The Power of Jesus to Heal What Hurts

Church, hello, July, and Legacy on Sundays because it's family worship. All the kids from elementary and up are in here this morning. Kids, let me know you're here. Say, I'm here. You're there.

Okay, so, kids, I want to talk to you for just a second. We're going to talk about power today. And I was thinking, and I thought you could help me. I want you to think about who is the most powerful superhero that you can think of. Just get it in your head, and I'm going to say, 1, 2, 3, and I'm going to point at you.

And kids, got to say it loud because I'm a long ways up over here. I need to hear you. Who's the most powerful superhero that you can think of? Ready? One, two, three.

Yeah, I didn't think of that one. That was a good one. And I had a list, but that one wasn't on it. That was awesome, though. How about this?

I want to play this or that real quick. Who's the most powerful superhero? We got two coming up. This is Captain Marvel, and this is Superman. Which one is more powerful, do you think?

Which one is it? There's an argument. I grew up a Superman guy, but I've seen Captain Marvel on the movies, and, like, I'm a little bit afraid there. How about another one? We've got Black Panther and Captain America.

Who's more. We got a good split in the room on that. Here's my favorite one because they fought each other in a movie. How about Hulk and Thor? Which one's more powerful?

I don't know. I'm going. I'm going with the little guy on this one. You can decide why later. But today we're going to talk about power, and we're going to be talking about the power of God.

Because how many of you know that there are things that you're facing in life where you need more power than that that you have on your own? Amen. There are things that you go through and issues that you'll face in life. And sometimes I'm just moving. And every once in a while, I will stop and go, I don't got it.

Like, I can't. I can't do this. And all throughout history, the church, in the New Testament, there are things that they faced. And in the Old Testament, the people of God, issues that they came against. For every once in a while, they were just plowing along like everything's fine.

And suddenly they go, I got to look up to God because I need a power that is far beyond my power. And I have forgotten to depend on his power, my life. And so today we're going to talk about the power of God. And we've been in Luke. So we're going to talk about how we see the power in Jesus, in people's life.

Because here's one thing that we sang about today. And we talk about how we have a personal relationship with Jesus. And that's right, he's our personal God. We have a personal faith in Him. He invites us into a relationship to where we can know him and we can be known by Him.

But sometimes we focus so much on the personal nature of Jesus that we forget or we underestimate how powerful he is, that he's the one through whom all things were made. And Colossians says all things in the universe are held together by the power of his hand. Sometimes we forget that. So we want to talk about the power of Jesus. Today we're in Luke 4.

And last week we saw in Luke 4, Jesus comes into a particular synagogue and he's asked to do a reading from a scroll. And he opens the scroll on which Isaiah is recorded, and he turns to a particular part of Isaiah, Isaiah 61 in our Bibles, and. And he reads a passage from that, and it's quoted in Luke 4. Here's what he read. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.

He sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind and to set free those who are oppressed. And the prophet Isaiah said this 700 years before Jesus came to earth. And Jesus says, you know what this prophecy is all about about me. I'm him. I am the one who comes, who has the power over every demon.

I have power over every sickness that this earth has experienced. And I have the power to overcome everything that you think is impossible. Nothing is impossible with me. I'm Him. I'm that guy.

And so we're going to look at that today because I want you to understand who we're talking about when we're talking about Jesus. Yes, he draws us close. Yes, he loves us with tenderness and with grace. But he is God Almighty and I want you to see that. So if you haven't grabbed your Bible, turn to Luke chapter four, and we will pick up where we left off today.

We'll start in verse 31. Jesus came down to Capernaum, city of Galilee, and he was teaching them on the Sabbath. They were amazed at his teaching, for his message was with somebody. Say it. Authority.

In the synagogue there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon. And he cried out with a loud voice, lord, leave us alone. What business do we have with each other? Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are.

You're the Holy One of God. But Jesus rebuked the demon, saying, you be quiet and come out of him. And when the demon had thrown the man down in the midst of the people, he came out from him without doing the man any harm. And amazement came upon all of them and they began talking with one another, saying, what is this message for? With what authority and power he commands the unclean spirits and they come out, they do just as he says.

And the report about Jesus was spreading into every locality around the surrounding district. And then he got up and he left the synagogue and he entered into Simon's home. This is Simon, who would later be named Peter, the disciple. He entered into Simon's home. And now Simon's mother in law was suffering from a high fever.

