This morning, Matthew 14 verses 22 through 33 is our scripture. Let me read it for us, and then we'll go into the word of God together. Immediately He, meaning Jesus, 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 mountain by Himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.

But the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. 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 they said, it's a ghost. They cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, take heart.

It is I do not be afraid.' Peter answered him, 'Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And he said, Come. So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus. But when he saw the winds, 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 to him, oh, you have 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. This is the word of God, and I pray he seals it in your heart. We just finished the last few days a conference here at Emmanuel Bible Church on the Nicene Creed.

It was our Trinity conference. We had speakers from all over the country come and heard wonderful messages as they taught through the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed is 1,700 years old this year. We're celebrating the Nicene Creed's birthday. Yay!

And for those of you who are here, I'm sure those messages were encouraging to you. I personally prefer sermons from the Bible rather than from a creed. That might be the Baptist in me. But I was encouraged by these messages because the creed ties us to what Christians have taught throughout the centuries. You know, we're a non denominational Bible church and I suppose there's a danger of being a non denominational Bible church that you can be led doctrinally astray quite easily, you know, if your doctrine is just what me and my friends spent some time in the Bible and this is what we came up with, it's very easy to be led astray.

And so by doing something like studying a creed, you recognize that you're actually tethered to a chain of truth that has gone through the centuries, for two thousand years of church history. What we're teaching and proclaiming is the same thing that has been taught for hundreds, nearly thousands of years. We're not alone in a little pond, we're in an ocean with people. They're swimming in the same water, breathing the same air. And so that's why it's so encouraging to study the creed.

There's 32 lines in the creed. Four of those lines are about the Father. Four of those lines are about the Spirit. Four of those lines are about the church. That leaves you 20 lines of the Nicene Creed that are about the Lord Jesus Christ.

He is, in a very real sense, the heart of the creed. In fact, I say there's four verses about the Spirit. Two of those verses the Son sneaks into as well. So it's really 22 lines from the Nicene Creed are about the Son. He's the incarnation of God, the Son of God from all eternity, the only begotten Son of God.

And he comes into the world with glory and power and authority. Before I was a Christian, I would not have been able to explain the difference in belief between Christians and deists. I was taught deism in public schools. In American history, that's the class I learned, what a deist is. Deists believe that God made the universe and sat back and it falls for us to make our country.

Thrown a few presidents in there, American history. Deism plus the odd president, American history. Then I thought Christians believe in basically that, plus Jesus. It would have never occurred to me that Christians believe in a God who enters into the world, comes into creation, and can interact with us and can actually change a person's life at any point in time. God dwells with us and is among us and actually does things in his creation.

You understand, of course, that God is outside of his creation, that God is outside of time, that God made his creation and he made time, so just logically he has to exist outside of it or he has to at least, at the very least, transcend it. He doesn't live or move or have his being inside of time. He is exalted above it. And so how then could God engage in time? How could he do anything in our world or anything in our universe?

Deism just says he can't. But the Bible speaks of a God who is very active, very engaged in his creation, and the chief way, the zenith of His engagement in creation is of course with the incarnation. This is where God becomes man. God comes to us. If there was any way that we could know about God, it would have to be Him that initiates it because He, like I said, is outside of time in creation.

So there's no way we could work our way to him, there's no way we could learn anything about him, we don't have access to knowledge about God unless God first reveals himself, unless he comes to us. And that's what happens in the Ministry of Jesus Christ. God comes to earth and reveals himself to mankind, takes on a human nature, a human body, human flesh, becomes a true human. And as God enters creation, it's astonishing how He enters it. He doesn't enter it like an emperor or a conquering hero.

He doesn't enter it with trumpets and an army. He enters it in a manger, in a stable. He enters it lowly, born in anonymity, flees to Egypt, comes back almost undercover, not with again trumpets or an army, but he comes back really in silence and obscurity. And when he begins his ministry, he doesn't begin his ministry in the political sphere, he begins his ministry as a prophet and as a teacher proclaiming righteousness, and ultimately he comes as a sacrifice. That's how God reaches down to us.

And perhaps no story in the ministry of Jesus captures that as well as the one we just read this morning. The Son of God is a person. Verse 22, immediately is how it begins, and immediately is an unusual word to read in Matthew. If you've read Mark's gospel, immediately is like every other word in Mark's gospel. Mark is moving fast.

