Pastor Nick Vujicic
July 30, 2017 - W1731

I want you to know that no matter what you go through in your ups and downs of life, there are always times where you will cry.

When our yes aligns with God's yes, it's a wonderful thing, but it doesn't mean that every prayer that we ever pray is actually God's perfect will. For example, I prayed for arms and legs. I have a pair of shoes in my closet in case he says yes. My dad had pancreatic cancer and unfortunately passed away about ten weeks ago, and he was 62 years old. He planted a couple churches in his life, and he was the rock in my life that God gave me.

Did we pray for my dad to be healed? Yes. Can God do all things? Yes. Did we have faith? Yes. How much faith do you need? Faith of a mustard seed.

And sometimes we put faith in our own intellect, but sometimes we see that our intellect fails us. And sometimes we have faith in material things or even the hope for a new season in my life.

Now, when you ask eight?year?olds why they are stressed, they will say because their homework is so hard. But then you talk to 13?year?olds and they say, “My parents don't understand me.” A 17 year old might say, “If I could just get into a university, then everything would be okay.” Then it is, “Oh, if I could just find a job, then everything's going to be okay.”

And then single people say, “I know that I'll be happy when I get married.” No. If you aren’t happy single, you aren’t going to be happy married.

So when is it where everything is okay?

The first thing is first. We must be thankful for the amazing blessings that God has given us; the blessing of life itself. Not everyone has a loving home. Not everyone loves their life. In fact, very few people love their life.

In the travels I've had around the world, I have gained an interesting unique perspective. Meeting presidents, billionaires, speaking in front of 16 presidents, nine governments, crowds the size of 110,000 face?to?face, 250 million on TV at once ?? all of Latin America tuned in ?? to then speaking in front of orphans and sex slaves or human trafficked girls.

You see an interesting, amazing paradigm of our mentality as we go through our life thinking what we thought we wanted. In fact, when we get what we want, we found out later it's not what we need. And when I was a child, I thought I needed arms and legs.

Now, I know that with a grain of sand of faith that I can move mountains in the name of Jesus, and I've seen miracles. In fact, about 15 years ago we went to go check out my back on an MRI scan because I got pinching of the nerves along my spinal cord. I couldn't feel my arm one day.

And after they did the MRI, the doctor told me that I had a very rare disease that was hollowing out my spine and there was no cure. So I didn’t want to hear more bad news so I stopped seeing the doctor until 10 years ago. They took an MRI and found that now I had only two holes in my spine. The doctors had no answer as to why there were only two holes and not three. Two years later, the MRI found only ONE hole! In 2015, they found NO holes! It was medically unexplainable.

And for those that only believe that science can explain everything, I tell them go and get educated around the world because you can see that there are things in this world that are way more than just finding a job, than just getting married, than just living and dying, than just being happy, existing for the sake of existing.

And so the question is: Are we here to just be here and then not be here, or is there something more? Jeremiah chapter 29, says, “For I know the thoughts that I have towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

Isaiah Chapter 40 verse 31 says, “But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

You hear the stories of some of these Indian girls who were sold by their own mothers for 700 U.S. dollars. In 2008, I spoke in India in front of 650 slaves. What do you tell them? Just be positive? Reincarnation? Better luck next time? Their own national religion makes them an outcast. No other region actually assures them of actual salvation. It's well?I?hope?you?make?it kind of thing.

You know, when you realize that we are not perfect at all and we will never be perfect, it's pretty easy to conclude that there is no one that we know that has no sin, and that's also why we don't know anyone who lives forever on earth.

For me, I understood, yes, Jesus, who had no sin, he paid the price for my sin. If someone buys my ticket, I got my ticket.  

And so when we have the crime of sin, the punishment is death not because I think so, not because some pastor thinks so, but because the Bible says so. That's what God says. And if He says for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life, then I'm going to believe that, too, that Jesus was the only person??-if you look at all religions and all philosophies---who said, "I am God in the flesh."  

I want you to know that we are not citizens of earth. I'm a citizen of heaven passing through. That's who I am.

And when you know the future and hope that God has for you, your perspective changes all together which now changes today for you. Are you thankful? Count the amazing blessings that God has given you.

When you're thankful and you know the truth of where you're going, that's why we can bury my dad in peace because we know it's not the end. I'm not afraid. I found something to live for. Have you? They say you haven't found something to live for until you found something to die for. Sometimes we don't see the full picture. But don't give up. God has a plan. Keep on looking for Him and you'll find Him. Don't be discouraged when you don't see the full picture.

So I'm here today to tell you that even when it doesn't make sense, it's only because you don't see the full picture. Whoever would have imagined that I would be married? I thought I'd never get married.

When you don't get a miracle, you can still BE a miracle. And if I can encourage one soul to come to Jesus who understands the truth of happiness, the truth of joy, the truth of the trials that we have in how God uses it, I don't need arms and legs. I found everything I need...peace, love, joy, purpose, strength, eternal life.

God is amazing. And what's amazing too is when I was 24 years old speaking in front of a Californian church and I saw a man hold up a little boy with no arms and no legs, and I looked at him and he looked exactly like me with a little foot just like me. And I'm like, wow, I want to wrestle him later on. And I got the father to bring up the child right here, and he's looking up at me and I'm looking down at him. And I can't give him a high five, so I gave him a low two. And when I gave him a low two, he was smiling, and when he smiled, everyone cried. It was incredible hugging his mom, and she cried and she said, "You're our miracle. Now I know that God still has a plan for our boy."