And they asked Jesus to help her. So. So standing over her, he rebuked the fever. He rebukes the demon, get out from her. And then he looks at sickness and he rebukes, what a strange thing.

He rebukes the fever and says, get out of her. And it left her. And she immediately got up and she waited on them. And while the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick and with various diseases, they brought them to Jesus. And laying his hands on each one of them, he was healing each one of them.

And demons also were coming out from many of them, shouting, yeah, you are the Son of God. And I don't know if you remember this, but it was just a few weeks ago we saw that Jesus was tempted in the wilderness and Satan came to him to try to undermine him. And the first thing he said was, if you are the Son of God, then prove it. Now these demons are like, I'm not even fooling around with you. I know exactly who you are.

I'm a little bit frightened now. You are the Son of God. And we had no doubts about this. And I love this series of stories. It's not one story.

And I was talking with my friend Brent this morning about how we could like stop after every verse and just drill in deep and ask a lot of questions. And today what I'm going to do is look at them as a collection and see in these how we can understand who Jesus is and what kind of power he holds. And what he wishes to do with that power in the lives of people like you and me. So that's what we're going to do today. The first thing I want you to see as we look at these as a set of stories is that Jesus always shows up.

That's something I think that the enemy doesn't want us to understand. He wants us to doubt it. Jesus always shows up. The Bible says that he showed up at Capernaum. He showed up at this temple where they needed to hear some things.

He showed up at this temple where there was a man who was possessed by an unclean spirit, a demon. We'll talk about that more later. He showed up there. He then showed up at Simon Peter's home at the time where his mother in law had this deep sickness, this illness that was destroying her at this moment. And then he kept showing up over and over again.

All of these places where people had these deep needs and were ready to face Jesus and to receive from him. I was thinking how it's funny how people show up in our lives this week. There are different ways that people show up. How many of you know that there are the kinds of people who show up unannounced? The unannounced show uppers in life.

Like this isn't as much of a thing today as it is used to be back in the day. And some of you are too young to know this, but like even when I was a kid, mom and dad would say, you have to keep the house picked up because somebody just might, they just might show up, right? And they might, they might knock on the door, ring the bell and then they just. What are they doing here? I don't know.

We're not dressed, we're not ready for any of this. But they just show up and they come in and they're just here just to hang out. You know, when I was earlier in ministry when I was younger, we had Tuesday night visitation. Come on, anybody do Tuesday night visitation? Like Monday night visitation?

Where's the Monday night visitation people? Where's the Tuesday night. That's not what we're doing. We used to do this and I was a young youth pastor and I would go to my pastor and say, hey, why don't we just call the people? Can we just give them a call and say, hey, this is Kevin, I'm the youth pastor at the church down the road.

I just wanted to get to meet you, shake your hand, give you a little gift from our church, just to say hi. And he was adamant. No, we don't call people ahead of time. We just. We just show up.

That's what we do. And he was pretty serious about that. You know, I don't like it. In fact, confession. My doorbell broke seven years ago, and I thought about fixing it.

I went to Home Depot, I pushed a basket, I put a doorbell in it, but then I took it off and I hung it back up on the shelf. My doorbell has not worked since. Well, for seven years, it has not worked. And I made that decision on purpose because I realized something. I don't like it when people just show up unannounced.

And the only people who really do that now in my life who don't text ahead, hey, I'm dropping by, or can I. The only people who don't call are people who want to sell me something that either I don't want or I really can't want, but I can't afford. And I'm not going to face that. So I just. I didn't fix the doorbell.

So if you try to come by, you know, text ahead of time, I'll greet you, I'll say hi, I'll put on some sweatpants or something. But don't just show up, right? How many of you know that there are people who show up in the good times in your life, but they don't show up in the bad times? There's some people who, when life is good, you know, you're doing good at school, you're the star student, you made the team, you're doing great at work, you're charismatic, they're celebrating you at work, they want to be near you, they want to be close to you. But when you're struggling, you know, when things aren't going good, when you didn't make the team, when you're in trouble at work and people know it, they're nowhere to be found in your life.

There are sometimes people who show up in the good times, but they're not there in the bad times. And then there are people who show up, and they only show up when they have a purpose for being there. You know what I'm talking about? Like, I've got four kids from this high to this high, and I don't have. Not in the season where I can just show up somewhere without purpose.

