If You Want More Faith In Jesus Christ. . . Series

If You Want More Faith in Jesus Christ. . .

The Gospel of Matthew

Matthew 14:22-33

Sermon by Rick Crandall

(Prepared July 13, 2022)

BACKGROUND:

*Would you like to have more faith in Jesus Christ? -- Sure we would! Any right-thinking Christian would say "yes" to that question. And today's Scripture can help us trust in the Lord more than ever, so please open your Bibles to Matthew 14.

*In this chapter, the Holy Spirit led Matthew to report on the brutal murder of John the Baptist. Verses 13-14 tell us that when Jesus heard about John the Baptist's death, "He departed from there by boat to a deserted place by Himself. But when the multitudes heard it, they followed Him on foot from the cities. And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick."

*That same evening in vs. 15-21, Jesus fed all of those people, maybe more than 15,000, counting women and children. And He did that with just 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish!

*Now we will see what happened next. It was another of the Lord's most famous miracles: The miracle Jesus worked when He walked on the water several miles out into the Sea of Galilee. God can use this great miracle to help grow our faith today, especially for when we go through hard times in life.

*Let's get started by reading Matthew 14:22-33.

MESSAGE:

*We all want more faith, but sometimes we doubt God. Why do we do that? Why do we doubt God? Christians, I am not talking about doubting your salvation, though sometimes believers do doubt their salvation. In those seasons, go back to the Bible, and start with 1 John 5:11-13.

*There God's Word says: "This is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God."

*The Scripture today is focused on something else. It's focused on us doubting God when unexpected problems hit. But again, Christians: Why do we doubt God? That's an important question, especially when the question comes from Jesus Himself. And the Lord's question in vs. 31 can also apply to us: "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?'' Sometimes we don't trust in the Lord as much as we should. But today's Scripture can help us trust God more than ever.

1. SO FIRST, IF YOU WANT MORE FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, DON'T BE SURPRISED BY STORMS IN YOUR LIFE.

*In vs. 22, the Lord's disciples were probably not expecting trouble. That's because "Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side."

*Jesus told them to go, and they went, probably expecting smooth sailing. But as Jesus sent the multitudes away and went up on a mountain to pray, the disciples were running into serious trouble. In vs. 24, "the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary." "Tossed by the waves." That's not talking about some gentle rocking back and forth. The idea behind the original word is "pain, toil, torment, even torture."

*The disciples were in real trouble out on the Sea of Galilee, and not because they did the wrong thing, but because they did the right thing. They were in trouble because they had obeyed the Lord, and that can cause us to doubt God.

*Today, many Christians have been influenced by a false prosperity gospel. There is a feel-good falsehood being taught that Christians should expect nothing but the best from this world, because we are children of the King. And Christians, we are true children of God! But in John 16:33 Jesus told His followers, "In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world."

*Job was surely one of the great heroes in the Old Testament. Job 1:1 tells us that he "was blameless and upright, and one who feared God and shunned evil." But for a while Job lost almost everything that mattered to him in this world.

*The Apostle Paul was a great hero in the New Testament. If anybody should have received only good things in life, it would have been Paul. But listen to his testimony from 2 Corinthians 11:24-28:

24. From the Jews five times I received forty stripes minus one.

25. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned; three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I have been in the deep;