A Miraculous Journey | Pastor Shane Johnston

before we get rocking and rolling i want to look into the camera welcome our online family that's joining us so many of you are traveling on vacation you said you're still tuning in we're grateful for you so many of you live outside of jacksonville but you're with us we love you so much and then come on church family help me welcome all the men and women from the correctional facilities let's go we say it every week and we mean it you are our church family our extended family we're so grateful for you well today is a good day church because pastor rebecca and i are back but but we're not preaching today instead we got something even better i've got a friend in the house today a friend now we don't just bring anybody here to be a guest speaker and this isn't even a guest this is family we're a part of a network the next level relational network it's pastors that are involved in each other's lives and the whole goal of this network is we want to pastor other pastors so that they can keep pastoring healthy churches that make a high impact into the city that god has called them to the network that we're a part of is 200 churches that's 200 pastors and ministry leaders across the world united states canada europe south america god is using this network it's incredible just like we tell you to get connected in our church with people that's what we're connected in my wife and i lead in this network we lead the southeast region 40 plus pastors and the friends that we have here today they lead the region in canada come on somebody they're from vancouver canada the other side of the world and only god only god could bring a boy from jacksonville and a girl from jacksonville and connect them with some canadian pastors hey and i'm so grateful pastor shane and pastor rachel johnson are in the house this morning and i want you to hold your applause because we're going to celebrate and honor them in just a moment but they are dear friends of ours and the only reason we know each other is because we decided to get connected into a network and so did they and through time we met each other they lead in our network we lead we get to do life together we've been to their church we went a couple years ago it's amazing he's going to tell you more about it god is on the move in canada come on somebody and i am so grateful that our pastors put together something that would allow our lives to interconnect in a way that only god could do we love you guys we love your family we're so grateful for you they they revolved their entire family vacation around you rise church they came they came a week early in the panhandle then they rolled over to jacksonville and then they're going to be going down to south florida i'm not going to tell you where they're going but it ain't as good as

jacksonville but they're here we're so grateful for them can you let them know that we are a church that shows honor and love and welcome would you stand to your feet would you help me welcome pastor shane johnson come on rise church he's got a word for you today man it's so special to be here you may be seated what an honor it is to be here you know it's it's kind of fun that you guys are having your 250th birthday as a nation and this is the last sunday before the fourth of july and so to celebrate you've brought in a canadian pastor to preach praise god praise god how good is that hey i want to take a moment and honor your pastors it's a big deal do you love your pastors i know some of y'all when i took the mic were like i would have stayed home if i know wasn't pastor adam but uh can i honor your pastors um who you're doing life with is a picture of who you're becoming it literally is a mirror into who you're becoming and and so being around you guys changes us for the better and we would gladly orient a family vacation around getting time together with you and your family because as iron sharpens iron scripture says so one person sharpens another person and so and so what an honor it is to be here because not only are they leading a thriving church look at y'all this is summer i don't know what it's like here but where i'm from in the summertime nobody really wants to go to church because everyone's vacationing we only get about six weeks of sunshine you know what i mean so it's like if it happens just shut it down we're doing it um but you're here and you're beautiful um but you're leading a thriving church but it's not just about this church it's about beyond these walls and it's about the the network of pastoring other pastors and he said you know 40 plus past i think it's about you were saying this one is about 60 60 70 pastors that they lead through the network they serve as part of our lead pastors oversight which means that they provide care and leadership and wisdom to us in leading our churches so one more time i honor you thank you it's an honor for us to be here would you honor your pastors more time all right hey today i want to preach a message uh and go to god's word with you here's a title today a miraculous journey a miraculous journey god's gonna do some miracles in the house today daniel chapter 6 verses 26 and 27 say this it's a prophetic statement about who our god is and says this for he is the living god how many thankful our god's alive he's not dead he's not done moving he's not done working no he's the living god he's in this room today he is he's moving in us and he will endure forever his kingdom will never be destroyed and his rule will never end and then this is what our god does and if you're a follower of jesus in the room today

