Toure Roberts - Don't Trust the Rules (01/14/2026)
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In Matthew 14:22–33, Jesus walks on water toward the disciples' storm-tossed boat; they fear it’s a ghost, but Peter boldly asks to join Him and briefly walks on water before doubting and sinking—Jesus saves him. Drawing from Psalm 16:5-6, the preacher urges believers not to trust self-imposed or inherited «rules» and limitations but to break through them by focusing on Jesus, the ultimate Rule-Breaker. Growth requires uncomfortable stretching in transition seasons to expand capacity for God’s inheritance, leading to breakthroughs and destiny. He closes with an invitation to accept a personal relationship with Jesus for true identity and wisdom.
Scripture Reading: Matthew 14:22–33
Matthew 14, beginning in verse 22, it says: Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side while He sent the multitudes away. And when He had sent the multitudes away, He went up on the mountain by Himself to pray. Now when evening came, He was alone there. But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, «It is a ghost!» And they cried out for fear.
The «Ghost» in the Storm
See, I think I’m gonna keep reading a minute, but I think that that’s what some of you are right now. You are experiencing things—watch this—that are natural for promotion. I feel the Holy Ghost. You’re experiencing things that are common for the stretching that is required for destiny, but while you’re in it, it is difficult to discern it. So you’re calling it a ghost, you’re calling it a scary thing, you’re calling it something that would harm you, but really it’s in your life to help you. I feel the Spirit of the living God.
And I think that this moment that we’re gonna spend together, this encounter, is really about helping you to understand it. And so when they see Jesus, they were actually troubled. They see Him walking on the sea—walking on the sea. The miracle was on its way, it was close to them, but they were blinded by so many other things they couldn’t even perceive that the miracle was close. Just do me a favor and turn to the person next to you and say, «You are closer than you think.» I feel the Spirit of God. You are closer—you’re closer than you think. Closer than you think. Closer, closer, closer, closer, closer, closer than you think. A sensitive feeling. How do you know it? I know it. It is so close.
And what is the «it» that I’m talking about? I’m talking about God setting you in a large place. Some of you have been in a tight space for so long, not realizing—not realizing—that God is getting ready to move you into a dimension where you can breathe again, where you can trust again, where you can love again, where your will is stirred again, when your faith is there again, when you’re motivated again. It’s coming, it’s coming, it’s coming. I sense it. It’s coming.
So they say in verse 26, they say, «It is a ghost!» and they cried out for fear. And I love this—but immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, «Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.» And I hear God saying that to some of you right now. He’s saying, «I know you’re wondering what this is.» You know transition seasons are crazy, man, because it’s transition. You’re no longer what you were and you haven’t quite become what you’re gonna be, and so you’re in the middle and it’s awkward and it’s funny and it’s scary and you feel all deformed emotionally. And I hear Jesus saying to you, «It is I.»
My thoughts are not your thoughts, My ways are not your ways. How I go about developing you is different than you would go about developing yourself. Watch this—even better—the way that I go about blessing you, hey, the way that I go about blessing you is different from how you would go about blessing yourself, and the way that I bless you is better. You may have to go through some things, you may have to go through some confusing processes, but when I get finished with you, the glory that’s on the other side of the process will be worth everything you have to go through. I hear Jesus saying, «It is I.» Do me a favor—just turn to somebody and say, «It’s Him, it’s Him, it’s Him, it’s Him, it’s Him.»
Yes, but Jesus—immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, «Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.» And Peter answered Him and said, «Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.» So He said, «Come.» And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus. But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, «Lord, save me!» And immediately Jesus stretched out His hand and caught him and said to him, «O you of little faith, why did you doubt?»
We had a good thing going, man! Come on, somebody—you out here rolling, stomping with the big dogs for like 30 seconds, man. You were living the dream, dude—are you kidding me? I was going to take you places. I’m still gonna do it. He said, «Why did you doubt?» And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, «Truly You are the Son of God.»
Scripture Reading: Psalm 16:5-6
Psalm 16, verse 5 says, «O Lord, You are the portion—You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup; You maintain my lot. The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yes, I have a good inheritance.»
Main Theme: Don’t Trust the Rules
I want to talk today around this subject, and I want you to get this: Don’t trust the rules. Don’t—don’t trust—don’t trust the rules. God bless you, you may be seated. Don’t trust the rules. Don’t trust them. Don’t trust the rules.
