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Living Hope Fellowship Church .... Sermons From the Pastor

SINK, SWIM, OR SAVE

Training Material

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

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SINK, SWIM, OR SAVE

Preface

(faith)

When you are saved, Jesus is in the boat with you, and you are headed to the other side, but you can expect a storm to blow up directly! You may decide to “tough it out”, but it can get very rough. When Jesus is asleep in your soul, God can’t be magnified, so call on Him and wake Him up!

When Jesus woke up, He asked the disciples in Luke 8:25, “Where is your faith?” The devil was telling them he was going to kill them, but Jesus is the King of Kings, and everything is in His control. Can you imagine Him saying, Oh! My! That IS a whopper! Isn’t it? No, He doesn’t worry!

Many people today don’t want redemption, they just want to be bailed out! They don’t want God to take over and calm the storm as much as they want to just be bailed out of trouble and then go on.

You can try to swim and make it by yourself, but you will sink if you do not call on the Lord to save you!

SINK, SWIM, OR SAVE

by Pastor Kevin Badgley

Let’s begin in Luke 8:22. It says, “Now it came to pass on a certain day, that he went into a ship with his disciples: and he said unto them, Let us go over unto the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed he fell asleep: and there came down a storm of wind on the lake; and they were filled with water, and were in jeopardy. And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm. And he said unto them, Where is your faith? And they being afraid wondered, saying one to another, What manner of man is this! for he commandeth even the winds and water, and they obey him.”

If you can’t believe this really happened, you surely can’t believe for a resurrected Lord, and your religion is in vain! Jesus and His disciples got in the same boat and took a boat ride that day. When you hear about people having trouble, sometimes another person will say that they are “in the same boat”. The wonderful thing is that when we are in trouble, Jesus is in the boat with us.

He was in the fiery furnace with the three Hebrew children. The Bible declares that the heathen king saw in those flames three men loose, and a fourth one walking around with them! They were having a hallelujah service in the midst of their troubles!

Jesus told the disciples, “Let us go over unto the other side of the lake.” Things were so calm that Jesus fell asleep. As you coast along on the lake of life, you are supposed to be headed to the other side. Well, if you are headed for the other side, and Jesus is in there with you, expect a storm to blow up directly!

Jesus fell asleep in the boat that the disciples were in. However, when Jesus is asleep, He cannot be glorified, and God can’t be magnified. God sent a storm to wake Him back up. There was no failure in Jesus, but there was failure in the people who were with Him.

The disciples may have been tremendous conversationalists, but Jesus fell asleep while they were talking to Him! Sometimes, it seems like my prayers are bouncing back. I wonder if Jesus fell asleep while I was talking to Him! There have been times when I prayed with little sincerity, and it sounded boring even to me.

Once when I was praying, and I was even praying in the Holy Ghost, 1 Corinthians 13:1 came to me that says, “. . . I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” After I prayed through on a certain thing, then I could pray and feel it go on out again!

The disciples were doing so good it seemed they didn’t need Jesus right then. I believe the storm blew up on that lake to see if the disciples were still able to get Him awake. Now, understand that God doesn’t get worried about anything. Some people tell their troubles hoping that others will help them worry! However, we can’t pass on our fears and worries to God. He won’t worry about them, and it just bounces back in our face!

He said that He will take our cares, and we lay our troubles on the altar, but we don’t believe God to handle them. Therefore, because we don’t want to be irresponsible, we pick them up and carry them back home. If God isn’t handling them there is nothing that you and I can do. Just quit fussing and worrying, and give it over to God! We have put our faith in ourselves!

When Jesus woke up, He asked the disciples in Luke 8:25, “Where is your faith?” The devil was telling them he was going to kill them, but Jesus was not worried. He worked with the Source, and today Jesus is our Source. He is the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, and everything is in His control.

They woke Jesus up, telling Him that they were going to die! He got up and looked around. Can you imagine Him saying, Oh! My! That IS a whopper! Isn’t it? Can you see Jesus worrying about anything? He made everything. John 1:3 says, “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.”

How could the creation come against the Creator and prosper? Also, if we are on the side of the Creator, how could the creation, and the things thereof, or the fallen world, or the devil do anything to you or me?

In Luke 10:19 Jesus said, “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.” However, you have to trust Him.

He will try to purge you and sanctify you. He didn’t say it would do you any harm, but we think so, don’t we? The disciples were terrified! The boat wasn’t full of anointing; it was full of water! The world was caving in on them, and there wasn’t anything left to do but worry and fret. Then they thought they needed to wake up Jesus. Thank God that He was still on board.

