So – question – do you believe in signs, wonders and miracles? Not just 2000 odd years ago in the Bible – I mean today, here, now … for you and for me?

Signs, wonders and miracles, wow what a subject to be talking about. As we chug a lug on through our lives it’s not something we think an awful lot about is it? The supernatural power of God intervening in the natural lives that we lead. Well we don’t think too much about it that is until we’re desperate for a miracle, until some crisis comes along. Maybe it’s a health scare, cancer, a heart attack, an accident, some other terrible illness and then we go to God in absolute desperation, almost as a last resort asking for a miracle.

But you see I’m not sure that that’s exactly how God wants us to think of miracles. I for one believe that God is still doing amazing things today and yes miracles can be the exception but sometimes I don’t think we’re expectant enough, matter of fact enough, prepared enough to go to God in the normal course of business, right in the ordinary mundane lives that we lead and ask Him to intervene in a miraculous way.

So over these next few weeks we’re going to be exploring eight miracles, the eight signs as the Apostle John calls them that are recorded in John’s Gospel. Here they are as a bit of a heads up. The first one was when Jesus turned water into wine at the Canaanite wedding, then it was the healing of the royal official a nobleman’s son, the healing of a paralytic, the feeding of the five thousand, then there’s the whole walking on water thing that Jesus did, healing a man born blind, raising Lazarus from the dead and then finally the multitude of fishes.

Eight signs, signs that point to the supernatural power of Jesus. And that’s the thing, John in his Gospel calls them signs because they are signs, a sign points at something and these signs authenticate who Jesus is, who He claimed to be, the very Son of the one true living God. In fact Jesus makes exactly that point in John’s Gospel chapter 5, verse 36, this is what He says:

‘But the testimony that I have is greater than that of John for the works that the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I’m doing bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.’

I don’t know about you but when I first became a Christian almost twenty years ago now I was pretty sceptical of this whole signs, wonders and miracles thing. We’ve all seen those telly evangelists on TV, they hype the audience, they prance around the stage, they lay their hands on people and push them over so hard you wonder whether instead of being healed the person just got whip-lash.

Have you seen that stuff? My reaction is to cringe from that, my reaction is to disbelieve that God would ever work through that sort of crass snake oil showmanship. That’s how I feel when I see this stuff. Maybe you react differently, maybe it’s because we Aussies are naturally sceptical or perhaps I don’t have enough faith, I don’t know but it just doesn’t work for me. It doesn’t work for a lot of other people either.

I remember years ago when I was sitting in a final year ministry class doing my ministry degree, just half a dozen or so students and one lecturer and we were chatting about signs and wonders and miracles and one of my fellow students asked the lecturer, a wise old man, in fact he was the president of the Bible College, the head of theology. They asked him about one particular telly evangelist, very well-known, the sort of super flamboyant and over the top end of the scale, the student asked ‘do you think that God uses this guy to heal people and to perform miracles?’

I thought it was a really good question. The wise old lecturer paused for a while, he cocked his head to the side and then a small smile emerged of his face indicating that he’d stumbled across a piece of wisdom to answer this somewhat perplexing and difficult question. This is what he said:

‘I have two parts to my answer so hear me out. Do I think that God uses that guy to heal people? Yeah I do. Absolutely I do but if I were God would I use him to heal people? Not on your life.’

I thought it was a very good answer and the answer finds its roots if you will in what Jesus said about Himself, let’s have another listen.

‘For the works of the Father has given me to accomplish, the very works that I’m doing, bear witness about me that the Father has sent me.’

So the whole point of these so-called signs, the wonders and the miracles are to point to the existence of this God who is ready and willing and able to intervene supernaturally in our lives. To suspend the natural order and to do miraculous things. The point is not as in the case of the telly evangelist to point to the authenticity of the showman but to point to Jesus. That’s why we cringe when we see that stuff because it’s not what Jesus intended. Does God still use that in power and might sometimes? Sure He does but miracles are meant to bring God the glory not us, make sense?

So that’s the first thing about miracles, the second thing for today is our level of expectation. Now I’m not suggesting for one moment that we should expect a miracle in every situation, that somehow because we believe in Jesus we get an easy ride. That’s not at all what Jesus promised in fact quite the opposite, He said to His disciples:

‘In this world you will have tribulations but be of good cheer for I have overcome the world.’ John chapter 16, verse 33.