I can’t trust the rules because I don’t know who made them. I can’t trust the rules because I don’t know what rules God has anointed to be broken in my life on my behalf. Oh, you gotta catch what I’m saying. I can’t trust the rules because I do not quite know how far God has called me to go. Are you tracking with me?
When I read that last passage, the psalmist was basically saying that he had a portion, and that his portion was good, and that the lines or the boundaries of his portion had fallen in pleasant places. In other words, there’s an inheritance—there is a predetermined inheritance for my life. There’s a predetermined amount of internal resource and external blessing, and the only challenge is that I don’t know how far God has taken this thing, and so it puts me in this place of reaching.
Drive for Stewardship and Growth
Let me just kind of tell you about one of the things that drives me. One of the things that drives me is the concept of stewardship, and the concept of stewardship for me is that I believe that my life is not my own, and I believe that God has placed things in me and has put things out in the world that what’s in me is supposed to connect to the things that are out in the world, and greatness is supposed to happen through my life. My fear is that I will allow preconceived limitations to rob me of the full expression of my life being manifest according to what God knew before He put me in my mother’s womb. Are you tracking with me?
I want you to get this. So what drives me to continue to grow—I’m never satisfied, hello somebody, I’m never fully satisfied—and what drives me to continuously grow and to continuously increase and to continuously become better and to continuously evolve is the understanding that who God sees me as versus who I see myself as are two different things. In other words, I don’t know my limits. I don’t know what I can do. Are you tracking with me?
And so what I will do is—I mean, if there are lines set for me, if there are boundaries set for me and I don’t know what those boundaries are, the only way that I’m gonna reach them is if I continue to stretch. Are you tracking with me? This is what Paul was talking about when he said that I have not attained, I’ve not arrived, but here’s one thing I do: I forget what’s behind me. In other words, I’m not celebrating yesterday’s victories—I’m more excited about tomorrow’s testimonies. Are you tracking with me?
Oh, I feel the Holy Spirit. And some of you right now, you are consumed with «now, » and the reality of it is you’re next. You are intimidated by what you’re seeing now, but now is not even what it is. I think the next is more glorious than now, and there’s some things that are on the inside of you that God is getting ready to stir up and cause to be produced, and you’re gonna show up next greater than your past and even greater than all the things that you’re seeing now.
Fear of Silent Limits
And so I’m challenged—I’m challenged every single day. You know, people ask me—or some people ask, you know, «What’s my greatest fear?» And my greatest fear is not reaching the lines that God pre-established for me because I’ve got these rules, I’ve got these things in my head, these unseen, invisible rules that tell me how far I can go. I kind of take my time and teach today—we may not shout, but we can grow. Is that okay? Can we grow instead?
I’m afraid that there is a silent «can’t» in my spirit that’s keeping me from realizing everything that God has placed inside of me. There’s more to you than you think, but the challenge is you will never fully know where that border is. Are you tracking with me? You ever look in the mirror and look at yourself and just say, «How far is this thing really gonna go?» You ever been there before? That’s me. I’m like, «God, You know…» because every round goes higher and higher, and for God it is perpetual upgrades. Are you tracking with me? It is perpetual upgrades.
That’s why, if you’re honest as believers, we have ups and downs. We have «yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, ” and if we’re honest—I don’t know about you—but the moment that I am too long calm, I get nervous. I get nervous.
But when I’m not being stretched—and see, if you aren’t stretched to the point where you feel awkward and uncomfortable, you look in the mirror, you say, „Who am I?“ you start thinking things you’ve never thought before—if you haven’t done that, you haven’t even begun to grow into the type of person that lays hold of everything that God has called you to be, because the process of growth requires this great discomfort: I’m not what I was, but I’m not where I’m headed, and I’m somewhere in the middle, and I have to live in that place in the middle. Isn’t that horrible?
Wouldn’t it be awesome if God could just take you from level to level—like you go from one good place and He just whoosh, took you to the next good place without you feeling like you’re crazy? But He doesn’t do that. I feel the Spirit. He lets you live in this in-between place, and it’s horrible and it’s awkward and it’s frustrating and it’s painful, but it’s critical. It’s necessary. There’s something about being in that in-between place and fighting what you have to fight in order to survive that creates capacity for what God wants to pour into you. Are you tracking with me?
