Acts: For the Spiritually Lame & Spiritual Leader

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 Good morning, everyone. Make your way back to your seat. Open your Bibles. If you have one, if not, we have it on the screen to Acts chapter three. We’re just kinda. faithfully plotting through this. We will have another practice based series in May, uh, but we’re excited to continue in Acts chapter three, uh, kind of going on what we talked about last week if you were here, looking at what does it mean to be an upper room church, right?

We can be formed by the teaching of scriptures, the community of Jesus, the practices of Jesus, and of course, the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. And so I, I hate to do this, but I’m going to have us stand one more time. Why are, are we that church today? We’re so liturgical. All right. If you guys can stand with me for the reading of God’s word, it’s all right.

We all need the exercise. Amen. We’re okay. And if you can’t stand, we totally get it. Totally. Verse three, chapter three, starting in verse one. Now Peter and John were going up to the temple for the time of prayer at three in the afternoon. A man who was lame from birth was being carried there. He was placed each day at the temple called beautiful, the temple gate, excuse me, called beautiful so that he could beg from those entering the temple.

When he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple, he asked for money. Peter, along with John, looked straight at him and said, look at us. So he turned to them, expecting to get something from them. But Peter said, I don’t have silver or gold, but what I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk.

Then taking him by the right hand, he raised him up and at once his feet and ankles became strong. So he jumped up and started to walk and he entered the temple with them walking, leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. And they recognized that he was the one who used to sit and beg at the beautiful gate of the temple.

So they were filled with awe and astonishment at what had happened to him. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, teach us, form us according to your word and your love. In Jesus name I pray. Everybody says amen and you may be seated and for a while. You are not the hero in every story. Welcome everybody to church.

Hope you’re encouraged today. What’s fascinating about American culture is how quickly, apparently not everybody does this, but when we read a book or watch a movie, we immediately identify with the hero. So like gladiator, one of my favorite movies. Can anybody attest to that? Amen. No gladiator. Some people don’t, the kids don’t even know, right.

It’s they’re making a second one, but in gladiator we’re Maximus Decimus Meridius, right. In Braveheart, of course, we’re William Wallace. And Mission Impossible, I am Tom Cruise. After we get out of the movie, I like, don’t even turn with my blinker on. Like, I do some crazy stuff. Anybody do that? Like, Fast and Furious, back when they were good, you get in your car and act like you have a nice, and it’s just a 2010 Acadia, but you’re like, I’m living the life.

I have three kids in the back. Everything’s fine. In the David and Goliath story, we’re David, aren’t we? That’s how we identify with the story. We would never consider being Goliath, who is the epitome of evil. And no, we wouldn’t say that we’re even Saul, who’s actually the epitome of insecurity, most of which most of us are still struggling with.

We think we’re David. In all likelihood, we’re probably the soldier in the eighth row back, shivering in his boots, waiting for somebody to defeat this Goliath for us, which is Jesus, amen, who does do all the saving. Now, we are not the hero in most stories. I certainly wasn’t the hero this week. We got to go up to the cabin for spring break and, uh, we have a can am and my father told me, don’t worry, you can never get stuck because we have a wench in the front.

So if you ever get stuck, find a tree, you’ll pull yourself out. I proved him wrong. We went and, uh, drove the can am. It was a mess and we were five, no, we were 4. 78 miles away from the cabin when we got stuck. And I know that because we tracked our steps the whole way back. We had to walk it back with my three daughters, my two dogs and my one wife from the top of the mountain.

Down all the way to the bottom. And my wife was saying the whole time, like, Hey, maybe this isn’t a good thing to share. She’s like, you never got angry. This was shocking. You know, you never got frustrated. You just dealt with it. Cause I was like, cause I’m the dummy here. Like this was all my fault. Who am I going to get mad at beside myself?

And so we literally did walk 4. 78 miles. It snowed on us. It hailed on us. Jordan broke her knee on the way down. I had a flashlight hit my head and I knocked out temporarily. None of this is a lie. It was a mess. I say that to say most of the time we’re actually not the hero. What I love about the Bible is there’s only one true hero and his name is Jesus.

