Focused Faith

Open your Bibles to Matthew chapter 14, and I believe we're going to meet in verse 22.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

Matthew chapter 14, and we'll look at verse 22.

Matthew 14 · chapter mention

And the word of the Lord says, Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into

the boat and go before him to the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.

And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.

Now, when evening came, he was alone there.

But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves,

for the wind was contrary.

Now, the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them walking on the sea.

And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a ghost.

And they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them,

saying, Be of good cheer. It is I.

Do not be afraid.

And Preeton answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to

you on the water. So he said, come.

And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.

But when he saw that the wind was boisterous and he was afraid and beginning

to sink, He cried out, saying, Lord,

save me.

And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him and said to him,

oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt?

And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

I want to paint this picture for you through this passage of scripture.

It's one of my favorite, actually, passages of scripture.

Jesus had just fed the 5,000 plus women and children with two fish,

right, and five loaves of bread.

I mean, a miracle took place. He just fed them.

At this point, we see in John chapter 6, when he did it the last time,

John 6 · chapter mention

they tried to make him king. He didn't come to be an earthly king.

He came to be a spiritual king and Lord over the universe.

And so they tried to make him a natural king.

He got away. This particular time, I believe Jesus was going before them and

saying, listen, disciples, get to the other side. Y'all go ahead of me.

He dispersed the crowd. But then he went up into the mountain to pray alone.

By himself to spend time with God. I want you to know this, that prayer is not just you talking.

Prayer is talking and listening.

And who should be doing the most talking is the one that knows the most.

Why are you doing all the talking when you know very little?

Let him talk to you. So I believe your times of prayer should be more spent

listening than talking, listening.

And I believe Jesus went to the mountain to pray, not to do all the talking, but to listen.

What is the father saying? What is the father doing?

What should I be doing? How can I come in alignment with him?

How can I be in agreement with him?

He's listening in the mountain.

And so the disciples, they go off in the boat and they start to get to the other side.

And as they are attempting to get to the other side, somewhere between 3 a.m.

And 6 a.m., a wind begins to blow.

Now, I want you just for a moment to close your eyes. If you're driving right

now listening, keep your eyes open, but close your eyes right now.

And I want you to imagine a boat out in the middle of nowhere.

You can't see any land.

It's dark. It's about three to four in the morning.

The clouds are covering the moon and you begin to feel the wind hit you and

slap you across the face.

As the wind is slapping you across the face, the boat is rocking.

It's up and down and up and down and up and down.

And the wind's hitting you and the waves are at you and maybe even splashing into the boat.

It's dark, you can't see. It's early in the morning.

Now open your eyes. and you have this picture that I'm in this boat out here

by myself alone and I see something walking on the water.

And I say, oh my gosh, there is an image that's walking on the water.

Now, the disciples, Scripture says that they cried out with fear.

It is a ghost. They screamed out. I'm going to tell you what I would have done.

I would have screamed like a little girl.

I don't like the water anyway, necessarily. If many of you know,

I can swim. I just don't like to swim, okay?

And so here we are. I do like boats, though, by the way. That's kind of weird.

I don't like getting in the water, but I like boats, and I like cruises,

too. Okay, that's another thing.

They see this image walking. They say, it's a ghost.

Now, ironic to me, they begin to talk to this image.

Now, for me, I'm trying to get the motor going.

I'm trying to get the roads going. I'm trying to get out of there.

But they begin to have a conversation with the image. And it's a ghost.

And Jesus says, it's not a ghost. Hey, guys, it's me.

Don't be afraid.

You'll hear Jesus say that pretty often. Do not be afraid.

Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.

And so, as they're out there, they realize, okay, this is Jesus.

And Peter asks a very interesting question.

He says, if, somebody say if. If.

If it's you, command me to come on the water.

Now, why couldn't Peter say something like, if it's you, what is my last name?

If it's you, what's my wife's name? If it's you, where was I born?

Why did he ask this strange question, if it's you...

