I wonder if ever there was a sadder commentary than that written about Jesus' visit to His own hometown.

It says He could do no mighty work there. And He marveled because of their unbelief.

He marveled. He wondered. He was astonished at their unbelief.

This is the one who spent eternity in relationship to his father, who knows as of second nature, so to speak, the power of God available for need. It's inconceivable to him that people would not be prepared to lay hold of the power of God as it's available.

But that's what happened when he came to his own hometown. He marveled. They knew better.

Word of what he had been doing preceded him. His reputation was already being voiced abroad. And it says when he came back and taught on the Sabbath in the synagogue, people were buzzing. Where did this man get all this? What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are wrought by His hands. It's not that they didn't know, but it's that they didn't believe.

Scripture says He did lay His hands upon a few sick people and healed them.

That probably would be enough for most of us. We'd be delighted if Jesus would lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them.

But that wasn't enough for Him. From His point of view, that was a little thing, a minor thing. He wanted to do a mighty work. If healing a few sick people is a minor thing, what's a mighty work?

What's a mighty work of God?

Well, you read that when He visited Capernaum, they brought to Him all, underscore that word, all who were sick or possessed with demons. And the whole city was gathered about the door. And He cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. That's a mighty work. Think of Jesus coming to town and emptying the hospitals, emptying the nursing homes.

He healed all who were sick.

That's a mighty work.

Or perhaps it would involve the feeding of the 5,000. Once He fed 4,000, once He fed 5,000. And in both cases, that says we're only counting the men. That doesn't even count the women and the children. A few loaves of bread, a couple of fish. That's a mighty work.

You say our resources are so totally inadequate. Jesus says, give me what you have, however inadequate it seems. Watch me turn it into a banquet for a multitude. That's a mighty work.

Comes to a wedding. They run out of wine. He says, give me water. The most common everyday substance, bath water as a matter of fact. And he turns it into the best wine. They're astonished. They say most people serve the best first. And when people begin to get drunk, then they trot out the bad stuff.

You've saved the best till last. That's a mighty work. Give me bath water and let me turn it into the wine of rejoicing. We read a couple of weeks ago about Jesus stilling the storm. His own hand-picked apostles marvel. They say, who is this that even the wind and the rain obey Him? That's a mighty work. He stills a hurricane, a tempest.

Another time He walks on the surface of the Sea of Galilee.

These are some of the mighty works. And what you read between the lines is that Jesus wanted to do that sort of thing for His own family, for His own friends and neighbors. In His own hometown, He wanted to do mighty things.

But He couldn't. Because they didn't believe.

I don't understand that, frankly. I don't know why Almighty God limits Himself to the scope of our willingness to believe Him. But over and over we read in the pages of Scripture that He does precisely that. He's waiting for us to lay hold of His power by our faith.

I want you to notice something about the miracles of Jesus. They are never, never capricious. They're never arbitrary. They are never just for show. They're not at all like what you read about in Grimm's fairy tales, for instance. They're never merely for entertainment. They're not after dinner fare to titillate our fancy. The miracles of Jesus consistently manifest two traits about them. Number one, they are geared into the real needs of people who will trust Him.

Jesus makes available to those who would turn to Him the power of Almighty God. He meets their real needs. That's number one. And number two, in the process of doing so, He exhibits about Himself the very nature of God. He invites us to draw the conclusion that he is, in fact, God in the flesh. The miracles, in other words, point to who he is.

They point to his character as God incarnate. And that's deliberately so. In fact, the word miracle means sign. It's a sign of who he is. It's not sleight of hand. It's not entertainment. It's a sign of who He is at the same time that it's a matter of meeting people's needs.

We studied a while back, some of you may remember, the fact that Jesus at one point says the Son can do nothing but what He sees the Father doing. Whatever He does, that the Son does likewise. For instance, every year God sends rain and waters the ground. the plants soak up that moisture and translate it into fruit. One very common sort of fruit is grapes. And at the end of the season, men gather the grapes, press them, harvest the juice, allow it to ferment and make wine of it.

And if you watch that whole process very carefully, what you'd see is Almighty God changing water into wine. Only it went by so slowly that you might have missed the miracle. Until God himself steps onto the stage of human history and does the very same thing in the twinkling of an eye. The Son can do nothing but what he sees the Father doing. Notice that. As you read through the miracle stories, notice that in every single instance, what Jesus does in a moment of time is what God the Father has been doing all the time.

