We'll dismiss our kids to children's ministry, and if you'll open your Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 3. We have two more weeks, this week and next, in our miniseries on corporate prayer. Next week we'll spend an extended bit of time in corporate prayer together, so be prepared for that. Next week we're going to have quite a bit of time where we'll be praying on Sunday morning together.
I wonder if you know much about the old I guess I'll call it pseudoscience of alchemy. Have you ever read about alchemy? I mean, you've probably heard the term. We use the term now when we want to make something sound medieval, I think. So like if you open a candle shop or something, maybe you call it the alchemy candle shop. But there was this moment in history when alchemy was all the rage, and it really was this sort of pseudoscience. Alchemy gave way to what we know now as modern chemistry. And it was really concerned above all else with what they referred to as the transmutation of some common element like lead into gold. And this was all the rage. Real brains like Isaac Newton were interested in the alchemist challenge of transmuting, of creating something beautiful out of something that was common.
And you look throughout the, the history of this particular issue, and it's fascinating to see how many smart people really thought there might be a way where they could change basic materials into gold. I think one of the reasons why this idea caught on for so long and had such an influential role in the development of science in general is that human beings, like, really do like to see beautiful things created, right? Like, we really like to see beauty. I was thinking this week about why we are so fascinated with gold and why there's always been this common value for, for gold. And I was thinking about it, you'll see why in a moment in our text. But, you know, it's an interesting question because it's like, well, why did we decide that this thing was going to be important to us? And I don't have an answer for that. I I do think it's interesting that we have this sort of built-in, baked-in cultural appreciation for things that look somewhat like what we were told the glory of God looks like. You know, this shiny, bright kind of thing. There's some kind of a value there.
But the other reason why I think alchemy is such an interesting, was such an interesting pursuit for people at a certain moment in time, was not only do they like to see beautiful things, but they like to see broken things or common things turned into beautiful things. And you're going to see why this question of this, this idea of alchemy worked into my head as I was reading the text.
So let's go ahead and do that. Let's look at Acts chapter 3, verse 1. Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour, and a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate. To ask alms of those entering the temple. Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, 'Look at us.' And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them.
So in this passage, it's all taking place at something called the Beautiful Gate. And if we're— if we're— if history is correct about this, the Beautiful Gate was an eastward-facing gate, and it was made of something called Corinthian bronze. Do you remember the old car commercials with Corinthian leather? Right, this is Corinthian bronze. I think they made up Corinthian leather. I don't think that was the thing. I think they just used some words that sounded impressive. But Corinthian bronze was this, was this substance that was even more valuable than gold. And we don't actually know exactly what Corinthian bronze was made of. You could imagine that if there's a substance more valuable than gold and it's something that's man-made— it was a bronze, it was an alloy, it was something they had to produce— you can imagine that in all the times of tumult in between empires, the first thing you go and grab off the statue is that chunk of Corinthian bronze that's sitting there. So, so the east-facing gate, called the Beautiful Gate, you can picture it as being this bronzed gold color and you've got the sun coming up in the east and it's just popping off of those golden gates.
6 · Names the passage's central tension: a broken man creates aesthetic and emotional discordance in a space designed for beauty
Okay, so this is beautiful, valuable thing, and, and, um, in the moment, in the middle of that beautiful scene is a broken man, right? So you've got this discordance. One of these things is not like the other. It's, it's sort of like When you're, uh, you're at a concert and someone plays a wrong note and it really stands out because it doesn't fit with everything else that's being attempted in that particular moment. This broken man at a beautiful gate stuck out like a sore thumb. He really did disrupt the aesthetic intentions of the people who designed the temple. I mean, think about it, like, these craftsmen worked really hard. They They did this process to create this alloy that we don't actually entirely understand how they did what they did. And there's this broken man who can't walk and who couldn't walk ever, lame since birth, the text says. And he's sitting in this discordant way, disrupting this beautiful scene.
7 · Extends the observation into a universal principle: God consistently places broken people in beautiful spaces
And the thing, if you think about it, is, is that God does that all the time. God's writing the story of, of the world. He does this sort of thing all the time. It's, it's so common to walk your way through a downtown in a larger city and step into a courtyard or a park that has been expertly crafted. Everything has been considered. There are fountains, there are sculptures, sculptures. The landscaping is done well. And who's sitting right in the middle of that beautiful place? 9 times out of 10, a broken man, right? Often a broken man whose life has been, you know, just ravaged through addiction or mental illness. So that there's this discordant experience in our world where no matter how much we try to beautify a thing, there's always some brokenness that's present in that scenery that we're trying to set. And that's just the way life works. Wherever you find beauty, you will find brokenness. Our best-laid plans to create uninterrupted aesthetic perfection are ruined by the realities of this world cursed by sin as it is.
