Going Through the Storms

The Lord placed it on my heart to share with you this word found in Matthew, chapter 14, verse 22 and following, a well-known passage; look it up there in your Bible.

Matthew 14:22. Thank you to the brothers on the sound system. And it says there: “...Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other shore, while he dismissed the crowd. After dismissing the crowd, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. And when night came, he was there alone, and the boat was already in the middle of the sea, battered by the waves because the wind was against them. But in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them, walking on the sea, and when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, ‘It is a ghost,’ and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘Take courage; it is I. Do not be afraid.’ Then Peter answered him and said, ‘Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water,’ and he said, ‘Come.’ And Peter climbed down from the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus, but when he saw the strong wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, ‘Lord, save me.’ At once Jesus reached out his hand, took hold of him, and said to him, ‘You of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they got into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped him, saying, ‘Truly you are the Son of God.’

May the Lord bless his holy word. Amen and amen. This is a marvelous, beautiful passage for many different reasons. It shows us a side of Jesus’ ministry, an aspect of his divinity that is very, very awe-inspiring, very eloquent, very vivid. And it also speaks to us about ourselves and about how we can interact and relate to that divinity of Jesus, and how we can navigate difficult and critical situations in our lives.

The passage begins by saying, ‘Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat...’ Why ‘immediately’? That expression, immediately, already suggests to us that something had happened beforehand to which this particular passage refers. What happened that day? Why, after that, did the Lord tell them, ‘All right, go and get into the boat’? If we look at the preceding passage, we see that the Lord had just performed the great miracle of multiplying the loaves and the fish. It was something impressive. There, too, Jesus’ power over nature, over matter, was displayed in a very powerful way.

The Lord finished that time of teaching the crowd and feeding them. I imagine it lasted many hours because other accounts of this same event say that the Lord taught them and ministered to the crowd, which was hungry to hear his word. And when the hour was already late, the disciples said, ‘Lord, let’s leave now because it is already late; let them go and find food somewhere else.’ And the Lord told them, ‘No, you give them something to eat.’ He was testing the disciples. And they said to him, ‘Lord, how are we going to do that? First, there is nothing around here, and even if there were, we would not have the money to buy it. Even if we had the money, there still would not be enough bread for what they need.’ But the Lord always has a solution. How many of you know that?

The Lord took his time, ministered to them, fed them, dismissed them, and after that, immediately, told his disciples to get into the boat, go on ahead of him, and wait for him on the other side of the sea. It is actually Lake Gennesaret, a very large lake, the Sea of Galilee, immense indeed.

I have been there, and that lake is impressive, beautiful. In fact, the geography of the area fits very well with what this passage suggests. And I will tell you why later on. But first, there is this: the Lord tells them—and here is something interesting—it says that he made his disciples get into the boat. The English translation says, ‘He compelled them to go,’ and I looked up the original Greek, ‘enancasen,’ which means ‘to force, impel, exert deliberate influence so that something is done.’ And to me, that is very revealing. The Lord ordered them to go; it was not simply a casual request: ‘All right, boys, go on and I’ll meet you there.’

He gave them specific instructions to go to that place. And why is that so important? Because I believe there was a plan in Jesus’ mind for them to go through that experience. This storm that erupts in the middle of the sea—I do not believe it was a coincidence or something that simply happened by inertia. No, I personally believe—I have no proof of it—but knowing the Lord’s teaching method, for the Lord every opportunity, every encounter with his disciples, was a teaching opportunity. He was a tremendous master of pedagogy, a trainer. He was training his disciples, just as God trains us as well.

Do you know that your life is a process of discipleship? Do you know that everything that happens in your life does so because God is directing it? Do you know that there are no coincidences in the life of a child of God? When you enter the economy of the Kingdom of God, your life becomes absolutely significant; everything that happens in your life has a purpose. That is something that follows me through life: that sense of God’s microcosmic, microscopic management of my life. I have learned that everything that happens in my life has meaning. Perhaps I do not understand it all, but it has meaning, it has a purpose, and God allows it for a purpose.

