Get Ready to Walk on Water — Carter Conlon

Praise God. All right. Are we on yet? Thank you Jesus. All right. Okay, we are on. Can I give this back to you? Susie, thank you so much. All right. Just a little glitch in the sound. We thank God that we're back up again.

I want to give a special shout-out tonight to all of our folks that are part of the team that catalog and correlate the prayer requests that come in. There's folks from New York City, there's even a part of the team is in Florida tonight.

These are people that are looking and they're cataloging and putting together into categories and listing the prayer requests that come in from all over the world. We also know on this tablet, if you can see it, we can tell who's with us live tonight and from what country.

We just thank God. We thank God for everybody who works behind the scenes to make this a worldwide prayer meeting. It is a very unique prayer meeting and we thank God for that. Tonight we're going to go to communion after the Word of God is shared for the next 20 minutes or so.

And after we do that, I would like you just to prepare by getting some juice and some crackers at home in your kitchen and get prepared to have communion with us. I want to speak a message tonight to people who are in a specific category.

A Message for Those Facing Despair and Spiritual Storms

And you'll know in a minute what I'm talking about when I read these. From Sweden, I'm sick, depressed, lonely, and burnt out. I have only one friend who cares about me and I'm getting bitter and grieving.

From the U .S., Jesus, please pull me out of this pit of despair, cancer, a broken marriage, wayward children. Raise me up to be the powerful prayer warrior that you called me to be. From New York, pray for the Holy Spirit to be poured out in our families.

We need a breakthrough. We can't fight this battle on our own. Please pray for our youth. From here in the U .S., it's my birthday on July the 15th. I really need a miracle on my birthday. I've been going through the lowest point of my life for the last two months.

Please pray. In the U .S., please pray for God's direct, intense intervention to help on behalf of all families trying to stay together and to make it work. From New York, pray for me as I feel so lost and down with my life.

I'm a believer and I know the Lord is working, but I'm in anguish and just want to run away. And here again, Greg says in the U .S., prayer for the Lord to take the party life and drinking from my heart and from my mind.

So there's so many people, as it seems the Lord has a theme tonight, there's so many people who know about the things of God, but they're not living in victory. They are facing all kinds of storms in life and despairing, in a sense, of their own futures.

But I have a word for you tonight, and I've entitled it, Get Ready to Walk on Water. Get ready to walk on water. It's from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 14. If you want to go there in your Bibles, if you have a Bible at home or your iPhone, whatever it is that you have, you can pull that up and go to the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 14.

I'm reading from the New King James Version of the Bible, if you want to follow along and just make it a word for word following. So Father, I just want to thank you tonight for the touch of heaven. I want to thank you for the presence and the power of your Holy Spirit.

I want to thank you, Lord, for your word, which truly is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. I thank you for the indwelling power of your Holy Spirit. I thank you, my God, for what you're going to do this evening.

I thank you for the lives that you're going to change, you're going to literally transform. We heard about it tonight. We prayed about it tonight. Those young people, those older people who just feel like they've died, but they're simply sleeping and you're about to touch their lives and call them back to life again.

You're going to do miracles, God, in this generation as you've done in the past, Lord. So thank you for the touch of your Holy Spirit on my life as it's been on this entire service tonight. Thank you, Lord, for the...

God, you had to give Lazarus the ability to hear. He was dead. Lord, he couldn't have heard if you didn't give it to him. So Lord, we just pray, God, give us ears to hear tonight. Give the people online the ears to hear, Lord, those who are just so used to just shutting out every voice that would try to encourage them or call them to life.

Father, God, in Jesus' name, give us ears to hear. Give us the ability to respond to your call and to your voice, and we thank you for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Matthew chapter 14, beginning at verse 22.

Jesus Sends His Disciples into the Storm

Now, Jesus Christ has just done a miracle. He's just taken five loaves and two fish. He's looked up to heaven, and God has supernaturally blessed it, and he has multiplied it, and he's given it to his disciples.

They've given it to the multitude, and there were about 5 ,000 men besides women and children that were fed from this little wee lunch that came into the hands of God. I could stop there and give an altar call tonight right at this point to say, God Almighty, would you take my little lunch of a life, and would you multiply it, and would you begin to feed the multitudes with it, and that's who God is, and that's what God does.