But what do you think I want? Arms and legs for 90 years that's going to give me arthritis later on anyway, sorry, or the one day in heaven where I'm worshiping God with my new body, whatever that looks like. And one day I’ll hear my name, "Hey, Nick," and I look, and it's going to be Daniel, the little boy with no arms and legs now as a grown man in heaven. He's going to be running to me in heaven, I'm sure, when we're all there. He's going to hug me, and I'm going to hug him. And I'm sure he's going to say, "Thank you, brother, for helping me believe that this place called heaven was real."

I don't know about you, but what else is there to live for? You girls, you feel like you need to look more beautiful. That's what I thought, I needed to look like everyone else. I wish I was this. I wish I was that. No, you don't need a boyfriend to feel love. You don't need to do what everyone else does. You don't need to talk like everyone else talks or dress like everyone else dresses. You're beautiful just the way that you are.

And sex is not love. You can sleep with anyone you want as many times you want and still not know if they love you. For as long as you're looking for a boyfriend and temporary highs, you will find a boyfriend and experience temporary highs. But you need to, my sister, look for a man of God who's going to be your life?long partner, your husband, who's going to raise your children in a godly manner. God forbid you die in a car accident two years after marriage, but you will know that the one you married is going to anchor the faith in your household because in my household, for my house, we serve the Lord. As for me and my house, we serve the Lord.

You girls, you're beautiful. You're royalty. Your dad is the king of kings and lord of lords. A daughter to a king is a princess. Every girl wants to be a princess. They don't know why. It's because they're made that way. They were made for royalty. Give yourself some dignity. You guys, you don't need big biceps. My biceps were so big, they fell off. You understand me? You don't need to say the F word to be cool. You don't need to have a girlfriend to know if you're going to be good enough or whatever. I want you to know you are awesome just the way that you are. You're an ambassador of the king of kings and lord of lords.

Guys, I want to tell you that some people don't start their active relationship with Jesus because they believe God is the reason for their pain. If you look at the Bible, it's actually not true. Pain and death came after the serpent tempted Adam and Eve into sin.

That's the second reason why people don't give their life to Jesus. Because if God knew what was going to happen, then why did he let the snake in the Garden of Eden? That's so unfair. Actually, no, it's not. Because God gave Adam and Eve something called free choice. But how could God be a fair God to say I give you free choice, but I present no choices but my voice? That's the reason why God allowed the serpent in the Garden of Eden, so that Adam and Eve could hear what God said and then have a choice to believe yes or no. That is when Adam and Eve fell into sin. But you see later that they teach their children about the ways of the Lord.

You see, when we realize our fault, no matter what our fault is, the third reason why people never say yes to Jesus, is because they don’t believe Jesus would love them with all their sins.

Let me tell you. No addiction and no sin can ever separate you from the love of God. I've seen a woman who was paralyzed. We prayed for her. Not only did we have miracles in my back, but we've seen 13 other miracles right in front of me. Blind eyes seeing, deaf ears hearing, and this woman in 2008 at the brothels of India. She couldn't walk for 4 1/2 years. We prayed for her. She walked. Two weeks later, she gave her life to Jesus.

But what was amazing about this woman was actually who she was. I had no idea who she was. I was in a brothel house. I knew where I was. But little did I know that the paralyzed woman we prayed for was the woman who started human trafficking in the 1960s in that city of Mumbai. She was the head of all the pimps and madams. She's the one who recruited people to kidnap minors and start trafficking them. She was responsible for 40,000 slaves. Talk about evil.

But God healed her. Why? Because He didn't see her sin. He saw one of His lost daughters. And He stretches out His hand to you. And I ask you, what is stopping you from reaching out to him? He still loves you despite your pornographic addiction. He still loves you no matter what you've done. He loves you, and He stretches out His arm because you're one of His lost children and He's sent His son to die for you and He wants you home and He loves you.

And, lastly, if there is redemption, what does it look like? When you see these girls who were once slaves save up money after they found Jesus, get healed, transformed, save up money to go rescue another slave, but before they rescue another slave and they pay $700 to the pimp and madam, they go back to their own brothel house where they were once a slave with a bucket of water and a towel, and they go up to the one that used to be their master, the one who used to abuse them, and say, "I've come here today to tell you I love you and I'm praying for you and I'm praying for your soul and I forgive you for everything you've done wrong to me, I forgive you because Jesus forgave me and He took away my shame and He took away my guilt and He gave me what I was looking for. I was looking for joy, and I couldn't find it anywhere else except in Jesus." And they wash their feet, and they say, "I love you. Can I pray for you?" And after they pray for them, they say, “Here is 700 bucks. Give me another slave.” They take another slave, adopt them as their own sister, take them through a Jesus camp, and they get healed and they get redeemed and together they go and rescue another one and another one and another one. If that's not redemption, I don't know what is. Amen? Hallelujah.

Questions:

1. What are some of the things that people think can make them happy?

2. How do we find true happiness?

3. Why is it important to know that we are all sinners and fallen short of the glory of God?

4. What are some of the reasons why people don’t accept Jesus?

5. Why is it important to forgive others?