Matthew 14:22-33 | Kingdom Now: The Invitation (with Jeff Stemple)

God is good even when technology isn't right.

David? Yes. Hey, quick show of hands.

How many of you are list makers like you love a good checklist.

You love? Yes. Going home depot?

Got to have a list. Getting groceries. Gotta have a list.

I am a list maker.

I love the sense of accomplishment of checking items off the list as I go down.

This, actually.

Excuse me.

This actually kind of organically came about for me when, back in 2021,

our family actually started sitting down on Sunday nights

and making out our schedules and coordinate

our coordinating our schedules for the week.

Does anybody else do that?

Yeah, we're kind of we're kind of strange like that.

This was not a like, hey everybody.

Wouldn't it be fun if we all spent time making out our schedule?

And this became about because the week was chaos and I finally had to go.

All right.

Enough of this.

I'm tired of finding out at 215 that somebody has to be at soccer practice

at 230.

We're going to sit down and make our schedules.

And so I kind of just kept sort of took the next logical step,

which was I took my days, my individual

days, and I would go, okay, here's the non-negotiables for that day.

If I get nothing else done, these three or these four, these seven things

I need to get done.

And so I just kind of started going down.

I love a good checklist.

I'll even do something crazy when I'm getting on an airplane.

If that cockpit door is open and I can see the captain, I'll go.

Hey, how's the preflight checklist going?

Such a bad thing to say, right?

He looks at me like, get out of here.

I love a good list.

And so a few weeks ago,

a weekday afternoon, I was chugging through my lists,

getting things checked off, getting tasks accomplished,

and a notification came through on my phone.

And I'm going to read it to you

because I won't do it justice.

Bulletin.

EA's activation requested tornado warning.

National Weather Service, Hanford, California, at 2:19 p.m.

Pacific Daylight Savings Time, Tuesday, April 21st, 2026.

The National Weather Service in Hanford, California, has issued a first bullet

point tornado warning for southwestern Madera County in central California.

Central Fresno County in central California until 2:45 p.m..

At 219, a confirmed tornado was located over

Biola, or nine miles west of Fresno, moving northeast at 15 miles an hour.

Hazard damaging tornado source.

Law enforcement confirmed impact

flying debris will be dangerous to those caught without shelter.

Mobile homes will be damaged or destroyed.

Damage to roofs, windows, and vehicles will occur.

Tree damages likely precautionary preparedness.

Actions to repeat or tornado is on the ground.

Take cover now.

If you live

in the ranchos or are a resident of Madera County

or really any place close by, you probably remember that day.

You guys remember that?

Yeah, I got that notification.

It was actually even though I was taking I was getting my list done.

This was we were going through some crazy family stuff at the time,

and I actually had about 45 minutes where I was like,

okay, I'm not going to take a nap because that just hurts when you wake up

after that short of a nap.

But I'm going to just lean my head back on the couch.

I'm not going to lay down.

Just leave my head back, rest my eyes.

You know that that service alert comes through.

I had people calling me, texting me after that.

Hey, I hear there's a tornado.

Are you guys.

Are you.

Are you still alive? Well, I'm talking to you.

So, yeah, I'm still alive.

And they're like, are you okay?

And I'm looking at my phone and I looked outside and I'm like, yeah,

it was raining. It was storming.

But I'm like, no, I'm fine.

It's just it's just a storm.

It's not a tornado.

My daughter had just started teaching at the high school, and to hear her

hear her account of this story is hilarious

because basically the kids aren't allowed to have their phones,

but wherever they are all simultaneously started going off at the same time.

Because even if they're on

Do Not Disturb, that that alert comes through no matter what.

She said.

The kids freaked out right around the same time

they got a call from admin saying, you guys ready for this phrase?

This is going to be a blast from the past.

Shelter in place.

Do you guys remember that shelter in place?

And so the kids had to hunker down.

