All right, if now you would open
your Bibles to Matthew chapter 14. The events we're about to read
happen directly after our Lord fed 5,000 men plus their wives
and children with five loaves and two fishes. In verse 22,
It says, immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat
and go on ahead of him to the other side while he dismissed
the crowd. After he had dismissed the crowd,
excuse me, after he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside
by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there
alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from
land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. During
the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them. Now,
the fourth watch of the night would, I guess, be between 3
a.m. and 6 a.m. because depending
on what kind of timekeeping they were using, because Romans did
it different than Jews did it and all that. So sometimes you'll
find in the Bible that the same event is described at a different
time of day, but that's because they were writing using a different
timepiece. But I think this one would be
referring to the way Jews kept time, and that meant that the
day began at 6 a.m. There were four watches of day.
and four watches of night, each of them three hours long, so
this would be between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. Jesus went out to
them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking
on the lake, they were terrified. It's a ghost, they said, and
cried out in fear. But Jesus immediately said to
them, take courage, it is I. Don't be afraid. Lord, if it's
you, Peter replied, tell me to come to you on the water. Come,
he said. And I think it may have been
in that tone of voice. Peter said, if that's you, tell
me to come. He said, all right, come. Because what the disciples saw
that seemed so remarkable was nothing to our Lord Jesus Christ,
that a man should walk on water. Then Peter got down out of the
boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when
he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, cried
out, Lord, save me. Immediately Jesus reached out
his hand and caught him. You have little faith, he said,
why did you doubt? And when they climbed into the
boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat
worshipped him, saying, Truly, you are the Son of God. Now, this story is told in three
of the Gospels. Often when we think of this story,
we think of the remarkable event of Peter walking on the water. Now he eventually sank, but it's
remarkable to think that he walked two or three steps or whatever
before he sank. But this is the only account
of this story that mentions Peter. Luke doesn't mention the story
at all. Mark and John speak only of the Lord Jesus walking on
the water. And I think that that's instructive. It's good to know, and we can
draw some lessons from Peter's experience of walking and sinking
and being rescued. But what it seems that the Holy
Spirit, who inspired the apostles to write what they did, it seems
as though, or it's quite obvious, that the Spirit says the really
important thing to take note of here is Jesus walking on the
water. Because it is in his walking
on the water that all the good comes. Now when we look at stories
like this, we've got to treat them as we would parables. And
first just look at the whole scene and learn the big lesson
that's being taught. Before we try to apply it, maybe
there's some individual experiences in our own life. And the big
lesson being taught here is this, the Lord Jesus Christ can do
anything, and through him, so can we. Or if you simply look at it as
a story of Christ walking on the water, it is simply this,
the Lord Jesus Christ can do anything. In the Old Testament
it's put this way, is there anything too hard for the Lord? When we
think about our needs, and most of all when we think about our
spiritual needs, we see insurmountable difficulties, don't we? But they are insurmountable difficulties
only if it's us doing them in the strength of our natural flesh.
But when we see that all that needs to be done is done by the
Lord Jesus Christ, is done by God Himself, then this question
comes, is there anything too hard for the Lord? Well, of course
not. He wants to get across the lake.
Most of the time, He just got in the boat with the disciples
and they went across the lake. And that worked fine. But He
had sent them ahead. So they got the boat. What's
He going to do? Well, he could have walked around,
but he probably wouldn't have got there until the day after
tomorrow. He needed to be there the next day. And so he just
walked straight across. Now, I want to point out this
thing about our Lord Jesus Christ and his time here on the earth. The book of Philippians says
that he considered equality with God not something to be grasped,
but made himself of no reputation. That is, he didn't cling to his
godness, but he emptied himself and became a man. For the purposes
of being our mediator, for the purposes of being our savior,
he became, in all points, just like us. With this exception,
there was no sin in Him. And so when our Lord Jesus was
here, all the miracles you see Him do, and all the miracles
recorded, while it's said that they are done by Him, they were
actually done through the power of the Holy Spirit which was
given to Him without limit. Now why do I make that point?
that our Lord Jesus Christ did not do anything which would be
impossible to any other man if the Spirit of God were determined
to do it through that man. And so when he's walking on the
water, now I'm not saying that we need to go over here to Lake
Pahoa and start experimenting. I'm not advocating that. I'm
simply saying this. that the Lord Jesus Christ, what
he did in walking on the water, we could just as well do it if
it were needful and the Spirit of God enabled us to do it. So here we have our Lord Jesus
Christ as the example of the perfect believer, the example
of the one who is anointed with the Holy Spirit without limit. And he comes walking across the
water. Now there are none of us in this
life who are anointed with the Holy Spirit without limit. So
there's limitations to what we do. But we look upon our Lord
Jesus Christ as the one of whom it can be said, is there anything
too hard for the Lord Jesus? Is there anything he can't do?