you already know this because you've experienced it he rescues you and then he saves you and he's not done when he saved you that would have been enough but he goes on and he performs miraculous signs and wonders in your life in heaven and on the earth that's who our our god is and today i want to bring you this message because who spoke those words might not be who you think it is we'll come back to that at the end let me set up where we're going today with a little bit of a story so my wife rachel and i we've been married now for 20 years praise god when we first got married we would do things young couples would do we lived in a 400 square foot basement suite apartment and i remember one night we had a pillow fight and i had had conversations with my dad about marriage like you know what's what's good and they'd had a successful long-lasting marriage so i'd asked him a lot of questions we'd gone to pre-marriage counseling with pastors in our lives but in this moment of the pillow fight i didn't have the answer to the question that i needed no one had answered the question which i now had which was how hard can i hit my wife with a pillow i don't know so i went light and then i thought the pillow fight was over i thought the pillow fight was over i got a woman of god for a wife i've got a feisty woman of god for a wife she turned out the lights it was pitch black i'm sitting up in bed with my eyes wide open when suddenly my retina slammed into the back of my skull my beautiful wife had hit me in the face with her pillow with my eyes wide open i thought you could have blinded me i can't see her all i can hear is the sound of laughter she says she's enjoyed this she doesn't know that i'm nearly blind you ever been hit in the face with an object by the person who's pledged to love you for the rest of their life so i'll tell you what i did in that moment i made a pledge i didn't say it out loud but in my mind i made a pledge i'm gonna get this woman of god back one day funny thing happened 19 years passed never thought about it again but then one night i thought i've not gotten her back yet so i closed the blackout blinds turned out the lights and i'll tell you what 19 years into marriage you got a great idea of how hard you can hit your wife with a pillow i didn't want to hit her back in the face with her eyes wide open so i just took a swing at her legs and she starts i mean she's you can't do that what are you doing i said you remember 19 years ago she says quote and script she's like first corinthians 13 love keeps no record of wrongs

i said there's no record of wrongs babe this is a pillow fight that hasn't ended yet and she said you're right it hasn't ended yet you better sleep with your eyes wide open i sleep with a helmet now glory to god but we're canadians we like hockey it's fine i didn't see it coming and i tell you that story for this far more serious reason is that some of you in your lives right now are walking through something that you did not see coming you didn't see the pain in your marriage coming you didn't see the pain of heartbreak coming you didn't see the pain of betrayal coming you didn't see pain in your body coming and when you walk through a moment or a season that you did not see coming there is a temptation we all know it to say if i'm going through this then god is not with me and so what i want us to see today is that a young man in scripture had to walk through some stuff that he did not see coming is that a young man in scripture had to walk through some stuff that he did not see coming but because he stayed faithful to the journey he found himself in one of the greatest miracles that we find anywhere in scripture a miracle that we tend to overlook but i think once you see it you will realize there have been very few miracles like this in all of history so what i want us to see through the life of daniel is three tests daniel had to pass on the way to the miracle we're going to start out in daniel chapter 1 verse 1 daniel 1 verse 1 says this in the third year of the reign of king jehiakim king of judah nebuchadnezzar who is the king of babylon came to jerusalem and he wasn't there to give him his son and he was not there to give him his Hugs and high fives like it was Rise Church on a Sunday morning. Pastor Adam said, turn around and give somebody a high five and a handshake, and a wonderful woman of God in your church gave me a very big hug, and I thought, man, this is a good church right here. Like, this is, come on, come on, shout out the hospitality. Southern hospitality in the house of God. I'm telling you. You can, I think y'all should come

