Matthew14-SinkingSaints

I remain standing for the reading of God's Word. We are in Matthew chapter 14, taking a little break from Jonah for a special note. Matthew chapter 14, verse 22. Immediately, he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side while he sent the crowds away. And after he had sent the crowds away, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray.

And when it was evening, he was there alone. But the boat was already many stadia away from the land, being battered by the waves, for the wind was against them. And in the fourth watch of the night, he came to them walking on the sea. Now, when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, it is a ghost. And they cried out in fear.

But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid. And Peter answered and said to him, Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water. And he said, come. and getting out of the boat, Peter walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But seeing the wind, he became frightened and beginning to sink, he cried out saying, Lord, save me.

And immediately Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him and said to him, you of little faith, why did you doubt? And when they got into the boat, the wind stopped and those who were in the boat worshiped him saying, you are truly God's son. May God bless the reading of his word and the preaching of his word. You may be seated. You may be tempted to think that because Jonah was in a storm that I saw some connection to this storm and thought this would be a good tie-in to Jonah and it's not.

This is just a separate passage that I decided I wanted to preach today. And I think that there will be application of the truths therein that will be obvious to many. And in general, I hope it will be an encouragement to God's people. Matthew chapter 14. We read about the beheading of John the Baptist first. Then we read about Jesus feeding the 5,000, which was 5,000 men.

So more than likely, Jesus fed 20,000 to 25,000 people that day with the five loaves and the fish. And then next we get to this passage. And if you study the Bible, which I hope everyone here does, one thing you'll notice is that if you read the book of Mark and maybe even the book of John, these events are not always listed in the same order as they are here.

And so scholars are actually somewhat unsure at times which events came first or in what order or which ones immediately followed a previous event. And so we have a couple things we can do with that. Remembering the biblical method of interpretation being that we always look at the context. One of the things we look at with context is, well, this happened after this happened.

So chronologically, we want to associate narrative stories in particular with the narratives that came before and the narratives that come after, because we believe that provides some context. But the Holy Spirit in the inspired word of God actually rearranging the stories at times provides a different context. Not necessarily a chronological one, but we'll say a thoughtful one or a redemptive one.

So there are times that we will look at the passages and I'm going to get into all the surrounding context here. But this was for your own thinking. There's times you look at the passage and maybe you don't know if this happened right after the previous event or not. or maybe the event before the previous event because it does seem clear that he feeds the 5,000 right before this event.

But the Holy Spirit wants you to think about why some of these things I think are grouped together and just get an idea of what we can glean from that. But in verse 22 of Matthew 14, after feeding the 5,000, we're going to go through this narrative and then after we've gone through it, then we will start to figure out maybe a little bit of information about it and application. Verse 22, Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go ahead of him to the other side while he sent crowds away.

So you got all these people that are just freshly fed by Jesus. They're following him. He works an obvious miracle for them and is able to feed them. And something has to happen now. These people can't just, they can't all stay here, right? So Jesus sends them away, and he made the disciples get into a boat.

You have the scenario here is that the disciples are getting into a boat. I always imagined this, I don't know what I imagined, but I guess I always imagined this little boat that had just the disciples, in it and then you know maybe one more place for jesus and when i read commentaries about this the the commentators some of them thought this would have been a very large boat with lots of other mariners and people not related at all with the disciples And so they get in this boat, but what happens at the moment they get in the boat is the crowds that Jesus is sending away, the crowds that know that these are Jesus's disciples, they can see Jesus and the disciples separating. So if Jesus is about to work a miracle and he's about to walk on water, and if you read the other passages, you're going to see that after he gets in the boat, the boat is on the other side of the sea.

If he's going to be on the other side of the sea with the disciples and he wants the crowds to know that it was miraculous, they need to see the boat leave without him. You understand? So Jesus is setting up everyone to understand some things here. If he sent the crowds away, and then the next morning he was gone, the crowds might think, well, he just went with his disciples.

