Miracle at Sea Matthew 14:22-36

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I don't know about you, but I love bodies of water. There's something magical about them.
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We live in the North Country, where we are surrounded by water on every side. I grew up in the town of Mound on Lake Minnetonka.
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Half of Mound is water. Every direction you look, there's water.
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Now, Lake Minnetonka is a unique lake. It's made up of about 20 bays, and when you add these bays together, it is the ninth largest lake in Minnesota.
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But the most amazing lakes to me are those that are one large body of water.
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I love the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes have also been called inland oceans. I have been on the shores of the
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Atlantic and the Pacific, and I've been on the shores of Great Lakes, and there really isn't too much difference to them.
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These big lakes look similar to the shores of an ocean. There are even smaller bodies of water that have this feel.
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In Minnesota, which is just across the border, there are several bodies of water that are so big that in places you cannot see across to the other side.
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Some lakes are so big, they are like seas, and these bodies of water are a delight to be on on a nice, calm, peaceful day.
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But when there's a storm, the last place you wanna be. In the history of the world, millions of people have died at sea, and there are many ways that people have died.
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But one of the main causes is that ships are overtaken by storms, and those in the ship go down with it.
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In the region of Israel, there was a large body of water, a lake known as the
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Sea of Galilee. So it's called a lake, but it's so big that it's also called a sea.
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And this lake was unpredictable, and it was common for sailors and fishermen to have trouble with inclement weather.
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This morning, we are going to see Jesus' disciples travel across this sea, and when they are in the middle, they are going to find trouble with the water.
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At this time, I encourage you to turn in a Bible with me to Matthew chapter 14.
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We're looking at verses 22 through 36, and what we're gonna see today is that as they cross this water, something truly remarkable happens, and that's an understatement.
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If you're using a red Bible, and if you use this on page 975, this sermon is titled, Miracle at Sea, and I'm gonna begin by reading the text.
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Matthew 14, 22 through 36. Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.
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And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.
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But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.
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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.
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And they cried out in fear, but immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart, it is
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I, do not be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.
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He said, come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
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But when he saw the wind, he was afraid. And beginning to sink, he cried out,
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Lord, save me. Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, oh, you of little faith, why do you doubt?
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And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshiped him saying, truly, you are the
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Son of God. And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around to all that region and brought to him all who were sick and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garments.
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And as many as touched it were made well. Here's our big idea this morning.
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Understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives.
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Understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives.
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Now, before we jump into our text here and really zero in on what we need to see here, let me give a little recap of where we were one week ago.
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We looked at the incredible account where Jesus fed the 5 ,000. And that number did not include women and children.
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So the number was really about 25 ,000 people. He took five loaves of bread and two fish and he was able to feed all of them.
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What we saw is that Jesus' greatness and goodness to the hungry must leave us in awe. He showed his greatness by performing this great miracle of feeding everyone in the field.
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And he showed his goodness by providing. The Lord does this in our own lives.
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He shows his greatness to us in being able to provide our needs and he shows his goodness in providing those needs.
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The feeding of all these people showed this great truth to us. Now, this leads us to our text once again this morning, as we've already read.
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Once again, here's our main idea. Understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives.
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And we're gonna see four ways how in this text. The first way how is this. Through setting us an example of time with God.
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And we'll see this in verses 22 and 23. Once again, those verses say, immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds.
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And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.
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So after miraculously feeding all those people, he told the disciples to get into the boat and go to the other side of this big lake known as the
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Sea of Galilee. But Jesus did not go with them. What verse 23 tells us is that Jesus dismissed this massive crowd back to their villages.
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And once they were dismissed, he went up to the mountain all alone to pray. We learned something very important about Jesus here.
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During his ministry, people flocked to him unlike anyone else in world history.
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And as people came to him, he did not reject them. He helped them, right? People came with illnesses and they were demon -possessed.
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They needed help in different ways. And when they came to Jesus for help, he provided that help.