to Resonate Church in Canada together. Can we do that? Like, can we just do a road trip? Like a family thing? Let's all do it. We got mountains, we got ocean, we got beaches. I mean, it's like, it's like here, but better. And so it's, God bless America. In Daniel chapter one, we find immediately at the start of the book that Daniel had to pass, number one, if you're taking notes, write this down. Daniel had to pass the test of unexpected. The unexpected test. Here's the context. Daniel, scholars would suggest to us, was merely a teenager. And this was the first invasion of Babylon into Jerusalem. This was some 600 years before Jesus. And what they would do is when they would invade another nation, Babylon would take the best, the brightest, the youngest, and they would lead them off into exile because they believed that they could change the minds of these young people and lead them into leadership in their nation. They didn't want the older people who had already established who they were. They wanted the young minds. And so they took Daniel and they marched him off

into exile. What do you do when suddenly your life looks nothing like you wanted, hoped, or expected it to look? Daniel's been marched across two deserts. He's 1,000 miles away from home. Shout out your Canadian pastor who just did the conversion from the right way into whatever you guys use. Come on, somebody. 1,000 miles away from home. Can you picture it as a teenager? Imagine one day someone walked into your high school classroom, you were in grade 10, and they just said, hey, you're coming with me. And they marched you across deserts 1,000 miles away from home. Daniel is having to pass the unexpected test. For Rachel and I, when, well, I already mentioned when we first got married, there was pillow fights, there was young love, but there was also some challenges we had to walk through early in our marriage. Long before we ever got into ministry, I worked as a chartered professional accountant, a CPA, and I know some of you looked at me today and you thought that the moment you saw me, you're like, this guy was a CPA. But here's what happened. We felt God spoke to us and said that I was to quit my job and volunteer at our church for a period of two years, a radical step of faithful obedience.

But after God spoke that calling to our hearts, my hands went numb from overuse. It was early in my career, you're working long hours, I would come home and study further. And so my hands went numb from overuse, and Rachel can attest to this, that I couldn't wear long-sleeved shirts anymore because of the pain of anything touching those nerves. She would have to help me cut my food at dinnertime because the use of my hands was practically gone. And the company that I worked for hired a guy to travel around and type for me. And so I thought, well, there's no way I could quit this job. If I quit this job, imagine putting on my next cover letter. You've gotta hire me and you've gotta hire a guy that types for me. I'm not, like, I'm a two-for-one package. I thought, if I don't stay here, I'll never get another job again. So here I am, and I believe there's a call of God on my life, but everything is standing in the way. It doesn't look like I thought it would look. And thank God I had a faith-filled wife who looked at me in that 400-square-foot basement suite apartment and said, that company is not our provider, our God is our provider. We're gonna do what God told us to do. So I got ready to walk into my boss's office to quit my job, but God had one more little wrinkle

for us before I went in to quit. God spoke to us and said that he wanted us to give away everything that we had in our bank account. We were $30,000 in debt from all of our schooling. We had $3,000 in the bank account. We wrote a check and we gave it all away, and then I walked into my boss's office to quit my job. And pause there for a moment. I'm not telling you, everybody in the room today, that you need to write a check for everything you've got. Like, if you're gonna do something that radical, you better be sure it was God. Like, you gotta know the angel's name that told you to do it, do you know what I'm saying? Like, you need to be sure, and quit your job, volunteer at your church full-time, all that. I'm not saying that you need to do that, but I am saying that on the journey of faith, God will always call you to steps of radical, faithful obedience. And if you found yourself never having to say yes to a step of radical, faithful obedience, can I just lovingly challenge you? He said I was family. You might be missing out on the miracle God has on the other side of your next sacrifice. You might be missing out on the blessing God has on the other side of faithful obedience. Rachel and I had always tithed, but this was that over and above.

