Sermon Brief
Date Written: June 11, 2009
Date Preached: June 14, 2008
Where Preached: OPBC (AM)
Sermon Details:
Sermon Series: Sermon introducing VBS
Sermon Title: It All Comes Back to Jesus!
Sermon Text: Matthew 14:28-29 (ESV)
28 And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." 29 He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
Introduction:
I once heard a really bad joke about how a man wanted to buy a new boomerang, but was having trouble getting rid of his old one. He walked out on the porch and threw it out into the field only to have it come back to him time and time again.
As corny as that joke is… I find it to be a truly relevant picture of who we are in Christ and the humanness of our actions and deeds. We want to get rid of our ‘old nature’ when we are saved but it seems to ‘boomerang’ right back to us when we desire to throw it away… and this happens so much that we become discouraged and downtrodden in our walk with Christ.
I want to share something with you this morning, the apostle Paul faced the same dilemma in his life as well. He knew he was called by God and he knew beyond a shadow of doubt God had saved him on that road to Damascus… but the ‘old man’… the ‘old nature’ would rise up within him and he would be terribly troubled by this…
We know that in Rom 7:14-15 Paul tells us where he struggled with this very issue:
14 “…but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.”
Paul struggled with things in this life where he found himself battling with the old self… his old nature… just as every born again believer does as well. We all deal with the boomerang effect of our old sinful nature… we throw it out the back window of our lives only to see it come crashing back in our lives… at the least opportune time!
Christian brothers and sisters our daily battles with our sinful nature... our former nature… is a constant issue we have to face and deal with as believers.
This is because we live in a fallen and broken world where we can never know perfection or complete peace… but thru Christ we have an advocate and a helper to guide us and keep us until that great day when we will finally be with our Lord.
Dealing with our old nature is like throwing a boomerang, we can make it because it always comes back to our Savior… it always comes back to Jesus! Look what Paul says a little further in Romans 7:24-25:
24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? BUT…[this is NOT in the Scripture but it is implied by the context of what Paul is saying… Paul says… BUT 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
You see, for the believer… for the one with Christ dwelling within them, it ALWAYS comes back to Jesus! The answer to all our issues and struggles always comes back to Jesus…
Today we are going to take a short look at Peter and one of the episodes in his life and we are going to see how this can and DOES apply to our lives today, because we all face our own struggles as well.
Now a little background on Peter, he who was a stalwart founding father of the 1st century church… it was him who drew a sword in the Garden of Gethsemane in defense of Jesus…it was Peter who was unashamedly bold in the market place on the day of Pentecost where 3000 people came to salvation in Christ…
However this same Peter found himself faltering quite a bit… but always when he faltered it was because he had taken his focus off of Christ… and it was not until he refocused on Jesus did he recover…Turn with me to Matt 14 and lets read v.25-29…
Getting off to a good start… Matt 14:25-29
25 And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. 26 But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, "It is a ghost!" and they cried out in fear. 27 But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, "Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid." 28 And Peter answered him, "Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water." 29 He said, "Come." So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
Bill had always wanted to sail to the South See islands… solo! But he did not have a boat. He would rent one occasionally and he was a really good sailor, but he just never had the money to get a boat to sail to the South Seas like he wanted.
Then one day Bill’s boss asked him if he wanted to sail to the South Pacific… Bill was floored… WHY YES he said. Bill’s boss asked him to sail his boat to the South Pacific for him, and that he would have someone meet him at the port and he could fly back!
Bill began practicing and studying the charts and maps and as the day of his departure got nearer and nearer Bill got more and more excited. He was an excellent sailor, he had the best of training, and he would be sailing on one of the best boats money could buy… Bill was high as a kite on the day he set sail!
You as believers, so often, we want to do something for God but just can’t seem to do it, and then God calls us to do something special… something exciting… something that will take our full attention and efforts!
We get excited because God is asking us to serve Him in a way that interests and excites us… it is like when we get saved… we are ready to take on the world. We are anxious to get started… we want to get off to a good start… and so we burst out of the gates with all the energy of a 2 year old fresh from a good nights sleep!
But also when we are about to start out on a project where we have planned and prayed about it and it comes time to launch the project and we have all the energy and momentum going forward and we feel we strong and confident, like we are riding downhill with a stiff breeze to our backs…
I also believe that getting off to a good start is something Peter was good at… I believe it would be a safe assumption to categorize Peter as a man of deep and abiding passion and conviction for Jesus.
Peter was a man who wanted to ‘get moving’ when it came to the kingdom of heaven… when it came to anything to do with Jesus. He did not want to be left behind or out done on ANYTHING as it pertained to Jesus.
