Stormy Weather

Good morning. It’s good to see all of you. Here we are at the end of July and we still got summer left.

Can I just say something to you? Sometimes when we get into August, we get caught up in what’s happening in the fall, but there are still some warm summer days in August and even September. Don’t let them pass you by because pretty soon we’ll be in the fall and winter and we’ll be wondering where they went. Well, we love to be outdoors.

We love to go up north. This is Michigan, right? And so that’s why we’re doing this tiny little series just two weeks last week and this week. It’s called Lake Life because lakes are a huge part of that getting out and enjoying them.

We have wonderful inland lakes. We have our Great Lakes that border our state and I don’t know about you, but I love to be out on the water. Here’s the thing.

This is interesting is that there was a lake life in ancient Israel and Jesus and his disciples were a huge part of that. They were in an area around the Sea of Galilee, which is pictured here, a beautiful inland lake. And in fact, it’s really the only lake in Israel.

You can see here. There’s one other called the Dead Sea, which is south there in Israel and then north by Capernaum on this map. That’s the Sea of Galilee.

The green border, by the way, is the state of New Jersey just to give you a size comparison. The ancient Israel is not very large. This lake was the center of the northern part of Israel with a big fishing industry.

And if you read the Gospels and you look out for the Sea of Galilee as a name, you’ll find that like they’re always there. They’re on the shore. They’re on a boat.

They’re surrounding it. They’re on the towns around it. And so that’s what we’ve been looking at.

We’ve been looking at two encounters with Jesus and his disciple Peter on the Sea of Galilee and seeing what we can learn from them. Last week we talked about faith and how faith is a gift from God and he gives it to us and we can receive it. And this week we’re talking about trust.

And you know, trust and faith sound very similar and they have a lot of overlap, but they’re actually different concepts and we’ll get into that today. Now trust. Have you ever done a trust fall? Do you know what that is? Maybe you did it when you were young.

You fall back and there’s supposed to be people back there that are supposed to catch you. And maybe that’s the lowest level of trust because it’s just a game unless you’re playing on cement or this gym floor. It might hurt a little bit, but you know, it’s kind of a small area of trust.

How about this one? You ask a family member to walk the dog or be on time for dinner maybe or do some chores. That’s maybe a little higher level of trust, trusting our family to do the family things that we need to do to make sure everything’s working smoothly. How about at work? Sometimes that can ratchet up the trust a little bit.

Maybe you have some sensitive information. You shared it with somebody and that person, you’re trusting that person not to share that information with anybody else because maybe you could get in trouble or maybe you could even get fired. Sometimes at work you get into those situations.

That’s another level of trust. How about dropping off your kid for their first day of school? And trusting your family with people you barely know. I’ve been there.

It’s interesting. It’s a form of trust, isn’t it? You know, we can get into these higher and higher levels of trust. How about when your teenage son or daughter is learning to drive? There’s a trust factor there, right? And I remember when I was first handed the keys to our car.

I used to do a lot of piano lessons when I was growing up. Piano was my thing and I passed my driver’s test and it was always my mom or my dad taking me to piano lessons, right? And then that next week I said, hey, who’s taking me to piano lessons today? And my dad hands me the keys. He’s like, you’re taking yourself and I remember being so freaked out.

I remember that whole drive. It wasn’t very long, but I was so nervous. That’s why I still remember it years later because I didn’t want to crash the car or like do anything stupid and fortunately I arrived there safely and I arrived back.

The funny thing is now my daughters, I’ve handed my car keys to both of my daughters in turn as they’ve passed their driver’s tests and I’ve got to be on the other side of that equation, which is really interesting, but having to trust them to not, you know, ruin my car. Just think of a moment. I think the highest level of trust.

Have you ever had a moment where you were trusting your life to someone else? I feel like that might be the deepest level of trust. If you’ve ever had a surgery, for example, and you go to sleep and you just trust that the surgeon knows what they’re doing so that you’ll wake up at the end of that surgery and be okay. Something like that.

I think that the idea of trust is that the more you have to lose, the harder the trust is. Would you agree? I think that’s why trusting God with our lives is difficult for many. Because it’s our life and we feel like we have so much to lose and to give it to God for his will and his work.