But on the other hand Jesus makes it clear that He expects us to expect miracles from Him. He expects us to put our trust in Him and our faith in Him and to an extent we don’t do that. I believe we miss out on the supernatural power of God.

Do you remember the first time Jesus visited His home town of Nazareth just after He’d begun His public ministry? Have a listen Mark chapter 6 beginning at verse 1:

Jesus went away from there and came to his hometown and his disciples followed him and on the Sabbath he began to teach in the Synagogue and many who heard him they were astonished saying, ‘where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom that’s been given to him. How are such mighty works down by his hand? Is this not the carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon and aren’t all his sisters here with us too?’

And they took offence to him and Jesus said to them, ‘a prophet is not without honour except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household’. And he could do no mighty work there except that he lay his hands on a few sick people and healed them and he marvelled because of their unbelief.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want Jesus to marvel at my unbelief. The thing that caught His fellow Nazarenes was the fact that He was familiar. Remember that Jesus, Joseph and Mary’s son, the carpenter’s apprentice who grew up here in scummy old Nazareth, who does He think He is?

Because they were so immersed in the natural they couldn’t lay hold of the supernatural. They couldn’t come to grips with the miracles being done in the midst of the mundane. Now I think that’s often the case with us too. Look around your home, your work place, your boring little routine, day after day. Come on do you expect Jesus to show up in that place and do something miraculous for you? Hmm, no I thought not. Most of us simply don’t expect miracles amidst the mundane.

When our faith doesn’t reach out to Jesus in a plain and simple expectancy that He is in this place it’s going to be just like Nazareth. Let these words ring in your ears:

He could do no mighty works there and so he marvelled at their unbelief.

I guess the point I’m trying to make getting ready for us to look at these eight signs and wonders and miracles that John records in his Gospel is this, on the one hand Jesus doesn’t want us to be out there in some outrageous showmanship that points to us not to Him, He’s not looking for some super spiritual swami to serve Him. On the other hand neither is He going to intervene all too often with His supernatural power if we simply don’t expect Him to, if we deny His power.

The Bible talks about people who hold to the outward form of Godliness, going through all the religious rituals and motions and showing up to Church and playing the game but at the same time denying the power of God, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 4 to 6 and it says this about those people:

That we should keep away from them and have nothing to do with them.

So as we head off on the journey tomorrow looking at the miracles of Jesus it’s this Biblical balance that I want us to keep in mind.

Okay – so the Jesus we read about in the Bible was into miracles. Okay. Fine. But His first public miracle, would you really expect Him to go for turning water into wine? I mean … couldn’t He have found something just a bit more appropriate?

Okay, signs, wonders and miracles, they’re in the Bible. Are they myths? Are they fables? Are they allegories? That’s what some people think. Are they historical events that happened way back when, a few thousand years ago or more and that’s it or is God still in the business of performing miracles today? Suspending in the natural order? Allowing the supernatural to break into the natural to do things that completely defy nature, completely defy our understanding.

What do you think? Here’s what I think. If my Bible, God’s love letter, God’s living Word says that Jesus and the Apostles and others actually performed miracles, healing the sick, feeding the thousands, walking on water, if that’s what God’s Word says then that’s what I’m going to believe. And there’s something else about God’s Word, something that it doesn’t say.

It doesn’t say that signs, wonders and miracles ceased at any point and so I’m believing that God is still in control, that God still brings all things together for good for those who love Him and for those called according to His purpose and still every now and then He disrupts the natural order of things with a supernatural, sovereign, powerful, loving intervention that you and I would call a miracle.

I’ve seen too many people prayed for and healed not to believe that. I’ve seen God intervene in situations that seem totally impossible after I or others had prayed far too many times to write all those things off as coincidences. Combine God’s Word and what I’ve seen with my own eyes and I can’t help but come to the conclusion that miracles are real and that God is still in the business of doing them from time to time when it suits His purposes.

And the first miracle in John’s Gospel, the one that we’re going to look at today is one such miracle. It has to fit in the category of something that suits God’s purposes because nothing else explains it, it’s such a weird miracle. Let’s have a listen as I read this from John chapter 2, verses 1 to 11:

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus was also invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘they have no wine’ and Jesus said to her, ‘woman what has that to do with me, my hour hasn’t yet come?’ His mother said to the servants, ‘just do whatever he tells you’

Now there were six stone jars there for the Jewish rites of purification each holding twenty to thirty gallons, Jesus said to the servants ‘fill the jars with water’ and so they filled them up to the brim and he said to them, ‘now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast’, so they took it.

