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The Truth About Miracles - The Blueprint Series
51 Plays1 year ago
In this sermon, Ridley Barron preached about the pivotal role of miracles in reinforcing faith and fulfilling God’s purpose. He preached on the narrative of Peter healing a lame man at the temple gate from Acts chapter 3, demonstrating that true miracles are worked through Jesus’ name to glorify God, not individuals. Barron critically examined the modern church's propensity towards a prosperity gospel and challenged believers to reflect on the power of genuine, selfless prayer and the miraculous works of the Holy Spirit. He stressed the necessity of repentance and confession to experience God's transformative power in daily life. Through scriptural examples and practical insights, Barron urged listeners to open their lives to God's intervention, encouraging them to seek spiritual depth and readiness to serve God’s will.
Timestamps:
00:00 Reading the Bible crucial as it may get outlawed.
05:37 Approaching God like a transaction leads to guilt.
06:50 Peter, John pray, encounter a lame man.
10:34 Eastern Gate walled to prevent Jesus' return.
14:48 Listen and obey the words of God.
18:49 Amazed at miracles, give glory to God.
20:30 Suffering is not always due to sin.
25:24 Don't feel guilty, Jesus battled desires, submitted.
29:15 Three days healed my husband, answered prayers.
30:24 Confident in God's plan, seeking clear answers.
36:36 Consistent prayer brings closer connection with God.
38:01 Confession, seeking guidance, and obedience in prayer.
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Transcript
Introduction and Series Continuation
00:00:00
Speaker
If you have your Bibles, Acts chapter 3 this morning as we continue through our series in the book of Acts, I've had a lot of fun teaching this alongside of your readings as you go through it each week. I hope you're enjoying as much as I am.
Fundraising and Financial Stewardship
00:00:15
Speaker
As you're turning there, and I hope you are turning there in your Bibles, I want to share a couple of things with you, a couple of updates.
00:00:23
Speaker
You know that back in March we told you we had a generous member of the church who had donated a hundred thousand dollar matching donation for our building that we had until the end of May to get that hundred thousand dollars so we could receive that donation. We we passed a hundred thousand dollar mark last week.
00:00:44
Speaker
So once that gift is given, now that we've done that, we'll be a little over $1.2 million in our building fund. So thank you very much for your willingness to give. Now here's where I want to encourage you. How many of you were part of the legacy campaign that we did three years ago?
00:01:03
Speaker
Finish your commitments. Keep giving towards that. I want you to honor the commitment you made to God, to the church, those kinds of things. Finish those out. If you are not a part of that, the best thing you can do right now for us building-wise is to give to our general offering. And the reason that's the case is because in our budget for this year, we actually have designated almost $30,000 a month towards our building. So if we're meeting budget every month like we should be, we actually are putting more money into the building fund than just what
00:01:31
Speaker
what is given towards the building fund specifically. Does that make sense? Follow me on that. So just continue to give to the offering and of course enables us to do everything else we do, but then we are putting money aside for ourselves. What that does is it shows the potential lender out there that we have the ability to cover a mortgage on an eventual loan if that opportunity comes, okay?
Legal Concerns and Biblical Teachings
00:01:51
Speaker
Second thing I want to share with you is a little bit more concerning.
00:01:55
Speaker
If you've been following the news this week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed an act considered to be addressing the subject of anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic language that's going on with a lot of stuff going on in our country.
00:02:10
Speaker
On the surface, for those who support Israel and support the nation of Israel, that seems like a really good thing. If you support Jewish people, it seems to be a really good thing. The problem is, if that language gets passed by the Senate later this week, it will actually outlaw teaching the Bible in certain areas and certain aspects. Specifically, it addresses the idea that the Jews killed Jesus.
00:02:35
Speaker
Book of Acts that we're reading through, at least three or four times, Peter makes that exact statement. It was the Jews who killed Jesus. It's a statement of fact. It's not a hatred towards Jews. It's just a statement of fact that's being taught through the scriptures. It will actually become outlawed. The reason that's important is because I don't think it's gonna happen tomorrow. I don't think it's gonna happen next week. But eventually, before I pass from this earth, I'm pretty sure there will come a point where many segments of scripture will be outlawed. And you're gonna need to know how to read the Bible for yourself.
