Acts 9:32-35

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. All those who lived in Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

Saul has taken the road home. His time is coming, but it isn’t right now. Right now the apostles are still the forefront of the ministry. Peter is traveling abroad visiting the churches and performing great signs and wonders as he comes and goes. As he travels to Lydda he found a man named Aeneas. Now the scripture says that this man had been bedridden for eight years. That’s a long time. As a matter of fact I am rather disappointed in Luke that he didn’t expound on something that he knew a great deal about as a physician. Luke, as a doctor, probably treated bedridden people and understood this condition better than we do. Let me give you an example…

This is an excerpt taken from an online medical help website…

“The most common complications of bedridden patients are: muscles weakness/atrophy, muscle shortness, pressure sores (bed ulcerations), respiratory problems (lung infection), blood circulation problems, and bone demineralization.”

Eight years in bed lead to greater problems than just “I can’t walk”. Are you hearing me? You don’t just get up from being in bed for eight years. It’s impossible…at least that is what the human mind reckons. For Peter I don’t think his mind was in the present…I think it was resonating on the past. I think Peter was experiencing déjà vu. Have you ever experienced déjà vu in your life? Let’s walk through this with Peter and why this was so familiar…to go forward we have to go backwards…so let us rewind to…

John 5:1-9

Sometime later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie; the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked.

Déjà vu, right…or is it not just the best example of discipleship that you have ever seen? Peter’s reflection is instant. Standing before Aeneas, he has seen this play out before. Jesus said “get up”…so Peter says, “get up”. Pretty simple and yet it stands to reason that we live in spiritual failure because we are failing in the basics. What Jesus did was simple. What Peter did was simple. Peter actually mimicked Jesus. Why aren’t we mimicking Jesus? Do you know what we call it when we do what Jesus does…discipleship…it’s that simple. Some of us never reach that point because we failed in continuing to follow and watch what the Master was teaching us. We hit a stumbling block by getting offended or just flat out not understanding the circumstances that we’ve been through and we just stop learning. I’ve said it before and I will keep saying, some of us have been living at the same experience level for years…never growing any wiser or closer to God. We’ve been in the church for years and are still living off the milk. The problem is…is that this isn’t child care…this church is in the discipleship business. What that means is that sometimes, like Jesus, we are going to have to raise the bar in challenging each other to walk closer to the Lord. Like Peter understood…that means accountability, correction, sacrifice, and devotion.