8 · Contemporary urban illustration of the Beautiful Gate pattern
It's, it's so common to walk your way through a downtown in a larger city and step into a courtyard or a park that has been expertly crafted. Everything has been considered. There are fountains, there are sculptures, sculptures. The landscaping is done well. And who's sitting right in the middle of that beautiful place? 9 times out of 10, a broken man, right? Often a broken man whose life has been, you know, just ravaged through addiction or mental illness.
9 · Shifts perspective to the interior experience of the broken person
And so you've got this weird discordance here. Now, the thing to remember— and we're going to talk about this in a moment— but the thing to remember is, is that when broken people are in beautiful places, no one is more aware of the discordance than the broken person. This man was sitting in a place designed to inspire awe of the beauty, and he is not beautiful. He's not expertly crafted, doesn't appear to be. He's, he's not functional. It is not glorious in any regard that most people would think of as glorious.
10 · Pivots from observation to application
Now, what do we do about that disparity that happens in life? It'll happen to your life this week. You will have moments, either intentionally or unintentionally, that are beautiful, and there will be some brokenness. If you are paying attention, there will be some brokenness, that steps into those moments of beauty, how do you respond?
11 · Returns to the text to establish Peter and John's counter-cultural response
Well, look at verse 4. The basic thing we want to say about this is when we see brokenness set next to beauty, we don't have to look away. We shouldn't look away. Verse 4: And Peter directed his gaze at him as did John, and said, 'Look at us.'
12 · Unpacks the psychological complexity of being a beggar — the competing desires of need and shame, visibility and invisibility
Now when you're a broken man begging at a beautiful gate, there's sort of a competing set of desires you're working through. On the one hand, you've got shame. You don't really want to be there. You're certainly cognizant of the fact that these people are off to have a beautiful Sunday, as it were, a beautiful worship experience in a beautiful temple, that all of this had been carefully crafted over centuries. At great expense and skill, and here you are. You kind of want to be invisible. If you've ever had the experience of walking into one of those parks, into a beautiful place with a broken person, the response seems to be one or the other. There either seems to be zero eye contact, they look away, they don't want to be seen. They're ashamed of the discordance that their presence is creating. Or there's sort of this panicked, deep, arresting attention, like, look at me, help me, care for me. And this broken man is sorting through all the competing desires that comes with being a beggar, with being a broken man in a beautiful place. It's like, at the one hand, you got to be there. This is where he's going to be able to receive the money he needs to take care of his needs for the day. He has no other options. But on the other hand, there's something about the shame makes you not want to look up, not want to draw attention to yourself.
13 · Argues that Christians are uniquely free to engage brokenness because we are not invested in creating or maintaining an illusion of earthly paradise
The thing is, is that when we encounter brokenness in a beautiful place, we don't need to avert our eyes because as followers of Jesus, we are not trying to create a false reality like the Caribbean resorts create when they carve out this piece of uninterrupted paradise with the squalor kind of quarantined away from the effect they're trying to produce. You ever been to a place like that? I mean, it's a resort, or shoot, you know, half of Florida. You know, so much attention and effort has gone into creating the illusion that life is better than it really is, that brokenness doesn't really exist, that needy people aren't actually meant to be a part of your life. So we don't have to do that. We don't have to avert our eyes when we encounter brokenness in a beautiful place because we are under no illusions that this world is going to provide ultimate beauty and joy to us. Like, we don't have to pretend that this is our paradise. We can enjoy beauty. We should enjoy beauty. Of all people, Christians should be the most aesthetically interested, artistically interested. We should love beauty, but we don't have to pretend that this world doesn't have pain. That this world doesn't have brokenness. We don't have to pretend that people who are broken don't belong in our beautiful world.
14 · Embeds a brief cultural reference (Caribbean resorts, Florida) to illustrate the human tendency to create artificial paradises by quarantining brokenness
You ever been to a place like that? I mean, it's a resort, or shoot, you know, half of Florida. You know, so much attention and effort has gone into creating the illusion that life is better than it really is, that brokenness doesn't really exist, that needy people aren't actually meant to be a part of your life.
