This morning we are reading from Acts Chapter 9, verses 32 to 43,
Anais and Dorcas. As Peter travelled about the
country, he went to visit the Lord's people who lived in Lyda.
There he found a man named Anais who was paralyzed and had been
bedridden for eight years. Anais Peter said to him, Jesus
Christ heals you, get up and roll up your mat immediately.
Anais got up. All those who lived in Lyda and
Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.
In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha.
In Greek her name was Dorcas. She was always doing good and
helping the poor. About that time she became ill
and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs
room. Leyder was near Joppa.
So when the disciples heard that Peter was in Leyder, they sent
two men to him and urged him Please come at once.
Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs
to the room. All the widows stood around him
crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas
had made while she was still with them.
Peter sent them all out of the room, and he got down on his
knees and prayed. Turning towards the dead woman
he said Tabitha get up. She opened her eyes and seeing
Peter she sat up. He took her by the hand and
helped her to her feet. Then he called for the
believers, especially the widows and presented her to them alive.
This became known to all over Dropper and many people believed
in the Lord. Peter stayed in Dropper for some
time with a Tanner named Simon. Great morning everyone and my
welcome to that of Richards and others.
If you can have that passage in front of you, that would be
brilliant. We've got some question sheets,
notes to take as we go through. I'll pass this one in a second.
While we do, I don't know you. I find so often I can have a
passage read to me on a Sunday morning and it kind of washes
slightly over me and I just sit there waiting to be told what it
says. So you've got about 75 seconds
while people are handing these round to those who would like 1
reread that passage. What stands out to you?
If you were about to say, hey, here's the big idea, here's a
summary, here's what's going on, What would that be?
Does it maybe remind you of any other stories that you know
elsewhere in the Bible? You've got about 75 seconds if
you'd like one, a piece of paper in the meantime to help you
stick your hand up and Amy and Richard will come and put one in
your hand. Thank you just counting 75 in my
head. There we go.
That's about the good. Anyone want to share something
any any immediate things that have jumped out of you questions
that we might have of the passage things that look
familiar things that are going on that you've seen otherwise
I'll sit down again. Thanks Mark brilliant.
Thank you. If you didn't quite hear that I
almost identical to a miracle of Jesus in recorded in Mark and in
Luke. Joel, were you going to say
something different to that? Brilliant.
Amazing. So 2 miracles, both of which are
basically mirror images of miracles that Jesus himself
performed during his earthly ministry.
Great. Any other observations or
questions, things that jump at us?
Fine. OK.
Oh, yes, sorry, Hillary. Thank you.
Just say the latter bit of that again.
Hillary, I've got the first bit. Great.
Thank you. Yeah.
So who is Inaus? And then we get this reaction in
the light actually, of both of these miracles.
In one, it says everyone believed, probably not literally
true that everyone, but a lot of people.
And the other one is many turned and and believed.
Brilliant. Thank you.
Let's dive into this. So we're going to spend our next
chunk of time looking at that particular.
I thought it would be helpful. Actually is a bit of a summary
of acts so far as well. We've not met Peter for a while.
We've left him behind. So let's just go right back to
the beginning of Acts. Acts is the Acts of the
Apostles. So it's Jesus witnesses his
disciples who'd been with him going on and building the Church
of Jesus Christ right back at the beginning of Acts.
Before Jesus ascends to heaven, he is with his disciples and he
says this, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes
on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in
all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.
So that is what has been going on so far over these first nine
chapters of Acts. Let's just see kind of who the
the main players have been so far.
So Acts one to five we've had mostly it's been Peter.
He's been the leader of that early church movement and he's
been teaching and preaching and in confrontation and so on and
he's been the centre of things. Then we met Stephen, you
remember, was martyred, the first Christian martyr that we
see there in Acts because he stood up and spoke clearly of
Jesus. Then we have Philip speaking to
the Ethiopian in chapter 8. Then we got last week to Saul,
who's going to become Paul and will be the main feature of
chapters sort of 13 and onwards in Acts.
