Good morning, and I'm glad you're here today. If you're a guest with us, thank you for being here. We hope you are blessed by the worship with us and being part of our church family, at least for a day.
Let's go to the Lord in prayer, and then we'll get right into His word.
Father, we are so thankful that we get to gather here in freedom. So many places in the world don't have this kind of access to be with other believers, to have songs of praise and worship, to be able to open the word of God freely without having to fear government interference or the attacks of our enemy.
Lord, we do have an enemy who will try to steal this word today that you're going to bring to our church family. As we are told in the parables, that's what he does. He loves to steal it, he loves to corrupt it, he loves to twist it.
And Lord, we are all so human. The person doing the speaking is human, and those who are listening are human. We all can misconstrue it, mishear it, misthink it, misrepresent it. Lord, just help us to see it, hear it, and experience it in the way you meant it.
Because we do want to stand strong. We do want to be solid and real and authentic in our faith. Help us, God, to keep from slipping, to keep from falling away from the truth and the faith that we have in you.
So would you just open every ear, every heart? Lord, if there are decisions to be made today, we pray that in your Spirit's leading, those can be obediently responded to. And if there's anyone who's struggling with anything that is hindering them right now as a believer, would you just speak peace and truth into their lives?
Your word is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path, and it helps us know how to go and where to go and the way we should go. So we open your word today, Lord, in gratitude and thankfulness for the truth of it. In Jesus' name, amen.
Would you open your Bible this morning, first of all, to Matthew chapter 14? Matthew chapter 14. The story I want to look at, and we're going to connect it in a little while to an Old Testament passage of Scripture. So today you're going to get some New Testament, you're going to get some Old Testament, but both passages are going to talk about one kind of common thing.
I know that many of us sometimes feel like we're just kind of about to go down. You know, we just finished studying the Book of Jonah this summer, and we saw how Jonah was thrown off of the boat, and he went down deep into the water, and the fish ate him, and then the fish threw him up, and he went and served God after that.
But a lot of times we feel like, well, I've been thrown overboard, or I'm the one who's been sinking. I'm the one who's going down. You ever feel that weight? You just feel like so many things are on you, like life circumstances, health situations, financial situations, bad relationships are going on, and you just kind of feel like you have been thrown in.
And instead of throwing you the life raft or the lifesaver, they threw you a big rock, and you feel like you're just going down. So I want us to look today at some scriptures that have to do with the fact that we have someone we can look to when we feel like we're sinking or when we feel like we're losing it or we feel like we're kind of losing control and going down by the circumstances of this life.
So let's look at this very famous story from Jesus and Peter. All the disciples are there, but it's pretty important what happened between Jesus and Peter.
So Jesus just fed the 5,000—a wonderful, marvelous miracle. You see something like that, and you go, "Wow, is there anything he can't do?" He took a few little pieces of bread and a few little fish, and he broke that up, and he fed 5,000 people—probably more like fifteen thousand when you consider women and children that might have been there, maybe even more than that.
So after the feeding of the 5,000, you think all the disciples will be pretty pumped up in their faith, you know, like, "Man, this is Jesus; he can do anything." And so they get on the boat.
Verse 22: "Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. And when evening came, he was there alone."
The disciples are out there on the water; they're trying to navigate. It's no big deal; they're all fishermen; they know how to run boats. But there's this storm that came up, and so the boat was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.
And in the fourth watch of the night, the latest possible time, he came to them walking on the sea. You know, when you just hear that, you just go, "Walking on the water? Yeah, that's just Jesus there, walking on the water." Can you imagine walking on the water? I'm not talking about a frozen lake that you ice skate on; this was stormy water. The waves are going, and he is walking on top of it. That's amazing!
And so they saw him walking on it, and they were terrified and said, "It's a ghost!" And they cried out in fear.
Like, why would they have thought it was a ghost? I mean, did they have a strong belief in ghosts back then? Did ghosts just come out when storms come up? Some of y'all might believe that, you know, because storms come up, and you get scared. But they thought Jesus was a ghost, and they cried out in fear.
