Well, good morning church. It is an exciting day today because none other than Seth Bundy is gonna be bringing the word today. Now, some of you remember Seth as a high school student, and you know, the miracle that today really is. But man, am I so glad that God has called him, that he has used him over these years. He's currently leading our high school ministry here at Burn Hickory, and today is the first time he is gonna be able to step in front of you and bring the word, and it's not gonna take you, but a couple of seconds to hear how special Seth is, how much he loves the word of God. And you are going to be blessed today. Do me a favor, let's give him a big round of applause and make him feel welcome today.

Well, I appreciate it. You know, when me, and uh, when me and Matt first started talking about this, we kind of talked through it. He was like, Hey, don't worry. Like, I'll, I'll have an intro video for you. I'll just introduce who you are, what you do. And I, I should have known there was gonna be more to that than just a little intro video for me. But I, I super, I, I really am super thankful, super, uh, honored to be here with you guys today. When he first came and asked me, I did think that it might have been his way of telling me that all the staff is gonna go on vacation without me, and I wasn't invited. But whatever the case is, man, I'm super, super grateful to be with you guys this morning. If you didn't hear in that, my name is Seth Bundy.
I'm the high school associate. I get to hang out with your high schoolers all the time. And, uh, man, they're, they're, they're a huge blessing. Uh, most of 'em are a huge blessing. And, um, man, I'm super, super excited to be here with you guys. You know, as we're going into summer, honestly, it's, it's probably one of my favorite times of the year, if not my favorite time of the year, because in our minds, it's kind of a time to reset. Uh, summer is a time where we can just take a step back from everything going on, all the chaos, or at least that's the mindset you have when you're a kid, right? You're growing up, you're like, man, summer's awesome. I don't have to do anything. I can do whatever I want. But as a parent, what I've realized as I've grown up is summer is a time of absolute chaos, right?
Because you are now trying to figure out how to go to work and handle your kids at the same time, or you're just trying to figure out what to do with them through the day. Some of you guys in here have probably already looked at the churches around us in our area and seeing when they're having VBS hoping it's on different weeks so that you can have childcare for the, like every week. And if you haven't done that, you're gonna look up this afternoon to see when the vbss are just so you can get a time, or, or some of us have, have started to, to go the rotation in our neighborhood on who, which parent can watch all the kids at the pool. So we can just get a time to just relax and just to take a break. And others of us are, man, we're just at the point where we're planning a vacation, but we're gonna need a vacation from that vacation, especially if we're gonna Disney, right?
We're just exhausted thinking about it. And when we get there, we're gonna, we're gonna be worn out when we get back. So we just need some time to relax after. And it's a time in the summer, it's a time of just, it's a time of chaos. It's a time of of worry. It's a time of stress. See, we're all trying to find ways in our lives where we can just be at peace, where we can just take a moment and just not have to worry about anything, not have any, anything that's holding us down from every Miss America pageant to war rooms across the world. Every single one of us is searching after this. We're searching after true peace. Our goal is to get rid of all the worry in our lives and just focus on the peace. But so many of us fail to find it.
We fail to find that true peace. And we're obsessed with this fake image of calm. We're obsessed with this perception of peace, man. We scroll through Instagram and we see videos of, of people waking up early in the morning and making a coffee, and then going to sit and just have some time by themselves before the kids wake up and all the chaos of the world starts. But so often what's going on behind that screen is a life filled with chaos. And we, we give a good perception, we put on a good cloak, look like we've got it all together, but the reality of it is so many times is our lives seem to be falling apart, and we're just in chaos. See, we scroll through worry, we swipe through stress on social media, but the reality of it is anxiety and stress are super widespread in our culture today.
We worry about financial difficulties, work, health issues, relationships, the future. Our children, man, I still remember the first like three weeks after we brought our, our baby Levi home, man, every night I would wake up at like two or three in the morning and I would go over to where he was sleeping. I would make sure he's still breathing right? Because I was so stressed out about it. I was so, I had so much anxiety over the fact that man, I, I need to make sure if he's quiet, if he's letting us sleep, there must be something wrong. Like, that was the mindset I had. And so I, I, there was so much stress over this, but when you look at the root of anxiety, when we look at the word root of the word anxiety in the Greek, it literally means to pull apart.
