Tag: Love

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Joyful Fellowship with God and Man, Part 9: How to Have Joyful Fellowship with God and Man

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The Need for Faith
Our society does a lot to ignore the reality of death. We want to look young. The cemeteries are somewhat hidden. You will see many commercials about preparing for retirement. Very few about preparing for after retirement.

In spite of all this, the truth is that this world is a tomb. It is a place of death. It is a place where the dead are buried. When you think about it, we have lost a lot of people close to us this year. Kelsey just lost her Grandfather this past week. I lost a Grandmother last month. Jackie Bain lost her grandfather. Diane lost her husband Bobby. Deb Bain lost her husband Steve, and we lost an elder and leader in our church. Lisa Suplee lost her Father and her Uncles. Penny Reeder lost her Mother. This world is a tomb.

In the Bible, death is not just physical death. It is spiritual death. The presence of physical death is the result of the death of our relationship with God. The separation of the body from the soul is rooted in our separation from God. Out of our separation from God flows a separation from other people. This separation from other people leads to war and to death like it did with Abel and Cain.

That’s why there cannot be joyful fellowship with God and man. There is death. This spiritual death manifests itself in physical death. This spiritual death has made this world a tomb.

Into this world of death, God sent His Son. His Son died the death we deserved to die and experienced the separation from God that we experienced when He cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” However, He rose from the dead. He conquered death. He brought about new life and new hope.

If we have Jesus, then we have life. “And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life” (1 John 5:11–12). What does this mean? It means that instead of a sentence of death, we have life. This means we enjoy a restored relationship with God forever! That’s what we have when we have the Son.

Now, we might ask, why then do we have to die? For the believer, death is a liberation from the presence of sin. When we come to Christ, He breaks the dominion of sin. At death, He frees us from the presence of sin. When Jesus comes again, we will have our bodies restored but in a glorified way like Jesus. “But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2b).

This is why we need faith in Jesus. “Whoever believes in the Son of God accepts this testimony” (1 John 5:10). When we believe in Jesus, we accept what God says about Him. We accept that it is true and that it is what we need. We are saying that Jesus can do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. That is the power of faith. It is not the greatness of faith that saves. It is the Christ in the faith that saves.

The problem we face is that there is much pressure in the world to go in a different direction. It tells us, focus on what we see. Focus on what we can get. Make this world about you. This is what John calls the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life (see 1 John 2:15–17).

So, how do we overcome the world and obtain life in Jesus? “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God” (1 John 5:4b–5). Do we want to overcome the world? We need more faith! If we feel like the world is attacking us, we need the faith that enables us to overcome the world. Continue reading “Joyful Fellowship with God and Man, Part 9: How to Have Joyful Fellowship with God and Man”

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Joyful Fellowship with God and Man, Part 8: 10 Reasons to Love One Another

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There’s a lot of reasons why we should not love one another. People do all kinds of crazy things. They abandon us. They exclude us. They attack us. They disrespect us. Now, I’m just talking about the church here. We haven’t even begun to talk about the world!

Into the rough and tumble world of human relationships, John tells us repeatedly that we are “to love one another.” This is the command that they had all heard from the beginning. John, however, was not unaware of the challenges of human relationships inside and outside the church. In spite of that awareness, inspired by the Savior, he still believed in love and wanted to encourage the church to continue in love.

As a result, John presented a variety of reasons to encourage, energize, and empower them to love one another. We will consider this passage looking at 10 reasons to love one another.

1. We should love each other because God’s children love like God. We are born of God. God is the source of love. “Love is from God.” When we become God’s children, we get a heart like God’s. We have His image restored to us. “Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God” (1 John 4:7). If we are the children of God, then we should love like God, because that is our character. God has given us a renewed nature that enables us to love, and we should show that this is who we are for our own encouragement, for the blessing of others, and for the glory of God.

