I Didn't Sign Up For This | Ryan Kramer

Well, if you've got your Bibles, turn with me to Matthew chapter 8 as you're making your way there. I had an opportunity years ago to be able to go to Kenya on a missions trip, and I can't tell you how excited I was to be able to make this journey. My role on this trip was to take pictures and video footage to be able to capture the story of what we were doing as a church in Kenya and to be able to bring it back to be able to tell that story to our church. And leading up to this trip, like months leading up to it, it's all I could think about. Like I just, I kept talking about where I was going, kept talking about the orphanage that we were going to be working with and the ministry and the people that were involved. It was all I could think about was where I was going. And then it came the day that the trip started, and we got up and drove to Tampa airport, the whole group of us, and got to the Tampa airport, jumped on a plane from Tampa to New York, then spent a few hours laid over in New York, and then jumped on a flight from New York to Amsterdam, then had several hours layover, then jumped on a flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi, and then we had to go through customs, and then we had to travel to get to our hotel. And we're talking over 35 hours of travel time from the moment it started. I left the house to the moment I got into the bed at the hotel room. And needless to say, we were exhausted. And then you add on top of that, that they were seven hours ahead of us. And so, my body was just all over the place. And I'm going to be honest, when we got there, I was not thinking about orphans. I was not thinking about the ministry we were going to do and all God wanted to do. I was thinking about one thing, and that was my bed. I was thinking about getting in bed and going to sleep. And as I kind of look back and reflect over that experience, I noticed something. I noticed that I spent way more time thinking about where I was going than I spent thinking about what it would take to get there. And I was thinking this week, like, we do that in life a lot.

We think, we spend all of our time thinking about what it's going to be like when we get there, but we don't really spend that much time thinking about what it takes to get there. We got to think about marriage, right? And everybody in the room that's married desires, wants a healthy marriage in their life. But we don't often think about the selflessness that is required to experience it. We want to experience financial breakthrough in our life, but we don't really think about the discipline that it demands when it comes to our spending and our cash flow. We want God to open a door in our life, but we rarely think about the season of waiting that we all end up having to go through before we experience the open door. And what God has been really showing me and just teaching me in this season that I've been in is this idea that if you're going to get to something, then you're going to have to go through something. If you're going to get to something, then you're going to have to go through something because every promise has a process. Every breakthrough that we pray for, we desire for, it has a burden that we have to carry. Every miracle that we're praying for, it has its moments before the miracle happens, and that's where a lot of us get stuck, isn't it? A lot of us get stuck in this place where we love the idea of what God is wanting to do and where God has taken us, but we don't always love how He gets us there. And that's exactly where we find the disciples in Matthew chapter 8. Jesus had given them this destination to get in the boat and to go to the other side. It seemed like a simple request. It seemed like a simple destination, but before they got to where they were going, they experienced experience something that they never saw coming. And what they ultimately learn in this journey towards the destination that God had given them, what they learn in that journey ultimately will change the way that they see Jesus forever. And today I wanna take some time and I wanna look at a miracle

and I wanna look at this idea that sometimes the storms that we experience in our life, that sometimes Jesus isn't just wanting to calm the waters, sometimes he's wanting to reveal himself to us in a deeper way. So we're in week three of a series that we've called That's Crazy. And we've called it That's Crazy because of the crazy miracles that we see Jesus do throughout scripture. But on this journey, this series, what we're wanting to do is we're wanting to take a closer look at each of these miracles, but we're wanting to lean into these miracles and what Jesus was wanting to show and reveal to people about himself. And so today, if you're taking notes, I've given it this title that we're gonna be talking from today. I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up for this. I didn't sign up for the season that I'm going through. I didn't sign up for all the trouble and the things that are coming against me. I didn't sign up for this. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this time that we get to have together. And Lord, as we open your word, Father, I pray that our hearts would be open,

