Matthew chapter number six. Whether it's a pop-up thunderstorm, a hurricane, or something in between, with a show of hands, I want you to raise your hand if you're in a storm right now in your life. That's a lot of hands. Verse 45, straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship and to go to the other side before unto Bethsaida while he sent away the people. In Matthew chapter 14, this same story mentions and it says he sent away the multitudes. He sent the multitudes away. Mark 6, 46. And when he had sent them away, he departed into a mountain to pray. And when evening was come, the ship was in the midst of the sea, and he alone on the land. And he saw them toiling and rowing, for the wind was contrary unto them. And about the fourth watch of the night, he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea. would have passed by them, but when they saw him walking upon the sea, they supposed it had been a spirit and cried out, for they all saw him and were troubled. And immediately he talked with them and saith unto them, Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. And he went up unto them to the ship, and the wind ceased. They were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure and wondered, for they considered not the miracle of the loaves, for their heart was hardened. Matthew 14, 24 says, the ship was now in the midst of the sea tossed with waves for the wind was contrary. I wanna look at these scriptures out of Mark chapter six, especially use this phrase in verse number 48. He saw them. Title of my messages this morning is he sees us in the storm. Before I get into my main message, this is something I just want to throw this out here. The multitudes will not be around when you are in your storm. Most people will not see you in your storm. It's probably going to be you and your little crew and your little boat. in a big giant body of water with storms. You know, the storms at Galilee come across the Mount Hermon, the heat and the cold air would collide, the wind would blow down the slope of the mountain and hit the water and a storm could come out of nowhere. And even though the multitude's gone and won't be around, I'm glad Jesus sees us in the storm. My first point I want to bring out to you Verse 45, my heart is burdened this morning, so it's gonna be a little harder for me, so pray for me. Verse 45, straightway he constrained his disciples to get into the ship. First point is he sees us sailing. This is God's will. He constrained them to get into the ship. He's the one that told them to do it. So as we sail out to do that which we believe is right, Please understand, just because you are doing the will of God and you are determined to do the will of God and you expect that everything should go right when you do the will of God, it's usually not that way. There's going to be a storm that'll pop up. But it was His will for them to sail, and I'm glad He sees us sailing. It's hard to comprehend that He would say, get in the boat, and the storm is down just a little few miles down the road, as you say, And yet he would still constrain us to do that. There's some storms I've been through and there's some storms I know some of you are going through. Sometimes it's hard to grab a hold in our mind why God would constrain us to go to those storms. But he sees us all the way. This is really a type of the will of God for us to obey God and to trust him. It'd be hard for him to say, I know it's storming, I know it's a hundred mile an hour wind, I know there are trees falling everywhere, but get in that boat and we're going to the other side. That would probably be hard, especially when you look around and say, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, where's Jesus at? and he's sending the multitudes away, and then he goes on the mountain to pray. He's not even with them in their sailing experience. But we do know that no matter what, he can see us, he's able to watch us, even from the mountain, he's able to see our everyday sailing, our efforts, our desire to serve him and live for him. But it'll become hard times and it won't matter. It'll just be a matter of seconds, a storm will brew up in your life. So number two, verse 48, not only does he see us sailing, but he sees us struggling. Look at verse 48. He saw them toiling and rowing. They were in the will of God, especially because they were in the will of God, the storm comes. And the scripture here in verse 48, toiling, working, in trying to row. They were trying to steer this ship, trying to go to the other side like Jesus told them to do, trying to do what they knew was right. And the wind was contrary. That means that boat was not going. If they wanted to go right, it went left. If they thought about going forward, they were going backwards. And I don't know about you, but I know what it's like to be in a storm. Thank the Lord I haven't been in too many all by myself. Thank God I don't think I've