When the master of the feast tasted the water which has now become wine he didn’t know where it had come from although the servants who had drawn the water knew. The master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘everyone serves the good wine first and when people are drunk freely then the poor wine but you’ve kept the good wine until now.

This the first on his signs Jesus did in Cana in Galilee and it manifested his glory. His disciples believed in him. After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples and they stayed there for a few days.

Hey it’s totally weird this one isn’t it? I mean healing the blind, the sick, the lame, I get that, that makes sense, even feeding the five thousand people who were out there somewhere in the middle of nowhere listening to Jesus, sure I get that. But turning water into wine because someone’s planning wasn’t good enough to make sure there was enough grog at the party? Really, the first public miracle of the supposed Son of the living God, God Himself on the planet, what’s that got to say about God?

Well the first thing it tells me is that God is into helping us with real world problems. This was a real world problem that the groomsman was facing here, I mean we’re talking serious embarrassment. Weddings went on for days back then in the first century and when a father had a daughter, when she was first-born he would put down a cask of wine in the cellar and each year thereafter another cask for her birthday so by the time she was married in her mid to late teens he’d have some really good mature old wine, some newer wine and some of the really fresh stuff which wasn’t quite as good.

That’s what the steward was referring to about drinking the best wine first and leaving the younger wine until people were slightly inebriated. Now Jesus had no real intention here of doing anything until his mother Mary gives Him a gentle dig in the ribs. I love that, the Son of God aged around thirty years old still does what His mother tells Him to do. There’s a bit of a lesson in that alone for some people.

So the wedding runs out of wine, our edgy radical saviour when according to the stewards own assessment a good many of the people had already had a good deal too much to drink, Jesus gets up, He looks around, okay what’s available for this miracle? Well over here there are these huge stone jars, six of them each one holding twenty to thirty gallons, hey that’s a hundred and twenty to a hundred and eighty gallons or like five hundred and fifty to eight hundred litres of water. I don’t know how big this wedding was but that’s a huge amount of water and it’s a HUGE amount of wine.

And without doing anything much, just commanding the servants to fill the jars up to the brim, Jesus through the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit turns the water into wine and not just any wine, the very best wine. So what’s going on here? Well a few things. There was a practical need and Jesus met the need. Okay that’s what He did back then but how many weddings have you been to recently when they’re run out of wine and someone prayed and God did that sort of a miracle? No, no, me neither.

So there must be something else going on here that speaks into our situation, into your life, into my life. Well as it turns out there is, there are two other things. The first is what Jesus uses to create the wine and what the wine symbolises. He uses the religious symbols of the day, the ritual purification water.

Of course the Old Testament commanded people to purify themselves and certain purification rights were prescribed but by now, by this time people were taking that a bit far, they were turning God’s laws into religious rituals. So Jesus grabs the symbols of those religious rituals and transforms them into a symbol of God’s abundant blessing which is wine.

Through this miracle God’s saying something powerful, the old is about to pass away and the new is about to come. That’s why this is Jesus very first miracle. Old rule based, law based religion is about to go out the door and it’s about to be replaced by something much better. The abundant grace and blessing that only comes through Jesus. See that’s the megaphone message behind this miracle and it’s a message that rings down through the centuries to you and me here and now.

The miracle of the transformation of our lives, when we believe in Jesus, is the end of our judgement under God’s law and the beginning of sweet, pure, beautiful and yes intoxicating grace in Jesus Christ. Let that message ring loud and clear and pure and true in your heart.

The transformation of our lives through the power of grace isn’t some theory lesson, it’s real, it’s alive and it’s totally miraculous. And the other thing, the second thing that’s going on here is that God brings glory to Himself. Listen again the people’s reactions when they saw the miracle:

This the first of his signs Jesus did at Cana in Galilee and manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him.

God’s miracles always brings God the glory. The reason John calls them signs is because they point to the authentic power and love of God in Jesus Christ. My friend God is still doing some miracles now. If only we’d go to Him, in the midst of our very real, very practical needs and ask Him. Haven’t ever received a miracle yet perhaps that’s because you haven’t asked Him yet with the sort of expectancy that Jesus calls faith.