Command me to walk on the water. Personally, I thought it was an odd question. I think it's strange.

Why say, if it's you, tell me to do something impossible, something miraculous,

something supernatural?

I believe Peter said that because Jesus had been preaching to them,

hanging with them for three years,

fellowshipping with them with the one message in mind, you can do what I can do.

He's been telling them that. Greater works will you do.

If you, you can lay hands on the sick and they'll recover. You can cast out demons.

You can raise the dead. You can feed these five thousand.

You can do what I can do. I believe that's the message Jesus is getting over unto us today.

You can do what I can do. Let me tell you this.

Jesus came on this earth, all God, into flesh,

but he stripped himself of his divinity and became a man like you and I,

male and female, a man like you and I so that he could show us,

that we can do what he can do.

The whole purpose of us reading scripture, memorizing, meditating it,

confessing it, is to realize what Jesus could do, we can do.

Get this. Don't read scripture like, well, that's just what Jesus did or that's

what Paul did or that's what John did.

No, if they can do it, I can do it.

And the only thing Jesus did as God was get on the cross.

Everything else he did as a man filled with the Holy Spirit on the cross. He was divinity.

You it don't matter, Josh, if you got on the cross, your sins and your blood

ain't doing nothing for me. We need blood type G, right?

We need God's blood, right? To do something for us eternally and forever.

And so he did that in his divinity, but in his humanity, he's showing us,

I'm an example, you can do what I can do. You can do what I can do.

You can do what I can do. And Peter says, okay, Jesus is walking on the water.

If it's you you've been saying this for a

long time if it's you command me

to do what you're doing so what's jesus supposed to say after teaching all these

years what's he supposed to say to that come come on come if it's you bid me

to come command me to come and jesus says well Well,

it's not me. Well, then he will be a liar.

Well, I don't know if you can't do that because, you know, only I can do it.

No, no, I've been teaching y'all. You can do what I can do. He says, come.

So Peter, who is bold. I don't like when people talk bad about Peter because

Peter did something really bold here.

Peter got out of the boat.

Pastor would not have gotten out of the boat unless I had a life jacket on.

He got out of the boat and literally attempted and successfully walked on the water.

And he began to walk to Jesus. Come, come, come.

Now, faith comes by hearing and hearing by what? The word of God.

So faith comes by hearing the word of God.

God said,

Jesus and God are one. God said, come. That's the word.

Peter's faith connected and said, okay, the word of God says, come.

I am going to walk on the water.

Footnote, I want to let you know that many of you in here today and listen to

some of my voice, you don't even realize it, but you are walking on water.

You are doing things that you never thought you were able to

do You are accomplishing things that you never thought

you can accomplish You are stronger than you think you

are You are wiser than you think you are

You are out doing impossible things that people are looking at you saying I

can't believe that you're doing that I can't believe you accomplished that They

may not ever tell you that but they're watching you and they're noticing you

and you're literally walking on the water When I left my six-figure paying job to go into the ministry,

I was walking on the water,

and I'm still walking on the water. Come on, somebody say amen.

You got to realize you're walking on the water. Some of the things you're doing,

you're walking on the water.

You are comfortable walking on the water. Why are you walking on the water?

Because God said it, and you obeyed it, and you stepped out of the boat,

and then you're walking on the water.

Come on, say amen to that. But see, we, in the natural point of view,

the water, it's impossible to walk on water because water has no footing,

no foundation, nothing to put weight upon.

It's impossible in the natural. I submit to you that Peter was not only walking on the water.

He did walk on the water. He also walked on the word that Jesus told him.

So the foundation was the word spoken, come.

So here's Peter, C-O-M-E, C-O-M-E. He's walking on the word, come.

Glory to God. Are you getting this today? When you get a word from God,

you're going to have to step out with faith and walk on that word.

And when you walk on that word, now you're walking in faith and faith pleases God.

The manifestation of what you believe in for is not what the Bible says pleases God.

