Psalm 91 Part 1

If you think through your possessions, what could you walk out on the street and give away if God asked you to? What about your positions or relationships? Do any of those take a higher priority in your heart and life than Jesus? As Dr. Timothy Brown will warn in today’s message, this stuff can easily establish a grip on us that’s hard to loosen.  We must be intentional about keeping Christ first in every area of our lives.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Truth or Transformation with Dr. Timothy Brown. You're about to hear a message from God's Word filled with biblical wisdom, practical insights, and life-changing truths. A message designed to inspire your faith and give encouragement.

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Now some of you are like, well, what about someone that dies as a Christian martyr? Well, ultimately, you're rescued eternally. So from eternal background, you cannot kill a Christian. You can only promote a Christian. Yeah, you can kill my body, that's all you can do, right? So that's encouragement. No matter what you go through, if you keep your eyes on the Lord, if you call upon the Lord in times of trouble, he delivers those he delights in. The fact that he delivered you is proof that he delights in you.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Death should no longer bring fear to those who trust in Christ. This truth has enabled countless martyrs over the centuries to face cruel, painful deaths at the hands of persecutors with peace and even joy. As Dr. Timothy Brown will encourage us in today's message, we have access to that same source of peace and joy. Even if we face the worst this world can throw at us, we have heaven and eternal intimacy with God to look forward to. Prepare your heart, open your mind, and get ready to embark on a journey of faith with Dr. Timothy Brown in the book of Psalms, chapter 18, with today's edition of Truth for Transformation.