And the answer is simply this, no, there's nothing he can't
do. He can fly if he wants to. You say, well, isn't that Bible?
Never talks about him flying. Well, he left the earth as he
ascended in the cloud. Now, he didn't flap his arms
and fly like a bird, but he went up in the air. Gravity meant
nothing to him. He approaches the side of the
lake and he just keeps on walking. And we know by the law of physics,
that water won't support you like that unless it's frozen
to several inches thick. Liquid water, you just can't
do that. But he did. And everybody knows you cannot
feed 5,000 men plus their wives and children with five little
loaves of bread, and that isn't a loaf of Wonder Bread that big
even, it just meant little biscuit-like things. five of which plus a
couple of fishes would make a decent lunch. It's physically impossible that
a man could take that amount of food and feed 5,000 men plus
their wives and children, but the Lord Jesus Christ did it. It is according to the laws of
physics that a man should tell some servants, fill these big
jugs with water. Now draw some of that water out
and take it to the host of the feast. And they draw water out,
but by the time they get to the host and pour it in his cup,
it is wine. And not just any wine, the best
wine. Better wine maybe than that host had ever tasted before. You can't do that. The Lord Jesus
Christ did. And so here our Lord approaches this boat, the disciples are
in it, the wind's kicking up waves and it's bobbing around,
they're rowing but they're not really making much progress,
just trying to get to the other side. And here comes somebody
walking on the water. Notice how they interpreted this
event according to the laws of physics. They see a person walking
on water and they say, a normal guy can't do that. That must
be a goat, not a goat, a ghost. That must be a ghost because
ghosts don't weigh anything and they can walk on water. And how often are we frightened
because we reason only according to what our natural senses can
tell us. We say, I'm going to believe
what science says no matter what. I'll believe what the Bible says
so long as it doesn't contradict what my eyes are telling me. Well, there's a whole lot the
Bible says that will contradict what your eyes tell you. Faith
is to believe those things which cannot be seen. which cannot
be reasoned out using the information that we can gain naturally. So here he comes across the water.
And they cried out in fear, it's a ghost. But Jesus immediately
said to them, verse 27, take courage, it is I, do not be afraid. Now notice this. What was the reason for them
not being afraid? The identity of the Lord Jesus
Christ. He didn't say, take courage,
it's me and I'm not gonna hurt you. All he had to say was, it's
me, it's I. You don't have anything to worry
about. Brethren, The presence of the Lord Jesus Christ takes
away, it removes every reason for fear. I'm not saying we won't
be afraid when he's around, but we don't have to be. When he's
around, we take courage. Our Lord Jesus said, unto him
that believes all things are possible. And therefore, as we
confront obstacles and difficulties, If he's there, everything's okay. If a ghost is walking on the
water, that might be scary business. If it's the Lord Jesus walking
on the water, we've got nothing to fear. Well, Peter, in a way that's
typical of him, says, Lord, if it's you, tell
me to come to you on the water. Come, he said. Now, the way it's
translated here, it says if, but in the Greek language, that
word they translated if could be translated since. It simply means on the condition
that it's you without expressing whether it's doubtful or not. So Peter, and I believe really
this is the way it should be taken, Peter says, okay, it's
you. And since it's you, you tell
me, you call me out there. And the Lord said, okay, come
on, come on. And Peter got down out of the
boat and walked on the water and came toward Jesus. Now, I
want you to envision that. I don't know how far out the
Lord Jesus Christ was from the boat at this time. We tend to focus on the idea
that Peter eventually sank into the water. And that's an important
part of the story. But I want you to see the remarkable
thing that happens here. Peter, who is a man like you
and me, he was a man of like passions with us. Peter, who
was born in sin, dead in trespasses and sin. Peter, who was born
again by the Spirit of God. Peter, who believed in the Lord
Jesus Christ, but was still so full of doubts and misunderstood
so many things. Who was prone to being rash and
rushing into things before he thought about it a little bit. Peter, who would later prove
that in himself he has no strength. Because he boasted to the Lord,
I won't deny you, I'll go to the death for you. The Lord said,
really? Before this night's over? You'll deny three times that
you even know me. And Peter did. Once in the face
of the challenge of a 12 year old girl. And so we see what
Peter's made of and that's just the same mud that you and I are
made out of. And yet here he is. walking on
water. Now that's remarkable. On the
one hand, I think of my Lord and who He is and think of His
connection to God and the perfection of His character. And so when
I think of Him walking on the water, honestly, I don't think
it's such a big deal. After all, He made the water.
