- Amen. Well, good morning, saints, disciples of Jesus, Rockpoint family, it's good to see you. My name is Seth Fagerland, one of the Pastors here. And if you are new, as Doug said, we are glad that you're here. Whether you are joining us online or you're down in the warehouse, or you're here in this space, we're glad that you have chosen to worship with us here this morning. We are gonna be continuing our series in the Book of Acts. We're in Acts chapter nine. If you have your Bibles, you can turn there, otherwise it's on page 918, I believe in the chair rack Bible ahead of you. But as we continue our time to worship, would you pray with me. Lord, we've been praying to You, we've been worshiping You, we've been talking about You all morning. And Lord, as we open up Your word that has not changed, we don't wanna know just things about You, we wanna know You. And all of us came from different circumstances and home environments and drives here, conversations this morning and sometimes there's all the noise that's in our heads. And Jesus, I pray by Your help that we are able to surrender those at Your feet and come in Your presence. 'Cause you said, God, that when your people gather that You are there in a special way. So now may the words in my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be pleasing in Your sight, O, Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. In Jesus' name, we pray, Amen. I rarely start off a message this way. Usually with a heavier topic, I like to ease into it but I am gonna rip off the bandaid right away. We're gonna be talking about death this morning. And if this is something that you have experienced in your relational spheres in recent days, I am so sorry. This is a heavy thing to bring up and I've sensed that weightiness the whole time in preparing for this passage and this topic today. I may not know your individual grieving this morning, but there is one who does. And He's not far off. And He does care. And He's closer now more than you may ever know and His name is Jesus Christ. And He weeps with those who weeps, and He mourns with those who mourn. And He is here. I've spoken at three funerals in my life. My grandfather's. Before he passed, he asked me to do the message and to do his funeral and that was an honor. And it was a celebration of a life well lived. Not too long after coming to Rockpoint, one of our own dear sisters, her name was Janelle. And she also lived a wonderful, God-honoring, Gospel-driven life. And yes, though very sad, it also was a celebration. But just a couple weeks ago in this very room, I had the hard task of speaking for a funeral for a 14-year-old kid. I did not know this kid, but his grandparents go to this church. And this place was packed. Standing-room only out in the Gavin area, young and old coming, trying to come to grips with this enemy we call death. So I wanna share some of the things from that morning with you as we go into this passage. Death is not a friend nor is it natural. We will never go to a funeral and feel like this is okay. Our culture may write songs about the circle of life as if death were some part of a natural way of things but I will tell you the Bible says, "There is nothing natural about death." Death is a trespasser and an enemy. It is not what God made us to experience and we instinctively hate it and we resist it and when we do taste it, it is bitter. Our Creator did not make us for death, He made us for life. Death is the first enemy listed in the Bible, and it is the last enemy that is destroyed. You all need to know God hates death. He hates it. Jesus hates death more than you or I will ever know. In that moment, when Jesus wept because His friend, Lazarus, died, so many people know those verses, the shortest verses in the Bible, Jesus wept. He wasn't sad, He was angry that we have to experience death. And Jesus is not unfamiliar with suffering, or sorrow, or death because He Himself came among mankind and experienced them all more fully than we will ever know. And He defeated death on the cross and the resurrection. You see, Jesus came as fully God incarnate in the flesh, but He was also fully man to live among us, to live a perfect, sinless life. But Jesus came to die on a Roman cross. He came to pay in Himself the penalty for our sin. On the cross, it says that He bore our sins. 2 Corinthians 5 says, "He became that sin and bore the anger of a Holy God. And He faced the judgment of death that belonged to each one of us, Jesus died and was buried." But what death did to Jesus was nothing compared to what then Jesus did to death. Because on the very first Easter morning, death died. Three days later, Jesus rose again, Jesus himself has the power over death. And while Jesus counts it as an enemy, it is a defeated enemy. He proved it by rising from the dead. Death could not keep its grip on Him. The Bible says, He was the first one raised, giving all who trust in Him away out of death. It is for this reason that the author of the Book of Hebrews writes this. "Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity so by His death, He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." And also why Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." So you need to know Jesus came and defeated sin and death. And Jesus offers eternal life to all who believe in Him. Today in our passage, in the Book of Acts says, "The gospel message