Jesus Christ is a miracle worker. The Bible testifies to this fact in no uncertain terms (Jn. 20:30:31) but did you realize that Jesus did not produce miracles just because of His identity as the Son of God? Jesus was anointed by the Spirit of God (Matt. 3:16) and after His anointing, mighty works began to flow. Jesus then boldly declared that the works that He did, we can do also (Jn. 14:12). So, what are the possibilities of doing the greater works of Jesus? What are the possibilities of this anointing?

John 20:1-8 (ESV)
1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;

• What did John, who was the quote unquote “other disciple” in the tomb with Peter, see that caused him to believe?
• Let’s start by looking at the Resurrection for a moment in connection with divine power.

John 11:25-26 (NKJV)
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. 26 And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?”

Possibility One: The Resurrection

• How many of you ever watched the show ‘Get Smart’?
• This question will date you.
• It ran for five years from 1965 to 1970.
• I remember watching this show with my parents as a young child.
• The show was a spoof on James Bond and secret agents.
• The secret agent in the show was named Maxwell Smart and he had one outstanding characteristic as a secret agent… he was the DUMBEST secret agent out there!
• He would get himself captured by the enemy all the time and then he would try and talk his way out of it.
• The conversation would go something like this.

Illustration: More from Maxwell Smart

I happen to know that at this very’ moment eight Coast Guard cutters are converging on this boat. Would you believe seven? Six? How about two cops in a rowboat?

At this very minute, 25 Control agents are converging on this building. Would you believe two squad cars and a motorcycle cop? How about a vicious street cleaner and a toothless police dog?

I once trained a girl to swim across the English Channel five times. Would you believe four times? Would you believe three times across the Mississippi? How about twice around the bathtub? Once around the bathtub?

In, a short while, General Crawford and a hundred of his crack paratroopers will come crashing into this landing. Would you believe J. Edgar Hoover and 10 of his G-men? How about Tarzan and a couple of apes? Bomba, the Jungle Boy?

At this very moment 100 highway patrolmen with Doberman pinschers are surrounding this entire area. Would you believe four deputies and a bloodhound? How about a Boy Scout with rabies?

• Maxwell Smart would keep asking these questions to find out ‘What would you believe?’
• How many questions do we need to ask to find out what you believe about the Resurrection?

John 20:1-8 (ESV)
1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. 2 So she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” 3 So Peter went out with the other disciple, and they were going toward the tomb. 4 Both of them were running together, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 And stooping to look in, he saw the linen cloths lying there, but he did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;

• What did John, who was the quote unquote “other disciple” in the tomb with Peter, see that caused him to believe?
• What he saw was something in particular with the Jewish method of embalming with spices.
• The Jewish method was copied from the Egyptians and carried forward from their days of as slaves under Pharaoh.
• This is how Jesus body was prepared for the tomb.

John 19:39–40 (ESV)
39 Nicodemus also, who earlier had come to Jesus by night, came bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds in weight. 40 So they took the body of Jesus and bound it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews.

DEFINITION: linen cloths/ὀθόνιον/othonion a piece or strip of cloth

• Note it was strips of cloth soaked in myrrh and aloes all of which combined to equal 75 lbs in weight.
• Meaning that the Shroud of Turin is a forgery (Freeman, 94) because the shroud is a single sheet of cloth and that is not what Jesus was wrapped in.
• Jesus body had been wrapped in this ‘soaked’ strips of cloth for three days.
• The mixture hardens into a cocoon like structure and then the linen cloth is laid upon the face.
• The face was the only part that was not wrapped in linen cloth.
• They would take a whole piece of cloth and lay it over the face.
• What did John see that caused him to believe?

John 19:39–40 (ESV)
6 Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7 and the face cloth, which had been on Jesus’ head, not lying with the linen cloths but folded up in a place by itself. 8 Then the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went in, and he saw and believed;

• What John saw was the empty cocoon with the linen cloth nicely folded!
• The empty cocoon is what caused John to believe because if the cloths had just been torn open and laid in a pile, the thought would have occurred ‘Someone stole His body’!
• But because the cocoon was there and face opening was empty and the linen was folded neatly, that was proof positive that Jesus has been raised from the dead.
• Here is the question that must be asked now.
• How did Jesus get out of the hardened cocoon?
• You remember when Lazarus was raised from the dead?
• Jesus said ‘Loose him and let him go.’
• Who loosed Jesus from His grave clothes?
• How did He get out of there?
• The following scripture incident in John’s gospel will shed light on how Jesus got out of the cocoon.

John 20:19 (ESV)
19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.”

• How did Jesus get into the room if the doors were locked?
• The same way He got out of the cocoon!
• He passed right through the walls; He passed right through the cocoon!
• Remember at this point Jesus has a glorified body!
• Glorified bodies can, apparently, pass through walls.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE RESURRECTION?

