Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 5, 2021 | Good Question - Does God Still Do Miracles Today?

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September 5, 2021 | Good Question - Does God Still Do Miracles Today? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning, everybody.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Simon's gunning for my job.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's quite the act to follow here.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: He's uh what a kid.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Kenan and Connor are great volunteers in the student ministry, and so we've gotten to see Simon since he was a wee babe, and he's a he's a joy to be around.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um well, we are wrapping up our series called Good Question.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it today.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we've been looking at a whole lot of questions over this series, questions that we want to know, questions that might not always fit into the normal type of message.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, as we look in our world today, there uh the word miracle is bandied around quite a bit.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's used in a whole lot of different things.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: The uh 1980s miracle on ice, right?
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: defeating the Soviets in the metal round, uh, pretty spectacular if you've ever seen the movie.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: A little less spectacular, miracle grow.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that it is considered a miracle if your plants are able to grow, that it requires a miracle for them to grow.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and the least miraculous of all is miracle whip.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: The worst, not even a miracle, it's not even very good.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a Hellman's guy myself.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So as uh as we talk about miracles, though, we we look at the Bible oftentimes.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: We read through the Bible, and we see that miracles are um they show up all the time.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: God is doing miraculous things uh through every single page of the Bible.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some of them are very obvious, some of them less so, but especially when we look at things like the parting of the Red Sea, right?
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Or um Lazarus being raised from the dead.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: We see these types of things, and then we sort of examine and look at our own lives and the lives around us and say, man, it doesn't seem like miracles are happening as often as they used to.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: The question that we often ask is, does God still do miracles today?
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer to this is yes, he does.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it, and we're leaving.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: No, um He does.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is that we don't typically see them around us.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Miracles today, when you hear of them, are happening on the fringes where the gospel is being explored, where there's deep spiritual warfare, where um God is transforming the world into something that resembles his kingdom.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Miracles today, you don't have to go very far to find stories about them, especially from missionaries.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Things like um heavenly protection and healing, casting out demons, prophetic visions.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: These kinds of things are almost the norm when you talk to those who are on the front lines of gospel ministry.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so our questions today are not necessarily, does God still do miracles today, but rather, how is God doing miracles today?
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Why is he doing it that way, and how should that change uh my life and our lives?
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to be dismissive to those who would be uh skeptical of miracles today, that God is still working in a powerful and miraculous fashion, that he's in the miracle-working business.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the thing is, if I just relayed to you stories of miracles, um, that's not gonna do anything to change your perspective.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because whether or not you believe miracles are happening today is probably rooted much more in your own personal experience than whatever the Bible has to say.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so my goal this morning is that we would answer these questions and that we would first look at it from a biblical perspective, and then sort of examine our own personal experience, tie those things together, and then ultimately answer this final question about how should it change our lives.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And the first thing we need to do is see why God ever used miracles in the first place.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Deuteronomy 7, 18 through 19.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Be sure to remember what the Lord your God did to Pharaoh and all Egypt, the great trials that you saw, the signs and wonders, and you're gonna see that phrase used quite a bit here.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: The strong hand and the outstretched arm by which the Lord your God brought you out.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: It was no small thing to the Israelites as God rescued them from Pharaoh's hand in Egypt, that they were supposed to remember all of the amazing things that he had done to rescue them.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then continually, over and over and over again, how by his mighty hand, by no strength of theirs, he was bringing them out of the darkness and into the light.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it was supposed to be a reminder for the Israelites.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever they were falling away from God, the refrain was don't you remember the mighty hand that God used, the signs and wonders, the miracles that he saved you by.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: It was supposed to be a remembrance for the house of Israel.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: But we go to the New Testament, we see in Acts 2.22, fellow Israelites, listen to these words.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through him, just as you yourselves know.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus' ministry was filled with miracles.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere he went, he was doing miraculous signs and wonders.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: He was driving out demons, he was healing the paralytic, he was restoring sight to the blind, he was raising people from the dead.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: Everywhere Jesus went, he was performing miracles.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: And even his very first miracle, if you remember at the wedding in Cana, Mary says, Jesus, there's no more wine.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, My time has not yet come.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: That was how he was going to kick off and define his ministry, was by the power of God given miracles.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Did it mean that Jesus was more special because he was doing them?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: But to those around him, it was part of the way that God validated what he was doing and showed his power as God, is that miracles were happening around him.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: But what about after Jesus?
