Well if you haven’t already, go ahead and turn in your Bible to Acts 9:32–43. The title of the message today is “Power with a Purpose.” It’s an amazing thing when you stop and think for a moment how God has empowered us as his followers. We have the Holy Spirit inside of us. That’s amazing. We have the gifts of the Spirit. Awesome! We have the title, “Ambassadors for Christ.” That’s tremendous. We are made in the image of God and we have the power of God coursing through our veins. That’s remarkable. But that power is not purposeless.

Some of you are familiar with the famous adage from Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” That dates back to the earliest days of Spiderman in the 1960s. But the expression is not unique to Stan Lee or the Spiderman franchise. Way back in the early 1900s Winston Churchill said similarly of the British Empire, “Where there is great power there is great responsibility.” And that’s true.

One of the things that we see in the NT is that power is given to the apostles and the early church disciples. But that power is never used indiscriminately or arbitrarily. People get healed. Demons get exercised. Miracles happen. But these are always signs pointing to some greater reality. That was true even in the days of Jesus. Jesus healed people, exercised demons, and performed miracles. But it wasn’t for the sake of miracles or for the sake of healing. He did those things as signs pointing to a greater reality. For example, physical healing pointed to a true and better spiritual healing. That’s what Jesus used his power to demonstrate. 

And then, amazingly, he gave some of that power to his followers (see John 14:12–14). And of all Christ’s followers, who of them had more of that power than the Apostle Peter? In this passage today, Peter’s going to show us the great purpose of that power.   

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To see that, look with me at Acts 9:32. Luke writes, 

32 Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived at Lydda. 

Before this, Luke was writing about Saul and his great conversion story (9:1–30). But now, he pivots back to Peter. Peter has been the most prominent character in the book of Acts thus far. But of course, he’s not the main character. The Holy Spirit is the primary actor in this book. And Peter, Saul, Philip, and Stephen are supporting actors. And so, Luke moves off of Saul and returns to the Apostle Peter.

And when we find Peter in verse 32, keep in mind, this is at least three years after Jesus’s death and resurrection. Probably it’s closer to five years after Jesus’s resurrection. And during that time, the church has grown rapidly. The church has spread throughout the regions of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria (see Acts 9:31). And Peter, as a good apostle and shepherd of God’s church, is out and about supervising the growth of the churches.

When we last saw Peter, he and John travelled to Samaria to authenticate the gospel movement in that region. If you remember, Philip went up to Samaria, people got saved in droves, and then Peter and John went up there to make sure everything was kosher as far as the gospel was concerned. And while they were there the Holy Spirit came down on the Samaritans, and it was a kind of “Samaritan Pentecost,” if you will. 

Take a look at Acts 8:25 with me, and we can read the last statement about Peter. After the “Samaritan Pentecost,” Luke tells us that Peter and John “returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel to many villages of the Samaritans.” This is the beginning of Peter’s itinerant ministry as a missionary/apostle. Peter doesn’t stay inside the confines of Jerusalem; he takes his show on the road. And God leads Peter to the new churches in Judea and Samaria to authenticate them, strengthen them, and encourage them. 

And so, Peter was going out here and there among the churches, and “he came down to the saints who lived at Lydda.” Two questions: 1) Where is Lydda? and 2) Who are “the saints?” 

You can see on the map below that Lydda (OT “Lod”) is just a short distance from Jerusalem. It’s twenty-five miles northwest of Jerusalem and close to the Mediterranean Sea. In the next few passages Peter will move from Lydda to Joppa and then to Caesarea right along the Mediterranean coast. Lydda was on the outskirts of the region of Judea, but it was a mixed town of Jews and Gentiles. But Peter’s going to focus his ministry on the Jewish people in this town. 

[Lydda, Joppa, and Caesarea 

CLICK FOR MAP]

The second question is this: “Who are “the saints?” Luke says that Peter came down to “the saints who lived at Lydda.” Who are they? Well, I’ll tell you this—saints are not super-spiritual Christians that people make statues out of in order to venerate! Not according to the Bible anyway! Are we clear on that? 

