Acts 9:31-43 - Help Those Who Can’t Help Themselves & Pastor Goes On A Limb

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

And welcome back to Tabernacle Talk. We have been journeying through the Book of Acts, and over the past couple of days, we met a character named Saul. And Saul was a great persecutor of the Church.

God saved him. And now we're going back to some more familiar people in the story. We kind of started off the Book of Acts, seen some of Peter's sermons, both at Pentecost and then in front of Solomon's colonnade.

And then we saw some of his preaching and declarations in front of the Sanhedrin as well. And we're back with him again now in Acts 9 and in verse number 32.

It says, Now as Peter was traveling through all those regions, so that's harkening back to verse 31, Judea, Galilee, and Samaria. They're being built up, continuing in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Now as Peter was traveling through all those regions, he also came down to the saints who had lived at Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas, who had been bedridden for eight years because he was paralyzed.

Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and make your own bed. Immediately he got up, and all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

There's a cool section where Peter, as he's going through, just trying to bring the Gospel, trying to bring the power of the Holy Spirit to those that he can interact with.

He takes time for someone that maybe other people might not have seen as important. He maybe could have gone to one of the leaders of Lydda. He could have gone to the mayor.

He could have gone to the greatest person in the synagogue. He could have gone to any number of people, but he goes to this person who can't do anything for him. He's bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed.

And yet, when God heals him, the result in verse number 35 is that all who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. Maybe today you feel a little bit like Aeneas, that you maybe can't do much for people.

Maybe you are bedridden. Maybe you don't really have the interactions with people that you used to have. Maybe you are a little bit lonelier than you used to be.

Can I encourage you? You don't know how God might use your life. You might say, how could God use my life?

I'm not like him. No apostles are coming by to heal me of all my illnesses. What can I do?

Can I tell you something that every Christian can do? They can pray. Now, that's not a light thing.

That's not a, okay, if you can't do anything else, then just pray. No, no, no. Prayer brings the power of God.

Prayer invites God and His omnipotence to come into our need. Prayer is sometimes the only thing that can get to the heart of a loved one. Prayer is the only thing that can sometimes change our hearts.

It can be so difficult to hate someone or to despise someone if you are praying for them. Is there a person in your life that every time their name comes up, maybe it's a family member, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's a...

Well, I guess it wouldn't be much of a friend. Maybe it's a co-worker. Maybe it's someone that used to be in your life, a former friend.

Is there someone that when their name comes up, all that emerges in your head is hatred, is thoughts of all the wrongs that they have done.

Maybe it's all the ways in which they have hurt you, they have hurt someone else, ways in which they took advantage of you. Can I encourage you, every time you think of that person, pray for them.

And I'm not saying pray in precatory prayers of, God, may their house be made a dung hill. No, no, no. Pray for the same things that we ought to pray for all people.

Pray for their salvation. If they do know Christ, pray that the Holy Spirit would continue to grow and make them more like Christ, just as you would want people to be praying that you would be more like Christ.

Perhaps you would pray, maybe it might be a more severe situation of wrong that was done. Maybe you might pray to the Lord and say, God, please bring justice for my sake, for the sake of others. Bring this person to justice.

They need to have some consequences for their actions so that they might be able to change their ways.

Don't have the attitude of the disciples when there was a city that didn't want to receive them, and so they told Jesus, hey, let's pray down firing brimstone on them so they can be destroyed.

And Jesus tells them, you do not know what kind of spirit you are talking by. The thought is, you are expressing the exact same will as Satan.

When we want people to be destroyed, when we want people to be killed, this will go out on a few Facebook things.

I might get in trouble for this one, but that's alright, because I'm already five and a half minutes in, and I'm going to pray that only the super spiritual people are still here.

If you're praying, if you're like, oh, I think those that cross the border illegally should all be killed. I think that we need to put alligators and emotes and eat them up. Can I challenge you?

You do not know what spirit you're speaking by. You don't, because that's not what Christ prays.

That's the one who is fully righteous, the only one who could have cast a stone at us, the only one justified enough, wholly enough to declare our condemnation was the one that bought forgiveness for us and offers it freely.

So can I encourage you today for the people that you hate, for the people in that political party that you're like, I wish they were just wiped off the face of the earth, for the people that you're like, oh, this country is doing unspeakable evil and

I wish they were all dead. Can I challenge you? Do not have that mindset. Have a mindset that says the world needs Jesus, the world doesn't need less people, the world needs people turning to Jesus.

What God does is up entirely to him, but our role is not to take the place of the accuser, the devil. The word Satan is literally the word accuser. He is the one that argues in court to prosecute, is how Scripture speaks of him.

Revelation chapter 12, where it says that the accuser of our brethren has been cast down, who accused them before our God night and day. We should not be doing what he's doing.

We should be doing, here what Peter is doing, caring about people and leading people to Jesus. So all of that stemmed from, you can pray for people, because praying for people is crucial and important.

And if you are one that God does not have you in a season right now, where maybe you can do some physical things for people, pray for people. If you are someone that can do physical things for people, pray for people.