He takes us in our nothingness. He takes us when we feel like the ability we have is so small compared to the need that's all around us, but that's who God is, and that's what he delights doing. I've often said that he can't use us as long as we think we're something, because he doesn't need something to do something.

He needs nothing to do something. That's who God is. He made everything out of nothing. He just speaks the word, and things come into existence that are not there. So now, after he had done this, it says in verse 22, immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he sent the multitudes away.

And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. Now when evening came, he was alone there, but the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, and the wind was contrary.

Now in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went to them walking on the sea, and when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a ghost, and they cried out for fear. There was and still is this superstition among mariners, may I put it that way, that if you're going to drown, that the spirit of death, in a sense, comes walking towards you, and that's most likely, or at least part of what they were thinking when they saw this.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I, do not be afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And so he said, Come.

And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, saying, Lord, save me.

And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him and said to him, Oh, you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Now there's other accounts in the Bible describe this or a similar storm to it as a storm that was life-threatening.

You remember one account says the water was coming into the boat, and the disciples thought that they were going to perish. It was beyond human ability to navigate. Their faith was beginning to fail, and they were wondering why they had been left to perish.

You can just imagine the disciples in this particular boat saying, Where is Jesus? Why did he send us out into this? Why is he not with us? Why has he not come to help us? Did he not know that he was going to be sending us into the storm?

Does he not care about us? You know, we can allow those thoughts sometimes to get into our hearts when we find ourselves in a storm, especially when the storm is beyond our ability to do anything about it.

We can't navigate it anymore. We don't know the way out. It was a time when possibility had become or was becoming impossible. Now these were seasoned fishermen. They were seasoned navigators. They knew how to get across this particular body of water.

They knew how to row in storms. They'd obviously been in storms before, but this storm was bigger than anything that they'd ever faced in their lifetime. And it was no longer possible to do anything about it.

When Sin and Addiction Become Impossible to Control

And I'm thinking about people tonight. When you started drinking, you online, when you started drinking, it was possible to stop at some point, wasn't it? But now it's impossible. Now this substance has gotten a hold of you, and you're in the storm of your life, and you feel like you're going down, and it's simply out of your control.

You can't control it anymore. Somebody else, you thought that that little flirtation in the office was just something that was a passing fancy, and you certainly, of all people, could handle this thing.

But now it's gotten a hold of your heart. Now it's eating at the very fabric of your relationship with your wife or your husband. Now it's destroying your family and your children. Now it threatens to ruin your entire life, and you seem to be unable, you seem to do anything about it.

What was once possible is now impossible to control. That's what sin does. It comes in as a smooth journey in the beginning, but suddenly we find ourselves, when sin gets a hold of the human heart, unable to control a situation that now controls us.

It was formerly possible maybe to deal with it, but now it can't be dealt with. Now it was at this time, it was at this time that the Lord Jesus appears, and He calls Peter to do something now that is totally impossible.

Christ Calls Us to Faith in the Midst of Impossibility

Now I want you to catch the irony of this situation. What was once possible to Peter is now impossible. They're rowing. The wind is contrary. It is a storm that they can't navigate. It is a place of fear.

They're crying out. When it says they cried out for fear, they cried out for fear. These guys were shouting. They thought they were going to go down. They thought that Father Time had finally caught up with them.

They thought that they were getting their first glimpse into perhaps even the judgment of God perhaps. I don't know what their situation was or what every man was thinking, but it certainly was not faith coming out of their mouths.

They were crying out for fear when they saw Jesus approaching them. In this impossible storm, where the waves are still beating against the boat, where everything is still contrary, where everything is out of control, where they're fearing for their future, it's at this time that Jesus Christ says to Peter, come.

He calls him to do something that is completely impossible. I love this about the Lord God. We ask ourselves the question, why doesn't Jesus wait for a calm, sunny day to take Peter to the seashore and explain what he's about to do?

That's the way we would do it. We'd say, Peter, I want to take your side. We're going to go down to the sea. Isn't this a lovely morning? The sun is shimmering on the water. He says, now I'm going to just show you my power.

I don't know how he would have said it. I'm going to maybe coagulate the molecules in the water, and I'm going to give them a strength they don't have to hold you up, or maybe I'm just going to make you lighter than you are so that you're able to walk on the water.

