1 Corinthians 12:9-10 - Part C

So, when God enacts a miracle, that's all He's doing is taking and superseding His laws by His power with another law known only to Him.

It's humanly impossible, but it's divinely simple. You trust the Holy Spirit with the spiritual gifts He gives you. Right now, we want to tell you about a resource that will encourage you to be a part of cultivating a more loving church than ever before. The United States fought the devastating civil war to overcome a deeply dividing issue. As followers of Jesus and people who represent His love, we can help one another deal with this topic today.

Here's Skip Heitzig and Tony Clark. Speak to white evangelical pastors about how in churches we can create spaces for black and brown voices to be heard in a loving atmosphere, in a concerned atmosphere. This is the church's finest moment because racism is a sin.

It's a sin in the heart. So now it's our job to begin to guide them and to have a biblical mindset and also having sympathy and empathy for those who are trying to live out this Christianity and their skin may be a little bit darker than yours. Cultivate the empathy that comes from gaining a biblical perspective on racism. Get your copy of this conversation between pastors Skip and Tony when you give $20 or more today. We'll also send you Pastor Skip's booklet, The Church and Racism.

Call 800-922-1888 or give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer. Now we're in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 as we join Skip Heitzig for today's teaching. Jesus promised that miracles of healing would follow as signs the ministry of the disciples, right? He said, go into all the world, preach the gospel to every creature and these signs will follow those who believe they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. So Jesus promised that signs and wonders and signs of healing, miracles of healing would follow the disciples and they did. We go through the book of Acts. There's about 30 miracles in the book of Acts. Again, Acts chapter 6, I mentioned Stephen. Signs and wonders were done among the people by Stephen. In Acts chapter 9, Peter the apostle preaches the gospel.

A woman named Tabitha Dorcas dies. Peter goes to her bedside, prays for her. She gets raised up so it's a resurrection but a healing miracle you could say. Then Paul the apostle, another one. There are several instances but let me just tell you about Ephesus in Acts chapter 19. It says while Paul was in Ephesus that unusual miracles happened through the life of Paul the apostle. So that they could take handkerchiefs or sweat bands or cloaks that he had that touched his body and they could be taken from him and laid on sick people and they would recover and evil spirits would leave them. So signs and wonders were following the believers.

Gifts of healing. In Acts chapter 1, I know I'm kind of bouncing all over the place but this might help. The book of Acts begins by saying, the former account which I wrote to you, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up.

Right? That's how it begins. Those are Luke's words. So I wrote, he's saying, the gospel of Luke to show you what Jesus began both to do and to teach. Then he begins Acts, the former account that I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began to do and to teach until the day he was taken up through which he promised the Holy Spirit to his disciples. Then, now that Jesus is ascended into heaven, the disciples take on that mantle of sharing the truth and when they share the truth validating that with certain miraculous signs and especially healing. So Jesus began to do it.

He continued to do it in the book of Acts and I would say this, he continues to do it today because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Several years ago, when I was doing radiology and I was looking at things very critically, I was in an accident. It wasn't a car accident. It was, I'll confess it, it was a skateboard accident. There weren't skate parks in those days so we looked for swimming pools and swimming pools can be treacherous, can be dangerous.

I discovered that. I wasn't a great skateboarder so that only proved that I wasn't a great skateboarder. After dropping down into the pool and taking a bad slip and I hurt my shoulder, I didn't know what it was, I went in to my friends in the x-ray department and had a doctor look at it and he said, you have an acromioclavicular separation. He showed me my shoulder on one side which was closed and the one on the bad side which was subluxed, it was pulled apart. He goes, you see the difference?

You have an acromioclavicular problem so you just have to put a sling on it and let it heal. I went home that day and I was living in a garage, I know this sounds really weird, but I was at that time living in a garage for five bucks a month in Orange County, California and saving money so I could get a real house. The guy that I was renting from, he and his wife lived in the apartment, his name was Jack, Jack Stevens, he's now in heaven, but I remember Jack sitting back and I'm telling him the story and I'm in my sling and he goes, hey, let's pray for you.

