Matthew 14:22-36

We come to the story of Jesus walking on the water.

Are you ready for that story?

Do you know do you know the story of Jesus walking on the water?

Okay, good.

We are going to cover it together.

Here's what it says.

Immediately, he being Jesus, he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.

After dismissing the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.

Well into the night he was there alone.

Meanwhile, the boat was already some distance from land, battered by the waves, because the wind was against them.

Jesus came toward them, walking on the sea very early in the morning.

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

Immediately Jesus spoke to them, Have courage, it is I, don't be afraid.

Lord, if it's you, Peter answered him, command me to come to you on the water.

He said, Come.

And climbing out of the boat, Peter started walking on the water and came towards Jesus.

But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid.

And beginning to sink, he cried out, Lord, save me.

Immediately Jesus reached out his hand, caught a hold of him, and said of him, You of little faith, why did you doubt?

When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

So let's go through this text a bit.

But before we do, let's pray and just ask that God would speak to us through this text.

Lord, you know each of us and you know our stories.

We want to ask that you would take this text and that it would intersect with our lives in a deeply personal way.

You know each person that's come through that door over there this morning.

You know the concerns, the storms, the doubts.

And God, we ask that we would encounter you, the living God, as we look into this text this morning.

We're ready to obey you.

Are we ready to obey?

We're ready to obey what you say to us.

And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

So as we look at this text, we see that it's opens up with this idea of immediately.

Immediately, he made the disciples get into the boat.

Now, if you were with us last week, we saw the story of the feeding of the 5,000.

Now, the feeding of the 5,000 happens in the midst of Jesus trying to take his disciples away to a quiet place because they just found out that John the Baptist had been beheaded by Herod.

And so there is this tragedy that looms over Jesus and his followers.

Jesus is caring for his closest followers, trying to get them away so they can just rest, which is awesome.

But when Jesus gets to the other side of the lake of Galilee, the Sea of Galilee, hears this crowd, and Jesus has compassion on them.

He heals them, he's teaching them, and it becomes evening time.

And the disciples say, Well, you should send them away to get food, and Jesus says, No, no, no, you feed them.

And they're like, We don't have any food, especially not enough food for 5,000 men, plus women and children.

And Jesus says, Well, what do you have?

And they say, Well, we have these, you know, we have these five loaves and these two fish.

Jesus says, Great, give them to me.

So he takes them, breaks them, and begins to distribute the bread and loaves to so that everyone, it says, is satisfied.

Everybody was full.

It's like Thanksgiving afternoon, like I'm stuffed on bread and fish.

Amazing.

Amazing that we get to this point of just having everybody completely full.

But not only full, they go through and they gather up 12 baskets full of bread.

Crazy.

And so on the heels of that story, we get this story, and it looks like Jesus is still trying to move his disciples to a place of being alone, being isolated, so that they can just recoup.

So Jesus takes the disciples and he tells them, go get into a boat and go ahead of me to the other side.

We're dealing again with the Sea of Galilee, the Galilee region, still there today, we still call it Galilee.

And he dismissed the crowd.

So these crowds, having been fed, are sent on their way, and the disciples are getting onto a boat.

And then after dismissing the crowds, Jesus goes up onto a mountain by himself to pray.

Well into the night, he was there alone.

So in a minute, it's going to say that deep in the night or early in the morning, meaning between 3 a.m.

and 6 a.m., it's on the third watch, is what your text may say.

The CSV version that we're CSB says it was early in the morning, sometime be three and six.

So Jesus is on a mountain by himself, just praying, and he did that often.

This was kind of an expected behavior from Jesus.

He, as busy as he was, he found time to get away and pray.

And he's there well into the night praying.

Meanwhile, the boat was already some distance from land, battered by the waves because the wind was against them.

What I want you to see as we go through this, and what I'm going to bring to the surface, is the idea of fear and how God interacts with our fears.

There are two moments of terror in this story.

