craigmanderson

Mission Impossible #2am

To say that God is a miracle working God is pretty obvious right? After all He created the heavens and the earth. That’s about the biggest miracle of them all. The question that we are most interested in is; will God provide a miracle for me? Our own need of a miracle is maybe a little lower of the scale of impossible compared with creating the heavens and the earth but nevertheless it’s still impossible for us to achieve on our own and so we need God’s help.

I remember the first miracle I ever saw was when as a brand new Christian I was about 20 years of age and while doing my own car repairs I was really frustrated, which happened a lot to me!!! I was fixing my brakes on the car and having taken off a brake line with attached nut I had made the mistake of cross threading the nut and ruining the thread. Thus meant buying a whole new brake line and nut, expensive, hard to find and delaying. So after a few expletives I “told God” to fix it if He was so powerful!! Well He did! And after washing the nut in petrol and looking again there was a fresh new thread on the nut. I was amazed and humbled and quickly apologized to God for my impatient outburst.

Once you have seen a real unexplainable miracle, you’re spoiled for life. You can’t go back to normal living anymore. You are now in the realm of expecting a lifetime of miracles from your amazing heavenly Father. Now I can tell you about lots I miracles that I didn’t receive as well as many that I did receive. The exciting thing is that as with everything in God, there is not secret formula for getting prayer answered, it’s about faith. It’s about getting faith and maintaining faith.

My first big failure in asking for a miracle was as a Youth Pastor in Brisbane, we had planned a massive outdoor concert in the King George square in the middle of Brisbane city one Saturday. It was to be an outdoor concert to use music and testimonies to preach the gospel and see many souls won for Christ. The weather forecast was not good and we started to pray early, a few days out. The more we prayed the more the clouds came and the more the rain set in. On the day “in faith” we even set up all the staging and sound equipment in the rain in expectation of a miracle that the weather would clear and we could miraculously go ahead. It never happened. Right up until the start time it was literally bucketing down rain and we had to dismantle the stage and remove all the equipment in the pouring rain. I was deeply disappointed because we had lost an opportunity to preach to lost people, we had seemingly not received from God a miracle that was obviously in tune with His will and purpose and we had worked hard in the pouring rain in difficult circumstances for no gain. I informed all our youth that we would meet at church that night instead and have the concert there. It’s funny how God has a different idea of what we need and that afternoon despite being deeply disappointed I prepared a new message to preach at the concert that night at church. Some of the singers and people sharing made awkward comments about the disappointing morning we had witnessed; but God had a plan and God really helped me turn it around into a big challenge for our youth people to press into God no matter what the outcome or experience that we faced.

The biggest miracles I have ever seen are salvation miracles, where lives are changed by the grace of God and people’s lives are turned around by God. Some of those miracles are sitting here today. This month our theme is Mission Impossible. It’s a focus on how to receive a miracle from God. To receive a miracle you need miracle faith. It’s having that audacious faith that against all odds you believe that God has a miracle for you. You never stop to think whether you deserve it; you never try and figure out if you have enough faith, you just charge the gates of heaven for a massive miracle that you demand from God!

Here’s a great example of that kind of faith from God’s word. The background of this story is that the people of Israel had crossed over the Jordan River and now are beginning to invade the land of Canaan. They have had one defeat at Ai and many victories like Jericho. The next big city to fall was Gibeon. These mighty warriors knew what was good for them and decided to surrender rather than die and became Israel’s slaves. The surrounding Canaanite kings weren’t very impressed with that and decided to attack Gibeon and teach them a lesson.

Joshua 10:1-15(NLT)

1Adoni-zedek, king of Jerusalem, heard that Joshua had captured and completely destroyed Ai and killed its king, just as he had destroyed the town of Jericho and killed its king. He also learned that the Gibeonites had made peace with Israel and were now their allies. 2 He and his people became very afraid when they heard all this because Gibeon was a large town—as large as the royal cities and larger than Ai. And the Gibeonite men were strong warriors.

3 So King Adoni-zedek of Jerusalem sent messengers to several other kings: Hoham of Hebron, Piram of Jarmuth, Japhia of Lachish, and Debir of Eglon. 4 “Come and help me destroy Gibeon,” he urged them, “for they have made peace with Joshua and the people of Israel.” 5 So these five Amorite kings combined their armies for a united attack. They moved all their troops into place and attacked Gibeon.

