If You're Real, I Need a Miracle | God, If You're Real | Menlo Church Live Stream

When was the last time you prayed for something you couldn't produce? You know, we're in a moment right now, like, you could produce a lot, but when was the last time you prayed for something you couldn't produce? Not a reasonable, not a responsible request, not wisdom to a decision that you've almost already made, not a prayer that was really just a plan you made and you wanted God's stamp of approval on it, something that you genuinely couldn't manufacture or engineer your way into or out of. [00:31:44] (33 seconds)  #PrayBeyondControl

Now for most of us, we'll never experience anything like what Jairus experienced here. But I wonder how tight are the handcuffs you've placed on Jesus in your prayer life. Because the tighter the constraints you've put in your prayer life about what he can do for you, that's as tight as you've placed the handcuffs on your own life. And you've just shrunk your life down to what you can produce, on what you can see, on what you can understand. And I think Jairus would tell us, you can open it up. [00:46:20] (33 seconds)  #ReleasePrayerHandcuffs

But in eternity, if you're a follower of Jesus, it's not a possibility that you're gonna find hope and healing in eternity. It's a certainty. In eternity, every loss gets redeemed. Every diagnosis, every grief, every relationship that couldn't be saved, every dream that didn't hold up to the real life version of life that you got, all of it. Heaven isn't a consolation prize. It's the destination that makes the journey along the way make sense. [00:49:36] (29 seconds)  #EternityRedeemsAll

The same Jesus who did that is walking with you right now on whatever road you're on, toward whatever pain point you're feeling, toward whatever house you're dreading. So, yeah, see the doctor, get counseling, take the medication, use the tools. God has given us brilliant people, brilliant minds to help support and address suffering in our world. That's not a lack of faith. That's just stewardship of life. But don't stop there. [00:50:37] (29 seconds)  #UseHelpButSeekGod

There's something better than a life that we shrink down to our illusion of control and our picture of comfort. It is wisdom to give up what you can't keep and what you never had for what you can't lose. It might cost you the story that you've been telling yourself about yourself, that you don't need this, that you outgrew your need for God a long time ago, that you're too smart or maybe you're too damaged or you've been gone too long to come back to a version of faith with Jesus in it. [00:52:19] (31 seconds)  #ChooseWhatYouCantLose

For others, that question is really hard because it requires you to get quieter in a life that is deafening with comfort. In a place like this, with a life like yours, comfort has gotten loud enough to drown out the pain. And then if we're not careful, it drowns out the prayer too. We shrink our life down to what our comfort and illusion of control can contain. That's the silent condition that is so dangerous. [00:32:33] (28 seconds)  #QuietComfortDanger

You know that voice. It's a voice inside of our own heads when we're not careful. It's the voice that tells us to stop bothering Jesus with our marriage. It's the voice in our mind and our heart that tells us to stop bothering Jesus with that prodigal child, that diagnosis, that thing that you've been quietly carrying that you haven't told anybody about because you're trying to figure out how you can work out the situation before you tell anybody about it. Don't bother Jesus with that. You can handle it. [00:44:26] (24 seconds)  #StopTheInnerVoice

Jairus didn't get a miracle because he was impressive or he figured it out or he cleaned his life up together. No. He barely was holding it on. What he did was when it cost him something, he still surrendered. He was still desperate. See, he he stepped into a moment when he couldn't control the outcome, but he kept walking with Jesus even when the voice of reason told him to give up. That's the invitation that sits inside this passage for us today. [00:47:02] (34 seconds)  #DesperateSurrender

Don't let the presence of good tools become the reason you stop asking God for the intervention that no tool can provide. And you don't have to wait like Jairus did. You don't have to wait till there's no other options where till you've exhausted every other path. Actually, God wants to be with you in all of those steps. [00:51:06] (17 seconds)  #InviteGodInEveryStep

You are so capable, but you are not infinite. Whatever that is, whatever that reminder that you've been pushing away of your own humanity of the brokenness of this world and your need for God, let it come in. Make that your prayer. Maybe that prayer starts today. Maybe it starts in this song. You don't need the right words. You don't need a clean up version of yourself at all. You just need to reach. [00:54:43] (31 seconds)  #ReachAsYouAre

