to do with the beggar’s humanity. Peter and John pass this man, and he requests money. Again, a common, everyday occurrence. And what do most people do in this situation? They either ignore the request and keep walking or toss a few coins in the hat and be done with it. But Peter and John don’t do either of those things. They say to the man, “look at us!” They get him to lift his eyes and see them. Not as benefactors, but as fellow human beings. Because that’s how they are looking at him. Not as an object of pity, but as a human being, created in God’s image.
How rare is this? How often do people make eye contact with the beggar on the streets and actually talk to them? Let’s be honest, sometimes they just want you to give them the money and leave. There’s been at least one occasion where I sat down beside someone and tried asking a bunch of questions, and they clearly weren’t comfortable. It may be because I started with heavy hitters like “what do you think is the point of life?” Who needs small talk, right?! Sometimes people don’t respond well to icebreakers like that. That aside, the fundamental point is that if we are to see healing, we need to have actual compassion for the people we’re praying for. That has to drive it, not the desire to see a cool trick.
That’s what we see in the Gospels about Jesus. In Matthew 14:14, a crowd meets Jesus at the shore of the lake and we read that “he had compassion on them and healed their sick.” What follows is the feeding of the 5000, driven by Jesus’ empathy for people who had travelled all day and had nothing to eat. In Matthew 20, as Jesus approaches Jerusalem, two blind men cry out to him. Verse 34 says that “Jesus had compassion on them and touched their eyes. Immediately they received their sight and followed him.” Jesus heals because he genuinely loves people (not that he doesn’t love those who aren’t physically healed!). Even when they’re at their lowest point, with nothing lovable about them, he loves them. After all, according to the Bible, everything in creation came into being through him. He kind of has a vested interest in them. And if his disciples will be his agents of healing in various ways (not only physically), they need to treat people the way Jesus did, as image-of-God-bearing humans he loves.
3. Faith in the healing
Here’s the third thing that I especially take note of. Peter and John instruct the guy to look at them and they tell him they don’t have any money. Major let down, right? “But what I do have I give you.” The question is, what does Peter have? What does he have that he can give? “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” What Peter has is faith in Jesus. Faith in Jesus who can heal. So he takes the man’s hand, the man’s feet and ankles become strong, and for the first time in his life, the man is standing on his own two feet! He expects money, that’s what he thinks he needs. But Jesus has other things on his mind for this guy. He’s got greater things for the man and it’s going to come through him. It’s not going to come through silver and gold, but through faith in Jesus.
There’s a 12th century story about the great medieval writer and theologian Thomas Aquinas visiting Pope Innocent II. Pope Innocent, not exactly living up to his name, was counting a large stack of money. And he boasts to Aquinas, “you see, Thomas, the church can no longer say ‘silver and gold have I none’.” I imagine that this was accompanied by a villainous cackle. Aquinas replied, “and neither can she now say, ‘arise and walk’” (from F.F. Bruce’s Acts commentary on this passage).
Listen, it’s not a bad thing to have silver and gold, especially when you’re able to help others. We just read last week about how followers of Jesus in the early church would often sell what they had and give it to the poor (2:44-46). The problem is when we trust in money to save us. The problem is when we think that worldly possessions and status are what we truly need.
I’ve said this often in the last few months, but churches can fall into this too. We think that if we could just get more money, we could hire more staff, we could build better facilities, we could have flashier, more attractive programs. Again, there’s nothing wrong with any of that. I don’t know if you noticed, but we kind of just built a new facility, and we like it! The problem is when we trust in it or think this is what’s going to carry the day. Instead, we trust in the name of Jesus. We trust in the power of Jesus. That is what we have to give to the world. Remember, Jesus is the best thing we have going for us!
This is why Jesus said that it was easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God. Jesus said it’s not impossible, but it’s really, really hard because the more worldly stuff you have, the easier it is to fall into that trap of trusting in it. That was Aquinas’ point to the pope. And the more you trust in wealth and other worldly means, the less spiritual power you’ll have access to.