So when you read the scriptures, you must know Jesus alone is the brave one. He’s the strong one. He’s the righteous one. He’s the sacrificial one. He’s the smart one. He’s the wise one. He’s the loving one. He’s the all knowing one. All of these things. Now, while there is only one hero in the biblical text and his name is Jesus, that doesn’t excuse you and me from being heroic.

We are called to become more like Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s a huge mantra for us. I hate that whole line. It’s, it’s okay. We’re not perfect. We’re just forgiven. Yes, we’re forgiven, but we’re also called to become just better people. Amen. And so we do believe that, but at the same time, I say all that to say, my point is we miss the power of many stories in the Bible.

If we aren’t willing to put ourselves in the position of the greedy person of the story, the insecure one, the hopeless one, the resentful one, the poor person. Or, in this context, the lame person. This passage has a word for the spiritually lame and for the spiritual leader. And I want us to feel like we can listen to both exhortations.

But hear me. If you’ve never put yourself in the position of the spiritually lame, God will never put you in the position of the spiritual leader. Spiritual leaders are people who recognize they were spiritually lame and without Christ, there was nothing they can do. So let’s begin by identifying first, not with the hero of this story.

Not the villain, but just the lame man. It’s hard to identify with this man because it’s an extreme example of need. I think in other instances in the book of Acts and also just the Gospels when Jesus interacts with people, maybe we can identify with some of their wounds. This one is hard because this is a man who is over 40 years old.

You’ll learn that in the next chapter in verse 22, and he has been lame since birth. He’s never been able to walk. I have a cousin, her son has this, and It’s hard for me to ever think, Oh, I can, I can relate. It is a devastating thing to go through. We have to see here in this is that his whole life, this man has been carried by people.

His identity is a victim. His identity is a beggar. And this is actually really effective. So what he did was he had for 40 years, somebody would carry him to the temple every day and then bring him back home. And. This was a brilliant move because what were people doing at the temple? They were trying to be godly, right?

And so to take advantage of that, let me go to the people who are good people. And honestly, the most generous people I know are all godly people. And so they’re going to take advantage of that and say, okay, as you’re about to go to temple, make sure you give me something. This was called almsgiving. This word alms, the root word there, it has like mercy.

So giving out of mercy. And what’s amazing about the Jewish customs is you just always gave. Even today, if a Jewish person, especially in Israel, sees somebody begging, they will give them something. They feel like they have to do that, that they have to give to the poor. Why? It’s a part of their heritage, their identity.

They remember how they too were once slaves and poor in Egypt, and so they must always give to those in need because they’ll never forget, we too were once slaves. And so giving was an expected sign. Jesus preaches about it in Matthew 6, and he doesn’t say if you give, but he says when you give, he assumes we are all giving people.

And that was a very automatic thing to do in this culture. Today, not so much. Now, here’s what’s interesting. Again, this He places himself just outside the temple at this beautiful gate. What’s interesting about this beautiful gate, a lot of commentators were talking about it this week, it was so beautiful that even silver and gold didn’t look as nice.

They had like the special bronze on this gate that was 75 feet tall, and so it was magnificent. It was called beautiful for a reason. But what’s interesting is he doesn’t go in the temple ever, right? According to the story, he wants to be laid just outside the temple. Now, there’s no specific law So, uh, crippled people can’t go into the temple.

You don’t see that in the Torah. There is an instance in 2 Samuel 5 where I think David is trying to talk trash, it’s this read the whole story, but in, in, in kind of this like, uh, maybe this bravado, he says the lame and crippled won’t be here. He’s trying to show the strength of Israel. So some people think 2 Samuel 5 says the lame shouldn’t enter.

I don’t take that because it’s not in the Torah. Now, I’m This is what’s in the Torah, which is the law. You can’t sacrifice an animal that’s lame at the temple and the priests, they could not be lame or crippled and operate in their service. They just could not become a priest. So it’s not a stretch. I say all that to say this lame man probably, even though there wasn’t a specific law, he probably felt culturally he can never enter into the temple.

