Have you ever found yourself standing in a moment that would require great faith?
A moment that seems so impossible, you know one of two things.
Either God is calling you out, or you are just out of your mind.
I am excited to share this story with you today, as we talk about a moment in history
where the divine collided with the natural, and we take a well-known story.
Today we're going to talk about the story where Jesus walked on water, and it has been
told many times as a failure.
But today I want to jump in a little bit deeper and see what happens when great faith meets
overwhelming fear, and what it looks like to see beyond our human perspective, and think
in God's perspective, and what happens when we surrender and we walk out on the waves
and meet Jesus.
So I'm excited to share the next few minutes together as we talk here on the Live Out Loud
podcast, and we share the next, oh I don't know, 10 to 15 minutes together, and just talk
about Jesus.
And if you have any comments about our conversation here today, I would love to hear from you.
I would love to hear your thoughts on them, and an easy way for you to connect with me
is via Instagram.
I am on thespaceeliandaboys.co.
Head right on over and we can start conversations today about the things we talk about here,
or just about life.
I would love to connect with you that way.
So with that said, let's jump into our time together today.
A few years ago, I was getting ready to share an evening with a group of single moms.
I had been asked to speak at the gathering.
So I spent time gathering my thoughts and asking the Father what it was he wanted to
speak to our hearts that night.
As I was praying over this, he took me to Matthew 14.
And as I began diving into that chapter, it wasn't a new story to me, and it probably
isn't new to you.
It's the one where, like we said earlier, Jesus walks on water and when Peter tried
to walk on water as well.
But in the time I spent studying this, I realized it was so much more than I initially read.
And this story has stayed with me since I read it that day.
I have taken it to heart.
I dwell on it often.
I think about it.
And I want to pursue the lessons that I learned in this chapter.
So we're going to jump right in into Matthew 14, starting in verse 22.
And it's only a few verses.
It's not very long, but I wish they would have given us more details about what happened
in those encounters as the boat was floating on the water and the conversations that went
on and the thought processes or the light banter that went on between friends.
But we don't have a lot of detail.
So it does leave a lot to the imagination.
But we do have some detail in the story that I want to draw out today and talk about it.
And hopefully we can apply this to our daily life and to those moments where we are faced
with a big opportunity or a big moment in life and we have to choose to step into it
or hold back.
So let's jump into our story today in Matthew 14.
The story starts by Jesus and his disciples.
They have just finished a teaching moment.
Jesus had finished teaching to the crowds and he sent his disciples on ahead of him
because he wanted some alone time.
So he went up on the mountain and he prayed and spent time with his father while the disciples
went across the lake.
And some details we do know about the story is that the disciples in this small little
boat were up against the waves and the wind on the lake.
After that night Jesus wanted to go out and meet them.
He just walks on water because he is fully God.
So he starts walking on the water and the disciples see him coming towards the boat.
And of course naturally they were terrified and they were exclaiming that it was a ghost.
And this is where our story begins.
I'm going to read it from Matthew 14.
They said, It is a ghost.
They cried out in fear.
But Jesus immediately said to them, Take courage.
It is I.
Don't be afraid.
Verse 28.
Lord, if it's you, Peter replied, Tell me to come to you on the water.
Come, he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came towards Jesus.
I want you to pause right there.
And notice how Peter didn't say, Lord, if that's you, let me walk on water.
But instead he said, If that's you, call me out to you.
I have to wonder if Peter knew exactly what he was asking in that moment.
Peter could have asked for the miracle itself of being able to walk on water.
But instead he asked for the ability to trust Jesus in that moment.
I don't think he really knew what he was saying.
He probably saw Jesus, his best friend, coming towards him and got excited at the possibility
of walking on water.
Peter was always pushing the boundaries in a beautiful way and sometimes in a way that
got him into trouble.
And here he was pushing the boundaries again of wanting to walk on water.
But the way he worded it, Lord, if that's you, call me out to you.
How often in life do we focus on the finished product only?
We ask God for the ability to walk on water in the form of asking for, say, patience.
But God gives us opportunities to learn to lean on him.
Instead of just giving us patience, he gives us growth as we learn to lean on him.
When our humanity and inpatience get in the way, it gives us an opportunity to push our
selfish ways aside and learn patience towards others.
