Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:13] The power of the Gospel. So I just want to. I want to read the story to us one more time, because I do think.
[00:00:20] I think this is one of those stories that kind of like we talked about last week with the healing of Anas that maybe some of us in the room have read so many times that we just kind of gloss over the significance of what's happening. And so I just want us to walk through the narrative slowly together, and as best as we can, try to put ourself in the scene.
[00:00:39] So the Book of Acts is a story, and that means it's obviously a story about God and what God has done and is doing in Christ.
[00:00:49] But it's a story that involves humans, like real human persons, with feelings and thoughts and fears and sin and suffering. And all of the things that you and I experience on a moment by moment, day by day basis are the people in the Book of Acts. And so we can relate greatly to these people. And so I just want us to look at the story, keeping in mind this theme of the power of the Gospel and what it means, what it means for our life today. So I just want to read it to us over again, and then we'll go and we'll just kind of walk through the story verse by verse, highlighting some things along the way.
[00:01:22] Now, there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas.
[00:01:27] She was full of good works and acts of charity. In those days, she became ill and died. And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, please come to us without delay. So Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room.
[00:01:47] All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas had made while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed. And turning to the body, said, tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up, and he gave her his hand and raised her up.
[00:02:07] Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all Joppa. And many believed in the Lord. And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a Tanner.
[00:02:22] So Peter, as we said last week, has had such an encounter with Jesus of Jesus grace. He's been transformed by his grace. He's been filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:02:37] He goes to a place called Lydda. And because of the miracle that God works through a bedridden man named Aeneas heals Aeneas. There are disciples in a neighboring town called Joppa that hear of what God does there. And so we're transported into this scene in Joppa as we see the Gospel of Jesus, which the gospel, by the way, is the good news of the life, death, resurrection of Jesus. The gospel just means good news. The gospel isn't something that you work out. It's not something I work out. The gospel isn't something you do. The Gospel isn't about what you do at all. The gosp is good news about what has been done on your behalf. And so the Gospel isn't to be worked out, it's to be received, and not just received once at a moment of salvation. If you're here and you're not yet a Christian, we'll talk about that more in a moment. But for the Christian, for the follower of Jesus, the gospel, the good news of what God has done in Christ is to be received day after day after day after day. It is the means by which God changes you and changes me. It's not that you hear the gospel, you receive it, you're saved. And now all of a sudden, the Christian life is about you becoming a better person.
[00:03:46] The gospel is reception. Day after day after day, the cross of Christ becomes bigger and more glorious day after day and after day. And so by that and by the power of the spirit, you and I are transformed. And so the Gospel is moving from Jerusalem to Judea, Samaria, and as promised by Jesus in our memory verse, to the ends of the earth, which is to the Gentiles. And so we see this happening in the scene, and we're transported into a place called Joppa, where a disciple of Jesus, a follower of Jesus named Tabitha, has died.
[00:04:22] I want to point out just a couple of things to kind of get us maybe into the scene a little bit.
[00:04:27] So Tabitha, who her Greek name is Dorcas, and it says that she was full of good works and acts of charity. So I mentioned this last week, but it's worth mentioning again because I ended up having a really sweet conversation with somebody at the end of service that said, man, I've never thought about that. And having never thought about what I'm about to say carries massive practical implications for your daily life. And it's simply this. Christians suffer.
[00:04:51] Christians suffer.
[00:04:54] The belief that, you know you're going to be saved, God's going to save you from your sins, you're going to become a Christian. There's no higher name on Planet Earth than to be a Christian. It is a wonderful thing to be a Christian. And yet at the same time, being a Christian does not equate to a life of ease that's free of suffering. Christians suffer, Christians die. This is the reality in which you and I live, in what theologians call the already and the not yet. Christ is already, already come. He's yet to return again to make all things new and abolish death once for all. So we live in that place where sin and suffering is still a reality in our life. And it doesn't matter how close you are with Jesus. And matter of fact, in many ways, the closer you and I get to Jesus, the harder life can get sometimes.
