Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - When Pigs Fly, Part 2: Miracles of Healing

Episode Date: May 13, 2018

Chalk it up to coincidence or luck if you want, but we think there’s something bigger going on when the impossible happens. Are you searching for hope? Are you waiting for a miracle in your life? Today might just be the day When Pigs Fly. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, it's great to have all of you with us today on this Mother's Day weekend as we're honoring our amazing mothers. And today we're looking at God's Word. If you're new with us, we're in a message series called When Pigs Fly. We are looking at a God who does miracles. Last week we talked about God's power over the forces of darkness. Next week, I think, is my favorite of all four. We're going to talk about a God who has the power to protect.

Week number four, we're going to look at a God who miraculously provides for his people. Today, what I want to do is talk about something that I believe has the potential to really build your faith, and also that we can literally see miracles from God today before the end of our time together. I want to talk about a God who does miracles of healing. Question at all of our churches, how many of you believe that our God has the power to touch a sick body and to make it well? all of our churches, you raise your hand. I absolutely completely believe he does. In fact, if you just look all throughout scripture,

the Old Testament, miracle after miracle of healing, New Testament, there's at least 30 different miracles where Jesus healed people of sickness in their body. It's implied that there are hundreds and hundreds of more miracles of healing. Jesus opened up blind eyes, he healed deaf ears, he made the lame to walk. He raised the dead.

If you look in the book of Acts, there was a time when the Apostle Paul was preaching. It's kind of a funny story to me. He preached so long. Luke said he went on and on and on into the night. Have any of you ever been bored in the middle of the sermon at another church? He went on and on and on. So long that this poor guy named Uticus, a kid, was sitting in the window, and Uticus fell asleep in the middle of the sermon, fell out of the window, and died.

I know that I have put people to sleep with my sermons. To the best of my knowledge, I've never killed anyone with one of my sermons. The poor boy falls down the windows, dies. Thankfully, Paul goes down there, lays hands on him, raises from the dead. If I'm Paul, like, woo, my sermon killed him, but I healed him. You know, and they're miraculous power. The most controversial of all the miracles in the New Testament, though, was when Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law.

Jesus healed Peter's mother in law, which many scholars believe is precisely why Peter denied Jesus three times. I just mess with you. That's a dangerous joke on Mother's Day. Have mercy on me. It's just a joke, just a joke. I believe in a God that has the power to heal. In fact, this is what Jesus said in John's Gospel, John 1412, Jesus said, very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing.

and they will do even greater than these. What did Jesus do? He healed the sick. I believe the same power that healed the sick when Jesus walked on the earth, heals the sick today. And God does it through the faithful prayers of his people. We serve a God to whom all things are possible,

a God who can do exceedingly and abundantly more than all you can ask, think, or imagine according to his power that is at work within the church. That's why today we're a church. praying for miracles from our good God. You can clap at any time if you want to, I don't care. It always makes me feel a little bit better. If I get a little riled up, it's a little more fun.

If you get a little riled up because we're having church today, it's a great place to be together in God's presence. We believe in a God who does miracles. The first time I ever saw a healing miracle, it was an unusual one. I was on a walk with Amy, and we came across a dead bird in the middle of the road. Amy's like a freak for birds, and she's like, oh, little bird, little bird. She didn't pray for the bird. Like the bird is dead.

She's like, Jesus raised Lazar from the dead. God cares for the birds. She's like quoting scriptures and putting them together with some kind of theological message. Pray for the bird. And so I'm a newlywed, new Christian. I'm like, all right, we'll pray for the bird.

I knew enough the scripture said, if there are any sick among you, lay hands on the sick, and the prayer of faith will heal the sick. I didn't want to lay my hands on the dead bird, so I took a stick to put on the dead bird. Little birds in a road. And so I kind of just scooted him along with the stick

just kind of like this to make sure he was dead. And I put my prayer stick somewhere in the Bible on the bird, laying hands on the stick and the power goes through the stick to the bird. And we prayed that God would heal this little bird and God is my witness. God is my witness. God is my witness.

