Binge Jesus Part II: Week 3

Well, good morning. My name is James Roberts. I'm so

glad you are here today. Now you might have noticed

that we have expanded our sound booth to bring down

our lights, and I left the door open to the

stairs that go upstairs in case you want to see

this incredible safety hazard that they've been experiencing over the

last few years. I think everybody in that ministry has

had their knee or hip replaced from having to go

up a flight of stairs. It's almost like that. And

so because we love our volunteers, we're like, you know,

it's about time we took care of them, and so

we brought things downstairs and they we had volunteers here

all week, working really hard. And you know, here's the

thing about being the pastor here. I get to walk

around a lot the campus and almost every day I

see volunteers, you know. And here's the thing. This church

is not about a pastor. This church isn't about a

certain group of people. This church is about the people

of God at churches acrossing And I want you to

know sometimes I'm just reminded this and I want to

tell you this more and more. I love you, and

this is the greatest honor of my life. This shepherd

you to pastor you. Let's pray as we dive into

God's word today. God, we just thank you for your word.

We thank you for the challenges of your word. And God,

I pray that you will speak to us today through

this message. We love you, Lord in Jesus name. Amen.

Who would here likes to watch a good old thunderstorm?

I love, Yeah, A bunch of psychos in here. Yeah,

I love to watch a good old thunderstorm. I'll get

on my front porch or my patio, or even open

up the garage door, and I just love watching a

great storm. Now, as much as I love watching a

great storm, I hate being caught in a storm. Several

years BACKAU was on the way back from Tulsa and

we had one of those flights, you know how there's

turbulence and then there's trouble on the plane and this

plane doing that thing where you just it feels like

it's just dropping twenty or thirty feet at a time,

and it got bad. I mean, the pilot gets on

he's like, I need everybody to sit down, buckle up,

and then he said it's gonna be about forty five

minutes and I'm like, he say four or five, No,

he said forty five minutes. And I'm like, this is

not good. And I like to watch people okay, and

I'm kind of getting my bearings, like, man, the Lord

is my God, it's gonna be okay, and if it's not,

it's okay. And I'm sitting there and then I'm looking

at people just hugging each other, holding each other, and

it was bad. It got really bad. I looked over

at the stewardnesses. They were buckled in. I'm like, that's fine.

But then we hit this one spot where we just

kept dropping and dropping and it was really bad, and

I'm like, this is not good. So I looked over

to the stewardess is thinking like you will give me

comfort because you'll be like, this is part of it.

I looked over and those two ladies were holding hands praying.

I did not like that one bit. That was not encouraging,

not encouraging, and you know, like you go from like

I hope it's okay, to like making deals with God,

like I promise I'll never fly again. I promise on that.

Why do I put myself in these situations again? I

love watching a storm. I don't like being caught in

a storm. Several years back, me and my childhood best

friend decided to buy a bass boat together. Now we

couldn't afford an engine. It only had a trolling motor

on it, and so we buy this boat. And it

had been bad weathers for a few days, but we

got this boat and we're like, let's go, let's go.

We got a new boat, let's go. So we went

to Houston Woods and we took the boat all the

way across the lake, close to the rock dam, and

we're over there and then all of a sudden, a

torrential storm comes down and we're stuck because again it's

a troller motor, so we just can't go back. We're

stuck over there and waves crashing and we're just being drenched.

So we get close to the rock dam just in

case we had a bell out and jump out. Well,

finally the storm's aside after a couple hours and it's

almost dark and we're miserable, so we take the boat

all all the way back. We get to the dock

and then my buddy's like, where's the ramp, I said,

I submerged. I don't know where the ramp is, and

he goes, I'll figure it out and said, okay, yeah,

you're smart. And and so he gets in his truck

and he has the trailer and then all of a sudden,

he's backing it up, he misses the ramp and the

trailer just goes like off a cliff like this, right

into the water in the in the truck is here,

and then we just look at each other.

Like, when'd you just do we donate this to the

you know, I thought about just unhooking and just let

it float down there and then maybe come back and

get it next week when the water's better.

