Faith – The Gaze of my Soul - Stand Alone

After a challenging season, this message reminds us of the importance of slowing down and relying fully on God. Watch as Pastor Daniel Stephens takes us through the story of Jesus and Peter walking on water shows us what true faith looks like. 

If you’ve felt overwhelmed, distracted, or distant, this is a reminder to refocus the gaze of your soul back on Jesus.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Well good morning, everybody. My name is Daniel Stevens. I'm a pastor that's been on sabbatical. Some of you came the last few months, you're like, who is that guy? I don't. I am really grateful to be here today, preaching today, and I want you to turn in your Bibles to Matthew 14. It's going to take a minute for us to get there because I want to give you some updates. But go ahead and you can, if you have your Bible, you can turn there. I've been on sabbatical for the last three months, and um I'm really glad to be back. Thankful for um the rest. Uh I feel better. We'll be re-entering into responsibility slowly uh here at Mid-Cities in my my role as the lead pastor. And I want to take a moment uh before we get into the word to share a brief update on me and my health. Is that okay? I know some of you have asked, many of you just have have prayed, and you're so kind, and I'm I'm really grateful uh for all of that. So I just want to take a moment and welcome those that are online as well. Um last November I experienced some high blood pressure and low blood sugar, felt sick on several occasions and was unable to preach because of this. It's something I had never felt before, and we were trying to figure out what was going on in my body and my in me. After adjusting some minor medications, doctors felt like the issue would be resolved. And over Christmas, while I didn't feel 100%, I was able to preach through for Christmas Eve services here at our 191 campus and progress. But in January, symptoms uh resumed. After consulting with doctors, a Christian counselor that Kayla and I have seen over the years uh to help us in various times of need, um, and also other pastors and our uh leaders here at Mid-Cities and seasoned pastors with similar experience. I I I later discovered what I was experiencing was some level of panic attacks when I would stand to preach or when I would lead, or uh at various moments, sometimes in other moments as well. And our elders and our board at Mid-Cities, who are so amazing, they graciously provided me three months of atticle to rest, to connect with God, and to address this. And they didn't just leave me to it, they were with me the entire time, talking, praying along with this. And I'm grateful for their leadership, uh, the leadership of our amazing staff at Mid-Cities, not just at 191, but all of our campuses, uh, but especially Pastor Andrew and his leadership. Can we honor Pastor Andrew? All that God's done through him. So thankful for you. Um I'm really grateful for that. And I believe God has allowed this season uh to reveal many things in my soul. Um, and how many know the pulpit's not a place for me to come confess all of my sins to you, but I do think it's important for me to point out especially one particular thing that God um put on my heart that God revealed during this time is that I was operating at an unsustainable pace. I dealt with the stress, stress, and unhealthy ways, primarily through achieving and accomplishing more instead of just relying on God. And I want to point out that that's not just unhealthy, that is sinful. And I've repented to God for that. Bottom line is I could push through until I couldn't. And ultimately that manifested in this anxiety or panic attacks of some level. God has been faithful through it all, and I feel better, but victory is something I'm still walking out every day, including today. And I'm making needed adjustments in my life. Kayla's helping with me through that. Thank you very much. So my eyes are on Jesus, and I'm trusting him. He's been so good to me and Kayla and my family and our team at Mid-Cities, our Every Nation family has lent their support and prayers and encouragement in key times. And you as a congregation have been so incredible to pray, to engage, knowing when to say something, when not to say something, you're amazing. And it reminds me, your encouragement and your love has reminded me that God loves us through his people. Oftentimes we're waiting for God to come directly down from heaven to love us. And by the way, he did. His name is Jesus. But he loves us through the people he surrounds us with. He puts love in each one of us to love one another, and I've experienced that. It also has reminded me how the church has responded, reminds me that God's church is built by him, not by any one individual or leader. So as I re-enter slowly, I will begin to preach more, but we'll be that will be determined at the pace that God and our leadership direct, and God is faithful, and I'm grateful for each one of you guys. So today I think it's important for me to share that because I want to share a lesson that God has been teaching me through this season, and it makes a lot more sense for you to understand what I'm about to say in uh in understanding where I've been. Does that sound good? So we're gonna look at Matthew