00:03:07
Speaker
because I've prepared this young lady that I may be in jail at some point. Because I will not stop teaching the scripture. And so my job as a shepherd is to prepare you to read this book for yourself. To know what it is that you need to know and know how to dig into this for yourself. If this language gets passed, and thankfully there are a lot of people who are opposing it because of this very reason, but if it gets passed, it becomes a little bit easier to take the next step and then the next step and then the next step. So you just need to be aware of that, okay?
Critique of Prosperity Theology
00:03:37
Speaker
Acts chapter three, we sang a song just a minute ago that says, I believe in miracle power. How many of you would say amen to that? How many of you would say I have seen a miracle? Okay, raise your hand. The sunrise this morning was a miracle.
00:03:54
Speaker
Now, I had a young lady come up me into this first service. I love this. I told y'all, I always want y'all to challenge the pastor, right? She came up to me and she said, I think I disagree with your definition of a miracle. I said, really? I said, that's cool. I said, talk to me about that. She said, well, I wanna hear your definition. So here's my definition. You're not gonna find this in websters or anything like that, okay? Google it, it won't have my name by it. My definition of a miracle is any action or event that counters the laws of nature that exist in the universe, okay?
00:04:23
Speaker
any action of that kind. She goes, well then by that definition, the sun coming up in the morning is not a miracle. I said, you're right, it's not. The fact that there ever was a sun in the first place is the miracle.
00:04:38
Speaker
The actual carrying out of the sunrise every single morning is just the carrying out of the natural laws of the universe. She goes, okay, we agree. I was like, thanks, I appreciate that. So yeah, you and I see miracles all the time. We just don't acknowledge them, we don't recognize them, we don't see them as what they are. Now the other part of this conversation we're gonna have today is as we talk about miracles and the truth about miracles is many of us,
00:05:04
Speaker
unknowingly and unintentionally have fallen prey to the prosperity mentality of much of American Christianity.
Understanding Miracles and Faith
00:05:12
Speaker
Okay?
00:05:13
Speaker
The idea that if I pray ABC, then God has to do XYZ. If I do this, He's required to respond to me in some way, okay? That is prosperity mentality. That is a prosperity way of thinking. What that does is it creates a problem for us because it makes us have a transactional relationship with God.
00:05:37
Speaker
Much the same way as you walk up to the Dollar General cashier and you pay them money and they give you a product, that's the way we approach God. That is not scriptural or biblical at all.
00:05:47
Speaker
Nowhere in scripture does it say, if you prayed this, then God is required to respond in a certain way to what's going on. Now the second part of that may be even more dangerous, because when you get into the transactional mentality of God, then suddenly you become to feel guilty because you go, wait, my prayers weren't answered like I prayed, I must not have enough faith.
00:06:11
Speaker
I must not be good enough for God to answer my prayers. Any of you ever had that prayer? You pray something and go, wait a minute, it didn't happen. So why am I just not praying hard enough? Do I not have enough faith? I'm hoping that by the time this conversation is over with today, that you'll have a better understanding of how miracles work, and yes, they still work.
00:06:33
Speaker
and how we should pray towards God for those miracles. And I want to be real clear to you, yes, we should still pray in full faith that God can do whatever he chooses, whenever he chooses, however he chooses.
00:06:45
Speaker
Okay, so let's dig into the story. It's a really cool story. I'll stop along the way, share a few things along with the passage, but I do want to get to the point of what this story teaches us about miracles and how we pray. Verse one, now Peter and John were going up to the temple for the time of prayer at three in the afternoon.
00:07:04
Speaker
You'll notice here Peter and John, new believers, obviously, followers of the new Christian faith that is there, but they're still doing a lot of the Jewish traditions. The Jewish tradition was that you went at 9 a.m., 3 p.m., and then at sunset to the temple to pray every day. So this is the 3 p.m. prayer time, which was one of the most popular prayer times every day. A man who was lame from birth was being carried there. He was placed each day at the temple gate called Beautiful so that he could beg from those entering the temple.
00:07:33
Speaker
When he saw Peter and John about to enter the temple, he asked for money.