Ask my wife, Amy, you may not trust me, but you will trust Amy. We pray for the bird, the dead bird. God is my witness set up, went, tweet, tweet, tweet. and flew away. God is, you can clap for that if you want to because that's pretty crazy. Dead bird, tweet, tweet,

praise God, tweet, tweet, and flew away. If there are any sick birds among you, find me a stick. I've got the bird anointing. God healed a little bird. Fast forward to recently. How many of you've ever prayed that God would do a miracle

and heal someone and he didn't do it? Amazing couple on our staff, Brian and Jamie Manson, one of our brilliant minds on the U-Version team. I had little baby Lucas. Baby Lucas went down for a nap, five weeks, almost six weeks old. And baby Lucas didn't wake up. About an hour later with no heartbeat. By the grace of God, the doctors got baby Lucas' heart beating again. And all of us just knew this.

is ripe for a miracle from God. So we all prayed, not just our team, but people all over the world prayed for little baby Lucas. Baby Lucas didn't make it. And I believe in a God who can heal. And sometimes I'm a little bit confused at the apparent, a bird, like really? And a baby?

God, you made my back feel better? And a 17-year-old died of brain cancer? Sometimes when you believe God can, and he doesn't, it can unsettle you, shake you, rock you. Where is God? God, I knew you would, but why does my son still have migraine headaches? I believed you could, but why does my daughter still face depression all the time? God, we prayed and prayed and prayed, but why did Grandma die of cancer?

I knew you could. And a lot of people would conclude, well, evidently, either God is not real, or he's not good, or he doesn't care. How do we reconcile? What do we do? How do we do we do before God? How do we pray? If we believe that God can, and we know that he has, but he doesn't always do what we know he

could do and think that he should do. I want to talk about that today in a way that might answer a few questions, and at the same time, build your faith in a God who hears our prayers and does miracles. Let's build the message on this foundational thought. It may be obvious to you in your real life, but it may not be obvious to you just how true this thought is in scripture. Our key thought is this. We need to understand and embrace the truth that our God heals, but he doesn't heal everyone all the time. Our God is a God who heals, but he doesn't heal everyone all of the time. You would know that to be true because most of you said you've prayed for it to happen and it didn't happen,

but a lot of people don't recognize and realize that this is incredibly true in people in Scripture, those who faithfully serve Jesus. I'll give you three quick examples. There's a guy named Trophemus. Trophemus was one of the Apostle Paul's friends who accompanied Paul on his third missionary journey. But whenever Trophemus got sick, God apparently didn't heal him. And we read in 2 Timothy 420, Paul says, Erastus stayed in Corinth, and I left Trophemus sick in Miletus. God not only didn't heal him, but I left him behind. I just kind of left him there and we went on about our business. God could have and God didn't. Same with Timothy, who apparently had stomach issues. And Paul told his young protege, Timothy, use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses.

In other words, God could have healed it, but God didn't. So use whatever you can to make it better. God could, but God didn't. And then, of course, there's the Apostle Paul, who if you know his story, had something that he calls a thorn in his side, a thorn in his flesh. We don't know for sure what it is. Scholars have guessed it was bad eyesight, some temptation, all sorts of different things. We don't know for sure what it was.

but we do know, Paul pleaded three times. And when he pleaded, it wasn't just like a 30-minute prayer session. The word in the original language means like an ongoing, persistent pursuit. Three seasons, three ongoing, passionate, desperate seasons of pleading with God. Take this away. I know you can. I've seen you do bigger things. Please, God.

And God says, no, I could, but I'm not going to. In this case, what I'm going to show you is that my grace is going to be enough for you. Our God can. He often does, but when he doesn't, how do we deal with that? Tragically, if I can just kind of get up into the church world a little bit, sometimes well-meaning Christians can say really hurtful things. well-meaning Christians. You know, well, you know, your daughter's sick and, you know, whatever.

