 Hey man, all right, so we went crab fishing this last weekend and that's something that I'd never done before and it was kind of my It's kind of my thinking on crab fishing was it was my replacement for Deer hunting and deer camp so we set up crab camp this weekend and I went crab fishing With the boys and it was a good time But you know we had an interesting weekend we had some trouble over the weekend and you know we went out It was something that we had never done before But basically we went out and we were out on the ocean and we were crab fishing and we were doing some fishing And we were about 25 miles offshore or off off from the marina And we heard some clunking down in the engine room of the of the boat And now let me tell you something that when you're at 25 miles from the nearest harbor. That's not something that you want to hear Okay, you don't want to hear you know the rotating equipment inside the motor starting to bang around and clunk around so You know it turned out okay. We made it home But I just as we took the long ride home I had a lot of things to think about and we had a lot of time to visit and You know fellowship, but I had some you know, I just did a lot of thinking and you know There's a lot of lessons In trouble, so you know it was kind of interesting because after that the last night we were there Now we were coming out of the we're coming out of the camper and I had just you know we'd gone and we were we're camping out you know for the weekend and Came out of the camper and went in the the toilet in the camper for some reason You know when you went to flush it it just like sprayed water All over the place and I got water all over my pants and and as I came out of the camper I said man I was like the toilet just sprayed water all over my leg and Jacob just looks at me and he goes and in Jacob and Garrett and I just decided that this was the quote for the Whole weekend, but Jacob just looks at me and he goes man He goes because earlier like several weeks before we had some sewer problems, you know and with something else But Jacob goes man more sewer problems He says and I was like I'll just look at him and I said you know what Jacob? I said life is one sewer problem after another You know so look everything I mean how many times have I said to you that everything should have a teachable moment So I just got to thinking about this situation this weekend and you know just thought to think about some biblical lessons and dealing with Trouble dealing with problems and how we can we can look at that from a biblical perspective And the nice thing about you know reading the Bible and knowing the Bible is that when you run into things in your life You relate that to things in the Bible and you be like oh, yeah It's kind of like this and you know there's a lesson here and there's a lesson here There's lessons in everything right so look down at Matthew chapter 8 and let's just first of all look at the story That's happening in Matthew chapter 8 and just see what kind of lessons we can we can learn from the Bible this morning On how to deal with problems and how to deal with trouble in our lives because look you're gonna have trouble in your life At some point so look at the story here, you know Jesus is of course He's preaching to the multitude and then you know he's he's talking. It's actually a great story on faith You know just a side note. It's a great chapter in the Bible on faith You know he talks to the centurion first and he just tells everyone how great that the faith of this centurion is and Relates that to how you know people that are not Jews are gonna get saved and can have faith in Jesus But look then you know you have some people come up to him and say hey We want to follow you but he tells them you know there's gonna be trouble like I don't have a place to sleep You know and he's just saying you know what you know one guy wants to go back and bury his father He's like look you know that there's no time for that type of thing He's like this is serious business if you're gonna follow me it's serious business so then him and the disciples get into a ship and they head out in the water out into the sea and Jesus uses this as a teachable moment in the Bible You know then Jesus of course, you know the wind in the sea rises and Jesus then Rebukes the wind in the sea and actually fixes the actual problem. I mean I wish you could fix problems like Jesus fix problems But you know Jesus fix the problem But before he fixed the problem It's important to note that Jesus used the problem as a teachable moment for the disciples and as we go through the sermon I want to show you that you know that moment that Jesus was teaching the disciples was actually something that was very Important that he would teach again and again and how important it was and the reason that he was teaching that lesson To the disciples look Jesus didn't do anything by accident. Okay? I mean he knew everything that was going to happen He knew the lessons that needed to be taught to the disciples and why they needed to learn those lessons So the first point I have this morning is that you know It's a it's a prerequisite and a lot of these points most of these points Actually are going to be things that you need to look at things that you need to think about before you actually have problems Okay, so the first pre point is is this if you never do anything you're never going to have any problems That's the first point where I mean think about this where were the disciples heading with Jesus look back at verse number 18 Look back at verse number 18 of Matthew chapter 8 the Bible says now when Jesus saw great multitudes about him He gave commandment to depart unto the other side and a certain scribe came unto him and said master I will follow thee whether so ever thou goest and Jesus said unto him the foxes have holes and