0:00:00 - 0:00:23 I want to do a brief study on acts chapter three, at least one passage from that chapter. And we're going to begin in verse two. Well, why not just begin with the first one? Now, Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his 0:00:23 - 0:00:46 mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Now let's pause there as we read the scriptures, we tend to blow through these things. It's important to pause and do things like ask questions. But also 0:00:45 - 0:00:00 to visualize this, you'll be surprised what God shows you when you give him a canvas to show it on. And I don't want to make the claim that you can imagine up things and, and then see them that that's not, I'm not talking about any kind of imagination or conjuring here, but it begins uh sorry. Well, 0:00:00 - 0:01:40 how can I say this? God can show you things and also you can imagine them and you'd say, well, what's the, what's the benefit of trying to picture what this was like. It draws attention to the many things that you would not necessarily think about in reading the text. So in other words, in my opinion 0:01:39 - 0:02:01 , that the value of imagining something or trying to visualize something is a scene. I mean, trying to visualize a scene in the scriptures is all the blanks it produces that you don't see by reading the text. So let me ask you what, which of these two information streams is richer if you were to see 0:02:00 - 0:02:23 something or to read a textual summary of it. Well, of course, it's to see something. Have you ever read a movie script? If you read even a piece of a movie script and then you look at the scene from the movie, there are a million times more sources of information in the visual than in the text and someone 0:02:22 - 0:02:45 has to fill in all those blanks, right? That's the director's job or whoever. And in fact, there are many, many, many people it takes to do this because there are details at all sorts of levels. The director is not going to be painting each breast stroke on a set prop that there are people for that and 0:02:44 - 0:03:10 it cascades down. So when you're reading the scriptures, it's important to try to visualize the scene. And even when you're wrong about things that's fine, see them as blanks, not this is exactly what happened, right? But it can really advance your understanding if in nothing else by enumerating questions 0:03:09 - 0:03:35 you can ask or at least things you can wonder. So we have Peter and John here and they go to the temple and they go to a specific place at a specific time. And then there's this man there and he's been handicapped his whole life. He can't walk and he is taken there by people every day. That's very interesting 0:03:35 - 0:03:57 . So there are people there who believe that the best thing they can do for him is take him to this place where he will beg all day and get more money than he would have otherwise, I guess, right. So I suppose that these people who take him there don't have the money to give him or don't want to give 0:03:57 - 0:04:28 it to him. But you can see this in your mind if you try to picture it that though the details may be beyond your ability to accurately perceive. This was a real place. There was a time, it was a specific place. There was a real man who was there and Peter and John were walking in to this gate and there 0:04:28 - 0:04:48 was a man there and he was begging. And so all of this, you know, when we just cruise through the scriptures and we don't, we don't stop and think about these things as real things and all the details that are going on in these people as real people. It becomes very difficult for us to apply that to 0:04:47 - 0:05:14 our own lives and it becomes very easy to miss things that are stated clearly. So as they're walking by, and you can imagine the bustle. This is a big place. There are a lot of people and it's the hour of prayer. It's, it's not only a busy place, it's the busy time of a busy place. And amidst this crowd 0:05:14 - 0:05:43 , there's this, there's this stream of people that's going by this beggar. Now, you weren't there, that I wasn't there. But we have both been to many places where the same exact sort of thing is happening, haven't we? Have you ever been in a busy place? And there were people streaming by a beggar. What 0:05:43 - 0:06:07 do those people do who are streaming by? And what's the beggar doing? You've seen this many times, you've seen this many times. The people walking by do not make eye contact. They just, they look straight ahead and they try to pretend the beggar isn't there? Isn't that what happens? And then the beggar 0:06:06 - 0:06:35 so they're pretending and then the beggar is pretending too because the bigger keeps asking for arms as if people are paying attention as if people are paying him or her money and some people do. But as a percentage, it's very, very, very low, I think um if it weren't for other limitations, beggars would 0:06:35 - 0:07:00 make tremendous sales people because one of the hardest things about sales is getting rejected all the time. It's still doing the work. So beggars are great at that. They just, they get rejected almost always and then they just keep going. So in this stream, unbeknownst to the beggar are Peter and John 0:07:00 - 0:07:25 and the beggar doesn't really know who they are because he only asks them for money because that's what they do. They just ask everyone for the same thing because the crowd was passing by. The beggar assumed that the only thing he could get is what any old person in the crowd could provide, namely money 0:07:24 - 0:07:51 . So the beggar didn't know that there was something special about Peter and John. So here's, here's the difference that comes up verse four. I don't know if I read verse three. So let's read that. Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple? Asked an alms and Peter fastening his eyes upon 0:07:51 - 0:08:19 him with John said, look on us. This is, this means something. It's it's it's here for a reason. So what's different because of that verse in your image? Well, it wasn't that Peter and John were just streaming through the gate and saw this beggar and turned to him to go do something about it. The man 0:08:19 - 0:08:49 called to them and actually the man was calling to everyone, but Peter and John interpreted that call as if it was to them specifically. They considered the needs of this beggar that were being broadcast generally. In no specific way to them. And they what says Peter Peter responded says John also did 0:08:49 - 0:09:14 it. So who knows if Peter grabbed John, right or whatever? But they were cruising into the temple. So they stopped, Peter would have had to stop John, right? Hey, so Peter says it says fastening his eyes upon him. So as you're cruising through your life, how observant are you on? What's going on around 0:09:14 - 0:09:38 you? Do you think that Peter and John went to the temple to heal the beggar at the gate? They did not, that was not why they were going not specifically, but they saw something different in the stream of events and then they reacted differently to it than everyone else around them. And why did they react 0:09:37 - 0:09:59 differently because they acknowledged the difference within them because they weren't like everyone else around them. No one else did what they were about to do because no one else could do what they were about to do. Nor did they just give the guy money, which is what he would have gotten from any other 0:09:59 - 0:10:34 person. So they looked at him fastening his eyes upon him with John and they said, look on us. So the guy was, was still just staring blankly in the, in the at the streaming crowd who just kept streaming by and he just kept repeating whatever he was saying, alms for the poor or whatever. And it says 0:10:34 - 0:11:02 , and he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. So the man, the beggar responds to Peter and John who say, look at us and what does he expect? He expects what he was looking for, which is money, which is what he was expecting from any old person and that's all he knew to expect 0:11:01 - 0:11:21 . So here we have again, just to recap this demands. Friends, I guess brought him here, maybe his family, maybe his family couldn't support him and they're like, well, you're just laying around at home. So why don't you lay around at the temple and then we'll come get you and at least you'll have some 0:11:20 - 0:11:40 money that way and you'll be able to, to provide at least a little towards what it costs to keep you. And the man's just laying there all day saying homes for the poor, whatever he was saying. And that's what the people who dropped him there were looking for. And that's what he was looking for because 0:11:39 - 0:12:10 that's the only thing that they need to look for money. But what was his actual problem? And what's the actual solution to the problem? In both cases? It wasn't money, it wasn't money. So, but he did expect to receive something of them, right? But it was money. But he was at least he was in receiving 0:12:10 - 0:12:34 mode. He said, oh, I expect to get something here. And that's why he did look at them. And then in verse six, after Peter and John give him this invitation to change what he's doing and he does it only because he thinks he's going to get what he expects, which was his purpose in the first place. Then 0:12:34 - 0:13:11 Peter said silver and gold have I none but such as I have give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk and he took him by the right hand and lifted him up and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into 