Episode Transcript
[00:00:15] Speaker A: Hi, my name is Paul and I'm a member with Restored Church. If you're new, we want to welcome you and thank you for tuning in. We believe that the church is not an event, but a family that you belong to. So we'd love the opportunity to connect with you. If you want to learn more about our church or if we can help you in any way, please please visit our website, Restored Temecula Church, and click on Contact.
We also have a mobile app with resources including our Sunday messages, information about upcoming events, and other ways to connect. You can download our app on Apple or Android app stores. With all that said, we hope you enjoy the message.
[00:00:48] Speaker B: It's good to be with you if you haven't had a chance to meet you yet. My name is Harrick. I am one of the elders here at Restore Temecula and I want to welcome you to our Sunday gathering today. I'm actually the only elder here.
Our other two elders are out of town and so flying solo. Number two, second reference. Come on in. Good to see you guys. Good morning.
So we're going to continue this morning in a series that we started a while back called the King and His Kingdom. It's the series that we're going through in the Gospel of Matthew.
And believe it or not, today marks the halfway point of the Gospel of Matthew, which means that we are on track to finish before 20, 30, before the end of this decade. I think we'll get through the Gospel of Matthew. It is so rich. There's so much here and I'm really excited to share out of this specific passage that we're going to talk about today. For a lot of you, this passage that we're going to talk about today is going to be pretty familiar.
In fact, some of you have probably heard this preached possibly like half a dozen times or more.
And so you may feel like I already know where this is going and you might, but I want to encourage you, I want to invite you.
I don't know if you're anything like me.
Going through scripture is always an interesting exercise.
I've gone through scripture, different scriptures, you know, the same scripture multiple times in my life. And oftentimes I get new things out of it. Oftentimes God speaks in new ways and fresh ways that I need to hear.
And so my prayer for today is that this will be familiar text for a lot of you. For those of you that have never heard this before, this is. It's so great. It's a great story. I think you're going to enjoy It. But for those of you that have, my prayer is that you'll have a fresh perspective on a familiar story in a way that really strengthens your faith. So let's pray. If you want to pray with me, that God would do something fresh this morning in us and through us. Father, we want to thank you.
We want to thank you for the words of Jesus. What a privilege it is that many people in this room have heard this story many, many times.
There's people in the world who have never even heard of Jesus that don't know anything about him.
And we have the privilege of having half a dozen Bibles in our house, having as much content as we can possibly take in.
And so there's benefit to that, and then there's drawbacks to that as well.
Familiarity, like I already know.
Would you kind of cut through that today, Father?
Would you touch each heart in this room in a fresh way as only you can?
Your Holy Spirit is working.
Applying the truths of the gospel of Jesus, the good news of who he is, of what he's done, of what it means for us, of being his new people in this world, following him, making our way through life with him, journeying, as it were, to the end, until we see him face to face.
Would you give us a fresh perspective on Jesus today?
Would you be pleased to help us to look at him and believe him and obey Him, Whether it's for the first time or for the thousandth time, we want to know Him.
God, thank you. We love you. We honor you. In your name we pray. Amen.
So I had the. Speaking of privilege, I grew up in Orange county and.
Or for part of it. I don't know. I was in Puerto Rico for part of it. I was in Orange county for part of it. Whatever. I grew up here and there, but I was in Orange county for quite a while, and I was in a place called Laguna Niguel. You guys may be familiar with it. It's south Orange county, and Laguna Niguel is not so well known. Laguna beach next door, very well known, global.
It was wild being in south Orange county in the early 2000s. It feels like south Orange county got put on the map.
The hills came out. Laguna beach, all this stuff started coming out. For those of you older millennials know what I'm talking about, Younger kids have no idea what I'm saying.
Orange county was kind of not well known. And then all of a sudden, it became really well known. And so I grew up in Laguna Niguel, right next to Laguna beach. And interestingly enough, I didn't learn to surf.
I would go out swimming, bodyboarding. I guess they used to call it boogie boarding. I don't know what they call it now.
Somebody said, yeah, okay. One person knows what I'm talking about. So I used to go out in the water sometimes. Sometimes without the assistance of a board, sometimes with the assistance of a board. And so I felt somewhat comfortable and familiar with being in the water, which you would expect that. I grew up on an island and by a beach in Orange county, so me being comfortable in the water would be expected.
And I had a friend. His name is Mike.
He was probably my best friend in junior high. I mean, we kind of did everything together.
One thing we didn't do together was go on some of his little excursions.
He liked to go out at night in Laguna beach and go dive off cliffs and fish.
I don't know. What do you call it when it's lobster? Not fishing for lobster.
Lobster catching. Lobster diving. Lobster diving. So he liked to go lobster diving. I was like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. I'm not going with you out there. It's insane.
And so he kept pushing. He was insisting for so long. He was this melodramatic, like, oh, but I'm doing this by myself. It's so beautiful. I don't know what he was thinking. He just really wanted somebody to go with him. And I guess I was the closest person in his life. And so he just kept pushing and pushing till one day I was like, I've had it. I'll go with you. Okay? I will go with you. I'll go lobster diving. We'll go snorkeling. We'll go out into the. Into Laguna beach, wherever you want to take one of those coves, whatever. And so I had this confidence that I would be okay because I was familiar with the water and I could swim well enough and whatever.
When I got there, it was my friend Mike, my friend Greg, and me. And I think it was during a college break, like a spring break or something. The water was freezing. It was so cold. But I didn't take this into account. I was like, all right, fine, I'll go with you. Mike been asking for months, for years that I do this. And so we pull up, we kind of have to hike over to this cliff.
And then it's like, all right, here's where you jump in.
And so I looked down quite a ways down. I'm feeling a little bit nervous now, a little bit worried about it. But my friends were there. I had, you know, fins. I had some equipment that I didn't know how to use, but I had the equipment that you needed to do what we set out to do. And so they jump in and I'm kind of like, all right, I think I can do this. I think I can, you know, and this isn't.
You're out, like in a cove. So it's not like there's beach or there's like this natural place to. If I get in trouble, I just swim over here and I walk out. It was by nothing. It was just out in the middle of nowhere. And for whatever reason, I decide it's going to be fine. I jump in pretty quickly. As soon as I go into the water, I realize this was a terrible idea. The waves are humongous. The water is colder than any water. I think, again, I grew up technically in Puerto rico. I love 80 degree water.
