When Pigs Fly: Miracles of Protection - November 16, 2025

It is my privilege to invite you to today's sermon podcast.

I have made the Apostle Paul's prayer request my own.

When he states in Ephesians 6, 19, Pray also for me, that whenever I open my

mouth, the words may be given to me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

May today's sermon come alive to you and aid you in your understanding of God's plan for your life.

We are continuing this morning on our series, When Pigs Fly.

Talking about miracles, so far we've talked about miracles of deliverance,

how God delivers us from evil,

how God has enabled us and given us the ability to fight against the evil,

and not in our own power, not in our own strength, but in God's power and God's strength.

And we've also talked last week about miracles of healing and how God can heal,

how God chooses to heal, but sometimes He chooses not to.

And how do we live in light of that?

And today I just want to take another chance to talk to you about miracles,

the miracles of protection. So, so very important.

You know, there was a pastor once, and he was talking to an agnostic.

Now, an agnostic is a person that doesn't necessarily not believe in God,

just may even believe that God's out there somewhere or just have a kind of

a different concept of who God is.

Maybe that God created everything, just left us on our own.

There's different kind of degrees within agnosticism as well.

Anyway, this preacher was talking to him, trying to share about Jesus with him,

and they got to talking about the subject of miracles.

And the pastor says, well, speaking of miracles, what if a man jumped out of

a 10-story building, fell all the way to the ground, and then got up,

brushed himself off, and walked away?

What would you call that? Wouldn't you call that a miracle?

The agnostic said, no, that was just an accident.

Oh, the pastor thought he had him in that one, And so he tried a different approach

and he said, well, what if that same man went up to the 10th store again and

jumped off and hit the ground, did not die,

brushed himself off and walked away?

Wouldn't you call that a miracle?

The agnostic said, no, that's just a coincidence. No miracles there.

Well, frustrated the pastor said, I'll try one more time.

Well, how about if that same guy went up to the 10th floor again,

jumped off, and hit the ground and didn't die again?

Now, wouldn't you say that that was a miracle?

The agnostic quiet at first, thought a minute, and then said to the preacher,

no, that's just a habit then.

The guy's making it a habit. You know, no matter what, some people are just

not going to recognize miracles.

They're not going to admit that there is such a thing as a miracle because that

might lead them to admit that there is such a thing as God.

When we think about what a miracle is, it's when God in heaven intervenes in

our affairs here on earth, in the affairs of people, men and women, just like you and me.

When God encounters our reality, when he transcends to who we are and when he

does something incredible,

maybe not always incredible as we might think it is, but when God says,

hey, I need to involve myself there, and God does that.

Maybe you've said at some point in your life, when things got tough, God save me from this.

Anyone ever said that before? You got in a situation where you just had to cry out to God.

Maybe it was kind of a situation where you thought you would ask God,

but you weren't sure exactly if he would hear you.

And so you said something like this, God, if you save me, I will do this.

God, if you get me out of this sticky mess that I've gotten myself into,

then I'll become a preacher and I'll go to Africa or I will just show up and

come to church every Sunday.

I mean, there's a kind of a spectrum there of difference, but have you ever said that?

God, you tried to make a deal with God. At pastor's retreat this past week,

Well, I guess it was September. No, it was October. Last month,

all the pastors, we played this game, Let's Make a Deal.

I think it's still on TV, but it used to be a long time old program.

Anyway, we made deals for silly things. I think we run one, two country gospel

albums, like record albums.

Luckily, we have a record player. I got these fancy socks that I'm wearing today.

And so I get to wear those for the first time.

But sometimes we try to play, let's make a deal with God. God,

if you do this, then I'll do this.

But when it comes to salvation, when it comes to trying to get out of sticky

situations, or when we find ourselves in need of being protected,

sometimes we want to rely on the miracles that God will provide in protection.

Sometimes we want to say, God, I need you to come through for me.

I don't know how this is going to happen, but I need you to save me.

And it's that miracle of salvation, whether it's saving our physical body,

saving us from harm, saving our circumstances, our situation,

saving our loved ones who've gotten a precarious situation that they're in.

We cry out for this salvation. We want God's miracle of protection to be on us.

