It's a miracle

Good morning.

Well, as Letty said earlier, our theme this month is

Miraculous Times, and the title of this morning's message is

It's a miracle. So I know Dave previously mentioned a

definition of a miracle, but I'll just give one briefly here.

A miracle is a supernatural event caused by God's power,

breaking natural laws to reveal his presence and further his

divine purposes. There are different kinds of miracles, like the

one that Simon thinks he sees every day when I

get up in the morning. I'm obviously not going to

attempt to give a comprehensive overview of miracles here, but

simply give what I believe the Lord has for us today.

Broadly speaking, there are miracles that will happen regardless of

whether we pray, or how much we pray, or whether

we agree or not. For example, Jesus will return. This

is explicitly stated in different places in the Bible, including

in the Gospels of Matthew and John, and also in

Revelation chapter twenty two, verse twelve. It will happen whether

people believe it or not, and it will be a miracle.

People don't normally die rise again. Spend centuries in terms

of our time in heaven and then come back. Then

there are miracles that require us to share God's vision

for the future so that we will partner with Him

in them. We can partner with God through obedience, in

other words, doing what God says in a particular situation

where He gives us specific instruction. He may give us instruction,

for example, through prophecy. It might be through the quickening

of your heart. For example, when you're reading something in

the Bible that may even be nothing to do with

your situation in a literal sense, but it leaps off

the page as the best way I can describe it,

and I've heard others describe it to That kind of

a prompting can occur in different contexts too. When I

was at university, i attended an Anglican church. If anyone's

ever attended an Anglican church, you'll know that it's common

before communion for the vicar to say something like, when

you're offering your gift at the altar, if you remember

that your brother or sister has something against you, leave

your gift there before the altar and go and make peace,

and only then come and offer your gift. Whilst this

is about fellow believers, it struck me one day that

I'd been estranged from a particular person for some years

who wasn't a believer. But I felt convicted that it

wasn't right and I should make contact. However, I was

at UNI, and I was in the middle of revising

for finals, and I didn't know what I would have

to deal with emotionally, either from the other person or

in myself when I made contact, so I decided to

leave it until after my finals. Remember, messaging wasn't an

option back then. You either picked up the phone or

wrote her letter.

Do you remember that?

Anyway, after my exams, I picked up the phone and

was pleasantly surprised by a friendly response. This also paid

the way for others to make contact with that person,

and the positive repercussions of this are still being felt today.

Given the situation and the characters involved, that is a miracle.

Obviously things don't always turn out so well, but what

matters is that we honor God by obeying him when

he prompts us to do something in love. We are

responsible for our own actions and attitudes, and not anyone

else's obedience can cost us, as it says in Hebrews five,

verse eight, though he was God's son, Jesus learned obedience

through what he suffered, so it shouldn't surprise us when

obedience costs us to the result of Jesus partnering with

God through obedience was the opportunity for the miracle of

salvation for all mankind. When Jesus, God's son died to

pay the price for our sins, he made a way

where there was no way for us to fulfill our

potential and destiny on this earth and fulfill God's plans

and purposes for our lives, which will always be far

greater than we could dream up for ourselves. We then

spend eternity with God in heaven. Our part is to repent,

genuinely apologize to God, and turn our backs on our sin.

Then surrender our lives to Jesus lordship. Sin is anything

that breaks.

The law of love.

Love God, love others, love yourself. Jesus died and rose again.

That was the most significant miracle in human history. He

then appeared to the eleven Disciples as they were eating.

In Mark six fourteen, it says he rebuked them for

their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe

those who had seen him after he had risen, Jesus

had an expectation that they would believe what he'd said

and expect the impossible.

The same is true for us.

What has God said to you that looks impossible and

hasn't happened yet. This isn't about believing fairy tales or

just anything that anyone says. In the Book of First John,

chapter four, it says believers are instructed not to believe

every spirit, but to test them. Basically, all prophecy should

be tested in the light of scripture.

To be clear.

Prophecy is a message from God which is usually delivered

through a human messenger, a prophet to his people.

It can include.