Two moments of terror, and then we see Jesus responding to the fears of humans.

So meanwhile, they're in the boat, already some distance from land, and it's being battered by the waves because the wind was against them.

So it doesn't necessarily say that it's a horrible storm here, but it does say that they just can't make headway because they're trying to go into this into this storm.

And Jesus came towards them walking on the sea very early in the morning.

So imagine it's like 5 a.m.

You know, maybe, maybe there's dawn, but not enough light to really be able to identify Jesus.

Maybe it's moonlight, but they see Jesus walking on the water.

Now, I don't know how much swimming you've done or how much water you've been around, but normally you can't walk on water.

That's a joke.

You can't walk on water, right?

So this is this is this is just like kind of thrown in there that Jesus is like using water almost like a path.

He's walking across the top of it.

And so the disciples see him and they're terrified.

They don't recognize him, they identify this thing that they're seeing.

This has to be a ghost.

It has to be ghost.

Now you'll remember.

We we've we're like in this ghost section of Matthew because we just had Herod hearing about Jesus healing people, and he's like, It's the ghost of John the Baptist.

Come back to haunt me.

Like ghosts are a thing, right?

And um, it's a ghost, they said, and they cry out in fear.

This is what I want you to interact with.

Um, what are your fears?

Okay, here we have um these disciples in a setting that is terrifying.

And um, many of the followers of Jesus were um fishermen.

They're used to being out in boats at night, um, but this moment is terrifying.

And they're panicked.

I mean, they're they're crying out.

And immediately Jesus spoke to them and calls them to courage.

He says, It is I, don't be afraid.

Strong command.

Okay.

Here's the thing in your life you have these different things that cause greater levels of anxiety, fear, and panic than others.

There are things that you that kind of they get in there and they work in.

I feel like the older I get, the more I'm able to really identify, like, oh, you know what, I'm anxious.

Like, I'm eating like full bags of Doritos because I'm kind of anxious, right?

And it takes a little bit of maturity to kind of go through that process and realize that you kind of get in touch with those underlying fears and anxieties that you have.

And the Bible has this recurring theme where God is interacting with humans, calling them to have courage.

But notice here, he says, have courage, it is I, don't be afraid.

Because look, if it's a ghost, then your fear is legitimate.

Right?

But if it's Jesus who's walking on the water, then you're gonna be okay.

This is like the best day ever.

I just saw Jesus walking on the water to my boat in the middle of this like crazy windstorm, and I can't get anywhere.

Now, in the Greek, when he says, It is I, this is ego I mean ego I me is the Greek word.

When you go over into Exodus chapter 3, and uh Moses is at the burning bush, and he says to God, When I go to Israel and I tell Israel who sent me back to you, God says, I am.

Exodus 3 · chapter mention

Tell Israel, I am sent you.

If you read that in the Greek, it is ego I mean.

It is this very phrase.

It is I.

I am.

Jesus comes to his disciples and he says to them, have courage.

It is I.

I am.

Don't be afraid.

You have a choice, you and I have a choice.

Life doesn't discriminate in terms of, you know, you don't have fears, but you do.

We all just a human experience, whether you are a church-going person or you've never been to church before, fear is a very real human experience.

And you have a choice.

You can do life and try to cope with your fears on your own.

And there's all kinds of ways, right?

If you go to your shrink, your therapist, they're gonna use exposure therapy.

Like, okay, let's say you have a phobia of fears.

It's like, okay, well, you know, why don't you just be in the same room as a f as a spider?

And we're gonna kind of work you closer.

No, I want you to look at the spider, right?

And we're trying to kind of cope with fears.

But being a follower of Jesus is this idea of be in relationship with me.

In 1 John, it says that perfect love casts out fear.

Perfect love casts out fear.

So the way that the Bible deals with our fear and anxiety is it said it says, I am.

Jesus declares and he wants to come into the midst of your life experience and say, I am, I am.

