Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: We would do well to follow the orders of God. It's his steps, his direction. Just a little step at a time. He's not asking you to figure it all out. He's asking you to obey him. He's not asking you to try to control the whole thing and plan ahead; he's just asking you to obey him.

And as you live out your life daily for him, interruptions may be part of that, but what you call an interruption could very well be the divine appointment of God.

Larry: It's good to be with you again and welcome to Abounding Grace. We'll hand things over to our teacher, Pastor Ed Taylor, in a second. And we're in Acts chapter 3 once again.

Now, some may view what we're about to study as an interruption, but could it be a divine appointment? You can be sure God is in control of our lives and leading us, just as he was for Peter and John at this particular time.

Pastor Ed Taylor: God has a temporary healing for this guy. There is going to be a healing that takes place in his life, and Peter stops everything that he's doing and he locks eyes and says, "Look at me. Look at me." Have you ever noticed that opportunities often come through what we interpret as interruptions?

Especially for those of you that like your day planned out and you're a real calendar person, you've got your week planned out, your month planned out, and some of you have your whole life planned out, the way it's going to go. Every little disruption is interpreted as an interruption. Then you get frustrated, then you get agitated, and then you're so caught up in the flesh that you miss what God wants to do right in front of you.

This is an appointment from God. Yes, it's changed the time. Yes, it's changed the direction. One of the things that I noticed here is that Peter and John were doing something spiritual, something good, something wonderful. They were going to pray with other believers up at the temple.

But what I've found over the years in my experience serving Christians is that some believers can get really good at covering bad excuses with spiritual language. That could have happened here. You could have interviewed Peter and John as they went up to prayer and said, "Hey man, what about the dude that was there that needed help?"

"Oh, well, we're heading to a prayer meeting. We're heading to a prayer meeting. We don't really have time. We'll get to him later." Then you come out and he's gone. Because you've got spiritual language. "Hey, I'm going to go to a prayer meeting." Or somebody asks you to do something that's super simple but you don't really want to do it, and some Christians will respond this way. They won't say no. You know what they'll say? "Let me pray about that."

What do you mean pray about it? Take the trash out. "Let me pray about that." How many of you parents are going to hear, "Hey son, clean your room." "Okay, mom, let me pray about that." No, bro, clean your room now.

Believers, we create this facade trying to hide our flesh, but your flesh isn't hidden from the Lord. And neither is it hidden from you. And that's not the kind of life you want to live anyway. You don't want to live this low-level life where you keep trying to keep control and you walk by the lame people, you walk by the homeless, you walk by the hurting, you walk by people when God is ready to use you in the moment.

Why aren't we seeing things in the Book of Acts? Maybe you're interpreting these instances as interruptions instead of embracing them as an appointment by God. Let me give you a simple example. This is a dramatic example, but let me give you a simple one that you can begin to work with immediately.

You know those times when you're just going through life, you're at work, you're watching the news, you're listening to the radio, whatever you're doing, and this name pops into your head? Or a face of somebody you know, maybe someone in the past or someone you met? You just get this impression about someone, and you quickly dismiss it.

I suggest to you it's a huge deal and you should act on it every time it happens. If you have an impression of someone, reach out to them. Show up there. Write them a note. We can easily make excuses like, "I don't know how to get ahold of them." Look, if you want to do something, you'll find a way.

Start asking, start looking, start knocking, start praying. But don't just dismiss these simple impressions. You might think, "This name came up, but I was watching the newscast and they named this person, so now I'm thinking of that name." Yes! How about this? Just say, "God used the news to remind me of someone and I'm going to reach out to them."

I'm going to minister to them with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's amazing as you begin to embrace the moments, to acknowledge that God controls our lives and that he's leading us. We belong to him. Since God controls your life, let him arrange it. Stay open and flexible.

As we've been taught by Pastor Chuck Smith, "Blessed are the flexible, for they will not be broken." Just go with the flow and be open to what God wants to do. Don't be so rigid and hard-hearted. Every time we say no to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, we grieve the Holy Spirit.

