Going through the storms

The Lord put it in my heart to share with you this word that is found in Matthew, Chapter 14, verse 22 onwards known passage, look it up in your Bible there.

Matthew, 14:22. Thanks to the brothers of the sound system. And there it says: “....Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other shore. Meanwhile he dismissed the crowd. Dismissing the crowd, he went up the mountain to pray separately. And when night came he was there alone and the boat was already in the middle of the sea buffeted by the waves because the wind was contrary. But at the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them walking on the sea and the disciples seeing him walking on the sea were troubled saying, 'a ghost', and they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, 'Take heart, I am not afraid'. Then Peter answered him and said, 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water,' and he said, 'Come. And Peter descending from the boat walked on the water to go to Jesus, but when he saw the strong wind he was afraid and beginning to sink he cried out, "Lord, save me." Immediately Jesus stretching out his hand rose from him and said to him, 'man of little faith, why did you doubt?' And when they got into the boat the wind died down. Then, those who were in the boat came and worshiped him saying, 'Truly you are the son of God.'

Bless the Lord his holy word. Amen and amen. This is a wonderful, beautiful passage for many different reasons. It shows us a face of the ministry of Jesus, an aspect of his divinity that is very, very overwhelming, very eloquent, very graphic. And it also tells us about ourselves and how we can interact and relate to that deity of Jesus and how we can navigate situations in our lives of difficulty and crisis.

The passage begins by saying, 'immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat.....'. Why 'immediately'? That expression immediately suggests that something has happened previously to which this passage in question refers. What happened today, why did the Lord tell them after that, well, go and get on the boat? If we look at the previous passage, we see that the Lord has just performed the great miracle of the multiplication of the loaves and fish. It was something impressive. There was also seen the power of Jesus over nature, over matter in a very powerful way.

The Lord finished that time of teaching the crowd, of feeding them. I imagine that it was many hours because they say in other versions of this same event, that the Lord taught them, ministered to the crowd that was hungry to hear his word and late in the hour, the disciples said, 'Lord, let's go now because it's already late, let them go and look for food in another place.” And the Lord said to them, “no, you give him something to eat”. He was testing the disciples. And they told him, 'Sir, how are you going to do that if we don't have, first of all, there aren't any around here, and even if there were, we wouldn't have the money to buy it. If we had the money, there wouldn't be the bread they need either. But the Lord always has a solution. How many know that?

The Lord took time, ministered to them, fed them, sent them away and after that, immediately, he told his disciples to get into the boat and go ahead of him and tell him They will wait on the other side of the sea, it is rather the lake of Gennesaret, a very large lake, the lake of Galilee, very immense.

I've been there and that lake is impressive, beautiful. And in fact, the geography of the area is very similar to what this passage suggests. And I'll tell you why later. But, first that, the Lord tells them, something interesting here: he says that he made his disciples get into the boat. In the English translation it says, 'he compelled them to go', and I looked up the original Greek 'enancasen' which means 'to compel, impel, exercise deliberate influence so that something is done'. And that is for me is very revealing. The Lord ordered them to go, it was not just a casual request, 'well, guys, go away and I'll meet you there'.

He gave them specific instructions to go there. And why is that so important? Because I believe that there was a plan in the mind of Jesus for them to go through that experience. This storm that breaks out in the middle of the sea, I don't think it was a coincidence, or that it was something simply due to inertia. No, I believe, personally, I have no proof of this, but knowing the Lord's pedagogical method that for the Lord every opportunity, every encounter with his disciples was a teaching opportunity. He was a tremendous teacher of pedagogy, a trainer. He was training his disciples as God trains us too.

Do you know that your life is a process of discipleship? Do you know that everything that happens in your life is because God is directing it? Do you know that there are no coincidences in the life of a child of God? When you enter the economy of the Kingdom of God your life becomes absolutely significant, everything that happens in your life has a purpose. That is something that haunts me in life, that sense of God's microcosmic, microscopic management in my life. I have learned that everything that happens in my life has meaning, maybe I don't understand everything but it has meaning, it has a purpose, and God allows it with a purpose.