• Now, you may think that that is a silly question; of course every church going person believes in the Resurrection.
• No, they do not!
• There are main line churches and modern scholars that believe…

1. That the earliest Christian writer, Paul, did not believe in bodily resurrection, but held a ‘more spiritual’ view
2. That the earliest Christians believed, not in Jesus’ bodily resurrection, but that His ‘going to heaven’ was in some kind of other special capacity. They say, Jesus went to heaven alright but not bodily.
3. That the resurrection stories in the gospels are late inventions or fabrications
4. That such ‘seeings’ of Jesus, the Bible states that there were over 500 people that saw Him 1Cor. 15:5-6, were nothing more than the early Christians undergoing some kind of fantasy or hallucination.
5. That whatever happened to Jesus’ body (opinions differ as to whether it was even buried in the first place), it was not ‘resuscitated’, and was certainly not ‘raised from the dead’ in the sense that the gospel stories, read at face value, seem to require. (Wright, 7)

• Believing in the Resurrection is not a side issue.
• The Resurrection is the basis of salvation in God.

There is more evidence that Jesus rose from the dead than there is that Julius Caesar ever lived or that Alexander the Great died at the age of thirty-three. — Billy Graham (1918- )

• There were at least 500 witnesses that physically saw Him after He arose.
• The Easter bunny never rose again.

ILLUSTRATION: A group of four-year-olds were gathered in a Sunday school class in Chattanooga. Their enthusiastic teacher looked at the class and asked this question: “Does anyone know what today is?” A little four-year-old girl held up her finger and said, “Yes, today is Palm Sunday.” The teacher exclaimed, “That’s fantastic! That’s wonderful! Now does anyone know what next Sunday is?” The same little girl held up her finger and said, “Yes, next Sunday is Easter Sunday.” Once again the teacher said, “That’s fantastic! Now, does anyone know what makes next Sunday Easter?” The same little girl responded and said, “Yes, next Sunday is Easter because Jesus rose from the grave.” But before the teacher could congratulate her, she continued, “But if he sees his shadow, he has to go back in for seven weeks.”

• Sunday, as a day of the week, is a continual proclamation of the message of Easter: Christ is risen.
• Easter is God’s everlasting “Yes” to humanity’s most troubling question: “If a man dies, shall he live again?”
• The Gospels do not explain the Resurrection.
• In fact, it’s the other way around, the Resurrection explains the Gospels.
• Belief in the Resurrection is not side issue to the Christian faith; it is the issue; it is the Christian faith.
• It is essential to being born again
• You cannot be born again and not believe that Jesus rose from the dead.
• Romans 10:9 says it as plain as you can say it.

Rom. 10:9 (KJV)
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

• If you do not have faith in the resurrection, if you don’t believe it, you are dead in your sins!
• You are lost.
• You are unsaved
• You will not make heaven
• When you come to Jesus, it is you coming to a ‘real live’ person.
• You must come to Jesus believing that He lives.
• Mark it down, what a man accomplishes in life depends on what he believes.
• Christianity is a religion of the open tomb.
• Do you have faith that this open tomb is, in fact, an empty tomb?

ILLUSTRATION: If you don’t believe in the resurrection of the dead, you ought to be here five minutes before quitting time! — Sign in a San Francisco wholesale florist shop.

• The question is ‘What do you believe about the resurrection?
• People have all kinds of faith
• What kind of faith do you have?
• Do you have the have ‘I got to see a miracle’ kind of faith?

Miracles Will not Increase Faith.

John 12:37-38 (KJV)
37 But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: 38 That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?

• Seeing is not believing
• Here is another quote that’s worthy of notice.

Faith grows only in the dark. You’ve got to trust him when you can’t trace him. That’s faith. —  Lyell Rader

• The essence of Christianity is believing when you are in the dark.
• We walk by faith, not by sight.

2 Corinthians 5:7 (ESV)
7 for we walk by faith, not by sight.

• Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

Hebrews 11:1 (ESV)
1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

• The business of faith is to believe things that are out of sight.

ILLUSTRATION: An Arab chief tells a story of a spy who was captured and then sentenced to death by a general in the Persian army. This general had the strange custom of giving condemned criminals a choice between the firing squad and the big, black door. As the moment for execution drew near, the spy was brought to the Persian general, who asked the question, “What will it be: the firing squad or the big, black door?” The spy hesitated for a long time. It was a difficult decision. He chose the firing squad. Moments later shots rang out confirming his execution. The general turned to his aide and said, “They always prefer the known way to the unknown. It is characteristic of people to be afraid of the undefined. Yet, we gave him a choice.”
The aide said, “What lies beyond the big door?”
“Freedom,” replied the general. “I’ve known only a few brave enough to take it.”
Are you brave enough to believe in the unseen?

