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I speak in the name of one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.

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I forgot to tell the AV crew that I would not be in the pulpit,

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so I'll give Ryan a second to find me here.

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Good morning. Welcome. So glad to be with you all here on Rally Day.

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We're going to do something a little different during

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the sermon and you'll find out why in a second.

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But before, a brief reflection on today's passage from Matthew,

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one of the more familiar lessons that we read.

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It appears in all four gospels,

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at least some version of this story.

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Matthew, however, is the only one that talks about Peter walking on the water,

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who's the linchpin of today's message.

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I think sometimes we get caught up in trying to understand

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the literal meaning of this passage that we lose sight of the deeper,

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the deeper theological implications here.

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So if we can get past the literal and just take it by faith that Jesus walked on the water,

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we can start to dig deeper and look at the allegorical implications here.

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So we might look at it like we might look at a parable.

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So the water for the Judeo-Christians represented chaos,

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it represented evil, it represented the unknown.

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Jesus represents God and God is sovereign even over the chaos,

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even over the unknown.

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There is nothing outside of God's control.

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So Jesus walking on water personifies this truth.

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Then you have the boat that the disciples in and you might think of the boat

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as their way of protecting themselves from the storm,

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as their way of keeping evil in chaos at bay.

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It's sort of their man-made effort.

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And then finally you have the wind.

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Think of the wind as all the distractions that we have in this life,

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those things that take our gaze off of God.

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So sort of think about it in that way.

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So here we have Peter in this boat, this relatively safe boat.

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And for some reason, he wants to go to Jesus.

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He wants to get out of the boat, go into this storm, walk on water and go to Jesus.

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At first he's really excited about it.

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Peter is sort of known to be impulsive.

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I can relate to Peter.

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It's probably an Enneagram 7.

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He just gets out without thinking.

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And then all of a sudden the wind comes up, he doesn't know what to do.

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And this is the moment we hear the word doubt in this lesson.

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I think Peter is actually doubting himself.

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And the minute he starts to doubt himself is when he finds the faith to say,

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Lord, save me.

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The minute he starts to doubt his ability,

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he can finally find the faith to say, Lord, save me.

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That's that mustard seed of faith.

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And that's sort of the ultimate proclamation of our faith.

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Lord, save me.

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I can't do it all by myself.

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He needs to experience his human limitation.

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Peter's a pretty confident guy.

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He needs to be humbled.

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And when he is humbled, he finds the faith to reach out for Jesus.

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Peter's walking on water, his attempt to walk on water,

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is sort of representative of our human tendency

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to think that we can get to God.

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We heard that in Romans.

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Like, let's just go down to the abyss and pull Christ up.

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Or let's go up to heaven and pull Christ down.

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But Paul's actually saying, well, God's actually already here.

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He's on your lips.

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And that's the whole Christian story is that God has found his way to us.

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God keeps on finding a way to us despite our inability to find our way to God.

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And that is the good news of Jesus, that God has found a permanent way to us in Jesus.

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And that is what we celebrate each and every Sunday.

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So I want you to think about, for a minute, the boats that you've

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created in your life through your peer groups, through your homes,

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through your jobs, through, what else did I say, your leisure activities.

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All of these sort of represent the man-made or human-made boat

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that you've built to sort of keep your head above water in this chaotic world.

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Think about those boats.

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Some of them are more stable than others, but we all have them to some degree.

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We all depend on them to some degree.

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But even if you have the nicest boat in town,

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that can't completely save you from the evil and the chaos

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and the winds of this world.

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They're all going to distract you from God.

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And I also want you to think about that image of Jesus getting into the boat.

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He's not there to pull him out, to take him out.

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Jesus is getting in our boat with us.

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Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.

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Jesus is coming to us again.

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He's coming to save us.

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He's coming to get into our lives and to calm the storms.

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His presence in our lives is calming the storms that are raging around us.

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And so the church is here to help you to invite Jesus into your boat,

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quite literally, to put you into a relationship with Jesus,

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to find that peace that passes all understanding.

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When the world around you is swirling, at least you

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can find peace in that vessel that will not drown,

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in that vessel that will not be deterred by the winds and chaos of this world.

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And so we believe that that relationship with Jesus

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is something that doesn't just happen on a personal level,

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but it happens in community.

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And that's what we're doing here, is inviting you

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into community with each other.

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We are formed in wonder, love, and praise.

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We're not simply spectators, but we are active participants

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in the body of Christ, in that vessel that is saving us

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and the world from the winds of change and chaos.

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And so I want to invite you to join me in this conversation