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Sermon Outline: Acts 17 — The Gospel in the City

Introduction

• Text: Paul arriving in Athens (Acts 17).
• Two Points: 1) Let’s be provoked. 2) Let’s be smart.

I. Point One: Let’s Be Provoked (Acts 17:16)

• The Athenian Contrast: Visually and intellectually brilliant, but spiritually broken.
• Defining “Provoked”: A visceral mix of grief for the lost and anger for God’s displaced honor.
• The Modern Application: Look at our modern, sophisticated cities (like Vancouver) with spiritual eyes—trading fear and intimidation for holy sadness.

II. Point Two: But Let’s Be Smart

• The Strategy: Not winning arguments, but exposing internal contradictions (“blowing the roof off”) to show that Christ makes better sense of reality.
• Exposing the Contradictions:
  1. Containment: The Creator of the cosmos cannot be trapped in human buildings (v. 24).
  2. Neediness: God does not need our service or manipulation; He gives us life and breath (v. 25).
  3. Materiality: The transcendent God cannot be reduced to a manageable statue (v. 29).
• The Turning Table (v. 30–31): The intellectuals thought they were judging Paul’s ideas, but Paul reveals they are accountable to God the Judge.

Conclusion: Results May Vary

• The Outcome: Some mocked, some delayed, and some believed (v. 32).
• The Call: Armed with the Holy Spirit and truth, stop being intimidated and make the true God known in the marketplace.

SJV Sermon Transcript: 07 Jun 2026

Preacher: Aaron Roberts
Location: St. John’s Vancouver Church

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Introduction

Well, good morning, everybody. Morning, it’s really nice to see you all. If you’re brand new, my name is Aaron. I’m one of the ministers on staff here at St John’s. And if you are new, also, just to let you know, we’re in a sermon series right now in the book of Acts, and we’re looking at what happens when the Gospel comes to a city. And this week we’re in Acts 17, and it’s the story of Paul arriving in Athens.

I have two simple points to make, two simple points:

1. Let’s be provoked.
2. But let’s be smart.

One, let’s get provoked. Two, but let’s be smart about it.

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I. Point One: Let’s Be Provoked

First, let’s be provoked. Let’s be provoked.

So Paul arrives in Athens, and he’s waiting around for his friends, and they’re not there yet, so he decides to go for a walk. And Athens would have been a very impressive place, super-intellectual, culturally sophisticated, lots of amazing buildings, but it was spiritually very, very wonky, spiritually very quirky, spiritually very idolatrous, all over the show.

Acts 17:16
Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens, his spirit was provoked within him when he saw the city was full of idols.

So, while Paul is walking around, he just sees temple after temple after temple after temple, and his spirit is provoked.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever had that kind of visceral emotional response to a place before. I have, I remember the very first time I went to Disneyland. I walked through the ticket booth, turned the corner, it was Main Street, there was the castle at the end, and I just started weeping with joy. It’s a true story. I was 28 at the time. This is true. Which makes the story slightly less cute. I appreciate that.

Understanding “Provoked”

So, Paul wasn’t having tears of joy though, was he? He was provoked in his spirit. Now, what does that word provoked mean? Well, it’s a mixture of grief and anger. He’s sad because these people are spiritually lost. And he’s angry because he wants God to be honoured and worshipped. Like we talked about in our opening scripture sentences, ascribed to the Lord. He wants to see that happening. But all his worship is being wasted on statues and God is being dishonoured. So he’s angry about that. He’s sad and he’s angry.

And one of the things I love about this verse here is that as tremendously impressive as Athens was, culturally and architecturally and intellectually, Paul wasn’t intimidated. He wasn’t intimidated by this place. No, he was grieved. He was angry.

Confronting the Intimidation of Vancouver

Our modern Western cities are much like Athens, aren’t they? They’re impressive places. A place like Vancouver. It’s pretty educated, pretty prosperous, pretty advanced. I think what I want to say to you this morning is don’t be intimidated by Vancouver. Don’t be intimidated by all the sophisticated people here.

I just wonder if sometimes we might go to a gathering and we’re afraid to be public about our faith because we’re surrounded by all these clever people with amazing careers. We don’t want to bring up our faith because we don’t want them to think we’re stupid, or simple, or out of step with such a wonderfully progressive place as Vancouver.

Friends, our gut response to Vancouver should be grief and anger because it’s a spiritually really confused place. We’ve just got to see it with spiritual eyes and not just cultural eyes. And I think if you look at Vancouver with spiritual eyes, you do that, you’ll begin to feel what Paul felt about Athens. He grieved over it. Like Jesus grieved over Jerusalem in Luke 19, he wept. They both saw what people were giving their lives to and they had this visceral response to it.

We won’t have the courage to be public about our faith unless we feel what Jesus and Paul felt about the cities that they were looking at. I read a while back that evangelism starts with sadness. That was really good. Evangelism starts with sadness.

So let me ask you a hard question here:

• Do you feel that grief about your non-believing friends?
• Did you once feel it, but it’s faded a bit? Because you’ve got to look at them and you think, well, you know what? They’re pretty happy. They’ve got good careers. They’re secure. They’re nice people.

Lets bring our hearts to God and let’s ask Him to give us the love and sadness that Paul and Christ had for the people of their city. So we would have the courage to talk about Jesus.

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II. Point Two: But Let’s Be Smart

Okay, where are we in this room? Well, we’re still just at verse 16 here. Paul, he saw the temples. He saw temple after temple after temple. He saw, he felt. He didn’t just notice the idols. He saw them and he thought and he thought and he thought and the indignation grew in him. He saw, he felt and then he spoke. But he didn’t just go in with indignation and rage or he wasn’t just crying over them as well. He brought logic and he brought clarity and he was smart about it.

So let’s move to my second point. Second point. So first point, let’s be provoked by our city. Not intimidated by it. Second point, but let’s be smart about it. Let’s be smart about it.

What do I mean by that? How was Paul smart and how he engaged with people in this particular occasion? Well, his strategy in part was to show them the discontinuity in their own belief system. What do I mean by that? What I mean is he pointed out a few things, he made some observations, he asked some pointed questions, and he was able to show people that their worldview was not super robust, that there were problems with it. And then after doing that, he shows them an alternative worldview based on Christ.

And the strategy is described really well by Francis Schaeffer, who was a 20th century American theologian. He said:

“He’s blowing the roof off their current house so they’ll seek shelter somewhere else.”

Setting the Scene: The Areopagus

So let’s look at how he does that. But first we need to set the scene for a moment here, okay? So let’s go big picture for just a minute.

So Paul’s in Athens, waiting around for his friends. He’s moved by all the temples and idolatry he sees. He starts preaching publicly. He’s telling people about Jesus who was resurrected. Then some of the local philosophers start listening to him. And they’re all like, what are you babbling about, Paul? Verse 18, for them it’s all a bit amusing. It’s amusing to them. But it is something new. And these philosophers, they loved debating new ideas. That was their whole jam. That’s what they did all day. They just debated philosophy.

