The Lord Leads in Steps, Not Leaps

So good to worship with all of you today. If you're new around here, my name is Witt, and it's a blessing to be able to sing and worship and just talk about what the Lord has done, study the scripture together. That's what a church is. We're just a group of people pursuing Jesus together. Maybe you're joining us online every week. We have folks who maybe you're just checking us out, or folks that just can't be here. Maybe you're traveling or you're just homebound right now and you're not able to be here this weekend. Either way, we're glad that you're here. And then also, we've got two churches in prisons, one at Dick Conner and one at Eddie Warrior, and we consider them part of our church family as well. So can we just kind of celebrate one more time? Welcome to them. Glad to have you guys and gals. Wherever you may be tuning in from. We are in week two of a series that we started last week called Life Lessons. And the tagline is important, biblical wisdom, or what the Bible says about a life well lived. The Bible is filled with wisdom, telling you how to live life well, how to get the most out of life, how to follow the Lord. Practically, it's not just a kind of high-minded, abstract, ancient theological book,

but it has a lot of practical, like on-the-ground level wisdom. And that's what this series is about. Practical stuff that you can put in place in your life, small stuff, simple stuff. And how many of you have learned that the small and simple things are not always easy? Oftentimes, the simple stuff is the hardest stuff. But these are small and simple things that you can put in place in your life that can have a transformative impact. And the principal or life lesson that we wanna share with you this weekend is maybe the most foundational of them all that we're gonna talk about in this series. It's certainly something not new. Around here, my dad taught this for 30 years, still teaching it today. In fact, my dad will be on my podcast with me when we record it tomorrow, release on Tuesday. So if you're interested in going a little deeper in this topic, you can look for my podcast, which is just called Tell Me More, My Dad'll Be On. I expect that to be a really, really cool conversation. We'll have that tomorrow. But here's the principle. He was the one that introduced it to me, taught it to so many of you that have been around here for a while. But it says, "The Lord leads us in steps, not leaves."

And our text comes from Proverbs 16, 9, a man's heart, plans his way. I love this, but the Lord directs his steps. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your word. It is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. We expect, Lord, we're eager to hear from you today. We know that your word is alive, it's powerful, it's sharp. It's able to divide our hearts, the motives of our hearts. We're sometimes, we get confused, we get astray. Lord, this kind of a word can bring us back into center, back into alignment with you. That's what we want. Open our eyes and our ears to see what you wanna show us, to hear what you'd like to say to us. We're listening, we humble ourselves before your word. Speak to us now in Jesus' name and everybody said, amen. Well, all through the Bible, a relationship with the Lord is characterized as a walk. You see this right from the very first pages of scripture in Genesis three. For instance, the Lord God shows up presumably to walk with mankind, Adam and Eve, who he had made in the garden and the cool of the day. It's emblematic of a relationship. You see the same thing just a couple of chapters later in Genesis chapter five, twice. We read that Enoch was a man who walked with God. Next chapter says the same thing of Noah, Noah walked with God.

Again, all of this is speaking to relationship with God. Later in Genesis chapter 17, Abraham, kind of the central figure of the book of Genesis, is a man who was instructed to walk before the Lord. Again, this is a command for relationship to live with and amongst with the Lord, right? That's the whole idea in Exodus, when the Lord would lead his people Israel out of their captivity, their slavery, their bondage in Egypt. It was said that he walked before them, the pillar of fire and the pillar of cloud being God's legs. As he led his people out of Egypt step by step, by step, by step to Sinai. In Leviticus chapter 26, a fascinating verse, the Lord is speaking here, it's his first person language. The Lord says this, I will walk among you. Again, this idea, it speaks to relationship. That's the whole idea of walking among you. I will walk among you and be your God and you shall be my people. Now this is more than just sort of metaphor. This would actually be literally fulfilled because 1400 years after this, Jesus called the Christ would take on flesh and blood and walk amongst his people. This literally happened. Is that any wonder then that when Jesus shows up on the scene and begins his ministry, his invitation to his would be disciples, was not believe in me.