“Saints” are believers, pure and simple. They are people who have been saved by the blood of Jesus. You’re a saint. I’m a saint. I know it’s hard to believe, but it’s true. If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ, then you are, biblically speaking, a saint. By the way, the proper response to that is this, “By the blood of Jesus, you’re right, I’m a saint.”  

So Peter came down to “the saints” (i.e., the believers or the church folk) in Lydda. Probably these are believers who were saved through the ministry of Philip. In Acts 8:40, Luke tells us, “Philip found himself at Azotus.” This is after he baptized the Ethiopian Eunuch in Gaza. And “as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.” Probably one of the towns where he preached the gospel was this town, Lydda. 

Moving on, look at verse 33. What does Peter do among the saints in Lydda?

33 There [at Lydda] [Peter] found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. 

Now, just imagine this guy Aeneas. This is a guy who has been paralyzed for eight years. He’s been bedridden for eight years! And keep in mind this is the first century world in a small town. There were no wheelchairs at this time. There were no motorized vehicles for paraplegics. There was no handicap-accessibility. There was no Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or anything like that. To be paralyzed in this society meant to be literally bedridden. You were immobilized in your bed, and you were at the mercy of your friends and family to go somewhere or travel anywhere.

You might remember the paralytic who was lowered to Jesus on his mat by his friends (Matt 9:1–8). The only way this paralytic was going anywhere was if his friends carried him.

But look what Peter does in verse 34.

34 And Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.”

Not “Jesus Christ can heal you.” Not “Jesus Christ will heal you.” This is a present tense verb. “Jesus Christ heals you.” 

Peter just goes up to this guy, Aeneas, and heals him. Aeneas was one of the saints in Lydda; he’s a believer. And Peter says succinctly, “Jesus Christ heals you.” Not, “I heal you by the power of the Apostles.” Not, “Rise and walk in the name of Peter.” In order to make it absolutely, unambiguously clear that the power to heal comes from God, Peter says “Jesus Christ heals you.” And then almost unceremoniously he adds, “Rise and make your bed.” Off you go. Chop-chop! 

Literally Peter says, “rise and [spread yourself]!” The word “bed” has been supplied by the ESV, because they see this as an idiom for making one’s bed. But I wonder about that. If Peter was saying, “rise and [spread yourself],” maybe that’s a reference to his limbs not his bed. “Stretch your limbs, man. You’re not paralyzed anymore!”  

And look what happens at the end of verse 34.

And immediately he rose. 

How happy do you think this guy was when he got healed? How do you think he responded? “Hallelujah! Jesus is Lord. He has the power to save. He has the power to heal. Jesus is awesome!” That’s what I’d be saying if I was him. 

And how do you think this community responded when they saw this? I’m sure the believers were encouraged and strengthened. But look what happens to the unbelievers in this community. This is the real payoff of this miracle. This is the endgame of this miracle in verse 35. 

35 And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon [Sharon is a plain just outside of Lydda… so this involves people from the neighboring community] saw him, and they turned to the Lord. 

 In other words, they got saved. They saw Aeneas. They knew he was a paralytic. They had seen him lying in his bed, incapacitated. And now he’s walking around healed. And what did they do in response. They “turned to the Lord.” 

Look, this wasn’t some hocus-pocus, abracadabra, “look at me, I’m healing people” nonsense. Peter wasn’t some carnival-barking televangelist who was manufacturing signs and wonders. This wasn’t a fake miracle generating fake news. This was legit. This was a supernatural work of God. This was an authentic healing in the name of Jesus Christ. This was—I would argue—an extension of Christ’s own healing ministry that paved the way for salvation. Jesus healed people, not as an end in itself, but in order to pave a way for people to get saved. 

 And similarly, Jesus empowered Peter as a supernatural healer to affirm the gospel message, authenticate the gospel messenger, and accelerate gospel witness (Acts 9:32–43).

