He Saves the Day || At the Movies Pt.2 || Pastor Adam

Welcome to the Lesse podcast. Here at LC we seek the loss, teach

the fund, and send the disciplists. We truly hope you're encouraged by this

week's message. We're thankful all of you guys are here. Last weekend we

launched our at the Movies weekend, and I want to share a couple of

things about what's happened the past couple of weekends. Last weekend, we had

about a little over six hundred people give their life to Christ last weekend and

it was incredible. That's what at the Movies is all about. It's taking

common themes of film and movies, which more people today know more about film

than they do about biblical stories, and so oftentimes it's called contextualizing the Gospel.

You can take film, you can take movies. You could take the

message that we all seen. You've ever seen a good movie before and you

walked out and you said, oh, there's a message in that movie.

And that's what we did, and that's what we do during this month is

we basically take a film that we would say, there's a message in that

film, and we try to break it down and how that relates to scripture.

And so last weekend. It related to so many people because six hundred

people decided to walk forward and begin their journey of faith, which was absolutely

beautiful. Additionally, I was told by Pastor John this week because we just

launched our our neighborhood group season and we hit our record attendance neighborhood groups as

our way of saying small groups, we hit our record attendance of neighborhood groups.

Right now, we have fifteen hundred people actively in neighborhood groups all across

the Inland Empire in La County, and so that's incredible. About forty percent

of our church right now in our weekend attendance is in a neighborhood group,

which is massive. And then Pomona, eighty percent of our Pomona campuses in

neighborhood groups, which Pastor Aaron likes shoving it to me on a regular basis

and reminding me how his eighty percent of his churches in small groups. So

we'll be Aaron because I'm competitive, and so I told Aaron though we have

more, we gotta get more people in neighborhood groups. I planned to get

eighty one percent in Rancho into neighborhood groups, so that he can't continue to

hold that over my head. But regardless, it's beautiful to see that God

is moving in the life of our church, especially also those who served the

city yesterday at Love our Sea and we loved on Rancho Kucamonga and made Jesus

known through our hands and feet. And so thank you all those who have

joined us as well for that really incredible experience as well. We're gonna jump

in the message today and as we continue our week two of at the Movies,

we're gonna dig into something that may be familiar or unfamiliar to you.

Is the movie Top Gun Maverick. Because anyone's seen Top Gun Maverick with show

hands, majority of the church. It's become late lately, it's become one

of the top grossing movies in the past decade, and it was extremely popular.

It's a part two to the earlier part one. But for me as

a as a young man who desired to be in the Air Force, that

was my goal and my dream in life when I was younger, For about

maybe ten years, I was going to be in the Air Force, even

to the point then in high school I was in the Air Force ROTC.

So I saw Top Gun a million times, and then when Maverick was coming

out, my favorite though was Tuskegee Airman because I identified with being more African

American than anything else. So Tuskegee Airman was my movie. Then it was

Top Gun in that way, and and so I saw that movie over one

hundred times. If you're new here, don't worry, you'll pick up on

it real quick. Why I say that the Top Gun movie was something I

loved, and then the second one came out, and even more so I

saw a message in it, and then towards the end of it, it

actually the movie had led me to cry because as a father who has a

son, you see the relationship between kind of a godfather to a son that

he considered and the love he had but trying to protect him. And we're

gonna talk a little bit about that today. And so instead of breaking it

down, first, we're gonna give you a synopsis about what this movie is

about, because if you've never seen it before, we don't want you to

fill left out. And then we're gonna come and we're gonna preach from the

scriptures on how this relates to our own life and how we can grow our

faith in God through the message and themes that we see within this movie.

So let's check out this synopsis. So it's been thirty years from the first

Top Gun movie and US Captain Pete Maverick Mitchell has become a test pilot.

Now we see this guy. We're Admalchester Hammer Kane trying to shut down the

new Dark Star scramjet program, saying that drones are the future. Before the

order is issued, Maverick goes rogue, steals a million dollar jet and test

flies it successfully. See this man tries to kick it up a notch and

go beyond the speedy just achieved, which then results in him destroying the jet.

I mean it literally disintegrates in midair, so he dies. So he's

fine, how do you survive a midair disintegration? And over mock ten,

Well we're gonna cut away. Oh I understand. Yeah, characters can survive

pretty much anything if you don't show how they did it. Very true.

