The Time Peter Healed Like Jesus (Acts 9:31-43)

Intro

I want to start by going back to something I said last week. I said that if Jesus is working through us, if the Kingdom of God is advancing in a place, then Satan will retaliate. He will arouse opposition, intense and almost irrational hostility, to try to stop that from happening. 

One of our newcomers is excited about The Bridge, involved in the community, and a gifted artist. She uses chalk art to tell people what’s going on in the community, and on her own volition, she’s been using The Bridge logo and inviting people to join us on Sundays on various sidewalks and pathways. Personally, I think that’s awesome! The word is getting out! But someone in the neighbourhood, who I haven’t met or heard of before, wrote an email to us and a whole bunch of local authorities and politicians. This person recounted the horror that had taken place the previous day. She was out for a walk and came across some chalk art advertising community libraries, north shore life, and thought, hey, that’s cute. And then- gasp- she saw an invitation to come to The Bridge on Sunday mornings. In her words, this was completely inappropriate and deeply offensive, especially since it was in the vicinity of a school! This, she asserted, was clearly wrong and that if we as a church wanted to have good relations in the community, we should not do such things! She then followed up on that first email because she had cracked the case open further- it wasn’t a child who had done this, which would have been bad enough, it was an adult! Double gasp!

As you can tell, it was hard for me to take the email that seriously. I realize this is a very, very far cry from the persecution many believers face. It’s a grumpy email about chalk. But it is a minor example of what I wanted to get across last week. When we see this kind of thing happening, we shouldn’t get angry. We shouldn’t get discouraged. We should probably also avoid sarcasm, note to self. Instead, we should expect it and maybe even rejoice in it: after all, what if it is a sign that we are a threat to Satan’s kingdom? What if it’s backlash for eyes being opened to the glory of Christ? So we pray with compassion for those who react so strongly to a simple invitation to join us. We pray that God will do in those people something like he did in the life of Saul of Tarsus. If we do that, God can take these things and use them to actually grow the church. That connects with where we’re at in Acts 9 today.

We’ve been in that chapter for a couple of weeks now, which gives us the story of Saul- a persecutor of the church turned into a promoter of the Gospel through the grace of Christ. We saw last week how the first few years of his life with Christ were years of joy but also challenge. Saul faced disbelief from fellow believers and outright, hostile opposition from those who rejected Jesus. He also received an assurance that this was probably always going to happen to him! There were death threats on his life, eventually causing him to flee back to his hometown, Tarsus. And then we read this in Acts 9:31: “then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers.”

A few things here. First, you’ve got this rhythm in the book of Acts that characterized the church at least for the first few hundred years: periods of persecution and testing interspersed with seasons of peace. By God’s grace, both of those are needed to some extent. If it’s only ever testing and conflict, the church wears out. If it’s only ever peace, the church grows complacent and apathetic. This need for a rhythm like that is probably true in the lives of individuals too.

Second, Luke describes this group of believers scattered throughout the land as “the church”. The church, singular. Spread across different regions, drawing from people of all kinds of cultural backgrounds. We can never forget that we are members of the church- not just of a local church like The Bridge, but this whole living body of followers of Jesus around the world. We are together His people, His temple, His bride. If you are a follower of Jesus, you are actually more united to believers in Ukraine or China or Nigeria than you are to many of the people in your own neighborhood.

And third, you once again have a mention of numerical growth. This characterized the early church. And it wasn’t just any kind of numerical growth. A lot of churches today, at least in Western culture, grow one of two ways. They grow either through “transfer” growth, where people move from one church to another, or they grow by creating superficial attachments with pseudo-believers. However, in the early church, there was no “transfer growth”- everyone was a new believer! And any superficial attachments simply weren’t going to last when persecution was on the line. You don’t die for something you’re lukewarm about! Which comes out in the description of why that growth took place: it came because the believers were living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit. Where were their sights set? They were set on honoring the Lord. Where did they go for strength? The Holy Spirit. This wasn’t a worldly church, adding a little dab of Christianity into an otherwise secular life. Their lives revolved around their love for God and desire to have Him fill every part of their lives to overflowing. That’s the way I want to see church growth happen! We’ll have people coming from other churches, we’ll have those superficial attachments, but my desire and prayer is that numerical growth would especially come from new believers who encounter a church living and breathing the Gospel.

And that church-growth characteristic- a life oriented around honoring the Lord Jesus and being empowered and filled by the Holy Spirit- comes out clearly in the rest of the text we’re in this morning.

