How many of you would like to be a part of a miracle?
You¡¯ve read about them in the Bible, you¡¯ve heard the stories, but have you ever seen miracles worked through your own life?
Do you want to? I¡¯m going to tell you this morning what God can do through you! I want to tell you how God can take your life and use you to be a miracle-worker!
Let me tell you the story of a little boy who was used by God to work a miracle. (You can turn to John 6 and follow along if you like.) I¡¯m going to add some details that aren¡¯t there in the Bible, but it could have happened like this.
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¡°Nathanael!¡± Nathan¡¯s feet hit the floor almost the second his mom called his name ¨C he didn¡¯t need to be pulled out of bed this morning. This morning was special! He was going to see that guy that everyone had been talking about: Jesus! He grabbed his clothes and pulled them on.
They said that this Jesus guy was amazing! They said he could do miracles and heal people, and give blind people their sight. Why, just the other day, he had heard how Jesus had helped a man walk who had been crippled for 38 years!! That was pretty amazing. A lot of people were saying that they though Jesus was the SON OF GOD!
Nathanael ran into the kitchen. He smelled fresh loaves of barley bread cooking by the fire. Boy, that smelled good!
¡°I can still go, right, Mom?¡±
¡°Yes, you can, but here. . . let me wrap up a lunch for you in some cloth.¡± She picked up five of the barley loaves and set them on a piece of cloth, and then added two small fish, and wrapped them up. ¡°Now, make sure you hang onto this, and don¡¯t lose it!¡±
¡°Don¡¯t worry, Mom! Nobody cooks as good as you do! Your barley loaves are the best around.¡±
Nathanael¡¯s mom bent down and gave him a kiss. ¡°Now, get! You know there¡¯s going to be a huge crowd, and you don¡¯t want to be late and miss Jesus!¡±
Nathanael ran as fast as he could down the dirt road out of town. From what he had heard, Jesus would be teaching the people today on the side of a hill outside his town.
The way it looked, there were other people headed that way too ¨C LOTS of people. Nathanael dodged around a family who was carrying a sick boy on a bed, and kept on running. Just when it seemed like he would drop from running so long and hard, he arrived at the hill where Jesus was supposed to be.
Sure enough, there were people EVERYWHERE! Why, there must be thousands of people here!
Nathanael started running again. He wanted to get right up to the middle, where that group of about 12 guys was, with the man that seemed to be the center of attention. He had heard about Jesus¡¯ group of twelve disciples that traveled around with him.
FINISH STORY
Now, I told this story like this to keep the attention of the kids we have here this morning. . . But you understand the point.
God works miracles for people and through people that give HIM what they have.
There are two things I specifically want to notice this morning:
1. When you give God what you have, he often gives back more than you gave!
I know that as humans, we are often afraid to give things to God. We¡¯re like the little boy in the story that I told. . . we¡¯re not sure that we want to give Jesus what little we have ¨C there might not be enough left for ME!
But that thinking is exactly backwards from reality. This little guy gives God his 5 loaves and 2 fish, and then gets to eat an ALL-YOU-CAN-EAT bread and fish meal!
What do you have in your hand? What is available to give to God? What abilities do you have that you should give to God? If you give it to him, it will cost you control of it, but it will come back in rewards of some kind EVERY TIME!
¡ö Do you have money problems?
Give HIM control of how you use it - read the Bible and do it God¡¯s way, and then watch God supply your needs!
¡ö Do you have children problems?
Give him control of how you raise your children ¨C read the Bible and do it God¡¯s way, and watch God work miracles in their lives.
2. When you give God all you have, he uses it to work miracles in others lives.
When this little fellow gave God his lunch, God used him to work a fantastic miracle and feed 10-15,000 people.
He wants to make you a useful person! He wants to make your life matter and have meaning and significance! He wants to work a miracle in others¡¯ lives through what YOU have to give to him!
You might be saying, ¡°I don¡¯t HAVE anything I can give God! I¡¯m not a hugely talented person.¡± Maybe you don¡¯t feel like you are. . .
But do you have any normal things that you could give God?
¡ö a few dollars?
¡ö a few hours time given to working for Him?
¡ö a few kind words in a phone call?
¡ö How about control of your life?
