Acts 9:32-43
You may be seated. Turn in your
copy of God’s word to the book of Acts chapter nine. Our reading today will be verses
32 to 43. We’re back, uh, to an account
or two of the life of Peter. And so, uh, we’ll see him moving,
uh, up towards the Mediterranean coast and serving God by ministering
among the churches of the Mediterranean. Acts chapter 9 verses 32 to 43
will be our reading. But before we do read it, let’s
pray and ask for God’s help and grace. Lord, we pray that you
would open our eyes, unstop our ears, soften our hearts, and
most of all, Lord, calm our spirits. We come from a busy world, a
noisy world, a world that clamors for our attention. Lord, our
eyes are always staring at screens. Our brains are scrambled these
days. And it’s hard to sit, it’s hard
to listen, but you are a God who speaks by your word, you
speak by your spirit, you ask that we give our attention to
the reading and the preaching of the word so that those who
are not saved may be convinced and converted, and those who
are saved may be comforted and built up. So do a mighty work
among us now, our Father, we do pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
All right, Acts chapter nine, beginning at verse 32, says this. Now, as Peter went here and there
among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived
at Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas,
bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. And Peter said
to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Rise and make your
bed. And immediately he rose, and
all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him. and they turned
to the Lord. Now there was in Joppa a disciple
named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas. She was full of
good works and acts of charity. In those days she became ill
and died. And when they had washed her
and 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. All the widows stood beside him,
weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made
while she was with them. But Peter put them all outside,
knelt down and prayed. And turning to the body, he 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. Then calling the saints and the
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.” Amen, this
is God’s Word. I do want you to know I really
can read. I have this Bible that’s exactly
like my other one, except the print is different and it’s very
fuzzy. So when I read the wrong words,
you’re not crazy. I just can’t see these words
very well. I think many of you have heard
me say before that most of us in America, not y’all of course,
because y’all are good students of the word, but many of us in
America believe this about salvation. Uh, we believe that, um, number
one, we don’t want to go to hell, right? That’s, that’s pretty,
pretty true. Uh, we also believe that in order to, uh, get out
of hell free, um, we need to have a card. Uh, I believe in
Jesus. I said a prayer and then we believe,
and this is, this is where it gets bad. We stick that card
in our back pocket, like it’s a train ticket or like it’s a
bus ticket or a chariot ticket. So when the chariot swings low
or the whistle blows or the driver hollers out all aboard, we just
walk right up to the bus, the chariot, the train, we get out
our ticket and we get on board. And so we largely, I think, believe
that our salvation is something future. It’s a get out of hell
free card. And I think a lot of people do
believe that. And the reason they do is because
they’ve been taught to believe that. And I want us to see in
this passage today how the Bible tells us so much more. The Bible
tells us so much more about our salvation. And I think we see
it in this passage. Notice in our scripture today
that two people, Two people are healed. One is raised from the
dead. And I don’t know if you caught
it, but the word rise, arise, raised, they got up, is a central
theme throughout this passage. And so as we think about it,
we want to think about the wonderful power, the wonderful majestic
power, the resurrection life that we receive in Jesus Christ. God brought Jesus from death
to life and Jesus brings us from death to life. We want to think
about this wonderful theme of resurrection. Well, as we do,
we think of Peter. We think of Peter, a disciple
of Jesus. He was with Christ all through
his Galilean ministry. When Jesus said, I’ve come to
bring good news to the poor. I’ve come to free the captives.
I’ve come to give liberty to those who are in chains. I’ve
come to heal the blind. I’ve come to make the lame walk.