Write this down as a first exposition point for our message today. We’re going to see two episodes in the life of Peter. But they accomplish the same thing. First of all, 

1) Peter’s healing of Aeneas guided hearts to Jesus (9:32–35)

 Aeneas gets healed. Praise the Lord! But I want you to see that that’s not the central point of this message. That’s not even the main purpose of Peter’s actions. Healing in the Bible is never an end in itself. The purpose of this physical healing, the point of all physical healing in the Bible, is to point to Jesus as the author of spiritual healing. And that’s why the climax of the healing story happens in verse 35. 

35 And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. 

 This is really important for us to bear in mind because we have some preachers, evangelists, and televangelists in our day who view healing as an end in itself. And also they view healing as something that is guaranteed by God. They’ll say, “God wants you healthy. God wants you wealthy. God wants you happy. And God wants you healed.” And all you have to do is name-it and claim-it, blab-it and grab-it, and it’s done. If you just have enough faith, you can make it happen. And they’ll use passages like this to substantiate that thinking. 

The problem with that whole line of reasoning is this—Aeneas eventually got sick and died. Lazarus, whom Jesus raised from the dead (John 11:38–44), eventually got sick and died. Jairus’s daughter (see Matt 9:18–26) eventually got sick and died. Peter himself was (probably) crucified upside down. And you might say, “Peter, you healed Aeneas. Heal yourself! Raise yourself from the dead if you have to.” Why didn’t he? Why couldn’t he?

Paul also did some incredible miracles. He healed people. He was an apostle. Yet the Bible says he had a thorn in the flesh he couldn’t remove (see 2 Cor 12:7–9). Paul had a good friend who was sick named Epaphroditus (Phil 2:19–30), whom he couldn’t heal. When Paul’s protégé Timothy was sick, he told him to take some wine for medicinal purposes (see 1 Tim 5:23). “Why didn’t you just heal Timothy, Paul? Just heal him!” Why didn’t he? Why couldn’t he?

 The reason is this. Healing is God’s prerogative. And God’s endgame is not our own physical healing or our personal comfort. That’s not God’s highest goal on planet earth. His highest goal is his own glory. And subordinate to that is the salvation of souls who embrace Christ for spiritual, not physical, healing. And he’ll use physical healing to attain those greater goals. But he’s not obligated to heal. In fact, there are times when a lack of healing is used for his God’s greater purposes. 

 Now should we pray for healing? Absolutely. And there’s even a provision for that in Scripture. James 5:14 says, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” I have some oil right here. There’s nothing super-special about this oil. It hasn’t been blessed by the Pope or anything silly like that. The oil is symbolic of cleanness and purity. And it’s symbolic of God the Holy Spirit whom we acknowledge has the power to heal. At any time at the end of our service when we make our elders available for prayer, we are happy to anoint you with oil and pray in faith that God will heal you. 

But we don’t present that to the Lord as an ultimatum. We don’t think that if we just have enough faith you’ll be healed. We believe that God can heal. We call on him to do that in light of his Word. And then we pray, “not our will, but yours, be done Lord.” 

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Now let’s go back to the narrative. Because we’re going to see another astonishing, supernatural event happen during Peter’s ministry. And the purpose behind this miracle is not unlike the previous one. Watch for the rinse/repeat sequence of events here.

Look at verse 36.

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

Again, let’s ask a couple questions: 1) Where’s Joppa? and  2)Who was Tabitha? Well, Joppa (or “Jaffa” as it is known today) was a city on the Mediterranean coast in between Lydda and Caesarea (see map below). Joppa was on the outskirts of Judea and was the main port city of Judea. Joppa was the ancient city that Jonah escaped to and boarded a ship headed for Tarsus (see Jon 1:3).

[MAP]

Joppa was about thirty-seven miles northwest of Jerusalem, and about twelve miles northwest of Lydda. And if you took the coastal road up from Joppa, you would eventually end up in Caesarea about thirty-two miles due north. So if Jerusalem were San Antonio, then Joppa would be Boerne. And Caesarea would be Kerrville. That’s not a perfect parallel, but it’s close. And of course, there was no I-10 at 80mph to get you there. 