Like, I've got this going on and then work and life. I volunteerism and things in my life, too. So I don't just show up and just kind of, hey, I'm just here just. I got nothing going on. So I just thought I'D be here.

You know, I show up. I'm showing up because there's a reason. There's a reason I need to be with you. I want to be with you. I want to bring something to you.

I want to be fully present with you, to connect with you for a moment. If I show up, there's a purpose for my showing up. And that's, I think, how Jesus is showing up in this text. He's showing up in Capernaum, in this particular temple with the people who need to hear a word that he has to share. In a particular temple that has a guy who is possessed by a demon.

He has to show up here and he's showing up with a purpose. Same thing when he goes to Simon's house and sees his mother in law. And over and over again in these places. Jesus isn't just showing up with nothing to do and nothing on his mind just to kind of hang out. He didn't stumble through the chaos of life for the times he was doing his earthly ministry for those three years.

He didn't just stumble and fumble around accidentally arriving when someone had a need. He showed up with purpose. He didn't accidentally show up at this particular temple. He didn't accidentally show up in Samaria with a well that had a woman there. Remember, he said to his disciples, we must go through Samaria.

He didn't accidentally show up in Mary and Martha's house. He didn't accidentally show up in Simon's house when his mom was crashing hard. He showed up with purpose. He has a purpose for being there. That's what I want you to see here.

Because I think there's a lot of people and sometimes I'm that people. Sometimes we're that people who when we think about Jesus, we go, you know, I'm so glad I know Jesus. You know, he's so good. He's so good to me. I'm so glad that I have him in my back pocket so that when I need Him, I can always look around and call upon him.

He just hangs around. He's just there for whenever I say, Jesus, I need you today. That's not what's on Jesus mind. And what's not on his plate. He isn't there just to hang around in your back pocket until that one moment you decide now's a good time to turn to Jesus.

Jesus has come into your life with purpose. He has come into your life with good intentions. He has come into your life to make great change and transformation. He's came to make you fully alive is what he says in John 10:10. He has come to make you fully alive.

He's not just hanging out. And so let me encourage you with this. Like, I think a lot of people are walking around. I see this dissatisfied, lacking in hope, lacking in joy. Sometimes this is me.

Some days this is me. Where you. You see me living and you're going, yeah, I don't think that guy's walking an abundant life. He doesn't look like it. He doesn't sound like it.

He doesn't look like a guy who's fully, fully alive. And I think that's us at times. And this is what I want you to hear, that whatever you're facing right now, whether it is a family struggle, whether it is a marriage, where you go, I don't know how we can bring this back from the place that it's gotten to, whether it's, I don't know who I can trust because I had these people, but they turned their back on me and they betrayed me. And right now I feel like I'm just floating out here and I don't have that person or those people or if it's a sickness that you're facing or it's like they're changing some things at work, and I don't know where things are going to land when I. When everything settles.

Let me just encourage you that Jesus always shows up and he's not there just for the back pocket help when you get desperate. He is there in your life every moment of your day to transform some things, to change some things in the midst of the circumstances around you, just so that, like Maddie said earlier, that your life wouldn't be searching for happiness that never gets satisfied. And if it does for a moment, it only lasts for a moment. But so that in the midst of everything that you face, that you can have a deep and abundant joy from which you face everything in this life. So that, like the apostle Paul in Corinthians, remember when he talked about being pressed, he's with you.

So that when you would feel pressed by life, you would not be crushed by life because he's with you. And that on a Tuesday, when life strikes you down, you would be struck down, but you wouldn't be what, destroyed. Without Jesus showing up in your life with his good intentions, you are struck down, you are destroyed. But if you know that he is there and he is with you, he is fighting for you, and he is causing all things to work together for your good according to his purposes in your life, then you can be pressed but not crushed. You can be struck down but not destroyed.

You got to remember that Jesus, he isn't out there distantly waiting for you to call on Him. He's not just hanging out with no purpose. And like, you know, if they need me, they'll let me know. He has shown up in your life. He always shows up in your life.

And he has things that he wants to do in your life. He's always there in the middle, even of our messes. He said, I'll never leave you. He said, I'll never forsake you. He said, I'll ask the Father.

The Father will send another of the same kind to send the Holy Spirit, who will be with you always, guiding you, helping you, protecting you, comforting you, empowering you to face all of the things that life will throw at you. His power at work in your life because he's shown up. I love Psalm 139. It's beautiful. It says, where can I go from your spirit, God?

