Step Out By Faith

thank you pastor praise the lord everyone the presence of the lord is here in such a beautiful and powerful way and i am so thankful to be here today i know that you folks have awesome mission conferences and off awesome church whether i'm here or not so i feel very blessed that my wife and i can be here this beautiful church family that has such a legacy of faith and giving and working and i don't want to spend too much time on it but i love your pastor and his family the leadership of this church their hospitality but beyond that the legacy of their faithfulness is something that really is legendary and i want to say to brother sladen how much i appreciate being with him and the work that he does is just monumental for the kingdom of god at this time and then i have to say that it is awesome to be with the a through j's oh my goodness i was here earlier with the k through z's oh my god you don't want to be there you don't want to you don't want to be a part of that you know if i lived in this area i would change my name to blender so i could go to church with the a through days just mix it up with the people of god here now i know there's liable to be some k through z's that are a little bit offended right now if you're worshiping with us online i just want you to know if you can't be with the ones you love you love the ones you're with that's all i got to say about that i hope you're hearing from god today matthew 14 i may never get invited back but i had fun while i was here whoever put together that hospitality basket i'm taking that home for my entire family and i'm not just talking to my kids i got relatives coming over when i get home tomorrow we're going to have thanksgiving all over again

matthew 14 and many of you are familiar with the ferocious storm that came upon the seas when the apostles were out there at the direction of the lord a lot of us have been through some stormy weather this last year and yet i love this little portion of matthew 14 and verse 28. and peter answered jesus and said lord if it be thou bid me come unto thee on the water and i just feel like and pastor already has alluded to it jesus is calling us to step out today and i know it involves that faith promise card but don't limit it to that card i am certain from the youngest child that can understand what i'm saying today to someone that served god maybe even longer than many of us have been alive god wants you to take a step of faith today it will include the card but it will go beyond the card you will make a difference for global missions because you do it every year but you're going to make a difference for your mission today too in jesus name i want to just preach for a little bit step out by faith let's ask the lord one more time lord jesus you know the constraints of time you know everything we're trying to accomplish but in this moment god we want you to be glorified i want to be someone you can use for your purpose lord i want to see the power of your presence working in this place in the name of jesus christ in the name of jesus christ we love you for it god in jesus name in jesus name in jesus name god bless you may be seated

maybe some of you can recall that service or that situation where you heard about calvary for the first time and at least on that occasion something got a hold of your soul and you knew jesus died for me you went up to that altar you repented of your sins somewhere in that circumstance you were baptized by immersion in the name of jesus christ anybody remember when you were filled with the holy ghost even speaking with other tongues wasn't that awesome you know how that happened you stepped out by faith you responded to the word of god and god made all the difference in my church years ago there was a man that came up to the front i did not know this but he told me later he was told that the holy ghost is not real that it's just something fake and phony these are his words he had never read about it in the bible he stood in the center aisle right near the front and he said i thought it was fake and i thought it was phony but i felt like a river stirring right here in my stomach and i burst out speaking words i never spoke before you know why that happened he took a step of faith

oh i hope somebody here today will say this is my day to step out in faith i might have my face covering i might have to stay six feet away from everybody else but i'm gonna get closer to jesus and the miracle that he has for me today we all step out by faith so that we can receive the salvation that jesus has for us but that is not the end of the steps of faith every time he calls us out we take another step jesus bid me come and that is the beautiful story of our missionaries that they take a step of faith that leads them around the world but they are responding to the same god that you and i are responding to today and we are required just like them when we hear his voice jesus bid me come i'm going to step out by faith i heard a while back of one of our bible school students in nigeria that took a step of faith went on to bible college to learn the revelation that there's only one god and his name is jesus to experience this wonderful salvation and the gospel and he went home and took another step of faith went back to his denominal congregation and they had 18 baptized in jesus name and 17 filled with the holy ghost because all of them were stepping out of the boat and stepping in the water and trusting god with a step of faith

i was 23 30 years ago when jesus said to me step out by faith in that season it was a call to preach my brother and i together we're gonna go evangelize we probably didn't know what it meant didn't know how to spell it but we had heard from god we were getting out of the boat we were stepping in the water our first revival was scheduled about five hours from where we live by car we didn't own a car the night before we were to leave we were packing our bags we were both living at home my mom was very concerned because we told her we got enough money to get there on amtrak but we don't have enough to get home but we figure by the time we're done eating at that place for a few days they'll send us back home because we we're still big eaters and we were getting ready and she was getting more nervous and the doorbell rang in our little apartment apartment 404 flushing new york can anything good come out of flushing you ought to try it you'll get that later on but i tell you right now it's important to get that and we heard the doorbell ring this little korean family that lived underneath us apartment 303 310 down the hall underneath us my best friend holy lived there with his parents who were not church people at all uh and uh they brought us an envelope with some money in it because they heard we were doing something religious it was all the money we needed for a round-trip ticket on the train to go for our first revival i'm just saying that when god is calling you it don't always make sense when god is calling you he's not calling you based on your ability he's just saying if you're tired of just sitting in that boat and watching the wind and feeling the rain and you're ready to take a step out oh i just feel like today is a day of destiny because somebody's going to make up their mind i'm not going to watch the wind anymore i'm not just going to let the rain pelt my face i'm going to hear the voice of god he's going to bid me come and i'm going to step out by faith be what he wants me to be