Here in our passage this morning we find Peter FILLED with the momentum of his faith when Jesus walked on water up to their boat! When all the other disciples had fear in their hearts and their jaws hanging to their knees… we actually see Peter licking his chops and bouncing up and down… I can almost see him now in the boat… [hold your hand up and jump up and down…] “Ooo, ooo, Jesus! I want to walk on water too!! Can I? Can I Huh?”
The momentum and power of Peter’s faith was evident in that Peter never had a doubt about getting out of the boat...I bet he grabbed the side of the boat and threw his legs over the side of the boat… sort of like jumping a fence!
The point is that Peter was FILLED with faith and momentum and he immediately got out of the boat and began to walk on the water when Jesus called him.
What about you this morning? Have you ever felt the rush of the moment and the exhilaration of having a momentum of faith? You felt like you could go out and save the world! We have all been there at one time or another in our walk… many of us compare this feeling with what we would call a mountain top experience…
When we are saved and we realize that Jesus has ‘called’ us to serve Him, we are a lot like Peter in that we are ready to jump over the side of the boat. Have you ever wondered why that is?
Well when we are in close communion with Jesus, we are lifted up by His presence… spiritually we are high up, like being on a mountain top… the rush and adrenaline are flowing and our faith enables us to see what God is calling us to… But as a believer and a pastor I can tell you that there is one very difficult problem with the mountaintops of this life!
It is that you cannot complete your journey or do your mission if you STAY on that mountain, you have to leave the peak and begin walking down the mountain side to where God has called you to go!
And do you know what happens to the believer when they leave the mountain top? Well, when we leave the mountain top we begin to DESCEND [so to speak] and the more we descend down the mountain, the less we can see…and the less we can see the more anxious we get… and the more our momentum of our faith begins to wane! And that is my 2nd point this morning…
When we lose our Momentum… Matt 14:30
30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink
When Jesus came walking up beside the boat Peter was filled with faith and momentum… so much so that he literally JUMPED right out of the boat to walk with Jesus, but we find that his stalwart faith did not survive what was next…
Look at v.30 where quickly Peter’s faith and momentum…loses its steam! One look at the waves and the sea rolling because of the storm, Peter began to quickly lose any of the momentum and faith that had brought him OUT of the boat!
I can see it now, here is a confident and self-assured Peter getting out of the boat… Probably talkin’ trash to the other disciples because they were all scared and terrified! I can see his face as he takes his first few steps… full of confidence and assurance… filled with the momentum of his faith in Christ and then a wave come crashing down on him!
I can almost see him falling under the tremendous weight of the wave and him being soaked to the skin by the wall of water. And Peter looks around and begins to notice all of the waves and he begins to hear the terrible howling of the wind… at this point fear sets in and all of that faith and momentum that led him OUT of the boat begins to fade fast and he begins to sink!
Let’s get back to Bill on his sailing trip… He woke up one morning to the smell of smoke. The boat was on fire… and he was going to have to abandon ship! Before he could get off the sailboat, Bill heard and felt a terrible explosion!
Bill woke later floating in the ocean, in the middle of nowhere and the boat was GONE! All alone in the middle of the Pacific ocean with no means of contacting the outside world, Bill began to think this may not have been the best decision he had ever made. Bill washed ashore of a deserted island the next morning… soaking wet and terrified of what had just happened to him…
Bill managed to build a hut, and put all he had salvaged from the wreckage in his hut. He began to pray for God to deliver him, and anxiously scanned the horizon each day to hail any passing ship.
One day after hunting for food, Bill was once again HORRIFIED and TERRIFIED as he came home to his hut in flames—everything he had saved was gone… there was NOTHING left! Now this was the WORST day of his life, he thought to himself!
What about you today? Ever been where Bill is? Not on a deserted island, but so down and disappointed that you don’t know what to do or where to turn? What about Peter’s situation? Have you ever been blindsided by something so big it just knocked you off your feet? So often as Christians we find ourselves losing heart after the storms of life come crashing down into our LIFE!
We start out our journey with Christ filled with faith and buoyed up by all the momentum we had when Christ was the focal point of our lives! Our momentum was high… our faith was strong… and we felt like we could tackle ANYTHING the world could throw at us…
We are like Peter, “I aint afraid to serve Him!” or we are like Bill, “I aint afraid to sail solo!” We say we are not afraid to serve and we throw ourselves into the project or ministry God has called us to…
And then all of a sudden there’s that wave that comes out of nowhere and crashes down on us and spiritually we are knocked off our feet…. Spiritually we are soaked by the wall of trouble that has just overwhelmed us!