We'd always given 10% to God, but this. was that when he calls you to more. So we gave it all away. I walked into my boss's office. His name was Peter Bond. I walked into Peter's office and I said, Peter, I'm gonna quit my job, volunteer full-time at our church. And he looked across the desk at me and he said, how are you gonna pay your bills? I still remember it vividly. I looked back at him and I said, Peter, I don't know. I'm a man of faith and I'm gonna trust God. He was not a Christian, nor was he a generous man. And he looked back across the desk at me and he said, he hadn't consulted the other partners. He looked back across the desk at me and he said, I wanna keep paying you. I said, oh, okay. But then I said this back to him, I said, I'm not sure I can receive that with integrity because if you're doing that to get me to come back, I don't know if I'm coming back. And he looked back at me and he said, I don't think I'm doing this to get you to come back. I just think it's what I need to do. If you've never joined the journey of generosity, you cannot outgive God. He is bigger than your need. He's a better supplier than you are.

Oh, I know you've got some skills and I know you went to school, but he's bigger and he's stronger and he's able in Jesus' name. So let me ask you the question again, what unexpected battle are you facing? Where in your life does it look different than you expected and you've fallen into the temptation to say if I'm going through this, then God can't be with me today. But picture Daniel 1,000 miles away from home in Babylon, still praying. Picture Daniel 1,000 miles away in Babylon, not even knowing the miracle that's to come, but saying I'm gonna pass the test of what's unexpected and I'm gonna stay faithful. Number one, Daniel had to pass the unexpected test. Here's the second test Daniel had to pass. Number two, Daniel had to pass the culture test. The culture test, here's what it says in verse seven of chapter one. Then the chief of staff of Babylon renamed them, these Hebrew young men, with these Babylonian names. Daniel was called Belteshazzar. So when they got these teenagers to Babylon, they said we don't want you to have your Hebrew names anymore. We're gonna give you some Babylonian names. We're gonna give you a new identity. Now the name Daniel means God is my judge. It's a God-first identity.

The name Belteshazzar that they wanted to name him means protect the king. Do you see it? It's a man-first identity. And it's 2,500 years later, but culture's still trying to do the same thing to our kids, right? Change their understanding from a God-first perspective to a man-first perspective to say you're not who God made you to be. You're ever who you think you wanna be. Culture's trying to do the same to older men and women, saying your business isn't for the kingdom of God. No, your business is primarily for you, and you just give a little bit off. No, come on, how many know we need to get back to a God-first reality, a God-first identity? And one of the things I love about your church, and I know this is my first time in the church, but we've got a bond between us, and I love about your pastors is the difference between you and the culture that you live in. Like I'm thankful that America was built on Christian values. America, in God we trust. The other day, we were in South Carolina as part of this trip, and we were in, someone in the front row just said, ooh, I don't know what that was about, but we need healing in the nation in Jesus' name.

Father, let it come through a Canadian today. I just impart unity to the nation in Jesus' name. So we're in this Mellow Mushroom in South Carolina, and several people have on Christian hats and Christian t-shirts, and if you're from Vancouver, you understand that just doesn't happen. And so my daughter, she's 10 years old, she says to me, dad, why are there so many Christians here? And I did my best to paint the picture of American history to say this country was founded on a God-first identity. But how many know we've drifted? And that's what I love about your church is your church is like, we're gonna take a stand. We're gonna make a dent in our generation. We're gonna pull things back to a God-first identity, and maybe you're here today and you'd say, I've actually drifted from a God-first identity back to a me-first identity. My decisions are about me. Where I choose to live is about me. What kind of house I have, I don't even consult God. How I spend my time in my day, I don't even ask God, what would you have me do today? How do you want me to spend my time? How do you want me to spend my energy? God, what do you want me to do with my life? And you've kind of drifted from a God-first identity over to a man-first identity, and the goodness of God brought you here today