chapter 14, verses 22 through 33. This is the story of Jesus and Peter. Um, Jesus and the disciples have been really busy with ministry. Is anybody ever busy? Raise your hand if you're busy. Yeah, just and then nudge your spouse and say it's your fault. Go ahead, tell them. Jesus and his disciples were incredibly busy. They had a lot of going. There was ministry, there was people needing healing. They had just fed 5,000 people on the side of a mountain. And not to mention that Jesus is dealing with with death. He's actually mourning his his um his friend and cousin, John the Baptist, who died, was beheaded by Herod. Some of you may be going through, maybe going through mourning right now, and you've experienced that. And so Jesus is looking for a time, a way to get away and pray. He's looking for an opportunity to get alone. Some of the introverts said, Amen. All right. All the introverts said, Amen. Thank God. Yeah, get away from people for a minute, all right? He needed time with God. And so he goes up after they feed the 5,000, he goes up to the mountain to top to pray, and he sends his guys ahead of him. And uh he sends them ahead on the lake, and he's gonna join them later. And this is where we find the story, Matthew 14, 22 through 33. Would you stand with me for the reading of God's word? Matthew 14, starting verse 22 through 33. Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went upon the mountain by himself to pray. And when evening came he was there alone. But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the water, on the sea. Verse 26. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, It's a ghost. They cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come out to you on the water. And he said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat, and he walked on the water, and he came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying, O ye, O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God. This is the word of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated. I've been uh meditating on faith, thinking and praying and looking at scriptures in the Bible about faith and the nature of it specifically. Yes, the definition of it, but faith in the Bible is normally walked out or lived out more than it is defined. It's expressed, it's exampled more than it is. Here uh is the definition of, and we'll go to the definition here in a moment and show you how that connects with what we're gonna be talking about. But as I was going through this, it felt natural because I think when you've gone through what I've been through in the last three months and you're on sabbatical and you can't do the thing that you've grown up doing. For 25 years I've preached. I've reached thousands of sermons at this point, and I've never once felt totally weird about getting up. I've never had panic attacks, I've never gotten up and like never. Some people get nervous. You're like, I get it. I would never want to get in front of people. I've never had that. I don't know how to fix a car, but I know how to preach. Right? I don't know how to fix an oil well, but I can do this. And this is the thing I know how to do. It's the thing I've been doing, and because I can't do that, it caused in me a crisis of faith. Not in, will I believe in Jesus? Do I believe it's real? None of that kind of crisis, but in the understanding of is my faith weak? Am I not strong in my faith? Is this why this happened? And I began to ask these kind of questions. And growing up, I usually I have traditionally thought of faith as kind of a a fuel that sustains my spiritual existence. Uh, if you would if I could encourage you to think about like a gas gauge, and um on that you have empty and you have full, and and there's various levels in between. And the idea is if you have a lot of faith, you know, you're maxed out. If you have little faith, it's at the at the at the low end. And and so the idea of it is you want to to build up more faith than less faith, and it's something invisible that's inside of you that fuels your life and your spiritual existence. It's quantifiable, it's measurable. As a matter of fact, uh the scripture actually is there's a ton of scriptures that give us that indication. Uh Jesus says, Oh, ye of little faith. That's what he tells and rebukes Peter of here. This is when I was reading this passage about faith. The the point of this is the faith of Peter. And so there's the others that come to Jesus and they have a lot of faith. He says, Your faith is what healed you. You've come with great faith. And he talks about faith in this way, the an increase in faith, or someone who has no faith. So as I began to think about it, I begin to evaluate the New Testament and all the different mentions of when someone had faith or didn't have faith. And a quote I often used in preaching from A. W. Tozer would continually come to mind in his book, The Pursuit of God, which is one of my favorites. I probably have read that just about once a year since college. Um, if you have been following Jesus for a while, you need to read that book. You need to order it, you need to read it. You may say, I don't read. Well, you read stop sign, so it's time to like set aside the Netflix for a minute and read a book, all right? So, A.W. Tozer, um, The Pursuit of