Keep Your Eyes on Jesus, Not the Wind and the Waves - Andrew Wommack - August 26, 2026

Hallelujah. Isn't that awesome? This is something that was in the heart of God and all we're doing is just cooperating and we're seeing God just change lives. And so I want to say to those of you who are new here that this is something that God put together for you. He knew that you would be coming. Just as God spoke to Gilbert Jackson at the exact same moment I was over in England and I had never wanted a Bible school. And I mean, within 10 minutes, my whole heart changed. And I said, I've got to have a Bible school. It was so dramatic. I said, this has to be God. That was the exact moment. That was the day after Gilbert gave his life to the Lord and he dedicated this property to the Lord. And at that exact moment on the other side of the world God spoke to me and that's how we began. And all of the things that have happened here is just miraculous. When we dedicated the barn over there on March the, I'm not sure, I think it was March the 4th of 2014 and we dedicated that building. We invited Merlene, the lady that led Gilbert to the Lord. She came here and she was in the last stages of her life but man, she was just so blessed to be here. And we honored her for the things that she's done. And I tell you, it's just amazing to see the way that God can knit things together and all of the things that He does. And we sometimes don't see that. We don't see the big picture. You know, I was with Oral Roberts just a couple of months before he died and I was privileged to go into his home. And there was a number of us there. And one person asked him, says, Oral, how do you change a nation? And Oral Roberts, I thought was so wise in what he said. He said, you can't change a nation. He says, all you can do is what God tells you to do. And if other people will do what God tells them to do, then God can knit these things together. And God is the only one that can change a nation through all of these different people. No one person is the full embodiment of Jesus. No one person can represent God fully. We need everything. And so if Merlene hadn't been faithful to share her testimony, and then if Gilbert hadn't have received it and hadn't had this vision, and if Mark and Deb Littlestar hadn't have cooperated and done all of these things and just on and on and on, I could give you 30 minutes worth of miracles that were all involved in putting this together. And then of course, getting all of this paid for, debt-free is an absolute miracle. And so you are sitting in a house of miracles. This is something that God put together just for you. And so you need to make the most of this. You know, sometimes when we look back, we can see all of these things that God is doing, but when you're in it, most of the time, people don't see and recognize fully what God is doing. And I just pray that this video and some of the things we're sharing will help you to see that this is a God-ordained place. We aren't the only place. We aren't all, I'm not saying we're the best place. We are just a part of what God is doing. God has brought you here and it is supernatural. And if you will place value on this, then it'll change your life. I've got a teaching. I'm not gonna minister that right now, but I've got a teaching entitled, How to Stay Full of God. And in my estimation, it's one of the most foundational things that you could ever learn because many people get touched by God, but then they don't know how to maintain it. And they just think it's up to God and they spend their whole life asking God to do something when the truth is God has done everything. It's a matter of you tapping into it. And I'd encourage you to check that teaching out. It'd be a real blessing. But I just wanna share some things with you out of Matthew chapter 14 and make application to what has happened to you here. And if you can understand this, it'll not only bless you at the moment, but I believe it'll prepare you and help you so that you can maintain the same focus, the same faith, the same enthusiasm that you have right now if you will follow through with this. So this is in Matthew chapter 14, and this is where he fed the 5,000 men, not including all the women and children. There had to be at least 10,000 people with five loaves and two fish. And then in verse 22, it says, in straight way, Jesus constrained his disciples to get into the ship and to go before him under the other side when he sent the multitude away. The word constrained means that he had to compel. Matter of fact, some of the other translations will say he had to compel his disciples and it doesn't tell us why, but I think it was obvious. Some of these guys were fishermen and Mount Hermon was not far from the Sea of Galilee and storms would build up on the other side. And when they crested that mountain, they would sweep down on the Sea of Galilee. And so storms came real sudden. And so fishermen were aware of all of this. They were aware of their circumstances. And I personally believe the reason he had to compel them is because they could tell that a storm was coming and this was against their better judgment. But he got them, excuse me, he got them to get into the boat and head to the other side. And in verse 23, and when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray. And when even was come, he was there alone, but the ship was in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves for the wind was contrary. You know, I've been on the Sea of Galilee. We took a little boat that they had, it was named the Jesus boat. And I had about 25 of our partners and we just anchored in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. And I just taught them what happened right there. It was really special, but it's only a two hour trip normally across the Sea of Galilee, but they left at sundown. And this, it says in the next verse, it says, and in the fourth watch of the night, he went unto them walking on the sea. The fourth watch of the night is between three and 6 a.m. So they left somewhere around 6 p.m. It's only a two hour trip across. And yet at between three and six in the morning, they had only gone halfway. That shows you how contrary the wind was to them. This was a severe situation. And to their credit, if all they were thinking about was their safety, they could have turned that boat around, put the sail up. And