When I moved here, I was like, what is this? This isn't a beach.
This is like an Arctic cruise, like being here. And literally there's an Arctic current that comes down from Alaska down to California to cool our waters down or freeze them in the winter. And so I'm out there and all of a sudden, what was supposed to be like this kind of routine pleasure cruise, if you like, in the water, takes a turn. Takes a fairly dramatic turn for me, at least.
I think that they're probably. My friends are probably kind of surprised at how the conditions weren't very favorable. They were kind of rough. And I am now in a spot where they're over there, they're swimming, they're doing whatever.
And I find myself in a position where I'm like, I think I just need to stay afloat because I can't really enjoy this.
I'm freezing.
I'm starting to feel kind of numb.
The waves are kind of big.
And all of a sudden I'm like, I'm not going to be able just to swim around and enjoy this. I need to get out of here.
This was no longer a routine thing.
This was now a slowly developing crisis. And it was developing just as quickly as my strength was fading in the water, which I was young. I was younger than I am now, thank God, and still I started to wear myself out just staying afloat, just getting my head above the water. I started to grow weary, started to feel kind of numb, started to feel pretty weak, and my mind started to race.
And so I was pretty scared at a certain point. This goes on. I don't remember how Long I was in the water, I can't imagine it was super long, maybe just a few minutes.
But I was starting to feel overwhelmed by the waves and the conditions. And I had this.
I started to have this sinking feeling, like I'm exposed.
I jumped into this water. I jumped into something. I took a step out into something that I wasn't prepared to finish and to complete.
Turns out I wasn't as strong as I thought.
And my friends are kind of like in the area, sort of, but they're doing their own thing. I think they're a little bit.
They're struggling with the conditions as well. And I feel this fear of asking for help because then at that point, everyone knows I couldn't handle it.
I was freezing, I was exhausted, and I could only stay afloat for so much longer. I kind of feel myself starting to sink. I don't know if anybody's ever been in a situation like that before, but after a certain point, I just tried to kind of go under and I had to kind of get myself back up.
And that's about as much as I could do.
Before long, my confidence was just gone.
And pretty soon I would be, too, if this continued this way.
What do you do when you're faced with a crisis?
What do you do when you're in a situation where you're just exhausted, you are so tired that all you can really do is stay afloat and you're just struggling to survive?
What do you do when your confidence is gone?
You're not actually here for, like, a swimming lecture. I'm not qualified to do that.
We're talking about discipleship today.
This is the discipleship conversation. If you're new, you're like, what's discipleship?
A disciple is someone who's learning to trust Jesus, to obey him, and to operate like him in every area of life.
And if you follow Jesus, one of the things you're going to find out at some point or another is that you're going to hit situations that really cause you.
That shake your confidence and may even cause you to lose it, where you step into something that you realize, ooh, maybe I actually can't finish this.
When you take even a step of faith, as it were, only to find out, I may need a rescue, today we're going to read a story like that. I'm going to invite you to turn over to Matthew, chapter 14.
Matthew, chapter 14. We're going to start with verse 22.
We're going to hear a story about Peter. Not just Peter. There's Also his disciples, Jesus disciples are in the boat as well.
But we're going to see a story about somebody who stepped into something that they weren't ready to finish.
Somebody who find themselves in a crisis of faith and what happened to them.
If you're new with us, we. I believe it was last week where Tom talked about the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. Was that last week? Yes, great.
Confirmed. That was last week. So that was the passage right before this one. And so to give a little bit of context, Jesus has been doing some absolutely remarkable things. We're not gonna. We're not gonna cover it today, but in the last sermon, if you didn't miss it, you can go back and listen to it.
Jesus fed 5,000. The way that they numbered it was like the head of the household, 5,000 households, 15, 20,000 people with two Happy Meals, like a filet of fish sandwich or two. And he fed everyone.
So he did this incredible miracle, which, if you've ever thought about what that would be like, it's a high. Right. If you watch any fans of the chosen in the room, I know there's some. Yep. Some of you not into it. That's totally fine. One of the things the show does do that I think does really well is it shows you the.
It gets you into such scenarios. You can see, like, wow, this would have been revolutionary. What just happened. We get so familiar with these stories if you've been in a church for a while, that they just become like, you just kind of read it, something that you do when you're drinking coffee, and it's like, cool, that was nice. And then you move on to whatever else is next in your day. Like, these stories touch people's lives deeply.
And we're coming out of a high watermark. Jesus just fed thousands of people in the desert. For those that were paying close attention, this would have reminded them of a little Old Testament story where God made manna bread from heaven, rain down and feed innumerable people in the desert.
They were in the presence of someone different.
And so they were on a high.
And so what ended up happening is as soon as that miracle ended, we pick up this story, as it were, to find out what happened next. So we're going from that incredible high with his disciples. And we pick up in verse 22, 22, Matthew, chapter 14, it says, Matthew 14:22 says, Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed the crowds. Okay, so one thing that you know, especially if you read this in a few different translation is that it says he made the disciples.
Some translations say that he insisted that the disciples get in the boat and go ahead of him to their side while he dismissed the crowds.
This is a story that's also picked up in the Gospel of John. In the Gospel of John, it draws out something that Matthew doesn't necessarily put too much of an emphasis on, which is that the people who ate and were filled by the filet o fish sandwiches, they wanted to make him king.
They wanted to enthrone him, but they didn't know what that meant. I mean, they had an idea of what that meant. And Jesus had a different idea of what it meant to be king in a different way, that he wanted to rule and to reign. So he had to get out of there, as it were. So he had to dismiss the crowds. He's like he told the disciples, get out of here. Go across to the other side of the lake while he dismissed the crowds. They're in the Sea of Galilee.
And so this was a scenario where he had to move quickly because if he didn't, something terrible might happen. The people might try to put him on the throne to dethrone Caesar. And that's not what he came to do.
And so Jesus moves quickly. He insisted the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to their side. Why do you think they may not have wanted to jump into a boat and go across the sea without Jesus?
