Today, we begin a new message series, Doing What Jesus Did. Lately, we’ve been going through the gospel of Luke, verse by verse. If you want to really understand the Bible, there are five books our of the sixty six, that you really need to study.
Those five books are the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the book of Acts, which is the second part of Luke’s Gospel. Those five books will provide the foundation for understanding all the rest of the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New Testament. Much error in the church today could be eliminated if there was a better understanding of those five essential books. The four Gospels give a complete understanding of Jesus’ ministry and Acts shows how the early church continued Jesus’ ministry in the power of the Spirit. As we’ve been studying the gospel of Luke, we’ve seen that in Jesus’ ministry, He did three main things.
Luke 4:43 (ESV) but he said to them, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns as well; for I was sent for this purpose.”
The first purpose of Jesus’ ministry was to preach the Gospel about the kingdom of God. There’s a lot of preaching going on in churches today, but not always about the kingdom.
Luke 4:40-41a (ESV) Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to him, and he laid his hands on every one of them and healed them. And demons also came out of many,
The next two things that Jesus’ ministry focused on was healing the sick and casting out of demons. We don’t see a lot of healing miracles today and hardly anyone talks about demons, let alone casts them out. Why don’t we see more of the things that Jesus in America today? Many people conveniently believe that Jesus doesn’t do those kinds of miracles anymore. They were just for the Jesus and the apostles. Let’s look at what Jesus said.
John 14:12 (ESV) “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.
The works that Jesus was talking about were the miracles He did, such as healings and deliverances which were the most common. What happened when Jesus went to the Father? In the book of Acts, we read that Jesus poured out the baptism in the Holy Spirit to give all of His followers the same power of the Spirit that He had.
Today’s message is entitled “Moving in the Supernatural.” As we’ve seen from what Jesus said, God’s desires for you and me to do what Jesus did. To move in the supernatural is to do what the Bible describes as miracles, signs and wonders. The supernatural are things beyond the natural or normal way of life. The supernatural is when the kingdom of God breaks in our natural world. My prayer is that today’s study would help all of us believe Jesus words, that “whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do.” Jesus desires for you to be …