You need a seat belt to read Mark's gospel. Matthew is longer and more teaching and the parables and the sermons. The word immediately stands out here, and we're gonna see it three times in this passage this morning. The word immediately here is functioning to show you the abruptness with which Jesus acts. You do need the other gospels to fill in the scene here.

You remember this is coming out of the feeding of the 5,000, which is one of only two miracles described in all four gospels, the other being the resurrection. And so when you take them together, you realize from John's gospel mostly what happened after the feeding of the 5,000. It was getting dark and the crowd had not been fed, then Jesus multiplies the fish and the loaves and feeds them, and they, it says in John's gospel, were ready to make him king by force. And that's a tough political platform to argue against, isn't it? Free food, no taxes.

And they were going to usher him in, and the disciples, it seems like were caught up in the euphoria here. The disciples wanted Jesus to be more assertive. They wanted him to be more aggressive and dogmatic against Rome, and they wanted more rich and powerful people following him, and they had expectations that Jesus wasn't meeting. And so now you've got a massive amount of people that are saying, let's go. And you can imagine the disciples saying, yeah, let's go.

And Jesus abruptly ends everything and says, go away. It's getting dark. It says in verse 22, he made the disciples get into the boat. That's one word in the Greek that he made them. It's an unusual word.

The only other place that I know of that it's used in the New Testament is in Luke's gospel where the messengers are told to go out on the highways and the byways and compel people to come in. That's that word, it's translated there, compel. Jesus compels the disciples to get into the boat. He makes them get in the boat. Do you remember they're isolated here?

If you imagine the Sea Of Galilee like a clock, they're at about the 02:00 position here, which was by Jesus' design. Remember Jesus started the day in Capernaum, which would be, you know, around the 09:00 or the 10:00 area, and then early that morning he tried to go by himself to mourn the death of John the Baptist. This is the longest day in Jesus' life, remember? He found out at daybreak that John had been martyred. He tries to go away by himself to pray, but the disciples are coming back from their ministry.

Remember, he had sent them out, they're coming back and they're bringing the crowds with them, and everybody is so excited. And so Jesus works His way from Capernaum up around from the, you know, the 10:00 or so up towards the Seda, which would be like the noon, the 12:00, and that's where the Jordan River enters the Sea Of Galilee. From there, do you remember he told his disciples, don't bring any food, leave your food, and he keeps going all the way around to, like, the 02:00. That's a desolate place. There's no Jewish villages out there, there's no farms, there's nothing out there.

If you've been to Israel today, you know it's the the hill with no trees and stuff. That's this place. You don't go up there. There's nothing for tourists to do up there. This is where the rockets come from Syria, is over that hill today.

That's where Jesus is. So the sun is setting and he sends everybody back to their own villages. It would take them a couple hours to walk back around. They're gonna be walking in the dark. But he makes the disciples get in the boat.

There's only one boat there. That was kind of a big theme in Mark's gospel. Remember, the crowd is moving along the coast watching the one boat try to outrun them. So there's only one boat there. Everybody's on foot.

Jesus puts the disciples in the boat and tells them to go back across to Capernaum. You get that from Mark. In Luke's gospel, He sends them back across. Jesus goes up to the hill finally to pray by Himself, verse 23 says. Jesus goes by himself.

Finally, he has a moment. Verse 24, by this time the boat was a long way from the land when evening came. The sun is down, the boat's way out there, beaten by the waves. The phrase that was long way out could be translated the middle of the sea. It doesn't mean the middle like the exact center of the sea, it means the middle cutting across the top.

On a normal day, under normal conditions, this would take an hour to an hour and a half to sail across. It's not a big deal. These guys have lived on this lake their whole life, they know how to navigate around. You can see from one side to the other here. So don't picture staring across the Mediterranean Ocean here, picture staring across Lake Anna.

I mean it's a little bit bigger than Lake Anna width wise, but that's the idea. You can see the other side. So Jesus is taking up the hill, he has an overview of this, and the disciples are taking the boat across as the crowds scatter. It's now the middle of the night. There's no boat for Jesus.

And the storm comes against them. It was beaten by the waves. The wind was against them. On the west side of the Sea Of Galilee is the Mediterranean Sea. It's twelve, eighteen miles away or so.