So … your child lies sick, close to dying it seems. What do you do back in the first century, when nothing that medicine can offer could possibly heal your child? Well … you go ask Jesus of course, don’t you?

Most of us have a strained relationship with miracles. On the one hand God doesn’t always seem to show up when we ask Him to. I know that with all the people listening to this message around the world today there are going to be some who’ve had a child die despite the fact that they’ve cried out to God for healing, I totally get that and for those who have travelled that road I simply can’t imagine the pain and the anguish that you felt.

And yet God by His sovereign grace and love chooses the miracle healing of a child to speak of His power and grace and love as the second sign in the Gospel of John which points to the authenticity of Jesus. So that’s one tension that we experience, the reality that the miracles that we read about in the Bible don’t always seem to show up in our lives when we need them to and when we want them to.

The second tension is this, we’ve all seen those telly evangelists prancing around the stage with huge audiences on our TV screens and they yell and they shout and they make outrageous claims, it’s like a performance. And these so-called evangelists who by the way sometimes drive Rolls Royce’s, have their own jets and live in mansions, claim healings in Jesus name, Jesus name, hallelujah and you’re kind of sitting there watching this on TV or perhaps you’ve been to one of those meetings and you’ve thought to yourself, ‘come on, that’s not how it works right?’

So we struggle sometimes with what we see about miracles and we often want to sweep the whole idea of miracles under the carpet and ignore them because it’s just too hard. That’s where many people, most people in fact are on the subject of signs, wonders and miracles. Then you read this, Jesus second sign in the Book of John:

So Jesus came again to Cana in Galilee where he had made the water into wine and at Capernaum there was a Royal Official whose son was ill. When this man heard that Jesus had come from Judea to Galilee he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son for he was at the point of death.

So Jesus said to him, ‘unless you people see signs and wonders you will not believe’ but the Official just said to him, ‘sir come down before my child dies’. Jesus said to him, ‘go your son will live’ and the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way. As he was going down his servants met him and told him that his son was recovering so he asked them the hour when he began to get better.

They said to him, ‘Sir yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him’ and the father knew that that was the very hour when Jesus had said to him, ‘your son will live’ and he himself believed and all his household. This was the second sign that Jesus did when he had come from Judea to Galilee.

Now earlier in the week we saw how easy it is to deny the power of God, like the people in Jesus own hometown Nazareth. We sometimes don’t expect miracles amidst the mundane realities of our lives, the place where you live, where you’ve grown up, where you work. I mean look around, do you really expect Jesus to show up and do some miracles in those places and yet here was this nobleman, a man of position and power, so desperate that he was prepared to humble himself even humiliating himself in front of the crowd by racing to Jesus and begging that He comes and heals his son.

He was a Royal Official. Jesus, whilst He was pulling crowds, whilst He kind of had, I don’t know, unofficial rock star status, He in the Jewish social pecking order, in the scheme of things was a nobody. He wasn’t a member of the Sanhedrin, the ruling religious body, He hadn’t gone to have His credentials stamped by the religious hierarchy in Jerusalem, He was from Nazareth, ugh, does anything good come out of Nazareth?

And yet He’d been doing these amazing miracles and this father because he was a father as well as a Royal Official, he was at his wit’s end. The child was about to die, he hears that this Jesus is around, the Jesus they say has been healing people. Desperation drove him to come to Jesus and he didn’t just ask he begged. That’s the sense of the original Greek word translated here into ask, he cast himself completely on the mercy and the power of Jesus in front of everybody else.

Big call. Something that sometimes we’re not prepared to do either because we’re too ashamed to go up for an altar call at Church or to ask someone to pray with us or to let people know that we’re completely at the end of our tether and we’re relying on Jesus to do the miraculous because we can’t.

All too often we want to appear like we have it all together, we don’t need any help. Well can I tell you, none of us has it all together and none of us live lives that don’t need the supernatural power of God to break into our natural boring little world from time to time?

So this man of position and status casts himself at the feet of Jesus and how, how does Jesus respond? Jesus takes this as an opportunity for some teaching for the crowds, so Jesus said to him ‘unless you people see signs and wonders you won’t believe’. Hang on I’ll just put myself in this guy’s shoes, that is not exactly the response I’m looking for.

