Walking on Water

Introduction

We’ve all got something. Unless you’re that one strange individual who’s so brave or maybe not smart enough to be afraid of stuff. We’re all afraid of something. Spiders and snakes.

For some, it’s what I’m doing now.

By a show of hands, who’s afraid of water? I’m afraid about that. I didn’t see your hands, I’m sorry. By show of hands, who’s afraid of water? There’s some who are afraid of water. Let me tell you a story, a true story, about a man who was afraid of water. Several years ago, when I was preaching and working in the Birmingham area, thank you, John. There was a man who came to me. We studied for a while, and he thankfully expressed a desire to be baptized. And when we got ready doing the normal kind of prep things, I was putting the waiters on, and he was changing into some clothes that he could get wet. He he stopped me and he says, I’ve got a confession that I need to make.

And I was thinking, wait a minute, we already did the confession part, but I don’t think I forgot that. But then he says, I’m afraid of the water. And I said, Okay. He says, No, you don’t understand. I am afraid of water. And I looked at him, and the color had left his face, and he was literally trembling. And he says, I want to be baptized. I know I need to be baptized for the forgiveness of my sins. But I’m going to fight you. And he was taller than I am by quite a bit. And he had a bad leg that had difficulty bending it. And so he says, I’m just giving you a heads up that my instincts are going to take over, and I’m going to try to fight you.

He said, but I want to be baptized. And I said, okay.

And he wasn’t lying. He fought back. He grabbed my shoulders and then the top of my head. As I tried to force this again, man who was quite a bit taller than me under the water. And I had been taught that in order to be baptized, I had to get all of him under. You know, I just didn’t want to wash away half his sins. I wanted all of them gone. And so I ended up by the end of it. His instincts of fear of water took over. My old high school football day instincts took over, and I just tackled him. And we were both baptized that day. Because he was that afraid of water. I want to talk to you about water this morning.

It’s in the book of Genesis and the creation. The children of Israel seemed to be often around or needing and miraculously receiving water. Even in the New Testament, our Lord and his disciples seem to be often around water. Some of those disciples were fishermen, and Jesus is oftentimes close to and associated with water. Jeremiah read from you this morning in John chapter 6 of the story of Jesus walking on water. I want to take you to Matthew’s account. So would you join me in Matthew chapter 14? And let’s talk about the story of Jesus walking on the water. And I want us to try to draw some lessons. I think there’s many powerful and profound spiritual lessons that we can gain from this story. Again, Jeremiah read you the text, and so let’s just reacquaint ourselves by remembering the story.

Jesus had just fed the five thousand, miraculously fed the five thousand, and they, not surprisingly, they came back for more. And as John text tells us, they actually came back to make him king by force. Take him and make him king. If he can feed us, we want him as our ruler, they thought.

The Sea of Galilee is about seven miles this way and about three or four miles this way. And so from John’s rendering, they’re in it really kind of in the middle of the sea when the storm blows up. And they’re afraid.

That he was walking on the water. In the dark, in the storm, the disciples see his visage and they’re shocked and scared. They think it’s the ghost, one translation says, your translation may say it was a spirit. To them, in their minds, the same as ours, it can’t be a physical person, it can’t be that flesh and blood we just commemorated, because flesh and blood can’t walk on water. And so it had to be some kind of ghost or the spirit of someone. And Jesus calms their fears by saying, It’s I and the storm is calm. And almost miraculously, maybe miraculously, they’re at their destination. Safe. But before they reach that destination, we’re not surprised that Mr. Impetuous Peter says, Can I come out to you?

And Jesus invites him to walk on water. He was going to be one of those apostles who would be performing the same signs that Jesus performed. And so Peter steps out of the boat to walk on water, but Peter got distracted. He saw the waves and the storm and maybe took his eyes off Jesus and he began to sink. And Jesus had to save him before he saved the entire boat.

1. The Nature of the Kingdom

Other than the obvious that Jesus is a miracle worker, he did something divinely that no flesh and blood again could do, and that is walk on water. But what are some lessons that we can learn? I think there’s a lot of lessons, and we’re going to there’s there’s so many, we’re gonna have to go through these kind of quickly, but some of the lessons, first of all, we see the nature of the kingdom. Remember again, John’s record tells us that what prompted Jesus, one of the things at least that prompted Jesus to go up into the mountain, is that the people were trying to take him by force and make him a king. Well, at first glance, we might say, well, what’s wrong with that? He would tell Pilate that was his cause.

That’s why I came into the world, Pilate, is to be a king and to set up the kingdom. So why not now? Well, we recognize that they wanted a different king and a different kingdom. They wanted a king who could fill their stomachs. Remember, he had just fed the 5,000. That’s why they wanted to make him king. He can fill our stomachs, he can meet our needs, he can be that type of king. And Jesus had to flee from them because that wasn’t the type of king that he came to be.