00:07:37
Speaker
Peter, along with John, looked straight at him and said, look at us. Can you think of a more awkward response to his request? You ever had a stranger go, look me in the eye? I mean, this is exactly what's happening here. Peter probably and John both probably were recognized by this guy because he sat there every single day asking for money. That's what he did for a livelihood. So it's probably not the first time he's seen Peter and John, but this time, for whatever reason, Peter feels led to say, take a look at me because I'm about to do something for you.
00:08:07
Speaker
It's really cool because his response is a responsive expectation. He says so he turned to them Expecting to get something from them, but Peter said I don't have silver or gold But what I do have I give you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth get up and walk
00:08:24
Speaker
Then, taking him by the right hand, he raised him up, and at once his feet and ankles became strong. If you go back to the original Greek translation, the word that's used there means immediately his feet were empowered to work like they were supposed to. It wasn't a stumbling. It wasn't a slow crawling. When God heals, God heals, and he heals entirely.
Historical Context and Prophecy
00:08:42
Speaker
And so that's what happened. In that moment, this man was not only able to get up, but look.
00:08:46
Speaker
It says, he jumped and started to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking, leaping, and praising God. There are some moments in scripture that I just love. I would love it if God would allow me to go back to that moment. And this is one of them. Can you imagine the excitement, not just of him, but everybody in the temple? Because it says later they all came rushing to see what was going on. The excitement, these people had seen this man beside the road every single day for years, and now suddenly he's breakdancing in the temple.
00:09:16
Speaker
This is an amazing sight to them. It says, all the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized that he was the one who used to sit and beg at the beautiful gate of the temple. So they were filled with awe and astonishment at what had happened to him.
00:09:31
Speaker
While he was holding on to Peter and John, all the people, utterly astonished, ran towards them in what is called Solomon's colonnade. By the way, Solomon's colonnade, if you ever hear that, it's like an outer rim to the temple area, and it's the area where the Christians early on met regularly so that the apostles could teach these new believers. So it was very common for there to be large crowds there as the gospel was being taught. Remember, we've already read that 3,000 people were added in just one day. So there are numerous people around. So I wanna show you something before we keep going.
00:10:00
Speaker
This is what is known as the Eastern Gate of Jerusalem, the outer wall of Jerusalem. It is what would have been known as the Beautiful Gate, the Eastern Gate. This is not the one that Jesus and Peter and John walked through. That one is actually underneath this one.
00:10:14
Speaker
That's how much this has been built up over the years. I think it was about 30 years ago that archeologists discovered the original beautiful gate underneath. The reason I wanted to show it to you is because it was the most popular entrance because when you would go through the original gate, you would walk into what was the eastern gate to the temple itself. It was right inside these doors here. The reason it's closed up is because one of the Sultans of the Muslim Empire, the Ottoman Empire back in the 1500s,
00:10:44
Speaker
said, I'm not going to let Jesus come back through the Eastern Gate. That's where most scholars believe he will return to Jerusalem. We're not going to let him get through the Eastern Gate. So what he did is he walled it up 16 feet thick with concrete.
00:10:58
Speaker
And then you see in the foreground, there's burial plots there. That is actually an Islamic cemetery that was put there by the Ottomans because they also knew that Jewish rabbis, according to Jewish law, could not enter a cemetery, weren't supposed to be around dead people, and they weren't supposed to be around people who weren't part of the faith. So this Ottoman guy goes, I'm gonna put up a double layer to keep Jesus out. It's gonna be fun to watch that, right?
00:11:26
Speaker
Because if you know your scripture, this picture's taken from the bottom of the Mount of Olives, which is just across the Kidron Valley from Jerusalem. If you know your scripture, the Bible says that Jesus will stand on the Mount of Olives and then he will enter into the Eastern Gate. So he's gonna pray right through that cemetery and right through that gate, and it's gonna be interesting.
00:11:47
Speaker
Most likely, again, people who prophesy about this kind of stuff and all that kind of thing, most scholars believe that when the temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem, it will be aligned perfectly with that gate like it's supposed to be, so that all of that will come to fruition. Go back and read Ezekiel 44, 45, you'll get more background on all that kind of stuff. Okay, so let me keep reading. So I was geeking out in archaeology there for a second.
