Why do you have so little faith?

What's up everybody?

How you feeling today?

Good to see you, one church.

Let's say hello to everybody here in person.

Uh everybody online.

Those of you that recognize the stanky leg, and those of you that did not, want to welcome you all one and the same.

Glad to have you here.

And uh absence makes the heart grow fonder.

I haven't been here the last two weeks.

My wife, my wife, and I are working on a project together the last couple weeks, and uh I was just missing you guys in this place, and uh I was just fired up to get here today.

So I don't know if you're happy to see me, but I'm glad to see you and uh uh excited to share God's word.

We're in a series right now, we're calling Jesus is King.

Um, the first two weeks were two of our pastors, Eddie Parker and Shane Huey, preach great messages on uh this.

If you miss those, come on, they're online, go check them out.

Be very helpful to you.

And uh I just love this this title of this series.

I I think we could we could just do this series for the rest of our lives.

Uh I have a buddy, uh pastor, he's in the south, and uh often I'll call him on my way in to preach, and uh I'll call him and I'll say, hey man, what are you preaching on this weekend?

And every every week he goes, Jesus.

So that's what we're gonna talk about today.

Um I I I wanna I want to have a conversation and I want to go deep with it, and I hope you'll go there with me.

Uh some of the things I'm going to share with you might uh challenge some of your assumptions.

Some of this might be uncomfortable, um, it might be difficult, but I I think it's an important conversation to uh maybe clear some things up and get our thinking right, especially as it relates to um Jesus and what we can expect from him.

Uh I want to wrestle with this tension, this question: when you're going through a hard time, what can I expect from God?

Okay, when I'm going through a hard time, what can I reasonably expect in terms of God's participation?

What is he going to do?

Um, and I want to set this up in a way that will create a little bit of a vocabulary for us.

Um, I've referenced this text quite a bit, but I'm gonna use it as a foundation to kind of set this up.

Luke 10, 27 is the great commandment.

And Luke 10, 27 uh says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, all right, which is your emotional self, soul, spiritual, mind, mental, neighbor, uh uh neighbor, relational, and strength, okay, physical.

And this is how you are made up in life, right?

These are we all have relationships, we have emotions, uh, we have our spiritual life, uh, we have our bodies.

And so essentially the great commandment is you know, give your whole self to God.

Um when you go through hardship, hard times, you go through these things.

You have an issue, uh a broken emotion or a broken relationship.

And we've talked extensively how these are all intertwined, and you can't just extract one.

If you're going through something in your body, it's gonna affect your mind, it's gonna affect your emotions, and it's all intertwined.

But these are the hardships that we go through.

Now, you come to a church and a place like this, and a guy like me stands up and starts talking about doctrine and dogma and principles, and I start laying things out like the omni, okay, the word omni, the prefix omni will come up a lot, which is that God is omnipotent.

He's all powerful, he created the heavens and the earth.

Uh, we we talk about the fact that God can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, however he wants, with whomever he wants.

God has no shortage of power.

Then we use omni omniscience, that God is all-knowing, that there's nothing going on in the universe that God doesn't know about.

Uh the 85% of the ocean is undiscovered to humans, but God knows even in the depths of the ocean, what is happening in the most remote place, which means you've never had a thought he didn't know about.

There's nothing you're going through that God doesn't know about.

So we talk about his the fact that he knows everything and he can do anything, and then we go to something like Matthew 6, and we read Matthew 6, 25 through 27, that says, This is why I tell you, by the way, these are the words of Jesus.

He says, I tell you not to worry.

Don't worry about everyday life.

Why?

Whether you'll have enough food or drink or clothes to wear, isn't life more than food and the body more than clothing?

Look at the birds, doggone it.

They they don't plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly father feeds them.

And aren't you far more valuable than they are?

Right?

You have all of this value, and God is omni everything.

And and then it says verse 27, and we'll preach at home on this one.

Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And so we'll we'll talk about how well clothed the flowers are and how well fed the birds are and go in you, your current situation, your heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor, what's going on in your body, your your cancer, uh, the lawsuit that's going on against you, the current threat will be neutralized.

