Real Life Community Church Richmond, KY
Real Life Community Church, is a church located in Richmond, Kentucky. Our fellowship is comprised of authentic followers of Jesus Christ who aim to glorify God in all that we do. We have a desire to reach our community, meeting both the physical and spiritual needs of those who are hurting.What to Expect in a Service Our Sunday Morning services include a time of dynamic, blended worship. We have a full praise band, consisting of real Christ-followers who are committed to worshiping God, not just through song, but in every area of their lives. Each service will include a relevant, Bible-based message, that will inspire and challenge those who hear it. Come casually or formally dressed… however you are most comfortable. We hope to see you soon!
Real Life Community Church Richmond, KY
Acts | Part 15 | Jerry Veach | Acts 9:31-43
Through the story of Tabitha's resurrection in Acts 9, we discover three vital ingredients for a healthy, growing church that applies to believers today.
• Walking in the fear of the Lord means having reverence that leads to wisdom and obedience
• The comfort of the Holy Spirit provides power and confidence during difficult times
• Being committed to ministry through prayer and good works opens us to be vessels for God
• Tabitha's dedication to making garments for widows was so valued that people sought her resurrection
• Miracles alone don't convert people – they create openings for the gospel to be shared
• Even small acts of service when done with dedication can have eternal significance
• All believers are called to ministry, not just pastors and leaders
• The church grows when ordinary people use their God-given talents
• Like building the Brooklyn Bridge piece by piece, the kingdom expands through incremental faithfulness
Our goal should be to live as people who fear the Lord, walk in the presence of the Spirit, and serve faithfully for God's glory and for the good of others.
All right. So Acts 9, beginning in verse 36. So if you're new here, we're going verse by verse or chapter by chapter through the book of Acts. If you have it, say amen and would you stand for the reading of God's Word? Now there was in Joppa'm. Actually we're going to go back verse 31.
Speaker 1: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. Now peter went here and there among them and he came down also to the saints who lived in Lydda. There he found a man named Anais, bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. And Peter said to him Anais, 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.
Speaker 1:And 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 the upper room. And since Lydda was not near Joppa, the disciples, hearing that Peter was there, sent two men to him urging him Please come to us without delay. So Peter rose and went with them and when he arrived they took him to the upper room and all the widows stood beside him weeping and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them.
Speaker 1:But Peter put them all aside and showing tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with them. But Peter put them all aside and dealt down and prayed and, turning to the body, he said Tabitha, arise. 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 she stayed in Joppa for many days with one, simon, a tanner, the word of God for the people of God.
Speaker 2:Thanks be to God, thank you who here has ever been seen been close to the Brooklyn Bridge? Anybody? Oh, a couple of yous, couple of yous. So I've crossed it one time in my entire life and, standing in front of this ginormous bridge, you can't help but stand in wonder and awe, because it's an amazing, amazing structure, and just see it, you kind of feel tiny. Now I have a mechanics brain some of you get my guys might understand that, some of you may not meaning that I see things that I want to know how they work, how it came to be. So, as I was crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, I had a lot of questions, but my main question was how did we small humans make this happen? We small humans make this happen.
Speaker 2:Before I tell you, I'm going to give you some interesting facts about the Brooklyn Bridge that you may not know. Number one the Brooklyn Bridge is a little over a mile long. At its highest point it's 272 feet. It is roughly 127 feet off the water and it is a five-lane roadway. It also has a path for pedestrians and people who ride bikes and if that was it, it would be amazing. But it also carries a train and in this, the entire Brooklyn Bridge roughly carries 121,000 people across it each day, and that's pretty amazing. So I got me thinking as I'm riding across this bridge how did we do it? Because it seems like a pretty daunting task, something that's overwhelming, that we just couldn't ever make happen. So I did what all of us current people above ground do I looked it up on YouTube and I watched the whole video from start to finish, and it's very interesting the way we do this. So they start with the pillars, maybe telling you that the highest point is 272 feet. So that's one of those pillars. So what we do is is we actually make it on land, put it on a boat, drive it out to where we want it, and then we sink it in the water, and then we take another piece and stack it on top, and so on and so forth, until we're out of the water. Then we get on and start building up from there. After we do that, we anchor it on both sides of the river, both sides of the water. We put four anchors total two on each side and after we do these massive anchors, we take individual little cables and we start stringing them from the anchor to the pillar to the anchor, back and forth, over many, many times, depending on the size of your bridge. I believe for the burglar bridge it's around 100 strands of cable Make up one of the big cables. After they do that, that's when they actually come and lay the decking of the bridge. To finish it, boom. You know how to make a bridge like the burglar bridge Crossed any water you want, it just takes a lot of time. Like the Brooklyn Bridge across any water you want, it just takes a lot of time.
