Miracle Mindset | Lisa Harper | 05.23.21

since we're talking about a miracle mindset i want to get in that posture and in my opinion the posture of a miracle mindset is on bent knees and since all of you most of you are about 25 years younger than me i'm 57 i want to encourage you if you are physically able to get on your knees girls in skirts don't worry about it or super tight jeans over 50 you just kneel in your mind and here's what i want to ask you to do six weeks ago i was in a hospital room at centennial hospital and i had covered and acute pneumonia and they thought i was asleep and i overheard two of the medical personnel saying that they weren't sure if they could stabilize me that my lungs were so far gone they just weren't sure i was gonna make it and two days later when i had stabilized a physician came into my room a wonderful man a godly man but he said lisa i just want to be very direct with you i'm not sure you will ever be able to preach i understand that's your your vocation that's your livelihood but he said i don't think you'll ever be able to hold enough breath to speak for more than five or ten minutes and some people close to me celebrated that because i'm long-winded but he said it's likely that you will need supplemental oxygen for the rest of your life based on the condition of your young lungs that was six weeks ago the posture of my heart for the last six weeks my baby girl is 11. she lost her first mama when she was two in haiti and i told the lord not my will but yours um and i had peace with god it's a cool thing when you get to a place when you go i might not wake up in the morning it's a cool thing to go wow i have peace with god on the heels of that i started telling him what i thought his next move should be so so my my faith was fickle even then i was like lord you know missy's only 11. and and i just don't want her to be orphaned twice that little and so if it would please you i'd love to stay here a little longer and in his kindness his absolute kindness he healed me and so the posture of my heart for the last six weeks has just been thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you and i think forgive me for taking so long you're on your knees but i really believe gratitude is like miracle-gro when it comes to intimacy with god and since we're talking about a miracle mindset would you just go before your creator redeemer who loves you more than you can even imagine and just tell them what you're thankful for today just today what are you thankful for some of y'all have forgotten that you're thankful for your spouse you had a fight on the way here would you remember some of y'all have forgotten that you're thankful for your parents because lately you've been focused on what they didn't do that you forgot the miracle that they did anything at all [Music] it's easy to forget to be grateful for our jobs because the grass is always greener on the other side the fact that all of us had the physical capacity to come to the house of god today goodness gracious the fact that most of us have healthy bodies and stable minds goodness gracious what a gift jesus we pray even in this moment you would mature our miracle mindset by reminding us of the litany of things we have to be grateful for today that you are the giver of all good gifts that you give us every single thing we need for life and for godliness lord in the places because i'm always the chief of all sinners in the places where i have become numb or ungrateful or i'm just going through the motions lord i pray that you would circumcise my heart in those places that it would be soft again pliant again that even in the next few moments we have together as family i would be reminded of the extraordinary miracle of intimacy with you that i don't have to go through a priest or have somebody sacrifice a goat i can just lean into you and you listen to me when i don't have the words to approach you the holy spirit intercedes on my behalf oh lord jesus [Music] give us eyes to see bigger and ears to hear louder and hearts that understand more fully who you are as our redeemer and who you've called us to be his sons and daughters we love you jesus have your way among us this morning amen and amen you may be seated thank you all for letting me be so bossy i know that's a lot to ask you to get on your jeans and some of y'all are like these jeans were so low and so skinny that i'm now committing something they warn us against in leviticus so the person next to you starts pulling their pants up you just ignore it um because i feel like family to y'all i'm gonna tell you a story that i don't often tell at least not in mix company it's true story i was at a women's conference with a heroine of mine not too long ago well let's say six years ago it's a leadership conference with jill briscoe and y'all may not have heard of jill women over 50 have she's kind of the billy grim graham at of of ministry she is just boss and so i was so excited that i got to be at this event with her i've read every single book she's ever written i've sat under her teaching so many times i mean i just think she hung the moon and so we had a little speaker's dinner backstage and i didn't say much because i didn't want to reveal the fact that i'm a hot mess i just thought i'll try to be quiet and holy and then they said we've got to bring you all out in the arena there are a couple thousand women at this event and and so you have like a handler person you know who walks you out so i walk out with my handler person and and she takes me to the very front and they've got the music something you