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Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

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Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

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Where is God working? What is God doing? What is God telling us to do? And if he tells us to do it, he'll empower us to do it. Do you catch that? May the Lord give us the space that we need and understand and be able to discern between this is God talking, this is Carl talking. I don't want to hear Carl talking. I want to hear God talking.

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And working. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you want to play Major League Baseball? Perhaps you wanted to be a doctor who traveled to underdeveloped countries. Maybe you wanted to be the next Mariah Carey. Everyone has a unique calling in their life that God has placed there. And in today's message, Pastor Carl teaches that it's important to hone in on that call. What is he telling you to do? Whatever it is, he will equip you. So what is he equipping you to do? And now here's Pastor Carl.

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The book of Acts, chapter 3, verse 1. Now Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, the sweet hour of prayer, the ninth hour in the afternoon. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, and people would come to the tape to the temple for a time of prayer. And John and Peter were a couple of those guys going up. And verse 2, a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried and then laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called beautiful, to ask alms from those who entered the temple. Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked for alms. This was a man who was crippled from birth. And the only way he could make a living is by begging at the gate. And he would have friends that would come and take him there and place him there. And uh he was just waiting there at the gate called Beautiful, and he saw Peter and John coming by, and he was going to ask them if they could help him out. Now, the the beautiful gate is in Jerusalem. It's also known as the Golden Gate, which is across from the Mount of Olives. This is the gate that not two months before Jesus came in triumphantly on Palm Sunday, where people were worshiping him, and the leaders were saying, They're worshiping you. Why are they doing that? And they say, Well, they got to do it because if they don't, the rocks are gonna cry out. And not a week later, the same people that were praising God, praising the person of Jesus Christ, the Messiah, they say, crucify him, put him up on a cross. This is the gate that he went through. This is the same gate that he's going to come through after he sets foot on the Mount of Olives, which in this picture again would be behind us. He'd set foot on the Mount of Olives. It's going to split in half, and he's going to walk right into the gates and set up his kingdom in the temple, which is not there right now. These gates, they're um they're all bricked up. It's you can't go through those gates, can you? That's because the enemies of God figure we don't want the Messiah to come in the gates, so we're just going to uh cement it up. Do you think that's gonna stop our Lord from going through these gates? These are amazing gates, the beautiful one, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords is coming through those gates and he's gonna set up his kingdom. You got some vegetation and stuff in front, but there are actual graves. There are graves all over the place because the Jewish people recognize the Messiah is going to come through these gates. And when the Messiah comes, I want to be there, you know, and so I want to be buried there when he comes. So they know this is an historic place. This is big things are going to be happening here. And this is where Peter and John were walking through. If you walk through these gates, if it were open, you would walk straight through and you look right in front of you and you see the temple right there built. Of course, at this point, um, today it's not there, and 70 AD it was destroyed. Today, if you were to go through these gates and look straight and then off to the left a little bit, you see the dome of the rock. But the temple is straight ahead. And they were heading to the temple to do prayer at three in the afternoon. And we have this man that is begging by the gate called beautiful. Now, what happens? Well, first let's talk about what this word beautiful means. In the strongest concordances, this beautiful means the bloom and vigor of life. This man who was crippled since birth, who couldn't do anything really, he was sitting at the gate called beautiful all his life, begging. It's the the vigor, the bloom, the vigor of life, belonging to the right hour or season, flourishing. There's a certain point where when a plant is planted and and the seed is planted and the plant grows, and then at some point it flourishes, it blooms, it has fruit that come out. This was the hour for him to start blooming, right? And and blooming used of the human body. This man who is crushed all his life, he couldn't do a thing. His life is about to change, his life is about to become beautiful as he sits at the gate called beautiful. So verse 4, and fixing his eyes on him with John, Peter said, Look at us. Look, look at me. And so he gave them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. All right, they're gonna give me some money. This is great. And the first thing that he says, Peter, silver and gold I do not have. Oh man. Oh man, you are you just making fun of me? What are you doing? I I need money, and you say, look at me, and you're not gonna give me money. Now, um, on a side note, I have these million dollar bills. Have you ever seen these? Actually, it's a trillion dollar. How many, how many zeros in a trillion? I think it's 12 or 13, something like that. And sometimes I'll pass these out because it has a gospel track on the back. You know, you need some money, here's a trillion dollars. Now, would I will suggest that if you do something like this, this is kind of cool and kind of fun. But if if you're going to a restaurant and you want to lead your your waitress to the Lord, don't just leave this and don't leave any other money. That's kind of cheap, isn't it? If you're gonna leave them a trillion-dollar bill that they can't really spend, give them a good tip on top of that as well. You know, encourage them in the Lord. But but I kind of get the feeling that in this split second, this this man who's been sitting there for years, you know, people have made fun