And even when the all clear was given,

my daughter said there were a couple of kids,

actually a group of kids that came up to her and I quote said this

we can't focus. We're in emotional distress.

I mean, come on, I don't mean

to sound insensitive or dismissive, but that's funny stuff right there.

We're in emotional distress and we can't focus

anyway, we're going to come back to that story if we have not met.

My name is Jeff.

I'm on staff here at flipside.

Pastor Carl is away this Memorial Day weekend enjoying some

some time with family.

And that means that you and I get to hang out.

And I'm hoping you're going to be encouraged by what we talk about today.

It may get a little rough going there in the middle,

but I'm hoping we're going to we're going to end on a high note,

and we're going to walk away with some encouragement.

From the time we spend today

there, apparently our technology is completely frozen.

So this is going to be up to you guys to kind of follow along with me.

We've been in this series

where we're walking systematically through the Gospel of Matthew.

We actually have not spent weeks.

We've spent months walking through this series in the Gospel of Matthew.

We were over at the high school for Easter walking through this series,

and so it's been really, really fun to get to,

to unpack Scripture in this way.

In this way, sometimes we we spend one Sunday on a chapter and then we move on.

Other times we take 2 or 3 weeks for a single chapter.

And so with our series last week, we actually kind of turned a corner.

The previous weeks and actually

previous month, Jesus was talking about these parables where

he's unpacking what the kingdom of heaven looks like through these parables.

And if you don't know what a parable

is, it's just a made up story that's it's intended to impart wisdom.

It's intended to impart insight into certain things.

And of course, for Jesus, a certain thing.

It's always the kingdom of God.

As a matter of fact, he would use that phrase

the kingdom of God is like dot, dot, dot.

The kingdom of God is like dot, dot, dot.

And then he'd unpack it.

But last week we turned a corner and we're no longer in the parables

we're now we've got our focus back on the disciples.

The disciples are now front and center.

And last week we talked about the feeding of the 5000.

If you were here, you remember that how the disciples

kind of got they kind of got even though they were back

front and center, they kind of got a rebuke.

They kind of got schooled when they said,

hey, we stole this kid's lunch and you asked for food.

This is all we got, but there's no way you can do anything with that.

And Jesus is like, come on, guys, you take

he takes the loaves and he takes the fish and he multiplies it.

And miraculously, everybody's fed.

And not only that,

but each of the disciples walk away with a full basket of their own.

And so the disciples are kind of reeling from that.

As we've gone back to bringing them front and center, they kind of

are just hanging on for dear life, as Jesus sort of

takes them through this

from classroom instruction, which was what the parables were to.

Now we're out in the lab, we're doing lab work, and I think the disciples would

go, yeah, and I feel like a lab rat.

We're went from the classroom to the lab,

and I'm the rat in the lab because I'm just hanging on for dear life.

And as I read, as I'm reading these stories,

it's really easy for me to look at what the disciples were doing

and think, come on, you guys, where's your trust?

Where's your faith?

You guys just don't get it.

It's really easy for me to read that and think that.

But if I'm being honest, when I look in the mirror spiritually,

I'm a lot more like the disciples than I would care to admit.

My faith can feel seasonal at best.

It can feel like it comes in episode, it's episodic,

or there's times where it's just not there at all.

The faith that I say I have, when it comes time to go into the lab

and put it to work, it just somehow I forget or it vanishes.

It's really easy to think that.

And here's the thing.

We have the full story.

We have the book,

we know how it ends.

So really, with the disciples at this point in the in Jesus's ministry,

they're actually doing a lot better than I'm doing because, yeah,

they have the promises they had, the assured, the assurance from Jesus.

But really, the book was still being written literally and figuratively.

And so in a way, the disciples are kind of when I mean, if we're going to play

the comparison game compared to me, they're knocking it out of the park.

We say it all the time, pretend like you're not in church.

I think if we're being honest and pretend

like we're not in church, I think we'd all admit there are moments

or even seasons when our faith is just absent.

