Oh, Oh, It's [NOT] Magic | Ps. Petey Bingham

Welcome to the Celebration Church Orlando podcast.

Thank you so much for listening today.

We hope it encourages you and inspires you.

Here's today's message.

Thanks.

Y'all really don't have to stand.

You can sit down.

It's cool.

Yeah, it's it's cool.

Y'all listen, before I say anything, I do want to say this.

Um this is an impressive like venue.

This is awesome.

I can't see any of you, but it looks like you're having a good time, and that makes me happy.

Um, yeah, so like Pastor Keith told you, my name is Petey.

Um, I have known the Pittmans for a very long time.

Um, they that whole family has been an integral part of my life uh for such a long time.

And um uh I just I listen, I have to tell you all this.

Uh you are blessed to have the Pittmans here.

Pastor Keith, Pastor Megan, Danira.

Caleb's okay.

Caleb's like a six, but it's fine.

He's gone, so I can say that.

Just don't tell him I said it.

Oh, he's still here.

Okay, anyway, um, but yeah, they really are some of the most incredible people.

We have uh me and Pastor Keith have seen some things in ministry.

There is no doubt about it.

Uh, we've been doing this thing together for like 15 years now.

And so um he's just a dear friend of mine.

Uh I love him immensely, his whole family.

And um, it really is an honor to stand here in front of you guys, you know, knowing that this is where he usually is.

So that's equally honoring and terrifying at the same time.

And um, it's all good.

And here's what's cool is usually in these moments, um, I I apologize because um what you're gonna find out is that like I'm a massive nerd.

I'm a nerd to the maximum.

I'm getting my PhD in sin, literally, I'm artiology.

I'm like a college student getting a PhD in sin.

Um anyway, but uh, and so you know, but what I love about this is I don't care what PK tells you.

Listen to me.

He dresses cool, he used to be a rapper and he uses cool words, but that man is a nerd, okay?

He is a nerd and there's nothing he can do about it.

And so today, I'm not apologizing.

I'm just giving you what you're used to.

Okay, let's carry on.

So, um, anyway, with that, I'm very excited, uh, you know, that today I'm here to cover the second week of signs.

That journal that y'all have been working through is impressive.

I don't know who wrote it, but dang, high five to you.

Well, and now your kids got one too?

Man, we slacking.

What are we doing?

Okay, it's fine.

Um, so very cool to be here on this day.

Uh, but it figures that Pastor Keith would give me um perhaps one of the most controversial of the miracles in the book of John.

It's fine, I'll do my best.

So hopefully I don't mess you up too much today.

Um, but I'm very excited to share with you um about the second sign in the book of John today.

It's a it's a good one.

So we'll see where this goes.

So anyway, with that, uh I figure maybe we'll say a quick prayer and then we'll just jump right into it.

Is that cool with y'all?

Cool.

Go ahead, open your Bible, turn it to John 4, John chapter 4, or your journal, whatever, whatever you got going on, and um, and I'll pray for you.

John 4 · chapter mention

God, uh, we're just so grateful to be in your presence here this morning, Jesus.

We're just uh we're so thankful, God, that you would even give us this opportunity to gather today.

And God, I just pray that you reveal more and more about your character, about your kingdom.

Um, and God, that today we'll leave here refreshed, renewed, and God, ready to advance your kingdom through your people on the earth.

God, we love you so much.

And it's in your son's holy and precious name that we pray, amen and amen.

Now, listen, um, this is we know, back in the days when I was uh a youth pastor, I used to tell students, I would say, Hey, listen, when your parents pick you up from school today or pick you up from church today and say, Hey, what'd you learn at church?

This is what you tell them.

Yeah?

I just made it easy, right?

So for all of you, um, when your parents pick you up at church today um and they ask, hey, what'd you learn at church?

Uh, this is what you'll tell them, okay?

This is it.

Ready?

I'm gonna make this easy for you.

Here's the takeaway.

The takeaway is this genuine signs yield genuine faith.

Genuine signs yield genuine faith.

Uh, believe it or not, that's actually kind of an overarching message of all of the signs that we'll be talking about as we work through the book of John.

