This sermon emphasizes the importance of understanding the power of God's Word and the role of signs and wonders in the church. It delves into the method and instruments through which Christ brings about obedience, highlighting the significance of both word and deed, signs and wonders, and the power of the Holy Spirit. The sermon encourages believers to pray for signs and wonders today while maintaining a central focus on the Word of God and the sovereignty of God in all things.

Let's pray together. Father in heaven, we love your word. It's a rock under our feet. When we meditate on it day and night, you make us into trees, fruitful trees, stable trees, shady trees for hot, tired people. Would you put us to meditating as a church and then put us on streets, in the office place, in the schools, shady, fruitful, strong for the world. Lord come now, help us to love your word, learn from your word, grow in your word, be changed by your word, strengthened by your word, inspired, purified, healed, humbled, emboldened by your word. Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. This is the second message now that I have given on this paragraph and the last one was January 29, so you don't remember what I said there. So I'm going to review so that moving on into the paragraph will not feel out of sync. The main point on January 29 was that Paul's goal as an apostle, and by implication, my goal, our goal as elders, was to exalt in the truth that in all of our work to bring people to faith and obedience, God is at work. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are the ultimate decisive workers in and through apostles, pastors, and teachers. Now I'll give you the text where that point came from. First, verses 15 at the end and 16 at the beginning, I have written to you boldly by way of reminder because of the grace given to me by God to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles. So notice the words, grace given to me by God to be a minister. Paul did not choose to be an apostle. He was knocked off his horse. God chose Paul to be an apostle. God chose him, God called him and fit him, and he never got over the amazing grace that God would choose a Christian killer as the apostle of the Gentiles. He's never got over it, and you should never get over that God chose you to be saved. Second, verse 16 at the end, second half of the verse, so that the offering of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit. So not only did Paul himself see himself as a work of grace, God called me, God made me an apostle, but now as he works to present the Gentiles to God as a sanctified, transformed people, he says it's the Holy Spirit that's doing that. Sanctified by the Holy Spirit. So Paul's working to present this Gentile offering to God, but ultimately God chose him to do that, and the Holy Spirit is enabling him to do the transforming work that needs to be done. Third, verse 18. This is the clearest of all, the most sweeping of all. Fourth, I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring the Gentiles to obedience. Now what you might have missed, as we bulleted those three points about God's the one decisively and ultimately working the Apostles, is that the first was the Father, the second with the Holy Spirit, and the third was the Son. You don't see those kinds of things if you go too fast. In other words, the whole Godhead is at work when Apostles and pastors are striving, striving to present a church holy and acceptable to God. God is the one who is decisively at work. That was the main point of the message in January, and there were some sub-points. This text aims at three things in us who lead, and by implication I think you as well every time you handle the word. These observations that God is the one who's at work should produce deep humility in pastors and missionaries, because we're not doing it. God is doing it through us. Number two, it should produce great confidence that God's going to use our poor efforts, because God's doing it, and He's only got poor efforts to work with. That's all there are. What confidence that we should have that God is willing to, in His whole Trinitarian being, make Himself the decisive worker in our work. And the third thing is it will produce more glory to God, who is the one who is obviously working. The giver and the worker gets the glory, and we better give God the glory for every good thing that comes through our ministry. Now, there's one last thing. At the end of the message I said there's a surprise point. You won't remember this, but I said there's a surprise point, because up until now I had been, I spent probably 25 minutes making that point, and the point was apostles, and by implication leaders, pastors, are workers for your joy, and your good, and your holiness, and presenting you as an offering to God. And the surprise point of verse 14, namely that the offering helps prepare itself for the Lord, goes like this, I myself am satisfied about you, my brothers, that you yourself are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, and able to instruct, or the Greek word admonish, exhort, one another. Hmm. So we pastors, teachers, should not presume that we do all of the work in exhorting, teaching, instructing. If you put it all together, you have God