But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, "Take heart; it is I; do not be afraid."
Now, that doesn't really come across in our church the way I think it would probably come across in maybe some other churches. "Take heart; it is I; don't be afraid." And we might think, "Well, we're never afraid; we never lose heart."
But the disciples are trying to figure all this out. Like, it's not bad enough that they're trying to figure out how did he feed 5,000 people with that little Lunchable, and now here he is walking on the water. It's like, "How's he doing this?"
But there was one guy on the boat that didn't just wonder how he was doing it; he said, "I think I would like to do that too." It was Peter.
So Peter answered in verse 28, "Lord, if that's you, command me to come to you on the water." Or like, "Let me come out there too. Give me the invitation to come out there too."
You know, you have the invitation also from Jesus—not to walk on the water, though that might be fun—but you have the invitation by Jesus to be on top of anything that would want to get you down.
And he said, "All right, Peter, come on."
So Peter got out of the boat, he walked on the water, and he came to Jesus. And about this time, we're all going, "Way to go, Peter! This is incredible! Not only is Jesus walking on the water, but so are you! This is amazing, Peter! You're walking on the water! Dude, how in the world is this happening?"
And Peter's on the water; I mean, he's just praising Jesus; he's loving this; he's thinking, "This is awesome! This is wonderful!"
But in verse 30, when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"
Lord, save me!
And Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?"
And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly, you are the Son of God."
So what I want you to see in the context of this message is that here was a disciple who set out to do something pretty incredible and amazing with Jesus and in the presence of Jesus and because of the invitation of Jesus.
But in the middle of all of it, he started sinking. You ever been there? Are you there today? Do you feel like you're sinking? Do you feel like you're going down, like the pressures and the powers and the circumstances of your life are just dragging you down?
The heat of Tomball is dragging you down; the circumstances of everything just feel like they're dragging you down, and you don't know what you're going to do about it.
And we look at this and we go, "Well, of course, you know, here's old Peter." Jesus comes along, and he has to say, "Peter, you of little faith."
And I have always looked at that not as a negative against Peter because Jesus could have looked at the boat and said, "Oh, you have none." Peter at least had enough faith to step out. But even though he stepped out, he is now thinking, and then Jesus rescues him.
So I can say a lot more about that in the context of just that one passage, but now let's go to Psalm chapter 73. I want you to see the comparison and the similarity between what we see in Psalm 73.
This is a Psalm of Asaph. We always think David wrote a lot of the Psalms, and he did, but this is not one of his.
And look at what he says: "Truly, God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled." Your Bible may say "slipped." "They had almost slipped; my steps had nearly slipped."
And here's why: even though God was good to him, and even though Peter is walking on the water and Jesus has granted him tremendous favor to do a miracle, it's like God has been good to us. Jesus has been good to me.
"I'm falling; I'm stumbling; it's like my feet are slipping. My steps had nearly slipped."
And here's why: "For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked."
Ever done that? Have you ever looked at the people who were not churchgoers or not Christians, and they don't act like they ever care anything about the ways of God, but they don't seem to have all the troubles you have?
You ever get envious of the wicked? Like, "Why do they have such prosperity? Why don't they ever get sick? Why don't they ever lose their job? Why doesn't their spouse ever leave them?"
I mean, why is it that their life seems to go better? Here I am, a believer in Jesus, and I follow him, and I try to be a disciple, but things aren't going so well for me.
And he said, "I looked at the arrogant, and I was envious of them, and I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death, and their bodies are fat and sleek."
Now, that was a good thing in the Old Testament. If I were to tell you, "Hey, you're looking fat and sleek," you wouldn't like that very much. But the songwriter means that it's like they're well-fed; they're blessed; they're not skin and bones; they're looking healthy, and they're not in trouble as others are.
