Supernatural Power

Introduction

In contrast to the record in the Acts of the Apostles, nearly two thousand years later, we Christians are counting heads and calculating bank accounts to get the work of the church done. Our church committee meetings and especially our business meetings resemble the meetings of corporate boards or political groups much more than they do the meetings we see described in Acts. If we can’t staff it or pay to get it done, we don’t do it. In our attempt not to be seen as doing anything foolish or impractical, we put a gag order on God. We plan and work as though everything depended on us. We even pray that God would help us–rarely thinking that God would do something on His own.

Has God retired? Has God taken a vacation? During the 1960s, many movements arose to challenge and plague the academic community. One of these movements that arose among Christians became known as the “God is dead” movement. One of the probable causes of the brief popularity of the idea that God is dead was the way Christians and churches carried out their daily lives. I am afraid that we haven’t changed in thirty years. We still go about our business and our play as though God were not a power to be reckoned with. It is not the humanistic establishment that has caused the decline of faith in God, but it is also the church that has contributed to the idea that “God is dead.”

How often do we take God’s will into account when we make decisions? Or do we make decisions based on our opinions? The early church expected the extraordinary–and got it.

Thesis: Because God is Sovereign, He acts in the world to accomplish His purpose.

The Sovereign Power Over Paralysis, vv. 32-35

A. Exegesis

1. Peter Visits the Saints
2. Peter Heals the Paralyzed Aeneas
   • Aeneas paralyzed or bedridden for eight years.
   • Cause of paralysis–Atrophy or lack of exercise.
   • Healing by Jesus is coupled with exercise.
3. Peter Prepares the Healed Aeneas for Service
   • “Take care of your mat” = “prepare his couch”
   • This phrase also used of observing the Lord’s Supper by reclining on a couch.
   • Because Aeneas obeyed, others came to know the Lord, v. 35.

B. Illustration–A person who wallows in self-pity and refuses to exercise his muscles soon loses the use of his muscles.

C. Application

1. If God is Sovereign over us, God has the right to put us into service.
2. The major cause of spiritual paralysis is atrophy, not injury.

The Sovereign Power Over Death, vv. 36-41

A. Exegesis

1. Dorcas was a faithful doer of the word in ministry.
2. Dorcas died; the ministry stopped; the disciples called Peter.
3. Dorcas was resuscitated by:
   • the church’s faith
   • Peter’s prayer
   • the Lord’s will

B. Illustration

Dateline Bucharest, 1991

A Romanian woman fainted when she opened her front door and found her husband standing there.

The Romanian weekly Tinerama says it all started when a man named Neagu choked on a fishbone, stopped breathing and collapsed.

The family doctor, knowing Neagu’s heart condition, didn’t think twice about proclaiming the 71-year-old dead of a heart attack. But three days later, gravediggers at the cemetery heard someone knock on wood.

They opened Neagu’s coffin to find him surrounded by wilted flowers but very much alive. When Neagu arrived home, his wife, fearing he was a ghost, barred him from spending nights at home. It took Neagu three weeks to convince the authorities to cancel his death certificate from their registers.

C. Application

1. The Sovereign Lord may resuscitate, retread, and recycle.
2. The church expected God to do what God can only do–raise up workers.

The Sovereign Power Over Sin and Obscurity, vv. 42-43

A. Exegesis

1. God’s power convicts people of their sin.
2. God’s power convinces men to give up their sin.
3. God’s power converts men from their sin.

B. Illustration

Don McKenzie tells this story: “I recall one night very late in the evening when I was called to the hospital. As I was walking down the semidark hall, with no people around, a man suddenly ran out of one of the patient rooms. He ran up to me–I had never seen him before–and he said to me with joy, ‘She’s going to make it. She’s better. She’s going to make it,’ and then he went on down the hall. I have not seen the man since. I do not know who he was talking about. I assume it was someone very near and dear to him, and he had just received good news. He could not wait to share it. He did not even have to know the person with whom he shared it; it just flowed from him because he had received good news, and good news has to be shared.”

C. Application–Whenever God’s people experience God at work, they are glad and willing witnesses.

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