Then I know—I hate it. So it’s weird, like I get nervous when things are easy, but then I get frustrated when I have to go through the season that will produce the growth that I ultimately was nervous about not having. How many feel that way? I gotta say, ’cause my thoughts are like this long right now—chop ’em up—but I get nervous in the season where everything is going the way I want it to go because I know I’m not growing and I know I’m not positioned for next. But then when I get into that in-between place that’s leading me to next, I get frustrated. So I’m either nervous most of the time or frustrated. Are you tracking with me?
And the reason I’m taking time here is I’m trying to help you understand that where some of you are is actually very normal, and you’re not gonna lose it, and you’re not gonna fall off, and you’re not gonna miss anything. God knows exactly where you are. You are clay on the potter’s wheel, and He is shaping you, and what He is doing is He is creating capacity. He’s creating capacity.
God as Portion and Cup
You know that in that scripture in the Psalms, Psalm 16:5, it says the Lord is my portion—He said the portion of my inheritance and my cup. That’s kind of heavy, because if He is the portion of my inheritance, that means He’s saying He’s the resource. And then if He’s saying He’s also the cup, the cup has to do with capacity. Are you tracking with me? So I can’t have God’s resources with my little cup, because my cup is my capacity.
Can I take my time and talk to you for a second? So like right now, God can only do for me according to my capacity, according to my cup. So He could want to pour, you know, millions of gallons of resources, but if I have an eight-ounce cup, then there’s going to be waste. So God says, „Not only am I your resource, I am your cup. I will stretch you so that you can have the capacity for what I’m going to do for you, so that you can realize the boundaries or the actual borders that are assigned to your life.“
Signs of Limiting Rules
And there are a lot of things—you know, we all have rules, there are rules in our lives, and we don’t necessarily always see the rules, but let me tell you how you know that there are rules in your life that are limiting you and restricting you from being all that God has called you to be. Here’s one telltale sign: the absence of motivation. The absence of motivation to move, motivation and vision and clarity to move from where you are to the next space, is evidence—the absence of that is evidence of the presence of a rule somewhere in your psyche that is keeping you from what God has for you.
And that’s why I say you can’t trust the rules. And here’s why you can’t trust the rules: you can’t trust the rules because you don’t know who made them. Some of us right now are limited and restricted because of our experiences. Some of us are limited and restricted, and these rules are in place because of generational bondage—so it wasn’t even your rule, you didn’t agree to the rule, you didn’t sign up for the rule, you were just born in the context of that rule, and that begins to shape and define. Now your perceived parameters of growth—are you tracking with me?
I don’t trust the rules because I don’t know how far this thing will go, and so I just have to assume that if I am still alive, God has me alive and on this planet and taking up oxygen because there’s still more growth, there’s still more to accomplish, there is still more increase assigned to my life. So instead of submitting to the rules, I’m gonna be a rule-breaker. I’m gonna run up on every rule, I’m gonna run up on every limitation, I’m gonna run up on every blockade, because maybe—just maybe—it’s only in my head.
See, a miracle—when miracles take place—think about what a miracle is. A miracle is a confrontation of a rule, and it is evidence that the rule wasn’t real. Are you tracking with me? Even when you think about things like prayer—what is prayer? You know, as it says in the Scripture, „You have not”—watch this—“you have not, ” that is a reality of lack—“you have not because you ask not.“ Meaning that I did not ask, more than likely because there was some rule in place that made me think it wasn’t even worth asking. And because that rule was in place, I did not have the reality that I could have had because I didn’t pray. I was bound by a rule.
So even in prayer and the effects of prayer, there is the reality that rules are made to be broken. And the only way—that’s what intercession is. Intercession—I wish I had time to really break it down—but intercession, one of the Greek words for intercession has to do with boundaries. In other words, it is to pray to see where the real boundary is—almost like negotiations, right? When there is a negotiation taking place, there is a lowest price that the buyer will sell it for and there is a highest price that the seller will pay for it, and the only issue is nobody knows what that number is.
