Pastor Claude HIckman: How many of you ever ask God for a sign? Anybody ever ask God for a sign? Maybe you're desperate. You know, Lord, if you're real, help me find my car keys. Right?
Or maybe you've seen Christians who kind of like, you know, drop their Bible open to some random spot, close your eyes, do the finger dart, you know, to some verse. We call that the drunken sailor Bible study. You know, who knows what you get from that. Man, question is, I think, man, is that how God speaks? Like, does God speak like that to us, and is that really God?
And, you know, I'd love to say, man, God never speaks in your Cheerios. But to be fair, when we look through the Old Testament, God speaks through a burning bush. Right? There's an axe head that floats, a donkey speaks, you know, finger writes on the wall. I mean, it's like he's just punching the controllers, you know, at one point, you know.
And I mean, even a prostitute invites the spies into her home. Imagine explaining that one, you know, to your wives when you go back. And so, man, God spoke in some strange ways. How do we know it's God? What's funny is my non Christian friends, men, they love the mystical, they love the spiritual, they just won't pray.
Right? They'll listen to any voice in the universe except for God's. And I know why, it's because men, I don't want God's voice sometimes because I don't want his authority in my life, and it's easier to close our eyes. One of my good friends who's not a Christian, a man, God's just been chasing this guy, and I love him. He's went through some tough times with his teenagers the last couple years, and he reached out to me.
Now he's read about Buddhism, psychology, everything else. I said, Chad, what if we started praying together for your daughter, your son? And he goes, no, but you can. And so I was in Florida this summer, and I moved my flight back an extra day to spend a day with my friend. And he said, Claude, I know you believe in Jesus, but he said, I think people believe what they want to believe.
They see what they want to see. And he said, let me tell you about my friend here who I'm worried about. I think he's gonna die. He smoked his whole life. He's unhealthy.
And for the last two years, finally, my wife asked him the question we've all been wanting to ask him. Why do you have a golf ball sized lump on your neck? And are you going go to the doctor? And he goes, my friend said, if I don't go to the doctor and if the doctor doesn't say it's cancer, it's not cancer. He's like, he's closed his eyes to the truth.
And I said, Chad, I'm sorry about your friend. But man, what you just described is exactly what people do with God. They've closed their eyes to God even though he's the one person that could heal in their family and their life. So if you're here today, if you've closed your eyes to God, I got good news. He hasn't closed his eyes to you.
But I was challenged this week as a Christian that I need to open my eyes, not to bigger signs, but to a bigger version of who Jesus is. And both of us, both of those people find themselves in Matthew chapter 16 this week. So let's look at this teaching in Matthew starting in verse one. One day the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus demanding that he show them a miraculous sign from heaven to prove his authority. Now immediately, this is really weird because it's a single article.
The Pharisees and Sadducees, they come as a unit. And the reason this is strange is this is like the Democrats and Republicans voting unanimously to come test Jesus. They're political enemies. Their theological enemies, they don't even get along. In fact, the Sadducees don't even believe in things like miracles and the resurrections.
They're sad. That's how I remember that. They're sad. So they don't so do you think they really want the answer they're asking? No.
No. And because there's already been proof given. It's already been obvious. Nicodemus says, man, it's obvious you're a man of God. Otherwise, you couldn't do these signs.
So they knew. Peter says this in Acts chapter two. People of Israel, listen, God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him as you well know. As you well know. This week I called this message when Jesus shows you who he is, believe him.
Believe him. So Jesus responds to him. He replied, you know, you know the saying, the red sky at night means fair weather tomorrow and red sky in the morning means foul weather all day. He's like, you know how to interpret the weather signs in the sky, but you don't know how to interpret me. You don't know how to interpret the signs of the times that are happening right in front of you.
Now, I know you're in California. You don't know what weather is. Okay. So let's say traffic, right? Everybody knows how traffic works.
If you had to choose between a root canal or being on the 405 at 04:00 on a Friday trying to get to San Diego, right? Like you would choose the vasectomy. That's what you would choose every time because you know, right? Like you know how bad it is. I get friends that get mad at me because like you went on that highway at that time.
