Congratulations, You Made the Team!

Acts 9:32-35

Dr. Larry D. Thorson

This morning we’re continuing our sermon series “Ordinary People With Extraordinary Experiences.” It’s a series to prove that you don’t have to be rich, unusually talented, super spiritual, young or famous to have an extraordinary experience with God. You just need a sincere desire to know God and a willingness to let God surprise you.

This week we’re going to look at a man named Aeneus (pronounced E-Nee-Us) who is found in Acts 9: Turn there in your Bible now. I can’t imagine that there is anyone here today who can honestly say that they’re interested in learning about some obscure, ancient man named Aeneus. That’s good because the writer of Acts, Dr. Luke, didn’t give us much information about him. It’s what happened to him that we need to remember.

Let’s read Acts 9:33-35. As Peter traveled about the country, he went to visit the saints in Lydda. There he found a man named Aeneas, a paralytic who had been bedridden for eight years. “Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and take care of your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up. ³⁵All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

Aeneus was in a mess. He was bedridden for eight years. Now, since it doesn’t say that he was an eight year old child, we might assume that at one time in his life he had been able to walk. Some of you have lost abilities to do things that you once took for granted. We say “that’s part of the aging process.” Well that may be but it still stinks. Our memory doesn’t forget when our body worked well.

Aeneus lost his ability to walk at a time in history before wheelchairs, before wheelchair ramps, before elevators. You’ve got to understand how far we’ve come in this country regarding the physically challenged. In 1985 I attended a conference at Columbia Seminary near Atlanta and we took along our then three month old daughter and pushed her around in a baby stroller. That was not an easy task because in the mid 80’s the seminary and most places weren’t very wheelchair/stroller sensitive. When I went back for my doctoral studies in 2000 every building and every sidewalk had been made handicap accessible. It’s still difficult not being able to walk but we’ve come a long ways.

Aeneus unfortunately didn’t have the American Disabilities Act to help him. In fact he was helpless. His future was empty except to sit and wait for someone to bring him food. There was nothing he could do about it. He was stuck. He was out of options. My observation from working with senior adults in Plano, Texas is that losing a body function like the legs can produce a depression that triggers other ailments. Aeneus was in a difficult place.

Along came Peter who was known to be one of the men who had been with Jesus. He was going around like Jesus, preaching about Jesus and doing some healings. I don’t want you to miss this picture of God. First I want you to notice how you don’t see Aeneus positioning himself to get Peter’s attention. It says that Peter was traveling around in the country and he went to see the saints in Lydda. I’m going to assume from that that Aeneus was one of the saints, one of the followers of Christ.

Secondly, it doesn’t say that Aeneus was praying for healing, although he may have been. The writer didn’t think that was important to tell us. Too many times we think that if we could just pray hard enough and if we could just pray the right way like the big prayer superstars we could be healed. Dr. Luke, the writer wanted to show us that that wasn’t the case.

Thirdly it doesn’t say that Aeneus reached out to Peter for healing. This is important because the healing power wasn’t in Peter. In my last church healing prayer was a big part of our ministry. Our Prayer Team had some incredible healing experiences which we all thought were exciting and of course necessary. The problem we had with the healings is that people would attach their healing experience to the prayer team members who prayed with them. For example people would ask for Bill Harrison from the prayer team to pray with them because they had heard about some of his healings as if the power was in Bill. This text simply says that Peter found him and he was quick to point out that Jesus was already in the process of healing him.

That’s the picture of how God works with us. God reaches down to us and picks us to be on his team not because of his ability to pull ourselves up to him. It’s just like Savanna Stolte’s adoption that we’re celebrating today. She, on her own as an infant, couldn’t do anything to arrange for Scott and Amy to pick her and adopt her even with all that cuteness. Being selected to be on God’s team is not based upon our ability to still be able to walk 50 miles or run 26 miles or give a million dollars to a church building program. It’s not even based upon our ability to pray the right words. It’s based upon God reaching down to us. That’s how ordinary people with ordinary skills and ordinary experiences can have extraordinary experiences with God. God reaches down to us not based upon our ability to do certain things right but because he loves us.

That’s what infant baptism and infant dedication so beautifully demonstrates. It’s not about the child preparing herself to make the team. When parents present their children for baptism they are acknowledging that it is God who knows us and calls us even before we are able to understand and make a decision to follow him.

That’s why we only baptize infants who have a parent or guardian who is a believer and who promises to bring them to church and teach them God’s truths from the Bible. In no way does that baptism save them. Later with the help of their church and parents the child will come to better understand that Jesus died for their sins and then in response to this awareness will hopefully open their hearts and give Jesus control of their life.

When I was an infant my parents had me baptized in a Lutheran church but they did so primarily to keep me from going to what they thought was the bad place if I was to die. That’s what a lot of people believe but that’s not what the Bible teaches. Later at age 16 I came to know Jesus Christ personally when he reached down to me in my teenage despair. In fact it came at a time when I had a running injury and I was in a bad place in my life. As a result of that awareness of Christ I started attending a large non-denominational church where I could learn more about Christ. When I decided to join that church they told me that I needed to get baptized again. I was told that my infant baptism wasn’t valid in that church. So I put on a white outfit they handed me and I along with the San Jose State University head football coach and eventual coach of the Detroit Lions, Darrel Rogers was baptized. It was my brush with fame.

I didn’t need that second baptism and that act of baptism like my infant baptism definitely didn’t save me but it was an initiation into that particular church and I was happy to have an opportunity to make a public profession of my faith in Christ.

We don’t re-baptize people in the Presbyterian church because we believe that once you are baptized you are always baptized. Some parents however want their children to have that opportunity to make a public profession of their faith in Christ through baptism later in life such as I had. For those parents I recommend dedicating their children instead of baptizing them. Pastor Scott and Amy have presented five year old Joshua and seventeen month Savanna for dedication this morning in the hope that one day Joshua and Savanna will acknowledge Jesus Christ as their savior and their lord. When they do, they will be baptized as their big sister Kimberly was this morning.

The picture is still the same whether it’s baptism or dedication. It is God who reaches down to us and saves us in Jesus Christ. Just as it was God who reached down to Aeneus, an ordinary guy who was in a very bad place in life and gave him an extraordinary experience.

Apparently in every extraordinary experience with God there is a response that God asks of us. It’s different for every experience. Last week we looked at Philip whom an angel told to go to a certain road in the hot desert without knowing why and Philip had to decide whether he was going to do it or not. As we go on in this series you will see that that is a pattern with God.

“Aeneus, Jesus Christ heals you.” “Get up and take care of your mat.” That was what God asked of Aeneus. It sounded simple enough to some of us but to a man who hadn’t stood for eight years it sounded impossible.

You’ve got to realize that God never gives you a command or an order that you can’t do. If Aeneus had failed to obey that command he would never have had the extraordinary experience of walking again and all that that meant. He was an ordinary guy with an extraordinary experience.

Congratulations you made God’s team. God picked you because he loved you and sent his only Son to die on the cross for your sins and mine. If you will only believe in Jesus and acknowledge him as your savior by praying “Lord Jesus I know that I’m a sinner and in need of saving. Thank you for your forgiveness on the cross, come into my life and take control of it. I’m yours. Amen. Jesus will come into your life as he came into Aeneus’ life and will ask you to do something that you think you’re not capable of doing but you will be. That will happen over and over. When you do you will never forget that extraordinary experience. .