It Isn’t Faith

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Matthew chapter 14 tonight. Matthew chapter 14. Appreciate you being here on a night such as this when you had to brave the weather.

And we’ll take a look at God’s word and try to make the effort worth your while. But we’re going to be in Matthew chapter 14 tonight. And over the last several Wednesday nights, as we’ve studied through the Sermon on the Mount, we’ve come up to the subject of worry and faith.

which has consequently made me think more and more about the subject. And I’ve come across one of my favorite stories from the Gospels, one of my favorite events from the life of Jesus, because we can learn so much about not only Jesus and his role in our life, but also we learn a lot about human nature. We learn a lot about what we’re like and about what Jesus expects from us.

It’s a story you’re probably all familiar with where Jesus has walked on water in this story, or that’s what takes place. And from this story, we learn really about, we get a deeper glimpse of the meaning of faith. And a lot of times we will think of faith as being something, well, I believe that this is true.

You know, there are certain things I believe that I give what we call mental ascent to. You know, I believe most days the sky is blue. I believe that.

Would I be willing to stake my life on it if somebody said, no, the sky is green? No, I wouldn’t because there have been days when the sky is green. It might be colorblind.

Right. I call it yellow when the way the atmosphere looks when you’re about to get a tornado. You know, I believe certain things about politics.

I believe them to be true. Would I stake my life on them? Some of them maybe, not necessarily.

would I risk eternity on them? Absolutely not. I believe the chair is going to hold me up when I sit in it and usually 99 times out of 100 I’ve been correct.

That’s faith when something is put on the line but a lot of times we confuse faith with agreement. I agree with this so I have faith in that. It’s not the same thing and when I was in honestly I don’t remember when I was either in high school or college, I listened to a sermon that our preacher preached on a Sunday morning about faith, and it really opened my eyes to what faith meant in a way that I had not previously understood it.

And I remember feeling the conviction that my faith was really just, well, I believe Jesus is the Son of God. I mean, it’s faith, but it’s not faith like the Bible talks about, that there was something lacking from my faith. It wasn’t strong as it would be if it had ever been tested.

And I grew up in a fairly easy existence. My parents were still married to each other. My dad had a stable job.

We never had to worry about where we were going to live or whether there was going to be food on the table. Never had to worry about whether it was going to be safe at home. I mean, I lived a sheltered existence that unfortunately a lot of people don’t have.

and I’d never really had anything bad happen to me or even really any struggle in life. And I remember being convicted over the fact that I really didn’t know the kind of faith that the pastor was talking about. And I went that Sunday afternoon and went to Sonic as I will sometimes do, tell my mother or my wife or whoever it is at the time that I’m going to Sonic and then going to go for a drive with Jesus.

And they know what that means. I’m going to go get a drink and then I’m going to go drive and pray. I went and did that and I prayed for God to give me faith.

I prayed for God to strengthen my faith. And folks, I will tell you all that that’s one of those prayers like praying for patience. And I won’t tell you, don’t ever pray for patience, you hear people say.

Don’t pray for patience or God will give it to you. No, you want patience. Just make sure when you pray for patience that you really do want it because God will give it to you and often the hard way.

Faith is not a bad thing to pray to ask God to give you, but you better make sure you really want it and that you’re willing to count the cost for your faith to be stretched and strengthened. Because after I prayed that, it seemed like everything went topsy-turvy in life for a couple of years. I mean, almost to the day that I prayed that, things started just one upheaval after another that forced me to rely on God.

Forced me not just to say, well, I believe God can handle this, but to actually give up control and actually let him handle it. Put my faith where my mouth was, so to speak. And I feel like that’s what’s represented in this story here.

That Peter could say all day long, well, I believe Jesus can do anything. It’s a whole other situation for Peter to say, I have enough faith that Jesus can handle it that I’m going to put my life in peril and step out of the boat when he calls me to. so if you haven’t turned there already we’re in Matthew chapter 14 and we’re going to start in verse 22 and it says in straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship and to go before him to the other side well he sent the multitudes away Jesus after he fed the 5,000 they didn’t want to leave have you ever found a place where they were going to give you free food did you want to leave they didn’t want to leave either plus I believe they wanted to hear Jesus I believe they wanted to see what miracles he was going to perform.

This was during the phase of his ministry when the crowds just would not leave Jesus alone, long before they turned against him. So Jesus told the disciples, you get on the ship, you go ahead, I’ll get rid of these people. As harsh as that sounds, Jesus didn’t mean it that way, but I’ll get rid of these people and I’ll meet you.

