Welcome to the Lansdale Life Church podcast.
If you're seeking a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, this podcast is for you.
Thank you for joining us today.
So yes, so back to Acts chapter nine.
And I love the book of Acts, you know, it reminds us how it was done right from the very beginning.
And today's message is preparing for God to move.
And you know, God prepares us for a move and he prepares the place where we are going for the move.
He wants us to be part of the process of that preparation for what he wants to do. Amen.
And so let's pray and thank the Lord for talking to us through his word today.
Father God, we ask you to really open up our hearts and minds
that we can receive directly from you. We ask you to download the significant truth that you want us
to walk away with, Lord. And we thank you for these stories that we can read and just really
connect with and realize these resonate with us because we apply them to our own lives as well.
So we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen. So preparation, you know, you could see throughout
scripture that God has a pattern quite often. And he likes to prepare
his people for what he's about to do. If you just look through the history of Israel,
you know, at Mount Sinai, could consecrate yourselves in three days, I'm going to come
down on Mount Sinai and speak to you. When they were about to cross the Jordan River,
camp here for three days, pray, cleanse yourselves, get prepared to enter the Promised Land.
He loves to prepare us for what he's about to do. If you can recall Elijah the prophet,
when after three and a half years of just famine and so forth and dryness,
he was about to bring back the rain. And he prepared, the Lord told him to prepare the altar,
12 stones, dig a ditch around the stones, pour water over it 12 times, 12 pitchers to prepare
for the fire that's going to come down from heaven and just lick up all the water and offering.
You know, he just likes preparing. Remember when Elisha stayed with, was out there doing ministry
and some widow came up to him and said, I can't pay my debts and my creditor is about to take
my two sons and make them slaves to work off my debt. And he said, what do you have in your
house? I just had this can jar of oil. All right, go gather more jars of oil from all of your
neighbors, okay, and bring them into your house. And the oil never stopped pouring. Sometimes
he tells us to be part of his preparation. Someday I'm going to ask him why you don't need us.
Why do you want us to be part of this preparation? But that's what he does again and again,
because he wants us to be part of this. There's so many examples in Scripture. One time Israel
were completely thirsting to death. And the Lord said, dig ditches in the valley. And the next
morning they got up and they're all filled with water. He wants us to be prepared and continue
to prepare for what he's about to do. King Hezekiah, he said, cleanse the Levites and cleanse
the temple, prepare because I am about to come in and move powerfully. So again, it's just a cycle.
There's so many examples. I won't continue on, but there's examples. But there's also examples
in the New Testament. In the New Testament, we read it again and again. In fact, when in Matthew
33, when we read that God sent John the Baptist, if you have that JT,
Matthew 33, when John the Baptist was sent to prepare, he says, for this is he who is spoken of
by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah 40 verse 1, the voice of the one crying of the Lord is,
prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. The Lord uses us, earthlings,
to prepare his way, to be part of his preparation process. Do you remember when Jesus sent out the
70 to all the towns that he would go into? And we read about that in Luke chapter 10 verse 1.
After these things, the Lord appointed 70 others also and sent them two by two before his face
in every city and place where he himself was about to go. So the Lord likes preparing things, doesn't
he? You know, well, I don't always love preparing things. You know, for some reason when I was
thinking about this, I was thinking of painting. What's the worst thing about painting? The prep
work. It just takes forever. That dumb blue tape, you're just taping up everywhere. And, you know,
and then afterwards it's a mess anyway, and then you have to clean up, you know, but it's that
preparation work. But the Lord wants things prepared for him to come. Amen. And so we're
part of that process. And so today we're going to read about how Peter was prepared. He was
prepared for the things he's about to do in this scripture. God was preparing in the midst of that,
okay, for something he's going to do in the future. So he's preparing Peter from the things
that he already learned. He's causing Peter to prepare the environment for what he's about
to do. And then he prepares Peter for things he's going to do in the future. I think he does
the same thing with us. He's always preparing us. You know, we can think things in the past were
mistakes. I think they're preparation. So we can do the Lord's work in a more powerful way
when we learn from those mistakes. Amen. And so that's what he wants to do. So we're focusing
today on the Apostle Peter. If you can recall, it all started on Pentecost and Peter gave that
message and 3,000 got saved, right? So Peter was instrumental in the very beginning of the early
church. And then it shifted for a brief time to Philip. Okay, if you can recall Philip, when he
went to Samaria and people were getting saved and that was what, the Samaritans are coming to
know the Lord. Wow. And then he spoke and preached to the Ethiopian eunuch. And then there
the gospel went off to Africa and then it shifted to Paul. And Paul, he got converted on his way to
Damascus. In Damascus, I mean, he got converted and he became an evangelist. And then he became part
of the early church. And then he met Barnabas. We talked about Barnabas last week. And then from
there, Paul goes back home, if you can recall, to Tarsus. And now the Lord is going to put him
on his shelf for a little bit. He's going to say, okay, you stay there at home because I'm coming
back to you later, but I've already prepared you for a lot of things you're going to be doing.