15 · Develops the theological significance of engaging brokenness
We can look it head-on and we can do what we can. Loving people, here's the thing that Christians realize, I hope, is that that moment of artificial beauty, artificial's probably not the right word, that moment of man-created beauty, it's great and everything, But when God puts a broken person in the middle of that beauty, he's giving you the opportunity to love. And there's way more beauty in love than there is in a perfectly manicured estate. There's way more beauty in making direct eye contact with a broken person, in getting up in there, in attempting to make the broken person realize they are not indeed discordant. Because what God is doing in this world is bigger than simply making an altruistic ideal environment. The second we choose to look at someone head-on who's broken in a beautiful place, we just infinitely expand the beauty of the moment. Yeah, it's inconvenient, it's scary, it's uncertain, What we're really doing when we look at the broken person in the beautiful place head-on and we don't avert our eyes, what we're really doing is we're pressing the kingdom of God into this world. We're pressing the eternal glory of Jesus into that moment. We're bringing the whole glory of what we're waiting for as we sing 'It Won't Be Long' is that God's gonna make a world in which the heavens and the earth are one. There's this continuation, this seamlessness, this perfect integration of earthly and eternal and of physical and spiritual. That's what we're all looking forward to. We're looking forward to a future where we have new bodies and those bodies are perfect in both physical and spiritual realities. And what we're doing when we take a moment to engage a broken person in a beautiful place is we're making our bodies on earth what is true in heaven. We're bringing the spiritual Christ's love into a moment that others would say couldn't be better unless we maybe got rid of all the broken people.
16 · Returns to the text for the healing moment
What Peter does in this instance is he tells this man, please look at me. The man is thinking, well, I'm about to receive some money. And look at verse 5. The man then affixed his attention on them, Peter and John, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong.
17 · Proposes that Peter's words to the lame man function as a form of prayer even though they are not explicitly labeled as such
Now, most of the time in the book of Acts— we're in this series on prayer— most of the time in the book of Acts, healing is accompanied with prayer. And it kind of sort of is here, right? They were headed off to pray. We don't see Peter and John praying for this man's healing exactly, but I want to make the case that the words that Peter uses, he's following the basic recipe of prayer. I want to make the case that what he's doing here is essentially praying. It's just not called prayer. You know, the interesting thing about people who spend a lot of time with the Lord, spend a lot of time in prayer, is that their outward speech, their public speech, starts to take the form of their private speech before God. So here's a man of prayer, Peter, and I think it's just a natural overflow of his own time in prayer with the Lord that he begins to speak in a way that is exceedingly similar to what prayer is.
18 · Proposes a three-part definition of prayer drawn from Peter's action: (1) concern for a broken thing, (2) acknowledgment of personal inability to fix it, (3) calling on Jesus to do what only He can do
Let me show you what I'm seeing. So there are 3 ingredients essentially to what I'm seeing here. The first is a concern for a broken thing, right? He sees a man who's broken. The second is there's an acknowledgement of his own limitations. So he says, here's a situation that isn't right. I can't make it right. Peter says, 'Silver and gold have I none.' I don't have the thing that the situation appears to call for. I don't have that thing. What do I have? I have the promises of Jesus. So essentially what prayer is, is this identification of this isn't what it ought to be, whether you're examining your own heart, your family, the world. It's this realization that this isn't what it should be, one, I don't have what it takes to fix it, two, I'm gonna call upon Jesus to do what only he can do.
19 · Applies the three-part prayer structure to the congregation's engagement with broken people
That's the biggest difference maker, the biggest motivator for stepping into the lives of broken people even when they're invading our beautiful places is that it's not about what you have or have to offer. It really isn't. It isn't about what you can do. It's really about bringing that person into the orbit of your prayers. It's really about bringing that person into the orbit of your relationship with Jesus and identifying— yeah, I mean, there's lots of stuff going on here that I I honestly have no idea how to help. There are many things— one of the things the Lord's doing when he puts a broken person in a beautiful place is he's showing us our limitations. He's saying, yeah, like, you figured out how to make this Corinthian bronze, and that's really cool. And by the way, I was in all of that. I helped you. I gave you the wisdom necessary. You could do that. But here's what you couldn't do. You couldn't fix this guy's legs.
20 · Contemporary illustration of human limitations in the face of mental illness
If you've ever been involved or related to or or friends with someone with serious mental illness, you see the real functional limitations, even as advanced as we are technologically, scientifically, pharmacologically, even as advanced as we are, we can throw up all sorts of beautiful gates, right? But there's always someone in our life who can't be helped by sheer ingenuity or resources. Shoot, that's us, right? We've got stuff in us that we know can't be fixed unless the Lord himself fixes it.
