Playing It Safe Christianity

Pastor Tim came to me like two weeks ago wanting to know if I wanted to do this.

And you know, it's funny that it didn't even surprise me because God had already given me a subject.

And I had no idea that I was going to be doing this. He brought it to my mind

a few weeks before Pastor Tim asked me to do this.

So it didn't surprise me, but I told him that I'll let you know in a couple days.

Because I wanted to think about this. Maybe I was just stalling or just trying

to find a way out of it. I don't know.

But anyway, I waited a few days, and I was just feeling very anxious about it.

But I wasn't really very prepared.

And I went and I gave him a text and said, I don't think I'm going to do it.

The music, I got to have the music. That's going to be enough.

And I knew right when I sent that text that it was not what God wanted me to do.

The next day, I thought about it for one more day just to make sure. I'm really stalling.

Then I gave him another text and said, yeah, I'm going to do it.

God talked to me and said, quit being a chicken. You're going to do this.

That's kind of how God put it. You're going to do this.

We're talking about feeding the 5,000. We all know this story.

And also about Peter walking on the water, Jesus walking on the water,

Peter coming out to Jesus.

We all have heard this story.

There's one thing I didn't really know about this story, though. This is all one day.

Because as I looked it up and I read it, this is a one-day thing.

So that's a pretty full day for these disciples.

Let's read verses 13 through 14. We'll start there. We're just going to go through the story together.

Verses 13 through 14 says, As soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat

to a remote area to be alone.

But the crowds heard where he was headed and followed on foot from many towns.

Jesus saw the huge crowd, and he stepped from the boat, and he had compassion

on them and healed their sick.

This whole thing starts out where they're actually going on a vacation.

That's the way this day starts out, is they are going to take some time off from the crowds.

They just heard John got beheaded.

And so Jesus said, let's go take some time off and go across the lake and have a vacation.

I don't know about you guys, but when I go on vacation, I just like to relax.

I'm not much for going and seeing things, although Jan makes me.

It's okay, but I'd just rather lay on the beach and listen to the waves.

I work as long as I work, and I want to take some time off, and I want to relax.

Here they come, they're in the boat, and as they come up to the other side of

the lake, they're passing over this lake, and they see, what,

5,000 men, not including women and children, it says.

So actually, they're seeing 15,000 people waiting there on the other side of the lake for them.

It doesn't say how the disciples felt about this, but if I was one of them,

I'd be like really annoyed because here I am going from one side of the lake

to the other to get away from them.

And here they are meeting me on the other side.

That's just me because I like to relax. I think that's their view of it.

That'd be a human view of it.

And then as they look over to Jesus and see what his view is,

he's smiling because it said he had compassion for these people.

And this tells us a little bit about the character of Jesus.

And that's why it's so important to get into the Word, because that's how we

learn about who Jesus is.

And that's very important in our Christian walk, to know that he has compassion on us.

He's never annoyed at us for coming to him at an inopportune time.

He's never put out. We can always go to him when we're in trouble or when we

have problems in our life.

We don't ever have to feel like.

God doesn't want to hear what I have to say, because he always does.

So we learn a little bit about Jesus' character in this story,

just from that little point.

Let's read the next few verses, 15 through 17. So it's that evening the disciples

came to him and said, This is a remote place and it's already getting late.

Send the crowds away so they can go to the village and buy food for themselves.

But Jesus said, that isn't necessary.

You feed them. and then they're like but

we have only five loaves of bread and two fish so what

happens here is the disciples it's going

to be a long day it wasn't like a two hour or one hour thing this was a full

day of ministering to these people the disciples came to jesus and they were

like let's send these people away so they can go to their homes or go to wherever

and get some food before it gets too

late, if it was us, before Walmart closes,

for putting ourselves into this.

We'd say, let them go away. And this sounds like a good plan.

This is the plan that we probably would all come up with, right?

And I don't know if the disciples were a little annoyed at Jesus as well,

making this an all-day thing when this was supposed to be some downtime.

And here they were at the end of the day, still ministering to these people.

But Jesus' plan is this. He says, you feed them.

That's his plan. The disciples' plan was the logical plan.

That's what every one of us probably in this room would come up with.

Peggy wouldn't have a little thing of a macaroni like this and a half piece

of bread and say, let's go down and eat later. She usually has a lot.

So that's kind of a human plan. Our plan is logical. It has to make sense.

Jesus' plan is, is let's feed them with five loaves and two fish.

And let's see what the outcome of that is. It says, Bring them here,

he said, and this is 18 through 21.

