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Well, good morning, Echoes Church. How's everybody doing? Man. Oh, man.
You guys are definitely top three best looking services we've had in here all day. So at least you got that going for you. If I have not had a chance to meet you yet, name my is Daniel. Just excited to get to be with you. If you if you have a bible, open them up to Matthew
chapter eight. We are in week two of a series that we started last week called miracles, looking at some of the miracles that Jesus did believing
that we still serve a miracle working god. So Matthew chapter eight, you turn there. Let me pray for us. We'll jump in. Father, god, it is with hearts so full of expectation that we gather this morning. We know that when we lift up your name, when we open your scriptures to the power of the holy spirit, you speak and so father, not that you need it but we give you permission right now to have your way in this place. Would you speak individually and specifically to every single one of us here? In Jesus mighty name, all god's people said,
all god's people said, amen. Man, it's always good to get to be with you. So, I was thinking about it this week kind of preparing for this message. I I have a guy that's a friend of mine that was a neighbor years ago when I was a kid and he had just moved into a neighborhood where
again, for young people here, you're going have to ask your parents about it but we used to do this thing called playing outside like it's a crazy concept, but what you do virtually, we used to do in real life. Like, it was wild. You know? And I I grew up on a cul de sac. And on the cul de sac, like, that's where, like, life happened. You know? After school, that's where you just you were out there all day. Then sun would go down. You'd go inside, do dinner, and all that stuff. But kickball was kind of like our our game of choice, right? It's basically just baseball but you roll a ball and you kick it instead of using a baseball and a bat and so, this guy, David, when he had moved in, you know, came down one day and you know, we're trying to figure out. I'm trying to assess. Do I want him on my team or do I wanna make sure he ends up on the other team? Right? And so, I asked him. I'm like, hey, David. How far do you think you can kick this ball? And mind you, just for, you know, some context, the cul de sac, you know, the end of the cul de sac was basically the home run line. Then there was the sidewalk and then there was bushes and then there was trees. Okay? None of us had ever kicked it into the bushes. And so David says, I think I could kick it over the bushes and over the trees. And we're like, this guy, man, is so delusional. You know, it's like the, uncle Rico kind of thing where it's like, I'm going throw his football over those mountains. He's like, he just he doesn't know what he's talking about. And so I end up with him on my team. And eventually,
it gets to be his turn up to bat. And I'll I'll never forget the moment. Like, I I roll him the ball, and he just punts this thing. And the memory is, like, seared in my brain as I get, like, whiplash watching this ball travel over the cul de sac, past the sidewalk, over the bushes, over the trees.
And then in slow motion, it feels like he's just jogging the bases, and we're just like, who is this giant amongst boys? You know, like, what what did we just experience? And I I learned on that day that apparently soccer players are athletes. Like, who knew? You know? And
and from that day forward, David went from like a potential liability to literally, if you were picking first, he was always the first pick and the the reason that that I start there is it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what David had said to us. Nobody believed that he could do what he was claiming that he could do but it was the moment that he showed everybody how far he could kick a kickball that literally everything changed and the reason that I I was thinking about that story this week is Matthew chapter eight.
