Well, I’m thrilled to be continuing our current series, miracles then and now and if you haven’t been with us I’m going to catch you up in just a second, but today I think you’re going to find something that you can really relate to.
The last two weeks we’ve been talking about a question that lots of people wonder about, in fact, lots of people question themselves related to faith, but just related to the reality of life, and that’s this question here
here, do miracles really happen? And this is a question many of you have asked. And you wonder, you look around, you see certain things, and you wonder, you know, was that a miracle? Was God involved in that do miracles? Should I pray for miracles? Does God even care?
So I want to talk a little bit more about this today, because some of the miracles you pray for, you believe they would further God's purposes in the world.
And sometimes you think, God, if you would do this, it would display your power.
And actually, that's true of the story that we're going to unpack today and in this story, truthfully, that this story is so encouraging, to me personally because it makes me feel like I'm not crazy. There somebody else who dealt with this, I'm not the only one that was tempted to doubt God when he didn't show up for me, when he didn't show up for me in the way I wanted him to.
When God didn't show up for me in the way I needed him to, in the way that I thought he would, or the way I thought he should as a good God. When God didn't show up for me, I doubted. And I'm not the first one. And you're not the first one, and you're not the first one who's dealt with this.
In fact, someone Jesus cared about, someone he was close to. Family member of Jesus went through this very thing. So
So here's the back story. There was a king named Herod. And this he was a bad dude. And he was he was, in control of basically all of Palestine. He was appointed by Rome, to lead all of Palestine and to be the king over that entire region.
He was all about himself and his dynasty. Preserving his dynasty. He had five, at least five wives. Now I just I gotta start out real quick is there's all sorts of landmines that I can step on. So if I say something stupid or offensive, I don't mean to. It's just that this is you're going to see in a second.
This is a very difficult family to explain, but their family dynamics are important to the story. So Herod, had five primary wives and important he had seven sons. He had actually had other kids with some of these other wives and, and some cousins again, strange, strange dude.
But he had seven sons that were eligible to be the heir to his throne, that were, that were, you know, would be suitable for that. And, right off the bat, he had two of his sons. Aristobulus. I sorry down here. Listen to Alexander. He had these two sons killed, and the reason he had them killed is because, he became at odds with their mom, and he falsely accused her of of adultery.
And the sons were plotting to kill him, so he executed them before they could kill him. So there's two of this. Two of the seven sons out of the way. Right there. Then he actually killed another one of his sons, Antipater. And this is because he named him as the heir. He said he. No, Antipater is going to be the heir to to my to my throne.
He's going to be there. And then he, he they sort of had a falling out. And he's like, you know what changed my mind? He's not going to be the heir. But before that word got out to the kingdom, Antipater was plotting to kill his father so that he would get the kingdom. And when Herod found out about that, he just had his son executed for for his plot to kill him.
So not off to a great start with him. So he has another son, Antipas and Antipas. Antipas. Herod Antipas. He he was a really bright son. In fact, he was he was one of the ones that, a lot of, Herod's, counselors would say, hey, this is the guy that should, should succeed you. So what he did was he put him over the region of Galilee,
And in the process of this, there's another family member. It was actually, in that time period who was it was sort of unusual, but a female and their family began to become really popular. And her name was Herodias. And Herodias was really beautiful, had a dynamic personality, and lots of people were drawn to her.
And so, you know, there was a sense where she was sort of a threat. And Antipas was, was you know, the favorite at this point, going to take over for Herod. But he had a brother, his, his half brother Philip. So he has track with me so far. I know this is complicated.
So here's the deal. So Philip makes a power play, and Philip decides he's going to marry Herodias, which is his half niece. He's going to marry her because she's popular in the family. And this might raise his stock to be the heir to the throne. They have a daughter named Salom. Well, at one point, Herod Antipas and his wife and his family are visiting Philip.
He's there. They're visiting them at their house, and he decides like he he he decides he's fallen in love with Herodias, and he decides he's going to take her to be his wife. So he steals his brother's wife, who's also his half niece. They get married there, the daughter who's his grand niece, half daughter, Salome, comes to live with them.
And so they come to Galilee to live with him. And real quick, here's why I tell you this. This is the family that's ruling over the people of God at this time in history. Doesn't that make you feel better about your family? I mean, honestly, I mean, I, I'm I'm encouraged. I'm feeling like, oh, gosh, we're pretty we're pretty good.
But this is the backdrop for the ministry that Jesus is going to step into his his personal ministry is going to be under this rulership in the world. So it's it's already challenging. But as Jesus comes onto the pages of the Scripture, he comes out of the pages of Scripture announced by a guy named John the Baptizer, who is actually his cousin and God.
We read in the scriptures that God selected his cousin, John to be the forerunner, to be the one that goes ahead and tells people This is the Messiah that was promised. This is the one we've been waiting for. He's here and he starts calling people to repent and to believe in his cousin as the Messiah, as God's forever King.
