The Neighborhood Church, Bentonville, AR
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The Neighborhood Church, Bentonville, AR
"Take a Little Jesus with You" - Traveling with Jesus this Summer
In this TNC podcast episode, Pastor Joe Liles and his team explore the "I Found Jesus" series, diving into Jesus's transformative ministry around the Sea of Galilee. The hosts - Roseann Bowlin, Tom Helmich, and Tevo Christmann - unpack where they each seek Jesus and break down three powerful biblical passages that reveal the essence of discipleship.
Key Takeaways:
- Personal Invitation: Jesus calls disciples personally, demonstrating that faith is fundamentally relational, not programmatic.
- Finding Jesus Everywhere: The team shares unique spaces where they encounter God - from quiet backyards and walking trails to old churches and mountain tops.
- Growing Faith Through Challenges: Storms and uncertainties are opportunities to deepen trust and understanding of Jesus's presence.
- Imperfect Faith is Okay: The disciples' struggles reveal that doubt and fear are part of the spiritual journey, not disqualifiers.
- Trust Over Performance: Following Jesus is about relationship, not perfection - He meets us where we are and continues to guide us.
The podcast offers an inside look at exploring what it means to be a disciple, encouraging listeners to "take a little Jesus" with them wherever they go.
You may be seated. So we are starting a new series today, and it's going to go through the month of June. And the series is called I found Jesus. And what the series is about was originally titled Jesus was here, and it was a series meant to really understand that wherever we go that Jesus is going to be with us, and that we can find Jesus in any reality that we find ourselves in, and what it meant is to follow us on our journeys through summer, right? So as we journeyed on vacation, how many of you are taking a vacation this summer, right? How many of you are now jealous of the people that raised their hand that are taking a vacation this summer? Okay, that's great. Didn't mean to make you angry this morning, but that's a part of it. But with that, wherever you go, right? How many of you separate having time with family like and then having a vacation? Do we separate that out there? Okay, a couple of you out there. Okay, that's good. We want to find out in ways how we can know that we are always walking with Jesus. So we titled The series Jesus was here, and the series is going to walk through five different areas that Jesus was literally, which means that we're going to go into these geographic locations, and we're going to look at the geography where Jesus walked. And part of the reason I want to do that is there's a little bit of teaching here, in the sense of we hear these stories all the time. But how many of us can relate to where they actually exist in the world? Like to bring this historical person of Jesus into the reality of what we know today, and as we're going through this, I'm like, we can do all these series about all these different places, but it would be wonderful to see where they're at today and what it means. And how many of you would be ever interested in a holy land trip if we did something like that? Do we have some people out there? Oh, dang. Okay, alright, that's great. That was like 20 people. Okay, maybe we'll plan that for sometime in the future when it's safe, and then we'll keep on going. So we've had that on the docket for a couple years, with that, and so we're going to go through this series. But here's what happened on Easter we were we had a whole bunch of eggs in the back for the kids. We had about 1000 eggs back there for the kids. And it was awesome. They were having fun, and we they were all empty. It was a horrible surprise for the kids. Um, they were all empty, except, like, 50 of them, which had little mini Jesuses in them, right? So the goal was the empty tomb, find Jesus, right? Like, oh, everyone, 1230, that's really great. See, we put thought into all these things. It's really wonderful. And so, and then we had egg baskets for them in their classrooms as a surprise. It was really wonderful. And so what we didn't expect is that one is that kids would take multiple Jesuses. We didn't realize that because we kind of put one out for every child. Well, as soon as they found a Jesus, they would pocket a Jesus, and then they would go find more Jesus's, which didn't leave enough Jesus for everyone in the room. So we had to learn really quick between first and second service, right? And the only way we figured that out is a child came out and it was the cutest thing. And this is why we changed our series title. A child comes out and runs up after kid city, because after the message, they come back in. We do noisy coin offering, they lift it up and they say, man. And that's really it. They say, Amen. They come up and talk to me a little bit about the things that they did. It's really wonderful. And this child came up ecstatic. Super excited, right? Super excited. The first child comes up and goes, Oh, I found Jesus. And I'm like, oh, and I'm like, Oh, well that, oh, that's really cute. I guess we didn't expect that they would be like, super excited