2. We should love each other because God is love. Many people claim to know God. However, John gives us an acid test to determine if we really know God and have fellowship with Him. “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). If we love, then we know God. A person may be able to explain with great eloquence the details of theology, but the most eloquent expression is love. Without love, all of our knowledge will not profit us. Why? Because God is love. The Triune God shared a fellowship of love from all eternity within the Godhead between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created the world out of love and so that the world could participate in that love. When we love, we show we really know and have fellowship with God. Continue reading “Joyful Fellowship with God and Man, Part 8: 10 Reasons to Love One Another”

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Joyful Fellowship with God and Man, Part 7: Resources for a New Community (1 John 3:19–4:6)

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When we look out on our world, a joyful community is not what we see. Nations are at each other’s throats. Within the nation, there is severe polarization. The church often seems hopelessly divided and unable to work together. Churches themselves can be nasty places. People get hurt, and they don’t come back. Families are ripped apart. Those who should be the greatest support become alienated from one another or do terrible things to one another. What hope is there for such situations?

We have the answer in this verse. It is prayer. We can “receive from him anything we ask” (1 John 3:22). There are endless resources in prayer. We should not look upon any situation outside of us and think, this is hopeless. God is greater than our challenges and is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or even imagine.

So, we are not helpless victims in the face of the evils and divisions of this world. We can ask and “receive from him anything we ask” (1 John 3:22). In this passage, there are two conditions that need to be fulfilled in order to have confidence before God. One is a heart of love for other people. The other is faith in Jesus Christ. Each present their own unique challenge, and we will consider the internal challenge to love and then the external challenge to faith. Finally, we will consider the goal of having a clear conscience before God.

The Internal Challenge
The internal challenge is to have a clear conscience before God. As we approach God, we need to remember that He is holy and righteous and pure. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we are to go before God, then our heart needs to be one that flees the darkness and pursues the light. Continue reading “Joyful Fellowship with God and Man, Part 7: Resources for a New Community (1 John 3:19–4:6)”

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Joyful Fellowship with God and Man, Part 6: Truly Living Is Truly Loving (1 John 3:11–18)

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What is life all about? There is no question that it is about loving God and serving Him. This is our first and highest priority. God is the Creator and Lord of the universe. He made all things for His glory.

However, the second great purpose is loving our neighbor, loving the people around us. When people become Christians, we often tell them that they need to go to church, read their Bible, and pray. However, there is another key element, if we take the Bible’s priorities seriously: learning to love. We should say, read the Bible, pray, and love everyone, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.

But what does it mean to love our brothers and sisters in Christ and the rest of humanity? How do we do it? This is the first lengthy section of instruction that God gives us in this letter on how to love. Why is this so important? That’s what we’ll see in our first point. Then, we will consider the opposite of love and the practice of love.

The Importance of Love
Why is love so important?

First, we see the importance of love in the priority of its teaching. John says that this is the message that they heard from the beginning. As soon as they heard about Jesus, they heard about His command to love each other.

John had said that this was not a new commandment but an old commandment. The command to love our neighbor as ourselves is found in Leviticus 19:18. It is actually imprinted on our hearts as well. We are made to love, and love is the natural state of humanity. Sin has marred it, but this makes a deformed humanity. However, the Bible and our hearts always call us back. That has been the teaching from the beginning.

Second, we see the importance of love in that it is the way of life. “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death” (1 John 3:18). This is the way of life.

Now, here is the question that people often have, what about people who don’t love us? Should we love them? Jesus, of course, says, “Love your enemies.” There is a reason for this. Love is the way of life. Hatred is the way of death. Just because others choose the way of death does not mean that we should. We should always follow the way of life, joyful fellowship with God and man.

This is similar to the other metaphor John used for love. He said that whoever hates walks in darkness. Whoever loves walks in the light. Just because others walk in the darkness does not mean that we should. We should always walk in the light, even if others choose to walk in the darkness. Truly living is truly loving, even if others choose not to love us back.

Third, we see the importance of love in the example of Jesus. John says that loving our neighbor is an old commandment. There is another sense, however, in which it is a new commandment. It is new in that we are now to love as Jesus loved. We love in the way of His example. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers” (1 John 3:16).

Jesus loved like no one else before. He loved His own by serving them, even washing their feet, and eventually dying for them. He loved his enemies like no one before, bearing with them, and praying that God would forgive even the ones who nailed him to the cross. This is love. It is love that is light that shines in the darkest darkness. That’s the example of Jesus.

The teaching of love for our neighbor is hugely important. It is the message from the beginning. It is the way of life. It is the way of Jesus.