If God's gonna neutralize the threat for the bird, he's gonna neutralize the threat to you.

And so so we we grab that, and yet at some point, like sometimes those things happen exactly as prescribed, but if you live long enough, you find that actually, actually, sometimes things play out differently than you would expect if it were just that simple.

And I'll prove it to you even in the Bible, right?

If we we we think of things like, man, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can speak to a mountain.

But here's what I'm gonna tell you.

There's some tension.

This is a tense conversation, we're gonna have a real one.

Because in Hebrews 11, which is the faith chapter, it declares the faith hall of fame.

By faith, this guy did this, by faith, this lady did that, and it's faith, faith, faith, faith, faith.

And faith is the substance of things hoped for, and it's the evidence of things not seen.

And Hebrews 11, 6 says, without faith, it's impossible to please God, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he rewards those who diligently seek him, and by faith, and it just does all stuff by faith.

And then if you read to the end of Hebrews 11, it says, And some people who were full of faith were sawed in half.

Some people, read, read the word.

It says, Some people full of faith lost people they love.

Some people full of faith died destitute with some dreams unfulfilled.

Some people put whole armies to flight, some people shut the mouths of lions, and yet others had their back opened with whips, it says.

And so it creates a tension in the in the real world because we go, what can I reasonably expect from God when I'm walking through?

Well, what's often proposed is that the omnipresence, omniscience, and and and the all-loving God that we have will always provide you with solutions.

Now, I want I want to go into the word here, and I want to preach, I'm gonna preach the whole chapter of Matthew 14, but we're gonna jump into different parts of it, okay?

I want to start at the end, then we're gonna move to the beginning.

So buckle your seatbelt.

Matthew 14, starting in verse 30, says this when Jesus saw the strong wind and waves, he I'm sorry, when he saw the strong wind and waves, which was he being the apostle Peter.

When he saw the strong wind and waves, when Peter saw the strong wind and waves, he was terrified, he was afraid, and he began to sink.

Save me, Lord, he shouted.

And Jesus immediately snatched him up, reached out, grabbed him.

You have so little faith, Jesus said.

Why did you doubt me?

Why did you doubt me?

Um that reads is a rhetorical question.

It may have been a rhetorical question, but I would say it's more than a rhetorical question.

That's a very good question.

And the answer to that question is found in the entire book of Matthew, chapter 14.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

In the book of Matthew and chapter 14.

Matthew 14, let's look at the whole thing.

The first 12 verses in Matthew 14 tell the story of the beheading of John the Baptist.

John the Baptist is decapitated in the beginning of Matthew 14.

Who is John the Baptist?

John the Baptist is Jesus' favorite cousin.

John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus.

John the Baptist's whole entire life was about shining a light on Jesus.

John the Baptist was losing following to Jesus, and his disciples came to him and was like, people are leaving.

He goes, I don't, I'm just here to shine a light on him.

Go with him.

Jesus had such affection for John the Baptist that three chapters earlier in Matthew 11, 11, Jesus says, There's never been a man who's lived who is greater.

Jesus, who knew a little bit about great people, said, the greatest of all time is John.

How did John die?

John was arrested, and Herod Antipas was over the region, was in charge.

Herod Antipas had taken his brother's wife named Herodias.

He throws a party one night, everybody's drunk, everybody's lit, everybody's having a good time.

Herodias' daughter comes in and does a seductive dance.

So his new wife's daughter danced seducely, and it was apparently one heck of a dance.

Because Herod goes, Wow.

What would you like?

I'll give you whatever you want.

I mean, those moves were have wormed their way into my heart to the point that I will give you, he said, up to half of my kingdom.

Okay?

And Herodias' daughter looks at her mom's like, he's in a good mood.

What do you want?

And her mom says, I want John the Baptist's head on a platter.

Now John the Baptist at the time was arrested, he was in prison.

It says that when she asked for that, Herod went, Oh, that's oh.

So he regretted it right away because he had respect for John the Baptist, even though he didn't like him, he respected him, and he knew that John the Baptist was popular among the people and to do this was bad.

But he had said this in front of a bunch of people and he didn't want to appear weak.