I’ve come to heal lepers and to raise Lazarus and to do all
these mighty signs and wonders. Here’s Peter, a disciple of Jesus
who saw all of these things. Jesus even told Peter, you are
you are the rock, Petra, the rock. And on you, I will build
my church. He’s now an apostle. And you
could stop there with this resurrection theme and think just only of
Peter. He was a weak man. Most of the
times we found him in our studies of Luke, he was opening mouth
and inserting foot, right? He was just saying something
that ought not to be said. That’s most of us, most of the
time, isn’t it? But God, in his mercy, took care
of Peter. I told him you’ll deny me three
times, which he did, the rooster crowed. And after Jesus’ resurrection,
he goes to Peter and three times he denied him, three times he
asked him, Peter, do you love me? Lord, you know that I do. Well, then feed my lambs. And
so we find Peter under the power of Jesus, the resurrected Lord
and Savior. Being an apostle, a sent one
into the regions of Judea and Samaria and Galilee and now the
Mediterranean Sea. Our passage begins in verse one.
He went here and there among the churches. He went here and
there among those churches we looked at last week who were
uh, having comfort of the Holy spirit, living in the fear of
God. Uh, they were being blessed by almighty. And so we have Peter
now, uh, ministering among them. He’s got an itinerant ministry.
He’s going 12 miles here, 30 miles there. He’s walking from
city to city, place to place, encouraging the saints. Did you
catch that word? The saints who were at Lida,
uh, you were the saints who were at Burlington, the Holy ones,
the called out ones of almighty God, But here’s Peter serving
among the saints, going out among those cities. And he comes to
Lyda and Sharon, two little twin cities, you might say. And then
he’s gonna go just a hop, skip and a jump, as we might say,
about 12 miles to Joppa and minister there. But Peter finds two things
among the churches of people. He finds sickness and he finds
death. He finds sickness in a man named
Aeneas, who has been paralyzed for some eight years. We live
in a day and time where we can over-insure ourselves. You know,
there’s death and taxes, they say. I think there’s death, taxes,
and insurance. Most of us are insurance poor.
We’ve reallocated risk to the insurance company, and in exchange,
they do a draft on our bank account, which empties it, right? You
know the drill. death taxes and insurance. Well,
there was no disability in these days. There was no social security
system. If you were a man, you were meant
to be an able-bodied man who worked and you provided for others
around you and under you. And so here’s Aeneas, eight years
paralyzed, hopeless. You know, the first couple months,
well, this is going to get better. But year by year by year, eight
years in, you begin to get hopeless. But here’s a man who, by all
accounts, because Peter is described here as going in and out among
the saints, he comes to a church, a group of Christians, and here’s
Aeneas converted to Jesus Christ, but still crippled, still got
a palsy. And he simply says to him, rise
and make your bed. Now, some of you mothers, you
now have a Bible verse. to your children, rise and make
your bed. It’s an abusive scripture, you
gotta understand that. Rise and make your bed, what
a command. What a wonderful command of Peter
to Aeneas. And we understand, don’t we,
that these are apostolic times. God is accompanying the ministry
of his word There is a God, come to faith in him through Jesus
and receive forgiveness of sins. He’s accompanying this powerful
gospel word with signs and wonders. These signs and wonders ended
with the death of John, the last apostle, when he died on the
Isle of Patmos as a prisoner for the Lord. But these are apostolic
times, and so word and action, word and deed, Mighty deeds are
a very common thing. But I want you to take note of
Peter’s words, rise and make your bed. And he got up. It was
a resurrection in some sort, right? He was unable to get up
on his legs, but by the power of God, he now is. And then just a few miles away
in Joppa, there’s a woman named Tabitha. Apparently a fruitful
woman, a kind woman, a woman of many good deeds. Her life
reflected the reality of Jesus in her. And she’s dead. She’s at the funeral parlor,
right? She is made up and people are
mourning over her. It says, all the widows of the
city brought the things that she had made for them. They’re
in the throes of mourning this woman. Death has set in, not
only for this woman, but for her mourners. And when death
happens, there’s no turning back. Well, until Peter shows up. He
shows up and he raises her from the dead and presents her alive. And so you have these two instances
where Peter, under the power of the gospel, under the power
of Jesus, takes a man who is hopelessly stuck in his palsy,
his disability, and he raises him up where he can walk again.
