Latest / First Love Revolution / One of Those People (Part 10): "Navigating Life's Storms" | December 4, 2023

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One of Those People (Part 10): "Navigating Life's Storms" | December 4, 2023 · First Love Revolution

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Revolution Church Message Series.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: One of those people.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: You can find the entire series in video and podcast format, as well as other messages, at firstloverevolutioncom.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Here's special guest, pastor Scott Chapman, with today's message.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: And now church.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I am so honored and so excited to introduce you to our guest teacher for today.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: His name is Scott Chapman and he was actually my pastor in Chicago prior to me moving to Colorado.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: So he's one of the founding pastors of a multi-site church there called the Chapel.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: He's also the founder and president of a movement called Christ Together, and there's so many things that I could tell you about this man.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: There's so many things that I am incredibly grateful to him for.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: One of them is that he gave me a chance when I was fresh, brand new out of seminary, starting in ministry.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: He hired me, he built into me, he developed me, he coached me over a number of years and I am incredibly grateful to this day for that.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: And that's personal and it's very, very deep my level of gratitude.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: But I will tell you my gratitude for him goes even beyond that.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: It's a gratitude for his heart for God.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: When I was on staff at the chapel, he took a number of the leadership team through the Bible for a year and all we did was we read the Gospels and he just simply said I just want you to look at what you're reading, to listen to what you're reading and compare what you're reading to what we're experiencing today, and if you see a gap between what we're reading in the Bible as biblical Christianity and what we're experiencing today as Christianity, then let's believe God for more.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Let's not dismiss that as somehow that God has changed, that he's not still in the business of doing that.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Let's seek him for more.
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: So, church, there's so much more that I could say about him, but what I can say is that Scott has seen some things over his years.
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: He's been in battles and he has stayed faithful to the chorus.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: He is full of passion for God and for the things of God.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: He has been a great friend to our family personally.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: He's also been a great friend to you, church.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: He's been praying for you, for us, for over two years.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: He is a fellow revival runner through and through, and so can we give him a huge church of the front range.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: Welcome.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Thanks, becca.
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: Well, good morning everybody.
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: It is great to be here with you guys.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: I've been looking forward to this for a while and it is exciting to actually be here because, becca said, I've been praying for you for two years and I've been excited to see what God is going to do, and I know God has already done a lot, but I actually think God is going to do a lot more here in you and in what you're doing and in how you're moving forward in this area, and I think we're going to see God experience some, and experience some powerful things as well.
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: Well, one of the things we could look at Chicago, where I come from, in Denver, and there's a lot of differences, right, but there's one similarity they're both really good football towns.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: Can we agree on that?
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Our teams stink, but we are amazing fans.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: Can I get an amen from that?
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: If you don't know, the Bears are the team that we root for in Chicago, and our arch rivals are, to the north, the Packers, who the team is who Josh and Becca root for, and so we've been praying for them and exercising that for years.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: Right, but we have not been able to get to the core of that sin.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: But but in Chicago one of the big things is getting a ticket to a Bears Packer game, and my friend and I were able to score one a few years ago and we were super excited.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: It was a night game and so we went down to Soldier Field, which, if you've never been to Soldier Field in Chicago, I would tell you, whether you're a Bears fan or not.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: It is a historic, amazing site huge granite columns, the stadium is amazing, the night was perfect.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: It was warm, the stars were out, the lake was glistening, you could look across the entire Chicago skyline.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: We were in there, we had a Chicago dog and an adult beverage and we said man.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: We looked at each other and said best Bears game ever.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: About 20 minutes into our joy, we saw a cloud form on the lake.
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: Now, if you're not from Chicago, that probably doesn't mean much to you.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: If you are from Chicago, you know things are going to change pretty quickly.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: In the next minute or two, storms began to roll in with enormous violence Winds of 25 to 30 miles an hour, freezing rain and soaked us to the bone.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: These storms were so powerful that we could barely even see the field and we were soaked to bone three hours later, freezing together.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: I will tell you, it's the only time I ever hugged a man voluntarily and I'm not ashamed to say it right, because I was freezing cold and we looked at each other and we lost to the Packers like 50 to three or something like that, and yeah, it was good.
