John Chapter 4:47-54

Don't worry about anything instead of pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. There is only one way that you cannot be anxious about stuff and that's if you take whatever is concerning you and you place it in the hands of the Lord.

And here comes the hard part and you leave it there. See, Jesus cares about every detail in your life. Those things that are troubling you, He wants you to hand them to Him. He wants to be part of your life.

He wants to be the solution. I know sometimes that's troubling. I know sometimes we get filled with doubt and we shouldn't allow ourselves to be filled with doubt. If you're gonna doubt something, don't doubt Jesus. Don't doubt your faith. Don't doubt the Word of God.

If you're gonna doubt something, doubt your doubt. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is a senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina.

We have a guest in the studio with us today. It's one of David McGee's associate pastors, DA Brown. And DA, tell us a little bit about David McGee's teaching, Private Miracles, which he will be teaching today. Bob, the world tries to get us to doubt that God is speaking to us. But you can't cast doubt when God is speaking to the core of who you are.

Speaks to where no one else can go. Today I hope you're ready to hear from God and I hope you're ready for him to answer some of the questions you've been asking. Now here's David McGee with part two of his teaching, Private Miracles. Turn with me to John chapter 4. Let's pick it up with verse 47. When he heard that Jesus had come out of Judea into Galilee, he went to him and implored him to come down and heal his son, for he was at the point of death. Now remember Judea is the region around Jerusalem. Galilee is the upper portion of the country.

And again, the Galilee is kind of the rolling hill country and Judea is part of the city, if you will, of Jerusalem. That's interesting. This man wanted Jesus to touch his son. Man, that's a good thing. It's a good thing for you as a father to desire that Jesus would touch your children. Mother, that's a good thing for you to desire that Jesus would touch your children. Pray for your children. Pray for them often and bring them to Jesus. Now there'll be times, don't be surprised when your kids maybe don't want to go to church.

And don't be afraid of making them go to church. That's not an entirely bad thing. I probably heard that old joke that, you know, this guy says, yeah, when I was growing up, I had a serious drug problem and I still, you know, have some of the leftovers of that. And the guy goes, oh, really? He goes, well, what kind of drug problem? He said, well, every Wednesday night, my parents drug me to church. Every Sunday morning, they drug me to church. Every Sunday night, they drug me to church and I still bear the benefits of that drug problem.

I like that. You know, some parents make the mistake of asking their children. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about young children, 12, 11, 9, 8. Hey, do you want to go to church? Sometimes they might say nay.

No, of course, we have the opposite thing happening here too. And it's amazing that parents... I don't know if they realize what they're telling me when they say it.

They go, hey, we weren't going to come this morning, but our kids want to come. Praise God. You know what?

That lets me know. That lets me know our children's ministry is an awesome part of this fellowship. And I'll take that if it takes your kids to get you here. Praise God, man.

I'm just glad you're here. Pray for your kids. You know, something we do for our kids and we've done since they were real young is pray for their spouses.

No, I don't have any news to declare about that. But, you know, it's never too early to begin to pray for their future spouse that they would be a godly man or a godly woman and that the Lord would select them and it wouldn't be an act of the flesh. And I think that's an awesome thing. And also, you know, with your kids, let me mention this. With your kids, make sure that you're maintaining your witness.

Now, that's a challenge, isn't it? But understand, part of maintaining your witness is when you mess up, tell them you messed up. Oh, they already know.

But go to them and go, you know what? That was not cool, what I did. I was angry.

I raised my voice or whatever you did. You know, we shouldn't have watched that television show. You know, whatever the deal is. And lead them by your example, not in your perfection. Guys, they know you're not perfect.

Don't even try to pull that one off. I mean, if they're under two, they know. I mean, if they're over two, they know.

They may know if they're under two, I don't know. But pray for them. And verse 48 says, Then Jesus said to him, Unless people see signs and wonders, you will by no man's belief, by no means believe.

I'm going to have trouble talking. Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will by no means believe. Plainly here, there's kind of an inherent warning of seeking signs and wonders to confirm your faith. Now, why would Jesus tell us here, and there's other places, Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9, and talking about end times, this evil man will come to do the work of Satan with counterfeit power and signs and miracles. And we're warned in other places as well. This is why Jesus wants us to be careful in this area.

Because in the end times, and I think we're getting close, there's going to be what's referred to as lying signs and wonders. And understand, some people, that's all they look at to validate a ministry. Oh, I saw him on television. Hey, God used him to heal that guy. Well, the reality is you don't know that man. You don't know his ministry.

You don't know his fruit. And to be honest, you don't know the person who just got healed. And you need to be careful and look at the fruit of a ministry. Are there people who don't know the Lord that are coming to know the Lord? That's the best fruit of a ministry is are people getting saved.

