So I'm in Acts chapter 9. I'm
going to start back again at verse 38 and go through 43, and
then we will proceed with our outline addressing Peter's now
second visitation. And so we start again at verse
38. And for as much as Lydda was
nigh to Joppa and the disciples had heard that Peter was there,
they sent unto him two men desiring him that he would not delay to
come to them. Then Peter arose and went with
them. When he was come, they brought him into the upper chamber
and all the widows stood by him weeping and showing the coats
and the garments which Dorcas made while she was with them. But Peter put them all forth
and kneeled down and prayed and turning him to the body said,
Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes. And
when she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand and
lifted her up. And when he had called the saints
and widows, presented her alive. And it was known throughout all
Joppa. And many believed in the Lord.
And it came to pass that he tarried many days in Joppa with one Simon
Tanner. Thus is the reading of God's
word. As we were working through our
outline last week, we emphasized points one, two, and three. the
sickness, or this sickness that took the man in Lydda, Aenus,
and this sickness that led to death that took Tabitha's life.
Both of these were for the glory of God. We know this. And we
saw how that God had prophesied in Isaiah 65, 10, that Saron,
which is the region of Joppa and Lydda, would be blessed that
God would bring about salvation. He would bring about redemption. He would bring a flock of believers
into that pastor that would glorify God and read down to his honor
and praise. And that was 700 years before
our account. And what I shared with you was,
is that this is the fulfillment of that event. Now, you and I
are not sensitive to geography because prophecy is not given
to us directly, is given to us indirectly. And because we are
largely Gentiles, most of biblical prophecy does not emphasize geographical
locations. So geography for us is not an
emphasis for us. The kingdom of God is largely
spiritual. So for us, we the commodity that
we are grasping after as children of God, are spiritual commodities. Israel grasped after land. The
12 tribes had promises of land. They had lots divided to them.
And within that geographical location in Palestine, as we
know it today, prophecies were being fulfilled in literal portions
of the land. Here we are now in the Acts account,
where we are in a parentheses period. between Peter and Paul,
and we'll be going back to Paul in chapter 13. Peter now will
emerge as we are now contemplating him as the person whom God will
use to open the door to the Gentiles. This is where we're going. But
on his way, his apostolic calling will become pronounced by the
miracles that he will perform at Lydda and at Joppa, which
is where we are now. These were regions in the southern
part of Israel, the lower region. Israel proper, like I stated,
would be like the Bay Area. Jerusalem would be the Bay Area
here. And then 35 miles south from here, we'd be headed towards
San Jose area. And 35 miles north from here,
we'd be headed up towards Vallejo and that region. And so that's
how Israel was. So Peter walking, or by donkey
and probably walking, made his way down towards the southern
border where the Mediterranean Sea was, this kind of coastal
area where normally poor Jews lived. So this would be a poor
area that we're dealing with, not abject poverty, but poor. So just to briefly kind of add
a little caveat, the closer we move towards Jerusalem, the more
we are dealing with your sort of aristocratic Christians or
your aristocratic Jews, your more prominent Jews, your wealthy
Jews, your sediti Jews, your uppity Jews, your Jerusalem Jews
or the Jews, your Judites and the folks who are closest to
the temple are the people who have made an inroad into a relationship
with the Roman Empire and have accrued for themselves subtle
business techniques that have allowed them to prosper on a
material level. So the closer we get to the temple,
the more we see sort of your modern prosperity church typology
there. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? So with your Pharisees and your Sadducees and the Herodians
and the high priests, all of these people had a sort of a
business model mentality where they were really integrated into
the Roman empire and the subtle, you know, you, you, you know,
grease my palm, I'll grease your palm relationship that politics
has with religion. And that's why the closer Jesus
got to Jerusalem, the hotter the battle became. The closer
you get to the capital of apostate religion, which is what Jerusalem
was, and the clearer you are with the gospel, the more antagonism
you experience. So Jesus did ministry largely
up in Caesarea area, further north, where the people were
less educated and less well-to-do. Galilee was further north. Nazareth was further north. As
you go further north from Jerusalem, you're dealing with your country
people, your poor people, your average people. Christ was born
in that context. As he makes his way throughout
the regions of Galilee and Caesarea and moving toward now towards
Jerusalem, he's dealing with the people who dress better than
him. who talk in a much more grammatically accurate way than he did. He
was Galilean. And so the disciples from Galilee
had a very broken sort of genre of Hebraism or Aramaic slash
Hebraic sort of dialect. That's why the little girl could
say, I can tell that you are a Galilean by your speech when
Peter denied the Lord three times. And I'm painting that picture
to help you understand that as we're going to deal with some
categories tonight, what our first century brethren were dealing
with, we have to deal with today. We love to divide ourselves up
into superficial categories. So you have your prominent persons
who actually think they're better than poor people. And nothing
could be further from the truth. You do know that, right? You
do know that just because you make more money than me does
not mean that you are intrinsically brighter than I am. Just because
you have a six-figure income or maybe a seven-figure income
doesn't mean that you have more gray matter than me or that you're
more astute or erudite than I am. It just simply means that either
you were blessed with those resources for a lot of reasons of which
we could argue and debate or you know Providence just fell
out to where you have more than I do on a material level doesn't
make you Automatically smarter than me You guys do believe that
but but these are some of the hurdles that the the Lord Jesus
and the Apostles had to deal with one of the reasons why Christ
had a difficult time with the rulers is because of elitism
and a kind of we know better. You're going to learn this on
Sunday. The faulty assumption on the part of the rulers was
that if you did not know Torah, you were under the curse of God. The faulty assumption among the
rulers that if you did not know Torah, you were under the curse
of God. We're going to see Paul demolish
that in Romans chapter two tomorrow, that just because you know Torah,
doesn't make you saved. And so our Lord Jesus actually
took the disciples places that were uncomfortable for them.