0:13:10 - 0:13:40 the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God and they knew that it was He which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. And as the lame man which was 0:13:40 - 0:14:12 healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's greatly wandering. And then Peter uses this as an opportunity to preach about Jesus and he eviscerates these people for having denied Jesus. Now let's go back because I want to dig a little deeper 0:14:12 - 0:14:52 into this and hopefully help you see some things that maybe you didn't see before. Did this beggar know who Jesus was? If he had, why would he have assumed that Peter and John were just like everyone else? And if he didn't know who Jesus was and if he didn't believe in him, how is he healed? Peter says 0:14:51 - 0:15:28 in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Why would that have had any meaning to this man? What was the, what was the give and take in this situation? Peter and John, they heard his cry which was not to them but to the general public and it was a cry for money. They responded and he 0:15:28 - 0:15:49 thought he was going to get money. And then he said, Peter said, I don't have any money, but what I have, I will give you. And that's an interesting thing to think about what this man's reaction must have been when he said that. And I'm not sure how quickly Peter said it. I'm not sure how much time the 0:15:49 - 0:16:10 man had to react. If he said it fast enough, he wouldn't have had any time to think about it. And then Peter says in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk and he takes him by the right hand and he lifts him up and immediately the man's feet and ankle bones receive strength. And then what 0:16:10 - 0:16:40 does the man do? He goes with them immediately, that's his reaction. And he walks and he jumps and he praises God and he holds Peter and John. So it says an 11, it says, it says as the layman which was he healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch. He was embracing 0:16:39 - 0:17:00 them for a long time. Now you read this and you just blaze through this because you say, well, what else would he do? First off? Literally, he had nothing else to do. He was just gonna lay there all day. Why not go with Peter and John? Right? OK. Well, why is he jumping and praising God? Why is he clinging 0:17:00 - 0:17:39 to Peter and John embracing them? How happy was this man? This man had never had the blessing of walking. He was lame from birth. Do you know how many people are suffering? Who if their suffering was completely alleviated? How many people who want something? If they were given exactly what they want 0:17:38 - 0:18:15 , they would immediately proceed in the rest of their life as if it never happened, no difference whatsoever in their joy, in their gratitude towards God. And instead of being more likely to trust God or to love others, they would be less likely to do those things. Don't believe me, read the scriptures 0:18:14 - 0:18:43 , read the scriptures. So you might not have the experience of having seen miracles like this, but you can read the scriptures and see how people react to the outpouring of God's love in whatever form. But including miracles. Verse after verse after verse, the more God gives us, the more good He shows 0:18:42 - 0:19:13 us the worse we become. That is the natural reaction So what is the impediment towards receiving greater blessing from God? The number one impediment, it's you. It's how you would react. It's the joy you would receive. Recognize. I guess we should say the gratitude you would have how your trust in God 0:19:13 - 0:00:00 would change how much likely more likely you would be to love others and to what extent. So, so Jesus accepted the offer of a pharisee to dine in his house. And the pharisee had a big problem with the fact that there was a woman kneeling down on the ground, weeping and wiping his feet with her hair. 0:00:00 - 0:20:08 And that's when he said, he taught the parable of a person being forgiven much and being forgiven little. And he said, who loved the person that forgave more? It's the one who have been forgiven much. Well, all of that's the same, all of that ought to be the same I should say for those who are given 0:20:08 - 0:20:36 much where much is given much is expected. Why is it because God is as capricious. He then deity who sits around waiting for us to praise him because he gets his jollies off of it. No, no. It's because what he desires more than anything else is for you to have more joy than you did before. And he doesn't 0:20:36 - 0:21:02 want to do things that are going to cause the opposite effect because that hurts you rather than helps you. Now, let's go back to this beggar who has been an invalid his whole life. I don't think this was a well educated man in that in those times that would have been very difficult to arrange for such 0:21:02 - 0:21:26 a person, his, his family or whoever was, was involved with taking care of him because he would need to be taken care of. They would put him at the temple every day so he could beg for money. He wasn't um out there becoming some scholar or whatever. And yet this uneducated man who had been physically 0:21:26 - 0:22:02 broken his entire life, he showed greater faith and more wisdom and more virtue. Then the priestly class who was streaming by him every day, who who Peter then gives us a stern talking to after all of this. Why? Because he didn't even know who Jesus was. And yet, and if he did know he didn't believe 0:22:01 - 0:22:36 in him well enough to know who Peter and John were, which you'd think that those two things that cour right? Because of the way it went down and yet somehow he was healed. And not only that, the moment Peter said, rise up and walk, the man immediately was healed and immediately followed them in and immediately 0:22:35 - 0:23:01 was leaping and praising God. You remember the 10 lepers? What was the response of the night? Thanks. See you chump. Not even thanks. It was just see a chump. Do you remember the response of the man healed at the pool of Bethesda? Jesus said, watch it because if you keep sinning, it's gonna be even worse 0:23:01 - 0:23:30 for you. He immediately says to the Pharisees, hey, that guy you were looking for, he's right there. So don't think that God's outpouring of blessings upon you would result in you becoming holier. The reason he hasn't done it is because it would not result in you becoming holier. All people that dwell 0:23:30 - 0:23:51 . Paul said, I know how to be a based and I know how to be exalted. He was saying, hey, I've been through some really rough times and some really great times and it's all the same to me. It's all gravy because I trust God and I obey him in all things. Those who are abased due to the Lord's love and he 0:23:51 - 0:24:13 has reasons for doing that, which is, it's the same reason is to increase the joy of that person and everyone else for the benefit of the world. Those who are experiencing suffering for the, for the Lord's sake. They know it. Those who are, who are um without blessing for the Lord's sake because it's 0:24:13 - 0:24:39 delayed for his purposes. They know it, they know it, those whose desires are unfulfilled and they desire things that they don't have and they don't understand why they don't have them. It's not for that reason. It's because they're of a mindset where they would be harmed for God to bless them. They 0:24:38 - 0:25:05 would, they would react to it in a way that would be self harming or they'd harm others with it. That is human nature. That's the default situation. In many ways. The purpose of the gospel is so that we get out of God's way. We learned to respond to him in a way where his blessings end up a good thing 0:25:05 - 0:25:37 for us and others because by default, they won't be. That's a strange idea, isn't it? And yet it's hardcore truth. So how long did this man sit begging? Well, he wasn't sitting but just lay there now. He was just asking for money. But how long did he ask for money? His whole life? Ok. It's every, every 0:25:37 - 0:26:08 hour of the day he was there begging. Did he um let, let me flip that around. So when he received much more than he was asking for much more, I don't even know how you can compare it. It's so much greater. He received so much more than he was asking. What was his response? Was it commensurate? Was it 0:26:08 - 0:26:40 , did it, did it match up to the intensity of what he was given? No. How could it, how could it ever? Right. And yet did he do all that? He could, he did. He did at least in the window of the story. We don't know what happened after that. I don't know. But that whole time he was walking and leaping and 0:26:40 - 0:27:08 praising God. He did it in front of people. He didn't care who saw and he embraced Peter and John for a long duration because the people ran together to see it. That wasn't immediate, it would take some time, it takes some time for the word to spread. What's your reaction when God gives you what you 0:27:07 - 0:27:34 ask him for? And what's your reaction when He gives you better than what you asked for? And this is a wonderful example of his tendency to do precisely that you ask him for bread. He will give you a stone and the stone is better unless you really complain and then he'll give you the, the bread you asked 0:27:34 - 0:27:58 for in the first place because that's all you wanted. If this man had refused to be healed, Peter and John didn't have any money, but maybe someone else would have given him some money and he could get what he was insisting on because