Key Verse

And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?

Matt 14:31

INTRODUCTION

Our Study explores the idea that God is calling us to a higher calling than that provided by the comfort provided by the world which keeps us in its trap and which we seem to enjoy.

The Lord God has told us that He wants to change us. So how does God change us and transform us into the image of Christ?

Sometimes we are aware of the call of God and we begin to undertake some projects so that we are engaged in the work of the kingdom but then sometimes when we run into difficulties we ask ourselves why we wanted to start to do such a crazy thing!

The problem we run into is that we live in a culture that keeps telling us that we must maximize our personal comfort, pursuing what the world pursues, becoming increasingly sensitive to discomfort of any sort.

Our Study therefore looks at how God encourages us to step out in faith and take risks and do things that would be impossible without supernatural help from the Lord.

The Text therefore shows us the possibility of doing the impossible. It is made clear that we can be taken out of our natural element. This incident speaks symbolically to make us understand that we can walk on the sea even though we sometimes have difficulty even walking on land.

It is important to see the lesson that this famous story of Jesus walking on water and of Peter walking on water just like Jesus teach us even though Peter did it only for a short time.

The fact is that believers are in a state of being transformed day by day.

We must however consider that it is very difficult if not virtually impossible to walk on water. If we consider that it was a miracle for Jesus to walk on water it is obvious that it is an even greater miracle for us to walk on water.

But we tend to forget that the Christian life is an impossible life just as impossible as walking on water.

Professing believers tend to forget this for as one writer states:

“It is very common in professing Christendom to think of the Christian life as simply a religious life, that is, a person engages in the practice of prayer. He attends church on Sunday (or we can insert Saturday), except on days (in winter) like this. He does good works– that is good works according to human standards of good works. He is kind, or just sickeningly sweet. He gives, which may make a Minister do bandstands, but it does not prove anything so far as the merit that means eternal life is concerned. He teaches Sunday (or we can insert Sabbath school) school classes and even ushers in church; all of these activities form part of a religious life.

You probably can think of other things that go to make up a religious life, but we need to remember of course that all of these things that I have mentioned can be done without a changed heart.

It is not necessary to be born again to pray. It is not necessary to be born again to attend the church, or to do what human beings consider to be good works. And it is not necessary to be born again to pray or to teach a Sunday school (we insert here a Sabbath school) class or to usher in a church service. All of these things can be done by the natural man.

But most of us in the audience I am sure realize that the religious life is not the Christian life, but among Christians we have a way of transforming this Christian supernatural life into something that is legalistic, and the legalistic Christian life is not the Christian life either. It is full of negatives, and incidentally, when I give a few of these negatives, I don’t mean to imply that by that that I am for the positives, but the negatives have, for the last few generations, been given for such things as, thou shalt not smoke, thou shalt not drink, thou shalt not dance, thou shalt not wear lipsticks even, thou shalt not attend a Sunday football game and so on. Various kinds of taboos, often characteristic of certain parts of the country or certain parts of the world, and the viewpoint is expressed in such a way that one gets the impression that if we do not do these things then we are living the Christian life.

Or it may be a series of positives such as, thou shalt study the Bible and study it in the morning early before breakfast if at all possible. Thou shalt pray. Thou shalt witness. But the impression is given again that by doing these things we shall gain points– make points with God– and gain acceptance before him in our Christian life by the things that we do. I have a good friend who preaches the Word of God and he likes to call this spirituality by works, and I do believe that many of us who are evangelical Christians conceive of the Christian life as doing of certain positive things by which we gain a little merit before God…..

The Christian life is not a legalistic Christian life. The Christian life has a distinctive element about it, the elements of the supernatural. It is the life of the risen Lord which flows through those who are united with him by faith, and it flows through us by the power of the Spirit of God so that we are by his grace enabled to do the impossible.

Now we don’t always do the impossible as we should see, and we certainly fall constantly, but when we do please the Lord, it is because he has done something in a supernatural way through us. And we do not make any points with God by the things that we do. We do not gain acceptance before him by the things that we do. These are things that he does through us….

The incident we are looking at, I think, illustrates the Christian life. It was primarily given us in order to reveal again that Jesus was the Messiah, that he was able to walk upon the water, because one of the characteristics of the Messiah taught in the Old Testament was that he was the one who controlled the winds and the waves, the natural elements. He was a divine Messiah, and this incident is designed primarily to teach that.

