We Are Never Alone
Scripture: Hebrews 13:5-6; Mark 4:40; Matthew 14:22-36; 28:20; Psalm 29:11
The title of my message this morning is “We Are Never Alone.” In 1978, Walter Hawkins released the song “Never Alone” on his Love Alive II album. The song’s message is encouraging as it stresses that no matter what we face we are never alone. Listen to a few of the words: “Never alone, I don't have to worry cause, I'm never alone, He walks besides me, all the way, He guides my footsteps every day, never again will I be insecure anymore, never again, never again.” I am sure that all of us, at some point in our lives, have felt alone, that no one understood our situation or what we were going through. In our minds, we believed that no one had experienced what we were experiencing and that thought alone made us feel even more abandoned. New Light, I want you to know this morning that, just as Walter Hawkins said in his song, we are never alone.
Before we get into the message, I want to remind you of what is recorded in Hebrews 13:5-6. “Make sure your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, ‘I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you’, so that we confidently say, ‘The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?’” I wanted to share these verses with you at the beginning because, in a way, you will see them in the passages that we’re going to look at this morning. I know the primary theme of the verse is God providing for our needs financially, but the part about Him never deserting or forsaking us – that applies to everything. The Bible is telling us that God, our Father, is always with us – even when we feel He’s not and the question for us is “Do we believe it in our worst times?”
This morning we are going to look at a very familiar story – the story of Jesus walking on water. Yeah, I know that you have heard this story many, many times and you could probably tell it as good as anyone. When I have preached on this before, I have often focused on Peter’s decision to join Jesus on the water. This morning, however, I really want to take a deeper dive (literally) into what the disciples experienced prior to recognizing that it was Jesus who was walking on the water towards them. Remember, the disciples had spent a lot of time with Jesus at this point so their response to seeing “an image” coming towards them was very telling because it shows us that their minds were still focused more on the natural versus the Savior who was with them “always” even when He was not there physically. You see, New Light, the disciples were not alone but they responded to what they saw as if they were.
Our faith as Christians is secure when we recognize and live every day knowing in the very depths of our hearts that God is always with us, even during every storm that we face. It is during our storms that we must remind ourselves that God is right there beside us even when everything around us – the circumstances, the people and most important, our emotions – are doing their best to convince us that He is not. This is what the disciples felt in the first storm they were in with Jesus. In that storm they were on a boat in the middle of the water when a storm suddenly came. That story is found in Mark chapter four and Matthew chapter eight. Jesus was asleep when the storm started tossing the ship and the disciples panicked. New Light, it’s important to understand something here. Some of the disciples were seasoned fishermen. They were accustomed to fishing during bad weather and unanticipated circumstances. So this tells me that what was happening that night was out of the ordinary. It was something that they had never experienced before. In that moment, they were not thinking about the fact that Jesus was right there in the boat with them. No. They thought they were going to die. They did not think about the Son of God being right there in that boat. They thought about dying. What I want you to remember is that during all of their thinking and considerations, it doesn’t seem they ever considered that their lives would be saved because the Master was with them. There is a lesson here New Light. The emotions of the disciples clouded their ability to think clearly. But that is what happens when our emotions take over. In their panicked state the disciples rushed to Jesus and woke Him up. You know the story. Jesus rebuked the wind and the seas by saying, “Peace, be still” and everything became calm. When the disciples witnessed this they were amazed. But Jesus had a question for them. Mark 4:40 says, “And He said unto them, ‘Why are you so fearful? How is it that you have no faith?’” Now this incident happened prior to the story we will be looking at today. Keep this in mind because we will see that it takes some time for true faith to build in our lives and become a rock that doesn’t shift with our circumstances. I want you to think about something. When Jesus asked them why they had no faith, could it be that He asked that because He expected that they should have been able to handle this situation just as He had? Could He have been saying – “You woke me up to handle this for you – you could have done this!” Just chew on that for a while as you think about the authority God has given us through Jesus.