Every time we say no to the prompting of the Holy Spirit, our hearts get hardened, our ears get filled with wax, and we no longer hear, no longer sense the sweetness of the Holy Spirit wanting to do something right here, right now in your midst. The Bible says in Psalm 37:23, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord and he delights in his way."

I love that because it's the steps of a good man are ordered, not suggested. The Lord leading you in your life is not a suggestion. It's an order. And we would do well to follow the orders of God. It's his steps, his direction. Just a little step at a time.

He's not asking you to figure it all out. He's asking you to obey him. He's not asking you to try to control the whole thing and plan ahead; he's just asking you to obey him. And as you live out your life daily for him, interruptions may be part of that, but what you call an interruption could very well be the divine appointment of God.

What an incredible way to live our lives. We just wake up and go, "God, what's next? What do you have for me? I know I need to go to work, but I've got some time in the car. I know I've got to accomplish this, this is life." But while I'm on the way, like Abraham's servant when he gives his testimony, he says, "While I was on the way, the Lord led me."

Step by step, day by day. Peter saw this interruption as a divine appointment, and in that moment, as God is leading Peter and Peter's cooperating, I think a couple things happened. Number one, I believe that Peter receives a word of knowledge, the manifestation of a word of knowledge.

It might have sounded something like this: "Peter, stop. I want to do something in that guy's life today." And maybe even more direct: "Peter, stop. Don't go to prayer. Stop right here. I'm going to heal that guy through you." What we see here is, "Fix your eyes. We don't have any money. I know you've been here week after week. You want money, you need money, but we don't have any money."

That's an interesting thing, too, isn't it? Because we just learned that in the early church, all the believers were selling their goods and bringing it at the apostles' feet. So that was given to the apostles not for the apostles but for the church. They weren't carrying it around with them. It's not what he needed. What he truly needed was to come into a real relationship with God, with Jesus Christ.

So he fixed his eyes on "Look at us." He said, "We don't have money. Silver or gold we don't have, but what we do have, we're going to give you." And notice it was in the name, or whenever you see that, in the name of Jesus, in the name of the Lord, that is the full character, nature, and authority of God.

So in the name and the authority of Jesus, because there's no other name under heaven by which men must be saved, he says, "Get up and walk." So he has the word of knowledge and then he obeys it. In verse 7, between verse 6 and 7, we're talking instantaneously here.

This isn't an announcement. God's not going to say, "Okay, you're praying with me this morning, so let me tell you, this is how it's going to happen at 11:00 AM, and from 11:00 AM to 11:30, I'm going to prepare you." No, it's happening that fast. That's why we've got to learn how to obey that fast.

As he obeyed the first one, "Look at me," "We don't have anything to give you, you're going to get more than you ever asked," at the next, between verse 6 and 7, I think what happened next was God gave him a measure of faith. I wonder if you and I would ever do this.

He took him by the right hand and lifted him up. And immediately his feet and his ankle bones received strength. And he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they knew it was he who sat begging alms at the beautiful gate of the temple.

Because of that knowledge, now they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. Wouldn't it require a lot of faith to go and grab him and pick him up? I mean, that's a lot of faith. I believe God gave a special unction of faith of the Holy Spirit so that Peter pulled him up.

I just get this sense for us as a church that we need to be stepping out more in faith. Even before we have faith, stepping out on what we're reading in the Scriptures, what we're learning in the Scriptures. I don't want you to make things up and then test God with that.

Like, "Well, we just learned in Acts chapter 3 that I can go up to lame people and pull them up just like Peter did." No, don't tempt the Lord your God. Don't go around doing that. You want to walk into people's lives with mercy and compassion.

At the same time, though, God is calling this church to another level of faith. He is calling you personally to a level of faith that leads to more obedience and the dynamic presence of the Spirit of God in and through your life. That's what's going to change the world.

Your political opinions are not going to change this world. Only Jesus Christ is going to change this world. Kings and kingdoms, they come and go. They're living under the oppression of the Roman government and they are making a difference in powerful ways.

Your theology or what you learn on a YouTube video, that's not going to change the world. Only the power of Jesus is going to change the world. Calvary Chapel is not going to change the world; Jesus Christ is going to change the world.