The Opposite of Love
John not only tells us that we should pursue love of our brethren. He warns us not to fall into the opposite. We should not hate. “Do not be like Cain who belonged to the evil one and murdered his own brother” (1 John 3:11). Now, we may have never literally murdered anyone like Cain, but the root of murder is in the hearts of all of us. It is a spirit of hatred. “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life” (1 John 3:15).

Now, what is hate? In order to understand what hate is, we need to know what love is. Love is a desire for someone’s fellowship and well-being. This means, we want to connect with that person, and we want their best.

Hatred is the opposite. Hatred is when we do not desire someone’s fellowship and well-being. We don’t want to be around them or have no interest in them, and we don’t care about their well-being. In Cain’s case, we positively want to diminish it.

Why did Cain kill Abel? Because his deeds were evil, and Abel’s were good. What he tells them is that when they seek to live a godly life, people will feel the same way about them that Cain did about Abel. “Do not be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you” (1 John 3:13). Christians should remember this.

On our part, we have passed from death to life. We know this by the fact that we love our brothers. However, we need to be on our guard! We must watch out that we do not have a cold heart towards people and an indifference to their needs. And this leads us to the final point. Love must be put into practice.

The Practice of Love
John says that love has to be put into practice. Jesus didn’t just say He loved people. He demonstrated in actions. The same should be true for us. “If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has not pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?” (1 John 3:17).

This conclusion is obvious if we understand what love is. Love is a desire for someone’s fellowship and well-being. If we truly desire people’s well-being, then we will want to see them prosper. If we can help them, we will.

Now, in our world, we know about needs all over the world. We can’t do everything for everybody. So, what should we do?

First, we have a responsibility toward our own. We should take care of our own things. As one author puts it, there is a principle of “his lamp still shines.” In other words, we maintain ourselves and have the things we need.

Second, we should trust God in giving love. God is going to take care of us, and He is going to lead us to give. I have found in my own life that God has made it clear when I should give, and I have followed what I believe is His leading. His demands have not been excessive. In addition, as I have given, He has always provided for me what I need to give. Read carefully through 2 Corinthians 9: “Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God” (10–11).

Third, err on the side of generosity. You won’t regret it. God will take care of you. Now, I’m going to use an example from my own life to illustrate a point, not to boast. There was a Mongolian here this summer who loved the guitar. He had always wanted an electric guitar. I told him he could use mine for the summer, since I did not use it that much. At the end of the summer, I had heard how much he enjoyed it. So, I decided I would just give it to him. Now, here’s why I bring that up. I have not missed that electric guitar at all, even though it was a somewhat difficult choice to give it to him. However, as I think about this guy playing it over in Mongolia, it gives me a lot of joy. I would not have had that joy, if I had kept it. I probably would have regretted not giving it to him. That teaches me to err on the side of generosity.

Now, one more point I want to make about our situation here in the United Sates. We have an abundance of food and clothing in this land. We don’t see much, if any, extreme poverty, as international organizations describe it. However, there are still a lot of needs. There is need for support, encouragement, friendship, and community. That’s where we can show our love. We may not need to give people a meal who might otherwise not have one that day. We may not need to give people clothes who otherwise might not have any. However, there is a need to experience human connection without which we can be as poor as anyone without food or clothes. That’s how we can show love.

In reaching out to people to encourage them, we can heed the call of the Apostle John, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:18).

Conclusion
Brothers and sisters, I want you to know that I see you loving people. I see you caring about people. I see you meeting needs. You are not indifferent to the needs around you.

What I want to encourage you in is to do it more and more. Be more deliberate. Be more wise. Be more loving.

Here’s the key takeaway from the sermon. As you think about the Christian life, think, Word, prayer, and love. Don’t think about just those actions that relate to God but also loving those around you. Think of fellowship. Think of the needs of others. That’s the transformation in our thinking we need. Our goal in our Christian life should be to be experts in biblical knowledge and also experts in human relationships. That’s how God is calling us to think here.

That is the way that Jesus is working out His life in us. That is the way He taught us through His example. “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters” (1 John 3:16). Amen.

