Finding Your Voice in the Storm — Carter Conlon

Jesus’ Triumphal Entry as a Sign of Peace

This is a day where Jesus made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem and thank God that he did. And of course the scripture tells us that he came in on a donkey, which was a sign of an embassage of peace as it was.

If a king was coming in to conquer, if a king was coming in to overthrow his enemies, he would generally come in on a horse and a chariot. But the fact that the king of all the universe came in on a donkey is telling us that he desired to make peace with you and with me and thank God he did.

Matthew 21 and the Hope of the Messiah

I want you to turn with me in your Bibles, please, if you will, to Matthew chapter 21. And we're gonna begin to read at verse six, if you will. Father, thank you, God, with all my heart for the touch of heaven that's on your word.

Help us, Lord Jesus Christ, as your people to find our voices in the storm, this present storm that we are going through in this country and in this world. Lord, you have a people and you have given us a voice.

So help us, Lord, to rediscover our voice or perhaps discover it for the first time for many who would be part of this today. And Lord, we thank you, God, that you're gonna give that great grace and we give you the praise and the glory.

Touch this physical body and give me the ability, Lord, to speak this word this morning. Let every heart be gladdened. Let the challenge of God go out across the internet waves. And Lord Jesus Christ, help us in our hearts to respond.

And we thank you for it. In your precious name, amen. Matthew 21, beginning at verse six. So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set him on them.

And a very great multitude spread their clothes on the road. Others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. This is where we get the concept of Palm Sunday. Then the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying, Hosanna to the son of David.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And when he had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, who is this? So the multitude said, this is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee.

What an incredible day of victory it was for so many. This is, the people of Israel, this is what they had looked forward to for thousands of years. This was the fulfillment of every promise that the Old Testament scriptures gave them, that one day there would be a Messiah who would be a son of David, in a sense, and sit upon the throne of Israel and rule and reign forever and they would be delivered from all of their enemies, everything that was ever against them.

Of course, their present reality was that they were being oppressed by the nation of Rome at the time. And yet, here was the dream actually had come true. The king had come. He was coming in on a donkey.

The people were shouting out, Hosanna to the son of David. Now, they knew what that meant. That meant that their Messiah had come. They were gonna be set free. Their future was gonna be secure. And all the promises in the Old Testament, they'd be brought to a place where there's no more tears, no more sorrow, no more sighing, no more sickness.

I mean, all these promises were in the scripture and they knew these promises. Can you just imagine? Like, we will experience this one day when we're delivered from this present world as it is and brought into the kingdom of heaven for eternity.

But in their minds, it was happening now. This was the hope of every heart, the hope of all their dreams. And they were worshiping and singing Hosanna in the highest. And they were just days away though from what would be for many, if not all of them, the darkest days of their lives.

When Hopes Collapse in a Time of National Crisis

They had no idea what was coming just a few days down the road. They would ask themselves, how is it possible that what started out so smoothly, it was the fulfillment of our dreams, had in a few short days gone so wrong?

And we think about America today, you know, the land of opportunity, the land of freedom, the land of where we can freely worship God, the land where every person can pursue life, liberty, and happiness, and the land where the stock market seemed to be just forever and ever and ever going up, the land where retirement plans were gaining money for those that were putting their investments into it.

And we think of a lot of people felt like perhaps their dreams had been realized, their future was secure, only to have it go south in such a short time. As a matter of fact, there was a wealthy person in the news this morning that said, we are about to experience America 2 .0.

And this is what he meant when he said this, that America is about to land in an unfamiliar place. It's about to become a country that it has never been. We're about to go through things that we've never possibly had to go through to such a depth before, and he's calling it America 2 .0.

In a short just moment, hopes were dashed for these people in this opening scripture their dreams were gone, their confidence was shaken as everything seemed to go south, as I said earlier, just in just a moment of time.

You know, the scripture tells us, the Apostle Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, verses one to five, he says, concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night.