And we didn't know what to do. And then finally

some guys, some good Samaritans came up and they drove

up and they start laughing at us, and they're like,

what did you guys do? And we're like, well, we

missed the ramp. How'd you miss the ramp? We don't

know how we missed the ramp, And so then they

asked us, you know, how how long have you guys

been fishing or you know, how long have you owned

a boat? And we're like like six hours. And so

then they laughed at us. But then they pulled us out,

and then we were just fully humiliated as we went

back and told everybody what happened. Again, I love watching

a storm, but I hate being in a storm. Today

we're gonna be talking about those storms that come in

our life. Now. We all know about regular storms because

we see the clouds changing collars, and we maybe this morning,

as you were driving in here, you saw some red,

which means you know is coming. And so we have

some indicators. Maybe the weather man's saying, all right, beware,

thunderstorms are coming. Uh. So we can predict them a lot,

a lot of it. But sometimes storms come out of nowhere.

And when it comes to storms of life, you know,

those metaphorical storms, they often feel like they come out

of nowhere, and then all of a sudden, we're in

the middle of hardship, We're in a crisis, or maybe

even a tragedy. They're gonna come. There's no way around it. Now,

you might not get caught up in an actual physical storm,

but metaphorically, every one of us are gonna be in

storms over and over again in our life. Storms that

threaten our finances, our health, our marriage, our relationships, our careers,

and y'all know what I'm talking about, our sanity. Anybody

have been in a storm that threatens your sanity I have?

Let me tell you storms are part of life. And

so here's what we're gonna do today. We're gonna look

at one of the most famous storms in history. And

the reason is famous is because two men walk on

the water. Now, that's not gonna be our lesson today,

how to walk on water. What we're gonna do is

we're gonna strapolate the lesson out from that, from that

literal storm to the metaphorical storms, and we're gonna dive

in by looking at God's word today. Starting Matthew fourteen,

let's look at this. Here says immediately, Jesus made the disciples.

Now pay attention to this. He made the disciples get

into the boat and go ahead of him to the

other side. Now why they were doing that. He dismissed

the crowd. So here's what's going on. Here's the context

of this passage. Jesus just fed five thousand according to scripture.

But here's what you need to understand. When they say

five thousand, they're only talking about the men, so counting

women and children. More likely he fed twenty five thousand people,

and the disciples are like, whoa, look at this miracle,

and they're kind of like, yeah, now everybody sees what

we've been seeing. He's the man, He's the one, and

they're get all excited, and Jesus like, you need to

get out of here in the midst of this commotion.

Jesus like, you need to get out of here. Why well,

because the people are going to try to make Jesus

king the type of king that they wanted, the king

that would overthrow Rome, a king that would you know,

knock Herod right in the mouth. Now here's the thing.

Jesus knew that this moment was not good for the disciples,

so he made them leave the scenario because he knew

what the disciples were thinking. Because the disciples were thinking, man,

if if Jesus is gonna become king, that's gonna elevate

our status. We've been hanging out with him. You know,

Jesus gets promoted, We get promoted. Now, it's not that

uncommon when when someone has a close friend and something

awesome happens to them that you know you're gonna benefit

from some of those rewards. And so they're sit there

thinking like Jesus already become king. This is gonna change

our whole life. He gets promoted, we get promoted. I

have a friend who probably from three different ways, he could,

at some point in his life will probably be become

a millionaire, maybe through three different angles. And so about

ten years ago I made a deal with him. I

made him shake my hand. I said, if you ever

inherit one million dollars at one time, here's what I want.

You're gonna take us moose hunting. And he shook my hand.

It's a deal. So, you know, about once a year,

I ask him how those relatives' health is. Know, how's

their blood pressure, you know, how's their heart doing, diabetes?

What's going on? Are they okay? And then I remind him,

don't forget you get a million, I get a mouse.

You know why, because that's what friend's off. He needs

better friends. But anyways, they're looking and they're having this

moment where Jesus has to get them out of the

way because if Jesus is promoted, they will get promoted.

And Jesus knows they're not ready to get promoted, because

again they've already fought over who's the greatest in the kingdom.

All right, let's look at this next verse. It says

after he had dismissed them, he went up on the

mountain side by himself to pray. Later that night he

was there alone. And then check this out. The boat

that the disciples was on was already a considerable distance

from the land, buffeted by the waves because the wind

was against it. Now here's what we learn from looking

at commentaries and other Synoptera gospels. They have been out

in this storm and unable to reach the other side

for nine hours. Let me ask you a question. How

do you do with your attitude when you're on four

sixty five, stuck and you can't move for nine minutes?