The psalmist says, 'Where shall I go from your spirit and where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascended to heaven, there you are. And if I made my platform in the sun, behold, there you are. If I say certainly, the darkness will cover me, even the night will shine around me, even the darkness does not hide from you and the night shines like the day.

The word says that God, 'because you formed my entrails, you made me in my mother's womb. I will praise you because formidable, it is wonderful are your works. I am amazed and my soul knows it very well.'

The psalmist is amazed at God's care and attention and intentionality. Oh, if we only learned that great truth that we don't have Christ to verbally tell us, 'Get into that boat, get into that experience, go through that circumstance, have a particular encounter with a person, go to such a university, live in such a country, have a certain accident'.

Brothers, I believe that God manages the small and the big in the universe and in our lives as well and often makes us enter into certain situations. He impels us because he wants us to learn certain things and that is why I think that word that he "made" his disciples get into the boat is important. What they went through was no coincidence, the Lord was, as he often does, he was forging a significant experience for them. It was as they say in English, an object lesson, a living lesson, a drama, a psychodrama is another word we could use, where one kind of plays a certain role and through that role that one plays psychologically, one learns truths and develops certain emotional or mental faculties and one grows in a certain way. Psychologists use these kinds of resources to help people develop emotionally.

And I believe that God is the master in psychodramas. God forges experiences in our lives for us to learn. God is always forming his children. God wants you to be a man, a useful woman, that your life have eloquence, that your life express things. God wants to use you. God does not want you to be simply like those little birds we see in National Geographic, the eaglets opening their mouths for the mother eagle to come and put the food in her mouth. That's good at first but then God wants you to create your own wings and also take to the air, to be useful to the Kingdom of God and that's why he puts you through experiences. And many of those experiences are going to be difficult, they are going to be tests, but God is making soldiers, not golfers. God is forming warrior men and women who know how to use the weapons of faith. Amen.

I see Marta there who nods, at least she is paying attention to me, thank you sister. I know that everyone is here but they are with me, right? But he immediately made his disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other bank, to the other shore. The Sea of Gennesaret, the Sea of Galilee, is not a sea, it is an immense lake and it is surrounded by heights, they are not mountains per se, but they are hills. And it's like a big amphitheater in a sense and it's pretty big but if you stand on any of those hills that are around that big lake, you can see what's going on in the lake itself, and that's important because there's something that we can also learn from them.

Then he told them, look, let me stay here for a while, I'm going to attend, to fire the crowd, etc, and then you guys go and I'm going to meet you on the other side. That other side, for me, is the side of resolution, it is the side of rest, it is the side of arrival after going through difficult times in our lives. It is the side where we work things out and learn our lesson or the monster is tamed, or the disease is cured, or the financial crisis is resolved, or else we just learn something and are more prepared to be more like God wants us to be.

Because many times, let me tell you, not all the endings of the Christian life are one hundred percent good. How many know that? Many times we go... things are not going to turn out the way we want or how we pray for them. How many can say amen to that? right yes? I don't dare tell people who are going through a crisis, 'don't worry, brother, the money will come, the healthcare will, one hundred percent I assure you that you will have it.' my part. I believe in a healing God. I believe in a God who answers the prayers of his people.

I have seen in my life so many miracles throughout the years that no one can deny me that I have a miraculous God, and when I am in trouble the first person I turn to is my Heavenly Father and if he doesn't give me the answer right away, I'm bothering him until I get something, even if it's the peace in my heart to cope with any situation.