"They're not stricken like the rest of mankind; therefore, pride is their necklace; violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness; their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff, and they speak with malice; loftily, they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens, and their tongues strut through the earth."
"Therefore, his people turn back to them and find no fault in them, and they say, 'How can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High?'"
"Behold, these are the wicked; they're always at ease; they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean."
Like, "I've been a Christian for nothing! I'm going to church; I'm reading the Bible; I'm praying, and it's not doing me any good because my feet are still stumbling, and I'm slipping."
He said, "All in vain I've kept my heart clean; I've washed my hands in innocence, and all day long I've been stricken and rebuked every single morning. And if I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed the generation of your children."
"But when I thought to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task until I went into the sanctuary of God, and then I discovered their end."
And look at how the story changes. Now he says, "Truly, you set them in slippery places, and you make them fall to ruin."
That is in eternity, on the day of judgment, how they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors, like a dream when one awakes. "Oh Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms."
"And when my soul was embittered, and when I was pricked in my heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand; you guide me with your counsel, and afterward, you will receive me into glory."
"Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
Okay, we'll stop there.
I want to talk to you about this concept of slippage—slipping, feeling as if you're overloaded, overwhelmed, to the point that you just think maybe I'm just not going to make it.
I mean, I'm praying every day; I read the Bible every day; I try to worship God; I try to do good deeds; I try to be a good person; I try to be a follower of Jesus Christ, but it just seems like the harder I try, the heavier the burden gets.
And Lord, I've been doing this for so long now that it just feels like I'm about to slip and not care anymore, not show up anymore, not pray anymore.
And what we see in both the New Testament story involving Peter and the Old Testament Psalm written by Asaph is that it was a problem of focus. There was a problem in how they chose to see things.
The psalmist said, "When I looked at the sinners and I saw how prosperous they are, when I looked at the evil, the wicked, the ungodly people, they don't make any pretense about being believers at all, and it seems like everything's going great for them."
It's really not, but when it's going hard for you, it looks that way. And he's looking at the unfairness of his own life, his own misery, his own struggle, and he's jealous, and he's angry, and he's envious, and he's even bitter, I think, because of a misplaced focus.
He had taken his eyes off of God.
So then we go to Matthew 14, and here's Peter walking on the water. It must have been one of the most thrilling days of Peter's life, I'm sure. I mean, there were probably some days in Peter's life he never forgot, but you know the Transfiguration, you know, when he went up on the mountain, Jesus, Moses, and Elijah showed up, and he even writes about that in his epistle.
The day when we were on the mountain—that had to be a great day. How about the day he raced the disciple John to the tomb, and he saw the risen, saw that the tomb was empty, and Jesus was risen? That had to be like a red-letter day.
How about the day of Pentecost? You know, and they're praying for days, and Jesus shows up through the power of the Holy Spirit, and Peter, who probably I don't think had ever really preached a sermon to that point, he stands up and preaches the very first sermon of the church age, and three thousand people get saved.
I think I would remember that if that had ever happened to me.
But this day when he stepped out of the boat and walked on the water had to be like one of the most incredible experiences that Peter ever had because he called out to Jesus and said, "If it's really you, let me do what you're doing."
And I don't see Jesus going, "Nah, Peter, I got my issues with you. You're not there yet. I'll tell you what, go get some things straightened out in your life, Peter, and then maybe we'll take a water-walking lesson."
Jesus didn't do that to him, and he doesn't do that to you either when you take your prayers to him. Jesus really isn't up there with some kind of heavenly calculator, you know, calculating your sins and your good deeds versus your bad deeds and then going, "Do we want to answer this prayer or not?"
I love the way I see Jesus responding here. "Oh, Peter, you want to be with me? Well, come on, dude!"
And amazingly, he stepped out of the boat, and he started walking on the water.
Now, I don't know how far he walked; the novel doesn't say, but he's going towards Jesus, and all of a sudden, he gets out of the boat; he's looking at Jesus. Now he gets out of the boat; he's on the water, and once he starts looking at the waves and the storm, as he took his eyes off the Lord, he sunk.