So he carries it out.

So they go cut John the Baptist's head off and bring his head on a platter into the party among a bunch of drunk people who celebrated even more so.

Now, Jesus, this is his cousin, don't deify him to the point you forget about his humanity.

Jesus didn't even know this happened until John's disciples come deliver the news.

It says in verse 12, John's disciples came for the body and buried it, and then they went and told Jesus what had happened.

Verse 13 says, as soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat, look at this, to a remote area to be alone.

Why?

Because he was in pain.

Here's what I'm gonna tell you, and this is a bit of a caveat to where I'm eventually gonna get, but it's worth being here today.

What you do with your pain may be the most important factor to your quality of life moving forward.

It's a big deal what you do with your pain.

And what we see of Jesus is Jesus immediately took his pain seriously and began to deal with it.

When I say quality of life, I'm talking about both internal quality of life and external quality of life.

Let's start internal.

Here were the three things Jesus had to wrestle with.

First of all, he had to wrestle with his sadness at the loss of his cousin.

Okay?

Next birthday, he's not going to be there.

And this can't be reversed.

He had affection and to understand that on this earth there's a finality here.

I'm not going to see him again here.

And so just that sadness, he was gripped with it.

For some reason, man, I've read this story so many times.

For some reason, it just hit me different this time to think about the fact that every single one of us, whether you're online or here, if you've wrestled with that sort of like, they're gone here on earth.

They're gone.

Jesus wrestled with that.

And he said, you know what, I'm gonna wrestle with that on a boat in a remote place with me and my heavenly father.

But he had to deal with that pain.

So the sadness of the loss.

Number two, he had to deal with his anger toward the perpetrators.

Okay?

When he hears the news of not just that John is dead, it wasn't an accident, it was an intentional attack.

And to hear the story that he was decapitated, head put on a platter, and brought into a party of drunk people who celebrated.

I have a friend who a number of years ago, he his mother was stabbed to death.

And when it first happened, he called me and told me, and I was actually quite shocked at his composure.

And at the time, I don't know if he was just in shock or it was in denial or whatever, but over the years of dealing with this, he he he knows because of the autopsy report and everything exactly how many times she was stabbed.

He knows the location where she was stabbed.

And I and he's told me before, he goes, he knows, he's like, I know my mom, she's a fighter.

I guarantee you they had to stab her that many times to kill her because she's a fighter.

Over 20 times.

Over the years, because he knows what happened, he has imagined it.

And it hits him in waves of anger.

To picture it, I can't unsee that scene.

And you have Jesus here who's dealing with the anger that this was senseless and now irreversible.

And to imagine the face that he loves so much, the face of the greatest person that's ever lived, according to him, to be on the platter, to be celebrated.

Okay?

He had to deal with that.

The third thing he had to deal with is his feelings toward God.

We we tend to give Jesus sort of like a to exclude this factor, but I don't know that we can.

It says in Hebrews 11 that it says that um it says in Hebrews, I'm sorry, four, it says that Jesus was tempted at all points as we are yet without sin.

He was tested in the same way.

He he dealt with a lot of the same feelings we did.

Now, although Jesus' theology was probably better than ours, uh it doesn't mean that he wasn't in a place where he's with his father going, really?

Come on, come on, John, John, and did it have to happen like that?

Right?

This is the same Jesus that right before he went to the cross was like, is there any way you can take this cup from me?

Can we come up with a better plan?

Is there something like not my will but your will be done?

I'm there, but could your will be something else?

So more than likely, he's feeling the same thing in dealing with this internal.

What I'm telling you is what you do, friend, with your pain might be the most important factor in your quality of life for you to ever come to peace.

You you you never you never come to a good place, you never celebrate it, but you make peace with it.

And if you don't make peace with it internally, it will haunt you.

Often people, because they they don't go inside enough to deal with the sadness and to deal with the anger and to deal with the confusion.

The sadness overwhelms them, the anger overwhelms them, and their quality of life is so low, they spend their life looking for anesthesia, they spend their life looking for a numbing agent, something to dull this pain, something to make me forget about what happened, instead of going in and doing that work.