he would refuse to receive that, which was better and human beings 0:27:58 - 0:00:00 do that all the time. So there's still a lot more to parse through here. And this is such a short, a short little passage, isn't it? You've probably read it 100 times, never seen any of these things. So how is it that the man could be healed in the name of Jesus if he didn't even know who Jesus was? 0:00:00 - 0:28:43 So maybe he had heard of Jesus and you say, well, maybe he'd heard of Jesus just a little, at least. And that whole of Nazareth bit was just to make sure we knew who we were talking about because it's kind of a big deal. All of Jerusalem was in an uproar according to the authorities, right? When that 0:28:43 - 0:29:17 all happened and it wasn't too, too much time previous to this maybe. But what happens is Peter says in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk and then Peter grabs the man by the right hand and lifts him up. 100% of that is are things that Peter is doing. What's the response of the man 0:29:17 - 0:29:41 ? Well, he's an invalid to this point. He doesn't have to respond to anything, right? Peter is doing all the work and he can't fight him even he couldn't stop him if he wanted to. Right? Nothing in verse six or seven says anything about anything that the man did. He's literally laying there and then 0:29:41 - 0:30:09 Peter comes and he grabs him. He says in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. He grabs the man, he lifts him up and it says that his feet and ankle bones received strength. It's only then where he's, he does anything and he leaping up, stood and walked etc so how did that work? Because 0:30:09 - 0:30:40 haven't you been told that miracles can only happen if the recipient has faith and you have been told that faith means believing in Jesus always. That's the only thing it means did this man already exercise faith. Why was he already at? I'm sorry, why was he at the gate in the first place? He was asking 0:30:40 - 0:31:02 alms and were people giving him alms? Well, we don't know, it could be that he was put there every day and didn't get a nickel. But they said, well, there he's gonna be laying around all day anyway. So you may as well lay around in a place that someone might give him something. But he was still asking 0:31:02 - 0:31:28 , wasn't he? Is it a sign of faith to do all that you can? It is, that's a tremendous sign of faith. It means much more than whatever it is you're doing. Do you realize that this is like the widow's might? She gave all that she had and it meant more than the much greater amount that rich people were 0:31:28 - 0:31:53 giving because as a percentage it wasn't, they weren't, they weren't eating less to give that money. The widow gave everything she had and she was a widow. She couldn't get more, it was fixed. It's all she had. The rich people would make more in the future, but they were still clinging to what they had 0:31:53 - 0:32:15 . They were just giving a portion of it to the temple. And so Jesus commended her. What did this man have to give? What was he seeking? Why was he seeking it? And what price was he willing to pay? He was seeking something that was worth an awful lot, which is the ability to move. I'm sorry, he was seeking 0:32:15 - 0:32:42 money, which is the ability to survive for him. It's, he was literally seeking the best he knew to seek and what was he willing to pay for it? Everything. Let me tell you something. When you get to a place that you're willing to pay everything for something, you get God's attention and the greatest things 0:32:42 - 0:33:11 in life cost everything and they're so much greater than everything else that nothing else is really even worth talking about. If something doesn't cost everything, it's probably not even worth talking about, let alone seeking. So rather than training our gratitude on small things, maybe what we ought 0:33:11 - 0:33:50 to do is train our actions on things for which we'd be fully grateful. Now, I want to compare the reaction of this man to what happened to the reaction of the other people. So he celebrated. He used the thing that he was given that he didn't have before that he was given by someone who knew he needed 0:33:50 - 0:34:25 it, but he didn't know they had it nor that it was possible to get and all of these things matter an awful lot. He used it to praise God more than he did before. He used it to help other people to praise God more than they did before he was full of gratitude to God. And it's interesting because like 0:34:25 - 0:34:55 I'm trying to make the case for, it's not likely that he believed in Jesus before this, he probably didn't even know who he was. And yet his immediate reaction to this positive thing was to praise God. Now, if someone I, I don't mean to be blasphemous in any way with what I'm about to say, but it, I 0:34:54 - 0:35:14 need to say it this way to convey the point. If some random person came up to you and you were in hospital with a tourniquet around your leg, there had been a horrible accident and your leg got severed and you're there dying. And because of the fun of modern hospitals, you're probably gonna die in the 0:35:14 - 0:35:38 waiting room because there's all these people in the er for uh the flu and stuff. And so you're just sitting there waiting to die and some random person walks in, grabs you by the hand and says in the name of Ronald mcdonald, stand up and be healed and all of a sudden your leg grows back and you're on 0:35:38 - 0:36:00 your feet and you have no idea what just happened. What's to whom will you render praise? Why I made the case? You're probably not gonna render praise at all. If you were, I don't know what that, what happened, where the accident happened. Let's say that you were ice skating and some very heavy person 0:35:59 - 0:36:30 skated over you and chopped your whole leg off. Um You'll probably go right back to the rink. Say thanks buddy and you go back to the rink. That's human nature. No change, nothing's different. And who cares who Ronald mcdonald is right? But this man, his immediate reaction was to praise God. When's the 0:36:30 - 0:36:51 last time you praised God when something good happened? I know there are a lot of mainstream Christians who like to say the words praise God and they don't mean anything by it. It's just uh it's almost a nervous tick. It's like in that movie Rain Man, Rain Man, where Dustin Hoffman's character just says 0:36:51 - 0:37:26 definitely all the time. It's like that. But when's the last time you felt tremendous gratitude towards God? Now he showers us with things every day that are worth praising him nonstop for. And that's nothing special kind of stuff. That's what we regard as normal. Like the ability to breathe, just being 0:37:26 - 0:37:48 alive is worth that. Now, part of that we can be excused for because normal people don't understand the cost of life, what it took to create all of this. And so that's excusable, I guess. And, and what difference do you know? But what about all the things that are differential that you do have a baseline 0:37:47 - 0:38:14 of comparison for? When's the last time? When's the last time you were overflowing with gratitude because your kids have not been kidnapped. When's the last time you were overflowing with gratitude? Because you're not dying of cancer today. When's the last time you were overflowing with gratitude? Because 0:38:14 - 0:38:35 you have food on your plate because there are a whole lot of people in this world who can't be grateful for those things because it's not true for them. And why do you think that you'd be so much more grateful to God if he gave you this thing that you really, really, really, really, really say you want 0:38:34 - 0:38:59 when you're not grateful for all these things that are worth a ton that you already have. And again, God doesn't care if you give him credit for things or not, that's not what he's all about. He just wants you to be happy. And so the first step in getting more of what you say you want is recognizing 0:38:58 - 0:39:23 what you already have. That's how you prepare for how you're gonna react when he gives you more. It's the only way, well, while the other way is for him to take away what you have and he will do that to help you because, and this is one of the points I wanted to make with this passage. Love is not giving 0:39:22 - 0:39:54 someone what they say they want. It's giving someone what will actually help them the most up to the limits of your capacity to give. If Peter and John had money, they still would have done this because the man needed to be able to walk more than he needed money. That wasn't the real problem. And I'm 0:39:54 - 0:00:00 gonna tell you something else. I may give you a key to understand something I talk frequently about there being a hierarchy, Peter and John were higher in the hierarchy than this man. They knew Jesus and they followed him. This man didn't know who Jesus was when the relationship of flow is top down. 0:00:00 - 0:41:00 The greatest thing is never money. There's always something better when the relationship is bottom up. There's usually nothing that can be given other than money. That's a tough thing to wrap your head around. Money can temporarily alleviate suffering. But the opportunities that can do so, I mean, bottom 0:41:00 - 0:41:27 down the opportunities in which it can do so are highly limited because it's almost always gonna cause more harm than good. Long term. In this man's case, there would have been nothing wrong with giving the man money that would have helped him. But if it there was a choice between the two, it would have 