Step Out of the Ship With the Lord

Lord, we so want to see you do great works. In Jesus’ name, amen. So I have, let’s see, I didn’t count them. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. I have seven points to give you. You thought I was going to say 17, didn’t you? Okay. but I’m going to be brief with each one of them. I have seven points to give you from the story of Peter walking on the water because Matthew 14 is the only account of the three accounts that cover the Lord Jesus walking on the water.

Matthew 14 is the only one that speaks of Peter. So the question might be asked, why didn’t Mark and John relay Peter walking on the water? That’s such an amazing thing. Why didn’t they mention it? And Of course, critics are all the time poking fun at the Bible and saying, well, this is because, you know, the sources and all this stuff. But it’s just as easy to say that in the Lord’s direction as Mark and as John, God was directing them by the Spirit of God to write down the Scriptures that he just said, no, just leave that out.

Isn’t that just as easy an explanation beside all this other stuff? It is just as easy and just as understandable. How many of you have ever written a letter a portion, a certain thing that you were going to write and you said, nah, I’ll just leave that part out. It’s perfectly normal and human, so. But we want to look at Peter tonight, and again, I have seven things I want to give you, seven statements if you will, that we can learn from this passage.

Verse number 27, but straightway Jesus spake unto them saying, be of good cheer, it is I, be not afraid. And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. Now Note that Peter sees the Lord Jesus as well as all the other disciples, but Peter does not just simply step out of the boat, right? Of course, that was in his mind, but he does not simply step out of the boat.

And so here’s the first principle, the first statement I’d like to give you from this, which is this. Beware of presumption. Beware of presumption. You see, if the Lord Jesus... had told Peter as he’s walking by on the sea, if he had told Peter, Peter, step out of the boat and come to me, and Peter had balked or Peter had delayed, that would have been sinful unbelief, right? That’s what that would have been.

It would have been disobedience as a result of sinful unbelief. But do we see the Lord Jesus telling Peter to get out of the boat? That’s what’s interesting. This is one of the key factors here. And if there’s one thing we take away, I hope this is it. But the Lord did not tell him to get This idea was entirely came out of Peter’s mind and Peter’s heart.

If knowing that the Lord did not tell him to get out of the ship, what would have happened if Peter had presumed without the Lord’s direction to just get out of the ship because he wanted to do what Jesus was doing and he stepped out of the ship without the Lord’s bidding, independently of the Lord. That’s what you call presumption. In other words, presuming that, of course, I’m doing this for God, so the Lord has to help me, and the Lord has to do it, and the Lord has to make me walk on the water like he’s walking on the water, and the Lord’s like, no, I don’t.

That’s presumption, sinful presumption, and that comes, the source of sinful presumption comes of pride. But in this case, what do we see Peter doing? Peter did just exactly what a person, in his case, which we’ll see more in a minute, a person in his case with his disposition toward the Lord, he did exactly what he should have done. He asked the Lord to call him out. He asked the Lord to call him out.

And by that question, what Peter showed is that he was yielded to the Lord’s will. Now, we can see the very fact that he asked that question shows that in Peter’s heart is something, right? He has a desire in his heart that that he wants something more. He’s literally watching a miracle. He’s watching the Lord Jesus Christ in the dark walking on a boisterous sea, right? A churned up sea.

He’s watching this. So that’s a miracle in and of itself, obviously, right? That’s the main miracle of the story. But he wants something more. And you see that in Peter’s heart. He wants something more, but he doesn’t just do it. He asks the Lord... to do it. He asked the Lord to call him out. And that is the right way when the Lord is stirring in your heart.

Man, I hope he does. I hope he does tonight. I hope he does in me. I hope he does in you. I hope he does stir in our hearts at the Soul Refresh meeting beginning next Sunday night. I really hope the Lord does that. He stirs us up and He sets before us examples of faith and of action in faith. faith toward our Lord that makes us want something more than just the humdrum of the ordinary and average Christian life.

We’ve got to want something more. There’s got to be something in us like we see in Peter. But when that’s there, when that is there, we have to go to the Lord and say, Lord, bid me come. Lord, bid me come. It is right, it is right to ask the Lord in faith to to let you do something. You know, sometimes I think some Christians are just waiting around on God to just slap them across the face to do something for them.

