In the Lake Alone - Bishop T.D. Jakes

i'm going to go to the gospel of saint matthew chapter number 14 verse 22 through 33. there is a life lesson even in the turmoil that i told you we were having behind the scenes and i came out and told you about it because often the people in the restaurant don't know that the oven blew up there's a great deal of difference between being out front and being in the back amen and i told our people i said we're going to go on the the best way to respond to crisis is move forward you might

not have everything you want to have it may not be lined out but just if you keep moving forward if you keep moving forward god will work out everything if you keep moving forward that's a sermon all by itself amen when i got in the building it was hot but we kept moving forward that my people have been up on the roof they've been everywhere but we kept moving forward are we going to go through a service yes we're going to move forward if we have to bring fans in here if i have to get

a mahalia jackson fan and fan like we did in my grandmama's church we're gonna move forward you got to be a fighter you can't just be a churchgoer you got to be a fighter come on talk to me somebody this is good this is good this is good i'm excited i'm excited i'm excited i'm excited uh honored to the lord and to uh all of our associate pastors that are here give god a praise for our associate pastors to our elders to our deacons to our members our saints our friends our visitors we're just glad

for everybody i trust you feel welcome i want you to feel welcome uh in this place and and don't think of this as a sermon think of it as a conversation in the gospel of saint matthew chapter number 14 verse 22-33 there you will find an almost embarrassingly familiar scripture and yet there is something to extrapolate from this text that is fresh the story is known but the perspective is fresh and it is fresh because it is the bread that god has caused to fall in front of our tents this morning to address where we

are this morning in our lives and the reason we come to church is not to sport a gucci bag i'm not i'm not throwing off if you got one i'm glad you got one it looks good but we did not come to see affinity watch what we came to do is to get the sustenance we need for the times we are in he that in the ear let him hear what the spirit is saying to the church now our customers should stand for the reading of the word and we won't bother you anymore after that

you can sit the rest of the way you can even duck walk out of here if you get ready to leave okay but the gospel of saint matthew chapter number 14 verse 22-33 and we come into a very unique moment immediately jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd watch that closely i'm going to read it again immediately jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him where to the other side while he dismissed the crowd

after he had dismissed him he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray later that night he was there alone and the boat was already a considerable distance from land buffeted by the waves because the wind the wind was against it oh god shortly before dawn jesus went out to them walking on the lake when the disciples saw him walking on the lake they were terrified it's a ghost they said and cried out in fear but jesus immediately said to them take courage it's me it's i don't be a friend lord if it's you

peter replied tell me to come to you on the water come he said then peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water and came toward jesus but when he saw the wind he was afraid and beginning to sink cried out lord save me immediately immediately immediately suddenly straight away without hesitation jesus reached out his hand and caught him you of little faith he said why did you doubt and when they climbed into the boat the wind died down then those who were in the boat worshiped him saying truly you are the

son of god can you say man i want to use for a subject in the lake alone in the lake alone let's pray and then we'll be see the spirit of the living god delicately gently like do fall in this place today anoint these lips of clay that they might be endowed with the power that's necessary to articulate the word of god i thank you in advance for your omnipresence but even more specifically for your manifested presence manifest what is already here not just in the room but in the hearts of your people for many

of us have found ourselves in a perplexing time in the lake alone speak out of the volume of that book oh god in jesus name amen you may be seated yeah let's talk let me begin by saying for the last 10 days or so i've been i've been living alone my wife has been at the bedside of her brother and i want to ask special prayer for him his name is ray williams actually aldo ray williams and uh if god does not intervene uh he is likely to transition without our prayer and without god's intervention

and we are at the point of just trusting god but she is at his bedside now that has been difficult for her and for us and for our family and and for his siblings and for all our loved ones and most of you know what that's like because you've been there some of you know what it's like to spend day after day after day after day in a hospital room watching someone slip away in pieces is traumatic all by itself and so every time i text her i tell her i can feel your heart beating

in my chest meaning i can feel her pain without talking to her because i know her 40 years you you melt into each other like ice on a hot day it is impossible to separate the cubes when they start to melt so i told her i said no matter how long it takes i'll be here when you get back okay but i have to confess to you that i'm used to being the one gone and it is a striking difference when you're the one left home alone when you look when you're the one gone you

are preoccupied with whatever you want to do and you might think of the person and miss the person but when you're the one left home alone after after after a few days the house seems hollow and and meaningless and empty and and and there's a strange type of persecution that comes out of aloneness are you hearing what i'm saying to you yeah it's not that we're we're hanging all over each other like you do in the first five years after 40 years you don't have to hang all over each other she might be on one

side of the house i might be on the other it is just the knowledge of knowing that you are not alone all of a sudden what she had been telling me about me traveling began to ring strong in my ear she said when you're not here i double lock all the doors and i set the alarm system and i'm more apprehensive and i don't sleep as well because i am a woman alone and it's one thing for a man to be alone but it is more threatening in some ways especially in the contemporary society in

which we live where people have have literally uh lost their minds for you to be alone aloneness is a difficult thing to deal with for any gender or age aloneness is the punishment that they uh extend toward inmates murderers killers gang leaders crumble and weep like babies in solitary confinement see it's it's it's it's a different thing to be alone and it's another thing to be trapped if you are trapped and alone then that exponentially intensifies the agony of the moment and yet we realize that to some degree even those of us who have not