And the only way Pastor Ed is going to change the world is if I, like you as a fellow believer, submit myself to the God that loves me and sent his son Jesus Christ to die for me. That I will choose not to walk in the fear of man but to live my life in the fear of God, to trust him with my life, and aggressively pursue my obedient life in Christ so that perhaps I might inspire some of you to do the same thing in the life that God has given you.

When God connects us as partners, real life change takes place in other people's lives and it carries on and it carries on. Church, have you been settling for something less and calling it Christianity? Have you co-opted your relationship with the Lord with something else?

Are you always flustered and frustrated instead of being open to what God wants to do in that very frustrating, very scary, very anxious situation? It's easy to miss the opportunities to share with someone about Jesus because we're so caught up in ourselves and our own issues.

Peter just grabs the guy with the faith of the Lord. He's just going for it. He's responding. We don't see this happening again, so this isn't a normative thing. But what is normative about this is that Peter acts on the promptings that God had given him.

That's what he wants for your life, that you would act on the promptings that God gives you. I would expect that there would be hundreds, if not thousands of people being reached out to just because now you're going to be more sensitive to names and faces that just keep popping in your head all the time.

Now I'm telling you, it's because God wants you to connect with them or reconnect with them or reach out to them or, in the very bare minimum, pray for them. Pray that the Lord would use you, minister to you, and minister through you. He's healed.

It says immediately in verse 7. God loves to work fast. I know we often talk about waiting on the Lord and that's great, but there are other times where God just works right away. I like that much better, I have to say. Immediately his feet and his ankle bones received strength.

In the original Greek language, this speaks of this instantaneous progress of how God healed him and made him strong enough that while his mind was thinking about standing, God gave him the strength to stand. It's just amazing what God can do in an instant.

He leaped up, stood and walked and went into the temple with them. He was just carried to the gate and now he's going into the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God. Oh, that the church would walk, leap, and praise God. That you would be known for your walk with the Lord, your leaping, stepping out in faith, and your praising of God.

That we would just be known as Jesus lovers in the most simple form of that. That we wouldn't be ashamed of the gospel. We wouldn't be ashamed living in such a way that would bring dishonor, but we would live in holiness that's given to us by Christ.

The people saw this, and they knew this guy. They walked by him every day. They walked by him, they knew this guy, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. God using this miraculous work was to get people's attention for the proclamation of the gospel.

The emphasis in the Bible is teaching and preaching the word of God. Most of Jesus' ministry was preaching and teaching repentance. Peter was willing to take steps of faith. Are you? I'd rather try something and fail than not to do anything and live a stagnant, sluggish life my whole Christian experience.

I've been thinking, maybe we need a different definition of failure. Because failure God uses in our lives to get our attention, to draw us into a place. Even what we might perceive as failure, according to Romans 8:28, all things are God's working together for the good.

I would rather fail forward than in retreat. Just give it a chance. "But Ed, what if I act on that impression and I send that text and the person comes back and says, 'Who do you think you are? What's your problem?' What if they do that?" I'd rather receive that than to have no connection with the lost whatsoever.

What if they say, "Yeah, I'd love to talk"? You send that text, "You know, I was in church the other day, pastor said a name popped up," and you explain the whole thing to them. "But what if I do that and they want to talk to me? What am I going to say?"

In the life of Jesus, they had the same concern, and Jesus told them, "Don't worry about it." Basically what he said: Don't worry about what you're going to say, because I'll give you the words right when you need them. The problem with worrying about what might happen is we talk ourselves out of anything happening.

I don't know what will happen, but the Lord will be with you. It'll be exciting. It'll be amazing. Let's just step out and take a venture of faith and the Lord will use it, and people will be wondering and amazed at the work of God in your life, in their life, and in others' lives.

This beggar is healed. Peter's relieved and probably blown away himself, spiritually excited, leaping, praising, going up to the temple. By the way, you Bible students, you'll recognize this leaping, jumping, and praising, going up to the temple is actually a real key insight of what's to come in the millennial period.

