ROOTED & GROUNDED
BETHESDA SUNDAY SCHOOL
Every Sunday 9:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m. in the Coffee House
“Rooted and built up in HIM and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.”
Colossians 2:7 (NKJV)
Theresa, Kevin & Marlene
Session 4
Unstoppable Opportunities
The Point
We intersect daily with people who need Christ.
The Passage
Acts 3:1-10
The Bible Meets Life
In the early 70s, Bill Fernandez had two friends named Steve. Out walking around the neighborhood one afternoon with one of them, Bill saw the other Steve washing his car. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to introduce his two friends.
And that’s how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak met. The two hit it off immediately, both having an avid interest in technology. Years later, the two Steves co-founded a little company called Apple®. A chance meeting led to the founding of one of the world’s most highly valued businesses.8
Wait a minute. A chance meeting? As a follower of Christ, I hesitate to call the encounters I have with people mere “chance” meetings. These unplanned intersections can be “divine appointments”—opportunities that can change the direction of a life. In Acts 3, Peter and John took advantage of just such an unplanned meeting to do something incredible for God.
The Setting
The early Christian church in Jerusalem was comprised mainly of Jewish men and women, most of whom continued to participate in the Jewish rituals and worship of their community. One day, as Peter and John were going up to the temple complex to take part in the afternoon hour of prayer, they encountered a lame man begging at the temple gate. They used this opportunity to demonstrate the power of Jesus Christ to this lame man and to all those present at the temple.
What does the Bible say?
Acts 3:1-10
1 Now Peter and John were going up together to the temple complex at the hour of prayer at three in the afternoon.
2 And a man who was lame from birth was carried there and placed every day at the temple gate called Beautiful, so he could beg from those entering the temple complex.
3 When he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple complex, he asked for help.
4 Peter, along with John, looked at him intently and said, “Look at us.”
5 So he turned to them, expecting to get something from them.
6 But Peter said, “I don’t have silver or gold, but what I have, I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk!”
7 Then, taking him by the right hand he raised him up, and at once his feet and ankles became strong.
8 So he jumped up, stood, and started to walk, and he entered the temple complex with them—walking, leaping, and praising God.
9 All the people saw him walking and praising God,
10 and they recognized that he was the one who used to sit and beg at the Beautiful Gate of the temple complex. So they were filled with awe and astonishment at what had happened to him.
Temple complex (v. 1)—The center of Jewish worship, the temple had received a major renovation starting around 20 b.c. The result was a grand complex with several new walls, courtyards, and gates, one of which was the Beautiful Gate (see v. 2).