Peter Preaches Christ
Acts 3:11-18
We are going to talk about the name this morning, the name of Jesus. Peter preaches about it in Acts Chapter 3, and if you'll take your Bible and turn with me please we'll look together at a portion of Peter's sermon. You know by now that it always takes me longer to preach Peter's sermons than it took him. And so we'll be a while with Peter's sermon. But as we come to Chapter 3, we come to this most marvelous sermon of Peter. Peter preaches in Acts 2 on the first day of the churches birth, he preaches a gain a few days later in Acts 3 and in Chapter 4, he preaches again and so it's just Peter preaching Jesus all the way through the beginning of the book of Acts.
Peter commissioned by God to be the apostle to the Jews to the circumcision, to Israel, his declaring the Messiah Jesus Christ of Nazareth. And the results are exciting as the church is born and at the conclusion of his first sermon there are 3,000 who come to Christ at the conclusion this. His second sermon there are 5,000 men numbered among believers in addition, there are women and young people. And so under the ministry of Peter as he preaches simple gospel messages regarding Christ, the church is born and begins to grow. And they are indeed simple. There is nothing complicated at all. There is nothing deeply theological in the sense of difficulty about his sermons. They are about Jesus Christ in simplicity and they are about sin in simplicity.
But as he comes to his sermon in Acts 3, he kind of keys on this idea of the name of Jesus Christ. In Acts 3:6, he had said to the lame man, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk." And then over in verse 16, he tells the Jews who are now listening to his sermon "And His name through faith in His name hath made this man strong." And so he is declaring again the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. This is the theme. This is the subject of his preaching. That name. That name of which the apostle Paul says God has designated no greater name. The name that is above every name.
Dr. Clifton Howard of the World Peace Commission attended the opening sessions of a conference on limitation of armaments held recently in Washington D.C. and he said in writing this little note that he met there the commissioner from India who represented some 350 million people. Around the commissioner's neck was a string of beads and he told Howard that it was a golden cord that bound his soul to Allah. And that every one of those beads, 99 of them in all, was one of the different names for Allah. And that he had memorized every one of them and in a rosary fashion ran his fingers over them daily reciting the 99 names of Allah. And he questioned Mr. Howard as to whether or not he was so well informed on the names of his God. Howard took the challenge and discovered there are 208 names for the Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible. And perhaps the sweetest of all of those names repeated 700 times in the New Testament is the name Jesus.
But by whatever name he is called like the rose, it is always just as sweet. He is the theme of every sermon preached by the apostles. He is the theme and the heartbeat of the book of Acts. He is the theme of every gospel message and of every messenger of God throughout the history of the church. Jesus, that is the name by whatever name. And in fact, Peter said so boldly and so specifically in Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved." That is the name and there is no other name.
Thirty-three times in the book of Acts reference is made to the term that name. That name. And Jesus by all those names is the single most important figure in the history of the universe. All blessings are found in His name. There are limitations to human names. You may think that the human names are important and they might be if you're sent to go ask a favor of somebody and you're given a little bit of accreditation by a certain person saying look if you tell them that Joe sent you you'll probably get what you want. Then maybe there's something in a name. But it doesn't work like that with God. You don't go to God and say God, Joe sent me. God responds only to one name. We only go to God in the name of Jesus Christ who said, "No man cometh unto the Father but," what, "by me." That is the only name that gives you access to God.
We are encouraged to ask what we will in that name. We have been assured of the presence when we meet two or three gathered in that name. We are told to depart from sin when we name that name. And thus it is the name, the name that is preached by Peter by whatever of the 208 titles he chooses. It is always that name. And so Peter, as we meet him, is the first preacher of the name and I any others of you who preach Jesus Christ stand in the great perdition of those who name the name.
Preaching is not preaching unless it does. As we have seen the Holy Spirit attended the preaching of Peter by miracles and signs to confirm that the message was indeed divine. In Acts 2 you remember that first of all the Spirit of God designed a wonderful miracle of languages and they all began to speak the wonderful works of God in their native tongues of those who heard. And because of that the crowd was gathered astounded and shocked at the divine nature of such a miracle and it was in that against that backdrop that Peter preached the name of Jesus Christ. The Spirit confirming his word as divine by attendant languages of a miraculous kind.
Then as you come to Acts 3, the Spirit has the same pattern again. Before Peter ever gets up to preach and announce the name of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit allows them to operate on the basis of the gift of healing. They heal a lame man in the name of Jesus Christ. Obviously an act of God, gathers the crowd in their wonder and their amazement, Peter then preaches his message being confirmed in their minds as divine by the attendants of that astounding miracle.
