John 14:12-17 12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has FAITH in me will do what I have been doing. He 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 Son may bring glory to the Father. 14 You may ask me for ANYTHING in my name, and I will do it. 15 “If you LOVE ME, YOU WILL OBEY what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever–17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
How many of you believe you have witnessed a miracle? I have seen many miracles.
We have a church Facebook page called TVCOG miracles where people will often report something incredible that God has done for them. We recently had a mighty miracle reported about a baby boy, Cohen, who was born prematurely. He wasn’t able to breathe on his own and was placed on a ventilator. One of his family members, Jason Thompson, who attends church here, reached out to get prayer started. Pastor David anointed a prayer cloth and gave it to Pastor Kim who got it to the family. When that prayer cloth was placed beside the baby, within a few minutes, the blood gas depleted instantly! The child’s oxygen saturation went from the low 90’s to 98%. Within no time the baby was off the ventilator and was being monitored for release from the hospital. From critical to cured! It was a true miracle!
Do you ever wonder why we don’t see more miracles happening? We know God is great, right? We know God is capable. We know His power hasn’t diminished. He hasn’t run out of gas. I don’t think we need to wonder why God isn’t doing greater things in our midst. I think that is the wrong place to focus. I think the focus needs to be on ourselves, Church. John spells it out in these few verses.
If we have faith in Christ, if we pray bold prayers, if we love God with our whole heart, and if we obey the Lord, greater things are inevitable. Isn’t that what John says?
He says anyone who has faith in Christ is going to do Jesus’ stuff. That is what verse 12 says. He says our ask, our prayers need to be bold. He says to ask for whatever, to ask for anything in His name. Are we praying bold prayers? In verse 15 Jesus talked about their love for Him, and He challenged them to evaluate if their love for Him was being demonstrated by obeying Him.
Church, God has sent me to say to you today that before we can do GREATER things, we need to develop GREATER faith, pray GREATER prayers, possess a GREATER love for Christ and demonstrate a GREATER obedience to Him.
The accomplishing of greater things doesn’t call for God to be greater. The accomplishing of greater things doesn’t call for God to be more or to do more than He has already done. The accomplishing of greater things is now our responsibility through a greater demonstration of faith, a greater boldness in prayer, a greater show of sacrificial love and a greater willingness to live a submitted obedient life.
What I believe God wants us to consider this morning is that “Greater Things” begin by a greater commitment from us! I’m not saying we manufacture greater things. I’m not suggesting we are the originators of miracles. I’m saying, we must respond to God in the ways He has asked us to in order for the greater things He wants to do to be accomplished through us.
This is the time to lean in, to press in, to go all-in and develop as Christ-followers. I believe if we want to do greater things for God, we must become greater in the areas of faith, prayer, love, and obedience. I believe miracles would abound if this was our aim. What if, instead of looking at the ungodliness in our culture, we took our own spiritual temperature? What if, instead of being disgusted by a lack of concern for God and His Word, we evaluated our own commitment to grow as Christ-followers? The world hasn’t accepted Christ. They aren’t making a claim to serve Him. We who have accepted Christ, are we living to serve the One in whom we have claimed to know and follow? I don’t want to be a bottle neck to the power of God being released on the earth. I don’t want to get in the way of God demonstrating His power and authority to those around me.
What I am trying to say is that casual Christianity won’t work. Greater things don’t result from casual Christianity. Having Jesus as a hobby won’t work. Greater things won’t flow from that. God will release greater things as we pursue a greater relationship with Him.
Look back at verse 12 of our text: John 14:12 I tell you the truth, anyone who has FAITH IN ME will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.
Do you have a “Greater Things” faith? Do you have a “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” kind of faith? Do you see a daily walk with Christ as central to your life? When you read of Jesus’ invitation to learn of Him, in Matthew 11:28, does it compel you to show up for class? Can you say your knowledge of God and His Word is growing? Have you stepped out to do something for God that you can say has added to your faith?
Think about the disciples’ privilege. They had Jesus every day for three years. They got to observe Him first-hand. Wouldn’t it have been awesome to see Jesus still a storm? To raise people from the dead? To heal a paralytic? I think I would wake up each day thinking, “I wonder what miracles He will do today?” I think they would have lived with anticipation that they would see God’s power displayed every day.