The psalmist says, ‘Where shall I go from your Spirit, and where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascended to the heavens, you are there. And if I made my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there. If I said, surely the darkness will cover me, even the night will shine around me; even the darkness does not hide from you, and the night shines like the day.’

The Word says of God, ‘For you formed my inward parts; you made me in my mother’s womb. I will praise you, for I am fearfully made; marvelous are your works. I am amazed, and my soul knows it very well.’

The psalmist marvels at God’s care, attention, and intentionality. Oh, if only we would learn that great truth! We do not have Christ here to tell us verbally, ‘Get into that boat, enter into that experience, go through that circumstance, have a particular encounter with someone, go to such-and-such a university, live in such-and-such a country, have a certain accident.’

Brothers and sisters, I believe God manages both the small and the great things in the universe and in our lives as well, and many times he makes us enter certain situations. He impels us because he wants us to learn certain things, and that is why I believe that the statement that he ‘made’ his disciples get into the boat is important. What they went through was no coincidence; the Lord was doing what he often does: he was forging a meaningful experience for them. It was what they call in English an object lesson, a living lesson, a drama. A psychodrama is another term we could use, in which a person plays a certain role and, through the role one plays psychologically, learns truths, develops certain emotional or mental faculties, and grows in a certain way. Psychologists use those kinds of resources to help people develop emotionally.

And I believe that God is the master of psychodramas. God forges experiences in our lives so that we may learn. God is always shaping his children. God wants you to be a useful man or woman, for your life to have eloquence, for your life to express things. God wants to use you. God does not want you simply to be like those little birds we see on National Geographic, the eaglets opening their little mouths so that the mother eagle will come and put food into them. That is good at first, but afterward God wants you to grow your own wings and soar through the air as well, to be useful to the Kingdom of God, and that is why he puts you through experiences. And many of those experiences will be difficult; they will be trials. But God is training soldiers, not golfers. God is training warrior men and women who know how to use the weapons of faith. Amen.

I see Marta there nodding; at least she is paying attention to me. Thank you, sister. I know you are all here, but you are with me, aren’t you? But he immediately made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other shore, to the other side. The Sea of Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee, is not a sea; it is an immense lake surrounded by heights. They are not mountains in themselves, but hills. And in a sense, it is like a great amphitheater. It is quite large, but if you stand on any of the hills surrounding that great lake, you can see what is happening on the lake itself, and that is important because here there is something else we can learn from them.

Then he told them, ‘Look, let me stay here for a while. I am going to tend to the crowd, dismiss them, and so on. You go on, and I will meet you on the other side.’ That other side, to me, is the side of resolution; it is the side of rest; it is the side of arrival after we have gone through difficult times in our lives. It is the side where we resolve things and learn the lesson, or the monster is tamed, or the illness is healed, or the financial crisis is resolved; or else we simply learn something and are better prepared to become more like what God wants us to be.

Because many times—let me tell you—not all endings in the Christian life are one hundred percent good. How many of you know that? Many times we are going to... things are not going to turn out the way we want or the way we pray for them to. How many can say amen to that? Isn’t that right? I do not dare tell people who are going through a crisis, ‘Do not worry, brother; the money will come, the healing will come—yes, I assure you one hundred percent that you will receive it.’ That would be presumptuous on my part. I believe in a God who heals. I believe in a God who answers the prayers of his people.

I have seen so many miracles in my life over the years that no one can deny to me that I have a miracle-working God. And when I am in trouble, the first one I turn to is my Heavenly Father, and if he does not give me the answer right away, I keep bothering him until I receive something, even if it is only peace in my heart to endure whatever situation may come.

But yes, I can tell you that many times not all of life’s endings are good in the sense that they are... and that we rub our hands with joy because everything turned out exactly as we wanted. Many times God will not give you what you want, but what you need. Yet there will always be a resolution, and perhaps through a failure or an illness you will learn something that will make you a stronger man or woman in the Lord. You will learn humility, you will learn love, you will learn patience, you will learn dependence on God.