Even the psalmist cried out with this same kind of plea.

Would you stand with me as we read just one verse today from Psalm 37, verse 39.

Psalms 37:39

The scripture says this, the salvation of the righteous comes from the Lord.

He is their stronghold in time of trouble.

As the New Living Translation says, the Lord rescues the godly.

He is their fortress in times of trouble.

Father, thank you for gathering us together today, breathing us in as it were.

And Lord, we know later we'll be breathed out and sent out to the world,

Lord, to continue to live and to continue to minister and to work And so,

Lord, in these moments, Father, may we know that we are in a fortress today.

You are a stronghold in our time of trouble.

And Lord, we just pray that you'd bring that salvation to us.

Whatever situation we're in or whatever breakthrough we're needing today,

Father, may we get a sense of that from you.

May we experience that in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

Thank you for honoring God's word today by standing.

I just want to make some points this morning and go on and we'll finish out

the dessert auction afterward and people will share those goodies with their

pastor as they're leaving out the door, as the pastor's wife allows them to do that.

Yeah, I'm going to step out of that one quick. Hey, the first point this morning,

we think about God saving us in these miracles of deliverance,

is this, that long before you had a problem, guess what?

God already had a solution. God already had a plan for you.

Before you got into the sticky mess that you're in, God already had a plan.

He already had a way to take care of you. When Adam and Eve sinned,

God had already made a way for salvation to happen.

When we go through the scripture and we think about long before God flooded

the earth, God had a plan in place for Noah to build a boat and to be on that

boat with him and his family and all these animals.

We think about in the scripture, before Jonah was thrown overboard,

God still had a plan for Jonah, and he had a plan for that fish to come and

to rescue Jonah from the depths of his despair and of the despair of those in Nineveh.

When we think about the Israelites, before the Israelites were cornered by the

Egyptian army right there at the Red Sea, God had a plan to part that Red Sea.

See, when we get into sticky situations, I want you to know that God's got a

plan, that God has something in place.

He's got a way out. He's got a way to rescue you.

So I want you to know, before you found out that you had that.

Tumor, God had a plan. Before you found out that you had some other bad health

news that was going to be life-changing for you, guess what?

God had a plan. Before you lost your job and weren't sure how you were going

to make ends meet, God had a plan.

Before you lost that boyfriend or girlfriend and your heart was really broken, God already had a plan.

And are you open? Were you open to experiencing that plan that God has for you.

He still has a plan today, no matter what situation you're in,

because God is a God who has the power to miraculously save.

As a matter of fact, the scripture says that God can save to the uttermost.

Now, I'm not talking about cows and udders, but I'm saying to the uttermost.

I mean, completely. God can save you.

He could rescue you from that. That's the kind of God that we serve.

We serve the kind of God that will commission his angels to come around you.

We serve the kind of God that in the scripture would shut the mouths of hungry lions.

That's the kind of God that we serve. He always has a plan. God has a plan to calm a raging storm.

And he did that when Jesus was with his disciples, when Jesus was sleeping in

the back of the boat and the disciples were freaking out because a squall came

up and it threatened to drown them and everyone on the boat, even Jesus.

And Jesus was so content, he was snoozing in the back.

Well, all Jesus did was to stand and to say, peace, be still. And the storm subsided.

God has a plan even to calm your storms.

Now, God might want you to go through some storms. There's some things that

happen when we are at our wits end.

And when we've tried all we can to finally relinquish ourselves,

to submit ourselves to God and say, okay, God, I've tried everything.

What does you want me to do?

And can't you just hear God saying, well, why didn't you come to me first?

Would have saved a lot of heartache, would have saved a lot of trouble.

God has a plan in place when we hit those times, when we hit those circumstances.

And so I want you to know, and I want you to do this. Trust that before your

crisis, God is already at work. Would you do that?

When you find yourself in the midst of something, just know that God was already at work.

We know that God is good. And so God's not having us go through some difficult

times because he hates us or because he's some kind of cruel God.

But there's some reason behind it. There's some testing behind it, maybe.

Maybe sometimes it's none of that. Maybe someone else's stuff,

brokenness, just encountered our lives and threw some of that brokenness on us.

