Hey, good morning. Good morning. Happy Sunday everybody. And welcome to the Edge Church online. We're coming to you from Aurora, Illinois. My name is Steve Van Denend and I'm one of the pastors here. Whoever you are and wherever in the world you are joining us from, we're really glad to have you gathering virtually with us today. I'm hoping that maybe for some of you by now are getting a little bit more used to and maybe a little bit more comfortable with this whole online church thing that we've been doing. Maybe you've even been enjoying it just a little bit. I mean, maybe some of you are really into sleeping a little bit longer on Sunday morning. Maybe some of you are enjoying not having to get ready in the morning.
Maybe you're still in your pajamas right now. Maybe you haven't even brushed your teeth yet. My money is on that. My kids have not yet brushed their teeth, but hey, who cares? Right? And I know nobody's gonna notice. Maybe you're having breakfast and you're having church and that's just awesome. And so maybe for some of you, you are really just enjoying sort of a slower-paced Sunday morning and that's been really good for you. And, yet, maybe still for others of you, this is all just continues to be really hard and, and maybe this is just still a wrestle for you and maybe you're feeling a little isolated, you're still feeling kind of lonely or you're a bit like me and you're an extrovert and you're just like, man, I need to get out of my house. I need to go somewhere and be with people.
If that's you, I feel you this morning. Let me just encourage you with this, if that's you, hold on because that day is coming and this whole thing that we're in right now is not going to last forever. The day will come when we will be together again in-person to join together. In the meantime though, we can just rejoice and be glad and be thankful that by God's grace we have this opportunity to gather virtually. And so here's the good news for all of us is that, when it comes to God, God is not bound by social distancing. A God is not bound by any virus or, or really by anything at all. God is present. God is with you. God is for you. And as we open up God's word, as we lift up his name, the spirit of God is present and able to minister to you right where you are today.
And I can tell you that I'm excited for today, partly because we've just been praying about God. What is it that we should share in these times? How can we just encourage the church and people as we meet like this? And we really felt impressed by the Holy to focus us in on faith. This morning we're going to start a new series together that we're calling “Faith Over Fear.” And really for the next five weeks or so, we're going to just be opening up the word of God and looking at stories in the Bible that can help to encourage us and inspire us and teach us about how we might walk by faith in the midst of being afraid. And one of the things I love about the Bible is that the Bible is always relevant for every season of our life.
In Romans 15:4, it actually says this, it says:
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through the endurance taught in the Scriptures and the encouragement they provide we might have hope.
God's word is telling us, listen, his word is good to us. It's good for us, it is able to teach us and bring us hope. And that's my prayer for you and your family this morning, is that as we open up God's word that God would minister hope to you, that God would encourage you by his spirit. As we start, would you just pray with me? I want to just pray and let's just ask God for that. Let's just ask God to come to move to minister to us, to speak to us this morning as we share his word.
Father, thank you God, for this day that you have made your word says that we should rejoice and be glad in it. God, I pray that for every single one of us we can, Father, that we can rejoice in you, that we can rejoice in your goodness and your love and your presence. Father, I pray that as we open up your word together, God, that you would speak God. I pray that every set of ears would be open to you, God, that we would hear your voice this morning. God, that every heart would be open to receive of you, God, what you have for us today, God, that you would change us by your word. God, thank you that you're with us. Thank you that you’re for us. Thank you that you love us. Thank you that you're faithful, God and you’re true. Lord come and have your way in this time. Teach us, Lord. In your name we pray. Jesus. Amen.
So, we're focusing on faith. And, if you didn't know this, the Bible has a whole lot to say about faith.
In Ephesians 2:8, it tells us
For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.
In 2 Corinthians 5:7, it tells us
For we live by faith, not by sight.
And, Hebrews 11:6, it tells us
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
So, faith is essential. It's essential to our life in and our walk with God. It's important for us as we talk about faith to all be on the same page about what it is that we're saying when we say faith. Here's how the Bible defines faith for us.
In Hebrews 11:1 it says this,
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.
And the evidence of things not seen.
Now that word faith there in the original Greek is this word peace, it literally means trust or confidence. It implies that the matter is settled. This faith, it says this, trust is the substance of things hoped for. Meaning that faith is the main ingredient of real hope. Faith is what enables you to hold fast with confidence for what is still yet to come, for what God has promised that has not yet been realized. And notice here that it tells us that that faith isn't something that is believed, but it's something that is active. There's an action to this trust. It says that faith is the substance of things, but it's also the evidence. It's the substance of hope, but it's the evidence of things unseen. There is evidence of this faith. Evidence is something that is admissible in court. Evidence means that there is tangible proof. And so it's not enough to simply say that you have trust or to have faith, but faith has to be something that is evidenced from you.