0:41:27 - 0:41:52 been much better for Peter and John to do what they did. There are many cases where giving people money hurts them more than it helps them. And it tends to be when that's a top down situation. If it's a bottom up situation, it's a different story. And now I'm really gonna turn this on its head. Have 0:41:52 - 0:42:18 you noticed how poor people are more likely to donate money to causes than rich people? And you've probably heard that that's because of greed and I don't dispute that that's a factor in many cases. But there are other factors I once had a conversation with an extremely benevolent man as far as sharing 0:42:18 - 0:42:46 his wealth with others, a generous man, I should say, very generous man who happens to have a lot of money. And I was surprised at how he kept talking about long term benefit, you know, sustainable benefit. And we're talking about some charity opportunities and that was how the man lived his whole life 0:42:45 - 0:43:08 . And that in his case is how he ended up with lots of money is because he was looking at long term cost and benefit. And he gave the same way, even though he was extremely generous in how much he gave. And is he also applied this idea of cost and benefit to his giving? And it was surprising to me at 0:43:08 - 0:43:31 the time, but I get it now. So why do poor people not do that? Because poor people don't do that. Poor people by and large are not poor because of lack of resources. And I'm talking about in the in the rich nations of the world, they're not poor because of a lack of resources, they're poor because of 0:43:31 - 0:43:59 a lack of resourcefulness. They don't use opportunity. They, they think in short term cost of benefit, not long term. And so when they see a beggar, and this is the, the observation I have made is that I've seen many people giving money to people who are better off than they are poor people giving money 0:43:58 - 0:44:20 that they do not have to, people that are better off than they are. And it's because they are emotionally motivated and they would like to continue the belief that when people are hard up for money, it's never their fault because that's the belief that helps them not feel guilty about their situation 0:44:19 - 0:44:43 . So I saw once a, a car in front of me, I was pulling out as a light and the car was busted up every which way had tape on the windows. Everything else, the, the people inside weren't doing too well and they stopped and they gave a bunch of money to a homeless guy who was dressed to the nines. He had 0:44:43 - 0:45:14 a dog doing great, doing great. Didn't need to be there, totally able bodied, nothing wrong with him young and they gave me money. So anyway, that's, that's something to think about. So what was the reaction of these people that saw the man? So we know his reaction. He was praising God. What was the 0:45:14 - 0:45:33 reaction of the people that saw the man? We read about that in nine and 10 and all the people saw him walking and praising God and they knew that it was he who had sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. We 0:45:32 - 0:45:51 read that and they're like, and we, and we say like, wonder and amazement. Yeah. Well, there, there's a lot of Christian hymns about that. Like, and it's positive wonder and amazement. Those are not positive words for the most part in the scriptures. It's, it denotes surprise, but there's a negative 0:45:50 - 0:46:10 connotation. It's like, it's like unpleasant in the sense that they wish it would go away because they don't know how to explain this. It's not too far from what we would call cognitive dissonance. They've just been slapped upside the head with something that doesn't fit their world view because remember 0:46:10 - 0:46:35 , these are devout Jews coming for the hour of prayer, they supported the death of Jesus. And now they see this guy, this invalid who they all recognized and he's walking and he's hugging Peter and John, who are these outcast followers of Jesus. And everybody, all those people knew who they were, the 0:46:35 - 0:47:04 beggar might not have, but those people did at least some of them, right? And they're filled with wonder and amazement because not, not glorifying God, not praising God. You see. So this is different and this is how most people react to miracles. This is how most people respond to outpourings of God's 0:47:04 - 0:47:34 power or his wisdom, wonder and amazement. It's not a positive thing. So I'm realizing I admitted when I said in the name of Ronald mcdonald, the reason I said that this guy standing up and praising God as his immediate reaction, that is what creates the connection between His concept of God, his pre-existing 0:47:34 - 0:48:06 concept of God and this person, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Do you see that Peter? And John didn't go and say, let me teach you a lesson about this guy named Jesus and how you should believe in Him. What did they lead off with the reason for believing in Him? They showed him the value that they had in 0:48:06 - 0:48:45 terms that he could recognize and value. Do you see that? And if this man had not been faithful in the sense of being prepared to respond in a way that would be better off for him and others, he could not have been healed. Peter's utterance of this phrase in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rise 0:48:45 - 0:49:12 up and walk. It was all about what was in Peter, not in the man, but the action as a whole was ha ha was conditioned on the man's reaction and Peter already knew this is how it was gonna go or at least he had sufficient reason to believe. So, even if it hadn't gone this way, he would have attempted it 0:49:12 - 0:49:44 because he had sufficient reason to believe. And then the man's healing is used as an example of the value of Jesus to the crowds. And that's when we won't go through it. But that's Peter begins his address. He says, ye men of Israel, why Marvel ye at this or why? Look ye so earnestly on us as though 0:49:44 - 0:50:10 by our own power or holiness, we have made this man to walk. And then he says it was Jesus who did this and you killed him. It says that right there. OK? And he uses that to help the people see the value of what they rejected. So what are some takeaways from this? We went through here? But what are some 0:50:10 - 0:50:36 takeaways from this one principle we, we talked about was the fact that love is not giving someone something they they ask for, it's giving them something they need. So what benefits a person might not and usually doesn't align with what they're asking for? Two, this, these are in no particular order 0:50:36 - 0:51:01 . Two, we saw that miraculous healings operate a lot differently than you've been told. We'll, we'll leave it at that three. We learned a little about the importance of how you react to God's blessings and how much of a limiting factor that is and how much he blesses you. Four. We uh talked about how 0:51:01 - 0:51:29 most people do not respond to miracles by becoming better people or doing better things for other people or trusting in God more. But instead they, they react in, in, we'll say lackluster ways. We also talked about how things that are better than what we're looking for will come through the best things 0:51:28 - 0:51:56 we know to look for. And I'm not sure if you caught it or not, but in talking about these people that would haul the handicapped dude to the temple and in that man spending his time. This way, we have an example of a chain of people doing the best they know to solve an unsolved problem. And then God 0:51:56 - 0:52:32 sending resources from above through the form of living mortals to provide what is lacking and what heretofore has precluded a solution. Do you get that? What's really interesting about this story is that it's a tremendous example of what it actually means to bless and what a covenant is. So to bless 0:52:31 - 0:53:01 . You need two parties and one party reaches down from heaven, they stoop down from heaven from the direction of heaven. Cause to bless means to kneel the other party kneels down in receipt kind of like a king knighting a new knight, the knight kneels down the king stoops down and does the sword thing 0:53:01 - 0:53:28 comes off of his throne and knights the person, right? You see this man was literally prostrate on the ground because he couldn't do anything else. His problems had beset him to the point where he was literally laying on the ground. And Peter and John came out of what they were doing and came down to 0:53:28 - 0:53:55 him. Peter literally hunched over and grabbed this guy and lifted him up. You cannot get a more literal fulfillment of the concept of blessing, which is also the concept of covenant, the ways that this video so could go into. But that's it in a nutshell. So if you're crawling around on the ground looking 0:53:54 - 0:54:21 like. What's that guy in the Peter Pan movie hook? He lost his marbles and he's just always looking for his marbles. He can't find them. Your marbles aren't on the ground. Look up, look up for what you lack, make use of everything below and look up to receive what you lack. God will send it as soon as 0:54:21 - 0:54:55 you make use of what is below. Now, that, that's actually a super duper important idea in the end times because we have this couple coupling couplet, this couplet. Do you remember how it goes? Um something from below and something from above and I've just given you a grand key that unlocks the end times 0:00:00 - 0:00:23 I want to do a brief study on acts chapter three, at least one passage from that chapter. And we're