The prophet Isaiah says, for those who wait on the Lord, he will renew your strength. You will mount up with wings like eagles. You will run and outgrow weary. You will walk and not faint. This is the word of God. This is what we were just singing. This is what we were just, uh, using as a, as a, as a really a platform to worship the one true God. But we come back to this idea of, of what it means to wait. And, and, and you were just speaking to it a second ago here. Uh, we have all of our sites now that are gathering with us. But, uh, that idea of waiting, it isn't passive. We keep saying this. You gotta remember waiting in, in a biblical context. Is it, it's, it's like, uh, you wrap the last strand of you around the goodness and the character, and the power and the faithfulness of God. That's what it means to wait. It's why that word sometimes gets translated. Hope. You see, we hope in the Lord, we wait on the Lord. That's how we live this life. Father, we come before you. Now, after a full and rich time of worship. We come before you now, uh, entering into a moment and a discussion that, uh, will be interesting to some. Uh, it'll be unsettling to others. But God, if we lean in the truth at the center of your word, the truth at the center of this story will give life to each of us. So Holy Spirit, we need your help. Lead us and prepare us. Refresh us, encourage us, challenge us. I pray that by the time we get to the end of our time, Lord, that some of us will actually take a physical step out toward you. But Lord, right now, we give you the glory. I ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen, man. Whew. Well, I know y'all fist bumped each other just a second ago here, but can you now, let's just give glory to God and let's thank all of our worship leaders at all of our sites. You turn around now, you can say hi to somebody one more time, and then have a seat. Thank you guys. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We're gonna get started here. Love you, brother. Uh, that idea of, of waiting and, and the fact that it really is a kind of reaching out and that reaching out is a kind of hope. That's what we do. We hope. We hope. What are we hoping for? We're hoping for change. We're hoping for, for improvement. We're hoping for relief. We're hoping for comfort. What else? Somebody said healing last night. We're hoping for healing. We're waiting for healing. Many of us, like some of, you're at a place where it's like, would God even show up that way? I mean, that powerfully, would God show up that way? Because if he did, that'd be like a miracle. Some of you're on the backside of a storm, like the bad news has already hit, hit you. You've already gotten the answer that you didn't really want. Things have already started to feel like they're fraying and falling apart. You're, you're staring at a loss right now and you're saying, man, can God show up even then? Because if he did, that would be like a miracle. Now, we use that word in a bunch of different ways, don't we? And we, we kind of kid about that from time to time. I mean, there's just so many different ways we kind of water the word down a little bit. You know, it's like it'll be a miracle if I pass that class. It'll be a miracle if he texts me. It'll be a miracle if she texts me back. It's a miracle that I'm at church on spring forward Sunday. I mean, you know, there's, there's lots of different ways that it'd be a miracle tonight. If the baby slept four hours, would that be the miracle? I don't know. You know, it'll be a miracle. It'll be a miracle. It'll be a miracle. Well, what is a miracle? We need to go ahead and technically define it one more time. Uh, Lewis says that, and, and I love this. It's, it's, he says that it's an interference with nature by a supernatural power. Now, a couple of things there. Nature, the natural law, it means that there is a supernatural power. God who intervenes and does something that is so outta the ordinary. It it's just not the way the universe normally operates. That's a miracle. Now, the question for us is how comfortable are we with these things? You see, we're about to enter into a discussion, uh, that's gonna get kicked off by a story in the gospel of Matthew. But I want you to be honest with yourself where you are with miracles. So here we go. You're gonna talk to each other. And don't forget, there is someone sitting next to you who's going to, like, right now, they're thinking it'll be a miracle if somebody includes me. So you going ahead and give 'em their first miracle of the day? Okay? But here's the thing. How comfortable are you with real miracles? I mean, miracle miracles? We'll just put 'em on a skep on a spectrum, like over here. Like, uh, you think it's harmful for us to even be talking about it? Or maybe, maybe it's, uh, like, um, you mock it 'cause it just, it just seems so silly to you or you're skeptical. Or maybe you're kind of open to it, you're curious about it. You think they happened, but they happened back then. You think they happened, but you've never seen them. You are longing for one to happen. You have a healing service every Tuesday night in your garage. I mean, just a whole spectrum here. Go ahead. We're gonna put some music in the room now, but I'd like for you guys, if you would, to just go ahead, turn and talk to each other. Let's do that guys. Let's, let's pump the music a little bit and let's go ahead and, and just talk to each other, Okay? All. So lemme just ask you, uh, kind of in a general, sort of a way, we'll just do this. Sites play along, but like, uh, like I just want to, you don't even have to clap or raise your hand or anything, but how many of you're kind of on this end of the spectrum, just gimme a little. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. How many of you kind of just goof on it and you make fun of it? 'cause you've just seen things. How many of you're a little curious about it. Anybody here curious? Anybody open to miracles? Do you think the possibility of 'em? You have some of you? Yeah. Woo, woo. Okay. Uh, like may, have you seen them? Like, have you do, do you think God can still do it? Yes. Amen. Just curious. Anybody have a healing service in their garage? I dunno. It's just like, I'm just, I want to come one night. So it's just, yeah. That's awesome. That's awesome. Now, we've talked about these things before. So we're not gonna go into some of the things that we've covered. We will put on the app this week. I think links to a couple of recent messages, like over the last, let's say four years where we talked about healing and then we talked about miracles and one of them. And we covered everything from a theologian to a famous skeptic philosopher to pet scan studies, to obviously opening the word of God. But I think throughout it all, what you will see is why we here are open to the possibility of the miraculous. I don't think it would surprise you that my world vision, my worldview, is a vision of a God who is over all things, A God who is in charge of all things. If there is a God, and some of you're maybe still struggling with that. And if you are, let's talk. We can share how we have come to those conclusions. And we've got people here. We don't have all the answers, but we can talk to you about it. But if there is a God, it's not illogical for him to be able to do something that only he can do for him to intervene. You see, that's really what we think is happening in the Gospels. Now, by the way, uh, a miracle doesn't happen like every eight minutes. Now. We see miracles, and we've even seen clumps of miracles and things happen in certain seasons and moments. But, but like, just by definition, like not everything is a miracle. It's what draws attention to them. It's what kept drawing attention to Jesus. So now, here we go. If you've been with us, you know that we're in the, in the middle of this Peak Experiences series and we're traversing the mountains of scripture. And now that we're in the New Testament, we're just following Jesus all over the gospels. Last week, uh, really the last two weeks we were, uh, we've been in the Sermon on the Mount, and, and the Sermon on the Mount is, is just, by the way, last week, didn't Angela, pastor Angela do an amazing job of leading us there? There were just so many profound truths in that, in that teach regarding prayer. Whew. But by the time you get to the end of chapter seven in Matthew, we're done with the Sermon on the Mount. And so what we do is we pick things up now in Matthew chapter eight, and what we see is that Jesus comes down off of the mountainside and the crowds keep following him. Now, if you keep reading this gospel, what you will see is, uh, in the, in the next couple of chapters, he sets up his, uh, his headquarters in Capernaum, which is on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. All of that is beginning to happen. He's calling specific disciples to himself. One of them is Matthew. He's the guy whose eyewitness account we're looking at now. But throughout the whole region there around, uh, that northern part of the Sea of Galilee, he's preaching and he's performing miracles. This is the ministry of Jesus. Now, a lot happens between where we were last week and where we're gonna pick things up this week. I mean, there were familiar, uh, parables. There were familiar, uh, stories, familiar healings, famous sayings like, come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Jesus walks on the water in the middle of a storm, he feeds the 5,000 really famous things in the life of Jesus happened between last week, sermon on the Mount. And this week where we pick things up in Matthew chapter 15, we're gonna, we're gonna be at the end of Matthew 15, but let me set it up for you. Now, what we see here is that, uh, uh, well, if you look at this, that's the northern shore up there where Mountain Beatitudes is. But now we're turning it around and we're seeing that the next place he takes them is what is called, it's a region called the De Capitalis. It's on the, on the far side of the Sea of Galilee. De Capitalis means 10 cities. And so it's a region of 10 cities. They're, uh, very Roman, very Greek, very non-Jewish. And Jesus is going there to proclaim the good news of the gospel. So we're gonna pick things up now. Here we go. Matthew 15, verse 29. Jesus left there where he was and went