We say we trust God when life is calm,

but when those emergency service alerts of life come across

our situation or come across our minds,

our faith vanishes when the storms show up.

Fear has a way of taking over.

It was interesting as I.

I don't even know why I have this.

I'm not going to build the thumb through slides.

As I prepared for this week,

I realized one of the biggest challenges, if not the biggest challenge

with preaching on a passage like we're going to talk about today

is that it's so familiar, it's so familiar.

It's like talk.

It's like talking to Ranchos residents about coming to the Maywood Center.

We've done that.

We know. Move on.

What else do you got for me?

How many of you raise your hand

if you've heard of the story of Jesus walking on water?

Most of us have heard that story.

Even if today is your first day ever coming to a church,

you've probably heard that story.

Maybe somebody drove you to a youth group

when you were a teenager, or there was an old lady with flannel.

Those little flannel pictures, do we even use those anymore?

I don't think we use those anymore.

Some of you, some of you younger people like, what is he talking about?

But somehow there was a flannel picture of Jesus walking on water.

Or maybe you, you know,

color by numbers in the children's program because, you know, some family,

you spent the night at their house and they drug you along.

Most people have heard of the story of Jesus walking on water.

When we

hear that story, we think, yeah, Jesus walking on water.

Can you get to something I haven't heard already?

Because the implication is that if it's something new,

it's going to be some new wisdom or some new concept

that I'm going to be able to apply to my life.

Hopefully that'll help me

with the struggles that I keep coming back to over and over again.

But really.

So really,

that familiarity can keep us from hearing what God is actually trying to say to us.

One of the things I used to always tell the kids in the youth group is this word.

God's word

is unlike any other piece of literature you'll ever read or that you've ever read.

It's unlike that.

It's alive and it's breathing,

and it will speak different things to you based on different times of your life.

1418 2545 5575

same passage, same book, same Bible, but it's going to speak to you differently

based on the situation that you're in and basically the season in your life.

And I think that's the case

with the the verse and passage we're going to talk about today.

Because buried inside this very familiar story is a

is a core truth that confronts every one of us.

And if we can get a handle on this, my guess is it's going to be a game changer

for us.

So I'm so thankful that God takes these things of our lives

and says, I've got something for you,

because a lot of times we don't look to God first.

We look to the culture, and the culture is like,

yeah, throw things against a wall and see if something sticks.

And God's like, no, I've already talked about it.

So that's what we're going to. That's what we're going to start off doing.

We're actually going to start off in an interesting way.

We're going to take a

running start at our at our passage in Matthew

Little Bible Theology lesson 101.

How many gospels are there?

All right. Holding the cheat sheet up for you.

Everybody say I'm ready. On your mark.

Get set. Go!

Very good. Matthew.

Mark, Luke and John. I'm so good.

That would have been cool if somebody list them in reverse order.

You guys all listed them in the in the in the order that they're in in the Bible.

Yeah. Matthew. Mark, Luke and John.

And so one of the things I always like to think about when,

especially when I consider the gospels,

there are other books in the Bible that can collections that this,

this idea can be applied to, but specifically with the Gospels.

I always like to imagine that I'm standing on the corner of a four way stop,

and the easy analogy would be to say, imagine a car wreck.

Well, a car wreck happens quick and it's chaotic.

So what I like to say, the analogy I like to use is a parade.

Imagine there's a parade passing

through and it's moving slowly, and there's all this stuff going on.

And since it's moving slowly, you might even be able to talk to people

who are in the parade.

And so I'm watching, I'm listening, and I'm writing down.

And there's also somebody standing on the corner,

catty corner from me, and they're witnessing the same event,

same parade,

and they're writing down what they're seeing,

and they're writing down what they're hearing,

and they're writing down the people that they talk to.

And then also, there's a person right on that corner across from me

and this corner across from me, and they're doing the same thing.

Everyone sees the same parade,

but from slightly different perspectives.