For when they say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape. But you brethren are not in darkness so that this day should overtake you as a thief.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. No doubt, voices were being raised everywhere. Voices of caution, voices of concern, voices of panic as the son of David, the promise that they felt life and the future held for them suddenly was being taken captive.

And it seemed like everything that they had hoped for was now being destroyed right before their eyes. The king that they'd waited for for so long, the security it all offered was suddenly dissipating, just seemingly falling like sand through everybody's fingers.

And I don't think that you or I can possibly understand the shock of that moment. You imagine waiting for something all of your life. You imagine talking about it with your parents and your grandparents and your great grandparents and passed down from house to house and table to table and talking about this moment that was gonna come and it finally came.

And when it came, it just suddenly all just fell through everybody's fingers. I don't think we can fully understand the shock of that moment. If we did fully understand it, we would be less quick to condemn the disciples when they failed to understand the moment that they were living in just before the cross.

And in their confusion, began to even deny as Peter did that they'd ever even known the Lord Jesus Christ. All these voices raised in our society today, there's voices everywhere. I don't know about you, but I'm getting really tired of all these voices.

All these voices that don't seem to know where we're going, all these voices with looking to point the finger and blame somebody else for what's going on, lying voices, exaggerating voices, voices of gloom and doom, voices of optimism, not based in any reality.

I'm so tired of these voices. Thank God, that's all I can say. There's a voice that rises above every other voice in every storm. You remember the disciples in the boat going across that sea. And you can just picture that the wind is howling and the waves are roaring and the disciples are, they're saying, wake him up or do something, somebody, we're starting to perish.

The Voice of Christ Above Every Storm

All these voices. Then suddenly, the Son of God rises up in that boat and His voice has power over every storm. His voice has the power over the elements. His voice can bring those who trust in Him to safety.

His voice rises above every voice. You see, there was a voice being raised up, only a few days from Palm Sunday. It was a voice that had the power to calm the destructive power of this storm. You see, but it was on a cross.

And because it was on a cross, most everybody thought this voice had been defeated. But had they been listening, they would have understood it was the same voice that had once been raised in the boat in the storm.

It was the same voice that at the beginning of all things in Genesis one, where the scripture says, and God said, and things were created, and things were given boundaries, and things were given life, and things were given borders.

It was that same voice that was on the cross. And this voice, even though it looked like it had been defeated. You know, we're living in a generation where I'm sure there are some people that are given to darkness that believe that the voice of God in our generation has been defeated.

I want to challenge anyone who holds to that opinion. People have made that mistake in the past. You cannot defeat the voice of God. You cannot defeat the God of eternity, the God of all power, the God of all authority, the God who created the universe by the words of his mouth, the God who brought his son out of the grave after three days.

You can't defeat that voice. There's no way that you can defeat that voice. And may I remind you, that voice can never be silenced. Now, we can cease to hear it. Because we are shouting too loud. We can cease to hear it because we are listening to the crowd with all of their opinions and all their woes and all of their blame and everything else.

We can cease to hear it, but that voice still is above every other voice. And I find it interesting from the perspective of a picture, that that voice was up on a hill, on a cross, and it was above. That voice actually was above the other voices if people could still hear it.

And this voice of Christ on the cross was speaking of victory. In spite of what everybody around it looked like, there was just nothing but defeat, but that voice was speaking of victory. I think of some of the words of Jesus on the cross, and in particular when he said, it is finished.

In other words, the power of sin to destroy you, the power of the present storms of this world to take away your eternal hope, the power of rebellion that separates men and women and children from God is finished.

There was a victory happening on that cross, but to the natural, it didn't look like victory, but there was a great, great victory that was happening. And I thank God. I wish I had been there to hear this voice.

I can hear it in my spirit, obviously, but I wish I had been there to hear this voice when he called out, it is finished. The separation between man and God, the veil that separates man from God is being torn from the top to the bottom in a way as being made for every person who wants to to come back into relationship with God and a way as being made for the heart of God who wants to come back into relationship with his creation.

You know, the scripture tells us when that veil, when Jesus said it is finished and he finally gave up the spirit, the veil that separated man from God was torn in two from the top to the bottom. That shows me the hands of God were at the top and just ripped that veil.

