The Miracle Is in the House, Part 3

If you're believing for the supernatural, you've got to stop hanging out with mundane people. They don't know the supernatural. They don't know the power of God.

They don't know how God can work and if you let them look at your life and speak into your life, they'll send you away from faith. Sometimes you've got to shut a few people out because they're keeping you from letting Jesus in. Today, right here on Destined for Victory, Pastor Paul Shepherd helps you learn to determine the kind of voices you need in your life and the kind you don't. Let's join him now for today's Destined for Victory message, The Miracle is in the House. It says, then he, Elisha, said to her, the woman, go borrow vessels from everywhere, from all your neighbors, empty vessels.

Do not gather just a few. And when you have come in, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons. Then pour it into all those vessels and set aside the full one. So she went from him and shut the door behind her and her sons who brought the vessels to her. And she poured it out. Now it came to pass when the vessels were full that she said to her son, bring me another vessel. He said to her, there is not another vessel. So the oil ceased. Then she came and told the man of God.

And he said, go sell the oil and pay your debt and you and your sons live on the rest. Now last time we began looking at the first of three instructions that Elisha gave there in those verses we just read. And I entitled the first instruction, request what you need from those willing to help. I want to pick it up there, say a little more about that, and then talk about the two other instructions.

The first is request what you need from those willing to help. If you recall, I said when Elisha told her to borrow the vessels from everywhere, from all her neighbors, and don't borrow a few, borrow a whole lot of them. That meant she had to go and make requests of people, many of whom I'm sure she had some sort of acquainted familiarity with, but perhaps some of them were not familiar with her.

But she obeyed what he said and she made those requests. And one of the points I was making as time ran out last time was that sometimes we think we're walking by faith and we're really walking in pride. I need to pick it up because that is certainly true of many of us in the body of Christ today. Sometimes we say, well, you know, I'm walking by faith and that's why, you know, I don't tell people anything about what I need or whatever. I just trust God. Well, trusting God and requesting help are not mutually exclusive. Now, there are times when the Lord will specifically tell you to not reach out in certain ways to certain people. I know that. I've experienced that in my own walk with the Lord. There are times when the Lord will shut a door and not allow you to mention certain things or to make certain requests. I know that is absolutely true.

So don't write me emails saying, ah, yeah, I get it. I know that happens sometimes. But as a general rule, the body of Christ is designed to advance the kingdom not only personally but collectively, which means if you're going to do the will of God, sometimes you've got to engage other members of the body of Christ in order to do it. And we need to be willing to do that. Now, specifically, we need to be willing to let folks know, hey, here's what I'm going through and I'm just asking you to be a prayer partner and just join your faith with mine. Because the Bible says if any two of us will agree as touching anything on the earth shall be done for us of our Father in heaven. So sometimes you need the prayer power of other people to push you through a certain crisis. And there's no need to act like, well, I have the Holy Spirit, I can pray for myself. Yeah, but the Bible says get in agreement. There is power in agreement. There is power in letting other folks know, here's what I'm believing God for, stand with me in faith and let's believe God together.

And so I need to encourage some people to not deny yourself a blessing because you won't let other members of the body know that you have need. We're a body, body parts work collectively. Have you ever stubbed your toe in the middle of the night at the foot of a bed? The whole body gets in on that. Come on somebody, you stubbed that one toe, that baby toe because you didn't make it all the way around the foot of the bed.

And it's night and all that. Have you ever had that happen and the pain is so sharp, look like lights come on in the night, you just, oh, your body gets in on it, your mouth flies open, your vocal cords jump in to express what the toe cannot say. The other foot, the one that's not hurt, hops you back to the bed. Your behind says come on down, I got you.

Come on, I'm trying to help somebody make this clear. And one hand grabs the toe that's in need and rubs and your voice moans. The whole body is helping out. Some of y'all trying to be a hurting toe and not tell anybody.