That’s a lifelong journey. Or ask it this way. How much of your life and your decisions are in God’s hands and how much are in your hands? Something to think about.

It is a lifelong journey and that’s the difference between faith and trust. Faith is a gift from God, freely given, we receive it. But trust is what we do with that faith or it’s faith in action.

The confident dependence on God that flows from genuine belief. Or you can put it this way. Faith, which is given to us by God, provides the foundation of belief.

While trust demonstrates how we live in light of those beliefs. And that’s the difference between faith and trust. So today we’re going to look at another story of Jesus and Peter on the Sea of Galilee at a moment where Peter needs to trust Jesus and we’ll see what happened and how he did.

You might know this story. It’s fairly famous, I would say. It comes from Matthew.

So let’s get into it. Immediately, Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd. So in the Sea of Galilee, they’re getting in a boat and going across.

After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside to pray. Later that night, he was there alone and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. So Matthew is just setting the stage for this story.

Here it is, the Sea of Galilee. Again, Jesus was teaching on the shore. He dismisses the crowds.

The disciples get out in a boat and Jesus goes up on the mountainside to pray. Now, you might think, well, they were fishermen, right? Why were they surprised by this storm? Well, it turns out that the Sea of Galilee is kind of in an interesting geographical location. For one thing, it’s one of the lowest freshwater lakes in the world.

It’s 686 feet below sea level and you can see in this picture here, this is the Sea of Galilee. There are these mountains kind of surrounding it. So the lake is kind of in this big bowl with the mountains and the dip in the land.

And it’s also a very deep lake. Just to give you a contrasting comparison, Lake St. Claire is 30 feet deep at its deepest, which is where they dredge the channel for those big ships that go across it. Everywhere else, it’s much shallower.

The Sea of Galilee is a 110 feet deep. And so all of these factors combine. When there is a storm or a wind, it gets funneled into this lake and wind can whip up at a moment’s notice.

It happens even today for fishermen that have their fishing boats on this lake and it happened back then to the disciples. You know, I can remember a time when I was on Higgins Lake. Anyone ever been on Higgins Lake? It’s up north.

Yeah, a few of you have. It’s a beautiful freshwater lake. Lots of sand.

You can walk right out, but it’s a deep lake and it’s large. We used to take our boat up and we would be on a cabin on the northwestern side of the lake. And then we would take our boat and we kind of come around the point and go down to the State Park down on the southern part of the lake because there’s a great beach there and you can kind of anchor your boat in in the sand and hang out.

And so we were there one year with my family, my two daughters, my wife, and then my parents and my mother-in-law. And we hung out there for a long time, a whole afternoon, and then we said, you know, we should go back to the cabin because we’ve got, you know, other things to do. So we pulled up anchor and we got going, but I noticed that a wind had whipped up and there were some, there were some waves.

I thought, well, no problem. You know, I’m not in a fishing boat. I’m in a powerboat and I have a motor.

So I took the throttle and I went, and there we are. We’re shooting off and I’m like, oh, this is going to take about 10 minutes, but the waves were a little higher than I was used to. We were kind of going, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk, ka-chunk.

I looked over at my parents and my mother-in-law and I’m like, oh, this isn’t good. They’re not going to handle this. So I throttled back.

I’m like, well, we can just like go at a slower pace. But then we were kind of doing this, off and down. I’m like, no, they’re not going to make it.

Someone’s going to get seasick. So I threw the throttle back up. I’m like, we can make it.

We can make it, but boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. So there was no solution. There was no solution to this problem.

I just kind of throttled back and I’d throttle up depending on like what I thought we could handle and we kind of made it back. And it’s a funny story. We made it back okay, and no one got sick.

But honestly, there were a few moments there on the lake where I’m like, are we in trouble here? Like, I’m out in the middle of this lake. I don’t really know it. Pretty high waves.

I feel like that’s where the disciples were. They had a boat similar to this one. This is maybe a computer image.

I don’t know. But this is the kind of boat that they would have had, like an open bow, single mass, maybe 25 feet. You’re right there.