If all you're doing is physical things for people and you're not praying for them, you are falling short of what God has equipped you to be able to do.

You could not pray prayers to God on behalf of other people, praying for their salvation, praying for their healing, praying for all those things. Except if God had made you a priest because of Christ's priesthood.

You did not have that access before. You did not have the right to go to God and say, God, I'm praying for this person that you would heal them. God, I'm praying for this person that they would get this job.

You did not have the right. Now that you have the right because of Christ, I challenge you, use it, and what a wonderful gift prayer is.

The other thing that you can do is, maybe it's a text, maybe it's a call, maybe it's an email, whatever it might look like for you, you can spend some time letting people know that you're praying for them. You can ask for prayer requests.

You can pass it on to other people. You can, as you pray for people, you can let them know and you can say, hey, would you pray for me for this? We, as God's people, ought to have an ever increasing dependence on prayer.

When we work, we work. When we pray, God works. And I found that true many times in my life.

Okay, next section, verse 36. Now, in Joppa, there was a disciple named Tabitha, which when translated means Dorcas or Gazelle. This woman was excelling in acts of kindness and charity, which she did habitually.

But it happened at that time that she became sick and died. And when they had washed her body, they laid it in the upstairs room. So she's dead.

She's fully dead. They've cleaned her entirely later down. Since Little was near Joppa, the disciples, having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, do not delay in coming to us.

So Peter got ready and went with them. When he arrived, they brought him into the room upstairs, and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make.

Well, she was with them, but Peter sent them all out and 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 and calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. It became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

And Peter stayed in Joppa many days with a tanner named Simon. It's so cool here. Here is one of the few instances of Scripture where the dead are raised.

It happened a few times in the Old Testament. You have Elisha and the widow's son. You have, oh, someone does something crazy, throws bones in a body, or throws a body.

There's a very odd, cool story in 2 Kings that I'd encourage you to read the entirety of 2 Kings to find the story that I'm talking about where someone revived. You have obviously all of Jesus' actions where he raised people from the dead.

And here you have Peter and you have Tabitha. And I think it's so cool, the testimony of Tabitha. And I would want this to be my testimony.

This woman was excelling in acts of kindness and charity, which she did habitually. I want to excel in a lot of things. I want to excel as a pastor.

I want to excel as a dad. I want to excel as a husband. I want to excel as a musician.

I want to excel in areas of administration. But if I don't excel in kindness and charity, I will be missing out on what God has for my life.

If I'm not excelling in here acts of kindness, that it wasn't just internalized good feelings towards people, but it was intentionally, I'm going to do good for people. And later you can see the good that she did for people.

Tunics and garments that Dorcas Tabitha made for the widows that she gave and gave and gave to those that couldn't do anything for her. Those that did not have really a source of income, and she cared for them.

Tunics and garments at this time, it wasn't just like nowadays where you can buy a t-shirt at anyone of a billion places.

Those would be larger things, larger big ticket items that a person might wear, you know, the same one for quite a while until it gets torn up. They might have, you know, maybe two or three, especially if you're a widow.

You don't have much income in these days. And here she gave to those that could give nothing to her, exemplifying the same type of thing that Peter just did for Aeneas. She was doing that for others.

And in both of these instances, whether you're someone that is able to do plenty of things for other people or you're able to do nothing for other people, God sees you no matter who you are.

And for those that are serving God, attempting to serve God, let us serve both the Aeneas' and the Dorcas' that those that can't really do much of anything, love them, serve them, pray for them, do what you can for them.

For those that are just doing lots of everything, still pray for them, still love them, still see what you can do for them.

Many times people give and give and give, and those that give the most are kind of the least likely to gain anything or to feel some of that tangible love.

Many other things could be said about this section of Scripture, but I want to highlight again the difference that little things can make when we faithfully share the Gospel and when God works.

Verse number 35, All who lived at Lydda and Sharon saw him, Aeneas, and they turned to the Lord. And then verse number 42, It became known all over Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

Today, this week, you can make the choice that you are going to point people to Jesus, that you're going to share the Gospel, that you're going to do good to others, you're going to maybe give out a Gospel tract, maybe you're going to point someone

to, you're going to give them a church invite, you can do one of a number of things to share the Gospel or to point people to Jesus. But keep on doing it. You don't know what little thing, or maybe a big thing, what it might lead to.

So don't become weary in doing good, because in due season, we will reap if we don't faint. So keep on sowing the good seed of the Gospel wherever you go. We're going to see tomorrow an incredible new development in the story of the Gospel.

Pretty much everything that we've seen up until this point in the Book of Acts has either been Native Hebrews, the Hellenistic Jews, Samaritans, and that's been about everyone so far that has received the Gospel.

And tomorrow, in Acts 10, that all changes forever, and it's a wonderful story and the reason that people like me and many of you that are not Jewish or half Jewish, the reason that we have the Gospel today.

So I would encourage you to tune in and I look forward to seeing you then.