Some of y'all already have some words in your head.

Now what happens when you're stuck in traffic for ninety

minutes and you can't move. Some of you need to

call your therapist. You're not doing well, right, We don't

do what. We don't like this. And now imagine imagine

being stuck on four sixty five, not moving for nine hours,

in the midst of rain, with your convertible top down,

and now you're pushing your vehicle because it ran out

and gas for ninety minutes in traffic. How would you

be doing physically and mentally? Not good. This is where

the disciples are at nine hours. They have pushed and

pushed a push. They're exhausted physically and mentally. They're not

doing well. And it says shortly before dawn, Jesus went

out to them walking on the lake. All right, that's

a big deal. He's walking on the lake. Now here's

the thing. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake,

they were terrified. Why they said, it's a ghost. And

then they cried out in fear. Now here's the interesting

thing about that word ghost. That word ghost in the

Greek is where we get the word phantom phantom when

you look at what it means. Originally, he means it's

a creature of our own imagination. So here they are

nine hours, they don't know if they're gonna live. That

probably assuming they are gonna die. It's not good. And

then they see Jesus and then like, well it's a Jesus.

Maybe it's not Jesus. Maybe it's just a creature of

our own imagination. Maybe it's Jesus, maybe it's not. And

I think about that sometimes when we've been in a

trial and the cancer was supposed to be done six months,

but now we're at twelve months. We thought we beat

him be unemployed for three months, but now we've been

unemployed for fifteen months. We thought our marriage would be better,

But now we're going on a couple years, and then

all of a sudden, we look at Jesus and we

start to think, is he real or is he just

a creature of my own imagination. For over a year

I prayed for him to help me in this situation

of I've called on him. Maybe he's not real, Maybe

he's just a figment of my imagination. Maybe he's a phantom.

Or what about those people who you know when life

blows us up and we experienced a tragedy. And I've

seen this plenty of times as a pastor, and all

of a sudden, Jesus goes from someone who's very real

to us in a sanctuary to experience in a tragedy.

And now, all of a sudden, Jesus is a phantom

because we conclude that there is no way that a

good God would ever let my family go through this,

So therefore he must have just been a creature of

my imagination, A figment of my imagination. He's a phantom

because if he was real, he would not have let

this happen to my family. So the Disciples are literally

in metaphorically and physically the worst storm of their life.

They see Jesus, but they don't even really believe is Jesus?

Is he a phantom? Is he a figment of their imagination?

But then Jesus speaks up. But Jesus immediately said to them,

take courage. It is I now, pay attention. I will

get back to that here in a moment. And he says,

don't be afraid now. So he basically looked at them

and says, hey, would you all just, I don't know,

buck up a little bit, get a little bit more brave, boys,

are you scared of a little storm? Now? If you

or I said that to somebody who's in that situation,

we would seem insane and insensitive right now. The reason

why Jesus is not insane or insensitive what he's saying

is is because he can actually do something about it. Now,

this is where I want you to get back to

that fool phrase I said, pay attention to this. He says,

don't be afraid, have some courage. Why because he says,

it is I. It is I. Now here's what you understand.

When we look at that little phrase, it is I.

It is I in the English language, when we take

it back into the Greek comes from two words ego em,

ego em. When we take it all the way back

to the Hebrew stands for it is the I Am.

So he doesn't just say, hey, it's Jesus over here,

your buddy. No, no, no, He says, hey, take courage,

don't be afraid. The I Am is here right now.

Almost every theologian agrees with this interpretation that Jesus will saying, hey,

God is here. God is with you, the Great I Am.

He's here in this moment. I know you're exhausted, I

know your war out, I know you're overwhelmed. But the

Great I Am is here. That's why he can say,

take courage. That's why he can say, don't be afraid.

Now here's what the thing we have to ask, where

does this phrase the Great I Am come from? We

gotta go all the way back to Moses. Moses is

in this storm of his life. God says, God, I

want you to go back, tell Pharaoh, let my people go.

Go back and tell your people get ready to go.

And then Moses says, whom shall I say you are?

