Miraculous God

So today we're going to be talking about the miracle of Jesus feeding the 5,000.

And interesting thing is I was studying this miracle that I found out it's actually the only one of Jesus' miracles that's recorded in all four Gospels.

And so one of the things that tells me is clearly there's some principles that he wanted us to gain from this miracle, given that it's the only one he put in all four of his gospels.

And so we're going to actually read about it from John chapter 6.

John 6 · chapter mention

So if you want to go ahead and turn there in your Bibles, I know Pastor Robert usually has you turn to two chapters of Scripture and you take your finger and put it in a marker in the second one.

So your marker finger, whichever one that is, gets a vacation this week, as we're just turning to one passage of scripture.

But don't worry, I'm sure he'll put your finger right back to work as soon as he comes back from vacation.

So but we're going to start reading in verse 5 of John 6.

And it says this.

Philip replied, Even if we worked for months, we wouldn't have enough money to feed them.

So I want to pause here for a second.

We'll read through this and pause at different points and pull out some principles.

I want to pause here first because I think this is a very interesting interaction between Jesus and Philip.

Because Jesus is asking Philip something that is clearly impossible.

We know later on from reading this story that there were 5,000 men in the audience.

And so when you consider women and children, it was probably upwards of 15 to 20,000 people that were in this crowd.

So clearly they didn't have money to be able to buy food for all these people.

And Jesus knew this, but he was testing Philip to see how he might respond in this situation.

And so we can tell from the sentence structure, both the vernacular that Philip uses as well as the presence of the exclamation point at the end, that Philip's response was one of frustration.

He was exasperated by Jesus' request because it seemed impossible.

Now keep in mind Philip is also a teenage boy, so I imagine there might have been a little attitude with this response, you know, kind of maybe a little flailing of the arms, you know, to give you a reference point, maybe some of the same kind of response that you get if you have teenagers when you ask them to clean their room, right?

You know, you kind of ask them to clean their room.

In fact, maybe they've even used the exact same words in their response, where they look back at you and go, Mom, even if I worked for months, there's no way that I could get this room cleaned.

And so Philip is frustrated, but he's frustrated because he's looking at the situation from a natural viewpoint.

And the truth is, we too will feel frustrated, exasperated, maybe fearful, hopeless, when we choose to view life's seemingly impossible challenges through natural eyes.

And so the first thing I want us to gather, the first principle from this miracle is simply this, that we need to learn to look beyond the natural.

Look beyond the natural.

And really, when you think about it, it should be the other way around.

I mean, just to give you an example here, uh, maybe you can imagine if you were in grade school, and maybe this even happened to you at some point, but say you're in grade school and you were picked on by a bully, kind of a class bully, and he was, you know, saying some intimidating things to you or asking for your lunch money, whatever bullies do.

And so your perception of that situation is probably not good at that moment.

You're thinking, I'm in trouble, things are not going well for me.

But now what would happen to your perception if all of a sudden maybe an older brother, an older friend, two grades older, rolls up with their whole posse of friends right behind you, looks at the bully and says, We got a problem here?

So your perception of that situation changes, doesn't it?

See, now you might be a little bit more confident, you're probably not fearful anymore because the balance of power has shifted in your favor, right?

Listen, it's not that you don't see the bully anymore.

It's just that the powers on your side are greater than the powers against you, and so that's what most shapes your perception of the situation, right?

Listen, I'm here to tell you, it's the same thing with your life.

No matter how impossible the situation you're facing may seem, you have the God of all impossibility on your side.

So greater are the powers on your side than the powers against you.

And listen, you might be saying, well, Mike, okay, that's that's great, but why is it so important how our per how our perception of each situation is?

Our perception is so powerful because your perception of a situation will determine the way you respond to that situation.

And the way you respond to that situation will oftentimes determine the results that you experience from that situation.

In fact, honestly, I think we see that play out in this miracle right here.

I think it's very significant that it wasn't Philip who brought the ingredients to Jesus that he ended up using for the miracle.

As we'll find out later, it was another disciple, Andrew.

You see, the the thing that's interesting to me is both of them were facing exactly the same situation.

They just saw it differently.

Philip threw up his hands and said, It's impossible.

Andrew said, Well, it's definitely impossible, but we do have Jesus here.

So let's just bring him a few fish and see what happens, right?

And so their perception of that situation ended up making all the difference in the outcome.

And I really think we see this principle not just play out in our lives, I think we see it play out time and again in Scripture.