And I just want to let you know the body is supposed to support. Now yes, if others can't, I told you the story of how we finished the last $300,000 of fundraising for this worship center. We had raised so much, we had done $2 million to get us into this building during the 44 months that we were in hotels. And we had gotten that $2 million but we needed another $300,000 and we were just a couple of months out, less than three months out. And we needed $300,000 and I called my brothers and I told y'all, I said my spiritual partners and covenant brothers and all, and I was hoping they were going to come through with some money to lend us while we could finish this off and then we'd pay them back.

But they didn't even offer that. They offered prayer. But it was fine because the Lord didn't tell them to help us.

So I'm saying not all the time should you feel obligated to help somebody. You got to be prayerful and discern it. But what I did learn was that God had set me up and I told you that weeks before I had gone to this pastor's conference and one of the sessions I sat through, they started talking about raising money to help with some of the kingdom projects. The kind of miracle is in the house theme and they said, you know, sometimes the help you need to raise the funds is right in your house. And I thought, well, our folks are just giving $2 million.

I know that. We've done this real good but I still going to need some more money. And they said, sometimes you can ask the people who have already given to lend you the rest and then you pay it back. And I remember thinking, sitting through the session, I don't know why I'm in this session.

I don't need this. We just raised $2 million. But I needed it after I realized we were 300,000 short and my brothers just prayed for me. Then I said, okay, maybe the Lord had me in that session. And I told the story last time how I got our best givers here at Destiny together, brought them into this unfinished sanctuary and some other parts were unfinished.

And we had already announced we were coming in for Sunday of June 2014 and we were just a couple of months out from that. And the contractor said, we'd love to finish it for you but we need some. And so I told them the story. Long story short, within a week I had $300,000 from our saints who said, we will lend this to you and we'll believe God. You know, when's the last time you borrowed $300,000 with just a promissory note? That's how we did that. I wrote them a promissory note. I promise Destiny going to get you your money in 12 months.

The accountant told me later, they got to charge you some interest and what have you. I said, okay, finance charge, whatever it is, we'll do whatever it takes. And we got it. Y'all came in for Sunday in June singing and shouting.

You didn't know how much I had been sweating. But we got in here and God was glorified. Listen, if you are a part of the body of Christ, sometimes you've got to trust that God is going to help the saints bring you through. Remember, Elisha could say this with authority to this woman because he was taught by his predecessor, Elijah, who had to trust God. Remember when Elijah was by the brook and for a while God had him drinking the brook and the ravens were feeding him? One morning he woke up, the brook was dry and the raven wasn't flying in. Sometimes God will switch up the means by which he blesses you. And look at what happened. His predecessor said that the Lord spoke to him and said, now you got to get up and go to Zarephath because I have commanded a widow to feed you.

And so I wanted to see how this happened. So his predecessor had learned how to humble himself and not be so prideful and he had to go to a widow, woman whose husbands died in that day. That means that was her source of income was gone and she was down to her last and God tested her faith by saying, feed this prophet. And the prophet had to have enough humility and trust and obedience to go ask a widow. I can't even imagine forming my lips to go to the most hurting person in the church and say, God said, hook me up. What you got to eat?

I can't even imagine that, but that's what he had to do. But here's the thing. The Lord had already put that in the heart of the widow. She knew that somehow I'm not going to get to eat this last meal.

Why do I know that? Because God said he had commanded it. He spoke it in her heart.

When the prophet showed up, she wasn't even all that surprised. And he said, well, here's what the Lord says. Take care of me and you'll eat throughout the rest of this famine. And she had to obey and he had to obey. What is it you need to obey in order to experience the miracle that God has for you? So request the help that you need. Now, here's point number two of the three instructions he gave.

Remove spectators and commentators from the situation. We're talking about how to believe God for the miracle. And if the miracle is in the house, as is the case for many of us, you've got to follow these instructions.

You've got to make sure not everybody has something to say or something to see when you're believing God for the supernatural. Look at verse four. When you have come in, Elisha said, you shall shut the door behind you and your sons, then pour it out into all those vessels and set aside the full ones. Now, remember, she's starting with just a little bit of oil she described, just a flask of oil to maybe make a meal or two, but that's all. She's got a big task here. She's got to figure out how my sons and I are going to make it.