So they bring Paul to this special place where ideas are debated. It was like the court of intellectuals. It was called the Areopagus. And amazingly, they give him a chance to speak, to explain all this new religion to them, to a larger group of thinkers. They say, okay, Paul, have at it. Give us your pitch. Give us your pitch for this new religion, which brings us to verse 22, Paul’s sermon.

Paul’s Sermon and the Unknown God

So let’s get into it. Let’s look at Paul’s sermon here.

Verse 22, he starts by saying, “I perceive that in every way you are very religious.” That’s interesting, isn’t it? I think it’s a backhanded compliment. I think that’s what’s going on. I think it’s a bit like that. Not 100% sure, but I think so. It’s a bit like if I said, well, David’s here this morning. If you’d joined us for the last year, and you didn’t know David, and I said, oh David, yeah, you’ll always feel more intelligent about yourself after speaking to him. Like, is that… Like, what am I saying exactly? Is that a compliment? Or is that an insult? I feel like that’s what Paul is doing here. It’s like really marginal. I don’t know. I could go either way. Welcome back, David, by the way.

Acts 17, okay? Let’s get back to Acts 17. Paul goes on, verse 23. So the unknown gods were the safety net gods for the Athenians. They were the just in case gods, just in case he’s a god who could do something for me that I don’t know about, I’m just going to worship that god and then I’ll be sort of covered. I think that was the thinking there. So Paul cleverly says, I noticed this temple of the unknown god, this god that you don’t know about, let me tell you about him.

And then he preaches and the sermon is verses 24 to 31. Remember, his strategy is to show the discontinuity in their belief systems. And again, what I mean is this: he’s not trying to win an argument, which is not what evangelism is. We don’t try and win arguments. It’s to show people that perhaps there are some internal contradictions in their worldview and to suggest that Christ is a more coherent explanation for reality. I’ll say that again, but it’s really important. Paul is not trying to win an argument. He’s trying to get people to consider Christ. And the way he’s done that in this particular situation is to show the internal contradictions in their worldview and to suggest that Christ is a more coherent explanation for reality.

So that’s Paul’s strategy here. Let’s see how he does it.

The Internal Contradictions of Idolatry

1. The Contradiction of Containment

The first contradiction, verse 24, he says, “the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord over heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man.” Paul says, God made everything. God made everything. So does it make sense that God who created everything could be contained in a building that you made? Does that make sense? Does that really make sense?

And then he doubles down in verse 26, “and he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on the face of all the earth.” Paul says, you make these buildings to house your gods, but isn’t it that God made a home for us and not the other way around? That God made the earth for us and you’re trying to make a thing to put him in? Does that make sense? He’s highlighting these intuitive contradictions.

2. The Contradiction of Neediness

The second discontinuity he highlights, verse 25, “nor is God served by human hands as though he needed anything since he gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.”

The background of this is that the people worshiped these pagan gods just to get things from them. So the pagan gods had to be sort of massaged emotionally with round-the-clock food offerings and rituals in order to get them to give you stuff that you thought you needed. So the gods were just a means to an end. You wanted money, you’d go to the money god and you’d do some things to make that god happy.

Paul says, if there is a god who created us, does it make sense that that god would be needy, that would need us to do things to make them feel better about themselves so they give us things? Does that make sense to you guys? That’s what he’s saying to them. His big point is God does not depend on us. We depend on God.

Let me rattle off a few of these Athenian gods for you just to sort of get the point across:

• Athena: Was the goddess of what? Anyone know? Wisdom? Politics? Apparently in the temple they had a painting of Zeus with his head being split open and somebody reaching in and grabbing out his brain. If you wanted to be smart, you’d go to Athena.
• Artemis: The goddess of what? Anyone know? Money and prosperity. You wanted those things, you’d go and do some things in that temple.
• Nike: Easy one. Victory, yeah, victory. So the athletes would go to that one.
• Aphrodite: Love, sexuality, well that one came quite quickly actually, of course.
• Cloacina: Cloacina. You know that one? It’s the goddess of the sewer system. It’s a true one. Very important. It’s a very important… I don’t know how you worshiped here. Sometimes we light a candle in our bathroom. Is that idolatry? I don’t know. But I’m worried about it now. I’m worried about it.

So to get what you wanted, you’d have to manipulate these gods. Just manipulate them to get what you wanted. Paul is saying, you’re just playing. You’re playing with these regional, special interest, minor deities trying to stay in their good books through rituals and sacrifices, what are you doing?

You don’t need to manipulate the one true God. The one true God is a giver. Verse 25, “nor is God served by human hands as though he needed anything,” not needy, “since he gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” See, the God we know, you don’t need to leverage, you don’t need to bargain with. This is not a bargaining religion, Christianity. We don’t have a transactional relationship with Jesus. I’ll do something for you, you do something for me.

It’s a great reminder because sometimes I think we do think we have a transactional relationship with God. Now, you might have a job interview coming up this week and you’re thinking, oh, I’m going to read the Bible every day. I’m going to read the Bible every day leading up to this because then… Like somehow God’s in your debt? Like he owes you the job now? So the Athenians found their God useful. It’s not how we relate to our God. The Athenians, their gods liked attention. They could be manipulated. It was consumer spirituality.

And Paul is saying, no, God does not need us. He does not need us yet. Yet God still pursues us. That’s how good he is. He still pursues us and he still gives himself to us. That’s the nature of the one true God.

3. The Contradiction of Materiality

And then Paul puts the sort of final nail in the coffin here in verse 29, “Being then God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of man.” It’s a great line, isn’t it?

Here’s the argument, the discontinuity: if God has created a creator of all, if that’s true, you’re crazy to think you can reduce God to something you can just hold in your hands, this little gold statue. It’s tempting, isn’t it, though, to create a God that can pop in a corner and reach out just when needed. Our God is so glorious and so transcendent. Imagine trying to reduce him to something like that. Something manageable.

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III. The Final Discontinuity: Accountability

So, those are the discontinuities Paul brings to this conversation. It’s brilliant, isn’t it? It’s very clear, very smart. And how does he finish up? How does he land the plane, so to speak?

With one final discontinuity, actually. He says, if God is creator, then we’re accountable to him. So verses 30 to 31, look at what Paul says. He says, the times of ignorance god overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed the day on which he will judge the world and righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.

My question is, why bring up Christ as judge right now? It’s interesting, isn’t it? Why not bring up the cross? Why bring up Judgment Day?