You know, one other prominent example I can think of is the story of David and Goliath.

You know, we all know that story where the Philistine giant is coming day after day, intimidating the armies of Israel.

And they're afraid because they look and they think, gosh, there's no way I can defeat that giant, so we're in big trouble.

And so night after night, day after day, this giant is intimidating them until David shows up.

Again, David walks into exactly the same situation.

Just sees it different.

It's not that he doesn't see the giant, it's just that he thinks, who's this giant compared to the power of God that is on our side, right?

Listen, I think next time the enemy tries to remind you of how impossible your situation is, maybe it's time we start reminding him that we have the God of the impossible working on our behalf.

Need to look beyond the natural.

Let's keep reading here a few more verses, uh, going on to verse 8.

It says this, another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, spoke up.

Here's a boy with five small body loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?

So here's where Andrew brings the ingredients that Jesus eventually uses for the miracle.

The thing that I want you to see here is obviously the amount of food that he brought was woefully inadequate to feed a crowd of that size.

But I think that leads us to our second principle here is simply this bring what you have.

Bring what you have.

You know, I think so many times we get discouraged from believing God for miraculous things because we think somehow we're lacking something that we need before God's gonna move on our behalf.

That we're missing something that maybe if I just had a little bit more faith, maybe then I could expect God to do something for me.

Or, you know, if I were just a little bit more holy, maybe then I could be confident that God might move on my behalf.

Listen, I'm gonna tell you today, I think that line of reasoning is a lie straight from hell.

Uh to discourage you from coming confidently to the throne of God in your time of need.

Listen, here's the thing: any human being on the face of the earth could make that argument.

We could all use a little more faith.

We could all stand to be a little more holy.

The truth is that God's not asking us to bring what we don't have, he's just asking us to bring what we have and to come confidently as we are in our time of need.

You know, I think it's interesting to look again throughout the Bible, we see this principle at play.

God never asks someone to become something they're not before he moves through them.

He just uses them where they are.

You remember the story of Moses when God wants to use Moses to deliver the Israelites, and Moses is having this panic attack because he realizes he's inadequate for the task.

And so one of the things he asked God, he said, God, I'm gonna need some signs so that the Israelites will believe that you sent me.

God doesn't make him change anything.

He says, Okay, that's fine.

What do you have in your hand?

Moses says, a stick.

Awesome, we'll use that, no problem.

You know.

Listen, here's the point.

I think if we're honest, God doesn't need anything.

The only reason why he asks us to bring what we have is because he wants to give us the opportunity to participate with him in the miraculous things that he wants to do in our lives.

You know, I think when we read through scripture, I think we could all agree that God has done some of his best work through the inadequate, underqualified, and at times extremely flawed.

So if you feel like what you have is somehow inadequate for something you're facing, hey, cheer up, you're in good company.

Okay.

In fact, the people God seemed to use the most throughout the Bible, even they didn't have in the natural what was necessary to accomplish what God had put before them.

Take, for example, Paul.

He may be the most successful Christian ever to live.

I mean, we look at the things that Paul accomplished, starting churches all over the world, preaching the gospel where it's never been, you know, where it'd previously been unknown, writing half the New Testament, that's pretty impressive.

I mean, he did incredible things.

Do you know the Bible, though, actually records Paul was a horrible speaker?

Now you think that's gotta be impossible.

He was so effective, but it's true.

It says here in 2 Corinthians 10 10, it says, Paul's letters are demanding and forceful, but in person he is weak and his speeches are worthless.

In fact, Paul is the only person I know of in recorded history that actually killed someone with his preaching.

He literally killed a guy.

Watch this.

In Acts 20, verse 9, it says, As Paul spoke on and on, a young man named Eudychus sitting on the windowsill became very drowsy.

Acts 20:9

Finally, he fell sound asleep and dropped three stories to his death below.

Listen, when you're preaching and people are getting a little bit bored, you know, maybe they're just barely nodding off, that's one thing.

But when you're putting people into a deep sleep and killing them, you know, that's kind of a problem, you know.

Now, if you read that story, you know that God used Paul to raise Eutychus from the dead.

And I'll tell you an interesting side note, how many guys know Eutychus never fell asleep in church again?

He was in the front row taking notes, like his life depended on it, because apparently it did.

But clearly, Paul didn't have in the natural what was necessary to be as effective as he was.

