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Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear brothers and sisters, the text is the gospel reading, especially the last four verses. You may be seated.
So from the Holy Scriptures, we know that Jesus has performed some remarkable miracles. Walking on water. No, we don’t see that every day unless the lake is frozen, right? Feeding the 5,000, which the number was 5,000 men. When you start adding the women and the children, Jesus probably fed closer to 15,000 to 20,000 people. That is a large number of people. Raising the dead, one of his biggest and most amazing miracles.
But now that Jesus has died and has risen again and has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty… What miracle does Jesus perform today that would be classified as his greatest miracle? I mean, Jesus still does miracles, correct? Yes. What would be his greatest miracle that he performs? In fact, he performs it on a regular basis.
Before I give you that answer, think about what Jesus said in this morning’s text. What? When he said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will he do because I’m going to the Father.” To what works is Jesus referring? That we would not only do the works that Jesus did, but even do greater works than Jesus did? Greater than walking on water? Greater than feeding 5,000? Greater than raising the dead?
Jesus even adds, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do,” giving you a blank check. Again, he says, “If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.” So what is this great miracle that surpasses everything else that Jesus still does on a regular basis? Hmm. You just saw it at the very beginning of this service. Luke, who was as dead to God as any one of us, became a living being in God’s sight and a believer in Jesus Christ.
You raise the dead like Lazarus, the widow’s son. What happens to Lazarus? He still has to do what eventually? Die. What does the widow’s son have to do eventually? Die. Luke has just been born again and will never die. Though he physically dies, he will live forever in heaven. Changing water into wine, you run out of wine; you’ve got to have more. Feeding 5,000, once you eat that meal, your belly is full, but then it gets empty again.
Everything, every miracle other than bringing someone to faith has a beginning and an end. Consider all of Jesus’ miracles that he performed in this world. They all had a beginning and they all had an end. The only miracle that Jesus still performs, and it befuddles you and the world, is the miracle of bringing someone from darkness into light, from lack of faith into faith, and you just saw it, and nothing seemed to change, did it? There wasn’t a cool little nimbus or holy thing that went around Luke’s head, but Luke became a holy one of God.
As his parents raise him, they will question whether he really was baptized because if he’s supposed to be God’s child, he sure is not acting like it. And then his grandparents will remind them that they too, the parents, were like that when they were little. Apples don’t fall far from the trees, do they not?
So this greatest work of Jesus is creating the faith in you. This greatest work of Jesus is not only creating it but strengthening and sustaining it throughout your life as you go through all of those stages, as your parents called them. And you still go through stages long after you leave your parents’ house and are married, don’t you? Ask your spouse. He or she will tell you, “Yes, honey, you still go through stages.”
And the miracle is also that God not only strengthens and sustains you through those stages of life, God, out of His great grace, allows you to die in this faith and takes you home to be with Him in heaven. Is there any miracle greater than that? No. That is the greatest miracle. And you know through whom He does these miracles? Sinful clay pots. You. You.
You see, whether you realized it or not, your parents prayed for you when you were still in your mama’s womb. In fact, they prayed before they ever got pregnant with you because you and I know there’s a lot of men and women out there who have been trying for years and never were able to get pregnant. Did God not answer their prayer? So you were an answer to prayer. Not only were you an answer to that prayer, your parents prayed for you that you would be a believer. And God answered that prayer.
He uses people, but I’m about to tell you of people who have been praying for you that you don’t even know. And you and I, with our little self-centered, narcissistic minds as sinners, do not think in terms of being bigger or broader than what we see. Christians around the world have been praying for you every single day, and you aren’t even aware of it.
And the blessings and answers to those prayers that Christians around the world have been praying, though they don’t know your name, and that have been answered, though you don’t always see it, God has done because God has given that promise, “Whatever you ask in my name I shall do.” Even if it is as general as this statement that you have prayed since you were a little boy or a little girl: “Thy kingdom come.” Amen.