So instead of going inside of it, he stays just outside of it. What does the temple represent? God’s presence, God’s holiness, God’s people. And so for him, it’s likely this man didn’t feel worthy to be in God’s presence. And so he was just outside. Are you beginning to identify with this man yet? Anybody make that joke?

I can’t come to church. If I do, the lightning’s going to strike, right? This is what this man is going through. And honestly, to some degree, we should all relate because of the following theological truth. We are all lame, wounded. and incapable of saving because of sin done by us, sin done to us, and sin done around us.

I grew up, and this is fine, I thought all of my problems were just because of sin done by me. And if I’m going to pick one, I’m going to pick that because I, if you know that there are sins you’ve committed, you don’t have a victim mentality and you never, you know, I think coming to Christ requires you to humble yourself and recognize the parts you’ve played.

And that’s true. Sin done by us has done a lot of damage. The scriptures say that the way to truly live a human life, to not sin, is to love God and love others. But what do we do? We don’t love God. We seek to become God. Adam and Eve is the same sin that you and I still try to replicate. We don’t love our neighbor.

We tried to use our neighbor and manipulate our neighbor. Our hearts are bent towards evil. But not only that, and I think this is a much more robust understanding of why some of us go through suffering and we have wounds, it’s because of sin done to us. Listen, we’ve all, in different variations, have been hurt, been betrayed, abandoned, literally for some of you, wounded and abused.

And that contributes to our overall condition of not being able to save ourselves. And a lot of historians or theologians have really noted that this sin done to us actually makes us commit more sins done by us, right? When you’re wounded, how do you respond to your wounds? You do more wicked things, right?

You take that and you become resentful. You take that, you wind up doing more sins because of the sin done to you. It becomes this terrible cycle and we can’t forget sin done around us. We talked about this in a series, man, I guess a couple of years ago talking about the world, the flesh and the devil.

And I really believe the world is sins done around us. This is the environment. where it just perpetuates our inclination to sin, right? We are in an environment, our world or the culture says some sins are not just okay, they’re celebrated. Right? And so it becomes hard for us. Some sins are now becoming more tempting because the world is saying those sins are fine.

You shouldn’t even label it a sin. What the world does is it normalizes rebellion against God and incentivizes retaliation against neighbor. So all of this to say, because of sin done by us, to us, around us, we’re in a mess. And as a result, all of us in this room are spiritually lame. We are wounded and incapable of saving ourselves.

And this lame man, he could believe in himself all he wants, he still can’t walk. So as a result, this lame man could also be known as the shame man. I’ve been thinking a lot about it this week in verse 4. Why does Peter make such an intent? Hey, look at me, right? He looks at him and it says look at me. I also find funny.

I think we’ll preach on it Easter next week in verse 12. So in verse 4, he says I’m looking at you. Hey, look at us. And then verse 12, he goes, why are all of you looking at us? I just think that’s amazing. Peter’s like, we’re doing what kind of what you said. Anyways, humans, we’re the best. Now, so why is Peter doing this?

I think Peter recognizes this man is not just lame, which by the way means you cannot walk. He is filled with shame. And how do you know somebody is filled with shame? They don’t look at you. Even your dog, right? When we forget to leave the trash out, I mean, when we leave the trash out, she gets into it, shame.

My dog, like, tries to, like, bury herself, like, below the ground. Our kids, we know they did something wrong, right? Because they have shame, and they won’t look at us in the eyes. So Peter is trying to relate to this man and get rid of his shame. But I think a lot of us have a misunderstanding. What’s the difference?

between being guilty and being filled with shame. And I think the gospel has an answer for both. Write this down. Guilt says, I committed a sin. Shame says, I am a sinner. It’s my whole identity. Guilt says, I made a mistake. I had to call my dad this week. I made a mistake. Your can am is stuck and we can’t get it out for four weeks.

