Don't Drown Fighting the Current

Text:

Matthew 14:29–31 AV

And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus. But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

The Lord had the power to stop the storm that Peter was in. Several chapters prior, Jesus and the boys where out at sea and a storm arrises and they were afraid because they thought they were going to die. Jesus comes up topside and rebukes the storm and it ceased immediately. But this time, Lord does not do that, at least not yet anyway. He allows them to be in the storm for a period of time. Why? Because he knew that in their future ministry that storms would rise, Jesus knew that they would face some harsh times, and they needed to know how to navigate the storms or else they would give up and fail. Storms will arise in your life and I believe that the Lord was not only teaching Peter what he needed to do when storms arise, but he teaches us today what we need to do when trying and troubling time hits us.

What to do? First, you need to get to the Lord!

Second, you need to keep your eyes fixated on Jesus. You need to seek Him, you need to get close to the LORD as possible.

Thirdly if the pressures of life, if the situations get to be too much for you don’t take matters in your own hand. Call on the Lord, trust in Him, and wait/relax until He saves you.

I learned how to swim when I was a teenager, it prepared me for what I was going to experience in the Navy. When we were in bootcamp, we had what was called a “swim qual” that’s short for swim qualification. We had swim qualifications because in order to go to the fleet, you had to be able to swim. Now in my mind, I thought, no one in their right mind who can’t swim would join the Navy, but I was mistakenly wrong.

They made us climb up a high dive and get into 3 lines. We had to get to the edge of the high dive and when they blew their whistle, we had to hold our breath and jump off high dive into 12 feet of water, tread for 10 minutes and then swim around the pool. We had some that did fine and we had some rocks that hit the water, as soon as they jumped in they sunk to the bottom.

They screamed and cursed us and told us not to panic. One of the worst things you can do when you get in water is to panic and flail your arms and legs. You are fighting against the water, you are fighting against the current. The told us to relax and breath and float in the water. They taught us this because if we were to ever be out sea and something happened to that ship, you have to be able to stay float long enough in that water until help comes.

Peter is sinking and while he is sinking, he calls on Jesus. When we find ourselves feeling a certain way, feeling angry, feeling anxious, feeling fearful, feeling down, feeling confuse. Don’t panic, don’t take matters into your own hands, don’t argue and fight.......you relax until help comes! You call on the Lord and you sit there and wait help arrives......testify to some one and say “help is on the way”.

Peter hollers out and says “Lord save me”! What does the Lord do.......the Lord reaches out and grabs Peter by the hand and lifts him up out of the sea. The storm is still going on.....but while the storm is raging......the LORD lifts him and the thing that was pulling him down he was able to walk triumphantly over.

We need to call on Jesus until he touches us!

Before you give up, before you faint, call on Jesus until he touches you.