the birds of the air have Ness, but the son of man hath not where to lay his head and another disciple said unto him Lord Suffer me first to go and bury my father But Jesus said unto him follow me and let the dead bury their dead pay special attention now to verse number 23 however What did the disciples do that ended up getting in trouble that ended up getting in trouble in the sea look where it says and It says when he was entered into a ship his disciples followed him So they were literally you know we talk about this and you may have people talk to you about this when you're out So winning you know oh you need to follow Jesus right they were literally following Jesus here They literally got into this situation out on the sea because they followed Jesus Period now turn to 2nd Timothy chapter 3 Now let me ask you this is everybody is Everybody in our lives that we meet even in this church going to follow Jesus in their life Look at 2nd Timothy chapter 3 Because the Bible says that something very specific will happen to you if you follow Jesus and the Bible says this in 2nd Timothy 3 12 it says yay and all that will what all that will live godly in Christ Jesus Shall suffer persecution that's saying that all that live godly in Christ Jesus. That's all that follow Jesus Will have trouble is what that is saying It's saying look if you follow Jesus that thing is that not exactly what happened to the disciples here It's almost like it was a teachable moment that Jesus was trying to show them They're like look if you follow me there's going to be storms if you follow me. There's going to be trouble If you never look if you never do anything you're never going to have trouble. I Mean this is true in the Christian life But it's also true in life look if you never drive a boat 25 miles out into the ocean You're never going to have trouble out there You're never going to have a boat break down when you're 25 miles offshore ever if you never do that It's the same in the Christian life If you never do anything in your Christian life You are never going to have trouble if you never get involved in church if you just stay home If you just YouTube this Christian life, you're not going to have trouble You won't suffer any persecution Because you won't be you know, you won't go through any tribulation You're like hey sounds good. I don't want to go through tribulation, but here's the downside Here's the downside you say I'm just going to YouTube this thing. I'm not going to get involved. I'm not going to sell out In this Christian life. I'm not going to actually follow Jesus because I don't want trouble in my life I mean raise hand raise your hand if you want trouble in your life. Nobody wants trouble Nobody goes and looks for trouble, but Jesus is just saying look if you follow me you're going to have it You're just going to have it, but here's the thing if you say sounds good I'm just not going to do anything in my life, you know, you will never do anything great with your life You will never find out what you're capable of and what's worse You know the Bible says tribulation work with patience and patience what? experience If you never step out in your Christian life, you will never gain any experience at all In your Christian life and look you'll know and if that's the case you'll never be able to handle anything If any kind of if you never step out and you never gain that experience You'll I mean the smallest thing can happen to you and just knock you out of your Christian life Know anybody like that? There's a lot of people like that you'll never get that experience Look, I used to have since we're using you know boating analogies They used to have a sailboat many years ago back when I was young like 20 years ago And there was always these guys in the docks that like if there was one cloud in the sky They would never take their sailboat out and I was always the one where it's like forecasting rain And I'm like motoring out to the middle of the lake and I'm like well How are you gonna know how to how to sail and high winds and how to how to handle types of situations like that if you never I mean look You could you could say that that was stupid in some situations But the point is how you ever gonna know if you never go through anything you're never gonna gain any experience with anything I mean how else would you know how to do it? If you've never done anything in your Christian life You're never gonna know how to handle anything you'll never get any experience and that's what the Bible says in Romans chapter 5 second point on Dealing with problems and this is kind of a side note But look the second point on dealing with problems and it was pretty easy for the disciples to do this one If you look at verse number 25 the second point on dealing with problems in your life dealing with trouble in your life is this It's deciding if it's your problem The first thing that you should do before you deal with a problem or deal with trouble is just decide is this my problem Is this trouble that it pertains to me look at verse 25? This was pretty easy for the disciples to personally identify with this problem and his disciples came to him and awoke him saying Lord save us We perish Look when it when you're out in the middle of the sea and things are going wrong. It's pretty easy to personally identify with that problem However turn to Proverbs chapter 22 You can't can't you say today that there are plenty of people that create problems that don't exist first of all Look at Proverbs chapter 20 and look at verse number 3 Or even worse I mean people that create problems where there is no problem or look at Proverbs 20 in verse number 3 It is an honor for a man to cease from strife, but every fool will be meddling Turn to first Peter chapter 4 Even worse than creating problems out of thin air where there is no problem is meddling in