• Surely we must distance ourselves from some of the people mentioned in the gospels who did not believe.

John 12:37–38 (ESV)
37 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”

• Surely we are of the caliber of people that believe.
• We believe in the Resurrection of Jesus.
• We believe God’s power, God’s anointing, God’s glory, God’s Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead.
• And if we believe that, isn’t it just a short walk that gets us to the fact that this same miracle working power that raised Jesus up can be at work in our lives today.
• We are not cessation-ists.
• We believe that God’s power is available and at work today.
• We believe that miracles happen.
• Let’s talk about the miraculous or God’s power, or anointing, or glory, or the Spirit coming upon, but not in connection with healing.
• You do understand that there are more miracles than just healing miracles?

Possibility Two: Miracles Besides Healing

• Do you remember this verse in Acts?

Acts 10:38 (ESV)
38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

• Jesus went about doing good AND healing…
• The gospels record 19 individual cases of healing or the long side of AND.
• There are two sides of ‘AND’.
• There is the ‘healing’ side and there is the ‘doing good’ side
• Signs and wonders are part of the ‘doing good’ side of Acts 10:38.
• Now healing miracles can have a ‘sign’ or ‘wonder’ element to them.
• But for the sake of this discussion, let us just look at those ‘signs’ that would be classified as ‘doing good’ but fall on the short side of AND.
• So here are some miracles not connected to healing, that are scripturally considered ‘doing good’.

Turning water into wine – Jn. 2:9
Multiplying loaves and fish (5000) – Matt. 14:13-21;
Multiplying loaves and fish (4000) – Matt. 15:32
Paying taxes from a fishes mouth – Matt. 17:24
Catch of fish – Lk. 5:1-11
Catch of fish – John 21:1-14
Cursing the fig tree – Mk. 11:12-14, 20-23
Storm stilled – Mat. 8:23-27
Walking on the Sea – Mat. 14:22-33

• What are you doing here?
• Just trying to widen the playing field so that you can begin to expect more of the miraculous via the anointing.
• Aren’t there other supernatural displays of God’s power available for your life other than healing?
• You run into opportunities for the miraculous in everyday life.
• Catalog these miracles.
• Notice where, when, and how these miracles of Jesus took place.
• Notice how many of the miracles center on food.
• Notice how many of them deal with food?
• Water into wine, multiplying loaves and fish (twice), catch of fish (twice), cursing the fig tree.
• No wonder why Jesus said…

Matthew 6:25 (ESV)
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

• Why did Jesus say, ‘You, do not have to worry?’
• Is it not because that when you have exhausted the natural, you still have the supernatural to lean on?
• Open your mind to the possibilities of the anointing.
• Open your thinking to factor in ‘the power of God’ in your everyday life.
• When is the supernatural available?
• Is it not available in your everyday life?
• God is the God of ‘everyday’.
• He is not just the God of the big meeting.
• Is He not God when you are dealing with your taxes?
• Paying taxes, getting it out of a fishes mouth, was one of His miracles.
• Is it not when you are at a family gathering, a wedding like Jesus was?
• Is that not when He turned water into wine?
• The dunamis power of God is available in your everyday normal life; in the sometimes mundane flow of your existence.
• These signs occur in the normal flow of trying to answer life’s demands.
• You remember Elisha, who had the double portion of the anointing.

How many of Elisha’s miracles dealt with what Jesus told us not to worry about?

• Let’s take a look.

The Healing of Bad Water
2 Kings 2:19–22 (ESV)
19 Now the men of the city said to Elisha, “Behold, the situation of this city is pleasant, as my lord sees, but the water is bad, and the land is unfruitful.” 20 He said, “Bring me a new bowl, and put salt in it.” So they brought it to him. 21 Then he went to the spring of water and threw salt in it and said, “Thus says the LORD, I have healed this water; from now on neither death nor miscarriage shall come from it.” 22 So the water has been healed to this day, according to the word that Elisha spoke.

Healing Bad Food
2 Kings 4:38–41 (ESV)
38 And Elisha came again to Gilgal when there was a famine in the land. And as the sons of the prophets were sitting before him, he said to his servant, “Set on the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.” 39 One of them went out into the field to gather herbs, and found a wild vine and gathered from it his lap full of wild gourds, and came and cut them up into the pot of stew, not knowing what they were. 40 And they poured out some for the men to eat. But while they were eating of the stew, they cried out, “O man of God, there is death in the pot!” And they could not eat it. 41 He said, “Then bring flour.” And he threw it into the pot and said, “Pour some out for the men, that they may eat.” And there was no harm in the pot.