God, and I read it, and in there he has a chapter on faith, and in that chapter he he expresses faith and describes it in this way, and it's always stuck with me. Faith is the gaze of a soul on a saving God. Faith is the gaze of a soul on a saving God. He goes on to describe this because I know you probably won't read this book. Let me explain it to you. Looking to God, not ourselves. Faith is looking to God, not ourselves. It's it's about it's about looking to him. Faith is relational, not just not just accomplishing things, or you don't get faith so you can do something, but faith is relational. We're actually looking at God. We're looking towards a person, the personhood of God. And that salvation actually comes through looking. In Scripture, we see that. Salvation comes through looking. We see in John chapter 3, uh 14 and 15, uh, Jesus points towards, um, he points towards Numbers 21, and he says, just as the serpent was lifted up in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up. So Jesus was talking about himself, the Son of Man, being lifted up on the cross. And the idea, this is a weird, obscure passage to bring up. Jesus, when he's teaching people, it's in Numbers 21, it's just a handful of verses, and it describes a moment where the children of Israel were gathering, they're wandering around, and they're wandering in the wilderness, and and they began to get bitten by these serpents. Because they were complaining, because they were actually rebelling against God as a result of this. These serpents were biting them. And the venom of the serpents, it was killing them. People were dying. And so they cried out to God and they said, God, take away the serpents. How many of you have asked God to take away the serpents in your life? Take away these circumstances, take away this negative thing, take away whatever it is you're going through, whatever it is that's causing trouble or harm to you, take it away. So they that's what they pray. But it's interesting, God doesn't take them away. Instead, he instructs Moses to construct a bronze, a bronze serpent and lift it up. And he says, Anyone who looks upon this serpent that's lifted up will be saved and they won't die. And sure enough, those that looked upon the bronze serpent, and they looked at that and understood and believed that what God told Moses was true, that they would live, they did. And those that didn't, they died. And Jesus is giving this weird kind of obscure example from the Old Testament as what's going to happen with him on the cross. Those who look to the cross, those who look to Jesus, believing that what God said is true, will be saved. Isn't that amazing? Now some of you go, that's crazy. Why wouldn't someone look and be saved? I don't know. Their hearts are hard. Why? There's people in Israel that would not look at the serpent, they died instead. There's people today that will not look to Jesus, they're gonna die instead. And Jesus says that that so we have one of the premier examples of what it means to believe in Jesus and have faith is to look upon him just like those in Israel looked upon the bronze serpent. And this simplifies the Christian life, Tozer would say in this book. He would say, he'd say it simplifies the Christian life because we make it very complex. But if the real thing is, where is Jesus? Where is Jesus in my business? Where is Jesus in my relationship? Where is Jesus in my family? Where is Jesus in the storm or the thing that I'm going through? It simplifies everything. Are you looking to him and believing that what God said is true? And then he finishes it out with the idea that it's about the object of our faith. Having your faith in yourself, having faith in someone else, having faith in America, having faith in what's going to happen in the future, having faith in someone else. That's not it. What you need to have is the object of our faith is what matters, and that's Jesus. You having faith in yourself doesn't help. What does save you is having faith in Jesus. He's the one we're looking to. So I begin to consider all these examples of in the New Testament, especially the gospels, of great faith or little faith, and understanding them as those who directed the gaze of their soul to Jesus or not. Most of the time, when people have great faith, they're coming to Jesus for something. They're crying out to Jesus, they're coming to him for healing, they're coming to him for deliverance, they're asking him to teach them to pray. Those with great faith are coming to Jesus, whether physically with Jesus or they're looking to Jesus. They are their their their gaze of their soul is not on everything else, it's on Jesus. And everyone who is rebuked, the eyes of their soul begin to look at everything else but him. This is a common thread and theme you can study for yourself. So the question seems to be less about quantifiable amount of faith, and really, is faith even present at all? And we know this because Jesus talks about faith and talks about prayer as even if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you could move mountains. Well, the reason Jesus uses the the the the example of a mustard seed, which I didn't bring today because it wouldn't matter if I brought it up, you couldn't see it. Imagine a small seed right in my hand on the