Well, I think Paul is reading the room. I think he’s reading the room and he’s getting to the heart of their particular idolatry. The thing they loved the most was what? It was their intellect. And remember, they only brought Paul in to judge him and all his wacky ideas. They were there to judge this new God. And Paul says, God is not answerable to you. He will not be answerable to you. You will be answerable to him. He’s not answerable to you, but you are answerable to Him. You brought me here to judge me and this God, but it’s actually God who will be the judge.

A Personal Encounter with Accountability

I remember getting a… like a day operation at a clinic years ago, it was a small thing. And the doctor asked me, because you’re just awake the whole time, he goes, “oh, what do you do for a job?”

I said, “I’m a minister.”

And he says, “What do you do all day?” Which is a great question.

And I said, “Admin, I meet with people, I write sermons, I study.”

And he said, “So what do you say when you meet people?”

And I thought, goodness. This is an opportunity, isn’t it? So I told him about Jesus. And I told him that he should take the claims of Jesus seriously. And at the end of the conversation, when it finished, it got very quiet.

And he looked at me and he said, “If what you say about Jesus is true, and I do nothing about it, then I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”

And I said, “Yes, you are.”

They left the room. Friends, sometimes I think it’s okay to put the fear of God onto people. I think that’s okay sometimes. Paul’s God, our God, is not like the Athenian gods who can be emotionally massaged with a few candles and chants. And Jesus is not some tribal deity you can play games with. He’s the creator of the universe and one day we will give an account to him.

What I really like about what Paul did here is that he doesn’t just have this philosophical discussion, this theological discussion—those are easy to do. What he does is he leads it to a confrontation and he invites a response, a response to repent and know the forgiveness through Jesus.

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Conclusion: Results May Vary

Now, how did this effort from Paul go? Well, a few weeks ago I preached a sermon that had two points. The points were:

1. Preach the gospel.
2. Results may vary.

And I think this is a great example of it. Because right at the end in verse 32, it says:

• Some mocked him. They just laughed at him.
• Some delayed their response. They said, “you know, we’ll hear more about this.”
• And others started to follow Jesus, which is wonderful.

So mixed response. So let’s wrap it up here.

Whenever Jesus is denied his rightful place in someone’s life, it should cause sadness. Don’t just feel that sadness. Do something about it. Say something. Friends, do not be intimidated.

Can I remind you:

• You have the Holy Spirit.
• You have 20 centuries of rigorous theology behind you.
• You have two billion people in your corner around the world.

Don’t be intimidated. Like Paul, let’s get out there. Let’s be Christians in the marketplace. Let’s be Christians in the schools and universities and the retirement homes and in the community centres. Let’s be shocked by what people are giving their lives to and let’s not shy away from bringing our faith, our reasoning and our clarity to these situations.

Let’s make the unknown God known to people. A God who cannot be manipulated, a God who is not capricious or fickle, a God who can’t be contained or housed or handled, a God who is not needy, but a God who gives and gives and gives and loves and loves and loves and who judges. Let’s make that God known.

Amen.

Summary

In this sermon based on Acts 8, Minister Aaron explores the “remarkable” spread of the gospel to Samaria. He highlights how God uses persecution—a seemingly devastating setback—as a catalyst for mission. Just as the early church was scattered from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria, Aaron draws a parallel to St. John’s own history of “hellish” legal and social trials, which ultimately led to the flourishing of the Anglican Church in North America.

A central theme is that the gospel moves through “normies”—ordinary Christians having natural “Jesus conversations” rather than official programs. Using the example of Philip, a “middle-management” administrator turned evangelist, Aaron argues there are no “no-go zones” for the gospel, regardless of cultural or ethnic barriers.

Finally, the sermon contrasts Philip with Simon the Magician, who sought to use spiritual power for self-promotion—a sin known as “simony.” Aaron warns against modern versions of this, such as “data-mining” prophetic scams, urging the congregation to ensure their hearts are truly surrendered to God rather than seeking personal gain. He concludes by calling the church to be “desperately dependent” on the Holy Spirit to transform Vancouver through simple, faithful service.

Automated Transcription

“Good morning, everyone. Good morning! It’s nice to see you all. If you’re new with us, my name is Aaron, I’m one of the ministers here. We are in a series in the book of Acts called “Sent by Jesus,” and this morning we’re going to talk about the remarkable story of Samaria, about how the gospel came to Samaria. So we’re looking at Chapter—Chapter 8.

And it’s a remarkable story for a number of reasons, so let’s—let’s get into it. It’s a remarkable story because of what preempted this missionary movement to Samaria. And what preempted this missionary movement to Samaria was persecution.

So St. John’s has planted a few churches, and it’s quite a process. There’s lots of prayer, there’s lots of meetings, conversations, announcements, discussions with the diocese, these budget discussions, these forms to be filled in—you’ve got to talk to CRA. There’s lots of people, you know, putting their wisdom into this, lots of documents have to be written, there’s a big send-off, and then they’re off to East Van, or to Winnipeg, or to Richmond. So these missional church plants, they’re—they’re pretty well-organized and they’re pretty intentional.

So what spurred this big missional impetus into Samaria in Acts Chapter 8? How was it organized? Remember at this point in history, back in the day, the Christian movement was a local movement, hadn’t moved beyond Jerusalem. So what spurred this big first missional movement beyond the gates of Jerusalem? What was the process?

Well, there was no official process. It happened because of death. Death and the threat of prison caused this. Acts Chapter 8 starts with a pretty ominous line: ‘And Saul approved his execution.’ That’s how—that’s how it kicked off. There was a guy called Stephen who was publicly murdered for being a follower of Jesus—he was the first Christian martyr. And that kicked off a great time of persecution, the Bible says.

Verses 1 to 3 says Saul was going house to house, he was tracking down Christians, he was dragging them away, he was killing them or he was throwing them in prison. It says in Verse 3 that he was ravaging the church. What does that mean, ‘ravaging’? It’s a strong word, isn’t it? It means it’s like a wild animal tearing apart its prey. Christian persecution was sadistic; it was—it was particularly cruel. That’s what it’s trying to tell us.

Now if you go back to the start of the book of Acts, we had a pretty great start. Apostles preached, it was like 3,000 people came to faith. But Saul wanted to knock that on the head, so he starts this brutal campaign of oppression. And because of that, because of that persecution, all these Christians had to leave Jerusalem—they had to flee. And—and it sounds terrible. And it says here in Verse 1 that they were scattered to the regions of Judea and Samaria. Judea and Samaria—those—those two places should prick our memories because in Chapter 1 of Acts, Verse 8, hear these last words of Jesus before His ascension: ‘You shall receive the Holy Spirit and you’ll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in Judea and Samaria.’