going to begin in verse two. Well, why not just begin with the first one? Now, Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer being the ninth hour. And a certain man lame from his 0:00:23 - 0:00:46 mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Now let's pause there as we read the scriptures, we tend to blow through these things. It's important to pause and do things like ask questions. But also 0:00:45 - 0:00:00 to visualize this, you'll be surprised what God shows you when you give him a canvas to show it on. And I don't want to make the claim that you can imagine up things and, and then see them that that's not, I'm not talking about any kind of imagination or conjuring here, but it begins uh sorry. Well, 0:00:00 - 0:01:40 how can I say this? God can show you things and also you can imagine them and you'd say, well, what's the, what's the benefit of trying to picture what this was like. It draws attention to the many things that you would not necessarily think about in reading the text. So in other words, in my opinion 0:01:39 - 0:02:01 , that the value of imagining something or trying to visualize something is a scene. I mean, trying to visualize a scene in the scriptures is all the blanks it produces that you don't see by reading the text. So let me ask you what, which of these two information streams is richer if you were to see 0:02:00 - 0:02:23 something or to read a textual summary of it. Well, of course, it's to see something. Have you ever read a movie script? If you read even a piece of a movie script and then you look at the scene from the movie, there are a million times more sources of information in the visual than in the text and someone 0:02:22 - 0:02:45 has to fill in all those blanks, right? That's the director's job or whoever. And in fact, there are many, many, many people it takes to do this because there are details at all sorts of levels. The director is not going to be painting each breast stroke on a set prop that there are people for that and 0:02:44 - 0:03:10 it cascades down. So when you're reading the scriptures, it's important to try to visualize the scene. And even when you're wrong about things that's fine, see them as blanks, not this is exactly what happened, right? But it can really advance your understanding if in nothing else by enumerating questions 0:03:09 - 0:03:35 you can ask or at least things you can wonder. So we have Peter and John here and they go to the temple and they go to a specific place at a specific time. And then there's this man there and he's been handicapped his whole life. He can't walk and he is taken there by people every day. That's very interesting 0:03:35 - 0:03:57 . So there are people there who believe that the best thing they can do for him is take him to this place where he will beg all day and get more money than he would have otherwise, I guess, right. So I suppose that these people who take him there don't have the money to give him or don't want to give 0:03:57 - 0:04:28 it to him. But you can see this in your mind if you try to picture it that though the details may be beyond your ability to accurately perceive. This was a real place. There was a time, it was a specific place. There was a real man who was there and Peter and John were walking in to this gate and there 0:04:28 - 0:04:48 was a man there and he was begging. And so all of this, you know, when we just cruise through the scriptures and we don't, we don't stop and think about these things as real things and all the details that are going on in these people as real people. It becomes very difficult for us to apply that to 0:04:47 - 0:05:14 our own lives and it becomes very easy to miss things that are stated clearly. So as they're walking by, and you can imagine the bustle. This is a big place. There are a lot of people and it's the hour of prayer. It's, it's not only a busy place, it's the busy time of a busy place. And amidst this crowd 0:05:14 - 0:05:43 , there's this, there's this stream of people that's going by this beggar. Now, you weren't there, that I wasn't there. But we have both been to many places where the same exact sort of thing is happening, haven't we? Have you ever been in a busy place? And there were people streaming by a beggar. What 0:05:43 - 0:06:07 do those people do who are streaming by? And what's the beggar doing? You've seen this many times, you've seen this many times. The people walking by do not make eye contact. They just, they look straight ahead and they try to pretend the beggar isn't there? Isn't that what happens? And then the beggar 0:06:06 - 0:06:35 so they're pretending and then the beggar is pretending too because the bigger keeps asking for arms as if people are paying attention as if people are paying him or her money and some people do. But as a percentage, it's very, very, very low, I think um if it weren't for other limitations, beggars would 0:06:35 - 0:07:00 make tremendous sales people because one of the hardest things about sales is getting rejected all the time. It's still doing the work. So beggars are great at that. They just, they get rejected almost always and then they just keep going. So in this stream, unbeknownst to the beggar are Peter and John 0:07:00 - 0:07:25 and the beggar doesn't really know who they are because he only asks them for money because that's what they do. They just ask everyone for the same thing because the crowd was passing by. The beggar assumed that the only thing he could get is what any old person in the crowd could provide, namely money 0:07:24 - 0:07:51 . So the beggar didn't know that there was something special about Peter and John. So here's, here's the difference that comes up verse four. I don't know if I read verse three. So let's read that. Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple? Asked an alms and Peter fastening his eyes upon 0:07:51 - 0:08:19 him with John said, look on us. This is, this means something. It's it's it's here for a reason. So what's different because of that verse in your image? Well, it wasn't that Peter and John were just streaming through the gate and saw this beggar and turned to him to go do something about it. The man 0:08:19 - 0:08:49 called to them and actually the man was calling to everyone, but Peter and John interpreted that call as if it was to them specifically. They considered the needs of this beggar that were being broadcast generally. In no specific way to them. And they what says Peter Peter responded says John also did 0:08:49 - 0:09:14 it. So who knows if Peter grabbed John, right or whatever? But they were cruising into the temple. So they stopped, Peter would have had to stop John, right? Hey, so Peter says it says fastening his eyes upon him. So as you're cruising through your life, how observant are you on? What's going on around 0:09:14 - 0:09:38 you? Do you think that Peter and John went to the temple to heal the beggar at the gate? They did not, that was not why they were going not specifically, but they saw something different in the stream of events and then they reacted differently to it than everyone else around them. And why did they react 0:09:37 - 0:09:59 differently because they acknowledged the difference within them because they weren't like everyone else around them. No one else did what they were about to do because no one else could do what they were about to do. Nor did they just give the guy money, which is what he would have gotten from any other 0:09:59 - 0:10:34 person. So they looked at him fastening his eyes upon him with John and they said, look on us. So the guy was, was still just staring blankly in the, in the at the streaming crowd who just kept streaming by and he just kept repeating whatever he was saying, alms for the poor or whatever. And it says 0:10:34 - 0:11:02 , and he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. So the man, the beggar responds to Peter and John who say, look at us and what does he expect? He expects what he was looking for, which is money, which is what he was expecting from any old person and that's all he knew to expect 0:11:01 - 0:11:21 . So here we have again, just to recap this demands. Friends, I guess brought him here, maybe his family, maybe his family couldn't support him and they're like, well, you're just laying around at home. So why don't you lay around at the temple and then we'll come get you and at least you'll have some 0:11:20 - 0:11:40 money that way and you'll be able to, to provide at least a little towards what it costs to keep you. And the man's just laying there all day saying homes for the poor, whatever he was saying. And that's what the people who dropped him there were looking for. And that's what he was looking for because 0:11:39 - 0:12:10 that's the only thing that they need to look for money. But what was his actual problem? And what's the actual solution to the problem? In both cases? It wasn't money, it wasn't money. So, but he did expect to receive something of them, right? But it was money. But he was at least he was in receiving 0:12:10 - 0:12:34 mode. He said, oh, I expect to get something here. And that's why he did look at them. And then in verse six, after Peter and John give him this invitation to change what he's doing and he does it only because he thinks he's going to get what he expects, which was his purpose in the first place. Then 0:12:34 - 0:13:11 Peter said silver and gold have I none but such as I have give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk and he took him by the right hand and lifted him up and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he leaping up, stood and walked and entered with them into 