Fortunately, his other best friend, Iceman, who just so happens to be

a high ranking commander, protects him from any consequences by reassigning him to another

base, where he begins preparing for his next important mission. The Navy has

been tasked with destroying a uranium and rich plan. But instead of Maverick being

a part of the mission that he planned for, he's now supposed to teach

and train a bunch of top gun rookie graduates so that they can carry out

his plan. But here's a fun little twist to the story. One of

the students, Bradley Rooster Bradshaw, is the son of his old deceased wingman

slash best friend, Nick Goose Bradshaw. Then he goes to talk to them

in front of this building sized American flag that they have set up in case

someone needs to be inspired. And then at the podium, Maverick does that

cool teacher thing you know where he's like, hey, you know the rule

book, just toss it in the trash, And then he tosses it in

the trash. They put a trash can next to the podium just in case

he wanted to dramatically throw something into it. Yeah, or maybe he specifically

requested it, who's to say so. In various dog fighting combat scenario,

Maverick proves that these kids are still wet behind the ears and that he is

still the best of what he does you see me. No respect has been

earned, but tension between Rooster and Maverick are still floating through the air.

But here's another twist. Rooster's mom made Maverick promise before she died that he

would do everything in his power to keep Rooster from being a pilot. She

didn't want the same fate that happened to her husband to fall on her son.

Unaware of his promise that Maverick made to his mother, Rooster blames Maverick

for everything that's been going on, which includes, and is not limited to

the death of his father. Why'd you pull my papers at the academy?

Why did you stand in my way? With the recent death of his safety

net iceman Maverick's commanding officer, Vice Admiral's Cyclone Simpson fires Maverick and completely changes

the mission parameters that Maverick came up with, making it easier to execute but

comes at a harder survival rate. So typical, Maverick stole another plane to

show the Vice Admiral that his mission could be a success the way he planned

it by flying the mission parameters in their test course. So, after Maverick's

death, Cyclone reluctantly appointed Maverick lead over the whole team, while Rooster is

put in command of the second unit. The team successfully hits his target and

all is well, right Yeah nah. During their escape, they're attacked by

ground to air missiles and Rooster runs out of missiles and countermeasures. Maverick,

being Maverick, sacrifices his jet to save Rooster's life. Maverick's gone with the

vice Averick Believing that Maverick is dead, he orders the surviving pilots back to

home base. But you know, this is the Tom Cruise movie, so

we all know he's still alive, and so getting shot down is not a

big deal, I guess, huh. Not for the good guys, But

for the bad guys it's always lethal. Nice with both he and Rooster behind

enemy lines. Oh yeah, Rooster's plane eventually got shot down too. Maverick

steals yet another jet to get back home. But this is no ordinary jet.

Oh new, new, new new. It just so happens to be

a fully functional F fourteen Tomcat that was not touched at all during the complete

annihilation of the air base. They just blew up overwatch reports and F fourteen

Tomcat is airborne and onhorse for our position can't be It can't be, Mack.

So they lived off, get into a dog fight with some enemy jets,

survive and live happily ever after. Now that you know the plot of

the movie, you're probably wondering, what does any of this have to do

with Church. Well, if you were here last week, you know that

different movies in cinema history can correlate with scripture, even if it's in a

very subtle way. So this week we're going to see how Maverick and the

Word of God can work side by side to give you some truth pastor Adam

later. That's what That's one way to end a little promo, right.

You know what's incredib about this story that we'll see uncover in a few moments

is if you've seen the first Top Gun, you see a really young,

brash young man that's in pilot school that takes high, high risks and everything

like that, and those risks end up getting his best friend killed, who

his wingman, And so within that story you begin to see by the second

movie he's become a bit of a loner. What he's trying to do is

he's trying to avoid as many storms and mistakes as possible. And by doing

so, what does he do. He distanced himself from a woman that he

loves, and he doesn't try to pursue her anymore. He goes and becomes

a test pilot because now, as a loner, as long as I put

my life on the line and nobody else's, I can control that and I'll

be okay. He wants to be a person in control. I don't know

if anyone can relate to that. You'd like to be a person that is

always in control. And if you ever feel like something is out of control,

then you start to get a little finicky, and you start to get

a little bit angry. And so what happens is even to the point that

he thinks, if he pulls his godson Rooster's papers from flight school, he'll

never become a pilot, which means he'll never risk his life, which means

he can never potentially die. And so, by Maverick's desire to try to

control outcomes, he consistently puts it in his own hands, and he consistently

endeavors to do this on his own, which to us we know is not

the biblical perspective of what faith and trust looks like. And so what Maverick