It's just that God took what he had and used his supernatural to be a part of Paul's natural, and it was more than enough.

In fact, Paul even voiced his understanding of this in 2 Corinthians 12 9.

He's talking about the thorn in his flesh, and he's he's saying that the Lord spoke this principle to him.

He said, Paul, my grace is all you need.

My power works best in weakness.

So he said, So now I'm glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me.

Here's what he's saying.

He's saying, I'm realizing whatever situation God calls me to, whatever his impossibility he's calling me up against, you know what?

When I have a lot or I have a little, it doesn't matter.

As long as I bring what I have, God's gonna make up the difference.

And so what I now realize is when I have a little, it's actually better because God has to make up more of the difference, and he's even more glorified through my circumstances when I'm more inadequate.

And so we too can draw confidence from those kind of situations.

Listen, if you're out there today, you go, Mike, I'd love for God to move miraculously in my life, but I don't think I have enough faith.

Listen, that's fine, just bring what you have.

Last time I checked, faith the size of a mustard seed was sufficient to move the mountains in your life.

If you're saying, Mike, my my track record hasn't been that good lately.

You know, I don't know that I could ever expect to deserve to receive a miracle from God right now.

Well, listen, join the club.

The day that any of us have to come to God for anything on the basis of deservedness, we're all in trouble.

Okay.

Just come as you are and bring what you have.

So we continue reading here in verse 10.

Jesus said, Have the people sit down.

There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down, about five thousand men were there.

Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted, and did the same with the fish.

The third principle I want you to gather from this miracle is simply this choose to obey.

You know, I think when we look at those two passages of scripture, it's easy to overlook some of the small acts of obedience that Jesus asked of his disciples to participate with him in this miracle.

One of the first things we see here is that he asked them to have the crowd sit down.

Now, in some of the other accounts of this scripture, we see that he actually had them sit in groups of 50 or 100.

And so that might sound like a no big deal, but again, keep in mind, these guys had no idea what Jesus is up to.

See, sometimes if we're not careful, we can read these stories, and because we know the end of the story, we read it as if they must have known the end too.

But they didn't.

All that had happened at this point is Jesus asked Philip, where are we gonna get money to feed up all these, you know, feed all these people?

Philip throws up his hands, gets frustrated.

Andrew says, We got five loaves and two fish, and that's as far as we've gotten.

Next thing you know, Jesus says, have everybody sit down.

So it's not like they could go out to these crowds, you know, that were hungry, tired, probably cranky by this point, and start saying, Hey guys, listen, we need you all to sit down.

Uh, Jesus is about to do a miracle, everybody's getting free food, it's gonna be awesome.

Uh, and actually, if we could do it quickly, we're trying to get the Bible written here.

So come on, let's move it along, you know.

They couldn't do that.

They just had to go out in faith, have the people sit down.

And then the next thing we know is Jesus broke the bread and the and the fish and divided it amongst his disciples and allowed them to serve the people after he blessed it.

And I don't know about you, but but I don't know how far, I mean, the Bible goes out of its way to say the fish were small.

So I don't know how far two small fish broken up 12 ways goes, but I'm assuming not that much.

So can you imagine he's one of those disciples when they show up with their little basket to get their portion from Jesus to take to the crowd?

And Jesus breaks off this little teeny piece of fish, puts it in the bottom of the basket, little piece of bread, puts it in there, says, All right, go serve the people.

Now, maybe you think it was one of those things where as soon as it touched the basket, it was like popcorn, it just multiplied, and the disciples were like, This is awesome, you know, and walked off.

I don't.

Because, A, the Bible never says that, and B, that would require no faith on the part of his disciples.

I think they just kind of had that uh-oh moment where Jesus put it in the bottom of the basket, said, Go serve the people, and they kind of looked at it and looked at Jesus, like, Are you kidding me right now?

You know, you want us to go out here with this?

But they went out there.

I mean, can you imagine going up to the first row of people and you know what's in the basket, and so you're kind of like, eat up.

You know, what do you say, you know?

But I think it was just like we saw when Elijah had a widow that God anointed to provide for him.

If you remember the principle in that situation, she was down to her last bit of oil in the bottom of her jar, one more meal left.

And when God anointed it, it's not that it filled up with oil all the way, it's just that it stayed empty, but as much as she kept pouring, there was enough.

And I think it was the same principle.

I don't know that there was ever a ton in that basket, but as long as they passed it, people had as much as they wanted, more than enough to eat.