What were you thinking? Dude, one time we had two family members flying in the same day and my family who I guess hates me so much, they sent me to LAX for one and then Ontario for the others. Yeah. How'd you think that went? I I took like water and a blanket with me.
It's only a 130 miles. It took me nine hours y'all. I did the math. That's like 20 miles an hour for nine hours. At one point I got rear ended.
I didn't even care. I just waved to God. Like I was so dead inside at that point. He's like, you know. So what are the signs they've seen?
Well listen, Isaiah, Micah, Zachariah, just those prophets prophesied that he'll be virgin born. They prophesied the place he'll be born, his hometown, that he'll be the line of David twice. You know, twice it says he'll be pierced for our transgressions and we'll look on whom has been pierced. They prophesy about it. Then you got John the Baptist who we just saw.
He's like one of those sign spinners sitting on the corner going, man, he's here, he's here, he's here, he's here. And then you have Jesus Himself doing miracle after miracle. We just saw him feed 5,000 people in one location and then 4,000 people in another location. And I think we all think I would have believed. Like if I would have just touched the bread, I would believe.
John 12 says this, but despite all the miraculous signs Jesus had done, most of the people still did not believe in him. More faith doesn't come from more signs. Jesus says this, only an evil adulterous generation would demand a miraculous sign. But the only sign I will give them is the sign of Jonah, the prophet. Then Jesus left them and went away.
You may say, who is Jonah? I think some of you know a little about Jonah. I wish you understood the imagery of Jonah as a church. Jonah was a man of God, a prophet of God who ran from God. He rebelled against God.
And how do you get away from God? In the ancient Near East, the way you got away from your God is you got away from the land because the gods were only over the land they were gods of, so you went to the sea. That's why Jonah gets on a boat and goes the opposite direction from God. He's rebelling. He's running from the presence of God.
And when the guys on the boat find out, he says, my God's the God who made the land and the sea. They said, uh-oh. And he goes, you know what? Throw me over. Throw me overboard into the water.
This is absolute rebellion. And as Jonah is sinking, I I have a good enough imagination to put myself in that water. Imagine looking looking up at the light fading away knowing I chose this. I chose to run. I chose to rebel.
And listen, when you're sinking like that, nobody's coming for you for you and no God is coming for you. But it was in that rebellion when Jonah was at his worst, God sent a savior. Jesus says in Matthew 12, for as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of a fish, the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. God sent a savior. God sent a fish.
And you think Jonah was alive in that fish for three days? No, Jonah dies. He wasn't in there making hot dogs over, you know, like a campfire for three days. Jonah dies. He says as his life is ebbing away, he's praying.
He dies. Why does that matter? Because if God can bring Jonah back from the dead, and if God can bring Jesus back from the dead, God can bring you back from the darkness of the grave, even in your rebellion. It is the argument of Christianity. It is the proof and it is the central argument of who we are as Christians, the resurrection.
Now, how many of guys been in an argument or maybe with your spouse that you really want to win an argument? I know some of guys like to argue. Rebecca and I haven't gotten a ton of arguments. I do remember one time I annoyed her enough with my finger in her face that she bit my finger. So I don't know who won that one.
I think I lost. But in the nineties, there was this guy named Lee Strobel. And he was an atheist. He was an investigative journalist. And kind of the worst thing in his household happened.
His wife became a born again Christian and he lost his mind. He went like death con four. You know, imagine their arguments. And he goes, you know what? I'm not only going to prove you wrong, I'm gonna prove this whole religion wrong.
And he set his sights on the resurrection of Jesus. And the next couple of years, he started interviewing historians, medical professionals, archaeologists, and putting together a book that's called The Case for Christ. Do you know what he found out? Well, he found out, man, Jesus couldn't have been asleep for three days or unconscious because they pierced his side, water and blood came out, he was dead. He found out, man, that his body couldn't have been stolen because the Romans knew that was a possibility.
