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We're in week two of talking about miracles, which is pretty amazing. We're right before the miracle offering. And if, you know, last week Pastor Terry said, miracles for me. And by the way, I thought Pastor Terry did an amazing job with that. Miracles for me. Yeah, you can clap for em. Miracles for me. And then I said I would do this week miracles for we. I had to have it rhyme, you know, Cause it's all of us. Things that God does for all of us. And. And then our oldest son, Connor, was like, well, miracle offering is next week. So it's like, miracles for me, miracles for we. And then next week, miracles for thee. So I was like, all right, it's three weeks. Me, we and thee. All right, if you don't know Connor's humor, you just got a taste of it right there. But we serve a God of miracles. Let me say that again. We serve a God of miracles. We do. We serve a God of miracles. And it's okay to. To believe God for miracles. All week I've been listening to songs about miracles. You know, you're the God of miracles. And even when I don't see it, you're moving. You're a miracle waymaker God, you're the miracle worker. And I've been saying, God, increase our faith in this. I've been devouring different books on this and sermons and just like leaning into miracles. And I don't hear a lot preached about miracles. So I'm glad that we're doing these two weeks here to talk about miracles. But we are living in a time of miracles. We are living in what was prophesied in Acts chapter 2. In Acts, chapter 2, verses 17 through 19, in the last days, God says, I will pour out my spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit in those days and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heaven above and signs on the earth below. I mean, it's right there. There's sign and wonders. And we're living in that miraculous time. We're still living in the last days. It's for right now, they've not stopped. And I'm praying like God, we wanna see more miracles. Cause he is still doing so many miracles. Now, one of the things I've noticed about miracles is we all start at different spots. When it comes to miracles, we all start at different spots. Some people are like, I'm all in with Miracles. I love that we have a miracle working God. Some of you are like, you pray for Mirac. You have no faith, no doubt, you have all faith. And you're like, I'm in, I'm in. But that's not all of us. It's few. And then there's some like, I'm good with miracles. Like, if God wants to do good, I'm good with it. And they're like, okay, like if I can verify this miracle, you know, see, it's a bigger percentage of you right there. And then there's some just skeptical, like, I don't believe it. I really don't believe. Then there's hyper skeptical and then there's that are just like downright denial doesn't even matter. Even if, like God was to write something in the sky, they would say, I'm delusional, I don't believe it. And we're all in different spots and because of this, people require different standards of evidence. They're like, I want this or I want this before I'll believe in this miracle. Craig Keener in his book Miracles Today says this. Everyone has starting assumptions and biblical faith provides the glasses that enable our eyes to see God's work all around us. I love that. Biblical faith is like putting on the glasses and you can see it now. Have you ever watched those videos where a kid is colorblind and then they give them the glass and then they see the colors and they're like overwhelmed. Biblical faith is like that to you. All of a sudden you see the miracles, you have that starting point for the miracles and you're able to lean into this and. And I want you to know that Psalm 119, verse 18 says this. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. The psalmist is saying, open my eyes, I wanna see it. And I would say to our church, Lord, open our eyes that we could see more miracles. Let us be leaning into this and anticipating this and not pulling back. Now I do wanna say I wanna give a shout out to two books if you want more than this. Craig Keener wrote a book on miracles. I think we got it there. Yeah. And Lee Strobel has a book about miracles as well. Great resources. I'm just devouring this and leaning into this. And I liked it so much. Craig Keener did 1000 or 1100 page commentary on miracles. I got it. I'm like, I'm ready. I don't know how soon I'll read it, but I'm in. Not Just Christians see miracles. I want you to know atheists like Keener. Keener was an atheist, and then God convinced him that he was real. He's a brilliant scholar. He's in our fellowship, and he's like, I believe this. And we see doctors and leaders and rulers and people that see signs and wonders, that see a miracle, and all of a sudden, they go from not believing to believing every day. I just believe we see miracles all the time. We're a part of a miracle every day. Whether you realize it, every day when you wake up in the morning, you're part of a miracle. When your heart keeps beating, you're a miracle. Like, because I had a heart attack years ago, there's many days I'll still wake up