And Joppa was a good mix of both Jews and Gentiles. So we’re encroaching now on Gentile territory. Keep that in mind because that’ll be important in the pages to follow in Acts. 

Now concerning this lady, Tabitha, Luke calls her a “disciple” in verse 36. Everyone see that? “Disciples”… “saints”… “believers”… “those who call on the name of the Lord”… these terms are used interchangeably in the NT for Christians. 

But this occurrence of “disciple” is unique. This is the only occurrence of the female form of the word “disciple” in the NT. It’s the word μαθήτρια. The masculine form of this is μαθητής, which is extremely common in the NT. And the verbal form of that is μαθητεύω (“to make disciples”). But just to show that female disciples are disciples too, Luke gives us this great word here in Acts 9—μαθήτρια. If you are sitting next to a female disciple of Jesus right now, turn to them and say, “You are a μαθήτρια.”

And this μαθήτρια in Acts 9 was named Tabitha. That named is derived from the Aramaic word for “gazelle.” Dorcas is the Greek word for “gazelle.” Solomon and his bride use this term “gazelle” affectionately for one another in Song of Solomon. So this was a Biblical name, and also a term of endearment.

 And Luke tells us in verse 36 that Tabitha…

was full of good works and acts of charity.

She was a good woman. She was a godly woman. She was a disciple in the truest sense of that word. She was a growing believer who lived out her faith with good works and acts of charity. Maybe she was led to Christ by Philip several months before this.

So that’s the good news about Tabitha. But here’s some bad news. Look at verse 37.

37 In those days [meaning in the days that Peter was travelling about Lydda and elsewhere] she became ill and died, 

By the way, just a nota bene here. Every day in our world, good Christians become ill and die. And they don’t become sick and die because they lack faith. And they don’t become sick and die because they have sinned in some grievous way. Good Christians become ill and die because this world is not our home. And even if we could live forever in this world, who would want that? ... a world of viruses spreading and bombs exploding and nations raging and terrorists terrorizing. God has promised to remake this world and remove evil from it. And he has promised to give us bodies that don’t get sick or injured or corrupt in any way. So if this was the end for Tabitha, then so be it. She’s in a better place, and there’s no reason to mourn like those who have no hope.

Okay, back to the narrative.

37 In those days [Tabitha] became ill and died, and when they had washed her, they laid her in an upper room. 

Now this is extremely sad. But it’s not that uncommon. People got sick and died all the time in that culture. Practically every day that would happen in the ancient world. So that’s not that surprising. 

And they washed her body. That was customary for a dead body in Jewish culture. That’s not surprising at all. What’s surprising is what they do next with her body… They lay her in an upper room! That’s not normal. 

In Jewish society, there was a race against time to get a body into the ground. You would typically bury a person on the same day, or at the most within three days. You don’t put a stinky, decomposing dead body in the upper room of a house; not for very long anyway. There was no formaldehyde in that culture to help preserve a dead body. 

If you remember Ananias and Saphirra, when they died, they rushed them to the cemetery post-haste. In cultures without an embalming process there was a sense of urgency to get the body into the ground ASAP. I’m sure you can imagine why. But with Tabitha, they laid her… not in the ground… not in a tomb… they laid her in an upper room. What are they doing? 

Now here’s what Luke is doing here. And I’m not so sure that the Christians in Joppa didn’t have this in mind. There are some very important OT and NT passages that speak of bodies placed in an upper room. In 1 Kings 17, Elijah took a dead widow’s son up to an upper room. In 2 Kings 4, another woman took her dead son up to Elisha’s room. Those are well-known resuscitation stories in the OT.     

Also we have similar stories in the NT when Jesus raises the widow’s son at Nain (Luke 7:11–17), and when Jesus raises Jairus’s daughter (Luke 8:49–56). It’s as if Luke is correlating those stories. It’s even as if the people in Joppa are trying to reconstruct what has happened in the past with bodies raised from the dead. 

