Elevation with Steven Furtick - Water Walking 101

Episode Date: August 9, 2020

You may be going through a storm today, but God won’t let you go under. In “Water Walking 101,” Pastor Steven Furtick of Elevation Church turns to Matthew 14, where the disciple Peter walks on water to meet Jesus. It may be a familiar story, but God wants to reveal even more of His faithfulness through it. Are you ready for a water-walking type of faith?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey, this is Stephen Ferdick. I'm the pastor of Elevation Church, and this is our podcast. I wanted to thank you for joining us today. Hope this inspires you. Hope it builds your fate. Hope it gives you perspective to see God is moving in your life.

Enjoy the message. Starting a brand new school. I know a lot of kids aren't going back to the classroom in August here where we live. So I thought today, since I have the opportunity to teach the word, Go ahead and bring my materials, please. I'm going to teach you a lesson today. This is more than a sermon. This is a class.

And the title of the class, are you ready? Are you ready? Are you ready? I don't think you are. Come on in the chat. Say, I'm ready. Now, I can't teach you how to cook. I can't teach you how to speak Spanish.

I can't teach you any of that. I can't teach you CrossFit. I can't teach you hot yoga. I can't teach you any. you that. But today I want to teach a class. I want to teach a class, and I need to know who's present. Let's have a roll call. Put your name and your city in the chat. Say present, present. Number two pencil, water walking 101. Those of you in the room remain standing. Water walking 101. I thought we would get a jump on the school year and see what God would teach us today

about the situations in our life that he has placed us over. And I just declare over your life today. Give me my camera I'm looking at. You're not going under. You're not going under. And so consider this your introductory class, Water Walking 101. Our syllabus is from Matthew chapter 14. verses 22 through 33.

I want you to find that in your Bible. This scripture is the first scripture that I ever preached on. Yesterday I showed some of our staff, or it was earlier this week actually that I showed some of our staff, not yesterday. It was earlier this week. I showed some of our staff the second sermon that I ever preached in the Woodman of the World Building. WOW, wow, walk on water.

This is the first sermon I ever preached at Monks Corner United Methodist Church for Youth Sunday. Shout out to my mom who brought me up in church. Shout out to the poor people who endured my first sermon. Now the beauty of the Methodist Church is the sermon is only 12 minutes. So if it sucks, it's mercifully short. It's not like it is now where I don't even have a time clock because there's nobody coming in later. I'm just recording the message with a few staff in the room who are socially dis-distance. The horrible thing was I did not know the basics of preaching.

Maybe you'd say, well, that hasn't changed. Well, you may be right about that. But back then, I didn't even know that you should practice your sermon before you preach it. And I got up there with like 12 note cards, and I thought each note card would take a minute. My whole sermon was done in two minutes. And I cycled back through the cards and said the same stuff again. That polite home crowd love got me through it. It's a wonder I ever did it again.

This is the passage that I preached my first sermon from. So sometimes it's good to go back to basics. Everybody wants to use basic as a slang term these days. She's basic. It's basic. Well, what's so bad about basic? Sometimes I need to go back to the basics of faith. And this passage really helps me do that for all those who are needs.

God to get you over a situation that you feel like has overwhelmed you. The Bible says immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side. While he dismissed the crowd, after he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone. We talked about that a few weeks ago, didn't we? We talked about lonely places.

And Jesus chose the lonely place so that you were. and I could experience him in the loneliest seasons of our life. Now Jesus sent the disciples out into the boat. The Bible says it was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them walking on the lake. So here's our instructor for the class. Here comes walking on water. right into your situation. The Bible says when the disciples saw him walking on the lake,

they were terrified. It's a ghost, they said, and cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to them, take courage. It is I. Don't be afraid. And then teetered. Jesus star pupil. That one kid in the class who always wants to ask another question. Says, Lord, if it's you, Peter replied, tell me to come to you on the water. Come, he said. And Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water. Wow. Everybody say, wow.

In the chat, wow, wow. He walked on water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord save me. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You have little faith, he said. Why did you doubt? When they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.

And then those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God. Lord, we thank you for your word today, and we thank you that it transcends time, space, and geography. We ask you now, Lord, that in this moment in our life, that our hearts would be still in your presence, so that we can hear your word and move toward your purpose. I thank you for each person that you brought to this sermon today. I believe they're here for a reason. I believe your calling and drawing.