And the reason is because there's sin in your life. If you didn't have sin in your life, then that wouldn't be going on. You're not praying right. You know, you're doing something wrong and on and on and on. And a well-meaning Christian can often heap guilt and condemnation on someone else when God isn't doing what we know he could do and think he should do. And so some people will be so internally hurt that literally walk away from God

or at least walk away from the faith. fellowship of other believers, what do we do with a God that we know who can and doesn't always do it? And at the same time, how do we let our faith grow to continue to ask him for miracles of healing? Let's build a foundation and talk about three reasons why Jesus did not do miracles. He often did, but sometimes he didn't. Why did Jesus not do miracles? Number one reason is that Jesus refused to perform miracles to prove himself, to prove himself. I don't know if you've ever done this.

I did all the time as a kid. Just do this one thing, God. And if you do this one thing, then I'll know you're real and I'll serve you forever. God doesn't play like that. I wish he did it. It would be so much easier, but he doesn't. He's God. And for some reason, he does what he wants.

He refuses to perform miracles to prove himself. Mark's gospel, Mark 8. the Pharisees came and begin to question Jesus. What was the motive of their heart in this case? They were trying to test him. To test him, they asked him for a sign from heaven. Do something to prove that you are really the son of God. And Jesus sighed deeply.

You're making me crazy. I'm not doing tricks for you. He sighed deeply and said, why does this generation ask for a sign? Truly, I tell you, no sign will be given to it. I'm not doing miracles to prove myself. I do miracles that align with the heart of God. Number one, reason he didn't do it was to prove himself.

Number two, Jesus never performed a miracle that interfered with God's ultimate plan. This is so important. He never performed a miracle that interfered with God's ultimate plan. I'll show you an example. story where Jesus chooses to do a miracle in one moment and a moment later he withholds a miracle when it was within his power to do it. It's a powerful story. Judas betrays Jesus with a kiss on the cheek to show the guards who he was so they could come and arrest Jesus and take him to the cross. Peter, who I like, gets ticked. Peter's a good old boy and said, uh-uh,

you ain't doing that to my Jesus. And he pulled down his story. sword and he goes for the Roman guard's head. I'm not sure. That's just what I think. And he missed the head and got the ear. Good intentions, bad aim. Cuts the ear off. And so you can imagine, we read it and you know, you just kind of read it and you don't think about it. Imagine this old guy, blood's coming out of his ear. There's pandemonium. His ear flies off. And you can just kind of sense Jesus's disappointment. Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter, Peter. I got this under control. to sit in what I wanted you to do. And then Jesus is kind of like, where's the ear? Somebody find the ear. Imagine they cut the ear, it flies off, it grows into, where's the ears?

Is it into bushes? Find the guy's ear. Find the guy up here. Give me this ear. Give me an ear. And then Jesus takes it and he does a miracle. He takes it and puts it on Malchus's head and he says, God in my name, it's a little joke right there, because we say in Jesus' name, but he would have said and just a preacher joke. Just work with me. He just says, he says, in my name, he said, and he heals the ear. He does a miracle. Then he has a teaching moment.

Peter, I'm not going to let this happen to you. And then Jesus doesn't do a miracle, and he says, I could have. Watch this. He says, don't you realize that I could ask my father for thousands of angels to protect us? Boom, God sent them, they're here. He would have sent them instantly. But if I did, if I asked for this miracle, would the scriptures be fulfilled that describe what must happen now?

In one moment he does a miracle, and in another moment when it would interfere with God's ultimate plan, he withholds the miracle even when the disciples around and don't fully understand. When did Jesus not do a miracle? miracle. He didn't do it to prove himself. He didn't do a miracle that would have had a temporary earthly benefit at the cost of an eternal, godly benefit when it interfered with God's plan. And number three, Jesus didn't do miracles where there was no faith, where there was no faith. When he went to

his hometown, people were not impressed with Jesus. They grew up with them. Yeah, isn't that Joseph the carpenter's son? Isn't that the annoying kid that was the teacher's pet that got all the answers right and never talk too much in class, that's just Jesus, the son of Joseph. And scripture says he did not do many miracles there. Why? Because of their lack of faith. We have to understand that our faith moves the heart of God. Our faith matters to God. When you pray in faith, it touches the heart of God. Let me give you three examples. There was a woman who couldn't stop bleeding for 12 years. She's embarrassed. She's in pain. She's ceremonially unclean. Jesus walks by. By faith, she reaches out and thinks, if I can just touch the edge of his cloak,