That's why they put the soldiers there. He found out, man, this couldn't be a myth. Myths take hundreds of years. Legends take hundreds of years to develop. They were talking about the resurrection immediately.
Even Josephus, critics, atheists were talking about the resurrection immediately. This couldn't have been a hallucination because, you know, 11 guys don't hallucinate the same thing at the same time. At one point, 500 people see the resurrected Jesus. And it couldn't be a lie because 10 of the 11 disciples die a martyr's death for this belief that he rose from the grave, and people don't die for a lie. So in the last chapter, guess what?
He lost the argument, but he found Jesus. Lee Strobel became a Christian. The resurrection wins. And by the way guys, that's a long time to hear I told you so, amen. It's a long time.
It's the proof. Now the disciples meanwhile, they're the people who've seen the most proof so far, but they're gonna struggle to trust Jesus even with the most simple thing, bread. Look at what happens next. Later, after they cross to the other side of the lake, the disciples discover they forgot lunch. They forgot to bring any bread.
And Jesus kind of goes, watch out. And he warns them, beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. It's what you put into bread. So he's still kind of thinking about this theology and the doubt of the Pharisees and Sadducees. But at this, they missed the point completely, and they start arguing with each other because they hadn't brought any bread.
I think this is almost hilarious. Right? They just seen him feed 5,000 men plus women and children and then another 4,000. You know what I'm saying? In the Greek, like if you translate this sentence in the Greek, it's just the face palm emoji.
That's all it is there. Because this is like they should know that man, faith leaks, doesn't it? And doubt I think is like a yeast in our heart that it takes fruit. And Satan would love to whisper doubt and leave it in your life and leave it in your heart. As I was prepping this message, my son was reading a book by C.
S. Lewis. It's called Screwtape Letters. And it's this book written from the perspective of demons, how to stop Christians from living a fruitful Christian life. And one chapter is about how to stop Christians from praying, how to render prayer useless.
And the demons teach each other. They say, man, when you're a Christian, when he prays and God says no, convince him there is no God. That one's easy. But when they pray and God answers their prayer, convince them that it would have happened anyway to explain it away. And I thought, yes, that is me.
I thought that's me all the time. You know, one of the saddest moments in the Bible is that Jesus's baptism, when the clouds part, you know, the Holy Spirit ascends like a dove and God speaks and the disciples write down the words of Jesus. But do you know what the crowd says? They go it thundered. We explain it away immediately.
So Jesus knew what they were saying. So he says to them, you have so little faith. Why are you arguing with each other about bread? Don't you understand? He goes, don't you remember the 5,000 that I fed with five loaves and the baskets of leftovers?
Now this is the part that hurts that you picked up. And the 4,000 I fed with seven loaves and the large baskets of leftovers that you touched. You touched the miracle. And then I identify with this because my I'm like a goldfish when it comes to remembering the things that God has done in my life. You know, a couple weeks ago, this couple came up to me in the lobby at Sandals, and people will come ask me to pray.
Always makes me a little nervous because I don't know what they're gonna ask, if it's for a miracle or healing. So I get a little little nervous. I don't know why in my mind if I think there's like some, you know, Yelp review out there for Pastor Claude. It's like, we went to Claude. It didn't work.
You know, his breath smell bad. Forgot my name. So I I was waiting to hear what they would say, and they said, Pastor Claude, two years ago, we prayed with you and we were having infertility, you know, issues. And already in my mind, I'm thinking, how am I gonna apologize? I'm sorry.
I probably didn't have a quiet time that day. You know, I'm kinda like rehearsing like And literally, I look up at them and I realize she's holding a baby. That's how slow my brain is. And I still didn't say anything. I was kinda doing the math in my head.
I was like, one plus one plus baby, carry the one. Yeah. No. Yeah. And I'm like, oh my gosh.
You had a baby. I'm like, we gotta take a picture. I mean, was awesome. I'm like, no way. Like, God did the miraculous.
