signs and wonders

And who of you has seen God act in your life?

These pains were chronic, they had been going on for two years. The doctors knew the cause, but there was nothing they could do. This time was really challenging for me. Many have prayed and today I am completely pain free. God did a miracle.

It was just an economic crisis, the company was doing badly. We were informed at an early stage that none of us would be taken on, which was unusual, because such a dual study program is also an investment for a company. My 4 fellow students went crazy and applied across Germany. I didn’t have time for that because we got married between the written and oral final exams, were on our honeymoon and had the strong impression that God wanted us to stay where we were.

A week before the end of my studies, I got a call from the human resources department that they had a job offer for me. So I went there on Fridays, both sides should think about it over the weekend, on Monday I was accepted and started working during the week without the works council agreeing and I signing a contract because everything happened so quickly.

The job suited me perfectly and I was the first of the 5 of us to get a job, even though I hadn’t applied anywhere.

That too was a miracle of God for me.

He comes over to ours of course with his. And so people experience His supernatural actions in their lives. And because we believe that he still does that today, that’s why after this sermon, before we celebrate communion, let’s also pray during the worship time for people who say I need a miracle of God in my life.

Today we celebrate Pentecost, when God Himself miraculously came through His Holy Spirit to dwell in believers. We have seen the opposition the early Christians faced, how the church overcame that opposition, and how God used and acted through people so that the good news eventually reached Rome, the center of the world of that time.

And on this way we kept encountering two things that we therefore want to take out again and look at more closely today and next week, because we didn’t want to go into them every time in our sermons, namely that God spoke to people, that’s what it’s about it next week, and that God has acted upon men by signs and wonders.

who may be very ill. But that is only one form of miracles. It’s about more. Every one of us keeps getting to places in our lives where we don’t know what to do, where our body may not work as it should, where we get into dead ends in relation to relationships and don’t know how to get out of it, where it’s financially difficult where we need inner healing, where things happen to our children where we say we need a miracle of God, God’s work in our lives.

I looked through the Acts of the Apostles and just include you in a selection of verses, and these are by no means all:

What shaped the life of Christians was the doctrine in which the apostles taught them, their cohesion in mutual love and helpfulness, the Lord’s supper and prayer. Everyone in Jerusalem was in a deep awe of God, and numerous miracles and many extraordinary things were done through the apostles.

The community experiences signs and wonders in its midst, i.e. things that could only be explained with the direct work of God, such as healing miracles.

Acts 3 tells of a lame man who has never walked in his life. He lies in front of the temple and begs for money. And then Peter comes along and he sees this beggar lying there and he says:

Acts 3,6  Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

And the lame man gets up and starts walking. And everyone was amazed, because of course they knew the lame man. The signs and wonders got around in the area and Luke reports in Acts 5, 14-16 :

Imagine that:

The people from the surrounding villages come and bring the sick there, find out where Peter is walking and lay the sick on the street so that at least Peter’s shadow falls on them and they get well. As a theologian, one has difficulties with such passages because they are very difficult to classify and explain.

But maybe we don’t have to, because God is supernatural. That means that sometimes it simply goes beyond our limits, our thoughts of: this is the right way, this is how it would be appropriate, this is how I would do it. He is simply God and we are left in awe at how He acts.

In Acts 9 we read how the church’s greatest persecutor, Saul, came to faith because Jesus met him miraculously. That too is a miracle.

And then Luke reports how a woman becomes ill: Tabita.

Tabita is someone who has done a lot of good, and eventually she dies. Peter is called and he saw what is possible with Jesus and he prays for Tabitha and Tabitha rises from the dead. And of course this news spread like wildfire and many believed it.

We are later told how an angel frees Peter from a high-security prison. They just march out there, all the doors are open, no guards in sight.