This is literally, I think that moment, potentially the moment where for the disciples, the closest followers of Jesus, this is the moment, this is the miracle
where they stop just wondering if he's potentially the Messiah that they've been hoping for and I think they see not based on what Jesus says but based on what Jesus does that this this is actually god and if he's god, that changes
everything, okay? Matthew chapter eight, here's how the story picks up. I want to read the first verse and then we'll eventually get to the miracle. Matthew chapter eight verse one, here's how the story begins. It says, large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside. Now, again, if I had three or four hours, I would read the entire chapter, Matthew chapter eight to you. I would encourage you. Go read it this week when you have some time but what I would want to point out in the story is that Matthew chapter eight is just recording
a whole bunch of Jesus' miracles and Jesus didn't just occasionally do miracles. They were they were everywhere but one verse in, you notice some things that are interesting. Jesus was coming down from the mountainside and there's a large crowd that's following him. I think it's important to note that Jesus was never following the crowd. See, Jesus wasn't just waiting for whatever public opinion would tell him to do and then that's what he would do. Jesus begins to show us what what a life led by the spirit of god is supposed to be like. You're not you're not led by public opinion. You're not waiting for what everybody else wants you to do. You are doing what god has asked you to do. Jesus was led by the spirit of god and often times, when god leads your life, there are things that he will ask you to do that truthfully,
they don't make a ton of sense and in Matthew chapter eight, we see Jesus is walking and this crowd is beginning to form because they know that there's something about this guy and you'll read in the story if you keep going, he comes across a man that has leprosy and I know in our context, leprosy like we don't have a frame of reference for that but for somebody to have leprosy basically meant that they were shunned and they had to live on the fringes of society for the rest of their life. They could never come to church. They couldn't touch their loved ones if they have kids. They could never hold them like it was a life of isolation
and every Jew that would have been there with Jesus, his closest disciples, they also knew that if they get close to this person and god forbid, they touch them, they now would become ceremonially unclean
and so Jesus again, there's multiple times where he heals people with leprosy but in this instance, he actually walks up to him and he he touches him. When he shows everybody there that the kingdom of god that Jesus has brought to usher in is one where no longer when unclean things touch the clean things,
do the clean things become unclean. Track with me. What what Jesus is saying is that now in my kingdom that when the unclean comes into contact with the clean, the unclean becomes clean.
He begins to tell us that you and I who were no longer defined based on what's been done to us. We are not just our worst moments. We don't have to just carry the scarlet letter that we've been given for our whole life based on things that we've done or things that have been done to us that you and I, we have the ability with a single touch from heaven to be born again and to walk as whole and healed, completed,
new creations in Christ is what Jesus would say. He heals a man with leprosy which would have been incredibly controversial
and then a Roman centurion guard comes running to Jesus and he tells him, I have a servant at home that's sick. I need you to come to my house and Jesus does something supernatural and he tells him, I don't I don't even have to go there. He tells this guy, your your faith
has healed your servant. He goes back and realizes that this guy has been healed and then they get to Peter's mother in law's house and this is the one miracle that Peter was probably like, Jesus, do we need to heal everybody? You know, like it's his mother-in-law that's sick, right? Just joking. Obviously, love my mother-in-law
but he gets to Peter mother in law's house and she's sick and he heals her. Now, all of that to say, the crowd is there wondering and believing and hoping that Jesus could potentially heal them and they watch him do miracle after miracle after miracle and the crowd grows with every moment.
This would have been the point where the crowd was worked to a frenzy if the whole purpose of Jesus's ministry was to be here to just heal sick people and do that all day long. He would have created right now the the the moment of inflection where he would go, okay, guys, get the get the tent out, get the healing oil. We're going to heal all these people. There's this massive crowd that's there but again, Jesus wasn't led by public opinion
and he instead of beginning to minister to this large crowd, there's almost this like constant rejection of notoriety and fame with Jesus and he gets his disciples
and he turns and he gets them onto a boat and he's going to show us that this is where we're to find the miracle that we're going to look at today. So, skip down with me down to verse 23,
okay? Crowd is there. Miracles have been happening and then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples.
See, Jesus tells the disciples, let's get into a boat and go into the lake. I want to read you the same introduction of this story in the gospel of Mark. Okay? Again, remember, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we call em the synoptic gospels. They essentially record a lot of the same stories. John is basically an outlier of the four gospel accounts but a lot of them tell the same stories but sometimes we see more color in other ones. So, Mark chapter four, same story, little more color for the story. Mark chapter four records that that day, that same day when evening came, he said to his disciples, Jesus said to his disciples, let us go over to the other side, leaving the crowd behind. I love that Mark remembers. There was a moment where they had to kind of make a decision to leave the crowd behind. They took him along just as he was in the boat. There was also other boats with him. See, Mark tells us a couple important details for the story that we need for it to make sense because what we're about to see is Jesus calm a storm. Okay? A storm is about to erupt on this body of water that they're going to but you gotta remember how they get there.