What did Jesus say? How did he call them? He said, follow me. In other words, walk with me. Again, this is the language of relationship and it permeates this whole idea of walking with the Lord. This permeates, this language permeates the new testament. Let me give you just a few examples. I can point you at a lot more, but here are three. Second Corinthians 5, 7. A verse many of you are familiar with. We walk by faith, not by sight. Congratulations, chapter five, verse 16. We're instructed to walk by the spirit. We will not gratify the desires of the flesh. I particularly like Colossians two, six and seven, where Paul writes this, therefore, as you received Christ, as you entered into relationship with Christ Jesus, so walk in him. This is the language of continuing relationship, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving. A walk signifies a journey, a long journey together. And that's really what a relationship is. I told you last week that Heather and I, my wife celebrated 27 years of marriage earlier this month, and you could say that a marriage relationship, a committed relationship, or really any committed relationship, a partnership, a friendship, companionship,

whatever it may be, but a marriage most specifically is a long walk in the same direction, walking together. That's what it is to be married to someone. You see this, reflected in our traditional wedding vows. Do you not? When we say for richer, for poor, for better, for worse, and sickness, and then help what we're describing is kind of the whole of life, because life has ups and downs, and twists and turns. And the commitment is not just one time, I've heard it said that marriage is not just one big yes, but one big yes, followed by thousands and thousands of smaller yeses. That's what it is to journey with someone, is to walk with them little by little by little, step by step by step over time. And this is how relationships are built. I think this is why God leads us in steps. In fact, I would put it like this. Relationships are built on trust, and trust is built one step at a time. Now let's just break this down and think about it. You know this. Relationships are impossible without trust. The very foundation, the building block of any healthy relationship is trust. You might be friendly with someone that you don't trust. You might, on the outside, show that you're friendly toward them, but if there is no trust, there can be no real relationship.

And for trust to be established, it takes time. Only a fool enters into a trusting relationship without the other person proving that their trust worthy. That's the idea. You let them prove it out. You learn to trust someone over time. So trust comes and is developed slowly. Trust comes slowly, but how many of you learn, it can be destroyed in a moment. It takes much longer to grow a tree tall than it does to cut it down. Some of you have learned that lesson the hard way. You built trust with someone only to have them betray that trust. What's so painful about it is that it takes so long to build it, to have the rug pulled out from under you. In a moment is disorienting in every possible way. So why then does the Lord walk with us step by step by step by step? It's really staggering when you think about it. That God, the creator of the universe, the one who spoke the universe into existence, the one who sits outside of time, in space and thrown above all that God, that he would enter into relationship with you and stoop so low as to try to prove himself as trust worthy to you. And yet that's exactly what God does. I mean, let's be honest, he has every right. Does he not, as God, to stand back, arms crossed and say, why don't you trust me?

You should, I'm God, and yet he doesn't. He enters into relationship with you, proving himself trust worthy step by step by step by step. This is the God that we serve, that he would humble himself in this way, and yet that's He gets down in the dirt and walks with us. Why? So that we can learn to trust Him so that we can have a relationship with Him, which is what He wants more than anything else. So when we think about relationship and trust and steps, the question emerges, then what does a step look like? How do I do this practically? And this is really where I wanna spend kind of the majority of my time today. Unpacking for you, what a step looks like. We talk about this all the time. Perhaps you've heard me talk about Lord leading in steps. Great, what does that look like? How can I identify a step with the Lord? That's what I wanna talk about today. Three characteristics of steps taken with the Lord. What do they look like? How can you discern them? How do you know you're taking a step with the Lord? Three things, here's the first one, steps with the Lord are small. Really all steps are small. Two nights ago, I went out for a walk in my neighborhood. I don't know if any of you are like me sometimes when