I’m trying to use an analogy—maybe it’s not a good one. If I go to buy a car, right, and the car is $30,000—some of you like, „Here we go.“ Okay, Carlos—the car, the MSRP was $30,000—this is an even worse analogy, gosh—what I’m saying is we don’t know where the line is. I don’t trust the line of limitation. Some of you aren’t moving forward in things because somebody spoke to you and said you can’t do this or that can’t happen or it’s never happened before, and I’m just crazy enough to not trust that line. I’m just crazy enough to believe that if I’m looking at that wall, if I’m looking at that mountain, maybe—just maybe—God has anointed me to be the one to push that barrier back. Maybe that’s why I’m looking at it.
What mountain are you in front of right now? Aw, I feel the Holy Spirit. And it is intimidating to you, it’s intimidating to you, and you are not recognizing that for some reason God’s got you in front of it—some obstacle, some wall, some crazy thing, something in your life that is screaming „no“ to you, but for some reason you’re right there in front of it. See, I’ve got to keep pressing because I don’t know what rule God has already broken in my future. I feel the Holy Spirit.
A miracle is a breakthrough. A miracle is the breaking of some rule—that’s why it’s called a miracle. Peter walking on water was a miracle—it was a breaking of the rule. It is possible that everyone in the boat had been anointed to break the rule that said if you walk on water you will drown, but only Peter had the wherewithal and was in tune with Jesus in such a way that he said, „Maybe—just maybe—this rule is being broken on my behalf because God is gonna do something in my life, He’s gonna use my life in such a wonderful way.“ See, he had a rule-breaker mentality.
Peter’s Breakthrough Mentality
Can we talk a little bit? So I’m looking at this text and I’m looking at this encounter that Peter and Jesus have—it’s a wonder, it’s a beautiful encounter. It looks something like this: they’re all in the boat, the boat is experiencing all the wind, you know the story—sea is raging, everything—Jesus now comes walking. Officers—who see this, please? Jesus now—the waves are crashing, the winds are blowing, the sea is going every which way, just absolute pandemonium, and yet that is juxtaposed against Jesus calmly walking on the water. He’s breaking the rules.
The people in the boat—most of the disciples in the boat—they’re freaking out, and so Jesus helps them and He says, „Chill out, be of good cheer.“ Look at the difference in energies: the tumultuous sea—how life is sometimes—and even in the midst of that, as Jesus was walking on the water, He’s calm, He’s cool, He’s saying, „Chill, man, it’s okay, ” and He’s walking on it. Obviously His coordination was together ’cause He’s walking and talking—He’s rubbing His stomach and patting His head. You get that later. But so He’s in this state.
I want you to see this, and because Jesus is the Word, that means that even when He’s not speaking, He’s saying something. See the scene: the waves, the boat’s being tossed all over the Sea of Galilee, the winds are blowing, everybody’s afraid—is the ship going to sink? —and yet in the midst of that, Jesus, the God of the breakthrough, is walking calmly. Peter connects—no one else connects. Everyone else—watch this—is connecting to the rule: the rule that says I’m drowning, the rule that says you can’t walk on water, the rule that says if a storm of this magnitude hits your boat you’re gonna die. Everyone else’s reality was the rule because they were trusting the rule.
Peter catches Jesus’s vibe. Hello, somebody. Jesus—He is not seeing what everybody else is seeing because everybody else is blinded by the rule. Are you tracking with me? The rule was their reality. Peter doesn’t trust the rule because he is so engaged by the energy that Jesus is emitting. I feel this. Jesus is on another frequency. Breakthrough people live on another frequency—they confront obstacles, they confront challenges, they confront the norm because they believe maybe—just maybe—if Jesus is the God of the breakthrough and He lives in me, maybe I am a breakthrough. Oh, I gotta take my time.
You got to see it the way I see it. I got to get you to see it the way I see it. So Peter is not looking at what they’re looking at. Peter is looking at this breakthrough, and so when Jesus says, „It is I, be of good cheer, it is I, don’t be afraid, ” Peter engages with the breakthrough and not only calls God the breakthrough, but something within himself says, „I’m a breakthrough too.“ There was nowhere—where did that even come from?
Peter asked Him, he says, „Lord, if it’s You, let me come on the water.“ What did that question even come from? How do you deduce from Jesus walking on the water that you can too? Here is the reality: when Jesus is walking on the water, it is activating an innate power and ability that was placed on the inside of Peter before the foundation of the world. Jesus’ breakthrough was connecting with Peter’s breakthrough that was yet to be manifest. Stay with me.