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What we have to remember about Jesus is that he was human. He's 100 % God and 100 % man.
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Yes, he was fully God, but he's man as well. What we know as humans is that we get tired.
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We can't be around people all the time. People are enjoyable to be around, but you also have so much energy.
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In our lives, we need to do different things to get our energy back. And one of the most important things we can do is spend alone time with God in prayer.
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One way that you know that you are born again is if you pray. Do you talk to God?
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He is your friend. He is your helper. He is the one who helps get you through your day.
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Talk to him. Jesus had no greater relationship in his life than with his father.
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In his deity, he had an eternal relationship with his father.
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And this relationship continued in his humanity. During his ministry, he needed to recharge.
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He loved people and spent lots of time with them, but he needed to get away from people. He needed his father.
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And you'll notice that he goes away to a beautiful place, as verse 23 tells us. He went on the mountain to pray.
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You can imagine going up on this mountain and having this great view. One of my favorite places to pray,
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I love going to Interstate Park, going up, hiking on those trails, and you can look out and see so many beautiful things.
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And when you go there, you just think, I just want to talk to God. There's this closeness with God when you're in a beautiful place.
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I find it easier to pray there than anywhere else. And you'll find this too.
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And I'm sure you already have. So ask yourself, are you following Jesus' example in this?
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Are you talking to God? Are you getting away to a quiet place and praying? Last Wednesday, as I mentioned already, we started up our
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Wednesday night Bible study again. And what we are doing is we're looking at prayer. And we're going to be going through a book called
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A Praying Life by Paul Miller. And if we want to see God work in great ways, we need to pray.
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And we want to have close intimacy with God, right? And if we want that, we need to pray.
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And during this study, we're going to dive into this. So I encourage you to join us for that.
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Jesus did not give up his prayer time. No matter how busy he was. And he was very busy.
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People were always coming to him. He could have spent 24 hours a day helping people. But he didn't.
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He got away to pray. He needed to set other things aside.
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So he did. It rejuvenated him. And great things happened as he spent this time with his Father.
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And his prayers were heard and answered. One thing about prayer too is that we can think, well, I have so many things to do.
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I don't have time to pray. What could be more productive than praying? In heaven one day, we'll be amazed at what happened because of prayer.
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You want to be productive? Pray. Understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives.
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The first way how is through setting an example of time with God. The second way how we are to understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives is this.
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Reminding us of his friendship in the midst of his greatness. As Jesus is enjoying this time with his
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Father and bringing important requests before him, the disciples are on the water and they begin to have trouble.
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As verse 24 says, the boat by this time was a long way from land.
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Okay, so they're in the middle of the lake. Beaten by the waves as verse 24 says.
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For the wind was against them. Like the old song says, right?
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Against the wind? That's where they're going. Against the wind. And as a runner,
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I've run a lot of races in my life. When the wind is against you, that's a miserable experience.
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I remember one time I ran a half marathon and the first three miles, the wind was right in our face. And the moment
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I turned and got out of the wind, I was so relieved. Like, okay, now I can have a break.
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Because when that's pushing on you, it's just twice as hard to keep going. And the disciples here, they're traveling from east to west across the
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Sea of Galilee. And the wind is in their face. The waves are crashing against their boat.
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And this journey they were to take across the northern part of the Sea of Galilee, traveling, as I mentioned, from east to west.
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And as I mentioned in the introduction, the Sea of Galilee is technically a lake. In fact, it goes by several names.
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Two of those names are Lake Tiberias and the other is the Lake of Gennesaret. And if you're thinking of a lake somewhat close to us that Galilee is close to in size,
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I think Gordy and Barb just went on vacation there. Lake Vermilion in Minnesota is about the same size as the
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Sea of Galilee. And Lake Vermilion is the fifth largest lake in Minnesota. So if the
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Sea of Galilee were in this neck of the woods, it would be one of the biggest lakes that there is. And when a lake is called a sea, you know that it is big.
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That's why it's called the Sea of Galilee. In a lake this size, the weather is unpredictable.