Now listen. How do you think that changed my prayer life? Not at all. I know that because by the time I got to my car, I was already worried about something else. And I didn't even remember to tell Rebecca the story till I saw the photo.
I'm a goldfish. And my faith leaks so fast. I wish I could I mean, wish the pastors at Sandals could tell you that kind of stuff just our tanks always full. But man, we leak. Our faith leaks.
Jesus says, why don't you understand? I'm not talking about bread. I can do bread. So again, I say, beware the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees. And then they understood he wasn't just talking about yeast and bread, but about the deceptive teaching that they taught.
So I want to look back at the dangers of asking God to prove himself through signs. I think this is something we need to talk about as a church before it happens to you. So point number one is this, beware The scripture always warns us to beware of looking to the creation to hear from the creator. This is just a common theme in scripture. And now I grew up in the eighties when we had like the Ouija boards, know, your friends are playing with Ouija boards.
Anybody had the magic eight ball? You remember that? You kind of I don't remember if you shook it or what? You'd ask it a question or I mean, it's all we're all like we're like Steve, you know, or what's his name from The Office? He's like, I'm not superstitious.
I'm just a little stitious. You know? We're all gonna like that guy. If I go to buy a toothbrush and it rings up 666, I'm like, I didn't really need to brush my teeth anyway. You know?
But man, I remember in my twenties, I I'd made a decision, I'm not gonna use the word luck anymore because I don't believe in luck. I don't use the word karma. I don't believe in karma. This is kind of a weird one. I love Asian food, but I will not crack open a fortune cookie.
You can't read it to me. I'm like, no thanks. And a friend of was making fun of me about it. He's like, why is that because you know they're fake? I'm like, no, it's because I think they're real.
I just don't know who's speaking. Do you let your kids chat online with strangers? I don't. Do you answer, you know, text messages and scam phone calls, emails? I get those every day.
Do you answer those? I don't. Why would you wanna open a portal to the upside down in your life like that? Listen, is not the only spirit in the universe that wants to speak to you. Satan is not as powerful of God as God, but he was a fallen angel and he knows exactly how to trick you.
Signs is one of the ways he's gonna deceive the world one day. The Pharisees, they're gonna get their signs, but you're not gonna like it. Matthew 24 says this, Jesus says, if anyone tells you, look, here's the Messiah or there he is, don't believe it. For false messiahs, false prophets will rise up and perform great what? Signs and miracles and wonders so as to deceive if possible even Sandals Church.
Even God's chosen ones. And he says, see I've warned you about this ahead of time. Hashtag rapture twenty twenty five. Right? Amen.
Like we just ran a good little test and a lot of Christians didn't pass. The good news is God does speak. Hebrews one says this, long ago, God spoke in many times and in many, yeah, strange ways to our ancestors and through the prophets. But now listen to this. Now in these final days, he's spoken to us through his son.
Jesus is the word of God. The word of God is the primary way God wants to speak to you now. God will do miracles. I believe God still speaks. But the primary way the primary way God speaks to you now is through the scriptures.
So point number two is this, I must read the scriptures not the signs. Go to the scriptures so you know how to hear from God. Psalms one nineteen says this, your word, that's the lamp. That's a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. That's how God is guiding us toward his will.
A guy that mentored me in college said, Claude, don't pray and ask God for his will. That's just lazy. I said, what do you mean? He says 99% of God's will is already in the Bible. Don't pray for his will.
He said, you read for God's will, but you pray for wisdom. You pray for his wisdom and he'll lead you. Isaiah 30 says this, your eyes will hear a word behind you saying this is the way, walk in it whether you turn to the right or whether you turn to the left. Some of you need to turn completely around. Okay?
And God will lead you away from sin, not against scripture and not into sin. And I've seen this happen so many times. You know, there was a time, maybe ten years ago, my wife and I, financially, we just sort of hit this like plateau. And I know you know what that's like, where we get a little savings and then we have some some kind of bill hit, and we just couldn't get traction. And right in the middle of that, my wife had this medical emergency.