Well, I'm believing for healing, and your healing hasn't arrived, manifested yet.

And you think, man, it's going to please God when the healing manifests.

No, what actually pleases God is you walking in faith until it comes.

Are you listening to me today? Without faith, it's impossible to please God.

So you're doing what God is saying to do, and it hasn't manifested yet,

but you're walking on the water, you are now pleasing God.

And as you're pleasing God, before you even get to what you're believing for,

God is pleased with your faith to step out of the boat with C-O-M-E, C-O-M-E, C-O-M-E.

He's walking on the word of God.

Now notice, as soon as he began to walk on the word of God, notice the wind started blowing.

Now, how many of you have ever seen the wind? None of you have.

None of us have ever seen the wind. I actually think I want to see the wind.

I just want to see what it looks like.

We have seen the effects, but we've not seen the wind.

So the wind is invisible. So this invisible force just started blowing as he's

walking on the water, walking on the word.

This invisible force is blowing and he begins to get distracted.

Somebody say distracted. Distraction is something that causes you to take your

attention off of your purpose.

A distraction will cause you to take your focus and your attention off of the promise.

A distraction will cause you to take your focus and attention off of the presence of God.

Silly example, but sometimes I won't have my phone and I'll think, man, what is that verse?

And I'll think, oh, I need to find that verse. I just want to get that verse.

I want to read it again. And I go to my phone and as soon as I grab my phone,

I forgot why I even grabbed my phone. How many of you have done that before? Be honest.

Completely forgot. Why? Because you got distracted.

A text came in. A notification popped up.

A social media popped up. A phone call you missed popped. And I've done that before.

Wait, wait. I've been on this phone five minutes.

Why did I grab the phone anyway?

And completely forgot. Why? Because of the distraction.

A distraction is a disruption.

Now watch this. A distraction doesn't have to be sinful in order to be harmful.

It could be something really good like the Lord says, I want you to wake up

every morning at 5 a.m. and spend some time with me.

And your spouse says, stay in the bed a little longer with me.

What you going to do? What you going to do? Honey, honey, babe, pookie, sugar lumps.

I got to obey God. God said I got to get up at five and I've got to obey.

I love you, but I'll be back when the Lord releases me to come back.

Come on, say amen to that. It don't have to be.

Sinful to be harmful. And I'm not saying Your spouse is a distraction But that

was a distraction From what the Lord told you to do See a distraction Is an

intrusion That causes confusion,

When you're distracted, you start getting confused as to why you're even doing

what you're doing in the first place.

An intrusion that causes confusion.

A distraction is something that gets you misaligned to the purpose of what God

wants you to accomplish.

And so Peter is walking, and then the wind came.

He took his eyes off of the word.

He took his eyes off of the goal. He took his eyes off of the promise because

the wind was blowing, and he started to look at the distraction and the effects of it,

and he began to sink.

Notice you're going to hear bad news. Listen, I wish I could tell you you would never hear bad news.

That is not the gospel. The gospel is good news, but in this world,

you will have tribulation.

In this world, you will have pressure and stress and distress and agony.

You will have bad things happen, things that you didn't expect to happen.

They will happen in this earth.

But notice that don't let it be a disruption that causes you to get off course

to what the Lord is telling you to do.

Bad news will come.

And a lot of times, can I just be open with you?

We spend more time focusing on a bad news and get completely off of our mission and our purpose.

We get so focused on, I got this text, and the text was bad.

And now I'm focused on this bad text, spending all this time thinking about

this bad text, and completely got off course of what the Lord's told me to do.

Stacy and I were talking about this recently, just at the dinner table,

just sitting there talking about how one word from somebody is.

Can completely distract us and get us completely off of what we believe in God for.

We were focused and we were determined and we were going for it,

but one word just got us derailed from the tracks of progression.

And we're thinking, we got to spend, we were talking about that,

we got to spend less time thinking about the distraction and more time being

focused on what the Lord's told us to do.