I believe we can live with the same anticipation. Part of activating faith is believing that God wants to move in and around us daily. We need to wake up with an expectant heart. How can we cultivate a closeness with Jesus that helps us look for Him to be at work daily?
God wants us to know Him. We have to pursue our side of the relationship. If a relationship with Jesus is one-sided, if it is only His revelation to us, and never our response to that revelation, we will never be someone who does the greater things Jesus promised.
A year ago, when I returned from my sabbatical, God made it clear that I was to lead us to become passionate Christ-followers, people who were intentional about their personal relationship with Jesus and lived with an intention, a focus, to lead other people to Christ. God gave me the number 50. He told me to challenge us to win 50 people each year and that over the next five years, if we won 50 people each year, we would see the attendance at our church double. Now listen, it isn’t about numbers, but if numbers don’t grow, that means we aren’t doing our job as Christ-followers to grow the Kingdom. People who possess a growing faith are going to cause new spiritual birth to happen. My heart’s desire is to grow God’s kingdom that way.
But you know another way we could see numeric growth at Teays Valley Church of God? It’s for those who call this church home to make the commitment to come every Sunday. I don’t know an exact number of people who call this church home, but I’d say it’s north of 800. But many don’t make weekly attendance a habit, and so our number stays around 500.
A study that came out in March of 2024 said that of people who profess to be Christian, only 3 out of 10 adults attend church weekly. Another study revealed it was only 20 percent of Christians who attended weekly. When you get to monthly attendance, the number jumped to 40 percent. One site I visited this week, when researching this topic, said that people viewed regular church attendance as getting to church three times out of every eight weekends. That is 37.5% of the time. Can we call that regular? Can we call that committed? What does that say about the depth of our faith or desire to grow?
Why is church attendance important? Because it is a demonstration of faith. Because getting here puts you in an atmosphere of faith. Because being where God is working and getting instruction from people who are spending time with God to receive a word for this corporate body gives you a springboard for the mission to which He is calling all of us. It’s hard to respond to the challenge God issues weekly when you aren’t here. Sunday School classes, Wednesday night services, Monday Night Meditations on Facebook, our new small group on Spiritual Warfare on Thursday nights in September, serving in some aspect of our ministry as we gather, all of these opportunities will grow your faith, but you can’t take advantage of them if you don’t come. Plus, it’s kind of hard to invite people to come church if you aren’t going to be there yourself. Just sayin’.
Can you imagine how our region could change if every believer became radically committed to attending a Bible-believing church? Can you imagine the momentum? Can you imagine the sense of mission and purpose with which God’s people would live? I challenge everyone who calls TVCOG their home to at least make a weekly commitment to be here. If you miss on Sunday, come on Wednesday. Don’t let weeks go by without engaging with your brothers and sisters in Christ. I know you can watch online, but it isn’t the same. It’s a great option for those who are sick or for those who are out of town, but God’s design is for us to grow together in a body.
In addition to a weekly commitment, make a daily investment in your relationship with Christ. He says in John 15 that we must remain in Him like a branch remains connected to the vine. No branch can bear fruit by itself. What if a branch just wanted to connect to the vine three days each week but then wanted to disconnect for the remaining four? It would be impossible for that branch to have any fruit on it, right? To bear fruit, that branch would need nourishment from the vine every day. Fruit bearing is the greater things stuff Jesus was talking about. To have a greater things faith, we have to be daily connected to the Vine, daily connected to Jesus. A sometimes-connection with Jesus won’t yield greater things fruit.
It is interesting that the next verses in John 15, the Vine/branch chapter, move to prayer because that’s where our “Greater Things” passage also takes us. John 15:7-8 say that as we remain in Christ and as His words remain in us, we can ask anything of Him, and it will be given to us. Jesus said the same thing in our passage for today. Greater things will be the result of a greater faith, and a greater boldness in prayer. If we want to see greater things happening, we need to pray the price. We need to be fiercely committed to growing our prayer lives.
Ephesians 3:12 tells us we have can have boldness and access to God and pray with confidence through faith in Him. Hebrews 4:16 tells us we can come boldly to the throne of grace, boldly to the place of prayer. We don’t have to be timid about our need. We don’t have to be timid as we pray. We have power and authority to bind and loose things. We have power and authority to ask for healing and to proclaim healing. For greater things to start happening, we need to pray with greater boldness!