Since he's a preacher of the gospel, they would assume that
he would have went into regions where the Pharisees were. Christ
largely avoided the Pharisees as much as he could until there
were times where he had to do battles. And when he had to do
battles, he did battles. And every time he did the battle,
he won. I just want to let you know that it wasn't that he was
scared. It's just that he understood the economy of human makeup and
false categories that we build. I'm going somewhere. You do know
I'm going, so you know what I do when I start laying these down.
You know I'm going somewhere, right? And so we have to all
be careful that we don't build faulty categories and distinctions
that make us appear to be better than other people. It can happen
to you. It can happen to me. Well, in any event, Peter now,
after our Lord's ascension back to glory, is functioning ministerially
the same way Jesus did. He's headed down towards the
poor people away from Jerusalem. And there's some ambiguities
here. There's some, some, some, there's some real, some real
challenges that we're, I'm going to call your attention to here
in a moment. In the process of Peter going where the Lord wants
him to go, he heals and this, and then he heals, um, Dorcas,
which is what we're gonna deal with now. And so under point
number two, Dorcas was a model of good works. We really worked
that last week, didn't we? And my point that I wanted to
drive home with that was, is that the nature of grace in our
life, when God saves us and he plants faith in our heart, and
I'm developing this as a thesis right now because I find people
struggle with the whole idea and doctrine of faith. And I
don't want us to struggle with it at grace. Faith has as its
root grace. So that faith is a kind of fruit
itself. And it is the fruit of grace.
You guys got that? Grace produces faith. You and
I don't produce faith. Grace produces faith. But faith
also produces fruit of itself. And the fruit that faith produces
are good works. Okay? So grace produces faith
and faith produces good works. And those good works naturally
proceed out of the heart of people who believe God and Dorcas becomes
for us a model of Good works and you and I pressed at home
last week as we looked at mark chapter 14 verse 6 and dealt
with that woman who bought that alabaster box of ointment remember
that and broke it over the head of the Lord Jesus and anointed
his whole body in the midst of the Pharisees at Simon's house
in order to demonstrate her love for him and the fact that he
had given her insight into the definite nature of his death
and atonement of which she now is honoring him for knowing that
her sins are forgiven on the basis of what he is about to
do. If that is not faith, I don't know what faith is. Watch this
now. I want to say it again before
we move to our next point. The woman in Mark's gospel and the
woman in Luke's gospel, same woman who anoints the Lord Jesus
Christ was a notorious sinner whom Christ had forgiven. He
had forgiven her and she demonstrates her love for him by following
him. If you go through the scriptures,
she followed him. That's what faith does. You're
not a Christian if you're not following Christ. She follows
him and she listens carefully to him. And in a lot of ways,
she's more committed and clear on what his goal is than the
disciples. Because the disciples really
didn't believe that he was going to Calvary to die. Right? She did. How much does she believe
it? She spent thousands of dollars
to anoint him. And when she did, she created
controversy because people struggle when they watch an individual
love on the Lord Jesus Christ in a very demonstrable way and
they don't understand it. Are you guys hearing me? We all
struggle when we see someone love on the Lord Jesus Christ
in a demonstrable way. It was strange to all of them.
Watch this, including the disciples. The disciples were diswrought
by what she did because she broke boundaries. She broke protocol. She had no business in the house
with the men. She crossed lines. She didn't
knock on the door. She didn't ask for permission.
She walked on in, made her way to the master and worship the
master under some intrinsic right, which compelled her to do it.
And when she did it, the master defended her. Are you guys following
what I'm saying? He not only defended her, that
means he was her advocate, but when she left, he reproved the
one that gave him visitation to the house by saying to Simon,
Simon, I've been here all this time and you haven't even treated
me like a friend. So what you see in the gospels is how that
sometimes people that you think are not getting it are actually
people that are getting it. I hear this from time to time.
Can I share this with you? I hear this from time to time.
Pastor, I don't know if the people getting it. Don't worry about
that. Just make sure you getting it. People, here's a mistake
you will make in church. I wanna help you with this. Don't
look around to see if other people are getting it. You're not God.
You got that? That's a distraction for you.
I got people who spend all their time trying to judge whether
other people are getting it. I don't know if they getting
it, Pastor. I don't know if you getting it. Don't you understand
that it takes the grace of God for you to give 100% attention
to God rather than turning your head and running into somebody
else's car. Cause you rubbing neck and trying
to see if other people are getting it. Um, that's a good word right
there. So she wrote a good work on Christ.
She was a, and Dorcas was a blessing to the widows. Was she not? Those
sisters show Peter all of the goods that she had made. And
I share with you that she was obeyed, obedient to Deuteronomy
chapter 10, 18 and 19. She was obedient to James chapter
1, 27. She was obedient to Isaiah 1,
23 and 15. And that's this, this is simply this. You and I have
to be careful to make sure that our gospel doesn't petrify us
into mere religious protocol where we are not actually actively
engaging in a vital faith walk that blesses other people. In
a simpler way is don't let your religion turn you into a mere
church goer. Do not let your religion. I don't
care how solid the gospel is. I know we preach a solid gospel.
Don't let your gospel just turn you into a pew sitter who doesn't
understand the privilege of being used by God to meet other people's
needs. Don't do that. You will have missed the point
altogether. This woman didn't ask the apostles
permission. She didn't ask the Pharisees
permission. She was compelled by the spirit
of God because the gospel she heard being preached by Christ.
See, she followed him, her being Mary. That was her name. And
the other Mary Magdalene and and the other sisters, they all
were ministering to Christ and they were listening to his words.
And she was compelled to. do this extraordinary exemplar
of worship in the presence of them all. Well, obviously Dorcas
did the same thing. We don't know Dorcas, do we?
We don't know Dorcas from the man on the moon. God knows Dorcas. That's wild, isn't it? But see,
that's all that matters. The only thing that matters is
that God knows Dorcas. And the only thing that matters
is that Dorcas knows God. Now watch this. When you know
God, when you know God, the same is going to be known of you.