It's not just something that you possess in you. It's something to be expressed from you. So some of you don't even realize this, but where you are right now in your home, you're actually expressing faith. You're exercising faith, you're trusting. To trust literally means to put your whole weight upon a chair or a sofa or some piece of furniture and most likely when you sat down and you didn't even think about it, you just ran to that chair or sofa. You plopped right down in that seat because you trusted, you had faith in that piece of furniture. His ability to hold you up and to keep you from falling and that's really what faith in God is meant to look like. Faith is an active trust where your whole weight of who you are is leaning on him, is trusting in him to hold you up, and to not let you go, to not let you fall. Faith, says God, I know that you are who you say that you are. I know that you will do what you say you can do and God, I know that I am who you say I am and that I can do, God, what you say I can do in this faith then is expressed in my attitude, in my thoughts, in my words, and in my actions.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible regarding faith, one that I always just think about when I'm thinking about faith in the midst of fear is the story of the apostle Peter and we find this story in the book of Matthew 14:22 it says,
Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.
Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
Now I want you to notice something here because this is important that the disciples are out on a boat in the middle of this body of water and it's the middle of the night. Not only are they out on a boat in the middle of the night, in the middle of this body of water, someone says that they've already been rowing or sailing for four to five hours at this point. But it's not just that they're out there at nighttime, but it's also that the weather is a little bit rough, that, that there's a bit of a storm out there.
The waves are buffeting against the boat, that the wind is pushing against the boat and that seems sort of strange because remember, Jesus is the one who told them to get into this boat and go to the other side. Jesus is the one who made them get in the boat to take this trip. It's like if only Jesus would have had the weather app on his smartphone, maybe this would have worked out a little bit different for the disciples. But, here's what I want you to see here. Jesus knew what the disciples would encounter and yet he sent them anyway. Jesus didn't tell them what they were going to go through. Jesus just told them that they would get to the other side. When it comes to this life, God does not promise us a life free from storms, a life free from difficulty or hardship.
Consider the moment that we're in now with this virus. God allows for the storm, but every storm that God allows exists not to be an obstacle to hinder you, but an opportunity to grow you, to cultivate your faith and your trust in him.
This is why we read in James 1:2-4. It says Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters,[a] whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
In other words, it says to us that the trial, that hardship, that storm that you are in, doesn't exist to break you, but it exists to make you. It exists to give you an opportunity for faith, for your faith to be built up strong so that you have the ability to handle all of the things that life brings to you and not give up.
Storms are not meant to drown you, but to develop you and your faith. If you will trust in God and his promises to you to get to the other side.
So the disciples are out on the water and it's dark and there's this storm and it tells us that Jesus then comes and is walking to them on the water and they think Jesus is a ghost. They're afraid. I think that if we're honest when we're in the midst of the storm, it's really hard for us to see God for who he is. Jesus came out and they didn't recognize him. They thought he was someone else. I think that for us sometimes the same is true. We find ourselves in the middle of the storm, it's really hard for us to see God in the midst of it. It's hard for us to recognize him for who he is, know who he is, and what he does.
So Jesus responds in Matthew 14:27 he says,
“Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
And then the apostle Peter does this amazing thing, and in Matthew 14:28 it says,
“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
Now, I love this about Peter because Peter is a fisherman and fishermen understand water. One of the things you tend to understand about water is you don't walk on it, right? Like water is not something that you walk on. People don't do that. But Peter also knew this, Jesus and Peter had seen the miracles and the power of God. And Peter was there when Jesus spoke to John or in Luke 1:37 where he said that nothing is impossible with God. So Peter dares to ask Jesus for the impossible.
I'll tell you this, that I believe that your prayer life, that what you bring to God and ask him for says a lot about how you see God. It says a lot about how big you believe God to be and how good you believe him to be because you're not going to ask God for anything you don't believe he can do. Sadly, I think that many of us have missed out on opportunities of seeing God do the impossible in our lives because we've just wrongly believed that the stuff that we're carrying is really great and our God is just too small. But Peter, he comes to Jesus and he says, listen, Lord, tell me to come. And Jesus says, “Come.”
In Matthew 14:29 it says,
“Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
But when he saw the wind he was afraid and beginning to sink, cried out, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. You know, it's easy to read that and to focus on the fact that Peter wound up sinking. But, the real thing for us to grab hold of here is that he walked on water. That Peter, this man, actually walked upon waves, he walked above the storm. There are so many things that we can unpack from this story today, but, but for the sake of our time, I want to just give you three things that are needed for us to walk in faith over fear. Here's the first one. You can write this down.
The first one is God's word.
If we're going to walk by faith, and we need God's word, notice here in the story that Peter doesn't just jump out of the boat. Peter waits until Jesus tells him to come. Peter is waiting upon the word from Jesus and he's not moving until Jesus says. So I’ve got to tell you that one of the best things that God ever did, one of the best gifts that God has ever given to you and me as it pertains to our growth and our walk and him in our faith in him, is his word to teach us. God wants you to know what he's saying. God wants you to know what he says to you. And so the Bible tells us that his word is living, that his word is active, that it has the ability to teach and to train you, to encourage you, to direct you, to correct you and to minister hope and joy and courage and comfort and faith to your soul. If we're going to walk by faith and we're going to walk above the storms of this life, including the storm that we find ourselves in now, then you're going to need to know God's word, we're going to need to know what it is that God says and then we're going to need to act upon it.