I just, I don't know, I have a lot of my mind or maybe I'm a little confused. Just got a lot of thoughts going in a lot of different directions. One of the ways I can kind of clear my mind is to just go for a walk. You probably have some practice that you do. Maybe you like to work out, go for a run. Whatever it is, there's something that you do to kind of clear your mind. For me, it's take a walk and so I went out for a walk in my neighborhood. It wasn't a super long walk, about a mile and a half. But how many of you know that walk was comprised of a series of steps? Even at six foot five, I'm not able to make a mile and a half walk in one giant step. You can't leap a mile and a half. The only way to sort of walk that kind of distance is to take it in small steps. And that's what following the Lord looks like. One step that builds upon another. Really, the word that comes to my mind here is progressive, cumulative. It means these steps add up. I want you to imagine that I come back from my walk and I walk in the front door and there's Heather and she says, oh, you went for a walk? Which was the step that really did it? Which was the step that really got you there?

Which was the most important one? It would be impossible to say because one builds upon another. That's what I mean by small. I don't mean insignificant. I don't mean not important. I mean they build together. Now this is how the Lord leads. He leads us in a series of small but doable steps. And as you take the step, you kind of increasingly move in the direction that he wants you to go, it doesn't happen all at once. So this is a problem in our kind of instant, I want it now, early upgrade society, is it not? That we like the shortcut. We like the hack. We want the Lord to use the microwave but he's much more interested in using the smoker. Low and slow, right? The best food, by the way, is not prepared quickly. It takes time. He likes the crockpot. He wants to let things simmer for a while. And so often what we're looking for is a shortcut. We want God to do it and do it now. But if you're going to learn to walk with a Lord, you have to be prepared to let him work things out in you over a long period of time. Eugene Peterson calls it a long obedience in the same direction. Do you want spiritual maturity?

This is how you get it. It doesn't happen all at once. And we charismatic, we like it to happen all at once. We love altar calls. We love tears. We love chills down our spine. We love to feel the Holy Spirit. Could you really sense God's presence in the room? And I'm not saying that that's all bad. But what I'm saying is often we charismatics like to use that as a mask for the real work that God wants to do in us. We want God to accomplish in a moment what really is going to take quite a long time for him to accomplish. So rather than signing up for catheros, where I learn how to live a life of purity free from porn and lust, a habit that I've been building in my life for years and years and years. I just want to come down front, have a pastor lay his hand on me, cast a little demon out of me, and then me be able to go home, not tell anybody and it all to be good. But that's not how God works, not most of the time. Occasionally, rarely it happens like this. Most of the time it happens over a long period of time. See, calling does not negate preparation. Let me say this to you again. Calling, just because God's called you to something doesn't mean that you get to skip the preparation phase. So I think the Lord's called me to pastor.

Great, tell me how He's preparing you. I was called to pastor in, I don't know, 2004, 2005. The first time in my life, the idea of, wait, maybe I will be a preacher. It would be years, more than a decade, before I would step into that role fully. And yet, if you were to ask me in 2004, 2005, how ready are you? I would have said, I don't know, 80, 90%. I feel like I'm right on the cusp. Thank God he didn't agree with me. I needed a long time of preparation. Much, much, much longer than I thought I needed. And even when the role was given me in 2017, and I stepped into lead pastor here, I thought, now I'm really rolling, now I'm really ready and still, the Lord had several more years of preparation yet to go. In fact, he's still working in me. But that's how it works with God. It's small steps, little steps, daily steps of obedience, which a big work takes place. This is why the Lord taught us to pray, give us this day our daily bread. It's learning to turn to him every day, to depend on him in the small stuff, every day kind of stuff. This is why we're told to daily take up our cross and follow him as this is how the Lord leads. Daily dependence, just coming to him every day

for that day's needs. Can I just give you a little piece of pastoral advice? Leave tomorrow to the Lord you worry about today with him. Just focus on today, what can I do today? Too many of us, we spend our time worried about tomorrow when I can't really, I can do very little to control tomorrow. What I can do is be obedient now. And often we let our worry about tomorrow keep us from being obedient now. But it's in these daily practices, the daily obedience, the small steps that the big work of God is accomplished. I love Proverbs chapter four verse 18. Notice the kind of progressive language here, but the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn which shines brighter and brighter. This is the idea of moving from one degree of glory to another and it happens so slowly that it's almost imperceptible. The sun rises before you know it, it's in the middle of the sky, but you can't really perceive it moving, not really because it's moving slowly. I'll never forget. Several years ago, walking to lunch with Heather. The Lord had been at work in my life for some time. He'd been working in me for, I don't know how many years up at that point. I remember Heather turning to me saying, what do you realize, how much you've changed? And my honest answer was no.

