Extraordinary Miracles

Open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 4, meet me at verse 20,

1 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

1 Corinthians chapter 4 and verse 20.

1 Corinthians 4 · chapter mention

And Paul tells us here, he says, for the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.

Somebody shout power.

Some way or another, you and I have embraced a gospel that is devoid of power.

Someway, somehow, we have been hoodwinked to really just follow great orators

or people that can just speak the word with articulation and clarity,

and they can preach the house down,

and they can make you feel a certain way and have goosebumps come in and make

you run, jump, and shout.

But we have lost the desire for the power of God to be manifested in our lives.

Some way or another, we have accepted a version of the gospel that lacks power.

And Paul tells us in Romans chapter 1, he says, For I am not ashamed of the

Romans 1 · chapter mention

gospel of the Lord Jesus, for it is the power of God unto salvation.

The gospel is power, and so power is the ability to perform miracles.

We serve a miracle-working God.

We don't just serve a God who sits high and looks low and is unwilling or unable

to participate in the affairs of life. We don't serve a God who could care less

what happens in the life of you and I.

We serve a miracle-working, powerful God who so happens to be our Father.

God is all-powerful. And not only is he able, but he is also willing.

And so we find here in Exodus chapter 34 verse 10, it says, the Lord replied,

Exodus 34:10

listen, I am making a covenant with you in the presence of all your people.

I will perform miracles that have never been performed anywhere in all the earth.

And he says, or in any nation, and all the people around you will see the power

of the Lord, the awesome power I will display for you.

Now, I love this passage because the Lord is declaring unto you and I that I

will perform miracles in your presence and other people will notice.

Other people will look at you or look at your situation and say something different,

something unique, something unusual that's taken place in your life because

the Father says He will perform miracles for you and I.

He says that there is awesome power that He will display.

And I like what He said at the beginning. He said, I'm going to make a covenant with you.

That means I'm going to make a binding agreement with you that I will perform miracles.

And some way or another, we have let that slip.

We just, well, you know, now we're just waiting on God, or if God wants to,

or maybe God doesn't want to, or maybe he doesn't hear or doesn't know.

No, we have a God that says, I want to perform miracles.

I want to display my awesome power.

I want you to see the miraculous take place in life.

This is a God that says, I am a miracle-working God. I can do anything.

But what has to happen is the currency of faith needs to be expressed.

Without faith, it's impossible to believe and receive anything from God.

And one of the reasons we're preaching miracles is I want to increase your faith

for miracles. I want you to wake up thinking about miracles.

I want you going to bed thinking about miracles.

I want you always at all times thinking a miracle is about to take place in

my life because we serve a miracle-working God. What is a miracle?

It's a marvelous, surpassing, extraordinary, amazing, or wonderful event. Glory to God.

It's an event that cannot be explained.

It's an event that makes you wonder why did that happen or how did that happen.

A miracle is always marvelous and it's always It's extraordinary.

And it's time for you and I to believe God for miracles that take place in our lives.

Things that happen that don't happen for other people.

Things that take place that it's not happening in somebody else's life.

They're not believing for miracles. But you and I are believing for miracles that take place.

We're believing for signs and wonders to take place. We're believing for God

to do miraculous things, excuse me, in our life.

We are believing for miracles, and I believe this will be a summer of wonderful

events taking place in our life. If you agree, say amen.

Psalms 145, 10 and 11. Psalms 145, 10 and 11.

I need to calm down. I'm getting excited because I'm believing for some miracles to happen.

All of your works will thank you, Lord, and your faithful followers will praise you.

They will speak of the glory of your kingdom.

They will give examples of your power.

How many of you are ready to give examples of the power of God?

Yeah, put your hand up. you're ready to tell somebody, here's an example of what God did in my life.

You're ready to share a manifestation of what God has done in our life.

The scriptures say here that we will give examples of the miracle working power of God.

We will testify of his miracles.

Now, I want to give an example of a miracle that took place in our ministry several years ago.

Probably right 2020. Yeah, during COVID 2020, I was introduced to a guy.

I'd never met him personally.

A friend of mine lived in another state. He said, hey, I think you can help my friend.