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12, 12, the signs of an apostle were performed with unfailing endurance among you, including signs and wonders and miracles.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: That the apostles, right, which would be like the disciples, and then Paul calls himself the least of the disciples, or the least of the apostles, those who uh had followed Jesus specifically.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he says that the way that they were defined and their authority was given in the local church when they were going around and spreading the gospel was also through signs and wonders.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Paul also raised a guy from the dead.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So this is how God was validating his message.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: That was the purpose of miracles, to validate God's message.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, important caveat.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Does God's message need to be validated per se?
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, because he's God and he is truth.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, this is the way that he chose to do it so that people could see his power and experience it and then believe.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, sort of back to our question today, is God doing miracles today?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Well, kind of.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because then we get to this next big hurdle, and the question becomes, is God doing miracles today the same way that he was doing miracles in biblical times?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And way up the road, this sort of forks into two different paths.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we're about to hop into the deep end here, but it's kind of necessary because there are basically two general schools of thought and how miracles are happening today, and in particular, who is doing them and what miracles are still happening.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And those two camps, those two views, um, they are called cessationists and continuationists.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: They have no PR team to come up with better names than that.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: That is the ones that they are sticking with.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um but cessationism and continuationism, I want I want to share this with you just for a moment.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you get into this discussion at all, these are the titles that are going to come up.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and their focus is basically, could I raise somebody from the dead like Paul?
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Could I speak in tongues?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Is the Holy Spirit moving through humans today to perform miracles, or have they ceased at the end of the apostolic age?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, once the disciples and the apostles of Jesus went away, was there a general waning off of miracles?
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: And even though God is still moving today in that fashion, he's not moving in the same way.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: So it pretty much hinges on 1 Corinthians 13, 8 through 10.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: It says, Love never ends, but as for prophecies, they will come to an end.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: As for tongues, they will cease, as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now this passage comes after the super famous 1 Corinthians 13, right?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I am a rusty gate, I'm a clinging symbol without love, love is patient and kind.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: You typically don't see this being read at the weddings.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: They stop short of this part of it.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um But the question becomes, and really, like I said, what it's based on is what is the perfect?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: When the perfect comes, these partial things, and Paul seems to be identifying, he says, like prophecies and tongues and some kind of divine knowledge, uh, that they will come to an end.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: So what is the perfect?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you are a cessationist, what you would say is that the perfect is basically the completion of the canon of Scripture.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that we have got this in our hands means that God no longer needs to validate his message like the prophets, like with Jesus, like with the disciples.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And once this came together and we have it in its completed form, there was no longer a need for those particular gifts to be used in the church.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: They were used in what seems to be quite a bit until the Bible came together.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: So cessationists would say, this is the perfect.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: God has justified his purpose, he has validated his message through signs and wonders.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: The perfect has come, there is no longer need to have these things.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not that miracles don't happen, but that they are not happening the way that they used to.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that they would reference is that basically in the Bible, after it seems, as we sort of track this narrative, that after the apostle sort of died away, after Paul and his ministry seemed to finish, it seems like miracles, these types of ones, prophecies, tongues, and knowledge, weren't happening as often.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So they would sort of cite that anecdotal evidence.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you go to continuationists, and they're going to have a different interpretation, and honestly, what I believe is a better biblical foundation for their view.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: They're going to say that the perfect is when Jesus returns.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if you keep going into 1 Corinthians 13 a little bit deeper, it seems to be that this is what Paul is saying in context.