Father, as we enter into this preparation time before Lent, help us to remember that
anything we receive from you is because of your grace and because of your love and your
goodness and your kindness towards us.
Lord, that parable reminds us that it does not matter how long we've been a Christian
or how short we've been a Christian. We are a part of your family, not because we have labored and toiled,
but because you have given us eternal life. Lord, let us humbly come before you and remember who we are
in light of who you are. So Lord, we ask your blessing on this text. Help us to hear with our
spiritual ears by the empowering of your Holy Spirit. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.
If you're following along, we will be on page 56 in the Acts Scripture Journals. Just a heads up,
but before we get into it, we'll begin by talking about confrontation. Now, don't put up your hand,
but answer in your head. How many of you love confrontation? My guess is probably zero. Maybe
there's a bit of a crazy person among us that loves confrontation, but my guess is it's no.
Confrontation is something that by and large, again, I don't want to pigeonhole all people that
are Canadians, but by and large, Canadians are not known as confrontational people. In many ways,
I mean, we have opinions, but we like to be passive aggressive about it, subtle about it. We want people
to get the hint. We don't want to confront people. And yet, confrontation can be a very good thing.
Confrontation can be a source of growth for many of us. Nobody has the corner on right living. We make
mistakes. Oftentimes, there's an ignorance about some of the mistakes and the erroneous ways we live, and
being confronted on something can open our eyes and begin the process of right living, of correcting
what is wrong, ideally so that we can then live in the truth. Now, there's obviously right ways to
confront people and wrong ways to confront people. That's not so much what I'm going to refer to here,
but just to say that we oftentimes have, we have confused civility with a politeness.
We're not willing, in a sense, to confront people, to be a thorn in the side, so to speak, because we are
more concerned about politeness, and we've confused politeness with civility. So now, this isn't my idea.
I picked this up from Alexandra Hudson. She wrote a book on civility, interestingly. I didn't end up
reading it, but read a few articles around it, and she talks about how civility is the recognition of
the full personhood of an individual, and I would extend that to say that a part of that full personhood
is understanding people as image bearers of God, and as such, to confront somebody on something that is
wrong, or erroneous, or wrong-headed in some kind of way, is to respect their personhood,
to respect that they are made in the image of God, and that they are made to walk in the truth,
engaging in a mode of conduct that is befitting of a member of civil society. It's a part of the civis,
a part of being a part of society. So civil disobedience, at its best, ideally, is to,
not to, not to, to start some kind of riot, but to open the eyes of a segment of society to a wrong
way of thinking. So the civil rights movement in America is a great example of that.
In its best form, it's to not crush or shame the, the, the, the population that is for segregation
in the south, but it's to open their eyes to the truth so that they would correct their ways
and walk in the truth. That's the, the idea of civil disobedience, but it's confrontation.
Jesus heals not simply to undo evil, but to give hope that the brokenness will not stay broken
forever. In many ways, when Jesus heals, when he casts out demons, when he commands nature, when he does
any miracle, what we see is a confrontation between the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom
of evil, or of Satan, or of sin, or of death, that has ruled over mankind for far too long, for centuries
upon centuries, and has, in a, in a very real way, looked to spoil and destroy God's good creation.
And this ministry, in a sense of confrontation, the kingdom of heaven versus the kingdom of the earth,
we've seen that it doesn't end with Christ ascending into heaven in Acts 1, but it becomes the very
ministry of his church, and we've seen this from Acts 1 all the way to Acts chapter 9, that the church
continues on, and in a sense, even, I don't want to say adds to Christ's ministry, but it certainly expands it.
So that the ministry of Christ doesn't remain in the Galilee and then in Jerusalem, but goes to Judea,
Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.
The ministry of reconciliation is what it's called, but it can also be the ministry of confrontation.
So the church, by the power of the Holy Spirit, continues to confront the forces of evil and sin and death
by proclaiming the gospel, the wonderful good news that through faith in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus,
people from all nations and backgrounds will become citizens of heaven, the kingdom of God forever.