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And the waves can get really big. We already saw how unpredictable and dangerous the
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Sea of Galilee can be in Matthew chapter eight, verses 23 through 27. In that passage, the disciples and Jesus got caught in a great storm.
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Remember, Jesus was asleep and the disciples wake Him. And He gets up and He says, "'Peace be still.'
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And the storm calms immediately. No fisherman would go out to sea knowing that a storm was close at hand.
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The Sea of Galilee was in a valley surrounded by high hills. And these hills are so high that they're called mountains.
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Sailors and fishermen could not see the clouds forming on the other side of these hills.
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It was common for a nice day to turn quickly into unpleasant conditions."
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And this is what Jesus and His disciples experienced in Matthew eight, when Jesus calmed that storm. And this is also what the disciples are experiencing in our text.
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Jesus told them to go to the other side. And it may have been that the weather was calm when they launched off the shore, but the waters became rough.
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And this is a miserable experience if you're on one of these boats. They don't have these big fancy boats, right?
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That we have today. They have the wooden boat that they would have made. It would have been a lot more terrifying to be on the waters.
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What verse 24 tells us is that they were far off from the land and they were in the part of the lake that was deep.
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They're in the middle of the lake here. In the middle of the Sea of Galilee, the water was 140 feet deep.
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So you can imagine the waves would be really high at that depth. And they are not riding with the waves, but they're against the waves as verse 24 tells us.
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And at this point, all they're thinking about is getting to the other side. They are rowing with all their might, trying to get through this wind storm.
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But then something amazing happens that takes their focus off the wind and the waves. In verse 25. Verse 25 says, in the fourth watch of the night,
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He, Jesus, came to them, walking on water.
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Walking on the water. Or walking on the sea, as the verse says. What this verse tells us is that Jesus came to them and it even tells us the time of day that He came to them.
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He came in the fourth watch of the night. The fourth watch of the night is between 3 a .m.
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and 6 a .m. They didn't get any sleep. They're traveling across this sea, this lake, through the night.
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Jesus prayed in the evening and this was also the same time when the disciples started their journey to the other side.
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It took them a very long time to make their way across these waters. And remarkably, what the second half of verse 25 says is that Jesus walked on the water before them.
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There's an important point to make here. This lake is not frozen. We need to make that observation.
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We go ice fishing in the winter. People drive their cars on the ice during the winter.
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But the only way it is physically possible for any of us to walk on water is when the ice is frozen.
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But the Sea of Galilee doesn't freeze. It is open water year round.
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They don't do ice fishing there, right? All their fishing is on a boat. And these disciples are on a boat with these waves crashing against the boat.
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What we know too is that some objects float when you throw them on the water. But one object that doesn't float is the human body.
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You will sink unless you swim. And it is physically impossible to have your two feet on the water where you can walk on water as you walk on dry land.
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But Jesus is no ordinary human. He is God and He is man and He is able to defy the laws of physics.
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There's been liberals who have said that, well, you must have been standing on a sandbar.
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If you're going to those places, that is a very sad place to be, okay?
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That's a lost person. If someone is, they don't believe in miracles. And anybody who doesn't believe in miracles is an unsaved person.
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But Jesus is able to defy the laws of physics. We must understand that this is the world we live in.
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This is not a fantasy novel. What we are reading here is history.
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This is fact. Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ walked on the water and this happened 2 ,000 years ago.
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This same man will come in glory one day and that day may be soon and His people will meet
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Him in the air to reign with Him forever. This is the world we live in.
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I mean, let's stop and think about that. You know these graveyards we see around us? Do you realize that those graves are going to rip open and people are going to come out of them?
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That's going to happen. And those who are saved, who are alive, are going to be caught up with those people in the air.
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If someone just walked in who's a secular, man, you guys must be in the sci -fi. No, we believe history.
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We believe facts. We believe the truth. This is the world we live in. How exciting.
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The world we live in could not be less boring. And yet we live in a world where people are more entertained by video games and TV shows than pondering the most important realities of life.