He started sinking.
Now, in both cases, both the psalmist and in Peter, there was an issue of a misplaced focus. The psalmist was looking at lost people who seemed to have it better than him, and Peter is looking at the terrible effects of this storm that was tossing the boat.
He was looking at his own mortality, his own impending doom.
And so the cure is to make this kind of short and sweet. The cure for slippage, if you're in that place, if you feel like you're kind of slipping a little bit yourself, but if you look at verse 25 of Psalm 73, here's the essence of the end of the line where both Peter and the psalmist are concerned.
Here's what he says: "Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire except you."
Here's the thing that keeps us from slipping: to come to that place in our life where our highest desire, our ultimate want in life, is to want to be close to Jesus, to be like Jesus, and be with him.
That's what Peter wanted: "Jesus, if it's you, let me come to you."
And the psalmist is just saying, "I don't desire anything but you."
I had been desiring what my lost friends have. They're not sick; they have a lot of prosperity; they got the big boat, the big neighborhood, the big cars. You know, all of a sudden, he sees their end and what's going to happen to them for eternity, and he realizes that it is not him who's slipping, but it is they who are on slippery ground because they will not be standing on the day of judgment.
And the cure and the prevention of slipping is to desire nothing but God.
"Lord, save me!"
There are some lessons I see from these two chapters that are kind of similar that teach us a similar lesson.
First of all, life is not fair. Get over it. It's not going to go always the way you want it. Just because you're a moral person, just because you're a spiritual person, just because you're a church attender doesn't mean God owes you a better existence or a better circumstance.
It's not always going to be fair. One of the best men in all the Bible, Job, lost everything—ten kids. Can you imagine? He lost ten kids. You talk about reality—try standing at the grave of ten of your children.
And yet he still had the faith to say, "God is good. God is good."
And the truth is that I don't know what you're going through, have been going through, or will go through at some point in the future. God allows us to get into difficult circumstances that don't seem fair to us to teach us things about him, to teach us to trust him.
If nothing ever went wrong in your life, you might never trust God. But life is not fair. He lets things happen to us to teach us how to trust him.
Many of you would probably say, and I will concur with this in my own life, the best lessons I've ever learned about faith in God have been learned in the hard times—when we were struggling or when it seemed hard to keep going, when you feel like you're about to slip. Trust God.
Secondly, if you live your life by focusing only on your circumstances, you will not be trusting God. Don't let your circumstances dictate to you whether or not God loves you.
"Well, I guess God doesn't love me; he let this happen. He let this bad thing come into my life, and I guess he doesn't love me anymore, so I guess I won't be happy anymore because I'm determined to be happy if my circumstances are good. But when they turn bad, I turn unhappy."
Don't let your circumstances dictate whether or not God loves you. Many people do that. Frankly, many people over the years that I've been a pastor, announced for so many years, when things are going tough in people's lives, they come to me, and they'll say things like, "What have I done wrong? What is God mad at? Why doesn't God love me anymore?"
He loves you always. He'll never not love you. He'll always love you. And though you are struggling or though you feel like you're slipping and the weight is getting too much on you, that doesn't mean God doesn't love you. It just means he knows what you can handle.
And if you focus only on your circumstances, that means you had to take your eyes off of him and onto that—my sickness, my financial circumstance, my job, whatever, my kids. You took your eyes off of him and put them on somebody else.
We see also, especially from the chapter in Psalms, that God is a God of justice. Don't worry. You may be looking at those people and going, "Man, it's not fair that the devil's people get all the good stuff in the world."
And be assured that God is a God of justice, and as the psalmist pointed out, they're in a very slippery place, and they will sometimes and someday have to answer to God.
And if they do not learn to come to know God and trust him to be their Lord and Savior, they will be ultimately destroyed.
Now, you think you're being destroyed, but you'll never be cut off from God for eternity. They will. Anyone who doesn't know Jesus Christ will be destroyed for eternity.