Last words of Christ: ‘Go tell people in Judea and Samaria about me.’ The two places where the Christians fled because of the persecution were Judea and Samaria. This is no coincidence. It’s—it’s interesting, isn’t it? So, what would you just say about all of this? You’d say that God used persecution to move His people into the mission He wanted for them. God used persecution to move His people into the mission He had given them; it’s just completely wild. At the end of Chapter 7, it looked like the church was going to be persecuted into extinction. Clearly, this was Saul’s hope. But in God’s providence, that—that persecution led to an explosion of evangelism.

In February 2008, St. John’s voted to leave the Anglican Church of Canada. Uh, I was there; it was brutal. And I remember reading the articles—we were eviscerated by the journalists. We lost the building, people lost homes, uh, some staff lost pensions, health insurance plans, we were slandered. I remember when we lost the building and reading about it in the mainstream media, and the victory was hailed as… it was kind of like, uh, a victory over a hate group. It was devastating. That was February 2008.

In June 22nd, 2009, the Anglican Church of North America was founded, and we joined it. Since then, since then, ACNA has planted 500 churches. At the moment—and I just—I checked this out with the church planting person down in the States in ACNA—at the moment, there are 20 to 25 church plants happening every year in ACNA. That’s—that’s two church plants every month. Isn’t that remarkable? I mean, when going through what we went through, who would have predicted this? This—this was on no one’s bingo card. It was just kind of awful. What an amazing story! It’s like the story of Joseph in the Old Testament when he confronts his brothers for trying to kill him and he says, ‘What you intended for evil, God intended for good.’ And that’s what we have in Acts Chapter 8. Saul tried to destroy the church, and in the end, he made it unstoppable.

Tertullian was a early Christian thinker around 200 AD, and he wrote a work called ‘Apologeticus.’ And he wrote it in response to the persecution by the—uh—Roman authorities who were trying to quash this new faith. And he says this: ‘Kill us, torture us, condemn us, grind us to dust; and the more you mow us down, the more we grow, for the seed of the church is the blood of Christians.’ So the Roman strategy was [to] crush the movement, and the actual result was multiply the movement.

So what’s my big point here? I think it’s this: we should not judge setbacks too quickly, or defeats of the church, defeats of the church. Don’t judge too quickly when things are looking a bit wobbly. Sometimes God uses these tremendous disruptions to get us going, to move us forward, to—to bring Him His glory. And the breakup with the Anglican Church of Canada—it was—it was hellish. But look at what the Lord has done. Praise the Lord!

Okay, let’s keep going. We’re still in the first four verses here. As I said at the start, the evangelism of Samaria was a—remarkable story. First, first, because it was persecution that actually led to the mission. Why else is it remarkable? Look at Verse 4: ‘Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word. Those who were scattered went about preaching the word.’ It’s talking about just the ordinary Christians. It’s not talking about apostles; it actually says the apostles stayed in Jerusalem. It was the ordinary Christians that were preaching—just normal people, ‘normies,’ just normies.

Now, but what does it mean that they were preaching here? What does that mean? It’s an interesting word; it’s not the same word as what I’m doing right now. It’s not stand-up delivering sermons. The word’s more like—it’s more like ‘gossiping,’ they’re more like ‘gossiping’ about Jesus. It’s more like they’re just having conversations about Jesus with the people they come across. Those who were scattered were having Jesus conversations with people.

It might go something like this for us: ‘How was your weekend?’ Somebody says to you, ‘Oh, it was very good. Played pickleball—I’m assuming. Played pickleball, I went to church. There was a very good-looking pastor delivered an excellent sermon.’ (Just obviously use your own words, but something along those lines is probably good.) And the person says, ‘I didn’t know you went to church.’ ‘Yeah, it’s—it’s important to me.’ ‘Have you always been religious?’ ‘Well, actually, no. Uh, somebody told me about Jesus when I was about 20, and I thought it was really interesting and I thought I need to find out more about this, so I started going to church. Have you given much thought to this kind of thing yourself?’ That’s what it’s talking about, just these kinds of conversations.

Now, these conversations might go nowhere, but they might go somewhere. So as you’re scattered about your everyday life, sow these seeds, these dandelions, sow these seeds in simple and honest and kind ways. That’s what was happening back then and it turned the place upside down and we can all do this. We can all be honest with people about what’s important to us. It’s just normal people.

I was in LA a week and a half ago. I go on retreat for one week every year with guys I went to Regent College with, and there was a woman called Amy I met there who gave us a ride to the hotel we were staying at. Sixteen years ago, this woman Amy moved to California because of some sort of family drama—I guess she was scattered, actually. She was scattered. She moved to California and in her neighborhood she thought, ‘You know, there’s no churches I can really connect with here.’ And she thought, ‘I’d really love if there was an ACNA church, an ACNA church here,’ and ACNA was still pretty new, but she liked it. She liked the vibe. So she reached out to a bishop she kind of knew and said, ‘Look, I just think an ACNA church would do really well in my neighborhood.’ And the bishop said, ‘Look, I might know a guy you can talk to.’ She goes, ‘I’ve got a few friends I’ve been talking to about this.’

So, she met with this church planter, she invited some friends, and a church was planted. Now I visited that church two Sundays ago. That church has about two and a half thousand people going to it. It’s probably the biggest church in ACNA. When they run Alpha—this is a true story—when they run Alpha, 400 people come. They have planted a lot of other thriving churches. As an aside, the church, you’ll be happy to know, was planted by an Artizo apprentice from St. John’s, actually. Isn’t that cool? But it’s probably the largest and arguably the most evangelistic church in ACNA.

How did it start? What was the impetus? This woman was scattered. She wasn’t an entrepreneur, she wasn’t a minister, she’s no theological education. She wasn’t like a big-time business person with really crazy big ideas. She’s a part-time bookkeeper; that’s what she does for a job. She’s a regular woman, she’s a normie. She moved because of stress; she’s scattered, but she loved Jesus, she started having Jesus conversations. Friends, don’t underestimate how God can use you.

Okay, let’s keep going. Let’s keep going here. The story of the gospel coming to Samaria is a remarkable story. It’s remarkable because the mission happened as a result of persecution. It’s also remarkable because the workers on the ground, the drivers of it, were just normal people gossiping about Jesus.

Okay, why else is it remarkable? It’s remarkable because of the place they went to, because it was Samaria. Jewish believers in Samaria, telling Samaritans about Jesus. This is remarkable. Why is it remarkable, you ask? Because the Hebrews hated Samaria. There was at least 700 years of bad blood between these places. In John Chapter 8, Jesus was called a Samaritan as an insult. They were regarded as traitors of the faith and we don’t have time to get into it, but Samaria was this hodge-podge of sort of syncretistic religions—you can look up I think 2 Kings 17, sort of tells the story of the beginning of the animosity between the two places. But Jews basically avoided the place like the plague. But there they were.