Everything’s fine though. My, your granddaughters are alive. Remember that, right? I made a mistake. Shame says, I’m sorry you ever had me, right? I am a mistake.

Are you starting to identify with this lame man? Maybe you don’t know, you don’t want to answer out loud, but I think a lot of us, we don’t just struggle with guilt, we struggle with shame. And despite our greatest efforts at smoothing over our defects and convincing other people that we’re fine, we know we cannot fool ourselves.

Like the lame man without Christ, no matter how hard we try to walk. To walk away from our condition, we are stuck and afraid to truly look anyone in the eye. Like the lame man, we just think, if I just have a couple more bucks, couple more escapes, I can make it another day. And here’s the reality, if Jesus didn’t raise, then this is all this lame man really has.

He just needs a little bit more money. But friends, the tomb is empty. Amen? And Peter is walking in the power and the authority of the resurrection. So we’re gonna come back to the lame man at the end, but now I want us to shift to Peter. Peter is not spiritually lame anymore. We see his conversion story in the Gospels.

He has now become a spiritual leader. And by the grace of God, so are a lot of you in this room, or God is calling you to be. So I want us to notice, now let’s shift hats, we’re kind of going to talk leadership for a while. Three principles of spiritual leadership that we see Peter exhibited and walked by here in the text.

Are you guys with me today? I know we started heavy, but that’s okay. All right. Let’s look at verse four. Peter, along with John, looked straight at him and said, look. At us. By the way, John, this is the John the Beloved, the one that we studied last year, the book of Revelation. He’s the author of John, 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, and Revelation.

They’ve done a lot together. They were the ones who were at the tomb together and saw that it was empty. Peter and John are great friends. But here is the principle we are learning from Peter. Spiritual leaders make a connection before giving correction. Peter and John humanized this man before anything else.

Look me in the eye as I look back at you.

It was probably common for this day for the beggar never to look up. This doesn’t happen as much in Queen Creek, but if you go to Phoenix and for us, like we go to Portland and different places, there’s a lot of people begging. And typically a lot of times they don’t even look up, right? They just kind of put their hand out or they have some sort of bucket or something to put money in.

And it’s likely that’s exactly what this man was doing. And that’s why Peter stopped and says, no, I need to look you in the eye. A lot of commentators were asking because we don’t necessarily know. Why is Peter demanding eye contact? Some would say, well, we want to make sure he’s sincere, right? Does he really want what he, you know, some sort of money or healing?

Or does he feel sorrow, right? Does he feel shame? And a lot of us, we feel like, man, before I give you something, I want you to look like you’re really miserable. Then I’ll give you something. I don’t think the text shows either way. In my purview, I think what Peter was trying to do here is give him the gift of love.

It’s likely nobody has looked him in the eye in a very, very long time. And I say this for modern day application. Friends, I don’t know if you knew this, but we have an election coming. Okay. November. Is that when that happens? All right. Praise the Lord. We’re going to do a series on that and Caleb’s going to do the whole thing.

It’s going to be great. Um, just to prepare you guys, but we are all going to be tempted to dehumanize our opponents, to label our neighbors. and not to have genuine conversations. And I think what we see here from from Peter And we’ve talked about this quite a lot in the last few weeks with our Hospitality series is there is, we need to remember every person has value because they’re made in the image of God and every person needs connection before you ever offer correction.

This is why I love at our church. We’re doing the hospitality practice. It’s over here. Anybody forgetting to put ping pong balls in? Make sure you do. I mean, it’s great. We have a great number. Keep it going. Um, if you’re new here, we have our hospitality practice. We’re hoping we all having people over with saints, strangers, and sinners.

And if it’s don’t tell them when they come over, you’re my stranger for the week, you know, like that’s a little strange. That’s also why we didn’t change the God, what I thought at first, ping pong ball. White is the saint, you know, red, let’s just stop there, right? So no, but what is the whole point? We are saying as a church, this is our identity.