And that is to be the X factor that takes away, that casts out your fears.

And you are able to respond to the command of Jesus to have courage.

Now is courage fearlessness?

No.

Courage is this disposition that you take up in the face of fear.

You think of the soldier.

Some of you may have fought in a war.

You may be a veteran.

And I cannot imagine the terror of bullets flying past me, of the idea that a mortar could be launched up in the air, and if they get that azimuth angle right, it's gonna land right near me, blow me up.

The uncertainty.

Now we've got these drones that kind of can zoom in.

And, you know, I've subjected myself to watching some of these videos of drones blowing people up over in um Ukraine and Russia on both sides.

And it's terrifying.

And you see the terror that these soldiers fear feel.

It takes great courage to be in a setting where you're under threat, where you feel like there's uncertainty, I don't know what's gonna happen.

And Jesus calls his disciples to have courage.

Christians are courageous people.

You think back to some of like the pandemics that have occurred, and you go back to like the black plague.

It was Christians rather than you know packing up and fleeing town and trying to isolate, it was Christians that stayed and buried the dead.

And they they took um courage in the face of a very scary situation because of who their God is.

You see, we we have a when you don't have a relationship with God, if you're like running away from God, you have a calculation around how to do life.

You know that you are born, you're doing life now, and someday you will die.

You're not gonna outrun death.

There might be medical advancements, maybe you'll live longer than the generation before you, but you're not gonna outrun death.

And so if you're not a religious person, a follower of Jesus, then you're you're doing life on that time frame, and it's kind of dumb to like be courageous.

Like, really, the smart thing is to like do everything you can to protect yourself and to make sure you're safe so that you can live as long as you can, and then you want to live like a happy life, and and that's kind of how you do life if you are secular, and that makes sense.

Like, if you're secular, you have no real hope of a future beyond your death.

You might as well do life like that, right?

I mean, doesn't that make sense?

Right?

You tracking?

But you see, as a Christian, we believe what the Bible teaches that we are created as eternal beings in this body now, presently, we will experience a physical death because of a symmetry between universal human guilt, that the wages of sin is death.

So humans in this body die, but there is a resurrection where we're given a new body and we will be eternally in the presence of God.

Does that make sense?

So if that is the reality, and that the Bible promises that that future state of glory is going to be better than the present state of suffering, then we're able to live with a different calculation.

We can do the math on our life, we can have a different strategy than somebody who is secular.

We are able to take courage in the face of threat because we know that God is in control.

So the way we make decisions about our careers and relationships and our money is different from somebody who is not including God in the calculation.

And so here God is interacting, Jesus in the God in the flesh is interacting with his disciples, calling them to courage.

Now, not to say that somebody who doesn't follow Jesus can't be courageous, but I just have a question for you.

What is the basis for your courage if you are going to die and you don't know what happens after death?

You don't know where you'll go.

You don't feel reconciled to God.

You know the impending sense of guilt that you're living with, that maybe not everything is okay, and you need a person to deal with your guilt through like Jesus did for us.

You can't have a basis for your courage if you are not a follower of Jesus.

You can be it, but it's baseless.

He goes on and he says in verse 28, Lord, if it is you, uh Peter answered him, command me to come to you on the water.

So we go from the general group of disciples.

Now we're gonna zoom in on Peter.

We're gonna particularize.

That's what this part of the text is.

We're gonna zoom in, and Peter is going to represent the rest of the disciples in his activity.

Super interesting, okay?

It is, it is courageous.

I love Peter.

He said, so he says, Lord, if it's you, ask me to come, and Jesus is come.

And he climbs out of the boat and he starts walking on the water and comes towards Jesus.

So I don't know how far this is.

It's far enough to kind of be able to hear Jesus' voice where it's windy.

So, you know, imagine it's like from here to the back of the room, maybe that far.

So he hops out of the boat, and Peter, the only other human I know of to walk on water, starts walking on the water.