In life, I can tell you one thing: for a child of God, there are no failures; there are learning experiences. And the other shore, the other side, may simply be the place you reach after a difficult time, strengthened. You have learned a lesson, you have grown, you have become stronger. Because, brothers and sisters, if there is one thing I have learned in this world, it is that if there is no opposition, if there is no resistance, there is no development. That is an element of the entire universe. If a drama or a work of literature does not have what Spaniards in the sixteenth century called an entuerto, if there is no plot, no villain, no tragedy, no misunderstanding, no illness or crisis, there is no novel, there is no drama.

If a work of art has no darkness and light, there is no beauty. If music has no silence, there can be no music. If an athlete does not exert himself and have to push his muscles and battle against a pitcher as a batter, or against a competitor if he is a runner, or against someone who opposes him, he does not develop skill, right? Everything in the universe requires effort and opposition. A student has to wrestle with exams and tests; a mother does not create life except through pain and discomfort; a child does not learn to develop psychologically except through a certain amount of psychological stress—the separation from the mother, the bottle that does not arrive on time.

The world requires pain and negativity for there to be a process. How many say amen to that? It sounded strange, but it is true. And certainly, many times God will make us go through difficult situations because he wants us to develop spiritual muscles, to develop emotionally, morally, and ethically. The person—the Christian—who gets used to Daddy coming immediately and putting the bottle in his mouth every time he cries out will never grow spiritually. I can tell you that right away.

Many times we are going to grow through trials, effort, and difficulty. If you ever find yourself in difficulty, do not throw in the towel. Instead, hold on more tightly to the Lord and say, ‘Father, I am going to go through this with you until I reach the other shore.’ Amen.

The Lord told the disciples, “Go to the other shore and wait for me there while I go up the mountain to pray.” I love that image of him praying on the mountain. What? Jesus praying? God himself, the Son of God—he had a checkbook there where all he had to do was sign a check and they would give him whatever he wanted. He was God himself, a miracle worker; the sea obeyed him; he had just multiplied loaves and fish; demons fled from him; he defeated Satan and was going to defeat death. The Lord prayed to have fellowship with his heavenly Father. The Lord prayed to renew his humanity, worn out by ministry; the Lord prayed because he was also a man—he is God and was man. Perfect God and complete man, a man absolutely full in his humanity. He felt what we feel; he grew tired, felt lonely, and felt worn out by the pain of the people because he could not attend to all of them. Perhaps he felt overwhelmed by the experience awaiting him on the other side of the cross.

And because of all those things, the Lord needed to go to the Father and be renewed. We also need prayer. When we are going through trials or difficulties, brothers and sisters, when we are living our lives serving others, we had better have a healthy prayer life, you know?

Mother, you have a great deal to give. You have to give to your children; sometimes you have to share with your husband, cook, and often work; you have to give your children good advice and sometimes serve in the church. You need to renew your strength in prayer, you know? The person who gives and gives without being renewed is fried.

As a pastor, I have learned that if I do not find time to renew myself in prayer and fellowship with God, I burn out right away. If you do not put gas in a car, it leaves you stranded on the road, right? We have to develop disciplines of prayer, study of the Word, and fellowship with God so that we may be strengthened each day and grow in faith, because God supplies his nourishment directly to our spirit when we pray. Praying is not easy; it does not come spontaneously. We have to fight for every minute of prayer in our lives.

And you know what? We also have to plan in order to pray. I believe our lives have to revolve around prayer and fellowship with God. I was telling a young man whom I am mentoring that in order to pray, a person has to make prayer a priority.

For example, if I want to pray and want to do other things before coming to the church to work or going to take care of some matter in my ministry, I have to get up very early in the morning. I have to allow at least two hours between the time I get up and the time I leave the house in order to do all the things I like to do in the morning. That obviously means and includes prayer, reading the Word, and reading some devotional book. And that also means that if I want to sleep a minimum number of hours, I have to go to bed a little earlier whenever I can. And if not, I have to get up, put one leg down and then the other, straighten my back, and then get myself as quickly as possible to wash my face and drink a cup of coffee so I can wake up a little.

