Peter Preaches Christ

Acts 3:11-18

We are going to talk about the name this morning, the name of Jesus.  Peter preaches about it in Acts Chapter 3, and if you'll take your Bible and turn with me please we'll look together at a portion of Peter's sermon.  You know by now that it always takes me longer to preach Peter's sermons than it took him.  And so we'll be a while with Peter's sermon.  But as we come to Chapter 3, we come to this most marvelous sermon of Peter.  Peter preaches in Acts 2 on the first day of the churches birth, he preaches a gain a few days later in Acts 3 and in Chapter 4, he preaches again and so it's just Peter preaching Jesus all the way through the beginning of the book of Acts. 

Peter commissioned by God to be the apostle to the Jews to the circumcision, to Israel, his declaring the Messiah Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  And the results are exciting as the church is born and at the conclusion of his first sermon there are 3,000 who come to Christ at the conclusion this.  His second sermon there are 5,000 men numbered among believers in addition, there are women and young people.  And so under the ministry of Peter as he preaches simple gospel messages regarding Christ, the church is born and begins to grow.  And they are indeed simple.  There is nothing complicated at all.  There is nothing deeply theological in the sense of difficulty about his sermons.  They are about Jesus Christ in simplicity and they are about sin in simplicity.

But as he comes to his sermon in Acts 3, he kind of keys on this idea of the name of Jesus Christ.  In Acts 3:6, he had said to the lame man, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk."  And then over in verse 16, he tells the Jews who are now listening to his sermon "And His name through faith in His name hath made this man strong."  And so he is declaring again the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  This is the theme.  This is the subject of his preaching.  That name.  That name of which the apostle Paul says God has designated no greater name.  The name that is above every name.

Dr. Clifton Howard of the World Peace Commission attended the opening sessions of a conference on limitation of armaments held recently in Washington D.C. and he said in writing this little note that he met there the commissioner from India who represented some 350 million people.  Around the commissioner's neck was a string of beads and he told Howard that it was a golden cord that bound his soul to Allah.  And that every one of those beads, 99 of them in all, was one of the different names for Allah.  And that he had memorized every one of them and in a rosary fashion ran his fingers over them daily reciting the 99 names of Allah.  And he questioned Mr. Howard as to whether or not he was so well informed on the names of his God.  Howard took the challenge and discovered there are 208 names for the Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible.  And perhaps the sweetest of all of those names repeated 700 times in the New Testament is the name Jesus.

But by whatever name he is called like the rose, it is always just as sweet.  He is the theme of every sermon preached by the apostles.  He is the theme and the heartbeat of the book of Acts.  He is the theme of every gospel message and of every messenger of God throughout the history of the church.  Jesus, that is the name by whatever name.  And in fact, Peter said so boldly and so specifically in Acts 4:12, "Neither is there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved."  That is the name and there is no other name.

Thirty-three times in the book of Acts reference is made to the term that name.  That name.  And Jesus by all those names is the single most important figure in the history of the universe.  All blessings are found in His name.  There are limitations to human names.  You may think that the human names are important and they might be if you're sent to go ask a favor of somebody and you're given a little bit of accreditation by a certain person saying look if you tell them that Joe sent you you'll probably get what you want.  Then maybe there's something in a name.  But it doesn't work like that with God.  You don't go to God and say God, Joe sent me.  God responds only to one name.  We only go to God in the name of Jesus Christ who said, "No man cometh unto the Father but," what, "by me."  That is the only name that gives you access to God.

We are encouraged to ask what we will in that name.  We have been assured of the presence when we meet two or three gathered in that name.  We are told to depart from sin when we name that name.  And thus it is the name, the name that is preached by Peter by whatever of the 208 titles he chooses.  It is always that name.  And so Peter, as we meet him, is the first preacher of the name and I any others of you who preach Jesus Christ stand in the great perdition of those who name the name.

Preaching is not preaching unless it does.  As we have seen the Holy Spirit attended the preaching of Peter by miracles and signs to confirm that the message was indeed divine.  In Acts 2 you remember that first of all the Spirit of God designed a wonderful miracle of languages and they all began to speak the wonderful works of God in their native tongues of those who heard.  And because of that the crowd was gathered astounded and shocked at the divine nature of such a miracle and it was in that against that backdrop that Peter preached the name of Jesus Christ.  The Spirit confirming his word as divine by attendant languages of a miraculous kind.

