Matthew 20

Walking on Water

Just to make sure we have some context before we jump into the story we will be discussing tonight, let me recap what is happening before this story. Before we pick up in verse twenty-two what happened was the miracle of feeding the 5,000. This was where Jesus multiplied a few fish and a few loaves of bread into enough food to feed this great multitude of people.

After He does this it says that Jesus immediately makes His disciples get into a boat and start sailing across the sea of Galilee while He sent the multitudes of people away. Jesus then goes up to pray on the mountain and it says that by evening He is alone. Now we are all caught up and ready to begin in verse 24.

Matthew 14:24–26 “But the boat was now in the middle of the sea, tossed by the waves, for the wind was contrary. Now in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went to them, walking on the sea. And when the disciples saw Him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, “It is a ghost!” And they cried out for fear.”

So, now it is somewhere between 3 and 6 in the morning and there is a bit of a storm blowing in and rocking the boat and all of a sudden the disciples see what they believe to be a ghost walking across the water. I mean put yourself in those shoes, have you ever been out in the woods late at night? It can be a little spooky. One time a couple years back I was planning to go run yo-yo’s with my brother on the creek at night and my wife decided she wanted to come because she had never been and wanted to see what it was like. Well we tried to let her run the light for us but that job was soon taken away because every little sound from the banks she had to shine the light to check it out because the swamp at night gets a little spooky. Needless to say she has not been back with me. My point is though that imagine if you were there in these moments with these disciples who were mostly teenage guys. They would have been petrified I am sure. So when it says they cried out in fear, really imagine the scene hear of a group of young guys truly believing that they were going to die on this boat.

How often do we work ourselves up like this? In reality what they were seeing was Jesus and the storm probably wasn’t that bad, but they allowed their minds to take everything to an extreme of this is the end of their lives. We can be just like that in our lives. We are so terrified of the what ifs of life that we cannot focus on the what is.

Proverbs 29:25 A “The fear of man brings a snare”

Proverbs tells us that fear is a snare. It traps us and holds us back from being able to reach our true potential. God does not want you to live a life of constant fear that is crippling you. He wants you to be able to serve Him freely without restraints. So, what are you scared of? What is holding you back? Are you terrified of not being liked? Are you scared of failure? I’ll be open with you guys failure is my worst nightmare. I get so terrified of being a failure and a let down that I will pass up opportunities just so I won’t fail. I am terrified that everyone will see me as a failure in my life. We have to let stuff like that go and I am preaching to myself as much as I am you. We can’t be scared to fail or of what others think, the only thing we should be scared of is what God thinks. Does God think I am giving it my best and doing all I can for the Kingdom, because that is what truly matters.

Let’s look at verse 27 to see what Jesus has to say.

Matthew 14:27 “But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Be of good cheer! It is I; do not be afraid.””

Jesus doesn’t just say don’t be afraid, He says that they should be of good cheer. He tells them to be happy even in a seemingly terryfing situation. Why? Why should they be happy when it looks as though the world is ending? He answers that with three short words “it is I”. Why should they not be afraid? Because Jesus is there.

Proverbs 29:25 “The fear of man brings a snare, But whoever trusts in the Lord shall be safe.”

Look at that second half of Proverbs now. When the world appears to be falling around us we as Christians have a unique reason to be cheerful, He is with us. We have our God, the creator of the universe, with us and He will protect us. This is not to say that bad things will not happen, they surely will, but it is to say that we are promised safety whether it be in this life or the next God has us covered. What we are scared of in the moment is nothing in the realm of eternity. What I have to do whenever I am stressed or worried about my potential failures is honestly humble myself a bit. What I do and my success or failures are not world changing moments much less eternity changing moments. I know that God has me secured for eternity with Him so what happens in the in between won’t change that. He is with me from now and forever so I never have a true reason to worry.

Now, the most famous section of this passage is Peter’s reaction to Jesus here and what happens to him. I think though that Peter catches too much hate for this story and people judge him way to harshly. I think that in this story Peter is actually a hero that we should look to imitate in some ways. Look at verse 28

Matthew 14:28 “And Peter answered Him and said, “Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water.””

Peter often gets judged here based on his first couple of words, if it is You. People look at this and see Peter doubting the words of Christ, but look at the rest of what he says, command me to come to You on the water. Peter, in the midst of a terrifying situation, says that He knows that His Lord Jesus has the power to make Him walk on water and protect Him from this situation. Peter is really showing His faith in Christ right here that already at this point Peter fully believes what Paul later teaches in Phillipians when he says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Peter’s faith here in Christ is something that we should look to imitate in our own lives. We all have storms like we talked about earlier, we have fears and doubts and worries. Are we willing to face them? Do we have enough faith in Christ to say God call me into the storm and I will go?

Now look down to verse 29

Matthew 14:29 “So He said, “Come.” And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.”

Jesus has one simple command to Peter, come. Jesus calls Peter to act on this faith that he has displayed and step into the storm on this faith. How is Jesus calling to you now? What areas of our life is Jesus calling us to step out in faith and trust Him? We all have somewhere in our live that Christ wants to take more control of, somewhere that we should be letting go of and stepping out in faith believing that God is going to hold us up from drowning in the water. What area is that for you?

Matthew 14:30 “But when he saw that the wind was boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink he cried out, saying, “Lord, save me!””

Now, just because we step out in faith and trust in Christ doesn’t mean that we are good forever. When Peter begins walking out he takes his eyes off of Jesus and looses focus. He gets distracted by the storm and the winds and starts to sink below the water. Again, Peter is judged harshly here. We as believers looking back feel like we would do so much better but we wouldn’t. How do I know we wouldn’t? Because we don’t do it now. We aren’t walking on water in a literal storm, but we are all facing our own challenges in life and we are all getting distracted. We are allowing the world to turn our eyes away from Christ and away from what He has done for us and it causes us to sink right back into the fear or the sin or the failure that we had been working so hard to climb out of. We are just like Peter in our failures, but I want us to be just like Peter in our recovery. Look again at what Peter does as soon as he realizes he is sinking. He calls out to Jesus and says Lord save me. One He recognizes by saying Lord who Jesus is. He recognizes that Jesus is the king of creation and has all power and authority on this earth. Two, he asks Jesus to save him. You know, it is funny how God works things out because I was just studying for our men’s bible study earlier and a focus of it for this week is the difference between salvation and discipleship. Tony Evans emphasizes though that even as a disciple we still need to be saved. We need daily deliverence from our sin and the power of sin around us. Not that our salvation is at risk, but we are at risk of unnecessary pain. That is what Peter is calling out for here. A deliverance from his current circumstances. We often feel like we can handle our fears or our sins or whatever is burdening us on our own and refuse to ask for the assistance of Christ, that is arrogance. We need to humble ourselves like Peter and have an immediate response to our situation by asking for Gods grace. Peter did not wait until his head was going under after he had tried to save himself, it says that he called out when he was beginning to go under. When we see that we are beginning to need deliverance then we should be asking for that deliverance now not waiting until we have tried every other option.

One last thing that ties this story into the narrative of Matthew as a whole is in verse 33.

Matthew 14:33 “Then those who were in the boat came and worshiped Him, saying, “Truly You are the Son of God.””

After Jesus saves Peter and they all get into the boat and Jesus ceases the storm, the disciples start to really understand who Jesus is. They still have no clue what he plans to do here and what will happen in the end, but they are finally recognizing that this man that they are learning from is not just some random teacher but is truly the Son of God.