And by destroyed, I don't mean cease to exist. I mean cut off from God, living in separation from God in a place called hell—the ultimate destruction.
Just trust God; he knows what he's doing. I mean, sometimes you just think, "But God, I had a better idea than what happened."
You ever been there? You ever been to work, you know, where like you had something planned out, and it's supposed to go this way, and it didn't go that way, and you just thought, "That's it; it's all over"?
And I have this circumstance in my life, and those of you who've been around here a long time have probably heard me tell this, but the reason I tell it periodically is because it reminds me of a good lesson that I needed to learn.
When Diane and I were just right out of college, I was pastoring the first little church that I was ever serving at—Concord Baptist Church. It was a little church out in the country, about 20-25 people.
And I was ready, I thought, to move on to bigger and better things by moving to Fort Worth, Texas, and going to seminary. I wanted to get intelligent. I'm going to go to seminary; I'm going to learn about being a preacher and a pastor and so forth.
And so you do what all pastors do. You get your resume together, and you find out, "Okay, so where could I move to?" And I think now that was kind of a worldly thing to do. I didn't think I trusted God enough to move me where he wanted me to be.
So I was eager to get to Fort Worth, Texas, or near there where I could attend the seminary and get my Master's Degree in Divinity and hopefully be a better pastor.
So I got word that there was this church in a little town—I won't say the name of it because I don't want anybody's relatives or something to pass this along—but I thought this would be a good place for me to move up a little bit to a little bit bigger church, and I'll be close to Fort Worth, and I could go to seminary and still keep on being a pastor.
And so it worked out that they got my resume through another friend of mine who passed it along to them, and so they said, "Yeah, we think we'd like to hear you preach."
And so we made a date to set a date to go and preach in a little church in Clifton, Texas. It was like it was going to be a neutral site, right?
So the little church that I was preaching for wasn't in Clifton; it was in a different town, but they were going to drive to Clifton, and we were going to drive to Clifton, and I was going to preach my grand great sermon, and the next thing you know, I'd be living in their community, pastoring their church.
So we showed up at our place where we were supposed to be. I might mention that while Diane and I were studying my sermon while Diane was driving, it was icy; we ran off the road twice that day.
And I said, "I don't think we're supposed to be here." But we got there, and I'm sitting there on the front row with the representative from the church. That church didn't have a pastor either, and so there was some representative of the church that was sitting with me.
And he was knowing that this other church was going to send a search committee to listen to me preach. And so we kept waiting, waiting, waiting; they didn't show up. They never came.
And so we did the songs, and I got up to preach, and right about the time I preached, they came in. This search committee came in; they marched in like a row of ducks, and they went down to like the second row.
They followed this one guy who was the head honcho of the committee, and they all followed him in. When he sat down, they sat down, and when he said amen, they said amen. It was like they followed this guy, right?
So I preached. That wasn't so bad, if I say so myself. Somebody joined the church that day. Like, "Golly, I'm just a visiting pastor, right?"
And I'm going like, "I'm in! This is it!" But this church is going to want me.
And so as soon as they welcomed those new members, I walked over to the dude who was obviously the pastor, the search committee chairman, and I introduced myself.
And here's what he said to me: "I believe we'll keep looking, brother."
"You don't even want to talk to me?"
"No, we've heard all we need to hear. I risk my life to drive down here; my wife ran us off the road twice. You're not even going to take me to Dairy Queen?"
"No, we'll keep looking."
Okay, all right, sure made sense to me that I thought I was supposed to go there, but I didn't.
Now, interesting to know that that particular church was on the south side of Lake Whitney. Many of you know where Lake Whitney is, south of Fort Worth.
And in about a year, year and a half later, there was a church on the north side of Lake Whitney that got my resume, and they wanted to hear me.
And so we went there; I preached, and they called me to be their pastor.