if the wind was blowing that strong against them, they could have been back to the shore in just minutes. They could have solved this thing, but they kept going in the direction that God told them to go. This is a prerequisite before you receive a miracle from the Lord. There's a lot of people that would love to have a miracle from the Lord. They would love to see Jesus come walking on the water. And as Peter got out of the boat and he walked on the water, they would love to have these things happen, but they're hugging the shore. And when things get rough, they just head for safety. I tell you, if you are gonna see the miraculous power of God, you're gonna have to take some chances. Did you know fruit grows out on the limb, not on the trunk? And too many people are trunk huggers. And they don't like to be out on the limb, swaying in the breeze. They don't like that feeling, but that's where the fruit is. You gotta do what God told you to do. So in the fourth watch of the night, they were only halfway across. And it says that he went unto them walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled saying, it is a spirit. And they cried out for fear. But straightway Jesus spake unto them saying, be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. Boy, there is so much in this. I happen to have hours worth of teaching on this. And I'm only sharing for a couple of minutes and I'm gonna make some points, but you really ought to meditate on this. This is really powerful. Did you know Matthew is the only one that recorded this account that Peter walked on the water? To me, that's just unreal. I mean, that is a huge miracle. And only one of the disciples recorded this. In Mark's account, it doesn't even mention people, Peter walking on the water, nor does it in John chapter six. Three of the gospel writers record this one instance. And Matthew is the only one who recorded Peter walking on the water. John is the only one who recorded after Peter had walked on the water and after Jesus and Peter got back into the boat, John's the only one to say that immediately the boat and the disciples were translated to the other side of the lake. They were in the midst of the lake and immediately they were just translated a mile or two to the other side of the lake. You have to put all of those things together to get the full impact of this, but this is totally miraculous what happened right here. And I wanna point out Jesus, when they saw him, they cried out for fear and he said unto them, be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. Now, if all Jesus wanted to do was to make them of good cheer, he could have just stilled the wind and the waves and when it quit being a storm and they were not threatened anymore, that seemed like that should have solved the problem. Why did he tell them to be of good cheer before he stilled the waves? Because it takes faith on our part. If it was only up to God, if it was just totally up to him what happened, every person on this planet would be born again. Second Peter chapter three, verse nine, part of that verse says that God's not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. But God gave us a choice and he does not force himself upon anybody. And so if it was only up to God, every person would be saved. And then if it was only up to God, every Christian would be 100% walking in the spirit, walking in healing, deliverance and prosperity, but God flows through us. A scripture in Ephesians chapter three, verse 20 says, now unto him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think. And most people just stop right there, but it goes on to say according to the power that works in us. God does not flow independent of people. If it was only up to God, there would be no sickness, no disease, no divorce, no poverty, no crime, no anything. But God has to flow through people. And that's the reason that we see things happening is because there's so many people who are not cooperating with God. They're cooperating with his enemy. And we are the ones who are supposed to let God flow through us. And we're supposed to be the salt and light and turn things around in this world. And sad to say, there's not enough of the believers who are doing what God has called them to do. That's one of the reasons that God called you here is not just for yourself so that you can get set free, but also so that you can be used by God to set other people free. Only a free person can set other people free. So we want you to be free. And we are excited about God changing your life. But ultimately we're putting all of this effort into this, not just for you individually, but so that you could be a disciple that could go out and share these truths with other people and see the people changed. And so the Lord has to flow through people. That's the reason that he's raised up the Bible college here. So this is the reason that he told them, be of good cheer. They had to be of good cheer. They had to respond in faith first before the miracle came to pass. And so in verse, this is verse 28. It says, and Peter answered and said unto him, Lord, if it be thou bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, come. In the English language, this is only four letters, come. And did you know that that one word, four letters had enough power in it for him to walk on top of the water? That is miraculous. That's how powerful God's Word is. But it says in Hebrews chapter four, verse two, that the Word preached unto them did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in them that heard it. You have to mix faith with what God says, but we are gonna be sharing the Word with you. You know, it's kind of unique. We are a Bible college and our only textbook is the Bible. But you know, I've been a part of other Bible colleges. I've spoken in other Bible colleges and most Bible colleges have a lot of books that they study about the Bible. The Bible is our textbook. You are gonna hear a lot of scripture. You're gonna hear a lot of Word. And if just four letters could allow a person to walk on the water, I guarantee you, what you hear is gonna allow you to do the miraculous if you'll mix it with faith. If you will receive it, not as the Word of men, but as it is in truth, the Word of God that lives and abides forever. If you will receive it and mix faith with it, I guarantee you, this is life-changing stuff. This is miraculous