INVIONCIBLE CHURCH 8-18-24

Invincible Church Sermon Notes
8/18/2024
Enemies of God Pt 4 – John 14:11-14
Miracles of God- Part 1
Enemies of God do not believe in God, so it stands to reason that they certainly don’t love Him! Some non-believers will even say, “If God will show me a miracle, I’ll believe He’s real!” But, God will not be mocked, and God will only be tested with His permission.
Galatians 6:7 NIV - 7 Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows!
Today, it is easy for True Followers of Jesus to see all the depraved, disgusting, and perverted actions of the pagan enemies of God! There are a whole lot of real-life stories about pagan people who achieved some kind of worldly fame, then decided to intentionally and publicly mock God, and they suffered horrific consequences because of it!
We also see “professing Christians” who may actually be saved, or “lost people” who, even though they aren’t saved, live lives of high moral values. However, both groups either subtly or unintentionally mock God for self-serving reasons! Either way, God will not be mocked!
When I was in seminary, I learned about a preacher in the 1800s named Charles G. Finney. He wrote this about professing believers, preachers, and pastors who mock God:
"To mock God is to pretend to love and serve Him when we do not; to act falsely; to be insincere and hypocritical in our professions, pretending to obey, love, serve, and worship Him when we do not. Mocking God grieves the Holy Spirit and sears the conscience, and thus the bands of sin become stronger and stronger. The heart becomes gradually hardened by such a process!"
Testing God by asking for miracles to realize personal gain or favor is what leads believers to mock God. It is how Satan tried to trick Jesus into requiring God to perform a miracle in the wilderness, and Satan still tries to get us to test God today by praying for miracles solely for personal gain!
That’s why miracles aren’t the foundation for loving God unconditionally. Even God’s chosen people saw and experienced miracles all the time, yet they still doubted His presence, power, and majesty! Their attitude demonstrated to the world that they did not love God unconditionally.
God doesn’t perform miracles just to prove Himself to the world. He performs miracles to test the unconditional love, faith, trust, and obedience of His Church and people! It is okay to pray for miracles, but the main goal is to glorify God through the miracle.
God doesn’t just want us to believe in Him; He wants us to love Him—not just for what He can do for us, but to love Him unconditionally! To love Him simply because we really do love Him! If we love Him, we will do what He says. That is why God’s enemies hate us so much!
John 14:11-14 NIV - 11 Believe me when I say that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves. 12 Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father. 13 And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it!
Part of the message in this passage is that we don’t have to prove to God that we love Him unconditionally. He already knows if we will or if we won’t! He also knows the exact point where we start loving Him. The real challenge is proving to ourselves that we love God unconditionally.
We will know that we do when we’re content in every circumstance and situation, whether good or bad, and we’re ready, willing, able, and looking forward to every opportunity that God gives us to contend for the faith! Now, God can and does use all kinds of people to get His work done in His perfect timing, as He deems fit and necessary!
But to become an eager, select, and useful ambassador, warrior, servant, and saint for Jesus, who is willing to go wherever He leads, doesn’t just happen overnight! It’s a continual process of equipping, training, and real-life experience. It takes desire, endurance, and persistence!
It’s called sanctification or discipleship! When God guides us to this path, and we decide to stay on it by following Jesus, He will allow us and use us to experience and encounter Him through miracles that will blow our minds!
Let me testify that there is nothing like God allowing you to know that He has used you to accomplish His purposes for a specific situation! We are going to spend the rest of our time hearing about current-day, firsthand miracles of God! This is not intended to be self-serving in any way!
It’s intended to inspire and motivate anybody who hears it to realize that God wants to use all of us all the time to do the work of His Son Jesus, no matter what our background happens to be! So, it just needs to be heard, and all the glory goes to God!
A little bit about my background for those who do not know: I was born in Birmingham, AL, and raised in a Christian family, five of us—parents, brother, sister—in a 900 sq ft house in a neighborhood. My dad was a machinist in a cast iron pipe plant, and my mother’s family were farmers in Tennessee. There was not any clergy or vocational ministers on either side of the family! My goal never included the possibility of becoming a pastor! So, I’m just a redneck rube from Alabama! I say all that to emphasize that God will use anybody to do His work, especially if you are willing!
My journey included summers on the farm in early years, college football, labor for brick masons and steel hangers, parts warehouse employee, employee for a multi-billion-dollar trucking company, small business owner in a high-turn revenue industry—all of which naturally led to full-time ministry at age 46!
Now, here’s just part of the spiritual journey:
1. Continual prayer for years [Miracle stories of equipping]:
See the Invincible Church online Facebook recording for the full first portion of Charlie’s testimony and we will pick back up with the remainder of the 3 points for this sermon next week