I go, okay, whatever. I said, you can pray for me, but I know what I have, I have a acromiocast separation, pray for me, but God can do anything, but I'm thinking he probably won't do it, so I didn't have any faith, trust me, but I did receive a gift of healing. When Jack prayed for me, he didn't hyperventilate.

He didn't raise his voice and go, now God, we are coming before you and none of that, just real quietly and just said, Lord, we just pray that you touch Skip's shoulder and heal him and I got to tell you, I'd never experienced anything like this. I felt instant relief and I took the sling off, I moved my shoulder around and I thought, well, it could just be a fluke, maybe, I don't know, maybe it's just I'm feeling really good right now and my emotions were heightened, you know, I kind of bought into this and, you know, I'm not, again, I'm not living with a whole lot of faith, even though I feel relief. I went in to get it x-rayed again.

This is, again, my scientific background. I got to compare before and after pictures. If it's a true healing, it will have gone back down and I got it x-rayed again and it had narrowed from previously. And I got to tell you, it was an incredible healing. I experienced a gift of healing. A little while later, a friend of mine named Tony, who was a Christian but had backslidden, had gotten into an accident with his shoulder and, but his shoulder, his whole arm was messed up. His radial nerve was pinched because he moved his shoulder with a bag of cement that was too heavy and the radial nerve pinched and so his hands were sort of put together like this and he couldn't move them and he was scheduled to go into surgery and so I told him to spend a couple nights with me and one night, I didn't even pray out loud for him.

He was going to sleep. I was going to sleep and I just said, Lord, I know you love Tony. This is just me in my head talking to the Lord, whispering to the Lord, I know you love Tony.

I know you love him more than I do. I know, Lord, that you could heal him and wouldn't it be a marvelous thing if you would just touch his arm right now and just show him how much he's backslidden, Lord. Show him how much you love him and I'm praying this and I'm dozing off and I'm going to sleep as I'm praying this and just as I'm going, falling into a deep sleep, Tony starts yelling.

He goes, Skip, turn on the light, turn on the light, turn on the light, turn on the light and he takes his arm and he goes like this. He moves his hand right in front of me and I said, Tony, you know, okay, so we're flipping out because it's legit and I said, don't you see, you've been running from God and he just starts weeping and he runs right back to Jesus and says, I've got to recommit my life and live for him from now on, but it was just one of those things. Again, it was no healing line. I didn't have a big sheepskin that I threw over him or yelled in Jesus' name, spoke in a southern accent or anything like that. It was just, I didn't even say it out loud. Just, Lord, heal him.

Lord, just touch him. So, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the same Spirit. Verse 10, look at that.

We've made a verse and we're on to another one. To another, the working of miracles. Now, healing is a miracle, but this just says miracles generically. Could be a lot of things like Acts chapter 6, Stephen did many wonders and signs.

We're not told what those are, but some kind of miraculous signs. So, talking about miracles is sort of a hard one because the whole Bible is filled with miracles from beginning to end. The Bible opens up with like the biggest miracle ever.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That's like the biggest miracle. And if you can get past Genesis 1, 1, the rest of the Bible is easy. If you believe the first verse of the Bible, that it actually happened, then the rest of the Bible will be a piece of cake. The Bible opens with a miracle. The Bible closes with a miracle. Opens with creation, closes with uncreation of the present world, and God creates a new heaven and a new earth. So, there are miracles that run from the beginning of the Bible to the end of the Bible, and sometimes those miracles defy natural law. For instance, the Red Sea opening up. That's not natural.

Given the laws of physics and density, etc., that doesn't happen. It defies natural law. Somebody who's lame from birth suddenly walking, that defies natural law. Turning water into wine, that defies natural law. Sometimes, however, miracles in the Bibles cooperate or correspond with natural law.