But many times you have to fight for prayer; it is not easy. But I have learned that, for me, I am like a diabetic: I need my insulin of prayer every day; otherwise, I become an unbearable neurotic—my wife can tell you about that. But of course, that never happens to me; I am simply speaking theoretically.

But certainly, if I do not pray, a merely temporal perspective—my humanity—keeps growing and growing and growing, and I forget that I have a God who has said, “Hey, I am with you every day until the end of the world.” Prayer renews our perspective. There are many things we could say about prayer, but I like the fact that Jesus was a man of prayer—notice that.

He was not going to give God a shopping list, but he did like being with his Daddy, having a cappuccino there with God, talking with him and saying, “Look, Daddy, today things went so-so for me. Those disciples make me want to strangle every last one of them. They are misbehaving, so give me patience, Daddy. But we will see each other soon; don’t worry, because I’ll be heading up there in a spaceship very soon.”

And he liked having fellowship with his Father, and in that way his eternal perspective was renewed as well. The point is that he went up the mountain to pray, and there is something else the Lord does in... In that position... Notice, he went up the mountain, and it is interesting: if you read another passage—for example, Mark, chapter 6, verse 48—it says, in a different version of this passage, that

“...when evening came, the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone on land”—speaking of Jesus—“and seeing them straining at the oars....”

Notice: “seeing them straining at the oars.” You know what? The Lord went up that mountain to pray, and he could see his disciples on the sea while the poor fellows were there rowing, going around in circles on that blessed lake. They were getting nowhere.

Sometimes that has happened to you: if you get caught in a current, you have to keep at it and keep at it, and in the end the boat does whatever it wants, and they could not get anywhere. They were there; they were out on the sea for hours. But how interesting that the Lord could see them while he prayed. What does that mean? I personally believe that the Lord was interceding for his disciples; he was interceding for them.

And you know what? That image of Jesus interceding, praying for his disciples, is the image God presents to us of Christ today. In fact, when we confess in the Nicene Creed—I believe that is the one—we say that the Lord is seated at the right hand of God the Father, interceding for us. The Bible tells us that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and that there he intercedes for us.

And the Lord prays for us. The Lord intercedes before the Father for you and me. When we are going through trials and difficulties, the Lord is saying to the Holy Spirit, “Strengthen my child so that his faith may not fail.” And that was... for example, with Peter, the Lord put Peter through a crisis. He told him, “Peter, not only are you not going to give your life for me, but you are going to abandon me and deny me three times. But you know what, Peter?” he said. “I have prayed that your faith may not fail.”

In other words, so that the crisis you are going to go through—denying me and questioning who you are—does not sink you in such a way that you become demoralized and turn away from me, but rather that you learn a lesson. The Lord prayed that the experience Peter was going to go through would strengthen him in the faith.

And you know what? When you are going through trials, let me tell you something: you are not alone. Christ is by your side. And he is praying for you; he is saying, “Keep going, my son, my daughter; keep fighting the battle. Do not give up. I am with you. I am with you every day until the end of the world—on Monday morning and Sunday morning too.” The Lord is with you. And he is there on his throne saying, “I have prayed that your faith may not fail. I have prayed that you may overcome.”

The Word says, “...but in all these things we are more than conquerors....” It says that “...neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor future things, nor things to come, nor anything created—nothing at all in this world—will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.”

Nothing in this world can separate us from the love of God because Christ is interceding for us. Keep fighting; you are not alone. Always remember that. I have always said that if, for some reason, I were exiled to the moon, I know I would find what I need there because God is with me, because wherever I go, the Lord... that is what the Word says.

“...If I made my bed in Sheol, behold, you are there.” The psalmist says, “...Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you will be with me.”

