Today’s sermon at Garden Sanctuary will cover the reading for today. Reading is below.
Acts 3–4 (MEV)
1 Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer.
2 A man lame from birth was being carried, whom people placed daily at the gate of the temple called Beautiful to ask alms from those who entered the temple.
3 Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked for alms.
4 Peter, gazing at him with John, said, “Look at us.”
5 So he paid attention to them, expecting to receive something from them.
6 Then Peter said, “I have no silver and gold, but I give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”
7 He took him by the right hand and raised him up. Immediately his feet and ankles were strengthened.
8 Jumping up, he stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and jumping and praising God.
9 All the people saw him walking and praising God.
10 They knew that it was he who sat for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what happened to him.
11 As the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the entrance that is called Solomon’s Porch, greatly amazed.
12 When Peter saw it, he answered the people: “Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? Or why do you stare at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk?
13 The God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His Son Jesus, whom you handed over and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him.
14 You denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,
15 and you killed the Creator of Life, whom God has raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses.
16 And His name, by faith in His name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. And faith which comes through Him has given him perfect health in your presence.
17 “Now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers.
18 But what God foretold through all the prophets, that His Christ should suffer, He thus fulfilled.
19 Therefore repent and be converted, that your sins may be wiped away, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,
20 and that He may send the One who previously was preached to you, Jesus Christ,
21 whom the heavens must receive until the time of restoring what God spoke through all His holy prophets since the world began.
22 For Moses indeed said to the fathers, ‘The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brothers. You shall hear whatever He may say to you.
23 And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly eliminated from the people.’
24 “Indeed, all the prophets since Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold these days.
25 You are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.’
26 God, having raised up His Son Jesus, sent Him to you first, to bless you in turning every one of you from your iniquities.”
1 As they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them,
2 being greatly troubled because they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead.
3 And they seized them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.
4 But many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men grew to about five thousand.
5 On the next day their rulers and elders and scribes
6 were assembled at Jerusalem with Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John and Alexander, and all who were of the family of the high priest.
7 When they had stood them in the midst, they asked, “By what power or by what name have you done this?”
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders of Israel:
9 If we today are being examined concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, how this man has been healed,
10 be it known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands before you whole.
11 He is ‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.’
12 There is no salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
13 When they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were illiterate and uneducated men, they marveled. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.
14 But seeing the man who was healed standing with them, they had nothing to say against it.
15 So when they had commanded them to go outside of the Sanhedrin, they conferred among themselves,
16 saying, “What shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that an acknowledged miracle has been done through them is revealed to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.
17 But lest it spread further among the people, let us threaten them that they no longer speak to anyone in this name.”
18 Then they called them and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus.
19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge.
20 For we cannot help but declare what we have seen and heard.”
21 When they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people. For all glorified God for what was done,
22 for the man on whom this miracle of healing was performed was over forty years old.
23 On being released, they went to their own people and reported what the chief priests and elders had said to them.
24 When they heard this, they lifted their voices in unity to God and prayed, “Lord, You are God, who has made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them,
25 and who by the mouth of Your servant David said: ‘Why did the nations rage, and the people devise vain things?
26 The kings of the earth came, and the rulers were assembled together against the Lord and against His Christ.’
27 Indeed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were assembled together against Your holy Son Jesus whom You have anointed,
28 to do what Your hand and Your counsel had foreordained to be done.
29 Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant that Your servants may speak Your word with great boldness,
30 by stretching out Your hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be performed in the name of Your holy Son Jesus.”
31 When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God with boldness.
32 All the believers were of one heart and one soul, and no one said that what he possessed was his own. But to them all things were in common.
33 With great power the apostles testified to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was on them all.
34 There was no one among them who lacked, for all those who were owners of land or houses sold them, and brought the income from what was sold,
35 and placed it at the apostles’ feet. And it was distributed to each according to his need.
36 Joseph, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means, Son of Encouragement), a Levite from the land of Cyprus,
37 sold a field he owned, and brought the money and placed it at the apostles’ feet.