of him and ripped him off and and say they weren't gonna give something when they actually take something and so forth. He was abused for many years. And for this split second, he was like, Oh, great, here they go again. They want to lecture me about something, and they're not gonna give me any money. But they said more than that, didn't they, Sid? But what I do have, I give you in the name of Jesus of Nazareth. Rise up and walk. And I'm just imagining him in this split second, you know. Okay, you're not giving me money. What? You want me to do what? I don't walk. I've been here forever, and I my legs don't work, my feet don't work. What do you mean? All in a split second, and in that next second, because Peter knew this kind of stuff was probably going on in his mind. In verse 7, he took him by the right hand and lifted it up, and immediately the feet and the ankle bones received strength. So Peter said, Get up, and then he got him and he pulled him up in the name of Jesus. And all of a sudden, he was healed. His feet worked, his ankles worked, his legs worked, and he stood there. And that split second between these guys are you know messing with me. Where now all of a sudden, wow, something just happened to me. The power of God just moved on me. I'm healed. I am I really healed, I'm healed. So he in verse 8, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God. Can you imagine that? This is how it works. I mean, I I never knew you could do this. And he's just like, wow, God is real, he's true, he did something to me. And these men of God who who heard from the Lord and were filled with the Holy Spirit, they touched me and they lifted me up in the name of Jesus and praise God. Can you imagine that? What a scene! Do you think anybody noticed? Yeah, of course they did, verse 9. And all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they knew that he was the man who sat begging alms at the beautiful gate of the temple, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Again, this idea of wonder and amazement, and wow, what just happened? I don't know, but this is big. You know, I can't explain it, but but something just happened. I know that man, I've seen him there for years, decades. He's never walked before. Now he's dancing. This is amazing. God is at work. Verse 11 says, now the layman was was healed. As the layman who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them on the porch, which is called Solomon's, greatly amazed. So they walked in, if you remember that gate. They walked in the gate, and as they see before them is the temple. But instead of going to the temple, they took a left turn, a hard left. And there's this big area where you could, you know, gather giant crowds of people and speak to them. It's called Solomon's temple, uh Solomon's Porch. And so, as Peter in verse 12 saw it, he responded to the people. He saw them going, wow, what's going on here? This is great. What is happening? Is God moving here? And so Peter started another sermon right in front of them all on Solomon's porch. Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Or why do you look so intently at us as though by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? See, he realizes it's wow, these men are something else. These men are empowered by God. These men are the people, you know, that did this healing. And Peter knows I'm not the one who did this healing. It's Jesus who did this healing. The name of Jesus, the power of the Holy Spirit did the work. I didn't do the work, I'm just a vessel. And that's what he starts out his sermon with. It's not about us, it's about him. Verse 13: the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, the God of my fathers and your fathers. The early church was comprised of the Jews. Jesus came to save the Jews first and then the Gentiles. And everybody there were Jewish folks coming to seek the Lord. And Peter and John are there, and they say, Listen, our God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, he glorified his servant Jesus. And everybody knew who Jesus was. At least they knew he was there and he did great things, but they didn't really realize who he was, but he was there. And Jesus, what did he come to do? He came to serve rather than to be served. Right? He's the King of kings and the Lord of Lords. And just a couple months before, he was sitting down with the disciples and washing their feet. He serves us by humbling himself to become one of us. He served us by taking the sin of the world upon himself on the cross. He's the servant of the most high God, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. Here's Peter with his hard message again. Listen, the servant came to die on the cross, but you put him there. We don't like him. He wanted to let him go because he didn't find anything wrong with him. And yet, you asked for a murderer to be granted to you. The one who came to serve. You denied. And Peter at that moment probably thought, and I denied too. I denied him three times. And I spent three years with him. But this man, this perfect man, this servant, God himself in the flesh, you didn't want anything to do with. You wanted a murderer instead. You wanted a murderer and you killed the prince of life. The one that comes to bring life, to bring wholeness, forgiveness, restoration. You killed him, who God raised from the dead, of which you are witnesses. You know, you put him on the cross, but the cross couldn't keep him down. Death couldn't keep him down. He came back three days later. You know something happened. You saw it. At least you heard about it. There, there was Jerusalem still in an uproar. Verse 16. And his name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. I could spend a long time on that verse. There's a lot in there. Let me just say there's power in the name of Jesus. That power is accessed through faith. That faith comes as a gift of God as well. You see that line? Yes, the faith which comes through him, through Jesus, has given this man who has been crippled all his life perfect soundness in the presence of you all. The faith of God gives us soundness, not only in our physical bodies, but in our spirits, in our minds. The Lord wants to give us the mind of Christ. The Lord wants to give us sound minds. As we're born into this world and as we live out our fallness in this place, our minds are corrupted. We don't think the way the Lord thinks, but he wants to change us. And we're changed through the word by the power of the Holy Spirit in the name of Jesus Christ. There's also this aspect of there's this general faith that he gives us, faith to believe and trust in him and believe the gospel and to be changed. But there are also times where he'll give us a spiritual