Jesus introduces them to the body of water. Jesus invites them onto the boat that's going to lead them into this storm But the start of the story is Jesus telling all of the disciples, we're going to the other side of the lake.
We're going to get to the other side of this thing. And here's what you and I have to remember when life begins to erupt all around us. Is that we've been given a promise from heaven as well. That we will get to the other side of this thing and that this storm that we think is going to take us out, it won't. We will get through this. The whole story begins with the promise that you're going to get to the other side of the story. You will understand what god was doing in hindsight when you get a chance to look back on it. The second thing that Mark tells us here that I think is an important note is that the disciples had to make a decision.
See, they could have just been like, no, I think this guy is wrong. Like, I'm going stay with the crowd. All these people need help but they they made a decision to turn against the crowd and to go into the boat with Jesus and Mark says that they they accepted Jesus just as he was.
See, this is my prayer and my hope as a pastor today is that we as people who are making decisions to also follow Jesus and trust him with our lives and to get into the proverbial boat with him and to trust him on this journey called life that we are getting into the boat with Jesus not as we are expecting him to be or who we're hoping that he is or who culture has told us that he is. That we're making a decision to trust Jesus
as he actually is as revealed in scripture. Not some magic genie mixed with some god that we've kind of created but we're making a decision to follow Jesus as we see him revealed in the scriptures here and so it's with the promise that Jesus invites the disciples into the boat with them and then verse 24,
it says, suddenly, everybody say suddenly. Suddenly, a fierce storm struck the lake with waves breaking into the boat but but Jesus was, come on, where am I napping people at, man? Jesus was napping in the name of Jesus. That's why I will nap after preaching today because Jesus did it. So, I've gotta do it too, right?
See, this is what's really interesting. Just think about it for a second. Go go back a couple steps. Jesus is leading his disciples. He's trying to teach them how the kingdom of god operates and he takes them away from the crowd, puts them into a boat, leads them out into the middle of the Sea Of Galilee,
and all of a sudden out of nowhere, a storm erupts. We will read in a couple verses that this is a storm that is so large, that is so overpowering
that the disciples are convinced they're going to die. Just for some context, if you don't know, most of these guys before they were disciples of Jesus, do you know what their profession was?
They were professional fishermen, okay? They spent their life on this same body of water. Yet today, on this day, this storm has erupted so much so that it's convincing a bunch of professional fishermen that they're gonna die.
I just wonder how big a storm has to be to convince a bunch of people who've spent their life on the sea that this is the one that's gonna kill them. Think about it for a second. This is why theologians argue that potentially what we're seeing here is a storm of supernatural origin.
That not only did Jesus lead them into the storm, that he potentially is the one that created the storm himself. Now, you just take that and you filter most of our Western idea of who God is supposed to be, who Jesus is supposed to be. And you're like, wait, this story doesn't fit into my frame of understanding
because most of us believe that what God is supposed to do is to come into our life and make problems go away. I rubbed the lamp of the genie God. I pray the prayer. I do the things and my life becomes better and storms disappear.
Yet now we read a story where Jesus potentially not only leads them into it, but he also causes the storm. And you go, what do we do with this?
Again, don't don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that every difficulty, every hardship, every medical diagnosis that goes poorly, every death, every sickness, every financial crisis is something that God is causing. That's not what I'm saying at all. But what I am encouraging us to consider is that maybe Jesus understands the potential and the power of storms in our lives that we don't get.
