Like Jesus - Fearless

Introduction

I want to start with a story this morning…

“Dwight Moody was traveling by boat on one of the Great Lakes when a really bad storm developed. The other passengers on the boat cowered in fear. They even started an impromptu prayer meeting asking God to deliver them from the storm. Moody didn’t join in this prayer meeting. When asked why not, he answered with these words, “I have a sister in Chicago and one in heaven and I don’t care which I see tonight.”

Moody, you might say was fearless. While the other passengers were given over in fear, Moody was calm, cool and collected. He knew in whom he believed and he was certain that he would see one of his sisters that night.

Good morning and welcome to Cornerstone Church. We are in a series called Like Jesus, where we are looking at true discipleship. Jesus said that a student when he is fully trained will be just like his teacher. So we want to be students of Jesus, amen?

Today we are looking at fearless Jesus. Another way of looking at fearless is by looking at the opposite of fear, which is faith. Jesus was full of faith. And if we are going to be like Him, we are going to have to release the fear and walk in faith.

Today’s text will be found in Matthew 14, verses 22-33. We will have the words on the screen and the notes are loaded in the Cornerstone Church app. I encourage you to follow along and fill in the blanks on the app.

Main Text

Matthew 8:23–27 ESV

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. And the men marveled, saying, “What sort of man is this, that even winds and sea obey him?”

Matthew 14:22–33 ESV

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.” And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Today, I want to focus on having faith over fear.

In this passage there are two main characters, Jesus and the disciples, with Peter being highlighted in this passage. Jesus is as always full of faith. Peter and the disciples are full of fear.

Here are few things that I want to point out in this story.

Jesus sends the disciples into the storm. Jesus made his disciples get into the boat. He sent them into the storm. He has already shown he has power over the storms. So he puts them in the boat, and he knows a storm is coming. He’s not going to stop it.

Jesus goes to pray. Perhaps one of the greatest secrets to overcoming fear is found in this simple statement.

The boat gets a long way away from land. In other words, they can’t turn back. They have to go through the storm. Jesus wants us to go through the storm. Too often we think God is only there to deliver us from the storm and sometimes he does, but other times he sends us through it.

The disciples were not alone. Even though Jesus sends them off by themselves. Jesus is in prayer for them. He’s interceding on their behalf. God never leaves us even if his presence seems far off.

Now all of this is the context. We know what happens from here, so I want to look at some principles we can pull from the text.

Fear Clouds Our Vision

Take note of what happens here. Jesus comes to them in the midst of the storm. They see Him and they are terrified. Think about that.

They are looking out at the storm and they see someone walking on water, so their logical conclusion is, it’s a ghost! They are scared to death. A ghost is walking towards them in the midst of this terrible storm!

Sometimes in the storm, your savior will come in an unexpected way. When we go through the storms of life, sometimes God will show up and it will not be the way we expected.

I can confidently say I don’t think any of the disciples expected Jesus to show up. That is why they were fearful. They had an incomplete view of who God is.

Remember what I’ve said, Everything God does is based in relationship. His desire for relationship with you is the driving factor behind everything we go through.

Here He is trying to expose and eliminate the disciples fears and increase their faith in Him. They already know that he is able to rebuke the storms, now they will see that He can also walk with us in the midst of them.

God is trying to get the disciples to point of trusting him with their lives. They will need this. As you know all of the disciples would die the death of martyrs. They needed this faith-building moment.

But fear is clouding their vision. They are not sure it’s Jesus. They think it’s a ghost and they are terrified. Fear will make us see things that aren’t there. It will make us cower rather than being bold. But faith…

Faith Puts Its Focus On Jesus

It’s not the measure of your faith that matters, but the object of your faith. It’s not how much faith you have (you could have a mustard seed size faith and move mountains), but it’s the object (where your faith is anchored) that matters.

Peter had little faith. That’s what the passage says, but he still walked on water. It’s not the size of your faith that matters, but the object of it.

Faith has an object. In Christianity, God is the object of our faith. We put our trust in Him, not in the storms that surround us.

It’s easy today to get caught up in the storms of life. We have wars and rumors of wars. We have natural disasters and plagues. We have problems in our supply chain and negligence in our government.

Now it would be easy to find reasons to be fearful after me repeating those things to you. And sure some of us probably experienced fear this week.

This week you had an opportunity to become fearful and rush out and buy toilet paper and bottled water because of the port strike or you had a chance to be faithful and go out and buy toilet paper and bottled water for those in need in Western NC.

Can we gain anything by fearing and fuming? Do we not unfit ourselves for action, and unhinge our minds for wise decision? We are sinking by our struggles when we might float by faith.

Charles Spurgeon

Peter had the same choices. Faith or fear? He looked out at the water and all the disciples were terrified when they saw Jesus. He was walking on water! That’s crazy. People can’t do that, right?

Peter hears the voice of his master, but he still has unbelief. How many of you have been in the presence of God and yet still dealing with unbelief? You should be able to relate to Peter.

Peter cries out, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.” Now if I’m honest, this is the strangest response I could have imagined. The safe thing to say would have been. Jesus, if that’s you, rebuke the storm.

But that’s not what Peter did.

Faith Embraces The Storm

Peter jumped into the storm. He didn’t ask God to rebuke it. He jumped right in with both feet.

Listen, there are going to be times in your life where you are going to face the worst of the worst. All of life’s storms will come against you at once.

Now you could:

Run from the storm.

Try to hide from the storm.

Rebuke the storm.

Embrace the storm.

Peter embraced the storm. He jumped in with both feet. While the others watched, Peter walked on water. The storm raged all around Him, but as long as he kept his eyes on Jesus, he stayed above the waves.

Church, we have that same choice. We can either keep our eyes on Jesus and rise above the mess of this world or we too can get swallowed up in the fear and anxiety that surrounds us.

This isn’t a close your eyes and pretend the storm isn’t there type of thing. There are certainly problems in this world. I named them out, but the choice is yours. You can run from those problems in fear or you can rise up and be the solution to those problems.

What about the things we have little control over? I don’t think any one of us in this room have any say so over the US involvement between Iran and Israel. As far as I know, none of you have the ear of Joe Biden.

So what do we do? We walk in faith. We exhibit calm in the face of the storm. Like DL Moody, we recognize that our lives are in the hands of the maker. We have nothing to fear.

How Do We Embrace The Storm?

When Fear Rises Up, We Hit Our Knees

When The Waves Try To Toss Us, We Stand Firm

When Jesus Commands Us To Step Out In Faith, We Go!

Conclusion

Now to close this thing out, I want to draw your eyes to something. I read two passages of scripture. In the first passage, Jesus rebuked the storm and the disciples asked the question, what sort of man is this?

Maybe this is you today. Maybe you have seen Jesus rebuke some of the storms in your life. Maybe you are looking for him to rebuke one today. At the end of the storm, you may be asking the same thing, what sort of man is this? Even the wind obeys him.

But notice that it’s in the second story that we get a much better response. In the second story, when Jesus has approached them in the midst of the storm, and he has beckons them to come and walk with Him in the midst of the storm…how does the response change? Its at that point…the disciples respond with, “Truly you are the son of God!”

When God meets us in the storm, when he walks with us through the storm, that is what changes our perspective!

That’s my hope for you today. That you would embrace the storm. That you would be fearless in the midst of the storm, knowing that your savior is calling you out onto the waves.

Let’s stand and sing.