Matthew 21:12–14 ESV

And Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who sold and bought in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold pigeons. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you make it a den of robbers.” And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

House of Miracles

Introduction:

For those of you who do not know our story, we started Lighthouse Church in March, 2019. We previously served our church as the Executive Pastor, and my wife led LKids, which was the Kids Ministry of our church.

I’ll never forget when God released us to launch this church. It was right after Easter 2018, and God whispered to me that the next year, I would be celebrating Resurrection Sunday in our own church.

For the next few moments I want to share with you just a few quick stories about our journey, that I believe can help some of you with your journey. My hope is that through what God is selling here, collectively our faith would be lifted.

When God Says Go

We launched the church and had a playbook that we were running. God was very good to us in our first few months. Our church grew from the 74 on our launch team to 200 gathering on Sundays. As we were about five months into our launch, God called us into a season of prayer together. Our church began to gather for corporate prayer, and God began speaking to us.

I shared with our church that in the month of February 2020, God started telling me that I was going to slow down. He started telling me that my pace was off. I was running, and God was telling me to slow down. I believe he did this becuase what he knew was that the world was going to stop.

It’s like running on a treadmill. You want to slow down before you come to a complete stop.

When we came to a complete stop we learned that we wouldn’t have a home to come back to. The school we were renting from told us that after this pandemic ended, they weren’t going to have us back.

So we began to pray even more.

Shortly after, one of our members was not only diagnosed with COVID, but he began to fight for his life.

So we began to pray even more.

When God says Go, he doesn’t promise easy, but he does promise His presence.

Our Bold Request

Our church began to bombard heaven. Almost weekly I would message our team and tell them to pray for two things:

We prayed for miraculous recovery for Eli

We prayed for a building

These prayers were on repeat every single week.

And for the next 49 weeks, we met entirely online.

But every single time our team would gather to record worship and a message, we prayed for Eli and we prayed for our building.

Through these two gut wrenching situations, we were becoming a house of prayer.

Difficult times can either push you from his presence, or push you into his presence.

We chose to push in to his presence.

We chose to believe that God had the last word. We chose to believe that if He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him.

Let me encourage someone here right now, you’ve been going through something and you’ve been looking to many things, but you haven’t been leaning into prayer.

Jesus’ Bold Request

Jesus walks into the temple, and he sees that the place of worship. The place of sacrifice. The place of communion wasn’t the way that it should be. The way God intended for it to be.

He walks in and asks, were is my house of prayer?

When we lean in to prayer, we are responding to the bold request of Jesus.

What he looks for when he sees us is not perfection, but he does look for prayer.

He does look for relationship. He does look for us desiring more of him.

It’s the same with me an my 11 year old son. I don’t expect perfection. He’s growing. He’s learning. He’s going to make mistakes, and I won’t judge him harshly for that. But I do want him to desire a relationship with me. I want him to know that I am here.

Listen, too many of you are trying to do it your way and God is just waiting to be invited into situation.

Prayer is your response to Jesus’ bold request.

The House of Miracles

Now I love what we read in the next verse. After Jesus said my house will be called a house of prayer, they brought two types of people to him. The people who were blind, and the people who were disabled. People without vision and people in need of healing. In that moment, the house of prayer turned into the house of miracles.

Prayer paves the way for miracles.

Let me finished telling you about our two big prayer requests. Eli was put into a coma for 5 weeks while the Doctors went on to try experimental treatment to save his life. After several negative reports from the Doctor, and the family preparing for the worse, Eli turned the corner. And then, he came out of his coma. He is not just back home with his family, but here is Eli, continuing to serve God with his gift!

Our prayer paved the way for the miraculous!

Now, we also prayed for a place of our own. We were about to enter into several rental agreements. We found a place, the doors would close. We found a place, the doors would close. And then a church in Vista became available to not just rent, but to buy.

After months of prayer, and coming together with the Elders of the church, we are buying the land we are standing on right now for about the price of a house in San Diego. All of this property, we are buying for only $900,000. The Elders have felt God tell them to help this new church and we are buying it with no a nickel of deposit, on seller carried financed, and on a 0% interest rate.

We were getting ready to rent a place, and God gave us land. He gave us territory.

This is the Lighthouse story, and the house of prayer, became the house of miracles.

What Miracle Do You Need?

So let me close by asking you, what miracle do you need in your life? What is the impossible situation that you are facing? Because you are standing in the House of Miracles, and we believe that God is going to start doing miracles right here and right now.