It wasn't over for Paul. It was really just beginning, but it was a resting period. He was
preparing Paul for the things he's going to do in the future. And now the focus is going back
to Peter. Okay, so we're going to read about Peter because he's not just sitting around in
Jerusalem. He's moving and shaking for the kingdom. He's out there sharing the gospel.
So let's look at Acts chapter nine, verse 32. And we're only going to stop once in this reading.
So verse 32, and now it came to pass as Peter went through all parts of the country,
that he also came down to the saints who dwell in Lyda. And there he found a certain man
named Aeneas who had been bedridden eight years and was paralyzed. And Peter said to him, Aeneas,
Jesus the Christ heals you, arise and make your bed. And then he arose immediately. And so all
who dwelt in Lyda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord. So here, this man who is paralyzed
only for eight years. And I say that for a reason because the Lord had already prepared Peter for
what he was about to do through him. If you can recall back in Luke chapter nine, that he went out,
the 12 went out and performed all kinds of miracles. And this was before he was glorified
by the Holy Spirit. And then after that, if you can recall, we read in Acts chapter three,
when he and John were walking through the gate called beautiful. And this guy is lame
since his birth, 40 years, he's never walked. And he was begging. And Peter looked at him and say,
you know, gold and silver, I do not have for you. But what I do have in the name of Jesus,
walk, get up, and he helped them up. And he went leaping, jumping, and praising the Lord.
So Peter had already seen a thing or two. He knew God was going to work because he had already worked
through Peter. He knew what to expect. Now, it doesn't always happen exactly the way we expect,
but he had already experienced God moving powerfully. And so have we. How many things
has the Lord done through you? That's sometimes we forget. Like, oh yeah, like he did use me
in the past. Like, if he used me in the past, he can use me again. Why not? Remember when King
David was at the battlefield and Goliath, a nine foot nine monster was out there,
slandering the Lord and the Lord's army. And he's walking around boasting and everything.
And David's sitting there like, why isn't anybody doing anything, right? And then all of a sudden,
Saul's talking to him saying, you're too young. You're a boy. He's been fighting since he's been
a boy. You know, no, no, no, no, no. Look, I've killed a lion and I've killed a bear. He'll just
be like one of them. Okay. It's like what faith that is, because he's already experienced it.
Sometimes it doesn't look exactly the same. You know, lion, bear, a giant,
they look a little different. Okay. But it's the same God, right? It's the same victory
that God wants to have through you. And so it might look different, but God operates the same way.
He's still moving and shaking through you. And he still wants to do the work. Don't you believe
that? The circumstances might change, the people might change, the exact details might change,
but it's the same God, the same God who wants to move powerfully through you. He wants to move
through you. Think about that. You know, he chooses to move around this earth in earth and vessels,
like tents. Mine's falling apart every year, a little more so, but it's just a tent. And yet
he's glorious inside that tent. He's powerful. That's the thing that boggles our mind. Like
that's how he proves how powerful he is because he's in meager tents on earth. Yet he is powerful.
