KEEP ON WALKING
or
Step! Stop! Sink!
7/8/2007 A.M.
SERMON TEXT
NIV Matthew 14:22 Immediately [following the feeding of the five-thousand] Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. 25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It’s a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear. 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid." 28 "Lord, if it’s you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." 29 "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" 31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" 32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.
DIVISIONS IN THE TEXT
THE DISMISSALS (22) – Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowd.
A. Of the Disciples
B. Of the Crowd
THE DEPARTURE (23) – After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone…
THE DANGER (24) – …but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
THE DISTORTION (25-26) - 25 During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It’s a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.
THE DECLARATIONS (27-29a) - 27 But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid." 28 "Lord, if it’s you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." 29 "Come," he said.
Jesus - “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid” (27).
Peter – “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water” 28).
Jesus – “Come” (29a).
THE DEED (29) – “Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.”
THE DREAD (30) – “But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
THE DOUBT (31-32) – Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
THE DELIVERANCE (32) - And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.
MANUSCRIPT
Peter’s story is one of…
• distance and
• danger and
• distortion and
• declarations,
• daring deeds,
• declining faith,
• doubt,
• dread and
• deliverance.
It is a story of multiple battles experienced in the midst of obedience. It is both a witness and a warning.
Matthew, Mark and John record this event and they all inform us that the disciples were caught in a dangerous storm, the severity of which is seen in the fact that even though these experienced mariners had rowed for nearly 12 hours, they had only traveled a little more than three miles (John. 6:19). That comes to one mile every four hours.
Mark tells us that although it was a dark stormy night, Jesus, from his place on land “saw the disciples straining at the oars” (6:48). Mark continues with, “about the fourth watch of the night He went out to them, walking on the lake” (6:48).
Matthew and Mark note that the disciples mistook Jesus for…
• a ghost,
• an apparition,
• a ghoul or
• a phantom.
Matthew says the boat of terrified disciples “cried out in fear” (14:26). Simply put, they did the same thing you and I would do when facing the unexplainable in the middle of a dark stormy night, gripped by extreme fear they yelled and screamed and shrieked. It’s what you did this week, when in the middle of one adversity another problem fell on you.
To dispel their terror, Jesus identified Himself saying, “It is I, don’t be afraid” (14:27). It is here that Peter declares, “Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you on the water” (14:28), to which Jesus replies, “Come” (14:29). Anyone can say, “Come,” so, can I see some identification, please?
There’s not a person in this house who hasn’t heard of Peter’s next move. Matthew tells us, “Peter got down out of the boat and walked on the water to Jesus” (14:29). No matter how you look at it, Peter’s action is incredible. He not only steps out of the boat, but he actually walked without any visible means of support. What an awe inspiring site this must have presented to the disciples as they looked on from the security of the boat; Jesus standing on the water and Peter walking on the water to where Jesus was.
Peter triumphed over the water, but fell prey to the boisterous wind. Matthew says, “…when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord, save me!’” (Mt. 14:30). Simply put, Peter stepped, stopped and sank.
Haven’t we all experienced failure in the midst of success.
• We triumphed over the adversity, but we’re taken captive by unforgiveness and bitterness toward our adversary.
• God met our financial need through some obedient vessel and we mistakenly make the vessel our source instead of God.
• We put jealousy under our feet and then fell prey to pride.
• You step out of the boat and commit to being a faithful tither on Sunday, then on Monday your roof begins to leak, the transmission on your car breaks, your youngest child has a medical emergency and you get a pink slip at work.
Like Peter, our victory is short lived. In a moment of fear and fatigue, we begin to slowly slip down into the very thing that we had been walking on.
What caused Peter to lose his firm footing on the stormy sea? The common answer is, he took his eyes off of Jesus and placed them on the wind, and in so doing his faith gave way to fear.
We might justly ask, why didn’t Jesus cause the wind to stop when Peter stepped out of the boat?
• Wouldn’t your life be a lot easier if Jesus would eliminate the winds and waves, and give you a glassy sea to walk on?
• Wouldn’t it be a lot easier to maintain patience if God eliminated the challenge offered by delays?
• Isn’t it about time that the promised ten-fold return promised by the TV evangelist you partnered with became a reality?
• Wouldn’t your faith be stronger if God gave you an immediate miracle every time you believed Him?
• Wouldn’t your life be a lot more peaceful if you only had to deal with one crisis at a time?
I’m suspicious that we’d sink even if God eliminated the storm’s added challenges. Our ability to walk on water isn’t enhanced by calm seas. The problem isn’t the environment but the in-vironment! It’s not a matter of what’s happening to us, but what’s happening in us.
Jesus says the problem is doubt—“Why did you doubt?” What did Peter doubt?
• Did he doubt Jesus’ ability?
• Did he doubt God?
He seems to have trusted Jesus enough to call out to Him as he was sinking. His cry was, “Lord, save me!” I’m inclined to believe that, like us, Peter didn’t doubt God or Jesus, he doubted himself.
When God told Moses to step out of his boat and demand that Pharaoh release the children of Israel, Moses’ response was:
• “Who am I?” (Ex. 3:11).
• “I am slow of speech and tongue” (4:10).
• “Please send someone else” (4:13).
When God commissioned Gideon to deliver Israel from the Midianites (Judges 6:14), Gideon’s reply to God’s call was, “how can I save Israel? My family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the least in my family” (6:15).