You’re right with the wind. You’re right with the water. There’s nothing really separating you from danger and they’re out there struggling alone.

Well, let’s find out what happens. Shortly before dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. So first twist in the story, Jesus just goes and walks on water to go after them.

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. Lord, if it’s you, Peter replied, tell me to come out to you on the water. Here’s what’s interesting about this moment.

Do you remember earlier in the story, Jesus was dismissing a crowd and then he told the disciples to get in the boat. That crowd, it turns out that’s the crowd where he took five loaves and two fish and fed 5,000 people. Only they only counted men.

So it was probably more like 15 or 20,000 people that he fed with those. So less than 12 hours before this moment, the disciples witnessed Jesus doing this like incredible miracle. And here they’re out in the water and they see someone walking towards them and nobody thought, hey, maybe that’s Jesus.

I think that’s interesting. Like they didn’t notice. But when he said something, they recognized his voice.

And now here we get to the crucial part. Peter says this, Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come out on the water. Now, can I just ask you something? Is that what you would say? Think about it.

Wouldn’t you say, thank, thank God, Jesus. It’s you. We’re saved.

Like come into the boat and help us out. We’re drowning here. Or I don’t know.

I don’t know what I would say, but I’m not sure I would, I mean, is Peter’s mind blown? Is he just looking for an adventure? We don’t know. Here’s the truth, though. Peter’s not actually trusting Jesus in this moment.

He’s testing him. He’s testing him. Look at it.

If it’s you, tell me to come out on the water. And I just think this is what we do. I think this is what we do.

I think this is what we do today. We will trust Jesus so far. We’ll trust him with certain areas of our life.

We’ll walk this road of life and we’ll let him have control of certain areas of our life. And then there are other areas. And we say, well, Jesus, if you just answer this prayer, if you’ll just work this situation out, if you’ll just come through for me, then I’m all in.

I’m all in. But that’s not really trusting Jesus. That’s testing him.

It can be hard to do. It can be hard to really trust Jesus. I mentioned that I have two daughters and they’re getting older.

And my wife and I are in the last stages, the last year of in-home parenting. So our older daughter’s off at college and my youngest daughter is going to have her senior year this fall. And then after that, she’s college bound.

And well, you know, that can be difficult. As all parents discover, children grow up and the next step is for them to live independently of you. And it’s kind of one of the goals of parenting so they can function on their own.

But one of the truths has been brought home to me in this time is that it’s difficult to release your children to that level of independence. It just is. As my control over their lives decreases, then my trust in their ability to govern their own life must increase.

Otherwise, I’ll have a crisis of anxiety and worry. And you know what? My daughters are actually doing great and I actually think that they’re turning into fine young adults and they’re responsible people. But somehow there’s just still that little thing inside me that’s like, is this really happening? Is this really going to be what our life is like? And as a follower of Jesus, I understand that my children really even aren’t mine.

I’m a child of God, my creator. And so are they. They’re his children.

I’ve been able to steward their early years, their formative stage, and I’ll always be their dad no matter what. But now I have to trust God to care for them and protect them when they move out into the world and I can’t be with them. It’s just not easy to do.

So how far does my trust in God go when it comes to my children? It just becomes harder when the trust level has to be high. What’s it for you? Remember that trust builds on top of faith. So faith is a gift from God.

Trust is how we live out that faith. And so there are many areas of our lives that we have to say to God, I will trust you with this. I will do what you say in your word on this issue.

Here at Shepherds Gate, since I’m a staff member, we think about how people are formed and how they take steps of faith. And we actually have five words that I want to share with you. We think, hey, if we see this in people’s lives at Shepherd’s Gate, then we have an indication that that person is trusting God with something important in their life.

And it’s just easy to put them in an order and with five words. So I’m going to give them to you. The first one is engage.

When we see someone who’s being present for worship and engaging with the content like you are today, we think to ourselves, hey, that person is trusting God with their priorities. They took the time to be here. They took the time to listen online.

So that’s something. They’ve taken a step. They’re trusting God with their life priority.