But regardless, it is very, very important in this one in particular.

Now, I know that Pastor Keith started this series, but let me just make sure uh that we're all kind of up to date here, okay?

So the book of John, as you know, it's a gospel account, right?

It's an account of the good news that is Jesus Christ Himself.

And in the opening, the prologue, right, of his book, he makes it very clear what his intention is.

This is John writing his gospel, right?

Now know this.

He wrote the book aimed at Jewish people who are struggling to understand that Jesus is the Messiah.

That's why he's showing them the signs.

He's giving them signs as to some of the things that he's doing to fulfill Old Testament prophecies and thus prove himself, as if Jesus has to prove himself, but regardless, uh, to prove himself as the Messiah, that he actually is who he says he is.

However, the book of John is also written to Gentiles, as we will see today, okay?

And in the prologue, he makes it very clear what his goal is.

And his goal is this he wants to make sure that everyone understands the importance of belief.

Now we're going to talk more about belief here in a little bit, because I actually have a little bit of a problem with that word, and you'll see why.

But regardless, he talks about the importance of belief, the importance of faith.

And thus you will see that work its way over and over and over again, not just in the book of John, but specifically in the signs that we'll be talking about over the next few weeks here at church.

So, with that context, let me go ahead and read to you what's happening in John 4.

We're gonna start reading in verse 46.

Okay?

So this is the story of the old official and his son.

Here it goes.

It says, So he came again to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine.

This is what Pastor Keith taught you about last week, right?

So that was the first sign.

So notice a very important piece of information here is that we are back in the same city that the first sign went down.

Now, important context regarding what happened there.

What Jesus was doing, amongst a lot of other things that Pastor Keith taught you last week was this.

He was subverting religious culture, right?

He was subverting what was happening there at that wedding party, right?

For the water, the wine, and so he was speaking in this case directly to a Jewish audience, okay, in that first miracle.

But now, in the same city, we're gonna take a little bit of a shift in this second sign.

You'll see why.

Continue reading.

And at Capernaum, Capernaum is another city in this region that's about 15, 20 miles away from Cana, okay?

Right?

So at Capernaum there was an official whose son was ill.

When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee, he went to him.

So, in other words, this official who lives in Capernaum went 15 or 20 miles down the road to Cana to find Jesus.

You gotta understand, this is the first century, okay?

So we're not like a car drive away.

This is like a full day's journey to go hang out with Jesus because he heard that he was performing miracles, right?

So he leaves Capernaum and goes all the way to Cana on behalf of his son.

And this is what happens.

And when he asked him to come down to heal his son, for his son was at the point of death.

So Jesus said to him, Unless you see signs and wonders, you will not believe.

The official said to him, Sir, come down before my child dies.

Jesus said to him, Go, your son will live.

The man believed, hear that word?

The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.

As he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering.

So we asked them the hour when he began to get better, and they said to him, Yesterday, at the seventh hour, probably around 1 p.m.

our time, seventh hour, the fever left him.

The father knew that that was the exact hour that Jesus had said to him, Your son will live.

In other words, it was instantaneous, the moment he said it, right?

The father.

And he said to and he himself believed in all his household, right?

And he himself believed and all his household.

This was now the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

All right, so let's unpack some context here.

A lot just went down.

Let's start from the beginning and work our way forward.

Okay, so this official that we're dealing with here, as we know, he lives in Capernaum.

Yes, right, right?

Now, judging by the context of what we know about where he's from and how he's described in this particular scripture, this is what we know about him is that he is not necessarily a Roman centurion, right?

You've probably heard that language in other stories.

He's probably not a Roman centurion.

He was probably sent by the Roman Empire, but this is specifically an official of Herod.

You guys remember Herod?

He's a bad mammer jammer.

No good.

He's a terrifying individual.

I'm not, I I feel I don't feel comfortable saying into a microphone on Sunday morning some of the things that Herod would do, but Google it.

Actually, don't Google it.

Just it's anyway.

So he was an official on behalf of Rome to Herod.

Yes?

Okay?