And you see, this is exactly what the writer of Hebrews said that God would do confirm the word by signs, wonders, and miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit and we've been studying that for some months. So as we come to the message of Chapter 3, verses 12-26, which is the message itself, we must beware that Chapter 3 together as a unit and we have to include the first 11 verses, because that is the dramatic confirmation of the message provided by the Holy Spirit. In fact, the whole thing is written by the Holy Spirit. He's in charge of the whole production. He makes the miracle go and He gives Peter every word that Peter speaks. It's a production presented by the Holy Spirit. Peter and John are simply around to be used.
Now last Lord's day we began to consider the chapter and let me quickly review. We looked at the miracle last time and first of all, we saw the scene. In verses 1 to 3, Peter and John and how they meet this man who is lame sitting at the gate called beautiful. It's the crossing of two habits. The habit of Peter and John to go daily to the temple at the time of prayer and the habit of the man to be laid at the beautiful gate. They crossed each other. That was the scene. Then we saw the sign. The sign of course was the miracle and we said that it was divine and there were four reasons we knew it was divine.
One it was unexpected or sovereign. God performs miracles at His own discretion. Number 2, it was in the name of Jesus Christ. Number three, it was instant. God's miracles are instant. Number 4, it was complete. God's miracle are total. And so we said it was God performing a miracle, the scene and the sign. Then we saw the sequel. What happened as a result? Three things, joy to the man who was jumping and leaping and hollering all over the temple and then praise to God and when he was hollering, he was hollering praise to God. And thirdly, testimony to the people that God was doing something in their midst.
Now with that as the basic backdrop we then begin to see the sermon forming. Look at verse 10 and we'll bring you up to date. "And they knew that it was he who sat for alms at the beautiful gate at the temple." Forty years he'd been a beggar blind or lame I should say. Not blind, but lame. "And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him and as the lame man who was healed held Peter and John all the people ran together unto them in the porch," the greater outer courtyard, "that is called Solomon's greatly wondering." They were on the porch, the portico known as Solomon's porch. The people were gathered all over the courtyard to hear them. They were astounded and hanging on to Peter and John in the middle was this erect man who had, for 40 years, been a cripple. And they all knew who he was. They saw him every time they passed in and out of the beautiful gate to pay their respects to the worship of the temple.
And so the stage is set for the sermon. Now, as we come to the sermon in verse 12, we'll see three parts, all good sermons have three parts. The beginning, the middle, and the end. The introduction, the theme, and the conclusion, and Peter has those. He starts out with a classic introduction provided already by the Holy Spirit. He just bounces off of it. And then he goes into his theme, which is Jesus, that name. And then he wraps it up in verses 19-26. And we won't get to the wrap up until next time. But we'll at least get to the introduction and the theme this morning.
First of all, let's look at the introduction. Now how does Peter introduce this thing? Well, the Holy Spirit's already built in the initial illustration. In seminary, they always used to tell us that whenever you begin to preach men, do something at the very beginning that gets their attention. And so, you know, when we were in preaching class, guys would do ridiculous things, unreal things. Make horrible statements, just terrifically shocking statements at the first thing they would say. And everybody would just go like that and then they would come down. But they managed to get the attention of everybody.
Frequently, they lost everybody a few minutes into the message, but nevertheless, they had the point at least at the introduction. And so the Holy Spirit knows that it's important to grab these people and focus them on Peter at the very beginning and so he does the illustrating in the introduction. The Holy Spirit provides a living illustration and make sure that when Peter and John are standing in Solomon's porch that hanging on to both of them is this living illustration so that the whole time Peter's preaching, they're staring at this living illustration. They can't get him out of their minds.
So the Spirit has already set the stage. The Spirit has provided the living illustration. Peter merely needs to jump off of that illustration already provided for him. The Spirit has gotten their attention. They are jammed into the great court. Peter is there Solomon's porch. Attention is already wrapped on Peter. All he needs to do is take off from there and he does in verse 12, notice it.
"And when Peter saw, he answered the people." They were wondering and crowded in there. And he said then two questions really. "Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this?" What's the big deal, in effect. What are you so astounded about? Miracles are old stuff to you. I mean, let's face it, you're the people of God. All throughout your history. Miracles have come and gone all along. God has always been a God of miracles. You're used to this. As recently as Jesus Christ Himself, you've seen astounding things. Some of you may have eaten some of that which He provided in feeding the five thousand plus. Others of you may have relatives who were healed, etc., etc. by Jesus Himself. What is all the fuss about a miracle?
What is the particular difficulty that you're having in believing this or buying this or explaining this. This is just part of your history. God's always been involved with you. What are you marveling at? Then he asked them a second question. "Why look ye so earnestly on us as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man walk?" They were evidently also aware that the crowd was staring at them like those two are from Galilee, they're a couple of fishermen. I mean, I've seen those guys around town a lot. What are they...how did they do it? See.
So there were two problems. Number one, they shouldn't have really been two concerned about miracles. They had seen them throughout their history and number two, they should have had the sense to know that Peter and John weren't in the business of doing miracles. So, you see, what he's doing is pulling their attention and he's about to focus it on Christ because when he did the