Jo Saxton
Now, there are a number of leaders who teach the word in wonderful ways and it’s always a gift to hear them, but I wanna talk about this woman and how she shares the word because she has faithfully, faithfully shared the word for decades. And she is a speaker and a writer and a teacher and an actress and I think a producer, all kinds of things. You know who it is, don’t you? Faithfully taking her call and making the gospel accessible. We know it’s always been relevant, but it’s not always been accessible to everybody. She takes the word and breaks it down. And so she’s inviting us to encounter the living God. And over the years, she’s encouraged countless believers to stand on the truth, to live the truth, and to share the truth. Converge family, would you join me in giving a Converge, and I mean loud, Converge Together welcome to Priscilla Shirer. Okay, as we did before, feel free to take a seat. Why don’t you stretch out your hand as we pray for Priscilla as she brings the word?

Priscilla Shirer
Thank you.

Jo Saxton
Father God, we wanna thank you for our faithful sister. We thank you for her wisdom. We thank you for her gifts. We thank you for her encouragement. We thank you for her family. We thank you for the blessing she has been to the church in this country and worldwide. And we simply pray, as she brings your word today, you would fill her by the power of your Spirit. Lord, we are open, we’re ready to receive and ready to hear what you have to say to us. Thank you, Lord Jesus. In your name. Amen.

Priscilla Shirer
Thank you. I’m so grateful, I needed that. I always feel a little bit nervous, and then you know, you just step back and let the Holy Spirit do what he’s gonna do. So it’s grateful to be able to be here with all of you, to be able to share these moments with you where the Lord has brought you all together to encourage you, to strengthen you amongst one another, church planters, people who are building the house of God and committed to the local church.

I feel incredibly endeared to that because I’m a local church girl. My parents planted a church 50 years ago, five, zero years ago. They started the church when I was one year old. And I have known nothing other than healthy local church life for my entire life. So I’m incredibly grateful for that entrustment that he has given to all of you. Now, my baby brother is my senior pastor now. And so what a gift to be amongst all of you and to have the privilege to be here.

As has already been stated, I have gotta just say how endeared I am to Pastor Jenkins and his sweet wife Trina. They’ve been in our lives, for me and Jerry, for 23 years at this point. The Lord gave them to us, which is the way we feel, I hope they feel the same, but gave us to each other really about 23 years ago. And I’m gonna tell you this right now, especially those of you who I have already met today and you’ve said that you’ve maybe just started planting a church, a couple I met a few moments ago, you’ve just gotten married in the past couple of years. Listen to me, if there’s one thing that you need to be asking the Lord for, it is a couple, a person, a woman, a man, people in ministry and leadership that are just 10 years down the road than you. They’ve already walked the road a little bit and they care more about the state of your soul than the state of your ministry. You need that. And my husband and I have had that in John and Trina Jenkins. They have challenged us, they have corralled us, they have disciplined us, they have strengthened us, and we are the better for it. And so it is a privilege to be able to be with all of you in this incredible gathering today. My daddy’s coming tomorrow. And so it is a privilege for our whole family to be able to be a part of what God is doing.

I’m gonna read a portion of scripture to you that I know is going to be familiar and then we’re just gonna ask the Lord to take this one little simple message and to divide it up a couple thousand different ways so that we all hear the voice of God. Amen? It is Mark 6, beginning in verse 45, the scripture says, “And immediately, he made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side to Bethsaida, while he himself was sending the multitudes away. And after bidding them farewell, he departed to the mountain,” this is Jesus, “to pray. When it was evening,” verse 47, “the boat was in the middle of the sea, and he was alone, Jesus was alone on the land. And seeing the disciples straining at the oars ’cause the wind was against them at about the fourth watch of the night, he came to them,” thank you Lord that you came. “He walked on the sea and he intended to pass by them. When they saw him walking, they assumed on the sea,” it surprised them, “they assumed it was a ghost and they all cried out, for they all saw him and were frightened. But immediately he spoke with them and he said, ‘Take courage, it is I, don’t be afraid.’ And he got into the boat with them. The wind stopped and they were greatly astonished.” And here’s the verse that messes me up. “For they,” the disciples, “had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, their heart was hardened.”