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So, how many of you enjoy fishing? Raise your hand. All right, well, I have a little fishing boat here. This is a little kayak. And um, recently I took my kids to the beach, and we were on the intercoastal and we caught a lot of good fish, jellyfish. We didn't catch a puffer this year. But every time I go fishing, my mind takes me back to my favorite fishing story. And for those of you who have been here a few years, you've heard this story. My brother David and I went to a place on Tennessee called Waterville, someone say Waterville. And so we were out in the water, and all of a sudden, in our little boat, the water started coming. And our boat started filling up with water. So my brother's like, there's only one thing you can do, and what is that? You gotta bail the water. So we started throwing the water out, and we got through the storm, and I caught the biggest fish of the day. And so I live to tell about it. So today we're gonna talk about those times when you're in a storm. And so recently I spoke to the youth. We talked about Peter, and he did something that no other human being had done other than Jesus. I know what that is: walking on water. And so we're gonna look at that passage, but we're gonna connect it to two other psalms. We're gonna look at Psalm 18 and Psalm 69. Each of these psalms have one thing in common. The writer was in a storm. The writer felt like they were going to sink. They weren't gonna make it. So we're gonna start in Psalm 18. And for those of you just joining us, we've been going through the whole book of Psalms this summer, and uh we'd encourage you to re read through the book of Psalms. We're asking everyone to do average two a day. So, how many of you are in the middle of the Psalms right now? All right? If you haven't got started, do three a day. You can still make it. We've still got a few more days of summer. So Psalm 18, verse 16 said, He reached down from on high and took hold of me. He drew me out of deep water. So picture the creator of the universe reaching down to rescue someone that's deep in the water. Does that remind you of Peter? Right? Jesus reaching down. He rescued me from my powerful enemy, from my foes who were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my disaster, but the Lord was my support. He brought me out into a spacious place. He rescued me because he delighted in me. So a little summer psalm encouragement. From an eternal perspective, God rescues those he delights in. Now, some of you are like, well, what about someone that dies as a Christian martyr? Well, ultimately, you're rescued eternally. So from eternal background, you cannot kill a Christian, you can only promote a Christian. Yeah, you can kill my body, but that's all you can do, right? So that's encouragement. No matter what you go through, if you keep your eyes on the Lord, if you call upon the Lord in times of trouble, he delivers those he delights in. The fact that he delivered you is proof that he delights in you. And so the next psalm we're going to look at is Psalm number 69. This is a psalm of David. He says, Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. You ever heard the expression, I'm in over my head? Well, David's like, I'm about to be over my head. The waters keep rising. I sink in the miry depths where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters. The floods engulfed me. I am worn out calling for help. My throat is parched, my eyes fell, looking for my God. Have you ever been in a season in your life where you're just crying so much, you run out of tears? You're struggling so much, the depression is real. Have you ever been in a season where the tension is so thick you can cut it with a knife? Anybody been in seasons like that? We've all gone through times like that. And what David is saying is that when I was in desperation, God came to me. Skip down to verse 14. He says, Rescue me from the mire, do not let me sink. Deliver me from those who hate me from the deep waters. Do not let the flood waters engulf me, or the depths swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me. The author of Hebrews says that God is able to save to the uttermost those who come to Him. I just want to encourage you today. You're either in a trial, you're either coming out of a trial, or you're getting ready to go back into a trial. You're like Timothy, that's not very encouraging. I know, but it's life, right? And so I apologize for those of you who've listened to prosperity gospel teachers and they teach it's always going to be good. It's all listen, it's not this side of eternity. There's going to be challenging times. There's going to be times where you don't think you're going to make it. But as long as you keep your eyes on the one who controls the storm, you're going to be okay. So that brings us to Matthew chapter 14. I've entitled this message Five Anchors of Faith. If you guys were the student ministry, I would title this How to Be a Wet Water Walker. But this is not the youth edition, this is the congregation edition. So we're going to look at the disciples, kind of a context, they're sent into a storm. And they're sent by God Himself. So let's look at Matthew 14 and welcome those who are watching online. It says, Immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he sent the multitudes away. Now notice who made who get into the boat. Someone tell me, class. Jesus, right? So are you mean to tell me that Jesus is getting ready to send his disciples into a fierce storm? I thought God allows trials, but does he actually send me into them? The answer is sometimes it's yes, right? So look at the next verse. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up to the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. Now in the fourth watch of the night, you may want to write in your notes, that's three to six in the morning, three to six a.m. Jesus went to them walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him, they were troubled, saying, It's a ghost, and they cried out for fear. Now, if you saw an unidentified object, you'd probably say, It's a what? It's an alien or UFO, right? It's interesting how we have ways to label things, like, you know, you see this spaceship and it's doing all this stuff and the government releasing the files. I have an opinion on that, I'll share with you later, but there's things that we can't explain, right? So the disciples are like, this has got to be some kind of spirit because nobody can walk on water, they thought, right? So verse 27, but immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I, do not be afraid. But Peter answered and said, Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water. Now, before we read on, this is how I view Peter. I see him as the tough guy of the disciples. Any Sylvester Salone fans out there? I see Peter as that guy, right? And I can't speak in a rocky accent. I wish I could, but you know, yo, Lord, if it's you, tell me to come, right? Little Brooklyn accent. And Jesus is like, all right, Peter's at it again. Now notice what Jesus says to Peter. So Jesus, he asked them, and Peter says, Jesus says one word, come, verse 29. He says, come. And when Peter had gotten down out of the boat, he sank to the bottom. No, it doesn't read that, does it? He walked on the water. Now I just want to pause here. This had never been done in human history, right? Obviously, Jesus did it because he's God, but nobody in human history had ever walked on the water. Now, for the smart person out there, you're like, you know, I've walked on water. I'm not talking about frozen liquid. I'm talking about liquid H2O, right? Yes, you've walked on a frozen pond, but no one has ever walked on water. So I mean just think of this moment. Peter's like, I'm doing it. I'm stepping, like, whoa, it's actually working. This is crazy. So he's walking on water. And it says, he walked on the water to go to Jesus, but someone say, but I haven't done this yet, but one day I'm gonna hopefully come up with a series called The Big Butts of the Bible, the B U T S. I mean, there's so much happening, and then a contrast. Peter's walking, but, all right, that means something's gonna happen. But when he saw the wind was boisterous, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. So you see the connection with the two Psalms I read. They're in over their head, they're sinking, Peter's sinking. It's funny how the Bible is layered. Like you read the psalmist, they're experiencing it. Now Peter's sinking in the water. It's about to go over his head. And all of a sudden, in verse 31, immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him and said, Oh you of little faith, why did you doubt? So before we read verse 32, my question is why is Jesus rebuking Peter? Little faith. At least he's out of the boat, right? I would be a wet water walker than a dry boat disciple, right? I mean, he's he's walking. He like, why are you rebuking Peter? What is this little faith? We're going to answer that at the end of the message. What is it? What does Jesus mean by little faith? That's kind of shocking, and I don't really understand it as I read it. But Jesus reached out his hand, and notice what happens, verse 30. He stretched out his hand and caught him, owing little faith. Verse 32. And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Jesus, saying, Truly, you are the Son of God. So today I want to give you five anchors of how to have courage in the storm.

SPEAKER_00 11:54

You've been listening to Pastor Timothy Brown. We'll be right back with the message, but first we'd like to share some exciting news with you. We're releasing Dr. Timothy's new book called Go After Jesus. This book is a fresh approach to discipleship and focuses on your identity in Christ as the launching pad for Christian growth. In Go After Jesus, Pastor Timothy paints the picture of the six identities for every follower of Christ. You are a seeker, a disciple, a friend, a fisherman, a warrior, and a lover. We're currently offering two free chapters of this book as a digital download. To get your free chapters, go to Dr. Timothy's website at drtimothybrown.org. Now let's get back to the rest of the message with Pastor Timothy.