camera, right? You couldn't see it. It's not, it's not if you have seven mustard seeds, you have a lot of faith. If you have a body full of mustard seeds, you can really do things. God will really listen to you. It's one little mustard seed that has the power to move mountains. Now, what's interesting is it's in the context of prayer, and he just got done teaching them the Lord's prayer. Not my will, but your will be done. So we're not talking about genie wish prayers. Look at your neighbor and say, Have you ever prayed a genie wish prayer? Yeah, that's when you just, you know, God, you're my genie. I really want a new car. I want my kid to behave. I want a new job, I want a promotion, you know, like that's genie prayers. God, you you can have a literally a body full of mustard seeds, you ain't gonna get that. Why? Because when we pray, we pray the will of God. Not my will, not what I feel, not what I want, but what you want. What do you feel? And if you have even a drop of the mustard seed of faith, meaning you're looking to Jesus, then the question is it's not how much you have, it's whether it's even there at all. Some of you have faith for certain things, but you're looking to Jesus for certain things, and you're not looking to him for other things. You have you have faith for a relationship because you've seen God come through in that way, but you don't have faith for your finances. You can't trust God to say, I'm gonna entrust you with my finances. Maybe it's easy for you to trust God with your finances. You've been you've been trusting him for a long time. Giving God money, being generous, walking in that, that's easy for you. What's hard is to give God your emotions, and that anger strikes up, and that may uh whatever it comes, and you don't Jesus has no part of your relationships. Where are we looking? So this question really has to do about faith. Now the definition we have of faith in scriptures from Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1, which is now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Now, this is an amazing definition because I just said faith is about seeing Jesus, it's looking to Jesus. But actually the truth is we don't see Jesus physically, but even though we don't see him, we see him. Even though he's not physically in the room, we're looking to him. You can look to him and you are convinced that who he is is true, what he said is true, and by the definition of this faith is this it's the assurance of things hoped for. I know, and I'm looking to him, even if I don't see it all the time, even if I don't feel it all the time, I'm looking to him. I love the way Charles Spurgeon, the the British theologian and pastor that you know lived years and years ago, described his own salvation experience in speaking about faith. He said, faith is simply looking unto Christ. That's what faith is. We can make it really complicated, but the truth of the matter, very simply, faith is looking unto Christ. When I read this story about Peter and Jesus, I think about faith. And a couple months ago, I was reading this very passage and I was going through all the things I just described to you that I've been through in this class week. And wondering about faith. And as I read this story, I so connect and relate with it, the Spirit spoke to me very clearly. See, Peter was filled with faith. Like, think about this for a moment. Jesus is up on the mountain praying and he sends them ahead. They're in the middle of the lake. Now, when you think of lake, you may, I don't know what you think of. Um think I've been I've been to this lake, the Sea of Galilee. It's not sea would be generous, it's a lake. Now it's not the duck pond, but it's bigger. But it's not Lake Erie. You know what I'm saying? Like it's it's a lake. And they go out on the lake, and and and it would have been Jesus was up there on the mountain for a good while. They should have been to the other side of the lake by now. I mean, it's not that far. I I've been out on that lake. It it wouldn't take that long. But what happened was the storm arose and it kept them out on the water. And while Jesus is praying, and then Jesus comes down, the storm is raging. So he walks out on the water. And they think it's they freak out, this who is this? What's going on here? It's a ghost. He's like, No, it's me. And Peter says, If it's really you, call me to come out there. I love this about Peter. Now, Peter is a knucklehead oftentimes in the Bible. Can we just say that? That's true. I love knuckleheads. I love people that have faith, people that step out. And I love this. I mean, he's just like, hey, if it's you, prove it. Let me walk out there too. And I'm like, yeah, Peter, you go. You go, buddy. Now, some of you are rolling your head, oh, there's always a Peter. I work with a Peter, you know. I live with a Peter, you know. Peter's like, if it's you, call me to come out there. And you know what? Jesus says, Come on. And Peter, can you imagine this moment? He steps out of the boat and onto the water. The first human to do this outside of Jesus, the non-divine human. All right. He steps out on his water and he's walking. And I, what is he thinking and experiencing? How crazy awesome is that? What great faith. What great faith he had. His eyes were on Jesus. He was walking to him. Jesus