to find Jesus, right? And their language was, I found Jesus, right? And I was like, it just kind of melted my heart as a pastor, right? Because we plan a whole bunch of cool things. We didn't plan for them to say I found Jesus. We didn't teach them back there to go back and say, I found Jesus right? That was just how that came out. And then the next child as excited, I found three Jesuses. And I was like, Uh, no, you stole two Jesus's and you found one. Is what happened. So, so that's how that changed, real quick between two services we were running back there and doing different things. So, um, things. So But with that, it was the best reality for those children to come up and say, I found Jesus. And so this historical series of Jesus was here is still applicable, right? It's how we find Jesus in our life, in every situation that we're in, right? And to make sure that is but the language of I found Jesus is very important. And if you guys have seen it, have you seen the little mini Jesus? Little mini Jesuses that are around everywhere now? So they got these little mini Jesuses. If you guys see them out there, we got orange Jesus, right? So, like, we pick because our colors are orange, it's really wonderful. And then we got all the different colors. In case anyone's like, I don't want an orange Jesus. Don't be picky about Jesus. Okay, so with that, we have these hidden all around the church. And what we want you to do is we want you to take the grab one, one, Jesus. One, Jesus. Okay, kids are getting their own Jesus is back there. But we want you to have a little Jesus and take a little Jesus with you to wherever you go, this somewhere, and then leave some Jesus where you end up, alright, and then take a picture. And. Post it with you and say, Hey, neighborhood church, send us out with a little bit of Jesus. I left a little bit of Jesus in Colorado. They needed it in this town. No, I'm just kidding. Don't say, like, yeah, I left a little Jesus on this car after they cut me off. You can do that great story. Not necessarily the intention how you want to leave Jesus where, but we want you to take little Jesus out, and we want you to go out with little Jesus and really kind of capture the story of the life extending beyond the church. And this is really important. Let me just kind of set Jesus up here. This is really important, and we're going to learn this today. There's an important, really reason for this series. Jesus's ministry was not just in a synagogue where everyone came to listen to Him teach. Think about all the stories that you know about Jesus. How many times it was like, Hey, he went and taught in the synagogue once or twice. But what you don't hear is, oh, all the people came to the synagogue. All the people came to the synagogue. Know what you hear is the religious leaders came to the synagogue to battle with Jesus and argue with Jesus about what he was saying in his divinity. What you have with the teaching is when Jesus went outside the walls of the church into the world and moved around all the spaces right in the middle east, and said, Hey, I'm going to go to all these different areas on his journey throughout Israel, right? And went to all these different places to teach. And people would show up on the mountainside, they would show up on the shores. They would go to the towns that he was in. The ministry of Jesus was not inside the synagogue, it was out in the world, and we've kept the ministry of Jesus inside the church a little bit. So we want to broaden that perspective, and we want you to imagine that you can find Jesus anywhere. So I want to start with a question as we begin this message. And here's it's one of two questions. The first question is this, and I want you to think about it and not want some answers from this. Where do you look for Jesus in your life right now? Where do you look for Jesus in your life right now? Where do we look for Jesus? You can say it out loud. It's okay. It's a participatory message. Today. We can say it out loud. Where do we look for Jesus? For guidance. Okay. Are there physical places that we look for Jesus nature? Okay, we look for Jesus nature. I do that too. That's wonderful. Yeah, work. Okay, try to find Jesus at work. Some are like, there ain't no Jesus in my work. That's a struggle. That's a struggle. Where else do we find Jesus? Relationships in the car, okay, the backyard, that's great. The shower, yeah, shower is true. That's true. There's a lot of thinking going on, right? Church, can we say it out loud? Church, Scripture is great. You can turn to Scripture anytime. There's a lot of places that we look for Jesus. Now, if that was hard for you to say it's a response to the next question, I want you to think about how hard it was for you to think about the places that you seek Jesus. Now I want you to think about all the places that you don't look for Jesus in your life. Same question, just nuanced in a different way. I want you to think about your life and where all the spaces that you go that you don't think about looking for Jesus, where do you show up and Jesus never crosses your mind out in the world, those spaces kind of outweigh the places that we look for Jesus, don't they? Walmart, okay, that's