continues to advance through His people as witnesses to the end of the earth." We are gonna see a moment where I believe Jesus is saying, "Death, where is your victory?" But before we get there, we're gonna be caught up where the Apostle Peter has been in recent days in the Book of Acts. You see, we've been talking about Saul now for several weeks. And if you're with us last week, we saw the formation in the gaps. Saul, who spent three years in Damascus then he goes up to Tarsus where he spends the next eight years. But during all that time, we need to come back to where is Peter? Where is everybody else? What has been going on? So Acts chapter 9, verse 32. It says, "Now as Peter went here and there among them all, he came down also to the saints who lived in Lydda. And there he found a man named Aeneas, who was bedridden for eight years, who was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, 'Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you, rise and make your bed or take up your bed,' and immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him and they turn to the Lord." You see, the last time Peter showed up in the Book of Acts, it was back in Acts chapter eight, all right? So after the persecution started, so after Saul was ravaging the church and declaring war against the followers of the way, the church scattered and Philip was one of those who got out of there and he went up to Samaria. And he started proclaiming the Gospel to the Samaritans. And they were turning to the Lord, so much so that the Apostle said, "We've gotta go check this out." And they sent Peter and they sent John, to go see what was going on up there. You can go back and read that account. But notice, I believe that God is working in Peter's life right now. He's slowly getting Him out of Jerusalem. Because outside of that moment with the Samaritans, Peter had been kind of staying just in Jerusalem. But remember what Jesus said, "You're gonna be my witnesses, not only Jerusalem, but Judea, Samaria, to the ends of the earth." And so I see God doing a movement here. So outside of that, Peter's been staying close to home. But here we are told he's visiting Christians in Lydda. Now, where is that, all right? We've seen this map now a couple different weeks, just kind of reference points here. Dead Sea, Sea of Galilee, but here's Jerusalem. Now Lydda is only 30 miles to the west. 30 miles is, some of you maybe drove 30 miles this morning, right? Some of you might be tuning in 30 miles away. On foot through rougher train, it's a little more intense, but 30 miles isn't bad, okay? It's still in Judea and Peter goes there and finds this man. And he does this remarkable miracle in the name of Jesus Christ. And by saying the name of Jesus, Peter invokes the power and the presence of Jesus and God does a miracle. So a man who was paralyzed, paralyzed, gets up and walks around. And the name of Jesus has the power to break the laws of time and space and the only explanation is it was supernatural. It was supernatural. See, Jesus performed very similar miracles when He did His earthly ministry those three years. And it's gotta be one of those moments like, wow, this didn't die with Jesus. Again, further evidence and proof that Jesus is a risen Savior and things are happening. Now, this happens not only in the town of Lydda but across the whole area where through this miracle, people are genuinely converting to Jesus. They're turning to the Lord. Now when it says Sharon, that's not a town, okay? It's the Plains of Sharon. So Lydda's here, we'll get to Joppa in just a moment. But along here, this is called the coastal plain of Sharon, it goes from Joppa all the way up to Mount Carmel. Now you're about to imagine what that is like back then, 'cause there's the crazy mountains here in the middle, so where do people travel? Where it's easiest, right? So the Plain of Sharon was a trade highway. So much movement happened here along the coastal plain from people from all over but the original social media word spread fast. This is how people were talking, did you hear, did you hear, did you hear? And it spread along this trade route all along this region, people started turning to the Lord, which we'll see here in just a moment what leads up to comes next. So not only does the risen Jesus have the power to break the laws of time and space, He has the power to break the grip of death. Verse 36. "Now, there was in Joppa a disciple named Tabitha, which translated means Dorcas," let's stick with Tabitha this morning. Some of you were waiting to see what I was gonna do with that, were you? "She was full of good works and acts of charity. And in those days she became ill and she died. And when they had washed her, they laid in an upper room." Verse 38. "Since Lydda was near Joppa," it was only 11 miles away. "The disciples, hearing that Peter was there," again, the trending word throughout the Plains of Sharon was God's doing something in the name of Jesus in Lydda. "So they sent two men to him, urging him, 'Please come to us without delay.'" Again, notice this is after she died. Verse 39: "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 the tunics and the garments that Tabitha made while she was with them." Let's pause there, Tabitha. What do we know about this woman? Well, verse 36 said that she was a disciple or she was a disciple of Jesus. And remember, every disciple