0:13:10 - 0:13:40 the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God and they knew that it was He which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. And as the lame man which was 0:13:40 - 0:14:12 healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's greatly wandering. And then Peter uses this as an opportunity to preach about Jesus and he eviscerates these people for having denied Jesus. Now let's go back because I want to dig a little deeper 0:14:12 - 0:14:52 into this and hopefully help you see some things that maybe you didn't see before. Did this beggar know who Jesus was? If he had, why would he have assumed that Peter and John were just like everyone else? And if he didn't know who Jesus was and if he didn't believe in him, how is he healed? Peter says 0:14:51 - 0:15:28 in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. Why would that have had any meaning to this man? What was the, what was the give and take in this situation? Peter and John, they heard his cry which was not to them but to the general public and it was a cry for money. They responded and he 0:15:28 - 0:15:49 thought he was going to get money. And then he said, Peter said, I don't have any money, but what I have, I will give you. And that's an interesting thing to think about what this man's reaction must have been when he said that. And I'm not sure how quickly Peter said it. I'm not sure how much time the 0:15:49 - 0:16:10 man had to react. If he said it fast enough, he wouldn't have had any time to think about it. And then Peter says in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk and he takes him by the right hand and he lifts him up and immediately the man's feet and ankle bones receive strength. And then what 0:16:10 - 0:16:40 does the man do? He goes with them immediately, that's his reaction. And he walks and he jumps and he praises God and he holds Peter and John. So it says an 11, it says, it says as the layman which was he healed held Peter and John, all the people ran together unto them in the porch. He was embracing 0:16:39 - 0:17:00 them for a long time. Now you read this and you just blaze through this because you say, well, what else would he do? First off? Literally, he had nothing else to do. He was just gonna lay there all day. Why not go with Peter and John? Right? OK. Well, why is he jumping and praising God? Why is he clinging 0:17:00 - 0:17:39 to Peter and John embracing them? How happy was this man? This man had never had the blessing of walking. He was lame from birth. Do you know how many people are suffering? Who if their suffering was completely alleviated? How many people who want something? If they were given exactly what they want 0:17:38 - 0:18:15 , they would immediately proceed in the rest of their life as if it never happened, no difference whatsoever in their joy, in their gratitude towards God. And instead of being more likely to trust God or to love others, they would be less likely to do those things. Don't believe me, read the scriptures 0:18:14 - 0:18:43 , read the scriptures. So you might not have the experience of having seen miracles like this, but you can read the scriptures and see how people react to the outpouring of God's love in whatever form. But including miracles. Verse after verse after verse, the more God gives us, the more good He shows 0:18:42 - 0:19:13 us the worse we become. That is the natural reaction So what is the impediment towards receiving greater blessing from God? The number one impediment, it's you. It's how you would react. It's the joy you would receive. Recognize. I guess we should say the gratitude you would have how your trust in God 0:19:13 - 0:00:00 would change how much likely more likely you would be to love others and to what extent. So, so Jesus accepted the offer of a pharisee to dine in his house. And the pharisee had a big problem with the fact that there was a woman kneeling down on the ground, weeping and wiping his feet with her hair. 0:00:00 - 0:20:08 And that's when he said, he taught the parable of a person being forgiven much and being forgiven little. And he said, who loved the person that forgave more? It's the one who have been forgiven much. Well, all of that's the same, all of that ought to be the same I should say for those who are given 0:20:08 - 0:20:36 much where much is given much is expected. Why is it because God is as capricious. He then deity who sits around waiting for us to praise him because he gets his jollies off of it. No, no. It's because what he desires more than anything else is for you to have more joy than you did before. And he doesn't 0:20:36 - 0:21:02 want to do things that are going to cause the opposite effect because that hurts you rather than helps you. Now, let's go back to this beggar who has been an invalid his whole life. I don't think this was a well educated man in that in those times that would have been very difficult to arrange for such 0:21:02 - 0:21:26 a person, his, his family or whoever was, was involved with taking care of him because he would need to be taken care of. They would put him at the temple every day so he could beg for money. He wasn't um out there becoming some scholar or whatever. And yet this uneducated man who had been physically 0:21:26 - 0:22:02 broken his entire life, he showed greater faith and more wisdom and more virtue. Then the priestly class who was streaming by him every day, who who Peter then gives us a stern talking to after all of this. Why? Because he didn't even know who Jesus was. And yet, and if he did know he didn't believe 0:22:01 - 0:22:36 in him well enough to know who Peter and John were, which you'd think that those two things that cour right? Because of the way it went down and yet somehow he was healed. And not only that, the moment Peter said, rise up and walk, the man immediately was healed and immediately followed them in and immediately 0:22:35 - 0:23:01 was leaping and praising God. You remember the 10 lepers? What was the response of the night? Thanks. See you chump. Not even thanks. It was just see a chump. Do you remember the response of the man healed at the pool of Bethesda? Jesus said, watch it because if you keep sinning, it's gonna be even worse 0:23:01 - 0:23:30 for you. He immediately says to the Pharisees, hey, that guy you were looking for, he's right there. So don't think that God's outpouring of blessings upon you would result in you becoming holier. The reason he hasn't done it is because it would not result in you becoming holier. All people that dwell 0:23:30 - 0:23:51 . Paul said, I know how to be a based and I know how to be exalted. He was saying, hey, I've been through some really rough times and some really great times and it's all the same to me. It's all gravy because I trust God and I obey him in all things. Those who are abased due to the Lord's love and he 0:23:51 - 0:24:13 has reasons for doing that, which is, it's the same reason is to increase the joy of that person and everyone else for the benefit of the world. Those who are experiencing suffering for the, for the Lord's sake. They know it. Those who are, who are um without blessing for the Lord's sake because it's 0:24:13 - 0:24:39 delayed for his purposes. They know it, they know it, those whose desires are unfulfilled and they desire things that they don't have and they don't understand why they don't have them. It's not for that reason. It's because they're of a mindset where they would be harmed for God to bless them. They 0:24:38 - 0:25:05 would, they would react to it in a way that would be self harming or they'd harm others with it. That is human nature. That's the default situation. In many ways. The purpose of the gospel is so that we get out of God's way. We learned to respond to him in a way where his blessings end up a good thing 0:25:05 - 0:25:37 for us and others because by default, they won't be. That's a strange idea, isn't it? And yet it's hardcore truth. So how long did this man sit begging? Well, he wasn't sitting but just lay there now. He was just asking for money. But how long did he ask for money? His whole life? Ok. It's every, every 0:25:37 - 0:26:08 hour of the day he was there begging. Did he um let, let me flip that around. So when he received much more than he was asking for much more, I don't even know how you can compare it. It's so much greater. He received so much more than he was asking. What was his response? Was it commensurate? Was it 0:26:08 - 0:26:40 , did it, did it match up to the intensity of what he was given? No. How could it, how could it ever? Right. And yet did he do all that? He could, he did. He did at least in the window of the story. We don't know what happened after that. I don't know. But that whole time he was walking and leaping and 0:26:40 - 0:27:08 praising God. He did it in front of people. He didn't care who saw and he embraced Peter and John for a long duration because the people ran together to see it. That wasn't immediate, it would take some time, it takes some time for the word to spread. What's your reaction when God gives you what you 0:27:07 - 0:27:34 ask him for? And what's your reaction when He gives you better than what you asked for? And this is a wonderful example of his tendency to do precisely that you ask him for bread. He will give you a stone and the stone is better unless you really complain and then he'll give you the, the bread you asked 0:27:34 - 0:27:58 for in the first place because that's all you wanted. If this man had refused to be healed, Peter and John didn't have any money, but maybe someone else would have given him some money and he could get what he was insisting