[00:05:47] But we see through the example of Tabitha. It says that she was a disciple of Jesus, so she was a Christian.
[00:05:54] And she was full, like, that's a significant word.
[00:05:58] She was full of good works and acts of charity. She was walking closely with Jesus, loving God, loving people, serving people like Jesus. She had a great reputation among the church.
[00:06:13] And yet in light of all of that, it did not alleviate suffering and eventual death in the life of Tabitha.
[00:06:23] Says in those days, she became ill and died.
[00:06:26] And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. Now that's a significant thing, that they laid her in the upper room. If you remember back at the beginning of the book of Acts, we know that in the upper room is typically where miracles happen. It's where the disciples go up to pray, and they go up to seek the Lord and ask for boldness because they're being persecuted. And so they cry out to God, God of heaven and earth, embolden your servants to continue to be witnesses to the resurrection of Christ. And it says that in that prayer, the room is shaken. Okay, so the upper room is where significant God empowered miracles happen. And so these disciples, they take Tabitha after she's died to the upper room. And it says when they had washed her, they laid her there.
[00:07:09] Then it says, since Lydda was near Joppa, where Peter was, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men urging him, please come to us without delay. So apparently the word had spread and from Lydda to Joppa that Peter, a close disciple, best friend of Jesus, filled with the Spirit, God was healing people through his ministry. And so they hear that Peter's near, and so they send two disciples to go and beg Peter to come to Joppa where Tabitha had died.
[00:07:39] Please come to us without delay.
[00:07:41] So Peter rose and went with them.
[00:07:45] Keep in mind the. The parallel of Jesus Ministry. This is very similar to the healing of the centurion's daughter in the Gospels who sins for Jesus. My daughter just died. And Jesus comes. And so in Peter's life, we see this amazing illustration of what happens when you and I walk closely with Jesus. We begin to imitate Jesus in our life, begin to do the things that Jesus did, walk the way Jesus walked. We begin to see the way that Jesus sees.
[00:08:14] This is what was said of Peter in Acts, chapter four. It says that he was a. And this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible. I relate to it that he was an uneducated common man. But they were amazed because they knew that he had been with Jesus.
[00:08:28] Like, I found myself praying last night, even in preparation for this, like, just saying, like, lord, I feel totally unprepared for this.
[00:08:34] And so thinking and thinking and thinking and reading and doing all these different things and finally getting to a point of being like man. What is study if the people that I have the opportunity and the privilege to preach to don't see that I've spent time with Jesus. Jesus.
[00:08:48] And then I just had the opportunity as a preacher to get up and just talk to you about Jesus.
[00:08:53] No higher privilege for me than that. Peter, because he had spent time, close proximity with Jesus, is beginning to imitate and model Jesus in his life. They come and they get him. And so Peter immediately gets up and he.
[00:09:05] He goes with them. It says, Peter rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room, says all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas had made while she was with them. So this is part of her good works and acts of charity, that she was making these garments in order to bless other people. And so as Peter goes up into the upper room, the disciples are weeping and mourning with her, which, by the way, is what you and I, as Christians are to do in the face of tragedy.
[00:09:36] Faith is not the absence of sadness when sad things happen.
[00:09:40] When sad things happen, faith and trust in God is expressing that sadness through lament and through grief. And so Peter goes into the upper room and they're lamenting. They're grieving the death of their beloved friend Tabitha, disciple of Jesus, full of good works. And they're showing her the various tunics and things that she had made. It made me think about, and maybe again, just to build in a little bit of sympathy for us and what was going on in this particular scene to humanize it a little bit for us, any of you this is a sad thought, but any of you ever lost a loved one and following the death of that loved one, were able to like walk into their closet and see and smell their clothes.
[00:10:26] That's a pretty common thing whenever somebody that we love passes away.
[00:10:31] I've got vivid memories of that as a child, of going in, like after my mom had passed away, going into the closet and just like seeing a row of her clothes and you can smell them.
