Miracles | Week 10 | Daniel Goulding | Echoes Church

I don't know if you've ever been, like, crazy lost before. Yeah. I don't if you've ever been there. And if you're under 25, I honest, I don't know if you're actually qualified to answer this question because you've always had a cell phone in your pocket. Right? Like, back in the day, you could get lost and there wasn't Google Maps. Right? Like, I'm not talking about you just you missed a turn and Google had to, like, reroute you to a new path. Like, that's not that's not being lost. Like, being lost is you're like, okay. We've made this same turn six times. We passed the same tree, and I don't I don't know where we are now. In worst case, I don't know where to go. I was a delivery driver for this little Italian pizza place. It was right across the street from my parents' house growing up. And, man, there's nothing more terrifying than getting four deliveries you gotta go and deliver at night. And the only way to remember the routes is you have to in the back of the store, they had this thing called a Thomas Guide. Anybody remember the Thomas Guide? Okay. All you kids may know nothing about this. You would have to look at a map, a physical map, and you'd have to map out. Here's where you're gonna go, and God forbid you miss one turn, and I'm looking at my list of, like, directions I wrote down, and all of sudden you're you're lost. I'm convinced that the hardest thing in the world is to find the apartment building number and then the the actual apartment number at night to deliver a pizza. If you don't tip your delivery driver at least a million dollars if you live in an apartment complex,

you're not going to heaven. I'm just I'm just kidding.

But the funny part is that I've been lost sometimes in my life, but I don't think I've ever been as lost as as these guys. I wanna show you a picture of these guys. These were these were a group of Hungarian soldiers during World War one. It's a true story. Can go look up the whole thing. It's a pretty incredible story. They were sent out in the Alps to do an exploratory mission.

A massive blizzard hit and they were they were completely lost. They said they couldn't even tell east from west. They didn't know what was up and what was down, and so eventually,

after just spinning in circles, they just kinda sat down and resolved that they were just gonna die there because they had no way how to get out. And then one of the guys reached into his backpack and he he pulled out a map and I promise you, he was probably that guy that every single one of us has on like trips that we go on, like you're going on a two hour hike and they bring this massive like backpack that's got snacks and water reserves and all this like, bro, why do you have a tent? Like we're going for two hours, you know. But when things go wrong, man, you are pumped that you got the guy with snacks with you. Right? And somebody

pulls out a map. And all of a sudden, hope begins to come back to this group of men and they take that map. They start to lead in a direction and eventually they get reconnected with their platoon. All the men survive,

and here's the incredible part about that story. The platoon leader later took the map that they had and he looked at it, and he realized that what they were holding was a map not of the Alps but of the Pyrenees Mountains. If you don't know geography,

they're not even on the same continent. Okay? They were holding a map, they were following a map of the wrong mountain range yet somehow probably with some providence and some favor,

it's the thing that led them out of the storm that they were in. Here's the principle. Here's the lesson for us to learn this morning. See, don't think it was the accuracy of the map that led to them getting up and trying again. I think it was the presence of the map at all. That sometimes when you're stuck,

sometimes when you're running in circles and you don't know what is up or down, sometimes you just need some vision again. You need some type of direction. I believe that sitting in church this morning are some people who feel stuck.

Whether it's relationally, if it's in your marriage, if it's financially, if it's in your relationship with God, that there are people who are sitting here this morning who, man, you just you just feel you feel stuck.

And I'm praying and I'm believing. I'm asking for god to give you a road map of how to get back to your destiny and your purpose because we are not supposed to be a people who are who are stuck. But the question the question that you've gotta wrestle through this morning is, have you lost your vision?

Have you lost your sense of vision? See, the Bible uses purpose and vision kind of interchangeably. Vision is the ability to see a preferred future of where you're not yet, where you want to be with your marriage, with your finances, with your business, with your career, with your influence, with your family.