In other words, there are some indications here that maybe, just maybe, God wants to extend Tabitha’s life on planet earth. Here’s some additional evidence to that fact. Look at verse 38.

38 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.” 

 “Yeah, you better hurry, Peter.” Joppa was about twelve miles from Lydda. So for these messengers to travel to Lydda, find Peter, and bring Peter back to Joppa, it would have taken at least a day. It probably took closer to two days. And time is of the essence, because this body is starting to putrefy in the upper room. 

 But look at verse 39. 

39 So Peter [without hesitation, I might add] rose and went with them. And when he arrived, they took him to the upper room. All the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. 

This is a really tender moment here. I can only imagine the grief that these widows were feeling now that Tabitha had passed away. Widows had it rough in the first-century world. We’ve talked about that already in Acts. And widows depended on the generosity of others within the community for their survival. And so, they must have been heartbroken (and fearful too) that their benefactor, Dorcas, was taken from them. This was a woman of generosity and acts of charity. And I can totally envision this scene as Peter comes into the room and the women are showing him the clothes that Dorcas made for them. 

Let me just take a moment here to ask you a hard question. Hear me on this. When your day comes and you go home to glory, are people going to mourn your passing and celebrate the good works that you have done for those in need? Will the people who eulogize at your funeral celebrate your faith that has produced good works? Or will they have to look hard to find positive content for your funeral? 

We just had a memorial service a few days ago for a woman who was intimately involved in the lives of some of you here at church. And it wasn’t hard at all for her friends, her family, her kids, and her grandkids to produce wonderful statements about how faithful and good a Christian woman she was. 

Now I don’t want you to go out there and start doing good works so that people will eulogize you positively when you die. There’s better motivation than that. I hope that you will strive to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven” (Matt 5:16). My hope is that you will “do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Gal 6:10). And by the way, the Bible says that “Faith apart from works is dead” (Jas 2:26). Good works don’t save you, but saved people inevitably produce good works. Like Tabitha here in Acts 9. These ladies are devastated after Tabitha is taken from them. Poor Peter. He’s got to console these women. 

Look what he does. Look at verse 40.

40 But Peter put them all outside, 

I can just see Peter saying, “Ladies, I can’t deal with you right now. Please go outside.” Jesus did something similar when he healed Jairus’s daughter. He sent the mourners outside (Mark 5:40; Luke 8:51). And Peter was there for that healing. He was one of only three people (James and John were the other two) who saw Jesus raise that girl back to life. 

and [Peter] knelt down and prayed; 

Notice again, Peter doesn’t heal by his own power. He doesn’t do miracles in the name of Peter. He prays! And then…

turning to the body he said, “Tabitha, arise.” 

 When Jesus raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead, he said, “Talitha cumi,” which means, in Aramaic, “Little girl, I say to you, arise” (Mark 5:41). When Peter raised Tabitha from the dead here he said, “Tabitha cumi.” It’s almost the exact verbiage that Jesus used. That can’t be coincidental. Peter knelt to pray and used almost the same exact wording that Jesus used, as if to say if this thing happens, it’s only because Jesus Christ is going to make it happen. “Talitha cumi.” “Tabitha cumi.”

And [this faithful, godly woman] opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up. 

Tabitha could have said, “What are you doing here? In fact, what am I doing here? I was in the presence of the Lord. I was home. I was in glory. And now I’m back here.” 

Peter’s like, “Well, Tabitha, God’s got more work for you to do before he takes you home for good.”

Look at verse 41.

41 And he gave her his hand and raised her up. Then calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive. 

Now let me be clear about something. Tabitha’s new lease on life was not, strictly speaking, a resurrection. I want to reserve the use of that word “resurrection” for Jesus’s resurrection and for our future resurrection when we will receive new incorruptible bodies. What happened with Tabitha here was not a resurrection in that sense, it was a resuscitation. 

