The sermon 'God's Mighty Hand Unexpectedly Changes Things' by Scott Brown focuses on Acts chapter 9, emphasizing God's power to bring unexpected change and transformation. The chapter introduces Aeneas and Tabitha, two individuals whose lives are radically changed by God's intervention through Peter. Aeneas is healed after being paralyzed for eight years, while Tabitha is raised from the dead, leading to many turning to the Lord. The sermon highlights the early church's resilience in the face of persecution, underscoring how they continued to spread the gospel despite adversity. It also discusses the conversion of Saul, a key enemy of the church, into a proponent of the faith, showcasing God's ability to transform even the most unlikely individuals. Peter's role is examined as he follows the example of Jesus, demonstrating personal ministry and discipleship. The sermon encourages believers to trust in God's timing and sovereignty, reminding them that trials and afflictions can lead to greater glory and transformation.

I trust everybody has God's holy word with them today, this morning. I invite you to open up your Bibles this morning to Acts chapter 9. Acts chapter 9 will begin in verse 31, and we'll read to the end of the chapter. Acts chapter 9, 31. So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace being built up, and going on in the fear of the Lord, in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.

Now as Peter was traveling through all those regions, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydah. There he found a man named Aeneas who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed. Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you, get up and make your bed. Immediately he got up and all who lived at Lydah and Sharon saw him and they turned to the Lord. Now in Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha which translated in Greek is called Dorcas.

This woman was abounding with deeds of kindness and charity, which she continually did. And it happened at that time that she fell sick and died, and when they washed her body, they laid it in an upper room. Since Lydah was near Joppa, the disciples, having heard that Peter was there, sent two men to him, imploring him, Do not delay in coming to us. So Peter arose and went with them. When he arrived, they brought him into the upper room, and all the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing all the tunics and garments that Dorcas used to make while 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 many days in Joppa with a tanner named Simon Would you all pray with me before we hear the preaching of the word? Oh Heavenly Father, we do thank you for the way that you've revealed yourself to us, Lord, that you have provided us with holy scripture that we could read and and and see how that you talk to us Lord and how you exhort us to things how you show us the glories of Christ Lord and the truths that we found find all throughout Scripture which we can find nowhere else oh Lord I pray that we would become a people we would be a people that would become dependent upon your word that we would look to your word for answers and how we would live our lives.

Lord I pray now as Scott comes before us all and and delivers your holy word Lord that you would anoint him mightily to deliver these truths that we speak of Lord that we see in scripture and that we would be, our hearts would be prepared to listen to them, to obey, Lord, and to leave this place joyfully with a greater desire for Christ, Lord. Such a desire that we could not hold back but to share it with others. Lord, prepare us now as we hear the preaching of Your Word. In Your name we pray, amen. This chapter 9 brings us to be introduced to two new people that we've never met in the book of Acts.

One of the great things about the book of Acts is that you get to meet so many people, wondrous people, either for good instruction or for warning against something to avoid. In the last chapter we met Barnabas who is the son of encouragement. And I'll just have to tell you I really desire this morning to be like Barnabas today here among us, to be like the son of encouragement. He is such a wonderful example of how people can function in life and he was especially gifted with the gift of encouragement. I do desire to be that kind of influence here this morning among us.

And I would like to say a number of things about these two new individuals that we meet and the things that happened there. But I want especially to emphasize throughout the morning that God is mighty to change things, even the worst things that you can think of that might be happening in your life today. And I would like to even take maybe what might be the worst thing going on in your life. What would that be? What might be the most stressful or ominous or difficult thing that it just seems like nothing could change it?

What might that be in your life? And if I told you that it would change tomorrow, you would fall down on the floor right now laughing at me at how silly, how insane, how incomprehensible that could be that something like that can change. Well, the situation in the early church in the previous chapters of Acts, here just the most recent chapters, things are looking very bad and they've been going bad for a long time. Things are bleak, the surrounding, the people surrounding the church are suspicious, they're slanderous, they're persecuting the church so much that the church was scattered in a pretty broad geographical area. Stephen stands up and preaches a wonderful God-centered message, thoroughly biblical, full of history.