What does this tell us? It tells us this: there are no ‘no-go zones’ when it comes to mission. When it comes to sharing Jesus, there are no ‘no-go zones’. Your Muslim neighbor, your boss, your taxi driver, your non-binary cousin… you know, when Christ ascended in Acts Chapter 1, He became the Lord of all. He became the Lord of all, which means there is not a person on the planet that Christ is not Lord over. There is no place, therefore, that isn’t the mission field. And you can imagine some people back in the day would have been like, ‘Oh yeah, I understand that, but surely not Samaria. Those guys—that’s a terrible place.’

There’s this strange little bit in this passage I want to point out. Verses 14, 15, and 16. ‘Now when the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for it had not yet fallen on any of them.’ Strange, because that’s not typical. The Holy Spirit comes at salvation. So why is the delay there?

There’s a delay so that the big-name apostles could come and pray for them, I think. And I think that was sort of like giving it an official stamp of approval, saying, ‘Yes, even in Samaria. Even in Samaria.’

Now there’s lots of debate about that, so I’ll leave the issue there. But the big point is this: there are no ‘no-go zones’ when it comes to mission. You can’t look at somewhere, you can’t look at someone and say, ‘Well, the gospel is not for them,’ because Christ is Lord over all.

Let’s keep going. It’s a remarkable story, the gospel coming to Samaria. It’s remarkable because persecution preempted it. It’s remarkable because regular folks fanned the flame. They were all-in on telling the Samaritans about Jesus, and that’s particularly astonishing because of these 700 years of hatred there.

Now the story continues by zooming in on two people. The first is Philip in verses 5 to 8. It says Philip went down and he proclaimed Christ to them and all these amazing things happened—unclean spirits coming out, healings, great joy came on the city. What’s remarkable about this is this is not the apostle Philip, it’s entirely another guy.

When I went to synod a few years ago, I had to—I did a talk and was thinking how to introduce myself, so I said, ‘Hello, I’m Aaron, I work at St. John’s in the role of middle management.’ This is Philip; he’s middle management. And you could read earlier on, he was elected earlier to do admin stuff for the church to help poor people in the early church. Middle management Philip. But gee, he loves Jesus, and he wants people to know Jesus.

So he preaches in Samaria, and he crosses ethnic boundaries and he crosses cultural boundaries and he crosses religious boundaries. He crosses these boundaries because he takes Jesus seriously when Jesus says, ‘Be my witnesses in Judea and Samaria.’ And he’s just talking to people and folks’ lives are getting changed, and he’s not a big shot, he’s not an apostle, but he loved Jesus and he couldn’t stop himself. And before he knew it, he had a revival on his hands. It’s astonishing, isn’t it, the gospel? Isn’t the gospel astonishing in the hands of anyone?

And what I love about this also is—is he was a refugee—he was a refugee in a hostile environment. Probably didn’t want to be there because he had to leave his home because of the persecution.

So where God has you, that’s your mission field, whether you like being there or not. Maybe you don’t like your neighborhood or your home, or maybe you’re in a facility you don’t particularly like. If that’s where God has you, do not let bitterness distract you from God using you in the place He has you. That’s your mission field.

And let’s talk about this other guy here. We’ve got this guy called Simon the Magician. If Philip is the encouraging example, Simon is the warning. He’s a powerful man, he’s a well-known magician. Folks said, ‘Well, all his—he could do these tricks—I don’t know what they looked like, but he’d do all these tricks and—um—people said, ‘Oh, he must be a man of God. He—he must have this power from God.’ Super popular with people and—popular with himself, actually. It says in Verse 9—he says he thought of himself as someone great, which is just a brilliant line, isn’t it? I love that.

When Philip came on the scene, Simon looked at him and thought, ‘Gee, that’s—he’s—he’s got some great stuff going on.’ Remarkably, what does Simon do? Jumps on board. He jumps on board. Can’t beat ’em, join ’em. And he was baptized. But it doesn’t seem like it was a genuine conversion. Later, he tries to buy the Holy Spirit power. Verse 13 says he was—he was amazed by it all, but he wasn’t truly converted. He wanted the Holy Spirit to be another sort of trick in his magic box, I guess.

See, Philip was all about the gospel, wasn’t he? Simon was all about Simon. He was in it for Simon. And we laugh about this idea of trying to buy the Holy Spirit, but for centuries, this was a thing in the church. It was called Simony, named after Simon. Simony is the sin of trying to buy or sell spiritual things, and during the Middle Ages in the corrupt years of the church, there was a time where you could buy the position of—of Pope—of—bishop, sorry, of bishop. You could buy your way to heaven. This is in part, actually, led to the Reformation and the establishment of the Anglican church.

In more modern times, we have a more subtle version of it. It’s people who use faith for self-promotion. It exists whenever someone seeks out a role to promote themselves. It could be preachers, or trustees, or volunteers, anyone. If you’re in it for you, to promote your idea, to promote your agenda, it’s a spiritually dangerous place to be.

There was a scandal in the—uh—wider churchland quite recently. A well-known—um—charismatic itinerant preacher—uh—was caught out. Here—here’s the deal. So he was on the conference circuit, he’d go around preaching, very popular guy in a certain part of the Christian church in North America. And he’d go to all these huge conferences, and he would preach, and then in the—in the middle of his sermon, he’d stop and—and he would say something like—’I feel like the Lord is telling me there’s someone here called Briana.’ And somebody’d put up their hand and go, ‘I’m Briana!’ And he would say, ‘Does the word Northfield mean anything to you?’ And she’d say, ‘My kids go to, you know, Northfield High.’ And he goes, ‘Well, you know, the Lord has a message for you,’ and—and would say something quite encouraging to them.

And I watched a few videos of this guy. Very impressive. Very impressive speaker, very good. And everyone would say, you know, ‘It’s—this is the Holy Spirit, that he has these insights into people’s lives.’ Folks, it was all a scam. It was all a scam. A Christian investigative journalist outed him. Turns out that this guy would somehow find out who’s going to the conference and would just data mine their social media pages, pick out these facts of their life, and pretend to have this astonishing prophetic gift. This all just happened in the last month. The guy was wanting to profit from the gospel. He was in it for himself. It’s a terrible story.

This is what Simon was—in it for himself. Philip was very strong with him, calls him to repentance. He says, ‘Your heart’s not right with God,’ and he says in Verse 20, ‘May your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money.’ Doesn’t seem like Simon repented, though. He just sort of weakly says, ‘Oh, pray that these bad things don’t happen to me.’ That’s not repentance.

See, Simon wanted the power of God, not God Himself. Easy trap for Christians, that one. He wanted the recognition, he wanted the Holy Spirit to be a tool in his tool—in his tool shed. He wanted the magic trick of all magic tricks. He wanted to use God to get things, not God Himself. Another easy trap for us. See, true Christianity is about service, and surrender, and about a changed heart. Simon was amazed, he was baptized, but actually never converted. I read a description this week of people like Simon. It says, ‘They are varnished with religion, never visited with grace.’