And here's the wonderful thing about Scripture is there's an element

that nothing else like that has, and that's the Holy Spirit.

These all these guys writing this down were all being led by the Holy Spirit.

So I want you to keep that in mind.

As we as we kind of take a running start,

we're actually not going to start in Matthew this morning.

So if you brought your Bibles with you, turn to mark

chapter six, verse 45.

I'm so glad I didn't rely on my slides this morning.

I'd have been cooked.

Mark chapter six.

We're going to start in verse 45.

So like I said, as you turn there.

Jesus has just finished feeding the 5000.

The disciples are like, what in the world just happened?

I got this basket of bread and fish.

What do I do with this?

And Jesus is like immediately is the first word in verse 45.

It says, immediately Jesus made his disciples get into the boat

and go on ahead of him to to.

While he dismissed the crowd.

After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.

Later that night

the boat was in the middle of the lake, and he was alone on land.

He saw the disciples straining at the oars because the wind was against them.

Shortly before dawn he went out to them, walking on the lake.

He was about to pass them by, but when they saw him walking on the lake,

they thought he was a ghost.

They cried out because they all saw him and were terrified.

Immediately he spoke to them and said, take courage.

It is. I don't be afraid.

Then he climbed into the boat with them, and the wind died down.

They were completely amazed.

So that's Mark's take on it.

We're going to talk about how Mark came

to came to get that information in a minute.

But I actually want to turn and look at John's account of that,

because John's the other gospel who writes about Jesus walking on water.

And John was actually one of the 12, so he was there.

Let's see what he has to say.

We're going to start in John chapter six, verse 16.

Interestingly, John actually talks about feeding the 5000 as well.

And so starting out in verse 16, he says, when evening came,

his disciples went down to the lake where they got into a boat and set off

across the lake for Capernaum, two different names, same place.

By now it was dark, and Jesus had not yet joined them.

A strong wind was blowing in.

The waters grew rough when they had road about 3 or 4 miles,

they saw Jesus approaching the boat,

walking on the water, and they were frightened.

But he said to them, it is.

I don't be afraid.

Then they were willing to take him.

I bet they were willing to take him into the boat.

And immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

So we got Mark, and we got John

standing on different street corners, telling their perspective of this story.

The disciples are in a storm.

Jesus comes walking on the water.

They're terrified.

Jesus is the same thing. In both accounts.

He says, take courage.

It's me.

Don't be afraid. So far, so good right

now. Let's go to Matthew.

Back to our series.

We're going to start in verse 14. Sorry.

Start in chapter 14, verse 22.

They all start out using the same word two immediately.

Jesus doesn't even give them time to catch their breath.

He's like, let's go!

Immediately, Jesus made the disciples get into the boat

and go on ahead of him to the other side.

While he dismissed the crowd after he had dismissed them,

he went up on the mountainside by himself to pray.

Later that night he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable

distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.

Shortly after dawn, Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.

When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified.

It's a ghost, they said, and cried out in fear.

But Jesus immediately said to them, take courage.

It is. I don't be afraid. So far so good.

All right. Verse 28, Lord, if it's you.

Peter replied, tell me to come to you on the water.

Come, he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came

toward Jesus.

But when he saw the wind, he was afraid,

and beginning to sink, cried out, Lord, save me!

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him.

You have little faith, he said. Why did you doubt?

And when they climbed into the boat,

the wind died down, and those who were in the boat worshiped

him, saying, truly, you are the Son of God.

Three accounts.

What's different with Matthew's account?

What's the difference?

Peter?

Peter's the difference.

Mark. No mention of it. John.

No mention of it.

Luke doesn't even tell this story.

For whatever reason. He's like, I'm just going to leave that part out.

But, Matthew,

it's like, I'm gonna give you a little bit more.

One of the things I do when I read Scripture is

I like to think of the backstory, what was going on, and I like to speculate

a little bit, because one of the things when I read, you know,

the Bible, it's the holy Word of God inspired all that is true.

