Matthew 14:22-33 A Long Hike on the Water

To the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak takes us through his series on the book of Matthew called Not Your Average Savior. Let's listen in.

The Church Gathers Around the Word

Welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here, and I want to be the first to welcome you to this worship gathering this morning. We have gathered together because we all need something.

I hope that that's the reason you're here. The fact of the matter is maybe we're not all looking for the same thing in this gathering. Maybe you have a variety of different reasons why you showed up here, but the very reason that the church exists and the reason that we gather together is connected with a long line of history that started with Jesus Christ and his followers, and it comes all the way down to us here in Matawan, Michigan.

The New Testament records for us that followers of Jesus came together in communities for teaching, for worship, for sharing, and for caring for each other. And here in Matawan, we're seeking to carry on that fundamental practice of our faith together by gathering together as his people, taking in his word.

Each Sunday, we focus on a text of scripture and see what God desires to communicate to us, what he wants to say to you and me. And this morning, we're going to be back in the book of Matthew, and we're going to be watching Jesus live out his teaching to his followers.

Again, in this passage, similar to last week, something that he does is more to the point than something that he says. He wants to show them, his disciples, and us something amazing, and that lesson was not lost on them, and I hope that this morning, it's not lost on you or I either.

It's a powerful lesson that has many levels to its teaching. And Jesus, in our text this morning, barely speaks. He shows them something that is so awe-inspiring and even now somewhat cliche in our culture.

We would use it as a cliche. We would talk about those who would seek to walk on water or believe that they could walk on water. Just like the feeding of the 5 ,000 last week, this is a familiar account to many of us.

How many of you would say, I heard of the passage of Jesus walking on water? I've heard that mentioned before. I've heard something about that. Yeah, most all of us have heard that. And I think that many of us might have some sense of understanding about it, but maybe some misunderstandings.

We may think that we've already dove into the text, so to speak, pun intended. Nobody got it. That's okay. Water, dove in, I don't know. You're not supposed to dive in. You're supposed to walk on... Dave, did you get it, Dave?

You got it. We got it. We got it. All right, good. But I'm confident that God has something to teach each one of us this morning, that He wants to speak to you. He wants to speak to me. And if we listen to Him, He will indeed be faithful to talk to us and let us know what He desires of us this morning.

His goal, by the way, in us is to produce awe. It's something that, again, because it becomes cliche, it can lose its wonder. It can lose its magnificence. And then all of a sudden, when we start thinking about it, then it becomes incredible or even uncredible to us.

Like when you really start to think about walking on water, how many of you have a little bit more of a scientific mind? You start to think about the mechanics of that. How did the structure of the molecules work?

Was he floating above it? Did the water splash when his foot fell? How many of you, your mind kind of turns to that kind of thing? Not many of us. Okay. No one. Just me. Okay, good. Well, we can skip a whole portion of this then.

That'll be good because I really don't have the answers anyway, so there's no answers to that. But his goal is to produce awe. It is to produce wonder. It is to demonstrate something that you and I cannot conceive of, something that we don't really quite grasp, something that is so different from our everyday day in and day out experience that it shocks us, it startles us to some degree.

And his goal is also to highlight something about faith that may startle us. He wants to produce awe. He wants to produce faith, but he also wants to describe faith to some degree. In our text, we will see a starting faith of Peter getting out of the boat, but we'll also see him teach us something about sustaining faith, a faith that continues past that excited, enthusiastic start.

Jump out of the boat. Now what? Right? And many of us have been there at points in our lives where we have a starting faith that is strong at the beginning, and then when the wind and the waves blow and everything, all of a sudden it's like, how did I get out here again?

How did I get out here on these waves? How did I get out here on this lake? When I finish reading this text, I want you to consider one question. However, when you think about awe and wonder in this text, I want you to think about this question as I read it.

Which is more impressive? Which is more impressive? Which speaks more about God? That Jesus walks on the water or that he rescues Peter even in his doubt? Which of those is more impressive to you? Which of those speaks more volumes about our creator, our God, our Lord, our master?

Which speaks more volumes about Jesus? The fact that he can walk on water, kind of impressive, or the fact that he rescues Peter even while he's doubting, even when he doubts? We can sometimes get so caught up in the miracle that we miss the message.