He prepares us in advance. You know, even when I think about being a pastor, I never wanted to
be a pastor. I really didn't. I just wanted to be a businessman. I wanted to make lots of money.
That's what I wanted to do, right? Make lots of money and be a good family man and so forth.
But, you know, the Lord just kept reeling me in, you know, like a fish. He just kept pulling me in
and, you know, first, fifth and sixth grade assistant, you know, and then suddenly I'm the
teacher and I'm like, okay, you know, then I'm a teacher for junior high. Okay. Then I'm a teacher
for senior high, but I never really went after any of those positions. They just, they just
happened. I was like the only one around like, well, let's, let's choose him. Okay. You know,
but it's like, that's a lot of times God just recruits you and you don't even realize you're
being recruited, right? You're like, but because he's preparing you, you know, with me, he has
to work slowly. You know, I'm surprised I didn't start nursery, you know, like let's start there.
Okay. You can handle that. And I'm not putting any of that down. In fact, I love to talk to
Danny Jackson about teaching children. I believe if you could teach children, you could teach
anybody, you know, because the analogies are like, all right, let me go back. Let me go back
50 years. What did they think about? What did they more than 50 years now? What did they care
about? Like I picture a Tonka truck, you know, or something like that. But when you get older,
it's like, you know, I bounced a check. Oh, okay. I got that. I've been there, done that,
you know, it's more we can relate. Well, who writes checks anymore anyway, but anyway,
but you get the idea. It's like we can connect right on an easier level. But anyway, so that's
what he does. He prepares us for the next thing. And sometimes he starts small. Remember what he
said? Don't be grudge small beginnings, because a lot of times that's where he starts with us,
because that's all we can handle. That's all I could handle. He was just little bits, little
steps at a time, you know. And that's what he's doing with Peter. He just keeps growing Peter's
his sphere of influence. So let's read on from there from 36 to 43.
At Joppa, there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. I was reading
that I'm thinking, I think I prefer Tabitha. I don't know about you. Dorcas is kind of harsh,
you know, but anyway, whatever you prefer Tabitha, Dorcas, but there's a woman. Okay.
And this woman was full of good works and charitable deeds, which she did. But it happened
in those days that she became sick and died. And when they had washed her, they laid her
in an upper room. And since Lida was near Joppa, and the disciples had heard that Peter was there,
they went to, they went, they sent two men to him, imploring him not to delay in coming to them.
And then Peter arose and went with them. And when he had come in, they brought him to the upper room.
And all the widows stood by him, weeping, showing the tunics and garments, which Dorcas had made
while she was with them. But Peter put them all out and knelt down and prayed. And turning to the body,
he said, Tabitha, arise. And she opened her eyes. And when she saw Peter, she sat up.
And then he gave her his hand and lifted her up. And when he had called the saints and widows,
he presented her alive. And it became known throughout all of Joppa. And many believed on the
Lord. And so it was that he stayed many days in Joppa with Simon, a tanner. So let's just show
a little map. I like showing maps because it gives us, it could just kind of picture things,
how they were. Peter was still spending a lot of time in Jerusalem with James, the half-brother
of Jesus. But now he's in Lyda. And then these people heard about it. Dorcas dies. Let's go get
Peter. And so Peter goes there. And now this event just happened, just so you could picture
the landscape. And so he went in and there's these weeping widows, not weeping willows,
weeping widows. And he goes in and they're showing him all the tapestry and the things that
she made while she was alive. And it's a touching setting. And then he chases them out. And I'm
thinking, what is the significance of that? Well, first of all, widows, just by their name,
what are they connected with? Death, right? Death of a significant other, meaning their husbands,
I mean, their provider, their protector, the father of their children, if they have them.
I mean, it's significant, right? And so that's why the Lord said, make sure you take care of
those widows and orphans, right? Because a widow doesn't have that stable pillar in her life.
And so they're there and they're well acquainted with death, right? And they're weeping.
So they're, of course, connecting that death with Dorcas and saying, you know, it's so sad she's
gone. And then they're bringing out the things she made. Like, remember when she made this? And
I'm not making light of this, okay? But I'm trying to just picture this scene. Meanwhile,
Peter's walking in like, no, I'm about raising her back to life. Like, go, go. Like, I can't be
distracted with this death perspective. You know, I really believe that's the picture here.