Speaker 2:The very interesting thing about this is, even though it was an amazing, overwhelming task, all we did was take the task and break it down and just build it piece by piece, little by little, to get us there. Now we've been in a journey through Acts and in Acts, chapter one, verse eight, jesus gave 12 men what I would consider an overwhelming task, which is to take the gospel through all the ends of the world. Now, this is 12 men who are not educated. All they have is their time with Jesus, and then Jesus is about to ascend to heaven and he tells them now take it and go into all the world. However, against all odds, we have seen so far in Acts that these 12 men are now coming up to verse 9, tens of thousands of believers strong. Now that's just eight chapters. That's pretty amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, today, the scripture we're going to look at, we're going to see this to continue. The church isn't going to stop in verse 9, but in the end of verse 9, we're going to continue. Acts 9 31 it says in three different places here in our scripture today, but in Acts 9 31 it says 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. Then in Acts 9 35, it says and all the comfort of the Holy Spirit. It multiplied. Then in Acts 9.35, it says and all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, the paralyzed man, and they turned to the Lord, adding more. And then in Acts 9.42, and it became known throughout all Joppa and many believed in the Lord.
Speaker 2:So with that in mind, we started with 12. We're getting to chapter 9. We're tens of thousands of people. But now let's shoot way past that into today, because it didn't stop after the Bible was being written. It didn't stop at the end of Acts. It continued into today and that process that started with those 12 men in Acts, chapter 1-8, is still continuing to this day and today because of that. We started with 12, but now we're at around 2.4 billion people strong who claim to be Christians in the world. It's making Christianity, or it's made Christianity, the largest known religion in the world.
Speaker 2:Our mission today hasn't changed From those 12 men. Even though it is a hostile world out there, we get persecuted A little bit in America. I'm going to say a little bit Because if we really compare it to Africa and the Middle East, where people are having their lives taken on a daily basis for saying they're Christians, it's hard for me to stand up here and say that we're being persecuted to that extent, but we're still being persecuted. Our government on one side or the other, our school system, all trying to keep Christianity out, and we're all fighting it day to day, even to the point that there is the devil out there trying to devour it from us.
Speaker 2:In today's text there are going to be three vital ingredients that I've seen for a healthy, growing church, which we should be striving to do on a daily basis. We here want to grow and continue to grow. We've actually gotten to a point where we've had to order new chairs because we're getting too big. That is a blessing. To grow We've actually gotten to a point where we've had to order new chairs because we're getting too big, that is a blessing to have, amen. But if we want to continue to grow and to continue to get better and bigger and to stay healthy, we have to have three vital ingredients. One we have to be a people who fear the Lord. We have to be a people that is full of the Holy Spirit and we have to be a people committed to the ministry.
Speaker 2:It's interesting that the first thing we talk about is walking in the fear of the Lord, being a people committed to that. Acts 9.31 says 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. It multiplied because we were walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. It multiplied. It multiplied because we were walking in the fear of the Lord. That word fear is very interesting because a lot of us tend to look at that word fear and start talking about being scared, starting to worry? Well, I'm here to comfort you today. Starting to worry? Well, I'm here to comfort you today.
Speaker 2:If you're a believer, that fear is not the fear of unbelievers, which is the fear of being judged by the Lord one day, as we see in Luke 12, 5. But it is a fear of believers, fear of the believers, which really refers to. It comes down to reverence in the Lord. Hebrews 12, 28 through 29 says Therefore, let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship with reverence and awe. Reverence boils down to, as it says in the scripture there, of having a respect for God and worshiping him in everything we do, every aspect of our life, not just here on Sunday mornings, which is what we tend to think. That's what worship is. Worship to the Lord is doing everything we do in the mindset of honoring and loving Christ. Excuse me, when we do this, when we fear the Lord in reverence and worship, it leads us to a sense of obedience, obedience to his voice.
