DON’T BE AFRAID. JESUS WALKS WITH YOU
Matthew 14:22-33
Pastor Jeremy Mattek – August 27, 2017
I’m going to show you some pictures, and I want you to tell me what you see. You can see the pictures here:
These pictures are all made to emphasize that it’s not always easy for everyone to see the same thing. Sometimes two people look at the exact same picture and see something entirely different.
I’m going to show you some other pictures, and then I’m going to ask you a question about what you see. [Pictures: Virginia protests, a crime scene, members of the KKK, divorce papers, intensive care unit]. My question for you is this: How many of you looked at these pictures and saw reasons to be optimistic? I’m guessing there weren’t too many. There are some scenes in life in which not many see a reason to keep moving, to keep going forward, to still believe that good things are coming. And yet we can.
Pictures of Hurricane Harvey have been on the news recently. This is the big storm barreling down on Texas. Residents were ordered to evacuate because it’s just not safe to stay and wait it out. And that’s wise advice. But I also want to point out that those conditions in Texas are very similar to the conditions surrounding one of the more amazing moments on the pages of the bible – the account of Jesus and Peter walking on water; a section of Scripture that allows us to look at the worst storms this world can bring, and even the worst parts of our own existence, and see reasons to be optimistic and move forward again.
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. 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. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
Like he did last week as we read Matthew’s account of the feeding of the 5000, Matthew uses some very descriptive words to set the scene for this miracle. Firstly, Matthew says that their boat was “buffeted” by the waves. We don’t use that word “buffeted” very often. It literally means “torture.” The book of Revelation uses this same word to describe the work that Satan is carrying out in this world right now. He is torturing our world, not killing it, but making it suffer. That’s what was happening to their boat. Matthew also says that “the wind was against it.” Literally, he says that the wind was their enemy. The Apostle Paul uses that same word in Acts 26 when he described what he was trying to do to the name of Jesus before he became a Christian. He was trying to annihilate and obliterate it completely. That’s what the wind was doing against their boat. Punch after punch after punch after punch – with no mercy. Matthew also says that, when Jesus came out to them, they were “a considerable distance from the land,” despite the fact that it was “the fourth watch of the night.” The fourth watch of the night was from 3am to 6am. And if they got into the boat and started rowing “immediately” after the dinner of the 5000 was done, that means they’d been fighting this storm for maybe 12 hours. And they were no closer to shore. They were tired. They didn’t know for how much longer they could keep going.
And if I were to ask you to identify a situation in your life that seems to be similar in one or many of these same ways, do you think you would have a difficult time doing that? Do you ever feel that you, your family, our city, or our country is being tortured by something? Tortured by trouble, by hate, or by the work of Satan? Can you identify anything in this world that is fighting against you? A sickness, a relationship, or a situation that seems to find great joy in punching your heart over and over again and again? Do you ever feel tired, because you’ve been rowing against these same waves and winds for longer than you’ve ever imagined, and you look for the shore and it looks like you’re not any closer than when you started?
Yeah. But then Jesus came walking all over the same things that were bringing these disciples so much trouble. Those waves were nothing for him. And the point of this text is that we have a Jesus who can walk all over the storms of our life, and we should be quick to look to Jesus in our storms because he will calm those storms and get us out of it! Right? Well … no. That’s not the point of this text. And do you know why we know that’s not the point of this text. Because Jesus didn’t calm the storm for the disciples until the very end. He told them to take courage and not be afraid … while the storm was still going.
It’s not a bad prayer to ask Jesus to take away whatever it is in your life that is especially troubling. Scripture is full of examples of people doing the same thing – and often, Jesus responds by doing what they ask him. He heals the sick, gives sight to the blind, and gives cripples the ability to walk again.
But if you’re waiting to feel confident in your life, waiting to feel joyful and optimistic, until the storm passes and you see nothing in this world or in your life that is troubling, do you know what you’re really hoping for? You’re hoping that you don’t need to live by faith. Faith is being certain of what we do not see. It is being confident and not afraid even when the evidence in front of our eyes is telling us the opposite. And Jesus knows how often we see the opposite. Didn’t he promise that our lives on earth would be full of trouble? And because he knew the lives and ministries of these disciples would be nothing but troubling, he knew they would need to know how to do something very important. He walked out to the disciples on the water because he wanted to teach them how to be drowning in the worst storms of life and have confidence right in the middle of it. He wanted to teach them how to get a stronger faith. And we find the secret right here in this section.
We see it in Peter. When Peter stepped out of the boat – while the storm was still going – we see him taking a step of faith. And notice how he got it. He stepped out of the boat immediately after Jesus spoke. In verse 27, Jesus spoke a three-part message: Take courage. It is I. Don’t be afraid. And with a specific invitation from Jesus to walk on the water in verse 28, Peter felt courageous enough to walk toward him in verse 29. His incredible faith came from hearing the message.
And that’s exactly what God promises will happen in the book of Ephesians. “Faith comes from hearing the message,” which means that, in your times of trouble, when you’re tired or exhausted or broken, ignoring off the Word or ignoring your Christian friends or not going to church is about the worst thing you could possibly do in the moment. If you want faith to get through the storms, you need to spend time hearing the message. Because how often in the Word does Jesus say these same things to me and you?