Because why else would he chase them out, you know? Because in a sense, sometimes we need to
cast out doubt. If somebody has a perspective that it ain't going to happen, that looks impossible to
me, you know? Well, right? Sometimes we have to create distance between impossible and possible.
Because Jesus is always saying, no, I am possible. I can do this. So sometimes we need to kind of
gentlet your area of faith, you know? We need to, can you just leave, you know? And that sounds
harsh, but because we need to have the proper perspective. And I just think in a daily life,
if we're surrounded with people that are always just naysayers, doomed secret, but no kidding aside,
about six years, maybe five years ago, but I had heard a dear friend of ours from an old church
had ALS, you know, Lou Gehrig's disease, you know? And I just heard it. He was such a fun,
nice, charismatic guy and a teacher literally at a public school. And I heard about this and I'm like,
no, no, no, no. And I thought I heard from the Lord, this thing will not happen. And so I went
to their house because I don't want to be shameful about faith. I don't know about you, but you know
what? I'm willing to go all in and be a fool for Christ. And I'm willing to just expect the
greatest from God, expect the miracles. And you know what? If I'd heard him wrong,
or it wasn't his will for that day, or whatever the other dynamics, I don't know any of that. But
all I can do is act in faith and say, I'm going to lay hands on him and he's going to be healed.
And that's what I told him. Well, he's home with the Lord right now, many years later,
and it was slow. And that was a burden for me because I had so much hope and expectation. Can
you feel me right now? Have you been there? What happened? I can do all things.
Now, Paul wasn't talking about that. He was talking about being able to be rich or poor or whatever.
But really, it's sometimes we just want God to move so much, and we believe for it,
and then it doesn't happen. Now, we're not going to talk all about that today. That's a whole
different sermon. But the idea is that, you know, we can't let that not happening dictate
what we do next because Jesus is saying, pray and ask, seek and knock and expect. Like,
believe. People never have accomplished anything with unbelief. Let me just say that. And I think
that's one of the reasons why Peter is saying, I'm sorry, we can't have weeping widows in this
room right now showing me the things she made when she was alive. She's going to be alive.
And so sometimes we need to cast out doubt. People in our lives say, look, I love you,
but right now I need a fresh perspective. And we actually see this precedent in scripture
kind of escorting out unbelievers. Do you remember when Elijah went to the widow in Zarephath,
right? And he was staying with her and suddenly her son died and she went to him. She was holding
her son and says, is this why you came here? Just to remind me of my sins. And so Elijah, you know,
she's done so much for him, right? He takes, he takes the boy, brings him up to the upper room,
lays him down, and he's having a word with God. Is this what, is this what you're going to do,
God? I mean, like, you know, but the Lord is gracious. If you ever yell at God, remember,
he is gracious. Okay. How could you do this, God? He's gracious. How many times did David yell at God
when things didn't work out the way he thought they would? So Elijah's saying, are you now bringing
death to this woman's son? Yeah. And so you know what he did? He just goes and he lays down on
the boy three times and he comes back to life. But you know what he did with the mother?
He said, you got to stay downstairs because this perspective, this spirit of anger,
this spirit of judgment, this spirit of unbelief, it can't be in this room.
He needed a fresh perspective from God saying, what am I supposed to do? Lay on him three times?
Really? Okay. You know, sometimes God tells us to do weird things and that's what he did.
And then the boy comes back to life and he brings him down to his mother, probably holding him this
way now. He said, behold your son. And then she said, now I believe you are truly from God
and speak the truth. It took that? Yes. But he needed to keep her out of the room.
And actually his protege, Elisha did the same thing. When that woman he was staying with,
he said, what can I do for you? And his assistant Gehazi said, well, she doesn't have any children.
She comes to the door. A year from now, you're going to have a son. Don't lie to me. Please,
really. I just don't say that. In other words, don't get my hopes up, please.