And the cold air from the Mediterranean Sea is drawn in. The Sea Of Galilee is in a basin, so it draws in the cold air. The hot air from the desert, which is over those hills that go over to Syria, that's the desert out there. That hot air is drawn in. And during the summers, they get what we in The United States, at least in LA, get occasionally called the Santa Ana winds, where the warm air from the desert gets sucked in.

Normally the wind in California goes from the ocean over LA, and just like here, normally the wind blows west to east here, but because of where this is situated, sometimes the hot air gets drawn in down into the basin, and the hot and the cold air hit and it churns the water. This is not the kind of storm with lightning, although there could be lightning. It's not the kind of storm with the rain. There's high visibility. This is a windstorm.

When this happens in, you know, California, the planes just change directions, they land or take off on. It's something to navigate, but it's the point is it's not that unusual. A couple times a year this will happen. Well it's happening now, and they're stuck in the boat and the water is churning, and these can be violent storms. The Jordan River is hitting this right here.

So you've got wind from two directions, a river from a third direction, all of it churned together. There's a Jewish word for it. For this kind of storm, they called it a karkarya or karkarya. That if you translate into English, I put it in Google Translate just to see what it means, shark. So they had a sharkstrom, and you could almost hear the word shark in it, car car c k.

Carcar c k. Carcar c k. Shark. I'm not saying that we get our English word shark from that, but it's kind of a providential twist. So they have a shark storm on their hands.

There's no sharks in the in the Sea Of Galilee. There are sharks in the Mediterranean. They know what sharks are. They're fishermen. But they're not sharks here, but they have a shark storm on their hands.

This isn't that far from Banias, which is the cave up at the North Side of of Israel, way up the Jordan River, that's where the Greeks say that the souls go in and out of Hades through that cave. The Jewish fishermen told stories about these kind of shark storms, it lets demons out of the center of the earth. They didn't actually believe that. That's the kind of thing fishermen tell each other. I remember once at Scrin Lake, Word Of Life Camp up in New York, I rented a jet ski from The Pines, basically where the island is.

Rented it for an hour, and I was gonna go down to the Bible Institute, the BI, which is seven and a half miles away. And so I put one of my kids in the back of the jet ski and we bolted down our seven and a half miles and it was clear sailing. The wind was at our back and the sea was glassy and it was so much fun. They gave us a little whistle in case we needed help. We're seven and a half miles away.

We get to the the BI and we turnarounds, the Bible Institute, and we turnarounds and now we're trying to make our way back and the wind is against us And it's getting darker, and the waves are getting bigger, and the jet ski is, like, you know, now it's launching off of the things, and I'm, like, full of gas, and the gas light comes on. And I feel like we've been going for like fifteen minutes the other way and I look around us and we're still right next to the BI. Haven't moved anywhere in fifteen minutes. My daughter says, I feel sick. Like, I feel sick too.

Maybe we'll try the whistle, they're seven miles away. You know, and at no point were we ever actually in any danger, because worst case scenario we just drift onto the shore of a Christian college where there's a thousand college kids who will think it's a funny story. In fact, when we did make it back, nobody was even worried about it. They weren't like, oh we're so glad you're okay. It was more like you were gone for three hours.

This is the disciples' situation. They're out in the middle of the storm. They're not moving anywhere. Verse 25, in the fourth watch of the night Jesus came to them. Fourth watch is three AM to 6AM.

It's not a technical time period, it doesn't mean like 03:02, that means it's a fourth watch. It's just an expression they use for the part of night that's well past midnight, but the sun isn't over the horizon yet. So around three to four, five in the morning. That's the time period. No orange on the horizon yet, still dark, but you're not in the midnight world anymore.

It's that time of night. In other words, they've been here for hours. It should have taken an hour and a half. They are now four, five hours into this. And they're stuck in the middle.

Mark says that Jesus can see them agonizing on the oars. The sail's useless at this point because the wind is hitting each other, no point in even trying to sail, and they're agonizing in the oars and they're not moving anywhere. This is not their first time in this kind of situation. Do you remember maybe a year earlier before in Matthew Chapter eight when they were on the boat, but Jesus was on the boat, and they got stuck in a very similar storm, and they couldn't move. Only this time they had Jesus with them.

Remember, they woke Jesus up and said, Lord, don't you care that we're dying? And Jesus rebukes the wind and the waves and all is well. It's the same situation, only now there's no Jesus in the boat. So they're filled with fear. They're terrified is Matthew's word.