Then as you come to Acts 3, the Spirit has the same pattern again.  Before Peter ever gets up to preach and announce the name of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit allows them to operate on the basis of the gift of healing.  They heal a lame man in the name of Jesus Christ.  Obviously an act of God, gathers the crowd in their wonder and their amazement, Peter then preaches his message being confirmed in their minds as divine by the attendants of that astounding miracle.

And you see, this is exactly what the writer of Hebrews said that God would do confirm the word by signs, wonders, and miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit and we've been studying that for some months.  So as we come to the message of Chapter 3, verses 12-26, which is the message itself, we must beware that Chapter 3 together as a unit and we have to include the first 11 verses, because that is the dramatic confirmation of the message provided by the Holy Spirit.  In fact, the whole thing is written by the Holy Spirit.  He's in charge of the whole production.  He makes the miracle go and He gives Peter every word that Peter speaks.  It's a production presented by the Holy Spirit.  Peter and John are simply around to be used.

Now last Lord's day we began to consider the chapter and let me quickly review.  We looked at the miracle last time and first of all, we saw the scene.  In verses 1 to 3, Peter and John and how they meet this man who is lame sitting at the gate called beautiful.  It's the crossing of two habits.  The habit of Peter and John to go daily to the temple at the time of prayer and the habit of the man to be laid at the beautiful gate.  They crossed each other.  That was the scene.  Then we saw the sign.  The sign of course was the miracle and we said that it was divine and there were four reasons we knew it was divine. 

One it was unexpected or sovereign.  God performs miracles at His own discretion.  Number 2, it was in the name of Jesus Christ.  Number three, it was instant.  God's miracles are instant.  Number 4, it was complete.  God's miracle are total.  And so we said it was God performing a miracle, the scene and the sign.  Then we saw the sequel.  What happened as a result?  Three things, joy to the man who was jumping and leaping and hollering all over the temple and then praise to God and when he was hollering, he was hollering praise to God.  And thirdly, testimony to the people that God was doing something in their midst.

Now with that as the basic backdrop we then begin to see the sermon forming.  Look at verse 10 and we'll bring you up to date.  "And they knew that it was he who sat for alms at the beautiful gate at the temple."  Forty years he'd been a beggar blind or lame I should say.  Not blind, but lame.  "And they were filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened unto him and as the lame man who was healed held Peter and John all the people ran together unto them in the porch," the greater outer courtyard, "that is called Solomon's greatly wondering."  They were on the porch, the portico known as Solomon's porch.  The people were gathered all over the courtyard to hear them.  They were astounded and hanging on to Peter and John in the middle was this erect man who had, for 40 years, been a cripple.  And they all knew who he was.  They saw him every time they passed in and out of the beautiful gate to pay their respects to the worship of the temple.

And so the stage is set for the sermon.  Now, as we come to the sermon in verse 12, we'll see three parts, all good sermons have three parts.  The beginning, the middle, and the end.  The introduction, the theme, and the conclusion, and Peter has those.  He starts out with a classic introduction provided already by the Holy Spirit.  He just bounces off of it.  And then he goes into his theme, which is Jesus, that name.  And then he wraps it up in verses 19-26.  And we won't get to the wrap up until next time.  But we'll at least get to the introduction and the theme this morning.

First of all, let's look at the introduction.  Now how does Peter introduce this thing?  Well, the Holy Spirit's already built in the initial illustration.  In seminary, they always used to tell us that whenever you begin to preach men, do something at the very beginning that gets their attention.  And so, you know, when we were in preaching class, guys would do ridiculous things, unreal things.  Make horrible statements, just terrifically shocking statements at the first thing they would say.  And everybody would just go like that and then they would come down.  But they managed to get the attention of everybody.

Frequently, they lost everybody a few minutes into the message, but nevertheless, they had the point at least at the introduction.  And so the Holy Spirit knows that it's important to grab these people and focus them on Peter at the very beginning and so he does the illustrating in the introduction.  The Holy Spirit provides a living illustration and make sure that when Peter and John are standing in Solomon's porch that hanging on to both of them is this living illustration so that the whole time Peter's preaching, they're staring at this living illustration.  They can't get him out of their minds.