Where can I flee from your presence if I ascend to heaven, the highest parts of life, you're there if I make my bed and Sheol in the depths, behold, you are there. And what he's saying is, there's nowhere I can go. And now where you can go where you escape the presence and the power of God. He has shown up. You can't get away from him even if you try.

And I think sometimes we're like, I don't know if God has shown up for me, you know, I don't know if God is watching what's going on in my life or if he understands how I'm feeling right now or the kinds of things that I'm facing right now. I don't know if God has shown up for me. But Psalm 139 says we can't escape his presence. We can't escape his care and his touch on our life. We can't get away from it if we try.

On our best days or on our worst days, on our days where we are most righteous, or on our days where we are the deepest places of sin and struggle in our life, God has brought himself close to us in Jesus. He's shown up for us and he wants us to. It's a word that John the Baptist, we saw that he used. It's a word that Jesus keeps using. It's a word that Luke writes over and over again.

He wants us to turn. He wants us to repent, to turn from. I'm just going to plow on and occasionally call out to God for help to. I'm going to live my life with God because He's shown up for me. I'm going to show my face with him at every moment.

Spurgeon said this. I love this quote. God is too good to be unkind, and he is too wise to ever be mistaken. And when we cannot trace his hand, we must trust his heart. You like that?

Yeah. God is too good to be unkind and too wise to ever be mistaken. And when we cannot trace his hand. I don't know where you are, God. I don't see it.

We got to trust his heart. He shows up. He always shows up. And not to do nothing, not to twiddle his thumbs. He has shown up to steady your life and to bless your life and to use your life to bring glory to God.

And he's going to work miracles in your life if you will turn to Him. And I don't know the nature of the miracle. I don't know with specificity what his miracle, his power at work in your life is going to look like. But I can tell you it always looks like your life being bound up with his life more and more. Not more separate from him, but closer with him.

That you're drawing on his love and drawing on his mercy and drawing on his grace and drawing on his love and drawing on his power. And it's making you who you are, that your life is becoming more bound up with His. And I know it always will look like your life glorifying God. That's what miracles look like. It means your life in the natural world will look more like a life that is marked by the power and the beauty and the glory of God.

Your life will be glorifying God more when his power is unleashed in your life. And I know this, that when he's working miracles, he's always doing it with the purpose that in and through your life he would be blessing the peoples of the earth around you and increasing incredible ways. So I don't know the nature of the miracle, but I know that Jesus has shown up in your life, and it is to supernaturally touch your life in a way that he's working miracles, that he is changing your life to bind it up with him, to bring glory to God and to change the world around you in incredible ways by his power. He shows up for that. Here's the second thing that we see in these stories.

One, he shows up. But two, seems like he's always drawn to the needs. Do you see that in the Stories. He's always drawn to our needs, our emotional, our physical, our spiritual, our relational. All the needs of our life are like a magnet, drawing the compassion and the power of Jesus in.

In every one of these stories. Verse 33. Look at it. In the synagogue, there was a man possessed by the spirit of an unclean demon. Pause there.

The word unclean simply means evil. And you go, well, duh, he's a demon. Of course it's evil. But the word demon specifically literally means a spiritual being who is more powerful than a human but less powerful than God. Does that make sense?

So this spiritual being has possessed this human being, and his intention is unclean, is evil. It's an evil demon. He's there to ruin the man. And the demon from within. The guy cries out, this is wild stuff, but it's real.

The demon cries out through the man, let us alone. What business do we have with each other? Jesus of Nazareth, have you come to destroy us? I know who you are. You're the Holy One of God.

Remember, James 2:19 says, do you believe that God is one? Yeah. Well, good for you. The demons do, too, and they shudder at the thought of it. Right?

That's exactly what is happening here in this text. The demon recognizes Jesus, believes in Jesus. The demon believes in Jesus and quakes at the idea. He's. He's fighting and scraping, like, what are you doing here?

Yeah, what business? What. What business do we have with each other? I know who you are. And you can sense him kind of pulling back like a scared cat in a room.

Verse 35. Jesus rebuked the demon, saying, you be quiet, and you come out from him. And when the demon had thrown the man down in the midst of the people, he came out of him without doing the man any harm. Now picture this for a moment, and you're one of these people in the synagogue where Jesus is teaching, and you're going, oh, my goodness. The words that he sang.

