Acts | Unsung Heroes of the Early Church

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

If you have a Bible or a device this morning, I welcome you to open it to the Book of Acts.

Our study of the Book of Acts has not allowed us to examine many of the significant details in Luke's record of the first couple of decades of the early church.

So this morning I want to pause that progressive study through the book and look back at several moments in Acts where we see some of the unsung heroes of the early church.

These unsung heroes, boy, I can't say that this morning.

Just hard.

The unsung heroes are like the people of Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

So as Hebrews 12 commands, they looked to Jesus, the author and perfecter of their faith.

They lived by faith in God's provision for the moment, God's provision of salvation forever, his provision for strength in the moment, and the promise of his return.

Now, in honor of Mother's Day, it's appropriate that each of these unsung heroes is a woman.

That's just the way Luke did it.

Some are identified as mothers, but this isn't about marking women or mothers as heroes for their motherhood because Luke doesn't do that.

No, the women who are heroes here in the book of Acts are heroes because they testify to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and of giving themselves for the Lord's work.

Our unsung heroes are scattered throughout the book of Acts, so let's just work our way through them and consider them each briefly.

Beginning in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

In Acts chapter 8, we have a situation of extreme persecution, the very first extreme persecution.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

And it's here that we see that these unsung heroes endured unjust treatment for the cause of Christ, just like we see in Hebrews chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

So it says, Saul approved of Stephen's execution in Acts 8, verse 1.

Acts 8:1

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him.

But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

So the apostles and other preachers are stirring up the city of Jerusalem with the message of Jesus.

Stephen becomes the first Christian martyr, and Saul begins to ravage the church.

That word ravage is a strong word.

And it means to do intense damage to something.

Acts chapter 9 actually clarifies this situation for us a little bit.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

If you look over there at chapter 9, verse 1, it says Saul was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord.

So Saul wanted to wipe out Christianity by destroying the disciples through imprisonment and murder.

Now, Acts 3 and Acts 9 reveal that Saul didn't discriminate in his targets.

Men and women were both targets.

And typically it's the Jewish men who drive the Jewish faith.

So they would be the natural targets for Saul.

What does that mean then?

That he targets men and women.

We don't know.

Maybe someday we'll be able to find out.

But one option that I think is probably the best is that Saul considered this to be a holy war.

And in a holy war, it doesn't matter who the targets are.

You are out to exact vengeance for God's holy name.

So these Christian women are taking a stand and not backing down against Saul's holy war.

We aren't given more details than that women who were believers in Christ were dragged off and put in prison, as were the believing men.

So if women were found to be part of the new Christian faith, they were considered criminals by Saul and the Jewish leadership.

So think for a minute about what is implied about those women.

Number one is that they held their faith firmly enough to go to prison for it.

These women held their faith in Jesus Christ strongly enough to go to prison for it.

They were so committed to the truth of who Jesus is that they were willing to endure pain for it.

They proclaimed their faith and the gospel by holding firm to their faith regardless of the circumstances.

And through that, they were able to be examples to their families, to their children, to their neighbors, whoever's watching them being dragged off to prison.

These unsung heroes were among the first believers willing to take a stand for the cause of Christ.

The Christian faith took hold and grew in part because those women stood firm.

They exemplified 1 Peter chapter 4, verse 19, where we read, we can get it up there.

1 Peter 4:19

Therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good.

That's what they did.

They stood firm and they speak now to all of us.

We don't know any of their names.

The world may never know your name, but God can use your faith in him to impact the world forever.

We don't know their names, but we know about them because of their faith.

These unsung heroes should encourage you to stand firm for Christ against any unjust treatment because he is faithful to you and he sustains you.

Let's look now over at chapter 9.

One that might be a little more familiar to us in Tabitha giving of herself for the benefit of others.

Chapter 9 of Acts.

We see in verse 36 that Luke tells us there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas.

She was full of good works and acts of charity, but in those days she became sick and died.

And when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room.

They call Peter to come.

Without delay, he comes, and Peter prays, and Tabitha is raised from the dead in verse 40.

So here's the situation.

It's moving from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria, and it's on its way beyond the borders of Israel to the rest of the world.

And the community, the seaside community of Joppa, is one of those places impacted by the gospel.

You remember Joppa, right?

That's the place where the prophet Jonah bought his ticket to get on the boat to go to the Western Mediterranean to chill out instead of preaching to the Ninevehites.