Instead of 3, 000 people coming to faith like what happened when Peter preached a fairly similar message, they stoned him and he lives his last day on the earth. And it perhaps causes the death of a couple of thousand other of the believers. This against one of the godliest men in the Bible, stone to death by religious authorities. So the people have scattered, they're fearing for their lives, and yet they're not restrained in their message at all. They continue to bring forth the message of the greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They're carrying with them the body of the dying Jesus and he's constantly strengthening them and helping them in their pilgrimage. And then something happens that's totally unexpected, nobody could have accomplished it, nobody's witnessing was able to pull it off. Claudia, would you get me some water? No good example like Stephen was able to sway him. No arguments were able to bring him to his knees.

But the worst enemy of the church the Apostle Paul is converted and it's it's one of the most dramatic stories and conversions in the Bible the chief instigator for the violence of the church against the church now is a brother. How about a change like that? I bet you if you had said the apostle Saul is going to be one of our brothers, if you'd said that to some of the disciples, they would have fallen on their faces and laughed at you on the ground. And what I love about this story of these two new individuals, Aeneas and Tabitha, is that it speaks the truth to us again that we do not live in a steady state where today determines tomorrow. We don't.

Banish the thought if that is in your mind now because scripture contradicts it on almost every page. We saw a contradiction with the conversion of the Apostle Paul, and we see it in Acts 9, 31 through 43. But we look at today's circumstances, and we often think Nothing will ever change. I will not change. My spouse will not change.

My children will not change. My employment problems will not change. But that's not true. And I would like to be like Barnabas today and say, that's not true. That doesn't fit the testimony of scripture, and it doesn't fit the message of this passage either.

And it is simply not true that we're forever stuck. It's not true. And even if we might be stuck a little bit longer here on Earth than we would like to be, there will come a day when we will be completely unstuck. And God has promised it. I believe it will take place.

I'm so grateful for it. I have so many problems, I think so many wrong thoughts, and I have so many dumb patterns of my life, and I will be very happy to be released from all of these things. But we have a situation in Acts 9 where you have a lame man and a dead woman. Pretty rough programs. Terminal problems.

No good end in sight. And yet God takes the situation and He manages a great reversal. Now this feeling that we have that things will never change reminds me of an incident in the life of Abraham when he was 100 years old. And God announces to Abraham and Sarah that they're going to have a child. And in Genesis 17, 17, remember that, 17, 17, this is a great verse.

Abraham fell on his face and he laughed in his heart. He did exactly what any of you would have done if I would have told you your worst problem, God might unhook in some way. He fell on his face, and he laughed. And he said, shall a child be born to a man who's 100 years old? And shall Sarah, who is 90 years old, bear a child?

And of course, the answer from God is, yes indeed, yes indeed. I hope we can take encouragement from the fact of life that God is in control and that he is not in management of a steady state universe, but that he crashes in and does as he wills. Does not matter what men think or do. God, God is mightier than all of it. God is so mighty that he can even save a man like Saul.

Do you think Saul was seeking God, trying to get it together. Absolutely not. He was kicking against the goads, and God grabbed him, and God took him where he wanted to take him. That's what God has done with us. And so there are some various themes in this chapter.

Again, please bear with me in kind of introducing the text. But I want to just give you some of the themes that you'll see in the text so that maybe they're more apparent as we go through it. First of all, God glorifies himself through trials and turnaround situations. Acts 9 shows us how God uses a lame man and a dead woman and a worker in a despised trade to glorify himself. Number two, the ministry of Jesus is displayed in the lives of the individuals and in the conversion of many people in an entire region.

And it gives us, The passage is so helpful to us because it gives us, again, as we see over and over again in Acts, a flavor for what the gospel is all about, really. People might claim that the gospel does this or that to somebody, But the Bible makes it so clear that there is a beautiful effect of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, the early Christians were called the enemies of society. They were represented to be a scourge, but that's not true at all. They're full of healing, they're full of mercy, they're full of giving, they're full of deploying their resources.