Multiplying of Good Food
2 Kings 4:42–44 (ESV)
42 A man came from Baal-shalishah, bringing the man of God bread of the firstfruits, twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain in his sack. And Elisha said, “Give to the men, that they may eat.” 43 But his servant said, “How can I set this before a hundred men?” So he repeated, “Give them to the men, that they may eat, for thus says the Lord, ‘They shall eat and have some left.’ ” 44 So he set it before them. And they ate and had some left, according to the word of the Lord.

Recovering a Lost Axe While Building a Home
2 Kings 6:1–7 (ESV)
1 Now the sons of the prophets said to Elisha, “See, the place where we dwell under your charge is too small for us. 2 Let us go to the Jordan and each of us get there a log, and let us make a place for us to dwell there.” And he answered, “Go.” 3 Then one of them said, “Be pleased to go with your servants.” And he answered, “I will go.” 4 So he went with them. And when they came to the Jordan, they cut down trees. 5 But as one was felling a log, his axe head fell into the water, and he cried out, “Alas, my master! It was borrowed.” 6 Then the man of God said, “Where did it fall?” When he showed him the place, he cut off a stick and threw it in there and made the iron float. 7 And he said, “Take it up.” So he reached out his hand and took it.

• Miracles can happen in everyday life.
• Displays of God’s power are not confined to church alone.
• We need to broaden our expectations.
• And you can believe because you have already believed for the greatest manifestation ever, the Resurrection of Jesus.
• Remember again this statement “What a man accomplishes in life depends on what he believes.”
• Do you believe in the resurrection?
• Do you believe in signs?
• Are you believing for signs and wonders?

Possibility Three: Miracles You Might Have Missed from the Life of Jesus.

Luke 4:24–28 (ESV)
24 And he said, “Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his hometown. 25 But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heavens were shut up three years and six months, and a great famine came over all the land, 26 and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. 27 And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” 28 When they heard these things, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath.

• Here is the miracle.

Luke 4:29–30 (ESV)
29 And they rose up and drove him out of the town and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. 30 But passing through their midst, he went away.

• The crowd physically grabbed Jesus and dragged Him to the edge of the cliff where they were going to throw Him off.
• As they attempted to throw Jesus off the cliff and He passed right through them all!
• How supernatural is that?
• The crowd could not grab Him at the edge of the cliff; they were unable to lay a hand on Him.
• He passed right through their midst.
• How did He do this?
• Luke 4:18 tells you.

Luke 4:18, 21–23 (ESV)
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

• The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Jesus said.
• Open your mind to the possibilities of the power of God.
• The Bible says the Spirit of the Lord is upon you – Acts 1:8
• Do you think that anointing upon Him had anything to do with this relatively unknown miracle?
• Jesus cannot proclaim the good news if He is at the bottom of the cliff dashed to pieces.
• Here is another miraculous event in Jesus life in a similar vein.

John 6:16–21 (ESV)
16 When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, 17 got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. 18 The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. 19 When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were frightened. 20 But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” 21 Then they were glad to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going.

Did you read that ‘immediately the boat was at the land to which they were going?’

• They were in the middle of the sea one minute and they were at land the next, instantly.
• What happened?
• They were transported.
• The entire boat was immediately at land in an instant of time.
• Transported, do you hear that?
• Open your mind to the miraculous.
• “Well that’s just Jesus’, you might be tempted to think.
• Oh really, you think this happened just being Jesus is the Son of God, do you?
• The problem with that line of thinking is that this same thing happened in the book of Acts to someone not named Jesus.

Acts 8:26, 29–31, 36, 39–40 (ESV)
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert place.
29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go over and join this chariot.” 30 So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” 31 And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
36 And as they were going along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. 40 But Philip found himself at Azotus, and as he passed through he preached the gospel to all the towns until he came to Caesarea.

• Phillip ministers to the Ethiopian eunuch and leads him to Jesus and all of a sudden finds himself approximately 21 miles away.
• The Spirit of God carried him away and notice the language… he found himself in Azotus.
• This very thing happened in the ministry of John G. Lake.
• What have we been trying to do here?
• We have been endeavoring to get you to look at yourself differently than you have been.

Call to Action

Most of the time we look at ourselves as people that are desperate for a miracle instead of people that produce them. We look at ourselves as people that need healing instead of ministers of healing. We go to miracle services looking for signs. Be a producer of miracles instead of a consumer of them. How about allowing the Lord to produce some miracles through you in your everyday normal life?

 Question: Do you expect miracles in your everyday life? Please share how God worked a miracle in your life in the comments section below.

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References

Freeman, James M., and Harold J. Chadwick. 1998. “Manners & Customs of the Bible.” In. North Brunswick, NJ: Bridge: Logos Publishers.
Wright, N. T. 2003. “The Resurrection of the Son of God. Christian Origins and the Question of God.” In. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.