Ya’ll ever wonder about what it takes to build your faith? Like… when someone prays, “God, increase my faith.”, what exactly does that entail? I got to reading in my Bible about the story of Peter stepping out the boat that other day, and the Lord brought some thoughts to my mind.
I don’t have any funny anecdotes to start this one off with so I think we’re just going to jump into it, straight into Scripture. As always, I’d encourage you to pull out your physical Bibles if you can and do some markup, but, if you’re not in a position where you can do that, we’re going to have all the Scripture laid out right here. Full Disclosure though…. I have written this as a copy for an upcoming sermon I’m going to be giving, so if you read any references regarding “this morning”, “folks who are here today”, etc. just know that is why. Without any further ado, let’s hop into Matthew 14:22-23.
22 And straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away.
23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.
24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.
25 And in the fourth watch of the night Jesus went unto them, walking on the sea.
26 And when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were troubled, saying, It is a spirit; and they cried out for fear.
27 But straightway Jesus spake unto them, saying, Be of good cheer; it is I; be not afraid.
28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.
29 And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.
30 But when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me.
31 And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?
32 And when they were come into the ship, the wind ceased.
33 Then they that were in the ship came and worshipped him, saying, Of a truth thou art the Son of God.
Matthew 14:22-23
In the margin on that passage of Scripture in Matthew, if you are one to mark in your Bible, I’d like you to write the verse references for the two other accounts of this story. They are in Mark 6:45–53 and John 6:10-21. For the sake of time, we aren’t going to read those. However, if you were to take the time to, (and I would highly encourage you to do so), you’d get a more full picture of the events that transpired.
SIDE NOTE: Whenever you are reading any of the Gospels it’s a good idea to check if there are parallels in the other 3 books, as it often gives you a new perspective.
I’ll briefly summarize this passage for you here, taking into consideration the other accounts of this story in the Bible…
The Full Story
- (John) Jesus feeds the 5000. Takes up 12 baskets of leftovers. The people want to make him a king.
- (All three accounts) Jesus tells the disciples to go on ahead by boat while he disperses the people.
- (All three accounts) Jesus departs to a nearby mountain to pray, alone.
- (All three accounts) The disciples depart as Jesus tells them to and begin rowing across the sea of Galilee. The wind picks up and becomes scary.
- (John) It gets dark. Jesus has not come to them.
- (Mark) From his place on the mountain, Jesus sees them working hard trying to row this boat in the sea of Galilee with all the wind.
- SIDE NOTE: It’s nighttime, how does Jesus see them from all the way up on that mountain?
- (John) The disciples keep rowing for 25-30 furlongs, having no idea where Jesus is, and not knowing that Jesus has already seen them from the mountain.
- SIDE NOTE: A furlong is 1/8th of a mile. So they’ve rowed 3.1-3.75 miles in this nasty weather. I don’t know if you’ve ever used a rowing machine at the gym before, or been out in a boat. But just imagine doing that at max resistance for over 3 miles!
- (Matthew, Mark) 4th watch of the night (3:00 AM – 6:00 AM) comes and Jesus comes walking on the sea.
- SIDE NOTE: The disciples are still rowing at 3:00 AM in that bad weather! They’re TIRED. Remember, the previous day they helped Jesus feed the 5000. They still haven’t had any sleep!
- ANOTHER SIDE NOTE: Mark 6:48 says Jesus “would have passed by them”. What does that mean?
- This doesn’t mean that he was going to ignore the disciples. It’s the same thing that God did to Moses in Exodus 33:22 and 34:6. God passed by before Moses, hiding him in the cleft of the rock, to show His power. Jesus was showing that he had power over the waves.
- (All accounts) The disciples become troubled and afraid, believing Jesus to be a spirit. Jesus tells them to not be afraid.
- (Matthew) Peter asks Jesus if he can come to Jesus, walking on the water. Jesus says yes and Peter steps out of the boat and begins walking toward Jesus.