You see the display of Jesus in normal everyday life. And you even see how a man who is lame, his eight-year trial opens up into the conversion of people in a whole region, and It's really amazing. And you also see this very personal, one-on-one kind of ministry happening. These apostles weren't doing their work from some corporate ivory tower in the midst of some superstructure of religion. They were men among the people.

And you see that this was the ministry of Jesus. And they're just like him. Thirdly, you see the usefulness and the discipleship process for Peter. Peter is now, for the first time in his life, from all we can gather, is ministering in a pagan environment. He's progressing in his faith.

We're going to see tremendous progression in his faith. God is using some of these really unusual circumstances. He's bringing people into his life, the goyim, the dogs, to help him, to minister even more to these despicable, gentile people. And God is taking Peter along a pathway. You remember, you know, Peter's pathway is so helpful to us because it reminds us of how foolish and how unspiritual and undiscerning we are.

You know, this is the guy that Jesus said get behind me Satan. This is the guy that denied the Lord Jesus Christ and yet God is patient with his sons and his daughters. He loves them and he carries them on year by year, decade by decade and now we get Peter here and God is continuing to work with him, and he's progressing in his faith, and in 9 and 10, you see God gently and then more aggressively kind of confronting Peter to change his views regarding the Gentiles. It's probably possible that as Peter was there in Joppa, his view of the Gentiles was the same as Jonah's was when he was there. Remember Jonah went to Joppa?

Well, Peter now is in Joppa, same old place where Jonah did not want to go to those filthy Gentiles and preach the gospel to them. He did not want them to be saved because he hated them so much. And now Peter is probably not in such an extreme state of mind, but definitely he needs to have an adjustment regarding his attitude toward the Gentiles. And God is leading him through this process so that he can minister more effectively to these despised, despicable people that have all these strange practices and they do all kinds of strange things that are really wrong. And so we see this usefulness and the fulfillment of the prophecy, you shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the remotest part of the earth.

And, you know, who was this Peter? He's the most unlikely person to be doing this. He's a fisherman and now God has got him in a completely strange environment that wasn't really part of his background. But what we do see with Peter is that he's following in the footsteps of Jesus. You can see it in this text right here.

He's doing what his master did. It's wonderful. And it's the key to his usefulness. And then, of course, we do see a new focus on Peter. Saul is converted.

In the next chapter here, Peter is the focus. Peter is the prominent individual from Acts chapter 1 through 12. And then in this 9, 10, and 11 is kind of a transitional period where you have Peter and Paul and then in 13 it's the ministry of the Apostle Paul to the end of the book of Acts so you can just kind of see how God is bringing different people in to teach us different things about about our lives and the gospel. Okay, okay, so let's go. Verse 31 is where we start.

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee enjoyed, and Samaria enjoyed peace being built up and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase. Here the church is flourishing, it's a demonstration of all the wonderful things that you would always hope to be part of your church and yet sometimes they're not. God has scattered his people out of their comfort zones and they're spreading the gospel. They are his witnesses in these different areas. And there are new locations of blessing, particularly in Samaria.

And so these are wonderful snapshots of I'm sure what do you want to call exemplary church life or something like that. They enjoyed peace. This was something that God did. He, the Apostle Paul is converted and the fire behind the persecution seems to die away. It's interesting that even, you know, one person can cause so many problems And that's what was happening here.

And the church was enjoying peace. As a result, the proverb says that if you take away the wood, the fire will go out. And it seems to be that's what was happening here. And Can you imagine what it had been like for the church to be fearful? They'd be walking in different places, fearing that they might be stoned or something like that in the same way that Stephen was and so many others had experienced.

But so for some just all, do you think they thought that the persecution was just going to go on forever and ever and ever? I think they did, but it didn't. It stopped, well for a while, But it did stop and they enjoyed a time of peace. It says that they are being built up. So that means that there's growth in people's lives.