Only He does it on a different scale, He does it at a different speed, and He does it to meet a particular need. No one has ever been healed, ever, may I suggest to you, except by the power of God. And any good doctor will acknowledge that. All we can do is treat the externals, they say. It's God who does the healing.

Only in most cases, it takes a long while. There are treatments. There is medicine. There's cleaning out of wounds. There's binding up of broken bodies. And it takes time. But God did the healing. Only you might have missed the fact that it was a miracle. Until God himself steps onto the scene, lays his hands on the sick, and they recover.

Notice that. Jesus' miracles point to His identity with the Father, while at the same time they're meeting real human need. And yet, somehow, He has limited Himself to our belief.

Jesus Himself, Almighty God in the flesh, walking amongst us, came to his own hometown and could do no mighty works there because of their unbelief. I don't understand that. But we say, if I could only see it, I'd believe it. He says it's the other way around. Believe it and you'll begin to see it.

It's not a matter of seeing is believing. It's a matter of believing leads to seeing.

some of you may remember the story of my friend in college who went out one starry evening he looked up at the heavens and he said oh God if you're really there send a shooting star through the middle of the Big Dipper and immediately a blazing meteor went right across the middle of the Big Dipper and he said son of a gun what a coincidence

that's a true story it underscores the fact that seeing is not necessarily believing. You can see it and dismiss it if it doesn't fit your preconceptions. Seeing is not believing. But believing may lead to seeing. You remember the parable that Jesus told about the rich man and Lazarus, the poor beggar. The rich man never once used his riches to further the kingdom of God or to help those in trouble. When he dies, he goes to hell. And Lazarus, the poor beggar who has lived for God, goes directly to Abraham's bosom. The rich man then begs for a second chance.

And God says, I'm very sorry, there's no second chance. And so then he says, well, please at least send somebody to warn my brothers that they won't make the same botch of their lives that I've made. And Jesus' comment at the end of that parable is absolutely devastating. He says, if they do not believe Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.

If you don't believe it, it won't help to have a resurrection. Because you'll dismiss even that. And that's exactly what's happened across the last 2,000 years, isn't it? Overwhelming proof that God is who He claims to be, that Jesus Christ walked out of the tomb on Easter morning and overturned death, and yet those who would be skeptical will remain skeptical. They'll think up every possible explanation to dismiss that evidence, because it doesn't fit their preconceptions. Seeing is not believing.

A little parenthesis here. I really would urge you, it would be a tremendous boon to your faith to read some of the absolutely ludicrous attempts to explain away the resurrection. Don't be frightened of that. Don't be frightened of the Passover plot. You have to laugh at it. The scholarship is so poor. The bias is so broad that when you read enough of these accounts, You're driven, finally, if you have an open mind to say the resurrection is the only reasonable explanation of what really happened.

But those whose presuppositions are that it's a closed system, that there is no way that an almighty God could invade our world and do things extraordinarily, won't accept. Even if someone should rise from the dead, they won't be convinced, said Jesus.

What people might say, and you might even say, well, how do you expect me to believe before I see the evidence?

Let's define our terms. Belief used in this context is not a matter primarily of intellectual conviction.

It's a matter of the willingness to trust.

When it says, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved, you and your whole household, It's the willingness to trust Him. When it says, God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes on Him should not perish but have everlasting life. That's not a matter of believing that He exists. It's a matter of entrusting yourself to Him.

If I say to you, I believe in my wife, you understand perfectly well what I'm saying. I'm not telling you merely that she exists. I'm very glad she does. But that's not enough for me. I'm telling you that I trust her character. Ich trust her. Ich entrust my life to her. Ich entrust the raising of my children to her.

Ich entrust the caring of our home to her. Ich entrust most of my paycheck to her.

Das ist was ich mein Leben. Ich meine Leben ist das bedeutet, dass ich mein Leben in Her. Ich meine, ich meine, ich meine, Trusting Jesus Christ is exactly the same thing. James says, you believe in God? You do very well. Even the demons believe and shudder.

Not a matter of simply believing that He exists. Demons believe that. Saving faith is a matter of entrusting yourself to Him.

We have to be very clear about this. It is not a matter of there being no evidence.