Somehow, without provocation, Peter now begins to connect with Jesus and he begins to see himself in Jesus, because here is the reality: one of the greatest roles of Jesus in your life is to show you who you really are. I want to keep it 100 with you. One of the greatest responsibilities of Jesus is to reflect back a mirror to you of the real you. Are you ready? I wish I had about 45 more minutes with you. Yeah.
That’s what Jesus—listen—He comes from heaven, comes down, and takes the form of you to ultimately reveal you to you. And that’s why He says, „You’re marveling at what I do, but greater things you are gonna do.“ Paul says in Romans that Jesus was not only the firstborn Son or not only the only begotten Son, but the firstborn Son amongst many brethren. So one of the things that Jesus’s responsibility in your life is to show you what you can do. That’s why Paul says, „I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.“ Are you tracking with me?
So when Peter gets this breakthrough mentality, he doesn’t trust the chasm—he doesn’t trust the rules. I think my wife preaches—don’t trust a chasm—when he doesn’t trust the rules and he begins to block out of his mind the rule mentality and begins to look at Jesus who was reflecting to him an image—watch this—really of himself. Jesus walking on the water was in essence saying, „Peter, come walk on the water, ” but it was a spiritual thing, it was language, it was unspoken, it was vibe to vibe, energy to energy, spirit to spirit, soul to soul. Feel the Holy Spirit. Are you tracking with me?
And that’s the type of relationship Jesus wants to have with us. He doesn’t want to have a relationship that is convoluted by rules that other people have placed on us, rules that we placed on ourselves. He doesn’t want to have our relationship convoluted like that. He says, „I am the breakthrough. Stop looking at that, stop looking at that, just look at Me. Are you paying attention to the words that are coming out of My mouth? I will tell you who you are, I will show you what you can do, and the gates of hell themselves cannot prevail against you. Look at Me. Don’t look at religion, don’t look to the left, don’t look to the right, don’t let the traditions—just look at Me and you will do that which has never been done before. Look at Me, look at Me, just focus right here.“ I feel it for somebody—that’s how you’re gonna get forward, because the only way you’re gonna break the rules is to see the Rule-Breaker plainly, and you have got to break the rules to get to your true limits.
Jesus is breaking the rules on the water and He’s coming, and because Peter was in tune—Peter was always in tune most of the time—always in tune most of the time—that makes sense—Peter was always in tune most of the time. But I’m thinking, my Peter memory—maybe when I say, „Who do men say that I am?“ and all the other side was bla bla bla bla bla bla, and then Peter says, „You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.“ He was in tune. He said—watch this—He said, „Flesh and blood did not reveal that, but My Father who is in heaven.“ Did you see that? Flesh and blood did not reveal—religious systems and traditions did not reveal that to you. You didn’t learn that in Sunday school—and we thank God for Sunday school, it’s wonderful—but you didn’t learn at a certain high level things that pertain to your life that will only come to you by revelation born out of your personal relationship with Jesus. I feel it—the Holy Spirit is the only one who has perfect theology concerning your life, and you’ve got to have a relationship with Him.
Gonna wrap this up. So Jesus is walking—He’s walking on the water. Somehow Peter taps into His frequency, and now that ability to break the rule that says if you walk on water you’re gonna drown—which was placed on the inside of him before he was even born—was activated, and the faith to do it was manifest, and therefore he walked on water. It was absolutely wonderful.
Now we know that even when you don’t trust the rule and when you break the rule, doubt is going to go to war with you. There’s some of you—the reason why it’s difficult right now, I feel this prophetically for some of you—the reason why it’s kind of tough for you right now is because you stepped out of the boat and God gave you the grace to have what you needed to step out of the boat, but for whatever reason you stopped doing the thing that gave you the power to step out of the boat, and now you’re looking at the environment instead of the One who called you out of the environment to get you to the other side.
And I think that what God is going to do today and in this season is He’s going to get your focus back—your focus back—because you think you’re drowning, but you’re not drowning. But if you think you’re drowning long enough, you will drown. Are you tracking with me? But even—but you know I would say you would drown, but actually you won’t, because I think Jesus is gonna reach down and lift you up. Maybe that’s what’s happening today—you were drowning and Jesus is like, „Why did you doubt?“ and He’s gonna lift you up and put you back on the boat, and you’re gonna get to the other side.