called him. He obeyed. He agreed. He came out there and he's walking on water, just going, This is amazing. Look at me. I'm really doing it with Jesus. And as I read that, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and said, That was you. Your early years of ministry. When you were young in ministry, Jesus said, Do something. I said do something. You just do it. You went for it with reckless abandon. You had no care about what was going on in the world, what was going on around you, what people thought. You was just like, hey, you just it was me and you on the water. And I was like, that's true. Maybe you can relate. Early on in your walk with Jesus. He would say, do something crazy like, hey, stay up all night and pray. You're like, heck yeah, man. All night and pray. Now you're like, it's 10 o'clock, God. Pick this up in the morning. Early on, it's like, hey, why don't you tell your coworker about Christ? Tell me what to testify of what he's done in your marriage. Testify of what he's done in your life. I don't know. Okay, God, I'll do it. I'm gonna step out on this water. And early on, you saw God meet you, you started walking in faith. Maybe you start saying, I'm gonna, I'm gonna start tithing, I'm gonna start giving, I'm gonna start doing a Bible study, and God meets you there. And you didn't have friends, and all the things God brought you friends and all those things. You're stepping out of the water, and it's amazing. It was you and Jesus. But then something changed. Something happened with Peter. Umwhere along the way, um, Peter started noticing the waves and the wind and the storm and all that was going on. And he began to think. And the Holy Spirit spoke to me in the same time a couple months ago, and I was reading this passage about me, and this is what he said. He said, Somewhere along the way you started noticing the storms. The wind and the waves, the challenges, the challenges in ministry, the challenges in your job, the challenges in the world and society, the challenges in your family, the challenge, all the storms and all the things that you go through. And you know, as a pastor, you go through some storms because it's not just your storms you go through. Lots of times everybody brings their storms to you. So there's a lot of storms. And God rebu rebuked me in that moment. And how many know God's rebuke, when he rebukes, it's not like condemning. He doesn't beat you over the head. You're wrong. It's just sweet. And it's but it's true, and you know it's true. Somewhere along the way, your eyes have gotten on the depth of the storms and off of me. Peter was in that place. It says in the passage that he looked away from Jesus. And I think uh as I was thinking about this story a couple months ago, God was making it clear to me that this season was about him redirecting the gaze of my soul back to him. Because you can put your soul on good things, on things like church and ministry, like your family, and on doing good things in the community and doing good things else. It's not all sin. It's not all things, sin that you're doing. It's just good things, and all your eyes get onto all these things, and you start doing all these things, and then you try, and then all of a sudden your eyes are off of him. And maybe you can relate with this because you used to be in that place, and maybe your eyes got off of him at some point too. Not that they wouldn't be redirected when you come to church, you go to a Bible study, or in the mornings, you know, you get a few minutes with God, you read a psalm, or you listen to something on the way to somewhere, you turn on the radio and listen to some worship music and get a little hit, a little Jesus hit. But somewhere along the way, your eyes stopped looking to Jesus and started looking at all these other things. And typically what they look to is two things. They look to storms and they look to self. Now we could go on and talk about these a lot more that our eyes could go to. They could go to our friends, they could go to social media, they could go to our status. But I want to talk about these two because I think these are the primary things, and this is what Peter experienced: storms. There, our eyes can go to the storms, the wind and the waves. And the storm was there the whole time. The storm was there when Peter stepped out of the boat. The storm was there when Jesus called Peter out of the boat. The storm was constant, it was still there. There wasn't a worse storm when he stepped out of the boat, it was still a storm. He stepped out of the boat in faith when there was a storm. But here's the thing is the storms, when we look at the wind and we look at the waves, and that's exactly what it says Peter did. He saw the wind, he saw the waves, he looked at the storm, and that you cannot look at two things at one time. You cannot look at the storm and look at Jesus. You can't look at your circumstances and look at Jesus. You got you gotta choose one. And he chose in that moment the storm, and as a result, he began to sink. But not only do we oftentimes can we get distracted by looking at storms, we can look at ourselves. We can look at self and we can say, hey, what about me? What about my safety? What what what's going on here? How how how how how did I end up out here? Why is everybody else in the boat and I'm out here? And you the absurdity of you walking on the water with Jesus kind of sits in your mind logically. You're like, this doesn't make sense. Why am I doing this? And you start looking at yourself. And it makes you skeptical and it makes you cautious and it makes you cynical and it makes you scared and it makes you fearful and it mutes your spiritual growth. What our eyes are on matters. 