And maybe God is wanting us to help reach out to those broken people who decided

that their problem needed to be your problem.

Maybe God's using you in those cases to encounter them, to show them the way to wholeness.

Secondly, what I want to tell you today is just simply this.

God's miraculous protection is sometimes obvious, sometimes it's not.

When God wants to save and save to the uttermost, when God wants to protect

you as his child, as a believer in Jesus, sometimes it's obvious and it's right out there.

I remember there was a time in high school, I used to live over by Plantation

Golf Course in Boise over off of Pierce Park Lane.

And it was one of those times where it was springtime.

Man, the birds were starting to come out. The snow was Melton,

but yet the roads were still a little icy and treacherous.

And I went out with my little Datsun, my little orange Datsun car.

It was ran by a little hamster wheel inside the engine.

I started cruising down State Street, going toward downtown Boise.

And as I was cruising down there, all of a sudden I was cruising this way.

And I kept cruising this way.

My car had turned and it had positioned right between two very close telephone poles.

God had protected me in that. I wasn't a new driver. I'd been driving since

I was 14 and I was probably 17, 18 by this time.

So, you know, I was a little seasoned, right?

But I was like, wow, Lord, thank you. A little embarrassed.

I didn't go anywhere else. I pulled out from my snowbank since I was facing

the traffic that was heading back home. I went back home.

I wasn't going downtown for anything. I wasn't up to no good,

but I wasn't going to go there anyway for anything good.

The most embarrassing part was we had a rival school, Capitol High School is

where I went, Centennial High School. There were some rivals.

And guess two showed up to help get me stuck out of the snowbank.

Two guys with their Centennial High School letterman's jackets to pull me out of there.

Boy, I never said a bad thing about Centennial High School ever again.

Still don't, because I don't know if they're that good anymore or not.

When we think about God's protection being obvious, that was obvious.

God protected me. I could have hit the car. I could have hit a telephone pole.

I could have hurt myself or hurt somebody else, but God had his hand of protection on me then.

That was obvious, but sometimes it's not.

Sometimes you really can't see what's going on.

When we look to the scripture again in Acts chapter 16, we see a story like that.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

In the story that's told in the account of Acts, we see that Paul and Silas

are on their missionary journey, and they come to a town.

And in this town, they encounter a girl.

I'm not sure how old she is, how young she is, or how old she is really,

but she has this gift apparent.

And this gift that she has, and I use the gift in quotation marks,

is she has the ability to tell fortunes or to tell the future,

predict some things that are going to happen.

And there's some guys that are exploiting her. What really is going on here

is there's a demon that's possessing this little girl.

The scripture tells us that it's by this demon that she's able to predict some

things that will happen.

She's able to tell some fortunes or to tell some things that will come to pass.

Well, Paul and Silas, guess what? They believe in miracles.

They believe in miracles of deliverance. And so when they encounter this little

girl, they cast the demon out.

Well, guess what just happened when they did that? These two people or this

group of guys that was exploiting this young girl, they lost their livelihood. And so they got mad.

They got angry about this girl being delivered from the spirit that inhabited

her, that caused her to do these things that I would say tormented her.

And so then the owners falsely accuse Paul and Silas.

And we pick up the account of what happens next in Acts chapter 16,

Acts 16:22

verses 22 and 23, and we'll move on from there as well.

But as the owners falsely accuse Paul and Silas of doing some things that they

didn't do, it says in verse 22, the crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas.

So we're talking about a little mob being stirred up here. It says.

They delivered her in the name of Jesus, but the greedy guys that were exploiting

her misery, well, they got mad.

They stirred up this mob, and we just talked about that. But if you focus on

Paul, well, what happened to Paul?

He's doing exactly what God wanted him to do.

Silas, too. But Paul is stripped, it says.

It says he's beaten with wooden rods.

I don't know about you, but I'd be saying, God, where are you at?

I'm out here doing what you've asked me to do. I'm giving up. I'm not even near home.

I'm out here with this guy Silas. We're out here preaching the good news and

delivering people from demonic influence.

Out here spreading the gospel and you let me get beat up? You let me get humiliated,

stripped down, and hit with a stick?

Where are you, God? What's going on here? Now, this shouldn't have happened.