Repentance and Awareness of Sin
00:12:11
Speaker
When Peter saw this, he addressed the people, fellow Israelites, why are you amazed at this? Why do you stare at us as though we had made him walk by our own power or godliness? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our ancestors, has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and denied before Pilate. There it is.
00:12:31
Speaker
The Jews did this to Jesus, though he had decided to release him. You denied the holy and righteous one and asked to have a murderer release to you, a reference to Barabbas. You killed the source of life whom God raised from the dead. We are witnesses of this. By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. So the faith that comes through Jesus has given him this perfect health in front of all of you.
00:12:59
Speaker
And now, brothers and sisters, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your leaders also did. And I want you to stop there for just a second. Notice that he says, you did something wrong, you're responsible, even though you acted in ignorance. I want you to hear this. Sins of ignorance are still sins. You still have to take responsibility for sins you commit. The moment you become aware of it, ignorance is not an excuse.
00:13:27
Speaker
You don't get to claim ignorance because once you become aware, you become responsible for your actions. Peter makes that clear right here. Verse 18, in this way, God fulfilled what he had predicted through all of the prophets that his Messiah would suffer. Therefore, repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out. I want you to hear this. This is the problem of the 21st century church right here.
00:13:50
Speaker
We are missing this point. We are so excited about what God can do for us, what God can give to us on the prosperity side of things. We're so excited about what we can receive from God. We have forgotten that God's biggest concern is our sin and our biggest need is to repent from that sin and get back to righteousness. And the church has got to get back to teaching this and preaching this and living this. We're supposed to be holding up a light to the nations. Prosperity is not a light to the nations.
00:14:20
Speaker
Bill Gates, not a believer. He's got more prosperity than all of us put together. Okay, you understand what I'm saying? You can hold up prosperity on you want to, and prosperity's not a bad thing. It's not bad that people are prosperous. The wealthiest man in the history of the world, King Solomon, all right? However, however, if all we've got to hold up to the world is wealth and health, we've lost. But what we have is something much more eternal.
00:14:48
Speaker
Verse 20, it says that seasons of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord and that he may send Jesus who has been appointed for you as the Messiah. Heaven must receive him until the time of the restoration of all things which God spoke about through his holy prophets from the beginning.
Listening and Obedience to God
00:15:05
Speaker
Moses said, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your brothers. You must listen to everything he tells you. And everyone who does not listen to that prophet will be completely cut off from the people. I'm gonna stop there for just a second. The word listen, both in the Hebrew and Greek, regardless of which of the two languages you go to, the word listen always carries with it the connotation in scripture, listen and obey.
00:15:32
Speaker
Not just listen, not just hear. Every time the word listen is used in Scripture, the expectation is that what you hear, you will put into practice because you were obeying the voice that is spoken to you. Go back to the Shema in Deuteronomy chapter 6. It starts off, hero Israel, the Lord our God is one. That word hear, which is a derivation of listen, it means listen and obey.
00:15:57
Speaker
Can I just encourage you this morning, what we're talking about is really, really important, but you only begin to understand it fully if you choose to obey. You're not gonna understand this if you listen, listen, listen, and continue to reject the voice of God in your life.
00:16:14
Speaker
Verse 24, in all, excuse me, in addition, all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and those after him have also foretold these days. So really cool story and we could stop right there and we could praise God for being a wonder working God, right? We all believe that. How many of you would love to see a miracle this morning? Okay, we're gonna be done 15 minutes early. There's a miracle for you.
00:16:41
Speaker
Jackie Powers reminded me that at the end of the first service. Some of you are gonna sit awake through this entire thing. That's a miracle. Some of you are gonna be able to focus on the entire sermon and not wonder about what you're having for lunch or what you're doing this evening. That's a miracle too. But the greatest miracle of all is that God's Spirit would speak to your heart this morning and that you would learn and you would walk away a greater disciple by what you hear this morning.
00:17:08
Speaker
So let's talk about the things that this story teaches us about miracles. Number one, it reminds us that true miracles are always, always done in the name of Jesus and by the power of the Holy Spirit. Genuine miracles always point us to the person of Jesus. They never point us to people.