is a Christian and every Christian is a disciple. This notion of the few, the proud, the disciples, that the only the 12 disciples were the only ones, these super Christians, that's nonsense. Disciples, anyone who has trusted in Jesus as Savior and Lord. Tabitha was a follower of Jesus, she was a disciple. You, my friends, if you have trusted Jesus as Savior and Lord, you are disciples. And I also love that Jesus had female disciples, okay? Go back and read the beginning of Luke chapter eight, we skipped this stuff so often. Luke intentionally lists out names of female disciples who are part of Jesus's movement. They were disciples of Jesus. Jesus is only one of two, it's recorded, only one of two Jewish rabbis who ever had female disciples. I love that. Huge affirmation of Jesus, not only men and women, and as He was launching His disciple making movement. Now, some think that Tabitha was an older woman, both from the comments that she was known for her good works and her numerous acts of charity, which was probably over the course of time. So that's a chance with that. But also because her group of friends seemed to be a group of other widows, or we don't know, right? Now, there was a chance that Tabitha was a widow herself. That she had devoted her life to taking care of other people after her husband had passed. We're not told whether she was a widow and we're not told how old she was. As I was reading this, I wondered, remember I talked about last week, the questions we ask as we read our Bible, I just start to wonder, how many men had died during the persecution in Acts eight, when Saul was ravaging the church? How many women were made widows during that time? I don't know. But made me wonder about that as I read this moment. Widows were more common back then, typically men were older than women at marrying age, but anyway. But real quick, it says, I wanna talk about that word full. It says that she was full of good works and acts of charity, I love this word. Okay, I love this word because this is what it's talking about. That word full means it's this picture of an empty vessel that gets filled up not just the top where if you bump it, you spill a little bit like, oh man. Like, you're the kid like saying, or the kids, "Hey, can I have some juice?" "Yeah," and they fill it up to like, and they're like shaking as it's dripping across the carpet like, okay, no. Full, it's like a vessel that's being poured into, but it doesn't stop once it gets full, it keeps going. And it's overflowing sense of it's spilling over everywhere around it. It's a beautiful picture of the life that God wants to do in us, that word. I like to call it love to love, because we have been so unconditionally loved by God and extravagantly loved by God that His love now overflows from us to other people. We have been loved spilling over to love other people. 1 John 4 says, "This is real love: not that we love God, but that God first loved us and sent His Son to save us." We are simply just empty vessels. Especially when we start to identify the things in our life that we try to fill ourselves up with. That we try to love other things or we try to other things to be, give us that sense of filling up. But when we remove those things, say those things will never work and we truly allow only the love of Jesus to be the thing that fills us up, we start to experience the abundant life that Jesus wants to do in us. Back to Acts nine, Tabitha. So this amazing, generous, wonderful, Godly woman, she dies. And this is where we struggle, right? Why her? Why did this happen to her? She was a good person. Look at all the good that she was doing. God, why did You let her die? And we start to barter with God. Well, God, You can raise people from the dead, so You should raise this person from the dead. She deserves it. And in these moments, we try to call upon some type of merit or earning for God to do a miracle in our lives. What about when it happens to someone young? God, they're innocent. They have their whole life in front of them. We're gonna see this when Paul encounters a young teenager named Eutychus, later in the Book of Acts. Or what about Mary and Martha, who are grieving over their brother, Jesus, who was Jesus's friend? Jesus, You love us, don't you? If You love us, why will You not do this miracle? And again, I realized by listing these things, I'm hitting close to home for many, if not all of us. And I don't wanna be insensitive to the deep, real emotions that come in these times, but I want God's truth to shine on all of us. Verse 40: "But Peter put them all outside, and knelt down and he prayed, and turning to the body, He said, 'Tabitha arise.' And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter, she sat up and gave up his hand and raised her up." We're gonna go back to that word, raised her up. "Then calling the saints and widows, Peter then presents her alive." In verse 42 it says, "It became known throughout all Joppa, many believed in the Lord. And he stayed in Joppa for many days with one Simon, a tanner." Peter kneels down and he prays. Again, we don't read time very well in the Bible, right? How long did he pray? We're doing this 21 days of transforming prayer, what Doug talked about. We need to seek the face of God before we seek the hand of God. But we either rush that step or completely skip that step. And we jump right to, "God, I need; God, I want," instead of just coming to God. Did you notice Peter called her by name? Did you notice he did that with Ananias earlier, too, right? Oh, I think it'd be so fun to talk more about that sometime, how powerful it is to call someone by name into the life of Jesus but we don't have time for that this morning. But food for thought there. But it says, her eyes opened. Her eyes opened, a dead person's eyes opened. And verse 41 says that He raised her up. I wanna come back to that word. 