The Lord is with you. Perhaps you cannot see him because he hides, right? I believe one of God’s sorrows is that he cannot reveal himself to his children in time and space. There is an immense chasm separating us from the eternal, from the supernatural in its fullness. Sometimes I wish God would give me a clearer word in my times of crisis and perplexity, and I ask him, “Lord, come on, at least toss me some little thing, some tiny straw of something. Tell me something; listen to me, don’t be so stingy, Daddy.”

But the Lord hides because if we saw him too often.... Someone has said that “familiarity breeds contempt”; that is, too much familiarity creates carelessness and contempt. God has to work behind the scenes; he has to work in a hidden way, but he is always there. Every now and then he winks at you and gives you something extra so that you know he is with you, but many times he wants us to develop faith, and faith develops simply by believing that he is who he says he is.

If God simply gave us everything every time we needed it, where would faith be? Where would hope be? God wants us to develop faith by confessing his promise and waiting for it. Now that I have said that, I love Hebrews, chapter 11, where the writer of Hebrews speaks about the people—the heroes of the faith—in Hebrews 11. Let us look it up for a moment. He says here, in 11:13:

“...According to faith”—speaking here about all these men and women of God—“it says, according to faith all these died without having received what was promised, but seeing it from afar and believing it, and greeting it and confessing that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth....”

I like that: “seeing it from afar” and “believing it and greeting it.” That is what we do with God’s promises. Many times we see them from afar, like a child who looks at those sweets through the shop window and puts his hand up as though he would like to eat one, but there is a pane of glass in the way.

And that is how we are: we look at God’s promises, but we have to see them as though they were a reality. You do not greet anything unless you believe it can interact with you, right? Otherwise, they put you... there is a place for people who go around greeting things that do not exist, you know? But we believe God’s promises so strongly that we greet them. Glory to the Lord. And in the midst of the trial, when the devil is telling us, “Look, curse God and die. He told you he was going to give you that, and he did not give it to you,” we say, “No, I know that my Redeemer lives.” Hallelujah! And we confess and greet. And we say, “I know God is going to bring me out of this. God is going to bring me out of my trial and my storm, and he said that I was going to reach the other shore, and I will reach it in the name of Jesus, because I have my Helper. I cannot see him, but I know he is there, and I feel him with my spirit, and I confess it.”

Many times, when we are going through a trial, nothing in this world suggests to us that God is faithful, and in those moments we have to arm ourselves with spiritual faith and say, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” and confess it with our mouths.

One of the things that helps us when we are going through times of crisis is to speak even what, many times, we do not believe, to confess what we do not feel. And although everything is telling us—our biology is telling us—“Doubt God; stop praising him because he has not given you anything you expected,” we say, “No, I know my God is good; my God is faithful; my God fulfills what he promises. My God brought me out of the pit once, and he will do it again. Hallelujah!”

And you remain faithful there. The Lord does what he promises. Hallelujah! “...None who trust in him will be put to shame....” The Word of the Lord says, “...I was young and have grown old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread....”

The Lord will never disappoint you if you remain steadfast in his ways and confess that he is good. Keep your eyes fixed on the Lord; believe, look from afar, and greet what God has promised you, and you will be able to attain the victory.

Those men were there; the Lord was praying, and it says that the boat was in the middle of the sea, battered by the waves, because the wind was against them. How many times in life is the wind against us, brothers and sisters? How many times does the check fail to arrive in time to pay the rent? How many times did our income tax turn out to be more expensive than we thought, huh? How many times did our child turn out to be a little more rebellious than Grandma promised us? How many times was marriage not as sweet as we thought it would be? How many times did an illness turn out not to respond to medicine as well as we thought it would, or not to be as brief as we hoped? How many times did we ask the Lord, “Save my marriage and convert my wife or my husband,” and it did not happen, things did not come together, it ended in failure, and the wind was against us? How many times are we in a situation where we are rowing on the sea, but all we do is go around in circles in the same spot—and we row and strive, pray, fast, read the Bible, go to church, praise, confess, and seek counsel, yet we are always in the same part of the sea, with the boat going around in circles?