And after he sent the crowds away, verse 23, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray, and when it was evening, he was there alone. So we have a principle here that I think that we all need to be able to adopt. So I could do a whole sermon on this, but we live in the most distracted generation, I think, that has ever lived. I don't think that there would be a time in church history where people would have had so much distraction available to them while in the church from outside. just the simplicity of having your phone possibly beep or notify you of something during the church service alone that's already a distraction but when you're home alone those distractions don't go away in fact they're still there and in a way they're more available to you, more prevalent Matthew Henry said he went into a solitary place and was there all alone Though he had so much work to do with others, yet he chose sometimes to be alone.

He says to set us an example. Those are not Christ's followers that do not care for being alone. that cannot enjoy themselves in solitude when they have none else to converse with, none else to enjoy, but God and their own hearts. There is a... That's a bit of a drastic statement, but I can amen it. If you know the Lord Jesus Christ, being alone with Him, Not only should be tolerable, but it should be desired.

And so I want to encourage you to do what I also need to do at times, which is to make sure to shut off the distractions. In this case, he made the disciples get into the boat. And I don't know if we're supposed to read that. He picked them up and threw them or something. I'm not trying to say that, but there's a sense where he's looking around him at the very people who need him the most and in a few hours will need him desperately.

And he says to them, you go over there, I'm going over here. I have something actually that's more important to do, which is pray to the Father, pray to God. But not only is it more important for me to do that, it's actually better for you that I do it. And that's something we forget. And it's something you need to remember about your family members. It's something you need to remember for yourself.

You need time alone with God. Studying His Word. Reading His Word. You also need time alone with God praying. You need your spouse, for example, to have those things as well. So you may think, well, I want my spouse with me.

I love him. I love her. Well, you know what? Apart from your spouse being a worshiper of Jesus Christ and in his good graces, your spouse is worthless to you. In fact, your spouse will just, in a sense, become your enemy if Christ is not working in their life. Even two non-believing spouses need Jesus Christ to be doing something to mitigate their sinful corruption so that they might enjoy each other at all.

And so if you want to have a happy marriage, if you want to be a good dad, if you want to be a quality mom, you need to take time actually away from the very people who need you the most in order for you to become the kind of person who is useful to them. And you do that through private prayer and devotion of God. It's a difficult discipline because there's spiritual warfare.

So I'm not going to tell you that if you have trouble staying focused, well, you're probably not a Christian. I'm not going to tell you if you missed a day of Bible reading, well, you better examine yourself. Maybe you don't take communion. I'm not going to say that. I'm going to tell you I think it's a real struggle for people. And in fact, if there was anyone who it was ever just not a struggle for, it would have been Christ. because he knew exactly what to do.

Martin Luther, one of the most important figures of the 16th century, one of the most important figures in church history, is quoted as saying once I have so much to accomplish today that I better pray for four hours instead of two this morning The idea being that unless God's blessing is upon you, all that you need to accomplish won't be accomplished. But spending more time beseeching God for help is what might guarantee that you actually get the things done. and so and I may have misquoted it maybe two or three hours whatever it is you get the point I've actually seen it a couple different ways now in verse 25 we're told that it's the fourth watch of the night when Jesus came to them I don't know how long it took Jesus to get from the mountain to them. But the fourth watch of the night, I understand, is 3 a.m.

And so Jesus would have been there a long time praying. When he fed the people, it's not like it was midnight when he fed them, okay? When he fed them the loaves and then put people on a boat, it would have still been daylight, I would guess, before 6 o'clock in the evening. So Jesus pulled an all-nighter praying. there's no way you read this and think well maybe he was sleeping a little sounds like he was praying for maybe nine hours and so here's a perfect man that actually has no need of help with sin that wanted that level of communion with God and you who need more help from God than Jesus maybe you should be more willing to go away and pray maybe lose a little sleep over it once in a while Maybe it means get up early to pray.

Maybe it means stay up late. I know Ray Comfort has a story that after he got saved, he set an alarm every night for midnight. And Ray Comfort, I guess, would wake up every... I don't know if he still does it. He might. Wake up every night at midnight and he would pray for 30 minutes.

It was just his thing he wanted to do. And I thought, well, that's kind of neat. He made sure that he started each day with God. in Psalm 119 verse 148 the psalmist says my eyes eagerly greet the night watches that I may muse on your word so the psalmist in Psalm 119 refers to the night watches being a time that he's meditating upon God's promises and God's words I don't know about you but if I'm not sitting around at night entertaining myself with a thing on my phone, it's often a rare night.

