The Rock Star and the Gifting Girl

Let's pray. Dear Father God, I am grateful today for

the children of this church, and for those who teach them,

who get here early, who set up, those who maintained

the building, every committed person here, and Lord, every person

who needs to be committed, I'm grateful for them. All.

Help us to know Jesus. In Jesus' name, Amen, let's

take our bibles. Has turned to Acts nine twenty six.

I'm going to just start reading. And when he had

come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, and

they were all afraid of him. This is Paul, who

had been converted by the Damascus Road experience. Suddenly the

light of Jesus Christ knocked him off his horse. No

one else saw it. He was blinded and boom. He

was a transformed man. God led him to a disciple

who said, brother, Saul, receive your sight. He saw Jesus,

and he never looked back from looking at Jesus for

the rest of his life. So this is how this

verse is introduced. And when he had come to Jerusalem,

he attempted to join the disciples. In other words, he

wanted to join the church, and they were all afraid

of him. You ever had someone come to church and

you're afraid of him being the church? For they did

not believe that he was a disciple. Look at the

next verse, verse twenty seven. But Barnabas took him and

brought him to the apostles and declared to them how

on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke

to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly

in the name of Jesus. I wonder how we would

handle a young person coming to our church who had

a transformation in their life suddenly started proclaiming Christ. But

they made us nervous because they had lived an awful

life before Christ. Paul was that kind of person. When Saul,

whom we know as Paul, was converted to Jesus, it

took the disciples in Jerusalem a little hard time of

coming to grips with it to believe that he could

in fact be a true disciple of Christ. He didn't

fit the criteria. He didn't seem to be the real thing.

They thoughts, So how do you defend the faith? This

question is running through their mind. When you have arrested

believers by force, you have delivered them up for prison

and death with zeal And. Yet that is exactly what

they saw in Saul. They saw someone who had changed

his life dramatically. Now, when we preach and teach the Gospel,

do we expect dramatic changes in people's lives or not?

Yes or no? So when someone comes forward and someone says,

I choose Jesus, do we buy in or do we

guess at it? Do we wonder if they're okay? Listen, friends,

we are in the saving business. We don't save people.

Jesus does. But radical transformation of lives is in God's

program and plan. I have discovered that angry, small minded

kind of men are always the ones who can't tolerate

open debate, sincere dialogue and honest transparency. See when Paul

came to the church, he immediately became a defender of

the faith that had saved him from the start. He

began to pick up the fallen mantleist Stephen, who had

argued with the Hellenists, who had persuaded for Christ, who

was publicly executed. He was doing the very same thing,

and yet he was holding his cloak when all that happened.

He was part of his murder. In the Second Temple

period in Judaism. In their opposition to the Holy Spirit,

immoral midget men kind of intellectuals rose up to violently

oppose the powerful preaching and honest teaching of the early Apostles.

And suddenly, as a convert, Paul was a black target,

just like Stephen, for assassination execution, because he was proclaiming

the power of Christ to transform human lives. Look at

X nine twenty eight. So he went in, out and

out among them at Jerusalem, following to verse verse twenty nine,

preaching boldly in the name of the Lord. And he

spoke and disputed against the Hellenis. But they were seeking

and what does the text say, you're reading it with

me seeking to kill him. Wow, that's a high price

to pay for sharing your faith. The Hellenistic Jews were

those in Judaism who had bought into the bad ideas

of the Greek philosophers Second Temple period. We know a

lot about them. You can read about them, and like

some preachers today, they mirror the attitudes that we see

among many professional clergymen. On the eve of the average

of Jesus Christ. According to the Book of Maccabees, which

is an in testament book, not scripture often found in

Catholic Bibles and some other works. According Book of Macuwees,

written between Malachi and Matthew, they had also bought into

the ballgames, the sports arenas, the horse races, the prostitutes

that circle these things, and thus the manhood of the

Jewish people. According to the Jewish spiritual people, that time

was compromised with worldly pursuits. Alexander the Great created the

gymnasiums for all his conquered lands to demoralize and demasculize

young men, so they wouldn't work hard, so they couldn't

survive in the brutal, harsh outdoors, so they couldn't endure

the cold, the heat, and so they wouldn't muster the

strength to defend the nation. Now I'm not against playing

games in this kind of thing, but I am against

substituting hard work for ball games. When I see young

people outdoors working, I see them going and hiking twenty miles,

when they camp out like they do in Pathfinders, when

they learn Christian virtues, I mean, this is huge. This

is where our effort needs to be with young people,

and character is formed when when we pursue it. Right,

My boys. In fact, I'll just share this with you.