things that we're doing. And so he just said, come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. Let me point out something that should be very obvious. He didn't walk on the water until he got out of the boat. Did you know you gotta get out of the boat before you walk on the water? You gotta, first of all, when you run into a few storms, you can't just run for sure in safety. You gotta stay going in the direction that God told you to go. But then if you wanna see the miraculous, you're gonna have to get out of the boat in order to walk on the water. There's a lot of people that would love to walk on the water but man, they do not like to get out of the boat. They are, they lack the security of being like everybody else. And you know, the weird thing about this is that boat was sinking. They weren't gonna make it. They would have died. That's the reason Jesus came out to rescue them. They were sinking and yet they were afraid to leave a sinking ship. And did you know in our world today, there's a lot of people that if they would be honest, they are not fulfilled. They aren't happy. They're miserable. This is the reason they have to turn to dope and to drugs and they are constantly just occupying themselves is because, you know, they can't get quiet and their life is just miserable. People can't even figure out which restroom to go into. That's about as simple as you can get. And there's people that are confused today. By the way, we don't have that problem here. If you're confused, we love you and we'll help you, but you aren't gonna go by how you feel that day. We'll check you out if we have to figure out. You will go into the right restroom. And anyway, he had to get out of the boat before he could walk on the water. And then as we continue to read, it says he walked on the water to go to Jesus, but when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and began to sink. He cried out, Lord, save me. Did you know he was walking on the water, which is, he's the only other person in scripture that was ever recorded that he walked on water besides Jesus. So this is a unique thing. This is just, this is an amazing miracle. He was doing something that just was physically impossible to do. But when he took his eyes off of Jesus and looked at the wind and the waves, he began to sink. Did you know, I've never seen anybody begin to sink in my life. You just either sink or you don't. But he began to sink, which is significant. You don't just lose your faith all at one second. He was operating in faith and that's the reason he got out of the boat. There was 12 guys in that boat and only one of them got out because he had faith and he put faith in what Jesus told him. And because of it, he was walking on the water. But when he got close to Jesus, you can tell that he was very close to Jesus because it says that when he began to sink, the Lord put forth his hand and grabbed him and didn't say that he ran and grabbed him. He put forth his hand, which meant that Peter had already covered the distance. He was nearly to the point where he could touch Jesus. And this is another truth that you need to learn, that when you get comfortable, when you get to where you have reached your goals is really your most vulnerable time. Because when you're in trouble, when he first got out of that boat, man, he kept his eyes on Jesus because he was gonna sink. He was gonna drown if he didn't keep his eyes on Jesus. And so he did the whole time. But when he got close to him, then he began to start looking around. Did you know David, he was faithful, faithful, faithful serving God until he had accomplished his goals. And he only had one small skirmish to clean up. He had already defeated, I think it was 80,000 soldiers. And they just now went to conquer the capital of where all of those soldiers came from. And it was such a small battle that he just stayed at home and sent Joab out to fight his battle. And while he was at home, he was asleep during the day and he woke up in the eventide. And that's when he saw Bathsheba and that's when he got into trouble. If you are waking up at eventide when everybody else is going to sleep, that means you're bored. That means you don't have anything to do. David had reached his goals. He had done what God anointed him to do. And now that he was fulfilled, he was not seeking the Lord. Anybody can seek the Lord when your back's against the wall and it looks like you're going to die if God doesn't come through. Anybody can seek the Lord then. It's one thing to praise the Lord on the other side of the Red Sea. But when you're on this side of the Red Sea and you haven't seen things happen, that's when it takes faith to do this. And when you're in a critical situation, boy, people keep their eyes on the Lord. But when they get close to their goal, they get complacent. They feel like, well, I don't have to seek the Lord. Things are working out. And that's when you're your most vulnerable. Success is harder to handle than failure and pressure ever was. Thank you for that thunderous silence. That's a brand new wrinkle in most people's brains. They don't believe that, but it's true. And so anyway, the reason I'm bringing all of this out is to say that many of you have followed the Lord and you've come here in a sense, this is like you're walking on water. This is miracle for you. Some of you, we've talked to people over all of these years and some people come and it's just a miracle financially that you even have gotten here. Some of you are looking for housing. You may still be dealing with these things. And so it's a walk of faith. And there's some, there's potential for failure. You're out on the limb. You can feel swaying in the breeze. It's not comfortable. Some of you have left the place that you've lived your whole life. You've left your friends. You've left your family. You left jobs. We've had people before that left their job with only a year or two until retirement. And they were wondering about, have I done the right thing? And there's just a million different scenarios here, but you have gotten out of the boat. You have stepped out and you're doing something. And just as Peter, you have to keep your eyes on Jesus and not on all of the other things. Satan cannot stop you and make you fail. All Satan can do is tempt you. Satan can do nothing to you without your consent and cooperation. And I'm telling you, one of the