And if you get to that place where you can make peace with all of it, now even your external, external quality of life is enhanced because now you take things and now you can begin using them for other things.

Now I can actually get back to work, now I can actually be more effective, now I can actually move ahead.

And this is what we see even from Jesus as he takes some time to step away, he had work left to do, and and and so the transition in the book of Matthew 14 goes from the beheading of John the Baptist, the grief of Jesus, into Jesus feeding the 5,000.

The backdrop of Jesus feeding the 5,000 was it was right after he grieved the loss of his favorite cousin.

So you know the story: five loaves, two fish, five thousand hungry people.

Jesus, voila, boom, boom, five thousand fish sandwiches.

And then from there, they get in the boat to go across, and about three in the morning, in the middle of the night, Jesus goes walking on water.

The disciples think he's a ghost.

Peter says, Whoa, can I do this too?

Jesus says, Come on out.

Peter gets out and he begins to sink.

And then Jesus asks the question, why do you have so little faith?

And all us judgmental people go, Yeah, Peter, why do you have so little faith?

You little coward.

Except, I'm like, how would you not?

How would you not?

I'll tell you why Peter had little faith.

Why Peter was a little confused, why Peter doubted?

It was because he's standing at the end of Matthew 14 doing the math.

And thinking back on the entire chapter.

And going, you know, I'm gonna try to reconcile this in real time.

Because that's a real wave, that's real wind, this is a deep place.

It's very possible for me to drown right here and now.

And God is potent, omnipotent enough to serve a huge banquet, miraculously, but apparently he wasn't to save his favorite cousin from his head getting cut off.

So I gotta figure this out right here, right now, because my life is on the line.

Which mood are you in, Jesus?

Are you in the 5,000 mood?

Or are you in the not show up for John mood?

Oh, y'all don't want to talk to me today.

You want to just want fairy tales and fantasies and superstitions, or do we want to have real theology?

Because all throughout the Bible, you know, this guarantee that because God's omniscient and omnipotent and he loves and and and we have an issue, and now that's a guaranteed solution, that is an improper expectation of what God is going to do.

But let me tell you.

Keep reading, if you keep reading in the Gospels and go past it into the book of Acts, you'll see in chapter 7, a man full of faith dies a martyr's death.

Stephen, first martyr, stoned to death.

Well, why didn't that solution take place?

So we all find ourselves in this position that Peter was in, going, What is a reasonable expectation?

What can I expect from God?

How do I resolve this?

And the first answer is you need to walk into that tension and be honest.

Be honest and ask that question instead of putting your fingers in your ears, closing your eyes, hoping for the best.

So, what do we do with this?

I want to give you a few things that you can count on.

I want to give you a few things that you can expect when you're walking through heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor.

The first is I will say this sometimes God does bring solutions.

Sometimes God brings the very solution that you ask for.

We see that throughout the gospels, that uh Jesus healed people.

People who were couldn't walk, people who couldn't see, he would heal, and sometimes they would have a physical issue and he would bring a physical healing.

But like you saw two weeks ago in Pastor Eddie's message about the man who actually had a physical deal, before Jesus ever even did anything about the fact he couldn't walk, he he gave him a spiritual solution and dealt with his sin and dealt with these other things.

Because he realized if the guy just walks out on two good feet, but he hasn't dealt with his sin and he's not dealt with his mind and he's not dealt with all the things that got into where he was, all he would be would be a guy who's doomed but can also walk.

He would just walk into trouble instead of being carried into it.

So Jesus understands that there's more going on.

Sometimes, like we see in Matthew 14, there was a hunger issue and God provided food.

So sometimes there are those solutions, but other times God provides support.

And the support comes sometimes through I'm going through maybe something physical, and you may be in the place, let's say you're here and you're walking through cancer.

Of course, the prayer is going to be a solutions prayer.

Lord, would you drive this cancer up?

God, would you would you get this cancer out of my body?

Would you I pray, Lord, that you would cause the report to come back miraculous and that there would be a solution.

And and yet sometimes it's okay to believe for that, but it's not it's not a simple formula that if I just pray for it, that it's gonna happen guaranteed every time.

