If you have been with us these last number
of weeks you know that our theme is “If You Want to Walk on Water You Have
to Get Out of the Boat”. We have been looking at the story in Matthew
14:22-26 and we have examined the whole idea of a faith – we are enabled
to get out of the boat and respond to the leading of God when we have
faith in a great God.
We have discovered that God has given us
each gifts to use for His glory and we are not simply bury them in the
ground. John Ortberg, in the book that many of you are studying in your
small groups says that there is no tragedy like the tragedy of an unopened
gift.1
Then last week we addressed the question
“How Do I Know God’s Voice?” and we thought of the different ways that God
speaks to us and affirms His calling in our lives, through His Word, our
brains, His Church, His Holy Spirit at work in us and prayer.
You will have noticed that so far I have
focused our attention on a particular portion of the story, the first two
thirds. I have talked about Jesus walking on the water, and Peter walking
on the water, and the disciples staying in the boat – our study as focused
down to the end of verse 29 of Matthew 14.
But there’s more to the story, isn’t there?
Verse 29 celebrates the fact that Peter gets out of the boat and walks
toward Jesus on the water. A fantastic accomplishment. But look at verse
30. Look at what happens. “But when he (that is Peter) saw the
wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, ‘Lord save me!’
” Immediately Jesus reached out His hand and caught him, “you of
little faith, he said, why did you doubt?”
This morning I want to talk to you about
fear and the Christian. The text says, “And Peter was afraid and began
to sink.” I want you to understand that some fear is good and
natural. We have within us a natural instinct to be wary of oncoming
traffic. It’s a good thing to be fearful of buses when you are crossing
the street and look both ways. Without such an instinct we would pay for
it with our very lives.
Have you ever met a mother at a pool party
who is constantly watching her young toddler child – and the child, with a
diaper dragging down to his knees is constantly gravitating toward the
pool? You get a sense that if the mother was not there to jerk the child
back from the edge of the pool he would simply walk right into 10 feet of
water. And you look at the mother inquisitively, and as she dives to
save her child from falling in one more time she explains, “He has no
fear.” Fear is a human instinct that has been given to us for a purpose.
Without it we can land in some real trouble.
There used to be a clothing line that was
hugely popular with teenagers a few years ago called “No Fear”. It still
advertises at extreme sport events and NASCAR, but they had an immensely
popular t-shirt that read “No Fear”.
I never believed it. For the truth is we
are such a fearful society that we do everything we can to eliminate
risk. As Ben Carson points out, “We buy every kind of insurance – from
life insurance to replacement policies for our cell phones to provide us
with the security we think we need. We pay extra for warranties on our
computers and appliances.”2
We want a secure, germ-free, risk-free,
fear-free environment. We only need to look at a jar of peanut butter - I
first need a pair of scissors to cut away the plastic ring that seals the
lid. Then I need the strength of ten men to twist off the lid. Then I
need the dexterity of a 12 year old to peel off the tin foil seal from the
top of the jar. Only then can I eat the peanut butter!
We are a fearful society . “We read safety
test results in Consumer Reports before buying an automobile. We wouldn’t
think of purchasing Tylenol or aspirin that didn’t come in a tamperproof
container. We invest in low-risk mutual funds in an attempt to ensure a
comfortable retirement. Our nation spends a fortune on equipment and man
power to keep our airports and air travel as safe as possible.”3
Is it any wonder that when God calls His
people to move – to get out of the usual - to do something daring for Him,
when He calls us to be bold and take a risk? We don’t do it because we’re
afraid. We are part of a culture that loves to be secure. And that
extends to our relationship with God.
This is the next thing we need to understand
that while some fear is natural and good, fear to follow God, to respond
to God’s leading and step out in faith in Him is unnatural. It is
unnatural for the Christian who has tasted the great power of God in their
lives to be fearful of trusting God and moving forward in faith.
You have experienced the power of God in
your life, haven’t you? Let me remind you of the power of God in your
life:
“At one time you were separate from
Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel, and foreigners to the
covenants of the promise, without hope, and without God.” (Ephesians
2:12)
But now, listen to the power of God – “in
Christ Jesus you who once were far away have been brought near through the
blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:13)
“God has made you a chosen people, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may
declare the praise of him who called you out of darkness into his
wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
Let me remind you of the power of God in
your life:
“At one time you were not a people, but
now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now
you have received mercy.” (1 Peter 2:10)
“At one time you were dead in your
transgressions and sins.” (Ephesians 2:5) . That means your spirit
was dead. You were a corpse. You were a walking grave. You had no life
in you. You were as dead as Monty Python’s parrot - your spirit was
deceased, you were bereft of life, you had kicked the bucket. You didn’t
have a little bit of life in you – you were dead in your transgressions
and sins. But let me remind you of the power of God in your life:
Thanks be to God that through faith in
Christ “God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the
heavenly realms.” (Ephesians 2:6).