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I know that today is the kickoff for the NFL. I've never been less excited for, maybe last year,
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I don't know, for an opening. I mean, it's one of those things where with so much turmoil going on in the world, things like that just really take a back seat.
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I used to come to church and look for, and look, I used to be more excited about the game after church than listening to the message during church.
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By the grace of God, those days are gone. But that's where the idolatrous heart will go, right?
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I mean, we know that those things are not bad in themselves, right? They can be gifts of God. But idols are evil.
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And we should be amazed at Jesus Christ. We should be amazed at the story that God is writing.
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The one who ponders and worships Jesus Christ is the one who is not wasting his or her life.
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We worship a supernatural man and we live in a supernatural world. May we not forget that.
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This life is so much more than the mundane that we can easily succumb to. What we see in Jesus is otherworldly ability.
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Ability that only comes from God. Because of his enormous power, because of his enormous power, it calls for an appropriate response from those who see his glory.
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And let's see what verses 26 and 27 says. But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it is a ghost.
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And they cried out in fear, but immediately Jesus spoke to them saying, take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.
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Let's put ourselves in the disciples' shoes here. Or sandals, right?
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Whatever they're wearing. They're just pushing forward in their boat, trying to get to the other side.
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And they look out and they see a figure walking on the water before them. Can you imagine this?
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Their first thought, it's a ghost. This tells us he may have been glowing with bright light.
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And he needed to be lit because it was dark. Remember, it was between 3 and 6 a .m. in the morning. And as the disciples see him, they are afraid.
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And we would be afraid too. They see a figure before them walking on water right in front of them.
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But as they are afraid, Jesus does what he does best. He calms their fears.
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He says in verse 27, take heart, it is I. Do not be afraid.
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Throughout the Bible, this is what angels say to people when they appear to humans. First thing that comes out of their mouth, do not be afraid.
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These mighty heavenly creatures know what the response will be from humans, so they calm their fears, right?
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We're these feeble, weak humans. These powerful angels. Do not be afraid. We're not here to harm you.
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We're here to help you. When Jesus appeared to his disciples after his resurrection in Luke 24, they were startled also.
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And he calmed their fears then, telling them what he told them here. You are not seeing a ghost. You are seeing me, the one you know and love.
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And at this point, Jesus had developed a close relationship with his disciples. They did everything together as Jesus poured himself into them.
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But they were still startled when they saw his supernatural side as they see here. And we should be startled too when we think about the glory of Christ.
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He is great and we are feeble. And when the disciples lived with Jesus, they found out how great
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Christ is and how feeble they were. We should fear
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Christ when we see his greatness as the disciples do here. They see the supernatural.
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They see the God -man. And it is proper to tremble when his greatness is before us.
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And when you read the Bible, this comes out. There should be a trembling as we read this.
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This is who we worship. This is who he is. What we also see in these verses is how approachable
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Jesus is. Even though he startles them with his glory, he also does not pump his greatness saying you should be afraid.
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Rather, he says the opposite. Do not be afraid. What we see here in Jesus is one who is great and one who is approachable.
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We love those people in our lives who are above us in authority, but also very approachable. This is how
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Jesus is. At one moment, they're shaking. In another, he is saying, take heart, it is
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I. Do not be afraid. Jesus is telling them, you know me. I am your friend.
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I am not here to harm you, but to help you. Even though he is great, he wants to be around us.
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He wants to pursue us. He wants to help us. He wants us to come to him with all of our needs.
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It is appropriate to tremble at his greatness, but this trembling should not keep us from being around him.
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I once heard described, it's like a general in the army with a low -ranking soldier.
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The low -ranking soldier respects the general and can even call him his friend, but that distinction between general and low -ranking soldier is still there.
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It's not like your buddy that you hang out with and you do everything together.
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It's not like that, but he is your friend, but he's far above you. There needs to be that respect, but there must also be that intimacy that is there as well.