We're very weak people. And being weak in and of itself is not evil, and it's not wrong. But remaining that way when there are strengthening things you can do for yourself and your faith, that could be seen as sin. I'd like to believe that each one of us what's today, July 31st, right? I'd like to believe that each one of us on July 31st, 2023 or July 2030, which would probably be the Sunday I guess, or however the calendar thing works maybe August 1st, I don't remember, it's probably July 30th I'd like to believe a year from now if we all remembered oh wow, it's the last Sunday of July, we talked about this last year that we'd all be able to say yeah, you know what, I've grown.

My prayer life is a little bit better. Maybe a lot better. I know for a fact that I'm more consistent in my prayer. My prayers are more frequent. We're told to pray without ceasing. My prayers are more focused, less distracted.

I'd like to believe we could all set a goal like that. I don't think it's legalism. And so what can you do tomorrow? The 2% rule. I'm not saying, if you're a person that struggles to pray for 15 minutes at a time right now, I'm not saying, hey, Tuesday you better pull a 9-hour prayer meeting. All by yourself, no food, no water.

Tell your family, leave you alone. That's not what I'm saying. But can you try to increase it by 30 seconds? You increase your time of prayer. Let's say you pray 10 minutes, and that's hard for you today. And you work on that.

And then every week, let's say you add 30 seconds. Okay? So now you're adding 30 seconds to your prayer time each Sunday. So I'm going to add 30 more. So there's about four weeks in a month. So you add two minutes a month.

And then by the end of the year, you've added 24 minutes. So now you're praying for 35 minutes a year later. But all you ever did was add 30 more seconds. So you basically added a doxology to the end, right? And all of a sudden you're praying for over three and a half times as long as you were, spending that time in communion with God. So there's techniques we can do to try these things.

This is true of any discipline in life. You want to lose weight. You don't just not eat for a month. You cut your calories a little bit, then a little more. There's a lot of ways that people do these types of steps. Here we are in verse 24. the boat was many stadia away from the land being battered by the waves for the wind was against them they are being tossed about by the waves these people do not have power over the sea over the waves they're out there in the place where jesus sent them and all of a sudden everything's bad so the one person in the entire world that's actually omniscient jesus christ and there i was denominating to one nature that which is proper to the other nature, which is what Jeremy was just telling us about from the confession.

Jesus Christ, the man was a man, but Jesus Christ being God is omniscient. So the one person that knew hey if you go out on the sea tonight you probably going to die because of the storm Told them to go out there Jesus did Jesus is the one that told them to go out there. And one of the reasons why Jesus sends his people into the storm is that he might manifest his wonderful grace to them in the storm.

Because while they're on the side, feeding people the loaves and the fish, it even tells us in Mark, they didn't understand. Mark 6, around verse 38, says they didn't understand the sign of the loaves and the fish. So there were a lot of people that didn't understand. Not just the disciples. I think the disciples actually may have understood more. And some of the people that came to understand at this point were maybe the mariners on the ship.

But Jesus puts his people where he would have them be so that he might glorify himself in his salvation of them. So it's the fourth watch of the night. He came to them walking on the sea. Job 9 tells us that it is he who treads upon the water. God does what he wants with his creation. If he wants to walk on the water because he floats on it, almost as if he's flying and defying gravity, he can do that.

If he wanted to solidify the water in some way so that he could just walk on it as by dry land, he could have done that. How he performs the miracle is ultimately irrelevant to us. What's important to understand is it's a miracle. And miracles have two general purposes. Purpose number one of a miracle for God's people in particular is it testifies that this is God.

So when Elijah or Elisha performed miracles, they weren't God, but they were testifying, I'm from God. When Jesus performed miracles, he testified, God is revealing himself right now in an undeniable way. I mean, if I came down there and Jeremy said his back hurt and I picked him up and cracked his back or something, and he said, wow, it feels better, I don't think anyone would say, this is a man from God.