Jesus shows compassion to those who are his, even in our times of fear and doubt, and that should give us courage. So let's open your Bibles, if you're not already there, to Matthew chapter 14. You can navigate over there in an app if you have that.

I do recommend the ESV app. I think if you just look at the iTunes store and type in ESV, you'll get my favorite Bible app that I use there. And again, I actually preach from the English Standard Version, so that helps.

Not because it's the only version, but because it just happens to be one that's readable and also very easy to study, and so I think it matches well. But we're going to be in Matthew 14, 22 through 33.

If you need a Bible, raise your hand. We want everybody to have a copy of God's Word on your lap so that you can follow along and see the things that I'm saying are coming straight from God's Word. Matthew 14, 22 through 33, recast God's Word to us, what He desires for us to hear from His voice this morning.

Immediately He, that's Jesus, 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 mountainside by Himself to pray.

When evening came, He was there alone. But the boat by this time was a long way from land, beaten by the waves for the wind was against it. 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's 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's 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, Oh, 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.

Let's pray. Father, I thank You for this powerful illustration of the glory and majesty and strength and might of Jesus Christ our Lord. I thank You that He demonstrates compassion, but He also teaches us something about faith here in this text.

About the reality that we are all prone to be like Peter who will jump out of the boat in a moment's notice. And then when it comes to the hard things, when it comes to the difficulties sweeping around us, and when we put our eyes on the circumstances, suddenly we wonder why did we ever begin this journey at the start?

Why did we ever get out of the boat? Why didn't we just stay back there with the other eleven huddled in there watching? So Father, I pray that You would move in our hearts to teach us what You desire us to know of You and the way that You work with us as fallen humans who have a faulty faith, even in our faith that is not as good and strong as it could be or should be.

Father, I pray that You would open our eyes to see You. And in seeing You and Your power and Your majesty and Your authority and Your glory and Your supreme sovereignty over all things, Father, in seeing that, that we would be moved to trust, we'd be moved to faith, we'd be moved to step out in faith because of You, not because of us, not because our circumstances seem right.

And boy, this is a good time to strike while the iron's hot. But at the end of the day, it's all because of You. And so Father, I pray that in our singing this morning as we, as Dave comes to lead us, that we would sing songs motivated from hearts that love You and want to honor You and recognize how glorious and powerful You truly are and how You are the God of each and every circumstance that we face and You are able to control the wind and the waves.

You are able to stabilize things in our lives even when all things around us are going like chaos. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Thanks a lot today for leading us in worship. I would encourage you over the next half an hour or so to get comfortable.

If you need more coffee, if you need more juice, if you need more donuts, while there's some left, you can feel free to get up at any time during the message. I know we just had a break, but you might need that at some point.

And then remember, if you need to get up and stretch out in the back, you can go ahead and do that. I know the seats that you're sitting in are not super comfortable, so if you need to do that at any time, it's not going to distract me.

Keep your Bibles open, please, to Matthew chapter 14, verses 22 through 33. Again, Matthew 14, 22 through 33. And we're going to walk through the text. That's, that's our, it wasn't just a Bible reading this morning.

That's going to be what we dive into and dig into and figure out this morning. But this week, Jesus is at it again. He's at it again last week, feeding over 5 ,000 people with five dinner rolls and two fish.

And this week, he's going to take a stroll on the lake, right? Like, he's kind of at it again. For Jesus, I think you might say a triathlon would be run, bike, run. Swimming was optional for the Son of God.

He didn't have to do the swim portion. He could just kind of truck past everybody on the water if he chose. Thank you. Thank you. A couple people laughed. They thought that was kind of funny. I thought it was funny.

But once again, we will see Jesus teaching his followers by what he does, rather than primarily by what he says. Now, we have portions of Scripture that are recorded for us where Jesus gives extensive teaching to his followers.

The Sermon on the Mount, several chapters earlier in the book of Matthew where he gives extensive teaching. But here, he is teaching by what he does. Although he does speak in this text just a little bit, he's stretching their faith by showing them something instead of telling them something.

How many of you know that there's power in the visible? There's sometimes power in the... I'm a words person, obviously. I mean, God's called me to this, and I like to use words. And how many of you would identify that you're a words person?