When you know God, I'm going to show you a verse that's going
to affirm that before we go on to deal with Peter, go with me
and your Bible to, um, uh, first Corinthians chapter eight. Just,
I want to show you something. Now this will help you to, this will
help you. This will help you. Uh, and my, my proposition is
this. When you know God and God knows you, you have to go around
telling people that you know God. It'll be no, everybody will know
that you know, God, if you know God, you ain't got to go around
telling nobody you're Christian and this and that and the other
thing. We love to become human totem poles and human billboards
inside. Listen, listen, I ain't saying,
I am not saying be a secret Christian, but I'm saying don't let your
words go before your actions. Don't let your words go before
your actions. And then make sure that there is a significant portion
of your actions that are done in secret. Don't let your words go before
your actions. You're just a Western European church person with a
bell clap. Secondly, make sure a good proportion
of your good works are done in secret. Otherwise we're just Pharisees.
If every good work we do, we got to get some applause for
it or a plaque or some kind of paper or somebody got to video
it and put it on YouTube. We're just like the Pharisees.
Am I making some sense? You ought to want to wait for
a special day, which God says he's going to open up the panoply
of blessings and demonstrate that he saw every secret deed
that we ever did in his name for any person that we did it
for exclusively. You guys got that? Very important. This is very... See, what I'm
talking about is true Christianity. I am not saying that we don't
do demonstrably public good works either. Yes, we do. We go out
and witness, we do ministry, we do a bunch of stuff. But be
sure that there is a kind of personal missional journey between
you and Jesus that only terminates with him. Do you know what I'm
getting at? Just terminates with him. So
Dorcas did these good work. Nobody in Jerusalem knew about
her. Nobody up in Caesarea, nobody, nobody up in regions of Galilee
knew about Dorcas. God knew about Dorcas. Amazing. How much did God love Dorcas?
She, he sent his servant Peter all the way down to that region. to bring her back from the dead.
Isn't that wild? That's how much God loved Dorcas. This is how much she was needed,
too. Because, see, the work that Dorcas was doing, as I said to
you last week, was working with the orphans and the widows and
the fatherless and the people that we generally don't kick
it with. Right? It's amazing. So the camera of
God's providence is shining upon an aspect of ministry that is
so messianic that I can't even begin to talk about it. That's
who Jesus ministered to, those same people. So Dorcas took up
her marching orders and ran with it. So let's look at our third
point now, calling on Peter an act of faith. So she dies, as
we know, and the people in Joppa called on Peter. I just want
to note that again. Obviously, she's dead. Remember
what we learned about Jewish custom? This is verse 34. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I need
to quote Acts chapter 1 Corinthians chapter 8 before I go back. That's
why I'm there. In 1 Corinthians chapter 8, here's
the verse I want you to see. I'm going to start at verse 1,
go through verse 3, and verse 3 is our operative verse around
this proposition. Now, if you know God and God
knows you, That's all that you need to know. You don't need
to let other people know God knows you and you know God. Now,
as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have
knowledge. Knowledge what? Puffs up. But charity what? Edifies. Those are wonderful studies to
actually contemplate. In other words, knowledge is
the acquisition of information and it has as its fundamental
basis a thesaurus component to it. Thesaurus means to treasure
up. That's what our thesauruses are. I'm going to talk about
that on Sunday. With knowledge, all you're doing is storing up.
You know what a dictionary is? Or a thesaurus is? You know what
a thesaurus is? It's a treasure of knowledge. It's a treasure
of terms. When we study linguistics, when
we study semantics, when we study languages, lexicons, thesauruses,
it's just a body of information. It's the Greek word for treasure. Right? So with knowledge, the
only thing you and I can do with knowledge is store. But love
edifies. That's because love is actually
an action word. You guys follow that? So what
we do with our knowledge is we bring our knowledge into subjection
to our propensity to serve God. And now our knowledge can benefit
people as it manifests itself through love. So whereas knowledge
will just puff you and me up because we know more than other
people. Love edifies because edification is always a mutual
thing. True point. Watch this. When
we talk about edifying, we're talking about a subject object
relationship. When we're talking about puffing up, we're talking
about an individual subject only concept. Did that make some sense? Raise your hand if you didn't
get it. When we talk about being puffed up, we're talking about
accruing to ourself information that makes us feel good. Our
head blows up with helium of knowledge. We start floating
around in the room. Might as well have painted your
head red before it swelled up. so you can be part of the Little
Red Balloon cartoon. Remember that Little Red Balloon?
I love that. Who remember the Little Red Balloon? Awesome!
I used to love following that balloon around. But that's how
some of us are as we acquire knowledge. We just swell up and
float around, don't land anywhere. We need somebody with a BB gun,
shoot it, poof! But wait until we float over
the penitentiary, then shoot us. Poof, so we can fall right
into the penitentiary. Now we got work to do. But love edifies because love
always finds an object to terminate on. Love edifies because love
always finds an object to terminate on. Love always looks for somebody
to bless. You guys got that? Love always
looks for somebody to bless. And so our sister did that. Now notice what it goes on to
say verse two. And if any man thinks that he knows anything,
he knows nothing as he ought to know, that's true. This is
what we would call a rhetorical argument. We think we know, but
we don't know as we ought to know. That's true. We can learn
more, can't we? You think you know, but you don't
even know what you ought to know to know that you don't know enough
of what you think you know. So so proper knowledge is it's
always calcium humility because there's always always more to
learn He doesn't know yet as he ought to know now verse 3,
but if any man what love God so now watch what he did Watch
what Paul did here. Paul did not use the word gnosis
He used the word agape ah He didn't say if any man knows God. I See, there's a tension between
two words, right? The word knowledge and the word
what? Love. And the word that showed up in
relationship to his basic argument that he's making, his concluding
argument, is the word love. He didn't say, you know, if any
man knows God, the same is known. If any man loves God, the same
is known. Why? Because love is an action
word. Knowledge is not an action word. Knowledge is a state of
now that simply means that you have acquired to yourself data
No one may even know what you know Until you tell them But
when you and I are operating out of love because it's a verb
people are gonna know it Can I expand on that for just
like 10 seconds Right. So when you love God and you're
in an environment that's conflicting, eventually you're going to have
to speak up for the God that you love. Now they're going to
know you love God. I mean, you love them too, but
because they don't reference God and respect God, they're
getting ready to hear from you because you love God. Excuse
me. What you just stated concerning
God was not accurate. I just have to let you know.