They'd say, maybe I watched a YouTube video on how to relieve some back pressure, right? There's a lot of things in life that are really great that we can do that aren't miracles. but when Jesus healed people instantly of infirmities that they'd had for decades, they were without a doubt testifying. Jesus was testifying to them. The Spirit was testifying through Jesus.

This is a man sent from God, and in Christ's case, he was in fact God in the flesh. And so the second thing that miracles do, they reveal God to his people. So a miracle is when it's performed in the presence of God's people, it's for their benefit. That they might see the power of God. And that they might know, this person has revelation for me. That's why miracles accompanied the apostles as they wrote the scriptures.

It's one reason why we say that all these guys on TV today that say they're performing miracles, we say they're not, that there's some kind of trick they're performing, is because, one, we know there's no more revelation because of the teaching of Scripture, but two, their revelation is dastardly anyway. Why would God perform a miracle through a false teacher in the first place? It certainly wouldn't authenticate that it's God's message for anyone.

The second reason miracles occur is for the judgment of those whose hearts are hard, so that those who witness the obvious work of God and yet still deny the power that it came from will be, in some sense, even more damned than they were in the first place. The people, we'll just take one group, people who witnessed miracles of Christ. Just one group.

There are lots of miracles throughout the history of the Bible, right? people who witnessed the miracles of Christ, of which there were more, John said, than if he wrote all the books of everything he ever did. He couldn't even fit them in the whole world or whatever. Jesus did way more than we read about. But people who witnessed Jesus' miracles, who persisted in their unbelief, had more information about God given to them than most people will ever have. and yet harden their hearts because of their sin.

And so these miracles occur for a couple reasons. To encourage the faith of believers and strengthen their faith. To give them the knowledge of the revelation of God that God intends to reveal at the time. And miracles occur, frankly, to damn the wicked. To damn them even more than they're damned. But Jesus sends his people into a storm sometimes that he might manifest his more wonderful grace to them.

Because what happens? The disciples saw him walking on the sea. They were terrified. Well, this makes sense. If there wasn't a storm, they'd be terrified. This is scary stuff.

Has anybody ever watched some of these illusionist guys, like magicians? It's amazing when you watch them. And it's almost scary. How could they do that? Even something simple like, how did you just get the coin in my pocket? Some of these little tricky things.

It's kind of like, wow. Here's a person walking on water. That's terrifying. And they were terrified for more reasons. They said, it is a ghost. So they have a fear that it's some kind of apparition.

That it's a demon. That maybe this is the demon that's controlling the weather. There's all sorts of mythologies at the time, just like there are now, about how bad events happen and things like that. So it's frightening. But if you just imagine for a moment how frightening it would be to be in a boat during a storm at 3 a.m. Like, you're supposed to be sleeping at 3 a.m.

You understand that, right? It's not like they kept different hours. right so these guys are exhausted they're missing sleep right they're tired they've been through a lot jesus isn't with them so that's probably a little bothersome to these guys i have a theory that's not my own i read it somewhere else that the apostles were actually very very young men maybe maybe as young as 15 some of them these weren't like we always have these pictures in our minds of these guys that are like we'll just say elijah's age like they're all in their late 20s or right around Christ's age. They're just these men walking around doing all this stuff.

I think it's right to say they were a little younger. Maybe a little more given to fear of something like that. Not that anybody wouldn't be afraid. But they're afraid. Their leader's not with them. And they cried out in fear.

So they're crying out. And immediately it says. Jesus spoke to them and he's saying, take courage. It is I. Do not be afraid. It's interesting.

Jesus' response to them. What would we tell someone? Well, hey, don't tell them not to be afraid. It's okay. It's okay to be afraid. I mean, that's what we tell people. that the gentle approach, the compassionate approach, when somebody is freaking out, is to somehow act like, no, it's okay, your feelings are okay.

Jesus just says, take courage, don't be afraid. And he says, ego eimi. Does anybody know what that means? Anybody? Jeremy, you took three weeks of Greek with me. No?

What if I told you Jesus... What did you say? Egoemi. Or a-i-me. What if I told you Jesus also said that in John 8.58? Would anybody be able to guess what egoemi means and how it's translated there?