Jesus understands that that miracles are incredible and we should run after them and we need them and we're going pray by faith for them to show up and this story is bookend and miracles on the front end. They get to the other side of the lake. More miracles but miracles will only wow you. They will only leave you in awe but they won't ever actually grow your faith and for some reason, Jesus knew for his disciples,
he needed to get them into the middle of the storm and to watch what is in them come to the surface because Jesus understands it's the storms of life that strengthen us. It's the difficult days that grow us and Jesus knew you. Here's what you gotta understand. Jesus had three years with 12 knuckleheads like you and I. He had three years with these guys to convince them to go out and start a revolution that would change the world and he also knew that in just a few years, he was going to die on a cross and their lives were going to literally have hell erupt upon him and they think this storm is going to break them but he knows there's a day that's coming that's going to crush them in ways that they couldn't even possibly prepare for. How do you get somebody ready for that moment?
You slowly start to put them in situations where you incrementally increase the temperature so that they can learn to trust god in smaller storms so that when the bigger storms of life come, they have a faith that can be trusted and it can actually get them through the hard seasons and maybe,
maybe it says that there's purpose in our storms as well and maybe that god can redeem the difficult days of our life that we're walking through as well but again, when I first read the story, it's almost offensive to think that Jesus is he's sleeping in the middle of the storm that is causing the disciples to panic and I don't know why. Maybe it's because I grew up like watching the Pirates of the Caribbean and the Little Mermaid and stuff like, when I think about this boat, like, this is what I'm picturing in my head. Okay, this is the boat on the water. It's like this big, you know, pirate cruise ship and dudes up top with the little like telescope thing and Jesus is down on like a king-size mattress. He's got servants bringing him food and like if I'm the disciples upstairs and I'm freaking out and Jesus is down on a king-size bed, I would be upset as well but here's what a first century fishing boat would have looked like. See, this is an accurate picture of a first century fishing boat. This is what they were on. Remember, Mark says that there was multiple boats. They couldn't even fit all on one boat. Here's why I belabor the point a little bit. It tells me that when Jesus was sleeping while the disciples were panicking,
he wasn't doing it in some room far away. He was sleeping
right next to them. He was literally in the boat next to them in the middle of the storm and yet Jesus wasn't overwhelmed by the storm that was overwhelming them. See, here's what I wish I could tell you, especially all of you who are making the decision to get baptized today. Like, it is such an incredible decision.
I believe that a life of following Jesus is the greatest life in the history of the world that you don't even really fully understand who you are until you surrender your life to Jesus and begin to understand who you are in Christ but I also need to warn you. See, often, we think that a life of following Jesus is one where it's just like rainbows and butterflies and problems go away and there's never any health problems that happen. No financial crisis is divorce never goes like divorce never happens. Addictions don't affect followers of Jesus and I I wish I could tell you that that was the case and that this story, it didn't preach like Jesus got him in a boat and let him to the storm that it was just Jesus put him in a submarine and they went underneath the water and all the storms raged up top for all the non Christians up there but the Christians, they were under the water with Jesus in their submarine and there was no problems for any of them but it's just not real. It's not what the scriptures say. It's not an accurate picture of following Jesus but here's what I can tell you. Here's where the hope is. Is that Christians aren't exempt from storms but you are. We are exempt from storms with no purpose.
See, this is the beauty for people who have put their faith and trust in Jesus. Is that the promise of heaven is that god will never waste your difficult days.
He will never waste the pain and the tears that we've cried. He will use them for good. He will use them for purpose in our lives. I love this quote from Charles Spurgeon.
Charles Spurgeon says that storms help to make the sailors sturdy and trials help to make Christians strong in their faith.
I think this is what Jesus's brother James is referencing in James chapter one when he says, dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it a perfect opportunity to passively, aggressively let everybody know on Instagram that you have problems but don't say em directly, right? That that's not what he says. James says that when troubles come, consider an opportunity for something that we don't think of, great great joy.