But here and up to the middle of chapter 12, we're back to Peter.
And in all of that time, there has been the growing of the
church in Jerusalem and in or Judea, in Samaria.
It's gradually spreading. And what's about to happen next
week is that that is going to explode to the rest of the
world. It's going to start to expand
and expand and expand further and further and further.
That's initiated, as we'll see next week by Peter coming to
understand through a vision when we're going to see his dream of
a sheet with animals on it coming down and Peter get up,
kill and eat. And Peter comes to realise that
God's salvation plan for the world isn't narrow.
It isn't to the Jews, but it's to the whole world, the
Gentiles, the non Jewish background, people like the
great majority, I imagine of us here this morning.
And Peter is going to be vital for that change, that expansion
and that that change of understanding that the church
needs to have to say no, no, it's not narrow.
It's not just us who've been the people of God in the past, it's
the whole world. So Peter here comes centre stage
again just before that's going to happen in chapter 10.
And crucially, I think what's going on here is that that Peter
is established and confirmed as Jesus's messenger, as Jesus
apostle. This passage today, these
incredible miracles, which as you guys have said already,
mirror so perfectly miracles that Jesus performed during his
earthly ministry. They are going to confirm and
establish that Peter is a true apostle of Jesus.
Therefore he has the authority of Jesus as we meet him next
week, beginning to understand and then teach and lead the
church in, in realising that the good news of Jesus isn't narrow,
but is broad and wide. So that's the story of Acts so
far. But if you've been paying
attention, you'll notice that that's not really the story of
Acts so far. Acts 1 to 9 isn't really about
Peter, Stephen, Phillips, Saul and Peter.
It's really about this other guy called Jesus.
The full name of the book of Acts is the Acts of the
Apostles. But actually we could better
call it the continuing Acts of Jesus as he built his church.
It's the ongoing Acts of Jesus I've just clicked on where I
shouldn't have known. Oh, wow, that's suddenly woken
up and gone further ahead than I meant.
There we go. So Jesus is writ large over all
that we've seen so far in Acts and all that we're going to
continue to see as he works through his people.
So let's dive into what we're seeing today specifically then.
And really there's I think one point that I want to bring out
from from this story, from these different stories, one point
that is at the heart of what's going on in these two miracles,
and that is this, that the risen Jesus is powerfully at work
through Peter. The risen Jesus is powerfully at
work through Peter. So let's walk through the
passage together. 2 miracles, as we've seen already.
First of all, in Lidder, in Lidder we meet Anaeus.
We don't know anything more about him.
Actually, to Hillary's question, who was he?
We just know that he's there. I, I'm going to, I'm not
apologising because who cares about wearing glasses?
I'm reaching that stage in life where I have to put glasses on
to read my Bible now. So I'm going to have to do that.
We'll have to figure this out. I've never done this before, so
we'll see if it's like putting our plates on.
As Peter travelled around the country, verse 32, he went to
visit the Saints in Lydder. There he found a man named
Aeneas, A paralytic who'd been bedridden for eight years.
Just imagine that a moment. There's this guy, bedridden, 8
years, unable to get up, unable to move, no doubt known in the
community, perhaps actually because he was a paralysed guy,
You know, you imagine if there was a homeless person on the
street in, in Queens Road or something for eight years, those
of us who walk around Clarendon Park, we would get to know the
person, whether we knew his name or not.
We'd, we'd recognise him, we'd know that he was there.
We'd know that this guy was suffering.
We'd know that he was paralysed. Perhaps we'd talk about him.
How could we, how could we help out this guy?
Look, he's begging again. He's yeah, we, we would, we
would know about this guy to some extent.
Peter then meets Enaeus and he simply says, Enaeus, Jesus
Christ heals. You get up and roll up your mat.
Very simple. There's nothing else that we're
told about what he says or what else is going on.
He simply looks at him and says Jesus Christ heals you.
So get up, roll up your mat, get on your way and incredibly and
yes, immediately gets up. I'm not sure whether he was
doing a jig straight away, but I suspect he was.