I don't want to spoil anybody's lunch in here today, but I do
have to let you know what you stated about God was not true.
Now they're going to know because they didn't even ask you to give
your opinion. But your love for God compelled
you to contribute to the conversation that was going south anyway. So if any man loved God, the
same is known of him. All right. Let's go back to our
text. Let's work through our points. This is going to be interesting.
So calling on Peter as an act of faith. Remember what I said?
Those brothers could have just capitulated to the natural providential
fact that Dorcas had died. We just buried our brother yesterday.
Brother Ray Williams. And we had a wonderful time as
we reflected upon his life and we prayed for the grieving family
and You know, I gave words of encouragement and exhortation.
God has blessed us in America once again. And it seems to be
indigenous to all people groups to do some form of ceremony when
it comes to burying people. We don't just throw carcasses
on the side of the road, you know, we bury. And so there's
an opportunity to praise God. We honor God. And that's a good
thing. But see, you and I are not living
in the apostolic days. Do you know what that means?
God is not using as an extraordinary economy, the possibility of an
apostle having come down and laid hands on Ray or spake to
Ray to get up. Ray has departed from this life
and gone to glory. In other words, your pastor didn't
even think one time to lay hands on him and raise him from the
dead. Are you hearing me? Not one time. It didn't come
to me at all. Lord, should I, should we get
the crying and running snot all out of our noses and falling
and weeping all over the place to try to raise him from the
dead? Nope. Nope. Nope. We're not ignorant like
that. Are we? In other words, it's
not an option for us. If God wanted to sustain his
life, he could have did it. And he did as long as he was
supposed to do it. And what we understood was that
Ray has secured his walk with God so that eternity for Ray
was an open door into the blessings of God, free of the pain and
suffering of this life. Am I making some sense? We didn't
even remotely struggle in our conscience with the fact that
our brother had been struggling with cancer for a number of years.
old, getting tired, getting sick, and finally dying. I could tell
you the story about how he died, but it would, it really doesn't
matter. He died triumphantly, you know. But the point is, is
that not being in the apostolic era, we're not rushing around
to try to get somebody to, Dorcas is dead. You guys understand
that? Dorcas is dead. And these brothers
said, let's go see if we can get Peter to come down here before
we go through the rights necessary to bury her. Cause we got to
bury her in 24 hours. We don't bury folk like we do
here. Two, three weeks later, put them on a slab of ice for
a male to hide and all that, you know, glue them all up. You
know how we do glue them up and talk about how good they look.
Ooh, they look so good. They look like they still alive.
No, they don't. They don't look good at all.
They look just like dead people. Somebody tell the truth. They
look dead. Tell the truth. Dead. That don't look nothing like
how he was when he was alive. We ain't gonna lie. Oh man, he
looks so, she looks so good. Doesn't she look like herself?
No. No. That spirit had departed from
the body, rigor mortis set in, and all the laws of atrophy took
over. Stinking and all. Color scheme
had changed so radically, life was gone. The other thing about
it, just while I got your attention is, I'm always amazed at how
people will talk to them as if they right there. Right there. You can talk all you want to.
Dog, I'm a miss you, man. I'm a miss. He ain't hearing
you. He been gone. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? We're going through a ceremony. It's rightfully so. The body
is claimed by the resurrection of Christ. It will be raised
again. But right now, Ray is gone. And the body is not listening
to you. So we get real religious, don't we? And some people are
talking to Ray's carcass. as family members, and they didn't
talk to Ray when he was here. You should have talked to the
brother while he was here, where he could hear you. Now you want
to talk and cry and whine and rub on him and feel on him. Oh,
Ray. Oh, we'd be messing up. Don't we be messing up? Oh, we
got this weird fetish with, with, with death. Now we want to atone
somehow. Ray gone. Ray. is in a whole
nother dimension. Now, if he was looking down on
you, he'd be laughing, but he's not even looking down on you. So it amazes me how we get, you
know what I'm saying? It amazes me. And so what I'm
getting at is, is that when we read again the text in Acts chapter
nine, how that they requested Peter to come, that was an act
of faith on that part, wasn't it? Seeking the welfare of the saints
is also a fruit of grace. Let me just quote the text here
in Acts chapter 9. And again, this is the apostolic
era. It's something that is not uncommon.
Peter had just healed the man, Aeneas, up the road. Why not
call on him? Who knows? And we are under the
impression that, in fact, God had compelled these men to believe
that Peter might be a vehicle by which she is raised from the
dead. And so they did that. They arose and they went immediately
to seek out Peter in order that it might be done. Verse 38, and as much as Lydda
was not a Joppa and the disciples had heard that Peter was there,
they sent unto him two men. Remember what we learned? Three
hours away, right? Desiring him that he would not delay to come
to them. And I talked to you about the
mechanics of that. That takes faith. First, you got to believe
that, you know, your direction is from the Lord. Then you got
to take that three hour hike. Then you got to hope that Peter
is down for the three hour hike back. Then you got to hope that
the Lord's in it. That requires faith. So the verses
that I give that I'm not going to stay here because we've touched
on this, it's James chapter five, verse 17, the effectual fervent
prayers of a righteous man, what availeth much. We use that a
lot of religion too, but it is true when it is the will of God
You will see God move in in natural circumstances to overrule Processes
that often end in death We often sit in our prayer for our prayer
team because we we pray every Tuesday that We have seen so
many times where the Lord has turned around a situation simply
because we pray for it We have seen people delay the natural
process of dying until God brings about a conversion in their life.