Paul was a Roman citizen. Roman citizens were not supposed to have this happen to him.

So there was some pretty sneaky stuff going on here with the magistrates.

They were politically exempt from punishment, Roman citizens were.

Now, Silas, I'm sure they could have done all they wanted to him.

I don't believe that he had Roman citizenship, but Paul did.

Maybe today you have not been stripped of your clothes. Maybe you've been stripped of hope.

Maybe your faith has been stripped from you by circumstances in life.

Maybe even your trust in God has been stripped away because someone that purported

to be godly, and maybe that was a godly influence in your life,

kind of went the other way, went sideways and really did not conduct themselves

as someone who believes in Jesus.

And so that just took your trust. It popped the balloon that you had of whatever was left.

I don't know, that can happen. Maybe you weren't beaten with rods,

beaten with a stick, but maybe you've felt like you're beaten down by words.

Maybe in your own life, you've felt that doubts have entered in and that's just

beating the pulp, beating you to a pulp and your faith is just not there.

And maybe you just feel really discouraged and you might cry out, God, where are you?

God, where are you in the midst of this? I need a protection and I don't feel

like I'm getting protected.

Well, Paul was in one of those circumstances where he could have definitely

said that he had legal protection, but he also had spiritual protection,

but yet God still allowed him to go through this.

God allowed him to be beaten and Silas as well, and then thrown into prison.

Certainly, we might get disappointed with God. God's a big guy.

He can handle you getting disappointed with him. We might feel left down,

that we weren't protected. We might say, well, this is not fair.

And we might even say, well, God, I'll show you. I ain't going to Sunday school no more.

God, I'll show you. I ain't giving no more. We might say, God,

I'll show you. I'm not even going to go to church with those people at Mountain View anymore.

Matter of fact, I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm going to watch the early football

game. We might say all these things saying, I'll show you, God.

That never works out well.

Personal experience, I'll tell you, that doesn't work out well.

Not my personal experience, but seeing it with some of my family members.

Get mad at one church. Get mad at God. We're not going there. We'll go over here.

And then that cycle continues. You don't stay at a church very long because

those problems follow you. Your baggage follows you.

And really, you just need to lay that baggage at the foot of Jesus and let him take care of it.

Where is God when that protection does not seem obvious?

He's there. Here's where God was when Paul and Silas were still in jail.

In Acts 16, the story continues, the account continues in verse 25.

About midnight, Paul and Silas were praying.

So they had not lost hope. They had not lost hope or trust in God. They were praying.

And not only were they praying, it says they were singing hymns to God,

and the other prisoners were listening to them.

Check that out. Suddenly, in verse 26, I love that word suddenly in the book

of Acts, suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken.

At once, all the prison doors flew open, and everyone's chains came loose.

Remember what we said a miracle was? God and heaven intervening in the affairs of people on earth.

Well, God intervened in the midst of a prayer and a praise service that was

going on, led by Paul and led by Silas.

Paul didn't wait to worship God until the miracle happened. He was worshiping

God before the miracle happened right here.

The miracle that shook the foundation of the prison, that set the captives free.

But yet, we go on in the passage, it said nobody left.

What Paul and Silas were doing was what the writer of Hebrews encourages us

to do, and that is to bring the sacrifice of praise.

Bring praise to God where we could be in a circumstance, a situation,

where we should be complaining to God, or we could be.

God, why did you get me into this mess?

Lord, why me? I'm out here doing what you want, and yet you give me all this garbage to deal with?

He could have even said, I'm a Roman citizen.

This is against my rights that I have to put up with this.

Instead of complaining, instead of looking at his circumstances, he looked up to God.

He praised God. He prayed to God, he and Silas.

So when do you worship God or when should we worship God?

Well, it's one thing to praise God when you see his power at work. We all like to do that.

I was praising God this week as people called me and shared with me how they

saw pigs flying in their life, how God was moving obstacles.

God was bringing miracles to pass.

I was praising God. When you see God's power at work, you definitely praise him. But guess what?

You praise God even when you don't see the power at work.

Even when you can't see something happening, you continue you to praise God,

to say, God, you're holy, you're

mighty, you're awesome, you are all-powerful, and I'm trusting in you.