spirit experienced isolation in the prison or aloneness in the home we are going to a time right now of being alone even in a crowd even with a spouse even with children even with friends calling in facebook and instagram and tick tock and all of the methods whereby we can communicate linkedin it doesn't matter how your linkedin you're still left out alone with your thoughts along with your ideas along with your frustrations along with your limitations along with your aggravations alone with yourself dealing with whatever you've got to deal with because not all storms fall

like rain not all storms come with wind not all storms come with lightning or thunder it is possible to have an emotional storm an intellectual storm have you ever gotten into an argument with yourself i have gotten on my own nerves i have told myself i am sick of you are you stupid have you lost your ever loving mind why are you so crazy and there's nobody talking and my lips don't even have to move i can argue with my self we come to a point in life that we begin to realize that no matter

who is around us we can no longer relegate to other people the responsibility for our contentment it is not her job to make me happy it is not my job to make her happy because sometimes she doesn't know what she wants we can spend 15 minutes trying to decide where to go to eat and another 20 minutes trying to decide what to order and sometimes i don't know what i want i know i want something i know something is missing but i cannot have the the the intellectual ability to articulate the abstract feeling that i'm

having even to decide what is bothering me and i realize that although i have a partner i am yet alone so single people think if i only got married then i wouldn't have to be alone only to get married and get over into the marriage 10 years and find out that if you don't perfect aloneness that marriage is not the antidote come on somebody if you can't be happy in a room with you don't invite me into your unhappiness [Music] because people who who cannot find peace within themselves actually invite you into their drama and

their drama becomes your trauma and sometimes though you have the same address and you live in the same house and you pay the same property taxes you are still alone in the house to escape the drama in the room down the hall you'll get it tomorrow and so this this this this particular text is is an unscheduled encounter with god it was not on the agenda it was not on the itinerary he he did not uh tell them that this was going to happen this is something that seemingly happens by happenstance you see we are

this text is in between miracles there is a miracle waiting for them at genaceret but they've got to get to it my god you do know that there's a miracle waiting for you but you've got to get to it and there is a miracle behind them of the fish and the loaves but that is over and according to the text jesus has now sent them to go get in the boat while he sends the fed people away this will tie into wednesday night very well he has finished the miracle and he says go get in

the boat and go to the other side while i send the people away he did not say to them go get in the boat and wait on me he told them to go to the other side and we step into this text because this text happens because they obeyed him and got into the boat but they did not complete the mission and they got stuck at this nebulous point between two miracles i know that god has been good i know that god will be good but i'm trying to get to next and that's where all

hell breaks loose it is not in the miracle that all hell breaks loose it is in between the miracles that all hell breaks loose when i look back over my life i have a long extensive resume that god has provided of the many things he has done in my past and when i look into my future and my legacy i have some things that are almost within my reach that i haven't quite touched yet if it's nothing but my children and grandchildren and the hopes i have for them there are dreams and prayers that have

gone up before god in an attempt to reach and to touch and to help and to minister to them but sometimes i find myself in a hard to describe place between miracles this is what makes difficult the conversations that you have in relationships when people say what are you thinking because it is hard to articulate what you are thinking when you are neither here nor there when you are in route but haven't reached your destination when you are nautical miles away from where you've been and still nautical miles ahead of where you are going and

you are stuck between two places it is hard to explain to people where your head is at where your mind is at what is going on in your spirit when you are neither here nor there it is into this extreme condition now that we experience this unexpected encounter with god now now in the king james version which i did not read i read from the niv because in the niv it calls it a lake but in the king james version it calls it a sea and because i have always known this particular body of water

as the sea of galilee and i had really to be honest growing up in west virginia i had never seen a sea so my imagination conjures up this huge massive area of such massive proportions that when i went to israel for the first time and they took me down the winding roads in the mountains to the side of the seashore to see the sea of galilee i found out that the sea was actually a lake most and generally if i were to preach this text i would go into the the ability that peter has to

step off of the boat and step into the water and walk on the on the one word that jesus said when he said come he i'm not so sure that he walked on water as much as i think that he was walking on the word when jesus said come but before i deal with the fact that the word will hold you up in what other people sink in allow me the luxury to pontificate to study to analyze to to to to to consider to contemplate to imagine to understand the question that arises in my mind

when i read this text it's not so much about how peter walked on the water but the real question for me is why are they still in the lake if you have 12 men in a row boat trying to get across a lake let me contextualize it especially for the people in dallas the sea of galilee is not quite as large as joe pool lake okay if you got on a boat on joe pool lake and decided to cross over to the other side i just don't think it would take all night to get across

to the other side this is not a long journey in fact you can see the other side from the seashore and some of the torment is is when you're close enough to see where you're going but you don't have the ability to reach where you're going and they are stuck in the middle of something they should be finished with and i thought i would talk to you about being in the lake alone jesus did not tell them to wait for him he told them to go on to the other side so for them to not

be there yet brings up the anxiety and the frustration that emerges in the heart of an individual who has seen where they're trying to go and can't get there it is the kind of conversation you have with yourself when you say i thought i would be there by now is there anybody else in the room who thought you would i i in my plan in my head with the inspection that i made with my eye i thought by the time i was 30 i would be there i thought by the time i got 40 i