21 · Diagnoses the core issue preventing engagement with broken people: unbelief
And so the whole secret to being able not to avert your eyes when you see the broken person in a beautiful place is to be able to say, this doesn't depend on what I have to offer. This depends on who Jesus is. That's what he says. I have no silver or gold, but what I do have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rise up and walk. He says later in the text, this wasn't me who healed this man. It was, it was the power of Jesus Christ who healed this man. And here's the, the real sticker, the real reason why we don't look at the person who's broken in the beautiful place. It's like, do we really believe Jesus could make them well.
22 · Hypothetical scenario illustrating that we would eagerly engage broken people if healing were immediate, certain, and effortless
I think if we had like a paintball gun, let's say, and we could shoot a paintball at someone who's broken and we know that as soon as it hits it, it's got magic Jesus stuff inside of the paint, and as soon as it hits it, they get better, like we would be shooting people everywhere, right? That would be easy. We would be looking for the broken people. We would have this gone and so on and so forth.
23 · Qualifies the healing promise
And the truth is that this healing, which I think is a promise of God, that God will use His church to bring physical healing, emotional healing to broken people. I don't want to shy away from that at all. But I also just want to remind you that sometimes what it looks like to love a broken person in a beautiful place is It's not about a quick fix. Because the thing maybe that Jesus has for them is steadfast love and endurance and long-suffering and patience. Like sometimes, I mean, Jesus has all those things for everybody, of course, but sometimes what Jesus wants to give through us to the broken person is just like 10 years of friendship. Is a ready person on the phone to talk in a moment of crisis. Sometimes that's what Jesus wants to give. And again, that's not you, that's Jesus working through you.
24 · Narrative illustration from Peter's water-walking episode
So Peter is essentially working through what I think is essentially the formula of prayer: broken thing, I don't have what it takes, call on Jesus. You know, I was thinking two weeks ago about this moment when Peter chooses to walk on water. Jesus is walking on the water, Peter says, 'If it's really you, call me to yourself and let me walk on water with you.' Peter gets a few steps into the process, sees the waves, is afraid, and falls into the water. Jesus grabs him, cares for him, and so on and so forth. Here's, here's the great thing about what I see in Jesus's personality in that moment. Jesus wanted Peter to walk further on the water. He, he, he wanted Peter to do that so that Peter could experience his power. Like, Jesus is about you experiencing his miracle-working power in your life. Jesus is about you experiencing his love loving, sustaining, steadfast, hesed power in your life. Like, Jesus wants you to take another step in his power and another step in his power and another step in his power. He's not stingy with his miracles. He's not stingy with his power. He's not stingy with his goodness. He wants all of us to be participants in the divine nature. He wants us all to be participants in what he's doing in the world.
25 · Connects Peter's past experience of stepping out of the boat to his present boldness at the Beautiful Gate
And so Peter had to make this, this calculation— I don't even think it was that— or he just knew the Jesus I serve is generous. I can engage this broken person in the beautiful place because the Jesus that I serve is generous. He's going to care for me as I seek to care for this guy. Whatever that moment was, whatever exactly was going on when Peter stepped out of the boat, I think it set a template for him. Think about how bold this is. Think about what's going on here, right? What's going on here is— can you imagine if it hadn't worked? This early on in the life of the church, Peter being a presumed leader of the church, can you imagine if he had said, 'In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk,' and then nothing? Well, I don't really know why Peter was certain. I think he probably was certain in the way that he says it, but I do know that Through his personal relationship with Jesus, he had been trained to take a step out of the boat into uncertainty and trust that Jesus was gonna be there for him one way or the other. And friends, this is a big part of why we struggle to love broken people. It's like our lives need to be consistent. They will be consistent. And if we're not like actively following Jesus out of the boat and onto the water, then the moments where these sorts of things have to be done, the moments where radical love has to be extended, the moments where great risk has to be undertaken, do we have a relationship with Jesus that has already rehearsed those steps in our own life?
26 · Signals a major shift in the sermon's focus from those engaging brokenness to those experiencing brokenness
So Peter's essentially speaking a prayer, as it were, And we'll talk next week more about this sense of praying for broken people and how God uses that through the life of the church. But I just want to speak for a moment more. The question that first captivated me as I looked at this text is, what does it feel like to be a broken man at a beautiful gate? What does it feel like to be that man?
27 · Direct pastoral address to those who feel like the broken person at the Beautiful Gate
So my feeling is, is that Some of you know what it feels like. Some of you know about feelings of inferiority that come from being what you feel like is a broken person in a beautiful place. You feel like a hedonist when everybody else around you looks like they're pious. You feel like you're anxious when everyone else looks brave. You feel like you're poor when everyone else looks wealthy. You feel like you're slow when everyone else looks smart. You feel like you might be lost when everybody else is saved. You feel lonely in the middle of a bunch of other people who seem to feel love. You feel faithless amongst a group of people who seem to have more faith. I think some of you might know inwardly, at least. Your brokenness might not show, or you might be doing really hard work to keep it from showing because this discordance you feel. And such a shame to feel that amongst God's people. It's such a shame, and we've all felt it. To feel like you want to hide your brokenness because everything else seems to be beautiful. You don't want to be the discordant moment breaker, the wrong note in what appears like everything else is just humming along great.
