Woodbury Presbyterian Church
God’s= Love in ACTION
Sermon Note= s
Miracle Wor= king 101
&nb= sp; And if some strange event, if something truly unusual should occur, = it has to be explained away. Sweep it= under the rug. Crush it, mold it and cram it until it fits the mold of what we can get our minds around.
&nb= sp; That wasn’t a healing, it was a hoax! Someone faked an illness= to make a so called faith-healer look good.
&nb= sp; Or the disease was only psychosomatic. The person felt sick because = she thought she was sick. So when she believed she was healed, the sickness seemed to go away. But it was never really there in the first place. It was all in her mind.
&nb= sp; That phone call from a long lost friend, who spoke just the word you needed at the time you needed to hear it, was just a coincidence.
&nb= sp; The same is true of that unexpected check that came in the mail when= you didn’t know how you were going to make ends meet.
&nb= sp; There are no miracles. There are only misinterpretations of the fact= s by superstitious stooges. For everything in their world, there has to be a rational explanation, a sensible rationalization.
&nb= sp; Illusionist James Randi, or “The Amazing Randi” has a standing offer of a $1million prize for anyone who can scientifically prove that he or she has paranormal powers. A cool million for any miracle … that meets Randi’s criteria. So far Randi hasn’t lost a dime.
2. On the other hand, the world of the Bible bubbles w= ith miracles.
&nb= sp; Sarah has a baby when she’s 90 years old. The punch line takes= her by surprise so much, she names the boy “laughter.” That’s what Isaac means.
&nb=
sp;
After meeting God in a bush that burned with holy fire, Moses has a
meeting with Pharaoh, who holds the people of
&nb=
sp;
When hard hearted Pharaoh refuses, Moses calls down one catastrophe
after another – supernatural disasters – on the
&nb= sp; At the Red Sea Moses stretches out that same stick, and a blustery w= ind begins to blow. The sea piles up in heaps, forming two swirling walls of wa= ter, with the passage way to freedom in between.
Joshua tells the trump=
et
section to wail at a gig in
&nb= sp;
&nb= sp; Elijah takes the lifeless corpse of a little boy up to his room. He stretches himself out on the tiny body and prays. He gets up, then he does = it again. He gets up and he does it a third time. The child starts to breathe.= His eyes flutter, then they open wide. Maybe he sputters and coughs a time or t= wo as he is snatched from death’s cold claw.
&nb=
sp;
Elisha tells General Namaan to check his ego and go take a dip in th=
e
&nb= sp; Those are just a few of the miracles we read about in the Old Testam= ent. Then along comes Jesus! Everything about Jesus is miraculous.
&nb= sp; At a wedding reception He turns ordinary water into exquisite wine. =
&nb= sp; On a hillside he treats more than 5,000 hungry people to an all-you-= can eat buffet with a small stack of pita bread and a couple sardines.
&nb=
sp;
He crosses the
&nb= sp; He shows blind people the spectacle of God’s creation. He lets crippled people stand on their own two feet. His lips speak God’s voi= ce to deaf people and they hear. His tender hands caress the unclean lepers and m= ake them pure.
&nb=
sp;
And that isn’t all. John
18:25 says, Jesus did =
many
other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that
even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be writte=
n.
&nb= sp; Everything about Jesus is miraculous.
&nb= sp; His birth is a miracle: His mamma is a virgin and His daddy is God.<= /p>
&nb= sp; His death is a miracle: His body is the sacrifice, the peace offering that restores our friendship with God. And his crimson blood is the deterge= nt that somehow washes away the stain of our sins and makes us clean and pure.=
&nb= sp; Then comes the greatest miracle of all. You’ve heard me talk a= bout it before. He arose in victory from the grave. He conquered death and won eternal life for all who put their trust in Him. But let me say it a new way today. I hope you’ll pardon the expression, but this is literally what happened. Jesus knocked the Hell out of death! He faced Hell head on, so we don’t have to.
&nb=
sp;
Jesus went back into heaven. But the miracles don’t stop there=
. Before
He died Jesus said to His disciples, “I t=
ell you
the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He wi=
ll
do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.”=
(John 14:12)
Jesus poured out=
His
Holy Spirit on the Church. He drenched the Church with the Holy Spirit, and
gave her His power to do His works.
We see that in t=
he portrait
of the Church that we’ve been studying from Acts 2. Verse 43 says Everyone
was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the
apostles.