[00:10:40] You're like, man.
[00:10:42] And so it's a sad thought, but it's a humanizing thought, isn't it, to kind of put us in this place of what these disciples of Jesus might have been feeling at the death of their friend.
[00:10:52] They were sad and they were desperate. And they heard that God was healing people in these amazing ways through Peter. And so they send some disciples to go and call Peter to come. And Peter, it says that he rise, he. He rose and he went. We'll talk more about the transformation of Peter's life in a moment. But Peter is an amazing story.
[00:11:12] Pretty hard hearted, impulsive man is transformed by this thing called grace in such a way that we see this manifest in his life. He's willing to rise and go and follow these disciples into the room with a dead woman of whom he had never met.
[00:11:29] And so Peter gets into the upper room.
[00:11:33] It says, peter, put them all outside. So Peter puts all of the. The friends of Tabitha, the other disciples outside.
[00:11:43] And then he kneels down and he prays.
[00:11:47] And turning to the body, he said, tabitha, arise.
[00:11:50] And she opened her eyes and when she saw Peter, she sat up. So here, here's the first point to be made about the gospel, the good news of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. I was talking to a non Christian friend yesterday and we were having a wonderful conversation.
[00:12:05] And I was sharing my story, he was sharing his story. And eventually it got down to when I was sharing mine. I said, man, there just came a point in my life when I was 21 years old.
[00:12:16] By the grace of God, I believed in the resurrection.
[00:12:19] It wasn't about what I felt, it wasn't about what religion made me feel best. I became, and I still am utterly convinced that Jesus Christ rose from the dead.
[00:12:29] That if you and I travel to the Middle east today, there's going to be no body there. They're never going to find the body of Jesus because he's risen, he's in heaven.
[00:12:37] And so I began to share that. And he said, man, I love that he said, I'm on the other side of that.
[00:12:43] I Don't believe in the resurrection. I was like, that's fine. And so we began to talk about that.
[00:12:50] And as we were talking about that, he made this comment. He said, you know, but I will say this. It's a beautiful story.
[00:12:57] He. He. He said, it's actually the most beautiful story. I said, you know, God leaving heaven and taking on human flesh and entering into human suffering and taking the form of a servant, not being born in a palace, but being born in a stable and living a. An obscure life in an obscure city, a town as a carpenter, and then performing many mighty deeds and miracles, and then dying on a cross in love for the sake of his friends who had made themselves enemies of him, and then rising from the grave three days later. It is the most beautiful story. But here's the deal.
[00:13:34] And I challenged him with this. I said, I just want, like, would you just consider. What if it is true?
[00:13:42] What if it is true?
[00:13:45] Like, what if all of these things that we're talking about pertaining to Jesus are actually true? Because what we know matters, but the truth is, is that there's actual power in this story.
[00:13:56] The example that we see through the life of Tabitha and what God's doing through Peter is simply this, that the gospel is the power to bring life out of death.
[00:14:05] That's what the gospel does.
[00:14:07] The gospel isn't just a story, even the most beautiful story that you and I hear and receive emotionally.
[00:14:15] The gospel comes with actual power, so much power that it has the ability by the Holy Spirit to take something that's dead and bring it to life.
[00:14:29] We see this in the life of Jesus. One of my favorite stories is as Jesus is walking on his way with his disciples, there's a funeral procession coming toward him where a widowed mother has just buried her son.
[00:14:42] And. And so they're. They're the. The men are carrying the casket, the box, whatever the boy's body was in. And the mother is weeping, and Jesus stops in the middle. Middle of his busy itinerant ministry. And it says that he. He looks upon her and he has compassion. And then he tells the boy, I say to you, arise.
[00:15:03] Peter has no power in and of itself to tell Tabitha to rise from the dead.
[00:15:07] The power that Pete. The only power that Peter has comes from Jesus, who has the power to bring life out of death. And this is what the gospel does. Ephesians 2 says that all of us in the room at one point, even if you're a Christian, if you're a Christian in the room, all of us in the room were at one point dead and are sins and trespasses.