So here’s the lesson for us. Keep bringing your hearts to God, especially when you serve. Ask yourself, ‘Who am I doing this for?’

Okay, I’m going to finish up here very quickly. The gospel is powerful. It crosses every boundary: racial, social, physical. Doesn’t care who shares it, whether it’s being shared by an apostle, by a layperson, by middle management, by normies, it doesn’t matter. Transforms lives. The gospel transforms lives. And the warning here is: do not play with it, do not mess around with it, do not use it for your own personal purposes. Whether you preach, or sing, or write, or hand out service sheets, or teach, or clean, remember, we must remain desperately dependent—all of us—on the work of the Holy Spirit to straighten out our hearts so that we can serve Him and others can know Jesus.

Friends, God wants to use you. And we want the remarkable story of Samaria to be the remarkable story of Vancouver. Amen.”

St. John’s Vancouver Morning Service – 2026/04/19

Sermon: Sent by Jesus (Acts 3)

**Speaker: Jordan Senner**

**Location: St. John’s Vancouver Anglican Church**

**Date: April 19, 2026**

In this sermon on Acts 3, Jordan Senner explores the healing of a lame man at the Temple’s Beautiful Gate. He emphasizes that the miracle’s primary purpose is to reveal the uniqueness and power of the risen Jesus, rather than just the healing itself. Senner calls the congregation to a life of repentance, defined not by shame, but as a joyful response to God’s fulfilled promises. This repentance involves turning from self-reliance to listen to Jesus, ultimately unlocking three divine blessings: the removal of sins, spiritual refreshment, and the hope of the future restoration of all things in Christ.

Outline

 * **Sermon Series Context**: This sermon is the third installment of a “trilogy” at St. John’s Vancouver: *Encounters with Jesus*, *Formed by Jesus*, and now *Sent by Jesus*. The goal of this series in the Book of Acts is to observe how the Holy Spirit empowers believers to be witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the earth.

 * **The Healing (Acts 3:1-10)**:

   * The setting is the “Beautiful Gate” of the Temple, a massive structure of Corinthian brass.

   * A man lame from birth, accustomed to being overlooked while begging, is healed by Peter and John.

   * Peter looks the man in the eye, offering something money cannot buy: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

   * The man’s immediate healing—leaping and praising God—shatters the routine of the Temple and draws a massive crowd to Solomon’s Portico.

 * **What the Healing Reveals (Acts 3:11-16)**:

   * Senner argues the miracle is not a template for universal physical healing, but a signpost pointing to the uniqueness of Jesus.

   * The logic is clear: if the man is healed in Jesus’ name, Jesus must be alive.

   * Peter uses the moment to confront the crowd, identifying Jesus as the “Author of Life” whom they rejected, but whom God raised from the dead.

 * **A Call to Repentance (Acts 3:17-26)**:

   * Repentance is presented not as a response to shame or “trying harder,” but as a response to the “kindness of the Lord” and the fulfillment of God’s ancient promises.

   * It involves two activities: **turning away** from wickedness (denying Jesus’ supremacy) and **listening** to Jesus as the prophet foretold by Moses.

   * Senner uses the analogy of being lost on Galiano Island: repentance is finally listening to the voice that tells you to turn the car around.

 * **The Three Blessings of Repentance**:

   * **Removal of Sins**: Described as “blotting out” or wiping a whiteboard clean (illustrated by Senner’s story of having his feet washed after a five-day hike).

   * **Refreshment of Spirit**: An ongoing gift of God’s presence that provides vitality in the midst of life (illustrated by a refreshing swim in the Pacific Ocean).

   * **Restoration of All Things**: The future hope that Christ will return to make all things right, bringing the work he started to completion (illustrated by finally returning home to one’s own bed).

 * **Conclusion**: The sermon concludes by reminding the congregation that the power of Jesus’ name is available now to cleanse, refresh, and offer everlasting glory to those who turn to him.

Automated Transcript

And in case you’re new and just kind of joining in with us, it might be helpful to know that we’re in the third part of a sermon series trilogy. We did three months—”Encounters with Jesus”—in the first half of the Gospel of John. Then we did three months called “Formed by Jesus.” We spent one evening, one meal with Jesus the night before he died, for three straight months.

And now, we’re doing “Sent by Jesus.” So: Encounters with Jesus, Formed by Jesus, Sent by Jesus. And we’re spending 12 weeks in the Book of Acts, seeing what happens when Jesus sends his Spirit-filled people into the world and the good news of Jesus spreads from person to person, to city to city, to culture to culture. What happens when God is on the move bringing the good news of Jesus to the world?

And as we follow this journey in the Book of Acts, there’s just a couple things that I’m going to be praying for us over the next 12 weeks. The first is that the Lord would deepen our confidence in the power of the gospel—deepen our confidence in the power of the gospel to save anyone, anywhere, at any time.

And the second thing is that the Book of Acts would have a catalyzing effect in our lives. That the Spirit would use Acts to shape and stir and form our imagination for what it means to be witnesses of Jesus right where he’s placed us—in the day-to-day, at school, at work, at home, and in the neighborhood.

So with these prayers in mind, let’s jump into the Book of Acts. If you can open your Bibles to page 911. And it’s important as we come here to remember what Jesus told us last week at the very beginning of Acts, chapter 1, verse 8. He gave us a roadmap for the entire book. So the entire book is shaped around this one verse. Jesus says:

> “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses first in Jerusalem, second in all Judea and Samaria, and third to the ends of the earth.”

> 

And so this week, in Acts chapter 3, it’s helpful to know that we’re at the first stop on the map. We’re in Jerusalem. The gospel goes to the very heart of Jerusalem, the Temple, as a man is healed outside a gate called Beautiful.

So I want to walk us through this passage in three parts. The first 10 verses is Part 1: it’s the healing itself. Then verses 11 to 16 are Part 2: it’s what the healing reveals. And then Part 3 are verses 17 to 26: it’s what the healing means for you now. So: the healing, what the healing reveals, and what the healing means for you now.

### Part 1: The Healing

Let’s begin with the healing. Julia’s example of the healing was incredible. A man leaps onto his feet who has never been on his feet before. And a man leaps into the Temple praising God who has never walked into the Temple before. And all the people in the Temple recognize this man because, for many decades, his friends have been bringing him to the exact same gate every single morning to do the exact same thing because his feet are not strong, he cannot work, and so he has to sit by the gate and beg.

The people in the Temple pass by him every single day. They know who he is. They’ve seen him before. And yet, it seems that this man is used to being overlooked. The Temple gate is called “Beautiful,” and it’s called Beautiful because it was some 75 feet tall. It was made out of pure Corinthian brass and had two massive double doors that opened it, and they would reflect in the sunlight.