I thank you that you are on the scene and help is on the way. Bring forth your word in our hearts. May it bud and flourish, prosper, and do what you send it to do. In Jesus' name. Amen. Come on, let's clap our hands and thank God for His Word. Those of you in the room, be seated. I worked up a thirst.

Thank you. Holly. Holly Ferdick, everybody. Chris, this is about the only way I know how to walk on water. That works. Simple stuff works. Simple stuff works. In my life, I've read this text so many times, but I fear that sometimes we skim what God wants us to plunge into. And in our syllabus today, there are a few details. You're not going to believe this. I actually have real points to this sermon. So every note taker who has ever been frustrated by my abstract mode of teaching is going to be in heaven today.

Because I at least have six thoughts from this passage. Water walking 101. And I might put in a seventh for example. extra credit if God blesses us with the time. But I noticed that a lot of times when we get in a situation like these disciples we're in, maybe like you're in right now with your job or maybe like you're in right now, trying to figure out what to do with your family. Those kids, your quiver is full right now.

How many of y'all, your quiver is full and your quiver is, to be quite honest, your quiver is quivering. A little Bible humor there, quivered. And when we find ourselves in these situations, there is a tendency to blame. You know, the disciples like to fight and like to argue with one another any chance they got. But yet the storm brought them together in a unique way in Matthew 14. Trial sometimes tighten our focus. And so one thing we don't see in this storm is Peter.

and John going back and forth, or Andrew and Bartholomew talking about who's rowing the hardest. They just need to make it through the storm. But what really got my attention was a detail that I must have skimmed over, like I mentioned. And today, since we're in class, I want to study it a little more deeply, is that blame doesn't get you through a storm. And the detail I noticed in verse 22 presented on the screen for me again, it said that Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. You know how people say the devil made me do it? Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. He didn't ask them. He didn't recommend. He didn't suggest.

And now it would be one thing if he didn't know, but he's the son of God with all wisdom. So how did the one with all wisdom send them into something that threatened their life? I want you to write down point number one in the class and put it in the chat. Certain storms are unavoidable. I just need you to know that certain storms, you know what I mean by storm, right? It's not always physical. Sometimes there can be an emotional storm. Sometimes there can be a psychological storm.

Sometimes there can be a relational storm. You know, these storms we get into, sometimes we are so busy trying to figure out how to get out of them. that we expend all the energy that we could have spent trying to learn what God wants us to learn through the storm. There's two ways to get through the storm, and one is as a survivor. And how many know it's good just to celebrate that you're still here? In case you had a bad week, I'm going to give you 15 unscripted seconds to praise God for the storms that you have survived. You can sit there cute if it's been sunny in your neighborhood. But if you survive some depression and if you thought you were going down, but you made it safe, give him praise.

To survive the storm is a miracle. To survive abuse is a miracle. To survive an economy that is falling apart, but God provided is a miracle. But then God says, You can be a survivor, but then if you want to, there are certain people that they decide, I'm not just going to be a survivor. I'm going to be a student of the storm. And I am learning to learn from the storm.

I am learning to learn from the storm. The thing about it is, there are certain things that I can only learn in storms. And the second thing that I want to point out to you in the text is that God's timing, is designed to teach you to trust. When Jesus, who made the disciples get into the boat, the Bible says that when he decided to reveal himself to them was just before dawn. If the goal that God has is to comfort us, then this is a late appearance. But if God's goal is sometimes to change us, then it makes sense that he would be

show up late. When it's one of the time I taught a sermon called Trusting God's Timing, and the idea behind it is that when we're experiencing something in this very intense, we just want relief. And I get that. I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that there were times that I just wanted God to make stuff stop. And I just want to check with you real quick. Have you ever just wanted God to make it stop?