And I think that's such a beautiful image of what anxiety does to us, because that's exactly what happens when we, when we have anxiety, when we're filled with anxiety, what's happening is we're thinking about the future and we're focused on the future. But at the same time, we're thinking about some things in the past, we're thinking about right now, and we're being pulled in two different directions, or maybe we're focused on the things going on at work, but we're also trying to figure out how to balance that with our family time. And we're being pulled in two different directions, and we live in this anxiety. And what winds up happening is these things that we're anxious about, these things that we worry about, they become the worship of our lives. And you might be sitting there going, no, no, not for me, man. God is the one I worship.
But wherever we spend the most of our time and the most of our attention, that is what our lives are worshiping, whether we intend for it to or not. And so for a lot of us, it's so easy for those things to become the worship of our lives. And honestly, when we look at the statistics, it, it's pretty alarming. Uh, in, in America today, 76% of health impacts are due to stress. 90% of Americans report losing sleep at some point over worry. 61% of Gen Z has a diagnosed anxiety disorder. 60% of these people say that they don't wanna talk about it because they don't wanna take their stress and put it on someone else's and just compound that stress. And 75% of pastors say that they are extremely stressed. Some of us are stressed hearing about these people being stressed. We have this anxiety and we have this mindset that there's, everything's just going on.
Everything's going wrong. We live in what psychologists are calling an age of anxiety, which when we look at the culture around us, duh. We see a culture that has a pressure to succeed constantly, a, a nonstop pace of life. And the one that I think pulls at us the most, the weight of comparison. So many times, man, I found myself doing this. Oh, they're going on that vacation. I, I wanna go on that vacation too. They just bought this. I wanna buy that. They have this going on. They have this good of a family life. I I want that. And we compare ourselves so much to them. And what we wind up doing without even realizing it, is we're trying to live someone else's life and not the life that we have. And so we have to focus on these things, and we allow these things to pull at us.
See, we live in the most connected and informed culture in history, yet we're more anxious than ever because the reality of it is peace does not come from information or affirmation. Peace comes from revelation of seeing Christ for who he really is. Yeah, we don't find peace in the things around us. We don't find peace in the circumstances going on around us, because if that's where we're searching for peace, can I just be the first to say, you're not gonna find it. You might find it for a couple seconds, but then the next storm's gonna hit and that peace will be gone. But we see in scripture the good news that the Bible has something to say about this, about anxiety, about worry, about stress, most importantly, about peace. Jesus says in John 1427, peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives.
Do I give to you? Let not your hearts be troubled, neither. Let them be afraid. See, this is a peace that doesn't make sense to us. It's a peace that surpasses all understanding and to the human mind. We, we genuinely cannot understand it at times. It's a piece that holds us together. When everything is falling apart, it's a piece that doesn't come from per perfect circumstances. It's a piece that we find even in the pieces of our lives. See, that's the kind of peace we're after, not the filtered perception of calm that the world gives, not a momentary piece that that lasts for, for just a moment. But we're looking for an everlasting piece, a durable, unshakeable peace, the peace that only comes from Jesus. See, we're gonna look at a moment in scripture today where peace came. And it wasn't it, it wasn't when, when things got easy, it wasn't when circumstances got calm, but it was when Jesus got close.
Today we're gonna be in Matthew 1422 through 33, which is, it's such an amazing reflection of our lives. Because in this story, we're gonna see how, how, even, even when we're obedient, even when we have the best of intentions at first, it's so easy for the stresses and worries in our lives to distract us. Even when, when our eyes are on Christ, when we're focused on him at the beginning, we walk into a relationship with God and we're on fire for him. We have the best intentions possible, but it's so easy for the distractions and the things of this world around us to catch our attention and to pull our focus off of Christ. See, just before this story in Matthew, uh, 14, 11 through 21 or 13 through 21, Jesus miraculous feeds the 5,000, right? So we see Jesus taking five loaves and two fish, he multiplies them, feeds all of these people, and it, it's an amazing miracle, right?