But Jesus was making a point. See some people won’t believe in Jesus no matter what. Another time a bunch of religious leaders came to Him and they demanded a sign from Him, He called them a faithless and perverse generation and said no sign will be given to you.

That’s an important lesson for you and me to learn, that’s an important lesson when someone we love is dying and God by His sovereign will chooses not to heal them because in the lost and fallen world in which we live we all get sick and unless Jesus returns beforehand we’re all going to die.

I know one young man who goes to a Church not far from me who said, ‘hey unless there are signs and miracles and wonders at Church every week, you know what God isn’t in that place.’ Well you know that’s not what Jesus is saying here, in fact you read say the Book of Acts and you imagine it was wall to wall miracles going on when in fact that Book chronicles the first twenty or so years of the fledgling Church and those miracles it talks about are spread over two decades and across much of the then known world right?

So Jesus is putting this whole signs and wonders and miracles thing into perspective here and saying in effect, ‘yeah sure, these signs do point to me, they do speak of my authenticity, that I am who I say I am but they’re not the be all and the end all and they shouldn’t be the thing on which your faith hangs’. It’s a great bit of teaching wouldn’t you agree?

But where does that leave the Nobleman, the Royal Official begging Jesus to come quickly and heal his son? Well he doesn’t seem to be phased by this at all, he just focuses on Jesus and again he says:

‘Sir come down before my child dies.’

And then Jesus speaks that healing out through His lips and as we read the child was healed but not in the way the man had hoped. He wanted the physical presence of Jesus at his place in Capernaum. Jesus on the other hand spoke healing by the power of His Word.

How would you and I have reacted? No, no Jesus, you have to come on down to my place and lay hands on him and do whatever it is you do. It’s not how this man reacted, no. Instead he took Jesus at His word, he believed and you know the rest of the story, the boy was healed.

Question, will you take Jesus at His word? Will you listen to His powerful Word today and simply believe? Sometimes He doesn’t show up because we’re asking Him something that isn’t part of His plan and you know what, fair enough. As much as it may hurt God is God and He gets to decide that and inevitably it works out for the best

But sometimes, sometimes He doesn’t show up because we don’t expect Him to because we don’t humble ourselves to ask because we don’t admit that we need Jesus help in public because we don’t go to Jesus and whatever else might be going on around us ask Him for a miracle.

Have you ever needed a miracle? A powerful, supernatural, miraculous intervention from God? And when you were in need, did Jesus actually show up?

Have ever been in a place where the money’s run out, or the food’s run out or your energy’s run out. Whatever it is … it’s run out. And you think to yourself, could Jesus ever show up in this place? Would He ever do a miracle for me?

Some years ago I was listening to a man who founded a large Christian radio network in the US. He’s not directly involved in it anymore but it’s one of the big ones, hundreds of stations. These days it looks hugely successful and it is but as he was talking he took me back to the early days when he started his first radio station.

They were humble beginnings, the man, his wife and their family put everything on the line, they didn’t yet have many supporters, things were incredibly tight. One day it came to the point where they didn’t have enough money and they didn’t have any food in the house. The kids were coming home from school and he and his wife didn’t know what they were going to do and how they were going to feed their children.

Imagine, you put it all on the line for Jesus and He leaves you in this situation. As a husband and father myself I so empathised because we guys, we’re kind of programmed to be the providers and protectors of our families. Not being able to feed them is devastating.

His eyes became misty as he told us the story and mine became misty too as I listened. So what did he do, he and his wife? They sat down in despair on the kitchen floor and prayed and prayed and prayed. Presently there was a knock on the front door, he went to answer it, it was someone from their Church who had just felt to bring over some food for them for dinner. God answered their prayer, He knew what He was doing.

Today on the program I want to take a look at the third sign that Jesus performed which is recorded in the Apostle John’s account in his Gospel, the feeding of the five thousand. Let’s take a look, John chapter 6 beginning at verse 1:

After this Jesus went away to the other side of the Sea of Galilee which is the Sea of Tiberias and a large crowd was following him because they had seen the signs and the wonders that he was doing with the sick. Jesus went up on a mountain and here he sat down with his disciples.

Now the Passover, the Feast of the Jews was at hand. Lifting up his eyes then and seeing the large crowd that was coming towards him Jesus said to Philip, ‘where are we going to buy bread so that these people might eat?’ He said this to test him for he himself knew what he was going to do.