great, yeah, okay, someone said it out loud. I shouldn't have repeated that out loud on the camera now. So sorry, no, I was kidding, but it's true, right? It's true. There's a lot of spaces that we don't look for Jesus in our life. When we go out into the world, what we're going to see today is that a fully devoted follower of Christ, you live your life towards Christ, not portions of your life. You have a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ, which means you walk in every space that you're in, and you are a messenger for the kingdom of God everywhere that you go, in any situation that you're in. You are a messenger, and we're gonna learn about that today. So here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna open up scripture. We love scripture in the church. Couple notes. One you have these on your chairs. It says, Hello June. These are the Sundays coming up in June, and what's going on in life of the church. You can take a look at that. We got our new member class after today, we'll share a little bit more about that, but it's got some things coming up. On the back of that is message notes. So if you want to take notes today, there's notes on the back of this card. You can write down your notes. You can take this home with you. That's great. And then we got a plenty for the whole month. So take this home with you. You can put it on your fridge. Know what's coming up for the life of the church, and so you can take a look at that. But we're also on the Bible app. So if you got the Bible app, you can open that you can follow along with scripture. That is an app. There's a chair back card. There's a link in the description that says that also. So take a look for that. So you can definitely look at the Bible app today as we're following through Scripture. And then with that, we're going to be in the Gospel of Matthew, the gospel of Matthew. And if you got Bibles, we love Bibles in the church. Our mission is that every single person would bring a Bible to church, whether you're on the Bible app or you're bringing the good book. We want to see Bibles in your hand. And so how many people got Bibles today in the Church? We love some Bibles. Yes. Love Bibles in the. Church. Great. Bring your Bible. If you don't have one, we have Bible boxes around the church. You can grab a Bible and take it home with you, which is really incredible. We want you to have scripture with you so you don't have to worry about it. Take it home, write your name in it. That is for you. And so we're going to be in the Gospel of Matthew. And I just want to walk through a little bit of what the Gospel of Matthew is about, because we're going to stay in the Gospel of Matthew throughout this whole series, is what we're going to do. And so the Gospel of Matthew really talks about a little bit of the historical person of Jesus. And it's really written kind of biographical, is what we're going to say. It's written from a perspective where they want to take the Old Testament prophecies, what was the law, right? And take this and then they want to move it into the New Testament, right? And the New Testament starts with the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. This is the first gospel. They're not really in order that way, right? But at the same time, this is the first gospel. And then in that, what want to do is we want to see Jesus as the fulfillment of these Old Testament prophecies. So what you get a lot throughout the Gospel of Matthew is this, this nature of this very historical person, Jesus, moving through all these different spaces, doing a lot of different teaching about the difference between the law and the Gospel, or the two kingdoms, the kingdom on earth and the kingdom of heaven. And then you get all of the religious leaders of the day challenging him, which is why I appreciated Heidi so much when she said that Jesus was a persecuted, misunderstood person. It's true like the Gospel of Matthew rings true for that sentiment alone as we walk through that so what our hope is is that through the month of June, you would take time every single day to read through the Gospel of Matthew. We're going to be in different parts of the Gospel of Matthew, and we'll talk through where we're at, but we're gonna be in specific areas, geographic locations of Jesus's ministry. So that'll find us in different spots, not just moving through the gospel. So we want you to take this home, and we want you to be able to read through the Gospel of Matthew this month. That's our goal, when we do a book aligned with the series, is that you would read through it. So we're gonna start right in the beginning of the gospel of Matthew, and it begins with the genealogy of Jesus. That's a start. So good luck on that. Just kind of work through it. It's gonna be wonderful. Take it in. Once you've powered through that, you've kind of earned your way into the gospel, which is really wonderful. And then it begins with the birth of Jesus, the visit of the wise men. And then we're gonna move all the way to chapter four, right? So Jesus's ministry is beginning. It. Right before this, you have the proclamation of John the Baptist, which is proclaiming the way Jesus is coming, one who is greater than I, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. He's paving the way for Jesus. John has his own disciples, but he's moving all his disciples to Jesus. And he's saying, I've been talking about this person who's coming into ministry. And then we have the baptism of Jesus by John that begins the ministry. Now, what you're going to find is that it leads right into the ministry of Jesus, beginning with temptation, right, where he goes into the wilderness for 40 days. So imagine that right when you come into the church, if you're starting a new life in Christ, and you find Jesus 40 days of temptation. That's how Jesus started. Anyone want that to the start of their lovely life in Christ? Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough start. That was the beginning of Jesus's ministry 40 days. But in that there was an opportunity to claim God as the foundation for everything that Jesus was going to do in his ministry. And that's what happened. So we find ourselves now the ministry in Galilee is beginning. So today we're going to read through verses 18 through 22 but we're going to be talking about the Sea of Galilee. There are many different things that happen around the Sea of Galilee. And if you look up there, that's an actual picture of the Sea of Galilee. And so you can kind of start to see what the Sea of Galilee looks like. And before we get into this, to just give you a concept of what the Sea of Galilee is like, I want to give you a location of the Sea of Galilee. So I want to paint a picture for you of where Jesus was moving in ministry. Has anyone ever done this before? Kind of look at where Jesus was actually at in ministry. Okay, this is great. How many of you been studying Scripture all your lives and you're like, yes, and like, this is the first time we're gonna see it. Like, this is good. I'm excited. So this is the Sea of Galilee. This is what it looks like. You There it is. It's exciting. Yeah, that's about it. Okay, so that's the Sea of Galilee. That's modern day Sea of Galilee doesn't look much different from when it was here's the depth chart about the Sea of Galilee, so you can see kind of what was there. You get Tiberius in there. That's going to be important, because it's also called the Sea of Tiberius, right? Or the sea of cannessare. It usually became the sea of whatever town occupied and had the most commerce at the time when it was taken over every other century, right? So it became something different. So you actually hear about it referenced in three or four different ways in Scripture, all the way from the Old Testament to the New Testament, which is really interesting. But as you can see, it gets really deep in the really deep in the middle. Those are meters, right? So it's really sitting about 150 feet deep in the middle, right? So it goes pretty deep, right? It's also like 800 feet below sea level, which is interesting. The Dead Sea is the only other lake that is lower than the Sea of Galilee, right? That is the Dead Sea, the salt sea, that is the. Only one that's lower in the entire world, right from the Dead Sea, which is really interesting. So now that's gonna be a point, because the Dead Sea is just south of the Sea of Galilee, if you didn't know. And we're gonna see that in a second. So let's blow it out a little bit and find out where we're at. So where we're at, as you can see over there at the little red outline, that's the Sea of Galilee over there by Nazareth, right? And then you see Damascus, Lebanon, Amman, Tel Aviv, right, starting to paint a little picture. How many of you are not good with geography? So, like, I need to blow the map up more, because I'm like, look great. Throw me a little bit farther. Like, where are we at in the world? You know? Like, I get it Middle East, around Jerusalem. Okay, great. So here's a little bit farther out. So now you can see Israel, Jordan, Cairo, Egypt. So now you can see Israelites coming out of Egypt, how they made their way out right into the promised land, and what that means. And so you start to see, now the red dots over there by Haifa, right in the West Bank, right? There's Damascus Cyprus is over there too. And then if you go to the next one, right, ah, now, now we can see where we're at in the world. This is where we're at in the world. So you see the dot, that's where the Sea of Galilee is, right? Now, what you get is, you can see that you got Greece, right? You got Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, right? You can start to see where we're at in the Middle East, where the Sea of Galilee is, that little spot is where we follow Jesus throughout his ministry in that part of the world. It kind of makes it an important narrative. When you think how much Jesus accomplished in ministry to grow the kingdom of God from that one spot around there. Now there's a couple things that happen around the Sea of Galilee, which is very interesting. And so there was a really cool map that I found. So check this out. So these are some of the things that happened around the Sea of Galilee. So in the Sea of Galilee, you're gonna get over here beside a right. And so you got the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, right? So you remember the 5000 