Here’s another word, grow. If you develop your knowledge of God’s word and then you put it into practice, when we see that happening on staff, we say, hey, there’s someone who’s trusting God, who’s trusting God with their lifestyle. Because as you study God’s word and you see how God wants us to live, the Holy Spirit will tell us, hey, this needs to change or that needs to be adjusted.

Or if you want to follow Christ in this part of your life, this will have to change. When you study God’s word, that’s what you see. And so if we see people doing that, we’re like, okay, that person’s taking a step of trust with God in their lifestyle.

Serving is another one. If you get involved by giving time to step in and serve, which is here at the church, or you step out and serve in our community, which we do throughout the year. When we see people doing that, we think, okay, someone’s putting their trust in God in regards to their time.

Time is our most valuable resource. And if you’re willing to give some of it to serve others, then yes, you’re taking a step of trust, a step of faith, trusting God with your time. Oh, here’s the one that no one ever likes to talk about, giving.

When we see people begin to give on a regular consistent basis, when they trust God with their finances to consistently give away some of it away to support the work of the church, we say, hey, someone is trusting God enough to trust Him with their finances. And that’s exciting. That can be a hard step of faith, a hard trust.

Finally, sharing. If you develop friendships with other people and you’re praying for them, and then you’re ready to share Jesus with them, or you’re ready to invite them to church, that’s a step of faith. That’s a step of trust.

You’re trusting God with your reputation. Because if people really find out that you’re a follower of Christ, will they think differently about you? Will they look at you differently? It’s a risk. So when we see people inviting others, we see that they’re trusting God with their reputation.

I don’t know if there’s anything on this list, as I’ve been talking about, you think, oh, wait a second, that might be me. That might be the step that I need to take. If it is, today’s the day.

But let’s continue to find out what happens to Peter because there’s more to this story. Remember that Peter has tested Jesus. He said, if you’re Jesus, then tell me to come out in the water.

And even though he’s testing Jesus, Jesus says, come. Then Peter got out of the boat and he walked on the 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. Oh, you of little faith, he said, why did you doubt? And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him saying, truly, you are the Son of God.

It’s interesting that Jesus doesn’t miss a beat with Peter. He knows, he knows that Peter’s testing him instead of trusting him, but he just says, come on. And now Peter really has something to trust God about.

He’s going to be walking on water and it works for a while. And then he just looks at the chaos. He looks at the wind and the waves and he just loses his focus and he begins to sink.

And immediately, Jesus just grabs his hand and he takes him right back to the beginning. Sometimes we need to go right back to the beginning, not trust, but faith. He says, you of little faith.

He takes Peter right back to the moment. He says, look, I’m giving you this faith. You can put your trust in me.

And that’s what God says to us. I’ve died for you. I’ve risen from the dead.

I’ve forgiven your sins. You have a heavenly destiny. Sometimes when we’re in a trust issue with God and it’s a difficult circumstance, we need to go back to the beginning and say, yes, he’s been faithful.

Yes, he’s given me faith. And this is what he’s doing with Peter. And it’s lovely to see how patient Jesus is with Peter.

Do you realize this is the same lake? It’s a miracle that involves a boat. We just talked about this. Peter already had this experience.

We talked about it last week. And here he is right back at the beginning again. But Jesus is so patient with him.

And he’s so patient with you and with me. Faith which is given to us by God provides the foundation of belief while trust demonstrates how we live in light of those beliefs. So where in your life is it challenging right now to trust God? Only you can answer that question.

I can’t answer that question for you. But you know, Martin Luther, the 15th century church reformer, has a great quote on this. I have held many things in my hands and I have lost them all.

But whatever I have placed in God’s hands, that I still possess. That’s what trust is like. We have to give it up.

We have to give up that control. And yet when we do, God redeems that area of our life. He makes it stronger.

We’re on firmer ground and we can trust him more. So let’s just get really, really practical as we wrap things up here. I’m going to throw this list back up that we talked about earlier.

What is it for you? Is it one of these spiritual development pieces? Is there something that you need to take the next step with God? Only you can answer that. To engage, to grow, to serve, to give, or to share. Or maybe for you, it’s a life category.

And I can’t list all life categories, but this covers a lot. Maybe it’s a family issue that you need to trust God with. Or a relationship.