28 · Returns to the text to unpack the beggar's interior experience of uncertainty — not knowing how people will respond
What does it feel like to be a broken person at a beautiful gate? Well, I mean, One of the things it feels like is a life of uncertainty. I want you to really try to empathize with this man. Empathize with being a beggar for a minute. It's that whole shame factor combined with the need for a certain level of assertiveness. But also there's this ongoing uncertainty because maybe he'll give, maybe he won't. Maybe he'll give, maybe he won't. It's this sense of misdirection, it's this sense of, I don't know. It's this sense of, I don't know, I don't know how people are gonna respond to me. You know, in my pastoral counseling work, it's amazing to me how many people are walking in secret shame because they have so much uncertainty about how they'll be received if they were to manifest, suddenly appear as they are, to be the broken person that they feel like they are inside. They just can't find the certainty to know that if they stepped out from behind the mask and stepped out from behind the illusion, that they would be cared for and helped.
29 · Direct challenge to those hiding their brokenness
Friends, like, let me tell you something. You don't have to trust us, you have to trust Jesus. That Jesus is for you. That people will fail you, that we will fail you, even unintentionally, often unintentionally. I'm not going to give you some pep talk to tell you that it's okay to be broken because we're going to respond perfectly to your brokenness. What I am going to do is tell you that God designed a system for you to receive the maximum amount of care and encouragement and and that system works through His body, the church. Your results will vary, and I'm not gonna lie about that, but I am asking you, would you step out of the boat and be as evidently broken on the outside as you feel on the inside and trust that Jesus will be there for you, that He will be there for you through the saints?
30 · Describes the experience of brokenness as forced enrollment in the school of humility — something unchosen, unwelcome, and unending
This sense of being the broken person, you know, it's this life of unwelcome humility. Wouldn't it be nice if we just got to take humility like an elective in college? And it's like, you know, I think I could use a little more humility. I'll enroll in a limited-term class. Maybe I'll audit it. You know, I don't want to pay for it, but I'll take this class on humility and then that'll get me through for, you know, maybe a couple years. And then another time I'll take another class. God doesn't do that. It's forced enrollment. You wake up one morning and you realize you've been enrolled in the school of humility. And you ask the Lord, 'Well, how long does this semester last?' And He's like, 'Oh, I'm not telling you that.' You know, it's like, 'Well, how much does this cost?' 'Oh, way more than you want to pay. Trust me, way more than you want to pay.' And no one who is being humbled by the Lord is happy about it. Being the broken person, the evidently broken person in an evidently beautiful place It's all an illusion at some level, right? You feel like you are known in one way, by your needs. That's it. Like everybody else is known by their strengths, you're known by your weaknesses. Everybody else is sort of able to follow along the regular program, whatever the regular program in this text is, a bunch of dudes walking in to pray together into the temple. Everybody else is not only able to follow along with the program, but they're kind of actively engaging in that and so on and so forth. And here you are, the one who isn't able to follow along with the regular program.
31 · Reframes unwelcome humility as something intrinsic to the path of following Jesus
And there's this sense of, you know, God, I don't remember asking to be humbled in this way. God says, yeah, you know, you You did. When you chose to follow Jesus, you chose to take up the reproach of Jesus. You chose to follow along the course of Jesus in which he went outside the gate. You chose to be a man with no reputation or a woman of no reputation. You chose, honestly, when you chose to follow Jesus, you chose to be naked to your critics. You chose to be uncovered. When you chose to follow Jesus, you chose the path of Jesus, and the path of Jesus involves humility. But, but that humility is all leading toward glory.
32 · Acknowledges all the difficulties and uncertainties of being the broken person — but insists on one certain promise: Jesus actively seeks broken people in beautiful places
I'm going to get to that in a moment, but you need to understand that yes, yes, being a broken person at a beautiful gate does make it feel like you're the one who's known by your needs and Yes, it does feel deeply uncertain and I can't promise you that everybody's gonna treat you amazingly well. And I can't promise you that you'll have a good enough attitude or enough gratitude to recognize it when people are loving you. I can't promise any of that. I can promise that Jesus is literally going to the beautiful places to find the broken people. It's not simply that he's, oh, I'm walking through a beautiful place and I happen to see a broken person. No, we go to beautiful places for their beauty. Jesus goes there to find the broken.