I am. Now, Jesus says, I am a number of times. And in this situation, it would be awkward for him to shout, take courage. I am. Don't be afraid. But he does use the same words as he uses every time he says, I am. and for those of you that appreciate that this is an obvious reference in many passages to Christ's deity and his claim to be Yahweh and the I am of the Old Testament this is a chance for you to see that in this moment Jesus is maybe telling us that yes I'm God I'm the Lord but he tells him not to be afraid.

Peter answered them. Peter says, Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water. Well, this is a funny thing. And this is one of those neat verses where before you're a pastor and you're preaching, like you think, so before you're a pastor, at least me, I don't know about you guys, but before I was a pastor, I just thought pastors knew everything when they taught the Bible.

And so I go and read what everybody says about this and nobody knows why this happened. So I'll tell you my theory. Peter looks at him, he says, Lord, so he confesses that it's Jesus, he says, if it is you, tell me to come to you, basically. Call me to you if it's you. And the question is, what does he mean, Lord, if it is you? Some people like to think, well, this is Peter confessing that he's still a little bit unsure.

They almost portray it like Peter's lacking a little faith at this point. Like, I don't know for sure, but if you're out in the middle of a sea and the storms are rolling and things aren't going well for you and now there's a guy walking on the water, I don't know if I'd criticize anyone too much for being a little unsure of what's going on but some people say peter wanted to be sure it was the lord so he asked him tell me to come to you and and this is my my question if if it was a demon pretending to be jesus and if in verse 27 the demon says take courage it's i do not be afraid obviously referring to himself as Christ. If Peter says to him, hey, if it's you, tell me to come, do you think at this point the demon's going to go, well, no, it's not really him, I can't do it?

Like the logic of it, like the logic that says Peter needed to be sure it was the Lord, and that's why he says, if it's you, do this, I don't buy it. Because if it was a deceiver, the deceiver would do the same thing that Jesus ends up doing, saying, come. So I might argue that Peter was a little bit unsure. And he just wanted to hear the voice again.

Maybe when you out on the sea and there waves tossing your boat about and there winds blowing and there a storm maybe in that moment you don hear really well at first while everyone around you is shrieking And then when some guy says take courage it I do not be afraid There's some part of you that's like, hold on, did I just hear that right? So I actually don't perceive Peter's statement as doubt. In the sense that he doubted it was really his Lord at this point.

I take it more like he's just reiterating back what he knows. And he's using a phrase, if it's you, do this. Instead of just commanding him. I don't think it makes any sense to think Peter was somehow now confirming it's Jesus. Obviously, a deceiver who would have lied to him in verse 27 would have lied to him again. But Peter says, Lord, if it's you, command me to come to you on the water.

This is a strange thing. Peter gets the most flack of almost anyone in Scripture for all of the stuff that he did that was kind of goofball-y at times. Yet Peter's like, I don't know, maybe one of the top five greatest men who ever lived. So if we exclude Jesus for a moment, you've got guys like Paul, maybe John the Baptist. Jesus spoke really highly of him, but he said he's the least of the kingdom of heaven.

There's really not a lot of people like Peter. I don't want to argue. You can name Elijah and you've got Joseph. There's all sorts of people too. But Peter's pretty outstanding. And one of the reasons we read so much about Peter is out of the 12 apostles that would have been on this boat, Peter's the one that actually spoke to Jesus and then actually started to say, Hey, I want to come to you.

Peter's in the middle of a storm that Jesus sent him into. In Peter's mind, he knows he's the Christ, I think. I think Peter's getting it. He's about to confess it in Matthew 16. Peter knows, I think. He confessed it early.

He just watched the loaves and the fish. Maybe he didn't totally understand it. Okay. But he's in the storm where Jesus sent him. And the storm's coming. And death is surrounding him.

And Peter's inclination is, I want to go to him. And I want him to call me. That's what Peter wants. He wants Jesus to call him to him. He wants to hear the voice of his Lord say, come. That's what he wants.