We don’t make demonstrations out of people. We make dinner for people, right? We don’t budge on the truth, but we also don’t budge on love. And so we humanize our quote unquote opponent. And this is what Peter is doing. But let’s look at verse six. But Peter said, I don’t have silver or gold. Just like most preachers, but what I do have I give you, I’m going to try that like in and out this week.

I don’t have dollars or cents, but what I do have, I give you. Now, can I have that number one with chilies inside? That is a trick. That’s secret menu. You’re welcome. So sorry to make light of this. Okay. What I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, Nazareth, get up and walk. Here’s the next spiritual principle.

Spiritual leaders only give what they already possess. I know it’s the axiom, we say it all the time, you cannot lead from an empty well, you gotta lead from the overflow. In 2018, uh, my wife and I, my wife knew this, I was, I was really approaching burnout in ministry. Our church was only two years old, and starting a church is hard.

Everybody told me that. It’s much harder than I thought it would be. And what I began doing, and I’m not, I’m, I’m ashamed of this, but I began following all the latest church growth trends to try to, Get us certain, past certain barriers. There’s like the 40 person barrier and then the 80 and then the 120 and there’s all sorts of things.

And um, it was really, really hard. And so I was so depressed and most days I was depressed. I would scrounge just enough energy on a Sunday to act like everything’s amazing and I would preach with so much hope and then I’d go back home and just be exhausted and filled with despair. It was the weirdest thing.

Mondays became my favorite day of the week because it was the furthest day from Sunday. And I kept thinking, if more people come, everything will be fine. And thankfully, God did not give us that blessing in that season, because what I learned was this profound spiritual lesson. Ruth Haley Barton says it best.

She says, the best gift you can give the people you lead is It is your own transforming self. I fell for the lie that if more people came and was transformed, then I would be transformed. But spiritual leaders say, no, I am not waiting on anybody else. I am taking this step. I am pursuing Jesus. And what you will find as a leader, you are usually the ceiling of the people who follow you.

And so if you want them to pray more, what’s step one? I need to pray more. Right? Give more. I need to give all of these things. And I learned, it’s almost become a cheat code. I love it. In some ways, it’s, it’s amazing because my primary job is to make sure my relationship with Jesus is enough, that it’s filled with love and hope and joy.

And it’s been amazing. And by God’s grace, I think I’ve been a lot healthier. We see this principle in Acts 19. You don’t have to turn there. This is going to be fun for Caleb to preach, but there is a group of itinerant exorcists and they’re trying to copy Paul’s formula because they heard. These demonic possessed people, Paul is saying, in the name of Jesus, and all of these demons run.

And so these itinerant, they’re doing this for a living. They don’t actually know Jesus. They think it’s some trick. So they say, great. So they go into this town and they see these people who are demon possessed and they put them in a room. It’s a group of these exorcists and they say, in the name of Jesus, come out.

And what does the demon say? Jesus, I know, Paul, I’ve heard of, but who are you? And then he gets jumped. So all the exorcists get beat up. Their clothes get ripped off and they’re sent into the town naked. The Bible is pretty great, all right? What is the principle here? You cannot give what you don’t already possess.

There’s power in the name of Jesus, but only if you were submitted under that name do you have the power of that name. Right, and we see this with Peter. Peter, unlike the exorcist, was abiding in Christ and was attuned to the Holy Spirit. He was walking in power because he was walking with God. So, we have this layman.

He needs a spiritual leader who connects before he corrects, and a leader who gives what he already possesses. But also, let’s read verse 5 and 6 one more time. So, he turned to them expecting to get something from them. Notice the expectation here. What do you think he was expecting? Money. Verse six is the letdown.

Peter said, I don’t have silver or gold. Imagine this man going, well, then why are we talking? Right? Do you have assets you’re going to give me? Then I can now, like, what is happening? He says, but what I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk. What’s the last lesson here?

Spiritual leaders give people what they need, not what they want. What does a lame man want? Money. But honestly, how does money help somebody? who is lame, especially in this culture. There was no use in value. Peter had to have the confidence and audacity to momentarily disappoint the man. And I think that’s leadership.