I said, okay, what's going on? He's got a bad dose of COVID and he was in the

hospital and he needs the Lord.

I said, well, give him my number. He gave my number.

And footnote, always, if someone says they need help, give them your number.

Let them make the call to you. If they really want to connect, let them call you.

I said, well, give him my number. I'll talk to him. He did. He called me, didn't.

I didn't know him very well. We texted a little bit, and he just got on fire

for the Lord doing COVID.

I remember I sent him two of my books. I had some books that I had written.

I said, hey, man, take these books and read them. Let it just strengthen your spirit.

And so he got better and he left the hospital.

Well, remember, I'd never met him in person. Didn't know what he looked like or anything.

Well, then one day he showed up at our old building.

Completely surprised me. He says, hey, my name is, and he gave me his name.

And I said, oh man, hey, yeah, that's so good to meet you. What are you doing

in Charlotte? He lived in California.

What are you doing in Charlotte? He said, I got to do some business here,

but I wanted to come by the church. I'm in Raleigh.

He was in Raleigh, drove up that morning, and then was flying out that afternoon.

Come on, somebody. He said, I just wanted to be and meet you and just be in

the presence and come to church. Praise God.

Well, then a few months later, he says, hey, I'm in Charlotte.

Can you grab lunch? And I said, sure, let's grab lunch. And we sat down at Cracker Barrel.

I'm laughing because Miss Gas gave me a Crackle Barrel gift card.

And we sat down at Cracker Barrel, and we talked for a little bit,

and then he flew home later on and kept it moving, and we went on about our business.

And I get a phone call from him about three or four months later,

and he says to me, the Lord has spoken to me. I said, amen. What has the Lord said?

He says, the Lord said to send you $100,000 for your ministry.

I said, glory to God, this is a miracle.

Do you know any ministries that have received amounts of money like that before?

Probably not. You've heard of some people, but you don't know anyone personally.

I didn't either until that happened, praise God.

And the Lord said, I want to do miracles, miracles.

Miracles, miracles among you. And I said, my goodness, he FedExed a $100,000 check.

Glory to God and said, this is what the Lord has told me to do. I said, wow.

Well, during the time I feel led to share this, during that time,

we were believing God to take our family on a vacation.

How many of you know if you have a need, you sow a seed? So we sowed a seed for a family vacation.

Well, we're believing God. We're praying. We're saving money up for it.

We're trusting God for extra money to come in.

And we're just doing what we know to do. I'll brag on my wife, Stacy.

She took a job and said, all of the money that I make, I want it to go towards

this vacation. Praise God. Let's do it. Amen.

And so we're believing God. I get a call from the same God.

The next day, he says, you know, the Lord said something else to me.

He said, that $100,000 was for your ministry.

He said, but the Lord told me to ask you, what do you need?

And I said, well, man, praise God.

I got a little like, how can I say? Well, you know, I don't need anything, you know?

I'm not in need of nothing. And so I'm like, man, I don't know.

I said, Lord, what do you want to say? He said, you believe in God?

To go on a vacation, right, with the family.

I said, yeah. So I told him, I said, we're believing God to go on this vacation for the family.

And he said, how much? I told him how much it was. He said, I'm going to add

that to the amount as well. Hallelujah. Come on, somebody.

The Lord said, I can do miracles among you.

I'm telling you these stories because you're sitting under a guy that believes

that God can get anything to me from anyone, anywhere, at any time.

And as the oil is rolling down off of me, I believe it's rolling down on you too as well.

Receive these things happening in your life as well.

There is something about association, Increase by association.

And there's no way you can sit under this teaching and sit under this ministry

with the favor of God on it and not get the favor of God on your life either.

It's impossible for it to happen. You got to be believing God for some miracles

that take place in your life. Well, that was a miracle.

None of those had ever happened to us. A miracle. The Lord says,

I want to do awesome things in your life.

If we look here at Romans 2.11, Romans 2.11, it says, for there is no partiality with God.

God doesn't discriminate. God has no bias.

God has no favorites. What he's done for others, he'll do for you.

When you hear me tell these stories, say, Lord, if you did it for pastor, you can do it for me too.