Fourth's telling, forth tellings such as speaking God's will, offering guidance,

and also foretelling or predicting future events. If it deviates

from the truth in the Word of God, if it

encourages compromise, it's not of the Lord. As true prophecy

from God won't contradict the truth of his eternal Word,

the Bible. But Jesus had prophesied that he would rise

again after three days, so he wasn't impressed that the

disciples hadn't believed those who had seen him after he'd risen. Similarly,

if God has spoken to you about something and it's

not yet happened, it's important that we don't allow the

delay to discourage us or dictate doubts to our faith

and potentially abort our miracle. We anchor our faith in

the truth of God's word by speaking it out, praying

and praising God for what we've not yet seen. There's

a small sign in the office at work that says

those that see into the invisible will do the impossible.

Jesus rebuke the disciples for the lack of faith, but

we serve the God of the second chance. He then

commissioned them in Mark sixteen, verse fifteen. Jesus then said

to them, go into all the world and preach the

Gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will

be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.

And these signs will accompany those who believe in my name.

They will drive out demons, they will speak in new tongues.

They will place their hands on sick people, and they

will get well. God can choose to act sovereignly, but

he's a loving father who loves to involve his children

in what he's doing. He wants all his children to

work in the family business. Miracles require us to share

God's vision for the future so that we will partner

with him in them. So let's look at the well

known story of Noah. This is recorded in Genesis chapters

six to nine. I'm not going to read all of it.

You'll be pleased to know. Noah most likely lived in Mesopotamia,

the land city cuated between and around the Tigris and

Euphrates rivers. Today the northern parts of Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia are

part of northern Iraq and extend to eastern Turkey and

the extreme northeast of Syria. Mankind had begun to multiply,

and evil was widespread on the earth, and the Lord

regretted that he had made man. As it says in

Genesis six, verse six, that's got to be one of

the saddest verses in the Bible. So God decided to

wipe off from the face of the earth all mankind

and all living creatures except Noah. Genesis six, verse eight,

it says Noah found favor in the sight of the Lord.

Jesus' obedience has brought us favor in the son of

the Lord, as it says in Two Corinthians five, verse

twenty one, God made him who had no sin, to

be sin for us, so that in him we might

become the righteousness of God. In other words, we are

acceptable to God. When we believe and trust in what

Jesus did for us on the cross, then we too

have favor with Almighty God himself, our heavenly Father. Noah

found favor in the sight of the Lord, and in

verse nine it says Noah was a righteous man, blameless

among his contemporaries.

Noah walked with God.

We obviously don't know how many people that were on

earth back then, but given Genesis six, verse one says

that mankind began to multiply, it's probably fair fairly safe

to say there were lots, and Noah was blameless among

his contemporaries, as it says in Genesis six, verse nine.

This is one of several examples in the Bible of

how God notices us as individuals, even if we're the

only one doing our best to do what's right in

the midst of others who are doing wrong. How hard

is it to be the only person doing what's right

before God. It might be in your crowd, It might

be at work. It might be in your family. It

might be not laughing at dirty jokes. It might be

not lying, although that would be convenient, especially if your

boss has told you to. It might be not feeling expenses,

also known as stealing. I can think of a lovely

Christian lady who, years ago, on her first day at

a particular job, was told by a colleague who was

trying to be helpful and friendly, you'll need to sleep

with so and so if you want to do well

in this company. She was horrified and actually did well

without that. God gave favor. The point is peer pressure

can be hard to resist. Depend on various factors, including

if you're being encouraged to do something that's terrible in

your sight or something you consider to be just a

little bit wrong. We rank sin in a way that

God doesn't, and how we rank it can vary from

country to country and culture to culture. Sometimes obedience to

God can cost us popularity. It can cost us friends,

it can cost us family. It might cost some promotion

or even their jobs.

And more.

Obedience to God can cause us to walk a lonely road.

But one thing is sure. God will never leave us

or forsake us, because when we keep Him first in

our lives, because that's his promise in Hebrews thirteen, verse five.

It will be worth it.

You can't put a price on God's favor and presence

or a clear conscience. Noah's strength of character must have

been amazing to resist peer pressure and to be the

one person on the face of the earth who, because

of his faithfulness, had God's favor. Obedience was the gateway

to Noah's miracle. It might well be the gateway to

ours Genesis six, verse thirteen. So God said to Noah,

I'm going to put an end to all people, for

the earth is filled with violence because of them. I

am surely going to destroy both them and the earth.

God included all creatures because of the impact of sin

on all creation. Both righteousness and sin affect people and

the environment because they're spiritual in essence, and the spirit

realm is at the core of life. God shared his

plans with Noah. Obedience may have cost Noah dearly in

many ways, including socially, brought him favor with God. And

also trust. I've said it many times and I'm going

to say it again. Trust is the greatest gift that

one person can give to another, in my opinion. And

here we see God, Elaheim, Almighty God trusting Noah, just

an ordinary man with his plans. God felt he could

trust Noah because of Noah's obedience, because of his faithfulness.