other people's problems Is is getting involved in problems that don't pertain to you look at first Peter chapter 4? first Peter chapter 4 and This is kind of interesting because remember point number 1 that if you never do anything in your Christian life You'll never have any trouble You'll never have any issues. You'll never have any problems But this is why the Bible relates busy bodies to people that metal to people that don't do anything You'll start to realize the connection between those three things look at first Peter chapter 4 and verse number 15 Now remember point number 1 if you don't ever do anything in your Christian life. You're never going to have any trouble But let none of you suffer as a murderer or as a thief or as an evildoer or as a busy body in what in other men's matters Go to 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 other men's matters means other men's issues That means other men's trouble It's easy to see why being a busy body is directly linked to those that do no work It's totally easy to see look at 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 and verse number 10 And this is just a side note on trouble Don't create trouble where there's there's none and don't meddle in trouble that doesn't pertain to you Look at 2nd Thessalonians chapter 3 in verse number 10 for even when we were with you this we commanded you that if any would Not work neither should he eats we have somebody here that's not working For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly working not at all, but our busy bodies So here's people that are doing no work. They have no trouble. So they're getting involved in other people's trouble They're people that you know Look and this is true whether it be in the life for the Lord or your secular life or whatever people that just don't have much going on They're just the ones always causing trouble in other people's business Because they don't have anything on their turn to Proverbs chapter 26 So they start they don't have anything going on so they start meddling in the trouble of others Look at Proverbs chapter 26 People who are not busy become busy bodies Think of it that way or even worse in Proverbs 26 look at verse number 20 Where the Bible says where no wood is they're the fire goeth out so where there is no tailbearer the strife see that so What's even worse is they meddle in the strife of others and then they just throw fuel on the fire to problems They start creating trouble where there's no trouble You take a small thing maybe and they fan the flames and turn it into something big I mean did you hear about so-and-so and you know all the time they're making things worse? By getting involved in meddling with things that aren't their business busy bodies And it's because they have nothing to do and the Bible tells us look if you have nothing to do You'll have no trouble so you'll start just kind of looking around and just finding trouble and Fanning trouble. This is what happens. I mean the Bible tells us this and how many times have you seen this? I'm sure you can all think of situations that you've seen this because look once you start doing things in your life Once you start doing things in your life. You're going to realize two things You're going to realize that they're simply there's simply no time to make trouble where no trouble exists That's the first thing and then you're going to realize this you will have zero interest In getting involved in problems that do not pertain to you because look you got your own problems. I Mean if you are are involved in your life and involved in your Christian life look you're going to have problems You're like this is really optimistic. This is really motivating look. This is true This is the Bible. This is the other side of the prosperity gospel Okay, this is the this is what the prosperity gospel leaves out Once you start hitting it in this Christian life, you're going to have some issues look God's going to bless you You're going to be right with the Lord, but you're going to have some tribulation That's tribulation from the world not from God You're going to have some tribulation. You're going to have some issues You're going to have people that maybe don't like what you're doing that are trying to stop Look, there's this I mean there's a spiritual war going on There's a spiritual war once you start getting involved in that war you're going to take some hits You're going to take some shots And you're going to realize that when you're taking these hits and shots which the blessings of the Lord come along with that By the way, and it way outweighs any of the any of the negative But once you start getting involved in that fight In your Christian life, you will simply just you will lose interest in all this stupid stuff That's not even trouble that has not and it's that that's problems that don't pertain to you and things that aren't problems You'll just you'll start to look at things and say oh, yeah, that's That's silly You'll start to see things for what they are So if you're constantly just looking around and kind of like always being negative and always like being negative about other people This might be you Maybe you need to get involved in the Christian life You're constantly just being negative about you know other people that have nothing to do with you Maybe you're not enough. You're not involved enough in your Christian life yourself Because you're looking around for trouble where none exists for trouble that doesn't pertain to you You're trying to take on for yourself. Hey, get your own trouble Get your own trouble And and here's another thing once you start getting involved in things in life and start getting involved in things in your Christian life You're going to realize you know first of all you're going to get experience with other people meddling in your stuff And you're never