get everybody all fired up some perky chris tomlin song something weed up front and and i sit on the front row and then i i always have my bible in my purse and so i put my purse on the ground but i pulled my bible out of my purse and i set it on the seat next to me and i'm just you know smiling excited i'm there and then jill briscoe comes walking down the center aisle with her handler person and i'm like this is amazing like i'm going to get set next to joe briscoe i mean this is like i mean this is like just unbelievable be like getting back to my skinny jeans like this is this is a cool moment and so she walks up we can't hear each other because the music is so loud the inspirational christian music and so she comes and she looks at me and she kind of gestures to the seat next to me like may i sit next to you i can't hear but i know that's what she's saying just kind of based on charades and i grin real big and i pull my bible off the seat next to me like this is awesome this is like i mean sitting next to bono this is it and she pauses looks at the seat next to me that i've prepared especially for her and then very very um firmly that's not the word i want but i've got covered braid anyway very decisively she steps over and sits in the next seat leaving a seat open between us and i was like well that just wasn't godly at all i was like that's just hateful she should have sat next to me that is just rude i'm not going to tattoo her name on my ankle after all and then i looked down and was horrified to see that when i had peeled my bible off that seat they were carpeted seats like y'all are sitting in how many of y'all are under 40. do any of y'all know what a pew is they're long wooden benches we used to have in church but we've got all these carpeted things now and i'm not used to them so when i pulled my bible off the carpeted seat next to me it had left something behind and the something it left behind was a big purple maxi pad it was just sitting right there in the middle of the seat and i realized in that moment some of y'all didn't think you'd hear that word in church today did you some of y'all on our first date somebody i thought you are coming to an essential oils conference this morning anyway it's right there smack dab in the middle of the seat and i was like wow cause you know had it been lea or you know friend it wouldn't be that big deal but it's jill stink and briscoe y'all some things are better kept secret some things are better left in your purse or your wallet left in the console of your car but some things are not better left secret my parents divorced when i was a little girl my mother remarried a man named john angel i loved him from the beginning he's a big big guy i played football in college i've been praying that god would give me a dad who wouldn't walk away because my first father left us for another woman and her son and i just man i loved john from the beginning he used to come over to pick my mom up for dates and she was never ready on time he'd bring me a one of those little um khaki bags full of bazooka bubble gum do you remember that had cartoons wrapped around bring me a whole bag and we were poor back then so i was like this is awesome a whole bag of gum and then he'd tell me to make my arms real stiff by my side and john would put his hands under my arms and lift me all the way over his head and i just thought that was amazing i'm going to put that on my ear harmony profile will only date a man who can actually lift me off my feet but i thought i was awesome i mean i just thought john was the bomb so i was really excited when mom told me they were going to get married and i can remember it almost like yesterday the night they left for their honeymoon in the morning that they came home they'd actually come in the night before but i didn't see him and so that next morning i was so excited because i had a dad again i was starting the second grade mom had made kind of a big celebratory breakfast which included bacon and i was fired up because i'm a big fan of pork products and i remember she prayed we held hands and then when she said amen i reached for a piece of bacon and when i did my new daddy took his butter knife and whacked me across the knuckles and said lisa girls don't eat bacon because bacon will make you fat and men don't like fat women i got to be such a good secret keeper of food when i was in junior high and high school my mom was healthy before that was cool so we were paleo when it wasn't cool and she always kept breyer's ice cream that was the only suite we had in our house my whole growing up time but i became an expert at being able to tell exactly how long it took dad to get from where he kept his boat he was always tinkered on the boat to the kitchen and i would have a tablespoon of breyer's ice cream and i became an expert at how long it took to flop that in the sink if i heard him come in and run hot water so there was no evidence of the fact that i'd eaten ice cream because girls don't eat ice cream either when i was in college i was uh raped by a friend's brother and the morning after i told him almost verbatim if you tell anybody what happened last night i'll tell them you're a d-a-m-n liar and that was a big deal for me to cuss because i thought if you said a cuss word there was a grease tube and you'd step on it go straight to the hot place so it's a big deal that i said d-a-m-n do y'all hear the bigger deal he raped me and i kept the secret i said if you tell what happened i'll make your life miserable i became an expert at keeping secrets i even thought when i got older that keeping