It's also the place in God's sweet irony where God called Peter to take the gospel to the Gentiles for the first time.

And there is a woman named Tabitha.

Tabitha is an Aramaic name.

So Luke translates that name into Greek for his Greek-speaking readers.

So Tabitha in Aramaic means it means gazelle.

You know, those animals that look a little bit like deer but are not in the deer family.

They're actually in the bovine family.

Sorry, science lesson.

The Greek name Dorcas means the exact same thing.

Dorcas in Greek means gazelle.

So it's just the same name in a different language, probably because Luke understands that most of his readers speak Greek, and they're going to understand that name better.

But it also may be that this woman is known more by her Greek name than by her Aramaic name.

We don't know those details, but we do know her service to the body of Christ.

It says in verse 36, she was full of good works and acts of charity.

That points to both her character and her actions.

We can rephrase that by using the character of Christ from Philippians chapter 2.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Tabitha considered others more significant than herself.

Like Jesus, she gave of herself for others.

According to verse 39, she had significant sewing skills, so she used those skills to make clothes for others, especially for those in need.

Acts of charity, verse 36, comes from the word for mercy, meaning she has a heart to meet the needs of others in a compassionate, kind way, without profiting from it herself.

She's merciful, she's sympathetic, she's compassionate.

But that character flowed out of her in actions that were undertaken for the benefit of others.

So much so that when she died, she was so loved and her ministry was so missed that those around her wanted Peter to know how much she had done for them.

They're bringing her clothes that she had made so that he can see the value that she brought to the Christian community.

So we move from unnamed women to a woman now known by two names.

And in this woman, we find the faith of the unnamed disciples developed into the kind of character that reflects the heart of Christ in the church.

That reflection is evident in her focus on others.

She took the skills that the Lord had given her and she found a way to help the growing number of disciples.

So this hero of the faith encourages us to grow in our love of Christ so much so that his character is displayed in us that people can see Christ's character in us.

It encourages us to find ways to use the skills that God has given you, whatever they might be, to serve Him among His disciples.

Tabitha believed that Christ had given her an opportunity to use what he had given her for the benefit of others.

That's a great example.

Now chapter 12.

Chapter 12 of Acts.

Here we find a woman named Mary who opened her home in very dangerous times.

And in doing so, she prepared a foundation of lifelong service for her son.

This is not one of the Marys that we are typically thinking of in the New Testament.

Acts chapter 12 and verse 12.

Acts 12 · chapter mention

Peter is in prison.

He's been released from prison by the angel in the middle of the night.

And so he went to the house of Mary, verse 12 of Acts 12, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, where many were gathered together and were praying.

And when he knocked at the door of the gateway, a servant girl named Rhoda came to answer.

And you know the rest of the story.

The people inside praying said to Rhoda, you're out of your mind.

Peter's in prison.

How could he be here?

We're praying to God, but how could God ever bring him here?

How does that work?

But we need to understand a little bit more of the situation.

This is a stressful and dangerous time for Christians in Jerusalem.

You look back at the beginning of Acts chapter 12, you will see that Herod, the king, laid violent hands on some who belonged to the church and he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword.

Acts 12 · chapter mention

And he realized that that made the Jewish leaders happy, so then he arrests Peter and puts him in prison too, probably with the expectation that as soon as the Feast of Unleavened Bread is over, he will execute Peter as well.

We aren't given more information than that.

We don't know why Herod acted so violently against the church, other than he noticed it made some people happy.

But at the very least, this period of time was dangerous for Christians in Jerusalem.

Now we're never told if Saul killed anybody.

We're told he breathed out threats and murder.

So it's possible that he did participate in killing Christians.

We don't know that.

We're not given instances of that.

But now the pressure against Christians comes not from Jewish leaders, but from Roman-appointed governments, the king over Judea.

This is about 10 years or so after Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

Probably somewhere between seven and ten years after that.

So the church has grown, it's spread, and now the intensity of opposition has grown from not just the Jewish leaders, but now the Roman government is stepping in and oppressing Christians as well.

So identifying as a Christian meant putting your life in danger.

Now consider this, Mary.

What do you think in that setting?

What do you think of a widow who identified as a Christian?

And not only identified as a Christian, but hosted prayer meetings in her house in the middle of the night.

The tension, I think, is heightened here by the noise that the people in the house make when they realize Peter's there.