It was Him that put those laws of physics in place that would
make it to where we can't walk on the water. So I hear about,
or I read about the Lord Jesus Christ walking on water, and
I'm really not taken back by that. But now, Peter, that's
a different thing. This goes against everything
I know about sinful humans and what they can do. He was walking on the water. Really. He stepped out and the
lake became a sidewalk for him. Even as the boat next to him
sank however deep was necessary by the laws of buoyancy, to be
in the water. Even as fish were swimming in
the water, according to the natural laws of physics, he stepped out
and the water supported his weight, spread out over no more square
inches than his foot would be. That can't happen, but it did. That's impossible, but it happened. Now what does that tell us? It tells us this, that as miraculous a thing as
it may appear to be, what Christ can do is given to his people to do
when they need it. And when we see what this represents,
what we're gonna learn is that right now, every believer in
this room is walking on water. Everybody here that believes
the Lord Jesus Christ is doing the impossible. He walked out
there on the water. And he began to go towards Christ. Now, Peter was doing fine, but
it says he saw the wind, which is kind of interesting. How do
you see wind? Really what you see is the effect of it. He took
note of the wind. He took note of the wind, of
the fact that the wind was blowing up waves. I don't know how big
the waves were, but I'm assuming it must have
been a pretty stout wind, otherwise it would not have been hard for
them to row against it. And so he took note of the wind
and therefore probably took note of whatever waves were being
kicked up and he became afraid and began to sink and he cried
out, Lord save me. Now I want you to consider what
Peter did here because this is what you and I do and it's what
keeps us quite often in a state of doubt and fear It does not endanger us, but
it makes us miserable. And that is, instead of taking
note of the Savior, he started paying attention to the troubles. And I want you to consider this
also, and this is actually what made me come to this particular
scripture this week, as I pondered on it. Peter became afraid even
while he was doing something absolutely miraculous. He was not afraid in the boat.
See, he didn't see anything out there walking on the water. He
didn't see anything he couldn't see from the boat. He wasn't
getting new information. He stepped out on the water,
he's walking on the water, and the water he's walking on is
pitching and heaving because of the wind. But it means nothing. His eyes are upon Christ. He's
going out to Him according to the words of Christ when He said,
Come. But then He starts to pay attention
to the wind as though it's relevant. When you're walking on water,
the wind doesn't matter. Now that's what struck me. The
other morning I was reading a book that referred to this scripture,
and it occurred to me, when you're walking on water, you're already
doing something you can't do. You're already doing that which
by all natural considerations is absolutely impossible. Consequently,
obviously, the things of natural senses don't matter anymore.
You've left the realm of the natural and entered the supernatural. You've left the realm of what
you can do and entered the realm of what God in flesh can do. I don't mean you're God in flesh. I mean, Christ is God in flesh. And by faith, we enter in to
that world. Now, if I'm walking on water,
does it really matter whether the water is flat like a sidewalk
or even up and down? You know, if I go out there,
walking on dirt. Nobody would think that's miraculous.
And if the dirt had hills and valleys in it, there would be
time maybe the walking was more difficult. If it passed through
some very pleasant areas, very pretty areas, it might be more
pleasant then than at other times. But you know something, no matter
where you walk, it's no more dangerous than another place.
Why? Well, because you're on something
solid and you can walk there. So the only difference between
walking on flat ground or even maybe a paved sidewalk and walking
on mountainsides is just how difficult it is. It has nothing
to do with safety. And if you're walking on water,
it doesn't matter whether it's flat or it's pitching and heaving. It doesn't matter If it's a kind
of water that would drown a surfer, you're walking on water. And if you can walk on any water,
then you can walk on any water. Understand what I mean? If there's
any water you can walk on, then there is no water you can't walk
on, because you've entered the air, the realm of the miraculous. You've entered the realm of doing
that which God does through you, and there's nothing God can't
do. Now, what did he do? Well, he quit paying attention
to the one who enables him. He quit looking at the solution
to the problem of walking on the water and started looking
at things that were utterly irrelevant. And he began to sink, and when
he did, he cried out, Lord, save me. Now, this is a reflexive
cry in the heart of a believer. When we get in trouble, I mean
once we realize we're going in over our head, we will cry out,
Lord, save me. But I want you to think of who
he's calling on and what that person's doing. Now Peter's walking
on water, he's heading towards the Lord, everything's going
good. He looks over here and here's maybe a big wave coming. He gets scared, he starts to
sink. And who does he call on? Someone who's walking on water.