In other words, this man is a Gentile.

Right?

His son is a Gentile.

So remember, in the first sign, we're dealing primarily with the Jewish audience.

In this one, we are dealing with a Gentile audience.

Okay?

So the official, his son gets sick on the verge of death, and the official hears, like, oh, there's this Jesus guy going around healing people.

He's 15 miles away in Cana.

Let's roll.

So he goes over there and he finds Jesus.

And Jesus' response is interesting.

He says, unless you people see signs and wonders, you will never believe, right?

Now, oftentimes, this is this is a controversial scripture.

This is why it gets weird, okay?

Oftentimes you hear that as like a sarcastic remark from Jesus, right?

That he's like, Oh, so I'm always having to prove myself, you know, kind of scenario.

And the truth that there might be some truth to that, maybe, right?

There's a there's a chance that he is talking about Old Testament prophecy, um, Old Testament signs and wonders that occurred in ancient times that they were you know wanting to see.

But keep in mind, this is a Gentile man, right?

So he was probably aware of the Old Testament signs and miracles and wonders and all those things that happened, but he's a gentile.

So the question is what is Jesus actually saying in that statement?

Here's where we get controversial.

Are you ready?

Here we go.

So, signs and wonders in Greek, it's Simea and Terrace.

Uh, terrace can mean wonders or it can also mean monster.

How about that?

That's terrifying.

Anyway, so um that phrase, signs and wonders, Simea and Terrace, it is um also located in many Hellenistic, like Greek and first century texts where this story is taking place, right?

And when you read it in its own context in first century literature, here's what's signs and wonders is this is the language that you and I would use to describe magic.

How about that?

Yeah?

Okay, so you and I would use the word magic, they would either use the word divination or signs and wonders.

Told you it was gonna get weird.

Okay, so now in the in recent years, um what they've found is through like, you know, biblical archaeology and studying the first century and some of the things that were in culture in that time, one of the most famous pieces of literature that they have found from a pagan standpoint is this thing called the Paris Magical Papyri.

Come on, that's a mouthful.

The Paris Magical Papyri.

Literally, what this thing is, is it was a spell book, uh, a magical spell book that was in circulation in the first century.

Um it was all sorts of things.

It had um healing spells in it, it had um demon, like pulling out demon spell uh spells in it.

It even had love spells, you know, like if you wanted somebody to love you, then you could conjure up some weird thing, whatever, and it would make them love you or something, you know, along those lines.

Now here's the thing about the Paris magical papyri, is um it was written by magicians of the day, yeah?

And it served two purposes.

One, um, what you, you know, don't go read it, but if you were to read it, what you would find is that what they had to do was the magic came from like what was spoken.

They had to say something, but they couldn't say the thing until they made like literally like a brew of something.

But the ingredients needed for that brew, only the magician sold.

In other words, this was a business.

Yeah?

This was like a pyramid scheme.

You know what I'm saying?

This is a magical pyramid scheme of the first century.

Yo, those MLMs have been around for a long time.

Okay, anyway, so they've been they've been so that's one.

The other thing that it would do is magic in the first century always pushed an agenda.

Always.

Okay?

Here was one of those agendas that it pushed.

It was to prove, used, to prove the divinity of someone or something.

Now, as you know, maybe in those days, you know, uh certain aspects of rulership um would claim, especially in Rome, like Caesar and maybe even like Herod, claimed as though they had divinity within them, that they were in of themselves a deity.

And so it was very common for them to have magicians.

And what these magicians would do is they would stand in front of you and use sleight of hand tricks, like modern-day card tricks, you know, like you know, like what's your card?

Is this your card?

No, oh, well, it's this one, you know, that that scenario, right?

They would use those magic in order to prove the divinity of whoever they were pushing the agenda of.

Yeah?

That was just how it was used back in those days.

Okay.

So that said, all of that magic that was done was always right in front of you, right?

And they used it in terms of pushing these particular agendas.

So, with that context now, when you think about what happens, here's what Jesus says.

He says, All you people are looking for is magic.

That's what you're looking for.

And then we see the official responds with belief, and we'll get there in a second.