And they see that too. They, they see Jesus in, in the Book of John. We see this story, and it tells us that, that the people tried to forcibly make Jesus their king. Right? Which, you know, that makes pretty much sense, right? You, you see this guy that's been able to, to make this food out of nowhere, and you see that he's a provider. You see that he's a protector. You see that he's the guy you want around. And so they see Jesus and, and they wanna make him king forcibly. They, they don't wanna ask him. They, they just wanna take him and make him their king, no questions asked. And so Jesus knows this, and Jesus also knows that it's not the right time. Jesus knows that this is not the time for, for a him to be placed in any kind of position, but especially not this one.
It wasn't the timing in his ministry. And so knowing this was going on, Jesus acts quickly, verse 22 says this, immediately, he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he just missed the crowds. Now, for a lot of us, this first step would be a step of anxiety. This first step would be one that would, would give us worry, because we're looking at this and we're seeing that the guy that we've been traveling around with, if, if we put ourselves in the disciple's shoes, the guy that we have been traveling around with, the one that's been giving us the power to do amazing things, the one that's been doing amazing things, this guy is now asking us to go ahead. You guys, go ahead. You guys go across the lake. I'll, I'll get you later. Like, I'll catch up with you.
For a lot of us, we'd be like, no, that is not happening. Right? When we were in Guatemala, we had an opportunity, uh, when we were in college to go on a mission trip to Guatemala. And we, we climbed a waterfall one of the days just kind of, we had a couple hours left. And, and so we, we, we get to this waterfall and, and our guide was like a 9-year-old boy, which is a good first step, right? And, um, man, I remember, I remember we're all climbing up. There's like four or five of us we're climbing up the waterfall, and, and we get to this point, and, um, the other guys are kind of ahead a little bit. And the, the kid, uh, guide kid looks next to me, looks to, looks to me, and he goes, Hey, you guys keep going. I, I'll catch up with you.
And I was like, no, right? That's not happening. Like my first mindset genuinely was this kid knows there's a jaguar that lives up there and he's just waiting to see if he's there and eats us before it eats him. Like that was my mindset. I was like, I'm not leaving you. Like this kid knew this waterfall like the back of his hand, and he was telling us to go. I was like, no, I'm not leaving the the, I'm not leaving my guide. I'm not leaving the source of my strength. I'm not leaving the source of my comfort. Man, I can just imagine. That's how the disciples are feeling right now. Except it wasn't a 9-year-old kid. It was Jesus, the guy who had done miracles, that they had seen this power work through him. And he's now telling 'em, Hey, you guys go ahead. But they see how important this is to Christ. They see how important this is. They see the, the, the emphasis which he speaks. And so they do it. They listen. But what we see Jesus do here is something that we all need to pay attention to. Verse 23 says, after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up to the mountain by himself to pray. And when evening came, he was there alone.
And in the middle of Jesus's great ministry in the middle, he's, he's currently being praised. He's trying to be forcibly made king by these people in the middle of this moment where it would've been so easy for anyone to just accept that praise and live in that He sees the importance of being alone with the Father. He sees the importance of going away and having a time of quiet, having a time, uh, just to be alone with God. And can I just be honest? If the God of the universe who came down to this earth was a hundred percent man, a hundred percent God, if Jesus needed to retreat to be with the Father, how much more do I need that in my life? Come on, how much more do I need that every single day? But so often I let little distractions get in the way of that.
Yes, sir, Jesus is in the middle of getting praised by at least 5,000 people, but he still retreats from that situation to go be with the Father. How much more do we need to allow the little things in our lives to not get in the way? Because it's in those quiet places where we gain clarity, we gain strength from the Lord, and most of all, we gain peace from God. Verse 24 is, but, but this, the boat by this time was a long way from the land beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. Write this first principle down. Obedience doesn't exempt us from storms. Some of us that believe this lie that if we follow Jesus correctly, I'm not saying if we make a mistake, but if we follow Jesus, how we should every step of the way that our lives is gonna be smooth.
But we see here that their obedience, the disciple's obedience led them right into the waves, not to punish them in the same way to us. It's not to punish us, but it's to grow us. See, Jesus knows what's going on here. Jesus knew the situation. This wasn't a Georgia weather moment where he stepped outside and it was sunny, and then five minutes later it was absolutely pouring outside. Like Jesus knew what was going on. He knew the circumstance, he knew the situation. And still he told them to go straight into the storm, get out in the boat, start going. He knew the storm would be there, but the storm wasn't a punishment. It was a part of the plan. See, many of us think that man, if we're facing a punishment or if we're facing a storm, it's some kind of karma or some form of galactic retribution that we or we deserve.