6 The men of Gibeon quickly sent messengers to Joshua at his camp in Gilgal. “Don’t abandon your servants now!” they pleaded. “Come at once! Save us! Help us! For all the Amorite kings who live in the hill country have joined forces to attack us.”

7 So Joshua and his entire army, including his best warriors, left Gilgal and set out for Gibeon. 8 “Do not be afraid of them,” the Lord said to Joshua, “for I have given you victory over them. Not a single one of them will be able to stand up to you.”

9 Joshua traveled all night from Gilgal and took the Amorite armies by surprise. 10 The Lord threw them into a panic, and the Israelites slaughtered great numbers of them at Gibeon. Then the Israelites chased the enemy along the road to Beth-horon, killing them all along the way to Azekah and Makkedah. 11 As the Amorites retreated down the road from Beth-horon, the Lord destroyed them with a terrible hailstorm from heaven that continued until they reached Azekah. The hail killed more of the enemy than the Israelites killed with the sword.

12 On the day the Lord gave the Israelites victory over the Amorites, Joshua prayed to the Lord in front of all the people of Israel. He said,

“Let the sun stand still over Gibeon,

and the moon over the valley of Aijalon.”

13 So the sun stood still and the moon stayed in place until the nation of Israel had defeated its enemies.

Is this event not recorded in The Book of Jashar? The sun stayed in the middle of the sky, and it did not set as on a normal day. 14 There has never been a day like this one before or since, when the Lord answered such a prayer. Surely the Lord fought for Israel that day!

15 Then Joshua and the Israelite army returned to their camp at Gilgal.

Lessons from Joshua’s miracle.

1. Joshua was going about the task of completing God’s will and purpose when the need for this miracle arose. He didn’t need a miracle to defend the Gibeonites. He set out to defend them as a natural course of action that continued the Israelite journey to conquer the land of Canaan and take over all the cities. It wasn’t until the middle of the battle that he realized he need more daylight hours to complete the task. Let’s be about God’s business. What has He asked of you? What is your calling and the task He has given you in this vineyard? When you are about the Father’s business there’s a bigger expectation that you can call upon the Father’s resources.
2. Joshua heard from God straight away. God said “Go up I have given them into your hand.” Hearing from God is so helpful in moving forward. Be in His word and listening in prayer, He will be speaking to you as God is always speaking, we just need to make the time to be still and know that He is God and hear the instructions we need from Him.
3. Joshua was passionate. He and his army left one afternoon and travelled all night to reach Gibeon and then began the fight. You can be tired but if you have passion then your energy comes and you can do amazing things. You will be amazed at what you can achieve when you have passion. Laziness, apathy and “she’ll be right” attitude will rob you of energy and determination to see great things take place for you and your family.
4. The first miracle showed God was with them. As they gave chase to the enemy, God rained down hailstones upon them and God killed more of the enemy with hailstones than Joshua did with the sword. When you are believing for a miracle God will show you He is at work around you. Look for the evidences no matter how small that God is working for you. Let an attitude of thankfulness surround your thinking.
5. You’ve received one miracle keep going and believe for another. The hailstones were a huge miracle for Joshua and a great victory was obtained by them. Joshua could have been content with that and waited until the next day to continue the battle. After all they were already been awake 36 hours in this battle, so a night’s sleep would not have been out of the question. However this is where Joshua shines as a great leader. He lifts his vision for something much greater when any other leader would have settled for less and he asks for the biggest miracle since creation. Moon stand still and Sun stand still. It’s time to stretch that 36 hours into 60 hours for victory! Don’t stop at victory when you’re believing God, you’re on a roll keep on going and ask really big. Ask God for an even bigger miracle, now is the time when your faith is the biggest it has ever been.

What is the miracle you need today? Determine that you are going after it. It may take a moment or it may take a long time. No matter, God delights in showing Himself strong on your behalf. Read this story through and gain encouragement from it. Realise that God is on your side and He will be working for you.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Can anyone in your Urban Connect group share about miracles that have happened to them?

2. What about sharing also about miracles that didn’t happen.

3. What kind of lessons do we learn when the miracles don’t happen?

4. What kind of lessons do we learn when the miracles do happen?

5. List all the miracles needed in your group, write them down, begin to pray and thank God for these miracles. Remember to tell everyone when prayer is answered. tick them off one buy one.