“Take courage,” he told Joshua, as Joshua was taking over for Moses. “Be strong and courageous.” Why? “Because the Lord is well aware of the challenges you’re going to be facing. He knows that Jericho has a big wall around it. But who is it that goes with you? “It is I,” Jesus says. I think our Lord is alluding to what he said at the burning bush when Moses was scared and timid and full of questions as God commanded him to leave his comfortable life and lead Israel out of Egypt, and Moses asked the burning bush who exactly is this God who is sending me into this troubling situation? “Tell them I AM has sent you to them.” It is I. I AM the God who can burn in a bush without it burning up. I AM the God who can set my people free. I AM the God who can divide the waters of the Red Sea. And didn’t this same Jesus say that “Surely I AM with you always”? So “Do not be afraid,” the angel said to Mary and Zechariah when they got news they weren’t expecting. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus said to Jairus, after they received word that his precious little daughter was dead. “Do not be afraid,” Jesus said to his disciples at the end of his famous “Do not worry” section, because “your Father is pleased to give you his entire kingdom. “Take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid.” And yet, eventually, Peter was, wasn’t he?
And I want you to think about how he felt when he was back in the boat again, after he had taken a monumental step of faith, after he did something amazing no one was expecting, and yet was soaking wet because he had fallen. I think he maybe felt like an alcoholic does after he goes three months without a drink, but then catches a whiff of alcohol at the neighbor’s kid’s birthday party and bottoms out disastrously. Or maybe like someone who swears up and down that they will never again hurt their spouse or snap at their kids at the end of a long, exhausting day, but they do. Or someone who promises they will never again miss church, they will never again miss even one day of reading their bible, and promises they will thank God more often than they’ll ask him for things, only to realize that some bad habits aren’t easily broken. Or like someone who promises they’ll never give into that temptation, they’ll never cross that line, they’ll never lie or let their anger grab such strong control or they’ll never use the computer for sinful pleasure ever again, but they do, and usually without even fighting. Or like someone who vowed to never forget how they let that person down, to never forget the pain they caused, to never forget that person’s warning – “Please don’t do this to anyone else ever again” … but then they did; quite a few times, with many different people, in rapid succession.
I think Peter, soaking wet on the bottom of that boat felt like you and I do so often in the middle of all of our own winds and waves – embarrassed, ashamed, questioning the size of our faith and sometimes, even the presence of it. Notice Peter had nothing to say when Jesus asked him, “Why did you doubt?” But we know the answer. It’s because we also are people of little faith. The winds and the waves get the best of us so often.
Like they did for Zak and Alicia. They live in Pennsylvania, and they’re expecting their third child. The first two pregnancies didn’t go very smoothly. Their daughter was born with pre-axial polydactyl, which means she has two thumbs on one hand. Their son was born with a cleft lip and palate. So as they went into the office for their first sonogram, they weren’t exactly full of courage. They were afraid of what the sonogram was going to show them. But after the doctor hooked Alicia up to the machine, and after they looked at the computer screen, Zak looked at Alicia and said, “We have nothing to worry about, baby.” And the reason he said that was because he saw something on the sonogram that not every parent does. He saw what looked like a man wearing a crown of thorns right there in the womb looking at their little one. He saw Jesus. They felt safe.
And Peter could too. As he sat in the boat, soaking wet because he had fallen in, feeling embarrassed and ashamed, he also had the right to feel safe. Because that’s what he was. He was safe. And not because he had such strong and amazing faith. Not because he was so good at being courageous through all the winds and waves. Not because he excelled at not being afraid. No. He was safe for only one reason. Because Jesus came. Jesus was there. Jesus saw how Peter was struggling, and he caught him.
Just like he caught us when he was in a storm far more dangerous than the one the disciples saw that evening. A storm in which it wasn’t just wind and waves that were tormenting him, and not just nails and thorns either, but all the times we have sinned and struggled in our faith weighing down his heart because he chose to walk into that storm and carry that burden, so that his Father would torture him with a hell he didn’t deserve, while we get to walk through life knowing that, no matter how strong and amazing our faith isn’t, no matter how afraid we ever are, no matter how often the wind and the waves have overwhelmed our faith, we are forgiven. God is not embarrassed or ashamed to call us his children. And we have the right to feel saved. Just like Peter was that day.
And Jesus didn’t have to reach out his hand and grab him to save him. He could have just snapped his fingers or commanded a wave to toss him into the boat. But he wanted Peter to feel his touch. The personal touch of a Jesus who will always be there to love and catch us. And I want to point out that this is what Jesus does when you receive Holy Communion. This is his body. This is his blood. And it touches you. This is where Jesus touches you with his forgiveness, with strength to get out of the boat and do everything he has commanded, and with his promise of something beautiful to look forward to.
In verse 32, when it says “the wind died down,” literally he says, “The wind wearied.” It fought and fought and fought against Jesus, but like a boxer that’s going up against a superior opponent, eventually, the only thing you can do is give up because you don’t have the energy to keep going. And one day, your storms will also become too weary to keep going. It’s the day Jesus won for you in the storm on Calvary. It’s the day you will finally reach your heavenly shore where there is no death or trouble or pain, the one that sometimes looks so far away, but the one you can always and only see whenever you open the Word and look to Jesus in faith. God grant us all the grace and the strength to live by that faith every day.
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