And so, what does Jesus do?

He heals his son.

But recognize this.

Why is it why why would John include the fact that it happened the moment that Jesus said it did?

Because this was not magic.

This was not a sleight of hand in front of your face.

This was not a trick.

This wasn't something that was a few inches away from your face.

This happened instantaneously, 15 miles away.

Right?

Because the official son was in Capernaum, and Jesus and the, you know, the son's dad, they are in Cana.

And the moment that he says it, the son is healed.

Right?

So, what does that mean?

This is this is what it means.

This means that when Jesus is talking to the official, here's what he's actually saying.

He's saying, listen here, do not confuse magic with divine miracles.

Oftentimes we find ourselves asking Jesus, asking God to perform magic in our lives when really what we need is a miracle.

Let that one sink in for a minute.

Oh man, that hurts a little bit.

Am I right?

Let me give an example.

Um, one time, uh, so gosh, I was 20 years old, I might have been 21 years old, and my father passed away suddenly.

God, this got dark.

Anyway, so my my father passed away, yeah?

And so it was sudden, it was a heart attack, it was awful, it was the worst day of my whole life, right?

So uh, not the day that he passed, but the day after.

Um I I went down to the beach and I sat up in a lifeguard chair, and I decided that I was gonna have this long-winded discussion with God.

It was it was healthy, it was good.

I needed it, right?

So I had this long-winded discussion with God because truthfully speaking, I was I was struggling.

You know, why would I was in that typical existential crisis moment where I was like, is this, you know, like, God, are you there?

Did you did you make this happen?

What you know, what is this about?

And so as I'm sitting in the lifeguard chair, I've been there for like two hours, and at that point I thought to myself, you know what?

I just need proof that God is listening to me.

And so here's what I did.

I looked over and I saw this condo, and it had one of those like blinking lights at the top for airplanes, you know what I'm talking about?

Those thingies?

I looked over and I said, Okay, God, if you're listening, this is what I'm gonna do.

I'm gonna close my eyes and I'm gonna count to 10.

And when I get to 10, I'm gonna open my eyes and I want that light to stop blinking.

I wanted to know if he was listening, whatever.

In other words, I was asking God to do magic.

Yeah, okay, so so I close my eyes, I count to 10, I look over to the condo, I open my eyes, and when I open them, guess what?

It was it was still blinking.

Yeah, it was still blinking.

It was yeah, where am I going with this?

All right, but here's it, here's the point.

What's so funny is as soon as I did that, and here's the thing, in the moment I didn't register this at all.

I didn't register one bit of this.

It this is all hindsight, okay?

So I'm I'm I look over, it's still blinking, and this is what came out of my mouth.

This is what I said.

I said, man, that's just too easy.

And and truth is, I just said it to say it.

I you know, whatever.

I didn't realize actually how profound that statement was in the moment.

Because what would follow that experience on the lifeguard share would take me four hours to unpack to you, but just know this the miracles that came out uh that you know that that God did in my life beyond that moment are inexplicable.

I can't put words to them.

And guess what?

None of them were in your face, miraculous magic.

He didn't turn the light off on the top of a condo building.

But y'all, the fact that I'm standing here in front of you today um is a miracle in of itself.

Truthfully, it really is.

And um, and and and I say that to say that I realized that the miracle of God was so much more than just turning a light off.

You know?

And what it did is it strengthened my faith, like I could never describe to you.

Because the truth is, what you gotta understand is every time, every time that you see Jesus do a miracle, it's always, always paired with faith.

What I want you to notice is this story of the healing of the sun didn't end with the story of the son being healed.

Where did it end?

It ended with the official believing and then his whole household believing because of it.

That's that, my friend, is the miracle.

Do you know why?

Because genuine signs yield genuine faith.

Don't confuse magic with divine miracles.

Yeah?

Because what happens is, what you'll see is that the more that you lean in to God, and and those, and and every time that you ask for a miracle, we're gonna get to miracles in a second, but you get into those miracles, those miraculous events, what happens is it's always paired with that faith aspect every single time.