Bring them here, he said. Then he told the people to sit down in the grass.

Jesus took the five loaves and two fish, looked up toward heaven and blessed them.

Then breaking the loaves into pieces, he gave the bread to the disciples who

distributed it to the people.

They all ate as much as they wanted, and afterwards the disciples picked up

12 baskets of leftovers.

About 5,000 men were fed that day, in addition to all the women and children.

He had them all sit out in groups, and he passed them out to the disciples,

and the disciples passed them out to them.

They had faith in Jesus for that. Even though they questioned it,

they were saying, well, we only have this.

And Jesus says, well, you feed them, and this is what we're going to do.

And the disciples all bought into it.

There was more food at the end of this than when we started.

That's what blows my mind.

There was 12 basketfuls of bread that they picked up. There was more food when

they were done than when we started.

I mean, that's got to blow your mind. And that's what Jesus wants to do.

He doesn't do anything small. He does it big. He wants to blow your mind.

If we want to feel alive, we have to choose Jesus' plan.

If not, we will have a mundane Christian walk, a life without meaning.

Meaning this is important in our life we will never be satisfied and we'll never be content.

If we don't trust jesus and his

plan for our life our christian walk will be

meaningless to us because we

if we don't have any faith and trust in god we're not going to see what he has

for us because we're just going to be sitting on the sidelines so we'll begin

replacing what jesus intended for us to have worldly pleasures because if we

do not step out in faith of our Christian walk, our walk will be dull.

So in other words, if we don't step out in faith, then we'll start replacing

what God has for us with worldly pleasures.

As human beings, we're going to be stimulated one way or another.

Either we're stimulated by God or we're stimulated by the world.

If we're not stimulated by God, we're going to go get stimulated by the world some way.

And that's why a lot of times we some people start

out strong as a christian and then fall off is

because they're not stepping out in faith they're not seeing what

god has for them because god wants just like this story this is what he wants

to do with us if we would just step out in faith he wants to blow our minds

about christianity he wants to show us who he is and what he can do in our life

he wants to stimulate our walk but if we're if If we're too afraid to do that,

that's not going to happen because we have to be like the disciples who stepped

out in faith. Sometimes that's scary.

The world looks at Christianity as boring. Is that a true statement?

Some do. I used to do the jail ministry, and that was probably one of the bigger

things that they said. They thought it was boring to be a Christian.

And a lot of reason that they think that is probably because maybe they've met

a lot of boring Christians. I don't know.

It may be. I mean, I have.

The reason maybe being is because they haven't stepped down in faith.

They really haven't walked the Christian walk.

They've accepted Jesus in their heart and they've left it at that.

They haven't done anything. I think there's a phrase that says,

those who don't do anything never fail.

And I think that's the case with that. If you sit on the sidelines and never

follow Jesus' plans, it will always be that way for you. God wants to wow you.

He wants you on the edge of your seat. He wants to give you new life,

but you have to believe in him enough to step out of your comfort zone.

And if you live there, never stepping out in faith, never taking a chance on

Jesus, which is no chance at all, because if you do step out,

it's really no chance at all. God's got you.

We don't have to worry about God failing us.

He's got us. If you really believe in him, it should be easier to step out in

faith because you know he's got you.

If you don't put anything on the line for him, you are going to be disappointed in Christianity.

And I've been there. I've been there where I've just kind of been disappointed.

I'm like, this is it, because I wasn't stepping out in faith.

If I'm really honest with you, this is the first time probably in a while that

I've really stepped out in faith and did this.

The last couple of years, I've just kind of felt that way, kind of blah.

I hadn't stepped out in faith. I was going to the jail ministry and doing that,

stepped out in faith all the time doing that.

I seen God working there, and it really stimulated me as a Christian and I stopped

doing that and ever since I've been a little bit, I've been feeling blah.

And this last couple of weeks I've felt rejuvenated because I had this put in

my life where I'm going to speak in front of everybody and possibly make a fool of myself.

Okay, let's go on to verses 22 and 23. Okay.

Jesus, immediately after this, Jesus insisted that his disciples get back into

the boat and cross to the other side of the lake.

While he sent the people home, after sending them home, he went into the hills

by himself to pray. Night fell while he was there alone.

So now he sends all the people home, and the disciples get back into the boat.

And where does Jesus go? He goes up into the hills to pray.

This is so important in our life, in our Christian life, is what Jesus is doing

right here, because he's praying, so he's listening to God, and he's also talking to God.