What happens when Jesus is around?
Incredible things happen when Jesus is around.
When Jesus is around. I want you to just imagine for a second if you were able to have Jesus in the flesh with you, would you ever want him to leave?
No.
When you have Jesus with you, you're good.
Things are good when Jesus is around. Hungry people are fed.
Blind people can see. Deaf people can hear when Jesus is around.
So, yeah, I wouldn't want to get in the boat without Jesus either.
But they get in the boat because he insisted.
And they wanted to listen to their rabbi.
And so it says in verse 23, after dismissing the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray well into the night. He was there alone, which I think is a spectacular thing that Matthew draws out. Luke especially draws out. If you read the Gospel of Luke, Jesus, it seemed like was going from one prayer, like one.
One prayer meeting or one prayer session to another and then doing ministry in between.
Just spectacular. The prayer life of Jesus. He prayed into the night.
I don't know if you've ever spent a night praying it's really hard to do.
People get tired.
And then if you imagine that Jesus just ministered to 20,000, 15 to 20,000 people, can you imagine how tired he would have been?
I'll be honest. When I leave this room sometimes on Sunday mornings, I just want to take a nap.
Like, I don't want to see anybody. It's not because I'm anti people. I love people. I'm just spent. I'm just done.
I want to mow the lawn.
I want to work with my hands and preferably with something in my ear so I can't hear anyone.
It's not personal. I'm just depleted.
And I was ministering in one sense, 150.
He was ministering to 15,000. You can imagine how tired he was.
And the disciples were his. They were his helpers. Can you imagine how tired they were? But Jesus spends the night praying. Well into the night he was there alone. Verse 24. Meanwhile, the boat was already some distance from land, battered by the waves because the wind was against them. Okay, so they're experiencing significant resistance as they do what Jesus asked them to do, which, by the way, not uncommon.
Jesus may send you somewhere that you don't want to go that's really hard.
And you may even feel like you're stuck not making progress sometimes.
It doesn't mean that you're off track unnecessarily. If you're going where Jesus asked you to go, the conditions can't determine your obedience.
The conditions don't tell you whether you're obeying him or not.
They obeyed him into the storm.
Verse 25.
Jesus came toward them, walking on the sea very early in the morning.
Pause.
What is this?
If you've been in church for a while, which I know a lot of you have, this is just. Probably goes in one ear, out the other. Do you realize what they just said happened?
Repeat after me. Jesus walked on water.
Pause.
How are you feeling about this?
What comes to mind when you say that out loud?
Genuine, like you can interact now, this is safe to do it.
How does that make you feel? Like, what's that like for you to say that out loud? It's okay if it's like, I don't know, man. Just keep talking. We'll find out.
What is it?
Creepy. Creepy. That's a great answer. What else? Anybody else feel that way?
Holy moly. Holy moly.
Yep.
Creepy. Holy moly. Anything else? Any other reactions?
Marvel. Marvel? Yeah, Marvel.
I don't know if this is Marvel, man. I don't know.
My superheroes well, but X Men, Is that marvel?
It's not. All right. Yes, it is. Okay, so the room's divided.
Little help. Are you.
So do you know what this makes me think of?
Do you guys remember Magneto?
Okay, he's one of the bad guys in X Men.
If you've never seen it, it's cool. Came out a long time ago.
Several iterations of this. Feel free to dive into any of them. But Magneto, what he does is actually. I don't know how he does it, but he like floats, he flies. I'm guessing it's because he's magnetic and the Earth is like. He uses the Earth's magnetic field to hover like a. Do you guys know what I'm talking about?
Murphy's Law.
Rosie does. Yeah. Rosie, is this. Are you tracking with us so far? So far. Okay, Chris, Terrific.
This is what I think of, like, walking on water, for some reason has become somewhat desensitized to it.
So what I think of now is Magneto flying in over LA traffic.
That's what I think of. The disciples are stuck in LA traffic.
It's like the Carmageddon, you know, like they're stuck, they can't move, they're not making any progress.
And then all of a sudden, Magneto comes in, flying over his cape. Yeah, it's creepy and a marvel.
Jesus could be like a superhero in a modern day superhero story. Like it. This is crazy. This is absolutely crazy. Walking on the sea, they were terrified. Verse 26. We'll pick it up. It's a ghost, they said and they cried out in fear.
Man, what a miss.
What an absolute miss this was.
It kind of makes sense when you think about it because the disciples, the ancient mindset around the sea, as it were, is like, it's a place of death and judgment.
It's a place of chaos. And in fact, they thought, the ancients had this thought that it was the place of spirits and demons. And so the way I think of it too is sort of like if you could imagine yourself, you're in a cemetery at night and it's foggy and you're trying to make your way through, and then all of a sudden, like you see like a shadow. What are you gonna do? Ah, you know, like you're gonna. You're gonna have that kind of a reaction because what might you expect to run into a ghost, right?
And so that's the kind of reaction, or Magneto, like, that's the kind of reaction that they had. It actually makes a lot of sense. Verse 27. Immediately, Jesus spoke to them, have courage. It is I. Don't be afraid.
And so Jesus comes in with some. Some reassurance.
Verse 28. And then Peter, Lord, if it is you, Peter answered him, command me to come to you on the water. Okay?
Jesus just says, come.
So it's probably worth noting Jesus didn't.
This isn't Jesus idea. This was Peter's idea. So just leave that aside. He says, come. Verse 29. And climbing out of the boat, Peter starts walking on water too, and caved toward Jesus. This is. Okay. So now Magneto's floating. And then I don't know the name of a superhero that doesn't have that power.
Cyclops starts to float towards him, but he's not magnetic. I don't think again. This is crazy. This is utter chaos.
And you're sitting in the boat watching this.
You're in the car, like, what is going on?
This is such a weird situation, such a weird story.
Peter started walking on water and came toward Jesus. Verse 30. But when he saw the strength of the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried out, Lord, save me.
31. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught hold of him and said to him, you of little faith, why did you doubt?
And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.
And then those in the boat worshiped him and said, truly, you are the Son of God.