Just make it stop. make it stop. God, I'll do anything. Just make it stop. God, I'm sorry about that thing I did when I was in seventh grade. Just make it stop. And I mean, it can be a heartbreak. It can be a lot of times a loss in your life and you just feel like you're hemorrhaging and hurting. God, just make it stop. In the King James Version of Matthew 14, it says that it was the fourth watch of the night when Jesus came to them. That's the very last one. That's the very last one. That's 3 a.m. to 6 a.m. The fourth watch. And yet, interestingly enough, the Bible says he went on a mountain to pray. I've actually been to this site. And when our guide took us to show us the

mountain that Jesus might have prayed on, do you remember how he left us up there for a moment? And he really tricked us because when he left us up there, he was designing to show us that the seed that the disciples were straining in was visible to Jesus from his prayer station the whole time. And he said, just because they didn't see Jesus, didn't mean Jesus didn't see them. Point two, part B. This won't be on the test. Just because I don't see him doesn't mean he's not watching me. And he left us up there on the mountain. He left us up there for an hour.

The guy when we went to Israel, and I cried about the times in my life where I thought he had left me. The fourth watch. The first watch isn't so bad. Second watch. Third watch. I feel like we're in a moment right now, at least in our nation. I don't know exactly what it's like in your country. It feels kind of like the fourth watch right now.

For a lot of us, not for all of us. The novelty has worn off of everything. When we first started going into quarantine, I was like, well, this is kind of You know, life's slowing down a little bit? We'll have a little more family time. My quiver is full now. I've had enough family time to last me till my daughter is 40, and she's nine right now. And I love my kids.

A fourth watch faith. See, I've seen a lot of people with first watch faith, second watch faith, third watch faith. God's timing is not designed to give us relief. So if it's not designed to give you relief, what's it designed to give you? Revelation. Chris, I'm going to run a lap. I'll be right back. Hey, I know y'all can't see me, but if you can hear me, shout that just because you can't

see it doesn't mean he left you was on the boot. He's watching you. He's watching you. It's interesting that God's timing, you know, our timing is usually allocated around when we think God should do things. And then we start, the longer it goes. This is just in my life, okay? So, you know, please send me a critical email if you found God to be different, and your experience contradicts what I'm saying. I found that the longer I wait, the louder my what-ifs get.

But the third thing I wanted to tell you in Waterwalking 101, are you enjoying the class so far? Yes. Now, this is the point in the semester where you need to cancel if you want to drop the class. This is the last point to cancel. If you're still in, say I'm in, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in, I'm in. I want to teach you something very powerful. And this is what I really want to teach about. What if works both ways?

The wind was against them. The word was for them. And what if works both ways. So when we get into hypothetical situations, the longer that we wait on God to change certain situations. And once again, how many are there right now? And maybe you even feel like you're drowning in what you don't know. And you've analyzed it, and there's a certain element of it you can't control. Because the devil didn't start this storm.

Jesus sent them directly into it. So a lot of us, we would turn around at this point and say, well, maybe we didn't hear him right. but they press to the other side. Because, watch this. Are you awake? What if there's something on the other side that is worth going through the storm for? Oh, I feel the spirit of God. Is it just me?

Or is it harder sometimes for us to give faith to the what if than it is to give fear to the what if? And just like the wind blows, you know, the wind can blow in either direction. So can the what-ifs. A lot of times in my life I've learned that fear is just faith in the wrong what-if. So watch this. What if we fail? What if we don't? We're here with a lot of our staff.

We had some training, and I asked them to stay around and help me preach to you. And we told some of the stories, but we didn't tell all the stories about when we started to stories about when we started the church. Holly was reminding me of one the other day where just as soon as we went to start the church, the resources that were supposed to be given for our salary were pulled back. Then somebody else was going to pay our insurance, and that got pulled back. Now, if my faith in God was contingent upon the conditions, I would have taken that as a sign that God didn't speak to me to start the church. But what if the wind is proof that what's on the other side is so significant that you have to push through to get there? A lot of us, we interpret

the wind as an indication that we should turn back around and head home. But in this particular situation, Jesus said, I want you to go to the other side. Now, here comes the wind. That represents resistance. For you, that may represent depression, for you that might represent anxiety. We all go through different storms. And as I've taught from this pulpit before, comparing the size of your storm to my storm and the significance of my storm to your storm serves no purpose. The greatest thing about the passage is that Peter didn't even really express faith. He just considered possibility. And I'm going to show you this. He didn't say, Lord, I know it's you. Tell me to come.