You can just imagine some saying there might be soldiers around.

We don't know who's listening in.

All in Mary's house.

If they're caught in the night with an escaped prisoner with them, what will happen to them?

Peter doesn't even stay with them.

He leaves them and he tells them, send a message to James, the Lord's half-brother, and Peter leaves and goes to an undisclosed location.

But Mary stays there.

She remains in her home.

She possesses a firm faith, not a weak one.

It indicates that she believes that her God is a powerful one.

She believes that God hears and answers prayers of his people, even though they're surprised at how God answered the prayer for Peter.

She believes more strongly in Christ and his power than in the threat of Herod's sword and Herod's prison.

And she still expresses her faith in hospitality during dangerous times.

That's quite the lady.

Now Mary's son, John Mark, was involved in Paul and Silas's missionary work.

John Mark had grown up to do.

We've already looked at that, some in our study of Acts.

So John Mark may not have initially possessed the same strength of resolve as his mother, because he abandoned Paul and Silas on their first missionary journey.

But later he became useful to Paul, and he appears to have grown into a man with the same character as his mother.

So hear then a call to imitate this Mary.

Serve the Lord Jesus with greater fear than you fear anything else in this life.

Believe that Christ can and does work powerfully.

Believe and practice prayer.

Display Mary's love for the disciples of the Lord Jesus.

Mary is an unsung hero of the early church.

And this seems to be just normal practice for her.

Because when the angel left Peter in the middle of the night on some city street, he knew to go to Mary's house.

That may indicate that this was a common practice.

That the church gathered often in Mary's home.

So she would be facilitating the early church's gathering, their worship and their fellowship, even as they faced dangerous times.

Here's somebody who says, Yes, we may get in danger here.

We may be in danger, we may get in trouble, we may be killed, we may be thrown into prison, but come on in, welcome.

I want to serve you.

That means she placed herself in danger for the Lord's sake and for other believers' sake.

Chapter 16.

Eunice provided an example of faith for her son.

Chapter 16.

Now Eunice is not mentioned by name in the book of Acts.

We know her name from another New Testament book.

But here she is known only as a Jewish woman in a Greek community of Lystra who believed in Jesus.

She's married, or at least was at one time, to a Greek man.

What makes Eunice an unsung hero of the early church is her impact on her son, whom we know as Timothy.

It says Paul came also to Derby and to Lystra.

A disciple was there named Timothy, the son of a Jewish woman who was a believer, but his father was a Greek.

He was well spoken of by the brothers at Lystra and Iconium.

Paul wanted Timothy to accompany him, and so he took him and circumcised him because of the Jews, for they all knew that his father was a Greek.

So according to Acts 16, 2, Timothy is a young man of good character and great potential.

And Paul is so impressed with Timothy that he takes him along as an apprentice, as a helper.

But the relationship between Paul and Timothy is much more than just somebody who is teaching a younger person.

Because in 1 Timothy 1, verse 2, Paul calls him my true child in the faith.

1 Timothy 1:2

That likely means that Timothy was a pretty new believer when Paul met him.

Or maybe, maybe it was under Paul's ministry that Timothy and perhaps his mother came to faith in Christ.

That would make Paul Timothy's spiritual father.

But we're not talking about Timothy.

We want to consider Timothy's mother, Eunice.

I've already mentioned everything that Luke relates about Eunice.

And if that's all we had, that would be significant.

However, Paul's letters to Timothy help clarify our understanding of Eunice, his mother.

Here's 2 Timothy 1, verse 5.

2 Timothy 1:5

Paul says, I am reminded of your sincere faith.

A faith that first dwelt in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice.

Now I am sure dwells in you.

That's 2 Timothy 1, verse 5, a few verses later in chapter 3, verse 14, we read, continue, Timothy, in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, that is from Paul.

2 Timothy 1:5

And how also from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, that's the Old Testament, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Do you see what that says?

Eunice made sure that her son knew the Old Testament.

She taught her son the scriptures from the time he was a child, the scriptures that lead to salvation.

These are the same scriptures that Paul would go on to say to Timothy should be breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.

So Eunice, by teaching Timothy the scriptures, prepared him for at least three things.

Number one, she prepared her son to trust Christ by teaching him the scriptures.

She laid the foundation for Timothy to be led to faith in Christ.

