Matthew 14:22-36
22 Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. 23 After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, 24 and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.
25 Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.
27 But Jesus immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.”
28 “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.”
29 “Come,” he said.
Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30 But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”
31 Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?”
32 And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. 33 Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”
34 When they had crossed over, they landed at Gennesaret. 35 And when the men of that place recognized Jesus, they sent word to all the surrounding country. People brought all their sick to him 36 and begged him to let the sick just touch the edge of his cloak, and all who touched it were healed.
Listening guide
2 things to handle fear that lead to courage
“Take courage”
First thing _________________________
“It is I”
Second thing _________________________
Love your neighbor ….. courageously
Discussion questions
Sermons
How did you do loving your neighbors this week? Bold challenges
· Spend to store up eternal treasures. Your heart will never have treasure until you spend.
· Share substance that satisfies. If body of Jesus is broken for you, we’ll break for other.
Couple chances to love neighbors and it was hard
· I messed something up
· The “how is our communication” conversation
· The “what about masks” conversation
· Met a few acquaintances for a drink. We’re trying to become friends. I was genuinely afraid I would say something foolish.
It is hard to know what to do towards other people. That’s part of it. That's why we’ve heard, “spend, share food”. It’s hard to actually do what we even know we should do.
· Are you afraid of getting sick? Just interacting with some people might be dangerous to your health.
· Are you afraid of losing your job? You don’t have to mess things up to lose a job. You can be the wrong age, the wrong ethnicity, the wrong education, or wrong in countless other ways.
· Are you afraid of your kids losing their education? The challenge is greater than ever to raise kids who will be good members of society when education systems are understandably changing fast.
· Are you afraid of losing friends? I don’t even know where people stand anymore. What if I bring up the wrong issue? We might never talk again.
Today
Jesus says here is what you do when we face all sorts of danger. This is Matthew 14. He walks on the water.
The event is pretty straightforward. Jesus fed the 15,000-20,000. They have finished eating. The disciples head home. The disciples work pretty hard to get the boat across the lake. Jesus has stayed to say goodbye to the crowd. It takes him a few hours. He walks out on the water to them. That’s what terrifies the disciples.
The disciples see Jesus. They say, “it’s a ghost”. They’re terrified. They “cry out in fear”. (verse 26) And Jesus wanted them to face it “Take courage” (verse 27)
“take courage”. Good leaders, thoughtful people, have said this forever. Joshua led the Israelite armies. He said, “Be strong and courageous”. Confucius said, “Wisdom, compassion, and courage are the three universally recognized moral qualities of men.” I’m more of a Disney guy myself. Last year the great line of the new Dumbo, “Find your courage!”
Jesus says two things about courage. They’re both super things. Let’s get this from Matthew 14:22 and following. If you’ve got your Bible look at Matthew 14.
Development
Two things about courage.
The first thing I would say is you can only have courage when you face danger. There has to be fear for there to be courage.
I think you should notice that the disciples don’t fear the waves and water. Did you catch that? “26 When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear.”
For the ancients especially, the sea was the ultimate symbol of uncontrolled power. It was wild. Life was full of many tests and trials. The wild of the ocean was the worst. The sea didn’t frighten the disciples. The spiritual force coming to the boat frightened the disciples.
They thought Jesus was a ghost. They did not fear the water. They feared this supernatural force. What was Jesus up to?
It’s easy to think, these were ancient people. They had a god for everything. It’s easy to think they had to deal with the spiritual forces involved. Someone might use the life of Jonah as an example. There is a story in the Bible of a man named Jonah. He is on a ship in the middle of the storm. The sailors told Jonah to call on his god. Someone reads that and they say, see, they say, everything was spiritual for ancients. Everything was supernatural for the ancients.
That’s just not true. The sailors did tell Jonah to call on his god. Before they did that, they threw everything possible off the ship to make it lighter. Life was not all spiritual. Then Jesus showed up.
Jesus is saying the only way to handle the tests and trials is to address the spiritual stuff. The disciples needed to consider the God of heaven and earth! They needed to pray to the Lord Yahweh who rules over all things. They needed to give attention to the king of the universe and his direction in all things. They had to bend their knees. They had to hang their heads. They had to raise their hands in prayer. They had to address the spiritual.
If the sea is the ultimate symbol that life is uncontrollable, there is no doubt everything else, everything else is our world is outside our control. We are constantly in danger. There are serious supernatural forces at work. We should be a little afraid.
Jonathan Haidt is an atheist psychologist. In 2006, he wrote the book The Happiness Hypothesis. He makes up two people, tells us a little story about them, and says, you pick who you would rather be. First person is Bob.
“Bob is 35 years old, single, white, attractive, and athletic. He earns $100,000 a year and lives in sunny Southern California. He is highly intellectual, and he spends his free time reading and going to museums.” Person number 2 is Mary.
“Mary and her husband live in snowy Buffalo, New York, where they earn a combined income of $40,000. Mary is sixty-five years old, black, overweight, and plain in appearance. She is highly sociable, and she spends her free time mostly in activities related to her church. She is on dialysis for kidney problems.”
Then he says, “If you had to bet on it, you should bet that Mary is happier than Bob.” (Haidt, Happiness Hypothesis, 87)
Do you see what that is? Do you see how big the difference is? You might love California, you might hate California. Don’t say that to my wife. Do you see that though? Life is uncontrollable and you must address the supernatural.