And God says this, I am that I am. We

see God give his name, the name of God. Is

I am that I am. And so Jesus comes out

to his disciples. They're in this literal and metaphorical storm

of their life, and he says, don't be afraid take

courage because the I Am is with you. Which I am.

I'm the I Am who created the rain. I'm the

i Am who created the waves. I'm the i AM

who created the wind that's coming against you. I'm the

i Am who created the wood that you made that

boat out of. I Am the i Am who created

these clouds atmosphere. This is the ecosystem. I am that

great I Am. I Am the Creator. I Am the Outphae.

I am the Omega. I Am the beginning. Then don't

be afraid take courage. The great I Am is with you.

And here's what you need to know. That when you're

in the midst of a storm that you feel like

you can't push through, because you are a child of God,

he says to you, take courage, do not be afraid.

The Great I Am is with you. And so we

see this moment here and then well o, Peter gets involved.

You know, every time Peter gets involved in the story,

just goes br and it does, it goes mar. Peter

goes Lord. But you tell me to come to you

on the water. Now here's the thing. I don't think

we kind of look at that on a surface level,

but I want you to understand the faith of Peter

because here's what Peter reasons. When he hears Jesus say,

he go you mine. When he hears Jesus the Great

I Am is here with you, Peter says, if you

are the Great i Am, then command me to walk

to you. Because if you're truly God, the creator of

the universe, the creator of this water, the creator of

this wind, the creator of this rain. If you truly

are God, then this water right now, this sea has

to obey your command because you are God. So if

you are God, you could command this, make me walk

on water, and said, what do we see? We see?

Jesus says, oh, come on, And then Peter got down

out of the boat. He walked on the water and

came towards Jesus, but when he saw the wind, he

was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried out, Lord,

save me. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught

him and says, you have little faith. Why do you

have doubt? Now a lot of people read this as like, oh,

you have little faith you have why did you doubt?

I'm the great? I am? No, no, no, no, I think

this was they were buddies, they were close. Jesus was

proud of Peter's faith. More than likely it was Jesus going,

you have little faith. You know I wouldn't let you

drown out. I'm sure it was a moment of beauty,

not a moment of rebuke in this story. And then

it says that they climbed on the boat and the

wind died down, and then this happened. Check this out.

This is a big moment in history. Then those who

were on the boat worshiped him, saying, truly, you are

the son of God. Now, why is this an important moment?

This is the first moment in recorded history that the

Disciples as a whole group worshiped Jesus as God. This

is a moment. This changes everything. But this is a

big moment. This is the first time the whole group

said he was God. Now again, We've just walk through

this passage, and the whole point of it is today,

I'm not going to teach you how to walk on water.

Peter tried, he fell. We never see it again. But

here's the purpose of this passage. If you want to

know why is this passage in here? The main point

is not that Peter walked on water. The main point

of this story is that Jesus is showing us that

he will do whatever it takes, whatever is necessary to

save his children. That's the point of this story today,

not that Peter walked, but that God is willing to

do whatever it takes to save you. It's a beautiful story,

but you know what, the Chosen series did a great

job of making it come to life. Let's watch this

scene from the series The Chosen again. How do we

walk away from this and apply it to our lives. Well,

here's what I want to do today. I want to

take this literal storm and extrapolates out some lessons for us.

And here's what I want to do. I want for

the rest of our time today. I want to look

at the three purposes behind the metaphorical storms in our lives.

So here's what we're gonna do. Okay, so we're just

gonna look at these three storms and apply them to

our life. Number one, the first type of storm there is.

It's called a correcting storm. Now, correcting storms are my

least favorite, of course. Here's here's why you have a

correcting storm. You did something that you should not have done.

So therefore God has allowed a storm to come in

your life to correct or to help shape you so

that you'll never do something like that again. Okay, So

a lot of people ask why is this happening to me?

Because you did something really maybe sinful, Maybe it was

just something unwise. And it's a good thing because if

you had not experienced this correcting storm in your life,

maybe that sin would have went on for weeks, for months,

even years, until it blew up your life. See, some

in our church, a correcting storm is coming in our

life because we've refused to get serious about porn and

lay it down. We're still flirting with that person at

work and allowing ourselves to get emotionally connected. We're maybe

making some decisions with our finances that's gonna blow up

on our face, or maybe we're treating our spouse so

a little lesson Christ would like us to teach him,

and that's gonna eventually blow up. And see correcting storms

or these storms that come along with the hope that

you will make a big change before your whole life

blows up. It's almost like a it's like a warning storm.