But these are actually real people.

And I've hung out with dudes before and I know how we are.

I wonder how this went down.

I wonder how it came to be that Matthew's the only guy who wrote about Peter

in this account.

He's the only guy who wrote about Peter.

John, I just

I wonder if there was a conversation between Peter and John.

And Peter was like, John,

we were there.

You saw it,

I saw it, a lot of people saw it, but there's no reason to write about it.

This is one more of my of the times when I opened my mouth,

because Peter was doing that all the time.

You guys know

somebody who opens their mouth

and then thinks about what they're going to say later.

Maybe you are that somebody.

Peter was always doing that.

It was just like,

and then you had that out-of-body experience where you like,

look at yourself and go, did you just say that?

That was Peter,

and I wonder if

he got together with John and said, John, I know you're writing about this.

Can you just please do me a solid and leave that part out?

We don't need to talk about that.

It did not end well for me.

I opened my mouth before

I thought didn't really go the way I thought it was going to go.

Maybe John was like, sure, I'll leave that part out.

Mark and Luke weren't there.

They actually wrote down what they saw from eyewitness testimony of others.

Do you guys know who who whose informant was Mark

or who was Mark's informant

was Peter.

I can just wonder if Peter's like Mark.

The only way I'm going to do this interview is if you leave that part out.

Mark's like, okay, I got you.

Matthew was there.

Matthew was in the same boat, literally and figuratively that John was.

And I just wonder if Peter was like John or

thank you.

Matthew, leave that part out.

And Matthew's like, okay.

And then he turns around, he's like.

And writes it down.

Some of you guys have kids that do that.

Okay, I'll do that.

And then they do the exact opposite

for whatever reason.

Maybe it was just divine inspiration from the Holy Spirit that caused Matthew

to leave this part in.

But for whatever reason, he leaves it in.

And I'm so glad that he does.

Peter says, Lord,

if it's you, tell me to come to you on the water.

And then Jesus says, what

one word says, come, come on out, let's go.

I would have liked to have thought that Peter was like,

what?

Not the answer I was expecting.

I'm so glad that

that Jesus didn't go, oh, hold on a minute.

I'm Jesus.

You're not.

I do things like this.

You don't stay there.

I'll handle it.

Pull you guys out of a situation

once again.

Because that's what I do.

Jesus didn't say that.

He invited Peter into the storm.

The very place Peter feared was the place it became.

The place Jesus called him to be.

This is the big idea.

I wanted to flash it up in the screen, but you're going to have to write it down.

If you're writing things down.

We're going to keep it real simple. It's Memorial Day weekend.

We don't know how it want to have too much to keep on our theological plate.

One core idea, and that is this

the storms of life are invitations to step out in faith.

These storms of life, or invitations to step out in faith.

I almost wrote down on my notes opportunities.

They are, but they're opportunities that are buried inside an invitation.

They're an invite.

These storms of life are invitations to step out in faith.

The storm wasn't just an obstacle.

The storm became an opportunity.

In in movies and in theater, there's this thing called

there's this idea or this concept called breaking the Fourth Wall.

Some of you may have heard about it, and I love it when movies do that,

because what they do it right, I'm like, oh, that was so good.

What happens when they break?

The fourth wall is you have a main character

and he's having a dialog with another character, or maybe a set of characters.

And as they're dialoging back and forth, there comes a time where that invisible

fourth wall

between the camera or the audience gets broken

and the main character will turn and he'll talk.

So they're talking, and all the rest of the scene

will fall silent, and the main character will go.

What these guys don't understand is that when I say, you know, he unpacks it.

And when movies do this, I love it.

It's such a great way to to do movies and theater.

And so you've got

Peter over here who opens his mouth and says, Lord, if it's you.

I don't even know if it's you, if it's you, it's truly you.

Tell me to come to you and I'll come.