Number two, she prepared her son to serve with Paul by teaching him the scriptures.

And third, she played a part in our possession of two inspired books of the New Testament because she taught her son the scriptures.

Friends, we must teach our children and the children in our care the scriptures.

We must be like Eunice.

The most fundamental aspect of raising children and grandchildren is putting the word of God before them so that God might cause his word to bear fruit.

Listen, don't stress out over the results.

You can't control whether or not your children end up the way you want them to.

But you can control whether or not you lead them to the scriptures and the Christ of the Scriptures.

Do that, and Christ will take care of the rest.

This is the heart of our children's ministry at faith.

We teach our children the scriptures, always presenting to them the word of God.

Oh, you don't know the scriptures well enough to teach them to children?

Let me help you.

There's no better way to increase and strengthen your knowledge of the scriptures than by teaching scriptures to children.

Eunice.

Oh, we know.

She was a Jewish woman married to a Gentile man.

But she taught her son the scriptures from childhood.

Alright, let's look at one more.

Chapter 16.

Beginning in verse 14.

We see Lydia and other leading women being faithful in the Lord's service.

Here's the situation.

Paul is making his first stop in Europe in the Macedonian city of Philippi.

And on the Sabbath day in verse 13 of chapter 16, it says, We went outside the gate to the riverside where we were supposed, where we supposed there was a place of prayer.

And we sat down and spoke to the women who had come together.

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God.

The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul, and she was baptized, and her household came to faith and were baptized, and she urged us, saying, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay, and she prevailed upon us.

So Lydia is a woman who was originally from Asia Minor.

She's a well-to-do woman who worked in the high-end industry of purple cloth.

And she's a God fearer.

There's no synagogue because there's apparently not enough men in the city of Philippi to have a synagogue.

But she goes outside the city to a place where there is a place of prayer for those who do worship God.

We don't know if she was married, although the indications are she was not, at least at this time.

But she was a wealthy businesswoman who offered her home to Paul and his team while they were in Philippi.

The story, though, is about Paul and his imprisonment for the gospel, which makes Lydia an unsung hero.

And here is Lydia's uniqueness.

As the first believer in Christ in that community, and as a woman of means, she provided a place for the church to gather, to learn, and to worship.

Some would say that the indication is that she became one of Paul's supporters.

And notice Lydia's chief concern in verse 15.

She says, If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, Lydia was faithful.

And her faithfulness was demonstrated in offering whatever she had for the Lord's work.

Now, faithfulness to the Lord doesn't have to look like giving of your resources to support the Lord's work, although it may.

There are many avenues in which the Lord's work can be sustained and advanced and supported.

So we've seen people opening their homes in the middle of the night.

We've seen people praying.

We've seen people teaching their children the scriptures.

We've seen people standing firm against opposition.

The question becomes: are we faithful with what we have been given?

Because all that we have been given, all that we have has been entrusted to us to be used for the Lord's purposes.

Are we using it faithfully?

And that faithfulness can be measured by how we use what God has given us.

We might just ask a simple question.

Are we using what God has given us for ourselves or for Christ's kingdom?

I like the way that Oswald Chambers put this.

He said the goal of faithfulness is not that we will do work for God.

But that he will be free to do his work through us.

God calls us to his service and he places tremendous responsibilities on us.

He expects no complaining on our part and offers no explanation on his part.

God wants to use us as he used his own son.

That's a powerful connection with where we've started our time together this morning, isn't it?

How did God use his son?

Through suffering and giving himself for us.

All of these unsung heroes set their eyes on Jesus.

They faced whatever came their way because he was their joy and their confidence, because he blazed the trail ahead of them, because he was worthy of all glory and all honor.

They were devoted to him.

And they were convinced by his death, burial, and resurrection that life is found in him, and this life leads to true life.

It's not about what's here, it's about looking ahead to when we will be raised with Christ.

Just like those saints in Hebrews 11.

We might not receive what's promised to us now, but we act as though it's real.

We believe it's real, and we trust that Christ will come again and bring his reward with him.

Even so come, Lord Jesus.

Let's pray.

Lord Jesus, we give all the honor and glory and praise to you.

Lord, make us all faithful to you.

Whatever that might look like in each of our situations, open our eyes to see opportunities to be used of you, to step in and serve you in maybe even ways that we don't expect.

That your spirit would fill us and empower us and strengthen us for your glory forever and ever.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

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