So in our text, we're going to look primarily actually at verse 31 of the previous week's reading,
and then that will be our first point, so to speak, and our second point will be looking at the rest of the text to verse 43.
Really, we're going to look at how the gospel exposes and confronts our brokenness and fears.
First, by confronting our obsession with distraction and pleasure.
And second, confronting disease and death.
And we'll see actually that the confrontation of distraction and pleasure is actually the bigger confrontation in a way
than the confrontation with disease and death.
So look with me, verse 31.
This is the previous week.
Susan did not read this.
It was read last week, but I'll read it again right now.
So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up,
and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
This is the third summary statement in Acts.
We've seen it, if you remember, in Acts chapter 2, and I believe it's in Acts chapter 3.
It kind of sums up the state of affairs in the church thus far.
If you remember last week, Saul of Tarsus, the zealous Pharisee who is persecuting the church,
is miraculously confronted by Jesus on the road to Damascus, and he comes to faith.
He is converted.
And then he becomes an evangelist.
He is on his way to persecute, and by the end of the chapter, he's the one being persecuted.
And it would make sense then that this summary statement speaks of peace in the church,
because their chief persecutor seems to be now on their side.
But there's more to it than that, because it also doesn't just sum up what just happened,
but looks ahead of what is to come.
The text again.
So the church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was being built up,
and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.
Wouldn't it be wonderful that in a hundred years they could say, whoever they are, they,
could say, instead of Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, they could say,
so the church throughout all of Ottawa, and especially Church of the Messiah West,
they had peace.
They were being built up, and they walked in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
It would be a wonderful thing.
I mean, whoever the youngest child is, is, you know,
dies with their huge family around them at 95 years old.
Nobody who founded the church or launched the church or who's here this morning would be around in a hundred years,
but they'd still say that about our church.
It would be a wonderful thing.
But the question then would be, how did they have peace?
So for us, how do we have peace?
How were they being built up?
How did they enjoy a church that multiplied or grew?
So the answer seems to be two things
that seem on the surface to be contradictory,
but are deeply intertwined,
and that is the second part of verse 31,
the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
So looking first at the fear of the Lord,
it seems by and large in Scripture there's two ways,
and this is like really general comments about the fear of the Lord,
but there's two ways to understand the fear of the Lord.
The first is actual fear.
We see it with not even interactions with God himself,
but with an angel of the Lord.
People, they turn white as a ghost.
They fear God.
It is to encounter the all-powerful, completely holy, awesome God of light
is a terrifying thing for sinful, finite human beings.
If you remember, when Moses goes up on Mount Sinai to receive the law from God,
he comes down and the people,
I mean, it was always God's purpose to see all the people interact with God,
but the people were too afraid,
and they said,
Moses, you go as our representative.
We can't, it's too scary for us.
It's terrifying.
And God actually told Moses that they were right in that assessment.
The uncreated triune God is in no way in anyone's debt.
He has never compromised his character or his identity or his purity,
nor does he get squeamish or does he lose courage in the face of sin and death.
To cross this God is a fearful thing.
He is completely holy, completely other, completely all-powerful.
To fear God is to fear God in a very real way.
The second way that it talks about the fear of the Lord is connected to the first bit,
but in this way, it's more of a deep and awe-inspired reverence
in terms of a relationship or a relational connection to God in that way.
And we'll talk about that shortly.
But the fear of God is little talked about in general,
and even in some ways even less talked about in the church,
and it's dangerous to be overly simplistic in determining why this is,
but I want to suggest the reason is that we live in an age of pleasure and distraction.
So here's where we get into this confrontation.
But first, a bit about the pleasure and distraction.
We engage in pleasures to distract ourselves, and we distract ourselves with pleasure.
Oftentimes for the purpose of not feeling the acute reality of our reality,
the nature of sin and fallenness.