My favorite quote about leadership recently about by Ronald Hayfetz, I think his name is. He says the following leadership is disappointing your own people at a rate they can’t absorb. If you can’t disappoint people, you can’t lead people. Just sell ice cream. But even that gets disappointing, right? You know what I’m saying?

You don’t have the flavor I want. But what I love is this is actually what Palm Sunday is all about. This starts Holy Week, or what I like to call Passion Week at Passion Creek. We planned it. Um, today’s Palm Sunday. And so what happens on Palm Sunday? Jesus disappoints a crowd. The whole crowd wants this victor to come on a white horse, declaring he’s here to bring battle.

And what does he come on? A donkey. A donkey is a symbol of peace. A donkey is here to say, I’m not coming with swords. I’m coming in peace. Jesus disappoints this whole crowd. What do they want? They wanted Jesus to come with war. Instead, He came in peace. They wanted Him to come shame the Romans. Instead, it looked like Rome shamed Him.

They wanted Jesus to kill the Romans. Instead, the Romans and the Jews killed Jesus on a cross. But what’s the principle here? Jesus was willing to disappoint the people He loved. Jesus led by conviction, not by consensus. This is a hard axiom for us because of our democratic culture. But the leader we need.

What’s the Batman line? That’s the, I give up. Dark Knight, remember? That’s not the leader we, anyways. Caleb, I thought you’d help me. Okay. He’s not listening. I hope you are. Um, Rabbi Jonathan Sachs has a quote this way. I’m so encouraged. Leadership, as every leader knows, can be lonely. That’s right. Yet you continue to do what you have to do because you know that the majority is not always right and conventional wisdom is not always wise.

Dead fish go with the flow. Live fish swim against the current. And here’s the point I want to make, Caleb, listen. Since we’re in a post Christian culture, what does that mean? We grew up in a culture where people assumed Christianity was right, but now we’re all kind of rebelling against it. Well, not all of us, but our culture at large.

And so, because of that, people roll their eyes when you tell somebody Jesus is the answer. Have you noticed that, right? Like, hey, all your problems, like, come to Jesus. People are like, I’ve heard that before. It’s so cliche. It’s so silly, right? Because we’re in a culture now, Where it’s, you can convince somebody so much quicker to do Easter meditation instead of prayer.

We’re in a culture where they would love to quote all the Greek Stoics, but none of the Hebrew prophets. Why? We’re in post Christian culture. We assume ancient’s good, just not the ancient Jesus stuff. Right? We’re in a culture that would rather attend a political rally than a worship service. But hear me, that may be what they think they want, but it’s not what they need.

They still need Jesus, even though they scoff at it. It’s still the answer. What does every person who’s broken, wounded, and unable to save themselves need? Jesus. Because Jesus is the only one who will never leave you nor forsake you. He’s the only one who defeated sin, Satan, and death on the cross and the resurrection.

He’s the only one that’s full of grace and full of truth. This really hit me. Timothy Keller, he passed away this past year. Um, in a sermon of his, he was preaching about how all of us, if we put our hope in anything other than Jesus, it’s going to fail us. And so to illustrate that, he talked about my greatest temptation, which is to put your greatest hope in your spouse.

So they said, some of us, marriage is a gift. It’s great, but we have to remember it’s also not God, right? And this illustration was so poignant. He says, if your wife or your husband is your hope, how is that going to help you when you see them get lowered into the ground on their funeral? What hope do you have if your hope was in this marriage?

Beautiful gift! But if your hope and life is bound up in your spouse, you have no hope the day he or she dies. But Jesus will never leave you. Jesus will never forsake you. Jesus died and rose again. And so our hope needs to be found in him. And so what we’ll see here is this lame man finally receives not what he wants, it’s actually what he truly wants and what he needs, and he learns it’s all about Jesus.

