The Work Continues

What do you think God is up to these days?

It seems a little chaotic out there, doesn’t it?

I can’t answer some of the big questions, like why the coronavirus is still a thing, or why the nation is so divided, or why God hasn’t done this or that in your life.

I do see at least one thing going on, though: Jesus’ work is continuing through his followers.

To see that this morning, I want us to pick back up where we left off in our study of the book of Acts, so go ahead and open your Bibles to Acts 9:31-43.

It has been a few months since we were together, so let me remind you of a few things before we dive in.

This book is the second book by a man named Luke. The first was the Gospel that bears his name, and it talked about what Jesus did during his earthly ministry. That’s what Luke explains:

Acts 1:1–2 CSB

I wrote the first narrative, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day he was taken up, after he had given instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen.

This second book explains what happened next. After Jesus died, was raised, and went back to heaven, his disciples began taking that incredible message all around the world.

It started with the Holy Spirit coming into the life of the church in a new way on the day of a Jewish feast called Pentecost. One of the apostles, Peter, stood up that day and told the crowds about Jesus, and 2000 got saved.

The church began to grow and, although there were challenges, God did mighty works in and through them.

At this point, the believers had primarily stayed in the city of Jerusalem. All that changes after a godly man named Stephen is put to death by an angry mob.

That begins a persecution, led by a man named Saul, that scatters the church out beyond Jerusalem.

As Saul is arresting believers and throwing them in prison, they begin to flee Jerusalem and take the good news about Jesus with them everywhere they go.

God does a mighty work in Samaria through a man named Phillip. When Peter and some of the other apostles come to check it out, they are amazed at what God is doing.

Then, we see something unthinkable happen. Remember Saul, the guy persecuting the church? While he is on his way to arrest more Christians, Jesus appears to him on the road and changes him completely. Saul, who will later be referred to as Paul, gets saved and begins serving Jesus as hard as he had persecuted those who believe in him.

In our last message together, we saw that Saul immediately found out how hard it is to follow Jesus, and we remembered that we shouldn’t expect anything different.

As we pick back up today, we are pushing pause on Saul’s story and picking back up with Peter for a while.

Whenever we look at a passage, we want to make sure we are looking at it in the context of what is going on, so let’s think for a minute about why Luke included these accounts in this particular place.

I believe Luke has a specific reason for including these particular accounts.

What happens in chapter 10 is something that his audience would have had a hard time swallowing.

So, to help them see what God had been up to, he sets the stage with these two stories from the life of Peter.

What point is he trying to make?

Here’s the point that he is making, I believe, and that you and I need to hold onto today: The work Jesus started on earth is still continuing through his disciples.

Let’s read through the passage and go back and see this more clearly. Start in verse 31 with me...

The primary point that Luke is making is this:

1) Jesus continued his ministry through Peter.

The way God works through Peter is supposed to remind us of the way that Jesus performed miracles, which is something we will see as we dive into them.

Let’s start with the healing of Aeneas.

As time has passed and the church has grown, Peter has been traveling around, teaching and encouraging the churches in various areas.

He comes to a town called Lydda, which is about 11 miles southeast of the Mediterranean Sea.

Peter is there, ministering to believers. At some point, he encounters a man named Aeneas. We don’t know if he was already a Christian or not, but we do know he is paralyzed and bedridden.

It appears that Peter goes into the man’s home, and read again what he says in verse 34...

Isn’t this a beautiful moment? After struggling for at least 8 years, this man is suddenly able to get up and walk!

Notice how Peter says this: “Jesus Christ heals you.”

It wasn’t something Peter did; Jesus was healing this man through Peter.

Why include this particular miracle? Because it reminds us of something Luke told us that Jesus did.

Back in Luke’s first book, in Luke 5:17-26, Luke tells us about another bed-ridden, paralyzed man.

This man’s friends brought him to Jesus, lowering him through the roof of a house so he could be healed.

Jesus first tells the man that his sins are forgiven, and the religious leaders in the room get furious.

Here is Jesus’ response:

Luke 5:22–25 CSB

But perceiving their thoughts, Jesus replied to them, “Why are you thinking this in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he told the paralyzed man, “I tell you: Get up, take your stretcher, and go home.” Immediately he got up before them, picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.

Now, we see Peter, as the leader of the twelve apostles, showing that Jesus is continuing his ministry through Peter and the others.

Just like he healed the man lowered through the roof in Luke 5, Jesus instantly heals this man as Peter speaks with him.

Jesus’ work on earth didn’t stop when he ascended back to heaven. In many ways, it just got started.

Remember what he said to the disciples as he sent them out as apostles?

Acts 1:8 CSB

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

We are seeing this happen through Peter as God heals this man, which immediately results in many people coming to know Jesus in a real way.

Look at verse 35...

When Peter did what Jesus did, and when God worked through him like he worked through Jesus, people got right with God.

Now, this gets even more clear when we see the second miracle Luke records here. Look down at verse 36-38 again.

Here is a woman who was deeply loved by the others in the church, and her passing has left a tremendous wound.

Jump down to verse 40-41 and read the miracle again.

Don’t let the brevity of this account steal the beauty, by the way. This woman really was dead, and now she was alive. Can you imagine the joy they felt?

Again, Luke is drawing parallels to Jesus’ ministry to show how he is continuing his work.

This is even more clear than his healing of Aeneas, because there is something happening behind the scenes that doesn’t translate well.

In Luke 8, we read the story of the raising of Jairus’ daughter to life. Mark also records this account, and he gives us some interesting details. Keep in mind what we have just read.

What was this woman’s name? In Greek, it was ‘Dorcas’, and in Aramaic, it was Tabitha.

Keep in mind that Peter and the other Jewish believers would primarily have spoken Aramaic to each other.