God's not necessarily interested in just healing someone only to heal someone, right?

He's not always interested in providing for someone just to provide for someone, right?

There's always a divine purpose behind everything that he does.

It's you know, it's like he's God or something.

It's incredible, right?

So, all that to say, um, what we see happen, right?

This miracle culminates with the belief of the official himself, a gentile who serves Herod.

Okay?

You gotta understand, in the first century, that is like basically a death sentence, right?

You gotta understand.

That's a that's a terrifying.

We don't know what happens to their family after this, we don't know.

But I can tell you straight up that him making that confession and him stepping into that lifestyle, so to speak, um, is is basically a death sentence in the first century, especially around Herod.

But he did it anyway, right?

So here's what happened is it says that he believed.

It says that he believed twice.

And again, I told you in the prologue of all of this, right?

There was uh, you know, John makes it clear that he is very um, he has a very clear mission to teach the importance of belief.

Now, if you know how to read Greek, which I'm, you know, whatever.

Here, if you can read Greek, what you'll find is that every time in your English Bible that that word is translated belief, yeah, its Greek origin is this word.

It's epistis, P-I-S-T-I-S.

Write that down, it's an important word, and you should Google it because it's fascinating to really dig into it.

Epistis, P-I-S, T-I-S.

Now, what pistis actually means, what it actually means is things like trust, obedience, right?

It's got all these words to it, but really and truly, usually pistis is translated as faith.

Faith needs a lot of context.

But uh I will help you understand it.

Let me let me tell you why I don't like the word belief in this case, not to say whatever.

But the truth of the matter is, belief to me is too cognitive.

Yeah?

The truth is, I can believe that Tom Brady is the best quarterback in the NFL, but that doesn't mean I'm a Bucks fan.

You see what I'm saying?

Right?

And if you are, never mind, I'm not going there.

Anyway, but all that to say, like that, you know, belief is mere cog cognitive.

Faith takes it to another level.

Belief is important, but faith takes it to another level.

So this is what I want to do.

If the miracle that's happening in the second side culminates in faith, then we need to understand what faith is.

Is.

Yeah?

So let me help you understand what faith is.

It's relatively simple, relatively.

Okay?

Now, typically what happens is if I were to ask you, hey, what is faith?

You would throw words at me like belief and trust and obedience and all, you know, you throw all the words at me.

And here's what I would say.

I would be like, yeah, yeah, that's all true.

Yeah.

But it's gotta be simpler than that, right?

It's gotta be simpler than that.

Well, check this out.

So typically what happens is what we know is when people step into faith.

So the the officials, you know, scenario here, it means that when he started to believe, right?

When he exercised faith and his household follow suit, what that means is they stepped into the reality that is salvation.

Yeah?

And that's another thing.

If I asked you what salvation is, I'd probably get a lot of responses.

You'd probably say something like, uh, oh yeah, it means we're going to heaven.

You know, whatever.

There's a lot of ways to put it.

My favorite one is when uh you go to Romans 10 and you do that believe and confess thing, you know, where it's like, believe and confess that Jesus is Lord, and you'll be, you know, that that whole deal, right?

Well, here's the thing.

It's it's it's got a let me just show you.

Okay, so remember that magical book I told you about?

The Paris ma the Paris magical papyri?

Yes?

Yeah?

Well, of course, one of the things that's in there is um pulling out a demon.

Yeah?

And so what you'll see is if you have recognition of some of these first century realities and some of the things that they believed, um, it really illuminates a lot in your Bible because you'll see how Jesus overcomes, he's he's proving himself to be much more than a magician, than a first-century magician.

You know, he's he's God, right?

And so he's doing, and so one of the one of my favorite um stories from uh, you know, that that exercises his and demonstrates his ability to be far greater than anything that anybody who claims to be magic can do is when he exercises the demon-possessed man in Mark V.

Yeah?

Now, what I want to do is this.

I want you to think about this, okay, just for a second.

Remember, if we're gonna talk about faith and salvation in terms of believing and confessing, okay?

Just hear me out.

Mark V, right?