He said, Lord, if, if, if, what if works both ways. What if can make you give up? what if can make you freak out or what if can make you step forward. And yet I want you to notice something Jesus did. Are you ready? This is where it gets good. This is where it gets good. He said, if it's you, give me a word.

And Jesus took him really literally. He gave him one word. One word. One word. Did you see it in the text? Come. Y'all, I had a chihuahua. That's how we talked to the dog.

Jesus talked to Peter like I talked to yo-yo. That was the dog's name. This is a confession. I had a chihuahua named Yogo. Yo-yo. Yo-yo. We would say, come, stay, stuff like that. Jesus talked to Peter like I talked to Yo-Yo.

And here's why I think, all right? You don't know what this makes me think? sometimes the deepest things that God speaks will also be the simplest. Because sometimes we can confuse deep with confusing. And I notice a lot of times I would rather learn something new than practice something old. Some of the deepest things that God will speak will be so simple like come. Okay, well, Jesus, I was expecting a little more. I never walked on one. water before, you're going to give me any pointers? Yeah, any more, like a little bit of coaching? Like, should I go, should I put all my weight on one foot? And you've got to remember,

we read these Bible stories and we just compare walking on water to pay in our bills. He was walking on water. We make it mean whatever we want, changing a tire, walking on water, right? Peter is transcending the laws of buoyancy. And yet, Jesus does not give him details. Just direction. So if God isn't giving you details right now, ask him for direction instead. Some of the biggest words God ever spoke to me in my life were just directions, impressions in my spirit. Can I share one with you? Here's one. Sometimes God will speak to me and they'll tell me, go say I'm sorry. Like, well, Lord, I would rather do a Bible study on forgiveness. You see how sometimes we want something deep so we don't have to do anything with it?

I've been guilty in seasons of my life at highlighting my Bible, right? But at the same time I was highlighting my Bible, I wasn't even willing to embrace the simplest habits like gratitude. I know in my life that being grateful is the greatest way for me to have joy. So why is it the hardest thing to do, because it's so simple. See, right now in this season, maybe we need to simplify what God is speaking to us. We don't have to understand everything. Some of us have so complicated what we need from God to move forward in faith, but all he said was come. Sometimes all he'll say to you is peace. Sometimes all he'll say to you is love. Sometimes all he'll say to you is forgive. And I found out that sometimes God will not.

not give the details, he'll simply set the direction. Come. Wow, you really took me literally there. If it's you, tell me to come, come. Oh, man, God was speaking to me studying this. He said, you know how you want confirmation to obey me sometimes? You know, like, God, I'll do it if you give me a sign. Give me a sign that I'm supposed to do it. And you know you're supposed to do it. It's something you know you're supposed to do anyway. God, give me a sign and I'll tithe. Give me a sign and I'll tithe. Give me a sign and you know you're already supposed to do it. You know you're already to do it. God said, the command is the confirmation.

Well, God, I don't know if I can. I wouldn't have told you to come if you couldn't. Let me bring this home. I wouldn't amaze you his father if I wouldn't enable you to raise him. So when I don't feel like I'm enough, I realize if God gave it to me, He put it in me. He put it in me. So when he said come, when he gave the command, he also supplied the strength for me to step on. Yes, Lord, I can do it. Yes, Lord. I can make it. You wouldn't have told me to preach if you wouldn't enable me to preach. You wouldn't have told me. The same voice that told him to come would be the same. word that would enable him to do it. So I don't need any more confirmation, but that he told me to.

But Lord, are there any subpoints? Like, come, come is Roman numeral one. This is a class, right? So come, left foot first. How to how to do it? Come. And Peter did, which is what makes the next part. heart really weird. I mean, really weird. I'm going to lose some of y'all here, because it's

really weird. How many disciples? Y'all answered so slow like it was a trick, like I was going to go deep on you. Well, actually, we're all disciples of the Lord, so as actually are more than 12. It's 12. In the boat that day, how many disciples? Twelve? Twelve disciples. Let's don't put Judas in. That didn't suck. Eleven sincere disciples and Judas. All going to the other side. Now, there's an assignment on the other side. Everybody say it.