going to want to do it to somebody else. I mean here's a small I mean just imagine imagine a stressful situation you found yourself in and Imagine how it would make you feel or maybe it's happened to you when somebody comes up to you You're trying to work through this problem and someone's you know coming up to you and they're you know I mean you're stressed out you're trying to just work through something and somebody's coming up to you and being like man That's bad. Whoa. That's horrible. What happened there? You know, I mean it's annoying It makes things worse. I mean look It's distracting when you're trying to actually get through something a small example You know since we're talking about crab camp is we're at the camp on I don't remember which night it was But we're at the camp and I'm cleaning fish and we're boiling crabs Okay, so I got a lot going on Garrett's got a timer. I don't know how to do this I've never boiled crabs before we're boiling crabs. You got to get it just right. We got the seasoning We got the timers going and then these people from the campsite next door I mean, I'm trying to clean these fish so I can get you know all this ice ready for the crabs and they come out of the Boiling pot. I mean look, it's like a kitchen situation. It's complicated. It's stressful I'm trying to get this done and these people come up and they just say hey, what are you doing there? Oh, that's neat and they just start pointing it. I mean this is a small example But they're distracting me, and I'm just like and just the fish I mean Garrett was like videotaping me clean of fish. I just butchered this fish as these people were talking to me this poor fish Because they distracted me. I was trying to work through something. They distracted me. They made the situation worse, right? I mean that's a small example, but it throws you off is the point I'm trying to make so once you see things from this type of perspective Look, you will never want to do that to somebody else when you see somebody working a problem or working through something and you've done it yourself You will never want to meddle in other people's affairs Because you can say hey, you know, I've been there You know, I've been that guy trying to fix problems like that And you know, there's nothing that you can do that that makes it worse than just be a busy body in metal And somebody else's affairs, right? That's why it's people that don't work to do that Because they don't have that they don't have that experience themselves That that knows how annoying that is and how how you know distracting that is So the third point is another prerequisite to trouble So point number one was what? Step out in your Christian life step out in your life and you're gonna have trouble period You know the second step is is this to a prerequisite to having trouble You better have faith that you can get through it before you get into it And that's kind of what Matthew chapter 8 was teaching what Jesus was teaching the disciples That's what he was teaching the disciples when he talked to them about the Centurion That's what he was teaching them when he talked to the people before they got in the boat And that's what he was teaching them before he fixed the storm in the boat three separate times He taught this lesson in Matthew chapter 8 before the trouble comes up go to verse 26 before the trouble comes up and You know it's coming right because you're like you know what I'm stepping out in this life I'm stepping out in this Christian life, and I'm gonna kill this thing. I'm gonna go after it You know troubles coming so do a faith check Do a faith check look at Matthew chapter 8 and verse 26 And he saith unto them why are you thief? Why are you fearful oh ye of little faith look these guys? They went out in the middle of the sea with no faith I mean, what are you doing? That's what he's saying He's like you went out in the middle of the sea with no faith or lack of faith or little faith And they're just fearful then he arose and rebuked the winds in the sea and there was a great calm The worst thing that you can do when a problem arises is panic and be afraid Is what Jesus is explaining here this goes for situations in life? This goes for situation in the Christian life as well and this is where your faith comes in don't embark on this Christian life with no faith With no faith look turn to Matthew chapter 14 if you embark on this Christian life if you say I'm gonna embark on this Christian journey and I'm gonna get involved and I'm gonna become I'm gonna get in I'm gonna sell out for church and I'm gonna become a soul winner And I'm gonna win souls to Christ and you have zero faith that the Lord can carry you through you won't last You will fall out of the Christian life I think I I know that this is the number one reason that people quit the Christian life Because they get into the Christian life and trouble comes and they can't handle it and they quit Because they don't have faith that God can carry them through They don't have faith that that the Lord can get them through the trouble. I mean it doesn't really make look From a logical perspective, maybe I'm too logical sometimes, but it makes no logical sense, but it happens all the time People say I'm doing this thing and they go in head first. This is your look. This is your bottle rocket Christian Or you know pop done This is what happens. Like I'm it seems like a good idea. I mean I'm gonna sell out That's what the Bible says to do the Bible says I should follow Jesus that I should live godly in Christ Jesus And that's what I'm gonna do trouble comes. I'm done pop That's the number one reason people quit the Christian life Maybe it's some quit after two months some quit after a year some quit after three years But that's the reason right there. I mean it boils it down right there Look at Matthew chapter 14. This