017. Getting out of the Boat

508  Anywhere with Jesus  verses 1&2

(Ideas from Matthew 14:22-33)

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Every day we take risks.  And with every risk we take, we hope for a good result.

Come to our story about a risk-taker who lived a very fulfilling life in the book of Matthew p1129. Matthew 14:22-33 (read the entire story). It's the story of Peter in the boat. It says in verse 24 that a storm comes along, so rough that the disciples can't make it across this body of water - and these are professional sailors. Verse 25 tells us that Jesus comes in the fourth watch of the night - sometime between 3am and 6am in the darkness!

Picture in your mind the size of the waves, the strength of the wind, and the darkness of the night. Picture their struggle to avoid being capsized. One version says the boat was tormented by the waves. Cold, wet, exhausted, terrified. These are the conditions under which Peter is going to get out of the boat.

I would think it would be difficult enough to get out of a boat and try to walk on the water when it's calm, in daylight. That would take about as much courage as the average person could muster.

Imagine doing it when the waves are crashing and the wind is at gale force and it's three in the morning and the night is black. Peter gets out, and he falls. He doesn't make it. It's a story of failure. Or is it?

Raise your hand if you've ever failed an exam, if you ever did not get a job or promotion you wanted, if you've ever been impatient with a three year old, if you've ever said the wrong thing or eaten with the wrong fork or worn synthetic fibres instead of cotton or wool - if you've ever experienced failure of any kind- put your hand up.

All of us, friends, are 'would-be water walkers'. We would like to walk on the water but often we don't even try. ----God did not intend for human beings, His children, created in His image, to go through life desperately attempting to avoid failure.

In church and in life friends, the boat is safe, and the boat is secure, and the boat is comfortable. But outside the boat, the water is high, the waves are rough, the wind is strong, and the night is dark. A storm is out there, and if you get out of the boat, you may sink.

(S) But if you don't get out of your boat, you will never walk because if you want to walk on the water, you have-to get-out of the boat. There is something, someone inside us that tells us our lives are about something more than sitting in the boat. There is something that wants to walk on the water.  There is something that calls us to leave the comfortable life and to take on this adventure of following Christ and following life - really living!   -----

----   Jesus comes to His disciples. The disciples see Him walking on the water and they're terrified. Jesus says, "Have no fear. It's me." He says, "You can trust Me.  You can safely, without any hesitation, place your life in My hands.” 

Jesus says, “My friends, you have this drought, you have this family problem, you have this business problem, you have this health problem, you have this storm, (S) but you have Me. Recognize which is more powerful."

So Peter says, "All right, Lord. If it's really you, what do you want me to do? Command me."

(S)  Jesus says. "All right Peter, get out of the boat."

Peter lifts one leg over the side. He puts his foot on the water, and then he lifts his other leg over the side of the boat and puts that foot on the water. And then he lets go. He is still standing, and he turns and takes a step towards Jesus. Then he takes another step and for the first time in the history of the human race, an ordinary, mortal man-is walking-on-the water. And for just a moment, it's just Peter and Jesus.
Then all of a sudden, Peter realizes what he is doing; he sees the waves, he feels the sting of the water. And his faith gives way; he is afraid again, and he sinks. ---------

------- Question: Did Peter fail?

This text, I believe, radically re-defines failure in the life of a follower of Christ. Failure is not so much an event. It is the way we interpret or judge an event. It is a label we attach to it.

Friends, failure is only failure if we fail to try again.  ------  I’ll say that again, failure is only failure if we fail to try again. -----

-----   Jonas Salk attempted 200 unsuccessful vaccines for polio before he came up with one that worked. Somebody asked him one time, "How did it feel to fail 200 times trying to invent a vaccine for polio?"

This was his answer: "I never failed 200 times at anything in my life. My family taught me never to use that word. I simply discovered 200 ways how not to make a vaccine for polio."  -----

---- For a period of time, Great Britain stood almost alone against Nazi Germany as Germany dominated the Western World.  Somebody asked Winston Churchill, "What most prepared you to lead Great Britain in the war?"