So the Spirit has already set the stage.  The Spirit has provided the living illustration.  Peter merely needs to jump off of that illustration already provided for him.  The Spirit has gotten their attention.  They are jammed into the great court.  Peter is there Solomon's porch.  Attention is already wrapped on Peter.  All he needs to do is take off from there and he does in verse 12, notice it.

"And when Peter saw, he answered the people."  They were wondering and crowded in there.  And he said then two questions really.  "Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this?"  What's the big deal, in effect.  What are you so astounded about?  Miracles are old stuff to you.  I mean, let's face it, you're the people of God.  All throughout your history.  Miracles have come and gone all along.  God has always been a God of miracles.  You're used to this.  As recently as Jesus Christ Himself, you've seen astounding things.  Some of you may have eaten some of that which He provided in feeding the five thousand plus.  Others of you may have relatives who were healed, etc., etc. by Jesus Himself.  What is all the fuss about a miracle?

What is the particular difficulty that you're having in believing this or buying this or explaining this.  This is just part of your history.  God's always been involved with you.  What are you marveling at?  Then he asked them a second question.  "Why look ye so earnestly on us as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man walk?"  They were evidently also aware that the crowd was staring at them like those two are from Galilee, they're a couple of fishermen.  I mean, I've seen those guys around town a lot.  What are they...how did they do it?  See. 

So there were two problems.  Number one, they shouldn't have really been two concerned about miracles.  They had seen them throughout their history and number two, they should have had the sense to know that Peter and John weren't in the business of doing miracles.  So, you see, what he's doing is pulling their attention and he's about to focus it on Christ because when he did the miracle he said "silver and gold have I none, but such as I have I give thee in the name of," what, "Jesus Christ of Nazareth.  Rise up and walk."  He told them who did it then.

So what he does then is take their wonder and their confusion and focus it on Christ.  He puts a disclaimer on himself and John.  We didn't do it.  And he puts the attention on some other source.  And it must be divine.  What are you marveling at?  God's always been working among you.  This is God's doing in effect.  Which is hard for them to understand since they didn't believe that Jesus was of God.  Yet it was obviously done in Jesus' name wasn't it?  They knew miracles were done by...notice the two words in verse 12, miracles were done by power and holiness.  That had always been their knowledge.  It took a holy power to do miracles.

Nicodemus said "No man can do the things you do except," what, "God be with him."  It took a holy power to do miracles.  They knew that.  Historically they knew that.  So this is the problem they have.  It takes a holy power to do miracles, but Jesus was blasphemer, but he did it in the name of Jesus.  So Peter wants to rivet them on Jesus Christ as the one through whom God is doing this miracle, you see.  He preached them rather courteously to begin with.  Although he really lashes into them in a minute.  He calls them "Ye men of Israel," which is the most courteous address by which you can address the Jewish people, because it ties them most closely into their covenant relationship with Israel, which was you remember God's special name for the special line through which Messiah came and through which the covenant came.  And so he ties them into the covenant.  And in fact, he even tells them in verse 25, you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant.

And the awmillenialists who comes along and says that because the Jews crucified Jesus Christ, they forfeited the covenant doesn't understand the scriptures at all.  He says to them right here, this is obvious.  This is what you have done, but he says in verse 25, "You are still the sons of the covenant."  And he still treats them as the men of Israel, covenant people.  God is not yet through with Israel.  They have not been totally set aside.  Only temporarily blinded as Paul clearly brings in Romans Chapter 9, 10, and 11.

But here he says them "Ye men of Israel, what's the confusion?"  You know the source of these kinds of things.  You know who always does these things and you know we don't do these things.  And then he proceeds to move into his main theme and says in effect this.  God did it through Jesus.  You know Him, Jesus of Nazareth.  And then he indicts them at the same time for their attitude toward Jesus.  Let's look at the main theme, verses 13 to 18.

Now in this the theme is Jesus.  And He's presenting Jesus by six names, six different titles of the 208 that He has.  And at the same time in a majestic explosion of the beauties of Jesus through all these names and we could spend a sermon on each name easily or more than one on each name, but as he presents these six names, at the same time he presents six statements about each name.  So that it's not just a name, but it's a name and a statement.  For example, you see he calls Him servant rather than Son and we'll talk about that in a moment.  Servant, Jesus, Holy One, Just, Prince of Life, and then down in verse 18, Christ.  Those are six names. 