But I want to tell you something. That’s usually, in my experience, anecdotally, my limited experience in my life, it’s been my experience that most people that the Lord calls out to do something for him are the people who are asking for it. Not the people who are hoping he doesn’t. That’s been my experience. When the Lord called our family to go be missionaries, some of you were here, well, a few of you were here in 2002.

In April 2002, our church’s mission conference, the preacher was preaching, his name was Scotty Drake. He’s still traveling. I think some of you have met him, I think. It seems like some of you have mentioned his name to me. But in April 2002, when the Lord called us to go to the mission field... Most people would have seen that event that night when we surrendered to go to the mission field, but what was not seen was the months before that.

Because my wife and I got married in December of 2000, and April would have been 14, 15months after that, April 2002. So there had been more than a year of time that the Lord had been working in our heart. It wasn’t just the Lord slapped me across the head that one night. It is that he had been working in my heart and my wife’s heart simultaneously. And we were, we were at home asking God directly to send us to be missionaries.

We were directly asking him to, and that’s not, that’s no kudos to us. What I’m saying is God was working in us in the background to get us to the point where we were saying, Lord, bid me come. We want to do something for you. We want something more. And that’s usually how I’ve observed people kind of launching out and asking the Lord for something else. It is right to ask the Lord in faith to do something in your life.

It is right to ask Him to do more than what He’s doing now. It is right to, but you’ve got to go to Him and ask Him. You can’t just presume. We dare not presume to do anything without the Lord’s bidding. That is, on our own or independent of Him. So acts of faith, like we see here, should be done at the prompting of the Lord and in the Lord’s will and at His direction.

That’s number one. Beware of presumption. Number two, Peter set himself apart from the other disciples. There are 12 of these men in this ship. There’s 12 of them. As far as we know, there’s 12 of these men in this ship. Right? There’s 12 of them. As far as we know, there’s 12. And you’ll notice... As Peter gets out of the boat, where are the other 11? Now, I know this isn’t a competition between Peter and the other 11 disciples, but it is notable that of the 12, all of whom followed Jesus, all of whom heard the things he said, only one of them did what Peter did.

And by that, he kind of stood out from the crowd, did he not? He had a point of distinction among them. Now, we haste to look at Peter and see, of course, verse 30, when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried, saying, Lord, save me. And we look at Peter and we fault Peter. And we fault Peter rightly because the Lord faulted Peter, okay?

So it’s not wrong to fault Peter. But, and we see that Peter earned, he rightly earned a reproof from Jesus for his doubt. Did he not? He earned a reproof. But the other disciples, and we might say, well, Jesus reproved Peter for what he did, and then the other disciples, the Lord didn’t say anything to them. They didn’t reprove him. But they also exercised no faith at all.

It’s easy to criticize Peter because of the reproof, and that’s right and just, and that’s what the Lord did. But notice in verse number 31, “...and immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him and said unto him, O thou of little faith...” faith. Wherefore didst thou doubt? At least he had a little. The others didn’t have enough to get out of the boat. Now Peter did earn the reproof, but the reproof came due directly to Peter’s faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. At least Peter did exercise and demonstrate some faith in the Lord Jesus, albeit an imperfect faith, which we all acknowledge. We’ll get back to that in a minute. The The little faith that Peter had was more than the zero faith of the other disciples.

And you know what? I think that’s a reason to pat Peter on the back and say, great job, Peter. That’s a good example for us. Which of the other disciples had enough faith to believe Christ to get out of the ship? None. Which of the other disciples had actually walked on water? None. None. So you can say what you want about Peter and criticize Peter, rightly so, but none of the other disciples knew what it was like to walk on water.

Furthermore, when you survey the entire situation, what do you see? You see that Peter, of all of the disciples in this moment, which one of them was most like the Lord Jesus?

It was Peter. Peter. Because Jesus was walking on the water. And so was Peter. Albeit briefly. But briefly is better than not. Right? You see, here’s what I’m afraid of, brothers and sisters. I’m afraid that one of our biggest problems, and our, our biggest problems, is that we are too much like the 11 disciples. that we are content to remain in the ship.