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: He says he's referencing the fact that in Corinth there were these uh highly burnished bronze mirrors that people were using to see the reflection.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the sort of exports in Corinth that they were known for.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he says that looking into one of these mirrors is like our relationship with Jesus now.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: But later on we will see him in his fullness and we will be fully known.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: He seems to be equating this relationship we have with Christ now to the partial and the future to the perfect.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: And if you follow that as I do, then it seems to say that when Jesus comes, there will be no more need for prophecies or for tongues or for divine knowledge.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that seems to make sense from a biblical perspective.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: But we've got one last thing to wrestle with, which is just sort of this anecdotal evidence from early church history that it seems like miracles did seem to wane.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Two quick examples for you.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is from Iranius.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: He uh his mentor was Polycarp, whose mentor was John, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is his uh early church father playing card.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what he says in Against Heresies, his big thing was fighting heresy.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great thing to fight.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Those who are in truth his disciples do in his name perform miracles.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: For some do certainly and truly drive out devils, have foreknowledge of things to come.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: They see visions and utter prophetic expressions.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Others still heal the sick by laying their hands upon them, and they are made whole.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Yea, moreover, moreover, as I've said, the dead even have been raised up, and remained among us for many years.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: The name of our Lord Jesus Christ, even now, confers benefits upon men and cures thoroughly and effectively all who anywhere believe on him.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds like miracles are still happening.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Iranius died in 202, and it sounds like this ministry of miracles, how God was choosing to work in history, was that his hand was powerfully upon these early church fathers who were still overseeing the explosion of Christianity in Europe in the Middle East at the time.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Iranius died in 202.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: We'll move to Augustine, who died in 430.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: He has a slightly different perspective.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says, For even now miracles are wrought in the name of Christ, but these modern miracles are scarcely known even to the whole population in the midst of which they are wrought, and at the best are confined to one spot.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, and if you read more of that passage, what he's saying is, miracles absolutely happen today.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: I see them with my own eyes, but they are not the magnificent miracles that we read about with the disciples.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: People are not really being raised from the dead anymore.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: These miracles that are happening, they seem to have reduced some.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: So what are we supposed to make of that as I've just sort of presented all of the cases?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think we kind of take a healthy middle road on this.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that this cessationist belief is fully biblical.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that their interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13 is fully justifiable.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that there's a great reason to say that miracles and some of the crazier miracles that people would look at and sort of shiver down the spine have ceased today.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think there's a reason to believe that.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: But on the at the same time, I'm also a little skeptical of some people on the far end of the spectrum, particularly deep into the charismatic movement, who would, for instance, say that you must be able to speak in tongues for the Holy Spirit to rest upon you.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: That it doesn't come just when you believe in Jesus Christ, but it only fully comes when you're able to speak in tongues.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a mistake also.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: So where does that leave us?
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do miracles happen today?
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: The same way they used to?
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: The purpose of miracles is to validate God's message, and that has been done through Jesus.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to understand that God's message now, it has been written.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: And though I believe the Lord is still moving and working in our world today, absolutely.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: The fact that we do have the Bible with us, and at the end of the Bible, it says, there shall be no more adding to or taking away from this text.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: It lets us know that God has given us his message.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: His truth is fulfilled and will ultimately come to fulfillment when Jesus returns.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so everything has been fulfilled through Christ.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: But then what to make of miracles that are still happening today?