[00:15:27] That means. All that means is that when you and I are born, we are born in such a radical state in Adam, the first human, that we're separated from God because of our sin. And that separation from God means spiritual death. And so it says that we were once dead in our trespasses and sins, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that's now at work and the sons of disobedience. That was our state. And if you're here and you're not yet a Christian, that currently is your state, that means there's nothing that you could do, Christian. There's nothing you did do to earn anything. You and I were spiritually dead as Tabitha was spiritually dead. We need. We don't need good works. We don't need to be called to live a better life. We need rescue.
[00:16:14] We need to be brought to life. We need resurrection. We need power. And this is what the Gospel of Jesus Christ does. And this is what this story highlights to us. When Peter says, by the power of the Holy Spirit in him and through the authority of Jesus, Tabitha, arise. We're getting a picture of what the Gospel does in all of our lives.
[00:16:33] The Gospel brings life out of death.
[00:16:38] And so Peter says, tabitha, arise. And Tabitha doesn't just arise, friends. She doesn't just rise. She doesn't just rise. She rises to new life.
[00:16:51] You think Tabitha was ever the same after she rose from this occasion than she was before?
[00:16:56] Everything would have. I mean, can you imagine? Of course you can't, because you've never been dead before and neither have I.
[00:17:02] Blackout, like dead.
[00:17:05] Her body had already been washed.
[00:17:09] Rigor mortis had had. Like, they took her to the upper room. She was lifeless. They mourned over her.
[00:17:17] And then she arises. Like nothing was the same for this dear sister ever after that she rose.
[00:17:24] And so when Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5 that if anyone is in Christ through faith in Jesus, if anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation, it's the same thing he says in Galatians 2. For, for I, my life has been crucified. I have been crucified, and it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. So the life I now live, I live by faith in the so of God who loved me and gave himself for me. If you're in Christ, you've been raised from death to life. You're alive and on this side of Heaven, as we await for eternal glory, for the return of Jesus, you and I are going to experience little minor deaths and an actual death one day. That's what it means to live on this side of eternity.
[00:18:14] Minor deaths could be a host of things, right? Like the loss of a friendship, betrayal, a cutting word, a misunderstanding, the loss of a spouse, the loss of a child, a child being sick, innumerable things. The reason that you feel pain is because these are little minor deaths.
[00:18:35] And in these little minor deaths, rather than drawing some sort of conclusion, like, why is this happening to me?
[00:18:44] I think for us as Christians, it's an opportunity to, in the midst of the pain, be reminded that there is a resurrection coming. There is a final resurrection coming by which all of this will be abolished.
[00:18:54] Like there is a day coming where all pain, every form of pain, not just the big stuff, but all of the little minuscule stuff, the death by a thousand paper cuts stuff, all of those little deaths will be washed away.
[00:19:08] You'll never feel it again.
[00:19:11] You'll never feel the feeling of betrayal again.
[00:19:14] You'll never feel loss again.
[00:19:17] You'll never feel fear again.
[00:19:21] In the negative sense of the Word, no more sadness.
[00:19:29] But on this side of heaven, as we await that day and anticipate the resurrection, we also can be reminded that through the gospel, because of what Christ has already accomplished for us, we've already been brought out of death and into life, the first fruits of eternal life. You're experiencing that in many ways now. You've already been brought to life in the same way that Peter, by the authority of Jesus, as Tabitha, arise.
[00:19:56] So Jesus Christ has said the same to you by name, arise.
[00:20:02] And by his power, you've been raised into newness of life.
[00:20:06] You're no longer in Adam, you're in Christ.
[00:20:09] Meaning that your identity now as a Christian, son, daughter, beloved, saint, redeemed, adopted, loved, cherished, all of these things are what is most true about you in Christ. The Gospel brings life out of death.
[00:20:30] And so Peter kneels down, prays, he turns to the body and says, tabitha, arise. And she opens her eyes.