33 · Direct address to the broken person: your brokenness is not an inconvenience but a gift to the church
So yeah, it's hard to be a broken person at a beautiful place, but I just want to tell you this: if you are broken, your brokenness is not an inconvenience to us. You are not screwing up our pursuit of an ideal life. You're saving us from hedonistic excess from pride, from foolishness, from banality. Your brokenness isn't a problem for us, it's a solution for our problems. Caring for you, loving for you, seeking your restoration makes our life more eternally meaningful and beautiful. So You need to know that you're not actually an inconvenience because God put you in that place. And that God put you in that place so that you would bring glory to him.
34 · Identifies the fundamental issue for both the broken and the helpers: are we willing to be bit parts in a story where Jesus is the star? This question applies equally to the one who is broken and the one who loves the broken
And the real fight that everyone has, whether they're the broken person or the person who's choosing whether they'll love the broken person, the real fight that everyone has is, do I, am I willing to live my life as if Jesus is the star and not me? Am I willing to be a bit part in a story that makes much of Jesus Christ? Am I willing to be a broken person if my brokenness brings glory to Jesus? Am I willing to love a broken person and in loving that broken person be broken myself so that Jesus gets the glory? It's really about a choice of like What is my life? Who is the star of my show? Am I the star? Is this story about me? Or is Jesus the star?
35 · Illustration of singleness as a form of feeling broken at a beautiful place
Well, I said a moment ago that, you know, your brokenness does feel like an unchosen imposition on you. I know that feeling. I think we all know that feeling. You know, the one person who's crying when everyone else isn't, or the one person who's sad when everyone else isn't, or the one person who's struggling with something so small and so mundane, and everybody else seems to have gotten their act together way before you are. When you're in your 20s, this massive disparity starts to creep in between the marrieds and the non-marrieds. And suddenly you feel like you're behind if you're not married. Suddenly you feel like you're the broken one because someone who's like maybe your age, a little younger than you, a little older than you, but I mean a 20-year-old to 20-year-old, you know, you feel like, well gosh, you know, I'm the broken one. It's like, no, hold on, hold on. This is the experience of the single person that goes to a wedding. The single person that goes to a wedding is, honestly, it's a massive self-pity trip, and I'm going to call you on it right away. You just need to shut up and drink and dance and have fun. But what's going on, what's really going on is like this, and this is a lie, I'm going to call you out on it, but I know what it feels like. You feel like the broken person at the beautiful place. That's what you feel like. It's like, well, what if you're there to give glory to Jesus and it's not really about you? Like, are you okay with that? That's what it means to be a Christ follower. It means to make your life about making much of Jesus.
36 · Returns to the text to assert that the lame man's life glorified Jesus both in his brokenness and in his healing — both stages served God's glory
And this man's life did that. This man's life did that by being broken in the first place, and then by, in Christ's time, being healed.
37 · Returns to the text for the full account of the healing and the man's response
Verse 6, Peter said, I have no silver or gold, But what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.' And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. And leaping up, he stood and began to walk and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple asking for alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened.
38 · Develops the eschatological promise
So here's the deal: a 14-year-old boy with no problems at all in his life can leap, right? They're amazingly strong, these young men. I used to be that way. I could jump one time. It's an amazing thing in and of itself to watch a young person, just to watch a kid, just effortlessly move their bodies in the way that they want to move their bodies. It's cool. It really is cool. But if you're a broken person who will one day be transformed by the power of Jesus, your leaps are going to be way more impressive than someone who'd been leaping all along. They're gonna bring people to tears. They're gonna cause amazement and awe, not only in them but in you. The day's coming when you will be by Christ restored. Maybe that day's today, maybe that day is in eternity, but the day is coming when, like verse 8, you're gonna be known as the leaper. Whatever the pronounced weakness you experience in your life right now, 2 Corinthians 4 tells us, is simply preparing for you an eternal weight of glory beyond which there is no comparison. So that, so that, so that your brokenness right now will appear one day to be light and momentary. Whatever this is that you think of when I talk about brokenness, it's temporary. It's turning people to Christ now. It's reminding us that we don't have all the answers and we can't make things perfect. It's giving us an opportunity to insert love into life, which is the most important thing. But it's also going to wind up one day bringing eternal glory to Jesus as the rest of the saints who know your story say, that person is leaping now. Whatever the moral or emotional or physical version of leaping looks like, it's going to happen. It's actually going to happen. You will be healed. You will not be broken forever. And not only will you not be broken forever, you will be bounding, and people will describe you as the, the bounder, the leaper, the, the happy jumper. You say they had this pronounced limp their whole life, you know, they were born with the neuroticism turned on to 10, you know, they're, they're They're walking around with hardship after hardship, some of them self-induced, many of them not. And, and then Jesus. One day, one way— that's always going to be the way that sentence ends. This person was broken, and then Jesus. And the next sentence that comes is, and now this person's whatever, the opposite of what you are now, whatever your brokenness is now. The Whatever it looks like, whatever healing looks like, it'll be so evident to everyone that Jesus changed you.