our ears open, our eyes open to what your spirit wants to speak to us today. Lord, we give you full permission to do whatever you want to do in this place and in our lives. In Jesus' name, amen. So the gospel of Matthew is written primarily to a Jewish audience. And what Matthew is trying to do is he's trying to help this Jewish audience understand who Jesus is, the promised Messiah. And he's wanting to communicate to them what does it look like to be a Christ follower? What does it look like to live your life seeking first the kingdom of God above all else? Now, by this point in the gospel in Matthew 8, by this point, the disciples have seen Jesus like teach with authority. He's preached the Sermon on the Mount. Crowds are just gathering around and following them everywhere. The disciples have seen Jesus do miracle after miracle after miracle. And so by this point, their confidence in Jesus and who he says he is is starting to build, right? There's all this excitement that is building and momentum for the movement in which Jesus is leading. And as we kind of parachute into this moment here in Matthew 8, before we read verse 23, Jesus says in verse 18 that when he sees the crowd

begin to gather around, that he instructs his disciples to get in a boat and to cross to the other side of the lake. And what seems to be a simple request from Jesus is about to become a defining moment for the way the disciples see Jesus for the rest of their life. It says in verse 23 that Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. And suddenly a fierce storm struck the lake with waves breaking into the boat, but Jesus, he's sleeping. Now, if you were to go to Mark chapter four and to read Mark's perspective or telling of the story, he shares an interesting detail, and that is that Jesus is laying his head down on a cushion. So the disciples, think about this, they're in a boat and going with Jesus, and all of a sudden this storm pops up, and Jesus is asleep with his head on a cushion in the boat. In verse 25 it says the disciples went and they wake him up shouting, Lord, save us. We're gonna die. to drown. And Jesus responded, why are you afraid? You have so little faith. And then he got up and he rebuked the wind and the waves, and suddenly there was a great calm. The disciples were amazed. And look what they say, who is this man? Even the winds and the waves obey him. I want to highlight three things that are observations from this text this morning that I think apply to our lives as well. The first one is this, is that following Jesus doesn't exempt us from storms. Doesn't exempt us from storms. You know, we all tend to ask the same kind of question when we're facing difficulty in our life. And usually that question revolves. It looks something like this one. What did I do wrong? Like,

where did I, where did I mess up? When the marriage gets hard and the diagnosis comes and our business is starting to struggle or we're praying all these prayers and they never get answered, life, life just doesn't make a lot of sense. Our instinct in life is to think that we missed God somewhere. And I want to, I want to say real quick that oftentimes our instinct is to view other people that way too. That when they're walking through a storm in their own life, the assumption that we tend to make is they've done something wrong to cause them having to go through what they're going through. And I'll say sometimes that's true in our life, right? I've made plenty of stupid bad decisions that have caused me to have to walk through storms in my life. Like sometimes it does happen. Sometimes we experience storms because of our own poor choices. In the Bible, you think of Jonah, Jonah experiences a storm because he was running from God's calling on his life. And the storm came to cause him to redirect his life into align it with what God had for him. But what we've got to notice in this story is that's not what's happening here. It's not what's happening here. The disciples aren't outside of God's will. They are right in the middle of it. Jesus is the one that told him to get in the boat. Jesus is the one that told them to go to the other side and they are being faithful and obedient to what Jesus is asking them to do and how he is leading them. And still yet they experience a storm in their life. I mean, I wish that I could stand up here and say, if you will pray more or trust God enough or obey what he tells you to do, or just love Jesus deeply in your life that you're never going to experience a storm. But that's not what scripture teaches, is it? You see, we experience storms one of two ways. We experience it as a result of our disobedience. But the one we often overlook is we also can experience storms as a result of our obedience. And I think that's an important point because some of you today might be walking through a difficult season that you don't understand, that you can't wrap your head around and you're quietly wondering, did I do something wrong? God, where, where did I miss it? And maybe you did something wrong, but maybe not. Maybe the storm isn't because you missed God. Maybe the storm is because you are following God. The second observation that we've got to look at in this text is that they overestimated the storm and they underestimated Jesus. Did you notice that in the text in verse 25, the disciples went and woke him up shouting, Lord, save us. We're going to drown. Now they had, they had