We need to be people of vision. It's interesting to me that eight different times in the New Testament, Jesus will heal a blind man's eyes. What we're gonna look at today in Luke chapter 18 is Jesus healing a blind man's sight. He does it eight times because it tells us the importance

of vision in us being able to see. I know a lot of us sitting here were like, well I can see fine. I'm not talking today about physical sight as much as I am about spiritual supernatural sight. Getting vision back to your life. Helen Keller says that the only thing worse than being blind

is having sight but having no vision. I think the truth is that there's a lot of Christians that walk around and sure we have sight but we have no vision. And I believe the reason that vision matters so much is because the book of Proverbs goes so far to say that without vision, you and I will perish.

If we don't know where we're supposed to be going, if we don't know our purpose, our destiny, and our calling, I'm telling you is how we wander in circles, it's how we end up in marriages that just feel stuck.

I believe that God is gonna restore some vision to some of us this morning. Luke chapter 18, here's how the story begins starting in verse 35. It says, as Jesus approached Jericho, a blind beggar was sitting beside the rope. When he heard the noise of a crowd going past, he asked what was happening.

They told him that Jesus, the Nazarene was going by. So, he began shouting, Jesus, son of David,

have mercy on me. Okay. Here's the context that we find today's miracle in. Jesus and his crew are heading to Jericho and they find a man that's there. He's he's sitting there in the crowd. He's there every single day. Other stories tell us this blind man's name is Bartimaeus. And Bartimaeus

is sitting there and he has no ability to see. He was born blind.

In first century Jewish culture, this mean that he wouldn't have been able to work. He would have had a life that was relegated to begging people for money, and that's what he did every single day. But they tell us that when we lose one of our five senses, the other four typically become heightened.

And all of a sudden, Bartimaeus, he couldn't see, but he he had the ability to probably almost supernaturally

hear, and he could tell something was different today. Not that he could see it, but he could hear it. And he could hear that there was commotion all around him. So he asked, hey, what what's going on? And they said that Jesus, the Nazarene is here.

And Bartimaeus must have heard the rumors about Jesus, so he just begins to shout, says, Jesus have have mercy on me. Now here's what's interesting to me about Bartimaeus is that he could have done what you and I do often, where we focus on what it is that we don't have. See Bartimaeus

couldn't see, it's true, but he didn't allow his inability to see from stopping that from stopping him from doing what it was that he could do. See, he could still hear and he could still shout.

And here's the thing that you and I will have to fight for in certain seasons of our life. We will have to fight to remember what it is that we do have when the enemy the enemy is really good at reminding us of what we what we don't have. See, sometimes we convince ourselves that I'll live a life of purpose once I have a a bank account that has a significant amount of money in it, then I can make a difference for the kingdom of God. But what if when you don't have income, you leverage your season of life where you have time? For some people that go, man, I just I gotta be married and start to have a family before I can live a life of impact and and create a legacy.

Or what if you instead use what you do have, which is the gift of singleness in this season instead of focusing on what you don't have, what if what would happen if you and I began to take what we do have,

bring it to the person of Jesus and watch watch what he can do with it? That maybe overcoming obstacles has less to do with what we don't have and more about beginning to realize the power and the potential of what we what we do have.

I just wonder what it is that you do have today. I know there's some things that all of us are needing more of. There's things that we're believing God to change, but in the middle of our season of lack or despair, despair, what what is is it it that that we we do do have? Have? Bartimaeus,

he could hear and he could shout and so he was shouting, Lord, have mercy. Look at the crowd. The crowd's response, verse 39 said, be quiet. Don't you love people? There's a lot of days on Mondays I get emails after preaching and I just go, man, I I love people.

I'm gonna forward that one to the delete box, you know, like that's

I I just love it. This guy who's there every single day, this guy that people knew who's shouting for healing, the people are telling him to be quiet. So as the people in front of him yelled at him, but Bartimaeus only shouted louder, son of David son of David, have mercy on me.

I love that Bartimaeus had reached the point in his life where he was less concerned about decorum. He was less concerned about what people were going to think about him. There was something about that day where his desperation pushed past his opinion of what other what other people were gonna think about him.

Often, I would venture to guess that this is the moment that typically precedes breakthrough. Sometimes the reason we stay stuck in our mess for so long is because we're so afraid of what people are gonna think about us. We're terrified of what people are gonna say.