We took her to the ER. I thought she was having a heart attack. She had the full like EKG done. And they came back an hour later. They said it's just a panic attack, which was great news.
But now, what am I thinking about? I'm looking, I'm googling how much does an EKG cost out of pocket. Amen? And I'm having my own little panic attack now in the ER looking at this number going, God, how are you gonna do this? Like how are you gonna do this?
And guess what? Six months went by, no bill. I said, praise the Lord. Amen. A year goes by, no bill.
I said, praise the Lord. Not everybody's clapping. Two years went by, two years y'all. And I said, that a sign? I got a sign.
I got a sign from God. I was reading Romans. Romans eight or sorry, Romans 13. Give to everyone what you owe them. Owe nothing to anyone.
And then the Holy Spirit just horse collared me. Some of you, God just spoke to you. Owe nothing to anyone. And you know what? Going Monday morning and paying that bill unlocked God's blessing in our life because I stopped justifying my sin.
Point number three is this, beware of trying to find sins. Sorry, signs to validate your sins. You will meet people. I meet people all the time that try to look for signs to not just validate their sins, validate your sins. Probably the most famous story of this is when David is meant to be king, but he's running from Saul who is the king who's trying to kill him.
He doesn't want him to usurp or take the throne. And so as David's running him and his mighty men hide in a cave and Saul decides, you know what, I'm gonna use the bathroom in this exact cave. And he doesn't know it but he backs up right to David and his warriors in the cave using the bathroom. And all David's men says, it's a sign, kill him, it's a sign. And David says, no, no.
Right, this isn't how I'm gonna become king. Right, like I'm not gonna tell have my grandkids come to me and go, hey dad, great dad tell us about how you became king when you stabbed that guy in the butt when he was in the bathroom, he was in the bathroom at the cave. Remember that in the dark, he came up behind him. We sang songs about it. David stabbed the guy in the butt in the bathroom in the cave.
No, he's like, no, This is not God's path. Do you do you know how to follow God when the path is tough like that? Because Jeremiah six says this. This is what the Lord says. I've never seen this verse before until like three weeks ago.
This is what the Lord says, stop at the crossroads, look around, ask for the old godly way and walk in that. Travel its path. Isn't that good wisdom? And you will have rest for your souls, but you reply, no. That's not the road we want.
If you don't learn to trust God and take the road he wants, you will start to see what you wanna see. You will start to see the signs you wanna see. You'll start to take the road you wanna take. And listen, some of you, you are seeing signs to start a relationship you shouldn't start. Some of you are looking for signs to end a marriage you need to fight for or to tell a lie to your employer to withhold forgiveness.
And listen, those that is not God. That's not God. But you need to trust him. And the only way to trust God in
Audience: the
Pastor Claude HIckman: day to day and the tough things like that is actually to look back at the resurrection. When we take communion, we remember the death and resurrection of Jesus. Do you know why we do that? Because it's a chance for us to remember he's already met our greatest need. He's met our greatest need.
And if he can do that, he can do anything in our life. Like big proof small. Jesus is saying, don't you remember, I just fed 9,000. I can handle you guys. I can handle bread.
He can move mountains. He can make bread. And the Bible encourages us because God has given his son, why would he not give us everything else we need? This is what Romans eight says, since he did not spare even his own son, but gave him up for us all, won't he also give us everything else? So point number four, want us to leave with today is this.
I can trust Jesus to meet my daily needs because he's met my greatest need. He's met my greatest need. But can I confess something to you? I wanna just confess this because I think a lot of us who've walked with God, this is where we're really at. I have prayed and I've watched God feed everybody else, but I don't ask him for the bread that I need.
I don't bother him for the needs in my life sometimes, and he wants to give it. You know, in August, we had a mission conference at Sandals, and Sandals bought 300 copies of my book to give away. And they actually paid me before the books got here, so I was watching the shipment. The publisher shipped it late. It was gonna get here the day of the conference.