already seen Jesus heal the leper. They had already seen Jesus heal the centurion's servant. They had already seen Jesus. cast out demons they had already seen Peter's mother-in-law get healed and now they're in a boat and a storm is coming and they look at Jesus and they're like we're gonna drown now it could be easy to give these guys a hard time with their reaction to the storm but I I just want to I want to present to you today that they weren't just experiencing an average Florida afternoon thunderstorm like when you look at that word storm in the original language in the Greek it's the word seismos it's where we get our English word seismic right it's the rating by which we rate earthquakes that is the meaning of the word seismos is earthquake and I think what's interesting about this word is that where it has been used in Scripture that this word seismos was used and I want to point out two specific places in Scripture today it was used once when Jesus died on the cross and as he gave his last breath seismos happened across the entire planet an earthquake happened that's the word that's used in the Bible when it's talking about that moment and then another moment in Scripture was when the stone was rolled away from the tomb and Jesus resurrected that this word seismos was used in that moment as well so we're not talking about just kind of a normal storm that you you kind of throw up the umbrella and you endure for you know five minutes and you're good we're talking about a significant storm that they experienced these guys weren't exaggerating it was a real dangerous storm and so their fear in this moment is completely understandable and it's important for us to understand that as it relates to this moment and their experience because faith faith isn't denying the size of the storm in our life faith is remembering the size of our Savior you see sometimes we can have this impression that our faith is weak when we're struggling in a season or with something that is in our life that we're hoping for or believing God for and and that's not the case faith isn't isn't kind of putting your hand head in the sand to the situation that you're experiencing but faith just never loses sight of who's in your boat right for the

disciples the storm was was raging but they in this moment forgot who was in the boat with them I believe God wants somebody to know today that finds himself in a storm that just because it feels like you're going under just because it feels like everything is caving in around you just because it feels like every time you take one step it's two steps backward just because it feels that way doesn't mean that God has lost control in your life don't ever forget who's in the boat I think the third thing that we see in this text and this is probably my favorite one out of the three is that the storm revealed more about Jesus than the shore ever could you see for the Jewish people the sea represented much more than than water for them they looked at the sea and it represented danger and chaos it represented the the unknown and so when Jesus stands up and he rebukes the wind and the waves it's it's way more than bad weather that that these guys are experiencing in this moment you see I want you to notice how the story ends I want you to notice what the disciples ultimately end up saying when when Jesus calms the the storm they don't say wow what a storm that's not there that's not their reaction after Jesus does what what he does they don't say man what a miracle Jesus they don't say that notice what they say Who is this man? Who is this man? That's what Jesus is trying to show them here, that the miracle wasn't about common to see, the miracle was them seeing who Jesus really is. Our storm revealed something about Jesus that they could have never experienced or seen from the shore, and friend, that's one of the reasons why God allows us to walk through challenging and difficult seasons in our life. Not because He enjoys watching us hurt, not because He's nowhere to be found, He's absent, not because He's punishing us, but because God wants to do more in us than He does for us. Like God allows us to walk through storms and experience that in our lives, even in the moments that we are being obedient, even in the moments that we're doing our best to

follow Him, but He does it because He understands that there are some things about the person of Jesus that we can only see and understand in the storm, not from the shore. You see, I think that that's maybe one of the challenges that we have in today's day and age in the church culture, because we want convenience so much, because we want ease so much, that it puts us in this place to where we're never really in a season where we have to just put ourselves out there. Like we don't today, we don't have to flex the faith muscle a whole lot, if you think about it. And what God knows is that there are things that we have to walk through in order for us to be able to see Him, not as the Bible study Jesus, not as Grandma's Jesus, but as a Jesus that has authority over everything in our life. And we just don't have that kind of depth of relationship with Him today, because to me that's one of the reasons why we don't see as many miracles today, is because if you think about it, miracles require something, right? They require a difficult season, a difficult experience, and they require a level of faith or determination to where we put ourself out there and we're like, God, we are trusting you in all things, right? And we just don't often go to that extreme in our faith, and so God knows. He knows in our life that, yes, we may experience storms because we've been disobedient and we've missed it, but there are some times because we are in the middle of His will for our life that He wants us to navigate a difficult season because He wants to reveal Himself and who He is in our life in a deeper way. When I think about my own life, I'm going to get a little personal here with you. See, most of my life I kind of prayed the same thing when I would experience storms in my life, like, God, what did I do wrong and God get me out, right? Like quickest way out of this mess is what I'm wanting, God. And that's where I found myself earlier this year. Earlier this year, I found myself in a place where the storm felt so unmanageable, so overbearing that I just, I wanted out. Years of, years of living in a fishbowl and the criticism and the expectations and the