And when Paul goes on a missionary journey, we finally see signs and wonders happening again and again:

Acts 14:3 : Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony unto the word of his grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

• miracles of healing
• Miracle of provision: the feeding of the 5000
• Miracles of deliverance: Egypt, Paul in prison
• Affecting nature: Parting of the Red Sea, dryness and rain at Elijah, Balaam’s donkey speaking, calming of the storm, water to wine
• demon exorcism
• raising from the dead

Miracles are signs that point beyond themselves. They never happen for their own sake. They are not the focus, but are intended to confirm Jesus and his disciples.

They should point to Jesus, they should glorify him. Because he is the one who works the miracles, who has the power and the opportunity to do so, and without him we would not be praying for miracles at all.

In the Acts of the Apostles and also in many Open Doors reports today, we read that there was a miracle at the beginning and that people became aware of God as a result, and experienced that He was real compared to many other things they had previously tried and can really help, and that they then start to find out more about Jesus and entrust their lives to him.

We see with Jesus and Paul that miracles bring with them the danger that people simply want to be sensationalized and run after miracles without questioning, and that there is also the danger that people do not worship God but the person through whom he may be performed miracles and when that happened to Paul, he immediately stopped the people and pointed them to the one behind this miracle, Jesus himself:

»Dear people, what are you doing there? We’re only human – humans like you! And with the good news that we bring you, we are actually asking you to turn away from all these gods that are not gods at all. Turn to the living God, the God who created the heavens, the earth and the sea, the whole universe and everything in it! Acts 14:14-15

God sees us humans, he sees what we need, and if it’s a miracle, then he does it out of love for us.

The magician Simon spoken of in Acts saw the miracles and wanted the Holy Spirit as power to do business with. And Paul rebukes him.

When we pray for miracles it is out of love and in love and when a miracle happens it is of course wow that God uses us but it should make him great and not us.

Some say these biblical accounts are nice stories, but that’s not true at all, miracles don’t exist.

Others say the miracles were specific to when Jesus lived and then helped spread the good news of Jesus, but today there are no miracles.

dr Craig Keener theologian and commentator on Acts stumbled upon all the many miracles there during his study of Acts. And he asked himself: do miracles really exist? Even today?

And so he began collecting and verifying miracle accounts, and he writes in his book Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts:

“Everywhere I looked I found accounts of miracles, one of which was supernatural

Explanation seemed more logical than natural deductions. I soon had a flood of examples:

• Lens opacities and goiters that were instantly and visibly healed.
• Paralyzed who could suddenly walk.
• Multiple sclerosis, completely healed.
• Broken bones that suddenly grew together.
• hear deaf.
• blind see.
• Burn scars disappear.
• Massive bleeding is stopped, kidney failure is cured.
• Rheumatoid arthritis and osteoporosis – gone.
• I have reports from all over the world – from China, Mozambique, the Philippines, Nigeria, Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Indonesia, South Korea and other countries.
• Numerous, independent witnesses of impeccable reputation, including doctors.
• Names, dates, in many cases medical documentation.
• There is even a peer-reviewed study that confirms the healing of pigeons.

The time factor is usually the most dramatic part: instantaneous results, immediately after prayer to Jesus. Many of these phenomena are inexplicable without divine intervention. There are always miracles, sings Katja Ebstein, today and tomorrow they can happen.

Because we have a living God who is still working supernaturally in this world today.

A church that says prayers that ask for more than what we can do ourselves. And we pray these prayers because God loves and because He is a God of mercy and because He keeps dealing with people and is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Take a look at how the first church prayed:

Acts 4:29-30 : 29 And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness they may speak thy word, 30 By stretching forth thine hand to heal; and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

A missionary returning to his western homeland from a poor country where he had witnessed many miracles said: “The more affluent and educated we are, the more likely it is that we will find the power of prayer through our own wisdom and replace our services. That’s the allure of wealth: it makes us less dependent on God. We think we have everything under control.”

So let’s start trusting God and asking for His supernatural work, not just today but anytime. In the first church it was a normal part of church life, nobody was looked at for a prayer like that.