For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So, let it grow. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete needing nothing. See, what James is saying is that it's only when something's been tested, can it be trusted
and I think what Jesus is trying to give all of us is a faith that can be trusted. A faith that can be, it's it's perfected. It's it's battle tested. It's gone through some things. Again, we we know inherently that testing is what proves something's trustworthiness
but somehow we think our our our faith is exempt from that process. Imagine for a moment after church today, you guys go get some food and then you're like, let's go look at some new builds, right? We're going go check out these new build communities. They're all over the East Valley, right? And you go to a new building, you're walking through with the guy and you're like, okay, so tell me about the construction process. They're like, dude, you guys are, it's amazing. We have all these new materials that we tried. So, we do these new, you know, new concrete foundation. It's all new, you know, lumber. We did these beams and engineered them with new product. We've never tested before but like, the engineers say that it should hold the second story for like at least the next ten years. You're like, wait, you've never tested it? Like, no, no, but we had a pretty good idea that it's going to withstand, right? Nobody's
going to buy it. Why? Because we inherently know in every arena of our life, it's only after something's been tested, can it be trusted?
Our faith is the exact same way. And part of how Jesus grows our faith to a perfected and completed faith inside of a broken and fallen world is by allowing some storms to rage around us and storms to come into us. But here's the hope.
Here's kind of the goal, if you will. It's actually not offensive that Jesus is sleeping. Again, what we're trying to remember is that Jesus, he's an example of what it really looks like to be led by the Holy Spirit.
When you understand who God is in you and the God that's in the boat with you, it can give you peace when everything around you is is raging. And maybe Jesus's posture of taking a nap in the middle of storms raging
is actually an invitation for you and I to have an incredible witness to an unbelieving world. That sometimes the greatest witness to our lost neighbors and coworkers and friends and community members is that when the the storms of politics and seasons are raging around us or things are happening culturally and everybody else is running around like Chicken Little saying the sky is falling and everybody's in a panic,
they look at you and you're just like, I'm going take a nap, you know, like I'm I'm kind of tired.
They're like, why are you not freaking out? It's like, well, because I know who's in the boat with me and I know even what what Paul says that even when death comes and untimely deaths happen in our life, that we mourn, yes, because we're devastated and we're heartbroken.
He says, but we don't mourn like those that have no hope because we know that all of this is passing away and that our journeys,
all of us here who've given our life to Jesus, it starts with a promise and the promise is that there will be a day where there will be no more pain and every tear will be wiped away and we will get to spend eternity with god and all of us will get there one day but while we're here, while we're in the in between, while we're in the tension, when storms rage, maybe,
maybe our response can be peace and not panic. Remember what Jesus said, he gave you and I as a gift. John chapter 14 verse 27, Jesus says, I'm I'm leaving you a gift. This is the gift that god wants to give you this morning. Peace of mind and heart
and the peace I give you is a gift that the world cannot give. So, here it is. Don't be troubled or afraid.
There's a peace available through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in our hearts with a surrender to the spirit of God that is something that this world can't give us. It is a gift that we can only receive from heaven. And so I love it. Jesus is asleep on the boat. The disciples are panicking. And then verse 25,
the the disciples went and woke him up shouting, Lord, save us. We're we're going
to drown. See, this is what's interesting to me is it doesn't record. It doesn't tell us how long the disciples were freaking out. They're they're probably grabbing buckets, doing everything they can to get the water out of the boats themselves and then somebody's like, get Jesus and they look over and they're like, what? Dude, you're sleeping? Like, what do you, you know, what are you doing? And we don't know how long it was from panic to calling out to Jesus but eventually,
these disciples are like, wait, we just watched this guy heal. My man with leprosy, heal his ensuring and guard. Heck, he healed Peter's mother-in-law, right? Like this guy, he's a miracle worker. So, why why don't we go and ask him to do something about the situation that we're in? And all of a sudden, they cry out the most important prayer that all of us will ever pray. A simple one. Lord,
save me.
See, to go from death to life, lost to found, all it is is for you and I in our desperation to cry out to god and just say, lord, save me. Then the scripture say that when we do that, god is faithful and just to forgive us, That he begins to come into our situation and rewrite an entire story and I was thinking about it this week. How do we begin to know? For those of us who've been walking with Jesus for some period of time, what do we use as kind of measurements of spiritual maturity? How do we know that we're growing in our faith, that we're working out our salvation with fear and trembling as the New Testament says?