on because he would refuse to receive that, which was better and human beings 0:27:58 - 0:00:00 do that all the time. So there's still a lot more to parse through here. And this is such a short, a short little passage, isn't it? You've probably read it 100 times, never seen any of these things. So how is it that the man could be healed in the name of Jesus if he didn't even know who Jesus was? 0:00:00 - 0:28:43 So maybe he had heard of Jesus and you say, well, maybe he'd heard of Jesus just a little, at least. And that whole of Nazareth bit was just to make sure we knew who we were talking about because it's kind of a big deal. All of Jerusalem was in an uproar according to the authorities, right? When that 0:28:43 - 0:29:17 all happened and it wasn't too, too much time previous to this maybe. But what happens is Peter says in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk and then Peter grabs the man by the right hand and lifts him up. 100% of that is are things that Peter is doing. What's the response of the man 0:29:17 - 0:29:41 ? Well, he's an invalid to this point. He doesn't have to respond to anything, right? Peter is doing all the work and he can't fight him even he couldn't stop him if he wanted to. Right? Nothing in verse six or seven says anything about anything that the man did. He's literally laying there and then 0:29:41 - 0:30:09 Peter comes and he grabs him. He says in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. He grabs the man, he lifts him up and it says that his feet and ankle bones received strength. It's only then where he's, he does anything and he leaping up, stood and walked etc so how did that work? Because 0:30:09 - 0:30:40 haven't you been told that miracles can only happen if the recipient has faith and you have been told that faith means believing in Jesus always. That's the only thing it means did this man already exercise faith. Why was he already at? I'm sorry, why was he at the gate in the first place? He was asking 0:30:40 - 0:31:02 alms and were people giving him alms? Well, we don't know, it could be that he was put there every day and didn't get a nickel. But they said, well, there he's gonna be laying around all day anyway. So you may as well lay around in a place that someone might give him something. But he was still asking 0:31:02 - 0:31:28 , wasn't he? Is it a sign of faith to do all that you can? It is, that's a tremendous sign of faith. It means much more than whatever it is you're doing. Do you realize that this is like the widow's might? She gave all that she had and it meant more than the much greater amount that rich people were 0:31:28 - 0:31:53 giving because as a percentage it wasn't, they weren't, they weren't eating less to give that money. The widow gave everything she had and she was a widow. She couldn't get more, it was fixed. It's all she had. The rich people would make more in the future, but they were still clinging to what they had 0:31:53 - 0:32:15 . They were just giving a portion of it to the temple. And so Jesus commended her. What did this man have to give? What was he seeking? Why was he seeking it? And what price was he willing to pay? He was seeking something that was worth an awful lot, which is the ability to move. I'm sorry, he was seeking 0:32:15 - 0:32:42 money, which is the ability to survive for him. It's, he was literally seeking the best he knew to seek and what was he willing to pay for it? Everything. Let me tell you something. When you get to a place that you're willing to pay everything for something, you get God's attention and the greatest things 0:32:42 - 0:33:11 in life cost everything and they're so much greater than everything else that nothing else is really even worth talking about. If something doesn't cost everything, it's probably not even worth talking about, let alone seeking. So rather than training our gratitude on small things, maybe what we ought 0:33:11 - 0:33:50 to do is train our actions on things for which we'd be fully grateful. Now, I want to compare the reaction of this man to what happened to the reaction of the other people. So he celebrated. He used the thing that he was given that he didn't have before that he was given by someone who knew he needed 0:33:50 - 0:34:25 it, but he didn't know they had it nor that it was possible to get and all of these things matter an awful lot. He used it to praise God more than he did before. He used it to help other people to praise God more than they did before he was full of gratitude to God. And it's interesting because like 0:34:25 - 0:34:55 I'm trying to make the case for, it's not likely that he believed in Jesus before this, he probably didn't even know who he was. And yet his immediate reaction to this positive thing was to praise God. Now, if someone I, I don't mean to be blasphemous in any way with what I'm about to say, but it, I 0:34:54 - 0:35:14 need to say it this way to convey the point. If some random person came up to you and you were in hospital with a tourniquet around your leg, there had been a horrible accident and your leg got severed and you're there dying. And because of the fun of modern hospitals, you're probably gonna die in the 0:35:14 - 0:35:38 waiting room because there's all these people in the er for uh the flu and stuff. And so you're just sitting there waiting to die and some random person walks in, grabs you by the hand and says in the name of Ronald mcdonald, stand up and be healed and all of a sudden your leg grows back and you're on 0:35:38 - 0:36:00 your feet and you have no idea what just happened. What's to whom will you render praise? Why I made the case? You're probably not gonna render praise at all. If you were, I don't know what that, what happened, where the accident happened. Let's say that you were ice skating and some very heavy person 0:35:59 - 0:36:30 skated over you and chopped your whole leg off. Um You'll probably go right back to the rink. Say thanks buddy and you go back to the rink. That's human nature. No change, nothing's different. And who cares who Ronald mcdonald is right? But this man, his immediate reaction was to praise God. When's the 0:36:30 - 0:36:51 last time you praised God when something good happened? I know there are a lot of mainstream Christians who like to say the words praise God and they don't mean anything by it. It's just uh it's almost a nervous tick. It's like in that movie Rain Man, Rain Man, where Dustin Hoffman's character just says 0:36:51 - 0:37:26 definitely all the time. It's like that. But when's the last time you felt tremendous gratitude towards God? Now he showers us with things every day that are worth praising him nonstop for. And that's nothing special kind of stuff. That's what we regard as normal. Like the ability to breathe, just being 0:37:26 - 0:37:48 alive is worth that. Now, part of that we can be excused for because normal people don't understand the cost of life, what it took to create all of this. And so that's excusable, I guess. And, and what difference do you know? But what about all the things that are differential that you do have a baseline 0:37:47 - 0:38:14 of comparison for? When's the last time? When's the last time you were overflowing with gratitude because your kids have not been kidnapped. When's the last time you were overflowing with gratitude? Because you're not dying of cancer today. When's the last time you were overflowing with gratitude? Because 0:38:14 - 0:38:35 you have food on your plate because there are a whole lot of people in this world who can't be grateful for those things because it's not true for them. And why do you think that you'd be so much more grateful to God if he gave you this thing that you really, really, really, really, really say you want 0:38:34 - 0:38:59 when you're not grateful for all these things that are worth a ton that you already have. And again, God doesn't care if you give him credit for things or not, that's not what he's all about. He just wants you to be happy. And so the first step in getting more of what you say you want is recognizing 0:38:58 - 0:39:23 what you already have. That's how you prepare for how you're gonna react when he gives you more. It's the only way, well, while the other way is for him to take away what you have and he will do that to help you because, and this is one of the points I wanted to make with this passage. Love is not giving 0:39:22 - 0:39:54 someone what they say they want. It's giving someone what will actually help them the most up to the limits of your capacity to give. If Peter and John had money, they still would have done this because the man needed to be able to walk more than he needed money. That wasn't the real problem. And I'm 0:39:54 - 0:00:00 gonna tell you something else. I may give you a key to understand something I talk frequently about there being a hierarchy, Peter and John were higher in the hierarchy than this man. They knew Jesus and they followed him. This man didn't know who Jesus was when the relationship of flow is top down. 0:00:00 - 0:41:00 The greatest thing is never money. There's always something better when the relationship is bottom up. There's usually nothing that can be given other than money. That's a tough thing to wrap your head around. Money can temporarily alleviate suffering. But the opportunities that can do so, I mean, bottom 0:41:00 - 0:41:27 down the opportunities in which it can do so are highly limited because it's almost always gonna cause more harm than good. Long term. In this man's case, there would have been nothing wrong with giving the man money that would have helped him. But if it there was a choice between the two, it