Healing Responses

Acts 3:1-26

At the end of Acts 2 there is a summary of the activity of the church and Luke wrote
Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles.

There were many wonders and miraculous signs, but some were more dramatic than others. Someone may have had headaches and was cured. Someone else may have had tooth pain and was healed. I don’t know what they were but there were many of them. The more dramatic ones got talked about and when Luke researched for his book he was writing (Luke and Acts) these dramatic healings were the ones mentioned.

Consider what happened to the man who had never in his life walked, who had been lame since birth. Luke was a physician and he used specific Greek words to indicate in what way this man was lame. He had paralysis in the heels of his feet. The bones in the socket of his ankle were not connected. This is why he could not walk. He had never walked. He had never supported the weight of his body with his legs. This means that not only were his feet deformed, his leg muscles had never really developed.

An operation today probably could have healed this man. The surgeons would have cut open his ankles, connected the bones in the socket of his ankle, perhaps they would have needed to construct bones for the socket and then he would have needed months of physical therapy to learn to walk, to slowly strengthen the muscles of his legs.

All this happened in an instant and he was walking and jumping in the courtyard of the Temple.

That is dramatic and no wonder people told Luke about this when he asked what had happened in the early days of the church.

I talked about this incident a couple weeks ago and this morning want to look at it again, this time with a focus on the response of the man born lame who was healed and on the response of Peter who was the healer.

The first response of the man who was healed was that he used the gift God had given him.
He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping

He was given the gift of being able to walk and he used that gift. I think this is a wonderful principle for us. He could have risen to his feet, jumped a bit and then sat down to continue asking for money from the people who passed by. He could have said, “Thank you very much. I appreciate this gift and I know I will find it useful, but now I need to get back to business.”

This sounds absurd but that is how some of us are with gifts God has given us.

If we are Christians, we have received the gift of salvation. This is the most wonderful of all gifts that could be given but what are we doing with it?

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, he wrote to them:
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling

As a Christian, you cannot receive such a wonderful gift, say thank you and then get back to the business of life. Salvation is a process and we need to work to learn more from God, learn more about God, learn more about ourselves, learn how to discipline our desires so we conform to the will of God, learn how we are to support and encourage each other, and on and on.

Having a daily devotional life is not a religious duty, it is the means by which we draw close to God and learn about our salvation.

If receiving the gift of salvation does not change your life, if that gift does not affect the way you relate to people, the way you do business, the way you handle money, then you are in the absurd position of a man born lame who is healed, jumps up and down a couple times and then sits down to continue begging.

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.

When you became a Christian you received at least one and probably more than one spiritual gift. What have you done to discover what gifts you received? What have you done to practice and develop the use of the gifts you have been given? There are many Christians who have never unwrapped the spiritual gifts they were given when they came to salvation. It takes a bit of effort, a bit of experimenting to see what gifts you have been given and then it takes practice to learn how to use them.

I can give you a wonderful tool kit with hammers and screwdrivers and drills and pliers but unless you practice with them, you will never be able to build a table or chair. (James Bond seems to be an exception to this rule. No matter what weapon he is given or what car, jet or boat, he is able to expertly use what he has been given – but a fantasy exception is not much of a model for real life.)

God gave us spiritual gifts to build the church. How skilled have you become in the use of the gifts God gave to you when you became his child?

Depending on your circumstance, God may be giving you time. What are you doing with that gift? Someone who is unemployed has a lot of time to be used. A woman who is pregnant is told she needs to spend several months in bed for the sake of her baby so there will be a safe delivery. This is an inconvenience but also a gift God has given. How will she use that time?

Noreen is a Scottish lady who is now 92 and has been confined to bed for a few years. Now her mind has drifted away but earlier when we talked, she was frustrated because she had always been so active in her life and now she could not do those things any longer because she had lost much of her sight and hearing and mobility. I told her that now she was able to use this time she had been given to develop her ability to pray intercessory prayers. I told her she could become a warrior for God, skilled in her prayers for other people.

Whatever gift God gives to you, use it, practice, become skilled in the use of it.

The first response of the man healed was to use the gift God gave him. The second response was to praise God.
He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.

Praising God is not automatic for those who receive something from God. Jesus was about to enter a village when ten lepers called from a distance, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

He told them to show themselves to the priests and as they obeyed him and headed off to the synagogue, they were cleansed. This was a wonderfully merciful miracle and what did they do? Only one came back when he saw he was healed. He returned praising God in a loud voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus thanking him.

Praising God is not inevitable but a choice we make when we receive a gift from God and it is not a bad choice to praise the one who is able to give such good gifts.

The man who was healed used the gift God gave to him, he praised God for the gift he was given and then he held on to the ones who had been used by God to give him his gift.
While the beggar held on to Peter and John, all the people were astonished and came running to them in the place called Solomon’s Colonnade.