The prayer that God would extend His kingdom to other people that you don’t even know. You are praying for people being brought to faith around the world, and you don’t even know. And they are praying for you. They prayed for Luke before Luke was ever conceived, and they knew not Luke. That’s how God works. It’s so big compared to our little myopic point of view in the world.
So when Jesus says, “Greater works than these will you do,” here is what He meant. He meant when Jesus preached for those three years, were there thousands of believers? No. Were there several hundred of those believers? No. In fact, the text in Acts talks about there being a little over a hundred before Pentecost comes. Not too effective was the Son of God and the Son of Man as He preached, did He?
And did Jesus preach to the people in this continent of North America, or South America for that matter? Did he go and preach to the people in Asia, or in Africa, or in Europe? No. He preached to a small number of people geographically. And yet, what has God accomplished through His people since? The message being proclaimed to not just hundreds, but to thousands. And the message not just being centered in the Middle East or in Southwest Asia, but rather around the world, and it all is in answer to if only that one petition: “Thy kingdom come.”
You have been given a great work and a great power. Now that does not mean that simply because you’ve been given that great power and that great work, every single time you pray, it always happens in a perceptible way. See, when you start considering all the prayers that you have prayed over your life, the vast majority of them, mind you, the vast majority of them, God never gave you a clear, definitive answer, did He? So why did you believe? Because that’s faith, isn’t it? Faith cries out, “Lord, I believe. Hear my prayer.”
Most of your prayers are answered in an imperceptible or non-definable manner or thing. And why? Because if it didn’t, if there was always a direct correlation from which you could point to, then what is the need for faith? That’s merely an incantation, like witchcraft, isn’t it? Say the right words, bam. You know, a little bit of Harry Potter-ish magic kind of a thing.
God has given you words to speak that are faith-based. That are faith-based. Where you may not even say it in the right way, like casting a spell, but you say it in faith, God hears and answers. That’s Jesus’ promise. And the prayers for things that you have prayed, you know He wants you to ask Him for things in this world, material things. You know He wants you to ask for things that have to do with earthly existence. You know He wants you to ask for things that you need for a time.
But He wants you to grow beyond the perceptible. To the things that aren’t so perceptible, to the spiritual things, the heavenly things, the, more importantly, eternal things. No different than Jesus did a lot of earthly miracles, but the greatest miracle of all is the eternal spiritual miracle of creating your faith, of strengthening and sustaining your faith, and then by His grace allowing you to die in that faith to take you to be with Him in heaven.
That’s his greatest gift. And he has laid the power to pray about that gift at your feet.
I would love to be able to take all the glory and honor for my children’s faith, and I can’t. The only thing I can take honor and glory for is I know why they’re a sinner. And I know why they sassed me. And I know why they disobeyed me. Because they came from me. But why are they a believer? I am so thankful to God that He heard prayers of people that I don’t even know.
People who pray, “Thy kingdom come,” in churches that are made of huts rather than glorious buildings. In people whose stomachs are hungry still when they come to church because they haven’t had anything to eat, but they pray in faith the Lord’s Prayer. Those prayers are why my children are believers, not because of me. That’s how big the church is. It’s not American. It’s not European. It’s the entire world where God has laid His seed to bear in answer to others’ prayers.
We pray then. We pray about the creation of faith in other people. When you hear the prayers that we will pray together and we kneel for prayer, it’s not merely a bunch of words that are eloquent and we need to do in order to check a block. They’re prayers, and they’re general prayers because we don’t even know the people for whom we’re praying. Oh, we know some people, yes. They’re called general prayers because they’re for other people.
That’s what the church does. Prays for people that we don’t even know, that faith would be given them, that they would be strengthened in their tragedies and in their trials, and that they would move through them still believing that God could allow them to die in that faith when they die. That’s what we pray.
Kind of big, isn’t it? But it’s not so big that God did not say this very specifically to you. “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater works than these will He do because I’m going to the Father. Whatever you ask in My name, whatever you ask in My name, I will do it, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And if you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.”
So go ahead. Ask, and He will answer. In the name of Jesus, Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
