Good morning. Brother Lee, it's froze. Can't get it going pretty easy. There's only two more to cover. Everybody got lesson three outlined? Anybody need an outline for lesson three? Brother Bart needs one. Okay, Bart, you get the last one. That's the best one. We saved the best one for last. All right, brother, thank you. Alright, so far we have covered one, number one, number two, part number three. Number one was the sad situation. Number two was the scornful spectators. And then we start on number three, the sufficient savior. And last week we also did Peter's attendance. And then that leaves us with B, really just the last one on there, is the maid's arising. And that's in verse 42. So a pitcher, pitcher Jerris and his wife being there, And the daughter is dead. And, you know, just picture there what's going through their mind, what's happening in their lives. And this was the greatest moment in their life. I mean, when their daughter was brought back to life, they'd never seen anything like that before. what a joyous occasion it was for them. And Jesus, the Bible said Jesus took the child's hand. And remember there was three disciples with him, the mother and the father and the little girl. And so he took the child by the hand and the disciples were there watching. And just think about hearing Jesus say, damsel, I say unto thee, arise. And the Bible says she arose straight away, immediately. See, God doesn't have to give anybody a shot, give any therapy, anything like that. He just commands and it happens. There's no gradual waking up. She was fully alert, instantly able. All her faculties were there. And not only did she arise, but it says she walked and ate. So she was ready to go. She had not been just brought back to life where she was in months of recovery, but she was completely healed. That's just the way God does things, the way he's able to do things. Jesus has told the Father, fear not, believe only and she shall be made whole. He'd already told her that and he knew what was going to happen, Jesus did. Joshua 21, 45 says, There fell not out of any good thing which the Lord had spoken unto the house of Israel all came to pass. Every good thing that God told Israel would happen from the time that they began to leave Egypt until the day that they had taken back their land happened, every bit of it. Verse Joshua 23, 14. And behold, this day I am going the way of all the earth, and ye know in all your hearts and in all your souls that not one thing hath failed of all the good things which the Lord God spake concerning you. All are come to pass unto you, and not one thing hath failed thereof. So we know that's right in our lives too. God will do what he said he would do. But you know, a moment so great as when their child was risen can only come from a desperate situation. And if we never have the valleys, we'll never have the mountaintops. She had been raised from death unto life by the giver of life. We read in the scriptures here, it says the people there were astonished. But when we consider that it was God, that it was Jesus doing it, there should be no astonishment. We should expect that's what would happen because He said that's what would happen. The same with the Word of God. When we read the Word of God, say the Word of God, understand it, then that's what we should expect to happen. Take the Word of God and read it, and then when it happens in our lives, be astonished. Because He said that's what He would do. To give eternal life to the living would be one thing, but God gives eternal life to the dead. Not just the body dead, but we were dead in trespasses and sins, and through Jesus Christ, He raised us up and gave us real true life. And we're commanded as ambassadors to the king to bring life to a dying world. Well, what brought life to that damsel, that child, that 12-year-old girl? The Word of God. He spoke. Well, we have the Word of God. And that's what brings eternal life to people, is the Word of God. So, no, we don't have any power in ourselves but we are commanded as children of God to give his word to the world and that brings life to them. 2 Corinthians 5 20, now then we are ambassadors for Christ as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be ye reconciled to God. Do we do we understand what that verse says? Are we allowing ourselves to comprehend what it means to us as individuals? To reconcile is to call back into union and friendship defections which have alienated. We are alienated from God because of our sins. Every person on this earth until they get saved is alienated from God because of their sins. And we are to help reconcile them back to God. That is our job. That is our commission. Colossians 121, And you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled. That word also carries with it the thought of intensive force. It takes a lot. It's not a simple thing to give eternal life to the dead. It's not simple. It's very difficult, but it's not difficult for God. Then 2 Corinthians 5, 18 through 21, and all things are of God who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ. So if we're saved, we are reconciled to God through the blood of Jesus Christ. And in the rest of that verse, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. He's given us the word of God. He's given us the command to reconcile others to Christ through the word of God. So God has given us a job, an intense job, and the Word, the force to complete that job. He didn't give us something to do and say, now you do this and you figure out how to do it. No, He said, this is what you do and this is how you do it. And so we don't just get the command, but we get the instructions also from the Word of God. Verse 20, now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us, we pray you in Christ's stead be reconciled to God. Now if we're going to continue to be reconciled, we'll get on down to that in just a second. Then verse 21, for he hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. Christ reconciled us to