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think God is still using them.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's still using them powerfully in the areas of the world where the gospel is being fought so hard by Satan.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: You listen to stories, even just in the last few weeks, of Christians in Afghanistan who are being persecuted and hung and killed for their faith, who are being martyred for what they believe in, and you see stories starting to come out of there about those who had miraculous escapes from death, who pe people who were coming to Christ in the midst of this terrible event.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: You hear about stories from tribal nations where witch doctors are supposed to be healing people in the community, and a missionary comes and is able, by the power of God, to heal somebody who had been lame or who hadn't been able to see for decades.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And through that avenue, that conduit, the glory of God is explored even further.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's a reason why it isn't happening so often in America.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think that just as uh maybe about a year and a half ago, uh, I think a lot of us saw during the pandemic when everything was shut down fully, animals were starting to return into their natural habitats.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: Dolphins were swimming in the canals of Venice for the first time in dozens of years.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because there was no longer any pollution washing through those canals.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: They were returning to their habitat where they were welcomed.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we live in a very, very secular age, in a very, very secular country that rejects the miraculous and loves the idea of a God that can do amazing things, but often doesn't think in that frame of mind.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: We really don't talk about the miraculous very often.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that in a land that has been blessed, to have God's word, to have it be sung from every state in this country and almost every corner, that it's not hard at all to find the word of Jesus, but people still reject it, I can see for a moment why God is not choosing to gift us with so many miraculous moments for a country that sometimes rejects those types of things.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing we might say is, why isn't God using miracles to bring people closer to Him?
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like if miracles were used in the Bible to validate this message and people came to faith in Christ because of them, then why aren't they everywhere?
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Why isn't that like the number one tool that God is using in this world to share the love of Jesus with people?
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: Wouldn't a few miraculous healings get that done?
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: But remember, miracles were not foolproof.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: The Israelites, two months after the parting of the Red Sea, made a golden calf when Moses was gone for a couple weeks.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus in his ministry, you ever wondered why he told people he would heal those and tell them to not tell anybody else?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's because he gained followers purely because they were expecting him to be a miracle worker.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_00: They had no care for the gospel, they had no care for the actual miracle of life change that he was offering, that living water, but rather they said, Hey, I've got a problem, can you fix this?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're my genie, can you do something about it?
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Miracles are never a guaranteed way, path for somebody to believe in Jesus.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: So, man, on that note, what are the things that we can take away from this?
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because I actually think there's a whole lot of hope.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: A whole lot of wonderful things we can see in the way that the God is working in our day through miracles, even in the U.S.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've got four concrete takeaways for you that I think are really helpful.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is that we should give thanks for the Bible.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I know it can, you can become sort of envious or jealous of these disciples who were raising people from the dead, who were doing these miraculous healings, who were had these prophetic visions, who were speaking in the name of God and doing all of these things with seemingly without fail and guided by the wind of the Holy Spirit.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_00: But you've also got to remember that they lived in a way different time.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every single one of those disciples was killed because they were a Christian.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every single church father in the first couple hundred years of the church was martyred because of their faith.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: God was doing a different work back then.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the work that he is doing today is that we tell people about the truth that we have in our Bible, the completed canon of Scripture, this full picture that we have of Jesus who has come and who has died for us and who rose again, and that we get to share that with people so that they can experience the greatest miracle of all.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: So give thanks in a moment for the fact that miracles might not be happening as often, partially because God's word has already been given in its fullness.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: We are so fortunate that we have the Bible in our language in our time.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: There are still people today on this world who do not have access to God's word because they don't have it in their language.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: I expect miracles to happen more often there than here.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Second, is that we should remember that Lazarus still died.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Miracles can often seem like a fix-all, a cure-all to whatever ails us.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Who has not had a sick family member and who has prayed that God would heal them, that God would rescue them from their dementia or their cancer or their accident, that they would come out of the coma.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: Who has not prayed something like that before?