[00:20:38] And when she saw Peter, which must have been amazing, she sat up and he gave her his hand and raised her up.
[00:20:48] And calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.
[00:20:52] And so the second thing that I want to point out, the Gospel, the power of the Gospel, the life, death, resurrection of Jesus, when received by faith, which is your invitation today again, if you have it, to receive this good news by faith that you've been separated from God because of your sin. God is holy and just and right, but God is love. He's not just a judge. He's a father. And so the invitation for you is to receive the good news of what he's done on your behalf through sending his own son to live the life you couldn't live, die on the cross for your sins, rise from the grave three days later so that through faith in him, you could be brought back to God. And you're here and you're like, golly, but you don't know what I've done. Like, you don't know what I've been through, all of these kinds of things. I promise you this. Your worst sin is the thing that qualifies you to come, the worst possible thing you've ever done in your life that nobody else in the world knows about, God knows about. And that's what the cross is for.
[00:21:47] The very worst of you, not the polished worst of you.
[00:21:51] Like, the really nasty stuff. That's why Christ came. He came to redeem you and to forgive you and to save you and to bring you back to God. And that good news, if received by grace, by you, by faith, if you receive that good news, that good news has the power through the Holy Spirit to bring. Bring you from death to life.
[00:22:11] But the second thing to point out is in Peter, another observation I was thinking about this week. Okay. The gospel, the good news of the life, resurrection of Jesus doesn't just bring us from spiritual death into spiritual life.
[00:22:24] The gospel also provides you and I a power. If you're a Christian that I don't think any of us fully fathom.
[00:22:34] I don't know that any of us really consider a whole lot the level of power that has been given to you as a Christian and to me, the level of authority that's been given to you as a Christian and to me. I'll give you a quick short story.
[00:22:52] Excuse me. When I was going through residency at the Paradox to be a church planter, I was so afraid of people.
[00:23:02] Like, I was so afraid of what people thought of me that I could walk into a room and depending on who was in the room, and literally start sweating. Like, I get, like, sweaty palms.
[00:23:14] I was so afraid. And I'd feel like I'd be in a conversation with somebody and I wouldn't be able to, like, put my thoughts together. And a lot of this, it's a different story for a different day. This is not my counseling chair. But a lot of this derives from not having a father. When you don't have a father. And you're a young man in the room, or if you're a young man in the room. This is for women too. But I think it's very acute for men. If you have a hard relationship with your father, it is a normal thing. I'm not saying it's a good thing because I do think fear of man is a sinful thing. But it is a normal thing for you to long for the approval of other men.
[00:23:48] And so I found myself in this place of doing this, and I ended up in this kind of recovery ministry, which was part of my residency. Praise God for that. It was amazing. And one night after this recovery ministry with this small group of guys I walk outside with. One of the participants wasn't my leader. One of the participants was just a really godly man. Love Jesus. Nothing flashy about this guy. And he pulls me aside and we're basically in an alleyway. So I'm getting ready to walk to my car and we're in an alleyway and he pulls me aside and he knows about this stuff that I'm struggling with. And he says, hey, could I pray for you? I was like, sure. And so he put his hand on my head like this and he said, fear, go.
[00:24:31] Now listen, I'm a Baptist who is attending Southwestern Seminary, which is the Mecca of all Baptist seminaries in the world. And so I.
[00:24:43] I was like. I didn't know what was happening. It kind of felt like an out of body experience a little bit. And I kind of went back and there were no cameras. There's nothing flashy around. He just said, fear, go in the name of Jesus. And he was, he was dead serious. He wasn't joking. He wasn't trying to be funny. He wasn't. He wasn't trying to be impressive. There was nobody else around. We were in an alley.
[00:25:02] And I promise you this.
[00:25:05] Something.
[00:25:06] Something left that day.
[00:25:09] And. And it doesn't mean I haven't struggled with it since, but something powerful happened that day. To me. It was like a twig being snapped. Like I could just. I could. It was. I just feel something leave. I don't know what that was.