He didn't turn around and say to the guys in the boat, guys,
help me, throw me a rope. He looked to the one who's doing
something impossible. He called on the Lord. Immediately, Jesus reached out
His hand and caught him. I like that, immediately. Now, the Lord waits on our call,
not because He cannot act before we call, but because it's good
for us. Because sometimes we're stubborn.
I imagine many of us Had we been in the situation Peter had been
in, we'd have felt ourselves sinking, and we'd start splashing
around and trying to swim. And as we were trying to swim,
we'd try to get one foot out of the water and see if we couldn't
climb up on top of the water again. And we'd splashed around for
a while, but eventually we would come to the end of what we could
naturally do, and we would call upon the Lord Jesus Christ to
save us. And as soon as we called, he
said, okay. Peter said, since it's the Lord, you call me out,
since it's you, you call me out there. Okay, come. Lord, save
me. Okay. I can do that. And he pulls Peter up. And then he says, you have little
faith. Why did you doubt? What a good question. Why did
he doubt? Our Lord often asks questions
rather than gives answers. And the reason is he wants us
to figure it out, because when we figure things out, it sticks
with us better than if somebody just tells us. So roll this over
in your mind. Put yourself in the position
of the apostle here, and the Lord says, why did you doubt?
And think over what it was. It was very simply this, he doubted
because he quit looking at the Lord Jesus Christ and started
looking at the wind and the waves. And brethren, is that not what
it is with you and me? Our doubts and doubts are horrible. Our doubts, which bring us into
depression. Our doubts, which brings us into
anxious feeling. Our doubts, which can even give
us such a sour disposition that we're tempted just to forget
about the things of God altogether. Our doubts, which makes us wonder
whether we believe at all. Where do they arise? From not
looking at Christ. Instead, look at the problems. Now, what is the first application
of this, and I think the great one, that if we lay hold of this,
we'll have gotten 90% of the benefit out of it anyway. Seeing
that the storm did not rise up after Peter stepped onto the
water, but was already there, I take this water and the storm
that was whipping it up to be a picture of our sin and
the judgment that comes by it. I mean, sometimes water is a symbol
of judgment. It was in Noah's day. You and
I know full well we could only last so long in water because
if we're stuck out there in water, eventually we get too tired to
hold ourselves up and we'll go under it and that's the end of
the story for us. Water is a picture of judgment.
And our sins, pictured in the wind and the waves that are churned
up by it, which only aggravate it and make it look more terrifying.
Back in 2006, we went on a cruise with our daughter and her husband
and some others associated with her husband's family. And I remember
going out there and, you know, We got on the boat towards the
evening, it wasn't long, we were in bed asleep, and then you wake
up and you're so far out to sea, you can't see anything but sea.
But it didn't look so bad. It's just water everywhere. But on our way back, we were
supposed to stop in the Bahamas, but the wind got so bad that
we couldn't even go into port. And they told us, stay off the
main deck, because they didn't want anybody to get blown off
the boat and into the water. But we could look out the window,
and I tell you, that looked scary. When you see miles and miles
of water heaving up and down, and you hear the ship, you could
feel it. One of those ways of hitting the whole ship would
just shake. And I knew the ship wouldn't
go down, and yet you think, wow, how can this ship just keep taking
this? And brethren, we look at our
sin and God's judgment, and it's vast like the ocean. There's no way we're going to
swim to shore and get out of our sin, but it's worse than
that. It is churned up. It is foamy with the threats
of God and the judgment of God that bears down on us. And there is simply nowhere to
find safety in a sea like that. Nowhere. In fact, not even in
a boat. Not like the boat they were in. They couldn't get anywhere. It
was a scary situation. But in the midst of that situation,
there was the Lord Jesus Christ. And he was walking right on top
of that very kind of water. And Peter said, well, since it's
you, just call me out there. And the Lord said, come, come. And Peter stepped out. And for a while anyway, he walked
totally unaffected by his sin and the judgment that must come
by it. And he walked that way until
he started paying attention to sin and judgment. I know that
some of you were raised in religions that make almost a sacrament
out of thinking about your sin. As though some benefit is to
be gained by considering how desperate your condition is. There's only one thing, one good
thing that can be gained by knowing that, and that is simply that
it causes you to look to Christ and look away from your sin.