Verse 26, Jesus comes out to them, walking on the sea. And they said, it's a ghost. No. They weren't students of Archimedes, I'm sure, but they understand the basic principle that Archimedes describes that when your weight or mass has a displacement that is greater than the counter tension of the water, you cease to be buoyant and you sink. They're surveying a person walking towards them, a human being on the water, and he is not sinking, and they reason in their minds to the conclusion that it must be a ghost.

That was the most likely explanation for what they were experiencing. What would you think if you were there? You haven't read the story. You don't know what's happening. What would you think?

When I was a kid, my dad would take me camping, and we'd do a campfire, and he would recite for us a poem he had memorized, The Cremation of Sam McGee. There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold. The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold. The northern lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see was night on the barge of Lake Lamarge when I cremated Sam McGee. And if you know that poem, towards the end of it, there is a person in the middle of a fire asking you why it's so cold outside.

Can you please close the door? We'd get to that part of the poem, and my dad would say, good night. And the campfire is in the middle of us. I took my kids camping, well, a tent in our backyard. And I tried to tell them the story of Edgar Allan Poe, the telltale heart.

Did not go well. Halfway through, the kids were like, we're out. To this day, I don't think they know how the story ends. And in the middle of the lake, filled with fear, and a ghost is coming at them. They don't know what to make of it.

Jesus speaks. He says three things. The first, take heart. First words out of his mouth, take heart. Your translation, it's the ESV is take heart, but many translations say be of good cheer, which is funnier for sure, right?

Cheer up. Why so glum, Disciples? Cheer up, take heart, be encouraged. Exodus chapter 14, the Israelites are trapped on the shore of the Red Sea, if you recall, and they they themselves were quite funny. They asked Moses, is it because there were no graves in Egypt you brought us out here to bury us in the sea?

And Moses, what is he supposed to do? He doesn't know. He shrugs and then the Lord speaks to Moses, tells him to raise his staff and hold it up and the sea parts, and as long as the staff is up, the sea is parted. And Moses can't even hold his staff up. He's got people holding his arms for him.

And then an angel of the Lord leads the Israelites into the Dead Sea. And one of the strangest verses here, the angel leads them in the sea, but also goes behind them in the sea. He's before them and behind them. He's on both sides of them, ushering them through the Red Sea to safety. They were supposed to be encouraged by that.

Certainly there's images of this with Jesus. He sends the disciples before him and then he was seeking to pass them by. That's the same word in the Greek from the Old Testament, that Jesus is behind them and in front of them. He sends them before. He comes behind.

He goes in front. He's reenacting in a sense that parting of the Red Sea. Only He's not an angel of the Lord nor is He a ghost. He's establishing that He is with them. Take heart, he says.

Not the heart that comes from the courage of blind faith, but the heart of courage that comes from knowing the Lord is there. The Lord sees their struggles, he knows, and he's come to them. This was reversed just a few verses ago. The Lord was on the boat and saw the struggles of those in the shore and came to them. Now He's on the shore and sees the struggles of those in the boat and comes to them.

Take heart, he says. Augustine has just a wonderful little comment on this passage. Augustine writes, in all the world, every man is a stranger just trying to get home. Speaking of trying to get home to heaven. And then Augustine goes on to say, all we need is a ship to take us there and the sea has to be crossed, yet we complain about the wood.

And what he means by that is that everybody's just trying to get to heaven. We get to heaven through a series of trials that prepare us for glory, and yet how quick we are to complain about the wood, in other words, the boat, the the trials that we're going through. We're carried through the trials by the provision of the Lord, and we are so quick to complain. He goes on to say, the Lord's boat was His cross. And there are those that criticize Augustine here by saying he's being too symbolic or allegorical in his interpretation.

He's not saying the boat is actually a representation of the cross. He's saying Jesus also is going to heaven and he gets there by means of the cross. Should he complain about the cross? Nor should we complain about our trials. Take heart, the Lord says in his second statement.

I am that I am. It is I, is how it's rendered in ESV, ego emi in the Greek, which is redundant. You don't speak like that. Nobody speaks like that. And we don't have these kind of the person of the verb embedded in the English verbs, but we have it in Spanish.

If you've taken Spanish, This would be like the Spanish equivalent of saying Yo soyo. You don't speak like that. You don't need to say Yo soyo. Like soy, we'll get the job done. Jesus says Ego eimi.