But beyond that, it also teaches also very important factors that have to do with the Christian life”.

The context of this incident is quite interesting for Jesus and the disciples were on the eastern side of the Sea of Galilee and there Jesus had performed a miracle feeding a crowd of 5,000 men so that when one counted the women and children that likely were there, about 15 to 20,000 people were fed by Jesus multiplying two small fish and five loaves of bread. 12 basket full of leftover pieces were collected there.

The crowd remembered that Moses had fed them with manna in the wilderness and now that Jesus had miraculously fed them as well they could think of no better person to install as king so that they would have a permanent free lunch. He would be the King of comfort par excellence.

So without hesitation Jesus took the disciples out of there quickly for we know that they had the idea  that Jesus should install Himself as King, restore the kingdom to Israel, with them being the chief people in the land.

Obviously now Jesus would have to test the disciples to see whether they really had the faith in Him as Messiah, whether they had accepted the reason why God sent Him, or whether they were looking for something different to fit their fleshly ambitions.

John 6:14-15 tells us this miraculous feeding brought great messianic expectations in the crowd and it is very likely the disciples would also be enthusiastic and think that now was the time to promote Jesus as Messiah and King.

THE TEXT

Verses 22-23. Jesus clearly thought that it was very important to get the disciples out of the way so that they would not become involved with the multitudes clinging to Him and to the disciples to provide them with bread constantly. Remember the disciples were the ones that shared the food, distributing it to the crowd.

In addition, we should remember that Jesus was possessed of true humanity and He needed rest. He also  had the need to pray. He would obtain comfort and strength from being in constant touch with His heavenly Father. One commentator tells us:

“Secret prayer fats the soul, as secret morsels feed the body”.

It is mentioned many times in the Gospels that Jesus as a man communed regularly with God. Not only that, but Jesus gave many parables stressing the importance of diligence in prayer. But it is interesting to note that even though He regularly exhorted His disciples to pray He never prayed with them and never called a prayer meeting. Jesus taught the disciples what we call the Lord’s Prayer but He Himself never prayed the Lord’s Prayer given that He was a perfect man. But they had to learn to pray to the Father themselves and petition Him to forgive their sins.

So Jesus was alone on the Mountain with His Father. We can be sure that Jesus was praying for God the Father to keep the disciples and to give them the enablement to resist the temptation of going along with any attempt for Him not to follow the path to the Cross laid out by the Father. The path to kingship for Jesus was very different.

Verse 24. The disciples were now rowing hard but we should remember that some of the disciples were experienced fishermen and they had been through some of these storms from time to time on the Sea of Galilee which was well-known for some sudden and powerful storms. Some of these seasoned disciples had been through bad storms before but this storm was different.

The storm was really powerful and the language indicates that the wind and waves were threatening. It tells us that they were exhausted rowing against the waves and wind. The language tells us that they were tortured. Mark 6:48 tells us that the disciples were straining at the oars and the Greek word “straining” (basanizo) means ‘tortured’. Rowing was sheer agony. John 6:19 tells us that the situation was so bad that they had only traveled 3 or 4 miles, half way across the lake. The disciples were not happy campers and we can imagine that Matthew the tax collector who didn’t know anything about fishing and rowing must have been terrified.

I am sure that some of us have felt that way when we have been trying to obey Jesus and moving forward in the direction that He has told us to go in. When we try to obey Jesus we run into headwinds, circumstances which come against us and when we tried to make headway it is sheer torture.

On top of that it seems to us that Jesus is often away on some distant mountain, removed away from our suffering. He has taken us away from our worldly life of comfort and a cozy life and forced us to a place where we are powerless to help ourselves. One writer gives us some interesting advice:

“In reality, every Christian is in The School of Faith. Every believer is in a spiritual school where God’s objective is to develop and deepen our faith. In this school, there are lower division, upper division, and graduate level classes. In lower division classes, we have a trial, we pray, and the trial goes away.

In upper division classes, we have a trial, we pray, and the trial doesn’t go away.

In graduate level classes, we have a trial, we pray, and the trial gets worse.