2 Corinthians 3.18 reminds us that we become what we behold. What does that mean? This is where we get this principle. We actually become what we look at, we become what we behold. Paul writes to the Corinthians in this way, he says, and we all with unveiled faces, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed. When we behold the glory of God, when we look to him, we're being transformed into the image, the same image from one degree of glory to another, meaning we change and we transform as we look to him. But if our eyes are on social media all the time, if our eyes are on Netflix, if our eyes are on ourselves, if our eyes are on our storm, then we become those things as well. You you become what you behold. You become what your heart looks after and gazes at. And if our eyes are on ourself, you become self-reliant. And if your eyes are on the storm, you become storm reliant. What does that look like? What does that mean? It means you're reliant on yourself. You're the one that's gonna get you out of this. You're if your eyes are on yourself, you're the one that's gonna pull yourself up the bootstraps and get out of this thing with your family, the circumstance you're in this storm that you're in. You've got to figure out a way, and the weight of that is crushing. Or you're storm reliant. Well, as long as another storm doesn't come, as long as I don't experience another storm come through, then I'll be okay. And if another one goes through, it's like, oh no, I'm crushed. I can't do it anymore. If you're looking at your storm, it's all about the storm. If you're looking at yourself, it's all about the self. See, if your eyes are on yourself, you become self-centered. And if your eyes are on the storm, you become storm-centered. It's all when you're looking at yourself, it's all about you and what you're experiencing, what you're dreaming, what you're what you're what you're not doing, what you are doing. And as long as you're focused on you, you're not living the kingdom life he's called you to. We can't live and love people the way he loves he wants us to sacrificially when we're focused on ourselves. The world says it's okay, love yourself first. No, you can never love yourself enough to actually love people. It's always internal. You must begin to love others. You can't like being self-centered. You're self-centered. This is this is it it draws you to, and then storm-centered. When you're storm-centered, it becomes all about the storms and what's going on in your life. Have you ever gone into work and you talk to someone and they're just like Debbie Downer? That's a Saturday night that live skip from my generation. Debbie Downer always says the negative things, like, hey Debbie, how's it going? She's like, Oh, you know, I just got into a wreck today on the way to church, and my kids don't like me anymore, and I'm about to lose my job, but whatever. And if you don't, if you've never met a Debbie Downer, you might be the Debbie Downer. And what you learn about Debbie Downers is don't say, How are you doing? You don't do that. You change it's like, I hope you're good. Because when you say how you doing, you're in for a 30-minute explanation of all the storms. They identify themselves with the storms. I'm in a storm, I'm waiting for this storm and that storm. And I'm a storm-centered life, and my life is chaotic. Matter of fact, they don't know what to do with the sun. They don't know what to do when it's not stormy outside. They get uncomfortable when it's like there's not a trauma or a challenge or a deal to go through. When your eyes are on the self, when your eyes are on the storm, you become storm-centered. Self-centered. So, what did Peter do? What did Jesus do? Look at Matthew 14, 30 through 31 in our text. So when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. The fear came when he began to look at the storm. He began to look off of Jesus and around at the wind and the waves. And he began to be filled with fear, and he began to sink. But I have to say, I love Peter because while he is a knucklehead many times in scripture, I love that he calls and cries out to Jesus. He's the one who stepped out of the boat. Everybody else, those cowards were in the boat. He said, I'll come out and I'll meet you on the boat. When Jesus dies and is resurrected and appears to them on the side while they're fishing out on that same lake. Peter's the one who jumps in with clothes on and everything because he sees Jesus and he wants to be with him. He's always going to Jesus. He said, Lord, save me. And there's times that you've been close to Jesus, times that you go through storms, and times you just mess up. And sometimes the storm is your fault, and sometimes it's not. How many of you have created storms in your life, in your family's life, yourself? Through your own actions, your own sin? But sometimes we experience storms that aren't our, we