What Brings Us to Our Knees?, Part 2

Ever feel all alone?

Today on Insight for Living from Chuck Swindoll. There are dark nights when we feel all alone, but we're not. You have Jesus.

You have Him living as a resident in your life. His Spirit is there to empower, to refresh your faith. He's there, even though the night is dark. When the storm clouds move into our lives and everything appears dark and gloomy, it's easy to begin believing we're all alone. Sometimes in the middle of our struggle, the loneliness becomes suffocating. Well, today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll recounts a dramatic story in Matthew chapter 14, where Peter stepped out of his fishing boat onto the choppy waters of the lake.

He was not alone. And from those faith-building moments when Peter walked on the water toward Jesus, Chuck finds four practical lessons for today, and he begins his message with prayer. As we stand before you, our Father, we would utter the same words, for you are mighty, mighty, mighty. And we are so weak. We are so impotent to change even the slightest part of our circumstances. And so we bow before you and trust you to do that.

And you were loving, loving, loving. But we are not. We're fickle. We're temperamental. Our love warms and cools depending on others' response. And we acknowledge that openly and with a measure of embarrassment.

How grateful we are to come to one who knows us the best and yet loves us the most. You are wise, wise, wise. And we lack that wisdom.

We see now, but we're unable to see even an hour from now. We're unable to shape our thinking without your help and your wisdom. We count on you to do that. And we trust you this morning in this very hour we're together to replace our limited sight with your wisdom. And you are holy, holy, holy.

And we are not. We are sinful by birth, by nature, and by choice. We say with Paul, wretched man am I who will deliver me from this body of death. So today our Father, knowing that you have all the things we do not have, it is a privilege to call upon you to provide the strength we don't have because you were mighty, to provide the love that we lack because you are full of that love. And to give us the kind of wisdom we long for, but we haven't in ourselves. And you alone can make us holy.

And do that. We pray by your grace. And as you do that, today as we anticipated, we give full of joy, joy, joy. In the name of Jesus.

Everyone said, Amen. You're listening to Insight for Living. To study the book of Matthew with Chuck Swindoll, be sure to download his Searching the Scriptures studies by going to insightworld.org slash studies. And now the message from Chuck that he titled, What Brings Us to Our Knees. In the midst of this, what seems to be like an impossible circumstance, I love the setting of Jesus coming up toward them.

Look for yourself. When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified in their fear and they cried out, it's a ghost. He doesn't rebuke them. He looks at them and simply says, don't, don't, don't be afraid.

And they realize who it is. And his words are, I am. That's who's here.

I am. So forgive me here if it's a little too far, but my imagination does get a little crazy sometime. Peter, he looks at him and goes, man, that is cool. Whoa. How about it, Lord?

It's you and me, okay? And Jesus says, simply, come, come on. It was great. Imagine it. Throws his tunic aside, throws a big old hairy leg over the side of the boat, gets on the way. Remember, the storm is still going on. It's still pounding away and he gets on the waves and he's walking on them like it is cool, really good stuff. Until all of a sudden he looks down and sees the waves and feels the wind and he starts to sink. And he screamed, I love the line in the Greek text, beginning to sink, he cried out.

Did you love that? I took the life of Christ from Dwight Pentecost and he made a great deal out of this beginning to sink. Just as the water began to lap up over the sandals, not till he was waist deep in water drowning, but he is just barely starting to sink. He said, Lord, save me. He's getting ready to sink and that flash of faith failed and the Lord reaches over, I love it, and grabs him.

Now, what you've missed all your life is most likely you've missed it is something I found just this past week. When Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him, I'm in verse 31, yes. He reached out and grabbed him and he said, little faith. He gave him a name. Oh, little faith. Remember the last name he gave him?

Rocky. No wonder he sank, huh? And now, little faith. But what is probing is the question as he's holding Peter close.

When Jesus holds you, you never sink. And he said to him, why did you doubt? Wonderful question.

Peter never answers. It's a rhetorical question meant to make him think. Those are the best questions.

Not those that have quick and simple answers, but those that drill in and hit you like shrapnel in the brain. And you think on them. I think Peter remembered that question for a long time. Why did you doubt? We were going together on the water and you focused on the wrong thing. Well, they climbed back in the boat. Look at it.

Look at the story, 32. They climbed into the boat. The wind stopped. I've been at sea a number of times and I will tell you, I've seen the wind start, but I have never, ever seen it suddenly stop. I believe immediately a slick formed on the water, on that sea that Jesus had made centuries earlier. And the boat is still rocking from the movement in the storm.

But there was no wind and there was not a wave. And we read, then the disciples came to realize something. That's the Son of God.