You like the realm of words quite a bit, okay? Three of us. And how many of you would say you're more visual? Like, you learn by seeing somebody do something, and then you just kind of repeat that and go, okay.

Well, Jesus did both, right? He used a lot of words, and then he also demonstrated. And the fact of the matter is, you can learn a lot and see a lot about a person by the way that they do what they do.

Not just what they do, but even the way that they do it. You get some ideas about them, and you can figure out some of their character and some of the things that they want to teach you. And oftentimes, some of the things they don't want to teach you, but you can still observe those things by seeing them.

So, we know already, you know, I already read this passage, that Jesus walked on water. But we may not be very quick to be able to conclude anything other than that's pretty neat, right? That's pretty cool.

How many of you think it's kind of cool that he walked on water? Like, that's impressive. That's impressive. It's kind of mind-boggling. But my hope is that after this message, we have a better understanding of what Jesus was trying to teach us from this event beyond just, it would be cool to walk on water.

Like, I think if you think about it, like some of you, you know, none of us in the room have a superpower, at least that I know of, right? Like, I mean, maybe you're hiding it. You hide it really well if you've got it.

But, I mean, if somebody was just passing out the super powers and you got the walk on water one, not the coolest of all superpowers you can conceive of, but beyond what you're already able to do, how many of you would take it?

Like, I mean, if it was just like, you know, that'd be kind of, oh yeah, just show off at parties and things like that and at the baptism later and things like that, you know, you can just walk across the pool.

That'd be cool for party tricks and stuff like that. Not sure it's super practical for much else, right? But that would be, that would be kind of neat. But in our, the outline for our message, the outline of what Jesus wants to communicate to you and me this morning is this.

Those of you that like outlines, a lot of these passages in Matthew are easy to outline. They outline themselves. And so, we're going to see Jesus sets up the tension in verses 22 through 24. And that's going to be a specific point.

It sounds just kind of like filler, but we'll get there. Jesus surprises with power in verses 25 through 27. Jesus supplies power, verses 28 and 29. And lastly, Jesus saves, verses 30 through 32. And we'll save verse 33 for application at the end.

And so, that's the outline. That's kind of where we're going. And let's start with this verse that Jesus sets up the tension in verses 22 through 24. And they are not filler. This is not just filler. This isn't just setting up the, the event of the walking on the water.

There's something significant that we need to look at. These verses are not merely introductory material, but it's very important that we understand that Jesus is responsible for everything that happens in this text.

He sets it up. He plans it out to the detail. And he sets this all up. Verse 22 tells us why the disciples are in a boat out at sea all night long. It tells us in our text why they are there. It's because Jesus put them there.

Jesus commanded them. He commanded them. It says in verse 22, he made the disciples. It's a forceful word in Greek. He, it's like he had to, had to coerce them into the boat, so to speak, and to get out into the waves.

Get in the boat and start across the lake. While he remained behind to dismiss the crowds after they've been fed. Well, the text is unclear about why he was so quick to get rid of the disciples after the feeding of the 5 ,000.

But many scholars believe that has something to do with something that the other, one of the other gospel writers records for us about this event that Matthew doesn't. So how many of you know that if you have eyewitnesses to an account, an event that happens, some people identify that he was wearing a gray shirt, and other people are going to identify how tall he was.

Somebody's going to be like, well, he was wearing glasses. And you might not catch all of those detail, details if you see it, but others are catching different aspects of the details. And John, it records for us something that was going on in the crowd as Jesus was feeding the 5 ,000.

Now maybe John was just privy to it. Maybe he overheard conversations. Maybe he knew what was going on. But, or maybe he had a personal conversation with Jesus about these things. Or maybe it was just revealed to him later.

But according to John 6 verses 14 through 15, we learn that when, here's, here, and I'm quoting John, this is the actual verses, when the people saw the sign that he had done, what was that sign? The feeding of the 5 ,000.

When they saw the sign that he had done, they said, this is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world. This is the one that was prophesied. This is the one who was coming. This is the Messiah, the chosen one.

Still quoting John, perceiving then that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, Jesus withdrew again to the mountain by himself. So John concludes this with Jesus retreating to the mountain.