Benediction: every day, we have opportunities to live like Jesus. We have people all around us. We should welcome the opportunity. We should welcome each human being we meet as an opportunity to exercise love for our neighbor. That is our calling as Christians. That is what it means to live like Jesus.

Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you. Amen.

________

Photo by juan pablo rodriguez on Unsplash

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Joyful Fellowship with God & Man, Part 3: Obedience & Love (1 John 2:3-14)

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How do we live in joyful fellowship with God and man? That’s the question that John answers in this book. He wrote this letter so that its readers might have fellowship with the Apostles who have fellowship with the Father and the Son. He wants a community living in joyful fellowship with one another.

So, what does it mean to really live in fellowship with God on a daily basis? The passage before us gives us a significant part of the answer. It means to live in obedience to God’s commands and to love our neighbor. That’s the first two points that we will consider in this sermon. The third will be the encouragement that he gives them that they are living in fellowship with God in verses 12-14. So, let’s look at each of these things in turn as we consider what it means to live in joyful fellowship with God and man.

Obedience
Anyone who lives in fellowship with God is going to obey His commands. There is no fellowship with God apart from obedience. “We know that we have come to know him if we keep his commands. Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person” (1 John 2:3–4). The word used here for “to know God” means more than just knowledge. It means knowledge that changes us. We might say, “if we really get who God is . . .” It also means not just knowing about God but actually letting that love change our hearts. To really know God and have fellowship with Him is to keep His commands. Anyone who claims to know the Lord but does not keep His commands is not telling the truth.

When we think about it, this makes complete sense. God is our Creator. He made us. He is the Lord of the universe. It exists from Him, through Him, and for Him. We have nothing but what He gives us. It makes complete sense that if He tells us to do something we would do it.

Now, people today fear the idea of commands. We are almost ready to do the opposite if someone commands us to do something. That is in part because of our own anxiety. We fear that what someone tells us to do will destroy us. We fear that we will lose ourselves. However, when it comes to God, we don’t need to fear this. We know that what God commands us will bring us life. There is nothing that He tells us to do that will ultimately harm us, even though it may be hard in the moment. His commands are life. We will not lose ourselves. We will find ourselves in obedience to Him.

We should also note that obeying God’s commands is the fruit and not the root of our relationship with God. He does not say that we obey God’s commands in order to have a relationship with God. He says, we have a relationship with God, and this means that we will obey the commands of God. It is the fruit of our relationship with Christ and not the root of it. It is so sure that the relationship with God will be one where we obey His commands that we can tell that we have that relationship with God from the fact that we obey His commands just like we can know an apple tree from the fact that apples are growing on it. It’s easy to tell.

Does this mean that we obey God’s commands perfectly? No. Don’t forget what we just considered. John wrote this so that we would not sin. However, if anyone sins, then we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ places His sacrifice for our sins over against our sin. The result is that God is faithful and just to forgive us. If it is not perfection, then what does it mean to obey the commands of God? What this means is that the direction of our lives is in obedience to God’s commands, that we desire to keep them, and that we are grieved and repent when we do not. That’s what it means to keep God’s commands in this context.

Now, what does it mean to obey God’s commands?

1. What are God’s explicit commands? What are the things that God tells us to do? We have the Ten Commandments. We have Jesus’ exposition of it in the Sermon on the Mount. We have summaries of God’s commands in Romans 12. We should know these well. Continue reading “Joyful Fellowship with God & Man, Part 3: Obedience & Love (1 John 2:3-14)”

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Our First Priority: What Loving God Looks Like (Dt. 6:4–9, part 4)

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Whenever we love anything, it comes to our mind readily. Theologian Thomas Watson said well, “He who is in love, his thoughts are ever upon the object.” Think of how many songs and poems have been written about love. Love captivates the heart and leads us to song.

If we think about that, it should not be too hard for us to think about what it looks like when someone loves God. However, Moses does not leave it to our imagination. He fleshes out here what it means to love God. We know God through creation, but we also know God through His Word. What we do with His Word is an indicator of our love for God. God makes it about His Word. First, we want to see what the presence of the Word should be in our lives. Then, we’ll try to understand the connection between the Word and our Love. Third, we will see that our love is indicated by the proclamation of the Word out of love.