And what did they do? My text says they worshiped. It brought them to their knees. Why hadn't they done that during the storm when they realized it was Jesus walking on the water? Why wasn't at that moment everybody saying to each other, it's the Son of God.

We're in great shape. Who cares if it's stormy? We gonna go under if Jesus is there. And we're not told in Matthew's gospel, but Mark does tell us. If you've got a New Testament in your hand, turn to Mark chapter 6 verses 51 and 52. As the storm stops, Mark inserts, he's the earliest of all the gospel writers, he inserts something the other writers do not include. And I read, for they had not gained any insight from the incident of the loaves, for their heart was hardened. Whoa.

You hear that? It hasn't been 24 hours since they're stuffed. In fact, they should have remembered because he had part of it all over them since they had thrown up several times during the storm. And they remembered the food that he had provided, but they had gained no insight from the food. Before we're busy shaming them, hit the reverse button and go back to your recent moment where you failed to gain insight from the incident that the Lord had taken you through. We all could name him.

And they worshiped him. When it finally all came clear. And we finished the story, but we've not finished the message. Because there's something here for all of us that we can all enter into without a lot of effort.

Here's the first. There are dark nights when we feel all alone, but we're not. We're not. I will never leave you. I will never abandon you, never forsake you. I am with you always to the very end of the age. You have Jesus.

You have him living as a resident in your life. His spirit is there to empower, to remind you of those incidents, to refresh your faith. He's there even though the night is dark. There's no night quite so dark as a night where the bottom seems to have dropped out of your hope.

Some of you are there right now. You're running real shy of hope. And night is coming soon.

But you're not alone. Here's a second thought. There are huge storms that seem to last too long, but they're not.

They're not too long. No storm strikes us that is not known by, permitted by, or directed by the Lord our God. What a difference that makes in storms. Sometimes Cynthia and I will say to each other, this is not an accident. Some event that occurs that sort of sweeps us off our feet. Our heads tend to spin. And in the swirl, we are tempted to think, how long is this going to go on? It's like the prophet Habakkuk, where he can't figure out what the Lord's doing. And these treacherous people are in charge of the government. And he says to the Lord, why is this happening?

And how long is this going to go on? And the Lord tells him, if I told you, you wouldn't believe what I'm going to do. And Habakkuk says to the Lord, yeah, I will tell me. And the Lord tells him and Habakkuk goes, I can't believe it. I just can't believe it. How could a God who is holy use a godless people like the Assyrians to invade our country? I know what I'm doing.

It's not out of control. One flip of my finger and the Assyrians move into eternity. Back to the storm, it's never longer than it should be. I learned from a woman of God years ago when I was teetering on the edge of doubt.

She pulled me aside and said to me, Chuck, I just want to remind you that the Lord not only plans the depth of a test, he plans the length of it as well. That storm could have lasted only an hour or so and been over, but it didn't. It went on and on and on and on and on and on like your storm, like your unanswered prayer, like the situation you're dealing with. And every time you try to deal with it more, it gets only more complicated. It's not too long.

It isn't too long. Storms, remember, are under his control. He walks on stormy seas, which is the third point. There are flashes of faith. There are flashes of faith we believe will last, but they don't. In a flash forward of faith, we throw our foot over the boat, and we're ready to walk on that water with them, and we'll take on the waves. And then we get hit again by them, and we begin to sink. They don't last very long, these little flashes of faith.

And that brings up a great fourth point. There are dreadful moments where we think we'll sink and drown, but we don't. You're here, aren't you? You're breathing, aren't you? Heart's beating, isn't it? Peter, the end hasn't come because you began to sink.

You're not going to sink in my arms. None of these tests, the dark night, the huge storms, the faith flashes that fade, even those sinking moments when we think we'll drown, these are not designed to finish us off. They're designed to bring us to our knees in worship, but they won't if we lack imagination. Remember, it's at these times we have to see the unseen. As we walk by faith, we have to realize there's more there than we're actually able to see.

We talk about eyes of faith, that's what that's all about. I read some time ago the short story by G.W. Target titled The Window. It's a wonderful account, short but full of passion, of two men who are really sick in the same hospital room. One has a bed by the door and the other is over there by the window. And the man by the door is not able to sit up at all, he has to stay flat on his back. The man over there on the other side is able to get up for one hour every afternoon as he sits up they are able to drain his lungs, lest they fill up and his disease taken.

Interestingly, they develop a conversation and a friendship as they talk about their families, their work, their hobbies, times they went on vacation. But what was really unique about it is when the man by the window would talk to the man on his back and tell him what he was seeing. He saw a park with a lovely lake, ducks and swans played on the water, little children floated their model boats and lovers walked arm in arm and the walkway was filled with colorful flowers and old trees graced the landscape. A fine view of the skyline of the city was in the distance and as the man lay there he pictured it in his mind and it seemed marvelous if he could only see it with his own eyes. One warm afternoon the man over there described a parade which the other man could not hear when it was closed and he describes it beautifully.