Their salvation occurs and then God lets them die all because
we pray because we pray believing. Are you guys following what I'm
saying? We've seen so many of those occasions. Now I say that
to say this, God does not leave praying people in the blind. God does not leave praying people
without tokens of his honoring their prayers. Now, if you don't
know that, it's because you're not given to prayer. But for
people who are given to prayer, here's what they know. They learn
God's yes, they learn God's no, and they learn God's what? Wait. They learn that. And so for us,
prayer is not at all in vain. It's just an opportunity to see
what God gonna do. Cause he often answers our prayers. Cause we always counted in if
it's your will. And so this is what our brothers
are doing. I am certain. And so they're functioning out
of faith. A wonderful, wonderful thing. Now, Peter is going to
demonstrate for us a pattern of Christ and Peter. That's point number three. I
guess that's point number four. The pattern of Christ and Peter,
you see that at the top of the outline? So remember I told you
a couple of weeks ago how important mentoring is? Having people who
are mature and further down the line in their walk with Christ
than you to set some structures, some patterns, some boundaries,
some markers, some tokens of God's normative ways by which
you can be blessed. It doesn't really profit for
you to submit yourself to a peer who's no further along in their
walk than you are. Because what's in front of you
is in front of them as well, in terms of a lack of knowing
what God is up to. But for people that are further
down the line, you can inquire of them, which is what humility
is all about, and ask, how does God work in these matters? and
we can benefit or just to mark their life, mentoring, mentoring. And we're going to see again
how Peter now actually paid attention to Jesus because he did. So let's
watch Peter's let's remark briefly at Peter's account. And then
we're going to go to the text where Peter saw our Lord do this
verse 39. Then Peter arose and went with
them. And when he was come, they brought him into the upper chamber.
Now, the upper chamber is an upstairs room, generally where
the guests meet and have, you know, tea and snacks and stuff
like that. And basically fellowship upper
room. But in this upper room, all the
widows stood by Weeping and showing the coats and garments which
dark Dorcas had made while she was with them and at that point
Peter puts them all forth you guys see that Really a strange
dynamic But Peter is doing this because
he's compelled by the mentoring he had received from Christ I
You know, I don't know if we can make this a law and we ought
not to. But Peter is compelled to now
isolate himself from these people. It doesn't necessarily mean the
people are bad. Doesn't mean that they're wrong.
It simply means that Peter now is going to he's going to now
rely upon his experience with the master when his master was
in precisely the same situation that Peter is in. This is interesting
because you and I will call back. We will recall in our mind experiences
that we had, where we learn certain things from certain people in
certain contexts, and they will serve to benefit us. So here,
Peter said, Oh, I remember what my master did when this occurred.
He put everyone out. in order for him to deal with
this situation by himself. And I'm going to show you briefly
what Peter did. And you're not going to go back and look at
what Christ did. And we're going to look at the distinctions and
just draw some application and call it a night. So Peter put
them all out. And then he kneeled down because
he's in the room with her dead body on the beer or on a bed. And he prayed. He kneeled down
and he prayed. And then turning to the body,
which means his prayer was away from her physically. You guys
follow that? And then turning to the body,
he said, Tabitha arise. And it would have been in the
Aramaic. He would have used the same construction that Jesus
did. Tabitha Kumi. And she opened her eyes. When
she saw Peter, she sat up. And he gave her his hand and
he lifted her up. And when he called the saints
and widows, he presented her alive. Amazing. Now, before we touch on this
again. I want to go to Luke chapter
eight and look at the very same account. And mark the distinctions
between. What Christ did and what Peter
did, though they are very similar so obviously this is this is
Jairus's daughter who has died and the Masters in between two
events the healing of the woman with the issue of blood and And
Jairus, who has requested that the Lord Jesus would come because
his daughter lay a dying, verse 42, for he had one only daughter,
about 12 years of age, and she lay a dying. But as he went,
the people thronged him. And this is when Christ is now
confronted with the woman with the issue of blood. You guys
got that, right? So Christ does a marvelous thing in her healing. And then we read over in verse
forty nine. Now, while he gets fake, there
come at one from the ruler of the synagogue's house, Jairus's
house, saying to him, your daughter is dead. Trouble not to master. So you got these two events that
have been conflated. One preceded the other. The one
was a request to help my baby's dying. The other is a sister
pursuing Jesus because she needs a healing. She's not asking,
she's pursuing. She interrupts this first request
so that the person who was sick now dies. That's what's going on here.
The person who needed healing gets healed. The person that
was sick dies. Jairus's has already said if
you can help help and then somebody comes back and said now you leave
the master alone. It's too late But this dude was wrong wasn't
he He certainly either was not functioning out of faith or he
didn't know the Lord Jesus at all. Did he? He didn't even think well, you
know Maybe maybe the master can raise him from the dead raise
him from the dead. He said it's too late. I But
you know, that was discouraging to a to a to a father whose daughter
was sick and had an opportunity for the master to come to heal
her. And now he's told that his baby is dead. And the dude that
comes with the report says it's too late. Well, we would say
theologically, there's no gospel in that at all. Right. It's too
late. It's too late. It's too late. How can anything be too late
for God? You guys follow what I'm saying?
This dude said, it's too late. Then he said, leave the master
alone. Now we know that this guy was
not on our team, right? He ain't on our team. He's not
on our team. So before those words sunk in,
and cause this father to enter into unbearable grief, the master
intercedes. Because he knew that this test
was on Jairus, not on Jesus. Jairus is tested now. First of
all, he got bad news, his baby dies. Then he been told to just
leave it alone. And he about ready to do that.
But because Jairus is the Lord's servant, what does the master
do? He intercedes. You know what he says? Jairus,
do not pay attention to what you just heard. Think about this with me for
a moment. So Jairus caught up with the Lord Jesus because Jairus
believes that the Lord has the capacity to heal his baby, right? Right. That's an act of what?
That's right. He actually catches up with Jesus.