And an interesting thing about that is if I hadn't gone there, I probably wouldn't be here because there was a man in the church at that man at that church who knew a man at Graceview.
And 29 years ago, when this church was last looking for a pastor, the guy from Graceview called the friend up there, and he said, "Man, I don't know what we're going to do. We can't find a pastor anywhere, and I don't know why y'all are giving them such a hard time, but you were."
And he said, "Well, why don't you call my old pastor, Brian, and Donna, who's up in the Panhandle? Maybe he'd want to come, you know, to the big city and be a pastor there."
So their pastor search committee of Graceview contacted me, and after about a year of talking and praying and all these things, I ended up as your pastor.
Now, here's how you know God works. After I became the pastor of that church on the north side of Lake Whitney, one morning I went duck hunting on Lake Whitney with a cousin.
We went to the town on the south side of Lake Whitney that had rejected me as their pastor, right? And there was a little bitty convenience store, and I said, "I told my cousin, 'Hey, let's get some coffee. It's cold; let's go in and get a cup of coffee.'"
So we go in the store, as I always do anytime I go anywhere, I struck up a conversation with the lady running the cash register.
"How are y'all doing today? We're going duck hunting; yeah, I thought we'd get some coffee; it's cold."
And I said, "You by any chance go to the First Baptist Church here?"
And she said, "Yeah, I do. I'm a member of that church."
I said, "Well, that's interesting. I said, about a year and a half ago or two years ago or so, your search committee, your pastor search committee came and listened to me over in Clifton, but they decided to go with somebody else."
And interesting that I ended up on the other side of Lake Whitney.
And that's kind of an interesting thing, but here's what I'll never forget what the lady said to me: "Well, I wish they'd have chosen you because if anybody would beat that idiot we've got now."
Thank you, Lord!
I mean, I don't need any more people thinking I'm an idiot, especially not the gal who runs the cash register in the one place in town where everybody goes.
But I just was so disappointed. I will tell you that that day in Clifton when that pastor search committee said, "Sorry, brother, we'll keep looking," and I was going, "God, what are you doing? Like, this made so much sense."
And God had a bigger and a better plan, and I'm so thankful that what I wanted and what I wanted to do and what made sense to me wasn't what God did.
He has a way of working through your circumstances and working in ways that you don't see.
Now, here's the fourth thing that I see: desiring closeness with God is what will keep you from slipping or drifting into lukewarmness or backsliding.
Desiring closeness with God, being intimate with God, spending time with him will keep you from getting wrapped up in self-pity, anger, jealousy, envy, judgmentalism.
Just draw close to God. Do whatever it takes in your life to read his word, worship him. Don't just worship here when you come to church, but worship him every day.
The perfect day to worship God is every day.
And number five, know this: that anytime you go where God is leading you, it'll always be an adventure of faith.
And it should be. It should be an adventure of trusting, having to trust God when you don't know how well that's going to turn out.
Now, I'll just use Lauren in our Grace View Christian School. A year before last, we didn't have a Grace View Christian School; we had an ELC, which is our kind of our preschool program, and it was really successful, and it was waiting list all the time, and it was really going good.
But God put it on Lauren's heart that we needed to also have a Christian school, but we didn't know the first thing about whether or not it would be successful.
And so they jumped in, and they dived in headfirst and said, "We think God is telling us to do this, and we're going to do it."
And so this past year, we had our first-ever class. There weren't many kids to it, but it was a wonderful, wonderful experience, and we got a great teacher in that deal because God had this already knowing what was going to happen.
And now this year, they've increased it to two more grades, and all of that is done solely and completely by faith.
And what I believe is going to happen is that that's going to continue to grow and be blessed by God because we're stepping out on faith.
And I think Grace View needs to learn to step out on faith more. And then not just like, "Yes, building this building was a major step of faith," but we can't let that be the end of it.
We got to still step out in faith and do things that we don't know the end of, but doing it because God told us to.
Going where God sends you is always an adventure of faith.
