Did you feel the earth shaking last night...

A Church Without Walls 6-23-12

The Night the World Changed

The world changed last night. Did you feel it? The hand of God split the heavens and His mercy poured forth like a raging river. A life was saved, a heart reborn, and the darkness was dispelled by the light of the gospel.

Were you there? Did you see it? Did you feel the earth shaking? Could you sense the power of God? Did you hear His voice thunder? Did you rejoice in His presence?

Last night A Church Without Walls met in Norfolk, and thankfully our numbers grew from 4 to 7 as my son Andreas, my niece Nicole, and my nephew Ian joined us. Andreas and Ian served the homemade chicken barbeque, potato salad, and chips while Nicole served the water, and sodas. Noah did a great job serving the hot sauce too. It was a real blessing because it freed up Aaron, Jimmy, and me to talk and minister to our friends on the street.

Sometimes we don’t realize that homeless people are just like us. They have physical ailments, and domestic concerns… real life concerns that are often times greater than their need for shelter. Jimmy, Aaron, Noah and I gathered around one man to pray for his wife who is 47 years old and suffers from Alzheimer’s disease… at 47! We prayed for her healing and for God to strengthen him to serve her in her need. His world changed last night as the people of God gathered around him and prayed for him and his wife. We brought hope in the name of Jesus to a hopeless situation.

In response to God’s presence, Jimmy preached a word from Romans Chapter 4:

Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be." Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead — since he was about a hundred years old — and that Sarah's womb was also dead. Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God

Rom 4:18-20 (NIV)

You could feel the world move – a light in the darkness. As Jimmy finished I noticed a young man approach the boys. “Do you have anything left?” He asked timidly. All we had was a small scoop of potato salad, and ice cream. “I’ll have whatever you can give me,” I heard him say. As the boys gave him a nearly empty plate with the last small spoon of potato salad I asked him if he had eaten at all today.

Lowering his eyes he shook his head to say ‘no he hadn’t.’ The earth went silent.

We were out of food and he had missed his opportunity… and he was hungry. I didn’t think about it, it was a natural response. “We’re going to get you something to eat,” I said. “What restaurants are around here that you like?”

He let me know of a Wendy’s, Doumars, Taco Bell and few others. He said just something off the dollar menu at taco bell would do… because he didn’t want to be a burden. The earth shook.

We brought him two ‘taco supremes’ and made sure he had something to drink. I handed it to him and said, “God is good,” and left him alone to eat.

About 20 minutes later he approached me. He told me he is 23 years old, and that he served 2 years in the military. “I heard Mr. Jimmy’s message and I was just thinking about the story of Abraham today. Funny isn’t it?! I have God in my head,” said he, “but not in my heart.” The heavens shook and the skies split open as the Spirit of God poured from the throne of God to fill a desperate soul with hope.

He asked questions and I encouraged him with scripture. He asked how he would know the will of God and the Lord poured forth His mercy. “God has done the hard part,” I told him, “knowing His will is easy. You see Jesus had his hands and feet pierced with nails, and when He was on the cross being mocked He turned and said, ‘Forgive them, they know not what they do.’ He showed mercy in the most difficult situation. Our role is simple, we are to ‘go and do likewise,’ in our much more simple situations.”

I told Him when I heard that He hadn’t eaten all day, the will of God was easy to discern. I was to show mercy and went straight away to get you something to eat. When someone yells at you, even though you know you are right, you are to ‘go and do likewise,’ showing kindness in your response. This is the will of God, that we should show mercy.

We spoke for a long time and I finished by encouraging him to wake up each morning this week and start his day by praising God for just a minute, and then ask the Lord to reveal His will to him, so that he, like Abraham, might not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but would be strengthened in his faith and give glory to God.

I told him that today I fulfilled the will of God by giving him a couple of tacos… in the future he will fulfill the will of God by laying a banquet before someone else.

The world changed last night. Did you see the heavens open and the Spirit of God coursing through the air?

What a glorious God we serve.