<=
span
style=3D'color:black'>The apostles worked miracles. For example, one day Pe=
ter
and John went to an afternoon prayer meeting at the temple. (You remember t=
hat
the early Christians prayed together every day.) They met a crippled man th=
ere,
begging for money. Peter looked at the man. John looked at the man. Peter t=
old
the man, “Look at us.” Then he said, “Listen, we don̵=
7;t
have any money. But let us give you what we do have. In the name of Jesus
Christ, get up and walk.”
Peter took the
beggar’s hand to help him up. But the man didn’t stand up. He sprang up! And he didn’t just
walk. He started bouncing all around the
The apostles wor=
ked so
many miracles – or to be precise, the Lord worked so many miracles
through them – that Acts 5:15-16 reports, As a result, people brought=
the
sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter=
's
shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. 16Crowds
gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those
tormented by evil spirits, and all of them were healed.
Acts 19:11-12 te=
lls us
something similar about the Apostle Paul. God did extraordinary miracles through=
Paul,
12so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had t=
ouched
him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spi=
rits
left them.
(You didn’t think Benny Hinn came up with that i= dea on his own, did you?)
&nb=
sp;
In the early church, God worked miracles through the Apostles. But t=
hat
power wasn’t limited to the Apostles. Before long, other Christians w=
ere
working miracles too. Ordinary, garden variety Christians, like you and me,
were working miracles, too. Remember? Jesus said, “I
tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have b=
een
doing.” Not just the Apost=
les.
All believers.
Listen to what P=
aul
said to the very earthy and ordinary Christians in
God works miracl=
es
through every Christian. Each one has a “manifestation of the
Spirit.” It may be healing, it may be prophecy, it may be tongues, it=
may
be any number of things. But the Bible makes it clear that in the
3. Now, we should notice that in the Bible, miracles always serve some purpose. God doesn’t send His miracles as a form of entertainment. God doesn’= ;t work His wonders just so we can say, “Whoa!” then go on about o= ur business. God does not unleash His glorious power in our lives just so we c= an get goose bumps. In the Bible, miracles serve a purpose.
&nb= sp;
&nb= sp; First, virtually all miracles meet some human need.
Slaves need to be free.
Mute pe= ople need to talk.
Blind people need to see.
<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Lame people need to walk.
Deaf people need to hear. Hungry people need to eat. D= ead people need to live again.
&nb= sp; Miracles are a sign of God’s loving compassion. Miracles are a witness to God’s desire for wholeness for all His children. Miracles = meet some human need.
&nb= sp; Second, miracles should move people to glorify God. That lame man leaping around the temple, praising God with all his new-found strength, is= a role-model for all of us.
&nb= sp; Praise is the proper response to a miracle.
&nb=
sp;
Matthew 9 tells us a story about Jesus healing a paralyzed man. It e=
nds
like this: When the crowd saw this, they were fill=
ed
with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to men. (Matthew
9:8)
Mark 7 tells us =
about
a time when Jesus healed a man who was deaf and could hardly speak. That st=
ory
ends like this: People were
overwhelmed with amazement. "He has done everything well," they s=
aid.
"He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak."<=
span
class=3Dsup> (Mark 7:37)
Luke 17 recounts=
a
time when Jesus healed ten people of leprosy all at once! When they saw that
this deadly disease – as horrible to them as AIDS is to us – wh=
en
they saw that their deadly disease had disappeared, only one of them came b=
ack
to thank Jesus. And do you remember what Jesus said? "Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other =
nine? 18Was no one found to return and give praise to God exce=
pt
this foreigner?"
(Luke 17:17-18)
Miracles should =
fill
us with awe, with holy fear. Miracles should move us to magnify God.=
&nb= sp; A third purpose of miracles is that they fortify faith. From time to time everyone needs a faith lift. Even the strongest Christian can slip and trip. Why, even John the Baptist had a time of doubt. Can you blame him? He= had dedicated his life to pointing people to Jesus. Yet suddenly he found himse= lf sitting in a prison cell, waiting for his head to be hacked off. So he sent some of his posse to Jesus with what strikes me as a fair question for some= one in his position. “Are you rea= lly the one? Are you really the fulfillment of all God’s promises or shou= ld we look for someone else?”
&nb= sp; Have you ever been there? Have you ever wondered what in the world t= he Lord was doing in your life because His plan seemed to be pretty much the opposite of your plan? And frankly, it felt like He was getting it all wron= g?