• 5:14
  Speaker 3: And so looked at each other and said worst Bears game ever, right, worst, we could have stayed home, right, we'd have been better off than this.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: So we leave, we're walking out of the state and we walk through a park that's nearby, and as we were trying to get to our car, we noticed a man who was passed out on the ground in a Packers jersey with a foam cheese wedge.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: That they were on their heads.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: And we looked at him and we assumed that he had over, celebrated the win a bit, and we went up to him and we thought what should we do?
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: And I turned to my friend.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: I'm like, listen, I know he's a Packers fan, but we are Christians, right, we actually have to help even our enemies, right?
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: And so let's, let's do this.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: And so we couldn't rouse him, and so we each got under one arm.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: We began to drag him.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: Now the thought occurred to me that if we run into some of Chicago's finest in this moment in the park there's not a Chicago cop living that is going to believe two Bears fans dragging an unconscious Packer fan is actually doing him a favor, right, and we're going to jail and that's what's going to happen.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: I don't know how that works in Denver, but I know how it works in Chicago.
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: And so we thought, man, we better pick up the pace.
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: So we're hurrying, you know, dragging this guy.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: We get to the edge of the park and we see a bus filled with Packer fans rejoicing right, a bus headed to Green Bay.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: So we drag this guy over, talk the bus driver into taking him, we pop him in a seat, give the bus driver 40 bucks, feel relatively good about ourselves, right, and we start to walk off and the thought occurs to me there's a pretty good chance this guy's not even from Green Bay.
• 6:50
  Speaker 3: And I looked at my friend and I'm like best Bears game ever, right, best Bears game ever.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: And so I share that.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: I share that.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: To just say this Sometimes life can feel a lot like that evening that I had right.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: If you ever had a moment in life where everything seemed to be going just like you thought it would like everything's up into the right, you had a plan and it's kind of working.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: How does that feel?
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: It feels great, doesn't it?
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: It feels like you have some control.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: It feels like you have some understanding of how life ought to function.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: It feels like God is in his heaven, things are working in the way it should and it's the way that life ought to be, and we feel confident and we feel strong and we say best ever.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: But in the very same moment, storms come.
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: We live in a fallen world where things can happen out of the blue that we never see coming, we never planned for and we couldn't have even dreamed about, and they can have the capacity to reshape our experience of life.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: In an instant, when the winds and waves of tribulation come, they can take things over, can't they?
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: They can reshape our hearts, they can reshape our minds.
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, every plan we ever had for life is shattered and we might not even know what to do next.
• 8:19
  Speaker 3: And we're asking the question God, where are you?
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: Where are you in the midst of this moment?
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: Where are you in my life?
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Do you see me?
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: Did you not hear my prayers all up until this point?
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: Did you not know my heart?
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: My desire is not good desires.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: Why am I in this place and where are you?
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: And why is this not different?
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: But here's the cool thing Even in the midst of those moments, there are times when God is actually in the middle of the storm and he does something unexpected.
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: And when we allow him to do that, when we allow him to do what maybe we didn't imagine he could do, it can not only redefine the moment for us, it can redefine him for us and it might even redefine us.
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: The disciples had a moment like that.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: There was a moment where, actually in the 14th chapter of the book of Matthew, he kind of covers a very long day that the 12 had with Jesus, and it starts early in the morning and it ends very, very late in the next morning and it was a roller coaster of a day Started high, went low, came back, and in that moment they learned a lot more about God than they ever imagined and it reshaped entirely how they understood what was possible.
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: If you have your Bibles, turn with me in Matthew, chapter 14.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I'm just gonna kind of set the context for you, if I can.
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: Matthew starts off and he tells us of an event.
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: It is where Jesus is informed.
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: A messenger comes to let him know that his dear friend and cousin, john the Baptist, has been murdered at the hands of the evil king Herod.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Jesus is unbelievably grieved, his emotions are high, he's a bit overwhelmed and he withdraws from the crowd that is now following him everywhere, thousands and thousands of people, because he wants to be alone and go to his father in prayer and he wants to pour his heart out before God.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: So he gets in the boat with the 12 and they sail to the other side of the sea of Galilee.
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: But what he doesn't realize is the entire crowd of thousands, seeing that he's gone, follow him and they walk 18 miles around the sea to meet him on the other side.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: And so, just as Jesus is arriving and preparing to go and be alone with God, people begin streaming in and, because he is who he is, he sets aside his own desires and he tells the disciples to gather them together.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: And they gather them on a hill and Jesus then welcomes them, he sits them down and he teaches them about his kingdom.
