Tabitha didn’t work miracles. She worked material. Thread and needle, robes and clothing, made for the most vulnerable women in her community. And when she died, the widows didn’t describe her faith. They put on what she made.

That is her eulogy. Not words. Evidence.

This week we look at what the resurrection actually restores, and why the feeling that your ordinary life doesn’t add up to much is not a personality flaw. It’s a wound. One that Jesus came to heal. Because we are not waiting for the new creation. We are working toward it.

Saul wasn’t persecuting the church because he hated God. He was persecuting the church because he loved God. His certainty didn’t come from rebellion. It came from devotion. And that’s what makes his story so unsettling, and so close to home.

Jesus didn’t stop him with a better argument. He stopped him with light. And the question that landed on Saul lands on us too: in your zeal, in your conviction that you know how God works, is it possible that Jesus is somewhere ahead of you asking, “Why are you persecuting me?”

In Acts 8, the early church faces real persecution. People are dragged from their homes, imprisoned, and scattered. But something unexpected happens: the scattering doesn't silence them. It spreads them. The enemy's strategy to destroy the church ends up planting it in places it had never reached.

In this message, Pastor Derek looks at what it actually means to live as resurrection people not just in theory, but in the moment when someone says something cutting, a decision gets made without you, or a relationship goes sideways. If Jesus was raised from the dead, that changes what's available to you in the next sixty seconds. You don't have to defend. You don't have to win. You don't have to protect anything.

The sign of people who actually believe that? Not anger. Not bitterness. Joy.

Part of the ongoing series What Now? — walking through the book of Acts together at Summer Street Church on Nantucket.