is the this is the lesson Jesus was teaching the disciples This if he could not have bottle rocket Christians He wasn't gonna be around He's constantly teachable moment teachable moment teachable moment. Hey life is one sewer problem after another Teachable moment teachable moment. That's he's like you have to be strong because I'm not gonna be here anymore Look at Matthew chapter 14 in verse number 22. Here's another here's another time where they get into a ship again Later down the road they get into a ship again and straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and go before him Onto the other side while he sent the multitudes away And when they had sent when he had sent the multitudes away he went up into a mountain apart to pray So he sends them off in a ship this time by themselves He's not with them But the ship was now in the midst of the sea tossed with waves here we go again For the wind was contrary and 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 in 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 the onto the water and he said come and when 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 began to sink and he cried saying Lord save me and immediately Jesus stretch forth stretch forth his hand and Caught him and said unto him. Oh ye of little faith Wherefore didst thou doubt turn to mark chapter 6? So Peter gets out of the boat, but it's interesting because he sends them out into another storm if you go to mark chapter 6 and look at verse Number 48 you'll see a different a little bit more detail on this same story and look they did much better this time He sends them out by themselves and they get into a storm again, and they weren't afraid of the storm this time Look at mark 648 This is when Jesus walks up to them, and he saw them toiling and rowing For the wind was contrary unto them and about the fourth watch of the night He comeeth unto them walking upon the sea and would have passed by them so they did much better here They were at least working to get out of it. They weren't afraid of the actual weather itself here You know they were afraid of this guy walking on the water towards them So they were I mean they were not panicking of course Then he steps it up a notch and tell hey get out of the boat and walk on the water and then they you know The fear set in again, so it's just another lesson, but look Jesus was preparing these guys for what was to come Can you not see that? Everything being a teachable moment. He's building their faith. He's stepping up the situations that he puts them through I Mean if they never got into the ship think about it in Matthew chapter 8 if they never got into the ship Where did they go they got in the ship to go where to the other side? To the country of where to the country of the gurglesons. What happened over there? What happened over there? Jesus casts out Legion many demons Jesus casts out he does this great miracle and it's right after he lectures them on what? faith Now What does it take to fight demons? Just curious If you've read the Bible, let me just answer it for you to fight demons. You know what it takes it takes faith Turn to Matthew chapter 17 Turn to Matthew chapter 17. I Want to walk you through what Jesus was showing them and why he was showing them what he did at that time Look at Matthew chapter 17 We see a case here where the disciples were trying to cast out a demon, but they could not and Jesus ends up doing it for them look at Matthew chapter 17 look at verse 15 Just remember what does it take to fight demons the answer is right here Lord have mercy on my son for he is lunatic and sore vexed for often times He falleth into the fire and often to the water and I brought him to the disciples and they could not cure him Then Jesus answered and said oh faithless and perverse generation. How long shall I be with you? How long shall I suffer you? He's like look he's like I'm not gonna be here forever He's like I'm not gonna be here. He's like you guys have got to get it right You guys have got to understand like bring him hither to me and Jesus rebuked the devil and he departed out of him And the child was cured from that very hour Then the disciples came to Jesus apart and said why could not we cast him out and Jesus said unto him because of your unbelief For verily I say unto you if you have faith as a grain of mustard seed You shall say into this mountain remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove and nothing shall be impossible To you he knew that they would have to deal with trouble Especially when he was gone and he was teaching them that the prerequisite to dealing with the trouble that they're dealing with is Faith and look he's teaching them that in the moment that they were in the sea They lacked faith for their defense because they were in trouble and their faith would have brought them through But they're gonna need that faith because they're gonna need to go on the offense You need faith for defense in your life against trouble when that persecution comes when the tribulation comes you need that faith for defense But guess what? Once you have that faith then it becomes your offense in this spiritual war that we are fighting together As you become look can you be can you be a soldier for Christ if you have no faith? If you can't even get past the the faith defending you from trouble you're going through. How will you ever get to the battlefield? If you're walking to the battlefield and it's two miles away And you stub your toe and you start crying and you go home because you have no faith that God can take care of your little toe How is he gonna keep you in the battle? How are you gonna fight? That's what he's showing them. He's showing them you go out on the ship and you have no faith You can't cast out demons. You can't fight because you have no faith Because to cast out demons to fight