just touch the end of his garment, I'll be healed. She does. He feels power at leave. She looks back and says, what was that? She's, I just believed. And then Jesus looked at her and says, daughter, say this with me. Daughter, somebody help me. You are what? Your faith has healed you. A man with leprosy falls at the feet of Jesus and worships him. Jesus looks at this man and says, rise and go, you're what? Say it with me, your faith has made you well. A blind man screams out, I can't see you, but I hear you, I know you're there, have mercy on me. And Jesus says, go, you're what?

Your faith has healed you. Our faith moves the heart of God. What is so interesting to me is that according to scripture, there's only one. one thing that we have that ever amazes Jesus. When you look at all the gospels, Jesus was amazed by one thing. Do you know what amazes Jesus? Our faith amazes Jesus.

Sometimes he's amazed like, wow, that was amazing. Other times he's amazed like, oh, That's all? You don't believe I can do anything? Two different times. Two different extremes. A Roman centurion has a servant that's sick and says, Jesus, I'm not even worthy for you to come into my house.

You just say the word. You don't have to see my servant. You don't have to touch my servant. You don't have to walk in that direction. I just believe you say the word and he'll be healed. Jesus says the word, he's healed. And scripture says, amazed and said, I've never seen faith like this before.

And in the hometown of Jesus, where he was a prophet without honor, he looked on and says, I'm amazed that you don't believe that I can do anything. I'm amazed, he said, at their lack of faith. I'm curious, when it comes to your faith, if Jesus were amazed, would he be, wow, amazed? Or would he be like, wow? I mean, even if you just look at the prayers you prayed last week, what did you ask for?

Was it big, God intervening, morale? Wow. Or was it like, God bless my food and keep us safe today? Wow. Is all you have the faith for? something that amazes Jesus. It's powerful, strong faith. Wow, he's amazed.

Or it's almost like heartbreaking, insulting faith. Really? That's all you believe? What do we do if we find that our faith is a little bit on the lower end? What if we're more like the, well, faith, rather than the wow, faith? The good news is that faith moves God.

And Jesus is so encouraging when he said this. If there's a mountain in your life, in other words, if there is something that needs to be moved, that's so big that physically it's impossible to move. And you simply have faith the size of a mustard seed, the smallest little seed. If you just have faith in my direction, that moves my heart. In other words, your faith sometimes may be really strong.

There may be other times when it's kind of strong. There may be other times when you're struggling. and God loves you enough to work with the faith that you have. I love the story in scripture of a dad who is in agony because his son is hurting to the moms that are here today. You know, you can take a lot of pain. But when someone comes after a kid, there's nothing that hurts like that. Any parent would know this feeling. And his son is in agony.

He's being thrown into the fire by demons and such. And the dad's desperate. He wants to believe that Jesus can help, but he doesn't want to get his. hopes up so high. And so he's just like, Jesus, if you can do anything, please do. If you care, if you can, if you can do anything, please do. And Jesus is kind of like, uh, anything is possible for those who believe. And the father said something that honestly, so captures where I live so much of the time. If you can do anything. Jesus says, I can do anything. And the father exclaims, I do believe, and then he says,

help me overcome my unbelief. I do believe, but I'm still human. I've seen you do it with other people. I'm kind of reading into his thought. I've seen you do it before, and I think you can do it for my son, but I'm just not sure. If I get my hopes up,

and if you don't, it's going to be really difficult. So I do. No, you can, but I'm still just not sure in this particular case. And Jesus looks on with a loving understanding of this imperfect faith. I'm doing the best I can. Help me in this. I'll get as real as I can.

And hopefully you don't lose respect to me, but maybe this will help somebody feel better. Amy and I were going to pray for a lady recently, and she has a category of sickness that I have never seen God heal. I believe he can. I know he can. But every time I've prayed for someone in this category, things didn't go well.