Let me give you an example. Elijah calls fire down from heaven. Now, fire falling from heaven is not unusual.

Lightning strikes happen all the time, all over the world. But for lightning or fire to fall from heaven at a specific location, at a specific time, that's a miracle. And the way it happened in consuming the sacrifice that Elijah had prepared for the prophets of Baal, at that time, as soon as he prayed, was cooperating with natural law, but the miracle is how and when it happened. Hailstones fall from the sky all the time, but large hailstones that fall only on the Amorite army under Joshua's leadership, that's a miracle. So sometimes miracles defy natural law. Sometimes miracles cooperate with natural law. What is a miracle? A miracle is something that is humanly impossible but divinely simple. We go, that's a miracle. You know, people have faith to pray for a cold.

Do you have the same faith to pray for cancer? Well, for you and I, one seems bigger than the other, but for God, is one more difficult than the other? No, it's humanly impossible, but it is divinely simple. So here's what a miracle is. Miracles prove that God is not a prisoner to His own laws.

So God sets up laws in the universe, and He sets up natural laws. And one of those laws is the law of gravity, and we believe in the law of gravity. It's the reason we don't jump off buildings. We don't believe that we can fly. If you do jump off of a building, it's not because you think you can fly.

There's something else going on. I think most people would agree that anything that weighs 190,000 pounds isn't going anywhere. Something that weighs 190,000 pounds is bound to be stationary because of the law of gravity. But we also know that we can supersede natural laws by enacting other natural laws. So if we take something that weighs 190,000 pounds and configure it a certain way, say in the shape of a Boeing 767, which is what it weighs, and apply other laws of thrust and aerodynamics that create lift, then you can have those laws superseding the law of gravity. So when God enacts a miracle, that's all He's doing is taking and superseding His laws by His power with another law known only to Him.

It's humanly impossible, but it's divinely simple. And I think that if God gives you or called you to be involved in any kind of wonders and signs like Stephen in Acts 6, any kind of miraculous activity, He will probably accompany that with the gift we just talked about, the gift of faith. You just believe it's going to happen. It's why Peter said, I'm going to take this guy and lift him up by the feet. He's going to receive a gift of healing, and I have the faith that you have two things that are operating together. So God is not a prisoner of His own laws.

Now, a warning about this. Jesus said, signs and wonders will follow those who believe. The problem is when those who believe start following signs and wonders. And sometimes I find believers doing that. They're always chasing the miracles, always chasing the signs and the wonders, the miracle service, where they have a miracle thing going on, and they're always chasing signs and wonders.

Let the signs and wonders, if it's in the purview and will of God, follow you. And don't think that you have to have a miracle every day. I used to hear these guys on TV say, pray for your daily miracle. Well, if it's a daily miracle, it's not a miracle. It wouldn't be called a miracle.

It would be called a regular. A miracle is something that violates, supersedes, differentiates from natural order, natural law, walking on water. That's a miracle. A resurrection, that's a miracle. A physical healing, that's a miracle. Finding a parking place at the mall is not a miracle. Oh, I found a daily miracle. No, you didn't.

You found a parking space, idiot. So let the signs and wonders follow you. Don't you follow the signs and wonders? Listen, you can go through the book of Acts in a relatively short period of time. If you read through the book of Acts, you're going to start thinking, man, there's a miracle on every page.

But here's what you need to see. There's about 30 miracles in the book of Acts. But the book of Acts covers a 30-year period. That averages out to be about a miracle per year. And I would say, from what I see in the body of Christ, we see that.