In every class God’s objective is the same: to increase our faith, to increase our trust in him, and he designs the curriculum specifically with each of us in mind.

It’s an individualized education program. My curriculum is different from yours, and yours is different from mine”.

It appears therefore that the disciples are now at the Graduate level class in The School of Faith for things are going to get from bad to worse adding to the sheer physical torture and emotional terror that they are about to experience.

Verse 25. Sometime between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. the disciples see a figure like Jesus walking on the water toward them. But they think that He is a ghost and not a friendly ghost either given their reaction. You see, the disciples are physically drained and at the end emotionally, and they know Jesus does not want to be king, the promised messianic king. They are feeling let down, exhausted, in a hopeless situation and Jesus is away apparently leaving them on their own.

Have you ever felt like that?

But remember that even though Jesus has given us many wonderful moments, He is not here to maximize your personal comfort. His business is to deepen your faith and trust in Him whether we like it or not. And we know that bad circumstances are generally the means that He has to use to accomplish His purpose in us.

So now, the disciples, at that point in their life, cry out in fear. They are really afraid. They are in shock. They forgot the miracles, and the feeding of the 5,000 plus persons and everything else.

It has been pointed out that the theme of fear is a prominent theme in Matthew.

Just maybe we should think carefully about the kind of fear that we have.

Now one thing we can say about Peter is that he’s a man of action. He probably was the one steering the boat, and given his experience as a fisherman he was probably telling all the disciples what to do as the breeze begins to grow. He knew that the winds would come down from the Northwest across the Mediterranean Sea as the cooler breezes would blow eastward and when they collided with the hot air over the Sea of Galilee, the winds would move quickly and turn this relatively little Lake called the Sea of Galilee into a boiling body of water.

So you can imagine Peter shouting and trying to give commands in the midst of the perilous drama.

So suddenly he sees this apparition coming toward him when no matter how many hours that they had spent trying to but were unable to get out of the storm, maybe this ghost was keeping them back.

One scholar notes that the Jews were land lovers and they did not like the Sea. They did not like being caught in a storm. In Jewish writings such as the Talmud there are stories of unusual apparitions on the sea.

The Greek text said that the disciples shrieked, “It’s a ghost”.

Now we might laugh at this but I have met people who have been terrified when at night they see leaves waving in the wind and they think that it’s a ghost. One can imagine how all these people who were church people who believe in that sort of thing would react if a ghost suddenly appeared in the church. We are sure that the people would scatter quickly.

But let us never forget that this was really a cry for help and a despairing cry which happens when we are in dangerous circumstances. Then we do not have time to make any long prayers for help and for deliverance when we think that our life is in danger.

Verse 27. But God answered and immediately Jesus spoke a word of peace. He invoked the divine name I Am, assuring them that they did not need to be afraid. Peter understood that this was Jehovah telling him to be of good cheer and not be afraid and so he uses the word Lord asking Jesus to invite him to come on to the water.

Basic to the supernatural Christian life is the realization that when we are on the water we are with the Lord. So we can always ask the Lord to ask us to come across the water to Him.

One writer comments:

“Sometimes the answers to our prayers do not seem to be answers to our prayers at all, but just as bad as the ghost walking across the water when your life is in danger.

But the delays of the Lord Jesus, and the answers of the Lord Jesus are not denials. The one characteristic thing about Christianity is that Christianity gives us a God who cares. All the other religions are engaged in the task of making God care. They set forth all the things we must do in order that God then may be made to care by the things that we do”.

Verse 28. Whether we like to think about it or not Peter’s faith in Jesus was certainly very remarkable for when Jesus said what He said, Peter, with a growing vision of Jesus in his heart asked for proof that the person on the water was really Jesus. Note that Peter was not asking for a safe kind of proof. Peter wanted Jesus to show him that it was really Jesus speaking. If it was really his Lord speaking Jesus should command that he could come out on the water to Him.

Note that Peter did not say to Jesus that He should come closer so that he could have a better look at Him. The proof that he wanted was a very radical kind of proof for Peter wanted Jesus to allow him to do something miraculous, giving him the miraculous ability to walk on water just like Jesus would walk.