But yes, I can tell you that many times not all endings in life are good, in the sense that they are ....... and that we rub our hands with joy because it turned out exactly as we wanted. Many times God will not give you what you want but what you need, but there will always be a resolution, and perhaps through a failure or an illness you will learn something that a man or a woman will do to you. stronger woman in the Lord, you are going to learn humility, you are going to learn love, you are going to learn patience, you are going to learn dependence on God.

In life, I can tell you one thing, that for the child of God there are no failures, there are learning experiences. And the other shore, the other shore can simply be the place where you arrive after a time of difficulty strengthened, you have learned a lesson, you have grown, you have become stronger. Because brothers, if I have learned something in the world, if there is no opposition, if there is no resistance, there is no development. That is an element of the whole universe. If in a drama or a piece of literature there is not what the Spanish called in the 16th century, wrong, if there is no plot, there is no villain, or there is no tragedy, or there is no misunderstanding, or there is no disease or a crisis, there is no novel, there is no drama.

If a work of art does not have darkness and light, there is no beauty. If there is no silence in music, there can be no music. If an athlete does not make an effort and has to push his muscles and fight with a pitcher, as a batter, or with a competitor if he is a runner, or with someone who opposes him, he does not develop skill, yes or no? Everything in the universe requires effort and requires opposition. A student has to deal with exams and tests, a mother does not create life if not through pain and discomfort, a child does not learn to develop psychologically if not through certain psychological stress, separation from the mother, the bottle that doesn't arrive on time.

The world requires pain and negativity for there to be a process. How many say love to that? It sounded weird but it's true. And certainly many times God will make us go through difficult situations because he wants us to develop spiritual muscles, to develop emotionally, morally, ethically. The person who, the Christian who gets used to dad every time he screams, comes and puts the bottle in his mouth, that person will never grow spiritually. I can tell you right away.

We are going to grow many times through the test, the effort, the difficulty. If one day you find yourself in difficulty, do not throw in the towel, but hold on to the Lord and say, Father, I will spend this with you until I reach the other shore. Amen.

The Lord told the disciples, go to the other bank and wait for me there, while I go to the mountain to pray. I love that image on the mountain praying. What Jesus praying? God himself, the Son of God, he had a checkbook there that he just had to sign a check and they gave him whatever he wanted. He was God himself, miraculous, the sea obeys him, he has just multiplied loaves and fish, the demons flee from him, he defeated Satan and is going to defeat death. The Lord prayed for fellowship with his heavenly Father. The Lord prayed to renew his humanity worn out by the ministry, the Lord prayed because he was also a man, he is God and he was a man. Perfect God and complete man, man absolutely full in his humanity. He felt what we felt, he got tired, he felt alone, he felt worn out by the pain of the people who couldn't care for everyone. Perhaps you were feeling overwhelmed by the experience that awaited you on the other side of the cross.

And all those things, the Lord needed to go to the Father and be renewed. We also need prayer. When we're in trials or difficulties, brethren, when we're in life serving others, we better have a healthy prayer life, you know?

Mother, you have a lot to give, you have to give to your children, you have to sometimes share with your husband and cook and work many times and give good advice to your children and sometimes serve in the church. You need to renew your strength in prayer, you know? The person who gives and gives and does not renew is fried.

As a pastor, I have learned that if I don't find time to renew myself in prayer and in communion with God, I burn out right away. A car, if you don't put gasoline in it, stays in the street, right? We have to develop disciplines of prayer, study of the word, communion with God to strengthen ourselves every day, to grow in faith, because God supplies us with his food directly to our spirit when we pray. Praying is not easy, it does not come spontaneously, we have to fight for every minute of prayer in our lives.

And guess what? You also have to plan to be able to pray. I believe that our life has to revolve around prayer and communion with God. I used to tell a young man that I am in a mentoring relationship, that in order to pray one has to make prayer a priority.