Philip answered, ‘two hundred denarii worth of bread would not be enough for each one of them to get a little.’ One of his disciples Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother said to him, ‘there’s a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish but what are they for so many?

Jesus said, ‘have the people sit down’. Now there was much grass in the place so the men sat down, about five thousand in number. Jesus then took the loaves and when he had given thanks he distributed them to those who were seated, so also the fish, as much as they wanted.

And when they’d eaten their fill he told his disciples, ‘go and gather the left over fragments so that nothing may be lost.’ So they gathered them up and filled twelve baskets with fragments from the five barley loaves left by those who had eaten. When the people saw the sign that he had done they said, ‘this is indeed the prophet who is come into the world’.

What an awesome miracle or sign as John calls it. Signs point at something and this one points directly at the power, the truth, the authenticity of Jesus, the one who came to usher in not a worldly kingdom but the kingdom of heaven. Here was a great ministry need, the Gospel was being proclaimed, thousands were following Jesus and now all of a sudden they were in the middle of nowhere and they had no food.

The disciples as you and I so often do looked at what they had in their hands, which was precious little. Jesus however had different plans because he had a totally different perspective on the situation with His disciples.

Watchman Nee was a Chinese evangelist who was martyred for his faith and Gospel work in the 1970’s. This is what he wrote about this perspective, this expectation issue in relation to this sign, the feeding of the five thousand in a booklet that he published entitled Twelve Baskets Full. This is what Watchman Nee says:

What do we mean when we talk about God’s blessing? We mean divine activity that’s not based on human activity. We mean a work of God that is not based on our work. The blessing of God is not something we can earn by our efforts, it’s not something we can buy with our money, see one penny should always procure one penny’s worth but if without our one penny God gives us ten thousand penny’s worth, that is His blessing.

His blessing makes our calculations futile because it leaves us without any basis on which to calculate. When five small loaves provide nourishment for five thousand people and leaves a surplus that fills twelve baskets that is God’s blessing. So many of us instead of looking to the Lord to bless the loaves are looking at the loaves in our hands.

Our one hope in the face of today’s immense need is that He’ll perform a miracle and that He will do it by taking the bread into His hands and blessing it. When the Lord in His goodness brings us to a totally new position where we recognise the paramount importance of His blessing then the way will be open for Him to work.

Here’s the point that Watchman Nee is making as I understand it, we labour away and labour away and labour away doing God’s work we think in His name without the appropriate expectation of God’s blessing on our work. In other words we do it in our own strength wondering all the time why is this such hard work? Why isn’t it just a little bit easier? Not imagining at any point that Gods supernatural power is a complete game changer.

Jesus didn’t have to go through some long-winded prayer, He was close to His Dad in heaven, so immersed in His power that He just stepped out and did it in the power of God and it was a complete game changer.

The power of this story, in fact the whole point doesn’t lie in how much food Jesus’ miracle produced, it lies in the twelve baskets that was left over. The message is more than enough, much more than enough and that message flies fully in the face of the little that they had at their disposal in the beginning.

What the disciples hadn’t reckoned on was the powerful blessing of God through Jesus Christ but let me ask you this question then, what was it that unlocked the power of this miracle? Jesus was ready, He had the power, He had the will but what was the key. It was the little boy who offered up all he had to be blessed by the Lord. That was the key.

He could have kept it to himself, he could have hoarded it and hidden it but he gave it to the Lord ungrudgingly, willingly, sacrificially and the Lord blessed it and multiplied it and brought glory to Jesus.

That man I was telling you about earlier his name is Dick Jenkins the founder of the KLOVE network in the US. There are three really big Christian radio networks in America, Moody Broadcasting Network, Salem and KLOVE. He was that little boy sitting there with his wife that day on the kitchen floor in that day of small beginnings. He’d put everything on the line and he’d offered it all up, the Lord blessed it and multiplied it and still today KLOVE is one of the three big radio networks impacting millions of people each day with the love of Christ.

You and I too, we are that little boy. When we find ourselves between a rock and a hard place, when everything’s run out, our money, our food, our resources, our friends, our energy, everything, that place right there is the place not to hang on to the little that we have left but to offer it up to God with a willing heart just like that little boy did and He will take it and multiply it, that’s what we mean by the blessing of God:

For unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil for he gives sleep to his beloved. (Psalm 127, verses 1 and 2).

The powerful, miracle-working blessing of God.