I'm hearing the same word coming from him. I believe I'll just receive it as

well. Somebody say amen to that.

Acts 19.11. Acts 19.11.

Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul.

Notice God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul and not Paul worked unusual miracles.

God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul.

That means God performed, produced, prepared, and authored miracles through the hands of Paul.

These miracles, the Scriptures say they were unusual. I believe they're special, special miracles,

miracles that are dynamic and exceptional and out-of-the-ordinary miracles that

God wants to work in your life.

What are you believing for?

Expect miracles to take place in your life. This was a number of years,

decades ago now, Zayana, our oldest, at the time, I had left my six-figure paying

job. Y'all know this story.

I worked for a bank. I was making great money. I had left to go into the ministry,

and when we started True Life Fellowship Church, for several months,

I didn't receive a salary.

For months, we were just trusting, believing God.

The Lord had told me specifically to focus on ministry. I'll take care of your needs.

Nothing wrong with having bivocational pastors, okay? This is what God told

me. He said, I want you just to focus on me.

I'll take care of everything else. And so at this time, I wasn't receiving any

compensation for pastoring True Life.

I think for the first seven or eight months, I didn't receive any compensation

for pastoring true life.

And we had a home and Zai had gotten sick.

And she had gotten sick to the point that she had a high fever.

She woke up. We didn't know what was going on. And Stacy was like,

we got to take her to the doctor.

Now, I apologize. Please don't think bad of me. I was thinking more about the

bill because we didn't have insurance. Okay?

I was thinking more about, like, whoa, wait a minute, wait a minute.

I don't want that doctor bill.

You know, I wasn't having a lot of income at the time.

I didn't want the bill. And she was like, we got to take her to the doctor.

I said, well, listen, let me lay my hands on her because I believe God is a miracle-working God.

Amen? And now at this particular time, if the Lord would... I'll finish the

story. Let me finish the story.

And so I laid my hands on her and I said, in the name of Jesus,

be healed now in Jesus' name. And I said, Stacey, take her to the doctor.

So stacy took her to the doctor and I didn't care about the bill,

but I wanted I wanted to release my faith Forgive me, but I was thinking about

the bill at the time I said i'm release my faith now go to the doctor we get

to the doctor and the doctor can't find anything wrong,

Let's like the doctor's like why did y'all bring her in we like when she had

a fever And and the doctor was like, no, there's no fever Nothing's going nothing's wrong here.

Everything looks fine and the doctor didn't even charge us.

He was like, nothing's wrong. And I said, well, thank God a miracle took place

before we took her to the doctor. Glory to God.

God performed a miracle.

We have to start believing and expecting and exercising and looking for miracles

to take place in our lives. In Acts 19.11 from the Weiss translation.

Acts 19.11 from the Weiss translation. and God kept on performing miracles by the hand of Paul.

Miracles demonstrating the power of God, not the ordinary kind known to the

apostles and completely different from the deeds of the Jewish exorcists,

but uncommon, extraordinary ones.

Notice God kept performing miracles. I want you to get that in your heart.

God kept performing miracles.

God keeps performing miracles. I want you to wake up thinking about miracles this summer.

I want you to go to bed thinking about God is performing miracles.

Now, all miracles are supernatural, but every once in a while,

God will perform miracles that are truly out of the ordinary.

These unusual miracles could be defined as uncommon, uncommon miracles.

And this summer, you will experience, receive this, this summer you will experience

rare, unusual, unique, extraordinary,

and incomparable demonstrations of the miracle-working power of God.

If you receive, they say, that's mine.

I'm telling you, we're going to experience some miracles this summer.

We're going to experience some creative, original, innovative,

imaginative, and cool manifestations of the goodness of God.

Get up every morning, expect a miracle. Say this after me, the God of miracles

is doing wonders in my life.

Expect miracles to take place in your life.

If you have a need, maybe this is a need. A friend of mine reached out to me,

and he shared with me that 20 plus years ago or so, he was married,

and he had cheated on his wife.

They had a son, and they got divorced, and you can just imagine what was going on in the household.

Well, his particular son wouldn't talk to him.

As he got older and moved out the house, he wouldn't talk to his dad.