I can give you a list of a hundred different categories where I've seen miracles from God. In this particular category, I've heard about it from other places, I've never seen it. And so we're driving there and I'm just,

I don't have Pastor Craig hat on, now I'm just Craig, Craig, with my wife. I said, Amy, I don't have a lot of faith for this. I see, maybe you need to pray. And she's like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. If you've got mustard seed faith, let's just hang on to that. Let's just hang on to that.

And I mean, I'm just being honest. Like, I got a lot. You want to make me to pray for someone to come to Christ? Yes. You need to pray for certain types of things. You want to pray for a bird with a stick. Right? You know, I got faith for that.

But in this particular case, sometimes I need God to help me overcome my unbelief. I do believe. But it's just not perfect right now. And so we prayed the prayer before the prayer. in our car, God give us faith. God, help us honor you. God, would you be wild by our faith? And so we quoted Scripture, we prayed together, we walked in,

we did what Scripture says, we anointed with oil, we prayed the prayer of faith, we believed that God could and we asked him to do it and nothing happened. Not yet. Not yet. She's still not healed. We're still praying in faith.

In some moments we feel more in other moments is more like, help me. I don't feel that much right now. But whatever I have, God, as imperfect as it is, I'm bringing it to you. I believe, God, you hear our prayers and you do miracles. So, Pastor Craig, you're the pastor of the church. You prayed for someone and she wasn't healed.

Does that shake your faith? Does that rattle you? No, after walking with God for as long as I have, it doesn't rattle me because our faith. Faith isn't based on what God does. You see, our faith is based on who God is. Our faith isn't based on what God does in the immediate moment to a specific request. Because oftentimes he will do exactly what we're asking him to do,

and he kind of shows up and shows off. In other times, in ways that I may not understand, he's like, I'm not going to prove myself right now. Or it may be, you know what? That would be kind of easy for you, but I actually have something eternal that's higher than your thoughts and different than your ability to understand.

And even though it may hurt you now, even though it may make you question the goodness of God, we still trust the goodness of God because our faith isn't based on what he does in a moment. Our faith is based on what he did for us on the cross. It doesn't get any better. than that. A God who becomes one of us

and sins his son, Jesus, his son, to shed his blood that our sins would be forgiven. Our faith isn't based on seeing the results to a miracle. Our faith is based on the

character and the goodness of a God who sacrificed his son. This will mess with some people's theology. I know it. Some people will disagree. you have the right to be wrong. Being playful, sort of. But I'm passionate about this. We need to understand that when God sent Jesus,

the highest purpose for Jesus' coming was not to heal our bodies, but to save our souls. The highest purpose, I'm not saying that he doesn't heal our bodies, but the highest purpose, I have come that they may have life and life more, but I've come to seek and save the loss. I didn't come for the righteous.

I came for the sinners. I came to give my life as a ransom. His highest purpose isn't to heal our bodies, is to save our souls. I'll show it to you. In Mark's Gospel, Mark 2, you can see it. There's four good old boys. I would love to be friends with these guys.

One of them, his name was Bubba. It doesn't say that in the Bible. It doesn't say it anywhere. But I know it to be true. God revealed it to me. I can just feel it. His name had to be Bubba. And he's the leader of the ring.

And he's got another friend who's unable to be. to walk. And so Bubba gets his three buddies and goes, we're going to get our buddy to Jesus. And ain't nothing. And so they drag this old boy who can't walk. Who knows how far. Maybe they're carrying him. He gets heavy. They're dragging them. And they take him to this Bible study. And Jesus is their teaching. There's so many people in the Bible study that they can't get their friend in. And Jesus is teaching. And they got their backs to Jesus. Oh, that's good. And like, we can't get him in there. Heck, they ain't going to stop us. Take them up on top of the roof. We'll find a way, boys.

They're afraid up on the top of the roof, and then Bubba says, dig a hole. I just know it was Bubba. It's not in the Bible. I can sense it. I can feel it. Sometimes God reveals these things. And they look, we can't dig a hole. This is in our house.

