Title: "What are you going to do when the wind stops?"
Introduction:
On Wednesday nights at our Church, we have been studying the life and letters of Peter. Our text this past week was from Galations the second chapter. In this text, Paul rebukes Peter for not openly worshipping with the gentile converts at Antioch. Peter feels the pressure of the Jerusalem Jews that would place the gentiles back under the Old Testament laws of Moses, this denying the gentiles of the liberty that they had found in Christ.
Paul mentions in the Galations text that he stived to meet privately with Peter. If I had but one opportunity and one message to present to Peter it would be this message.
I want to dedicate this simple message and outline to anyone who is struggling with the question of the grace of God!
1. We are Saved by Grace.
The disciples were in the midst of the stormy sea. Jesus came walking to them on the water. Peter asked Christ to bid him to come and walk on the water too. And he did come and started out his way to Christ on the water, but when he saw the winds and the waves boisterous about him, he began to sink...
When Peter was drowning at sea, he did not save himself with his great athletic swimming ability. He simply prayed, "Lord, save me!"
When a person understands there lost condition, and that Christ alone has the power to save them by means of his death, burial, and ressurrection, and they call upon the name of the Lord to be saved, God saves them by his GRACE!
2. We are Kept by Grace.
Certainly Peter was hanging on to Christ as they made there way back into the ship, but more importantly, Christ was hanging on to Peter, that is the only way that Peter could walk on the water!
The older I get, I confess, that it is not I who has held on to Christ, but Christ who has held on to me.
Now unto him who is able to keep us from falling!
We are kept by GRACE.
3. We are to be Motivated by Grace.
The Bible says that when Peter and Christ climbed back into the ship that the winds ceased. When the winds ceased the disciples fell to their knees and worshiped the Christ as the Son of God.
My question is "What do you do when the wind ceases?" Certainly,
we would hold tight to Christ in the waves and the storm, but how about when the winds cease. What is your motivation to stay faithful to Christ? Our motivation is the GRACE of God.
We must live in constant reminder of what Christ has done for us and of what Christ presently is doing for us in our day to day lives. How it grieves the heart of God that we only hang on to him in the time of the storm!
When the winds cease, when everything is at calm, by faith we need to be motivated by the grace of God to cling to his side.
Yesterday, I was preaching this same message to the men that I minister to at the Westshore Correctional Institution. I said it like this, "Men, now you are in the storm, you see the winds of adversity all about you, you have chosen to come to Christ, to cling to Christ, but, what i want to know is, what are you going to do when the winds cease? What are you doing to do when the grace of God delivers you from your prison cell? What are you going to do when the grace of God gives you a job, and wife, children, and a home? What are you going to do when God causes the winds to cease? What is your motivation to cling to Christ then? It is the GRACE of God!
We are saved by Grace!
We are kept by Grace!
We are to be motivated by the Grace of God!
Never forget this simple three point message on the Amazing Grace of God!