They already knew it was impossible. Well, behold, she has a son. And behold,
some time later, he dies. It doesn't explain why he hit his head or something. And he dies.
And so the woman says, didn't I tell you not to deceive me? Like, could you imagine? Like,
you give me a son. I'm paraphrasing a lot, but you can get the attitude. It's like,
you promised me a son and now he's dead. And so Elisha, again, brings him up to his room,
just like his mentor, lays him down and lays on the boy. And this time only two times.
And the kid sneezes seven times, random. Okay. And behold, he popped up back alive, you know.
And then she brought the boy to the mother and said, here's your son back to life.
But the point is, she wasn't allowed in the room either.
Because you can't bring unbelief into an environment where you need to hear
from God. Now, sometimes it's just the way it is. You know, you can't be alone and away from everybody
all the time. But when you can, it's important to sort of be protective of the voices you're
listening to. Right? I mean, he had to block out those weeping widows so that he could focus on
what God wanted to do. Right? With Tabitha or Dorkus, whatever you prefer. Right? And so that's
the idea is that they had to cast up, but it doesn't stop there. Jesus himself did it. Remember
when he was going to Jairus's house because Jairus came to him and pleaded, my daughter has
died. Please come. And the girl was only 12 years old. He said, please come. She just died.
So Jesus is like, okay. So he's going to the house. And you know, the story got interrupted
with the woman who was bleeding for 12 years and she gets healed miraculously, you know,
and he finally shows up and there's a bunch of people there crying, weeping. In fact,
they said back then, if there wasn't enough people sad, they would hire people.
I need you to come in and really boo-hoo a lot to muster up the environment, the atmosphere of
crying. You know, that's weird. But anyway, so he comes in and he sees this and we read this about
in Matthew 9, 23 to 25. When Jesus came into the ruler's house and saw the flute players
and the noisy crowd wailing, he said to them, make room for the girl is not dead, but sleeping.
And then they ridiculed him. But when the crowd was put outside, he went in and took
her by the hand and the girl arose. You got to stay out. Like, you can't be mocking
what I'm about to do here, you know? And I think that sends a message to all of us, really, to
keep negativity, to not allow to seep into us, you know, that pessimism, the doomsday,
the pet, you know, just that attitude of, well, I've seen this before, usually doesn't work out,
you know, well, and it will this time. So I don't want to hear from you, you know?
And again, not nasty, but we need to be surrounded, not by yes, people, because, you know, sometimes
it's good to have wise counselors around us like always, right? And if they're saying, you know,
maybe this isn't the move of God, maybe this isn't what he wants to do. Well, maybe it is. Let's
walk through it. But when it comes to needing God to come to the rescue, there's only one way.
You know, Jesus says yes, not maybe. It's yes and amen, right? And that's what we're to believe
that he's going to do it. And if he doesn't, then we don't judge him. We move on to the next
opportunity, because he's going to allow one to come, right? And so I can't, I can't end my
laying hands on people, just because one guy went home with the Lord with Lou Gehrig's disease and
suffered through it. You know, that was, you know, that was like really, you know, just
dark for me to think that, wow, like I just was so sure of it. But you know, I can't let that
dictate what I do next. And neither can you. We can't fall into a pessimistic, logical mindset.
Oh, you know, this thing never works out. Yeah, this is, oh, this disease is so far gone. You know,
it's, it's impossible. Well, Jerry, you're a testament five times, right? Being healed
from cancer by the Lord, right? You know, never say never. God can do anything he wants to do.
We need to cast out doubt. We need to cast out the weeping widows that are around us saying,
oh, you know, it can happen. You don't know that the Lord's in charge. He says it's over.
When it's over, he's the one who says it's over. Right. So, so we see here that, you know, Peter
needs to, he needs to prepare the room for him to move. Okay, for God to move. And God shows up
and raises her back to life. But something else we might not catch with a quick read
is the last verse we ended at. And so it was that he stayed many days in Joppa
with Simon the Tanner. Now, what's a Tanner? You guys know what a Tanner is?
