If You Want to Walk on Water…
Beartown Road Alliance Church
Sunday, August 13th, 2006
The passage that we’re looking at this morning follows two very significant events in the book of Matthew. The first, in the beginning of chapter 14 is the death of John the Baptist. Herod had him killed and when news reaches Jesus, he withdraws by boat for some solitude. This was a man that Jesus loved greatly, this was His cousin. Even more than the family bond, this was the one that God had sent to point the way to Christ as the Messiah. Jesus was fully man and I’m sure that this was a tough time for Him and He needed to be alone. When he lands on shore, the crowds are there again. Instead of telling them he was tired and needed some time, it says that he had compassion on them and that he healed their sick. He spent all day with them and when evening came, the disciples wanted Him to send the people home to get some food.
Jesus used this to teach the disciples a lesson. He told them that they should feed the people. And then he took five loaves and two fish and fed 5,000 men and who knows how many women and children with them. And when they were done, the disciples collected 12 baskets of leftovers! It was tough to skip over this passage, there are so many great points to be made in this miracle. Jesus providing for the people in abundance. Jesus providing the power but letting the disciples do the ministering, just like he uses His Church today. An amazing miracle with no natural or logical explanation.
And it’s at the tail end of this miracle that we pick up in Matthew.
Read Matthew 14:22-33
Like the passage before it, this is one that we can pull a lot of truth from. I have heard messages about the storms of life, I’ve heard messages that focus on Christ sending them into the storm to teach them a lesson, I’ve heard messages on Christ’s response to their fear, literally telling them, “I AM, is here.” The same name God used with Moses and the deep meaning contained in that name. All of those are great and if we had 6 weeks I’d do a sermon on each aspect. But for where we are as a ministry, I wanted to focus on Peter. I want to focus on what it was that pushed Him out of the boat and then why it was that he nearly drowned. I love the passion and impulsiveness of Peter that we see over and over again in the gospels. Here in this passage, he teaches us the basics of faith. Not just, yes, I believe in God, faith, but jump out of the boat in a storm and try to walk on water faith.
There are three aspects to this kind of faith that we can see in this passage. The first:
I. Desire
Taking that leap of faith that allows God to accomplish the impossible in our lives, begins with Desire. Look at Peter’s reaction when he sees Christ. When he realizes that he’s in the boat and Jesus is out there, in the water, Peter’s desire, despite the obvious physical limitations, was to be with Jesus. He wanted to be out there with Christ, he wanted to be in His presence, to do what He was doing, to follow Him even into the impossible. Faith, that circumstance changing, life changing, seeing God move faith, begins with an intense desire to be with Jesus where He is.
Watching Alex and Becky this summer has brought back a lot of memories for me. I told Marsha this week that Alex is like a Ninja. I bet you didn’t know that! Ninjas are known for their ability to disappear, in movies someone is talking to a ninja and they turn for a moment and when they turn back, the ninja is gone. That describes Alex. As soon as his responsibilities are done, he disappears. This week, we finished worship team practice and I turned to say something to Gary and when I turned back, he had vanished. If I rush to the window quickly enough I can just catch his tail lights as his car speeds towards Becky’s house. Alex has a desire to be where Becky is. I remember those days. Now, I still have a great desire to be with my wife, to follow her and to be wherever she is, but it’s nothing compared to when we were dating. I didn’t care what we were doing, I didn’t care where we were going, as long as I was with her, if she called and said come over, I was on her doorstep before she hung up the phone. I watched her sew, I went to volleyball games, I even went to a ballet! If she was there, so was I.
That’s the desire we see in Peter. He’s tired, he’s physically run down, the waves are crashing, the wind is howling, he’s better off in the boat. But he doesn’t say to Christ, hurry up and get in here with me. He says, let me come to you! Call me out! I want to see what you can do! When we read the pages of Scripture and we see the amazing things that God did in those days, it’s hard to believe that He can still do that today. But the God that parted the Sea, the God that raised the dead, the God that walked on water is the same God today as He was then. He hasn’t changed! When you look at the amazing works of God in the lives of men, they all have one thing in common. They were all accomplished by Gods power displayed in the life of someone with faith!
