Jesus' Power

Miracles

Lets talk about miracles this morning. In The Life Of Jesus series we are looking at some things about Jesus’ life that stick out, things that make Jesus unique as if being God the Son were not enough.

But when we look at some of the things that make Jesus Jesus, we notice that there are things in His life that are consistently different than our lives are.

Case in point to what we are talking about today. We are going to talk about miracles today.

What are miracles? How do you define a miracle? It could be argued that we saw an actual miracle take place on Feb 4 2018 when the Eagles won their first Superbowl over the Patriots!

I experienced a personal miracle in 1986 when I graduated high school!

And yes, those are supposed to be funny and we are supposed to laugh at them but God is still working miracles. He really is...

And maybe some of you have experienced something that could only be described as a miracle. God working in a situation and it makes no sense when you think about it rationally. God did something in YOUR life in a very real and dramatic fashion that cannot be explained by conventional means. I have heard some of your stories and some of those stories can’t be explained conventionally, they are miracles.

I spent a great deal of time this week looking at different books written by different scholars, all who know so much have forgotten more about Theology than I will ever know, and it seems like all of these scholars arrive at different definitions to what a miracle is.

That’s how you want to start out the week of study. Trying to nail down a simple definition of a subject you want to talk about only to find that nobody can really agree on it.

Some say that a miracle simply something that God does that is contrary to the laws of nature.

Because that is one thought of the nature of miracles; that a miracle is simply something that God does that falls out of the bounds of the laws of nature as we know them.

This may sound like a good definition until you really start to think about the fact that even the most natural things in natural law really could be considered miracles too.

Consider gravity. The fact that at this very moment we are sucked down on the planet at precisely the same force at all times depending on the last meal we ate... Is that a miracle?

Or do we really want to say that there is anything that is outside of God’s realm?

Because think about this for a minute. If you say that that a miracle is God working outside of the laws of nature, then whether you think you are or not, you would be looking at God as a deist, which means that you believe that God isn’t active in the natural world that we live in.

You would look at God as the great clock maker who winds up the clock and lets it run on its own without any intervention. But we don’t believe that this is who God is.

Maybe there are two different ideas about miracles. Maybe two different classes. There is something that is called by theologians providential sustainment. That is the idea that God is actively involved in every little thing. Nothing escapes Him.

Hebrews 1:3 ESV

3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

He UPHOLDS the universe. That means that God is actively involved in all things. All things. So the fact that the earth spins on it’s axis at the same speed at all times means that God is actively involved in that.

It’s not like a crock pot where you set it and forget it.

That means that when you get a cut on your hand and immediately cells rush to that area to bind with each other to make a scab, ultimately to make a scar that this isn’t just a natural process but a miracle.

Look, when you break a bone and set the bone, the doctor puts the bones in place but doesn’t actually do the healing.

Colossians 1:17 ESV

17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Matthew 10:29–30 ESV

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.

Thees are details that are staggering if you think about it. Staggering. Which is why people don’t believe. They can’t figure it out so they won’t believe.

Oh that just doesn’t make sense.

We think we know how stuff works but I don’t think we really do. I think that we are a little arrogant in the idea that we know so much when I don’t know what that means.

I think that we need to admit that we really don’t know how all this works. Not to say that we throw away education or not to ponder and try to figure things out. I just think that we need to give to God what is due Him.

I’m not saying that we go back to the age where an eclipse is some magical event where God is trying to tell us something, but I have no problem with the philosophy or belief that God sets something into motion and keeps something in motion at the beginning of time and can intervene whenever He wants.

So when it comes to miracles, we need to understand that they aren’t coincidence and they aren’t happenstance.

Not to get to technical but I think this is really important for us to understand. Very important for the Christian. You can’t just dismiss miracles, whether they are miraculous in our minds or whether it is the normal every day life for us, what we call the laws of nature. It really is important. Barclay says.

Foundations of the Christian Faith: A Comprehensive & Readable Theology Intellectual Questions

They are the laws of nature or science. We must not think, however, that the so-called laws are absolute and that God is somehow controlled or limited by them; for on some occasions God acts in an unpredictable way to do what we term a miracle.

God showed his sovereignty over nature in dividing the Red Sea so the children of Israel could pass over from Egypt into the wilderness and then by returning the waters to destroy the pursuing Egyptian soldiers

If we were to talk about the miracles of Jesus—and there were many, we would really need to be reminded that the miracles of Jesus come from the POWER of Jesus.

We need to remember who it is that Jesus is if we contemplate his miracles.

Do you remember some of the miracles Jesus did? Go ahead and shout some out to us.

As Christians, as people who may have grown up in a Christian environment it is possible that you don’t even really think about these miracles.

Okay, Jesus fed 5000 people. Okay. Oh, Jesus turned water into wine. I see. That’s great. Jesus healed someone of an incurable disease, great.