I think sometimes we can fool ourselves into thinking that spiritual maturity is it it's memorizing more Bible verses than other people And I think, you know, bible memorization is important. We should bury the word in our heart. Yes and amen.
Sometimes we can think that if we just learn all the books of the bible in order, like my kids can literally tell you the books of the bible in order. And they're like, dad, how many do you know? And like, I know four, bro. I went to public school. Okay? Get off me, right? Back off.
Like, sometimes we can think like, is that spiritual maturity? And again, all those things are great tools and they're helpful but I think real spiritual maturity, a potential test of spiritual maturity is how quickly are we moving from panic to peace. When the storms of life rage around us, are we moving quicker
from panic last time to peace this time? Because we've been here before. I've walked through hardship before. I've faced financial difficulties.
We faced health crisis that we weren't sure what was gonna be on the other side of them, and I don't have to panic. And maybe maybe one of the greatest measurements of spiritual maturation is measuring the time from panic to peace and these disciples eventually,
they realize that we can go to Jesus and with a simple request, he can step into our story and begin to do what only he can do. I I love how King David says this. Psalm chapter 42 verse five. He says, why my soul are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me? And now he starts to preach to himself.
Put your hope in god for I will yet praise him, my savior and
my god. I felt like god brought me here this morning to tell some of you who feel like your soul is downcast. I don't know exactly what's causing it, but I know what the solution is. It's what king David says. Put your hope in god. Praise him because he's worthy of your praise and watch.
Watch what god will do with it. Here's what I think real faith is. I think real faith is the ability to expect a miracle in the middle of a mess.
See, so often we think that all the external circumstances have to line up. The finances have to be right. Jobs gotta be right. The relationship, the kids, all the stuff. All of that's gotta line up. And then then I can expect God to do something powerful. But what if it's the exact inverse?
And it's the mess that creates the opportunity for God to do the miraculous. And that real faith is beginning to stir up an expectation that in the middle of this mess, God is going to bring a miracle. Jesus has woken up to do something about the storm that's raging on the Sea Of Galilee.
Verse 25, Jesus responds to them. He says, why why are you afraid? You have so little faith and then he got up. He rebuked the wind and the waves and suddenly,
suddenly, there was a great calm. See, all three synoptic gospels record that the moment that Jesus was invited in to do something about the storm, there's this great peace and this calm that settles over the entire sea. And this would have been the moment. This was the moment where the disciples understood.
This isn't just a good teacher. This isn't just a miracle worker. This is God.
Because the Old Testament is clear about one thing, that the most powerful force to all of these people, the the number one force in the world that they didn't understand was the sea. And what the Old Testament was clear is that the only person that can control the sea is the Lord. And all of a sudden, Jesus, when invited in, he steps up, and he speaks to nature the way that I would speak to a toddler like, hey, cut it out. Stop it. Right? But unlike a toddler, nature listens to Jesus, right?
Nature is like my bad, bro. Like my bad and it just stops And all of the disciples would have been left with just an awe and wonder going, who who who is this? And here's what I felt like God wanted me to say to you this morning. Don't forget the power of the one that's with you on this journey.
Don't forget the one that you have access to because the storms around you are raging so hard that it's it's causing you to not be able to see him. And I also I I love what Jesus says to the disciples
because he asked them, like, guys, why are you so afraid? Like, you've been walking with me. You you know who I am and at first, you can think he's rebuking them when he says, hey, you have such little faith but I I don't think it's as much of a correction as much as it is in instruction,
right? Because Jesus isn't afraid. He he calls people a faithless generation multiple times in the New Testament and so he's not afraid to say, hey, you have no faith. That's not what he says to the disciples. He says to the disciples, you have little faith and I think what he's getting them to see, what I hope we can see this morning is that sometimes the makings of a miracle is not perfect faith. It's not big faith. It's not like really spiritual faith.