along the Sea of Galilee. Then he went up on a mountainside and sat down. Here we go again with the mountains. If we've learned anything in these mountains, we've learned that we are going to encounter the living God. We keep seeing these powerful stories of people who, these are moments of, well, it's everything, moments of, of, of surrender moments, of, of, uh, rebellion, moments of worship, moments of, uh, of, of instruction, moments of faith, moments of sacrifice. But the thread running through all of these things on the top of these mountains is people are coming face to face with the power and glory of the one true God. Same thing's gonna happen on this mountainside. Now, we don't get the, uh, the specific name of the mountain here. The phrase actually could just mean up into the hilly country. But now Jesus is moving up one more time, big crowd. He's moving up into a higher elevation so that he can, so that he can, can, can minister to these people. And Matthew says he sat down. Now, that's the traditional posture of a rabbi of a teacher. He's getting ready to teach. Now, it doesn't say here, Matthew doesn't say that he's teaching, but every place we read in the gospels, Jesus preaches and he heals it. It's, it's kind of a, a package deal. But let's just keep reading in, uh, verse 30, great crowds came to him bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute, and many others, and laid them at his feet and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled may, well, the lame walking in the blind seeing, and they praised the God of Israel. Now that, that phrase praise the God of Israel, that's not the way, uh, that that's not a Hebrew way of saying things. These are folks who are not connected to the Hebrew faith, but they're praising the God of Israel. Now, a couple of things I want you to notice. First of all, he's healing the blind. Now, some of you're like, yeah, it seems like he does that. I've I've seen that in the gospels. Well, you're right. In fact, if you stack up all of the physical healings of Jesus in the gospels, the healing of the blind is at the top of the list. It's the one that is mentioned the most. But wait, it's not even mentioned any other place in the gospels except like Paul regains his sight later. But that was after an encounter with Jesus In the Old Testament. There's no absolutely no mention of a healing of someone who is blind. Now, why am I telling you that Psalm 1 46 says, only God can heal the blind. Now, you get to Isaiah, the prophet we were reading from earlier, and, uh, three different places. He says, when Messiah comes, he will give sight to the blind. I just want you to know who they are encountering on that mountain. It is the living God in the flesh, Messiah, the king. That's who they're talking to. That's who they're bringing their friends to. And I believe that same God is here today, and I believe he can still do the miraculous. Now, as soon as I say that, those of you who might be down on this end are going, oh man, Greg, don't get people's hopes up. And I hear people say that to me at different times. And they, they, they, they, they mean it. And I know why they mean it. And we'll get to that in just a second. But I can't live without hope. And I'm not gonna tell you to live without hope. And I'm not gonna tell you to not pray bold prayers for, for miracles. But I'm also not gonna tell you that these things are kind of, uh, like you can just line it up and it's a formula. And if you check all of the boxes, then God has to do it. I'm not gonna tell you that because we don't see that in the scriptures. We simply do not see that in the scriptures. Jesus doesn't even heal the same way in, in the gospels. Sometimes he touches someone, sometimes he says it, sometimes it's up close, sometimes it's from a distance. One time he spits on the dirt, makes a couple of mud patties and sticks it on somebody's eyes. He's just so unpredictable in the way that he heals. I'll tell you a couple of things I see that are similar that do happen. One of them is that he never makes a fanfare about it. Another is he never makes it about money. Hm. Never once do you hear Jesus say, if you'll just plant a seed in my ministry, then your healing, your miracle is guaranteed. It's just not there. It's not there. You see, it's so different than any of the other ancient accounts of the miraculous because those are all kind of mythical and superstitious, and there are incantations and spells as the people are trying to manipulate the crowds. You don't see any of that with Jesus. It's very, in some ways it's very powerful, but in other ways it's, it's, I wouldn't say it's matter of fact, but it's just like, huh, he's just doing that. 