I don't know how he was going to explain it. This is the way we would like him to do it, and we'd like him to do it when we feel good about ourselves, wouldn't we? When we feel like we've got faith. When Peter's standing there on the shoreline saying, I can do this, God, I can do this.

Between you and I, I can walk out to the end of this pier on the water, and I can walk back, and I'll be the first man that does this, and how awesome this is going to be. But it's at a season of impossibility.

It's at a season, in a sense, where I'm talking to you tonight who are addicted, are despairing, are depressed, are angry. You can't see a way forward into the future. Your storm is overwhelming you. You're just looking to get out of the storm.

And suddenly Jesus Christ comes to you tonight and asks you to do something that's way beyond even where you are. And he asks you to do something that is completely impossible, to walk into a place you can't humanly walk in.

To walk into a place that you know it's not possible for you to do this. You don't have the ability, you don't have the strength, you don't have the courage, you don't have the faith, but yet still the voice of Jesus Christ is calling you to walk into this place.

He calls Peter in his storm, and if you can hear it tonight, the voice of Christ is calling you tonight in your storm. Your storm of discouragement, your storm of depression, your storm of your marriage breaking up, your storm of addiction, your storm of thoughts in your mind that you can't control any longer, your storm of feeling hopeless about the future and feeling like everything is out of control, suddenly it's not about your storm now, tonight it's about you.

God is calling you to something you've never even considered for yourself because you spend your whole day now trying to get out of your storm. But when he came to the men in that boat and he spoke to Peter, it wasn't about the storm, it was about something bigger than the storm.

Peter was going to have to walk in the future in places that he wasn't humanly capable of doing and only the power of God could sustain him. And so he calls him, he says, Peter, come and walk with me where I am.

I am above the storm, I walk above the elements. There's nothing in this world that can take me down. Come and walk with me now where I am. When he called Peter out of the boat, he was showing you and I that he's not, he's not limited by our lack of ability.

A lot of people, you know, you and I would stand there and say, but Lord, you know I can't walk on the water. And God would say to you as he said to Peter, it's not about you, it's about what I've called you to do.

And if I've called you to do something, it will be done. Whatever door I set before you, no one can close it. And whatever I call you to do will be done. And it will be done in the strength and in the power of God.

He was showing us through Peter in this scenario that he is not offended by our fears. When they first saw him approaching, they thought it was a ghost. They screamed out for fear. They thought that death had come to them.

He's not offended by the fears that you and I go through when the voice of God, when God himself is approaching us and calling us to do something in our lives that we've never considered that we could be.

Jesus Sustains Those Who Fail in Faith

And lastly of all, he's showing us through the life of Peter that he won't withdraw from us when we fail. You know, Peter got out of the boat and started to walk towards Jesus. And the Bible says when he saw the wind and he saw the waves, he was afraid suddenly.

And he started to sink and he said, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and caught him and said to him, oh, you have little faith. Why did you doubt? You see, he's not offended and he doesn't withdraw from us when we fail.

In other words, there's people here tonight saying, well, I'm willing to give this a try, but what happens if I fail? If you falter, if you falter in your first steps of faith, Jesus will reach out and grab your hand and he will lift you up and he will keep you.

He won't abandon you in your moment of trial and difficulty. And tonight for many who are online, he's calling you in your storm. He's calling you to himself in your storm of addiction that you can't beat, affliction that you can't overcome, depression that you can't escape, disappointment that you can't get over, fear that you can't overpower and weakness that you can't subdue.

He's not waiting for you to get it all together. He's coming to you just as you are. And he's saying, step out and walk towards me. And you will, you'll begin to understand my keeping power. You'll begin to see what I can do, that when I call you, I will sustain you.

When I saved you, I will cover you. I'll not be ashamed of you. I'll not be ashamed of your trials. I'll not withdraw from you when you falter. I will be there as a friend that sticks closer to you than a brother.

And you can say tonight, like Peter once said, oh God, if it's you that's speaking to me tonight in my home, my living room, wherever you happen to be, if you're speaking to me through this word and through this preacher that's online, bid me to come.

And the Lord says to you, come then. Get off your couch and move towards me. Get up off your face and move towards me. Get out of your bed and move towards me. Get off your park bench and move towards me.

Get out of your car and move towards me. Come to where I am. Come to where I'm calling you to. And you will start to understand the supernatural power of God. I don't choose the strong. I don't choose the wise.