would be there i thought that by the time i was 50 i would be there so not only am i dealing with the storm i'm dealing with the disappointment of the fact that that i had estimated incorrectly because i underestimated what all can happen between here and there i didn't see this the contrary winds that would be against me when you start talking about things you never thought you would see coming you have to realize that we are living in a moment that we thought we would never see coming i don't know about you maybe

you did i never thought that we would see over a million people in body bags so big that our morgues couldn't handle them and our funeral homes would stack them up in trailers and lay bodies in hotel rooms in america maybe in war in beirut but not maybe in vietnam maybe maybe in iraq or iran but in america i never thought that we would see bodies stacked up faster than we could bury them i never thought that i would see a time in the history of my life after a hundred years without any type of

plague or rampant disease of the magnitude that we saw when covid hid it had been 100 years since we've seen it and yet in the last three years we have seen so many variations of it that by the time you get over one you had another and by the time you get over another you got yet another and i never thought i would see the time that i would have to protect myself even from people i love i never thought i would see that i never thought that i would see people scaling the walls in

our nation's capital scaling the walls in protests about to do a coup on the vice president in america and when i watched it on tv i thought it was a movie but it said it was the news and all of a sudden i was rattled because i didn't expect this kind of contrary wind the kind of contrary winds that shut bought down big box stores like toys r us and closed down all types of industries the kind of contrary wins that you can pay for overnight mail and you might get it two weeks later i

never thought the time would come that we wouldn't have enough trucks that we would be able to make deliveries that we would have that kind of uncertainty i never thought that i could book a flight for a plane and not be able to board the plane because there wasn't enough pilots to fly me over to the other side i never thought that we would fight over everything imaginable amongst ourselves in our own country and literally hate each other over a piece of paper over your mouth i never thought i would see the kinds of time

that big businesses would go bankrupt that the stock market would go down and not just nationally but globally i never thought the time would come that france and europe would catch a fire and california would catch a fire and the middle of the country would catch i never thought that we would see tornadoes in dollars hurricanes in dollars ice storms in dollars people freezing to death in dollars i never thought i would see that in my lifespan i never thought that we would settle to see our children murdered in school and it become a normalcy

or political debate to save babies in a classroom i never thought that we would disagree about that i never expected to see it and these people never expected to still be alone in the lake there are people in this room who never expected to lose their mother and and yet they lost her suddenly or slowly or fragmentally or emotionally or mentally and the pain and anguish was there because i know it makes sense that she should go first but the fact that she did somehow i thought she was invincible somehow i thought she would last

forever somehow i thought she would always be there so i didn't go over every saturday and i didn't stop by and i wish i would have called more often and i wish i would have spent more time but before i knew it time was up time up she's gone i there are people in this room who understand they never thought the day would come that their heart would would be broken by somebody that they had laid in bed and told all their secrets to and yet they find themselves in a situation that their secrets have

gone to somebody else's bed and they would be left alone laying in the bed wondering if they're talking about me i never thought i was is there anybody in this room who's going through something in your life you thought you'd never see i thought i'd never be backed up on my mortgage i thought my car would never be repossessed i thought i would never lose my home i thought if i had a degree surely i would have a great job i thought that if i had a great skill surely i would have a great job

i thought if i was a good man surely somebody would want a good man i thought if i was a good woman somebody would surely want a good woman i never expected to see the kind of storm i'm in today i'm praying about stuff i took for granted yesterday and i found myself alone in the lake i never thought my daughter would turn against me i never thought my son would grow up and hate me i never thought my grandchild was still out of my pocketbook i never thought is there anybody in here who's humble

enough and willing to admit that you're dealing with something that you never thought would happen [Applause] and if i had thought it would happen i would have been better prepared if i thought you would leave me i wouldn't have told you my business if i thought you wouldn't stay with me i wouldn't have been as transparent as i was if i thought you would betray me i wouldn't have confided into you as a friend if i thought you would go back and tell your girlfriend i wouldn't have told you my business if i thought if

i thought if i thought if i thought i would have saved more i would have put more back if i thought i could lose my car if i thought i was going to get laid off if i thought they were going to downsize if i thought they were going out of business how do you prepare for an attack in the part of your life that you never saw coming and the bible says that they should have been there but because of the contrary wins the contrary win anybody face contrary wins almost everything i've ever gone

to do i always had to do it in contrary wins if if you fly to l.a and you expect it to be a three-hour flight and the pilot comes on the speaker and he says we will be there in two hours because of the winds behind us and you say well it's two hours now from dallas to l.a but when you get ready to fly back from la they say it's going to be three and a half hours because we are flying against the wind is there anybody in here anywhere in the balcony somewhere in

the back somewhere who has had to fly through contrary wins it feels as though everything that comes easy for other people comes hard for you because every time you try to get there there's always something pushing against you that's slowing down your progress and i should have been further and i should have been married and i should have been more successful and i should have been more accomplished don't judge me you didn't have to go against the kind of win i had to go against to get where i am how dare you look down your

nose at me and act like i don't have any fight and i don't have any fuel and i don't have any tenacity you didn't have to deal with the kind of wind is there anybody in here besides me that's outraged at people who judge your life and brag about their accomplishment without assessing the wind that was against you in the middle of the fight and maybe just maybe just maybe just maybe just maybe you should forgive yourself maybe you should forgive yourself for not being further considering the contrary winds that were against you in the