We cannot master success, achieve accomplishments, and solidify relationships to a place of safety. We don’t know our own hearts, the heart of our spouse, or the hearts of our friends. There is a slime, a crud in the deep darkness that will suddenly come up and bite any of us.
You can only have courage if you face the danger. You must deal with the supernatural. That’s the first super.
The second thing about courage. It’s really hard to define courage. Courage is best pictured as the middle between fear or frozen and recklessness. If you never tell anyone that you are a follower of Jesus, that’s fear. If you tell a pastor but not anyone else that you believe in Jesus as your Savior and Lord, that’s just fear. But if you walk around telling all your coworkers, and your bosses, and your neighbors, hi my name’s Pete and I believe in Jesus as my Savior and Lord, do you? That’s not courage, that’s just recklessness.
It’s amazing because, in just a moment here, Peter is going to get out of the boat and walk on the water to Jesus. What makes him do that?
Jesus says to everyone in the boat, “Take courage. It is I”. When Jesus says, “it is I” what he says literally is, “ego eimi”. “I am” The translators don’t write that because they know if you’re reading along and it says, “Take courage. I am” you would say, well of course he is. Did the disciples survive? That’s what you would say.
But what Jesus is doing here. When Jesus says, “I am” he is claiming the name of God as his name. When God called Abraham to follow him, he said, “I am.” When God called Jacob to go down to Egypt, he said, “I am.” When God came to Moses in the burning bush, he said, “I am who I am”. When God came to Moses and gave the 10 commandments, he said, “I am, I am, the compassionate and gracious God”. What is Jesus doing? He is announcing himself.
But it’s weird. It’s just odd.
If I walk in the house at the end of the day, I might say, “I’m home!” or “Hey gang, I’m here.” Sometimes I’ll say something like, “hey, it’s me.” Or when I walk in the bedroom late at night and someone says, “Whose there” I’ll say, “It’s me”. I never say, “It is I”.
There is something incredibly personal, incredibly beautiful with these words. Because Jesus is saying, I’m not satisfied with calming a storm. I’m not satisfied with stopping your tests and your trials. He is saying, I want you to know me in the middle of your trials.
Let’s talk about those fears for a moment. What are your greatest fears? What are your greatest nightmares? The loss of your health? The loss of your kids? The loss of job? The loss of our intelligence? The loss of friends? Not becoming something? Not getting married? What are the things that keep you up at night?
On the cross, Jesus Christ took the ultimate nightmare. The ultimate nightmare is to be alienated from God. If there is a God and you were made by God, unless Jesus Christ does something about the way you’ve lived your life, you will be lost, and that’s the ultimate nightmare.
The ultimate poverty, the ultimate loneliness, the ultimate death is to be lost, is to be alienated from God spiritually forever, and on the cross, Jesus Christ experienced that cosmic alienation. He took your greatest nightmares on.
He says to you, “It is I.”
Do you know how this becomes your courage? I know some of you probably get tired of me telling stories from Lord of the Rings, but in this case you have to let me because the hobbits are all about courage.
There are two great little heroes in the story, Sam and Frodo. There’s a place where Sam, who is Frodo’s faithful companion, has been defending him. At one point, he gets him out of a tower by saying, “Here I come!” (He sounds almost like Jesus - “It is I”) He fights and he gets Frodo out, but they’re on their way to the end of their quest and he’s scared. One night, we’re told he looks up into the sky.
“Sam saw a white star twinkle for a while. The beauty of it smote his heart … [Then,] like a shaft, clear and cold, the thought pierced him that in the end the Shadow was only a small and passing thing: there was light and high beauty for ever beyond its reach. His song in the Tower had been defiance rather than hope; for then he was thinking of himself. Now, for a moment, his own fate, and even [Frodo’s] ceased to trouble him.… he cast himself into a deep untroubled sleep.”
And my friends, that is real courage. It’s not when fear fades.
When you grasp a real beauty, a real strength, and a real power in the midst of your trials, your fears, and your greatest nightmares, then you can begin to have a new heart.
That's our second super. A super power.
Action
So will you join me in this? Let’s love our neighbors … courageously
This kind of courage makes all the difference. Let me just give us one example.
There is a woman in the Bible named Abigail. Abigail was married to Nabal. Nabal means fool and he did a good job of living up to his name. We don't know how long he embarrassed her with his rudeness and drunkenness, but it probably seemed like forever.
The man who was anointed to be the next king, David, was hiding in the hills nearby. They protected Nabal’s 5,000 or so animals. Protected them from raiders, thieves, animals, and the like.
Then it was time to shear the sheep. Sheep shearing time is a time to be generous and hospitable.
David asked Nabal for some supplies. Nabal accused David of disobedience and insurrection. The chosen future king!
David was ticked. He prepared to battle Nabal. One of the servants ran to Abigail, told her. She packed up food for many men and ran to David. She begged his pardon and forgiveness.
David praised God for using her to rescue him from sin.
Friends, Jesus is on the other side of every conflict. Sometimes, it won’t work out and you won’t be able to stick with your neighbors.
But very often, I can tell you. The more you hear him say, “it is I” the more courage you’ll see. The more together you and your neighbor will be.