Foundations Part 3, Lives Are Changed Here | July 27, 2025

The Setup: Two Ordinary Men, One Extraordinary Need

Sermon number four continued the foundations series by asking what it looks like for a healthy church to actually see lives changed, both individually and within its community. Pastor Justin reminded us that a healthy church should be able to confidently say lives are changed here, regularly celebrating new believers coming to Christ, celebrating baptisms, and celebrating the ongoing life change that comes from walking closer with Jesus.

From there Pastor Justin moved into Acts 3:1-10, where Peter and John are simply on their way to the temple for the hour of prayer when they encounter a man lame from birth, laid daily at the gate called Beautiful to beg for money. This was not a dramatic, planned ministry moment, it was two ordinary men going about their normal routine when they became aware of a need directly in front of them.

Peter's response became the second point of the message: a healthy church has eyes to see the needs around it. Peter tells the man plainly that he has no silver or gold, but what he does have he gives him, and in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth commands him to rise up and walk. Pastor Justin asked the obvious question: what if Peter and John had simply kept walking past a need they saw every single day? He pointed to a recent example in our own congregation, a woman named Annabelle who heard a prompting from the Lord one Sunday and chose obedience over comfort, as a modern picture of the exact same posture.

The result of that healing was immediate and physical: the man's feet and ankles were made strong, and he went into the temple walking, leaping, and praising God, drawing a crowd utterly astounded by what they were witnessing. That set up the third point of the sermon, that a healthy church opens the eyes of unbelievers through wonder and amazement, because truth on display is genuinely attractive, even in a culture that insists there is no such thing as objective truth.

Pastor Justin spent real time here addressing the modern claim that truth is entirely subjective, that what is true for you does not have to be true for me. He argued that this passage models the opposite: an undeniable, objective miracle happened in front of witnesses, and it pointed people toward the one unchanging truth found only in Jesus rather than toward a feeling or a preference.

He also drew in the earlier healing account from Luke 13:10-17, where Jesus heals a woman who had been bent over by a disabling spirit for eighteen years, on the Sabbath, over the objections of a synagogue ruler more concerned with rule keeping than with a woman set free after nearly two decades of suffering. Pastor Justin used that story to show that real life change has always made religious people uncomfortable when it does not fit their preferred categories or schedule.

Tying it back to Acts 2:42-47, Pastor Justin reminded us that a growing, healthy church is the natural byproduct of a church where lives are actually being changed, not a goal to be chased directly through programs or marketing. When people are prayed for, noticed, and genuinely cared for the way Peter cared for that lame man, transformation and growth tend to follow on their own.

This Week's Application

So this week, is there a need right in front of you that you have been walking past because it was not convenient, the way Peter could have walked past that man at the gate? We would love for you to join us this Sunday as we continue walking through Acts together.