I have three siblings. My older sister’s name is Crystal, and then there are two brothers. It’s Crystal and then me and then Anthony and then the baby who is now the pastor John John. And the four of us grew up in a ministry household. Dad traveled some. They were real invested, mom and dad, in building the local church in Dallas, Texas, but dad did travel some. I remember him mostly being present and around, but I do recall that every now and then, he would pack a bag, he would take a trip, and I really remember the returns because the return from the trips were always a situation at our house, we were very excited and thrilled because daddy was coming home.

I can remember the sound of the green Mercury car pulling up in the driveway. I can remember hearing the door cracking closed. I remember watching him come across the back windows of our house, the childhood home that we still have to this day. I remember him not wheeling the luggage, but carrying the luggage ’cause this is back in the day before there were wheels on those things. And he would carry the luggage through the back door, the screen door would slam closed behind him and all four of us would race towards the door, yelling, “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!” And we would jump into his arms and get real excited because he had returned from his trip.

But the reason why we were excited was not only because he was home, but because we knew that in that big suitcase there was going to be a gift, one for each of the four of us. Most of the time as we got older, we realized he hadn’t really thought about that gift till he was in whatever airport on the way home, he stopped in one of those souvenir stores, picked up a cheap little trinket, one for each of the four of us that might represent the city or the state or the nation that he was coming from, and he would bring it home. So he would unzip the suitcase and we would dive into the suitcase, looking for whatever trinket he had brought for us, the gifts, we were interested in those presents.

Now, I don’t remember the year it happened, but dad recalls that he came home from the trip, pulled in with the green Mercury, he walked across those back windows with that same bag, he walked through the back door and the screen door slammed shut, and we all ran towards the door. “Daddy’s home! Daddy’s home!” But this time we ran directly past him so that we could get to the suitcase as quickly as possible, and we opened it up ourselves, digging through it to try to find those presents. We were more interested in the gift than we were in the gift giver. He says he even recalls that after that, we started asking him, “Dad, when you going on another trip?” Because we were interested in whatever he was gonna bring home to us.

Now as a parent myself, I just wonder what little ping of disappointment, maybe a little shred of heartbreak that was attached to those moments. You know, when you bring yourself to your children and you actually watch them want the stuff that is attached to you more than they actually want you. I wonder what it feels like to have people around you that are looking for the blessings that you might give, the gifts you might offer, the presence that you might allow them to be recipients of, and then begin to want those gifts more than they actually want the person who is giving it to them.

I wonder if this was ever on the heart and mind of Jesus Christ, because, you know, our God has come from the beginning of time, bearing good gifts. From the very beginning in the Old Testament, he set the first human beings, Adam and Eve, in a perfect environment. All they had was gifts all around them, flourishing and blossoming and offering them a stability and a beauty in their life, abundance on every side. And then when the children of Israel were freed from captivity and then wondered for 40 years in the wilderness, there were just gifts all around them, bread falling from heaven and shoes on their feet that would not wear out and water coming up out of rocks and red seas that were divided and quail that was there to nourish them and to feed them. He was in the business of giving good gifts.

And then in the New Testament, Jesus comes, and for three years, he’s in a solid earthly ministry and all he does is pass out gifts. He starts turning water into wine and making sure that there are lame that can walk and deaf that can hear and blind eyes that can see, and even the dead that are being raised, just handing out gifts, one after the other.

And when we come and meet him in Mark 6, he has just performed one of the most stunning miracles of his three years in earthly ministry. One of the broadest gifts that he would pass out to the most diverse group of people in one setting, it’s the feeding of the 5,000 where he has taken five loaves and two fish and basically turned it into a Moby Dick sandwich on the beach. Everybody that was hungry was filled. Everybody that needed nourishment wasn’t just satisfied, but they were filled up to overflowing. We know that because there were leftovers after everybody ate. And by the way, it wasn’t just 5,000, there were probably, scholars say, about 15,000 that were gathered that day, including the women and the children.

So 15,000 people were recipients of the gifts of a good father, the gifts of the Lord Jesus Christ feeding them, nourishing them, sustaining them, and filling them up to overflow to where they couldn’t even take everything in that he had come to give them. And the leftovers amounted to 12 baskets full of leftovers. Please do not miss the fact that there were 12 baskets correlating to 12 disciples, which means 12 disciples are waddling away with a basket full of gifts, proof that they’re serving a generous God who does exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond anything that they can ask or think. These are disciples that have proof of the gifts of God, proof of the goodness of God, blessings that they don’t even know what to do with, blessings that they cannot contain.