So he sends them away. And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray. And the same pastor that preached the message on faith, I heard him say many times when I was growing up that Jesus often came apart to pray.

And he told us that if we don’t come apart at times to pray, then we will come apart through lack of prayer. And this is one of the verses where he takes that from. Jesus came apart, meaning he went off by himself to spend time alone with the Lord in prayer.

And when the evening was come, he was there alone. And the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves, for the wind was contrary. And I’ve looked at the Sea of Galilee on a map.

It look very big. But it seems to be one of those places where you could get out there in a little boat and the winds could hit just right and storms could come up out of nowhere and you could be in real danger. So they’re out there in one of many instances when they’re on a ship on the Sea of Galilee and they’re in trouble.

But in this situation, they’re not about to sink and they wake Jesus up. In this situation, Jesus isn’t there on the boat. They’re there.

The winds are tossing them about to and fro. They’re worried. Are we going to sink?

Is the ship going to break apart? What’s going to happen to us? It’s not just, oh, this is inconvenient.

They’re in a situation where they could potentially lose their lives. And in the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went unto them walking on the sea. I didn’t stop and look at this and see what time that meant, but I believe it’s the later part of the night just before the dawn.

So kind of early, just before twilight. They see Jesus goes out walking to them on the water. Now this is miraculous in and of itself, because most of us can’t walk on water, right?

None of us can walk on water, as far as I know, unless you’ve got some kind of special shoes that will hold you up. We can’t walk on water. And Jesus does this miraculous act.

He walks out to them on the water, and the disciples saw him walking on the sea. When they saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, it’s a spirit, and they cried out for fear. So these guys think they’ve seen a ghost. And part of me wants to laugh at them, say, well, ghosts aren’t real. Shouldn’t they have known this?

And then the other part of me thinks, what would I have thought was coming at me? Because your mind doesn’t automatically go to, oh, it’s God walking out here. You see this body out there on the water, your mind is going to go all sorts of places.

So I want to let the disciples off the hook a little bit instead of making fun of them. They see it, they cry out thinking it’s a spirit. They cry out because they’re afraid, and they don’t know what they’re looking at.

But straightway, Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. He says, Calm down. Calm down.

Cheer up. It’s me. Don’t be scared.

And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou bid me come unto thee on the water. Peter’s still not completely convinced, but he says, Lord, if it’s really you, tell me to come out on the water. And I’ve struggled to understand this statement, this challenge over the years.

And I honestly don’t understand Peter’s motivation still. I have a couple of thoughts on why he might have said that. Maybe he just wanted to go out on the water too and knew Jesus could make him.

Maybe it wasn’t until he heard Jesus give the command that he knew for sure that it was Jesus because Jesus was all the time commanding miraculous things to happen. Whatever Peter’s motivation was, he said, Lord, if it’s really you, if it’s you, tell me to come out to you on the water. And verse 29 says, and he said, come.

Jesus said, come on. And at that point, Peter seems convinced that it really is Jesus. Now, I think at that point, the others out there probably thought it was Jesus as well.

But there’s a difference in the faith that says, ah, yes, I believe there’s Jesus. And the faith that says, fine, if he says climb out of the boat, I’m climbing out of the boat. And Peter, I look at Peter, and there’s so much about Peter I don’t understand because he’s Mr.

Impulsive. And that goes against every fiber of my being. But Peter was, for better or for worse, the one who was going to jump whenever he thought this is what I’m supposed to do.

So when Jesus says, come on, Peter doesn’t question it that we see here. He just jumps ahead. Jesus told me to come out on the water, so I’m coming out on the water.

And he walked on the water to Jesus. Now, was it Peter’s faith that made him able to walk on the water? I believe it was the power of Jesus that enabled him to walk on the water.

Peter could believe all day long, I can walk on the water. He could name that, he could claim that, it wasn’t going to happen otherwise. You know, I keep eating and eating and eating and believing that I’m not going to gain weight, and it just doesn’t happen.

We can believe things all day, and if it’s not the right belief, it does nothing for us. So Peter could have believed all day long, well, I can walk on water, but without the power of Jesus holding him up in that water, there’s no story here other than Peter falls into the water. Instead, it says Peter walked out to Jesus.

So with that faith that he could have possibly drowned, that he could have possibly been lost in that storm forever, and yet because Jesus told him to step out of the boat, he had the kind of faith that said, I’m going to step out into the water because Jesus said so. With that kind of faith, he steps out and he begins to walk to Jesus. Again, I don’t understand such rash behavior, but that’s the kind of faith we ought to have.