And we'll figure it out later. And so they get down and they start digging a hole in this fash roof. And then there's a hole white shining in. Jesus is doing a Bible study. And they say, okay, you grab one arm, you grab one arm, you grab, I'll grab a leg. And they take their buddy and they hold them down as far as they can. Bubba looks down. It's like, man, looks like about eight, nine feet.

That could hurt bad. He goes, well, hell, he paralyzed anyway. On three, drop them. One, two, three. Something like that happened. The guy gives him a little Bible study. And the first thing Jesus does is forgives his sins. The first thing Jesus does, read it, is forgives his sins

before he heals his body. He healed his body, but first he forgave his sins. Because when Jesus came, his highest calling wasn't to heal our bodies. It was to save our souls. Here's a little spoiler alert. You ready for this? If God heals you a cancer, guess what? I hate to break it to you.

You're still going to die. Kind of got quiet in here. Yeah, technically if the rapture comes back, you'll fly away. But if Jesus doesn't come back, you're going to die. Jesus raised Lazar from the dead. Next time Lazar had he was on his own. Right? You're still going to die.

Because his highest purpose isn't what happens to your body for 70 or 80 years on earth. Your highest purpose is that your life would glorify him. So when I pray, I pray with every bit of faith I have. Sometimes it's great. sometimes it's mustard seed but I'm bringing my imperfect faith before him for my daughter Mandy

you can't stop me from believing in the miracle power the miraculous working power of our God we believe we believe we believe we believe we believe we believe we believe we believe we believe we believe I believe God can and I believe he will and even if he doesn't do

what I think he should, I still believe. Because my faith isn't based on what he does or doesn't do. My faith is based on who he is. So what I want to do today as a church is I want to give you the chance to join me and to believe that God would do miracles. And what I want to do is just ask our pastors if you can to get ready to come and pray. We're going to do something a little bit different. I promise you it's not going to be weird.

What I'm going to do in a moment is if you have to be. sickness in your body, something that you would like for God to heal. I'm going to ask you in a moment just to stand up, or perhaps it's not in your body, but somebody that you love. For example, if I was sitting on the third row today, I would stand up and say I'm standing for Mandy. He might stand for somebody that you love. I want to broaden your prayers for just a moment and recognize that God doesn't just heal

bodies, but scripture says God heals the broken hearted. and he binds up wounds. And on a day like this, there are some who are very, very brokenhearted. A day like any day, there are people who have been victim of abuse, of hurt, been lied about. And maybe perhaps you're hurting in that way today. And you don't just need healing in your body, but you need healing in your soul. So today, church online, you can just type in whatever you wanted. All of our churches.

Those of you would say, I want to stand for me or somebody else. I need healing. Just stand up right now. Just right where you are. All of our churches, just stand up where you are, if you will. Every single life church is stand up where you are. Just stand up where you are. Now, for the rest of you, what would be amazing is if you would just pick somebody close to you.

If they're in front of you, you might just reach out to them. Would you just stand up around? And perhaps if it's appropriate, just to reach out and maybe touch somebody on the shoulder or just look in their way if everybody can remain standing right now, just stand up where you are. And you might, if you know somebody and it's not weird, you can put your arm around them or just reach out. And we're going to be the family of God, where we're two or three come together in his name. There he is in the midst of them. And with whatever faith that we have,

we're going to come before our God right now. And we're going to believe for miracles. Pastors, all of our churches, you pray, pray hard, pray in faith in the name of Jesus. We believe in a God of miracles. Thank you so much for joining us for this week's message. We're so honored and excited to be a part of all that God is doing in and through your life. We recognize that becoming a fully devoted follower of Christ is a journey, and there's some next steps involved in that process. So we have a great resource for you to use to help you do just that. You can go to life.com slash next.

This is a great way for you to grow in your relationship with Jesus. Another great way for you to stay connected to your church all throughout the week is through the Life Church app. You can go to wherever you download your apps, go to the app store and download it from there and stay connected with us all throughout the week. Guys, we know and we do all of this because we truly believe that whoever finds God finds life.