ever been in one at all by myself. But sometimes when you got 12 people in the same boat, even if there's only two sets of oars, it could feel like everybody's trying to oar at the same time. Everybody's struggling and rowing. And if you're rowing and then they begin to criticize, you're not doing it right. You're not going fast enough. You need to do it this way. And the tension in that boat can really start to rise in that little crew, that little boat. And they were toiling and rowing. They struggled. They were working hard, trying to keep things going right, going forward, going to the other side. The Lord laid this message on my heart, and I know some of you are very tired of toiling and rowing. You feel like the boat's just spinning around and around, or it's not going in any God-given direction at all. He told you to go that way. When you get saved, there's a lot of symbolism here. When you get saved, you start trying to follow God, and you try to serve the Lord. It's different than just being a spectator and not really caring about what God wants in your life. I don't know that, I don't know, you know, it's been a long time since I was that way. I know I went through some storms that way, but it is better when you are trying to live for God in the storm. But it's still a storm. And the wind's still contrary, and it's still wet, and it's still hard, and I know some of you are getting weary. of toiling and rolling, paddling, rolling over and over and over and over again. And it just seems like no progress is being made or either you, it's really saddening in our hearts when you lose ground, when you lose water, when you lose, you go backwards, you're not making any progress. You feel helpless. The wind obviously symbolizes something way more powerful than you, something that cannot be controlled. and it feels more than it's just against you physically, it's against your soul, it's against your success, it's against your spiritual growth. You get to a place where David summed it up like this in Psalm 61 too. He says, from the end of the earth will I cry unto thee when my heart is overwhelmed. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. So they were toiling and rowing, and they were trying to do what God wanted them to do, try to go to the other side. But there's going to come a time where things are going to be so contrary to you in the storm, and all you're going to be doing is struggling. You're just going to have to cry out like David did and say, Lord, I just need you to lead me through this. I can't do this. I can't. I can't do this. I can't get to where I need to go. I don't know about you, but that blesses my heart to know that he saw them toiling in that rowing. that I've got a savior that sees me when I struggle. As we said, the multitudes don't usually see it, and they're not usually around to experience with you the storms of your life. And even as some of you raised your hands this morning, it's probably felt weird admitting that you're going through a storm, even when there are signals of the storm, your prayer requests are letting people know you're in a storm. Your tears going down your face is a signal you're in a storm. But many times, because other people are in a storm, they're not looking at you and your boat. They're doing everything they can to try to keep their boat from sinking. I don't know about you, but that makes me feel glad that he sees me in the storm. He sees me when I struggle, when I am going backwards, when I'm going in circles. when I almost would wish to say, you know what? It's closer to go backwards to where I started from and get out of this boat than it is to try to go forward to do the will of God. A lot of people get in that tough place in their life where they just want to quit. Think about a storm, though. It really doesn't do much good to quit in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. Doesn't do much good to quit about halfway across the midst of the sea. Might as well just push on a little bit farther, amen? Number three, verse 15. For they all saw him and were troubled. Matthew 14 says this, when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled. Saying it is a spirit and they cried out for fear. Number three, he sees us when we are scared in the storm. Some people are too full of pride, too tough to admit they're scared, that they have fear. I've been there. But God's put me through some storms that scared me to my core. It shook me up. And I was afraid. And even when he began to do something great like walking on the water, coming towards me, it's like symbolism of when his presence began to come into my life, I was still troubled, I still couldn't be settled, I still had so much fear, it wouldn't allow room for faith to do its work in my heart. You know, the fear of life robs us of our faith. Fear of drowning or sinking is a powerful, powerful emotion. Jared and Micah, my oldest son, and I went on a trip, camping