What would it be like for God to trust us

with his plans. It might be for our lives, it

might be for someone else's, for a project or an

organization that you're part of.

It might be for church or for your community. Maybe

you have.

Experience of this already. How did you respond or how

are you responding? Is there anything that you still need

to do? And is this your prompt to get on

with it? Is there anything that you need to stop

doing that you've been reluctant to give up and this

is your prompt to stop it? If you can't think

of a time when God has trusted you with his plans,

it's good to pray God's word as an expression of

your trust in it. For example, in Jeremiah twenty nine,

Verses eleven to thirteen. Jeremiah twenty nine.

Verses eleven to thirteen.

It says, for I know the plans I have for you,

declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to

harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Then you will call on me and come and pray

to me, and I.

Will listen to you. You will seek me and find

me when you seek me with all your heart. So

we can pray.

For example, Lord, thank you that I know that you

have plans for me. But because your word says so,

thank you for your plans to prosper me and not

harm me, and give me a hope and a future,

I'm calling on you now according to your word, share

them with me. Please, Lord, I want to live in

your best for me. Thank you for your promise to

listen to me. I'm seeking you with all my heart.

Reveal yourself and your plans to me. Please, Lord, in

Jesus' name, we can pray God's word like this. So

back to Genesis verse thirteen. Here we see that God

rewarded Noah's faithfulness with his trust, which was another step

towards his miracle. Obedience to God faithfulness to God are

traits that are within reach of us all, we can

all obey God's word and be faithful to his word

to the degree that we have the relation the revelation

of it.

With his help.

Then God tells Noah to build an arc in Genesis six,

verses fourteen to sixteen. The Bible doesn't tell us what

job Noah did before he began building the ark, but

I'm pretty sure he would never have seen one before,

much less heard of one.

It was a pretty bespoke.

Vessel, so Noah learned his trade as a shipwright if

you like a boat builder, directly from the Lord. It

had to be waterproof yet have enough oxygen flow for Noah,

his wife, their sons and daughters in law, and a

zoo if you consider all the various animals and birds

that were to go with them. The sides of the

ark were to be finished within eighteen inches or forty

five centimeters of the roof, approximately, presumably because of this,

but it would have had to have been a pretty

exact science for obvious reasons. There also had to be

enough space for food and water for all of them,

and Noah would have needed to know how much of

everything to pack and how to store it. They were

on the arc for months approximately a year. Actually, the

flooding continued for forty days, and now according to Genesis seven,

not only was it torrential rain from above, but also

subterranean waters burst forth in Genesis according to Genesis seven eleven,

and the waters flooded the earth for one hundred and.

Fifty days according.

To Genesis seven twenty four, then there was the weight

for the waters to recede. So Noah not only had

to learn directly from God how to build the ark

to last for this period of time and meet the

needs of all on board, he also had to learn

project management to organize the supplies and the work to

build it, and animal husbandry, because whilst he may have

had some knowledge, he won't have been an expert on

care for all these creatures. I can only imagine the

smell on board. So if you need a miracle at

work or uni, remember God knows all trades, all subjects

inside out. His knowledge and wisdom are limitless. Ask him

whether it's how to do something, how to prioritize, if

you've got lots going on, whatever it is, then trust

Him to answer and thank him by faith. And if

you're feeling snowed under, speak to your mountain, as it

says in Mark eleven twenty three. Truly, I tell you,

if anyone says to this mountain, be lifted up and

thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart,

but believes that what he says will happen, it will

be done for him. When I was working in social work,

when I was driving to work in the morning, I

regularly spoke to the mountain of work waiting for me

and told it to be completely removed in Jesus' name.

More than once, not loads of times, but more than once.

I remember going to my manager and asking for more

work because I had capacity for more. Each time, he

nearly fell off his chair. In social work, as I'm

sure is the case in many jobs, managers don't generally

wait to be asked before they give you more work.

Let me encourage you to speak to your proverbial mountain.

It's a biblical principle. According to Genesis seven to eleven,

Noah was six hundred years old at the time of

the flood when he was on the arc. You are

never too old for a miracle. You're never too young.

It's nothing to do with age. Think about what made

Noah a candidate for his miracle.