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And what we must understand about Jesus is that no one is like him. He is more approachable than even the most approachable humans you know.
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And no one cares like he cares. Understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives.
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And the second way how is by prompting a proper response through his greatness.
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Right? We should tremble, but also come to him. The third way how we are to understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives is this, through desiring for us to trust him as we take steps of faith.
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And we'll see this in verses 28 -31. This narrative goes in a very interesting direction once Jesus appears to them as he walks on water.
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Let's first look at verses 28 and 29. So Jesus says, Do not be afraid. Take heart in his eye.
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And Peter answered him, Lord, if it is you, and not a ghost, command me to come to you on the water.
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And then Jesus said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.
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Peter is a very interesting man. Some have described him as impulsive. This is accurate.
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You see that throughout the Gospels. For example, when Jesus was about to be arrested, he pulled out his sword and cut off one of the servants of the guard's ear.
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We see something similar here. He sees Jesus and he wants to go. Sometimes Peter's impulsive behavior leads him to do bad things, but other times good things.
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And what we see here is his true faith in Christ coming out. Peter desires to walk out on the water to the
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Lord as he stood on the water some distance away. Peter even asks for permission.
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He's telling the Lord, I want to come out to you, but only if you tell me to come. What we see here is
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Peter's faith and love for Jesus. Even though the waves crash against the boat,
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Peter trusts Jesus and he feels safe with him. Before he goes out on the water, he believes that he can make it to him.
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And we know that Jesus approves of Peter's desire to go to him because of his response in the beginning of verse 29.
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Jesus tells him, come, come to me. It is important for us to know why
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Jesus gives Peter permission. He gives him permission because he approves Peter's question and his desire.
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Peter is exercising faith and God loves it when his people exercise faith.
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What faith means is that we put trust in something or someone. Anytime you get into a car and drive, you are exercising faith.
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You are trusting that the car will hold together and not fall apart as you drive.
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You are trusting that the wheels won't fall off. We exercise faith in so many areas without realizing it.
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Every one of you right now is exercising faith. You're sitting in these pews and they're holding you.
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And subconsciously, when you came in here, you thought, this is going to hold me. So you sit down.
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You're exercising faith. Most importantly, we exercise faith in our relationship with God.
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When we obey him, we are trusting that he is going to hold us. We are trusting that he is going to take care of us.
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We are trusting that he is going to keep his promises. Jesus loves
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Peter's request because Peter believes that Jesus will make him walk on water. And what we see in the second half of verse 29 is that Peter began to walk on the water toward Jesus.
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Things started out great for Peter until his faith wavered, as verse 30 says, but when he saw the wind, he was afraid.
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So he sees the wind. He sees the waves. And this is when things started to go downhill for Peter.
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If his faith were strong, he would have made it to Jesus. But his faith wavered and he did not.
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He started to sink. What verse 30 tells us is that Peter's eyes were no longer on Jesus.
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They were on the wind and the waves that surrounded him. This is so often the experience of Christians in their journey of faith.
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As one author I was reading writes, the Lord goes before us and goes with us. When we get frustrated, anxious, bewildered, and frightened,
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Satan tempts us to wonder why God allows such things to happen to His children. And if we keep our attention on those things, we will begin to sink just as surely as Peter did.
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But if we cry out for the Lord for help, He will come to our rescue just as surely as He did to Peter's.
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In other words, when we focus on our circumstances and not the one who is over our circumstances, this is where we find trouble.
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But as we trust Him, we find joy and peace in the midst of our circumstances. Joy and peace comes through faith.
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That's the key. Faith. You want joy and peace in your life?
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Trust God. If you want fear, anxiety, and depression, don't trust
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God. And none of us want that, but we too often succumb to it if we're honest. What we must understand is that God wants to stretch our faith.
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We're all a project to Him that He's working on. And He loves to see our faith grow.
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Hebrews 11 says, without faith, it is impossible to please
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Him. So if we're going to please God, we're going to exercise faith. We're going to exercise faith in God.