&nb=
sp;
Listen to the answer that Jesus gave to those messengers. “Go back and report to John what you hear and s=
ee: 5The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have
leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the g=
ood
news is preached to the poor.”
<=
span
style=3D'color:black'>In other words, when your faith is weak, remember what
Jesus has done. Remember his miracles. They can build your faith.
There’s a
fascinating passage near the end of the Gospel of John. He tells us why he
wrote his gospel the way he did. He tells us why he included all those mira=
cle
stories. Can you guess the reason?
John 20:31-32 sa=
ys, Jesus
did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are=
not
recorded in this book. 31But these are written tha=
t you
may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by
believing you may have life in his name.
Miracles fortify=
our
faith.
Similarly, mirac= les build up the church. Let’s go back to I Corinthians 12:7. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. <= o:p>
=
Yes, God gives miraculous powers to every Christian, =
but He
gives those gifts for a purpose. He gives those gifts for the common good. =
Your
gifts are for my good, and his good, and her good. Her gifts are for your g=
ood,
and for my good and for their good. Every gift, every miraculous power is g=
iven
to make the
And miracles hav= e one more purpose we should look at. Every miracle is, to put it in a preeminent= ly Presbyterian phrase, “an exhibition of the kingdom of heaven to the world.”
&nb= sp; In God’s kingdom there are no slaves. So when captives are set free, we get a foretaste of the kingdom. In God’s kingdom there is no sickness. So when the blind, the deaf, the infirmed of any kind are healed = we see God’s kingdom breaking into this fallen world.
In God’s kingdom death has been swallowed up for= ever. So when the dead are raised, we get a glimpse of the glory that is coming someday.
<= /p>
&nb=
sp;
Miracles are kind of like peeking at our Christmas presents while th=
eir
still under the tree. We don’t have them yet but someday we know those
things will be ours.
4. Now, some Christians say God doesn’t work miracles anymore. They’re not l= ike the skeptics who don’t think miracles are possible. They believe miracles happened once upon a time, but = not any more. God used to be in the miracle business, but He has long since clo= sed up shop.
&nb= sp; One Christian who believed that was John Calvin, the Presbyterian Pioneer. In The Institutes of the Christian Religion, he wrote, &= quot;Those miraculous powers and manifest workings, which were dispensed by the laying= on of hands, have ceased; and they have rightly lasted only for a time."<= /i>
&nb= sp; Nowadays, some people say, we have science and technology. We have modern medicine. So we don’t need miracles anymore. Doctors can heal = us. Science can meet our human needs.
&nb= sp; Well to some extent I agree. People I know and love are alive today because what we could call “medical miracles.” Heart by-passes. Organ transplants. Artificial body parts. What modern medicine can do is tr= uly astonishing and we should be grateful.
&nb= sp; But do we really want to rely on medicine alone? Do we really want to say, “Who needs healing when we have dialysis? Or chemotherapy? Or ev= en stem-cell research?” Are we really ready to cut our life-line to Heav= en and try to make it on our own power?
&nb= sp; Let’s celebrate the advances of science and technology –= but cautiously because we can become enslaved to them. But can we really say th= at our human-made miracles are anywhere near as effective as the miracles of G= od?
&nb= sp; Nowadays, some people say we have the Bible to build our faith. And = if we believe the Bible, we really don’t need miracles. That all sounds = very pious. The problem is, the Bible never says that God quit has quit working miracles. The world of the Bible bubbles with miracles. When we try to burst those bubbles, our faith goes flat.
It’s hard to see how a faith that eliminates wha= t the Bible teaches in order to exalt the Bible is really a biblical faith.
Biblical faith expects God to work now as He always ha= s, because the Bible says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.
&nb= sp; Oh dear brothers and sisters, if the church ever needed miracles we = need them now. Let me share with you a couple things that have been added to my prayer list this week, at the request of people in our church family.
&nb= sp; One of our members has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of can= cer and will face surgery early next month. And I want her healed. If that heal= ing comes through medical means, I’ll accept that. In fact I’ll rejoice. But I would rather the cancer simply vanish. I would rather have h= er go back to the doctor and have him say, “I don’t know what happ= ened to the cancer, but it isn’t here now.” I’m asking for a miracle.