So what happens is the disciples are walking through this village, and this village has a little bit of a problem where there's a man who's been possessed by a demon, and so they do what any civil society would do, and they're like, hey, I have an idea.

Let's just tug them to the rock at the top of a hill and hope it fixes itself.

And they're like, sounds good, right?

So they do that.

Jesus and his disciples go up this hill, and as soon as they walk up the hill, this is what happens.

Mark 5, chapter, uh Mark 5, verse 6.

Mark 5:6

And when he, he being the demon-possessed man, 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, please do not torment me.

Now, here's what I want you to recognize that just happened.

Number one, that demon absolutely believes that Jesus is who he says he is.

And number two, he confessed it with his mouth.

Okay, so if we're gonna go with the believe and confess model, does that mean the demon is saved?

Of course not.

Of course the demon's not saved.

So there's got to be more.

Yeah?

I have an idea.

Let's read Romans 10.

Why not?

Okay, let's get the full context of what's going on here.

So Romans 10, starting in verse 9.

If you confess with your mouth, Jesus is Lord, and listen, believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead.

You will be saved.

See, what happens there to believe in your heart in the first century, and especially in the ancient world, in Hebrew, uh, the word for heart is this word lev or levav, depending upon your context.

But uh what it means is it's not literally meaning like the organ that's pumping blood around your body.

You know what I'm saying?

It's a beautiful word, actually.

The concept is it is the seat on which all of your emotion, will, desire, personality, all um um behaviors, all of that sits on your Lav, right?

That's where it is.

That's why we, you know, typically these days we we still use that language and we say, like, yeah, that kid's got a heart.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, that's that's we use it that way sometimes too.

But that's what we're talking about.

So believing in your heart is much different than mere belief.

Yeah?

Because what happens is it means that there, that when you truly believe something, it radically changes the way that you live your life.

It changes you from the inside out, right?

In other words, your feet match your mouth, right?

Your feet match your belief.

When you really believe something, you actually do it.

And so what's happening here is the faith of the official is not in the fact that he just believed for believing's sake because he wanted his son healed.

No, see what happened is Jesus showed him that he is far more than what his Gentile mind had ever come across, right?

His divine miraculous ability uh offers significantly more than what that temporal, magic, no-good, boring kind of you know, worldview that he had.

And so what it did is it instilled in him a faith that didn't just spur on mere cognitive belief, but actually completely changed the way that he lived his life in such a way that it changed his whole household.

His whole household changed.

In Ephesians 2, 8 through 9, it says, For by grace you have been saved through faith, through pistis.

And this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

In other words, um, the best way to understand faith is this it's allegiance.

You see, this is what separates the demon-possessed man in Mark 5 from the official in John 4.

Okay?

Watch.

The demon-possessed man.

Yeah, he believed that Jesus is who he says he was, and he confessed with his mouth that he was.

But his allegiance is to a whole nother kingdom.

Okay?

In John 4, the official, when that joker went down, what happens is his eyes, his gentile eyes, were opened to a kingdom he had not heard about up until that point.

And as soon as he did, his allegiance changed.

And he moved away from the pantheon of Rome, right?

From Roman mythology.

And in a mere moment, when Jesus overcame magic, which is all that that dude knew, his whole allegiance changed.

Acts 4 12, there is salvation through no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, which we will be saved.

That's see, you gotta understand.

That is only available through Jesus.

Jesus in of himself is a sign.

He is a sign and wonder, in of himself.

So much so that it bent the allegiance of this official and then his whole household, right?

Because the truth is, faith, unlike belief, by the way, faith is something that you step into, right?

You make the decision to step into it, and then it changes you moving forward, right?

And that way, faith is ongoing, right?

Faith never changes, it's a journey.

We actually see uh the official himself make the journey of faith, right?

In verse 48, he seeks a miraculous sign from Jesus, right?

But then when we get to verse 50, he's takes Jesus at his word.

In other words, what it what he does is he looks at Jesus and he recognizes that, oh, he's offering a lot more than what I'm asking for.

Yeah?

He's asking for his son to be healed, but what Jesus is going to offer him is not just temporal healing, but eternal gifts, right?