The Presence of the Word in Our Lives
Immediately after Moses had commanded the people to love the Lord their God with all their heart and soul and strength, he said this, “These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts” (Dt. 6:6). What this means is that the Word of God should not only be something we hear, but it should go down deep into our hearts. This is one of the most important ways we show our love for God.

Now, how does this happen? First, we have to hear the commandments of God. The commandments will not be on our hearts if we don’t listen to them. In our case, we can also read them. In those days, they did not all have a copy of the Word of God, but we do. There is no excuse for not reading or listening to the Word of God on a regular basis, at least daily! We have it in great abundance. We have apps to remind us. We have cheap copies of the Word of God. If we don’t like to read, there are innumerable ways to listen to the Bible each day.

Here is what God says, if you love me, you need to have my commandments on your hearts. How can you say that you love Him, if you make no effort to know what He is saying to the world? Continue reading “Our First Priority: What Loving God Looks Like (Dt. 6:4–9, part 4)”

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Our First Priority: What It Means to Love (Dt. 6:4–9, Part 3)

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Why do we like love stories so much? Because this world is about love. We are made to love. Our life is fulfilled through love. That’s where the meaning is. When we are facing the end of our lives, what is it we want most? We want the people we love around us. We may not reflect on it, but that’s really what gives our life joy and meaning.

The Bible is all about love. That’s what we learn in this passage. The teachers of the law said that this was the most important passage. The Jews would write it down and put it in little boxes and say it twice a day. Jesus said that this was what the Old Testament was all about, loving God and our neighbor.

But what does it really mean to love? That’s what we want to try and understand by considering verse 5 in the context of the book of Deuteronomy and applying it to our own lives. Our goal is to help us understand what it means to really love God and how we can do it better. By extension, this will also help us understand what love is in relationship to other people. We are going to look at this in three parts. First, let’s try to understand the word love. Then, we will try to understand what it means to love with all our heart and soul. Third, we will consider what it means to love with all our strength.

What It Means to Love
Deuteronomy gives us the greatest commandment in the Bible. This is contained in our passage. However, what’s interesting is that love in the book of Deuteronomy primarily refers to God’s love for His people and only secondarily to our love for Him. Moses speaks much more of God’s love toward us than our love toward Him.

What this means is that if we are going to understand what it means to love, we should understand what it means that God loves us. That will teach us how to love Him. So, what does it mean that God loves us?

First, it means that God pays attention to His people. Listen to Dt. 4:37, “Because he loved your ancestors and chose their descendants after them, he brought you out of Egypt by his Presence and his great strength . . .” God loved them and chose them and thought about them. He saw them in Egypt and paid attention to their situation. Why? Because He loved them and chose them. So, He took an interest in them and in their situation. He thought about them. He took notice of them. Continue reading “Our First Priority: What It Means to Love (Dt. 6:4–9, Part 3)”

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Our First Priority: Seeing God (Deut. 6:4–9, Part 2)

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How does love grow up in our hearts? We “see” the object of love as desirable and loveable. Now, note very carefully that this does not mean that we literally see these things with our eyes. We can have these objects in our mind. For example, we may love the place where we grew up, but we may not be there or even see it in pictures. We simply have it in our memory and those memories awaken love in us. We may love our children, but we do not always have them with us. Our hearts can yearn for them even when they are not with us. The point is that it is how we see with our minds that will determine what and whom we will love.

It’s not surprising, then, that when Moses tells the people that they are to love God, he begins by teaching them to “see” God. Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one.

Why did Moses begin by saying “Hear”?
They needed to stop what they were doing and listen. An image in our mind begins with hearing properly. They would hear God’s Word and that would enable them to think about and meditate on God. They may have had many things in their mind. They needed to give attention to God in order to know Him.

We cannot do this on our own. We can know things about God. He has not left Himself without witness. However, to really see God in the way we should, God needs to show Himself to us. When we get ready to listen to God, we should pray. We should pray for God to open up our eyes to see Him in His glory like Moses did. This is what will move our hearts to seek Him.

Second, we have to get some margin for thoughtful meditation. Our society is a go, go, go society. We are always on the move, always doing something. We need to take time and think and pray. We have to find margin to do so. We think that it will be a waste of time. Our fear of lack of activity is out of all proportion to reality. We’ve got to sit in the quiet. This is what will actually fill us with joy and happiness. Simply glossing over our anxiety by keeping ourselves busy will never enable us to develop the happiness we truly desire.