I think I might be if I've been paralysed for eight years and
suddenly you're on your feet and you've kept, He's not got a mat
in his hand in my image there, forgive me, but there he is
immediately on his feet in response to this command of
Peter. But notice it's not Peter's
words, it's Jesus. Jesus Christ heals you.
So get up and what happens next? What's the response?
We see his response. He gets up and others as we see
it says in verse 35 all those who lived in Lidder and Sharon
saw him and turned to the Lord. As I say, I suspect the all
doesn't literally mean every single person, but you get the
picture of great loads of people in Lidder and Sharon seeing this
guy no longer lying on his mat on Queens Rd. but instead
walking around and telling anyone who will listen Hey, this
guy Peter came along and told me that Jesus has made me better
and I'm better. I'm back on my feet because this
guy Jesus has done this amazing thing.
Then we discovered that in Joppa there was a disciple named
Tabatha or Dorcas. Now, Joppa is about 12 miles
away. OK, so in Joppa, 12 miles.
I meant to look at what's 12 miles away.
What's that? Hinckley, Loughborough maybe I
don't need something like that. So there he is, 12 miles away.
She is, sorry, 12 miles away. And she, I love this.
She was always doing good and helping the poor.
That's what a great epitaph to have said about you.
Who's this woman? Dorcas.
Oh, she's the one who helps the poor all the time.
She's the one who's always doing good.
Oh, Tabatha. Oh, I didn't realise that.
Yeah, of course Tabatha. We know her.
She's the one who's always doing good in helping the poor.
Interesting to see, wouldn't it? What?
What would be our one sentence
of the lepertard for any one of us?
How are we known if we're believers in Jesus?
What would people say about us? Oh, yeah.
They're the ones who are always having people round for dinner,
aren't they? They're the ones who take time
and really listen to me carefully and, and pray with me.
That's the, that's the one who. Yeah.
No. Do you remember?
I, I, they've read the Bible with me one to one when I was
really struggling or when, when I wasn't sure about this
Christianity thing. Tabitha has gone down in the
history of the Bible as someone who always did good and helped
the poor. About that time she became sick
and died and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room.
Lidder was near near Joppa, say 12 miles away.
So when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lidder, they sent
two men to him and urged him please come at once.
Now bear in mind, they haven't just jumped in a helicopter and
flown that 12 miles. They haven't even driven the 12
miles. So when it's urgent, urgent,
please come quickly. They've had to do a 12 mile walk
to go and find him. This girl who was dead is very
dead. She's been washed, she's been
prepared, she's been laid on the bed so people can mourn and say
their farewells before she's buried.
Peter went with them, and when he arrived some hours later, 12
miles, he was taken upstairs to the room.
All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes
and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still
with them. You can imagine it, can't you?
There they are. You're going.
Ah, this was the one. She was so lovely.
She helped the poor. She was also kind.
Look, she made all these things for the homeless.
She made all these things for these people who had nothing,
and now she's gone. So Peter sent them all out of
the room. Verse 40 Then he got down on his
knees and prayed. Sorry, got my side in the right
place. He got down on his knees and
prayed. Then he turned towards the dead
woman. And as I say, she's been dead
here for for some hours, hasn't she?
And he says Tabitha get up. Or if he was saying it in
Aramaic and these words might be familiar to us, Tabitha Kum,
maybe to the point that Mark or John made earlier reminds us of
Jesus when he says Talitha Kum back in the Gospels.
It would be one letter different.
I think the mirror, the connection is meant to be really
obvious for us here. That meant little girl get up.
This means Tabitha get up. What does she do?
She opened her eyes and seeing Peter, she sat up.
He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet.
Then he called the believers in the widows and presented her to
them alive. This girl who's been dead.
This young woman who's been dead for some hours a day.
Day and 1/2 enough time to get a message to Peter to get him
back, to have prepared her body and there she is sitting up,
walking around, probably helping people again actually, because
that seems to be her nature. And the people will be
astounded. This became known verse 42 all
over Joppa and many people believed in the Lord.