I don't choose the influential. I don't choose the wealthy. I don't choose those who have it all together. I call the nothings and the nobodies of this world and things that are not to bring to naught things that are and stand in their own strength.

I call the foolish of this world and things that are despised and things that are nothing to bring to nothing things that stand in themselves that no flesh can glory in the presence of God. You know, just as they did, you might feel that a spirit of hopelessness is about to swallow you.

In the middle of your storm, though, the voice of God says, it is I. Be of good cheer. Do not be afraid. I love that. I mean, he comes walking on the water and the whole thing is starting to sink and the waves are rocking it.

They're crying out for fear. And he just says, it's me. Be of good cheer and don't be afraid. Come walk with me that where I am, you can be with me and I'll take you just as you are. Let me show you what I can do for those who say yes.

Obedience Before the Storm Is Calmed

Now here's the interesting thing. After lifting Peter out of the water, the scripture says, they go back into the boat and the wind ceased. You know, a lot of folks that are listening online, you say, God deal with my storm and I'll serve you.

And the Lord says, do you know, serve me and I'll deal with your storm. Hallelujah. You see, you can't use your addiction as an excuse to sit on your couch any longer. You can't use your struggle. You can't use the depression.

You can't use anything that's in your life that's causing you to feel like you're losing control of everything. You can't use that. It's not a bargaining chip that you can use with God to say, oh God, you do this for me and then I'll do that for you.

The Lord says, no, you step out of where you are right now, just the way you are. And you come to me. You come to be just as you are. And if you'll come to me as you are, I will, I will get back into your, I will come back into your situation with you and I'll look after your storm.

Praise be to God. But you get up and you start coming towards me. Fathers that are losing your children and your families, you get up and start walking towards God. Mothers, you get up and start walking towards God.

Don't make bargains with God. It's not about God, you do this for me and then I'll serve you. No, no, no, no. You get up, you walk towards his voice now and then he'll come and he'll calm your storm. And the storm that's in your life today will lose all of its power.

On your part, simply acknowledge that you can't help, you can't do it. Just get to the point of saying, God, I give up. I can't do this. I can't save myself, I can't guide myself through this life, I can't roll my way out of this storm.

I allowed something into my life, I got into a situation that is overpowering me, the disappointment, the fear, the weakness, the depression, the addiction, the affliction, the things that are in my life.

It's as we heard tonight about the prodigal son. It's as we heard about the daughter who died. It's as we heard about families that are believing God for their children and fathers who need to rise up and take hold of God again so that the covering of heaven can come on their families and their homes one more time.

The Cross, Resurrection, and Empowerment by the Spirit

If you will get up and move towards God and simply admit you can't save yourself and believe that God loves you. God loves you so much that he sent his son. That's what happened in this storm. He sent his son.

But God loves you so much he sent his son to a cross to be nailed there, to be beaten there, to be bruised there, to be whipped there, to pay the price for all the wrong things that you have done and I have done and all the messes that we've gotten ourselves into over the years.

All the things we can't get out of. He went to the cross and suffered the punishment and the penalty for all of these things and brought us back into right relationship with God. So that we can step out of what it is that's become this all-encompassing circumstance that threatens to destroy us and we can start to move towards the voice of God.

And as soon as you do that, you're going to find that you're going to be given the ability to walk in places you couldn't walk before. To walk in ways you couldn't walk. To do things that you were not able to do.

The Bible says that when he rose from the dead, he took your captivity captive and gave gifts unto men. Giftings of God. Words of wisdom. Words of knowledge. The ability to pray and believe. A voice to speak things you've never spoke in your entire life.

A heart to love like you've never loved. Courage and faith like you know is not your own. It's got to be another life that's being lived out inside of you. The things that would have made you sink. The things that would have drowned you.

The places that you would have perished now are under your feet and you are walking in places that ordinary men and women can't walk. Only people empowered by the Spirit of God can walk there. Doing things that only people gripped by the Spirit of God can do.

That is the kingdom of God. That is how we glorify God on the earth. By just simply getting up no matter where we are and moving towards the voice of God. Lazarus was dead and ironically he's the only man who could hear the voice of God in that whole cemetery.

Everyone who claimed to be alive and religious and full of prayers and tears and everything else that they all the accolades that they were perhaps trying to share with one another. None of them could hear the voice of God except a dead man could hear the voice of God.