His words hold such authority. And then they see this man, and surely, like, this is a known situation. This guy's a little bit. We don't know exactly what's going on, but we sense that something is not right here. And Jesus then begins interacting with this man, and he says, get out.

And the man is thrown to the ground. And suddenly you can imagine, people think, is this guy dead? What happened? Did he just kill the guy? And then the guy jumps up and, like, we can assume he didn't.

Like, oh, I feel so bad. But he came free. Just like Luke 4:18. The captive has been set free. This man raised up with a completely changed countenance in life.

This guy had been possessed by an evil spirit wanting to kill him that was taken away. This guy has been released from the slavery that he was in in this moment. The same thing happens if you get a couple of verses later in Simon's home. You know, the prophecy from Isaiah 61 said he would set the captives free and he would heal the sick. And so Jesus goes into Simon's home and there's this mother in law and he's drawn by his compassion and his power to her.

And he heals her when he does this. Now this becomes the character of his ministry. And this is what people are seeing everywhere they go. People certainly when they looked at the eyes of Jesus, were seeing greater grace, greater presence than anyone that they had ever experienced on earth. Remember the Syrophoenician woman who touched the hem of his cloak and he turned and said, touch me, touch me.

And he looks at her and she was seen by him. No one ever wanted to see this woman, but she was seen by him. And the woman at the well who Jesus said, I must go through Samaria. He goes to the well. And she was a woman who had a history.

She was a woman who people knew her history. She didn't want to be seen, but he saw her and he loved her. Yeah, they saw that in his eyes. But too now, everywhere he went, they saw the power of Jesus and they were coming out for it. And he's healing all of these people and he's casting out all of these demons.

The place it comes from, though, is this part of compassion. You see it over and over again. Mark one, There's a leper. And Jesus moved with compassion toward the man. Everyone else went the other way.

But his heart of compassion drew him in like a magnet to the need. Matthew 14. He saw a great multitude and he was moved with compassion toward them and he began to heal their sick. Mark says he had compassion on them because when he saw them, he went, oh, they're like sheep without a shepherd. No one to protect them, no one to guide them, no one to meet their needs, no one to care for them.

And his compassion drew him towards Luke 7. There's a woman, she's a widow, her only son has died. And it says when Jesus saw her, his heart went out to her and he said, don't cry. And he raised the dead son and he gave her her only son, her only person back, and her life over and over again. Feeding miracle.

Jesus called the disciples to himself. And he goes, I have compassion on their hunger, their hungry stomachs, because they've been following me and they have been so curious. They've been leaning in and they've been hanging on my words. And I have compassion even on the basic need of their hunger. And I don't want to send them away hungry after they receive words.

I want to give them food. He's drawn to the needs, the physical, the spiritual, the emotional, all of it. Over and over, our needs and our lives are like a magnet, drawing on the compassion of God and begging for the power of God. And here in Luke, the presence of a need demanded the presence of a miracle in these situations, over and over. And some of you are in the middle of deep need in your life, and I don't know what the need is specific for each person.

But we don't like feeling needy, right? How many of you like feeling needy? We don't like feeling needy. But let me flip the script on need. Need is a good thing, because your need in your life.

Gosh, we live in North Dallas, the place where everybody, everyone feels like I don't have any needs. And if I do, I'm going to hide it and not let anyone know about it. But the good thing is that your need and your awareness of the need could be the catalyst to turn. And have you experienced the presence and power of God in your life in a way that you never have before? When you have deep need, it's not that God is distant from you and he has forgotten about you and his eye is not upon you.

It could be the greatest opportunity of your life to recognize how close he actually is to you, that you might fall upon him, that you might trust in him more fully and believe in him more deeply than you did before when you felt like you had no needs. You're like, I'm fine. I'm going through my life. If I ever need anything, he's in my back pocket. I can give Him a call.

But when you're in that place of deep need, it is the greatest opportunity for you to turn to him and go, I have nothing. Remember, blessed are the poor in spirit from earlier this year. I had nothing. Put yourself in a place of total surrender. Put yourself in the very best place to place all the weight of your life.

Not upon your strength, not upon the system. Let's put it upon a holy God who is moved by compassion toward our need. Now, in this story, there are a bunch of witnesses. You know, there's people in the temple, they witness the Casting out of the demon. They witnessed the teaching.