secrets was spiritual i want to tell most of you as little brothers and little sisters keeping secrets as one of the biggest barriers to seeing miracles if you want to experience miracles a miracle mindset is less about discipline and it's more about honesty it's more about being willing to step out of the dark and into the light and say even though this might not make me look good it will actually make me more dependent on who god is i am desperate for the presence of god i know some of y'all stayed up all night and so i'm going to give you a miracle mindset hack and then i'm going to tell you as your aunt you can sleep for the rest of the sermon if you write this down so pull out your phone go to the notes section or pull out a deposit slip because i want y'all to write this down this is what we're going to be talking about basically for the next few minutes a healthy miracle mindset is an anomaly in modern culture a healthy miracle mindset is an anomaly in modern culture a n a-n-o-m-a-l-y for those of y'all who are tired that means it's highly unusual because it's the antithesis of image or brand management because it's the antithesis of image or brand management period when paul reminds us in colossians that christ is our very life when paul reminds us in colossians that christ is our very life that our existence as believers is integrated with emmanuel then suddenly when paul reminds us in colossians that christ is our very life that our existence as believers is integrated with emmanuel then suddenly curated post and filtered selfies kind of lose their appeal a healthy miracle mind set is an anomaly in modern culture because it's the antithesis of image or brand management a miracle mindset means you don't double spanx it means you don't pretend like your life is perfect outside of church it means you are the very first to say i need prayer i need help i can't make it today without jesus a miracle mindset demands risk risk is an inherent part of a miracle mindset if you brought your bibles turn to mark chapter five if you didn't bring your bible find somebody friendly who's got one or whip out your phone it's one of my favorite passages in scripture we've got 50 verses here that just highlight the supernatural power of jesus christ at the very beginning of mark chapter five right well right before mark chapter five ending mark chapter four that's where jesus calms the storm he speaks all he does is speak and the wind and the waves obey him so he speaks and the natural world obeys him and then you all remember the story there's a demoniac in the gerasenes and jesus speaks to the demons that are terrorizing that man and they say don't kill us just throw us into a herd of pigs y'all remember this story and i used to say the demons went and heard of pigs and then they commit harry kerry they dive off the cliff into the water and drown i used to say they had a big barbecue but that wouldn't have been kosher so he speaks and he controls the super natural and then at the end of mark five he raises a dead girl back to life so it shows this comprehensive super natural authority of king jesus he really is the miracle-maker and right smack dab in the middle of this passage about miracles huge jaw-dropping miracles is this story that shows the intimacy of our jesus that he is a safe secret keeper mark chapter 5 verse 21 and when jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side a great crowd gathered about him and he was beside the sea then came one of the rulers of the synagogue jairus by name and seeing jesus he fell at his feet and implored him earnestly saying my little daughter's at the point of death come and lay your hands on her so that she may be made well and live and he went with him and a great crowd followed about jesus and thronged about him and there was a woman who had had a discharge of blood for 12 years sorry about all the female talk this morning gentlemen and who had suffered much under many physicians and it's been all she had and was no better but rather grew worse she had heard the reports about jesus and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his garment for she said if i touch even his garments i will be made well and immediately the flow of blood dried up and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease and jesus perceiving in himself that power had gone out from him immediately turned about in the crowd and said who touched my garments and his disciples said to him you see the crowd pressing around you and yet you say who touched me and he looked around to see who had done it but the woman knowing what had happened to her came in fear and trembling and fell down before him and told him the whole truth and he said to her daughter your faith has made you well go in peace and be healed of your disease so you've got this huge crowd because at this point in first century culture jesus was known now not a lot of people put their hope in him as messiah but they'd all seen him do tricks on j m the jerusalem news network so lots of people would gather anywhere jesus went and in this particular case he's on the northern shore of the sea of galilee a crowd forms and in this crowd is a woman i always picture her as petite i think because of the blood loss theologians concur that this was a continual hemorrhage so she hadn't just been bleeding monthly she's been bleeding every single day for 12 years and so because of that i picture her as frail as anemic as as small we don't know she could have been like me she could have been in stretchy pants but in my mind i think of her as a small woman and she thinks