This was Churchill's response: "It was the time I repeated a class in grade school."
The questioner said, "You mean you failed a grade?"
Churchill said, "I never failed in my life. I was given a second opportunity to get it right." ------

-----  Did Peter fail? Well, yes, in one sense. His faith gave way. He could not stay locked into Jesus. He sank. He failed. But there were eleven bigger failures in the boat. They failed privately. They failed quietly. Their failure was safe, unnoticed, uncriticized.

Only Peter experienced the shame of public failure. But only Peter knew the glory of walking on the water. And only Peter knew, in a way that the others never would, that when he sank, Jesus would be there; he knew that Jesus is wholly adequate to save. Peter had a shared moment, a connection that nobody else could have. They could not have had it because they never got out of the boat.

What does it mean to get out of the boat?

I think of a negro seamstress who believed that Jesus had something to teach a segregated world about love and justice and community. One cold morning in December of 1955, a bus driver told her she must leave her seat and move to the back of the bus because she was an African American and a white person needed the seat. In one of the most courageous choices of the twentieth century, she did-not-move. And she started a revolution. 

The next Monday night 10,000 followers of Christ gathered together at her church to pray and to ask God, "What do we do next?"

Because of that choice, a revolution started that was not easy: it had a high cost; many were beaten; many were imprisoned; some even died. But it changed the conscience of a nation. It didn't change it enough, but it changed it. All because a mild-mannered, soft-spoken, Christ-following seamstress got out of the boat and risked.

This brings us to an aspect of discipleship that a lot of people don't like. I don't always like it myself. A commitment to a life of following Christ is a commitment to the constant recurrence of the experience of fear. It'll happen over and over again. (Hold up Tshirt)  I have a Tshirt that reads "Wherever Fear may be, look it in the eyes." ------

------- Jesus commands the disciples to get into the boat. They do. A storm comes, and they're afraid. Jesus comes to them on the sea, and when they see him, they're terrified. Jesus says. "Take heart, don't be afraid." Peter asked what he is supposed to do. Jesus tells him to take the next step. Peter gets out of the boat, walks and then sinks. What does he experience?   More fear!   But Jesus rescues him once again.   And that's not the last time Peter is going to face panic or fear.

To be a disciple in life is to be a learner or a student.  It is to choose to grow in Christ and to grow in life.  And growth means entering new territory, getting out of the boat.  Every time you do that, you experience fear.

They say that the greatest fear in life, is the fear of failure. People won't take risks because of their fear of failure.

We've risked in business many times to get dollars together for the charities and development and disaster programmes and other worthwhile projects.  And sometimes we succeed and walk on the water - and sometimes we sink.  (S)  Friends, it's OK to walk on the water, and it's OK to fail, and it's OK to fear.

(S)  Here is the amazing thing about discipleship and about life:   Fear will never go away.  Every time you get out of the boat, every time you enter a new challenge area, you experience fear. To be a disciple of Jesus and of life, is to give up our comfort.

That's bad news for many of us because our society is into comfort.  We like to come home and say, "I just want to 'veg out' - usually in front of a television set. And people who do that, we call 'couch potatoes'.  Not good training for discipleship.  Not good training for living.

The eleven other disciples were 'boat potatoes'. They did not want to run the risk. They did not want to experience the fear.

Society is full of people who we might call 'pew potatoes', people whose religious faith amounts to little more than spiritual padding that will add comfort to their lives.  You've got a really nice boat.  You haven’t been out of it for a long time.   Maybe your boat is pretty comfortable.   Maybe you remember a time when you stepped out of the boat on a regular basis:  "Jesus, you give me the word, and I'll come." But maybe we've got comfortable in our boats now. We don't want anyone to see us fail so we don't even risk - we stay in the boat. -----  

Listen to this poem by President Theodore Roosevelt. We could title it 'RISK GREATLY'. He said -

“It is not the critic who counts,
Nor the man who points out how
the strong man stumbled,
Or where the doer of deeds could
have done better.
The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena;
Whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood;
Who strives valiantly;
Who errs and comes short again
and again;
Who knows the great enthusiasms, the
great devotions,
And spends himself in a worthy cause;
Who at the best knows in the end the
triumph of high achievement;
And who at the worst, if he fails,
At least fails while daring greatly;
So that his place shall never be with
those cold and timid souls
Who know neither victory nor defeat.” 

