Tabitha arises | Sunday Sermon

Would you please rise for the reading of the word?

Today we will be in Acts chapter 9, verses 36 through 43.

Acts 9:36–43

We're going to finish up chapter 9 today, and we're going to get into uh next week, Acts chapter 10, which will be the Gentile mission.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

So that'll be awesome.

But in verse 36, the Word of God says this.

Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas.

She was full of good works and acts of charity.

In those days she became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room.

Since Lydia was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, Please come to us without delay.

And so Peter rose and went with them, and when he arrived, they took him to the upper room.

All the windows stood widows stood beside him weeping, and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them.

But Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed.

And turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, arise.

And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up and he gave her his hand and raised her up.

And then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive, and it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

People of God, this is the word of the Lord.

Amen.

You may be seated.

Well, we've been traveling through the book of Acts, and last week and Sunday morning, we talked about the conversion of Saul of Tarsus.

Okay, this was a momentous occasion in really biblical history, but not just redemptive history, in the history of humanity, where God anointed this man.

He converted this man.

He stopped Saul of Tarsus in his tracks as he had gotten letters from the high priest to the synagogues of Damascus to go into the synagogues in Damascus.

And if he found any there practicing the way, that he was able to drag them out of there, put them in chains, and drag them back to Jerusalem for trial.

Remember, Saul of Tarsus at this time was the chief persecutor of the church.

He was wreaking havoc in the church in Jerusalem, and the church was being scattered into Judea and Samaria and the surrounding regions.

But the Bible said that everywhere they went, they preached the word.

They shared the gospel, and people were being saved, and the church was multiplying into the surrounding regions, just as Jesus had told the disciples that he would do.

Amen.

You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

And so as Paul had stood, Saul had stood there watching Stephen be stoned, something had struck his heart.

He had been convicted by something inside.

I think the Lord may have already been working in his heart at this time.

And he just goes on a this vengeance, you know, of trying to tear down the church, and he's traveling to Damascus, and the Lord meets him on that road as he was approaching the city.

He says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And Jesus radically transforms Paul, Saul into a man named Paul in that moment.

He had two names.

One of them was Saul, one of them was Paul, and this was common in this time because they lived in a society with multiple cultures.

And so in Hebrew, his name was Saul.

But in his Greek culture, as he interacted with people in the Greek culture, his name was Paul.

Okay?

And there's still people that do that to this day, obviously.

Okay?

And so God had transformed Paul, and we saw last week that Saul, as he began, as he was baptized, as he was filled with the Spirit, that he immediately began to proclaim that Jesus was the Son of God.

And people are hearing him and they're being confounded.

The Jews in the synagogues can't refute him.

He's powerful because of who he is.

He spent his life studying the scriptures.

And so all of a sudden the scriptures begin to come alive to him.

The prophecies, the psalms, the proverbs, the law, the temple, the high priesthood, the sacrifice, all of this suddenly brings on, takes on new meaning as he realizes that everything there has always, always pointed to Jesus.

And so he's proclaiming Jesus as the Son of God.

And we talked about in Thursday's Bible study that people didn't like what was going on there.

And he travels to Jerusalem.

No, he goes to Damascus, I'm sorry.

So Saul, and he says in the letter to the Galatians, that he didn't immediately go up to Jerusalem, that he went down to Arabia.

And during that three years in Arabia, we don't know exactly what God did, but Paul talks about it later in his letters.

That there was revelation given to him by the Lord as he meditated, that at one point he was caught up to the third heaven.

Okay?

And so he's received revelation, and when he comes back from Arabia, he comes to Damascus.

And he's in Damascus again, sharing the word, and they hate it so much because they can't.

Same thing they did to Stephen, right?

They couldn't refute him, and so they just decide, let's just murder him instead.

So they can't refute him, and so they just plan to kill him.

And they're watching the gate day and night.

They're watching the gate to see when he comes out or goes in so that they can kill him.

And so his disciples let him down in a basket and he goes to Jerusalem.

The church is afraid of him in Jerusalem.

And so they don't want to let him anywhere near him.