What unspoken, unordained rules are in your life right now keeping you from what God promised you? What are you missing right now? What unspoken barriers, boundaries, rules are determining the limits on where you think your life can go? That’s a real question.
Transition Seasons and Connections
I want to pray for you. I think that there’s some rules that you’ve been bowing down to. I want you to live in this space where you’re challenging and confronting every rule. I’m not saying be rebellious and stupid—that’s not what I’m saying—I’m talking about your life. I’m talking about being honest enough and real enough with yourself to begin to deal with these unspoken but proven—by your lack of motivation sometimes, proven by procrastination, because procrastination really is failure to act, and typically it’s because you believe that you’re gonna fail, and so let me just keep pushing this off.
I want us to get to the place where we are really taking inventory of our lives, because I’m telling you, you’ve got an inheritance, you’ve got a portion, and you’ve got to grow, you’ve got to increase, you’ve got to become, you’ve got to weather those transition seasons, you’ve got to weather that stretching, and that stretching is hard, because let me tell you—when God is stretching you for what’s next, it will disrupt everything in your life. It will disrupt relationships, it will disrupt business associations, it will disrupt plans—on purpose—because everything that is connected to you presently is connected to who you presently are, and so when you grow and you evolve, it brings everything that you were once connected to into question: „Can you connect with me on this level?“
And so sometimes if you’re not careful—I’ve got to stop—but sometimes if you’re not careful, you will think that there’s something wrong with you, and it’s not the case. A lot of times there’s something wrong with the connection, and maybe it’s that we will reconnect later, but we can’t reconnect now because I am still in transition. I’m like Jesus after He was raised from the dead—you know that Mary came to touch Him and He was like, „Hold up, I love you, but you can’t touch Me because I’m in transition right now. I’m still evolving, and I haven’t become who I’m gonna become, and you’re trying to touch the old version of me, and if you try to touch the old version of me you’re gonna stifle my progress because I don’t live there anymore. I’m leveling up, and I’m going from level to level.“
And so you can’t touch me like that anymore, and I don’t know who I’m becoming, so I’ve got to go in this space of isolation. Maybe we will get reunited and reacquainted later, but I’m leveling up. And so you’ve got to pay attention to the connections that don’t connect anymore, and the things that are assigned to be in your life will connect with you not only in the next place but in that place of transition. Pay attention to what connects now, and don’t be so bound to what was or to this false guilt.
I gotta tell you a story—I’m so—and I’m almost done—but somebody reached out to me recently from—and God bless them, I love everybody, you know—when I say that, somebody reached out to me and basically said, you know, „I know you progressing and all, ” and any time anybody starts with that—“I know you’re winning and all”—but how can that be a „but“? Baby, I’m winning—I’m supposed to win. Why do you have to—“I know, I know, I know you’re a winner, I see you winning and all”—I say, „You progressing"—but you know what I mean—“Don’t forget you’re one from day one, ” and beginning to tell me what I need to do now. We haven’t been close in 20 years. Do you know how many times I’ve leveled up in 20 years?
But see, the temptation is to say, „Man, I don’t want you to think…“ You know, like I said, but you did change. Don’t apologize for God blessing you and increasing you and taking you from faith to faith, level to level, glory to glory. Don’t you apologize for that. You praise God for that. And if we connect, great. If we don’t connect, great. But blessed be the name of the Lord for what He’s doing in my life. You’ve got to push back against that false guilt. Push back against it. It’s false guilt. You don’t think you’re better than anybody—has nothing to do with better. Nobody’s better than anybody, but can we connect? Did you change too? Because the only reason why we were connected on that level is because we were similar.
And I’m gonna be honest with you—I told you I was done, I mean it—here’s the sad reality: the more you level up, the smaller the circle. And that’s sad, man. It’s really sad, it’s really sad, but the quality of that little circle is pure gold. I just want you to know that you’re not going crazy. You’re on your way to something. Keep at it. Keep fighting. Push up against the limits. Live in the atmosphere of faith. Focus on Him solely. Let Him speak to you. He’s the only one that knows the true limits of your life, and He will never invite you beyond what He has not already prepared for you. He will never invite you beyond your limits. He will invite you according to your limits. Amen.