first place the odds were stacked against you in the first place the trials were against you in the first place [Applause] every day i'm just hustling hustling hustling every day i'm just hustling hustling and hustling every day i'm just hustling and hustling a hustler every day i'm [Applause] monday tuesday wednesday thursday friday saturday sunday and i am still i am still alone in the like i'm sweating in the lake my arms are tired in the lake i'm 30 years old and exhausted my people at i'm 40 years old and i'm starting to feel old because

i've been hustling hustling hustling hustling hustling hustling and hustling and i know my house doesn't look like it and my life doesn't look like it and my love life doesn't look like it and my bank account doesn't look like it and my investments don't look like it and i know my credit doesn't look like it and i know my circumstance don't look but the contrary winds have changed the time of arrival and the pilot was late and there was a problem with the plane and the crew got there late and they left my bags at

the terminal and all the damn just this tax happens in this environment this people live in this environment i should have been further the marriage for all the work i put into it should have been further for the way i love that child you mean you gonna stand up and talk to me like that when i worked two jobs and got off and went to your pta meetings and went to your recitals and sent you places i couldn't afford to go myself and mr ballet and mr opera and miss everything i wanted to do to

make sure that you had an opportunity to if you're going to buck up at me like you lost your mind i worked hard to expose you to everything i wasn't exposed to so that you would benefit from the opportunities that i only dreamed of and the response i get from you you you if you don't get up out of my why am i real people at i got time i got time to talk to no church folks today i want to talk to some real people i don't want to talk to the saints i want

to talk to some real people who understand the frustration of being alone in the lake and now i'm getting older and now i'm getting tireder and you don't even come see me and you 40 and you want alone i thought if i got you to 21 you would be giving back to me and at 40 you're still ex you're blaming me for your struggle hey have you noticed you're a grown man have you do you know you're a grown woman and all of these are contrary wins that are against me because i didn't just have

to make your payment i had to make mine i had to make mine and yours and hers and his and help them with this and that and the other and no i'm not ready to retire because i invested in you and now i am alone in the lake if i'm preaching the right message give me 30 seconds of crazy praise [Music] the other day i was uh i was uh on a zoo in fact every day i've been on the zoo i have zoomed out and somebody on the zoom there were four people on the

zoom and one of them was talking but we couldn't hear them their face was frozen and they didn't know it though they were expending the effort to communicate the impact was not coming through because the screen had frozen and the conversation was proceeding without them frozen stuck and they didn't even know it see this text my brothers and sisters is about faith and it's about fear and it's about being frozen sometimes frozen and you don't even know it sometimes frozen and you don't even realize it because you are expending the effort but unable to measure

the impact somebody has to come and tell you you froze the truth of the matter is 12 disciples are frozen in a zone with jesus they are frozen and he is waving the 5 000 away i feel like preaching they are frozen and jesus has gone apart in the mountains the same mountains i came down to the sea of galilee he had climbed up into the mountains to pray when i came to the sea of galilee on the side of the mountain was a shepherd tending his flock in the same sense jesus the chief shepherd

had gone up on the mountain to pray seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are not in genesery because they are frozen wait a minute let's talk about how bad jesus is jesus says you take the boat i walk over considering the size of the lake and considering the command to go on to jenasserat jesus didn't start walking to meet them in the water but to join them in jenasary jesus bad y'all jesus defies the law of gravitational pull he transcends the law he is the lawmaker he walks on what other people drowned here that's

what i love about jesus i am so glad pastor tudman that i don't serve a god i have to carry i am so glad that i don't serve a god who is depending on my hustling i don't have to carry jesus jesus so when jesus finishes praying he starts walking across the lake no doubt headed for genesery but finds that they are frozen are you stuck i know you're alive but are you stuck i know you still talking but are you stuck it is possible to still be conveying information that is not being received because

you're frozen you measure yourself by effort but god judges by impact so you say how in the world could i roll this hard and be stuck is there something wrong with my oars that they're not responding to my effort because it's taken me all night to do something i should have done in a few hours have you ever considered that you might be stuck see can i go further the reason you are comfortable in this building right now is because you know whenever you get ready to leave the doors are open you can go but

the moment somebody change all the doors and tells you you are stuck all of a sudden you become disturbed by the knowledge that i have gotten into something i'm going to go deeper i'm going to go deeper i'm going to go deeper i'm going to go deeper because i just struck a nerve right there it is much easier to get in than it is to get out have you ever got into something that you couldn't figure out how to get out of if you do this it's going to cause that and if you do that

it's going to cost the other and if you do this it's going to create this and that's going to be worse and there you are just ruined even though you're not getting anywhere even though you don't want it even though you don't want the relationship even though you don't want the friendship even though you don't want the job you keep rolling every day in the same place because you are frozen friend you are stuck now the wind is blowing and the lightning is flashing and the thunder is rumbling and the sea is tumultuous and they

are stuck surely the waves should have pushed me but they were pushing against me if i wanted to go back the waves would have taken me back all i have to do to go backwards is let go oh do you hear the words that are coming out of my mouth you don't have to take a class to go backwards you don't have to take a class on how to fall you don't have to take a class on how to fail all you have to do to go backwards is let go in fact success is still