Here's the thing I think we need to realize, you guys.

I don't know whether God just has a sense of humor, whether he wants to build our faith, probably a little bit of both.

Um, but God is gonna ask steps of obedience of us to participate with him in the miraculous things that he wants to do in our lives.

I've seen this play out so many times in my own life.

You know, I think even of the miracle of how I met my wife.

And uh let me just say this, by the way, anytime a guy gets married, it's a miracle, okay?

It really is.

Because listen, us guys, we're never gonna admit it, but we know how messed up we are, you know?

And so the fact that any girl would actually, of her own choice, willingly spend the rest of her life with us, that's gotta take some level of divine intervention, okay?

I mean, I really think if you were to look on the inside of a guy's mind when he finally says, this is the girl I'm gonna marry, here's the way it looks.

I think it's like fireworks going off.

He's thinking, she's so beautiful, she's amazing, I'm way out of my league, this is awesome.

If you were to look at that same moment inside the mind of a girl, it's totally different.

Here's what she's thinking.

I could work with that.

Polish him up a bit, change the way he dresses.

Yeah, you know, it's got a lot of potential, you know.

But when you think about it, she doesn't shop for anything else that way.

It's not like when she goes to buy shoes, she's like, give me the messed up pair and I'll polish it up when I get home.

That's fine, you know.

Telling you, it's a miracle.

It's a miracle.

But I remember being at that season of my life where I was wondering, you know, hey, when is the time gonna come when I get married?

And so I was praying about my future wife, and you know, hey, is there anything I need to be aware of here?

And and do you ever have those kind of conversations with God where you want to talk about one thing and he seems to want to talk about something else, right?

And so I'm praying about my wife, and and what the Lord is speaking to me about is there were some people that had invited me to come and speak at some things they were doing, and I was just kind of starting off in that realm, and so I was dragging my feet and responding to them, and didn't really know if I wanted to deal with the pressure.

And and so God says, Mike, every person that asks you to speak, I want you to say yes.

I said, Okay, that's great.

So, about the wife thing uh we were talking about, um, and and he said it again.

He said, Mike, listen.

He said, Every single person that asks you, he said, Don't even pray about it.

I just want you to say yes.

Okay.

So sure enough, two days later, a guy that I'd met before, he was a college pastor at a church and uh wasn't really the speaker, he's kind of the organizer, and so he came up and said, Hey, would you uh consider speaking at our college group for this next year?

He said, We'd love for you to be our speaker for the next year, and would you pray about being our speaker?

And so I looked at him and I said, I accept.

And I remember he looked back at me and goes, Don't you want to pray about it?

And I go, No, not really, I don't need to, you know.

So I'm I'm thinking he was probably questioning his judgment, you know, about that point.

Like, we've got a speaker, doesn't even pray.

What are we doing, you know?

But uh, you'll never believe who I ended up meeting at that first time speaking, sitting right there in the third row, was my beautiful, soon-to-be wife, Alicia.

And here's the thing: I had no way of knowing that that's what God was up to.

I had no way to connect those two things.

But God was asking a small step of obedience to do something miraculous in my life.

And I can tell you guys uh happily that uh we'll be married 10 years on Thursday, and uh God, yes, finally made it to double digits.

I'm excited about that.

And I'm happy to tell you, God is still using uh Alicia miraculously in my life.

I tell people all the time, she's the greatest ministry tool I have.

Because I walk up places, and whenever I introduce her as my wife, people do this weird double take where they look at her, look at me, look at her, look back at me.

They go, for a guy like him to get a girl like her, there has to be a God.

People just get saved.

You have revival, it's it's incredible.

So I am I am blessed.

But um, anyways, before we read the last passage of scripture in this story, I I want to take a couple minutes to share a few words about disappointment.

Because I know in an audience this size, when you put all of our campuses together, there's probably many of you that have brushed up against some disappointment in your life in this area.

Maybe you're saying, you know, Mike, that's great, all those principles you're saying and things, but you know, I applied a lot of those stuff to this certain situation.

And you know what?

Um, my miracle never came.

Things didn't work out for me the way that I'd hoped.

And when that happens, it can be very painful in those kinds of situations.

And I think there's a temptation from the enemy in those moments that goes something like this listen, it hurts so bad to be disappointed.

What you really need to do is never hope for anything miraculous again so that you never have to risk facing that level of disappointment ever again.