Whether you do that just by words like I just said, or your own,

or you sing songs of praise, we've got a whole hymn book and whole courses and

a YouTube full of people that are praising God.

We find a way to praise Him.

There's two times to worship God. Again, worship God when you feel like it,

and worship God when you don't feel like it. God is worthy of our praise because

we're worshiping for who he is, not for what he does.

We worship you, God, because you are the almighty creator of the universe.

We worship you, God, because you create this whole perfect world that's just

perfect for human beings to live in, positioned just right in our galaxy.

Not too close to the sun, not too far away, but just right and just at a perfect

angle where we can enjoy all these seasons.

God, you are the creator. You are mighty. You are awesome.

We just worship him for who he is. Jesus, you're the savior.

You were sent. You didn't have to come, but you came. You died on the cross.

You're the Savior of all human beings everywhere.

Worship God when you feel like it, when you know who he is. Worship God when

you don't. Praise God when you don't.

When you can't see him working, when you can't see what's going on.

So here is Paul and Silas in the middle of jail, in the middle of the night,

midnight, praising God, and he shows up.

The great earthquake shakes the jail. The jailer wakes up. He's freaking out.

Because he's responsible, not just for Paul, not just for Silas,

but for all those prisoners in there.

And if one's missing, he's going to be in trouble.

If one is missing, it's his life that's going to be on the line. And so Paul knows this.

As he hears a sword come out of a sheath, he knows that the prison guard is about to end things.

He's about to take his own life. He can't fathom that all these prisoners with

their chains gone, with the cell doors open, are still there.

But Paul cries out, don't kill yourself. We're all still here.

The jailer falls down. This is the short version of it. And he says,

what must I do to be saved?

What must I do to be saved? Paul gets a chance to save the jailer,

but not just the jailer, his whole family comes to know who Jesus is.

The whole family is saved because Paul and Silas got beat up.

Because Paul, a Roman citizen, his rights were violated, he was thrown into jail?

Because they were publicly humiliated in the midst of all that?

Here's two preachers in the middle of jail. Put that on your resume, right?

Well, you'd be in good company, I guess, if you were a preacher and did that.

When we think about this, the power in it. The jailer came to know who Jesus

was and his whole family was saved.

Not just saved in that very moment, but for all eternity.

The whole family. Folks, isn't that what we're about here?

We just don't want the kids to be saved. We just don't want our youth to be saved.

We want the whole family, mom, dad, the kids, grandmas, grandpas,

aunts, uncles. We want all of them to be saved.

And man, if we have to go through some difficult times for us to be kicked out

of the salt shaker to go and to season the world, shouldn't we be willing to do that?

Even if our salt shakers turned upside down. Guys, before Paul and Silas were

in prison, God had a plan.

He had a plan for that jailer. He had a plan for that family.

And that plan was unfolding.

So next time you're late for a meeting and you're stuck because there's a train

going through downtown Caldwell and there's no way around it,

there's people bumper to bumper, don't start cursing God. God may be protecting you from something.

God may be delaying you because he's got another plan in place.

When you wanted to get accepted to that one school, that was your number one choice.

And if you just had that one scholarship and you got in there,

it would change your life, your family's life forever. and then you didn't get

in, maybe God was protecting you from some teaching that would have led you astray.

Maybe you really, really wanted to marry that special person.

You begged God, oh, Lord, please let me marry her.

She is so stinking hot. I mean, she's so stinking godly. I just want to marry her.

Please, Lord, just make it happen.

Please. But God said no, and she married your best friend instead.

Now you're not friends anymore. No. Maybe God was protecting you for something like that.

You ever heard Garth Brooks' song, Unanswered Prayers? I think it talks about something like that.

Maybe God's protecting you. When God protects you, of course, we praise him.

Sometimes we pray and God doesn't give us what we wanted, but maybe God gives us what we needed.

We prayed for something, but that wasn't in God's plan. He said no.

And maybe we got a little bit out of shape because we thought we knew the heart

of God and the will of God, but really we were looking through a selfish pair

of glasses saying, no, this is going to be great for me.

When we pray, we submit ourselves to God. We praise God. We think about.