Sometimes God can do that, will do that, has done that.

But also sometimes God will bring a support.

You may be going through something in your body, and instead of that thing going away in your body, God may bring a person to support you in this journey.

God may bring a thought.

There have been things in my life I can testify to that I have been going on physically, okay, in my family, or been going on physically with people I love.

And I prayed for this, and yet it wasn't necessarily removed and there was a problem solved.

But what happened is there was a new thought that came to my mind, or there was a new support, there was a peace that passes all understanding to guard my heart and mind as I walk through the thing.

Go back to the story in Matthew 14.

What you'll notice of Jesus is as Jesus is walking out on the water, what he says, the first thing that he goes at them with is their fear.

Their fear.

Of course, they think their biggest problem is the wind and the waves, and Jesus goes, Don't be afraid.

Now, to us as humans, when we hear fear not, the way that we think the fear would be eliminated or alleviated is by neutralizing the threat.

Okay, for example, if you're in the middle of a lawsuit right now and you're and you're hearing, you know, from the Lord, fear not, you go, cool, I'll fear not when they drop the charges.

Okay?

If your business is in a place, in a precarious position, there's some kind of threat to your business, and you hear fear not, okay, yeah, fear not.

You go, sure, I'll do that once the money comes in or once the threat is gone.

But what you find is actually in Matthew 14, Jesus shows up and when he says, fear not, the storm is still raging.

It's still raging.

He didn't calm the wind and the waves and then go, don't be afraid.

What he's introducing is a concept of the ability to have peace while the threat is there.

We do have to, and I want to say this, and you know, and I always want you to leave happy and all this, but uh, and I'm not trying to be morbid, but but I think it's worth talking.

Like, we do have to come to grips with the fact that we are mortal and our bodies are gonna go away.

Our bodies are gonna die.

At some point we will succumb to death.

John the Baptist, it was a really horrible way that he died.

But one of the interesting things is actually even in the book of Revelation, there's a famous verse where it says talks about us overcoming, and it says they'll overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.

It's a very famous verse, it's often quoted in the book of Revelation.

But what it says is it says that it says they they came to a place where they did not love their lives so much that they feared death.

Don't hear that wrong.

Don't hear that as that they didn't love themselves or that they didn't value life.

It's not that they had a death wish, it's that a work had been done so deep in their lives that they did not fear death.

You see, oftentimes the pain that God wants to alleviate in your life is the pain associated with fear.

He takes away your fear.

What does this look like?

I'll tell you what it looks like.

What it looks like is what I've seen so many times.

I've seen somebody who is in the middle of fighting cancer, who was going through chemo, who everybody in the room, everybody surrounding them, was terrified.

And the only person in the room who wasn't terrified was the person going through it.

They had peace.

How?

How does that happen?

How does that happen?

It's a peace that passes all understanding to guard your heart and mind.

It's in the middle of the thing.

It's this.

I can't promise you, Peter, as you stand on this water, I can't promise you that at some point you may not sink.

Jesus was present and accounted for there and pulled him up and saved him in that moment.

But Peter was confronted with the reality that John the Baptist had his head cut off.

Well, what about poor John the Baptist?

Why didn't God show up for him?

How do you know God didn't show up for him?

How do you know God, because he got his head cut off?

How do you know God didn't show up for him?

Go go go read Acts 7.

Stephen the Martyr, who I told you about.

As Stephen the Martyr was being stoned to death, which is one of the most horrific ways to die, I can imagine.

I mean, that's a pretty bad way to die.

As he's being stoned to death, he is having visions of God's glory.

And he's going, Lord, don't hold it against him.

Take my spirit, Lord.

And he's in a place where he is in communion and communication and has a peace that makes no logical sense.

So just because John the Baptist died, doesn't how do you know that as he was crying out to God in that moment?

Okay, now I'm sure that when they showed up, you know, and he started to realize I think these guys may want to cut my head off.

I bet his prayer was probably a solution prayer.

But don't limit.

Don't limit what you believe about the presence of God.

When the presence of God shows up, when perfect love shows up, fear is cast out.

Don't miss the miracle of the removal of fear, of fearlessness in the middle of the threat still looming.

