Healing At The Temple

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Sermon Notes

Refresher on Acts

  1. What does it mean to be a church?

    1. Not just the Church, but a church, a local expression of the body of Christ.

    2. Examining the core convictions (not just actions) of the church.

  2. For the last four weeks, we have looked at this compelling picture of the church in the end of Acts 2, devoted to life with Jesus and one another in radical ways.

    1. That conversation is not over; it must not be over for us.

    2. This is the kind of community God is interested in building, the kind of community for which Jesus came to live, die, and rise from the dead, the kind of community that God can entrust with his kids (“the LORD added daily…”)

  3. Today, we’re going go from descriptions of this amazing community to seeing what it looked like in action.


1 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 beg from 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)


  1. The story

    1. An ordinary day…

      1. For the man born lame, ordinary involved…

        1. Being carried to the temple gate (remember, no wheelchairs) by a group of friends.

        2. Being set by the gate to beg for money. Giving of alms was/is a righteous act in Judaism, so the temple was a good place to be. However…

        3. Notice that while the man’s friends and everyone else proceeded inside the temple to worship, the man was left outside to wait (either alone or with the rest of the outcasts). He was (as many of you who’ve been working your way through the book of Leviticus with us will have noticed) ceremonially unclean by virtue of his condition. 

          1. Excluded from community

          2. Excluded, so he thought, from the presence of God

      2. For Peter and John, an ordinary day involved

        1. Prayer

        2. Not just prayer, but prayer in community. Intersection of disciplined, community, and Spirit-filled.

          1. I know we’ve grown accustomed to the idea of private prayer (partially because Jesus warned us not to make a show out of our prayers), but if we only ever pray alone we’re missing out.

          2. Communal prayer is the sincerest form of fellowship.

        3. That’s a key here. I don’t think we get the rest of this story if their ordinary didn’t involve prayer together.

          1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote, “A day without morning and evening prayers and personal intercessions is actually a day without meaning or importance.

          2. If prayer a part of their ordinary rhythm, we’d never have seen this extraordinary healing.

        4. Now, I know that everyone was there at that moment to pray, and not everyone healed someone. So, what was different about Peter and John’s prayers. They were devoted to Jesus, to life by his Spirit, and to his church. 

          1. It’s no coincidence that this story happens right after Acts 2:42-47

          2. We are being shown two things

            1. This is what Acts 2:42-47 looks like

            2. Acts 2:42-47 is what it takes to see this kind of stuff happen.

      3. A request and a reply.

        1. The man asks for money.

        2. Peter and John spent a moment looking at the man. They asked the man to look at them. There are a couple of important things about this moment, which is why Luke draws our attention to it. 

          1. First, they saw someone that no one else saw. This is a large part of the mission of the Church. This is what Jesus spent most of his time doing. This is what he’s sent us to do. We have to have different kinds of eyes.

          2. They stopped. It’s not just that they saw someone. It’s that they were willing to be interrupted by someone. (Arco Ministries: stop for the one).

          3. They got proximate. This kind of intent attention can only be given eye to eye. To do this properly, they must have gotten down to his level (meet where he was). There’s something important in this long look. It is a dignifying posture they took.

        3. Peter and John quickly realize that God was up to something more than a simple financial gift (more for this man, for the community, and for the church).

      4. The healing

        1. They command the man to rise in the name of Jesus, which given the circumstances seems highly improbable.

          1. He lacked the muscle mass.

          2. The man had never learned to get up let alone walk. As each of the parents here knows very well, learning to walk is a process that takes time. You can’t just see someone doing it and then do it.

        2. This miracle then is all the more stunning as the name of Jesus built muscle where there was none.

          1. We think of the amount of matter in the universe as constant, but here Jesus just made some more out of nothing (it is an act of creation).

          2. And, rewired the neural pathways in this man’s brain as well as the network of nerves throughout his body to enable him to make him walk.

          3. This is an absolutely staggering moment, when you really think about it.

      5. The faith

        1. They believed enough to ask

        2. The man believed enough to try

      6. The aftermath

        1. Not only did he walk. He leapt and danced into the temple courts. Did you hear that?! Into the temple courts! Where he had never been. Into community. But not into the presence of God. He must have realized in that moment, that God had come to him. 

        2. A Kingdom prophecy fulfilled


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. (Isaiah 35:5-6)

  1. This is what happens the Kingdom comes.

  1. What is God doing in this passage?

    1. Peter and John are impressive in this story, especially considering where they were not too long before this.

      1. But as impressive as they are, they are not the point of the story. 

      2. They make as much clear when they describe what happened, as we’ll explore together next week.

    2. The primary question here, as always in the Bible, is what does this passage tell us about the character of God?

      1. Jesus is King

      2. Reigning at the right hand of the Father

      3. Lavishing the gift of the Spirit

      4. Establishing his Church

      5. Always doing more…

        1. Not just money

        2. Not just healing

        3. Not just the thousands

        4. The nations (through persecution)

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