The scripture also tells us that suddenly rocks were split in two, graves were opened, and the dead began to rise. As God, in my mind, I see God coming out and saying, I have waited for this moment to defeat everything that has been sent to defeat those that are created in my image.

It was a moment of incredible victory, even though in the natural, it was dark in the world. There was an eclipse of the sun, more or less. We don't fully understand all that happened in the heavenlies.

We just know it was dark on the earth. But there was a victory even in the midst of that darkness, a victory beyond a victory that's ever been won in any battle, anywhere, anytime, any country, any place, any heart, any home.

A victory that there will never be another one quite like it. It was an amazing victory. The voice that was raised above the storm was also speaking about forgiveness. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

The Cross, Forgiveness, and Eternal Victory

You see, if you can hear in the midst of your storm, that voice of the Son of God is still speaking today, speaking about a victory that he won for you, a victory that is yours if you will turn to Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, a victory that you don't win by being a better person.

You don't win it by trying to do right things in your own strength as good as they might be. The Bible tells us that sin separates from God and the wages of sin is still death. But the second half of that verse says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And so if you can hear it in the midst of your storm today, the voice of God coming to you is about victory, is about an eternal, a secure hope, forgiveness for your future, a life and strength that can only come from God.

This is the voice that rises still even today above the voice of every other voice in our present day storm. Because you and I are no longer separated from God, that same voice has now been entrusted to us.

Do you remember, Jesus said to his disciples, as the Father has sent me, even so now I send you. You remember in the book of John after he was raised from the dead, he came into that first upper room and it says, he breathed upon them and said to them, receive the Holy Spirit.

You remember in the book of Acts chapter two when those early disciples went into that upper room and prayed and the Spirit of God came upon them, the first thing that happened is they went out of that room into the marketplace and they were doing the very thing in a sense that had been done on the cross.

Now they were not bringing about any form of redemption, that already had been accomplished through Jesus Christ. But they were now being given the voice of God. The scripture says they were speaking about things to come.

It was amazing. It was so stunning that people who were just simply religious knew that they didn't have this kind of a voice or this kind of a power flowing through them. And see, the point that I'm trying to make today is that it's now imperative that you and I find our God-given voices in this present storm.

He entrusted this voice of victory and this voice of forgiveness to you and to me. Now in order to find this voice again, in order to walk in the power of the voice of God speaking through us, we need to become a people of prayer again.

We need to shut ourselves away from all the voices that are all around us trying to lead us into anger or division or bitterness or resentment or all these other things in this generation. And we need to one more time begin to pray and hear the voice of God.

And when you hear the voice of God, the scripture will bear witness that you will come out of that place of hearing his voice, declaring what God is speaking. And not only will you be given confidence, but you and I will take a lot of people into the kingdom of God with us.

Paul’s Warning in the Storm of Acts 27

In the book of Acts chapter 27, the Bible speaks of a journey that the society of that time decided to take. They wouldn't listen. They were warned. The apostle Paul told them in verse 10, men, I perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss, not only of the cargo and the ship, but also of our lives.

They wouldn't listen. They were warned. In America, we undertook a journey, a soft journey a few decades ago, and the voices of God that were raised up, nobody would listen to these voices. We decided as a society that we knew better than God.

We knew how to undertake this journey. We knew where we wanted to get to, only to find ourselves today in a storm just like they found themselves in a storm. Verse 13 says, when the wind blew softly, supposing they had obtained their desire, putting out to sea, they sailed by Crete, but not long after, a tempestuous headwind arose called Uruk-Hlidon.

And when the ship was caught, we could not head into the wind, but we let her drive. And that's exactly where we're at today. As a matter of fact, for years, the Lord's been using this passage, the scripture from Acts 27, to speak to my heart about the future of America, what it was going to look like, that we have not listened to the word of God.