And so the image is of this towering, beautiful gate and of a man humble, looking at the dust of the ground, begging for money. And Peter, when he comes to him, has to say, “Look at us.” He has to call him to look at them face-to-face because he’s probably used to being overlooked. As some of we even experience in our own street corners, they’re used to people walking by them and not paying attention. And even those who pass by are used to walking by people and looking the other direction.

And here, Peter calls this man, he looks at him, and he says, “Please look at us.” And as Peter looks at him, he sees a man who has need that money cannot fix, and he sees a man who needs a gift that money cannot buy. And so he says to him:

> “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”

> 

He grabs him by the right hand, helps raise him up to his feet, immediately his ankles and feet are made strong, and he leaps into the Temple praising God, and everybody is aghast. They’re like, “What in the world just happened?” People are amazed, people are astonished, people are asking questions.

So intense and amazing was this experience that it’s as if all the work and all the hustle and bustle of the Temple comes to a screeching halt, and the crowds of people in the Temple all flood to this one place called Solomon’s Portico, which is a place where Jesus himself used to walk and teach people. It’s a long corridor along the eastern wall of the Temple that is made of marble columns and a cedar roof, so if you speak, sound travels really well. It’s a good place to teach crowds. And the crowds are gathering around Peter and John wanting some explanation for how in the world this man is leaping on his feet in the Temple.

And so Peter stands up and he speaks and explains what has happened. So that’s the healing.

### Part 2: What the Healing Reveals

And as Peter speaks, he starts to tell them what the healing reveals. This is point two. Let’s pause and ask ourselves: what’s the takeaway of all this? Is the takeaway that the church’s job isn’t to feed the poor but it’s actually to heal the sick? No. Is the takeaway that the church should always see miraculous healings like this whenever it goes about ministering in the name of Jesus? No, I don’t think that’s necessarily true. Is the takeaway that if people just had more faith, we would see more healings like this in the world? I don’t think so.

Because I think the main point of Acts 3 is not “Be like Peter and John,” or “Try to do like Peter and John.” The main point of Acts 3 is there’s no one like Jesus. The healing, in other words, isn’t really about the healing; the healing reveals the uniqueness of the Healer.

The logic of Peter’s sermon goes something like this: if this man was healed in Jesus’ name, it means there is power in Jesus’ name. And if there’s power in Jesus’ name, then it means Jesus must be alive. And if Jesus is alive, then it means that God has raised him from the dead. And if God has raised him from the dead, it means the people who are listening to Peter speak are in a bit of a predicament because they’re the ones that killed Jesus.

In other words, Peter is telling those people that in their very act of denying Jesus and disowning Jesus and delivering Jesus over and killing him, they actually did violence to God. He was the Holy and Righteous One; he is the Author of Life. They have set themselves against God by setting themselves against Jesus. And so you can imagine they are on razor-sharp knife’s edge.

Peter is saying, “You killed the Author of Life, and yet God raised him from the dead.” And do you notice here how Peter hasn’t said anything yet about the healing? The whole focus of the sermon is fully on Jesus—the uniqueness of who he is, the marvel of his death, and the power of his resurrection. He wants his hearers to have their attention focused on Jesus—the fact that he is alive, that he reigns, and they have to do business with Jesus now.

### Part 3: What the Healing Means for You Now

And the third point is: what does the healing mean for you now? In verse 17, Peter gets very direct and very personal and pointed. He says what the healing means for you right now is that you need to repent.

Now I want to talk about what that word ‘repent’ means in just a moment, but first, I want us to notice how it is that Peter calls his readers or his hearers into a life of repentance. And he does it with such brotherly affection and spiritual encouragement. Look at verse 17. He says, ‘And now, brothers’—he’s talking to his family here. He says, ‘And now, brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your rulers. But what God foretold by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ would suffer, he thus fulfilled. Repent therefore and turn back.’

Do you notice that language, that what God foretold by the mouth of the prophets he would thus fulfill? Peter goes on in this section to name as many prophets as he can in a short period of time. He talks about—he talks about Moses and the promises God made to Moses. He talks about—I mean, he talks about Abraham and the promises God made to Abraham. He talks about Moses and he quotes Moses directly as talking about a future prophet that would come. He—he talks about Samuel and all the prophets that come after him. He even has allusions from the book of Isaiah, the prophet Isaiah. So it’s as if Peter is viewing the whole sweep of God’s saving history as a series of promises throughout the generations.

And he views all the promises like a mighty rushing river that leads to one ocean: the vast grace that God has given people in Jesus Christ. And he says to the hearers before them that repentance is not primarily a response just to your sin; repentance is primarily a response to the fulfillment of God’s promises for you.

God has been mighty to save. He’s been rich in mercy. He has been lavish in love in the Lord Jesus Christ. So turn back to him. I think this is a really profound point for us to understand when we talk about repentance. What motivates our repentance in the Christian life is not simply a hatred for our sin. What motivates repentance is a delight in the goodness and the generosity and the kindness of God for us. It’s the—it’s the realization that he’s done more for us than we could ever ask or imagine in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Last week I—um—finished teaching a theology course at Regent College and there was a student who—um—had been attending online but for the last class he came in person. And he came up to me after the class and he said, ‘I just became a Christian a few years ago and this is the first time I’ve ever studied theology. First course I’ve ever taken on it.’ Um—and he said, ‘I had no clue there was so much goodness. I had no clue there was so much goodness.’ And I think that’s what leads us into repentance, is that sort of experience of God.

What this means, I think, is that growing in a life of repentance—which is a whole lifelong thing—does not happen just by having a ‘try harder, do better’ mentality. I think this also means that growing in a life of repentance doesn’t happen just as we become more and more aware of our sin—I mean, that’s really important—but you can become more and more aware of your sin and yet just become more and more depressed and discouraged about your life. And depression and discouragement doesn’t lead us to repentance, does it brothers and sisters? The Scriptures tell us that it’s the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance.

And so the growth in a life of repentance happens as we lift the sails of our life through faith and we let God’s promises fill our lives with the awareness of his kindness. And you never know exactly when it’s going to hit you. You never know when the penny’s going to drop. You never know when you’re going to be in that moment of desperation, in the pit of despair, and you’ll need those promises to hold you fast in a way that you’ve never needed them before. But the moments will come when there’s a particular promise of God, a particular way he has made that promise come true in Jesus Christ, that will grip your heart. You’ll have that ‘aha’ moment. You’ll be like, ‘Wow, that’s what God did for me.’ And his grace will start to settle in in a new way, and that’s when you’ll start growing in a life of repentance as you experience more and more of the love that he has for you in Jesus Christ, which nothing in the world can separate you from.

So the first point I just want you to know about repentance is that it doesn’t rest on your own effort; it rests on God’s promises to you and the fact that in Jesus he has fulfilled those promises.