It's not that I feel exactly the same, it's just that the Lord had been working and it had taken so long and so little here, little there, step here, step there. That it was to me almost imperceptible, yet to her seemed like so much had happened. The Lord had done so much and this is often how the Lord works. In just small steps, we get focused on the big. We want the significant. God works in the small. Are you willing to take the small steps of obedience? Here's what we can tell about kind of how people change. Big changes in people's lives. You wanna know how big changes happen and stick? They happen by just doing small, consistent things over a long period of time, not big, drastic changes in a moment. Beware of big promises. Oh, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna start this. Don't start big, just start small with the Lord and let him add to here a little, there a little, I'm pretty soon you'll wake up like I did and so many people in this room could say, wow, look what the Lord did in me. How did it happen? Not in a miraculous overnight change, but in just a little step here and a little step there, the Lord did a big thing. Steps with the Lord are small.

Number two, they are specific. Now, this one will really help so many of you out because often life, and this is what I find about life, is it has a way of kind of making things vague, confusing, tangled up, such as the complexity of life when you're facing a challenging scenario. What do I do about this? I don't know, I don't like my boss or my boss doesn't like me and I don't know how to get on his good side and I'm not sure if I should quit and gosh, if I quit, I don't know what's gonna happen. I really need the money and I don't know even where I would find another job. I don't, everything just gets confusing, all tangled up together. This is often how life works. Too many variables at once and that becomes sort of paralysis by analysis. You've heard of that before, choice, parallelization. There's too many options, too many loose ends. Life feels like a big play to spaghetti and oftentimes that's how it feels to me too. Emotions can be that way, they are vague. is because we don't make specific requests. Now this will change your prayer life and then we'll change the way you discern the Lord's voice. Too many Christians are kind of like Christian superstitious. What do I mean by that?

We're sort of like trying to piece together, cobble together signs. Well, I heard this song on the radio and then I saw that same word on a billboard and then a friend of mine said the same thing and I discern that that was the Lord speaking to me, probably not. Stop trying to piece together signs, superstitious kinds of signs and learn how to properly discern the Lord's voice. How do I do it? Ah, glad you asked, let me give you an example, Acts 16. One of the great examples of following God anywhere in scripture, how to hear the Spirit's voice. So here's what's happening. Paul and Silas are embarking on a missionary journey. They've received general direction from the Lord. Go, preach the gospel to all nations. That's how Jesus left him, that was his final command. Go, preach the word. That's what they wanted to do, but they didn't know exactly where. They had general direction, but what they lacked was specific direction. Now this is often how the Lord leads. He will give you general direction first. You'll start to get a sense of, I wonder if I'm supposed to consider this. I wonder if I should consider switching jobs, moving from one city to another.

Whatever change might be in your life. As long as it's not overtly sinful, like I'm getting a sense I should leave my spouse, that's not the Lord. That's not the Lord. But if it's just, I feel like a career change or there's an opportunity over here, something the Lord has brought to your, for me it was pastor, right? There's something here, I sense this. Okay, how do you get specific direction? I have general clarity, but not specific clarity. Well, that's what Paul and Silas needed. Where exactly do we go? That's what they're trying to discern in Acts 16. So look at the story, it goes like this. And they, this is Paul and Silas. They went through the region of Frigia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the spirit to speak the word in Asia. So apparently they start trying to head into what was known then as Asia. Of course we have the Asian continent now, but it's a little differently identified then. So they're trying to go here and the Lord's like, "No, so now they're trying Frigia and Galatia." But the Lord doesn't seem to want them there either. So when they had come to Missia, they attempt to go to Bethinia, but the spirit of Jesus did not allow them.