feeding in the 5000 that happened around the Sea of Galilee. If you go, keep on going around. You have over here, maritime of hippos. You have the capital of Antipas, the home of Mary Magdalene, right? The Sermon on the Mount was on the other side, which is really nice. And then Jesus performs many miracles his own city, right? So you get a lot of different things that are happening around the sea. This is also the sea where the disciples kept on Crossing, and there were storms, if you remember that. So the storms that kept on hitting and they were in boats. This is that sea also. So there's a lot of great things that happen in this text. And then also the Sermon on the Mount, where you get this big, long discourse where they sat on the hillside that was overlooking the Sea of Galilee. So now you start to get a place in scripture where you're seeing some of these go on a couple pictures. So take a look at this. This is, right. This is, this is literally from Capernaum, right? So a lot of Jesus's ministry was done in Capernaum. This is Capernaum looking out over the sea of Galilee. And then this is right here, the modern day city of Capernaum, right? So, oh, sorry, modern day city of Tiberius, right? So you're going to see Tiberius here, so you can kind of see what that looks like now, overlooking the Sea of Galilee. And then now I want to walk you through where you see Jesus's ministry, where you see Jesus walking. And I want you to think about this as we talk about you doing ministry yourselves, and that you are messengers of the kingdom. What this means is that you are not meant to do ministry in this church alone. Wherever you go, there is going to be an opportunity to do to share the message of Jesus Christ, that will be the point of every part of the series. And you have to understand that when you move, when you go to a different city, you are still carrying what it means to be a Christian into that city. So watch what Jesus did. So here is the Dead Sea, and up top is the Sea of Galilee, right? That's the minute Jesus's ministry largely existed in that span. This is the whole area of Jesus's ministry, right? That existed all in different areas. And if you see the baptismal side of Jesus Christ, right, that's the little red dot right there. So now you can see where we're at in the text, where Jesus was just baptized, and then he ends up at the Galilean sea. So Jesus was baptized there and then made his way up the river Jordan into the Sea of Galilee, right, where we get the calling of the first disciples. Now take a look at this. Here are the spots of Jesus's ministry, which is really interesting. So you can take the Sea of Galilee. You start to see Jesus pronounce his judgment. Jesus feeds the 5000 up on the top, Peter says Jesus is the Messiah. You start to see this branching out, Jesus heals the Canaanite women, right? Jesus turns water to wine in Cana Nazareth, Jesus's hometown. So you see this expansion of Jesus's ministry around the Sea of Galilee, and then all the way down to the next slide, which is now into the Dead Sea, right? Where you get now South. And you see that this is Jerusalem. So imagine that Jesus's whole walk is towards Jerusalem, right? And this whole ministry is towards Jerusalem. And then you start to see Jesus's ministry down here, the healing, the talking. And then you see what happens in Jerusalem. Jesus speaks, Jesus heals, Jesus restores, a man born blind. You see the ministry developing. This is what it means to follow Jesus, that we too, have. Ministry when we walk outside of this church. Now I want you to hear what that looks like from Jesus. And there's two ways this is going to go. There are times that Jesus met people in ministry, right? Met people where they're at, and there are times that people found Jesus and worked with them. And so we're going to read these texts today and see what we can get out of Scripture today as we look through them. So turn to Matthew chapter four. We're gonna be in verses 18 through 2218 through 22 and this is Jesus calls the first disciples right after the ministry has begun in Galilee so. And here's what it says. As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who was called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, follow me, and I will make you fish for people. Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James, son of Zebedee, and his brother John, in the boat with their father, Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called to them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed him. This is at the Sea of Galilee. Do you know that this calling story the disciples is in every gospel, and it's not the same? Oh, exciting. Interestingly enough, this gospel places this story and this narrative at different times in Scripture. So before this, we have that Jesus, beginning ministry, walks into Peter's house right, which is near the Sea of Galilee and heals his mother in law. Some of the Gospels placed that before the time when they were met on the seashore, and some of them place it after the time they're met on the seashore. And generally, Theologically speaking, they're like, ah, could have been the same day, just depending where it was at and how