That when you just look back, brothers and sisters, over the past 24 hours of your life, you don’t even have to look far to realize that God has been good and faithful and kind and abundant in his generosity towards us. Even with the problems that you might be facing today, the difficulties that I know are on your mind and—and your heart when we come into a room like this and we’re all trying to cultivate and handle and be good stewards of what he has entrusted to us in our churches and our ministries and our marriages and the raising of our children, there are ailments and issues that you are asking God to come through, and there are ways that you’re needing him to make changes in your life and shifts that you wanna see, even with all that we are asking God to do, the reality is if he doesn’t do one more thing, if we just take a close look at our lives, we’ll realize he’s actually already done enough. The disciples are living testimonies, walking around with baskets full of bread.

The problem is he’s realizing that there’s something wrong and skewed and misaligned about the disciple’s perspective. He realizes that there’re a little bit enamored with this bread, that they’re a little bit consumed, their eyes are blurred at the basket that they’re holding, the bread that he has just given them. “They had all this bread, but somehow,” verse 52 says, “they had missed the lesson that was supposed to be embedded in the loaves.” That they had the loaves, but they missed the lesson. That they had gotten consumed by the presence that God had given them, but had been turned away from their greatest desire, just being his presence being with them.

So he’s watching their eyes light up with the gifts, he’s watching their hearts be turned towards the gift. They still didn’t get the point that he had come to give them, that honestly, every miracle, every gift, every opportunity that he gave them to see his supernatural power in any of their lives, all of it was designed to point their attention to Jesus Christ, to make them want him more, not his stuff.

But he sees that they’re becoming a little bit enamored with the gifts. This miracle wasn’t supposed to be about the bread, it was supposed to be about him being the bread of life. The disciples now are beginning to reduce him to a gift giver, like a genie in a bottle, a cosmic bellhop that brings you what you want when you want it, instead of he himself being the ultimate treasure.

He saw this happening with the multitudes after the feeding of the 5,000, which is directly adjacent to the passage I read to you where he walks on water. He sees this happening with the multitude, but he also sees it happening with the 12. And Jesus can’t stand to see this misalignment, this distortion where people are starting to want what he gives and offers more than they want him. This same story that is told in John 6 tells us that after Jesus fed the 5,000, the multitudes wanted to insist, to force him to become king. They saw somebody who they thought would placate their flesh and would make sure to buoy up their comfort, who would take care of them in the way they wanted to be taken care of. So they wanted to force Jesus into a mold that he did not come to be molded into. Be careful that we don’t try to make Jesus into our image instead of us becoming conformed into his. And when Jesus saw the multitudes trying to do something with his mission and his plan that did not align with his Father’s bidding, that’s when we get to Jesus walking on water.

These people wanted miracles without a messiah. They wanted success, but they wanted it without a savior. They wanted all this bread without receiving him as the bread of life. The lesson of the bread was never supposed to be that it was enough, it was supposed to be that he was enough.

He sees it happening with the multitudes, but he’s not even as much concerned with the multitudes as he is about these disciples. He can’t let it happen with the disciples. He’s gotta reorient, recalibrate, make sure that they’re on track with what it is that he has called them to do because these are the 12. The entire kingdom, as it is currently known, is wrapped up in these 12, the ones that he’s called and set apart and commissioned to influence an entire world to take the gospel forth. Upon these 12, upon this rock, the church would be built. If they were skewed, the whole thing would be skewed. If they were off-kilter, if their priorities were misplaced, then the priorities of the entire church would also be misplaced. He can’t allow that to happen, not with the disciples, not with the church planters, not with the one who are supposed to be carriers of the mission, not with the ones who are building the church of Jesus Christ.

And so he takes these 12 out of the multitude and sets them aside and says, “We gotta do business with this to make your priorities straight.” The health of the church depends on it, it depends on making sure that we are not more enamored with the gifts than we are with the giver, to making sure as church planters and leaders and ministry leaders, women’s ministry leaders, as husbands, as wives, as parents, as stewards of the gifts that God has given, to make sure that it is always about Christ and Christ alone. Whatever benefits he gives us to enjoy, we can enjoy them, but we cannot be entangled by them because our minds, our eyes are fixed on Jesus.