So here they are and they're saying, "Shall we go here?" And the Lord says, "No, okay, cool." How about here? And the Lord says, "No, now this is how we follow the Lord." We present to him specific requests. Should I go here? No. And what we do is we try to discern what the Lord is saying. And it's much easier. Let me just tell you, the vast majority, like 98, 99% of the Lord's leading in my life comes through yes, no questions. Not through Lord, just speak to me from heaven. Part the sky and talk and full sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes you hear televangelists, preachers on TV, talk about God like he speaks to them in that way. And I am very skeptical that he does. Most of the time, and you can see it here in Paul's life, the way the Lord works, is through a little bit of trial and error, or what I might call just trying things on. I talked about this a few weeks ago. Often just turning the Lord's voice is like trying on clothing in a store. You ever go in, you go in the dressing room, you got something to look good on the hanger, you go put it on, it's like, "Nope, this doesn't fit. "Look great there on the mannequin, "but it doesn't look good on me."

It's an immediate no, I just, you can tell. I don't even need to go out and ask anybody. Sometimes you got your posse out there gonna tell you kind of what, like if you look good. And then there's some things you put on, you're like, "Nobody even needs to see this. "No one needs to know. "This does not look good at all." And then sometimes you put something on, you're like, "Yeah, yeah." This kind of works, you come strutting out of the, you know what I'm talking about, right? I feel confident 'cause it fits, it works. Now that's a helpful picture for what discerning the leading of the spirit is like. Yes, no, feels right, seems right. In fact, in Acts chapter 16, or excuse me, the chapter before Acts 15, we watch the church, the elders of the church discern the voice of the Lord in this way again and again, and they keep saying it seemed good to us. Seemed good to us, seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us. It's just a sense of this is right, this is good. I feel the Lord is in this, let's take this step. That's the idea, but here they're attempting to take steps and the Lord says, "No, no, no." So passing by Missia, They just keep trying, all right? How about this? How about this?

This is literally trial and error. How about this, Lord? How about this? They just keep putting things before the Lord. And then eventually in verse nine, it says, "A vision now appears to Paul in the night, a man of Macedonia was standing there urging him and saying, 'Come over to Macedonia and help us.'" Ah, now we're getting some specific clarity. And I really like verse 10. And when Paul had seen the vision, immediately we sought to go into Macedonia. And I love this concluding. You know what a conclusion is? I've weighed all the facts. I've looked at all the evidence. And I am concluding that this is what the Lord has said. Do you know, this is how God leads? It requires your conclusions. You taking the evidence. I have put this before the Lord. Do I have a sense that this is where I'm to go? Is this what God is leading me? What does wise counsel say? What does this scripture say? I weigh all the evidence. And I say, this seems good to me and to the Holy Spirit will take this step. That's what following the Lord looks like. But if you don't bring a specific request

as long as you remain in the land of sort of vague intentions and emotions, you will just be stagnant. You'll never really move forward with the Lord. And that's how emotions are. They confuse us. We feel a lot of things. We don't even know what to ask. And we're not quiet enough or still enough for long enough to actually ask this question to ourselves. What is it that we want? Why do I feel this way? If you would pause for a little bit and say, let's break this situation down. Let's see if I can come up with just one simple step that I could put before the Lord and say, Lord, is this what you would have me do? And then watch, listen, discern what is the Lord saying? Give it a little space. See how he responds to you. Then maybe you would be able to draw a conclusion. But you're gonna have to bring a specific request before the Lord. Let me give you a personal story about this played out in my life. So I became pastor here in 2017. And in the first couple of years of being pastor, I just had this sense, here's general direction. This is often how the Lord works, that I should consider a theological education.