And John's preaching style, he was direct and he was blunt. He was not worried about ruffling feathers. He did not care about hurting people's feelings. And so this is why I tell you, John, you know, he's told people Jesus is coming, even told some of his disciples to go follow Jesus. In the midst of this, John finds out what's going on with Herod and his family, and specifically Herod Antipas, and he's not happy about it.
And so John decides he's going to confront Herod Antipas, And it does not go well. In fact, that's where we picked the story. So we pick up the story. Herod himself had given orders to have John arrested, and he had him bound and put in a prison. Prison? He did this because of Herodias, his brother Philip's. I just told you, his brother Philip's wife, whom he had married, which it's like, well, duh.
So why is John in prison? But John had been saying that to Herod. It's not lawful for you to have your brother's wife. And so Herodias, I mean, he wasn't really bothered by that, but his wife Herodias, she nurtured or she nursed a grudge against John and she wanted to kill him, but but she wasn't able to kill him because Herod he feared John and he protected John.
He knew he knew that he knew him to be a righteous and holy man, and he was. He was afraid of what might happen if he killed John. And so he just decided to put him in a prison. So John, Jesus's cousin, who got the whole Jesus movement started in the beginning. He's rotting in prison essentially for doing his job, for doing what God want him to do, for upholding the law of God.
Meanwhile, Jesus is out and about and he's preaching and he's healing and he's he's doing all sorts of miracles, and he's gone on with his ministry and seemingly he's forgotten John. He's helping Samaritans and Romans and tax collectors and lepers. He's healing demon possessed people and other total strangers. And his cousin is rotting in prison. And when John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds, not just the things that he was doing, but in relationship to the things that he wasn't doing specifically for him, when John heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples to ask him, are you the one?
Think about this. This is the one who told everybody, he's the one. Are you the one who's to come? Or should we expect someone else? John? He he's getting reports, and it seems like just about everybody who needs a miracle is getting one except him.
And even more troubling for me, more puzzling for me, more challenging for me. Maybe one of the more most challenging things I've faced in my faith journey is what Jesus does next, because it I've experienced it in my life.
Jesus's response is it's puzzling at best to me. I mean, he doesn't scold John with a with an answer like, hey, you've little faith or or, you know, rebuke him for it and he doesn't free him either. This is how Jesus replied. He said, he said to to his John's disciples. He said, go back and report to John what you hear and see, and he's going to tell him some things in a minute, some examples.
But before I get to that, isn't it true that sometimes we're a prison? We're in prison to what only we can hear and see? I mean, John's in prison, but he's not just in prison because of Herod. He's not just in prison to Herod. He's in prison to what he can hear and what he can see. And I've been in that same place myself.
All I can see and all I experience is the pain and the difficulty in the circumference right around me. And when that's all I can experience and that gets so close, it's hard for me to see outside of my immediate circumstances. And Jesus says, hey, I want you to go back to to John. I know the situation he's in.
I know the circumstances he's in, I know that he's in prison, and I know that he's questioning here's why don't you want I want you to go tell him. I want you to go tell him what you hear and see. I want you to tell him that the blind are receiving sight, the lame walk. Those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised.
And the good news is being proclaimed to the poor. Go tell John what's happening outside of the circumference around him. Now, this is counterintuitive, and honestly, it might even be insensitive for some of you. You hear this and you think that sounds offensive. But Jesus wanted John to see a bigger picture regarding the nature of his miracles. The nature of his deeds, the things he was doing.
He didn't want John to have a circumstantial faith. He didn't want John's faith to be dependent on the circumference. The circumstances that were right around him. And so he sends back this message and says, look up, look out, look at what's going on before you decide I'm not the one or I'm not one who can be trusted. I read a book years ago called The Reason for God by Tim Keller, and in this book he addresses this very issue related to Jesus's miracles.
And I love how he reframes the the necessary, part of Jesus's miracles or the necessary nature of Jesus's miracles for us. And this is what he said. He said, we modern people think of miracles as the suspension of the natural order which we talked about. It is it is that it's the suspension or the temporary suspension of of what we expect or what's natural.
But Jesus meant for them to be the restoration of the natural order. The Bible tells us that God did not originally make the world to have disease and hunger and death in it, Jesus, King Jesus, has come to redeem where it was wrong and heal the world where it was broken. His miracles are not just proofs that he has the power, but also a wonderful foretaste of what he's going to do with that power.
So that's my favorite part. Jesus is miracles are not just a challenge to our minds, but a promise to our hearts that the world we all want is coming. Jesus, say look. Look beyond your circumstances. Draw hope from what has happened, what is happening and what will happen outside of what you can currently hear and see.