39 · Contrasts other religions' explanations for disability (punishment for sin) with Jesus's explanation (that God's works might be displayed)
You know, in a lot of religions, broken people— I did this little foray into studying spiritual perspectives on disabilities. And you know, honestly, in most religions, essential recipe of explanation for someone, especially someone who was born disabled, but not necessarily born disabled, is that either he or his parents have sinned. Buddhism believes that if you're disabled, you, you or your parents were practicing bad karma. In fact, Buddhism says point-blank, if you have a cognitive difficulty that keeps you from knowing the Dharma, You can't be a Buddhist. You can't be a Buddhist if you're disabled. Obviously Judaism thought the same thing, right? Because John 9, Jesus passed by, they see a blind man from birth. And his disciples asked him, Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind? It never occurred to anyone that the reason broken people are found in beautiful places is because God's going to get glory in all sorts of ways. Jesus answered, 'It was not this man that sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.' Are you okay with that? Like, that's really the question for everybody, right? For those contemplating, will I be more engaged with the broken? For those contemplating, will I be more evidently broken. The real question is, is like, are you okay being a vessel filled up with the glory of God? Is that a sufficient explanation for your pain and suffering? Is that a sufficient reason to live? Of course it is.
40 · Signals the shift from exposition and exhortation to corporate prayer
So I want to pray for you. I want to take some time. I want to pray for you. I'm not going to have you come forward or anything like that.
41 · Brief narrative illustration from the woman with the issue of blood
If I could give you one visual this morning, I would give you the visual of the woman who anonymously reached through the crowd and touched the hem of Jesus's garment. You don't need to come forward right now. You don't need to raise your hand if you feel broken, if you'd like to be prayed for, for broken. You don't need to do that right now.
42 · Direct application: calls the congregation to request pastoral prayer
But I want to tell you this. One of the basic job descriptions of a pastor is to pray for the sick. James 5:14-15 says, is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. So I'm not going to ask you to do anything evidently public right now, but I want to remind you that one of my jobs and one of Seth's jobs is to pray for you. And it's entirely appropriate for you to call or text and say, hey, the next, next week or so, could one or both of you come over, or could I come to you, and could you just pray for me? That's part of my job. That's part of— you need to let me do that for you. If you're feeling evidently broken, if this is resonating with you, let me pray for you. Let's figure out a way to make that happen, whether that's us coming to you, you coming to us, whatever. Just, just allow us to do our job that God's called us to do.
43 · Final transition before the prayer
Right now we're just gonna stay seated. I've sort of divided the audience in a way, I guess. Maybe you can't right now conceptualize a way in which you are very manifestly broken. It's just that's not hitting you. Cool. Let's pray for those that do feel that way. Maybe you do feel like— maybe this just really resonated with you, and maybe no one knows. Maybe no one really understands what's going on. Well, then let us pray for you as a church right now. I'm gonna lead us through a time of prayer, and I am gonna pray that God heals you. I am. I'm gonna pray that God heals you, and I'm not gonna give a lot of backup to that. I'm gonna step out of the boat with Peter and just ask that God heals you. The only backup I have is that I know he'll answer my prayer. If you're in Christ, The day will come when you will be a leaper. But I'm going to ask God to do that now.
44 · Identifies three categories of brokenness (physical, emotional, sin) and prepares to pray for each group specifically
You know, I was thinking this morning about the different kinds of brokenness that people are experiencing. And, you know, we all want to— we all want to make ours either the biggest deal or the least big deal. You know, it depends on our personality. But, you know, some of you are in constant physical pain. Some of you have uncertain diagnosis. From a doctor. Some of you are just not happy. There's emotional brokenness going on, and you just don't know what to do about it. And it's, it's, it's, it's sort of like the guy at the gate, like, yeah, you can do a lot of other things, but I can't fix this thing inside of me. I don't, I don't know what to do about it. Well, Jesus does. Some of you feel like you have one particular sin that is just so pronounced and so discouraging that it's just— it's your brokenness. Like, it— you feel like a lame person trying to follow Jesus down the road because of this one sin. Let me pray for each one of those groups of people.