There's an assignment on the other side. Come on, say it right now on the chat. There's an assignment on the other side. There's an assignment on the other side. But God is weird because he gives the test before the lesson. They don't even know what's on the other side, and neither do you. Neither do you. None of us do.

of us do. What's on the other side of what we're currently going through. I told our staff today, our new church logo, it used to be one of these, now it's a question mark. That's our new church logo. We were going to open all the buildings, a question mark. And yet at the same time, I love how Peter, of all the 11 and Judas, Peter was the one who had the faith to step out. And I get with that because, you know, you know, Do it big, you know? Do it big. You're going to do it, go big, you know, go big, Visiotomi, come, come. So he makes this big move. And the Bible doesn't say how long he walked on the water. He must have made it pretty far. And I'm going to tell you why I think this.

Consider with me. They couldn't see Jesus up close enough to know whether it was a ghost or really Jesus. He needed to hear him to know. The only way that they heard the word was the wind carried it. The wind that was against the disciples carried the voice of Jesus. Some of the things that are against you will enable you to hear God more clearly. But the other thing is when Peter fell, the Bible says a word that started the passage as well. And you can look this up in verse 22. It says immediately Jesus made them get in the boat to the other side.

And then it says that when Peter got out of the boat, everybody said, big move. Immediately when he started to sink, Jesus grabbed him. It doesn't say he fell immediately. It says that as soon as he started to fall, Jesus caught him. Now, when Peter fell and Jesus caught him immediately, the next thing Jesus said is something that he said a few times in Scripture. He said, you of little faith. That offended me.

If anybody deserves to be called little faith, it's Judas. You're going to single out, Peter? And that bothered me, that he called that little faith. I mean, if you think it's little faith, you go do it. When someone says, ah, that sermon's pretty good. It wasn't your best. I'm like, well, you preach one. I'll go listen to yours.

I'll go listen to your best one. Preach your best one. You do it. You know, I just think you need to be more patient with your kids. Good, I'll send them over to you and you can give them the patience I haven't been giving them lately. You do it. That's what I was thinking.

So I sat with it because last week I preached about little. Did you hear that sermon? Take the lid off a little. And the whole phrase got me, you of little faith. And I thought, well, we're all doomed if he thinks that's little. I mean, it's all I can do to get in a five-minute prayer time right now and not get distracted and start checking my phone. So if that's what he thinks is little faith, I'm definitely not making it to heaven,

you know? If that's little faith. But the phrase you of little faith doesn't necessarily refer to quantity. It refers to quality. So it's not how much faith. It's how far faith, little faith. It doesn't mean that it wasn't strong. It means that it wasn't sustained.

So I want to show you something now. And I want you to lean into this because I thought, well, Jesus, if that's little faith, then what is big faith? And boom, it hit me. A scripture that I read about one of the two times that Jesus was always. actually amazed. There are only two times in the New Testament that the Bible says Jesus was amazed. One time was in his hometown where they had no faith in him because they were too familiar with him. That's a whole sermon that we don't have time for in this class. That's familiarity 101, and we'll do that class on another day, how familiarity can be the enemy of faith,

How you can start just getting so comfortable in your life that you're afraid to do anything else. So that's one time that he was amazed at their lack of faith. But what I want to show you is in Matthew chapter 8. And if you go with me to Matthew chapter 8, we're going to see one of the times that Jesus was amazed. The Bible says that there was a centurion, military official who had a sick servant. He had an issue. His storm was not a hurricane or it wasn't rain and thunder and lightning. His particular need revolved around the sickness of someone that he cared about.

When Jesus, Matthew chapter 8, verse 5 had entered Copernium, a centurion came to him. Now listen, this word is right for you. The Spirit of God gave me this passage because I couldn't figure out if that's little faith, then what's great faith? And he asked Jesus, the Centurion, he asked Jesus for help. Lord, he said, my servant lies at home paralyzed suffering terribly. And Jesus said to him, shall I come in healing? Now, let's contrast.

Peter said, if it's you, tell me to come. Jesus asked the Centurion, well, should I come? And what I saw next blew my mind. I never saw it before. I've been preaching since 16. I never saw this before in the scripture. I never saw it. The centurion replied, Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof, but just say the

word and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority with soldiers under me. I tell this one go and he goes and that one come and he comes. I say to my servant, do this and he does it. And when Jesus heard this, he was amazed. He was blown away. He was, emoji. He was amazed.