Amazing.

But then when he saw the strength of the wind, he was terrified and beginning to sink, he cries out, Lord, save me.

This is the second time we see fear in this story.

And the fear, there's a causal relationship between the fear and the activity of Peter.

It says that he saw the strength of the wind and he was afraid.

And with that fear, as he gives in to his fear, he begins to sink.

Isn't that interesting?

So before he's afraid, before he's looking at the wind and the waves, he's just tracking with Jesus, like I'm going, I'm marching on the waves, right?

And then he starts looking.

And he starts taking in other data points about the wind.

Man, it's really windy out here.

And that's when he starts to save.

Are you applying?

Because here's what I'm praying.

As we're looking at this, what?

His faith gone.

His faith diminished.

Yeah, yeah.

And so here's what I'm praying.

When we're looking at this, I don't know your story, okay?

I know that you've experienced more moments of faith, and I know that we've already read a lot about faith in our Bible, in Matthew, that Jesus is working where there is faith and trust in him.

And now we bump into it again, and here we see faith diminishing, and the guy starts to sink.

And so the Holy Spirit is speaking to you right now.

I don't know if you hear it, but the Holy Spirit is speaking to you in your life about your fears and the fact that you need to keep your eyes on Jesus and not take in the other data points.

You may have friends and family who are talking to you and saying, Listen, you know, that thing over there, you should be afraid of that, and you should be afraid of this, and you should be afraid of this.

But the real voice that matters is Jesus.

Jesus.

And Jesus said, have courage.

It is I.

And the Holy Spirit comes to you this morning and he says to you, It is I.

God is in your midst.

God is in your midst.

Yes, Mary.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He what we learn from this, because can't you sympathize with Peter?

I mean, this is the most human verse in the Bible, I feel like.

Like, we're so prone to look at the other data points, right?

We're so prone to kind of take in the context and be like, no, I'm afraid, you know, I can't, and and the and the faith diminishes.

The fear starts creeping in.

I love there's a shirt out there somewhere.

Someone's like, faith over fear.

Faith over you got it?

I love that shirt.

I love that.

Because that's how it's supposed to be.

It's supposed to be faith over fear.

We just went through a political season, right?

And a lot of different politics going on.

But one of the strategies on both sides of politicians, Democrats, Republicans, independents, one of the strategies as an independent, as a politician, is to amp up the fear, right?

I'm going to amp up your fear, and then I'm Superman that's going to take care of the thing you're afraid of.

And so, and you know, it works with human, like with humans.

They tend to tend to fear the boogeyman, you know, whatever it is.

But listen again, we're Christians.

We follow Jesus.

We don't give in to our fears, right?

No, we're not a fearful, we're not a people that are giving into our fears.

Instead, we're looking in the face of fear, we're saying, I am gonna have courage because Jesus is with me.

He has promised he'll never leave me or forsake me.

It says in the book of Hebrews, he has promised he will never leave us or forsake us.

Therefore, I can say, I will not fear what man can do to me.

That's literally the writer of Hebrews saying, I'm gonna take from you, take for you this quote out of the Old Testament, this promise of God that He's never gonna leave me or forsake me, and then I'm going to give it an implication in my personal life, which is I do not have to fear what man will do to me.

So Peter here is terrified, he's afraid, he's beginning to sink, and he says, Lord, save me.

Immediately Jesus reaches out his hand, caught a hold of him, and said to him, You of little faith, why did you doubt?

And Peter's like, Well, you know, I never walked on the water before, and it's kind of windy out here, you know, that's why I doubted.

But the interesting thing, do you see the expectation of like because this kind of sounds harsh to me, to be honest.

Like, this sounds harsh.

Like, it's not every day you go walk on the water, right?

And it's like, Jesus, how can you like how can you be that harsh on him?

But it tells you the expectation of Jesus.

Jesus is like not being mean, he's like, I'm me.