shows us in this movie, if you've seen it, is it could be

a story of trying to avoid your greatest fears. I don't know what your

greatest fear in life is, but oftentimes we try to control that that fear

will never happen, or that outcome will never happen. And so for him,

whether it's the fear of committing to one person and hurting them, or

reliving the same mistakes as before, or even for him losing your purpose,

he had a fear of never flying again, and so therefore who is he

if he could never fly? That's where his purpose was held. Oftentimes our

decisions can be guided more by avoidance than by faith. Have you ever thought

about that before? Sometimes the things we decide to do in life is more

about trying to avoid things and less about trying to trust God and have faith

to dare to do something that's greater than maybe what you've done before, of

what you've seen before. And to me, it reminds me of a passage

of Scriptures where the disciples struggled with what they could control, and they also

struggled with the reality that Jesus is in it and Jesus can't control it.

And so what we're gonna look at is Mark chapter four. And before we

do that, I want you to see this quote by Shannon L. Alder.

She says, this fear is the glue that keeps you stuck. Faith

is the solvent that sets you free. And so fear is the glue that

keeps you stuck, and faith is the solvent that sets you free. Today,

the question is do we operate more in fear or do we operate in

faith. Fear will keep you stuck and hidden faith will begin to take you

out to daring paths that God is leading us in. And the thing is,

when you step more out to faith, it means less and less that

you are in control, but it means more and more that God is in

control. And that's what faith teaches us of what it means when we can't

control our outcomes. Look at Mark chapter four, starting at verse thirty five's

famous passage of scripture, and if he'd like to join me, we can

here to Budet. We've been standing in the honor of reading God's word and

we'll do that today as we read the scriptures and story. But it's a

powerful story concerning Jesus. It says this in Mark four thirty five. On

that day, when evening had come, he said to them, speaking of

Jesus, let us go across to the other side, and leaving the crowd.

They took him and with them in the boat just as he was,

and other boats were with him, and a great windstorm arose, and the

waves were breaking into the boat, so that the boat was already filling.

But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke

him and said, teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?

And he awoke, and he rebuked the wind and said to the sea,

peace be still, And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.

He said to them, why are you so afraid? Have you still

no faith? And they were filled with great fear and said to one another,

who then is this that even the end and the sea obey him?

You may be seated? What happens when you cannot control the outcome or the

storm? What does our life and what do the decisions we make happen when

that happens. This is a story of the disciples concerning this situation. They

are in a storm. Jesus has already done massive amounts of ministry. He's

tired. But also that the disciples have seen Jesus move in incredible ways in

their life. They've already seen him turn water into wine. They've already seen

him heal people. They've already seen him preach the Kingdom of God. So

for all intentsive purposes, they have already seen Jesus as the Son of Man

move. The only thing is they have yet to see Jesus as the son

of God. So what happens is is they believe that Jesus as the son

of man, because we know through the miraculous birth of Mary through by God,

is that Jesus was fully human and fully God. At this point in

juncture, the disciples fully understood that Jesus was fully man and God used him.

At this point, right now, they're gonna see that he is fully

God, because only God in all the history of scripture has authority over the

weather. And so when Jesus comes and he begins to step out and speak

to the storm, he's doing something that the disciples didn't expect he could even

do. All the disciples were looking for was Jesus's fear also and his empathy.

That's all they wanted, so they limited who Jesus really is. Pastor

Kenny has his famous saying. Ever since I've been a young pastor, Pastor

Kenny has always said, hurt people, hurt people. You ever heard that

before? Hurt people, hurt people. This is a case, I swear.

Scared people just want to make other people scared. So they come to

wake up Jesus, not to see if he could do anything about it,

but just to see are you as scared as we are? Because when they

come and they awake him, they say, teacher, do you not care?

We are perishing? In other words, you could imagine waters coming into

the boat. So they probably have buckets and they're probably trying to get water

out of the boat, and they're thinking to themselves, who does this Jesus

think he is in the sterns sleeping? Why he got all of us his

disciples working? And I love that even Mark adds to the scripture that he

was sleeping on a cushion like like he made sure to say that he had

a temper pedic involved in this sleep, almost to emphasize me, my man,

my man is resting this isn't this isn't a nephew take on an airplane

or anything like that. Jesus has cushions temper pedic set up, which means

he is having immaculate rest in this moment. And the disciples come to him

and say, why are you not as worried about this as we are?