We try to get to our feet and back on track but at this point we then begin to notice things we never had seen before… things that make us doubt our calling… things that make us wonder WHY we are doing what we are doing! Spiritually speaking we begin to see all the trouble and fear begins to overwhelm our hearts…and our faith and momentum begins to wane and we begin to sink!
That is where Peter was as he began to sink in the Sea of Galilee, that is where Bill was as he stood before his burning hut on a deserted island, thousands of miles from help… that is how we feel when the enemy attacks us or the storms of life overwhelm us… we feel like we are sinking and that there is NO hope… that there is NO rescue…
But that leads me to my 3rd point this morning… and it is a very simple yet profound point… we need to refocus our lives!
We need to refocus on Jesus… Matt 14:30b-33
30 …he cried out, "Lord, save me." 31 Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, "O you of little faith, why did you doubt?" 32 And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. 33 And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."
Peter was at his wits end and was sinking fast in a wave of a storm… Now I don’t know about you guys, but the sea is a scary place during a storm! I saw the movie “The Perfect Storm” and even though I knew it was a movie and all of it was digitally enhanced video… I was scared!
The ocean scares me terribly as I have seen what it can do… the force it has… and the toll it can take! So I can understand what and why Peter was so scared! He was sinking, he was desperate, he knew he had NO hope of saving himself and look what He suddenly ‘refocused’ his attention back onto Jesus and cried out for help!
People there are going to be storms in your life, that much I am sure of… These storms are going to seem impossible to survive and you are going to feel overwhelmed and terrified!
The waves are going to come crashing in on us, no matter what we do… no matter where we go… the point is that we focus on Jesus and He will guide us and deliver us from the storms or thru the storms we face.
Peter was exuberant in his willingness to jump OUT of the boat to walk to Jesus, but when the waves came crashing in… he lost his focus quickly! But to Peter’s credit, he realized where his focus needed to be and he refocused himself and cried out for Christ to save him… and Jesus reach out to him and saved him.
Many times in our lives we believe that we are left high and dry… that we have the world coming down around us… and we lose focus in our walk with Christ, but if we can be more and more like Peter, we can refocus our lives BACK to Christ and He will be there to pick us up when we need Him the most!
Bill stood in front of his burning hut with a sinking feeling that his life was over… he cried himself to sleep that night, sleeping out on the beach! The next morning he was awakened to the sound of a fog horn and the sound of a small boat coming toward the beach!
The crew told him that they had seen his signal fire the night before and had sailed all night to get there. Bill focus had been changed… but what he had thought was death…God turned into renewed life!
Where are you today? Are you excited and exuberant about serving God? Are you chompin’ at the bit to get busy with God? Is your faith and the momentum of your faith leading you to ‘get out of the boat’ to serve Jesus? If so, I bid you come… come and seek God’s guidance and leadership.
Maybe today you are sitting here and in your life you are going thru some major changes… changes that are scary because you cannot see beyond the nose on your face. Changes that challenge our very being and existence.
Conclusion:
I once heard a story about a young father who wanted to teach his son everything. One evening he watched out the kitchen window as his 7 year old son played in the backyard sand box. He watched him moving several large rocks out of the sandbox.
There was, however, one very large rock that gave his little boy trouble. He watched his son move the rock to the edge of the sandbox, but each time it looked like he would be over to move the rock over the side of the sandbox; the rock would fall back into the sandbox. The last time it fell, it pinched one of his little fingers.
The father walked out to his tearful son and asked him what the matter was. His son told him all about the heavy rock in the sandbox. The father asked, "Why didn’t you use all the strength you had?" The little boy replied, "I did dad, I did."
The father responded, "No son, you didn’t ask your dad." And with that the father reached down and together he and his son removed the rock from the sandbox.
Today you may be sitting there thinking that all is lost, that God has left you out in the cold, that life has been SOOO unfair, that you are about to go under for the last time… but I am here today to tell you that if you will focus your attention on Christ… call out to Him today, He will reach down and pick you up!
God has proven over and over to me that there is NO hole too deep for me to dig that He cannot get me out… People, any and ALL sin is forgivable! Some sins are considered worse in our eyes than others, but all sin can be forgiven.
Like Peter we can all discover that no matter how EXCITED we are to serve Him… OR how depressed and afraid we can get with the storms of life… Jesus is always going to be there… It all comes back to Jesus!
As Steven comes to lead us in our hymn of invitation, I want you to stand, bow your heads and close your eyes. Where are you today? Excited to serve? Scared to death about what God has you doing? Seeing the bad and hard tasks but overlooking the blessings of obedience?
People I call on you today to set it straight with God… come to Him today and pledge your service to Him… pledge your life to Him… pledge you’re heart to Him. Come and surrender to HIS plan… His purpose!
As Jason continues to play softly, I urge you to come… come right now as we begin to sing…