Now this is not to imply that I was completely unprepared to pastor when I stepped into this role. My dad had done a great job preparing me. But I just had the sense that I should explore getting a theological education. The only problem was I'd started working here right out of high school. And I really knew no one in the academic world. I had no connections there. I had no idea which schools I should consider, which sort of theological stream each school was attached to. I had no idea where to begin. But this thought just kept coming to me, just this idea, this sense, that it would be good for me to pursue this. Finally, I'm at the point where it's like, we need to make a decision about this. And so it's the summer, June specifically, of 2018. Heather and I are going to California. We're going there to meet with a mentor of ours, a guy named Doug Slabaugh, who's been around here and helped us for a long time. Doug was gonna be facilitating a life plan for me. And I don't wanna bore you with the details of what a life plan is. Part of it is you answer some significant questions like this. Should I pursue a degree, a theological degree? And so that was really the main thing I was looking for, kind of figuring out when we sat down with Doug.

And so we spent some time. I remember one afternoon in his kind of upstairs area there in his house where he hosted these sort of life plan facilitations, we were sitting there talking with him. And that was the question, do I, should I pursue a theological education? And after weighing all the facts and considering all the different factors, we concluded, no, it's just probably not a good idea. And here was the reason why. Because to kind of get to the courses that I really wanted to study, it was gonna require me to get all the basics out of the way. If you know how college works in the United States, there's all these stuff that you gotta learn that quite frankly, I didn't really wanna spend my time on. I don't need it for what I'm doing. I already have the job that I'm meant to do. I really just need the theological piece. I need the stuff that would take me a couple of years to get to and quite frankly, my plate is so full of pastoring right now, it just doesn't make sense for me to say yes to this. So we arrived at clarity and it felt right, yes. I need to say no to this. So we closed the door. It's good to come to clarity and finality on decisions like this. Some of you, you live with open doors, open decisions for too long, it weighs on you.

It's helpful, sometimes with wise counsel, a pastor to sit down and say, let's arrive at some clarity. I need to make a decision one way or the other. That's coming to specificity. We decided that no. Now what I had no way of knowing, and I actually figured this out, I've never done this before, I figured it out last week. Within one week of making the determination, no, I don't need to pursue a degree. I can see no open door that the Lord would have for me to go pursue a theological education. Within one week, I would receive a message on Twitter at that time. I wasn't looking at Twitter for that year. I'd kind of gotten off of it at the beginning of the year and made a vow to abstain from social media and I hadn't gone back to it. I hadn't been on Twitter in months and months and months, and when I received the message in June, I would not actually see it until August. It was in August that I just kind of had this thought, just popped into my mind. You know, I wonder if anybody's trying to reach out to me on Twitter. I now look back and I say, that was the spirit. I opened up, it's like the one time the spirit prompted anybody ever to open Twitter.

(congregation laughing) I opened it up and sure enough, I had a message. It's from a man named Ed Stitzer. I was familiar with his name. I think we'd met him passing, but I didn't know him well and the message basically said something like this. Hey, Whit, I'm starting a cohort of mega church pastors at Wheaton College and we're going to be pursuing master's degrees together. Do you have any interest? We will be studying in Greece, Rome, California, Hawaii, are you interested? It was the easiest yes I've ever given, what happened? I arrived at no and it wasn't that the Lord didn't want me to do it at all. The Lord just wanted me to do it his way. - Right, right. - But I had to come to, just like this, I had to try on a lot of things. I had to arrive at a lot of no's before I could receive the Lord's yes. This is how the Lord works, specific clarity. You've got to be willing to bring specific requests, specific steps, this college. No, this college, no, this degree, no, this degree. What about this? Yes, that's it right there. And you'll know, it's like this is right. This is what the Lord has for me. You have to discern it.