I hear of that. So we have to be careful that we balance it out, and that's where that warning comes in. So, faith, healings, working of miracles, to another. Look at this, we're on the fourth gift in one night. To another, prophecy. To another, the discerning of spirits. Now the gift of prophecy is going to be given a lot of detail in chapter 14. Prophecy versus tongues and interpretation will be given. But the gift of prophecy is one of those gifts that happens to show up on all three lists in the New Testament of the gifts of the Spirit. So whether you're reading 1 Corinthians 12, or Romans 12, or Ephesians 4, those are the three New Testament passages, the detail or name, the different gifts of the Spirit.

The gift of prophecy happens to show up in all of those places. In the second chapter of the book of Acts, on the day of Pentecost, Peter stood up, and when the people of Jerusalem said, What is this? Peter said, This is that, which was spoken of by the prophet Joel, who said, In the last days, says the Lord, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your old men will see visions, your young men will see dreams. That was predicted from the book of Joel.

Acts chapter 2 says, You're seeing a partial fulfillment of that. But we know that prophecy was a gift that was exercised in the Old Testament. There were prophets in the Old Testament.

There's a number of them. Moses, I think, is considered the first prophet because he said, Another prophet is going to come, like me, in chapter 18. In chapter 13 and 18, Moses speaks about the gift of a prophet to the nation of Israel. Now, a prophet is somebody who speaks to the people on behalf of God. The role of a priest is a priest is somebody who represents the people before God. He's representing the children of Israel to God, whereas a prophet is representing God to the people.

He's speaking for God. Moses is called a prophet. There's Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel. There's the minor prophet. There's a lot of prophets.

Now, the prophets in the Old Testament did two things. Sometimes they would foretell the future, right? They would predict the future. And that's typically what we think a prophet does is somebody who just predicts the future. But they didn't always foretell the future. Sometimes they just foretold the Word of God, telling forth, proclaiming the will or the work of God, saying, This is God.

This is what God wants. He would speak in political situations. They would speak in times of great sin or uprising.

They would just speak a word on behalf of God to the people. It wasn't a prepared sermon or a message. And I'm bringing this up because the more conservative branches of Christendom today, those who would, I would say, are cessationists, don't believe in the gift of prophecy as such, would say that the gift of prophecy is associated with teaching and preaching.

It's something you prepare. I don't see the gift of prophecy that way. I see it as foretelling or forthtelling the Word of God in a specific situation that is not necessarily prepared in advance, but you know this is something God wants to say. And I'm looking at the time to see if I really want to give you many instances of that before we close tonight.

So I probably won't give you many instances, but I'll tell you this. In 1 Thessalonians, chapter 5, we're told, Quench not the Spirit. And you know what it says right after that? Despise not prophesy. Prophesying or prophecies. Don't despise prophecies. Now, I don't know why Paul wrote that, except perhaps there were some in the church, even in churches that were despising words of prophecy that were given, saying, oh, that's made up. This really isn't from the Lord. But there were instances in the New Testament where words of God were given by the Spirit spontaneously for the people for a very particular reason.

And that's where I'm going to leave it. I'm going to tell you what those reasons were and what those instances are next time we're together, where I'll finish, because we just didn't even talk about the gift of prophecy, but we'll finish prophecy, and next time we'll go through different kinds of tongues and interpretation, and this is what we'll do next time. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Expound 1 Corinthians. Now, here's Skip to share how you can keep this broadcast going strong, connecting you and many others to the Lord.

Whatever past experience of faith you may have had, our desire is to see listeners like you walking with God today and learning to apply His transforming Word to your everyday life. With your help, we can see more and more people do exactly that. Here's how you can partner in that work today. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give a gift. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate.

Or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888. Thank you for your generosity, and come back tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares how God works in your life beyond salvation and through the Holy Spirit. So I think our highest capacity isn't just to be a pool collecting the refreshing waters of salvation, but to be a portal where those waters can flow into the lives of others. And I begin with that because a question that has been argued throughout church history is concerning the work of the Holy Spirit.

Is there a deeper work of God in the life of a believer beyond salvation? Make a connection. Make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast all burdens on His Word. Make a connection. Connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.