'cause he can. But whenever we start talking about like the manipulating and the, and and the kind of, the, the, the, the stuff that, that, that you just kind of start to feel like uhoh. I don't know if that's real. Some of you right now, the reason you're at this end of the spectrum is because you've seen things and you've, you've made fun of things. You've mocked things that you've heard about or that you've seen or that you've watched online, or you've seen something on TV or something like that. So what do we do with that? Here's how it sounds. Sometimes people go, well, Greg, what about those people that, you know, they say they're performing miracles, but then there's the investigative reporter who comes in and finds out that it was all a sham. You're right, sometimes it's a sham, sometimes it is. I mean, I, I don't like admitting that. But sometimes it is, sometimes it's counterfeit. The counterfeit is real, if that makes sense. It really does happen. And sometimes the counterfeits really good. Like at first you're like, can is that, did that, okay, let, let's try it from a different angle. Let's just catch our breath here. Anybody familiar with the Netflix show? Is it cake? You ever seen that one? It's kind of amazing because there's like things that are real and then there's cake and they make it look like the real thing and you cannot tell the difference. I want to test you on that. Okay? So here's the thing. Lean over. Don't be v uh, but tell your neighbor, go ahead and point and make a commit. Which one of these is the cake? And which one of these is real? Go ahead, try it. This one's amazing to me. That's the cake. All Right. This is gross. This is just plain gross. It gets whoa, doped. It gets worse. It gets worse. No, I'm not talking about the handle. That's no, I, it gets worse. Don't do it. Don't do it. Okay. She's really good at this. Here's my point. It's weird, but it's hard sometimes to tell the counterfeit from the real. I need a volunteer real quickly. Just real quickly. It'll only take like 60 seconds and there's a payout for it. Just, just gimme, there really literally is a payoff. Todd, come up here for a second. Oh, there we go, fleet. Come on. Hey, uh, just stand right here. Um, there are you, do you there are counterfeit dollar dollar bills in the world. Which one of these is real? That one? You're right. Am I? Yeah. Now, now here's, here's the thing. There's, there's a couple of things. Well, first of all, this one's real too. So, uh, yeah. And, and the reason that I set you for that, but the reason is, uh, 'cause you know, this is public and everything. Of course, if you're from the government, we did not use counterfeit money to make this illustration. It's real. Okay? This is real. Uh, but the point is the existence of the counterfeit. Like, if one of these was counterfeit and one of these was real, you wouldn't devalue the real one. If you just go, oh, well there's counterfeit stuff out there, so I'll never trust this. Well, then you'll miss out on some things. Mm-hmm. Does that make sense to you? Yep. Okay. This is yours. Go ahead. Have a seat. No, no, no. You, you take it. You take it. Write it in your journal tonight. Today the pastor gave me money. So, so, so here's the thing. Here's the thing. I wanna say it one more time. It's very, very important for you to understand this. This point. The existence of a counterfeit does not mean the real can't exist. The existence of a counterfeit does not prove that the real can't exist. What do you think it's trying to copy Jesus? The real, the one and only son of God is performing miracles and healing These people. Now, one more miracle, he sees these people and he begins to feel a compassion for them. That's a word that means something deep. He's really feeling it deeply. He's, he's caring for them. It's like, man, I'm worried about them. Why? 'cause they're gonna go home and like they don't have anything to eat. Turns out this is a big crowd, but he knows that they, that they, they need something to eat. Now, they've been there for three days. I don't know if it means that they didn't have food for three days. My guess is they just ran out of their food along the way. Most of them probably didn't plan on being with Jesus for three days on that mountain. But now we're here and he's worried. Please do not forget the setting. I think it's really important here. Remember I told you they're on the far side of this sea of Galilee. This is a primarily gentile, non-Jewish audience. I promise you, there were people near Jesus, people he grew up with, people he knows who would say to him, they are at our people. But the heart of Jesus is revealed because he wants to care for these people. They don't have any connections. They don't have any leverage. They don't have anything that they could give to his earthly ministry or to his disciples that could help him. But Jesus, my Jesus, our Jesus the Savior says, I wanna help these people because they matter. You see, that's the heart of God. God will reach in and, and touch and help people who have been excluded, who have been called names. You see, the Jewish people would call them dogs at this point. They live on the wrong side of the lake. But God says, no, I will reach in. I want to care for, I want to love people who think that they are excluded. Jesus says, we gotta feed 'em. What do we have? Well, I don't know. We got, we got seven loaves and some fishes. That's about all we could find. All right, why don't you give 'em to me? Now, remember, this is a big crowd. You'll find out how big in just a second. I dunno what it'll look like. Jesus takes these seven fishes and, and