and I'll be like, God, thank you for the miracle of my heart beating like I didn't have to do anything. It just keeps going. And thank you, God, for the heartbeat miracle, the breath, the sunrise, gravity. I thank God for that miracle. Creation, our universe, the resurrection of Jesus, that we celebrate miracles. And by the way, why do we find it so hard to believe in miracles? Our Lord and Savior came back from the dead. Okay, like, we should be good with miracles. We should be like, miracles. I believe it. Nancy believes. All right, we're good. I believe in miracles. That's the God we serve. Now, some of you, again, I could tell when I said somebody like, okay, I'm good. Okay, with miracles. See, our culture has conditioned us. Like, okay, science, science. Now, science is beautiful. We are for science. And I'm gonna tell you that science shows us all sorts of miracles. I don't even know how somebody could be a scientist and not, like, become a believer eventually. Cause of all the miracles that they would see over and over again. I mean, subatomic level particles appear and disappear in an unpredictable way, which should lead to chaos. And yet it leads to stunning order. It's a miracle. You'd be looking at it like, this should go to chaos, and it's going to order. And science is saying, oh, here's a miracle right here. Homeostasis, the process by which everything is regulated and stays in order. Like in your own body having balance, your body temperature. When you go into the doctor, we don't guess what it is. We know, like, if you're healthy, it's 98.6, right? And there's something about this that is balanced. It's your. Your heartbeat, your cells, the oxygen in your blood. The science says behind it, this is like regulation. And it's wonderful to see Homeostasis. And God says, it's me. It's me. I'm holding it together. I'm working a miracle. Here's what Colossians 1:17 says. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. God's like, me. That's me. I'm holding your body in order. I'm holding you. And we just. Oh, it's science. No, God's like, it's me. It's his sustaining power. There's more. The water cycle, that it goes from water to vapor to rain. That's God. That's a miracle that that's happening. Our ecosystem, the interdependence of the food web and the variety. What's going on? And why are there so many of these bugs and so many of these animals and not so many of these and the whole food chain? I mean, all this. God's like, I did that. That's a miracle. That's not by chance. The laws of motion, the laws of gravity. Even Einstein admitted this when he was thinking about this. He said, the miracle is that there are laws of nature at all. It's a beautiful thing. And before we do the laws of nature, you know what God called them? The laws of the heavens. Before we ever said, oh, it's a law of nature. It's a law of nature. God's like, do you know the laws of the heavens? That's what he said to job in job 38, 33, he said, do you know the laws of the heavens? Can you set up God's dominion over the earth? God's like, I have laws going on, the laws of heaven that are regulating everything right now. You don't understand. You're living in a miracle job. You. You have no clue who you're talking to. We are living in the miracle. And science calls the miracles that we see instinct, nature, fine tuning all great things. But I like miracles better. I just do. I like miracles. I believe in God, and so I believe all of creation. When it's doing instinct, when it's doing order, it's not just like, huh, look at that. You know what it's doing? It's obeying all the way back to Genesis, let there be. And it's obeying that. And I thank God for that. Let there be all these things going on, and everything in creation is just doing that. And I'll say right now very clearly, science is real. But I will not say only science is real. Science is very real. But I serve a God of miracles, and so do we. We just say He's a God of miracles. Now, if we're talking about miracles, you're like, okay, Pastor Rob, maybe this is one I shouldn't have invited my friend to. If you're a visitor, welcome to church. All right, we believe in miracles. But if you're a visitor, I bet you do, too. I found these stats. 79% of Americans believe in miracles. 79%. That was from a study. You say? Well, when Was that? Like, 1970? No, 2024. 2024. Pew Research. 79% of Americans. You know, people in Latin America, higher. Africa, higher. Europe, lower. All right, Europe was 60%. They need more prayer. They need more prayer. I see this. 67% of Americans say miracles happen today. 57% of Americans, Christian, non Christian. All Americans surveyed, 57% said they have experienced something that would be a miracle. They would have to say it was 57%. So if you're a visitor today, you're in the right place. And we're preaching on something that probably intrigues you right now. 75% of doctors surveyed in 2004 said they believe in miracles because they've seen things that are medically impossible. They just like, it makes no sense. I can't. It's outside of medicine. It's outside what I was trained. It's outside of what I know. And they may scratch their head, they may praise God, but they've said it's gotta be something beyond what we see. And Francia, I believe she's in service here. I just got permission for this. She's in this service. Come on, now. Stand up now. The other campuses can't see her. Stand up. Stand up. She was at Sparkle. Woman of the Year. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're about to. Ready? Go to another level. We prayed for her cause. She said, I have cancer. She just got back from the doctor. You know what they said? No cancer. No cancer. Living miracle right here, right now, said Sparkle. Come on. Doctors would say medically impossible. I say miracle. Wow. But God does so many amazing things, the miracles that are there. And I know Terry gave you a definition of miracle, but I found another one that I loved. It was from Richard Purdle, a professor emeritus of philosophy at Western Washington. And he says this, a miracle is an event brought about by the power of God that is a temporary exception to the ordinary course of nature for the purpose of showing that God has acted in history. God's saying, I acted. And by the way, he's always moving, and I love that song. Waymaker, Miracle worker. Even when I don't see it. You're working, you're moving. He's always working. He's always moving. He's always doing things. I wonder if we will get to heaven and just be ashamed that we did not thank God for all the miracles that he was doing. Like, wow, I just said, thank your lucky stars. No, it wasn't that. It was God. You said, well, I can't believe that happened. That was a. Well, that defies logic. No, it was God. There's all sorts of miracles, and Pastor Terry talked about healings. But I want to talk about even more because there are miracles all over the Bible. There's things we could pray for. There are even people gifted with the ability for miracles that God has given them a spiritual gift. In the nine gifts that he talks about, when you're baptized in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, prophecy, all these other things, one of them is the gift of miracles. In 1 Corinthians 12:10, he says to another, miraculous powers. There are people that have spiritual gifts. And then it goes on to another prophecy, another distinguishing between spirits speaking in different kinds of tongues is still another. The interpretation of tongues. They're right there as the gifts of the spirits. And some people, the gifts of the spirit. And some people have that gift, that ability to work miracles. God has just supernaturally given them that gift. There's so many different kinds. We talked about healing with Pastor Terry, and if you know our story, you've heard me talk about our son Connor, our oldest son, who's on staff with us, being healed of autism. That is a miracle. There's miracles of survival where you're like, how in the world did you survive that accident? How in the world did you even walk away from that? I know Volvo's a good car, but it's not that good. You know what I'm saying? Like, how'd you live? Miracles, there's survival of where people are trying to kill you. A friend of mine is in a limited access country where he can't openly proclaim the gospel. And the rulers that he works for, he. He works for the rulers of this country. They said, you must be a man of God. And he said, why would you say that? They said, cause we've tried to kill you three different times by poisoning you, and you have not died. Now, this is not somebody I kind of know. His phone number is in my cell phone. I talked to him over dinner as he was telling me this about that. That's a miracle. When the rulers of the country that you're serving tell You. We've tried to kill you three times, but you don't die. God is working. I'm thanking God for a miracle. Working God like that. I'm just saying. When I was a youth pastor, I took a youth group to Panama with our now superintendent, Mark Dean. He was the youth leader at the time. Now he's our state superintendent. We were in the hotel, and all of a sudden there was a shootout in the hotel. Somebody was trying to rob our hotel. There was a rich guy having a birthday party by the pool. And it turned into a huge shootout. I mean, people shooting, machine guns going off. And I have 25 kids from my youth group in that hotel, and the guns and bullets are flying. One of the kids opened his door and goes, what's going on here? And a bullet went right in the door frame right next to his head. Not one of our kids was harmed. Not one of them was in any way. And they caught all the guys out there. And I said, that's a miracle. That's a miracle. One of the. I mean, somebody should have been a casualty in that. And they were protected. I have a friend, again, this is. These are stories of miracles I'm trying to tell you. This is. I sat down. Logan and I sat down with my friend and had dinner with him. And he was in Sudan when there was the uprising in 2023, the SAF and the RAF. He was there scouting out a missions trip for his church. He was there, supposed to be there two days. And this outbreak goes on. And this war basically goes on in Sudan. He's there in the hotel. He hides out. In the hotel. He hides