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: He teaches them about why he came to earth.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: He teaches them about the goodness that God can bring into our lives.
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: He teaches them about what is possible might be greater than they ever imagine.
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: He heals those who are sick and he has compassion on them because he sees that they're hungry, because they've had a long day.
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: And so he goes to the 12 and he said go feed them.
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: And the 12 do what the 12 often do in moments like that.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Right, they say what do you mean?
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: What do you mean?
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: I mean feed them.
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: There's 5,000 men alone, and if you add the women and children, you're well over 10,000 people.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: How am I going to feed them, jesus?
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: That's not how the world works.
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: Jesus, you're asking us to do the impossible, the impossible.
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: And he said what do you have?
• 11:56
  Speaker 3: And they said all we have are five loaves and two fish.
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: And he says give them to me.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: And he blesses them and he breaks them and he gives them back.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: And you know the rest of the story.
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: The disciples go through the crowd and they continue to hand out food to every single person and they end up, each of them, with a huge basket filled with food left over.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: And they're rejoicing not only because this was an amazing moment and they got to see some cool stuff and everybody got fed, but they also have more food than they had when they even began.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: And Jesus watches their reaction and in his mind he feels like you didn't really get what I was trying to give you.
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: You didn't really grasp the lesson I was laying out.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: And so he kind of does a redo and he says hey guys, tell you what, get in the boat, go back to the other side, where we started off the day.
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going to head up on the hill and I'm going to spend some alone time with God.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: I'll meet you on the other side, go ahead.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: So they get in the boat and they begin to row and as they do, they get out in the middle of the lake.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: A storm comes up and it's not just a small storm, but it's a huge storm.
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: And it comes out of nowhere and the wind is so high they have to put the sails down and in fact it creates such massive waves they can't even row against it.
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: No matter what direction they turn, the wind changes to push them back into the center of the lake and they can't get to shore for nine hours.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: The waves are so big it's swamping over the side.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: They're bailing and rowing as fast as they can, hour after hour after hour.
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: Can you imagine what that'd be like?
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: I mean nine hours of that.
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: They had to be exhausted, they had to be terrified, they had to be losing hope, and an alarming rate.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: I mean, if you ever wanted to feel small, that's a way to do it, right.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: You're in the midst of a storm that seems so large.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: You feel so small, so powerless, so unable to affect even the smallest change in your own life.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: They felt alone and isolated.
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: Honestly, they felt defeated.
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: That's a hard place to be, isn't it?
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: You ever felt like that, you ever had a moment where you felt beat, like life just kind of beat you and you didn't really know how to even get out of it.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: You felt alone and you felt a deep sadness, maybe, or a fear.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: That's where they were.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: You see, moments like that, anxiety grows in and takes on a life of its own.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Depression becomes a very much of a reality and, honestly, we start asking questions like God, where are you?
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Do you care?
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: Do you see, get me out of here.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: And that's exactly where they were.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: At about three o'clock in the morning, jesus figured they probably had had enough, and he leaves his per time with the father and he comes after them walking on the water In the midst of this huge storm, across the very sea that is being tossed.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: In turn, he walks and he gains on them where they cannot move their boat off the lake.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: And as he arrives, matthew describes it like this.
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: This is in verse 26.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: He said when the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified.
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: It's a ghost, they said, and they cried out in fear.
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: So now they're even more scared, right.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: But Jesus immediately said to them take courage, it is, I don't be afraid.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: And we'll stop there.
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: A moderately more precise translation, a little more detailed one, might be this Take courage, it is, I am Don't be afraid.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Have you ever heard that that way before?
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: If you remember, way back in the Old Testament, when Moses asked God his name, do you remember what God tells him?
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: He said I am.
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: That's my name, I am that I am.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: What is Jesus saying?
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Take courage in the midst of this storm, because something greater than the storm has come.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: The great God of Israel is in your midst.
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: The great I am, who met with Moses, is now with you.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: That's a powerful statement, isn't it?
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: And they understood it immediately and they began to be relieved and they took joy and they breathed a little bit differently Now that they knew that Jesus, the great I am of Israel, had come.
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: But Peter, or relieved, also has another idea In his mind.