- (Matthew) Seeing the scary wind and waves, Peter becomes afraid. Begins sinking. Cries for Jesus to save him.
- (Matthew) Jesus stretches out his hand and catches Peter to keep him from drowning.
- SIDE NOTE: Did Jesus drag Peter through the water back to the boat?
- ANOTHER SIDE NOTE: Did he pick Peter up and carry him back?
- LAST SIDE NOTE: Did Peter walk with him hand-in-hand?
- (All accounts) They come into the ship and the wind immediately ceases.
- (John)The boat miraculously gets to the other side of the sea of Galilee
So now that we have the full summary of events that happened that night, let’s dive into some application…
We know that it is the 4th watch of the night, so the disciples have been in the boat for hours at this point. They have no idea where Jesus is. The last thing he told them was to go on ahead. As the day has gone on the wind begins to get worse and worse. The waves begin to get rockier. Up and down. Huge swells. The Bible doesn’t say so we don’t know if it was storming with rain, although this is often depicted when people imagine the story. We’ve all been around here at the coast, so we know what bad weather looks like, rain or not. It was not a good time to be out in the boat.
I wonder what the disciples were thinking. After all, Jesus was the one who told them to get out of that boat. They knew by this point in time that Jesus had supernatural powers. He could perform miracles. He healed the sick, he made the lame to walk and the dumb to speak. Surely he knew the future, for he prophesied often of it. So if he really knew the future, why would he have sent his disciples out into the water on such a dangerous night?
Pretty soon the sky was black. Maybe the stars were out. Water was pouring over the side of the boat as each wave crashed. The disciples were panicking. The water was so turbulent, the boat was rocking so hard, I imagine they were probably having trouble standing. Maybe even walking. They could hardly see. Where was Jesus? Had he led them wrong? Did he not care?
1st point of Application
Can you think of a time in your life when the Lord sent you out ahead of him in the boat? Can you think of a time in your life when God told you to do something, and then it seems like he left you?
I imagine at this point in time the disciples probably feel a little betrayed. Jesus, the all-powerful all-knowing Savior, sending them out into a boat in the middle of the night, knowing that there was going to be bad weather. They probably thought they were going to die. I imagine some of them were thinking about when Jesus calmed the waves and stilled the storm in Matthew 8:23-27. You have to flip BACK A FEW PAGES in your Bible to get to that. You see… This wasn’t the first time the disciples had been out in some scary water.
23 And when he was entered into a ship, his disciples followed him.
24 And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
25 And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26 And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
27 But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!
Matthew 8:23-27
Who was right there in the boat with the disciples during that storm? JESUS.
During that storm, he’d been right there with them physically. But in this storm, they were by themselves. It was bad enough when there was a storm in Jesus was there, now there was a storm in Jesus wasn’t there!
There are going to be times in your life when you feel like there is a storm going on, but you can feel the presence of Jesus. It’s a beautiful thing when you can feel the presence of Jesus in your life working in your circumstances, when you can feel his hand on you guiding you even in a bad situation.
However there are also times in your life when you will be going through a trial or a tribulation or a problem and you will feel like you are apart from God. You will feel like God is nowhere to be found. You will feel like God isn’t listening to you. You may even blame God for putting you in a storm. You don’t feel like he’s listening or caring about you.
There’s two different reasons you may not feel this closeness with the Lord.
- You don’t have that relationship with your heavenly Father.
- You have that relationship, BUT there’s something that God wants to show you about your next step in faith with Him.
Let’s camp out here for a minute and look at these two different angles. Let’s assume that you’ve come here today and you know that you don’t have a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You say, “Sam, I feel like I’m going through a storm in my life, and I know that I don’t have a relationship with Jesus. He isn’t my Lord. I haven’t given my life to Him.”
Do you know that the Bible has an account of people just like you, going through the EXACT SAME SITUATION?
4 But the Lord sent out a great wind into the sea, and there was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken.
5 Then the mariners were afraid, and cried every man unto his god, and cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it of them. But Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep.
6 So the shipmaster came to him, and said unto him, What meanest thou, O sleeper? arise, call upon thy God, if so be that God will think upon us, that we perish not.
7 And they said every one to his fellow, Come, and let us cast lots, that we may know for whose cause this evil is upon us. So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah.
Jonah 1:4-7
These men, who didn’t believe in God and didn’t have that relationship found themselves in the midst of a storm. Literally.
These men, when the storm came, did not look to God to calm the storm. What does it say they did in verse 5?
First they started throwing off baggage, trying to make the boat lighter. They threw off wares and boxes and stuff. It was like the Boston Tea Party, but Biblical. They were dumping stuff.
People do that sometimes don’t they? People realize they have a problem and they start dumping things.
- They put on too much weight so they clear out their junk food from the pantry.
- They get in a bad fight with their partner and they dump them.
- Classes get too hard so you drop the major or drop the course.
- You and your friend fall out and now the relationship is in the trash.
- I know people who’ve trashed vapes, burned their cigarettes, and poured alcohol down the drain.
Now, don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s good to remove some things.
- It’s good to remove bad influences.
- It’s good to remove bad behaviors.
- It’s good to remove bad friends.
- It’s good to remove bad TV, music, and other media
- It’s good to remove bad substances.
Just know that dumping things from your life isn’t going to solve the problem.
Now… these men didn’t just dump stuff off the boat. What else did they do? They got religious.
You know what else won’t solve the storm you’re in in your life? Getting religious.
Let’s look at verse 5 again…. It says every man cried to his god. Why do you think that they did this?
They were just trying to get out of a jam. They weren’t looking to have a relationship with the Lord. Life got hard and difficult and they started looking for something spiritual. Be on guard against this, for people do the same thing today.
Often, when tragedy strikes or things get bad, people turn to God for a brief time. After 9/11, church attendance spiked 25%. But it didn’t stick. And its partially because people don’t get it.
The Lord isn’t just someone you call on when you need to get out of a bad spot. He’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card. He’s God.
Many people today either treat the Lord like he’s a doctor or a sugar daddy. They come to Him when they’re hurt or they try to use Him when they want something. This is wrong.
- Your relationship with him should go deeper.
- Your relationship with God should be a real thing you participate in daily.
It’s not a once-a-week-on-Sunday relationship. It’s not a transactional trade thing where you say “Hey God you do this for me and I’ll do this for you. Scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” No!
I like to think about my walk with Christ as a conversation that never stops. At any point in the day, I can spend time with Jesus. I don’t have to be wearing my nice clothes or have my Bible open on the table in front of me, or be sitting in a church somewhere. My relationship with God is with me during the good times and the bad times.
Some mornings, I’ll be driving to work, and I’ll imagine Him sitting right there in the passenger seat, and we’ll talk. Out loud. I’ll work through a problem with him, and he’ll bring scripture to my mind to comfort me. I’ll praise him for the work he’s doing in my life. I’ll ask for opportunities to serve and to witness. He always places those opportunities in my path when I ask. It’s a relationship that goes both ways.
And yes, I do call out to him when I’m hurting. I call out to Him when I feel I have a need to be met. But those aren’t the only interactions that I have with my Lord. And they shouldn’t be your only interactions with Him if you’re a child of God.
2nd point of Application
But… for the sake of the argument, let’s say you don’t know Christ. You don’t have that relationship. You’re not feeling that closeness to the Lord, so you decide you’re going to run the same play that those men on the boat with Jonah did. You’re going to rip a page from the same playbook and start dumping things from your life and/or getting religious. What happens?
The Bible tells us in Luke 11:24-27
24 When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.
25 And when he cometh, he findeth it swept and garnished.
26 Then goeth he, and taketh to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.
27 And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice, and said unto him, Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.
Luke 11:24-27
What is the Bible talking about here? There’s a few different ways to look at it, but today I want you to consider the principle of removing without replacing. Let’s look at the man the Bible mentions above. The man gets right. He removes the bad things from his life, but he doesn’t seek to actively replace them with good things. What happens? Well, eventually he slips back into his bad habits because he doesn’t replace them with good habits. Often, it’s worse than before.
