What in the World is God Doing? Getting To The Other Side-Sunday Takeaway 5-17-20
If two weeks ago was a home run, then last Sunday's sermon was a grandslam! If you are asking the Lord Why me?, Why this? Why now?; if you are in the midst of a storm, then you need to listen to this sermon. This sermon, Getting To The Other Side, couldn’t have been more timely for me. What a confirmation and an encouragement for me.
http://cms-production-api.monkcms.com/Clients/embed_video_preview.php?moduleRecordId=7642342&CMSCODE=EKK
Before I go any further, I want to reiterate that these ditties I write are not a synopsis of the sermon, they are not an outline of the sermon, nor are a critique of the sermon. They are simply what stuck out to me, rather what I took away from the sermon to ponder and pray about. To be honest, if my Pastor reads these, I’m sure there have been days that he just cringes at what I write because I so missed the main point, so please know that he neither requests or endorses that I write these. But at least I do think about what he says and I normally listen to his sermon more than once. I was in a church once where someone stood and said “Let’s face it, most of us won’t remember a thing that was said this morning by the time we sit down to eat lunch.” I wanted to stand up and say, then why are you here? I felt extremely sorry for that person and the Pastor. What a thing to hear right before you stand up and deliver a message that you worked on for hours through the week. So Pastor Dan, if you read this, please know that your sermons challenge me, they encourage me and they cause me to draw closer to Jesus EVERY WEEK! And I’m sorry that I sometimes miss the point. That’s a me thing, not a you thing.
Why do you get into a plane? I get in to go visit someone or to attend something. I used to fly with my brother, but that was just for fun. Ultimately, we get into planes, cars, buses, golf carts, whatever, because we have a destination in sight. So, we start out to get to the other side of the journey. It’s why the chicken crossed the road right? Unless it wasn’t! (I love how my Pastor gets you riding the wave and then boom!, the wave crashes and you’re ready to sit up and pay attention!) Maybe life is more about the journey than we realize.
Matthew 14: 22-25
We’ve heard this story preached so many times. Reinhard Bonnke used it to illustrate how faith is stepping out of the boat of normalcy and onto the foundation of the Word of God to do what you never did before. Others have used it to show us what happens if we get our eyes off God. Still others use it to remind us that Jeus will always be there to fish us out of our troubles. These are all good. However, I’ve never heard it used the way my Pastor did and it was both refreshing and so, so timely for me. The disciples are stuck in the storm. Not just any storm. The wording suggests that it was a demonic storm. One sent to assure that they did not reach their destination, that they never reached the other side. They were STUCK in the storm!
I hate being stuck in any sense. I hate when I eat right and exercise and the scales never move.
I hate it when I’m in a confined location with no visible way out-I am a bit claustrophobic. It probably comes from my many experiences of being dragged through a small crack between an open elevator door and the next floor of a 16 story dorm building whose elevators were broken more often than they were working. (I wish I had those 16 floors of steps I walked. Believe me, “freshman 15” was nowhere in my vocabulary. I lost weight in college!) Being packed like a sardine in an elevator with other nervous, sweaty people while waiting on the repairman who usually took his good ole time was traumatizing at best!
Perhaps the storm is more internal because of external circumstances or internal turmoil and there’s nothing you can do to change it. It’s completely out of your control and it affects you everyday. You didn’t sign up for it, you didn’t want it, you didn’t do anything to cause it, and you can’t get out of it without extreme consequences,and you are just stuck going through it. It’s like walking over a long chasm that is so deep that you can’t see the bottom and the only wy across is a path the size of a balance beam.
Are you currently stuck in a storm? Have you asked God the why me-why this-why now questions? Do you feel alone, vulnerable, forgotten? Are you fearing for your very life emotionally, physically, spiritually? Have you asked God where He is in the midst of it? I’m sure that the disciples could relate! I know I can.
