#425 The Jesus Trip, The Miracles, Signs and Wonders of Jesus (9 am Service)

#425 The Jesus Trip, The Miracles, Signs and Wonders of Jesus (9 am Service)
By: Zach Sloane (9 am Service)

(Sermon notes, PowerPoint Slides & Group Discussion Questions at the bottom of the page) 

“It is abnormal for a Christian not to have an appetite for the impossible. It has been written into our spiritual DNA to hunger for the impossibilities around us to bow at the name of Jesus.” Bill Johnson 

“Christ was a miracle. Every Christian is a miracle. Every answer to prayer is a miracle. Every divine illumination is a miracle. The power of Christianity in the world is a miraculous power. God help us to realize that ours is a High and Holy Calling.”  John G. Lake, The Collected Works of John G. Lake^[1] 

Recap: Incarnation – the miracle of God becoming flesh  

The incarnation shows us that the miraculous is not the ignoring nor escaping of the flesh or the natural world. Rather, it’s the miraculous invading, permeating, infusing and enhancing the natural. In the incarnation heaven and earth become one in Christ and the supernatural is woven into the very fabric of our natural existence.  

Intro:
Jesus from beginning to end manifested the miraculous. He was a miracle.  

If you are a believer in Jesus the miraculous is our inheritance. 

Of the 1,257 narrative verses in the Gospels 484 (38.5 percent) are devoted to describing healing miracles.
Signs and wonders do not belong to the margins of Christianity.
Miracles are tied to evangelism in the Bible no less than 17 times.
The gospel of His grace must be accompanied by miracles.
The miraculous is essential if seeing people set free is your goal. 

What role did miracles play in Jesus’ life and ministry? 

Luke 19:10 (NRSV)
For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.” 

He came to do this by finally, once and for all putting an end to all that separates, creates distance, and alienates us from the life of God. And he went about it in such a way that in the process, he revealed to us what the Father is really all about, demonstrating His heart. The miraculous was a key component to this revealing of God to us.  

Matthew 8:17
“This was to fulfill what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah, “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”” 

His miracles show us that God is not afflicting us, he is miraculously healing us.  

Matthew 9:5 (NRSV)
For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Stand up and walk’? 

Sin is not an issue in stopping the supernatural!  

Luke 5:12-13 (NRSV)
Once, when he was in one of the cities, there was a man covered with leprosy. When he saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you choose, you can make me clean.” Then Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do choose. Be made clean.” Immediately the leprosy left him. 

Jesus revealed a God who has forever chosen to miraculously intervene on our part. He does not need convincing. He has already chosen in Jesus to act supernaturally on your behalf.  

In his person Jesus showed us that the miraculous and the natural were never intended to be separated – but woven together in a perfect human life — one that embraced incarnation realties such as time, space, and natural process and laws that are part of this world that God has blessed and called good, but that at the same time, is not bound by these same natural laws to our detriment.  

The natural order of things was to be subject to the will and need of the people of God – not the other way around. Every time this order was challenged and nature or natural circumstances challenged the well-being or even convenience and pleasure of God’s people, Jesus demonstrated the miraculous power of God to again through man subjugate those same conditions back under the hand of humanity – to serve humanity not bind them. So in the face of lack – he multiplied the fish and the loaves. In the face of danger at sea he calms the storms. 

Jesus even engaged the miraculous in seemingly superfluous ways, ways that seem to have no real salvific value such as turning water into wine, to reveal to us the nature and glory of God.  

John 2:11 (NRSV)
Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him. 

Jesus actually even himself made an appeal for people to believe in him, even if they did not believe in his words, to believe in his identity based on the fact that the he was doing what only God could do – the works of his Father.  

John 10:37-38 (NRSV)
“If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, so that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.” 

Miracles are a big deal… and they still are. 

John 14:12
“Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.” 