I have never had the privilege of going to Italy before, I hope to make it at some point in my life, but for those who have gone, one of the major attractions that people go there for is to go to a little town called Pisa that wouldn’t be known for anything else except there is a leaning tower there. I heard actually that it really isn’t much of a tower, it’s actually just kind of a little structure that’s sitting there and you watch it lean. All it does is lean. I’ve heard that it’s kind of like watching paint dry because you’re just sort of standing. Tourists walking all around it and taking pictures with it when really this tower is doing nothing but leaning.

It was constructed in the 12th century, it took 200 years to complete. What’s interesting is that it started leaning at the beginning of the construction process. It started leaning right as they were beginning to erect it from the soil. It started leaning and the architects realized that it was leaning and tried to correct it. Instead of stopping the construction process, they tried to correct it in little increments as they continued to build it. And when they researched why it was leaning, it was because there was too much water content in the soil, so the soil was soft. And as they were building, they realized that the foundation they built wasn’t deep enough, it was too shallow. So between the soft soil and the shallow foundation, the entire structure that was supposed to be a useful structure in the community of Pisa now was nothing more than a tourist attraction for centuries to come. God forbid the church becomes a tourist attraction. God forbid we have so watered down the soil of scripture and the foundation of our lives is not deep in friendship with God, but is shallow and is not rooted deeply that we are not useful and beneficial, just tourist attractions.

Jesus is trying to make sure the disciples are not soft and shallow. They’re gonna need some backbone to build the church. They’re gonna need some resilience to build the church. They’re gonna need some actual personal depth. They’re gonna need some focus on Jesus Christ to build the church. That when the gifts aren’t coming, that when his voice seems silent, that when his hand doesn’t appear to be present, that when you don’t have goosebumps on your arm ’cause you can’t feel that sense of his presence during worship, all of that’s gonna have to be irrelevant, they’re gonna have to be set like a flint, their eyes fixed on things eternal. There’s a crucifixion coming, Golgotha is coming. They’re gonna have to know and believe who Jesus is and there’s going to have to be a depth there that cannot be shaken.

Are you soft? Only you know if you’re shallow. Only you know if you are building something or have built something that is flashy and shiny and looks great on social media, but has no depth. And Lord, help us, Lord, help us if what we look like and appear to be is impressive to people, but it doesn’t impress the heart of heaven.

So I implore you, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to seek Christ, to seek things above, to have depth of relationship that goes beyond the public-facing ministry, but has private disciplines that are steeped in prayer and Bible reading and friendship with Jesus and solitude and patience and holiness and righteousness and all of the things that will carry us.

Jesus can’t let this happen to the disciples. The whole church is gonna be leaning if he lets the disciples lean. So he calls the disciples away from the multitude, he insists. The scripture says, in fact, in the New Living Translation of this same passage, the word insist is used. Jesus insists that the 12 come away from the multitude and get on this boat. He separates them from the multitude, those that are mission carriers from the multitude. He gets his followers away from all the people that are just fans. He leaves the soft and the shallow on the land to enjoy all that bread while he puts his disciples on a boat on the deep blue sea.

Here they are on the water, setting sail to get a little depth into their relationship with him. When I was at Dallas Theological Seminary, this is 30 years ago, Chuck Swindoll was the president of the school at the time. That meant that once or twice a month, Dr. Swindoll was leading chapel. Some of the most monumental and important and meaningful moments in my young life, in my age, but also in my relationship with Christ and in ministry was spent listening to him in chapel. I will never forget him giving so many illustrations, so many incredible spiritual principles. And if you’re too young in the room to know who Dr. Chuck Swindoll is, look him up immediately. He’s now 91 years old and is just faithfully serving God. He’ve been married for 70 years. Listen to me, there are some things that even if somebody says the exact same thing, if they’re 30 and say it, it’s not the same as when somebody’s 91 and says it.

And I will never forget him describing a man being on a journey. He was walking through vast wastelands, hour after hour that turned to day after day, trying to make it to his destination, backpack in tow, hiking along, but he comes across this enormous body of water. And as far as he looks to the left and right, it is vast and it is enormous. He can’t see any way around it on the east, he can’t see any way around it on the west. And then as he looks towards the horizon, he sees that the horizon touches the edge of this body of water. So it’s incredibly vast, incredibly enormous, incredibly intense. And then to make matters a little bit more intimidating, it made a whole lot of noise as it rushed along over the rocks that were underneath the surface line. It made a lot of noise as the water rushed up against the shoreline where he was standing. So he’s hearing all the noise and he’s seeing the vastness and the enormity of the body of water that seems to be blocking his progress. And so he tries to figure out, how in the world am I gonna continue on my journey with this body of water that is intimidating and overwhelming in front of me? He figures the only way he will even attempt to be able to continue is if he just tries to go through it. So he takes a step in, and right there at the shoreline, it’s only two inches deep. He takes another step in and it’s only two inches deep. He takes another and another and another and another, and he realizes this intimidating, enormous, vast body of water all the way across is only two inches deep. It made all that noise and looked that big and overwhelming, and yet when you took a step in, it was shallow.