I know I'm still working on you in terms of you whether you believe me or not, so I'm gonna go into some scriptures and we're gonna we're gonna open them up in a way that maybe you had not seen before.

I want you to see it in light of our conversation.

Look at this.

Psalm 34, 4 says this.

I prayed to the Lord and He answered me.

He freed me from all my fears.

Notice that.

I prayed to the Lord, he answered me.

We would think that that that solution, that the prayer to omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving God, the answer to the prayer would be very simple.

Solution of heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor.

But it said, He answered me and he delivered me from all my fear.

He gave me peace.

That was the answer.

Well, what about the threat?

May still be there, but somehow I had peace.

My fear was taken away.

The pain associated with the anxiety and the dread associated to fear was removed from me when I prayed.

Look what it says in Psalm 27, 3.

Though though an army may besiege me.

Not if an army may besiege me, though they may an army besiege me, though an army they are here besieging me, my heart will not fear.

Though war break out against me, even then I will be confident.

What is this?

It's the removal of fear.

Hebrews 13, 5 and 6, look at this.

God has said, Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.

I will not leave you or not forsake you.

This is a famous verse.

So we say with confidence, the Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid, I will not be in fear.

Look next.

What can mere mortals do to me?

Hold on a second.

Hold on a second.

What can mere mortals do to you?

They can break your heart.

What can mere mortals do to you?

They can cut off your head.

What can mere mortals do to you?

They can sue you into the stone age.

What can mere mortals do to you?

They can lie about you.

What can mere mortals do to you?

They can molest you.

What can mere mort more mere mortals can do a lot of terrible stuff?

But how can, in spite of the threat, how can I still have a peace that passes all understanding to guard my heart?

He he's he says, the peace, he said, the miracle is that I will not I will not be afraid.

The Lord is my helper.

Look at this, Isaiah 26 and 3.

You will keep me in perfect peace, all who trust in you, and whose thoughts, whose mind is fixed on you.

I end with this.

This this story of this trifecta of stories told in the gospels is told in two different gospels.

Matthew, which we just read.

The second is is in the book of Mark.

Pastor Eddie said two weeks ago his favorite book of the Bible is the book of Mark, uh, or his favorite gospel is the book of Mark.

And the distinction in Mark is a few things.

One, uh, it's the shortest book, shortest gospel.

So if you if you like succinct things, uh, people to get right to the point, okay, Mark maybe for you.

Um Mark's kind of a savage, he skips Christmas.

I mean, that's a pretty tough cat.

All right, he's just like, you know what?

Yeah, Christmas happened, whatever, let's get into the action.

He he springs right into Jesus as an adult and he focuses on Jesus' work.

If you have a bias toward action, you probably like Mark.

Who is Mark?

Who is Mark?

Well, Mark was a guy known in other places in Scripture as John Mark.

He shows up in the book of Acts.

But the long story short, John Mark was not one of Jesus' disciples and was not an eyewitness to Jesus' life, which then begs the question: where does Mark, John Mark, get the audacity or the authority or the credibility to write a book about Jesus' life?

And the answer to that is in the well very well documented fact that John Mark was a protege, was very closely tied and connected to Peter.

Theologians, historians often refer to the book of Mark as the gospel according to Peter.

So John Mark transcribed the life of Jesus primarily through the eyewitness account of Peter.

What's interesting about this trifecta of stories is they mirror each other in most ways, but in one very noticeable way, they don't.

The first is they both talk about the execution of John the Baptist, they both talk about um feeding the 5,000 with five loaves and two fish, and they both talk about Jesus walking on water and eventually calming the storm.

But what Mark leaves out is that Peter ever walked on water and sank.

The whole portion about Peter walking on water is totally not found in the book of Mark in the gospel according to Peter.

It's left out.

He just talked about Jesus being out there, they thought he was a ghost, and then he got in the boat and he made the wind go down, and then we all worshiped him.

Which begs the question why'd he leave it out?

You look at historians, and they'll some of them give Peter like real benefit of the doubt.

They're like, Well, Peter was probably so humble that he uh you know didn't want to talk about the fact that he walked on water for a little bit.