³² As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the Lord’s people who lived in Lydda. ³³ There he found a man named Aeneas, who was paralyzed and had been bedridden for eight years. ³⁴ “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up. ³⁵ All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. ³⁶ In Joppa there was a disciple named Tabitha (in Greek her name is Dorcas); she was always doing good and helping the poor. ³⁷ About that time she became sick and died, and her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room. ³⁸ Lydda was near Joppa; so when the disciples heard that Peter was in Lydda, they sent two men to him and urged him, “Please come at once!” ³⁹ Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. ⁴⁰ Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up. ⁴¹ He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called for the believers, especially the widows, and presented her to them alive. ⁴² This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord. ⁴³ Peter stayed in Joppa for some time with a tanner named Simon.

Acts 9:32-43

1. Healed like Jesus

There are a few things I want to take note of in these two healing stories, and they all have to do with Jesus. The first is the similarity of these healing stories with ones that take place in the Gospels at the hands of Jesus.

Let’s take the first one, about Aeneas the paralytic. He’s been paralyzed for eight years before Peter announces his healing and instructs him to take up his mat. We talked about the relief Saul must have experienced when he was healed of his blindness after 3 days. This is eight years of not being able to move, eight years living on a mat! There’s a scene in The Chosen TV show about a paralytic, and the opening scenes display him growing up, watching longingly as other kids run around and play games. That experience, of watching everyone else able to do what you wish you could do but can’t, is incredibly difficult. Maybe you’ve been there in other ways, maybe you’re there now. So for that to be reversed, for strength to be restored, for new power to come coursing through his veins, to be up and jumping and running, would be flat out incredible!

I just mentioned a scene from The Chosen about another paralytic. We get that story in Luke 5. There are only a few stories about individual paralytics being healed, and the one in Luke 5 is by far the most well known. And instead of recounting the story myself, I’m going to show you the scene from The Chosen where this paralyzed man is healed. 

Here’s the big line, in Luke 5:24: “so he said to the paralyzed man, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.’ Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God.” Get up and take your mat.

The parallels aren’t exact, but you see the connection, right? Peter encounters a paralyzed man. His words to him are to get up and roll up your mat. And he does. It’s almost like Peter has seen this kind of thing happen before and is following in the footsteps of his master.

The second story is about a woman named Tabitha, or in Greek, Dorcas. Tabitha was a beloved woman, a follower of Jesus who lived a life of humility and service to the poor. She had fallen sick and died, and many women whose lives had been touched and who had been encouraged by Tabitha’s life mourned the loss deeply. They asked Peter to visit, since Joppa (where Tabitha had lived) was only 16 km from Lydda (where Peter had ministered to Aeneas). Why do they ask Peter to visit? Do they anticipate that Tabitha could be raised from the dead? We’re not told exactly. When Peter arrives, and after getting a bit of a show and tell with the garments Tabitha had made, he sends the mourners all out of the room. He kneels to pray, and then he commands, “Tabitha, get up!” In Aramaic, the language that was likely Peter’s first language and the language he may have used here, he would have said, “Tabitha, koum!” At these words, life rushed back into Tabitha’s body. She opened her eyes, sat up, and was re-introduced to her companions. Not having been dead before, I have no idea what that was like for Tabitha! But anyone who has lost a loved one can imagine what it would have been like for Tabitha’s friends. To mourn someone’s death, only to see her alive again…that’s what we all dream about. It was a reality in Acts 9.

In Mark 5, Jesus lands in a town on the Sea of Galilee. There’s a synagogue leader there named Jairus who had a deathly ill daughter. He fell at Jesus’ feet, begging him to come with him so that his daughter would be healed. However, along the way, a messenger arrives from Jairus’ house. It’s too late. His daughter is already dead. Jesus doesn’t need to come. But Jesus pushes on. He arrives to a scene of mourners crying and wailing for the loss of this beloved girl. Jesus “puts them out”- gets them all to leave, except for the disciples. Then he takes the girl’s hand and says to her “talitha koum!” That’s an Aramaic phrase- remember, Aramaic is the native tongue for Jesus and the disciples- meaning little girl, get up! Immediately this girl, who moments ago had no life in her, was raised again to life.

Again, a beloved woman dies, surrounded by mourners. A man arrives and puts them all out of the room. One man announces “talitha koum!” The other man announces “tabitha koum!” And the woman is raised from the dead. I don’t think the parallels are a coincidence.

See, for the early disciples, following Jesus and becoming like him was not just a matter of saying nice words and having a change of heart. It meant living with the same kind of power as Jesus, doing Jesus things and ministering in Jesus ways. In John 12:12, Jesus said, “very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” The “greater things” are quite possibly because now it’s not just one person doing these things, but many- his disciples. That’s what we see happening in the book of Acts: followers of Jesus, like Peter, doing the same works that Jesus did. And I’ll ask a question here that I’ll ask later on again: do we believe that it’s true today? Do we want that? Are we asking for that?

2. Healed By Jesus

A second thing we can take note of is that these healings are not only similar to ones that Jesus did, following in his footsteps. Even more than that, they are actually done by Jesus. 