You have to conclude it over time by bringing things before the Lord and allowing him to give you a yes, no answer. So many of us, we don't have clarity because we're not specific. If you want a specific answer, ask a specific question and you will find that the Spirit will speak to you in far more specific, helpful and clarifying ways. Learn to be specific. So steps are small. They are specific. And lastly, steps with the Lord are doable. They're within your power to do. And I want you to hear me clearly here because this right here will be a game changer, a life transforming idea for some of you. God will never put your step in someone else's hands or control. God will never put your destiny, the steering wheel of your life into someone else's hands. This isn't to say that other people's decisions don't have an effect on you. They do, of course they do. But your future is not determined by your circumstance or by the choices of other people. Your life is not held hostage by the economy, by the president, by the laws of our land. Your God is bigger than that. You have agency. And this is a problem right now.

I want you to hear me. I realize it's something that we've fired some of us up. Praise you, it should. This is so liberating. We live in a world right now that says you can't have this and you can't do that and you can't whatever and you can't whatever because of other people, the economy, the generations that have come before, greedy corporations, billionaires, whatever. And there's a generation that is buying into this, thinking that their future is held hostage by other people. If you're a Christian, stop that. You serve a bigger God than that. God is not going to give you a step to do that you're going to say, "Oh, I can't do it." And God's going to say, "I get you can't," until they do whatever. Often, we give our agency to other people. Now let me ask you a question. Why would you want to live like that? What a debilitating, depressing, hopeless way to live that somehow your future is dictated by the whims of other people, the choices of other people. Joseph was put in a pit, then a prison, and you know what? God met him in both places. God can get to you anywhere. He's big enough to bless you wherever you are. somehow holding your life hostage, you serve a bigger God than that. So then what is the Lord

asking you to do? Whatever he's asking you to do, here's what I can promise you, you can do it. It's within your power and capability to do. Now that doesn't mean that it's easy, it just means it's doable. The steps of the Lord are doable. There's something that you can do. My favorite story of this is in Matthew 14. It's a story that you probably know well. This is Peter walking on the water. Here's the context. The disciples, including Peter, have been trying to row across the sea of Galilee throughout the night. And they're not making much progress, the wind, the waves, or against them. So they're not really getting anywhere. And then I just love this. Jesus comes walking by. Mark's gospel says he meant to pass them by. How cool is Jesus? Here are the disciples rowing and he's just going to walk on by. What's up? And they're freaking out. They think it's a ghost. Jesus says, "Take heart, zy, don't be afraid." And then Peter responds like this, verse 28 and 29. "Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water. What choice does he give the Lord here?" What's he going to say? I mean, it's me. I guess you have to come. So he says, "Come." And look at what Peter did. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water. Now let's ask a really obvious question. Can you walk on the water if the conditions are really perfect? Like if the water is really still as smooth as glass and you get a good running start, can you sometimes walk on the water? No. Walking on the water is impossible all the time. It's never possible to walk on the water. But Peter's command isn't to walk on the water, it's just to simply take the first step. He can't do the impossible, neither can you. So what can Peter do? He can do the first thing, which is to get out of the boat. That he can do. And that's the doable step that's in front of him. And this is often how the miraculous power of God works. I don't mean to say when I say that the steps of the Lord in your life are doable, that it means that you're doing all of this in your own power and strength. What it means is just that God brings his miraculous power to bear for you when you've taken the very doable step that you can take. When you take doable steps, that often leads to miraculous results. But it starts with you just being obedient. Will you get out of the boat? And so often that first step is the hardest. Just learning to take that step. That feels, quite frankly, for many of us, insignificant, something we don't want to do. Maybe the Lord's asking us to jump into that rooted group or to send a text to somebody that we've been estranged from for some time and sit down and have coffee and try to make amends and ask for forgiveness. Maybe it means confessing sin. That's doable, not easy, but doable. It's within your power to do. Miracles can happen