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: A wonderment formed.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: He wasn't certain of it, but he wondered.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: This thought, he thought, I wonder if Jesus is doing this not only to show us who he actually is, that he is the one true son of the living God, but he's also showing us not just who he is, but who we can become.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Wild thought, isn't it?
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: It was a flash of brilliance.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: And in that moment, this is what he does.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: He calls out to Jesus and he says Lord, if it's you, tell me to come out to you on the water.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: Come.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Jesus says to him.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: And then Peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: Isn't that amazing?
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Most people who have never read this story in the Bible but just have heard about it culturally, imagine that Jesus is the only person that walks on the water.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: Have you ever heard somebody say what do you like?
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: Walk on the water meaning, are you like Jesus?
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: But there were two people who walked on the water, not one Jesus and Peter.
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Peter, in this moment, realizes something, inquires and actually begins to follow Jesus.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: Can you imagine what they'd be like In the height of this storm?
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: Peter has this imagination.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: Jesus beckons him and he throws his legs over the side of the boat, plants them on water and stands up.
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: That had to have been a moment of both exhilarating faith and overwhelming terror, because, again, every piece of reality that you've had up to now says this is gonna be a very bad idea.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: But because Jesus is there and he says to, your faith is bolstered and you try.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: And, to Peter's amazement, he stands up and he starts to walk on water out to Jesus.
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: But his victory is only momentary.
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: This is what happens next in verse 30.
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: It says well, when he saw the wind meaning Peter saw the wind he was afraid and began to sink and he cried out Lord, save me.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: And immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: He says you have a little faith.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: Why did you doubt?
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: And when they climbed back in the boat, the wind died down and those who were in the boat worshipped him, saying truly, you are the Son of God.
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: I love that moment and I'll tell you why.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: It is so honest, isn't it?
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: It's so real, like if I were telling that story of myself, like and I actually walked on water, I would tell that story every place I went right, I would bore you with it until you'd heard it like 100 times, but I would leave the part out of me falling in because I got so afraid and I took my focus off Jesus.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: I might just edit that.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: The Bible doesn't do that.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: It shows the amazing moment and the not amazing moment.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: I mean what happens to Peter.
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: He gets out on the water, he's living in a naturally supernatural moment, blowing his own mind, and all of a sudden he takes his focus off Jesus and he sees the wind.
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: He goes oh my gosh, this is dangerous, I could die.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: And in that moment, as his focus shifts, he sinks and he cries out to Jesus to save him.
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Jesus picks him up, helps him to the boat, gets in and he looks at him and he says why did you doubt him?
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: I don't think that's a why you doubt.
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: Like, what does the matter with you?
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: I think it was way more of hey man, you are that close.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: Do you realize how close you got.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: You were there, it was happening, you were doing it.
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: Good job, man.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Next time, keep your focus right, don't doubt.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: And in that reality we hear this story and we say what do we do with that Like?
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: What do you do with a story like this?
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's incredible, it's a moment, it is one of those things that you say, gosh, that would have been amazing to be there.
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: But I think it's way more than that.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: I think it's not just a history, it's not just an illustration.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: It's actually a roadmap.
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: It's a roadmap to what it looks like to live out of the life that Jesus gives us.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you what I mean.
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: Can we agree?
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: We live in a world where storms still rage, where bad things happen to people who maybe didn't ask for it or deserve it, and yet we know that something greater than whatever storms we face has come, and His name is Jesus, and he has come into the world not to simply live in it, but to completely reshape it, to remake it to look like His kingdom.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: That's the gospel that one day God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: And in His reshaping of the world, the first thing he wants to reshape is you and me, and he wants us to understand that there is a dynamic that's involved here.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: That isn't just about us worshiping Him or us recognizing for who he is, but he is literally inviting us into His life.
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: He's inviting us into His life not just simply overcome death, because that's normally the way we think about it, but he's also inviting us into His life to be able to live the way he did.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Now, that's an uncomfortable thought, isn't it?
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: Maybe not for you, but for me it's a very uncomfortable thought.
• 22:22
  Speaker 3: The Apostle Paul puts it this way in Ephesians, chapter four, verse 13.