Maybe it’s your career and you’re just doing it your own way and you don’t want to do it God’s way. And you don’t have integrity in your career because you want to get ahead. And God is saying to you, you’ve got to trust me.

You’ve got to trust me with that. Maybe it’s finances or time management. Maybe it’s a habit you’ve had for a long time, but it’s not a healthy habit.

And it needs to change. Or an attitude that you’ve had all your life. And God is saying, I want something different for you.

I want something different for your mind, something better. There’s a next step for everyone. And yes, sinful habits.

It’s true that sometimes it’s just about some sin in our life. Look, we’re all sinners. We all mess up at times.

We know this. As I was studying for the message this week, I saw these four words and I hadn’t seen sin kind of taught out like this. So I’m just going to give it to you real quick.

Attitude, action, neglect, and intent. There are sins of attitude, action, neglect, or intent. So an attitude would be like pride.

An attitude of pride is a sinful attitude. Maybe that’s where you’re at. Or an action, straight up moral failure or some sort of violence or lying or something like that.

A sinful action. But there’s also neglect. We know God commanded it, but we don’t do it.

That’s also a sin. If we know that God has commanded and we don’t do it. And then sins of intent.

Jesus talked about this regarding adultery. You don’t do it, but you would do it if you could do it. You got that? Jesus calls that sin.

You don’t do it, but you would do it if you could do it. It’s God talking to you about something like that. That’s a heart issue.

Chances are, as a follower of Jesus, you already have something in mind. Because if you’re a follower of Jesus, you have the Holy Spirit in your life. And that’s one of his jobs is to show us where we’re lacking this control.

Where it’s in our hands. It’s not in God’s hands. And gently over our lives.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve just come to faith or you’ve been, you know, decades in faith. It’s a lifelong journey. And God says, more of me.

Get more of me in your life. Give me more of your life. So I’ll leave you this with this one additional thought.

So this is a picture from my boat as the sun is setting on Lake Ponema, where we have our boat at the marina. And I have lots of pictures like this. I have lots to choose from.

Because this happens often. We’ll be in the boat in the evening and the wind dies down to almost nothing. And then the water, do you see it? It just gets glassy and reflective.

And it’s beautiful and peaceful. And it’s one of my favorite times. And we always think about that in this story with Peter and Jesus, right? We think about when he gets into the boat and the waves calm down and the wind dies down and it’s all peaceful.

And oh great, Jesus is with us and now it’s peaceful. But think of the whole story for a minute. Jesus dismissed them into the boat.

But then he goes up on a mountainside to pray. But the scriptures say that Jesus saw them in the boat. He knew where they were.

He wasn’t absent. And then he literally just walks out on water. He walks right into the storm with them.

And then yes, he gets into the boat with them and it’s peaceful. And the point is, the disciples were never alone. And neither are you.

It doesn’t have to be peaceful in your life for God to be with you. He is with you. And just like Jesus reaching his hand to Peter, he’s there.

When we mess up, when we get distracted, and he just reaches out his hand and he says, I’ve got you. And this is why the life of faith and trust is so amazing. Because God is with us and he’ll help us.

It reminds me of this verse, this final verse I’ll share from Hebrews 12. Therefore, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race that God has set before us.

We do this by fixing our eyes on Jesus. The champion who initiates and perfects our faith. That’s what trust really is, is fixing our eyes on Jesus.

One area at a time. So today you have a chance to think about that in your own life. What is it for you? What’s the next step? If you’re not dead, you’re not done.

What is that next step for you? I can promise you that Jesus will be with you. Will you put your trust in him today? Will you pray with me? God, thank you so much for this lesson from Peter and Jesus. Lord, I pray that if there’s any here in the sound of my voice or listening online that they’re testing you, they’re not trusting you.

I pray that in this moment, they would say, Jesus, I will put my trust in you. I will give that area of my life to you. I’m yours.

God, help us in this lifelong project of trust to continue to put more and more of our life from our hand into yours, knowing that you are reaching out, ready to grab us whenever we fall. You are always there. Thank you for these truths and encouragements.

In Jesus name, amen. Amen.