I've done it before. When nine to eleven hit we

got a television to watch it. Suddenly everything you can

imagine starts slipping in. And I had to talk with

my boys. Do we want to be involved in all

the theater, movie nights and all that stuff? Or can

we just let that go out of our house and

instead commit ourselves to four weeks of camping a year. Now,

boys and girls, are you with me here? How many

of you like to go camping four weeks out of

the year. Raise your hands high. The church needs to

see your interest levels. Okay, you see those hands going up.

I said, now, I can't do everything. I can't do

all this entertainment stuff at the same time that I

want to be outdoors with you. I want to be

rock climbing, camping, fishing, etc. Like Jesus fished with his disciples.

And I'll go one day a week with you, and

I will make sure I keep my time, and if

it's taken by the church, I'll make it up. And

they said, Dad, you got a deal. High five. And

I kept my promise with my boys. I have never

regretted that contract and deal with them because to this

day they will call me. My younger son called me

about two about a week ago, asking me to pray

for him. Because in these outings we pray together, we

grow together, we learn Christian character, We interact with reality.

It's not coming at us hypnotically. We are engaged with

it dynamically, life, outdoors, living. How many pathfinder leaders do

we have here in the church? Raise your hand high, God,

bless you for the work you're doing with our kids.

Get them out and go camping a lot, Spend some

money of the church to make a difference in these

kids' lives. And by the way, I hope you do

have a phishing honor in pathfinders for the kids. Do

you okay? All right? All right, baptize in the Holy Spirit.

Now having fun with you. Heroes at throwing balls are

seldom heroes in anything else. It takes real life experience

to engage with character to face life's challenges. The Hellinus

were sharp on their feet and debating and articulating philosophy,

but they weren't worth a nickel against the early disciples

of Jesus Christ, who took the prophets in their hands

and could show the word of God and articulate prophetic

truth to a generation of unbelief. The church was a

Bible believing, holy spirit feeled community of people sharing Jesus.

One key word in the context to find Paul as

a young convert to Jesus. Luke records twice in the

verses that Paul boldly preached in the name of Jesus,

he uses the word boldly. He boldly proclaimed Christ. I

have met ministers who think you're a nutcase if you

focus on the name of Jesus. I'm serious. I've watched

them get nervous when I use the name of Jesus.

I deliberately don't pray a prayer at the end where

I say, you know in Thy name, And I'm not

against that, you know, but we've been told to pray

in Jesus' name because all authority in heaven and earth

has been given Jesus. We are to be Christ centered,

Jesus focused people as believers because we are Christians. So

I say in Jesus name, and I've noticed some eyebrows rolling,

and then I get these each is about how all

religions lead to God. Well they don't really. Some read

to God and others don't. Christianity does in the right way.

But I can't say that religions which focus on animism

worship of ancestral spirits lead to God at all, nor

a philosophy like Buddhism, which tries to look within rather

than look without to discover God. And I've watched these

kind of guys get nervous when I just say Jesus. Now, friend,

there's another word that goes with Jesus. It's the word saved.

How many of you like to be saved? You can

raise your hand high in church. You can put two

hands up. It won't hurt you. You know what you

put Jesus with the word saved, and you have the

mission of the church. We are in the saving business.