That's like praying and actually having the lord to hear you Which
is you know, that's already unusual for us But then to just know
the lord heard you And then your prayer got to heaven The lord
heard it, but somehow It's too late Now what kind of god would
we serve for things to be too late for god Are you guys following
what I'm saying? Do you understand the implications
that fall out to this notion of it's too late, leave it alone.
Too late for God. Do you understand what kind of
reputation Jesus would have had from that day on? If you don't
catch up with Jesus at the right time, it might just be too late
for him to do anything for you. That would have completely destroyed
his authenticity as God. Isn't that right? That's why
he said to Jared. Hey, don't listen to that The
same faith that had you coming to me Requesting of me to meet
your need must now operate now over against all these obstacles
That's good Because see your circumstance looks even worse
than it did when you started praying See Your circumstance
is worse for the moment, but somehow you perceive that you're
communicating with God. And the promise is there that
God is able to make all grace abound, that God is able to do
above what we think or ask, that God can raise the dead. He can
heal the sick, open the eyes of the blind. So Jairus is tested, isn't he? Look at verse 50. But when Jesus
heard it, he answered and said, fear not, only believe and she
shall be made whole. Crazy. That's crazy. Isn't that
crazy? So, so, so what does this verse
teach us right here? It teaches us that the petition
was already established. Wasn't it? The petition was in,
see, I'm already quoting first John chapter 5, 14. If you know,
We know that if we ask anything according to his will he hears
us and that a petition is made with him Once we lay our petition
in we're good to go and our master came back and said I got your
petition So if as long as our master has the petition, it doesn't
matter what anyone else says So I am to sustain my believing
in God Because he's got the petition That's good In other words, I don't take
your petition back Who has more authority over you this dude
or me? See the challenge see the challenge that I'm getting
that see the challenge that I'm getting that it's very important to frost
the grass So when Jesus heard yesterday do not fear believe
only and then he gave the man his request She will be made
whole That's amazing That's amazing, isn't it? So, so the man has
heard that his baby did. They own their way to Jairus's
house. These next several steps are
steps of faith. Aren't they? Cause he's heard
an evil report. His baby is dead, but the master
has told him she's all right. It's amazing. She's all right. So he has to walk home believing. He cannot go home doubting He
must go on believing This actually gets into I said
with the theses that I'm developing around faith Fear not only believe
and she shall be made whole So sometimes in our camp what we
find our people doing is Diminishing or despising The gift of faith
that God gives you me I've heard arguments on a theological level.
You know, your faith and my faith isn't anything. It doesn't matter.
The only thing that matters is the faithfulness of the Lord
Jesus Christ. I beg to differ. I beg to differ. Everything that
God gives us matters. Do you guys follow that? Everything
that God gives us matters. So stay with me for a moment.
Your faith matters and my faith matters. So I'll give you a little
insight into what I'm about to say. If you have faith, it came
from God. Did you get that? So now watch
this. And if it came from God, it bears the same qualitative
nature as God himself. So now watch this. If you despise
the gift of faith that God gave you, You have despised God. Did you get it? Did you get it? You have despised God. So I want
you to stop playing these sort of games with semantics and terminology
because the gift of faith that he gives us is the only legitimate
tender between us and heaven. by which God is glorified in
our life. It's the only legitimate tender. There is no other economy. There's no other tender. There's
no other monetary system. God's not accepting anything
but faith. Did you get that? My faith means nothing. Then
God means nothing. Then God printed bad money. Because the tender he gives us
his faith. We get to turn that in on the promise of God, that
the gold standard behind our faith is the character and nature
of God. That's good, isn't it? And I
wish this thesis would go so deep into our soul that we could
see the virtue and potential of this truth manifest itself
everywhere we go. Everywhere we go because see
faith glorifies God Believing God glorifies God. Yes, it does. So watch this now He says do
not fear only believe and she shall be made whole now. He was
on his way home and Jesus is on his way with him, right? Now,
what is this? What do you call that? What do
you call that? What do you call that? No, I
call that faith That's faith This is faith. That's faith. Is that faith? That's faith. See, faith ain't what we say.
That's the difference. That's the difference between
intellectual assent and a conviction of the soul based upon the person
who made the promise telling us, go home, go home. Your baby's fine. See what I'm
getting at? Now the just shall live by faith. The just shall walk by faith. Do you understand what was going
on in that soul every time that boy made the step headed to the
house? All of his carnal tendencies were falling off to the left
and to the right. And he was being made to squeeze
into one central soul focus. And that is the promise of God.
He was made to believe God, to trust that what Christ was saying
is true. Lord, help me to overcome my natural tendencies not to
believe you. Because you've given me your word. Am I making some
sense? Yeah, this is very important,
child of God. The only thing that this man
had was Christ's promise. Nothing in his circumstances
affirmed anything that he desired. In fact, they were fundamentally
a reverse. But see, his prayer was received
by the Lord. And because it's our Lord's goodness
and kindness to answer prayers, it was his will. Jairus had to
simply see his faith through. Well, here we go now. I love
this. And when they came to the house, he suffered no man to
go in. You guys can't come in. The only
people that can come in is who? There he is. There he is. So I got, I got five, 10 minutes. I got 10 minutes. So now we walk
into Jairus' house. This is Jairus. This is the Lord
Jesus on the side with Jairus. And then we got 12 disciples
behind. Were the 12 disciples struggling? Yes, they were. Yes, they were. You can hear them say, oh, I
sure hope the Lord Jesus is right. This dude gonna be jacked up
if this thing don't turn out right. Now they're just human
beings just like you and me. Are they human beings like you
and I? So was this a walk of faith for Peter, James and John
too? And then we get to the house, all these people on the outside
doing religion like we do. When we get ready to have funerals,
we've got a professional criers and whiners, the folks that like
to jump on the casket and crawl in and get in there with the
dead person. And, you know, that's what we
do, the minstrels. So religion was working when
they get to the house and the disciples go, oh, here we go
again. And then the Lord says, I don't want nobody in here but
Peter and James. And John, whoa, powerful, powerful. So I'm actually thinking that
this is a critical teaching moment for these three pillars. See, the other disciples are
on the outside. They don't even get to come in. If they're even
on this mission, they got to hang outside with the rest of
everybody else Just remain in the dark, right? But they're
disciples too. That's a whole nother story But
Peter James and John are being brought into the inner sanctum
of the work of God to learn something Critical to their status as pillars
of the New Testament Church So he suffers them no man to
go in except Peter James and John and the father and the mother
of the maiden sweet sweet Sweet. So I can lift verse 51 up out
of the text. Can I do that? And I can give
this text to a mother and a father who has a child that's spiritually
dead. And I can say, you have the blessing
of the mediator of the universe. Along with the authority of the
Word of God in Peter James and John who represent the New Testament
As the basis of your confidence that God will hear your prayers
See what you and I don't do at grace is we don't separate Jesus
from his word Are you guys hearing what I'm saying? this gyrus and
the mother has the Lord Jesus and the three pillars of the
New Testament Church and the house with them so so they are
highly blessed when when the when the Spirit is given and
the ministry starts going forth and and and folks are hearing
about Peter James and John and the miracles in here gyrus and
his mother the mothers of the child will say hey we know those
three they already can't we know what they can do we know their
word is good We know their doctrine is right. There's unity between
Christ and the apostles. There's no division or distinction
between apostolic doctrine and the Messiah who gave it to us.