It's redundant. I am that I am is how you could translate it. It's not used anywhere else in Matthew's Gospel that I'm aware of. It's used all over John's Gospel. Every time Jesus makes a declaration of his deity, this is what he says.

Egoemi, the bread of life. Egoemi, the door. Egoemi, the shepherd. Egoemi, Abraham's Lord. And you don't have to guess what he means by that because when he says it in John chapter five, all the Pharisees pick up rocks to stone him to death, and they say they're gonna put him to death because you being man keep making yourself out to be equal to God.

That's That's what they heard when he said ego emi because it's the the Greek rendering of the Jewish divine name, Yahweh. I am that I am. Yahweh is translated into Greek with ego emi, and here's Jesus saying I am the bread of life. I am Abraham's Lord, ego emi, and they're gonna kill him for it. And now here's Jesus on the water coming up next to the boat, says take heart ego eimi.

I am that I am. He is the Lord of life. And of course there are skeptics that say, oh, Egwe, me, he's just being redundant. It's, you know, it's a storm. So he's repeating himself to identify himself so they know for sure on the boat who he is.

Okay, but don't divorce His words from His actions, because what is He doing when He says ego eimi? He's walking on the water. That's kind of divine ish, isn't it? Job chapter nine, Job is listing all the reasons He's not able argue with God. He says, you know, I make an appointment with God, God doesn't show up, I can't command Him.

Job chapter nine verse eight, he says, it is God alone who walks on the water. Only God can do that. And it's funny, at the end of the book of Job when God comes back and rebukes Job, Job 38 verse 16, remember God is unloading on Job saying, you know, are you there when the mountain goats are born? Do you know where the lightning goes? Then he drops this one in.

Can you walk on the water, Job? Implication, only God can do that. Isaiah 43 verse 16, it is Yahweh who makes a way through the sea, a path through the surging waters. Psalm 77 verse 19, your way cuts through the sea, O Lord, your path through the great waters, and your footprints are unseen. Time and time again, the Old Testament makes the point only God walks on water.

All kinds of Scriptures are filled here as they look out the boat, and there's Jesus walking on the water. Nobody else ever has and nobody else ever will. Exodus 33, Moses begs God to see a vision of his glory. God tells Moses you can't see me, but then parks him in a cleft of the rock, covers his eyes, says says I'm gonna pass you by and uncover your eyes and you can see My back. No idea what that means.

And if you tell me you know what that means, I'm only gonna roll my eyes. The sum total of people who know what that means is Moses, period. And I don't think Moses had it figured out. He got a faint image of God. That's it.

First Kings 19, Elijah coming off the slaughter of the prophets of Baal. She'd be at the highest point of his life. Instead, the Jews want to kill him and he leaves Israel. Do you remember this? Runs back to Egypt.

Literally goes back to Egypt, back up onto Mount Sinai, and tells God let's kill all the Israelites and start over just you and me. And God tells Elijah, no. First of all, I have 11,000 others that haven't bowed the need to bail. You have 6,999 friends, Elijah. It's not just you.

Secondly, you're gonna go back and make a new king of Syria, make a new king of Israel, Jehu, he'll take care of killing most of the Jews for us. Then a new prophet, Elisha, and then you can retire, not until then. And to strengthen Elijah, do you remember what the Lord tells him? I'm gonna show you my glory, Elijah. And then there's a massive wind that shatters the rocks, but the Lord was not the wind, and a terrible earthquake that shook the cave, but the Lord was not the earthquake.

Fire from heaven that burned, but the Lord was not in the fire. And then a whisper in His ear, and the Lord was in the whisper. That's what Elijah got for a vision of Yahweh, was the whisper. And here's Jesus walking on the water. The Lord is not in the storm, the Lord is not in the boat, but the Lord is in Jesus speaking to the disciples, revealing his glory.

Notice that the self revelation of Jesus, that he is God, is the way he delivers the disciples. He delivers them by revealing himself to them. The third thing he says, do not be afraid. Don't be afraid. It's not the time for fear because God is with you.

Clearly the storms they're going through represent the storms in our life. This is a pretty straightforward connection. Don't be afraid, the Lord says. He's with us. He sees what we're going through.

He has not abandoned us. He is with us. Ministry will be difficult for the disciples. It will be difficult for the apostles. But you know what?