00:17:30
Speaker
They never point us to miracle workers. They never point us to preachers or teachers or great prophets or anything of that nature. This is another area where the prosperity gospel has gotten us away off course because you see men and women who stand on platforms and say, if you will invest in my ministry, if you will give to me, if you will pray,
00:17:55
Speaker
For my ministry, if you will do these things, then you will receive blessing. All of those are about drawing attention to themselves. Every true miracle is about acknowledging that the miracle begins with Jesus. And it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that good things happen. Now, let's acknowledge something really, really cool here this morning. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you have a relationship with Jesus, who lives inside of you? Which means you are a vessel for a miracle.
00:18:23
Speaker
You are a vessel for a miracle. The Holy Spirit can work in you through you to do things that defy the laws of nature. Now don't get on the building and say, I think I'll fly. Because the whole point of the Holy Spirit is that he is in submission to who? God.
00:18:41
Speaker
So it's always about God's will. And we're going to continue to talk about that a little bit. But really interesting thing here is that Peter goes to this point. He wants to make sure they understand. He says, fellow Israelites, why are you amazed at this? Why do you stare at us? He says, why are you looking at us? We didn't do this. And the reason he's amazed is because he's saying to these guys, you know, just a few weeks ago, the one who did these miracles was walking amongst you.
00:19:06
Speaker
He was the one that was making the lame walk in the blind sea, and by the way, bringing funerals to an end. He was the one that was feeding 5,000. Why are you shocked? Because it's his power that's doing it, not ours. Everything that comes out as a miracle, we're supposed to point back to the power of the Holy Spirit, okay?
00:19:24
Speaker
Number two, true miracles are always a means to an end.
Purpose and Power of Miracles
00:19:30
Speaker
They serve to glorify God, not others. They serve to glorify God, not others. Verse 13 here, Paul says, that's not where I want to go. Verse 13 here, it says,
00:19:50
Speaker
The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus. Jesus as a servant of God always points people back to God. It was with his ministry. The whole reason Jesus came was to introduce the kingdom of God and say, let me show you what the kingdom of God will look like.
00:20:06
Speaker
When the kingdom of God is present, there won't be sickness. There won't be lame people. There won't be blind people. There won't be sick people. There will not be any anxiety or worry or doubt or fear. All those things will be removed. In the passage of Scripture we read earlier this morning in Psalm 46, there's a point where he says, there are all these problems going on. The Psalmist is right and he says, but there is a river that flows through the city of God. And he starts to speak about eternity. And what he's saying is, we may not find all these things coming to an end here
00:20:36
Speaker
but they will come to an end and that end is found in Jesus Christ and eternity in heaven with Him. At that point all those things will be removed. This story reminds me though of a really cool story in John chapter 9 where Jesus is walking with His disciples along the road. It's a very similar instance except for in this case the man is born blind.
00:20:55
Speaker
And the apostles look at Jesus and say, so who sinned first, his mother and father or him? What is the cause of his blindness? I want you to understand something, suffering is not always because of sin.
00:21:10
Speaker
Sometimes suffering is because God is teaching you, training you, refining you, discipling you. Sometimes you don't get suffering out of sin, you just get consequences, and that consequences isn't necessarily suffering, it's a little bit different. But the truth is, we can get caught up in that whole transactional mindset and go, oh, something bad happened, I must have done something wrong. That's not always the case. Jesus suffered. Jesus never did anything wrong.
00:21:40
Speaker
Jesus suffered and we are like him in that we will join him in his sufferings. But in that story, Jesus answers those disciples when they ask that question. He said, neither this man nor his parents sinned. This came about so that God's works might be displayed. He's saying this man was born blind not because of anybody's problems or poor choices or consequences of anything. He was born blind so that God might receive glory for what's about to happen.
00:22:10
Speaker
So we need to be aware of that and understand that miracles sometimes happen for reasons we don't see and we don't understand, but they're happening always to bring God's glory. Thirdly, if we want to see God move, we must become interruptible ourselves. We must become interruptible to ourselves. Peter and John are on their way to do something good for God that God had in mind to do something great for them.