I've noticed that great leaders, great men and women, they don't allow the distraction to derail them.

They just keep plugging along. And a lot of times they don't even hear the distraction.

They don't even recognize it because they're so focused on what the Lord has

told them to do, to accomplish, or the word that he's given them for their life,

that they don't even allow the distraction to come.

And so Peter, he's walking on the word of God, the water, and the wind started

blowing and he took his eyes off of Jesus and he began to sink.

Immediately, he began to be afraid.

I want to show you something here because I want you to see that when he was

walking, come stand right here, Josh.

You want me to use you as an example here. All right. Josh is Peter.

No, Josh is Jesus. I was going to be Jesus, but I let Josh be Jesus. Josh is Jesus.

And I'm Peter, and I'm walking on the word.

And all of a sudden, I'm looking at the wind.

I'm seeing the waves. I'm distracted. And I'm like, Jesus, help me. And I begin to sink.

And right at this moment, Jesus grabs him and pulls him up. What I want you

to notice is, look how close he was.

It didn't say Jesus ran to him and saved him. It said that he was standing right next to him.

He had gotten so close to him and got scared at the moment of fulfillment.

Are you listening to me today? When you're getting ready to see the end of your

faith, you quit and get distracted right at the end. Thank you, Josh.

Right when you get to the end, all of a sudden the distractions become more intense.

And at that moment we begin to be

diverted and we'll quit and we'll never

receive the end of our faith and I love what Jesus said to him he says to him

why did you have little faith now wait a minute Jesus that took a whole lot

of faith for me to hop out the boat start walking on the water,

get as close to you as I possibly could,

I would think that's big faith.

Jesus called it little faith. Here's what he really said.

Why did you have a short burst of faith?

Why did you only have a sudden burst? But when the time came for you to receive

the end, you started to doubt.

You started to doubt. Notice this word doubt.

Jesus says to him in this word doubt, why did you think twice about it?

Why did you think twice? I said it. Now, why are you thinking twice about it? Now, listen to me now.

A lot of times when you believe in God for big things.

Typically, if it doesn't happen as fast as you would like, you started coming

up with your own solutions.

And you start saying, well, this may not work out.

And so what I'm going to have to do is I'm going

to have to come up with my own solution and now I'm thinking twice and

a third and a fourth time about something even to

the point you'll begin to retreat let me

go back to the boat right let me do the opposite of what Jesus told me to do

because this is taking too long the distractions are coming the winds blowing

unseen invisible forces are happening. I believe the devil sent the wind.

Matter of fact, I'm going to prove to you the devil sent the wind.

Put on the screen Matthew 14, 32.

Matthew 14, 32. Here is proof the devil sent the wind because when they got

into the boat, the wind stopped.

So where did the wind come from? The unseen spiritual force of negativity.

The enemy sent the wind because it stopped as soon as he got into the boat.

All of it was a distraction for Peter to lose faith and to begin to think twice about.

Now Peter's thinking about, what if I die?

God's told you to do something, and now you're thinking about, I'm about to die.

This is going to kill me. This is too hard.

How are we going to survive? You begin to think twice about it.

You begin to think, well, maybe, just maybe, I wasn't supposed to do that.

Maybe, just maybe, that's not what's supposed to happen.

Just maybe, I didn't hear from God.

You know, the one thing that the serpent told Eve in Genesis, did God really say?

That's the one tactic he will always attack you with.

Listen to me now. He will always attack you with, did God really say this?

Now you have to ask yourself, did God say it? So here's what I do.

When I hear from God about certain things, I write it down.

I write it down. I put the date. I put the time. And I say, this is what the

Lord has spoken to me. because when the serpent comes and says, did God really say?

And in that moment of distress, when I'm thinking, well, did God really say?

I go to my notes app in my phone or my, well, I use my notes app more than I do, than I used to.

My notes app in my phone and I'll say, no, you know, August 16th,

you know, 2025 at 2.03 p.m. This is what the Lord said to me.