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: He tells us all about the church and what it should be, and then he says this is the end result when the church is who it should be, this is what happens.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: And he says we have to be the church until we all reach unity in the faith, meaning we're all united around Jesus, in His ways and His kingdom and in the knowledge of the Son of God not the knowledge of, but actually relationally, that we all know Jesus, that we're in a deep relationship with Him and then get this and we become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: That's a big statement, isn't it?
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: It means, when we're fully mature in the Lord, we're gonna look like Jesus fully, in every single way.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: And Paul goes on two verses later, to make sure that we understand it in verse 15, and he says this instead speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of Him, who is the head that is Christ.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: You see, jesus isn't just inviting us to live forever with Him, he's inviting us to live forever like Him.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Jesus, literally, is offering us a new way to be human.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: He is redefining what is possible for every single one of us.
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: In our church, we talk about this as this journey that Peter went through and that we can go through, from what we call from true to real.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you what I mean by that.
• 23:57
  Speaker 3: For Peter, he had a faith.
• 24:00
  Speaker 3: Prior to this event, there was a whole set of ideas that he had been handed, that he had heard about his religious history.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: He had heard about what God had done with Moses, of what God had done with David, about what God had done in the lives of Jesus, in the lives in the prophets, and he had been handed those things and he believed that, and he believed those as true and he was a faithful Israelite.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: He worshiped the one true God, and when he saw Jesus, he saw God in him and he believed him.
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: But what Jesus was attempting to do was to help him not only have beliefs that he would hold as true, but a life out of those beliefs that he would be able to experience as real.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: And the journey from true to real is a powerful journey.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: It is a journey that changes our lives dramatically.
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: You see, it's the difference between reading the Bible and living the Bible.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: It's the difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing him.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: It's the difference about imagining ourselves as a fan of Jesus, which there's nothing wrong with.
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: It's actually being a follower of Jesus, someone who literally walks behind him in his footsteps and begins to live in the way that he lives.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: You see, for all of us, we have a ton of beliefs that are great and worthy and true, that we hold, ideas that we cherish about who God is and about what his kingdom is about and who we are and what life should be.
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: That's a good thing to believe those things.
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: But that's the beginning of a journey, not the end of it.
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: Those beliefs were meant to give us an appetite for a life that flows out of them.
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: And when we begin to say I'm actually going to live in light of these and walk that out is when everything begins to change.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: When we don't just sing these truths as lyrics to our worship, when we don't just read the pages of scripture as a story of what happened in people who lived long ago in faraway places, but we see it as a blueprint or a roadmap or an arrow to what God would want for us, we begin to come alive to him in a whole new way.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: You see, christianity was never meant to be a religion of the head or, honestly, even the heart.
• 26:31
  Speaker 3: It's a religion of the hands.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: When we actually live out the life of Jesus, when we learn to speak his words, when we learn to live his ways, when we learn to do his works, when we do them in our life, it changes our hearts, transforms our minds.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: Paul says in Romans 12,.
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: But we don't do it the other way.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: We can't transform our own mind in a way that gets actions to come.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: We have to actually journey from true to real and in that moment we experience God in a way that we can never be the same again.
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: After Peter walked on water, you think he went back to the way he was before.
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: How can you?
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: You experience God in a way that will never be the same again, and that's the truth here as well.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: Well, I had an experience.
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: I think kind of illustrates this a little bit.
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: I have a habit in my life.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: I have a lot of good friends that are senior pastors around the country and we kind of have this ritual that we do Whenever we're in a city where one of our friends is, we let them know we're coming and we have dinner together, where the purpose of dinner is to catch up on family, church and life and everything around that, and we then go and have a cigar together to talk about where God is going.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Now, if that disillusioned you that pastors have a cigar, I am really sorry about that.
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: I tried to break in with the adult beverage comment a little bit earlier, but if it's horrible I really apologize, but you'll get over it.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: So so I'm in San Diego a couple of years ago.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Good buddy of mine lives there, we have dinner.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: It was awesome and it was time to go and just say what God was doing in our lives and have a cigar, and he didn't really know where there was a place, so he Googled one.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: He goes.
• 28:23
  Speaker 3: I think there was a cigar bar around the corner, so we just walked there and we were talking, laughing, having a great time walked into this place not paying attention to anyone or anything, walked to get a couple cigars we'd go to the counter to pay for them and there were these two young women sitting at the counter who were well, let's just say, overwhelmingly intoxicated.