And do you know where Jesus was in the midst of all of this? He was outside the storm watching from the hillside of prayer. Few things were more important to Jesus than being in the presence of his Father. And that should be the way we are too. He was in His #bestill spot and there’s nowhere more important than there. That’s the thing about Jesus. He never seemed to be in a hurry. He didn’t hurry to the bedside of Lazarus. He let him die. He didn’t rush to the house of Jairus, whose daughter lay dying. In fact on the way, He stopped to heal the woman with the issue of blood. I can imagine that if I was Jairus, I would have been saying, come on Jesus, she could die at any minute. That woman has been sick for years. She can make an appointment to see you later today. Please hurry or it might be too late! And Jesus didn’t hurry to the storm that was buffeting the disciples. Why? Perhaps he was getting instruction from His Father. Perhaps He was waiting for them to get desperate. What I do know is that Jesus is never late but I’ve found that He sometimes has that irritating habit of waiting until the last minute. Dare I call Him a procrastinator? Of course, for someone who sees a day as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, I guess there is no such thing as the last minute, there’s only such a thing as the right minute.
Pastor brought out that when we are breezing along in the Lord, it is easy to sing and worship and praise, but in a storm, our view of the Lord can get distorted. That’s when the Why? questions begin to surface. Max Lucado describes it as looking through a glass window pain. We see things plainly but when the window gets cracked, it distorts our view. When storms come and we don’t understand why God is seemingly MIA, we can become hurt or angry or suspicious of God and His methods. Our once solid perspective of God begins to change.
Here are some important things to remember:
1. In the loving plan of God, sometimes being stuck in a storm is more important than getting to the other side. We want out of the storm. Jesus wants to get into our storm. At the right moment, Jesus entered into the disciple’s storm and showed his disciples that He was greater than the storm. He taught them that they could walk on water amidst the wind and waves if they would just keep their eyes on Him and hold tightly to His hand.
2. Christ is pursuing us in the storm Mt (14:24-28). It doesn’t say the disciples were praying, but you can bet they were. They were terrified. Jesus showed up right about the time they knew that without divine intervention, they were going to sink. Proverbs 17:3 reminds us that the Lord refines our hearts in the trials of life. He prepares us for what lies ahead, for what is on the other side. It is in the storm and over the chasms that He develops our character by getting our attention fully on Him! That is the only way true communication can take place.
3. It is in the storms where we learn to hear and know the Lord’s voice. The disciples thought He was a ghost. Peter, however, figured out that it was Jesus and he got to walk on water! I can testify that this is true. Several months in a hospital taught me this. My current storm is teaching me this as well. There’s no storms at the creek but there’s one in my heart and when I’m at the creek oh, how God speaks to me! And even though there are days when I long for the storm to cease, I can always look out and see that Jesus is beckoning me to come walk on the water with Him because He is the peace in the midst of every storm.
4. Our storms are not all caused by God. He gets a bad rap sometimes. However, He will always be with us in every storm and if we will learn to recognize His voice in the midst of them, He will teach and show us glorious things. When this happens we become one of those who say that although the storm was awful, if we had to trade what we learned of God, what He did for us, in us and through us, we would not go back and change a single thing about it, and we certainly would not have avoided it.
5. I used to be more of a rainy day Christian. I could go along pretty well with just minimal interaction with God until a storm hit. Then I would seek shelter under His wing but as soon as the storm subsided, I would ease out from under His wing to venture back out into the world on my own-until the next storm. I have had several major storms in my life and they have taught me to be an everyday Christian. I have learned that in sunshine or rain, I desperately need God. In times of confidence or terror, I desperately need God. In minor and major decisions, I desperately need God. I hold tight to His hand in every situation because I love Him and always want Him with me, in joy and in sorrow, in plenty or lack, in easy times and hard times.
Question: What is Jesus saying in your storm? Will you pursue Him or blame Him? If you want to walk on water, you have to give up your boat of safety, security and control. You have to step into the storm instead of running from it. Mt 14: 28-31
Pastor shared that the reward of surrender is Revelation. The reward of revelation is worship Mt 14: 32-33 And might I add that the reward of worshipping the Lord in spirit and truth, is peace? Get quiet before Him. Listen and surrender to all that He is doing in the storm. Remember that He loves you with PERFECT love. “When God wins, you can’t lose! Let your hands fall down, surrender, be still.” Let God get you to the other side in His time and in His way! He will always deliver you, in the right moment.
