Dharius Daniels - Drowning In Doubt

Matthew 14, we’re going to read a few verses starting at verse 29. For those of you who don’t have a Bible, it will be on the screens for you. It reads like this: «Come,» he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on water, and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink, he cried out, «Lord, save me!» Immediately, Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. Someone say «immediately.» I appreciate that because sometimes I feel like he lets me dip a little while. I guess I’m not the only one. You’re like, «Okay, Jesus, any day now!» Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him and said, «You of little faith, why did you doubt?» I want to talk from this subject in our time together today: «Drowning in Doubt.» Drowning in doubt.

There are a ton of terms that could be used to appropriately articulate, depict, and describe the essence of what God desires to do in all of our lives, but there’s one term, in my estimation, that sticks out head and shoulders above the rest. It is a term that’s really the heart of this house. It is a term that encapsulates our assignment as a church family. It is a term that fuels my passion for my purpose as a pastor, and that is «family.» Above all else, God wants change. Can you say «change»?

The word «change» simply means to make different, and based on that definition, I feel safe in saying that our God specializes in change. His area of expertise is change because whenever he gets involved in anything—engages with anything, intervenes in anything—ultimately and inevitably, what you will see is change. If he puts his hands on it, it’s going to change. If he speaks his word over it, it’s going to change. And when God changes something, it is a different kind of change. It is not change that simply makes different for the sake of being different; it is change that makes different for the sake of being better. God doesn’t just make it different; God makes it better. I believe I’ve got some people in this room in Los Angeles, online, who can testify to this truth because if you look back over your life and objectively audit your experiences, you can see that God hasn’t just made you different; God has made you better.

It’s his area of expertise. He doesn’t make the broken different; he makes them whole. He doesn’t make the weak different; he makes them strong. He doesn’t make the bound just different; he makes them free. He is, ladies and gentlemen, an expert in the area and arena of change. And because that’s his mission, the messages that he gives us are messages that serve that mission and bring about change in our lives. I believe there is an area of adjustment that God wants to see happen through this series called «Water Walkers,» and that is God wants us to change how we see ourselves. What if I told you this series called «Water Walkers» isn’t just about walking; it’s about seeing? If you really drill down to the core and essence of what I’m trying to articulate in this series, you will see that in order to walk right, I have to see right.

Ladies and gentlemen, in order for a person to advance, they need to do more than see God right; you’ve got to see yourself right. I will not experience God’s best for my life if I see God right and see myself wrong. There is a story in the Bible that supports what I’m saying. It’s in Numbers 13, and it’s about God’s people attempting to advance to a place that God had preordained for them. It was a land called Canaan; it was symbolic of the kind of life that God desperately desires for his people. As they attempted to acquire that land, they ran into some obstacles, some enemies. As they prepared to engage those enemies, a group of men started having a conversation about their capability of carrying out this assignment, and they said these words: «But the men who had grown up with him said, 'We can’t attack those people; they’re stronger than we are.'» They spread a bad report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, «Yes, the land that we explored is a land that flows with milk and honey, yet there are giants in that land.» Notice what they say: «There are giants in that land.» And they say this—don’t miss this, family—they say, «And we were like grasshoppers in our eyes and in their eyes also. We looked like grasshoppers to ourselves and to them.»

I have a question: How do you know what you look like to them if you didn’t ask them? Could it be that they were projecting the way that they saw themselves onto the people who were seeing them? Don’t miss this, family: What if I told you that the people in this text didn’t lose to the giants in the land; they lost to the grasshopper in them? Sometimes the problem isn’t the giant out there; it’s the grasshopper in me. Is there anybody here that’s honest enough to say that grasshopper will get me sometimes? The grasshopper mentality, limited mentality, victim mentality, conquered mentality. Could it be that through this series, God is coming after that grasshopper, attempting to get you to see yourself as he sees you? Attempting to get me to see myself as he sees me? Attempting to get us to see that you are a Waterwalker? You are the exception. You are a deviation. You are an aberration. You walk on what.