if i could just get close enough to yeshua i believe he has the power to give me the miracle i need to heal me now i want y'all to talk back because i'm not your pastor do you see anything already in this story that kind of smacks of unique anybody remember what the penalty was for a bleeding disease in first century orthodox jewish culture young talk back no idea i love that already told you i like honest people how old are you brother teasing um teasing teasing mostly teasing okay and zach just said unclean and that's exactly right first century jewish culture if you had a disease that involved bleeding you were considered ceremonially unclean that means not only can you not go to church she couldn't have gathered this morning and remember synagogue in the first century it isn't just for sundays synagogue is the community center it's like the ymca that's where you went for everything you went there for zumba and weight watchers and i don't know fly fishing tie-in whatever you went there for everything she's excluded from community so it's highly unique that she's there because according to mosaic law if she bump up to bumped up against you you too are rendered ceremony ceremony unclean sam you couldn't you couldn't have held her hand during prayer you couldn't have touched her or that means you too are rendered ceremonially unclean you have to go through all this rigmarole with the peace with a priest to be considered clean again so it's highly unlikely she's in a crowd most likely she's disguised because she can't present her real self everybody knows she's the bloody lady so just imagine there's a crowd she's kind of elbowing her way through the crowd jesus is passing by we read in the english that she touches the edge of his garment it's actually better in the original greek so she touches a tassel because in the first century jewish men were required to wear white robes with blue tassels on the edge of their robe and in the original greek of this story she reaches out and he's as he's passing by she she tips a tassel and when she does shazam she's healed 12 years of being ostracized of suffering and immediately in that moment she's healed and that could have been the end of the story and it'd be a really great story especially if you're in a sermon series about miracles i mean that right there is absolutely a miracle but it it's even better than that what's better is jesus stops do you remember the context of the story he's on his way to jairus's house and jirus is a synagogue ruler they didn't have separation of church and state at this point in ancient history so to be a synagogue ruler means you're also a powerful political player means he drove a bentley lived in a gated community so jesus is on his way to a very important man's house and he stops kind of on the wrong side of the tracks if you will and instead of just continuing because she's already healed he stops and he says hang on a minute y'all tiniest bit of liberty with the greek there that's not greek but he says hang on i just felt power go forth from me and there's actually a lot of theological discussion over that one little verse because some people say well i mean jesus knows everything he's omniscient right so he knew who touched him but scripture says god is not a man that he can lie nor son of man they can change his life so jesus was incapable of telling a little white lie so his devotional would have more impact so the scholars that i trust and subscribe to say the only way that part of the story makes sense is that jesus in his compassion veiled his own omniscience so he really didn't know who touched him in that moment he said who touched me and it says then the woman knowing what had happened to her came toward him fell at her feet and was scared to death why was she scared y'all because she's the bloody lady she's scared to death somebody is going to call her out that somebody's going to throw her under the bus when i was 40 years old i went to a christian conference and heard a woman talk about adoption i'm still single i'm 57 have never been married i used to tease and say it's because my husband is lost and won't stop to ask for directions but um truth of the matter is i was really really really broken when i was most a y'alls age and i was very very drawn to abusive men that was part of my back story and so that was kind of a default setting for me so god protected me from the men i was most drawn to and then the few good godly guys like y'all that i dated god protected you for me because i was hot mess express and so um zach where was i was making a point it's a good one i think adoption thank you the coveted brain is a real thing i'll get to these words they aren't even sat words and i'll be like uh i got nothing so by the time i was in my 40s i really wanted a family but my ovaries were raisins at that point and i didn't think i'd ever get to be a mom and so i was just undone that he wove me into missy's story just absolutely undone that i got to be a mom i still can't quite believe that i'm a mother but when i started the adoption process at 40 i had a woman in a small group say uh lisa i want to talk to you about what you've been telling us about adoption i wasn't sure at that point i was even allowed to adopt as an older single person i was just praying about it i thought maybe god had stirred my heart there because i was supposed to volunteer at a third world orphanage or something and she said i want to talk to you if you have time to talk about it and so i said yeah i'd love to talk about it i said a small group at a church here in nashville i won't