But then Barnabas, his name means son of encouragement, takes Saul and he takes him to the church, and he testifies of all that Saul has done and how he's proclaimed Jesus boldly.

And so they accept him, and he's doing the same thing now in Jerusalem.

I think it's interesting how it said he was proclaiming the gospel to the Hellenists.

He's disputing the Hellenists.

He's doing the same thing Stephen did.

He's almost standing in Stephen's shoes.

And the same thing that they wanted to do to Stephen, they decided they wanted to do to Saul.

And so they're planning to kill him.

And so they rushed him off and took him up to a city called Caesarea, which was a port city built by Herod the Great, a deep water harbor where all the big Roman vessels could come in, and they stuck him on a boat in Caesarea, where it just so happens that the evangelist Philip also lives, after he settled from his evangelistic trip up the coast, and he sent him off to Tarsus.

And now Luke leaves Saul for a while in Tarsus and he brings the story back to Peter.

And we saw in the Thursday morning Bible study also that Peter was going here and there among them, and he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda.

Now, when we talked about Philip going down to talk to the Ethiopian a couple of weeks ago, remember that when he when the Ethiopian came up out of the water, that the Spirit took Philip away.

He found himself at a Zodus, and it says he preached the gospel in all the cities until he reached Caesarea.

Okay?

And so he reaches Caesarea, but in the meantime, all of those cities have been evangelized.

And now Peter, it almost looks like Peter might be traveling along that path and visiting those cities where Philip evangelized ahead of time.

And so he's going to visit the saints.

It says, as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lida.

And there he found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed.

And Peter said to him, Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you.

And immediately he rose, and all the residents of Lida and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord.

Remember when Jesus told the disciples that he who believes in him will do not only the works that he did, but he would do greater works.

Now Peter is traveling around, the one who walked with Jesus, the one who actually got invited sometimes into inner rooms while Jesus was doing things.

The one who saw Jesus transfigured up on the mountain.

Now Peter, who knows Jesus and watched Jesus' ministry, but also the one who denied him, right?

Is now moving in the same gifts and the same power that Jesus moved in.

But notice what he doesn't say.

He doesn't say, Aeneas, in the name of Jesus, I heal you.

What does he say?

He says, Jesus Christ heals you because the power is in Jesus.

That's something that we all need to remember.

That as we pray, as we go through life, as we try to, you know, do ministry for him, as we try to teach, as we try to share the gospel with our neighbors, as we do things in his name, to remember that the power is not in us to change anybody.

You know, arguing with somebody on the internet is not going to change anyone.

I realize that.

I tried really hard to argue with people on the internet and change people for a long time.

I was really good at it.

And you know, I never changed anybody.

Because the power is not in me to change somebody.

In order for someone to be changed in ways that truly matter, in eternal ways, they have to encounter Jesus Christ.

It's like we just prayed.

Yours is the kingdom, yours is the power, yours is the glory forever and ever.

And so Jesus, Peter says to him, Jesus Christ heals you, rise and make your bed.

Now, he had been in this condition, the verse says, for eight years.

He had been in that bed for eight years.

And maybe his friends would come and they'd flip him over once in a while so he didn't get bed sores.

But he had been in this bed for eight years.

Peter says, Rise and make your bed.

You know what this reminds me of?

When Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda, and there was a paralyzed man laying by the pool of Bethesda, and he'd been that way for 38 years.

And he's like, Do you want to be made well?

And the guy just goes, Well, you know, Lord, every time the water is stirred up, I go to get in, but then, you know, someone gets in before me.

And he says, Rise, take up your mat and walk.

Peter's moving in the same sort of miracles.

Why?

Because Acts is the story of Jesus continued.

It's the story of Jesus in and through his church.

And the ministry we do in the 21st century is the ministry of Jesus through his church.

And if we forget that, we won't have any power.

And so he says, make your bed.

You're not going to need that bed anymore.

Now when you get tired, you can go sleep in there, but you can make it again.

I don't know when the last time that bed was made, but he told him to make it.

And in verse 36, now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha.

So Aeneas had been in Lida.

Okay, this is one of the cities right along the coast.

Okay?

Just a little bit inland, about eight miles inland from the coast.