And because we've not listened, and in our arrogance undertook our own journey to do things our own way, and when the wind blew softly, we thought we were going to obtain our objectives. But now, by the mercy of God, just as the people were in our opening text, just as the people were in Acts 27, we find ourselves in a storm of unprecedented proportion.

I would garner a guess today that we've never seen a storm like this, next to maybe the Civil War in America. But I think the storm is deeper. I think just as in the days of the apostle Paul, the scripture says in verse 20, when neither sun nor stars appeared for many days, and no small tempest beat on us, all hope that we would be saved was finally given up.

We're heading there in the not too distant future. We're going to America 2 .0. We're going to land in a place that we've never been before. We're gonna find ourselves in a society that's very foreign to what we thought this nation was going to be in our present time, and in the days ahead of us.

But what would make a difference in a time like this? And so this is my question to you. What could make a difference when all these voices are rising, when all the confusion is swirling all around us?

There was one man, one person. This is why I'm calling you young to get back into the word of God, and to be set apart for God and for the kingdom of God. There was one man in the belly of that ship who was spending time with God.

And in spending time with God in prayer, he discovered his voice in the midst of the storm. And when all hope seemed to be lost, suddenly the apostle Paul appears on the deck of that ship. And he stood in the midst of them and said, men, you should have listened to me and not sailed from Crete and incurred this disaster and loss.

You should have listened. It's your stubbornness as a nation. It's your rebellion. It's your unwillingness to hear the word of God that has brought this incredible hardship into your midst. And you should have listened.

But thank God, the voice of God does not leave people there because people can be so discouraged and so cast down. If our only message is simply just repent, then the people are going to be discouraged.

But having the voice of God, Paul now goes beyond just saying, I warned you, I told you, you should have listened. And it's fairly obvious that America is in the trouble we're in because we embraced a light gospel journey.

We went our own way. We did our own thing. We started calling evil good and good evil. We started redefining things like marriage and family and such like. And because of it, we're now in the storm that we're in.

And we should have listened to the word of God, but we didn't. And now we're in a storm of epic proportions. We're heading to a foreign place in a sense that we've never been to before. But Paul doesn't stay there.

He warns the people and says, you should have listened. So in other words, now start listening. That's what he said, basically. You didn't listen. It brought about the storm. So now I'm telling you to start listening.

If anybody is out there today and you're listening across the nation or across the world, here's the simplicity of my message. Start listening to the word of God. Start listening to the voice of God. Start listening to the calling of God.

Start listening to the direction of God. For there is no hope for the future unless the voice of God comes and brings us now to that place of safety, brings us into that victory and brings us into this incredible mercy that is now available and always has been available to us through the cross of Jesus Christ.

Finding a God-Given Voice Through Prayer

Now, in verse 22, Paul now moves to where our voices have to move to. He says, now I urge you to take heart for there shall be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship. In other words, everything physically around you is going to change.

But I have a word from God and I know where my life is going. And I know what God has called me to do. And I have been in prayer. And because God has shown me his voice and shown me his heart, he's also shown me the depth of his victory and his mercy.

And I'm telling you, this storm doesn't have the power to take away your life if you will listen to what God has given me to say. You remember Paul said to the centurions, the soldiers, he said, unless you stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.

Don't try to get out of this storm your own way. There's only one voice that's gonna get you and I to safety now. One voice that's gonna get us to a place where God wants us to go and that is the voice of God.

I know that voice in my own heart. I know where I'm going. I know that I'm going to Plymouth on October the sixth to lead a prayer meeting of repentance for the nation and asking God to rededicate this nation back to him again and to ask him to forgive us for what we have done with the grace that he showed us as a nation.

I know I have to be there. So I'm not worried about the present storm. And if you will listen, if you will start moving with God, if you will start listening to the voice of God, God promises that he will keep you through the storm.

Paul told them, he said, we're all gonna be cast upon a certain island and everyone, the ship is gonna break apart, but everyone, if you'll grab hold of a piece of wood, whether or not you can swim, just start kicking your feet and you're gonna make it to shore.

Now, if you understood, if you've ever seen an ocean storm of this magnitude, I have, where waves are so big that they're actually breaking the back of a ship apart, the odds of getting to shore are almost zero.

