Do miracles still happen today? And if they do — are we prepared to recognize them when they show up looking nothing like we expected?

Pastor Curtis Hight opens this message with a question that most believers quietly wrestle with, then answers it through two very different stories: one from 2,000 years ago about a priest named Zechariah and his unlikely son, and one from a few weeks before the sermon about a rough, tattooed biker from Pastor Curtis's hometown who had been sober for 25 years and was now preaching the gospel.

Just like John the Baptist was told from before his birth that God had a plan for his life, every believer who has received the Holy Spirit carries the same calling: prepare the way for someone else to find Jesus.

Pastor Curtis opens with the observation that we've grown so familiar with the language of faith that we've lost our sense of wonder at what it actually means. Nicodemus — one of the most educated religious leaders of his day — stood face to face with Jesus and could only bring himself to call his miracles "signs." He wasn't willing to call them miracles.

Pastor Curtis"Just because we think we can explain something doesn't make it any less of a miracle than it was."

And then Pastor Curtis tells the story of Kenny Arnold.

Kenny Arnold was a big, tough, tattooed guy from Pastor Curtis's hometown — the kind of man you'd picture at a bar with a pool stick, not behind a pulpit. When Pastor Curtis started seeing posts from Kenny about "temptation" and "salvation" and "motorcycle ministry," his honest first reaction was skepticism.

Pastor Curtis"What kind of church is inviting Kenny Arnold to preach? I just had a hard time believing Kenny had really changed."

But he decided to watch one of Kenny's messages. And Kenny was good. Really good. He pulled out a pocket knife and said that's not what he was talking about. He pulled out a dagger — that's not it either. Then he reached down and grabbed a sword. "This is what your Bible is. The sword of the spirit. And when you're going to fight, you need to have your sword."

Then on February 11th, Kenny posted something that stopped Pastor Curtis completely:

Pastor Curtis"Shame on me for not believing Kenny could be changed. If God can use someone who looks like Kenny Arnold to proclaim the gospel — then there is undeniable proof that miracles still happen today."

But here's the thing about Kenny's miracle: someone had to prepare the way. Someone in his life — someone Pastor Curtis would probably never have approached — planted a seed. They prepared the way. And Kenny eventually found Jesus.

To understand our calling, Pastor Curtis takes us to Luke 1 — the only account in the Bible of the birth of John the Baptist. Zechariah was a priest. His wife Elizabeth was a descendant of Aaron — Moses's brother and the first high priest of Israel. Luke tells us plainly that both of them were righteous in the sight of God. They weren't just trading on their ancestry. They chose to live what they believed.

One day while Zechariah was serving in the temple, the angel Gabriel appeared to him with a message that would change everything:

Luke 1:13–17"Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to call him John. He will be a joy and delight to you... He will go on before the Lord in the spirit and power of Elijah to make ready a people prepared for the Lord."

Zechariah doubted. And because he doubted, he couldn't speak until the day John was born.

John knew from his earliest memories what God intended for him because his parents refused to let him forget. And he fulfilled that calling completely.

Here is the point Pastor Curtis brings home with clarity and honesty:

Pastor Curtis also clarifies something important about the Great Commission. The original Greek, he explains, is better translated "as you go" — not "go and then." Jesus wasn't telling the disciples to pack up and head for foreign mission fields. He was saying: wherever you already are, in every relationship you already have — as you go through your life — share the good news.

Pastor Curtis"Everywhere you go, share the good news of the gospel, the love of Jesus. That's what he's asking us to do."

He closes with an admission that is both humbling and freeing. If God had asked him to approach Kenny Arnold — to walk up to that big, tattooed, intimidating man and invite him to meet Jesus — he would have failed. He would have looked at the outside and walked away.

Pastor Curtis"Thank God, he put someone in Kenny's life who wasn't scared. Who made a big enough impression on him that one way or another led Kenny to Jesus."

When you leave this building today, there are two ways to see the people around you. You can see them as unapproachable. Or you can see them as souls made in the image of God — people he loves, people he may be calling you specifically to reach.

You may never see them come to Jesus in your lifetime. That's not the point. The point is they will never come to Jesus unless someone prepares the way.

Pastor Curtis roots this call to prepare the way in the distinctive Wesleyan-Holiness heritage of the Church of the Nazarene — and specifically in the doctrine of entire sanctification.

He walks through the tension Paul describes in Romans 7 — the struggle of wanting to do right but finding yourself doing what you don't want to do. Many believers live their entire Christian lives stuck in that chapter, caught between the life they want and the temptations that keep pulling them back.

But Paul goes on to Romans 8:

Romans 8:1"There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."

Entire sanctification, as the Nazarene tradition teaches it, is not perfection. It is not freedom from temptation or mistakes. But it is a deeper surrender — a second act of grace — through which the Holy Spirit increasingly displaces the desires of the flesh. As John Wesley wrote:

John Wesley"Christian perfection is not freedom from ignorance, mistake, infirmities, or temptation. Christian perfection is freedom from the power and condition of sin and freedom to love God and neighbor with a whole heart."

This is the foundation from which we go out and prepare the way. Not from guilt or obligation — but from a heart that has been transformed and wants nothing more than to see others experience the same grace.