I don't think it's a doubtful thing. I don't think Peter's this dastardly, doubtful guy. He just wants to hear Jesus say, come. Something a little more than take courage. Because being in the boat without Jesus there is actually more frightening to Peter than jumping out of the boat if it means I'm walking towards my Lord. And I don't know about you, That there's no logical explanation for why a man would jump out of the boat for safety unless he knew or at least felt in his heart that being closer to Jesus was what would provide him with safety.

And Jesus obliges them. Jesus says, come. Come to me. He says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me because my yoke is easy and your burden is light, he tells us. Jesus says, come.

A lot of people like to remind us that Jesus is Lord and he's sovereign. And when he commands something, we obey it. He's the king. And we're such evil, despicable people that he practically has to drag us into the kingdom. And I get it that he has to change our hearts and things like that. But Jesus says, my yoke is easy, my burden is light.

Come to me, you who are heavy laden, and you'll find rest. I'm not going to say this is a weepy Jesus invitation, like his hands are tied behind his back, like, Peter, come to me, I can't control this, but if you come, I can unlock your faith. I'm not trying to say that, but I think there's a real gentleness about Jesus. Jesus, who could have rebuked Peter in the moment, And said, don't you tell me what to do.

Right? But the loving, caring Jesus, who ordained the whole event to happen in the first place, who granted Peter the faith to be the one that say, call me to come to you. He says, come. Remember, Jesus sent him on the boat. Jesus sent him into where they are. Jesus sent the storm to scare them.

Jesus went away from them that they might feel somewhat desolate. In the previous passage, again, I remind you to check context. They're in a desolate place. But they were with Jesus and nobody was afraid at the time. Being away from Jesus is a more desolate place than any place on this earth that doesn't have any wilderness, we'll say. So Peter walked on the water and came toward Jesus.

It doesn't say that Peter didn't walk on the water. It says he walked on it. It doesn't say he swam in the water. It says he walked on it. So Peter begins to walk on the water. He's performing the same miracle that Jesus performed.

But Jesus is the power, of course, sustaining him. And so here's Jesus or here's Peter commanded to come to Jesus. And he's coming to Jesus. It starts with the call. Peter responds to the call, begins to walk. Sounds like the Christian life.

And then what happens? Peter looks around him. He sees the wind, it says. I love it. He sees the wind. We're told earlier you can't see the wind.

You only see its effects, right, in John 3. Peter starts to have his focus off of Christ and his command to come The command that he clearly believed he momentarily loses that focus He starts to be afraid of his surroundings He frightened So the same Jesus that said, come, and Peter's obeying it, a second before said, do not be afraid, right? Peter's frightened.

And beginning to sink, he cries out, Lord, save me. And Jesus stretched out his hand and took hold of him. I think it was Matthew Henry that said, Christ's right hand and his holy arm, right? In Psalm 98. Christ's right hand and his holy arm. Not any skill of his own was Peter's security.

But Peter lost focus on the command to come. The fears of the world. the storm that surrounded Peter in the midst of his coming to Jesus on his journey, on his walk to obey what Christ had commanded that he had submitted to, Peter got distracted from that. And he begins to sink. Jesus, of course, the graceful God, the loving and kind and merciful God immediately it says stretched out his hand and took him when Peter's sinking it's Jesus who pulls him up Peter was never really in any danger of losing his life but he feared it and Jesus says to him you of little faith why did you doubt We talked about before, it's that word oligopisto, little faithers.

Jesus is not impressed with our doubt. In fact, he's not impressed with our faith. Faith is actually the only rational response to a trustworthy being such as God. Doubt is a result of your sinfulness, a result of your own corruption. Let me give you a little contrast. in heaven you will never doubt God again on this earth you will doubt God and you will do a couple things when you doubt God you will repent and you will maybe search the scriptures to boost your faith in his promises that he has made or you will try to justify your doubt now it's one thing to say well we're all weak and we all still carry corruption so yes it's going to happen and we have an advocate with the Father but that's different from recognizing it as sin so when we doubt what the Lord has said we are we are sinning against Him we are telling God you are not worthy to be believed you are like men who lie and deceive and or sometimes just don't carry out their plans.