If two weeks ago was a home run, then last Sunday's sermon was a grandslam! If you are asking the Lord Why me?, Why this? Why now?; if you are in the midst of a storm, then you need to listen to this sermon. This sermon, Getting To The Other Side, couldn’t have been more timely for me. What a confirmation and an encouragement for me.
http://cms-production-api.monkcms.com/Clients/embed_video_preview.php?moduleRecordId=7642342&CMSCODE=EKK
Before I go any further, I want to reiterate that these ditties I write are not a synopsis of the sermon, they are not an outline of the sermon, nor are a critique of the sermon. They are simply what stuck out to me, rather what I took away from the sermon to ponder and pray about. To be honest, if my Pastor reads these, I’m sure there have been days that he just cringes at what I write because I so missed the main point, so please know that he neither requests or endorses that I write these. But at least I do think about what he says and I normally listen to his sermon more than once. I was in a church once where someone stood and said “Let’s face it, most of us won’t remember a thing that was said this morning by the time we sit down to eat lunch.” I wanted to stand up and say, then why are you here? I felt extremely sorry for that person and the Pastor. What a thing to hear right before you stand up and deliver a message that you worked on for hours through the week. So Pastor Dan, if you read this, please know that your sermons challenge me, they encourage me and they cause me to draw closer to Jesus EVERY WEEK! And I’m sorry that I sometimes miss the point. That’s a me thing, not a you thing.
Why do you get into a plane? I get in to go visit someone or to attend something. I used to fly with my brother, but that was just for fun. Ultimately, we get into planes, cars, buses, golf carts, whatever, because we have a destination in sight. So, we start out to get to the other side of the journey. It’s why the chicken crossed the road right? Unless it wasn’t! (I love how my Pastor gets you riding the wave and then boom!, the wave crashes and you’re ready to sit up and pay attention!) Maybe life is more about the journey than we realize.
Matthew 14: 22-25
We’ve heard this story preached so many times. Reinhard Bonnke used it to illustrate how faith is stepping out of the boat of normalcy and onto the foundation of the Word of God to do what you never did before. Others have used it to show us what happens if we get our eyes off God. Still others use it to remind us that Jeus will always be there to fish us out of our troubles. These are all good. However, I’ve never heard it used the way my Pastor did and it was both refreshing and so, so timely for me. The disciples are stuck in the storm. Not just any storm. The wording suggests that it was a demonic storm. One sent to assure that they did not reach their destination, that they never reached the other side. They were STUCK in the storm!
I hate being stuck in any sense. I hate when I eat right and exercise and the scales never move.
I hate it when I’m in a confined location with no visible way out-I am a bit claustrophobic. It probably comes from my many experiences of being dragged through a small crack between an open elevator door and the next floor of a 16 story dorm building whose elevators were broken more often than they were working. (I wish I had those 16 floors of steps I walked. Believe me, “freshman 15” was nowhere in my vocabulary. I lost weight in college!) Being packed like a sardine in an elevator with other nervous, sweaty people while waiting on the repairman who usually took his good ole time was traumatizing at best!
Perhaps the storm is more internal because of external circumstances or internal turmoil and there’s nothing you can do to change it. It’s completely out of your control and it affects you everyday. You didn’t sign up for it, you didn’t want it, you didn’t do anything to cause it, and you can’t get out of it without extreme consequences,and you are just stuck going through it. It’s like walking over a long chasm that is so deep that you can’t see the bottom and the only wy across is a path the size of a balance beam.
Are you currently stuck in a storm? Have you asked God the why me-why this-why now questions? Do you feel alone, vulnerable, forgotten? Are you fearing for your very life emotionally, physically, spiritually? Have you asked God where He is in the midst of it? I’m sure that the disciples could relate! I know I can.