00:22:40
Speaker
but they had to be willing to be interrupted. Peter and John are doing something they'd done every day, part of their normal traditions as good Jews. They walked that same path every day. They'd seen that same man every day. And on this particular day, the man speaks up to Peter and John, something I believe he probably had done numerous times as they walked by. But on this instance, Peter feels the Holy Spirit saying, stop what you're doing. How many of us today are missing miracles in our lives because we're too busy for Jesus?
00:23:12
Speaker
Think about it. How many times have you missed the opportunity to see God do something really, really cool because our agenda is too full. We've got a 40-hour work week. We've got kids to take care of. We've got places to be. We've even got to be at church for some kind of meeting or some kind of gathering. And God's saying, stop, slow down. I've got something I want to do in your life. You've got to give me the time to do it, though.
00:23:34
Speaker
You gotta give me the time to do it. I just said you are a Holy Spirit vessel, a miracle vessel that can be used. You can't be used if you're not usable. If you're saying to God, I don't have time to be interrupted. If you go back and read very carefully the life of Jesus, most of the miracles that occurred in Jesus' life happened because he was interruptible.
00:23:57
Speaker
happened because he was interruptible, because there came a place, as Jesus is walking along, somebody comes up and brings their sick child or their dead child or their lame child and says, hey, I need you to do something. Jesus didn't look at them and go, oh, there's 5,000 people to feed over here. He stopped and he did.
00:24:15
Speaker
what needed to happen in that moment. Now you're going, well, wait a minute. Jesus was in charge anyway. He wasn't interrupted. He was just doing what he came to do. No, Jesus said himself in the scriptures, I only do what I see my father doing. Jesus was always submitting himself to the leadership of the father. He came to carry out his father's will.
00:24:36
Speaker
So one of the things that you and I have got to do, if we want to see more miracles in our lives, we have to start by saying, my day is yours.
Prayer and Divine Will
00:24:43
Speaker
My prayer life is yours. And when I pray for miracles, which is a really, really good thing, and you should continue to pray those prayers, when I pray for miracles, the first thing I do is not my will but yours be done. Not my will but yours be done.
00:24:59
Speaker
Now, I don't want you to feel guilty because you have those prayers where you're going, I really need my mom to be healed of cancer. I really need my friend's marriage to be worked on and fixed. I really need these things to happen. You should always pray those prayers in full confidence, but you also need to understand that God may want to use you as part of the answer, but you've got to be interruptible.
00:25:24
Speaker
And again, don't want you to feel guilty because you're going, hey, my life is busy. My life is difficult. I'm fighting that flesh desire to want to do it my way. Let me remind you, in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed not once, not twice, but three times, not my will, but yours be done. Why did he pray that? Because in that moment, Jesus was battling his own flesh. He was battling his own desires to be rescued from the cross and not have to go to it.
00:25:54
Speaker
and yet he submitted himself to the will of his father and the prayer was not answered the way he wanted it to be answered. You ever thought about that? Did you ever notice that Jesus had an unanswered prayer? Are you with me? At least nod your head a little bit. You following what I'm saying? Eventually God answered the way God wanted it to, but that's the difference between a prayer that's prayed out of flesh and a prayer that's prayed out of submission to God.
00:26:23
Speaker
If you pray a prayer saying, not my will but yours be done, you're gonna get an answer. It may not be your answer, but you're gonna get an answer. Fourthly, sometimes the miracle we need is not a physical one. Sometimes the answer God gives is bigger even than the prayer we're praying.
00:26:43
Speaker
Think about it. This man has been sitting there and all he needs is a little change. He's wanting gold or silver or whatever Peter and John are willing to give him. And Peter has that awkward moment where he says, look at me, I'm about to answer your prayer, but not the way you expect. I'm gonna give you more than you asked for. That's what God's will is for you. He says, get up and walk. Now, getting up and walk is really cool, because it cures him of the thing, but he also healed him.
00:27:15
Speaker
Follow me on this. He cured him of his lameness, but he healed him of his sinfulness. He cured him of his infirmity, but he healed him to a place where he actually could go earn his own money now. He now has been given back his life where he can go work and go earn for himself the way God intended. So sometimes we pray for a cure and God says, I wanna heal you.
00:27:41
Speaker
I read a story this week, it finalized in my sermon, a story of a pastor who went out to Oregon years ago to do a revival.