As we get to know the goodness and the faithfulness of God, we can be convinced

that he has our best interest at heart.

Even when he says no, when he says, no, that's not going to happen for you.

I got a better plan in place.

Will you trust God for that better? Even though in the moment you're like,

no, God, this is better. This is way better right here.

Well, God is good and God is faithful. And he's not going to lead you astray.

Even if you're in the midst of hard times, even if he says no to you.

Maybe the no is really, wait, I'm unfolding something better.

I'm unfolding something better in your life.

And so that leads me to a third point this morning. And that is sometimes God's

eternal purposes don't ally with our temporary plans.

This isn't the only time that the Apostle Paul was arrested.

When you look through scripture, you can see that he, scholars estimate,

he was in prison about five and a half to six years of his ministry while he

was out on his missionary journeys.

Well, that's a great big prison ministry. And even after his fifth missionary

journey, when he went to Rome, he was imprisoned by some guy named Nero. He was tried by him.

He wasn't crucified like Jesus.

Romans don't crucify Romans. But he was, as tradition says, beheaded.

He suffered and he died for his faith in Christ.

He's not the only one. The 10 other surviving disciples also met their own fates,

all while serving Jesus.

And I can tell you from my faith is in these people that they were praising

God all the way to the end.

To be able to suffer and to die for their faith or trust in Christ.

But they also did so much in the course of their ministries.

Sometimes God's eternal purposes don't align with our temporary plans.

I think about my parents. Before I was born, my mom was pregnant with twins,

twin babies. Lloyd and Floyd Curry, named after my Grandpa Curry and his brother.

Lloyd and Floyd didn't make it but hours after they were born.

The technology to save them would not be invented until a year or two later

to clear their lungs from being born too early.

My parents could have been mad. They could have given up on God.

They could have said, you know, forget this. Yeah, we've grown up with it,

but let's just go have fun in life and let's party all the time.

Let's forget having a family and having kids. But they didn't.

A little preacher chased them down, invited them to church, kept bugging them,

come to church, come on, helped them get through their grief,

helped them got through that enough so that they tried to have another children,

a child, more children after that.

And I'm here today because of that choice, because of many choices,

for them not to give up on Jesus, not to give up on faith, for a preacher to

chase them down, for a church to love on them,

to get them to a healthy place so that they'd feel confident and secure to continue,

to go along with the plan that God gave them.

So when a baby doesn't make it, it's tragic.

It's heartbreaking. It's life-changing. When someone's killed by a drunk driver,

it wasn't their choice for their life to end.

Someone else made a stupid choice and someone else paid for that.

I tell you, that hurts. I tell you, that changes your life. It puts you into a state of grief, yes.

It's devastating, absolutely. But I've got to tell you, We must continue to trust.

Got to continue to trust God, even in the midst of these tragedies that happen.

Not your fault, not their fault, but God is with you even in the midst of that.

And are you going to continue to worship him even when you don't feel like it?

Are you going to worship him not because of what he does, but because of who he is?

That's the challenge. Because I got to tell you an insight in all this is that

sometimes pain is part of god's plan,

I mean, as parents, we don't like our kids to feel pain, but sometimes they've

got to feel some pain as they're growing up and learning right and wrong.

And when that defiance happens, sometimes on the backside, they need a little pain to remind them.

Proper discipline now, not abuse. That's not what I'm talking about.

But that pain can shape good behavior, even for the believer,

the pain that we experience.

Though tragic for a lifetime and for the sake of others even.

It can yield some eternal blessings.

A pastor once said, I'd rather be hurt in the will of God than live in comfort outside of it.

If you know that you're going to be hurt by a God who loves you,

by a God who has your best interest at heart, a God whose nature is good,

a God whose nature is love,

can't you trust him rather than trusting some circumstance you get yourself

into to where you think you're living life to the fullest, but really there's

just pain and heartache and needless grief in your life with no end to that.

Let's trust God that he can rescue us. So how do we live as followers of Christ?

Two things. What do you do? Well, if God can miraculously protect,

guess what? You pray for protection.

If you know God can do it, why aren't you asking for it.

Scripture says you have not because you ask not. Are you asking God to protect you?