We get used to hearing these things so much that we possibly miss how big of a deal this is.

God is just as responsible for the everyday normal processes as He is for the miraculous.

Regular, normal nature is not absent of God’s miracle happening every second of everyday. The natural that you and I have grown accustomed to is just as miraculous as God creating ex nihilo (out of nothing). So when you experience the miracle of God answering a prayer. Or if you see God do something amazing, we can look at it is no more a miracle than the every day monotony that we go through.

But we need to understand that that God who made everything also continues to sustain it.

1. Miracles Belong To God

Only God does miracles. Only God. He does them to show us His glory and to accomplish His plans.

Lots of people will tell you that they can do magic, that they can do miracles. Guess what? They can’t. They are all frauds, they are all fakes. Imitating what only God can do.

Remember when Pharaohs magicians tried to duplicate the signs God gave Moses? Throw your staff down and it will become a snake? Genesis says that they did the trick but then the staff of Moses that God threw down swallowed all of their staffs.

Real Miracles belong to God. And listen,

creation is THE miracle. Out of nothing

Genesis 1:1 ESV

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Scripture knows nothing of a creation or a history that is at any moment independent of God’s agency.

That means that there is nothing on earth that there is nothing in the sky, there is nothing in the sea or in space that was not created in the first place by God. He is the creator of you and He is the creator of me. And yes, God allows the use of human interaction to create people, but ultimately, it begins with Him.

He is the creator and he is the sustainer. He keeps it all going. The sun comes up every day because of God’s active supervision.

Genesis 8:22 ESV

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”

1 corinthians 8 6 yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

Hebrews 1:3 ESV

3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high,

Nature does not act independently of God.

Nature does not act independently of God.

What this means for us, today is that we need to be careful when it comes to people who claim to be miracle workers. Don’t get me wrong. I believe in miracles. I do. But I believe that miracles happen as the result of God’s will and God’s desire. To make himself known and to promote His Will, and yes, sometimes to convince people that He is God.

And so when we talk about Jesus and His miracles we can see the authority that has been given to him over nature, over spirit and over life.

We are supposed to be talking about the miracles of Jesus and His life. And it isn’t hard to talk about them. It’s not really hard to come up with a list.

But let’s look quickly at the categories of miracles.

Jesus Power Over Nature—The storm

Mark 4:35–39 ESV

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

Mark 4:35–41 ESV

On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. And other boats were with him. And a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Mark 4:35-

If you are a believer in Jesus then you have to look at this story and you really shouldn’t have a problem with it.

Remember says that everything that was made was made through Jesus. So it shouldn’t be too terribly hard for the creator to tell the wind to stop, to tell the waves to stop.

Jesus was the only one who could control the weather. Not sure if you heard on the news lately about a dictator in the east says that he can control the weather too. Very interesting.

What does Jesus’ power over the weather, over the elements tell us about Him? It tells us that we can trust Him with our surroundings. It tells us that he is not limited to the surroundings that we are limited to.

How does this help us as Christians? It reminds us that there is nothing physical beyond the reach of God. It means that He has the power to turn on or to turn off any element of nature at His disposal. This means you can trust Jesus with your world.

Jesus Power Over the Spirit Realm—Demons

Mark 5:1–13 ESV

They came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gerasenes. And when Jesus had stepped out of the boat, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit. He lived among the tombs. And no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain, for he had often been bound with shackles and chains, but he wrenched the chains apart, and he broke the shackles in pieces. No one had the strength to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and on the mountains he was always crying out and cutting himself with stones. And when he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and fell down before him. And crying out with a loud voice, he said, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I adjure you by God, do not torment me.” For he was saying to him, “Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!” And Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” He replied, “My name is Legion, for we are many.” And he begged him earnestly not to send them out of the country. Now a great herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him, saying, “Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.” So he gave them permission. And the unclean spirits came out and entered the pigs; and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the sea.

Mark 5:1-

There are a lot of stories that tell of Jesus power over the spirit realm. There is a spirit realm and Christ has dominion over it.

The demons are real. Don’t let anyone tell you they weren’t. There are some who say that when it comes to demon possession in the bible that it was just a chemical imbalance or mental illness, but a chemical imbalance doesn’t ask someone to send them into pigs.

Jesus as the son of God had the power and the authority to send these demons out of the man because Jesus had power and authority over the spirit realm.

No one could subdue this man who was tormented by the demonic forces. But Jesus, at His word, His very word was able to command them out of him. That is power, that is a miracle.

So Jesus has power over the Natural world, Jesus has power over the spiritual world.

Jesus also has power over the physical world concerning our bodies.