That's what we're telling God when we doubt his promises. When Jesus says come, you come. When he says come and there's a storm, you come. When he says come and there's waves crashing, you come. When Jesus says walk this way, you walk that way. And if Jesus so ordained it that that is where you will suffer, if Jesus so ordained it, that that is where you will deal with difficulties or maybe that's the day you'll perish.

You will go the way he said to go. One reason why it's important that we claim God's actual promises because if you claim a promise of God that he never made, when the promise does not come true, you will perceive God as untrustworthy and something in your conscience will stop wanting to trust what God has said. Let me explain that again and repeat it for you.

If you believe a promise God has made, for example, I will always be with you even to the end of the age. That means that wherever you are, you can, I'll use a phrase people might not always love, but you can claim that promise. So wherever you are, no matter how much you're suffering, no matter how difficult it is, and I don't know which one of you this could happen to, You understand me?

I don't expect everyone in this room to just grow old and die one day. I don't know what will happen. I know it will be a surprise when it does to most of us. But wherever you are, no matter how difficult it is, no matter how much you may be suffering, even as the result of doing the right thing, you can claim the promise, I know God is with me. I know he loves me and I know he will never forsake me you can claim that promise and that will always come true for the Christian now let's say your promise that you've decided you're going to claim is that God is going to deliver you from all suffering and you believe that that promise refers to something in this life that you will have health or wealth or prosperity some lack of suffering or some end to suffering.

And if you believe wrongly then that God has promised that you will have suffering in this life that he will deliver you out of in this life when it doesn't happen you will start to doubt God. When we give God a timetable like well I know God's going to deliver me from this within a year but what happens when the year is up? God just failed in your mind didn't he?

So we cannot set up God to be a failure by claiming he going to do something he never claimed to do And it important to understand It was kind of a side point but I want you to get that one But Peter, I think, gives us a picture. Okay, so at the risk of failing to preach the text, well, the point of the text is Jesus is God, I think. All right? He shows himself to be God, and he shows it so clearly that the people on the boat all believe it, which it seems like most commentators who are way smarter than I am actually thought it was way more people than just the disciples, which makes sense.

But what I want to focus on is Peter as a picture of the Christian. I want to focus on Peter as a picture of a Christian who hears the voice of God. Something in him says, basically, confirm this for me. Show me a sign. Call me again. Like, make it clear.

We all had those moments where we weren't quite sure. We wanted God to kind of show us. God is very gracious to his children that he shows them things he shouldn't have to at times. And then God tells Peter, come, which is what God commands every Christian. Come to me. Right.

Come. Peter begins his walk. And we say a lot of times we walk with the Lord. We say we are to walk worthy of our calling. we talk about the Christian life so often as a walk well Peter's walking he's walking to Jesus because Jesus says come and then Peter I think like most Christians has a moment where his focus is no longer on that's where I'm walking to and that's to whom I'm walking that's my beloved and he starts to be scared about the things around him.

The things that the same Lord has already shown Peter and has shown you he has total control over. I mean, it's kind of crazy. You're scared of something that can hurt you that you know for a fact that the God who would never hurt you has control over. Right? That's why I have that church that says, fear God and nothing else. There's nothing worth fearing.

But I think that Peter is a picture of believers who fall. Or instead of fall, let me put it this way. Peter is the picture, in this case, of believers that begin to sink. Now it could be that you start to have doubts about God's promises. It seems to be that was a little bit what was going on with Peter. But we can expand it, I think.

Believers sink into sin. Sin is generally the result of failing to keep your focus on God's promises and on Christ's person. In some sense, if we were always totally focused on Christ and what he has said and what he has promised and beholding his beauty, you wouldn't even have a chance to sin. Now we're corrupt, we're going to anyway. But some believers tend to sink more than others. they have more moments where or not more moments but there's darker moments where the sinking starts to seem to be going quickly so the sinking starts when you start to doubt god when you start to get your focus on something else but once it starts it's going to be fast peter in this analogy did not have a lot of time i think when peter began to sink i don't know if you've ever been on top of water, right?

Like maybe you've jumped into a thing of water. From the moment you start to touch the surface of the water till you're totally under, there's not a lot of time to talk. It's a desperate time. And if you were in the middle of a sea, if something didn't stop that, you'd die. Because you'd have no hope of finding your way to the top. In our confession, we're told in chapter 17, paragraph 3, that saints may, through the temptation of Satan and of the world, because of the prevalency of the corruption remaining in them and the neglect of means of their preservation.