Miracles aren’t non-existent in the modern West, but are they less frequent than in other parts of the world? I don’t have any definitive data, but I wouldn’t be surprised. When I was a young adult, I spent three weeks with a missionary in Belize. He was one of the humblest, most servant-hearted people I’ve ever met. He also had very little means of supporting himself and very little education. He regularly saw God work miracles, whether in providing for him and his family or in bringing people to faith in Jesus. He depended on God, through and through. We’ve got a tough task ahead of us, because some of us need to learn that the value of faith in the Kingdom of God is of infinitely more value than all the silver and gold in the world.
4. Result of the healing
Fourth, we see the result of the healing. Obviously, you have the joy of the man who was just healed. Can you imagine not being able to walk for your entire life? Watching other kids playing sports, moving from place to place without assistance, seeing people being able to work and provide for themselves? And not even having hope that any of this would be you. Until one day, suddenly, at the name of someone named Jesus, it is! Yeah, that would give you some joy! Some totally unexpected, mind blowing joy!
Obviously, the man is overflowing with thankfulness. But who does he thank? As a Jewish man, he know that God alone should be praised. It might seem obvious, but come on, you know the human heart better than that. You know how tempting it could be for someone who had just walked for the first time in his life to praise the human instruments of that healing. That’s what happens later in Acts 14, when two men named Paul and Barnabas are in the city of Lystra. Another lame man is healed and the people of the city, who did not have the same convictions about worshipping God alone, are about to sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas as divine beings. Paul and Barnabas shut that down immediately and tell them to direct their worship to God. But again, you know the human heart. How many times has someone been used by God, been put on a pedestal by others, and then proceeded to soak up all the praise they can? How many “healers” have been in it for the acclaim of the people? That’s messed up. The man rightfully worships God, and Peter and John rightfully point others in that direction as well.
The result of the healing is praise and worship. Turning to the crowd, they are impacted in a similar way to what happened in Acts 2 after the Holy Spirit enabled the disciples to speak in all kinds of tongues. They are intrigued. They want to know more. They are filled with amazement and wonder, which means that there is an openness to receive the Gospel. Which is exactly what Peter is going to give them in the next section. Because the point is not the power, the point is who the power points to!
Sam Storms, a pastor and an author who has written a bunch about the Holy Spirit and gifts of the Spirit, says that miraculous deeds can serve four main purposes in the Bible. They are doxological, meaning they cause people to praise God. They are pastoral, meaning they are expressions of God’s care for people. They are for edification, meaning they build up the faith of believers. And they are evangelistic, meaning they prepare the way for the Gospel to be made known (Sam Storms, Practicing the Power). That’s all true here too, but I would say that the emphasis in Acts is evangelistic. An opening is created for the Gospel.
5. Context of the healing
Here’s the fifth point. As often happens in the New Testament, the passage we read doesn’t come to us in some contextless vacuum. There are almost always connection points with what’s come before. Here, you’ve got all kinds of parallels with healings that Jesus himself performed, like the paralytic who was lowered through the roof, or the lame man by the pool of Bethesda in John 5. The point is the same as Acts 1:1- the Gospel of Luke is what Jesus began to do and to teach, therefore Acts is what Jesus continues to do and to teach. The disciples are doing Jesus things by the power of Jesus.
But there’s an even stronger connection with a passage from the Old Testament, from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 35. Here are a few lines from that chapter. listen to this: “strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way…Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert…They will enter Zion with singing; everlasting joy will crown their heads” (Isaiah 35:3, 5-6, 10). Did you hear it? The lame will leap like a deer, they will enter Zion with singing. Acts 3: “then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.” Coincidence? I don’t think so!
Isaiah 35 is all about renewed creation. It’s about restoration. It’s about God bringing life out of death and reversing the corruption of the world. In Jewish thinking, it’s about what happens at the end of days when Messiah comes. I alluded to this a few weeks ago, but in the New Testament view, the Messiah has come, which means that the last days have come. Yes, for 2000 years we’ve been in the last days and we already see signs of that final restoration. We see glimpses of the renewal of creation. And one of the places we see it is in miraculous healings. Those are signals that this present world is passing away and another world is on its way.