This is why we believe the New Testament is the authoritative,
infallible, plenary, verbal word of God. Do we not? That's right. We don't play loose and fancy
with the scriptures because we understand the consequences thereof.
And so Peter, James, and John are made to enter into this intimate
moment and learn some things. Here we go. And all wept and bewailed her. Mom and dad
stricken with grief, aren't they? Isn't that what verse 52 said?
Stricken with grief. But he said, do not weep. Isn't that incredible? Do not
weep. So now just think about that
for a moment. Now, the master said, don't weep. See, once again,
what he's doing is buoying up their faith because their faith
now is being overcome by their emotions and their emotions are
affirming what they see. They see a lifeless child there
and their emotions are taken over and the tears are running.
Be careful, as we're going to learn tomorrow in marriage class,
emotions will take you down the wrong road. Now, Jesus said,
don't weep. Stop the weeping, save your weeping
for situations where I'm not here. Then you can weep. But I'm here. So this again is
an admonition in the midst of a crumbling emotionalism. And then he says she is not dead.
She's just sleeping. So now, again, we're not there
in the first century, so these words don't really impact us
that much because you and I already are used to synonyms for denotative
words. You and I are used to euphemisms
and metaphors and analogies. The girl not dead, she's just
sleeping. Well, now, if someone would have taken that literally,
they would have said, Jesus, you're not getting it. She's
not asleep, she's dead. If they would have taken it literally.
But Jesus used the word sleep as a synonym for death. Because
he's God. So now stay with me for a moment.
And as God, he knows that every creature that he made. When they
die, they are only sleep. Who missed that one hand, I'll
go to explain it. All right, so. There's no human being that lives
and dies. That's not going to wake up again.
All human beings are going to wake up in the resurrection.
Do you guys got that? All human beings, the saved,
the unsaved, the just, the unjust, everybody waking up this day. We all waking up and see when
Jesus uses the word sleep, he's talking about the integration
of both soul and body. The soul never sleeps. But the
body always sleeps when we die in our spirit separates from
our body. The body goes into a sleep state. That is a temporary death. To awake when he calls it again
on the last day. Right. As every. Living human being. Will awake
out of that. And what it connotes is a necessary
resurrection, right? So throughout human history,
there have been resurrections, haven't there? And those resurrections
affirmed that the body is simply just sleeping. It's going to
rise again. What is the interim period between
the dying of the body and the rising of the body? That's that's
up to God. Some people were raised right
away. In the gospel, several people woke right on up. There
was an account in the gospel of John, mother's son dead, he's
in the casket. They headed to the yard. Jesus
stopped it. Get up, boy. That was a quick
sleep. All he had was a nap. Did you
get that? That was just a nap. So for the
one with whom omnipotence is a shared attribute between the
three glorious persons, Sleep is an appropriate term. We all
will sleep and then we will all be raised up. Some to life, some
to damnation. You guys got that? That's what
the metaphor of sleep is. The soul doesn't sleep, the body
sleeps. You guys got that? The body sleep. And it's just
a metaphor for going into the ground. That's why we lay the
body down, because it's going to rise up again. Well, in our
context, Jesus affirmed that, but what he's letting her know,
and letting mama know is this. Don't believe that she's permanently
gone from us since I'm here. Remember what he said in John
chapter 11. I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth
on me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Right. So here
he goes. And they laughed him to scorn.
knowing that she was dead. And he put them all out and took
her by the hand and call. So see, these are the folks,
these are religious folks. And he put them all out and watch
this. And he took the girl by the hand
and called saying what made a rise. Verse 55. And her spirit came
again and she arose straightway. See that? See verse 54 and verse
55, it's a snapshot of the resurrection. It's a snapshot of the resurrection.
What will happen in the resurrection? Christ will call. What will happen? The call will raise everyone
up immediately. And if you are his, you immediately
come into the presence of communion and fellowship with God. You
see that, right? And he commanded to give her
meat and her parents were astonished, astonished. And he charged him
that they should tell no man what was done Here's an elliptical
statement here go back to Acts chapter 9. I'm gonna close there
here in a moment Not only were the parents astonished because
see Saints some days our faith Gets stretched So wide And so far that it shakes
out all reason and all constitution and all civility and all rationality. We lose a sense of soundness
sometimes because of how God stretches us. They were stretched
that day. They were stretched. They were
stretched. Now, why do those things occur?