Speaker 2:1 Samuel 12,. If you're not familiar, is a piece of scripture that was Samuel's farewell to the Israelites. The Israelites just asked to have a king over them, and so Samuel has given them this final farewell in 1214. And it says If you fear the Lord and serve him and obey his voice and not rebel against the commandments of the Lord, and if both you and the king who reigns over you Will follow the Lord, your God, it will be well. That obedience that comes from fearing the Lord, having the reverence of the Lord, worshiping the Lord with all you got, leading that into the obedience of His voice, it says it will be well.
Speaker 2:So why is it important that we have this fear of the Lord? First, because this fear of the Lord gives us wisdom. Proverbs 9, 10 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is in sight. Wisdom is an interesting word because a lot of people like to put wisdom with knowledge. My dad used to say a thing wisdom is doing the right thing at the right time. You can't just have wisdom by doing the right thing. There also has to be a timing to it. We get that through that obedience. God tells us when we need to do something. Sometimes the answer is wait, sometimes the answer is now, now. Now, that's what wisdom is. Second, that wisdom leads us into a dependence of the Lord.
Speaker 2:Proverbs 3, 7 says Be not wise in your own eyes, fear the Lord and turn away from evil. If we're truly, truly a people committed to the fear of the Lord, we can't trust ourselves. I know that's hard to hear in a society that's all about your feelings. Do what feels right. That is opposite the fear of the Lord. The fear of the Lord says fear me, reverence in me, obey me, not obey your feelings. And that's hard to hear. And yes, I'm a youth pastor, so guess what I get to do on a daily basis? I get to hear about feelings. Amen. So if you're here, nowhere else, sometimes, your feelings don't matter. Amen, all right.
Speaker 2:But why is this important?
Speaker 2:That we fear the Lord? In the grand scheme of things, why does this matter? Well, number one without it, we'll lead people astray. As a pastor, as someone that has to teach on a weekly basis and has people's lives in your hands, not fearing the Lord, not having that wisdom, that obedience, you will lead somebody astray. The growth of the church will be stunted, but also your spiritual life will be stunted. You won't grow.
Speaker 2:Some people want to know why they're in the same place and they've been there for years. Maybe the answer is you're not fearing the Lord. Maybe that's the answer. Maybe you're not listening to what the Lord is telling you. Maybe you've got to get a sin out of your life. Trust me, we've all been there. Ain't none of us perfect, but maybe that's the reason. But it will stunt you spiritually and it will stunt our church.
Speaker 2:When we're talking about growth the one that all of us pastors have talked about in our meetings and we're really hard pressed to guard against this is we will glorify ourselves for the growth that's happening, and glorifying ourself is not fearing the Lord because we are not listening to him. We are listening to us again, but that's why we have to be careful. And, lastly, we won't have God's blessing in our work. Those little things that we've been doing and we think are actually making a difference. That aren't. Sometimes comes from us not having the wisdom to listen. But fear in the Lord is only one part of it. We also have to have comfort in the Holy Spirit. Verse 31 again says 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 here in Acts Luke's associates walking in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit as a yin and yang, a need in One plus one is two. The power of the Spirit is what the believer has as an insurance and confidence and a ceiling in our life that we can lean on the Lord and take that next step and have that fear of the Lord and walk it into confidence here in our scripture.
Speaker 2:At this time, the men and women who are going out and spreading the gospel are in a time of turmoil. The Roman Empire is coming against them. The Jewish leaders are coming against them. Having the power of the Roman Empire is coming against them. The Jewish leaders are coming against them. Having the power of the Holy Spirit doesn't mean we won't have hard times, but it does mean that God will get us through the hard times. And guess what, if he doesn't get us through the hard times and we die, praise be to God. We'll be right there with him anyways. So we get through them one way or another. I'm just telling you the truth. Hey, you might be on this side or the next side. Amen.
Speaker 2:To have healthy growth in the church, we have to be marked by the spirit. We have to be filled with the spirit, acts 1.8. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. When Jesus says that to his 12 disciples as we talked about at the beginning, started at 12, is now 2.4 billion, not because of the men, but because of the power of the spirit that was on the men.