[00:25:25] I don't believe Christians can be possessed by demons. It's not. We can't. We're sealed with the Holy Spirit, but it doesn't mean that we can't be oppressed by demons like they're on the outside of the door of a house knocking in. I do think that happens.
[00:25:40] And through various, you know, unresolved sin, unrepentant sin, we. We can let that in more. I think all that happens, whatever happened to me that day, I couldn't explain it.
[00:25:49] Um, but something powerful happened. And the reason I'm bringing all this up to you is that brother was operating in a power and authority that had been given to him by Jesus. That is a normal thing for the Christ life.
[00:26:01] It's normal. What he did was very normal for Christians to do.
[00:26:06] But I think many of us don't live with the recognition of the reality of the authority that's been given to you. That authority is not of you.
[00:26:15] It's not you.
[00:26:17] It's Christ in you.
[00:26:21] Jesus Christ himself through the person of the Holy Spirit involved in the not involved. Creator of the cosmos, the one upholding all things by the word of his power. All the things in your life and mine that are outside of your control, that scare you and bring you anxiety and worry, Jesus holds all of that together by his power. And that God lives inside of you.
[00:26:48] If you're a Christian, he lives in you.
[00:26:52] He's breathed his life into you. He didn't just impart power for you to be raised from death to life. He came to live in you.
[00:27:01] So like Jesus Christ lives in you, that means that addiction in your life can be broken.
[00:27:12] It's hard to believe.
[00:27:14] I get it. It's really hard to believe that.
[00:27:20] But that power, if you'll just take a moment today when you leave this place to just consider it for a second long, you should consider it longer than that.
[00:27:30] Really stop and think about it.
[00:27:33] God himself lives inside of me.
[00:27:37] God lives inside of me.
[00:27:40] The creator of the cosmos lives in me.
[00:27:45] He's made his home in me so that I can make my home in Him.
[00:27:52] I mean, it's the most amazing thing in the world. This is why Jesus tells his disciples, it's better for me to depart from you.
[00:28:00] I can't imagine what that would have been like to be the disciples. I wish on a daily basis I could just see him.
[00:28:07] Like, if I could just see you. If I could just see your face, I would believe more.
[00:28:12] My faith wouldn't be so fickle and back and forth all the time. If I could just see your face. Jesus tells the disciples, it's actually better for me to go because if I go, I'm going to send my helper to you. And he's not going to walk beside you. He's going to live inside of you.
[00:28:31] Jesus Christ, through the person of the Holy Spirit of God, lives inside of you. There is no higher power than the power that exists in you, there's no higher authority than the authority that lives in you. So, no, we don't boast in our own authority. We have no authority apart from God.
[00:28:52] But God himself has made his home in your heart. If you're a follower of Jesus, you have not just been forgiven. You haven't just been redeemed. You haven't just been reconciled. You have been indwelt by the person of God.
[00:29:09] And Peter operates out of that place of authority and confidence. What. What kind of faith and confidence does it take to go to a dead woman and say, arise?
[00:29:26] I mean, he was a pretty impulsive guy, pretty overconfident in himself many times, but that's not what's happening here, because she. She stood up.
[00:29:34] So it wasn't by his own authority, but Peter had an awareness not just that he had been redeemed, but that he had been filled with the Holy Spirit. He was indwelt with the Holy Spirit. Jesus is in authority. Jesus is on the throne from heaven, ruling and reigning and doing all of these amazing works that we're talking about through the Book of Acts and by Jesus authority, through the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus says, tabitha, arise.
[00:29:59] And that doesn't mean you and I are going to be able to raise the dead, but it does mean you and I should think differently about the level of authority and power that exists in you through the person of the Holy Spirit.
[00:30:08] You have the Holy Spirit.
[00:30:12] What joy, what freedom.
[00:30:15] You're not enslaved to that sin anymore.
[00:30:19] You're not enslaved to that addiction anymore. It's hard.
