MAKING PEOPLE WONDER

Acts 3:6-10

Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you.  In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”  Taking him by the right hand he helped him up, and instantly the man’s feet and ankles became strong.  He jumped to his feet and began to walk.  Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.  When all the people saw him walking and praising God, they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

There are just so many amazing things in this passage.  Peter and John were on their way to the temple courts just as they did every day when they encountered this beggar.  The poor man had been crippled since birth.  He had never had anything resembling a normal life and had spent almost every day at the temple gate begging for his living.  When he petitioned Peter and John he had no idea how his life was about to be changed. 

Three or four sermons leap off the page at me.  The man was asking for money from the apostles but neither of them had any money to give him.  Even though they could not meet his request they still gave him what they had.  They gave him Jesus.  But that’s not what caught my attention.

What a miracle God performed through Peter and John!  Here was a man who had never walked.  He didn’t know how to walk!  When he was healed in the name of Jesus, not only could he walk but he jumped to his feet and began jumping around!  When God takes our poor, broken lives into his hands and gives us new life he makes us spiritually whole!  But that’s not what caught my attention either.

The healed beggar followed Peter and John into the temple and made quite a scene with his jumping around and praising God.  I don’t think he was just quietly bowing his head and thanking God under his breath for what God had done for him.  The picture I have is one of boisterous shouting and laughing.  Probably many people thought it was rather inappropriate.  But when a person has been healed from a life of suffering it is most appropriate for him to loudly praise God and make a scene!  But that’s not what caught my attention either.

Here’s what really stopped me in my tracks as I was reading.  The people recognized him as the same man who sat begging every day at the gate of the temple.  They saw how dramatically his life was changed.  They were able to observe what God had done in his life because the change was obvious.  And as a result they were filled with wonder and amazement! 

I want to live my life in front of my neighbors and my community in such a way that they will be filled with wonder and amazement at what God has done for me!  I don’t want to live my life in privacy.  I want to live publicly.  I want people to see what happens when God takes a man and changes him.  I want them to be astonished and I want them to wonder what makes me the way I am.  I want to draw attention to God and his power and his miracles.  None of this would have happened if the beggar had just gone home to show his friends and family he had been healed.  People won’t wonder at my life if the only people who ever get to know me are my family and my church!