out. They evacuate all the Americans, all the government officials are gone. He's in the. They have no room for him anymore. He can't get out. He is in the hotel, rationing his food, calling on a satellite phone at night, calling in the dark of night on the roof of the hotel, hoping not to be killed. This is not somebody I heard about, heard about, read about this. This is a friend of mine. I should have him come and preach at church. How many like to hear the story? Have him come preach. All right? And as I'm talking to him, I said, how did you get out? He said, well, Al Jazeera came to us and said, listen, you are gonna die. You've been here 14 days. They're closing in. The forces are closing in. You are gonna die. You gotta get out of here. They said, maybe we should put a burqa on you and try to sneak you out. He said, I'm 6:2, with pasty white skin. Like, that is not gonna work. I'm a big tall lady in this country, you know, like. And they said, well, you gotta go today. You gotta go today. And as they're talking, all of a sudden a cloud starts forming, a storm starts forming, and it starts to rain. It has not rained for two weeks. It's not the rainy season. If you look at the time of the rainy season on when the outbreak was in Sudan, it was not the rainy season. It starts to rain, it starts to pour. He jumps in an Al Jazeera van and. And they drive him. The guards don't even come out at any of the checkpoints as he's going to the port to get on a ship of a foreign government, not even the United States of America. It's pouring rain, and the guards don't wanna get wet. So they just wave him through every single checkpoint all the way to the ship. And he gets on the ship with hundreds of others, sleeps on the deck of the ship and gets out. Come on. God brought a rainstorm, and that was a miracle. God still multiplies food. God does mechanical miracles. Some of you are like, I drove to church in a mechanical miracle. Praise God. We were in Thailand, and we were ministering to the Karen people who were driven out of Myanmar. They're in the jungle. We brought them food, and we brought them the Jesus video. We're trying to show these people the Jesus video, and everything breaks. The whole projector, every. All of it breaks. What are we gonna do? We're in the middle of the jungle, and all of a sudden, along comes this guy with a toolbox, and he goes, do you need something fixed right here? We're like, yeah, but it's like electronics, and we're running a generator. He has all the tools, all the thing. I mean, he has every single thing you would need to fix all the electronics. And then he walks away. I was like, is he a guy from the village? Like, never seen him before. He might have been a mechanical miracle. I'm just saying that's what I'll put in the hands of God. Like, God. Was he, like. Was he just a traveling mechanic or was that a miracle? I'm just saying God still dreams. How many of you have heard of God speaking a dream to a Muslim person? And wouldn't it just be like, God, that there are billions of Muslims that are outside the reach right now? And that God's like, I love these people so much, I'm gonna give them dreams and I'm gonna talk to them about Jesus, the man in white. I'm gonna tell them to go find this missionary. I'm gonna do that. And you think Will? I don't know. Pastor Rob, Acts, chapter 9. The apostle Paul, who now we know as apostle, is Saul, doesn't even wanna serve Jesus, doesn't want. He's actually persecuting the church. And what does God do? We interrupt this, I'm knocking you off your donkey. I'm making you blind, and I'm gonna tell you who I am. If God could do that to Paul, I think God could wake up a bunch of Muslims with a dream about the man in white. That's a miracle. You say, well, don't tell me you can't. I mean, these are miracles. For we. These are miracles we need. Okay? You say, why aren't there more miracles? Well, the Bible has a good amount of miracles, all right? In the New Testament life of Jesus, we're just getting a few years. We get his childhood, but really the bulk of it is focusing on just a few short years. In Matthew, 20% of the book is talking about miracles. In Mark, 31 to 40%, depending on how you count it, which is the most of any of the Gospels, miracles. But think about it. 31 to 40% is talking about miracles. In Luke, 21%. In John, 27%. In the book of Acts, 30% is talking about miracles. And this verse just kind of lets us know that we're not even scratching the surface. In John, chapter 20, verses 30 through 31, Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples which are not recorded in this book. But they are written. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in his name. He's saying there were other things. We're just giving you the highlights. There's a lot of other things that Jesus did that were miraculous. And we're just giving you the highlights. And it's. Many believed, many would believe. Now you say, well, why don't we see as many here? Well, first of all, let me just say this. We're very America focused. As Americans. We're very America focused. We're only 5% of the world. Did you know that? We're only 5% of the population. I don't see a lot of. Well, we're only 5% of the population. All right, first off. And we're very America focused. And we don't even pay attention. If we did a geography like here Point to the spot on the map. Many of us would fail. We had an intern once that came from the Netherlands. And he goes, man, when I grew up, I thought that you guys were obsessed with taking over the world. He goes, you really don't care, do you? I was like, no, we really. We really don't. I don't even like soccer. I mean, sorry, but. Yeah, sorry. Football. Yeah, right. So we're less than 5%. We have America Focus. We have an anti supernatural bias. We do. We have selective supernatural, like, all right, that fits. That's too far out there. And we do that. So that's why we don't see. We're afraid of being mocked. We're afraid to be mocked. Like, I believe in miracles. And you're like, oh, settle down. Don't say that too loud. I was sharing about Connor's healing in Illinois at a church. I get done preaching about this and sharing about God healing my son of autism. And this guy comes up and he goes, you're a liar. In church. Not outside in church. He goes, you're a liar. That didn't happen. And I looked at him and said, don't tell me it didn't happen. I know my son had autism. I know he was healed. And I said, you know what the Bible says in Romans to mark those that cause division? I'm marking you as a person that causes division. How dare you challenge the things of God? And he was, like, shocked that I would talk to him like that. And all the other pastors were there going, yeah, good job. Good job, tiger. You tell him. And he said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I repent. He said, it's so sensational, I can't wrap my mind around it. I can't believe that God would do that. Well, if somebody would do that to me in church, what do you think they would do to you at Target? And you're at corporate and you share this or at school or in the neighborhood, you're like, this is a miracle. And they're like, I don't know. All right, he's crazy. That address, write it down, circle it. Don't even. Trick or treat there. Crazy, crazy, crazy people. We're afraid of being mocked. We get embarrassed. I'm gonna tell you this. Sometimes you get a miracle. You know what happens? You're embarrassed. Talk to anybody that gets a miracle. I feel unworthy. I didn't deserve it. I'm no better than anybody else. Why me, God? I mean, why? This is just even too big. To unpack. But the man that prayed for Connor's healing, and he laid hands on him and prayed, and God used him in that moment of healing. His own granddaughter has autism and has not been healed. I live in that tension all the time. And so sometimes we're embarrassed. We don't even talk about the miracle because there's a tension of, why me? Why did I survive? Why did I live? And they didn't. Why did I get healed? And they didn't get healed. So don't let that close your mouth about the miracle. Put it in the mystery of the miracle. Put it in the. I don't understand it, but I wanna live worthy of the miracle. I wanna live worthy of the miracle. Sometimes they're less necessary. In America, we have provisions and protections and insurance policies. How many times has anybody said, like, hey, I got some illness. Call it out. Like, I got cancer. And the first thing you say to him is like, is Mayo in your provider group? You can get to Mayo, can't you? Like, is that not one of the first things? Can you get to Mayo? Like, we have all these things, so we don't even go, oh, God. We're like, can you get to Mayo? So maybe that's part of why we don't see the miracles. So where do we see them? Tim Stafford said this. He said, we see miracles especially where there's illiteracy, because miracles show God's power without a language, if they can't even read. And all of a sudden you go. And we see a place where the kingdom of God is moving forward and they're illiterate. God says, watch what I'll do. They'll understand it. They can't read. But watch this. They can understand that. He said, we see miracles where people don't have a framework in their culture for theological concepts as sin and salvation. But the miracle demands the attention of the message that's being preached, and it wakes these people up. We see miracles where there's limited medical care, where people are not saying, can you get to Mayo? They're like, you're gonna die if you don't get a miracle. So we see more miracles. We see miracles where the spirit world is very real to people and this conflict of spiritual powers is out there in the open. When we had our global, we saw the spiritual warfare was going on. I preached two sermons every night, and the first sermon was for healing or to be delivered of demons. And hundreds would come forward, and they'd see miraculous healings and people being delivered. And then we do the second message for salvation, because they're like spiritual warfare was going on. See, miracles communicate God's presence and power in a way that no language, no signal, no data stream could ever do. They tell us that the universe is not silent. It tells us that heaven is not distant. It tells