And the dad admitted to me, he said, I was wrong. I should have never done that.

And I was wrong. And I put the whole situation, the whole family in a bad situation.

And he said, he asked me, what do I do? He won't talk to me.

I call, he doesn't answer. I text, he doesn't respond.

He just won't talk to me. What do I do? I said to him, I said, let's pray.

Let's believe God for a miracle to take place. Let's believe God for something

uncommon, unusual to happen that your son will talk to you. He says, I've apologized.

I've done everything I know to do to let him know that I'm not the same person.

I said, well, let's believe God together that a miracle would take.

He said, in the meantime, what do I do? I said, in the meantime,

I think you should keep texting him at least once a week.

Footnote, this is personal. I'm not saying this is the Lord.

I'm going to let you know this is Devon here.

I believe that if you ever have extreme situations like that,

I believe the onus is on the parent to really reach out to the child. I really do.

Don't wait for the child to reach out. the parent is the one.

If the child is longing for parental acceptance, that is unhealthy.

That's unhealthy if the child is, I wish my mom and dad would talk to me,

or I wish... No, no, no, no, no.

The mom and dad should be the one reaching out. So I told them,

personally, I believe you need to continue to reach out as the dad.

You're the dad. Keep reaching out.

Just keep... you're the parent. You're the mature one. You just keep reaching

out. If he doesn't respond, he doesn't respond.

But at the end of the day, you just keep reaching out.

Well, he kept reaching out. And I would call him, hey, man, have you heard from

your son? Not yet, but every once a week, I still reach out.

And one day he called me. Somebody say, miracles.

He called me and said, my son called me. I said, what?

He called to tell me that he's getting married and he invited me to the wedding.

Glory to God. That's a big deal. This son hadn't talked to him in years,

but called and said, hey, I want you to come to the wedding.

And so he went to the wedding, was able to take pictures, et cetera.

And there seems to be the beginning of reconciliation taking place.

Come on, God can do miracles.

God can do these things if we'll just believe it for. Don't quit.

Believe God for miracles that take place in your life.

Acts 19.11 in the message translation says it this way.

God did powerful things through Paul, things quite out of the ordinary.

Notice he did powerful things through Paul, things quite out of the ordinary.

An unusual miracle is a special miracle that is mighty, exceptional, and out of the ordinary.

All miracles are uncommon, but these miracles that are coming will rise above

every miracle that you've ever experienced before. Say amen to that.

These miracles are going to take you by surprise.

Come on, somebody. They're going to take you by surprise.

You will find yourself operating in a realm

of miracles that are beyond your wildest expectations

are you ready to be taken by surprise glory to god as as we were preparing to

get under contract for our new building you know we've been doing this all by

faith right we we never had all the money to do any of what we've what we've

stepped out to do and i hope you're following my lead on this.

You don't wait to have it all.

You just walk by faith when you hear from God.

And so we stepped out. Did you know we got under contract and we didn't have a bank backing us?

Because we trust God. And as we got going, then bank, hey, we want to help.

Oh, now you want to help, right? Yeah, you see what's happening. You want to help.

Why? You got to step out and believe God.

Now, footnote, step out on what God is saying. Don't step out on what you want to do.

Step out on what God's saying and then watch him begin to perform miracles on your behalf.

So I'm driving in the car. I get a call from a family. You guys have heard this story.

And I got in on speakerphone going through the car. Zavin's with me in the front seat.

This particular gentleman said, I heard that you're under contract.

I said, yes. I said, we're believing God.

God's going to do a thing. He said, my wife and I have talked.

And this is in the car. And I said, praise God, what y'all talk about?

He said, we want to do a matching campaign.

I said, well, amen. Okay, what does that look like?

We want to match $250,000 of any gift given. I'm driving in the car.

I had no idea this man had that kind of money.

Neither did I know he was going to say that.

I'm driving. I literally, I turned to Zayvon. I said, Zayvon,

did you hear that? Zayvon said, huh?

Huh? Zayvon, he didn't hear it at all. I said, okay, never mind. I said, praise God.

He said, so you just get started and you keep me posted and we'll keep matching.

I said, glory to God. That's unexpected.