And do you know where Jesus was in the midst of all of this? He was outside the storm watching from the hillside of prayer. Few things were more important to Jesus than being in the presence of his Father. And that should be the way we are too. He was in His #bestill spot and there’s nowhere more important than there. That’s the thing about Jesus. He never seemed to be in a hurry. He didn’t hurry to the bedside of Lazarus. He let him die. He didn’t rush to the house of Jairus, whose daughter lay dying. In fact on the way, He stopped to heal the woman with the issue of blood. I can imagine that if I was Jairus, I would have been saying, come on Jesus, she could die at any minute. That woman has been sick for years. She can make an appointment to see you later today. Please hurry or it might be too late! And Jesus didn’t hurry to the storm that was buffeting the disciples. Why? Perhaps he was getting instruction from His Father. Perhaps He was waiting for them to get desperate. What I do know is that Jesus is never late but I’ve found that He sometimes has that irritating habit of waiting until the last minute. Dare I call Him a procrastinator? Of course, for someone who sees a day as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day, I guess there is no such thing as the last minute, there’s only such a thing as the right minute.
Pastor brought out that when we are breezing along in the Lord, it is easy to sing and worship and praise, but in a storm, our view of the Lord can get distorted. That’s when the Why? questions begin to surface. Max Lucado describes it as looking through a glass window pain. We see things plainly but when the window gets cracked, it distorts our view. When storms come and we don’t understand why God is seemingly MIA, we can become hurt or angry or suspicious of God and His methods. Our once solid perspective of God begins to change.
Here are some important things to remember:
1. In the loving plan of God, sometimes being stuck in a storm is more important than getting to the other side. We want out of the storm. Jesus wants to get into our storm. At the right moment, Jesus entered into the disciple’s storm and showed his disciples that He was greater than the storm. He taught them that they could walk on water amidst the wind and waves if they would just keep their eyes on Him and hold tightly to His hand.
2. Christ is pursuing us in the storm Mt (14:24-28). It doesn’t say the disciples were praying, but you can bet they were. They were terrified. Jesus showed up right about the time they knew that without divine intervention, they were going to sink. Proverbs 17:3 reminds us that the Lord refines our hearts in the trials of life. He prepares us for what lies ahead, for what is on the other side. It is in the storm and over the chasms that He develops our character by getting our attention fully on Him! That is the only way true communication can take place.
3. It is in the storms where we learn to hear and know the Lord’s voice. The disciples thought He was a ghost. Peter, however, figured out that it was Jesus and he got to walk on water! I can testify that this is true. Several months in a hospital taught me this. My current storm is teaching me this as well. There’s no storms at the creek but there’s one in my heart and when I’m at the creek oh, how God speaks to me! And even though there are days when I long for the storm to cease, I can always look out and see that Jesus is beckoning me to come walk on the water with Him because He is the peace in the midst of every storm.
4. Our storms are not all caused by God. He gets a bad rap sometimes. However, He will always be with us in every storm and if we will learn to recognize His voice in the midst of them, He will teach and show us glorious things. When this happens we become one of those who say that although the storm was awful, if we had to trade what we learned of God, what He did for us, in us and through us, we would not go back and change a single thing about it, and we certainly would not have avoided it.
5. I used to be more of a rainy day Christian. I could go along pretty well with just minimal interaction with God until a storm hit. Then I would seek shelter under His wing but as soon as the storm subsided, I would ease out from under His wing to venture back out into the world on my own-until the next storm. I have had several major storms in my life and they have taught me to be an everyday Christian. I have learned that in sunshine or rain, I desperately need God. In times of confidence or terror, I desperately need God. In minor and major decisions, I desperately need God. I hold tight to His hand in every situation because I love Him and always want Him with me, in joy and in sorrow, in plenty or lack, in easy times and hard times.
Question: What is Jesus saying in your storm? Will you pursue Him or blame Him? If you want to walk on water, you have to give up your boat of safety, security and control. You have to step into the storm instead of running from it. Mt 14: 28-31
Pastor shared that the reward of surrender is Revelation. The reward of revelation is worship Mt 14: 32-33 And might I add that the reward of worshipping the Lord in spirit and truth, is peace? Get quiet before Him. Listen and surrender to all that He is doing in the storm. Remember that He loves you with PERFECT love. “When God wins, you can’t lose! Let your hands fall down, surrender, be still.” Let God get you to the other side in His time and in His way! He will always deliver you, in the right moment.
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