being in the middle of the lake because if the waves had their way you would be back where you came from in the first place i want to talk to people not successful survivors people who survive you didn't get to where you were trying to go but you refused to go back to where you came from i wonder if there's anybody in here you wish you were further but you're glad you're not where you came from you might not have all to show for it but at least you made progress give him 30 seconds of

crazy holy ghost supernatural pray [Applause] praise him praise him praise him praise him praise him i'm stuck but i'm still here i'm stuck but i'm still here i'm stuck but i'm still here and sometimes success is just being still here i'm not where i want to be but i'm not where i used to be i haven't got there but at least i'm not over here to god be the glory for being alone in the lake because at least i made progress from you should have seen where i started from you should have seen what i

was up against you should have seen how much was against me you should have seen how i should have lost my mind the very fact that i'm on the boat is a testimony to god somebody in this place that's still [Music] [Applause] [Music] you're tired but you're hustling you're tired but you're hustling you're weary but you're pursuing you're disappointed but you're still fighting give yourself a hand clap for yourself come on come on come on praise him for yourself lift him up for yourself would it hurt you to turn my mic up lift him up

for yourself give god some praise for yourself i know you're not internacerate but at least you're not back where you came from and i want you to celebrate right where you are [Applause] i'm gonna praise him for survival i'm gonna praise him cause i'm still here i'm gonna praise him cause i still got my right mind i like to die i almost went crazy but i still got my right mind i'm a praising for that i got no gucci watch i got no stiletto shoes i got no final home but i still didn't lose my

mind and i got my legs and my strength somebody give god a grateful prayer [Applause] somebody somebody i know i won't get everybody here jesus didn't get everybody only one leper came back to say thank you so if i can get 10 of the crowd to come back and say thank you in the middle of the lake let the one that came back give him a praise the one that the one that's healed the one that's blessed identify yourself come out of hiding and give god some praise [Applause] [Applause] what i saw when i read

the text is that this is an unexpected encounter wait a minute before you sit down fist bump seven people and tell them jesus is coming jesus is coming jesus is coming jesus is coming when you're stuck jesus is coming where you're isolated jesus is coming where you've been frustrated jesus is coming where you been alone jesus is coming where you've been tired jesus is coming at the point of muscle fatigue jesus is coming you got mental fatigue but jesus is coming you got financial fatigue but jesus is coming anybody glad to see jesus make some

noise [Music] [Applause] oh devil you thought you had me but jesus is coming up suicide you thought you had me but jesus is coming frustration you thought you had me but jesus is coming i can see him [Applause] [Music] here come jesus tell your trouble here come jesus tell your pain here comes jesus tell your defeat here comes jesus tell your frustration here comes jesus praise him like you know who he [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] sit down let's go further [Music] rachel in all the years i've been studying this text i never i never saw

that this was an unexpected encounter jesus never told them he was going to walk the water they never expected to be stuck at a stage in life that you expect it to be more successful now now listen let's let's define success because some people just say girl he's not talking to me my finances are good my education is fine i went to yale i graduated from harvard i'm doing quite nicely thank you i'm glad to hear you encourage the little people who are struggling here but shut up success is not a degree it's not a

document it's not a certain amount of money there is somewhere in your life that you are not successful whether it's money or not what we do is hide our own success behind our successes so we laud what we're good at and we go home and cry about what's not working you can be a successful attorney and feel like a failure as a father you can be a successful judge and feel like a failure as a wife you can have public success and private failure you can have success in your business and be sick in your

body you can be successful in your practice and have a nervous condition that nobody knows about everybody in here has some area in your life that you need a visitation from jesus so stop being arrogant and come down zacchaeus out of your tree and admit that you come up short somewhere and you need jesus if you didn't need jesus you wouldn't be here if you didn't need jesus you wouldn't raise your hand if you didn't need jesus you wouldn't pray if you didn't need jesus you wouldn't clap there they are in the middle of the

lake and they are they are alone in the lake i got into something i can't get out of no matter how much i try and roll and push and shove i'm in the lake cologne what are you thinking about nothing i can't tell her that i'm trying to figure out how to get out of what i'm stuck in i can't tell the church i can't tell the pastor i can't tell the bishop i can't tell anybody that i'm stuck i'm frozen on the screen and i can't figure out how to get unstuck i check the

plugs i checked the wiring i hit escape i hit re-enter i logged off i logged back on i can't get enough signal i want to talk to somebody who's stuck it is so much easier to get into something than it is to get out of it i leased the car i got in easy when i got ready to take it back i was furious because the fine print was designed for me to be stuck in the lake and the guy grinning at me made me angry because i knew he set me up to be stuck

so i've had faith and i've had fear and now i'm frozen in a contract then i'm going to have to buy my way i don't you have to be upside down and alone to understand the illustration i'm talking about is there anybody in here ever been upside down upside down and alone yeah it was good when you went in wasn't it here comes jesus i speak to you today in the name of the lord that you will have an unexpected encounter with god that is going to break the chain over the thing that has left

you alone in the lake the thing that wakes you up at night and has given you insomnia and you can't get rest no matter what you take or what you drink or what you do because you are frozen in the lake you are going to have an unexpected do you receive it an unexpected encounter with jesus because he's going to reach you right where you are thank you lord for being a god who can come to me when i can't get to you when i can't reach where you called me to go and i can't