-----    Friends, walking on the water is about stepping out and coming to Jesus, and if you try it, you may sink.    But I have a secret for you - it doesn't matter. - It doesn't matter because Jesus is adequate to save sinking people.  ----

---  Peter gets out of the boat. He noticed the strong wind, became frightened, and beginning to sink, he cried out, "Lord, save me!"   It's a confession of the lordship of Christ and a plea for deliverance.   Jesus immediately reached out his hand and caught him.
The point is not that Jesus will instantly, always bail people out.    It is that he is always ready to respond.   ----

---   (S)  There is no failure in marriage. There is no failure in relationships. There is no failure in business or exams or sin that can place us beyond the loving care of the hand of God.   Jesus is adequate to save sinking people.

As a result of Peter's failure and the redeeming hand of Christ, those in the boat worshipped Christ. When people get out of the boat, the power of God is put into play and amazing things happen. ------

----- Let me tell you about Bob.   Bob was an insurance salesman who became a Christian. He didn't have any church background.   He didn't know anything about Christianity.   Doug, another Christian man, was teaching him the basics, and he taught him about prayer.
Doug told him that Jesus says,   "Ask whatever you will in my name, and it will be yours."   Bob was amazed at this.   Doug told him that Jesus is ready to respond.

Bob decided he wanted to pray for a certain country in Africa. So Doug said, "All right. You pray for a month for this country, and at the end of the month if nothing has happened, I will pay you $500.   But if something amazing happens, you pay me $500. And if you don't pray every day, all bets are off."    Bob agreed to do it.

So Bob started to pray.   It was getting to the end of the month, and nothing had happened.   He was at a dinner. People at his table were saying what they did for work, and one of the women said she worked at a medical facility, a kind of hospital orphanage in the country in Africa Bob had been praying for.

Bob sat up and he started asking her questions.   She asked him.   "How come you're so interested?"   He told her about this strange prayer arrangement.   She said, "Would you be interested in visiting this country and seeing these people?"                                                Bob said he'd love to.

So he flew there and toured the facility. As you might imagine, in a third-world country the people were desperate: short of supplies and medicine. When Bob came back to the United States, he started writing and calling pharmaceutical companies in America and ended up taking many donated medical supplies back to this place in Africa.

Afterwards, the woman from the medical facility phoned him and invited him to a big celebration, and Bob went. While there he met the President of the country who had heard the story about Bob and how he'd helped and had come for the celebration.   He met Bob and invited him to the capital to give Bob a tour.   So Bob went with the president of this country and toured the capital.
They went past a prison.   Bob said "What are the prisoners in there for?"
The president said.   "Those are political prisoners."

Bob said, "You know, that's not a good idea.   You should let them out."  ------
-----  They finished the tour, and Bob flew back to the United States.   A few days later, he got a phone call at two o'clock in the morning from the State Department of the United States Government.   The official said,  "Were you recently in such and such a country?"   Bob said yes.   "Did you say anything to the president of that country about political prisoners?"  Bob said he had.

"Well, I don't know what you said, but they have been released.   We have been trying at the State Department for years to get these prisoners released, and now they've been released.  What did you say?"  Bob said,  "Well, I told him it was a bad idea to have political prisoners and he should let them out." --

------ When people get out of the boat, amazing things happen.  ----   Will you say with me today, "I want to get out of the boat."   Will you say that with me and mean it?  --  “I want to get out of the boat!”    If each person in this room says,   "Jesus, command me.  I'm yours."  Can you imagine the kind of power from God that will be released on this island and this nation?  -----

-----   Friends, Jesus is still looking for people to get out of the boat.   As you go, you will face problems.   A storm is out there.   Your faith will not be perfect, and you will sink sometimes.

(S)  But I know two other things.

I know that when you fail - and you will fail sometimes - Jesus will be there. He will pick you up. He will not leave you alone.

And I know that every once in a while, friends, you're going to walk on the water!!

God bless you as we step out together for Jesus and for our community.

Stand and pray   (challenge)

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