The problem was the faith that he had that was the right kind of faith, the faith that says God can handle this even though I don’t understand how, failed him. Because he didn’t maintain that faith. He began to give in to doubts.

But when he saw the wind was boisterous, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried saying, Lord, save me. So while he was focused on Jesus and his belief in Jesus, he was able to walk on the water to Jesus.

It’s when he took his focus off of Jesus and put it on the waves and the wind around him that he began to sink. And folks, it’s the same thing for us. That when we’re focused on God, when we’re focused on the Lord Jesus Christ, when we see him, we’re convinced of his power.

When our focus is on him, we are sure of his power more often than not and willing to do what He says. But it’s when we start to take our eyes off of Him and look on the circumstances all around us and the circumstances all around us become all that we can see. It’s no wonder that God looks so small and the circumstances look so big when we’re just looking at Jesus out of our peripheral vision.

So He takes His eyes off Jesus. He begins to be more concerned about the waves and the wind and He begins to sink. So He had this incredible faith and then He took His eyes off Jesus.

But then He does something else again. He doesn’t start flailing around and trying to claw his way back to the boat. Again, he demonstrates faith in Jesus and says, Lord, save me.

I don’t want any of this to sound too critical of Peter because I’m sure I would have been one of the guys still on the boat. I am not putting Peter down for his lack of faith at all because I don’t think I would have had the faith to jump out of the boat. I hope I would, but I know me and I think I’d be one of the other 11 stuck in the boat.

Peter has a momentary lapse of faith, but then he comes back and says, Lord, save me. He cries out to Jesus. And immediately, Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

He says, you have such small faith. And I don’t see this as being a harsh rebuke from Jesus. It sounds like a gentle correction.

Like when I sit my children down and calmly say, now, why would you do this? You know this is going to hurt you. I mean, there are times I say, you know better than this.

And then there are times I say, why would you do this? You know this is going to hurt you. I see this as one of the latter.

The gentle correction saying, Peter, you have such small faith. Why? He says, why did you start doubting?

And when they were coming to the ship, the wind ceased. Jesus could have snapped his fingers or spoken a word and stopped the storm. But he waits until he gets Peter back in the ship.

Because I think if they’d been out there on the sea, and Peter’s walking around still, and Jesus stops the storm, Peter starts thinking, hey, this is easy. I could do this all day. He’s got to be reminded that he’s dependent on Jesus, that Jesus is the one who’s got this, and put his faith in Jesus, not his own abilities.

When they were come back into the ship, the wind ceased. And they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth, thou art the Son of God. And we see this so many times throughout the Gospels, that Jesus would do something.

And they already knew he was the Son of God. They already knew his power. They already knew who he claimed to be.

But it’s like every time he did something miraculous, they’d see it all over again. And they’d just be in awe. And I hope that when we do have those lapses in faith, and hopefully momentary lapses of faith, when we begin to look at all the other stuff and the circumstances, and we begin to doubt his power, and then we snap out of it and say, wait a minute, God can handle this, and he does.

And we see him do what only he could do. I hope that each of those situations strengthens our faith and puts us right back in awe of His power, that we never get to a point where we’re so comfortable with what Jesus can do that we look at it and say, well, that’s just Jesus. I hope that at the end of each of those episodes, we look at what He’s done in our lives and we say, of a truth, you are the Son of God.

Truly, you are who you claim to be. And I hope that that strengthens our faith, that renewing of our awe at his power. But Peter had this faith that enabled him, by the power of Jesus Christ, to be able to walk on the water.

He had faith enough, as I said, to jump out of the boat. And as I told you at the beginning of this, before I started the story, that this story teaches me as much about our faith and our need for faith and what faith is as it does about the power of Jesus. And as I study this story, it teaches me a few things about faith that I’d like to share with you tonight.

Again, there’s faith that says, I believe this, and that’s important. It does matter what we believe. It does matter what beliefs we subscribe to.

But it also matters that we’re willing to put ourselves on the line for what we believe. It’s one thing for me to say, yeah, I believe Jesus is the Son of God. It’s another thing for me to say, I trust my eternity to Him.

I’m not trying to get to heaven on my own because I believe he’s got this. I’m not trying to follow other prophets and other religions, and I’m not trying to do all these good works and these religious rituals to get to heaven because I believe he’s got this. It’s one thing to say I believe God can handle anything.