In other words, Jesus, do you not care that we're all about to

die? So you're just good with death than Jesus, that's the question.

Oh, so you may be okay with dying, but we not okay with

dying. And so there's this because this fear of the unexpected that begins to

reveal the worry of the disciples, which is often like you and I.

Because if you ever posed a question or even thought to yourself before God,

do you not care? Do you not care about what it is that I'm

going through? God? Do you not even care about what it is that

I'm experiencing right now? God? You don't care that I've lost my job.

You don't care that I can't pay my bills. You don't care that

I can't a spouse, You don't care about any of these things. I

don't know if you ever felt that but here's the disciples. Jesus. Why

do you look so rested while all of us are scrambling. That's you and

I. So here's through the unexpected what we see Jesus can do. Here's

the three points that I just share with you at the time that we have.

The first thing we see through this passage of scripture is Jesus is on

call. We see through this passage of scripture that Jesus he's on call.

I don't know if you ever met a nurse or a doctor before, and

maybe they've come to wherever you're at. I know I've gone to a kid's

party and a doctor and nurse been there and they said, I'm on call.

What that means. That means they got a beeper on them and if

an emergency comes, whatever they do, and they could be blowing out the

candles, they could be in the middle of something, they could be putting

something together. But if that beeper calls, they're on call. They I

gotta go. I'm on call today when there's an emergency, I got to

go. What we see in this passage is when they wake up Jesus,

he doesn't turn over and go back to bed. What I've presumed over the

years with a lot of theologians, is what I think this storm wasn't gonna

do. Is I think they were gonna make it to the other side.

I think Jesus knew that he still had much ministry to do. Also,

he knows this moment is gonna happen too. But let's just say the disciples

never woke him up. Was the boat gonna flood and were they all gonna

die? No? No, no, they were gonna make it to the

other side. Maybe maybe they'd made it to the other side with five feet

of water in the boat, but they were gonna make it to the other

side. But instead of Jesus telling them, guys, it's okay, you're

gonna make it to the other side, he decides to wake up from his

net and deal with this thing that the Disciples is going through. And so

what Jesus begins to tell us is even though you and I are not at

his level of faith being Jesus is he will begin to come out and he

will match your level of faith that you have. Because the disciples had enough

faith to wake him up. Let's go wake him up. Let's just ask

him, does he not care. They're not even asking him, Jesus,

can you do something about this storm? They don't think he can so,

so they're just more so saying, hey, let's just go wake him up

and see. Why is he not worried like we're worrying. I don't know

if you ever had a conversation like that with your spouse before, where you

look at your spouse saying, why aren't you worried about this? Why aren't

you worried about how these kids are gonna come out? Do you not see

what they're doing right now? He's like, oh, they'll be all right.

That's how I was when I was four whatever, it was, right,

he said, the worry doesn't match. And so we see as the

disciples, it says this when they woke up and walked up to him,

they said, and they woke him and said, teacher, do you not

care that we are perishing? So they call him. Jesus wakes up from

his temper pedic nap. He doesn't tell them guys, don't worry about it

or just hush. He steps out and then he begins to do something incredible.

Is what happens is is is he begins to speak to the storm,

and he calms the storm. But Bob Golf, who's a famous author and

Christian leader, says this God doesn't break things so he can fix them.

He fixes broken things so he can use them. This is a case of

what's happening like oh, okay, okay, Oh, so God is gonna

break the boat. God's gonna flood the boat. No, no, no,

storm was coming, and now Jesus is about to help the disciples grow

their faith. And the unexpected of what you and I cannot control gets God

an opportunity to grow our faith. I know you want always calm waters.

I know you want everything to always be still. I know you and I

always want things to be perfect. I know you and I want to be

like Maverick. If I just go move in the Mahave, if I make

no friends, if I take no wife, if I have no children,

then I can't hurt anybody and no one can hurt me. I know That's

how we want to control life in areas, but it does not work that

way, and so instead we can begin to choose to be like the disciples

that when a storm comes, you begin to first go to Jesus to say,

Jesus are you on call. He is, He's on call. The

second thing Jesus is, if you're taking notes, is Jesus is on time.

He's on time. Don't look at no one next to you, but

ever you've met anyone before that just ain't on time for anything. Some people

sometimes I worry they're not gonna even be on time for their own funeral.