I was worried that it wasn't gonna make it. And so it was embarrassing to me. I was praying like, God, I know you want people to have this book. Man, I just I was asking God, man, make this UPS shipment get here on time. I watched it all week.
Thursday night, gets to Riverside, woo hoo. You know, Friday morning, it's out for delivery. I'm like, thank you, Jesus. And I'm watching it like 09:15, 09:30, out for delivery, 10:15, 10:30, 10:45, it says offices closed. We'll try again Monday.
I'm like, no. No. Like, this is not how this story is supposed to go. Right? This would make a great sermon story someday, but this is not how this story supposed to go.
And so I start texting, you know, Nancy, Sally and people at the church, and I'm thinking of everything I can think of. And then I remember, I have a contact in my phone from like two years ago, and it's our UPS guy in our neighborhood. I built a friendship with him. He's a great guy. I don't know why people like me.
And he gave me his cell phone number. He's like, Claude, if you ever need anything, here's my direct here's my cell phone number. And it just says Q like James Bond. He goes by Q. And how many times do you think I've texted him in two years?
Never. I'm never gonna bother this guy. But today I'm desperate. And today I'm like, Q. Hey, Q.
I sent him one text. And, you know, he had that truck turned around and the books made it to Sandals by noon. By noon. But I texted him back. I said, Q, man, thanks so much.
I promise to only use this in emergencies. And as soon as I hit send, God said, why do you treat me like that? Why don't you ask me for what you need? You have direct access for me. And can I tell you something?
That moment at noon on August 22, I repented and for about five minutes I prayed. But I prayed to a God the size of God. And the first thing that came out of my heart was the ministry I lead, the traveling team, that God would bless us financially. We always need our own bread. Amen?
Right? We need some bread. And then I remember my family and, you know, everything else. So sorry, family. But that was the first thing I prayed.
The next week, I went to Arkansas and I met with our staff, and one of my staff guys said, hey, I wanna talk to you about the budget, which usually isn't good. He goes, hey, I I just wanna let you know there's a foundation that we've been asking for seven years to give. Last week, they decided they're gonna give to the traveling team. They actually ran out of missionaries to support, and they said, we don't have any missionaries left to support. Let's go to the people who make the missionaries and support them.
They're giving to the traveling team. I'm like, praise God. That's awesome. That's awesome. And he goes, yeah, I was in Tijuana with the board last week.
He goes, oh, you're like, you're in my time zone. He goes, yeah, I was in Tijuana with the board last week and we met at lunch and that's when we voted to give to the travel team. And I said, What time? What time did you vote? And then tears just filled my eyes.
And I went back later in my Bible and I wrote this down. And this is a new rule that I'm trying to live by. God, if you can move mountains, you can make bread. But when I see you make bread, I'm gonna remember to pray like you move mountains. Whatever's impossible in your life right now, it's just bread to Him.
It might seem big to you, but it's all small to Him. Can you imagine as a church, if we began even for five minutes to pray for our family, pray for the world and pray to a God the size of God. When Jesus shows us who he is, believe him. Let's pray together. God, first of all, we just want to remember that we are the ones who ran.
We are the ones who rebelled. And it was at our worst that God you rescued. God, you proved that you could bring back even rebellious hearts like ours from the darkness of our sin. You proved it with your death, your resurrection. So why would we not trust you?
God, would you remove the yeast of doubt from our heart? And I pray that God, you would give our church boldness, give us renewed boldness to pray for everything that we might need today. And we pray these things for your glory and we pray them in your son's name. Amen.
Pastor Fredo Ramos: Man, what a treat it was to hear a word like that. We hope and pray that as you go about your week that when Jesus shows you who he is that you would trust him because he's met your greatest need. We can trust him with our daily needs. What a gift that was to hear. Thank you, brother.
And man, one of the ways that we exercise this kind of trust is through our giving. And so I wanna encourage you if our ministry has served you or blessed you in any kind of way, that you would pray about how you wanna support the work that God is doing in and through Sandals Church. To do that, can go to sandalschurch.com/support. Grace and peace. We'll see you next week.