For others of us, this issue may be a little more difficult because you desire a miracle in your life or you needed a miracle and it didn’t come as you hoped and prayed for.

Someone close to you may have died, an illness hasn’t been cured, addiction hasn’t been cured, parents have broken up anyway, and then there are these questions that arise:

Jesus, why didn’t you do it, why didn’t you act like you could. jesus where have you been

These questions are not easy for us. In general, we feel very differently with this topic of „signs and wonders“, whether I’m sitting here and saying, yes, I think it’s great that we are also praying for signs and wonders, or whether you are praying for someone yourself or are here and saying: Me need a miracle today for me or someone else.

The greater goal is Jesus himself and not the miracle. It’s not about the miracle first.

Jesus is to be glorified and worshiped through everything, whether he performs a miracle or not. He is worthy of all worship even without a sign or miracle in our lives because He is God and for what He did that time on the cross. We want to be close to him, with or without miracles, and even if we don’t understand everything. He says his thoughts are higher than ours. In the end we want to trust God that he is good and leads us on a good path.

Even in the Acts of the Apostles it is not the case that a miracle happens all the time. Many things happen, but this report also covers a number of years and many different people. And in the Acts of the Apostles, too, people are faced with the question of why God sometimes acts one way or another, when, for example, Peter is released from prison and James has to die there and is not released, God does not work a miracle.

It is the story where a paralytic man is dragged to Jesus by his four closest friends.

The four friends heard what Jesus did and they decide to bring their friend to Jesus. But Jesus is in a house and so surrounded by people that they can’t get in.

So they have this crazy idea to go on the house and dig up the roof.

At that time they were flat roofs made of beams with twigs and a thick layer of clay. And then they let their friend down on his mat in front of Jesus.

A bit crazy and somehow also cool how they stand up for their boyfriend. And what does Jesus say when he sees this man lying in front of him?

Mark 2 : 5 When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.

We read in the Bible that our biggest problem is our guilt, where we owe each other and owe God, and we see that our world and our lives are full of this guilt separating us from God and Jesus came to pay for our debt on the cross precisely because he loves us. And so he offers us this forgiveness of sins as a gift and we can live in friendship with God again.

We’ll celebrate that right away and we’ll think about it in the Lord’s Supper, what Jesus did for us and how much he loves us for doing it. And that’s true whether He works a miracle or not in our lives.

The Lord’s Supper can remind us of this love of God and he would like to speak to you today, where you might say that I would have wished for a miracle and where was Jesus in this situation?

We humans could not have crossed the gap to God on our own. And so we are also given eternal life in God’s presence after this life. Jesus speaks to this man and the Pharisees, the pious of the time say: how can he.

This is blasphemy. Only God himself can and must do that.

Only then does Jesus say so that they will understand who he is:

What is easier to say: your sins are forgiven or get up, take your mat and go? So that you may see who I am and also have authority to do so, I say to you: Get up, take your mat and go!

This is not a problem for Jesus. It is also no problem for Jesus to perform a miracle in your life.

But whether with or without: The much greater miracle and what everyone needs from us in their lives is that Jesus forgives our sins and enables peace with God and that’s what he’s offering you today.

Sometimes we suffer from the circumstances in our world, but we can know that in the eternal world there will be no more suffering and pain with God, that at the latest then everything will be whole.

But this story is also a beautiful picture of a church, a community that brings each other and their friends who are in need to Jesus. Because he’s the only one who can really help.

And so Jesus invites us to keep praying courageous prayers for those around us and to trust him to act supernaturally.

That’s exactly what we want to do now. We invite you to stand up to the next songs.

And anyone who says I wish for God’s action in my life in a situation, who perhaps also needs a miracle, or who would like to claim this forgiveness of his guilt, is welcome to do so during the next songs, with which we want to give glory to God , come to the back where there are people praying with and for you.

Amen