It's a matter of choosing to trust the evidence of Christ over against any evidence to the contrary. It's a deliberate, volitional act. When a couple stands in front of me, as Jim and Dale did yesterday, and I ask them, Will you take this person for your husband, for your wife, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness or in health?

They are deliberately making an act of the will. I choose to trust the evidence of this person's character. And sometimes I ask a couple before a wedding, what if it's worse? instead of better? What if it's poorer instead of richer? What if it's sickness instead of health? Do you have any guarantee?

Answer, no.

I have no absolute guarantee. But I choose to believe the evidence of this person's character that even if the crunch comes, He or she will be there standing beside me, no matter how bad it gets. That's faith.

And that's exactly the kind of faith we're asked to put in the Lord Jesus Himself. Not as if there were no evidence, but choosing to follow the evidence of His character over against any contrary evidence whatsoever.

Abraham is 100. Sarah is 90. There is not a whole lot of evidence there to suggest that they ought to move closer to the grammar school.

But God says, I'm going to give you a son.

Abraham, which are you going to believe? The evidence of your poor, decrepit body was the evidence of God's promise. Do you see? Two kinds of evidence. Choose to trust. the evidence of God's promise. Goliath stands there nine and a half feet tall and David, the little shepherd boy, is too puny to even handle a normal size breastplate and buckler.

And Goliath roars, I'm going to feed you to the ravens.

But God has said, I'm going to deliver this roaring Philistine into your hand. Okay, David, which will you trust? Which will you trust? Jesus says, get up off your bed and walk. And the poor paralytic says, don't you understand my problem? I've been laying here 38 years. I can't.

And the evidence of his legs is, no way can he stand up and walk. But the evidence of Jesus Christ is, I have the power to heal you if you will believe me. Which one will you trust?

and he makes a choice and he rolls over onto those spindly little legs and suddenly power courses through them and he finds that he can not only stand he leaps and he dances and he runs which will you choose to believe?

may I give you a definition

faith is choosing to act on the evidence of Christ in spite of evidence to the contrary

Faith is choosing to act on the evidence of Christ in spite of evidence to the contrary.

Do you notice the phrase there? It says Jesus marveled because of their unbelief. Again, it's not as if they had no evidence. They had the evidence of all those reports, of all those healings, of all that release of power, that had preceded Him. But they chose not to believe. They took offense at Him. Perhaps it was a matter of familiarity breeding contempt.

They said, oh, it can't be. He grew up here. We know Him. We know His mother. We know His brothers. We know His sisters. He's just a carpenter's son. Nothing good can come out of Nazareth.

Let me ask you.

how many of us would say oh yes I believe that there could be a healing somewhere

sometime

but not to me who am I that I should receive such a special blessing oh God might heal somebody on the 700 club

God might heal in some Oral Roberts evangelistic campaign God might heal somewhere out there on the mission field maybe God healed back in the first century yes, I'm prepared to give intellectual assent to the possibility of healing but when you press the case could God heal me?

do you see that we're doing exactly the same thing? it's too close it's too familiar I can't believe it for myself for my own family for my own friends, for my church.

I can't believe that it would really happen here.

And yet it's our choice to believe that it can happen here. It's up to us to lay hold of God's power. I don't say this by means of a rebuke to anyone. I say this as an invitation and encouragement to all of us. I believe the witness of Scripture could not be clearer that God is looking for those to exercise faith to lay hold of Him for mighty things. And He'll wait until we do so. Let me make, in fact, three statements by way of summary.

Number one, the Lord is more anxious to demonstrate His power and to meet our need than we've ever dared to imagine. I believe that. I invite you to believe it with me. He is more anxious to demonstrate His power and meet our need than we have ever yet imagined. Let me give you some evidence. There are 25 specific times recorded in the New Testament when people came and asked Jesus for healings.

Obviously, there were many more than that, but there are 25 that are recorded. Do you know how many of those 25 times Jesus healed?

65.

There are 65 recorded, at least, some of them may overlap each other. There are at least 65 recorded instances of Jesus healing. Nearly three times as many. He's more anxious to heal than people are to ask Him for it. Every single one of those 25 times when people did ask, He healed.

And that doesn't even begin to deal with the endless number of passages like the one I read at the beginning where they brought all in a given town. How many is all?