this spiritual war is like if you have faith you can fight anything period Turn to Proverbs chapter 21 your faith protects you in times of trouble but then It casts out demons and fights the darkness of this world Turn to Proverbs chapter 21 So we know what do we know we know that if we never do anything we will never have trouble We know that we need to check our faith before Embarking now here's another one Turn to Proverbs chapter 21 and look at verse number 31 Another prerequisite to dealing successfully with trouble is this you need to prepare for trouble You need to be ready for trouble look at Proverbs 21 31 The Bible says the horse is prepared against the day of battle, but safety is of the Lord look We always say safety is of the Lord, but the horse is prepared against the day of battle look You don't want to hear a clunk in the motor when you're out to sea, but you know what I had another motor I had another motor I Told Garrett two weeks ago when we were tuning up this second motor I told him I was like you see me taking this thing out and putting it on it's all gone wrong. I Never had to put that second motor on But the point is is that you need to be prepared for trouble We need to be prepared for trouble. That's why we have so look. That's why we have soul winning tips on safety That's why we do things a certain way when we go out into neighborhoods keep an eye on the ladies We we navigate Streets and blocks a very specific way we pair people up in a very specific way because look we're just preparing the horse for battle You know we talk about safety with animals safety with dogs, you know, we try to be smart, right? We try to be smart out there. We're preparing the horse for battle. We want to be prepared I mean ultimately we know that our safety is in God's hands Ultimately, but the Bible does say that we should be prepared as much as we possibly can be Okay, so now those are the prerequisites. So now, you know, how do we actually deal with problems? How do you deal with problems? You know, you see now you have faith. Yeah faith your faith is strong You know you're prepared now the problem actually arises You know, what do you do? I mean, it's pretty simple from here. You know, you just take it one step at a time You just work it one step at a time. We're out in the middle of the ocean and Jacob says to me He's like When are we gonna fix this when we get home and you know, where are we gonna take it to get fixed? And where are we gonna fix this and I'm just like hey one step at a time. Let's get you know step one Let's get back to Monterey Bay step one Step two, let's rescue the crab gear that's out in Monterey Bay and then step three Let's get back to the marina and then we'll think about fixing the problem Then I mean once you break it in look one foot in front of the other when you get yourself in trouble That's the bottom line. Just fight the monster in front of you Don't be looking at the ten monsters behind him because that's when you get overwhelmed and panic Just one step after another what were the disciples doing in the second storm that they got into they were rowing They were toiling they were just trying to they were trying to fight the contrary winds the problem that was in front of them and they were just It's it's when you get into yourself in trouble is when you start looking three steps ahead When you start looking four steps ahead or when you start taking the whole picture by itself, and then you panic and You and you freak out It's just one foot in front of the other I remember this is a small example that I thought about but brother Stucky Brother Stucky is like this super soccer player and he's like I don't know he's like almost went professional or something He's like awesome at soccer. So we played soccer all the time. I hate soccer We played soccer all the time at Verity And there was a time we were playing soccer and when brother Stucky's coming down the field with the ball Everyone just backpedals and just runs back as fast as they possibly can because he's super fast and he's he's super good at Soccer so everyone's just backpedaling because he's just ready to blast through everybody But he was coming at us one time and I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna go after him And I went right after him and by some miracle. I just took a swipe as I ran full speed after him I stole the ball perfectly from him And he's running that way everybody's running that way and all I could see Was the other goal was brother Stucky's goal right behind me and there was nobody there There wasn't even the goalie there Everybody was gone and all I could visualize in my head was myself scoring a goal against brother Stucky And I'm like this is the most amazing moment and number one I was talking trash and I was laughing so hard I could barely breathe But I forgot to actually put one foot in front of the other and I fell flat on my face and Everybody laughed, but I was like I just I envisioned myself scoring the goal and I forgot to move my legs It's a small silly example But you just take one step at a time when you get into trouble when you have problems you just break it into steps It's very effective in the situation always looks better when you're just like what can I do as step one? How do I get to step one and you just start grinding through it one step at a time? It's very simple So in conclusion this morning. We're talking about trouble, you know, we had some this weekend We had some trouble, but a guy I worked with many years ago. He was an older guy He was an older guy in his 60s and I was working with this guy And I came into work one morning and I was I was walking into the plant and he saw me and he saw He must have saw something in my face that I was stressed out about something and he asked me he said I was stressed out about the project or whatever I was