And then wrap it up. Verse 34. When they had crossed over, they came to shore at Gennesaret. When the men of that place recognized him, they alerted the whole vicinity and brought to him all. All who were sick. They begged him that they might only touch the end of his robe. And as many as were touched, as many as touched it, were healed.
So now, like, oh, Jesus. Super. Like healing people with some kind of superstitious beliefs about them, but he heals them anyway.
Just. This is weird. Can we agree this is a weird story. If you ever read in the Bible and you're just like, man, I don't know what I just read. Welcome.
This is weird stuff, but these are the words of life. That's the Christian confession. And so it's worth taking the time to understand what is going on here.
So I'm going to walk you through some observations that I made this week while I was working through this text. You guys ready? I think these will be helpful to you.
Okay. The first thing that I noticed this week while working through this text is, number one, sometimes following Jesus is exhausting.
Sometimes following Jesus is exhausting.
Sometimes trusting invites trouble. Doesn't it?
Okay, Jesus, you're insisting, let's go.
And then all of a sudden they're rowing against the wind.
One thing I haven't noted yet is that if you look at the timeline that Matthew gives, they start rowing probably around 8 o' clock at night, something like that. And they connect with Jesus in the fourth watch of the night, which meant sometime between 3 and 6am okay, so what are we talking about here? Think about nine hours of rowing. Roughly seven, eight. Nine hours of rowing.
Rowing against the wind.
That frustrating experience of not making progress.
Sometimes following Jesus is exhausting. Some of you in this room are exhausted.
Doesn't mean you're off track, necessarily. If you're following something else, another voice, another passion, that's a different story.
But if you're just doing what Jesus asked you to do and you're exhausted, it doesn't mean you're off track.
It may be the context to develop something that you absolutely need. And by you, I mean we.
Courage.
It takes courage, somebody said, which I thought was helpful. It takes courage to carry on when everyone is tired of rowing.
We like to use the analogy of a boat. Like when we're gospel communities. If you're new to a gospel community, it's a group of men, women, their household, who are following Jesus together in intentional and meaningful ways. And we like to call it like it's a boat. You're on the boat together. In fact, I typically lead the intro to gospel communities, which we call a boat building season. It's like we're building this boat together that we're then going to set sail on.
And so we use the analogy of sailing.
Surrendering to Jesus doesn't guarantee smooth sailing.
Quite the contrary.
It means that in stories like this, they remind us that you might end up in really difficult situations that you would have never picked.
It's important.
One scholar talked about it, like, oftentimes we want a lazy river, but we end up in like, rapids, which I don't know about you, that sounds like a dream right now. A lazy river. It's like a little. A cold drink and just kind of floating down the river. That sounds awesome. Jesus saved me. Cool. Let's chill into eternity. And then we really chill. We power down forever, right? That sounds great.
No, and I don't mean. I hope you know what I mean. Power down, like low.
Not much is demanded of me. I don't mean like drift off into nothing. That's not what I'm talking about. Okay, back to this.
These guys, they didn't want to do something. They didn't want to go into this lake, they didn't want to sail across it. But that didn't mean it wasn't God's will for them to do was.
It was. So we live in a culture that our feelings are almost, they're almost deified.
It's almost like they are. Our feelings are like everything.
How I feel is like it's unquestionable. It's, it's everything.
These guys didn't feel like it. And Jesus was like, go, what do you do with that?
What do you do other than to say like, sometimes following Jesus is going to exhaust you and me.
Sometimes we're going to do stuff we don't want to do.
And that's normal. That's where they started in this story.
It got me thinking about where I see this most often in my life is actually Wednesday at 6:07pm Every week. Every week, Wednesday at 6:07pmt. I am wrapping something up. I'm wrapping up an email. I'm about to send something.
And at 6:30 I am supposed to be at my Lord's Supper at my gospel community meeting. We call our gospel and our gospel communities meet and gather. We call it the Lord's Supper. That's where we celebrate the Lord's Supper.
Why is that a moment for me? Because every Wednesday at 6:07 I am just about fried from doing church. I'm a pastor, I'm a staff elder, and I'm just about fried from doing stuff for the church with the church mind. And so to go from I'm fried to let's, let's go into something and whereas I, as an introvert, I'm already kind of spent and I don't have like a whole lot and then like a social situation which by the way, I love my gc.
And every time that I, that I'm there present with them celebrating the Lord's Supper, it's always worth it. But if I'm honest, oftentimes I'd rather just be like, hey, I've already put in my time, Jesus, I just want to chill.
Give me that lazy river a floaty that I can go. A flotation device.
They have a name.
An inner tube. Thank you. Flotation device is an airplane crash. This is where my.
The third airplane analogy for today.
And so Wednesday at 6:07 is my time of the week to remember that sometimes following Jesus is exhausting. It doesn't mean I'm off track, nor does it mean that I need to follow my Feelings wherever they lead me.
Sometimes Jesus is saying, go where I don't want to go.
But he's got a plan and a purpose for it.
Point number two, if you're taking notes, my second observation with this text is that even if you can't see him, he sees you.
Even if you can't see Jesus, he sees you. So these disciples are out there. They're rowing, they're straining towards the coast. They're straining towards the seashore, as it were.
And in verse 24, the CSB has the word battered. So their, like, boat was getting battered. Anybody noticed that word? So you can imagine, like, battered. It's a fascinating word, and it's actually a word that's used for tortured.
When Jesus is about to cast out some demons out of a guy, it says, like, are you here to torture us? The demons are like, don't torment us. Which, by the way, just as an aside, that's Jesus. The demons are like, so whatever you're facing, whatever I'm facing, whatever we might fear, evil fears Jesus.
And so the demons are like, don't torture us. That's the word that they. That's the same word that they use, like, don't torture us. It's a word of agony, of suffering. I actually heard this week, as I was getting ready for this, that it's a word that can be used for a woman in labor, a woman about to give birth, which if you've ever been a part of. We've all been a part of one, right?
Have you ever been there when one's happening and taking place? You're a conscious adult, and you're not a woman. You're watching, which only, you know, some of us have been there.
Something wild happens in labor. It's called this point of transition.
You guys know what I'm talking about.
It's this point where you're almost like. It's almost like, baby's almost here. Baby's almost ready to be pushed out. And the same thing happens every time in, like, the kind of the depth of the depths of agony and suffering.