John 5 ESV

After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, in Aramaic called Bethesda, which has five roofed colonnades. In these lay a multitude of invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.” And at once the man was healed, and he took up his bed and walked. Now that day was the Sabbath. So the Jews said to the man who had been healed, “It is the Sabbath, and it is not lawful for you to take up your bed.” But he answered them, “The man who healed me, that man said to me, ‘Take up your bed, and walk.’ ” They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take up your bed and walk’?” Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had withdrawn, as there was a crowd in the place. Afterward Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you are well! Sin no more, that nothing worse may happen to you.” The man went away and told the Jews that it was Jesus who had healed him. And this was why the Jews were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God. So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing. And greater works than these will he show him, so that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, just as they honor the Father. Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment. “I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me. If I alone bear witness about myself, my testimony is not true. There is another who bears witness about me, and I know that the testimony that he bears about me is true. You sent to John, and he has borne witness to the truth. Not that the testimony that I receive is from man, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light. But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John. For the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I am doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, and you do not have his word abiding in you, for you do not believe the one whom he has sent. You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. I do not receive glory from people. But I know that you do not have the love of God within you. I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not receive me. If another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God? Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. There is one who accuses you: Moses, on whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?”

John 5:5–8 ESV

One man was there who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had already been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be healed?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Get up, take up your bed, and walk.”

John 5;5-8

;5-8

38 years this man was crippled. He could not walk. Jesus, at His Word healed the man. I want you to understand the power of Jesus this morning.

I want you to understand how powerful this is. Jesus told a handicapped person, in our language someone in a wheel chair to get up. How bold is that? How bold is that?

But Jesus has the power to do that and he did it.

We see it all over the gospels. Jesus healed blind people, Jesus healed deaf people, Jesus healed sick people, Jesus healed people of leprosy. He has the authority and the power to heal the body. He has power over the physical world.

Not just bodies of people but of the physical world. Remember when Jesus fed the 5000? He took 2 little fishes and 5 loaves of bread and fed everybody that came out to hear him. And not only that there were leftovers!

Jesus has the authority to show signs and wonders over every area.

Including the power of life over death. In Johns gospel in chapter 11 Jesus brings a dead man back to life. He has the power over life and death.

Jesus even has the power to raise himself from the dead. After he was executed on a cross he died. His physical body died. There is evidence of this when the Roman soldier stuck a spear in Jesus’ side and we are told that blood and water flowed. That means that circulation had stopped. He was dead.

And we are told in the gospels that three days later he rose from the grave. He is alive!

That my friends is a miracle!

Now the question begs to be asked. “Why did Jesus preform miracles. We have gotten a pretty good background of the fact that he did preform miracles but why would he do them?

Did he do it to get fame and popularity? Did Jesus do miracles to get personal gain? He did not. I see two things about the miracles.

One is that every miracle helped someone. The miracle either healed, or provided for others. We don’t see Jesus doing miracles to sow off. On the contrary we see Jesus always helping others with the miracles.

The miracles themselves were not ways for Jesus to show off His power, especially since He had given up His former glory to come to earth and do the will of the Father in heaven. Instead, the miracles vindicated His claims about Himself and His teaching. Although He didn't need to perform any miracles and refused to perform them on demand, they came so that others might believe.

John 10:37–38 ESV

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, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

Jesus’ mission on earth was to call those who belong to him to Himself. He came here to seek and to save the lost. That is why Jesus came.

Miracles were pointers to God. The miracles were supposed to get people to understand the kingdom of God better. The miracles were supposed to get people to believe because that is why Jesus came. To save the lost and to have them believe.

And we may sit here today and think that we haven’t really seen many miracles but I think maybe you have.

Because the greatest miracle that can take place is when a person believes and surrenders their lives to Jesus Christ. And in that moment they become a new creation. They become a child of God.

The peace that is available to you because of Jesus, the peace in surrender is just amazing. Wont you give your life to Him?

And if you do know him than there is nothing wrong with praying for miracles. There is nothing wrong submitting your requests to God and having Him answer those prayers. And if God does answer a prayer whether it seems miraculous to you or not is still a miracle because you have the ear of God and you have His attention.

You have an access to the King that only the King’s children have.

Pray for those miracles. Pray for the sick, Jesus has a history of healing them. Pray for the weather. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I had a lady just recently ask me if it was okay to pray for good weather and I don’t think that there is anything wrong with it.

You and I both have been told that we are going to get a blizzard and then 2 inches of snow later we find out that the storm changed direction.

Remember that the God of the wind and the waves can tell the storm where to go.

If you haven’t seen any miracles maybe it is because you really aren’t looking. There are miracles happening every day and this isn’t just fluffy Christianese stuff. This providential sustainment. This is God keeping us in orbit. This is God keeping the sun shining.

If you haven’t seen a miracle that you recognize, contemplate your life that was given to Jesus. Have things changed since you surrendered to Him? I will tell you it has. There has been a miracle in your life when you surrender to Jesus.