God from a great deficit. Have you ever tried to balance your checkbook and you had a great deficit? I've been there. You make a mistake, you know, and you thought you had $500 in the bank, but you got minus five? And so if I had a great deficit, how many checks did you write on that minus five dollars? It becomes great. Increasingly great. Depends on how many checks you wrote on what you didn't have. Well, that's the way our lives were. When we were lost, our deficit grew every day. It grew bigger and bigger. Our sin debt got bigger and bigger. But it was never anything that God was not able to pay. Matter of fact, He paid it. He overcompensated. He did more than just get us to heaven. He did more than just keep us out of hell. Before we were saved, we had no way to thank God or show our appreciation. God places such a high value on His Word that if we just spread the Gospel of His Word, He'll call it even. What do you think about that? Think about what He did for us. He died on the cross. He shed His blood for our sins. He said, what I expect out of you is to live godly and tell other people about me. We got out cheap. And then, there is one more, there's a C. The parent's astonishment. Now, in the book of Luke and in the book of Mark, both state that Jairus and his wife were astonished. Now, you can look at this in some ways, and that's sort of like a partial faith. Because if you really believe something, now, Brother Eddie, and you get out and crank your truck, and I go out there and crank my truck to leave, it's not going to astonish me when I turn that key that it cranks. I'm expecting it, right? Now, if I go home and crank the car that I know has got a dead battery in it, and it cranks, that would astonish me. Somebody thought that car was dead to life because it needs a battery. But we shouldn't be astonished at what God said He would do. So it shows that a little bit of not full faith in what God said. But we are human, right? We can't every time trust 100% that God's going to do it. And we pray for rain. Maybe we bring an umbrella. Maybe we haven't rained in two months. We have a special prayer just for rain. We bring an umbrella. We think God's going to do it. But how many of us open up an umbrella and wait in the car? Right? We got in the car and it started raining before we got in the car and say, oh, wow, look at that, I can't believe it. But you just prayed for her, right? And that's the way it is sometimes. We don't have full faith. And his parents, they had faith that he would heal her, but they weren't 100% sure that he could raise her from the dead. But what did he say he was going to do? He said he was going to heal her. He didn't name any conditions on healing. So we put conditions. I know God can do this, but now this has happened, and I just don't know. We pray and ask God to do mighty things, and yet, when he does, we're somehow surprised. As believers, we know we have a big God. Therefore, we ought to be possessors of a big faith. Not because we're great Christians, but because we have a big God. People in the Bible had a great faith. God can do anything but fail faith. Noah believed God was going to send a flood. David believed God would give him the victory over Goliath. Elijah believed God could send down fire on Mount Carmel. Daniel believed God could shut the mouths of lions. George Mueller believed God will provide for his orphans through fervent prayer. D.L. Moody believed God would save multitudes through the faithful preaching of his word. Do we believe? We should believe what God says. And we can also experience the blessings that Christians had back then. We just need to believe that God can do the impossible. There is no impossible with God. Now, our pastor has planned a date to return to preaching. I'm not going to be surprised if he beats it. But it won't be because of him, but it will be because of God. He's already showed it. He's already way ahead of schedule coming home. He's been ahead of schedule almost from the first hour that he come out of surgery. It's not going to surprise me if he is preaching here sooner than what he had set up that he had planned himself. As a matter of fact, I'd be surprised if it takes longer. I'd be surprised if it takes that long. So in conclusion to the lesson, believing the Lord's word is a choice. He is not He does not save us and put salvation in our hearts and give us the Holy Spirit and then in our brain put faith, believing. No, that's our choice. And Jairus and the crowd heard Jesus say the girl was sleeping, not dead. But the spectators mocked him. Now again, Jairus had faith that the Lord could heal his daughter. Of course, we'll take our lesson on Peter. And of course, Peter is not the main part of this story at all, but yet this is part of Peter's training as a disciple. We don't know which way Peter went on this. We don't know if he was full of faith or if he was one of the doubters. It certainly seems like he had at least a little bit of doubt. It's not clearly stated, but it seems like he probably had a little bit of doubt himself. But Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. And that he was, or Peter knew that Jesus knew what he was doing. He was all powerful even over death. Like Jairus, we'll face struggles, our families, finances, and physical death. We're going to face hard times in our lives. But no matter what it is, God is greater than all of it. He not only knows where we are, but he feels our pain. He knows what we're going through. Isaiah 53, 3 and 4 says, He is despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. Yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. And I know When we're going through hard times, it may seem like God doesn't understand because he's not on our timeline. He's not taking care of the situation the way we thought he would or when we thought that he would or when we thought was the right time. Remember all the times he has astonished you in the past and know that he will astonish you again. Again, we're human. We're not going to have that 100% faith all the time. I'm not going to be astonished if a preacher preaches earlier than what he had planned. But that doesn't mean I have that faith in everything. There are things that happen. That turned out better. God did that better than I thought he would. Why would I think anything was done better than God could do it? I should expect to be surprised. 