to say it's time to walk on back to a God-first identity. You know what I love about the book of Daniel is the title. The book of Daniel is written about Daniel. It's not called the book of Belteshazzar. Because Daniel never allowed them to change his name. And the Bible doesn't tell us how Daniel went about keeping his name, but I have an imagination and I like to picture it sometimes. As we've already said, scholars would suggest these were teenagers, so now picture Daniel, he's a little older, he's in grade 12 in Babylon. He's sitting there and the chief of staff is leading the class, and the teacher looks out and says, Belteshazzar, I need you to answer this question that's up on the board here about Babylonian history. And Daniel says nothing. And the teacher says, hey, Belteshazzar, Belteshazzar, I need you to answer the question, son, that's on the board. And Daniel says nothing. And the teacher walks over to Daniel and says, Belteshazzar, I'm going to need an answer. And I like to picture Daniel looking up at the teacher saying, you're going to have to call me Daniel. Because you can march me across a couple deserts, and you can take me a couple thousand miles and 1,600 kilometers away from home, but you cannot have my God-first identity. You might put me in a university class in Jacksonville, tell me that I need to answer this from a man-first, science-first, people-first perspective, but I'm still going to show up in my university classroom and answer from a God-first perspective, because I'm going to pass the culture test.

We're going to make a dent in our day. We're going to make a dent in our age. We're going to make a dent because God called you to this city and this time to make a difference. We're going to pass the culture test. What kind of youth ministry produces Daniels? On Wednesday night, get together to pray. Worship God. Come on, somebody. There's a move of God already happening, and there's a move of God to come in the youth of this generation. There's a Daniel generation. So number one, Daniel had to pass the test of the unexpected. Number two, he had to pass the culture test. And then thirdly and finally, Daniel had to pass. And once again, it's a hard test to pass. Daniel had to pass the test of remaining. It's interesting, as you study the book of Daniel, we see that Daniel had to serve under three different ungodly kings. The first we already saw was Nebuchadnezzar. The second was a man by the name of Belshazzar. And the third was a king by the name of Darius. Daniel 6 tells a little bit of the story of Daniel serving under Darius. It says this, then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him. So at this point, Daniel is now under this third ungodly king, and he's distinguishing himself because of an excellent spirit. How many want to have an excellent spirit? Doesn't matter who my boss is. I'm going to show up to work with an excellent spirit.

You don't decide my attitude. My attitude is formed by my God. Daniel shows up with an excellent spirit. Daniel passed the test of remaining, staying faithful to God through ungodly king after ungodly king after ungodly king. Amen. This one's personal for me. Share a little bit about our story as a church in Vancouver, Canada. And I believe there's application for you in Italian for you. So a couple of years ago, we're nine years old now as a church. We've seen a move of God in Vancouver, a city so far from Jesus. We've seen radical salvations. Recently, in three weeks, we saw 93 people give their lives to Jesus. So we've been looking for a building because we meet in a high school, and we got no more room to grow, and they don't want us to grow. They've said, you can have no more rooms. You're like, this is what you have is you've grown as much as you can grow. So we've been taking some buildings to our city. A couple of years ago, when Pastor Adam and Pastor Rebecca were with us, we went and prayed over one of those buildings. We took it to our city, and we said, hey, can we turn this into a church? This is for lease. Can we turn this into a church? And our city said, no, you can't turn that into a church. We said, why? This is the kind of warehouse that churches all over North America turn regularly into churches. They said, you can't turn that into a church. We thought, well, that's just a one-off building for some reason. The next 19 landlords we went to, we said, would you allow us to put a church in your building?