They're changing. They're being strengthened by their trials and their tribulations. That's what should be happening among us. We shouldn't be the same people next year that we are this year, because we're repenting of our sins. We're helping one another with our blind spots and our weaknesses.

And so we are being built up, growing and changing and being strengthened. Then they're going on in the fear of the Lord. This is a particularly freeing thing when it happens in people's lives. Their fear is toward God and not toward man. There's nothing you can do to increase the happiness of a human than that their fear would be shifted from man to God.

And that was happening. So my guess is this was a happy church. They really feared only God. A friend of mine uses a catechism question that we've stolen in the Browns. And it goes like this, whom do the Browns fear?

And the answer is the Browns fear God alone. The Browns do not fear man. And that's what was happening here. They were continuing on in, quote unquote, the fear of the Lord. And then they were going on in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

Wow! Is that happening? Is that happening here? Is the Holy Spirit comforting you today? Are you going on in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, or are you grieving the Spirit?

Are you doing things that cause the ministry of the Holy Spirit to be hampered? That can happen. That's what grieving the Holy Spirit is. We can do things that grieve and stop this wonderful ministry of the Holy Spirit. Well, they were going on in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.

We're going to see a lot of things that the Holy Spirit does in the book of Acts. Well, here's one thing right here that we learn that the Holy Spirit does. If you want to be a theologian and learn about what the Holy Spirit does, here's one right here. The Holy Spirit is the Comforter. And then they are continuing to increase, so there's expansion of the fellowship, that there are more and more who are being added.

And so it's really, it's a wonderful, wonderful church life that's happening now. It's the kind of church life that you always, you know, pray for and desire. I think that, I don't know if there's a believer in the world who doesn't desire this kind of church life, and that's what they had. May it be so among us that we would have the same kind of church life together. And then the next section of the text is the healing of Aeneas, verses 32 through 35.

And The narrative opens up with the words, Peter was traveling. I love those words because it just expresses the way that the goodness of God works. It works as people just go from one place to another, and they meet particular people, and certain things happen. You never know who you're going to meet, but God has a way of ordaining your steps to bump you into people that you never would have on your own met. And that's what happened with Peter.

As he was traveling through all those regions, he's among the people, he's conducting a very personal ministry. Like I said before, he was not in a hierarchical office administering the work of the kingdom of God. He was with people. He was walking and talking and operating personally with people, just like the Lord Jesus did. And Peter also he was not avoiding the regions that the Jews were normally avoiding.

He was going into Samaria, you know, the Jews used to skirt Samaria, but Peter wasn't doing that at all. He was, he was like, well Jason and I like to call charging the fire. He was charging the fire. He was going into the difficult moment and facing it and dealing with it in a godly way. Now, I want you to notice in these verses, the geographical reference points.

I think it's important that we don't just blow by some of the geographical details and the historical details that are here, because they demonstrate something that's really important for us to always remember. And that is our faith is a faith of time and history and space. There are real people. There are real places. There are places that you can go to today.

And here we have these historical and geographical reference points. Lida is the current location of the International Airport outside of Tel Aviv. You can go there today and go to the same location. It's a real place. Christianity's not a myth.

It wasn't made up by a bunch of myth writers. But there were real people who walked in real places at real times in history and you can visit them today. And Joppa, of course, is a famous place. Joppa is not only known as the place where Jonah disobeyed the Lord to take a ship in the wrong direction to Tarshish. But here, he's visiting the saints, And Peter is just passing by in the normal course.

And he meets with something that he did not plan or expect. And here's what he found. He met somebody. He bumped into a situation that he could not have strategized about. Aeneas was paralyzed.

That's what happened. He bumped into a guy who was paralyzed. And this Aeneas is a Greek name. He was bedridden for eight years. We have no idea why he was paralyzed.

Maybe he had a stroke or something. Maybe some calamity fell upon him. But whatever it is, he was paralyzed. You know, there's a person in Deborah and Mai's family who had a stroke in his late 40s. And it was so tremendously disheartening to him.

