Richmond Community Church

Sermon: Get Your Feet Wet – Progress Not Perfection
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Matthew 14:30-31
Duration: 26:41
Size: 12.2 MB

Get Your Feet Wet
Progress Not Perfection
Matthew 14:30-31

Whether or not storms come, we cannot choose. But where we stare during a storm, that we can.
-Max Lucado

“The will of God will never take you where the Grace of God will not protect you.”

These moments of fear are just moments, significant to be sure, but just moments that will form part of their historic memory and vital message of the Christian Gospel in the decades, and for us, centuries ahead.

Can’t we also look back and see the progress that we have made in our own faith journey through what now we see were “getting out of the boat” moments.

Those who take bold chances don’t think failure is the opposite of success. They believe complacency is.

1. Choose to learn from failure.

To face our own failure, not so-and-so’s failure, my failure requires a strength of character and will that, only comes as we surrender our will to God’s and choose to learn.

But to overcome; to learn from our failures, requires us to make the choice to learn.

2. Cultivate hope.

As followers of Christ, expressing hope not naïve optimism, is critical these days, though our anxieties and fears loom large.

Hope believes that there are greater things ahead in the midst of the storms and fear.

3. Get back up.

He stopped literally living in the mud and dirt, got back up and started for home.

There will be more moments in which you are challenged to get out of the boat. But for now, you need to be rescued.

Next week
Get Your Feet Wet
Matthew 14:29

Sermon: Get Your Feet Wet – Is That Your Final Answer?
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Matthew 14:28-29
Duration: 20:22
Size: 9.32 MB

Get Your Feet Wet
Is That Your Final Answer?
Matthew 14:28-29

The main point of this sermon series is to face and deal with, with God’s help, our fears that hold us back from taking the next steps with the Lord.

Matthew 14:28-29

So far, we have learned that:

• Jesus calls us to get out of the boat, that is our place of security and comfort, in order to grow in our faith.
• Fear is a big wall that we must over come, by faith and trust in Christ.
• That God, if we wait and intently look for Him, comes to us in the midst of our life storms; our life fears.

Saying yes to God is not a misguided calculation that creates unnecessary anxiety but a confident trust in God’s ability to help us get out of our own boats and onto the water and move forward.

Therefore, when it comes to making a “getting out of the boat” decision, our final answer is our choice of believing, trusting, and then acting on that belief and trust, or not.

Joshua 3:14-17

Fear, worry, and anxiety pops up at the slight bump in the road, doesn’t it?

We don’t like to get wet, do we? It is inconvenient and it is a nuisance.

There comes a point (many points) when we have to make a final decision; a final answer – believe or disbelieve.

Where are you feeling the pinch and pressure of “your final answer” at work, At school, At home, With finances, With a relationship?

Next week
Progress Not Perfection
Matthew 14:30-31

Sermon: Get Your Feet Wet – I Will Be With You
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Matthew 14:23-24,27
Duration: 25:22
Size: 11.6 MB

Get Your Feet Wet
I Will Be With You
Matthew 14:23-24,27

There are differing amounts of details but one common theme to the story – the assurance of Jesus that He is present.

Two things to remember this morning:

1. Although He often seems absent God is never far away.
2. Jesus is with us in the fears and anxieties of life but sometimes it takes time to see Him there.

Six Practices: Developing the ability to see Jesus through a clear inner vision.

1. An active and sustained prayer life

One other thing, prayer should be the first thing we do when we encounter storms and waves, not the last.

2. Daily Bible reading

“How can a young person stay on the path of purity? By living according to your word.” – Psalm 119:9

3. Honest worship

Worship is to Him and not us nor our circumstances, but to Him and Him alone!

4. Accountable relationships

When we face down our fears, a good friend can help us with our blind spots, especially in a storm!

5. Regular confession

Confession is good for the soul and for our sight!

6. Unqualified obedience

To follow Jesus is just plain hard sometimes.

The six practices I have just listed are the foundation upon which trust, the kind spoken of in the passage I just read, keeps us steady in the midst of the storm and its fears and anxieties.

What are three things that you can do to start (today) making some new progress with this practice?

1.

2.

3.

Now you have a simple starting plan to help you further develop your faith and trust in the Lord. Begin it…now!

Next week
Is That Your Final Answer?
Matthew 14:28-29

Sermon: Get Your Feet Wet – The Wall Called Fear
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Matthew 14:26
Duration: 25:58
Size: 11.8 MB

Get Your Feet Wet
The Wall Called Fear
Matthew 14:26

Fear is sometimes an unexpected wall that comes across our path from time to time and when it does, we have a decision to make.

The thing about our boats is that they easily become our security rather than the Lord being our security.

We don’t have to be in a boat, during a “ghost seeing” storm, to scream out in terror or frustration or pain or fear.

Why do we expect Jesus to show up only in the nice quiet times and not in the earth shattering, emotionally impacting loudness of life?

One of the greatest fears we have is the fear of change – planned and unplanned.

How helpful has all the worrying you have done, been in your life? Has it helped to accomplish anything, other than giving you an ulcer?

“Sometimes we fear situations and problems in life because we unconsciously regard them as bigger than our God.”
Avery T. Willis Jr. and Matt Willis

Next week
I Will Be With You
Matthew 14:23-24,27

Sermon: Get Your Feet Wet – The Call to Get Wet
Speaker: Pastor Val Watkins
Scripture Text: Matthew 14:28-29
Duration: 25:57
Size: 11.8 MB

Get Your Feet Wet
The Call to Get Wet
Matthew 14:28-29

Max Lucado writes, “Fear it seems, has taken a hundred-year lease on the building next door and set up shop.”

I. Peter’s Call to Get Wet

Peter asks for Christ to tell Peter to come to Him by walking on the water as proof of Jesus’ identity.

In the context of a very scary and fear filled situation, it seems to mean that Peter is asking Jesus to tell him to do something that required an extreme act of faith.

Eleven of the twelve looked at the situation with faces of fear. Peter looked at the situation with a face of faith.

II. Your Call to Get Wet

God was, and is, always calling people to Him.

God asks an ordinary person to engage in an act of extraordinary trust, that of getting out of the boat.

You and I have had, and continue to have moments in which we have to decide whether or not to truly trust God and get out of the boat thus risking failure, or not.

And we do and will feel inadequate to the task, to the call, but what He wants is us and our willingness and our obedience.

Some of the boats that we are in these days are sometimes the unsafest place to be!

If God calls you, you can run from it but you cannot hide!

Next week
The Wall Called Fear
Matthew 14:26