In the first story, that’s very clear. Peter says, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you.” Who heals Aeneas? Not Peter. Peter doesn’t have any power on his own. Peter can’t just announce something and expect something to happen on his own power. There’s a scene from the TV show The Office where the boss of the company, Michael Scott, is having money issues. A co-worker in the office tells him that he might need to declare bankruptcy. So that’s what he does. Literally, he just shouts out, “I…declare…bankruptcy!” Great. Doesn’t do a thing unless you actually involve the banks and other creditors! Same deal here. Peter needs to involve someone else. Iit is Jesus Christ who heals Aeneas. 

In the second story, involving Tabitha, it’s the same thing, only implicitly. Once Peter has sent everyone out of the room, what does he do? He kneels and prays. Because once again, it is not Peter who is going to bring Tabitha back from the dead. It is Jesus. Jesus is the one who is, according to the Gospel of John, the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). He’s the resurrection. He’s the life. John 1:4 says that in him was life, and Luke says in Acts 3:15 that Jesus is the author of life. Peter isn’t the author or the source of life, Peter isn’t the resurrection. Jesus is.

See, Peter is the human being you see doing these great things, helping a paralytic up on his feet, speaking to a dead girl and seeing her raised to life. However, behind the scenes it is in fact the risen Jesus at work. At the very beginning of the book of Acts (1:1), Luke says that he wrote formerly (meaning the Gospel of Luke, his account of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus) about what Jesus began to do and to teach. Meaning that the book of Acts is about what Jesus continued to do and to teach after his resurrection and ascension. The book of Acts is about what Jesus continues to do. The main character in the book of Acts is not Peter. It’s not Paul. It’s not Stephen or Philip or John or Barnabas. It’s Jesus Christ.

And that’s to be true of your life too. What if the main character in your life was not yourself? I know that sounds strange. It probably is. But what if the main character of your life was Jesus? What if the power you were to live by did not come from yourself, but from Him? What if your affections and desires and visions for life were not informed by your own self-centered motives, but informed by Jesus? What if your greatest goal in life was not to glorify yourself and advance your name in the world, but to advance the name of Jesus?

I believe that’s what set these disciples in the book of Acts apart. It was all about Christ. Here’s how Paul puts it in Galatians 2, in some of I think the most incredible words in the Scriptures: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (2:20) The main character in the life of a Jesus-follower is not themselves. It is Jesus. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. I have been crucified. The only way we can do Jesus things is if Jesus is working through us and empowering us.

It is true of the world even today. That the main character is Jesus. Yes, there are lots of other things going on. There are plenty of powers, both human and supernatural, trying to accomplish their purposes. There are plenty of things that are broken and breaking. There are tyrants and dictators and warmongers and all the rest. And yet behind it all is the risen Jesus, reigning and using everything that happens to make his love and his grace known in the wreckage. Behind it all is the risen Jesus, bringing everything to fulfillment, returning at any moment now to judge evil once and for all and establish the Kingdom in its fullness forever. If you ask me, that’s the main point of the book of Revelation. Behind the scenes in world history is Jesus accomplishing his purposes in yet to be fully understood ways. So in the world today, Jesus continues to speak and work, he continues to heal, he continues to raise the dead. He does that metaphorically. He does that literally.

That may seem unbelievable to some of us who have grown up in places like North America where we know that dead people stay dead. But there are reports all around the world of those who have been healed and even brought back from the dead by the power of Jesus. One story that got attention in the US occurred in 2006. A Florida mechanic died of a heart attack after being checked into a hospital. For forty minutes, emergency room staff had tried to revive him, unsuccessfully shocking him seven times after flatlining. Dr. Chauncey Crandall is a world-class, renowned cardiologist and a follower of Jesus. He was called in to certify the obvious, that this mechanic was dead. Even his face, toes and fingers had already turned black. After writing the report, Dr. Crandall left the room only to feel an extraordinary compulsion from the Holy Spirit to return. The nurse was already getting the body ready for the morgue, and yet Crandall found himself praying over the body, “Father, God, I cry out for the soul of this man. If he does not know you as his Lord and Savior, please raise him from the dead right now in Jesus’ name”. The nurse stared in astonishment. I’m guessing this isn’t routine hospital procedure. Crandall then instructed the ER doctor, despite his protests, to shock the man with the paddle one more time. Suddenly, the monitor displayed a normal heartbeat! The dead man began breathing again and within minutes was speaking and moving around, with no signs of brain damage despite having been clinically dead for about an hour. (Recounted in Craig Keener’s great work, Miracles)

I know, it seems unbelievable. And even if you can believe it, you might ask why Jesus prompted Dr. Crandall to pray for this particular man and not many others that the doctor had seen. You might ask why He used Peter to raise Tabitha and not any number of other disciples who had died, or why God hasn’t done this for those you yourself have lost. I don’t have an answer for that. Besides that, everyone who is raised to life in this body will end up dying again. They’re all temporary resurrections. Tabitha did, at some point later, succumb to physical death once more. The point, though, is that what Jesus did when he walked the earth, he continues to do now through his servants. He hasn’t changed. He’s not a concept. He is present and active.