But once you have looked to Christ, hear me carefully, because I
believe this is the truth. I'm not saying I do it very well,
but I believe it's the truth. Once you have looked to Christ,
you never need look at your sin again. It's irrelevant. You are walking on water. It doesn't matter how great the
tally of your sin is. It doesn't matter how horrible
the judgment of God against your sin must be. You are walking on water toward
the Savior who's walking on the same water. And when you're walking
on water, it doesn't matter what kind of water it is. How often is it true that we
come to church and we hear the gospel preached and we hear our
Lord say as he did to Peter, come. And with the strong faith
that's created when we hear the gospel. We do, we step out and
we leave this place feeling confident walking on water. And yet, some time goes by and
we see our sin. We discover that even while we
are walking on water, indeed it's water we're walking on,
and even though we're walking on water, it's pretty choppy
water, and we start looking at that, and we're not looking at
the Savior, and we start to go down again. We start to feel
like we're going to drown. We start thinking to ourselves,
why did I ever leave the safety of the boat, not considering
the fact that really this boat wasn't very safe at all. Of course, in that situation
there is still a wonderful salvation, for there is still a wonderful
Savior. And we cry out as I have cried out many, many, many times,
Lord save me. In the religion I was raised, They acted as though asking God
to save you was a one-time event. You make a decision at one point
or another and say, God save me. And you never need to say
that again. It's true, as they say, once
saved, always saved. But I do believe it's the common
experience of God's people to cry out again for salvation.
Why? Because it's still tough to believe
we can walk on water, and the wind's still blowing. You see,
when Peter looked to the Lord, the water did not become concrete.
When he looked to the Lord, the water did not get flat. Nothing
changed about the water. And we find out, don't we? Nothing's changed about the water.
It's still water. Nothing's changed about the wind
and the waves that come from it. We are the same thing we
were in the flesh. Most of us think that when we,
quote, get saved, that there's going to be this big change in
us, and suddenly we won't like the sin we once liked, and we
certainly won't do the sins we used to do. That's not the way
it works, brethren. We desire that those desires
be gone. We desire and we strive to hold
to end the outbreaks of our sin, but the fact of the matter is,
Peter was the same guy walking on the water that he was sitting
in the boat. Nothing about Peter had changed. and nothing about
the storm had changed. The only difference between Peter
walking on the water and Peter sinking in the water was how
carefully he was looking to Christ as opposed to how much he was
obsessed with the knowledge of the troubles that surrounded
him. But even, oh and blessed be the name of the Lord for this,
even when Peter messed up, the Lord saved him. And even though
his faith was weak, such that he did not keep walking on the
water, such that he did not keep his eyes firmly trained on the
Lord Jesus Christ, even though his weak faith caused him to
turn away, he still had faith. Someone once said, weak faith is not as good as
great faith, but it's infinitely better than no faith. Because
what did Peter's faith move him to do when he sank? It moved
him to cry out for salvation from the Lord. You see, faith
always wins the day one way or another, whether it's strong,
whether it's weak. Whether we have faith to walk
on water or only so much faith as to cry out to the Lord to
pull us up out of the water as He walks upon it. It accomplishes the same thing. It's just that great faith may
keep us dry and weak faith lets us get wet. But neither faith
lets us die because it does look to Christ. Why did you doubt? Because he
quit looking at Christ. Now let's apply this in some
other areas. First, it's applied to our sins. Our Lord Jesus Christ overcame
our sins. He bore our sins, and it is as
it were, now he walks upon them. He walks, as it were, upon the
judgment of God and all that, and he pulls us up out of it. Secondly, we can apply this to
all the troubles and difficulties of this life. because these things
will distract us from looking to Christ and make us think we're
gonna be overwhelmed. Job said, man is born to trouble
as the sparks fly upward. And if there's one thing that
the years teach us, it's the truth of that statement. In youth,
we have a lot of optimism. And I'm not saying that we can't
have some optimism, but we tend to get a little more realistic
as time goes by, because we see how often our optimism fails.