Some people use the word revivification. Tabitha was resuscitated or revivified by Peter. But she would go on to later get sick and die. Are we clear on that? God had more work for her to do on planet earth. God wanted to extend her life another, I don’t know, five years or ten years or however she lived. God did that for his purposes and for his glory. 

But here’s the more important reason why God extended her life. There’s purpose in this use of power. God wanted to use this miracle to accelerate the gospel message. Because look at verse 42. This is absolutely crucial to understanding what God was doing here. And it’s just like what happened earlier with Aeneas. 

42 And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord. 

Aeneas was healed and people turned to the Lord (9:35). Tabitha was brought back to life and many believed in the Lord (9:42). 

Write this down as a second exposition point for our message today. Peter’s healing of Aeneas guided hearts to Jesus (9:32–35). And…

2) Peter’s raising of Tabitha guided hearts to Jesus (9:36–43)

Notice that in both episodes, people don’t turn to Peter. They turn to Jesus! God used both of these miracles to prove that Jesus Christ has power over spiritual death. Jesus Christ has power over sickness. He’s got power over paralysis. He even has power over physical death! But more importantly, Jesus has power over spiritual sickness, he’s got power over spiritual paralysis, and he’s got power over spiritual death. 

And here’s how Luke closes this section. Look at verse 43.

43 And [Peter] stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner.

 I’ll say more about that last statement in just a second.

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Okay, let’s move to application. What do we take away from this passage in Acts 9? How does God want us to be doers of God’s Word and not hearers only? Let me give you three things. And I’m going to frame these as three ways that we should imitate Peter as followers of Jesus Christ. 

Paul would say “imitate me, as I imitate Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). And so, there’s a biblical precedent for following the godly example of others. And there are three things that Peter does in this passage that I believe we should imitate. Here’s the first. 

1) Be available to minister to hurting people 

 Verse 32 says that Peter “went here and there among them all.” He was involved in the life of the church. He went about encouraging, building up, and strengthening the church. He didn’t just sit around in Jerusalem leading the church from an ivory tower. Peter was in the trenches. Peter went out among the churches and he blessed them with his spiritual gifts. Peter was an edifier of the church. 

 John MacArthur says this about Peter, “Peter was not set in some hierarchical office but was moving, which made it easy for God to direct him. Those actively involved in ministry are usually the ones to whom God grants the most ministry opportunities. God has always seemed to entrust his richest ministry to His busiest saints.” Have you ever heard the expression, “if you want to get a task done, give it to a busy person”? It’s counterintuitive I know, but it’s true. And Peter, as he labors for Christ in and among God’s people, gets more and more opportunities to use his gifts and bless the church. 

 And let me say a few things about Tabitha here too. Let me elevate her as an example for you to follow as well as Peter. Let’s not forget her acts of mercy in Acts 9. She was a godly, selfless person like Peter. She ministered to hurting people too. 

 One of the things you’ll see if you read through the books of Luke and Acts in the NT is a lot of women whom Luke describes as faithful servants of the Lord. Luke highlights their role in the church: 1) Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38-42), 2) The women who financially supported Jesus (Luke 8:1–3), 3) Mary Magdelene and the other women who saw Jesus’s resurrected body first (Luke 24:1–12), Mary the Mother of Jesus and the other women (Acts 1:14), 4) Priscilla (Acts 18:1–28), 5) Lydia (Acts 16:12–40), 6) Philip’s daughters (Acts 21:9), and there’s also 7) Tabitha (Acts 9:36-43). 

 Now none of these women served as apostles or elders in the church. God has reserved those roles for men. But that doesn’t mean that the ministries of women are marginalized in any way. Women had ample opportunities to serve the Lord. And I believe that God has uniquely gifted women to minister and bless the church in ways that men cannot. 

 So let me just encourage you, ladies of VBVF, bless the church with your gifts. Serve the body of Christ with the unique feminine qualities that God has given you so that you, like Tabitha, can be commended as a woman of good works and acts of charity.