We want God to save our souls and we want

to see people saved. Friend, the word saved is not

a bad word either. If you call on the name

of the Lord Jesus to be saved, and you can

proclaim that truth boldly, you can make a difference in

people's lives if Jesus as the focus and not you

and the saving business, and Christ has repeat after Jesus

has saved me at the cross objectively. Now what a

mean by that he died for our sins and got

it done? Is that true? Yes or no? Then we

can rejoice that Christ did that for me. Number two,

Jesus is saving me every day of my life subjectively

because I am surrendering my life to Him and his

finished work on the cross. Is that statement true as well? Okay?

And then Christ will save me at the end of

the age from the final destruction of evil as he

shields me in the Eschaton Cathologically? Is that not true?

You see? So we can say He has saved me,

but doesn't mean that we're done. It means we need

to hang in there with him all the way to

the end. But we have confidence when to him. In fact,

Jesus says that no one can take us out of

his hand. If the Father draws him, we can choose

to leave, but you cannot be snatched from Jesus. Christ

will save you from the final destruction of evil in

the judgment day and present you faultless before the throne

of God eschatologically on the last day, and the Church

of Jesus Christ, by definition, if it is committed to

the Gospel proclamation, must be in the saving business. So

evaluate yourself here a little bit. How am I spending

my time? Do I share my faith? Do my neighbors

know of Christ? Do I pray for those in my associations?

Do I make a difference to reach out of my

comfort zones to find people and know people who have

never heard of the truth? Or do I just go

to church, live into myself and keep it from me? Now?

Isn't that a good question to ask? And friends, we

need to ask answer it right? We need to be

in the saving business. In verse twenty nine, Luke records

that they were seeking to kill Paul for the crime

of preaching in Jesus's name. When a person cannot win

the mind over by personal persuasion, tricky philosophy, immoral midget

men kind of intellectual seek out creative ways to destroy

the person they cannot master. Paul had a big target

on his back, put there by very religious people who

are on the devil's side, thinking all the time that

they were serving the Lord when they were serving the enemy.

You know, I'm looking forward to a generation in our

church of godly youth who will take their stand for

Jesus Christ without compromise. Am I right? And I believe

they're here, and I believe a Bible based, Christ centered,

loving generation committed to obedience. Well, get the job done

so Jesus can come back to this earth. And I

believe I'm looking at some of them right here in

this church. God be praised. But I tell you what,

don't allow yourselves to be compromised with peer associations which

would take you away from Jesus. You are like the

people you hang out with. You hang out with people

that go to bars, You hang out with people who

do this and that and everything else that compromises your

walk with Christ. That's who you become. When I became

a Christian at the age of fifteen, I had to

leave my friends to find new friends to get it done.

And while we should win others, we must guard those

close associations of youth. And verse twenty nine, Luke records

that they were seeking to kill Paul because he preached

the name of Jesus. So what do they do? The

Apostles acted quickly to save Paul's life. They send him

to Tarsus that his present day southern Turkey in Asia

Minor Acts nine, verse thirty, and when the Brethren knew it,

they brought him down to cesarea and send him off

to Tarsus. So to solve the problem, they sent Paul

packing verse thirty three. There he found a man named

Aeneas who had been bedridden for eight years and was paralyzed.

I mean, so what happens here. Peter, in the minds

of many, was a rock star. Imagine this. Now Peter

been disciple. He'd been around Christ all those years. If

you'd been around Peter, you felt like you were that

close to Jesus. Peter's name in Greek means rock, so

he was the star of the disciples, the rock that

would preach Jesus. First thirty four and Peter said to him, Irenus,

Jesus Christ heals you, rise and make your bed. And

immediately he rose. Wow and John five, Jesus healed the

man near the sheep gave the pool. And now Peter

does the same thing. But you know it's Peter doesn't

say I'm healing you. I'm a great preacher. Come up

to me and I'll do the faith that you ever

see TV shows like that? Give me the handkerchief. Anybody

got a handkerchief round? Oh we have a handkerchief. Let

me show you I've seen that. You've said, have you

seen this? But he had a handkerchief, and they act

like it's magic. You know, the Holy Spirit handkerchief. Come

and touch this and you'll be healed. You know what

Peter just said, Jesus heals you. He didn say I

heal you. I'm a disciple, Jesus, I don't heal you.