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He will send circumstances our way in order to stretch us, to get us out of our comfort zone.
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It would have been much easier for Peter to stay in the boat. But Jesus called him to come. He says, come to me.
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God's plan is to stretch our faith. As John MacArthur writes, faith is strengthened by its being taken to extremities it has never faced before.
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Such strengthening is basic to Christian growth and maturity. The Lord takes us as far as our faith will go.
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And when it ends, we begin to sink. It is then that we call out to Him and He again demonstrates
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His faithfulness and His power. And our faith learns to extend that much further.
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As we trust God in the faith we have, we discover its limitations. But we also discover what it can yet become.
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We must understand this. The greater our faith, the greater we will extend ourselves for God.
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Faith says, Lord, I am going to put myself out there.
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And I am going to trust that You are not going to leave me out to dry.
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That You will show up. That You will take care of me. That You will help me.
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That You will comfort me. That Your joy will go before me. That Your peace will go with me.
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That's what faith says. Does that describe your life? I ask myself the same question.
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Does that describe my life? What we see here is that when we give way to fear, not wanting to extend ourselves more,
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God is still gracious to meet us and help us where our faith is at. He's patient with us.
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Jesus does that with Peter. As Peter goes out on the water, he starts to think, I'm in trouble.
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It seemed like a great idea at first. Now I'm out here and I don't like it. I can't go anymore.
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I can't extend myself anymore. This is where Peter's faith was at. He first put his trust in Jesus, but now he doubts
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Him. And this is where his faith was at at this point in his walk with the Lord. What we must understand about Jesus is that He is both tough and He's tender.
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He's tough and He's tender. And He's tender by rescuing Peter and not letting them sink to the bottom.
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But He's tough by rebuking him. Jesus says at the end of verse 31, O you of little faith, why did you doubt?
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You didn't have to doubt. I'm here to help you. The Greek word for little faith does not mean no faith like an unbeliever.
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But rather weak faith. Or faith that can improve. Jesus is giving him a constructive criticism that his faith would grow more in the future.
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And it's going to be hard. But do it. That's what Jesus is telling him.
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The Greek word for little faith here means it can grow. And it should be a great encouragement for us to examine the life of Peter.
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He is a model for progression in faith. Church history recorded a man full of faith later on as Peter's life carried out.
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He died a martyr's death at the hands of the Roman Emperor Nero in the 60s
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A .D. Church tradition records that Peter did not want to be crucified the same way that his
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Lord was crucified. So he requested that he be crucified upside down. Peter wrote this about faith in 1
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Peter 1 6 -7. And by the way, he's writing this from his experience. He knows the journey of faith.
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In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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Gold is put in fire and it's refined. God puts you through fire and you come out refined through your faith journey.
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As we pursue deeper faith in Christ in our lives, what we will experience is blessing.
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God has been teaching me this in my own life. Seth, move away from doubt. Move away from anxiety.
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Move away from fear. Trust me and experience the joy and peace of trusting. In me,
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God is communicating that to me and to you as well. Faith is the key to so many of our problems.
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Will we trust him? Will we trust the one who promises to hold us and carry us through? Will we trust the one who always has our best interests in mind?
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Who always has our joy in mind? Will we trust him? He calls us to this, but it's hard to trust.
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We like to trust ourselves, don't we? It doesn't go very well, does it? And you think, well, maybe this time it'll go well.
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No, it never goes well. Trusting God always goes well. May we do that.
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Understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives. And the third way how is by desiring for us to trust him as we take step of faith.
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And let me just say, the reason we have fear, the reason we have anxiety is because we're not giving it over to him, right?
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I love what Philippians 4 verses 6 and 7 says, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything with thanksgiving, bring a request to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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Just as Jesus calmed the storm by saying, peace be still, so he will calm your heart as you go to him in faith.
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Now, the fourth way how we are to understand the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives is this, showing that he alone is worthy of our worship.
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Earlier, I mentioned that his greatness ought to make us tremble. Now, let's look at another appropriate response to his greatness.