As we enter the story for this morning, Jesus is approaching a high point in His ministry. He had performed many miracles including feeding a multitude with just a few loaves of bread and two fishes. He had become very popular with the people and a source of concern to the religious leaders. Persecution was running rampant in the land and King Herod had just put John the Baptist, Jesus’ first cousin, to death. When Jesus heard the news of John’s death, He departed into a desert place to be alone with His thoughts. I am sure that this was a moment of personal pain for Him as He and John were probably boyhood companions and probably spent many hours together growing up. Jesus loved him so it is not difficult to imagine the great sorrow He felt upon hearing of John’s death. The people had followed Jesus and when He saw them He had compassion on them and healed their sick. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this. Jesus grieved for John but He also saw people with needs, and I’m going say it this way, He saw people who needed a touch from Him. He didn’t let grief consume Him. Jesus let His love for people determine how He would ultimately respond to John’s death. When evening had come the disciples came to Jesus and asked Him to send the crowd away because they were in a desert place with no food available. Jesus ultimately feeds the multitude with the fives loaves and two fishes. After everyone had eaten, Jesus ordered the disciples to get in the boat and go over to the other side while He dismissed the crowd. The disciples did as they were told while Jesus stayed behind to dismiss the crowd and spend some time praying. After He was alone and had finished praying, Jesus departed to go and join His disciples. Let’s pick up the story at verse twenty-five.
“And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, ‘It is a spirit’; and they cried out for fear. But immediately Jesus spoke unto them, saying, ‘Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.’ And Peter answered him and said, ‘Lord, if it be You, bid me come unto You on the water.’ And He said, ‘Come.’ And when Peter came down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, ‘Lord, save me.’ And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, ‘O you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ And when they came into the ship, the wind ceased. Then they that were in the ship came and worshiped him, saying, ‘Of a truth you are the Son of God.’” (Matthew 14:25-33)
Jesus came to them between the hours of 3:00-6:00 a.m. walking on the waters. Based on the disciples’ response, it was early morning with only the moon providing some light. When the disciples saw Him they were afraid thinking that it was a spirit. I want you to see this vividly – all of these grown men who had performed miracles at the order of the Master, were yelling and screaming because they were afraid. When Jesus heard them cry out in fear, He immediately spoke to them and identified Himself. However, even after He identified Himself, it is certain that some still doubted in their minds that it was Him. And here’s my point, even though they had spent time with Jesus, they were still growing in their relationship with Him. There were still things in their lives they had to deal with. In this case, the issue was fear. New Light, it’s no different from us today. Yes, our relationship with Jesus is growing, but there will be things in our lives, like fear, that we will have to deal with if we want our relationship with Jesus to get stronger and stronger. Peter was the one disciple who believed that it was Jesus. He recognized His voice and asked Jesus if He could join Him on the waters. As Peter started walking on the waters he took His eyes off of Jesus and began to sink and once again cried out to Jesus to be saved. Once Jesus grabbed Peter and they were both in the boat, the other disciples worshipped Him and stated that truly He was the Son of God. There are a few takeaways that I want to leave you with as it pertains to understanding that we are never alone.
The disciples’ response to seeing Jesus walking on the waters coming towards them was a natural one. Even though they had witnessed Jesus calming the wind and the seas, when they saw this image walking towards them they were afraid because they did not know it was Jesus. So the first takeaway that we should learn from this story is:
• We must learn to recognize Jesus. The disciples had lived with Jesus. The disciples had walked with Jesus. They knew Him in a very personal and intimate way. However, from this incident we know that there was a moment when they did not recognize Him. This happens to us. There are times when an unexpected circumstance happens in our lives that shake us to our core and we cannot recognize Jesus’ presence in our situation. Or we lose sight of Him like Peter who was walking on the water to Jesus but instead of staying focused on Jesus’s presence, he began to focus on what was going on around him. It is hard to focus on more than one thing at a time. Multitasking didn’t work here! To consistently recognize Jesus in all of our circumstances requires us to always focus our attention on Him even when our lives are “circumstance free.” We must learn to recognize Jesus in every situation we face. It is during our storms that we find out if we have really put our trust in Him.