But you know what? The Lord is there on his throne, watching, and he is interceding for you. In this life you will have affliction, says the Lord. Many times the wind is against us. This world is inherently flawed; this world is like one of those mirrors at amusement parks where, when you look at yourself, no matter how good-looking you are, you will appear crooked, or too fat, or too thin, or too tall, or whatever. Because this world is distorted in and of itself. Living in this world already presupposes pain and difficulty. That is how it is; this is an imperfect world. One day God is going to change it, but in the meantime we are going to encounter difficulties.

But we have a God who is with us. The wind will be against us many times, brother, and you know what? Many times the trial will last longer. These people were here..... Look how interesting this is; I’m wrapping this up now. But it says that “....in the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them, walking on the sea....”

What is this fourth watch? The Roman system of measuring time divided the nighttime hours into four segments: from six in the evening to nine, from nine at night to midnight, from midnight to three in the morning, and from three in the morning to six in the morning. Do you know what time the Lord came to rescue these poor devils who were out on the sea going around in circles? Between three and six in the morning. Take that in, huh. Those poor people were there rowing and confessing to every saint they could find and asking forgiveness for all the sins they had committed, because they thought they were about to meet their Maker. For several hours, with the Lord there watching them, interceding for them, and priming them for the lesson he was going to teach them.

Because, you know, brothers and sisters, as I say, Christ is a being—God is relentlessly pedagogical. When he wants to teach us a lesson, look, no one can save you from it. You are going to be there telling him, ‘Lord, I can’t take any more; I’m going to fall.’ And he says, ‘No, keep going; you can still take a little more.’ ‘I have no strength left; you’ve already taken everything out of me that...’ ‘No, no, there is still something there that I want you to try and learn.’

And the Lord is right there, because God is training warriors. God is not training turkeys; he is training eagles. Amen. God wants you to be strong and to learn faith, learn trust, learn to wage war, and purify yourself. Do you know that crises often purify us? Many crises in my life have cut me, broken me, scraped me out inside, like those chickens whose entrails are all pulled out—forgive the graphic image—but many times that is how God puts his hand into your innermost being and, through trials and difficulties, pulls out all the filth that is in there, so that you may be clean, so that you can serve him as you should. And trials are excellent for that, you know?

And he keeps you there in the fiery furnace, sometimes longer than you want. But you know what? He comes; he comes at precisely the right moment. Many times, that is one of the great themes of Scripture: the God who takes his time. Many sermons could be preached on that theme.

When Lazarus was dying, do you know what the Lord did? The Lord went off to an amusement park so that he would die—good and dead—and then he left him there until he smelled bad. He knew that he was going to perform the miracle, but he wanted it to be a well-cooked, well-done miracle, and he waited so that no one could say, ‘No, he just had a headache and was lying there in a coma, and then the Lord simply blew on him, and he caught his breath and came back to life.’ No, he wanted Lazarus to be dead, good and dead, and then he went and brought him back to life in order to display his power and his faithfulness.

And so, many times, God waits until we are up to our necks in water, right here, with the Indians already shooting arrows at us and with us asking, ‘Where is the cavalry they told me was coming?’ And when there is no room for one more arrow in the wagon, then he arrives, and we hear the trumpet, and here comes the Lone Ranger to rescue you and get you out of trouble. Amen. Glory to God. The Lord comes; he comes in his own time. Many times God will not come when you want him to come, but he will come, in the name of the Lord. He will not disappoint you; he will come.

I think we could give this sermon that very title: ‘He Will Come.’ In his own time, he comes. And he came to the disciples walking on the sea, brothers and sisters; it was not in a little motorboat. No, no, he came walking on the sea. Why? Because he wanted those people to know that he is the master of nature. He is above the storm, he is above death, he is above the wind, he is above the waves. He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. There is no problem he cannot solve, no crisis he cannot address. There is no difficulty of which he is not the master. There is no sickness to which he cannot say, ‘Be healed,’ and healing not take place. The Lord wanted to leave humanity a graphic image of his absolute power, of his lordship over time, space, nature, matter, atoms—everything.