Paul’s statement to the Romans was, “For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think…” (Ro. 12:3). Humility or a right opinion of ourselves is important, but that right opinion will not weaken God.
We should not overestimate ourselves--neither our abilities nor our inabilities. We limit God when we labor in our own sufficiency, but we also limit God when we view our weaknesses as limiting to His strength.
Humility says, “In myself and by myself, I can do nothing,” but it goes on to declare, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
Humility does not devalue what God has imparted to us.
• It does not demean the gift that God has placed in our life.
• It acknowledges the weakness of the human vessel, but…
• it also acknowledges God as the source of what is being accomplished and gives Him the glory.
• Humility does not deny God’s right to use us to the extreme, because it rests in His omnipotence.
Paul is a wonderful example of such humility. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul declares:
1Corinthians 1:26 Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world’s eyes, or powerful, or wealthy when God called you. 27 Instead, God deliberately chose things the world considers foolish in order to humiliate those who think they are wise. And he chose those who are powerless to embarrass those who are, by the world’s standards, powerful. 28 God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to expose the emptiness and nothingness of what the world considers important, 29 so that no one can ever boast in the presence of God. … 31 As the Scriptures say, "The person who wishes to boast should boast only of what the Lord has done."
In this same context, Paul said of himself:
NIV 1 Corinthians 2:1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s powerful ability.
All that Paul accomplished, he accomplished in the power of God in spite of his own weaknesses and fears. As a matter of fact, Paul saw his weakness, not as a limitation, but as a lightening rod for the manifestation of God’s power.
When Paul prayed and asked God to remove what he described as "a thorn in my flesh," God’s reply was "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power works best in your weakness" (2Cor. 12:9). Paul’s response was, "I take pleasure in being weak, in being ridiculed, in persecutions, and in the sufferings that come my way for the cause of Christ; for when I am weak, then am I strong" (12:10).
I don’t know what God has called you to do, but I want you to know that God didn’t choose you because of what you can bring to the table. (See Deut. 7:7-8.) He isn’t asking you to do something for Him. He is giving you the opportunity to see Him work through you in spite of your weaknesses and inabilities.
Oswald Chambers warns us:
Beware of worshipping Jesus as the Son of God, and professing your faith in Him as the Savior of the world, while you blaspheme Him by the complete evidence in your daily life that He is powerless to do anything in and through you.
Oswald Chambers, Christianity Today, Vol. 37, no. 11.
It’s not that we doubt God’s ability to accomplish great things, but that we doubt He can accomplish great things through us.
It’s one of the reasons our life is a history of unfinished walks. It’s why we shy back from…
• teaching that Sunday School class or
• praying over the offering or
• increasing our giving or
• ministering in song or
• talking to others about Christ or
• giving a prophetic utterance to the public gathering of the church or
• anything else that demands we leave the security of the boat and walk on the water.
We overestimate our weakness and underestimate the power of God.
Peter’s problem wasn’t the boisterous wind. It was blowing when he stepped out of the boat. His problem wasn’t the water, as he had already walked on it when he began to sink.
Peter’s problem wasn’t so much taking his eyes off Jesus, as it was gazing at himself…
• his inabilities
• his limitations
• his lack
• his failures
• his weakness
• his humanity
• his smallness
…all of which he estimated correctly. His mistake was in making his nothingness bigger than God’s allness.
Some of us are allowing past failures to keep us in the boat. I can tell you that when the sun came up this morning, it brought with it new mercies and fresh provisions of grace. If you are allowing yesterday to keep you from living today for God, then the sentence you are living under is self-imposed.
Some of us are allowing our inabilities to keep us from responding to the call of God.
ILLUS: David Ring has cerebral palsy, but he ministers around the world in spite of the fact that everyone said he couldn’t do it. In his sermons he says, “I have cerebral palsy, so what’s your problem.” He notes, “I discovered that I wasn’t okay, but that’s okay, because God is okay and He loves me and called me.”
PLAY David Ring VIDEO (available at http://www.davidringministries.org/mediakit.html).
What’s your excuse? What would happen if we quit making excuses, admitted our limitations and kept on walking in obedience to God. I can guarantee you that when you stop stepping, you will begin to sink!
What if we quit saying “I can’t” and started saying, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”?
What if we embraced the promise of Jesus concerning the Baptism in the Holy Spirit, in which He declared, “You shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.”
What could God accomplish through you if you got your eyes off of your self and on Him? Humbly acknowledge that you can’t, but don’t stop there, declare that HE CAN! He can even do it through you!
What is going to happen when you and I step out of the boat and keep walking?
PRAYER
God, you didn’t call us to step, stop and sink, but to complete the walk you called us to. I ask you to forgive me for making excuses! Forgive me for viewing You through my limitations. I am confident that You will give me the ability to do what you’ve asked me to do. Where You guide, You provide. What You commission us to do, you empower us to accomplish. Please forgive me for doubting that You could use me. If You could speak into nothing and create everything that exists, then You can overcome my weakness with your power! I humbly admit that I cannot walk on water, but I also declare that I can do anything You call me to do! I declare that my weakness does not limit Your strength. If You bid me “come,” then I can walk to You on the water and with You back to the boat. You don’t intend for me to sink, but to keep walking. I can do what You’ve called and enabled me to do! If You can use anyone, Lord, you can use me!