As Jesus walked towards them on the waters, the disciples, because they did not recognize Him, yelled out in fear. Fear immediately seized their hearts and their minds. Remember, I talked about this earlier. Fear became the combined emotion of all those who witnessed the image walking towards them and that brings me to the second takeaway from this story:
• We must learn cope with our fears. Fear is a destructive force that plagues all of us at certain times in our lives. Being cautious is normal and it helps us survive certain dangers that we face in everyday living but fear can take being cautious to another level. Cautious, by definition, is to be “careful about avoiding danger or risk.” Fear by definition is “an emotion excited by threatening evil or impending pain, accompanied by a desire to avoid or escape; apprehension; dread; horror; alarm; dismay.” Being cautious is different from walking in a state of fear. That spiritual force of fear can destroy us if we yield to it as it stops us in our tracks. When we are cautious we move forward while paying extra attention to what is happening around us. However, when we are truly fearful, we freeze, we stop, and we become paralyzed by the fear. Please understand, I am not saying that we should ignore the feelings of caution, which can at time heighten all of the senses we have that are protective (i.e. don’t put your hand in a fire), but I am also saying that there may be some spiritual fears that we must learn to cope with. Fear is not of God and God is not the author of fear. Our heavenly Father knows no fear and there is nothing for Him to be afraid of. He is our Father so if He is not afraid, why should we be so fearful? This is the point that I believe that Jesus was making to the disciples in this second instance where they were experiencing fear and dread. Jesus has done everything that needs to be done for us and in us spiritually, but if we allow fear to overshadow us in our storms, we will not be able to see what Jesus has and is doing in our situation. When the storm was raging for the disciples, it was something that was out of their control. So when Jesus calmed the wind and the waters they proclaimed Him the Son of God. They did not understand what He was instilling within them – not to be fearful! Paul tells us in Acts 17:28 that “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’” (Acts 17:28) Also in Second Timothy 1:7 Paul told Timothy, “For God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” This is what God has given us when we live, move and have our being within Him! New Light, the love that God has put inside of us, His children, is greater and more powerful than the fear that might attempt to cripple us. But we have to believe that. We have to accept it as true. And we can only do that by faith.
There is one more takeaway from this story. The winds which were blowing and rocking the boat were normal for the disciples – while they remained in the boat. When Jesus was walking towards them it was in the early morning hours when it was still very dark so they could see His image but not His face. There is nothing worse than experiencing a sense of being blind when you’re focusing on something important but you can’t see it clearly. As the disciples saw this image coming towards them there was no thought on their part that Jesus was anywhere nearby watching over them! They were experiencing a dark hour mentally because of their fear. For many of us, our darkest hour is that moment when we have been pushed to our limits. It’s that moment when it seems like the situation cannot get any worse. It is that moment when we think of giving up. It’s that moment when we fail to recognize that Jesus is with us – that we are not alone. That, my friend, is our darkest hour. The last takeaway I want you to have from this story is:
• We must learn to trust God in our darkest hour. We must learn to trust that He is there even though our minds are not allowing us to process His presence. If we think about the disciples out in that boat alone struggling with the wind and the waves and then seeing a figure walking toward them, we can understand their fear. Some of the disciples were fishermen and understood how things operated out in the waters so they could have calmed the fears of the non-fishermen when the winds grew strong. But not one of them was accustomed to seeing someone walk on water. So while some might have been scared because of the winds, they were all scared when they saw the image coming towards them. There was no way they could comprehend what they were seeing. There was no way to rationalize it or explain it. Because they had no rational explanation for what they were seeing, fear took over. This was their darkest hour. Every one of us will experience a darkest hour, its part of this life. However, how we respond to it will make the difference in the outcome. We must remember that Jesus can calm a sea of trouble in our lives at any time. He can replace doubt with confidence. He can replace fear with assurance. Jesus is the author and finisher of our faith and we must believe that He is ready, willing, and able to prove that to us.
Psalm 29:11 says, “The LORD will give strength unto His people; the LORD will bless His people with peace.” God does not wish for His children to be filled with worry and constant anxiety. Jesus is always with us and therefore we are never alone! Our storms of life might be sickness, disease, pain, debt or loss; but Jesus is in the midst of whatever your storm is. His hands are raised to help. His voice is near to command. So let us not despair in our darkest hour for as Jesus said in Matthew 28:20, “…..And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”
Until next time, “The Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make His face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up His countenance on you and give you peace.” (Numbers 6:24-26)
(If you are ever in the Kansas City, KS area, please come and worship with us at New Light Christian Fellowship, 15 N. 14th Street, Kansas City, KS 66102. Our service Sunday worship starts at 9 a.m. and Thursday night Bible study at 7 p.m. Also, for use of our social media, you can find us at newlightchristianfellowship on FB. To get our live stream services, please make sure you “like” and turn on notifications for our page so you can be notified when we are live streaming. We also have a church website and New Light Christian Fellowship YouTube channel for more of our content. We are developing more social media streams so please stand by and we will notify you once those channels are up and running. We look forward to you worshipping with us. May God bless and keep you.)
