Peter walking on water, Matt. 14:22-36; 2/23/24

Translation

Immediately He forced the disciples to get into a boat and go ahead of Him into the other side until which He dispersed the crowd. And after dismissed the crowd He went up into the mountain by Himself to pray. When evening came, He was alone up there. But the boat already was many stadia away from the earth, being harassed by the waves, for contrary to them was the wind. But fourth watch of the night, He came towards them walking on the sea. But the disciples, upon seeing Him up on the sea walking, became terrified, and saying that it is a phantom. From their fear they cried out. Immediately Jesus said to them, “Be courageous. I am. Do not be afraid.”

Peter answered him and said, “Lord if you are, tell me to come to you upon the water.” And He said, Come. And getting down from the boat Peter walked on the water and came towards Jesus. But seeing the strong wind, while he became afraid and began to sink (pres. infi), he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Immediately Jesus stretching out grabbed His and said to him, “Little Faith into why into you doubt?” And they, climbing into the boat, the wind cease. And they in the boat worshipped Him saying, “Truly, is the Son of God.”

And crossing they came upon the land of the Gennesaret. And the men of that place, knowing Him, sent to all that neighboring villages and brought to Him all who have sickness, and they exhort Him so that only to touch the tassle of His garment, and whoever touched it were healed.

2. The need for the disciples to increase their faith. The school of discipleship of service.

3. B4- Feeding of 5,000. They probably want to make king. After: challenge of the tradition by Pharisees.

4. We need to not see what the world sees, but what Christ sees to accomplish great things for the Lord.

5. Christ-centered- Christ came to save what is lost.

6. Do I have true faith, really, really believe in Christ and not my circumstances?

Outline:

Jesus’ dismissing the crowd because He knows the human heart’s trust. (ref. John 6).

Peter walking on water incident shows the need to trust Christ in His complete ability.

Seeing how Jesus is able to completely save us.

We come to this passage this morning to a very familiar and beloved story which is recorded exclusively for us from the gospel of Matthew, and that has to do with Peter walking on water. This is a very simple story, and we know that the story involves having faith in Christ, and believing in Him to save us. That is simple enough. We all know believing is what we need, and we look back at Peter, and would tell him that he needed to focus on Christ and not on the wind and the waves. Is it in fact that easy? Would we have not gotten side tracked as easily? We all think so, but this is not true, because to see what we would have been like, we only need to look at this story, and see how Matthew paints the life of faith is like. It is important to look at the passage that came before, and the one that came after to give us the right perspective of what the life of faith is like. From what Matthew points to us, we need to first see the true basis of our faith. Secondly, then when the faith is tested, we can stand. Lastly, we can see in this passage that the result of true faith is that we perform true work for God.

Let us look then first at the basis of true faith. This passage here opens with a word that just jump out at us: “Immediately.” The context of this passage is that Jesus had just fed the crowd some food, and after the crowd has been satisfied, we read here that He immediately got the disciples to get into the boat and left ahead of Him to go to the other side. The question is Why? Why did Jesus tell the disciples to go to the other side? We are not told here, but if you look at the incident in the gospel of John, you will get a fairly good idea of what happened. When you look at John 6, you see a more detailed picture of what transpire after the feeding of 5,000. We read in John 6:14–15 “Therefore when the people saw the sign which He had performed, they said, “This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the world.” So Jesus, perceiving that they were intending to come and take Him by force to make Him king, withdrew again to the mountain by Himself alone.” So the reason that Jesus reacted the way He did was that He realized that they were going to force Him to become a king. They wanted Him to become their king because they wanted the bread that He provided. They saw that He provided physical food, and so they wanted to make Him king. Isn’t that like how it is today? People want to