Yes, this is what he said. And

even though what I see with my eyes doesn't line up with what I believe,

I'm going to stay with believing what the Lord told me over what I see with

my eyes. Come on, somebody say amen to that.

I'm preaching y'all saying amen. Better than if you say an amen. Somebody shout amen.

Now, let's look at 2 Corinthians 5.7. Real quick, 2 Corinthians 5.7.

Take a look here and I'll begin to wrap up. For we walk by faith, not by sight.

One translation says, for we walk by believing, not by seeing with our eyes.

We walk by faith.

Not by sight. What is faith? Faith, well, how do you get faith?

By hearing the word of God. So we walk by what the Lord, through his word,

rhema word, spoken word, we walk by faith. This is what the Lord says.

And not by what we see with our eyes, because our eyes will always deceive us.

Your five physical senses Will always deceive you When you're trying to walk

by faith And so a lot of people say That the opposite of faith is fear And I

think that is true But I think it's incomplete,

The opposite of faith Well before I get into it Here's why I think it's incomplete

Because fear is actually faith In the opposite direction,

Listen You're not really afraid of the spider you have faith in the spider's

ability to harm you. That's really what it is.

When I dealt with water and getting in the water and I've had some bad experiences

in the water I wasn't afraid of the water.

I had faith in the water's ability to harm me.

You're listening to me. And so fear and faith are just in two different directions.

Fear is faith going in the wrong direction During COVID We saw a lot of faith

In the wrong direction In fear Right?

Don't shout me down when I'm preaching good We did In the wrong direction Now,

Fear is not the opposite of faith I believe fear and faith are synonymous Just

going two different directions The opposite of faith is sight Right?

We walk by faith, not by sight.

So I walk by what I believe, not by what I see.

So the opposite of faith is what you see.

So you got a word from God that's in your heart, but you're seeing something contrary to it.

Then you begin to put your eyes on what you're seeing.

Then you get distracted from what the word says and then you begin to walk by

sight instead of walking by faith man if you guys could get what I'm saying

today you will stay on track,

because what you see is subject to change 2 Corinthians 4 18 says we do not

look at the things that are seen,

but that the things that are not seen, for the things that are seen are temporary

or subject to change, and the things that are not seen are everlasting or eternal.

So whatever you see with these natural eyes can change. Glory to God.

That's good news today, that whatever you're seeing can change.

But you got to stay in faith and you got to believe that what you see on the

inside is stronger than what you see on the outside.

Many years ago, I worked for a large ministry that had a massive television ministry.

And when I worked for the ministry, I would go into the studio.

There were times I needed to go into the studio because I worked as an electrician assistant.

Now, don't ask me to do anything electrical because I can't.

Okay. I still don't know how I did that job. I am not good with my hands. All right.

And so I was an electrician assistant and we were going to the studio and I

was, I would actually sit in the chair that they would sit in to broadcast all across the world.

And I said, one day they're going to ask me to be here and they're going to interview me.

And I, and there was no way that could ever happen, but I believed it.

I believed it. They're going to ask me to come, and they're going to interview

me right here. I believe they're going to do that, and I just began to just walk by faith.

I felt like in my heart that was right with the Lord. I didn't make that up.

You know, sometimes we got to be careful that we make up stuff.

I'll get back to the story, but I need to touch on this. We begin that,

well, God's going to do this. Did God tell you going to do that?

Nobody's going to do it. You didn't made something up.

Josh, if I tell you right here and I say, hey, I never tell you I'm going to

come cut your grass, but you say pastor going to come cut my grass.

I just believe that pastor's going to cut your grass. He's going to come my house.

I believe pastor's coming over to come and I never said it.

I ain't never coming to cut your grass I don't even cut my own grass okay so

I'm not cutting your grass right here's the thing we make it up,

Pastor going to come, no, pastor never said, did pastor ever say that?

He never said it. Well, you can't believe that. That's called make believe.