For example, if I want to pray and I want to do other things before coming to church, to work or to go to some matter of my ministry, I have to get up very early in the morning, I have to Calculate at least 2 hours of being able to get up before I can leave the house to do all the things that I like to do in the morning. That means and obviously includes prayer, reading the word, from a devotional book, and that also means that if I want to sleep a minimum number of hours, I have to go to bed a little earlier when I can. And if not I have to get up and put on one leg and then the other and raise my back, and then throw myself as soon as possible to wash my face and have a cup of coffee to wake up a bit.

But you have to fight many times for prayer, it is not easy. But I have learned that for me, I am like a diabetic, I need my prayer insulin every day, otherwise I become an unbearable neurotic, my wife can tell you about that. But of course, that never happens to me, I'm just saying it theoretically.

But certainly if I don't pray, the merely temporary perspective, my humanity grows, grows, grows and I forget that I have a God who has said, hey, I'm with you every day until the end of the world. Prayer renews our perspective. There are many things that we can say about prayer, but I like that fact that Jesus was a man of prayer, mind you.

He wasn't going to give God a shopping list, but he did like being with his Dad, having a cappuccino there with God and talking to him and saying, look, Dad was more or less today There, those disciples make me want to hang them all. They're behaving badly, so give me patience, Dad, but we'll see each other soon, don't worry, I'm going there on a ship very soon.

And he liked to have fellowship with his Father and thus he was renewed in his perspective too, eternal. The fact is that he went up the mountain to pray, and there are other things that the Lord does in... In that position... look, he went up the mountain and it is interesting, if you read in another passage, for example, in Mark, Chapter 6 verse 48 says that in a different version of this passage, it says that

“.... and when night came the boat was in the middle of the sea and he alone on land –speaking of Jesus- and seeing them row with great effort....”

Look, 'seeing them row', you know what? The Lord went up to that mountain to pray and could see his disciples in the sea while the poor were there rowing, turning around in that blessed lake. They didn't go out.

Sometimes you have given it that, if it gets into a current you have to hit it and hit it and the boat does what it wants and they couldn't get out anywhere. They were there, they were there for hours in the sea. But how interesting that the Lord while praying could see them. What does that mean? I personally believe that the Lord was interceding for his disciples, he was interceding for them.

And guess what? That image of Jesus interceding, praying for his disciples, is the image that God presents to us of Christ today. In fact, when we confess in the Nicene creed, I think it is, we speak that the Lord is seated at the right hand of God the Father interceding for us. The Bible tells us that Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and that there he intercedes for us.

And the Lord prays for us. The Lord intercedes before the Father for you and me, when we are going through trials and difficulties, the Lord is saying to the Holy Spirit, 'strengthen my son so that his faith does not fail'. And that was... for example with Peter, the Lord put Peter into a crisis experience. He told him, Pedro, not only are you not going to give your life for me, but you are going to abandon me and you are going to deny me 3 times, but you know what, Pedro? He said, I have prayed so that your faith does not fail.

In other words, so that this crisis experience that you are going to go through of denying me and questioning who you are, does not sink you in such a way that you demoralize and separate yourself from me, but instead you learn a lesson. The Lord prayed that this experience that Peter was going to have would strengthen him in faith.

And you know what? When you are in trials, let me tell you something, you are not alone. Christ is by your side. And he is praying for you, he is saying, 'Forward my son, my daughter, continue the battle. Don't give up, I'm with you. I am with you every day until the end of the world. Monday morning and Sunday morning too.' The Lord is with you. And he is there on his throne saying, I have prayed that your faith does not fail. I have prayed for you to win.

The word says that "....before in all these things we are more than conquerors....", it says that "...neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities , nor powers, nor the future, nor what is to come, nor what is created, nor anything, nothing of this world will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.

Nothing in this world can separate us from the love of God because Christ is interceding for us. Your fight, you are not alone, always remember that. I have always said, if for some reason they exile me to the moon, there I know that I get what I need because God is with me, because wherever I go the Lord... that is what the word says.

"... If I made my stand in Sheol, behold, there you are." The psalmist says, "... even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil because you will be with me."

