Repentance and faith
And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him, and they turned to the Lord. And it became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.
— Acts 9:35,42
They did not have “WWJD” bracelets in Simon Peter’s day, but at any given time you could find Peter following in the footsteps of Jesus. In this particular episode of Peter’s life, he decided to venture out to offer ministry and help the church grow. He succeeded mightily, as the text tells, because of the essential Christlike qualities we can see in Simon Peter.
Peter showed the love of Christ. Peter modeled the obedience of Christ. Peter used the gifts God gave him to help others, magnify the gospel, and see people turn to Christ. When you love God and people, when you obey the word of God, when you use the gifts God gave you to minister the gospel and grow the church, you look an awful lot like Jesus. People will respond, as they did to Jesus, negatively and positively. The proper positive responses to the gospel are two, and both of them are shown in the places by the people Peter visited in these days.
You may remember from studies in the Gospels that every miracle performed by Jesus was a parable preached by Jesus. Peter no doubt copies Jesus here. With compassion for people on earth and compulsion to expand the population of Heaven, Peter explicitly performs a miracle in Jesus’ name and implicitly preaches about Jesus’ person and work, also known as the gospel.
The response is classic. “They turned to the Lord.” Lost people who become saved people cannot come to God, paralyzed by sin and unbelief, so God comes to them. They cannot heal themselves by their own power, but are healed by the power of God. They are going in the wrong direction headed for a bad destination, but when the light of the gospel shines upon them to show them the way, they turn to the Lord. There is a wonderful biblical word for this: repentance.
A little farther up the road an outstanding Christian lady had just died. The church heard Simon Peter was traveling nearby, so they sent two men to fetch him. They hoped Peter would do, as Peter was want to do, what Jesus would do, at least on certain occasions. Again, Simon Peter had been with Jesus when Jesus raised Jairus’ daughter from the dead, when the Lord raised a widow’s only son from the dead, and when He raised His friend Lazarus from the dead. So, Simon Peter knew what the Lord could do.
Once again the miracle becomes a parable and the gospel is demonstrated and orchestrated by the conductor Peter. The witness to the many unbelievers in Joppa resulted in “many believed in the Lord” (vs. 42).
The spiritually dead cannot raise themselves. They are incapable of repentance and faith. But the grace of God in the gospel of Jesus Christ possesses the power of repentance and faith to make a crippled person walk with God and a dead person live for Christ.
Why does a person repent to God? Because they believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. What does one do when he or she believes the gospel? They turn from sin and selfishness and turn to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Repentance and faith are gifts of God’s grace, they are received through the preaching of the gospel, and they resound in responsive hearts and minds of every person truly born again into the kingdom of God.
Simon Peter has done his job. Now is the time for every living Christian to do his or hers. The health and growth of Christ’s church is at stake. Souls hang in the balance.
The work does not begin with pressure-packed altar calls, slick witnessing programs that resemble sales presentations, or clever debates waged to embarrass rather than evangelize non-Christians. The work begins inside every Christian who dedicates himself or herself to live the Christlike life. It is not a messiah complex, it is a servant’s commitment. It looks like Simon Peter. It looks like Jesus. It is the determination to love, obey, use the gifts and resources given to us by God, in order to strengthen and enlarge God’s church.
When we venture into marriage, parenting, friendship, neighboring, vocations, and other interactions clothed in Christlikeness, people will take notice. Some, stirred by selfish or evil forces, will repel our overtures and mock the gospel. Others, however, will “turn to the Lord” and “believe” the gospel.