There's a drum major, there's a band, there are people marching, there are folks on the side clapping in rhythm with a cadence. Unexpectedly an alien thought filled the man who couldn't sit up. Why should he have all the pleasure of seeing everything while I never get to see anything?

It isn't fair. As the thought fermented the man felt ashamed at first but then as the days passed he missed seeing more sights and his envy turned into resentment and eroded into a sour bitterness. Night fell and that particular night he heard gagging from the man by the window and he was reaching, he could hear him trying to find the cord to call the nurse. The man by the door knew where his cord was, he could see it but he never reached over and pulled it that would have brought the nurse to save his life.

After a while there was silence, deathly silence. The nurse came in to take their vitals later and found the man was gone, she was saddened, called for those who would come and take the body away. The man who had been longing to have that bed soon asked, could you move me to that bed?

I'd love to be in that bed and she said of course. It was not yet dawn and so everything was still dark but finally the sun began to rise and as he looked over to his amazement he saw that it was a blank wall. Everything the other man had seen he saw through his imagination. You sit here today and unless I miss my guests you envy some who seem to have the colorful side of life.

They seem never to be sick, they rarely seem to have a problem, the job is moved up for them, lovely place to live, wonderful, wonderful family. Yours is sort of disintegrated and all of it makes you sad and if you're not careful it makes you resentful especially if you forget the power of what I call sacred imagination, other words for faith. Trusting God in spite of where you find yourself, believing that he is in charge of how dark the night is and how long the storm lasts and how to handle you as you strut and your faith flashes and you cry out for help how faithful he is to come to your rescue.

Not enough has been said about the value of imagination. Let's bow our heads. So that you're not interrupted by any other visual stimuli just close your eyes, just sit there. Relive the last few days if it helps the last few weeks, been pretty rough. Storm has been raging, seems like it's 24 hour nightfall. Remind yourself at this moment he's right there in that storm reminding you I am, I am. Come, walk with me. Oh the difference that makes. It takes away that feeling that you're all alone or a night will never pass or the embarrassment of your foolishness and your doubt. So I invite all of us who are little faiths to pause right here and learn something from the incident of the loaves and the fish that our God provides.

He hasn't stopped just because life has gotten difficult. If you've never trusted in the Lord Jesus, call out to him. Help me Lord. I can't keep doing this journey alone. I need you. I need your arms around me. I need you to hold me close. Help me make it through the night.

Get me beyond the storm. When you call on Christ, he will come in to live within you. We would love to help you in your first steps called the Christian life.

You let us know you need that help and we'll be there. Thank you dear Father for your marvelous word where with just a simple touch of imagination we enter into a story that we never really entered into before. Thank you that Jesus never drowns. He always walks on that storm and he's never at a loss for words. He knows when to say I am and come and he never shames us.

Thank you Father for giving us a savior like that. Quiet every heart that has come near deep depression. Bring them back. Give them hope.

Bring the Son. These things I ask in the name of Jesus. Everyone said, Amen. Amen. Though you may feel overlooked in life, perhaps isolated by your circumstances, we hope today's program reassures you that you're never alone.

God walks alongside us even in the storm. You're listening to Insight for Living. Chuck Swindoll titled today's message, What Brings Us to Our Knees? And if you'd like to learn more about this ministry, please visit us online at insightworld.org. Perhaps you never stop to think about it, but while you may be listening to this program all by yourself, you're joined by countless others who are listening right now too.

In fact, someone left a note on our website that said, I'm a senior citizen living alone. Your laughter is contagious. It brightens my day. Thank you very much, Chuck. You are a blessing to many, both to the lost who came to know the Lord because of your preaching and to believers who need daily spiritual feeding. May God continue to bless you and your ministry. Well, such encouraging words from someone who listens to this program every day. And if you're among those who financially support Insight for Living, you've played a significant role in reaching this person who lives alone. We're especially grateful to our monthly companions who understand the importance of their monthly gift.

Thanks so much. As God leads you to support Insight for Living, either with a one-time donation or to become a monthly companion, we invite you to get in touch with us today. You can easily sign up online by going to insight.org. Or, if it's easiest for you, please feel free to speak with one of our ministry representatives by calling us. If you're listening in the U.S., call 1-800-772-8888.

Again, that's 1-800-772-8888. You can also give a one-time donation online at insight.org. Thank you for your generous support of Insight for Living.

Join us again when Chuck Swindoll describes the danger of spiritual blind spots, Thursday on Insight for Living. The preceding message, What Brings Us to Our Knees?, was copyrighted in 2016 and 2021. And the sound recording was copyrighted in 2021 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.