2. The Need of Prayer

He didn’t come to take care of us physically. He came to take care of us spiritually. And so in this story, we see the nature of the kingdom. We also see the need of prayer. Jesus was not in the boat with those disciples because he, the text tells us, he had gone up into the mountain to be alone, to pray. That doesn’t surprise us, does it? Jesus was a man of prayer. We find him often praying to his father. He would arise early in the morning to pray. He would pray deep into the night. He would pray short prayers. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Or he would pray prayers that would take all night long to express.

He prayed before he chose the twelve apostles. He prayed at difficult junctures in his life. He prayed in the garden before the mob would come and take him away to crucify him.

As Christians, sometimes we talk about the need for prayer, and we talk about making prayer a regular routine in our lives. And that’s good, and that’s right. It needs to be a root, and I don’t mean routine in the negative sense that we don’t, we’re just going through the motions, but it needs to be something that we do regularly. And while that is absolutely the case, and I don’t diminish the importance of that role of prayer in our lives, I also want to emphasize the special role of prayer in our lives, that when we’re going through difficult times, when we don’t have anywhere else to turn, we go to the mountain to be alone and pray. Let’s set the whole scene of Jesus walking on the water and the prayer that preceded it.

If we take all of the gospel accounts together and string these series of events, we can understand why Jesus needed to be alone and pray. Just prior to this, Jesus had received news that John the Baptist had been murdered. His cousin, his fellow worker in crying out, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Had been murdered, and he just received that news. And the text says after he received that news, he went away to be alone to pray. But he couldn’t because the mobs followed him. And he had compassion on them, and he healed their diseases. And then it came up that these people are hungry and they need some food. And so Jesus took the little bit of scraps of fish and bread from that little boy and multiplied it, and they ate and filled their stomachs, and they gathered up 12 baskets of leftovers of all of that.

And then they came and they were trying to make him a king. And it must have frustrated him that they didn’t understand the nature of his kingdom and what he’d really come here to do. And so finally, after hearing that his cousin John the Baptist had been murdered and being mobbed by the people, and they’re trying to make him a king, he tries again to get away and pray. Can you sense the weight that was on his shoulder, the burden, the tears that were welling up in his eyes, and he needed to speak to his father. Can you relate? And so, yes, the first thing you do in the morning, say a prayer. And before your meal, bow your head, say grace. Before you go to bed at night, say your evening prayers.

But when life gets so heavy that grief overtakes you, and people just frustrate you to no end, and you just want to choke them. Pray. Unleash the burdens and go to God and be alone and pray. And here’s in our day a novel concept.

3. A Picture of Life Today

It’s okay to turn off your notifications. Silence your phone. And be uninterrupted in your conversation with your Father. And so we see the need for prayer at again, those critical junctures in our life. The third thing we see is, I think, a picture of life today. Jesus is in the mountain, and the disciples are in the storm. That’s kind of life today, isn’t it? Our Lord is in heaven. And we’re in the boat. And the storms are raging. And if you’re not careful, you might think, well, yes, that’s God. He’s just detached and he’s separated. He’s up there on that mountain. He’s not experiencing what we experience. And he’s some kind of distant creator. And he doesn’t care. He’s not involved. But that’s not the lesson of the story at all, is it?

He was in the mountain while they were battling the storms, but never forget that he came down out of that mountain and he took those who were his and safely carried them through to the other side. And that’s the Lord we still serve today. In Hebrews chapter 7, we looked in our Lord’s Supper meditation a lot at Hebrews and the fact that he partook of flesh and blood. I’m going to Hebrews 7. And by partaking of that flesh and blood, he was able to sympathize with us. But recognize that that didn’t end when he ascended back to his father. When he’s back on the mountain, he doesn’t care any less about our storms and our troubles. Because notice what the Hebrew writer says, Hebrews 7, verse 25.

Therefore, speaking of that Lord, therefore he is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.

4. Our Need to Overcome Fear

Now, if we’re not careful, we hear that word intercession and we think prayer. And it’s sometimes attached to prayer. But in this context, it’s not saying that Jesus is interceding in our prayer life. That seems to be the role of the Holy Spirit. But what he’s saying is that he’s making intercession for us, that he is pleading our case for us, having partaken of flesh and blood, having experienced what we experience. He is there standing before the Father, saying, Let’s help them. He’s pleading. He’s interceding on our behalf. While we’re battling the storms, he’s ready to come and get in the boat with us and take us safely to the other side. I think another lesson from this story is our need to overcome fear. Here was Jesus, descending from the mountain, coming to help them through that storm, to calm the storm, and to bring that boat safely to the other side.

But what was the disciples’ first reaction? They’re afraid.