Matthew also records the same thing for us, that Jesus retreated to the mountain. But we actually get a little bit of a motive here in John for why the people were about to take him in by force and command him to be their king.

And basically go before the Romans and say, we have a king now. And, and hoping that he, I mean, how many of you think that that miracle was pretty impressive to the people? How many of you think that human nature wants a king who can provide bread without work?

I mean, that, that guy's electable, right? He's, he's president right off the bat if he can feed the world with his voice. If he can break the bread and multiply it and can feed everybody with fish and loaves for indefinitely and make him king.

And I don't think he wanted his disciples to be poisoned by that mindset because Jesus did not come the first time to set up an earthly kingdom. He came to suffer and to die for us. He had different motives for being here.

It wasn't that he would be the king. It wasn't that he would set up a political entity that would overthrow the Roman oppression and usher in his own kingdom. Now he is going to come again someday and that is going to be the reality.

I say the first time because the second time he is coming and he will set up a kingdom once and for all that will be eternal and glorious and oh what it is to be a part of that kingdom. It's a glorious and beautiful thing that's called eternal life.

It's a beautiful thing. But in this text he's, he's, he's not, he's not ready for that and I don't think he wanted his disciples. He's, get in the boat and get out of here is basically what he says to his disciples.

Get out of here. Get, get, get going, head across the lake. So the disciples are in a storm trying some combination of rowing and sailing. I don't know if you ever wondered what these boats were like but they would have had, they would have been a combination kind of thing and sailing probably wasn't working too well in this storm.

They're heading, they're trying to head west across the lake. The wind is coming from the west. Anybody who knows anything about sailing, sailing into the wind is not particularly easy. They probably tried to do some tacking back and forth a bit and then eventually they pull out the oars and they are working and toiling while Jesus is back on the shore dismissing the crowds for the evening and retreating, retreating for some much deserved alone time.

Remember that at the beginning of our passage last week the one thing that Jesus wanted was to get by himself, to be alone and so now he gets that alone time. But I want you, I want to ask you this, I just, just simple thought here as we see Jesus setting up the tension here in our text.

Does this story fit on your coffee mug? Does it make it on motivational posters? A nice beautiful picture of Jesus catching some alone time in prayer while in the background the disciples toil in misery and fear all night long?

You don't hear about that very often do you? This isn't a story that makes it on the motivational posters or the really good nice things that they sell at the Christian bookstores and things like that.

If you think God, if you think that God will only ever give you what you want, if you think God will only ever give you easy, if you're Jesus, you're Jesus, I like how people use that, when people use my Jesus it often means that we're going to stop talking about the Bible.

Have you ever noticed that? But if your Jesus would, would never leave you alone in a boat to fight against the waves, then you're going to be disappointed in those dark nights while you row and row and row and row and row and row and make no headway.

It feels like you're going nowhere and it feels like you are alone. But in our text, in this Bible, the Jesus, the Jesus, the Almighty, will sometimes teach us by letting us spend some time alone. He sometimes lets us spend some time alone.

That we might value him more, maybe, that might be a possible motivation. I find it interesting that when we sin, every single time we sin, we are essentially saying to God, I want some alone time. That's what sin by nature is.

I want to be apart from you. I don't want your eyes on me. I want you away from me. When he actually retreats, we get a little upset and angry, don't we? Why have you left me? Why am I out here in the boat while you're having some nice quiet time alone?

And I'm here in the boat rowing. The Greek words used in verse 24 indicate that the boat is a few miles out to sea in a storm and they're not quite halfway across the lake. We don't know what time they took off heading west, but we do know that sometime between three o 'clock and six o 'clock in the morning, and they're still fighting the storm.

They left sometime after dinner, and the next morning they're still rowing. How many of you like those hours, three to six, three o 'clock to six o 'clock in the morning? Is that fun to do anything during that time?

They're still fighting the storm. And that brings us to our second point. Jesus now comes to them walking on the sea during the fourth watch, sometime between three o 'clock and six o 'clock. And this is our second point.

Jesus Astonishes with His Power

Jesus astonishes them with his power. The simplicity of language in verse 25. Look at, look at what verse 25 says to us. Just kind of matter of fact, Matthew recording for us what he saw with his eyes.