It it's really little faith. Sometimes, insignificant faith that god can do really big miracles with and maybe, maybe god's not waiting for you to have perfect faith, to have big faith, and maybe he's just waiting for you to have a little bit of faith and to bring it to him and watch what he can do with it. Remember what Jesus said in Matthew chapter 17, it records his interaction with the disciples. They've been sent out by Jesus. They're trying to heal this little boy that's possessed by a demon and they can't do it but they know that Jesus has told them that we can do even greater things than him and so they don't understand why they can't heal this guy. They watch Jesus step in and Jesus heals his little boy in a moment and when the crowd disperses, the disciples gather with Jesus and they ask him, hey, why why couldn't we do that? What what was wrong? And Jesus tells them, Matthew chapter 17 verse 20, he says, you don't have enough faith. Jesus told them, I tell you the truth. If you had faith even as small as a mustard seed, you could say to this mountain, move from here to there and it would move. You know what mustard seed, little faith can do? It creates a situation where Jesus says, nothing would be impossible.
He says, you and I, all we have to do is get to a point where we have mustard seed faith.
I literally was going to. I had it in my Amazon cart and everything. I was going to order a bunch of mustard seeds and on your way out, have you grab a mustard seed but they're they're so small. It would have just been a catastrophe
but it's hard for us to really understand what Jesus is saying here. He's saying a faith, faith the size of a mustard seed can move mountains.
Do you want to know what a mustard seed looks like? This is a picture of what a mustard seed is. It's a picture so small that they've gotta zoom in on it and put it on a finger so you can even begin to comprehend how insignificant it is but that seed buried in the right soil, mixed with the right water, put into the right cycle of of sun and more water. That small, tiny, insignificant seed eventually will grow into a tree that looks like this.
And what Jesus is trying to get us to understand is that really small, seemingly insignificant faith put in the hands of Jesus can bring some really big miracles. Where do you need God to move today? Where in your life did you need to see the supernatural move? And maybe,
maybe you can bring the little faith that you do have, put it in the hands of Jesus, invite him to do something with your story and and watch what God can do. I felt like God brought me here to tell some of you, use the little faith you have. Watch what Jesus will do with it. But I also I also have to say to the rest of us who've been walking with Jesus for some time, see, my prayer and my ask is over these next eight or nine weeks in the series that god would collectively
increase our faith, that we would watch god do what only he can do and that our faith would be moved. See, I think little faith is an okay place to start but little faith isn't where we're supposed to stay.
Little faith is a great starting point but when we've been journeying with Jesus at some point, our little faith should begin to grow into big faith. Why? Because we've watched Jesus be faithful time and time again. And little faith over time can become really big faith, and then we can begin to pray and believe that God can do incredibly more than we could ever hope or imagine. Here's how the story ends. Jesus calms the storm. Verse 27,
the disciples were amazed. And then they asked the question, who is this man?
Even the winds and the waves obey him. See, all of this, this whole storm was a moment that would build to the disciples asking what I believe is the most important question that you and I will ever answer in our life. Who is this man? Who's Jesus? And I don't mean intellectually. I don't mean historically.
I don't mean theoretically. I mean, for you. Who is this man? For them, this was the moment where I believe this was the proverbial role. The ball was rolled to them. This is where he kicked it over the hills and everybody realized there's something about this guy. He's god and if he's god and he's in my boat,
then maybe he can do something about the storms that are raging inside of my heart and I feel like some of you are here and there are storms that are raging. Maybe there's storms of your own making. Maybe there's storms that you've just inherited. There's things that are happening all around you and maybe
maybe you need to answer the same question. Who who is Jesus? Here's what I love about baptism Sundays. It's what we're going to watch is we're going to watch. I think across all three of our services, over 60 people say yes to publicly following Jesus. Man, you can get excited about that. It's incredible. And
here's what's gonna happen in just a moment as we start to go in through the process of baptism. The the faith of this room is going to be increased and this is going to be a place where god is going to meet us and I believe that there are people who are here
who you have no plans to get baptized today but god has plans for you to take a step of faith and so I'm going ask everybody if you would, just stand to your feet with me real quick. I'm going ask everybody who's getting baptized.
