Heaven and Earth - Tony Evans Sermon

without him you cannot but without you he will not when we travel across a bridge it typically means that two bodies of land have been separated by a challenge this bridge is designed to take you from where you are to where you are trying to go the bridge that god has constructed for you to move from the natural to the supernatural is the bridge called faith unbelief will keep you stuck where you are unbelief is so powerful it'll stop god's work in your life he says i believe help my uncle he said i believe but i'm shaking will you give me what i lack so i can go deep enough to believe so even if your faith is weak you've got a faith helper so get ready for your miracle as long as you cross the bridge [Music] our series is believing is seeing experiencing the supernatural it is our intended purpose for you to begin to experience in your life in your world the supernatural interruption of god to move you from the natural to the supernatural experience of his reality in your life as a common occurrence and not merely as an occasional thing that may happen or may not happen in your lifetime again i want to distinguish the difference between supernatural and natural natural means that it's operating according to the laws of nature the laws are already known science studies them we operate on them the law of gravity what goes up must come down these are the rules by which the world works and they're natural men can discover them and use them for living but when we speak about the supernatural we're speaking about when god overrides his own laws when god steps in to a law a circumstance a situation and brings to it or upon it something that comes from outside of it our twin word that we would call those things are miracles things that god does that are outside of the laws that he himself has established i would like to suggest to you that the supernatural is not as far from you as you may think but it is predicated on faith now we've explained faith acting like god is telling the truth acting like it is so even when it's not so in order that it might be so simply because god said so and in our story today we find this principle of believing is seeing being brought to light again jesus is on his way to galilee and he comes across philip and he tells philip phillip follow me philip says okay philip has a homeboy named nathaniel nathaniel is there and philip says nate we have found him the one who the whole old testament prophesied about jesus of nazareth we found him the whole bible we've been studying all these years about the coming messiah nate we have discovered him he's here nathanael we'll call him nate for sure nate says um can any good thing come out of nazareth you you're telling me messiah has come out of nazareth we talking about the son of joseph the cop of this kid you're saying that's the messiah can any good thing come out of that jesus sees him coming and says behold an israelite indeed in whom there is no deceit in other words nathaniel i heard what you just said about me can any good thing come out of nazareth nathanael said to him how do you know me i've never met you we've never talked before we've never interact it's my first time how do you know how do you know my background how do you know what i was talking about that you could claim that i was being honest about it how do you know me jesus continues before philip called you when you were under the fig tree i saw you so that leads nathanael to conclude in verse 49 rabbi you are the son of god you are the king of israel strictly based on what jesus said that he saw which he couldn't have known without having some supernatural insight and knowledge because he wasn't there when he was under fig tree he wasn't there when philip asked him to come and see and yet he knew all this information he said to him uh you've got to be the son of god what he does here stay with me is affirm jesus's deity son of god in other words you have the uh characteristics of divinity you have the nature of god you are the son of god he declares his deity he expresses to jesus i believe you are not only the son of god your messiah that is you are the king of israel he confesses it so say with me we have now nathaniel moving from a big question mark can anything good come out of nazareth and in lickety-split he now is confessing you are not just an ordinary man you are god incarnate you are the son of god so his his doubt has now become enough faith to make a public confession about who jesus is so he's moved in a manner of minutes spiritually because of what he heard jesus say now watch what happens next jesus says to him because i said to you i saw you under the fig tree i just talked to you you heard my word and i said it to you do you believe question mark you will see greater things than these he's doubting one minute he's confessing christ the next minute and he says if you keep this belief thing going you ain't seen nothing yet you will see greater things than these many of you come every sunday and you hear a message you may agree with the message you may amend the message and jesus said to nathanael and i say to you he wants to do more than give you another sermon he wants to do more than give you another message he wants to do more in fact he wants to give you something you can see once god gives you something you can see with your own two eyes once he once he lets you see something something because you've operated in faith now his reality his power his presence is a whole new ball game for you cause now you're not depending on a sermon you just became one so he says i i got some stuff nate that will blow your mind if i can get your faith to keep moving do you believe question mark you you you have grown in your faith but i have a lot more and then he comes in verse 51 and he said to him truly truly i say to you you will see the heavens opened and the angels of god ascending and descending on the son of man i'm going to show you some greater stuff now before i go any further i want to drop a exegetical note in here because you need to know that the word you that he's going to show him this heaven and opening up is plural so he moves from in the greek