In other words, we don’t want anything else. Peter demonstrated spiritual initiative. Godly, holy, faith-driven spiritual initiative. He was not content to sit in the boat with everyone else while he saw his Lord, remember, Remember, coming off the feeding of the 5,000, his hands had handled the bread that Jesus had multiplied, right? So in that way, he was involved in the miracle. Well, this is no different. He is now also involved in the miracle.

He was not content to just sit in the boat with everyone else. There was in Peter a certain kind of what I wrote is like a maverick streak in him that wanted to see Jesus do something more in his life than he had seen up to that point. It’s a great thing to see Jesus walking on the water when the water’s boisterous and the waves and things.

But he wanted more. Lord, I want to see that in my life. He was not content with simple mediocrity and averageness that the other disciples, and I don’t mean to throw shade at the other disciples. I mean, they followed the Lord Jesus and every one of them gave their life unto So I’m not doing that. But there is a certain difference between Peter and the rest. And he was not content with just the regular old mediocrity and averageness that the other disciples had.

And here’s what you find. In Scripture, you find this same streak, this same kind of maverick streak that runs through the main significant figures in scripture. You see Abraham, what did Abraham do? Solely upon the call of God, Abraham, despite the fact that his whole family for generations had served idols, he left his homeland to go into a land he did not know. That is maverick. David, David is probably the best example in scripture of this.

What did David do? What is the maverick streak that you see in David? Probably more than every other part of his life. Goliath. A nine and a half foot tall man. That man’s arms were probably bigger than David’s torso when David’s a teenager. And David had this maverick streak in him that others did not. Others, even his older brothers who were soldiers in the army, they fled from Goliath the champion.

Not so with David. In faith, this maverick streak is in David that Jirai that drives him to not be content with just the humdrum regular that everybody else is doing. I can’t explain that, but I do see it in Scripture. I do see it. You got Daniel. Everybody else is eating the portion of the king’s meat, and Daniel, at risk of life and limb, says, uh-uh. Maybe everybody else, but not me.

So with his three companions. You got Paul saying, Paul, by himself, turned his back with no support, no help, nothing by way of encouragement, turned his back entirely on his whole life when he met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus. He counted all but lost. That’s what Philippians chapter 3 says. I want to have this streak in me that wants to see God do something more, that wants to be in a way holy, to have holy discontent, just the averageness, right, that seems to exist in so many places.

I want to be, I want to be, and I want you to have the desire like Peter that says, I want you to do something great in my life. I want you to show your power and to use me, as weak as I am, to do something great to glorify your name. This is one of the reasons that the Lord stirs us up and inspires us and our faith by means of scriptural people, people in scripture, like I’ve just read, Abraham, David, Daniel, Paul, etc. As well as extra scriptural people.

People like Brother Ari listens to. I know he listens to some podcasts and things of figures throughout history. Just regular guys, regular ladies, regular people. The Amy Carmichael’s who go to India as a single missionary woman. The people who go where there’s no missionary. There’s none. They’re blazing a trail. The people who are willing to step out and say, no, it’s never been done. I have no idea how it’s going to happen, but this is what God’s put on my heart.

Lord, bid me come. Do something in me. Do something through me. Lord, send me to the mission field. Lord, give me a class that I can build where I can teach and instruct people in the ways of God. Lord, do something with my life. I don’t want to just be normal and average. I don’t want to sit in the boat. I want to see you do something great.

I want you to show your power in my life for your glory. That’s the kind of thing Peter had. And that’s exactly what we need. We need people who have that streak, who have that desire, and who have that holy discontent. Number three. If you look at verse number 30. Lord, save me. Notice, when he saw the wind boisterous. Number three, Peter’s doubt came from his focus.

Peter’s doubts came from his focus. When he got out of the boat, his eyes, we can assume, because of what verse 30 Jesus, which is the best place to walk. But you see that focus, that gaze changes from the Lord Jesus onto something else. In particular, something that would cause him doubt, the boisterous sea, obviously. It’s kind of like, you know, they say when you’re climbing something high or you’re repelling.