45 · First movement of the pastoral prayer: prays for those with physical pain and weakness
Would you join me in prayer? Paul says that he is filled with the affections of Jesus for his people. Lord, would you fill our hearts with affection for those among us now, whether we know who they are or not, who feel— who are experiencing this discordance of feeling like they're sticking out like a sore thumb, like they're known by their needs like the Lord enrolled them in the class of humility while they were asleep, and they woke up one day, woke up one day enrolled in a painful course. Would you fill our hearts with affection for people who feel uncertain about how they would be received if their brokenness was fully known? And Lord, would you give us compassion people who feel out of sorts and out of place. Maybe they have a physical problem, Lord, that's even, even discordant in the sense that it's— they're too young to have it. No one else their age has the problem they have with their body. Or maybe it's a state of just general weakness and feelings of frailty. Maybe there's a pain that's keeping him up, causes him a lot of discomfort. Of course we can endure through all these things. Lame man could have just shown up every day for the rest of his life and done the same thing over and over again, and of course you would have been with him, and of course he could have endured. And so we're not making this plea for healing based on this sense of urgency that we have to have this or that. We're making it because we think we know, we think we've learned that you're generous. And you're generous at the little things, the level of the little things and the level of the big things. And so, Lord, we pray that through your power, Jesus, you would heal broken people in our church right now. You would give them relief, and that you would, Lord, give them the grace to be released from any psychosomatic complications with what is real in their bodies but is also inflamed by their own doubts or anxieties. Lord, give them freedom to be free. Or even, even before healing their bodies, you might have to heal their hope. Lord, as they sit here and fighting for hope, fighting back the cynicism. Lord, help them to see that it is better to talk to you and expect you to heal than to shirk away in some kind of quiet, stoic resentment. Let them reach out, Lord, to you, Jesus, this morning. Lord, would you please heal them?
46 · Second movement: prays for those with emotional and mental brokenness
Father, I lift up those people who are okay physically for now, but if their emotional state continues as it is, it won't— their physical health won't hold out much longer. Struggling, Lord, deeply with anxiety, nerves, with depression. Would you please, God, lift the fog, replace the darkness with your light, Jesus. Bring freedom. And relief.
47 · Third movement: prays for those struggling with particular sin
Father, I lift up people who are just so deeply aware of a particular sin in their life. I could give them a million pointers, and that might be helpful, but Lord, what would you do for them right now? What would you have us pray for? First thing that needs to be healed is their faith. They've got to decide if they believe the gospel is as good as it says it is or not. They've got to decide if they believe grace is really grace, and if mercy is really mercy, and if the steadfast love of the Lord really does endure forever. Please give them faith. There are not very many shortcuts to sanctification, Lord. We wish there were. I pray, God, that there would be a noticeable lifting of temptation, of the allurement of a particular sin. Of the satisfaction that sin brings now. That You would allow them, Lord— I know You'll do that, but I think what I'm mostly worried about is that they won't recognize that You're doing that. So I pray, God, that You give them the grace to see Your Spirit at work in their lives.
48 · Synthesizes the three prayer movements and lifts the ultimate healing: seeing Jesus face to face
Lord, for all three people— types of people— people with physical pain, the people with emotional pain, people struggling with some this sort of cancerous sin, this invasive, life-dominating sin. Lord, help them to see you, Jesus, with your hand outstretched. Help them to believe that you are as good as you say you are. Give them fresh faith, Lord. Lord, we all need one really big work of healing, and that is to see you face to face. Our whole bodies are— our whole bodies and our minds and our souls are just discordant with the realities we see in your word. And the healing, that the ultimate healing will come when we are with you face to face. And so, Lord Jesus, would you please just Invade our lives with your glory. Give us way more of you than we could ever ask or imagine. Sweeten our walk with you, Lord. God, give us courage to be as evidently, to be outwardly as broken as we are inwardly. And Lord, give us courage to love people who are broken. To not succumb to the seduction that we can have unfettered beauty here, but to realize that within the construct of the story you're writing, the really, really, really beautiful moments come when we stoop down and love a broken person in a beautiful place, and the love of Jesus fills that place and makes it truly beautiful.
49 · Concluding doxology of the prayer
So God, I pray that you would do all of these things according to your great power, not because of any human will or effort, but that you would just do these things, Lord, for your great power, that you would receive all the glory. God, you alone will do these things It's not even really because we've asked this morning. We don't want to get any credit. We want you to receive the glory. In Jesus' name I pray, amen.