Something’s out there in that water, as if the storm is not bad enough. Some mysterious being is coming through, not to help us, but probably to sink us. And so they’re afraid of their Lord initially. Can you relate to that? Maybe you’re going through a storm in life. You’re feeling that weight and that burden and that frustration that maybe our Lord felt that led him to go to the mountain to pray. Or you’re feeling out of control and fearful and troubled as those disciples were in the middle of the Sea of Galilee. And you think, I know as a Christian, I ought to go to God. But are you afraid of him? Because he won’t understand. Or I’m not worthy. What about thinking of death and the judgment day?

It’s your first thought, fear. I don’t want to stand before that holy God in judgment. Because he knows what I’ve done. He knows who I am. Our Lord coming to those disciples. I’m turning to Romans chapter 5. Our Lord coming to those disciples in their difficult storm of life. Our Lord coming to them, although they were initially afraid of him and comforting them and saving them. I think is a prototype of the way we need to see our Lord today.

If when we were his enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Can we paraphrase the thoughts of Romans 5, verse 10? If when you were his enemy, God was willing to send his only begotten Son to suffer, bleed, and die for his enemy, then there’s no way to measure what he’s willing to do now that you’re his child. And that’s the God we serve. And that’s a God that if you’re his child, you shouldn’t be afraid of. Now we still have the fear, the biblical fear, but we, as the Hebrew writer again says, we come to him with boldness, approaching his throne of grace. That’s why we can come to boldness.

5. Sometimes We Need to Get Out of the Boat

Normally you never come approaching a throne with boldness, but when it’s a throne of grace, then I can come without being afraid. Another lesson that we learn from Peter in this story is that sometimes we need to get out of the boat. Now, when we study the story of walking on the water, we usually think of two different people, the two people mentioned by name in the story, and two different lessons. We look at the miracle of Jesus walking on water, and we look at Peter’s sinking. In fact, I’ve got a lesson of Peter sinking in the water and all the reasons that he sank and how we can learn the negative lessons from Peter in that regard. And we’re easy to be critical of Peter.

He’s kind of easy to pick on. He speaks before he thinks sometimes.

And there’s some criticism to be had there. Jesus will say, Oh, yeah of little faith. But isn’t there some level in which Peter needs a pat on the back? Because he was the only one willing to get out of the boat. He began to sink because he had little faith. But can we say that the other disciples had even less faith? Because they never even got up off their seats. And so Peter had some courage.

He was a fisherman. He was around it all the time, but but maybe his familiarity with water and as a fisherman gave him that healthy respect, certainly of a storm. And so it wouldn’t have been easy to sit on the edge of that boat and to swing your legs over and to step off in the middle of a storm. And I think there’s a lesson there.

Sometimes, even when we’re afraid and we’re unsure and we don’t know where this is going to lead. Sometimes we need to step out of the boat and act with courage and act with faith. Look what John says in John chapter 14, or actually Jesus will say in John chapter 14. This is his farewell speech to his apostles.

And they’re going to have to step out of the boat. They’re going to have to walk by faith and not by sight. They’re going to have to have the courage that’s needed to go out into a world that’s going to, to a great extent, hate them and persecute them. And Jesus says this to them. John 14, verse 27. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give it to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let it be afraid.

6. Our Faith Must Grow

Bravery and a lack of fear. Peace be with you. I’m going to give you courage. They were going to need it, and we’re going to need it. And there may be some situation in your life right now to where that’s holding you back from growing spiritually and from doing something in the kingdom that you need to do. And all you, like Peter, can see is the storms and the darkness and the fear, and sometimes you just need to get out of the boat. And walk by faith and with some courage. But we do have to look at Peter’s sinking. And so the last lesson we see from this story of Jesus walking on the water is that our faith must grow. Peter does begin to sink because he took his eyes off of Jesus, and he the text tells us he saw the waves and the storms and all those other things that reinforce the fear rather than the courage that he initially had.

And Jesus says, Oh, yeah, little faith. I think what Jesus was saying is, Peter, sometime from now, you’re going to have to get out of the boat. And I’m not going to be here in the boat or in the water beside you. So your faith needs to grow, Peter. If you’re going to be that Peter of Acts chapter 2, if you’re going to be the Peter of 1 Peter and 2 Peter, writing those words of hope and comfort and courageousness, then you’re going to have to grow in your faith to get out of the boat. And our faith must grow. And it grows as Paul would tell the Colossian brethren in Colossians chapter 3 and in verse 2. Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth.

Peter began to sink when he took his eyes off of Jesus, the one that gave him hope and faith and courage. And if our faith is to grow, it’s going to grow when we set our mind on heaven. I don’t know what you’re afraid of.

Conclusion

The capacity to have the knowledge and the assurance that God is, if you’re his child, it’s not to be feared. And that standing before him in judgment is not to be feared, but to be longed for.

Trusting faith, would you get out of the boat and step out and walk not on water, but walk toward the water to be baptized this very morning for the forgiveness of your sins. We’re here and we’re ready to help. If you need to answer that gospel’s call, let it be known right now as together we stand.