• 28:44
  Speaker 3: And they reached out to my friend and they looked at him and they said I haven't ever seen you in here before.
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: What brings you in Now?
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: That was a little uncomfortable, but his answer pretty much helped clear that up.
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: And he says well, we're pastors and we're here to meet with God.
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: And I'm thinking, okay, that's true and that's a good thing to say.
• 29:09
  Speaker 3: I probably wouldn't have led with that one, but that's okay, right.
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: And in that moment the storm came.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: They stood up and got unbelievably angry and I was stunned by that.
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: And my friend from San Diego like he's the most pastorly pastor you might meet, he's the nicest guy in the world like, I guarantee you, he's never been talked to like this in his entire life.
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: And these women looked at us and said where do you get off telling everybody else how to live?
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: What are you even doing in here?
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: What brings you to a place like this?
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: How can you imagine that you're even welcome in here, you bunch of hypocrite?
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: And it went on.
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: I'm like wow.
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: And the owner came over, kind of saved us a little bit.
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: We paid for the cigars.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: She said you probably might want to leave and I had this crazy notion that we shouldn't and I'm like can we stay?
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: She looked at me like are you out of your mind, right?
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: So she said well, just go sit in the corner and don't talk to anybody, right?
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: And I'm like all right, I can do that.
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: So we went over, sat in the corner and started to talk about what God's doing in our life and about 10 minutes into that, these two women come over, they pull chairs up and they're even angrier.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: And this woman now turns her attention to me and she says I know what you're really like.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: I know what you really do.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: I said can you tell me how you know that?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: I said I don't remember meeting.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: Have we ever met before?
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: I said do we know each other?
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: And she said I know you because I know my dad.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: My dad was a deacon in a church and every single week he would take me to McDonald's before he would take me to Wednesday prayer night and he would abuse me in the back seat of the car.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: And in that moment I started to look around and I realized by the decor that we were in an LGBTQ very proud cigar bar and I realized that being two pastors in their meeting with God had a very different interpretation than the way we meant it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 3: And her and her partner were still incredibly angry.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: Her partner was pregnant and she said when this baby comes, it'll never darken the doors of a church.
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: And in that moment I mean I'm praying and everybody in the place is looking at us, right.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: And I looked at this very angry young woman and I just said.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: I said you know.
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: I said I was really wondering why we were here, but now I know.
• 32:04
  Speaker 3: I said I think God actually sent me here to talk to you.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: So why are you gonna tell me I'm going to hell?
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: No, I think God sent me here to apologize to you.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: I said what happened to you was really wrong.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: I said the leaders of your dad's church should have stood up for you.
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: They should have disciplined him, they should have stopped what he did.
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: They should have believed you and they didn't and it has left a huge scar for you the rest of your life and that's really wrong and I think God sent me here to tell you that he loves you, he cares about you, and he saw that and it was wrong.
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: And I turned to her partner.
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: I asked her about the baby and I asked her about her pregnancy and it didn't bring up the fact that alcohol could have bad effects for pregnancy.
• 32:57
  Speaker 3: I thought that's a conversation for another day.
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: But I just said tell me you know what's your hopes and your dreams.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: And she was telling me about that and I asked.
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: I said could I pray for your baby?
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: She said I'd like that.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: So I just bowed my head and I started to pray and, to my surprise, the ladies grabbed my hands and the four of us my friend and I and these two women are holding hands in an LGBTQ, very proud cigar bar in San Diego and I prayed blessings over her pregnancy and her delivery and I prayed that the child would be healthy and I prayed for the child's future and I prayed that God would be a part of that.
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: And, as I said, amen, and I looked up, there was about 14 people who had gathered around to pray with us.
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: And here's the thing we're all problems solved?
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: We're all issues settled?
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: No, not at all.
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: Was everything tied up with a bow on it?
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: Was there nothing more?
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: But did God's presence manifest itself in an LGBTQ cigar bar in San Diego in a powerful way?
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: You better believe it.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: Here's the thing.
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: Amen, amen for God.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: I could have debated the facts with her for hours.
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: I could have shared my perspectives and tried to listen to her, and that's a fine thing to do.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: But there was a reality that her truth, my truth, god's truth, were going to battle it out, probably all night long, and the journey from true to real was what was going to actually solve this.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: You see, that journey, when people actually experience God, is unbelievably inspiring to them.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: One minute in the presence of God is better than a thousand Sundays in church.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: Sorry to blow that for you, but it's true, right.