It's almost like if you were to have your hands out and you were you were hoping to receive something from God, and so you got your hands out and you're waiting and it just never came, or it never came in the timing or the way that you thought it would.

And so the enemy's line of reasoning says, Well, you know what you need to do is just pull your hands away.

That way you don't have to worry about being disappointed anymore.

You never have to face this kind of pain again.

The problem with that line of reasoning is that in trying to protect yourself, you're simultaneously taking yourself out of a position to receive.

Because we begin to close our heart off from looking to God to do incredible things in our lives.

And listen, if you've wrestled with that, I just want to encourage you to discard that thinking this morning.

You know, I liken it a lot, maybe as an example to say you were going out to see a shooting star.

And so you walk outside and maybe you're excited to see one, you sit out there and you look for a couple hours and you don't see anything.

So you come inside and you're probably a little bit disappointed, and and so there's two ways you can respond to that situation.

The first way is you can say, Well, you know what, that's it, I'm just never going outside to look for a shooting star ever again.

And while it's true, you probably won't be disappointed anymore.

You'll also never see a shooting star that way.

The second way you can respond is say, you know what, I was disappointed, we didn't see one, but you know what we're gonna do?

We're gonna go back out tomorrow night and we're gonna look again.

And we're gonna go back out the night after that.

And you know what?

We're just gonna keep going out whenever we can and keep looking up and see what we can see.

Listen, I'm gonna tell you, if you adopt that second approach, is it possible you may be disappointed once or twice?

Yeah, it's possible.

But let me make you a promise you're gonna see a lot of shooting stars.

And can I tell you something?

I think it's the same way with our lives.

Listen, we live in a fallen world and we see through a glass dimly.

We have no way to understand everything that comes our way.

We may face a disappointment once in a while, but if we're willing to press through those disappointments, Disappointments and move past them and keep coming to Jesus, looking to Him afresh every day and expecting Him to do miraculous things in our life.

I'm telling you, we're gonna see a lot of miracles.

So sometimes we need to just take those times and go, you know what, I'm gonna put that aside and God, I'm gonna keep coming to you afresh.

Just because I experienced one disappointment doesn't mean you don't have a ton more miracles in store for me.

Maybe you say, Well, Mike, that's easy for you to say, but you have no idea the depth of disappointment that I've been through.

And you're right, I don't.

But I promise you, I too have experienced the pain of disappointment in my life.

You know, my wife and I are going through something right now with our uh our oldest daughter, uh Bella, was uh she just turned six years old, and um when she was first born, I don't know if you remember the time when your child was first child was born, just an exciting time.

We were enjoying that process so much, and and my wife comes back from Bella's four-month checkup and she said, Mike, there's something wrong with Bella.

And I said, What are you talking about?

She's great, everything's fine, you know, there's there's no problems.

And so we went through this whole trail of misdiagnosis and all these people telling us a bunch of crazy things.

But finally, what it turned out to be was that the cones in her eyes don't function.

Some random genetic thing.

And and so, if you're not familiar with the way an eye works, your cones are what helps you see kind of your central fine detail, color, and most importantly, your ability to see in light.

And so Bella has reduced visual acuity, sees no color, and also the brighter it is, the worse she sees, to the point where if she's outside in sunlight, she's essentially completely blind.

And so we were finding out about this and just walking through so many things that go through our mind at that time.

You know, you think about the stuff you take for granted with your kids.

You know, hey, we're gonna go outside and play ball, uh, enjoying the colors of a sunset.

You know, I remember certain moments where we begin to just get a window into what her world was like.

I remember when she was two, uh, there was this one moment, this is before we learned that, you know, putting certain glasses and things on could help a little bit.

And so she was walking, I was walking out of the gym, and Alicia, my wife was walking in with her holding her hand.

And so I saw him coming, and I kind of got down like this, like I would, you know, inside the house, and she'd come and run and jump in my arms.

And I remember she just kept getting closer and closer, just walked right by me, brushed my arm, never, never even saw me.

So we just those moments of thinking, man, if that's the case, how is school gonna work and how are they gonna drive?

And you know, just some of those things.

And so, man, we prayed, we fasted, we stayed up all night, I mean, we did everything we could think of and saw no change.

And when she was three years old, is when I came on staff here at Gateway.

And that year turned out to be a really strenuous year for our family because previous to working at Gateway, I traveled and spoke full-time for eight years.

And so when I came on staff, I had about 40 engagements booked for that following year already.