Look at a job. He's the greatest example. That's not job,

excuse me, look at Jonah. Jonah is the greatest example

of this. Jonah is about to go and preach Tovies.

And God told them, you know, if you preached and Indavites,

they will repent and I will spare them and not

destroy them. And guess what. Jonah hates an Innavites. And

so he reasons to himself, if I don't preach to them,

they won't get saved, and then God will destroy them.

That's one lesson enemy for Israelites. And plus I just

don't like them. And so what does he do. He

takes off in the opposite direction, goes as far as

he can in a opposite direction on a boat. And

guess what, God sends a storm. And it got so

bad that these seasoned sailors start calling out to their

pagan gods like, oh God, save us, save us, save us.

And then they finally figure out that it's Jonah who

is disobedient to his gods. What do they do? They

throw them over the side of the boat and then

guess what, he gets swallowed by fish. We all know

that story. But here's what I want to tell you. Okay,

some of us we go through these situations and our

sin is found out, and now we're humiliated, we're embarrassed,

and we can't We're thinking this is the worst case scenario.

But I would suggest to you it's a good thing

that you got found out. It's a good thing that

you have some consequences because now you can repent of it,

call it what it is, stop making excuses and stop

doing it, and you start doing the right thing. Because

here's the thing. If these sins that we are playing

around with in our life, if they go undiscovered and

unrepented of, they are going to grow and grow and

grow until they blow your life up. So my friend

God sometimes sends these correcting storms in our life to

save us from even bigger disasters. See, here's what I

want you to know correcting storms, they are a sign

that God loves you. It doesn't feel like it, but

it's a sign that God loves you. Because God could

have said Jonah, what a jerk, and he could have

just let him go on. But what do you do?

He saves Jonah, He goes back after Jonah because he

loved Jonah. Matter of fact, Hebrews says this about us,

his children, when it comes to correcting storms. It says,

don't be discouraged when God corrects you. For the Lord

who does he discipline. He disciplines those he loves, and

he punishes those he accepts as his children. Let me

tell you what. For some of you, the heavenly swat

is the best thing that could happen in your life

right now. And sometimes when you get that heavenly swat,

it's a great sign that God loves you. He's not

finished with you, and he's got great plans for your life,

but he needs you to make a course correction. Secondly,

there are perfecting storms, now, perfecting storms. That's where our

character is shaped through the storm. Now, these storms a

often we haven't done anything, wasn't something we did to

call these storms. These are storms that God allows to

happen in our life through the course of our life.

Some of the are just natural storms that everybody goes through,

but God shapes us through these storms. The greatest example

of that is Job. God was bragging on Job. He

was talking to Satan, and the age was like, have

you checked this guy out? He's awesome. Look what it

says in Jobe one eight. Have you considered my servant Job.

There is no one like him on this earth. He's blameless,

he's upright. He's a man that fears God. He shines

evil and then Satan attacked him. See, perfecting storms are

allowed by God to bring about a character change in

our life. James, he writes this letter to all of

those who are scattered throughout the known world at that

time due to persecutions and James and his letter at

the beginning of his letter, chapter one says, Hey, we're

gonna have storms in our life. But here's the thing.

These storms, if you stick them out, you're gonna grow

in your integrity. You're gonn of grown your character. You're

gonna become mature, You're gonna become more like Jesus. Again,

God has a lot of the perfecting storms to make

you like Jesus. That's the end game of a perfecting

storms to make you like Christ. But here's a big,

big problem Church. We have a theological problem when it

comes to understanding storms in our life. And the theological

problem stems from one verse that everybody likes to quote

over and over again. And we've used this verse, I believe,

out of context in so many situations. It's Romans eight

twenty eight. We all know this verse. You know, we

tell any by it. You know their life's blowing up

the way. He don't worry. Gody's gonna work out all

things for the good for those who love them, who've

been called according to his purpose. What does it say here?

It says for we know that all things work together

for the good to those who love God and who

are called according to his purpose. But here's the problem.