And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea. What? Those aren't words that go together very well. It doesn't matter what the language is that you're speaking. In English, walking on the sea is not a common everyday phrase, right?

That's not, doesn't seem normal. The simplicity of the language in 25 doesn't do justice to the awe and wonder that it ought to convey to us. We all know that people don't walk on the sea. The disciples also knew full well that people do not walk on the sea.

Have you ever considered that a lot of these disciples spent their time on the sea? They had been around it enough to know that this doesn't happen, okay? They had been out late nights fishing, often on this very lake, and never once had they seen somebody walking on the sea.

And so in verse 26, we see that they respond in a reasonable way. I love how the disciples in their authenticity that are sharing with us, they kind of incriminate themselves often in the gospels. They don't make themselves look super polished and great and like they're just austere, robust, you know, paragons of faith and the apex of humanity.

They don't share that with us. They're scared. They're terrified. And the word that's used for terrified there, it's a technical word that means scared, witless. They're horrified. They assume that they were seeing a ghost.

Dave made mention to me earlier just about the haunted lake. I thought, man, I missed the title. This could have been the haunted lake, but they assume they're seeing a ghost. I mean, you don't see people walking on the top of the waves in the lake or the, you know, imagine being out at the pier at South Haven or whatever, somewhere over on the lake, and you see somebody walking out there.

I mean, you'd just be a little creeped out. Like, you'd just be like, this is not normal. This isn't what happens. They assumed they're seeing a ghost, and further, even more funny, is that it says that they screamed like little girls.

It says that here. I mean, I'm taking a little bit of liberty with the translation, but the phrase cried out in fear, cried out in fear is literally in Greek, a scream without words. So, this is the, ah, you know, like, I mean, you ever sneak, any of you like to sneak up on people?

Maybe a little bit. You could be a little guilty of that, and that's what you're looking for, right? It's that, ah, a little bit of that. So, that's what this is. This is an, you know, it's not, it's, there's no words involved in it.

It's just an utterance of fear, and it's interesting that Jesus both terrifies and comforts here. I think that's a reality of God, by the way. I think that when you meet God, there's both a terror and a comfort that comes with knowing him and being one of his followers that is both, wow, our minds are going to blow, and we're probably all, I imagine that I will be on my knees before him, and equally, I will be comforted by him.

I think that he'll say, get up, dude, get up. He will say things like what he says to the, them here, take heart. It's me. Don't be afraid. You've got nothing to fear. It's me. I'm Jesus, and you have nothing to fear in my presence.

Come on, guys. It's close enough somehow in this storm, by the way. I think many times, in my mind, I've got the storm a little bit more violent. Like, I'm like, how could he even hear, how could they even hear him?

Well, it may be, or maybe not raining. The fact of the matter is there's a lot of wind, and there are waves going on, and they're fighting against these waves, but I don't imagine a lightning strike every second or something like that's going on here.

I think that they're able to hear. He's at least close enough to the boat to be able to have a conversation with them, and Jesus is walking on the water for a purpose. I think a lot of times we miss the purpose.

We're like, that's cool, that's cool, it's amazing, and the purpose might surprise us at first. He's walking on the water for the simple and profound purpose that he wants to show off. He wants you to be impressed.

He wants you to be amazed. He could have taken a boat. Did you know that that was within his power, to take a boat? He could have walked around the lake and met them on the other side. He could have swam across.

Yes, because he's the Son of God and all-powerful, he could swim that far, no problem. He could have created a flying donkey, eagle, monkey, bird thing and rode that across. Yeah, too much? I don't know, but he walks on the water to them to showcase his power.

He wants them to take in how in control he really is, how much power he really possesses. They've been toiling all night. They've been working feverishly with fear to try to get to the other side. He catches up with them walking on the water.

They are properly surprised, which is the response that I believe he anticipated to his awesome display of power. He surprises them with his power. But Jesus doesn't only use his power for his own transportational benefits.

Remember that last week the message was that Jesus is not stingy. And so in verse 28, the central lesson of this text, Jesus supplies power. And Jesus supplies power particularly to Peter to also walk on water.

There are lots of thoughts we may have about this event, and I would ask you to try your best to remove your preconceived notions as we talk through this. And let's try our best to look at this event through fresh eyes.