didn't create them, someone else created them because we live in a sinful world. And you just exist in that storm. And whether you cause the storm or you're just in it. What Peter does is he in that moment, even though he looks at the storm, has a moment of failure, he takes his eyes off of Jesus. He immediately looks back to Jesus and says, Lord, save me. Sometimes when we take our eyes off of Jesus, we're like, well, we must not really love Jesus. We may not really have faith. Maybe we're really struggling with this and this. But Peter doesn't stay in that self-pity. He looks back and he cries out and he asks God to save him. And what does Jesus do? Look at this. Verse 31. And Jesus immediately, everyone say immediately, reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying, Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt? He took him. Jesus doesn't beat him over the head. Jesus doesn't say, you know what? Why don't you suck on some water down there and learn how to be a real man? Some of us, that's like West Texas discipleship, like, man up. You got problems, let me tell you my problems. Jesus doesn't do that. I mean, I mean, and he could. Jesus knows the cross is coming. He knows what he's going to experience is much more than whatever the storm is. It wouldn't hurt him to suck some water down at the bottom of the lake a little bit. He'll get him eventually, you know. Maybe he puts his foot on him, like, hey, yeah, you're good. Little discipleship hazing, you know what I mean? But you know what? Immediately, everyone say immediately. He grabs a mine, pulls him in, and they're in the boat. He doesn't stop the storm, by the way. The storm's still going. Sometimes we pray the wrong thing. God, stop the storm. Stop it. Stop asking God to stop the storm. Stop asking God to take the snakes away and start looking to him to save you. He's the one who saved him. So immediately he pulls him out and then he says, Oh, yeah of little faith. So the rebuke there is, yeah, ye little faith. Now, what I imagine when I read this, and this is where it connects with all my thoughts on faith that we've already talked about, is that it wasn't like he had this, he was a low on the meter of faith. He had just stepped out of a boat and walked on water. What was the difference? His eyes were on Jesus. See, if Jesus could put it in another way, I think he would say it this way, synonymously with what he just said. And see, if you have a little faith, it's like, why did you stop looking to me? Why did you look to the storm? Why did you look at your circumstances? Why did you look at those things? There's nothing there for you, only right here. Thank God for Jesus. He's the only one that can save you from yourself and from your storm. And the problem isn't with him, the problem is we're asking him to stop the storm instead of save us, Sweet. See, life can be viewed in several ways. Many can view life as a series of compounding traumas we're trying to avoid. Just we must manage them, cope with them. It makes life unbearable. Constantly asking God to take away the storms. As long as we have a storm-free life, we're okay. But the next storm that comes, ah, we're swirling again. And in this view, the presence of storm oftentimes indicates a lack of faith. Oh, there's a storm present. I must not have faith. But that's not what we see in Scripture. Godly men and women throughout Scripture had many storms in their lives, some caused by them, some caused by others. And Jesus himself had storms that he walked through. So that's not true. You can walk through a storm in faith. Another view, and this is what I would hold, is that life does have trauma and difficulty, and without Jesus, it's impossible to live it. Yes, there's trauma, yes, there's difficulty, but Jesus actually allows us and gives us everything that we need to experience the abundant life that He promised us. John 10, 10 says, I've come, Jesus says, to give you life and give it to the full or give you abundant life. And I'm grateful for that. But abundant life isn't seven cars in your garage. Abundant life isn't that you've got enough retirement for you and all your grandchildren and great-grandchildren and the entire world is a legacy to pass down. That's not what it means. Abundant life means that you have life with him, and it is a full life, and you can have a full life, and the only reason you can have it because of all the storms and all the trauma and all the things in life is because of everything that Jesus gives us. Number one thing he gives us is himself. If you're a Christian today, you're a follower of Jesus, you have the Spirit of God living inside of you. He's always with you, He's near you. Peter, he had Jesus, Jesus' presence right there. He called on him, he immediately pulled him out. God gives you, most importantly, himself. What else does he give us? He gives us the ability to love. He says, Go and love one another as I have what? Loved you. Jesus showed us what love is sacrificially on the cross. So that means you can not only love your, you know, I can't love my wife. Yes, you can. How can you love her? Jesus loved you. If Jesus can love you, you can love your wife. How can I love my kids, my parents? How can I love my boss? And that matter of fact, not only can you love people that