trip, my home church at Galilee years ago. We camped out. We had all these plans on the lake the next day. The pontoon boat that we were going to ride around on the water the next day, when we got to the shore to get loaded up, it was halfway stuck in the mud, the sand. I mean, it didn't look right. Well, we was a bunch of stubborn fellas. Nobody got to thinking. Nobody could ever imagine in their mind that there was a hole in the pontoon. and that there was water in the pontoon, and that's why the boat was sinking in the mud. All we thought was, that boat's stuck in the mud. There's enough men here to push that pontoon out. We are going in the water, and that's what we did. We pushed it out, got in that pontoon boat. We're all in there riding and sailing, and one of the men gunned that thing down, and all the water that was been kind of displaced halfway decided to all go forward when he gunned it. And so the ponting of life jackets went off the top of the rails. And I got to the way to the back of the boat with Micah. I thought about throwing Micah and Jared, because I could see the shore. And my mind was thinking, I'd rather take a chance jumping out and trying to swim to the shore than to sink on this boat. That was a very real feeling of sinking. I got scared. When I got scared, I wasn't worried about the guy driving the boat. I wasn't worried about all them other church members on that boat. I was worried about me and Micah and Jared. And I was thinking, Micah, he was still little, but he was still a chunk of change. I'm telling you, he's a pretty capey fella. Now, I'm gonna throw him over the boat, throw Jared, probably throw him half a mile, because after throwing Micah, I'd probably throw Jared. No life jackets. And I already know I can swim, but not that well. And they swim a little bit. But to be responsible for that whole group brought so much fear into my heart. Well, the pilot, he gunned it back down. He realized there was a problem. You didn't have to be an engineer or a captain of a vessel to know that there was a problem. And when he gunned it back down, the water kind of settled down. Now, obviously, we figured out what was wrong later, but we figured out that we weren't going to be doing no sailing too good there. Another pontoon come around and rescued us. If I had not stayed with the ship, I'd have been swimming, trying to figure out where Micah and Jared was. And we might have been one of them stories where we had good intentions, Brother Jerry, but the dad drowned. or one of the boys drown. Staying with the ship didn't feel right when I was scared, but sometimes we react, we act in fear, and it's some of the worst decisions we can ever make in our life. It's never good to jump out of a boat in the middle of the water. Now, even there were times the disciples had the sea, the Bible said the sea was in the ship one of the storms they were in. I've been in a boat that had more water in it than it had in the lake. It's not a fun feeling, and you want to get out of the boat. It's the fear. It moves us to jump out of the boat, but we stayed in the boat, and it stopped. It settled down. The other one saw that we were in distress. They came. We unloaded the boat. The captain and one other man took it back to shore. It didn't have that much weight on it. They went real slow, figured out they had a hole in it. I could have been a newspaper article, Now it's a sermon story, amen. We lived. The fear of going into the water scared me. The fear of drowning, the boat sinking scared me. Made me think I'd throw my children overboard and jump in with them. Now, what's interesting about my little story, there was no storm. Just stupidity. So you combine storm and stupidity together, it makes it a lot worse. But I was still scared. The storms can come before you judge somebody else's storm and wonder why they're so fearful and why they're making the decisions that they're making. Be aware you do not know what you're going to do one day when you go through a similar storm. I don't know this and I know there's several you've been through some similar things here but there's some real interesting storylines going on for people's families that raised their hands. And some of you, I don't even know what maybe this storm's going through. And some of you feel like you're by yourself, probably. Some of you are in your little crew, your little boat, and you know the multitudes don't know what's going on. And in the midst of all that, when I'm so scared, the scripture says here, they saw him, a man walking on the sea. That's a pivotal moment. I know he sees me. I'm preaching to you that he sees us in the storm. He sees us when we sail out. He sees us in our struggle. He sees us at our most scared moment. And even when we get scared when he's trying to come to us, Jesus is walking on the water to where they are. He has been watching everything the whole time. Now, I don't know what they, the Bible says they thought it was a spirit, like a ghost. You know, the boogeyman walking on the water. And you can criticize them. They were not very spiritual. Man, they should have identified Jesus. Things get real blurry in a storm. And you start making some choices and decisions. There's some things that you may not see or things you think you might have seen. It may not be clear. They thought it was a spirit, some kind of spirit. The Bible says he came out of that fourth watch of the night, real late, almost before morning comes. And I don't know, they weren't sure what to make of it, but fear troubles us as it troubled these disciples. And as they were afraid, then the spirit starts walking on the water towards him. It's almost comical to me, it's like, I thought I was gonna drown and now I'm gonna get eaten by a, I'm gonna get snatched by a boogerman and then drown, or one or the other. And it's just amazing the things that go through people's minds in the midst of this. A spirit on the water scared them. But understand as they eventually understand that it is him because they hear his voice. Amen. Be of good cheer. It is I. Be not afraid. Listen, some of you are in storms and what you need to hear, you need to hear the voice of the Lord again. You need to hear him speaking to you more loudly than the storm, the wind that is raging. You need to hear him speaking to your soul directly to you to bring that peace to you. He says, be of good cheer. He's walking on the water symbolizing to us, He's walking on the very thing that they are afraid of drowning in, the circumstances around them. Many of you are afraid of circumstances of what's going on in your life. You're trying to toil. You are toiling and rowing. You're trying to figure it out spiritually, financially, physically. You're trying to figure out every aspect of what you are going through, but yet you continue to feel like you are sinking. You're struggling and you're not gaining any ground. And these disciples were scared, but he is walking on the circumstances, walking on top of the very thing that is bringing fear to them. Because if they were in that boat on the land, Brother Jeremy, they wouldn't be towing and rolling no more. So I'm getting rid of it. I don't want to see them paddles again. If I get in a boat again for a long time, I'm just glad to be on land. But when they were in the water, that water is a representation of all the circumstances that could devour them and drown them. So much scares us. It's hard for us to admit it sometimes. But I'm glad he sees me scared. I'm glad he sees me full of fear. Knows my fears. Knows my thoughts. Knows what I'm afraid to lose. What I'm afraid to mess up. The fear of the unknown, it surrounds us. And then when you finally do know some things, It's worse than you ever thought. I'm glad he sees me struggling, sees us struggling, sees us suffering. He sees us scared, full of fear. Now he does tell us not to be afraid. He wants to teach us beyond these moments that we not get hardened in our heart. The Bible says they did not consider the miracle of the loaves. The 5,000 men besides women and children had been fed. They witnessed a miracle and yet right after that, I'll tell you this, the storm gets hard enough, it'll knock every miracle out of your head. You better hold on to them in your heart. It's because of the miracle they didn't consider. He just fed 5,000 people plus the children and the women with just five loaves and two fishes. It was a miracle. He can perform miracles. But it's different when you are serving in the miracle and you are experiencing the storm. It's just different. When you're in the storm and it feels like it's gonna affect you so personally, it changes things. But I'm glad he sees us. Now I'm gonna reference this, this is the book of Matthew. You can turn if you'd like, chapter 14, verse 28. But this is the same story and it talks about Peter. The part that you probably have heard before where Peter walks on the water. In Matthew 14, 28. So they see Peter walking on the water, they thought he was a spirit. He said, be a good cheer in his eye, be not afraid. And it's like, okay, that's Jesus. So Peter now gets stirred up with his faith and he wants to go out of the boat and walk on the water with Jesus. And the Bible says he come on, When he comes up to the water, he says, Lord, Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. I'm going to tell you, you better not criticize Peter. He got out. He had some faith I wouldn't have to climb out of a boat in the middle of the water. I'm afraid to climb onto a boat from the dock with that much space between us. I've done this. Y'all are making fun of me. Y'all, I have spread my legs. Hold up. And I know people who fell out of boats trying to get in the boats. So I'm scared a lot. I'm scared when I got one foot on the ground and one foot in the boat. He gets out of the boat to go to Jesus. But look at verse 30, but when he saw, so he had been looking at Jesus and now his eyes are off Jesus and back on the storm. When he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid. I want to tell you, my point here is he sees us sinking. He sees us sinking. He sees me when I am like, I'm gonna climb out of that boat. I'm gonna use such faith like I've never used before. And I'm gonna walk out there to Jesus. He sees me get all that faith mustered up. So if that's you, can I come? Come. And then he sees me sink about 13 seconds later. I'm glad he never takes his eyes off of us. I'm glad he doesn't. discourage us. He does challenge us about our faith, but muster up enough faith to step out, walk on the water in the middle of that storm. And then the Bible says, he saw not Jesus. He saw, what does the scripture say? Verse 30. He saw the wind boisterous. He was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried saying, Lord, save me. He'd get his eyes off of the Lord. As we all do, that's when we start going down. I've always said as long as Jesus is on board, the ship can't go down, and I really believe that. But my faith struggles to believe that that ship can't go down even if he's not on board yet, if he does not will it. And it's helped me a few times. I don't know that it was anger. spirituality, but I'd be like, well, Lord, if this is how I'm going to die, this is your will, then that's just how I'm doing it. I'm, you know, I'm told and rolled and rode and rode. Let's go. Let's go down. That's it's anger. It's frustration. Amidst all those kind of emotions, there's no telling what different versions of things are going on for all those 12 disciples. You know that James and John were the sons of thunder. You know they probably had some comments. Peter was a roller coaster just like most of us, up and down, up and down. And no telling what the other ones experienced or felt like. But he sees us in all these things we're experiencing. I'll tell you, fear is always going to be our enemy every time. And when we start looking around and listening around and we start feeling the breeze or the wind contrary, seeing the wind boisterous and all this, he's walking to Jesus in the middle of this storm. The storm wasn't calm yet. He got out in the middle of that storm. Then he got to thinking about what he was doing. He got his eyes on the storm instead of his eyes on the Savior. And he cried out. Lord, save me. Matthew 14 31 says, and immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand. That's what some of us need today. Cry out to the Lord to save us. And the Lord just stretch out his hand and pull us up out of that sinking sea, that sinking water in our life. Cause the storm was so big. Even though you acted big in the middle of that storm with some areas of faith, your faith kind of went backwards again. Maybe now you're beginning to sink. Bottom line is we need to cry out to the Lord when we are scared. We need to cry out to the Lord when we are sinking. David said, what time I am afraid, I will trust in thee. He sees me when I'm sinking, going down, even right after maybe a real big spiritual push. I've seen that. I've seen some people struggle, and all of a sudden, they just, a real big push, Brother Donnie, and then poof. I mean, they weren't sinking before, but now they are. I'm glad he sees this in the storm. I'm glad he stretches out his hand in the storm. I'm glad he saves us in the storm, in the process of sinking. The Bible says in Mark 6 51, he went up unto them into the ship and his very presence, the wind ceased. That's what you need. That's what I need is to be aware of the presence of God in my life. When his presence is more real than the storm and the wind around you, than the losses and gains that you're fearing, the sickness, the struggles, the finances, the physical things, the mental things that you're facing, when his presence comes into your life like that, it's so real, it will do what the scripture says that his presence will do. The Bible says the wind ceased. There's nothing like it when that wind will not quit. It just keeps blowing and blowing and blowing and blowing and then finally it stops. And the Bible says they were sore amazed in themselves beyond measure and wondered. Sore amazed means they were severely amazed. They couldn't believe it. As soon as he got in the boat, the wind just said, pfft, storm was gone. That doesn't mean another storm's not gonna come, but that just means God stopped that storm for your life, for you right then and there. And listen, church, we couldn't make it very long if God didn't stop some storms. If they didn't see, if we were in constant storm, nonstop, none of us would make it. None of us could survive it. And I'm glad that he can do that. It seems when we think that the next storm or the next situation that might come into our lives, sometimes we think it's too big for us, so it's gotta be too big for him, so I'm not gonna pray, or I know I've been out of church a while, but this storm's moving my heart, and I wanna go to church, I wanna go, I wanna pray, I wanna get back in my Bible, but ah, and that's just the devil doing what the devil does to keep you away from the Lord, to keep you away from his presence. They went through a great miracle, 5,000 fed. They were a part of that experience. They get into the storm and nobody says, wait a minute. What's your name? Thomas? Let's just get this together. We just experienced a great miracle. Surely everything's going to be all right. Somebody shut him up. We don't got time to listen to that. Nobody thought, well, all those miracles. Boy, it's amazing what you forget about him in the midst of a storm. It's amazing what you can forget that he's done for you in the past when you get into a storm. But some of you been through that kind of storm and you know what I'm talking about. You're that close to giving up. You're that close to quit rowing any further. You're that close not necessarily to get out of the boat to walk with the water, but you just want to be done. You about like to preach or throw the kids out and see if we can make it to shore. Our eyes can fail us when it comes to faith. We can even see Jesus sometimes and not even know it's Him. But there's just something about hearing His voice. Be a good chariot is I. You need to hear the voice of the shepherd. You need to hear the voice of the Savior. Sister Tonda, I'd like for you to come play for us if you would. unless everybody wants to get in the altar. I know, to be honest with you, there's many hands that were raised a while ago. There's a lot of people going through storms. If you are not a Christian today, you probably feel pretty empty most of the time. And when you go through problems and storms in your life, you have no hope of ever having the presence of God step on board in your life and cease the storm. You can have that today. You can have that presence if you'll trust in Him as your Savior. He will come to you and save you, forgive you of your sins, and you will never be alone again. You'll never be alone, even though the storm can make you feel very lonely. Joy, you can come pray with me. As she plays, every head bowed, every eye closed, if you raised your hand a while ago that you're in some kind of storm, I want to remind you, He sees you and He knows you're struggling. He sees you toiling and rowing. He knows the trouble you're having at home. He knows the trouble you might be having at work. He knows your physical troubles, mental troubles, spiritual troubles. He knows them. You reaching out, you calling out for Him to save you. Coming to the altar like some are today. Lord, I need your presence to be more real in my life than this storm is. I've been struggling, I'm scared, I'm sinking, and you need Him to save you. Some of you step out by faith, turn your life back over to the Lord, or maybe turn it over to the Lord for the very first time. He sees us struggling. And I know some of you are, I see it as your pastor. I was thinking this morning or yesterday, I was kind of just reflecting and trying to prepare for this message. And I was like, I was thinking about myself. I said, am I in a storm right now? And I got to thinking what kind of troubles I had going on, you know, overall. And right now, I guess I'm not in a storm. And that scares me. Because you're either sailing in one, sailing through one, or sailing out of one. There's not a whole lot of time in between. Then I got to thinking, well, don't get too scared. It wasn't too long ago. You were going through a pretty big storm with my son Micah and his future, with my daughter-in-law now. There was a lot of drama going on there. I mean, it was crazy. It was some crazy junk going on. And it was a storm. But His presence became on board again. He began to move things and change things and fix things and speak peace to things that only He can do. And He brought me through another one. Even when I can't see Him, I know He sees me. In church, what you need more than anything is to hear His voice and feel His presence in your life. That storm you're going through, He sees you all the way from the day you sailed out to the day you arrive on shore. I guess of all the points of that message, the one that meant the most to me was that He sees me struggling. He sees me toiling and rowing. I guess I feel like I'm scared all the time, but it just felt good to know that He sees me when I'm struggling so hard, I'm trying. And I see you as a pastor, I see some of you trying just so hard. Keep on rowing. Keep on going forward. Don't give up. He's watching. He sees you. Just listen for His voice. He'll be calling out soon. Maybe He did today. Even if you get to the place where you're sinking, you can cry out for Him to save you. And He'll stretch forth His hand and pick you up. And He'll speak peace, and He'll settle the winds and the storm around you. And He'll bring you safely home, safely to the shore.