Confident in the Face of Hard Questions: Are Miracles Relevant? • John 10:22-26; 14:8-14
By Becky Brown
One of the many hard questions we might be asked in our generation includes the lesson title for this week: “Are miracles relevant?”
First of all, I would use that question to speak about some of the actual miracles performed by God through people and events in Scripture. Ask Moses as he stands at the Red Sea (Exodus 14). Ask Elijah about the last biscuit (1 Kings 17).
Ask Nehemiah about the wall around Jerusalem being completed in 52 days — with no heavy moving equipment (Nehemiah 6). Ask Jonah to describe what ribs of a great fish look like — from the inside (Jonah 1–2).
Those are just a FEW of the miracles sprinkled throughout the Old Testament! Use every opportunity that is presented to you to share with folks the story God has written through Scripture for us all.
In the New Testament, we have Jesus Himself in flesh! He is God the Creator walking around on the Earth. He is fully God and fully human. I don’t know how to explain that and will never truly understand until I’m heaven bound, but I completely believe it.
Jesus touched blind eyes and they could see. Jesus touched lepers (which was unthinkable!) and they were free from the ravages of that dreadful disease. Jesus told lame people to walk and they did. Jesus helped mute people to speak.
Jesus opened the ears of the deaf. Jesus healed a man with a withered hand. Jesus helped a lady who was bent over to have a perfectly aligned spine. She had stared at the earth for years and now she could see the sky! These are just a FEW of His miracles of physical healing.
And, oh, yes, just by the way, Jesus brought three dead people back to life!
Jesus calmed the Sea of Galilee and walked on top of the waters of that beautiful lake. He multiplied one little boy’s lunch and fed five thousand men plus women and children. He passed through crowds that wanted to kill him. He turned water into wine.
Are there miracles today? Yes, but be cautious. Make sure the moments are God-focused and genuine and not name-it-and-claim-it, “look at me” miracles. Miracles that are genuine will ALWAYS follow the example of Jesus. They will point to The Father EVERY time.
Miracles will be something only God can do. People don’t DO miracles. Only God does miracles.
Yesterday, I heard a missionary speak to a gathering of listeners. Miracles are happening right now on fields of service all over the world. God always is the source. God always gets the glory.
Here’s the catch! The greatest miracle of ALL is a redeemed heart! True miracles cave us in and lean us toward the breast and heart of God so that we hear His heartbeat and find the need for our hearts to beat in rhythm with His plan for our lives.
In John 10, Jesus made it plain to those in His day that He and the Father were ONE and the same. Miracles begin in the heart of the Father. While Jesus was here, and He did the will of the Father every day of his earthly life. The Jewish leaders could never connect those truth dots.
In John 14, we see that even Jesus’ own disciples at the Last Supper did not yet truly understand who He was. Philip and Thomas led the charge as they stared at their own clean feet. They were members of the “Are We Sure?” committee.
Jesus would say, I and the Father are One.He would say, When you have seen Me, you have seen the Father. Basically, He was saying, “I am in the Father and the Father is in Me, but if you need more proof than that, believe because of the evidence of the works (miracles) that have been done while I’ve been here.”
Jesus loved them enough to break it down to brass tacks. Then Jesus made them a promise: If they would simply place their trust and belief in Him, they would be able to stand in His place and do amazing works long after He had returned to His Father.
John 14:13 records Jesus saying, …and whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.These disciples would see the infant church explode in the first century. The power of the miracle of the resurrection would catapult them into full follow-ship of the Miracle Worker Himself.
To say that miracles are not relevant today would be to say the same about God. Read that again.
Brown is minister of missions at First Church, Richland.