Jesus is more anxious. It's not a matter of Him being stingy with His power. He wants to release it. dare to believe that this morning he wants to release his power the gospel of Mark ends with the words and these signs shall follow those who believe and it lists a whole variety of supernatural wonders one of which is they will lay their hands on the sick and the sick will recover it's not a matter of our having earned it we don't deserve it in the slightest way it's simply a matter of God's wanting to do this if we would but dare to believe him second statement I want us to be very clear that this is not a matter of turning faith into magic God forbid there are lots of other things happening

the fact that something is God's will doesn't necessarily mean that it will happen that may puzzle you let me put it this way God's will is that everybody be saved. God's will is that everybody go to heaven. But not everybody is going to heaven. Why? Because in addition to His will that all men be saved, He also wills that they have free choice.

Similarly, God's will is that people be healed. But there are other factors. Factors of unbelief. Factors of the complexity of the world that sometimes may complicate that situation. We're not reducing faith to magic.

But we're facing up to the fact that God encourages us to be much bolder than we've ever dared to be, to lay hold of His power to heal.

Just another parenthesis here. I think that we cut the very heart out of most prayers for healing by tacking on the end of it, nevertheless, not my will but thine. isn't that the way most of us usually pray and we think we're being very humble about it nevertheless not my will but thine what are we saying we're saying I'm not sure it's God's will to heal his will might be that this person suffer interminably and finally die well if that's your attitude you have just destroyed the prayer of faith unless you're absolutely convinced wants to heal, then you are destroying the prayer that you're trying to pray.

James says the prayer of faith will save the sick man, not the prayer of hope or vague aspiration, the prayer of faith. There is a time to say, nevertheless, not my will, but thine. But it's not in the area of healing. Let's be clear that it's God's will for people to be healed. If they're not, the problem is not with He may use their sickness, He may use their suffering to bring them a blessing, but that's not His highest and best will.

The evidence of the New Testament is absolutely consistent. Jesus healed every person that ever asked Him.

That leads directly into the third and final statement, which I've already alluded to,

that I think we can make the generalization that if we're not seeing God move in power, if we're not seeing mighty works if we're not seeing healings the problem is not with God the problem is with us and we need to help each other in this regard this is why we have corporate prayer this is why we have corporate worship this is why every Friday night at our prayer and praise service we give an invitation for people to come to the communion rail and ask God for healings.

And do you know, virtually every week, we're seeing Him do that. Come and let it build your faith. Three weeks ago, they brought a little baby. The doctors said, terminally ill. And we prayed. And the next week, the doctors reversed their verdict.

Lovely coincidence.

God wills that men be whole and healthy. And we need to believe Him for that. Let me read a number of scriptures. Watch for the pattern.

When Jesus saw the faith of the men who brought the paralytic, He said, be forgiven and be healed. When? When He saw their faith.

To the centurion who said, just say the word and My servant will be healed, Jesus replied, go. be it done for you as you have believed.

He asked two blind men, do you believe that I can heal you? And they said, yes, we believe. And he said, according to your faith, be it done to you. To the Syrophoenician woman with the hemorrhage, he said, oh woman, great is your faith. Do you remember the story? In the midst of a jostling crowd, she came and touched him.

She said, if only I could touch his garment. it. I'll be healed. She took the initiative to lay hold on him. He said, who touched me? And his disciples were astonished. He said, Lord, lots of people, they're pushing and shoving to get close to you. But only one out of that whole crowd laid hold of his power.

And he felt it. He said, it says, power went out of him. Who touched me?

And she confessed. It was she. And he said, oh woman, great is your faith. Be it done to you as you desire. To the father of the demoniac boy, he said, all things are possible to him who believes. To the parents of a dead girl, don't be afraid. Only believe.

Others were saying, it's too late, she's already dead. He said, it's not too late.

To the sisters of Lazarus, I am the resurrection and the life. Do you believe this?

to the apostles themselves.

Have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and cast into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, get the order. He says it first, and then he sees it.

he believes that what he says will come to pass it will be done for him therefore I tell you that whatever you ask in prayer believe that you receive it and you will

Jesus Christ walked down the aisle of this church this morning and stood here in front of us as he looked out into this congregation as He who knows the secrets of all our hearts looks into us, would He see a people daring to lay hold of Him for the expression and the release of His mighty power

or would He marvel at our unbelief?

Let us pray.