ways that he gets people and we've seen this happen. We've been going, I think for what, 34, 33 years? And we've seen people come in and they come in and they're so excited and they start, but then they didn't have a job and maybe it gets to be a little hard and stuff. And they just bail, they head back for sure. Or they run into a thing where they're having trouble finding a place or they get a place and they don't like the people that they're living with if they're having to share it with other students or there's just a lot of different scenarios. And Satan can't stop you from doing what God told you to do unless you take your attention off of Jesus. Right now, I'm assuming that every single person in this auditorium has had God speak to you. And that's the reason that you're here. You have felt God prompt you and draw you and you've been through a lot of stuff just to get here. And so your eyes are on Jesus, but there is gonna be, some of you came from a warm climate, we're gonna have snow. And I'm believing for a lot of snow because we had virtually no snow last year. And because of it, we had severe fires and lots of people killed and things happened. And so I forget the percentage, but it's over 50% of our annual moisture comes from snow. We need snow, amen. So if you're here praying against the snow, I'm X-ing your prayer out. We will have snow and we got great equipment. We got the best grounds team. They're gonna take care of everything and it works. But anyway, you're gonna have things like that come. We actually had one woman that was used to sleeping until noon. And she says, I just can't handle getting up at eight in the morning. That's taking your eyes off of Jesus. And I talked to her and praise God, she did continue and finish, but it was under duress on her part. I had a woman and she says, you don't understand getting up like this, it affects my bowel movements. And she said, it just threw her rhythm off. Your body can adjust. Whatever the situation is, you need to keep your eyes on Jesus. If Jesus has spoken to you, if the Lord brought you here, which I believe he did, I believe God's the one that put it in your heart. And God's the one that brought you here. If God spoke to you, don't take your eyes off of Jesus. Don't look at the wind and the waves. Don't look at all of the other distractions. The Lord brought you here for a reason. And knock this video that we were sharing, this is supernatural. He put this together. The Lord has done this. And I can't claim, you know, that I'm smart and did all of this stuff. All I did was hear the Lord and I obeyed. And over the years, we've seen God bring us other people and things have worked out. This is something that God has done. This is the Lord's doing. And you need to keep your eyes on the Lord. And yes, there will be some hardships. And yes, there's bound to be some things different. But you know what? If the Lord sent you here, you need to keep your eyes focused on that because the prize is gonna be worth the effort. I can guarantee you that. Just think about this. What did the wind and the waves have to do with Peter walking on the water? He couldn't have walked on the water if it had been a perfectly calm day. And yet it was looking at the wind and the waves, things that really had nothing to do with what he was doing that got his attention off of Jesus and he began to sink. And Satan is gonna hit you. We've had people come here and their car breaks down. We've had people get a flat tire and they just... There's some people that think that if you're doing what God told you to do, that all of the planets are gonna line up and everything is gonna be perfect. And if it's God, everything will just work like clockwork. That is not what the Word of God teaches. Paul said he had a vision of a man saying, come over into Macedonia and help us. And so he rose up assuredly gathering that the Lord had sent him to the people of Macedonia. And when he got there within 24 hours, he was beaten and in the Philippian prison and his feet and hands in stock. How does that fit with if God told you to do something, and everything's gonna work out? I don't believe you can discern God's will by just how things are going in the natural. You have to hear the voice of God and then you do it if it hair lips the devil. It doesn't matter what results come. But if you were gonna go by physical things, it would be more accurate to say, if everything goes wrong and if nothing seems like it's working, you're probably in the will of God. Because Satan does not like what's happening here. Satan does not like the potential that you have. This has the potential of changing not only your life, but the lives of who knows how many other people. And I can guarantee you, Satan is not gonna just lay down and let you roll over him. He's gonna fight you tooth and toenail, but he can't do anything without your consent and cooperation. So you just keep your eyes on the Lord and you get out of the boat. Don't look at the wind and the waves and you keep focused on what God told you. And if you'll do that, I believe that this is gonna be one of the greatest times of your entire life. And for those of you that are first year students, find somebody with a red or a green lanyard and just ask them how their year's been. And I think they'll tell you that it's worth it and that you need to stay the course. Amen? Praise God. So Father, we just thank you for what you've done. Thank you for Merlene touching Gilbert Jackson and then Gilbert Jackson dedicating this property to Christian education. And then all of the miracles that have happened, the partners who built all of these buildings, every single thing, the things that you've done to speak to these individuals. Father, thank you. We just thank you so much for what you're doing. And Father, we are overwhelmed. We're in awe of your goodness. And I pray for every person. I know that Satan would love to get their attention off of you and looking at other things. Father, I pray that you just give people the ability to be laser focused on you and what you've told them to do. And we praise you in advance that this is gonna be life changing for them and so many other people. So we thank you for that in the name of Jesus. Amen. So what's happening next? A break. All right, you got a break here for a few minutes. I think it's 30 minutes. So you'll be back at 10, 15, I think.