The undertow would be so strong, even hanging onto wood, you couldn't make it. But because God is more powerful than any storm you'll ever face or any opposition that will ever come against you, everyone grabbed a hold of a piece of wood and the scripture says the whole 276 on that boat with Paul made it to the shore, thank God.

And when they got to shore, they now began to see the power of God in operation. Oh yes, the devil tried to bite the hand of Paul and stop him from what God had called him to do. And the devil will try to bite your hand and cause you to withdraw and say, I'm just gonna preserve myself.

I'm not gonna be given any more for any of these people. But Paul didn't do it. He shook off that thing that bit him into the fire and from that same hand, healing began to flow. And this is the cry of my heart that through my life and through yours, that the words of God would start to be spoken and the healing of God would begin to flow through our hands, to our friends, to our families, to our neighbors, to our communities.

You see, we were born as a people of power in the book of Acts and we drew back and we settled by being self-focused. We settled for being self-focused in a people of just theological argument, but that's not what the church is supposed to be.

We're supposed to speak for God. We're supposed to bring people to safety. There should be power in our words over the storm, over everything that threatens not just us, but threatens our neighbors, our friends, and even our enemies.

There were enemies of Paul on that ship, but the kindness of God that was once extended through the cross to those who had crucified Christ is now through Paul being extended to even those who had caused him incredible suffering and pain in his physical body.

This is the voice of God. This is the power of God. This is the grace of God. This is the victory of God. This is the forgiveness of God. And thank God that once again, in our generation, you and I have been given the incredible opportunity to speak for him one more time.

Mercy, Repentance, and the Invitation to Salvation

Get a word from God in your home and tell your family where you are going and tell them that if they will follow, they will be safe. Get a word from God. Speak it to your neighbors. Talk about the mercy of God.

Talk about the victory of Christ. Yes, warn them of the penalty of sin, but talk more about the gift of God, eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Praise be to God. This whole society is open because of the storm.

In the days of the apostle Paul, they never would have listened had everything continued to go smoothly. It was because of the storm that God sent. It was because of the storm that God sent that they were able to enter into the safety of God and have an opportunity to receive Christ as savior.

I want you to remember this morning that mercy still triumphs over judgment. Mercy means, you see, judgment is when you and I die and we are destined then to spend our eternity in hell apart from God, and our minds can't even comprehend how awful that really is.

That's judgment. But mercy triumphs in the sense that even if we should die in whatever days are ahead of us, that heaven becomes our eternal home, and we live and rule and reign with Christ forever. That's mercy triumphing over judgment.

You asked me today, pastor, well, how can I get out of my storm? How can I learn to hear the voice of God? How can my life be used to make a difference? I'm gonna give it as simply as I can to you. Firstly, admit that you have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, that means of what God intended your life to be.

Admit that your ways are not God's ways, that the way you live, the way you think, the things you've done, the lies you've told, whatever it is that you've been involved in has separated you from a holy God, and admit that you can't save yourself.

And secondly, believe that God so loved you. God so loved you. That's why he sent his son into Jerusalem, to die on a cross, to pay the penalty, the price for all the wrong things that you have done, to declare both victory and forgiveness to you from the cross.

Believe that Jesus took your place. Believe it with all your heart. Believe that it's as simple as saying, God, I open my heart to you and I accept your offer. When you stretched out your hands on that cross, your hands were stretched out to me.

And when you spoke about victory and forgiveness, you were speaking about me. And so Lord, I have no plea but your mercy. So I come to you today and I open my heart and I invite you to come into my life and to be my Lord and my Savior.

And thirdly, confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior. Even if you're only doing that if you're all alone today, and you're doing that in the confines of your own bedroom or your own apartment, you just vocally and verbally and out loud say, Jesus Christ, you are now Lord of my life.

You are now my Savior. You are my God. You are the voice that rises above the storms of my heart and my mind. You are the one who invited me to be a partaker of this incredible victory that was won on the cross.