Personal Testimony on Unanswered Prayers
00:27:48
Speaker
And as he was preaching the revival, he got to the last night of the revival and at the end of the service, a man came forward, got on his knees and was praying. He went down to pray with him and he said, I've been given three more days to live. The cancer has been so severe. We were given months back, back months ago, given a diagnosis of just a few months. They're telling me I only have a matter of days to live. He said, I just need you to pray for a miracle in my life.
00:28:11
Speaker
And the pastor said he got down on his knees with that man, placed his hand on him, and prayed probably the most fateful field prayer that he's ever prayed in his life. Went home that night, got on the airplane, got back home, and three days later, he got a phone call from the man's wife, and he thought, awesome, this is gonna be great news. And the lady said, hey, you remember my husband, you prayed with him the other night, he died yesterday.
00:28:34
Speaker
And he was floored and he thought to himself, the same thing we were talking about a minute ago, were my prayers not faithful enough? Did I not have enough belief in God? Why in the world did this man die when he needed a miracle? And the lady went on and she said, I want to tell you something though. You healed my husband.
00:28:51
Speaker
You see, when he got the diagnosis six months ago, that he only had months to live, he became the most irritable, agitated, angry man I've ever been around in my life. He was mad at our kids, he was throwing things in the house, he would lose his temper all the time. She said, after you prayed with him last week, he came home that night a totally peace-filled man. In the last three days, you gave me back my husband.
00:29:21
Speaker
During those three days, we have played games together, we've had dinner together, we've prayed together, something we didn't do through the entirety of our marriage. And for three days, you gave me memories that I can take of my husband that I wouldn't have wanted any other way. You healed my husband. You see, sometimes we pray prayers that are so human, so fleshly, so much about us and what we think we want.
00:29:49
Speaker
I have never prayed an more intense prayer in my life than the day I sat in the passenger seat of the vehicle and watched my wife die. And I have to be honest, for months after that, I struggled. God, was I not good enough for you to listen to me? Was I not good enough for you to hear? Is there anything about that prayer that didn't honor you? Why would you let her die?
00:30:20
Speaker
And I'm not gonna sit here and pretend that I know that answer. But I do know that God is with me and that God did answer the prayer in the way He chose. Now what that looks like, I can't begin to comprehend. I'm very confident I'm gonna walk into heaven one day and I'm gonna get at least 30 seconds of His time. And I'm gonna bend His ear a little bit about that and make sure I got a clear answer on all that.
00:30:51
Speaker
Some of you have prayed those same kinds of prayers and you come away going, why in the world would you not answer a prayer like that? I mean, some of these unreached people groups that we pray for, there are times, man, I'm praying really hard for them. I'm thinking, we're gonna read about a great revival breaking out upon the Tokanoshima, whatever people. Was that close? Oh, thanks, Tokanoshima.
00:31:14
Speaker
Okay, we're gonna find out, man, that, man, somebody has just turned on the Holy Spirit faucet over them, and they're going crazy over there. But then when we come back, and next week it's still the unreached prayer group. Come back, it's still the unreached prayer group. I don't know what God is up to. I can't always trace His hand, but here's what we know. God is good, and everything He does is good. And the answers He gives to our prayers, even though we don't always see them,
00:31:45
Speaker
They're always good. And they're always what's best because they're always gonna bring him glory.
The Ultimate Miracle of Forgiveness
00:31:53
Speaker
Lastly, the greatest miracle, the one we all need desperately is the gift of new life. The gift of new life. Look at verse 19. Peter says, therefore repent and turn back so that your sins may be wiped out. Here's this grand moment.
00:32:11
Speaker
A man who is set by this road for 30, 40 years, begging for incomes so that he could provide just for the basics of life. He doesn't have the ability to provide for himself. People have walked by him every single day going to do what good Jews were supposed to do, to pray.
00:32:32
Speaker
And of course, along the way, people have thrown him money. That's how he made it. That's how he existed. One of the basic tenets of Judaism is almsgiving, to give to people who are in need. But this day was a different day. And so Jesus heals a man through Peter and John.
