Healing the Lame and There's No Where To Run

The morning service was on Acts 3:1-10

1 One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer--at three in the afternoon. 2 Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts. 3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money. 4 Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" 5 So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them. 6 Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." 7 Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong. 8 He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God. 9 When all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10 they recognized him as the same man who used to sit begging at the temple gate called Beautiful, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

Brother Terry reminded us (or for those of us who aren't versed) that Peter and John weren't best buddies prior to the Resurrection. However, there was a common ground they were now on, a common goal they were set, and this has brought them to these Beautiful gates. The description of these gates are said to be the best brass, brushed with gold, grand and broad gates aptly called Beautiful. The beggar was said to be crippled from birth so this man had never walked a day in his life. We've all seen these people who haven't had use of their legs to walk; they loose muscle and are very gangly. He was poor. There wasn't a welfare system like we have now. If you didn't work for yourself back then, you weren't going to be well cared for. His family (one assumes) would take him to the Beautiful gates to beg for his wages. I bet people were uncomfortable having to walk by this dirty, gangly, begging, persistent man every day, three times a day to go to temple. There were some that paid alms for pity, some because it's what's right, and there are others that would keep walking for it was distasteful to have to see something like that before going into the house of God. The beggar called to Peter and John expecting money and was told by Peter that he had no silver or gold. The gift the beggar was given was the miracle of God, healing his legs, and went into the temple to then be a witness to the congregation of the gift he was given. 

We are every day surrounded by the spiritually crippled. People that have never been shown the grace and beauty of His love. There are people that have been lost from the way, either forgotten the love or forsaken His love. If we are like those who walked past the beggar every day and simply toss some coins in a cup, are we really giving the gift we should be to these crippled souls? If we throw our nose up in the air in disgust at their types of sin with no regard to how to get them to the doors of the temple, have we shared the gift we were given as we should? We are Christians. We are to be witnesses by actions and words to those lost and crippled so they, too, can walk the aisles of the house of God and in turn witness to others. We need to figure out if it's being dignified or being terrified not to shout out in church. 

Our evening service was from the Old Testament and the book of Jonah Chapter 1.

1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." 3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD. 4 Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. 5 All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. 6 The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish." 7 Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?" 9 He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." 10 This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.) 11 The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?" 12 "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you." 13 Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before. 14 Then they cried to the LORD, "O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased." 15 Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. 16 At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him. 17 But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

As we have heard our whole lives, God has a plan for us. I think the part of faith that is hardest to deal with is discovering what his will is for us. However, there are those that are well aware of his will and run from it. Jonah was the best example of what happens to someone who runs from God's will. 

He was told to do three things, Get up, go to Nineveh, and preach. Two out of three ain't bad...it was the Nineveh people that was the issue. These were the meanest of the mean, vicious, deviant, and murderous people. They were feared by all, but God told Jonah to go there and tell them they would fall in 40 days. Because of fear and vengeance, he didn't want to go. He wanted the city to befall their fate but knew if he prophesied the falling, they would repent and thus be saved. Jonah felt that ignoring God would essentially kill two birds with one stone. He went down to the harbor and found a ship going to
Tarshish, a place he just so happened to want to go, and he just so happened to have the right amount of fare to make it there. It's amazing how it works out when you want to go against His will how everything can work out. It makes it look almost like that is what was supposed to happen. HOWEVER, this is not what God wanted him to do. He makes it onto the boat, and they make it out to sea. It says that God sent a great storm onto the sea...it popped into my head the scene from Forrest Gump where they're on the shrimp boat and he says that Lt. Dan said, "Where's your God now?" "And it was right then He showed up." The hurricane blew in and when the Lt. Dan had come to Jesus, the storm parted and left with the sea peaceful and the sky beautiful. These sailors were Pagans, so when the seas became rough, they prayed to their gods to no avail. It became more dire and they knew it, but Jonah was sound asleep. They drew him onto the deck and long story short, his guilt showed on his face. They knew it was his fault they were all about to die. He told him, I am a Christian and I worship the creator of the earth and sea. It was then he realized there was no where to run to escape God. And why do we want to? Jonah convinced them to throw him overboard (I'm sure this didn't take a whole lot of talking) where he was quickly swallowed by a big fish. We were always told this was a whale, but all the translations I saw today said fish. Again, flash to a movie...Finding Nemo, Dori and Marlin are swallowed by a whale and transported to the Sydney Bay where Marlin comes to the realization that he has to let go and have faith. 

To be honest, I ran from His will years ago. I was dropped into that turbulent water to save the others and swallowed by a whale. It took a whole lot longer than three days to come to Jesus, apparently Jonah was a lot faster learner than I am. The sailors of that ship to Tarshish didn't know that Jonah was a Christian much less a prophet by his actions. It took his words for them to know. We shouldn't be asleep in the helm of the ship while the lost are sailing our sinking ship. We, as Christians, should live our lives so there is no question of our faith. I know I will not always know His will for me, but I will pray for the strength to follow his plan for there's no where to run to, no where to hide.