name it and we went to a coffee shop and she said i want to be really direct with you because the bible says the wounds of a friend are better than the kiss of an enemy you remember that verse we've talked about it since we were kids it's amazing how some people can take the bible out of context and use it as a club instead of a love story she said because the bible says that i want to be very direct with you i know you're praying about adoption but i want to tell you that you have sabotaged your shot at motherhood she said you've told us about the molestation when you were younger and she said i know you've been to christian counseling and all that but just in case you weren't fixed you might unwittingly transfer the trauma you experienced as a child onto a child of your own she said i don't think you should adopt she said lisa i know you want to nurture something my advice is for you to go to the nashville humane society and adopt a pet because you're really good with animals now y'all i wish i could tell you that i recognized in that moment that she was just a crooked little tree that she had experienced such a furious storm or severe drought that it bent her trunk and she wasn't bearing good fruit because what she said wasn't congruent with what is in this word jesus doesn't use shame as a motivational tool but i wasn't that wise um here's the thing about the enemy he's he's shrewd and he's so so so unkind and he's not safe with secrets and so he will take those bruises we haven't shown anybody else and he will exploit those and then he'll add a little more information and we'll believe it because it feels familiar to us so when that woman said you don't deserve to be a mom instead of going gosh that's not congruent with his promises it's not congruent with scripture saying all of his answers to our questions are yes and amen i don't read that in this love story my heart believed it and so i didn't start the adoption process until i was 47. started to start it at 40. but after she said that i took the adoption application i'd printed out i put in the very back of my file drawer and the next afternoon i drove to the national humane society and adopted a chocolate lab with bladder control problems named sally and she was a sweet dog y'all she wasn't god's best for me you know my only regret about adoption is that i didn't start sooner i'm so extraordinarily grateful that i get to be missy's mom but i think i bet you i would have needed a minivan if i'd started when god wanted to start the miracle it's just i didn't have that mindset [Music] and some of y'all are right where she is you've asked god in private for your miracle but you're still curating your image in public [Music] even in church we need each other we need the body we need to say well y'all pray for me i'm dying today my heart knows the theology my mind has memorized some of this book i have pastor sermons on repeat but goodness gracious i can't believe big enough for myself that's why she's trembling she's scared to death that somebody in that community is going to out her secrets somebody's gonna say she doesn't deserve to be here she's filthy that's the bloody lady but jesus stops remember he's supposed to be going to jairus house that's a legitimate errand right there that's a tick-tock-worthy errand right there he's going to jairus's house that looks really good that would totally make social media instead he stops with this woman nobody has given the time of day to for at least 12 years and it says after being scared to death there's a comma always pay attention to commas in scripture she's usually something really cool after a comma trembling with fear comma she told him the whole story do y'all remember how long she'd been sick 12 years and it says gives us a little hint right there which i think is such a hoot because dr luke leaves this out of his account of the same story she had spent all she had under the care of many doctors yet instead of getting better she grew worse do you know how long that story is i mean estrogen and long-windedness usually go hand-in-hand you can just hear going and then jesus there was this one doctor i mean she probably went on and on and he listens to the whole story and she's already healed her body is healed she's already experienced the noteworthy miracle but jesus knows that her brokenness isn't just her body he knows her heart has been eviscerated and so he listens to her whole story he puts that miracle on pause and it actually becomes an even greater miracle because jerusale's daughter dies he sends servants to come back and go no need to bother him it's too late she's dead jesus still goes to jairus house and raises his little girl from death back to life so that miracle becomes even more of a miracle but he stays with this one woman who nobody else will listen to and he says tell me your story you know the biggest miracles we will experience usually aren't the bright and shiny ones they're the ones that are quiet it's in his presence in his presence i was at a church not too long ago this was two years before covid and uh had laryngitis which i only get like once a decade i'm sure some people are praying i'll get it more often but i rarely lose my voice i was at this church and i was speaking twice and my voice had gotten so bad that they said lisa in the break between the two sessions it was only women about 2 000 women they said in the break we've got a doctor that's going to come and they've got some stuff to to give you some steroids some stuff for your throat so maybe your voice will last the second session i said that'd be