This Sermon Preached on Superbowl Sunday
Advancing Into Miracle Territory
BELIEVING
The Gospels tell us about many miracles of Jesus.
He turned water into wine.
He made the blind to see.
The deaf to hear
and the lame to walk.
He raised the dead from the grave.
He took a man’s ear cut off by a sword and placed it back on the man’s head.
Jesus fed an enormous crowd one day with a small boys lunch of fish and bread.
Jesus spoke and the sea and the wind were still.
He is the man who walked on the water.
The final words of Johns Gospel are these.
John 21
v 25 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 written.
Jesus is undeniably the king of miracles and yet some have stopped believing.
Some have stopped believing that Jesus is still at work among us doing miracles.
One of the reasons that we don’t often experience
Jesus doing unbelievable wonderful things in our lives is because we are no longer believing that Jesus can do or will do miracles.
Some are already claiming defeat instead of believing that God could lead them to victory.
(PLAY CLIP) video clip "whole hearted" which is a mini clip from the FACING THE GIANTS film.
When it comes to BELIEVING too many are already welcoming defeat when they should be allowing God to deliver victory.
Such an example is found in the case of the Israelites and their invitation by God to enter the promised land and have victory but because they could not believe they suffered defeat instead of victory.
God calls us to BELIEVE with Determination
Take a look at Numbers Chapter 13 and I want you to look at two voices...
THE VOICE OF DOUBT and THE VOICE OF DETERMINATION.
First notice what God says...
13 The Lord said to Moses,
2 " Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.”
3 So at the Lord’s command Moses sent them out from the Desert of Paran. All of them were leaders of the Israelites.
These explorers are sometimes referred to as spies sent to spy out the land. That God had promised He WAS giving to them.
Sometimes I fea we would just as soon take another tour through the wilderness as soon as trust God for the miracle of entering the promise land.
That is the voice of God who has said in verse 2 I AM GIVING TO THE ISRAELITES THIS LAND.
Now look at the voice of doubt.
When these explorers or spies return from spying out the land God has promised this is their report in Numbers chapter 13 and verse 26
(look at verse 26)
HERE WE SEE THE VOICE OF DOUBT!
26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported to them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land. 27 They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit.
28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.
29 The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites and Amorites live in the hill country; and the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan.”
NOW HERE COMES THE VOICE OF DETERMINATION!
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said,
“We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
(that is the power of believing)
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.”
32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.
33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
There are two voices
One is the voice of DEFEAT
and the other is the voice of VICTORY.
One of the voices looks at miracles and says "IMPOSSIBLE."
The other voice looks at miracles and says
"ATTAINABLE"
One voice is taking a BEATING
the other voice is receiving a BLESSING.
DO YOU KNOW WHAT THE ONE WORD DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THESE TWO VOICES IS?.......?
It is the word BELIEVING.
Believing means all the difference in the world.
When you die what is going to grant you access to enter the glory of heaven?
It isn’t your good works but it is BELIVING in the good work that Jesus did on the cross for you.
Believing that He loved you enough to die for you and therein gave you freedom from your sins if you would BELIEVE in Him and what He has done for you.
If I could say one word about Jesus and one word only...I suppose I would have to say to others BELIEVE!
Many hear today would say....
"Hey that’s no problem..... I have believed.
I have admited that I am a sinner and that I BELIEVE Jesus died for me and rose again....YES I Believe.
That is a great miracle that has taken place in your life if you have believed BUT have you continued to BELIEVE.....
What are you believing about the day in day out every day involvement of Jesus in your life?
Sure you trusted Him for the miracle of your salvation but are you trusting Jesus to daily do great things in our midst .....amazing stuff or have we become more the voice of doubt instead of the voice of determination.
Are we like the weak puny faithed people sent our to spyout that promised land who came back saying....it will never happen there is no way it will work.
Or are we like Caleb saying in verse 30
"for we can certainly do it.”
Friends we need to look at tasks of our personal lives as well as the tasks in the life of the church and we need to start looking for God to do miracles.
Believing that miracles are the attainable stuff in our lives not the impossible stuff.
What was the last GIANT sized task we took on that really trusted that God would show up and do the awesome sort of stuff that only God can do.
We are not believing enough to trust God for a victory over the giant things....we only have faith to conquer the grasshopper things in our lives.
There is no thrill in being God’s people who only tackle the grasshopper stuff of life. We have to be willing to believe and trust God in the GIANT tasks of life that really measure the truth of our faith.
Now young people today wont know what I am talking about but people my age or older might remember watching on television ABC’s Wide World of Sports...?
How many of you remember the opening reel that they would show of the guy taking the horrible tumble in a blundering ski accident as they would say the words....it’s "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat "
I want you to know that as you choose to believe or to not believe that God is going to do awesome stuff in and around your life then you will either taste the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat.
You choose?
You make a decision to believe that God can and will or that God can’t or wont....
In litterally hours from now two football teams will be taking part in the great American sporting event known as the Superbowl.
Do you know how those teams made it to this point.
Do you know how they arrived at the place of being successful enough to have even gotten this far?
It wasn’t just great training.
It wasn’t just great coaching.
It wasn’t just running all the right plays...
It was the power of believing.
I cannot believe that any team ever makes it to the Superbowl without believing early on in the season that they could one day possibly be there.
Jesus’ disciples are recorded in the Bible and along side of their names is the record of the AWESOME stuff God did in their lives....
Do you know why...becasuse they dared to take GOd at His word and trust Him and BELIEVE that God would do the sort of stuff in their lives that ONLY GOD could do.
As we think about our personal lives.
As we think about the life of this church...
WE need to make certain that we are speaking the voice of Determination...not the voice of Defeat.
Do you want VICTORY?
Will you BELIEVE that God will bring it?
If we don’t believe that God will get us there then I can guarantee you 100% that God is NOT going to take us there.
WE need to BELIEVE and trust God that there are daily victories to be known ....that there are milestone victories every year that we can be accomplishing.
If we really want to move the ball down the field in our personal lives and in the life of the church then it is high time that we start believing and trusting God to help us move the ball into miracle territory and get ready to taste the victories Jesus has for us.
I think the problem sometimes is that perhaps there was a time when we believed more than we do right now.
How many of you remember when you gave your life to the Lord?
Do you remember when you asked Jesus to be your Savior?
There was an excitement in your life that God could do all things......wasn’t there.
I mean with God ...right after you get saved you feel like Superman.
You feel like you could
be faster than a speeding bullet.
you could be more powerful than a locomotive.
that if God where in it you could even be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.
But what happened?
Where did you loose sight of BELIEVING that God was at work in you and around you in your life?
I want you to know that God is still very much in the miracle business.
He is ready to work a miracle in your family.
Ready to work a miracle in your
Job Situation
Your Marriage
Your Spiritual Life....
and I believe that God is more than ready to do some great Miracles in the life of Mt. Pleasant \ Church.
Wherever you stopped believing that to be true....
I want to invite you to come home to believing and trusting in God for victory.
Believe and trust in God for victory over whatever your facing with right now.
Believe and trust God for victory over whatever
your struggling with right now.
Believe and trust God for victory in your life because you know He is your source of life.
Today God invites you and I want to invite you to come home to believing.
