The Master's Miracles (Message 3)

Well, this was the last message in our three week series on the Miracles of Jesus. I thought what I would do is incorporate the last sermon sheet into this post. We have seen many great applications in this series and we look forward to applying these to our lives and teaching others the great magnitude of God's enduring love!

Previous Lessons
Lesson 1: Life in the will of God only gets better and better and the best is yet to come.
Lesson 2: When it comes to God and miracles many times we just have to accept by faith that which we can not understand.
Lesson3: Many times we must get out of the boat, or move out of our comfy place to a place that is not comfortable if we are to expect a miracle in our life.
Lesson 4: Just because we are experiencing troubles does not necessarily mean we have done wrong
Lesson 5: Jesus knows where we are even when we do not know where He is
Lesson 6: Weak faith creates troubles
Lesson 7: Obedient people walk on top of their troubles
Lesson 8: Faith + Obedience = Miracle
Lesson 9: When God deals with people and performs miracles there is an expectation of Obedience
Today’s Lessons

Lesson 1: Everyone Is Important in the Kingdom of God.

Lesson 2: There Are No Impossibilities with Jesus!

Deeper Meaning
Jesus expects us to have nothing of greater importance than He, (Jn 21:15-17) there should be nothing in our life of more importance. We should willingly sacrifice everything we have and all of our desires and dreams to that of the will and direction of God. As we walk in these truths and apply God’s word and commands to our lives we will begin to experience a whole new level of joy in our life and triumph over life’s circumstances.

The Master's Miracles (Message 2)

The weather is absolutely beautiful, we have had a Canadian cold mass blow in and we have had days in the 70's and nights in the 50's. The sun has been shining, you know those partly cloutdy days, where you have blue skies and white fluffy clouds, well if you can pitcure that ou know the wonder of the days we have had this week.
We looked at Matthew 14, this week where the disciples are sent out to sea by Jesus and they being obedient go and they find that the weather has gotten rough, a strong head wind, these guys were working it hard just to keep from getting blow backwards, well here comes Jesus walking on the water and now they are really afraid. They cry out it is a ghost but to their surprise Jesus calls out "Fear Not, It is I." Now you have Peter and he says Lord if it is You command me to come to You on the water. Notice Peter did not say in the water, He said on the water. Peter acted in faithful obedience to the command of Jesus and the result was a miracle. Faith + Obedience = Miracle. We can not expect a miracle if we do not have those two ingredients front and center in our walk. I related a story about how I had a meeting in Macon, MO this week and how God had laid it on my heart to come to the church and fix our basketball goal, well I dropped the kids off for VBS and ran a couple of other errands and when I was set to leave for church and my meeting it was pouring the rain. Well I knew God had placed it on my heart to fix the thing, so I went on in spite of the rain but the further I drove the harder the rain fell, and it was raining so hard by the time I reached Macon, you could hardly see it was raining so hard. Well I had prayed on the way "God I know that You have done a lot for me, and I should not ask but could you stop the rain long enough for me to fix the basketball goal" Well I got about two miles form the church and it was still pouring, and I drove to the church and when I turned into the driveway it went to a sprinkle and by the time I got to the basketball goal it had stopped completely. Well I got the goal fixed without a drop of rain and after I fixed it I shot three shots and no sooner than the last went through the hoop and hit the ground it began to pour again. Well the moral of the story is that sometimes, many times we need to act in faith and obedience expecting that God is going to work that miracle. Now I know there are those who would say preacher what if it had not quit raining, well I would not have had a story to tell, but I still would have fix that goal. And that is where the test of our faith and obedience are checked. Will we still be faithful and obedient even in the face of our storms and trials, will we still go where God wants us to go, we will still say what he wants us to say?
Well I have had a full day and I am ready to spend some time with the wife and kids just relaxing watching some old TV shows.

Grace and Peace to you all and again there will be a link to the sermon if you just click the title.