I am the great Yahweh.

I am, I'm the God who brought the children of Israel out of Egypt under Pharaoh's rule.

I set the ten plagues, I caught a part of the Red Sea, I am in the midst.

Why do you have such little faith?

Again, may the Holy Spirit apply this in your own life.

That it's like, God, I just want more faith.

I want to ramp up, I want to trust you more.

I want to be more in love with you.

I want your love to cast out every fear that I have in my life.

When they got into the boat, the wind ceased.

So that's the end of this story, right?

They got into the boat.

As soon as Jesus gets into the boat, the wind goes away.

Now, to me, that looks like God's kind of orchestrating something.

And we learn a lesson from this because God works in our life just like a teacher or a coach.

And what do you do with a teacher or a coach?

You repeat stuff, right?

You repeat stuff, yes.

I think it was a test that he was testing the disciples for their faith.

Yep.

I think it's a test.

I like those glasses, by the way.

Those are nice.

The um, it's a um, it is a test.

It's like a it's a training, right?

It's a training of like, hey, um, this is what you're gonna because they're about to go to Jerusalem and they're going to face this storm of persecution.

In fact, their whole story, they are going to bring the gospel of the kingdom to their generation.

Most of them will be martyred.

Most of them, according to church history, get to a place where they're killed because they associate and identify with Jesus.

And so here on the boat, Jesus is teaching them some lessons about fear.

And I don't know what your life holds, but I know the world needs more courageous people.

What a gift of the kingdom to take you and to have the Holy Spirit this morning just kind of increase your faith to lift you up, to remind you that you can trust in God, that you don't have to give in to fear like everybody else.

What a gift of God's kingdom working through you because you live in a scary place.

I don't know if you've seen the news about Baltimore City, but it isn't always the safest place.

But what a gift that you're able to be a Christian in the face of fear, to trust God.

What a gift to the people around you that you can authentically say, I have courage.

I'm taking a position of courage in the face of devastation, in the face of things that are scary to other people.

I feel scary, I feel fear too, but I'm having courage.

I'm choosing a position of courage, not because I'm great, but because God is great and he's my God.

All right, the end of this text is here.

When they had crossed over, they came to the shore of Genezaret.

Now, this is the second time they've been to Genezaret.

Um, when the men of that place recognized him, they alerted the whole vicinity and brought to him all who were sick.

Remember, Jesus already was there.

He healed a demon-possessed guy.

And he told that guy, You can't come with me.

You gotta stay here.

Tell the rest of the town about what's going on, about how you're healed from this demon possession.

So he comes back, and then they hear that he's back, and they bring all those who are sick.

They're like coming to see Jesus.

They begged him that he might only touch the end, that they might only touch the end of his robe, and as many touched it were healed.

This is like when we sing um that song, Reckless Love, where we talk about like indiscriminate love, like the healing power of God is just like flowing out of Jesus.

Kind of like reminds me of some um manga comic or something like that, where you've got like the emanating energy coming off of Jesus.

He's just like they're touching his robe, they're being healed, and it's it's awesome.

It's an awesome moment.

Let's um let's pray, and then we'll take communion together.

God, we've looked at your text this morning for us, and we confess where we're at.

Like, we don't want to be those of little faith.

We want to be those where our faith is increasing more and more and more.

Your word says that that faith comes by hearing the word of God.

And we've sat here this morning and we've heard the word of God.

We ask that the Holy Spirit would author in our lives faith, like increase our faith in you that we would believe in the one who says, I am that I am, Yahweh.

We want to place more and more faith in you.

Lord, take away the doubts that plague us, that cause us to sink when we're in the storm.

Lord, what kind of walking on water do you have for us this week?

What is that gonna look like for us?

Lord, we give ourselves to you.

We're so glad that we go from this place in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And we we're gonna have our eyes on you.

We're looking with anticipation.

What do you want to do in our lives?

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.