Speaker 2:If we look back at what happened to most of them, they were killed for their faith. They didn't do it thinking they were getting out of love. They knew what was coming, to the point that they not only saw it but smiled when it came and forgave those who were about to do it and they weren't all disciples of Jesus gave those who were about to do it and they weren't all disciples of Jesus, they weren't the apostles all of them. I mean the first one we see was Stephen, and he was a deacon. Praise the Lord. The power of the Spirit allows each and every one of us to be able to get through that struggle in your life, the hardship that's on your back and your shoulders, but for a purpose. That power from the Holy Spirit is for us to be witnesses, for us to continue to grow and multiply the kingdom. It's not we check the box. We're saved. Now we get to sit in the pew and hang out. Wait for Jesus as nice as that sounds.
Speaker 2:That's not how it works. We have to walk in the fear of the Lord, we have to be filled with the spirit so we can be committed to our ministries. Oh, we hear that word ministry. I love that word ministry. You know why we? I love it and I just like it so much and this is why I love it on the sense that it makes us all have a purpose. But I dislike it because a lot of people hear ministry and they go that's the pastor's job. So they sit back and they go oh, that ain't for me. I'm not a pastor, I ain't got no training, I didn't volunteer for this. So that word ministry, I love it and I despise it all at the same time because, as a pastor, it gives me a sense of purpose. But on the flip side, it gives me more work to do because somebody else ain't willing to get off the pew. Pastor Chris, click on his heels, amen.
Speaker 2:When it comes to being committed to the ministry, our text, I think, identifies three more small points, and I say small with a grain of salt because none of them are small. With a grain of salt because none of them are small. They may be small in action, but they are great, great in multiplication these three things. Even though we're doing them, they open us up to be a vessel for the Lord, not anything we're going to be able to do, but what God's going to be able to use. The first one of those is prayer. I don't care if you're a new believer or an old-timey believer, everyone here can pray. I would encourage you to have your own prayer closet, your own place, to go to pray, to lift up the Lord, to lift up yourself, to lift up your brothers.
Speaker 2:Verse 40 of Acts 9, it says but Peter put them all outside and knelt down and prayed. He prayed the man who, just a few verses earlier, saw a paralyzed man and said Jesus heals. You, get up and walk. He comes here and the first thing he does he prays. He gets down on his knees alone. He puts everybody else outside and he prays. And turning to the body, he said Tabitha arise. And she opened her eyes and when she saw Peter, she sat up. Peter did nothing. In this instance, peter searched for guidance for the Lord and let the Lord do his thing and because of this we see a great miracle of resurrection in Tabitha, a woman that we know very little about, see a great miracle of resurrection in Tabitha, a woman that we know very little about except for what we find here in chapter nine. But Peter prayed.
Speaker 2:We hear real life, the leadership. We here at Real Life, the leadership. That's our focus. We want to be a house of prayer. We want to be a leadership team that constantly prays to the Lord, searches Him, seeks His favor, seeks his direction.
Speaker 2:I love this about this church. Every Sunday, before we close, pastor Chris stands right here in front of you and says if you need prayer, come to the front. The elders will be on this side. If you want to be alone, be on this side. Churches don't even do that anymore because they're afraid of embarrassing their congregation. Tell me, that's not silly. You should be running to the altar to get prayed for, not because of what these? Not because somebody's going to put their hands on you, but because what miracle can happen when the Lord sees you humble and praying? After prayer, she arises and goes out, and that makes me start thinking. I tell you I'm weird like this. Start thinking about why.
Speaker 2:Why was Tabitha healed? Now, the Bible's not very clear on why she got healed, but I did start looking at her life a little bit, which brings me to my second point about being committed to the ministry. She was committed to the ministry. She was committed to the ministry. Who else is described like? It is right here Acts 9, 36-39.
Speaker 2:Now there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas. She was full of good works and acts of charity. Man, if I get to heaven and God says you're full of good works and charity, oh, I'm telling you what that should be a day of excitement. I heard a pastor tell this story one time. He was talking about the people that hold the doors, the greeters, the lady that cleans his church, and he says I can't wait to be there when Jesus comes back. He said because I'm going to be holding the door while they get called first, because what they do is 10 times more important than what I do up here on Sunday by cleaning the church, making it presentable for everyone, by holding the door for those who come in and just giving them a happy hello. That smile is so great.