But now we must ask: what in the world does repentance look like? What is it? What do we do? And Peter highlights two main activities, two simple things. He says repentance is turning away and listening to. Turning away and listening to.

Repentance means turning away. It literally means to change your mind, to think differently. In this case, you can imagine Peter basically saying, ‘You need to think differently about Jesus. You got him wrong. And you need to reconsider. You need to repent and change the way you think about him.’ But repentance is more about—um—just our mindset or our attitudes towards someone; repentance is a matter of your concrete actions and decisions in life as well. This is why Peter says in verse 26, he calls them to turn from their wickedness.

In Acts chapter 3, wickedness, I think, is defined specifically as any denial or rejection of Jesus. So anything I do that denies the uniqueness and the supremacy of Jesus in the world is something that I need to turn away from. So anything that I do that rejects the graciousness and kindness of Jesus in my life is something that I need to turn away from.

Because repentance means realizing that I’ve gotten something fundamentally wrong about Jesus. That I need to rediscover something about Jesus. That I need to come to him for a truer understanding of who he is and a firmer grasp of what he’s done for me. Which is why I think listening is highlighted in verses 22 to 24 by Moses himself. Listening is highlighted as the main posture that we should have toward Jesus. We turn from our wickedness, but we turn to Jesus to listen to him. Because it’s by listening to him that we come to know him more and more.

Um—there was a—I once—um—well, I knew a guy—um—who once got lost driving on Galiano Island. I won’t tell you who that guy is. Um—somebody after the—the early morning service came up to me and said, ‘How did you get lost on Galiano Island? There’s like two streets.’ It’s like, ‘Fair enough. I guess I just went the wrong direction on one of them.’

But I remember—I remember leaving the house—uh—I left the house without downloading directions. And I thought, ‘I’ll just make it there. It’ll be fine.’ My wife said to me, ‘It’s not going to be fine.’ It wasn’t fine. Um—and the amazing thing about it is the more lost we got, further and further into the forest, the more determined I got on figuring it out on my own. I wasn’t even admitting that we were lost, and I was not willing to turn around.

And sometimes that’s what happens, right? See, in repentance, just thinking and knowing that we’re lost but trying to figure it out on our own—that’s not repentance. The moment of repentance is knowing that you’re lost and when you finally listen to the person that’s sitting next to you saying, ‘You should probably turn around. Go back to the house, get accurate directions, go back out the driveway and take a left turn instead of right.’

So repentance isn’t just about knowing that you’re going the wrong direction but you’re going to figure it out; repentance is about listening to the voice that is telling you to change course and what you need to do to make amendment of life.

And the final thing that Peter teaches us about repentance isn’t just that it’s based on the promises of God, not just that it’s a turning away from our sin and wickedness to listen to Jesus, but the final thing he teaches about repentance is that when you live a life of repentance, God will unleash blessing upon blessing upon blessing in your life. In other words, repentance feels a bit like the Beautiful gate at the Temple. It’s the doorway into the presence and the refreshment and life of God.

And in verses 19 to 21, Peter names three blessings, three fruits of repentance.

Number one is the **removal of our sins**. He says, ‘Repent therefore and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out.’ A modern-day image of this would be say the whiteboard. You write something on the whiteboard; the ink doesn’t actually sink into it like it does with paper, it’s just on the outside and you can wipe that away. It’s this image of sins being removed.

The second blessing of repentance, says Peter, is the **refreshment of your spirit**. Verse 20: ‘Repent, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord for you.’

And then the third blessing is the **restoration of the whole world**. Verse 20: ‘Repent, that he may send the Christ appointed for you, Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for the restoring of all things, about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago.’

So you have the removal of sins, the refreshment of our spirits, and the restoration of the world. Isn’t that pretty good? Like, if we—if any given day you were like, ‘I could experience one of the three of those things,’ that would be a good day. But any day that we could live in the hope and taste glimpses of—of any three of those things, you would say, ‘That’s going to be one of the best days of my life.’ And—and Peter is saying, ‘This is what repentance unlocks for you.’

And—and one way to think of it is in terms of the beginning and the middle and the end of the Christian life. Um—let me see if I can illustrate this. I once went on a hiking trip on Catalina Island. Any of you heard of Catalina Island before? It’s right off the coast of Los Angeles. And—um—I went on a five-day hiking trip with a group of people. We hiked 10 miles a day in 35-degree weather, and we had no showers. It was an incredible experience. And I was a sight to behold—uh—by the end.

On the last night of the camp, my boss said to me and my coworkers—it was like a team-building thing for—for work—um—he said, ‘I want to wash your feet.’ Which was a bit of an awkward experience after five days. So he peels our socks off and has a bucket of water and he—he digs in. And he blots out, he wipes away, he scrubs, he removes all the dirt. And it’s like the first blessing of repentance: your sins may be cleansed and washed away.

And then the next day, we hiked down the mountain to the ferry terminal and we happened to get there—uh—an hour early, and so we couldn’t resist and we jumped in the ocean. And oh, I have never had a swim so refreshing in my entire life. In the hot California sun, being surrounded by the cool, crisp, clean waters of the Pacific Ocean, glistening blue, and it was an amazingly refreshing experience. And it was like—I had—I had my feet washed the—the day before, and that was an amazing experience, but now I was being refreshed in the presence of this water in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. And—and it’s like the second blessing of repentance: ‘Repent, repent, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.’ And that’s the gift of ongoing repentance, is that the Lord brings ongoing refreshment into our lives. Day in and day out, when we most need it and when we least expect it.

And then finally, I boarded the ferry an hour later, we’re on our way home, I finally get to my house, I take a shower, I get into a fresh change of clothes, I get into my soft bed with my own pillow and I feel like, ‘Aha. All is right again.’

And that’s the third blessing of repentance, says Peter: ‘Repent, and you may know that God is sending Christ for you. And when Christ comes, he is going to restore all things.’ In heaven and on earth are going to be made right again. And the work that he has started in your life is going to be brought to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. The work that he has started in your brothers’ and sisters’ life will be brought to completion in the day of Jesus Christ. The work that he has started in his creation will be brought to completion in Jesus Christ. And with all his saints, you will be leaping and bounding in the temple of the new creation, praising God with the man who was healed on that day, say, ‘Glory to God for his great mercy and grace toward us.’

Brothers and sisters, this passage isn’t primarily about a healing one day 2,000 years ago. This passage is about the man whose name has the power to heal. This passage tells us that this man rose from the dead by the power of God and that he lives even now. And that if you have faith in his name, if you repent and turn to him, you can have your sins completely cleansed. You can experience refreshing in your life that you’ve never experienced before, and you can have the hope of everlasting glory.

And so the only question is: will you turn from whatever it is that the Lord’s asking you to turn from? And will you discover in Jesus all the riches of God’s kindness and mercy toward you?

I speak these things to you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.