There was another trip that Jesus sent them out and he wasn’t with them when a storm came up. That time Jesus walked across the storm. I believe the water just laid flat for Him. The winds, and the waves, and the water obey Jesus.

The trouble that we go through still must bend the knee to Jesus if we will trust in Him rather than fear it. It is time that we put more trust in Jesus than we do in fear of the things coming against us! We will then find out that He is more than able to deliver us! The Bible says that we are more than conquerors in all the things that come against us (see Romans 8:37). How? Through Him that loves us.

How are you going to find out if you are a conqueror until you come into battle? There are things that we have to get the victory over, and the storms don’t get smaller; they get bigger! Where is YOUR faith? Did you leave it at home? Did you leave it in church? Do you put your faith and your trust in man?

The Bible says in Jeremiah 17:5, “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.”

Romans 12:3 says, “. . . God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith.” What we do with it is up to us, and everyone has the same opportunity and call to be a witness for the Lord Jesus Christ. God calls men and women to work for Him. I believe He will use you in proportion to your devotion to Him. He may call you early, or He may call you late, but He still calls.

Psalm 53:2 says, “God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.”

Sometimes God allows things to come our way so that we will seek God! Jesus was in the boat, but they weren’t keeping Him awake. However, when the storm rose up they searched for Jesus till they found Him! One of the Gospels said that He was down in the bottom of the boat, and was asleep with His head on a pillow. He didn’t have faith in the sailors; He had faith in God!

We need to start believing God again! When the storm hits, are we going to depend on God or on ourselves? God is trying to take away our props, the things that we trust in. I am convinced, according to God’s Word, that in these last days we will see the destruction of everything a human being can put their faith in that they think could get them to heaven. God is going to destroy anything religious that is not godly.

Jesus sees that our boat is in the waves. He sees that we are crossing and going to the other side! Praise God, Jesus is on board, but He is asleep, and we need to wake Him up. We need to pray, Yes, Lord, not my will, but thy will be done.

The last few years I have seen prayer mocked by so many people. Most of the time a preacher is depicted on television as a dip-stick who doesn’t have enough gumption to do anything. The gospel ministry is grossly misrepresented. People are told that it doesn’t do any good to pray, and that we need to be more practical.

That one-eyed monster (the TV) is designed to control our thinking. They can hide from you what they don’t want you to see, and they can show you everything that they do want you to see. They show you fallen, dead, failed religion, and many backslide because they say that it doesn’t do any good to pray. They say that it doesn’t do any good to have Jesus on board.

Luke 8:24 says, “And they came to him, and awoke him, saying, Master, master, we perish. Then he arose, and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water: and they ceased, and there was a calm.”

We will have storms no matter what, but if God is not there to help you, what will you do? Jesus is the only one who can set you free and change the situation!

There are many things that only God can change, where only God can intervene! We must yield every area of our lives over to God. There is only one thing that is going to deliver us, and that is when the Lord stands up and says, “That is enough.” I earnestly seek the hour when God stands up and says, “That is it,” when He draws the line for the devil and says, “That far and no farther.” I’m sick and tired of the devil prospering!

If it means losing a little bit to see God move, then let it happen. If our nation has got to be brought to its knees by economic collapse, by earthquakes, by storms, by famines, by pestilence, or by any trouble to get them to pray again, let it happen!

People have invented big buckets to bail out the boat rather than call on the Lord. The church has become a Titanic. The titanic was built at the turn of the century and was one of the largest ships ever conceived by man. The steel hull was several inches thick. It was incomprehensibly strong by the standards of that day, so that it was called unsinkable. God smote it just like He did the tower of Babel (see Genesis 11:9), just like He is going to do to the ungodly in this last hour.

God killed people in the Bible, and He will kill them today. Man defied God to sink the Titanic. God let them find an iceberg! More time is spent in preserving the boat than seeking the God who made ALL things! More time is spent fearing the creation rather than worshiping the Creator!

I wonder if Jesus had been awake as He and the disciples crossed over, if the storm would have even come against them. If they had been “on fire” with God’s anointing, would the storm have come? As it was, they let the anointing die down, and Jesus went to sleep. The protection, the hedge, was let down a little, and the storm got over in the boat with them! The water over flooded them! It is like that in the world today. People are pleading for donations for buckets and for those who will help them bail.