And the creditor is on his way, or at least saying, he will soon be here to take my sons as his slaves and they will be forced to work off their dad's debt. So what does he tell her? You've got to make sure if you're believing for this miracle that you make the request.

She's done that. Now you've got to go in the house and shut the door so nobody can follow you in. Don't go away. We're only about halfway through today's Destined for Victory message with Pastor Paul Shepherd, who is Senior Pastor of Destiny Christian Fellowship in Fremont, California. Now be sure to subscribe to Pastor Paul on YouTube to watch some of his best video clips. For more details, visit pastorpaul.net. That's pastorpaul.net, and there you can also listen on demand to recent messages or find a variety of resources in our online store. Do you have anyone in your life who takes you further away from your faith in Christ instead of helping you strengthen it? It may be time to close the door behind them, at least for a season. Here's Pastor Paul with the second half of today's Destined for Victory message.

The miracle is in the house. Some of you all have some folk, some looky-loos in your life that are preventing you from getting where you're supposed to be, looky-loos and commentators, folk who always got something to see and always got something to say. I know you all got some of them in your life, and you got to understand you cannot allow that. If you're believing for the supernatural, you got to stop hanging out with mundane people, people who only know the mundane. They don't know the supernatural. They don't know the power of God. They don't know how God can work, make a way out of no way, and open a door no man can shut. And if you let them look at your life and speak into your life, they'll send you away from faith. And so you've got to learn that when you need a miracle, don't give proximity to people who walk in doubt and unbelief, walk in carnality, walk in only their brain power. There are a whole lot of folks who only believe what they can understand. And when you walk with God, if you're stuck on your understanding, you're already a lost cause because you serve a God who does the supernatural. And so you can't put your brain, my father called it, you can't put your thimble full of brains in God's business. You got to learn to just believe God.

And so you run the risk of letting negativity influence you when you let the wrong people see what you're doing or speak to what you're doing. Remember Luke 851? You don't have to turn to it. Remember Jairus, the leader of one of the synagogues? He came to Jesus, said, My daughter is sick. Would you come heal her? And on his way, they stopped and he ministered. You know the story, to the woman with the issue of blood. And then he was going to go back onto Jairus' house, and someone came and said, Oh, it's too late.

Don't trouble the master now because she's gone from sick to dead. And Jesus said, Don't worry, just believe. And kept on going toward the house. But when they got to the house, read it when you get a chance in Luke 8, verse 51, when they got to the house, you'll see that Jesus shut the door. I came now to not only heal, I came to raise this girl. In fact, he spoke something outside before he shut the door, which you've got to pay attention to.

Outside, he said, She's not dead, she's just asleep. And the people started laughing. Some of y'all got folk who are good at laughing in your inner circle, but they don't know how to believe God. They know how to crack up.

They know how to call you crazy. But you got to understand, when you're dealing with God, you cannot be persuaded or dissuaded by such people. So Jesus limited who was in the house. In fact, Luke 8 tells us exactly five people were allowed in with Jesus. The child's parents, Peter, James, and John.

Why? Because they were being tutored. They were learning what miracles look like. They were learning how God operates. So Jesus wanted to expose them. So he took them in with him, and the parents were there. Everybody else, all the aunties and uncles, all the laughing people, all the neighbors, all the people got something to say. Outside, stay outside.

Don't even come near the window sill. And he went in, and he worked the miracle, and woke her up from that death sleep. When God says it's not death, it's sleep, you got to believe God. And so they learned, Peter, James, and John learned in that moment, you can't keep everybody around when you're doing the supernatural. You got to limit your company when you're believing for things that are extraordinary. If you deal with ordinary people, you can't get extraordinary things done.

Ordinary people only know ordinary. And they speak what they know, John 3 says, testify to what they've seen. Stop blaming people when they don't have faithful miracles.

All that means is they've never had one. I'm a radio preacher. I'm on with lots of pastors, all different shades of the body of Christ. I'm on with some that are hyper-faith and hyper-charismatic, and I'm on with some that are anti-charismatic and anti-sign gifts. They're called cessationists. They don't believe that the sign gifts still exist in the body of Christ today.