Mark 16:17-18
And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;  they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” 

“While the miracles served as signs, they were not performed in order to be signs. They were as much a part and parcel of Jesus’ ministry as was His preaching … not seals affixed to the document to certify its genuineness but an integral element in the very text of the document.”

         F. F. Bruce

 Romans 15:18-19(NRSV)

“For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to win obedience from the Gentiles, by word and deed, by the power of signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God, so that from Jerusalem and as far around as Illyricum I have fully proclaimed the good news of Christ.” 

We cannot fully preach the gospel without miracles — a message without power is only half the story.  

Elephant in the room – what about when they don’t happen? Jesus encountered this situation, but he proactively engaged the word of God and taught about the kingdom and power.  

Mark 6:5-6
“And he could do no deed of power there, except that he laid his hands on a few sick people and cured them. And he was amazed at their unbelief.” 

Mark 6:6-7
Then he went about among the villages teaching. He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 

We too have to engage the word and let faith build. If Jesus, the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow wants to say to our generation its because of our unbelief, we need to also not get offended… but engage with the Living Word as he develops our faith.  

There is never any condemnation for the lack of manifestation, but an ever-present invitation to believe for more. 

Jesus takes his miracle ministry to the next level after this: He empowers others with his power to do the miraculous and thus reveals the nature of a God who empowers, not one who criticizes and condemns for weakness. 

Mark 6:7-13 & Matt. 10:5-10
Sends out disciples and gave them authority to cast out demons  .. and told them just go heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.  

A little illustration from Peters life. He sees Jesus walking on water and tells Jesus to tell him he can too.  

Matthew 14:28
“…Lord if it’s really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.”  

He walks on that word until he gets distracted and falls.  

Matthew 14:32
“You have so little faith,” Jesus said. “Why did you doubt me?” When they climbed back in the boat, the wind stopped. Then the disciples worshipped him. “You really are the Son of God” they exclaimed.  

Prior to this in the chronological story of Jesus’ ministry no one apart from Nathaniel when Jesus through a word of knowledge described his previous life events, had anyone recognized that Jesus was the Son of God, except for the demons.  

In John 5 Jesus straight up tells his disciples that he is God’s Son, but neither his disciples nor the people actually got it.  

Jesus divinity was recognized when people saw it at work in others.  

Peter walked on the word with the freely given power and authority that word carried to defy the natural order.  

How to and practical application! How does he empower us? 

Acts 1:8 (NRSV)
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” 

Matthew 10:8 “FREELY YOU RECEIVED FREELY GIVE” 

Freely received what? Freely received power and freely given authority. No tricks, no gimmicks, no dualistic religious aesthetics to pull them off… just freely given power and freely given authority.  

Galatians 3:5
Well then, does God supply you with the Spirit and work miracles among you by your doing the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 

John 6:29-30
“They replied we want to perform God’s works too. What should we do? Jesus told them, This is the only work God wants from you: Believe in the one he sent.”  

Working Of Miracles — Spiritual Gift – a faith contradiction?  

‘Miracles’ (dunamis):– a supernatural intervention in the ordinary course of nature;  by the power of God nature is suspended, altered or controlled. 

To operate in the working of miracles you will also need to flow in revelation gifts and the gift of faith. 

‘Workings’ (Gr. energema) means ‘the energising power to work a miracle’:

It is the empowering of the believer by the Holy Spirit to meet a need at a particular time. 

It is God who empowers – it is the believer who acts. 

‘Workings of Miracles’ means this is more than ‘prayer for a miracle’.  The believer must act ‘in the name of Jesus’. 

Summary:
We can’t represent Jesus, who fully represents the Father without miracles. The miracles bless us and at the same time reveal the nature and love of God to us. 

The power and authority to do so is freely given and to us, must be freely received by us, freely given away through us again. (GRACE / FAITH)  

It is through the working of miracles in us that will reveal the Divinity of Jesus Christ again… and we can be encouraged to know that it only takes little faith steps… only believe!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download