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And as I said, all of you are either in a storm, you're coming out of a storm, or guess what? You're getting ready to go into a brand new storm. You can thank me later for giving that encouragement. But it's the reality of life. This side of eternity, storms will happen. It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when. So in this passage, there are five anchors that will keep your boat from capsizing in a storm. All right, let's throw out anchor number one. It's private prayer. Private prayer is the protective covering you need before the storm. So I want you to notice in this passage, the context, if you read what happens before this passage, looking at the parallel gospels, Jesus' cousin, John the Baptist, has just been headed by Herod. Jesus has just fed the multitude. It's 5,000 men besides women and children. So if you add all the numbers, if every man had a wife and a child on average, that's 15,000, maybe 15 to 20,000. He's experienced the loss of a family member. The crowds are wanting him to do great miracles, and so he wants to get away. He wants to get away to pray. So on your listening God, I want you to write down these two things about prayer. First of all, prayer has to be intentional. Jesus was intentional about his prayer life. Notice he sent the disciples away, he sent the crowds away. He knew that if I'm going to recharge for the demands of ministry, I'm going to have to get away to pray. So being a father with six kids and a lovely wife, I have to find time to pray because guess what? Everybody wants your attention. My wife could say the same thing. Everybody, they want her attention even more than mine. So what do we have to do? We have to get up before the kids get up. Because once the kids get up, there's no time to pray, right? It's like, Lord help us. The day's gonna be challenging. I love my kids, they're wonderful. But we have to pray. We have to start the day off with pray. So he was intentional. Also, he was persistent and passionate. Notice from the scripture, he prayed all evening and through the night until three to six in the morning. Now think about that. That's a night of prayer. Now, do you have to pray all night, all the time? No, but there are some times when you're in a storm so severe that you simply can't sleep. And when you can't sleep, the best thing you can do is pray. So Jesus is praying while the disciples are in the storm, he's praying for them. So I want to ask you this question: what is your prayer life like? Now I don't want to be rigid or legalistic like you have to, but remember prayer is a protective covering before the storm. Many of us pray where we're in the storm. How many of us pray proactively before the storm, right? So this past week, we got a group of pastors and leaders from the community. We started asking God to come before us for the revival. When you get a group of pastors together and they start praying, it's like prayer took over the whole time. I had this, you know me with my listening guides, I had like four pages of notes to go over. I didn't get to go over it, which is good. Like God took over, the pastors were praying. They were asking God to cover this place, to protect this place. What were they doing? We are praying proactively for God's protection. We're praying proactively for revival. Now I want to explain the difference while we're on that note, the difference between revival and crusade. Because a lot of times we get confused between the two words. An evangelistic crusade is kind of like what Billy Graham, Franklin Graham did, where you invite all lost people to uh like a huge event and you present the gospel, and the number one goal of the crusade is what? People getting saved. A revival is a little different. Now, do you want people to get saved? Yes, but the word revive means something's already alive. And so our goal, just to kind of set expectations, we want people to get saved, but the goal is churches coming together. The goal is unity in the body of Christ. So if you come wanting an evangelistic crusade, I don't want you to be disappointed because that's not the focal point. It's churches coming together. It's people who are already saved that need the fire reignited. Does that make sense? Revive. Now, are there times and places for crusades? Absolutely. We need to do that, but I just want to be clear what the focal point for revival is people who are already saved that need that fire rekindled. And that brings us to the anchor number two. An eternal perspective will keep you afloat in the middle of the storm. Notice verse 24, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. So I want you to notice that Jesus himself sent the disciples into a storm. It wasn't like the storm just came. Jesus made them get into the storm. And you're it brings up the question: why would God allow this to happen? You ever ask the question, why do bad things keep happening to me? Am I the only one that asked that? Why are bad things happening to me? I'm trying to be in the middle of God's will. And it seems like in the middle of God's will there's more storms. Have you noticed that than if you're just halfway or backslidden? Why do those who follow God more closely get hit with more storms? Where, well, Warren Wearsby, he's now in heaven, he was a Bible commentator, he says there's two types of storms. There are storms of correction and there are storms of perfection. Wearsby says, storms of correction is like Jonah, where he rebelled against God, and God allowed a storm to get Jonah's attention. So for those of you who have ever been backslidden, i.e. running away from God, and you're a Christian, sometimes he will send a storm to get your attention. And you're like, all right, God, I get I get it, I'm gonna come back. The author of Hebrew says it like this if you're God's child, he will discipline you. He disciplines