Because of how much we have invested ourselves in that particular
subject. That was their baby. Of course,
they're stretched, right? Sometimes when you and I go through
a cycle of testing and trial and stretching of our faith,
when it's done, we got to sleep for three days. I do. I do. I need a vacation. I just need
to go somewhere, eat real good and just go to sleep for like
48 hours. Am I telling the truth? Because
the body now has just been taken through so much in terms of natural
processes being actually superintended by a supernatural intervention. Have you ever had a situation
where this thing is getting bad and it's getting worse and worse
and worse and I'm falling apart? And then immediately it turns
around and you didn't even see it. And it establishes itself
on a solid ground of peace. And you go, man, what was that
about? I'm the only one go through this.
What was that about? And sometimes you're trying to
figure out what it was about. Somebody came to me about like
this two days ago. And I said, brother, listen,
Just ride it out Don't try to figure this thing out. Just ride
it out Because sometimes god's just alone for the ride to actually
strengthen your faith. He's not trying to give you any
information This is not about you knowing anything other than
the goodness and faithfulness of god in your life we try to
add another theological notch to our belt try to figure out
how god works so we can sell it and The reality is that sometimes
all God is doing is showing up in the mystery of the storm and
giving you a measure of his mercy so you can wake up the next morning
in a sense of normalcy saying, great is thy faithfulness. Right? That's all. There's nothing
else. He's not giving you the test.
You're not getting no questions. Your theology is not going to
be enlarged. Not today. It will a month from
now or two or three months from now, or we get a certain text.
You go, Oh, that's what that was about. But sometimes he's
just tearing us apart and putting us back together again. That's
what he did for that mother and father. He tore them apart in
a few hours, tore them apart, put them back together. And they're
sitting there just befuddled baby girl ready to eat. And they
wore out. Girl, you got to fix your own
food. You're back now. You got to fix
your own food. I'm so woe out, I can't even
fix a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Maybe a few of you guys know
what I'm talking about. Let's close it down here. Show
you something distinct here. Is this a good study? And doesn't
God act this way in our life? Yeah, see, walking with Jesus
is wonderful. It just, it'll kill you. It'll
kill you. It's wonderful. It'll kill you,
though. It'll kill you. It'll kill you. It'll kill you,
man. I'm just telling you. And see,
when you grow in the Lord and really develop a real good relationship
with Him, in His mercy, He lets you know how to process goals.
Like, when He gives you a little reprieve, a little freedom to
run, a little happy time, a little playground time before going
back to class, you get to go play tetherball and kickball
and volleyball and basketball. And then you know, you can hear
the bell ring. Uh-oh, here we go again. You know what we're
getting ready to go through. You know it. Right you just here
it goes here it goes and you got to tighten up for the next
lesson And he always gets you through
it And it always hurts Yeah, you you you want to take some
classes and just breeze through the class Now that ain't how
it works with the lord. Jesus. Uh-uh It's just it's always
going to be a trying of your faith. And faith is designed to humble
you. That's right. It's humbling. Faith is humbling. When the smoke
clears, you're still there. So is He. That's where you count
your blessings. Because some folks, when the
smoke clears, they're gone. Because they had no true faith
at all. Are you hearing what I'm saying?
When the smoke cleared and you still there? Thank you, Lord. I'm still here. Yes, I could talk about it. I
could talk about it. I think about some of the trials
I go to the Lord. Have mercy. So glad that you
keep a brother. So glad. So glad. Could have been gone long time
ago. All right, we're at verse 40. And we're closing here. So Peter
put them all out, just like the Lord did, didn't he? And then Peter kneeled down and
prayed. And turning to the body, said,
Tabitha, arrive. What did Peter do? That the master
did not do. See, I was talking to Jan about
this a little earlier. how when you read the Bible,
you got to read the Bible reverentially. This is not a reader's digest.
This is a revelation from God. So you want to pay very careful
attention to the read. This is the subtlety of scripture.
Here's the subtlety of scripture. We have the law of recapitulation. Haven't I taught you that? the
law of recapitulation, that there will be an event that will occur.
And then there will be another event that will occur similar
to the one that occurred. And those two will have patterns
that are similar and contradictory or opposite. Remember Jonah in
the bowels of the ship, Jesus on the water with the disciples
and many other accounts like that here. The Lord Jesus does
something. Here, Peter does something. Here's
the distinction. I want you to get it. Are you
ready? Peter had to pray because Peter was not the master. The master did not have to pray
because intrinsically the master has power to raise from the dead. He is God. Are you hearing me? He told the girl, get up. The
spirit entered back into her body. Up she rose. Peter had
no authority to do that. Peter had to do what apostles
do, what pastors do, what church members do. Get on your knees,
call on the mediator and trust that the mediator is willing
to glorify himself in this context. And of course, he was, wasn't
he? Because Peter also knew that
this was another occasion where the father is glorifying himself
through the son by the raising up of his daughter. from the
dead. So Peter put them all forth,
kneeled down, prayed, and turning to the body, said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes. And
when she saw Peter, she sat up. And then the text says, and he
gave her his hand and lifted her up. And when he had called
the saints and widows, presented her alive. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. You know, Peter is
on the mountaintop today, isn't he? On the mountaintop. I mean,
the Lord has worked in an omnipotent way to use Peter as a vehicle
to raise a child from the dead. Now watch this. Peter didn't
touch her. So he couldn't steal God's glory
in terms of a physical mediation like false prophets like to do.
If you just buy this handkerchief, if you buy this bottle of water,
if you buy this oil, the Lord, I hadn't already prayed on it.
The Lord will bless this. He didn't touch the girl. It
was the spirit of God doing the work all by himself. All Peter
did was assist her to get up when it was done. To God be the
glory alone. See what I'm getting at? To God
be the glory alone. Now I warn you, We get ready to come down
off the mountaintop and learn some ugly stuff about our fallen
nature. Let's close in prayer. So father,
thank you for this time. Thank you for this opportunity
to meditate upon your word and to see that you are an impeccable
God and that your word is flawless and that you work through weak
vessels, that the excellency of the glory might be of you
and not of us. As we go our way, give us traveling
mercies. Prepare us to worship you on Sunday, we pray in Jesus'
name, amen. God bless you guys.