Now, Joppa is a name that you've heard before if you read the Bible.

And from Joppa they would carry it across to Jerusalem.

This was the main port city in the area for a very long time until King Herod built Caesarea.

Okay, this was also the place where another guy you know of went.

Jonah.

When the Lord told him to go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it.

Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh and he didn't want God to save him, and so he went down to a city called what?

Joppa.

He went down to Joppa to run from the Lord, to try to flee from the presence of the Lord.

And he got on a ship and went out, and what did God do?

He cast up the sea with a great storm.

They threw him overboard, a fish swallowed him and spit them probably right back out in Joppa.

And then the Lord just said, like I said, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against them, right?

This is Joppah.

This is where Tabbitha lives.

And so it says, now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which is translated means Dorcas.

Okay, now the Tabitha is the Aramaic name.

Dorcas is the Greek translation of the Aramaic name.

Both of those don't mean much to us, but in English, those are both translated into the word gazelle.

Okay, so this was a name when she was born.

Maybe she was a beautiful baby.

Maybe she looked graceful, and so her mother and father named her Tabitha.

Because she was beautiful.

Okay?

And we're gonna find out that her beauty was not just external, it was internal.

She was full of good works and acts of charity.

Before I go too much further, I want to bring up one thing I skipped over.

In verse 36, now there was a disciple named Tabitha.

This is the only place in the New Testament where this word disciple is used.

It's Mithria, and it means a female disciple.

It's, you know, there's lots of female disciples, right?

Followed Jesus.

Lots of female disciples followed him.

There was lots of female converts and disciples in the early church, but it's just interesting that this is the one place where Tabitha is actually called by this name, a female disciple.

And so I want to pay attention to her and her character and her nature.

So she's full of good works and charity and acts of charity.

In those days, I mean, I want to I want to, before we do this, I want to go and think about what we've seen in Acts, okay?

What we've seen is the Bible talk about, Luke mentioned a bunch of powerful men.

He talks about Peter standing up and they choose a new disciple.

Then the day of Pentecost comes, and Peter preaches a powerful sermon.

And then he he goes up to the temple with John, and Peter lays hands on the man, the lame man, and he's healed.

And then they go in and Peter preaches a sermon, and then there's a bunch of people that get saved.

And then he stands before the high priest, and it's just this, you know, he's powerful, and this is powerful, and then Saul of Tarsus and Stephen's full of grace and power, you know, and it's talking about this, and now finally we see a different side of how the Lord works in his people.

That it's not always anointing of Holy Spirit and power for preaching.

That God works in all kinds of powerful ways in his people.

Tabitha is just as filled with the Spirit, just as empowered by God's Spirit, and yet she's full of good works and acts of charity.

There's different ways that God gifts his people, and all of those things are needed in his people.

Amen.

And since Lydda was near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him, urging him, please come to us without delay.

And so they know Peter, okay?

Peter's the one that when he would walk by, people would lay people in the streets as he walked by, so that just his shadow would touch them and they would be healed.

They know Peter.

But also when he healed Aeneas, it had said that all the residents of Lidda and Sharon saw him and they turned to the Lord.

And so when they saw Aeneas healed from being paralyzed, a bunch of people there had come to the Lord.

And so the word has gotten out, Peter's in Lidda.

And now Tabitha has passed away.

And so they send disciples to Lidda and say, Hurry, come to Joppa with us quickly.

And so Peter rose and went with them, and when he arrived, they took him to the upper room.

And all the widows stood behind beside him, weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with him.

And I just thought this was so such a neat and powerful image.

That this woman had lived a life that had touched people and probably was quiet about it.

She probably didn't make a big deal about it.

I've known people like this.

I knew uh an older woman who would um make bags of just um snacks and hygiene materials, and she would just load her trunk up with them because whenever she would see someone that was in need, she would go and go out of her way to go over to them and make sure they had something.

Just put something in their hand, just some act of kindness that she would do for people.

I know of another woman.

I when I was at the Crystal Cathedral, um, we had a program called Monday Meals, and we would have people who were in need.

Sometimes they were homeless people, but they weren't always homeless.