And when you get to the point where you can't get out. When you get to the point where the addiction is too strong. The affliction is too deep. The depression is too dark. The disappointment is too grand.

The fear is too all encompassing and the weakness leaves you in a place of powerlessness. It's at that point you can start to hear the voice of God. And he says simply get up my son. Get up my daughter and start to walk towards the sound of my voice and you will find yourself doing things that nobody, nobody apart from those who are called by God are able to do.

I'll give you abilities that can only come from God. I'll take you into places that only God can take you. I'll give you giftings that could only come from the hand of the one who gave his life to bring you back into right relationship.

And simply confess that Jesus Christ is your Lord. Say God if it be thou bid me come. In other words if it is you call me and Jesus said it is me. Come. Peter when he stepped out of that boat it was a confession to everybody around him I'm going with the voice of God.

I'm going with Christ and I don't care what you guys do. Now they may have mocked him later on say ha ha you only got like 30 yards and you sank. But he did get 30 yards walking on water. Nobody else ever did that.

There is no record of anybody else ever doing that apart from Peter. Thank God. Thank God. And when he faltered as we do when we step out and when we lose our confidence it can happen to any one of us.

We lose our confidence. He doesn't cast us away in our time of difficulty. So don't don't be afraid that if you make this step that somehow oh maybe I'm going to blow it. Maybe I'm going to maybe I'm going to be sober for a week and then I'm going to blow it or maybe I'm going to escape my weakness for a week and it's going to come back and try to overpower me again.

No you get up and you start walking towards the voice of God and when you falter and if you falter he will be there to pick you up again and he will go back with you into your place of storm into that that boat where you thought you were going to drown where you thought you were going to die and immediately the scripture said the wind ceased.

A Prayer for Courage to Walk in Faith

Now father in Jesus name in Jesus name I'm asking you tonight God to give the men the women the young people and the children that are listening online the courage to get up and move towards the sound of your voice because you always call us to something good.

You never call us to something evil. You didn't call that man to a place in which he was going to drown. You called him out of a place that was going to drown him. You reached out and you held him. You kept him.

You encouraged him. You admonished him and you calmed his storm and God no matter how many mistakes he made he must have remembered this in the days when he denied you. He must have remembered the time that he sank in the water and you reached out and you picked him up.

He must have remembered the kindness of your touch and father I pray for people who just have hesitated to make the step of faith because they fear failing. They fear disappointing you and they fear being disappointed themselves.

Give them the courage to get up tonight. The courage to get up especially now in this generation. As pastor Teresa prayed tonight God we do see a generation coming home. We do see the broken, the bruised, the maimed, people who have been eating pig's food suddenly coming to their senses and getting up at the sound of your voice and just coming home.

So God tonight in Jesus name give us the courage to walk on the water. Give us the courage to walk in ways that we never have before and in places where we've never gone. Help Lord Jesus every man, every woman, every child who needs to pray this prayer right now.

I'm going to ask you that are online to pray this prayer with me and everyone who's in the sanctuary to pray it as well just for the sake of those who need to pray it with us or are watching from all over countries all over the world tonight.

Lord Jesus Christ I hear you. I hear you calling me. I hear you calling me. And I will admit I am afraid because I've been such a failure and I'm afraid to be disappointed again but I believe tonight that you won't disappoint me.

You won't let me go when I get weak or struggle but you will love me and you will hold me and keep me all the days of my life. You died so that you could receive me and bring me back to you again. Help me to die to my fears and all my own weaknesses and to get out of where I am and to come to you tonight.

Jesus Christ I open my heart and I invite you to come into my life to be my Lord and my Savior. From this night forward I'm going to walk towards you and declare you to be my God and my Lord and my Savior.

And you promised me that as I do this you will come to me where I am and you will cause my storm to cease. Thank you for loving me and receiving me. In Jesus name, amen. If you prayed that online tonight I'm going to encourage you to text the word decided to 51 ,000.

That's decided to 51 ,000 and somebody from Times Square Church will be in touch with you. Lean on us for just a little while. Let us be that arm that represents the Son of God that comes down and just holds on to you for a little while.

Encourages you and helps you to get started in your walk with God. We're going to sing one worship song then we're going to come back and have communion together tonight and celebrate this incredible victory that God's given you through Jesus Christ.

God bless you.