texas plural so you can be singular or you can refer to a group plural well it's plural so he's carrying on a conversation with an individual but he jumps from nathanael and talks to the group and guess what you and i are in the group so this is not just what he's getting ready to tell nathanael isn't just for nathaniel he says it's for the rest of y'all too you're going to see heaven open up which means it was closed and you're going to see angels going up and down from heaven to earth on the son of man this brings us into the doctrine of angels angels are god's delivering service they're the male men the male persons of god their spirit beings and their job is to deliver whatever god wants me to be delivered from heaven to history now hebrews chapter 1 14 says that every believer has been assigned their own angel hebrews 1 14 says that so if you are a christian you have an angel at least one that has been assigned to you what's the job of an angel to be your spiritual mailman male person because their job is to deliver when heaven opens up something heaven wants to do down in history that history can see because you're going to see it so you have a male person whose job it is to respond to you on earth from heaven but you only get to see that when heaven opens so if heaven is closed it's like a holiday you don't get the mail heaven has to be open for you to see what your angel is supposed to deliver to you and take from you back up to heaven because they're descending and ascending they're going down and up oh wait a minute he just shifted language nathanael said you are the son of god he said because you recognize i'm the son of god if you take that belief and move with it you're going to see the angels come on the son of man son of god is jesus's deity son of man is jesus's humanity we call it the hypostatic union two natures in one person unmixed forever he's god and man he's god so he creates he's man so he was born he's god because he can feed five thousand he's man because he can get hungry he's man because he can walk on water man because he'd get thirsty he's god because he can walk on water he's man he can die he's god he can raise the dead so you got son of man son of god in one person he says because you recognize i'm son of god you're gonna watch me be son of man because you recognize i'm from up there you're gonna be seeing me do some stuff down here where human beings live and the angels will be going up and down the ladder of the son of man now he just told nathanael what he was thinking you see he's under the fig tree he's a man with no deceit and he's going to see angels going up and down well that comes straight out of genesis chapter 28 when jacob was running from his brother esau terrified he was going to get killed by his brother he finally comes to a place where he's too tired to go any further he lays down puts his head on the rock and the bible says jacob had a dream and jacob had a dream and he saw a ladder going from earth to heaven and heaven to earth and he saw angels going up and down the ladder and when he saw the angels going up and down the ladder god said to him i'm going to be with you i'm going to take care of you i'm going to provide for you i'm going to fulfill my covenant with you and even though your life is messed up right now heaven has got an answer for the mess you have put yourself in so nathaniel you under the fig tree jacob is called the man full of guile you're a man of no guile the seat means guile that's cause you're up there meditating on how am i gonna get connected to heaven you're gonna get connected to heaven the same way the one you were thinking about got connected to heaven on a ladder but it won't be a ladder with rungs in it it'll be a son of man ladder in other words jesus christ is your link to experiencing the supernatural from heaven to earth or as the scripture says we have one mediator between god and man and that is the man christ jesus so it is your operating faith in christ not your intellectual faith not your emotional faith it will be as you'll see in a second you're operating faith in christ where you get to see heaven move okay so we have a question on the floor when am i going to see this where am i going to see this man come on jesus okay well first of all it's contingent upon your belief and your willingness to confess okay you must believe enough to act on what he says and to confess identification with him he confesses jesus to be the son of god so let me tell you now how to keep heaven closed be embarrassed to be identified with christ okay heaven will shut up on you because god is glorifying his son so if you're a secret agent christian spiritual cia representative and covert operative uh don't expect heaven to open heaven will stay totally closed if you're embarrassed about being a christian i'm not talking about believing in god no i'm talking about identification with jesus christ the bible says in matthew chapter 10 if you deny me before men i will deny you before my father who is in heaven so you asking for this miracle but you deny association with me i will deny you before my father heaven will stay closed and angels will not come down the ladder they will be on holiday so there must be the identification and confession of christ for you to see it with operating faith because he's already expressed faith but jesus raised the question now do you believe do you believe enough to operate and follow me now three days later so this story is continuing there was a wedding in cana of galilee and the mother of jesus was there and both jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding so when he went to the wedding when the wine ran out verse 3 the mother of jesus says there they have no wine we don't have enough juice wine has run out in other words jesus what you're going to do about it you were invited to the wedding wink wink i know who you are jesus said to her woman what does that have to do with us my hour has not yet come you want me to solve your problem apart from my purpose and woman you're my mother i love you but but i don't operate apart from the will of god so watch this when god does the supernatural he does it in accordance to his