They're gonna run late. We just can't seem to get on time with anything.

But with Jesus. The moment that Jesus begins to intercede and interject in

this story is the on time moment. It says this in verse thirty nine.

And he awoke, and he rebuked the wind, and see and said

to the sea, peace be still. And the wind ceased, and there

was a great calm in the water. See what happens is there's a moment.

The Bible talks about having faith like a mustard seed. The disciples did

not ask for Jesus to calm the storm, but Jesus knew he had the

power and the capacity to do that. And so their mustard seed faith,

which was just to ask Jesus for his concern, became enough for Jesus to

step out in the boat and completely calm the situation. And so what happens

is it reveals to us that you and I how you don't need to have

braggadocious faith. You don't have to have this faith that can fill a room.

All you have to do is have enough faith to say, Jesus,

are you there, Jesus, can you come? And I'm thankful that Jesus

comes on time. You see, if Jesus never came in the middle of

the storm and he stopped the storm from even coming, the disciples would have

no idea that they could go to Jesus for other things. They just never

know. They would walk in blindful ignorance for the rest of their life.

That's why people always talk about Christ's death and resurrection. Why do we need

it? Because if you didn't have it, you wouldn't know how much God

loves you. Why is there evil in the world, Because if there was

an evil in the world, you wouldn't know what good is. Everybody would

just be robotic, and so you'd have no idea. The capacity of God's

grace, the capacity of God's mercy, And so Jesus allowing this storm for

a moment is enough to grow the disciples capacity that even leads them to start

to get a little scared because they're like, we were falling. I know,

we all we was following a human, but I didn't know we were

following God. That's much more scarier. It's much more scarier than the meeting

a human to then realize is human man, this is God. He has

control of everything. But but Jesus has his time that doesn't always match with

our time. I remember when I was young and I was in college in

my early twenties and late teens, is I had a girlfriend for four years,

senior year of high school, senior year to college. We were set

that we were going to marry each other. I mean, it was no

fact. Our parents knew this, everybody around us knew this, and so

we had our whole lives planned. We knew what she was gonna do.

We knew what I was gonna do. I was gonna be a pastor,

and all these things in knew she was gonna do. And so what happens

is is towards the end of the year, at four years together, she

had even picked out her ring. I began to save money for that ring.

I was three months away from being able to pay off the ring that

she wanted. So I was three months away from literally asking her to be

my wife. But it was known, we already knew that was happening.

She got to pick out the ring and everything, and so I'm three months

away. I call her one day, she doesn't answer. I begin to

call her for the next thirty days, and she never picks up, never

answers. Then one day, my middle brother Caleb is at Disneyland with his

wife Ashley, and he runs into her, holding hands and kissing another guy

in line. Finally she answers one of my calls, and she actually texts

me and she said, I didn't know. We went to different schools.

She said, I didn't know how to tell you. I didn't want to

marry you. I don't want to be married to a pastor. And so

I thought it was better if we just moved on and stopped talking to each

other. Well, that may have been convenient for her, because you got

a guy, I've got nobody. So here I am I'm going to God,

going God, do you not care? What? Come on? I'm

in Bible School. I'm gonna be a pastor for all intents and purposes.

I'm doing everything you want me to do. Disciples, same thing, Disciples,

Jesus were on this boat because of you. You got us out here

on this boat. The least you could do is pick up a bucket.

You're not doing none of it. So that's where I'm at. I'm my

God, do something, and I'm praying. God, change your heart.

God, kill that guy. Do whatever you gotta do to make this work.

I'm making I'm making requests, the prayers of a diligent When I'm praying

and God's not doing nothing, He's asleep on his temp repeating he's does nothing.

He does nothing for two years. For two years, I go on

date after date after day. I'm I'm not being a player, but I'm

going to coffee and I'm going on it might be interested in this girl.

No, it doesn't seem like it's gonna work. No, this girl.

I had to go out on fifteen to eighteen dates, the coffees with people,

and I'm going, Man, I leave every time. I'm going,

God, they're not that girl. That's what I would do every time.

God, They're not that girl. A year into this process or two years.

A year into this process, one of the mothers in the church,

Mother Strong. She's walking out of church one day on a Wednesday night.