Yes, it was God's grace.

It's always about God's grace, because none of us can

earn anything from Him as such. But Noah walked with

the Lord, according to Genesis six y nine. In other words,

he was faithful and he was obedient. We too can

make the same choice to be faithful and obedient, regardless

of our age. Our faith in Jesus' sacrifice, in his

perfect obedience, has given us ready access to God's presence,

as it says in Hebrews ten, making a way for

us to partner with God in miracles. As I heard

someone say recently, we're not living in a day of miracles.

We serve a God of miracles. It's not about a season,

it's about a person. Jesus model of prayer in Matthew six,

frequently referred to as the Lord's Prayer, tells us we

can address God as a child does a loving parent.

Matthew six, verse nine in the Passion translation, reads our

Beloved Father, Genesis eight eight to nine. After a number

of months, Noah sent out a duff to see if

the water had proceeded from the surface of the ground.

But the dove could find nowhere to perch because there

was water over all the surface of the earth, so

it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out

his hand and took the dove and brought it back

to himself in the ark. Noah waited a week, then

repeated the exercise, this time in Genesis eight eleven.

The dove came back with.

A fresh olive leaf in her beak, so no one

knew that the water level had subsided on the earth.

A week later, when he sent a dove out again,

the dove didn't return, so Noah understood that the surface

of the ground was drying, and he removed the cover

of the ark. Then, finally, after approximately a year on the.

Ark, God spoke those words which.

No doubt Noah and his family had been waiting for

and dreaming about eagerly Genesis eight sixteen, Go out of

the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and

your son's wives with you. If they had left the

ark prematurely, at best, they'd have had to learn to swim.

And what if they'd.

Lingered in the ark after the instruction to leave, maybe

due to apprehension about what the world would look like now,

especially with them being the only inhabitants apprehension about the unknown.

I imagine that their quality of life would have deteriorated rapidly,

and presumably food supplies, etc. Would have run out, as

it says in Psalm thirty two, verses eight to nine.

That's Psalm thirty two, verses eight to nine, and again

I'm going to read from the Passion translation. I hear

the Lord saying I will stay close to you, instructing

and guiding you along the pathway for your life. I

will advise you along the way and lead you forth

with my eyes as your guide. So don't make it difficult.

Don't be stubborn when I take you where you've not

been before. Don't make me tug you and pull you along.

Just come with me. This is important advice for us

when we face the un known. In other words, that

which is new for us nothing is new to God.

Where God guides, he provides. We neither want to go

ahead of God out of impatience because we think we've

waited too long where we are, or drag our heels

because change can be daunting. We need to remember who

it is who goes with us. I believe the Lord's

given me a word for someone. I believe it's more

than one person. Actually, I don't know whether you're in

the room, whether you're watching online, or whether you're listening

to the podcast afterwards, but I believe the Lord is

saying to you, I have anointed and appointed you for

the task that lies before you. To you, it looks

like a huge mountain, and you feel very daunted by it.

I do not. We can get through this together, and

we will get through this together if you will put your.

Trust in me.

Nothing is impossible for me or with me. John fourteen

twenty seven says.

Peace, I leave you my peace. I give you. Another

translation says my perfect peace. I give you.

Take my peace by faith, the same way that you

receive everything from me. It will make you whole where

you feel fractured inside. Peace in the midst of your

circumstances is a miracle that's within your reach. Take it

by faith. Meditate on this verse until the truth of

it is greater in your eyes than the facts of

your circumstances.

Because that's the reality it is.

I'm going to close with a well known verse in

Philippians four thirteen. That's Philippians four thirteen, and I'm going

to read from the Amplified Bible. I can do all

things which He has called me to do through Him

whose strengthens and empowers me to fulfill his purpose. I

am ready for anything and equal to anything, through Him

who infuses me with inner strength and confident peace. As

I read recently, it's encouraging to know that God is

able even when we are not. He has his eye

on us and wants us to show confidence in him.

Faith opens the door for God's greatness to be seen

through our lives. So let's trust him and make way

for the miracles that He has in mind for us. Remember,

miracles require us to share God's vision for the future,

so that we will partner with Him in them. Let's pray, Lord,

thank you that you are a God of miracles and

you've called us to live in a rhythm of miracles.

Please open our ears and our eyes to what You're

saying and doing in our lives, so that we can

learn to live in a rhythm of miracles and bring

you glory because we ask it, Lord, in Jesus' name.

Amen.