And 19 out of 19 said, you want to pay the full price? We said, yeah, sure. They said, yeah, we don't want a church in here. But the 20th was American. I was like, all right, we might have a chance. Sure enough, they said, yeah, it would be great if you put a church in there. We took that building to the planter. department of our city and they said you can't put a church in there. We appealed the decision. You ever appeal a decision to the group of people that made the first decision? We were rejected again and again and again and again and again and then we had a meeting with the planning department of our city and our planning department said it's not no it's never. We're like well this can't be let's get a meeting with the mayor and I know the mayor and we were a big city it takes some time to get into his office but we got a meeting with the mayor went in and sat down with our mayor. I said mayor planning has said that they would never again rezone any piece of property in this city for a church and our mayor said it's true it'll never happen again. Not only would they say it will never happen again they said we've actively changed the land use designation on current churches so the moment you want a church to not be a church it's already done you can turn it into a 30-story high-rise overnight. It's not no it's never and they said to us here's here's your only hope go start a business rent a facility and then we'll let you turn it into a church on Sundays but you have to pay full tax and it has to be a for-profit company because we'll never do it for a church. Babylon right I share all that story for a couple reasons number one because when you find yourself in Babylon you've got two choices give up or dig in and say I'm not leaving and of all the times and places and spaces and seasons and countries and cities God could have put me and he put me here for now and if it's hard then he put something inside of me so I could walk through this and remain and that's for you that's not just for us that's not just you're in you're in your own Babylon you've got your own Babylon it's your high school it's your university it's your workplace it's your unsaved family and God says you're going to have to pass the test of unexpected in culture and the test of remaining so one more piece of the story we got together with our next level relational network group leaders

this is a couple years ago and pastor Adam and pastor Rebecca came up to us and they said all quiet like they're like can we talk to you guys outside we thought they're going to abduct us so we went outside because we trust them fearful but trusting and they said God spoke to us we know the battle that you're going through to get a facility in your city and God spoke to us that our church is to be a part of the answer to this we've taken it to our board and our board has unanimously approved this and they said we want to sew one hundred thousand dollars into your journey for a church and they said we want to sew one hundred thousand dollars into your journey for a church some of you already know that story some of you it's brand new come on praise God and what I love about that story and what I love about your church is that you God's building a thriving thing right here but you understand the principle that we're not about these seats and these walls we're about building the kingdom of God and we're about her his kingdom he will build our church God's got your next facility and your next facility and your next facility already in store and how many are thankful to be a part of a church that doesn't just ask you to give that says we live to give it's not just something we want from you it's something we actually do some of y'all just I mean there's maybe one or two people in the room you thought my church just wants my money you know that proves that this church does not is not after your money this church is after the kingdom of Jesus Christ so let's close out remember that scripture we read at the very beginning for he is the living God his kingdom will never end he rescues and saves and performs miraculous signs now you would think in the book of Daniel something that prophetic and something that powerful would have come from the mouth of Daniel but you know who actually said those words King Darius the third ungodly king because King Darius saw the miracle in Daniel's life and turned his life over to the living God remember we said there was a miracle that impacted the whole planet planet watch this rewind to verse 25 Daniel chapter 6 then King Darius sent this message to who the people of every race and every nation and every language which throughout the world.

King Darius had enough power to send a message to every race, every nation, and every language throughout the entire world. That means that every person on the planet got to hear this. This is what he wrote and said. Peace and prosperity to you. I decree that everyone throughout my kingdom should tremble with fear before the God of Daniel. Read this with me. For he is the living God, and he will endure forever. His kingdom will never be destroyed, and Israel will never end. He rescues and saves his people. He performs miraculous signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. All of the entire planet got to hear the message of God, because one man went to Babylon. One man got marched across two deserts. One man was 1,000 miles away from home, and he said, you can take me away from my home, but you can't take my God from me. Come on, stand up all over this place. You need a miracle in your life right now. Just put your hand over your heart. Let's begin to believe in faith. Maybe only you know what you're believing for, but God sees it. Just lift that up before your heavenly Father. Father, right now in the name of Jesus,

you see the miracles that we're believing for, and the faith level is high in this room, because we've heard about your miracles. We've heard, given testimony to your miracles, and now with the faith in you, not us, not even a church, but with faith in the mighty name of Jesus, we believe for healing in sick bodies, and we believe for financial breakthrough, and we believe for marriages to be restored, and we believe for sons and daughters away from God to come back to God in the mighty name of Jesus. Look, come on, come on, church. Pray with me right now. Pray with me in Jesus' name. God, you see it? And we raise the name of Jesus, the name that's above every name. You are Lord and Savior, and we are yours.