She stops and she looks at me, and she used to call me because

Mother Strong was Jewish, and so she used to call me Isaac, which

means laughter. So she said etok, And I said, yes, Mother

Strong, because when a mother renames you, you you just shut up and

you take it. So you don't. I don't remind her that my name's

Adam or anything like that. He just whatever. So she said I have

a word for you. I said, I said yes, ma'am. She

said, she said, God told me that you're gonna find your wife when

you stop looking for a wife. Now, in my head, I'm like,

that is the dumbest prophecy I've ever heard in my life. How do

you find something by not looking for something? Like I gotta go on these

dates with these girls? Like how else am I gonna howise am I gonna

know? So you know, I respect my elders. So I said,

yes, ma'am, God bless you, thank you so much. And I

walked away. And I'm like, man, this lady's getting Oh, she's

just saying stuff now, And so what happens is. For the next couple

of months, I continue to do what I was doing, and then eventually

I just choose on my own not connecting any two, I choose to connect

and I just say I'd say, man, I'm gonna start focusing more in

youth ministry. I've gone on all these dates. It's not working. I'm

just gonna focus on my job here at a Bunt. I'm gonna be the

youth pastor. I'm just gonna focus on that. So for about nine months,

that's all I'm doing. I don't go on dates anymore, and I

still don't connect anything that mother Strong said. So it's one day, on

about probably a Tuesday Wednesday, I'm with Pastor Diego, and Pastor Diego tells

me, he says, you know, I got a friend who has a

pastor in Hawaii. He has three daughters. Why don't you go on a

vacation for two weeks and why don't you just meet his daughter. He's trying

to arrange marriages now he's and if you know him, you know that's very

common with him. And so he says, why don't you go for two

weeks and if you hit it off with any of his three daughters, maybe

maybe you'll find a wife. And I remember, verbatim, I looked at

my dad, still never connected what mother strong said in this moment, and

I said, Dad, I'm completely fine. I'm happy in my season.

I'm not looking for a wife right now. I'm good. You don't have

to send me to Hawaii. He said, okay, that's fine. I

mean I would have took Hawaii for Hawaii's sake, but not to find a

wife. So I said that. He said, okay, that's fine.

This was on a Tuesday or Wednesday. That Friday, I see someone from

a distance. That Saturday, I'm hanging out in the courtyard and the fountain

here at our Rancho campus, and I end up meeting this girl named Ashley

Elliott, who to me was the most beautiful girl I had ever met in

my life. And I had felt in that moment, truly, I felt

in that moment, I'm gonna I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a chance for

on this girl. I'm gonna try to pursue this girl. It hit and

it connected in the low and behold, I didn't know that that person I

would begin to date for a year, be engaged with a year and be

married eight years this year because I waited on God's time and I met.

The scripture says he that finds a wife fights a good thing. I didn't

know that at a courtyard fountain in church you can meet that much of a

good thing. I didn't know. I thank God. Listen to this.

Here's the moment. I thank god he never answered one of my prayers.

I thank god he didn't kill that other kid. I thank god he didn't

let me marry that other girl. I thank god he didn't set me up

with any of those other eighteen girls. Because God's time is better than my

timeline. God's word is better than my word. And so when I'm sitting

in the boat sank, God, do you not care? He says,

I care. I care. I'm gonna come on time, and I'm gonna

be still. I'm gonna give you a piece be still. But but it's

gonna be known when your faith meetches its max stretch capacity. And I was

at a moment that I never thought that God would truly bless me with the

woman that he blessed. If all I did was weighed on him, I

could have forced it, I could have rushed it. I could have picked

anyone in between. But the reality was is that waiting on God is better

than acting on myself any of those men. So God, he's on time.

He ain't on your watch, he's not on your timeline. He don't

care about what you have an Apple calendar or Google calendar, because his time

is better than our time. And the time that he comes out to show

the disciples he is who he really is was just on time. It was

his time. Isaiah forty three two says this, when you pass through the

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

not overwhelm you. And when you walk through fire, you shall not be

burned, and the flames shall not consume you. There have been times that

I felt like I was in pat rushing waters. There have been times that

I felt like I've been in rivers that I cannot sustain. There have been

times I felt like I've been in a fire. And there have been times

that I've looked to God in all those situations and say, God, do

you not care? And every single time God has shown me I do care.