I'm not suggesting that any form of pleasure is wrong,
or that engaging in some kind of respite from just very busy or difficult seasons or situations,
to have mental breaks from the monotony and the routine of life,
that somehow that is sinful.
I'm not somehow suggesting that.
I'm suggesting that we have a problem with the very age,
the very ethos that informs the way we live,
that our age is an age of pleasure and distraction.
It's the very thing in some ways that defines us.
It has become our telos, our reason to be, our guiding North Star,
the thing that we live for.
Whether we know it or not, we look for pleasure.
But this guiding principle, it is not true solve for our souls.
It is not the very thing that we need, even though we look to it.
Because the problem with pleasure and distraction is that the pleasure
oftentimes loses its pleasurableness.
And distraction does not make the problem go away.
Our feelings of meaninglessness or loneliness or sin and fears, they persist.
And this is Satan's great trick,
to distract us with good and pleasurable things,
to draw our attention and affections away from God and his Son.
We value the kingdom of whatever far more than the kingdom of heaven.
I say whatever because it can be whatever.
So a very interesting thing with temptation,
that it's not just the evil, dark, or terribly sensual things that are temptations,
although those things certainly do exist.
They need to be dealt with, of course.
But the temptation, in a sense, is anything that is good,
where we put our ultimate hope in,
that distracts us from our ultimate end,
that we see as a source of strength or courage or delight in,
more than God.
In many ways, this is idolatry.
And it's Satan's great trick.
It certainly is.
We have an enemy that seeks not to create,
in a sense, an army of atheists,
but an army of distracted pleasure seekers.
I mean, he'll take the atheists too, by the way.
I mean, he'll do whatever it takes to distract us.
And it's interesting.
I mean, I talked to somebody earlier this week
about the Screwtape Letters,
and this is a bit of a longer quote.
So, the Screwtape Letters, if you haven't read it,
it's by C.S. Lewis,
and it's a clever little way, in a sense,
to look at temptation
and the way that Satan's plans
and temptations aren't organized in any other way
apart from just drawing us away from God.
So, it is written in a series of letters back and forth
from an uncle, demon, who is like a high-up-there demon.
It's a weird book, but it's very clever.
To his nephew novice son.
Or, sorry, his nephew novice.
He's like a junior officer, so to speak, in hell.
And he's giving him advice on how to tempt
this one client he has.
And this is how it goes.
As this condition becomes more fully established,
you will be gradually freed from the tiresome business
of providing pleasures as temptations.
As uneasiness and his reluctance to face it
cut him off more and more from all real happiness,
and as habit renders the pleasures of vanity
and excitement and flippancy
at once less pleasant and harder to forego.
For that is what habit fortunately does to a pleasure.
You will find that anything or nothing
is sufficient to attract his wandering attention.
You no longer need a good book,
which he really likes,
to keep him away from his prayers
or his work or his sleep.
A column of advertisement in yesterday's paper will do.
You can make him waste his time
not only in conversation he enjoys
with people whom he likes,
but in conversations with those he cares nothing about
on subjects that bore him.
You can make him do nothing at all for long periods.
You can keep him up late at night,
not roistering,
but staring at a dead fire in a cold room.
All the healthy and outgoing activities
which we want him to avoid
can be inhibited and nothing given in return
so that at last he may say,
as some of my own patients
said on his arrival down here,
that's hell,
I now see that I spent most of my life
in doing neither what I ought
nor what I liked.
The Christians describe the enemy,
whenever the enemy is there,
he's talking about God.
Everything's backwards, remember.
The Christians describe the enemy as one,
quote,
without whom nothing is strong,
end quote,
and nothing is very strong,
strong enough to steal away a man's best years,
not in sweet sins,
but in a dreary flickering of the mind over it,
knows not what and knows not why,
in the gratification of curiosity so feeble
that the man is only half aware of them,
in drumming of fingers and kicking of heels,
in whistling tunes that he does not like,
or in the long, dim labyrinth of reveries
that have not even lust or ambition
to give them a relish,
but which one's chance associations
has started them,
the creature is too weak
and fuddled to shake off.