things were working and things were going on. But they're like, that's not the point of why we're in Scripture, though. And other gospels tell a little bit longer story about the calling of the disciples. And if you heard another story from one of the other gospels, it starts by saying, you know, the disciples were fishing, and they hadn't caught anything all day, and they had come in and they had pulled in their nets. They weren't mending nets. They had pulled in their nets, and they were done for the day. And Jesus comes up to the disciples in the same story, and he says, hey, I want you to go cast your nets deeper over there. And Peter says, Jesus. And now they know Jesus. They've heard of the ministry. The ministry has begun. They know what's happening. He says, Jesus, we've been fishing all night, and we caught nothing, nothing at all. And he goes, Great, cast your nets deeper. And he goes, I can't believe we would do this. And so they go back out, and they cast the nets, and they pull in so much fish that they have to bring all the other fishermen off the shore, including James and John, right? And they have to pull that and they pull it all up the shore, and they pull it off the shore. And they're so amazed that Peter follows at Jesus' feet. And he's like, Oh my gosh, I will follow you. And he goes, give me. I'll make you a fisher of men. Follow me. And he says, but I can't follow you, because I'm a sinful person. I'm a sinful person. And Jesus says, Follow me, and I'll make you fish for people. And we learn a couple very key things in this text looking at what's going on. One is that Peter did not have a good day fishing. Have you ever had a bad day at work? Anyone ever have a bad day at work? Right? Okay, all right. I just want you to think about this for a second. Have you ever had another boss come in and say, Hey, saw what you're doing today. Awesome. I'd love to promote you, and I'd love for you to come with me based on your work today. Has that ever happened? Can you imagine Jesus coming to Peter and Andrea and saying, Hey, I saw that you guys didn't catch anything last night, right? I would love to raise you up to be on my key team and my core team of people as we go forward into ministry. One is that Jesus is not calling you because of what you do in this world. Jesus is not calling you to follow Jesus because of the work that you do in the world here. Here's the second part of this story. Is that Jesus said, hey, you need to go out and you need to go deeper into the unknown. You need to go deeper into places you have not been yet in order to follow me. And that's what we learn from the first text of following Jesus. It's not that we have to immediately drop everything and follow Jesus. Now I will say this. If Jesus speaks to you personally on a seashore and says, Follow me, drop everything and follow Jesus, right? That is probably the one condition where it's like, drop everything, follow Jesus, make sure it's Jesus first. Follow Jesus. Okay, have a couple questions, right? Ask them about Scripture. It's gonna be great. Follow Jesus. Right outside of that, it's really difficult, which is what we experience from Andrew and Peter, is that it's very difficult just to follow Jesus. I'm a sinner. I didn't do well, I can't believe I didn't catch anything out here. You don't want me to follow you. Is the same thing that we would say, I'm not worthy to follow you. But here's the part of this is that Jesus is not calling you for who you are today. Jesus is calling you for who you're becoming in the kingdom. Jesus knows who you're becoming. He wants you to follow him so you can become the person that he created you to be, and yet we stand still in the moment and say, Hey, I'm comfortable just sitting in church on this Sunday, not going back out into the world with your message, because I don't do everything right, Jesus. We know that, and so does Jesus. There is not going to be a single day where you get everything right, where it's going to make you worthy of the cross. Jesus, and that sacrifice makes you worthy of the cross. And we hear that story right here. Now, I want you to move forward a little bit. I want you to go in chapter eight, verses 23 through 27 now this is a little bit harder one as we get into it. This is when he's sitting with the disciples, and he's just cleansed a leper. He has healed the centurions servant, and then he heals at Peter's house again. And then he's talking about the would be followers of Jesus. Would be, could be, should be followers of Jesus. Is literally the title of the section scripture. And this is verses 18 through 27 we're going to start at 23 though, and listen to what happens when he got into the boat. His disciples followed Him. And I want you to imagine that he was just teaching on the Sea of Galilee. They were all gathered around him. They were sitting there, and he was trying to find a place where, once he had taught, that he had now move on. And so they were getting into the boat on the Sea of Galilee, and they're going to move on. And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed Him. A windstorm arose on the sea so great that the boat was being swamped by the waves. But he was asleep, and they went and woke him up, saying, Lord, save us. We are perishing. And He said to them, Why are you afraid? You of little faith. Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a dead calm. They were amazed, saying, what sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him? I it. Here's the hard part in this narrative. These are the disciples that are in the boat with Jesus. They've seen Jesus heal, they've seen Jesus feed 5000 they've seen Jesus speak about the ministry and the prophecies and the divinity. He's been called the Messiah. They've claimed that they are devout followers of him, and yet they are in the boat going, what are we going to do about the storm? I mean, I know you did all those things, but what are we going to do about this? Are we any different as a people that Jesus can show us time and time and time and time again, that it's going to be okay, and that he has us, and that he's going to be next to us, and He will never leave us, and yet, the next thing hits him. What do we do? Like Jesus? What are you going to do about this? This one's not like the other ones. I don't know what to do with this one. This one's different. I don't know what to claim. And so you have the disciples in the boat, and they're seeing the storm arise, and here's Jesus sitting there, and Jesus is calm, just like the storm that he calms, and they wake him up in a panic. And what we learn from this text is that just because you are a follower of Jesus Christ does not mean that you are not going to go through storms in your life. You you will go through storms in your life, and in this text, you know when this storm happens right after they sat on the seashore teaching hundreds and 1000s of people listening to Jesus, they get into a boat, and now they're fearing for their lives. I thought everything would be fine when I follow Jesus. When you follow Jesus, it does not mean that you won't go through storms, but it does mean that Jesus will be with you in the storm right there the whole time. And what I want you to think about is that if Jesus is always teaching, if everything that Jesus did was a message for the kingdom of God, think about this, every moment that Jesus walks is the teaching narrative, then we are always learning, even in the midst of the storm. But the lesson might not be for right now, you might be going through something that is not meant for today. It's meant for down the road. So guess what? Did you know The disciples find themselves in the Sea of Galilee in a storm, again, in a boat. Same. See same disciples, maybe the same boat. Let's read that story. Listen to this. I want you to turn over to chapter 14, verses 22 through 33 and I want you to listen to this story now. I want you to remember that Jesus, that the disciples were just with Jesus in a boat, and he did, what? When the storm was raging, what happened? He calmed the storm. Calmed the storm. He stilled the waves, and there was a dead calm. He didn't just comment. There was a dead calm. You know that eerie quiet when nothing's moving, it's so peaceful. They call the water glass, right? You know that? Imagine that it changed from a tumultuous storm to glass. Now I want you to paint that picture for this. Here's verses 22 through 33 in chapter 14 of Matthew in the Sea of Galilee. Immediately, he made the disciples get into the boat again. Disciples like no not the boat and go on ahead to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds again from teaching, always teaching. And after he dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by Himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But by this time, the boat, battered by the waves, was far from the land, for the wind was against them, and early in the morning, he came walking towards them on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying it is a ghost. And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them and said, Take heart. It is I do not be afraid. And Peter answered, love. Peter Peter is the first man get it. Peter. Peter answered, Lord, if it is you command me to come to you on the water. And he said, Come so Peter got out of the boat, started walking on the water and came towards Jesus, but when he noticed the strong wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. And Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him, saying to him, you this is great. You can't get away from this statement. You of little faith. Why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, what happened? The wind ceased, and those in the boat worshiped and saying, truly, now we recognize you are the Son of God. When you read those stories together, it's a little bit interesting, isn't it? Kind of seems like the same story they were in before. Kind of seems like the same way they cried out frightened before. Kind of seems like the same thing Jesus said before. How many of you had to repeat things in your life to people? Okay? How does that feel when you repeat things to people? Does it feel awesome? Wonderful? Feels awesome? Feels so good. Now all you need to say is, you of little faith. That's all you need to say, right? You just look at him like you of little faith. I've already said this to you. I love this story, and