And this happens when a man cannot do the things that he's always done and he cannot fulfill the things that he believes he was created to do. And I went to his home several months ago and you know, he cried like a child and I say that in the tenderest way. He, he cried like a baby at the fact that something had happened to him that he had no control over at all. And he really had lost the life that he used to have. And this is what happened to Aeneas.

He was a man who for many years was not able to fulfill his role in life. And you can just imagine the frustration and the pain. He was a man just like you and I are, even though he lived 2, 000 years ago. And he's called a certain man, by the way. Now some have said, you know, you know, Tabitha is called a disciple.

This, Aeneas is called a certain man. So some present the idea that he was an unbeliever. We don't know that for sure. Peter, just so that, Peter was with the saints in this area. So He may have been one of the believers, but he may have been a certain man that was not a believer that Peter had compassion on.

One of the things that I think is apparent from this whole passage, If the man was in the church, and let's just assume that he was, in the meetings of the saints there are always problems to be grappled with. There are different kinds of problems that God sends into your church, and they come as gifts of God so that we can handle them with wisdom and with grace. And here among these saints was a certain man who had a particular kind of problem. And, you know, God sends, he sends into the fellowship of the church people who get cancer. Some people die, Some people lose everything, maybe two, three, or four times.

You know, this is the life that God has desired for us to live. There are all kinds of problems in the church, and This is one of the purposes of God's placing the church in the world. Not only that we would be the pillar in support of the truth, but that we would be like the comfort of the Holy Spirit to one another, and a source of love in the midst of our trials and all of our tribulations. So we don't live in a perfect world, and like Peter, we should be involved in praying with those who are suffering, whether they're saints or not. So let's assume that he wasn't a saint.

Let's say that he wasn't part of the group of believers. Let's say he was an abject Greek God-worshipping reprobate. Let's say he was that kind of a person. Because I'm not sure who he was. He was one or the other.

Let's just say he was a reprobate. And Peter was not shunning him. Peter was not relegating him to some bad class. But he took the time to have compassion on him. And it would be instructive to us to be that kind of presence in the world that we wouldn't forget to pray for those who are unbelievers who are suffering and have their own trials.

One of the things that we see here is that Peter exalts Christ in his dealing with Aeneas. He says in just the most crisp, dense way that you can say something wonderful to someone, Christ heals you, Get up and make your bed. Christ heals you. That was Peter's confidence. Peter's only confidence was in the Lord Jesus Christ.

I don't see any confidence in himself here. And this miracle that happens, it mirrors the same miracle that Jesus performed. It follows in John 5-8, Jairus' daughter. Peter does the same thing that Jesus did with Jairus and gives the same message. And the result of this was all who lived at Lydda and in the area of Shearron saw this and they turned to the Lord.

They turned to the Lord. Now I don't believe that this means that every single person turned to the Lord. But I think it was a very comprehensive turning to God. The words used here is that they turned to the Lord. And This explains an element of true conversion.

True conversion is a turning. It's a, to repent means to turn around and go in another direction. That's what happened in, in Lydda. Lots and lots of people, All the people turned to the Lord. And the Lord was explained to them in different ways, and they changed the direction of their lives.

We have different examples of this in history, where God does a surprising and unusual work in a community. He did it during the Great Awakening in different places. He did it in Kidderminster when Richard Baxter was a pastor there. One of the books that we're going to recommend that we read this year as a church is the biography of John G. Peyton, who was a great missionary to the New Hebrides.

We're going to encourage you to read this in your homes. We're going to try to draw principles from it throughout the year. But it's a wonderful biography of a great saint of the Lord. Well, as he was ministering there, There were certain islands that had almost a comprehensive revival in them. So this happens in history.

Would that God do that here? Wouldn't it be amazing if God would do it here? I'll just tell you something. I don't know exactly. Only God can do this.

But we should implore him that he would do it, that he would rescue many, that there would be many who would turn to the Lord in this area. I have faith that he could do that here for sure. So these are people movements that happen from time to time. Now here's the amazing thing about this. All these people turned to the Lord.