An explosion as I said of the glorious features of all that that name means.  And then a corresponding statement with each and I've given you a little outline there that you can follow with the corresponding statement.  The first statement and the last statement are by God and the middle four are how men treated him.  First the Servant dignified and then lastly Christ declared. God dignified Him and declared Him to be Christ. But in the middle look what men did.  Jesus delivered.  Holy One denied.  Just desired not.  Prince of Life destroyed.

So what he does is interesting.  He takes Jesus and while he presents Jesus through these names as the Messiah clearly, because everyone of those names has a messianic character, while he's presenting Jesus as Messiah, he at the same time is indicting Israel.  He's indicting Israel for being at the opposite end of the world from God and for denying and rejecting their own Messiah.  So it just kind of weaves itself together.  A presentation of Christ and a presentation of their terrible sin of rejection. 

Now, let's look at these names.  First of all, he starts in verse 13 with the term Servant, and says that He is a servant dignified or gloried or exalted by God.  Let's begin in verse 13.  "The God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob, the God of our Fathers," you see.  He's tying it all into Israel.  This is no new thing people.  This is no brand new God that's popped up on the scene.  This is our God.  "Hath glorified His Servant piada, is the Greek word and it is best translated rather than Son.

You see, he is directing his message to Israel.  And so he uses all his real terms.  God is also the God of all men, but God is especially the God of covenant promise with Israel.  And since he's talking about Messiah and since he wants to convince these Jews that Jesus is their Messiah and that they are in rebellion against God and have executed their own Messiah then he chooses messianic terms.  So he begins by identifying God as the God of Israel.  Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and our Fathers.  Oh this is important.  You know this is a tremendous truth that I think we need especially to be mindful of in sharing Christ with Jewish people. 

There is a new rabbi down the street at the temple who when he first arrived last week wanted to come and get acquainted with me.  And so he called and said could he come up for coffee.  And so I don't drink coffee, but he did and we talked.  And I said to him...we talked a little bit about the weather and how you like California and in my heart I was saying boy I'd like to get around to the Lord if it's possible and see what would happen, you know, in love obviously.  Because he was a very dear man and we had a kindred spirit about a lot of things, you know, political and whatever.  And we were talking and agreeing on certain things.

And so finally I said you know, you might be interested in this.  I said, you know that most of the people, well, in fact, all of the people that I love most dearly in the world are Jewish.  And he said, "is that right?"  And I said, "it is, it is."  I said, "you know, the ones that I spend most of my time with, most of my energies on, and who have the deepest place in my heart are Jewish people."  He said, "how is that so?"  And I said, "well, there's Moses, and there's David, and there's Elijah, and Isaiah, and Jeremiah I just love Jeremiah.  He's so dear to me."  And he said, "you know, isn't that something," he said.  And we had a common ground.  And then I said "And above all, there's Jesus."  And that's where we stopped.  But I said, "you know, He was a Jew."  I said, "the dearest people in my world are Jewish people."  They are the most precious people that I know because they are the ones with whom I spend my life.  See.

That was so hard for him to recognize that we had common ground all the way through the entire thing until he got to Jesus.  You see?  And then I said "and of course, I feel that that's not the end.  That's only the beginning."  And then I said, "there's Jesus and Paul and John and they're all Jewish too, you know."  You see, the sad tragedy is Christianity is the fulfillment of all the Judaism ever was.  And this is what it's so hard for them to see.  I hope he'll come back and I hope that we'll be able to talk again, because at least we established a basis of common love for the Old Testament folks.  And we can pray that God will somehow reach him.  You can pray that.  You do pray that, through the truths of Jesus Christ.

But you know, here Peter wants to establish how important it is.  You see, he wants them to know that Peter is in the great continuity with all the Old Testament prophets.  He's declaring the same God they preached.  And I told the Rabbi, I said, "you know, I preach the God you do."  That's right.  He said...he was kind of shocked about that, you know.  I said well, it's the same God.  It's the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and I preach it.  And he said...he begin to say, "well, how do you preach?"  And he asked me and he asked me how long do you preach?  And I said, "oh about an hour."  He went like this.  He said, "an hour.  "Do they stay?"  I said some leave.  He said, "I only preach ten minutes."  "I only preach ten minutes," he said.  That's all.  "I don't know...what would I say for an hour?"  I said, "well, my problem is how do I cut it down to an hour."  But you know we preach the same God.  But the sad thing is he doesn't know the God he declares, because that God is known only in Jesus Christ.