us that God's active and he's right here with us. Every miracle is a message. God's saying, I'm here, I'm working. You didn't see me before. I'm here. Been here the whole time. Been here the whole time. I'm working, I'm working. I thank God. Now, let me close with this. If we don't see miracles, let me just. Number one, I just wanna start with this. There's nothing wrong with you, okay? You're like, I don't see them. There's nothing wrong with you. A lot of people are not seeing them, but we're gonna lean into this. We're gonna lean into it. So there's. Everyone that even receives a miracle is like, I felt unworthy. I felt so grateful. There's no condemnation. Like, I got mine, you didn't get yours. Something wrong with you? No, we're not saying that. We're saying we don't understand the mystery of the miracles, but we're leaning into this. Number two, if you don't see them, relinquish the control of it. Just say, God, your will be done. Like, this is what I'd love to see, but even if I don't, I'm gonna serve you no matter what. Number three, keep focused on the big picture, which is knowing Jesus. Knowing Jesus, and our. Someday we're gonna come face to face with them. So whether you get your miracle here or not, you're gonna say, God. I'm gonna focus on the thing that really matters. Now, I am also asking for this, but I'm focusing on the thing that really matters coming face to face with you. Number four. Keep praying for miracles. Keep praying for miracles. I'll close with that one. I wanna come back to it. Number five. Have faith for miracles. Miracles strengthen faith, and faith strengthens miracles. Have faith for miracles. This might be the second saddest verse I think about Jesus. The first saddest was when the people drove him away from the town. Jesus has just set a demoniac free. And they're like, please leave. Please leave. This is too scary for us. That's so sad. Jesus does his miracle working power, and they're like, please leave, please. This is the saddest story, I think, in the New Testament. About people that were that close to Jesus and missed him. The second saddest is in Mark 6, I think, is that he could not do any miracles there except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them. And he was amazed at their lack of faith. How sad. We serve a miracle working God and yet we've allowed others to squeeze it out of us. I don't want it to be said about River Valley Church. He couldn't do much there. They didn't have much faith. They. Miracles are hard to believe, as they should be. That's why we call them a miracle. But they still happen. Don't miss them. Don't miss them. Number six, prepare for miracles. A.W. tozer said this. He said, there's miracles that follow the plow. And what he meant is, the farmer starts to work the plow and plants the seed, and a miracle follows after the prep work that he did. May our church do the prep work to get ready to see the miracles. Follows your faithfulness. That follows your faithfulness. Day in, day out. May miracles follow the plow. And I go back to this about prayer. If miracles are heaven's language, then prayers are ours. God's like, I'm breaking in on this. I want you to know I'm bringing a miracle. That's his language. Like he's doing it. But prayer is ours. And I pray that we would pray for miracles. You know what Jesus said? Ask anything in my name and I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. That's in John 14. This is what makes miracles different than wishful thinking. We're not just like I wish. We're asking in the name of Jesus for a miracle. For God's glory, for God's glory. And we are allowed as believers to have faith. Faith to pray, to plow, to anticipate and to live, saying, God, you're a miracle working God, and I bring this before you. I ask this in Jesus name. I trust you. Thy will be done. But here is what's on my heart and what's going on in my world right now and why I need a miracle. And if you want to bring a miracle right now, I'm leaning in. And you'll get all the praise, you'll get all the glory. And I will stay on mission for you. I will use this for your glory and for your honor. You're a miracle working God. And we're not going to give up believing God for miracles. So, Lord, I pray right now that we would boldly pray that we would expect miracles that we would not give up on this. I thank you Lord that even research said that 79% of Americans believe in miracles. God could the church outpace that? We need to outpace that. We need to outpace that. So God help our faith to rise up and believe you for miracles, believe you for more. You are not limited. You are not limited. And so God, we pray that we'd see more miracles. Miracles for we, for the body of Christ to move forward on mission. Miracles that make a difference to the community around us. Miracles that keep our missionaries on the field. Miracles that see people healed and delivered and set free. God breakthroughs and things that people say, wow, that was good fortune. No it's good God doing miracles. And so we give you the praise, we give you the glory, we give you the honor, we lean in to miracles. In Jesus name we pray Amen and amen.