“If anyone is in Christ they are a new
creation, the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17)
“You were once in darkness but now you
are light in the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:8)
Let me remind you of the power of God in
your life:
“Your sins used to be as scarlet but now
through faith in Christ they are as white as snow.” (See Isaiah 1:18)
“As far as the east is from the west so
far has he removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12)
That’s the power of God in your life. And
it is unnatural for the people of God – who have tasted His great power -
to fear walking into the future with our powerful God.
And that’s the problem, isn’t it? We forget
the power of God. That’s the next lesson we learn in this text about fear
– fear is birthed in us when we focus on the situation instead of the
power of God.
That’s what this event plainly shows.
Again, look at the contrast between verse 29 and verse 30 –“Then Peter
got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus.
But when he saw the wind, he was afraid… and he began to sink.”
It is when we focus on the chaos, when we
focus on the hardness of the situation, when we focus on the obstacles –
not with an eye to address them with God’s might and guidance but when we
focus on them so that they overwhelm us - we begin to doubt God’s power
and strength – that’s when we run into trouble.
So when we are reading through the New
Testament book of Hebrews and we come to chapter 12 we see that the
Christian life is compared to a race, and we are encouraged to “throw
off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let
us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes
on Jesus.” (Hebrews 12:1b-2)
When I was a boy I was never very good at
sports. I was chunky and slow – my dad didn’t play a lot of sports and it
wasn’t really encouraged. If I wanted to dig dirt or pull weeds that was
good – but not sports – there had to be a purpose to an activity and
sports had no purpose except fun. But for some reason I have a vivid
memory of dad telling me how to run a foot race. He said when you are
running in a race don’t turn your head to see who’s behind you – keep your
eye on the finish line and run as fast as you can, don’t look back.
And this is what we are called to in the
Christian life. We called to keep our eye on Jesus, the one who walks on
water. We are to keep our eye on Jesus who endured the cross for you and
for me so that we can be brought from death to life. we are to fix our
eyes on Jesus who rose from the dead and now sits enthroned as the Victor
and King of this world.
Fear is birthed in us when we take our eyes
off the power of our Lord and look at the situation around us.
Hans Peter Royer, director of Capenwray
Bible School in Austria speaks of a time when he took his 8 year old son
rock climbing. Hans Peter is a registered guide for rock climbing. He’s
been rock climbing all his life and trains many people in this sport. So
he took his son to the rock face. And they were top rope climbing. This
is a great way to learn rock climbing. There is an anchor at the top, the
rock climber has a harness and your fellow climber stays at the bottom as
an anchor, collecting the rope as you climb and controlling the rope as
you descend.
So Hans Peter’s son started climbing up and
did quite well. But when he was at the top of the climb he did something
he never should have done - he looked down and saw how high he was and
freaked out. He just screamed and screamed. He was clinging on to the
rock and everything.
Hans Peter was saying to him, “You must lean
back, let go of the rock,” but he just kept screaming. So finally, Hans
Peter says, “I pulled so hard on the rope that he flew away from the rock
face and then I lowered him down – but all the way down he screamed and
screamed.”
And when he got to the bottom, Hans asked
him, “What was the problem up there?”
And his son was really angry and said, “I
didn’t know if you would hold me.”
“Lukas,” Hans Peter said, “do you really
believe that I cannot or will not hold you?” Then he cried even more.
And he said, “Of course, daddy, I know you
will hold me and always will hold me.”4
This is what happens, isn’t it? We get our
eyes focused on the problem, we get our thoughts focused on the
difficulties and we loose sight of the one who is bigger than our
problems. We forget the one who is stronger than our difficulties.
This is why Jesus says to Peter, after he has reached
down and rescued him from drowning – in verse 31 – “You of little faith
why did you doubt?” “Why did you take your eyes off me? Why did you
stop trusting in my power and ability? Have you forgotten who I am?”
That’s what Jesus is asking.
Turn your Bibles to Isaiah 51:12-16 we have to read
this – this is an amazing passage – Look at what God says here to us:
“I, even I am he who comforts you. Who are you
that you fear mortal men, the sons of men who are but grass, that you
forget the Lord your Maker, who stretched out the heavens and laid the
foundations of the earth, that you live in constant terror every day
because of the wrath of the oppressor, who is bent on destruction? For
where is the wrath of the oppressor? The cowering prisoners will soon be
set free; they will not die in their dungeon, nor will they lack bread.
For I am the Lord your God, who churns up the sea so that its waves roar –
The Lord Almighty is his name. I have put my words in your mouth and
covered you with the shadow of my hand – I who set the heavens in place,
who laid the foundations of the earth, and who say to Zion, “you are my
people”.
And doesn’t God say that to us again and
again in Scripture? We are His people – we belong to Him – we do not
belong to some dead idol, but we belong to the living God who set the
heavens in place, who laid the foundations of the earth, who covers us
with the shadow of His hand.