And I think that's a legitimate thing. Is the Word being taught? Are people getting saved? Are people being discipled? Not necessarily, how many people did we raise from the dead this week?

That's a tough one, you know. I mean, God still does those things, I believe. You can't show me in Scripture where he quit doing that. Verse 49, the nobleman said to him, sir, come down before my child dies. And Jesus said to him, go your way, your son lives. So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way. This is interesting to me, just the exchange.

And it's very cryptic, not a lot of words here. And the man says, sir, come down before my child dies. Now, what I find interesting about this is the man was telling Jesus what he needed to do to heal his son. They're 20 miles away. Understand, they're walking. They're not in a car.

They're 20 miles away. This man is asking Jesus to walk 20 miles to pray for his son. And it seems like the obvious thing to do. And Jesus did, in fact, heal his son, but not in the way the man asked him to. And this is such a powerful application because a lot of times when we're praying and we're asking the Lord to fix a situation or to remedy a situation, do you understand that often we tell him how he's supposed to do that? Do you think he really needs us to tell him how he's supposed to do that?

I don't think he does. Now, you know, there's a time and a place for it, but I think we probably go a little bit too far in there. You know, we, okay, Lord, this is what I need you to do. This is the way I need you to meet this need. I need you to do it. You know, I'm just going to wait on you, but it needs to be done by 5 o'clock today. Praise God. Wait a minute. The Lord may be working something in your life to teach you something where it doesn't happen 5 o'clock today.

It may happen 2 days, 3 days, 4 days, 5 days after you think it's supposed to happen. Lord, I got so many bills. I got so many bills. I've charged myself into a corner, and I got so many bills. Lord, there's only one way that I know that you're going to meet this need.

Lotto. Wait a minute. God may be desiring to teach you about how to live instead of providing some quick solution that's going to find you right back in the same situation a month later. So the life lesson here is, allow the Lord to work in His way and His timing without being anxious.

Yeah, I had to throw those last three words in there, without being anxious, as if the first two things wouldn't challenge it, though. We're told in Philippians 4 verse 6, it says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. That's from the New King James Version. I read from the New King James Version.

I study in King James, New King James, Amplified, and New Living Translation, and some other. But the New Living Translation here says, Don't worry about anything. Instead, pray about everything.

That's good, isn't it? Don't worry about anything. Instead of pray about everything, tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done.

There is only one way that you cannot be anxious about stuff, and that's if you take whatever is concerning you, and you place it in the hands of the Lord. And here comes the hard part, and you leave it there. And you leave it there. See, a lot of times, I know personally, what I do is I'll give something to God, and I'll wait, you know, what seems to me to be a long time, you know, three, four minutes, something, and nothing happens, so I take it back. Well, obviously, you're not going to do anything.

Let me fix it, you know. And then I get anxious again. What we've got to do is learn to set things in the lap of Jesus and leave them there.

And guys, that's a hard discipline, but it's something that we need to do. I mean, whose hands do you desire for your loved ones and for your family and friends? Whose hands do you desire for them to be in? Yours or the Lord's? Who's going to do a better job at drawing them and wooing them? You or God?

See, the answer's pretty obvious, isn't it? Oh, we want to put them in the Lord's hands, but we got to put them there and leave them there. And God sees every need that you have. And when you pray, He's wanting you to include Him in your life and say, Lord, heal my son, heal my daughter, heal my uncle, my aunt, my mom, my dad.

Heal me, Lord. And He wants to be included in every aspect of your life. You know, when we were on the road, we traveled on the road for about seven years, just all over the country, and Canada and Mexico doing ministry and stuff. And it was just amazing. You know, maybe one day I'll sit down and just write a book because we just saw so many things, not huge things all the time. But it was intriguing to me the details that Jesus was interested in in every part of our life. And I shared this once before on a Sunday night or sometime.

You know, we were in Camp Verde, Arizona, which is between Flagstaff and Phoenix. And we had talked about our son, JD, was getting some headaches. So we thought, well, you know, he seems to get headaches when he reads. Perhaps at some point we'll stop and we'll go to an optometrist or something. And so we go to the fellowship.

I do the music and the teaching. We get finished and we're loading out, you know. And I said something about JD's eyes. And one of the deacons that was helping us load out said, well, what's wrong with his eyes? And they said, well, he's getting headaches.

So we're thinking, you know, he might need to go to the doctor. The guy looked at me and said, this is like the day after we prayed. The guy says, well, I'm an optometrist. Can you come by tomorrow?

I said, yeah, we can come by tomorrow. And he goes, if he needs glasses, I'd appreciate it if you would allow me to bless you guys with the glasses. See, Jesus cares about every detail in your life. Those things that are troubling you, he wants you to hand them to him. He wants to be part of your life.