pressure that just kind of comes with that, honestly, I just… I started becoming a person that I didn't want to be. I started becoming more cynical. I started to become guarded with people. I was constantly in this posture of feeling defeated. And every week, what would happen is, every week, I would try to come up here and to give hope in a service or in a sermon while I was struggling to even have it myself. And I would slip off backstage after a sermon, after two or three services, and I would just disappear. I didn't want to be around anybody. And after some conversations that I had with my counselor, we sat down with the deacons. And he was on the Zoom call. And I'm just sharing. I'm just being vulnerable about my storm because I want you to see that it's not just a sermon, that I've lived it. I'm experiencing it. And I sat down. Anybody thankful for godly counselors that can point you in the right way? And we sat down with the deacons. And I told them. I was like, guys, I'm not in a good place. And honestly, if it wasn't for Andrea and for my counselor, I probably would have quit ministry altogether. In fact, I had already told my parents and Andrea's parents that I was done.

Not done at TC, done ministry altogether. Like, I was done. And my counselor in this moment, he's like, Ryan, you can do that. That's one option. He said, but I've counseled lots of pastors. And here's what I would tell you is that if you don't walk through a process of healing, then it doesn't matter where you go or what you do. You're going to carry that around with you everywhere that you go. And I understood. I agreed. I still like, have you ever gotten to a place where you're so hardheaded? You're like, you're right, but I'm not listening to what you're saying. Like, I was like right on the edge of that. I mean, my hands are sweating because I had already told family I was done with ministry. And Andrea's like saying the same thing on the Zoom call. And I said, OK. I said, I don't want to, but I trust that you guys are able to see something that I can't see in myself right now. And I'm going to trust that. And the deacons were gracious enough to give me time. The staff were amazing to step in with zero guilt and to just carry all kinds of extra weight that they don't normally carry.

You guys were awesome to give us space to be able to walk that out in our own life. And I remember two weeks into the sabbatical, I remember the Lord speaking to me. And I remember Him saying, Ryan, I'm not done with you. And I'm going to be honest, like, those words in and of themselves would typically not be enough for where I was. But those words were mirrored. And it's so hard for me to articulate this, but it was like, maybe you've been there before, but the words came. But then it was almost like coupled with those words was the deep understanding that He was going to help me walk the painful journey that was ahead. So it wasn't just words. It was like this empowering of knowing that He was going to help me get through the storm that I was experiencing in my life. And it was after that moment for me that my prayer really started to change. It went from, God, get me out of this, to this prayer that I really want to challenge you to pray if you find yourself in a storm that you're wanting to quit, you're wanting to walk out. And the question, the prayer, is this, God, what are you trying to teach me? What are you trying to teach me? What are you trying to show me in the season? And it was in the sabbatical season

that I navigated three lanes. One lane was counseling to just help with the mental health stuff, and the other lane was leadership coaching to help me learn how things that I need to change in myself in order to lead at a higher level. And the third one was this soul care. And it was this, I was introduced to a book and a course called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. Funny story is, is I signed up for that like three months before the storm started raging. And I signed up because I thought it might be something worth looking into for our church. And I got into the first class, it was an eight week class, and I got into the first class. And I told my little small group that was in that class, I said, God has such a sense of humor because he knew that I wouldn't have signed up for this for myself. So he used this idea of the church could use it in order to get me into it, where now it's all about me, it's not about the church. And I was introduced to something in that course that I want to show you, and I'll probably end up doing a series on this later. But I want to show you because it became such an aha moment for me, such a game changer. And it's this chart that kind of maps out this thing called the wall.

And it's these stages of faith. And in our lives, stage one is we have this awareness of God. That could be the moment that we gave our heart to the Lord. And we have this awareness of God. It begins to start disrupting our life a little bit. Stage two is we start reading the Bible. We start maybe getting in a small group. We start kind of growing a little bit in our faith. Stage three is the active part. All of a sudden now, we believe that God wants to use us, and maybe we're serving on an usher team or a production team or worship, or we start to serve. And then here's what happens. And it happens to all of us in our life. Happens to all of us multiple times throughout our life. We hit what's called the wall. The wall represents a season, a circumstance in our life that is kind of catastrophic. Maybe it's a divorce. Maybe it's a spouse that was unfaithful. Maybe it was a job that you needed so much to be able to provide for the family. And all of a sudden, you lose it. And now you're like, what do I do? Maybe it's a diagnosis from the doctor. It's something in our life that disrupts all of our life, and they call it the wall. And what happens is that when we hit the wall in life, we have one or two options. We either bounce back off, and we never get through the wall,

