Think about where you work. I don’t care what you are – butcher, baker or candlestick maker – as far as God is concerned, you are employed where you are first and foremost as His messenger. It matters not what special gift you may have from God. You may be an encourager, and administrator, a mercy giver or something else. You may or may not have a special gift to be an evangelist. You need to know that God sees you first as one of His messengers.

Cookie Monster has always been my favorite Sesame Street character. He’s always happy. I like happy people. He’s blue and that’s one of my favorite colors. And… he likes cookies. So do I.

One thing you can be sure of about the Cookie Monster: No matter what the little Sesame Street vignette seems to be about, if it involves him, it’s eventually going to be get back around to cookies.

The big blue monster has a one-track mind. All roads lead to cookies. Even his name is "Cookie!"

One of the things that Luke’s New Testament book of Acts shows us again and again about our wonderful God is that, in a sense, He has a one track mind. For Him, it’s all about the message.

>The message of salvation

>The message of eternal life

>The message of Jesus Christ

Nothing matters more to Jehovah God than people hearing and accepting His message.

The overall theme of the book of Acts is how this message spread back at the beginning of Christianity. Please keep that in mind as we look at today’s text.

We’re going to read Acts 9:32-43. Please follow with me.

It’s all about the message. God will use any venue at His disposal to further the message of salvation. We’re going to look at three of them in this passage. The first has to do with the messenger.

So that you can understand this from God’s perspective - it’s all about the message - I want you to see that this is the theme all the way through the book of Acts. Right off the bat, in the very first chapter of Acts in the eighth verse, we have the theme for the rest of the book. It was spoken right before Jesus’ ascension.

This verse tells us that this book is about how God’s most important message spread from Jerusalem to Judea and Samaria, then to the whole earth. As you page through the book of Acts you see it happening.

>In Acts 2, you see that it all started with the Jews in Jerusalem.

>In Acts 6 you read about the Grecian Jews who begin to take the message outside of Jerusalem.

>In Acts 8 you see the church scattered after the murder of Stephen and how the message spreads as the Christians flee the city. As a result, Samaria receives the message.

>In Acts 9, which contains our text for this morning, the message has reached into Galilee.

In the verse immediately before our text (Acts 9:31) we read, "Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace. It was strengthened; and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it grew in numbers, living in the fear of the Lord."

With God it’s all about the message. In Acts the story is about how that message spread. What we’re looking at first is that it messengers carried the message. The focus was not on the messengers but on the message.

Peter is the messenger according to verse 32 of our text.

Lydda was a small town on the road from Jerusalem to the Mediterranean Sea. It was about 25 miles west of the Holy City.

The city of Joppa that we read about in verse 36 is actually on the coast itself, 12 miles from Lydda. It is called Joffa today and it is actually a south suburb of Tel Aviv.

Joppa is mentioned in the Bible in several special ways. The "Cedars of Lebanon" that were used to build Solomon’s temple as described in 2 Chronicles 2:16 were cut and taken down to Joppa on rafts. Joppa was basically Jerusalem’s seaport. From there they could cart them over land all the way up to Jerusalem 25 miles away. When the temple was rebuilt in Ezra’s day, Ezra tells us that the same thing occurred. Joppa is also the place where Jonah left on his fishing expedition.

So Peter was traveling around the country. Why was he doing this? Why wasn’t he staying in Jerusalem where he was an Apostle and elder in the church? Well, because the message is spreading and He’s part of it. He’s teaching and strengthening the new churches. They didn’t have the New Testament Scriptures yet so it was very important that the new churches have apostolic teaching. I’m sure Peter was a busy man but his primary task was to carry that message Jesus told him and the other Apostles to carry that we read about back in Acts 1:8. Remember, with God, it’s all about the message and that has a particular application to you and me. For us, too, we need to realize that it’s all about the message.

Think about where you work. I don’t care what you are – butcher, baker or candlestick maker – as far as God is concerned, you are employed where you are first and foremost as His messenger. It matters not what special gift you may have from God. You may be an encourager, and administrator, a mercy giver or something else. You may or may not have a special gift to be an evangelist. You need to know that God sees you first as one of His messengers.

You may think you live where you live because you like the neighborhood or because it’s affordable or because your grandmother willed it to you. But God has you there first and foremost as His messenger to those people who live around you who need to hear the message.

It’s all about the message. Messengers carried the message. Secondly,

There are two miracles in our text today. The first one involves Aeneas. Verse 33 says he was "bedridden for eight years." But he was about to be healed.

Notice Peter’s words in verse 34: "Aeneas… Jesus Christ heals you." Peter left no doubt as to where the power to heal came from. He made it clear that Jesus was the source of healing. But these words also give us a clue as to why this miracle took place. It took place to call attention to Jesus Christ and the message about Him that was God’s number one concern. It’s all about the message. Verse 35 verifies this. It says, "All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw [Aeneas] and turned to the Lord." It doesn’t say that when they saw Aeneas, they turned to Peter. It doesn’t say when they saw Aeneas, they all lined up to be blessed or healed or to touch the evangelist. When they saw Aeneas, they turned to the Lord! That’s because the purpose of the miracle was to focus attention on God’s message. The healing of Aeneas gave great credence to the messenger so that when the people heard the message, they would turn to the Lord.

There’s a second miracle here – the resurrection of Tabitha or Dorcas. I wonder if the same thing is evident. Let’s check it out.

If Peter had ever raised anyone from the dead up to this point, the Bible doesn’t mention it. We do have Jesus’ mention in Matthew 10:8 of the potential for the apostles raising the dead, when the Lord sent the twelve out before His crucifixion, but we don’t have any further account of that, so I’m assuming at this point that Peter had not raised anyone from the dead until the time of this event described here in our text.