So, how does listening to this phrase help us to know God? We want to consider the three things this phrase tells us. What did Moses mean by “the LORD”? What did he mean by “our God”? And what did he mean by saying that “the LORD is one” (Dt. 6:4–9). Continue reading “Our First Priority: Seeing God (Deut. 6:4–9, Part 2)”

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Our First Priority (Dt. 6:4–9, Part 1)

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When we think about the blessings that God has given us in this land, it is truly amazing. We are blessed in this land with freedom, prosperity, and resources unparalleled in the history of the world. So many of the problems that our ancestors faced we no longer face or to a much lesser degree.

But that doesn’t mean that there are no challenges. What do we do with all this prosperity? How do we maintain it? How do we handle this technology that has made our life so much easier? How do we live in peace with other nations that have their own ambitions and different perspectives from our own? How do we deal with broader threats to health and economy that we have not yet experienced? How do we deal with the polarization that seems to inhibit us from acting in a rational way, grates on our spirits, and splits families and friends?

On a more personal level, we face the question of how to live a meaningful life? How do we deal with the pressures of relationships? And what about our children and their future? What about our children who now seem to be going off the rails? How do we manage our own declining health and learn to live within new limits? What about our church and its future?

What is our priority in the midst of this? If we go back 3,000 years to the book of Deuteronomy, we find the people of Israel facing a big challenge. They were going to go in and take a land that was already inhabited. They were going to have to fight many difficult battles in order to take the land that God had given them. Moses, their leader, was going to die, and they would have a new leader. As they thought about their situation, what was their priority? What was the most important thing for them to do? Our text gives the answer. Love God. That was their first priority. Moses taught them that their blessing did not depend on their skill or wisdom or life but on their connection with God. That’s what we want to see in this lesson, from reason, from Jesus, and from Moses.

Our First Priority According to Reason
If we do not believe that there is a God, then, obviously, loving God is not the highest priority. However, most of the world does and has believed that there is a God who is almighty and infinite and rules the world. If this is the case, then what could be more important than knowing Him and aligning our lives with who He is? He is the one who has made the world and made us. Doesn’t it make sense that we’d want to know something about Him?

You can see this in people’s lives. They try to make power, money, pleasures, or people the center of their lives. It really doesn’t work. It’s a fruitless quest. We need something much more stable to base our lives on. This center of stability is a relationship with God.

Humans throughout the world and throughout world history testify to this fact. Before they entered battle or took a voyage or began their reigns, they would sacrifice to the gods. Granted, they got badly wrong who God is, but they had enough sense to realize that their relationship to God was what mattered most.

If we believe the world is created by God and for God, then what could be a greater priority than knowing Him and loving Him? What Moses was teaching here in Deuteronomy 6 is what is in line with what is revealed to the hearts and minds of all people. Continue reading “Our First Priority (Dt. 6:4–9, Part 1)”

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Always Doing Good (Acts 9:36–43)

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It’s easy to look at the great figures of history and see what they’ve accomplished and think that our lives are insignificant. Who are we in the light of such great people? Who are we in light of David? Or Moses? Or Paul? Or Peter?

Well, God may not call us to preach to thousands, to conquer kingdoms, to liberate a nation, or to plant churches, but that doesn’t mean that we have no purpose. This month, I want to highlight from the book of Acts several people who demonstrate the variety of ways in which we can participate in God’s redemptive plan and make an impact in the world that lasts for eternity.

Today, we begin with a woman named Tabitha. I want you to see what she did and the effects of what she did.

What She Did
We meet Tabitha in the context of Peter’s travels. God was getting his Apostles out into the world, and they were beginning to travel and make an impact in the world. They were beginning to see that they had to put the new wine into the new wine skins. They were leaving behind the old wine skins of the religious practices of the elders and even of the Old Testament. They were good for the time, but now the Gospel was going worldwide. Things had to change.

We see this change in the fact that Peter stayed with Simon the tanner. Because Simon worked with dead animals, he was “unclean” and would have had to stay outside the city gates. The fact that Peter stayed with him was evidence that his views were changing. This would be made explicit in his encounter with Cornelius in chapter 10. I encourage you to read it.