The Lord is with you. Maybe you can't see him because he hides, right? I believe that one of God's sorrows is that he cannot reveal himself to his children in time and space. There is an immense chasm that separates us from the eternal, from the supernatural in its fullness. Sometimes I wish God would give me a clearer word in my times of crisis and perplexity and I ask him, 'Lord, even if it is, geez, throw me a little something, a straw of something. Tell me something, listen to me, don't be so stingy, Papa.'

But the Lord hides because if we saw him too often... Someone has said that 'familiarity breeds contemplate', says the great familiarity it creates carelessness and contempt. God has to work behind the scenes, he has to work in a covert way, but he is always there. Every once in a while he winks at you and gives you something extra to let you know he's with you, but many times he wants us to develop faith and faith is developed simply by believing that he is who he says he is.

If God just gave us everything whenever we need it, where is faith? where is the hope? God wants us to develop faith by confessing his promise and waiting for it. I love Hebrews, Chapter 11, now that I said that when the writer of Hebrews talks about the people, the heroes of the faith, in Hebrews 11. Let's take a moment, and he says here at 11:13 .

“.... according to faith –speaking all these men and women of God- he says, according to faith all these died without having received what was promised, but looking at it from afar and believing it, and greeting him and confessing that they were foreigners and pilgrims on earth...”

I like that about 'looking at him from afar' and 'believing and greeting him'. That is what we do with the promises of God, many times we look at them from afar, like the child who looks at those sweets through the window of the store and puts out his hand as if he wanted to eat it but there is a glass blocking it.

And so, we look at God's promises, but we have to see them as if they were a reality. You don't greet anything that you don't think I could interact with you, yes or no? Because if he doesn't, there's a place for those people who are greeting things that don't exist, you know? But, we believe the promises of God so much that we salute them. Glory to the Lord. And we have to, in the middle of the test, when the devil is telling us, 'look, curse God and die. He told you that he was going to give you that and he didn't give it to you. We say, 'no, I know my redeemer lives'. Hallelujah! And we confess and salute. And we say, 'I know that God is going to get me out of this. God is going to get me out of my trial and my storm and he said that I was going to get to the other shore, and I am going to get there in the name of Jesus, because I have my helper, I don't see him, but I know that he is there and I feel it with my spirit and I confess it.

Many times when we are going through a trial, nothing in this world suggests that God is faithful, and in those moments we have to arm ourselves with spiritual faith and say, "I know that my redeemer lives" and confess with our mouth.

One of the things that helps us, when we are going through times of crisis, is to speak what we do not believe even many times, to confess what we do not feel and although everything is telling us, our biology is telling us, doubt God, stop praising him because he has not given you anything you expected, we say 'No, I know that my God is good, my God is faithful, my God fulfills what he promises. My God pulled me out of the hole once and will do it again. Hallelujah!’

And one remains faithful there. The Lord does what he promises. Hallelujah! "......Those who trust in him will not be ashamed..." The word of the Lord says, "....I was young and I have grown old and I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants that beg for bread... .”

The Lord will never disappoint you if you stand firm in his ways and confess that he is good. Keep your eyes on the Lord, believe and look from afar and salute what God has promised you and you will be able to reach victory.

These men were there, the Lord was praying and he says that the boat was in the middle of the sea buffeted by the waves, because the wind was contrary. How many times in life is the wind contrary to us, brothers? How many times does the check not arrive in time to pay the rent? How many times did the income tax cost us more than we thought, huh? How many times has our son turned out to be a little more rebellious than what our grandmother promised us? How many times has marriage not been as sweet as we thought it was going to be? How many times has the disease not been as obedient to medicine as we thought, or as short as we expected? How many times have we asked the Lord to save my marriage and convert my wife or my husband and it did not happen and the thing did not work out and there was a failure and the wind went against us? How many times are we in a situation and we are rowing in the sea and what we do is go around the same space and we row and we strive, we pray, we fast, we read the Bible, we go to church, we praise, we confess, we consult and always the same side of the sea, the boat circling?

But guess what? the Lord is there on his throne watching and is interceding for you. In life you will find affliction, says the Lord. Many times the wind is contrary to us. This world is inherently flawed, this world is like one of those amusement park mirrors that when you look at yourself no matter how pretty you are you're going to be crooked or too fat or too skinny or too tall or whatever. Because this world is distorted in itself it is. Living in this world already presupposes pain and difficulty. It is so, this is an imperfect world. One day God is going to change it but in the meantime we are going to encounter difficulties.

But we have a God who is with us. The wind is going to be contrary to us many times, brother, and you know what? Many times the test will last longer. These people were here..... Look how interesting, I'm already wrapping this up here. But it says that “....at the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them walking on the sea....”

What is that about the fourth watch? The Roman system of measuring time divided the hours of the night into 4 segments, from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., from 9 p.m. to 12 p.m., from 12 p.m. to 3 a.m. and from 3 in the morning to 6 in the morning. Do you know what time the Lord came to rescue these poor devils who were in the sea spinning around? Between 3 and 6 in the morning. Take that, huh. These people were there rowing, the poor, and confessing to all the saints they could find and asking forgiveness for all their sins they had committed, because they thought they were going to see their Maker. Several hours, and the Lord there looking at them, interceding for them and primed them for the lesson that he was going to give them.

Because you know? Many times, brothers, is what I say, that Christ is a being, God is relentlessly pedagogical. When he wants to teach us a lesson, look, no one saves you from it. You are going to be there telling him, 'Lord, I can't take it anymore, I'm going to fall.' And he says 'No, keep going, you can still a little more'. 'I have no strength left, you already took everything out of me...' 'No, no, there is still something there that I want you to try and learn'.

And the Lord there, because God is training warriors. God is not training turkeys, he is training eagles. Amen. God wants you to be strong and learn faith, learn trust, learn to fight, and purify yourself. Do you know that many times the crisis purifies us? My life has many crises, they have cut me, they have broken me, they have scratched me from the inside, like those chickens that you take out all the entrails of, excuse the graphic image, but many times God puts his hand into your entrails and pulls you out all that filth that's there through trials and difficulties, so you'll be clean, so you can serve it properly. And tests are great for that, you know?

And he keeps you there in the fiery furnace, sometimes longer than you want. But you know what? he arrives, he arrives at the right time. Many times, that is one of the great themes of Scripture: the God who takes his time. There are many sermons that could be preached on that subject.

When Lazarus was dying, do you know what the Lord did? The Lord went to an amusement park to make him die, a very dead man, and then left him there until he smelled bad. He knew he was going to do the miracle, but he wanted it to be a well-done, well-done miracle and he waited until no one could say, 'it's not that he got a headache and was there in a coma and then the Lord just he blew on him and he caught air and he revived'. No, he wanted Lazarus to be dead, really dead and so he goes and revives him so he can display his power and his fidelity.

And so many times, God expects us to be up to our necks in water, here, the Indians are already shooting arrows at us and we, 'where is the cavalry that they told me was going to come?' We don't have room for one more arrow in the car and then it arrives, and we hear the trumpet and here comes the lone ranger to rescue you and get you out of trouble. Amen. Glory to God. The Lord arrives, arrives at his time. Many times God will not arrive when you want him to arrive, but he will arrive in the name of the Lord. He will not disappoint you, he will arrive.

I think we could title this sermon like this, 'He is going to arrive', in due time he arrives. And he came to the disciples walking on the sea, brothers, it was not in a motor boat, no, no, he came walking on the sea. Because? Because he wanted those people to know that he is the owner of nature. He is above the storm, he is above death, he is above the wind, he is above the waves. He is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. There is no problem that he cannot solve, there is no crisis that he cannot attend to. There is no difficulty that he is not the teacher. There is no disease that he does not say 'be healed', and there is no healing. The Lord wanted to leave humanity a graphic image of his absolute power, of his lordship over time, space, nature, matter, atoms, everything.