And let me just tell you, man, people are gonna say hurtful things.

People are going to people. Amen? It's just a reality of our world. But what would happen if we were to go, you know what? In spite of what people are gonna say or think, I'm gonna reveal my brokenness because I understand that this thing can only control me while it's hidden and it's in the dark. But if I bring this thing into the light, if I bring this thing to the the foot of the cross, if I reveal this thing to Jesus, I believe that he can change something. I'm praying that supernatural desperation would rise up in the people of God again, that we would become desperate enough where we would stop pretending and stop playing church. And I'm telling you the reason that so many of us, we go to church every weekend and we live lives of brokenness throughout the week is because we're so terrified of what people are gonna think about us.

But you know what I've learned? The the the faster, the more willing I am to expose my weakness, to bring it into the light, the response from people is like, oh, you too. The great illusion of humanity is that somehow somebody somewhere is perfect yet we're all broken.

We all have things in us that we wish weren't there. Maybe the desperation can rise up in us that would give us the courage to go, man, I don't care what people say.

I need breakthrough in my marriage. I need breakthrough in my finances. This guy had gotten to this point that he said, man, I don't care. I'm tired of sitting here stuck.

If this thing about Jesus is real, then maybe he can actually change me. There's a couple things I wanna point out to you in this story. A couple things if you're sitting here feeling stuck and you go, man, I just I I need purpose again. I need vision again. There's a couple things I think you can learn from this story. The first one is we need to understand that the greatest obstacle to vision, the thing that will block vision every single time

is sin. What's really interesting to me is that Bartimaeus two times he cries for Jesus to give him mercy not sight. He cries out for mercy. And I think part of this was a misunderstanding

of theology because in first century Jewish culture, they believed that a physical ailment was the byproduct of sin. Most likely because he was born blind, that it was sin that his parents parents dealt with. Now we know two thousand years removed,

that is not true. There's no such thing as sin that leads to these physical ailments that are passed down generationally. That that is a wrong understanding.

But here's what is really interesting to me, that the scriptures record to Bartimaeus asking for sight again. He cries out for mercy. Now mercy isn't something we talk a lot about in church. We talk a lot about grace. Right? Grace is when we're given something that we haven't earned. It's when what we've earned should be God's wrath, but instead we're given God's we're given God's perfection.

We're we're given the righteousness of Christ. That's where something's deposited to you that you haven't earned. Mercy

is when you have done something and you've earned a certain result and yet God doesn't give you that. Right? The Bible says that we've stored up wrath against ourselves because of who God is and the mess that we've made of our life. But the mercy of God says I'm not going to give you what it is that you deserve. This man cries out for mercy and I'm telling you, I think the reason that it's in the Bible

is because you and I need to remember that often the number one thing that will block your relationship with God, it will create a barrier between you and being able to hear God's voice. It is sin. The cry of our heart when vision is lacking is to go, okay, what is it in my life that is blocking

the thing that God is trying to reveal to me?

I don't know if you've ever seen those glasses that Kanye wore a few years ago. I wish I had had them here. I would have worn remember like a little line that were on them? Like, you can't really see out of them? That's what sin does to our vision, our ability to see. It distorts things. We start to see things incorrectly.

We see our relationships incorrectly. We see our finances incorrectly. We see our life incorrectly.

That's what sin does. It distorts. And here's what we need to know. Even for those of us who have submitted our life to Jesus, that at the same time inside of you right now, inside of all of us, there's a war that's happening between your flesh and your spirit. And sometimes when the spirit is losing and the flesh is winning,

it is why the spirit of god seems disconnected. We can't hear god's voice any longer. Paul talks about that tension in the book of Romans. He says it this way in Romans chapter eight. He says, those who are dominated by the sinful nature, they think about the sinful things. But those who are controlled by the spirit, they think about the things that please the spirit. So letting your sinful nature control your mind, it's the thing that will lead to death. But here it is.

Letting the spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.

What he's saying is if you feel stuck and you feel like you can't hear God's voice anymore and you don't come to church and feel the presence of God like you used to, maybe for some of us, there's something in our life that we've been doing that we need to stop doing.