that's what giving is all about when it comes to missions the bible says in second corinthians 9 but this i say he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully this is a church that has sowed bountifully for decades and decades and we recognize here at apostolic pentecostal church that every one of us can purpose to give and when we give we're going to give cheerfully because god loves a cheerful giver we may not understand what he asked of us today but we know he loves us when we step out of the boat and we just give i doubt it needs to be said here but every now and then i have to remind the folks where i serve if you're not given already you're not even in the boat and surely we understand that giving is a part of our relationship with the lord but faith promise is not just about sitting on the boat row row row your boat gently down the stream faith promise is about stepping out on the water faith promises about saying i feel like jesus has been me come and so i gotta get out of my comfort zone giving and just obey the word of the lord ecclesiastes says cast thy bread upon the water for thou shalt find it after many days a few more verses down it says he that observeth the wind shall not sow and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap my brothers and sisters this is not the time to watch the wind this is not the time to let the storm stop you i know we're in a pandemic i know the world's gone crazy but my brothers and sisters if you read this old bible story you gotta remember that jesus did not step on the boat until somebody stepped in the water if we're gonna make it through this season it's gonna be because we have faith in jesus christ and when he speaks to us we will obey him we will trust him

as a new pastor 20 years ago i tried to get my church to launch out in the deep and we had an old building with a gravel parking lot and it was brother sladen that came to one of our first faith promises it was powerful the way god used him but i told our church that was not acquainted with this wonderful ministry the way all of you are i said you know what we have a gravel parking lot that we cannot afford to pave but if we will give what we have to the work of god god will take care of our needs while we're caring for the needs of others they responded so beautifully we started helping missionaries and we've never looked back and within a year a man that doesn't go to our church a man that's never been in our church he wrote the checks over thirty thousand dollars to pave our lot i'm not saying that we give to receive but i am saying when you step out of the boat and you step into the water some powerful things happen my brothers and sisters in the middle of a pandemic thank you pastor for giving us a chance today to hear the voice of god and to step out into the water because god is going to honor the faith of this church and victories and miracles are going to come in jesus name praise the name of the lord praise the name of the lord

and i will say and i'm bringing my remarks to a close but it extends beyond our money there is a revival happening right now there was a word from god last night that you've got to hear from the prayer meeting what was amazing to me is we just had a tongues and interpretation at our church on wednesday night bible study and so much of the theme was exactly the same as what we heard last night the reality is god is sending a message to his church it's harvest time it's time to reap even where you haven't sown it's time to believe god for souls and so as i preach to you today you need to step out of the boat and you need to take a step of faith it does include a faith promise card but it also includes somebody on your job that has never wanted to come to church somebody in your family that's backslidden away from god and i'm just asking you to hear the voice of god today and if he tells you to step out of the boat and be used by him supernaturally please take the step of faith i want to say this and i i know it's going to sound crazy but even our children today i want to say to any of you children that understand what this preacher's saying if god speaks to you to pray for a sick relative a sick grandparent or whatever i beg you to step out of the boat and just pray in jesus name because we are living in the last days and we serve a miracle working god i beg your church in fact i'd like you to raise your hands right now and say it's not just going to be about me filling out a card i'm going to fill out a card but every service every day i feel like this message is designed to remind us i'm gonna respond to the will of god on my job in my family in my ministry lord jesus as we heard last night let the gifts of the spirit be loosed in this church on a new level as we begin to trust each other to understand we are hearing from god god is directing us in these last days and miracles are happening for the people of god that step out by faith

musicians if you would come a while back we had a widow in our church that was in a service like this and she felt to give a thousand dollars she didn't have a lot of money but she had that much and she gave it to missions and she got a hold of me within a few days she said nobody knows i gave that thousand dollars and nobody knows the other needs that i had but she said the very same week that i gave the thousand dollars i received a check for five thousand five hundred dollars in the mail she said it was from a family member that i never hear from that has never done anything like that before but in the note he said i felt to give this to you and because i know you're a church-going person i didn't just give you the five thousand i gave you the tithe so you could give the tithe on the five thousand i'm not saying we give to receive but i am saying if it's a widow or if it's a child or if it's a faithful saint of god that's given to misha's all your life when god calls you in the next few moments to step out of the boat this is the season to say i know the wind is blowing i know the rain is crashing down sometimes i feel like my little vessel's not even going to make it to the other side but i have faith in jesus christ would you raise your hands right now as brother sladen comes and would you pray that kind of prayer lord jesus i trust you right now lord jesus i'm counting on you right now in the name of the lord