1 John 4 Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. There's nothing God can't do. I don't have the PowerPoint up for lesson four. We're going to get in just a little bit of that. Got just a little bit of time left. And we'll hand out the outline next week as well. We're not going to hit any of the points anyway. Lesson four is a lesson on focus. And we'll read the scriptures for it here. Matthew 14. 22 through 33 this way we'll be ready to go with lesson 4 next week and straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and to go before him unto the other side while he sent the multitudes away and when he had sent the multitudes away he went up into a mountain apart to pray and when the evening was come he was there alone But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves, for the wind was contrary. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit, and they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, If it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And Peter was come down out of the ship. He walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt? And when they were coming to the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God. Now we should never criticize Peter for sinking in the water. Because I'm going to guess, I'm going to put myself in here, I wouldn't have been Peter, I'd have been one of the eleven. All right? I said, you go, Peter. You're the man. That's right, Peter. You go ahead. You got it, Peter. I'm cheering for you, Peter. Well, I was in the boat, right? Where we place our focus will do much to determine our attitude and our level of success with the Lord. Now, as I said in the last lesson, Peter was not the major character here. Jesus and Peter are the major characters of this lesson. And this is the last lesson Peter learned by watching and listening. This is where he learns the hard way, right? In this lesson we'll see Peter as his fellow disciples going through a storm. Peter's unusual step of faith and the consequences of turning one's focus from the Lord. And our goals for Next week's lesson will be to understand that storms will come in every life. To realize that the Lord has a purpose in every storm and choose to focus on the Lord in the midst of the storm. And I think one and three we pretty well get, but number two is one thing we might have to remind ourselves of that the Lord has a purpose in every storm. Now when we're going through the storm we could Probably all of us say we've been through a storm and said, I could have done without that one. The Lord said, no, you needed that one. There's a reason for it. Will you ever know the reason? Maybe, maybe not. But he's teaching us things when we go through the storm. And Peter quickly learned following Christ is an adventure. I would definitely call this lesson an adventure. And it's one that we wouldn't want to go through, but it was an adventure. Now, when he began this school of discipleship, he had no idea that one of his lessons would be walking on the seat. I mean, you name whatever you want to learn, and somebody can say, I'm going to teach you this. But I want you to tell me what you think the lessons are. Nobody's going to write down walking on the seat. And although he believed that Jesus was the Son of God, he still never thought he was going to be walking on the sea. He didn't have an outline of his curriculum. You know, when you go through school, you got curriculum that tells you what's coming up, or you can read in the front of the book, and it tells you what you're going to study. He didn't have that. He didn't tell them, he said, now, OK, I chose you all 12, and this is what we're going to do. And we're going to feed the 5,000 and then we're going to come down and then Peter, you're going to walk on water. No, they didn't have that. Of course, it's a famous miracle in the Bible. It's one of the most famous miracles on the Bible. Millions, billions of lost people can tell you about Peter walking on water. Now, he's saying they believed it, but they didn't tell you about it. It's a storm that Peter faced and less for us that we will have storms that we must face. And like Peter, we need to learn to keep our focus on the Lord. We saw Peter in the middle of the storm. He began responding in faith. Then he allowed fear to intrude and then he renewed his focus on Jesus when he asked for his help. And isn't that the way we are? We might head into the storm. We're right dead center. We're going through it, right? But as we go through it, as time goes on, we start having doubts. When it comes to time when we have those doubts, we need to realize we got to get our focus back on Jesus. As Peter did, we will experience difficulties in our life. But as a growing disciple, it requires keeping, again, keeping our focus on the Lord, even when the storms swirl around us. It might not be one storm, you might have two, three, four storms going on at a time. And you get number two, you get number three, so I'm focused, and then another one hits you from the backside and wipes you out. We just have to get our focus back on the Lord. So we'll close there. I got a slide I want to show you right off the start. We'll do that next week, all right? Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for this opportunity to be here, Lord. We thank you, Lord, for the word of God. Lord, we remember to pray for our pastor. Lord, I pray, Lord, it be your will, Lord, he come home today. Continue gaining strength, Lord. And Lord, as I said, be back in the pulpit before anyone expected he would be able to. In Jesus' name, we pray.