Peter initiates this, his walk on water, with confidence and faith. Now you might go, wait a minute, where's the confidence and faith in this? And Jesus doesn't commend him for confidence and faith. But look at verse 28.

Verse 28 is a soaring statement of faith. And Peter answered him. Remember, Jesus has just comforted them. Take heart, it's I, don't be afraid. And Peter answered him, Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water.

Now the if there, some people literally translate it. You can look at different versions of the Bible. Some will have since, and some have if, and some of it comes down to Greek prepositions are a little bit, can play dual purposes and different things like that.

But either way, regardless of which way you interpret that, it is still a major statement of faith, a soaring statement of faith. Some translators, if it's you, command me to come to you, while others translate, since it's you, command me to come to you.

But either way, Peter is showing a crazy and radical faith in Jesus. Peter had spent his whole life around the water, his occupation, fisherman. He knew what happened when you stepped out of a boat in the water.

He had full understanding of that, fully experienced in that jumping in feeling. But he firmly believes, he firmly, deeply has faith that he can walk on water if Jesus wants him to. Is that pretty strong faith?

Anybody impressed with that faith? Anybody going, I'm not sure I could muster that faith in that moment? Peter says, if it's you, if you're really Jesus, then I got no question I can walk on this water right now.

I can do this. Just tell me, just command me. If you command me, I know that this is going to be fine. It can be kind of confusing to us what might have motivated Peter to put himself out there like this.

Like, what was going on in his brain? Well, was he trying to prove it was Jesus? Is there really an if in that? If it's you, then I know that I can walk on the water and prove to everybody that it really is you, or what's going on.

But the more you study the life of Peter, the more you get the feel for him, the more you understand his writings and the things that are written about him in scripture and in history, and the way that you really get down to his character makes more sense to understand why he would put himself out there.

I think most of us had friends like that when we were younger, you know, someone like Peter. You know, the kid who always had to learn the hard way? Any of you know? I mean, you get a name in your mind.

You got that, maybe you were that kid and you just don't even want to admit it, but outspoken, brash. When a teacher called for someone to come up and put their hand in the rat trap, they were already there with their fingers extended, you know, they were just like, yo me, me, me, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it.

Whatever it was that was gross or weird or different, they were like, I'm on it. I don't believe that Peter thought through everything that he ever said in advance. I don't, you don't get that from the things that he said, the way that he said them, the way that Jesus was constantly rebuking him.

I think you need to correct that. You got this wrong, Peter, you got that wrong. But he was always eager to answer, always quick, and very direct. But even though he didn't believe or didn't think through everything that he said in advance, I do believe that in our text he has a solid, real, and substantial, what I'm going to call starting faith.

He really does trust Jesus. He really does believe him. And this is important to this lesson this morning. In verse 29, Jesus humors Peter. I think there was maybe a little wry smile on Jesus's face. He's like, oh wow, this is cute.

This is great. Come on. Come, he says. Just, just come. Command. Come. We read these amazing words. Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. Peter got out of the boat, walked on the water, and came to Jesus.

I don't want to speculate too much about how far Peter walked on the water, but he got out of the boat and he made it to Jesus. Is anybody else besides me impressed by that faith? He got there. I want to give kudos to Peter for getting out of the boat while the other, where are the other 11?

In the boat. What they knew was stable. What they knew could hold them. What they could trust in. Don't lose sight of whose power is keeping Peter on top of that water. It's not his faith. You'll see that here in a moment.

It's not his faith. Jesus is supplying the miraculous power that is keeping Peter above the waves. Peter begins to see the wind, and I'm sure the waves are what he actually took in with his eyes. The word that's used there in Greek is wind, but I mean we know the effects of the wind are what he's, what he's identifying with his eyes.

And I want to be careful in the way that I burst this bubble, but many people will say that by taking his eyes off Jesus, he began to sink. But that isn't exactly what the text is trying to say to us.

So keep your eyes on Jesus. Just keep your eyes on Jesus. Peter knew Jesus was keeping him afloat. Peter knew that the wind was strong before he ever got out of the boat. Peter had enough faith to step out under the water.

So what really changed for Peter here in this instant when he finally gets to Jesus? Jesus in verse 31 is going to rib Peter for the insufficiency of his faith, and he follows it up with why did you doubt?