would have 0:41:27 - 0:41:52 been much better for Peter and John to do what they did. There are many cases where giving people money hurts them more than it helps them. And it tends to be when that's a top down situation. If it's a bottom up situation, it's a different story. And now I'm really gonna turn this on its head. Have 0:41:52 - 0:42:18 you noticed how poor people are more likely to donate money to causes than rich people? And you've probably heard that that's because of greed and I don't dispute that that's a factor in many cases. But there are other factors I once had a conversation with an extremely benevolent man as far as sharing 0:42:18 - 0:42:46 his wealth with others, a generous man, I should say, very generous man who happens to have a lot of money. And I was surprised at how he kept talking about long term benefit, you know, sustainable benefit. And we're talking about some charity opportunities and that was how the man lived his whole life 0:42:45 - 0:43:08 . And that in his case is how he ended up with lots of money is because he was looking at long term cost and benefit. And he gave the same way, even though he was extremely generous in how much he gave. And is he also applied this idea of cost and benefit to his giving? And it was surprising to me at 0:43:08 - 0:43:31 the time, but I get it now. So why do poor people not do that? Because poor people don't do that. Poor people by and large are not poor because of lack of resources. And I'm talking about in the in the rich nations of the world, they're not poor because of a lack of resources, they're poor because of 0:43:31 - 0:43:59 a lack of resourcefulness. They don't use opportunity. They, they think in short term cost of benefit, not long term. And so when they see a beggar, and this is the, the observation I have made is that I've seen many people giving money to people who are better off than they are poor people giving money 0:43:58 - 0:44:20 that they do not have to, people that are better off than they are. And it's because they are emotionally motivated and they would like to continue the belief that when people are hard up for money, it's never their fault because that's the belief that helps them not feel guilty about their situation 0:44:19 - 0:44:43 . So I saw once a, a car in front of me, I was pulling out as a light and the car was busted up every which way had tape on the windows. Everything else, the, the people inside weren't doing too well and they stopped and they gave a bunch of money to a homeless guy who was dressed to the nines. He had 0:44:43 - 0:45:14 a dog doing great, doing great. Didn't need to be there, totally able bodied, nothing wrong with him young and they gave me money. So anyway, that's, that's something to think about. So what was the reaction of these people that saw the man? So we know his reaction. He was praising God. What was the 0:45:14 - 0:45:33 reaction of the people that saw the man? We read about that in nine and 10 and all the people saw him walking and praising God and they knew that it was he who had sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him. We 0:45:32 - 0:45:51 read that and they're like, and we, and we say like, wonder and amazement. Yeah. Well, there, there's a lot of Christian hymns about that. Like, and it's positive wonder and amazement. Those are not positive words for the most part in the scriptures. It's, it denotes surprise, but there's a negative 0:45:50 - 0:46:10 connotation. It's like, it's like unpleasant in the sense that they wish it would go away because they don't know how to explain this. It's not too far from what we would call cognitive dissonance. They've just been slapped upside the head with something that doesn't fit their world view because remember 0:46:10 - 0:46:35 , these are devout Jews coming for the hour of prayer, they supported the death of Jesus. And now they see this guy, this invalid who they all recognized and he's walking and he's hugging Peter and John, who are these outcast followers of Jesus. And everybody, all those people knew who they were, the 0:46:35 - 0:47:04 beggar might not have, but those people did at least some of them, right? And they're filled with wonder and amazement because not, not glorifying God, not praising God. You see. So this is different and this is how most people react to miracles. This is how most people respond to outpourings of God's 0:47:04 - 0:47:34 power or his wisdom, wonder and amazement. It's not a positive thing. So I'm realizing I admitted when I said in the name of Ronald mcdonald, the reason I said that this guy standing up and praising God as his immediate reaction, that is what creates the connection between His concept of God, his pre-existing 0:47:34 - 0:48:06 concept of God and this person, Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Do you see that Peter? And John didn't go and say, let me teach you a lesson about this guy named Jesus and how you should believe in Him. What did they lead off with the reason for believing in Him? They showed him the value that they had in 0:48:06 - 0:48:45 terms that he could recognize and value. Do you see that? And if this man had not been faithful in the sense of being prepared to respond in a way that would be better off for him and others, he could not have been healed. Peter's utterance of this phrase in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rise 0:48:45 - 0:49:12 up and walk. It was all about what was in Peter, not in the man, but the action as a whole was ha ha was conditioned on the man's reaction and Peter already knew this is how it was gonna go or at least he had sufficient reason to believe. So, even if it hadn't gone this way, he would have attempted it 0:49:12 - 0:49:44 because he had sufficient reason to believe. And then the man's healing is used as an example of the value of Jesus to the crowds. And that's when we won't go through it. But that's Peter begins his address. He says, ye men of Israel, why Marvel ye at this or why? Look ye so earnestly on us as though 0:49:44 - 0:50:10 by our own power or holiness, we have made this man to walk. And then he says it was Jesus who did this and you killed him. It says that right there. OK? And he uses that to help the people see the value of what they rejected. So what are some takeaways from this? We went through here? But what are some 0:50:10 - 0:50:36 takeaways from this one principle we, we talked about was the fact that love is not giving someone something they they ask for, it's giving them something they need. So what benefits a person might not and usually doesn't align with what they're asking for? Two, this, these are in no particular order 0:50:36 - 0:51:01 . Two, we saw that miraculous healings operate a lot differently than you've been told. We'll, we'll leave it at that three. We learned a little about the importance of how you react to God's blessings and how much of a limiting factor that is and how much he blesses you. Four. We uh talked about how 0:51:01 - 0:51:29 most people do not respond to miracles by becoming better people or doing better things for other people or trusting in God more. But instead they, they react in, in, we'll say lackluster ways. We also talked about how things that are better than what we're looking for will come through the best things 0:51:28 - 0:51:56 we know to look for. And I'm not sure if you caught it or not, but in talking about these people that would haul the handicapped dude to the temple and in that man spending his time. This way, we have an example of a chain of people doing the best they know to solve an unsolved problem. And then God 0:51:56 - 0:52:32 sending resources from above through the form of living mortals to provide what is lacking and what heretofore has precluded a solution. Do you get that? What's really interesting about this story is that it's a tremendous example of what it actually means to bless and what a covenant is. So to bless 0:52:31 - 0:53:01 . You need two parties and one party reaches down from heaven, they stoop down from heaven from the direction of heaven. Cause to bless means to kneel the other party kneels down in receipt kind of like a king knighting a new knight, the knight kneels down the king stoops down and does the sword thing 0:53:01 - 0:53:28 comes off of his throne and knights the person, right? You see this man was literally prostrate on the ground because he couldn't do anything else. His problems had beset him to the point where he was literally laying on the ground. And Peter and John came out of what they were doing and came down to 0:53:28 - 0:53:55 him. Peter literally hunched over and grabbed this guy and lifted him up. You cannot get a more literal fulfillment of the concept of blessing, which is also the concept of covenant, the ways that this video so could go into. But that's it in a nutshell. So if you're crawling around on the ground looking 0:53:54 - 0:54:21 like. What's that guy in the Peter Pan movie hook? He lost his marbles and he's just always looking for his marbles. He can't find them. Your marbles aren't on the ground. Look up, look up for what you lack, make use of everything below and look up to receive what you lack. God will send it as soon as 0:54:21 - 0:54:55 you make use of what is below. Now, that, that's actually a super duper important idea in the end times because we have this couple coupling couplet, this couplet. Do you remember how it goes? Um something from below and something from above and I've just given you a grand key that unlocks the end times 0:54:55 - 0:55:01 so you can look that up and study it or just wait for me to talk about it later. Take care.