And then this woman who is dead, the people are in the throes
of mourning. He says to her, rise, get up. And he presents her as alive. Doesn’t this point us to the
fact that Jesus is a mighty God and he is mighty to save? Shame
on us really in the American church for believing so little
about God, for believing so little about Jesus, And here’s the thing,
for living like we’re paupers, when indeed we are rich in Jesus
Christ. It is Jesus Christ, whom God
raised from the dead, who raises you from the dead. And the fact
that you are sitting here with spiritual life, the fact that
you are attentive to the things of the Lord means that at the
cross of Jesus, he put to death your sins. And that at the tomb
of Jesus, when he was raised and made alive, he made you alive
in him. And then of course, in real space
and time, when you came to faith in Jesus, when you put your trust
in him alone for your salvation, it’s as if you tapped into that
resurrection power. And so you do not live out of
your own strength. You do not live out of your own
might. You do not live out of your own resources. No, you live
out of the resources of heaven and Peter’s ministry to people’s
needs, showing them Jesus power and meeting those needs shows
us exactly what God is capable of. Oh, don’t we live in dark
times? Don’t we live amongst a rotten
culture? This is a crooked and depraved
generation. And just when you think it couldn’t get worse,
it does. And it reminds us over and over of Romans chapter one,
the people who hate God, they will not only sin, they’ll get
really good at sin and they’ll encourage one another in their
sin. And they’ll say, look at us, aren’t we really good sinners?
And that’s what we experience in our culture, a crooked and
depraved generation, a dark and dying culture, a rotten culture. And yet Jesus and his resurrection
power can enter right in And through the ministry of the church,
through the power of the word, through the grace of the Holy
Spirit, he can begin to take what is dead and make it alive. He can take what is in darkness
and bring it into light. He can take what is chained and
free it. He can cleanse lepers and raise
Lazaruses. He can do all kinds of mighty
and wonderful things. So how do you view your life?
Have your salvation bus ticket? Have you got it stuck in your
pocket and you’re just waiting, living life as you see fit? Or
are you living among God’s people, living in his word, seeking his
blessing, looking for the spirit’s graces? Are you in church? Are you participating in the
sacraments? Are you looking for the second
coming of Jesus? Are you Are you living out of
the freedom and blessings that God in Christ has given us? Your life, if you are a believer
in Jesus, your life is now hidden with God in Christ. You have
been rescued from this present evil age. And when Christ, who
is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him and
glory. Dear brothers and sisters, I
want you to think on the resurrection. and think how that is the power,
that is the essence of your life. And without it, you have nothing. And so when you come to faith
in Jesus, you tap into all of that. I think most of you live
with electricity. I think most of you live with
a natural gas line, a water line, probably a cable line, an internet
modem. You live with all these juices
coming in your house. But this is the most important
one. You can live without the others. You can live in the dark. You don’t need heat and air,
and you do, but you can’t live without the resurrection power
of Jesus. And so let me encourage you, if you do not know our Lord
and Savior, come to Him today by faith. Quit living in the
tombs. Stop living with leprosy. Stop
living as a dead person, but come to Him and receive everlasting
life. not only in heaven, but in this
life now. Let’s pray together. Our Lord,
we thank you so much that you give us hope. You take those
of us who are uncleaned with stained garments, living in chains
and in darkness and under the dominion of Satan. You take those
of us with hearts of stone. You give us hearts of flesh.
You give us the resources of heaven. You raise us up with
Christ and seat us with him in the heavenly places. We have
Jesus, our great high priest on the throne, and he is indeed
making us whole again. Our Lord, we know that Aeneas
and Dorcas, they died again, but they rose to a new life with
you in the heavenly places. And we look forward to that for
ourselves. So give us your hope, your grace, and your blessing
as we think on these things. And we do so in the name of Jesus,
our great savior, amen.