Sometimes they were elderly, they didn't have um enough after paying for their medication to get live, so they would come Monday and they would get a free meal.

Sometimes there were just other people who were in need, maybe a single mother with kids.

But there was a a woman there who would she was a um hairstylist.

And she could have been working that day and making money, but she chose every Monday to come and cut people's hair.

And and I'm just I w I I wanna I want you to understand what that means.

That often she would have an unhoused person sitting in that chair as she cut their hair.

They were not clean, they hadn't just washed their hair, maybe they hadn't washed their hair in weeks.

I don't know if they had, you know, some of them probably had lice and things like that.

They didn't smell pleasant.

And yet she never complained.

She was kind, she would treat them with dignity and with respect, and she would just take care of this need.

Maybe they hadn't felt a human touch in a long time.

And this is just this gift that she gave them for year after year after year after year.

This was the kind of a person that Tabitha was.

And so as she passes away, the people who had been touched by her kindness, they're feeling like this is a tragedy.

This person doesn't deserve to die.

They're weeping, they're sad, they miss her.

And so all the widows stood behind him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them.

But Peter put them all outside and he knelt down and prayed.

And turning to the body, he said, Tabitha, arise.

I can't help but think that maybe Jesus might have been remembering another time when Jesus was still alive, when he was still in his earthly ministry, when he was following him, and someone he had gotten back into the area of Galilee in Capernaum, and someone had come to him and said, please come and heal Jairus' daughter.

She's deathly ill.

She's about to die.

Please come.

He's kind and he's worthy of this.

Please come and heal him, heal her.

And so Jesus is on his way, and that's when you see that story of the woman with the issue of blood, and she touches the hem of his robe and she's miraculously healed.

And Jesus pauses for a moment and speaks with her, and then as he continues to progress toward Jairus' house, somebody comes and says, Leave the master alone, leave the teacher alone.

Your daughter's already dead.

And I always think that's so cold.

Those are the words that a parent never needs or wants to hear.

And Jesus says to Jairus, do not fear.

And he continues to Jairus' house.

And as he approaches Jairus' house, he sees a crowd of people standing outside and they're weeping and they're mourning, probably much like the scene that Peter encounters here.

They're weeping and they're mourning, a little girl has passed away.

And Jesus says, Do not fear, she's only sleeping.

And then they start to make fun of him.

They start to mock him.

And so Jesus goes in and he takes the parents of the little girl, and he takes, I believe it was Peter and John and maybe James, and he takes them in only, and he puts everyone else outside.

And he looks at the little girl and he says these words.

Little girl arise.

And the little girl rises and he gives her to her parents.

In this story, I can't help but think Peter's thinking of this scene.

As he approaches Dorcas's house, he knows she's lying up there dead.

He's seeing what Jesus can do.

He's just watched him heal a paralyzed man in Lidda.

And now he's approaching Dorcas's house, and they take him to the upper room, and the widows are there and they're mourning and they're grieving and they're crying and they're showing him, Look what she made me.

She made me this coat.

She made me this garment.

She made me this scarf.

Look at she was such a beautiful person.

Oh, can you do anything?

And he takes them all.

And he puts them outside and closes the door, kneels by the body, and you know what he says?

Tabitha.

I mean the words are so strange.

Similar.

Talitha just means little girl.

Tabitha is her name, right?

But it's just so interesting how the words are almost the same thing.

Tabitha, kumi, Tabitha, arise, and Tabitha opens her eyes and she looks at Peter and he gives her his hand and raises her up.

But there's another thought that I had.

Do you think she was happy or sad to be back?

Yeah, and she was a disciple, so she knew the Lord.

So yeah, I was thinking about this this week and I was thinking about Paul.

And Paul's in a Roman prison and he's riding to the church in Philippi.

And he says, I know that this will turn out for my deliverance, whether by my life or by my death.

That my life's gonna honor the Lord.

He says, For I'd rather depart and be with Christ.

I'd rather be out of the body and to be with Christ, for that is far better.

But I think for your sake it's better for you that I'm here.

And so I think I will be here.

I'm gonna remain for your sake.