Jesus heals you. And so he knew where the power was.

He didn't take any credit for it at all. Acts

nine thirty five. And all the residents of Lida and

Scharon saw him. And what was the result. They turned

to the Lord, not to Peter, not to the church

in that thinking, but to the Lord so they could

enter the church. Right. They didn't turn to Peter, They

turned to the Lord. They didn't turn to a priest.

They turned to Jesus Christ as the great high Priest

of heaven and Earth. They found themselves connected to Jesus

and from that they were glued to the church. Friends,

we need men and women to come into the church

who come because they are enamored with the person of

Jesus Christ. Period. All of this is the context and

backdrop for the most important miracle Jesus gave Peter to

perform for his entire life. Look at verse thirty six.

Now there was a Joppa, a disciple named Tabitha, which

means dorcas. She was of good works and acts of

charity verse thirty seven. In those days, she fell sick

and died, and when they had washed her, they laid

her in an upper room. Now everything's going fine in

the storyline until suddenly the lady dies. Tabitha dies. I

mean she was a good person. The church was growing expands,

and she bites the dust when things should be prospering.

Now Tabitha is the only woman in the New Testament

explicitly called a disciple. The other women who were disciples

of Jesus, no doubt, but she reserves that grand and

glorious designation. Tabitha a disciple of Jesus. Her name means gazelle.

It's Aramaic, and it can also give the idea of

beauty and grace. Doricas, which is also another word for

her name, is dear, and it can mean seer, and

it gives the idea of profet like insight. You put

it together, you have a good idea. Who Tabitha was

gazelles are fast a foot and swift to go their way.

No doubt, Tabitha was graceful, energetic, beautiful, swift, not lazy

or whiny in the church, but making a difference movie

from A to B like a gazelle with graceful smile.

She had insight. She could see the needs of others.

She used the feminine mystique, not an overbearing personality, to

make a difference and to put love and grace in

the lives of other human beings. It's one thing to

obey and do good works. It's another thing to do

it with a good attitude. And her name captures that.

Tabitha fell sick in the days when things were going

good in the church. She fell sick when the church

was comforted and growing. She died when she had so

much to offer in so much life in her to

make a difference for Jesus and the poor. She just

got sick and died. That upper room. They washed her body,

They put her in that upper room, and it became

her death chamber. And that looked to be the end

of the story for Tabitha. In Gray's elogy, the famous

poet writes, for many a gem of purest raised serene

the dark, unfathomed caves of ocean, and bear for many

of flowers, born to blush unseen and waste its sweetness

on the desert air. And thus it looked of her.

They laid a sweet daughter of Zion, a precious disciple,

a jewel of Jesus in that upper room, the death chamber.

Now there's something wrong with this picture. Is that how

it ends? Is that how a life ends that has

been committed to Jesus, a disciple. Is that how he

it goes? You just get snuffed out and you have

no more future. When someone dies, we tend to call

the funeral home and get rid of the body as

quick as we can, and not worry about the outcome.

That early generation and believers knew that the leader of

their religion had walked out of the tomb. He was dead,

he was tortured, and he walked out of the grave.

And for forty days many of them saw him, They

touched him. They knew that he was alive. Now, when

you know that your ideas of religion change, your view

of death is transformed. They saw the signs of his torture,

and yet they saw him alive, and they saw him

a sin to heaven alive. Well, Peter was not too

far to be found, and they wanted answers. Consequently, they

sent immediately for Peter, and they wanted him to come

to the gifting girl, Tabitha, who had made it her

business to give all of her life. They wanted the

girl back from the dead who had lived for Jesus

a tall order, and what would happen we would find happens.

Look at verse thirty eight. Since since Lydia was near Joppa,

the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent men to

him and treating him, please come to us without delay.

Now the Greek word arcanello for delay gives the idea

of no hesitation at all. Peter is not the one

who is in charge of the energy here that people

are moving him along because of their faith. They're insistent

that Peter come down immediately. You don't just stay there.