You will say that these are very small sins,
and doubtless,
like all young tempters,
you are anxious to be able to report
spectacular wickedness,
but do remember,
the only thing that matters
is the extent to which you separate
the man from the enemy.
It does not matter
how small the sins are provided,
that their cumulative effect
is to edge the man away from the light
and out into the nothing.
Murder is no better than cards,
if cards can do the trick.
Indeed, the safest road to hell
is the gradual one,
the gentle slope,
soft underfoot,
without sudden turnings,
without milestones,
without signposts.
Your affectionate Uncle Screwtape.
If anything can be weaponized
to distract us from God,
where is the hope?
Friends, the hope is in Christ Jesus
and his gospel.
The gospel confronts our obsessive
and pervasive pleasure-seeking
by helping us to see
what the fear of the Lord,
that the fear of the Lord
is a good and gracious thing.
It is not a scary thing,
but actually a blessing for us.
So what does that mean?
How is it a blessing for us?
To know that there is a good
and perfect and holy God
and that this God
is the source of all goodness
and beauty and truth,
and in him we can find eternal,
true eternal satisfaction,
and that he has provided to us
a way that we would be made right with him
and enjoy him forever
in an eternal relationship.
This is the gospel message.
This is the very thing
that in a very real way
we long for,
but we look everywhere else for
except from him,
and we take wonderful,
beautiful, good things
and we muddy them
and ruin them
because we try to use them
to achieve something
that they were never designed to,
namely,
eternal satisfaction
with the one true God.
God doesn't cease to be holy,
but through the cross
he allows us
into this right relationship with him
because of what Christ has done.
He doesn't lower his standards,
but he descends himself
paying the penalty for our sin
so that we could have access to him,
not on our own merit,
our own righteousness,
our own, in a sense, clothing,
but by Christ.
And the result is
the giving of his very spirit.
And it says, interestingly,
in verse 31,
that there's the comfort
of the Holy Spirit
that also builds the church.
So the giving of the Spirit
comforts us.
And in a real way,
is this not the very thing
we're looking for, comfort?
comfort,
a divine comfort,
a comfort that speaks
to a deep peace
where our future is secure
and all our fears
are relieved,
that our life has meaning
and purpose.
We look for such comfort
in pleasure
and distraction,
but are we really comforted
by such things?
And the gospel,
what it does
is it confronts that,
that pleasure seeking
and that distraction
for the sake
of true comfort.
It confronts it
and it tells us
in a very real
and loud way
that that is not comfort at all
and that is a blessing
from God.
What is interesting
about finding deep
and eternal comfort
in the Lord
is that we actually
become less concerned
about ourselves.
A book written
a few years back
by Timothy Keller
who has since passed away,
the blessing
of self-forgetfulness.
And we have this blessing
of thinking
of ourselves less.
Not being obsessive
about our own
pleasure and distraction,
we become joyful
in the things
that bring God joy.
The mission of God
becomes our mission
where Christ
continues on
through his church
by his spirit
to confront disease
and death
and false gods
like pleasure
and distraction.
So this leads us
to the second confrontation
with disease
and death
and in many ways
it seems
like this is the easier
confrontation.
We'll get to that
in a minute
but let's read
verses 32 to 42.
Now as Peter
went here and there
among them all,
he came down
also to the saints
who lived in Lydda.
Peter likely
is consolidating
all of these churches
churches
that popped up
with Philip
and some other apostles
proclaiming the gospel
around Samaria
where the gospel
spread
after the stoning
of Stephen.
Church order
is being brought
to all these various
house churches
or gatherings
and this is what
Peter is likely doing.
Verse 33,
there he found
a man named
Aeneas,
bedridden for eight years.
Interestingly,
in the original language,
it could be bedridden
since he was
eight years old.
Either way,
this man has not
walked in a very
long time.