Why? What happened? One lame man, eight years. This came from one discouraged man. Look what God can do with a travail.

I don't know what problem you might have right now that is just so terrible, but I know for sure God, God is great. And there is no steady state here. God can turn anything around in a mighty way. And he can use your worst suffering, your worst quality, your worst trial, the dumbest thing you've ever done. And he can use it to change an entire city.

That's what happened right here. One man, lame, eight years, and an entire city and a region is Affected isn't that wonderful you just you just think about for a minute what you think is the worst thing going on in your life Hey, God is greater than all these things and I So I really do want to play the part of Barnabas this morning, that the son of encouragement through these words would come. And you would see maybe your greatest trial in a different way, that you would have patience with it. How much patience does it take to suffer for eight years as a man paralyzed? I've just seen a lot of patience.

How many times do you think he said to himself, I'm a dead man. I'm as good as dead. I'm confident that he did. So but here we have this marvelous Christ exalting brother, Peter, who follows the example of Jesus. And the steady state of a man's demise is broken.

And it leads to the turning of perhaps hundreds or maybe thousands of people. So that's the healing of Aeneas. Wow, what a great story. Has the son of encouragement come to you? Has the Lord used Barnabas, you know, the real Barnabas, in your life today to just say, hey, wait a minute, you know, I don't know how long you've been paralyzed, but, you know, I have a plan, I know what I'm doing.

And then we turn to this amazing explanation of the healing, of the raising of the dead of Tabitha. I have on my outline healing. It wasn't a healing, it was a raising from the dead. Now this story is, I love this story. It's about the life of one of the most wonderful women in the Bible.

The Bible has many compelling, beautiful stories of women who were just absolutely marvelous in their lifestyle and in their effect. You see her usefulness to the Lord. She's a role model for all women who long to be used by their master, the Lord Jesus Christ. Let's talk about some of the details of the story. I'd really like to kind of grind down into just some of the real particulars here and camp on them for a minute.

Her location was the upper room. She's dead now, and she's been placed in the upper room is possibly the meeting place of the church. It's the same word that's used in Acts chapter 1 where they're meeting in the upper room. Well, so it's possible that this was the meeting place of the church and there she was lying in state there. Her identity, this is one of the most compelling and revealing things about this story.

She is a disciple. She is a follower of Christ and she's making herself useful. Now the word disciple is the word mathetase in the New Testament. It's a masculine term, mathetase, and it means a follower. Someone who is learning, a follower, a learner.

That's what disciple means. Well, here in this passage is a variation of this word. It's the only time it's ever used in the New Testament, And it's the feminine use of this word, mathatria, which means the same thing, but it's the feminine. It's the only time it's used in the feminine. I love this word, I love this story.

This woman is a learner. She is an acquirer of wisdom. And she's taking her wisdom and applying it in everyday life. First Timothy 2.11 said, let a woman learn. Let her learn.

And she was like that. She was learning. I just picture this woman having so much practical knowledge because she obviously applied it. She wasn't just a head knowledge learner though. She was putting it into practice.

And what a blessing she was. Again, and her gender, of course, she was a woman. And her background, or her name meant Gazelle. Her, both the names, both Tabitha and Dorcas, mean the same thing, Gazelle. And her beautiful, you know, Vigorous Life was really characterized by her name, Tabitha.

What a beautiful name. I love that name. If I had another daughter, I would really want to name her Tabitha. I really would. You'll see why later as we get more deeply into this story.

The realm of her work, well, her background was Hellenistic. And then the realm, let's see here, the realm of her work was that she was a blessing to the widows. She cared for the widows with her labors of love. And of course, she's fulfilling one of the great callings of the church. The deacons were not the only ones caring for the widows.

The deacons were caring for the widows, but they weren't the only ones caring for the widows. There were other godly mothatria, women disciples who were caring for the widows. And you know, there of course, scripture gives us different rules for caring for widows and how to do that. It's very clear how we should take care of widows, but she was operating in a realm of ministry to widows. And then you see the quantity of her work.