For others of us, it's not a sin of commission. It's not something that you're doing that you need to stop doing. For some of us, it's a step of obedience that God has asked you to take a long time ago that you've just said no to. It's a sin of omission.

There's things that God has been telling you to do that you just say, no, I'm I'm okay. The prayer of our heart has to be all the time. It's the it's King David's prayer. Lord, give us clean hands and a a pure heart. Here's what I've learned when I find myself in seasons where I just I I struggling

to hear what's next from God for me. God, what is it you're leading me to do? What what is next for me? When it feels like God's voice is hazy in my life, it's often

a great determiner that God has already spoken and I've just been disobedient. If you're writing notes, write down this way. When I can't see what's next, I need to make sure I was obedient to what came last. I would venture to guess

without even having to have much time to think about it or pray about it. If I were to ask you, what is the thing right now in your life you know you need to stop doing, thing you need to start doing? I think most of us would know what that thing is.

Tony, for a season of my life, it was like, hey, there's things you need to stop doing. There was other seasons in my life where God was was nudging me. Daniel, it's time to start trusting me financially.

And I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna do that, man. I don't make enough money. When I make more money, maybe I'll consider that. I'm telling you for six months, would come to church every single week and I'm I'm praying about God like this relational things or like struggles at work. I'm asking for God and all he's saying is trust me with your money. I'm like, that's the dumbest answer ever, bro. I'm talking about my relationship. You know what I mean? And every time God kept saying the same thing, the same thing, the same thing. And then eventually, said, okay. And I started to trust God. And all of a sudden, you know what happened? Fresh vision. And I started to know what was next. See, the scriptures say that we walk not by sight, but by faith.

You know, it says the word of God, it's a lamp into our feet. And what it means is that often the way that God speaks is he speaks in a way that gives us enough light to take the next step of faith that's in front of us. We sit back and we go, God, I want a spotlight into my future, yet what he offers us is a lamp into our feet. Gives us enough light to know the next step we're supposed to take. But when you know what the next step is and you refuse to take it,

don't wonder why God doesn't give you new revelation.

Often, we find ourselves in seasons going, man, it feels like I can't hear God's voice. Because there's something he's already spoken to us about that we're just not we're not doing. Bartimaeus finds himself desperate on this day crying out for Jesus to heal him, to give him mercy.

In verse 40, here's how Jesus responds. He says, when Jesus heard him, he stopped and ordered that the man be brought to him. As the man came near, Jesus asked him, what do you want me to do for you, Lord? He said, I wanna see. This is one of those stories when I read it that I'm like, what?

Why would Jesus ask the guy with the sunglasses and like the pole, everybody knows that he's blind, hey, man, what can I do for you? Like, aren't you Jesus? Like, they like, you're the god dude. Right? Like, don't you don't you clearly see that he's blind?

Yet, he it's interesting that Jesus would ask him, what do you want from me? If you go back to the original language that this is written in in Greek, I think a better translation of this question is Jesus is actually asking him something close to, what are you believing me for, Bartimaeus?

And I think it's a really powerful question if you think about it. Why are you here this morning? What are you believing God for today?

If we really believe that God was real, that he would meet us in this place, and that church wasn't just a thing that we do to go through the motions, and this really is. It's the thin place. It's this one place during the week where god, the realities of of of his earth, they meet the realities of our earth, and we begin to see god's will on in heaven as it is on earth, and we begin to see god's god's plan unfold, and this is a place where chains can be broken and bondage can be broken off, and we can begin to see addictions broken from people and marriages restored.

When you walk in the doors of church, when you approach the bold throne room of grace like the scriptures say, what are you asking Jesus for? Why are you here? What do you believe in God for?

Because what's interesting to me, what what's honestly kind of sad to me is that Bartimaeus, he could have done what I think so many of us do as Christians. Bartimaeus could have asked. Man, I've got this cup. I've been sitting here all day and I have no money and my life would be fine if I just had more money.

And I bet you if Bartimaeus had asked Jesus that day to give him some money, he probably would have answered that request. And he would have gotten his cup full of money, and he would have walked away still blind.