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And we'll see this in verses 32 and 33. 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.
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Earlier, I mentioned that in chapter 8, we saw a similar narrative where Jesus saved the disciples and stopped the great storm that they were in.
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Now, he saves them once again from a similar predicament. When Peter and Jesus entered the boat, the wind ceased and with the wind stopping, the waves stopped.
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What this shows is the great power of Jesus. Once again, every one of Jesus' miracles is remarkable.
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But there is something about him controlling the weather that shows how powerful he really is.
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There was recently a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico that hit Louisiana head -on, causing an enormous amount of damage.
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We know that God controls the weather, but when you think of a hurricane, which are the largest storms on planet
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Earth, the power of God really comes alive to us. In a moment,
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Jesus could have told that storm, cease. Calm. Gulf of Mexico, 30 -foot waves, 150 -200 mile per hour winds.
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Suddenly, stop. He has that power. And God has his reasons for allowing bad things to happen.
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And when we look at the totality of world history, God works everything to two ends.
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The good of his people and his glory. That's his whole goal with history. The good of his people and his glory.
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But as Jesus suddenly ended the storm, so he can end a hurricane or an F5 tornado, he is that powerful.
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He is fully man and he's fully God. And in his greatness, he alone is worthy of our worship. The disciples respond to Jesus appropriately here, as we see in verse 33.
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They tell him, you are the Son of God. And they worship him. They understood that they were in the presence of greatness.
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And as Jesus calmed the wind and the waves, his goodness and power is on full display. The disciples are so grateful that he saves them from the trouble that they are in.
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I imagine that the rest of their journey across the lake was probably a smooth ride. Where up to that point, it was a nightmare.
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And as Jesus calmed the wind and the waves, they experienced his goodness. And they were also amazed by his power.
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And as they see this, they worship him. As we think about God's attributes, it's his worship, right?
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It's praise. Lord, you are great and greatly to be praised.
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You are good to us in so many ways. And his goodness and greatness is also on display in verses 34 through 36, as we close here.
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And when they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret. And when the men of that place recognized him, they sent around all that region and brought to him all who were sick and implored him that they might only touch the fringe of his garment.
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And as many as touched it were made well. Once again, here we see the sick come to him.
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They touch his garment. Everyone who touches his garment is healed. And their response must be the same as the disciples' response, and that is worship.
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As we think about Christ's works in the Bible, like this one, and his works in our own lives, do we take the time to praise him?
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We should say to him every single day, Lord, how great you are and how good you are.
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You alone are worthy of worship. So as we summarize this sermon, understand that the one who walks on water is the answer in our lives.
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We have seen four ways how in this text. Through setting us an example of time with God. Through reminding us of his friendship in the midst of his greatness.
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Through desiring for us to trust him as we take steps of faith. Through showing that he alone is worthy of our worship.
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This true story of Jesus walking on water should truly move us and shape us to trust and love him more.
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Now next Sunday, we are once again going to see the villains of Matthew return.
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And the villains, of course, are the Jewish leaders. And we will once again see
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Jesus put them in their place. And this has a lot of relevance to what we see in our world today.
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So I look forward to looking at that with you next Sunday. But this time, let's bow our heads in prayer.
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Father in heaven, we thank you for your word. Lord, I have nothing to offer the people here other than your word.
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And that every one of our thoughts, Lord, would be informed by the truth of your word.
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That we would apply it rightly to our lives. And that this would be a church,
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Lord, full of faith. That the people would be described here as people who are full of faith. That fear would not rule our hearts, but trust in you would rule our hearts.
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Jesus walked on water. And he is the one that we are to go with through life.
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So apply this, Lord, to everyone right where they're at. And with this reminder this morning, in Jesus' name, amen.
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So this is the book we're using for Wednesday nights. We have a bunch of copies. You don't have to buy one. We have the copies here.
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If for whatever reason you can't make it on Wednesday and you'd like a copy, we can get you one as well.