There's enough witnesses that says everywhere he's going now, people are coming out to him and they're. They're bringing their sick and. And people who are possessed are coming out to him and the demons are being cast out. There's a lot of witnesses. But don't think of yourself for a moment as one of the witnesses, which is what we are.

We're one of the witnesses by proxy of reading the story. But put yourself in the place of this. This man who was possessed by an unclean spirit, or this. This woman who had such a deep sickness that she just felt like she could die. She wishes she could die.

Just put it all over. And this has been going on, and it's intense. It's not a little pain. It's a lot of pain. Demon bent on destruction of your life.

That's what an unclean spirit is there for. It's to ruin every good thing in your life. And no one has any solutions. There's nothing that anyone can do except Jesus is drawn in by your need. His compassion has drawn him in to your need.

And all Jesus does is say, turn and receive my miracle. Receive my touch. And Jesus, when he does this for the man or does this for the woman, does this for the crowds. It's not like he just relieves a little bit of pain. Like, hey, take some Advil and call me in the morning.

You know, it's not like, drink your fluids, get some rest, and you'll feel better in three or four days. When Jesus comes and he unleashes his power in their life, everything has changed. There's no power like the power of the God man. Jesus, who enters into our lives and says, I'm the one who has power over all of the impossible things. And now everything has changed for them.

But they have to turn to him to receive the miracle. They have to receive his presence and receive the miracle. He sets the captives free. Listen to. We read this a lot.

Matthew 11. I read this to you a lot, but I want you to hear the message. Paraphrase of Jesus. Invitation to every one of us in our places of need. It says, are you tired?

Maybe close your eyes for a second. Just close your eyes for a second. Let me ask these questions.

Are you tired? Are you worn out?

Are you burned out on religion? Somebody come to me. Jesus says, come get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me, work with me.

Watch how I Do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Just keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. That's what your need invites Jesus to do.

You can open your eyes. That's what your need invites Jesus to do in your life.

I want you to see something here. Look at verse 38. Then Jesus got up and he left the synagogue. Verse 42. When Jesus came.

When day came, Jesus left. And he went to a secluded place. And the crowds were searching. And they came to him. And they tried to keep him from going away from them.

But he said to them, I gotta go. I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also. I was sent for this purpose. And so he left and he kept preaching in the synagogues of Judea. I want you to notice here that Jesus made a decision to heal many people.

And he made a decision to cast out many demons. But I also want you to see that Jesus chose to not cast out every demon. And he made the decision to not heal every sick person in this place. You see that? Not yet.

Right. And why? First, I'll tell you. He's not done doing. Okay?

He's not done doing. And he presents. There's two things I'm doing here. One is I am setting the captives free, and I am healing the sick. But I'm also here to preach the good news of the kingdom of God and invite people into this new life and this new kingdom where everything will be restored.

And there's two great things that I'm doing. And one is healing a temporary, isolated issue in a person's life. And the other is inviting them to a whole new way of living that is not just temporary, but is forever. And the second one is going to be more important than the first one. And for every person that he invites into the kingdom of God, he then sends them out from his place of healing and wholeness and calling into a broken world that they would continue the work of healing.

And they would continue the work of casting out demons. And they would continue the work that he began in this place, in this temple in Capernaum. And he did that. We read that all throughout the Book of Acts that Jesus would invite somebody into his kingdom. But as soon as you're invited into the kingdom, it's not a country club that you go and you just sit at your leisure and enjoy.

Where's my parking space? Where's my seat? Where's my discount? But you come into the kingdom and he Says, now you go. And by My power, we're going to see together healings and captives set free.

He's not done doing. And there is a day it's not done. Revelation 21 says, There's a day when he returns. He came once, he will come again. And he will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and they will no longer, ever again.

It's done, kaput, finished. No more death, no more mourning, no more crying, no more pain. Those things, guess what? They have passed away. No longer, ever again.

And he who sits on the throne, that's Jesus, anybody, in case you weren't sure, he who sits on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. Until then, we will have needs, and we will experience some pain and some grief and some death and some suffering. That is something we will contend with because we still live in the days between his first and the second Coming. And there is a brokenness, and there is an enemy at work in this world. And it will be normative for us to have deep, deep needs.

And if we are pretending, we're not, quit pretending, because it's keeping you from a miracle, okay?