Right? And most, a lot of people have made something up and then it doesn't

happen. And then they, well, why didn't it happen? God never told you that.

Conversely, there was a particular time, this happened in our ministry,

that a man came here and he was a minister and he said that I'm committing a

so X amount into something.

That was happening, and he said, and my dad is going to sew X amount.

He said, I talked to my dad, and my dad's going to sew. Well,

he sewed the X amount, but his dad, I didn't get the check.

But he said it right here. My dad's going to sew X amount into this, that, and the third.

And it was two years later, the man asked me, he goes, did you ever get that check from my dad?

I never brought it up to him. I said, we never got it.

The next day, the check was FedExed, sent the next day.

What am I saying? I held on to that because he said it.

Now, if he didn't say it, I got nothing to hold on to, but he said it,

and I believed he was a man of his word.

It took two years, but that check came in two years later. I held on to it.

I didn't to ask her, hey man, there was nothing wrong with doing that.

Hey man, you did your dad. There's nothing wrong with that. I just didn't feel

like the Lord wanted me to do that. Just believe me.

Believe me. Two years later, it came in. Glory to God. What am I saying?

Some things that God has told you, it's on its way.

It's coming. You just got to hold on to it because it's coming.

Hallelujah. I said hallelujah.

And so, what was the first story I was telling?

Y'all remember? Y'all forgot.

Huh? Say it again? Studio. Thank you, Kim. Studio.

Yes. And so I believed that they would ask me to come do an interview in this studio.

I believe that was what the, what the Lord wanted to. And I said, I'm going to believe it.

12 years later, I get a call. Hey, can you fly out here? And we want to interview

you and put you on TV, this, that, and the third.

What happened? I held on to that. I didn't care about the distractions.

I didn't consider that, well, you know, you ain't doing nothing that they want

to interview, or I didn't consider none of that.

And ever since then, they've been calling, hey, come, come, we want to talk

to you, interview. What is that?

That is holding on to what I believe the Lord told me, and not thinking about

or considering the distractions.

And keeping my eyes focused. Notice, never let what your eyes see determine

what your heart believes.

Let me say it one more time. Get this. Never let what your eyes see determine

what your heart believes.

You look on the inside. Do not look at the things that are seen.

Because it's temporary and it's subject to change.

You believe in your heart.

I believe, guys, I'm a believer.

Believe means to be fully persuaded, convinced.

I believe. I'm convinced, I'm persuaded that what God has spoken to me is going to come to pass.

And unfortunately I have to tell you the truth can I tell you the truth it always

takes longer than you think,

And so we have to develop patience. If there was no use or need for the word

patience, God would have never put it as a fruit of the Spirit.

If everything happened immediately and suddenly, then we would never have to

operate in patience. We would never have to develop patience.

Let patience have its perfect work so that you are perfect and complete, lacking nothing.

Glory be to God. And so don't be distracted.

Guard your heart. Guard your eyes from distraction. Realize that this is a distraction.

My wife and I have been saying this over the last, all summer.

We've had some distractions come up this summer. And we've been saying,

nope, nope, this is a distraction.

We were, this is a distraction. You ain't done nothing wrong.

This is a distraction. Keep going forward.

This is just trying to get you off course, trying to get you off of what God's

called you to do. It's a distraction.

No, no, go to sleep tonight. It's a lie.

It's a distraction. Amen? And this is what the enemy does. He wants to distract us.

And the enemy attacks your faith with your eyes.

The enemy attacks your faith with your eyes. So let me ask you this question.

What has been distracting you?

What is it? Could be a family member. Could be your job. Could be your body.

Could be an employee. Could be an employer.

What has been distracting you?

Ask God to help you refocus. Let go of what's pulling you away from the promise,

from his presence, from his purpose for your life.

I want to invite you to release distractions and recommit to God's focus for your life.

We should be some of the most focused individuals.

Focused.

One sight, vision, and it's what God said. It's what the word of God's telling me.

This is how you experience true life.