The Pantry Example
Think about your pantry. You open it one day and there’s a bunch of junk food in it. You really like junk food and have developed a habit of eating it. A lot of it. You decide you want to be healthy, so you dump all the junk food in the trash. However, you don’t go out and buy healthy food to replace it with.
Every day, as you normally would, you come home and open your pantry because you’re hungry and you want a snack. However, there’s nothing in the pantry to satisfy your hunger. The pantry is SWEPT CLEAN. Because there’s nothing to eat, the hunger pains remind you of how good all that junk food tasted. You want it more and more as the days go by. Finally, one day a few weeks later, rather than stare dejectedly at your empty pantry, you break and decide to go buy some junk food. After not having it for a while, and craving it every day, you go overboard. You buy Twinkies, Reese’s, muffin tops, oatmeal creme pies, brownies, and everything else. You pig out, then you realize you ended up with more junk food in your pantry than you started with!
This is how those who don’t trust in God live their lives. They come under conviction, or God sends a circumstance their way to get them to see the need for Him, and they decide to start removing things. They know they need to drop bad habits, or friends, or whatever else, but it doesn’t stick. Why? Because they’re not replacing them with good things.
Let’s say you have some bad friends. They influence you wrong. They get you into trouble. So one day you decide to get rid of them. Now you’re alone. The weekend rolls around and you don’t have anybody to talk to or hang out with. It’s fine for a while, but eventually, you get sad and depressed because you crave friendship. You haven’t replaced the bad with something good.
If you took the time you spent with those friends and replaced it with time spent growing your relationship with the Lord (something good), you’d be in a better spot.
If you took the time you spent with those friends and replaced it with praying for good friends for the Lord to put in your path, or good hobbies that could improve your life or the lives of others, you’d be in a better spot.
When you seek to clean up and remove the bad parts of your life, you should always be looking to Jesus for the alternative of what to fill those parts with.
Me.
The Other Angle and The Other Side
Now… let’s go WAYYYY back and examine that other angle. Let’s say that you’re not like the heathen in the boat with Jonah. You’re not dumping a bunch of bad things out of your life. You’re not faking your spiritual walk. What is the other reason that you might not feel that closeness to the Lord?
Maybe you have a solid relationship with God, but there is something God is wanting to show you about your next step in faith with Him.
This is where the disciples were that night when they were out in the boat, apart from Jesus, in that storm. Those men all knew Jesus on a personal level. They all sought to follow him. They all had that relationship, yet they found themselves apart from God in tough situation.
The Bible says in Matthew 14:25 that Jesus came to them during the 4th watch of the night.
Sam… what time was the 4th watch of the night again???
The fourth watch of the night would have been 3:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. I imagine that by this point, they’ve been battling the wind and waves in the darkness for a while, right? They hadn’t had any sleep. They’d been rowing for hours. Are you in a place like that in your life right now, where it’s dark and you can’t seem to keep your footing and you feel removed from God?
Many times, when people get to places like that in their lives, they think it must be because they’ve done something wrong or God is punishing them. Sometimes God indeed uses trials in our lives to correct us, but sometimes you’ve REALLY DONE NOTHING WRONG.
The disciples here are one example of this scenario, let’s quickly examine another. You don’t have to turn there, but let me quickly read to you John 11:3-4
3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.
John 11:3-4
This is an account in the Bible of one of Jesus’s friends, Lazarus. Lazarus became ill. Mary and Martha, Lazarus’s sisters, sent to Jesus to tell him, and Lazarus died before Jesus came.
Do you think Lazarus wanted to be ill? Do you think he liked being sick? He became so sick that he literally died! If we skip down a couple of verses to John 11:14 we can see that Jesus confirms this.
14 Then said Jesus unto them plainly, Lazarus is dead.
John 11:14
Skip down a couple more verses an we see he stays dead for 4 days!