And I just wonder how many people come to church with real things that are plaguing them, but we're asking God for really simple superficial things. Bartimaeus could have been like, man, I slept weird last night on the pillow. My next kinda tweak, like, could you hook me up with like a neck adjustment?

And God probably would have done that and he would have walked away blind. I just wonder what it is you're believing God for today. I wonder what it is that you brought with you today, this morning, that you need the God of the universe to intervene and do something about.

Here's what I also want you to see from this story. Jesus is going to meet his request. Jesus is going to heal him. That I believe that our response, our responsibility, when it comes to this thing, I mean, how do we get vision back? How do we get purpose again? Our responsibility is waging war with the sin in our life,

but vision is one of those things that can only be deposited by by Jesus. The second thing I want you to see from the story is that vision is restored by Jesus. Not the Instagram guy's mastermind that he wants to sell you. Right?

Everybody has a class. Everybody has a process. Everybody has a new thing to do, a new fad, but I'm here to tell you if you lack purpose and meaning and vision in your life in any arena, it is only restored by the person of Jesus. But the question is

the question is is what are you believing him for? Do you actually have enough faith to believe that he can heal your sight? I love that Bartimaeus said, you know what? Man, if Jesus is here, I'm gonna shoot my shot.

Maybe I'm gonna look crazy. Maybe people are gonna laugh and go, oh, look at that guy, man. He asked for Jesus to heal his sight and all he did was give him some money. But what's the worst that's gonna happen?

What's the worst that would happen if you actually expose the need in your life and begin to bring it to the foot of Jesus and ask him to do something with it? Here's the thing that I I love that Paul prays for the church in Ephesus.

It's kind of a bizarre prayer when you think about it, but Paul prays in in Ephesians chapter one to a church that he loved. He says, I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. I don't if you ever seen a heart, but they don't they don't actually have eyes on them.

What Paul is saying is there's something more that we all need than just the physical things we come to God for. It's often our physical needs that get us to the throne room of God,

but the greatest prayer, the greatest need is that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened. He says, so that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of his glory and his inheritance in the saints, and what is the boundless greatness of his power towards us who believe.

Paul says, I'm praying that at some point, the eyes of your heart, the deepest recesses of your soul would see who Jesus really is because that's the point you begin to understand real hope and purpose and meaning and what the point of all of this thing called life is.

Mark Twain says that there's two days, two most important days for all of us. It's the day that you're born and the second one is the day that you learned why you were born. I understand why people who haven't bent the knee to Jesus struggle with this thing called purpose and vision,

But I'm telling you, man, one of the most heartbreaking things for me is when people who have surrendered their life to Jesus that would raise their hands and say, yes, I'm I'm a follower of Christ. I'm a Christian. They still find themselves in seasons where they go, I just man, I feel no purpose.

I feel no significance. I don't know what God is doing with my life. We are supposed to be people who are fueled by vision, that we are the the bet, the farm, risk it all, push the chips to the middle of the table because we man, we know who we are. We know the calling that's on our life.

But the truth is is we live in a world that's got distractions everywhere.

And when you lose vision when you lose vision for where you want your marriage to go, you'll you'll fall for all kinds of distractions. When you lose vision for where your finances are supposed to be, I'm telling you, man, you you fall into all the distractions. If you're taking notes, write it down this way. When I don't have a vision for my destination,

I will be detoured by every distraction. If you don't know what I'm talking about, go to the grocery store hungry. K?

There's been weeks of my life where I'm like, man, I'm I'm killing. You know? I'm I'm in the gym. I'm com like, I'm tracking the macros, and then all of a sudden, I go to the grocery store with no plan, and I walk out with, like, six packs of Oreos. My wife is like, why did you buy five pints of ice cream? Like, well, because Fry says you gotta buy five to get the discount. You know? Like, I don't I blacked out. I don't know. You know? Don't judge me.

And all of a sudden, when you when the when the vision when the destination gets fate gets hazy, all of a sudden, you start to just fall for distractions. And I'm telling you that that signifies that represents so much of some of our existence day to day. We're just living a life of distraction.