Isaiah chapter 35, verse 5. So God is not only doing something in the present, but he's also doing something in the future. Isaiah 35, verse 5: "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. The lame shall leap like a deer and the tongue of the dumb will sing, for water shall burst forth in the wilderness and in the streams of the desert."

Jesus walked by this guy many times. He didn't heal everyone. It's a biblical truth, indisputable. But could it be that Jesus walking by this lame man was a divine setup knowing that Peter and John would, in his sovereignty? If we believe that God is truly in control, then even your present difficulty is going to be used for the future.

Even your present challenge, you go, "Well, God has overlooked me." No, he hasn't overlooked you. It's a divine setup. "But my tears, I feast on my own tears. I can't get a good night's sleep." Not one tear is wasted. It's all taken by God and held for him.

God uses that imagery to say, "No, your tears are not wasted even though it is a hard season right now." If this world is all that we had, then it would be a very difficult situation. But this is not all we have.

God has invaded our lives with his divine appointment, sending Jesus Christ to interrupt your life so that you might stop what you're doing, repent, and turn to him. The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. And that's your greatest need.

What we learn the most is that Jesus Christ is active among those that know him and those that don't. He is alive, still continuing his ministry on the earth through his church until he returns. I want us to be a part of it. I am fully convinced of how God wants to use my life, even if I go through times of anxiety and worry.

Repent from it, trust him, learn from him. Along the way, he's developing us, growing us, and maturing us. Just like parents are patient with their kiddos growing up, your father's patient with you too. And you can trust him as you follow him. Amen.

Larry: You're listening to Abounding Grace and Pastor Ed Taylor is our Bible teacher. Would you like to hear this again? If so, just visit us online at aboundinggraceradio.com or 1place.com. You can also download the Calvary Church app as well.

Today we'd like to tell you about a book from Ron Rhodes titled, The End Times in Chronological Order. Think of it as a complete overview to understanding Bible prophecy. You've probably heard about the Rapture, the Great Tribulation, Second Coming, Mark of the Beast, but how do they all fit together?

This chronological tour through the Bible's most important predictions will help you connect the dots. We'll gladly send you a copy for a gift of 25 dollars or more to Abounding Grace. Call toll-free at 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE or order it online at calvaryco.store.

Please remember this ministry is made possible through the support of our listeners and we are grateful for whatever the Lord leads you to do. It would be great to hear from you. Call toll-free at 877-30-GRACE. Donations can also be made online at aboundinggraceradio.com.

Pastor Ed is back with us and Ed, as you were talking about divine appointments today, I was wondering if you might share one from your own life where you were fairly certain it was orchestrated by God?

Pastor Ed Taylor: Larry, my life is so filled with divine appointments that I wonder if I even acknowledge them as such. But they are. All these different connections, whether it's meeting someone while you're shopping or as you're asking the question, I'm thinking, okay, which divine appointment pops out of my mind?

Typically divine appointments are us just doing what God has called us to do, going where God wants us to go. One that happened recently is I have a responsibility to host a live radio call-in show. Here in Colorado, we own as a church a couple of full-power radio stations.

One of my responsibilities is to do this live call-in show. So I just show up like I normally do and I just answer the phones like I normally do. But God had an appointment at just the right time for this young man to talk about his life and something he's been struggling with.

We're just talking on the phone like I'm doing what I'm supposed to do so that I'm here to answer the phone live for thousands of people to listen in on our conversation. It was a divine appointment even though I was doing what I normally do.

The result of that phone call was we have a new brother in Christ as I had the privilege of leading him to the Lord. It was just a joy to know that in your everyday life, just doing what you're called to do, you're going to meet the right people, you're going to be at the right place, and take advantage of the moment.

These things happen so much that we need to learn to start giving credit to the Lord. Go, "Man, that was just awesome, the Lord is so good, he's so faithful." As we're out and about living our lives as the church, remember that's the theme as we go through studying the Book of Acts: Be the church. Please be the church. Live out your life in Christ and watch him use you in great ways.

Larry: Very cool. Thanks for sharing. This has been Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed. We'll look for you next time as we open the word together in search of God's abounding grace. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church Colorado here in Aurora.