00:32:51
Speaker
He gets up, he's running around, he's celebrating. People are going crazy. It says they came rushing to them in Solomon's colonnade, which was the area where most of the Christians would meet in that day and time as the church was getting started. This incredible story and everybody's celebrating, and Peter goes, wait a minute. Let's don't get lost in all the other stuff. Let me remind you what God really wants for you.
00:33:14
Speaker
Because it's better than any person getting to walk. It's better than any blind man getting to see. It's better than any deaf person hearing. It is God bringing dead people back to life. It's God forgiving you of your sins. It's God giving grace to those who don't deserve it. This is the miracle you need. And here's the thing. All of us said at the very beginning, we would love to see a miracle.
00:33:45
Speaker
All of us said we'd love to see something answered in our lives. And God says, if you wanna see a miracle-filled life, then receive the first miracle. The one where I give you freedom from your sins. Then we'll talk about the rest. Then we'll talk about the rest. Look at James, it says, the prayers of a righteous man are effective.
00:34:12
Speaker
You see, if you're living in unrighteousness today, that may be why you're not seeing God move in your life. If you're living with unconfessed sin, that's the reason why it doesn't feel like your prayers are getting very far. If you're not staying regularly in the pattern of confession and repentance, which is a part of your sanctification process, then you are not being used by the Holy Spirit on a daily basis.
00:34:41
Speaker
So that's where you start. If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, you need to stay in a pattern of confession and repentance. You need to come regularly to Christ asking for the grace for yesterday's sin. If you haven't prayed prayers of repentance in six months, four months, three days, you're probably backing up a little bit. It's probably time to get the freedom and the grace that you desperately need.
00:35:13
Speaker
Some of you, though, you've never prayed that prayer. Some of you think you can be good enough to earn what the Bible very clearly says to us you cannot earn by any means except for submitting your life to Jesus Christ and what he did for you on the cross. Today may be the day that changes that, the one that rearranges
00:35:37
Speaker
rearranges the priorities of your life so that you may live in tune with the spirit of God and obedience to him. I want to say one other thing too here. Many times what God says to us when we pray a prayer is, yeah, we'll answer your prayer, but it's not what you think because you may be going, Lord, I'm praying for my marriage. I really need my marriage fixed. He says, okay, I'm gonna start with you. I'm gonna start with you. So we pray thinking it's the spouse that needs the help.
00:36:07
Speaker
Right? Or maybe it's the situation at work. Man, the situation at work is desperately bad. Man, my coworkers were just not getting along. God says, okay, we're gonna work a miracle. Sit down, we need to talk. I need to start with you. It's your attitude that's bad. It's your desires that are out of line. One of the prayers that Lisa and I have prayed many, many times is for a child who's not living according to God's will.
00:36:36
Speaker
And I have prayed that prayer, and you know what the answer keeps coming back to me as? Keep on praying because I wanna see you praying with consistency. Keep on praying because the more you prayed, the closer you and I get. Keep on praying because as you pray, you're gonna live more consistently that life of righteousness before that child, and that child will see what being a follower of Jesus looks like. Not once has God said to me, okay, I'm gonna take care of that for you.
00:37:05
Speaker
He said, I'm gonna take care of you and then we'll figure out your son. Whatever God's speaking to your heart this morning, would you please just be obedient and find that there is incredible freedom in the grace and mercy of Jesus Christ? He's not here to judge you because of your sin. He's here to free you from that sin. Will you pray with me? Father God, we thank you for the transparency of these
00:37:34
Speaker
From Peter and John and others in scripture, Lord, we thank you that through these messages, we are given the ability to see and understand what you desire for us. This morning, would we be given the courage, the strength, even the faith it takes to lean into your forgiveness, to receive your free gift of salvation.
00:38:01
Speaker
Maybe to come and just kneel before you and confess that we haven't gotten this righteous walk right and we need more of you and less of us. Maybe today someone needs to come to this altar, Father. Maybe they just need to spend a little time taking care of some business with you. Maybe somebody here has questions about what this looks like and how this all plays out.
00:38:29
Speaker
Or maybe somebody needs to dig a little bit more into the miracles. They're shown throughout scripture and how those things play out in our own lives. Lord, whatever it is as disciples, Lord, help us to be followers, to be true followers who hear and obey. It's in Jesus' name I pray, amen.