It’s another thing to put the circumstances down, step back, and actually let him. And three things that this shows me about this deep faith. First of all, it isn’t really genuine faith if it isn’t scary.

You know what? Having faith and exhibiting faith should sometimes scare the living daylights out of you. I don’t mean be scared your whole Christian life.

That’s not what I’m talking about. But if there are times that you look at this and say, what God wants me to do is really uncomfortable and a little bit scary, then you’re not really testing your faith. How many of you would jump out of a boat in the middle of the Sea of Galilee in the middle of a storm at night and walk out to who you thought was previously a ghost. That’s a little scary, isn’t it?

He called him to do something that was just a little scary. Genuine faith requires trust in God, especially when our circumstances are frightening. You know, you may never be in that, you probably will never be in that scenario where you’re called to jump out of a boat.

But there are ways that we are called to trust God every day. There will be times in your life where your first thought is, I’m going to do the secure thing and try to handle this myself. Or I’m going to make this choice, even though God says do this, I’m going to make this choice because there’s more security in it.

Or I’m going to try to handle this myself because I need to make sure I’m in control of it and do it the right way when God says let me handle it. It is very scary to let go of control. And then I remember I don’t have control, but it’s scary to even let go of the illusion of control.

Folks, it’s not enough for us to pay lip service to our faith. We can do that all day long when things are good and say, yeah, I trust God. Yeah, God’s got this.

God’s good. It’s quite another thing to actually let go and trust God when circumstances are scary, when things are hard, when he’s calling us to do something that’s out of our comfort zone. Folks, they saw him and they, let’s not forget just because he said, you know, if it’s really you, they thought they saw a ghost. They were out there in the middle of the storm, terrified.

And Peter said, wait a minute, if it’s really you, tell me to get out of the boat. And then he did it. As rash and impulsive as Peter was at times, I’m sure there was an element of fear in that.

Kind of like when Benjamin came up out of the water this morning, he said, I can’t believe I just did that. I’m sure Peter, well, I would have thought jumping in the water, I can’t believe I’m doing this. Folks, your faith isn’t being tested and isn’t being stretched if it’s not scary.

Your faith isn’t being tested and stretched if you’re not in over your head, second of all. He was literally in over his head when Peter stepped out of the boat, wasn’t he? I don’t get from this that they were near shore or they wouldn’t have been so worried.

They’re out in the middle of the Sea of Galilee where they are literally in over their heads if that boat sinks or if he sinks when he goes down into the water. The Bible says the boat was in the midst of the sea and so if he sank he would go under. And it’s easy again to say that we trust God when we feel like we have everything under control, isn’t it?

It’s easy to trust God or to say we trust God when we feel like everything is under control. When all the bills are paid and the refrigerator is stocked with food and the bank account keeps going up and your children are behaving and if that ever happens, it’ll be easy to say, yeah, God’s good. He’s got this.

It’s another thing looking at it going, I don’t know how this much money is going to cover this much expense. It’s another thing saying, I don’t know how I’m going to deal with my children. It’s another thing to say, I don’t know how I’m going to do what God’s asked me to do.

We should. We should sometimes feel like we’re in over our heads. Because when we’re trusting God and when we’re being obedient to Him, He’s going to call us to be involved in things that only He can do.

Things that we can’t just do under our own power that only He can do. and he does them in and through us. I told you a few weeks ago at the beginning of the message that I felt very unprepared that particular day.

And I said that I hoped God would, I can’t remember exactly what I said, but something along the lines of I hoped God would make up for the deficiencies in the messenger. I’ve got to remember that every day that I get up to do this. That if I got up here and just told y’all what I thought was important or tried to preach God’s word by my power, It’s going to fall flat every single time.

It may still fall flat occasionally, but it’s going to fall flat every single time. When something connects with your heart, when you say, I’ve never seen it that way before, when you say, God spoke to me about this through his word and I know now what I need to do, that was God. That wasn’t me.

That was God working through me in spite of my deficiencies because it doesn’t matter how many sermons I’ve preached or how many years I’ve been doing this, I’m still kind of in over my head when I get up here. And when you’re serving God, you’re going to be in over your head because he’s going to call you to do things that are out of your comfort zone and things that are beyond your capability. I tell you what, just telling us to go out and share his love with the world is over my head.

Because you know what? It’s easy to go. It’s easy to love you all most of the time.

It’s easy to love you all. For the most of the time, you all are lovable. Now, if I lived with you, it might be a different story.

And sometimes we go out in the world and not everybody’s so nice. Sometimes we go into other churches and people are not always so nice. And life is messy.