This is an interesting parenthetical detail in the text. Picture the scene. He is healed. He jumps to his feet. He begins jumping and leaping all over the temple court. He draws everyone’s attention. People hear the noise and come running over to see what all the commotion is about.

This is the scene. And then when the crowd had gathered, he held on to Peter and John while they spoke to the crowd who had gathered.

I think there is wisdom in this. When God uses someone in your life to bless you, it is not a bad idea to hold on to them a bit longer and see what else you can learn from them. If God uses someone to draw you to himself and you receive the gift of salvation, hang on to that person and learn more about what it means to be a Christian.

You see this with Jesus all the time. Over and over those who had been healed or delivered from demons by Jesus followed him or wanted to follow him unless he told them not to, as he did with the Gerasene demoniac.

If God uses someone in your life to encourage you, enlighten you, heal you, deliver you, hold on to that person and learn what more you can.

This is the response of the one healed, what can we learn from this text about the response of the one who brings the healing? What can we learn from the response of Peter?

The first lesson and by far the most important lesson is that when the crowd gathered to gape at Peter and the man who was healed, Peter deflected the glory to God.
When Peter saw this, he said to them: “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk?

By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.

This is such an important lesson. It doesn’t matter what we do, whether it is lead a wonderful Bible Study or preach a wonderful sermon or host a wonderful fellowship dinner or make a wonderful financial gift to the church or deliver a well spoken prophecy. When we use a gift that God has given to us to be used we need to deflect the glory that will come to us and give it to God.

It is a natural and very human response to give glory to someone who does something wonderful.

In Acts 14 when Paul and Barnabas came to Lystra, Paul announced the healing of a man born lame and when the people saw that, they came running to Paul and Barnabas, proclaiming they were Greek gods come to earth.

When you do something wonderful, be aware that people will come to you. It is good to be affirmed and honored for doing something well, but be aware of the danger of letting that praise go to your head. Hold on tight to the truth from the letter of James that
Every good and perfect gift is from above

The more dramatic the thing it is you do, the more danger you will find. In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, he listed a number of gifts that some call the charismatic gifts
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.  8 To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit,  9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit,  10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues.

These are the more dramatic of the spiritual gifts. But remember that Paul was writing to a church that had a disorderly fellowship. Paul’s concern in writing this letter was to bring order to the disorder. Some call these the charismatic gifts but they could also be called the disorderly gifts or the dangerous gifts. I don’t mean that we should not desire or use these gifts but that we need to be careful when we use them.

I am praying for these gifts to be given to the church in Morocco. I believe we need to see these gifts used to bring glory to Jesus but if these gifts are to be used to bring glory to Jesus, then they have to be used properly.

Imagine what would happen if Sunday after Sunday I prayed for people to be healed and they were healed. What would happen if I prayed for one of the beggars in Rabat who is lame and his feet would be restored and he stood up and walked. There would be such a surge of attention to me. People would look to me and tell me how wonderful I was.

In order for any gift to be used properly, humility and a solid spiritual grounding is required but that is especially true with these gifts.

When God uses you to bring healing to someone, if you are not spiritually prepared, you will find it difficult to deflect the praise and adoration that will come to you. You might say, “It is Jesus who healed, to him be the glory,” but you will keep a bit of it for yourself and then a bit more and a bit more as time goes on.

I heard this week about a woman who has been praying for people to be healed and they were healed. This was wonderful news but I began immediately to pray for her that she would remain humble and remain spiritually grounded in Christ.

Peter immediately deflected the glory that came to him to Jesus and then he lifted up the name of Jesus as he preached the gospel of Christ.

Next week I will be preaching from Acts 4 and the arrest of Peter and John and we will look a bit at this sermon Peter delivered. For today, all I want to point out is that when we deflect praise and adoration that comes to us because of something God has done through us, we can say that it is Christ who has made it possible but we are more effective in deflecting the praise that comes to us when we proclaim the gospel of Christ.

When praise comes to me for God’s work through me, Jesus needs to be lifted up. John the Baptist needs to be our model. The people of Jerusalem flocked to John to hear him preach and to be baptized and John deflected the glory to the one he had been told was coming.
“After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  8 I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In life, sometimes we are the one healed and sometimes we are the healer. In either case, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus from whom all good things come.

When I prepare sermons I sit in my chair at the end and ask, “What is it I want people to remember from this sermon?”

This is it for this morning. It does not matter if you are the healed or the healer. If you are healed, you will still one day die and be cremated or lowered in a box into the ground. If you are the healer, you will one day be forgotten and no one will remember anything you did.

The only thing that matters, that will last, is your devotion to Jesus, your acts of obedience to him. So look to Jesus, accept eagerly the gifts he offers you, participate with Jesus in the work he is doing around you. Look to Jesus.