• 34:55
  Speaker 3: When you're in the presence of God, it changes you Like.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: It alters things, doesn't it?
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, everything you're convinced is absolutely true and can't change somehow starts to change Everything you imagine that is totally impossible starts to be less impossible.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, the life that you imagined you wanted you might not want anymore.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: All of a sudden, when you're actually near God, you love Him more than you ever thought you could.
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: You want to be like Him and you want to serve Him and you want to just start to be a different version of who you are.
• 35:30
  Speaker 3: That's the journey from true to real, and when that happens, it literally changes everything.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: I'll leave you with this thought.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: Here's what it is.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: Jesus still invites us into the unthinkable to redefine the impossible.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Jesus still invites us into the unthinkable to redefine the impossible.
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: So many times people imagine that Christianity is an easy path.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: It's not.
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: It was not easy to swing your legs out of the boat and stand up on water.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: It's not easy to love people who don't like you.
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: It's not easy to be able to live for Jesus when everyone doesn't applaud it.
• 36:16
  Speaker 3: But the risks, the love, the prayers, sometimes that are unthinkable, can redefine the impossible.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: And Jesus is still in that business.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: Can I just say, whenever I teach this passage, I always ask people this question what was the greatest problem the disciples had in this story?
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: The answer is almost universally well, the storm?
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: I would disagree.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: It's the boat.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: The storm, while dangerous, is an opportunity for God to show Himself great.
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: You see, in the midst of the storms of life, in the midst of the darkness, the wind and the waves and the rain, in the midst of the worst moments, in our greatest fears, when God shows up, it is an opportunity for us to see Him do something unexpected that changes our entire understanding of who he is, our understanding of what he does and our understanding, frankly, of who we are and what we can walk in.
• 37:22
  Speaker 3: Storms are opportunities.
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: The boat's the dangerous thing, because the boat represents everything else that we cling to in the middle of the storm, except for Jesus.
• 37:33
  Speaker 3: The very safest place to be is wherever Jesus is.
• 37:37
  Speaker 3: If he's in the middle of the storm on the lake, the safest place to be is to get out of the boat and walk to Jesus.
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: Everything else is an illusion of safety.
• 37:46
  Speaker 3: If you believe a rickety wooden boat in the middle of this kind of storm is going to save you, you have not grasped your situation.
• 37:53
  Speaker 3: My friend, let me make it harder.
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: If you imagine any amount of wealth is going to save you in the midst of true tribulation, you have not really seen this correctly.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: If you imagine your health is going to go unabated for the rest of your life, you have not grasped how life works.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: If you imagine you're never going to have relational issues and you are clinging to the relationships around you as a Jesus substitute, you don't understand how life is actually going to fall.
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: There is one solution, one rescue plan, one moment that transforms our life, and His name is Jesus, because he is greater than the storm that has come.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: Amen.
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: All of us, all of us face storms and get scared.
• 38:43
  Speaker 3: Don't be ashamed of that.
• 38:45
  Speaker 3: Everybody does.
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: Everybody looks at some things in life and are like man, that's way bigger than me, and I am terrified and I know I believe in God and I know I believe that Jesus is there and he is the one true Son of God and he is good and I believe in Him.
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: But all of those beliefs in that moment aren't necessarily helping us with our fear and we have to have a real journey from true to real.
• 39:07
  Speaker 3: That's just true for all of us, even if we've done that journey a hundred times before.
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: Sometimes we have to do a hundred first, a hundred second, a hundred third time, and that's okay.
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: And here's the beauty of this passage, and this is, I think, the gold.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: Peter didn't do it perfectly and it was okay.
• 39:24
  Speaker 3: You don't have to either.
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: How relieving is that.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: Take a shot.
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: Live out of a life in the presence that Jesus has given you.
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: Pray a dangerous prayer that you've never prayed before.
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: Love someone you just don't think you can right, Take a risk and share your faith in a way that you think is for sure gonna be a disaster.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: See what happens and if you sink, Jesus is there and he'll pick you up and help you to the boat and he'll say you were that close, let's drag him tomorrow.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: That's the beauty of the story.