And he said to those following him, truly, I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. And the Lord spoke to me this. One disciple said, Lord, if it's you, tell me to come. Jesus said, that's little faith. man said, Jesus, I know who you are, you can stay. And the Lord said, sometimes it takes greater faith to stay. You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee. I hear the Lord saying, you can come and that's fine.

That's little faith. Sometimes the greatest faith is when you stay because you trust that the one who spoke the word has authority over every situation. And see, right now we're in a storm where we don't really have anywhere to go, and there's really only so much we can do. And I don't really have a whole lot of options. And God said, when I see you staying in praise and staying great. and staying encouraged and staying on the job and staying in the ministry and just staying, staying. That's great faith. It's great when you stay.

You can come if you want to, but Jesus said great faith is when you know that if I said, let's go to the other side. There's no storm in Galilee. There's no devil in hell. There's no virus in the world. So number five is big moves don't always prove great faith. I'm preaching to somebody right now who you're walking on water, but you're doing it in little steps.

I mean, some of these people, they walk on water fancy, but you're just like, uh-huh, God said, that's great. That's great. I don't need you to come. Peter said, if it's you tell me to come, come, come. He said, I don't even need you to come. I don't even need all that. I don't even need a film.

I don't even need a confirmation. The command is a confirmation. If you said you never leave me or forsake me, you made that promise, you gave the guarantee. That's good with me. I know what authority looks like. Jesus said, that's great faith. It's great faith. Sometimes we think people have faith when they're really just freaking out, really just doing

stuff. Wow, man. That's great fake. This man said, I don't even need a dramatic sign for you to do it. God doesn't always need drama to do it. That's a simple word, such a deep expression of faith. And yet that's really not the message, is it? Because he still fell.

Now, this encouraged me. He failed the test, but he still got the lesson. I said he failed. Everybody who wasn't a real good student, this is your part to shout on. He failed the test. Everybody who's nervous about homeschooling your kid, this is your point to shout on. He failed the test, but he got the lesson. Because it really wasn't a lesson about water, it was a lesson about worship.

Truly, you're the Son of God, and they began to worship him, and the wind died down when he got in the boat. Now, Holly, will you come? The essence of salvation is this. By grace through faith, you are saved. Everybody say, by grace through faith, you are saved. This not of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.

So I never saw this as a picture of salvation because I was so focused on the storm. And sometimes we go through things that we get so consumed by the test that we don't even get the lesson. But I want to show you in the text that Peter beginning to sink. I don't know who this is for. It might not even be for anybody who's in this room. But Peter's faith was not in his ability to make it to Jesus. The Bible says that when he started to go down immediately, he reached out his hand and caught

him. Reach out and catch my hand. You can't unless I'm close. So my faith isn't in how far I can walk. Do you remember when Grimm started playing at Catcher? got pretty good at catcher. I was so proud that my kid was good at a position on baseball. Just like me, I was a catcher when I was a kid. I was proud. The league that they were in, usually they wouldn't even try to make a play at home because all the catchers sucked except

ours. Our kid was the only good catcher in the whole day. The coach kept trying to get the third baseman to make the throw at home, but he wouldn't do it. And I remember one time the coach was yelling at the kid playing 30. He was like, make the throw at home. When he's going home, you throw him out. He said, I can't make the throw. The coach said, that's all right. You got a good catcher.

Something in my mind brought me back to remind you today in Waterwalking 101 that you got a good catcher. You got a good catcher. Put it in the chat right now. I got a good catcher. I don't know if I can make the throw. I got little faith. But I'm going to go ahead and throw it out there because, not because I'm going to make

it all the way, not because I can predict the path, not because I know how this ends, not because I'm so good at walking on water. I'm trembling and my legs are weak, and I don't really know. But he's close enough. Reach out. Point number six, grace and faith go hand in hand. They go hand in hand. When you don't really believe in the grace of God, you don't have faith in God.

Because until you really believe he's close enough to catch you, you will always stumble. Peter's faith was not in his feet. It was in Jesus' hand. And it is by grace through faith that God is going to get you through this storm. And I need you to praise him right now for little faith. Watch this. I got little faith, but I got great grace. Oh, I got great grace.