He wants to be the solution. And I know sometimes that's troubling. I know sometimes we get filled with doubt, and we shouldn't allow ourselves to be filled with doubt. We'll be right back with more from David Magee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. Hey, Bob. Excited to be here today with you, and we want to pray for some people in these cities in our listening audience in California.

Santa Maria, Scotia, Shasta, Soledad, Soquel, South Lake Tahoe, and Stockton. God, thank you for the people in these cities listening today. We pray that they would have an expectant heart right now, that you're going to speak to them right where they're at and in the situations they're going through. God, we pray that you would protect them. If there are some in the listening audience who are sick today, we pray that you'd please heal them. And Lord, we pray that everyone would be in a Bible-teaching, Bible-believing church, and give those pastors wisdom on how to navigate the waters in a tumultuous situation. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thank you, brother.

And now, let's get back to David Magee as he continues teaching verse by verse. If you're going to doubt something, don't doubt Jesus. Don't doubt your faith. Don't doubt the Word of God. If you're going to doubt something, doubt your doubt.

That's not doublespeak. That's the life lesson. Trust the Lord and doubt the other things. Your emotions can be something you should doubt. Now, if you've lived long enough, you know what I'm getting ready to tell you is true. There are times when your emotions have lied to you.

They've lied to you. You know, remember, some of you are still teenagers, but remember when you were a teenager and you saw that girl or that guy and you thought, that's the one. That is the one.

Praise, that's going to be my wife or that's going to be my husband. You were just convinced. Did it happen?

Uh-uh. What happened? Your emotions lied to you.

They took you to a faulty conclusion. So, your emotions can lie to you. You know what else can lie to you?

And this is a tough one. Your eyes can lie to you. See, there are people who do illusion. Do you know how they do that? They deceive your eyes.

I mean, some of these guys are real good. You can watch them real close. I got a buddy in California who has a ministry where he goes around and, I mean, you can't see what he does. And, you know, I ask him because he's a friend. I go, man, how'd you do that?

And he goes, very well, thank you. Your eyes can deceive you. They can make you think you saw something you didn't see. Now, and again, understand your emotions can be deceived. Your eyes can somewhat be deceived.

And why is that important? Because you know what happens when we read something? You read something in the newspaper. You read something on the internet.

You know what you immediately think? Well, it's true. I read it. It was in print.

Well, that doesn't mean that it's true. And again, understand, on the emotion thing. Oh, here's a good one.

Here's a... In case you're still thinking your emotions don't lie to you, television commercials can manipulate your emotions in 30 seconds or less. It's happened to you.

You're sitting there watching TV, right? And somebody that you don't know and is a paid actor and an actress, and all of a sudden, after 30 seconds, you're tearing up because he called home the mama. And your emotions are worked up. You know, your spouse comes up, what's wrong?

He called home. Praise God. What just happened? Your emotions just got manipulated in 30 seconds.

It's an amazing thing, but it can happen. Amen or omi? You liked that omi thing, didn't you? Verse 51, as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, your son lives. And then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, yesterday, at the seventh hour, the fever left him. He believed the word that Jesus spoke to him.

That's so important, guys. Believe the word that Jesus speaks to you. Either through his word or that still small voice, he speaks to your heart. And the Lord healed his son. And he did it gradually. The Lord did it instantly. Sometimes he does it gradually. Do you understand the Lord still does miracles? That was the question.

It's okay for you to answer. Do you understand the Lord still does miracles? Why don't you just say with me, the Lord still does miracles. The Lord still does miracles. See, you can't show me in this book that the Lord quit doing miracles, that the Lord quit acting like that. I don't understand some churches that don't believe God still does the miraculous.

I don't understand. I mean, it says, pray for the sick. What do you pray for the sick?

If you think God doesn't do miracles anymore, what do you pray? Lord, we know you don't heal people and she's sick, so just take her on home. You know, I mean, why pray for them if you don't believe that God can heal them? God can heal them. Now, God chooses to heal people in a variety of ways. He chooses to heal some people over time. He chooses to heal some people through medication. He chooses to heal some people through surgery. And He still does the miraculous and heals people just like that.

We need to allow the Lord the freedom to heal people the way He wants to heal them and still give the glory to God. You know, I've shared before, I was born 95% deaf and my tongue attached to my gums. I couldn't speak. I went through nine different operations and then had to be taught to speak. Went to speech therapy for four years. And what's interesting, sometimes I share that and somebody will come up and go, hey, so did God heal you or did you have surgery?

What a weird question. God healed me using surgery. I mean, let's not get hyper spiritual and miss the point because, well, and we'll be in this chapter in a few years or something. But in John where He heals the guy, He uses spit and mud to heal the guy. And the guy, what does he say? He doesn't run off and go, wow, that dude, he wiped like really potent mud on my eyes and the mud healed me.