Closing Prayer
I want to pray for you. We got to go. God, I just—we thank You so much for what You’re helping us to better understand. Lord, there’s some people that were closer than they’ve ever been to more than they’ve ever known and just needed a reminder that You’re the God of the breakthrough. Father, I pray for each one. Lord, may we be a people that habitually and as a lifestyle bring my child back, please, and as a lifestyle we’ll confront the rules, that we would recognize that there’s some rules that we were abiding by that You did not institute, and they’re keeping us from everything that You called us to be. Help us, Lord, to be suspicious of boundaries and, more than anything, draw us closer to You. You hold within Your very image and all of Your encounters the true version of us. You know what our limits are. If You say we can walk on water, then walking on water we will do. If You say that we can build this business that has never been done before, never been seen before, then that we will do. If You say we could have an impact in Your name for regions that everyone else says can never prosper and thrive in the gospel, then so be it—we’re after it. Lord, raise up a generation that will not trust rules but will only trust Your voice and live thereby. And I pray this in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Invitation to Salvation
I want to do something real quick. Just sit down real quick—we’ll be out in about ten minutes. I want to do a couple of things real quick. If you’re here and this is between you and the Lord—this has nothing to do with me or anybody else around you—but if you’re here and you want to know Jesus like that, let me tell you something: you got to know Jesus because He’s the only one that knows you. He’s the only one who can reveal to you who you are, just like He did with Peter. Jesus walking on the water wasn’t even about Jesus—it was about Peter. Next step. Peter had a huge destiny in his life.
First of all, after he steps out of the boat and has this experience, when they get back on the boat, everybody else on the boat ultimately gets saved because they say, „Oh yeah, You are the Son of God.“ So it took one man not trusting the rule, focusing on Jesus, and stepping out—one man pursuing the boundaries of his potential—to touch and affect not only those on that boat but, if you study the trajectory of Peter’s life, Peter became a powerhouse for God. And I believe that he was able to become all that God had called him to become because he didn’t trust the rules—he trusted Jesus.
And so I’m saying is because there is the possibility that you’re here or you’re watching online—you’re in Colorado—and you haven’t come to that place where you know Jesus yet. You’ve been introduced to Him, maybe you’re visiting for the first time, or maybe up to this point your experience with Jesus has been church, but God wants to take it deeper, because having a personal relationship with Him is how you get to discover who you really are. See, when people say „be like Jesus, ” what they really mean is be like the you-version of Jesus. You didn’t catch that—that seems sacrilegious. Christ in you is the hope of glory. In other words, you have a unique and specific identity in Christ that is relevant to the world that He’s placed you in. So you may not do exactly what Christ did, but you will do—when your relationship with Him—what you see Christ doing communicates to you what you should do. Even Jesus said, „I only do what I see My Father do.“ So His Father was reflecting back to Him what He should do—that’s relationship.
So what I want to do is, if you’re here and you don’t have that relationship—come on, intimate relationship that transcends church—it’s your life. Church is an hour and 30 minutes on a Sunday. I need Jesus all day every day. You tracking with me? I’ve got stuff to do, decisions to make, people to meet, people to shake—I need the wisdom of God in my life.
So we’re gonna just pray, and I just want you to—in Colorado, look here, California—just bow your head real quick. And if that’s you, if you hear and you say, „Pastor, I want to have a personal—I want to be friends with—I want to see why everyone calls Him their best friend”—if that’s you, I just want you to lift your hand. Nobody’s looking—this is between me and you and you and God—but should I see you? I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you.
Father, You see every hand that’s raised, and Lord You said whoever calls on Your name shall be saved. Whoever calls on You, Lord God, You really are just proving that You called them first and they’re responding. You said, „Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I’ll come in and sup with him and he with Me.“ So Father, right now in this moment, yes, You extended this invitation and Your children have said yes. Seal this opportunity and this promise in the hearts of everyone by the Holy Spirit that they will from this moment forward never be the same again, that it would no longer be Christ over there but Christ in here. And I thank You, God, that the fruits of that relationship will be wisdom, inspiration, encouragement, revelation, transformation, and the assurance that even in seasons of stretching You’re going to work those things together for our good. Bless each one in Jesus’ name. Amen. Amen. Amen.