Live Free with Josh Howerton - Why Doubt the Miracle Maker? • Pastor Joby Martin | Ep. 216 | Monday December 4, 2023

Episode Date: December 4, 2023

If the tomb is empty, anything is possible. We, as believers, trust in the greatest miracle: the death and resurrection of Jesus. If God can do that, why do we doubt? Strengthen your faith as Pastor Joby encourages us in today’s episode. For more information, visit lakepointe.church/dailydrive

Thanks for tuning in to today's daily drive with Lake Point Church, a daily dose of God's Word for your morning drive. When the word, not the world, becomes the majority of your week, your life will start to change. For that reason, our prayer is that God will speak to you through today's devotional. This Christmas, we want to invite you and your family to join us for our candlelight services on December 22nd through 24th at any of our six locations. or for church online. For more information, visit lakepoint.combe. slash daily drive. And now let's dive in to today's devotional.

Howdy Lake Point and welcome to the Daily Drive. I am Pastor Joby Martin with the Church of 1122 and it is such an honor to be with you this week. I've got to tell you that I love your pastor. I love Pastor Josh. I love Pastor Steve Stroop. He mentored me and continues to for a long time. And so just love what guys.

God is doing in and through your church and through your pastors. And so it is such an honor that I would get to spend some time with you. I just want to share a few thoughts over this week just from God's Word. And really what we're going to be talking about is we're going to talk about miracles. Now, I don't know what you believe about miracles, but I know that we serve the God of miracles. And a miracle is any time the supernatural intersects the natural, or a miracle is any time that the unexplainable meets the undeniable. In fact, if you look in the gospel of John, John records all kinds of miracles of Jesus, but John doesn't even call miracles miracles. He calls him signs, because a sign points to something greater than itself. And every time Jesus did a miracle,

or he did a sign, the point was not the miraculous. The point was to point people to the miracle maker. Jesus wasn't just simply flexing his raw power because he could. He was always pointing to the redemptive purposes of God in and through his people. Now, one of the reasons are the primary reason that you and I today can believe in the miraculous is because the greatest miracle of all time has already happened, and that is the resurrection of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You see, this event, the empty tomb, is the foundation of our faith. And something that I say to our church all the time is this, if the tomb is empty, anything is possible.

Let me say that again. If the tomb is empty, anything is possible. If God has already pulled off the greatest miracle of all time that Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, would come to earth, live a perfect life, die a sinner's death on the cross, be dead and buried, and on the third day be resurrected from the grave. if God can pull that off, then surely he can handle whatever it is that you are going through. You see, I found myself in 30 years of ministry meeting people in our church, and they felt like they were in an impossible situation, financially, physically, it could be relationally or health-wise. And I would have people come to me and say,

Pastor, I don't think you understand I am in an impossible marriage and to which I would respond. But you believe that Jesus came out of the grave, right? Right, of course I do. because I'm a believer in Jesus. I'm a Christian. And then one day these words just fell out of my mouth. Well, if the tomb is empty, then anything is possible.

If God could breed new life into his dead son, then surely he could breed new life into your marriage. And so that's why I want to take a look at miracles. Romans chapter 8, verses 31 and following says this. It says, what then shall we say to these things? And these things that Paul is talking about, these things could be the circumstances that you find, find yourself in. What are we going to say to these circumstances? Really, the question he's asking is,

are you going to take your trust and are you going to put your trust in your temporary circumstances, or are you going to put your trust in the sovereign savior who is king over all circumstances? He says, what shall we say then to these things? If God is for us, then who can be against us? Then he says, he who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him, graciously give us all things. You see, God is a good dad, and he loves to give good gifts to his kids. But the ultimate gift is not the things. The ultimate gift that he wants to give to us is himself. The point is not that we get our miracle met. The point is that we meet the maker of our miracles. J.I. Packers says it this way. He says, and still he seeks the fellowship of his people,

and he brings them both joy and sorrow to detach their hands from the things of this world that they may be attached to him. So what I want to challenge you to do is I want to challenge you to believe. I want to challenge you to take your trust, to take your faith, and put your faith, not in your circumstances, but to put your faith in the God who is sovereign over your circumstances. And the reason that you can have your faith is not because we're trusting that God will change everything around us, but because we believe and we know that God is faithful to his promises

and if the tomb is empty, which we know that it is, then anything is possible for the one who believes. Amen. Thanks for tuning in today. For more biblical teaching and worship, join us for our church online live weekend services on Saturdays at 6 p.m. and Sundays at 9.30 and 11 a.m. Central Standard Time. Also, if this podcast was helpful to you, would you be sure to rate, review, and share this podcast to help get the word out? For more information about all digital ministries of Lake Point, visit lakepoint.compt.combe.