[00:30:23] That's why we need each other. That's why we need the church.
[00:30:26] We're not supposed to do this alone.
[00:30:27] We're supposed to meet together as Christians so we can encourage one another to continue to follow Jesus and love Jesus and remind one another that the spirit of God lives in you. You've been made new.
[00:30:40] You're in Christ now, and you've been filled with his very spirit. What power, what authority, what freedom, what joy?
[00:30:53] Peter operated. This is what the gospel does. The gospel brings the dead to life, and the gospel provides power for the Christian.
[00:31:04] And so he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and the widows, he presented her alive. That must have been an awesome celebration.
[00:31:13] I mean, it's just amazing. It's amazing to think about.
[00:31:17] We ought to pray, by the way.
[00:31:21] We ought to pray for powerful manifestations like that in our church.
[00:31:27] I mean, I know that even by me saying that, some of you are going to think, like, what is Happening to Brett? Is he?
[00:31:34] I. No. Jennifer's like, we're not gonna think that.
[00:31:37] Okay? Like, is this real or not? You know what I mean?
[00:31:42] I mean, it's like if. If it's. If this isn't real, I don't wanna do this. I'd rather do something else. I have no desire to entertain you.
[00:31:50] I believe Jesus is alive.
[00:31:52] And if. And if he's alive, and if all of these things happened here, why couldn't they happen today?
[00:31:59] And let's start small. Let's start with the addictions.
[00:32:04] Let's start with the besetting sin that we kind of keep going back to over and over and over. And we've kind of resolved in our minds and in our hearts to kind of live in the cynical place of being. Like, I'm just. It's just never going to change.
[00:32:17] Let's start there.
[00:32:19] Let's start with a broken marriage.
[00:32:22] Let's start with the discouragement. Let's start with the depression. Let's start with these things. And let's begin praying that God would manifest his power in this room.
[00:32:33] Because what you see happening here is as God's demonstrating his power, more and more people are coming to faith in Christ. And this is what the world needs. The world needs to see not just a proclamation of truth. That's really important. The world needs to see a demonstration of power from a God who's actually real.
[00:32:52] He's actually, like, he's not an idea.
[00:32:56] Again, I have no desire to talk about God as an idea. If God is real, if he's a person, if he's really controlling everything, then we ought to be at least as a church, praying, God, manifest your power in us. That people from the outside would be like, what the heck is happening at that place, at that little funeral home over there?
[00:33:14] Which is what everybody calls it, apparently. Like, I mean, God is like, God is there. That's what I want people to feel when they walk in the door. God is there.
[00:33:24] We're not just nice.
[00:33:27] Like, I. I felt something there bigger than me. I don't really know what it was. Well, let us tell you what it is and then invite you to come back.
[00:33:39] Power.
[00:33:40] The gospel brings life out of death for those who trust in Jesus. Friends, trust in Jesus today.
[00:33:47] Don't live another day thinking you're not good enough. You're not good enough.
[00:33:52] That's the whole point of it all, is that you're not good enough. Jesus is. And Jesus loves you in your not good enoughness.
[00:34:00] That's what he came for he came to save you.
[00:34:04] So trust in Jesus and Christian believe and remember the power at work within you right now and begin praying. We ought to begin praying as a church that God would demonstrate power here.
[00:34:15] This is not just a Bible study.
[00:34:18] This isn't just us coming together and learning stuff about the Bible. We want to pray for God to manifest his presence and power.
[00:34:26] And so to, to conclude this is what he says. He says he gave her his hand, raised her up, then calling the saints and widows. He presented her alive and it became known throughout all, all Joppa. Okay, so again, this whole community hears about this. Why wouldn't they?
[00:34:39] Somebody's been brought back to life. That's amazing. That's not supposed to happen in the natural world.
[00:34:44] All of Joppa hears about this and many believed in the Lord because that's what happens.
[00:34:52] When word begins to spread that God is doing stuff, actually manifesting his power. Then everybody begins to hear about it and people begin to turn to the Lord.