Abraham left everything he knew and followed God because God called him to, Noah built a boat because God called him to, Moses stood before the most powerful man on the Earth and demanded the release of the Israelites and then walked them across a sea bed with water piled up on either side of them to the place God called him to go. The desire of these men and women throughout the pages of Scripture was to be where God was and they were willing to move to get there and when they did, God broke through and, because of their faith, accomplished amazing things. That’s the God we serve! A God with no limits. A God who longs to pour out His Spirit and lead His people in the direction that He has for them to go. God hasn’t changed, we have.
As a ministry, our desire has to be to join Christ where He is and to do what He is doing. Henry Blackaby wrote a book called “Experiencing God.” A major premise of this book is that God is always at work in the world and that we need to learn to recognize where it is that He’s working and be willing to join Him in that work.
John5:17 Jesus said to them, "My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.
God is constantly at His work. So remember this when you are wondering why God doesn’t seem to be moving, God has not stopped working among His creation. His power has not ceased. Seeing that power in our lives, begins with desire. When our desire is for Christ, we will be able to see those ways that He’s already working and our prayer will be, Lord, call me out to you. I want to be where you are. You don’t have to look far in this place to see the work of God. God is working in this ministry in the hearts of people. We are seeing Him draw people to Himself. Instead of standing back and saying isn’t that nice, but we want to concentrate on something else, this is the direction that we want to go. We should be leaping out of the boat and saying “God how can you use me in all of this. Call me to do something. How can I help to teach new believers, how can I help to encourage those who are hurting, who can I invite to be a part of this ministry. God’s working right here in this little church and if our desire is for Him, there is no limit to what He can do through us!
But we can’t be content to sit in the boat. We can’t expect and demand that God get in with us. So often, we want to grow and we want to experience God’s power in our life but we don’t want to have to step out to do it. We expect God to work around our schedule and to cater to our wants and needs. When we do feel Him asking us to step out in faith, we get frustrated because that wasn’t in our plans. Our desire is for comfort and stability in this life. Our desire is for God’s blessing, not for God. For us to step out in faith, our desires have to change. We need to have a desire for God, a desire for Christ and to be where He is and to do what He is doing. When that’s our desire, our limitations fade into His limitless ability. Peter would never have walked on water if he didn’t have a desire for Christ, to be where Christ was.
II. Action
Desire is where walk on water faith begins. But it must be accompanied by this next step, action. Peter called out to Christ. He desired to be with Him, he asked for Christ to call him and to command him and when he did, Peter got out and went. Against all logic, against all common sense, against every instinct in his body, Peter stepped out onto the water.
There is one Truth that is constant when God calls His people to step out in faith, you will always have to make adjustments in your life. Priorities are changed, career paths are altered, our plans and ideas are subject to change when Christ calls us to follow Him. Those things that we think are limitations, those things that we look at as hurdles, they are removed and we are able to accomplish incredible things for the Kingdom of God. There are many people who begin with that desire for Christ and to do what He is doing and they ask for God to call them and when that command comes and they are asked to get out of the boat, they can’t follow through with action. They aren’t willing to make the adjustments in their life that following God would require. The desire to serve God is meaningless if you don’t follow when He calls. Without action, the desire is worthless.
I have a desire in my life. I desire to lose some weight. I want to be skinny again. I want you to see something. This is the man that Erin fell in love with. Apart from the goofy haircut, I tried to even my sideburns and ended up cutting them half way up my head, this is a good looking guy. Then, I stopped playing soccer. Then, I kept eating my wife’s cooking. Then I became a youth pastor and had enough Mt. Dew and pizza in six years to feed a third world country. And all of the sudden I wake up and I’m 60 pounds heavier than when I got married. I don’t want to go back to there, but I do have a desire to lose some of the extra pounds. That desire led me to buy some exercise equipment. I want you to see my exercise equipment.