And Jesus says, come.

And then he breaks the fourth wall and he says, and you two, and you two,

and you two and me to come on that place you're afraid of.

I'm already here.

Come on out.

This should not have been a surprise for these guys.

We actually talked about it in our series in Matthew.

Turn to chapter eight, Matthew chapter eight,

verse 23, starting their.

Been a few weeks since we were in that chapter.

Starting in verse 23, it says, then he got into the boat

and his disciples followed him.

Suddenly a furious storm came up on the lake

so that the waves swept over the boat.

Jesus was sleeping. Sound familiar?

Jesus was sleeping.

The disciples went and woke him, saying, Lord, save us, we're going to drown.

He replied, you of little faith, why are you so afraid?

Then he got up and rebuked the wind and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, what kind of man is this?

Even the winds and the waves obey him.

Why are you afraid?

Why are you so afraid?

Where is your faith? Same lake.

Maybe even the same boat.

Same fear, same lesson.

Fear says step back.

Fear says stay put.

Fear says be afraid.

Faith says step out, step out.

Storms have a way of finding all of us.

Fiercest.

Step out that place that we're afraid to go.

Jesus could possibly be already there

in the chair, backs in front of you, or on the chairs beside you.

Or maybe when you sat, when you sat down, there was an invite card.

Pull that out. It's in the chair back in front of you.

You may have to search for it because it's behind the the envelope.

I think there might be some extras around here if you don't get one there.

They're available on the way out.

It's an invite card.

Remember back in elementary school when you get invited to a birthday party,

if you turn it over, it says you're invited.

Grab a pen and write four words in the two, the box that says two,

or the line that says to you are invited to step out in faith, right?

That there,

because the storms of life have a way of finding all of us.

And sometimes we need a reminder

because we sit here and at 72 and fluorescent

and we are breathing nice and easy and nothing weird is getting squirrely

unless all our phones go off. Wouldn't that be hilarious? Fall.

Our phones went off right now.

It's a beautiful day, so chances are no.

But when we go out and we start doing the lab work,

the storms have a way of finding us for the when and the where.

Some of you already know the answer to that

because your storm started last week, or last year or last month.

That's your win.

Where you know exactly where at work

in your marriage and your relationships and your parenting.

That's where I almost took out the line that says RSVP

because I thought, why would I want to leave that in there?

Well, the fact is, we can decline these invitations.

I declined that invitation for a long, long time.

I'm good.

I'm going to keep straining at the oars.

Do you notice

in Mark's account it was right before dawn.

Some other translations call it the fourth watch.

They had been at it for a while.

That storm.

They were fighting that storm for a long time.

And all of a sudden Jesus is in it and he invites them out into it.

This is the thing we've been trying to avoid all night long.

And you're saying, come on out.

And Jesus says, yep. Why?

Because I'm already here.

When it comes.

When the storms come, the invitation of Jesus is not to stay in the boat.

The invitation is to come, and our instinct is not to come.

Our instinct is to stay put. It's to step back.

And fear has a weird way of morphing into other things,

kind of like fruit sitting on the counter and rotting.

It just doesn't stay there.

Fear has a way of morphing into things like bitterness and anxiety,

envy, frustration, hopelessness.

Stepping back just puts us in fear.

And Jesus says, don't be afraid.

I want to propose this to you.

What if the place you least want to go is the exact place

Jesus is inviting you to trust him?

What if that storm,

that is the item you wrote down on that invite, is the place

Jesus is inviting you to step out and to trust him.

One of the things I used to tell the youth all the time.

There were a lot of athletes

in one of the one of the years that we were doing it, and I said,

do you guys understand this on a physical level?

How do you guys not get this on a spiritual and a relational level?

None of you would go to the gym and then wake up saw the next day and go,

I'm never doing that again.

You expect it

spiritually, relationally.

Paul talks about this in his letter to the Romans.

He says suffering has a result.