Are you asking God like we pray, and we'll pray here in just a little bit, deliver us from evil?

We pray that, right? Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil?

What are we asking for? We're asking for God's protection.

We're saying, God, would you protect us as we go through life?

And so here's what I want to tell you. Husbands and wives, pray for your spouse.

Pray for your marriage. Pray for your pastors. Pray for your pastor's marriages.

Pray for your friends.

Pray for the protection that God would just come around them and protect them,

especially if they're not yet saved, if they don't know Jesus.

You pray for their protection while at the same time saying,

God, would you lead them to you? Because sometimes pain leads people to Christ.

Not just for relief, but for understanding and for their eternal salvation.

To save the soul rather than just the body. When we think about praying for

others, we've got to make sure that we're praying for our kids.

And call the angels down to protect your children.

Ask that God would be with them as they're in school and they're hearing a bunch

of different messages from the teachers, from their students around them.

Ask that God would protect them, that God would have them to ask you questions

about the things that they're learning, about the things that they're hearing.

Pray for your kids. Protect from temptation. Ask for that for your children.

Pray for protection from the lies of the enemy, from wrong friends.

I would pray this, and my pastor, first Nazarene pastor I ever served with,

he always prayed that if his kids started to stray, that they would get caught.

That was his prayer of protection.

Lord, help them, if they're cheating in school, to get caught,

so they learn not to do that anymore.

Lord, if they're out drinking and they get into a car and they begin to drive,

help them to get caught really quickly.

If they're out there speeding through town, God, help them to get caught.

What kind of parent is that? Why would you want that? Because you want to knock

that stuff off and out of your kids as early as possible.

One pastor talked about when he was a kid, he's talked about this in the middle of a sermon.

He talked about when he got caught shoplifting and his mom happened to be in

the front row and she had never heard that before.

This poor pastor had to explain to his mama how when he was a kid,

he tried to steal something and got caught.

What a conversation to have when you're older in age. Sometimes parents don't

want to know everything their kids do when they're younger.

Just remember, before you face a problem, God already has a plan.

And even if that plan is to go through some pain, just know that God is on the

other side of the pain, but just not on the other side of the pain.

He is walking with you through the pain.

Scripture says, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil. Well, how can you fear no evil unless the almighty God,

the creator, the recreator of the universe is walking with you?

Jesus is there. Remember, praise God for who he is.

Praise God for what he does not protect us from. The second point I would say.

Pray for protection, but also praise God for what he doesn't protect you from.

Paul never said while he was in prison, this isn't fair. God, I can't trust you.

No, what did Paul say in prison? Read the book of Philemon.

Read the book of Ephesians. Read the book of Colossians. Hey,

read the book of Philippians.

Philippians chapter four, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice.

Does that sound like someone who's depressed? Does that sound like someone who's

just having a hard time because they're stuck in the clink? No.

Sounds like a guy that knows why he's there and what God is doing through that.

So I want to tell you, Romans 5.3 says, for Christ's sake, we rejoice in suffering.

We're talking about the scripture that says, even though we're poured out,

we will gladly rejoice in you, O God.

2 Corinthians 12.10 says that we delight in hardships and persecutions and difficulties.

Because we know when we're weak that we're strong.

We read this passage of scripture in Romans 8 as our invocation today.

What shall separate us from the love of God? Nothing.

Nothing could separate us from the love of God.

This is a God who loves us. We know in Romans also a little bit before the passage I read earlier,

Romans 8, 28, we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who

love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

So I want to tell you, through your breakups, guess what?

God has a plan. God is there with you. no matter how painful it is,

no matter how disillusioning or life-shattering it is, God is with you.

And your breakdowns, God is with you.

Emotionally, mechanically with

your car or otherwise, God is with you in that. And God still has a plan.

Even if you're late for church, if you're late for a meeting,

late for work, God has a plan in that.

Even if it's a garbage truck over there, brother, that breaks down. God has a plan.

In the losses and in the wins, God's got a plan, and God will be with you every step of the way.

For those circumstances that you wanted and those circumstances you never dreamed

that you would be in, God's still got a plan that's unfolding.

Trust Him. Rely on Him. Don't read too much into it.