Which, if you know anything about Peter, uh that wasn't his energy, all right.

The more plausible explanation is that Peter was ashamed of the story.

Peter did not like the story, he probably wanted nothing to do with the story.

He probably hoped that we wouldn't be here in Matthew 14, talking about the fact that his knees were knocking together out on the water and he began to sank embarrassingly, so he lost his faith.

And then he has a question posed to him why did you doubt me?

But I personally don't think Peter needs to be embarrassed of the story at all.

Because I think any honest person with any degree of authenticity and self-awareness, having lived all of Matthew 14 or Mark 6, whichever one you want to read, probably would have doubted also.

You'd have been doing the math yourself, you would have been recounting your life experiences also.

God, I don't understand your priorities.

Because if you're gonna wield a miracle, everybody could have missed dinner.

5,000 people weren't gonna starve to death, missing one meal, and yet John's head will never go back on.

Peter doesn't need to be ashamed of that, but what Peter shouldn't miss is the ultimate miracle and the expectation that not only Peter can have, but you and I can have of what Jesus delivers.

And it's that Jesus, who is love, the perfect love, casts out fear, that his fear could be removed, that Peter could be out on the water with the wind and the waves going, and to be fearless, to be fearless, that friend, I cannot promise you and I will not promise you, and anybody who does promise you is selling something, that every time all of your threats will be neutralized.

I'm telling you he can and he may, he may.

I encourage you today, don't let the fact of what God didn't do for John at the beginning of Matthew 14, don't let what he didn't do there limit what you believe he can still do with you now.

He may do it, but I I'm not gonna stand up here and promise you that by being a follower of Jesus or being full of faith, and you know, it's not just bite down and clinch your abs and have a lot of faith.

It's actually the reality is it's even better than that.

We have bodies that are deteriorating, we have bodies that will succumb to death.

We are finite creatures, and there will be a moment everyone in this room will breathe their last.

Everybody who's in the Bible died.

But what about Lazarus?

Jesus brought him back.

He died again.

You're gonna die.

You will breathe your last someday.

Come to that reality and allow God to do a work so deep in you that whatever you face infidelity, bankruptcy, cancer, disease, confusion, depression, whatever it might be, of heart, soul, mind, strength, neighbor, that you get to a place of such peace, of such peace where your fear has been removed, that you can face what you walk through and have a peace that passes all understanding.

You may be the one person in the room that stands to lose the most, and somehow be the one with the most calm and the most peace and the most confidence.

Why?

Because I prayed to the Lord, it says in Psalm, and he took away my fear.

He took away my fear.

I can't, I can't promise you a neutralized threat.

What I can promise you is a peace that passes all understanding, will guard your heart in whatever you're in.

When Jesus offered his hand, he wasn't promising anything about the wind and waves, he was promising peace.

Fear not, fear not, fear not.

God's not giving us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and of a sound mind.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.

Your rod and your staff comfort me.

I'm under threat, I'm in the valley of the shadow of death, and yet in my mind, in my soul, in my heart, I have comfort and I have peace that doesn't make any sense.

It's not logical.

So today I offer you to recalibrate your expectations and to promise you what Jesus will deliver when you call out to him, when you cry out to him.

He will bring you peace.

He will bring you peace, he will take away your fear.

Right now, why don't you why don't you do what Peter had the opportunity to do?

To to think all, think about your entire Matthew 14.

Think about the things you've seen God do.

Think about the doors that He's opened.

Think about the ways that God has showed up for you, like He did in the feeding of the 5,000.

And you know what?

Go ahead and consider the fact that there's some John the Baptist beheading type things in your life as well.

There's been some disappointments, there's been some frustrations, there's been some pain, there's been some things that go, you know, that didn't seem like the right priority.

I don't know why God would do that and that.

Take all of it, all of it, all of it, all of it, all of it.

Come into the tension.

Bring it to him.

I'm not here as God's lawyer today trying to argue you into anything.

I'm inviting you to bring it to him today and to trust his ability to show up in your context.

So bring whatever's happening in your mind and your heart to him right now.

I invite you to do that.