Look at this, at this response in verse 7 one more time. Then, taking him by the right hand, he raised him up, And at once his feet and ankles became strong. Luke is a doctor here. This is the only time you see the word ankles in the whole biblical texts. He’s talking about how this man had an ankle. His, his ankles were, were, were never worked, but now they have come together.

So, and he proves it. Verse eight, he jumped up and started to walk and he entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. And they recognized that he was the one who used to sit and beg at the beautiful gate. One more quick observation there before we close is, I think what this is insinuating is for 40 years, this man was at the gate of the temple, meaning even Jesus walked by this man before.

But it wasn’t for some reason it wasn’t his time yet. There was a plan for him. His suffering for some reason maybe had to continue for just a little longer. I want to say that to you. Maybe you’re frustrated because you’ve asked for healing before. Maybe in his sovereignty, it is just a little longer. So then it says he recognized that he was the one who used to sit and beg at the beautiful gate of the temple.

So they, look at the testimony, were filled with awe and astonishment at what had happened to him. Where does he go when he gets healed? Straight into the temple. The place his whole life he thought he was never worthy. Now he runs straight in. Luke is this beautiful author. He’s trying to show us he’s not just had his, his physical wounds healed.

His spiritual wounds have been healed as well. And he now feels worthy to enter into the temple of God for years. He’s heard people laugh and shout and sing in the temple. And now he gets to participate in it as well. And some of us in this room, hear me. You may not be physically lame, but you have been carrying shame for far too long.

And you don’t feel worthy to be in the presence of God. The gospel message is that Jesus did it in your place. Jesus is for you. When you look to him and receive him in his name, notice this lame man could not, he could have said, I don’t want to look. He could have said, I don’t want Jesus. I’m going to stay here.

But instead he took his hand. He stood up and. Faith and that offer is for us this week. And so the practice we’re going to do this week in your groups, but also hopefully in part today is going to be a bit challenging, but I think it’s, it’s exactly what you need. And so go ahead to the next slide. We’re going to, I’m going to invite you to four steps.

I think these first three, we can all do in the room today, but I think it’s fourth. I would encourage you to possibly do this week. Number one is to name your shame. This passage reminds us, because of the world we’re in, because of sin done by us, to us, and around us, we have shame, and most of us have never said what it is out loud.

So spend time with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, reveal to me, What is my shame? What is keeping me from the presence of God? What is keeping me from the life I am called to live? And for some of you, it’s sin done by you. It’s a past mistake. It’s, it’s an error of judgment. It’s something you can’t undo here.

And there’s earthly consequences as a result. But I’m here to tell you, you are still, you can still be forgiven and redeemed. Others of you, it’s a little bit of that, but also it’s just sin done to you. You carry shame because somebody in power abused you. You carry shame because something happened to you in the silence, in the hidden places.

And that’s honestly just too much shame to carry on your own. And Jesus is here on offer. And that’s why number two, I would encourage you to share your shame with God. Maybe even now you need to close your eyes and just imagine like this Peter and the lame man, you looking at God And I am confident of this because of the power of the gospel and the truth in his word.

God is looking down at you. With joy. With love. He wants to heal you. Which leads me to number three. Take that shame that you’ve named and talked to God about and declare that Jesus took your guilt and shame on the cross. That you are forgiven. I have to say this to myself every week. In Christ, I am the righteousness of God.

In Christ, I am forgiven. In Christ, I am redeemed. In Christ, I am loved. Declare that truth over your shame. And number four, reach out in courage, and it will take courage, to share your shame with someone over a meal. We ask you, it’s in the guide, exercise wisdom, who to share this with. But I believe so much of our healing is done in community.

So let this be our invitation this week. It’s heavy. But what’s heavier is that shame you’ve been carrying for far too long. Some of you are feeling great. You’ve already had that moment. You’ve been set free from your shame. And so ask the Holy Spirit, ask the Lord to give you wisdom. Who in this room needs to, needs your counsel, needs your encouragement?

How can you be that friend who takes them out? To lunch, but also those of us who are carrying shame. Today is the day of salvation. Today is the day to find hope and to walk in the newness of life. Let’s pray.