The desire to lose weight has not translated into action in my life and is basically worthless. I’ve found that my couch is too comfortable, my office is too comfortable, ice cream tastes too good, I have plenty of excuses and no results because those excuses keep me from acting on my desire.
Jesus said come and Peter did. His desire led to his action. Look at all of the reasons not to get out of the boat! The weather, the waves, the water, but Christ called.
In our lives, we have all sorts of reasons not to get out of the boat.
The task seems impossible
The task is scary
We are comfortable where we are
We need to recognize the excuses that we have in our own lives. We need to recognize those areas where we have become too comfortable and it’s causing us to sit back when we should be moving forward.
Desire is just not enough. But when we start with desire and we follow it with actions, that’s when God can accomplish the impossible through us. If we are going to have the faith that’s found in the pages of the Bible, the call of God, the command of God needs to be enough to get us excited and to push us out of the boat and into the water with Jesus. If we understand the ways that God wants to use us and to work through us and we’re asking Him to call us and listening for His voice, then we’re going to be ready to act when that call comes and God will use us. That is an amazing thought. That God could include you and me in His master plan for this world. Amazing, but true. God has always worked through the faith of those who desire to be with Him and are willing to follow, to act on their faith.
We have some opportunities coming up to step out, to act in this ministry. I sent out a letter Friday afternoon, most of you will get it on Monday, but in it I wrote about some of those areas that we are going to be moving out in faith together. One of those areas is financially. There is a gym that we need to pay off, there are updates to this building that will need to be done. We are not in a financial position to do all that needs to be done but I’ve seen God provide when a congregation moves forward in faith. Another area is in staffing. We are going to be looking at adding staff in the near future. Again, this would cause us to step out in faith. But if our desire is to be where Christ is moving and we can see Him moving in the lives of our people and in the new people that He’s bringing in, then we need to take some action towards building ministries with in this church that will allow us to continue to reach out and also to effectively teach and disciple those people that God is entrusting to us. To do this right, we’re going to need some help. These are going to be exciting months ahead. These are also going to be times of some uncertainty, this is true any time you step out in faith. If it were simple and easy, it wouldn’t require faith. I believe that God is calling us forward as a ministry, I pray that you begin to sense that and to hear that call as well. But we can’t just want to follow, we’ve got to take some action and move ahead, trusting that when we step out on that water, the One who called us there will help us to stand.
Now you know that that wasn’t the case with Peter. Peter had the desire, he took the action, but he almost drowned. He lacked the final ingredient.
III. Focus
This is the only negative example that Peter gives us. He had the faith to jump out of the boat but when he joined Christ where He was, he realized that he should not be able to do what he was doing. His focus on the supernatural was lost and instead he focused on the way things normally are. People don’t walk on water and the faith that propelled him out of the boat was swallowed up by doubt and fear when he noticed the waves and the wind and the circumstances that he found himself in.
We need to understand that when we jump out onto the water, there are going to be many things that try and turn our attention away from Jesus. When God is working in the supernatural, it’s going to defy what we think can happen and if we lose our focus, if we take our eyes off of Him, we will begin to go under. If Christ has called us, then we need to fix our eyes upon Him and not turn to the right or the left and be distracted by things that do not matter because what God has called us to He will accomplish through us, by faith. And faith says, I don’t care what things looks like, I don’t care what could happen, I am trusting only in my God, my desire is for Him, my actions are at His command and He is responsible to bring me through. If you want this kind of faith you must have this kind of focus. Like Peter, too many of us take the initial step and then we bail out at the first hint of trouble. We lose our focus and get distracted by things around us.
I remember when my niece was about 6 months old. I was holding her up in front of me and talking to her, trying to get her attention. She would not look at me. She was looking all around at all of the other things going on around us and no matter how hard I tried, I could not get her to focus on me. She was too distracted.