I'm sorry, seven loaves and some fishes. Maybe they're in a basket. Just try to picture yourself on this mountainside. He, thanks God. He asks his father to bless this moment and to provide for these people that he knows God loves. And however it now plays out, Jesus just keeps handing off food to these disciples who no doubt have to then hand it off to other people and say, Hey, will you pass this down? Hey, will you go? And, and something begins to happen. Now, again, just picture yourself on this, on this hillside, I'm guessing when it started to happen, there was a murmur, a buzz of, Hey, what's going on? What's going on? But I can't see. And then little by little, there's laughter, there's cheering, there's, whoa. Wait, what? And as the scale of this miracle starts to land on people, I'm just guessing just me, but that laughter and the cheering gave way to a kind of quiet awe baby. There's tears. Who is this? I'll tell you who it is. It's the son of God, and he's caring for people. And then what you see next is, is I think just really important. It says that they all ate and were satisfied. Everybody was satisfied. I think that's a really important word. Afterwards, the disciples picked up seven basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. The number of those who ate was 4,000 men. Besides the women and children, most scholars think that that means this crowd, at least 10,000 people. This is a big crowd. And this happens. There's a lot going on here. First thing, and the the, the question that many of you have is, Greg, I don't know how to say this, but Matt, Matthew got his numbers wrong. It's 5,000. It's five loaves and two fishes. I learned that in Sunday school. No, he just told that very story. The previous chapter, Matthew's not confused. This is a different story, a different miracle, a different place, a different crowd. Same Jesus, same disciples. Here we go. At least Matthew included it in the story. I mean, they've just seen this and now they're going, I don't know Jesus. How you going to feed these people? I mean, it literally just happened. So what's going on? Well, it could be exactly what happens in my life. Like I forget about the provision of God. Like he has done so much for me. He has come through for me so many times. And then the next challenge I face, I'm like, oh Lord, how are we gonna deal with this? And he's like, I just, Ugh. It could be that at or it could be that these disciples couldn't get their head around the idea that God would serve. You know those people that way, even the leftovers, leftovers tell a story in the Bible, numbers are symbolic. You don't wanna lean too much into 'em. But when you see 'em sometimes you wanna go, Hmm, what's going on there? Seven is the number of completion. It's the number of perfection. Could it be that part of what's going on here, even at the end of the story, is that like seven perfect complete is the perfect and complete plan of God. That Jesus of Nazareth, son of God, is gonna meet the needs of all people. We're not that far from the gospel now breaking into the entire world, whatever's going on here at the end, Jesus, at the end of this miracle at some point sort of formally dismisses the crowd and they all go home. That's a pretty cool miracle. But what does it have to do with us? The first part, the healing, the physical stuff. We can relate to that. But this, what does this have to do with us? I would say an awful lot actually. You see, every miracle I've seen, every miracle I've, I've experienced every miracle. I've been close to every miracle I read about in the gospels. Every miracle that we will see God begin to perform at the end of our service. When we pray bold prayers, every miracle points to Jesus, you see when God intervenes in a way that you can't even understand, like when, when God does something and rescues and heals and changes, or maybe God reaches into a hurt and a grief and a loss, and he begins to heal in a way that you didn't think possible. It all points to the day when all things will be made right? And it points to the one who can actually pull it off. You see, I think that's why Jesus keeps talking about the deeper things. These miracles always point to the deeper things. There is a deeper healing at play here. You know this, but every one of those people that was healed physically that day ended up dying eventually. How about this? Every stomach that was filled that day was probably growling with hunger the next day. It's why in the gospel of John, after the feeding of the 5,000, Jesus says, I am the bread of life. Yeah, I gave you bread, but I want you to know you've got this core hunger that needs to be dealt with. Listen to me. You were made by him to do life with him. And until you trust him, there is a restlessness that will nod your insides like some unmet hunger. Now we're getting there. The prophet Hosea says that, that, that God can heal your waywardness. Is there anyone here who's just tired of always like just, it's just you and God and you're always putting walls up and it's always I'll come and I'll be here, but I don't want to get that close. I'm telling you, the Lord can heal that way of life. And it's liberating. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's such a relief. It's the miracle of forgiveness. It's the miracle of life with God. None of us deserve it. But that's your miracle. And some of you're like, great, great. You're right. That is the core. But it feels like you're sidestepping everything else. Should I pray for bold miracles in my life? Yes, absolutely. A thousand times, yes. What about those miracles I didn't get? What if I don't get a miracle this time? We tell you all the time about how God answers prayers. I have seen lives lengthened. I have seen scans come back. I have seen reports that confound the doctors. It happens. We pray for those prayers here and we give him the glory. Let's keep praying for those. But I have also seen prayers that weren't answered the way we begged for God to answer them. We have poured our hearts out and we have seen things that have happened that we just, it did it just, God. That's not what we wanted. Why? Why did it happen that way? I don't know. I don't know. Here's what I do know. If you come to God with a clean heart, a humble heart, and you pray, and it doesn't turn out the way you were just begging him for, I kept do not automatically assume, oh, I must not have said it the right way. I must not have had enough faith. Y'all that kind of lie will eat its way through a, through a broken heart like battery acid. You cannot assume again that there is a formula for these things. Even in the gospels. Jesus doesn't heal everyone. Go back and read the gospels and remember how much power he has. There's a place in John five where he walks into an area where there are a bunch of people in need of healing and he heals. One guy in John nine. He heals one guy for the glory of God. How about Paul? Paul had serious game. Now he's not Jesus, but even Paul. Paul raised somebody from the dead in the Book of Acts. But if you read first Timothy four, apparently he couldn't heal a traveling companion named trophy must. He's sick. He is protege Timothy. He just gives him advice on what to do with his ailing stomach. And in first second Corinthians 12, Paul is asking God, begging God to take care of something. And God doesn't like, it's a personal thing. Many people think it's a physical thing, and he didn't get the answer he wanted. But what he got was Jesus saying to him, I will, I will give you my grace. I'll move in closer than close you. I've seen that happen. Some of you know what I'm talking about. I mean, it's, I can't quantify it. I can't even understand it from the outside looking in. But many of you know exactly what Paul is talking about because Jesus said, I'll be your champion in this broken world. I'll be enough. I'll be enough. And Paul says, that's how I live. That's how I live with his answer. Now, there's a lot more to this and we'll come back to it again and again and again. And hopefully every time we'll keep saying those words that frustrate you. But at least we're being honest. I, I don't know. I don't have all the answers. Can I explain some of the suffering that some of you have gone through? Can I explain? There are things that happen in our church. There are things happening in the life of our church right now. Take, take your breath away. Can I explain that? Suffering away, the last thing you need is a simplistic answer. I can't speak for God. I won't understand some of this until eternity. But here's what I have said. And I will continue to say He's not finished with you. But what do I mean when I say that there are deeper, richer, more rewarding chapters to come? You see, I've said goodbye to family way too soon. You have too many of you. I've prayed for friends and loved ones and I've watched them deal with a challenge that, that that, that I can't imagine. I've watched families stand at a graveside and grieve. 'cause we grieve here. Please understand we're not saying, oh yeah, don't worry about it. No, we grieve and we grieve openly. We mourn with those who mourn. We do all of that. But in that moment, even in the loss, even in the grief, we wrap our broken hearts like we reach out to God. God, please, please. And you know, one of the things that he reminds us of, he's not finished. This chapter will close, this broken world chapter will close. And the next chapter is what we call the New Creation. And we're gonna talk about it at the end of this series. And we keep coming back to this verse, but I'm telling you, we're gonna get there. He will wipe away every tear from our eyes, and there will be no more death, no more sorrow, no more crying. But guess what? Until then, we wait. Not passively, but we wait. So we do wrap our brokenness. We do wrap the last strand of us around the goodness and the character and the power of Jesus. You see, I think he's going to, I think he's gonna make this happen. I think he is that good and that powerful that he can bring all of this to a conclusion that we are satisfied with. But in the meantime, I think he can intervene right now. So you know what that means? That means we pray and we keep praying. We don't stop praying. You remember last week, what did Angela say that Jesus told us? You pray and you keep praying. Some of you, uh, might remember she gave us, uh, her translation of Matthew six. Well, there is something called the the Jibo net. That's how they refer to it in, uh, institutions of higher learning. It's Greg's paraphrase of the new Angela translation. 