You want an example? Read through the book of Job.

A man that suffered, that had many losses, but yet in the end stayed true to

God in the midst of horrible things that happened.

God never promised us that he will always protect us. He says he will be with

you. He says he will not forsake you.

But it is appointed to each person to die. Someday we're going to die.

Unless Christ returns before that.

Long before you face a problem, folks, God has a plan.

Are you keying into that plan are you in touch with that plan i gotta tell you

god's will for all of us is to be saved to have our eternal soul saved and that

only comes through jesus christ,

you can't save yourself no matter how good you try to be no matter how good

you actually are it's not going to be good enough because the bible says for

all of us have shot at the target and totally missed the target and what's the

target it's god's perfect standard of who we are to be.

It's not just one person, it's the whole of the human race.

We've all fallen short of what God expects. But God sent his only son,

Jesus, to come and to die on a cross, to pay for that sin.

God is powerful. He created the universe.

God is love. He loves all of his creation. God is also just.

That means he's ultimately in the ultimate fair you could ever be.

And when there was a sin problem, when we miss the target, there's a penalty for that.

And the scripture says that penalty is death, not just physical death,

but eternal death and separation from God.

And as a result of that separation, we can't be with God.

Sin is like the great wall that separates us and him, not by God's choosing

by any means, but from us and our actions, our choices, our sinful leanings.

So Jesus came to break through that wall, to rebuild the bridge between God

and human beings everywhere throughout all time and into eternity.

And when Jesus stretched out his arms, he completed that bridge.

When he sat on the cross as he breathed his last breath, it is finished,

means it is paid in full. The debt has been canceled.

And so the important thing is, are we trusting Christ's sacrifice?

Do we believe that Jesus died for me?

I believe he died for you, but do you believe that he died for you?

And that by his sacrifice on the cross, your debt to sin has been paid.

He's opened the door of opportunity for you to step in and for you to live in

the way that God had planned for all human beings to live in.

Freedom from sin, freedom from the threat of death, and free to live and to

serve God how he wants you to live, how he intended for you to live.

And all you need to do is to confess with your mouth, Jesus, you're Lord.

Jesus, you're the boss, as we talked about in the baptism class today. Jesus, you're the boss.

I'm going to do whatever you tell me to do. Confess that with your mouth.

That Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart.

That Jesus died on the cross. He was put in the grave and he rose again.

Victorious over sin. Victorious over death.

Do you believe that? Are you trusting that?

Because that's the true protection that God offers you, that for your eternal soul.

It's with the mouth that we confess and are saved, with the heart that we believe.

So have you confessed to God your need for a Savior, your need for a Lord,

someone to call the shots in your life, just to trust Him?

Do you believe that in your heart, that Jesus was a real man who lived a sinless

life, who was not just man, but 100% man, 100% God, who came for one purpose

only, and that's to die for you so you could live, truly live for all eternity.

I want to tell you, it's as easy as just saying, Lord, I need you.

Lord, forgive me of my sin. Help me to live the way you want me to live.

Are you trusting him today? More than that, will you trust him today?

Before you leave this building, I just want you to be assured of that, to know that you know.

You know that today. Hey, we want

a miracle of protection. That miracle of protection is found in Jesus.

No matter what you go through in life, Jesus will be with you.

Where you trust in him with that most precious part of your life, your salvation.

We're going to sing one final song. We're going to have a benediction.

And as we're singing the song, even if you want to come forward, I'll pray with you.

I'll hang out down here. And I'd love to introduce you to Jesus.

Maybe you're just not sure if you have that relationship with Jesus.

Maybe you said, well, when I grew up, it was all about religion,

just going to church and doing the Ten Commandments.

Well, that's good, but that's not a relationship with a God who loves you.

It's not a relationship with a son that was given for you.

And so I just, I don't want you to leave today unless you know for sure that you and Jesus are okay.

You and God are okay because of Jesus.

So would you think about that as we close out and sing this last song?

I want to thank you for joining today's sermon podcast.

You can find a copy of today's sermon, as well as other sermons,

and the sermon outline from today on our church's website,

www.mvcnaz.org. It is my prayer also that you will seek out a church home that

recognizes the authority of the Bible.