So a Tanner is one who works with skins, like pelts, you know, of animals. Okay. Now,
to work with pelts, what do you need first? Dead animals. Thanks, Pen. You need dead animals,
right? And so he has to work with dead animals. Well, in the Jewish faith,
when you're around something dead, you're unclean. So there was certain ceremonial
things they needed to do and to avoid, you know, contact and connection with ceremonial
rituals and so forth, because they're unclean. That's why when they would see something
dead, they're like, whoa, I'm staying away from, you know, they don't want to go near it. Right.
Because it's unclean. Well, this guy works with unclean every day, all day. That's all he does
is unclean. Okay. And, and here, Peter's living with him. And you're like, well, so what? Well,
you know, the Tanner just to tell you a little bit about the Tanner, first of all, they had to
operate their business in their house, but at least 75 feet outside the city limits because
of the stink and because of the uncleanness of it all. Right. They wouldn't want other people
getting defiled with the vapors and the, you know, the drift of the wind. Right. And so
it was a loathe career. And it was surprising if Simon was Jewish, he wasn't a religious one. Okay.
He, you know, so, so this is what he did. You know, it's kind of like finding so off topic, never mind.
But don't go down that trail. But it's so he wasn't a religious one if he was a Tanner. Okay.
And so here, Peter, Peter, he was a religious Jew at one time. And here he is a born again
Christian staying in the guy's house. Doesn't that tell us something? It says, you know what,
he's the skin of religion. The skin of the law is just being peeled off of Peter, not to make it
too much of an analogy. But really, he's new. And he's growing more and more in the freedom of Christ.
And he's saying, I don't have to worry about this uncleanness, because you know what,
he's about to learn in chapter 10. Behold, I make all things clean. I mean, think about this.
Peter is living in an unclean house. The end of the chapter before he's about to go into
Cornelius's house, a Roman centurion. And he's going to lead a bunch of Romans to Jesus Christ.
The whole thing's unclean. Right? If you're a respectable Jew, you're not going to go in and
eat with Romans. I mean, that's absurd. What does he do in there? Well, he's getting them saved.
He needed to be prepared in the Tanner's house so he can go into the Roman house,
because God's always prepared us for the next thing. And so the Lord had to prepare Peter.
You know, it's so important. You know, this stench when I was thinking about this,
it reminded me of a documentary I once saw about Mumbai, India. Do you have a slide up there, JT?
You're doing an amazing job, by the way. Let's give JT a round of applause. This is his first
day doing PowerPoint, right? Oh, the second day. All right. Thank you. So anyway, I saw this
documentary on this, like, shacky town. Did you ever hear about this? So, yeah, in Mumbai,
like 12 million live in the center of the city. And that's the small city for India. There's a
30 million city, right? But outside of that, there's like 20 million living around the edges.
And so this is a neighborhood, Dharavi, near Mumbai. And all those shacks, they just go out.
And in fact, I have my little laser pointer here. And right there is a road. Let's see those cars
there. It just goes on and on for miles around this city are these shacks. And they're poor people.
But you know what they do? They actually manufacture things in these shacks. They live there,
but they also make things. And it's like a mini factory inside their home. And one time I'm
watching, and this guy's a tanner. Okay. And he gets these pelts, and he hangs them up in his
living room. And he paints them with like chemicals. And then it's just coming off,
and it's smoking, and it's causing some kind of chemical reaction. And then he doesn't stop there.
Then he takes it down after it dries out and so forth. And he cuts it into pocketbooks and
purses and book bags and whatever else. And then he does that. And then he shrinks,
wrap it in plastic, all in his living room. And then he sends it away for sale. And as I'm
watching this film, I'm thinking, and then he goes to bed in the same room. But this
tanner, it was the same thing. And Peter's living there with him. He's learning to make do with
what he has. And he's all worth it. The gospel's always worth it. So he was being prepared for
what God was going to do in chapter 10. And so in light of these things, I want to ask a few
questions we can look at to ask ourselves, because it's always important to say, all right, so what
does all this matter to me? Well, he's preparing. He's preparing you, isn't he? You know, he who
began a good work on you will complete it, right? He will complete it. I love Ephesians 2.10,
for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance
for you to walk in. I mean, think about that. He's always known what he was going to have
Jill do. Do we walk in all of those things? I'm sure we miss a lot. We've probably missed out on
a lot of things that he had prepared for us to do. But if we could just walk in some of them,
or a lot of them, that's a huge plus, isn't it? Because that's what we're doing. We're
sake, right? And so the first question, as we think about that we are his workmanship
created in Christ Jesus, the first question I want to ask is, what has God prepared you for
that he is now giving you an opportunity, another opportunity to be part of his move?