They are remarkable miracles, aren't they?
They're absolutely incredible. It's it's, I guess, you know, we
can read these words and go, Oh yeah, that's right.
And on we go. Imagine being there.
Imagine knowing this guy in this.
We see him on Queens Road every day for eight years.
We've seen him as we go and walk off to wherever we're going or
we grab a cup of coffee or whatever and then suddenly we
bump into him walking and praising this guy Jesus, or
we're 12 miles away down the road and and this woman who was
an amazing woman and because she was so lovely when she died,
everyone knew about it. News of her death spread and
everyone was really sad. And there she is back on her
feet helping people out again. They are incredible miracles and
they are meant to, I believe very clearly here, reflect and
mirror the miracles of Jesus during his earthy ministry.
As we've said already, let me read those to us if we don't
know them. You can find these both in
Mark's gospel and Luke's gospel. I've got the references at the
end of them, so they'd be great to look up at home if you don't
know these so well. This story, Jesus is in a packed
room, there's no way in. And these friends of this
paralysed man want to get this paralysed man to Jesus.
So they dig a hole through the roof, having lifted him up onto
the roof, and then they lower him down to Jesus.
And Jesus, when he saw their faith, said, friend, your sins
are forgiven. The Pharisees and the teachers
of the Lord began thinking to themselves, who is this fellow
who speaks blasphemy, who can forgive sins but God alone?
Jesus knew what they were thinking and asked why are you
thinking these things in your heart?
Which is easier to say your sins are forgiven or to say get up
and walk? But I want you to know that the
Son of Man, that's one of the names that Jesus used to speak
of himself has authority on earth to forgive sins.
Note that Jesus is going to heal this guy physically.
So they they will know that he has authority to forgive him
sins, not just to to resuscitate someone or heal someone
physically and temporarily back into a body that's going to
break down again, but to forgive them and give them resurrected
new lives that will be forever. I want you to know that the Son
of man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
So he said to the paralyzed man, I tell you, get up, take your
mat and go home immediately. He stood up in front of them,
took what he had been lying on and went home praising God.
Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God.
They were filled with war and said we have seen remarkable
things today. You notice the same words.
Peter says Jesus Christ heals, you get up.
Jesus looks at the man and says get up.
What does God do when Jesus is in the grave?
He says get up, be resurrected, have new life.
The other story that echoes is Jesus raising Jairus's daughter.
Jairus daughter had died. She was laid in her bed, people
all around her mourning her death.
Jesus goes to the room and he puts them out.
He took the child's father and mother and the disciples who
were with him and went in where the child was was.
He took her by the hand and said to her, not Tabitha kum, but
Talitha Kum, which means little girl.
I say to you, get up immediately.
The girl stood up and began to walk around.
She was 12 years old. At this they were completely
astonished. They're basically mirror images,
aren't they? These, these different healings,
They're healings of Jesus in his earthy ministry.
And well, of who now miracles of Peter, yes, but no.
Those are miracles of Jesus during his earthy ministry when
he had flesh and blood. These are miracles of Jesus now
when the flesh and blood bit is Peter.
But it's Jesus still at work. This is Jesus power, not Peter's
power. You notice that they don't go
away from these stories praising Peter.
They don't say, oh, we want to be believers and followers of
Peter. They turn to the Lord.
It is clear in the way that Peter conducts himself, the way
that he does these incredible miracles, that he is not the
center of attention. The focus here is Jesus.
And not Peter. So Jesus is the real story.
Yes. Acts 1 to 9.
We have Peter, we have Stephen, we have Philip, we have Saul.
We come back to Peter. But it's Jesus who's over all of
that here this morning. We've got all of us.
But if you're in Jesus, if you're a Christian this morning,
you are in him. And therefore the big story is
what is Jesus doing in US and through us?
We don't do things as a church or do things out there on our
own so that we get the glory. Instead, we're doing it in Jesus
power so that he gets the glory. We long, don't we?
That the same outcome would come that people turn and not go, oh,
Pete, you're brilliant, Richard, you're amazing.