When we take our eyes off of Him, we fall
into fear. Let us fix our eyes on our Lord.
You see, this is the fear that we must
address. It is the fear that keeps us from following God’s voice and going
in the direction that He calls us to go. Do you know why? Because this
type of fear cripples our Christian walk. This is the next principle we
learn about fear from this text. When Peter started to fear he started to
sink.
And it is proven again and again when we
read through Scripture – here are the Hebrews – they have just been freed
by God’s mighty power from slavery in Egypt. They have crossed the Red
Sea on dry ground and have watched as Pharaoh and his horsemen are washed
into the sea. They have been fed and led by the mighty power of God.
They are on the door step of the promised land about to go in – but just
before they go in they send in 12 spies to get the lay of the land. And
in Numbers 13 and 14 we read that after 40 days of spying they all come
back and give their report. Ten of them say, “We can’t go in there – the
people are stronger than we are, they are huge, they are powerful, and
their cities are fortified.” And the people listen to the report and they
spend forty years wandering in the desert. Fear cripples our walk with
God.
And we know it to be true. This type of
fear – the fear of following God’s voice of going in the direction that He
calls us to go - robs us of our resources and paralyzes our maturity as
Christians. It is a fear that causes the Christian to stagnate in their
spiritual growth and to travel along the road of life in a rut.
This type of fear – the fear of following
God’s voice and stepping out in faith to follow Him – cripples the work of
the church and hinders the furthering of God’s Kingdom.
It is a fear that stifles the work of the
Holy Spirit and makes worship predictable, without wonder, without awe,
without meaning.
It is a fear that limits God so that we
Christians begin not to expect anything from God – and it leads to the
sinful belief that He wouldn’t do anything new or anything better than
what we have experienced for that last umpteen years anyway.
It is a fear that leads to greed instead of
generosity because we think that our God will not provide for us, so we
must grasp and keep and hoard as many resources as possible.
It leads to an inability to dream of
anything more dynamic and Spirit-filled than we presently experience and
it brings boredom and dullness and predictability, flatness, coldness,
yawns, tiredness, and the exhaustion of the usual to the Christian life
and instead of being a life of living colour where God’s strength and
might and power is continually demonstrated through His people everything
becomes succession of meaningless meetings, to discuss trivial matters at
the latest of hours.
Fear to move forward and follow God’s
calling cripples our Christian walk.
The one last principle to be learned here
and that is that fear is banished with faith in our great God.
Jesus immediately reaches out His hand and
catches Peter and says “You of little faith – why did you doubt?”
If Peter had only kept the faith, he wouldn’t have gone down into the
water.
And again and again we learn this in
Scripture – fear is banished by faith in God.
Here are the armies of Israel hiding in
their tents as the great Philistine giant Goliath – with a bronze helmet
on his head, his legs and body clad in bronze armour. He wields a huge
spear – he’s over nine feet tall - and he comes out and taunts the
Israelite army every day for 40 days morning and evening. And every time,
the Israelite army runs from him in fear, says the text in 1 Samuel
17:24.
Why he did it for so long ? All I can think
was that the Philistines couldn’t get enough of it. Can you imagine the
laughter in their camp – “Goliath, go do that thing again – let’s watch
the Israelites run away!”
But then here comes little David, a mere
shepherd boy, visiting his brothers on the front lines of the battle with
the Philistines and he hears the taunts of Goliath and he volunteers to
fight the giant. And the two of them meet on the battle field the giant
warrior with his armour and strength and huge army and the little teenage
kid with two things – a sling and faith in the living God.
And it could be said that with that faith,
the tables are turned. That little teenage kid with faith in the living
God becomes the great warrior and the giant becomes a puny little man who
is way over-dressed.
And David meets Goliath and says, “You
come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you
in the name of the Lord Almighty.” It is with faith David defeats
Goliath.
In the fall of 1940, World War II was not
going well for Great Britain. For 57 consecutive nights the Germans sent
over 200 planes bombing London. And Winston Churchill could be seen
picking through the rubble, day after day, encouraging the people. In
1945 the allies won the war and defeated Germany. When V.E. day came, a
reporter asked Prime Minister Churchill what he had done during those 57
long nights of bombing, when it was so dark for England.
He responded, “Each night I retired to my bunker
below Piccadilly Square and there with a desk lamp illuminating a map of
Europe, I planned the invasion of Germany.” That’s faith – making plans
for victory when the enemy is storming down upon you.
Our faith is not in allied forces or any human army
or any human program or any human being but in God Almighty. And as we as
a church seek to move forward we must not allow fear to paralyze us, to
hinder us, to stop us from following the voice of God and moving forward.
Let us be a people who
have their eyes firmly fixed on God. Let us be a people who know that we
serve the almighty God. Let us be a people whose faith rests squarely on
God for it is not by might, not by power, by my Spirit, says the Lord
Almighty.