My fear for us as the body of Christ is that people take a step in and realize it was shallow, that it’s all smoke and mirrors, that it’s all well-balanced microphones and perfectly beautified screens and fog machines and cafes and all the things that we can enjoy. But Jesus said, “My house should be called a house of prayer.” That there’s gotta be depth there that loosens shackles on people’s lives, that presents to them a great hope of our salvation. Y’all, folks’ lives are hanging in the balance. People need a deliverer, they need a savior, they need something that’s real and long-lasting and stands over the course of time. God, help us if we’re shallow.

Jesus will not let that happen to the disciples, not the ones who are building his church. So he takes the disciples, he removes them from the multitude. And can I just say for just a few moments? Please do not think that these three days that the Lord has entrusted to you are by chance. Even if you just found out a couple days ago that the conference was happening, you don’t even know how you really stumbled up in here, but here you are. You need to know that Jeremiah 1 says that before the foundation of the world, he has this date on the calendar of your life. That is because you are one of the disciples that he is pulling away from all the fans that are on their social media saying how much they love Jesus. And he’s making sure that you’ve got some actual depth attached to your claim. And here you sit, and he’s gonna teach, he’s gonna encourage, he’s gonna comfort, he’s gonna challenge, he’s gonna convict. This is him doing for us, disciples, the same thing that he did for these disciples, getting them away from the multitude that is going to water down their view of who he is and what he has come to do. He didn’t come to give gifts, he came to save souls, he came to redeem humanity.

So he takes the 12, he puts him on the sea. There are four little factors in this miracle that is one of the most stunning in all of Christ’s ministry, Jesus walking on water. There are four factors here, two of them have to do with the disciples and two of them have to do with Jesus. There is water and there are waves, wind, there’s water and there’s wind. This is designed to recalibrate the disciples, and then to reassure them, Jesus is watching and he’s going to do some walking. Water and wind for the disciples and watching and walking for Jesus.

Jesus puts them in a boat and he puts them on water. Here’s the thing about these disciples, as you all know, the majority of them were fishermen. In other words, he’s putting them in the regular rhythms of what would be considered the normal activity of their regular everyday life. Nothing spectacular here, no mountaintop experience, he’s just putting them where they regularly are every single day. They would’ve been familiar with the boat, they would’ve been familiar with the body of water, they would’ve been familiar with the experience of fishing, of rowing to Bethsaida, of rowing along this body of water. They would’ve been familiar with the patterns of wind and wave and movement on this particular body of water. He is putting them in the regular rhythms of everyday life.

They have just come from what would be considered a conference. Basically they’ve been with 15,000 other people on the hillside of Galilee, listening to Jesus teach and preach, hanging on every word. It had been the conference of a lifetime. Think about how you would feel if Jesus were your bible study leader. They had been hanging on every single word, and then to top it off, he had performed a sign and a wonder and a miracle. It was the mountaintop experience of a lifetime. He removes the disciples from the synagogue experience, the conference, the church experience, and he puts them on water, he puts them in the regular rhythms of their everyday life, he puts them in what’s familiar and normal and would’ve likely been a bit underwhelming to them. This represented the mundane realities of their everyday living, and it’s here that he’s gonna recalibrate them and reorient them to who he really is.

Please do not discount the sacredness of the water. Please do not discount the sacredness of the regular rhythms of your everyday life. That ministry doesn’t always look like mountaintops, it looks like dirty diapers and dinner dishes. That the regular rhythms of what you are doing in your homework and your classwork and your office work, that the folding of the clothes, that the dealing of the difficult relationships, that the pouring into your marriages, that the raising of the teenagers, this is the sacred work. This is the water where the Lord puts us to remind us that I can walk here, I can move here, my power will be displayed here, not just at the conference, not just at church on Sunday, but right here on this water where you live and work and play. Don’t separate the regular rhythms of your everyday life from what it is that God wants to do with you. He doesn’t just move in the church house, he wants to move in your house. He puts them on this water so that they can see him move in the regular rhythms of life, in your office, at the job, in the meeting, building out the plan for the ministry that the Lord has entrusted to you to cultivate. That’s where we see if the God that we’re singing about is actually the God that we serve.