And he and a life and eternity with God Himself, with Jesus.

He has far more to offer than just temporary healing for this son.

What he has to offer is eternity.

Right?

And so what that does is by verse 53, we see the official step completely into a brand new life of faith.

It's pretty incredible, yeah, to see how that all plays out.

Because the truth is, what happens is as he ex, you know, steps into that pistis, he steps into that faith, what he realizes is that his whole life is about to change, his whole family is about to change.

Everything about what has led him to that point comes into clear view as the official now sees a kingdom much greater than the one he was a part of before.

So I say all that to say this.

You gotta understand, what happened here is yeah, there is a miracle in the fact that he healed the son.

Absolutely, right?

But it's not where the story ended.

The story actually culminated in this official and his whole household stepping into faith.

All that to say.

The truth is, it's it's miracles are hard, you know, and I'm I'm willing to say it.

Pastor Keith would be willing to say it to you too.

Miracles are very hard to under to understand, right?

They're they're they're eternal, um, they're from a whole different perspective that's not our own.

Um I have seen God do incredible miracles.

I have prayed for things and and seen miraculous things happen, you know?

At the same time, I've also prayed for miracles and not seen them happen.

Um, and the truth is I'm not gonna stand here before you and pretend like I know the answer because I don't.

But here's what gives me peace, right?

And here's what makes sense to me is the truth of the matter is miracles never stop with just God providing something and being done.

Never.

Right?

They're always paired with an expression of faith every single time.

It always paired with something that radically changes your life, not just because you were healed, not just because he provided, but because your allegiance to a kingdom has changed.

Yeah?

And it's revolutionary, it changes your whole life.

Truth is, it's what happened to me with my dad scenario, you know.

Up until that point, I, you know, I didn't know suffering if you know if it was right in front of me.

You know what I mean?

But in that moment, on the top of that lifeguard chair, I asked God to do magic and he didn't do it.

Um and to be honest with you, now standing before you here 15 years later, I tell you, I'm so happy that he didn't.

Because I I don't know that I would have carried on and persevered as hard as I did, because it just would have been too easy.

Right?

And so here's what I want you to know today is that the fascinating thing is that by the time that this played out, the official himself became a sign to his family.

Yeah?

The official himself, it was his faith that spurred on the miracle, and perhaps even more importantly, it was his faith that inspired the faith of his own family.

Because genuine signs yield genuine faith.

It's life-changing, it's life-altering, it'll change everything you ever know.

And so I think today maybe what we could ask ourselves is, God, what can we do to step more and more and more into pistol, into faith, into that very thing that radically changes our lives and the lives of those around us as we become more and more allegiant to the kingdom of God.

As you do that, we all stand upon a similar value system, code of ethics, and more importantly, hope.

Yeah, we look towards the same thing, and that is the realization of eternity, perhaps the greatest miracle possible.

Because of what Jesus has done for you and for me, and really for anyone who steps into that very same pistis that we watched the officials do in this time.

Yeah?

So maybe with every eye closed, every head bowed, um, you know, before we wrap up today, I I do just want to ask this question.

Maybe, maybe today, um you know, faith maybe didn't make as much sense.

Um, you know, and maybe today you want to declare to God that you want to be allegiant to the kingdom, you know, that you want to exude the values of the kingdom, the character of God, and that he's holy, right?

And that he's kind, compassionate, empathetic, sympathetic.

And maybe today you want to step more and more into that pistis as we saw the official, the Gentile himself do.

And so maybe today you want to step into salvation, you want to step into faith, and you want to experience a true miracle of God, because I'm telling you, it can happen right now.

If that's you, maybe lift a hand in three, two, one.

So maybe what we could do is all of church, maybe we can all say this prayer together alongside our friends who just raise their hand to ask God to step into that.

So if you would repeat after me.

Say, Jesus, we I love you.

I give you my heart and all of me today.

We thank you for the incredible gift that is faith, that is your kingdom.

And today, we confess allegiance to that kingdom, to the sign and the wonder that is Jesus.

I give my life to you.

Sunday we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

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