and we stay in that stage one to three phase for the rest of our life. Or we lean in to what God is trying to teach us. And through the power of the Holy Spirit in our life, He guides us through the wall. And as He begins to guide us through the wall, we go on this journey that's inward, where we're beginning to look at ourself. We're beginning to ask some of the hard questions. We're beginning to look back at our past and our childhood, the things that might be generational, right? Like your dad was an angry person, an angry drunk. And you're like, I never want to be that. And then now you find yourself struggling with anger and drinking, right? It's these kind of, I wouldn't call them a generational curse. They're just, they're things that we're exposed to in life, and we never get freedom from them. And it takes us on this journey where we start digging inward to those kind of things and beginning to identify some things. And as we begin to find healing in some of those areas, then it's through that healing that all of a sudden that journey begins to come outward. And as we begin... and to take this journey outward, and we begin to take what God is doing in our life and the ugliness of it, and we begin to talk to other people. We begin to use our life to make a difference in the lives of others.

We begin to use our story to make a difference. I think one of the ways that you know that you have gone inward and you've successfully navigated the wall in a season of your life is how comfortable you are to be able to share it with people. Because when we don't navigate the wall, it all stays in. There's this beautiful passage in scripture that talks about how God walks us through healing walks us through healing in our life so that he could use us to bring healing in others. There's something about the healing that God does in our life in the inward that begins to bring transformation in the lives of others in stage six is that's when you really start tapping into that transformed life and I remember them sharing this the stat they said that and I don't know how accurate it is but they shared the stat that 80% of believers they hit the wall in their spiritual journey and they never pressed through it. And I just like it was like it became so such a moment for me personally but such a moment for me as a pastor because it was like I began to see like hey God you wanted to teach me some things about me and about you in this storm. One so that I can get freedom in areas but secondly so that you can use me help other people find and experience freedom.

For me the wall wasn't because I stopped loving Jesus it wasn't because there was some secret sin in my life it was because Jesus wanted to reveal himself in a deeper way that I could have never experienced from the shore. And looking back what I see from that experience is that the storm wasn't Jesus abandoning me it was where Jesus was wanting to meet me. And some of you might be in a storm today. You're experiencing something that you didn't want something you didn't choose something you never signed up for. You've been asking God like how do I get out of this? When will this situation ever change? And friend those aren't bad questions to ask but I just wanna say there might be a better question and that better question is God what are you trying to teach me? Because maybe your storm isn't just something to survive. Maybe it's an invitation to discover God in a deeper way. So if that's you today don't quit. Don't walk away don't let the storm convince you that Jesus has abandoned you because the very thing that you're waiting to escape may be the place where Jesus wants to reveal himself the most to you. Stay in the boat, keep trusting, keep praying, keep taking your next step because here's what I believe because I'm walking it out myself

is that one day you're gonna look back and you're gonna realize that the storm wasn't where God left you. The storm was where he changed you, where he strengthened you, where he revealed himself to you. So don't throw in the towel, don't stay on the shore, get in the boat, trust Jesus, keep moving to the other side. Would you bow your head with me? What is it that you're walking through that has got you questioning the Lord, it's got you questioning whether you can keep doing this, you can keep moving forward. What has this storm, what has it been causing you to believe about God? That He doesn't love you, that He's not there, that He's abandoned you, that you're too messed up, you're too broken, you're too sinful. What is it that you've been believing about God because of the storm that you're experiencing and what might God be trying to show you instead? Friend, we get so focused on where we're going that oftentimes we don't pay attention to what it takes to get there. Friend, what you're praying for, what you're believing God for, what you desire in the depth of your heart for God to do in your life and in your family and in your finances and your marriage and all those kind of things, like, there's a journey. And if we resist the journey, when life gets difficult, we don't allow Him to teach us what He's trying to teach us, what He's trying to show us, then we never get to walk into the promise of all that He has for us. Yes, there's a promise, but yes, there's a process, a living testimony. Why I get emotional when I talk about it the last few times I have is because it's still raw, it's so fresh, but don't hit the wall and retract back because everything that God has for you is on the other side of the wall. Don't get out of the boat and don't forget who's in the boat with you, amen.

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