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: Let me ask you this when you hear that when you hear about the journey, from true to real, of a faith and a life with Jesus.
• 40:14
  Speaker 3: That isn't just about being with him, but it's about being like him.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: What are the boats in your life that you cling to?
• 40:23
  Speaker 3: What are the things in the way that you can't quite get rid of and that form, frankly, a temptation for you?
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: What are the things that you know, given an opportunity, you're gonna run to those things and the first time the storm comes, the first time you get scared, you're gonna reach for that.
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: What is that for you and what is God calling you to do about that?
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: How would you start to, in your life, allow God to reposition that boat for you?
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: You might wanna take it out of your life entirely.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: He might want you to leave it in harbor.
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: He might want you to do a variety of different things.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: What is he asking you to do to take the next step?
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: You know I'm assuming for many of us we have been on that journey.
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: This is not a new idea.
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: But what is the next step for you?
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: All right, there'll be a step again tomorrow, the next week and next month, but what's the next one?
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: What is just God asking you?
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: To put one foot in front of the next and the next in your life, specifically right now.
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: Don't leave this moment without asking God what that is, because that's what that looks like For some of us.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: We've never thought about this at all.
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: That's okay too, isn't it?
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: You say I'm not even sure about this Jesus guy.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Everybody here seems really certain who he is.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: I still have questions about that.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: That's totally fine, but in that, I would ask this question If you're in this place and you've not thought a lot about Jesus, maybe someone brought you and you're like I've never heard the Bible like this.
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: I've never thought about these ideas.
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: I would just say this Are you experiencing something maybe you've never experienced before?
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: Do you feel a tug in your heart?
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: Do you feel a presence of God that is speaking to you, that is drawing you to himself?
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: Don't ignore that.
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: You don't have to commit your whole life.
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: Today you can start to walk toward that.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: You can start to look at that and say, man, if God is actually there, if Jesus is who he says he is, what does it actually look like to take one step toward him?
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: And that's what I really like to end with today.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: What is the step for each of us, for all of us, as a next step, some of us as a first step.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: Did you pray with me, father?
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: We are grateful for you and we're grateful for all that you do in our lives.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: And, lord, in this moment we pray, right now.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: We pray that you would give us an imagination of a next step.
• 42:53
  Speaker 3: Help us to know the boat that we need to abandon.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: Help us to know the risk we need to take.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: Help us know the set of beliefs that will actually set us free when we live it out and not just think about it.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: Lord, help us to know what it means to follow you and not just simply be a fan.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Give us the courage, lord, to live out our faith, even when it's hard, even when it's hard.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: And, lord, for those of us who are in this place, in this moment, where we're thinking about a first step for some of us it feels risky.
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: But, lord, I just ask right now, for those of us who are feeling called, if you're feeling the presence of God right now, if you are feeling God's move in your life and you say I just wanna take a step toward him, with everybody's head bowed, just a moment.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: That's personal between you and God.
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: Just raise your hand, just raise it up high right now.
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: But you're saying I just wanna take a step.
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: I wanna take a first step, couple more, yeah, and this is what it means, jesus.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: I actually am beginning to wonder if you are who you say you are, and I wanna start walking toward you.
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Amen.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Let's just pray for those folks who put their hand up.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: Father.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: We are so grateful for them.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: We're grateful that you are leading them and that you're speaking to them and you're helping them.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: God, lead them into a moment that is real with you, a moment where they can know you for who you fully are and begin to trust you as their king, as their leader, as someone who won't hurt them, who won't double cross them, who won't be selfish with them and won't waste them, but who will love them the rest of their lives.
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: And Lord, we hold this all up to you in Jesus' name, and all God's people said amen, amen, thank you.
• 44:58
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for being here.
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: Thank you for praying for us.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: Thank you for that word.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: I love that language, If true to real.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: Hey, church, if you are here and you're in need of prayer today whether it's financial, emotional, real emotional, relational, spiritual, physical I just want you to know.
• 45:13
  Speaker 2: Our post service prayer team will be gathered right at the back.
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: We would love to pray with you, to seek God with you and for everyone else.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: I'm so, so glad that you're here.
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for making out this weekend and I hope to either see you on Wednesday or next weekend.
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: Have a great weekend.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much, guys, Bye, bye.
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: Nigeriaote specifically present.