Many people have wanted to excuse. Just today I was reading the commentary of a great commentator, Barkley, whom I respect very much, and I noticed, I discerned in him a desire to soften a little that scandalous and anti-scientific image of God who walks on the sea. Many people wanting to apologize for the daring of the image, have wanted to say that the Lord was close and that he was only two feet, and that he was really walking on the earth, and I don't know what, I don't know how much. The Lord rebuke that lie of the devil. The Lord was on the sea, walking on the sea. Since he defeated the devil, as he defeated disease, as he defeated death, as he did great miracles of multiplication, why would he now put a half-baked miracle there? No, he wanted to say, 'Look, I am the Lord of everything, every situation, every difficulty, and I can help you.'

What did the Lord say to his disciples before he left? He said, “...all power is given to me in heaven and on earth therefore go....”

In other words, do you know why you can go to life? Because Christ overcame everything. Christ has power over all things. That is what gives me my confidence to get up in the morning and get in my car and venture into this cruel world in which I live, it is because Christ has power over heaven, over earth, over demons, over about sickness, about lack, about my own fallen nature. The Lord is sovereign. Hallelujah!. All power is given to me in heaven and on earth, therefore go and get into the boat because you are going to reach the other shore because I have said that you are going to arrive and we are going to meet there.

I love that chorus that says: “...he who started a good work will be faithful to finish it...” Hallelujah! Glory to the Lord. The Lord is with you. The Lord, he reigns over the storm. He is the king, the Lord of all storms.

When the women went to the grave wondering, who will roll away the stone for us? Because they wanted to bless the body of their teacher, and they did not know how they were going to be able to move that huge stone that prevented them from having contact with their teacher. And what happens? The Bible says that when they got there, an angel had rolled away the stone and sat on the stone. Amen. He had removed the stone and sat on it.

I have always said that God likes those images of authority over obstacles. He sat on the stone, not as a coincidence, but as if to say, 'look, I have control and dominion over every obstacle that stands between you and your Lord, every situation in life.' remove it, but to sit on it. The Lord not only has power to help you in the midst of the storm, but to walk on the storm. And like Peter who said to him, 'Lord, if it's you, let me walk in the storm too' and the Lord told him, 'well, amen, come on Peter, if you have the pants to do it, I'm going to bless you and you're going to do' And while Peter looked to the Lord and walked looking at the Lord, he was also able to walk on the same storm that Jesus was walking on.

And you know what? If you keep your eyes fixed on Jesus, you too can walk on the sea, you too can do the same things that Jesus did. The word says "....that the same works that I did and even greater, will be done because I am going to the Father to intercede for you...".

You too can live a victorious life. Hallelujah! You can defeat evil. You can beat the disease, you can beat your own nature. The Lord wants you to be more than victorious and that you live life every day rebuking demons, knocking down giants, making walls fall, closed, well closed, because he is your helper and your strengthener.

"...I will never leave you, I will never forsake you...", says the Lord, "...I will never take away my right hand of justice to help you in every situation..."

I ask you, Father, help me to believe in you when I am going through the tribulations, the tests. Help me keep my eyes on you, because if we take our eyes off him then we are lost. Thank you guys please. We are going to start preparing to receive this word in our hearts. We have a faithful Christ. Hallelujah! Give glory and honor to the Lord. A Christ who tells us, I am not going to exempt you from going through the tests, but I am going to give you everything you need to reach the other shore, because I have all power and I want to teach you to be a man. a powerful woman, a warrior, who wears the full armor of God.