working on with him and he said, you know, you look you look stressed out You know, you look like you have you have trouble, you know, I was like, yeah You know I do and he said well he says to me he says, you know what he said can money fix it And I said yeah, you know money can fix it because it's a problem at work And it's an issue with a project and he looks at me and he says then it's not really a problem Is what he said and so this was a guy that you know had had some trouble in his life that was actual trouble So I know that I'm giving you an example This weekend about boat issues and sewer problems and all things like this. These are nice analogies These are nice teachable moments They're nice ways to get some experience with things, but they're not really problems Is what I'm getting at Ultimately when you think of problems that affect life and the health of your loved ones things like this It's really that first prerequisite of faith That counts with you in your life. I mean because look I mean you can prepare you can prepare I mean a lot of the things that we talked about You know things that happened this weekend a lot of things that examples I gave you you can prepare for going out on the ocean You know you can prepare for going on a long hike You can prepare for you know going on overnight trips and camping, but other problems serious problems in your life You may just have to rely on faith Turn back to Matthew chapter 17 and that may be What you have to get you through and this is why Jesus focused on faith in all these examples And all these lessons that he was giving to the disciples is because ultimately when there's real trouble When there's real problems, that's what you need. Look it back at Matthew 17 And I didn't read this verse for you because I wanted to save it for here But ultimately Jesus said this so you said you know I just have to rely on my faith And is there really action for me at that point, but yes There is action and Jesus gives you that action right here Matthew 17 21 He says you couldn't you couldn't cast out the demon because you had a little you didn't have strong enough faith is what he's saying He's like in addition to that here's what you can do He says how be it this kind go with not out but by prayer and fasting So there are things that we can do in times of trouble that I mean There are things that we can do in times of trouble that are completely out of our hands So you're like this is out of my hands. There's a health issue with a loved one whatever But this is action that you can take prayer and fasting That's what you should be doing in times of trouble. You should pray and Yes, you should fast in times of trouble I mean look appeal to the Lord to intervene for you and by the way, you know Don't let your prayer life begin when you have serious trouble Here's the thing we prayed for a safe return before we left You should have a prayer life. You should have a relationship with God So God, you know, you're not like, you know dial in 911 with God and he's like Jared who? Haven't heard from you in like five years. What's the problem? What who where do you live now? I Mean not that God's like that obviously, but my point is that you should have a prayer life You shouldn't just hit the emergency buzzer with God and that's the only time you pray But the Bible does say that you know When disaster strikes you should pray You should pray for God. Look now you're you're asking God to intervene for you And I mean, that's why that's another reason you need to be in the right standing with the Lord Because when you do call for help You want God to be like, oh, that's you know, that's that's brother Ryan You know, I just talked to him yesterday for half an hour and as I talked to him once a day and you know He's you know, he's in good relationship with his Heavenly Father and he needs help right now And we're just gonna get him out. I'm gonna get him out of this You want to have a good standing with your Heavenly Father? I Mean, look, I want to be on the Lord's side. I mean because I'm gonna need him on my side Period I mean I need I am going to need God to intervene for me in my life I don't know about you, but I know that I Know that so I want this strong Relationship with the Lord and I know that look I know especially. I mean don't I mean once again Don't be the children of Israel that just goes in the midst of all your enemies and then forgets about the Lord And now your enemies come and just crush you I mean if you're gonna go out and you're gonna step out in the midst of your enemies you better I mean everything's fine as long as you have that relationship with the Lord Everything's fine because guess what he will fight for you and he will win Period So that relationship with the Lord is so Important to step out in your Christian life and to forget about God. I mean it doesn't it's not logical first of all It doesn't make any sense to do that Like hey, I'm gonna do all these things. I mean, why are you doing it? You're doing it for the Lord I mean you're not doing it to get to heaven. You're doing it for the Lord. He saved you You're going to heaven because of him. I mean you're doing it for him. Why would you not? I mean get that relationship right? and Then he will fight for you and then at times of real trouble that faith your relationship with God your prayer life That's gonna come into play and then he will intervene for you so make sure that that relationship and This prayer life of yours is healthy this morning because trouble is inevitable my friends Trouble is inevitable life is just one sewer problem after another and Some problems especially problems in your Christian life can be serious and you need The Lord fighting with you and if you have the Lord fighting with you and fighting for you Everything's fine Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer