Let's look together at Matthew chapter 14 and we are continuing through the book of Matthew verse by verse and we're in Matthew 14 verses 22 through 36 today. And if you don't have a Bible, then please get one of the black Bibles on the end of the pew. It's on page 820 where we're looking today. And if you don't have a Bible at all, please keep that Bible for yourself. It's our gift to you. Let's read together from Matthew 14 verses 22 through 36. Immediately He, that's Jesus, immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side where He dismissed the crowds. And after He had dismissed the crowds, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. When evening came, He was there alone. But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it is a ghost. And they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart, it is I, do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. He said, come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, O you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased, and those in the boat worshipped him, saying, Truly you are the Son of God. And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized Him, they sent around to all that region and brought to Him all who were sick and implored Him that they might only touch the fringe of His garment. And as many as touched it were made well." A while back, I got to go and visit with Micah's family. We got to go all as a family and spend some time together at a family reunion way out in the middle of nowhere in the hills of the Ozarks in Arkansas. And it was great. It was just a great place to be and get out and just have that family time together. And the place where we stayed, being up in the hills, there were some hikes that you could go on. And there was this one particular hike where they asked us if we would like to sign up for it and pay a little bit of money to go on this hike because it was a guided hike. And they said, oh, well, it has a moderate difficulty. And I thought, well, yeah, sure, moderate difficulty. We lived in Colorado for five years. We're going to be just fine. This is, you know, the highest point in the state of Arkansas is lower than the lowest point in Colorado. And I'm just like, yeah, we've got this. It's going to be just fine. And we went on this hike, and I was wearing sort of like skate shoes. And I said to the guy, are these shoes going to be OK? And he said, yeah, you'll make it. You'll be OK. And we got up there and all of a sudden about halfway up We were we were pulling on these ropes trying to get ourselves up a waterfall, and I thought I am going to die There is no way I'm gonna make it through this and I didn't hide that very well either we had you know some ladies who were a little bit older than me who were a little bit braver than me maybe but I But all of a sudden, there I was thinking, I'm just going to go out on this stroll. We'll have a nice view. And I'm finding myself in the middle of this, what I think is a really dangerous situation. But what we all did on that hike is we trusted our guides. We trusted, they know exactly where to tell us to hang on to the ropes. They know exactly where to tell us to put our feet. We're going to trust what they say. And guess what? they knew exactly what they were talking about. And we all made it all the way up, we all got our pictures, and we all made it all the way down, which is the hard part. And we all made it through. Now, in the passage that we just looked at, that I just read for you, we have Jesus as sort of an adventure guide for the disciples, but not an adventure that they signed up for. He sends them out and sends them right into the middle of a storm to such a point that it's going to take them all night to get all the way across the Sea of Galilee. And they don't know where they're going, but Jesus knows. And what I hope that we will see here and see as we contemplate who Jesus is and the way that He was dealing with His disciples and with the crowds at the end of this as well, is that because Jesus is Savior and Jesus is Lord and our God, that we can trust and obey Him without fear. I'm going to say that again. Because Jesus is Savior and Lord, we can trust and obey Him without fear. Let's look first of all and see that Jesus is no ordinary man. In v. 22 it says, immediately. Immediately after what? Well, what's just happened is He has just fed the 5,000. And John gives us a little bit more information about what happened after the feeding of the 5,000 and the way that the crowd spoke to Him after that. But what you see in this situation is Jesus told the disciples after that to get in the boat. He didn't just tell the disciples, he didn't just ask them to, it says he made the disciples get in the boat. And that is a very forceful word that is used there. It's like he required them, he compelled them, you will get in this boat and go there now. So I don't know if they wanted to or not, but he made them do it. He made the disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side while He dismissed the crowds." So He spent more time with the crowds. And then after that, it said, after He had dismissed the crowds, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. That's such a beautiful picture, isn't it? Jesus kind of says to everybody around Him for a little while, disciples, you are My inner circle. I have chosen you. I love you. But go away for a little while. And crowds, yes, I fed you, I have been ministering to you, I've been teaching you, but go away for a little while. Because I just need to take this night, and I need to go up on a mountain by myself, and I need to pray. That's the example that we have from Jesus, is this intense, dedicated time for solitary prayer. You would think if anybody didn't need to pray, it'd be Jesus, because Jesus is God. There is no lack of communication between God the Father and God the Son at any point. And yet, Jesus decides this is so critical that even as I could be doing things with this group of men or with this crowd, I'm going to send everybody away and I'm going to go up until the wee hours of the morning on a mountain by myself just to pray. Jesus was feeding His own soul. Boy, how much we need that. And how much we tell ourselves, no, I have more important things to do. I don't have time to pray. If there were more important things to do, do you know who would have had them to do? Jesus. We are not greater than Jesus. We are not in control of our lives like Jesus was of His. And yet, this is what Jesus did. Jesus went up by Himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone. But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. Now, Jesus knew exactly what He was sending those disciples into while He was praying. He knew He was sending them into a storm. He knew He was sending them into difficulty, that the wind would be against them, that they would have a hard time reaching the other side of the shore. By the way, if you want to get a little bit of a picture of the size of the Sea of Galilee, the lake that they were going across, it is almost exactly the same size and the same shape as Staten Island. It's just bizarre. If you ever pull up Google Maps and look at Staten Island and then go over to Israel and pull up the Sea of Galilee, it's like they're the same thing except one's land and one's water. So it's not a huge place, but when they're out in a little bitty fishing boat with no motor on it, with just a sail, and there's a storm that blows up and the wind is beating against them and they get out into the middle of this and there is miles and miles to go, And they are just working, and they know it's going to take them all night to reach the other side. And I don't know, but maybe they were sitting around thinking, why in the world did Jesus send us into this? He made us get in this boat. He made us go to the other side. And now here we are, and it's going to take all night. And we might die. But Jesus knew what He was doing. He knew exactly where He was sending them. He knew exactly what He was doing. And He knew that it was going to take Him a long time before He came and rescued them. Now if you were just sitting there in that boat thinking, okay, Jesus said He's going to come meet us, would you have been expecting Jesus to come right then? right in the middle of the lake, right in the middle of the storm. Everybody in that boat would have been thinking, we will see Jesus on the other side. He's going to find some way to get over there. And at this point, walking around the whole place would be faster than taking a boat. So we'll meet Him over there. It'll be fine. Nobody expected, well, Jesus is coming right now. I've got to say, Jesus is coming back again. And do you expect that He might come right now? I hope you do. I hope you do. Because Jesus himself said that when he comes back, it's going to be like the thief in the night. Where nobody expected, everybody thinks, Jesus couldn't possibly come back right now. The unbelieving world would say, well, there's no way Jesus is coming anyway. There's no way that that would ever happen. But all of a sudden, now, here, Jesus is walking on the water. Jesus will fulfill his promise. He will come for us. And He will come back, and it will be a moment when it was unexpected, and we need to be ready. But here they are in the middle of this lake, and Jesus hasn't come yet, but He's no ordinary man. Here's what He does. They were a long way off. They were beaten by the waves. The wind was against them. Verse 25, in the fourth watch of the night. The fourth watch of the night means sometime between 3 and 6 a.m. Jesus had been praying all night And between 3 and 6 a.m., before the sun had come up when it's pitch black outside, Jesus came walking on the sea." Jesus came walking on the sea. How did He do that? I don't know how He did that. I know it was a miracle, but how did he do it? You think of all these ways. Maybe every step that he took, he froze a solid column of ice straight down from the surface to the bottom of the lake so that he had a firm place to stand. Maybe he went the other direction, maybe he told the air above him to hold him up and created this intense low pressure system right over his head to where the air would just hold him up just enough that he could just walk right across the sea. Maybe he just simply commanded the molecules of water not to get out of the way of his feet like they usually would, just to stay there and to hold him up. But here's the great news, we don't need to know the mechanics and the mechanics are above our comprehension. And whenever we look at a miracle like this, what we don't do is we don't go looking for, well, what really happened here? Because the whole point here, the whole reason this is written down is because this is something that just doesn't happen, but with Jesus it did. You don't just go out to the water and start walking and go across. Boy, so many people's commute would be cheaper if you could do that, right? But Jesus did it. And what this is showing is that Jesus is no ordinary man. That Jesus commands. He is the Lord over this sea. This very sea that He had sent His disciples into where He knew what He was getting them into. He's the Lord over it. And He can simply say, alright, I'm going to their boat now. I'll take a stroll. through the wind, through the waves, across the sea, and here comes Jesus. So Jesus is no ordinary man. Do we put our faith in ourselves? The world tells us to. The world says have faith in yourself. Well, what was happening with the disciples and their best efforts? They were being beaten down by the waves, making no progress in the middle of the sea. Faith in yourself is not going to do a whole lot, is it, in that situation? You can work. You can do some things. There's some stuff by God's grace that you can accomplish. But faith in yourself, boy, if that's all you've got to go on, then you will be destroyed. But here comes Jesus, the Lord of the sea, the Lord of all creation, the Lord over them. Don't put your faith in yourself. Don't put your faith in man. Put your faith in Christ, the Lord of all creation. This Jesus is no ordinary man. Here's who He is. He's the great I Am. I want you to see what this interaction was that came up between Jesus and His disciples when Jesus approached. V. 26, when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were terrified. And they said, it is a ghost. Now, they were fishermen by trade, most of them. They had probably been out in storm. Well, we know that they'd been out in at least one horrible storm on the sea already. And probably their whole lives they were experienced with what happened in the Sea of Galilee and these storms that would blow up. And, you know, there they are. They know this is how we row. We keep the boat facing into the waves so we don't crash over sideways. We do this, we do that. But when they expressed fear was when they saw Jesus. He said, that is not normal. What is that coming at us? And they were terrified and they said it has to be a ghost. There's no other explanation. But who is it? Who is it? It's not a ghost. Immediately, Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid. Take heart, it is I. My own personal translation of the way that Jesus puts it here is cheer up, I am. I am is the words that he used here when he said, it is I. He called himself, as he was approaching and identifying himself as not a ghost, the way that he identified himself was with the very name of God. I am. Take heart. Cheer up. I am is what Jesus says. Not a ghost. For those who have faith in Him, not someone any longer to be afraid of, but someone who is coming as the rescuer, as the one who gives cheer. Put away your fear. I Am. Trust in Me. That's the idea here. This Jesus who is no ordinary man, who is the great I Am, He is Lord and Savior too. Look at v. 28, what happens with Peter. Peter answered Him. Peter's the first one to speak up. Peter kind of has this personality where he's the guy who's going to do that. And he says, Lord, if it is You, which is kind of put there as a question. Is it you? Well, if it is you, then command me to come to you on the water. Why did Peter say that? I've got to say, I don't know. There's been just endless speculation about what was Peter thinking here? What was his goal? Why would he want to go out on the water? I mean, I guess the very most basic explanation is he was excited to see Jesus. And he thought, well, maybe if Jesus is doing this, he'll do it for me, too, and I'll just go. And he turned out to be right about that. But what was going through his head? I don't know. I don't know. But here's the situation that Peter got himself into. He decided to test and see, is this Jesus, by saying, I'm going to jump into the storm right out of the boat and onto the water and see if I can walk, too. Because if that really is Jesus, then I'm pretty sure I can do it. So that's what Peter does. And then, here's what happens. Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water. That's incredible. That's incredible. That is a miracle of Jesus. This is not because Peter is Peter. It's not because Peter is somebody different than you and me. It's because Peter is following after the Lord of the sea, the Lord of the universe, Jesus Christ, and Jesus decides Peter wants to come to Me, I'll let him come the same way that I'm walking around. And Jesus held him up the same way, and he was there, at least for a moment, standing on the water, walking on the waves, making his way toward his Lord, his Savior, Jesus Christ. But then this thing happens. So Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. He got out, he walked on the water. Verse 30, it says, when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me. You remember what Jesus had just said? Do not be afraid. And now all of a sudden, for a minute, Peter kind of got it. He jumped out of the boat and by faith he was walking toward Jesus fearlessly. But then he enters into this state of, well, really disobedience. And disobedience in particular in the form of wavering faith. And it says, he began to fear. And what was he afraid of? He wasn't afraid of the Lord of the sea. He was afraid of the sea. He wasn't afraid of the one who could command the winds and waves at any moment to stop, because he's already seen Jesus do that. He's afraid of the very thing that he, just the system of the world that he has grown up with in front of his eyes. Big waves are dangerous. Storms are dangerous. I am in the middle of a storm with no boat. This is not good. And his eyes came off of Jesus and his eyes focused on the storm and the waves. And what happened? Well, immediately he began to sink down. That's what was happening. But what did he do? He was afraid, beginning to sink. He cried out, Lord, save me. He cried out, Lord, save me. And Jesus immediately reached out His hand and took hold of him saying, O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" Wow. Here's what happened for Peter though. Peter made a doubt. Peter may have had faith that wavered. He may have taken his eyes off of Jesus for a little while. But you know what he did? He cried out, Lord, save me. And Jesus did. Now, so many times I've heard this story told in such a way where we just pick on Peter a whole lot. Like, can you believe Peter? He's the guy who took his eyes off of Jesus. I would never do that. Are you sure? Are you sure that you and I are not the ones of little faith? Have you ever walked on the water? I've got a lot of respect for Peter here. He walked on the water by faith in Jesus Christ, if only for a little bit. And Jesus calls him, O you of little faith. But you know what else Jesus says about little faith? He says if you have faith as the grain of a mustard seed, you can tell this mountain to be picked up and thrown into the sea, and it will obey you. Little faith is faith. And it could be bigger. And Jesus is telling him that it could be bigger. But Jesus came and rescued him by his little faith. He cried out Lord save me and he was rescued. This is amazing. This is the Jesus who is Lord over the wind and the waves and all creation and who is Lord over us and who is our Savior. He is our Savior. Now sometimes when we come to particular passages of Scripture that have things in them like storms, we want to just say, well, this must be about the storms of life. Or when we come to a passage of Scripture that has giants in it, we say, well, this must be about facing the giants of life. And I think 99% of the time that is really, really bad Bible interpretation. However, in this text of Scripture, both in the way that Jesus did these actions and in the particular words and phrases that the Holy Spirit breathed out through the pen of Matthew for us. We have textual evidence here that God is relating and showing exactly what Jesus did in this passage, that this relates back to a theme of the Old Testament of what we prayed from earlier. This idea that we, in a non-literal sense, are those who, apart from God, would sink into the depths of the sea and be lost. We would sink into the depths of our sin, into the depths of our difficulties, and we would not make it out. But let me read you again. We prayed this earlier, but let me read you this and think about the actual phrases that are here and the similarities between the way it is recorded in Matthew and what's written in Psalm 69. In Psalm 69, it says, Save me, O God. Does that sound familiar? where Jesus cried out, Lord, save me. David said, save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out. Did you catch that phrase, too? He kept saying, the disciples cried out. Peter cried out. He's crying out, save me, O God. And David says, I am weary with my crying out. My throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. Jesus is the fulfillment here. Jesus comes and does a literal water rescue and the Holy Spirit breathes out the words about it in such a way that we can see that Jesus is not only the one who is able to literally rescue people out of stormy waters, that Jesus is the rescuer from all of the things that rage against us in our lives. He is the rescuer of those who cry out to God in faith. Save me, O God. Save me, Lord Jesus. There's an old hymn that says, I was sinking deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore I was, he says that I was sinking to rise no more than the master of the sea heard my cry and from the waters lifted me and now safe am I. That's where we are. And now you may think to yourself, well, I have this storm in my life. I have this thing going on. And yes, those are real things. And yes, Jesus really is in charge. And yes, Jesus, he has providence. He put you in the middle of that on purpose. And he's the one who can rescue you out of it. But listen to the bigger point here. You have a storm that you were born with that you may not have even recognized yet. And that is the storm of your own rebellion against God and your sin. And where we were, we were sinking in our sin. And thinking if I just go deeper, things will be better. And we were going deeper toward death. Not looking to our Lord. Not looking to our Savior. Not looking to the God of the universe and God over us. But instead looking at what are the things in this world? And they're terrifying things. And they're empty things. And they're wind. And they're waves. But here's what happens. Jesus can come. And Jesus can stand in front of us and Jesus can so move our hearts that we will cry out the exact same thing that Peter did, Lord, save me. And we don't have to have the greatest faith of anybody who ever lived. God comes and he rescues those of little faith because faith is his gift. And if you have a little faith, God has given it to you, and praise God for it. And use it, and cry out and say, Lord, save me. Rescue me out of these waters. Rescue me out of my sin. The same Jesus who came and pulled Peter up out of the water, he's the Jesus who went through the very waters of death. He went through the chaos of the sea of the wrath of God when he would later be crucified on the cross and bear the penalty for our sins. And you know what he did? He did something that nobody else has ever done, which is he came out on the other side of it. He went through it. He bore God's wrath for our sins in that chaos, and he came out alive, and he is the one who can rescue us. So I will say, don't do this with every passage of Scripture. Don't just come to every passage of Scripture and say, well, the storm must be an allegory for this situation in my life. But in this one, there's textual merit for it. So I'm going to use it. I'm going to do it, OK? Jesus can rescue you out of any storm because he's put you in it, and in particular, the storm of your sin. And he can save us and he can rescue us for all eternity. And then look at what's the response of the disciples here. Verse 31, Jesus immediately reached out his hand, took hold of them. Why did you doubt? And verse 32, when they got out of the boat, or excuse me, when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. That's amazing, isn't it? I wonder what those guys were thinking. Couldn't you have stopped the wind a little earlier, Jesus? Peter may have been thinking, why didn't you just make that happen before I started getting scared? I could have walked to you just fine on a calm sea, Jesus. But no, that was not Jesus's plan. But he still showed, yeah, I'm the Lord of the sea. I'm going to calm the sea just like I did before. I'm going to do it now because it obeys my voice as its creator. When ceased, and those in the boat worshiped him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God. Now, up to this point, The disciples had not referred to Jesus as the Son of God. This was ambiguous. This was unclear. Jesus, on purpose, was making it so that people didn't understand who he was yet. Jesus was using a title for himself called Son of Man. And people were so confused by that title, Son of Man. They were saying, what does Jesus mean by Son of Man? First of all, is he talking about himself or is he talking about somebody else? I can't really always tell. And then when he says Son of Man, how does he mean that? Because in the Old Testament, it could mean the same way that God talked about Ezekiel, oh, Son of Man. And then he'd give him a revelation. And by that, God meant, well, Ezekiel, you're not God, you're man. Does Jesus mean that? Or does Jesus mean son of man like Daniel 7.13 where one like a son of man comes on the clouds of heaven with his angels and is seated on the throne of God and is the judge and Lord of heaven and earth? Yeah, that's what he means. But at this point, it was still kind of tricky. What is Jesus talking about? Here's where we see the disciples turn and say, this Jesus is no mere man. This Jesus is God. When they say Son of God, they don't just mean, hey, he's a dude like us, but he's kind of godly. No, they mean this is God the Son who has come in the flesh for us, and we will worship him. Now, they're going to continue to show, as time goes on and as the book of Matthew goes on, that they still didn't quite get it. They get it, but they don't get it. And they're going to go backwards in their understanding and forwards and backwards and forwards some more until finally Jesus is raised from the dead. And then they get it. But here they are saying, look, it's just obvious from what has happened with Jesus is walking on the sea and rescuing Peter out of the water and calming the storm and bringing us safely to the other side. This is not just the Son of Man. This is the Son of God. This is the climax of this passage of Scripture. The climax is not Jesus walking on the water. The climax is not Peter walking on the water. The climax is not Peter being rescued out of the water. The climax is not Jesus stilling the storm. The climax is the worship of Jesus as God. That's the point. This is what this all comes to, is the worship of our Lord and Savior. That's the climax for us, too. A couple of years ago, I took Ben to a Mets game, just me and Ben. And it was the first Major League game that he had been to. And it was the Mets versus the Phillies, which is just classic, right? And the Mets won. And it was just glorious. It was great. And at the very end, I've still got this video of Ben, five years old, where he's just, you know, and the big board, it's saying Mets win, Mets win, and he's just dancing and he's playing with the seats in the stadium and he's so, so happy. You know, that was the climax of that game. The climax was not any particular hit. The climax was not even that the Mets won. The climax was This is getting the fans excited. This is creating a Mets fan for life in this kid right here. So what I'm saying is we have these little pictures, these little hints in this world of things that help us to grasp this bigger truth that we're pointed toward. When you go to a Mets game, or if you don't like the Mets, then whatever other team that may be in New York that shall not be named. then, you know, you, you, why do you go? It's not ultimately because you really hope that a ball is going to get hard. It's because you want to get excited about it, right? And, and what is the ultimate end of Jesus coming for us? Jesus rescuing us, Jesus showing us who he is, and our understanding and coming to faith in Christ, the ultimate end is the worship of our God. The worship of our God and Savior. It is all for, like we say, sole deo gloria, as we say because we're good reformed people. For the glory of God alone. We're not good. I'm just saying we like that phrase sometimes. But this is the idea. Why has God saved us? For his glory. And this is the pinnacle of his salvation is for us to turn and to worship and to praise him and say truly you are the son of God. That's where we go. Now he ends this up. What happens on the other side? I'll just read this, and I want to connect this here. Verse 34, when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all the region and brought to him all who were sick and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment. And as many as touched it were made well. Now, Jesus had done this amazing thing with his inner circle of disciples. But I love that immediately he goes out. He had dismissed his disciples, he dismissed the crowds, went off by himself, walked across the sea, got back together with his disciples, talked to them, they worshipped him, and now he's back with the crowds again. And if we think of ourselves in this situation, we put ourselves in this story, because we do that. It's just part of what you do when you consider it and consider what was going on. I'm definitely not in the place of Jesus in this story. Pretty sure I'm not in the place of the apostles in this story, because I'm not an apostle. You know where I find myself in this story? I find myself in that crowd. You know, I'm not something special. This thing where Jesus was going out and mingling with the crowd, It actually leads into what we're going to see in chapter 15 about the Pharisees disputing with Jesus about not keeping all of the laws of cleanliness that they have and their extra rules beyond the Bible. One of the things that the Pharisees taught was that you should not rub shoulders with a crowd of people because you don't know who's in that crowd. You don't know what kind of sicknesses they have. You don't know what they've been into. And if you're just out there in the midst of the sweaty, smelly mass of humanity, then you're going to get uncleanness on you. And you're going to be ceremonially impure so that you can't come and worship at the temple. That's what the Pharisees taught. Well, what did Jesus do? He put Himself right there into that sweaty, smelly, diseased mass of humanity and let people come up and touch Him. And you know what happened when people touched Him? We've seen this in Matthew before. Did their uncleanness get on Him? Exactly the opposite. Jesus as Lord cleanses them. He heals them. He cleanses them. That's where I find myself here. This is the incredible thing. This Jesus who is Lord of the Sea, who is God over all creation, who rescues those who call out to him in faith, Lord save me. This Jesus is the one who is willing to come to me as part of the sweaty, diseased, smelly mass of humanity and let me reach out my hand to touch the fringe of his garment and he saves even me. That's where we find ourselves and this is the Savior that we have. That's my question to you. Will you come to this Jesus? You don't think of yourself as part of the inner circle. I'm not part of the inner circle. But Jesus loves even me. Will you come, will you take hold of this cleansing, saving Son of God, Lord of the universe? And He will love even you and cleanse you and seat you in the heights of heaven. This is a fairly ordinary day as far as the calendar goes, July 16th. It is a warm day. I imagine a lot of you guys have plans for what you're going to do later today, getting outside and I hope enjoying the weather and eating, all sorts of things. Don't let the normalcy of this day get you in a mindset that you have not encountered the supernatural God of the universe in His Word. If Jesus is calling to you, Jesus is crying out to you, take heart, it is I. Don't worry, I am. Respond to Him. Respond to Him today on July 16th, a totally normal summer day where there's no other church activities the rest of the day and you've got lunch plans. Respond to Jesus today and cry out to Him and say, Lord, save me. and turn your life to Him and worship Him, and He will save you, and He will cleanse you, and He will take you. And if that's you, let's talk about that immediately after the service. Like I said, there's no other church activity. I've got all day, all right? And let's make sure that you know Him, the Son of God. Let's pray. God, we thank You and we praise You that You have sent Jesus, our Rescuer, our Savior, the Lord of the universe. He is not any ordinary man. He is the great I Am, our God and our Savior, the Son of God. And He is the one who cleanses, who heals, who takes us exactly where we are in the depth of our sin and our depravity and our ugliness. and rescues us by faith in him. God, I pray that that would be the case for us. I pray that you would take those who know you and cause us to turn continually to praise, the climax of being saved, to praise you and glorify you. And God, I pray for those who don't yet know you, who have not yet been known by you, have not yet turned to you in faith. God, I pray that you would come to them, that you would comfort them, that you would show them who you are, the great I am, and cause them, by your grace, to turn to you and to cry out in faith, save me, oh Lord. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.