And I've seen my wife go through this. It's like that moment of surrender where it's like, I give up. Like, I give up. I can't do this. Do you know what's about to happen?
Life is about to come.
Life is about to come.
But it's often at that moment, like, I can't. It's too much.
That moment of surrender, as it were.
That's this word, this battery. Like, they were. They were Getting there. They were getting to that point of like, I can't do this anymore. They're tortured, they're in agony, they're suffering. Their boat is just a picture of that.
And the crazy part is, even though they can't see him who's coming toward them, Jesus, they can't see him, but he sees, and he sees you.
God wants to do something through this storm.
As I was reflecting on this passage, I realized, oh, man, so often I want to get through things quickly, not knowing that he's on his way to meet me, not after this is done, but in this thing that I want to get through.
I remember once being in a spot there is like, I don't know if there's been a process for me of growing into being settled in my calling and my vocation as a pastor. And so I remember Once, this is 2019, I had one of those moments where I felt like I really, like, lost confidence.
When I got started, I remember.
I remember being in San Diego years ago, and I was a part of a small group of guys. And I remember that we were going to work through the letter that Paul wrote to the Galatians. And I remember working through that letter. I remember grabbing, like, an easel and I remember, like, basically writing out an outline and getting ready to, like, essentially preach. Which that was not the point of that time. But I was like, I had this preaching this thing where I'm like, I got to preach.
I didn't know it. I didn't have that necessarily, that language, but I walked these guys through it.
And I remember having this moment of like, I think this is on my life.
Fast forward several years later, probably nine years later, I'm here in Margarita Middle. This was prior to Covid.
And I just had one of those Sundays where I was like, I don't know if I can keep doing this.
I was struggling so badly with this sense of like, what am I doing? Am I doing this right?
Do I have what it takes?
And it was a really low moment. It was a moment where I felt like my confidence essentially evaporated.
I had started off with quite a bit of confidence, probably overconfidence, honestly. And then it evaporated.
I took a step and I wasn't sure that I was ready to complete the journey.
And so I'll never forget, I was sitting there in the house that we lived in before this one. We had an extra room, like an office. And I remember writing out, like, what am I doing? Why am I doing it? Am I going to continue to do this.
Is this the calling on my life? And I'm like debating this. I'm like really wondering.
And I get, I was on my desk and I get this text message. I got a text message from Tom and we're getting ready to go to South Africa. And I've shared this story before, but we're getting ready to go to South Africa.
And I didn't have any. I was just going to go just to be a part of the team, just to kind of observe and watch and learn.
And Tom was like, would you like to preach while we're there?
And I was like, the last thing I want is a mic in my hand right now. I'm not sure if I ever want to pick one up again.
But I felt like this nudge, I felt like, okay, I think Jesus is in this.
My faith is kind of evaporating for this, for this calling.
But I felt like it was like a lifeline that Jesus sent to me. So I was like, all right, I'll do it. And. And they sent me to the school, it was an all girls school to preach at 7am Their chapel.
It was like, I thought it was gonna be 30 people, it was 500. Some of you guys were on the text thread. I was at GC with you guys, Tracy and Dorian's gc and the Carpenter's team is gc. I think I was like, it was probably the night, it was probably like nighttime here and it was morning in South Africa. And I'm like, this is not what I expected. Please pray. Do you guys remember this? You know, And I get out There, it was 500 people and it was 500 girls who were between the ages of 13 and 17 from another continent. We shared the same language, thankfully, but we had nothing else in common. And here I am, middle aged guy from Puerto Rico, so Orange county, ish.
What do I have to say to them that might be of interest to them? Nothing.
This is a setup for failure. And here I am and they asked me to tell them my story in 10 minutes, which that's already a setup of failure for a preacher to give them 10 minutes to do anything. It's just not going to happen. I could explain what we're doing for 10 minutes before I start doing it. And so that's what I had. I had 10 minutes.
And so I went up there in front of 500, 513 to 17 year old girls that I had nothing in common with seemingly.
And I just told them about my life and my story and I shared what Jesus had done for me.
And it was like a moment where something extraordinary happened. I don't think it was because of me. I think it was for me.
The 500 girls were totally captivated by what I was saying.
It seems impossible, but there's witnesses there. This happened, this actually happened.
500 of them, plus the guys I was on the trip with.
And by the end, they gave me like a standing ovation.
Okay, the point of me telling you this isn't like, wow, look at how great. The point is, like, look at Jesus.
Like, he knew exactly what I needed.
I needed to strip away performance.
I needed to strip away expectations that I had placed on myself that Jesus didn't. I needed to get back to my first love, which is just telling people about how beautiful Jesus is and what he's done for me.
And I had to go to South Africa, which is two 10 hour flights plus another flight within the country.
It's about as far as you can go from San Diego before you just fly off into Antarctica and disappear forever. It was just so far away.
But it's exactly what I needed in that time.
And I felt like. I felt about ready to put down my paddles or oars, what do you call them when you're rowing?
Oars. I wanted to pull up my oars and just be like, I give up. Wherever this thing takes me, if it takes me to a different, you know, a different vocation, I'm totally fine with it. God.
But he wasn't done with me.
Like, he saw me and he knew exactly what I needed and he knew that all I needed was Him. And if that's all I had to give, that that was more than enough.
And I'm letting. Why am I mentioning this? Because there could be people in this room where you feel like you are about ready to pull the plug on this Jesus thing.
Whether that's like giving up your faith, I don't know, maybe it's giving up like some specific assignment that you have been tasked with that Jesus has given you. I don't know.
But I just want you to know if you are struggling, if you are in agony over your calling, or you are just feeling kind of stuck. Jesus, even if you can't see him, he sees you and he's taking steps in your direction.
It may just require surrender to wait long enough for him to get to you.
And so Jesus sees you even if you don't see him. Maybe you're here and you don't feel seen by Jesus or by people. I just want you to know that that is not true.
And there's purpose for you even if you've lost your way.
Jesus hasn't.
And today he may want to reinvigorate you for a calling.
Number three first. Third thing I noticed in this text is that you might not get it.
You might not understand if you look back on this passage.
What did they think Jesus was?