'cause I can't remember all of her wisdom. But I can tell you what, I'll tell you what my takeaway was. What I heard Angela saying as she told us what Jesus was saying is, you all keep praying. Yes, ask and seek and knock because God is that good and you keep coming back to him. I have seen healings. I have seen marriages come back from the edge. I have seen people find purpose in a life. I have seen teenagers who thought they were already like everything was already over because of some mistake they made. And I've seen them refreshed and renewed. I've seen people walk through grief and know the hurt is always there in their memory, but God begins to heal them. I've seen this in so many different ways. I've seen prodigals come home. So what do we do now? Well, we're gonna change the rooms up. So you're gonna just start to see things in each of our rooms. Uh, get a little more private now. And, uh, we don't have a mountain to come to, but I'm gonna ask you to consider something that for some of you will be very natural and for others of you kind of freak out. But in just a minute, we'll pray. There'll be music. You'll have a chance to sit where you are and to pray. At some point, you'll have a chance to, to just sneak out. And, and, and, and if you do, I understand that as you, do you pray too, God, what am I supposed to take away from this one? But for some of you, it's gonna be a moment to come here. Not because we are Jesus, not because the pastors and intercessors up here have some direct link, special link to, to heaven that you don't have. It's not that at all, please. But I'll just say it this way. It might have been a long time since you heard someone else say your name in prayer. Wouldn't it be great to just hear your name held before God in love? What is it that you need a miracle for? What do, where do you need healing in your life? The first miracle is forgiveness. Have you come to Jesus? You, you might be saying in just a second, I need to talk to somebody about that. Will you pray with me? Come on. For some of you, it's a broken heart. You've been dealing with a, a trauma, you've been dealing with something. Really, it just, it's so deep that wound. And I'm not saying that you're gonna walk away today with everything I'm just saying. I want, I want you to know that we come to God and he begins to heal us in profoundly visible ways. For some of you, the storm is real and you're in the middle of it. Maybe we just ask God to intervene miraculously, maybe it is a physical healing. The Bible says we have not because we asked on, maybe it's a broken relationship. Maybe it's a friendship that has just faded and you're just so sad about it. Maybe you feel in the coming minutes that when, when, um, when, when, when you get here. In fact, if you're an intercessor, now, if you're someone who is ready to pray, will you just come? And I'm just gonna ask you this is will you just come and and, and begin to pray for the rest of these people? And maybe you can just kneel here along the front. You won't have to kneel later if you want to, if you wanna stand and, and come to wish you can. Some of you're gonna wanna come forward and pray for this world that we're in. You're gonna pray for our leaders. You're gonna pray for, for all sorts of things that are, that are going on in this world. There are people here that need to come forward and say, will you pray for my family member who's just about ready to be deployed? You see, I can think of a bunch of different reasons that we would pray, but would you stand with me now? I I I just want you to, to hear something here and then, and then I'll get outta the way. I'll go back to the very beginning of the story. The very first words we read in this story were people who were bringing their friends and laying them before Jesus so he could heal them. I'm absolutely convinced across all of our sites that there is somebody who is saying that I would go and I would ask for prayer, but you gotta go with me. Then tell 'em that right now. It could be the other way around where you're feeling the prompting to go, Hey, I'll go with you. Let's go pray or watch this. The person that you're praying for isn't even here. Let's pray for them. Let's bombard heaven for them right now. Let's hold them up before God. Let's lay them before Jesus and say, do what only you can do. I just think it's time. It's time. So I'm gonna ask you now if you would, as we begin to pray, if you'd like prayer, if you'd like to come forward and pray last night, people were standing kneeling. We'll take our time doing this. But heavenly Father, we're asking now, please, we, we don't, we don't want to take this lightly. We believe you are at work in our midst, and we long to see you at work in our midst. Father, please now move Holy Spirit, refresh and encourage. Keep our eyes on Jesus, but do a mighty thing now for your glory. It's your glory. It will always be your glory.