But it’s not here in its fullness. New Testament scholars refer to how the time we live in is “already, but not yet”. This is an image from the Desiring God website that helps portray it.
It’s like eternity overlaps and interlocks with the world as we know it. The image I used back in the first sermon in this series is that the Kingdom of God has invaded the kingdom of this world but the rebellion continues all around. Not even close to everyone is healed. Everyone who is healed will eventually, nevertheless, die. But! Every healing, every work of restoration, is one more reminder that this present world with all its death, all its corruption, all its darkness, all its confusion and deception, is temporary and that Jesus has won the battle and will win the war over it.
If that is what miraculous healings like the one in Acts 3 indicates, that Jesus has authority over death and decay, and that one day all who trust in him will be restored completely and entirely, then those miraculous healings were not just for the first century. And they weren’t just for the apostles. They are as much for today, in the 21st century, as ever before.
Some Christians don’t agree with this. They think the miraculous gifts of the Spirit stopped in the 1st century with the apostles. They look at a passage like Acts 2:43, which says “everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles”. They say that only the apostles, these witnesses of the resurrection and first leaders of the church, did wonders and signs. The problem with that is pretty much the rest of the New Testament. Even in the book of Acts, you have all kinds of non-apostles, like Stephen in Acts 7, Philip in Acts 8, Ananias in Acts 9, church members in Antioch in Acts 13, new believers in Ephesus in Acts 19, and Philip’s four daughters in Acts 21 doing things like prophesying, healing, and speaking in tongues. You’ve got Paul writing to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, and the Thessalonians giving them instructions about miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit. Paul assumes are operating among them. These people were no more apostles than us.
The miraculous gifts, including healing, are not just for apostles, and they were not just for the first century. Remember, the point of these gifts is to bear witness to the authority of Jesus and the presence of the Kingdom of God that has already broken into this age. They are for today, and they are for anyone who God pleases to work through in this way. They are for any church that is willing to receive what God wants to give. I can see no indication in Scripture that this isn’t the case. And there is an abundance of evidence in that regard throughout history. Some of you can even testify to that. You’ve seen it firsthand, you’ve experienced it.
Conclusion
I need to make a couple of disclaimers as arrive at the end here. I want to emphasize again that while faith in Jesus is instrumental to healing, it is not that if you have enough faith, you will be physically healed in this life. Again, God is sovereign and has His purposes for when miraculous healings take place.
I also want to make sure we don’t set up these kinds of miraculous healings and healing through medical means in opposition to each other. We knew from 20 weeks in the womb that our son had a serious heart defect. We prayed for years for miraculous healing. It didn’t happen. But he has had surgeries that allow him to live an active, healthy life. We are so grateful for surgeons and other doctors who have been instrumental, and so thankful to God for providing humans with the knowledge and abilities to do such things.
Having said all that, miraculous, physical healings continue to take place, and they continue to create openings for the Gospel. We want to invite them and receive them. We want to be sensitive to His voice and make ourselves available to Him.
However, as I went through this, I realized that most of what I’ve said here has been directed towards those God would use to heal others. But of course, all of us need healing ourselves, in various ways. And it struck me that this man was literally placed in the pathway of healing. He didn’t stay at home, hiding from others in shame. Instead, he hung out by the temple courts so that when Peter and John came, he received what God had for him.
This is a challenge for many people in an affluent city like North Vancouver where people seem to “have it together”. It’s a challenge for many in churches like ours, where a lot of people seem to have it together. And it’s a challenge especially for a lot of men, who cover up a need for healing by escaping in all kinds of addictions and distractions. There is healing, genuine authentic healing, in Jesus. But you’ve got to put yourself in the pathway of His blessing. Stop hiding. Seek what Jesus has to give you.
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