When the two men mentioned in verse 38 arrived in Lydda to get Peter in order to bring him to Joppa, I suspect that he didn’t go with them thinking that he was going to raise someone from the dead. Perhaps he thought he might do some teaching and strengthening and give them some first-hand apostolic presence. Maybe he would lead the funeral or have some role in the funeral arrangements, but raising the dead may not have been on his mind. But I wonder when we reach verse 39, which describes Peter’s arrival at Joppa and his being led up to the upper room where the body of Tabitha lay, if he would not begin to remember another visit to another room of death. In Mark 5:37-42, Mark (who got much of the information for his gospel from Peter) describes the time when Jesus healed the daughter of a synagogue official named Jairus. There it says,

"He [Jesus] did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue ruler, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly. He went in and said to them, ‘Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.’ But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child's father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was. He took her by the hand and said to her, ‘Talitha koum!’ [One letter difference, even in the Greek, between "Talitha" and "Tabitha"] (which means, ‘Little girl, I say to you, get up!’). Immediately the girl stood up and walked around…."

How could the memory of that event not have entered Peter’s mind when we see from verse 40 in our text that Peter sent them all out of the room – just like Jesus did?

Then verse 40 of our text says that Peter "got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up."

Can’t you imagine Peter opening that upper room door and hollering down the stairs, "Hey you guys, would you come up here for a minute? There’s something I want to show you."

But you know, as great as this miracle was, I think there is indication in our text that there was an even greater purpose for it than the raising of a very beloved woman from the dead. Its in verse 42: "And this became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord."

You would think that Luke’s focus would be on the mighty miracle that had just taken place, or upon the fact that this faithful servant of God could return to her ministry of serving the widows, but it wasn’t. His focus was on the resultant acceptance of the message of salvation.

I’m not going to tell you that God doesn’t, on occasion, do miracles today. I’m not going to tell you that God doesn’t on occasion, when He deems it right, intervene in your life supernaturally. I’m not going to tell you that God doesn’t occasionally heal people miraculously, or intervene dramatically in some way to save their lives from the very jaws of death. But I am going to tell you this: The presence or absence of a miracle is not the issue. A miracle is no substitute for the message. A miracle is not bigger or more important than the message. And most likely, a miracle (if there was one in your case) was meant to point you to the message if you have not yet made Jesus Christ Lord of your life. It’s all about the message, not the miracle.

Personal experiences may vary among us but the message is always the same. It was the same 2000 years ago as it is today. The message is that you need to come to terms with who Jesus Christ is – the Son of God – and accept Him as your Savior and Lord. That’s the message. That’s what it’s all about.

Our God has a one-track mind. It’s all about the message. Messengers carried the message. Miracles confirmed the message. Finally,

Since there are only two people in the entire book of Acts who were raised from the dead (the other being Eutychus) – why was it this woman raised?

Why didn’t God raise Stephen from the dead? Stephen was a powerful leader and a gifted orator with an incisive mind capable of prevailing in debate. Why didn’t God raise him?

Why didn’t God raise James who died at the sword of Herod’s henchmen?

Or James, the brother of the Lord, one of the twelve apostles – why didn’t God raise him?

Peter died. He wasn’t raised. The great apostle Paul died. He wasn’t raised from the dead. Other great men died and were not raised.

Why this woman? Why was she raised?

I believe it was at least partially because of the value of her personal ministry as it related to the message. Verse 36 says she was "always doing good and helping the poor." In verse 37, notice how carefully they care for her body. In verse 38, notice the amount of grief her death caused. Then in verse 39 notice what it says. "All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them." Dorcas had the gift of mercy and the talent of a seamstress. She allowed he Lord to use her to spread the message of Christ, so that we have there in that 42^nd verse, "This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord." There it is again. It’s all about the message. That’s the focus.

By the way, would the needy grieve over your corpse? Would there be a hole in the ministry of this church if you died? Does your ministry help convey the message?

There is a lot of unkindness out there in the world. We have a world that needs to see some kindness and goodness someplace. It is a wide open opportunity for ministry.

A survey published in the Eugene Register Guard last April was entitled, Survey: Rudeness rising in America. Here is a quote:

The survey was taken by a non-profit organization out of New York called Public Agenda. They surveyed over two thousand people. Some of the results presented in the article:

>Eighty percent of them said there was a lack of respect and courtesy in our society that was a problem.

>Sixty percent of the drivers said that they often see other drivers driving recklessly.

>Nearly fifty percent of them said that at some point in the last year they had stalked out of a store because of poor customer service.

The article continues:

Rudeness is on the rise in America. Who could stem that tide? Who could show some gentleness, kindness, and courtesy? Who could hold the door open for the elderly? Who could assist the little child? Who could yield in traffic?

It should be us! It should be the ones who wear the Name! We have a message to get out. But it starts with ministry. This is one of many opportunities for ministry. They don’t listen to the message where there is no ministry coming out of your heart and out of your life.

Our God, the God of Aeneas, Dorcas, and Peter, the God of the early church, the One you came to worship here today:

>Has a one-track mind.

>His ultimate concern never changes.

>When he looks at the things happening her on this earth He asks, "Is there any way this can further the message?"

Messengers carried the message, but the main focus was not the messengers. Miracles confirmed the message, but the main focus was not the miracles. Ministry conveyed the message, but it was not primarily about the ministry.

It’s all about the message!

All Scripture Quotes are from the New International Version unless otherwise specified.

Permission is granted to subscribers of The Preacher's Study to use this document in total or in sermon preparation in the context of the local congregation only. Publishing it in a book, on the Internet, or anyplace beyond the local congregation is prohibited. The author of this sermon, Ron Rasmussen,  may be reached at: rjrass@juno.com.