&nb= sp; Another member asked me to pray for her neighbor who is afraid her o= wn son is going to kill her. Lord have mercy, what is happening to our communi= ty? What kind of people have we become? How can the church reach out to people = like that and love them, and comfort them, and help them, and save them unless t= he power of God is at work mightily in us?
&nb=
sp;
A third item on my prayer list is a little more than a week old. Ten
days ago at
&nb= sp; My heart breaks, all our hearts break for the families of both of th= ose boys and for all of those students. But my heart also breaks for this community.
We have been added to a short list that includes names=
like
&nb= sp; Now perhaps some ostriches will squawk, “That’s not real= ly in our community. It’s another zip code. Our kids go to Timber Creek.= ”
&nb= sp; Yes. Yes, most of our kids to go to Timber Creek. We only have a few people from University High. But does that fact excuse us or accuse us? Is = it an exoneration or an indictment? Wh= y don’t we have many kids from UHS? Why haven’t we reached that a= rea of our community with the love of Jesus? It’s less than three miles f= rom here.
&nb= sp; I’m not saying this so we can beat ourselves up. I’m say= ing it because it underscores how important it is, how urgent it is to our community that the church be strong. That the church be vibrant. That the church be everything God has called us to be.
&nb=
sp;
God has called us, along with the other churches, to form and mold t=
he
character of
&nb= sp; But the job is too big for us. It’s more than we can handle on= our own. If ever the church needed supernatural power, we need it now. If ever = the church needed miracles, we need them now.
5. But here’s the good news: God still works miracles. God still gives a manifestation of the Spirit to each believer.
&nb= sp; Why not? Still today, slaves need to be free;
&nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; Crippled people need to walk;
&nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; Blind people need to s= ee;
&nbs= p; &= nbsp; &nbs= p; Mute people need to ta= lk.
&nb= sp; Why not? Still today miracles move us to magnify God.
&nb= sp; Why not? Still today our faith needs to be fortified.
&nb= sp; The church needs to be edified.
&nb=
sp;
Why not? Today as much as ever, this fallen world needs the
&nb= sp; Yesterday those of us who came to the Alpha Course heard Nicky Gumble tell the story about a woman who told her pastor, “We don’t want anything supernatural to go on in t= his church.” That’s how many Christians feel.
&nb= sp; But why not? If the church can only do what the Kiwanis Club can do,= let’s just join the Kiwanis. If the church can only do what The Department of Social Services can do, let’= ;s all become social workers. If the church can only do what the Red Cross can= do, let’s all join the Red Cross. If nothing supernatural happens in the = church, if we never experience the power of God working through us, why be the chur= ch?
&nb= sp;
&nb= sp; I believe God wants to work miracles among us. The same God who made Sarah the world’s oldest mom is capable of far more in us than we can conceive.
&nb= sp; The same Lord who turned a stick into a snake and water into wine can transform our lives, our families, our community into something sparkling a= nd sweet.
&nb= sp; The same Jesus who healed the sick of every kind can heal you and me= .
&nb= sp; I believe God wants to work miracles among us, just as He did in the early church. They are a model of what He wants us to be.
&nb= sp; Of course we’ve seen God work some miracles. A few healings. S= ome radically changed hearts. This building, which we couldn’t afford at = the time we built it. We’ve had a taste. We’ve felt a trickle. But I think God wants us to expect a down-pour. A deluge. God wants to drench us = with the Holy Spirit’s power.
&nb= sp; Where do you need a miracle? In your job? In your family? In your health? In your finances? Of co= urse there are natural things, normal things that we can do to address those iss= ues. And we ought to do them. But let’s not limit ourselves to our own resources.
&nb= sp; Like Elijah, stretch yourself out the corpse of that hopeless situat= ion and cry out to God for dear life.
&nb= sp; Like Joshua, take a deep breath and ask God to blow away every barri= er between you and what God has promised you.
&nb= sp; Like Peter and John, reach out and take a risk. Trust God to do what= you know He can do in the name of Jesus Christ, and watch what springs forth.
&nb= sp; Some poor souls don’t believe in miracles, and so they never experience them. Don’t be like them.
&nb= sp; Miracles don’t happen every day. Miracles don’t come eve= ry time we want one. They’re extraordinary. But they do come.
&nb= sp; God is not obliged to perform miracles because we snap our fingers or say the right words. That would put God under our power. Nevertheless, God,= in His grace, does pour His power out on us. And our world starts to bubble.
&nb= sp; And so, dear church, believe in miracles. Pray for miracles. Expect a miracle.
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