That's a surprise. That's out of the ordinary. Does that ordinarily happen?

No, that's out of the ordinary. It's uncommon, but God wants to do that for

you and I this summer if we'll just believe Him.

I believe some of y'all are just going to wake up and you went to bed in pain

and you're going to wake up healed in Jesus' name because you're expecting miracles

to take place in your life, something that is beyond your wildest expectation.

That example I just gave you was beyond my wildest expectation.

I didn't even realize, one, that they had that kind of money.

You don't know what people got, okay?

And then number two, that they would do it for little old us. Glory to God.

God wants to do even more than that. Say amen to that.

Acts chapter 19, 11 in the Passion Translation.

Acts 19 · chapter mention

God kept releasing a flow of extraordinary miracles through the hands of Paul.

He just kept releasing a flow. I mean, he just kept releasing a flow.

He's not holding back. He's releasing a flow.

Whoever will just take it and receive it and grab a hold of it and expect it,

God is releasing flow of miracles.

He's releasing power. He's releasing miracles.

You know, some people don't believe in miracles today. They're not going to get a miracle.

If you don't believe in a miracle, you're not going to get a miracle. I believe in miracles.

I believe that miracles are being released from the hand of God every moment of every day.

And I'm expecting miracles to take place.

I'm expecting phone calls. I'm expecting good news.

I'm expecting things paid for. I'm expecting miracles to take place.

Relationships restored. Lord, I'm expecting miracles because God is releasing

miracles in our lives. Say amen to that.

He wants you to experience this continuous flow of miracles.

He don't want me just to talk about it. He wants you to experience it.

Now I have to talk about it so that you can experience it.

You know, you get what you preach.

If you don't get, if this is not preached, you don't get it.

But you get what you preach, and we preach miracles taking place in our lives.

I'm not talking about one or two miracles.

I'm talking about an unending flow of miracles.

Do you receive that? An explosive, dynamic power is available to you. Say amen to that.

Now watch this, Acts 19.11 in the New Living Translation. Listen to me now.

Acts 19.11 in the New Living Translation.

Miracles will flow to you, and miracles will flow through you.

This is what it says in the New Living. God gave Paul the power to perform unusual miracles.

I love the way it says it this way, because although God was the one performing

the miracle, the miracle came through Paul.

So it was Paul that the miracles came through.

Notice that I declare over you that you'll find yourself surprised at the level

of power that he allows to flow through you.

Just expect the level of power of God to flow through you for others.

I know you're believing for miracles happen to you, but I want you to know that

you are a miracle happening to somebody else.

Everywhere you go, you just look to be a blessing. I'm a miracle.

I'm answered prayer for somebody else because God's going to flow through me

and it's going to touch somebody else.

I want you to be surprised to see special out of the ordinary power flow through you, through you.

Yes, miracles are coming to you, but miracles are going to flow through you.

You're going to be agents. You're going to be conduits of God's power to impact other people.

You're going to be a blessing for somebody else. Like we did with the Pastor Fred in the chairs.

Pastor Fred was believing God for some chairs. we were a miracle to him.

Amen. That he was able to receive chairs at no cost to expand his ministry and

to use that money that he had set aside for chairs for something else.

We want to be conduits used by God for miracles to flow through us.

Open up your mind. Open up your imagination.

Open your heart and let the Holy Spirit unleash his creative abilities to work

through you. Say, through me.

Miracles working through you, he can do it through you.

He wants to use you as you go to the grocery store, as you go to work,

as you go about your life.

He wants to use you to have extraordinary miracles take place because of you

and your presence, believing God for miracles to flow.

Somebody say this out to me. Miracles flow through me.

You have to want to be a blessing.

You can't just always be the receiving end.

You got to be a giver too. As you receive miracles, begin to give miracles to other people.

God is performing it. You just release yourself to be an agent,

to just be a giver of miracles. Miracles taking place.

Miracles happening. Miracles flowing to you and flowing through you.

Miracles, miracles, miracles. I almost titled the message that.

Miracles, miracles, miracles. But the title is extraordinary.

Miracles are going to happen to you and I. If you believe that, say amen.

This is how you experience true life.