We're just letting these things take us down roads of detourance because we've forgotten what the end destination is, that we are now aliens in this world. We're just passerbyers. This life is not our purpose. This life, this world is not our vision. We live for a kingdom that's going to come someday

and all of us need to remember who we are. And if you're sitting here this morning and you feel stuck, man, that's great, but raise your hand and ask God to do something powerful. I love this verse in Acts chapter two.

It's a foreshadowing Peter at Pentecost. He prays a prayer. He he he prophetically utters a day that's going to come. It's something that's actually spoken of in the Old Testament in the book of Joel. It says in Acts chapter two verse 17 that in the days that God says, I will pour out my spirit upon all people.

Your sons and your daughters will prophesy. Your young men, it should have in there your young women too. He says, all people will see visions and your old men and old women will dream dreams.

I believe we are living in the time spoken about in the book of Joel, spoken about in the book of Acts where the power of God, the spirit of God would be poured out on you and I and the byproduct of God's spirit filling us. You know what it is? It's not building churches and evangelism and outreach though that's all part of it. That's the like manifestation

of it. But the byproduct of God's spirit filling us is we're supposed to be people of a vision.

When we have a vision from heaven, we have dreams of what God has deposited into our hearts that we don't have to wake up and be motivated because we know who we are in Christ. We know that this whole life minute is but a vapor. It's all passing away, but the delusion of our humanities will convince ourselves. We've got ton of time. I'll do that stuff later, but right now right now, I'm just I'm building a business or right now, I'm just trying to get through whatever it is I'm I'm getting through. And I'm trying to tell you, man, in the middle of whatever you're walking through, don't forget your destination.

Don't forget the vision.

It's crazy to me. My whole faith journey, man, it started when I was 19 years old. I walked into a church just like this. Worship service was started and I had no context. It was the first non denominational Christian church I've ever walked in. Warehouse guy in jeans and t shirt preaching the gospel. They would play music and I just I just would weep. I would be overwhelmed with just the presence of God. And then this next thing started to happen to me that was crazy.

And I would sit in worship services and I would start to have these out of body experiences and it was me it was me preaching on that stage.

And I was like, uh-oh. They they said that some of the drugs that I had done that like this was a result that could happen, Like, they could come back up later in life. And so I was like, okay. I did do some acid. So maybe that's what we're talking about right now.

And I just I had no context what was happening. It would happen one week. I'd walk back out, come back into church. I'm telling you the same thing. And it happened almost every single week for months.

And I'm sitting there as a 19 year old dude that's like barely sober, has no idea who I am, and God has given me a vision that I'm preaching on that stage.

It took almost five years for that moment to come to pass, but I'll never forget I was sitting backstage getting ready to walk out on that same stage after telling the senior pastor, hey, do wanna teach in a couple weeks? I was like, heck no. Get forced to do it. And I remember when God brought that moment full circle.

He said, remember that dream that I put in your heart? What that dream was, it was a filter that began to help me see what I was gonna say yes and no to. I don't say that to say, hey, look at me. I say that to say that's who God is for all of us.

We are supposed to be people fueled by vision, not always these big out of body ones, but we understand the preferred picture of where our life is supposed to go, who we are who we're supposed to be in Christ, and we use that as the filter to make every other decision in our life. We know who we are, and here is what I know every single time. If you're sitting here lacking vision,

my prayer, my hope, what we try to do every single Sunday is to create an opportunity

not for you to just go to church, but for you to experience the power of a resurrected Christ that is alive today who's moving, who's speaking, who's still giving dreams, who is still giving visions, who wants to speak to you. Again, I wrote it down this way that a god sized vision for your life, it always starts with a god sized encounter within your life. If you're sitting here lacking vision, I'm praying that you would have a god sized encounter

and that you would have multiple moments in your life where you get to just experience the magnitude and the beauty of who Jesus is because I promise you that is the thing that will change everything for you. And I love that this story starts to wrap up. Verse 42,

Jesus tells this man who asked for his sight, who has the audacity to ask for his sight back. And Jesus says, alright. Receive your sight, your faith. Your faith has healed you. Jesus doesn't tell him jump up and down, spin in circles six times.