the power of God can happen, but only when you're willing to do your part. The Lord will not do it all for you. He's not going to drag you along like a toddler throwing a fit in a grocery store. He's not going to make you do his will. He's going to give you an opportunity to do it. And if you'll say yes and do what you can do, then his power can begin to work in your life. But you've got to do your part. So are you willing to take that step? What's that step? I don't know. I'm not sure what it might be. The Lord could put any number of steps in front of us. Jump into a small group, start serving on a team. You've heard the whole next move thing. It's time for you to do that. I hear people all the time. That's their story. We've been thinking about it for months. It's a little nudge. Take a step. That's what the Lord is saying. There's a million steps. See a counselor. Some of you know somebody's told you. You've heard it a million times. I should sit down and talk with the pastor. There's any number of things in your life that's like, I know I should. But we don't. I wonder how much of the power of God is waiting to be demonstrated. He's just waiting for our initial obedience. Trust. Learn to see him show up in big and miraculous ways just by taking the small step that he's put in front of you. Take the step. Small, specific, and doable. When you do, here's what happens. You wake up one day. How is this possible? The miracle of what God can do in your life over time, how He can grow you and mature you and change you and form you into the image of Christ. How does it happen? Not in one big miraculous moment but in just little gradual steps of obedience. Eugene Peterson's a long obedience in the same direction. You make that kind of commitment. You will see the Lord work in tremendously miraculous ways. Step, by step, by step, by step, by step. Buy your heads and close your eyes. 'Cause we just take a little bit of a moment here to just sit in the presence of the Lord. I realize we've got volunteers trying to get to their spots

right now, once you guys are done moving, let's just hold here if we can. I'm not gonna be here long. I think it's good that we just take some time not to just rush past the sermon but to just let the Lord speak. Is there a step that He might put in front of you right now? Is it in the front of your mind? Do you know exactly what it is? Some of you do, be obedient. Do what the Lord's asking you to do. Make a commitment right now, I will do it. Yes, Lord, I will do it. Some of you, there's some things that you're facing that you're just still confused. I don't know, make a commitment to just sit down with the Lord and begin thinking this through. All right, Lord, I'll sit with you and maybe break this down into specific requests that I can put before you and allow you to lead me. Lord, we commit to do that. Lord, these are your people. The sheep of your pasture. You bled and died for these folks right here. That's how much you love us. And if you would go to that trouble, I know you would not leave us in confusion, wandering with the future may hold, wandering around just trying to figure life out on our own. No, you're our good shepherd.

I pray that as we just take a moment to consider you and hear into this week that you would speak in profoundly meaningful ways. We will be obedient, that's our commitment to you. In Jesus name, amen. Here's what we close, our prayer team's gonna be down front. And maybe you're in the midst of a crisis. Maybe you have questions about something big going on in your life right now. Prayer team will be down here. We would love the opportunity to pray with you and to minister to you. And some of you, you're in a spot right now where your next step is to repent of your sin and confess Jesus as Lord. That's your next step. And if that's you, you know, I need to get serious about my walk with Christ. Our prayer team is down here for you too. We have a resource that we'd love to give you and we'd love to just kind of facilitate that whole thing. I'm just saying, yep, I'm a sinner, I need a savior. I wanna give my life to Christ. That's what our prayer team is down here for as well. So we would love to be able to minister to you as well. If that's you, come forward to the close of the service, grab one of our prayer team. Again, they're standing right down here in front of me. And then last week I mentioned the book by Dear Church on the Mover, Gary Schotten.

He wrote this book step by step. We sold out of them last week, but we've got more copies out in the bookstore. So if you wanna grab this, great, great book on what it looks like real time following Christ. So if you're looking for something practical, this is a great book. So grab this out in the bookstore. Stand to your feet. Thanks for worshiping with us today. So good to have all of you. We're gonna conclude with this blessing out of Numbers chapter six. And we'd like to say it out loud together so you can join me as we close. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. God bless you. I love you. We'll see you next week. You're dismissed. - Thank you so much for watching this message from Church on the Move Tosa. We really hope it encouraged you to take a step toward Jesus. Church on the Move is a family of churches and Northeast Oklahoma, each with its own in-person pastor.

We love our Bibles, learning and community and taking steps toward Jesus. If you live in the area, we would love for you to join us in person. For more information, check out our website at churchonthemove.com or we've got a few videos we think you might like. Check them out here. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music)