He was bedridden
for eight years
and he was paralyzed
and Peter said
to him,
Aeneas,
Jesus Christ heals you.
Rise and make your bed
and immediately
he rose
and all the residents
of Lydda and Sharon
saw him
and they turned
to the Lord.
Now there was in Joppa,
that is modern day Jaffa,
just south of Tel Aviv,
a disciple named
Tabitha,
which translated
means Dorcas.
Same,
both those names
mean gazelle,
it's just,
one is Aramaic,
one is Greek.
Tabitha,
or Dorcas,
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 Lydda
was near Joppa,
the disciples,
hearing that Peter
was there,
sent two men
to him,
urging him,
please come to us
without delay.
So Peter arose
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.
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 calling the saints
and widows,
he presented her alive.
Verse 42,
and it became known
throughout all Joppa
that many believed
in the Lord.
We have two miracles here,
two confrontations,
one with disease
and ailments
and one with death.
They look very similar
to two miracles
that Jesus performed himself.
the first,
Aeneas,
he's a paralytic.
He is raised
much like the paralytic
of Mark chapter 2
where,
if you remember,
a paralytic is lowered
through the roof
and Jesus tells him
just like he does Aeneas here
to rise,
take up your bed
and walk.
Very,
very similar language.
In the second,
we have this woman,
Tabitha or Dorcas,
she's died
and she's raised again.
Notice that Peter,
he prays first,
it's different
than what Jesus does.
Jesus doesn't pray
to himself
but he just lifts her up
but nevertheless,
Peter,
in working with
the power of Jesus,
says to her,
Tabitha,
rise.
Interestingly,
the only difference
in language
between what Jesus does
with Jairus' daughter
in Mark chapter 5
and what Peter does
with Tabitha
in Acts chapter 9,
it's identical,
everything's identical
about it
except for one letter.
With Jesus,
he says Talitha,
rise.
Just a different name.
Peter says Tabitha,
rise.
One letter
is different
and Luke,
writing this,
he is making
this connection.
It is,
there's no doubt
about it.
He is telling us
that Christ,
not Peter,
but Christ continues
to be at work
through his church
doing the same
work of confronting
the effects
of sin
and brokenness
in the world,
disease and death.
Christ is still active.
He's ascended,
but he is still
the active agent
in this story.
Peter is a conduit.
What does he say
to Aeneas?
Jesus Christ heals you.
Rise and make your bed.
And what does he say
to Tabitha?
He prays.
He's clearly praying
to Jesus,
Tabitha, rise.
Jesus is still at work
confronting sin
and death,
disease,
and everything
that belongs
to evil.
And in both cases
we see a movement
up,
up to life,
up to heaven,
and not down
towards the grave
and to death.
For Aeneas,
arise.
Interestingly,
that Tabitha
her body is put
in an upper room.
If you remember
back in Acts chapter 5,
Ananias and Sapphira
drop dead on the spot.
Crazy story,
but they're buried
right away.
It is a custom
to bury right away.
I mean,
a part of it
has to do
with being
in a warm climate,
but the other part
of it is
to respect the body,
to lay the body
to rest right away.
A body that dies,
you don't put
in an upper room.
It's a bit of
a bizarre
thing to do,
although
it's bizarre,
but it's bizarre
unless you
believe maybe
this person
could rise again.
But we see
either way
a movement
not down
towards the grave
and death,
but up
towards life
and resurrection.
In both cases,
the product of sin
and brokenness
are confronted.
Disease and death
are shown
in this
to be lesser foes.
And what's the result?
Verse 35
and also verse 42.
I'll read verse 35
first.
And all the residents
of Lydah
and Sharon
saw him,
that is,
Aeneas,
the former paralytic,
and they turned
to the Lord.
And in verse 41,
sorry,
in verse 42,
And it became known
throughout all Joppa,
and many believed
in the Lord.
The result
of the confrontation
of disease
and death
wasn't simply
that the paralytic
could walk again
and the dead person
could rise
once again,
but it was to declare
that death
and disease,
they were weak enemies.