And number six, because he loves you—well, don't miss this point—because God loves you, he will always be there to rescue you.
Well, I know somebody didn't get rescued; they died. That's the ultimate rescue.
I mean, I don't want anybody to die, you know, when they're younger, before their time, or you know, a terrible tragic accident or something like that.
But literally, in death, it is like—here's what I call death: it's the divine embrace.
I mean, I don't know what you think death is. I've watched a lot of people die. I've been in the room; I've held their hands; I've seen them leaving.
And there is always something about Christian people when they die. They are not just stepping out into the blind fog of nothingness; they are being embraced into something that we can never see, but they see it.
And when a person dies, they are rescued.
But a lot of times, God will rescue you in this life because he loves you and he cares for you.
Just keep your focus on him; keep yourself set on him.
And so determine this this morning: what is going to be your attitude? What is going to be your focus?
Are you going to tend to focus on your health or your finances or your job that's not going well or your kids that aren't going well and things in life that don't seem to be going?
I mean, like the government or the country or things that are going on in this country, you're just going to look at that?
Sometimes I'm afraid we do. I know I get in a lot of conversations with people.
"Well, I don't like this; I don't like that; I don't like the Congress; I don't like the Senate; I don't like the Supreme Court; I don't like the president; I don't like this and that and the governor and the mayor and everything else."
And I think maybe we're spending too much time looking at those things.
I know it's kind of quiet right now because some of you like looking at those things and becoming pessimistic and negative.
And while I'll be the first to tell you I don't like very much of anything that's happening governmentally in this country, I don't really know who is the king of this country; it is the Lord Jesus Christ.
So we, as believers, Christians, and followers, need to pray even for those that we don't like, that we didn't vote for, that we don't seem to care about very much.
What is going to be your focus? The economy? The politics? Your health? What your neighbor has that you don't have?
I think in both the psalmist and Peter, when they realigned their focus on the Redeemer and the Savior, it took the circumstances of a storm and a bad attitude totally away because they got to reset and they reset their priorities, seeing who Jesus is.
I want to encourage you, church, in these turbulent days where you just don't even want to watch the news anymore, and you're just wondering, "Where's the next mass killing going to be?"
And I'm not saying we put our head in the sand and be like an ostrich because I've always said that anytime a Christian puts his head in the sand, he's showing what he's really showing the rest of the world is not a very positive sign, right?
Be aware of what's happening, but don't take your eyes off of Jesus.
And if you don't like something that's happening in this country, take it to the Lord in prayer. Get your eyes refocused on him, and you may discover that he resets your hope and your faith.
And like Peter, you discover that Jesus will rescue you when you feel like you're sinking.
And I wondered many times about that. Like, how do you think Jesus did that? Do you think Jesus rolled his eyes and went, "Oh, Peter, not you again"?
Do you think maybe he just went over there and grabbed him by the hand and just walked him to the boat, and he's like, he's sliding on top of the water?
"Like, Peter, you always fail; you just always screw up; you always mess up."
No, I don't think he did that at all. I think he said, "Peter, oh, you have little faith, but someday your faith is going to get bigger. And I'm so glad you had a little faith, Peter, because remember what he said about the mustard seed? You know, if you just have a little faith like the size of a mustard seed, you can move mountains."
And we've looked at this wrongly. "Oh, Peter, the guy of little faith."
Well, he could have looked at the boat and said, "What were the rest of you guys doing? You had no faith."
And I think he rescued Peter lovingly, redemptively, and I think he said, "Peter, I'm just glad you wanted to be with me. Now let's get in the boat, and let's go where we're going next."
He didn't chastise Peter; he didn't ridicule him, make fun of him in front of the other disciples. He rescued him, and he'll rescue you if you feel like you're sinking today.
If you feel like you're slipping, and maybe you're afraid to admit that because we are sometimes, you know, come to church, both have it all together, look at all, you know, all the things are working in my life, and you want to come to church, and it's like what your social media platform says is really true about you—everything's wonderful, and it's not.