gift of a specific faith. And I believe this is what happened to Peter and Paul and John at this point. They were given this word from this Lord, this this faith, this knowledge that it's hard to explain, but the Holy Spirit showed them this man is about to be healed, and I'm going to use you to heal him. And they knew it. And that's why he can say with boldness, rise up in the name of Jesus and come. Have you in your in your spiritual, in your in your Christian zest, gone up to somebody and say, in the name of Jesus, be healed? And you lift them up and they stay in their in they stay in their wheelchair. I mean, I've had prayers like that where you're not really sure. And that do I have enough faith? Is it is it me? Is it, you know, oh man, I failed because I didn't have enough faith. The faith that you have comes from the Lord, and there are times where he gives you specific words for specific situations where he says, Go talk to that person. Talk to that person. I don't know that person. And he says, I know, but I know him. Now go talk to them. And then you go talk to the person, and it's like, I've been praying for years that the God would send somebody to talk to me, and here you are. And you're like, Wow, that's wild. God works that way. The problem is we put ourselves in God's place sometimes, and we think, you know, if I only, if I was a real Christian, then I would be doing this and this and this, and you try to do this, and it's it's not really faith, it's just me trying to do something in the name of Jesus when God didn't tell me to do it and it doesn't work. But here we see God empowering Peter and John by the power of the Holy Spirit, they give them this word of faith to go and do this thing, and it happens. That's what we want to be seeking after. Where is God working? What is God doing? What is God telling us to do? And if he tells us to do it, he'll empower us to do it. Do you catch that? May the Lord give us this faith that we need and understand and be able to discern between this is God talking, this is Carl talking. I don't want to hear Carl talking, I want to hear God talking and working and changing my life and the lives around me. And verse 17, yeah, no, brethren, um I know that you did it in ignorance, as also your rulers. You put him on the cross, you denied him, you cursed him, but you really didn't understand what you were doing. If you understood what you were doing, you wouldn't have done that. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer, has thus he has thus fulfilled. Again, you put Jesus on the cross, your sin put him on the cross. Your relationship, which wasn't there, put him on the cross. Because he willingly did that. This was God's will for you. That God would send Jesus and he would be placed on the cross and he would take on the wrath of God for your sin and mine. You put him on the cross, yet that was part of God's plan. If he didn't have sin, he wouldn't need to go on the cross. And yet, this is exactly what all the prophets said would happen. Christ would come and he would suffer, he would die, he would rise again, and this has been fulfilled. This is good news, this isn't bad news, this isn't the guilt trip, but this is reality. How do we respond to this reality? He says in verse 19, Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. He's not saying you put Jesus on the cross, it's your fault, and you're gonna burn forever because of it. No, he says, You put Jesus on the cross, but that was part of God's plan, so that he could take you off the cross, that he could give you life. Now receive that life. You receive it by turning from your wicked ways, turning from the ways that you how do we know how to live? We're fallen, we're fallen since we were born, and we're full of sin, and we're wretched. So we just turn to Jesus and recognize, Lord, I am wretched compared to you. You're holy, you're just you're perfect. I'm far from that. But I'm turning to you because you are my hope. I want to be converted, changed. I want to be made new, born again. So my sins may be blotted out. And that times of refreshing may come. The Lord is really not this killjoy. The Lord is not the one that wants to press us down and say, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that, don't do that. He's come to bring us life. Times of refreshing. Based on his righteousness, based on his finished work on the cross, not what we've done. Everything we've done deserves punishment. But he wants to give us refreshment. He wants to give us life. What a deal. So that refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Where do we find that peace, that hope, that joy, that refreshing? In Christ. In his presence. May He come and make His presence known to us. And that His presence has nothing to do with our works, our actions. It actually has to do with the answer to our works and our actions. And he does it because He loves us. He does it because He desires to have fellowship with us. He wants you to be blessed and refreshed and full of life abundantly because of who He is. Not because of what I've done. Verse 20, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, when God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.

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We're going through the book of Acts, which documents the life of the apostles and believers after Jesus Christ had died and was resurrected. Do you know Jesus as your Lord and Savior? He came to earth to live a sinless life, to be the blood sacrifice needed to save all of mankind. Jesus died, but more than that, he rose again and has given us a hope and a future. We are no longer under the law of Moses, and instead we have the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah! If you'd like to learn more about Jesus, visit our website, themountaincross.com, and click on how to know God. Again, that's themountaincross.com. Another great and fun resource we have is Faith Film Night, featuring great Christian movies from yesterday and today at the Smoky Mountain Cinema. Join us on the first Monday of every month. Learn more at themountaincross.com or Faith Film Night on Facebook. Come on up is the radio outreach of the Mountain Cross, a ministry out of Waynesville, North Carolina, and we would love to meet you in person. We meet at the Smoky Mountain Cinema Sunday mornings at 10 in order to grow in our faith by simply going through the Word of God verse by verse, chapter by chapter. Learn more about us at themountaincross.com. Thanks for listening, and we hope you come on up to the mountain with us again next time as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come on Up is sponsored by The Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.