do what you told me to do thank you for coming to me when i can't get to you now here's the challenge can i go deeper here's the challenge you must recognize him when he comes because he doesn't look in trouble like he looked on land the bible said that when jesus came to them walking on the lake they misunderstood the answer because the answer looked like a ghost the problem in this text is that religious people don't recognize god's answer when he doesn't look like what you've been taught he should look like sometimes god

will answer in a form that challenges your theology god will use somebody that you didn't think god would use god will speak to somebody that you didn't think god would speak to and you'll be afraid to receive it here comes jesus and his own children are scared to let him in the boat because they think he looks like a ghost so god told me to tell you you better recognize you better recognize when i come to get you i might look different but you better recognize because your next encounter will not look spiritual will not

look christian will not look like what you had in mind but i am coming to get you out of it whoever's been stuck i want you to praise him like you just got out of jail i'm coming to get you out i'm coming to get you out i'm coming to get you out i'm coming to get you out i'm coming i'm coming i'm coming i'm coming i'm coming to get you out [Music] and peter decided to try the spirit and he said hey lord if that's you give me permission to come you have permission right

now to step out of the boat of your failure and step out of the boat of your fear and step out of the boat of your incapacitation it's gonna be scary it's going to be frightening it's going to be transitional it's going to blow your mind your friends are going to tell you you lost your mind but get ready to step off the boat you've been rocking in that boat for years it's time to step out somebody take a step this is your season to take a step into the supernatural this is your season to

step out into what you've been afraid of this is your season to defy the laws of gravitate this is your season to step out of the familia peter is a boatman he knows how to handle a boat but he's never walked on water this is a season to do what you've never done before who am i preaching to [Applause] excuse me nike but fist bump somebody and say just do it [Applause] just do it stop talking about it stop singing about it stop dancing about it stop praying about it and just do it if god

gives you a word a word from god is all you [Applause] [Music] sister dyer this is a time of disruptive thinking this is a time of innovative ideologies traditional methods will not work what got you here will not take you there you've got to step out of the boat to have an encounter with god on a territory you've never been in before something that is disruptive unexpected you're gonna walk where fish swim the fish are gonna be shocked to see your toes cause you're getting ready to step into an area that you've never stepped into

before oh god and that's why you had to be here this morning because i have a prophetic word for you you're getting ready to step into another dimension you're getting ready to step into another zone what worked on the boat won't work on the sea you can't stand up in the boat but you can stand up in the water and god's gonna give you the power to do what you couldn't do before every time you tried to stand in the boat you robbed the boat that's why they don't like you you're a boat rocker your

feet weren't made for boats they were made for water step out into the deep i feel the spirit of innovation i feel the spirit of disruption i feel the spirit of creativity i feel god calling you where you've never gone before that's why he drew you here this morning this word is confirmation this word is confirmation this word is confirmation kiss the boat goodbye you're getting ready to step out [Applause] [Applause] [Music] you gonna look like dorothy in the wizard of oz you won't show up in another dimension in another place where you've never been

before you're gonna be running around with munchkins you're gonna be running around with people who don't even get it you gotta break your societal construct you got to come out of your circle you've been hanging around the same 12 people long enough you're gonna have to break it to another dimension look at somebody say i'm coming in you don't have to like me you don't have to hug me but i'm coming in i spent too long rocking in the same place i got to step into another dimension i'm tired of your jokes i'm proud of

your humor i'm proud of your ideas i'm proud of your limitations scared or not here i come i'm going to go out even if my hands are trembling i'm going to step out even if my knees are knocking out i'm going to step out even if i have to leave my friends behind me [Applause] he called me to do this he anointed me to do this he gave me permission to do this i will not die like i started somebody help me praise him in here just a little while the devil didn't want you to

get this word he tried to shut us down but the devil is a liar i may not be on the stream but i'm anointed in this room in the name of jesus the power of the holy ghost is in this place this is a rhema word for this house [Applause] watch this 11 people stayed on the boat one of them stepped out peter oh loud mouth peter was used to being one out of 12. you're gonna be one out of twelve you're gonna be the only one in your family you're gonna be the only one

in your sorrow you're going to be the only one in your fraternity you can't get their permission to do it you just got to respond to the word of god and take a step peter was used to being 1 out of 12. he was 1 out of 12 out of 12 disciples he was the only one to cut the year off the roman soldier he was 1 out of 12 glory to god yes he was when jesus asked who do you say that i am peter was 1 out of 12 who said thou art the

christ the son of the true and living god when the lord needed somebody to preach on the day of pentecost peter was 1 out of 12 who preached the inaugural message of the dispensation of the holy ghost and when it came to stepping off the boat he was practicing for his next big adventure step step step step if you can't give up your friends you can't go with jesus if you can't give up your crowd you can't go with jesus god says stop idolatrizing your 12 friends and step off the boat who am i preaching

to [Applause] my next f is focus in order to be disruptive and innovative you have to focus your greatest enemy hear me i know this from experience your greatest enemy is distraction the closer you get to the next dimension the harder it is to focus things will happen to the left of you and the right of you the east and the west of you to draw your attention away from your focus peter walked as well as he focused if you lose your focus you will seek in what god called you to walk in so don't

respond to the naysayers don't respond to the criticism don't respond to the crisis don't respond to the chaos keep your focus focus focus is what lets me preach without notes they can shut down my equipment but they can't shut down my focus i made the notes the notes didn't make me and if the devil thinks for a minute that my mind isn't bigger than my paper he got another thing coming my paper was blank it was my mind that wrote it and if i focus i don't need a note i don't need a piece of