I loved it in juxtaposition of the Sea of Galilee the first time the storm hit, because they're in the situation again. But now mind you, I think that we've leveled up a little bit in this narrative. The first time they were in the boat with Jesus, and Jesus was in the boat. This time, Jesus not in the boat. You gotta trust a little bit more in this scenario, right? Jesus on the boat, and Peter says, Look, if I'm trusting you, I want to walk on the water. One, I don't think you should ever test God, because if you're going to say I want to walk on the water, God is like, come on, out 150 feet deep. Let's just imagine they're in the deep part, right? They're going fishing deep, right? So they're out there walking on water, and those waves sitting and I, what I love about this story is that there there are a couple small things that mean so much in it. That means so much in it. One is, they've been here before. They've been here before, and they were taught to trust the Lord, and they fell away again. I want to tell you, it's okay. That's the first part of the story. It's okay if you trust God, and the next time you question God again and are frightened when you go through something, even if it's similar, it's okay. We're human. We come back to God over and over and over again. The next story is this is, no matter how far you feel God is away, or you feel Jesus is away in your life, Jesus is always right there. If you go back and read this story, and I'm not going to do it now, but it now, but I want you to do it later. I want you to read it again, because it said he was so far away that they thought it was a ghost, which means they just see a little faint figure in the distance. And then Peter walked out a couple steps and sank and cried out, and the Lord was there. That distance that God covers in Jesus Christ, across the Sea of Galilee to be with Peter is the distance that Jesus will cover in your life. When you are frightened and you call out, it is the same distance. It's okay to call out again, and Jesus will cover that distance. You don't need to walk the whole way. If you are frightened and scared, you can call out for God, and Jesus will cover that gap. It is important for you to know that. In your life. But the point of the story is not that. The point of this story, as we read through this is that the situations that we go through today, the situations that we go through today, teach us to trust God tomorrow. If you are not recognizing that you are walking with Jesus and that Jesus is always teaching you through your life, then you will not take what you've learned today and realize that God is going to trust you with that tomorrow. And when you go through the situation again, or someone's in your life with that similar situation, God is going to move you into their life, because you've been there and you've trusted God through it already. But what we need to understand is that today might not be the story for us. It could be a trusting scenario for what comes tomorrow, and we need to trust God in that every single situation you go through might not be for today. But in order to teach us to trust God for tomorrow, if the disciples had learned from the first time on the Sea of Galilee, they would all got out of the boat and started walking. It's kind of interesting when you think that even if you trust God, you might not even need a boat in order to walk towards Jesus. This is the beginning of Jesus's ministry. This is the beginning of us walking around all of Israel with Jesus, between the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea between Capernaum and Nazareth. We are going to journey with Jesus this whole month, and we're going to explore all these different places to understand that wherever you go, you are a messenger for the kingdom of God. Trust God today for the situations that you're in tomorrow. And all God's people said, Amen, let us pray heavenly and gracious, Father, we come before you today knowing that it is hard to trust you some days, not because you are not there, Lord, but because we question and we doubt and we go through really hard things in our life. And so each day we come back to you, Lord, we ask for forgiveness for the times that we doubted again. And Lord, ask for grace as we step back into that relationship with you, Lord, I would ask for you to remind us and to whisper us that we have been through situations before, to remind us when we've walked with you before, to remind us in the situations where we never thought we'd get through it only to find ourselves here today, my hope, Lord, is that we can journey with you and recognizes the place of the church is a place that we're sent from, not a place we're sent to. It's a place that we will always be sending out into the world and that we never do this alone. So Lord today, send us with each send each of us with your Holy Spirit, each of us to a place, into a person that needs to hear of the kingdom of God, and send us with a grace and a joy to deliver that is good news for the sake of the world. And we pray these things in your holy and precious name. And all God's people said, Amen. Do you guys enjoy the start of our series? I found Jesus. So this is going to be.