calling leaders, God by His Spirit and Son working through them to bring about the obedience of the Gentiles, and as those Gentiles are gathered into churches, you have verse 14 going into play, where they become fuller and fuller with knowledge, and grace, goodness, and then they are responsible to do the horizontal one another thing, which I'm sure David Livingstone would be real happy if I paused here and said, is it September 17, David, is the decisive? Every fall, we make a big deal of that, gathering our people into small groups, there was an event this weekend to train small group leaders, the whole point of the small group ministry permeating this larger church is because of verse 14. When you get a measure of goodness, and you get a measure of knowledge, you are able to instruct one another, your mouths open in small groups, and you meet each other's needs, and you do things pastors simply cannot do. We don't know everybody well enough. Our job is to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry, and that's being talked about right there in verse 14. So the surprise point at the end of the sermon was that even though one proper picture of the ministry, the vocational ministry, is that we labor to present a church sanctified by the Spirit to offer up to God, the sacrifice also is doing its own work to get itself ready as verse 14 is happening. That was the sermon on the 29th of January. Now, we move forward. The rest of this paragraph is method. How does Christ, risen and working through the church, how does he bring about the obedience of the Gentiles? There's method, and the method means two things. It means what are his instruments to bring it about, and what is his strategy to bring it about. The strategy is sort of geographical, and the instruments have to do with deed, word, signs, and wonders, power of the Holy Spirit, those two clusters of things. Now, as I was preparing, as I titled the sermon earlier in the week, I thought I was going to do both of those tonight. Well, it isn't going to happen. So one of those goes to next week, and I'll point that out as we move along. So we're focusing on the method slash the instruments of how the living Christ does this apostolic pastoral work of bringing about the obedience of the Gentiles. So let's look at the instruments. They're listed in verses 18 through the beginning of verse 19. There's three ways of saying it, and I'll read this, and you'll see the three. For I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me to bring about the obedience of the Gentiles. Now, that was last January's sermon. Now comes method, instrument. Number one, by word and deed. Number two, by the power of signs and wonders. Number three, by the power of the Holy Spirit. So it moves from general to specific. Those three increasingly clarify each other. What's that? By word and deed. So that means Paul speaks and Paul acts. And that's how the Gentiles are made obedient. He speaks, he acts. What acts does he have in mind? Second stage, signs and wonders. By the power of signs and wonders is one of the kinds of acts, at least, that he has in mind. That means miracles that Paul performed. Third, who's doing those miracles? By whose power are they being done? Verse 19 at the end, by the power of the Holy, or the Spirit, of God. So my aim, I was going to say tonight, I know you're there, my aim this weekend is to clarify those three things. What is word and deed? What are signs and wonders and their relevance for today? And how does the Holy Spirit figure into this? And how should that shape our church? So that's where we're going. The word is emphasized in the remainder of this paragraph. When you consider word and deed in the apostolic ministry, word is prominent. Deed is important, don't minimize it. Word is prominent. I'll show you why I think that's the case just from this paragraph. Verse 19, I have fulfilled the ministry of the Gospel, that's word, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Verse 20, thus I make it my ambition to preach the Gospel, that's word. Verse 21, those who have never been told, told, told of Him, that's word. Verse 21 at the end, those who have never heard, heard, heard, that's word. So you can see the repetition right on through the end of this paragraph is making word prominent. There's a reason for that. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of Christ. Deeds cannot communicate the Gospel. They can mightily confirm the Gospel. Now that may sound like an overstatement to you. Are you sure you want to say that? Absolutely? Well you tell me if I shouldn't, okay? You come up to me afterwards and say, but what about this? Because I've thought long and hard, I do not think we should think of actings of any kind without words as a faithful, saving communication of the Gospel. Word saves. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing, and there's a reason for that. We're saved by the news that He died and that He rose again and giving people the events and the meaning. You have to say that. There's nothing you can do that can communicate the historic events of the resurrection and the death of Jesus and its meaning. You can't do it with deeds. Treat people as nice as you want, and you'll never save anybody. Until they hear the Word of God about Jesus Christ crucified and risen, and then your deeds will mean something. Oh, will they mean something. I've just got to give an illustration here. I hope I don't go too long, because it came to my mind. It's got to be of God. It doesn't have to be of God. I think it's of God. I did an all-day video shoot at a brewery on Wednesday. It was a former brewery. It's an architect's building now. So they're taking pictures of me talking about a book, and they're going to turn it into some ministry instrument. There's evidently one Christian who works at this architect's firm. It's a big one, six stories tall. They build skyscrapers in China. I saw pictures of them all over the wall. And she came to us and she said, this is a team of about six or eight guys who were there, and she said, I think I'm the only Christian in this firm, and you guys have made my job so much easier. Thank you. Now, I was new on this, so I showed up late, but what she meant was, the lady who runs this thing is not impressed with believers. And your team came in here and did everything exactly right. Now, the only point there is not to praise Desire and God's team. The point there was, Deeds made her job easier. Are Deeds going to save anybody yet? If she now opens her mouth and said, I'm that kind of Christian. I'm that kind. When I tell you now the gospel, please think of those guys and not these jerks on television. Not all people on television are jerks. I'm going to get letters. Now, every time I do that, I lose my place. Deeds are important as supporting. Let me tell you how Luke, who wrote Acts, all about the deeds and words, says it. Here's the way he says it. So take his word for it, if you think I've overstated it. This is Acts 14.3. So they remained for a long time speaking boldly. This is Paul and Barnabas at Iconium. They remained for a long time speaking boldly, that's word, for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. That's deed. There's the relation. Boldly speaking the word, God coming in and reaffirming and witnessing to the word with signs and wonders. So there are many kinds of deeds. Let's count them as valuable as they are but not replace the word by them. So, signs and wonders is the second point here in the text as an explanation of the kinds of deeds. Paul and Barnabas, when they got to Jerusalem in Acts 15, reported their ministry like this. All the assembly fell silent and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles. So what does it mean? What does signs and wonders refer to? It's a stock phrase. It comes from Exodus, the deliverance of the people. God showed signs and wonders in the land of Egypt. So what are they here? I'll just give you two illustrations. There are a lot of them in the book of Acts, but I'll give you the two prominent ones from Paul's ministry. There are several in Peter's ministry, and Philip's ministry, and the church, but here are the ones from Paul's ministry. Acts 16, 30, you remember that he was in Philippi and verse 18, there's this girl who's demonized. And she's telling the future or doing something and making a lot of money for her boss. She's a slave and he's manipulating and exploiting her deranged mind. And Paul is not able to do his ministry because of this woman's shouting. And he turns around in verse 18 and he says, I command you in the name of Jesus Christ, come out of her. And it came out that very hour. That's a sign and a wonder. A person who's demonized, not thinking right, saying demonic things, doing weird things, and God miraculously delivers them. That's a beautiful sign and a wonder. I'm going to give you some concrete illustrations of that idea today. The owner of this young woman has really been out of shape. His business is suffering. And so he manipulates their arrest. And they beat them with rods and they throw them in jail in stocks and it's midnight. You remember the story. And they're singing. I just love these guys. They're singing in prison with sore backs instead of murmuring, where were you God this afternoon? Oh, that we might be saved. Every heartache that comes, the good times and the bad times, you're on your throne. Great song. Thank you, Rick. So here's what happened. Verse 30, there was an earthquake. And the doors have flown open, the stocks come off, the jailer is afraid, they're all gone. And here's Paul saying, don't hurt yourself, we're here. And he says in verse 30, in response to the deed, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Because I don't know, the deed did not tell me what to do. I just know if you could all go and you're still here and you were preaching something this afternoon, I want to know what it is. Deeds matter. And Paul said, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your household. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. So there's the pattern in Paul's life in the book of Acts. Words are saving, faith comes by hearing, but deeds are so precious and so powerful. So I ask the question, what about today? Should we be expecting signs and wonders today? Or did those go away with the apostles? And you all know the kind of debates that go on among Charismatics and Evangelicals and different types of Christians as to whether there has been a ceasing or a cessation of the supernatural kinds of activity like that. Exorcism, healings, and so on. So if you want to know a fuller picture of what I think about this and its biblical foundation, you can go to the Desiring God website and go back to 1989 and 1990 and read ten sermons on it. But I'll sum up what I think and the biblical basis for it in the next ten minutes. And then you can pray earnestly and test these things to see if they are so. My answer to the question, should we be expecting signs and wonders today, is yes. But not in the same measure as the apostles experienced supernatural miraculous power. Now let me try to unpack that. The answer is yes, we should. We should look for them, pray for them. But not be expectant of the same measure. Now that will displease a lot of people. And it will go farther in the direction of signs and wonders affirmation than a lot of people want me to go. So I'm striking a kind of middle ground here. How does that fit in the day? So let me give you some basis for why I think that. The reason I say yes to signs and wonders in the 21st century is because, number one, I find no compelling reason given in the New Testament that says God has declared a moratorium on miracles. The arguments that I've listened to over the years don't sound compelling to me. I don't find them persuasive. So that's a negative statement. What I do find, secondly, is a list of gifts in 1 Corinthians 12, 8-10 that include miracles and acts that look very much like the New Testament signs and wonders. And they are described as gifts that the church will be given, not just apostles. The church. The church. Gifted people rising up in the church who, when they pray for people, they generally get well. Amazing. A gift of healing. So I don't think that that text, 1 Corinthians 12, 8-10, which describes the church receiving these kinds of gifts, has been taken away, abrogated, made to be nullified by the passing of time. So there's my yes to signs and wonders today. Now, I'm reeling in those who go too far by saying, probably not in the same measure Paul and Jesus did. Now why do I say that? First, because when I look at the life of Jesus and I watch his ministry, I find evidences that the works that he did, the miracles that he did, had a special function of vindicating his deity. I'll read you one. I wrote several down. This is John 5, 36. The works that the Father has given me to do, to accomplish, the very works that I am doing bear witness about me that the Father has sent me. There was something about Jesus' miracle working that had a close connection with vindicating his being sent uniquely by the Father as the Son of God. Therefore, I'm inclined to think that that won't be duplicated everywhere because it had a unique connection to Jesus. So I think Jesus' pattern of infallible healing, never failed, would not be duplicated. His raising people from the dead. Whenever he said, rise, they rose. Period. No questions. He didn't miss it. Ever. He was God acting in the power of the Holy Spirit in his human nature, but there are too many texts that make his deity vindicated by his deeds. My second reason for thinking that there should be a qualification of the continuance of the outcropping of major miracles in the early church is Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, 12. 2 Corinthians 12, 12. Listen to what he says. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. Now that gives me pause. When I hear Paul saying, my signs and wonders are signs of a true apostle, I say, hmm, hmm. Some people would read that and say, it's it. It's over. Man, the apostles are gone and so are the signs. I say it more carefully. I say the apostles are gone and therefore the way it was done, the unique dimension, the vindicating function, the apparent, remarkable, infallible success that Paul seemed to have whenever he said it. He couldn't evidently heal Timothy because he told him to take some wine for his stomach. We just shouldn't expect that. But I don't think that means that as time goes by, God just says, miracles are over. Signs and wonders are over. I don't ever step in and blow people away to vindicate my word. I just don't think that's how far we should go. So, when the Lord Jesus goes back to heaven, the apostles lay the foundation of the church with their miracle working, vindication of their authoritative teaching, and it gets written down in the New Testament. Are we then to think of ourselves as a church as moving into a de-supernaturalized religion? And of course you all know that's not the case. The Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost. And we're described as being in the last days. And in those last days He will pour out His Spirit upon all flesh and His sons and daughters will prophesy and they will work wonders. We're in the last days ever since Jesus came. The Holy Spirit is here. I think that if we give the Word its centralized focus that we should not minimize the importance of deeds. Today, some Christians go too far. We want to orient ourselves as a church here. I'm not eager to be among the number of believers and I say believers, not cynically. I'm not eager to be among the number of believers who think that every Christian who gets sick should be healed. There are churches in the Twin Cities that preach that. That