A ghost.
They thought he was a ghost.
Okay, to be fair to those disciples, can I just mention something real quick?
Nine hours of rowing overnight will do just about that to anyone. I think if you're out there just rowing and straining for hours and hours and hours and hours on end, you're probably going to start seeing things too, or just start running with assumptions about what's happening and what's in front of you. It's understandable.
Fear in the presence of the Messiah can totally be understandable, but it is not necessary.
It's not necessary.
The disciples were beset by at least two things. One was weakness. Nine hours of rowing will do that to anyone.
Pure exhaustion.
And maybe you're here and you feel like you have been rowing and straining and it feels like you've just been going, going, going, and you feel like you're missing Jesus. You are in good company. These disciples had Jesus in front of them, and they thought it was a ghost.
They thought it might have been a demon or some sort of creature or some kind of spiritual being.
They couldn't imagine that it was Jesus himself that was walking toward them.
So weakness caused them to not get it. And number two, this one's a little bit trickier to see, but I think there were weeds at a heart level for them, too.
What do I mean by weeds?
There were these lies that had taken root in their hearts that were.
That needed to be, like, uprooted and reassessed.
So I don't.
I don't know if. Did I give you guys the Job passage by chance? Job nine?
If not, I can find it in my Bible.
So there's this understanding. There it is. Thank you.
There's this understanding in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Bible, that God alone is the one who stretches out the heavens and treads on the waves of the sea. In fact, there's certain translations that would even say that he was walking on the back of the sea, God, like, he's walking on top of the water. This is a part of the expectation that the people of Israel would have had of Jesus.
And there's others. I think there's a passage in Isaiah that talks about.
Let me see if do you guys have it? Oh, there it is. This is going to be familiar to some of you guys. Maybe the first part. This is what it says. It says, this is what the Lord says, the one who created you, Jacob. So he's talking to God's people, the one who formed you, Israel, do not fear, for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mine. It's that whole. If you're a chosen fan, it's like when Mary gets delivered. Then their interpretation of how Mary, Mary Magdalene got sick, essentially became a Christian was that this was something that she grew up hearing, reciting. And then Jesus knew exactly that she needed to hear it at the exact moment. And she realized this is Jesus, this is the Lord.
So she got it. But the disciples in the boat didn't, as it were. Verse 2. I will be with you when you pass through the waters, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you.
And on and on it goes. There's this reality that there is an expectation that water wouldn't be a detriment to the divine king when he manifested himself on the earth.
The problem wasn't what Jesus was doing. The problem was, unbelief. The disciples missed this.
Even Peter missed this, as it were, at least in a moment. They were reacting.
They weren't responding.
They were caught in like a cycle of fear, as it were. And they're just reacting instinctually to what they're seeing. And they're freaked out, they're creeped out.
And so I just want you to know, sometimes disciples just don't get it.
There could be weakness that's affecting our ability to see and interpret things. There could also be weeds, unbelief. It's at a heart level where we're not aware of until, like a situation reveals it. And we may just react without thoughtfully responding to what we're seeing.
It can be a roller coaster ride following Jesus.
It really can be. And you may not get it, and that's okay. And if you're here and you are really struggling with seeing Jesus through what you're going through, that's okay. The disciples went through the same thing.
Number four.
Jesus reassures us with truth.
Jesus reassures us with truth.
Don't be afraid. It is I. You guys catch that in the Greek, it's actually ego e ni, which is. Which is the same in the Greek, the Septuagint, the Greek, Old Testament. Ego e mi is the way that God reveals himself to the people of Israel. I am. This is the great I am. There's scholarly debate about whether that's what Jesus intended or not.
I tend to think that if you look at the situation, the scenario when he's walking on water and saying, I am, I have a feeling it's probably what he meant.
It's like, hey, wink, wink, remember the story.
Remember the story.
God parted the waters. People walked on dry, dry ground.
I am like, nothing. Nothing.
That's Jesus. Like, that's his life.
And I'm glad he's patient. Aren't you?
Aren't you glad that he's patient with his people?
And he reassures us with truth even when we're trembling with fear.
I am get. No, nothing. Nothing. Okay.
He's so kind. He's so patient, and so he reassures us with truth.
Sometimes all we need to do is just be reminded of the realities of Jesus.
One of the things that I'm convinced I don't believe consistently, part of the reason why I struggle, why I wound up in that spot back in 2019, why I can still wind up there today, is that there's one promise of Jesus that I just don't believe.
I don't believe it.
It's at the end of Matthew, which we're halfway through. In five years, we'll get to this passage. It says where Jesus says, I am with you to the end of the age.
You guys know that one, The Great Commission, this remarkable statement of Jesus mission for the Church. And he ends it with that I'm with you to the end of the age.
Why am I anxious and afraid if not because I don't believe he's with me.
And yet he reassures me with truth, knowing that I will forget quickly.
And he does the same for you, and he does the same thing for us. And maybe today all you need to be reassured of is the one thing you need for courage is to remember he's with you in whatever you're going through.
Number five. We're almost done.
This one's hard. This one's really difficult.
I had a hard time with this one, but I think it's in the text. Starting well doesn't guarantee ending well.
Starting well doesn't guarantee ending well. Did you notice that Peter lost his faith when Jesus was where?
Right next to him.
Jesus was standing right next to him. But the storm felt bigger.
It was bigger.
I got a quote. It's quote number two from RT France.
It says, peter's loss of faith, of little faith. This is the Greek word oligopistus, denotes unbelief. Rather than inadequate belief. And it consists in allowing the material facts, things like the wind and the waves, to weigh more heavily than the power of Jesus.
Doubt is literally to be divided in two.
True faith is single mindedly focused on Jesus.
So it's possible to start well and not end well in a moment in a life.
And maybe you're here and you're like you're anything like me. You've been a part of the church for a while and you're like, man, I've seen people start well but not finish.
And I think that this passage gives us an idea of why that might be because doubt enters into the equation.
The waves become bigger than the person who's walking on top of them.
The chaos, as it were, crowds out the Christ in our hearts and in our minds.