God will be with them. And this is a time of transition. It's based off of the previous miracle, the feeding of the 5,000, where Jesus told the 5,000, feed my sheep, feed my sheep, feed my sheep. They said we don't even have food, and Jesus gives them food, now you do it when I'm gone. The whole point was the disciples are gonna be feeding the the sheep Jesus' food when he's not there.

And he demonstrates that by ascending up the hill, pushing the disciples out on a boat. And they're supposed to learn from this not to be afraid because the Lord is with them even if He isn't with them. This is gonna be mapped out again. Acts chapter two, they begin preaching the gospel. Acts chapter four, they're all arrested and told, you know, if you preach the gospel again in this city, we're gonna put you to death.

You remember what Peter says? Okay, if you need me, I'll be right outside preaching the gospel. Where did he get that courage? Where did he get that resolute attitude? Probably right here.

The Lord's not here. The Lord has ascended. Remember when the Lord goes up in the sky, Peter's just caught looking there with his jaw open and the angel says, don't marvel, he's gonna come back. Peter draws so much courage from this story. The Lord went away, but the Lord went away, but he sees and he knows.

I don't need to be afraid. I don't need to be afraid. This happened before with Jesus in the boat and the disciples, remember, were panicked and filled with terror. Now Jesus is out of the boat and Jesus is teaching them even when I'm not in the boat with you, you don't need to be afraid. So verse 28, Peter answers, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.

I love Peter so bad. He's the leader of the 12, of course. So you don't want to read too much into this and say Peter had more courage than the other 11. Peter is their leader, unless if you ask John, John would say John's the leader, but Peter's their leader, and Peter says I'm going. Maybe if Peter didn't act, then John could have acted, and if John passed and Andrew and, you know, go down the line, but Peter doesn't let the pitch pass.

Peter hears Jesus and says I'm coming in, Lord. But notice that he asks. It would have been very presumptuous of Peter to say, oh, that's you. You can walk on water. I can walk on water.

I can do all things Jesus can do. Very bad thinking. Just because Jesus can do something doesn't mean you can do it. And so don't make the mistake of saying, you know, Jesus did this thing or disciples did this thing or that thing, so I can do it too. That's not Peter's approach to this at all.

Peter begins with a question. Basically, command me. If it is you, command me to go. In other words, if you want me to go, I'm willing. And this is all over Peter's life, isn't it?

All over his life, where he's resistant and then he's all in. Jesus says, I'm going to the cross. And Peter says, No, you're not. And then when you realize this is happening, Peter's like, I'm gonna die with you. Let's go.

Jesus wants to wash his feet. Peter says, No, you won't. And Jesus says, Yes, I will. And Peter's like, Hold on then, Jesus. And Jesus says, Put the robe on.

We're just gonna do the feet, okay? Time and time again, that's Peter. Call me in the water, Lord. Jesus says in Verse 29, come on, let's go. So Peter gets out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.

For a minute here there's Thomas probably said there's two ghosts. For a minute here, Peter is defying gravity. He's walking on the water not on his own authority, not on his own willpower, not on his own anything. He has the authority of the Lord. It's a temporary authority.

He can walk on the water temporarily. This is preparing for the Great Commission where Jesus says I'm gonna send all 12 of you into the world. I have all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. You're gonna go now preach the Gospel. We're not preaching the Gospel with their own authority, it's the Lord's authority given to them.

That's what Peter is learning right here. Jesus grants him the authority to walk on the water, and he does it. But don't miss Verse 30. When he saw the winds, he was afraid. We sometimes make the mistake of thinking if we're operating in faith and walking in obedience, that the storm will die.

But the storm doesn't die. Peter is doing everything right and the storm is still there. This is a very important lesson going through trials in life. It's so easy to be going through trial and pray and think you were operating in faith, and then the trial doesn't go away, and then we think prayer doesn't work. I've even heard people say that, you know, when you when you ask them to pray, they're going through trial, can we pray about it?

I've even heard people say, you know, I've already done that. It doesn't work. By that I assume they mean I have prayed and the trial is still here. Notice that Peter is being every every little follicle of Peter's hair is being obedient, he is being courageous, he's the one that is there, he is walking on water, he is being faithful, but the storm is still there. And he panics.

Verse 30, he begins to sink and cries out, Lord, save me. This is the most important prayer any person can ever make. A plea to God to save them. And Peter yelled it, prayed it right away. Have you ever prayed that prayer?