But let's say Jesus is amazing. I want to turn my life and I
want to follow him because Jesus is the real story.
The risen Jesus is powerfully at work here through Peter, and the
people get it. They see that Jesus is the real
story. That's why they turn not to
Peter, but that's why they turn to him.
That's absolutely the right result.
It also confirms, as I said at the start, that Peter is Jesus.
True Apostle Peter is really important in the growth of the
early church and of this establishment.
We're going to see next week of this understanding that it
wasn't just good news for Jewish people, but for the whole world.
Peter needs to be clearly having Jesus authority.
He needs to it needs to be clear that that he is Jesus mouthpiece
if you like. He's his instrument on earth to
continue to do his work here in a physical way with healing.
But next week, as we'll see in spiritual biblical understanding
of God's salvation plan. This confirms him as an apostle.
I'm just going to flick forward just to give you a reference for
that 2 Corinthians 12 verse 12 Paul writing rather than Peter,
but Paul in in arguing really trying to persuade the
Corinthian Church of who he is. He says the things that mark an
apostle signs, wonders and miracles were done among you
with great perseverance. The things that mark an apostle,
signs, wonders and miracles were done among you with great
perseverance. That was true of Paul, but
that's true of Peter. Here we see these incredible
miracles and it establishes and confirms Peter is Jesus apostle,
his representative. He has authority from Jesus.
So the risen Jesus powerfully at work through Peter.
Peter was great, but actually, remember, Peter's messed up many
times. Peter was the one who who
abandoned Jesus before his death, saying no, no, I don't
even know the guy. And when he died, like the rest
of the disciples, they scatter full of fear, full of crisis.
Who's this Jesus guy? We thought he was going to be
someone, and actually it turns out we were wrong all along.
But Jesus in his kindness, in his goodness, in his mercy, he
is using Peter. He restores Peter to be the rock
that will help establish the early church.
So the risen Jesus powerfully at work through Jesus, through
Peter. Jesus is the real story though.
Peter is really important as an apostle and the take away for
us, I hope today is this, that the risen Jesus is still
powerfully at work through his people today.
The risen Jesus was powerful at work through Peter and through
Stephen and Philip and through Paul.
The risen Jesus is still powerfully at work through those
of us who are Christians today through his same Holy Spirit who
was at work through Peter, that Holy Spirit.
Remember Acts One, verse 8, when the Holy Spirit comes upon you,
you will go out to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends
of the earth. That explosion into the future
that's still happening today, 2000 plus years later.
We're all evidence of that. If you're a Christian here this
morning, you're evidence of that expansion geographically and to
all people, groups represented, the Holy Spirit is still at
work. He is the reason that any of us
have come to faith and it's He who is at work in US
individually and together as we seek to continue Jesus mission
to take the good news out to the nations.
So let me ask you this morning, is that you?
I've just said a couple of times there, if you're a Christian, if
you're a Christian, have you come to put your faith and trust
in Jesus? Have you, like these people here
in Lidda and Joppa, seen this? Jesus seen his power, seen his
authority over sin, and turned to follow him?
That's the invitation for all of us.
No matter how badly we've messed up in the past, no matter what
state of relationships have been, no matter how selfish and
stubborn, no matter how impure our backgrounds or our
foregrounds, Jesus calls us to turn and follow Him.
You may think you're absolutely not worthy of that.
You're right. But Jesus says, I don't.
It's not about whether you're worthy.
If you think that, you've misunderstood the point.
We can never be worthy of God's love.
We can never be worthy of being part of Jesus family.
But he says, I want you. And that same power that raised
Tabitha from the dead and healed this paralyzed man.
But both of them were going to get ill again.
Both of them would die again. Tabitha was, was raised, but she
was resurrected. She was she was resuscitated for
a period of time. But Jesus says trust in me and
you will have new and everlasting life in bodies that
will never get old, will never suffer and creak and need to
wear glasses or never, whatever else it might be not because you
are worthy or because you are capable or you are good, but
because Jesus is. So you might read this passage
today and go, these are amazing miracles.