Peter received the word and then he moved in obedience to what Jesus had said. That's the invitation to us today as well, is to know God's word and to act upon it.
The second thing that we need is God's presence.
The first thing we need is God's word in the second thing we need is God's presence. Quite possibly the biggest reason for why Peter steps out of this boat and onto the water is because Jesus was there and for Peter, he just wanted to be where Jesus was.
In the book of 1 Chronicles 16:11 it says,
Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.
This really is about our closeness to God because one of the things that are true, whether we're aware of it or not, is that God is always present. God is always with us right where we are. God is always available to us, but we're not always present with him. We're not always available to him, and so this is about drawing near to God. This is about coming near to God in prayer and meditation in worship in his word. The Bible tells us that it's in his presence, that we are changed. So being with God, encountering God is a way by which not only do we grow in our faith, but we are made to be more like him. Made to be more like the people God created us to be. So we need His word. We need His presence. We need moments where we're just available and we say, God, here I am. I'm just here to listen. God, I'm here to be with you. God, I'm here to learn of you, God, you teach me.
I'm here to worship you. I'm here to praise you. I'm here to thank you, God. If we're going to be a people who walk by faith above the storms, above fear, then we must be a people of his word and a people of his presence.
Lastly, the third thing that we need is a God-centered focus.
The reason that Peter got out of the boat in the midst of the storm and walked on the water was that his focus was on Jesus, that he wasn't focused on what he was walking on. He was focused on who he was walking to, and as long as Peter was focused on Jesus, it tells us that he was walking on this water. He was walking above the waves. He was walking on top of the storm.
But then the story tells us that Peter begins to sink. Some people read that and go, what? When Peter was sinking because he was afraid. I would say that, I don't believe that Peter sank because he was necessarily fearful actually back in verse 26 and told us that all the disciples were afraid. All of them were afraid at that moment, including Peter. And yet he got out of the boat and walked on water. It was only when Peter took his eyes off of Jesus and put them back upon the wind that he began to sink. Here's what I think that that means for us is that when it comes to faith that that faith isn't necessarily about the presence of fear, that fear might be present in the midst of faith, but more so that faith requires focus.
Peter sinks not because of the presence of fear, but because of the absence of focus. And this is really how the enemy comes against your life. This is really one of the great weapons and tools of the enemy. He knows that he doesn't need to destroy your faith. He just needs to distract and dilute and detour your focus. Whatever it is that you're focused on is whatever you're ultimately moving towards, whatever it is that truly has your focus has the ability to influence your decisions and your thoughts and your activity and your emotions. And if you're not careful, the very thing that has your focus will be the very thing that sinks you.
I heard someone once say that faith does not deny that a problem exists. It simply denies it a place of influence. So to walk by faith doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't fear. It is choosing still to trust and to lean into God and to focus on him. In the midst of that fear, faith focuses on God above all else. So that what I am most influenced by and directed by is my savior and not my circumstances. The truth is that this is how we are meant to live and walk in every season of our life. I think if we're really honest, we could say that we didn't need a crisis like COVID to tell us that life is fragile and volatile and here one day and gone the next, we have a life to teach us that we have a life that this life where we're one day you're at a wedding and the next year at a funeral we have, we have this life where we're one day you're celebrating with a friend their newborn baby, and the next you're consoling a friend who's had another miscarriage.
We have this life where one day you're celebrating someone getting the promotion of a lifetime and the next one you're hit by the news of a loved one with a terminal diagnosis. One day in life it's triumphant. The next one it's trial, right? There are highs and lows and sunshine and storms and in every season of this thing called life. This whole COVID thing is just one more thing in the great tapestry of our life, but what God's word teaches us is that far more important than what you are walking in is who you are walking toward.
The way you walk through life storms, the way that you walk above the storm and make it to the other side without being drowned by fear is by faith in God. It is by trusting in his word to you. It is by being available and present to be with him in his presence and it's focusing your eyes, your heart, and your mind on him. The invitation of God to you this morning is to trust him. The invitation of God to you today is to lean on him, is to put the full weight of your entire life on God and to discover that he will hold you up and not let you fall. We're going to just get ready to close here in a minute and we're going to close with a song of praise. But as we do that, I want to just invite you and ask you to take the next couple of minutes and, and here in the comment section to just share what something that, that you know, something for you that you know that God is calling you to trust him in or to believe him for in this season. What is, what is that for you? What is that in your life that God is just inviting you and he's just saying, Hey, I'm asking you to trust me with this. I'm asking you to trust me in this or that God is just inviting you to believe him. Would you just share that together and then we'll respond with our praise and our worship?