paper i don't need an image on the screen because everything that was written this head wrote it and as long as i got this head i can preach this gospel somebody shout focus [Applause] the text comes to teach us to focus don't let anybody break your focus all of them people who's calling you bringing you bad news are trying to make you fall if you respond to the problem you have lost your focus the problem is not strong enough to stop you from the prophecy until you focus on it i call it false victory to

win the battle and lose the war is not a victory why do i care what you think what does that have to do with where i'm going how many of my bills do you pay how much breath did you put in my lungs how did you make the blood run through my veins your opinion is overrated your opinion is none of my business think whatever you want to think i'm gonna keep moving now listen closely because the last two or three things i'm gonna say are real important your focus is under attack your focus is

under attack you have to focus on your outcomes not your issues your outcomes keep your how in the past focus focus focus focus this is the word of the lord to the people of god and for some reason god wanted the people in this room the people who extended the effort to get in the car and drive and come out into the weather to be here this word is for you somebody shall focus now think in your mind of all the things that are trying to distract you and delete delete delete delete delete delete block

block block block delete block delete block block delete block delete block block i gotta focus next point i want to tell you is that as long as peter focused he broke all the rules with focus the people who are the most successful in life in business in church in preaching in ministry in soul winning i don't care what it is in archaeology and architectural designs or people who focus the people who write the best books are the people who focus the people who are the best students are the people who focus and your problem is

you are so busy being in with the 12 and keeping up with the rumors and keeping up with the gossip the lord told me gossipers are not your audience i did not call you to preach to the naysayers and the catfish down in the mud i call you to preach the gospel focus as long as peter focused he walked on the water he only began to sink when he lost his focus and the falling of peter is the freezing of his mind because i want to ask you a question what is peter doing sinking in

the water no it's not just that god told him to come there's a bigger point peter could swim peter jumped off the boat and swam to jesus up under pressure you forget what you got the only reason peter is sinking is that he forgot he could swim never mind god could save him peter could swim and under pressure you will forget who you are you will forget what you got you will forget what you know and you will sink in something that you could swim in he could swim to jesus you say well maybe the

the winds and the waves were so contrary he couldn't swim no the bible didn't say he tried to swim the bible said he began to sink swimmers don't begin to sink they begin to swim and the lord told me to tell you that if you can't walk on it swim through it holly if you can roll you can swim don't forget what god gave you in the middle of the lake you can swim no wonder jesus said oh gee of little faith you didn't even use up all you had i never will forget i was

a young man i was with my father we were carrying boxes up a flight of stairs and he said the most simple thing to me but i never forgot it it stayed with me all my life i was let me see i was on the back end of the box and he was on the front end of the box and he was going up the steps backwards and i was going up forward so i could see and he said something simple to me that was metaphorical powerful and stayed with me all my life he said

don't forget to breathe i said breathe he said yeah when you got a lot of weight on you are y'all getting this is it as good to you as it is to me this is a filet mignon when you've got a lot of weight on you your first impulse is to stop breathing and just carry the weight but if you breathe you renew your muscles you oxygenate your blood system your circulation system acts at maximum capacity and you can that's why weight lifters push out and in because oxygen is related to strength and daddy told

me when you're up under pressure i need you to keep breathing and somebody's frozen and falling because you stop breathing you know what breathing is breathing is not just taking care of what you're focused on is taking care of you to get there you can become so focused on where you're trying to go that you forget to take care of you while you're getting there and so if you care if you're not careful you will get there and lose you and what good is getting there and losing you when my wife left i still had

a nice house but i didn't have a home because the difference between a house and a home is somebody to share it with without her in the house it's like being an artist in a room full of blind people being a musician to the deaf what will it profit you to get there if you lose them it's them you're doing it for so you can't stop breathing you can't freeze and forget what you can do you're good at knowing what god can do but i asked myself peter why are you sinking and not swimming even

in contrary winds if you can swim you can swim did you forget this is the holy spirit's question to you did you get so stressed you forgot you could swim and he cried out lord save me and the lord the bible says immediately jesus stretched forth his hand and we miss that because we act like jesus was right there but he stretched he stretched god could stretch i i could preach it i could preach let me just play with participate in just a minute just a minute see isaiah said who have believed our report and

to whom is the arm of the lord revealed jesus is god's arm jesus is god stretching to a dying humanity when god got ready to stretch his arm he said jesus born of a virgin he is the incarnation is a stretched out arm of the father reaching to a dying humanity what happened to the lake is a picture of what happened in the world it is god stretching forth his arm the arm stretched out to save him that is what jesus is the arm of the lord his right hand and his holy arm have gotten

him the victory he stretched forth his arm and came where peter was watch this in our clothes and took him by the hand and walked him back to the boat when they got back in the boat watch this the wind ceased the wind ceased not when they got to genasurit the wind ceased when they got back to the boat which says this was all a controlled test so the final thing the lord told me to tell you is what looks like he's out of control he's being controlled he he puts you in this situation in

a controlled environment to show you how you respond to contrary winds how you respond to the wind is how you turn success into being alone in the lake everyone standing everyone standing i've said several things to you only if you can hear them i've said some things to you that are cut to the continuity of where you are in life right now where our country is where our world is where we are eschatology wise our eschatological understanding of the times says that we are nearing if not into end times i never thought in all my