Now this is amazing. It says she was abounding, abounding with deeds of charity and kindness. The emphasis here is on quality. Quantity, She did a lot. And there was so much work that she did that there was so much to show for her kindness.

And there the widows were, they're in the upper room, and they're weeping and they're showing all the garments and the things that she had made for them and they were crying at her, the outlay of her labor toward them and her love because she did a lot, she made lots of garments for them. You know, what's a girl to do? What's a girl supposed to do in life? Well, a girl should be like this. She should set herself to be like Tabitha, with vigorous, beautiful works of service for the kingdom of God.

It might include even taking care of widows and other women who are in need. This is one of the great callings of womanhood. And we should defend this practice for our daughters and for our wives that that we would give them a freedom of life So that there is ministry like this If if this is their calling and gift which obviously this was for her And then the quality of her work, the quality of her work was that it was tireless work. She did it continually. She lays her hand to the spindle and the needle and reaches to the dista, stretches her hand to the pore, and reaches her hands for the needy as the woman in Proverbs 31.

She was a Proverbs 31 woman. She makes coverings and tapestry and clothing as silk and purple as Proverbs 31, 19 says. This was a woman who used her hands. Her hands were constantly moving. By the way, I'm married to a woman like this, whose hands are constantly moving.

My wife's hands never stop moving in service for someone else. That's just the way it is. In fact, I often have to rebuke her. Deborah, stop doing that. I don't want you to make that for so-and-so.

The Grinch shows up and says, hey, let's rest for a moment, please. And I'm often so wrong in doing that but the truth is this woman's hands were constantly at work for the needs of the Saints and then she dies And then you see the consistency of her work. She did it continually. And then she dies. And the disciples call for Peter.

Peter is 30 miles away or something like that. And then when he arrives, he finds the widows, they're weeping. And then he sends everybody out of the room, just like his master did. OK. Back in the healing of Tabitha, or the little girl, he kneels and prays and he says, Tabitha arise, and she's raised from the dead.

And he just follows the pattern of his master in Mark chapter 5 verse 41 in the raising of Jairus' daughter. He does the same old thing. The Lord Jesus, he heard the Lord Jesus say, Talitha, or Talitha Koum, little girl arise. He changes one single letter and says, Tabitha cum. Said one letter, one letter difference in what his master said and what he said.

Isn't that great? He's around his master. He's just repeating. He's just mimicking his master. That's discipleship.

That is the meaning of mathētēs, that we would be disciples like this. Oh, it grieves me to think of my own mismatch of the life of my master, that God would help us all to more carefully follow the way of our master. Well, just a little note for the health and wealth gospel crowd Okay, this woman was not raised because of her faith Okay This woman was raised by the mighty sovereign power of God and the faith of Peter, but not in her faith. She was dead. And then we come into Simon the tanner, verse 43.

And Peter stayed many days in Joppa with a tanner named Simon. Tanners were despised by careful Jews. This occupation was distasteful, it was unlawful. Tanners, under rabbinical law, had to live 50 cubits out of town. The rabbis had a law saying that if an engaged woman learned that her betrothed was a tanner, she could break off the engagement.

How's that? That's how despised they were. You're getting connected with this guy, you learned this despicable news. He's a tanner. Nah, break it off.

And that's what the rabbis encouraged these women to do. The rabbis were really not hitting on all cylinders. So Peter here is breaking cultural barriers. And he finds a tanner in Joppa, you know, in the city of Jonah. He finds a tanner who is a genuine disciple of Jesus.

He does not shun him to maintain his reputation or anything like that. He's not too pure to go be a part of this man's life. And he's not afraid of what other people are going to say by connecting with this guy. Have you ever had this temptation of being careful with who you're associated with, so you dishonor someone as a result of it? Well, Peter did not do that at all.

But something else is happening here. We see the confrontation of many of Peter's lifelong preferences. God is working with Peter slowly to soften him toward the Gentiles. And boy, next week he's going to hit Peter upside the head with this issue. But he's moving him in this direction.