And unlike the woman that we were introduced to last week who had nothing to lose and came up quietly, he had everything to lose, and he came freely surrendering, understanding the cost. This was a father who was running out of time, and he was willing to make the only move that he had left. The ask itself that he made to Jesus was already an act of faith. It was already going to cost him. It was public. It was uncomfortable. [00:38:20] (29 seconds)  #CostlyPublicFaith

This public act of faith from a man who had every reason, every instinct in his body saying, manage this, keep this quiet, don't let anybody know, comes forward because he can't control it anymore. That question, when was the last time that you prayed for something you can't produce? This might have been the only time in his entire life he'd ever done that, where he's falling at the feet of Jesus and saying, I can't do anything. I've run out of options. [00:38:49] (28 seconds)  #WhenYouRunOutOfOptions

But we recognize he can use all of it. That he's not just the one who removes the suffering, but the one who can redeem it. Not the rescued daughter by herself, but the transformed father who walked through the worst moment of his life next to Jesus and found out that Jesus was exactly who he thought he was. [00:53:40] (19 seconds)  #RedemptionBeyondRescue

Not a God who is distant or manageable or safely contained into the categories that we have built for him to be contained by. The same God who stopped a crowd for a woman that nobody else saw. The same God who walked in an unhurried way to a house full of mourners and called a little girl back from the dead, the same God who is not surprised by where you are today, not put off by how long it's been, not waiting for you to clean up your life before he'll come in, that same god right now in this room, he's waiting. [00:54:03] (36 seconds)  #GodBeyondCategories

God is not troubled by your asking. He's actually already headed to the place where something is dead or dying in your life, and he wants you to walk with him. Now I wanna be clear. Not everyone in this room is gonna get the miracle that you're praying for, not the way you're praying for it, not the way that Jairus did, and not this side of heaven. Some of you have already lived that. You know it. You prayed, you believed, you kept walking with Jesus, but the bad news just kept coming. [00:47:56] (28 seconds)  #NotEveryPrayGetsMiracle

And if I stood up here and I told you that the right combination of desperation and faith will produce this specific outcome every time that you've been hoping for, that's not good news. You know that. That's a sales pitch for something that you know doesn't exist. In a broken world, not everything gets put back together. [00:48:23] (20 seconds)  #FaithIsNotABargain

The problem is the reason that that's so dangerous, it's not because the conditions are untreatable. Actually, most of these kinds of conditions are treatable, like hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes. They can be treated, but the comfort that masks their symptoms delays the necessary treatment. Because when we feel okay, we usually assume we are okay. And when we assume we are okay, we don't go looking to find out why we're not. [00:29:24] (27 seconds)  #ComfortMasksSymptoms

Getting on the ground even metaphorically, admitting you don't have all the answers, sharing with people what Jesus is to you and how you ask for help in your life, that may cost you something. It's a public act. People may see your desperation, your faith, and they might be surprised by it. A lot of you, you have a professional identity that has never faced a problem that you can't solve. At least that's what you've communicated on the outside. But that that approach, it takes an inner toll, and that toll eventually comes due. [00:51:41] (33 seconds)  #PublicVulnerabilityHeals

His degrees didn't matter. His network didn't matter. The title on his door didn't matter. The reputation that he'd formed over decades didn't matter. None of it could do anything for his 12 year old dying daughter in a bed, the same bed that he had likely kissed her goodnight on for more than a decade. All of it collapsed into this moment. [00:37:30] (23 seconds)  #TitlesDontSave

But maybe for Jairus, like, the first time in years, for the first time since that initial diagnosis, for the first time since he'd seen his daughter getting worse and worse and worse, he was able to, like, breathe for a minute. There was hope that he found the right person, that he made the right decision, that there was still a chance, there was still time for this to work out different, to get control, to orchestrate an outcome, to save his little girl. And then everything stops. [00:39:26] (29 seconds)  #FleetingHopeInterrupted