'Cause that word, raised her up, is the same word used throughout the rest of New Testament but in referring to the resurrection of Jesus. The same word used to describe how Jesus was once dead but He is now alive. Why is Luke saying it that way? It's because this, he wants us to know as the reader, "Hey, Tabitha is being risen, but this is temporary." But it points to the permanent resurrection of Jesus where real life is found. And then again, it says many people believed in Joppa, believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know why it doesn't say everyone believed. When a dead person becomes alive, why doesn't everyone believe? I don't know. But many people believed. But notice they didn't believe in Peter. We so often wanna make the vessel or the person the hero and yet you see that struggle later in the Book of Acts when people have no context for God. They wanna worship Paul or they wanna worship Barnabas, they try to worship them as gods. And they said, "No, no, no, it's not us, it's the name of Jesus Christ." But even in this moment, they're not tempted to worship Peter, even though he was there. But they were turning to Jesus, right? So what do we do with this? The story in the Book of Acts. When we encounter death, we are afraid of it. Like we said at the beginning, death is our first enemy that is listed in the Bible and is our last enemy to be destroyed. So when it gets close, when we sense it, or when we're around it, or we experience it, we barter with God, "God, You can, so therefore You should raise this person." And hidden behind that struggle is a belief that this life is all there is. We fear death and we beg God to avoid it because subconscious, we believe that our life on this earth is all that matters. And therefore we try to earn and we try to merit our worthiness with God that we deserve this miracle. But is that what God God does? Amen. Amen.

- Yeah.

- Yes. I hope that's on the recording. Cute kid. Is that how God operates? No, look it up, there's only 10 instances in the Bible where someone gets raised to life. Four of them were in the Old Testament with Elijah and Elisha. A crazy time to be a prophet, you did not want to be Elijah or Elisha. 'Cause the whole nation was saying, "We want nothing to do with God." God was pursuing their hearts, trying to show them that real life is found only in Him. And so yeah, four times Elijah and Elisha. Jesus Himself, three, three. Jairus' daughter, the widow of Nain's son, and Lazarus. And then there's that crazy moment when Jesus dies on the cross and says that Godly people rose in their graves, we can talk about that all day. I have no idea. Peter with Tabitha, Peter does it once. Paul does it once. That's it. And everybody had to die again. Lazarus had to die again. Tabitha dies again. If raising someone back to life was a regular or expected thing, why didn't Jesus break up every funeral He ever encountered? When the apostles were martyred, why didn't God raise them back to life instantly? To prove the power that Jesus, to prove the message, to prove to everyone so that everyone could believe in Jesus. Kill somebody and boom, they pop right back up. Someone joked after first service, like whack-a-mole, kill them and they pop right back up. Wouldn't that have been convincing enough? Why didn't the church start a funeral busting ministry as the number one thing that they did? "Come join us and you will never die." No, there is a big thing that God is doing. There is a bigger thing that God is doing. Remember that verse from Hebrews. It says this, "Since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanities so that by His death, He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." The Book of Acts is the story of God; a missionary God who is proclaiming His Gospel, the good news that salvation for the forgiveness of sins and eternal life is found only in Jesus Christ. And that is being proclaimed in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. And this moment in Acts nine, I believe is a moment where Jesus is pointing and proclaiming and asking this question, "Where, O death, is your victory?" I believe it's a moment; it's a powerful moment. But I believe it's part of something, it's part of a bigger picture. You've seen this before. Again, map not to scale. Some of you, it probably bugs you. "Wait, Samaria is not with," I get it. Samaria's way down here, right? But didn't fit in the map, right? Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, but then to the ends of the earth as a visual to see the trajectory in the Book of Acts. This is what it's about. But listen, Jesus, when he healed Lazarus, where was that? Jerusalem. Death, where's your victory? Peter with Tabitha. Joppa is right on the outskirt of Judea, right by Samaria, death, where is your victory? Do you know where Paul raised Eutychus? Troas, way out here. Death, where is your victory? These moments as the Gospel is going further and further out, it means this side of heaven, we will still face death, but we don't have to fear it. That is what I think God is doing. That we will still face death, but we don't have to fear it. We've gotta see this. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? The sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law. Thanks be to God, He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. This side of heaven, we will still face death, but we do not have to fear death. With their permission, I wanna share something with you from a disciple here at Rockpoint. He's just a man who is a part of this church family. But he recently posted this within the last couple of weeks. "Death is not something that scares us, but goodbyes are hard. Cathy and I have had a beautiful life together filled with so many blessings and so much light and love from so many through our 37 years together, as we have faced this battle. But unless we see a miracle soon, Cathy will be transitioning to hospice with a relatively short amount of time left according to the medical team. We are not mad at God. And what we are dealing with now is collateral damage from living in a broken place. The promise from the scripture is for those who have placed their trust in the Lord, that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 8. Having time to say goodbye and express our love and gratitude has been such a gift. And while we know that miracles happen every day and we hope to see ours come, we will cherish each moment until she finally rests." Notice, it is okay to ask for a miracle. Don't hear me wrong. I am not saying we should never plead and earnestly pray our desire for a miracle for us to beg God for a miracle. We must remember Jesus Himself. Jesus, the very Son of God, the night before everything goes down, He prayed not once, not twice, three times. Go back and read the account all night long to the point, with such intensity, it said that He sweated drops of blood. The capillaries in His skin burst, It was so intense where He said, "God, if there is any other way?" Was Jesus asking for a miracle? Yes. And to be transformed through prayer to a place where we can say, "But, God, we want what You want more." We can do both. Don't mishear me this morning. There is a place for us to say, "God, please, please." And there's a place to say, "God, You are God and I'm not." This world is not our home. And we are not home yet. Why hasn't Jesus come back yet? Because He is still bringing His Gospel to the ends of the earth. The story is still being told. There are people who still need to hear the good news of Jesus Christ and the salvation that is found only in Him, which means it was worth it for Jesus to wait for you. It's worth it for Jesus, for you and I, anyone that we have ever loved, to still have to face death so that we may still have have time or someone who still may have time, God is still saving someone, He's still doing something so they, too, may come to this place where they are set free from their fear of death. It's worth it for Him for that. That is the real why question. That is the question we can ask: "Why, God, is this happening? Why would Jesus do this? Why would Jesus come and defeat sin and death by sacrificing Himself? Why would He offer eternal life to all who believe in Him even when we don't deserve it?" We know we don't deserve it. That's what bothers us. As much as we wanna claim the merit card that we earn it, we deserve it, we know we don't. And the answer is because He loves us. For God so loved the world, He gave His Son, so that anyone who would believe in Him will have eternal life. For God so love the world, right now, that's billions. Imagine over time. For God so loved you, He gave His Son. If you are hearing this, here, Warehouse, online, watching this later, and you know you have not fully trusted Jesus as Savior and Lord. You know that you're not right with Him yet. Talk with someone today. There's no coincidences of why you're tuning in today. And you're online or go to rockpoint.church, click on I'm new, go down, I wanna know God. I wanna know God. The reason why God hates death so much is because how much He loves us. You don't know how much you hate something till you know how much you love something. He did it, something about it. So this side of heaven, we don't have to fear death. "Jesus destroys the power of death and He frees those held in slavery by their fear of death, where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. We're gonna close our time by proclaiming that truth together in song once again. You see when we worship together, it's not a bunch of individuals, it is a corporate proclamation. 'Cause sometimes you need to proclaim the truth, not just for you but your brother or sister in Christ who's here. And we'll talk more about that worship night that's coming up this Friday and the 21 days of transforming prayer. That is something, a bigger thing that you are part of. But listen to these lyrics, O death, where is your sting? O fear, where is your power? The mighty King of kings has disarmed you, delivered and redeemed, eternal life as ours. O, praise His name. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. Christ has risen from the grave and throughout eternity, our song will be the same. Hallelujah, Christ has risen from the grave, Amen.