What did Peter do at the beginning of verse 40? Send everyone out of the room.

Now, let’s read Mark’s account of Jesus raising Jairus’ daughter:

Mark 5:40–42 CSB

They laughed at him, but he put them all outside. He took the child’s father, mother, and those who were with him, and entered the place where the child was. Then he took the child by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum” (which is translated, “Little girl, I say to you, get up”). Immediately the girl got up and began to walk. (She was twelve years old.) At this they were utterly astounded.

Jesus sent everyone out of the room but the girl’s parents and his disciples.

What did he say to her, in Aramaic? “Talitha koum”.

What would Peter have said to this woman? “Tabitha koum”.

The same God is doing the same kinds of ministry in the same kind of way, almost down to the letter.

Again, verse 42 tells us that many people in that region put their trust in Christ through what they saw that day.

So what does that mean for us?

One, it speaks to the ability for our God to orchestrate and accomplish his plan down to the very smallest detail, which is a great comfort when the world seems to be going out of control.

Not only that, isn’t it great that God is using Peter for this? You know, the guy known for being impetuous and who denied Christ three times? The guy that God restored, and that we have seen absolutely on fire for the Lord?

The work that Jesus started continued through the bold and impetuous ministry of Peter.

Notice something else, though, that is happening in the background of this passage. Not only did Jesus’ work continue through Peter...

2) Jesus continues his ministry through normal believers.

Before we go any further, I am fully aware that none of us are “normal.” As one friend told me one time, “‘Normal’ is just a a setting on a dryer.”

However, most of us think that God really only works through superstars like Peter.

Peter isn’t the only one God uses in this section, is he?

Look at verse 35 again. Who is the “him”? Aeneas. The people saw what God did in Aeneas’ life, and it drew them to Christ.

I looked in several sources, and it appears that we don’t know anything else about this man. All we know is that God healed him through Peter, and that people came to Christ after they saw what God did for him.

Go on to verses 36 & 39. What does the Bible say about Tabitha? She was known as a woman who was “always doing good works and acts of charity.”

After her death, the widows in the community were devastated. Why? Because she had taken care of them.

Remember, in those days, there was no Social Security or Medicare. Your husband didn’t have a pension you could live off of, so if you didn’t have children to care for you, you were likely to be poor.

It seems that Tabitha had made clothes for these widows who had little to nothing. In fact, they were likely wearing these clothes as they showed them to Peter [1].

She had her own vibrant ministry among the widows in Joppa. Not only that, but like Aeneas, the testimony of what God did in raising her from the dead brought many to faith in Christ.

There is one more believer that God uses in this account.

Look down at verse 43...

Peter stayed at the house of a tanner named Simon.

Do you know what a tanner does?

For one, this isn’t the great great great great grandfather of Danny Tanner from Full House, for those who remember that show.

It also isn’t someone who just lays around all day in the sun working on that golden tan.

A tanner is a person who takes animal skins and turns them into leather to use in clothing and other vessels.

One Bible dictionary noted, “Tanners lived outside the towns because of the foul smells produced from their vats.” [2]

Tanning leather is a dirty, smelly process. That means that this guy Simon probably didn’t smell like a bunch of roses.

His house probably didn’t smell the best either, right?

Yet he was willing to open it to allow Peter to stay with him.

In fact, as we will see in the coming weeks, it was while he was at Simon the Tanner’s house that Peter gets a clear vision from God that changes everything.

So, not only is this chapter a clear demonstration of how Jesus was continuing his work through the apostle Peter, it also shows how Jesus was continuing to minister through regular, every-day believers.

One, a man who we know nothing about, but whose story brought many to Christ.

Another was a kind, godly woman who used her gifts, time, and abilities to care for a group of women who had no ability to repay her.

A third was a hard-working, foul-smelling man who was willing to open his home to a traveling minister.

God used each of them, with their unique stories and backgrounds and gifts and resources, and his work continued through them so that many came to know Christ.

He worked through mega-apostles like Peter and unknowns like Aeneas, and that tells me that he can work through you.

Where does that leave you this morning? Sure, God may never call you or I to be the next Peter, healing the lame and raising the dead.

However, he is still working in and through his people today.

God is working through our Sunday School teachers to teach people about God and his Word. He is using nursery workers to love our babies and help parents have time to be able to worship without distraction. He is using our deacons to help people feel loved and cared for by the Lord and his church. He is the worship team to help us use music to exalt him. He is using others, some in official roles and some not, to call and encourage and fix meals and organize picnics and handle details behind the scenes and so much more.

Are you involved in that? If not, let me give you a challenge of a way to start getting involved in what God is up to here at Christiansburg Baptist.

I heard this challenge from Mark Dever at Capitol Hill Baptist in DC, and I think it is a great one.

If you want to start getting involved in what God is doing here, start by praying a very specific prayer for our church. Here it is:

Ephesians 3:16–19 CSB

I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

Write down that reference. Break it down phrase by phrase, and start praying a piece of it at a time. Pray for God to do those things in our church.

Why? So we as a church could have the joy of seeing God’s kingdom expand like Paul summarized in the very next verses:

Ephesians 3:20–21 CSB

Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us— to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

God’s work is going to continue. Are you going to be a part of it?

How is Jesus continuing his work in your life this morning?

It starts this morning by recognizing that this powerful God who raised the dead is able to raise you spiritually to life and into a relationship with him.

Just like Aeneas was physically healed by Jesus, your broken, sin-stained heart can be healed through Jesus’ sacrifice on your behalf.

Endnotes

[1] John B. Polhill, Acts, vol. 26, The New American Commentary (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1992), 247.

[2] Walter A. Elwell and Philip Wesley Comfort, Tyndale Bible Dictionary, Tyndale reference library (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001), 1239.