If you're, if you're getting baptized, you pre registered, you can start making your way over there. You can go get in line, get set up. Our team is ready for you.
And you gotta understand, baptism is one of those things, man. Heaven just erupts. There's a party happening with the angelic beings. It's just an incredible moment of celebration But I also want to, as they're making their way over there, I wanna create an opportunity for some of you who are here today.
I believe that you're not here randomly, that you are here on purpose, both on this Earth but also in this room. And I want to create a moment right now and I know that there's hundreds of people in this room but I want to ask everybody in this room. Just close your eyes and bow your heads just to create a private moment between every person here and god and I know that there's people in here. It feels like I've been speaking to you all morning.
See, that's what the scripture says is the spirit of god that's alive and active in you. It's it's the spirit of god drawing you back to the father, drawing you back to the good father in who created you and if you're here today and there's storms that are raging around you, storms raging inside of you. If you want to do exactly what these disciples did and cry out to Jesus and say, lord, save us. I want to give you that opportunity right now. See, the scriptures say that all we have to do is confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is lord and in that moment, we are saved and if you are here and you've never made the decision to trust Jesus with your life, I don't want you to walk out of this room without missing this opportunity.
Don't miss the nudging of the Holy Spirit right now. If you're here, I'm gonna ask you to respond by faith and with all the faith that you have, just write in your seat when I count to three, just throw your hand up and I know it seems silly but something happens when we respond physically to what god's doing internally. If that's you and you know I'm speaking to you, don't let the enemy whisper in your ear and try to talk you out of this. On the count of three, just throw your hand up right where you are. This is your moment.
Two, there's been hands going up all day. Don't let the enemy say it's not you. Three, if that's you, just throw your hand up right where you are. There's hands going up all over the room. Don't be ashamed. Don't let the enemy say that it's not you. Keep your hands up. We see him all over the place. This is you responding by faith to god crying out saying, lord, save me.
Come into my life. Begin to do what only you can do. Father, we thank you for every hand going up, every heart that's responding to you. The stories that be rewritten, the addictions broken, the marriages restored. You can put your hands down.
If that was you, just pray a prayer like this with me in the quietness of your heart. Say, Jesus, with all the faith that I have, I ask for you to step into my boat, to come into my life. I surrender my life to you. I acknowledge you as lord and savior and king
and Jesus, right now, would you come into my heart and set me free. It is in the name of Jesus. All god's people said, amen and amen. Hey, can we just give it up? Telling you, man. Hands all over this room. No.
Last challenge, last request. This one's going to make you uncomfortable, okay? I know who raised their hands. So, I'm going to watch. I'm just kidding. I'm not really but
if you said yes to Jesus, see, most of the time, when we read in the New Testament, there's a response where there's an invitation to follow Jesus. People say, yes and then their next step, not in six months, not in six years, but in six seconds is to get out of our comfort zones to walk into the waters of baptism and say, I'm publicly declaring that my life is no longer my own and so if you're here and even if you just right now said yes to Jesus for the first time and you're not prepared to get baptized, our teams are ready. We have changing rooms. We have shirts. We have shorts. Our team is ready for you to get baptized and I'm telling you, some of you by making a decision to say yes to doing something that don't fully understand,
you're going to put miracles into motion and so as we're going through these baptisms, man, just get out of your rows, head over there, and our team can help you get ready to be baptized but for the rest of us, what we're going to do right now is we're to go into a time of worship. We're going join
with the heavenly realms and we're going to just worship and celebrate as we watch all these people go through the process of baptism. Amen? You guys are awesome. Thank you so much.