Have any of you ever repelled before? Repelling is what they say just don’t look down it’s fine as long as you don’t look down well Well, that’s what he did. He looked down. Peter looked down. And all of a sudden, what he saw, the fear came into his heart. He set his eyes upon the reasons that he could not do what the Lord had bidden him to do.

Because at this point, by the time you get to verse 30, the Lord’s already told him to come. So he has a green light from the Lord. He ought to be able to do it. He ought to be able to do it. But he set his eyes upon the reasons he rather than upon the Lord upon whom he had trusted to do it. I think a lot of people do.

You could probably relate. How many people have started out with something with that streak and they said, Lord, I want you to do something great in my life. And they get started and they look around. They get discouraged and then they quit.

I know what that’s like. I know what that’s like. But it comes from setting our focus on the obstacles of the thing that we’re trying to overcome in faith toward Christ rather than on the Christ who is the object of our faith. Number four.

Our faith is at best mingled with fault. is at best mingled with fault. Our faith is at best mingled with fault. You think about this, this is one of the high points of Peter’s life in faith, right? He literally walked on water with the Lord Jesus. His feet rested on the surface of the sea and he did not sink. He partook of this miracle. I mean, this is a high water mark in Peter’s life as a disciple.

I mean, this is a high-water mark in Peter’s life as a disciple. It’s mixed in with Peter’s fault and weakness. You see this? Even when we are at our best in our faith and dependence upon God, even at its best, we are still imperfect and defective. Why do you think that Jesus said, and we’re talking about faith, right? If you have faith like a what? A grain of mustard seed.

That’s what you call imperfect faith. right? That’s faith. It’s not great faith, not super faith. This is just regular faith. This is imperfect faith. And at our best, our faith is only defective. Think about the life of Abraham, who is the father of faith in so many ways. Think about the life of Abraham. As he’s journeying in his walk of faith around the land of Canaan, there’s at least two times, two major eras around eras or periods in his life, they’re identified by the fact that he lied and said Sarah was his sister when Sarah was really his wife.

Well, she was his sister too, but half-sister. But anyway, in those two periods of his life is where his faith faltered. So even the great man of faith, his faith is mixed in with imperfection. And it’s faulty. That’s all the Lord has to work with. That’s all the Lord has to work with. What are we waiting on? Are we waiting on Are we waiting on great faith?

Are we waiting on some miraculous moment when our faith is going to be, you know, it’s going to be an ah, you know, kind of moment and all of a sudden we’re going to realize that our faith is complete. Forget it. The only kind of faith the Lord has to use in us is imperfect faith. That’s it. So either we’re going to step out of the boat for the Lord Jesus in faith to Him imperfectly or not going to at all.

You know what? You Even when we do it imperfectly, like Peter, he was walking on the water, right? He was actually walking on the water. Number five, Peter’s doubt caused personal effect upon himself. Notice, when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid and beginning to sink. He cried, why is Peter sinking? you look at 31, doubt, which is related in this verse to fear.

Of course, we know that doubt and faith are opposites. They’re mutually exclusive. In as much as faith increases, doubt diminishes, and the reverse is true as well. It wasn’t just that Peter’s doubt caused him to have turmoil or reservation or fear inwardly. No, doubt and the diminishing of our faith directly affects and harms us personally. In other words, when we act in doubt toward the Lord Jesus, when we allow doubt, when we question or we diminish our faith in what the word of the Lord is, that directly causes us personally to sink in our walk with him in the will of God. It causes an effect. It causes alarm, and it hurts us.

It hurts us. Living in doubt, in fact, James puts it like this, let a man ask in faith, if any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But the following verse says, but let him ask in faith, nothing, what’s it say? Wavering. What’s it say?

A what? Like this, right? Like what Peter’s walking on right here. It’s interesting, the two are connected there. And he said, the Lord goes on to say in James there, let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. In other words, that’s gonna really hinder his spiritual life. And it’s illustrated by Peter sinking. Peter sinking. Peter sinking. Number six, the Lord did not abandon a doubter.