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: And in those moments, it sure seems like a miracle would be a really great answer from God to that prayer.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure Mary and Martha felt that way too.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: When their brother Lazarus had been dead for four days, and they were crying and sobbing as you would, and Jesus comes along and sees their tears, and he raises Lazarus from the dead.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't imagine what that was like.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: That their faith raised their brother from the dead, that they were able to spend years more with him than they thought that they had, taking advantage of all of those opportunities that we have all had at one point or the other.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: We said, if I only had one more day, this is what I would do.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: And they got years.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: But Lazarus died again.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't live forever.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: However long it was, he still died a natural death.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Because that miracle was for this world and not for the eternal kingdom.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And when we focus too much on miracles, when we focus too much on whether God has or has not answered these gigantic prayers that we have prayed, when we bargain with him and say, God, if you would only do this thing that I want you to do, then I will come to faith in you.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: When we start to exchange with God these sort of chips that we think we have built up, we get into a dangerous path by putting more of our hope in miracles in this world than in our heavenly Father's kingdom.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: You see, whatever miracles happened in this world, ultimately they faded away, except for one.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: The Red Sea went back to being a sea.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Lazarus died again.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: The paralytic, the blind man, the one who had demons cast out of them, but they all died.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: So don't put too much hope in miracles.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_00: Not that God won't do them or that God can't, but that we don't base our faith on whether or not he is working a miracle in our life.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: Lazarus still died.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: Third, continue to ask for miracles.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: Our God is in the miracle working business.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that miracles happen today.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that miracles happen in the U.S.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: I believe that miracles happen at TBC.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was having a great conversation with Jim just this week as we were talking about this message, and he recounted to me some of the uh what I would call miraculous events that have happened here at the church as we have laid hands on people to heal them, as people have come free from addiction, as people have walked in freedom with Christ and been rescued from the bondages of sin and death.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: As amazing things have happened, we can look back and say, no, miracles have happened here, and they are worthy of our prayers, because it does still require faith that they happen.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so I would urge you to continue to ask for those things.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: I am by no means giving you a scenario here that says that miracles are not for today.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: They are.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I urge you to continue to ask for them.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that in those moments where God chooses to not answer your prayer, that your faith is not rocked to its core, because you have not placed all of your hope and whether or not he's going to do that.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: You have not based all of your idea of God's faithfulness on whether or not he chose to answer your prayers.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Because ultimately there was a greater priority.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to tell you something.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: There were a lot of people who followed Jesus who wanted to be healed who did not get healed.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: There were a lot of people who followed him who were just wanting to use, touch the hem of his robe so that they could be healed.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Like the craziest paparazzi that has ever been.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: There were those who just wanted to follow him for that reason, and they did not see the greater priority, which is what Jesus was focused on.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: And that was that they needed to believe in the greatest miracle of all.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: The miracle that we can still believe in today, and if you have trusted in Christ, the miracle that is going on in your souls when you accepted Jesus, and even now, as you are being set free from these chains of sin that hold you so tight.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: You've got to understand, and man, we take this for granted, that the Holy Spirit that rests within us, also not something that the disciples had until Pentecost when they were performing miracles, that the Holy Spirit that rests within us is God Himself, the third member of the Trinity, who is drawing us up out of the way of our past life and pushing us on towards these love and good deeds that we have been called to.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the fact that you can walk in freedom from sin that you were held to before is nothing short of a miracle.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's just that it happens so often that we lose sight of how amazing that is.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: It happens so often that God has chosen through his new covenant to give us a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone, that we are able to have a relationship with Jesus, the one who died for our sins.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: That is the greatest miracle.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is the one that has eternal significance.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: That is the one that will never pass away.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: That is the one that we can continue to trust in day after day after day.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: So, where does that leave us finally?
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully, it gives us a realistic biblical picture of miracles.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: They were a tool that God used for a specific purpose.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that specific purpose is still happening today, but by God's grace, they are no longer needed as much as they were.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: And though we should pray for them, we should not place all of our hope in them.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: We should place all of our hope in Christ because He is the one that we can truly trust in.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because even miracles today have a timestamp on them, but our relationship with God does not.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Would you pray with me?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you, God, for your goodness.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for the miraculous.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for all of the prayers of the saints around the world who have seen those in trouble, God, who are who are hurting and who are dying.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: God, and you are rescuing them through the miraculous power of your word and of your ability.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: God, I pray that though you would help us to focus on the miracle that we can have in our own life, our relationship with Jesus, that can set us free if we would choose to let it.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: God, please help us to focus on this.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: And God, most of all, I thank you for the miracle of Jesus, for his death, for his resurrection, that we can look back upon that as the foundation of our faith.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Lord, in Jesus' name.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.