Think about what Tabitha, like Michelle said.

Think about what she might have experienced to leave the body and to be in the presence of the Lord Jesus, the glorified, risen Lord Jesus, seated upon his throne, with the heavenly angels surrounding the throne, crying out, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty.

The whole earth is filled with his glory.

She's in the presence of the King of kings and the Lord of Lords in glory.

All sickness is gone, all weakness is gone, all fear is gone, all pain is gone, and she's complete and whole in the presence of the Lord, and then suddenly she's back in this body with creaks and pains.

And she looks over at Peter, and I gotta think, it's like, oh man, come on.

See, a lot of times we when we're grieving someone, we're like, this is such a tragedy, this is so terrible, this is so horrible that has happened.

I can't believe this happened.

How could God let this happen to him?

How could God let this happen to her?

And yet the grief is only selfish.

It's on our side.

We're sad because we're going to miss them.

We selfishly want them with us.

And yet, when they're with him, they're content.

They're happy.

They're in his presence, they're complete, they're with their savior.

If you were there, you wouldn't want to come back here.

See, here we see in a mirror dimly, but then we shall see face to face.

Now we know in part, but when we're there, we're gonna know it all.

We're gonna see the reality before us of what this earth and this life and this promise were only shadows.

And so she comes back and she opens her eyes and she looks at Peter.

And Peter gives her his hand and she sat up, and he called the saints and the widows, and he presented her alive, and it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.

And so, as these widows, as all of these lives that Tabitha has touched, all these people who are mourning and crying and grieving and sad and in a panic trying to get to Peter, as they see her alive, their hearts rejoice.

Faith is increased, the word spreads, people come to faith in Christ, and now this beautiful disciple Tabitha, who with her life was so faithful, touched so many lives in such simple ways that were also so profound.

You know, you don't have to preach the gospel from a pulpit to be used in powerful and profound ways for Jesus.

Amen.

Think about the Mother Teresa.

She was in India, in Calcutta.

She was in with some of the lowest of the low in the caste system.

You know, in that country, they have a caste system.

And when you're in the untouchable caste, it's like you're stuck.

There's no way out.

No one's going to help you.

And she would go to those people into the dirtiest, smelliest, horriblest places and try to meet their needs and just tenderly touch a person who maybe hadn't been touched.

It's like when the leper said, Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean.

And Jesus said, I am willing.

And before he healed him, he touched him.

He touched a man who probably hadn't received human touch in who knows how many years.

It's sometimes a kind word, a gentle touch, a thoughtful gift.

You know who's really thoughtful and good at that?

Marie.

Marie's very thoughtful.

She'll give a little note, a little small gift, a little something, a little reminder that she's thinking of you.

Probably more powerful because she had been so faithful in her life before her resurrection.

But you know, she was resurrected to a life, and then she eventually died again.

The resurrection we look forward to is the eternal one.

And that's the one we get to join in when we're united with our Savior.

Amen.

So Peter stayed in Jabba for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

There's one more angle, there's one more little thing that God used this for.

Because the next chapter, Peter's gonna be staying at Simon the Tanner's house when God gives a vision to him and to a Gentile centurion named Cornelius.

And this is gonna be the first moment when the gospel leaves those who are Jewish and goes into the Gentile nations, and it opens up this next phase in what the Lord wants to do.

He said, You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

That next phase happens in the next chapter, and he uses Tabbitha to position Peter in that moment so that he can be right where God wants him to be, as God is moving all of his people, all of his pieces into place to complete his mission.

And that's just such a beautiful picture that we know that God is moving in power, even now in our lives, to move all of the pieces into place, to position the people where they need to be, to reach the people we love, to use our lives for his glory and for his power, that we don't have to figure it all out.

We don't have to be the ones that go, I gotta strategize and make the perfect plan so that my life is not wasted.

No, he will not allow our lives to be wasted.

He will use our lives for his glory, and he's already doing that.

Amen?

And so we trust him, though we don't see it with our eyes.

Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.

So just be faithful this week as you go out.

Be faithful in the little interactions.

Remember how much those little things mean in the hands of the Almighty Jesus.

Amen?

Amen.