The Lord Jesus reached his hand out and saved Peter from his own doubt and lack of faith. The Lord did not abandon him because his faith was small or because he had doubt. You think about John the Baptist. We’ve already covered this in Matthew 11, 3. John, art Thou he that should come, or do we look for another? Doubt. Did the Lord abandon John? Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Matthew 28, 17. This is on the Mount of the Great Commission. Right? The Lord tells them, He appoints a mountain for them to go, and He’s going to meet with them post-resurrection. This is at the end of the 40 days that he showed himself to his disciples after his resurrection. And he takes them to the mountain and he’s giving them the great, he’s about to give them the great commission.

They’ve seen him eat. They’ve seen him drink. He has shown them the marks in his side and the prints of the nails. He’s shown them all of it. He’s done miracles in their sight. He’s taught them all after he’s been risen from the dead. And yet right before his ascension, here’s what he says. Here’s what the Bible says. And when they saw him, they worshipped him, and some doubted. That’s unbelievable.

Well, for me, of course. It’s unbelievable for me. Some doubted. These are the same people, the doubters, that would become the great apostles in Scripture and in church history, that would take the gospel all around. But what happened here? They were doubting. They were doubting. You see, when the Lord reached out his hand and caught Peter, it was no longer Peter’s faith that was holding him. When Peter got out of the boat, it was Peter’s faith upon the power of Christ.

Peter’s faith wavered. He sank. The Lord caught him by the hand, and at that moment, Peter’s faith makes no difference because now he is resting solely on on the intervention and the strength of the Savior. And that’s what Jesus does. Man, what a truth. What a truth. We can get to a point in our lives when we do not know which way is up. We do not know what way to turn.

We don’t know which is the right way to go. We question everything that’s happened in our life. We question whether this is really what the Lord told me to do or just doubt, Doubt. Doubt regarding what God’s will is for our lives. Doubt for what the steps are forward. Doubt about, you know, just so many things. It can get really dark and confusing as a Christian.

And sometimes we can even doubt. It is absolutely possible to doubt where we stand with God. We stand with God. It absolutely is possible. It absolutely is possible. And at that moment, you can rest assured that it is not your faith that you are going to be. that is holding you up.

You are resting solely on the promise and the power of Christ alone. You know, you and I, we do not keep ourselves saved. We are kept, 1 Peter says, we are kept by the power of God Peter could have lost all of his faith at this moment. And he’s not going under.

Regardless of his doubt. Number seven. This is implied, not directly stated, but I think you’ll agree. Peter learned a new lesson about himself. Peter learned a new lesson about himself. You know that lesson that he learned is the same lesson that we learned about himself. Peter learned a new lesson about himself. You know that lesson that he learned is the same lesson that we learned about him, which is this.

Peter learned on that day that his faith was not as steady as he first assumed. I praise Peter for his boldness, right, in faith to step out to go to Jesus. I really do. That’s the kind of thing I want in my life here and now. I mean it. But it is a hard lesson for Peter to learn that his faith was not as strong as he thought.

He only had to take a few steps and look around and he realized, yeah, my faith is pretty puny. But the sad thing about Peter is this is not going to be the last time he has to learn this lesson.

Peter is going to learn it in magnificent form in the Garden of Gethsemane when his faith totally fails. Totally fails. And yet what do we see? We go back to what I just said. Number six, he was not ever a blessing abandoned.

Never. At that moment he’s held up by the Lord Jesus. What do you want to see the Lord do in your life? What do you want to see the Lord do? What desire do you have toward the Lord more than, than where you are right now.

Do you have a holy desire? I would encourage you, if you’re listening and you’re like, you know what, I’m good, I would encourage you to take that, take that very thought to the Lord during an invitation and say, Lord, I do have the thought like the disciples in the boat. I’m good. And I shouldn’t.

Change me. But if you have that thought and desire and you have the thought of Peter where you’re thinking, Lord, I want you to do something. I want a ministry that you to give me. I want you to use me in some way. I want your name to be glorified through my life. If you have that thought at our invitation, I would encourage you to take that thought and say, Lord, bid me come.

Lord, make it happen. Let’s pray together.