if you get sick, the only reason you're not healed is you don't have enough faith. And the reason I don't think we should go there as a church is because of Romans 8.23 where Spirit-filled believers are groaning with the fallen creation waiting for our adoption, the redemption of our bodies. Paul sees Christians as part of a groaning, futile, fallen, broken, dying world into which Jesus has entered, been broken, died to save us from our sins and give signs of healing. Signs. There's a healing and there's a healing and there's a healing. And there's signs to the day when everybody's healed at the resurrection. But don't get your end times into this time too early. There is a great event coming when everyone will be healed and now there are wonderful outcroppings of that power that we should pray for. That's one mistake. The other mistake, frankly I think this is our mistake, I listen to a lot of people pray for the sick. And we're long overdue for a good, healthy dose of miracle preaching at this church. Because frankly I detect among us fear of praying for healing. It's kind of like, thy will be done. But I wouldn't ask you to really heal anybody. Can we just break free from that? You won't become crazy if you ask for somebody's healing. What we need is to get our good love of the sovereignty of God underneath those prayers. We just submit ourselves to His throne. He's on the throne in the good times and the bad. And absolutely submitted at the core of our being to God's choices. He runs the world, we don't run the world. We say sometimes with a rising faith, perhaps it's called the gift of faith, sometimes with a rising faith, God do it. God do it. I prayed for Mark Salzman. Mark you've probably listened to this. I pray that way for you brother. When you have that surgery on Tuesday, bang, whatever's in there is gone. Surgeon, bless them. Love doctors. But doctors feel so helpless so much of the time. Only God can heal. And God will not heal everybody. But let's ask Him to heal more. Why not? So, that's where I find myself between those who say it'll always be done and those who seem to be afraid to do it. Let's ask Him to do it. As long as we keep the Word of God, this book, central in its proper place, I think we should pray Acts 4.29 regularly. It goes like this. And now Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak the Word with boldness while you stretch forth your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed in the name of your holy servant Jesus. That was a prayer of the early church. I see no reason why we shouldn't pray that today. God will decide how much He gives. In times of revival, they crop out and clump up. And in times of steady state blessing, they get distributed more evenly. And what God is pleased to do in America or anywhere in the world in this time, who knows? Why not ask Him for revival? Why not ask Him for a fresh outpouring of the Holy Spirit to do more than He has done? You know, if you're all goose bumpy and excited right now because you like to see signs and wonders, that's not the point. The point is, do you know anybody who doesn't believe and they seem absolutely impenetrable? Have you ever talked to anybody and they're as hard as a rock? What do you need? Power! When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and all Samaria and to the ends of the earth. When the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power. Don't you want to be able to speak the Gospel and have people break in half? What a sign and a wonder if all over the city, mouths of Christians open. That's the first miracle. And the second miracle, ears are opened and people frown with readiness to hear. And sometimes, example, I'm out jogging this morning, doing my jogging evangelism. Only do this in the summer. Carry my quest for joy right back here. Took four of them this morning. First guy I stopped to talk to over, sitting waiting for tickets at 7.30 in the morning at the dome. And his name was Jeff. Jeff is here, a miracle has happened. And my line is, Hi, I'm John. And I said to him, I'm a pastor there. I run through the neighborhood praying for people. How can I pray for you? That's just the starter. That's not the main point. That's the starter and I mean it. I pray for 30 minutes about those things. And he said, I'm all right, I think. I go to Assumption. I said, well, tell me something anyway. He said, well, pray that I can stop smoking. He's smoking while I'm there. And I said, you want to stop smoking? I'll do that. And when it happens, remember God. Now, I spent 30 minutes asking for a sign and a wonder. I don't know if it happened. The sign and wonder would be that he's sitting there smoking and he looks at things and says, that's gross. That'll kill me. And suddenly he goes, the preacher, the preacher, he prayed. That would be, that's the point. That's the reason you ask for things. There's nothing weird about that. That's just what we ought to do. God can do whatever he wants to do. He can save people, but how are you going to get anybody's attention in a world where nobody gives a rip about the supernatural, the divine, the Bible? God has his ways I close with an email. It's amazing how God just sets me up. I tell you, it is amazing how God sets me up for these sermons. So I got an