The problem is that all things don't turn out good.

Sometimes bad things happen and it remains bad. Talk to

somebody who lost a child, Ask him if he got better.

Widows widower's in this room, does it get better? I

mean time heals, but I mean the spouse doesn't come back.

Sometimes a bad thing just stays a bad thing, and

a lot of times because God is so good. Yes,

bad things, God does his thing that only God can

do and turns it into a really great thing, and

we're blown away by it. Here's the issue. Okay, we

talked a few weeks ago about how to study the Bible,

and what do we talk about. We talked about context.

Here's the problem with Romans eight twenty eight. Is Romans

eight twenty eight wrong? Absolutely not. The problem with us

quoting Romans eight twenty eight is we forget to quote

Romans eight twenty nine. It has to be done in context.

Romans eight twenty nine says this. He says for whom

he foreknew, he also did predestined to what to become

conformed to the image of his own son. So what

Paul is saying here is he said, Yeah, bad things happen,

and God is at work and those that he loves,

and here's what He's gonna do through your bad stuff,

the bad stuff that happens to you, your bad storms.

He's gonna help you become more like his son, Jesus

Christ through it. Okay, So he's gonna help you become

more like Jesus. It isn't a bumper sticker promise that says,

all right, something bad happen to me. I'm a Christian.

I can't wait till I win the lottery. So this

is all good. I know He's gonna help you become

more like Christ because at the end of the day,

that's the endgame, for you to become more like Jesus.

For you to become more like Jesus. Now here's the thing.

I've been following Christ for a long time, and here's

what I have found. Often he takes the bad thing

and he turns it into a good thing, because he's

a good God, and he does this very often. Chuckswindall

tells a story about a man who was a part

of a shipwreck and he used some of the scrap

left over from the wreck and he's all alone on

a desert island and he uses it to make a hut. Well,

he goes out one day hunting and when he comes back,

it's on fire and it's burning down, and he's like, God,

are you kidding me? Are you real? I'm shipwrecked and

now you burn my hut down. He just exhausted. He

goes to bed that night and the next morning he

looks out and right there is a big old ship.

When he gets to the captain, the captain says, oh, man,

thank God you put up that huge smoke single so

we can rescue you. Sometimes bad things do turn into

good things. But the point is simply this. The point

is God is trying to make us holy through our trials.

It's not about happiness. It's about becoming holy. Now, if

you're holy, will you become happy? Absolutely? All right. Now,

let's look at the third purpose behind a storm. And

this is the one that's really interesting. This is the

protecting storms. Now this might come as a surprise for you,

but the storm that we talked about today, Jesus disciples,

they were in a protecting storm. Why would this start out?

Trouble was brewing. They wanted to make Jesus king, okay,

and so it says in John six, a parallel version

of this verse, it says, after the people saw the

sign Jesus performed, they began to say, surely this is

the prophet who is coming to the world. Jesus, knowing

that they had intended to come and make him king

by what force, withdrew againto a mountain by himself. So

we would think that making Jesus a king is a

good thing, but they were gonna make him the king

that they want him to be. So they're like, hey,

he raises the dead, he calls it the blind to see.

He gives us a free meal one two three, Jesus King.

But effectively they want to use God. So Jesus says

to his boys, Jesus boys, get on the boat and

get out of here right now, because he knew this

would destroy them, because because on more than one occasion

they got into some big fights over who is the

greatest disciple, and these guys would have went from rags

to riches, from ostracized to men of great influence. And

Jesus knew it would have destroyed them. So for their

own protection, jesays, get out of here, get out of here,

and see. Sometimes a storm will protect us from something

that is worse. Now, that's hard for as the wrapper

minds around, because you know, we're like, oh, I thought

God want to be successful. All the preachers on TV says,

he wants me to be successful. He wants me to

be healthy, beautiful, and he's always gonna give me the

best parking spot. No. See, sometimes hardship can be better

than success, because there are things we learn in the

storms that we would not have learned otherwise. And God's like, guys,

I'm delivering you from mega success that's going to destroy

your life. And so he says, getting a boat, get

to the other side. And by the way, let's just

be honest about storms in our lives. I don't know

about you, but do you understand that when we are

in these storms in our life that Jesus is watching us,

is watching us. And here's the thing. What does that say?