And those two things that we also have the Bible, that's how we hear what God

says, and being quiet, having quiet time in our life every day.

And sometimes there's a lot of clutter in here. When you're spending quiet time

with God, a lot of times that's what will happen, is all of a sudden all these

distracting thoughts will come up in here.

That's a spirit taking all the unspiritual out of you.

So the more you do this, the more you're going to hear what the spirit has to

say, and the easier it will be to follow him.

That's why this is so important, and we need to know this because we need to

know what does God want us to do? What does he want us to say?

If we don't spend time with him, we are going to never know.

Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from the land,

for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves.

About three o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them, walking on the water.

When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified,

and their fear cried out, It's a ghost!

But Jesus spoke to them at once, Don't be afraid, he said, take courage, I am here.

Then Peter called to him, Lord, if it is really you, tell me to come to you, walking on the water.

Yes, come, Jesus said. So Peter went over the side of the boat and walked on

the water towards Jesus.

But when he saw the strong wind and the waves, he was terrified and began to sink.

Save me, Lord, he shouted. Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him.

You have so little faith, Jesus said.

Why did you doubt me? When he climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped.

Then the disciples worshipped him. You really are the Son of God, they exclaimed.

These disciples, they're caught in a storm. and Jesus is still on the hill praying

and he gets up from there and he goes out to them walking on the water.

Here, Peter and the disciples all see him walking on the water and they're crying out, it's a ghost.

And why do you think they said that? Because it don't make sense.

That don't make sense that a human being can walk on the water.

So that was the only thing that made sense to them at that time that that was a ghost.

Jesus says, no, it's I. It's me. It's Jesus. I'm out here walking the water.

And Peter says, well, if it is you, tell me to come out to you on the water.

And Jesus says, it is me. Come out, Peter.

And Peter steps out of the water and his first steps have got to be a little

scary. Put yourself in Peter's position here.

He's in a safe boat. I mean, I mean, there's a storm and wind and waves,

but this seems to be the safest place to be at this time.

And could you imagine your first step out where you're supposed to sink?

But he steps out and it holds him. Then he takes another step and another,

and all the while, where are his eyes fixed on Jesus?

And we've all heard the story, we gotta keep your eyes fixed on Jesus or you'll sink.

And then Peter starts to notice the waves and the wind, and then he becomes

terrified and he begins to sink.

And he cries out, help me, Lord, and Jesus grabs him and saves him.

And Peter, he took his eyes off of the one who was making this possible.

And he took his eyes off of the power source, Jesus.

That's how I see it. Jesus is my power source. When I take my eyes off of him,

all of a sudden I start to rely on other things.

And he started to look to the left and the right, and he started to believe

that the wind and the waves were more powerful than Jesus.

We think that sometimes our circumstances or the problems we have are too much

for Jesus, so we go find our own way of dealing with them.

Even though while his eyes were on Jesus, he was doing it and he was walking

in the water. How soon we forget what Jesus can do.

We step out of faith with our eyes fixed on Jesus. We can be in line with him.

Then we go back to thinking in a worldly way.

We stop believing in Jesus and start depending on this world.

That's why it is so important to stay fixed on him.

And we do that by spending time with him in prayer, reading his word,

and quiet time. That's how we stay fixed on Jesus. us.

And there's no other way. We need to be totally dependent on him.

And the only way we can do that is to trust him. And the only way we can trust

him is to know who he is and to know who we are in him.

We must know that we are children of God.

There's something else going on here in this scene, and I think we overlook

it sometimes, because at least Peter got out of the boat.

Because when we look back, there are 11 people still sitting in that boat.

11 of the 12 disciples stayed in the safety of the boat and didn't even get out.

Why did they stay in that boat? And think about it, football players want to get into the game.

If you're playing football, you don't want to sit on the sidelines.

You don't want to be the person on the bench. You want to play.

They are eager to get in the game and prove themselves.

But so many times that's not really true for Christians.

Christians seem to be content sitting on the sidelines, sitting in the pews

and never taking chances and never spending time with God so that they will

know what to do or say or where to go. Not sad, but it's true.

And I'm talking to myself just as much as anybody else. A lot of times it's

easier just to sit back and not do anything.

But that's not what God wants. God wants us to be what Jesus was when he walked.

He confronted people and he talked to people.

He ministered to people. There are Christians who go to church on Sunday and

never think about God again until the next Sunday.

Now, I don't know that for sure, but sometimes it seems that way.

If you don't spend time with God each day, it would be easy to do. too.