will based on his timeline my hour that's time has not yet come so when you are expecting because you're operating in faith and confessing him if you're not doing those things two things you can't expect the supernatural but if you're doing those two things you have to understand he operates according to his will and based on his timeline it's got to agree with his hour and his by got to be consistent with his purposes okay my hour has not come so mother backs off mother says to the servants whatever he says to you do it now when she backs off and gives jesus the freedom to do it his way and not demand that he does it her way jesus says it says in verse 6 there were six stone water pots each one could hold 30 uh 20 to 30 gallons each and he said to them fill the water parts with water so they are filled up to the brim now before you get to that verse it sounded like jesus was going to do nothing because he says woman why are you asking me to do that my hour has not yet not yet come so it sounds like he's telling her forget it i ain't trying to do do that when she backs off and he says to her he says to the folks okay now here's what i want you to do and i'll tell you why in a moment as we close he says i want you to fill these water pots up with water so the servants went and they fill these gallons uh 20 to 30 gallon pots six of them they fill it up with water when they fill it up with water he said to them draw some out now and take it to the head waiter so they took it to him when the headwaiter tasted the water which had become wine watch this damn and did not know where it came from but the servants who had joined the water knew the headwaiter called the bride's groom and said him every man serves the good wine first and when the people are drunk freely then he serves the poor wine but you have kept the good wine until now this beginning of jus the signs jesus did in cain of galilee manifested his glory and the disciples believed in him whoa let me tell you about something when god does a supernatural thing whatever that is because you confess and you operate in faith even though things may look empty right now the parts were empty even though it looks like there's nothing there even though it looks like there's no hope even though it's empty whatever he says to you even in your emptiness do i don't feel like it i'm tired i'm worn out i'm depleted i'm empty in in spite of the emptiness in the bible wine was a symbol of joy whenever whenever wine is used it was a joyful occasions typically he says fill it up to the brim because even though it's empty when i get finished doing my thing oh they're gonna be all the joy you can handle up in here even though it's empty not only that but he goes on to say he saved the best for last it may not be the best right now but you haven't come to the last because sometimes god waits till the last second to pull off what he wants to do sometimes he waits till there's no other option to pull off what he wants to do sometimes he waits till you don't think you can make it any further to pull off what he wants to do why would you take your time when my pot is empty jesus it says because his disciples believed in him but wait a minute they had already believed in him how do you say they're believing in me now when they've already believed in me before well when you see the supernatural injuring to the natural that's a whole other level of belief you may believe in him in church but when he breaks through for you oh that's another level of belief you're going to believe like you never believed before your confidence will be great because you will see his glory now you know why he did not tell he he did not let his mother's request go through upfront he did not let his mother's request go through upfront because this miracle wasn't for the crowd it was for the disciples he wasn't ready it says the bridegroom didn't know how it happened the headmaster didn't know how it happened because god wasn't trying to do it for everybody else he was trying to do it for his followers now why was he trying to do it for his followers because when his followers got the message about the glory of jesus christ he would have no problem having representatives out there in the public because now his reps are going to tell what jesus was able to do one of the reasons god can't get his church folk to be his representative is they have not yet seen his glory but if you ever see his glory you won't be able to keep your mouth shut if you ever see his glory you won't be able to keep it to yourself if you've ever seen his glory you won't be able to hold it in because you will have seen what god can do when he breaks through supernaturally and turns your water in the wine [Music] history was never installed to operate separate from eternity earth was never created to operate independently of heaven time was never made to be distinct from eternity you see the way god created our life and our world was to be dynamically and directly connected to him the moment that cord is cut and earth seeks to run on its own independently of god then it's going to fly off the handle in every aspect of our lives and we'll fly off the handle with it god wants to be dynamically involved if your life is going to be ordered if it's going to make sense if our world is going to operate like it was created to operate but the further we push eternity away the further we keep heaven from invading earth the further we negate the lord's prayer thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven the moment we begin to function with that mindset no matter what our words are then don't expect anything other than chaos confusion discombobulation we've got to reconnect we got to go back to the outlet and plug earth back into heaven our lives back into god and his word so that we can see what the electricity looks like when it flows from up there down here empowering us to be what we were created to be down here because we're pulling from the life up there [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Tony Evans

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Length: 27min 40sec (1660 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 24 2020