And there are people, I’ll try not to amen me out of the building on this, but there are people in this world who are hard to love. I know none of y’all ever experienced that. You know what?

God tells us to love them all. And I can’t do it. Yet when I ask him to, he’s able to love them through me.

Asking God to soften my heart and change my attitude is one of those prayers that He always says yes to. It doesn’t matter what God’s called you to do. At some point, He’s going to lead you into something that’s over your head, out of your control.

And at that point, your faith is stretched because you’re saying, I can’t do this. You just be obedient and God will do it through you. You just have to believe that He can.

Finally, this evening, our faith isn’t being stretched and grown if it doesn’t require total trust and independence on Jesus. As I said to you earlier, Peter didn’t climb out of the boat and walk on water just because of his faith. I hate to break it to you.

Just by believing, I can’t walk on the water. Brother Terry, just by believing, I can’t control the weather. As you’ve taught us well in the 5 o’clock class.

I can’t just control things. I can’t just, it’s not the force of my belief. It’s what I’m putting my belief in.

It’s not even the strength of my faith. It’s who I’m putting my faith in. And every day that I go out and try to serve Jesus, every day that you try to go out and serve Jesus, if you’re doing it saying, well, this is easy for me because I have this particular skill set, or I’m gifted in this way, or I have these abilities, if you go out and try to serve God in that way, you’re going to get knocked flat every time.

When we don’t recognize that we are entirely dependent on Jesus, it’s not really faith in Him, it’s faith in ourselves. And it’s an easy trap to fall into. You know, God helps you do something and you think, well, I’ve got this.

Because you forget that it was him helping you do it. And then you go out and try to do it under your own strength and you fall flat on your face. Sort of like I got so frustrated.

I don’t like to do things if I can’t do them right the first time. There’s a reason I did not play sports growing up. Because I didn’t have the dedication to commit to it and say I’m going to work harder because I started out so bad.

You know, some people start out with a little bit of talent and they nurture that and they work harder. I started out with no talent, so I didn’t keep going. I don’t like to do things unless I can do it right from the beginning.

And I got so frustrated when I was growing up, when my dad would try to teach me how to ride a bike. Mom ended up, I think, having to teach me how to ride the bike. Same thing with driving.

We got frustrated with each other then, too. But I’d get to, and I’m experiencing this with my own son. I’d get to the point where, you know, they’ve held me, or I’ve had the training wheels, or they’ve held the bike up, and I’ve gone, and I’ve thought, I’ve got this, I’ve got this, let go, I’ve got this.

then they let go and I go careening into a pole. So I forget that it was them holding me up or it was the training wheels holding me up all the time. All I knew was I’m riding this bike.

I’ve got this. I can handle this. No, not without them I couldn’t at least at that point.

I’d probably do the same thing today if I ended up on a bike. We do that with God. He empowers us to serve him in a certain way and then we think I’ve got this because he empowers it and it goes off without a hitch.

We try to do it under our own power, under our own strength, for our own reasons. and we fall off the bike. Folks, we need to be reminded.

If we are never reminded of our total dependence on Jesus Christ, then our faith really isn’t being stretched. Folks, we could look at this as a defeat for Peter, as a, well, he just had so little faith. I prefer, and Jesus does point that out.

But again, as I said, in a gentle way, in a way of saying, hey, you should have, you should have believed in here. Instead of us looking at it as a defeat and saying, Well, Peter was just an example of somebody with no faith. Folks, I prefer to be reminded he was the one with faith enough to step out of the boat.

And Jesus could look at him and say, you should have bigger faith. Nobody had faith like Jesus. I stand on the other side with faith less than Peter’s and say, that’s the kind of faith I want to have.

Yes, there’s always room to grow from that, as Jesus said. You have such little faith. But from my standpoint, I aspire to have the kind of faith Peter had that says, stretch me, grow me, take me in over my head, put me in a scary position.

Give me something to do that I can’t possibly do because I believe you can take care of it. He had that momentary lapse, but even then he cried out to Jesus to pull him out. And this tells me, as well as my experience telling me, that if you ask God to stretch your faith and strengthen your faith, he will.

Just make sure you really, make sure that’s really what you want before you ask him because it’ll take you places good and bad. I shouldn’t say bad. It’ll take you places exciting and terrifying that you never would have imagined otherwise.

It’s a prayer that God seems to enjoy answering. We all need our faith stretched from time to time. We need to grow in our faith.

Just make sure you’re prepared for the ride.

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