And you are the one who promised to give me not just eternal life, but a full and abundant life here on this side of eternity. And you promised that my voice would now be in line with yours and that you would give me power in my speech, you would explain to me my future and give me the ability to take others with me into this harbor of safety that you provided for us because of your cross.

You see, that's as simple as it is. So now I'm going to lead you in a prayer. Everyone who's online today, I know we got families all over the place. Some of you even go to church, and that's a good thing.

But there's also many people, many young people too, that you've never ever prayed that prayer. You've never ever fully yielded your life to Jesus Christ. You've never just gone all the way, may I put it that way, and gotten into the game yourself.

But today, that's all going to change. Today, you're gonna open your heart and let the voice of the Son of God speak to you. And then you're gonna open your mouth and let the Son of God speak through you.

And you watch what God is going to do in your life and through your life. So I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna lead you in a prayer and I'm gonna say it very slowly. And I'm gonna ask you to pray it with me, pray it out loud if you want to, or pray it quietly in your heart if you can.

But in any event, please just pray with me in the midst of your storm and open your heart to this incredible salvation through Jesus Christ. Now I'm gonna say the words and I'm gonna ask you to repeat them after me.

A Prayer of Surrender to Jesus Christ

Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you for loving me so much that you came into this world, you went to a cross, and you paid the price for the wrong that I have done. I thank you that on that cross you spoke to me about victory and about forgiveness.

And you invited me to be saved from this present storm I'm in and from the penalty and the power of sin. Jesus Christ, today I open my heart to you and I invite you to come into my life to be my Lord, my Savior, and my God.

Forgive me for the things I've done and for trying to live this life my own way. From now on, I will follow you. I will confess you as my Lord and my Savior all the days of my life. Thank you that you will give me a voice in the midst of this storm to lead many others around me to that place of safety that you offer them as well.

I love you, Jesus. Thank you for loving me and speaking to my heart today. From this day forward, you are my Savior, my God, and the Lord of my life. Lead me, teach me, guide me for the rest of my days.

Thank you for loving me. In Jesus' name, amen. Now, if you're listening online today and you prayed that prayer, we want an opportunity to get in touch with you just to encourage you. So I'm gonna ask you to text decided or just write the word, text the word decided to 88202.

That's 88202 on your cell phone and just text the word decided. And we would like to get back to you, to encourage you, maybe to help direct you to some Bible studies and things like that online that we would recommend that can help you in your new walk with God.

Finding Victory and a Voice in the Storm

What looks to be a disaster in our society has just become your victory. It caused you to begin to think. It caused you to turn. And for all the Christian people out there, let me remind you, it's time for you and I to pray.

It's time for you and I to find our voice in the storm and speak for God. God bless you. And I know Greg's gonna lead us in a song before we close out today. Let's take a moment just to worship. And for those who are already believers, would you thank God with me and with us here for those that have received Christ as Lord and Savior today.

God bless you in Jesus' name.

You let them hang you on a tree. Sin is just like me. Pour yourself. I love you. Praise your holy.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Remember, if you prayed that prayer, you can go to 88202. That's 88202. And text the word DECIDED. And also, if you are interested in going to our Bible school to be trained in the ways of God, to find your voice in this generation.

I gave you the wrong information, unfortunately, so I'm gonna correct it now. You go to SUMMIT to 484848. SUMMIT to 484848. So we look forward to hearing from you. God bless you. Thank you, Greg, for leading us in such wonderful worship today.

I thank God for that. I felt like I was right back in New York City again, all over again. You're just such a proficient worshiper. I hope you're thankful for Greg Thomas and also for Raphael and his daughter and the team that's been with us previous two weeks.

And we're gonna be mixing it up a little bit in the future, and there'll be different things that we're gonna be doing worship-wise. We're even gonna try to maybe bring you a couple of high points from the past at Times Square Church in New York City, if God gives us the ability to do that.

So we just want you to know we love you, and I'm just so thankful, because I really feel in my heart that there are people out there, you've received Christ as your Savior. There's children out there that have received Christ today.