But sometimes it's part of God's plan. We see this all throughout scripture in the life of Joseph. We see that his brother sold him into slavery. But God used that moment to place Joseph in a, in a position of power when a famine came and he was able to save not just the nation, but specifically his family too. He looked at his brothers in Genesis 50 20 and says, as for you, you met evil against me, but God meant it for good. In the life of Paul, we see he was imprisoned and beaten. He did not live a smooth life. And this was while he was being obedient to God. But God used those moments to allow him to impact people that he wouldn't have been able to reach otherwise. We see in the life of Jesus himself, it wasn't smooth sailing. John 1633, Jesus speaking.
He says, in this world, you will have tribulation, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Jesus isn't speaking from, from just a God that's staring down on us. He's speaking here from a God that walked on the face of this earth and defeated everything that we come up against. See, we see that all the disciples have done is obey Jesus. They just listened to what he told him to do, yet they still find themselves in this storm. And this time, Jesus isn't on the boat. The last time they were on the water with a storm, Jesus was in the bottom and they were screaming. And Jesus comes up and he calms the storm, but this time Jesus wasn't with them. But that didn't mean that he had left them. Verse 25 says this, and in the fourth watch of the night, it was like three to 6:00 AM So it's like the darkest time.
All the wind and the waves are crashing around them. There's just chaos going on around 'em. It was the time that they least expected anything to happen. He came to them walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it is a ghost, which is a valid response. And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart. It is, I do not be afraid. Write this principle down. Jesus is with us in our storm. I think this is one that we know in our heads, but so many times in the middle of those storms, we forget it in our hearts. We, we forget that Jesus is right there with us. He's not waiting on the shore. He is not standing on the sideline, but he's walking through the storm with us.
I, I love the imagery here because the disciples are scared of the waves and of the wind and of the storm around him. And what does Jesus do? He walks on top of it. He shows his dominion. There it is under his feet. He's over the storms in our lives. He's walking on top of him. We see that he has defeated the very things that we're afraid of. See, when we stress out every single one of us, when we have fear or anxiety, it's because of one thing. It's because we see the problem in front of us as something bigger than we can overcome. We see the problem in front of us as something that is bigger than what we can overcome. And that is why we have fear. Whether it's our finance as our marriage in school, our kids, we see this problem. And what it does is it begins to cloud our vision.
It it pulls our focus away from God. We see this mountain in front of us and all we wanna do is move it, but we can't. And for many of us, we hold onto this fear and this fear and this stress, and this anxiety pulls us apart. It begins to eat at us. It tears us apart from the inside out. But here's the truth that we often forget in the middle of the storm, fear doesn't have the final word. We've just seen that God has overcome this world. Everything that we face, God has overcome. He has the final say. We don't have to be ruled by it. See, we don't have to carry it. There's two, two main reasons for anyone that we would get rid of fear. The first is this. The problem is not nearly as big as we thought it was. And I was downstairs in our basement one day and I was on a Zoom call, and I looked over to my right and I see a big water stain, and I see water drops coming out of it.
And my mind instantly went to, there's a pipe that's burst. This is gonna be a big problem. There's water flowing in my ceiling right now. I'm gonna have to call a plumber. It's gonna be a lot of money. It's gonna take a lot of time to get this fixed. And I was running through all these scenarios, all the worst case scenarios. And so I get off the meeting, I run upstairs, and the whole problem is that I left the faucet on. That was the issue. It was so much smaller than what I initially thought. Because we never go to the best case scenario. We always go to the worst case scenario. So the problem is smaller than what we think. The fear that once struck me when I initially saw that went away as soon as I just realized that I'd just been dumb. The second reason is this, even if the problem is real, there's an even greater solution. This is all of us as believers, no matter the size of the problem that we're facing, no matter how insurmountable it may seem, we serve a God who is a greater solution than anything we face.

Yes,

In every circumstance, no matter what's going on, he has overcome. Psalms 46, 1 says, God is our refuge and our strength, a very present help and trouble. You know, as a kid, we read a poem. Well, we hear a poem by a great poet named Veggie Tail, and it says, God is bigger than the boogeyman. He's bigger than Godzilla or the monsters on tv. Oh, God is bigger than the boogeyman. And he's watching out for you. And for me, we hear this as a kid, we teach this to our kids that, hey, God is bigger than anything you're afraid of. But so often we forget that in the middle of the storms, so often we forget that we serve a God who's bigger. He's greater than everything that I'm ever going to come across in my life. He's greater. He knows it's gonna happen. He knows what the outcome's gonna be, and he knows how I'm gonna get through it.
He's greater than everything that we come across. He's bringing in all the trials and storms, and he wants to work through them to pull us closer to him. And because God is here, can I just say this? He's not asking you to calm your storm. He's asking you to trust him in the middle of it. Yeah. He's not asking you to figure it all out. What he's asking you to do is put your eyes on him and trust him. That's what we see Peter do. In verse 28, it says, Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. Verse 29 says, he said, come. So Peter got outta the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. Write this principle down. Peace does not guarantee calm circumstances. See, Peter walked on the water during the storm.
Peter didn't ask for comfort. Peter didn't ask for Jesus to lay out a a sidewalk to walk to him in the middle of the storm, in the middle of the waves, in the wind crashing around him. What Peter does is he looks to God. Instead of asking for comfort, he asks for a command. He says, God, tell me what to do. God tell me to come, come to you. And that's exactly what he did. See, so many times when we're in our stressful moments in life, all we do is we just, we just ask for God to take it away. That's all we can think about. We're just like, God, God, get this sickness out of my life. God get this financial burden out. God, just take this all the way. Take this relationship issue out. But instead, what if we did what Peter does here instead of just asking for comfort, instead of asking for those things to be removed?
What if we ask God for a command? God, I don't know what to do right now, but I know that you do. God, in the middle of this moment, help me figure out how to fix this relationship. God, help me see what the next step is. God, help me walk through this just another day, help guide my steps instead of asking for comfort. What if we asked for a command? See, Peter didn't ask for still waters. He knew that the peace didn't come from the absence of the waves, but it was the obedience to Jesus in the middle of the storm. That was where peace was found. But even in this great obedience, I think for, for so many times in my life, this is kinda like I've heard this story so many times that it's become like small to me. But Peter is stepping out of a boat, walking on water. The same thing that if you or I were to try this afternoon, we're gonna sink straight down. But because of Christ's power, Peter's walking on this water. Yet even in that moment, he gets distracted.
Verse 30 says this, but when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. See, Peter's focus shifted from Jesus to the storm. Peter had his eyes set on the Lord. He was walking on water with him, but the waves and the wind around him overtook his faith. The fear overtook his faith. And Peter did what so often happens in our lives. He stepped out in good intentions. He had a strong faith to begin with. But then he allowed the distractions around him to take his eyes off the Lord. See, his downfall wasn't in the storm. Peter didn't get knocked off balance by the waves. It wasn't the wind that blew him over. His downfall was in the distraction. He had the source of power right in front of him. Yet he started focusing on the things of fear around him.
See, for us today, I think, I think sometimes we do focus on the specific thing, whatever is bothering us. But a lot of times I think what we do is we focus on other distractions around us. Just take our mind off it. We focus on social media, right? We'll just sit there and scroll for hours so that we don't have to deal with what's really going on around us. Kind of let our, our minds go away. For some of us, we, we may have some problems at home. And so instead of confronting them, instead of dealing with them, what we do is we spend a couple hours extra at work. So we don't have to come home and, and deal with those conversations, deal with those arguments. Or for some of us, even we, we take something or we drink something to allow our minds just to drift off to another place so that we don't have to focus on the reality of the situation at hand.
And we can just drift off and think about whatever we want to. We do these things to take our minds off of the problem instead of going to the source of our strength. And in those moments, the distractions may temporarily take it away, but they're gonna come back. But when we go to Christ, when we have the peace that he gives us, it's in those moments that we can focus on the truth. See, write this principle down. Peace comes when we meditate on what is instead. Uh, instead of the what ifs. Anxiety thrives in the what ifs. Anxiety thrives when we don't know all the details in a situation and we try to figure 'em out. Anxiety thrives. When you've got a rash on your arm and you start to look up on WebMD and you realize that you've got two hours left to live, because that's what we do.
We go to the worst case scenario every single time. At least I do, man. If there's something that I don't know, I never think, oh, maybe it's okay. Like, you know, it's probably good. Now, I think the reason I do this is because I go to the worst case scenario. So that way, anything less than that, I can consider a win. That's what we do as humans. We go to the worst case scenario. And anxiety thrives in that and thrives in the what ifs. It thrives when we focus on what we do not know. But peace, true peace comes when we focus on what is. And we know who God is. We see in the Old Testament and in the new, we see in our lives today that God is the same yesterday, today, and always.

Amen.

The God that we serve today is the same God that Abraham served in the desert. The God that we serve today has never changed. I know for a matter of fact that no matter what I do, no matter how many mistakes I make, there is a God that's gonna forgive me, that loves me, and that wants a relationship with me. Now, I may doubt that at times, there may be times in my life where I'm in the middle of the storm and I just don't feel like I can hear God. But it never changes the truth that God is there and that God is love and that God is peace. See, when we focus on what we know, when we focus on what is instead of the what ifs, that is when peace can come. If our focus is fixed on Christ, we'll stand even when it doesn't make sense, even when it's walking on the water.
But if our gaze is on the uncertainties of the storms around us, we'll sink just like Peter did, just like Peter did. Verse 31 says, Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him saying to him, oh, you of little faith. Why did you doubt? See, again, it wasn't the violence of the winds. It wasn't the raging of the waves, which endangered Peter's life, which caused him to sink. It was his lack of faith. And how often is that us? Maybe that's you today, where you've stepped out. You've, you've started with great intentions. You've started on fire for Jesus, within the distractions around us in this world, have pulled your focus off of him and onto the things. And we've stressed out about these things. We've worried about these things. Take this as encouragement because see what Jesus does here. Jesus rebukes Peter. Yes. But, but before he does that, he rescues him. Jesus reaches his hand out immediately and took hold of him.
And how often is that what we need? One of the most amazing things. We, we, we do, uh, what's called a student speak on Wednesday nights and radiate. And, and then it's just been an awesome, awesome opportunity. Our high schoolers come and they give like a five minute, some of 'em try to push it to like 10 minutes, but we try to keep it at five minutes of just a devotional man that they've, they're, they're learning. They're walking through with the Lord, whatever God's teaching them, we want them to get a chance to teach their peers. And one girl said this, this week or this year, she said something that stuck with me ever since. She said that no matter how many times we step away from God, no matter how many steps we take away from God, all it takes is for us to turn around and he's right there waiting for us.
And how beautiful of a picture is that, that no matter where you're at this morning, no matter how far you feel like you are, no matter how many steps you know, you've taken away from God, he is right there waiting to reach down and rescue you. Just like he rescued Peter. See Jesus rebukes Peter. Yes. But he made sure he was safe first. See, sometimes I think what we do is we, we put our focus on the things around us, and we try to fix what God just wants us to surrender. We try to come up with all the solutions to everything going on in our lives. And the reality of it is God just wants us to give 'em to him. See, we take, we take things like culture, right? And we try to, we try to, we try to fit in. We try to do what everyone around us is doing or what culture is saying.
We have to do. We, we have these stresses from work where we feel like we have to work overtime because everybody else is doing it. Or maybe we do have to work overtime 'cause our boss is telling us we have to, and it's just, it's weighing on us or, or health, maybe we're dealing with sickness or we're dealing with our family and the issues that we have or the time that we're just running out of, or money that we don't have or school. And we just have so many things that are stressing us out. And none of us ever take, take these things. We never take these stressors and just cast 'em to the side. What we do is we take these things and we hold onto 'em. We take these things and we take them with us everywhere we go, we take these things that stress us out.
We take these things that cause us worry. They, we take these things that, that scare us, and we take 'em everywhere. We go to our family dinner and all we're doing is focusing on work. We're not present. We're not with our kids. And they know that. They know that you're too busy focused on work. You're worried about work, or maybe we're at work and we can't work for the day because all we're doing is focusing on the health of the people around us or our health. And these worries, they weigh on us. And at first it may seem like, man, I, I, I'm okay, I can do this. It's, it's a little heavy, but I, I can carry this around. But over time, what this does is it weighs us down and it pulls us back. And it's Satan's way of keeping us where we were.
It's a constant reminder of the things going on in our lives, and we just keep 'em with us. We're trying to fix 'em. We're trying to find the solution. But God doesn't want you to find the solution. What God asks us to do is to take these things and not hold onto 'em. But all he's asking us to do is to take them and put them at his feet, to put them in front of him and saying, God, I, I, I don't know what to do, but I know that you do. And lay them at his feet. Matthew 1128 through 30 says, come to me all who are labor, all who labor and are heavy laid. And then I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So we're trying to hold onto these situations in our lives. We're trying everything that we can do to find a solution. But I don't know who hear who needs to hear this today. There are situations in your life where you will never find a solution for, man, I'm a fixer. If my wife comes to me and says, she gives me a problem, man, I I'm trying everything I can do to fix it. One of the earliest things that she did, one of the greatest things that she did for me in our marriage was that I, she was talking one day and she looks at me and she goes, can you just listen and stop trying to fix it? She just need to hear it. Or she just needed me to hear her out. Man, how often is that with a, with us, with God, we're just trying to fix everything, but God's just asking us, Hey, can you just, can you just give that to me?
Can you give that to the one who holds all things in his hands? I can control that. You can't, can you just give that to me? And sometimes I think a, a lot of us struggle with what surrender truly looks like because we say that, oh yeah, God, I'm gonna give this to you. But in the reality of it is we're holding the reins back the whole time. We're not truly giving it to him. But sometimes all surrender looks like is giving it to him, putting it at his feet and saying, God, I don't know what to do right now, but I know that you do. God, I have no idea what my next step even could be, but I know that you hold all things together. God, I just need you to help me in this moment. It's then, it's when we surrender those things, when we admit that we don't know what's going on, it's in those times that we can have the peace that surpasses all understanding. Verse 32 says, and when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Jesus rescues Peter, he grabs him, and they walk into the boat. But notice this, the peace didn't come from the circumstances. The peace didn't come from the situation around them. The storm did not stop when Peter walked out in faith. The storm stopped when Jesus got in the boat. Write this principle down. Peace comes from the presence of Jesus, not the absence of storms.
And for so many times we are thinking that if we could just get rid of this situation, we could be at peace. God, if you could just take this away, if this would just go away, if this would just finalize and be ended, it is then that I could find peace. But our peace does not come from our circumstances changing. Our peace comes from Jesus entering our situation. It's then and only then that we find true peace in Him. And when we see Jesus enter our situation in miraculous ways, when we see Jesus do this, there's only one response that we can have. Verse 33 says, and those in the boat worshiped him saying, truly, you are the son of God. Now, this is the first time in the gospel of Matthew where the disciples declared Jesus the son of God. They've heard him say all these things.
They've heard his great teachings. They've heard him, and they've seen him do other miracles. But this is the first time like in the gospel of Matthew that we see it written down. They declare Jesus as the son of God. See, the storm had a purpose in this storm. The disciples saw who Jesus really was. They saw that he was the Messiah. They saw that he was the son of God. They saw that he was who he said he was. Men in our lives, our storms have a purpose. And many times it's for us to see the power of who God really is. And when we do that, when we see who God really is, maybe it's, maybe it's in the moment, maybe it's a year after, maybe it's five, 10 years after. But when we look back on a situation, on a storm in our life and when we see how God came through and our response should be nothing short of worship, we shouldn't be able to do anything short of worship.
If I see God for who he really is, if I see Jesus as the true messiah, as the true savior of my life, my life should overflow with worship. It shouldn't be possible for me to know that and still live a life just ignoring it. But how often do we have a situation? We're asking God to remove it. We're asking God for help in the middle of it. Yet the moment that situation ends, we move on. We're onto the next thing. We're, we're focused on the next issue in our life. We're focused on the fact that we have some peace. Now, instead of giving God the praise when he is the one who brought us through it, he's the one who, who had control over it the whole time. Yes sir. Man, the disciples, when they saw how Jesus acted, when they saw who Jesus was, they couldn't help but to worship. And so how do we live a life in this kind of peace?