Verse 29. It is an amazing thing that Jesus knew the kind of faith in Peter for Peter to want to come out on the water to walk. Jesus did not tell Peter, ‘That’s a stupid idea. Stay in the boat and believe what I said’. We can hardly imagine that kind of faith but it’s there for us to manifest.

So God encourages those of us who belong to Him to have the same kind of radical faith, to step out of the worldly comforts we are into, and trust that He will give us whatever we need to strengthen our desire to encounter God in a deeper way.

It is absolutely clear though that Peter accomplishes a great impossible and supernatural feat of walking on water. He steps out of the boat at Jesus’ invitation and does the impossible. He obeys the invitation and walks on the water to go to Jesus.

Verse 30. Here we see however the strength and the weakness of the Christian supernatural life. They both coexist together.

In a moment Peter is doing the impossible and in the next moment is sinking. Even one step out of the boat is a great feat and whether you take one step out of the boat or trying to do 20 steps on the water I doubt if it makes any significant difference to God because to Him the first step is the important one.

Peter was distracted by the circumstances and when he took his eyes off Jesus he started to sink. He did not worry about what the other disciples thought about what he was doing but when he looked around and saw the waves he could not believe he was where he was for he knew that that was not normal.

Every single reason why people fail is exactly the same as why Peter begun to sink. Peter took his eyes off Jesus and fear and doubt, the greatest enemies of faith, started to work to put him off track. The same thing comes to us for our fears and doubts prevent us from completing God’s great plan for our lives. We pray that those delays are only temporary.

The weakness of human nature is pictured here showing the necessity to keep his eyes on Jesus which when done everything worked. It worked because of the power of the son of God and teaches about our union with him.

This is probably the shortest prayer for the one word really said was , “Save”. Some argued that the cry was made when there were bubbles around him but others do not have that extreme interpretation. Peter was sensible enough to know that he should cry out before he went under the water. He was not like Jonah.

The Lesson clearly it is that the Christian life is a life of miracles for it is a supernatural life. It is a life or activity just as the natural man walking on water. Pay attention to the fact that walking on water means that there is really no natural or stable footage for your feet for water is not stable and does not provide you with any equilibrium especially when you’re in the midst of a storm. It is something impossible for us to do. But note as one writer states:

“Holy living is just as possible as Peter’s great feat when the eye is kept upon the Lord Jesus. The secret of his sinking is that he took the eyes off the Lord Jesus. This secret of his walking is that we look upon Jesus, and as long as he kept his eyes upon the Lord Jesus, the virtue and power of the Son of God, by virtue of his union with him, flowed from the Lord through him, and he was kept by the mighty power of God from sinking. So you see the whole issue is the contact that we have by trust, by faith in the Son of God, by virtue of our union with him accomplished through the redemptive work.

I wonder if this is the source of Peter’s great statement in his first epistle that we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed and the last time”.

Verse 31. Immediately after his cry Jesus stretched out His hand and caught Peter. But notice that He did not let Peter off the hook. O you of little faith. Why did you doubt, says Jesus.

Spurgeon says:

“What a sight! Jesus and Peter, hand in hand, walking upon the sea!”

Again, Spurgeon comments:

“There is only one word in the original for the phrase, ‘O thou of little faith’. The Lord Jesus virtually addresses Peter by the name of “Little- faith”, in one word”.

Verse 32. So they both got into the boat together and when they did the wind simply stopped. The storm stopped.

Clearly then, if you have riddles in life the solution is to be found in the company of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whatever contrary enemies in nature or otherwise that you face is under control by the divine presence for He is the Lord of not only Bread for He can multiply that, but He is also the Lord of the waters and He can get them under control. The Lord Jesus Christ is that great.

Verse 33. Everyone in the boat worshipped Jesus carrying out the highest function of every living soul. Witnessing is important activity, but for the redeemed the most important activity is to worship Him, not just to serve or carry out the important task of witnessing. Worship is owed to Him. Then and only then will serving and witnessing become effective.

Note also that this is the first time that the disciples come to recognize and name Jesus as the Son of God. When they worship Him as the Son of God it shows that their faith in Jesus has been multiplied and increased tremendously. The greatness of the Lord Jesus has now come home to them and now this greatness now show the true messianic significance of that title. It shows that they have accepted that He is the divine Messiah and that what has happened is another one of the messianic miracles.