great and so they send the rest of the women out into the foyer and they've got pretzels and jesus junk to buy and all that and they take me to the green room where they've got a doctor rating well as i'm leaving the sanctuaries about 2 000 women in the sanctuary and then they had all gone out there's only one small group of women in the very back corner of the sanctuary and had to walk right past him to get to the green room where the doctor was and as i'm walking toward them i just went they're praying one of them has her head down the other one has her hand on her and the one who has her head down is just balling like a baby as i'm walking toward him and i'm really just thinking i hope the doctor has something that can make my voice less but as i'm walking toward him i just went and i had this picture in my mind's eye of a little girl in a red dress and i just knew i thought she was about eight years old and i saw her in a corner crying now y'all my mama was baptist my daddy was pentecostal and so i tease and say i'm baptistal all the time that being said the baptist part of me is not real comfortable with dreams and visions and prophecy i want to go it's in the bible the pentecostal part of me sometimes it's like a nine-year-old with a porsche i can't drive it that well and so i try to be careful with with prophecy and so i just had this picture i thought oh my goodness well as we're starting to walk past i thought i'm going to be disobedient if i don't say something to this woman because i'm almost positive little girl i just saw on my head was her but you can understand my husband see the part of me that doesn't do great with prophecy and so i thought well i've got to say it and so i stopped and i said hello my name is lisa and the one who's praying looks up at me like yeah you've been on the big screens when you tell she's like we're in a private moment here can you not see this and i thought gosh i hate to interrupt this but i just feel like i'm supposed to say something and i said well ma'am and then the other one looked up and been crying and i said ma'am i i just had a picture in my mind of a little girl in a red dress she looked to be about eight years old and she was crying and she went you could not know that and i said ma'am i don't i don't know much i said but god just gave me a picture of a little girl in a red dress and she was crying and i think that's you is it and she went and she just threw her head back down her friend who'd been praying for her looked up at me like i'm gonna punch you in the throat and you're like really i just gotta calm down now you've made it worse and i just thought i need to i need to stay in this there's something holy that god is doing here i can't see the miracle yet but you know how you kind of get goosebumps over the fact that one is coming in your spirit and so i just stayed there and after a couple of minutes it was awkward she was crying this one's mad at me after a couple of minutes she looks up and she said i haven't met you before have i and i was like no ma'am i don't live in your state i've never been in this church before she said and you don't know my story and i said no ma'am and she explained that when she was growing up both her mother and her father were addicts her father went away when she was a little girl to the state penitentiary and he was released on parole when she was eight years old and her mama had a big welcome home party and her mom was still used and most of her friends were addicts and she was the only child at that welcome home party and most everybody was unconscious by one o'clock in the morning except for her daddy and she was wearing a red party dress first new dress she'd ever had and her daddy found her and took her to a corner of their home and raped her and she said if our god is such a good god then why did my daddy do that to me and i said honey i don't i don't know that other than we live in a broken world and sin has marred every relationship we have i said you didn't deserve that but this i do know jesus was there because i'm a complete stranger and i had no idea that happened and he gave me that picture so clear that i know it's you and i said i think you're standing at a crossroads and you can spend the rest of your life demanding answers as to why that horrible thing that you don't deserve happened to you or you can trust that god's presence is the miracle you need me ask y'all to bow your heads as pastor comes up [Music] secrets born in shame mute are cognizance of the miraculous a miracle mindset demands stepping into the light you do not have to tell anybody in this room your secrets but if you're carrying secrets that were born in shame i can tell you as a big sister they will lead you further and further and further away from intimacy with god and so pastor is going to pray for those of you who are carrying secrets those of you who may have spent the last couple of years assuming if only i could get answers i'd finally have peace what your heart is really crying out for is presence presence the work and person of jesus christ through the indwelling of the holy spirit he sees you he has not forgotten you the miracle this morning is that you can carry that secret to the foot of the cross and he will take it from now on he will remove that anxiety and that shame you are precious to him so so precious to him

Channel: Zeal Church

Views: 52,277

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Keywords: Nashville, Bellevue, Tennessee, Sermon, Zeal, Church, West, Jd, Ost

Id: g11TWzMtsYw

Length: 39min 35sec (2375 seconds)

Published: Sun May 23 2021