life when i started preaching at 19 that i would get to see the book of revelations line up with my paper i never thought that when the bible talks about that the earth would burn with fervent heat that that sounded like ridiculous and now i see fires breaking out all over the world that we're unable to control and the climate is getting hotter and hotter and hotter and hotter and we seem determined to keep making money even if we burn up how in the world did a prophet 2000 years ago prophesy the heat that the

earth is burning i went to alaska i went to alaska and when i went to alaska the glaciers were amazing i came back two years later they were gone they were gone these huge glaciers with these polar bears were gone the planet is melting this ain't no time for you to go a horn this is no time for you to go into it self-indulgence and be selfish this is a time for you to wake up we are having an encounter with god of massive proportions when they told me they texted me before i got here

and they told me the heat had gone out the air had gone out and the system didn't shut down and then when i got here they gave me updates and then they said we got to announce to the people what's going on and we'll have somebody and i said no you won't because leadership speaks in a storm there is a difference in my voice and other voices in this house and if there's something going on i will speak to you if it's worth talking about i will speak directly to you and tell you what to

expect i said pull out every jug of water we got fill it with ice put it in the lobby put it where they can get it i bring out some gatorade so i don't lose my electrolytes while i'm preaching and we will go on and have church [Applause] because the more the wind blows against me the more i know i've got a word from god [Applause] i've talked to you about faith i've talked to you about fear i've talked to you about falling i've talked to you about focus the bible said when they got back

to the boat they all rejoiced even those who didn't get off the boat and said surely this is the son of god and they entered into a praise without an experience i told you the only way what you went through is a failure is if you didn't learn anything from it you remember when i told you that last sunday i told you that last sunday hear me good you can talk about peter all you want but in all of history peter is the only disciple who knew what it was like to walk on the water

with jesus the apostle paul wrote most of the new testament epistles and he never walked on the water with jesus peter oh unlearned peter was the only one who knew how to survive in the storm and i don't care what you know if you don't know how to survive in the storm it means absolutely nothing at all the lord told me to focus on your focus as i come to the end of this message he told me to focus on your focus i want you to focus on your focus i want to suggest to you

that 80 of the things you're worried about do not deserve your attention if you journal and you go back to your three-year-old journal what was a big problem back then ain't nothing right now if you're worried about anything that's not going to affect the next decade of your life throw it out focus isn't hard it's a matter of knowing what to let go of you trying to fix people and change people and make people do what you think they ought to do you're trying to be god in people's life no wonder you exhausted [Music] you

everybody's god stop you didn't break them and you can't fix them it's hard for me to learn that too i'm a fixer i love to fix stuff but some folks you don't want to be fixed they like being broke they choose to be broke and you love them but you can't fix them i'm talking about people down the street i'm talking about people you love in your own house that you can't fix that keep you up at night and make you want to throw up because you're so scared for them they'll figure it out you

figured it out you was a fool too and you figured it out and if your crazy self figured it out give god an opportunity to work with them without you getting in the way focus this is why god wants you to focus i don't know what's happening to me these days he's talking to me in a different kind of way now than he used to talk this is what god wants you to focus is because there's a miracle waiting on you and you have got to get through this to get to that i am not

preaching to be preaching preaching is not the only thing that i do or can do i am called to this i do not want to expend effort and not see impact you are the measurement of the validity of my ministry paul said ye are my credentials you are living epistles your life change your perspective change your catching a halt to the vision is proof of my authenticity if not i'm frozen and i don't know it how many of you are identifying changes you need to make right now [Applause] i am going to pray because when

you are the closest to genaceret the storm will get worse after a while you will learn by the intensity of the attack the authenticity of the call why would hell attack what it already had that's stupid russia won't fight russia if you are worthy to be attacked you are worthy to be effective count it all joy the bible says when you fall into diverse temptations because that means satan has noticed you he has noticed you every person who has an ear to hear lift your hands up as i pray father god into thy hands i

commend this people i rebuke all the feelings of being in the lake alone the loneliness the feelings the emotional components of it the frustrations all of those emotional upheavals are distractions we acknowledge them we admit them we release them we let them go we don't have time to be stuck in a perpetual pity party we might not can stop the storm but we can walk on top of it and i pray today in the name of jesus that lives are changed and hearts are mended and homes are restored and ministries renewed and for god's sake

give us our focus this is not about the winds this is not about the waves it's not about the lightning this is not about the people murmuring back on the boat this is not even about jesus looking like a ghost this is about you have given us permission you know why i know i got permission i can breathe i'm alive i'm still here i'm not in a bag or a box you gave me another day which is permission to do exploits i will do them not only i but they will do them too i let

god let faith rise in the heart of every person in this room it has been a long long time since you have put me in a position to preach to this room alone i will not fight against what you ordered i am not addicted to the numbers on the screen or the people around the world i am addicted to obeying whatever you decide and if you decide that this is a rhema word for the people you call to be in this house i receive it as such i accept it as such and i dismiss every

distraction that would make me worry about anything else it has been many years since i have spoken to this room alone and if you called us aside and gave us this word there must be water walkers in this room there must be water walkers in this room there must be water walkers in this room there must be water walkers in this room there must be water walkers in this room let everything that have breath praise the lord [Applause] [Music] you