If you don't spend quiet time just listening to him, reading his word in prayer,

if you don't do that every day, it would be hard to keep him in your mind.

I don't know if this is even possible, because if you call yourself a Christian,

I would think you would be like football players who can't wait to get in the game.

Sure, you might fail from time to time. You might fall down every once in a

while, but that's okay, because that's part of it.

I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've failed and how many times I've

fell down as a Christian, went back to what I used to do.

That's all part of growing up in Jesus.

What about us? What about our church here? Do we say we believe in Jesus,

but we are never willing to stick our necks out for him?

I'm not saying we should live our lives with reckless abandon,

but I am saying that we need to know Jesus.

We need to know and trust his plan.

We need to pray on issues and then wait for God's reply and make sure it lines up with God's word.

And then even if If it doesn't make sense to us, step out into the water of uncertainty.

Step out into the unknown where only Jesus knows the outcome.

Because there is a better life in this space, out where Jesus is.

If you rely on this world to satisfy you, think again, because it never will.

It will always disappoint you. When you truly step out in the faith,

your life will be transformed.

When you walk where Jesus walks, you will be blown away by him.

And I have been. but you have to be willing to go where everything is not a

sure thing, where some things seem uncertain, where it is out of your control and trust in him.

Now, I want to tell you a story. There's a certain woman who was very close

to the Lord, and she spent time with God every day, praying and reading the

Word and listening to God.

And she did this right when she woke up. first thing she would do is go to Jesus.

And one morning when she was doing this, she got a.

Message from God saying, I want you to go to your car and I want you to pull

out of the driveway and take a right.

And so she got up to where she was and she went out into the driveway and she

got in her car, started up, and she went out of the driveway and took a right.

And then she sensed that God was telling her, take a right on this road.

And so she took another right.

She's driving for a while and then she sensed that God was saying,

now take a left and drive down this road for a while. And so she did that as well.

So she finally got to this gas station and she felt God was saying,

pull in there and go into this gas station. And so she did that.

And she went inside and there was nobody in there except for the attendant.

And she's like, well, God, what do you want me to do now?

And he says, I want you to go over there by that pole and stand on your head.

And she's like okay she went over

to the to the pole and she stood on her head and when

she did that the tendons just started bawling and so she got off of the pole

from on her head and she went over and she's like what's wrong what's wrong

and he's like well this morning i lost my wife and my kids and i don't have

a place to stay i've been staying at my friend's house that i hardly know in his basement.

And I was thinking after I was done with work here, I was going to go home and kill myself.

He said, last-ditch effort, I said to God, if you really love me,

have somebody come in here and stand on their head.

Because this woman was obedient to God, he was able to minister to this guy

who probably had no influence as far as God goes.

No, he probably never went to church. And his last-ditch effort was to reach out to God.

And because this woman was obedient, she went where God wanted her to go.

And that would blow your mind, right?

I don't mind. We'll never be effective in this community if we continue to rely

on our plan and never seek out Jesus and his plan.

Never. Because there is a stronghold over this community and every other community

that is above human power and strength.

I don't know if you've been out in this community, but there's a lot of drugs

and there's a lot of alcohol.

There's a lot of people that don't want anything to do with church or God,

or they just rather do something else.

We need the supernatural, the unexplainable powers of Jesus Christ if we want to make a difference.

I think that's why we're here, is because there's a community out there that needs us.

And if all we're doing is sitting and filling a chair in here,

we're not really doing anything out there.

And this is what we should be striving for in our life with Christ if Christ

is really in us. This is what it means to love one another. other.

It's time to get to know Jesus and his plan, and we need to get busy.

We need to get on our knees before Jesus and first ask God to forgive us for

not being what he wanted us to be.

For whatever reason, we didn't get close to Jesus.

We need to ask God to forgive us for that and then move on, you know,

and then turn and commit ourselves to God,

really commit ourselves to God instead of just sitting on the sidelines and

not being what God wants us to be and just making God a priority in our life.

We need to ask Jesus to give us the desire to follow him and ask him to help

us to love him with all our hearts and with all our strength.

That doesn't come natural sometimes. Loving God, sometimes we have to work at that and pray at that.

I know I pray every day, God, help me to love you with all my heart,

with all my mind, with all my soul, and to love others as myself.

That's a struggle of mine. Ask him to help us to put off ourselves and our plan and put on his.

And I can't stress how important this is for us. If we want great things through

Jesus in this life, we need to believe in him and trust his plan for us and this church.