And so that first year turned into a lot of us working during the week at Gateway, and then me traveling on the weekends trying to fulfill some of those obligations.

And we also built a house during that time and smacked up in the middle of that, we had our second daughter, Bella, or Mia.

And when Mia was two months old, we started to notice some of the same symptoms that we noticed in Bella, and sure enough, found out she had exactly the same condition.

And I remember in that moment, um, it's fair to say, definitely one of the lowest moments of my life.

And feeling all those things, disappointment, questioning why, you know, not understanding what's going on.

And I know in those moments there's a temptation to want to form a theology about God that's based on your circumstances and not based on what he's revealed in his word.

And I remember in that moment we just put on some worship music and just begin to worship the Lord and just remind ourselves of who he was, his goodness, his greatness.

And I feel like it was a pivotal moment for us because I really believe the enemy would have loved in that moment for us to say, you know what, the pain's just too great.

We don't understand what God is doing or why this is happening, so we're just gonna pull our hands back.

But instead, in that moment, we had to make that exact decision to say, God, we don't understand why this is happening.

And you know what?

We're gonna keep believing and praying every day for that miracle.

We still are believing for it.

But you know what, God, we're not gonna take our hands in.

We're gonna continue to look to you and trust you to do incredible things in our life.

And I share that story with you simply to say this.

Is that because we didn't take our hands in, I can tell you from experience, we have seen so many miracles in our lives over the past three years.

Man, physical healings, I mean, my back was bothering me extremely for two years, and right there in a gateway service about a year ago, my back was miraculously healed.

We've seen miracles financially, we've seen breakthroughs in ministry, we've even seen miracles with our girls, though we haven't seen the ultimate miracle there.

Um, you know, God even led us to some little clinic in Indiana that makes these specialized contacts and glasses that help filter out light, and so we'll double up on those things, and they run outside now and play.

I have no idea what they see, but they seem to love it.

So we're thankful for that.

And uh, you know, here's the thing I'm I'm saying is that if you're there and maybe you've experienced some kind of disappointment in your life, listen, I just want to encourage you, maybe it's time to open your heart again and trust the Lord.

Because look, even what the enemy meant for harm in our lives, God can take it and use it for good.

And no disappointment we've been through negates the truth of Romans 8 28 that reminds us all things will end up working together for good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose.

So let's not let the enemy make us take our hands back, but let's keep looking to him in expectation.

Let me read these last verses and we'll close.

John 6, 12 and 13.

It says, After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, Now gather the leftovers so nothing is wasted.

So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who'd eaten from the five barley loaves.

You know, it must have been overwhelming for these disciples who left with just a teeny bit in their basket, watched five thousand people eat, and then returned with more than they left with.

And here's a promise I want to make to you today that if we can continue to look past the natural, bring Jesus what we have, take the small steps of obedience he gives us, sidestep the one or two disappointments that we may face in life.

We too, when we survey, pick up all the scraps of experiences and memories that we have in our life.

I think at the end of our life, we too will look and just be overwhelmed at what God has done, at how many miracles we've experienced.

And I think that each one of us will be able to confidently say, Man, it's true.

We serve a miraculous God.

So will you bow your heads with me?

I want to ask you this morning a question we ask every weekend here at Gateway, and that's this what is the Holy Spirit saying to you through this message?

And in just a minute, we're gonna play one more worship song.

And during that time, I want to encourage you to worship the Lord and to receive from him, to hear from him what he may want to speak to you.

Also, during that time at every campus, we're gonna have leaders that are gonna come to the front and they're gonna be available for prayer.

And I want to encourage you, if you have any prayer need in your life, maybe you need to open your heart up again for something God has.

Maybe you need a miracle, maybe it's got nothing to do with what we talked about today.

But I want to encourage you to come for prayer.

The Bible tells us there's power when we agree with someone in prayer.

So, in just a minute, when we finish praying, everyone stands and begins to worship.

If you need prayer for anything, I'm just gonna ask you at that moment to step out of your seat, come to the front.

There'll be people here to greet you.

And we'd love to agree with you in prayer.

Father, we thank you so much for speaking to us today.

God, we ask you to continue to condition our hearts, to look to you, to trust you to be who you are, the miraculous God that you are.

And Father, I pray that everybody that's hearing my voice, whether it's online or at a campus, God, that you would increase the amount of miraculous events they experience in their life so that we can see your great work on a daily basis in our lives.

God, we thank you for it.

In Jesus' name.