all the children he loves. So if you're his child and you go astray, guess what? A storm's coming. I wouldn't recommend being backslidden because there's gonna be a storm of correction. But for the rest of you who are following God and you're like, I'm sure I'm not perfect, but I'm trying to follow him, God will send storms of perfection. Those are to help you grow as a Christian. Those are to help you to mature. And I just want to assure you today, as a believer, God is not sending a storm to destroy your faith, but to develop your faith. Not to destroy, but to develop. So here's the here's the key. If you're in a storm, ask the question number one, did I bring this on myself? Some people are in storms, they brought on themselves, so don't blame God. That's the time to repent. Like Jonah, hey, I need to get back. God told me to go to Nineveh and I went to Tarshish, right? And I he had to go back. But the rest of you, you're like falling God and you're hit with all these storms, just like the disciples, they were in God's will and a storm came. Realize that God is trying to teach you. Every storm is a teacher. And it's just like if you remember fourth grade, in order to go to fifth grade, you had to pass, right? And I don't know if they do end of grade testing in fourth or fifth grade, but especially middle school on up, you do end-of-grade testing. So we'll just say sixth grade. If you want to get promoted to seventh grade, you have to pass the end-of-grade testing, right? How many of you keep repeating the same test over and over and failing? Here's a general principle. There are exceptions to this general principle, but the quicker you learn the lesson, the quicker you get out of the trial. I'll say that again. The quicker you learn the lesson, the quicker you get out of the trial. Now, the exceptions are lifelong trials. Some may have a child with mental learning disabilities or different things that God chooses not to heal. Those are lifelong, but most trials are temporary this side of eternity. Now every trial is temporary against eternity, but most trials have an expiration date. So here's here's an observation. The children of Israel were in the wilderness for how many years? Forty years. How many days was Jesus in the wilderness? Forty days, right? Would you rather be in a trial for 40 years or 40 days? What is the difference? Jesus was a quick learner. He's God, of course. But the rest of us sometimes are like the children of Israel, stubborn, obstinate, and not learning. So if you're in a trial, generally speaking, the quicker you learn the lesson, the quicker you get out of trial. So all of a sudden, this trial comes. And they need to develop an eternal perspective. Why is God doing this? Not to destroy me, but to develop me. There are things that happen in trials. If you look on your listening guide, there's three things. Promotions often come after the storm. Promotions. Promises come true after the storm. And faith can grow stronger after the storm. If you look at Joseph in the Bible, he's a good example. He was betrayed by his brothers, thrown in a pit. He was sold as a slave. Everywhere he went, people betrayed him. There's many reasons why. One is people got jealous of Joseph. He had a calling on his life. And just so you know, if you have a calling on your life, people will not always like it because they want a calling. And if they would just surrender to God, they would have a calling. It's just the calling comes, just being in connection with God. But Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, by Potiphar's wife. He was in prison. But in prison, what happened? He interpreted Pharaoh's dream. And he went from being in one trial after another to being VP of Egypt. Think about that, vice president. And he helped save millions of lives. But that came after the storm. And that's why the author of Romans, the Apostle Paul, in Romans 5 3, I love this, he says, We rejoice too when we run into problems and trials. Now, when I read that, I'm like, Paul, are you kidding me? I can rejoice when I'm in a storm. Paul, I mean, are you are you sitting in the a lofty library studying all that? I mean, do you know what real life is like? And Paul would say, Yes. I was beaten, I was shipwrecked, people threw rocks at me. But every time I got down, the Lord picked me up, right? But he says, we can rejoice because we know that they develop endurance.

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We're glad you joined us on today's edition of Truth for Transformation with Pastor Timothy Brown. We're working our way through the Book of Psalms, the original collection of worship music. God knows how music can connect people to his heart. It can take us from knowing something about God into a place of knowing him deeply. It connects the mind to the heart. The Psalms are an amazing how-to for worshiping God. You'll find calls to lift your hands, clap, bow down, sing, shout, and even dance. When did you last see dancing in church? Also, the psalms show us a wide array of what we can pray and sing to God about. We can celebrate God for his greatness, and we can call out and lament, asking God to deliver us. Sometimes we think we can't tell God how we really feel, but the Psalms show us that God can handle all our emotions. There are even psalms that call for God to bring justice against Israel's enemies. We hope today's message has led you closer to God. If you'd like to share your thoughts with us, ask a question, or just say hello, please find us on social media at Dr. Timothy Brown Ministries. You can also find us online at drtimothybrown.org, where you can connect and learn more about our ministry. Remember, it's through your support that this ministry is possible. Your giving fuels the mission. And being on mission for God is so important. To give, go to drtimothybrown.org. Thank you again for joining us on Truth for Transformation.