The Master's Miracles (Message 1)

Wow, another great Sunday and a great service, wish you all could have been there!
I just began a three week series on the Miracles of Jesus, we spent our time today looking at the first of Jesus' miracles recorded in scripture.
Jesus, His mother and disciples were are all at a wedding in Canaan, and they ran out of wine, and Jesus tells the waiters to fill the stone pots and then dip their pitchers in and draw out some water and take it to the head waiter, and to their surprise the head waiter exclaims that "everyone brings out the good wine and then when people have had plenty to drink, then he switches to the poorer wine, but you, you saved the best wine for last" (loose paraphrase)
We will be focusing on several aspects involved with this and other miracles, this week we focused on the faith and obedience of the event. If the waiters, had not dipped out the wine and had not taken it to the head waiter, then what would have happened? Would there have even been a miracle? What about the miracle involving, the raising of Lazarus, or the lame man at the pool at Bethesda?
In each of these as will all miracles involving people there is an expectation of faith and obedience. When we examine these miracles though what we see are people who hesitantly act, not instinctively move expecting God to work wonders beyond their imagination. But is that not true for the majority of the Christians, we have this tendency for sight walking, even being short sighted when it comes to God and His ability to work miracles. We may even have a tendency to be corrupted in our thinking and believe like the world, as so many do not even believe that miracles even happen.
As we worked through this we examined the simplicity of the faith in each of these examples and how, oh what was it Jesus said, yeah, "if you had faith like a mustard seed you would say to this mulberry tree, 'Be uprooted and be planted in the sea': and it would obey you," so I pulled out a single mustard seed and stood at the edge of the riser and asked can you see, the size of faith it takes?
Anyway there were three main lessons today;
Lesson 1: Jesus enjoyed life, Jesus loved life and so can we and we should
Lesson 2: Life in the will of God gets better and better
Lesson 3: When it come to God and miracles, many times we just have to accept that which we do not understand

Bottom line believers must exercise their faith if we expect to grow and mature, we must get out of the boat and often, it is OK to expect a Big God to do Big things in our lives and in the world.

Here is another truth, you need to understand that the only way to enjoy the hugeness of God's grace, the Hugeness of God's peace and the Hugeness of God's miracles, then you must first give ourselves over fully to Him, accept Jesus as Lord of your life, accept His will for your life and stop the sight walking and walk in faith and by faith.

See the One True God will always keep you safe when you are wholly committed to being His and walking where He desires you to walk in obedient faith, then you can being to experience the hugeness of His peace, His grace, His love, and His miracles.


Well, until next week, be safe, be strong in your faith, in your walk, and always live a life that Lifts Him up!


FYI: if you want to hear the sermon, just click the title of this post!

Solemn Assembly

Yesterday as my first official act as the minister at Graves Chapel, we participated in the "Family Research Council's, Call2Fall." I felt that it important to join with the 5,000 plus other churches and pray for our country, repenting for the past and present, and praying for a time of renewal. The other reason I felt it important was the fact that yesterday was my first official Sunday as their new minister, and honestly I just felt that it was prudent to spend our first hour together in prayer. We prayed for our country of course,but we prayed for the church at large and for our own congregation. We prayed that God would forgive us for turning away from Him as a nation, we prayed that God would move our leaders to repentance and they would repent and fall to their knees and turn or return to Him and His ways. We prayed to seek forgiveness and healing, we prayed that God would move within our communities and bring a revival. In praying for the church at large, we asked that God would forgive preachers and congregants for not being diligent in handling His Word. We prayed that we would return to the Bible as our only source of authority and our only guide for growth and missions. That we would teach the Bible to people where they are and that God would again be honored not only in the church, but in our homes, communities, states and our country. That both the churches (corporate) and the individuals would train up their families, would make disciples and live lives that are Holy and Blameless before God and men.
The major difference in our gathering from the majority if not all the other churches around the country participating Sunday, was that instead of fasting, I felt it prudent that we celebrate this new beginning. We celebrated in anticipation of what the Lord is going to do, not only in our country,communities and lives, but in our congregation as well.
I shared this from the pulpit, "We need to act in anticipation of our prayer. We need to celebrate this new beginning, and celebrate in anticipation of what God is going to do among His people."
We will work toward a time of regular personal and corporate fasting, but yesterday we needed to praise God for the blessings He has already provided but for the blessings to come!
All in all it was a great Sunday and an even greater beginning, and I look forward to all that the Lord is going to do in our lives, our congregation, our community, our country and our world!