The saw muscles of suffering are a thing called perseverance,

and perseverance leads to this thing that everybody wants.

And that's character.

And character leads to the ultimate thing that everybody really wants,

and that's hope.

And unfortunately, I remember telling this group of of boys

at youth group one night, I said, guys, I wish it were not like this.

I wish there were some other way.

But sometimes these storms of life are the only way we grow.

And it really does suck because you strain at the oars.

But when you realize that Jesus is out in the middle of it saying,

come, that can be the difference maker,

not stay put.

Not all. See you eventually. Come out.

Come out and follow me.

Imagine what would change if we

if we became people who stepped out in faith.

What if we reframed the storms of life as something to survive?

Because if we're being honest, a lot of us approach those storms like that.

Just get through it by hook or crook.

Make it happen. Just. I didn't expect it.

How do I hunker down?

How do I strain at the oars long enough to just get through this?

What if we reframed the storm from something

to survive into the place where Jesus is already present?

I think it would change our marriages.

I think it would change our parenting.

I think it would change the way we related to people at work

anxieties, disappointments.

Instead of stepping back, we stepped out in faith.

The place we fear the most.

Maybe, maybe the very place Jesus is already standing saying, come.

I'm so thankful

that Matthew included this in his gospel for whatever reason he did.

And I'm so thankful

this you guys, this screw up, this Peter screw up

because he actually did get out of the boat, right?

He got out of the boat.

It was ugly.

It was not the way I'm sure he probably was like, okay, let's do it.

And when he started to do it, maybe he thought, wow, this is really cool.

And then it just slid off the rails because he started focusing on the wind

and he started focusing on the waves, and his fear took back over.

But he did it.

When I get to heaven, I'm not going to ask

any of the other disciples what it was like to walk on water.

If I did, John would be like, you got the wrong disciple.

You need to go to Peter.

Peter, what was it like to walk on water, to be the only other human

being in the history of human beings, to walk on water and to hear that story?

It's fantastic.

Imagine stepping off into your pool and you don't sink.

And then you take another step and you don't sink,

and then you take another step.

And you don't think he was the only one who did that?

Yeah, it got squirrely at the end. But so what?

When we step out in faith, it's not going to be perfect.

But that's no reason to not do it.

This wouldn't even be Peter's biggest screw up.

I'd like to wonder if Peter was like, okay, that went bad.

At least we used to say it in youth group all the time.

What could possibly go wrong?

What could get any worse?

Well, you got to come back for chapter 26 because it actually Peter.

Peter keeps doing what he does.

But for our story today, it's a lesson for all of us.

From Peter's failure.

It extends the invitation to all of us to step out in faith.

Take that card, take it home with you, put it on your

refrigerator, put it on your bathroom, or put it on the dashboard or your car

anywhere.

You need to be reminded. Because my guess is,

at some point this week, you're going to need to be reminded.

And before we

close the day in prayer, I want to I want to invite.

If you've never taken Jesus up on his invitation

to put your life into his hands, to surrender your will

and surrender your life to him and say, Jesus, I admit I'm a sinner.

I need you in my life.

I surrender and I ask you to be my personal Lord and Savior.

If you've never accepted that invite, that is the invitation for you today.

Please stay after.

Talk to me. I'd love to talk to you more about that.

There's not a whole lot to it other than what I just said.

And when you do that, the Bible says you're a new creation.

Let's close in prayer.

Invite you to pray with me.

God, thank you so much for today.

Thank you that your word

does what you say it will do and not return to you void.

Thank you.

That you

instrumented by whatever way

you instrumented it for

Matthew to leave in the account of Peter walking on water.

Because boy, it sure is a great lesson for all of us.

God, we love you for that.

I pray that if there's somebody here who's struggling with the idea of whether

or not to accept your invitation, that today would be the day they do so,

especially if they've never put their life into your hands.

Jesus, we love you.

Help us to love you more. In your name we pray.

Amen. Amen.