It was an amazing thing. No, that's not what he did. He ran off and said, praise God. I couldn't see and now I can see. See, he wasn't confused about the vehicle that God used. Verse 52 says, then he acquired of them the hour he got better. And they said to him, yesterday at the seventh hour, the fever left him.

So the father knew it was at the same hour once Jesus said to him, your son lives. And he himself believed in his whole household. Notice the influence this man had on his household. He was influenced in his house for the Lord.

That's important. There's a lot of Christian males in the world today. There's a real shortage of Christian men, men who are not afraid to lead their families, men who are not afraid to be unpopular at times with their children, at times even with their wife, but to make a stand for the Lord. Remember in the words of Joshua 24, 15, and if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourself this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your father served that were on the other side of the river or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me, in my house, we will serve the Lord.

That's a challenge to you men. It's a challenge to some of you ladies if there's not a man in the house, to make sure your home is a godly home and that your children are growing up knowing the Bible. And understand, we've talked about this before, but in Proverbs 31 where it talks about the virtuous woman, we get this weird picture of what virtuous is.

We think, oh, that's mild, meek mannered. That is so far from the Hebrew. The Hebrew there is warrior.

Proverbs 31 is talking about a warrior woman who's bringing her home up in the fear and the admonition of the Lord. In verse 54, this again is the second sign Jesus did when he'd come out of the Judea and the Galilee. So the two miracles were in, what is it, John 2 when he turned the water to wine and here where he heals the nobleman's son. Now, there's something interesting about both these miracles. They were both private miracles.

And what do I mean by that? Nobody at the wedding feast, most people at the wedding feast didn't know what had happened. You remember he dealt with the servants and took what had been water to the governor of the feast.

They said, man, he saved the best for last. Nobody knew. And here, until the father began to tell, nobody knew.

They just knew this boy got instantly better that was dying. And you understand that a lot of miracles happen like that? Oh, we think of miracles, we get twisted thing. We think, you know, you got to set up a big revival tent and that's, you know, there's healing night on Wednesday night, 7 to 9. After that, the Holy Spirit doesn't do anything.

I never got that. But anyway, God sometimes does quiet miracles. He does them in the quietness of the home, in the quietness of the marriage, in your devotion town.

You can pray for people that are on the other side of the world, God can touch them and you may never know. But he still does miracles. The water and the wine thing, that was a miracle of time.

Now, God makes wine from grapes or man makes wine from grapes, depending on how you want to look at that. But it takes a lot of time. And in this case, that time was shortened. That was the miracle. God is the God over time.

And a healing that is supposed to take place over weeks could happen like that. He still is the God over time. And then here, he heals a young boy from 20 miles away and that shows us his lordship over space. He prayed for somebody that was 20 miles away and they got healed.

That should encourage us. You know why? Because God still heals over time and space. Somehow, the cross reaches forward into this morning and is able to heal you, is able to touch you, whatever your need is.

With the people that are here, man, I know that there's some needs in the people here and you're representing other needs with your family, with your friends. And Jesus wants to do the miraculous for you this morning. He wants to answer prayer. He wants to do that for you. And he's willing.

But the question is, are you willing to ask him? Are you willing to take that step of faith and receive either your healing or praying for the healing of somebody that you love or somebody that you're interceding for their salvation? Perhaps an unsaved loved one needs to come to Jesus or maybe somebody sitting in here right now. And guys, I firmly believe the greatest miracle that the Lord ever does is taking somebody that doesn't know him, trapped and in bondage to their sins, and he forgives them and he sets them free.

And how often we forget that that's a miracle? Does that describe anybody in here this morning? And do you have the honesty to say yes?

That does describe me. I'm concerned about my brother, my sister, my daughter, my son. Well, can you reach out in faith this morning and say, God, please touch me? Please touch this situation. Please touch my husband.

Please touch my wife. Can you do that? Are you willing to do that? God's longing to hear your voice cry out some of these things. And the very thing that you thought when I said, will you cry out? You thought, man, there's just, there's no need to pray for this guy because it'll just never happen.

Don't do that. Don't put God in a box. God is much more powerful than you can ever begin to realize. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12-515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. Well, D.A., before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee.

That sounds good, Pastor D.A., and again, it's been great to have you with us on the program today. But tell us, what else can our listeners find on crossthebridge.com? If you're not able to make it to your home church this Sunday, why not join us for our live stream at 10 a.m. Eastern Time, or on Thursday nights at 7 p.m. Eastern Time? Just visit crossthebridge.com and click on our live stream link. There, you'll experience a live service from David's Home Church to Bridge in North Carolina. Again, that website is crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the Gospel of John.