And that is exactly what Peter subconsciously asked for.
It was the process of getting to Jesus.
Jesus in that moment could have said, No, that's all right.
I'll come to the boat soon enough.
And he would have absolutely been able to say that because he knew the extent of Peter's
humanity and his doubt.
But Peter got so much more than what he asked for.
And Jesus called him out.
We take up the story in Matthew 14, verse 29.
Peter got down out of the boat, walked on water, and came towards Jesus.
I'm going to pause here again and talk about our beloved Peter.
He is so relatable in so many ways.
But in this moment, Peter made the decision to step out of the boat.
Peter was a fisherman by trade, so he grew up near the water.
He knew how the wind and the waves worked.
He knew the dangers and how quickly things could go from bad to worse.
He stepped out of the boat knowing he wanted to be closer to Jesus.
I'm sure he didn't know what to expect.
He'd never been on the waves himself, only in a boat.
But in that part of the story, where he steps out of the boat, he had a moment of great faith.
As he stepped over into the waves, I'm sure there was a moment of pride where he was showing
off for the rest of the disciples.
And probably excitement that he was doing something that only Jesus could do.
And soon after he had a moment where he realized that what he held his security in, what he
held his faith in, was suddenly gone.
The boat?
He was no longer in it, and that's what was keeping him above the waves.
In Matthew it says, But when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid, and began to sink, and
he cried out, Lord, save me.
Peter had a few moments of triumph over the waves.
He had a few moments of excitement and possibilities.
But he soon let fear overshadow his faith.
And in that moment of wavering trust, Peter began to sink.
We know how the story goes.
Peter cried out for his friend to save him, and Jesus did.
He reached down, and in that moment he grabbed Peter's hand and pulled him from the waves,
pulled him from the thing that was bringing him down.
He pulled him out of the place that was clouding his faith.
Jesus never once looked down on him and thought, Well, you should have had enough faith to walk
on water.
He met Peter in the exact way that he needed him.
It's in this moment where so many of us think that Peter failed, where his friends back
in the boat probably thought that Peter had failed, and Jesus even said, Ye of little
faith, why did you doubt?
We can see those words and think that that's a reprimand for the way Peter began to sink
in the waves.
But it is not.
It was just a statement of love towards Peter, of Peter trust in me.
A statement of love towards all of us, of God the Father saying, Put your trust in me.
I am bigger than the waves.
I will meet you exactly where you need me to be.
And as the story goes, we think Peter had a failed moment.
But in that brief second, when Jesus and Peter's hands met in the swell of the waves, they shared
an encounter that the rest of the disciples in the boat didn't share.
Yes, Jesus made it back to the boat with Peter, and he had an encounter with the rest of the
disciples, but Peter, who took a step of faith out of the security of the boat, and Peter,
who was taken over by anxious thoughts and putting his trust in the wrong place, and
was taken over by the waves, only then did he experience that beautiful exchange between
his weak and broken faith and the beautiful grace of the Savior.
We all have a story to tell.
It can read that we stayed comfortable in the boat, and that we had a spectator story,
much like the disciples who stayed back.
Our story could also tell of people who wanted to get out of the boat, but maybe we decided
to stay inside where it was safe.
It can also read that we wanted to get to all that Jesus had for us, and we took steps
of faith over and over again, even if it looked like failure to everyone else.
But in those moments of what looks like failure, we also have powerful encounters with Jesus.
The encounters we have with him there look completely different than the ones we have
in the security of life.
Much like the disciples in the boat, they had a very different story to tell than the
one Peter did.
They were all in the same moment, but their story looked different because of what they
chose to do.
When we choose to step into the more that God has put in front of us, it is a chance for
us to say, I fully trust that you are going to be right beside me.
I'm leaving my earthly security in the boat and stepping out into what all God has put
before me.
I want to encounter Jesus in a real way, in the places of life that are uncomfortable
and scary and overwhelming.
I want him to show up in the middle of my mess and see him pull me out and feel him lock
beside me.
I don't want to stay in the boat and wait for him to get to me.
I want to go and meet him.
We get to choose.
Do we want to step out of the boat and have a faith moment?
Or we can choose to stay inside of the boat and simply have a spectator's story.