He doesn't do what he does in some other parts of the Bible when he does the miracle of restoring sight where he spits in his hand and then rubs it in the guy's eyes. Like, I'm Bartimaeus, I'm pumped that I got the one where he just spoke and not like the spit one. I'd be like, I'm like, I'm cool without the spit. Like, I was gonna do that as an illustration today, but I had no volunteers. Right?

And I love how simple restoring vision is for Jesus. You ask, Jesus delivers. Bartimaeus says, wanna see, and Jesus says, your faith has restored your sight. But here's what I gotta tell you before I encourage you to ask God to give you vision again. I gotta tell you that it does come with a catch.

That God wants to redeem and restore every single part of your life, but there is an expectation on the back end that you'll do something with it. There is an expectation that on the back end, you understand that your life is no longer your own. Your job, your marriage, your time, all of it. It's not yours any longer.

You now have been bought in brought into the family of God and all of your life is gonna look just like this guy who asked Jesus to heal him. He receives his healing,

but here's the catch. Here's the back end of what comes on the other side of this for him and what is gonna come on the other side for all of us. He says, instantly, the man could see. And here's the catch. Here's what happens next. And he he followed Jesus. Secondly, he was praising God. And thirdly,

all who saw it praised God too. There's sometimes, man, it's hard for me to come up with like the three point message for the weekend, and there's sometimes it's like Jesus just does the hard lifting and the three points are right there.

I am asking and believing that God's gonna restore your vision and give you purpose again and begin to fill you with a fire of the Holy Spirit so that you can begin to go and live a life of men advancing God's kingdom and pushing back darkness and winning souls for the kingdom of God. But here's what I need you to understand. Vision vision has a purpose. Purpose. If God is going to entrust you with a vision, it's going to come with some purpose, with some strings attached to it. If nobody's ever told you, here's what God wants for your life. These are the three things that God wants and expects for all of us. As a follower of Christ, we are supposed to embody three things that we see right here. God's vision for your life, I wrote it down this way, three things. Number one is you're a person who is following Jesus.

Secondly, you're a person who's praising Jesus. This doesn't just mean on Sundays I sing songs of praises. No. No. I understand that all of life is now worship.

Everything I do is proclaiming the goodness of God, how I steward my resources, how I steward my time, what I do with my business, what what I do with my time, what I do with my family, all of that is in response

to what Jesus has done to me. It's all bringing praise back to his name, making Jesus famous. And thirdly, this will be the byproduct of you following Jesus and you praising Jesus is that other people will come to know who he is and you will be a person that just can't help but share Jesus. That

that's the Christian life, my friends. That's it.

Our vocations are different. Our calling, it's all the same. Follow Jesus. Praise him because he's good and watch what will happen to the sphere of influence that you have. People at work, people in your homes, people in your communities, they will see

the healing and deliverance that you've received. They will see how you live differently and the byproduct will be them asking,

where'd you get the hope? And you, as the scripture say, you will be able to give an account for the hope that you have, and you will get to share the greatest message that has ever been given to you, and it's that grace can be freely found in the person of Christ. You can't earn it. You can't work to receive it, but Jesus died so that you can have it and it's for all

people. Amen? I wish I could tell you, I think the thing that would make this so easy is that and also you'll never experience problems, but that's just not the truth. See, the truth is is that life, whether you're a follower of Christ or not, life is still gonna happen.

Difficult seasons are still gonna happen. People are gonna pass away. Cancer diagnosis are going to come. Jobs are gonna be lost out of the middle of the nowhere. But here's what I will tell you about vision. Vision is the only thing that will give pain purpose. Without vision, pain is just pain. But with vision,

man, I'm telling you, even pain has purpose. God will use even the hardest seasons of your life to bring you more into the person that he's trying to make you into.

I was so honored to get to play a small part in my friend's funeral on Friday. He was 46 years old. Five years ago, he was diagnosed with a terminal brain cancer

as a guy that was traveling the world, running an international business, had achieved more financial success than most of us could dream of, had built a beautiful family, incredible wife.