We're going to experience these things. And I'm telling you this. God didn't throw those things at you. He didn't put those things on you. We're living in this situation, and he shows up in the middle of our mess, and he is drawn like a magnet to our needs with his compassion and his power.

And I'm saying, if you don't, in the middle of your mess, turn to him, then you might miss the miracle because you're not looking at him and you're not ready to live in his miracle and to receive the thing that he's doing in you. If you don't. If you don't turn, just keep going in your way, saying, I will push through.

If you don't turn and say, the God who's showing up for me, I want to receive from you. And I think about this guy in Capernaum, you know, if he wasn't a possessed man, he wouldn't have experienced a miracle, right? His life would have been different. His story would have been different. Sometimes in my life, I think the difference is, for me, and this is, I don't have to go on about this because you get the concept.

But my problem a lot of days is that I'm turning to Jesus for not just my needs, but I'm turning to him for my wants. My relationship with him and how I feel about him is dependent more about My wants than about my needs. Does that make sense? Yeah, like. Like God, I need your help.

But I kind of want there to never have anything bad ever happen to me in the rest the of of my life. You know, that's kind of silly, isn't it? We live in a broken world. God, I need your peace in the middle of the broken world to make it through it all. That's.

That's a need. I got a lot of wants that one day we'll all be satisfied. There's a day if you're in Christ, you never have a want again. Either because he gives you everything that you want or because he gives you more than you wanted. And your want, you find out, is really ridiculous and not satisfying at all.

There's a day coming for that. But right now, something that you might commit to memory that's helped help me. And I say this, I've taught this, that the time between the first coming and the second coming, it's the promise of the Bible that God will meet. Promise of the Bible. God will meet all of your needs and even some your wants.

I want you to get this. Y' all say that one with me. Ready? One, two, three. God will meet all of your needs and even some of your wants.

This is important and it's biblical. Listen to this. God will meet all of your needs. Philippians 4:19. My God will supply all your needs according to his riches and the glory of Christ Jesus.

How many of them? All your needs. Second part. Some of your wants. John 15:7.

If you abide in me and my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. And the key to understanding the promise is if you abide in me, if your life is bound up in my life. Jesus says, if your desires become my desires, the way you look at things becomes the way I look at things. The things that I want become the things that you want.

And I'm always going to do those things because they bring glory to God. God will meet all of your needs. It's the promise of the Bible. And he'll even meet some of your wants because he's just good like that. He just loves to bless you.

And I think some of you, maybe you go, God, I don't know. I don't know if I have enough. Enough margin in my finances to make it this year. I don't know when everything shakes down at work, where I'm going to land, or I don't know who to trust. I don't know if you're ever going to give me that person.

I wanted that person. I don't know who they are, but I just. I'm starting to give up on that now. I don't know how I'm gonna make it through this or if they're ever gonna get well. I don't know, God, I don't know.

And what I want you to know is, God, I just need your strength. I want the relationship, but God, I just need your comfort. God, I need the security, but I just need to trust your provision. God, I want all the answers. But if you would just give me the peace to make it through the day, God, I want to believe.

Would you help my unbelief? It's a turn in the way that we turn to God, the way to receive his compassion and his power. You know, I love. I love when my kids come to me and they tell me what they need and what they want and when in my. I have the ability, when I'm able to meet that need.

Sometimes their wants. But, you know, let's be real. I'm not gonna meet all their wants. I never could. Right.

I'm telling you, God loves for you to go to him and share with him your needs and even your wants. He loves it. He loves to hear from it. He presents himself as your father. He's mighty God, he's your father.

He wants you to come to him. God, I need. God, I need. He may help you to understand where the needs and the wants are and what he may do with them. But he loves to hear you come down and say, God, I need.

And he shows up. He's drawn in by your power, by your need with his power. And sometimes, sometimes the way he works, you're wishing he had worked in a different way or in a different timing. How many of you know that? You get to a place in your life and you can look back and you can begin to see.

I see what God was doing now, but sometimes it's not until years and years later when you get to that moment. Is that right? Yeah. And so sometimes we're going, God, this is how you need to do it, and this is when you need to do it. Let me just give you the roadmap and you can do it my way.