When Peter came to Joppa, our text tells us that there was a disciple named Tabitha. A disciple is a student or follower. Those who follow Jesus are those who listen to what He teaches and then seek to imitate Him and live by His teachings. In those days, a student would literally follow their teacher around listening to his teachings. Today, disciples listen to Jesus’ Word in the Bible and seek to put it into practice in their lives.

Tabitha was a woman who was “always doing good.” Here is the goal of the Christian, to be a person who is always doing good. In this way, Tabitha was and we can be disciples of Jesus. Peter describes Jesus as one who “went around doing good” (Acts 10:38). Those who go around doing good are like Jesus. That’s why Paul says that we are called as disciples to do good. He says, “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers” (Galatians 6:9–10).

The text points us to the object of these good works. She was “always helping the poor” (Acts 9:36). Why was she doing this? She did it because this was Jesus’ agenda. Jesus wanted her to make the poor a priority. Here is what Jesus said:

When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:12–14).

Tabitha took this to heart and made helping the widow and the orphan her priority. We should, too.

What did doing good to the poor look like? The sad thing was that Tabitha had died just as Peter arrived. When Peter went and saw her where they had lain her body, “All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that [Tabitha] had made while she was still with them” (Acts 9:39). This was the sort of good thing that Tabitha had done for the poor.

And this gives us an idea of how we can be partners with God in the work of redemption. We can do good. We can give our money, time, and resources to do good unto others.

What does this look like today? It may mean that we see a need in someone’s house and work on it with them, as Live It does all over this county. It may mean that we speak to people in our neighborhood, giving of our time. It may mean we get involved in civic organizations. It may mean helping a young family by watching their children. It may mean foregoing something we would want to do to let others enjoy things. It may mean having people over to our home.

In doing this, we will need to be strategic. We have limited resources and an absolutely limited amount of time. Where should we focus our energy? We may have friends and family to connect with, but the example of Tabitha reminds us that Jesus wants us to put the least of these on our list of priorities. Where are the least of these in your schedule? I know this is hard. Jesus calls us to take a hard look at our schedule and priorities and say “no” to some good things in order to do those things that are best for His kingdom.

The Effects of What She Did
But this passage reminds us that doing good is not without its rewards. As the Apostle Paul says, “we shall reap, if we do not give up.”

We see the rewards in the people who mourned for her. They were so deeply moved by what she had done that they wept at her funeral. She had loved them so well.

When the men went down to the MNA Disaster Response Warehouse, Mike Kennamer, who coordinates the work at the warehouse, told us about his experience in going to places where natural disasters had wrought devastation. He said that he found again and again that people were amazed at what the volunteers did. Why, they would ask, would you take your vacation time to come and help us? Then, he would tell them about how much Jesus had done for him and that this was his motivation. That’s what “always doing good” can lead to.

But God had greater things to do here. When Peter went up to the room, he knelt down and prayed. Then, he stood up. He spoke to Tabitha, “Tabitha, get up.” He said. Then, she opened her eyes and got up. God had performed a miracle, and Peter presented her to them alive.

The testimony of her resurrection was so great that it spread all around. “This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord” (Acts 10:42). This is a reminder that we never know what God will do when we step out in faith to do good to those around us. God takes what we do and miraculously spreads it much further than we can imagine.

I heard about an example of this at our Presbytery meeting a few weeks ago. Our Mercy Ministry Committee has gotten involved in medical debt relief. For pennies on the dollar, you can wipe out a huge amount of medical debt. A Christian organization is partnering with people who want to serve the poor in this way. The chairman of our Mercy Ministry Committee told about one woman whom they had helped relieve from hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. They not only helped her, they got to know her. She was so moved by this demonstration of love that she accepted the love of Christ into her life. That’s what God will do when we step out in faith to do good.

So, how can we do good? Take the things you actually already do and ask yourself, how can I use this to do good? Who are the people in my life to whom I can do good? Who has Jesus already put in my life that I can bless as a way of showing His love? Once you’ve answered that, do it. You never know how God made use it. Amen.

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Photo by Marília Castelli on Unsplash