There's more going on, and it's not. It's not because of John. Circumstances aren't important to Jesus, and it's not a reflection of Jesus's value for John. It's a matter of fact. The very next verse, look what Jesus says. He he, he says to after he sends John's disciples, the very next verse, he says to the other people that are around him, he says, truly I tell you, among those born of women, there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.
Your circumstances don't define how God feels about you or how God sees you. He sees you and he loves you, and he cares about you. And your circumstances. Don't define how he feels about you. After all, he said John was the goat. And that settles the debate. By the way, it's not Mike or Brian. It's. John. Okay, some of you will get that later.
Some will tell you about it, which when I think about the greatest, you know, Jesus saying, John's the greatest man he'd ever that ever lived. And, I know for some of you, you somebody comes to mind. And for me, when I think about the greatest man I ever knew is my dad. And when I was growing up, I idolized my dad.
I love my dad. He was a great man. He was. He was fun. He was present at home. I love how he loved my mom. And he prioritized our family, and I, it was so great. My dad was an athlete, growing up, and he loved athletics. He'd come to all of our sporting events and coach our teams and be involved,
And, in my junior year, the near the end of my junior year of high school, my dad started having some health problems and he was having some back problems, and he started losing weight. And, he went in and, the doctors were got real concern and they started doing a lot more tests. And we found out that my dad had, renal cell carcinoma, kidney cancer.
And it was late, and it was it was had spread through his body. And, he so all they had was some trial. They didn't have a lot of treatments at that time. They they went and did a lot of trials and, and traveled around, try to get the best care and treatment they could. But we didn't know what was going to happen.
And I remember one time, the elders from the church, from our church, they came to pray for my dad. And at one point the elders were praying for my dad. And one of the elders saw me sitting outside. I'm just watching what's going on. And he came over and sat down next to me and he said, hey, I can tell this is really hard for you and can can I pray with you?
Can I pray for you? And I said, yeah, sure, we can pray. And he said, I want you to know there's this promise in the scriptures and the promise this Jesus made this promise. And he and it says, if you'll if you'll pray in my name, whatever you pray in my name, if you'll ask for it, I'll give it to you.
And he said, so I want you to pray in Jesus name, which I'll just say, looking back, it was that was it a tear able interpretation of that scripture. He lifted it out of context. He did. And the thing was, is he had good intentions, but he lifted out of context. And that's not at all with that versus saying the versus.
It was. It's really about if you'll pray to accordance with, with, with the will of God in Jesus name. That's what that's what he's talking about. Read this right. But he was like, if you'll pray in Jesus name. And I took him at his word. In fact, that day and every day following, I prayed in Jesus name and he'd do a miracle.
And then he he'd heal my dad. And he didn't. And my dad died. I was praying for a miracle, and I didn't get mine. My dad died and a lot of my faith died with it. I began to doubt like John, but I doubt it. For years I was a prisoner. To what I could hear and what I could see.
And that was dominated by the pain I was experiencing that was right around me. And I know some of you have experienced that. I know some of you may be experiencing that right now. Some of you soon you're going to be in that place. Here's what I want you to know. This story is so important because John, Jesus sent John's disciples back to him, essentially saying this, look, don't let your circumstances keep you from seeing what's happening.
Don't let your circumstances define what's true about me. Let me enter into and define your circumstances for you to give you context. He starts. He says, look back, you look back. Remember all that's happening. Remember all that you experienced. Remember all the miraculous things that led you to belief to choose to follow, to choose to lead the way in the first place.
Look out. Look outside the circumference. It's right around you. Look at all the miracles that are happening. I know you're not getting the miracle you want right now, but God is still doing miracles around you. And after you look back and you look out now I want you to look up. And I want you to allow me to define your circumstances.
I want you to allow me to walk with you through your circumstance. I want you to allow me to do what I want to do according to my purposes, at my discretion, in your life, miracles have happened, miracles are still happening, and there are more miracles still to come. Don't lose hope in time. That's exactly how I gain perspective.
I encountered something, that helped me to look back. I had a friend, years later, I remember talking to you about how difficult this was for me, and I was still wrestling with my faith, and I, I was I was telling him that that I it's just it was a hard thing for me. I lost my dad.
I don't know that I've ever recovered. I don't know that I'll ever recover. I it's hard for me to trust God with big things in my life because he let me down when I was trusting him for a miracle. And I remember that friend said to me, man, I wish I had had a dad like that. He began to tell me about the tumultuous relationship that he was having with his dad, and the difficulty that it trade in his life, and that he was living with, and that he didn't even wish his dad was here right now.
It's something happened inside of me. I began to realize that God had blessed me with a really amazing dad. He was my hero, and I came to a place where I wouldn't trade the 17 years I had with my dad, for a lifetime with another dad. God had been really good to me. I came to faith through his influence.