You might be thinking, “Wait a minute. That sounds like we are putting ourselves in the driver’s seat, Pastor.” Let me clarify. Bold praying will be the byproduct of abiding in the Vine. We will be able to pray boldly as our faith is rightly placed in the Lord, and as we spend time with Him, His desires will become our desires, so we will be able to discern and pray the will of God. And friends, nothing can stop the will of God! We can pray boldly when we are living surrendered to Christ because we can trust God to reveal His will to us as we pray. Bold praying is simply joining God in His work and declaring it done! Yes, we must leave the results of prayer with God, but we must do our part to pray with boldness. I mean, if we don’t even ask for greater things, why would we expect them? Whether God answers our prayers the way we want Him to or not, it doesn’t change the fact that our assignment is to pray with boldness.
Pray Ephesians 3:20. Pray that God will do infinitely more than anything you could ask or imagine according to the power that is at work in you.
Back to our text for today. Jesus said in John 14:15, 15 “If you LOVE ME, YOU WILL OBEY what I command.
Greater things will flow from great obedience to God. It’s time to become radical followers of Jesus. It is time to be deeply concerned about how our lives align with God’s Word. We need to stop looking for loopholes and presuming upon God’s grace and stop procrastinating about our Kingdom assignments and go all in with Jesus.
He says in our “greater things” passage that our love for Him is tied to our obedience to Him. Let’s say you ask someone to do something, and they do it eventually after you prod them, remind them, beg them, and threaten them. That’s not the kind of obedience Jesus is looking for. Let’s say you ask someone to do something, and they do it grudgingly, with a bad attitude, maybe even muttering and sputtering bad stuff under their breath as they do. That’s not the kind of obedience Jesus is looking for. “Greater things” obedience, for the Christian, involves a willingness, an eagerness, and “I-can’t-wait-ness.”
People who are serious about their obedience to God get up saying, “God, what do you have for me today? Who can I influence today? How can I give to the Kingdom today? Who can I witness to today? What do you have lined up for me as your servant today? A person who desires to obey Jesus is joyful about it. They are eager and excited to do what He asks because they understand that it leads to greater things in their life and in the lives of those around us.
Alright, revisit our “Greater Things” text one more time. Verses 16-17: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever– 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
What if the greater thing God has for you is a greater experience with the Holy Spirit? What if we need to spend some time in a counseling session with the Holy Spirit so that we can understand the greater things God wants to do in and through us? Are we willing to go to counseling? What if the greater thing God wants to do right now isn’t to demonstrate His power in your family or in your workplace, but what if the greater thing He wants to do is inside of you? Will you give the Holy Spirit access to show you what needs to change? Will you present your mind to God so He can transform the way you think? Will you let the Holy Spirit have access to your emotions so healing can come? Are you willing to do the hard work of forgiveness and letting go of bitterness and resentment? Do you want to let go of fear and anxiety and anger and jealousy and insecurity or have they become a way of life? I’m telling you, I don’t believe God can do greater things through us until we let Him do greater things in us.
Let me draw this message to a close. I believe “Greater Things” aren’t only the result of God’s ability to do them, but I believe “Greater Things” are also the result of our ability to believe for them and to receive them and to participate in them. Today, God is calling us to pursue and demonstrate a greater faith. He is asking us to ramp up our commitment to praying with greater boldness. He is urging us to be bent on obeying Him in every area of our lives, and He is inviting us to a greater relationship with the Holy Spirit than we have ever known. I believe God wants greater things from us before He can call greater things through us.
So why don’t we see more of the amazing miracles Jesus did? I mean, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in us, right? I suppose whenever we are as close to the Father as Jesus was, and whenever we pray in confident faith the way Jesus did, and whenever we obey the Father in every detail like He did, even when it required suffering, and when we are so full of the Holy Spirit that we always respond to the push and pull of the Spirit’s guidance, we can absolutely expect to see greater things in greater ways than ever before. Yes, our text is about the greater things God wants to do through us and around us, but I believe today He is asking for greater things from us. Will you repent from casual Christianity and step into the commitment God is calling us to express?
Recent Comments