Like, what has he done in the past that he wants to do again? And you know, a lot of those things
are failures. Remember we talked about John Mark, I think last week. Yeah, John Mark. So, you know,
Mark tried to go with Barnabas and Paul, the first mission strip, and somewhere around
Paphylia, he turned around and went home, right? Whatever reason, sick, scared, whatever. Barnabas
says, let's give him another chance. Paul said no. But what happened with Mark? I mean, he went
on to write a gospel. You have a gospel named after him because of all of what he gleaned from
everyone in the early church. Not only that, but he became instrumental in Paul's ministry,
the very man who said he's not worthy to come with us. Now he says, he's so valuable to me.
I can't do without Mark. Make sure you send him, because I need him. He's very valuable.
You know, we can learn so much from mistakes. I think we learn more
from mistakes. Do you know that? Because when we do things, oh, that worked out. That was easy.
I could do that again. Well, you have the wrong perspective. You think you're doing it.
It's God who's doing it, right? But failures, you know, I think Peter,
every time he heard a rooster call, right? Cock-a-doodle-doo! Right?
Was he ashamed, or did he say, look how far I've come? Look what God has done with me.
I would never deny Jesus Christ. He is my life. He is my very life. Remember what he said in
2 Peter chapter 1? That he is now, I have his divine nature. Like, he's living through me.
How can I deny who I am? I am in Christ, and he is in me. You know, you can learn so much
from mistakes. If you're sitting here saying, I wish I had that shot again, pray for another one.
He'll give it to you. Remember, I told you that one time the Lord said, go visit that woman.
She's terminally ill. And I just kept hearing it. And here, I'm like, just stop it. Stop it.
You know, I don't know her that well. And what if other people were there in the room too?
You know, this was years ago, and I was a new believer. Didn't go. She died. I felt so remorseful.
I said, Lord, if you give me another chance, I'll take it. Suddenly, boom, boom, boom. My mom's
terminally ill. My dad's terminally ill. This one's terminally ill. I'm like, all right, Lord,
well, you know, I got to schedule these things, right? You know, because suddenly, and I'm just
like some business guy. Why is he sending me all these terminally ill people? Because I
asked for it. Because I learned something from the mistake. And he said, no, I want you to do this.
Like, you don't want to miss out on what he's calling you to do. You can learn so much from
mistakes. I remember thinking like, I would rather be embarrassed in front of people in that room
that I don't know. And I have to say that they need Jesus Christ than ever feel the way I felt
after that woman died. It just isn't worth it. It's just, it's so much better to just say, yes,
send me, Lord. If you're calling me to do it, I'm going to do it. We can learn so much
from mistakes, but also from victories. You know, like Peter, hey, I raised a guy
who was lame since birth. This guy, it's only eight years. No problem. God can do this,
right? David, I killed a lion and a bear. The Lord can do this. I've already been here, done this.
God will do it through you. You know, another question I have to ask you is,
how is God preparing you now? What's he doing in the midst of this moment right now?
You know, Peter was in the Tanner's house, the unclean, despised career path. He's in this house.
It's smelly, dead animals everywhere. I don't know if they're everywhere, but there are a lot
of places. Like, hey, can you move that dead animal with the cats? I need somewhere to sit.
No, I'm not saying it was like that, but it was nasty, right? And it was spirit. It was
ritually unclean. And yet God was saying, no, this is where I want you because you're learning
something in this moment for where I'm sending you to. It's so important. What is he preparing
you for right now? You know, a lot of times to grasp that, I think we really have to like
cleanse ourselves of the idols, you know, because over and over again, the Lord said,
rid yourself of the idols. And I was always shocked. You mean to tell me they still have idols?