[00:35:03] They begin to trust in the Lord Jesus.
[00:35:07] And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon A. Tanner. So here's how I want to finish.
[00:35:12] Again, it's one of those really specific details that maybe many of us probably don't think about. I certainly didn't until this week. Simon the Tanner. Okay, what's significant, what's significant about Luke mentioning that at the end of that verse that Peter chose to stay with a man called Simon the Tanner? Well, a Tanner, if you're unfamiliar in the first century, a Tanner was one who would take dead animals, right? He would take the hide and he would make different things out of that. And so oftentimes he would do that work obviously in his own house. He didn't have a separate shop somewhere else. He would do it in his house. And so that was a place that was ceremonially unclean for a good Jew.
[00:35:47] Okay, so a good Jew wasn't going to go stay with Simon the Tanner, who lived in a house filled with dead animals and all sorts of unclean things that Jews weren't supposed to touch with a ten foot pole kind of a thing.
[00:36:00] Here's the deal. God is about to call Peter to the greatest ministry of his life.
[00:36:06] Peter's not. He doesn't know what's going to happen. And I'm not going to tell you what's going to happen. You got to come back next week.
[00:36:11] But God is about to call Peter to the greatest, most unfathomable, big massive ministry of his entire life, by which you and I are all recipients. Of in this room.
[00:36:26] And Peter's not quite ready for it yet.
[00:36:30] And so what does God do in love and pursuit of Peter's heart to prepare Peter for that big massive worldwide ministry that he's going to call him to, he has him stay with Simon the Tanner.
[00:36:42] And so it's already like through this particular instance, we see the heart of this man Peter softening toward a group of people that he never would have affiliated with before.
[00:36:54] So here's my final point. If you and I are going to live as missionaries, which I hope you see yourself, if you're a Christian, as a missionary, because you are, you're not, you're not just a, a.
[00:37:07] What's the word I'm looking for, Matt? What's the word I'm looking for? Spectator. You're not just a spectator. You're not just a spectator on a Sunday to come and like listen to a talk.
[00:37:17] You are a missionary. You've been brought from death to life by the grace of God. You've been filled with the Holy Spirit of Christ and you've been called to mission.
[00:37:26] What is necessary for you to live on mission wherever you are. And don't think massive, think little. Your job, your neighborhood, your home. If you have kids, your a missionary. What's necessary, what's necessary is compassion.
[00:37:41] It's almost like the Holy Spirit is preparing Peter's heart for this big ministry he's going to call him to by cultivating in Peter a level of compassion for people that he otherwise would have despised.
[00:37:56] Friends, if you despise non Christians in the world, you will not be a missionary.
[00:38:03] You won't be an effective one.
[00:38:05] You're just going to be angry all the time and you're going to sit behind your computer and you're going to listen to your favorite podcaster and you're going to be, you're going to be ineffective.
[00:38:17] How do you grow in compassion?
[00:38:19] Remember the cross for you, the Christian life is not about you getting better in such a way that the cross becomes smaller and smaller and smaller in your rearview mirror.
[00:38:31] That's not what the Christian, the Christian life is you turning to the cross. And over the course of the entirety of our life, the cross of Christ for you becoming bigger and bigger and bigger. That your heart is melted into God's heart. You begin to see people the way God sees people. And as you and, and Jesus life by the way, was marked with compassion.
[00:38:55] That's. That's who Jesus is.
[00:38:59] The gospel writers use that word all throughout the gospels to describe Jesus heart. He's compassionate.
[00:39:05] And his compassion, his love for people, moved him toward people. That's what you and I are called to do.
[00:39:12] And so the Gospel of Jesus Christ raises us from death to life. It provides a power, an unimaginable power, through the person of the Holy Spirit who lives in us. And the gospel propels you and I forward to be missionaries. But we have to cultivate compassion in order to fulfill that role. Amen.
[00:39:29] Let's pray. Father, we love you. Thank you for the opportunity.