He knew who he was in Christ, Sitting in a hotel room one night, has a massive seizure, wakes up the next day and is told at essentially 42, you've got three months to live. Incurable, nothing we can do. Through modern medicine, through some miraculous intervention, he ends up getting about four and half years of life.

I only ever knew Wade as a sick person. Every single time I sat with him, coffee, lunch, sitting in his house, he would say the same thing to me. Daniel, the greatest gift that God gave me was brain cancer.

And I was like, what? And he would grieve. He would grieve the future he wasn't gonna have with his wife. He would grieve the weddings he wasn't gonna be out with his kids. But he said the greatest gift that God has given me for four years, I've gotten to live understanding what really matters in this life.

And the greatest lie of our humanity is that we have all the time in the world. And most of us, we live like that. We live as if impact and vision can happen next year. But the truth is none of us are promised next year. And I'm praying and I'm believing that you and I can be people who understand

what it means to live a life of vision, that God through the power of the Holy Spirit can remind us of what really matters without having to walk through something difficult like brain cancer or losing a loved one out of the middle of nowhere, but it's it is part of our human experience.

All of us are going to pass away someday. The question is in that little dash between the day you were born and the day you die, what are you doing with it? Who are you? Why are you here? What are you believing God for this morning?

Are the East Valley who begin to believe God for some big things again. If you're sitting here this morning and you feel stuck and you feel lost, man, I wanna pray with you. I wanna take a moment and take communion with you as well. Every single one of you got one of these on your way in.

One of the greatest reminders that when we feel stuck, we can remember that we're really not is we have the the gift of the gospel. We can remember Christ and Christ crucified. If you didn't get one of these on your way in, you need one, our ushers will pass one out to you. Just throw your hand up.

Communion is something that we do as followers of Jesus to remember that death is what started this whole thing, that our invitation to life was on the back end of Jesus losing his life. The the disciples didn't understand it. We often don't fully understand it, but Jesus took.

He took his closest friends the night before he was betrayed. He gathered them in the upper room, and he told them, guys, I want you to take this bread, and I want you to remember

that the purpose, the vision that you and I will get to live in, it came because Jesus' body was broken for us. It was beaten and brutalized beyond recognition so that we we could truly live. So together, we take and we eat, remembering the body broken for us.

And then he took a cup, and a quick hack, don't try to peel the purple piece off. Just break that whole mug off. Otherwise, you'll never get it. Alright? You're welcome. And then he took a cup,

and he told those same friends. He says, guys, I want you to do this in remembrance of me. Remember the blood that was spilled for you. The blood of Christ that was shed so that you and I could live a life of purpose. We could receive grace and mercy when we don't deserve it. Together, we take and drink remembering the blood spilled for us.

I

don't know what it is for you today. I don't know where it is that you feel stuck today, but I know that some of you know exactly what I'm meaning when you just feel stuck. If that's you, I'm gonna ask everybody in this room right now, just close your eyes and bow your heads.

Again, believing full of faith that this is the place where God meets us. This is the thin place where the realities of heaven, man, they invade our reality. If you are here and you just feel stuck and you know I'm speaking to you, it could be in your marriage,

finances. It could be in your purpose. Whatever it is, your vocation, whatever it is. If you're here and you feel stuck, I just wanna know who I'm praying with. I wanna pray specifically for you. If that's you, just right where you are, throw your hand up. Don't be ashamed. There's hands going up all over this room.

Father, I thank you for every single hand that's going up right now, every heart that's responding to you. Thank you for your obedience. Thank you for your faith. You can put your hands down. Father, I thank you, God, for every single person that would be here, that would be bold enough in front of you to declare,

God, this is what I'm believing you for. And Lord, I know, I don't know every circumstance, but I trust that you do. And Father, I pray in the name of Jesus that your spirit would fill these people head to toe. And that that spirit would give us vision, that your holy spirit would give us dreams,

and that God we would be people fueled by vision and purpose and meaning. God, we ask for more. God, more of your heart, more of your vision, more of your spirit. God, where there's nobody else willing to go, would you send us in Jesus' mighty name. All God's people said, amen and amen.