Do we trust him here on this water, in this boat, in this underwhelming situation, in this reality that’s a bit mundane and that represents the stuff that we are responsible to do, to show up for, that he has entrusted us to steward? God says, let me take my disciples. Jesus says, let me take my disciples and put them on this water so that they realize that I can show up where they live and work and play.

And then verse 48 says, “He lets them sail into a headwind.” He, in his sovereignty, in his grace, in his mercy, in his goodness, he lets them sail into resistance. We know it’s resistance because the scripture says that they were straining against the oars. I want you to see the muscles flexing on the disciples. I want you to see the sweat bubbling up on their brow. I want you to see the panic setting and as they realize this is no regular wind, this is a lilac that would stir up the wave so much so that it would seek to, threaten to upend a boat and to topple over sailors that were on it. I want you to see the disciples rowing so long and so hard that the scripture says Jesus wouldn’t show up till the fourth watch of the night. When they started, it was the first watch. This means it was a nine-hour journey and the journey should have taken one. The journey from where they were with the feeding of the 5,000 to Bethsaida was normally a one, at most, two-hour trip. Here they are, rowing and straining and pressing and resisting and trying and hoping and sweating and panicking for nine full hours, and the Lord allows it.

Are you in a position right now where the progress is slow going and it’s resistance the whole way? Not just in the planting of the church, but in the cultivating of the marriage, in the investment in the teenager, in the raising of the toddler, in the struggle, in your finances, in your health, in some area of your life, it just feels like resistance and it feels like it’s taking far too long than you anticipated when you first signed up for it. Jesus shows up on water like that. Jesus allowed them to go into the resistance, knowing before they ever set foot that boat in that water that they would encounter it.

My boys are grown now. Big old jokers, they eat me out of house and home. 23, 21, 17 years old, all still wanna eat at my house. My boys have always been big. Even when they were younger, 11, 12, 13, they were already big boys. They all stand about six foot, one or two inch tall. They were wearing size 13, 14 men’s shoe when they were about that age, 13, 14. So they’ve always been big boys and they’re powerful boys. They’re athletes, so it’s worked well for them. But I could always recall in my relationship with each of my sons where the tables were turning. You know how you’re wrestling with your kid and you know that you got ’em? But then there’s this moment around age 10, 11, 12, something would happen where I realized they got me, where I realized it didn’t matter what I did, it didn’t matter how much I might try to sort of wiggle out of their grip. If they were tickling me or we were wrestling, I realized I was in actual trouble because the boys were big.

This worked well for them throughout all their athletics. Their dad would work closely with their trainers or their coaches to make sure that they were being wise about their progression through their different sports that they all played. And I remember my husband saying to the coaches when they were that age, he would say to them, “Don’t add any weights to the training, they’re too young for that, their bodies are still forming, their bones are still malleable. So they can do pushups and things that use body weight, but don’t add extra weight to the training process.” But I also remember when dad, I wasn’t there for the conversation, but I could always tell when dad would say to the coach, “All right, they’re old enough now, you can add some weight.” The reason I knew it is because at the house, that’s when the boys would start walking around with their shirts off, that’s when they would start walking around with a little swag, you know, where they were feeling themselves. And they would walk around the house with their shirts off, a little chisels showing up on their shoulders or on their chest. They would be stopping in front of mirrors to admire what they saw happening on the outside of them. I would be like, “Boy, put a shirt on, that’s nasty.”

But it’s the weight that made the power that was in them begin to take shape on the outside of them. Without the weight, you know, it’s all that power hidden in earthen vessel. But the thing is, people need to see what it is that Christ is doing in you. They need to see faith in action. They need to see peace that actually passes all understanding. They need to see joy unspeakable. They need to see this Christ that we say is in us actually shine on the outside of us. And so God in his grace and his mercy and his goodness and his kindness and his sovereignty will allow you to be put in a point of resistance where you’re struggling against the headwind.