Speaker 2:So we see Dorcas, she has good works and she's full of charity. And then she gets sick and she dies. Comes to all of us the same she dies and they put her in an upper room. And what do they do? They don't start burying her. No, they say we heard Peter's doing something over here. This lady's got is so full of good works and charity, we need her back on the team. God, you get it. Lord, just give us a couple more years. We need to put her back on the team. So what do they do? They send two men 11 miles away to where peter had just performed that miracle and they say peter, we need you, come on. Peter gets up and goes and he prays and she's. She's back alive.
Speaker 2:And I was wondering what her good works of charities is. And it tells us. Actually in the text it says so. Peter arose and went with them and when he arrived they took him in the upper room. All the widows stood beside him, weeping and showing him tunics and other garments that Dorcas made while she was with him. Her ministry was To help clothe the widows, to sew, to make clothing, and they weren't Junkie pieces of clothing. I mean, these ladies are so Happy For this small piece of charity that they're showing and crying to Peter. You need to heal her because we need more clothes. Look, I got a date. This looks nice. I need a pair of slacks to go with it. Let's go. They're up there and they're excited for our acts of charity.
Speaker 2:God healed, god brings her back to life, and then he presents her to him. I can just imagine that party. I'm just saying that was a big party. I'm wondering, though, if they gave her a couple days to recover, if they put her right back on the sewing machine. I'm just wondering. My mind works that way.
Speaker 2:I'm sorry, but I mean, when you think about that, she was doing what I can only imagine. This is an assumption by Jerry, sorry, I just assumed, because it was so nice that she loved doing it, and it was something that God actually helped her to be very good at, and she actually made things that lasted and were so nice that they wanted to come back from the dead. Just imagine that. Imagine is there something in your life right now that somebody would be like I want you back alive to do for us? Not I'm going to go to the guy down the street, no, you specifically, but I just have to think that she was using her. God given talents and treasures for his glory. I want to be like her, I want to be able to do something so well that everybody's like Jerry, you can't die yet, we need you. Just a few more days, a few more years. We got some things going on.
Speaker 2:I'm just saying, like I said, pastor Chris said you didn't know what you were going to get. I'm the youth pastor. I don't have a filter. Bless you, but all that stuff, so prayer, our good works, the charity, can I tell you something? It means nothing. I'm going to say it again. It means nothing. Without the spreading of the gospel, we can cover, we can take care of all the physical needs in the world, but if we don't make an eternal difference, what?
Speaker 1:does it matter?
Speaker 2:If we stop from dying today, but then they get to the judgment and they're going to hell anyways. What did it do? What was the purpose? Now, disclaimer we can't save nobody. It's not our job. Our job is to present. It's God's to save. But that's a good thing, because I promise you right now, if it was on me, we would fail.
Speaker 2:I'm just honest. That's the great thing about the gospel. That's the great thing about all this is it's not on me. God's the one that saves. But I will say this I have to pray, I have to do the works so God can use me as a vessel. He don't need me, I promise you, he don't need me. I wish he did, I wish he needed me, but he don't need me. I'm honest. It is useless unless we spread the gospel. The church was multiplied. It is useless unless we spread the gospel.
Speaker 2:The church was multiplied not by the miracle, not by the resurrection, not by the healing that took place in Lydda. When it says in Acts 9.35, and all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, that was the paralyzed man, and they turned to the Lord. They didn't turn to the Lord because of the miracle Acts 9.42, and it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed what became known, that she had been resurrected. That's not why they believed, because none could come to the Lord except through who Jesus. So somebody had to. Not only did God perform the miracle, but then Peter had to spread the gospel. Somebody had to say the gospel, somebody had to put it out there so they knew, so God could change the life. The miracles didn't bring anybody to the Lord. It cracked the window. That's all it did. It cracked the window. It didn't bring him in. God has to open the door.
Speaker 2:Being committed to ministry is important, but it's nothing without the gospel. We have to be willing to share why it's important. We have to show why it's important. The last thing I'm going to say the last thing, but it's important. I pray every night. Me and my wife lay in bed and we say our prayers before we go to bed. We pray together every night and the first thing we pray for is for each other. Look, I'm honest. Then we pray for each other. Look, I'm honest. Then we pray for our children. Then we pray for our church, then we pray for the lost, and it's my prayer that we be a people who fear the Lord, walk in the presence of the Spirit and serve faithfully for the glory of God and for the good of others. Thank you, guys.