Many people have tried to explain it away. Just today I was reading the commentary of a great commentator, Barclay, whom I respect very much, and I noticed—I discerned in him—a desire to soften a little that scandalous, unscientific image of God walking on the sea. Many people, wanting to apologize for the boldness of the image, have tried to say that the Lord was nearby and that it was only two feet deep, and that he was actually walking on the ground, and who knows what else. May the Lord rebuke that lie of the devil. The Lord was on the sea, walking on the sea. Just as he defeated the devil, just as he defeated sickness, just as he defeated death, just as he performed great miracles of multiplication, why would he now put a half-baked miracle there? No, he wanted to say, ‘Look, I am the Lord of everything—every situation, every difficulty—and I can help you.’

What did the Lord say to his disciples before he left? He said, “...all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth; therefore, go....”

In other words, do you know why you can go forth into life? Because Christ conquered everything. Christ has authority over all things. That is what gives me the confidence to get up in the morning, get into my car, and venture out into this cruel world in which I live: Christ has power over heaven, over earth, over demons, over sickness, over deprivation, over my own fallen nature. The Lord is sovereign. Hallelujah! All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth; therefore, go and get into the boat, because you are going to reach the other shore, because I have said that you will arrive, and we will meet there.

I love that chorus that says, “...he who began the good work will be faithful to complete it....” Hallelujah! Glory to the Lord. The Lord is with you. The Lord—he reigns over the tempest. He is the King, the Lord of every storm.

When the women were going toward the tomb, wondering, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us?’ because they wanted to bless the body of their Teacher and did not know how they would be able to move that immense stone that prevented them from having contact with their Teacher, what happened? The Bible says that when they arrived there, an angel had rolled away the stone and sat on it. Amen. He had removed the stone and sat on it.

I have always said that God likes those images of authority over obstacles. He sat on the stone, not as a coincidence, but as if to say, ‘Look, I have control and dominion over every obstacle that comes between you and your Lord, over every situation in life.’ The Lord has power not only to remove it, but to sit on it. The Lord not only has the power to help you in the midst of the tempest, but also to walk upon the tempest. And like Peter, who said to him, ‘Lord, if it is you, let me also walk in the tempest,’ and the Lord told him, ‘All right, amen, come, Peter. If you have the guts to do it, I am going to bless you, and you will do it.’ And as long as Peter looked toward the Lord and walked with his eyes on the Lord, he too was able to walk upon the very storm on which Jesus was walking.

And you know what? If you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, you too will be able to walk on the sea; you too will be able to do the same things Jesus did. The Word says, “....the same works that I did, and even greater ones, they will do, because I am going to the Father to intercede for you....”

You too can live a victorious life. Hallelujah! You can overcome evil. You can overcome sickness; you can overcome your own nature. The Lord wants you to be more than victorious and to live each day rebuking demons, bringing down giants, making walls fall—shut tight, firmly shut—because he is your helper and the one who strengthens you.

“...I will never leave you; I will never forsake you....” says the Lord. “...I will never withhold my righteous right hand from you, to help you in every situation....”

I ask him, ‘Father, help me to believe in you when I am going through tribulations and trials. Help me keep my eyes fixed on you,’ because if we take our eyes off him, then we are lost. Thank you, gentlemen, please. Let us begin preparing ourselves to receive this word in our hearts. We have a faithful Christ. Hallelujah! Give glory and honor to the Lord. A Christ who tells us, ‘I am not going to exempt you from going through trials, but I am going to give you everything you need to reach the other shore, because I have all power, and I want to teach you to be a powerful man, a powerful woman, a warrior who puts on the whole armor of God.’