Don’t give up now, don’t throw in the towel, don’t stop rowing. If the Lord has allowed it, that means he’s putting spiritual muscle on you, that means he’s actually putting some flesh on our spiritual bones, y’all, so that we’re not just talking a good game, but we actually have the spiritual muscle to back it up. I’m talking about some character where you actually have integrity. ‘Cause, y’all, we’re gonna have to have some backbone in the day and the age and the culture in which we live, even just two decades, three decades ago, Converge has been around for 170 years. Can you imagine the transition that has taken place from a Christian-oriented culture to the post-Christian culture that we live in now? Meaning there used to be a day and a age and a generation where even if people were not believers in Jesus, they at least thought this was a good moral compass, they at least respected people who were, they at least thought this was a good way to govern the lives of just good citizenship. But now, if you stand flat-footed on the truths of scripture and decide, as for me and my house and my church, we’re gonna serve the Lord and we’re not gonna weave to the left or to the right, but we’re gonna make sure to stand without compromise and without apology on the truths of scripture. Do you realize to do that now, you’re gonna have to have some backbone? You can’t be soft and shallow, not today. We’re gonna have to have some actual resilience.

So the Lord allows the wind, he’s putting muscle on you so that the strength that is in you can start to take shape on the outside of you. His disciples are gonna have to have some muscle. So if you’ve prayed, Lord, would you quell this wind, and for whatever reason he’s still allowed the resistance, just know that there is no suffering that is wasted, that there is no straining that the Lord is not presiding over, sovereignly keeping you through, making sure that the muscle that is in you begins to take shape on the outside of you. You’re gonna need it, you’re gonna need it to lead the church he has entrusted to you. Father, you’re gonna need it to lead the children that the Lord has entrusted to you. Wife, you’re gonna need it. Ministry leader, you’re gonna need it. Single woman or man, you’re gonna need it to be who God has called you to be in a lost and dying world that needs to know that we are strong in the Lord and the strength of his might.

So Jesus, he puts them on the water and the waves stir up the wind. And if that’s the season you find yourself in right now, don’t be discouraged and don’t look at the wind, lift up your eyes to the hills from whence cometh your help, because if there’s water and wind, Jesus is gonna show up and either tell it to be still or he’s gonna walk on it.

And verse 48 says that while all this is happening with the disciples and they are seemingly alone on that boat, verse 48 says, “Jesus is watching.” Here’s what I want you to know, you may not see his hand, but you can trust his heart. He’s watching, his eyes are on you. He knows the tears that are falling. He knows the sweat that is bubbling. He knows the struggle and the panic, the insecurity that you feel in your heart. He knows the weakness that you’re struggling with. He knows the divisiveness that you’re tending with on your team. He is very clear and aware, even if your spouse doesn’t know, the amount of moments you’ve spent up at night trying to figure out a solution for that problem. And your best friend is unaware of how it’s wearing on you and tearing on you and you feel like you’re all alone. You need to know that the eyes of a great, loving, kind, sovereign God are peeled on you. He is presiding. He is watching. He has oversight. You are not alone. Jesus is watching.

And then at the exact right moment, he starts walking. He does not calm the wind and the waves, he just walks on it. Before it settles, he steps foot on it to proclaim his power, his presence. He makes it a sturdy concrete platform somehow underneath all of those waves, the kind of testimony that when you look back, you realize there was actually no way that he should be able to, that anybody that is not supernatural and powerful and almighty and holy and eternal would be able to walk, to show himself, to declare himself in a situation that is that rocky and that undone. But God and his grace and mercy and goodness, he didn’t settle it all before he just walked on it to remind us that he is able to show up in the worst circumstances.

And when he came, he came empty-handed, no gifts, no bread, no fish, no gifts, no gimmicks, no signs, no wonders, just him, to remind the disciples that bread don’t work here. The thing you think you want most won’t save you here, it’s Christ and Christ alone.

May our eyes be peeled on Jesus. He is the one who is enduringly strong. He is entirely sincere. He is eternally steadfast. He is immortally gracious. He is imperially powerful. Jesus Christ is the greatest phenomenon to ever cross the landscape of the globe. He is God’s son, he is the sinner’s savior, he is the captive’s ransom, he is the breath of life, he is the centerpiece of all of civilization, and he stands in the solitude of his own self. He is the beginning and the end and he is unique. Jesus is unparalleled, he is unprecedented, he is undisputed, he is undefiled, he is unsurpassed, and he is unshakeable. He is the cornerstone. He is the capstone. He is the stumbling stone of all other religions. He is the miracle of the ages. He is worth serving with your whole life. He is Jesus Christ the Lord, and he is enough.