And it is possible one of the scholars that I was reading on this actually said that Peter, we should probably read him because part of the tension in this text, I don't know if you noticed this, maybe you've been in the church for a while and you've probably heard this preached before, like step out in the water like Peter, did you? You ever heard that before? I think that's a perfectly good way to look at this text. It just misses one important part.
He started thinking, so is this like, is Peter an example or a cautionary tale?
Which is it?
I think the answer is yes.
I think the answer is yes. I think Peter, ultimately he's an example. And this is what RT France said. He said, he's an example of true faith which did not survive the crisis.
An example of true faith which did not survive the crisis.
Sometimes in life we go through crisis moments. Sometimes things start routine that then require a rescue.
This was one of those scenarios, believe it or not, the wind being contrary to them did not represent some kind of.
At least some of the scholars I read said this wasn't like an emergency level situation where they were going to die.
It only became that when Peter stepped out and started sinking.
What starts off as routine, routine obedience to Jesus can end in a rescue and needing rescue.
And that's kind of what happened to me when I was swimming out in Laguna beach that one fateful day. That was supposed to be a routine time of swimming, of enjoying being out in nature, of seeing some fish. I don't know exactly what we were doing. We were doing something out there and it turned into a situation where I required a rescue.
I started off with some level of confidence that evaporated in the midst of this crisis and that can happen to a disciple. A disciple can look at the situation in their life, can look at the circumstances and be like this is a crisis and you can lose your confidence as you go through it. It happened to Peter, it can happen to you, it can happen to me, it can happen to any of us.
Because unbelief is real.
For those of you that have been that I've had the privilege of being. In one of the recent intros we talk about this. We talk about like how every disciple, every believer is an unbeliever. At the same time, we struggle with a lot of unbelief. It's why we still have sin in our life.
Otherwise we would stop sinning if we just believed 100% of the time. Jesus is with us. Jesus is for us. Jesus can change us.
We wouldn't sin.
We would wait for his deliverance and his rescue. We wouldn't be distracted by other things. We wouldn't turn to other sources of comfort or rescue.
We would just be single mindedly focus on Jesus. But the truth is we all struggle with unbelief. And Peter is the rock upon which you know, depending on how you read that passage, Peter is certainly an example for disciples.
And like a rock, he was about to sink to the bottom of the ocean.
I hope that tells you something about what it means to follow Jesus.
It's not for the faint of heart, number one and number two. There should be no presumption in this place about our own standing.
We only really find out who we are in the midst of a crisis and what we believe.
But here's the good news.
This is my last point. Number six.
When you're weak, Jesus offers you his strength.
When you are weak, Jesus offers you his strength.
Notice what happens to Peter. He starts to sink, right? He looks at the circumstances and he's like, I'm overwhelmed. I'm going to sink. I'm going to fall into this. This is going to become a grave for me.
I'm going to succumb to the chaos waters of death and judgment. They're going to get me.
But Peter has the good sense to do one thing. What was that?
What did he cry out? Three words.
Lord save me.
It's an appropriate response.
He was exhausted. He was probably a little delirious.
I remember I used to do when I was in high school, I used to do overnight.
What was it called? Lock ins.
Anybody ever do those? Do they still do those where you just go somewhere overnight and then your parents pick you up the next day?
Okay, so that Used to happen in the 90s, in the early 2000s. We would watch movies, we would eat popcorn, we would play video games. And then mom and dad would show up at 7am by the end of that, I was delirious. Like, totally and utterly delirious.
And I needed to be, like, taken out of there almost in a stretcher. I was so tired and thankfully I couldn't drive then. So I didn't drive. I needed somebody to drive me home on the. Otherwise, I might not make it home.
So you can imagine the exhaustion level that Peter and the disciples experienced when they were rowing for nine hours all night long. The frustration of not making progress and even experiencing terror at seeing Jesus and thinking he was a ghost or a demon or the end of their life, as it were.
But the good news is, when you're weak and when I'm weak, none of that has to have the final say.
But it does take courage to admit I'm sinking.
It takes courage to admit I'm sinking.
Save me.
One of the things that haunts me to this day about as I reflect on what happened to me in Laguna beach is that I never asked for my friends to help me.
Never.
The pride and the unwillingness to say, I'm about to die.
I would rather die than admit it.
That's what I found out in that moment.
I would rather die than admit I need help.
And you might be like, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Which, by the way, it was completely concur with you.
Not a, don't do this. If you ever find yourself drowning, just say something, ask for help.
But again, we're not talking. This isn't a swim lesson. This is discipleship training. And I wonder how many people end up drowning spiritually because they just won't say, I'm not okay. Help.
I'm not okay. Help.
I'm not okay. Help.
Peter has the good sense, or maybe let's call it a good impulse, just to be like, help me. Maybe that was the way that the other disciples, like, kindly transcribed what Peter was saying.
Save me, okay? They may have been like, ah, I don't know.
I'm sinking.
And then what happens to Peter is a hand goes out and grabs him and pulls him out of the grave and saves him.
So you're going, imagine if you're in the boat, okay? You've just seen Jesus feed 15 to 20 an arena full of people with a couple Happy Meals, right? You're on cloud nine. This is an incredible moment. And then all of A sudden, Peter is about to die after a night of just being totally exhausted. Like, roller coaster, right? Highest highs, low lows. And then Jesus grabs hold of him, and Peter enters the boat. And you have a moment to take stock of what the heck just happened.
And you realize something.
Jesus is magneto number one. Like, he flies into.
Like, he. He's not limited by what we're limited. Like, he walked on water.
Then Peter walks out to him, starts to drown, and Jesus rescues him. Do you know what that means if Jesus is holding his weight? It means that Jesus is still on top of the water while he's grabbing someone.
Like, not even then did Jesus lose his footing. He was so sure, so steady.
I can take your weight.
Incredible.
I don't know why, but in my mind, the second he's got to go like this, he's going to start sinking, too. It's like, he can do this but once, like his weight, like, that's it. Jesus is going in the water, too. No, he not only can walk on water, but he can bear the weight of Peter and Peter's distress and bring him out of it. And I just want you to know, like, Jesus can do the same thing for you if you feel like. Or somebody that you know, somebody that you know and love and care about is in the midst of distress after being, I don't know, exhausted, weary, whatever.
Jesus can actually bear the weight of your burden.