17 Then when Jesus came, he found that he had lain in the grave four days already.
John 11:17
What did Lazarus do to deserve that? He followed Jesus. He loved Jesus. And Jesus loved him.
3 Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, behold, he whom thou lovest is sick.
John 11:3
Seems like Lazarus got dealt a bad hand, doesn’t it? The key to this question lies in what Jesus meant when he said “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God”
That meant Lazarus’s trial wasn’t going to end in the tragedy of painful death. It was going to end with a victory in Christ. Good was going to be glorified by the events that were happening in Lazarus’s life. We can assuredly say, based on the Scripture we just read, that Lazarus went through all of that so that God could be glorified. It was not a form of punishment for some evil he had done.
We may not know how long Lazarus went through his trial, but we do know how long the disciples in that boat went through theirs. Till sometime between 3-6 AM.
What does the Bible say happened during that time? Jesus was watching them from his place on the mountain, and then he finally came to them, walking on the water.
This is what Jesus does for us too. If you’re a child of His, he’s never removed from your life. He’s watching over you, just as he was His disciples. When he wasn’t walking to them in the storm, He was watching over them from the mountain.
So yeah… there can be times in your life when you’re tired and it’s dark and there’s a storm going on and you WANT Jesus to perform a miracle like he did walking on the water. But, if he doesn’t, don’t think that he’s forgotten about you. He may just be watching you for a time.
There’s no way for me to prove it, but part of me wonders if he was watching the disciples to see if they’d turn back. Remember, right before they parted and the disciples got into the boat and Jesus went to the mountain He told them to do what?
He told them to go to the other side.
I wonder if Jesus wanted to see if they’d stick it out when He wasn’t there. If they’d keep on obeying even when it was rough and hard and they didn’t see Him.
God does that to us today. There are times when God is silent. Not because He hates you. Not because he doesn’t care, but because He wants to see if you have the faith to obey.
Ask yourself, “Do I have the faith to obey even when it’s hard? Even when I don’t feel like Jesus sees me or cares?” If you do have the faith, you’ll continue rowing. You won’t give up on God when you feel like he’s given up on you. And, rest assured, if you carry on, He’ll eventually come and start walking on your ocean.
Now… back to the disciples…..
He wasn’t just walking on some calm pond y’all. Get the picture set in your mind. Remember, that boat was getting tossed all around. The wind was whipping. In my head, I see his cloak flying behind him, like a streamer in the wind as he walks towards the boat. The waves are rising up to crashing down on him, but they break around him as if some force field is in place
The disciples are terrified. He looks like a ghost or something on the ocean. He calls out to them. They recognize his voice. ITS JESUS!
It is here where the account of Matthew diverges from the other Gospels.
Peter asks the Lord if he can come out to him on the water! Notice the words he uses in Matthew 14:28
28 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water.
Matthew 14:28
He said ”if it be thou bid me come”
Many people talk about the faith Peter had when he walked on water, and the faith he lost when he began to sink, but we often overlook a key truth found right there in verse 28.
Faith must be an inward thing before it becomes an outward thing.
Me
I believe Peter asked that question already knowing the answer, and he’d already committed in his heart to stepping out of the boat if Jesus called him to.
In saying “bid me come”, he was really saying, “Lord, if that’s you, I want to be closer to you. Even if it means I have to go through a scary storm. Even if it means I have to do what looks impossible in my eyes. I KNOW YOU’LL MAKE A WAY OF MY DESIRE IS TO BE CLOSER TO YOU.
The faith he needed was already set in place in his heart before he ever stepped out of the boat.
Is your desire today to be closer to Jesus? To walk his path for your life, even if it means you have to do the uncomfortable and impossible?
Can you make a commitment to the Lord to already have the faith in your heart before he calls you to come to Him and step out of the boat?
They had faith when they were in the boat, and Peter had faith when God asked him to step out. Do you have that faith in the Lord today? If not, are you willing to make a commitment to give you that faith, no matter what the consequences are?
