“Faith Alone”
[Acts 3:11-26]
July 19, 2009 Second Reformed Church
Peter and John had gone to the temple to pray. On their way into the temple, they passed a beggar whom everyone knew – he was lame in his feet and ankles and had begged at that spot every day for forty years.
The lame man looked up at Peter and John and asked them for some change to get him through the day, and Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk! ” (Acts 3:6, ESV).
They took the lame man by the hands and stood him up – the lame man believed in Jesus savingly – and the lame man was healed. He began walking and leaping, praising God, and all of the people were amazed at what had happened to the man.
We saw last week that every Christian has the call on them to give the Gospel away – to let others know – through a variety of means – that Jesus is the Only Savior – that there is Only One Saving Gospel. This morning, we begin to look at the response to this healing – we heard what they people in the temple did in response – they wondered and stared at Peter and John, believing that they healed the man by some power that they had, even though they denied that from the beginning.
Peter began to preach to them, and he told them that he did not heal the lame man based on his own power or by any piety or holiness or good works within himself. Peter was the conduit through which Jesus Christ of Nazareth healed the man. Peter took the focus off of himself and put it where it belonged – on Jesus. As John the Baptist said, “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30, ESV).
We as the Church are not to put pastors on pedestals or to make cults of celebrity around one speaker or another. We are not to put our church or our denomination in some spotlight as though no one else understands the Gospel. We are – as individuals and the Church – to always and in all things direct people to Jesus and His Salvation. We ought not want people to come to this church because we have a beautiful sanctuary or a good coffee hour – we ought to want people to come and we ought to come to hear about Jesus and His Salvation. So Peter told the crowd that the healing was not about them, but about Jesus.
“This Jesus,” Peter told them, “is the Jesus that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob – the God of our fathers – glorified. This is the One that God made much of – that God directs all humanity to for salvation. This is He Whom you delivered over to the Romans to be killed. This is He Whom you denied before Pilate when he proclaimed Him innocent and tried to release Him. This is the Holy and Anointed One that you gave over in exchange for a murderer. This is He – the Author of Life Himself – Whom you murdered. But God raised Him from the dead – and we are witnesses to His Resurrection. It is by His Name – it is by His Power – it is by faith in Him – that this man has been has been restored to perfect health through Jesus in the presence of all of you.”
Peter was preparing them to hear – and for some – to receive – the Gospel. If there is no bad news, few if any will care to hear and receive the Good News. We must understand that we are sinners, born dead in our sins, in need of a Savior, or we won’t come to belief in Him. So Peter told them – Jesus is the Savior that the patriarchs and the prophets wrote about, and the people delivered Him over to the Romans, denied Him, and murdered Him. Bad news upon bad news! But God raised Him from the dead, and as they saw in the healing of the lame man, if they had faith in Jesus, they will receive His Salvation, and, if the Lord is willing, they will even receive healing.
“Now,” Peter told them, “I know you acted in ignorance” – they handed Jesus over and denied Him and murdered Him in their ignorance. That is more bad news – if we break the speed limit and we are pulled over and we tell the officer that we didn’t know that the speed was such and such, what will he say? Ignorance is no defense. Whether we know the law or not, if we break the law, we are guilty of breaking the law. And in this case – they had the Law – they had God’s Law – the prophecies that told Who Jesus is and how He would suffer and all the prophecies He would fulfill – but they did not know the Law – they were ignorant of the Law. So they put to death God’s Savior, Who they should have recognized.
It is ironic in this “age of information” that we are so ignorant of our Bibles. How can we say we believe the Bible – that we believe it is God’s Word – but we don’t know what it says? Would we sign a contract without reading it? Would we join an organization without knowing what it stood for? Would you say you loved your wife or husband if you never talked with your spouse – if you knew nothing about him or her and didn’t care to know? The crowd should have known Jesus from the Scripture, but they killed Him – and we are no less sinners than they.
There is Good News – through faith we may receive salvation through Jesus. And the question we need to ask is what do we need to do to receive salvation through Jesus by faith? What did the lame man do to receive salvation and healing through Jesus by faith? The answer is – and must be – nothing. We do nothing. We contribute nothing.
Paul explains, “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked” (Ephesians 2:1a, ESV). What can a dead man do? Nothing. What can a spiritually dead person do to come to spiritual life? Nothing.
“But we exercise our faith,” one says, “That is how were are saved. Through faith. Through the good work of faith.” Do you see the problem? If we are saved through faith and faith is a work that we do, then we save ourselves. If we do anything – if we take any part in our salvation – then we save ourselves – but the Scripture tells us that we are dead – our faith is dead, impotent, non-working – so we can contribute nothing to our salvation.
Paul continues, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9, ESV). What is the “this”? What is the “it”? Don’t get excited, this is basic English: “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” What is the noun that immediately precedes the pronouns? Faith. So Paul is saying, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And faith is not your own doing; faith is the gift of God, not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”
The Reformers noted that we are saved by faith alone. And the faith that we are saved by is the conduit through which we receive salvation, and it is a gift of God. We receive living faith – faith that works – from God as a gift – as God is pleased to give it to us. We do nothing until God saves us. God chooses us to be His people for His reasons, not based on anything we have done or would do, God changes our heart and gives us the faith to receive salvation.