When the tests come, when the bad day comes, you don't make yourself run away, but say, ok, time to gird my tunic with the belt of justice, time to take the sword of justice. word, time to take the breastplate of faith with which to quench all the darts of the enemy, time to put on the helmet of salvation that tells me that I am saved in Christ Jesus and time to serve the Lord also, with the shoes of the Gospel, because while we are going through trials, if we serve the Lord the stronger we get. Glory to God.

Soldier, you're in that battle, put on your armor. God is with you. You know what? A final thought occurs to me, and it is: all this that has happened, it didn't have a chance last Sunday because it was father's day and it was not appropriate in a sense, but, all this that has happened with the marriage and the apparent defeat that we have received with the denial by legislators of the amendment proposal to maintain marriage as the union between a man and a woman, for many that could be demoralizing, but you know what? I am possessed of great hope that the Lord has an even better plan, you know? That he simply wants us who are rowing in the sea to spend a little more time in the sea, but in time he will arrive and he will do something much better than what we expect.

He wants to show that he is the Lord of the storm, not our strategies, our efforts. We can do many things, we have made an effort, we have worked, but I have learned that the soldier, because he loses a battle, does not give up.

Just last night I was reading about the Revolutionary War, George Washington, in the year 1781 I think it was, it was the worst year of all. The battle of the revolution against England seemed totally lost. The colonies had lost one battle after another. They were demoralized, Washington was almost throwing in the towel and everything seemed absolutely dark, and yet at that moment a series of situations occurred that suddenly changed the entire course of that revolutionary process. And by the end of that year, practically, the English had recognized the independence of the North American colonies because that is how it happens in wars. A war is not won with a single battle, sometimes it takes years, but we know that we have a faithful God, Lord of history, Lord of circumstances, Lord of time and space. He does not do things because we ask him how we want to do them, he is sovereign.

We propose and God disposes, says someone out there. So we continue the battle, we don't get demoralized. We have a God who always has something up his sleeve, as they say. He always has an answer to every situation, that's why we can move on. Glory to the Lord.

We are going to stand up and we are going to receive in our spirit that promise of faithfulness from God. I want to say to my God, 'Father, thank you because you are faithful, because you are good. I don't know how many years I have left in this life but I want to spend them all with you, every day of my life, I want to spend it close to you, Lord. And even if trials and difficulties come, and old age comes with its ailments and all its problems, and even if things don't go as well as I expected, but I am going to confess that you are good and that your mercy is forever and that you you will be with me, that you started the good one, and that you will be faithful to finish it. That maybe I will go through the storm but you will come walking on the waves and you will reach out your hand and you will take me out and you will make the storm stop.

Believe it, warrior of God, warrior of God. Perhaps you are going through a time of trial and difficulty, but God is with you.

God is with you. If you are a warrior and God wants to shape warriors. I'm telling you, hold on to the promises of God. You have a good God, you have a God who has a fatherly heart, you have a God who never violated a single one of his promises. It may take longer than you believe but God is with you. He is a faithful God and he will pull you through, he will make sure that you arrive at the other side and meanwhile you will have learned great lessons of faith and you will have become stronger and wiser and humbler and more able to minister to others and to share the goodness of God and the lessons of the faith. This is the God that we serve. He is a good God. Do not give up in the midst of struggles or trials because God is there even when you don't see him or feel him. You have to confess him by faith.

Even if you don't feel or see its presence, believe it, confess it and greet it and you will be able to reach the other shore. We thank you Lord. Now I receive it in the name of.... Receive that portion of encouragement that God wants you to have in the name of Jesus. We banish all anxiety, all fear.

Right now, we just take away and we rebuke and deny every feeling of anxiety or of fear or of depression in the name of Christ, or failure right now in the name of Jesus, we let go of that and we receive the blessing of God, we receive the affirmation of his faithfulness. We receive intimations of his goodness. Hallelujah! Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. We adore you, we bless you, Lord. Thank you. And I hope that you have that Jesus who is the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords in your heart this morning.