I do care, but I'm showing you something, and I'm doing something

in your life. And there's something in you, Adam, that needs to

change before I can continue to move you to that season. And there's something

that needed to change in the disciples. The disciples were good with following a

man, but they needed to follow God. And this moment of calming the

storm gave Jesus the opportunity to show them you are following someone greater than just

a messiah. You are following someone that is the son of God. And

Jesus teaches us many times that trusting him through those difficult times is an opportunity

to release the things we cannot control. So here's the third point with this

with the last thought is not only is Jesus on call, not only is

Jesus on time, but Jesus is on location. He's there, He's on

location. If you ever work in a Hollywood set, there's alway all the

time, the film crew is ready to go, but the actor cannot be

found. He's not on location. He's still on lunch, he's still in

his RV, he's still having a smoke break or whatever he's doing. But

everybody's ready to go except for the one person that matters. The great thing

about Jesus is that he is always on location. He's there, He's available.

The problem isn't him. The problem is us. The problem is not

his availability, it's our ability to go and grab him, like the disciples

needed to do. And so it shows us in their realization, they realize,

and they were filled with great fear and said to one another, who

then is the that even the wind and the sea obey him? They did

not know truly who was on location. Right, There's been times that I've

been at restaurants before and I've been really nice to the owner, but I

didn't know he was the owner. He was on the table next to me

and they're time. My bill came, and then the bill was covered,

and the owner said, thank you for being such a nice person and talking

to me. I never realized that the owner was on location who had the

ability to cover the bill? And so what happens? And when Jesus is

on location, his availability to cover our bill, our sin is readily available.

Are we going to start the conversation to say, Jesus, you got

a call on him? They went and woke him because they knew that they

needed him now. All they wanted from him is his concern and his sympathy.

But what they got because of their mustard. See, faith was something

greater. And so what we learned in this passage is many of us,

including myself, we want to travel in lakes with no storms. That's what

we want. We want to find places and seasons that have no struggle or

have no storm. So everything that we think about and everything that we do

is to avoid the storm. That's what you and I want. Okay,

now now, no, no, no, Now, if I marry this

person, God, I don't want no issues between me and them, no

struggles. I had that in my last marriage. Well, you're gonna get

a storm or two regardless of who you marry. You can marry AI and

it's still gonna cause you some issues. You're still gonna have storms. So

what happens is we wonder, what is the trick to being able to control

everything and avoid every storm. That's not the trick. That's what we always

want is we want prayer, we want to read our Bible, we want

to commit everything that we need to say, God, how can I avoid

the storms of life? But that is not the trick. That's not what

we do. The trick is in not finding a lake with no storms,

but rather owning a boat that has Jesus on it. That's what the trick

is. You're gonna you're gonna hit late, You're gonna hit lakes to have

storms. You're gonna have them. You can't avoid them. They will come.

They do happen. I've never met one person that has never had a

storm in their life. I've never met someone like that. So you will

have storms. So we say, well, then, God, what's the

trick. The trick is, is Jesus on your boat, because that's the

one who has the ability to say, peace, be still. That's the

one who has the ability to speak to the storm and say, okay,

is enough, now stop. And so what we have to do, and

the boat represents our life is is Jesus on your boat. Is Jesus in

your life? Because Jesus makes us a promise In Matthew twenty eight twenty he

says, behold, I am with you always to the end of the age,

to the end of it all. Jesus is with us. And so

we see the presence of fear does not mean the absence of Jesus. He's

always near, offering his peace to calm our storms. That's what we see

about Jesus is Jesus is not there to rip and strip our fear. He's

there to show us that he is greater than whatever fear that you and I

possibly have, and so by that we can begin to trust him with our

life. Because he has the ability to calm the storms, he has the

ability to be on the boat with us. It takes to begin to have

a relationship with him, like we see with the Disciples that Jesus was all.

Jesus was on call and on time and on location, not by happenstance.

It's because the disciples chose to follow him, and so we have to

choose to first follow him because this faith doesn't happen by happenstance. It is