They were defeated enemies.
They were neutered enemies.
They were enemies
without power.
They had a shelf life.
The time has come
that life
and life eternal
would be given
to all who believed.
It was a sign,
in a sense,
that pointed up
towards Christ.
The fact is,
I mean,
I'm assuming,
maybe I shouldn't assume,
but I'm assuming
Aeneas got some disease
later on.
In a year,
he could have got
tuberculosis.
We don't know.
Maybe he contracted pneumonia
when he was in his old age.
Whatever.
But he got sick
at a certain point
and his body failed him
and he died.
Tabitha,
maybe she lived
another five,
ten years.
Maybe she
had a 30-year
mercy ministry
after this.
It was an incredible thing.
We're not sure.
But she died.
The point
isn't so much
to revel
in the healing
or the resurrection,
but to see
what that represents
and what that points to.
That the kingdom
of heaven has come
and has confronted
the kingdom
of darkness
and sin forever
and has found
the kingdom
of darkness
and sin
to be wanting.
That's true hope.
That is true hope.
A sure and better hope
than anything
we can put our hope
in here.
It's a better hope
than any pleasure
that we could find
apart from Christ
and any distraction
that truly gets
our mind off
of our problem
or problems
for a period of time.
If the rejoicing
of the disciples
in verse 35
and 41
were just with the healings,
it would be false hope.
But it wasn't.
It was eternal hope.
We need to be
hopeful people,
but we also need
to be hopeful people
in the right things,
the right person.
If we put our hope
in medicine,
beating disease forever,
that's a lesser hope
to put our hope into.
Medicine, fantastic.
Right living,
exercise,
doing all the things,
very good,
but that can't be
our eternal hope.
Hope in the way
we build our lives
or raise our children
or how we run our business
or how we are employees.
If we put our ultimate hope,
our ultimate feelings
of pleasure in that,
that will let us down.
All good things,
but that can't be
our ultimate hope.
Christ will be
our ultimate hope
because God forbid
something happens
to our families.
It could.
God forbid something
happens to our job
or our reputation.
All of these things
are not guaranteed
to last forever.
Only Christ
can last forever.
So where is our hope?
Only in the gospel
do we see
the ultimate hope
that confronts
and defeats
the source
of all disease
and all death
and confronts us
and wakes us up
from our malaise.
And this is something
that we
constantly fall into.
This is why
a season of Lent,
of preparation
into Easter
is helpful for us
because
it's a season
where we
once again
in a very
pointed way
recognize
our great need
for Christ's mercy
and we bend
our need
to him afresh.
That's why
confession of sin
is a huge part
of what we do
here at our church
and what the Bible
talks about
is because
we often
fall into
patterns of
distraction
and pleasure
and we fail
to put our hope
in the ultimate one.
We put our hope
in lesser things.
So friends,
ask yourself,
who is your hope in?
Is it in the cross
of Christ
that will never
let you down?
That will always
satisfy
in this life
and in the world
to come
or in a lesser hope
that really is no hope
at all?
Let's put our hope
in Christ.
Let's pray.
Father,
we thank you
for your goodness
to us
that in times
of conviction
of sin
that it is not
to shame
us
to make us
feel rotten
forever
but to open
our eyes
to confront us
with a wrong
path that we
are walking down
so that by your
strength we would
go down the right
path.
We would repent
through ourselves
to your grace
afresh once again.
Lord,
if we are people
that have fallen
into cycles
of pleasure
and distraction
as the means
by which we
address
our feelings
of meaninglessness
or sin
or loneliness
or whatever it may be
rather than looking
to you
by your strength
will you help us
to look to you
afresh?
Lord,
help us to always
remember that
any eternal joy
that we might have,
any comfort
of the Holy Spirit,
any divine pleasure
that we will experience
in this life
it is because
of the grace
of your wonderful
Son offered to us
on the cross
of Calvary.
Amen.