Here’s a second application from this text and a way for us to imitate Peter. 

2) Be selfless and smell like the sheep

 If I could, let me just brag on our elders and deacons for a moment. One of the things that I love about our elders and our deacons here at VBVF is that they are in the trenches every week with our people. We don’t do “figurehead leadership” here at church. Our elders and deacons are active in the life of the church. They lead small groups. They do hospital visits. They work in hospitality and ushering. They meet with people. They host people in their homes. 

 One of the things that I’ve said with pride about our elders is this—“They smell like the sheep.” That might not sound like a compliment, but it is. They’re shepherds, yes, but they are also sheep. They smell like the sheep. They spend time with the sheep. They don’t stand at a distance and lord their authority over people. And that sets a good example for everyone else. 

 And I see that with Peter in this passage. Just consider this for a moment. Two guys came to Lydda to meet with Peter. They tell him they need him to come right away. They need him to travel twelve miles by foot to Joppa. And, oh by the way, the person they want him to meet is already dead. 

 Peter could very easily say in response to that, “Do you know who I am? Do you know how busy I am? I don’t have time for this! Do you know how hard it is to be an apostle? People are constantly asking for me to come minister to them?” 

 But that wasn’t Peter’s heart, at all. He had seen his Lord be seriously inconvenienced for the benefit of a young believer or some impressionable person. And just like Jesus made himself available for the individual needs of his disciples, Peter made himself available as well.

 You know Peter had preached to crowds of thousands. He had a phenomenally successful evangelistic ministry in Jerusalem. Yet he still took advantage of opportunities to minister to people on a personal level. 

 Even as I read Peter’s epistles, 1 and 2 Peter, which he wrote later in life, I see in those two books of the Bible a pastor’s heart. That was Peter. He wasn’t self-inflated or intoxicated with his own fame or notoriety. He was a humble faithful servant-leader in the church. 

 Peter also displayed selflessness in verse 43. I skipped this, but let me come back to it. Luke tells us that Peter stayed in Joppa with Simon, the tanner. Do you see that in verse 43? That seemingly innocuous verse is actually quite telling because a tanner was despised in some Jewish circles. A tanner, if you don’t know, worked with dead animal skins. That made his profession not only undesirable, because he was constantly surrounded by the stench of dead animals, but also unclean in Jewish circles. There was this stigma attached to tanners that would have kept them from regular worship in the local synagogues.

 Well, Peter doesn’t care about that. Christ has come to establish a new standard of cleanness vs. uncleanness and it’s got nothing to do with a person’s profession. 

 Now Peter still has some prejudices that are going to be challenged in the next passage as he ministers to a fully-blooded Gentile named Cornelius. Peter’s a work in progress too. And God’s going to work on him and steer him in the right direction. We’ll see more on that next week. 

 And finally, that leads right into my third point. 

3) Be Christ-exalting in all that you do 

Peter’s actions in this passage were Christ-exalting. He healed Aeneas in the name of Christ. He knelt down before the Lord before raising Tabitha from the dead. 

Even Peter’s actions imitated his Lord. Jesus sent the weepy mourners out of the room before he healed Jairus’s daughter. Peter did the same thing before he healed Tabitha. Jesus said “Talitha cumi!” Peter said “Tabitha cumi!” 

And notice when these miracles happen, nobody runs to Peter and says, “Man, you’re awesome.” Instead—and I have to think that Peter was directing this—everyone ran to Jesus and believed in him as their Lord. Peter’s ministry was Christ-exalting.

I don’t know what your gifts are. I don’t know in what ways God has uniquely gifted you to bless the church and build his kingdom. But whatever your gift is let me challenge you to use it to serve the church in a Christ-exalting way. As you serve him, make sure you deflect attention from self! Make sure you repel self-exaltation. And instead direct people’s attention to Christ. Because Jesus is awesome, and we are not. And if God has given us power to serve him, and he has, then that power was given for the purpose of Christ-exaltation.