That describes a lot of Christians when God is trying to get their attention and calling them to join Him. They can’t stop looking at all of the distractions, all of the what-if’s and their eyes never lock onto Jesus. When we’re called to action in faith, we need to be able to tune out all of the other things and focus only on Him, trusting Him to lead and guide us along the way. But if we do lose focus and we begin to go under, we need to understand that Jesus doesn’t turn from us in disgust or give up on us and leave us to suffer the consequences of being distracted. He didn’t let Peter drown because it served him right for taking his eyes off of Him. The passage says that immediately, Jesus reached out and caught him and helped him back into the boat. When we lose our focus and we allow other things to distract us and keep us from joining what Christ is doing, we may miss out on what Christ wanted to do in and through us, we may miss out on the way that Christ wanted to display His power through us, we may miss out on the supernatural but Jesus is still there and He will pick us up and put us back in to the boat until we’re ready to try to walk on the water again. He doesn’t give up on us. And as we learn to focus on Christ, our faith will begin to deepen as we see what God can do through us.
Focus is essential because when God calls us to act in faith, we can expect opposition and uncertainty to arise, like the waves that surrounded Peter. If Noah had let the doubters and mockers distract him, we would not have had the ark. Listen to what Hebrews says about Abraham’s faith.
HEB 11:8 By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.
If Abraham had demanded to know where God was taking him or if he had turned and went back home where he was comfortable, we would not have had the nation of Israel ad the line that Jesus was born into. If Moses had given up the first time Pharaoh said no we would never have had the exodus. If he had listened to the complaints of the people and surrendered when the Egyptian army was advancing and his back was to the sea, there would not have been the parting of the waters. If Joshua had followed common sense that said that walls like Jericho’s simply do not fall down on their own. Or if he had felt silly marching around those walls as the people of the city made fun of his army and he had just quit, the walls of Jericho would have stood and the battle would have been lost and ultimately the Promised Land would never have been theirs.
Do you see the pattern here? These men had a burning desire to be where God was, they were willing to act and to move when they heard God call, and they were able to ignore distractions, no matter how crazy God’s instructions seemed, no matter what logic told them, no matter who made fun of them and questioned their actions, and they focused on God alone. Because of that, amazing things happened. I believe that we will see this power again, God is not done and God has not changed. What we need is men and women who are willing to step out in faith like the great men and women of old. Peter could have stood on the water that morning if he had only kept His focus where it belonged.
Desire, Action, and Focus, those are the ingredients to life changing faith. The kind of faith that God can use to partseas and moves mountains. The faith that sees God bend the limits of nature and make the impossible a reality. It’s miraculous faith, and it will frighten most of us because of what it requires. This kind of faith does not sit and wait for God to come to where we are and expect Him to work with in our expectations. It begs Him to call us out, it launches us out of the boat, and it allows us to focus on Him with the realization that impossible no longer exists. We need to jump, even when we can’t see the ground below us.
One of Ethan’s favorite zoo animals is the Impala. The impala was created to jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 30 feet. Yet, you can walk in to any zoo and see these amazing animals kept in an enclosure with only a 3-foot wall that keeps them from seeing the ground on the other side. The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall and so they are easily contained. The church has been contained for far too long. We aren’t having the far reaching impact and allowing God to fully use us because we’re afraid to jump when we can’t see where we’ll land!
If we want to see God break through in amazing ways in our lives and in this ministry, it will only come through faith. This is not some pipe dream or impossible goal. Jesus tells us that we can have this kind of faith. He says that if we believe we can have that mountain moving faith. That’s His promise. But to see those mountains move we need to trust God enough to get out of the boat when He calls and to keep our eyes on Him until He has accomplished what He wants to through us.
What’s keeping you from taking that step? Is it fear? Is it comfort? Is it doubt? Is it worry over what others will think? Ask God to reveal what it is that’s holding you back and then turn away from it and focus on Him. And get ready to experience life and faith like never before.