email yesterday from a missionary. I'll be careful, real careful not to identify her or where she is. And she's really scared. This made me feel my job as a kind of Andrew Fuller rope holder is real important and yours is too. And here's a piece from her email. I need you to pray for me. Pray directly to me. I need you to pray for me. I have a situation here where the occult is involved. My friend has confided in me about some things. I believe her story. I believe that she may be in danger as well as I. I am certain her husband is in danger. I have been asking the Lord to save this woman and her husband for several months now. I love these people so much my heart literally aches when I think of them separated from God forever. That's the situation. They're in their lives and once you're in the darkness with them things are going to happen, hard things, scary things are going to happen. The devil hates light. He doesn't want it to go on for any unbeliever and he doesn't want you to have light. He wants to darken you all the time. He's throwing blankets on your face day after day he wants you dark. And therefore he uses weapons against the lost to keep them blind against you to keep you weak. These are supernatural. They are lust, greed, power, hate, addiction, disease and lots of others. Those are natural weapons that he can throw at you. They attack our souls and our bodies. And then he's got these supernatural weapons. And that's what we're not used to in this country. We're so secularized and naturalized we think this stuff doesn't exist anymore. We think it's hocus-pocus and not real. There's nothing to the occult. You can play with your Ouija board to this word from Deuteronomy 18.10-12. Moses. There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering. Anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a wizard or a necromancer for whoever does such things is an abomination to the Lord. That didn't change when Jesus came into the world. Those are real folks. They're real. Now that's very much more open where this woman is. Very much more open. Kind of behind scenes here because people think you're weird if you talk about it. But the days coming, I wrote in my margin when I re-read my sermon this afternoon, I wrote in my margin that our land is moving increasingly towards paganism. We know this. Just aware, just aware of the reinventing of idolatry, the reinventing of blatant paganism. So I predict, not a prophet, but got this little prediction that the days are out there when the occult and the demonic will in our land be much more prominent than it is. And you might remember this message because you're going to need a sign and a wonder one of these days just so that the person levitating in front of you will realize. I wrote back to her and I closed with what I wrote. Your situation fills me with a sense of urgency. I'm thinking about this sermon. Fills me with a sense of urgency that our people understand some of the battle many of them do not feel, but which you are tasting firsthand. My prayer for you is that God would give you a deep peace in his absolute sovereignty over all principalities darkness and spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Put on the whole armor of God and you will stand against the fiery darts of the evil one. They have conquered him by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony for they loved not their lives even unto death. The greatest thing in the universe is that when Christ died he disarmed Satan and all his hosts. I take that to mean that he stripped him and he roughed us up but he cannot damn us. I do not take lightly the threats but they are not ultimate. They are limited. You can always say Jesus is superior in strength and he died so that no accusation can hold against his people. The great accuser, liar, murderer has been exposed. He has been defanged. He can hurt us by gumming us but his poison is gone. We cannot die. He will rise for us with the death and resurrection of his Son. All authority in heaven and on earth belongs to Jesus. Lay hold on him. Speak his sovereign name. Trust his power and mercy and blood and righteousness implicitly. We are holding the ropes for you. Pastor John, are you? Are you? You just saw a picture. Hold it. The hanging by ropes dealing with enemies who live in these unreachable cliff dwellings called unreached peoples. The hanging there by prayer and grace and you are the rope holder. Actually, Christ is the rope holder and he has ordained you to help him by prayer. So, let's hold the ropes. Let's go down over the cliffs. Many of those cliffs are right here in the cities. You don't need to go anywhere to go down over the cliffs to grant what measure of signs and wonders we will need. Father in heaven, come. Come here. Come Sunday morning in this room and grant gifts to your people that we need to bless each other and that we need to win the lost. We cannot save anybody without supernatural power. So, be pleased, I pray, in the coming days to make our church a biblically balanced church. Stretch forth your hand and heal while signs and wonders are done in the name of your holy servant, Jesus. And grant that we would open our mouths and speak the word of God with boldness. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.