Just does Jesus still do miracles in the world today?
I hope that our immediate answer straight away is yes, of course
he does. There's 100 and whatever
evidences of it in this room. I was here a few weeks ago with
Mark and Duke up at the front here talking about their
conversion stories, the Jesus coming into their lives.
Those are miracles. Far greater actually than
raising someone from the dead or healing a paralyzed man, giving
new life which will never end. Does Jesus still perform
miracles today? Absolutely.
New life, resurrection forever. Does he still hear like this?
Should we be going around and walking down Queens Road or down
Charles St. and saying, I say to you paralyzed man, Jesus hears
you get up. I don't think that's the point
of this passage. I think this passage here, we
see Peter's power, or at least Jesus power through Peter
establishing Peter in this special way.
Does Jesus, does God still heal people and do amazing miracles
today? Absolutely.
And there'll be people in this room this morning who'll testify
to that. It's not our normal experience,
but sometimes God in his mercy chooses to heal.
But we are not apostles and we don't have this same authority
and this same role. But we can pray, can't we?
We can pray that God would be at what we pray for healing.
It's good and right that we do that.
We've got people in our church family today who are who are
suffering. You can't be here this morning.
And if you're on on watching online, it's great to have you
there who would love to be here, who themselves would love to be
here, but can't be because they're physically
incapacitated. Others who who perhaps have are
going through mental illness and to such an extent that that they
can't be with us. It is right that we pray that
God would be merciful and would heal, but that's not a test for
God. Are you real or do you really
love us? Instead, it's saying we're going
to trust you, Jesus, and we believe that you could do this,
but we believe that you are with us by your Holy Spirit.
Are they the same? Risen Jesus is still powerfully
at work through his people. Very importantly, if people do
claim healings, perhaps there'd be Christians out there who
would claim healings in their churches or what have you.
Just remember, all of this doesn't point to Peter.
It all points to Jesus. If we find people who are, who
are claiming healings, claiming amazing things, and it points to
them and how great they are, can be part of my church.
Follow me on YouTube. Follow me on Instagram.
No, it should point to Jesus and his glory.
So the risen Jesus is still powerfully at work through his
people. Do we believe that?
I think sometimes that's really hard, isn't it, to believe that.
What does that mean? What does that look like
day-to-day? That the risen Jesus is still
powerfully at work through his people, through me, through you.
Yeah, absolutely. The Holy Spirit who was here
empowering the church to grow is still the Holy Spirit.
And he is with us, empowering us to go.
And for that gospel, the good news, to reach the ends of the
earth, that might be Ethiopia. It might be not.
Might be wherever else. It might be your school
tomorrow, it might be your neighbors this afternoon, it
might be your place of work next week, it might be your loved
ones who can't be here or live elsewhere or don't know.
This Jesus, the risen Jesus is still powerfully at work through
his people. And for us, we continue to be
part of that salvation plan that grows and grows and goes out to
the ends of the earth. Let's pray to that God, shall
we? Let's pray, Lord Jesus, we thank
you that you are risen indeed. Thank you that death couldn't
hold you and you got up not to then lie down again, but
actually as Richard read from that verse in Hebrews earlier
on, to sit down at the right hand of God the Father and we
remember Jesus, You're not sitting down because you're
tired or lazy, but because you have authority over all things
and the work of winning salvation is finished, but it's
expanding. Thank you for each one of us
here this morning who are privileged enough to call Jesus
our Lord. And I pray that for anyone here
who, who doesn't yet, who is unsure about this Jesus,
skeptical, unsure, questioning, Lord, would you please by the
power of your Holy Spirit, bring new understanding, new insight,
new awe, and new acceptance of who you are.
And Lord, please continue to be powerfully at work through US,
your people. We mess up all the time.
Lord, we doubt, we question, we forget.
But by your Spirit, we pray that you would powerfully continue to
be at work despite us. But in US and through US, for
your glory always we ask Lord Jesus, Amen.