Now it was understand that there are some that say Jesus never walked on water and Peter never did walk on the water. With this kind of unbelief they say that Jesus was simply walking on the seashore and the disciples were so close to the seashore that they did not recognize that they were right at the seashore and so they thought that when they saw Him walking they thought He was walking on water when He was really not for He was walking on the surf by the side of the seashore.

Of course by this view when Peter cried out to the Lord to save him he was really sinking in some quicksand at the side of the lake. They are really saying that these experienced fishermen did not know what they were facing. But such is the nature of unbelief, a terrible thing.

CONCLUSION

It should be carefully noted that doubt is not incompatible with faith. Christians doubt. Thomas doubted but Jesus considered him as being clean. Peter doubted and he began to sink but Jesus realized that he had faith. The antidote to all our problems is great faith for even weak faith will grow when we grow in the knowledge of the Lord God.

So keep your eyes upon Jesus and you can walk on the water. We have that assurance. We can do through our union with Jesus what is impossible for that is the true Christian life.

The Scriptures never tell us that we will not have trials or we will not have storms. In fact we know that sometimes the storms come from God ultimately but we are also told that if we have confidence in the power of the Holy Spirit and we keep our eyes on Jesus He will maintain, keep, guide, and bless us.

Call on Him when you are sinking and He will save. If you are a child of God even when the troubles are such that you cannot pray and ask for help the Holy Spirit will pray for you with groanings that cannot be uttered, petitioning that we will not and cannot hear, and God the Father who knows the mind of the Spirit Will hear and step in.

So be prepared to step out of the boat. God has a plan to help you do what you and everybody else around you, even all the disciples around you think is impossible.

Remember the divine name, I am.It is often difficult for us but we have to keep our eyes on Jesus and not let the circumstances of life distract us.

The writer of Hebrews encourages us to remember that they have been many strong believers who had faith in God. We have them as a witness to us and therefore we can lay aside every weight and sins that ensnare us and run with endurance the race that is set before us as we look to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith.

So whom shall you trust? It is only the Lord Jesus who has the words of eternal life. He is the only way.

The world might say contrary things. But remember He is the Creator, not that liar and murderer Satan, who gave us his glorious place in Heaven foolishly. He wants to destroy us. Do not let him do that. You cannot want to be in the Lake of Fire with him.

One writer reminds us of these comments:

“Jesus only asked this question once Peter was rescued. Yet at that point it was an entirely reasonable question to ask. Why did Peter doubt?

“Doubt is literally  ‘be divided in two’. True faith is single-mindedly focused on Jesus. (France).

“If you believe a thing you want evidence, and before you doubt a thing you ought to have evidence too. To believe without evidence is to be credulous, and to doubt without evidence is to be foolish. We should have grounds for our doubts as well as a basis for our faith”. (Spurgeon).

We can say that in theory, there might be reasons for doubting Jesus and His promises.

-If on former occasions, you have found God unfaithful to His promise.

-If some old follower of Jesus has solemnly told you that God cannot be trusted.

-If your problem is a new one and so extremely difficult that it is certain that God cannot help you.

-If God has abolished His promises, and made them no longer valid.

-If God has changed.

“Our doubts are unreasonable: Wherefore didst thou doubt?

If there be reason for little faith, there is evidently reason for great confidence. If it be right to trust Jesus at all, why not trust him altogether!(Spurgeon)

“It is useful for us to confront our doubts.

-Was there a good reason for your doubt?

-Was there any excuse for it?

-Did any good come from your doubt? (Guzik)

So as the chorus of the song goes:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace”.

Helen H. Lemmel wrote this interesting song in 1922. We often sing the chorus written above but we sometimes forget the other verses.

Verse 1

“O soul, are you weary and troubled?

No light in the darkness you see?

There’s light for a look at the Savior,

And life more abundant and free!

Verse 2:

“Through death into life everlasting

He passed, and we follow Him there;

O’er us sin no more hath dominion-

For more than conqu’rors we are!

Verse 3:

“His word shall not fail you– He promised;

Believe Him, and all will be well;

Then go to a world that is dying,

His perfect salvation to tell!

So:

“Turn your eyes upon Jesus,

Look full in his wonderful face.

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,

In the light of His glory and grace”.