Come we need an intervention. Friends, that early church would

not accept death as the final answer for Tabitha's ministry. Hurry,

get down to Joppa. We're praying for you, and they

compelled Peter to come. Oh, by the way, she's dead.

But what is death for Jesus. We believe that you

can represent Jesus in the situation. I have in my

lifetime once seen a church follow its knees and someone

who died for real resurrected from the dead. This is

not something that has only happened in the past. It

happens when God wants it to happen, Verse thirty nine.

So Peter rose, and what does it say? He went

with them, And when he come, they took him up

to the upper room. I notice who's there? All the

widows stood beside him, weeping. Yeah. Have you ever seen

a widow weep? These were I don't know how something

like yeah, like that or do you think it could

be loud? Now? It matters what culture it is. But

when it's sincere, it's devastating. And then they were showing

Peter the tunics, it says, showing tunics in other garments,

which Dorcas made while she was with them. Look she's dead,

Look what she made. Look at the beautiful clothing Peter.

You know, Peter's on the spot. What's Peter going to do?

God is not content for his people to be naked

without a robe of righteousness? Why did she make those clothes.

Tabitha knew that Jesus Christ died for her, and she

was in the business of clothing people. God invented clothes

and she did. And just give old hand me downs.

She made new clothes for people who needed a new

relationship with Jesus Christ. She was in the gifting business.

Look at John three point sixteen here for God so

loved the world. I'll let you pop to that verse

that he gave his only son, that who ever believes

in him should not perish, but will have what all right,

God loves us. Love is giving. I mean, if you

come to church and all you're interested in is getting well,

did I get the music I wanted to hear? Did

I get the attention I needed? Did I get the

money I needed? But you're not in the giving business.

You're not in the program God gave so that we

can live. Tabitha was in the giving business. We don't

know how old Tabitha was when she died. How many

of you think she was a young girl? Raise your hand.

Let me think she was. Nah, maybe a little bit

of an adult. How me think she was an old

lady like a widow. See, we have the whole spectrum

going on here. Now, look, I've called her a girl,

the Gifting girl. Ladies, hear me. No, anybody in the

ninety realm here you are, raise your hand. Nineties any

girls under ten here, raise your hand. Nine Any nine

year olds? Alrighty, It doesn't matter if you're ninety or nine.

You are a little girl to God. You are God's

little girl for your entire life, because He is your

father and he treasures you. And so the Gifting girl,

it doesn't matter. She was nine or ninety. She was dead,

but she was alive in the mind of God, the Father,

who was going to do something through Jesus Christ for

her that day, Acts nine forty. But Peter put them

all outside. Then notice what he did. He knelt down

and prayed. Then, turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, rise,

and she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter

she set up. I mean, that's an amazing verse. The

Greek word for the translation put them all out is

the Greek word ecbalo. It literally means he threw them out,

get out of her. He threw them out. And then

it became a simple equation. It was Peter, Tabitha, and

Jesus Christ in that room, and what did he do.

He got on his knees. He didn't stand up, he

didn't do any fancy miracle working phenomena. He got on

his knees because he was facing a challenge he could

not overcome. And when he knelt and prayed, Jesus responded, Now,

maybe you're facing a challenge in your life, an impossible

prayer challenge, a fault of character, a sin you cannot overcome.

You think, a life challenge that is overwhelming for you,

dear heart. You need to get on your knees and pray,

and get everybody else out of the room and let

you and Jesus get it done on your knees. That's

what Peter did. No sense of greatness in himself when

people come to me and says, well, you know, I

just feel like I have this great message for the world,

and I'm so talented about this that and everything else.

Peter was a disciple of Christ. He had no power

in his own mind. He got on his knees and

he begged the Lord for an answer, and God intervened

in his behalf in hers. He turned to the dead body,

and by faith, Peter refused to recognize death that day

as the final word. Does anybody know how many resurrections

there are in the Bible if you were to number them?

What two prophets in the Old Testament resurrected Elijah and Elishah?