I got a big God. I got a good God. He's got me and he won't let go. Come on, throw up your hands and give him worship. Give him worship. Give him worship. Give him worship. So I found out how to walk on water.

I don't walk on water with my feet. I walk on water with the word. Isn't it crazy that when Peter's legs failed him, his mouth saved him. He cried out, Lord, saved me. And immediately, I'm telling you, if you reach for grace right now, now my confidence is not in the fact that I'm able to walk so perfectly. My confidence is in the fact that he's close enough to catch me. And so my message today is that sometimes the way you Go to deeper faith is to just fall in the right place. This concludes Water Walking 101.

If you know that he's the one who can make the wind die down with one word from his mouth, give him praise right where you are. Give him praise and honor. Come on, I got a good catcher. I'm a wobbly walker, but I got a good catcher. So I'm going forward. I'm not going under. And you know what?

That wind is tricky. You know, Peter came toward Jesus, but he looked at the wind. And right now in your life, listen to me. I want to say this like I would say it to one of my kids. What you have to learn to ignore is just as important as what you have to learn to walk toward. Some of us are walking toward the right thing, but we are not ignoring the others. You've got to get your eyes on the grace of God. You've got to get your mind on the goodness of God.

You've got to get your thoughts on the possibility. I mean, what if he doesn't? What if he's guiding you? I know you've been thinking, what if I fall? What if he catches you? What if you worship? What if you put your worry in reverse? Oh, Lord, I believe that all things are working together for my good.

And I don't know who this class is for, but it's just basic faith, man, that my faith is not in my faith. It's in the grace of God. So listen, I hear him saying, come. The same thing he told Peter, I hear him saying to me, I hear him saying to you in this season. That means something different right now for each of us. For you, maybe that means to draw near to God in this season because you haven't been hearing his word. You've just been blown by the wind.

For some of you, that may mean that you stopped walking toward what God gave you to do because of what was against you. But remember, the wind can carry His word into your heart. And for a lot of us, it means that in this moment, I just need to stop and say, Lord, I'm drowning. Oh, God, I can't stay out here by myself. Would you save me? Would you help me up? Would you show me how to do it? Just say the word, the Centurion said. My servant will be healed. Lord, I thank you for the privilege to minister your word today. Your word is powerful.

Your word is eternal. Your word is living. We put our hand in your hand right now. We put our faith in your grace. Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. We open our mouths to say that truly you are the Son of God. It's the fourth watch of the night for somebody.

And literally they've been wondering, am I going down and is this it? Is there even another side? I don't know it anymore. I thank you that your eye is upon them. That you say your word today to speak right to that situation. After all, we can't really walk on water, but we can walk on your word. Say the word, Lord. it to their heart right now. You know what they need to hear, calling them closer and telling

them to come, upholding them with your righteous right hand. I speak your word today over every city, over every country, over every child of God who's joined up with this ministry in this moment. Send your word and heal them. The centurion said, I don't even need you to come. if you'll just send the word to my house. Send your word to their house, God. Send your word to their house. Send your word to their house. Send it with power and authority and glory and break strongholds

and speak peace by the power of your word in Jesus' name. Come on, let's clap our hands and thank God for His word. Come on, clap those hands. This is how This is how you are It's how you work This is how you works Thank you Lord

Come on give him great grace on that Thank you Lord I wish I had a certificate to give you For Waterwalking 101 Did you enjoy the class? Hey you know even beyond just enjoying it You know the word doesn't work until we work it

And so I'm just praying that you would act on something simple from God this week. And it can be the littlest things that make the biggest difference. We talked about that last week is kind of a theme. I believe God's going to give you the strength to get through the storm. And not only to survive it, to be stronger because of it. I know that sounds like a cliche, but I'm believing it for your life by faith. Hey, thank you for being a part of our ministry. We don't take it for granted.

Holly and I love you. Our team is so grateful for the privilege to be. minister to you. Don't forget to subscribe, but also share. Get the word to somebody. If you know somebody who's going through a storm right now, maybe this message will help them to get their eyes on Jesus and keep moving toward God's purpose. You're going to walk on water, one foot in front of the other. I'll see you next time. Love you. This is an I-Heart podcast, Guaranteed Human.