In Mark chapter six, it says he saw the disciples

straining at the oars because the wind was against him. Now,

I don't know how that hits you. Some of you

are like, oh good, I'm glad Jesus is watching me.

Some of you are like, ah, I don't like the

idea of Jesus watching me. A burglar broke into a

house and he it was all dark, and then he

heard someone say Jesus is watching you. And he's like,

oh my gosh. So he's walking around the house and

then he hears it again, Jesus is watching you. And

then all of a sudden, he turns on his flashlight

and he looks and he spots a parrot and he's like, oh.

Then the parrot goes Jesus is watching you, and so

he chuckles a little bit, and then he lets the

flashlight go all the way down to the base, and

then he sees a huge Doberman and then the parrot says,

sick of them, Jesus. I think a lot of times

we think Jesus is watching us, hoping will trip up,

almost like a bad Santa Claus. Jesus is watching us

because he wants to walk with us through it. He

wants to grow us. He's looking at where we need

to grow or we need to stretch. And here's the thing.

A lot of us we don't like that idea of

Jesus watching us, but it's a good thing because it

shows that he is intimately involved in your life. All right,

before we head out, I got one more thought transition

to thought. Here we gotta answer the question why did

Peter sink? Why did Peter sink? Number one? Two reasons.

Number one, he took his eyes off Jesus and put

them on other things. Okay, it says verse thirty. When

he saw the women was boisterous, he was afraid. So yeah,

there are circumstances that come to us that are very frightening.

Your balls might come to you in this economy right

now and say you're a great employee, but we're downside.

Your doctor might say your test results are back and

it's worse. You're not gonna survive this. A lawyer might

call you and say, we're filing in a lawsuit against you.

And sometimes we're so overwhelmed by our storms we can

easily get our eyes off of Jesus. We're overwhelmed by

the storm. Number two. Second reason he's sunk because he

was afraid. Here's what you need to understand. Faith and fear.

They do not mix. Okay, Where faith rains, fear has

no place. Where fear rains, faith is driven away. They

are like oil and water. They do not coexist together.

Have you ever been to a family re union where

people are trying to keep certain family members away from

each other? Maybe not, I've been to some of these,

all right, yeah, but we know that you get together,

there's gonna be a confrontation. The same thing with faith

and fear. If you bring in faith into your life,

aus what fear is gonna walk out the back door?

But if you invite fear as a resident, you're gonna

drive faith away. So here's a last of the day.

You need to understand what God is doing in your

life through these storms. The biggest thing God is doing

in your life teaching you to trust Him. So faith

usually leads you through difficulty, not around it. Let's look

at Isaiah. What does he say here talking about God speaking,

He says, God is saying, when you pass through the waters,

I will be with you, and through the rivers, they

will not overwhelm you. I will walk with you through

the fire, and you shall not be burned, and the

flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord,

your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. Here's

what we want to do. We want our Savior to

take us around the storm. We want him to build

a bridge to take us over the storm. But that's

not God's plan for your life. God wants to walk

with you through the storm. And here's what he says.

He says, fear not, take courage, because the Great I

Am is with you, every single one of you. Let's

take some time to pray now. And here's what I

want you to do now in this moment, I want

you to take some time to think about some trials

in your life you're going through right now, or maybe

it might be a time of reflecting on some past trials.

But if you're here today and you've been messing around

with some sin and you're not confronting the sin and

you're not laying the sin down, you're headed for a

correcting storm. And it's correcting storm. It's going to be painful.

It's going to come out of grace and mercy, but

it's going to be painful. And so today I'm coming

to you like a warning shot, saying why don't you

lay that down? Why don't you lay that down? For

some of you. You're going through a storm that you

know is not because of your disobedience, it's just life.

And I want you to invite Jesus into that storm

and say, Jesus, do with me as you will grow

me through this storm. Who do you want me to

become through this storm? Shape my character through the storm.

So you're walking with somebody through a disease, or maybe

it's a financial thing, or maybe it's a job thing,

but you invite Jesus into your storm, and then maybe

you're not in a storm right now, but once you

look back and maybe get some perspective on how Jesus

has done some great things through your storms and praise

him for that. Let's take some time to pray and

invite Jesus into our storms.