And there are three resurrections. One after Elisha had been buried,

there was a resurrection. They put a body on his bones,

and he came to life, all right? In the New

test him, how many times did Jesus resurrect a young girl,

a young man, an older man? Three? Okay? And there

are two apostles that resurrected Peter here Tabitha and Paul

at trou asked. And what's the name of the young

boy that was who fell out of the Unicus? His

name means lucky boy? Was he lucky he got resurrected

that day? Okay? All right? You count them all up.

That's eight. Eight is the number in the Bible for

a new beginning. If you do the math, not the math,

but the symbolic nature of Jesus' name in Gamatria, which

is the application of numbers to letters, his name is

eight eight eight, not six sixty six. Christ is a

new beginning on steroids. He is a resurrection on steroids.

He's the power of life to come eight eight eight,

our savior God. Now Peter did simply this. I mean

he noticed that Tabitha, she looked at him, she stirred,

and then she got up that you don't do that

if you're dead. Because she wasn't dead anymore. Tabitha was

alive because Peter and the people prayed for Death to

go home that day, and Death left the room. In

verse forty one, the man named rock Peter gives his

hand to the gifting girl named Tabitha, named after Gazelle

and Grace and insight. Look at verse forty one, and

he gave her his hand and lifted her up. That's

how Jesus did it. The gyro's daughter. Then, calling the

saints and widows, he presented her alive. I'd love to

have been a fly on the wall that day. Peter

called the saints in, including the widows. Now why did

he bring the widows in who had lost tabith and

now received from Peter some mighty powerful evidence that one

day they get their husbands back. He brought the widows in.

He says, don't cry so much when people die. Because

the bottom line is, look what happened today. There's going

to be a resurrection at the end of the age,

and the Lord himself will descend from heaven with the

cry of command, with the voice of the Archangel, Paul says,

and the dead in Christ will rise, who've been sleeping

for centuries unconscious suddenly whammo, awake, and they're going to

descend to the air and meet the Lord in the air,

and we will have a great family reunion, not in graveyards,

but in the air with the Lord. And we will

always be with the Lord. I mean, they had something

to look at right there that reminded them Jesus was

resurrected and Tabitha was resurrected. Widows are naturally eloquent kind

of people. I guarantee you. Those widows could not keep

their mouths shut about what Jesus had done through Peter

for the gifting girl gifted with the gift of eloquence.

They began to tell everybody with that God given gift

of speech and communication and emotional attachments. Did you know

what happened in Tabitha? You know what happened in Tabitha? Tabitha,

Tabitha Tabitha and the whole town found out that Christ

had raised her from the dead Verse forty two. And

it became known throughout all of Joppa, and many believed

in the Lord. And he stayed in Japa for many days.

With one Simon Tanner, I asked you the question, why

did Peter stay in Joppa? What do you think? Because

it was suddenly an evangelistic field to share his faith,

and he spent many days there. I guarantee you preaching

Christ baptizing, and I know for sure, I have no

doubt in my mind's eye that Tabitha was there moving

about at their baptism, putting a nice little coat over them,

making sure that everyone who didn't have a garment had one.

Why because Christ covers us with his righteousness. Christ gives

us God's life in him, and we are in the

giving business. She was the gifting girl. We should give,

give and watch the Holy Spirit do his marvelous work. Friends,

there are people who come to church from time to

time who are dead inside. They need to hear love

from you to be resurrected in their spirit. Friends, I

hope we eradicate from our midst this idea that we

can talk about people negatively and put them down. Every

single person who comes to the doors of this church

is infinitely valuable to Jesus. We are in the gifting business.

Love love, love in Jesus' name. Be authentic and obedient Christians,

and watch the Holy Spirit save people, including you, for

all eternity, your heavenly Father. We need Jesus and we

need Jesus. We face death and we need him to

face life. Give us Jesus, thank you, thank you, thank

you for Tabitha the Gifting Girl and Peter the Rock

that they both pointed us to Jesus. In Jesus's name,

we love you. Amen.