But we're going to meet Simon the Tanner again, and we'll find out that he's a great guy. And okay, application, Let's try to get to some application here. First of all, now, this is perhaps the Barnabas side of this. Let's enter into a time to honor and praise God for his timing, for glorifying himself, through the things that look like dead-end streets, box canyons, you know, the end of the line for you. Not true.

That's a lie of Satan. God will fill your heart with songs of deliverance and Satan will tell you your history. Okay? That's just a pattern. You can always know who's talking to you.

Remember saying your history is the devil. Because God has promised something far greater for you. God is calculating and he's careful in his works. A lame man was made to be patient for eight years. We do not know how God will use our difficulty and We do not know how long it will be, but we do know this, God will bring glory to Himself through all things.

He causes all, A-L-L, things to work together for good. All things, even the tough things. You know, a wonderful woman dies in the church here. It's terribly sad, but God has something completely unexpected for everyone there. And the question for us is, are we praising God this morning for our afflictions?

Do we really believe that God is blessing us through our afflictions? Do you believe that God is blessing you through your afflictions? Have you lost touch with that? I think I lose touch with it so often. But here it is before us today.

Secondly, rest in our complete dependence upon the work of Christ. Jesus Christ heals you. It's only Christ that can do anything meaningful. He is sovereign over all things. You can whoop yourself as much as you want for what you have or haven't done.

But really, if we are to change, if we are to do anything for God that he would have us to do, then he must help us. We are not empowered on our own, and we need his power. No other focus for the church is appropriate than the Lord Jesus Christ because He is the center of all that we need. Number three, the gospel is for everyone. The lame, the tanner, no culture is greater than another when it comes to salvation.

And we see this here in this passage. Number four, follow the example of the labor and the selflessness of Tabitha and the selflessness of Peter. Peter leaves, he walks a pretty significant distance. He was not going 60 miles an hour to travel this distance. It was a long trip, a long journey.

It would be the equivalent of traveling halfway around the world right now, today. And Peter traveled the distance. And we see Tabitha in service toward the church. Moving a person's life towards selflessness and availability is the will of the Lord. It's the will of the Lord for all of us.

Is there an area of availability that you're withholding yourself from that you should not withhold anymore? Is there some priority that's stealing from some calling of God that's possible to happen? We can often get our priorities messed up. And we're doing good things over here, but they really are not the things that God would have us do. We have to be very careful and sensitive to that.

Number five, a major turning point can happen in any city, including ours. And I pray that we would be ready for that. We would need to be a people ready for that too, to bring people in, to love them, to instruct them, to help them mature, a morass of different kinds of people, different kinds of backgrounds. We would need to be a people ready. We should be a holy people who are ready to bring the Lord Jesus Christ to whoever comes among us.

We have a responsibility to those who come that we would be the blessing of God for them. And then pray for wisdom in what area of discipleship is most needed in your life. Peter followed the pattern of Christ. The disciples of Jesus are meant to be like Jesus. And Peter is a wonderful example of, as a person who is moving in his discipleship.

He's not a perfect man, but he desires to be like Jesus. And then lastly, be comforted that nothing can happen but by the power of God. God changes things that seem to be in a steady state. There might be a problem that you have that we told if if somebody told you it would change you would do just what Abraham Did you'd fall on your face on the ground and just crack up crazily now? He laughed because it was just absurd But God is bigger than all that and we don't we don't live in a closed universe.

We live in a universe of a loving God who is superintending all things for his own glory. And he's doing that for each and every single individual in this room. And we need to get a grip on that and not live as if there was no God at all. There is a God in heaven and He is sovereign and He will complete the work that He began in you. And it will be, it definitely will be for your joy and for His glory.

They're both connected perfectly. Would you pray with me? Father, these new people that we have met here this morning are so helpful to us. Lord, that you would be to us a son of encouragement in the midst of all of our trials and tribulations. Thank you for giving us these stories to lift us up out of the mire of our own interpretations.

In Jesus' name, Amen.