And the more experience we have, the more experience we have of
troubles. The ocean, the sea, is sometimes
used as a picture of the earth and in particular that is the
world and in particular the political world. Right now there are a
whole lot of believers up in arms over the presidential election
and who's going to be president and how's our government going
to do this and are they going to take away our right to own
guns or free speech and all this. And I'm not saying that it's
not troubling. I'm not saying That I don't have a preference
about what kind of society I want to live in. But brethren, we're
walking on water. It hardly matters what kind of
water it is. The Lord Jesus Christ, as it
were, has given us power to walk above the world, yea, to walk
upon the world. And not be overwhelmed by what's
going on in it. You may be going through some
personal trials, the Bible says we're going to. Each of us has things, difficulties
that we seem well-suited to endure and then there's those things
we don't know how to endure. And doesn't it seem that it's
the ones we don't know how to endure that we have to deal with
most of the time? Well, the Lord ordains it that way to teach
us. And there's things like sickness and economic trouble. There's
things like troubles of the mind, there's troubles of family, all
matter of disappointments, all matter of anxieties. And it's
in our nature to pay attention to them. But remember this, by the grace
of God, you're walking on water and the waves will hold you up
as well as the flat water will. You cannot be overcome. As we
look through those letters to the churches in Asia at the end
of every one of them, you know, to him who overcomes I will do
such and such. Who is it that overcomes? Every
believer does. Every believer overcomes because
he cannot be overcome. Even if through the foolishness
of casting his eyes elsewhere, he begins to sink, there is the
Lord at all times who never fails. And when we can't walk on water,
He'll just pull us out of it. And then one more thing to mention
and we'll close. Often, Believers worry if they're gonna
be able to persevere. I mean, the older I get, the
more I wonder about that. You'd think the nearer the finish
line, the more sure you'd be that you can reach it. Well,
the more I run, the more amazed I am that I've run this far,
and the more it concerns me as to whether I'll be able to finish.
Now I'm speaking from the viewpoint of experience here. I know the
theology, and that's what I trust to the truth of God's persistent
grace that won't let me fail. But if you have any concerns
of whether you'll be able to hold out to the end, let me say
this. You're walking on water. It's
not going to be a problem. God, Christ has bid you come
to Himself to leave the boat of self-reliance. And when He
called you, the storm was blowing. Water won't hold you. The storm
only makes it seem more dangerous. But that's what it was like when
He called you. You stepped out. You walked. And nothing's changed. He's still there. The water's
still there, and you are. And you'll do just fine. Because by His grace, you're
working miracles. Miracles way more miraculous than those supposed
miracles that today's miracle-working preachers do. Even if the miracles
they did were genuine, they're nothing compared. to spiritually
speaking, walking on water, believing Christ, trusting Christ. That's the most miraculous thing
a man ever does. And there's yet more. You say,
okay, that's fine. I can walk on water so long as
I keep my eyes on Jesus, but I'm not sure I'll do that because
I can be so tempted by the seductions of the world, or I can be so
troubled by the troubles of the world. I'm sometimes confused
by the things I hear other preachers say. How do I know I won't sink? You don't. But it won't matter. Because
when you sink, what are you going to do? Lord, save me. And he who never sinks, say,
okay. And pull you right back up. Now, it says here that the Lord picked
him up. Now we do not get the impression
from the way it's described that the Lord pulled him out of the
water and held him in his hands and carried him to the boat.
Because it says, and when they climbed into the boat, the wind
died down. What'd the Lord do? He put Peter
back on top of the water and let him walk back to the boat. A brief failure to do the miraculous. It didn't hurt Peter. Taught
him a lesson, but didn't hurt him. He got out of the boat and
walked on water, and he walked on water and got back in the
boat. And all of it, in the presence of him who walks on water just
any time he wants to, and never fails. Brethren, when you're
troubled, and when you see the troubles, and sometimes it's
just plain hard to not see them, there they are. Remember this. You're walking
on water. And if you can walk on water,
you can do anything. If you're walking on water, you can take
notice that the wind's blowing and you can say, yeah, but it
was blowing when I got out here. It's been blowing the whole time
I've been walking. It doesn't mean anything. Oh, but look at
that wave, it's a big one. So what? I'm walking on water. I'll just go up and down with
the wave. You're walking on water, and
if, through foolishness, you take your eyes off Christ and
begin to sink, I guarantee you, you will cry out for Him to save
you, and I guarantee you He will, and He'll put you back on top
of the water, and you'll walk some more, until such time that
As the book of Revelation says, there is no more sea. There's
no water to walk on. You're on the solid ground of
his eternal presence. So remember this, you're walking
on water. Everything else is irrelevant.