Years ago I worked as a police officer in Colorado for a short time. The county was Las Animas, meaning lost souls, and it was very devilish. When we put people in jail, a certain man came around when they called him, and he paid their bail, day or night, no matter what they had done! He carried a big portfolio and wrote them a receipt. If it was a standard sized bail, he paid it, and that person would be out faster than we could get the paper work done!

No matter what they had done against the law, the man would bail them out for a time, but sooner or later they had to pay him. There are many people today who don’t want redemption, they just want to be bailed out! They don’t want God to take over and calm the storm as much as they want to just be bailed out of trouble and then go on.

Beloved, there is so much more than just having Jesus on board, saying you are saved. God allows and sends the storm to get our attention!

When you stand before the Judge, and Jesus comes to your defense, the Judge will look at Him and say, Case dismissed. He has already paid the price. Jesus paid the price for our redemption and the anointing that casts out the storms in our lives. He wants us to be in touch with Him every day!

How long would you live for God if everything was ok? What if all of your family and friends were saved? Would you be as earnest about seeing others won to God? Would you be striving to get yourself in a position where you could be a better witness to them? Sometimes it is the storm that provokes us to get deeper with God!

Sometimes it is the very vexation of our body, or soul, or mind that causes us to cry out! It is when the waves come over in the boat where Jesus is! He is the calmer of the waves, so how can the waves get in the boat with Him in there?

Jesus defeated the devil 2,000 years ago, so how can the devil do things to me? You are a child of God if you have Christ, but He is asleep. You need to wake Him up. Tell Him you feel like you’re perishing. The wonderful thing about the Lord is that if you don’t bail out of the boat, He won’t either! If you don’t compromise or forsake God, He won’t forsake you.

Jesus asked, “Where is your faith?” That day they found out that their faith wasn’t where it belonged! It was in the pitch, between the boards of the boat, or somewhere else. It wasn’t in the power of God! I wonder how many times they said, Lord! before He heard them. Instead of wakening Him at first, they may have decided to just “tough it out”. I have watched people do this. Things were really rocking and rolling, and they were hanging on with everything they had. They hadn’t called on the Lord, and meanwhile they were getting sick. The attitude was, We will make it. Before long they cry, HEY LORD! It is progressive.

Moses and the children of Israel were at the Red Sea with Pharaoh and his crowd bearing down on them. There weren’t any boats! They were trapped. Moses was calling upon the Lord, and God asked him what he had in his hand! He had the rod of God in his hand, and God told him to use it.

God sees everything, but He still asks you what you want. One day they needed to feed thousands of people, and the Lord asked Philip a question. John 6:5 says, “When Jesus then lifted up his eyes, and saw a great company come unto him, he saith unto Philip, Whence shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” Verse 6 says, “And this he said to prove him: for he himself knew what he would do.”

God knows everything, but He asks questions to prove us. It is to see what our answer is, to show us what is way down inside of us. God makes us tell Him just what we want. I have asked people, “What exactly do you want from the Lord?” If they don’t tell me, then either they don’t want to admit it, or they really don’t quite believe for what they want.

James 4:2-3 says, “Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”

I have prayed for some things that I didn’t get, but I still serve God. Sometimes He shows you why you prayed for something. God’s love is unconditional, but His blessings are very conditional.

One of the hardest things for us to do is wait. Most people want to lay aside every “wait”, and that is the only “weight” they want to lay aside. However, the Bible says in Isaiah 40:31, “But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

God wants us to renew our strength and to be renewed in our souls, and sometimes God wants us to wait! Jesus was at the bottom of that boat with His head on a pillow, and they had to wait until He got up on top. Jesus rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. The wind died, the water became calm, and all of their jaws dropped! Why did they wake Him up if they didn’t believe He could do something about it?

Where is your faith? If it is in a preacher, any individual, or a church, I guarantee you disappointment. If your faith is anywhere but in the Lord Jesus Christ, you can expect failure.

I pray that God does not go to sleep in our ship, in our soul, or in our church! Don’t fret and worry about the storm; just call upon Jesus!

CONTACT INFORMATION:

PASTOR KEVIN BADGLEY

LIVING HOPE FELLOWSHIP, P. O. BOX 111, GRAND CHAIN, IL 62941

CHURCH / FAX (618) 634-2541

E-mail livinghopefellowship@lazernetwireless.net

www.livinghopefellowshipchurch.org

These condensed Bible studies have been published to help new Christians in their new walk with the Lord. Kevin Badgley, the author, is the pastor of Living Hope Fellowship Church.

This is a Living Hope Fellowship publication.