How do we live a life where we walk out on Sundays and we have peace on Mondays when we go to work, we have the same peace on the chaotic days after we still have that peace. I'm gonna leave you with four quick walkways today. The first is this, keep your eyes on Jesus. We see this in the story, Matthew 1430. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me every day. Fix our focus on him. Because what Satan wants you to do is focus on everything else going on around you. Satan knows that if you're distracted, focusing on those things you will not accomplish or you can't accomplish what God is calling you to do. But instead, focus on the Lord. Keep your eyes on him. The second is this, talk to God. Philippians four, six through seven says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.
And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. We see Jesus exhibit this and the importance of this in the store today. Jesus retreated by himself to pray. And sometimes I think we, we, we tend to use prayer as the last resort. We tend to use prayer when everything else that we've tried fails. And we're just like, you know what? God, maybe I can't do this, but I think you can. But don't use prayer as your last resort. Use it as our first response. Go to God with honesty. I think sometimes we, we try to polish it up. We try to say, God, I've kind of figured this piece out, but I don't really know how to do the rest. We say, God, I I, I've fixed it up a little bit, but I need you just to come in and and finish it out for me.
God doesn't want our perfection. He wants our honesty. God wants us to come to him and be honest, saying, God, I don't know what's going on, but I know that you do. And I need your help right now. It's in those moments where we can get the peace from God when we talk to him about it. Third is this. And this is one of that I think we struggle with in society. Make time to rest. Psalms 46, 10 says, be still and know that I am God. See, society around us doesn't like rest. It's constantly go, go, go find another thing. Work longer, do more. And because I think society kind of combines rest and laziness, those are not the same thing at all. Rest has a purpose. And we see this in scripture over and over again, how important it's to honor the Sabbath. It's the command for us to rest, for us to just take a time, take, take a moment to, to, to rid ourselves from the chaos of the world around us, to rid ourselves of all the, the voices in our heads, the voices that are talking to us, the things that are pulling at us, and to just focus on God.
So make time to rest. And the last is this, stay close to community. Ecclesiastes four, nine and 10. Just two are better than one because they have a good reward for their toil, for if they fall, one will lift up his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls for he has not another to lift him up. See, isolation fuels anxiety. But godly community strengthens peace. And this is what happens so often in the summer where we're on vacations, we're, we're pulled by travel ball, we're pulled by all of these different things. And we just make up excuses to not be in a godly community on a Sunday, on a Wednesday throughout the week.
But in those times of godly community, that's when a, a neighbor can look at us. A brother can look at us and say, Hey, I'm praying for you and I'm right here for whatever you need. It's, it's in those times that we can do not what the 60% of people say they do. But but be the 40% who say, I know that I have stresses and I know that there's things that I'm, but I can't hold it in. And we talk about them with other people. We talk about them in the body of Christ, and we go to God together.
Be a part of a godly community. Then these things don't promise smooth sailing. These things don't promise that all the burdens and everything's gonna be gone. But what they do promise is that in those moments, we can get rid of the stress that weighs us down and focus on the peace of Christ. 'cause it's Christ and Christ alone who gives us a life to live in joy and in peace that comes from him. I, and I don't know where you are today. What I do know is this. Everybody in here is in one of three categories. You're either just leaving a storm and you're trying to leave it behind you. You're in the middle of a storm right now and there's chaos going on in your life. Or you're neither of those two and you're about to enter a storm at some point. And so, wherever you are, what is your next step today?
Whether you're just trying to prepare for a storm that may come soon, and you need to be prepared so that when you hit that storm, your focus can be on Christ and Christ alone. Or maybe you're walking in here with the weight of the world on your shoulders. 'cause you're just walking through a storm and you don't know what to do. Or maybe you're just coming out of a storm, you're looking back on it and seeing how Christ showed himself in the middle of that storm. Where are you today? And during this last song, I'll, I'll respond however you need. I'll be over by the next step banner. If you're watching online, you can scan the QR code. You can scan the QR code on the seat backs in front of you and go to the next step section and someone will reach out to you as soon as possible. But don't leave here today still burdened and still weighed down by the things that are stressing you out when you walked in. Man, maybe you've been walking in a relationship with the Lord and you've just got some weight that you need to give to him. Or maybe you've never entered a relationship with the Lord and you feel like you're carrying the weight of the world and of the people around you with you and wherever you are today, if you need to talk, I'll be over here or reach out online.