Like, they came out of Egypt years ago, and they're still carrying around idols. Like,
really? Like, you haven't learned anything from a pillar of fire. You haven't learned anything
from a parted red sea. You haven't learned anything from manna coming down from heaven,
water coming out of a rock. Like, you haven't learned anything. You know, how can you still
be carrying around those false Gods? But you know, we do the same thing. Sometimes we still carry
around things that are distracting us. But the Lord is saying, you know, if you want to be
prepared for the move I'm about to do, just turn the stop. I've been, I've cut down my YouTube
quite a bit, by the way. It was so tempting. You know, you just suddenly get a little bing,
you're like, oh, suddenly 25 minutes later, you're like, oh, wow, yeah, hit him, hit him. No, I mean,
you know, but like, it can be so consuming. It's like, what is happening to me? And I just
had to detox and say no more, no moss. I don't want any of that anymore. Because you know what?
It's distracting us from being prepared for what he wants to do. We need to be alert.
I love the scripture that says, you know, walk wisely, circumspectly in this world because the
days are evil. We need to be wise and in tune with what he's preparing to do. One more question,
okay? And if the worship team can start to come up, but let's look at the question real quick
first, right? How does God want you to prepare for him to move? Like, what, you know,
Peter had to escort the weeping widows out of the room. Like, we can't have you here. Jesus
needed to escort the hired whalers out of the room. Like, you know, I can't have all this
mockery. You're mocking me and I'm about to raise this girl
to life. You know, we can't have the naysayers in the room with us in terms of what he's about to do.
How does he want you to prepare for him to move? You know, preparation is just so important. We have
an amazing events team here. I just want to give them, can we give them a little accolade here?
And you're saying, who are they? Well, there's a few, I don't want to announce them all because
I'll forget some, but I know generally speaking, it's Tammy, Debbie, Pastor Doug, McRoberts, and
Roxanne, and some others, and so many. Again, I'm sorry if I didn't just mention you, but
there's so many. And in fact, Candy, can you give a little wave, Candy? All right. We're going to have
a potluck at the end of the month on the 30th. And if you want to bring something and sign up for it,
see Candy because she'll sign you up and tell them what to bring or find out what they want
to bring or anything, but whatever. But our events team is always preparing for times of fellowship.
And you should see the texts that are going back and forth. They're just like firing off
like so much. And you're thinking, wow, I can't keep track of all this. You know, it's like,
there's so much preparation. We're going to be having a picnic sometime in October. We don't
know where it exactly went yet, but all the preparation and finding the perfect environment,
it's so important to prepare. And this is just for like a party. But you know what,
what's going to happen at that party is significant. God is going to move powerfully.
So we need to prepare. Like everything really requires preparation, but the most important
thing that needs to be prepared is what? Us. We need to be prepared for God to move
because otherwise we can do a lot of things. But if we're not prepared,
you know, I remember I used to way, way back before a sermon, I used to sit there and
be running through my notes and I got to make sure I remember that guy's name and
like all this memorization and preparation. Preparation is awesome, but I should have
done that hours ago, right? It should have already been done so that now I can be free
to let the spirit move and not have to be captivated to all these notes and remembering
things. So now I could just come on Sunday mornings and just praise God and just
let go and relax and enjoy the Lord. You know, the more pre-preparation you do,
the more the spirit can actually move. You realize that? Because you don't get
regimented. He's always moving and a lot of times he's changing directions. But if we're hung up on
the things that should just be automatic, that he can't really move us the way he wants to move us.
Does that make sense? So let's all stand up and thank the Lord. And Lord God, we thank you that
you are always on the move. And Lord, we want to be moving with you. And so Lord, thank you
and praise you in Jesus' name. Amen.
Thanks for joining us at Lansdale Life Church as we praise God and discuss His Word.
Don't forget to join us for Worship Lives Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. Eastern on YouTube.
Be blessed and have a great day!