When trials come, when the evil day comes, you do not turn and run away. Instead, you say, ‘Okay, it is time to gird my tunic with the belt of righteousness, time to take up the sword of the Word, time to take up the breastplate of faith with which to extinguish all the enemy’s darts, time to put on the helmet of salvation that tells me I am saved in Christ Jesus, and time to serve the Lord as well, wearing the footwear of the Gospel, because while we are going through trials, if we serve the Lord, we become stronger.’ Glory to God.

Soldier, you who are in that battle, put on the armor. God is with you. You know what? A final thought occurs to me, and it is this: Everything that has happened did not get an opportunity last Sunday because it was Father’s Day and, in a sense, it was not appropriate. But everything that has happened with marriage and the apparent defeat we have suffered through the legislators’ rejection of the proposed amendment to preserve marriage as the union between one man and one woman—for many, that could be demoralizing. But you know what? I am filled with a great hope that the Lord has an even better plan, you know? That he simply wants those of us who are rowing on the sea to remain on the sea a little longer, but in his own time he will come and do something far better than what we expect.

He wants to show that he is the Lord of the storm—not our strategies, not our efforts. We can do many things; we have exerted ourselves, we have worked, but I have learned that a soldier does not give up just because he loses a battle.

Just last night I was reading about the Revolutionary War. The year 1781, I think it was, was the worst year of all. The revolutionary struggle against England seemed completely lost. The colonies had lost one battle after another. They were demoralized; Washington was already on the verge of throwing in the towel, and everything looked absolutely dark. And yet, at that moment, a series of circumstances arose that suddenly changed the entire course of that revolutionary process. By practically the end of that year, the English had recognized the independence of the North American colonies, because that is how wars go. A war is not won with a single battle; sometimes it takes years. But we know that we have a faithful God, Lord of history, Lord of circumstances, Lord of time and space. He does not do things merely because we ask him to do them the way we want; he is sovereign.

We propose, and God disposes, as someone says. So we continue the battle; we do not become demoralized. We have a God who always has something up his sleeve, as they say. He always has an answer for every situation, and that is why we can keep moving forward. Glory to the Lord.

Let us stand and receive in our spirits that promise of God’s faithfulness. I want to say to my God, ‘Father, thank you because you are faithful, because you are good. I do not know how many years I have left in this life, but I want to spend them all with you. Every day of my life, I want to spend right by your side, Lord. And even if trials and difficulties come, and old age comes with its aches and pains and all its problems, and even if things do not go as well for me as I had hoped, I am going to confess that you are good, that your mercy endures forever, and that you will be with me; that you began the good work and that you will be faithful to complete it. That perhaps I will go through the storm, but you will come walking on the waves, stretch out your hand, pull me out, and make the storm cease.

Believe it, warrior of God, man or woman. Perhaps you are going through a time of trial and difficulty, but God is with you.

God is with you. If you are a warrior and God wants to shape warriors. I’m telling you, hold on to the promises of God. You have a good God, you have a God who has a fatherly heart, you have a God who never violated a single one of his promises. It may take longer than you believe but God is with you. He is a faithful God and he will pull you through, he will make sure that you arrive at the other side and meanwhile you will have learned great lessons of faith and you will have become stronger and wiser and humbler and more able to minister to others and to share the goodness of God and the lessons of the faith. This is the God that we serve. He is a good God. Do not give up in the midst of struggles or trials because God is there even when you don’t see him or feel him. You have to confess him by faith.

Even if you do not feel or see his presence, believe it, confess it, and welcome it, and you will be able to reach the other side. We thank you, Lord. Now I receive it in the name of.... Receive that portion of encouragement that God wants you to have, in the name of Jesus. We banish all anxiety, all fear.

Right now, we just take away and we rebuke and deny every feeling of anxiety or of fear or of depression in the name of Christ, or failure right now in the name of Jesus, we let go of that and we receive the blessing of God, we receive the affirmation of his faithfulness. We receive intimations of his goodness. Alleluia! Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. We worship you, we bless you, Lord. Thank you. And I hope that you have that Jesus who is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, in your heart this morning.