4. Healed For Jesus

Here’s the third thing we can notice about both these stories: the result is the same. There’s a ripple effect in both. Actually, maybe less of a ripple and more of a tidal wave that leads people to Jesus. In Acts 9, it’s not just that healings happen like Jesus and by Jesus, but also that they happen for Jesus.

Verse 35, after Aeneas is healed of his paralysis, we read: “all those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.” Does that mean every single person without exception? Maybe, maybe not. But clearly what we are meant to understand is that there is a very large number of people in the area who are persuaded of the Gospel because of the power they have seen in Aeneas’ life.

Verse 42, after Tabitha is raised from the dead, this is what we read: “this became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.” If you see a woman brought back to life, that’s going to shake your worldview up a bit. It’s going to open you up to truth you weren’t willing to consider before.

And this isn’t the only time in the book of Acts we read something like that. When the Holy Spirit falls on the disciples in Acts 2 and they begin to speak in all kinds of languages that they had no business knowing, it opened the door for Peter to share about how Jesus is the fulfillment of the Scriptures. As a result, we read that “those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day.” (2:41) In Acts 3, Peter and John are used by Jesus to heal a man who had been lame from birth. People in Jerusalem are astonished, giving Peter and John an opportunity to tell people about the resurrection of Jesus. We read, “many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.” (4:4) In Acts 5, we read about how the apostles performed other signs and wonders and that “more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number” (5:14). In Acts 8, people who have been possessed by evil spirits are set free through the ministry of Philip in Samaria. Others who were sick and even paralyzed were healed. As a result we read that many believed the good news of the Kingdom and were baptized (Acts 8:12). We’ve read it again and again and will see it many more times: these kinds of miracles create an opening for the Gospel and become one of the primary stimuli for evangelism.

Let’s reflect on that a bit more. As I’ve said before, the point of miracles like this isn’t the miracle itself. The point is what, or who, the miracle points to. Anyone who wants to be used by God in this way needs to understand this clearly. If God works through you, it is not so that you will be glorified, but that He will. This also means that any miracle or sign or healing must be accompanied by an explanation of the Gospel if it is to fulfill the purpose God has for it. We’re not told that Peter preached or taught about Jesus here in Acts 9, but obviously he did- how else would anyone know to turn to the Lord in Lydda? How else would anyone know what to believe about the Lord in Joppa? Healings are meant to provoke belief in the Lord.

After all, as I said before, no healing is permanent in this life, in these bodies. Which is why I’ve never understood those who teach that healing is a guarantee as long as you have enough faith. Every one of those faith healers, to my knowledge, will die. I haven’t heard of any of them being triumphantly swept away in a fiery chariot like Elijah, never to taste death. Either that means every single one of them is a failure and lacked faith, or that they misunderstood all along. I’m going to go with the second option. Jesus promises healing for all who trust in him- in eternity. He doesn’t promise it for everyone here and now. When it does happen on occasion, he means it to point people to himself, so that they will trust in him and so that they will one day receive that full and eternal healing.

Conclusion

I think we can fall into two different errors when it comes to the idea of healing. One is that we can think that everyone will be equally gifted to do signs and miracles, and that it will happen all the time. If you have enough faith, you will be healed of anything. Some people think that way.

The other error is to believe that this kind of divine intervention was just for the first century. It was just for the early church. God doesn’t work in that way anymore. Sometimes people believe that because they’ve seen abuses and excesses. Sometimes they believe that  because they want to guard against disappointment.

I believe the right approach is somewhere in between. We can understand that God may use some people more than others in realms of healing and other miracles, because He has given us all different gifts- gifts of service, gifts of preaching, gifts of speaking in tongues, and so on. We can be honest about the fact that no matter how much faith we have, not every prayer for healing will be answered the way we’d like. And yet we can still desire to see God work in this way. We can expect it and pray for it. We can step out in faith, take a risk, and pray for healing for someone else. We can do this because we desire to see the Kingdom of God break into people’s lives and for the name of Jesus to be made known. After all, we know that in a place like Deep Cove, where we’ve got a lot of people hardened toward the Gospel, people deeply triggered by a chalk art invitation to church, that the only way this will change is if God does what none of us can do on our own power.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:1 to eagerly desire the gifts of the Spirit- especially prophecy, since it builds others up and reveals the power of God. Eagerly, zealously, desire the gifts of the Spirit. Is that true of you today? Are you seeking this from God? Is your longing to see people trust in Jesus and receive his life? Pray with me for this.