We got to remember that God's ways are not our ways. And whatever he does and however he shows up is going to be right. And it may be a year or four, five years or 10 years or maybe when Jesus returns that you look back and you go, God, I can see that you were always right and your ways were always good. And it was through my human eyes that I just couldn't see it at the time. But God, I'm so glad that you were there for me.

Possessed guy wouldn't have had an experience with Jesus if he wasn't possessed. Jesus showed up. He was drawn by the need and the guy received from him. I don't know what his story is. I don't know what happened after that day.

I gotta hope, I gotta believe that this guy having this experience of having an entirely new start on his life. He had faith in the goodness of God and the grace and mercy of God. And he just kept turning to God. That's the promise of God for all of us, that those who turn to Jesus. You place the whole weight of your life on Jesus, that He is there with you and for you and fighting for you.

And in the end, he comes back for you and he wipes away every tear. That is for every person who turns to receive Jesus in their life. That's the promise. But you don't get to see the power of God where you don't need or you act like you don't need. Listen to Second Chronicles 16.

For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth, that he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his. For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth. He's scanning. That he may strongly support those whose heart is completely his. In other words, God's looking around saying, who's going to receive my presence?

Which of you are going to receive my power and trust? The way and the timing that I give it is good and it's perfect for you. I'm going to satisfy you. I'm going to satisfy you in ways that you never could be satisfied or could never imagine. Who will receive me today?

In Luke 4? Jesus does this over and over and over as we keep moving through Luke, that's what he does. He shows up. Not an accident. He shows up on purpose.

He's drawn with compassion and mercy and power in his hands to the needs of broken humanity. He's drawn in and he just begins meeting needs. He begins working miracles in people's life. And I believe this today. I believe that God wants to work miracles in the middle of your message.

I believe God wants to work miracles in the middle of my mess, in the middle of my chaos. I believe I miss probably 90% of the miracles that God wants to do in my life because I am too driven in my own Direction. And I'm not turning to him and saying, just whatever you will God. So will you receive his grace? Will you receive his mercy?

Will you receive his love? Yes, yes, yes. But will you receive his power to transform the things that you're going through? Will you believe for that?

Will you today say, God, I turn to you. I want to believe the things that my heart seems to not want me to believe, that my head keeps saying, no, no, it doesn't work like that. And I may have to change the way that I look at things. I may have to start seeing things the way that you see things instead of the way that I typically look at things. My affections may have to change some.

I may have to care about things in a different way than I've cared before. I may have to see the way the world I actually works and not the way that my blinders of pride and my blinders of selfishness and my blinders, if I don't want any trouble in my life, have kept me from seeing things. I want to trust that everything you do is good and right and holy and pure. And I want to trust that your power unleashed in my life is everything to me. But I got to let go of my position else first because I can't receive your power while still holding on to it in my power, whatever it is.

So if you would just bow your heads, I want to pray this over you for just a moment.

Lord, if we confess with spirit and truth that we are poor in spirit, that we have nothing apart from you, God, it's so hard for us to even get there in this place because we are so education and accumulation and proving ourselves oriented in the time and place in which we live. So maybe the first step is, Holy Spirit, would you help us to confess in truth our deep need? Help us to come to the place where we come to the end of our self, the end of our power, the end of our knowledge, the end of I've got it. Everything's okay. It's gonna be okay.

I'll work it out. It will all work out. Help us to come to the end of that where we would just turn and receive the power working hand of God in our life, that we would see you, Jesus, not simply as the one who came to love and is gentle and he says, I'm gentle and lowly because it's all true. We would also see you as the one who broke out of the grave and put an end to death and cast out demons. Demons ran at the sight of you, Holy Spirit, Help us to know Jesus in that way, to know your presence.

Spirit, would you swell? Would you flex your muscles from within us? Those who walk in Christ, you dwell within us. Would you flex and cast out the demon of insecurity and cast out the demon of pride. Cast out the demon of lust and cast out the demon of fear and cast out the demon of.

I've got this.

That we might fall fully on you and that everything we have, every good thing, would come from above and we'd know it and we'd celebrate it. That our lives would be bound up with you and we'd never be the same.

We prayed that so that you would have all the glory. We prayed that so that we wouldn't, at the end of our days, regret that we live these little lives where we accomplish these little things. And yet nothing for the kingdom was ever accomplished through our lives because we held back.

So help us to be swept up into the beauty and the power of Jesus. Help us to long for miracles. Help us to look for miracles. And would you do them in our days? In Jesus name, amen.