like you and love you, you can love your enemies because of Jesus. That's wild. You don't hate your enemies. Jesus says you love your He gives us love for our enemies. What else does he do? He gives us forgiveness. Because he's forgiven us so much, we have the ability to forgive others when they wrong us, when they do something against us. It doesn't mean what they did was okay. What it means is I'm going to forgive that debt in the same way Jesus forgave my great debt. We can't love and we can't forgive without Jesus. We can be reconciled through Jesus. He gives us the tool. The New Testament gives us examples. All of the letters in Paul's Gospels are filled with these examples of how we're reconciled. We can be reconciled without one another. Men and women, Jews, Gentiles, slaves, free. Everybody can get together. Why? Despite your ethnicity, despite your race. How can this happen? Because under Jesus we're one. And he's reconciling us and he gives us a way forward. Forgiveness, reconciliation, love. And you can walk in victory and sin over sin and addiction. How? Because Jesus paved the way. This life filled with storms and trauma is only bearable and it's only possible. Matter of fact, not possible. It's probable and it's possible to live an abundant life because of Jesus. But it's only because of him. Often when trauma and the difficulty occur in our lives, the gaze of our soul shift to the storm or to self or to something else. And we find ourselves lost in our own story, our own trauma, our own self. I was talking with a friend just this week about some of the things I've learned, and I've known him for a long time. And he was talking a little bit about his past and faith. And he was talking about a storm he went through years ago. It was a divorce. And he's like, every time it would come to my mind, multiple times a day, I'd just get angry and mad. He was wronged. He felt aggrieved. He felt angry and always just mad about it. And he said it got to a point where I couldn't, I couldn't really live that way, angry and mad all the time. So I had to just pray. When that would come to my mind multiple times, I just pray. God help me. He said sometimes I'd have to literally just say the name Jesus. Like we talked saying today. I just, Jesus, come. And he's like, at first, it was just the way he got through it. But then after a while, it was a rhythm of me inviting Jesus into my day. What was happening? He was redirecting the gaze of his soul. It was on his storm and on himself. And he redirected it in prayer to Jesus. And he said, you know what's wild? It's like I started kind of seeing those moments as sweet. Because Jesus would come and I'd feel his presence and I'd be okay. And I was able to forgive. And I was like, as he was talking, I was just like, man, you're meaning, you mean Jesus takes our weakness and he makes us strong. See, you want to get out of the storm, but God wants to give you endurance in the storm and he wants to make you strong. He's building muscle on you. You don't even see spiritual muscle if you'll turn to him. I've experienced that as he described that. I've experienced that. I've had to cry out to God in moments I've never had to cry out to him before. I've had to, God help me, God help me, God help me. And you know what? I still have struggled. But he's so faithful. Take your weakness and exhibit his strength. Some of us are here today. We have grown up believing the faith is mustering up some imaginary fuel to keep you. Going and redirect, but truthfully, what needs to happen is you need to redirect your eyes to Jesus. That's what preaching will do. That's what we're here today. That's what worship will do. It'll redirect our eyes to Jesus. That's what reading your word, getting in godly fellowship will do. It'll direct your eyes to Jesus. Whatever your circumstances or trauma, whatever you're going through, I think God wants to minister to us today. So I want to invite you to stand with me. I want to invite our prayer team up forward. We're going to take just a minute. We have, we're just, we're not going to belabor it. We're going to take just a few moments. So get to a little different service today. So stay. Stay in it. We'll dismiss you at the end. We have time here. But what I want to do is invite you, if you say, you know what? I need prayer today. My the gaze of my soul has gone on to my storms. It's gone on to self. And I just need God's help. If that's you, and you need a redirection of your soul towards Him, don't hesitate to come forward and let one of these folks pray with you. Or as we're worshiping, as Adrian and Olivia lead us in this song. There's one song of worship to God. If you need to just kneel at your kneel at your chair, if you need to use your pew as an altar to get before God, because what it takes is repenting of looking to yourself and looking to your circumstances, thinking that that's going to fix it when it won't. Repenting for not looking to Jesus. And ask him to redirect the gaze of your soul. Can we do that today? So, Jesus, we come before you, welcome you as we worship, to redirect the gaze of our soul, our hearts, onto you. Forgive us, God, where we've not done that. We invite you now in the name of Jesus. If you need prayer, come on forward. Feel free to kneel as we worship the Lord.