Peter neglected to keep his focus I'm just going to obey Christ he said walk to him I'm going to trust him he says saints may because of these things fall into grievous sins and for a time continue therein whereby they incur God's displeasure and grieve his Holy Spirit and they may come to have their graces and their comforts impaired, have their hearts hardened and their consciences wounded. They will hurt and scandalize others and bring temporal judgments upon themselves. But it says in our confession, yet shall they renew their repentance and be preserved through faith in Christ Jesus to the end.

Jesus said, John 6, 39, Now this is the will of him who sent me, that of all that he has given me, I lose nothing, but raise it up on the last day. Now consider Peter for a moment. Verse 30, seeing the wind, he became frightened. beginning to sink. I want you to picture this again. Beginning to sink. It took me longer to say beginning to sink than it would have taken Peter to sink.

This is fast. At the moment that it's time to sink. There's no hope for Peter. He has no power or strength to help himself out. But what he has is a cry. He says, Lord, save me.

And I believe that Peter is the picture of what our confession says. They shall renew their repentance. Peter in his moment of doubt again still the greatest of all the apostles that are back in the boat like still wondering maybe who it is right okay but Peter in his moment of doubt Peter in one of his recorded moments of failure for all of us so that we might not fail in the same way Peter fails and in his moment of doubt as he starts to see the result of his doubt As he starts to sense the fear, the trembling that comes, that I'm about to die.

Cries out to the only one he knows can help him. Lord, save me. Now, Lord, save me might be your prayer on the day that you get saved. The day that you are not a Christian and then you are going to become a Christian. That may be the first thing you said. I don't know.

It's a good one. but the repenting Christian who knows that they continuously are sinking in various areas and at various times will say that regularly as well You know, it's okay even if you've already been justified to say, God save me. It's okay. Peter was walking. It was like a Christian walk. He was following Jesus. He was obeying the command to come.

And as he began to doubt and he began to sink because of his fright, frightenedness of his surroundings, because of the cares of the world, because of the things that brought him fear and lack of focus on Christ himself. Peter starts to sink. And as he's heading toward the abyss called death, he cries out, Lord, save me. And our gracious and kind king, who owes us nothing, stretches out his hand immediately.

And before Peter could fully fall, pulls him back up. And then you all know the story of Peter. This isn't the last time that we're going to record an error of Peter's. I think the Lord wants his people to know that there forgiveness not only for all those sins that you committed before you got saved and the ones that make your testimony kind of neat sometimes and people are like oh wow you really did that and the lord is gracious to those whom he loves and even as a christian even as a christian who is descending into the abyss called death even as the christian who functionally speaking in that moment looks no different than faithless Judas.

God is capable of forgiving you and bringing you to repentance and reminding you that Jesus Christ is the gracious God who saves. One of the lessons for us to remember is that these things happened to people like Peter so that we may learn from them. I do not want anyone in here to enter a state of sin where we would say we're not sure whether you're a Christian because you actually resemble one that's sinking.

Because your life is not marked by what it needs to be marked by for us to say, oh, look at them walking. and obeying Christ's command to come. But I want it to ring in your ears if you do Lord save me Lord save me Lord save me I want you to remember those words of Peter. And I want you to remember the strong arm of Christ reaching down and pulling him up.

Father, may this preaching of your word be a blessing and an edification to your people. We thank you, Father, that Jesus Christ is as gracious as they come. And that there is hope. There is always hope. And as long as there's breath. We pray, Lord, that we would be a church of repenters.

That we would be a church of people who preserve ourselves through the means of our preservation. That we would be a people who do not fall into grievous sins. That we would be a people who fight the remaining corruption in us. And if we should fall into sin, that it would be a short time that we continue in and displease and grieve the Holy Spirit. I pray that we would not harden our hearts and wound our consciences.

And that we would not hurt or scandalize others and bring temporal judgments upon ourselves. But Lord, we do pray that if any of us should fall, that you would pick us up. Amen. Thank you.