And it's okay to acknowledge, "I need prayer; I need to be lifted up; I need encouragement; I need my family; I need my family of faith to come around me, and I need the Lord Jesus Christ."
He will keep you from slipping.
Let's go to the Lord together in prayer.
Father, I'm thankful that you are strong and steady. Jesus, I'm thankful that when Peter fell, he didn't drag you down, but you lifted him up.
And it's a reminder to us today that you can lift us up too. I don't know what's happening with everybody's life in here. Maybe there's some real struggles going on, and there may be someone this morning that this message was for, and they just feel like, "My feet are about to stumble; I'm about to slip, and maybe I'm thinking about giving up. I'll drop out of church; it doesn't seem to be working for me."
And so, Lord, I don't know what to do next, and you brought him here today to hear the message of reset your focus.
Get it off of you; get it off your circumstance. I'm not saying those things aren't real and they don't matter because we know they do, but we need to put our eyes on the one who's bigger than our health problems, bigger than our financial needs.
We need to put our eyes on the one who is bigger than struggles that a church may have.
And Jesus, we want to see you because we know that there's nothing impossible for you, that there's power in your name, and there's power in your blood, and there's power in your grace.
And we want to be the people, God, who really live out in a daily, authentic way that we can come to you honestly and say, "Lord, help me; I'm slipping," and you reach out.
We need that. Maybe somebody in this room needs that.
Maybe, Lord, there's someone in this room who's never accepted you as their Lord and Savior, and they are slipping in the worst way. They're slipping day by day into a Christless eternity that will be separated from you, and they need to come to you today and say, "Jesus, save me," like Peter did.
And you do, and you will because that's what you came for—to seek and save those who are lost.
If there's anyone in this room today, Lord, who knows that they're slipping into eternity without Jesus, could this be their day when they would call out to you?
They don't call to the church; they don't call to me. I'm not the giver of salvation; you are.
Help them to call to you, Lord, and say, "Jesus, you know where I am, and you know why I'm sinking. You know what my struggle is, and I'm asking you, Jesus, to save me."
Maybe there's some Christians in this room that are struggling with some really heavy stuff. Maybe some relationships are really wrong, and there's some habitual sins going on, and it just feels like the pattern of that habitual addiction to that sin, whatever it may be, is dragging them down.
And they can come to you today and acknowledge that, "Lord, I am struggling with," and then fill in the blank, "and it's getting me down, and it's making me even wonder if I'm saved."
And they can come to you today without any fear of retribution or ridicule, and they can find that you are the same Jesus who stood on the water and rescued a sinking disciple, and that you would rescue them from their habitual pattern of sinning.
I pray, Lord, that you would rescue families and marriages that are struggling today and people who are struggling with stuff going on in this world, and they can't separate themselves from the politics of it, and it's causing them to be cynical and jaded about a lot of things.
And Lord, help us to remember that all of this stuff in this world and anything that's happening in Austin or Washington, D.C., or the city of Houston or anywhere else, that's all going to fade away.
And one day, we're going to see you sitting on the throne—King of Kings, Lord of Lords—and there's not going to be any more of this stuff in the world like we struggle with today.
And I pray, Lord, that you help us to keep our eyes on you even when it seems like there's so much bad to look at because the enemy is an accuser. He loves to drag us down; he loves to make us take our eyes off of you and focus on us and what we're dealing with.
So, Lord Jesus, would you help everyone in this room today, and from this day on, keep their gaze on you, keep their worship on you, take their prayers to you, take their confession to you, knowing that if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness.
I pray, Lord, that no one will leave this room today with a burden that is not lifted by you.
In Jesus' name, amen.
We're going to worship a little bit more, but you know, if you want to be—if you want somebody to pray with you, we encourage you to come, and right where you are, stand up and pray. Give it—whatever's got you down, whatever's pulling you down, dragging you down—give it to him.
on Nov 05, 2023