Many people, many of my broadcast colleagues are cessationists. They don't believe that those gifts exist in the body of Christ now. They feel like they went away when the canon of Scripture was closed.

So by the end of the third century, fourth century A.D., they believed there were no more of the sign gifts. And some of them proclaim it loudly. And that's their right. That's what they believe.

They speak what they know, testify to what they've seen. And so when I get on saying I still believe in miracles, I still believe in the gifts. I still believe in sign gifts.

I'm easy. I'm not going to debate with people over it. If you don't believe in tongues, don't speak at them. You don't believe in miracles, don't ask for any. You don't believe that God will heal the sick supernaturally? That's fine.

Go to doctor and hope for the best only. And God uses medical science, but he's not limited by medical science. He uses them. Many of us get our healing through those processes. Well, I had to get surgery. Did I not have faith? You should have had faith, especially if you're going to go under the knife, the old saints called it. They said, I'm going under the knife. Pray for me. And when you're going under the knife, you better pray for you.

You know how many folks didn't get up from the operating table? Either way you go, you need to believe God. So I don't fight with people. If you don't believe in miracles, don't believe for them. But leave me alone, because I know God is still a miracle-working God.

And so you need to understand this process, this thing that God does where he causes us to shut out certain people. Remember Nehemiah? He was building the wall, and enemies showed up to try to get him away from the good work. You remember that?

Sam Ballot and a guy named Agashim came in the sixth chapter of Nehemiah. They sent a message, tell him to come on over to this village. We want to have a meeting, and they were trying to set him up to kill him.

He stayed right up on the wall, talked to the messenger, said, tell him I said I'm not coming. I'm doing the good work. If he was like me, he'd say, I ain't got time for no raggedy people.

He said it a little more sophisticated. I'd have said, tell them raggedy people no. Doing the good work.

You got to learn when Sam Ballot's trying to get your attention, ignore him. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, 33, don't be misled. Bad company corrupts good character.

People will take away your very character, much less the good things you're doing, if you fool with the wrong people. So if you believe in God for a move of God, you got to remove your spectators and your commentators. In fact, in fact, let me tell you this, remove the whole tater family. The whole tater family, you say, it's more of them?

Yeah, several of them. I jotted them down. You got to remove spec, spectator. All he going to do is look. You got to remove commentator. All he going to do is talk.

But they got some siblings. You got to remove row. Rotator does the same thing over and over again, never changes. You got to remove hesi.

Hesitator is never going to pull the trigger on anything good. You got to remove eerie. Irritator, the number gets on your last nerve. You got to remove edgy. Edgy stirs up trouble everywhere she goes. Finally, you got to remove dick.

Dictator want to control his life and yours. And you going to have to get rid of all them taters and learn to walk with people who know the worth of prayer and they know how to confess what God is going to do. And you can't let them taters hang around because they'll mess around and get their big brother amp you.

And they'll cut you off from your faith and your belief and your purpose in God. Thanks for being here for today's Destined for Victory message. The miracle is in the house. This media ministry exists only through the faithful prayer and financial support of friends like you. As you give your generous gift today, be sure to request your copy of Pastor Paul Shepherd's booklet, Caregivers Need Care Too. It's our way of saying thank you for your generous gift to Destined for Victory today.

That's Caregivers Need Care Too. Call 855-339-5500 or just visit pastorpaul.net to make a safe and secure donation online. But of course, you can also mail your gift to Destined for Victory, Post Office Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. One more time, Destined for Victory, Box 1767, Fremont, California 94538. Well, coming your way tomorrow, Pastor Paul takes a brief one-day hiatus from his current teaching series on Elisha to share a special Mother's Day message.

So here's a brief preview. The bottom line, my friend, is whether you had a stellar mom, a rock star mom, or whether you had a disappointing mom, you owe her honor because here's your goal. Your goal is to hear the Lord say, Well done, good and faithful servant. That's tomorrow in Pastor Paul Shepherd's message When Moms Disappoint. Until then, remember, he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion. In Christ, you are destined for victory.