The lame man did nothing to receive salvation and be healed. God chose to save and heal him. God changed his heart so he would believe. God gave him the faith to receive salvation. God healed him of his lameness. Then, the man responded by walking and leaping and praising God.
We don’t like to hear that salvation is all of God – that even our faith is a gift of God. I had a friend in college that became a Christian and one day when we were talking about how he came to belief, I showed him that the Scripture says that God saves us completely apart from anything we do, and he said that if he played no part in his salvation – if nothing he did counted towards his salvation – then he didn’t want to be saved.
Peter told the crowd that they had the Scripture, but they were ignorant of what it said – they were guilty of being ignorant – they should have known the Scripture, but they didn’t, and they delivered Jesus over to the Romans and denied Him and murdered Him. And Paul explains that we are born dead – spiritually dead, incapable of doing any spiritual good. We can do nothing to change our condition, because we are dead. Unless God chooses to change us and give us the faith alone through which we will believe and receive salvation, we will continue on our merry way into everlasting torment.
If we understand that, our response is not to be angry with God for saving us, but, like the lame man, it is to walk and leap and praise God! If we understand that we could not do anything to help ourselves from our terrible condition – just like the lame man – but God chose to change us – how can we not but walk and leap and praise God?
“Therefore,” Peter told the crowd, “repent of your sins that they may be blotted out” – and that doesn’t just mean to confess them and be forgiven – it means to confess them and purpose not to do them again. It is a turning around of oneself. It is acting in the complete opposite way than that which we used to do.
And Peter uses the image of blotting out sins: in those days, people would write on wax tablets, and when they wanted to use the tablet again, they would turn to the blunt side of the pen and blot out the writing in the wax, until it was smooth again and nothing of the former writing could be seen – that is what God promises to do with our sins – through Jesus’ Work – they can be blotted out – there is no longer a record of our sins. They have been paid for and blotted out off of the tablet through Jesus.
For all those who receive Jesus and His Salvation through that faith alone that God gives to whomever He will, Peter said, “that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3:20-21, ESV). What does this mean?
First, it means that when we receive salvation by faith alone, we are refreshed – we are recreated – we are restored – we are made new creatures (II Corinthians 5:17). Think of the “refresh” button on your computer – if you get a screen that does not load correctly – that is marred by sin – you push the refresh button, and it reloads correctly. Or, think of doing the laundry. When we do the laundry, we are “refreshing” the clothes that have become stained by dirt – “sin.”
Second, it means that when we receive salvation by faith alone, we receive Jesus, both as our Savior, and God indwells us in the Person of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells within you and will be in you” (John 14:15-17, ESV).
There is much to mine in these verses, but let us understand this: our salvation is in, by, and through Jesus Alone. Jesus is now at the Right Hand of the Father in Heaven. Jesus, our Helper, has now, with the Father, sent another Helper, in the Person of God the Holy Spirit to indwell us forever. All Christians are indwelt by God the Holy Spirit.
And third, it means that Jesus is victorious over Satan and death and hell, and when He returns, He will restore all things to their pre-Fall state. When Jesus returns, He will come to judge, but He will also come to restore the creation and all those who believe to the state Adam and Eve were in before the Fall – and even better than they were – because we will be unable to ever sin again – all suffering and sin and evil will be removed from us, and we will live to the praise and glory of the Triune God.
This is what was spoken by the prophets – we have it in our Bibles – if we would only read it Jesus fulfills the prophecy given to Moses that God would raise up a Man like Moses – and this Man will separate humanity – those who receive His Salvation by faith alone will be received into Paradise, but those who do not listen to Him – those who do not receive Him – will continue until they receive the wages of sin in eternal death and torment.
In Jesus, there is relief and salvation in this life and restoration in the life to come.
So, Peter calls on the crowd, as the descendants of Abraham – that is, all those who believe the Gospel of Jesus Christ are the spiritual descendants of Abraham, and they will respond to the call to believe. And they will respond by turning from their wickedness. Have you?
The bad news is that they and we are guilty of putting God’s Savior to death. The Good News is that we can do nothing about it, because we are dead – we don’t have to earn enough or do enough to be right with God. No, it is God Who chooses and changes and gifts us with Salvation through the faith alone that He gives to whomever He wills. And if God has saved us, we are saved indeed – just as we cannot save ourselves any more than the lame man could will himself not to be lame – we cannot wrench ourselves from the Hand of God. We are His forever and always, through His Son, Jesus.
Is that not reason to walk and leap and praise God?
Let us pray:
Almighty God and Savior, we thank You for saving us when we were incapable of doing anything. We thank You for the gift of faith, through which we receive Jesus. We ask that You would help us to continue to understand how great our salvation is by understanding how great our sin is, how unable we are to do anything about it, and how wondrous Your Love is for us through Your Son that You would save us. For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.
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