We get an expression from this passage about hitting rock bottom. There are those that don't pray for the Lord to save them, they're gonna keep sinking. They're torching their life with addictions or sin or adultery or they're unbiblically divorcing their spouse. They're setting fire to their life, and they're sinking. And the people around them that love them are pleading with them to repent.

They're like, no, no, not not yet, not yet. So much so that we even have an expression. We might even say, oh, that person needs to hit rock bottom before they're ready to repent. They need more time drowning before we can throw them a lifeline. Let them drown, let them hit rock bottom.

And the problem with that is that sometimes people hit rock bottom and they bounce. Thunk, the thunk. And they don't cry to the Lord. They don't ask for salvation. They think when I hit rock bottom, I'll pray.

I saw this as a chaplain with the sheriff's department all the time. You see people in jail and they're just not quite ready for the gospel, and you think in jail you've hit rock bottom. Oh no, those people will be back in six months. They'll be there a month out, back in a few months later. They're bouncing.

How many spiritual corpses are on the bottom of the sea, so to speak, because people, even when they hit rock bottom, don't cry for the Lord to save them? I love Peter, though he didn't wait. The water, I got up to Peter's shin and he cries out right away. And this again is is Peter. And Jesus says, reaches out his hand, grabs him, and says, oh you of little faith, why did you doubt?

I love this, that Peter grabs Jesus and Peter does not pull Jesus under water. Jesus is strong enough to hold both he and Peter above water. And this true is true of Peter. You can people bash on Peter by saying, oh, he doubted here, blah blah blah. He was there.

You know, Peter denies Jesus at the end of his life from around the campfire, but where were the other 11? They weren't at the campfire. At least Peter was there. This is true here as well. At least Peter was there.

Jesus says why did you doubt? Implication obvious. I feel silly even saying the application of this, that if you're going through a trial, keep your eyes on the Lord. When you take your eyes off of the Lord, you start to to drown. I mean it's very obvious what this picture this is painting here.

When you're going through a trial, know that the Lord sees you. You see Him through His word. You see Him in faith. You have confidence that God is being good to you and working the trial for your glory. You just have confidence in the Lord through your trial.

You're not afraid, but you're confident in the middle of it. That's the obvious implication of this. But notice that Jesus deposits Peter back on the boat, verse 32, they're on the boat, and then the wind stops. Jesus never gives up His deity and His humanity. He never sets aside His divine attributes for the purpose of becoming a man.

He is both natures together. The wind obeys him immediately. The wind sees him on the boat. We're like, we're not rocking the boat with Jesus in it. That's what the wind says to itself.

The waves don't even sputter out. The waves see Jesus in the boat and the waves defy laws of gravity to go immediately. They know who made them. The wind and the waves stop. The shark became a minnow.

And the disciples, last time this happened, they were filled with fear. This time it happens, Verse 33, they worshiped him. Last time they were filled with fear and they said, who is this? Remember, Jesus rebukes the wind of the waves and goes back to sleep. And the disciples are like, who is this that rebukes the wind of the waves?

And we're terrified. Now round two, the disciples are filled with worship and they don't ask who is this, they say, truly you are the Son of God. Which brings us back to the Nicene Creed. The 20 lines in the middle of the Nicene Creed show that Jesus is the heart, the skeleton, the muscles, the blood, the flesh of our confession of faith. It's all about Him.

The story reveals Him powerfully, the eternal Son of God, God of God, light of light, born from the Father before time, given to us for our salvation. He came down from heaven to save us as a sacrifice. This is the presentation, this is the nautical nativity. This is the presentation of God with a human nature, given as a savior for us. And as Peter learned, it's all about keeping your eyes on Jesus.

Lord, we're so thankful that you have come from heaven to earth to change our lives, to reach out Your hand, to save us in our trials, to save us from our sin. You lay hold of us, You pull us up so we can be saved. And I pray for anyone here this morning that has never prayed that prayer. They have never cried out, Lord, save me. Pray this morning they would cry out to you.

Because of your death and resurrection, you've ascended back into heaven. You've shown your authority not over just the wind and the waves, but over our own salvation. Lord, save us. We're thankful that you are indeed a savior by nature. In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen. And now for a parting word for pastor Jesse Johnson. If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you wanna learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, ibc.church. If you want more information about the Master's Seminary or our location here in Washington, DC, please go to tms.edu. Now if you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, DC area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service. But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church. Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.