a decision and it is a choice that you and I have to make to

say, Jesus, I will follow you with where you go. You going

on the boat, I'm going on the boat. On that plane, I'm

going on that plane. You going to that job. I'll go to that

job. God, I will follow you where you go, because that's where

Jesus will build our faith. The most to be in the will of God

is to be the one that says, Jesus, I follow you. That's

where Jesus can begin to build our faith. Today. Let's pray today,

Lord, we thank you so much for this word and this message. Today,

Father God, I pray Lord, that we not be like the movie

we saw earlier, Lord, where we try to control every possible outcome,

and we walk in fear, fear of commitment, fear of trust, fear

of moving forward because we want to be in control of all things. But

God, may we be full of faith like the disciples, Lord, who

even just a little bit, just a muster seed of faith was enough,

was enough to get you to show yourself that you are who you really say

that you are. God. So we thank you today. Lord. May

you build up our faith over our fear today, Lord, and may faith

today truly be a solvent that we need in our life. Lord, as

fear is there to get us stuck, and scarcity is there to get us

to walk away from you. Today, may we trust you in your abundant

life and your abundant hope today in Jesus name, Amen and Amen, praise

God. Well, we're here together with just two more minutes. If you

give me this most important part of our service, where we make an invitation

of faith today, and so it's appointed for every person here today that one

day we will stand before God. Every single day there are people that die,

and we all approach the throne room of grace, but not all of

us will be welcome with that love and forgiveness in the Throne Room of grace,

not because of anything God desires or God does. It's because God has

given us an opportunity to receive his son as Lord and Savior, to inherit

kingdom of Heaven. We talked about today, what's the point of Jesus's death

and resurrection. It is to show us God's great love for us. Humans

through out of and Eve got us into this mess of sin, but God

is the one who got us out. And so God sent his own son

Jesus as a way out of that wilderness, that wilderness of sin, that

wilderness of pain, that wilderness of rejection. And there will be people who

will reject God, not because of any reason other than their own pride that

says God. I want to do it my own way, and I want

to live life my own way. But God's grace and his love is available

for all of us to receive, and all of us to accept. And

so if you're here today and you want to know without a shadow of a

doubt that one day you will stand before Heaven, you will stand before God,

and you'll be received as a son and daughter, then today is the

day to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior. The Bible says is

Roman chapter ten, verse nine and ten that if we confess with our mouth

that Jesus is Lord and we believe he rose from the grave, it says

you will be saved. Period, and Revelations tells us those that would confess

the name of Jesus will be written in the Lamb's Book of Life, where

your name never be erased and your name can never be scratched out. This

is something that God does as a permanence of his love and his grace.

All it takes for us as an act of faith to believe God is who

he really says that he is, and we will be saved. And so,

if you're here today and you find yourself far from God, or maybe

one time in your life you've called yourself a Christian, but you see yourself

acting differently lately and you know it doesn't reflect the one who follows God,

then I want to encourage you today. On the count of three, we're

gonna raise our hands and we'll say a prayer together. But if you'd like

to give your life to Christ today and you'd like to confess Him as your

Lord and Savior, either through the first time or reddication, on the count

of three, I just want you to raise your hand so that we can

celebrate with you and pray with you right now. So, if that's you

here today and you want to know that your eternity is secure in the hands

of the Savior, on the count of three, raise your hand one two,

one, two three, Raise your hand up high in the air today

as we are gonna pray for you. God, Bless you, guys.

God bless you guys. Praise God for this month. We're doing something special,

would you guys? The reality is Jesus died boldly on the cross,

naked for all to bear. It was a bold move where he wanted to

show the world that he's there and available to die for our sins. And

so I'd love to pray for you right now for this month. So would

you do me a favor if you raise your hand, would you be bold

to come out of the aisle and come up here in the front so that

we can pray with you. God bless you, guys. God bless you.

God bless you guys. Bless you with a bless your brother. Bless

you. Bless your brother. Oh, blesh you, I bless you,

God bless you. Take this sision. God bless you, guys. Bless

your guys. I bless you, Hey, guys, bless your brother.

God bless you. Thank you, bother. I'd bless you guys. God

bless you. Bless your brothers. Praise God, bless your brother. God

bless you. All right, Would you guys join me right now? Would

you repeat this prayer with me right now? And we're gonna see the Lord

move in your life. This is the start of something new and the start

of something special for your life. So would you all bow your head,

and I know our church will join us. Would you repeat after me and

saying this with me? Would you say this with me, Dear Lord Jesus,

in this moment, I confess you as Lord and Savior. I repent

to my sins. I believe in my heart that you died on the cross,

and you rose three days three days later, and I commit to follow

you for the rest of my days, through every storm, every trial,

and every win. I will follow you in Jesus name. Amen. We

really hope you enjoyed the message, and if you said yes to Jesus,

we just want to say congratulations and give you a free devotional to help you

walk out your faith. Click the link in the description or head over to

grow dot Faith to download your devotional. Oh and be sure to subscribe and

share this podcast with your friends. Thanks for listening to ALS the podcasts,

and I hope you tune in again.