Most everything I learned about mine, about being a dad, about being a husband, about being a man, about being a follower of Jesus. I learned in the formative years of my life from a from example I had right in front of me for 17 years. I remember thinking about God's past faithfulness and his blessing to our family and his grace and my salvation, and that reminded me he's good and he's faithful and he can be trusted.
I just needed to look back beyond the certain circumstances that I was in the middle of right now. Then I was given something, that I'd seen before, but my mom gave me an article that was written about my dad to help me to look outside,to look outside. The circumstances that were right around me. And when my dad was sick, somebody from the newspaper heard about it.
Our church was a large, prominent church in town, and my dad was the pastor of the church. And so she wanted to interview him. And my dad, amazingly, decided to take this interview with this reporter. But the the headline of the article was this right here. It was Fulton. Pastor Fulton was in the town we live in, Fulton pastor willing for illness to be used by God. And there was a piece of this article that I lifted out and I've carried with me, and I've gone back to a number of times throughout the years.
And and this is my dad said, this is before he passed away. This is this is when we weren't sure if he was going to get his miracle or not. We were praying for that. He was praying for that. He hadn't lost his will to live. He wasn't throwing in the towel. But he said this. He in the article she quoted him as saying this somehow God's got this marvelous plan, an ability to bring triumph out of tragedy.
God isn't in the business of making mistakes. While we don't always, logically have the ability to link tragedy and triumph or see how God brings good out of bad, I've seen it too many times in my life to deny it. What does it look like to go through a deplorable, difficult time and to be really at peace about it?
Not that I like it. Not to say I'm glad I have this disease, but a lot of people are going through their own crisis. It doesn't matter whether it's financial or family or business or emotional. The question is, can I live day in and day out with a sense of serenity and peace? And I said to God, whatever that looks like.
That's what I want to look like to people. I want people, regardless of their beliefs, to know the reality of a personal relationship with Jesus Christ and difficulties in the challenges and the stretching times of life. It makes all the difference in the world. What I believe about God and the personal ministry of God to me through Christ on a daily basis, that is my stamina.
That is what sustains me. Ultimately, that looking back and that looking out led me to look up. And I
And I finally decided to sincerely pursue an answer to my why God question.
It's hard to look up and to ask God to give me perspective surrounding my father's death, to help me understand how anything good could come through that, to understand what his purposes were in the world. And for me. And he did. Well, I don't have time to tell you about all of that today. I'll just say, if you're here today and maybe you're not even sure about God, you're not sure if God can be trusted, or you're not sure if God can be trusted in your circumstances.
You should do this. You should look up. You should look to your Heavenly Father, even if you're not sure there's a God out there. If you begin to pray to a God, you're not sure exists, you're going to start to see him show up in your life, I promise you. And here's what you need to know. The solution to your circumstances will not be found in the circumference around you.
It won't be, nor the strength to get through it. When you look up, what you're going to discover is God is speaking. Something I discovered when I looked up, I realized God is near and he cares, and he cares about me. And this looking back, looking out and looking up these things help me tremendously to shift my perspective, perspective, and God's decision not to grant my dad. Not to grant my family, not to grant me the miracle we were praying for.
I was disappointed that day. That early morning, my mom came and woke me up and told me that my father passed the night before. I didn't see it coming. I thought God was going to give us our miracle. I was disappointed, but you know who was it? My dad. His eyes open to the glory of heaven, a fullness of life he had never experienced before.
And I believe he heard the words, well done, my good and faithful servant. He experienced a miracle that day. His body was fully and finally healed forever. The miracle of his transition to heaven was far greater than the miracle of him being healed on earth. Back to John for a minute. He knew John's story, how it ended. He was eventually beheaded by Herod because of a stupid birthday request.
A teenage girl, her mom Herodias, told her to ask for John's head on a platter. And she got it. Jesus seemingly did nothing on behalf of the greatest man he knew. Jesus himself was eventually arrested, crucified because of a handful of religious leaders that were threatened by him. And God did nothing, seemingly, but in reality, he did everything.
Because when Jesus gave his life on that cross and paid the penalty for our sin and death once and for all, and then conquered the grave, what he made possible for us is the hope that one day everything will be made right. John maintained his faith. Jesus stayed the course. And from that small corner of the world, a movement that has resulted in the miracle of everlasting life for billions of people throughout history, for billions of people across the world now came into reality.
So when you feel like God's holding out on you, when you feel like you don't get the miracle or haven't yet gotten your miracle, it's my encouragement to you. Look back, look out, look up. God is not defined by just what you can hear and see in the small circumference around you. He cares about it. He cares about where you are.
But as you look back and you look out and you look up, he will meet you in that and you should hold on to the fact that your circumstances do not reflect God's power. They do not reflect his presence, and they do not reflect his feelings about you or what you're going through. He cares. He's with you. He loves you, and he will see you through.
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