And that's Peter's saying.  People, this is your God that you don't know because it's your God who has glorified His servant, Jesus.  And this is the thing that they needed to know.  The same God that was their God had healed through His Messiah this cripple.  Now look at the term servant for just a moment and see what does it say about Jesus.  The term servant is a fantastic word.  The correct rendering as I said piada would be servant rather than Son and it has reference to an ambassador.  Now you recognize that in a sense Jesus is a servant not like a bond slave.  He doesn't serve God out of bondage.  He serves God as an ambassador and the term piada is used in the Old Testament with reference to an ambassador.  One commissioned from one country sent to another to represent him.  That's exactly what Messiah is.  God's piada, God's ambassador servant who came in service to God.  We would say...we always say that ambassador is in the service of his king or his government or his president and Jesus came as God's ambassador, God's piada, God's servant representing God in the world.

And when He came into the world, He repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly declared that He was indeed a servant of God, did He not?  Now this is not a term foreign to the Jewish mind, because in the Old Testament, Messiah was said to be a servant.  Speaking to Jews and speaking about a servant, a Jew would have immediately thought of the great sweeping passage of scripture from Isaiah 40 clear through Chapter 53 in which Isaiah speaks of the servant.  But let me just pull two passages.  Isaiah 42:1 and listen to this.  Here is a messianic passage and here Messiah's called a servant.  "Behold my servant whom I uphold.  Mine elect in whom I so delighteth.  I have put my spirit him, he shall bring forth justice to the nations."  Here's a prophecy regarding Messiah.  He is called what?  Servant.  Servant.

And you go over to Isaiah Chapter 52 and you run right into the same thing again in that most classic and wonderful passage which we love.  "Behold," verse 13, Isaiah 52, "Behold my servant shall deal prudently."  Then he goes on to talk about his servant.  Then in Chapter 53, he describes the servant doesn't he?  "Despised, rejected of men, the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.  He is born our griefs, carried our sorrows, wounded for our trangressions.  All we like sheep have gone astray."  That great passage on the suffering servant, right?  And then he kind of ends it up by saying "Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great and divide the spoil with the strong, because he hath poured out his soul unto death."  There it says Messiah will be a servant who will die.

You know that even today the Jewish people in reading Isaiah 53 have an extremely difficult time figuring out who that refers to.  Most of them make it refer to the nation.  But it is a reference to Messiah and the Old Testament said Messiah is a servant.  And so here Peter says "the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God of our Fathers has glorified his servant."  You've been looking for his servant.  There he is.

That's the servant right there.  "That one in who's name I healed this man, Jesus Christ of Nazareth."  They didn't believe Jesus was their Messiah, did they?  No, Peter says he indeed He is.  And you know that Jesus claimed to be the servant of Isaiah's prophecy?  Explicitly in Matthew 12 he made the claim.  In Matthew 12, Jesus withdrew from there and the multitudes followed Him and He healed them all and charged them that they should not make Him known that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet.  "Behold my servant whom I have chosen."  You see?  The word of God says Jesus is the fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy. 

He was the suffering servant and when his suffering was over, he was what?  Glorified by God.  And so he says the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the God of our Fathers hath glorified or dignified his servant.  Now when you think about him as a servant, it's such a beautiful thing.  Jesus Himself said this, "The son of Man is come not to be ministered unto," but what, "but to minister."  To serve and to give His life, a ransom for many.  The lowest level of servitude is to die for the one you serve. 

You say well, who was He serving?  Well, first of all, He was serving God.  He came to die because that was God's plan, right?  Listen to what He said.  John 6:38, "For I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me."  That's a servant.  Listen to John 7:16, "Jesus answered them and said, "My doctrine is not mine but His that sent me."  John 8:28, in the middle of the verse, "I do nothing of myself, but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things."

You see, Jesus always claimed to be in service to God.  In service to God, but you know there's a sense also in which He was in service to us.  In John Chapter 13, oh what a beautiful passage. In John 13, it was the time of the Passover before His death and he was in the upper room and the disciples were sitting around haggling over who was going to be greatest in the kingdom, which was a kind of a common little discussion that they were always having.  And you know, they were sitting there saying, well, I'm going to sit at the right hand. Well, I'm sitting at the left hand. Well, we're going to be running this