Blow a Hole in the Roof // I Need a Miracle Please, Part 4

Sometimes, we expect God to show up with a miracle in our lives, kind of like the pizza delivery man at the front door. But God – well, sometimes He has a different plan.  Sometimes He wants us to grow the sort of faith that's going to blow a hole in the roof. It never ceases to amaze me how different God's ways are from our own. See when I want something from God – when I go to him and pray and ask Him for something, I kind of expect Him not just to say yes each and every time, but I expect Him to deliver me the answer on a platter. I kind of imagine that it's like when I ring up to order a Pizza home delivery, and the little man shows up on his motorbike and delivers it to my front door. I mean – isn't that how it should be? Isn't that how we expect that God should operate? Come, putting up on His little motor bike and knock on our doors and say – here it is, just sign here? Now, I know that sounds a little crazy, but the truth be known, that's how we expect God to operate. I mean why wouldn't He. He's our Dad. He loves us. Surely He wants to bless us. But then again, I'm a dad too. And there's one thing for certain – I have never delivered breakfast in bed to any of my children. Because (a) I wanted them to learn how to be responsible and to get up out of bed for themselves and get breakfast for themselves and (b) in any case, I'm their father and they should be delivering breakfast for me in bed. I'll do the things they can't do for themselves, I'll help them and I'll encourage them and I'll discipline them, but they need to learn to do the things that they have to do. And on top of that, I as a dad, will sometimes put them under pressure, or set them tasks that are difficult – because unless I do that, where are they going to learn that stuff from? So why is it that we would somehow imagine that God would be any different? Why do we imagine that He'd be in the business of delivering breakfast in bed, or pizza to the front door? I'll tell you why. Because we have a consumer mentality. We live in a "me" centred world. God is supposed to dance to my tune. And that's an attitude that we can take into our expectations about miracles. This week we're doing a series called "I Need a Miracle". But I want us to get realistic about this whole miracle thing. On the one hand sometimes we imagine that God wouldn't ever do a miracle for me, hopefully we've dealt with that earlier in the week. 'Cause that's a load of rubbish. God is a miracle working God. He was 2000 years ago. He still is today and nothing's changed. But on the other hand, we can get this spiritual couch potato view of the world and expect miracles to be easy. But I have to tell you, my experience is, sure some miracles from God are easy. But some are a long time in coming and take a lot of perseverance and trust through difficult times, before they actually happen. And that bit kind of jars with our sugar daddy view of what God should be and how He should deliver miracles. So today I want to share with you a story that could well be familiar to you. It's the story of a miracle. And yet it wasn't an easy one. It took quite some effort. Let's take a look. It comes from Mark's Gospel, chapter 2. When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days, it was reported that he was at home. So many gathered around that there was no longer room for them, not even in front of the door; and he was speaking the word to them. Then some people came, bringing to him a paralysed man, carried by four of them. And when they could not bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him; and after having dug through it, they let down the mat on which the paralytic lay. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven." Now some of the scribes were sitting there, questioning in their hearts, "why does this fellow speak in this way? What a blasphemy! Who can forgive sins but God?" At once Jesus perceived in his spirit that they were discussing these questions among themselves; and He said to them, "Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Stand up and take your mat and walk?" But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins" – he said to the paralytic – "I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home." And the man stood up, and immediately took the mat and went out before all of them; so that they were all amazed and glorified God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" Sounds easy to skim over this and say, "oh yeah. This is just Jesus doing another one of His miracles." But here were these people, four of them carrying this one man. Let's take a look at this miracle from their perspective. This man who couldn't walk, now that was a big deal in those days. Not just that he couldn't walk but he couldn't earn any money. He was a burden on his family. There were no social security cheques arriving in the mail every two weeks. So it was a big deal not being able to walk. Now they hear that Jesus is coming to town. I remember when I was a kid, when the Beatles came to town. And I was watching them on the old black and white TV. And the crowds were cheering and pushing. Each one of them hoping to get a glimpse. The idea that any one could ever even get close to the Beatles, well that was beyond imagination. Bit like when Jesus came to town. So these four friends saw an opportunity for a healing. They heard about Jesus and his miracles. So they arrive carrying their friend on a stretcher only to be confronted by crowds. They couldn't move, they couldn't get near Jesus. Their hearts sank. The disappointment would have been overwhelming, they were human. Do you think they're any different to you or to me? Now how easy would it have been to give up dejected? How easy would it have been to think, "oh well, if Jesus had meant for our friend to be healed, He would have come out or something or He would have been easy to get at or … " Instead, they stood there and they thought to themselves, "we are going to get this miracle. We are not going to give up this easily. We're here now and we're going for it. Now, what's another way to skin this cat?" "Oh I know", says one of them, "why don't we rip a hole in the roof. Let's climb up there with our friend on the stretcher, lift the tiles off the roof, and then, knock a whacking great hole in Jesus' roof. I mean, He's only the Son of God, why not? Do you see how audacious their faith was? Not some pizza delivery model – but a faith that went hard after God Himself. A faith that was prepared to claw through clay, baked dry and hard, with their bare hands to get this miracle. A faith that was prepared to blow a hole in the roof. And Jesus, He didn't care that they'd knocked a hole in the roof, someone could fix that later. He was blown away by their faith. Do you see how different God is to us? And they got their miracle. Not only did they get their miracle but the crowds and the religious leaders received a lesson that day about who Jesus really is. Wake up! It is time for us to realise that our faith is like a muscle. And God knows that unless we use our muscles they have a way of getting weak and flabby and giving up all together. God is a great Dad. And see, He's like any Dad, He looks at us and He wants us to grow and to be strong and to develop. And so He is going to let us go through things so that we can learn to use our faith, to strengthen our faith. To look at Jesus and to follow a heart after Him and develop the sort of faith that's prepared to knock a hole in the roof to get to Him. And then, we know when God's got us in that place, when that muscle of faith is growing, then just watch the miracles start to flow.