When you're weak, Jesus offers you his strength.
And we know that this is a little preview of what he was going to do on the cross. He was going to bear the weight of our sin upon himself.
He was going to bear the burden of humanity, of our brokenness, of our neediness, and he was going to take it all on himself so that he could give us his own life, his righteousness. He would give us, as it were, like, all that.
We couldn't be sons and daughters. Obedient, perfectly like he's given us all that as a gift.
But it's only because he can walk on the chaos. He can walk on top of the judgment. He can walk on top of death.
But he only can do that because he himself would be consumed by it later.
So that you and I can live, as it were, without the fear of death anymore, without the fear of judgment, without the existential need to have life vindicate us or people vindicate us.
We don't have to live that way anymore.
We can actually live by faith.
The good news is that Peter was rescued and the disciples went back into that boat. What did they do.
They worshiped.
That's what it says. It says they worshiped him.
The end of the story is not so much Peter's failure or even his faith, but Jesus faithfulness.
So I'm going to invite you to stand and I'm going to call the band up and I'm going to ask you guys to think about the story and see, like, who do you most resonate with in this story?
Do you resonate with the weary disciples in the boat who have just been straining and rowing seemingly against the wind, not making progress or trying really hard to make a very little progress, straining, yet stuck?
Even as you follow Jesus and you are in good company.
And I just want you to know that if you are exhausted after following Jesus into difficult conditions, and maybe you're here and you're wondering, like, where is he? I just want you to know, like, he's got his eye, according to this text, from what I see here, it gives me tons of hope that he's got his eyes locked on you and that he may just be around the corner.
And if you need that reassurance, if you need some reassuring words prayed over you, I want to invite you to come up and get prayer. I'm going to invite the prayer team, actually, to come up to the front.
Whoever's on the prayer team today, you may just need to come up and admit, like, Jesus, I need your reassurance.
Can we put up the six points actually up on the screen real quick?
We'll just. We'll just work with this. Maybe you're here and following Jesus is exhausting you.
I believe Jesus wants to give you rest this morning.
You can come up and receive prayer.
He's on top of those waves, he's on top of that chaos, and he's coming for you.
Will you open up your hands and receive him?
Maybe you're here and you just feel unseen. Maybe you feel unseen by people. Maybe you feel unseen by Jesus.
If that's you, I just want to encourage you, come and receive prayer because I have a feeling he sees way better than you think. Jesus sees in the dark is part of what this text tells me. Even when we feel like we're in the dark, it's not darkness to him.
Maybe you're here and you're just. Maybe you feel like, I don't get it.
Maybe you feel confused.
Maybe you feel like, this is all so weird, so strange.
Here I am trying to learn about Jesus, but my life is not going well.
Or maybe you feel stuck.
I want to invite you to Come up and receive prayer.
Maybe you can resonate with number five.
Maybe, like Peter, you started well in certain things in life, but didn't end well.
Maybe you had moments of faith, callings, things that you were called to that you didn't necessarily finish well. And I just want you to know I think Jesus sees you and he's not done with you.
He's not. What happened to Peter? I don't know. If you know, I'll ruin the story for you.
That guy stumbled again.
He actually operated in ways later in his life that where Paul said, like you're denying the gospel, Peter, you're the leader of the church, corrupting the message of the church.
That's Peter.
And so it wasn't the last time that Peter's faith didn't work, survive a crisis.
He had theological crises. He didn't survive. He had, like, steps of faith. He didn't survive. But in the end, church history tells us something spectacular.
Church history tells us that Peter was crucified upside down because he want. He didn't think he was worthy of being crucified the same way as the Son.
His final test. God prepared him for it, and he passed that test because he was trained through difficult moments like the one that we just experience today reading about.
He's not done with you.
If you just need that reassurance, if you need power, if you need comfort, please come forward today.
And last, but certainly not least, if you are feeling weak, Jesus offers you his strength.
I was reading. The last thing I'll say, and then I'll get out of here, is that I was reading a guy, John Tyson. Some of you guys know him, know who he is. He's a pastor in New York City. He was talking about his dad getting older. And he talked about how as his dad is getting older, his dad used to be this kind of picture of strength to him. His dad was super strong, actually was a light weight lifter. And he mentioned that as his dad's been getting older, there's been a great reversal where his dad has gotten weaker.
And so dad's strong, apparently only lasts for so long is what I'm learning. I feel like this is a reality that as we get older, we just lose strength. And John Tyson, who's. Who's like, he's almost 50. He's like, I realize that I have to now offer my dad my strength. This great reversal that takes place. And I just want you to know that that phrase, like offering my dad my strength this week has turned into Jesus offering his strength. To me and to you when you are weak, when you feel like you can't anymore. Jesus is strong.
His strength knows, his care knows no limits, and his power knows no bounds.
You just need to come and receive.
I'm gonna pray for us. I'm gonna invite you guys to come up and receive prayer. On the one hand if you need it. On the other hand, if you just need to praise Jesus and thank him that he rescued you. That was one of the things that stood out to me this week, was I'm so grateful I'm alive. I could be. I could have died in Laguna beach that day, and I didn't. I actually found some barnacles on a rock and grabbed ahold of those.
And I can't tell you how glad I am for that cement, like whatever it is that they have that sticks them to the rock, because if they weren't, if that hadn't happened, I would have pulled and just brought them all down.
But there's this strength that those barnacles had that they were able to hold my weight. And Jesus can hold your weight. His arm is strong and it's not beyond his reach to grab ahold of you. It's just a matter of you grabbing a hold of him because he's offering himself to you today.
So whether you need help or you just want to thank him, this time is for you. We've probably got 10 minutes or so that we can use to. To praise Him. So, Father, thank you.
Thank you for your word. Thank you for maybe a fresh perspective on a familiar text.
Would you lead us and guide us into a space of response?
Maybe for some, it's been more like reaction, reacting to life circumstances and troubles. Whereas today, maybe Jesus is inviting each of us to respond, to consider the context of life, that he's walking on top of those waves, that he's moving towards us and respond in like kind in view of his mercies, to offer up everything as a sacrifice to Him.
Thank you. We love you, Father. It's your name we pray. Amen.
